Scroll down to see and play Audio.
Good morning my “Walking with Jesus” friends,
This week, we are continuing to explore a pathway I’m calling RESTORE. It’s a pathway God is providing for us OUT of the darkness and confusion and even despair of the past several months of Coronavirus and Economic turmoil and even recently the rioting season in America, and today we are asking a fundamental question: How do we know that God is fully aware of all that is going on around us and can we be sure He cares about us in this mess?
Yesterday we looked at the story of Hagar, today let’s move ahead about 500 years in time to the story of Moses. It was a desperate time. More than 1 million descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were living in Egypt, as horribly abused slaves. Ex. 2:23 says “The Israelites groaned in their slavery and their cry for help went up to God…God looked on the Israelites and He was concerned about them.” Let’s remember it wasn’t always this way for them in Egypt. 400 years before Jacob and his large family had moved voluntarily to Egypt during a time of famine in Israel. The Pharaoh and Joseph had invited them, saving them from starvation in the famine, and they settled in what the Pharaoh described as ‘the best of the land’. (Gen. 47:5,6) They were free to return to their homeland at any time… but they didn’t, enamored instead by the bounty of Egypt. There’s a lesson there for us my friends!
Time passed, generations passed, and by the time we reach Exodus 1 the Pharaoh at that time was so concerned about how many Hebrews were in the land that he enslaved them to control them, and even decreed that any baby boy born to a Hebrew woman was to be killed at birth or thrown into the Nile river to drown! (Ex. 1) But God moved in the hearts of one particular Hebrew couple and they refused. They hid their baby for a few weeks, then made a little basket and put their baby adrift on the Nile, praying God would find some kind hearted person who would find that basket and raise that boy as their own. That same day the Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile and found the basket, took the baby home to the palace and raised him as her own son, naming him Moses! (Ex. 2)
Nearly 80 years later, in Exodus 3, that same Moses, who had fled from Egypt, and had been living as a shepherd with his family, encountered God at a burning bush, I’m sure you remember the story well. Please note the similarity to what we saw yesterday with Hagar: “The angel of the LORD appeared to Moses in flames of fire from within a bush…God called to him ‘Moses, Moses…take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground. I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob…” (Ex. 3:2-6)
Do you notice it is the same “angel of the LORD”? Do you remember yesterday I told you this is believed by many Bible scholars to be an Old Testament appearance of Jesus, the Son of God? Notice the phrase “I am the God of your father…” Moses was NOT the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, Moses was born into a Hebrew family, his father was identified as “…a man of the house of Levi married a Levite woman and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son.” (Ex. 2:1) That son was Moses, son of a Levite couple. You’ll remember years later when God met with Moses and the freed Hebrew slaves at Mount Sinai, God identified the tribe of Levi as those who would have the special privilege of being Priests and having the care of the Tabernacle for His Hebrew people! (Numbers 2)
You’ll notice the first instruction to Moses by ‘the angel of the LORD’ is to remove his sandals for he is having an encounter with HOLY God, and thus that place is holy ground! My friends, may I ask if you and I have learned that? With what amount of respect and awe do you enter your times of engagement with God? Your worship services in your church, or online? Your personal time in God’s Word and prayer each day? Or times when you gather with friends to open and discuss God’s Word? Or even your prayer before meals? Are they all sacred, holy, encounters with the Almighty, Majestic, Holy God?
Then Moses learns God is a Covenant keeping God and an eternal, timeless God, as God explains He is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. When you meet with God do you consider you are having an encounter with the very same God who met with Moses on the mountain, or whom met with Abraham or Elijah or Daniel?
Finally please notice what God says next: “I have indeed seen the misery of My people, I have heard them crying out…and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them…” (Ex. 3:7,8) Do you see my friends how the compassion of God, the EMPATHY of God, moves Him to action in response to the suffering of His people?
If this is Jesus, God the Son, meeting with Moses, can you see He is also looking forward to the day that He will live this as His reality? He will come down from heaven to be born of a woman in a Bethlehem stable. He will live for a season as a refugee in Egypt, then live in Nazareth, a Roman garrison town with the ever-present Roman soldiers. But Jesus came because it was suffocating sin which held every person in slavery, not the might of Rome or Egypt! Our sin separates us all eternally from God and moved by His love and deep compassion God “sent His only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.” (John 3:16,17)
You’ll notice God invites Moses at that burning bush encounter, to join with Him in the miracles which would result in the Pharaoh releasing those Hebrew slaves. And then Moses was to partner with God in leading that traveling tent city of 1 million people back to this mountain to worship God, and finally on toward the Promised Land. Are you overwhelmed with how the Empathy of God moves Him to not only respond in compassion to the painful circumstances of our lives, but God actually invites us to join with Him in the accomplishment of His purposes in our world!
But please notice one last thing today. When Moses finally goes back to Egypt and tells the Hebrew slaves that he has met with God and been sent to tell them of God’s compassion and concern for them, Exodus 6:9 says “Moses reported this to the Israelites, but they did not listen to him because of their discouragement and cruel bondage.” Oh my, it’s true isn’t it?
Sometimes the pain of life can be so great that we disregard, or even reject God’s love and compassion and His empathy for us. Oh my friends, don’t let the darkness of painful circumstances blind you to God and His complete understanding of your situation. Don’t let the pain cause you to doubt God’s empathetic compassion and His concern for you, and His desire to help you! Right now, right where you are, I urge you to take some time to talk with Jesus about your life situation, and then, with your eyes on Exodus 3:7,8…listen as the Holy Spirit speaks to you!
Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
Archived back issues of “Walking with Jesus” and other resources are available by clicking here to open our ‘home page’ (or go to HOME at upper right of this page).
Share with friends. Subscribe below for daily “Walking with Jesus”.