Broken Spirit

hi Matt Chandler here pastor of the village Church just want to thank you for streaming this sermon on your device I wanted to just before we get going here just lay before you a deep conviction we have that this video sermon that we've prayed really stirs up your affections for Jesus and shapes you and mold you into the image of the son would just be supplemental to your relationship with the Lord and in no way would replace the church you should be plugged into or the pastor that God has put over your life to Shepherd and care for your soul and so please enjoy the next hour or so of this message we have prayed that God would use it in a profound way in your life blessings from darkness to light this is the story we all share as the people of God he draws us out to draw us in from the birth of Israel to the church today God delivers and dwells with his people this story began several thousand years ago and it began with a promise from God to Abraham that he would make his offspring more numerous than the stars in the sky a great nation who would one day dwell in the promised land more than four hundred years passed and Abraham's descendants had not seen this promise fulfilled instead the Israelites lived as foreigners in the land of Egypt fearing that the Hebrews would grow into a mighty nation and overtake them the Pharaoh of Egypt forced them to work as slaves but Israel continued to grow in response the Egyptians increased their oppression of God's people and Pharaoh gave a terrible decree every son born to the Hebrews would be thrown into the river but a Levite couple defy the school trusting God's will for their son's life and God did have a plan for this child Pharaoh's daughter found the baby and took pity on him she named him Moses because he was drawn out of the water as Moses grew older and saw the suffering of his people anger burned within him when he witnessed an Egyptian beating a Hebrew Moses killed a man and fled Egypt to hide in the desert years passed and Moses made a new life for himself in median then one day the voice of the Lord called out to him from a burning bush God told Moses that he saw the persecution of his people urgent and he heard their cries he promised to deliver the Israelites from slavery and he commanded Moses to go before Pharaoh on their behalf Moses was terrified so God sent Moses his brother the brothers went before Pharaoh performing signs and wonders the Pharaoh would not so God brought down plagues upon Egypt yet Pharaoh's heart to prepare for the tenth and final plague the Hebrews mark their doors with the blood of spotless lambs that night the Angel of Death passed through the kingdom killing the firstborn child of every Egyptian household that did not build the work including in heartbroken Pharaoh told the Israelites to go they were finally set free and the Spirit of God led the people out and toward the prize but Pharaoh's grief soon turned to rage he changed his name and then commanded the Egyptian army to pursue him when the Israelites came to the Red Sea Moses lifted his staff to the sky and the water spoon the Hebrews pass through the tallying waves and the Egyptians were swallowed by the scene God had indeed drawn his people out of bondage out of darkness and into the light of his presence the story of Israel is the story of us today we are God's people he draws us out of our sin our Egypt and draws us into his presence into relationship with him well good morning how are you wow that's the most responsive you've ever been testify all right if you got a Bible turn to Exodus chapter 6 and we'll read verses 1 through 13 if you don't have a Bible there should be one in the seat in front of you as you're turning there let me introduce myself my name is Jamie enroller I am one of the pastor's over at our Plano campus but I have the joy of being with you guys here this weekend here in Flower Mound America so we will read through these 13 verses together and then and then unpacked them 6-1 but the Lord said to Moses now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh for with a strong hand he will send them out and with a strong hand he will drive them out of his land God spoke to Moses and said to him I am the Lord I appeared to Abraham to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty but by my name the Lord I did not make myself known to them I also established my covenant with him to give them the land of Canaan the land in which they lived as sojourners moreover I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel whom the Egyptians hold as slaves and I have remembered my covenant say therefore to the people of Israel I am the Lord and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians and I will deliver you from slavery to them and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment I will take you to be my people and I will be your God and you shall know that I am the Lord your God who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham to Isaac and to Jacob I will give it to you for a possession I am the Lord Moses spoke thus to the people of Israel but they did not listen to Moses because of their broken spirit and harsh slavery so the Lord said to Moses go in tell Pharaoh king of Egypt to let the people of Israel go out of his land but Moses said to the Lord behold the people of Israel have not listened to me how then shall Pharaoh listen to me for I am of uncircumcised lips but the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron and gave them a charge about the people of Israel about Pharaoh king of Egypt to bring the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt so if you've been with us for the last few weeks especially if you were with us last week you know what's happened in the narrative where we are in the narrative is that God has appeared to Moses and and dramas out and commissioned him to his service and then Moses went and had this message of freedom and this message of hope and this message of liberation to the people and the people get all excited and then Moses goes into Pharaoh to draw a line in the sand and deliver God's message and Pharaoh hears that message and he responds by increasing the cruelty and increasing the suffering and so you have Moses in these people standing here expecting God to do something great and in reality what they hear and what they experience and what they get is increased suffering and so last week Matt walked us through just this place of disappointment and how harsh and how deflating and discouraging that must have been and I thought about my own life and I thought about how often in my life I try to avoid that place of disappointment right when when harsh reality shatters hopeful expectation I've actually spent a lot of energy a lot of thought trying to stay out of that place of harsh reality right in fact I I met my wife 12 years ago and I was at a friend's house on a Friday night and in walks this beautiful young woman and I was super intimidated I knew she was way out of my league but I decided I was going to go for it and so I had a true story I had written a love song called jello and I decided to sing her that song on that night and just by an act of God's sovereign mercy it actually worked and so she started talking to me we spent maybe 30 minutes talking and at the end of the night I'm outside in the driveway I'm on the phone I'm actually talking to my mom and she leaves his beautiful young woman leaves and starts walking towards your car and she sees me and she turns and she walks towards me and I thought okay and and I was on the phone with my mom but I can't wanted to put out a different vibe than that was so I'm like hey baby hold on one second and my mom was super confused um and she walks up and she says hey I enjoyed talking to you tonight and I saw it I think this girl's into me and then I thought she must have really low standards and she did praise God she did so a couple months later we went on our very first date and I took her to this really romantic really fancy place called Chili's we sit down we order our food and I open my mouth and I just inundate this young woman with question after question after question what do you think about God what are your views on theology what's your home life like right all the essentials do you love the Dallas Cowboys all the things that are super important what is your view for family what are your thoughts on marriage in to this day when my wife describes that first date if you were to ask her what was it like she says it felt like a job interview why because I knew on that night at that fancy restaurant that that woman could really hurt me one day I had all of these hopeful expectations for where things were headed and I knew that they could be shattered by her harsh reality and I thought if I asked the right questions and I asked him in the right way I could protect myself from that I could avoid that place and I wonder how many of you like me in a place of candid candor and honesty would say you know I feel like I've had that conversation with God at some point in my Christian life maybe not out loud but in the quiet my heart here all my questions your all the things I want to make sure I'm expecting here all the things that I want kind of guaranteed to me because I don't want to get to that place where I have all these hopeful expectations and they're shattered by a harsh reality I want to avoid that space and what we know if you've been married for any length of time if you've been a Christian for any length of time that place is unavoidable it is unavoidable and so that's Ramos's and moses goes to god in that place of harsh reality in' and in ayers his grievances and ask these questions and hear me in that place of harsh reality God is not silent he speaks and that's what we read is that this is his response to Moses and so I think the question for us this morning is not how do I avoid that place the question for us this morning is what does God want me to know when I'm there what does God want me to know what's gonna pull me through and so what we'll see in God's response is that there are there are three aspects to God's response there is a problem that he highlights there is a story and there is a prize problem story and prize look at verse 1 again with me chapter 6 but the Lord said to Moses now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh for with a strong hand he will send them out with a strong hand he will drive them out his land God spoke to Moses and said to him I am the Lord does it sound familiar like the things that God is saying right here to Moses does it sound familiar it should it's redundant God is repeating himself here why he's not telling Moses new information he's telling Moses things that Moses has already heard from the mouth of God why because things went the wind things went different then Moses expected them to go Moses is exposed here's what I mean by that when Moses goes to Pharaoh and Moses says hey Pharaoh I am the Lord the great I am I want you to let the people go and here's here's what we're gonna do and what is Pharaoh's response Pharaoh says who's God I know are gods I know the Egyptian gods I know that as I am a god but I don't know the God that you're talking about and then Moses that the suffering increases the cruelty increases Moses goes back to God and Moses says things like God why did you send me why did you lie to us you haven't begun to rescue us you've caused evil for your people and God responds to him and says what I am the Lord in other words you don't know me the way that you should in other words you sound a lot like Pharaoh cuz here's the reality Moses has a problem Egypt or Israel has a problem and their problem is bigger than the Egypt that's around them their problem is the sin that's inside of them they were not just victims of an external evil they are themselves sick with sin in any time their expectations aren't men anytime the disappointment sets in the true condition of their heart is exposed it's the first thing that we see coming out of Moses and coming out of the people there is a bondage that you're under that has nothing to do with Egypt so I grew up in a Christian home uh by Christian home I mean I grew up in a gospel saturated Grace Laden home my mom and dad did a marvelous job raising us in the fear and admonition of the Lord so much so that my prayer is that one day my children can stand and say the same thing about me with as much sincerity as I just said that about my mom and dad to you but that did not mean that things weren't a little bit weird sometimes right one day my mom came home with this new technology called curse free TV google it uh here's how it works you put this little box on top of the TV and it connects to your TV's closed captioning and anytime there is an inappropriate word in the in the programming on the show in the movie or whatever it would mute the TV and then the closed captioning would pop up and you would read that sentence except the cuss word was removed and a substitute was put in its place and so it would go like this like it was gonna if it was going to say some words like um well let me try to do this and also keep my job um if you're gonna say some sort of word that none of us have ever used right and is gonna say something like you stole money from me you're such a blank right instead it would mute the TV the closed caption and pop up and it say you stole money from me you are such a clown and it was some sort of word like that and it just had this way of ruining every movie right or even there's some movies that just wouldn't even worth watching like I tried to watch the movie Good Will Hunting and it's just reading a book the whole time right that doesn't make sense uh there are also like other things that were confusing about it um instead of saying the word sex it would substitute in the word hugs and so I'd be at church and someone would come up be like hey can I give you a hug and I'm like is this a trap like are you testing me right now so one day my brother and I are arguing and just it gets heated and heated and heated and finally he says something that just really hurts me and he turns and walks out of the room and as he's walking out of the room just this anger Wells up inside of me and I yell at him Luke you're such a clown got him right what did I do I cussed at him in a really lame way I profaned him like it may not have been an inappropriate word or whatever but the condition of my heart was the same that's what I was trying to accomplish was to curse him it's what I was doing cuz the reality is just like Moses just like Israel us we're in the same boat there is this evil that's outside of us from which we could be protected but there's also an evil inside of us from which we need to be saved and it's especially in those moments of disappointment especially in those moments of harsh reality that we see and learn what's coming out or exposed in those moments there's a helpful illustration that I heard long ago imagine that I had some sort of cup in my hand right now and it's full of liquid and maybe you got upset with me and you just decided up here and knocked that cup out of my hand and there's just liquid that pours out all over the stage now you would be responsible for knocking the cup out of my hand but I would be responsible for what liquid comes out why cuz I'm the one that put it there so if you knock the cup out of my hand in and water spills out everywhere it's because I put water in there if you knock the cup out of my hand coffee spills out everywhere it's because I filled it up with coffee in in our lives we cannot control and are not responsible for when we get knocked over but we are responsible for every single drop that comes out and that's not a popular idea in our modern culture the popular thing to say is that you know what you made me angry you're living with this person makes me crazy or that person wore that thing and it made me lust and that's a popular idea but it's not a biblical idea cuz Jesus says out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks out of the other flow of the heart comes envy and anger and jealousy and rivalries and lust and so the first thing that God does is confronts Moses I'm repeating myself here Moses and in my repetition your heart is exposed you don't know me like you should you got knocked over and pay attention to what's coming out of you pay attention now it's not to shame him the suffering he's going through is completely understandable his reaction is even completely understandable but it's something to pay attention to and then he goes on and when we read again well let's read verses three through eight together not only is there a problem but there's a story he says I appeared to Abraham to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty but by my name the Lord I did not make myself known to them we'll come back to that it's an important verse I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan the land in which they lived as sojourners moreover I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel whom the Egyptians hold as slaves and I have remembered my covenant say therefore to the people of Israel I am the Lord I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians I will deliver you from slavery to them I will redeem you with outstretched arm great acts of judgment I'll take you to be my people I will be your God you shall know that I am the Lord your God who's brought you out from under burdens of the Egyptians I'll bring you into the land verse a that I swore to give to Abraham to Isaac and to Jacob I will give it to you for a possession I am the Lord Moses comes to God and Moses is wanting to talk about everything that's happening in the present Moses wants to talk about Pharaoh Moses wants to talk about slavery and in God's response who is God talking about start on Abraham he's talked about Isaac and Jacob he's talking about a covenant he's talking about Canaan in this land that was promised what is he doing he is reminding and informing Moses of this profound truth there's a story there is more going on here than just what you're going through Moses there's a story a profound reality that I have welcomed you in and I know that right now all you can see is your pain but this goes before your pain and it will go after your pain there is this story here that you've been invited in Moses and so I think what's important about that is that that really is the desire of the human heart to be a part of something that's bigger than just you right this last week all of the village church staff was that staff retreat we do it every year and let me just say this as an aside any time I'm together with all of our staff there are two things in me that grow the first is the respect that I have for the men that lead this church they are just sincere and authentic and they passionately love Jesus and love you and then the second thing that grows is my love that I have for the people that I get to minister alongside I've just gifted in godly and humble men and women and I don't say that to you as a staff member I say that to you as a church member because I want you to know gosh this place is special and what God is doing here is just unique and and just really precious it is it is a treasure to be here for such a time as this close parenthesis so I was at staff retreat with the staff members and one of the guys around the table during lunch said hey if you could live in any year in the past when would you live you could go back and you could just insert yourself anywhere in history where would you go and so the answers were you know I'd go to the 1940s and I'd fight Nazi Germany or you know put me in the 50s or the 60/60 so I could fight racial discrimination no one no one said you know just drop me in 93 I can just kind of lay low and listen to bad music and not really make a splash right no one said that every answer every answer was connected to the opportunity to make a splash to be a part of something big to fight injustice to live our lives in such a way that it affects change but what's true to go back to any of those stories and to play a role in any of those stories it would not have been painless part of what we're saying is I would sign up for some discomfort and so what God is saying here to Moses he's he's reminding him there's a beautiful story that makes your pain worth it but it's not painless it's not going to be easy it's not going to be filled with comfort and so he mentions Abraham and just ask Abraham Moses asked him if being a part of the story was painless you remember when he tried to pawn his wife off twice and I was faithful remember that time I called him up on that mountain with his son Isaac who he loved and he was finally walking in obedience and I provided the RAM as the substitute and and there's a story there Moses and I know you don't know this part but that story in itself points towards the day when I am on a mountain with my own son and on that day I will not spare him in his obedience so that on this day I can spare you and your sin there's a story not just a story of what's happened with Abraham Isaac and Jacob and the Covenant that God made in the promises he he's fulfilling even now and Moses his time but a story of what he will do he says this in verse six I'm gonna liberate you you are gonna as much as you don't feel like it's true now you are gonna get out of this I'm gonna redeem you and I'm gonna make your enemies pay the price for that Redemption and I'm going to adopt you you will no longer be slaves you'll be sons and daughters and then I'm going to bless you dwell with you give you a land a place to call your own and so he paints this picture not just of the past but a picture of the future in the future is headed to a really good place there's a good life coming it is so important to remember because one of the most discouraging things you could possibly hear if you're in pain if you're in that place of harsh reality one of the worst things you could hear as you're hurting is that it means nothing how devastate how discouraging is that to be in that place of her and for someone to come along and say you know it's meaningless it's meaningless and so to come along and forgot to say Moses I know that it hurts but it has weight to it it has value to it it's part of something Jim Elliot was a missionary to the country of Ecuador on his second interaction with the tribe that he was ministering to he in his missionary friends or spirit to death on the riverbank before he left on that trip where he lost his life he had a conversation with his wife Elizabeth and his wife asked him a question Jim if they attack you will you use your guns and he said no we won't and his wife asked him why'd you and he looked at her and he said because we are ready for heaven and they are not he told a story there's something that's going on that's just bigger than my life there's a story that's going on here that's bigger than my pain bigger than my fears bigger than my risk there's a story there's a heaven that I'm ready for there's a hell that we don't want them to see and so my life is playing out and something that's much bigger than me and so as Elizabeth Elliott dealt with the pain of his death in the coming days and coming weeks and coming months and coming years she knew that she knew that she knew that he did not die in vain cuz his death was part of something that's beautiful you know I think sometimes for us God allows some pain and allows disappointment not just to remind us of the story but to remind us that while we are a deeply loved character we're not the main character and while we are a deeply loved character we don't get to write the plot but not only does that he remind him of a story he tells him in his response and there's a prize six verses that we read in God's response there's something that God says five times in those six verses and here it is he says I am the Lord he starts with I am the Lord he ends with I am the Lord in the middle he says I'm doing this so that you may know that I am the Lord and then there is that verse verse 3 I appeared to Abraham Isaac and Jacob as God Almighty but by my name the Lord I did not make myself known to them it does not mean that Abraham Isaac and Jacob never heard God's name Yahweh that's the name that he's saying I am the Lord I am Yahweh I am the great I am is what it means he's not saying Abraham Isaac and Jacob never heard that name he's saying this that when all of this is over when you see everything that I'm going to do you will know me in ways that Abraham never came close you will know me as Savior and know me as Redeemer and know me as faithful in ways that they never got to see never came close to tasting and touching in other words when you're done with all of this the prize for you is that you'll know me with greater clarity and greater intimate see a couple weeks ago my little girl she's three she was walking around with a blanket on her head um not sure how I got I may or may not have put on her head that matter but um she's walking around the blanket on her head she falls and she hits the bookshelf blanket comes off and there's this deep gash in her forehead and blood coming down her face and my son who's five and a half we've been through this with him twice not the blankets not to say I get rid of your blankets man come on um but he's fallen he's hit his his forehead same thing - and so we know it's coming we know that we're gonna take him to the doctor and we're gonna pray that the doctor comes in and says you know what it's not that bad let's just do a band-aid and in reality the doctors gonna say ah it's pretty deep we need stitches and so then we know what we're gonna do is we're gonna hold our child on this table why some random person puts metal in their forehead and they look at us like why are you betraying me parents right and so that's where we were headed in the car I'm in the front driving dreading what is to come my wife is in the back with our daughter who's crying and my sons sitting next to them and my son Asher says dad I think I should pray I said okay and so he starts his prayer like he starts every prayer um God please help addy please heal her he said it's super bad god we need to work on his bedside manner and he prayed for me prayed for my wife prayed for addy said I'd pray that this never happens again look I don't tell you that to tell you that I've got like perfect Christian kids earlier in the day he threw a fire truck out her head or maybe it was an ambulance which is more ironic I mean parenting his wins and losses right at the end of the day you know we made it she got stitches and the kids are in bed and I'm sitting there talking with my wife and and as we reflect on the day we both went back to that moment his prayer just I was I was special it was special that that's what came out of him in that I know that it was a small scale panic moment for the roller family but in that small scale panic moment I got to see things coming out of him I got to know him in ways that I would not have gotten to had the afternoon just been normal now aren't your meaningful relationships like that I mean the people that mean the most to you you've been through something with them I mean I hear story after story man yeah we got some really bad news but when we got that bad news gosh my wife was a rock and I saw her in ways that I never thought I would see her or man we I was just in the pit but when I was in there there as a friend who just stayed in there with me till I got out and I saw things coming out of that friend that I would not have gotten to see if things were normal it's those it's those moments of clarity about your relationships that often come by way of trial and pain and that's what God does God says look I know it hurts but I'm going to posture you to see me and know me as the great I am and that's what you get that's the prize that's the reward so God is that light in the middle of the room that when all of the other lights are on that light is easy to ignore but when things start to go dark that light is all you can see and as things continue to darken around you that light becomes brighter and brighter and it ultimately becomes so beautiful that it not only makes the darkness bearable it makes the darkness worth it I mean if Israel gets out of Egypt and they don't know god they're still slaves just without the chains but to know him that's that's the price that's the reward was this look like I mean like 21st century how does this play out a few years ago I had a day in pastoral ministry that I'll remember for the rest of my days of pastoral ministry I met with two men and a guy comes in and he had just lost his job and gosh he was mad he was mad at his job he's mad at his boss he's mad at his coworkers and ultimately he was mad at God at the end of that meeting he said man I just don't see why God would do this to me there are so many things I wanted to do that I can't do now see what happened harsh reality shatters hopeful expectations his cup gets knocked over and what comes out what comes out he talks about a story but it's not God's story talked about his story all of my plans all the things I wanted to do and then he talks about God not in ways that he knows him intimately but in ways that makes it appear as though he's distant and can't be found why would he do this and listen I'm not saying that I would be in any better place really I'm not saying I would respond to any differently I just don't know I'm just telling you what happened because after that meeting I drove to McKinney and I met with a man who's not a member of our church he attends another church but we just were meeting to get to know one another and he shares a story with me and part of his story is one day his teenage daughter came home sick and the next day she went to the doctor and by Friday she had passed away no warning and as I'm sitting there processing this information like scanning through my pastoral experience to try to for something to say he keeps talking and I'm blown away by the words that come out of his mouth next he keeps talking he says you know she never dated and was never married and I would have loved to walk her down the aisle but I rejoice that the first husband to hold her was Jesus he says it hurt and it still hurts but I know God in ways that you never will and I would not change that he see what happen harsh reality shatters hopeful expectation his cup gets knocked over in what comes out he talks of God's story she went to be with Jesus and then he says that I know the great I am in ways that I would have not known him had this not happened he says you know what God took something from me and in that empty space he gave me himself and that's the prize in my prayer friends is that when my dark day comes not if but when I pray that I am a man who is both deeply hurt and also deeply rooted in the story in the name of the great I am so Moses takes this message this speech God's response and he says to the people he recounts it to the people and let's look at verse 9 Moses spoke thus to the people of Israel but they did not listen to Moses because of their broken spirit in harsh slavery broken spirit and harsh slavery when it talks about their broken spirit I think part of that comes when we misunderstand or get confused about or forget the pattern that exists in the Christian life and here's what I mean by that the pattern of the Christian life is that upon salvation you get both God and a promise of the good life so you get God you get relationship with God you get closeness with God and then you get the promises of salvation the promises of the good life some of those promises are immediate no shame no guilt no chasm between you and God and then some of those promises are future no tears no pain no death those are the ones you have to wait for and I think when we forget that there is a waiting to the life of the Christian when we forget that there's a waiting to the pattern of following Jesus our spirits can break that's what happens with Israel they have that promise of the good life and then they have that promise of getting God getting to know the great I am and when God makes those promises and their chains don't fall off instantaneously their spirit breaks Matt talked about it last week with John the Baptist he got them he got to baptized the Messiah Emmanuel God with us and he got to wrap his arms around him and baptize him and then he ends up in prison and he sends messengers Jesus is is this what I thought it was going to be because my spirit is breaking here in prison my little brother was born paralyzed from the waist down he's been in a wheelchair his entire life the day that he got saved them the day that God rescued him from sin and self he heard from God you are my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased but he has yet to hear rise son take up your mat and walk he has to wait for that day that day will come either on this earth or the new earth but he has to wait for that day and when we forget that there's a waiting our spirits can drink look friends the beauty the beauty of the Christian life is not that the happy ending is immediate the beauty of the Christian life is that the happy ending is guaranteed we know how this ends not just how this ends but we know how this ends for us and that's where our hope is set and where our hope is centered I mean I think about the majority of the disappointments that I've had in my marriage the majority of the harsh realities have come because I genuinely believed that God owed me marital bliss because I had done things mostly the right way surely we won't struggle like other couples struggle surely we'll get the good life we'll get the happily happily ever after day one look if I could go back to that Chili's 12 years ago and talked to that Jamin I would tell them two things I would say look Jamin you need to take what little money you have and buy stock an apple that's gonna be really helpful and I've said Jamin you've got two hands one is holding on to your hopeful expectations the other is holding on to Jesus loosen around the former and tighten your grip around the latter one you can't control and the other will never change you don't get happily ever after the day you get married you get happily ever after the day Jesus comes back and when we just like Israel when they hold tighter to that promise of the good life than they do to the great I am our spirits can break and then it says that they do not listen because not just their broken spirit but their harsh slavery it's all they can see and and look I love just how honest the Bible is about the human experience because there is a kind of suffering and some of you even right now are walking through it and there is a kind of suffering you see what's coming out of you you know all of the things and it's just so overwhelming that you're doing the best you can with where you're at and God hears your groaning and God hears your crying I promise you brother I promise you sister but there's this reality where the slavery is just so harsh that's all you can see and so what Israel decides is Israel decides that they are going to continue living like they belong to Pharaoh because they don't believe belonging to God will make it France and what happens what does God do God says okay if you're gonna be like that then I'll just go find another people to rescue no verse 10 through 13 Moses go and do what I asked you to do well I can't Moses go and do what I asked you to do what does God do he continues being faithful to his promises and I want you to see that the end of chapter 4 how do the people respond they hear god's word at the end of chapter 4 they worship and god knows what they're gonna do at the end of chapter 5 when they ignore and when they reject but the end of chapter 4 they worship and it does not read the people worship and god ignored them because he knew it would be short-lived he receives their worship and continues being faithful to his promises how kind is it of God that he does not view our present worship through the lens of our future failures how kind to see him that so they worship and what does he do he's faithful to his promises even at the end of chapter 5 they ignore and they reject him what does he do he's faithful to his promises and so what we see from here on out where the series is gonna go in the next few weeks is God starts to exercise his sovereign power over Israel's enemy for his fame and for their good and so look just just as we wrap up here uh are you living in a harsh reality maybe it's not that harsh are you living in a harsh reality maybe it's overwhelming you just pay attention to what your hearts doing in that pay attention to what's coming out of you but they're not just that but know that it's part of a story my friend it is meaningful not meaningless it's not senseless and that might not mean a lot to you right now you might not have a lot of confidence in that right now but pay attention to this that we are a people from all different stories and all different backgrounds we're sitting here on a Sunday morning reading about what God did thousands of years ago in the lives of these people and is that not evidence that his word never fails I mean because if that generation could stand up here and could and could speak to you now I promise you they would say he's right God is faithful and true in good the great I am is who he says that he is but not only that but maybe just maybe he's doing all of this to give you more of himself maybe just maybe he's doing all of this so that one day you look back at this and say I know him I know him in a way that I would not have known him if things were just normal and it's worth it but we love you we thank you for your goodness I thank you for my brother and my sister in here that's just doing their best like that even being here right now is just such a tremendous act of faith I thank you for them I thank you for them for the men and women who are in this room and there on the other side of the harsh reality and they're looking back at that saying gosh I just see what you did god and I'm thankful or the man and woman in this room that's on the cusp of that and you're preparing their hearts for that even now even though we don't know it even though we don't know what's gonna look like you're still preparing their hearts for that and you are gonna meet them in that place I thank you for that guy and then as is always the case Lord just to be reminded of the harsh reality makes us long for the happy ending so Jesus would you return please we can't wait to see you again we want you here now to make everything sad untrue we love you and thank you Jeremy pray amen

Channel: The Village Church Resources

Views: 31,296

Rating: 4.820106 out of 5

Keywords: Matt Chandler, The Village Church, exodus, part 9, ramin roller

Id: OJ7X0_W2T94

Length: 44min 51sec (2691 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 31 2016