Days of Darkness

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 Donna he draws us out to draw us in from the birth of Israel to the church today God delivers and dwells with his people he draws us out of our sin our Egypt and draws us into his presence into relationship with him well happy Labor Day weekend unless you have to work tomorrow and then just hey how are you if you have your Bibles go ahead and grab those we're going to finish Exodus chapter 1 and our time together today I think it's a difficult text but I also think it's a really beautiful text and we'll have to navigate that so we can land encouraged in the Lord so we've said so far in our study of the book of Exodus that that Exodus is part two of five parts that tell one story right the story of the Pentateuch and so we've got to keep ever before us kind of this narrative arc of what's going on and so we said last week that God has a plan that that plan is good but that that plan rarely works itself out like we think it's going to so we if we're not careful we'll develop expectations of how God does things that are out of line with how God is actually going to accomplish that good plan so since that's going to happen and probably has happened to most of us already there's some things that we talked about we need to weave into our lives so that we can be rooted well in the good god of the universe and so we said there has to be an acknowledgement of our limitations right that we are limited in a way that God is not so I am smarter than my 13 year old my 13 year old is smarter than my 7 year old and the infinite god of the universe is smarter than all of us and it doesn't matter how many books I read or the different fields I can become an expert in there is only one sovereign who sits outside of time and sees everything at once and puts it all together one event into the next event into the next event into the next event without ever growing weary or needing a nap or feeling stressed out and that's God and so there has to be an acknowledgment in me of my limitations when difficult days come but I have to be able to go gosh I don't know and and then the second thing we talked about is we have to read the scriptures honestly so again if you ever hear someone who just doesn't want to believe in God start talking about the Bible like it's been messed with and tweaked like like this is the worst propaganda job in the history of mankind right in this world you will have trouble but take heart I have come eludes bad propaganda right that that the Bible's so like it's heroes are so flawed and that continually the Bible's talking about how we're gonna suffer in fact the only way we're gonna come to Christ is to come and die like that's bad propaganda good propaganda say give your life to Christ and your dreams will come true that's good propaganda and the testimonies that back that up gave my life to Christ never hankered for a drink again gave my life to Christ and immediately my addiction to Herren was gonna gave my life to Christ and my wife Alton we came together in ways that you can fathom emotionally my kids I gave my life to Christ my kids immediately you'll listen to everything I said I came to Christ and then put my ATM card in the account got like 10 bucks out to go buy some more ramen noodles and a doctor Thunder and then it said on the receipt that there was already like an additional four hundred thousand dollars in my account praise his name right like that's good propaganda that the Bible is terrible propaganda but it's true because it's meets us in the world we actually live in and that's good news the grime eNOS of the Bible the faults of its heroes the power of God working through broken people should be a stunning encouragement to the people of God so we need to read scripture honestly and then lastly we said there regardless of what life's hurdles are we look to the cross and the cross clears those hurdles so if we've come in today and we feel like there's just no way that this can be for us and so I know some of you are here it's Labor Day weekend so you've come to Dallas for whatever reason your your visiting your weirdo religious friends and then I don't know what you're gonna do after this shop I mean I don't know what you do when you come to Dallas and and then at you know they've drugged you to there weirdo religious gathering and you think man I get kind of faith and God and all that but I just think I've sinned too far I just don't think this could ever be for me well we only need to look to the cross to clear that hurdle right the cross is Jesus dying for all of your sins past present and future and absorbing all of God's wrath towards those sins so that there's no wrath remaining for those who repent put their faith in Him right or maybe in you and you're like whatever but I don't I am awesome I I don't need any buddy to die for me well okay so you limited in knowledge and understanding of all that's going on have a sovereign king of the universe who's looking at you going on a no bro you're in a lot of trouble so much trouble that blood needs to be spilled and because I love y'all spill blood that's not yours right and and so the cross clears those hurdles and so if we're gonna live in a world where the promises of God play out differently than we think we're going to end God's good plan for us and for his glory then keeping those things in view are going to be really important now the next part of the text as we finish up Exodus chapter 1 it is just continuing in this story but there's some really specific things the temptation is going to be in this text to sanitize it alright to turn it into a two dimensional felt Board of Sunday school for folklore and we can't afford to do that as men and women living in the real world so let's look at this Exodus chapter 1 starting in verse 8 now there arose a new king over Egypt who did not know Joseph and he said to his people behold the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us let's come let us deal shrewdly with them lest they multiply and if war breaks out they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens they built for pharaoh store cities Pithom and Rameses but the more they were oppressed the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad and the Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel so they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves and made their lives bitter with hard service in mortar and brick and in all kinds of work in the field and all their work they ruthlessly made them work as slaves then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives one of whom was named Chiffre and the other pool when you serve as a midwife to the Hebrew women and see them on the birth stool if it is a son you shall kill him but if it is a daughter she shall live but the midwives feared God and did not do the king of Egypt commanded them but let the male children live so the king of Egypt called the midwives and said to them why have you done this and let the male children live but the midwives said to Pharaoh because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women for they are vigorous and give birth before the Midwife comes to them so God dealt well with the midwives and the people multiplied and grew very strong and because the midwives feared God he gave them families verse 22 then Pharaoh commanded all his people every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile but you shall let every daughter live now again I just want to point out this is a horrific passage of Scripture for the people of God you cannot sanitize this this is genocide 101 this is how to oppress dehumanize and ultimately eradicate a people group from planet Earth and throughout human history if you study history or sociology the playbook that you see here is the playbook for making a subset of your population seem subhuman and working towards their destruction see here the forces at work against God's people in this text the first thing we see is political shrewdness based on fear look at verses 9 and 10 and he said to his people behold the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us come let us deal shrewdly with them lest they multiply and if war breaks out they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land so here's what Pharaoh is doing he's beginning to create a narrative that the downfall of the Egyptian Empire is actually tied to the Hebrew people and that there are too many and if they don't do something about them then all the good jobs and all the safety and all the things that the Egyptians desire are going to be taken from them via this migrant population see this is political shrewdness this is you can't go straight to physical violence right you have to start setting the tone early and so on the backhauls of the king's palace there's political maneuvering going on to deal with the hebrew problem right in the same way that in the back the backhauls of Hitler's Germany there was a lot of talk about the Jewish problem and in Mao's China there lot of talk about what to do with the Christian problem and on and on we could go this is textbook genocide and then from there and by the way don't worry about political students based on fear we live in 2016 no way that could happen and then from their political shrewdness always moves to oppression and physical force look at verse 13 so they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves and made their lives bitter with hard service in mortar and brick and in all kinds of work in the field in all their work they ruthlessly made them work as slaves this idea of hard labor or ruthlessly it's really the act of the idea of violence that there was always violence around the Hebrews we're gonna see this later on when Moses gets involved right and delays the the deliverance of God's people by about 40 years so we see here in this that no matter where the Hebrews go there is legalized sanctioned violence against them there are a few things that rob a people of their dignity and value like legalized oppression where there's no one to call when there are acts of violence against you because those acts of violence have been sanctioned sanctioned by a government and then from there it moves to secret manipulation look at verse 15 then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives one of whom was named Chiffre and the other pool when you serve as a midwife to the Hebrew women and see them on the birth stool if it is a son you shall kill him but if it is a daughter she shall live now if you've studied the civil rights movement one of the and you've read anything that King wrote about that time one of the harder decisions that Martin Luther King jr. had to make is he marched into towns where he knew there would be physical violence against him and against the people he was leading and yet what he was attempting to do when they peaceably marched into those places was he banked on the cruelty of the oppressor to make public what have been going on in private throughout the South throughout Jim Crow because nothing's going to turn the stomach of people with a conscience like watching a people right beaten sprayed with fire hoses and have dogs to sicked on them right and and so what Pharaoh's doing is he knows he's trying he's trying with the hardness of his heart to out and destroy this people but if it gets this violent gets too public too soon manda then the Egyptians might even turn on them right I mean there it's you can in your head not believe that there are some relationships between Egyptian and Hebrew that are warm and friendly and yet in in this case he's turned to secret manipulation and here's his tactic kill all the boys so this is a special kind of crazy right there's your normal just crazy amen and then there's kind of dark crazy and then there's let's kill all the baby boys now why baby boys and not little girls well little girls can be used little girls can be trafficked little girls can be sold little girls can be used as sex slaves little girls are of no real threat to the Empire we'll get to the irony of that in just a moment get to the real irony of that in just a moment so the plan is kill the boys breed out the Hebrews via their daughters it's disgusting and dark its secret manipulation and and then finally he turns to popular feeling look at verse 22 then Pharaoh commanded all his people every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile but you shall let every daughter live so now this is an edict alright so he said to all the people here's the new law in the land you see a Hebrew baby boy you grab that boy and you throw him into the Nile River so the conscience of Egypt is now so severed that an edict can go out from the king kill all the Hebrew baby boys and the nation doesn't bat an eye at it in fact repeatedly in this text you see that the people of Egypt again to dread israel began to hate Israel begin to work them harder that they hated the Hebrews and so now you've got a nation whose moral compass has been so severed that they're willing to grab infant boys and chuck them into the Nile River so we titled the sermon dark days because listen to me it doesn't get darker than that so so even as I preach here's one of things I love about the village I love that when when I preach every weekend there's always you can always hear a little kid talking here baby start about that I love that sound because that's the sound of a church that's alive and growing and moving right like dead churches don't have young babies crying in the sanctuary no no that that's churches that are growing and there's life there and and if you could just imagine what it'd be like for it to be legal for someone that is a different ethnicity than you a different nationality that you just be able to walk up and strip your son out of your hand and walk away and kill that son and you'd be powerless to do anything about it and to fight back in any way would just heap more violence upon you and your family this is the state of our brothers and sisters in Egypt it hardly gets more horrific than this and yet I want to show you something about the power of God in this let's look back at verse 9 and he said to his people this is Pharaoh talking behold the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us come let us deal shrewdly with them lest they multiply and if war breaks out they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land so there's Pharaoh's plan we've got to do something about this people there's too many of them we must twittle their numbers down we've got to get rid of quite a few of them his plan his plan is genocide kill all the lowboys Mighty's executing that plan but look at verse 12 in fact if you riding about there's a great verse just kind of underline or maybe you got a device you can put a bit emoji by it or something right but but you want to pay attention to verse 12 listen to this but the more they were oppressed the more they multiply and the more they spread abroad so um I tried to test the Saturday night services they failed miserably this is my last go at it okay let's you've got Pharaoh set his mind to destroying the Hebrews the edict is kill all the firstborn sons now we know that when Israel comes into Egypt right the nation of Israel comes there's 70 men all right and in household so there's 70 people but when they leave in Chapter how many grown men leave Egypt in chapter 12 600,000 men so here's just a quick note here the most powerful man in the world who rules as king not with the Congress not with branches of the government the most powerful man the most powerful nation that the world has known up to this point in history has set his mind to destroy the people of God and every time he acts he tightens the noose around his own neck and loosens the bonds of God's people like no matter what he tries he fails this is not to say that there weren't little boys thrown into the Nile that's not to say that this wasn't horrific it is to point out that the most powerful human inventions on earth cannot stay or destroy the Church of God we'll talk more about that in the weeks to come so what do we learn here all right well I think we learned three things in this text that I think we need to grow in confidence of here here's the first thing we see happening in this story is that God is working behind the scenes right he's working behind the scenes of all this all of this is happening it's not quick right we read it in a few minutes this is decades of this right we we see that God is working behind the scenes in secret and ceaseless care he's working in secret and ceaseless care so um let's talk about secret um when I say secret what I mean is that it's hard for us to see that we know God is active but it's hard for us as his children as his followers to really see what he's up to and we talked about why that is last week right we're just limited in a way that God is not limited by could ever encourage you in any direction it's to feel small it's two feet I'm telling you there's more rest and feeling small than their level be in feeling strong right to understand that God knows and that we don't but that's something that that we have to grow in as the people of God right it's secret care um like I love this quote from Charles Spurgeon back this as a given in the future if I'm quoting it I love it right I'm not gonna well there's an OK quote alright look so if I quoted I love the quote but here's what Spurgeon said God is too good to be unkind and he has too wise to be mistaken and when we cannot trust his hand we must trust his heart so I love that when you cannot trace his hand you can trust his heart now how do we do that well we're looking at the cross right we can always just see Christ dying for our sin as the objective evidence that he's for us and not against us he has made a way for us now here's something else that I think it's important to note that in the next couple of weeks you'll see vividly and I've already said it but I want to highlight it um Pharaoh for all his attempts to destroy Israel finds himself serving the purposes of God even as he hates the God of Israel like every enoch every decision every move he makes it dangerously close to being a Phil Collins song right that every time Pharaoh acts Pharaoh is in the hardness of his heart serving the purposes of God every edict every command every step everything he does and trying to ratchet down control and destroy simply serves God's overarching purpose to glorify his name to make known his name to the nation's and to rescue and ransom his people from oppression now I think we do need to take a minute or two to handle this ceaseless one right so God's care is a secret care often now sometimes we get glimpses of it and sometimes we can see it most of the time we can see his care it's always in retrospect so if you're in your 30s and up I'm almost guarantee we can look back on a season of our life that felt dry that felt scary that felt like we couldn't find God and now we can see oh man the Lord really was being merciful to me and season now and the reason I'm putting that age on is because I think at 20 it's still kind of hard to see those things it just takes a little bit of life to be able to get to the place where you can look back and go thank you for saying no 4000 times to me no I was acting like a child and catch you ate a little brat about that but thank you right and so now we need to talk about ceaseless care and I'll tell you why we need to talk about ceaseless care it the idea that God's care for us never ceases has to be laid over the experience of life in a fallen world so how do you talk about God's ceaseless care to a woman who's been raped to a child who grew up an abusive home to a woman who's married to an abusive man how do you talk about God's ceaseless care in those spaces so I want to try to answer it in the most theologically honest way I can I don't know but but I will say this to you this is the reason why church above all else should be a safe place to struggle with doubt and to struggle with fear and to be honest about us not being able to make sense of this together see the version of Christianity that says once you give your life to Christ you don't wrestle it down anymore you don't struggle to understand God's plan you don't worry about what he's up to you know like that's a fairy tale version is not rooted in the Word of God that's an insidious prosperity gospel nonsense that doesn't line up with Scripture so I tried to show you last week look if you really go I don't know where God is in this I don't know what he's doing in fact it feels awful in fact it looks terrible you find yourself in such great company Abraham King David Jeremiah since football season has been those are all district players that's no third string tied in and if you're a third string tied in you just keep practicing hard god bless you right but but these are not only starters but they're all districts elections right the coach is like who would you pick I'm picking David I know that dude plays the harboured he killed a bear with his hands right we I want him on my team well you know he said how long the Lord will you forsake me forever he wrote a song that they sang right or what about um what about Jeremiah you tricked me you seduced me you lied to me God that sounds like a pretty dark moment of Jeremiah's life right as he lay bloodied and naked in a ditch after being beaten by people he told that God's judgement was coming and then Jeremiah's life ends by going into exile with everyone else you tricked me you deceived me we could just go on and on and on here wrestling with doubt being honest about doubt it is something that's distinctively Christian so there should be no shame in that wrestle and there should also be no secrets no shame but no secrets you have not been designed nor is God designed his people to wrestle with that alone so if you're here and you got doubts and you're struggling you're in that place we're like I just don't know what to do with this the play isn't to kind of work it out and keep that smiling veneer face on how you know I'm blessed brother praise His name meanwhile confused broken lonely in despair please don't operate like that here I just I'm telling you it's nonsense we must be a safe place for people to go I'm just really struggling with how the Lord is good in this and have people come around us and say I've been there I'm praying is there any way I can serve you there any way I can come alongside of you and walk with you this because I don't see it either but I can look to the cross I know I read in the scripture so I'm I'm here for you to walk with you in any way I can as long as you need to wrestle before the Lord brings peace to this area of your heart the Church of Jesus Christ must be that kind of place and then the second thing so we see that God is working behind the scenes with secret and ceaseless care and then the the second thing and I love this is one of my favorite parts of this text but it's also a place where I want us to consider some things God reveals his glory almost always in the scriptures by using the weak and the powerless to accomplish his purposes right so he doesn't tend to go after the guy with six-pack ABS who benchpress is 470 and can kill a hundred men he's looking for the guy with a K who sounds like Darth Vader from getting off the couch and walking to the kitchen gods like gonna use you profoundly and powerfully right so so let's look at that happening here I love that some of you're like I'm his man yes cancel my gym membership don't do that be a good steward here we go 15 through 21 then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives one of whom was named Chiffre and the other pool when you serve as a midwife to the Hebrew women and you see them on the birth stool if it is a son you shall kill him but if it is a daughter she shall live but the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them but let the male children live so the king of Egypt called the midwives and said to them why have you done this and let the male children live and the midwives said to Pharaoh because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women for they are vigorous and give birth before the Midwife comes to them so God dealt well with the midwives and the people multiplied and grew very strong and because the midwives feared God he gave them families now it's important to note that in this point in human history women are viewed just a step below cattle right they their word was not admissible in a court of law you could trade women you would almost always trade your daughter for for cattle or weapons or things to make your house stronger right like women are seen in a very real way as subhuman and yet and you see this in Pharaoh's just complete and utter dismissal of them like kill the boys let them live and yet by the power of God the nation the most powerful nation on earth at that point in human history falls and is destroyed and goes into the grave by the power of God working through five women the midwives Moses's mama notices aunt and Pharaoh's own daughter now a couple of things to note if you're ever a part of describing what it means to be male or what it means to be female which I know is you get you in a lot of trouble in 2016 right but it but if you ever a part of that discussion and I don't like how we do it what I want you to pay attention to if you ever find yourself in this room is when they're talking about the man right the men are strong and what's wrong their courageous their courageous all sudden they'll be a couple of feminine ideas that the floor at least of what our culture historically is defined as feminazis compassionate he's a nurturer or maybe will find its way into the male list but you know what never finds its way into the female list masculine qualities if you're making a list of what it means to be a man what it means to be a woman you'll rarely find someone that goes here's what a woman is a woman is bold and courageous and ferocious like you just don't hear that and let me tell you if I'm going into battle give me these midwives over a lot of the fools I know right you know gutsy these ladies are right here like this is a king who has declared murder babies murder them like you don't think that they don't know that by this act of defiance more than likely they've signed their own death warrant not just their own death but maybe the death of their friends and their parents and this is a cruel tyrant of a man who can sleep at night doing the kind of things he's doing have you thought about that like how do you sleep after you use your power to murder babies and and he's able to do it but these women the Bible tells us fear God more than I feel fear Pharaoh so they're just not afraid as we move through the Pentateuch we'll also see that later on a woman named Rahab once again delivers the people of God out of the Hey and of God's enemies I also love this on high like this so if you're a single woman in here I love this in our climate and culture I want you to notice that the midwives are blessed by God and then he gives them families which means they didn't wait around for a husband to be relevant I just love that or not that because I kind of find some of our single women are just kind of waiting around to get married and marriage is a good thing and I'm sorry that we don't have more godly men to pursue you in a way that honors the Lord so I apologize for that we're doing the best we can there's just a large herd of morons here that are trying to grow up and in time they will but right now we just got to preach and hope and pray and we're with you in that I apologize we're doing all that we can and if you're long as you don't know me uh-huh I am actually thank you for asking yes and so in the end here what I love about this is these midwives aren't going I'll be relevant when I have a husband they're saying no no no the power of this God is at play and I will surrender to that power and they are used mightily by the Lord as single women it's a beautiful text so let me just wrap this section up like this never believe that you're too small because it's the power of God at work in that tiny Nassif is glory and our joy when we know it's not us but him there's a freedom that is found in that place to not carry the weight of success and failure but simply give yourself over to obedience is one of the more beautiful surrenders that a Christian can make and then lastly so we've got here that God works through weak and powerless that God is working behind the scenes with secret and ceaseless care and then the third thing that we need to take from this story is that all of us fear something we need to wear all of us are in awe of something that kind of shapes our life so on fear almost interchangeable here right so the idea of fearing the Lord isn't oh my gosh she's gonna light me up Lightning Bowl fear Lords that were so struck by his majesty have so much all for who he is that that were far more anxious about that all than we are the awe of anything else so when the Bible is talking about a fear of the Lord it's not talking about oh my gosh he's going to crush me although he is certainly able to do that it's more the feeling you get if you've ever been to the Grand Canyon or if you've ever stood in front of the Pacific Ocean right that that feeling of so my my family got to go on a little vacation earlier this summer we went out to Myrtle Beach South Carolina and I don't know if there was a storm out there something but the pull of the ocean was and I you know I spent some time in California been in the Pacific a bunch is my first time on the Atlantic side of things and I was in there with my kids and as we walked up the lifeguard said don't get in pass up to your chest told my 13 year old don't get him past your waist told my ten-year-old son to not go in pass his knees and told nor it'd be better if she just didn't get him past her ankle and so I was like well gosh that sounds like a party at the beach then right I mean playing there in your ankles right and so I knew what he meant as soon as we got in there so as soon as we got in there I could feel it pulling me in so here's how we had to play at the beach that day a mom set up shop here cuz Lauren she's gonna read and and turn brown I just turned red and then peel and freckle and so she's reading a book and so we'd go about 200 yards down we would get in and then we'd body surf once we had our B passed her by about 50 yards we'd have to come back out and then walk back down and then get back in and then go and we could feel it and so we went two days and then we stopped going because it was one of the first times in my life that in the ocean I thought there's nothing I can do if it grabs them there's just nothing I'd be able to do if it grabbed them and in those moments where you're standing at the base of a mountain or you're standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon you feel small and you feel tiny that's all that's fear and the third thing we learn from this passage is that fear must be appropriately placed on who deserves to be feared so again I love the midwives here right the the excuse that the midwives given why did you do this can you imagine that moment midwives coming they knew why they were being summoned I didn't know what they had done so here they come there now before the game why have you done this so they make up this really crazy lie right well you know the Israelite women they're vigorous I mean before we can even get there they've had the baby and they're gone I mean we just you know just clean up I mean everybody we don't know what to do but the Bible tells us what their motive really was what was really going on that they feared the Lord more than they feared Pharaoh so what was actually happening it wasn't that the Israelite women were more vigorous is that the midwives feared God so fear was appropriately placed now a couple of things to consider if you live online um then then all you're kind of drinking in right now is doom and gloom and I live online I here's a good kind of just lipid test if the last hour of your day is you laying on your side flipping through Instagram and Facebook before you set it down and finally go to sleep two hours past when you thought you were going to that's probably living life online not judging I'm just saying that's a good way to kind of go do I have a problem right and so if you're getting what your intake is almost constantly is overwhelmingly negative that America is on our dime breath this election is right and and listen I don't want us to hide our heads in the sand I don't know if you're picking up on this but our popularity as Christians is not skyrocketing right our sexual ethic alone makes us bigots and hate mongers and I don't know if your pet that's not getting better anytime soon it's not like in the next couple of months we can expect some big article in The Washington Post or the New York Times going Thank You Christians we get it guys are great thank you for all you do around the world to push back darkness love you guys how can we come alongside of you and tell the truth about what you really believe you're so gracious and compassionate and God we love you guys where we be without you guys love you guys so so we know we know that the tide is changing a bit on how we're viewed but where fear is appropriately placed and what we see happening in this text is not then that we would become a passive people but that there we be a people that that live fearlessly in action so we don't withdraw because of hostility we actually fearlessly engage and as we engage we engage with compassion and graciousness and the more the temperature is heated up the more we're gracious and compassionate and the more we're belittled and mocked and marginalized the more we extend grace and compassion because our fear is not in what man can do to us but the God that we serve in fact Hebrews 13 6 says as much so we can confidently say the Lord is my helper I will not fear what can man do to me love that question what can man do to me because here's the answer a lot like man can do a lot to us but but nothing when we compare it to eternal glory like the writer of Hebrews is saying we're going to kill me that's glory forever for me that's ever-increasing joy go ahead just make it quick please are you gonna throw me in prison you're gonna take my cell you should read the book of Hebrews and what they're going through I mean this is where you get these beautiful passages about what suffering accomplishes what marginalization accomplishes in the hearts of God's people so watching the Apostle Paul live his life is a good kind of way to think about what it means to be in awe of God and fear God more than you fear anything else like what could you do to the Apostle Paul I mean think about it if you try to kill me it's a stuff like today's game well we'll let you we'll leave you alone to live as Christ will put you in prison well I'm gonna worship the Lord and convert all your guards well then we'll torture you well I don't I don't consider the the current struggle and pain to be worth at he compared to the future glory like you can't touch the man he's the most free man ever this is what it means to fear the Lord to be in all of God rather than all of other things and this is we see happening in this narrative and this is what we can take from this narrative that God is at work and secret and ceaseless care and that God uses the weak and the powerless to overthrow and conquer the strong and mighty and then lastly fear when appropriately placed all when appropriately placed leads to freedom and fearlessness in action the thing about this text that I want to draw your attention to locally and globally is that this kind of thing is not something from thousands of years ago this is happening right now all over the world and what it means to be a Christian in our day is to be active where we are to be giving ourselves over to pushing back darkness wherever we find ourselves so here's if you're kind of visiting you don't know is this gonna be my church home as it's not um we're never gonna be kind of a hyper political church I I just don't believe in a federal Savior I just don't think we're gonna find that one president that's gonna write everything that's wrong I don't believe that that can happen right but I do believe in local involvement from Christians in a given location to be actively involved on school board PTAs supporting teachers involved in schools we can we can speak a kingdom language even when we can't work a kingdom external you know a voice we can be faithful teachers who love students well we can be faithful businessmen who operate ethically we can be strong husbands good wives great parents given over to the flourishing of a community so we do that first and and then where we have opportunity to be a part of things globally we do that now one of the philosophies at the villages but we don't want to build things that already exist when we can just partner with those organizations that already exist for our good like we don't want to build out something that we can't do and would have to staff with 40 people right when someone's already committed their time and energy that's one of our strategic partners for a while now has been ijm our Internet Colonel justice mission and ijm it was founded by a guy named Gary Hagen who was for the United States government the lead investigator on the genocide that occurred in Rwanda several years ago if you ever watched the the movie Hotel Rwanda he was the American on the ground helping them research what happened and that it was so brokenhearted at what he saw that he started this organization called ijm and ijm works globally with law enforcement and with governments to see the eradication of slavery oppression sex trafficking all those kind of horrific acts they work with judges they have lawyers and lobbyists and that they're the most well-run organization that I've been around on this front it's not a fairy tale they really have freed tens of thousands of men women and children globally from the kind of oppression and slavery that we've read about in our text today so I want to show you just a quick three-minute video of some of the things that I JM is up to and then we'll go from there this is the time in astonishment for a suspect who for our meetings remember there's a hamster danger situation to yourself in position we found out about the policy we saw about 1,200 little kids and found out the favor in fact traffic and they where in fact slows these little kids are on this boat they are not fed they are abused beyond imagination we have this will go whenever something like this comes I in my mind that was fun we have operations all over the world rescuing people from slavery because today there are criminals who abuse children sell girls 12 and force families into slavery criminals prey on the easiest target the world's poor because they expect no one to defend them Mario Buda yamantau thyroid I got your high and reading the media now bunny but today there are thousands of people gathering to seek justice for those in slavery we are a group of lawyers counselors activists and supporters we are called international justice mission and together we form the largest international anti-slavery organization in the world but slavery won't come to an end until criminals know they can't get away with it so we partner with local police to arrest and prosecute criminals this sends a message to slave owners we will not go away we stay with the survivors until they are healed until they are free I am a high school saboteur kibou yo-yo fear each year we rescue thousands of slaves and protect millions around the world we are transforming how justice systems protect their citizens to those who are still enslaved we promised to find you we will get you home to your families so you can have the freedom you deserve

Channel: The Village Church Resources

Views: 37,523

Rating: 4.8469944 out of 5

Keywords: Matt Chandler, The Village Church, exodus, days of darkness

Id: LIORQVVFBG8

Length: 46min 16sec (2776 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 06 2016