She hid him three months. When she could hide him no longer, she took for him a basket made of bulrushes and daubed it with bitumen and pitch. She put the child in it and placed it among the reeds by the riverbank. And his sister stood at a distance to know what would be done to him. Now the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river while her young women walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her servant woman and she took it. When she opened it, she saw the child and behold, the baby was crying. She took pity on him and said, this is one of the Hebrew's children. Then his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, shall I go and call you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you? And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, go. So the girl went and called the child's mother, and Pharaoh's daughter said to her, take this child away and nurse him for me, and I will give you your wages. So the woman took the child and nursed him. When the child grew older, she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses because, she said, I drew him out of the water. Let's pray. God, we thank you for your powerful word, and we pray that you will speak to us now in your word. We are looking to you. We are in need of you to teach us and change us through your word. So please do that now as we study this portion of your inerrant and inspired word. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Well, we've just begun our study through this Old Testament book of Exodus. This is such a significant book in the storyline of the Old Testament, in the storyline of the whole Bible, and such a theologically rich portion of scripture for us to understand. Pastor Gary led us last week through the first chapter, and today we're going to study the first part of chapter two. And I've entitled the message this morning, A Savior is Born. a Savior is born. It was just a few weeks ago, we were celebrating Christmas, celebrating the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Well, here we are in Exodus, over a thousand years earlier than that, looking at the birth of another Savior. Not the Savior. Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world and our Savior from sin. But Moses was an earlier Savior, a deliverer. He was a type of Christ. He prefigured, he foreshadowed what Jesus would later come to accomplish. Moses was God's appointed individual to rescue the people from their bondage in Egypt. Well, as we saw last week in chapter one, the situation here in the opening of Exodus, the situation is not looking good for the Israelites, is it? They are multiplying. God is blessing them in that way. Their population is increasing, but this new Pharaoh is out to get them. He's feeling threatened by them. He doesn't want them to multiply anymore, so he's oppressing them harshly. And when that doesn't work, when just oppressing them harshly, when that isn't effective, Well, then he tells the Hebrew midwives to kill the baby boys. And even that plan is thwarted for Pharaoh. When that doesn't work, he then makes this decree to all the people, to the whole land, to throw the Hebrew baby boys into the Nile River to drown. What a horrific scene this is, what a horrific master Pharaoh is and what a scary situation for God's people. Now here's the main point I want you to take away from the study this morning and you see it on your outline there. God is at work to save his people even when it doesn't look like it. God is at work to save his people even when it doesn't look that way to us. We can try to imagine how the Hebrew people were feeling. They knew God's promises that God had promised to make their people as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore, those promises that go back to Abraham in those early chapters of Genesis. But what is God doing now? The people would have been wondering. Why isn't God stopping this wicked ruler from killing our babies? Well, the lesson for them and the lesson for us is that God is at work. to save his people, even when we can't see what he's up to at the moment. Therefore, be encouraged, Christian, if you look at your life right now and you're wondering if God has forgotten about you, wonder no more. May your faith be reinvigorated this morning as you see these dire circumstances that the Hebrew people found themselves in, but then as you see God's remarkable and providential provision of a Savior, a deliverer for them, And may this instill in us patience as well because of course as we see the storyline of Exodus, the deliverance God was providing here was not going to be an immediate deliverance. I mean Moses is a baby after all at this point in the story. It would still be 80 years It wasn't until Moses was 80 that he came back to Egypt, and that's when the exodus happened, when Moses would lead the people out of their slavery in Egypt. So 80 years. But things are already in motion here in chapter 2. God's plans and purposes are always working, even if it's behind the scenes. So as God's people, we need to be reminded again and again of this reality, even when it doesn't look like it, even when we're doubtful, even when it seems like heaven has gone silent. like God is taking a nap. Well, that's not the case at all. That's not what is happening. No, our powerful God is intimately involved in the lives of his people, and he is ceaselessly working for our good. Don't doubt that, brothers and sisters. Well, to begin, I want to briefly introduce each of the individuals who are mentioned in this passage. And then after I do that, we'll turn to the four headings that you see on your outline, which will take us deeper into certain aspects of the text and how it connects with the bigger storyline of scripture and how it applies to specific ways to our context and our personal lives. So first of all, Pharaoh, we were already introduced to Pharaoh in chapter one. This is a new Pharaoh, not the Pharaoh who showed favor toward Joseph, but this is a new guy, a different ruler who has no regard for Joseph's descendants. Chapter two then opens by introducing to us Moses' parents. And we don't get their names here at this point in the text, but it's later in chapter six, verse 20, we're told that their names are Amram and Jochebed. That's Moses' parents, Amram and Jochebed. And we're told that they're both Levites, and that's a significant point, as we'll learn later in the book, as Moses receives instructions from the Lord regarding the priestly role of the Levites. So this law has not yet been given at this point, but we'll get that revelation later in Exodus. And the point is significant though, because Moses is in this priestly tribe. He's part of the tribe of Levi. He's going to serve as a priest, as a mediator between the Lord and the people. The other children in the family, putting together details that we get further along in the book, it appears that Moses is the youngest of three children. We find out in chapter 7 that at the time when Moses and Aaron came to Pharaoh to say, let my people go, well, at that point in time, Aaron was 83 and Moses was 80. OK, so we see a three year difference between these two brothers. So at the time when Moses was born, Aaron would have been three. And what we learn about Miriam's involvement here in chapter two and her cleverness and her presence of mind, I think it's safe to assume she's older than three. She was probably in the age range of six to twelve, somewhere in there. So Miriam was the oldest, unless there's other children we're not told about. But Miriam, and then Aaron, and now Moses is born. And then another character we meet in this passage is the daughter of Pharaoh. And it's very unlikely that she was the only daughter of Pharaoh. We remember from our recent study of Solomon in the Gospel Project lessons, remember how many wives Solomon had, and how it was common practice for a ruler like that to accumulate many, many wives as part of making treaties, making political alliances with other nations. Well, here's another ruler, the Pharaoh of Egypt, and he likely would have had a number of wives and therefore could have dozens of daughters, which helps us to understand and maybe explain why it might not have been such a risky thing for this daughter of Pharaoh to defy her own father's edict about killing the baby boys of the Hebrew people. She goes directly against that command and instead adopts this Hebrew boy, brings him right into Pharaoh's own household How did that happen? How did that go under the radar? Well, with the number of people there may have been in that household, the number of children and grandchildren, it might not have been so noticeable. Or maybe Pharaoh wasn't paying much attention, and the fact that there was this Hebrew boy among them didn't register for Pharaoh. Okay, well, let's go to our first point now. Babies in danger, then and now. We're appalled, as we read this story, we're appalled by the callousness of Pharaoh, that he would ruthlessly order that the midwives murder these baby boys. And then that he would go even further than that to order all the people to drown the Hebrew baby boys in the Nile. What a horrific decree. We should also be horrified by the fact that hundreds of thousands of babies are killed in our country every year. This past week marks 47 years since Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in our country, making it a mother's right to terminate a pregnancy. As we look at this passage, It should strike us that what happened in Egypt thousands of years ago is not all that different than what is happening in America today. I listened to an interview this week of a woman who, when she was in seminary, she was doing a chaplaincy residency at a hospital. And one night she was paged about 1 a.m. to come to the hospital. And when she arrived, a nurse took her to a utility closet where there was a tiny baby lying there on the counter. And the nurse told her that this baby had survived an abortion and said, you know, if you put your finger on his chest, you can feel his heartbeat. The baby had been given the name Brian. The parents were not there. This seminary student chaplain, she took this tiny baby in her arms, and it wasn't very long before Brian's little body went limp. He had passed away. How is it that people can say that babies like Brian are not worthy of life, are not worthy of care? It is a sad and a scary culture of death that has pervaded our society that abortion rights are so vehemently defended. Just because a baby has not yet been born doesn't mean he or she is any less of a person. A life is not dispensable just because that little baby is still in the mother's womb. And what's so troubling about the example I just shared is that unwanted babies, even if they survive an attempted abortion in the womb, These babies are not necessarily cared for after they're delivered. The interview I was listening to went on to explain that some states require reporting on babies who survive abortions. There were three in Minnesota in the first half of 2018, 12 in Arizona in 2018, 11 in Florida in 2017. And back in 2002, there was the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, which does declare that abortion survivors are persons, so they are protected by law in that sense. However, abortionists are not required to provide care to these abortion survivors. They can simply be left to die. Last year, a senator presented a bill to try to close that loophole, but it didn't go anywhere. That's just one glimpse into the atrocities of the abortion culture in our country and why it's important for us to speak up for those who are so vulnerable to defend the dignity and the personhood of unborn babies, to talk to our kids about the significance of this issue in our world today. You know, if you've been through a miscarriage, or you've had a baby die in infancy, as some of you have, you know how precious that little life is. And as Christians, we understand from God's word that every person is made in God's image and that there's a sanctity to every human life, even from the point of conception. You don't have to be a certain age or a certain size or a certain gender or a certain ethnicity or be healthy enough or strong enough. to have the right to live. Every person, every baby should be cared for and protected, and we should do what we can to cultivate a culture of life. World Magazine this week has a picture of baby Sabi, who is believed to be the world's lightest baby ever to survive. She was born in December 2018 and weighed 8.6 ounces. She spent five months in the hospital and was then able to go home as a happy five-pound infant. As we read our Bibles and as we read our culture, let's have our eyes open to see that history does repeat itself. Sin and oppression and a disregard for life are not just things that happened long ago. And therefore, there continues to be a need for people like Moses' parents, who will go to great lengths to preserve life and to protect babies. By God's grace, we see that Pharaoh's wicked intentions were not ultimately successful. We don't know how many babies, in fact, died as a result of his edict. Whatever the number, it's absolutely horrendous that precious little babies were drowned in that Nile River. But as we see in our text this morning, Moses is spared. Moses is spared, and as we'll see in the coming chapters, this horrible thing that Pharaoh was doing, it did not bring about the result that he intended. Even this extreme and horrific measure did not reduce the Hebrew population down to some small number. No, they continued to increase. Eighty years later, at the time of the Exodus, we get some of these numbers. It tells us that there were around 600,000 men at the time of the Exodus. Just the men were 600,000. The evil intentions of Pharaoh could not thwart God's good plan. Well, let's go to our second point now. Slavery in Egypt and slavery to sin. On this point, I want to touch on a theme that we will discuss more as we go through Exodus, the theme of slavery. And as we see the Israelites in bondage in Egypt, we have a picture here of our bondage to sin. Before we're redeemed, before a person is saved, before we're set free through the gospel, well, we were in slavery to sin. All of us were in slavery to sin. Some of you here this morning, if you're not yet a believer, you're still in bondage to sin. Nancy Guthrie, in her study entitled The Lamb of God, Seeing Jesus in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, she writes this about the Israelite slavery in Egypt. She says, until we see ourselves as living in cruel bondage, we will never see our need for a savior. And that's a great point. That's a key spiritual application point for us as we look into these historical events that have such a profound gospel message for us. This is our condition, apart from Christ. We're enslaved to sin, which is why I chose Romans 6.22 as our fighter verse for this week. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. Praise be to God that He sent us a Savior. One who's far greater than Moses. God sent His own Son, Jesus Christ, to be our deliverer. And not only to deliver us from a human slave master, but to set us free eternally from the devastating and damning slave master called sin. And here's the thing. As we think about this a little further, being a slave to sin, it can look very different from person to person. It can look all different ways. Someone who is addicted to drugs or addicted to pornography or who is caught in a web of lies or entrenched in a life of crime, you might readily identify them as, yeah, well, that person is in bondage, in slavery to these vices. But what about the person who is in bondage to the love of money? Or who's in bondage to ambition? Or in bondage to the fear of man or the praise of man? Another resource I was looking at this week is a Bible study on Exodus written for teens. The author is Kristen Hatton, and she offers this insightful quotation from the pop star Madonna. Okay, so listen to what Madonna said once in a magazine interview. You didn't think you'd hear her quoted this morning. But think about what this reveals about things that are enslaving her, things that are enslaving many. Madonna said, all of my will has always been to conquer some horrible feeling of inadequacy. I'm always struggling with that fear. I push past one spell of it and discover myself as a special human being. And then I get to another stage and think I'm mediocre and uninteresting. And I find a way to get myself out of that again and again. My drive in life is is from this horrible fear of being mediocre. And that's always pushing me, pushing me, because even though I've become somebody, I still have to prove that somebody. My struggle has never ended, and it probably never will. What is enslaving Madonna? What is enslaving you? If you're not yet a believer, I want you to know that there is hope in Jesus Christ. He delivers us from the bondage of sin. We don't have to live powerless against the oppression of our depraved desires. By God's grace, through the new birth, there are different desires that get planted within us. And it doesn't mean that all of a sudden we're sinless and perfect. No. But there is a radical transformation Such that we have these new desires for the things of God. Opening up an exciting new realm of enjoyments. Pleasures that don't leave us feeling guilty and empty. But rather joys that endure and deepen. A gladness that we get some wonderful tastes of in this life and then that we will drink deeply from forever in heaven. If you're not yet a believer, I pray you will recognize this morning, maybe for the first time, that you'll recognize that you're not okay. You're not okay on your own. You can't make it on your own. That in fact, you are living in cruel bondage. Maybe you've never looked at it that way. But that's what it is to live in sin, is to live in cruel bondage. And here's the hope. It doesn't have to stay that way. Because of Jesus' perfect, sinless life, and His death on the cross for our sin, and His resurrection by trusting in Him, You can be forgiven, and you can start a whole new existence as one who has been set free from sin, and who is now a slave of God. You have God as your master, which is the best place to be. And that leads to sanctification and to eternal life, as we see in that verse from Romans 6.22. Okay, our next point, the birth of Moses and the birth of Jesus. Let's look some more at some of these details given here about the Savior who is born, Moses. And then we'll see how some of these details point forward to another Savior who would be born, the Savior, Jesus Christ. First point to look at here is to see how God prepared the hearts of the parents. We see in verse two that Jochebed saw her baby boy and recognize that he was a fine child. That's the way the ESV puts it. The New American Standard says he was beautiful. The King James Version says goodly. It's the same Hebrew word that shows up again and again in the creation narrative, the Hebrew word tobe. When God saw what he had made and saw that it was good, that's the same word. And the two places in the New Testament that refer back to Moses' birth, it says that Moses, when he was born, was beautiful in God's sight. Beautiful in God's sight. That's in Acts chapter seven, verse 20 in Stephen's speech. And then in Hebrews 11, 23, it says that Moses' parents hid him because they saw that the child was beautiful. Now, putting a lot of these pieces together, I don't think the point of these verses is to say that Moses was a particularly good-looking infant, and that's why his parents decided to go the extra mile to save his life. Like he would have been the baby model who shows up on the Gerber products or on the Baby Gap ads or something like that. And his parents, noticing how good-looking he was, said, we really have to save this kid. I don't think that's the picture that the narrative is painting here for us. I think this is pointing to the fact that God was impressing upon the hearts of Amram and Jochebed that there was something special, there was something unique about this infant, something God was planning to do through this child. He was beautiful in God's sight. And God had a special plan to use this individual for the deliverance of his people. Maybe Amram and Jacob had received some kind of divine revelation telling them that this was the case, that God was going to work through the life of their baby in a special way to preserve his people. We don't have a record of that in the text, but maybe something like that was happening. We do see this in other birth narratives, like how the angel of the Lord appeared to Samson's parents before he was born. And think of how Hannah prayed for a son and committed to giving that son to the Lord's service, and then Eli announced that she would be granted that request, and shortly thereafter Samuel was born. In these cases, we see the Lord preparing the hearts of the parents, revealing things to them, creating this anticipation of what will happen through the lives of these individuals, even before they're born. And then, of course, with the birth of Christ. We remember how the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary, and an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph, revealing that this baby was miraculously conceived in Mary's womb, and this baby would be the long-awaited Messiah. So we see this parallel between Moses' birth and Jesus' birth in the way that God prepared the hearts of the parents. A couple other details that we see here, Jochebed hid baby Moses for three months, but then he was too big, his crying was too loud to keep him undercover any longer. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Think of how excruciating it would have been for Jochebed to place her precious little baby in this basket and put him in the Nile River. Interestingly, the Hebrew word translated here as basket is the same word used in Genesis for Noah's ark, the ark, this basket. For Noah, he was spared a watery destruction while inside an ark. Similarly, Moses escapes a watery destruction while inside this little ark, this basket. So this scene, it harkens back to Noah And the flood, while also foreshadowing events later in Moses' life when there would again be salvation through water. When God would open up the Red Sea for them to pass through on dry ground. And that is such a vivid portrayal of our salvation as we'll talk about more as we get to that part of the story. Our sin, the judgment we deserve is like an ocean. before us, separating us from God. But God performs this miracle of separating the water, sparing us from that destruction and making a way for us to be united with Him. And Jesus instructs His followers to be baptized. Here's another symbolic way that water is used. Another vivid portrayal of these realities. We get plunged into the water, symbolizing our death with Christ, our death to the old self, and then we come up out of the water as a picture of our resurrection with Christ and our new life in Him. Well, another point of comparison is between Pharaoh and Herod. With the birth of Moses and the birth of Jesus, there's also this striking parallel between Pharaoh as a wicked ruler and then Herod's wicked actions as well. Pharaoh ordered the killing of the baby boys as he was feeling threatened by the growing number of God's people. Well, Herod, likewise, as we know from the nativity narratives, Herod also ordered the killing of all the baby boys in Bethlehem, two years old, younger because he feared this thought of a of a Messiah of a king of the Jews being born. He wanted to eliminate that competition and any threat that that might pose. Herod wanted to stamp out that possibility immediately and he was vicious enough to kill babies in an effort to protect himself. Another interesting parallel to highlight here is the significance of each of their names, Moses' name and Jesus' name. The daughter of Pharaoh, we learn in verse 10 of our passage here, that she named this Hebrew baby boy Moses. And why did she name him this? Because, she said, I drew him out of the water. This is interesting because in Egyptian, This was a common name, simply meaning son. Okay, so calling him Moses in Egyptian, that would have just been very common as a name for a son. Here's Moses. But the same word in Hebrew sounds like the verb for to draw out. to draw out. And this connects with the role God assigned to Moses as he would later draw out God's people from their oppression in Egypt. As a baby, Moses was drawn out of the water Eighty years later, he would be the leader to draw the Israelites through water, delivering them from slavery. And again, the parallel with the birth narratives of Jesus, the name Jesus, as the angel made clear to Joseph and said, you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. And then one more quick parallel to notice both Moses and Jesus spent at least part of their childhood in Egypt Moses spent his entire childhood there and on through until he was 40 years old He was there in Egypt as we read in Matthew 2 When Herod was about to order the killing of the babies in Bethlehem an angel warned Joseph and they fled To where? To Egypt, and they stayed there until the death of Herod. So many parallels here between Moses and Jesus as we see the creativity of God's storyline of redemption. These Old Testament details that give us previews of what is to come later in the climactic work of Jesus Christ. It's all about Jesus. It's all pointing to Jesus, all leading up to what Jesus would accomplish. Well, coming now to our last point and tying this back in with the main overarching point I want us to take away from this passage, let's consider God's astounding providence both then and now. As I said at the beginning of this message, God is at work to save his people even when it doesn't look like it. And this brings us to the intense drama in the midst of this narrative. There's baby Moses, okay, in his little ark, floating among the reeds by the riverbank. Miriam is there at a distance, watching to see what's gonna happen. And of all the things that could have happened, of all the individuals who might have happened to pass by, here comes the daughter of Pharaoh, approaching this very place to bathe in the river. I wonder what Miriam was thinking at this point. I imagine she very well may have been panicking at this point. Because I think the assumption would be that Pharaoh's daughter, she's very likely to be someone who's going to enforce and carry out her father's commands to kill the baby boys of the Hebrew people. Verse five tells us the baby was crying. This is probably what got her attention as she was there in the river and hears a baby crying, looks around. discovers that a basket is there floating in the water, tells one of her maids to go get the basket, and behold, there's the baby boy crying there in the basket. And she knows it's a Hebrew boy, verse six. This is probably obvious to her in a few ways. Douglas Stewart, in his commentary, points out that at least four things that could have tipped her off that he was Hebrew. He says her recognition that Moses was a Hebrew boy probably was predicated on four things at least. The general physical differences between Hebrews and Egyptians, the type of baby clothes used, the fact that her discovery occurred in an Israelite settlement area, and the general situation, the need to hide Israelite baby boys, but not Egyptian baby boys. So now the question is, what is she going to do? What is Pharaoh's daughter going to do? This is a moment of tremendous suspense. Of course, it's not a moment of suspense for us because we've read the story. We know what's going to happen. But if you're Miriam, okay, if you're Miriam standing over there, you're worried that your baby brother could be about to be drowned in the water. But then the situation pivots, surprisingly, dramatically. Arthur Pink says, big doors often swing on small hinges. Big doors often swing on small hinges. God not only directs the rise and fall of empires, but also rules the fall of a sparrow. It was God who put it in the heart of this Egyptian princess to go to the river to bathe, and to that particular spot where the ark lay among the flags, as it was he who caused her to be moved with compassion. God is at work in every detail of this. And consider God's remarkable providence here, how astounding that of all the people most vulnerable at this moment, Hebrew baby boys, that's precisely how God chooses to bring His appointed rescuer into the world, as a Hebrew baby boy. And what a brilliant stroke of irony in God's story of redemption, that in Pharaoh's attempt to oppress and control and kill the Israelites, God sends Moses, who's going to deliver the Hebrew people from their bondage in Egypt. And this Hebrew baby, who should have been drowned in the Nile, according to Pharaoh's command, well, this Hebrew boy ends up being raised and educated and provided for by whom? Pharaoh. Yeah, what an amazing series of events here. Another commentator, Peter Enns, he put it like this, Pharaoh wishes to counter God's plan by casting infants into the Nile. God saves Moses by casting him onto the Nile and bringing him to Pharaoh's front door. Truly the power of God is at work in this boy's life. God does have a sense of humor, doesn't he? He is infinitely creative in thwarting the evil intentions of those who oppose him and in how he provides for his people. What a blessing it is for Jochebed that not only is her son spared death, but her son is given back to her, at least for a few years. And she gets paid to care for her own son. I am hearing some amens from some moms. God used Miriam at that critical moment to have just the right suggestion to make to the princess. And so it's awe-inspiring, too, to see how God used young Miriam in the midst of all this as well. Now, the way in which God conquers his enemies and the way he provides for his people, it's not always in our timing. It's not always the way we would set it up or plan it out. Certainly there are often times when it appears that the bad guys are winning. But God is always, he's working out his plans. We see that the very thing Pharaoh was wanting to prevent, if you look back to chapter one, verse 10, where Pharaoh is saying, 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. Pharaoh did not want that to happen. I don't want them to fight against us. I don't want them to escape from the land. Well, that very thing, Pharaoh ends up providing for by having Moses raised in his own palace. And then Moses goes on to be the one used of God to help the Israelites escape from the land. Have there been times when you felt like God has forgotten you? Like he doesn't care? Like your prayers are not reaching his ears? Maybe you're in a season right now where you are spiritually discouraged. You feel abandoned. You're questioning, God, what is going on here? Why aren't you helping me? Brothers and sisters, let's take comfort in the truth of God's Word that He is at work. He is exerting His omnipotent strength to orchestrate every detail in the universe according to His will and to work all things together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. We think of the life of Joseph just a few chapters earlier in the later chapters of Genesis, how he must have felt when he was sold into slavery by his own brothers, how he was accused by Potiphar's wife and unjustly sent to prison, how he was forgotten there, ignored by the cupbearer. even though he had interpreted his dream. But then Joseph was raised to power as second in command to Pharaoh, second in command in Egypt. And God worked in Joseph's heart that he was not consumed with bitterness and resentment toward his brothers. But later in life, after their father had died, Joseph said to his brothers in Genesis 50, 20, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good. The dire circumstances of the Israelites here in Exodus is another story of hardship and heartache, injustice and oppression. But God is at work for his glory and for the good of his people. Jesus experienced this in the most intense way. imaginable. He experienced this as one of us. He experienced this on our behalf. As Philippians 2 says, he humbled himself to become obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him. Fellow Christians, let's not ever doubt that God is working out His mysterious plans. Very often we're not seeing His hand of providence. We're not able to detect how this event or that circumstance or this conversation or that relationship or this disappointment or that tragedy. We can't see how all these things are piecing together. into something that will highlight God's glory and will cause us to praise him and enjoy him for all eternity. But we need to be assured God is at work to save his people even when it doesn't look like it, even when we can't see it. Let's pray. God, thank you for this amazing passage of scripture and so much that can be mined here to help us know more about you, to be assured of your sovereignty and your good plans for your people. God, help us to believe right now that you are at work for the good of all those who are called according to your purpose and who love you. And God, for anyone here this morning who does not yet know you, I pray they will realize that they're in bondage to sin and they need you to redeem them. I pray that people this morning for the first time will be looking to you in that way. Salvation belongs to the Lord. We pray that you will bring that salvation and apply it here today to anyone who's not yet saved. Again, God, we thank you for the power of your word, and we just praise your name today. It's in Jesus' name we pray all these things. Amen.