This morning's scripture is Acts 7.20-22. At this time Moses was born and he was beautiful in God's sight. And he was brought up for three months in his father's house. And when he was exposed, Pharaoh's daughter adopted him and brought him up as her own son. And Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and he was mighty in his words and deeds. Pray with me please. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word and giving us the freedom to read it, study it, and share it. Thank you for your spiritual discernment as we read it and hear it. We ask now that you will guide us in our understanding through the Holy Spirit as we are fed your word through Pastor Boyd. In Jesus' holy name we pray. Well, good morning, everyone. Aren't you thankful today for the goodness of God in our life? And, you know, he's so quick to forgive and he's patient, long suffering with us. He strengthens us and he longs to be with us. What an amazing God we have. And I know last week we celebrated the resurrection. And what's so exciting is he's still alive. He's still alive. He still has risen. And so we are so grateful for that. And we get to worship him today as church family as we continue to go through the word of God. Now we're going to first go to our memory verses that we're learning together. We're learning Psalms 150. And so we're going through verses 1 through 4 and then reading verses 5 and 6. And so just remember to say these together. Say them loudly church family. Let's begin. Praise the Lord. Praise God in His sanctuary. Praise Him in His mighty heavens. Praise Him for His mighty deeds. Praise Him according to His excellent greatness. Praise Him with trumpet sound. Praise Him with lute and harp. Praise Him with tambourine and dance. Praise Him with strings and pipes. Praise Him with sounding cymbals. Praise Him with loud clashing cymbals. Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord, praise the Lord. Amen. All right, we're going to go back to Exodus chapter two, going verse by verse through Exodus right now. And then here shortly, we're going to switch over and we're going to go begin in Acts. And so we're going to do a little time in Exodus, a little time in Acts. And so, but after a couple of weeks off from Exodus, though, I do want to just sort of bring us up to speed where we are in the life of Moses. The Hebrew people are living in slavery in Egypt, yet they are increasing greatly in number and so much so that Pharaoh orders all the male Hebrew children to be killed and to do this by throwing them in the river. Well, Moses is born and His mom ends up putting him in a river when he's three months old, putting him in a basket in hopes of saving his life, and it works. And the irony of all this is that Pharaoh's very own daughter is the one who finds him. And if that wasn't crazy enough, she ends up hiring Moses's mother to feed him. And so Moses goes back to living with his own family until he gets a little older. Again, scholars say he could have been even seven to 12 years old before he went back to live and Pharaoh's family. But this is where we begin our text today. We're beginning with verse 11, and we're going through verse 15 right now, and we'll cover some more in just a minute. But follow along as I read here. One day when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and looked on their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people. He looked this way and that, and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. And when he went out the next day, two Hebrews were struggling together. And he said to the man in the wrong, why do you strike your companion? And he answered, who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian? Then Moses was afraid and thought, surely this thing is known. When Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses. And Moses fled from Pharaoh and stayed in the land of Midian. And he sat down by a well. Now, what a wild change of events here in Moses's life. And I just want to go through some questions here as we look at this passage, verse 11 through 15. We're gonna look at several verses today, but the first one is, how old was Moses when this happened? How old was this man when he went out and was looking at what was going on as far as with the Hebrews and the slavery and things? And so, I mean, because we know that he was nursed by his mom and then released back over to Pharaoh's daughter at some point. But the Bible says, you know, when Moses had grown up, Well, when you read Exodus, you really don't know how old he was. However, when we read in the book of Acts, we do find out how old he was. In fact, Stephen tells us in Acts chapter 7. Stephen's sort of given a recap of some of the Old Testament. And then he starts talking about Moses and what he ends up saying ends up causing the high priest to just get in an uproar and they stone Stephen. And so but this is what he was saying before he was killed. Here's what Stephen says about Moses reading from Acts chapter seven. At this time, Moses was born and he was beautiful in God's sight. And when he brought up for three months in his father's house, And when he was exposed, Pharaoh's daughter adopted him and brought him up as her own son. And Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was mighty in words and deeds. And then verse 23, when he was 40 years old, it came into his heart to visit his brothers, the children of Israel. And seeing one of them being wronged, he defended the oppressed man and avenged him by striking down the Egyptian. He supposed that his brothers would understand that God was giving them salvation by his hand, but they did not understand. And on the following day, he appeared to them as they were quarreling and tried to reconcile them saying, men, you are brothers. Why do you wrong each other? But the man who was wronging his neighbor thrust him aside saying, who made you ruler and a judge over us? Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday? At this retort, Moses fled and became an exile in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons. Well, if you haven't quite figured it out yet, Stephen's retelling here the story of part of Exodus that we're reading right now. And Stephen lets us in on the age of Moses when all this happened, when he when he left and started to go and and sort of want to know what's going on with the slavery and his people. And so we read that Moses was 40 years old. We see that in verse 23. So there is a gap here in Moses's life. We know that obviously he was born and kept for three months hidden in his own house. And then his mom releases him in a basket and is giving him back once he is found by Pharaoh's daughter and nurses him for a little while. Again, he could have been up to 12 years old before he actually went back. Some scholars believe that it was more likely between 7 and 12. He goes back to Pharaoh's house and we don't hear about him really again. We don't really know what goes on until he's 40 years old. And so, which kind of does give us a perspective. Cause if we're reading this, we're like, are we talking about a 19 or 20 year old who goes out or is this a 30 year old or 40 year old? Cause there is a big difference in maturity and what you know in life between 20 year old and 40 year old. Cause we all know 20 year olds know a lot more than 40 year olds. And so and but anyway, anyone who's had kids, you totally understand that. And so but so 40 year old man, this is what we're talking about. A 40 year old man here who has gone back out where he's not he's not young, young. And so this isn't a young man. He's 40. And so but we do know that, you know, there were some things that did happen in that lifetime there while he was staying in under Pharaoh's family. And so it says that Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and he was mighty in words and deeds. So we know that when Moses was given back to Pharaoh's daughter, He was taught by the Egyptians, which you would assume would you would expect that because that's where he's living. And so I imagine a lot of that teaching came when he was a teenager, even as a young man. And the Bible says he became a mighty man. And so which kind of leads us to our second question, because here's a guy who was born a Hebrew and then he goes and he lives back in Pharaoh's kingdom there. And so this is Moses we're talking about who's now 40 years old. So where was his loyalty? Where was his loyalty? A man born a Hebrew, raised in Egypt, living in royalty in some way. Because now here's the thing, we all know how the story ends. So even if we didn't know how the story ends, you can still see signs of where his loyalty is right here in chapter two, because we have these two options. Was he gonna be loyal to the slaves who are Hebrew, or was he gonna be loyal to the royalties of living in Egypt under Pharaoh as a prince? And so after all, Pharaoh's adopted, daughter's adopted son. And so he was raised in a lot more luxury than the Hebrew slaves were. But we see we even see that term prince in our texts where they said, who made you a prince and judge over us? And so so they knew that this guy was Pharaoh's daughter, Pharaoh's daughter's son. And so which just thinking practically logically here, I would think that being in royalty would be a lot better life than living as a slave like the Hebrews did. And so you would think, wow, I mean, an easy life compared to a very, very oppressive hard life. Now again, we know that Moses ended up leading the Hebrews out of Egypt, but we have hints from reading in the scriptures as if we had no idea how this story ended, but look at verse 11. It says, one day when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and looked on their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people. So we see the identity there. Moses, even after most likely at least three decades, of living in the Egyptian palace, the royalty that comes with that, he still considers himself one of the Hebrews. I'm still with these people. These are my people. He saw them as his people. So his loyalty was to the Hebrews. It wasn't to Egypt at all, even though for the last 30 something years, he was raised in the Egyptian household, being taught the things, the wisdom of the Egyptians. which tells me this, and it's not, I don't see this directly in the scripture, this is not a hill I would die on by any means, but it leads me to believe that Moses spent enough of his childhood with his biological family to know that he was a Hebrew. And if he didn't go back until, if he didn't go back to Pharaoh's daughter until he was 10 or 12, those early formative years that he had there makes me think he was taught by his parents about Jehovah and the Hebrews and the slaves that they were before he was returned back to Pharaoh's daughter. Moses' mom and perhaps his father, the Bible doesn't tell us how long he lived, but they took advantage of the little time that they had with their son, because she knew, I've got to return him. So they took advantage of what little time they had to teach him the ways of the Lord God. They didn't waste their time. They could not be lazy with training and teaching their son. He was gonna be sent right back to the Egyptians. They knew he was going back and so their time was very precious to them. We have very little time to train our son in the ways of the Lord before he has to go back. And so now in our story we have a 40 year old man who for the past 30 years has been in Egypt being taught the wisdom of the Egyptians and yet he still sees himself as a Hebrew, identifies with them as his people. He has not abandoned his heritage, he's not abandoned what his parents have taught him. Even after years, as Stephen said, he was instructed in the ways of the Egyptians, even after all that influence from the world. What a testimony of what God is going to do in Moses's life. Now, now here's the thing. At this point in reading the story about Moses, Moses doesn't know he's going to be the one to lead the people out of Egypt. God's not called him to do that yet. But we already see how Moses' loyalty was not to Egypt. It was to the Hebrew children. These were my people. These were the followers of Jehovah God. And in Hebrews, the book of Hebrews, we read this. By faith, Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. Moses was not giving in to the royal treatment and the pleasures of sin. Instead, he wanted to be with God's people, which, here's the thing, is still a choice that we have to make today. Even today, think about this, ask yourself this question. Would you choose the pleasure of sin over the suffering of being a believer? I mean, in church, it might be real easy to make that decision. But what about on Monday, when you go right back out into the world, your place of work, your neighborhood, your school, whatever it is, you still, this is a choice you have, you confront every day. Are you gonna choose the pleasures of sin or the suffering that can come with being a believer? It's a choice Moses had to make thousands of years ago. It's still a choice that we as believers have to make. The next question is, did Moses sin when he killed the Egyptian? Because we're reading about this man who God uses in a mighty way, and yet we also read about him killing this Egyptian. So we read about Moses killing a man, but was it a sin that Moses committed? I want to read two little passages here both in Exodus and Acts. We've already read these, but just for the sake of understanding this one question we're looking at. One day when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people, looked on their burdens. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people. He looked this way and that and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hit him in the sand. That's Exodus account. Now we go to Stephen when he was talking in Acts 7, repeating this story and seeing one of them being wronged. He defended the oppressed man and avenged him by striking down the Egyptian. He supposed that his brothers would understand that God was giving them salvation by his hand, but they did not understand. Now, I know this may frustrate some of you, but if I had to nail down an answer to this question about whether or not Moses sinned in killing the Egyptian, I would say, I'm not sure. And so I'm not sure. Here's the thing, because I can kind of argue both sides of it, all right? I can say, yes, the killing was justified based on Acts 7, where it says he was defending the oppressed man. Somewhat like self-defense, maybe. Okay, so that's self-defense. Moses intervened in the life of a guy who was getting beaten. And so yes, that's not a sin. Self-defense is not a sin. And so I can argue that, yeah, that wasn't a sin. I can also argue, listen, it might've been a sin. Because on the other hand, based on Exodus 2, he looked to make sure nobody could see him. So, which often is a sign of guilt. Perhaps Moses saw what was happening to the Egyptian, and maybe he goes over there and stops the beating, and maybe gets the man off of him or however the fight was going down, he stops the beating. The Egyptian's not dead. He just stops what was going on and then he looks around like, hey, nobody's looking. And then he kills him. We're not sure, but we know that he buried him in the sand to get rid of the evidence. That sounds like guilt as well. One more thing. It appears the Hebrews thought Moses was in the wrong, because we read in Acts verse 28, they said, do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday? Which then caused Moses to flee. He had to get out of town. He left for a long time. And so did he flee because of guilt? Because he knew that he would be killed by Pharaoh no matter what if this gets back to him. So I really can't say if the killing was justified because I don't know. He's looking around to see if anybody sees. And if you have a strong opinion about it, feel free to see me afterward. I'd be interested to hear it. But often in the scriptures, When we look at the heroes of the Bible, we read through the Bible and we go, wow, this is a great hero, an example in scripture, this is a great example in scripture, but we often as well see all their sins, their failures, their weaknesses, their frailty, all these things. The Bible does not hide those things from us as far as the people that we might wanna call Hebrews, or not Hebrews, heroes. We see their baggage. We see their baggage, which should be an encouragement to us, because all of us in here have our own baggage. And so we see this about Moses. He killed an Egyptian. Was it a sin? I'm not sure. Again, I can argue either side, but we know this is a part of his story. This is something that totally affected the direction of his life at this point in Moses' life. So he gets out of town. So where did he go? Where did Moses go? The Bible tells us the name of where he went, Midian. When Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses. So word did get back to Pharaoh. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and stayed in the land of Midian and he sat down by a well. Where exactly is this place? Well, in today's world, we call it Saudi Arabia. You see there on the map, that's where Saudi Arabia would be right next there to Egypt. It's found that the Midian, the geographical location is mentioned many times in the Old Testament. And we also know this is where Moses found his wife, which means Moses' in-laws were from this area, which we'll read in just a minute. But he fled there, which is just outside of Egypt. And so in here, it's in Midian that we get to the second half of the story. and follow along as I read verses 16 through 22. Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came and drew water and filled the troughs to water their father's flock. The shepherds came and drove them away, but Moses stood up and saved them and watered their flock. When they came home to their father Reuel, he said, how is it that you have come home so soon today? And they said, an Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds and even drew water for us and watered the flock. And he said to his daughters, then where is he? Why have you left the man? Call him that he may eat bread. And Moses was content to dwell with the man, and he gave Moses his daughter Zipporah. She gave birth to a son, and he called his name Gershom, for he said, I have been a sojourner in a foreign land. So we looked at four questions. Now I want us to look at four truths that we find in this second part of our passage today. And that is that Moses delivered seven daughters. And he delivered them from essentially being bullied here. If you were to ask Moses when he killed the Egyptian, why he did it, he would probably say, I was delivering that Hebrew from being killed by that Egyptian. And obviously his actions were not appreciated just based on the Hebrews' response, how they responded, which caused him to flee. But here there's a second deliverance in Moses' life here, which is much better received than the first one with the Hebrew being delivered from the Egyptian. Here Moses steps in and he delivers seven sisters from being driven away from the local shepherds. Now, there's not a hint here of them possibly being killed. That's not what we're looking at, but they were certainly being harassed in a way. Because when there's a well out there in the desert, and this place is still like, this is like desert land still today. And so when there's a well, especially in those days, you would go and have to get your water every day. And usually in the morning, because the well would just fill back up during the night, and then in the morning, There was often a line there at the well because people are there to get water for themselves, for their livestock, all these things that we need water for. And so these seven daughters would go and being seven women in those days, they would just have to wait in line and probably were one of the last ones to be able to get their water no matter what time they got there. So these shepherds come in, and I'm sure they just said, hey, you girls, just get out of the way. We got sheep or whatever to water, and we're going to take over the well and do that. Well, Moses steps in. He's like, that's not going to happen. They were here before you, or whatever the situation was. He steps in and delivers them from being harassed by these shepherds. And so fetching water was not easy in those days. It involved often a lot of walking. You had to deal with wild animals, even thieves who would attack you and then you had the practical task of not spilling the water on the way back. I mean can you imagine how frustrating that would be to walk a mile or two or however far they had to walk and then try to carry that water all the way back home and not spill it. And so That was just one of the challenges of living back in that day. Now we have a missionary that we support in Zimbabwe and they still have to do that today. pastor preacher in the countryside of Zimbabwe and he and his wife still today now we did send them money as several years ago to help them build a house and so they have a house now they live in but there's no running water no electricity still today and so they have to walk to get water and I asked him I said hey Damson how far do you have to walk to get water he said it's it's about a 10-minute walk and And you think, well, 10 minutes doesn't sound too far. Well, if you're carrying a bunch of water, it sounds really far. And so he says, yeah, he goes, I mean, yeah, it's about a 10 minute walk. I realized that's their normal. They just know that it's part of their life. But here's the thing. A while back, he sent me, because he sends me updates and about two or three times a week, I hear from him. And so, but he told me a few months back, he said, yes, I was preaching in another village and nine people trusted in Christ, repented of their sins, and wanted to be baptized. But this village was way out, and they don't have a well in that village, and they don't even have a tank or anything to put people in to be baptized. And think about this. He said, yes, he goes, these nine people who God saved wanted to be baptized. So we walked three hours to the nearest body of water we could be baptized in. A three hour walk to be baptized. I mean, this is a great testimony of how serious they were about their faith and obedience. But can you imagine that? And then we stand in the shower and complain because it's two minutes before the hot water hits. These people walked three hours to find water to be baptized in. And so we look at this and we go, wow, we are so fortunate. And we just go turn the water on and expect it to come out. Don't ever think twice about it. These people, it's a serious thing. For those people back in Moses' day, the well, that's probably why Moses sat there. I can't go far without a well. So he just said, I'm just gonna park it here. And that's when these seven daughters showed up. And so Moses delivers these women from these aggressive shepherds. And unlike how it worked out for the Egyptian, him killing the Egyptian, this time his deliverance kind of paid off. And so we read our second truth, and that is God blesses Moses with a meal. We read in verse 16, I'm sorry, 18. They came home to their fathers. Hold on a second. When they came home to their father, Ruel, he said, how is it that you have come home so soon today? Because dad was used to these daughters getting back late because they were probably waiting in line. they said an Egyptian delivered us out of his hand which also tells us whatever Moses was wearing still kind of identified him as an Egyptian they didn't say the Hebrew guy they said an Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds it even drew water for us and watered the flock and he said to his daughters then where is he like girls why did you not bring this guy back with you why have you left the man call him that he may eat bread now it's hard to It's hard to find a man who's going to turn down a meal, especially if you're single and there's seven daughters with you. And so he comes back and again, Moses, Moses, they assume was still probably at the well. And sure enough, they go and find him and he's invited back for dinner. Now, he was remember, he's on the run. He went out to check on everybody. It doesn't sound like he packed his bag like he was going on a trip. He just went out to check on the Hebrews before this thing went down with the Egyptian and he killed that man. So he's kind of probably just there with the shirt on his back, so to speak. And so he's out there at this well and he's invited back for dinner after being on the run. And now he's eating in the home of the priest of Midian, which was the dad here and his daughters. But that's not the end of the blessing here. God also blesses him with a wife. So the meal was not the only blessing. Moses is given a wife and in verse 21 we read. And Moses was content to dwell with the man. I bet he was. And he gave Moses his daughter Zipporah again. Remember now Moses still dressed in the Egyptian robe or whatever they were wearing. He'd been living in royalty for the last 30 plus years. Easy life, eating the finest foods, being treated like, you know, royalty. And he's, you know, he's got servants and all, you know, everything at his disposal. And now he's on the run with nothing, pretty much probably what he was just wearing. That was it. Cause this was not the plan to leave. He just was on a visit. And next thing you know, he's out of the country. And so, and he wasn't on, he wasn't out on a run to look for a wife either. But listen up, young boys, single young men. Sometimes bravery and chivalry will get you a wife. It did for Moses. He caught the dad's attention. And the dad, I mean, I guess the women weren't too excited about it because they're like, well, we just came on back. But the dad's like, no, you go find that man. So bring him back. So I need you down to six. And so this guy, he goes and finds it. He comes back, has a meal. And next thing you know, now he has a wife. And so we see this here in Moses' life. And we're not exactly sure of the timeline, but Moses seems to be very happy. The Bible says he was content being there. And it ended up leading to him being given a wife. And the Bible tells us he who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord. So Moses has been given a meal. Now he's been given a wife. And then God blesses him once again. God blesses him with a son. and she gave birth to a son, and he called his name Gershom, for he said, I have been a sojourner in a foreign land. So Moses' wife has a baby boy. Moses names the son. It was personal for him. And Moses names him based on his life experience that he had gone through, and he named him Gershom because Moses was a sojourner in this foreign land. Think about his life. He was born at a time they were trying to kill all the baby boys. He was put in a river, kind of sent out by his mom. I can't be with you, I gotta send you out. She wasn't abandoning him in a sense like she didn't want him, but she knew to save his life, she had to get him out of her house. He was raised later after time going back to his family to be nursed and to grow up a little. He was later raised by Pharaoh's daughter herself. And now he's fled Egypt and he's ended up in Midian. For Moses, nothing has ever felt like home. Even as a Hebrew in his own home, they're living in slavery in Egypt. So nothing has felt like home. And so he names his son based on what he has experienced, because Moses has always felt like, I'm never in my own homeland, because he hasn't had one. He hasn't had one. Everything's foreign to him in that sense. So we close out this passage today with this life-changing moment here in Moses' life as a 40-year-old man. Three things we can take from this passage here, apply it to our life, and first of all, always, Be bold in defending the oppressed. Always be bold in doing this. Now, whether it's a man who is being unfairly beaten, like the Hebrew was with the Egyptian, or whether it's a bunch of ladies who are being bullied by shepherds, or Children, listen up. Children, listen to this. Or if it's another kid on the playground who's being left out or mistreated. Or adults, if it's a co-worker who's always shunned or always talked about behind his back, be brave in defending the oppressed regardless of how they're being oppressed. I'm not talking about defending people who break the law or people who intentionally are out to try to call strife, but I'm talking about those who are weaker, who are struggling, who need help. Be that good Samaritan their life but I can tell you it's gonna take boldness it's gonna take boldness to do that to stand up especially if the oppressed person is over here you're here and over here's the crowd who's okay with that person being oppressed if you intervene you're going up against the whole crowd Moses had to go up against all those shepherds I don't know how many there were and I don't know who else was there But Moses comes in and says, we're going to do this the right way. You're not going to do this to these young ladies. And he stood up, the Bible says, confronted them. And next thing you know, they're home early. He's back for a meal. But he was bold enough to take that first step and go, I'm going to speak up and do what's right, even if no one else is doing it with me. So for us as believers, always be bold in defending those who are oppressed. Secondly, always know that God doesn't waste your past. When you look at the life of Moses and you look at the past, he's in his 40s now. See, God was at work the entire time. And here's the thing, even in our own sin, which is ours, God still has the ability to redeem our past. Moses, from what we read, he did not want to be identified with the Egyptians. He did not want to be in Pharaoh's house. He was a Hebrew. And he went out to check on him. And until he was 40, this was his life, growing up this way. Now, he did great things. He seemed to be an honorable man. But now Moses ends up killing this Egyptian and goes on the run. Moses' past was not found, and we know the story. We know that Moses leads these people out of Egypt. But he didn't learn from seminary. He didn't have a godly apprentice in his life. Even his parents had to return him back to Pharaoh's daughter. But God did not waste any of this. It did not disqualify Moses from being used by God in any way. Now, that doesn't mean there aren't consequences. There are, but God is even bigger than your consequences. And with this man who has the most unusual of pasts, God did not waste it. And here's the thing, he's not wasting yours. That is what the gospel does, it redeems. So those of you in here, the dysfunctional home that you were raised in, or maybe the trauma that you experienced, as a kid or even the sin that you have committed that's in your past or the fears that you live with day to day, whatever it is, whatever is in your past, the things that you look back and you're like, I wish this had never happened. I want you to know that God has a way to take all of that and use it for his glory. He's able to do that. He does not waste it. So it doesn't mean that you're happy about trauma or being raised in a certain way, or maybe you were abused, whatever it was. But see, here's the thing, God has a way of taking your past and still using it for his glory. So he doesn't waste it. So rest and trust in him, knowing that truth. And finally, always trust God, even when your plans get turned upside down. When Moses went out to see how things were going, I mean, if someone could have just whispered in Moses' ear, listen, I read Exodus. And I know you're about to go out and check on the Hebrews, but this is what's about to go down. He might went, I think I'll just stay here. Because his world, he just goes out to do a little checking in on and next thing you know, he's in another country. So he goes out and he has no idea how things are about to get turned upside down. Again, but God was at work in Moses' life. And this past week, I was talking to someone who was having a hard time deciding whether or not to take a job that they had been offered. And this is what I reminded him of. Whether you take the job or not, whether you take the job or not, God's still gonna use you, and you will always have an opportunity to serve him wherever he takes you. You see, our God is not bound by our plans, certainly not our past, our strengths or our weaknesses, or even by geography. Our God is big, our God is great. So when your world gets turned upside down, like Moses' world got turned upside down, keep following Jesus, trust him to use you right where you are until he moves you again. Each of us have our own stories, each of us have our own past, our own little worlds that can get turned upside down right where we are, but bottom line, keep trusting Jesus, keep following Jesus, He is at work in your life even when you don't see it. Just ask Moses. Father, I thank you for the story of Moses. I thank you for, Lord, how you worked in his life. And as a reminder to us today, Lord, as we walk out our spiritual life here. And I know there's adults in here, Lord, that have baggage of childhood and things in their past, or maybe when they were young adults, Lord, things they wished would have never happened. But Lord, I am so grateful that our God is bigger than our past. I'm thankful that our God is able to be trusted even when our world gets turned upside down. Lord, I pray that we will raise up a young generation that stands up for those who are oppressed, that's bold in their faith to do what's right, even if it's alone. Lord, thank you for the story of Moses. And as we continue on going through Exodus and then later in Acts, Lord, seeing the lives of people who trusted in you, may that be an encouragement to us, Lord, as believers following you, because our children are watching us and even our grandchildren are watching us. and our neighbors are watching us. Lord, I pray that we would be faithful believers to the very end. Thank you, God, for your faithfulness to us, for working in our life, even when we don't realize it or understand it. Lord, we can trust in you. Thank you for loving us the way that you do. And may we be followers of Jesus till our very last breath, because you are a great and mighty God And Lord, as we continue as believers walking out our spiritual life here, may we understand, Lord, that there are no regrets when we surrender completely to you. No regrets at all. And I realize there's a lot of regrets for some decisions we've made in the past. But Lord, when we turn them over to you, you are bigger than that, and you can work it all out for your glory. So we rejoice in that truth. Thank you, Father, for your son, Jesus, who made this possible so that we can be redeemed. It's in Jesus' name, amen.