Exodus 5, verse 1. Afterward, Moses and Aaron went in and told Pharaoh, thus says the Lord God of Israel, let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness. And Pharaoh said, who is the Lord that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, nor will I let Israel go. So they said, the God of the Hebrews is met with us. Please, let us go three days journey into the desert and sacrifice to the Lord our God, lest he fall upon us with pestilence or with a sword. Then the king of Egypt said to them, Moses and Aaron, why do you take the people from their work? Get back to your labor. And Pharaoh said, look, the people of the land are many now, and you make them rest from their labor. So the same day, Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of the people and their officers saying, you shall no longer give the people straw to make brick as before. Let them go and gather straw for themselves. And you shall lay on them the quota of bricks which they made before. You shall not reduce it, for they are idle, therefore they cry out, saying, Let us go and sacrifice to our God. Let more work be laid on the men, that they may labor in it, and let them not regard false words. And the taskmasters of the people and their officers went out and spoke to the people, saying, Thus says Pharaoh, I will not give you straw. Go, get yourself straw where you can find it, yet none of your work will be reduced. So the people were scattered abroad throughout all the land of Egypt to gather stubble instead of straw. And the taskmasters forced them to hurry, saying, fulfill your work, your daily quota, as when there was straw. And the officers of the children of Israel, whom Pharaoh's taskmasters had set over them, were beaten and were asked, why have you not fulfilled your task in making brick both yesterday and today as before? Then the officers of the children of Israel came and cried out to Pharaoh, saying, why are you dealing thus with your servants? There is no straw given to your servants, and they say to us, make brick. And indeed, your servants are beaten, but the fault is in your own people. But he said, you are idle, idle. Therefore, you say, let us go and sacrifice to the Lord. Therefore, go now and work, for no straw shall be given you, yet you shall deliver the quota of bricks. And the officers of the children of Israel saw that they were in trouble after it was said, you shall not reduce any bricks from your daily quota. Then as they came out from Pharaoh, they met Moses and Aaron who stood there to meet them. And they said to them, let the Lord look on you and judge because you have made us abhorrent in the sight of Pharaoh and in the sight of his servants to put a sword in their hand to kill us. So Moses returned to the Lord and said, Lord, why have you brought trouble on this people? Why is it you have sent me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has done evil to this people. Neither have you delivered your people at all. So we'll end the reading there at the end of that chapter. And ask the Lord now to just speak to each of us, especially on a subject that I think we all face. So let's seek the Lord together. Let's pray. Oh, Father, we do come now into your presence and how we thank you, Lord, that your word speaks to us where we live. Father, we bless you that you don't speak in something that is entirely unattainable to us, but instead, Father, you condescend to come right where we are living to minister to our hearts as they are in all their need. and to deliver us by the blood of Jesus Christ. So Father, we thank you today. We ask you now, send your spirit. Lord, I need his quickening. We all need his quickening. And so today, Father, fill us with your spirit to hear your word and Father, to be ministered to each one where our need is greatest. And we ask it in Jesus name, amen. Amen. Well, certainly one of the most powerful forces against anybody's peace of mind is frustration. And one of the greatest causes of frustration comes when our expectations do not come to pass as we thought, either in the manner we thought or at the time we thought, or they're in some sense delayed or altered. And Proverbs 13 and verse 12 says, hope deferred makes the heart sick. And I think we've all experienced that. Well, Moses certainly experienced it in this passage. Everything seemed to be going wrong. You know, he's sent to be the deliverer of God's people and it seems like things are getting worse and not getting better. And so he cries out in verse 22, you know, why is it you have sent me? This doesn't seem to be part of the plan as I envisioned it and as you seem to set it before me. So why is it you have sent me? And then in verse 23, since I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has done evil to this people, neither have you delivered your people at all. So he is clearly frustrated and lets that frustration be known to the Lord. But let's stop for a second and ask an important question. Was the Lord frustrated at this point? Is he wringing his hands in heaven? His expectations, let's say it that way, are his expectations crossed? And I think we know the answer to that because we, in a biblical story, get the wonderful benefit of reading to the head. We know where this is going and how God is going to work. So all of this, was according to plan. It was by far the end of the story. And so the expectation was to be fulfilled and to be fulfilled in a far greater way than Moses here was expecting or could envision. And so there's an important lesson in all of this for us because you see all of us have expectations. We have expectations that are created when we read the word of God. We have expectations when we come to God in prayer and let our requests be made known unto him. And when we read all the promises that he gives us in prayer, we have expectations that are created when we read Bible passages that tell us how he views his people and what he intends and purposes for his people. And so we all have expectations, but then again, we all have frustrations. We all have those times when it doesn't happen like we want, and certainly not according to the timetable we envision. And so what happens is that the devil seeks to make use of these expectations and frustrations to defeat us, to cause especially unbelief, to put a great big question mark over whether we really can trust God, whether we really can lean on him. And so it causes us, just like Moses, in a sense to say, what's going on? You know, Lord, why have you sent me? What is this supposed to look like? You know, you've not delivered your people. But as we've already hinted, God's plan is always perfect. And someday we're going to see that clearly. But it makes a massive difference if we believe it now. if we believe he knows what he's doing. There is no frustration with God in his plan. All things, whether we can see it or not, are working together for our good. And at any specific moment, in any particular circumstance, God is not just, you know, acknowledging that there's something going on. He is intimately involved. He is a sovereign God who is working all things together for our good and is working for his own plans. And so I think this is a good passage for us to step back and to examine This whole idea of frustration and the whole idea of the truth in our God that we can believe when we are tempted to be frustrated. And when we are asking the question and answering it, why have you sent me? So let's consider first of all Moses' expectation and ours. Because you see Moses had a lot of expectation and we cannot blame him for that. Acts chapter 7 where you get a Holy Ghost given through the mouth of Stephen, you get a Holy Ghost given understanding of what Moses was expecting. Acts 7, 23 to 25, read this way. Now, when he was 40 years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren, the children of Israel. And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended and avenged him who was oppressed and struck down the Egyptian. For he supposed that his brethren would have understood that God would deliver them by his hand, but they did not understand. So you see, He had an understanding given him by God that he was the instrument of that deliverance. So that in and of itself is God's commentary on the situation. But then again, if we step back, if we look at the scene at the burning bush, if we look at really the course of Moses' life, what do we see? We see a miraculous salvation. I mean, at his birth, you know, there were hundreds of thousands who were killed at this point. but he is spared. We see his preservation through his childhood in that he is brought up in the palace of the Pharaoh. We see then a miraculous manifestation when God speaks to him and meets with him in the burning bush. We see a miraculous commission when God says, I have a job for you to do. And when Moses is telling all the reasons why he's the wrong man for the job, the Lord says, certainly I will be with you. You know, you're not going to, I'm not calling you to do this alone, on your own. I will be with you. So there's a miraculous commission. There's a miraculous revelation because he asks what he thinks is a pretty important question. Who am I going to say has sent me? When I go back and announce to, again as I've mentioned a number of times, what is believed to be between 1 and 3 million people. When I announce to the leaders of this people that God has sent me, what's his name? Who am I going to say? And so he gets this amazing, miraculous revelation of the I AM who is God. to present to the children of Israel. And then there was the miraculous demonstration. God said, I'm going to give you a sign and seal that I have spoken to you. And so he gives him some things to do with his rod, you know, turning water to blood and You know, the leprosy, there's all these things that he gives him the ability to do. So you see in all of these things, what would that do for anyone but create expectation, create for you to believe, well, hey, okay, you know, if God's gonna do all this, you know, if I can trace all that he has done and then all that he has promised and said, then Moses would obviously go to Egypt with a great deal of expectation. But the same is true for us. You see, because when we look at the word of God and we read faithful is he who calls you who also will do it. He who began a good work in you will perform it until the day of Christ. When we read the path of the justice is a shining light, which shines more and more under the perfect day. When we read sin shall not have dominion over you. Well, if words mean anything, that brings expectation with it, doesn't it? That says to us that, wow, if God dares save those things, it's got to mean something for what my life is going to look like. Same thing with regard to the fact that we're going to have needs along the way. We get a book full of both Old Testament and New Testament promises to say that we are heard by the God of heaven. And not just heard, but heard. And he tells us enough to understand that he is glorified by our asking and that it's his purpose to honor himself and his name and his promise by answering. So all of that is said to us, again leading to expectation. What other word can you get out of open your mouth wide and I will fill it? What else can you understand from, you know, ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be open unto you for everyone who asks receive and he who seeks finds and to him who knocks it shall be open. Those words give expectations. Other passages say you to the righteous Isaiah tells us it shall be well with him. Psalm 1 verse 3 he shall be the righteous man is like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth its fruit in its season whose leaf also shall not wither and whatever he does shall prosper. Again that leads to expectation. And then the whole picture of the body and how it operates and the fact that we have something to do in Christ's kingdom which is going to benefit the body. There are no exceptions to that. Because in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, Paul teaches us that every single person is needed in the body and that the Spirit of God gifts every single person in the body with something that is needed in the body so that nobody in the body can say, we don't have need of you. Can't be said to the least as we might count things. There are no least. God has spread these gifts so that everyone in the body is dependent upon everyone else in the body. So again this gives us an expectation. Now, you know, I've skimmed over the surface. I could go to 50 other passages, all of which lead us to believe that we are viewed by God and that Jesus did something for us by his finished work that ought to say something in our lives, that ought to tell in our lives. So there are plenty of expectations. So Moses' expectations and ours should be great. And if we're deriving those expectations from what the living God has said, then we ought not to trim them. Even if we're doing so to try to preserve our faith, no, we need to understand him more. And that brings us to our second consideration, Moses' frustration and ours. Well, verses 22 and 23, you can feel the frustration. Why have you sent me? And then, Lord, since I came, it's been nothing but trouble, and you sent me as a deliverer, and you haven't delivered the people at all. So again, we feel this frustration. But the same things happen to us. All who live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. Acts chapter 14, we through much tribulation enter the kingdom. Many are the afflictions of the righteous and the Lord delivers us out of them all. But I mean we know suffering, hardship, we know the trial of waiting and that has got to be one of the toughest things. I was talking to our sister Jessica about that. You know she's going through something that is massive. And yet, in between each bit of information, there is this period of trial that is waiting. And that that's one of the hardest things of all, is the waiting that is involved. And again, we know that, the uncertainty that is there with many things. Because you can ask the Lord for deliverance, but we often don't know how he's going to bring that deliverance. And so we have a level of uncertainty in those things. And so often we experience that from our human perspective, many times things seem to get worse before they ever get better. And that is a trial. And then the devil comes along and he wants to make as much hay out of that as possible. Can you really trust God? Is he really doing what he said? And he tries to undermine our confidence in any way he can. He's determined. to destroy the expectation and just to wipe it off the map so that we don't do anything in faith. That's God's people. He's the enemy of that you see. From his perspective that's to be feared. So he wants to take it out of the equation. He wants our Christian existence, if he can possibly make it so, he wants it to be that we hunker down You know, and kind of, you know, just just try to protect ourselves while the storm takes place and hope heaven comes quickly. That's what he wants. But we have cause to expect much more. So it's very easy for us then, like Moses, to come to frustration. So what's the answer? Well, I think first. is to ask this question, are my expectations rooted only in the Lord? Are they grounded in Him and in His word and in His promise as apart from my conception of things? They must always zero in on him. Psalm 62 verse 5, my soul wait only for God alone for my expectation is from him. It's from him. And so it is good that we be challenged from expectations that are rooted in things other than him, because in the end of the day, those we don't want. We can't see from his perspective, we don't want our view of things. That's why we pray, Lord, your will be done. You know, not because we're trying to save our faith, but because we are saying, Lord, you are the one with infinite wisdom. You are the one with infinite knowledge. You are the one with infinite power and infinite faithfulness. Lord, I want you to translate this situation into the best answer, not mine. I love where Spurgeon says, if we had the choosing of our own way, we would soon by experience cry out, Lord, take the reins because I can't handle this. It's just too much for me. And yes, we would. The first thing, are those expectations rooted only in him? Are we relying only in him? Think of those sweet words, they are so familiar, maybe some of the most familiar in the Bible. But oh, are they just so comforting and encouraging. Proverbs 3, 5, and 6, trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths. Those are wonderful words, and words that tell us if we let God be God, if we make our expectation only from Him, that He can be trusted. And that though we may not have the answer that vindicates our trust in the immediate, we will have it in the ultimate. He will do us good. But next, if we're answering this question as to how do we address this frustration, we definitely are taught by scripture to wait. To be patient. Romans 8, for we were saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope. For why does one hope for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance. We wait for it with patience, you say. So we we wait upon God. And you see, this is where If we look at the stories of scripture, if we look at the many statements of scripture, where we understand God takes a much bigger, greater view than we do. We feel the intensity of some affliction or some difficulty, and we just want it to stop. You know, we just want it over with. We just want the pain to cease. And yet here is the Lord. far less concerned about the circumstances, far less concerned. He knows what the outcome is going to be. But what he is concerned about is that he works something everlasting in our hearts, that he works something in us. And so often, what does that boil down to? He shows us our insufficiency and liberates us from looking to our own arm for deliverance while he shows us his sufficiency. and shows us, oh, no trust in him is misplaced. And I was reading something to this effect the other day, that if we really believed what he says on this score, we would know that no day, no hour, no minute is wasted when we're waiting, not one of them. He knows exactly what he's doing. And I mentioned my old pastor way back when I was in high school. All God's trains run on time. And it's true. He knows what he's doing. He's doing it with a purpose. And that's one of the sweet things. And this is an aside. But you see, that's what you conclude when you read in the Bible that in all our afflictions, he's afflicted. Because if he is going to go through the trial with us and bear the affliction with us then would it not stand to reason that it's not going to last, if he's got to endure it, that it's not going to last one minute longer than is necessary for the good that he's purposed it for. See we can trust him with that. And so there is room for patience. Maybe put your finger here in Exodus and turn to Hebrews 6 for just a minute. Hebrews chapter 6 at verse 12. Hebrews 6 at verse 12. So he begins with an admonition, and then he gives us an example in the person of Abraham. So Hebrews 6, 12, that you do not become sluggish, but imitate those who, through faith and patience, inherit the promises. For when God made a promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no one greater, he swore by himself, saying, surely blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply you. After he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise." Faith and patience, that's what we're called upon to do. But what often happens, and we know this, is that with the frustration, the devil does successfully undermine our confidence in God. Unbelief takes over. Our expectation then gets lost. Our faith is muffled. Our confidence in God is lost. And with that, then, we lose what the Apostle Paul prays for God's people, and that is joy and peace in believing. We lose both the joy and the peace because we lose the believing. And in James chapter 1, we read in verses 6 and 7, but let him ask in faith with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. In other words, we hurt ourself with the doubting. But if we hope for what we do not see, We eagerly wait for it with oh, I'm sorry, I skipped the wrong line, like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything of the Lord. We hurt ourselves by that unbelief. And the Lord says, no, keep looking to me. He says, keep don't doubt me. Keep your eyes fixed on me. And so What's a problem is sometimes when we have come into this difficulty of doubting the Lord, then in many cases we go to our own arm for deliverance. And it didn't work out very well for Abraham, and it won't work out well for us when we take up the arm of flesh. Jeremiah warns us against that. And then in Zechariah chapter four, verse six, God says, not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord of hosts. It's you don't want your deliverance. You want the one that I will give. And so all of that says to us that our expectations, if they're based on the word of God, then the frustrations are only feelings which we need to bring right back to him to rehearse again all that he has promised and therefore with all our hearts, not become disheartened or unbelieving, but instead to encourage our hearts in the Lord our God as David did in his trial and to trust, to actually believe. And when we do that, You hear his encouragement? Then shall we know if we follow on to know the Lord. Galatians 6, 9, let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. And I had fainted, David said, unless I'd believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait on the Lord. Be of good courage and he shall strengthen your heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord. And so we have every cause to just keep believing. Every cause, you remember Samuel with the children of Israel when they had acted very foolishly in requesting a king. And he says, don't give up. Don't give up. He says, keep seeking the Lord because he's faithful. He loves you and he will do you good. So may we not give up. May we recognize that he can be trusted and that he's looking for every opportunity to bring the deliverance that his promises have made us believe. Well that brings us finally then to Moses' vindication and ours. And that takes us back to Exodus, but chapter 6. Because we read those last two verses of Exodus 5, we could hear Moses' frustration. He's asking God these questions and he wants an understanding. He wants an answer. But chapter six, verses one to eight, is where God gives that answer. So Exodus six, verse one. Then the Lord said to Moses, Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh, for with a strong hand he will let them go, and with a strong hand he will drive them out of his land.' And God spoke to Moses and said to him, I am the Lord. I appear to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name, Lord, I was not known to them." Now, a little parenthesis here. God Almighty is El Shaddai. So he's saying, I revealed myself to the forefathers as El Shaddai. But now a new chapter has come. And in this new chapter, I will show myself as the great I Am. I will be Jehovah. I will be the Savior and Redeemer. And of course, what is about to happen, this deliverance from Israel, of Israel from Egypt, is the great Old Testament picture of salvation. This is going to be what he's going to refer to all through the rest of the Old Testament. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide and I will fill it. That's what he's going to do. So he's saying, I am about to reveal myself in a greater sense than you have yet known as the Savior, as the deliverer of my people. Let's go on in verse four. I have also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage in which they were strangers. And I have also heard the groaning of the children of Israel whom the Egyptians keep in bondage, and I have remembered my covenant." This is bigger than you, Moses. This isn't whether or not I'm faithful to you. I am being faithful to a covenant obligation that I have entered into long ago, and I will bring deliverance. So now, Verses six to eight, I want you to notice all the eyes in this, all right? And God is saying to Moses, look, this doesn't have to do with you. You watch, you stand aside. My parents used to have an expression that I was laughed at. If you said, you're not gonna do that, they'd say, you hide and watch. So in a sense, here's the Lord saying to Moses, Moses, You don't have to hide, but you watch. You just watch. So read with me verses six through eight. Therefore say to the children of Israel, I am the Lord. I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. I will rescue you from their bondage and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments. I will take you as my people and I will be your God. Then you shall know that I am the Lord, your God, who brings you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. And notice he's been talking about bringing you out. Now he's going to talk about bringing you in. and I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I will give it to you as a heritage. I am the Lord. to everything. In other words, and again at this point you see Moses has been given a couple of signs that he can perform with his rod. He hasn't seen the ten plagues yet. He doesn't even have an idea what's about to happen. You know what he's going to see. And so God of course is going to do that and do even more. He's going to open the Red Sea and make walls of water. What? Walls of water on the right and left for his people to pass through. And then that means that is their protection becomes the means of the Egyptians destruction. And oh, there's so much ahead. You see, God's deliverance was worth waiting for. God's deliverance will be greater. He will vindicate all that expectation. But folks, that's so for us, too. You see, we are someday. I don't know if we'll sing the earthly version, but we're going to sing Jesus led me all the way. We're going to sing that. We're going to sing it with all our hearts. We're going to have a view at that point that is going to see the perfection of why he made this wait, why this answer came in a different form than we expected, why so often he didn't do what we envisioned because he had a far more perfect plan. We're going to see all of that. and know that vindication. So what's the answer to the question, why have you sent me? Well, the answer to that isn't so that we'll have enough to eat. It isn't so that this or that will happen. The answer to that question is, why have you sent me? To know him, to love him, to worship him, to be enabled to follow him, to serve him, All these things are the privileges that he is working in us. The expression I've mentioned a few times, you know, with a Robert Murray McShane, whose hymn we sang at the end of communion, they said, heaven was in him before he was in heaven. And that's heaven may be in us. We may begin that life more abundantly right here before we are ever in glory. So all of that. says to us, we have the privilege of experiencing him here on earth. And he is ordering all the circumstances, including the trials and tribulations to make that happen. Scripture says this is life eternal, that they might know you the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. All things that pertain unto life and godliness are being ministered to us now through knowing him. This is what he is doing. And so let our expectations be everything we can see in the word of God. Let us look to him and let us trust him to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think. Let us, when we're tempted to be frustrated, to go back and look squarely at Him. To go back and take these promises and ask ourselves, if I can believe anything, can I believe this promise? And know that He is the God who cannot lie. And so we have this gracious God, who surely says great is His faithfulness. And I tell you, in the court of heaven, Nobody will ever be able to successfully accuse him of unfaithfulness. It won't be there because he will be faithful to all that he does in us. So may the Lord work to cause us every time the devil tempts us to frustration to reorder our hearts to come and look squarely at him and all that he has said and trust him that vindication is on its way. Let's bow in prayer. Let's all pray. Father, you are so good to us and we thank you for that. And father, I pray that you will give us grace to implicitly in a childlike way that Lord jumps to trust you that father, you will make us a people who know. You are good that you love us and that everything you're doing. is a result of that love and goodness. So Father, enable us to trust you. I pray that in this coming week, Father, that we will see you in the secret place, that your word will encourage and lift our hearts, that Father, in prayer, we'll be able to cast every care on you and leave it there. And know, oh Father, that that situation can never be the same because it's been brought into your court, and help, the best help, is on the way. So Father, enable us to trust you in these days, overthrow the devices of the wicked one, expose his lies for what they are, and oh God, let us enjoy this week by resting in all your goodness. Thank you for your mercies, oh God. We bless you in Jesus' name, amen.