Listen now to God's very word. Now a man from the house of Levi went and took as his wife a Levite woman. The woman conceived and bore a son, and when she saw he was a fine child, 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 Hebrews' children. Then his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, shall I go and call a nurse from among 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. May God bless. the reading of his word to us this morning. Sometimes when we have baptisms, we break away from our normal service and do something a little different to mark the occasion. Not always, but from time to time. And we do that this morning, stepping away from our sermon series in John to look at this story, the early years in the life of Moses. But I hope you catch, as we look more carefully, I hope you catch the connection that what we're really talking about this morning is not about little Moses here in Medford. It's not really about little Moses here in the Bible either. At the end of the day, what we're really focusing in on talking about is the Lord God himself. The Lord God himself. And that actually is very, very good news for us. Because if we were just talking about little Moses here or little Moses here in scripture, if we're just talking about little Moses, then, well, it might be cute. It might be kind of quaint. It could be even interesting. But it really doesn't help you. But if we're talking about the Lord God, who was the Lord back then and the Lord today, then all of a sudden, that can help you. That is powerful. The God who worked powerfully back then can work even in our lives today. So let's look in for the God of Moses more than anything else. We're going to put it this way. In challenging times, through unlikely people, God works a mighty deliverance. In challenging times, through unlikely people, God works a mighty deliverance. Let's start with in challenging times. And that's what you have going on in our passage, challenging times. The background really starts years and years before God coming to Abraham and saying to Abraham of his descendants, there would be a great nation, God's people. We read it this morning. I will be your God. You will be my people. God says to Abraham and to his descendants and this people would be God's own people and they dwell in God's special promised land. God would be among them, this great promise. And here we start off the book of Exodus and you have the descendants of Abraham and they are indeed a great nation, numerous, but they're not living in the promised land. Instead, they're far off. They're in Egypt. But even more significant, even more threatening, is that they're there in Egypt under a pharaoh who despises them. A Pharaoh who is out to destroy them. That's what we learn about in chapter 1 of Exodus. That this Pharaoh is seeking to annihilate the people of God, to annihilate the Hebrews. He starts off by enslaving them, putting them to forced labor, thinking to beat them down. But it turns out the harder he oppresses them, the more they grow as a nation. So he tries something else. He says to the midwives that whenever the people of Israel give birth, if it's a boy, kill him. thinking, well, eventually, this is a good way to eliminate a nation. If you kill all the males, then the women have to intermarry with the Egyptians. You eliminate the nation. You eliminate the people. But the Hebrew wives, midwives, fear God, and they refuse to do it. So finally, Pharaoh comes up with this ultimate plan, a royal decree that all the boys in Egypt, all the Israelite boys, the Hebrew boys, are to be thrown into the Nile. And that's the situation that we launch into in chapter 2. This royal decree that hangs over the land. All boys are to be thrown into the river. Talk about challenging times. Talk about difficulty. Imagine yourself as one of the Hebrews. Not only the hardship of slavery, you're getting to see your people. It looks like we're being eliminated one child at a time. And not only that, perhaps the hardest thing of all, that nagging question of, God, where are you? God, what are you doing? God, I thought we were supposed to be your people. I thought, as you said to Abraham, you were our shield and our defender. Where are you? This isn't what I expected from you, God. It's certainly not what I wanted. Challenging times. Can we make it personal? How about you? Challenging times? Do you find yourself there right now, perhaps? The circumstances that you're in, life around you, perhaps, it's beating down upon you and your world just seems hard. Maybe it's big things, maybe it's just the everyday trials of life, but there's hurt and there's struggle, and maybe there's that same question. God, where are you? God, what are you doing? God, this isn't what I expected from you. This isn't what I wanted from you, God. Challenging times. Ultimately, the Bible says that all of us, by nature, are in challenging times. The Bible says that we are all, by nature and by practice, enslaved. But it's worse than slavery in Egypt. It's a slavery to sin. slavery to sin right bound up again by nature and practice bound up with ungodliness and the shame that goes with it headed for death just like the people of God in Egypt we're a people who needs help in challenging times through an unlikely people through unlikely people see it just at that moment where things look their darkest God is working God is working. He is putting together a plan, a plan of rescue. Kids, kids, do you remember the story of Moses in the Exodus? Do you remember that? Maybe you learned it in Sunday school or you read it with your parents, the story of Moses, right? He doesn't stay a baby, does he? Right? Moses grows up and God is getting him ready. God is going to send him to be the rescuer, the deliverer, God's man. right appears to him at that burning bush and says to Moses go say to Pharaoh let my people go and God will do these mighty miracles through Moses to defeat the power of Egypt God's people set free set free and then brought to the very borders of the promised land that's what God is doing that's what God's gonna do And it all starts here in chapter two with God rescuing his man, rescuing the rescuer. God is starting and laying the foundation for his plan of deliverance. It starts here. And it starts with God working through a series of very unlikely people. God working through three unlikely people. It starts with Moses, his biological mother. We're here in the passage not even told what her name is. We find out later, but here we're not even told her name. Very unlikely. Who is this? We don't know who she is, but we do see her heart, don't we? We see her heart come out. She looks at her child, that heart of love, and she looks at her child, her son, and we're told that she saw that he was a fine child. fine child a little note I know some of you are real Bible students Bible scholars here literally what the Hebrew reads here is that she saw that he was good she saw that he was good It's an echo, the exact same language of Genesis 1, where God is creating the world, and that refrain comes again and again, and he saw that it was good. And now here, the exact same language is lifted and put in Exodus 2. She saw that it was good. A creation of God, beautiful, full of life, and her powerful love then quickly moves into courage. Pharaoh's decreed that this one is to be killed. You can imagine what would happen if someone who defied the mighty Pharaoh, but courage, she hides him. She defies Pharaoh. She risks her own life in the process and not just courageous, therefore, but sacrificial. right, willing to put her own self aside in order to care for this little one, right, knowing she couldn't hide him any longer. She's wise. She comes up with this plan, right, making this basket out of reeds and waterproofing it so that it can go in the Nile, and there, by the river's edge, perhaps someone will find it. Perhaps this child will be rescued. Another little note for you Bible students, the language there isn't literally basket, it's ark. She made an ark. And Moses is rescued from the water by being placed in an ark. Think about that for a little bit. Anyway, so you get the picture though. You have God working through this unlikely instrument. This unnamed mother of Moses, courageous, sacrificial, wise for the sake of her son. It reminds me of another biological mother that I know. But anyway, moving ahead. Not the only one, not the only one who God uses. We also have another unlikely instrument. We have Pharaoh's daughter, the daughter of the tyrant. This is the equivalent of Hitler's kid. God rescuing his people through the daughter of the tyrant. Here she is. She displays, as she sees the child, this love, having pity upon him, as the one who, of course, knows that her own father's decree is that this child should be killed, yet knowing that she probably could get away with saving him. Of all the people, she could do it. She could do it, and she does in love rescue him. One last unlikely instrument in the story, we have Moses' sister, Miriam, devoted to her brother. She's there by the river's edge, waiting for the right opportunity, and there, seeing Pharaoh's daughter receive the child, coming up with that wise question, oh, should I get someone to nurse? Him someone to care for him right and then getting his own mother. All right wisdom yet Certainly taking a risk there. She's a slave girl going up to mighty Pharaoh's daughter bold bold But God uses it Right. So you get it three unlikely people three three women which in those days I mean that in and of itself is shocking Unlikely people right the unnamed mother the daughter of the tyrant the slave girl God using these unlikely instruments to accomplish his purpose the saving of the rescuer the preservation of the deliverer Unlikely people and yet here we are talking three and a half millennia later still talking about them and how God used them Perhaps you think, wow, that's great, that's fantastic, but God would never do that in my life. God could never use me for something big. Never use me to advance his purpose. Be encouraged by this passage. Be encouraged, be challenged. God loves to use unlikely people. Unlikely people. Can you see some of the common thread, the common denominators? They don't have all the answers, have it all figured out, but they look at what is right in front of them and determine in these circumstances what is good, what's righteous, what does sacrificial love look like right here, and they step out boldly. What an encouragement for us. as a part of our following the Lord. You look at what's in front of you. You want God to use you in big ways. Don't get caught up in the bigness or even the, He would never use me. Just look at where He's put you. Look at the people around you. Look at the circumstances around you and ask yourself, What does faith look like here? What does boldness and love, even sacrifice, look like here? What does righteousness look like here? And step out in faith. That really is the key to parenting. We're thinking about parenting in baptism. What is parenting is? Sometimes we get fearful about, oh, so great things for my child. Where does it really start? It starts at what's right in front of us. What does faithful look like here? What is bold? What does sacrificial love look like right here? And we entrust the rest to the Lord. So you have challenging times through unlikely people. God works. God works. And we're actually getting more and more important as we go. Things are getting weightier and weightier. We have to emphasize this. God works. Because if we just talk about the human instruments, then we've missed it. If we just talk about the human players here in the story, well, first of all, it's very moralistic. Just be good, do good things. But we've also missed, we've stolen the glory from God. God is the main actor in this story, though we don't see him or even hear him named. God is the worker. You see God with his powerful hand working and shaping all the details for his power and his glory. Think about it for a minute. This extraordinary series of coincidences. Think about it. You have Pharaoh's daughter, probably the only person in the entire land who would be in a position, have the power to be able to go against her father's decree. Probably one of the only people who could pull this off. And she just happens to be needing a bath or wanting a bath on that particular day. And just happens to go down to that spot in the river. And just happens to see the baby. there in the reeds. And as she gets the child, Moses just happens to be crying at that moment, so that her maternal instincts and that heart of love wells up, even though the decree of her father might speak a different voice. It just happens. And Miriam in that moment just happens to come up, the sister, and come up with really the perfect line. Shall I go and get a nurse for you? Making it seem all along like she's really doing the daughter, the princess, a favor. I'll help you. Moses being raised for now and given to several years by his own mother. Pharaoh's daughter, you know, confronted with the mother, brought the mother and says, take this child away and nurse him for me. Oh, and by the way, I'll pay you. And then after the child is weaned, some years later, Pharaoh's daughter, we're told, raises the child as her own son. as her own son. And part of what that means, as Acts 7 tells us, is that Moses is educated in all the ways of the Egyptians, which was pretty extensive in those days. We actually have documents that give us some of the details. An Egyptian royal education included things like learning multiple languages, mathematics, astronomy, architecture, music, medicine, law, diplomacy, pretty much the ideal education for someone who might someday be a ruler. And that just happens to be the education that Moses, who will be a ruler and leader and diplomat, happens to get. So that at the end of the day, it just happens that Pharaoh is defeated by someone who's raised under his very nose. That the Nile that he thought would be the place of destruction for this people happens to be the place from which comes his own destruction and defeat. It just happens that way. You get the idea. This extraordinary series of coincidences could only happen, well, could only mean that it's no coincidence. That behind it all you have a sovereign God working in every detail. every little detail for good. This God that the Bible tells us, that there's not even a sparrow in the sky that falls apart from the will of the Father. Not one. That what this God does is work in every little detail, and yes, even dark days, in every little detail for rescue. to accomplish his plan, his plan of deliverance. And that means it's the same God who's working here today. What an encouragement that should be to us. For us, we find ourselves in dark days, challenging times. What an encouragement it is to know that the God of Moses is our God. He's at work today. through all those details. In fact, he promises to you, believer, that God works all things together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. All things, all those details, carefully working, God is in it. God is in it. Now, you might not be able to see it. You might not be able to see it. I mean, think of Moses' mother there, putting that basket together, carrying the basket down to the river. She couldn't see it, but she had no idea what God would do. All the uncertainty, certainly it weighed on her. You might not be able to see it. So just because you can't see what God is up to and know the script ahead of time, doesn't mean he's not working. No, he frequently doesn't tell us at all. but he promises, he promises that he's at work for his people. And that should build in us great faith, even in challenging times, great, great faith. What a God we have, right? Faith, I love how one commentator puts it, it should build in us a trustful, expectant, patient faith, right? A trustful faith, trusting that God is at work, even though we can't see it. An expectant faith, that we expect that, yes, He will work, even though we're not sure how. And a patient faith. We might not see it tomorrow or the next day, but we're patient for God and His perfect timing. So you have in challenging times, through unlikely people, God works a mighty deliverance. a mighty deliverance. And here we're getting to the most important aspect of the story, which is God is doing something big. It's bigger than just one baby. Now that would be nice. God's saving one child, but it is so much bigger. God is saving a people. God is rescuing a people. So we remember, as we talked about, right kids, where the story goes. God is gonna have this child grow and use that education and everything that God gave to him, use him to confront Pharaoh, to do those mighty works in Egypt, to deliver God's people, bring them all the way to the border of the promised land. God is gonna fulfill his promises of rescue, of deliverance, That's what God is at work for. That's what God does. It's not that he just does good things, but he does them specifically for rescue. Rescue. And particularly, the Exodus gives us a picture of something bigger. A picture of something far bigger. I like how one preacher put it. He said, the book of Exodus is God's Old Testament picture book. God's Old Testament picture book gives us real historical stories, but those stories in God's plan are pictures, pictures of something bigger, a greater rescue, a greater rescue. We already said we desperately need it because we are those who are enslaved and it's worse than Egypt. We are those, well, we're called as God's creatures, we're called to love God with all our hearts. We're called to serve him as number one in our life, but we don't. We rebel against him, we go our own way, we do our own thing, and we find ourselves enslaved. Enslaved in those things which are not good and righteous, those things that we thought maybe they would satisfy and give us life, they don't, and they just leave us empty, and yet we are enslaved to them and headed for death. But God is working for rescue, to set the captives free. And he does it through another hero, one greater than Moses, Jesus, Jesus himself. And Jesus arrives on the scene, you might know, arrives on the scene in circumstances that kind of sound pretty familiar. Jesus, for example, is born under the death sentence of a mighty king, right? Just like Moses, there is Jesus. He arrives and there's King Herod ordering, since he can't find the child, that all the babies be killed in that area, right? He arrives under a death sentence, yet miraculously, like Moses, he's spared. Like Moses, Jesus is adopted by a loving parent, right? His earthly father, Joseph. Raising him with Mary's mother like Moses Jesus is given a special name that marks off his identity right Jesus Joshua the Lord saves this special identity most importantly Jesus is used like Moses to be the rescuer to be the rescuer. That's us We need a rescuer Right? We're in this slavery that's worse than Egypt. But along comes the greater Moses, Jesus, and his plan is rescue. He rescues us by going to the cross. That's what Jesus does. He dies on that cross, spotless, right? Not a slave of sin himself, spotless. So he dies as a substitute. A substitute. The Bible says he dies the righteous for the unrighteous to bring you to God. the righteous for the unrighteous right the unrighteous that's us but Jesus dies in our place in the place of his people right the wrath of God that we bring on ourselves right the just desserts of our slavery to sin we deserve it death it goes on Jesus for all who believe right so that we can escape death because Jesus took it for us So that those who trust in Jesus, who are leaning upon Him as their only hope, are freed. Are freed. How about you? Are you trusting in the Rescuer? The One greater than Moses? Are you trusting in Him? That's how the salvation comes, by faith. by faith, right? We read that in Hebrews earlier, the power of faith, right? You don't see it, but you trust in the promises of God. Moses' parents did mighty things by faith. Moses himself did mighty things by faith. Here's the mightiest of them all, that through faith in Christ and his promises and his death on the cross, salvation, rescue. We're rescued from sin. right from the guilts of sin, so that we're forgiven and freed. The power of sin, so that we're not stuck in that chain of shame and difficulty we feel like I just can't get out of this and yet it doesn't satisfy through faith in Jesus we're freed from the power of sin so that God can change us and work on us and more and more even freed from the presence of sin as God changes us until that day when we will be like him and be with him through faith in Christ into the very presence of God for all eternity right the gift of heaven all is a gift all is a gift because God used His man, the Lord Jesus, the Eternal Son, as the rescuer. Are you trusting in Him? Are you trusting in this Jesus as your only hope? Right. That's the only rescuer. But what a rescuer he is. And it's then, freed up by Jesus, that you really can be a powerful instrument in God's hands. We talked about that before, wanting God to do great things with us. Here's the first step. Trust in Jesus. There is where it begins, faith in Christ. A slave to sin, you can't be much help to yourself or to the people around you if you're a slave to sin. But clinging to Jesus, set free, then all of a sudden God can powerfully use you. Parents, you think, what is the most important thing I could do for my kid? It's clinging to Jesus yourself. Freed by him, you're freed up to be used by God. as a mighty instrument in his hand. And that goes for all of us in every circumstance. Freed by Jesus, God uses us in mighty ways as we follow him. In challenging times, through unlikely people, God works a mighty deliverance. It's true back then. It's true today. Do we trust it? Do we look to that God who is working? Do we look to that Christ? Let's ask Him for the faith to believe, even together now. Let's pray. Father, give us faith to trust in this mighty Jesus, this great Deliverer. Thank you, Lord, for the great things that you've done. Lord, we don't deserve it. But thank you for your mercy to us. Lord, help us to, in response, live for you. Use us, we pray, for your good and your glory. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Let's turn to our final hymn this morning. Hymn 508. 508. Please stand.