Redemption

Wandering: book of Exodus / Exodus 4–6

God is not waiting for us to get everything right to move, He is moving to make everything right.

• Have you ever been disappointed with plans that you spent weeks months or years on and in the completion of those plans things did not go the way you wanted?

Exodus 6:9 ESV

Moses spoke thus to the people of Israel, but they did not listen to Moses, because of their broken spirit and harsh slavery.

• When we are in the middle of something anxiety producing, we often can’t hear anything around us. What I want to show you today is that God is working even through our work.

God redeems through failed plans.

• God sends Moses to do the work after he showed him his power and ability to perform miracles.

Exodus 5:1–2 ESV

Afterward Moses and Aaron went and said to Pharaoh, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.’ ” But Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and moreover, I will not let Israel go.”

Exodus 5:10–11 ESV

So the taskmasters and the foremen of the people went out and said to the people, “Thus says Pharaoh, ‘I will not give you straw. Go and get your straw yourselves wherever you can find it, but your work will not be reduced in the least.’ ”

• Things got worse for the Israelites, the very suffering Moses was hoping to alleviate

God is not hoping that we will succeed in our work so that He can move. He is moving in our work so that He can succeed.

Exodus 6:1–4 ESV

But the Lord said to Moses, “Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh; for with a strong hand he will send them out, and with a strong hand he will drive them out of his land.”

God spoke to Moses and said to him, “I am the Lord. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by my name the Lord I did not make myself known to them. I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they lived as sojourners.

• God wants Moses to remember that He has called his people before and has worked in their lives faithfully up until this point.

• When our plans fail, we can remember that God is a God who has a track record of keeping his promises.

God redeems through broken spirits and burdened lives

• God is not saying that he will fix or mend the situation from a distance

• God will get involved.

Exodus 6:6–7 ESV

Say therefore to the people of Israel, ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.

Exodus 6:9 ESV

Moses spoke thus to the people of Israel, but they did not listen to Moses, because of their broken spirit and harsh slavery.

• God reminds us who are crushed in spirit, whose plans have failed, that He is a God who has come to us, He is present.

God redeems through broken systems and faulty leaders

Exodus 6:10–13 ESV

So the Lord said to Moses, “Go in, tell Pharaoh king of Egypt to let the people of Israel go out of his land.” But Moses said to the Lord, “Behold, the people of Israel have not listened to me. How then shall Pharaoh listen to me, for I am of uncircumcised lips?” But the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron and gave them a charge about the people of Israel and about Pharaoh king of Egypt: to bring the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt.

• Pharaoh will only recognize power. he would never negotiate. He is godlike in authority.

• Notice also that God is not standing up to corruption for corruption sake, He is showing power, He is showing authority for the sake of redeeming people.

• When God corrects it is always toward justice, not toward the use of more power.

• God redeems through promising justice. That He will bring justice to those who are oppressed. He will work through faulty systems and plans. He will bring justice where we have only seen power struggles.

• Everyone hates the interruption of faulty plans, faulty power structures, and crushed lives.

• When we find ourselves interrupted or waiting due to failed plans, or crushed spirits, or faulty structures, we can trust that there is a whole bunch of work happening to reinforce our situation. That the hosts of heaven are applying eternity to our situations. And that heaven itself, the place of justice and mercy and deliverance, is entering into our lives.

• So when you are interrupted by failed plans or crushed spirits or faulty systems, you can trust that the Kingdom of Heaven, in which sits a king on your side, in entering into your life. Is working to reinforce and restore what has been lost.