Exodus 5Scripture
This morning we're looking in Exodus chapter 6. We're scooting through this thing really fast. Really fast. No, did I say six? It's chapter five. My wife was panicking down here on the front row. That's my guidance system, actually. Is this yours? Is this yours, Pastor D? Okay. I mean, I know the pen's not, but that'll cause trouble for my ADD ways. Okay, so, chapter five. Now, I've actually gone back and forth whether I want to read this whole chapter or not, because, well, I'll just do a little bit of a summary here. I'll read the first few verses, and then I'll kind of give you a summary of what's going on afterward. Verse one: "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.' Then they said, 'The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Please let us go a three days' journey into the wilderness that we may sacrifice to the LORD our God, lest he fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword.'" How many of you think it's interesting here? And we'll just pause for a moment. This is just a side notation, not necessarily what I'm talking about today, but I just think it's interesting here. God has given a command to Moses to go down and speak to
Introduction
Pharaoh, to make a request for the people to be released for three days to go have a feast and worship the Lord. Yet God has already hardened Pharaoh's heart, and his intention is that Pharaoh would not let them go. God has purposed for that to happen, yet gives a command to another to go speak something. And I just think it's so interesting, because just because God gives a command, it's not necessarily going to work out like you think it's going to work out, right? He has a plan. He's made the plan clear to Moses that he's not going to let the people go. That does not then permit you to not do the one thing God said to do. That doesn't really make sense, right? Because there's a lot of things, I mean, the longer you walk with the Lord, there's a lot of things, the longer you're in the Word, there's a lot of things that we're told to do that just don't make sense. But you don't get the right to determine how the plan should unfold. And part of the plan is this back and forth with Pharaoh. Part of the plan is the hardening. Part of the plan is the struggle. Part of the plan is the oppression. Part of the plan is the release of the people. But you can't get to step three until you go through steps one and two. It is amazing in life how we want to abort ourselves from steps one and two and just get to three. "Let me just get to three. Just get me to the delivery. I don't want to go through the plagues. I don't want to go through putting the blood on the doorpost and the lintel. I don't want to do all of that. I don't want to do this back and forth. I definitely don't want to struggle having to make more bricks," which we're going to read about in just a minute. "I don't want to have to go through all that. If you're going to deliver us, just deliver us already." How many of you have ever had a prayer like that? "Just get to it already. Like, how long do I got to wait for you to do what you promised you will do?" I love how strange this Scripture is here. And then in verse four: "But the king of Egypt said to them, 'Moses and Aaron, why do you take the people away from their work? Get back to your burdens.'" Now, Pharaoh basically lays out this command because he's just irritated, namely because God has hardened his heart. So now, because God has hardened Pharaoh's heart, notice that the oppression, the pain, the hardening doesn't just affect Pharaoh and the Egyptians. Notice that the hardening of Pharaoh's heart begins to affect his people. So in God's plan and in his purpose to harden Pharaoh's heart, he is also oppressing at the same time the people. Another way of saying that is, the hardening of Pharaoh's heart burdens and oppresses the people of God. It's fascinating. So then Pharaoh basically says, "I tell you what. Normally we give you straw when you make your bricks.
We're not doing that no more. Go get your own straw. And matter of fact, we want you to work even harder." So the people get to a place, and I don't want to read the whole chapter, people get to a place where they're moaning about it. So they send a spokesperson, who is the foreman for the Israelites. The foreman goes and speaks to Pharaoh and basically tells him, "Why are you doing this to us? How do you expect us to do our work and meet our quota of bricks if we have to continue to go get the extra? Hey, we can't meet the numbers. We can't do it." And so they moan and they complain. And then at the very end, and we'll read it in just a minute, I just want to, I'm dizzy, let me get to the very end here. It says this: "Then Moses turned to the LORD and said, 'O Lord, why have you done evil to this people? Why did you ever send me?'" How many of you have ever been like, "God, sign me up. I want to be on the front lines of your ministry"? And then you realize that's a really dangerous place to live, and you begin to ask questions: "Why'd you send me here if it ain't going to be easy?" No one said it's going to be easy on the front lines of God's ministry. That's where you get killed. I mean, ask the apostles about that. The front line's a dangerous place.
See, everybody wants to be used, but no one wants to get shot at.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 6:26
That's the problem.
Everybody wants to be a light, but no one wants to be in darkness.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 6:38
Everybody wants to be a symbol of hope, but they don't want to be where hope is absent. Yet God needs people. Matter of fact, he tells you that your job, at the point that you become a believer in Christ, is to be a beacon in darkness. And not even that, but in high places, meaning the type of beacon that isn't hidden under a bushel but put up in a place where everyone can see. You're a beacon, so now everybody's coming at you. Are you with me? So it is a tough place to be. Everybody wants to be called and be his special people, but they don't know the cost that comes with it. There is a cost. Oh,
Salvation is free. Don't get it convoluted. Salvation is free, and it is free indeed. But his call comes at a cost to us as well.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 7:29
Not for salvation, but just simply because you're his, there will be trouble coming your way. I mean, this sounds like a really encouraging message. Aren't you glad you came today? Aren't you glad you came? I have some hope for you at the end of this message today. I promise it's going to be encouraging, but there's going to be things you have to wrestle with that are not necessarily fun. I broke it down into four points. These are going to go really quick, right? I don't think we need to belabor it. I think your job is to really just wrestle with these. So some of these are going to be declarative in nature, and you're supposed to go home and figure it out. I'm not going to give you three points of why it is what I say it is. I'm going to say something that it is, and you go wrestle with it, right? I think you're
Point 1Making bricks without straw is God's saving work
Mature enough to do that. First thing is this: making bricks without straw is part of God's saving work. Now, that's a declarative statement that you want an answer to, right? I'm not necessarily going to give you an answer. I'll dance around it a little bit, but I want you to go wrestle with that. I'm just making the statement that if God endorses it, if God purposes it's part of his saving work. His work is to save. So if we are then in a position to be burdened with more bricks, that's part of God's plan. It's good. Now, whenever we hear in the church, one of the two words we hear the most in the life of the church are these phrases or words: gospel, which is the good news. The good news. Now be careful here. Be careful here. Because whenever we hear "good," we define that. But you don't get to define that. God gets to define that. And the way that God defined it all through Scripture is, "Whatever I do is good." He also, furthermore, if you step back even further, he defines it as, "I am good; therefore whatever comes from me, whatever is purposed by me, whatever's determined by me, whatever is decided from me, is good, because I am good." So if God hardens, it's good.
And notice here at the end, if we look at it again, notice who Moses credits with the making of more bricks. He doesn't credit that to Pharaoh. He credits it to God. So it has to be good, because ultimately Pharaoh did the more bricks because God hardened his heart. So ultimately that comes from God. Pharaoh didn't tell them to start building more bricks until his heart was hardened.
See, what we want to do is we want to uninvite God from things that we don't think God should be doing. That makes you God.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 10:59
You don't get to determine that. So we wrestle, then, when we hear the words "good news." We wrestle. And honestly, can I say something that's very interesting? The Jews could not receive Christ because they had defined what salvation would look like. Track with me; I'm going somewhere. And because salvation did not come like they expected, you mean like in the former bricks? You mean not a king on a stallion, but somebody who was going to be crucified, on a donkey? Because that didn't look like they had expected. Because salvation didn't come like they had expected, they rejected it.
How many of us today are guilty of rejecting the salvation that's come to our house because it did not come like we expected?
Pastor Shawn Gray · 12:16
I'm reminded of a story, and my son reminds me often of the story, of the man on top of the roof. We've all read the article. We've all seen the cartoon. But I'll just say it again. And I try to come up with a new story so, you know, it hits different, and this has been told a thousand times from tens of thousands of pulpits, but I'm going to say it again. Man on top of the roof, and a flood had come, and the flood had made its way to the top of the house, and he was praying, asking the Lord to send him a way out of the storm so that he would not die. And what was it? A boat came and said, "Do you need a ride?" "No, I prayed, and God is going to help me out of here." And then a helicopter came. "Do you need a ride?" "No, I prayed. God's going to help me out of here." And then he drowned, and he gets to heaven and he said, "God, why didn't you save me?" He said, "I did. I just came the way you didn't expect." And see, that's the danger in the church, is you defining how God should come and you defining how God should save.
Now, here's the reality: some of God's greatest saving work has come through oppression in my life.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 13:29
Oh, it's not come from times of abundance or ease. Matter of fact, sometimes in ease and abundance, some of us can be guilty of checking out and coasting. But the reality is, trouble and resistance build strength in the spiritual as much as they do in the physical, and God knows this. And sometimes the way he saves you and helps you not be so arrogant, he makes you struggle. You see, not everything bad is from the devil. Not everything bad is from the devil.
Some things are from God, and you would label it bad, and God would label it good.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 14:26
Okay? Because sometimes deliverance isn't immediate, right? And that's part of our struggle too. And I'm getting all my notes all convoluted, but I just do what I please here. Let me just, listen, let me say something to you, because it's hard for us to see making bricks as part of God's salvation plan, as part of his saving work. It's hard for us to see that, because we only want him to deliver us from the immediate, not from the eternal. And even furthermore, he's working a lot of things out of the hearts of the people of Israel that they don't even know are there. Now notice, if they're crying, and when they cross the... If they're crying and looking back and they're longing for the meat pots of yesterday, how much do you think this brick making helped curb that kind of longing to go back? So although Pharaoh had been positioned and hardened to make the Israelites more oppressed and struggle more, they still longed to go back. Imagine if that didn't happen.
Imagine if there was this narrative that everything was better there, but just a short time before they hadn't gone through this oppression from the very one they longed to return to. See, God is working something in you that will save you, that will position you to not actually return back to the thing, like a dog returns to its vomit. Are you with me? That there is something he has to do to get you to a place where that thing that you used to long for, you no longer long for anymore. He's saving you in oppression. The announcement of Jesus was and is and will continue to be a blessing, that Jesus arrived. The kingdom tells us that God's purpose in Jesus has already begun today to reshape our reality for his people and his creation.
The curse that came because of our rebellion, according to the gospel, is being undone day by day, and God, who made all things, is making things new in Christ. That's good news. That encourages me. So then, with that thinking, and hearing the immediacy of the kingdom, it has come, "thy kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven," then now, because of Christ, oh, it has, it is coming, and it is reshaping. But what do you do when you make that declaration, and then what do you tell somebody when they set their hopes in Jesus and life gets harder for them? What do you do with that? What do you say when their sin seems bigger and harder than ever to control? What do you say when grief is piled upon grief in people's lives, when one month of underemployment turns into seven and there seems to be no way out, when one death is followed by another death, when people's cancer comes back and their body fails? What do you say to someone finding it harder and harder to be a faithful spouse or parent, because they realize how hard it really is to sacrifice for the sake of others? What do you tell them when they believed redemption has come in Jesus, but their life feels like they're making bricks without straw? What do we say to people? For that matter, what do you tell yourself? We might hear the announcement of the gospel, that in Christ God is making all things new, but when things get harder instead of easier, it's harder to believe that what he says is true. When we set our hopes on Jesus and things seem to go from bad to worse, how are we supposed to think or feel or act? Ancient Israel found itself dealing with that question. Moses found himself wondering the same thing: if God is really working, then why are things getting worser? I know that was improper, but I felt like saying it. If God really came to save, then why is he letting his people be given this impossible task? It's because we don't believe that the impossible task, the oppression, the trouble, is part of God's saving work. And, ladies and gentlemen, I want to get you to where you can see that if God endorses it, he's using it for your good. You may not label it as good, but he is using it for your good. He's doing something there. My sister, she bought me a Christmas gift. It was something I really wanted. I was really little, and I was from the South. And so I've done quite a bit of traveling. We've lived in a few different places. We've lived from Michigan all the way to the South, back up to, back to the South, back up to the North, and now we're in the midwest. You know, I mean, they call this the Midwest, right? And so a lot of my accent is gone.
If I get real hyped up and loud, you'll hear me get Southern, or if I'm really tired, I get Southern. My boys laugh at me, because every once in a while, like, "Hey, would y'all pass me that sweet tea over there, please?" You know? And they're like, "dad, you tired? You okay? You passing a kidney stone?" And so the accent comes out whenever I'm, you know, tired or hyped up or whatever. So I'm going to tell this, and it's going to seem weird, but my sister still talks like this. She's about as Southern as a sweet cinnamon apple pie, right?
Southern. But there was this one Christmas she bought me this Inspector Gadget doll. I loved Inspector Gadget. How many of you remember watching the inspector Gadget cartoon? It was awesome, because he had gadgets that would come out just in convenient times. He'd helicopter away, or he'd have skates, and he'd always fumble into something. You know, I loved that guy. I loved him. Well, they had this doll that came out that literally all these gadgets would come out of him. And so how many of you ever had that doll? I mean, it's always a letdown when you get the doll, because it doesn't ever do exactly, and it breaks like the third time you click a button. But it was so cool in the box. I remember opening the box, and I just unwrapped it. I didn't open the box; I unwrapped it. And then it had this window of the Inspector Gadget doll, and I was like, "Yes!" Oh, we have video of it. I wish I would have got it so I could play it. But I'm just looking at it, and I'm just mesmerized. I'm not saying thank you. I'm not saying anything. I'm just like, it's like one of those, you know, like I'm so excited, but no excitement's coming out. I'm just like... And so my sister is dancing around me. We both have, like, blonde curly hair, and she's dancing around me. She goes, "Aren't you excited? Aren't you excited? Hey, if you open it'll do something. It does stuff. It's a doll that does stuff. If you open it'll do stuff.
It'll really do stuff. Just, will you open it so it'll do something?" I think that's the way we think of the Christian life, our coming into a relationship with the Lord: "Just do something. Just do something." We're told this in church often: "If you'll just receive the gift, it'll change your life. It'll do something."
But he's not a gadget to be controlled.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 23:30
He is the sovereign God of the universe. His ways are higher than your ways. So if you have a plan, his plan's probably better. There is this element of trust and faith that comes in. In essence, you have to trust that he knows what's best, and you have to begin to come to grips with the fact that we're innately evil and we don't know what's best. Matter of fact, we don't even desire... Matter of fact, the Bible says you can't even trust your own heart. And so trusting you is doing so unto your demise. So we trust in him. That's who we trust. That's who we trust. So Moses goes to him and says, "What you doing? I don't understand this. I thought you were going to do something. I thought you
Point 2Breakthrough often comes through being broken
Were going to deliver. What are you doing?"
And I'll say this for point two: everyone wants a breakthrough in their life but refuses to be broken.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 24:32
What happens if the way that you get your breakthrough is through your brokenness? "I want breakthrough, but I want everything to..." Because here's the thing: breakthrough is break.
Breaking is requisite for breakthrough.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 24:55
It's in the word. But what happens if breakthrough comes through your breaking? There is a Scripture that says we would be like a sweet fragrance to the Lord that would waft up to him in worship. There's songs written on that. But what if the way that the fragrance gets out is through your breaking? I'm not saying you should pray that prayer. I've done that. That's not recommended. Oh, Lord. I remember, I'm even going to say it now, i'm scared to say it. I'm not praying this, Lord. I'm just telling a story, wherever you're at up there. I remember when we were first married, we were holy rollers, you know, and we loved the Lord, and I had read this Scripture and then heard a song about Mary breaking the vial at Jesus's feet. And I thought, oh, to be like the vial broken at Jesus's feet, and a sweet fragrance that would waft up to him. So I began to pray the dumbest prayer you could ever pray in the history of the whole world: "Lord, I want to be like the vial broken at Jesus's feet. Break me." Oh, he did. He's like, "Granted, my son." I mean, I can't even tell you. Kidney stones, house being broken into, car being stolen. Like, it was just one thing after another. Coincidence? Nope. Guaranteed not a coincidence. Rough. Wife almost died. Infant almost died, premature. Like, I can't even give you the list. It was insane.
Brook asked me to stop praying the prayer. As stubborn as I am, I would persevere to the end, and the end, to me, was Brook almost dying. I remember crying out to the Lord and saying, "I've served you. I want to be used by you." And then I remembered my prayer. Some of the most formative years in our lives have come through trouble, and some of the times that I can reflect on the most, that I cried and beseeched the Lord the greatest, were in times of trouble. And honestly, those are also formative for me, because I realize that God's deliverance is not necessarily in the immediate. He looks further than your moment to accomplish his will. Okay? Okay. Sometimes it's you he breaks. This is not popular preaching. It's not. Notice this. I love this about the
Point 3Your cry shows who you believe is sovereign
Scripture: the people cried out to Pharaoh; Moses cried out to God. There's the parallel, right? Here's the parallel. The people get in their trouble, and then they send a foreman to go speak to Pharaoh, and they cry out to Pharaoh. Moses gets into trouble, and he cries out to God. The people send the foreman, and they cry out to Pharaoh, because they think Pharaoh is the cause of their brick making. Why does Moses go to God? Because he knows Pharaoh is not the cause of their brick making. Matter of fact, he accuses God: "Why are you doing this, if you promised to deliver?" See, so let me just say this, and this is not necessarily great. You can dismantle this theologically in a few moments.
But let me just say, sometimes, not all the time, sometimes the direction of your cry shows who you believe is sovereign.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 29:10
Sometimes you got to be careful theologically, because you can't just make bold statements and think they'll apply everywhere. But in light of this, it's kind of interesting, because sometimes we cry out to people who have no authority to help you. Matter of fact, God hardened him so he would do it. Are you with me? So you're crying out to somebody who has no control over your cries. Think about that the next time you get in trouble. Think about that when you run to somebody who isn't God. It is amazing to me, because there was one year I started to do a silent poll of people who would come to group with prayer requests, and I would privately ask them if they prayed about them yet. You would be shocked at the people who hadn't even prayed about them, but came to small group and asked people in small group to pray for them. So in essence, they came and cried out to the people they thought could help before they cried out to the one who can help. It shows where we put our trust. We put more trust in our boss. We put more trust in our job. We put more trust in our husband. We put more trust in our wife. We put more trust in our kids, what they can provide for us emotionally. It is amazing to me, in the life of the church, in the life of just the world today, how parents, at the same time they think they are investing in their kids, they don't realize that really their kids have become a crutch. They've leaned on them so much they're breaking their children. You can't be a parent and depend on your children for your emotional state of being. Are you with me today?
But we burden people beyond measure for what they were never intended to
Pastor Shawn Gray · 31:18
Point 4Deliverance is bigger than the immediate moment
Carry. It's God's job. It's God's job. I love that last thing: the trouble with only seeing deliverance in the immediate. And I'll try to put this in perspective for you today. I'll try to put it in perspective. If you go to, I didn't put the verse down here, but there's a verse in this chapter, when Moses is speaking: "And you have not delivered your people at all." Good job, Moses. You went and cried out to God, but you said some really stupid things in there when you cried out to him. It's okay; he can handle it. Isn't it good that you don't have to be theologically correct all the time when you're talking to God? 'Cause you'd be missing that mark, I promise. And it's almost as if you get permission to be real with the Lord. You know why? Because he knows. He knows the meditation, and he knows your heart. He knows. So just say it. Just say it. This is your time to let it hang out. Doesn't mean it's right, but it is interesting: "You have not delivered your people." Can we just reflect on that, and then I'll close?
"You've not delivered your people at all." I mean, maybe if the entirety of God's story is right here in Exodus, and this is where it all starts, I see how you can get there. I see how Moses could get there. And that's how many of us live, isn't it? In the immediate. We don't consider the story.
And listen, in case you didn't know, your story didn't start when you were born.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 33:30
Your story started in the beginning. "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." That's your story. That's your story. See, we want to isolate it into a time frame, and some of you think you're doing good when you expand the time frame from the immediate to your lifeline, meaning you can look back to when you were born and you're looking forward to when you might die and what will happen to you eternally, and we think we're really clearly getting an A-plus when we do that. But life and your story lives beyond you generationally. "I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." It's not just one generation; it's multiple. Matter of fact, God does his work outside of generations. God will make promises that he will deliver, and he delivers generations later, after people have passed away. Matter of fact, he promises people will get to the promised land, and everyone that didn't get in died in the desert, and other people got in. Are you with me today?
Sometimes his promises outlive you.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 34:32
Can you think beyond your timeline in regards to God's purposes, or does he have to move when you're alive? If you're somebody who is so arrogant and prideful, and think you're so such-y much that everything has to be about you, then you will live a life without joy and peace. It's a problem. I was thinking, thank goodness God kicked Adam and Eve out of the garden. Thank goodness. It seemed like a brick-making moment, didn't it? "Now you got to go work by the sweat of your brow, and you have to go do all this, and now you're going to have pain in childbirth." Yay! God saved me. "God saved me, giving me this trouble?" He did, actually. Because if you'd have stayed there and ate from the other tree, you'd live forever in your sin state, not being able to get out. Are you with me? So sometimes the oppression and the trouble assigned by God, punishment by God, is his saving work. It seems bonkers, right? It just seems crazy. He's delivering you from trouble, but he's putting you in trouble. He's delivering me from trouble eternally, but he's putting me in trouble temporally. He's delivering me from trouble eternally, are you with me, but he's putting me in trouble temporarily, or temporally. And oftentimes that's how it works. Notice that a famine came on the land before here, and he delivered his people and saved them in Genesis by Joseph. And think about how much trouble Joseph had to go through to save the nation of the people that he wanted to deliver to the promised land. And they all would have died by famine if it wasn't for Joseph, who had to go through a bunch of trouble: thrown in a pit, thrown in jail, put in trouble. But God was saving through trouble. Are you with me today? And so if you think that God's saving work is absent of trouble, you haven't read the Bible, not with an open mind to consider that his saving work is his saving work and not your definition of it. You're like, "Where's the encouraging part, Pastor?" How can God be in the process of delivering his people from slavery when
Point 5Suffering and salvation are not strangers
Their burden increases? Isn't the opposite supposed to happen? Isn't it supposed to be easier?
Here's the closing: suffering and salvation are not strangers in God's work of redemption.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 37:43
God does let his people make bricks without straw, and it's part of his saving work. Here's the encouragement part: every trouble you face is not necessarily from the devil. We can talk about consequences. We can talk about sin. We can talk about all of that.
But honestly, guys, I think sometimes we attribute things to Satan that are really from God, and we should be asking God, "How is this a part of your saving work? How is this a part of it?"
Pastor Shawn Gray · 38:23
Now, whenever I get into some tough spots, I really don't feel hopeless. I feel hopeful. And I cling on to this promise: that God is good, and God is working all things for the good of those who love him and who are called according to his purpose. That's the encouragement.
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