The God Who Delivers

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Scripture, I assume most of us Christians have heard before. Maybe we've memorized it, but it's an important text for us. We are called to fear the Lord. We are called to wisdom. Without wisdom, we are fools. If we want to escape our foolishness, we must fear the Lord. For non-Christians, this means you are fearful of God as a holy and righteous judge. You fear God. You should fear God because you see that you are a sinner. You've rebelled against God. You've resisted Him. You've refused Him. And He is holy and righteous and good. And He will judge your sin. You fear God because His wrath is upon you. This should lead you to wisdom. The wisdom that's only found in the cross of Jesus Christ. If you're not a Christian this morning, you should be afraid of the wrath of God. And that should lead you to the wisdom of God, how He has planned to save you from His wrath by sending His Son to die in your place to remove God's wrath from you. Because Jesus Christ took your guilt upon Himself If you believe in him. For Christians. Fear the Lord's beginning of wisdom. Because if we fear God. We revere him. We have all for him. We desire to please him. He loved us in Christ and therefore we are now to love him. Because he has shown his goodness to us. We should want to live according to his goodwill. It all begins with a proper fear of the Lord, properly seeing God, properly knowing God and responding, and that will lead us to wisdom. The question this morning is this, do you fear God? Do you fear God, do you see him, know him and respond appropriately? There's a good test question. How does your fear of God affect your life? If we're truly fearful of God, it will affect our life. Do you know him? Do you seek him? Our message this morning is this. We are called to fear the one God who can deliver us. We are called to fear the one God who can deliver us. We're beginning or we're continuing our Exodus series. We're early on into it. We're in Exodus 1. Exodus 1 through 7, actually Exodus 1 through 14, we covered last week. Exodus 1, 1 through 7, that's establishing what God's already done in Genesis. He's caught out of people. He's delivered that people to Egypt. Egypt is an incubator for them now. It's a safe place for them to grow. If you look back at those verses repeated over and over, they grew, they multiplied. God blessed them. That was his plan. Take them into Egypt, let them grow large and then deliver them with his mighty right hand. Verse 8 introduces a, well it's an abrupt change in the story. A king rose in Egypt that did not know Joseph. So they're growing, they're multiplying, and now they're being oppressed. They're being treated harshly. They're being enslaved. But still, God grows them. He multiplies them. So Pharaoh's plan doesn't work. He wants to put them down with harsh treatment, but they continue to grow because God is good to them. Pharaoh cannot hinder God's plan. So this week, right now, we'll be looking at how Pharaoh tries to increase the pressure. He tries to hinder God's plan by killing every male child. And then in chapter two, look and see how God begins his deliverance. He begins his deliverance of Israel by delivering his deliverer. Moses is the one that God will use to deliver Israel. But first, Moses needs to be delivered. Really, these last two sections, Chapter 1, verses 15 through 22, Chapter 2, 1 through 10, they go together because it's the final high point of the threat against Israel. And there's God's solution. Moses. So let us begin looking at the text. Let me read our text in its entirety. Exodus 1 verses 15 through 210. Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shifron, the other Pua. When you serve as midwife to the Hebrew women and see them on the birthstool, if it is a son, you shall kill him. But if it is a daughter, she shall live. But the midwives fear God. and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them. They let the children, the male children live. So the king of Egypt called the midwives and said to them, why have you done this and let the male children live? The midwives said to Pharaoh, because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and they give birth before the midwife comes to them. So God dealt well with the midwives. And the people multiplied and grew very strong. And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families. Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, every son that is born of the Hebrews, you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live. Now, a man from the house of Levi went and took as his wife, a Levi woman. The woman conceived and bore a son, and when she saw that 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 peach. 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 Hebrew children. Then his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, shall I go and call you a nurse from 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. Father, bless. The preaching of your word. Help us to see your faithfulness. Help us to fear you. Almighty God, work in us. Amen. First. Point that we see here in verses 15 through 22, God's people remain faithful when his promise appears threatened. God's people remain faithful when his promise appears threatened. There's a few aspects that I want to draw the story to help us really sense the problem, the threat that that Egypt and Pharaoh are putting on God's people. He's already tried to hinder them once with harsh treatment. Now he's going to up the ante. He's going to bring out the big guns. He's going to make sure they can't multiply by killing the infant sons. The first thing we see is how wicked this is. This is a wicked plot. This is a wicked plan of Pharaoh against God's people. The rest of the book is set up. Pharaoh hates God's people. Everything he does is against God's people, and God is constantly frustrating every plan he has against his people. He cannot afflict them enough. It's vicious. He's killing the male infants. This is cruelty beyond comprehension. First, he's killing helpless children. He's killing helpless children in the name of a fear of attack. If you weren't here with us last week, his argument for killing the children, his argument for wanting to put the people of Israel down, or that if someone attacks from the outside, well, they may rise up and fight against us from inside. It's an irrational fear. He has a hatred for Israel. This plan is gross. While the child is being born, as soon as the midwife was to see if it was a boy, she was to kill the child quietly, so that the mother maybe thought that it was a stillborn child. This is gross. At the moment of life, he is ordering the midwife to kill. It's even more perverse because he's asking women to kill these infants. It's perverse to ask anyone to kill an infant, but women, God designed the woman to care and nurture and carry the baby. Here he's asking women to kill children of their own race, kill their neighbors and their friends, their family members, on children at the moment of birth. So this is supposed to be a secret operation. He's enlisted, he's conscripted Hebrew midwives to go in and do it quietly. Because he doesn't want anyone else to see it. Well, finally, After the midwives do not obey his orders, he comes up with the harshest solution. He gives up the secret plan, he makes it a public plan. He makes it a public edict, a public decree. If you see a Hebrew male child, you are to throw him into the Nile. You are to put him in the river and let him drown. Now this is disturbing. It's disturbing because These children, every child is made in the image of God. They're made with dignity. Pharaoh is destroying God's children that he has made in a special way for a special purpose to be his. This is especially troubling for the Israelites because the promises that go all the way back to Abraham are for his children. Specifically, we're looking for a male child. The firstborn son throughout all of Israel is extremely important. Pharaoh is hindering, seeking to hinder. He is attacking the purpose, the promise of God at its very heart. This is gross. It's disgusting. First thing we see is Pharaoh's wicked plan. Second thing, I want to point out, it's like God is mentioned in our text for the first time. Up until now, it's just assumed that following from Genesis, God is active with Israel and Egypt, as he promised Jacob, I will be with you and I will take you up out of there. But here God is mentioned, God is mentioned two ways. He is feared by the midwives and he blesses the midwives. What we see is that Pharaoh is opposed to God, because Pharaoh is opposed to God's people. What's amazing here is that God chooses to send two Hebrew midwives, lowly servants, to confront, frustrate, and beat Pharaoh. God uses two midwives to be the heroes of this story, and they are forerunners of Moses himself. The third thing we see in the story is fear. Fear is mentioned for the first time here. If you're reading Exodus, this is one of our key words. This is one of our key concepts. Egypt feared Israel. We saw that actually in the earlier section. They had a dread for him because they were afraid of Israel. The midwives feared God. These two fears are contrasted. Egypt fears Israel and that fear leads to a plan that's very frustrated. The midwives, they feared God and they were blessed. So the midwives, they do not obey Pharaoh because they feared God. They're putting their lives on the line. Pharaoh was the most powerful, most dangerous man in all the world. There would have been a natural fear of Pharaoh. He is a real, imminent, clear danger. But they chose to fear God. They did not do what the king commanded the text said. When called for correction, Pharaoh sees that they haven't killed the children, so he calls them in for correction. They give the rationale, the Hebrew women, they're tougher than the Egyptians. They have the child before we can get there. Now, one of the questions is, are they telling a lie? Are they being rewarded for lying? Well, I don't think this is a lie. I think they're being rewarded for their faith and their fear of God. Further, this must have some element of truth because Pharaoh doesn't counter the argument. Hebrew women must have been more involved in the birth process than the Egyptian women, so the midwives couldn't secretly, quickly kill the child. Egyptian women must have been more absent in mind during the process. They weren't focused in helping. The Hebrew women must have been. Here we see fear in the best sense. As we look through the text of Exodus, we're going to see fear over and over again. Fear isn't the theme of Exodus. God's presence is the theme of Exodus. We see God's presence in his redeeming Israel. We see his presence in making them a nation. We see God's presence in making them his temple. So God's presence in those three ways are the theme of Israel, but wrapped around that is the motif of fear. We see fear constantly mentioned around this main theme of God's presence. But typically we see fear From Moses, he's afraid of his calling. We see we see fear in Israel. They're afraid of what God's going to do to them if they actually obey and follow his promises. They're afraid of the wilderness. They're afraid of being hungry. They're afraid of destruction. Typically, fear demonstrates a lack of faith. But here, these two Hebrew midwives, fear demonstrates a great faith in God. These two women are being introduced at the beginning of our story as models of faithfulness. They are being introduced by name to be models for all of Israel while they're in exile. We don't get many names. We'll get Moses' mother's name later, but we don't even get her name in the next section. These two women, we get their name because God wanted Israel to be talking about these women. as models of courageous faith and those who feared him. They're two lowly midwives and they overcome Pharaoh and his plan. These women disobeyed a direct order from the strongest man and they did so because they feared God. The key thing here is that they feared God more than Pharaoh. Yes, there was a natural fear of Pharaoh. They feared God, however, more. There's a real dilemma. Who would they obey? Who is more important? To fear God is to have a reverence and a awe for him. The fear of God means to be honest, faithful, trustworthy, upright, and above all, Religious. Believing in God, therefore, fearing the consequences of not pleasing him. Thus, being a person of moral conviction and righteous action, the key elements here, if you fear God, you want to please him. Therefore, you have moral conviction and righteous action. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. To fear God is to recognize his right to rule over you. He is almighty God who was good, who gives you good instructions, who gives you wisdom to live by. To know God is to revere him. To revere him leads to obeying him. And all of this is summed up in the word fear. If we fear God, we know him, we revere him, we obey him. We seek to please Him. There are two main applications that I want to focus on in this, out of this section. First, we must have a healthy fear of God. Now this isn't, when we say fear, it's not limited to the words dread and terror. It's not void of that either. But it's more than that. When we fear God, we see him in his holiness, his righteousness, his power, his perfection, and we look up and we have reverence. We have all. We want to worship him, we want to know him more, we see how great and awesome he is. To fear him is to worship him. To see him is to be afraid because we know that he is perfectly holy. And we are sinful. See, for Christians to fear God, we no longer dread his judgment. When we fear God, that terror is removed. Because we fear God, we see that he has loved us in Christ Jesus. Christian, there is no fear. There is no fear of judgment, there is no fear of guilt. Because Christ. has died in your place for your son. So now we fear him by living for him. To fear him means we love him because he first loved us. To fear him means we obey him because we desire to please him because of what he's done for us. Because we see him and he's perfectly good. But just like the midwives, there's always someone competing for our fears. Who do you fear more than God? Who do you fear more than God? Let me ask you a different way. Who do you seek to please more than God? Who do you seek to please more than God? Is it your peers? Do you seek to please your peers and what they think of you more than God and being obedient to him and what he thinks of you? Are you denying Christ? Are you confessing him to your peers? Are you fearful of losing your reputation? I think this will maybe more common. Do you fear, do you seek to please yourself or God? Do you seek to please your own sinful desires or do you seek to please God and how he's commanded you to live? There's a clear principle in Scripture for Christians, you're either denying yourself or you're denying Christ. You're called to deny yourself and take up your cross, but when we seek out our own sin, we're denying the cross. And taking up our own desires. We need to grow in a fear of God, we need to grow in a desire to please him. The only proper response to knowing God is revering him. fearing Him, wanting to please God. If you are not growing in awe of God, you're not growing as a Christian. If you want to know your spiritual health, ask yourself, am I growing in my desire to please God? Say, how can I grow in my knowledge of God? How can I grow in my fear of God? How can I grow to want to please God more? Simple. Read his word. The more you know him, where he has revealed himself, the more you fear him, the more you desire to please him, the more you see how faithful and reliable he is. And go to him in prayer, ask him to reveal your sin, ask him to reveal your your failure and how you choose others instead of him. And ask for more faith. The second application from our text, as these women are being put forth for us as models of fearing God. Here's our second point. God is faithful to bless those who fear him. God is faithful to bless those who fear him. Now, God's plan did not depend on these women. He was going to deliver his people with or without these women. He's going to deliver his people with or without Moses. He's going to continue his kingdom with or without us. The beauty is that God chooses to use his people in his plan. The midwives, they feared God and it led to blessing. Now their midwives, they're married, most likely, but they're barren. They're probably midwives because they can't have children. And so when they fear God, they obey him. God blesses them with homes. I believe it's saying he blesses them with children. And I need to listen very closely because I don't want you to misunderstand me. The first thing, as we think about the fact that God is faithful to bless those who fear him, is this. We are given our position with God by His grace. We are given our position, which is God's children, by His grace. We are children of mercy. It is by God's mercy alone. Nothing we have done has earned it. We are no better than anyone else. It is by God's good grace and His mercy alone that we have a new position. We are His children by grace. We deserve wrath. We receive mercy. So we are given a new position by grace and we are meant to experience that position. God doesn't want to just seal you as son of God and then you never experience what it means to be the son of God. No, his spirit lives inside of you confessing that you are a child of God. He wants you to experience that position. Here's the switch, here's the important connection. If you want to experience that position, you must practice that position. If you want to experience that position, you must practice that position. You cannot expect to feel like a son if you are wallowing in the filth of the world. You cannot expect to see the face of God if your eyes are fixated on pornography. You cannot expect to feel the presence of God if you're desiring all the possessions of the world. You cannot boast in the cross and being a son of God in Christ if you're boasting in your position in this world. The key here is the position is given to us by grace. We're called to experience that position, and we do that by practicing. That position. Which means we desire to please him. We fear him. Here's an obvious truth, but I think one we wrestle with. God doesn't hold back his blessing. God blesses us while we're still sinners. How much more will God bless us when we're fearful? God doesn't hold back his blessing for his children. He's abundant and blessing while we're still sinners. How will he not bless us when we're fearful and faithful? Do you trust God to bless your faithfulness? Do you believe he will keep his promises? Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Do you believe that? Do you invest in it? God's goodness promises. God desires to give good gifts to his children. He is a perfect father of life from whom every good gift comes. He's faithful to bless when we're sinners. How much more will he bless when we are faithful? He's faithful to bless those who fear him. If you seek him. You will find him. Yeah, I think a lot of folks. Or afraid to really invest in seeking, not knowing if God is going to really be found. God has revealed himself. If you're a child, he wants you to know him growing more and more than knowledge of him. As he said in First Samuel two, for those that honor me, I will honor. God is good. He is always good to his people. He does not hold back. His good gifts. Now, what I'm not saying is that the more obedient you are, the more blessed you're going to be. I want to avoid this any concept of earning. It's our faith. See, it's about how much we trust God. Do you trust God to keep his promises? Do you believe him when he says, I loved you while you were still a sinner? Do you believe him when he says it's not your sin can't keep me from you? He loves you while you're a sinner. Yes, God loves someone as sinful as you and as sinful as me and as sinful as the next person next to you. Do you believe God will bless you if you give yourself to him? If you truly commit to knowing him with all your heart, your mind and your strength, Truly commit to loving him. Will he be found? The answer is yes. He will bless his children. Before we get our next section, I want to do what you really introduced an abrupt change. I want to go back through our story. There's an introduction. That's abrupt in itself. There's a king who did not know Joseph. He's over Egypt. He is punishing Israel. He's treating them harshly. He's oppressing them. He chooses to kill the male children, first privately, then publicly. The people are in peril. There's no obvious, clear resolution because all you're left with is the decree, throw them into the Nile. This story ends without resolution. We're transitioning now to a different story held by this oppression, held by this peril. It's amazing that God goes from the larger picture of how the people are in peril, their lives are in trouble, and we focus on one family. That's the pattern, isn't it? We go back to the flood. Before the flood, the whole world is in chaos. Everyone is going to be destroyed. We focus on one family, Noah. And the Tower of Babel. Everyone's resisting God, trying to build up a temple to God. They're dispersed. The whole world is opposed to God. God calls Abraham. All of Israel is in trouble. We focus on one family. We turn to Moses. But it's important to recognize there's tension in the story and it's not been resolved. Let me read Chapter 10, Chapter 2, 1 through 10. 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 that he was a fine child, she hid him three months. When she could hide him no longer, she took from 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 the river while her young women walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds. 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 a sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, Shall I go and call you a nurse from 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. Now this begins like a good old Hebrew Taylor Swift love story. Boy meets girl. They fall in love. They get married. Then they have a baby. Only then that baby is put in a basket in the Nile and then taken in the Pharaoh's home. So it's not that difficult. This is an unusual story. Because really, boy meets girl, they fall in love, they get married, they have a child. That's supposed to be a moment of celebration. But in Israel, in this day, it brings fear. It brings worry. Because the people are oppressed. They have a baby boy. Which introduces the first tension in this particular story. We focus in now on a new storyline. It's related to, but it's a new storyline. The old storyline left us hanging. We now have a new storyline. Now the focus on the mother's actions. There's really faith from both parents. We could see this in Hebrews 11, 23 and Acts 7, 20. But the focus is on the mother, and I'll point out something about that later. They kept him for three months when they could no longer conceal the boy. They're afraid every time an Egyptian may come by, the Egyptian has the power from Pharaoh to take that boy and throw him into the river. The tension of the story escalates through three interesting events. First, she takes him to the river. Now, most likely, this is the Nile River. In Egypt, when you say the river, it's the Nile River. She takes him to the very place that Pharaoh has decreed all baby boys be destroyed. She takes him to the very heart of danger. She takes him where the threat is imminent and clear. Secondly, she hides him in the reeds. Now, there's two ways to interpret this. I've seen folks interpret it both ways. One way is she's taking him to the river and hiding him, trusting God to deliver him. Second way is she's given up. She's in despair. So she's taken him to the river. And hidden him from her sight because she can't bear to see him die. very much like Hagar and Ishmael in Genesis 21. So she's taken to the river. She's hidden him in the reeds. I think the third part is really the most interesting because it answers us. It answers how I think we should interpret her taking and hiding. She puts the boy in a basket. Now, one interpretation would be that that is a casket. She's giving up on the boy's life. But the word translated as basket here is a unique word. It's only used one other place in all scripture. It's the word for ark. It's the word God used for Noah's ark, the instrument, the vessel by which God would deliver his people in the storms of life that was destroying all of the world. That was God's protective vessel. You know what Noah's Ark was covered with? Cinnamon. Everything is pointing that this is a safe place. I believe this is the way that God is showing us that this is a woman of faith. She has chosen a vessel trusting God to rescue her son and the waters of destruction. But here's the boy. He's in a basket, in the waters of death, hidden in the reeds, exposed to the elements. We're not looking good. The sister's watching. But it gets worse. Now, to really appreciate how bad this gets, to really identify and sense how bad this gets, put yourself in Miriam's shoes for a moment. She's sitting there, waiting to see what happens to the boy. She's crouching. Watching for her little brother. Seeing that his chances are not good. He's on the water, exposed to elements. Then the only thing worse could happen, happened. Egyptians come. Those who are killing the boys. And then she says, it's not just any Egyptian. It is Egyptians from the royal house where the decree came from. And it's not just any Egyptian from the royal house. It's Pharaoh's own daughter. She comes. Can you imagine the way your heart is sinking? The boy's head and she's here. You are just praying she doesn't have good peripheral vision. You're praying she doesn't see. But as the servants walk the riverbank. She goes towards the basket. What you expect to happen is that she takes the boy. She drops him in the water. But by God's grace, he brings a resolution. She has pity on. By God's grace, the woman who was born of the man who decreed that every Hebrew boy would be killed. God grants her to have pity on him. What a sigh of relief. She has pity on him. This is an amazing way for God to save this boy. But then it gets even better. What happens next is even more amazing. Because Miriam, who is fairly shrewd and bold, she goes up and says, well, can I find you a nurse? Yes, go. She brings the mother. God orchestrates this whole thing so that he is raised by his Hebrew mother. He's a child of a servant, and then he becomes the son of a king. He's trained in all the wisdom and education and learning of Pharaoh's own home. Now. It's very important for us to see this. Pharaoh invites the man who's going to destroy his dynasty. into his own home. He's trying to destroy the homes of Israel by killing the male children, and God orchestrates it so that Pharaoh himself invites the boy in who's going to destroy his home. God is faithful and awesome. This is divine drama. How does he bring this about? It's because he is completely sovereign and with his people. The final thing we want to look at is our very last verse. When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses because I drew him out of the water. He was drawn out from the reeds. He will draw God's people through the sea of reeds. He was drawn out of out of clear death and destruction. He will draw God's people out. God has delivered his deliverer. This should help the people in their faith correct their unbelief. God is awesome in how he brings about his salvation. Before we get to our concluding point, I mentioned earlier that it's the mother who's focused, who's in focus here. Notice that the story's already... So Moses, he's obviously a primary figure that we're pointing to because of what he's going to do later on in the story. But we've got two midwives, Moses' mother and Pharaoh's daughter. The way the story is designed is to elevate the role of women in Israel. God's Word has always elevated women to their proper place of dignity. He uses the two midwives to be the models of courage. He uses Moses' mother to lead him into Pharaoh's home, also using Pharaoh's daughter. It's just amazing as we look at this in light of the culture of the time, the women are exalted. As we conclude, big picture. What we see taking place here is just a small battle. In the midst of a great cosmic war. When we rebelled against God in the garden, when Adam rebelled. God told Eve, I will put enmity between your seed and the serpent. The world hates God's people. This is being played out right here. Israel is God's precious son. It's not the unbegotten son that we know of in Christ, but God declares Israel, the nation, to be his son, to be his people. Therefore, the world wants to kill them. We see the cosmic battle playing out. The Hebrew children, in the Hebrew children, we get a glimpse of the evil that's against God's plan. of salvation, that's all based upon one single male child. And the beauty here is that Moses' birth parallels Christ. First, it's the mother's role is so emphasized in both accounts. Secondly, they're both born when Israel is under harsh treatment, under a harsh ruler. They're born when a ruler is seeking to kill all the male children. There's a parallel, intentional parallel from God himself and his sovereignty. But there's a great difference between Moses and Jesus. Moses has the name draw out. He will be an instrument by which God draws out his people. Jesus's name. Means Yahweh saves. Moses was an instrument that God used to deliver people from a physical slavery. Jesus Christ is God himself who came down to take upon himself a human nature so that he could save us from our sins. How much greater is Jesus than Moses, our savior, our deliverer? He has come to live the life that we could not live as a man. So that he could die on the cross, take upon himself as an innocent man, all our guilt, the wrath of God on our guilt, so that we'll be free of it, so that God can be the just and the justifier of sinners. He rose again. And he's coming back. We are like Israel, we're waiting for our final redemption. We need to learn to wait patiently faithfully and expectantly. This world is not your home. Do not be trapped into loving the sins of this world long for the glory that you will see when Christ comes back and the trumpet resounds and we will see the face of God. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. How awesome are your ways, God? How you deliver people How you delivered Moses in the most desperate of situations. You are the God of hope and despair. You are the God of love in a world of hatred. You are the one God who is worthy of all our praise. Help us to fear you. Help us to desire to please you. Help us to know you in the height and breadth and depth and width of your love. Help us to long for your redemption to be completed and perfected. Amen.