Mothers

Oh man, I love that video so much. And three reasons, I'll give 'em to you real fast, three reasons why I love that video, and these are three reasons with Jerry Gillis today, three reasons I love this video. Number one, those were family members of The Chapel that were having fun, dancing around, goofing off, all that kind of stuff. Reason number two, because my daughter-in-law and my granddaughter were in that video dancing in my driveway, which I'm just getting to watch going, there's Josie. And then reason number three is because we had a couple of little Easter eggs tucked in there, for those of you that remember the 90s sitcom Family Matters, Steven and Courtney Daniels gave a little shout out to that particular sitcom in that video. It was awesome, if you don't remember it, just remember Steve Urkel. Yeah, now you can remember it, right? So it was a fantastic, fantastic video, that was a bunch of fun. Now, let me ask you a question, have you ever been at a gathering where you were there, maybe it was a wake, or funeral, or a wedding, or something like that, and somebody came up to you that you should have remembered, but you knew that you're supposed to know them, but you did not remember their name and they remember your name fine. And it's like, you guys are like this, but you realize you do not know their name, has that ever happened to anybody before? Okay, great, I'm not alone here. So then you try and pull some move, you're trying to figure out how you can get their name out of them or whatever, and I'm not saying I've ever done this, but you probably have, like when you were talking to somebody and you couldn't figure their name out, let's say you were at a wake or something at a funeral, and then you do the old like, "Hey, you know what, I've just remembered, I forgot to sign the guest book, I'll be right back." And then you go to the guest book to look for their name and see if it jogs your memory so that you can come back and be like, "Jimmy, what is going on, man?" So I'm not saying that I've ever done that, but I have done that. But I'm not saying that I've done it, so you don't really know what to believe. But I have done it. Here's the thing, in a moment I'm gonna introduce you to a mom, but it's difficult to introduce you to her, because she's actually unnamed in our text in Exodus 2. So it's gonna take a little bit of doing for me to be able to introduce this mom to you, because her name is not present in Exodus 2, but don't worry, I'm gonna sneak off to the guest registry and we'll be able to figure it out. But before I do that, before I do that, I wanna say to all of our moms, happy Mother's Day, whether you're on this campus, any of our campuses watching online, happy Mother's Day to you all. I was actually looking at something this week in preparation for this message. There's an online publication called "Motherly", I don't read it, obviously, why would I do that? Like it's just, yeah, just go in there and read it, it's awesome, I don't read it, but I noticed it because of a search that I was doing, and they did a state of motherhood survey through this publication called "Motherly". There was a lot of different findings, it was a very diverse group of moms that they had surveyed, lots of them, thousands of them, very diverse group from all over the United States. And one of the things that popped out to me, there were a number of different findings, but one of the things that popped out to me was that just in this last year, think about this, just in this last year, the number of stay-at-home mothers has doubled, just in this last year. Now, as I was looking at that, I was like, huh, that's really interesting. And I figured, there's some reasons for that that are pragmatic, one of the pragmatic reasons is the cost of childcare. Moms figured, I'm working, I'm paying for childcare, and I basically am netting out like I'm making 20 bucks a week, and that's not going to work, so they just decided to stay home. So I realized that some of that is pragmatic in terms of why moms are choosing to stay home at an incredibly high frequency, particularly year-to-year to double that number is remarkable. But I must confess that I'm actually delighted by that finding, not because moms cannot or should not work, certainly they can and they should, and there's biblical precedent for that, of course, and some have to, there's no question about that either. What I'm delighted by is that I think maybe it communicates a couple of things. Hopefully, I'm looking at it hoping this is what it's communicating. One, I hope that it's communicating that marriage is making a comeback. And two, what I hope it's communicating is that people are starting now to recognize the virtue and the value of motherhood. That's what I'm hoping. Again, it's not a commentary on anything in particular, but that's what I'm hoping for. And I wanna say all of that to say and remind you today, hey, moms, grandmas, you matter, and what you do, it matters a lot. And in fact, the woman that I'm gonna introduce you to, the mom I'm gonna introduce you to in just a moment, she's gonna show us just how much that you really do matter, and she's gonna demonstrate that for us. And listen to me, every single person in here, all of us can learn from it. Some of you may be thinking to yourself, you know what, it's Mother's Day, so this message is just for moms, and you're here and you're a woman, and you're not a mom, and you're going, I'm just gonna check out, or maybe I need to learn in advance what's going on, listen to me, I promise you this message is for you. And for everybody in here who's not a mom, every man in here, you're going, is this message for me? This message is also for you. And the reason that I'm telling you that is because this that I'm about to communicate to you is the Word of God. And the Word of God is useful for teaching and for correction and all of these things, it's useful for us, and God, by his Spirit, will make application in your own life if you'll pay close attention. So we're in the Book of Exodus, so the first book of the Bible is the Book of Genesis, if you don't have a copy of the Bible with you, I'm gonna show it to you on the screen, but I encourage you, if you continue to come here frequently to have a Bible with you, whether it's digital or whether it's a paper copy, like I use, Genesis is the second, I mean, Genesis is the first book, and then right after that is the Book of Exodus, and we're gonna be in Exodus 2, and here's what it says beginning in verse number one. It says, "Now a man of the tribe of Levi married a Levite woman, and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son." That's what it says, now, obviously, we're looking at that and going, okay, the mom's unnamed, so how do we actually get to an introduction here? My job is to introduce you to this mother, but he's not giving us a name right here, she's just called a Levite woman that was married to a man from the tribe of Levi, so what am I doing? Well, I'm gonna dismiss myself for just a moment, which I did, and I'm gonna go over to the guest registry. The guest registry in this case is what I would call a genealogy, and I can find it in the Book of Numbers, I find a genealogy that actually lists out some names. And here's what it says in Numbers 26, "The name of Amram's wife was Jochebed," there she is, "a descendant of Levi, who was born to the Levites in Egypt. To Amram, she bore Aaron, Moses, and their sister Miriam." So we find out her name, her name is Jochebed, she's the mom to the oldest daughter whose name is Miriam, and then there's Aaron after that, and then obviously she's the mother of Moses. Now, Jochebed's name means God's glory or to the glory of God. Now, why do I even bring that up? I bring it up because what she does in this narrative, in this true story that happened in history, is she demonstrates what it looks like for a person to bring glory to God. Now, some of you're going, man, this whole phrase, like glory, God's glory, it's kind of like one of those phrases that I don't always understand. When somebody talks about God's glory, I just kind of think to myself, what does that mean actually, God's glory? Does it mean that God's just really shiny? Is that what I think of when I think of God's glory, and I just go, it's bright, that's what I think of. Well, it's more than that, what God's glory is, is when God's holiness is put on public display. That's what God's glory actually is, God's holiness being put on public display. But the Bible actually tells us that we're to be a people who actually bring God glory, that we glorify God. Now, that sometimes can be confusing for us as well, because we're thinking to ourselves, can I really add to God's glory? Is there anything I can do that can make God more glorious than God already is? Well, obviously we can't, God is glorious, God is majestic, God is all of those things all by himself, and we're not doing anything to add to that, but when the scripture says that we're to glorify God, here's what that means, it means that through our lives, we're putting the holiness, and the beauty, and the goodness, and the greatness of God on display. And do you know how we do that? Listen carefully, by trusting him, that's how we do it. That's how we put the beauty, and the goodness, and the greatness, and the majesty, of God on display for all to see, is when we trust him. So if there was something that I would want you to walk away with today from what we're going to study, it's a really simple thought, it's this, that God is glorified when we trust him. It's as simple as that, God is glorified when we trust him. And the reason that I'm pointing to Jochebed is because that's what Jochebed did, her life demonstrated this principle. So what I wanna do is I wanna look at this narrative, and I wanna walk through it basically answering this question, how did Jochebed demonstrate God's glory? And I'm hoping that as we answer that question of how she did that, that you'll be able to see how can I then demonstrate God's glory? And you can do it in the same way that she did it, so whether you're a mom or a grandmom, whether you're a dad or a grandfather, whether you're a single adult, a college student, whatever you may be, whatever your station in life is, these principles are true for you, and they will apply to you, but we're gonna look through the lens of this precious woman named Jochebed. So how did she demonstrate God's glory? Here's first way, by trusting God personally. This is how she demonstrated God's glory. She trusted God on a personal level. Now, obviously we read just a moment ago in Exodus 2, but Exodus 1 comes before that, thank you, professor, Exodus 1 gives us the backstory of what was going on during this season and this time. And here's what I can tell you, it was a fearful time for the people of Israel. When you look at Exodus 1, you realize this was a fearful time. Now remember, it was a good time for them because there was a man named Joseph that God had raised up among the Israelites, and Joseph grew in power in Egypt and was basically the right hand to the Pharaoh. And God put him in that place for such a time as he was there so that he could rescue ultimately his people from a famine that was coming. So Joseph was put there actually to help deliver his people from a famine that was coming, and God used him greatly. But Joseph died and Joseph's family died, and then there came along a Pharaoh that didn't remember Joseph, that didn't really care about Joseph, that didn't even think about Joseph or his family. And now it becomes a pretty serious issue, because what was happening is in Egypt, all these Israelites are just multiplying. In other words, these Egyptian families were having kids at a very high rate. So what the new Pharaoh did is he decided he was gonna put 'em all to work. And he thought to himself, if they grow too big, this is gonna be a huge problem. Because if they grow too big and somebody tries to attack us as Egypt, they can join with our enemies and they can be freed from all this, so he put slave masters over them and he forced labor for them, but the more labor that he forced, the more that they continue to multiply. So he said to the midwives in Israel, the Hebrew midwives, he said, "Every single boy that's born, I want you to kill them. And every single girl you can let live." But the Hebrew midwives, they didn't do it because they feared God more than they feared the Pharaoh. And the Pharaoh said, "Hey, I see that all these boys are living, what seems to be the problem." And they're like, "You just don't know these Hebrew women, they just pop out babies too fast, we can't even get there before they pop these babies, blah, blah, blah, blah, babies coming everywhere." That's what these Hebrew midwives said. And Pharaoh was like, "Oh." So he passes an edict, and here's the edict, in all of the land, every male baby that's born must be thrown into the Nile River. That's the edict that he passes. Every male baby born, all the girls, they can be born safely, but every baby that is a male must be thrown into the Nile River. And this is the place where we meet Jochebed. This is the place where we meet Moses' parents. Notice what it goes on to say in verses one and two, it says, "A man of the tribe of Levi married a Levite woman, and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that her son was a fine child, she hid him for three months." This is a remarkable thing, isn't it? Could you imagine, moms, who've ever been a mom, could you imagine being pregnant at this time, at this exact time, could you imagine that? Now, Jochebed already had two kids, Miriam at the time, her oldest daughter, might have been somewhere, this is speculative, but might have been somewhere between seven and 10 years old, roughly. And then of course, Aaron that she had, Aaron, she had before there was an edict that was given, and Aaron was probably in the neighborhood of three years old at this time, and now she's pregnant again. Here's the difficulty, she doesn't know what she's having for sure, there weren't any ultrasounds in those days. She didn't get to find out. There was no gender reveal party that she was having. Gender reveal party was birth, that's what it was. So she didn't have any of those options, here's all she had, she had trust in God, even though she knew that the baby she was gonna give birth to only had a 50% chance of living, but she just simply had to trust God. In fact, when the writer of Hebrews talked about people of faith, he actually looked back on Moses' parents like Jochebed and Amram. And here's what that writer said, he said, "By faith, Moses' parents hid him for three months after he was born, because they saw he was no ordinary child and they were not afraid of the king's edict." Can you imagine that? Her trust was so personal in God that she was not afraid of what the king had said. She knew that children were a blessing given by God. She knew that God had called people to be fruitful and multiply. She knew that every life was precious before God. And so she wasn't so scared of the king's edict, but instead she personally trusted God. And by the way, the king misplayed his hand, Pharaoh, because what he was thinking was, I'm gonna kill all of the boys, because ultimately they're the problem, because those boys grow up to be men who become soldiers, who actually can be a dangerous thing to my kingdom. Just them? Pharaoh, you think it's just, just the dudes that can be dangerous? 'Cause let me see if I can let you in on something, Pharaoh, God was working through Hebrew midwives to preserve the lives of those boys. God was working through a woman named Jochebed who hid her male child for three months. God was working through a little girl named Miriam who would stand at the bank and watch what happened with her brother. God was even working through Pharaoh's own daughter who would see this baby and have compassion on him. Lemme just remind you of something, men and women can be dangerous in the Kingdom of God. This is a beautiful picture of God orchestrating that through the trust that Jochebed and Amram have. But Jochebed is also trusting in God's promise, personally, like she's personally trusting in God's promise. And you're like, what promise are you talking about? The promise that God gave to Abraham many, many, many, many, many years before. Here's what it says in Genesis 15, "As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick, dreadful darkness came over him. Then the Lord said to him, 'Know for certain," watch this, "that for 400 years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there, but I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions.'" You see, here's what Jochebed knew, that it had been about 320 years that they had been in captivity, that they had been in enslaved, that they were being dealt with oppressively. And she knew God had said, this is only lasting for 400. And what Jochebed did is she trusted God personally, because she realized that I don't know who necessarily is in my belly, but I know that this might be the very person that God uses for his own glory and delivering ultimately on his promise. She didn't want to get in the way of the promise. She was trusting God on a personal level, but you know what? You know what she was also doing? How she trusted God so personally, she was willing to bring a child into that world, isn't that a remarkable thing? I mean, I'll be honest with you, I hear sometimes young moms and dads, and sometimes I hear older people who speak with nothing but fear. And the fear is this, I just can't bring a child into this, this world is crazy, this world is nuts. And I can't bring a child into this world. Jochebed would like a word. More than ever Christian, we need those children who were born to moms and dads who know and love Jesus, who can disciple them in the way of God, knowing that God may greatly use them in this world to see more and more people come to faith in Jesus, to see the darkness push back and the light of the gospel go forth. We are not conditioned as people to live by fear, that is not the design that God has for us. He's not given us a spirit of fear, but of love, and of sound mind, and of power, this is the spirit that God has given to us, Jesus said, "In this world, you will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world." Sometimes we need to remind ourselves the grave is empty and the power of God still exists in this world, so don't walk around in fear, I could never bring a kid into this world, Jochebed would like to speak to you about what it means to trust God. She trusted God personally in her own life. This was faith over fear. Now, it's possible, I don't know for sure to be honest with you, I don't know, did she know that God was going to do something special with this child? Maybe, many of the Jews through history believe that she did know that. Remember, the scripture actually says that when she saw that he was a fine child, in fact, in Hebrews it says, "When they saw he was no ordinary child," what does that mean? What exactly is being referred to? I don't know exactly, the historian, Josephus, who was around the time of Jesus just a little bit after around the time of Jesus, not back in the time of Moses, he actually wrote that there were many who believed that God gave a vision to Amram, that the baby that was in Jochebed's stomach was going to be a deliverer. I don't know, we don't have any record of that, but that's what some believed. There were others by the way, like Rabbi Ben Ishmael, who said that God gave a prophecy to Miriam, his sister, which by the way, she was a prophetess, because you remember that later on, that God gave a prophecy to Miriam that he would be a deliverer for Egypt, I mean for Israel out of Egypt. I don't know if that's true or not. There are other scholars that believe that maybe this idea of a fine child or they could see that he was no ordinary child, meant that there was some defining mark on him. Some of you're going, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, it's not exactly the same thing, but that there was a defining mark that was on him where they knew that this was God who had done this. I don't know the answer to that question, we're not given it in scripture, but here's what I do know, Jochebed trusted God on a personal level. Let me ask you something, how are you doing with that? Are you trusting God personally? I'm talking about trusting him for real, in real life situations. Lemme see if I can back you out of that. Let me ask it a different way, when's the last time you actually had to trust God for something, like trust him? Because when we do that personally, it puts his greatness, and his goodness, and his holiness on display for everybody around us. Maybe for you, you've had to trust him with a kid. Maybe you've had to trust him in a relationship. Maybe you had to trust him related to a job. Maybe you had to trust him with something he's asking you to do in terms of serving him. I don't know what it may be. But when's the last time you've done that? Because God's intent is that we live that way, it pleases him, without faith, "It is impossible to please God," Hebrews tells us. So she's bringing him glory by trusting him personally, but lemme show you a second truth. She's bringing him glory by trusting God's sovereign care. She's trusting God's sovereign care, watch what occurs here as we look in verse number three and four. It says, "When she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch." Remember that, "Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. And his sister, Miriam, stood at a distance to see what would happen to him." Jochebed was now in a position where she didn't have really any choice, she had hid this child for three months, as long as she could hide the baby. Could you imagine what she was going through, the things she was experiencing, what she was feeling, who she could trust, who was maybe gonna rat her out? She's having to quiet the cries that are happening at night because she's got a little boy and she's hiding this little boy for three months, and she realized I cannot do this any longer. At some point, this is going to be a problem, so what does she do? She just has to entrust this child to the Lord. It's a remarkable and a desperate place to be, and she has to say goodbye to this child, and she puts him in a papyrus basket and puts him in the reeds of the Nile River. Could you imagine that goodbye? Jochebed was now in a position where she didn't have really any choice, she had hid this child for three months, it's as long as she could hide the baby. Could you imagine what she was going through, the things she was experiencing, what she was feeling, who she could trust, who was maybe gonna rat her out? She's having to quiet the cries that are happening at night because she's got a little boy and she's hiding this little boy for three months, and she realized I cannot do this any longer. At some point, this is going to be a problem, so what does she do? She just has to entrust this child to the Lord. It's a remarkable and a desperate place to be, and she has to say goodbye to this child, and she puts him in a papyrus basket and puts him in the reeds of the Nile River. Could you imagine that goodbye? Could you imagine that goodbye? I've heard it said before that motherhood is a series of goodbyes. We say goodbye to the infant that becomes a child. We say goodbye to the child that becomes a teenager. We say goodbye to the teenager that becomes an adult. And then we say goodbye. This is a part of what motherhood actually is, and I can't imagine what this actually feels like for Jochebed, how she's doing what she's doing and offering this child back to the Lord. But ultimately, when she does it, she realizes something that you and I need to realize, and it's this, is that that child in her heart was God's, not hers. That's what she knew, that's what she realized. This child is God's, it's not mine, and so I'm entrusting this child back to the Lord. Moms, I wanna remind you of something, dads, I'm reminding you too, but moms, I'm talking to you specifically today, God cares about your children more than you do. Let me say it in a different way, God loves your children more than you do. Now, some of you as a mom, you're struggling with that, you're struggling to hear that, because you're like, no one loves my kids like I do. I don't know if you know my background. Nobody loves my kids like I do. Yes they do. Here's why, your love is imperfect. It always has been. It can certainly be given by God and there can be these beautiful moments of the kind of love that only God can give for people that you've demonstrated, but you and I both know that you've blown it. You and I both know, dad, we've blown it. Our love is not perfect, our care is not perfect. And we may love them from a human perspective more than other humans do, but we do not love them more than the God who is all perfect in his love, loves them. We do not care for them more than the God who is all caring, loves them and cares for them. We do not, God loves them more than you love them, God cares for them more than you care for them, that's why we can entrust our children to him. I remember when our first son was born, and Edie and I were at the hospital, it was an emergency c-section, we were at the doctor's office, they were freaked out, things were happening, they were like, we're going straight to the hospital, we weren't ready for that, we didn't bring our go bag with us, we had it at the house. And now we're gonna have to go an emergency c-section, we, she's gonna have to get an emergency c-section. I had scrubs on, so I was gonna get to get in and watch the whole thing, doctors let me in, I actually stood behind the doctor when he did the code for the doctor's lounge, and I memorized it, 'cause I'm like, I might need that at some point. I'm a pastor, I sometimes go to the hospital and I'm like, I might just need to slip in, have a coat, kick my feet up for just a minute after I've made a visit. And I won't say if I did or didn't, did, but I won't say if I did or didn't. Doctor, doctor, good to see you guys, I'm new here. Whatever, so we go in there, do you know what we did? We had just a moment, we just had a flash before they were gonna whisk her away and whisk me behind her, you know what we did? Simple prayer, Lord, this baby's yours. We didn't know if it was a boy or girl, we didn't find out, we chose not to, we did have technology, yes, all of you smart alec young people. We could have found out, I didn't live in the stone age. We could have, we just didn't. So we didn't know if it was boy or girl. We just said, Lord, this is your child, this is yours. And that's how we did with both of our kids. I remember my first very specifically, but we did this with both of our children, we entrusted them to the Lord. Now, the thing is, it's like we're not in the same position that Jochebed was in, she was in a desperate position, in an emergency position. She didn't have any other alternative, and she put her son in a papyrus basket, coated it with tar and pitch and put it on the water of the Nile River. Have you seen the Nile River? Have you seen pictures of the Nile River? You seen those things, they existed then too. They're not new, this can be a dangerous thing. And you might be thinking to yourself like, why did she choose to do that? I mean, she didn't have many other alternatives, she couldn't keep hiding him, she just didn't know, why did she choose to do that? Here's why, because her trust in God and what God had been in the past was running around as the narrative in her mind. Maybe it would help you if I translated papyrus basket in another way in which it can be translated, are you ready for it? Ark. That's how it also can be translated. She put him in an ark. Now, listen to what God said in Genesis 6 related to how the ark was formatted, it says, "So make yourself an ark of cypress wood, make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out." And now what we have an Exodus is she is taking a little ark and she's coating it with pitch and tar inside and out, and putting her little child in there and putting it out into the water, why? Because she knew the God that she was trusting this child with was a God who could lead them through the dangerous waters and could also be delivered out of it so that there would be hope on the other side. This is what she knew, her trust was rich and deep in the sovereign care of God. How are you doing with that? How are you doing with trusting God with his sovereign care over everyone and everything? Because you and I, we get to the end of realizing that we can't control every scenario related to our kids or our grandkids, we can't control every scenario related to our workplace, we can't control every scenario about other stuff going on in our family, we can't, and there are times we just have to push pause and say, we trust you, God, we just trust you. How are you doing with that? Because she, she trusted God's sovereign care. And you know what God did? What happened with that? God sovereignly orchestrated the circumstances when she trusted him, because God's gonna put his glory on display through her trust. Watch what happens, beginning of verse number five, it says, "Then Pharaoh's daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank. And she saw the basket among the reeds and sent her female slave to go get it. She opened it and saw the baby, and he was crying and she felt sorry for him. 'This is one of the Hebrew babies,' she said. Then his sister asked Pharaoh's daughter," this is little Miriam, she's standing at the riverbank, and she sees that Pharaoh's daughter has seen the baby, and she calls out, how smart is this little girl? She calls out, "Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you? And Pharaoh's daughter said, 'Yes, go.' So the girl went and got the baby's mother," which was also her mother. "And Pharaoh's daughter said to her," now she's saying this to Jochebed, "Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you. So the woman took the baby and nursed him." She trusted the Lord with her child, and here's what God did, he sovereignly orchestrated the circumstances to give her her kid back. That's what he did, he gave her her child back, not forever, but he gave the child back, and, and she got paid for it. Stay at home moms right now are going, can I get a witness? Somebody, speak this over my life? Talk to me. It's a remarkable thing that God did here. You see, what it reminds us of is this, is that God can be trusted. Listen, when Jochebed was on that riverbank after she had let that child go, you look and think she's alone, she's not. God is with her. That little child is in a papyrus basket on the Nile River, and you think that child's all by himself, no, he is not, God is with him. You think there's just a little girl all by herself standing on the shore of the Nile, on the riverbank, nope, this is a girl that has God with her. And God gave her the wisdom and the insight to call out and say, "Hey, you want me to go get one of the Hebrew ladies to nurse that baby for you?" And she thought it was a great idea, and she did, and she got this child back. Listen to me, God can be trusted. And when we trust him, he puts his glory on display for everybody to see it. It may not look like right now what you want, we're not in same kind of dire position maybe that she's in, but maybe it feels that way to you. And maybe you're in a position right now, maybe it's with a kid, or a grandchild, or in a relationship, or with your job, or with other family members, whatever it may be, and you're thinking, man, this looks not good, this looks not great, this is a difficult place to be in, your job is to trust God and to trust God's sovereign care in all of it, and to demonstrate that trust by just trusting him, trust him. Because what God will do, listen to this, God is the ever-working, infinitely wise God, he's always doing things. It may not look like what you want right now, but God's not finished. God still has things to do, and sometimes we just have to put our trust in him and let God play the long game, because for him, it's not long, just for us. But let me show you a third truth here of how Jochebed demonstrated the glory of God and how we can as well, by trusting God to redeem the time. This is what she also did, she not only trusted God personally, she trusted God's sovereign care, but she trusted God to redeem the time, look in verse number 10. "When the child grew older, Jochebed took him to Pharaoh's daughter and Moses became her son. She named him Moses, saying, 'I drew him out of the water.'" This is a remarkable thing. Now, how long did she have him? How long did Jochebed have her child back? It says when he grew older, that's a Hebrew way of saying he was weaned. It's not talking about, yeah, he was 30, still living at the house, doing some stuff, and then he went over and hung out with her. No, it's when the child was weaned, when she weaned him. Now, what is that in Hebrew literature? Somewhere in the neighborhood of as young as two and a half or three, all the way to the age of five, it's somewhere in that window. So let's just say, let's kind of cut it in half and say it's three or four years old, roughly. What do you think that she did during those three or four years? What do you think Jochebed was doing? Yes, she was having to make sure he was clean and fed and doing all that stuff, and I'm sure Pharaoh's daughter was helping out, making sure all of that came to be as well. But do you know what she was doing primarily? Planting seeds of faith in this little boy, that's what she was doing. She had a real short window. She knew she had a short window, and she was redeeming the time she had and praying that God would redeem the time that she didn't have. And so she invested in him. She told this little child about the faithfulness of God to Abraham, about the faithfulness of God to Isaac, about the faithfulness of God to Jacob, about the faithfulness of God to Joseph, about how God had been faithful every step of the way to his people and God will always be faithful, and she taught him to love God and to love the people of God. But then she had to hand him over. Short window, and then she had to hand him over. And when she handed him over, I guarantee you, because I know every parent, and because I am one, that her feelings were just like all of our feelings were. Felt insufficient, it wasn't long enough. Did I teach him all he needed to learn? Is Egypt just gonna pull out of him everything that I put in him, and they're gonna replace it with all the things that I don't want to be there? I remember when our first was going off to college, and we were, Edie and I dropped him at college, and she cried and I patted her knee, and I tried not to cry. And we got home, and I remember the two of us standing in the kitchen. And here's what we were saying to one another, "Did we do enough? Did we demonstrate the gospel in our home enough? Did we disciple 'em enough? Did we model enough? Did we teach them the Word enough?" Because both of us felt like, listen, even though we had 18 years, it felt like that. I can promise you, now I'm talking like an old guy, but just suck it up for a second, some of us have some wisdom. The days when we were raising them, the days were long, but the years are short. Because I promise you, one day they're playing T-ball and the next day they are grown men. That's what happened in our family, I blinked and I had two grown men in my house, two grown men gone from my house, two grown men married with kids, well, one of 'em, one of 'em getting married in June. Just like that, boom, it just happens. So what's the responsibility, mom and dad? To redeem the time that we have. We're never going to feel like we have enough of it. So we redeem the time we have and trust God to redeem the time we don't. Now, some of you moms and dads are like, you know what? I didn't come to faith until later on in life, my kids were already grown, and I feel like all that's gone. Listen to this, God is the one who can redeem the time. You're saying, well, I didn't really have, now you do, by the grace of God, now you do. So demonstrate the glory of God and your trust in God right now. He can restore the years that the locusts have eaten away. That's what it says in the book of Hebrews. I'm sorry, that's what it says in the Old Testament, Hebrews kind of references some of that stuff. Now listen, some of us need to realize that we are not redeeming the time and we need to redeem the time in our relationships and then trust God to redeem what we don't have. This is what God has called us to do. Jochebed impacted Moses greatly by her trust in God, I mean greatly. And even though she was basically unnamed in this narrative, her faith was not unrewarded. Isn't that a beautiful thing to know people in the Bible who generally, like literally in the narrative, they're unnamed, but their faith's not unrewarded. Because God glorifies himself through us trusting him in all things. And guess what she got to be a part of? This grand story of redemption. She got to be a part of it. She would've never thought it, she's not even named in Exodus 2. And she is a foundational part of what happened, because what Moses ended up doing is growing up. Yes, he was in Egypt, yes, it didn't work out so good, but yes, he had compassion for his people, yes, he still had a heart for God, but it didn't happen when he was 40, it happened when he was 80. God didn't need the 40-year-old version, he needed the 80-year-old version, why? Why when he was 80? Because they'd been in captivity for 320 years, and God said, after 400, this dance is over. And now 320 plus 80, do my math, that's 400, and now you've got Moses, who's being raised up to be able to deliver his people, to lead them out of captivity into the land of promise, fulfilling the promise that God had made to Abraham, the very promise that Jochebed had held tight because she trusted God all along. Moses even prophesied, by the way, friends, he even prophesied that even though he was a prophet, there was one coming, there was another one coming. Listen to what he said in Deuteronomy 18, "The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites, you must listen to him." Who was he talking about? He was ultimately talking about the Messiah that was to come, which we know to be Jesus. And by the way, there's a whole lot of parallels because Moses is a prototype of who the Messiah would ultimately be. He's kind of like a signpost giving us a picture of what the Messiah was actually going to be. If you remember Jesus' parents, like Moses' parents were actually, during a time of great oppression, in fact, the king of that time in Jesus' day did what the Pharaoh of that time did, and he actually gave an edict that all the male children in Bethlehem were to be put to death under two years old. Same thing, guess what? Jesus also hid in Egypt just like Moses did. And that's not where the parallels end, because Moses prefigures the Messiah Jesus. Moses sent 12 spies to Canaan, do you remember that? He did that so he could bring people to the promised land that God had given to them. But Jesus sent 12 disciples into the world so that people could receive the promise of God. Moses married a gentile named Zipporah, and Jesus married a mostly gentile bride named the church. Moses' face radiated with glory on Mount Sinai. Jesus' face radiated with glory at the Mount of Transfiguration. Moses' mission was to redeem Israel from slavery to Egypt, and Jesus' mission was to redeem mankind from slavery to sin. Moses told his people about the Passover lamb, a spotless lamb that was to be slain and its blood put on the doorpost so that when the angel of death came by, that they would pass over every home where the blood had been applied. And Jesus was that Passover lamb, that through his shed blood now everybody who puts their faith in him and what he's done, the judgment and the wrath of God passes over us because of the blood of Christ shed on our behalf for the forgiveness of our sins. Moses in the wilderness lifted up a serpent so that everyone who would look on it would be healed. And Jesus was lifted up on a cross so that everyone who looked to him would be healed. Moses subdued an attacking army by raising his arms high on a hill with two people standing right next to him holding his arms up, but Jesus subdued the attack of sin, and death, and hell by raising his arms on a cross surrounded by one person on each side of him. Moses raised his staff and he split the sea so that Israel could enter the land of promise, but Jesus was raised on a cross so he could split the curtain of the temple and we could enter into the land of his presence. Moses led the Israelites in a victory song after they were delivered from Egypt. And that victory song is going to be repeated according to Revelation 15 for Jesus when he returns. You see, what we see here is who would've ever thought that relative nobodies like Jochebed would ever have, by faith, the opportunity to be the part of a story so great of the redemption and deliverance of people. Listen carefully to me, your faith and trust in God can cause people to hear about God even if you are generally unheard of. Moms, remember that. Some moms are just like, man, I'm just, whew, I'm tired, I've wiped more rear ends than I need to. It's like, what do you eat, man, what is happening? Every day feels like Groundhog Day, but just know this, you're trust in God and how that's demonstrated to your kids and to your grandkids, your neighbors, your coworkers, it can have a remarkable effect for people to be able to hear about God even if you're unheard of, like Jochebed, your trust in God can have an outsized impact that you don't even know about like Jochebed's do. So remember that, and remember this, that God is glorified when we trust him. So how are you gonna do that? What are you gonna do? What are you gonna do to trust him? You're gonna trust him with your kids? You're gonna trust him to redeem the time? You're gonna trust him with your money? You're gonna trust him with your job, with your marriage, with your relationship, with the rest of your family? I don't know how the Holy Spirit might apply this in your life, but just know this, he wants to do something to cause you to trust him, you know why? Because he's faithful and you'll see it over and over again, his glory will be on display as you trust him. Let's bow our heads together. As we're dismissed in just a moment, you may be here and have never before entrusted your life to Jesus, that's the great act of trust that God's calling to you right now, to turn from sin and to put your faith in Jesus, the one who died on a cross for your sin, rose from the grave for your justification, and who right now has the power to transform and save you. So if you've never done that, in just a moment, when we dismiss and I say amen to our prayer, there'll be some folks that'll be standing right down at the front of this room, men and women, they would love to take a moment, pray with you, talk to you about what it means to put your faith in your trust in Jesus. And maybe you're here and you're already a believer in Christ and you've already been regenerated by his own power, but you know that there's some areas of your life that he's calling you to trust him in. Maybe you wanna sit there for a moment and you wanna commit that to him. Maybe you wanna take one of these men or women down here by the hand and say, I'd love to be able to pray with somebody about this. Then you do that, whatever the Lord's leading you to do, I want you to do it. Bring him glory by trusting. Father, thank you for every way in which you speak to us. And I pray that you would do your good work by your own power, by your own Spirit, for your own timing, and for your own glory. Help us to be a people who learn what it means to trust you personally, to trust your sovereign care over all things, and to trust you to redeem the time. 'Cause Lord, we wanna bring you glory, we want people to see your goodness, and your majesty, and your greatness on display. Would you do that through us in Jesus name, amen.