Exodus – God’s Way Out
Friends, it has only been two weeks since we first heard we cannot gather in groups for church, go to work with more than ten people or go about our days like we did before the threat. Is this inconvenient? Yes, even more so with wage earners with families. Parents are now teachers as well as wage earners. The elderly, already fearful because of all the bombarding ads and phone calls about their health, are now at greater risk with this new virus. The unhealthy have been secluded from the world. With hourly news updates along with social media it might seem to some people that we have been living in chaotic times for months. People, it’s only been a couple of weeks. I know, right? Why do we think like that? Because in our small part of the world, we are spoiled. Even the poorest among us can get food in the United States. This is not so in other countries. Instead of an attitude of sharing what you have with others, it is a growing attitude of get it while you can because you might not get it later. Wow.
Here’s the bottom line: Those with little to no faith in God live now in greater fear because they are no longer in complete control of their daily lives. Someone else is telling them how to combat a virus among us. Government leaders are tirelessly trying to control the situation while we who want to be always in control go our own way. We are being told to wash their hands, stay home with our family as the first line of defense of the spread of this virus. It makes sense, but we are a people who are prideful. We think we know what is best so we go our own way, getting irritable and even angry when we cannot.
Fear and anxiety seems to be the new norm for many. We are acting as if our whole world has fallen apart, panic is leading to hoarding, temporary lost wages are sending many into a tailspin.
TEMPORARY is the key term. This IS a first for our nation and for most of the world. But it is only temporary. If we stop to pray asking God for his resourcefulness and creativity to be in us instead of panic, we might surprise ourselves in what HE will do in and through us. Yes, we might ask God what He will teach us as we pass through these waters with Him. Some of the greatest inventions in the world were birthed in times of chaos! Those who know God know that we can trust God to remember His promise to us to save us, listen to our cries for help, understand the challenges before us and see our situation with His Way out. He always has and He always will. Thank you, God!
The Exodus of God’s people from YEARS of living hard times will teach us how great God is and how He is always at work. Listen to this story of God in the life of Moses. The last few lines of this passage spoke volumes to me this morning:
Their cries for relief from their hard labor ascended to God:
God listened to their groanings.
God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.
God saw what was going on with Israel.
God understood.
Exodus 2, The Message
1-3 A man from the family of Levi married a Levite woman. The woman became pregnant and had a son. She saw there was something special about him and hid him. She hid him for three months. When she couldn’t hide him any longer she got a little basket-boat made of papyrus, waterproofed it with tar and pitch, and placed the child in it. Then she set it afloat in the reeds at the edge of the Nile.
4-6 The baby’s older sister found herself a vantage point a little way off and watched to see what would happen to him. Pharaoh’s daughter came down to the Nile to bathe; her maidens strolled on the bank. She saw the basket-boat floating in the reeds and sent her maid to get it. She opened it and saw the child—a baby crying! Her heart went out to him. She said, “This must be one of the Hebrew babies.”7 Then his sister was before her: “Do you want me to go and get a nursing mother from the Hebrews so she can nurse the baby for you?”
8 Pharaoh’s daughter said, “Yes. Go.” The girl went and called the child’s mother.
9 Pharaoh’s daughter told her, “Take this baby and nurse him for me. I’ll pay you.” The woman took the child and nursed him.
10 After the child was weaned, she presented him to Pharaoh’s daughter who adopted him as her son. She named him Moses (Pulled-Out), saying, “I pulled him out of the water.”11-12 Time passed. Moses grew up. One day he went and saw his brothers, saw all that hard labor. Then he saw an Egyptian hit a Hebrew—one of his relatives! He looked this way and then that; when he realized there was no one in sight, he killed the Egyptian and buried him in the sand.
13 The next day he went out there again. Two Hebrew men were fighting. He spoke to the man who started it: “Why are you hitting your neighbor?”
14 The man shot back: “Who do you think you are, telling us what to do? Are you going to kill me the way you killed that Egyptian?”
Then Moses panicked: “Word’s gotten out—people know about this.”
15 Pharaoh heard about it and tried to kill Moses, but Moses got away to the land of Midian. He sat down by a well.
16-17 The priest of Midian had seven daughters. They came and drew water, filling the troughs and watering their father’s sheep. When some shepherds came and chased the girls off, Moses came to their rescue and helped them water their sheep.18 When they got home to their father, Reuel, he said, “That didn’t take long. Why are you back so soon?”
19 “An Egyptian,” they said, “rescued us from a bunch of shepherds. Why, he even drew water for us and watered the sheep.”
20 He said, “So where is he? Why did you leave him behind? Invite him so he can have something to eat with us.”
21-22 Moses agreed to settle down there with the man, who then gave his daughter Zipporah (Bird) to him for his wife. She had a son, and Moses named him Gershom (Sojourner), saying, “I’m a sojourner in a foreign country.”
23 Many years later the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned under their slavery and cried out. Their cries for relief from their hard labor ascended to God:
24 God listened to their groanings.
God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.
25 God saw what was going on with Israel.
God understood.
THINK ABOUT IT!
God’s means of preparation of His deliverer are beautifully ironic: the very person who had decreed the destruction of the people of God would become the grandfather of their deliverer; the resources of the oppressing power would be used to raise and train the one who would break that power. How characteristic of God’s grace it is that not only is Jochebed’s baby given back to her, but she is paid to do what she would gladly have done for nothing. She knew her boy was special, not only to her, but to God.
MOSES’ MISTAKE IN JUDGMENT: Moses seeks to deliver his people in his own strength without incurring any responsibility (v.12). This is not God’s way. Not only does it fail to reveal God, which is essential to any genuine salvation, it also relies solely on destruction of the human oppressor through human ability. Thus Moses’ effort is a classic example of human effort to do God’s work. This is not God’s way.
GOD’S WAY: Our passage closes by identifying the true source of hope for all the oppressed of earth. It is not in a failed man, but in a God who hears and sees, who remembers his commitments and is moved by a caring heart.
Dear Heavenly Father, Lord and Savior,
We humbly bow to you in submission and ask for your way out of our temporary situation. Heal our land of all that keeps us from you.
In Jesus Name, Amen
We have completed Genesis, the beginning of creation of all of life and how God worked in and through his imperfect humans. We ended the book of Genesis with the death of Joseph. He is buried in Egypt, but remember that he requested that his bones be carried with the family back to the Promised Land when the family made the move to go back.
HOLY PAUSE
“At the center and core of this work is God. The most comprehensive term for what God is doing to get us out of the mess we are in is SALVATION. Salvation is God doing for us what we can’t do for ourselves. Salvation is the biggest word in the vocabulary of the people of God. The Exodus is a powerful and dramatic and true story of God working salvation. The story has generated an extraordinary progeny through the centuries as it has reproduced itself in song and poem, drama and novel, politics and social justice, repentance and conversion, worship and holy living. It continues to capture the imagination of men and women, especially men and women in trouble.”
1-5 These are the names of the Israelites who went to Egypt with Jacob, each bringing his family members:
8-10 A new king came to power in Egypt who didn’t know Joseph. He spoke to his people in alarm, “There are way too many of these Israelites for us to handle. We’ve got to do something: Let’s devise a plan to contain them, lest if there’s a war they should join our enemies, or just walk off and leave us.”
19 The midwives answered Pharaoh, “The Hebrew women aren’t like the Egyptian women; they’re vigorous. Before the midwife can get there, they’ve already had the baby.”
*What God blessed, Egypt cursed. Why?
The Good News is that God made a way for us to do just that. He sent His Son, Jesus who paid for our sin. All of it. When we repent of our sin to the One who paid it all, the sin, “not in part but the whole” is gone, “as far as the east is from the west”. AND our sin is removed AND forgotten by the Forgiver, “to be remembered no more”. (See Psalm 103:12 and Hebrews 8:12. See also “It Is Well With My Soul” written by a songwriter in pain but took it to God)
14-15 After burying his father, Joseph went back to Egypt. All his brothers who had come with him to bury his father returned with him. After the funeral, Joseph’s brothers talked among themselves: “What if Joseph is carrying a grudge and decides to pay us back for all the wrong we did him?”
19-21 Joseph replied, “Don’t be afraid. Do I act for God? Don’t you see, you planned evil against me but God used those same plans for my good, as you see all around you right now—life for many people. Easy now, you have nothing to fear; I’ll take care of you and your children.” He reassured them, speaking with them heart-to-heart.
Can you imagine what is going on in Joseph’s mind when his brothers remind him of their painful past and ask for forgiveness…AGAIN? Joseph proves he wants to forget that past. He named his first born, Manasseh, which means “Forget, saying, God made me forget all my hardships and my parental home.” (Genesis 41)
HOLY PAUSE
Forget the sin and the pain of that sin. If you need to, ask for God’s help like Joseph did! I know from personal experience He will give it to you as he did to me. I carried the guilt of confessed sin around for about ten years in my life, trying to repay others for how I had hurt them. What did I learn? I learned that those years tainted my spiritual growth. It also made it harder for me to forgive others completely because I had not fully accepted forgiveness from God for myself. When I did accept His forgiveness for myself, realizing that I was indeed completely forgiven by Jesus, I was set free. 
Joseph reminded his brothers, “Don’t you see, you planned evil against me but God used those same plans for my good, as you see all around you right now—life for many people. Easy now, you have nothing to fear; I’ll take care of you and your children.” He reassured them, speaking with them heart-to-heart.”
Dear Heavenly Father,
We know our children better than we know ourselves. Why? Because we see glimpses of our rebellious selves in their behavior. We also see the good that God is honed in us. We love them with all that is in us for we gave them life. So imagine how much more God loves us who sent His Son to save us! As believers we hope that the love we have for Jesus is also passed on to them and to their children. We praise God for our children. We praise God for his relationships with our children. 
Jacob called his sons and said, “Gather around. I want to tell you what you can expect in the days to come.”
7 A curse on their uncontrolled anger,
The scepter shall not leave Judah;
Joseph is a wild donkey,
28 All these are the tribes of Israel, the twelve tribes. And this is what their father said to them as he blessed them, blessing each one with his own special farewell blessing.
Jacob’s prophetic words must have given great encouragement to his descendants during their difficult time of suffering in Egypt, as well as during their unhappy years wandering in the wilderness. Jacob assured each tribe of a future place in the Promised Land, and that meant a great deal to them.
The exclamation, “I have waited for your salvation, O Lord!” (Gen. 49:18) suggests that Jacob was in communion with the Lord while he was speaking to his sons. Was he asking God for special strength to finish what he had to say? Or was he announcing that the Lord would soon call him into eternity? The word translated “salvation” is yeshua, which gives us the name Joshua, “Jehovah is salvation.” The Greek form is “Jesus.”
Jesus, with God at the Genesis of creation, is with us now. 
As we get older, we begin making arrangements for our final days. Many think of finances first and how the remains of our lives will be divided. We are the most important things that we will want to leave our children and their children? As I read of the last days of Jacob/Israel, his words of blessing to his son and his two sons touch my heart. We are often asking the wrong questions, centering our thoughts on things will fade and diminish in this world. In other words, we live our lives to leave something behind that has no meaning and just doesn’t matter in the bigger picture.
The better question, the most important question of all, is WHO will be echoed from our lives to our children and future generations who come after us?
3-7 Jacob said to Joseph, “The Strong God appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan and blessed me. He said, ‘I’m going to make you prosperous and numerous, turn you into a congregation of tribes; and I’ll turn this land over to your children coming after you as a permanent inheritance.’ I’m adopting your two sons who were born to you here in Egypt before I joined you; they have equal status with Reuben and Simeon. But any children born after them are yours; they will come after their brothers in matters of inheritance. I want it this way because, as I was returning from Paddan, your mother Rachel, to my deep sorrow, died as we were on our way through Canaan when we were only a short distance from Ephrath, now called Bethlehem.”
The God before whom walked
Jacob had enjoyed Joseph for seventeen years in Hebron (37:2), and now he would enjoy Joseph and his sons for seventeen years in Egypt (47:28). It was tragic that the sins of his sons had robbed their father of twenty-two years of Joseph’s life, but even in this sacrifice, God had beautifully worked out His plan and cared lovingly for His people.
Who or what will be echoed in your family for generations to come?
God’s Word always brings light to our souls. His words to us, through the lives of those who lived before us long ago, reminds us that bad times come and go, but God is still sovereign and will bring peace in the chaos with wisdom to get through challenging times such as wars, famine and even a plague called corona virus.
Are we close enough to God, to hear what HE has to say to us and to the rest of the panicked world today? 
Evil is having a heyday with our emotions during this unprecedented season of challenging world circumstances. He is planting questionable thoughts…”Did God really say He would take care of us?”
Joseph went to Pharaoh and told him, “My father and brothers with their flocks and herds and everything they own have come from Canaan. Right now they are in Goshen.”
5-6 Pharaoh looked at Joseph. “So, your father and brothers have arrived—a reunion! Egypt welcomes them. Settle your father and brothers on the choicest land—yes, give them Goshen. And if you know any among them that are especially good at their work, put them in charge of my own livestock.”
26 Joseph decreed a land law in Egypt that is still in effect, A Fifth Goes to Pharaoh. Only the priests’ lands were not owned by Pharaoh.
When we stop to think that our funeral and burial are the last public testimonies we will ever give, it makes us want to plan carefully. Making our last will and testament is important, but don’t neglect our last witness and testimony. That is more important than flowers and weeping, expensive caskets and “arrangements”. Live life for God to the full. When we leave earth for heaven, I pray we hear, “Well Done” from God along with, “You never forgot Me. I never forgot you.”
“I am the God of your father. Don’t be afraid of going down to Egypt. I’m going to make you a great nation there. I’ll go with you down to Egypt; I’ll also bring you back here.”
3-4 God said, “I am the God of your father. Don’t be afraid of going down to Egypt. I’m going to make you a great nation there. I’ll go with you down to Egypt; I’ll also bring you back here. And when you die, Joseph will be with you; with his own hand he’ll close your eyes.”
Reuben, Jacob’s firstborn.
28-29 Jacob sent Judah on ahead to get directions to Goshen from Joseph. When they got to Goshen, Joseph gave orders for his chariot and went to Goshen to meet his father Israel. The moment Joseph saw him, he threw himself on his neck and wept. He wept a long time.
When our son returns from deployment in lands far away, it is such a sweet reunion when he comes back home safe and sound from his Air Force assignment. This is only a glimpse of what Jacob is feeling for Joseph, his beloved son when he sees and touches him once more after many long years of grieving for him. 
Now imagine the reunion of the entire family of Israel/Jacob! This reunion was made possible by the love, mercy and grace of God, the Father! This family reunion was brought about by repentance, reconciliation and restoration of the brothers. Changed hearts reunited Father to Son.
AND what about us? (Now it get’s personal.) What will it be like after we admit, repent, accept, believe and follow Jesus here on earth to be united with him forever in heaven? We will be together with Father and Son! Wow! He also promises us we will be reunited with our families who have gone on before us…Not to mention basking in His glory and praising him in Person forever!
I see the work of Your Hands
God, I run into Your arms
Those words were published in 1948 on page 1 of “Ideas Have Consequences” by Dr. Richard M. Weaver, then professor of English in the College of the University of Chicago. His book dropped like an atomic bomb on the postwar academic community and was called by one reviewer “a profound diagnosis of the sickness of our culture.” The message of the book was simple: If you don’t live according to the truth, then you must suffer the consequences.
For twenty-two years Joseph’s brothers had followed that philosophy and carefully covered their sins. They hadn’t told the truth and apparently had reaped no serious consequences. Furthermore, they weren’t afraid of being exposed because the only person who could witness against them was Joseph, and they were sure he was dead (Gen. 44:20). But the truth had to come out, both for their good and the success of God’s plan of salvation for the world. 
16 Judah as spokesman for the brothers said, “What can we say, master? What is there to say? How can we prove our innocence? God is behind this, exposing how bad we are. We stand guilty before you and ready to be your slaves—we’re all in this together, the rest of us as guilty as the one with the chalice.”
30-32 “And now, can’t you see that if I show up before your servant, my father, without the boy, this son with whom his life is so bound up, the moment he realizes the boy is gone, he’ll die on the spot. He’ll die of grief and we, your servants who are standing here before you, will have killed him. And that’s not all. I got my father to release the boy to show him to you by promising, ‘If I don’t bring him back, I’ll stand condemned before you, Father, all my life.’
Joseph had one more strategic move in his wise plan for bringing his brothers to repentance, and this one involved his own beloved full brother, Benjamin. Once Jacob’s sons had faced their sins and repented, Joseph could reveal who he was, and they could be reconciled.
We dream of better days. We wish and hope for all the things of this world we think will make us happy, more comfortable and at peace. Consider God’s dreams for us. God’s dreams are higher, much nobler than our dreams. God’s dreams for us include an expectant life on His terms, walking humbly with our eyes fixed on Him, with hope, faith and trust in Him, accepting and then extending His mercy, love and grace to others. God’s dreams for us are about reconciling to Him and then to each other.
In the story of Joseph, we are observing a family, led by Jacob their father who follows God as did his father before him. God has His hand on this particular family with promises to multiply his people. The story is a continuing saga of unresolved conflict among their relationships. You have a father who highly favors two sons who came later in life by Rachel his favored wife. The less than favored, older sons’ hate for the favored sons leads to evil acts. 
HOLY PAUSE
11-14 Their father Israel gave in. “If it has to be, it has to be. But do this: stuff your packs with the finest products from the land you can find and take them to the man as gifts—some balm and honey, some spices and perfumes, some pistachios and almonds. And take plenty of money—pay back double what was returned to your sacks; that might have been a mistake. Take your brother and get going. Go back to the man. And may The Strong God give you grace in that man’s eyes so that he’ll send back your other brother along with Benjamin. For me, nothing’s left; I’ve lost everything.”
15-16 The men took the gifts, double the money, and Benjamin. They lost no time in getting to Egypt and meeting Joseph. When Joseph saw that they had Benjamin with them, he told his house steward, “Take these men into the house and make them at home. Butcher an animal and prepare a meal; these men are going to eat with me at noon.”
27 Joseph welcomed them and said, “And your old father whom you mentioned to me, how is he? Is he still alive?”
The last thing the brothers expected was to be entertained at a banquet in the home of the second ruler of the land, the man who had dealt so severely with them during their first visit. When Joseph arrived, the brothers bowed and gave him their gifts, and they bowed again when they replied to his question about their father. Now all eleven brothers bowed before him, and now the dreams were fulfilled.
THE PROCESS OF TRUE RECONCILIATION
The next act in the drama will bring these matters to a head, and, oddly enough, the activity will center around Benjamin, the young man his brothers thought was above suspicion and beyond danger.
Revenge is never “sweet” when it is in our hands. It is bitter and cold and brings back the bad memories of the hurt and pain that is hard to bear. We lower ourselves to less than God expects us to be. When God turns the tide on the enemy and delivers us our hearts are more inclined to forgive and forget because of HIS work in us.
The dreams God gave to Joseph as a teenager are now coming to reality. These dreams and the ability to hear God tell him what they mean have served him well in this life in a foreign land. His dreams given by God helped him to stay the course in his faith with God. 
1-2 When Jacob learned that there was food in Egypt, he said to his sons, “Why do you sit around here and look at one another? I’ve heard that there is food in Egypt. Go down there and buy some so that we can survive and not starve to death.”
6-7 Joseph was running the country; he was the one who gave out rations to all the people. When Joseph’s brothers arrived, they treated him with honor, bowing to him. Joseph recognized them immediately, but treated them as strangers and spoke roughly to them.
10-11 “No, master,” they said. “We’ve only come to buy food. We’re all the sons of the same man; we’re honest men; we’d never think of spying.”
27-28 When they stopped for the night, one of them opened his sack to get food for his donkey; there at the mouth of his bag was his money. He called out to his brothers, “My money has been returned; it’s right here in my bag!” They were puzzled—and frightened. “What’s God doing to us?”
36 Their father said to them, “You’re taking everything I’ve got! Joseph’s gone, Simeon’s gone, and now you want to take Benjamin. If you have your way, I’ll be left with nothing.”
Some of us might be thinking felt that Joseph was wrong and even cruel in the way he dealt with his brothers. Instead of wasting so much time, Joseph should have immediately revealed himself to his brothers and brought about “instant reconciliation.” But is that humanly possible when you have been hurt so deeply?
From a human point of view, Joseph would have been happy for “instant reconciliation,” because then he could have seen his father and his brother Benjamin much sooner. But like a skilled physician, Joseph was patient. He spoke and acted in such a way that the thoughts of his brothers’ hearts were revealed and God finally brought them to true repentance.
God is good, but God is just. Our sins have a cost that must be paid. Our sin has consequences. Fortunately, God is full of mercy and grace, withholding from us what we really deserve. Our debt of sin has been paid in full by the blood of God’s Son, Jesus Christ. 
