INTRODUCTION
Some keep the Sabbath … b/c … God rested on the 7th day …
- Genesis 2:1-3 Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. 2 And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.
… BUT notice what Jesus said … “I work and the Father is working”.
- John 5:15-17 The man departed and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. 16 For this reason the Jews persecuted Jesus, [d]
and sought to kill Him, because He had done these things on the Sabbath. 17 But Jesus answered them, “My Father has been working until now, and I have been working.”
The truth … God rested from His work of creation … but His work of sustaining and saving has been going on … and has never stopped.
God was working then (in Christ’s time) … but He was also working in the time of the Exodus.
That’s what the text in Exodus 1 reminds us of.
Exodus 1:8-21
What do we see in that passage? We see God at work in the lives of individuals … even when they don’t see Him working.
He was working in the life of Moses’ salvation …
- He was also working in the life of the midwives … giving them courage to defy the Pharaoh’s command.
- He was also at work in the life of Moses’ mother … giving her courage to defy the Pharaoh’s command.
- He was working in the life of Pharaoh’s daughter … for her to let her compassion give her the courage to disobey her father’s edict.
- He was working in the life of Moses’ sister … for her to have the courage to go the princess and suggest that the princess hire Moses’ mother to nurse the child.
What can we take away? What is the main point?
One common thread in all their lives was courage … That courage was inspired by God … to get them to do what they did … so that Moses could live.
By their courage, they were able to participate in the work of deliverance that God was doing.
In a similar way … God is working in our lives … God is giving us a chance to participate with Christ and the Holy Spirit in what He is doing around us.
We may not realize it … because we do not see it … but we can believe it … that God is at work around us.
CONCLUSION
Exodus 2:23-25 Now it happened in the process of time that the king of Egypt died. Then the children of Israel groaned because of the bondage, and they cried out; and their cry came up to God because of the bondage. 24 So God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. 25 And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God acknowledged them.
The bondage caused the Israelites to cry out to God … for deliverance … and God responded (looked upon and acknowledged them).
What they would not have realized … as we do now … was that God was already at work, in their circumstance … long before they cried out.
The same is true for us … we find ourselves in difficult situations … and wonder/worry about how we are going to get out of those situations … BUT God is already aware of our circumstances and our situations … and He is already at work … We just need to trust Him … and be patient.