Caleb Walker

PowerPoint Download Here: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/itjqwjg4ltnwvpxuhos8h/Seen-Heard-PPNT.pptx?rlkey=tq0v5uj11u2mr4fhxwc0ifl8r&st=e4jfybfq&dl=0

Review: Last week we wrapped up the book of Acts observing how Paul showed faith-filled trust in God which gave him calmness in the midst of the storm’s chaos. Our lives intersect with the chaos of lostness and brokenness everyday, and we should be the calm person who offers the hope of salvation in Jesus Christ. This week we’re starting the book of Exodus and our study will touch on Leviticus later on in this quarter, as well.

Title: Seen and Heard

Text: Exodus 2:23-25 and 3: 7-15.

Memory verse: Exodus 3:12

Theme: God sees the plight of His people.

Introduction: In this week’s lesson we see that as image bearers of God, there is an inner desire for relationship with others and that we be seen and heard. There are so many times in Scripture where God reminds us that we are:

Psalm 139:3, “You search out my path and my lying down
    and are acquainted with all my ways.”

Isaiah 40:27, “Why do you say, O Jacob,
    and speak, O Israel,
‘My way is hidden from the Lord,
    and my right is disregarded by my God’?”

The Egyptian slave girl Hagar on the run from Sarah in Genesis 16:13—” ¹³ So she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, “You are a God of seeing,”^[a] for she said, “Truly here I have seen him who looks after me.”

In the beginning of Exodus God spoke to Moses and told him that he heard the cries and saw the plight of His enslaved Israelites in Egypt.

There has never been a time you or I have cried out to the Lord that He has not heard and seen us.

Context:

     God’s promise to Israel was initiated in Abraham who he called from Ur to follow God by faith. Israel was oppressed by Egyptian slavery over 400 years. With God’s people absent from Canaan, the Canaanites embraced evil debauchery for which divine judgement would be incurred. God renamed Jacob Israel and he fathered Joseph through whom his family and the nation of Israel landed in Egypt to escape the famine. God wouldn’t withhold his promised land from their descendants. As the Hebrews grew in number the new, evil Pharaoh enslaved and oppressed them. God was preparing Moses to be the one to lead His people out.

Main Points:

1. Heard (Ex. 2: 23-25)

“²³ During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. ²⁴ And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. ²⁵ God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.”

• Moses was rescued as a baby, became a fugitive after murdering an Egyptian soldier, but was no longer living in fear once Pharaoh died.
• The people desperately plead for God’s rescue; their pleading and groaning is used elsewhere for when a woman is in labor and when someone is desperately in hunger, and for grieving in Lamentations.
• When it says God remembered them, it’s an expression for God’s faithfulness to His promise to them. He doesn’t forget because He’s all-knowing.
•   God was faithful to his promise rooted In His covenant with Abraham to be faithful to His people even if they strayed. They would rescue them, and they would repossess Canaan.

Application: No matter how you may feel, God will never forget you.Why do some people think God ignores human suffering? How do these verses counter that?

II. Called (Ex. 3:7-10)

“⁷ Then the Lord said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, ⁸ and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. ⁹ And now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. ¹⁰ Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.”

• God prepared Moses through being born as a Levite-the tribe of Israel’s priests. God prepared him as a leader and with understanding of Egyptian culture when he was raised by Pharoah’s daughter. He knew what it was like to have plenty and to go without. He had the flaw of anger and sometimes acted brashly, which allowed him to decisively defend the daughters of Jethro, but also got him in trouble at times.
• In verse 7 when it says, ‘I have surely seen…” the Hebrew is compassionate and empathetic, nowhere near callous observance. He was moved by their misery.

Application: God is moved by the misery you face, as well.

• The milk and honey reference is always a reference to God’s Promised Land and his abundant provision and good plan for His people.
• Although Moses was reluctant, God had a divine plan, an important assignment for him.

Application: Each of you are uniquely gifted and called with a divine assignment to serve in God’s church in some way. What does God want you to—by faith—step into today?

III. Promised (Ex. 3: 11-12)

“¹¹ But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” ¹² He said, “But I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.”

• Moses asked, “Who am I?” meaning “Why me?” doubting his own abilities for such a great task.

Application: Sometimes we can doubt similarly when facing a ministry or serving opportunity. Our strength will be when we look to God, not our own inadequacies.

• Exodus 3:12 is the key verse to pray back to God, “He said, ‘But I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.’”
• God promised Moses the same thing He promised His disciples in Matthew 28, the power His presence.

Application: When you know God is with you, no obstacle is worth your worry.

• The “sign” in verse 12 functions like a divine signature, and this would happen as Israel would reach Mount Sinai safe and sound as God promised they would.
• This would be a marker in their lives when they would move from slavery in Egypt to worshipers [a word meaning “serve”] of God.

Application: Have you moved out of your Egypt of enslavement to sin and the brokenness of this world to being rescued by Jesus to now serve Him and His church?

IV. Revealed (Ex. 3:13-15)

“¹³ Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” ¹⁴ God said to Moses, “I am who I am.”^[a] And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’” ¹⁵ God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘The Lord,^[b] the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.”

• In verse 13 Moses, rather than trusting in all of these prior assurances, gives into his fear of the idolatrous influences of Egypt on Israel and their reluctance to go out of Egypt so much so that asked God to send someone else. He was like Peter stepping out of the boat and looking at the huge waves vs. looking at Jesus.

Application: We can do this sometimes, too.

• Then Moses asks for God’s Name tot ell the people when he showed up. Who we represent is what carries the weight of the mission we’re on.
• In verse 14 God responds, ““I am who I am.”^[a] And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’” ¹⁵ God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘The Lord,^[b] the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.”
• He’s God.

Doctrine: Our key doctrine for this week is the doctrine of God.

     Lifeway says, “God is all powerful and all knowing; and His perfect knowledge extends to all things, past, present, and future, including the future decisions of His free creatures” (p. 24). Two verses they cite are Psalm 147:5 and Isaiah 46:10:

How do these verses depict God, our key doctrine?

Psalm 147:5, “Great is our Lord, and abundant in power;
    his understanding is beyond measure.”

Isaiah 46:10, “declaring the end from the beginning
    and from ancient times things not yet done,
saying, ‘My counsel shall stand,
    and I will accomplish all my purpose,’”

• God is the self-existent one, complete in Himself and beholding to and dependent on n one else. He is unchanging and constant at all times.
• He is also “the Lord” in verse 15, meaning “the root of the Hebrew word ‘ehyeh is hayah, “to be”. This utilizes another form of the same word, YHWH, God’s personal name. Out of holy fear, Israelites only wrote it with the consonants….The New Testament rendering refers to Jesus. This personal name is for His covenant-keeping name for His faithfulness and reliability (p. 24).

Application: How does God’s name help us through the challenges we face?

Devotional: “How to Handle My Feelings of Inadequacy” is located here: https://drcalebwalker.com/2024/11/26/how-to-handle-my-feelings-of-inadequacies/

Click Here for General Overview Outline: https://drcalebwalker.com/2024/11/26/general-outline-seen-heard-exodus-2-3/