Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Hey, everybody. Pastor Chuck Allen here, and thank you for joining me on this Tuesday for another weekday podcast where I want to talk a little bit about the book of Exodus. Again.
[00:00:19] Yesterday we talked about chapter four. Today I want to go in reverse a little bit and talk about chapter two. Two.
[00:00:28] Morning. I mean, literally. Take a deep breath. I'm so glad that you let me ride along with you to start this week in this second day.
[00:00:38] We're spending this week in the Book of Exodus. And I want to tell you up front, this is a book for anybody who's ever felt stuck. Stuck in a job, stuck in a season, stuck in a situation you didn't choose, and you can't seem to get out of that mess. Well, here's your Tuesday. So let's get into it. Exodus in chapter two is kind of in a difficult place. The people of Israel are slaves in Egypt, and a frightened Pharaoh has decided the way to control them is to crush them.
[00:01:11] It gets so bad that he orders the Hebrew baby boys thrown into the Nile.
[00:01:16] That's the world that a certain little boy is born into. And in chapter two, we. We meet his mom. Listen to verse three. But when she could no longer hide him, she got a basket made of papyrus reeds and waterproofed it with tar and pitch. She put the baby in the basket and laid it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile.
[00:01:42] Now, just imagine this. When she could no longer hide him, for three months, she's done everything that she could possibly do. She. She kept him quiet. She kept him close. She protected what God had given her. But there came a day when the baby got too big, too loud to hide.
[00:02:00] And she had to face the hardest decision a mama could ever make. She had to let go of what she couldn't hold anymore.
[00:02:09] So if you know exactly what that feels like, you've been holding something together with both hands for such a long time.
[00:02:18] Maybe a business or a dream, maybe a marriage or a child who's grown up and made bad choices you can't control.
[00:02:25] And you've reached the place where you just can't hide it. You just can't fix it. Maybe you just can't carry it anymore. But here's what I want you to see. She didn't throw that baby in the river. She built him a basket. She waterproofed it. She did what was in her power to do. And then she laid it in the one place that Pharaoh meant for death. And she trusted God with the rest.
[00:02:53] And I want you to look what happens. Verse 4. Says the baby's sister stood at a distance, watching to see what would happen to him. I just love that somebody was watching over the basket. And then of all the people in Egypt, it's Pharaoh's own daughter who comes to the river, sees the basket, opens it, and hears the baby crying.
[00:03:18] The very household that wanted him dead ends up raising him.
[00:03:24] And one of the most beautiful twists in all of the biblical story, the princess pays Moses own mother to nurse him.
[00:03:34] She let go of her son and God handed him right back to her and and paid her for it.
[00:03:42] That's how God's economy works, y'. All.
[00:03:45] The river you're afraid of might be the very place he's planning to lift you out of.
[00:03:52] The name Moses comes from that moment. Verse 10 says the princess named him Moses because in her words, and let me quote, excuse me, I lifted him out of the water.
[00:04:06] God has a way of lifting people out of the very thing that was supposed to drown them.
[00:04:13] Excuse me, y', all, I got a little bit of a cough today, but here's the part I really want you to hear this morning.
[00:04:20] Years go by, Moses grows up, and the people are still in slavery. Nothing looks different.
[00:04:27] Then we get to the end of the chapter to verses 23, 24 and 25, and it says, years passed and the king of Egypt died. But the Israelites continued to groan under their burden of slavery. They cried out for help and their cries rose up to God. God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He looked down on the people of Israel and knew it was time to act.
[00:05:02] God heard their groaning, y'. All. Not their prayers, not their polished ones, not their well worded requests, their groaning.
[00:05:12] Some of us have just haven't had the words lately to say. All you've got is like a sigh or an eye roll in the car.
[00:05:21] Maybe it's a heaviness you've carried to bed at night.
[00:05:25] I want you to know, folks, I want you to know that heaven hears our groanings. You don't have to say it right for God to hear it.
[00:05:35] And while they were groaning, God was already working. He had a baby in a basket before they ever had a deliverer on the mountain.
[00:05:46] He was preparing the answer long before anybody could see it.
[00:05:52] What looks like silence to us might just be God raising your answer in a place you never thought to look for it.
[00:06:02] So here's what I would encourage you today with.
[00:06:05] I mean, seriously, let me just give you a word of encouragement. Name the thing you can no longer hide or hold.
[00:06:13] Then do well what that mama did.
[00:06:16] Do the part that's yours to do. Build the basket, waterproof it, and then set it down in God's hands. You don't have to see how it turns out yet.
[00:06:27] You just have to trust that he's watching over the river.
[00:06:31] Okay, y', all, that's probably all for the day. I'd love to go on, but let go of what you can't carry, and I'll see you back here tomorrow on another weekday podcast.
