Who Will You Serve?
Download MP3I invite you to open your bibles to Exodus chapter 1. Exodus chapter 1. And I'm actually gonna read a a good bit of this. Parts of chapter 1 and parts of chapter 2. And we'll begin reading in verse 8.
Jeffrey Heine:Now there arose a new king over Egypt who did not know Joseph. And he said to his people, behold the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply. And if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land. Therefore, they set task masters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens.
Jeffrey Heine:They built for pharaoh's store cities, Pitham, and Ramses. But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied, and the more they spread abroad. And the Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel. So, they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves and made their lives bitter with hard service. In mortar and in brick and in all kinds of works in the field In all their work, they ruthlessly made them work as slaves.
Jeffrey Heine:Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, when you serve as midwife to the Hebrew women and see them on the birth stool, if it is a son, you shall kill him. But if it's a daughter, she shall live. But the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded commanded them, but let the male children live. So the king of Egypt called midwives and said to them, why have you done this and let the male children live? The midwives said to pharaoh, because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, and for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.
Jeffrey Heine:So God dealt well with the midwives, and the people multiplied and grew very strong. And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families. Then, pharaoh commanded all his people, every son that is born to the Hebrews, you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live. Now a man from the house of Levi went and took as his wife a Levite woman. The woman conceived and bore a son, and when she had when she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him 3 months.
Jeffrey Heine:When she could hide him no longer, she took for him a basket made from bulrushes and and daubed it with with bitumen and pitch. She put the child in it and placed it among the reeds by the riverbank. And his sister stood at a distance to know what would be done to him. Now the pharaoh of daughter came down to bathe at the river, while her young women walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds, and sent her servant woman, and she took it.
Jeffrey Heine:When she opened it, she saw the child. And behold, the baby was crying. She took pity on him and said, this is one of the Hebrews children. Then his sister said to pharaoh's daughter, shall I go and call you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you? And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, go.
Jeffrey Heine:So the girl went and called the child's mother. And pharaoh's daughter said to her, take this child away and nurse him for me, and I will give you your wages. So the woman took the child and nursed him. When the child grew up, she brought him to pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses because she said, I drew him out of the water.
Jeffrey Heine:Pray with me again. Lord, ask that you would honor the reading of your word. Your word is central to our lives. So we ask that your spirit would breathe life to the words that I've read, that they would come alive in our hearts, that they would transform our minds. I pray that my words would fall to the ground, and blow away, and not be remembered anymore.
Jeffrey Heine:But Lord, let your words remain, and may they change us. I pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. We're beginning a new series on the gospel in the life of Moses. And this series is likely gonna last us all the way through February.
Jeffrey Heine:Now some of you might have this this idea that, you you can't really study the gospel when you're studying the Old Testament. Maybe the idea is a little foreign to you. You've grown up hearing that the old testament is where you get, you know, the law, but it's the new testament that you hear from you hear about grace, you hear about Jesus Christ, you hear about the gospel, but that is not the case at all. It's not the case at all. One can only understand the gospel if one understands what god is doing in the Old Testament.
Jeffrey Heine:And and I would go so far as to say that one can only understand the life of Jesus if one understands the book of Exodus. Because you see, Exodus points to Jesus. Exodus, it gives us the vocabulary that we need to correctly understand the life of Jesus, to understand who he is. I don't know if you've ever noticed this, but most people share the same vocabulary. We we we use the same words, but they have different meanings to different people.
Jeffrey Heine:For instance, if I said the word liberal, liberal. Everybody knows what liberal means. Everyone here has a different definition of what liberal is. I found that everybody defines a liberal as someone to the left of them. No one usually defines themself as a liberal, but whoever's to the left of me, but that point of reference is always different.
Jeffrey Heine:And so we we understand what liberal means, but we all interpret it different. We all have our own little definition that's unique. Some for some of you might think John McCain is a bleeding liberal. And for others, you might think, no. John McCain is the most conservative guy there is.
Jeffrey Heine:And we're using the same vocabulary, but we have different definitions. We have the same problem with theological words that we use on Sunday. We use words like redemption, salvation, sovereignty. We have phrases like freed from your sin, Yet, all of us have slightly different definitions of what that means. When I was at UCF and I would prepare students to go on the on mission trips, one of the things I would have them do is to share the gospel with one another.
Jeffrey Heine:They break off in pairs, and they have to share the gospel with one another. And I'd say, but one one thing, you can't use any of the Sean words. You can't use a word that ends with t I o n. You can't use salvation. You can't use redemption.
Jeffrey Heine:You can't use justification. You can't use salvation. You know, you could go on and on. All the the religious vocabulary that's there ends with Sean. And I said, you can't use any Christianese.
Jeffrey Heine:Don't use the word saved. And I want you to share the gospel with one another. And you would they would just sit there like bumps on a log and like, how do you share the gospel without using those words? But when it came that they did use those words and you would ask them, what exactly do you mean? Everybody had kind of different meanings.
Jeffrey Heine:Yeah. Much of our basic Christian vocabulary comes from the book of of Exodus. Words like salvation, redemption, freedom, phrases like blood of the lamb. They all come from this book. All of these expressions they find are beginnings in Exodus, and Exodus gives us the vocabulary that we're gonna need to truly understand our faith.
Jeffrey Heine:If you don't understand Exodus, you're gonna have a limited understanding of the work of Christ and really who he is. And I'm not exaggerating this. I I know some of you might be thinking, okay, or we we got the point. Point. I'm not exaggerating.
Jeffrey Heine:Unless you understand the vocabulary as it's used in Exodus, you will not understand Christ. You might use the same terms, but you will have a different meaning. I I could have pulled from a number of text, but let me just read 2. One's in Luke chapter 9. A famous passage, the Mount of Transfiguration.
Jeffrey Heine:I'll turn to Mark 9. I meant Luke 9. No, I didn't mean Mark 9. Sorry. I was right the first time.
Jeffrey Heine:Mark 9. And after 6 days, Jesus took with them up Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain by themselves, and he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became radiant, intensely white as no on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, as they were talking with Jesus, and and Peter said, Rabbi, it's good that we are here. Let us make 3 tents, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah. For he did not know, what what to say for they were terrified.
Jeffrey Heine:And a cloud overshadowed them and a voice came out of the cloud, this is my beloved son, listen to him. And suddenly looking around, they saw they no longer saw anyone with them, but Jesus alone. And in Luke chapter 9 in verse 28, he had the same story and it adds this little detail there. It says, when Moses and Elijah appeared, it says, and appeared in glory and spoke of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. And so you have this really intriguing story.
Jeffrey Heine:Jesus, he goes up to this mount and he's transfigured. His face is beaming like the sun. And then there's Moses and there's Elijah there, and they begin having this conversation. They're talking. And Luke says in verse 31 that they talked about Jesus's departure.
Jeffrey Heine:And in Greek, that is the word exodus. It's the exact same word. They were talking about Jesus's exodus. And so you have Moses, who comes down and meets Jesus on top of a mountain, and they talk about the exodus. Moses had his exodus.
Jeffrey Heine:Jesus is about to have his exodus. And and it's actually very there's a lot similarities there. If you remember Moses, one point, he climbed up the mountain. He was transfigured. He walked down.
Jeffrey Heine:His face shone like the sun. Jesus goes up the mountain. He's transfigured. They're both talking about Exodus. But for Moses, it's Exodus with a little e.
Jeffrey Heine:Little e. Jesus, he's talking about Exodus with a big e. The exodus. The exodus Moses in which your exodus pointed. And he's talking about his departure for the cross.
Jeffrey Heine:Through the cross, Jesus is gonna provide true redemption, true freedom, in which the story of Moses is just a shadow. You can look at Hebrews chapter 11, one of my favorite chapters in the bible, verse 26, says this, Moses considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward. Moses considered the reproach of Christ. What in the world does Moses know about Christ? More than we think.
Jeffrey Heine:As we come to understand what god is doing through the story of Exodus, doing in the life of Moses, we come to understand Christ and his work better. We start to understand our salvation. If if you were to ask a a Hebrew 3000 years ago, you're sitting down having coffee and you say, tell me your story. Just just tell me your story, kinda like what we did during the summer. They would probably say, you know, I was lost in my sin.
Jeffrey Heine:I was I was a slave in my sin. God had compassion on me. I called out to the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and he came and he saved me. He didn't judge me, He didn't punish me. He delivered me by the blood of the lamb.
Jeffrey Heine:He delivered me. And now that I'm free, I can experience him in worship, and now he's gonna take care of me, and he's gonna guide me, and he's gonna lead me in this life, and he's gonna take me to the promised land. That's what a Hebrew would say 3000 years ago, and if he would have turned to you and say, now you tell me your story, you'd say, wow, it's remarkably similar, you know, I was a slave to sin. I cried out to God and he he saved me. He didn't judge me.
Jeffrey Heine:He forgave me by the blood of the lamb, and now his spirit goes and he guides me, and he's leading me to the promised land. We would use the same language, the same vocabulary. And we need to understand what the the rescuing, what the exodus looked like then, if we're to understand what it should look like now. You should see that your story is their story. Most Christians grow up in church their whole life.
Jeffrey Heine:And if you were to ask them what the word salvation means, salvation. Usually, you're gonna get something like, well, you know, that's when your your soul saved and like we we looked at a couple weeks ago, and we go to heaven when we die, or our souls go to heaven when we die. If you were to ask a Hebrew in the book of Exodus, what salvation means, you're not gonna get that answer. Did they believe it was spiritual? Absolutely.
Jeffrey Heine:They also believed it was physical. There's a physical element to this. And so, we can't even understand our salvation apart from understanding the physical salvation here. Well, let's look at let's let's look at chapter 1 and 2 and we'll just kinda dig in. The book of Exodus, it picks up right where Genesis leaves off The sons of Jacob or in Egypt, 400 years go by, they multiply.
Jeffrey Heine:They're this huge number now. So great, pharaoh is scared. He's scared of them. And this fear drives the Hebrews or the the the Egyptians to start making the Hebrews slaves. We don't want them to overtake us.
Jeffrey Heine:We don't want them to join our enemies. Let's let's make them our slaves. And slavery is the dominant theme in the book of Exodus. You will find the word serve 97 times in this book. 97 times.
Jeffrey Heine:And all of Exodus needs to be seen in the light of that word, service, serving. The key question to the book of Exodus is who are you going to serve? Who are you going to serve? And when you look at verses 12 and 14 of chapter 1, it certainly seems like the Hebrews are gonna serve Egypt. Look at verse 12 again.
Jeffrey Heine:Says, but the more that they were oppressed, the more they multiplied, and the more they spread abroad, and the Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel, so they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves, and made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar, and in brick, and all kinds of work in the field. In all their work, they ruthlessly made them work as slaves. I've yet to find a good English translation of this verse. The in verse 14, the words work and the word serve are the exact same word. They're the exact same word.
Jeffrey Heine:Literally, it would read like this. So they ruthlessly made the people of Israel serve as slaves and made their lives bitter with hard service. In mortar and brick and in all kinds of service in the field. In all their service, they ruthlessly made them serve as slaves. And and translators, they don't like to write it like this because people don't normally talk like this.
Jeffrey Heine:You don't use the same word over and over. You know, if if you're a writer and you were to turn that into your editor, the first thing would do they would do is say, do you understand what a synonym is? You know, use different language, serve, work, use, you know, spice it up a little bit and your translators do the same thing but it's the same word, serve, serve, serve. Exodus is about serving. It's about taking a people who are in this bitter service to pharaoh, freeing them, and moving to them to service and joy and obedience to the Lord.
Jeffrey Heine:Don't think of Exodus as this, it's a a declaration of independence, in which, you know, you're just free. It's not that at all. It's actually a declaration of dependence. Not dependence on pharaoh, but now it's moving, transferring their dependence to the lord. They moved from serving pharaoh in harshness, and in bondage to serving God in freedom and joy.
Jeffrey Heine:Now, if you were to go up to the average Joe, I don't know if there's a Joe here, average Smith, and you were to just ask them, what did god say to or, yeah, what did god say to pharaoh? What did god say to pharaoh? Everybody's gonna say, what is it? Let my people go. Let my people go.
Jeffrey Heine:I mean, you you everybody knows that. Let my There's songs about it. You know, we all picture Charlton Heston, you know, let my people go. And and and that's what, you know, Moses, that's what the Lord told Moses to go up and say to Pharoah. The thing is, he didn't tell him that.
Jeffrey Heine:You're not gonna find that. Let my people go, as if that's all there is. God actually tells Moses to tell Pharaoh, let my people go that they may serve me in the wilderness. Let my people go that they may actually transfer service from you to service to me. God doesn't want to just free them from Egypt and let them just try to make it on their own.
Jeffrey Heine:He frees them to come and serve him. There's a reason for your freedom to serve god. You are not just free from something, you are free to something as Christians. To something. And Moses, who wrote this book, he understands something that's really quite profound.
Jeffrey Heine:He says that everyone is a slave to something. Everyone is a slave to something. You cannot live the life that God intends you to live unless God frees you from that. Unless and God frees you from that, and then he enables you to do what you were created to do, and that's to serve God. But the Bible says that all of us are serving something.
Jeffrey Heine:All of us are slaves. Some of us serve money. Some of us serve power. Some of us serve our parents. Some of us serve the need for approval.
Jeffrey Heine:Some of us serve sex. Some of us serve climbing up a corporate ladder. Some of us, you know, we we're just we serve our own freedom. Some of us serve religion. But we serve something.
Jeffrey Heine:And I would say that whatever has power, whatever you have given power over your happiness, you're serving, and it has become your master. If you're a slave to anyone or anything other than god, that is an oppressive and ruthless slavery. Now, I know in an America, in the land of the free, we deny this. You know, every man's free. Every man completely free, but it's a lie.
Jeffrey Heine:We're not free. All of you in here serve someone or something. You do. If your happiness is tied to getting recognition, you're a slave to that. If your happiness is tied to to having enough money to where you can buy the house you want, you're a slave to that.
Jeffrey Heine:If your happiness is tied to, you know, finding a great spouse or having the perfect marriage, You're a slave to that. If your happiness is found in religion, you're a slave to that. And what happens is when those things crumble, your whole lives crumble apart. You know, yes, it's going really well when you're making a lot of money, what happens when the money leaves? Or if you've built your foundational religion, I'm gonna do really really well, you know, I'm gonna have great ethics, great morals.
Jeffrey Heine:What happens when you stumble? Does your whole life fall apart? There is only joy in serving the Lord. Some of you are a slave, I would say even to your own freedom. Like I'm not a slave to anybody, you know, I'm I make my own choice all the time, all the time.
Jeffrey Heine:Well, you're you're a slave to your own freedom. And I've shared this years ago, but I went into a grocery store one time and I counted all of the cereal boxes that were in the cereal aisle. Different types of cereal, just, you know, the the categories, you know, it wasn't just Cheerios, but you have Cheerios, Cheerios strawberries, Cheerios blueberry or mixed berry berry, frosted Cheerios, whole wheat Cheerios. There's now like Fruit Loop Cheerios. And so, I mean, like just Cheerios, you got 7 or 8.
Jeffrey Heine:And and if you've heard this, don't don't tell how guess Somebody how many types of cereal I found, and this was like a Winn Dixie, wasn't a huge place. 230¢. That was about right. It was over 200, just over 200. It's pretty amazing.
Jeffrey Heine:Just over 200. I think it's 203. I didn't count the chips. You I mean, it's even worse for chips.
Connor Coskery:Yeah. They can count the off brand as well.
Jeffrey Heine:Oh, yeah. The meal and the Winn Dixie brands. But now you go there instead of just getting whatever's ever off the shelf, you're like, what do I get? I can cater to my own needs. Whatever I what do I want at this exact moment, and you're in bondage.
Jeffrey Heine:And you see this actually every Sunday night, that's why we declare that we're going to Hacienda afterwards because otherwise, we all stand there at the dorm like, where are we going? I don't know. Who wants Chinese? I don't know. We could do Chinese.
Jeffrey Heine:Who wants Mexican? Who wants And we're all sitting there because we have so many choices. Who cares? We're a slave to our own freedom. It's necessary for us to have all these choices in order for us to be happy.
Jeffrey Heine:But they'll beat us down. It's a cruel master. Now, one of the most common objections that I have heard to Christianity is, okay, Joel, I agree with that, and and man, I've been a slave to something, but I cried out that God would save me, that God would deliver me, and God did not. I tried this Jesus of yours, and he did not save me. I've heard that a number of times.
Jeffrey Heine:And and I would tell you the reason why why I believe that did not work. It's it's because you're seeking to be freed from, but you're not seeking to be freed to. Free me from this sin. Free me from this addiction. Free me from this, but it's not it's not free to serve the lord.
Jeffrey Heine:And so anybody who tries Jesus, it doesn't work because Jesus, he doesn't want to be tried. He says, no, don't try me, trust me. Don't try me, trust me. Means you leave that and you turn to me. You serve me.
Jeffrey Heine:Back to this text, we can we can look here and we can see that god's clear desire is to free the people from the oppression, but not the way that you would first think. For starters, god is remarkably absent in the first two chapters of Exodus. I mean, later, you know, you got all the smoke, you got the the the fire, all of the plagues, all the stuff, but the first two chapters, he's remarkably absent. The Israelites are being terribly oppressed. God's nowhere to be seen.
Jeffrey Heine:People are being killed. God's nowhere to be seen. The only reference that we have to God is concerning the midwives, and the midwives feared God, and and God did give them families. But other than that, there's no miracles, there's no displays of power. There's only cries for help with no answers.
Jeffrey Heine:Yet, god is moving behind the scenes. The first two women I want us to look at are are are Shipra and Puah. 2 women that the lord uses. When god works behind the scenes, the the the way that he works that we wouldn't expect, he uses 5 women. Five women.
Jeffrey Heine:Men on they're nowhere to be found, but the women he uses and unlikely candidates in the first are Puah and Shiphrah. These 2 women were Hebrew midwives, which meant that they are the lowest of the low in society. For one, they're Hebrews, so they're slaves, they're outsiders. Secondly, they're women in a male dominated society. 3rd, they're barren.
Jeffrey Heine:They don't have children, and only barren women could become midwives. Basically, you are the lowest of low and since you can't produce anything, the only thing that you can do is help other women usher in babies in society. So to be barren in this day and age was a total disgrace for a woman whose identity is wrapped up in being able to to give birth, to contribute to society, and and this is why you find in several old testament passages, wives telling their husbands or or praying out to God, God, give me a child or take my life, or I'll die. And that was a very real cry, having a child was was huge. And if they didn't have children, this was one of the things they could do.
Jeffrey Heine:And every time they heard a child cry, it was almost just like another another stab that they couldn't have children, that this is the life that they're gonna live. And yet, it's these 2 little powerless, oppressed women, they stand up to the most powerful man in the land, pharaoh. I mean, notice this about the women. This should be one of the things that jumps off the page to us. They have names.
Jeffrey Heine:Granted, they're not good names, but they're names. I mean, you've got Pua. I've I've never met, you know, a Pua or a Shiphrah. But Moses takes time to name them. I find it fascinating that in every commentary that I read about this, no one can identify the pharaoh.
Jeffrey Heine:No one knows his name. You have these 2 little Hebrew women oppressed. We know their names 35 100 years later. Here you have the mightiest man in the land, the who they thought was God walking on earth. Pharaoh, we have no clue who he is.
Jeffrey Heine:We don't know his name. He doesn't last, but the nobodies remain. Because God doesn't look at the people like we look at people. He doesn't look at the powerful and says, that's the kind of person I could use. No, he looks at the lowly and he's like, that's who I want.
Jeffrey Heine:That's who I want. I will choose the base. I will choose the foolish to shame the wise. The next woman we come across is Moses's mom. Now, Moses's dad is introduced in chapter 2 verse 1, gone after that.
Jeffrey Heine:That's it. You you know what I mean? He just kinda makes this little appearance, and then the women take over again. Now it's the mom's turn. She takes over.
Jeffrey Heine:And and and it says, mom who hides Moses, and she does the most creative act of disobedience ever. Pharoah says, alright. Throw your child into the Nile. She goes, alright. I'll throw my child into the Nile, And she makes a little basket, and she puts Moses in it, and she puts him in the Nile.
Jeffrey Heine:And she creatively obeys, and she preserves the life of her child. And so we then we have Moses's sister, another woman. She watches and she follows this basket all the way to where pharaoh's daughter is bathing. Then it's pharaoh's daughter now who has a prominent role, and she defies her dad's orders. And she goes and she takes this child out, and she she has compassion on the child, And she's like, I'm gonna I'm gonna let this child live.
Jeffrey Heine:She defies her dad's orders, that's punishable by death no matter who you are. And then, Moses's sister takes a little risk and she breaks social boundaries and she actually walks up to pharaoh. Here you have a Hebrew girl slave. She walks up to pharaoh's daughter and says, hey, I got a solution for you. Let me give you some advice.
Jeffrey Heine:Can I give you some advice? And she goes through with it. And pharaoh's daughter actually took her advice. I mean, there are no heroic men in this story. There's 5 heroic women, and now these women all had the same qualities, all of them.
Jeffrey Heine:They had compassion, and they took a risk. They all had compassion, and they all took a risk, and the Lord uses that. He uses that. I tell you, you know, I see this in my wife, and I I see this in in a lot of women. There's a huge burden on you because you have this this idea.
Jeffrey Heine:You have this false idea of perfection, what the real woman should be. You know, Proverbs tells you the the, you know, the woman and you all that's that's who you're supposed to be all of that and more. And you always kind of feel like I'm failing. I'm always you know what, you're gonna fail. You will.
Jeffrey Heine:I mean, we we feel this all the time. Lauren and I Lauren, she's saying, you know, I feel like I there's this standard here. I'm supposed I just I keep falling short of them. Like, you're right, but you know what? What kind of person does the lord use?
Jeffrey Heine:Have compassion. Have compassion on those around you. Be willing to take a risk when the lord calls. Small things. Small things that the lord will use to bring salvation.
Jeffrey Heine:Now remember in these chapters here that we don't see God really blatantly working. All we see is pharaoh making decrees, pharaoh doing all these things. Everything pharaoh does, everything turns against him. Actually, the rest of the book of Exodus, you're gonna see it all play out. All of his decrees, everything he tries to do comes back and bites him in the end.
Jeffrey Heine:You know, 1, chapter 1 verse 12 says that the more the Israelites were oppressed, the more they grew. Pharaoh tells the Hebrew midwives to kill all the male children as they were being born and to make it look like an accident, but instead, midwives feared god, preserve life. Pharaoh gives a command, have all the babies killed, throw them into the Nile. Well, by his command, Moses was saved. The deliverer was saved.
Jeffrey Heine:And actually, because of that very command, that Hebrew child's gonna come to live in his own household. How brilliant is that? God working behind the scenes, but he's never upfront. And this should be a great comfort to us, you know, when life is just throwing things after you. I mean, it's just throwing everything it has at you, and you're like, God, where are you?
Jeffrey Heine:And God is saying, I'm behind the scenes. You don't see it, but I'm working it all together. I'm working it all together for your good. The very things that seem so powerfully against us, that boss you can't stand, who's a thorn in your side, is not worse than pharaoh. God's using him for your good or her for your good.
Jeffrey Heine:Those things that that that that person you can't stand, the the the mortgage you're you're having such a hard time trying to pay, all those things working towards your good. Now, this whole story here let me just wrap this up. This whole story here lays the foundation for the gospel. This is an introductory message. This whole thing lays the foundation for the gospel.
Jeffrey Heine:It sheds light on the story of Jesus. Don't walk away from here thinking, alright. The moral of this is we need to be brave, like the women, you know, we need to try really hard, have a heart of compassion. No, those are good things, but don't walk away thinking that's the point of the story. Because the only way you can even be empowered to do that, is by knowing the person to whom this story points.
Jeffrey Heine:And this story, this whole story points to Jesus. When when we read and I hope certain things started firing in your brain, man, this sounds so familiar. This story sounds so familiar. I mean, can you think of another story in which someone's born and and a king tries to kill all the children, tries to kill all of the male children, orders a decree, yet this child miraculously escapes and is thrown into exile, goes off into the desert, empowered by god, used to deliver his people, can you think of another person? Does it ring a bell?
Jeffrey Heine:Rejected by his own, which Moses will be? And all of this is is to what your appetite or foreshadow, Pointing us, laying the foundation of salvation, and deliverance, and sovereignty, so when the true the true redeemer comes, the true rescuer comes, we will know him, and that's our lord Jesus. This whole story points to him. And it's my prayer as we go through the book of Exodus, and we'll also look at some of the rest of the Pentateuch. That the more and more we understand what God is doing, the more and more we understand our salvation.
Jeffrey Heine:Understand words like redemption, what they mean for us, and for this city in the world. Pray with me. Lord, we thank you for Jesus. We thank you that the scarlet thread throughout the entire bible is Jesus. We we find hits of him, shadows of him, foundations for him, all throughout your word.
Jeffrey Heine:And I pray that through your spirit, we would come to understand and know him more, not just know about him, but know our Lord and savior. Thank you for your deliverance and for your salvation, and how when we cry out to you, you have rescued us. I pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.
