Faith of our Mothers

Well, I know it's not Mother's Day and you've probably looked at the bullet and think, oh no, John's gone off his rocker again. He didn't know what time of year it is. Believe me, I know what time of year it is. But it, you know, sometimes you preach on the birth of Christ at other times than Christmas and sometimes you preach on the resurrection at other times than Easter and so nothing wrong with preaching on mothers at some other times than Mother's Day, right? So that's what we're going to do today. Actually, we're going to look at the next story in the life of Moses, which we began, I think three weeks ago, to look at three or four weeks ago, to look at the life of Moses on Sunday mornings. So open your Bible, please, to Exodus chapter 2, where we find a story of Moses' mother, actually a story of his parents, but especially his mother, Jockebid. His mother and his father as well, but especially the focus on this passage is on his mother. His mother becomes a stirring example of faith. In fact, her name is recorded in Hebrews chapter 11, the great Hall of Faith in the Bible, as describing her faith in this very incident that we're going to read about today. Hebrews chapter 11 in verse 23 says this, by faith, Moses' parents hid him for three months after he was born because they saw he was no ordinary child and they were not afraid of the King's edict. So it is by faith they hid him and trusted God, even though Pharaoh had said every boy born among the Hebrews is to be drowned in the River Nile, it is by faith they trusted God to protect him and do that special work through his life which God had planned to do. When I think of this, I think of the fact that being a mother or father today requires a great deal of faith as well. Our times are a little different than the times into which Moses was born and the job of parents is no less difficult than it was in that day and so it requires great faith in a great God to be a mother or father and let me extend that to grandparents as well today. So let's look at the example of Moses' mother and see what she can teach us about the kind of faith that is required to be a godly parent in this day and age or a godly grandparent in this day and age. First of all, we find the need for faith to bring a child into the world. In the first couple of verses of Exodus chapter 2, we find them bringing a child into this world. Now it's been a few weeks since we introduced the life of Moses by scanning the historical setting in chapter 1. So let me just remind you of the desperate times into which Moses was born. He is a Jew being born into a land of anti-Semitism. He is a Hebrew being born among people who are suffering in slavery. People who are hated and despised and oppressed and so he's entering a life that is set up for cruelty and despair and hopelessness and even worse because he's a boy he's supposed to die. As soon as it is discovered that he's born, every Hebrew boy is supposed to be drowned in the Nile River. What a time to bring a family into the world. What a time to bring a child, especially a little boy into the world. But when I think about our times, I think about what a time it is to bring a child into the world. We do live in dark days. We do live in difficult days. And for parents with all of the immorality that just engulfs us on every side with all of the drug and alcohol addiction difficulties, particularly in our area with all of the media entertainment on slot against every value, biblically, that we hold dear with all of the consumerism and materialism that just engulfs our families and our children in this day with the wholesale abandoning of biblical moral values in our culture. What a day it is to bring a child into the world. What a day it is to be a parent or a grandparent and to be rearing children. These are difficult days just like Moses' parents faced. So what do those times require? What do those dark and difficult days require? First of all, we find on their part and we are called to this as well the faith to go on living. It requires just faith to go on living. Look at verse 1. It says, now a man of the tribe of Levi married a Levi woman. Now think about that. Let's pause and focus on that for a moment. It's easy to think, well, that's just the introduction to the story. I want to get to the little bull rush thing, the little basket. I want to get to that. Well, stop reminining and think of what it means in the midst of dark and desperate days to celebrate a marriage. And I will tell you this, Jews knew how to celebrate a marriage. By New Testament times we know even in Old Testament times, they would celebrate with a weak long feast in honor of the bride and groom. This was, they knew how to celebrate. They knew how to rejoice in a couple coming together and getting married. And they find the faith to go ahead with those times of joy and blessing even in the darkest of days. Oppression being made slaves, being a beaten and oppressed in the servitude. And the thought that if we bring a boy into this world, he'll be immediately killed. Even in those times, they're still celebrating marriages. Why? Well, the Bible says they were Levites. This is the tribe from which later God will choose the priests and all of those who will serve in the temple. I know that's not yet, but these parents' own child, Aaron, will be the first high priest when God sets up the worship system of Israel. And we know from how the story develops, these were indeed people of faith. They were not just Levites as far as connecting with the tribe. They were people of faith. They loved the Lord. And they wanted to serve him and live for him. And so they went on with life trusting God. When I think of that, I think of what it means for us today. We live in difficult days. We live in dark days. And they seem to be getting worse. I know that in our area in particular, the state of the economy and the mining industry declining so much and the ripple effect of that that we see every week in our newspaper and what's happening to other places of employment in our area, it just seems to be such a dark time. And all of the stories of crime and drug addiction and so forth, it's just such a dark time. We've got a choice to make in dark times. We can curse the darkness and retreat into a little shelter or a cocoon and crawl into a shell and just let the world go to hell without any concern on our part or we can say this. We can say yes, these are indeed dark times, but that's when the light shines the brightest. And this is our time. This is our time to shine. This is our time to move into the community. This is our time to move into our world and make an impact. The times where people are hopeless and in despair are our best times. There are times to shine brightly. And so let's go on living. Let's not crawl into a shell. Let's not become self-protective and fearful and anxious. Let's demonstrate a strong hope and faith in our God, the faith to go on living and not just to exist in the midst of fear and anxiety, but to live abundantly and to live powerfully and to live clearly. This is our time. Let's do it well. Let's shine brightly in this day, in our culture, in our area, they had the faith to go on celebrating marriages, even in the midst of the most difficult oppression. But they also had the faith in bringing this child into the world to see a future for their child. Notice if you will verse two. And she became pregnant and gave birth to a son when she saw that he was a fine child she hid him for three months. Now the word fine comes from a word that literally means beautiful. They saw that he was a beautiful child and by the way every parent sees that, right? Every parent says, wow, what a beautiful baby. Be honest with you and the other pastors can back me up on this. That becomes a bit of a stretch sometimes for us as pastors. You know, we visit when they're born in the hospital, we take a look at them and the parents, isn't it beautiful? Isn't it beautiful? And you know, we're supposed to be honest. And so I've come up with a biblical solution, guys. Some of you probably already there. Let's just use the biblical term. Now that's a fine child. That's a fine child. We can mean whatever we want to by that. But seriously, in this text, it means this was a beautiful child, but it goes deeper than that. It was not just the outward appearance they were looking on. The New Testament gives us a little bit of a commentary on this verse. Look at Acts chapter 7, verse 20, describing the birth of Moses. It says this, at that time Moses was born and he was no ordinary child for three months. He was cared for by his family. It's not just he's a good looking kid. They recognize something in him and Hebrews 11 uses the same terminology. We saw it earlier, but look at it again. After he was born, they protected him, hitting for three months because they saw he was no ordinary child. They saw something in this little boy that they recognized was special. I don't know whether God revealed to them a special plan that he had for Moses. I'm not sure that the text didn't tell us that. But somehow they sense that God had a special purpose for this little boy. Let me tell you something. Let me clue you in on a little secret. Do you know that's true of every child that comes into this world? God has a special plan and purpose for every child, every one of your children, every one of your grandchildren. God has a special purpose and plan for. Psalm 139 tells us that we are knit together, woven together in the womb, and that all of the days that are ordained for us. In other words, that God has already planned for us are already written in his book before any of them come to be. Now wrap your minds around that. What that passage is telling us is that God has a plan and a purpose for every child that is knit together in its mother's womb. And he has a book with all of the days laid out, the purpose and plan laid out for that child. If you grasp that about the children that God allows you to bring into this world, it will forever radically change the way you look at rearing your children. God has a special plan and purpose for this little boy, for this little girl. And I will see them differently. I will see them through the eyes of God by faith. I will believe that God has a future for my child. They can be a world changer. God can use them in great ways. It will make a tremendous difference in the way you view and rear your children and your grandchildren. If you see them as a special work of God, no ordinary child. But they also in bringing this child into the world had to have faith just to go on living to make this possible, living joyfully and abundantly and triumphantly. Yes, in faith to see a future for their child. But they also had to have the faith to hide him from danger. You saw it there in verse 3 when she saw that he was a fine child, no ordinary child. She hid him for three months. Now again, in our anxiety to get to him being in the little basket and now we often slide right over this. Now I love when I'm looking at these kinds of stories and these kinds of characters in the Bible to try to just close my eyes for a moment and put myself in their sandals and try to understand what it would have been like. What would it have been like to hide a baby for three months? You moms know how hard that is, don't you? Some babies you couldn't hide for three minutes, much less three months. I think this is biblical evidence that Moses never had collic. How could you hide that? Now think about it. The same Pharaoh who has said every Hebrew boy has to be drowned. Obviously that's not just a scare tactic. He means that he's got to have a system in place for finding out when baby boys are born. Is it a system of spies? Is it house to house inspections every week? I don't know what it was, but he had to find some way, he had to have some way of knowing when baby boys were born or he had to have those who were spying out. He grew homes, maybe even neighbors that were being paid to be the scout for a certain community. I don't know how he did it, but he had to have a plan and in the midst of that, think of how hard this would be to hide a baby, a baby who cries. I can just imagine the household where Jacobean is saying, Miriam will you please hold him for a little while and try to get him quiet down? Aaron stop agonizing the little boy. Stop fussing at the little kid. Oh wait a second, do I hear boots outside the door? Do I hear someone coming? Let's get him to the back room, our special little place where we hide him. Can you imagine how difficult that would have been? It was a tremendous challenge to protect him from danger and yet every parent and grandparent year today has that same responsibility to protect our children from dangers that surround them. And the dangers are no less threatening today than they were in that day with the onslaught of evil and worldliness in our day. It is hard to protect our kids from all that they will face and sometimes in the day in which we live seemingly impossible. But we've got to do our best. We've got to stay on top of things. We've got to stay on top of what they're watching and what they're where they're going and what they're experiencing. We have all been horrified in our area this week with a horrible story of 13-year-old and the coal level who is abducted in a neighboring town and killed by two university students after meeting one of them through an online messaging app on her phone, 13 years old. I was very disturbed by statements that I read by an FBI agent in regard to that case. Listen to what he says. Kick, which is the online app she was using. Kick, along with Instagram and Snapchat, are particularly popular with younger teens. And it's impossible, listen to this, it is impossible to keep underage users from signing up. Even kids whose parents closely monitor their activity on sites such as Facebook often use smartphones with other social media where predators lurk said Adam Lee, special agent in charge of the FBI enrichment. Listen to what he says next. He says kids are crafty, Lee said. They will have one account parents have access to and half a dozen they shield from their parents' views. Now this is part of what makes it so difficult to protect our kids today. So let me go out on a limb here today, okay? First of all be careful about what age you allow your children to have smartphones. I know I sound like someone out of the dark ages, but be careful. And by all means you need to know what's on that phone. You need to know what apps are on there. I know you can't do everything to protect them from every influence of danger. We say well that's a violation of privacy, isn't it? No, it is your parental responsibility to shield them from danger. And so you make sure you know what's on that phone, make sure you know what's on their computers, make sure you do everything you can to screen whatever you can, and then make sure you take off whatever you need to take off. Now I know you can't walk out the door with them. So I know there's an element here where you just have to put them in the hands of God and trust them, but we have got to do everything we can to protect our children, to hide them from the dangers around them. That's part of our responsibility as parents and grandparents. But the time came when they could hide him no longer. He's awake more, he's crying out louder, he's not sleeping all day like he used to, and so they devise another plan. Yes, they had to have faith to bring this child into the world to go on living, to see a future for him to protect him as best they could, but now another plan has to go into place and that is a plan to care for their children. For Moses in particular, a plan for his care, let's read about their plan. Look at verse 3. But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reads along the bank of the Nile. His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him. Then Pharaoh's daughter went down to the Nile to bathe and her attendants were walking along the river bank. She saw the basket among the reads and sent her female slave over to get it. She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying and she felt sorry for him. This is one of the Hebrew babies, she said. Then his sister asked Pharaoh's daughter, shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you? Yes, go. She answered so the girl went and got the baby's mother. Pharaoh's daughter said to her, take this baby and nurse him for me and I will pay you. So the woman took the baby and nursed him. This is one of those Bible stories that suffers from familiarity. We've heard it from our childish years in Sunday school. The little baby and the bull are in the little basket in the bull rushes out on the Nile river, seeing the pictures. Because of our familiarity, we don't live in this story. We don't put ourselves in their place and really grasp and put our minds around what it would mean to be in their shoes. How that affects us today. Let me take a moment to explain what they were going through. It's no longer possible to hide the fact that there is a little baby at home. And so they hit upon a plan and this is a well thought through plan. When you begin to unwrap the details of it, this is thought through very carefully. She makes a basket out of papyrus, which would be easy to fit together and then paste together with tar and pitch, which when it dried, kind of an asphalt-like substance, when it dried, it would provide a watertight compartment, sealed good. Now, please don't get the impression that she then stuck him out in the river and watched him drift down the river. Hope he doesn't hit a waterfall. That's not the idea. The Bible says she placed him among the bull rushes, among the reads, the tall sturdy reads that would go along the banks of the Nile and out into the river, she strategically placed him where he would not move, where he would not be in any danger of drifting away. But she also strategically placed him where she knew that pharaoh's daughter frequented that particular place in the river Nile to come and bathe. And so it's a very ingenious plan and she's trained her daughter Miriam to watch. No doubt she has rehearsed this over and over with Miriam. Now, when what happens, what we think is going to happen, you've got to be quick, you've got to be spontaneous, but you've got to act surprise, Miriam. You can't act like you know this little boy at all. We've got to pull this off. It's a very carefully thought through plan. I think they knew enough about the Egyptian's religious system to know that they knew the Egyptians worshiped the God of the Nile River. And so they were putting their hopes and prayers in the fact that this Egyptian princess would maybe believe that the river God had given her a gift. Here's this little baby just out here in the river. The river God must have sent him my way and maybe that would play on her heart. That's what they're praying. That's what they're hoping. Now, I cannot imagine that Jocke Bed just stayed at home, you know, fixed little filafel and little bit of humus and serve it to you know our family at dinner and knit a little bit. There's a needlework and I can't imagine her being distant from this location. I don't know if there are trees alongside the Nile River or in this location in particular, but I can just imagine her hiding within sight, knowing the time that Pharaoh's daughter will come to the river. Hiding maybe behind a tree on tiptoe, ringing her hands, her throat dry, breathing heavy, her heart pounding as she watches the scene unfold and she watches the princess look around and she sees a little slave girl go over to exactly the place where she put Moses in the edge of the river and she watches with her heart pounding. What will happen next? What will happen next? This is Pharaoh's daughter. It's her father that commanded every child be drowned in the Nile and that's where he is. I may watch my son be grabbed up by her and pushed under the water and held there. Can you imagine what's in her heart? As she watches the scene unfold, she has done everything she can to plan carefully, but she is at God's mercy and she must trust him with how it unfolds. The princess does indeed hear the baby and if there were ever a time when God calls the baby to cry, it was here. He must have been hungry, but at the moment he is found, he's crying and that touches her heart. There's something on every woman's heart that mother instinct that when a baby is crying, you feel like you've got to do something. And so Jacobed's plan is a beautiful plan, a wonderful plan, but she's watching from a distance trusting God because she can't maneuver it, she can't push it along, she can't change it if it doesn't start going the way she thought it would. Can you imagine Miriam shows up quickly? Comly suggests a Hebrew nursemaid for this little Hebrew boy and that seems like a reasonable arrangement to the princess and so quickly Miriam offers to go find one, obviously knowing she will go find Moses' mother, her mother. I imagine again, Jacobed watching the scene and his Miriam comes to her and says to her what has transpired, I can imagine the joy that must have just burst in her heart and she runs, she wants to run, she longs to sprint to get her little boy, but she's got to seem disinterested, she's got to seem respectful, she has to remain cool, there can be no sign that she loves this little boy or even that she recognizes him, there can be no tears, there can be no catch in her voice, there can be no trembling hands, there can be no quick breathing, oh God, help me to do this, right? The life of my little boy is at stake, God gives her back her son with now the protection of the princess and of Pharaoh and with pay to take care of him, but there's more here than just that plan, what we find here is something that only God could do, something that I, one of my favorite verses in Proverbs 16 says, Proverbs 16, 7 says when the Lord takes pleasure in any one's way, He calls out their enemies to make peace with them, only God could do this, only God could work all of this detail out to use the very people who said he grew babies must die to provide for Moses protection, but there's more here than just a beautiful little story of a baby in a basket being delivered, there's a lesson here about planning and faith, so let me camp for just a moment on this lesson, planning and faith go together, beautifully illustrated in this story, Jockebid had a great plan, she thought everything through, she worked that plan as best she could, but there was an element of this that she could not manage, she could not control, was out of her hands, and so she must trust God for what will happen. Planning and faith are not exclusive, they go together, you see some people believe that faith means you do nothing, you just wait on God and pray and commit it to him and do nothing, now there are certain situations in which we can do nothing and then we are wholly cast upon the Lord, and in all cases, regardless of our plans, we are still, we are still at the mercy of God to do what He will do, but faith doesn't mean you stop thinking, faith does not mean you're lazy, faith does not mean you stop planning, you may be trusting God for a job but update the resume, knock on doors, get on the phone, send out emails, do what you can do, those two go together, you may trust God to provide for you, but sometimes it means I gotta look at areas where I may be spending foolishly and tighten the belt and change the budget, that's planning, that's wise planning, we trust God for our safety but it doesn't mean we're gonna pass a car on a blind curve, they gotta expect us to use the means that are disposable to think clearly and to plan carefully, there's nothing, nothing against faith in that and so acting foolishly and expecting God to bail you out is not faith, that's presumption, we should do all that we can to plan wisely, that's true of ministry, that's true of our families, it's true of our lives, plan wisely and then trust God for the results because a lot of times our plan doesn't work out like we thought it would, so we've got to trust God anyway to do what we cannot do and commit to Him to do what He sees fit to do, but those two go together, what a beautiful illustration of that, wise careful planning but trusting God all the way, those two go together, so that leads me to ask you this question, do you have a plan for your child, for your children, do you have a plan for your grandchildren? I hope you do because there needs to be a plan in the day in which we live with all that is facing us, how will you provide for your children, how will you train your children, how will you discipline your children, do you have a plan? Don't just let it happen and don't depend on the church to make it happen, we try to partner with families but we are not the parents of your children and you have the God-given responsibility to discipline, to train, to correct, to affirm and love and guide and rear your children, but do you have any plan for that? You have any idea as to how you're going to do that? Let me tell you a ministry we have here at the church that will help you with that, it's called a Wana at home. It's a great ministry that basically is all about training parents with a plan to know how to rear their children and train their children, so if you're not sure what you're doing or how to do it or how to even come up with some kind of plan, go to a Wana at home on Wednesday nights, it will help you a lot. So I would encourage you to do that, do you have a plan for your children? But then there's one other thing they needed faith to do that all of us as parents and grandparents have to face many times through our children's lives and that is faith to let our children go, look at her 10 when the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh's daughter and he became her son, she named him Pharaoh's daughter, named him Moses saying I drew him out of the water. Now think again about what this means, think about what it must have meant for mom, for Jacobed, think about what it means for you as a mom and you as a dad, how old was Moses when she had to give him up and and take him to the palace. I really don't know how old. I know that Hebrew children were typically weaned at age three or four, so it was probably after that was a five, six, seven, I don't know, but he was still a young boy. Think about what it's like for mom, has she reared him well, has she taught him enough? There's no question in my mind she taught him who he was because the very next verse says one day after Moses had grown up he went out to where his own people were. He knew who his people were, he knew he was a Hebrew and if she trained him who he was, I can't imagine she didn't train him who God was, so he knew who he was, he was a Hebrew, he knew about a relationship with God and I'm convinced she also trained him to know the promises made to Abraham that this is not our land, this is not our world, this is not our home, we have a promised land waiting for us someday. I'm sure all that was drilled into him, he was trained in all of those spiritual principles, but can you imagine, can you imagine the day they get ready to leave home and they're putting all of his little possessions in a bag and there's final words of instruction and warning and reaffirming the basic truths that she spent these years building into his little life. Will she ever see him again? Can you imagine the last prayer they had together? Can you imagine them walking out of the little hut walking into this huge palace? All the sensory overload of what they're seeing, hearing, feeling, experiencing, smelling, and she's ready to turn him over to another woman with different set of values. She's ready to turn him over to a woman who is a stranger and idolat her. She's going to hand him over at this young age to the Egyptian education system. Everything in her wants to grab him and turn around and run, but she can't. She knows she can't. She didn't have the options available to us today. There were no believers in the Egyptian educational system like we are so blessed to have in our area with so many believers in our school system who will nurture, love our children. She didn't have the option of a Christian school. She didn't have the option of continuing homeschooling. At this young age, she has to let him go. It must have torn her heart out to do that. But you know what? Parenting is a whole series of letting goves. You take him to school the first day of kindergarten or put him on that bus and part of your heart goes with him. You're letting them go just a little bit. And then there's that first night when they spend the night with a friend and they call you at two o'clock in the morning when I come home. You're trying to let him go. First trip away with a school group. You let him go. First time they go out driving. Now that one is scary. I went through it three times. I think it took at least three years off my life. Or when they go on that first date, you know, and you bring that guy in, have him sit down in the room to talk with him before he takes out. Just happen to be the room where you clean all your guns. Let him go. That's hard. And then when they go off to college, I will never forget when we left Ruth at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. For those of you who've been there, you know, there's a big plaza between some buildings kind of nestled in the campus. And we've been through all the parent orientation stuff and she'd been through all the student orientation stuff and everything was ready to go and then came the time to say goodbye. And I'll never forget she just we're standing out in that plaza and she just turned around and walked off said, Dad, goodbye, mom, goodbye. And she tried to walk off and they're watching her thinking, please, give me back my heart. It's going that way. It was a long 10 hour drive home. You had to let her go. And then when I walked my three girls down the aisle to give them to those beasts who were going to marry them. That's a real hard letting go or you watch your son drive off with his new bride. You let him go. You trust God. You trust God. And sometimes the hardest letting go was when there were adults. They begin to make decisions that break your heart. What can you do? You've done your best to rear them and send them out. Can't fix them. Can't change them. Hard. Hard for mom and dad. But think about how hard it was for that child. Think about how hard it was for Moses. Imagine the emotions that must have gone through him. He's been ripped out of everything secure and familiar to him. His small little hut. He walks into this palace. He's overwhelmingly lonely. Can you imagine the first night and him crying for his mother? Wishing you could just hear his dad pray with him one more time. Wishing you could just see the smile of Miriam to play with Aaron again. Had he been taught to pour out his heart to God in those very situations I am confident he must have been. He must have been taught by that faithful mother and father to pour out his heart to God. He was prepared for this. Some of you here this morning have been uprooted from your families. Your home has been fractured by divorce. You're not even sure which home to really call home anymore. Maybe you've grown up without a home. Maybe you've been in foster care. You've just gone from home to home. Everything familiar to you changes every six months or every year. Could I tell you this morning even if you're an adult who has never fully recovered from some of that in your background? Could I tell you this morning what I think Moses parents must have told him before he left home? You need the Lord and you need the stability that only Jesus Christ can give your life. He is the one constant who will never change. He is the one relationship that will never leave you or forsake you. That will never change in feeling toward you, in love and commitment toward you. So focus your heart and life on Jesus Christ. In fact all of us need to trust him to realize that he cares. There are no accidents with him. He is working and bringing good even in the darkest of times in the worst of heart aches. Trust him to bring a child into this world. Yes, even in this world. Trust him to plan for the care of your children and to rear them as best you can and then trust him to let them go over and over and over and over again. Trust him. Jocke Bed could only do that because of a personal relationship with God through faith. She had to know the Lord and had to know him well. That is the only way she could have been that kind of mom. And so I would say to you here today if you have never trusted Jesus as your Savior that is where you need to start. You need to start with a real living faith in Christ as your Savior. To know that he died for your sins on the cross so that you could be forgiven you could become a part of God's family as his child and have him as your Heavenly Father. And then to place your life on a trajectory to chart your life in such a way that you could trust him for whatever comes your way. That is bowing prayer. Father, thank you for this story. It's not just a children's story. It has deep lessons to teach all of us. And I pray that we'll learn them. Grant us the grace, the strength to trust you in this dark day in which we live to shine brightly in the light. Give us grace to trust you to train and rear our children and grandchildren as best we can. Give us grace to trust you, Father, to let them go. And in many ways we're called upon to do that. May we trust you. And I pray if there's anyone here this morning that has never trusted you as Savior that this would be the day they would do that in Jesus' name we pray.