Chad Stuart: Do you remember who was the first American to orbit the Earth?
Chad Stuart: We have some history buffs in here, just shout it out.
Chad Stuart: John Glenn.
Chad Stuart: John Glenn was a name that I knew.
Chad Stuart: I don't ever remember a time when I didn't know the name of John Glenn.
Chad Stuart: John Glenn from the good old state of Ohio.
Chad Stuart: Now let me ask you this, and young people, you might actually know this better than some of the older folk do, but do you know the lady that they said was largely responsible for calculating the launch and the landing trajectories of the Mercury projects, including John Glenn's launch and landing?
Chad Stuart: I said kids don't answer.
Chad Stuart: You guys just broke it.
Chad Stuart: I knew you guys would know it.
Chad Stuart: They've all seen the movie.
Chad Stuart: Hidden Figures, 2016.
Chad Stuart: I consider myself kind of a history person and a history buff, a history hobbyist, you would say.
Chad Stuart: And I grew up reading all about things and learning various history, and I and I I loved history class.
Chad Stuart: I loved reading my history books, and they're in the history books and written in the history books for Till Jesus comes will be the name of John Glenn as the first American to orbit the earth.
Chad Stuart: But I never remember until that movie came out in 2016.
Chad Stuart: I never remember hearing the name of Catherine Johnson.
Chad Stuart: John Glenn was kind of the hero that orbited in space, but there were so many other people that made that event possible, including the brilliant Catherine Johnson.
Chad Stuart: We focus in our society a lot of times on the hero, on that main name, and put their name above all the other names, not recognizing though that there are few events, there are a few moments in his history where there weren't not just the hero, but all of these other people that played a role in making that hero who they were.
Chad Stuart: There are a few historical moments in the history of God's people that are more significant than the event that we refer to as the Exodus.
Chad Stuart: The Exodus is when God, through Moses, as we've been taught, led the Israelites out of Egypt through the wanderings into the desert and from there into the promised land.
Chad Stuart: The Exodus is the most frequently mentioned story from the Old Testament in all of Scripture.
Chad Stuart: More than the creation story, more than the flood story, the story of the Exodus is mentioned over a hundred and twenty times throughout Scripture, referenced as a key story in all the Bible.
Chad Stuart: Specifically, the book of Revelation.
Chad Stuart: Adventists, we like to say we, Daniel and Revelation, those sister books, are books that have helped lead and guide us.
Chad Stuart: The book of Revelation, there are a multitude of allusions to the book of Exodus.
Chad Stuart: Even getting more, even more granular.
Chad Stuart: Dr.
Chad Stuart: William Shea, writing in the journal for Adventist Theological Society, wrote that that final message that we are to take to the world, the message of the three angels found there in Revelation 14, he says, is full of allusions and references to the book of Exodus and the story of Exodus.
Chad Stuart: And when we think of the story of X of Exodus, which person do we most often think of?
Chad Stuart: Moses.
Chad Stuart: Maybe once in a while we'll secondarily think of Aaron, but we almost always think of Moses.
Chad Stuart: This is the way even in society we've been conditioned.
Chad Stuart: A lot of the older folk, we know who John Glenn is because of the history.
Chad Stuart: By the way, Heidi Wetmore, she told me after first service, she was there and watched the ship launch into space that had John Glenn on it.
Chad Stuart: She was actually there in person and watch the thing.
Chad Stuart: She says, sitting in their uh in their station wagon.
Chad Stuart: How many remember those good old station wagons?
Chad Stuart: With those bench seats, never had to wear seat belts, you could sleep in the back window sometimes.
Chad Stuart: I mean, that was the greatest ever.
Chad Stuart: Now you guys off all these safety rules.
Chad Stuart: It's not any fun anymore.
Chad Stuart: But but you're alive, that's good.
Chad Stuart: We like that.
Chad Stuart: But but she was saying they watched that happen.
Chad Stuart: But you know, there was there were movies made about John Glenn, and there was documentaries made about John Glenn.
Chad Stuart: Uh, a movie that I saw when I was a kid called The Right Stuff.
Chad Stuart: Any of you remember that movie with John Glenn talking about John Glenn and all the NASA and the space aviators?
Chad Stuart: Well, same thing with Moses.
Chad Stuart: I mean, the feature, the focus person of the movies about the Exodus are Moses, Charlton Heston.
Chad Stuart: You know, did you guys see the Ten Commandments?
Chad Stuart: Raise your hand if you've seen the Ten Commandments.
Chad Stuart: Raise your hand if you saw in theater.
Chad Stuart: I'm just kidding, don't do that.
Chad Stuart: I know back then you might have got on trouble for it.
Chad Stuart: Thank you, William.
Chad Stuart: No.
Chad Stuart: Listen, there's always these heroes, and we think about that, but there are people sometimes behind them as well.
Chad Stuart: And that's what we want to focus on today.
Chad Stuart: That God used many people behind Moses to make that event possible, to get to that moment.
Chad Stuart: And since it is Mother's Day tomorrow, and since we are uh recognizing the blessing of all the ladies in our church, I want us to take a few moments and a few minutes this Sabbath morning to consider the women behind the Exodus.
Chad Stuart: There are six women, but we're going to look at three vignettes about those six women to learn some lessons that we can apply to our lives.
Chad Stuart: And here's why I think these lessons are important for all of us, not just the ladies of the church, but for all of us.
Chad Stuart: Because the truth is, is that most of us, in fact, probably almost all of us, are never going to be a John Glenn or a Moses.
Chad Stuart: But every single one of us have a role to play in God's work here on this earth.
Chad Stuart: And no one may ever make a movie about us, no one may ever remember our name.
Chad Stuart: We we might just be a footnote in history, we might not even be a footnote in history, we might just be forgotten.
Chad Stuart: And yet God will see the work that we have done.
Chad Stuart: And so these lessons for us just for ladies, but for all of us who are in the background there of the great story that is the story of Jesus and his work in this world.
Chad Stuart: So three vignettes.
Chad Stuart: Open your Bibles to the book of Exodus.
Chad Stuart: Exodus chapter one, and I'll begin in verse eight.
Chad Stuart: Exodus chapter one, I'll begin in verse eight.
Chad Stuart: 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.
Chad Stuart: Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply.
Chad Stuart: And if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.
Chad Stuart: Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens.
Chad Stuart: They built for Pharaoh store cities, Pithum and Ramses.
Chad Stuart: But the more they oppressed, the more they multiplied, and more and the more they spread abroad.
Chad Stuart: And the Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel.
Chad Stuart: Now jumping down to verse 15.
Chad Stuart: So here the people of God's people are being oppressed, they're putting being put into slavery, they're being put into bondage, and yet they're increasing in number.
Chad Stuart: They're increasing in number.
Chad Stuart: And then verse 15.
Chad Stuart: Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiprah, and the other Pua, When you serve as midwife to the Hebrew women and see them on the birthstool, if it is a son, you shall kill him, but if it is a daughter, she shall live.
Chad Stuart: But the midwives fear God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them.
Chad Stuart: But let the male children live.
Chad Stuart: So the king of Egypt called the midwives and said to them, Why have you done this and let the male children live?
Chad Stuart: The midwives said to Pharaoh, Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.
Chad Stuart: Y'all, with the actions of the midwives, Shipra and Pua, without the action of the midwives, Shipra and Pua, no Hebrew males would have lived, including Moses.
Chad Stuart: It was their courage.
Chad Stuart: Allowed him to continue his journey.
Chad Stuart: Vignette number two from Exodus chapter two, beginning in verse one.
Chad Stuart: Now a man from the house of Levi went and took as his wife a Levite woman.
Chad Stuart: The woman conceived and bore a son.
Chad Stuart: And when she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him three months.
Chad Stuart: When she could hide him no longer, she took for him a basket made of bulrushes, and daubed it with bitumen and pitch.
Chad Stuart: She put the child in it and placed it among the reeds by the riverbank.
Chad Stuart: And his sister stood at a distance to know what would be done to him.
Chad Stuart: Now the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river while her young women walked beside the river.
Chad Stuart: She saw the basket among the reeds, and sent her servant woman, and she took it.
Chad Stuart: When she opened it, she saw the child, and behold, the baby was crying.
Chad Stuart: She took pity on him and said, This is one of the Hebrew's children.
Chad Stuart: 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?
Chad Stuart: And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, Go.
Chad Stuart: So the girl went and called the child's mother.
Chad Stuart: And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, Take this child away and nurse him for me, and I will give you your wages.
Chad Stuart: So the woman took the child and nursed him.
Chad Stuart: And when the child grew older, she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son.
Chad Stuart: So she named him Moses, because she said, I drew him out of the water.
Chad Stuart: Y'all, without the actions of Moses' mother, without the actions of Moses' sister, without the actions of Pharaoh's daughter, there would be no Moses.
Chad Stuart: And then the last clip for Moses' life, and to give you context for this last clip, this is 80 years after those previous stories.
Chad Stuart: Moses is now an 80-year-old man.
Chad Stuart: He's married, he has his own children.
Chad Stuart: God's come to him, and Moses, he's come to Moses, and he said, Moses, you are going to deliver my people out of Egypt.
Chad Stuart: And Moses argues back and forth.
Chad Stuart: If you know the story, if you don't, you can go back and read it.
Chad Stuart: It's in Exodus chapter 3 and 4.
Chad Stuart: Moses argues back and forth with God about going and delivering the people.
Chad Stuart: And Moses finally submits and he says, Okay, I will go.
Chad Stuart: I will go and deliver the people from Exodus.
Chad Stuart: And then in chapter 4 and verse 20, it says, So Moses took his wife and his son and had them ride on a donkey and went back to the land of Egypt.
Chad Stuart: And Moses took the staff of God in his hand.
Chad Stuart: And then you jump down just a few verses, and one of the weirdest stories in the Bible happens.
Chad Stuart: At a lodging place on the way, verse 24, the Lord met him, met Moses, and sought to put him to death.
Chad Stuart: This was the guy that God was just saying, You're going to deliver the people.
Chad Stuart: You're going to, and Moses was like, No, no, no.
Chad Stuart: And now Moses is on his way, and God comes along and says, You gotta stop.
Chad Stuart: And it says that he was going to put him to death.
Chad Stuart: Then Sepporah, Moses' wife, took a flint and cut off her son's foreskin and touched Moses' feet with it and said, Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me.
Chad Stuart: So he let Moses alone.
Chad Stuart: It was then that she said, A bridegroom of blood, because of the circumcision.
Chad Stuart: There's all kinds of things we could analyze about this story, and we won't get into all of it, but simply to say this: without Zipporah taking that flint knife and circumcised circumcising her son, there is no Moses.
Chad Stuart: Now, let's understand something, of course.
Chad Stuart: God wasn't dependent on Moses to get out the Exodus, get the people out of Egypt.
Chad Stuart: God chose to use Moses.
Chad Stuart: And God wasn't necessarily dependent upon these women, but but God would have never used Moses.
Chad Stuart: Moses would have never even made it to this place if God had not led and these ladies had not responded to God's leading in their life.
Chad Stuart: This is not one of those things behind every great man there is a what is it, a better woman.
Chad Stuart: Is that how the saying goes?
Chad Stuart: This is a story that behind every great moment and every great movement in history and every act of God, there are people that we think about who are the heroes, maybe, or who get the most attention and the most credit, but there are also many more that faithfully acted for God, who we rarely or never see, but are just as important to the movement of God.
Chad Stuart: Ellen White writing in the book Testimonies, Volume 5, she talks about individuals like this who are who are unseen and yet serve an important role.
Chad Stuart: She said this in that in the daytime we look toward heaven, but do not see the stars, but they are there.
Chad Stuart: She's saying that's like the people who are working and serving and doing things for the Lord, and we may not ever see them, we may not ever know their names, we may not ever give them credit.
Chad Stuart: They might just be uh a little side note to someone else's story, but the God of heaven sees them as the stars that are still there, even if we do not recognize them.
Chad Stuart: That is what this story is about.
Chad Stuart: And we can learn lessons from each of these ladies, and so I want to give us some of those lessons and takeaways for today, and then we'll do our one prayer, one word, and one act, and then we'll finish today's message and we'll get to hear these young people again.
Chad Stuart: So let's start with the midwives, Shipra and Pua.
Chad Stuart: The lesson that I get from Shipra and Pua that I would encourage you to consider is this fear of God is the only fear that frees you from every other fear in life.
Chad Stuart: Fear of God is the only fear that frees you from every other fear in life.
Chad Stuart: These women feared God more than Pharaoh, and that settled the question on how they were going to handle this situation.
Chad Stuart: This it settled the question.
Chad Stuart: They were not going to submit to Pharaoh.
Chad Stuart: Some like to use this story as a testimony of in all circumstances we should practice civil disobedience.
Chad Stuart: I don't know that that is the question.
Chad Stuart: The lesson to me is this that when you know who's holds ultimate authority, lesser authorities lose their power to terrorize you.
Chad Stuart: There are people in our world that are that are so worried about the various powers in our world.
Chad Stuart: And I'm not saying that there aren't things that we should be mindful of and keeping watch on and and and and and speaking up for and out against.
Chad Stuart: But but the thing is, is some of us, even Christians, are are terrorized by these people and fearful of these people.
Chad Stuart: And I love this lesson from Shipra and Pu'ah.
Chad Stuart: That when you know who holds ultimate authority, lesser authorities lose their power to terrorize you.
Chad Stuart: That's the lesson from Shibra and Pua.
Chad Stuart: And their step with God.
Chad Stuart: The lesson that I get from her is that faith isn't passive.
Chad Stuart: It is courageous and it includes action.
Chad Stuart: There are times that sometimes we as Christians can get like, well, there's nothing I can do about it.
Chad Stuart: I'm just gonna, I mean, God's gonna take care of it.
Chad Stuart: I'm just gonna throw up my hands and kind of I have faith and God's gonna.
Chad Stuart: The faith wasn't just that they believed that God could take care of things and that God could could work things out.
Chad Stuart: It was their action accompanied with their faith that is a testimony throughout history.
Chad Stuart: Their action along with it, they didn't just sit back and say, well, we hope nothing happens to our kid.
Chad Stuart: No, they took intentional action to accompany their faith.
Chad Stuart: God has given each of us a mind to reason with, He's given us a book to guide us, He's given the Holy Spirit to speak to us.
Chad Stuart: And God is always communicating with us.
Chad Stuart: And when we come into these seasons and these phases of life and we're coming against challenges, God doesn't say, Oh, well, just throw up your hands and say, Well, uh, nothing I can do about it.
Chad Stuart: God no, God calls us to reason with Him and to have action in that.
Chad Stuart: And then another thing that's amazing to me about this Jacobed moment is that she has the action of protecting her child in the home, that faith.
Chad Stuart: But to me, the greater action of faith is that when she puts that baby into the river.
Chad Stuart: Parents, you some of you understand this even now as your children are preparing to leave home or have already left home.
Chad Stuart: When you're a young parent, you have kids in your house, you know, it takes faith.
Chad Stuart: You're you're worried, am I making the right decisions?
Chad Stuart: Am I doing the right things for these kids?
Chad Stuart: But let me ask you, parents, what takes more faith when they're in your home and under your control?
Chad Stuart: Or that moment that you send them out and have to say, okay, I'm sending you into the river, I'm sending you off.
Chad Stuart: That takes that moment of faith.
Chad Stuart: My oldest son, Dayton, is has been driving for a little bit, but I have never thought about someone driving more than him since he got his license.
Chad Stuart: I mean, he the other night, just last night, they went to this social thing, whatever, this uh this worship social last night, and he wasn't home yet.
Chad Stuart: And I and I texted him, and I really hope it's his brother who texted me back because I think they were driving.
Chad Stuart: It was his brother, I'm just kidding.
Chad Stuart: I already asked.
Chad Stuart: But he texted me back, hey, we ran another kid home.
Chad Stuart: But I I I was anxious.
Chad Stuart: I never thought about anybody in their driving before, except my own.
Chad Stuart: But these things, this releasing them into the world takes an action of faith, but we have to do it.
Chad Stuart: We have to be willing to let our kids go and trust them into the Lord's hands.
Chad Stuart: The lesson, the third individual, the third lady, or the fourth lady actually, Miriam, the sister, the lesson from her that I see is stay ready because you never know when God's gonna need you in the moment.
Chad Stuart: The people God uses aren't always the loudest or the most powerful.
Chad Stuart: Sometimes they're just the ones who are there paying attention, who stay close enough, long enough, ready enough, that when God opens the door, they are already standing there next to it, ready to serve in some way.
Chad Stuart: I love how quick Miriam is to act.
Chad Stuart: Maybe she had rehearses with her mother, I don't know.
Chad Stuart: What we do know is that it took a lot of courage for a young girl to approach Pharaoh's daughter and to give her a suggestion on how she should handle the situation.
Chad Stuart: I mean, that's pretty, that's pretty intense.
Chad Stuart: But she was ready there in the moment with a solution, ready to act when God presented her an opportunity.
Chad Stuart: She was ready to act.
Chad Stuart: Are you, in every aspect of your life, are you ready to act when God presents you an opportunity?
Chad Stuart: Are you ready to respond?
Chad Stuart: Are you ready, ready to give a reason for the hope that you have in Christ Jesus?
Chad Stuart: Are you ready immediately?
Chad Stuart: Then there was Pharaoh's daughter.
Chad Stuart: The lesson from Pharaoh's daughter to me is simply this do the right thing, do the human thing.
Chad Stuart: She didn't have a theology that we would agree with.
Chad Stuart: She wasn't one of the chosen people of God.
Chad Stuart: She had a crying baby and a choice in front of her.
Chad Stuart: And Pharaoh's daughter does what her father explicitly ordered against.
Chad Stuart: She sees the child, she knows he is Hebrew, and she chooses compassion over compliance.
Chad Stuart: She does the human thing.
Chad Stuart: We could use some of that in our world right now.
Chad Stuart: Doing the human thing.
Chad Stuart: She adopts Moses.
Chad Stuart: This pays his own mother to nurse him and gives him a name.
Chad Stuart: Here's the thing: this single act of just doing the right thing, that singular thing in front of you, changed the course of history for so many people.
Chad Stuart: She never knew what she set in motion.
Chad Stuart: She went home that day thinking that she adopted a Hebrew child.
Chad Stuart: She had no idea that she had just saved the deliverer of God's people.
Chad Stuart: You don't have to see the whole story, folks, to play your part in God's story.
Chad Stuart: Just do the right thing right in front of you.
Chad Stuart: Do the human thing right in front of you.
Chad Stuart: Sometimes the most important thing you will do won't feel important at all.
Chad Stuart: But it will be the human thing.
Chad Stuart: And that simple act could change the course of many things.
Chad Stuart: Do that thing.
Chad Stuart: I want to go back to a lesson for Jacobed, and this is more specifically to parents, particularly moms.
Chad Stuart: I didn't lose my place, but I'm coming back to Jacobed because the baby goes back.
Chad Stuart: Moses goes back to Jacobed.
Chad Stuart: And this lesson is for all of those of you that still have children in your home.
Chad Stuart: I would just say this to you.
Chad Stuart: You only have them for a little while.
Chad Stuart: Make it count.
Chad Stuart: Ellen White beautifully writes about Jacobed.
Chad Stuart: Jacobed was a woman and a slave.
Chad Stuart: This was the banner over her life.
Chad Stuart: Her lot in life was humble, her burden heavy.
Chad Stuart: But then listen to these words.
Chad Stuart: They're so beautiful.
Chad Stuart: But through no other woman save Mary of Nazareth has the world received a greater blessing.
Chad Stuart: She continues, knowing that her child must soon pass beyond her care to the guardianship of those who knew not God, she the more earnestly endeavored to link his soul with heaven.
Chad Stuart: She sought to implant in his heart love and loyalty to God, and faithfully was the work accomplished.
Chad Stuart: Those principles of truth that were the burden of his mother's teaching and the lesson of her life, no after influence could induce Moses to renounce.
Chad Stuart: Moms, teachers, grandmas, aunts, and yes, us dads too.
Chad Stuart: You only have them for a little while.
Chad Stuart: Make it count.
Chad Stuart: What does Ellen White say?
Chad Stuart: She said she knew that she only had them for a while, and then she was going to be sending them into a world in which none of the things that they believed were being encouraged or taught.
Chad Stuart: Folks, that's your kids in your home right now.
Chad Stuart: Don't waste a moment.
Chad Stuart: The things of this world, the world is going to try to teach your kids the exact opposite of this book.
Chad Stuart: You only have this time.
Chad Stuart: Make it count.
Chad Stuart: At the end of the day, they're gonna have to make their choices.
Chad Stuart: You all are gonna have to make your own choices.
Chad Stuart: But we want to put them in the best position to say yes to Jesus for themselves.
Chad Stuart: Make it count.
Chad Stuart: And then Zipporah, the wife, the lesson from her.
Chad Stuart: Sometimes you have to stand in the gap for others.
Chad Stuart: This passage is one of the strangest to me in all of scripture.
Chad Stuart: They're on the way to Egypt.
Chad Stuart: God's just really impressed upon Moses again and again that he was the chosen one.
Chad Stuart: He's commissioned to go.
Chad Stuart: The story begins with Moses getting his staff and getting his family, and it sounds like it's good.
Chad Stuart: And God's telling Moses, now when you go to Egypt, say this to Pharaoh, reminding him again.
Chad Stuart: And then all of a sudden, the Bible takes this total kind of seemingly tangent.
Chad Stuart: Some of you have teased me about the tangents that I take in my sermons.
Chad Stuart: It's biblical, the Bible takes tangents too.
Chad Stuart: The Bible takes this tangent all of a sudden, and it goes from, hey, I'm taking my staff, I'm going with my family, okay, talk to them about this, and then boom, now I'm gonna kill you.
Chad Stuart: I mean, it's just this random tangent, and then it comes back to the story just as quickly with very little explanation.
Chad Stuart: What's going on here?
Chad Stuart: The thing was that there was an area of Moses' life that he was not being faithful to God to, the covenant of circumcision that had been given to Abraham.
Chad Stuart: And Moses was not just going to lead the people out of Egypt as in the country, but God was calling Moses to also lead the people out of the culture and out of the false teachings that they had learned.
Chad Stuart: And so Moses had to be standing on that truth.
Chad Stuart: But but he's now sick, he's now physically unable maybe to do what needs to be done.
Chad Stuart: And the Bible says, so Zipporah takes control of things.
Chad Stuart: She stands between her husband and death.
Chad Stuart: And whatever the full theological weight of this text, what is clear is that Moses would not have reached Egypt without her.
Chad Stuart: These are the lessons from these six ladies.
Chad Stuart: We need to fear God and God alone above all others.
Chad Stuart: We need to be faithful, to be ready, to do the right thing, to do the human thing in this world.
Chad Stuart: We need to take the moments that we have, whether it's with our kids or with others, and make those moments count.
Chad Stuart: We need to stand in the gap for someone and help them take that next step.
Chad Stuart: Maybe, maybe help them get to the right thing when they're unable to do it for themselves.
Chad Stuart: Which of these lessons is yours?
Chad Stuart: Which of these lessons from these women apply to your life?
Chad Stuart: Here's an overarching lesson I would say for all of us.
Chad Stuart: God does not wait and does not work with just the powerful leader.
Chad Stuart: He works through the faithfulness of every single moment of your life.
Chad Stuart: Wherever you're at.
Chad Stuart: When Shipra and Pua made a decision, they did not know that it would lead to a Moses.
Chad Stuart: When Jacobed and Miriam made their decision, they did not understand that their son, that their brother, was going to be their deliverer as well.
Chad Stuart: When Pharaoh's daughter just did the right thing before her, she just did the human thing.
Chad Stuart: Even though it went against her father's rules, even though it went against the laws of the land, she just did the human thing.
Chad Stuart: She did not know that she was saving God's people.
Chad Stuart: She had no idea.
Chad Stuart: And when Zipporah acted on behalf of Moses, she didn't know.
Chad Stuart: It was because he needed the integrity to be the leader that God had called him to be.
Chad Stuart: God's been working throughout history with a multitude of people to achieve his goals and his mission in this world.
Chad Stuart: He was doing it in Bible history, and he's doing it still to this day.
Chad Stuart: And you as a person, as an individual, may never be recognized, may never be acknowledged, may never be even affirmed for the star that you are.
Chad Stuart: And even though it may be like daytime to us and we can't see all the stars, the God of heaven sees, and the God of heaven is using you.
Chad Stuart: So one prayer, one word, and one act, and then we'll be done.
Chad Stuart: One prayer.
Chad Stuart: Lord, make me faithful in the moment I'm in.
Chad Stuart: Make me faithful in the situations of my life right now.
Chad Stuart: Whether anyone sees it or not, whether anyone cares or not, make me faithful in those moments.
Chad Stuart: You don't know how they'll play out in history, folks.
Chad Stuart: You have no idea.
Chad Stuart: One word.
Chad Stuart: Faithfulness.
Chad Stuart: Choose to be faithful, not just kind of as a concept, but choose to be faithful in every second and every moment of your day.
Chad Stuart: Ask God to give you a heart of faithfulness, that you're ready to respond in any situation, whether someone's looking over your shoulder and seeing what you're doing, or no one's around, but you're faithful because that moment may be life-changing for you or for someone else.
Chad Stuart: And then the one act.
Chad Stuart: I want to encourage you all to take some time, men and women, to spend some time in this Exodus story for yourselves and reading about some of these other characters of the Exodus story and saying, God, what lesson applies to me?
Chad Stuart: Maybe it could be something here, but the most important thing is that you study the Bible for yourself and you understand the Bible for yourself.
Chad Stuart: The Bible says all scripture is God breathing, is useful for us to instruct us, to guide us, to teach us.
Chad Stuart: And these stories that we hear, like today, the Exodus story, they're so familiar to us.
Chad Stuart: And sometimes we read them to our kids out of children's books, and we just become so familiar that we just kind of pass over them.
Chad Stuart: But in each of those stories, there are lessons for us.
Chad Stuart: So I want to encourage you this week, maybe go back to these stories and look at these secondary characters, we may say, these secondary individuals that we don't often think about and say, what is the lesson for me that I can take with me?
Chad Stuart: That I can play a small role in some way in the great movement that is God.
Chad Stuart: And when we do that, folks, at the end of the day, John Glenn isn't the hero, Moses isn't the hero, Catherine Johnson isn't the hero, the six ladies aren't the hero, you're not the hero, I'm not the hero.
Chad Stuart: When we live faithfully like that each day, and find those lessons, those snuggets in scripture each day, say, I will live by that, the hero becomes Jesus, who is able to change all lives and transform the hearts of you and me, and transform the hearts of all those you know and love.
Chad Stuart: So let us be faithful right now.
Chad Stuart: Lord Jesus, we thank you for your grace, for your mercy.
Chad Stuart: We thank you for the lessons of Scripture that teach us so many things about Jesus.
Chad Stuart: In your name I pray.
Chad Stuart: Amen.