SPEAKER_00: Alright, so let me get into the word.
SPEAKER_00: I uh want to start with this question.
SPEAKER_00: I wonder if you're like me, if we walk around subconsciously with this idea that the person that is the most important is usually the person who's the most popular or the most viral, the most followed, the best paid, the most celebrated, because we're in that society.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone with me like that?
SPEAKER_00: Subconsciously think, well, we they must be the most important.
SPEAKER_00: The CEO gets a hundred times the average salary of their employees.
SPEAKER_00: They must be the most important.
SPEAKER_00: And we walk around with that kind of mentality.
SPEAKER_00: I want to say, maybe no one says that out loud, and we're not putting that on a billboard like, hey, this is how it is, but this is how many of us walk around.
SPEAKER_00: And what's happening is we're quietly undervaluing what happens in the private sphere.
SPEAKER_00: It's been downgraded in a sense.
SPEAKER_00: So that the work that happens behind closed doors, the raising of families, the forming, the pouring into people's lives, has been reclassified to something that you do while you wait for the important thing to happen.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what I want to push back on just a little bit today.
SPEAKER_00: The story we're gonna read from Exodus chapter 2, I believe, is probably the most consequential act of resistance in the entire Old Testament, performed by a woman with no platform.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, we at first don't even know her name until five chapters later.
SPEAKER_00: And once they tell us who her name is, we never hear of her again.
SPEAKER_00: But if it's for this woman, the entire nation of Israel would not have been saved out of slavery.
SPEAKER_00: And that is what I want to look at today.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps here's the biggest idea from the sermon today that the most important work you will ever do may be the work that nobody ever sees.
SPEAKER_00: That's where we're going today.
SPEAKER_00: So will you open your Bible, please, to Exodus chapter 2.
SPEAKER_00: If you're new with us at 614, welcome.
SPEAKER_00: We have been going through slowly through the Old Testament this year, and we're in a portion of the Old Testament arc of the story, which we're calling the patriarchs.
SPEAKER_00: Everything from Abraham up until the first king, Saul, was these patriarchs that we know in scripture: Abraham, uh, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph.
SPEAKER_00: Um, next week we're gonna start like four weeks on Moses, and then we'll get into um Joshua as well.
SPEAKER_00: So we'd be looking at that today.
SPEAKER_00: I was supposed to just do a nice little Mother's Day message, but let me tell you, if we're gonna spend four weeks talking about Moses, I want to talk about Moses' mom.
SPEAKER_00: And that's where we are going today and where we're picking up.
SPEAKER_00: Again, happy Mother's Day.
SPEAKER_00: Uh huge, huge shout out to the moms out there who do the such important work, quiet, hugely, hugely important, often underrated, long hours, low pay kind of work.
SPEAKER_00: That we just honor you.
SPEAKER_00: Um so that's where we are.
SPEAKER_00: So, are you at Exodus chapter two?
unknown: Yes, it is.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, good, good, good.
SPEAKER_00: This is a hollow back church.
SPEAKER_00: Come on, I've told you that.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, Exodus chapter two.
SPEAKER_00: Let me let me set you up before we get into this verse.
SPEAKER_00: Exodus opens up in crisis.
SPEAKER_00: If you were here last week, everybody remember Halla with that amazing message on Joseph's life, right?
SPEAKER_00: Uh impressive to do Joseph's life in one sermon, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but she did it.
SPEAKER_00: Here we were.
SPEAKER_00: But we we see the story of Joseph uh basically uh being used by God to save the entire Egyptian nation and therefore also the nation of Israel, which was still in its infancy form, and nations around Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: The tremendous famine, because Joseph was where he was, because he went through what he did, he was put in this position of extreme power, and because of the wisdom that God gave him, he saved the nation.
SPEAKER_00: It should be, and think that wow, in Egypt, the Israel, the Jews should be celebrated for all time.
SPEAKER_00: They literally saved their lives, a whole generation.
SPEAKER_00: But scripture tells us in the beginning of Exodus chapter 1 that that the Pharaoh that was now in charge had forgotten Joseph.
SPEAKER_00: They'd forgotten Joseph.
SPEAKER_00: Israel had become a mighty nation.
SPEAKER_00: Some estimates are close to two million men, women, and children were Jewish people living in Egypt, and the Egyptians started fearing them because they had become so plentiful, so they actually enslaved them.
SPEAKER_00: They started making them slaves.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the context within which we start reading here today.
SPEAKER_00: Pharaoh actually was so afraid of the Jewish people that he issues a decree in chapter 1, verse 22, and he says, throw every Hebrew son that is born into the Nile.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Kill them, every Hebrew son, kill them, throw them into the Nile.
SPEAKER_00: That was his instruction, and that's where this story comes from.
SPEAKER_00: So if we go, Exodus chapter 2, verse 1, I want to read the first 10 verses for us.
SPEAKER_00: Here we go.
SPEAKER_00: Now a man from the house of Levi went and took as his wife a Levite woman.
SPEAKER_00: The woman conceived and bore a son, and when she saw that he was a fine child, say that with me, fine child, she hid she hid him three months.
SPEAKER_00: When she could hide him no longer, she took him for she took for him a basket made of bulrushes and daubed it, doubted it, dubed ye you know, um, with bitumen and pitch.
SPEAKER_00: She put the child in it and placed it amongst the reeds by the riverbank.
SPEAKER_00: And his sister stood at a distance to know what would be done to him.
SPEAKER_00: Jewish tradition believes that was Miriam.
SPEAKER_00: She stood at a distance to look what would happen with this boy.
SPEAKER_00: Now the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, and while her young woman walked beside the river, she saw the basket amongst the reeds, and sent her servant woman, and she took it.
SPEAKER_00: When she opened it, she saw the child, and behold, the baby was crying.
SPEAKER_00: She took pity on him.
SPEAKER_00: This is one of the Hebrew's children.
SPEAKER_00: Then his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, Shall I go and call you a nurse from the Hebrew woman to nurse the child for you?
SPEAKER_00: And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, Go.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: So the woman, this is actually Moses' mother, so the woman took the child and nursed him.
SPEAKER_00: When the child grew older, she brought him to the Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son.
SPEAKER_00: She named him Moses because she said, I drew him out of the water.
SPEAKER_00: What a story, huh?
SPEAKER_00: What a story.
SPEAKER_00: And I was noticing as I was uh in worship today, I was going through the story again.
SPEAKER_00: You notice how many women were involved in this story to save this boy Moses, how important a role they played.
SPEAKER_00: Both Moses' mom, Moses' sister walks down the river, Pharaoh's daughter, Pharaoh's maidservants, all of them involved in this rescue plan of young Moses.
SPEAKER_00: I thought that was pretty cool.
SPEAKER_00: So I want to go through three three big things I want to pull out of this story.
SPEAKER_00: First, I want to look at what Moses' mom, her name is Jacobed.
SPEAKER_00: Say that with me.
SPEAKER_00: Jacobed.
SPEAKER_00: So I want to look at what did Jacobed see, what did Jacobed do, and how did Jacobed trust the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: That's the three movements I want to go through.
SPEAKER_00: What did Jacobet see?
SPEAKER_00: What did she do with that?
SPEAKER_00: And how she trusted the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And that's where we're going today.
SPEAKER_00: Go back to chapter 2, verse 2.
SPEAKER_00: What I want to say first is this that Jacob saw what God saw.
SPEAKER_00: Now it may seem like a small word here, but go with me for a second.
SPEAKER_00: The woman conceived and bore a son, and when she saw that he was a fine child, the word there for fine child comes from the word Tov.
SPEAKER_00: Tov.
SPEAKER_00: Does anyone remember the word Tove?
SPEAKER_00: If you were with us in the creation story, do you remember the word Tov?
SPEAKER_00: What does it mean?
SPEAKER_00: Good.
SPEAKER_00: At the end of each day of creation, we saw that God saw what he made and he said it was.
SPEAKER_00: Say that with confidence.
unknown: Tov.
unknown: Good.
SPEAKER_00: Tov, good.
SPEAKER_00: And at the end of day six, he stepped back and looked at all of creation and he said it was Tov mioed.
SPEAKER_00: It was very good.
SPEAKER_00: God saw what he created and he was good.
SPEAKER_00: The importance of this word showing up here when he looked at his child, when she looked at her child and said he was Tov, the connection with Genesis 1 is really important.
SPEAKER_00: In Genesis 1, seven times we see the word Tov.
SPEAKER_00: And this connection here is basically not her just looking like a mom saying, Oh, my child looks good.
SPEAKER_00: She's looking and she's seeing something deeper.
SPEAKER_00: There's a destiny, there's a purpose on this child.
SPEAKER_00: The reason I say that is we look at Acts chapter 7.
SPEAKER_00: When Acts chapter 7, what we have there is recorded the longest sermon preached by anyone in the New Testament, and it's by a man named Stephen, who was a deacon, who was basically about to get stoned to death.
SPEAKER_00: And before they stone him, he stands up and says, wait, let me just tell you what's going on.
SPEAKER_00: And he delivers this sermon.
SPEAKER_00: He recounts what happened with Moses, and he says it something like this.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Stephen retells a story and said that Moses was beautiful in God's sight.
SPEAKER_00: Beautiful in God's sight.
SPEAKER_00: Now, how many of you know this isn't just an outward appearance thing?
SPEAKER_00: There's something about this child that both the mother saw and that God recognized there's something important.
SPEAKER_00: There's a calling out of Moses that we have to look at over here.
SPEAKER_00: The echo of Genesis 1 is significant and it's not accidental.
SPEAKER_00: What she had was prophetic discernments about what God had in mind for this child.
SPEAKER_00: I look at Jochebed and I think through this whole story, and I think here's a woman of faith, a fierce woman of faith, almost like this fire was burning in there long before all Moses saw the fiery bush.
SPEAKER_00: There's a fiery mom behind him who has seen something in him and wanted to protect that with him.
SPEAKER_00: Now there are people in this room, myself included, who behind you, and the only reason you're here was because there's a fierce, faith-filled, fired-up mom who saw something in you and had been praying for you and has been interceding for you and has been warring for your soul.
SPEAKER_00: Is anybody here?
SPEAKER_00: You're aware that there was a mother somewhere in your heritage praying for you.
SPEAKER_00: Look at that.
SPEAKER_00: Keep those hands up.
SPEAKER_00: Look at that.
SPEAKER_00: If you're a mom in this room, if you're a new mom in this room, or if you're a mom in this room and you're still trusting that the Lord hasn't accomplished yet that thing that you're praying for, one more time.
SPEAKER_00: Can we see those hands?
SPEAKER_00: Be encouraged, friends.
SPEAKER_00: Be encouraged.
SPEAKER_00: Keep praying.
SPEAKER_00: Look at what we just saw.
SPEAKER_00: How many people feel they're in this room because there is a mom behind them, a faithful, fired-up mom behind them who's been praying and interceding for them.
SPEAKER_00: This is one of the major roles that moms have in this world today.
SPEAKER_00: I want to encourage you.
SPEAKER_00: Let's look at Jockebed.
SPEAKER_00: Look at what she saw.
SPEAKER_00: She saw something in the child.
SPEAKER_00: And you and I need to begin to think, as moms and dads, what is in this child, God?
SPEAKER_00: How am I supposed to raise this child?
SPEAKER_00: What do you have for this child?
SPEAKER_00: We need prophetic discernment for what God has called this child to so that we can pray specifically into those things.
SPEAKER_00: Now I don't believe this is just for moms here today or just for dads here today.
SPEAKER_00: Many of us are investing in and pouring out, discipling others.
SPEAKER_00: There's someone in your life that you are training, showing, teaching about God.
SPEAKER_00: You're pouring some of your life into them.
SPEAKER_00: Do you guys have someone like that?
SPEAKER_00: I hope you do.
SPEAKER_00: I hope all of us have someone in our life that we are investing in and pouring in.
SPEAKER_00: So I want to speak to you, just like I'm speaking to moms and I'm speaking to dads.
SPEAKER_00: What does God see in that person?
SPEAKER_00: What does God see in your child?
SPEAKER_00: What is the prophetic voice, the prophetic utterance from the Lord for your child that you can begin to intercede for and invest in and train in and pour into them?
SPEAKER_00: If there's someone you're investing in right now and you believe from the Lord, man, this there's preaching on this guy's life.
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna begin to shape how you invest in them, right?
SPEAKER_00: Or if you see someone and you think, man, this guy, there's a musical ability here.
SPEAKER_00: I see him as a worshiper, leading worship, right?
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna begin to like hone your investment into their lives.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you here are entrepreneurs and you've got so many ideas.
SPEAKER_00: Man, you need someone around you who can help pour into you so that you can go do the thing that God's called you to do.
SPEAKER_00: But moms, dads, disciple makers in this room, let's not just rely on what we see.
SPEAKER_00: What does God see?
SPEAKER_00: What does God see in your children?
SPEAKER_00: What does God see in these people you're pouring into?
SPEAKER_00: And let's begin to focus in that direction.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Is that okay?
SPEAKER_00: Are you asking the father, what do you have for this person?
SPEAKER_00: Have you asking the father, Lord, what do you have for my child?
SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, here's what's happening, and maybe some of you have grown up in this environment.
SPEAKER_00: Your mom or dad desperately wanted to be like, you know, track star and and didn't quite make it, and now they're pouring their entire lives into you so that you can make it as a track star, or as a musician, or as a this or as a that, when that wasn't your calling, that wasn't your thing.
SPEAKER_00: But some of us as parents, we do this.
SPEAKER_00: We try to live out our unfulfilled dreams through our children.
SPEAKER_00: No mad at you.
SPEAKER_00: Just let's let's move forward, amen.
SPEAKER_00: Like, let's ask the Lord, what do you see, God?
SPEAKER_00: What do you see in this child?
SPEAKER_00: What do you see in this person I'm pouring into?
SPEAKER_00: And then we begin to go in that direction.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: My mom is watching.
SPEAKER_00: Mother, my mother prayed over me.
SPEAKER_00: She prayed over all three of her children when when there were seasons when we were very far away from the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: I honor you, mom, and I thank you.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to tell you guys, look at my mother's example, look at at so many mothers' examples we saw here.
SPEAKER_00: Keep praying, keep investing.
SPEAKER_00: Actually, mom, um she was a little annoying.
SPEAKER_00: Let me just say, she had this prophetic word from the Lord about something that I was gonna be walking into when I'm older, and she told me over and over and over, it was so annoying, especially when I wasn't following the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: She said, Well, David, God said this and this and this about you.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, Kim and Kim and Dan just met my parents, so you know what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_00: Uh this is what the Lord said.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I don't care, I want to live my own life, right?
SPEAKER_00: Mom, thank you for doing that.
SPEAKER_00: Because she was right.
SPEAKER_00: She was right.
SPEAKER_00: God had something in me, and she saw it, and she into she invested.
SPEAKER_00: She she interceded for that.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's move on.
SPEAKER_00: You good?
SPEAKER_00: First thing, what did she see?
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, what did she do?
SPEAKER_00: She did what she could with what she had, is what I'm trying to get to here.
SPEAKER_00: Her name is Jochebed.
SPEAKER_00: When she can no longer hide her son at three months, obviously he's starting to be more vocal and all that, so you can't hide him anymore.
SPEAKER_00: What did she do?
SPEAKER_00: She she gathered papyrus reeds and she wove them into a container, and then she sealed it with scripture tells us bitumen and pitch, two different waterproofing materials that packed into every little crevice there, so that she did everything she could to try to keep this child safe.
SPEAKER_00: Now check this out.
SPEAKER_00: The Hebrew word for basket is this word Teba.
SPEAKER_00: T-E-B-H-A-H, Tebah.
SPEAKER_00: Teba is only used one other place in scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Want to take a guess?
SPEAKER_00: Genesis 6 through 9, the ark.
SPEAKER_00: Teba is only used one other place in scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Once to describe the ark that Noah saved all humanity, and the other one is the basket that Jacob used to save Moses and therefore the destiny of the Israel people.
SPEAKER_00: Come on, tell me that's cool, right?
SPEAKER_00: That is amazing.
SPEAKER_00: Not only is it the same word, if you go back to Noah's story, he used bitumen and pitch to seal the ark in.
SPEAKER_00: Why would it bring out that detail, you know, when it's trying to describe to us what old Jacobed did?
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, why doesn't it just say she used some reads and some stuff?
SPEAKER_00: bitumen and pitch.
SPEAKER_00: The details are important.
SPEAKER_00: It's showing us the connection to the rest of the story.
SPEAKER_00: The Old Testament is connected, it's all connected.
SPEAKER_00: There, God used an ark to save the mankind.
SPEAKER_00: Here he uses a basket, but it's always God.
SPEAKER_00: It's always God in the middle of it.
SPEAKER_00: And O'Bed did, she used what she had.
SPEAKER_00: Now, who is this woman?
SPEAKER_00: What do we know about her?
SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you very little.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 1 of chapter 2.
SPEAKER_00: It says, Now a man from the house of Levi went and took as his wife a Levite woman.
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 2, that's all you know about them.
SPEAKER_00: A man from the house of Levi and a Levite woman.
SPEAKER_00: The woman who would save Moses.
SPEAKER_00: Moses who gave us the first five books of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: All you know about her is she's a Levite.
SPEAKER_00: End of story.
SPEAKER_00: Unnamed, uncelebrated in a sense.
SPEAKER_00: But look how scriptures remember her.
SPEAKER_00: Want you to turn for a second to Hebrews chapter 11, verse 23.
SPEAKER_00: Hebrews 11 is the hall of fame for the men and women of faith in Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: The Hebrew writer says, let's just take a minute, and we're gonna go to Akron, and we're gonna go to the Hall of Fame, and we're gonna list every great man and woman, and we're gonna put how did the Hall of Fame get to Akron, by the way?
SPEAKER_00: That's very bizarre to me.
SPEAKER_00: Very bizarre.
SPEAKER_00: Akron.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: If you're from there, wonderful.
SPEAKER_00: Um Hebrews 11.
SPEAKER_00: How does Hebrews 11 remember Moses and Moses' mom and dad?
SPEAKER_00: By faith.
SPEAKER_00: Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents.
SPEAKER_00: The way Jochebed and Amram are remembered is by their faith for hiding Moses for three months.
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
SPEAKER_00: To get on the list of the Hall of Fame of faith for that.
SPEAKER_00: It's by faith that they did what they did.
SPEAKER_00: Both of them.
SPEAKER_00: Now we're celebrating Jochebed today.
SPEAKER_00: We're celebrating Mother's Day, but friends, this was a partnership.
SPEAKER_00: She probably had this idea, and he was like, good idea, honey, let's do it.
SPEAKER_00: And he, by faith, they sent off their child down the river.
SPEAKER_00: I think that's really important for us.
SPEAKER_00: So back to the basket.
SPEAKER_00: She technically obeyed Pharaoh's decree.
SPEAKER_00: His decree in 1 verse 22 was put the children in the Nile.
SPEAKER_00: She's like, technically, okay, but I'm gonna put a little arc around him, you know?
SPEAKER_00: And there she goes.
SPEAKER_00: And she does it.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you have to love the ingenuity and the creativity of a quiet defiance of evil and trust in God.
SPEAKER_00: You've got to love it.
SPEAKER_00: I was trying to think of a modern example of where we've seen something like this.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, I don't know if you know the Harriet Tubman story, how she created the Underground Railroad, a believer in God, a fierce believer in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: But she took the systems that was in our country and she used it to save one and another and another, another.
SPEAKER_00: Jochebed took the Nile that was used to feed literally all of Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: It's the greatest river in Africa.
SPEAKER_00: It's huge.
SPEAKER_00: This is, guys, this is not a little stream, not even the scioda.
SPEAKER_00: It's a massive Nile that she trusted her three-month baby into, into that little mini ark.
SPEAKER_00: Harriet Tubman did the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: And when the state decreed death, you know, faith decrees otherwise, and then it gets to work.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm just amazed at this woman and her work.
SPEAKER_00: And as Hebrews 11 calls it faith, let's call it theological defiance.
SPEAKER_00: Believing that the word of God is more important than the fear of the edict of the Pharaoh.
SPEAKER_00: Believing we're gonna do this.
SPEAKER_00: You have to recognize they did this at the risk of their own lives.
SPEAKER_00: They defied the Pharaoh.
SPEAKER_00: This is not a democracy like we have here in America.
SPEAKER_00: This was the king.
SPEAKER_00: He decreed it.
SPEAKER_00: They risk their lives by trusting in God in this way.
SPEAKER_00: First, faith is not passive waiting, it's doing the next faithful thing with the tools in our hands and then releasing the outcome to the one who is faithful.
SPEAKER_00: That's what faith is.
SPEAKER_00: Faith is not passive, is doing what you can with what you got and trusting the outcome to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: That leads me to my third point here.
SPEAKER_00: And it's this look how she trusted the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: She let him go twice.
SPEAKER_00: She let him go once at three months.
SPEAKER_00: She put him in the basket.
SPEAKER_00: Very clever.
SPEAKER_00: She sent all Miriam down the stream to go check what's going on.
SPEAKER_00: The princess sees the baby.
SPEAKER_00: Miriam gets involved.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, do you want me to go get a Hebrew woman to help raise this child?
SPEAKER_00: She's like, good idea.
SPEAKER_00: She goes and gets the child's mom.
SPEAKER_00: So God is here in the middle of all of this.
SPEAKER_00: But she lets go.
SPEAKER_00: Jacob lets her son go at three months and then at three years again.
SPEAKER_00: Scripture tells us when he was done being weaned, and it could be anything between two to three years old.
SPEAKER_00: She went back to Pharaoh's house.
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine?
SPEAKER_00: Going back to Pharaoh's house and handing your baby over to somebody else.
SPEAKER_00: It's the last we hear of Jacobed or Amram.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing else in Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Can we trust the Lord like that?
SPEAKER_00: Can we trust the Lord in that way?
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
SPEAKER_00: Pharaoh's daughter looks at this Hebrew slave woman and says, Take this child and nurse him for me, and I will give you your wages.
SPEAKER_00: That's verse 9.
SPEAKER_00: She gets paid for nursing her own son.
SPEAKER_00: But we've got to keep this in mind.
SPEAKER_00: Allow me to be a little bit imaginative here of what happened.
SPEAKER_00: So for two or three years, she's nursing her child.
SPEAKER_00: I believe for two or three years she's investing everything she has and knows into this child.
SPEAKER_00: Here's why I say this.
SPEAKER_00: He now goes from age three into Pharaoh's house, and he is trained in the customs and the ways of the Egyptians.
SPEAKER_00: The next thing we know about Moses, he's 40 years old, and he's in the desert running away from you know the whole murder thing, and he's running away into the desert.
SPEAKER_00: He has this burning bush experience, and God speaks to him from the bush and says, I am the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and Jacob.
SPEAKER_00: Where would Moses have learned about that?
SPEAKER_00: His mother in those first three years.
SPEAKER_00: She poured everything she had into him for that little bit of time that she had him.
SPEAKER_00: That's incredible.
SPEAKER_00: She built something beautiful that she was not allowed to keep, and she did it anyway.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have the depth of imagination to know what it must have felt like to give up your baby.
SPEAKER_00: Or to give him again at three years old.
SPEAKER_00: But I'm beginning to understand as a father whose kids are now beginning to leave the house.
SPEAKER_00: Two of my kids have already kind of moved on.
SPEAKER_00: I'm beginning to understand, and it doesn't quite dawn on you when you're in the middle of parenting, you know, young toddlers and changing diapers, and you think your life's about to end, you know.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't dawn on you that this is just a little season.
SPEAKER_00: And as my kids are moving on, I'm beginning to realize I only had so much time pouring into them.
SPEAKER_00: I only had so much time pouring and investing into them.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm asking you as a as a parent, if you're here, a young parent if you're here, but I'm also asking you as a disciple maker in this room, you don't know how long you have with that person that you're discipling.
SPEAKER_00: You don't know how long you're gonna be in their life group, they're gonna be in your life group or or in their sphere and you're gonna do life together.
SPEAKER_00: Are we taking advantage of every moment that we have to pour into them all that we know in the prophetic sense of what God has called them to, so that when they no longer are in our hands, they continue to thrive and be fruitful with where God has them?
SPEAKER_00: Does this make sense to you?
SPEAKER_00: Our churches, you know, on the footsteps of OSU, a lot of them graduating today, uh, I think it's graduation day today, right?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Um maybe they're only with us for three or four years, those students.
SPEAKER_00: And I've got to ask myself, are we doing everything we can to invest in these young people, to invest in their future, to call out the gold in them, so that if they go and find a great job somewhere else, but they're going with an investment in them, a heart in them of the kingdom of God, so that they go there and maybe they can have a great career, but also maybe they can start a church or a life group or be disciple makers wherever they go, because that is the mission that every believer has.
SPEAKER_00: Go make disciples of all nations.
SPEAKER_00: Are we taking the opportunity we have here?
SPEAKER_00: Who's in your life right now?
SPEAKER_00: Who are you discipling?
SPEAKER_00: Who are you pouring into?
SPEAKER_00: Who are you spending time with?
SPEAKER_00: And this word discipling can sound very confusing sometimes.
SPEAKER_00: Quite literally, who's around your dinner table, your coffee table that you're encouraging in the Lord?
SPEAKER_00: Or are you saying, I don't yet have a theological degree?
SPEAKER_00: I haven't only walked with the Lord for so long, so I'm gonna wait.
SPEAKER_00: We're just gonna be besties for a while.
SPEAKER_00: I want to encourage you, friends, today, today, start pouring in everything you know because they may only be with you for a little while.
SPEAKER_00: She had three years with her son.
SPEAKER_00: Three years to pour into him.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus essentially spent three and a half years, we think, give or take, with his disciples.
SPEAKER_00: Three and a half years.
SPEAKER_00: Crazy.
SPEAKER_00: That blows my mind.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, what's better than three years with Jesus, right?
SPEAKER_00: Ten years with Jesus, 20 years with Jesus, that's got to be better.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, No, it's better for you that I go.
SPEAKER_00: Three and a half years he invests into these young people and then leaves his entire global rescue plan to a bunch of teenagers.
SPEAKER_00: Have you thought about that?
SPEAKER_00: They were like between 16 and 22 years old, Jesus' disciples.
SPEAKER_00: He leaves his entire global rescue plan to a bunch of teenagers.
SPEAKER_00: Adios.
SPEAKER_00: It looks like it worked.
SPEAKER_00: There's about billions of Christians today.
SPEAKER_00: Can you and I begin to think that we are pouring into and let God bear the fruit?
SPEAKER_00: Let God be responsible for the fruit.
SPEAKER_00: Who are you sowing into?
SPEAKER_00: What has God told you today?
SPEAKER_00: Are you teaching that to somebody?
SPEAKER_00: What have you experienced?
SPEAKER_00: What have you learned?
SPEAKER_00: What have you gone through?
SPEAKER_00: How are you teaching somebody?
SPEAKER_00: What did you read in your devotions today?
SPEAKER_00: You've got something to share.
SPEAKER_00: What has Jesus saved you from?
SPEAKER_00: You have something to share.
SPEAKER_00: What did he rescue from?
SPEAKER_00: You have a witness.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: This is what God calls us into.
SPEAKER_00: Now, as I wrap this up, let me introduce one more mom to you.
SPEAKER_00: I've been talking about Jochebed.
SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about Mary for a second.
SPEAKER_00: So Jochebed lived under this decree from Pharaoh who wanted her son dead.
SPEAKER_00: She hid him, sealed every gap, released him to the river, and then got him back long enough to form him and then to let him go.
SPEAKER_00: Mary lived under a whole different decree, not from Pharaoh, but from God Himself.
SPEAKER_00: And she watched her son walk into it.
SPEAKER_00: She stood at the foot of the cross 30 years before the cross, and man told her, Your soul will be pierced.
SPEAKER_00: And she let him go.
SPEAKER_00: Jacob gave up Moses and got him back as a hired nurse for a few years.
SPEAKER_00: Mary gave up Jesus and got him back forever.
SPEAKER_00: As God present.
SPEAKER_00: Moses was drawn out of a water, pulled from a river that was supposed to kill him, to lead people out of slavery towards the promised land.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus was drawn out of a grave, not to lead one nation out of an empire, but to lead every human being who puts their trust in him into an eternal promised land of salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Moses was the type.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus was the anti-type, the fulfillment, the supersized Moses.
SPEAKER_00: That's who Jesus was.
SPEAKER_00: And the God who honored Jacobed letting go, who took what she placed in the water and brought it back with more power than she ever imagined, that same God raised the son.
SPEAKER_00: And he will not waste a single thing that you have surrendered to him.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, we're not here ultimately to admire a woman.
SPEAKER_00: We are here to worship the God who loved the world enough that he let his son go and die for you and I.
SPEAKER_00: I want to ask you to just do one thing this week.
SPEAKER_00: Picture this scene of Jochebed with the basket weaved together and about to put this boy into a river, about to let go, let go of control, out of her hands.
SPEAKER_00: Picture that.
SPEAKER_00: And it's almost like you're on top of this water and it's like one inch above, and I just can't let it go.
SPEAKER_00: I just can't let it go.
SPEAKER_00: I think it's important for us to name it.
SPEAKER_00: What is that thing that you you want to put in God's hands, but you're still holding it tight.
SPEAKER_00: And friends, it's not gonna go where it needs to go when you grip so hard.
SPEAKER_00: We have to do what she did.
SPEAKER_00: She let that basket go because she trusted in a God who was perfectly faithful, but it needs a release.
SPEAKER_00: It needs a release.
SPEAKER_00: You have to let it go.
SPEAKER_00: You have to give it into God's hands.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe right now some of your struggle is finances, and you just can't let it go because what if, what if it doesn't come through?
SPEAKER_00: Name it, pray it, and begin to say to the Lord, Lord, I give this over to you because you are trustworthy.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's a relationship, maybe it's someone you're discipling, maybe it's a it's a job, it's a situation, it's it's a it's a it's a community that you're in.
SPEAKER_00: You have to let it go.
SPEAKER_00: Because you know God wants you to let it go, but you're having a hard time.
SPEAKER_00: I'm praying for the courage today that we can take from Jochebed, from Amram, that we can have the courage to trust in the goodness of the Lord and actually let it go so we can walk into what God has for that person and for us.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: I want to pray for us.
SPEAKER_00: I want to pray that the Lord would give you this courage.
SPEAKER_00: I want to pray that He would even give you the prophetic insight that you need for your children or for those people in your care, those people in your life group, those people you're discipling, that he would give.
SPEAKER_00: I believe he wants to speak to us today.
SPEAKER_00: But friends, if if if you're here and you're thinking, that's great, what a great trick.
SPEAKER_00: I need to figure out how to do that.
SPEAKER_00: The entry point into all of this is a life surrender to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, it's just Tony Robbins with some good ideas here, and let's positive speak ourselves out of this.
SPEAKER_00: The only way into this kind of a life is to acknowledge who Jesus is and to surrender your life to him.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, I'm the door to the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: Others try to get in the kingdom over the wall.
SPEAKER_00: Other ways.
SPEAKER_00: Other you're not in.
SPEAKER_00: He is the door.
SPEAKER_00: And I'd like to invite you today to give your life to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And this is this is really important.
SPEAKER_00: This is not about are your parents Christian?
SPEAKER_00: Are you American and therefore I'm Christian?
SPEAKER_00: Are you a churchgoer?
SPEAKER_00: Have you read your Bible?
SPEAKER_00: That's not the question.
SPEAKER_00: The question is: have you put your faith in Jesus as the Son of God and that you want to follow Him?
SPEAKER_00: Have you asked Him to forgive you, cleanse you of your sins so that you can stand before Him as Jesus stands before the Father, pure and spotless.
SPEAKER_00: Would you close your eyes for me for a second?
SPEAKER_00: I want to pray with you today to receive Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I want to pray with you to enter into the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: Enter through this door.
SPEAKER_00: And it looks like this.
SPEAKER_00: It looks like being honest with who you are.
SPEAKER_00: Acknowledge who God is, who Jesus is, and tell him you want to follow him.
SPEAKER_00: Just say it out loud.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says, He who believes in his heart that Jesus is Lord and confesses with his mouth, he will be saved.
SPEAKER_00: So if you're sitting in this room and every eye is still closed, you want to give your life to Jesus, I'm gonna lead you in a prayer.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not any magic words I've got to say.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just trying to give you some language to be honest with God and for you to enter into a relationship with Him.
SPEAKER_00: If that's you, you put up your hands so I know who I'm praying for.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, sir.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone here on this side?
SPEAKER_00: Anyone in the balcony?
SPEAKER_00: Take one more moment, friends.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone else who wants to give their life to Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Put up your hand now.
SPEAKER_00: I take a lot of courage for you to do this.
SPEAKER_00: But friends, this is how we enter into eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: Into a relationship with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone else?
SPEAKER_00: Alright, friends, will you pray this with me?
SPEAKER_00: If that was you, do you put your hand up?
SPEAKER_00: Or if you're not quite sure to put your hand up and you want to pray this quietly, let's start.
SPEAKER_00: Let's begin to talk to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Say, dear Jesus, I believe you are the Son of God.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to give you my life today.
SPEAKER_00: Would you forgive me of my sins?
SPEAKER_00: I know you died for them.
SPEAKER_00: Would you bring me to new life?
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, I don't understand all of this.
SPEAKER_00: But I know who you are.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to follow you.
SPEAKER_00: Will you help me?
SPEAKER_00: I pray this sincerely in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, if you prayed that, we'd love to hear your story.
SPEAKER_00: We'd love to stand with you and pray with you a little bit more.
SPEAKER_00: We've got a Bible for you, we've got a resource for you.
SPEAKER_00: We want to help you take a next step here today.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to have a prayer ministry team that's going to come up right now.
SPEAKER_00: And they'd love to stand with you and just have a quick conversation and pray with you.
SPEAKER_00: But if anyone else is in this room and you need a prophetic word from the Lord, come and stand with someone and pray.
SPEAKER_00: If you need an encouragement from the Lord, come and pray with our prayer ministry team.
SPEAKER_00: Can we stand up, please?
SPEAKER_00: As we close in a song, we're just going to take five more minutes, just honoring the Lord and worship.
SPEAKER_00: But while that's happening, come forward and come get prayer.
SPEAKER_00: If you need healing, if you want to give your life to Jesus, if you did give your life to Jesus, if you need someone to just stand with you, come and pray with his team.
SPEAKER_00: They love you, God loves you, and we just want to stand with you.
SPEAKER_00: Amen?
SPEAKER_00: Let's worship.