SPEAKER_00: This podcast is a ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church, helping people know, enjoy, and glorify God.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about Grand Parkway, visit Grandparkway.org.
SPEAKER_01: Father, if we're not careful, we can uh we can become people of a no.
SPEAKER_01: People of the no instead of people of the yes.
SPEAKER_01: And you're a God of yes.
SPEAKER_01: And so give us ears to hear today what we need to say yes to.
SPEAKER_01: Because yes makes a bigger difference in our life than no ever will.
SPEAKER_01: And so, Lord, as we read your word this morning and it's it's preached and proclaimed and taught, I pray that a big yes would swell up inside of our head and our heart.
SPEAKER_01: And I pray this in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: And everyone said, Amen.
SPEAKER_01: If you've got a Bible, I invite you to take it and open it up to Exodus chapter 2.
SPEAKER_01: And if you're a guest, we're going through the book of Exodus.
SPEAKER_01: We'll take a break and we'll do other things.
SPEAKER_01: We won't just go all the way through Exodus, but we're going kind of epithetically.
SPEAKER_01: Look at different scenes from the book of Exodus.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, and we're we just started, so we're in chapter two, and I want to talk to you this morning about the smiling hand of Providence.
SPEAKER_01: The smiling hand of Providence.
SPEAKER_01: And what do you mean?
SPEAKER_01: Usually when we use that word providence, we're referring to things that we can't understand, explain, or figure out.
SPEAKER_01: So we just kind of say, hey, let's store that in the cloud that we kind of refer to as providence.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know, I don't know why that happened, but it was just providence, you know.
SPEAKER_01: We don't know.
SPEAKER_01: That's not what I mean when I say the smiling hand of providence.
SPEAKER_01: When I say providence, I mean that God has not abandoned the world that he created, but he created uh, but but rather he works within that creation to manage all things according to the immutable counsel of his own will.
SPEAKER_01: And so when I say providence, that's what I mean.
SPEAKER_01: I don't just mean, well, providence is, hey, you know, God, you can't really figure it out, and so uh that's fate.
SPEAKER_01: Um providence is somebody's in charge of it all, and somebody's working for and toward the good of his people in the midst of it all.
SPEAKER_01: And so I want to read from Exodus chapter 2, the first ten verses, and I want us to kind of see the smiling hand of Providence here.
SPEAKER_01: This is what the Bible says in verse 1.
SPEAKER_01: Now a man from the house of Levi went and took as his wife, a Levite woman.
SPEAKER_01: The woman conceived and bore a son, and when she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him three months.
SPEAKER_01: And when she could hide him no longer, she took for him a basket made of bulrushes, and she daubed it with bitumen and pitch, and she put the child in it and placed it among the reeds by the riverbank, and his sister stood at a distance to know what would be done to him.
SPEAKER_01: Now the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her young woman walked beside the river.
SPEAKER_01: She saw the basket among the reeds, and sent her servant woman, and she took it.
SPEAKER_01: When she opened it, she saw the child, and behold, the baby was crying.
SPEAKER_01: She took pity on him and said, This is one of the Hebrew's children.
SPEAKER_01: And then his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, Shall I go and call you a nurse for the from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?
SPEAKER_01: And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, Go.
SPEAKER_01: 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, for and I will give you weight I will give you your wages.
SPEAKER_01: So the woman took the child and nursed him.
SPEAKER_01: When the child grew older, she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son.
SPEAKER_01: She named him Moses because she said, I drew him out of the water.
SPEAKER_01: Now this is one of those passages kind of like last week.
SPEAKER_01: The momentum of the book of Exodus hasn't picked up yet.
SPEAKER_01: And it's easy to read this part and kind of go, Uh, what exactly is going on here?
SPEAKER_01: I'll tell you what's going on here.
SPEAKER_01: The smiling hand of Providence.
SPEAKER_01: And and you see it in three ways.
SPEAKER_01: And the first way is simply this God is always at work.
SPEAKER_01: God is always at work.
SPEAKER_01: Now, when I say that, and that sounds like things preachers say when they don't know what else to say, I'm I I said this to the first service.
SPEAKER_01: Let me just say it to you, and hopefully I'll remember to say it to the third service.
SPEAKER_01: Even when things are not going your way, even when things are hard or difficult, or you're like, this is not the outcome I wanted, God is always at work.
SPEAKER_01: Just because we don't get our will, doesn't mean that God's will is not being worked out.
SPEAKER_01: You understand that?
SPEAKER_01: Hello?
SPEAKER_01: It's not always so.
SPEAKER_01: Because see, if you kind of link God being at work with you getting your way, then what you really want is you want to be in charge of the world.
SPEAKER_01: And so even when things aren't looking like going like the way you think they should, you gotta learn to see that God is at work.
SPEAKER_01: And probably one of the greatest expressions of this is a hymn by a man named William Cooper.
SPEAKER_01: William Cooper struggled with debilitating depression his entire life.
SPEAKER_01: And one of the things that that really helped and kind of redeemed, Cooper said it redeemed his life from the pit of grayness was his friendship with John Newton.
SPEAKER_01: John Newton was a slave trader who wrote the hymn, Amazing Grace.
SPEAKER_01: He and William Cooper were neighbors.
SPEAKER_01: There was an orchard between their houses, and Cooper would go, they spend time together.
SPEAKER_01: Matter of fact, at one point, Cooper got so depressed, he moved in with John Newton, and John Newton befriended him, cooked his meals, and just loved on him.
SPEAKER_01: John Newton said at one point, I would spend the first six hours of my day working on my pastoral ministry and writing, and the last six hours walking to the valley in the shadow of death with William.
SPEAKER_01: He wrote a hymnal called The Only Hymnal.
SPEAKER_01: He and Cooper were writing together, and Cooper went into this deep dark depression, and he couldn't write.
SPEAKER_01: It was of no help to Newton.
SPEAKER_01: And but in the preface to the hymnal, John Newton says, This is not just a collection of hymns, this is a monument to a friendship.
SPEAKER_01: And so he just said to William Cooper, he said, I'm never gonna get tired of you because Cooper would always like, I'm just wearing you out.
SPEAKER_01: I'm so sorry.
SPEAKER_01: Why do I tell you that before I read this, the words for this hymn?
SPEAKER_01: Here's why I tell you that.
SPEAKER_01: Look at me.
SPEAKER_01: I don't care how dark it gets, how gray you feel, or how hard it gets.
SPEAKER_01: Don't just get let yourself get depressed and just hold up and close the door and just check out.
SPEAKER_01: When you feel yourself going there, call your John Newton.
SPEAKER_01: Pick up the phone.
SPEAKER_01: Don't put some innocuous message on Facebook and kind of hope that people get a hint.
SPEAKER_01: No, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_01: Don't cloister yourself in.
SPEAKER_01: Take yourself out, call somebody and say, hey, I'm starting to believe things and think things about myself that I know aren't true on a good day, but I hadn't had a good day in a long time.
SPEAKER_01: So it starts to feel what's right.
SPEAKER_01: Can we get coffee?
SPEAKER_01: That was a friendship of John Newton and William Cooper.
SPEAKER_01: William Cooper wrote this famous hymn called God Moves in Mysterious Ways.
SPEAKER_01: When I say God is at work, this is what I mean.
SPEAKER_01: Listen to these lyrics.
SPEAKER_01: God moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform.
SPEAKER_01: He plants his footsteps in the sea and he rides upon the storm.
SPEAKER_01: Deep and unfathomable minds of never failing skill, he treasures up his bright designs and works his sovereign will.
SPEAKER_01: Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take.
SPEAKER_01: The clouds ye so much dread are big with mercy and shall break in blessings on your head.
SPEAKER_01: Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust him for his grace.
SPEAKER_01: Behind a frowning providence, he hides a smiling face.
SPEAKER_01: This frowning providence, because Pharaoh said, Hey, Shifhr and Pua, you two Hebrew midwives, if it's a baby boy, I want you to kill it.
SPEAKER_01: If it's a girl, let it live.
SPEAKER_01: They disobey, I can't trust them.
SPEAKER_01: So he makes an edict to everybody and says, Hey, if there's a boy, a male baby born, a baby boy, throw it in the Nile.
SPEAKER_01: This frowning providence, it's really dark.
SPEAKER_01: And chapter 2 opens.
SPEAKER_01: Now a man from the house of Levi went and took as his wife, a Levite woman.
SPEAKER_01: You say, and then it says, and then the woman conceived and bore a son.
SPEAKER_01: By the way, that phrase, and the woman conceived and bore a son, appears 16 times in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_01: And this is the last time it appears.
SPEAKER_01: And you say, What's the big deal about that?
SPEAKER_01: Because each time the Bible goes out of the way to say, and she conceived and bore a son, or she conceived and gave birth to a daughter, it's announcing something that these are 16 people that God used.
SPEAKER_01: Why is this the last time?
SPEAKER_01: Because with the birth of Moses, God has somebody who can lead and give birth to a nation of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: And so 16 times the Bible has kind of said, but one of the things that you say, what do you mean God's always at work?
SPEAKER_01: How do you see that?
SPEAKER_01: And in verse 1, when it says, a man from the house of Levi went and took as his wife, a Levite woman.
SPEAKER_01: More than any decision that you make in this lifetime, apart from your relationship with Christ, the most important decision you will make in this world, in this life, is who you marry.
SPEAKER_01: Can I get an amen?
SPEAKER_01: And I married way above my head, and my wife and kids are in Florida right now.
SPEAKER_01: They left on Thursday, they don't want to get back till Tuesday.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm kind of batching it.
SPEAKER_01: And my wife is kind of working, we're having radio silence.
SPEAKER_01: We're not talking, and I'm great with that.
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, because I I'm on a bad roll a couple weeks ago.
SPEAKER_01: My wife and I were talking, and she was like, Well, I just feel like, and I know it's not true, but, and I think in my male mind, if it's not true, why we gotta talk about it?
SPEAKER_01: Because we got to talk about it.
SPEAKER_01: And so she said, Well, I know this is not true, but it just feels to me like, and I said in a moment of male lucidity and crisp logic, I said, your insecurity sometimes creates unnecessary conversations for me.
SPEAKER_01: Shut up.
SPEAKER_01: I thought, this is a pearl of self-awareness.
SPEAKER_01: She's gonna say thank you.
SPEAKER_01: She didn't.
SPEAKER_01: She looked at our kids and go, go to your rooms.
SPEAKER_01: And my kids just got out, just walked to their bedrooms.
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Wha! And all of a sudden, click, the TV got turned off.
SPEAKER_01: And in my mind, I'm like, am I getting a whipping?
SPEAKER_01: What's going on here?
SPEAKER_01: She goes, Let's talk about what you just said.
SPEAKER_01: I see, well, well, see, I uh I'm not are you saying that that I'm it's unnecessary?
SPEAKER_01: No, no, no.
SPEAKER_01: I'm just, I mean, I this is how I think as a man.
SPEAKER_01: I don't think, I don't know if all other men think this way.
SPEAKER_01: I think we do.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, but when you say to us, I know this is not true, then why are we fixing to talk about it?
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, uh, so I'm like, uh, okay, uh, uh, oh, oh, oh, oh, okay, whatever.
SPEAKER_01: See, and when I say God's always at work, and God's at work in these people, I'm I'm a better man.
SPEAKER_01: My life is what it is because I married the woman I married.
SPEAKER_01: But sometimes she makes me crazy.
SPEAKER_01: Been married 22 years, been 17 of the best years of my life.
SPEAKER_01: I'm telling you.
SPEAKER_01: It's awesome.
SPEAKER_01: Uh called me yesterday from Florida because my wife gets in the van and she's a great woman.
SPEAKER_01: She thinks about two things the speedometer and the gas gauge.
SPEAKER_01: And we went on a date the night before.
SPEAKER_01: Our kids had an event here at the church.
SPEAKER_01: We went to dinner, and I said, Your van's kind of loud.
SPEAKER_01: Do you listen to that?
SPEAKER_01: She goes, No, I don't I don't listen to that.
SPEAKER_01: And next day they're backing out the driveway.
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, your tires are almost bald.
SPEAKER_01: You're driving to Florida.
SPEAKER_01: Get new tires when you get there on the front of this van.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, gets to Florida, no new tires.
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, hey, got tires, got no, we went shopping.
SPEAKER_01: No, we went out to eat.
SPEAKER_01: No, my parents want to take the girls to the mall and get them something.
SPEAKER_01: Yesterday I get this panic phone call.
SPEAKER_01: I was pulling up a parking place and the tire popped off the rim.
SPEAKER_01: And you can't say, What I tell you.
SPEAKER_01: No, because that's mean.
SPEAKER_01: And in my mind, I'm thinking, if telling the truth is wrong, what we got going on here?
SPEAKER_01: But I didn't say anything.
SPEAKER_01: And she's like, but I did say on the phone, and you're not supposed to say this, it's hard to fix these things over the phone.
SPEAKER_01: Because I said, Hey, you got a donut spare in the van.
SPEAKER_01: And she goes, I don't know where the where the spare tire is.
SPEAKER_01: And I said, How big is the van?
SPEAKER_01: How hard is it to look?
SPEAKER_01: And she said, I said, look under the seat.
SPEAKER_01: She goes, Well, my mom and dad and the girls are in the van.
SPEAKER_01: I said, Y'all got to get out of the van and change the tire.
SPEAKER_01: We got to get out of the van.
SPEAKER_01: I said, look in the glove box and get the little owner's manual.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I took it out the other day.
SPEAKER_01: I was reading something about the headphones for the DVD player, and I left the owner's manual at the house.
SPEAKER_01: Can you find it and talk me through this?
SPEAKER_01: And because I said a minute ago, hey, when you things are going your way, don't think God's not worried.
SPEAKER_01: Because I'm talking to my wife and I can feel myself getting frustrated.
SPEAKER_01: That's not okay.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes our frustration is circumstantial.
SPEAKER_01: It's not personal.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: Crazy stuff cannot happen.
SPEAKER_01: And you look at us, ladies, and go, don't be frustrated.
SPEAKER_01: Too late.
SPEAKER_01: It's two o'clock.
SPEAKER_01: I'm making a sandwich, having a late lunch, and my wife's like, I don't know where the tire is.
SPEAKER_01: I left the owner's manual.
SPEAKER_01: And I and I'm like, and I said, I was thinking, Lord, I need some people.
SPEAKER_01: I've helped a lot of people.
SPEAKER_01: How about a little return on that investment right now?
SPEAKER_01: And my wife, I mean, not a minute later, she goes, Hey, hang on a second.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, we can do some help.
SPEAKER_01: Two Navy guys were riding by mopeds, and one of them said, Should we help them?
SPEAKER_01: And then we're going, Yeah, we need to go back.
SPEAKER_01: And she goes, I think they're gonna change the tire.
SPEAKER_01: I hung up the phone.
SPEAKER_01: God moves the mysterious ways, his wonders to perform.
SPEAKER_01: They got the thing changed.
SPEAKER_01: And then she called me on the way back to her parents' house to tell me everything that happened and everything they said.
SPEAKER_01: And my mother-in-law invited them over for dinner and we'll buy you lunch if you come to church.
SPEAKER_01: And I said to my mother-in-law, thought this was funny.
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, you're too old to be hitting on two young Navy guys.
SPEAKER_01: I'm so glad you're not here.
SPEAKER_01: Not as glad as I am.
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: So hey, hey, hey, come back to it.
SPEAKER_01: One of the most important decisions you'll make is who you marry.
SPEAKER_01: Lady came to see me about two or three weeks ago.
SPEAKER_01: Her engagement, her fiance broken off the engagement.
SPEAKER_01: And I thought I was being helpful.
SPEAKER_01: I said, I think, I said, where do you see God at work in this?
SPEAKER_01: I don't think this is God at work.
SPEAKER_01: This is horrible.
SPEAKER_01: I want to get him back.
SPEAKER_01: And I said, I see God preparing you for who your husband's gonna be.
SPEAKER_01: Clearly, it isn't this guy.
SPEAKER_01: Move on.
SPEAKER_01: That's not what she wanted to hear.
SPEAKER_01: You don't understand.
SPEAKER_01: And so I said, No, you don't understand.
SPEAKER_01: You gotta respect yourself enough, and this is not about respecting yourself.
SPEAKER_01: This is about respecting God enough to know that God is the work of God in your life is not controlled by some stupid guy.
SPEAKER_01: But he's my soulmate.
SPEAKER_01: Shut up.
SPEAKER_01: Stop saying that.
SPEAKER_01: God is your soulmate, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Not some guy.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, you're gonna waste your life waiting for this guy to come back to you and you're gonna miss what God's trying to do.
SPEAKER_01: It's just, I mean, this is not what I want to hear.
SPEAKER_01: I got nothing else to say.
SPEAKER_01: Let me pray, and you can go.
SPEAKER_01: No, I want you to talk till I feel better.
SPEAKER_01: I ain't got that much life, lady.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because, hey, sometimes when it hurts the most, God is working the most.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes when it, I mean, it just stings.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm not, I'm not a heartless person.
SPEAKER_01: I wasn't like, oh, this doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, hey, I I I get it.
SPEAKER_01: I understand.
SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry that happened.
SPEAKER_01: But you think this disqualifies and keeps God from doing anything?
SPEAKER_01: You want to reserve the right to look at your daughters when they're 17 or when they're 14 and go, hey, I want you to know God's at work, so hold your head up.
SPEAKER_01: He's always at work.
SPEAKER_01: A man from the house of Levi and took it as his wife, a Levite woman.
SPEAKER_01: What's that got to do with anything?
SPEAKER_01: Because Moses is of the tribe that will be designated by God to provide spiritual leadership to his people way down the road.
SPEAKER_01: God, you have been pre-qualified for a home mortgage?
SPEAKER_01: He God pre-qualifies Moses for leadership.
SPEAKER_01: And you say, What do you mean?
SPEAKER_01: This is Deuteronomy chapter 10, verse 8.
SPEAKER_01: It's at that time because the Levites were the people that God said, You belong to me.
SPEAKER_01: When they got in the promised land and they divided up the promised land, God gave all the other tribes land and he came to the Levites and He goes, You don't get anything, you get me.
SPEAKER_01: And they weren't like, oh man, we got ripped off.
SPEAKER_01: They were like, Bingo! Whoa! We are the champions, my friends.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody else had lamb.
SPEAKER_01: They got God.
SPEAKER_01: And Moses was a Levite.
SPEAKER_01: Because his mom and dad married each other.
SPEAKER_01: A Levite man and a Levite woman.
SPEAKER_01: So he was pre-qualified to be used of God.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, the type of person you marry produces the kind of children you get.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you need to not be led around by your homes so much.
SPEAKER_01: Uh-oh.
SPEAKER_01: You feel that?
SPEAKER_01: Some of y'all like the type of person you marry is determined by the type of children you get is determined by the type of person you marry.
SPEAKER_01: This is Deuteronomy chapter 10, verse 8.
SPEAKER_01: This is what God spells it out about the Levites.
SPEAKER_01: At that time the Lord set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the ark of the covenant of the Lord, to stand before the Lord, to minister to him and to bless his name to this day.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, Levi has no portion or inheritance with his brothers.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord is his inheritance.
SPEAKER_01: As the Lord your God said to him, I myself stayed on the mountain.
SPEAKER_01: This is Moses talking, as at that as at the first time, forty days and forty nights, and the Lord listened to me that time also.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord was unwilling to destroy you.
SPEAKER_01: And the Lord said to me, Arise, go on your journey at the head of the people, so they may go in and possess the land which I swore to their forefathers to give them.
SPEAKER_01: When Exodus chapter 2 opens up and it's just an innocuous little phrase, now a man from the house of Levi went and took as his wife, a Levite woman.
SPEAKER_01: God is pre-qualifying Moses for leadership.
SPEAKER_01: He's other Levitical priesthood.
SPEAKER_01: He's from the tribe of Levi.
SPEAKER_01: So God said, hey, it's going to be the Levites.
SPEAKER_01: He's like, hey, Moses, I already been at work in your life for a long, long time.
SPEAKER_01: One of the things, Mom and Dad, you need to do is you need to keep a record of all the ways God's worked in your kids' life before they ever have a frame of reference for it.
SPEAKER_01: Because there will come a day you need to look them in the eye and say, when you sin, you're sinning against all this spiritual legacy.
SPEAKER_01: Not to shame them, but to invite them to think big picture about their life.
SPEAKER_01: God's always at work.
SPEAKER_01: Secondly, the smiling hand of Providence in Exodus 2 tells us God works in your enemies' hearts as well.
SPEAKER_01: Remember how chapter 1 ended?
SPEAKER_01: God said, I mean, Pharaoh said, hey, throw all the male babies in the Nile.
SPEAKER_01: See, when we stop believing that God works in your enemies' hearts as well, what we do is we take matters into our own hands.
SPEAKER_01: We kind of think, hey God, you feel about them the way I feel about them.
SPEAKER_01: I want to read to you from the 109th Psalm.
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to turn there.
SPEAKER_01: You can if you want.
SPEAKER_01: It'll come up on the screen.
SPEAKER_01: I'm reading this because it's in the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: This is what's called an imprecatory psalm.
SPEAKER_01: That means that this person, in this case David, a man after God's own heart, is so angry at these people who've been talking about him that he tells God with exclamation point after exclamation point after exclamation point.
SPEAKER_01: This is what I want you to do to these people.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to lay the wood to them, God.
SPEAKER_01: And he uses flowing biblical language to do it.
SPEAKER_01: You ever been so mad at somebody that you wished ill upon them?
SPEAKER_01: I see you look down at your Bibles.
SPEAKER_01: Don't look up, honey.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: Look at what the Bible says.
SPEAKER_01: This is the 109th Psalm, verse 1.
SPEAKER_01: Be not silent, O God of my praise, for wicked and deceitful mouths have opened up against me.
SPEAKER_01: Speaking against me with lying tongues, they encircle me with words of hate, and they attack me without cause.
SPEAKER_01: In return for my love, they accuse me, but I give myself to prayer.
SPEAKER_01: So they regard me evil for good and hatred for my love.
SPEAKER_01: David says, God, this is what they've done to me.
SPEAKER_01: Now this is what I want you to do to them, starting in verse 6.
SPEAKER_01: Appoint a wicked man against him.
SPEAKER_01: Let an accuser stand at his right hand.
SPEAKER_01: When he is tried, let him come forth guilty.
SPEAKER_01: Let his prayer be counted as sin.
SPEAKER_01: May his days be few.
SPEAKER_01: May another take his office.
SPEAKER_01: May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.
SPEAKER_01: Hello.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 10.
SPEAKER_01: May his children wander about and beg, seeking food afar from the ruins they inhabit.
SPEAKER_01: May the creditor seize all that he has.
SPEAKER_01: May strangers plunder the fruits of his toil.
SPEAKER_01: Let there be none to extend kindness to him, nor any to pity his fatherless children.
SPEAKER_01: May his posterity be cut off.
SPEAKER_01: May his name be blotted out in the second generation.
SPEAKER_01: Translation, I don't want this cat to have grandkids.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 14, may the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the Lord, and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out.
SPEAKER_01: He's talking about the guy's mama.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't stop there.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 15, let them be before the Lord continually, that he may cut off the memory of them from the earth.
SPEAKER_01: For he did not remember to show kindness, but he pursued the poor and needy and the brokenhearted to put them to death.
SPEAKER_01: He loved to curse, let curses come upon him.
SPEAKER_01: He did not delight in blessing, may it be far from him.
SPEAKER_01: He clothed himself with cursing as with a coat.
SPEAKER_01: May it soak into his body like water, like oil into his bones, may it be like a garment he wraps around him, like a belt that he puts on every day.
SPEAKER_01: May this be the reward of my accusers from the Lord and those who speak evil against my life.
SPEAKER_01: Some of y'all don't have a Bible like, where was that?
SPEAKER_01: What psalm?
SPEAKER_01: I need to send a Facebook message later today.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord gave me a word for you.
SPEAKER_01: Be careful.
SPEAKER_01: Now that's in the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: Look at me.
SPEAKER_01: That's in the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: That doesn't mean that God did what David wanted him to do.
SPEAKER_01: You realize that, right?
SPEAKER_01: What are we saying?
SPEAKER_01: God is at work in the hearts of your enemies as well.
SPEAKER_01: And one of the things that we would do well to remember is that, hey, God doesn't just limit himself to us.
SPEAKER_01: So here's what I want you to do.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to learn to pray for your enemies.
SPEAKER_01: Let me give you three things that will help you pray for your enemies.
SPEAKER_01: Number one, remember that you were once God's enemy.
SPEAKER_01: Remember that you were once God's enemy.
SPEAKER_01: It is the height of hypocrisy for you.
SPEAKER_01: Because the Bible says in Romans chapter 5, verse 10, for if while we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his son.
SPEAKER_01: It goes on to say, how much more now?
SPEAKER_01: But just hear that.
SPEAKER_01: For if while we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him by the death of his son.
SPEAKER_01: You and I, by nature, were not born Christians.
SPEAKER_01: That's why the Bible says you've got to be born again.
SPEAKER_01: Stop thinking or saying you've been a Christian your whole life.
SPEAKER_01: You haven't.
SPEAKER_01: You were born an enemy of God.
SPEAKER_01: Lost, incapable of doing anything to save yourself, to change yourself.
SPEAKER_01: We by nature, Ephesians 2 tells us, are objects of God's wrath.
SPEAKER_01: You have a bullseye tattooed on your soul, and God has a big bow and arrow.
SPEAKER_01: That's seeker-friendly, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01: But see, you have to say what the Bible says, or else mercy has no breathtaking ability to buckle your knees.
SPEAKER_01: You were born God's enemies.
SPEAKER_01: So, so how'd you get changed?
SPEAKER_01: Someone had to die.
SPEAKER_01: And you were reconciled to him by the death of his son.
SPEAKER_01: You didn't pull yourself up by your bootstraps.
SPEAKER_01: You didn't one day think, oh, you know what, this makes sense.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to choose to believe this.
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: No, he revealed himself to you.
SPEAKER_01: Remember, you were once God's enemies.
SPEAKER_01: When you think about praying for your enemy, secondly, ask yourself what you need to let die.
SPEAKER_01: Ask yourself what you need to let die between you and your enemy.
SPEAKER_01: See, why?
SPEAKER_01: Because death is what makes reconciliation possible.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus died so I could be reconciled to God.
SPEAKER_01: He died on my place, in my place, on the cross to make reconciliation possible.
SPEAKER_01: So if you've got an enemy, ask yourself today, hey, what do I just need to let die between me and this guy or me and this woman?
SPEAKER_01: What do I just need to be done with?
SPEAKER_01: Third thing, and then under the banner of praying for your enemies, pray for mercy, not just justice.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because justice is what we want.
SPEAKER_01: And mercy is what only God can give.
SPEAKER_01: Justice is what we want.
SPEAKER_01: And so what we do is we one-dimensionalize.
SPEAKER_01: Let me just speak to you feel how quiet it is in here?
SPEAKER_01: Hello?
SPEAKER_01: I didn't say do you hear?
SPEAKER_01: I said do you feel it?
SPEAKER_01: What we do is we one-dimensionalize our enemies, and we just think, hey, who this person has been to me or this experience I had with them, this is the sum total of who this person is.
SPEAKER_01: And that's not true.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because Pharaoh's daughter, of all the people in the world that will follow his commands, hey, if it's a boy, throw it in the Nile.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says, right here, in no uncertain terms, in verse 5 of Exodus chapter 2, it says, Now the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river while her young woman, women walked beside the river.
SPEAKER_01: She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her servant woman, and she took it, and when she opened it, she saw the child, and behold, the baby was crying.
SPEAKER_01: She took pity on him and said, This is one of the Hebrews' children.
SPEAKER_01: Well what?
SPEAKER_01: See, your enemies are capable of more than you give them credit for.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because the same God that works in your heart works in their heart.
SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense to anybody but me?
SPEAKER_01: You can't just write them off and kind of go, Yeah, but they said this.
SPEAKER_01: No, no.
SPEAKER_01: God is at work.
SPEAKER_01: He works not in our lives, but in the lives of our our enemies as well.
SPEAKER_01: Thirdly, uh, God works in our lives in ways we don't expect.
SPEAKER_01: What do you mean?
SPEAKER_01: We'll pick up the story in verse 7.
SPEAKER_01: 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?
SPEAKER_01: And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, Go.
SPEAKER_01: So the girl went and called the child's mother.
SPEAKER_01: And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, Take this child away and nurse him for me, and I will give you your wages.
SPEAKER_01: So the woman took the child and nursed him.
SPEAKER_01: When the child grew older, she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son.
SPEAKER_01: She named him Moses because she said, I drew him out of the water.
SPEAKER_01: Now get this for just a minute.
SPEAKER_01: First of all, I think it's worth noting.
SPEAKER_01: Look how often and with what frequency God uses women in this narrative of giving birth to his people.
SPEAKER_01: So if you're a woman, you need to set up today and see yourself in the Bible and realize God has bigger plans for you than just cooking supper and having babies and cleaning the house.
SPEAKER_01: Nothing against all that.
SPEAKER_01: All that is good and necessary, and your husband should help you with frequency.
SPEAKER_01: Amen?
SPEAKER_01: You guys would be like, we'll get you for this.
SPEAKER_01: But here's what and by the way, the Bible says that they hid Moses' parents, Amram and Jacob.
SPEAKER_01: They hid him for three months because they saw there's something different about this kid.
SPEAKER_01: But who wants to, who gives birth to a baby and just kind of says, I I'm just gonna throw it in the Nile because I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: They hid him for three months, and then they realized, hey, you know, we're not supposed to have this baby.
SPEAKER_01: And so the Egyptians would come through looking, and so they took a like a wicker basket and put this pitch, this tar-like substance on the bottom of it so it'd float.
SPEAKER_01: And the Bible says they stuck him among the reeds.
SPEAKER_01: And so there's a good chance it's not like we think they just put him out in the river and said, good luck.
SPEAKER_01: It's a good chance they just kind of put him outside so no one can hear him.
SPEAKER_01: And they just kind of hit him and they told his sister, who we find out later, is Miriam, to kind of watch and see what happens.
SPEAKER_01: And uh Pharaoh's daughter comes down to the river to bathe because they believe that bathing in the Nile had these magical properties.
SPEAKER_01: You say, that's crazy.
SPEAKER_01: Have you been to India lately?
SPEAKER_01: They believe the same thing to this day.
SPEAKER_01: Bathing in this certain river has property.
SPEAKER_01: And so she comes down, she sees the basket, sends one of her women to come get it, hear the baby crying, open it up, and God causes her to have compassion on this.
SPEAKER_01: And she says, This is one of the Hebrews, baby.
SPEAKER_01: But God works in our lives in ways we don't expect.
SPEAKER_01: Now look at me.
SPEAKER_01: When I say ways we don't expect, all of us in this room fall in one of two categories.
SPEAKER_01: We either think, How bad can it be?
SPEAKER_01: Or you think, how good can it get?
SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_01: You think, how bad can it be?
SPEAKER_01: And if you're a how bad can it be person, it's like being married to Eeyore.
SPEAKER_01: It's always hurricane weather.
SPEAKER_01: It's always, oh gosh, this happened.
SPEAKER_01: Yesterday when my wife called, I'll just confess, and she said, the tire came off the rim.
SPEAKER_01: My first thought was, I work for God.
SPEAKER_01: This shouldn't happen to me.
SPEAKER_01: We're probably gonna get it to the shop, and it's gonna be$2,000.
SPEAKER_01: We're just hemorrhaging money.
SPEAKER_01: Every time I turn around, something's broken, something needs to be fixed and replaced, and blah, blah, blah.
SPEAKER_01: All that went through my mind in a nanosecond.
SPEAKER_01: And I called the the uh I got a friend of mine that fixes cars there in Pennsylvania, and I called, he said, take it here.
SPEAKER_01: And I called the guy and he goes, Yeah, it's about$267 plus tax.
SPEAKER_01: And that little voice kind of said, All that energy over$267 plus tax.
SPEAKER_01: Is that how I've been to you?
SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, my wife got me worked up, God, you know, she, you know, tell me it was off the rim and I, you know, and it's making noise, and okay.
SPEAKER_01: You see, because here's the thing the payoff for kind of thinking, oh man, how how bad can it be?
SPEAKER_01: When does the other shoe drop?
SPEAKER_01: Is that it justifies you being in charge of your life.
SPEAKER_01: That's the backdoor, crazy kind of reverse psychology payoff.
SPEAKER_01: When I say God works in our lives in ways we don't expect, what what I want you to see in the Bible is that Jacob puts her baby, she hides him among the reeds, right there off the bank.
SPEAKER_01: He gets discovered anyway, and then when Miriam, Moses' sister, runs over and says, You want me to go get one of the Hebrew women to nurse this baby for you?
SPEAKER_01: Pharaoh's daughter says, Yeah, she doesn't have the capacity to nurse a baby.
SPEAKER_01: She doesn't have a baby.
SPEAKER_01: Miriam goes back and gets her mom, brings her mom, and Pharaoh's daughter says, Hey, would you nurse this child for me and I'll pay you?
SPEAKER_01: So she gets paid to raise her own son.
SPEAKER_01: God moves in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform.
SPEAKER_01: And so, back then they nursed their babies for three or four years.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you are like, What's wrong with that?
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to go there.
SPEAKER_01: And so she brings him and gives him back to Pharaoh's daughter, and he's raised in Pharaoh's palace, and he gets the best education he could ever get.
SPEAKER_01: Not just in schooling stuff, but in military warfare.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: As you'll see next week when we talk about how God uses Moses to begin to set things into motion, to bring his people out of bondage.
SPEAKER_01: He got the training in the house of Pharaoh, and he's going to use it for the benefit and the blessing of the people of God.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because God works in our lives in ways we don't expect.
SPEAKER_01: And I want to say this that God is relationally oriented towards how good it can be.
SPEAKER_01: We fall out on how bad can it get, and or how good can it be?
SPEAKER_01: God falls out always and ever, always has, always will on how good it can be.
SPEAKER_01: Matter of fact, I'm here to tell you this morning that the thermostat of God's heart towards you is set on goodness.
SPEAKER_01: You say, Well, what do you mean?
SPEAKER_01: I I don't I don't know what you mean.
SPEAKER_01: Let me say that again.
SPEAKER_01: The thermostat of God's heart towards his people is set on goodness.
SPEAKER_01: Now, look at me.
SPEAKER_01: If you're a Christian, I'm talking to you.
SPEAKER_01: If you're not a Christian yet, relax.
SPEAKER_01: No pressure, no guilt.
SPEAKER_01: But I'm going to love you enough to tell you this that you cannot experience the goodness of God outside of a relationship with God.
SPEAKER_01: Let me say that again.
SPEAKER_01: You cannot experience the goodness of God, the blessing and the benefit of God, and not have a relationship with God.
SPEAKER_01: Because what we've done in the name of spirituality, we've taken everything that belongs to a relationship out of the relationship.
SPEAKER_01: So we don't need a relationship anymore.
SPEAKER_01: So people that have no thought about God, they live in sin, they do their own thing, they just kind of say, Yeah, I want God to bless me.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, hey, that's a relational dynamic.
SPEAKER_01: Do you have a relationship with God?
SPEAKER_01: No, man, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_01: I kind of got some Eastern mysticism and some Buddhism and a little bit of this.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, by the way, Buddhism, how's that working for Tiger Woods?
SPEAKER_01: Now that he's focusing back on his Buddhism.
SPEAKER_01: Just curious.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, well, you should be praying for Tiger Woods.
SPEAKER_01: I do.
SPEAKER_01: I pray it comes to faith.
SPEAKER_01: So you you mean to tell me that only as a Christian can you experience the blessing of God?
SPEAKER_01: I think God is benevolent towards people that don't know him, but he's not posture, he's not disposed to bless them.
SPEAKER_01: Well, I don't make any sense.
SPEAKER_01: I said, hey, when school starts, am I going to come to your house and buy your kids school supplies?
SPEAKER_01: Well, no.
SPEAKER_01: Why not?
SPEAKER_01: They're not your kids.
SPEAKER_01: And so I'm not hating.
SPEAKER_01: I'm just saying if you're here and you're not there yet, keep listening because God's talking to you.
SPEAKER_01: I'm saying if you're there and you have a relationship with God, then when I say that the thermostat of God's heart is set on goodness towards you.
SPEAKER_01: That's the one thing I want you to walk out today convinced of.
SPEAKER_01: Let me just read to you from the Bible different verses.
SPEAKER_01: This is Hosea chapter 3, verse 5.
SPEAKER_01: Afterward.
SPEAKER_01: Afterward, by the way, a lot of stuff happened just afterwards.
SPEAKER_01: That's a huge word.
SPEAKER_01: God told Hosea, go down to the slave market and buy your wife back because she's been a whoring out with other men.
SPEAKER_01: She's been playing the whore, and you're going to buy her back.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because I'm going to teach my people Israel that this is the kind of God I am.
SPEAKER_01: I love them with a redeeming love.
SPEAKER_01: And so he says, afterward, the children of Israel shall return and seek the Lord their God and David their king, and they shall come in fear to the Lord and to his goodness in the latter days.
SPEAKER_01: Hello.
SPEAKER_01: They shall come in fear to the Lord and to his goodness.
SPEAKER_01: Because when we turn away from God's goodness, God makes it hard.
SPEAKER_01: That's why the Bible says in Hebrews 10 that he disciplines us so we can share in his holiness.
SPEAKER_01: When you turn away, God is so disposed with goodness towards you that when you turn away, he makes your life difficult, not to punish you, but to bring you back to a point where you can experience his goodness.
SPEAKER_01: That's why he says in Hosea, hey, they're going to come back to the Lord and to his goodness in the latter days.
SPEAKER_01: Psalm 84, 11.
SPEAKER_01: For the Lord God is a son and a shield.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord bestows favor and honor.
SPEAKER_01: No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly.
SPEAKER_01: Romans 8 28.
SPEAKER_01: And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good.
SPEAKER_01: For those who are called according to his purpose.
SPEAKER_01: Philippians 1 6, he who began a good work in you will continue it to the day of Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: First Peter 2 3, like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation.
SPEAKER_01: If indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.
SPEAKER_01: Titus chapter 3, verses 3 to 7.
SPEAKER_01: For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures.
SPEAKER_01: Remember when you were a slave to different passions and pleasures?
SPEAKER_01: Can I get an amen?
SPEAKER_01: Hello.
SPEAKER_01: Remember that?
SPEAKER_01: Remember when you just get up and go out and do stupid stuff and wake up the next day and go, what was I thinking?
SPEAKER_01: And go out that night and do the same stupid stuff.
SPEAKER_01: Some of y'all like, hey, I was just weakened.
SPEAKER_01: Passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.
SPEAKER_01: But when the goodness and the loving kindness of God, our Savior, appeared.
SPEAKER_01: What's the next word in the slide?
SPEAKER_01: What does it say?
SPEAKER_01: No, the first word there.
SPEAKER_01: The goodness and the loving kindness of God is not some impersonal cosmic force that's going to put money in your bank account and make your husband a better man.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus Christ is the highest expression of the goodness of God.
SPEAKER_01: When the goodness and the loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us.
SPEAKER_01: Not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and the renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
SPEAKER_01: The goodness of God, again, is not some impersonal force, it's Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: That's why Romans says, in he who spared not his own son.
SPEAKER_01: Romans 8, about verse 31, in he who spared not his own son, but freely offered him up for us all, how will he not also, along with him, freely give us all things?
SPEAKER_01: The thermostat of God's heart towards you, if you're a Christian, is set on goodness.
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to earn it, you don't have to deserve it.
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to come and go, oh God.
SPEAKER_01: Psalm 23, 6.
SPEAKER_01: Surely, goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
SPEAKER_01: Surely.
SPEAKER_01: David says, Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.
SPEAKER_01: Look at me.
SPEAKER_01: Now I'm talking to all of you.
SPEAKER_01: Christian, non-Christian, I'm telling you, one of the ways that God reaches the unbeliever is through his goodness.
SPEAKER_01: And here's the two-edged sword of God's goodness.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes you experience God's goodness, your business is doing great.
SPEAKER_01: You're just, you got money, you got a ranch, you got a vacation home in Colorado, you got a beach house down on the beach, you got all you need.
SPEAKER_01: And then the goodness of God, you you mistake it as your accomplishment, and it keeps you from God because you think, I don't need God.
SPEAKER_01: Look at what all I got.
SPEAKER_01: You're like the guy in the Bible says, I got so much stuff, I gotta tear down my barns and build bigger barns.
SPEAKER_01: And God says, You very fool.
SPEAKER_01: This night your soul will be required of you.
SPEAKER_01: If you're in this room and you're just killing, it's it's going so good, you ain't got words for it.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not the president.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna say, you didn't build that.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you did.
SPEAKER_01: If you built your company, glory to God.
SPEAKER_01: But look at me.
SPEAKER_01: I'm telling you that that's one of the ways the goodness of God, by blessing and prospering you, God is kind of going, hello, you who! Let's don't forget where this comes from.
SPEAKER_01: Don't let what God intends to draw you to Him keep you from Him.
SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_01: Because the Bible says, and I'm done this morning, surely, goodness and mercy shall follow you all the days of your life.
SPEAKER_01: Can you just believe today that the goodness of God is pursuing you?
SPEAKER_01: Stand to your feet.
SPEAKER_01: Hold your hands out and make a blessing over you.
SPEAKER_01: I'm hurrying, sweetie.
SPEAKER_01: God has begun a good work in you.
SPEAKER_01: That means that what's happening in your life is God's idea, not yours.
SPEAKER_01: You get to enjoy it, but he initiated it.
SPEAKER_01: And the Bible says that what he initiates, he will continue to the day of Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: He's never gonna stop.
SPEAKER_01: So why not yield today to what God's doing in your heart and in your life?
SPEAKER_01: Depart now, and through your obedience and your enjoyment, participate in this sanctifying reality.
SPEAKER_01: In the name of the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Bless you.
SPEAKER_01: You're dismissed.