July 28, 2025 • 22 mins
As we conclude our Promises Made, Promises Kept series, Pastor Joe reflects on God’s faithfulness through the story of Exodus. He reminds us that God sees, hears, and knows the pain of his people—and he always acts in line with His promises. Pastor Joe draws a connection between Israel’s deliverance and our own, pointing us to Jesus as the ultimate fulfillment of God's covenant. As we move forward, we’re invited to trust deeply in the God who always keeps his word.
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(00:00):
Exodus chapter 2:23 through 25.
During those many days,the king of Egypt died, and the people
of Israel groaned because of their slaveryand cried out for help.
Their cry for rescue from slavery came upto God, and God heard their groaning.
And God remembered this covenantwith Abraham,
(00:21):
with Isaac, and with Jacob.
God saw the people of Israel,and God knew.
Their way.
Good morning and welcome to CCC.
So glad you're here.
Thanks for coming.
We are all ready for the kids camp,which will start tomorrow. And
(00:43):
holy cow.
What?
The work that's been done in the atrium
and all aroundthe building is just amazing.
I just want to take,
just a second and thank those of youwho volunteered to do all that.
And I want to thank those 400 plusvolunteers who will be starting on Monday.
And my last count waswe have 997 kids signed up for kids camp.
(01:07):
Yeah.
And we are going to
find three more kids somewhere,
right?
But thanks.
I love, the way we care for kids here.
It makes me wish I was a kidin this church, and that's good.
All right.
This is the final message of our ten weekseries in the Old Testament.
(01:30):
We've been looking at the life of Abraham.
We've called this seriesPromises Made, Promises Kept.
The story of Abrahambegins in Genesis chapter 12.
And it begins with a promise.
And this is the promiseGod makes to Abraham.
God says, and I will make you of youa great nation.
I will bless you and make your name greatso that you will be a blessing.
(01:54):
I will bless those who bless you and himwho dishonors you I will curse,
and in you all the families ofthe earth shall be blessed.
Here's the
promise of Abraham,our promise of God to Abraham,
our lives, Abraham's life on earthby a long shot.
(02:14):
God's promises to you
will outlive your time on earthby a long shot.
The verses we had read fromExodus chapter two
really are about a approximately 400 years
after God makes this promise.
And it says that God heard their groaningand he remembered his covenant.
(02:36):
That's another wordfor a promise to Abraham.
So that's the way this starts, right?
There's a lot that happensin those 400 years between Genesis chapter
22, where which is where we left offlast week in Exodus chapter two.
Let me kind of fill in the blanks.
So last week in Exodus chapter 22,God tells Abraham
(03:00):
to take his son Isaac up to Mount Moriahand sacrifice him there.
And then God intervenes and provides asubstitute sacrifice, and Isaac is spared.
But let me let me stop right there,because a lot of people have trouble
with that story, because it's easy to justthink, man, what kind of monster is God?
To tell Abrahamto take his son and sacrifice his son?
(03:23):
But let me just try to giveyou a different perspective.
The most dangerous thing for any humanbeing
is to put somethingother than God in the place of God.
It's the most dangerous thing for you.
It's the most dangerous thing for me.
And the thing that we usually put inthe place of God is not a bad thing.
(03:43):
It's usually a really good thing.
It's just not meant to bethe ultimate thing.
It's not hard to imagine that for Abraham.
Isaacwas starting to creep into that spot.
And for any parentwho makes a child in the position of God,
it will destroy the childand destroy the parent.
(04:06):
So God intervenes
to make sure that Abraham keeps him
in his rightful place, and in doing so,he spares both Abraham and Isaac.
I just wanted you to see thatfrom a different perspective.
All right.
But he spares Isaac.
Isaac has two sons, Jacob and Esau.
(04:27):
Jacob then has 12 sons.
And then the promise to Abraham,
to make of hima great nation really takes off.
In fact, God changesthe name of Jacob to the name Israel,
which is the waywe refer to that nation today.
And one of those 12sons of Jacob was named Joseph.
And the family is super dysfunctional.
(04:49):
And that dysfunction,
common traits in Joseph's brothers
actually selling him into slavery,which is just wild, right?
But the dysfunction of Joseph's family
does not derail God's plan for Joseph,
even though there were timeswhere Joseph probably thought it had.
(05:10):
Which means thatif you grew up in a dysfunctional family
or you're in the midst of dysfunction now,
that does not derail God's plan for you.
But Joseph's story begins in Genesischapter
37 and goes all the wayto the end of Genesis chapter 50.
And it starts with himbeing sold into slavery.
And then he rises to have tremendoussuccess
(05:33):
overseeing the household of mannamed Potiphar.
Then he gets wrongly accused of a crime,gets thrown in prison for a few years.
Then he gets
pulled out of prison to interpreta couple of weird dreams for Pharaoh.
And then Pharaoh decidesto make him the most powerful man
in all of Egypt, second only to himself.
Now, during this time, there's a faminethat hits the whole region.
(05:57):
Joseph reconnects with his brothers,which is a a story in and of itself.
But the result of the famineis that the entire clan moves
down into Egypt,which sounds like a lot, but
it was about 70 people at the time.
Now, when they arrive in Egypt,they have favored status
because of Joseph's position,and they flourish for a while.
(06:19):
We don't know how long they flourished,
but by the time we get to Exoduschapter two, things have changed.
And to say they no longer had favorablestatus is an understatement.
Because now, even though they numberin the hundreds of thousands, these
after being there for 400 years,
(06:39):
they are oppressed and enslaved.
And that brings us to the versesthat we had read to us.
And it's only three verses.
So let me read it againthat I'll give you my three points.
It says this during those many days,the King of Egypt died, and the people
of Israel groaned because of their slaveryand cried out for help.
(07:00):
Their cry for rescue from slaverycame up to God.
And God heard their groaning.
And God remembered his covenantwith Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.
And Godsaw the people of Israel, and God knew.
All right,
here are the three pointsthat I want to use to guide our time.
I want to talk about what the people feel,
(07:22):
what the people feel,what God sees and what God does.
Just that what the people feel,what God sees, what God does first,
what the people feel.
So they are in Egypt for 400 years.
That's a long time.
Like our country is going to celebrate
our 250th anniversary next year.
(07:42):
So that means they were in the Egypt150 years longer
than the United States of Americahas existed as a country.
Right?
And when they first started,it must have been amazing, because
when Pharaoh welcomes them, he says,the best of Egypt is at your disposal.
It's yours.
And no one but Pharaoh was more powerful
(08:04):
than Joseph, and few,if any, had more wealth than Joseph.
By the time Joseph dies.
He is generational wealth, right?
And we don't know how longthe prosperity lasted.
We don't know whether the peoplewere obedient or disobedient,
because the text doesn't tell us, butwe can be pretty sure they didn't cry out
(08:26):
because human beings don't cry outwhen things are going well,
when things are going well in my life,I don't cry out to God.
I still pray, I'm thankful.
I'm hoping the streak continues,
but I don't.
I don't cry out.
Right.
Prosperity,particularly health and wealth,
(08:47):
has the ability to kind of,
give you a false sense of security.
Like I exercise,
I try to stay physically fit,and I'm a person of routine.
So buildingexercise into my routine was pretty easy.
And I've done it for a long time.
But, about,I don't know, a month and a half ago,
(09:09):
I reached awkwardly for somethingand I felt something pop in my back.
First timeI've ever thrown my back out and my,
you know, confidencein my physical fitness evaporated
and I found myself incapacitated
for a couple of days,and I felt really fragile.
But feeling
fragile is much closer to reality
(09:32):
than feeling super fit and invincible.
Hey, the people of Israel had had a bunch
of winning seasons in a row,
but now things had changed
radically and now they felt trapped.
They felt hurt.
(09:53):
They felt abandoned.
They felt hopeless.
They felt helpless.
And they had tried everything
that they knew to try to try avoid thatslow slide into slavery.
Undoubtedly, there have been rebellionsand attempts to get free,
but by Exodus chapter two,they're out of bullets.
(10:14):
And so all they could do is cry out.
It doesn't even saythey cried out for God.
They just cried out because they knew.
They knew they needed somebody, anybody,because they could not help themselves.
That's what the people feel.
That brings about a second point.
What God sees.
(10:34):
So the people who are in in Israelfor for 400 years,
I it's like, how many generations is that?
Right? That's a ton.
Right.
It it's you know, I,I was thinking my father was born in 1933.
My grandfather born in 1901.
His father was,I think, born in the 1870s.
(10:56):
Fatherbefore him was born sometime in the 1850s.
He's my great, great, great
grandfather was born like 200 years ago,
but for 400 years,
was there anybody who rememberthe promise?
Right.
And my point is that, you know,when when they cry out, they don't say,
(11:17):
oh, God, remember your promise to Abraham.
They don't cry out like that.And my point is this it.
God is the one who makes promises,
and God is the one who remembers promises,
even when we don't,
even when we don't.
Right?
But the text saysthat he heard their groans,
(11:42):
and that means that he.
I was thinking he he had to be close.
You got to be close to hear somebodygroan, right?
Last year I had my knee replaced and,
I if you've been comingfor any length of time, then you know that
because I've mentioned it.
But and also,I mean, everybody who has ever
had a joint replacement in this churchhas come up and talk to me,
(12:06):
feel like we could start our own service,just the joint replacement people.
Right.
But when you get your jointreplaced, there's physical therapy.
And my physical therapist,he and he knows who he is.
He actually goes to this church.
I think at timeshe was trying to make me groan.
Right. And he succeeded.
(12:26):
But you still had to be close.
You had to be close to hear me.
Right.
And and I thought, it's so amazing
that God would be close enoughto any of us
to hear his groan.
But then verse 25
actually says something else.
It says that God saw
(12:48):
and God knew.
And that struck me because itit takes it to a different level,
because there have been timeswhen I'm walking around even,
you know, in the church,
in the hallways of the church, and I seesomebody and I can tell something's wrong,
but I don't know what to do.
I don't know if they want me to ask.
I don't know
if they want to be left alone out ofthey want somebody to sit with them
(13:11):
because I don't know what's going on.
But here
it says that God sees
and God knows.
That means he knew that they were afraid.
He knew they were hurting.
He knew they felt trapped.
He knew they were hopeless and helpless.
(13:32):
And that, of course, means that
God knows what you're feeling
right here, right now.
That God hears our groans
even when we don't make a sound.
And he sees
and he knows.
(13:53):
But then it says that God also
remembered his promise.
And I've talked.
I've already mentioned that 400 years,
no one remembered the promise.
But God remembers, right?
But the other thing iswhat the people were experiencing
(14:14):
as a crisis God saw as an opportunity.
And this is what I mean.
God saw them suffering, right?
But I don't think God,I know God doesn't experience crises
the way we experienceand think about crises.
So when God sees what's going on,
(14:34):
then it's an opportunityfor him to show his power and his grace.
Because when the peoplehave run out of options
and they've done everything they coulddo, that's God's time.
That's true.
With with anyway, it'sI think it's his favorite time
because it's the only
opportunity he has to show grace.
Because I think human beings by nature,
(14:57):
I don't think we're seekers of grace.
I think it's too embarrassing
that when I figure that out,and I've used this illustration before.
I was a young man living in Florida,and I got a van stuck in my backyard
because my backyard was all sandand I didn't live near the beach.
It was just that I didn'thave enough money to sod my backyard.
(15:19):
I could only sod my front yard.
And the whole state of Floridais a big sandbox if you don't sod.
But I got my van stuck in the backyardand I tried everything
and it was just getting worse and worse.
I was covered with sweat, sand.
My neighbor come outand he was watching me for a little bit,
and then he yelled overand he said, you need some help.
(15:39):
And I was like, no thanks. I got it.
I didn't got it.
But I was so embarrassed,
you know,because I would have to say, yeah,
I can't do this.
I, I don't know what to do right now.
(15:59):
Fortunately, he came over anyway,otherwise that van would still be there.
Right?
But the problem isthat we're not seekers of grace.
But grace is what we need.
Grace not just to forgive sins.
Which absolutely I need that.
(16:21):
But I'm convinced that graceis the great elixir of the human soul.
That's the only thing that has the power
to change me from the man I am into.
The man that I want to be, could be,should be that one that God made me to be.
And that's the same with you.
There is nothingthat has the power of grace
(16:43):
to come into your soul and heal.
What's
what's wrong,
what's wounded,
what's hard,
right?
So that means every crisisI've ever experienced, every crisis I ever
will experience,every crisis you experience is like a
a crack.
(17:05):
Like whereGod can pour in grace to your soul.
That would not happen without the crisis.
And all we need to dois cry out for that grace,
I told you at the last time I spokethat God is a multitasker,
and here he is doing all kinds ofthe people are suffering.
(17:26):
He hears.
He sees, he knows,and he decides to deliver them.
He's going to have a display of his power.
He's going to fulfill a promisehe made 400 years ago.
Their crisis is like a dark sky
that's about to belit up with the glory of God.
And that brings me to my third point
(17:49):
what God does, what God does.
So the people are suffering.
The people are in crisis.
They've tried everything.
God hears.
God sees.
God knows.
God decides that he's going to save them
with his power.
And that results in the famousten plagues.
(18:10):
The last of those plagueswas referred to as the Passover.
And every time before every play, Godwould telegraph what was going to happen.
But for the last plague,he told them, listen,
judgment is coming for everyone.
Everyone
Jew and Egyptian alike.
(18:31):
In every household,someone is going to die.
But then to the
to the Israelites,he said, you can avoid the wrath of God.
The angel of death.You have to take a lamb
and you slaughter the
lamb, and you take the blood of the lamb.
You put it at the top of your doorand on the two sides and the top,
(18:56):
and on the two sides,
and then whoever would take refugeunder the blood of the lamb,
then the wrath of God,the angel of death, would pass
over those people.
1500 years later, a man named John
the Baptist would point at Jesusand cry out, behold
(19:19):
the Lamb of God!
The night Jesus has betrayed,
he sat with his disciples
at a Passover meal,and he took bread, and he broke it.
And he said, this is my body
broken for you.
And then he took a cup of wine,
and he said, this cup is the covenant.
(19:42):
It's the promise for the
forgiveness of your sins,because is my blood poured out for you?
Listen,
everything in the Bible points to Jesus.
Every single thing, and maybe nothing.
No story more clearly than the storythat begins in Exodus two,
because the people are enslaved,they're trapped.
(20:05):
They're helpless.
They're hopeless.They've tried everything.
They're in desperate need for a savior,
and God decides to save them
with the blood of a lamb.
So in every crisis you go through,
every crisis you are in
(20:26):
is an opportunity for God
to fulfill his promise to you.
Because every crisis,when you have done everything
that you know to do,that becomes God's time.
And God sent a Saviornot because we deserve it,
precisely because we don't deserve it.
(20:46):
And then his grace
and grace is what you need.
Grace greater than all our sin?
Absolutely. Yes.
But grace so powerful
that whoever you are,
it can give you the lifethat you are longing to have.
(21:08):
Which is why Jesus in John chapter ten
says, I came that you might have life
and have it to the full.
That's Jesus promise.
Promises made and promises kept.
Would you pray with me,
father in heaven, we come to you
(21:30):
and I pray for every person here that,
whatever crises are going onthat it would become an opportunity,
a crack in their soulswhere you can pour grace into them.
Because grace is what we need.
You know that.
Grace is what I need
to be.
What you have created me to be.
(21:54):
Father, thank you
for, what you did through Abraham.
That was the beginningof your plan of salvation for all of us.
That you would bless the entire world.
And you have blessed usthe coming of Jesus.
Thank you for giving us such a wonderfulSavior, and we pray this in his name.
Amen.
Exodus chapter 2:23 through 25.
During those many days,the king of Egypt died, and the people
of Israel groaned because of their slaveryand cried out for help.
Their cry for rescue from slavery came upto God, and God heard their groaning.
And God remembered this covenantwith Abraham,
(00:21):
with Isaac, and with Jacob.
God saw the people of Israel,and God knew.
Their way.
Good morning and welcome to CCC.
So glad you're here.
Thanks for coming.
We are all ready for the kids camp,which will start tomorrow. And
(00:43):
holy cow.
What?
The work that's been done in the atrium
and all aroundthe building is just amazing.
I just want to take,
just a second and thank those of youwho volunteered to do all that.
And I want to thank those 400 plusvolunteers who will be starting on Monday.
And my last count waswe have 997 kids signed up for kids camp.
(01:07):
Yeah.
And we are going to
find three more kids somewhere,
right?
But thanks.
I love, the way we care for kids here.
It makes me wish I was a kidin this church, and that's good.
All right.
This is the final message of our ten weekseries in the Old Testament.
(01:30):
We've been looking at the life of Abraham.
We've called this seriesPromises Made, Promises Kept.
The story of Abrahambegins in Genesis chapter 12.
And it begins with a promise.
And this is the promiseGod makes to Abraham.
God says, and I will make you of youa great nation.
I will bless you and make your name greatso that you will be a blessing.
(01:54):
I will bless those who bless you and himwho dishonors you I will curse,
and in you all the families ofthe earth shall be blessed.
Here's the
promise of Abraham,our promise of God to Abraham,
our lives, Abraham's life on earthby a long shot.
(02:14):
God's promises to you
will outlive your time on earthby a long shot.
The verses we had read fromExodus chapter two
really are about a approximately 400 years
after God makes this promise.
And it says that God heard their groaningand he remembered his covenant.
(02:36):
That's another wordfor a promise to Abraham.
So that's the way this starts, right?
There's a lot that happensin those 400 years between Genesis chapter
22, where which is where we left offlast week in Exodus chapter two.
Let me kind of fill in the blanks.
So last week in Exodus chapter 22,God tells Abraham
(03:00):
to take his son Isaac up to Mount Moriahand sacrifice him there.
And then God intervenes and provides asubstitute sacrifice, and Isaac is spared.
But let me let me stop right there,because a lot of people have trouble
with that story, because it's easy to justthink, man, what kind of monster is God?
To tell Abrahamto take his son and sacrifice his son?
(03:23):
But let me just try to giveyou a different perspective.
The most dangerous thing for any humanbeing
is to put somethingother than God in the place of God.
It's the most dangerous thing for you.
It's the most dangerous thing for me.
And the thing that we usually put inthe place of God is not a bad thing.
(03:43):
It's usually a really good thing.
It's just not meant to bethe ultimate thing.
It's not hard to imagine that for Abraham.
Isaacwas starting to creep into that spot.
And for any parentwho makes a child in the position of God,
it will destroy the childand destroy the parent.
(04:06):
So God intervenes
to make sure that Abraham keeps him
in his rightful place, and in doing so,he spares both Abraham and Isaac.
I just wanted you to see thatfrom a different perspective.
All right.
But he spares Isaac.
Isaac has two sons, Jacob and Esau.
(04:27):
Jacob then has 12 sons.
And then the promise to Abraham,
to make of hima great nation really takes off.
In fact, God changesthe name of Jacob to the name Israel,
which is the waywe refer to that nation today.
And one of those 12sons of Jacob was named Joseph.
And the family is super dysfunctional.
(04:49):
And that dysfunction,
common traits in Joseph's brothers
actually selling him into slavery,which is just wild, right?
But the dysfunction of Joseph's family
does not derail God's plan for Joseph,
even though there were timeswhere Joseph probably thought it had.
(05:10):
Which means thatif you grew up in a dysfunctional family
or you're in the midst of dysfunction now,
that does not derail God's plan for you.
But Joseph's story begins in Genesischapter
37 and goes all the wayto the end of Genesis chapter 50.
And it starts with himbeing sold into slavery.
And then he rises to have tremendoussuccess
(05:33):
overseeing the household of mannamed Potiphar.
Then he gets wrongly accused of a crime,gets thrown in prison for a few years.
Then he gets
pulled out of prison to interpreta couple of weird dreams for Pharaoh.
And then Pharaoh decidesto make him the most powerful man
in all of Egypt, second only to himself.
Now, during this time, there's a faminethat hits the whole region.
(05:57):
Joseph reconnects with his brothers,which is a a story in and of itself.
But the result of the famineis that the entire clan moves
down into Egypt,which sounds like a lot, but
it was about 70 people at the time.
Now, when they arrive in Egypt,they have favored status
because of Joseph's position,and they flourish for a while.
(06:19):
We don't know how long they flourished,
but by the time we get to Exoduschapter two, things have changed.
And to say they no longer had favorablestatus is an understatement.
Because now, even though they numberin the hundreds of thousands, these
after being there for 400 years,
(06:39):
they are oppressed and enslaved.
And that brings us to the versesthat we had read to us.
And it's only three verses.
So let me read it againthat I'll give you my three points.
It says this during those many days,the King of Egypt died, and the people
of Israel groaned because of their slaveryand cried out for help.
(07:00):
Their cry for rescue from slaverycame up to God.
And God heard their groaning.
And God remembered his covenantwith Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.
And Godsaw the people of Israel, and God knew.
All right,
here are the three pointsthat I want to use to guide our time.
I want to talk about what the people feel,
(07:22):
what the people feel,what God sees and what God does.
Just that what the people feel,what God sees, what God does first,
what the people feel.
So they are in Egypt for 400 years.
That's a long time.
Like our country is going to celebrate
our 250th anniversary next year.
(07:42):
So that means they were in the Egypt150 years longer
than the United States of Americahas existed as a country.
Right?
And when they first started,it must have been amazing, because
when Pharaoh welcomes them, he says,the best of Egypt is at your disposal.
It's yours.
And no one but Pharaoh was more powerful
(08:04):
than Joseph, and few,if any, had more wealth than Joseph.
By the time Joseph dies.
He is generational wealth, right?
And we don't know how longthe prosperity lasted.
We don't know whether the peoplewere obedient or disobedient,
because the text doesn't tell us, butwe can be pretty sure they didn't cry out
(08:26):
because human beings don't cry outwhen things are going well,
when things are going well in my life,I don't cry out to God.
I still pray, I'm thankful.
I'm hoping the streak continues,
but I don't.
I don't cry out.
Right.
Prosperity,particularly health and wealth,
(08:47):
has the ability to kind of,
give you a false sense of security.
Like I exercise,
I try to stay physically fit,and I'm a person of routine.
So buildingexercise into my routine was pretty easy.
And I've done it for a long time.
But, about,I don't know, a month and a half ago,
(09:09):
I reached awkwardly for somethingand I felt something pop in my back.
First timeI've ever thrown my back out and my,
you know, confidencein my physical fitness evaporated
and I found myself incapacitated
for a couple of days,and I felt really fragile.
But feeling
fragile is much closer to reality
(09:32):
than feeling super fit and invincible.
Hey, the people of Israel had had a bunch
of winning seasons in a row,
but now things had changed
radically and now they felt trapped.
They felt hurt.
(09:53):
They felt abandoned.
They felt hopeless.
They felt helpless.
And they had tried everything
that they knew to try to try avoid thatslow slide into slavery.
Undoubtedly, there have been rebellionsand attempts to get free,
but by Exodus chapter two,they're out of bullets.
(10:14):
And so all they could do is cry out.
It doesn't even saythey cried out for God.
They just cried out because they knew.
They knew they needed somebody, anybody,because they could not help themselves.
That's what the people feel.
That brings about a second point.
What God sees.
(10:34):
So the people who are in in Israelfor for 400 years,
I it's like, how many generations is that?
Right? That's a ton.
Right.
It it's you know, I,I was thinking my father was born in 1933.
My grandfather born in 1901.
His father was,I think, born in the 1870s.
(10:56):
Fatherbefore him was born sometime in the 1850s.
He's my great, great, great
grandfather was born like 200 years ago,
but for 400 years,
was there anybody who rememberthe promise?
Right.
And my point is that, you know,when when they cry out, they don't say,
(11:17):
oh, God, remember your promise to Abraham.
They don't cry out like that.And my point is this it.
God is the one who makes promises,
and God is the one who remembers promises,
even when we don't,
even when we don't.
Right?
But the text saysthat he heard their groans,
(11:42):
and that means that he.
I was thinking he he had to be close.
You got to be close to hear somebodygroan, right?
Last year I had my knee replaced and,
I if you've been comingfor any length of time, then you know that
because I've mentioned it.
But and also,I mean, everybody who has ever
had a joint replacement in this churchhas come up and talk to me,
(12:06):
feel like we could start our own service,just the joint replacement people.
Right.
But when you get your jointreplaced, there's physical therapy.
And my physical therapist,he and he knows who he is.
He actually goes to this church.
I think at timeshe was trying to make me groan.
Right. And he succeeded.
(12:26):
But you still had to be close.
You had to be close to hear me.
Right.
And and I thought, it's so amazing
that God would be close enoughto any of us
to hear his groan.
But then verse 25
actually says something else.
It says that God saw
(12:48):
and God knew.
And that struck me because itit takes it to a different level,
because there have been timeswhen I'm walking around even,
you know, in the church,
in the hallways of the church, and I seesomebody and I can tell something's wrong,
but I don't know what to do.
I don't know if they want me to ask.
I don't know
if they want to be left alone out ofthey want somebody to sit with them
(13:11):
because I don't know what's going on.
But here
it says that God sees
and God knows.
That means he knew that they were afraid.
He knew they were hurting.
He knew they felt trapped.
He knew they were hopeless and helpless.
(13:32):
And that, of course, means that
God knows what you're feeling
right here, right now.
That God hears our groans
even when we don't make a sound.
And he sees
and he knows.
(13:53):
But then it says that God also
remembered his promise.
And I've talked.
I've already mentioned that 400 years,
no one remembered the promise.
But God remembers, right?
But the other thing iswhat the people were experiencing
(14:14):
as a crisis God saw as an opportunity.
And this is what I mean.
God saw them suffering, right?
But I don't think God,I know God doesn't experience crises
the way we experienceand think about crises.
So when God sees what's going on,
(14:34):
then it's an opportunityfor him to show his power and his grace.
Because when the peoplehave run out of options
and they've done everything they coulddo, that's God's time.
That's true.
With with anyway, it'sI think it's his favorite time
because it's the only
opportunity he has to show grace.
Because I think human beings by nature,
(14:57):
I don't think we're seekers of grace.
I think it's too embarrassing
that when I figure that out,and I've used this illustration before.
I was a young man living in Florida,and I got a van stuck in my backyard
because my backyard was all sandand I didn't live near the beach.
It was just that I didn'thave enough money to sod my backyard.
(15:19):
I could only sod my front yard.
And the whole state of Floridais a big sandbox if you don't sod.
But I got my van stuck in the backyardand I tried everything
and it was just getting worse and worse.
I was covered with sweat, sand.
My neighbor come outand he was watching me for a little bit,
and then he yelled overand he said, you need some help.
(15:39):
And I was like, no thanks. I got it.
I didn't got it.
But I was so embarrassed,
you know,because I would have to say, yeah,
I can't do this.
I, I don't know what to do right now.
(15:59):
Fortunately, he came over anyway,otherwise that van would still be there.
Right?
But the problem isthat we're not seekers of grace.
But grace is what we need.
Grace not just to forgive sins.
Which absolutely I need that.
(16:21):
But I'm convinced that graceis the great elixir of the human soul.
That's the only thing that has the power
to change me from the man I am into.
The man that I want to be, could be,should be that one that God made me to be.
And that's the same with you.
There is nothingthat has the power of grace
(16:43):
to come into your soul and heal.
What's
what's wrong,
what's wounded,
what's hard,
right?
So that means every crisisI've ever experienced, every crisis I ever
will experience,every crisis you experience is like a
a crack.
(17:05):
Like whereGod can pour in grace to your soul.
That would not happen without the crisis.
And all we need to dois cry out for that grace,
I told you at the last time I spokethat God is a multitasker,
and here he is doing all kinds ofthe people are suffering.
(17:26):
He hears.
He sees, he knows,and he decides to deliver them.
He's going to have a display of his power.
He's going to fulfill a promisehe made 400 years ago.
Their crisis is like a dark sky
that's about to belit up with the glory of God.
And that brings me to my third point
(17:49):
what God does, what God does.
So the people are suffering.
The people are in crisis.
They've tried everything.
God hears.
God sees.
God knows.
God decides that he's going to save them
with his power.
And that results in the famousten plagues.
(18:10):
The last of those plagueswas referred to as the Passover.
And every time before every play, Godwould telegraph what was going to happen.
But for the last plague,he told them, listen,
judgment is coming for everyone.
Everyone
Jew and Egyptian alike.
(18:31):
In every household,someone is going to die.
But then to the
to the Israelites,he said, you can avoid the wrath of God.
The angel of death.You have to take a lamb
and you slaughter the
lamb, and you take the blood of the lamb.
You put it at the top of your doorand on the two sides and the top,
(18:56):
and on the two sides,
and then whoever would take refugeunder the blood of the lamb,
then the wrath of God,the angel of death, would pass
over those people.
1500 years later, a man named John
the Baptist would point at Jesusand cry out, behold
(19:19):
the Lamb of God!
The night Jesus has betrayed,
he sat with his disciples
at a Passover meal,and he took bread, and he broke it.
And he said, this is my body
broken for you.
And then he took a cup of wine,
and he said, this cup is the covenant.
(19:42):
It's the promise for the
forgiveness of your sins,because is my blood poured out for you?
Listen,
everything in the Bible points to Jesus.
Every single thing, and maybe nothing.
No story more clearly than the storythat begins in Exodus two,
because the people are enslaved,they're trapped.
(20:05):
They're helpless.
They're hopeless.They've tried everything.
They're in desperate need for a savior,
and God decides to save them
with the blood of a lamb.
So in every crisis you go through,
every crisis you are in
(20:26):
is an opportunity for God
to fulfill his promise to you.
Because every crisis,when you have done everything
that you know to do,that becomes God's time.
And God sent a Saviornot because we deserve it,
precisely because we don't deserve it.
(20:46):
And then his grace
and grace is what you need.
Grace greater than all our sin?
Absolutely. Yes.
But grace so powerful
that whoever you are,
it can give you the lifethat you are longing to have.
(21:08):
Which is why Jesus in John chapter ten
says, I came that you might have life
and have it to the full.
That's Jesus promise.
Promises made and promises kept.
Would you pray with me,
father in heaven, we come to you
(21:30):
and I pray for every person here that,
whatever crises are going onthat it would become an opportunity,
a crack in their soulswhere you can pour grace into them.
Because grace is what we need.
You know that.
Grace is what I need
to be.
What you have created me to be.
(21:54):
Father, thank you
for, what you did through Abraham.
That was the beginningof your plan of salvation for all of us.
That you would bless the entire world.
And you have blessed usthe coming of Jesus.
Thank you for giving us such a wonderfulSavior, and we pray this in his name.
Amen.
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