Between Two Kingdoms

Automatically transcribed — lightly cleaned for readability. Wording is the preacher’s own.

Good morning, everybody. My name is Luke. I'm one of the pastors here at Conduit. It's my privilege to welcome you home today. It's always our hope that whether you have been here one time or a thousand times that you find a place, you can call home here at Conduit. We're all about helping people take their next step closer to Jesus. Whether you're like, I don't really know if I follow Jesus or what I think about Christianity. That's okay. Or if you've been following Jesus for a long time, that's also okay. We're all about whatever it is that you find yourself. Take that next step. Heavenly Father, as we open your word today, I ask that you would speak or that we would hear and see our story and the story of your people, that your Holy Spirit would be working in and among us, Lord, that I would be responsive and submissive to your word and to your spirit, and that Christ might be magnified in the opening of your word. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So we're in the book of Exodus. Today we're going to be in Exodus chapter 5 if you want to go ahead and open up there. We should have Bibles for you in the pew in front of you and would love

For you to be able to use those and also have them. If you don't have a Bible, we have a number of Bibles in the back corner and Bibles underneath the pews. If you want that Bible and it's not your neighbor's, you can have it. But we want you to be able to have a copy of God's word if you so desire. As we're going through the book of Exodus, you're going to get a little tired of it maybe because we're going to be here all summer. But it's one of the most significant and dramatic portions of Scripture. As I'm studying it and I'm reading it, there's so many levels to it. I actually want to, maybe this evening I'll sit down. Anybody of my generation remember the Prince of Egypt movie, the animated movie? It was pretty good. I had a great soundtrack and stuff. I want to go read it or go watch it here soon. So it's this dramatic, it's been made into movies before because it is such a dramatic story. But I want us to be able to hear not just the story and not just the

Beats of let my people go and Pharaoh saying no and all this kind of cartoonish felt board type story, but us to actually hear and see how is God showing up in this story and how does that impact how we expect and see him show up in our lives today. And so we have these four themes that we're kind of looking at in as we're studying Exodus. God's promises, God's faithfulness, God's moral law and God's presence. So each week as we open up and we look at this text, be looking for these things. God's promises, his promises to his people, God's faithfulness in the middle of all the conflict, God's moral law. That will be pretty obvious once we get to it. And then God's presence is a continual theme throughout the book of Exodus. And last week I kind of introduced or I kind of talked about this idea that the story of Exodus kind of rhymes or repeats in the book of the Bible. So Exodus is always happening over and over again. We've even had a little mini Exodus. And when I'm saying this, I'm referring to kind of like this Exodus cycle or a pattern in the Bible of people

Being underneath the oppression of a evil king being delivered. They sometimes go through some sort of water experience, go and walk through the wilderness for 40 years and then they end up in the promised land. If we kind of take that and extrapolate that, that's yes, that's the story of the whole book of Exodus. But that's even the story of say Moses himself. What happened to Moses when he was born? Well, he was being threatened by an evil king to be killed. He was placed into the river, the Nile, into water. He was then rescued out of that. He then fled out as an adult into the wilderness for 40 years, encountered God and was changed man and came back to fulfill his purpose, his calling, the promise of a savior. So we see that there's already been this mini Exodus. We can kind of break this down into an Exodus cycle. I should have a graphic up here that'll kind of just help us picture this. This idea of being delivered out of something, going through some sort of wilderness or testing. Sometimes there is a kind of a burning bush moment or a going

Through the Red Sea moment and then there's testing and then eventually coming into what God has promised or called the people to. And this happens over and over again throughout the Bible. And the Exodus is kind of the typifying point of it. Think about the story of, for example, Noah. Noah was called out from the rest of the people because he was righteous when there were none. He was then saved from flood. There's a water element, right? There's a flood and he's on the ark for how long? 40 days and 40 nights, right? And then he's delivered into the promised new land when the waters recede. The same thing happens to even Abraham. Yesterday we were reading in our Bible and we were reading the story of Abraham. And I was like, oh yeah, this happens with Abraham. Abraham is called out of her and then he is given this promise of a son and he's wandering kind of in the wilderness searching and waiting and waiting and waiting for the promised son. He is tempted and fails a couple of times and eventually as he goes through that and proves his faithfulness to God, he is given that promised son. Similar story happens to King David. King David is

Called out of being a shepherd, anointed to be the King, but then he's flees. He flees the evil King Saul who seeks him. He lives for quite a while with his mighty men in the wilderness. And then when Saul eventually dies, David comes out of the wilderness, takes his rightful place as King. And then finally this happens again with Jesus. Where does that water baptism and that call happen? When Jesus is baptized, he comes out of his ordinary life. He's baptized by John the Baptist. He goes into the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights. There's that number again where he's tempted by Satan. He resists that temptation and then he comes out of it and then he goes into the promise of his ministry. So this idea, this Exodus story happens over and over and over again. If you want to know maybe more about this, do some more of your own study and look at some resources I've been looking at, you can go to thebibleproject.com. Bible Project, The Exodus Way. We have a great short video that explains this concept and some Bible study resources on this idea. But

This is what's happening over and over again. And in some ways this is the Christian walk. If we were to put this over top of the Christian walk, what would happen? We all are born into sin. We all are not saved. We come and we're called. We hear the Gospel. We respond. And then what's one of the first things we're supposed to do when we say yes to Jesus? We get baptized. We go through the water. We're baptized into Jesus' life, death and resurrection. Through grace we're saved. And then we live most of our lives through the wilderness. We're waiting for the promise of Jesus coming back. We're waiting for the time in which we will no longer be in this mortal flesh but we will be with Christ. That is the promised land we are living towards and our call as Christians is to be faithful through the wilderness we walk in our lives. This is the call. This is the story that is just woven throughout the Bible and it's woven into our lives. Some of you, okay I'm gonna trust that there's

Some people in here who have been coming to our Wednesday night Bible studies and we talked about this idea. We've been talking about the parables of Jesus and we've been talking about kind of the kingdom of God. Jesus in the Gospel talks about the kingdom of God over and over again. And there's this really strange paradigm that comes out in these parables where Jesus talks about the kingdom is here but then he also talks about how it's not here yet. Can anybody from Wednesday night tell us what that term is that we kind of said to describe that tension? Darn. I'm just gonna assume you're too shy. The already but not yet, right? It's this concept. It's this idea that the kingdom is already here. We're already been delivered but we're not yet all the way there. It's this tension that the Christian life exists in. That the Gospels talk about. Because Jesus has already put to death death on the cross. He has already nailed our sins. He's already resurrected from the dead. He's the first fruits of what is to come but he's not back yet. The kingdoms

Are still in conflict. There is still a war raging. So we live and walk in this space of the already but not yet. I was thinking about this idea and kind of, you know, when we get into this wilderness space that can be really tough. A place where trials happen, where we are nervous, where we are scared, where we endure things that we weren't ready for, where we are tempted to doubt the promise. And I'm a relatively recent new homeowner and so I'm learning just how handy or not handy I am. And anytime you start or I start a house project, I'm like, "Alright! I went to Home Depot. I got all the things. I've watched the YouTube videos on how to do this. I've turned off the electrics. I'm not gonna kill myself. I'm ready to do this." And then I get into the middle of it and I'm just like, "What did I think I was doing?" Right? You get into the project. You look behind the wall. Why is that behind the wall? You're just like, "Why didn't I pay someone to do this?" You just have all of these questions as you're questioning all your life choices because you've got tools everywhere and you're making your fifth trip to the hardware store.

You're just like, "What am I doing?" Or better yet, if you've ever had that closet, you know the closet I'm talking about, the one that you shove everything into. This is the closet where things go because I don't know where they go. And you eventually one day you say, "It's time. I'm gonna organize and clean this closet." And you pull it all out and you get the closet crystal clean all the way. It's completely empty and everything scattered around you. And again, you're just like, "Why did I do this?" Right? I hate that. Like organizing takes so much mental energy from me. We get into these places where we're getting into the middle of something and it gets hard. It gets difficult. It's the same when we begin to learn a new skill or develop a new habit. Sometimes we're just like, "Wow, I thought this was gonna be way easier." But like, you know, I've been going to the gym a whole two weeks. Like, "What's going on?" We always have this disillusionment, this moment where we're just like, "Is this actually gonna pay off? Is this gonna work out?" 'Cause I'm in this messy middle. We're walking through a wilderness of sorts where we're tested,

We're tried, and we're tempted to perhaps turn back. This happens all of the time in the Christian walk because sometimes we get this idea that, "Okay, well, if I start following Jesus, if I start saying yes to God, surely that means that God's just gonna give me everything I want and need. He's gonna be this vending machine I can come up to and I can pray and God's gonna give me what I want, when I want it, exactly how I want it." It doesn't work out that way. Sometimes we get this concept that like, "Well, if I'm following God, that must mean things are gonna be easy." And they're not. Jesus actually says, "Don't be surprised when they're not, because you're following me." And sometimes we get into this place where we're just like, "Lord, I really thought that I was gonna have a relationship and I don't. Lord, I really thought that my kids, either I would have kids and I don't, or I would have kids that don't drive me crazy like the ones I do." Right? We hope that our kids and we're gonna raise them up and they're gonna be all the things that we weren't. They're

Gonna be perfect. That's a lot of pressure to put on your kids, by the way. It's a lot of pressure to put on yourself as a parent. Perhaps we wish our life or circumstances were a different way. Or perhaps we've been following Jesus for a while and we're still stuck in a besetting sin, a sin that we just cannot get out of. Every so often we just return to this sin, to this temptation, over and over again. And we begin to wonder why are we here again? There's all of these trials and testings and conflict that can come in the Christian life. Maybe it's just your story hasn't played out the way you wanted it to. I know mine hasn't. I'm not complaining. I really love my life. But it didn't play out the way I thought it would. Eighteen year old Luke did not think he was gonna go through all the things that he went through to get here. And me here now doesn't think that he's gonna go through the things that I'm gonna go through in the next seasons of my life.

Those aren't chapters I want necessarily in my story, but they're going to be there whether I want them or not. So the question then is, is what's happening when we get stuck between our deliverance and the promise? How do we navigate the wilderness? Because that's the bulk of the Christian life. In large scope, but also in smaller scope. When you're waiting and you're just like, Lord, when is my loved one going to accept you? When am I going to finally be free of this sin? Lord, when am I going to experience the life that I thought I wanted? When, when, when, what if, when, how? All those questions that we are tempted to ask God in complaint and wonder. How are we faithful? What's happening when we find ourselves in the middle of the wilderness? When we've been saved, we're following Jesus, but it doesn't seem like we're at the promised land yet. This is what I want us to kind of talk about and think about as we continue the story of the Exodus. We're in Exodus chapter five. The people are still in slavery. They're in Egypt. They've been slaves for generations

And generations. Moses has been called out. He went and he met with God on Mount Sinai. He was a little reluctant at first, but he said yes to being God's mouthpiece, to saying, I will be faithful to the Lord. I will go back to my people and I will be God's spokesperson. And in that space, he's going to show up and he's going to talk to Pharaoh. And that's kind of where we get to. Moses has showed back up of an Israel and he's going to talk to Pharaoh and he's going to deliver the message that God has for Pharaoh to let his people go. That's where our story kind of picks up. And it's like, it's hard for us to kind of like picture, I think, like the way this would have looked and felt because, you know, we don't have palaces like, like not in like a, like in an ancient sense, right? Like if you imagine Moses coming into Egypt at the height of its power, it's one of the biggest kingdoms in the world. It's probably the world power in the ancient world at this time. And

It's building these massive pyramids, massive statues. And Moses is coming into this throne room with huge pillars and gold and jewels laid everywhere. And they're sitting up on a throne surrounded by armed guards and servants and magicians is Pharaoh, the one man in charge of everything. He's wearing his crown. He's got scepters near him. Pharaoh was thought of as a God. He believed he was God and he ruled with a fist and he was mighty. And so can you imagine, you know, we get, we get kind of nervous or act weird when we talk to people who are kind of famous sometimes. Like, but if you come into the throne room of Pharaoh and you're approaching someone who everyone believes is a God, and he certainly seems to have all the power of one because he can kill me with one word, there was nothing stopping Pharaoh from saying off with his head. And that would have been it for Moses and Aaron. So they come into this throne room with all of that tension and that expectation. Now God had told Moses and Aaron to bring all the elders of the Jewish people with them.

But this passage makes no mention of the elders being there with them. So we don't know whether it's not clear, but it seems like either Moses and Aaron forgot, or what I think is perhaps more likely is that the elders of the Jews were like, no, thanks. Like, no, you can, you can go do that. And so Moses and Aaron in verse one of chapter five, afterward, Moses and Aaron went and said to Pharaoh, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, let my people go that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness. Now, what we see here, little Bible study tip, when you're reading, particularly in the Old Testament, and you see the word Lord and it's all caps like it is there, L-O-R-D, all caps. What that is meaning is it's a way of communicating in English that is God's name. That's the name that was given to Moses at the burning bush, where God said, I am who I am. That's Yahweh. So in comes Moses and Aaron, they walk up to Pharaoh and they say, Pharaoh, Yahweh, the God of Israel said to let his people go. And it mentions to go, hold a feast to me in the wilderness. And

What that is probably is some sort of common shorthand to say, let us go worship our God and saying it in such a way that Pharaoh would have understood what exactly was being asked. But notice then what Pharaoh says in response to this very bold claim of Moses. But Pharaoh said, who is the Lord? Who is Yahweh? That I should obey his voice and let Israel go. I do not know the Lord or Yahweh. Moreover, I will not let Israel go. I don't think that, I mean it's possible that Pharaoh didn't know who Yahweh was, but more likely what he is saying here is I don't recognize the Lord. I don't recognize Yahweh. Who's that? I don't care about them. I'm not going to listen to what he has to say. It's this dismissiveness of the word of the Lord saying, nah, not going to listen to that. And so Moses and Aaron, they speak again, but perhaps a little bit more intimately. They spoke up and they're like, the Lord says, let his people go. And Pharaoh's like, who's that? I'm not going to do that. Moses and Aaron, they then speak up again, but perhaps a little bit more modestly

Intimately. Verse three says, then they said, the God of the Hebrews, this is who Yahweh is by the way, the God of the Hebrews has met with us. Please let us go three days journey into the wilderness that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God, lest he fall on us with pestilence or with the sword. So they say, we've met with the Lord of Israel, let us go a three days journey. They don't mean literally a three days journey, but they mean a moderate journey enough time for us to get there so that we can go worship the Lord. Because if we don't, there's going to be consequences, consequences that might befall you, maybe Pharaoh or us. You kind of get this sense that they're kind of hedging here. They don't want to outright threaten Pharaoh with the plagues that God has already told them that he's going to send, but he's, but they don't want to not mention it. So they're kind of like, well, there's going to be things that happen. There's going to be these plagues, maybe if, if, if we don't get to go worship our God. And in response to this, Pharaoh

Again says, no, he says verse four, but the king of Egypt said to them, Moses and Aaron, why do you take the people away from their work? Get back to your burdens. And Pharaoh said, behold, the people of the land are now many and you make them rest from their burdens. The same day, Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of the people and their foremen, you shall no longer give straw to make bricks as in the past. Let them go and gather straw for themselves. But the number of bricks they made in the past, you shall impose on them. You shall by no means reduce it for they are idle. Some translations say they are lazy. Therefore they cry, let us go and offer sacrifice to our God. Let the heavier work be laid on the men that they may labor at it and pay no regard to their lying words. So Pharaoh doesn't even say no. He just says, you're lazy. You're coming here and asking me time to go worship your Lord. Well, I say you guys need to work harder. And so I'm not even going

To give you straw, which was an key ingredient to bricks. If you didn't have that for the type of bricks they made in that area, they would just crumble. The straw needed to decay and kind of provide some fiber and some strengths to the bricks. And so the Israelites are like, well, now we have to make as many bricks as we once did, but with less of the resources that we have that we need to make them. And Pharaoh just completely reverses this. We kind of get this sense that Pharaoh and Moses in this whole conversation, notice what Pharaoh says right after he hears what God would do. God's going to bring consequences if his people weren't let go. It's almost as if Pharaoh says, watch me bring consequences for you asking. God, Pharaoh is like, no, no, no, you're not going to worry about what God's going to do to you. You're going to worry about what I'm going to do to you. Pharaoh is this classic, like abusive and narcissistic person. That's essentially what it is. Pharaoh does a thing that people still do to manipulate people today. What does he do? He says, well,

You're not here to actually worship your Lord. You're just lazy. Gas lights them. He's just like, well, you're like, you're here just because you're lazy. You don't want to work. Just turns it around onto them. And then what does he do? He creates a problem. He creates a situation and then blames them for that situation. He's like, you guys aren't making enough bricks. Why aren't you making enough bricks? Well, because you're not giving a straw. Well, that's because you're lazy. He makes it their fault. I almost can like imagine like how would Pharaoh have wanted this to play out? Well, I guess if not, if God hadn't intervened, eventually, Pharaoh probably would have given straw back and perhaps expected the, the Jewish people to be thankful. Oh, thank you, Pharaoh. You gave us what we needed in order to be slaves to you. He's twisting it around. He's shifting the focus from God to himself. He's trying to keep the Israelite people focused on him and in his control and believing the narrative he is spinning. This is like awful and abusive behavior. And it's

Just being depicted so clearly here in the Bible. Pharaoh is demanding that the people believe and live in this identity in place where he says that they live and in a place where he is kind of almost just putting himself counter to God saying, don't, don't pay attention and worry about what God's going to do. You worry about me. Don't worry about worshiping your Lord or serving your Lord. Rather you are going to serve me. And so as that happens, how do the Israelite people respond? Verse 10 says, so the taskmasters and the foremen of the people went out and said to the people, thus says Pharaoh, I will give you no straw. Go and get your straw yourselves wherever you can find it, but your work will not be reduced in the least. So the people were scattered throughout all the land of Egypt to gather stubble for straw. They were going out and grabbing like the leftover pieces that the animals didn't eat of the straw. The little scraps going grabbing this stubble. The taskmasters were urgent saying, complete your work, your daily task each day. As when there was straw, you have to make as many bricks today as you did yesterday. And then the foremen of the

People of Israel whom Pharaoh's taskmasters had set over them were beaten. And they were asked, why have you not done all your tasks of making bricks today and yesterday, as in the past, sets them up for failure and then beats them for it. And then the foremen of the people of Israel came and they cried to Pharaoh, do you, why do you treat your servants this way? So they come and they say, why are we being treated this way? We're trying our best. Why aren't you giving us some straw? Is there like a clerical error? Like, can we work this out? They come and kind of do this kind of like procedure. And then verse 16 says, no straw is given to your servants. Yet they say, make bricks and behold your servants are beaten, but the fault is in your own people. But Pharaoh said, you are idle. You are idle. This is why I say to you, let us go and sacrifice to the Lord. Go now and work. No straw will be given you, but you must deliver the same number of bricks. The foremen of the people

Of Israel saw that they were in trouble. And they said, you shall by no means reduce the number of bricks, your daily task each day. So they go and they go meet with Pharaoh and they're like, your guys, the guys that are in charge of us, you get the sense that there's the people who are supervising and giving the orders to the slaves. And then there's these Jewish foremen who are kind of in charge of organizing their people and they're being beaten. And they're like, we can't keep up with this. We need straw. And Pharaoh's like, yeah, you're not getting any straw. You want to know why you're not getting any straw? Because you guys sent Moses to come ask me to let you guys take a day off. And then they realized, oh, all of this strife, all this struggle is because we wanted freedom. All of this suffering is because of what Moses and Aaron said, because of this promise of God that we'd be free. And so what do they do? They, verse 20, they met Moses and Aaron who were waiting for them as they came out from Pharaoh. And they said to them, the Lord look on you and judge because you have made us stink in the sight of Pharaoh and his servants

And have put a sword in their hand to kill us. So they come and they accuse Moses. They're like, you're the reason you came and gave us hope. And then you came and you ticked off Pharaoh. And now we're stuck in this situation says, let the Lord look on you and judge condemnation. And so then what does Moses do? Then Moses turned to the Lord and said, Oh Lord, why have you done evil to those people? Why did you ever send me for since I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has done evil to this people and you have not delivered your people at all. Moses turns to God and says, why did you even send me? What's the point of me coming here, giving a promise of being delivered and saying, I'm coming in your name, coming up and asking Pharaoh if it's just going to result in more pain and suffering of your people. I shouldn't have even came. But notice what God says in verse one of chapter six, but the Lord said to Moses, now you shall see what I will do with Pharaoh. For with

A strong hand, he will send them out. And with a strong hand, he will drive them out of his land. God says, now you will see what I'm going to do in this situation. In light of Moses's doubts, God says, keep your eyes on me and see what I will do in the middle of all of this chaos, this, this stirring up this conflict because of this promise of deliverance and freedom. And Pharaoh doesn't want to lose his most precious slaves. He said earlier in the chapter, he said, they're, they're numerous. There's so many of them. They build so many things for me. They make so many bricks. I don't want to lose them. You guys are being lazy. Pharaoh's grasping for power. He's manipulating the situation. He say, take your eyes off of God and fear me rather than God. And God responds to all that doubt and confusion by saying, no, no, keep your eyes on me because I'm about to do something. This is the story that we sit in and can you hear and see and feel that tension of the wilderness there of hearing this promise of deliverance and you begin

To take the first steps and then it's met with obstacles, trials, the people doubt actually the people of Israel, pretty, pretty passive through this whole thing. And then even Moses is tempted to turn back and doubt. We're in this place where they're caught between these two kingdoms. You see that there's like two Kings, two Lords in this story. There's Pharaoh thought to be a God King of the known world. And then there's Yahweh, the Lord of the Hebrew people. And there's this cosmic conflict between the two. Pharaoh hears what God has to say and says, who's that? And then raises his own threats. We too, we're not in Egypt, you and I were not slaves here, but there doesn't mean that there's not a kingdom and a King of this world that is in conflict with the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God. Christians are people who are leaving one kingdom and journeying through the wilderness to a promised kingdom. That's what I was establishing at the beginning of the message today is that we too as Christians live through this wilderness. We're in between two places. We started in one kingdom, the kingdom of this world, the kingdom of Satan, the kingdom of evil and

Darkness. And God has called us out of that kingdom to follow him to the kingdom of light to be conformed to the image and likeness of his son, Jesus. I'm going to turn to Ephesians chapter two. There's a number of passages in the New Testament that talk about this reality, but Ephesians chapter two resonates it clearly. Ephesians chapter two is Paul's description of this dynamic of the two kingdoms and where Christians sit in the middle of it. Verse one, he says, and you were dead in your trespasses and sin in which you once walked following the course of this world, following the prince, the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. You were part of the kingdom of this world, the kingdom of the enemy, the evil one. Verse three, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of our body, the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind. Verse four, but God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he has loved us. Even when we were dead in our trespasses, there was nothing we could do. He made us alive

Together with Christ. By grace you have been saved and raised up with him and seated with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus so that in the coming ages, the promised land, he might show us, show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness towards us and Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith and this is not of your own doing. It is the gift of God, not the result of work so that no one may boast, for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Amen. And so Jesus, Paul right there is articulating we were in this kingdom of darkness of sin. We were dead in our trespasses. What is a dead person able to do for themselves? Everything. And what does Christ do? He saves us by grace. He frees us. He makes us alive in Jesus through faith by grace so that we can't boast. We saved ourselves just like the Israelites can't say we got ourselves out of slavery. No, God did. And that Ephesians

Passage mentions this reality, this future reality that we have already been seated in some spiritual capacity with Christ up in the heavenly places. That there is an element in which we are so connected to Jesus that our identity and who we are is already changed in the heavenly places. But here we are still in the middle prepared to do the good deeds that God has prepared for us to do and walk in the wilderness. We're in this in between place. I want to talk a little bit about what happens when we leave one kingdom and we begin to pursue that new kingdom. When we leave the kingdom of darkness, you will face obstacles. So maybe you're a new believer taking your first steps as a Christian. You're still figuring this out and you're wondering, man, why is this getting hard all of a sudden? Or maybe you've been following Jesus for a long time and you're beginning to wonder, is this worth it? When we leave the kingdom of this world, when we leave the kingdom of darkness, there's going to be opposition. We're going to face obstacles. First is that simply the old king

Will fight back. What's Pharaoh doing? He's fighting back. He's not going to let this just happen. He's like, no, no, like you think you're going to leave to go worship your God. I'm going to do everything I can to get your focus off of God, off of that promise of deliverance and up onto me. I'm going to make it harder for you to do the slavery that I've put you in. Sometimes this shows up in spiritual attack. Sometimes it just shows up in other people. Sometimes when we decide to make a change for our lives and you know what? I'm not going to live this way anymore. This happens when, so I hear this commonly when people stop drinking or using drugs and all of a sudden people they thought were friends don't treat them very nicely. Well, why aren't you going to come drinking with us? And all of a sudden because someone's making a positive change, they're no longer a friend anymore. Or perhaps there's even just someone in our lives or we encounter someone who is like Pharaoh who wants to have the control, who wants to manipulate every situation to be around them, to exert and manipulate, to contrive and abuse, whether physically or emotionally or spiritually. The

Unfortunate reality is that people sometimes even use the Christian language, use the Bible and theology and try and manipulate it in such a way as to control or manipulate people. Trying to twist that around. Well, you're just this and look how awful you are at that. And see this whole mess you've made when really they were the one that made the mess to begin with. So when we begin to experience, we begin to leave the kingdom of darkness, we face sometimes the old king. Sometimes that's through, specifically through demonic attack of some kind or it's just the enemy working through the evil of another person in our life. Tempting us and calling us back into an old way of being. Change can often bring greater suffering or discomfort. Here's the thing is that making even positive change in your life is scary and hard. When you're in a place and you're just like, man, that's a lot of work. It is. So make any sort of positive change. If you're going to, you're like, you know, I just feel like I need a greater life of prayer in my life. I need to communicate with God. You know what's going to be one of the hardest things for you to do once you make that decision

To pray more? Pray. That's going to be so difficult because you're not used to it. Getting up early, taking and setting aside that time to seek the Lord. Or even just making any positive change in your life. Sometimes then we're tempted to idealize the status quo. Notice what the people of Israel then do. They come and they say, Moses and Aaron, you should have just left us alone. We were fine being slaves. Well, actually we'll see this over and over and over again as we go through the story of Exodus. You'll get kind of tired of it because God gets kind of tired of it is we over and over, even once the Israelites leave Egypt, they get to the Red Sea and they're blocked and they're just like, Oh, we should have stayed behind his slaves. Cause at least then we like, you know, we're slaves. And then they get through that and they get out into the wilderness and they're like, Oh, we don't have any food. Oh, it was so much better when we were slaves and had food. They just over and over again, they idealize this awful place that they were in saying, at least that was better than where I'm at now because they're in the middle of the wilderness.

Things are being shifted, being taken apart. It's like when we find ourselves in the middle of a project and we're like, was this worth it? Am I going to be able to put this back together? This has made a bigger mess than I expected. And finally, we're tempted to mistrust God. God, are you really going to come through? If I start being obedient, if I start following and pursuing after you, if I say no to living the way that I used to, if I start denying myself of that temptation and that sin, are you going to show up or am I going to be left in a miserable place? If I start cutting off relationships that are not God honoring that are hurting me and harming me, am I going to be left alone? These are all questions that we ask and we say, God, like, where are you? And we're tempted to mistrust God in the middle of that. When you're caught between the two kingdoms, keep your eyes fixed on God. That's what God responds to Moses. He says, "Look at what I will do

Now." When we're in the middle of the wilderness, when we're taking steps of faith, when we're facing trials and temptations, when we're making change that is scary and hard and difficult and the kingdom of darkness wants to pull us back, God says, "Keep your eyes fixed on me." Don't be looking around, trying to figure it all out. Don't start idolizing the way things were. Keep your eyes fixed on me. We're supposed to keep our eyes fixed on him in the middle of the delay, in the middle of the wilderness, trusting that the Lord will deliver. He will show up. He will be faithful. He doesn't always look the way we want it to, but God is faithful. He does deliver. He will not abandon his people. So we're always to be looking on growing and asking, Lord, I believe, but help my unbelief. Lord, be with me in the middle of this desert. I get a lot of times in pastoral counseling and interacting with people and just even in my own life, there's a lot of times a question of like, should I do this and should I not do this and I want this, but I don't want

This. And making these decisions of like, well, I want this thing, but maybe I shouldn't get this thing or want this thing. Like we get into this place where we have to make a decision and I don't want to, let me back up. What I don't want to communicate to you today is the unhelpful idea that you need to just simply be passive in your life. The Israelites could do literally nothing to not be slaves. They didn't have an army. They didn't have like a, like a king or a leader. They were slaves, generationally slaves. Pharaoh had the biggest army in the world. He had chariots. He had horses. If the Jews were like, no, we're not going to work. Pharaoh would just kill them. He had already killed many and many of their babies that we read earlier in the book of Exodus. So the Jews didn't really have much of a choice in them being slaves. And so we are in a place of having to kind of lean into wisdom of what is outside of my control and what is inside of my control. This is put really, really well in a prayer that gets prayed in AA and

Other recovery meetings. And it's a prayer I've mentioned before. It's a prayer I've prayed and it's one that I want to read for us here in a moment. And I want you to hear this tension, the wilderness tension in this prayer, the serenity prayer says, God, give me the grace to accept with serenity, the things that cannot be changed, the courage to change the things that can and the wisdom to know the difference. Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time, accepting hardship as a pathway to peace, taking as he did the sinful world as it is, not as I would have it. Trusting that he will make, meaning Jesus will make all things right if I surrender to his will, that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with him forever in the next. Amen. You hear that tension? The serenity to accept the things I can't change. I can't change how people behave. I can't change when I'll meet the right person. I can't change many of my life circumstances. There are things that I can do. I can decide what I'm going to do, how I can most be faithful, who I'm going to be in relationship with, how I'm going to care

For my body. We can make those decisions. We can choose those things with wisdom, but that doesn't mean we get to control all the outcome. Being a Christian in the wilderness is often just being faithful in obedience and trusting the rest of God. Sometimes we get to a place where we're like, God, I thought I did all the right things and it still didn't work out. God's like, I know you did a great job being obedient, but you got to trust me with the results. And this is that reality. And here's something that is perhaps really hard to hear, but I want you to hear it because I think it's important. God is not just looking to change your circumstances. He's also interested in changing you. Sometimes we get so focused on the wilderness around us, around our circumstances. If only I had this, if only this was better, if only I had the spouse I wanted, the kids I wanted, the job I wanted, the wealth I wanted, if only, if only, if only, then I'd be happy, then I'd be okay. And that's a lie. We're

So fixated on the circumstances around us. And God's saying, I'm trying to break you of idols. I'm trying to get you to look up at me in the middle of your circumstances. I'm trying to change your perspective. There's that famous verse that everybody knows and gets quoted and put on screens and gets put in gyms for some reason. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. That doesn't literally mean if you read that passage in Philippians, it's Paul not saying I can lift as heavy a weight as I can because Christ strengthens me or I can do whatever I decide I believe I can because Christ strengthens me. Paul has just enumerated over and over again. You know, I'm just going to turn to it because I'm explaining the whole thing. Go to Philippians chapter four. Can somebody with a better memory than me tell me what verse I'm looking for? That's in 1 Corinthians? Okay. Wait, wait. 4 13? Okay. I'm in Colossians. That's why I can't read it. Don't tell Cameron anybody. I was like that's not where I remember it. Okay. All right. Verse 10 of chapter four of Philippians

Now that I found it. Paul says, I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me for you were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity. Not that I'm speaking of being in need. Paul saying I'm not trying to complain and say that I'm in need for I have learned in whatever situation to be content. I know that to be brought low. I know how to abound in every and every circumstance. I have learned the secret of facing plenty and facing hunger abundance and need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. He's saying I can endure whatever wilderness I'm walking through. Whether I happen to be walking through green pastures with my shepherd or whether I happen to be walking through the valley of the shadow of death with my shepherd still there. I know what it is to be at peace to walk through the wilderness and endure it all through Christ who strengthens me. This is the thing that is so often happening when God brings his people through the wilderness. It's not because he was like he didn't want to bring them into

The promised land. He actually brings them to the promised land and then they say they get scared and they say oh that would have been so much better if we had just stayed as slaves again. They're idealizing and wanting to go back to where they were. And then God makes them walk through the wilderness another 40 years. Why? Because he wants to get that out of them. When we're walking through the wilderness the primary thing is not your comfort, your happiness, it's your holiness. God is trying to form you to be like Christ. He's trying to remove from you through trial and tribulation and purify your faith which is more precious than gold. The salvation of your souls like it says in First Peter chapter one. So when you're caught between the two kingdoms keep your eyes fixed on the Lord. I'm going to invite the worship team to come on up. And this is that tension we live in. This already but not yet. This place where we're experiencing trial and we're struggling. God wants to meet us in that and he's simply saying to you keep your eyes fixed on me.

Don't get distracted by this or that but keep your eyes on me. Know that I'm going to show up and be faithful in the middle of your circumstance. That's the promise of the Lord. He's promising what? His faithfulness and his presence. That's what God has promised over and over again in Exodus and that's what he promises to you wherever it is you find yourself today. Let's take a moment and let's pray. Heavenly Father this morning I ask that your Holy Spirit be speaking to each individual here today where they are at. I don't know what wilderness they're facing. What trials and difficulties they're in. Lord I pray that you would communicate the promise of your presence and faithfulness. Lord that you would lift our eyes up from our circumstances and have them be fixed firmly on you and faith. Lord that you would continue to destroy and dismantle the kingdom of this world. That it would be brought to rubble and to ruin. That the power of the enemy would be denied and crushed. Lord we look to the cross of Jesus Christ and know that we are saved by grace. That we are given new life

And that we follow after you in this life. Lord Jesus I ask that we would behold you more clearly today. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Conduit my prayer for you is that the Lord would lift your eyes up to him no matter where you find yourself today. That you would know his presence is with you and his faithfulness never fails. Go in peace you are loved.