Read Exodus 1:7-2:10, Romans 12:1-8 here.
--
Man, This
Has Gotten Out of Control!
There’s an old story about a man sitting on a park bench,
shredding newspapers and tossing the pieces over his left shoulder. A policeman
who has been watching him approaches after several minutes and asks him why
he’s doing what he’s doing.
“This keeps away the lions”, the man replies.
“Lions?” said the officer.” The closest lions are thousands
of miles from here.”
“I know,” said the man, “See? It works!”[1]
Shredding that newspaper gave the man the feeling that he was
in control. Was he really in
control? No. But he felt like he was. Like that man, we do things to try to
maintain control of our lives, and not always in ways that make a lot of sense.
In our story today from Exodus, Pharaoh, the ruler of Egypt,
has some control issues. We might expect
that he wouldn’t. He’s the guy in
charge, and according to their belief, he himself was a god. Wouldn’t he already be plenty in
control? But he’s afraid of the
Israelites and of losing control.
I love this story.
It’s one we learn as kids in Sunday school. I enjoy revisiting these stories as an adult
and seeing things I didn’t fully understand as a kid. Take, for instance, the very first verse –
verse 7: “they multiplied greatly and they filled the land.” They were having lots of babies. Really, they were just doing what God told
them to do.
- · In Genesis, God tells Adam and Eve to “be fruitful and multiply” (Gen 1:28). Have babies.
- · God said this again to Noah after the flood (Gen. 9:1).
The Israelites were doing as they were told. They were doing a really great job of
multiplying!
At the end of the story of Genesis, when Joseph’s family
first came to Egypt, they were a group of about 70 people. Fast forward 400 years to the part we read
today. Now there are thousands upon
thousands of them. They have been busy
doing what God commanded.
Pharaoh is worried that the Hebrews will turn against him and
take over the country, so he treats them really well, pays them well and makes
sure they’re happy to stay right where they are. Wait, no, that would make the most sense, but
instead Pharaoh enslaves them and makes them work harder. Maybe he thought they’d be too tired to make
more babies? But that didn’t work. Big surprise.
So the logical next step would be . . . genocide. Not the logical
next step? No, of course not, and yet
not unusual in the history of humanity, unfortunately. Pharaoh does this in a way that is maybe the
most sneaky and cowardly way, killing the babies.
This is also what happened around the time
when Jesus was born.
Herod, another ruler
who had control issues, ordered the killing of all the baby boys (Matt. 2:16). Herod wasn’t afraid of being outnumbered, so
much as he just didn’t like anybody who might get in his way. He was willing to kill thousands to make sure
to get rid of the one.
I wish I could tell you that genocide and killing babies
doesn’t happen anymore. Sadly, it is still happening in our world today.
Pharaoh is overwhelmed and responds badly. But we also see people in the story responding
in good ways. And I must say that
there’s quite a bit of girl power at work here.
Women were mostly at the mercy of men back then. But they still found ways to do the right
thing.
Like Shiprah and Puah. When I was in seminary I had to memorize
these women’s names. I think they are
definitely worth remembering. These are
the midwives who refused to kill the male babies, even though Pharaoh had
ordered them to. We might think their
names sound funny. What’s really funny
is what they say to Pharaoh.
“Unlike Egyptian women, Hebrew women are more vigorous and deliver their babies before we get there.”
They’ve basically called the Egyptian women wimps for needing
help to have their babies. They’ve also
at the same time appealed to the prejudice that already existed between the
Egyptians and the Hebrews. The Egyptians
saw the Hebrews as inferior. Last week we talked about the Canaanite woman who
was shunned by the Jews. The Jews
wouldn’t eat with a Canaanite, and the Egyptians wouldn’t eat with the Hebrews,
even all the way back when Joseph was Pharaoh’s assistant (Gen. 43:32). Thinking of people as inferior leads to thinking
of them as subhuman or animals. Animals
don’t need midwives to deliver their babies.
Shiprah and Puah were making a bit of a joke about the Egyptians looking
down on the Hebrews. Pharaoh apparently
didn’t get it, since he didn’t punish or kill Shiprah and Puah. These women could have been overwhelmed by
fear of Pharaoh’s power, but instead they trusted God to help them do the right
thing. And in return for their good work, God blessed Shiphrah and Puah with
children of their own (Ex. 1:15-21)
Then there’s Jochobed.[2] She’s not named in this story, but she is
named in the genealogies (Ex 6:20, Num 26:59).
She’s Moses’ mother. She’s one of
those strong Hebrew women that Shiphrah and Puah talked about. She saw that Moses was a fine baby and
couldn’t bear to kill him, so she hid him for three months. Either the Egyptians weren’t looking very
hard, or Jochobed was really good about keeping Moses quiet. We all know it
would be pretty tough to hide a baby.
Jochobed does something amazing.
She does exactly what Pharaoh had ordered – she throws Moses into the
river – except she throws him in the river in the basket which she’d taken the
time to waterproof.
Can you imagine sending your child off like that? And yet this is the kind of thing that
parents will do for their children – in the midst of wars or threat of murder
or disaster, mothers are still sending their kids off in hopes of saving
them. Some parents did it this week in
anticipation of Hurricane Harvey. Trusting their children to God’s
protection.
Isn’t this such a great story? So many great things happening. My favorite part, though, is what it shows us
about how to respond when we are overwhelmed.
What do we learn? Don’t be Pharaoh. Pharaoh was overwhelmed and responds badly. He
didn’t know what to do with all those Hebrews, so in his fear of losing
control, he tightens control.
I like this story because I resonate with Pharaoh. I know what it’s like to feel
overwhelmed. Life can be scary. Whatever is happening in our lives can be
overwhelming. Our perspective gets
skewed and our problems can seem bigger than any of the answers we can imagine.
Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or imagine! Ephesians 3:20
It maybe wasn’t true that the Hebrews outnumbered the
Egyptians, but the more Pharaoh focused on them, the more it seemed like
it. Whatever is closest to us seems the
largest. The more we focus on a problem,
the bigger it gets in our eyes.
In what ways do you get overwhelmed?
God is greater than our troubles, but we get to thinking that
it’s much safer to try to control God than it is to trust him. Pharaoh overestimated himself and
underestimated God. But Shiphrah, Puah,
Jochobed and Miriam show us another way – trusting God and being overwhelmed by
God’s blessings and grace.
In Romans 12 Paul urges us to surrender control to God – to make
our lives a living sacrifice. To allow
God to be a part of all the parts of our lives that we hold back, that we try
so hard to control.
The NLT puts it this way: “Don’t
copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a
new person by changing the way you think.” No question about it – that’s
challenging.
I know that surrendering control to God can be SCARY – We
don’t know that we’re going to like the outcome. We pray, “thy will be done… but do it
according to my specifications.”
- ·What if it doesn’t come out the way we want it to?
- ·What if it comes out better?
Faith in Christ isn’t about giving up control so much as it
is facing the wonderful reality that God was always the one who really had
control.
The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him. Romans 12 MSG version: 3
Being overwhelmed by God is
WONDERFUL – In another of Paul’s letters, Ephesians, he prays for us to know
how wonderful God is:
I pray that you, being rooted and established in
love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp
how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know
this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all
the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:17-19)
I have had moments of experiencing God’s infinite love that
were overwhelming. Those moments can be
fleeting and unexpected….
- when we suddenly realize that God remembered that dream we had given up on,
- or heard that prayer that we’d gotten tired of praying,
- or has sent someone or something into our path to show us that there is hope and he is still there.
It happens in big and small ways, ways that are sometimes
hard to explain.
Being overwhelmed by God is AWESOME because God is
awe-inspiring.
Last Monday, this was the experience many people had watching
the eclipse. Reading about it or looking
at the pictures can’t quite fully describe how amazing it was to watch it
happen. People drove for miles to get to
see the total eclipse. One car stuck in traffic afterwards was asked if it was
worth driving so far and sitting in traffic so long. The roar came immediately from everyone
inside the car: YES!
God the almighty creator of the universe who placed the stars
in the sky and put the planets in motion in patterns that result in moments
like that eclipse, loves us so much that he sent his Son to die for us so that
we could know his unconditional love and mercy, and his constant presence.
What if we were to find ourselves saying, “Man, this has
gotten out of control” because was God was doing great things in our lives?
May you be overwhelmed today by God and all that He is.
Thanks, Melissa, for another sermon that made us think about our lives in relation to Scripture.
ReplyDeleteHere are several ideas for discussion that the sermon prompted for me.
Illusory control: Your opening story suggested that sometimes we think we are in control, when in fact we are being fooled. That’s a great point. It comes into play with Pharaoh in the Scripture as well. He thought he was going to control the population growth of the Israelites, but he chose the wrong babies in his genocidal plan to succeed in his plot. Population scientists learned long ago that controlling population growth requires limiting the number of women—not the number of men. It doesn’t take many men to raise a new generation of men. But the warriors provide the greatest threat and Pharaoh fell for the illusion that he could control the population by getting rid of them.
Deceipt as sin?: Shiprah and Puah found favor with God for telling a big lie. Hmm. That’s interesting. Certainly preserving God’s people ranked higher in importance on the moral plane than telling the truth. What is the lesson for us in this part of the story?
The place of self-control: I realize that we all want to control our lives and our circumstances. At times, that control is impossible. At other times it is possible. What control should we work to maintain? I’m thinking about many things on this point. For example, take the toddler whose parents want to stop changing the toddler’s diapers. They exercise control over the child, encouraging the desired behavior and discouraging the undesired behavior. In turn, the toddler finds that the ability to control his or her own body functions is highly satisfying. When is taking control appropriate? Is attempting to take control all counter to what Romans teaches (present your bodies a living sacrifice) or is exercising control a way to present our bodies as a sacrifice. I started making a list of all the things that we generally accept as responsible control—like washing our hands frequently when we are exposed to cold viruses, or getting vaccinated, or drinking purified water, locking our doors, or buying insurance—the list could go on for pages. So what is the balance for surrendering control to God and being responsible.
All of this does not detract from appreciating your concluding point that we should allow God's control to overwhelm us.
Anyone want to respond?