“It Doesn’t Take Long”

A farmer goes out to sow his fields. He takes the seeds in his hand and he throws them out. He’s not real careful about where he throws them because he has plenty of seeds. Some of the seeds fall on rocky soil, and some fall on the path and some fall among the thorn bushes and some fall on the good soil. And then the farmer leaves.
Now, when Jesus first told this parable he was intending for us to think about ourselves as the farmer and how important it is for us to spread the Gospel message and we aren’t suppose to worry so much about the results - just as the farmer knows the crop depends on the rain and the sun and the soil - the word we have sown depends on the work of the Holy Spirit.
But today I want you to think about the seed and what kind of soil you may relate to in your own life as you live your life as a child of God. Because you all have received the seed - you are the people of God - but how you react to that seed and how that seed changes your life depends a lot upon you and how you see God in your life. So be honest with yourselves and think about the type of soil you are…..
Are you the seed that fell on the path? Probably not because this refers to those who hear the good news of Jesus Christ and never let it affect them. Don’t think it is relevant to them. Don’t think they need it for anything. God is irrelevant.
Are you the seed that falls on the rocky soil? God is really good when life is going well. If everything is falling into place and you are prospering and all is well and good you think God is a pretty great thing. But then the bottom drops out and there is a crises of some type in your life and life isn’t so great anymore - and it is God’s fault and you aren’t going to worship a God who doesn’t give you everything you want.
Are you the seed that falls into the thorns? God is important when you have time for him. But if something better comes along then God takes a back seat and you are off on more fun adventures; more important; more interesting; less demanding activities.
Or are you the seed that falls in the good soil. Seeds have to struggle regardless of the soil they are in. It takes a good amount of energy in order for that tiny plant to break out of that seed and work its way up through the soil and then struggle with growing and avoiding birds and bugs. But there are good roots there in that good soil and the plant will continue to grow…. If you are in good soil you take the good with the bad. You know that regardless of what is going on in your life God is there and God will help you and even if times are not great then you know God will help you. God is first - and you are willing to do what is necessary because God is first in your life. You are willing to go through what you need to in order to continue to grow in your faith and your service to God and to his church.
When we are thinking about our relationship with God we need to be honest with ourselves. Self reflection is really important as we continue to grown in the love and grace of our God. Self reflection helps us ask God for what we need to get those roots growing in the right soil and to truly be God’s people. So which soil are you?
(Pause for just a second)
The Hebrew people are finally free. Moses has come and Moses has confronted Pharaoh and God has performed all of these miraculous works - granted they were unpleasant miracles - flies and frogs and lice and boils - but they were God’s miracles. And the Hebrew people were able to experience the wonder and power of what God could do. And then the final miracle came when the death angel traveled over Egypt and only those with the blood of the lamb on the door were saved from the death of the first born.
And of course we realize this is a foreshadow of our salvation in Jesus Christ because of the shed blood of the the lamb of God.
But now the Hebrews are free and Pharaoh has told them to pack up and get out of there quickly. Now an interesting thing happened. The Egyptian people who had been so affected by all these plagues wanted these people gone quickly because they were afraid the God of the Hebrews was going to strike again and cause them more hardship so the Egyptian people began to give the Hebrews gold and silver and clothing to get them out of the country. God’s provision because later in the story this silver and gold and clothing will help finance what the Hebrews need as they travel to the promised land. Once again, God has provided.
So the Hebrews head out and the story of the crossing of the Red Sea is a pretty familiar one. Pharaoh decides he made a bad decision so he wants the people back and he begins to chase them. The Red sea is in the way of the people escaping so God parts the water and the Hebrews cross on dry land and Pharaoh’s army comes in to the sea after them but the land isn’t dry any more and their chariot wheels get stuck in the mud and the water falls in on top of them and they drown.
On the other side of the sea there is a huge celebration. Dancing and singing and praising God. Everyone is thankful and God is great! After the celebration Moses tells them to pack up and they head off to the promised land.
Three days have passed. Three days…. That’s not very long when you think about it. Hardly enough time to get into the rhythm of traveling. And the Hebrews start to whine. “We’re thirsty” “Why aren’t you giving us water?” “Moses how can you treat us like this?” “Moses….” And after having kids I figure someone said, “Are we there yet?”
Years ago when our children were small, a friend of our gave us a cross stitch sampler which said “Thou Shalt Not Whine” so every time our children begin to whine about something, which was on a pretty regular basis, my wife would grab the framed sampler and just hold it up… “Thou Shalt Not Whine”
I’m pretty sure that is what Moses would have done had he realized how much whining these Hebrew people were going to do during the next 40 years and it had already started after only 3 days.
What we need to think about is what these Hebrew people have been through up to this point. They were in captivity; God sent them Moses who worked diligently to get them freed even though they whined then as well. They saw the power of God who brought upon the plagues; they saw the power of God as the Egyptian people financed their trip through the desert; and even though they whined when they saw the Red Sea in front of them God parted the waters and they walked through unharmed and God was pretty good then because he had saved them from the sea and the Egyptians.
But after three days, all of that was forgotten because they had experienced another hardship and they couldn’t figure that if God had done all these other miracles for them; God had provided everything for them up to this point; they just couldn’t see that God was going to continue to do good things for them. A moment’s hardship and in their mind God had already abandoned them.
The seed had fallen on dry paths and rocky soil and in the thorns and where was God anyway?
What is your response when life is not going like you would like? What is your response when a hardship comes along? What is your response when your life is no longer fun and games? Do you whine to God and say, “God, where are you? Why do I have to go through this? What’s the deal God, I’ve done everything you’ve asked me to. I come to worship. I give my tithe. What are you doing God?”
Or, do you stop and look back and remember all those times when God has shown you his love and power? Do you look back and see how God has been there for you in all the past times when life has become difficult? And figure that if God got you though all of those times, God will be there for you this time?
God did provide water for the Hebrews even though they whined and cried and blamed Moses and God for their problems. God didn’t just provide water but 12 springs and palm trees and a beautiful oasis for them to camp.
We have a choice in our life. We can plant ourselves in thorns or rocks or even the hard path and whine and carry on whenever there is a bump in our road or we can life with our roots planted firmly in the good soil and know that regardless of what may be happening, God is with us.

Amen.

“Freedom Isn’t Easy”

How many of you growing had that experience when your Father made you do something and you wondered what in the world is he thinking? Or why is he making me do this? Or “Dad, this makes no sense”. We’ve all probably experienced that at one time or another only to realize when we got older that Dad really did have a reason for what he was having you do and it was something that would be good for you or help you out or develop your character. As Mark Twain once said "When I was 18 I thought my dad was the dumbest person in the World. But when I turned 30 I was amazed at how much he had learned in the last 12 years" 🤗
Today, as we talk again about the Hebrews and what they are going through. They cried out for help and they really thought God had not heard them because it has been 80 years - a couple of generations - and nothing has happened. But when help does show up they aren’t sure they want that help and they wonder what God is doing. “God, what are you thinking?”
Last week we left the Hebrews who were now slaves and suffering with the Egyptians treating them horribly. Moses has grown up in the palace of the Pharaoh and it is important we remember that Moses does know that he is a Hebrew. He knows he is different but as far as we know he is still treated as one of the ‘sons’ of the Egyptians and he is considered a ‘prince of Egypt’. One day Moses has the opportunity to see the Hebrew slaves and he sees one of the Egyptian taskmasters beating one of the Hebrew slaves and Moses reacts - by killing the Egyptian. Someone saw this act and confronts Moses and so Moses knows that being a prince is not going to save him from whatever punishment there may be and so Moses flees Egypt and finds himself in the area of Mt Sinai. Now we will encounter Mt Sinai later in this story because this is the ‘Mountain of God’ where Moses will take the freed Hebrews and where the Hebrews will meet God and will receive the 10 Commandments and the other levitical laws along with the design for the Tabernacle.
Again, as you will hear multiple times during this series, we see God’s plan. Moses now knows the way to Mt Sinai which he will need to know once the Hebrews are freed. Now, Moses meets a man named Jethro there, marries his daughter and has a family and remains there for 40 years - again part of God’s plan because Moses is learning how to work and survive in the desert- something he will need to know when he has to lead the Hebrew people.
I have often said “If you are living the life God wants you to lead, you are either in a learning/training program (even if you don’t realize it) or your are using the skills God has been training you to do the work God needs you to do. Think about the ways you have served God in your life - whether in the church or just in your every day ordinary life. And then stop and think about how you were able to accomplish that which God needed you to do? You will begin to see how God works - to empower you to do what God needs done….
Moses is in phase 2 of his training program. And then one day he meets God in the burning bush and altho Moses has a bunch of reasons why he is not the one who needs to go back to Egypt to free the Hebrews, God is pretty convincing and Moses packs up and heads back to Egypt to do what God needs him to do - and remember Moses is now 80 years old - so don’t ever think you are too old for God to use you to do his work!
Moses heads off to Egypt and solicits his older brother Aaron’s help. He goes through the proper channels going to the leaders of the Hebrew people first and explaining who he is and what God has called him to do.
And I think it is important to stop here and remember these people had no idea who Moses was. He left the Hebrews when he was a baby and he has been out of the country so he wouldn’t have been known to them at all. Initially it took some trust from the Hebrew leaders - and we read in Exodus that Moses had to do some ‘magic’ tricks in order for the leaders and the people to believe who he was….
So Moses and Aaron go to Pharaoh and declare those very familiar words - “Let my people go!” and Pharaoh is not impressed at all. What Pharaoh then does is increase the amount of work the Hebrews have to do…….
Before this encounter of Moses and Pharaoh, the Hebrews were provided straw by the Egyptians to make the bricks needed to build all of Ramses’ buildings. Now, they are going to have to find the straw on their own - and Pharaoh points out - they still have to make the same quota of bricks a day. Their work load has now doubled. Gee thanks Moses….. And that is what they said. “Moses, we thought you were here to help us not make our lives harder? What’s going on?” Their life was even harder when God began to send the plagues as the Hebrews experienced some of these plagues directly and some of them by being ‘collateral damage’ of what is happening to the Egyptian people. Blood and frogs and lice and locust and darkness and boils and hail……. Every time Moses goes to Pharaoh something worse happens. What is the deal God?
Don’t we think the same things? We have something in our life that is causing us to struggle. Life is hard. We cry out to God and instead of God waving the fairy wand and making it all go away, not only does our situation not go away but it sometimes gets worse and we cry out “God! Don’t you hear me? What are you dong? Do you not care?” That is what we are hearing from the Hebrews - and don’t you imagine Moses himself? I picture Moses as going through a real time of self doubt thinking he is doing exactly what God has asked him to do and it is not going as planned.
And when you hear this story aren’t you asking yourself the same thing? Here Moses has agreed to leave his family and travel back to Egypt - probably with a nagging worry that someone might remember he is a murderer - he has to work hard to convince the leaders and the people who he is and that God has really called him to do this - and then he goes to Pharaoh - again with a little bit of fear - and the situation keeps getting worse and worse. I’ve often wondered why Moses didn’t just throw up his hands and say “I tried and go back home”. I’m sure a lot of us would be tempted to do that…. you tried your best but it didn’t go as you had expected and didn’t turn out as you had wanted.
This is the situation Jesus is in. His three years of ministry are about over. He has large crowds of people following him and then he starts talking about being a follower costing you something. Jesus says - “I’d love for you to follow me but if you really do it like I want you to - its going to cost you something. And I want you to stop right now and consider if you are willing to pay the price of following me.” And we wonder about those words of Jesus. Don’t we just have to say “I believe in you Jesus!” and everything will be OK and we don’t have to do anything else? Once we are ‘saved’ isn’t that it? We are done. Don't we have our "fire Insurance"? We are on the road to heaven regardless of what we do next. Right?
Wrong.
As the Hebrews are learning there is a cost to being the children of God. Right now they are suffering - and suffering more and more and God and Moses are there trying to assure them that they just need to stick it out. Jesus disciples suffered greatly and Jesus warned them a head of time this would happen - but they just needed to stick it our. The Apostle Paul wrote to the new churches of the first century who were experiencing persecution and told them to just stick it out. The Apostle John wrote the book of Revelation to those Christians, especially in Rome who were being thrown to lions, to just stick it out.
Whether we understand it our not, our Father who art in heaven is working it out so that his kingdom will come; so that we will be free and be able to live in peace and security. As we leave the Hebrews today - they really wonder what God is doing - but we know the end of the story - they will be freed.
God knows the end of our story and we do know that regardless of what is going on in our lives right now, God is there and we will be freed.
So I want to leave you with the same words we began our service today from the book of Romans:  For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Amen!

The Situation with Moses

Last week we left God’s people in the Land of Goshen - the richest, most fertile land in all of Egypt. The Hebrews were in this wonderful place because of God’s plan - to form a people who will go back to Israel - the Promised Land - and be a shining light to the world of what it means to be the children of God. God’s first step in forming the family was to began with Abraham then send them somewhere where they would be able to grow in numbers and to become one nation. So for 400 years these descendants of Abraham remained in the Land of Goshen, living off the land, growing in numbers and living a life of peace and prosperity.
But time passes and situations change. Joseph who had been second in command of all of Egypt had put an order of protection on his people living in Goshen. But as leadership changes so do the policies of their realm. And there is a new Pharaoh whom we believe to be Ramses. You may remember the movie “The 10 Commandments” with Charlton Heston as Moses - and Yul Brynner as the Pharaoh Ramses? That is what I picture every time I talk about this particular portion of the book of Exodus!
Anyway, the Pharaoh didn’t know about Joseph’s order and was in great need of slaves, since the Egyptians did not want to do it, to build the storehouses and the cities he had planned. He knew there were thousands of able bodied men living in Goshen and two thoughts came into his mind. First he realized how many of these Hebrew people there were and that made him think about the fact that if they decided, they could rise up an insurrection and there was enough of them they could actually overtake the palace and become the leaders of all of Egypt. That was a problem….. The Pharaoh also realizing that he needed slaves - that if he enslaved all these people then they probably wouldn’t be able to begin a revolution.
So that is what he did. He made all of them slaves and begin to use them to build his storehouses and his cities. You have to believe that was not done in a peaceful manner.
While Pharaoh was getting his cities built, something interesting happened. All of this hard work made what the Bible calls the Hebrews ‘more vigorous’ - which is the biblical way of saying they began to multiply in number even faster. All of this work Pharaoh thought was going to slow them down only made them grow to even greater numbers. The Biblical account makes it clear that the Egyptians were ‘ruthless’ in how they treated the Hebrews as they worked - and the Hebrews not only had to work for the Egyptians from sun up to sun down but they had to come home and tend their gardens and their sheep. They worked hard 7 days a week 365 days of the year. No brakes, no vacations to the beach. We are told that not only were the able bodied men made to work but in some cases the women and the elderly were pressed into service. It was a hard, hard life.
Something we need to remember when we whine about how hard our life is and why isn’t God taking care of us and making our life easy cause after all we are trying to do what God wants ……
Here is God’s people that God put there and still they are having to endure this terrible hardship.
And they did exactly the same thing we do….. when times get tough they called to God. “Help us! God”, “Help us!” and just like God does when we cry out, God developed a plan to help them. Now keep in mind the help was not instant - its going to be 80 or more years before there is help but as we need to learn from this story, when we cry out to God, God hears and God sets things in motion that we will never realize and help comes in the time God knows it needs to be - even if we think he hasn’t heard us or he isn’t doing anything.
Now Pharaoh has a dilemma. The Hebrews are growing in numbers and in strength because of the hard work and are even more able to form an army and overtake the country. What was he going to do? Pharaoh knew he couldn’t kill them because he needed them to work. He couldn’t send them away because he needed them to work and what would prevent them from just coming back and taking over Egypt?

So he need a new plan. He would reduce their numbers by killing off the babies - no more babies, the elderly would die off and their numbers would begin to decrease and Pharaoh would still have enough workers to do what he needed…..
Pharaoh’s first plan was to send in Egyptian midwives who would kill the babies as soon as they were born. It is interesting that the Biblical account actually tells us the names of these Midwives - Shiphrah and Puah. But even fear of Pharaoh wasn’t enough to make them do this dastardly deed that
Pharaoh had ordered them to do. And even though at the time they didn’t know God, they realized God’s work in their lives and that made a difference.
They told Pharaoh the Hebrew women had babies too quickly and they couldn’t get there in time to kill the babies. Pharaoh believed their story and the writer of Exodus tells us Shiphrah and Puah learn about God from the Hebrews and they began to believe in God - and God blesses them for it.
Normally they would have been killed by Pharaoh for not being able to perform their task but because of their acknowledgement of the power of God - God has now blessed them.
What a great testimony in the middle of this difficult story!
Pharaoh is not going to give up. He has to do something about all these Hebrews!
His new plan is to just send soldiers into the land of Goshen and begin killing all the baby boys. Imagine being a Hebrew, first being turned into slaves, working to the point of exhaustion - beaten and mistreated and now this infanticide that was going on. Scriptures do not sugar coat anything.
The story in Exodus now shifts and focuses on one family. Ever wonder what it was like for a Hebrew mother who gives birth and discovers its a boy knowing that the soldiers are going to come and kill him? (Pause) But the writer of Exodus lifts up to us a woman named Jochebed who gives birth to a baby boy and comes up with a plan to try and save this boy’s life. She makes a basket, puts her baby boy in the basket and puts him in the Nile river. She has to figure that he isn’t going to make it, but the boy would die anyway when the soldiers discovered him and at least she was giving him a chance. And then the hand of God guides that little basket to the place where Pharaoh’s daughter is bathing and she discovers the basket and sees it is a Hebrew baby….. There is so much amazing here - the fact the basket ended up where it did, the fact that Pharaoh’s daughter didn’t take the baby boy and do as she probably knew she should which is give the basket with the baby to the soldiers to get rid of, the fact that she decided to raise the baby in the palace with all the little Egyptian boys, the fact that she hired Jochebed to be the nursemaid for this baby - so for her bravery and her faith Jochebed gets to spend the first few years of her little boy’s life nursing him and raising him……
God’s plan only gets more incredible.
When Moses is weaned he is put with all the other boys in the palace. Now we have another completely different way of life here than what we are use to. Pharaohs had multiple wives and many, many children who come from those wives. All the children are put together in one place to grow up together - girls in one part of the palace and boys in another part of the palace. The girls are going to grow up learning how to be a princess and care for the Pharaoh and groomed in reality to be used as bargaining chips with other kingdoms - “Here, I will give you my prettiest daughter if you will sign this trade agreement with me” - was the way business was done. The boys were trained to learn how to conduct business in the palace - one of the sons would become Pharaoh and others would learn to be high ranking officials in the government. So Moses is in this training program to learn how to conduct business in the courts of the Pharaoh - a skill Moses is going to need when he is negotiating the release of the Hebrews years later.
The more you really look at all these stories in the Bible the more we see God is always working. And it is important for us to look at these stories in this light - always look and see what God is doing. And it calls us to do the same thing. We see God working - how he is putting things together and working events and situations so that his purpose will be fulfilled. We may not like a lot of how God is working - why would God have his people suffer so much? Maybe it is so they will truly appreciate the power of God and what God is doing for them when they are finally set free? Maybe it is to get them to realize God is where their help truly lies?
God is working in each and every one of our lives just as he working in the life of Moses and the life of the Hebrew people. And we need to stop our busyness every now and then and reflect on what has been going on in our life…. and when we really take the time to do that, to look at the events and situations and circumstances that have brought us to this day we begin to see that God is working in our lives; God does have a plan for each one of us and God is present when there are good times - like the peace and prosperity of the land of Goshen - or in the bad times like the Hebrews finding themselves in slavery and losing the lives of their baby boys.
Moses has a lot to learn. He spends 40 years working in the palace; he spends 40 years learning to live in the desert - and important skill he will need to lead all the Hebrews through the desert.
In our New Testament passage today, Jesus comes to the synagogue and sits down and reads a passage from the book of Isaiah -
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free.”
There is a lot of similarity between the work God calls Moses to do and the work of Jesus while he was on earth. Both were here to bring freedom to the very people who need it most - the poor, the prisoners, the blind, the oppressed. As Moses will free the oppressed Hebrews and turn them into the people of God, Just as Jesus frees us and calls us to be the people of God in our world today.

Amen.

How We Got Here

This summer we are going to spend our time journeying with the Hebrew people through the wilderness. From their arrival into Egypt, their transition into slavery and their freedom and travel through the Sinai desert and finally their arrival at the Promised Land - the land of milk and honey promised to them by God when they started out on this time with God. Hearing these accounts of the struggle of God’s people helps us as we journey through our lives struggling to hear and follow God as we know we should.
Today, we are going to look at how God’s people came to be in Egypt - how they ended up in that place where they cried out to God to free them.
It is important to really understand how significant this wilderness journey was for the Hebrews and to do that, we have to think about the difference between how we perceive God and the church and God’s relationship to us and how God presented himself in the beginning of the creation of the world and the creation of people. We are familiar with the stories in the beginning of Genesis but we need to consider how God was working and what God was doing.
We like to think in numbers and today if I asked you who were the people of God we would think in terms of millions of people around the world who worship Jesus and we might even think not only of these millions of people alive today but also the millions of people who have died who were followers of Jesus Christ. But in the beginning, God did not work in large numbers - God worked through one family at a time. We have Adam and Eve who were the only followers of God along with their children and that’s all there was who knew God. Then there was Noah and his family - that was it. One family who knew God. And then there was Abraham who was 80 when God somehow spoke to him and asked Abraham to follow him and Abraham, Sarah and Lot were the only ones in all the earth who knew God. Have you considered that? What was God doing that there were only those few who knew God? And realistically, what God is doing through most of the book of Genesis is simply preparing the roots of God’s family tree. The ultimate purpose of Abraham, his son Issac and his son Jacob was to begin developing the family of God - which God did one generation at a time. Abraham begat Issac who begat Jacob and then God begins to step up his game a bit as Jacob has 12 sons and God’s family begins to grow a little more quickly. And God, who is good at numbers, established this number 12 to represent followers of God - as we think about how many disciples of Jesus?
One of Jacob’s sons is instrumental in the creating the means for God’s people to grow from 12 sons to the thousands of God’s people who will eventually leave Egypt and head out into the wilderness. But still, God’s people at that time are only those people in Egypt.
One of Jacob’s sons was Joseph and we are probably most familiar with Joseph as the boy with the coat of many colors given to him by his father which turned out to be the source of Joseph’s problems. Joseph was his dad’s favorite and Jacob made no secret that Joseph was his favorite which caused a lot of dissension with the other 11 brothers. Because not only did Jacob let everyone know he liked Joseph best, Joseph grew up to become quite the spoiled brat and he too lorded it over the other brothers - “Dad likes me best!” So the other brothers thinking if they got rid of Joseph their father would then love them, plotted and eventually the brothers arrange it so that Joseph ends up sold into slavery and Joseph ends up in Egypt as a slave. Life was not easy for Joseph but the outcome of all that Joseph had to endure was that Joseph not only ended up 2nd in command of all of Egypt, but Joseph learned humility and reliance on God. And it was then that God was able to use him to
continue his plan.
There is a famine and because of Joseph’s shrewd tactics Egypt had food when all of the rest of the Middle East had none - including Joseph’s family back in Israel. When Jacob heard there was food in Egypt he sent his sons down to buy some for them. Anyone coming into Egypt from outside the country had to go through Joseph to buy the food. Jacob’s brothers come before Joseph - and of course they did not recognize Joseph - Joseph was just a young boy when they sold him into slavery and realistically they thought Joseph was probably dead - but Joseph recognized his brothers. And because of the change God had brought about in Joseph, Joseph not only forgave his brothers for what they had done to him but acknowledged all that happened to him, all the hardships, were part of God’s plan to get Jacob and his family to Egypt.
So why did God do all of this just to get Jacob and his 12 sons and their families - about 70 people, to Egypt?
Again, we have to think about God and his relationship with people during this time in the history of God’s people. There is no Jesus, there is no Bible, there is nothing ‘formal’ about God and the one family he is working through. There is no ‘rules’ - the 10 commandments and all the Jewish laws have not come yet. There is no worship as we think about worship. And while we sometimes read in the stories of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that they ‘worshipped’ God, all it really means is that they would stop what they were doing and thank God for whatever happened - sometimes building a rock alter and sometimes not. “Worshipping” was in reality just a stopping and saying a prayer of thanks. And, by the way, that is true even for us. Whenever we stop and say, “Thank you God” which we need to do, we are ‘worshipping’ God.
So back to Jacob’s family - Joseph brought them all down to Egypt where they would have plenty of food while all the rest of the world was starving. Jospeh gave his family the best land in all of Egypt - the land of Goshen. They had plenty of water and grass for their sheep; the land was fertile for their crops and Joseph put an order of protection on them. And this family of Jacob which started at about 70, lived in peace and prosperity and grew to be estimated at 600,000 men plus their families 400 years later.
What we learn from all this is that God spent the book of Genesis, about 1000 years, creating the earth and setting the stage to begin a people who will belong to God - these Hebrews that started off with one man - Abraham - have grown to be a great number and it is through these people God is going to create his children, his family, and begin his work in the world. Out of the millions of people who existed throughout the earth at the time of the Hebrews in Egypt, God has chosen one family who he gave the means and opportunity to now grow into thousands of people. These are the people through whom God will work to try and make himself known to all the people of the world.
The wilderness journey then becomes for these people their ‘training’ program to help God teach them who they are, who God is and what they are expected to do as God’s special people.
We heard this morning the story from Matthew where Jesus is on the boat with his disciples and a big storm comes up and Jesus ‘rebukes the storm’ and the storm goes away. The disciples are amazed and their reaction is “Who is this that even the wind and the waves obey him” - this event is part of the training program for Jesus’ disciples to understand who Jesus is and to understand who they are and what they are supposed to do - just like the Hebrews in the wilderness.
And just like us. We heard this story of how God was able to work to get his people where he wanted them in Egypt and how he has helped them to grow and how he is going to claim them as his and then teach them what they need to know about God and about their relationship with God. That is what God does for us. God works to help us grow in our understanding of how much God loves us, how God has worked in our lives and what God wants us to understand about him and about what he expects us to do.
As we continue learning more about these people of God, remember these Hebrews are us - as God teaches them he teaches us and helps us to learn who we are as the people of God.

Amen.