Sermon Tone Analysis

*/Moses:  The Profile of a Leader/*

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*BORN AT THE RIGHT TIME*

*(Exodus 2:1-15)*

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*INTRODUCTION:*

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Open your Bibles tonight to (text).

I’m beginning a series of lessons tonight that will probably last about 6 weeks on the life of Moses.

I’m calling it /Moses:  The Profile of a Leader/.

If you want to learn about God’s plan for leadership – how to be a leader God’s way – then I can’t think of a better place to look than the life of Moses.

And tonight as we look specifically at *Exodus 2:1-10*, I’ve given this message the title, “Born at the Right Time.”

Think about this – you were born at exactly the right time.

If you had been born two months earlier, or two months later, you wouldn’t be you – you’d be somebody else.

You were born at exactly the right time to be who you are.

You talk to most kids, and you discover that they’re DISSATISFIED with their birthdays.

Because you talk to them, and they always want to be a different age, right?

You ask a 7-year-old girl, “How old are you?” and she’ll say, “I’m gonna be 8.”  Now a 39 year old lady never says that.

First of all, you never ask how old she is.

But she never says, “I’m going to be 40.”

Somewhere along the line, it CHANGES, doesn’t it.

So maybe there’s been a time in your life when you wished that you were born at a different time.

But if you were born at any other time, you would not be who you are.

You were born according to GOD’S timing at JUST THE RIGHT TIME.

And you can thank God for that tonight – God made you, God placed you here, and you were born at just the right time.

And so we come to the story of the birth of Moses, a man whom God would use in a mighty way – no greater man in all the OT than Moses.

God used him to take his people Israel out of Egypt, he used him to lead them through the wilderness, he used them to give his laws and his commandments to his people, he used Moses to prepare Israel to enter the Promised Land.

Moses was born at a DIFFICULT time… DANGEROUS time, but we look at his life story, and we discover that he was born at exactly the RIGHT time.

So I want us to look at the story of his birth tonight, and we begin in *2:1*.

Now this is a familiar passage of Scripture, but I want us to look at it tonight with new eyes and I want us to hear it with new ears, because I believe that God wants to speak to us through this passage tonight.

Begin reading with me in *v.1 – (READ 1-10)*

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We look at this story of Moses and the story of his birth and the way that he was adopted into Pharaoh’s household and the way God provided for him, and the whole thing is a familiar story to us.

But tonight as we look at it, I want you to think – not about the HUMAN side of the story – but about the DIVINE side of this story.

I want you to think – not about what Pharaoh’s daughter did or what Moses’ mother did or what his sister Miriam did, although we’ll talk about all those things.

I want you to look beyond what PEOPLE were doing to see what GOD was doing.

And I want you to think about how you can apply the truths in this text to your own life.

I want you to see several PRINCIPLES in this passage.

*BODY:*

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First of all, the Bible shows us in this passage that…

 

*I.

God /MADE/ You For A Reason*

 

That’s something I believe God wants us all to know tonight.

You were born at the right time, and God MADE you for a reason.

You’re no accident… fluke – he made you for a reason… purpose.

Now we look at Moses’ birth, and we may be tempted to say, “Well what a TERRIBLE TIME to be born.”

I mean, think about the CIRCUMSTANCES of his birth.

If you look back at chapter 1 and get a little bit of context, you can see what was going on at the time that Moses was born.

Look back at *1:8 – (READ)  *You remember the story from the book of Genesis.

All of God’s people were taken into Egypt, they were led there, they came there because they found refuge there.

And Joseph took care of his brothers and all of his family – and really, Joseph was a hero to all of the Egyptians, and so were his brothers – everyone loved them.

But then a new king arose in Egypt who did not know Joseph – did know how Joseph had rescued the whole nation from famine.

And the Bible says this King, this Pharaoh, *(READ 9-11)  *Now the Bible tells us because the people of Israel were multiplying so greatly, and because Pharaoh and the other Egyptians became intimidated, they started doing everything they could to oppress God’s people, and to push them down.

He even instructed some of the midwives, “Listen, when these Hebrew boys are born, you kill them – don’t let them live.”

But these midwives honored the Lord God, and they allowed the children to live.

And so Pharaoh took even more drastic measures, and he gave an order – you know what the order was – that all male children of the Israelites were to be thrown into the river, and there they would die.

If they crocodiles didn’t eat them, then they’d drown.

Look in *v.22 – (READ)  *

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Think about those circumstances.

For an Israelite baby to be born in those days was a days was a dangerous time.

It was a life of slavery… misery… where if you were a little boy, your life was going to be snuffed out in its infancy.

And yet, in the midst of all of that, a man of the tribe of Levi took as his wife a woman of the tribe of Levi – his name was Amran, her name was Jocabed – they were Moses’ parents, and they had a baby.

*V.2 *says, */“The woman conceived and bore a son.”/*

Now in the book of Exodus, the word of God emphasizes the faith of JOCABED – the faith of his MOTHER.

But if you look in your Bibles in Hebrews 11:23, there you’ll see the word of God emphasizes BOTH the father AND the mother’s faith – it commends BOTH the father and mother for trusting God.

Now think about this – it was an act of FAITH for this couple to have normal marital relations during that dangerous time when Jewish babies were being killed.

They already had 2 children – they already had a daughter, Miriam, and they had a son, Aaron, who was 3 years older than Moses.

And yet, they were obedient to God, and they had another child.

Moses became a MAN of great FAITH, and he LEARNED that faith first from his godly parents.

He knew he was born for a reason.

Listen, you were born for a reason as well.

Now, I know sometimes we joke around and we say about our kids, “Well, you know, Junior over here, he was an accident.”

You know, there’s this one and this one and this one, and then there’s this one – he was an accident.

We weren’t expecting him – he snuck up on us!

You may have been told that, and if you were, I’m sorry you were.

Or maybe you’ve said that, and if so, I’m sorry you ever said it, and I hope you won’t ever say it again.

Because no baby who ever is born into this world was born by ACCIDENT.

Moses was born for a reason, and YOU were born for a reason as well.

The Bible talks about that, and it’s so clear that God saw us in our mother’s womb, even before we were born.

Turn over to *Psalm 139* for just a minute, and start reading with me down in *v.13 – (READ 13-16)  *God has a PLAN for every day of your life.

You are here for a PURPOSE.

*V.17 – (READ 17-18)  *The Psalmist says, “God, you think about me all the time.

You planned all of my days.

You saw me even before I was born.”

In other words, YOU MATTER TO GOD!

You were born for a reason.

Never forget that.

Even if you were born in difficult circumstances, even if your family life wasn’t what you had hoped it would be or what you would wish it had been, listen, you were born for a reason – God has a PURPOSE for you.

I heard the story of a museum guide who would take his tour group to a darkened room, and then he would shine a light on a mass of string and color and apparent chaos.

And then he’d ask the group, “What do you think this is?”

And they’d look at all of those strings and all of that color and all of that disarray, and they’d say, “Well, we don’t know.”

And then he’d say, “Well stand over there and watch.”

And they’d walk around to the other side of the room, and then he’d instantly turn on a spotlight, and immediately it was apparent that the mass of jumbled colored string seen just a moment earlier was in fact an enormous tapestry from the backside.

The REAL work had to be seen from a different PERSPECTIVE to understand what the artist was doing.

Listen, that’s the way it works with God and his plan for you.

We often look at our lives, we look at what’s going on, and we say, “Why?” and “How?”  “Why am I here?”

and “How can this possibly be working out for good?” – not because there’s no REASON behind what God is doing, but because we’re on the WRONG SIDE of eternity, and we can’t SEE what GOD sees.

From God’s perspective, he can see the order and he can see the pattern and the plan and the reason.

God made you for a reason – you were born for a reason.

But I want you to know something else – if you were BORN for a reason, then you absolutely, certainly, were born AGAIN for a reason.

He not only MADE you, but he REDEEMED you by the precious blood of his Son, Jesus Christ.

Never let the devil tell you… world tell you… yourself tell you, that you don’t have a purpose, that you don’t have a reason – God made you for a reason, and you were born at the right time.

So, #1, God made you for a reason.

But then there’s a 2nd principle that I want you see in this text from the birth of Moses.