Blessing and Opposition

Scripture Passage: Exodus 1:1-2:10

What is Trinity Fellowship - North Jefferson, AL?

In recent years, members of Redeemer Community Church from across north Jefferson County began praying and dreaming together about seeing a similar church planted in their community. This had already happened once before in Homewood when Grace Fellowship was planted in 2017 and they wondered whether it could happen where they lived. The more they prayed and discussed this with the leadership of these two churches, the more it became clear that God was leading them to partner together to plant Trinity Fellowship.

The long-term aim is for Trinity to be an independent church that continues to partner with the Redeemer family of churches in celebrating and declaring the gospel across the region.

If you've got a Bible, please turn with me to Exodus chapter 1.

It's also in the worship guide if you need it.

As you're turning there, I wonder if you read any good books this past year in 2025.

If you're looking for a good recommendation, I read a novel called Theo of Golden.

I don't know if anybody else read that out there, but it's a really, really good book by Alan Levi.

It's a novel about an older man called Theo who moves to a small town in Golden, Georgia.

He notices a local coffee shop and goes there.

And while he's in the coffee shop, he's impressed as he looks around at all the different pictures that are at the coffee shops.

They're all kind of pencil portraits of different people all around him, and he sees that they are for sale.

Basically, the story unfolds as this man who's just moved into town quietly goes and he purchases these pictures one by one.

He finds out about who this actual person is, and he would go and he would give it to the person who the portrait is of.

He would quietly go around, meet each one of those people, and give these portraits away.

But as the story unfolds, you're finding out about all these different people who live in the town.

But the big overriding question is, who is Theo?

Who's this kind of man of mystery, this image bearer who's quietly making his way around town?

Who is Theo?

Well, as we make our way through the book of Exodus over the next few months,

there are some exciting things that happen as we read the story, especially in the early chapters.

And there's some lessons for us to learn along the way.

But the bigger question that the book answers is this.

Who is God?

Who is God?

That's the point of the book, is to make him known.

So yes, this is a book that records historical events about the people of Israel,

but it's not primarily about them.

Yes, this book applies to us, very much so.

And much of the vocabulary of the New Testament finds its origin in the book of Exodus,

but this isn't primarily a book about us.

This is primarily a book about God.

It's about who he is.

So the point of Exodus is this.

It's all about the God who makes his name known to us and through us to the world.

So God makes his name known to us and through us to the nations.

And so we're going to read the start of the book now.

Actually, Tom and Jenny are going to come forward and read.

Or just Tom. Just Tom.

Thank you so much, Tom, for coming and reading.

I encourage you to follow along.

It's a fairly lengthy reading.

It's in the Worship Guide, but I can't possibly read the small letters,

so I'm going to use my phone.

These are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob,

each with his household, Ruben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah,

Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin, Dan, and Naphtali, Gad, and Asher.

All the descendants of Jacob were 70 persons.

Joseph was already in Egypt.

Then Joseph died and all his brothers and all that generation.

But the people of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly.

They multiplied and grew exceedingly strong so that the land was filled with them.

Now there arose a new king over Egypt who did not know Joseph.

And he said to his people, behold, the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us.

Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply.

And if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.

Therefore, they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens.

They built for Pharaoh store cities, Pithum, and Ramses.

But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad.

And the Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel.

So they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves

and made their lives bitter with hard service in mortar and brick and in all kinds of work in the field.

And in all their work, they ruthlessly made them work as slaves.

Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shifrah and the other Pua.

When you serve as midwife to the Hebrew women and see them on the birth stool, if it is a son, you shall kill him.

But if it is a daughter, she shall live.

But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them.

But let the male children live.

So the king of Egypt called the midwives and said to them, why have you done this?

And let the male children live.

The midwives said to Pharaoh, because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women,

for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.

So God dealt well with the midwives and the people multiplied and grew very strong.

And because the midwives feared God, they gave them families.

Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, every son that is born to the Hebrews, you shall cast into the Nile.

But you shall let every daughter live.

Now a man from the house of Levi went and took as his wife a Levite woman.

The woman conceived and bore a son.

And when she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months.

When she could hide him no longer, she took for him a basket made of bulrushes and daubed it in bitumen and pitch.

She put the child in it and placed it among the reeds by the riverbank.

And his sister stood at a distance to know what would be done to him.

Now the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river while her young women walked beside the river.

She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her servant woman and she took it.

When she opened it, she saw the child.

And behold, the baby was crying.

She took pity on him and said, this is one of the Hebrews children.

And then his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, shall I go and call a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?

And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, go.

So the girl went and called the child's mother.

And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, take this child away and nurse him for me and I will give you your wages.

So the women took the child and nursed him.

When the child grew older, she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter and he became her son.

She named him Moses because she said, I drew him out of the water.

This is the word of the Lord.

Let's pray together, shall we?

Lord, as you made yourself known to your people Israel, I pray that you would now make yourself known to us this morning.

By your spirit, I pray that through your word, you would show us more of Christ and change us from glory to glory.

I pray this in his name.

Amen.

So Exodus, the original title for the book is actually the Hebrew title is Names.

We've got Exodus in English, but the original title is Names.

And the most important name, as we've just said in the book of Exodus, is the name of God.

But as the book begins, it begins by giving us the names of some other people.

Here we see in the very starting verses that God gives and establishes the identity of his people.

So it begins with this list of names.

When you look at this list of names, you start to notice if you've read the book of Genesis before and know anything about it,

you'll know that these are names that we've already heard the stories of these people were being told about here.

And so as we're starting Exodus, we're being told, you know, Genesis shouldn't be too far away from your mind.

In fact, the very first word of the book of Exodus, although it says these here, the word is actually and these.

It's a kind of continuation, a conjunction.

I don't know about you, but I was told not begin sentences with the word and.

Well, the book of Exodus begins with the word and.

So it's saying we're continuing on from what we've already seen in the book of Genesis.

And Genesis ends by telling us about how God brought the family of Jacob or the people of Israel to Egypt.

It's this remarkable story about how God providentially blessed his people and made them a blessing even through their suffering.

And the fact was that Egypt, though, although God was blessing them there, Egypt was never to be their permanent home.

So in Genesis chapter 46, for example, God promises that, yes, he's going to be with them in Egypt.

He's going to bless them in Egypt, but he's also going to bring them out of Egypt.

And by the time we get to Exodus chapter one, that first generation of people who were in Egypt have now died.

But God is continuing to be with his people and bless them in Egypt, just as he said he would.

You see that also in verse seven, that kind of ongoing blessing.

Let's read that again.

It says,

That's taking us not just to the end of the book of Genesis, but also the beginning of the book of Genesis.

It's almost like deja vu.

I don't know if you ever experienced deja vu.

I'm sure we all have at some point where you're maybe you're in the middle of conversation with somebody and you feel like, hang on a second.

I feel like I was saying the same thing to the same person in the same place, even though it's just happening now.

It's weird how deja vu happens.

Well, this is put before us in a way that should cause us a bit of deja vu because we feel like, hey, I've seen this before.

Because it's taking us back to Genesis chapter one.

God creates Adam and Eve.

When he creates them, what does he tell them to do?

He says, be fruitful and multiply.

It's the same kind of language that's being used here in verse seven, fruitful and multiply.

In Genesis chapter 12, God then calls Abraham to himself and he creates a people through him and through his family.

He promises to bless him and make his offspring a blessing to all the families of the earth.

And he makes these covenant promises known to him.

And they are then repeated to the future generations of Isaac and Jacob and their children.

So now here is God's people in Egypt.

And just like God told them in creation, told us in creation, and he says to them in Genesis 12 and other chapters,

they are fruitful and they're multiplying and they are filling the land.

In fact, later on, we read that there were about 600,000 men.

And then you've got the women and children that on top of that number.

So they have really filled the land here.

So God is continuing to bless and to multiply his image bearers just as he promised because it was God's intent from the start

to fill the earth with his image bearers.

You know, when you get to the New Testament, you see that this promise is then fulfilled through the gospel of Christ.

It is through the gospel.

We read in Colossians 1, for example, it talks, Paul there talks about how the gospel is bearing fruit and increasing throughout the world.

So it's through the gospel that we are given new life and it's through the gospel that we then bear fruit.

And it's through the gospel that God is multiplying his people throughout the world.

That's what it is to live a life of blessing, to know Christ and his work in our lives.

However, a life of blessing doesn't always feel like a life of blessing.

I don't know if you've experienced this.

You know, apparently about 64 percent of us experience what is referred to as the post-Christmas blues.

I don't know if you felt that already.

We've had this exciting time in December and now we've come into January.

You're kind of back to school or back to work and like reality sets in and life feels more like a burden than a blessing.

Maybe that's where you're at right now.

So it's important that we look at God's blessing on his people in the context here because God is blessing his people.

Yes, but they're about to experience some heavy burdens.

And through those burdens, he continues to bless his people.

So we're going to look at a couple of things.

We're going to look at, first of all, the problems they're facing.

And we're also going to look at the purpose that God is fulfilling.

Okay, so let's see the context of the blessing and that is the problems that they are facing.

It all begins with the arrival of this new king in verse 8, the new Pharaoh.

It says, now there arose a new king over Egypt who did not know Joseph.

Now, I don't know if you've ever been to a museum that's got your old mummies and that sort of thing.

You see old pictures of portraits of the Pharaohs that existed in Egypt.

And oftentimes on their headdress or on their crown as it were, what's on there?

It's often a cobra.

So you've got this serpent that they're identified with.

And that is really fitting that that's what they went with because what we read here is really reminiscent of Genesis chapter 3 in verse 1.

You know, in Exodus chapter 1, you know, so God is blessing and multiplying his people.

And it says, now there arose a king over Egypt.

But in Genesis chapter 3 verse 1, God had told his people to be fruitful and multiply.

But then it says, now there was a serpent who was more crafty than any other beast of the field.

And like the serpent who came before, this king who arises up, he is opposing God's people.

And he does it in crafty ways.

We're told shrewd ways here.

It's the same kind of language that is being used to describe him.

Yes, God's people are multiplying.

But there's a fear here.

Essentially, in Genesis 1, they were told to be fruitful and multiply and have dominion.

And that's what the Pharaoh is fearing here.

Because as they're multiplying, he literally says in verse 9, they are too many and too mighty.

So there was fear that they would have dominion.

There was fear that they would fight against him and escape the lands.

And so really, Pharaoh, right from the start, is working at cross purposes with God's promises for his people.

So God says, I'm going to bring you out.

And Pharaoh is worried that they're going to fight against him and leave.

So he hatches this plan.

And it comes through in several different ways.

But the first way is through that of slavery.

It says, verse 11, therefore they set tasks masters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens.

So Pharaoh brings the people of God into slavery.

And there's a word used for slavery here.

It's the word service.

And there's actually several different synonyms that are being used in English

because it would be odd for us to just say service, service, service, service, service.

We don't talk that way.

But it's repeated time and time again in Hebrew here because there's a point of emphasis being made here,

which we'll return to as we continue on in the book.

But here we see that the service that they're carrying out is forced by Pharaoh.

It is harsh.

It is heavy.

And it's done with the actual aim of afflicting them or doing them harm.

And so we feel the burdens of slavery and how it's written here.

So you feel this heaviness.

And what is Pharaoh using them to do?

Verse 11, to build his cities.

That's the aim.

So Pharaoh has these kind of building projects.

He's using the people for that end.

And something amazing is going to happen as the book of Exodus as a whole unfolds

because we're going to see an exact reversal of what we see here because God is going to set his people free.

But he does so in a way that reverses what they had before because before they were enslaved in Egypt,

they were they were servants in Egypt.

But God sets his people free in order that they might serve him.

So they're now serving God.

And here at the start in Egypt, Pharaoh has them serving in order to build him cities.

Well, when God sets his people free, they serve him and they serve him and dwell with him.

So the last part of Exodus is actually the building of the tabernacle where God is dwelling with his people.

So there's a full reversal here.

And let me just let me just recommend a sermon to you.

I recommended a book last week.

Let me recommend a sermon to you.

I made the mistake of listening to a sermon by Joel Brooks from Redeemer Community Church

because he's he's preached through the book of Exodus.

And I know many of you have heard him preach before, but he preached a sermon on this first chapter.

And he really drives home this point about who is it that we are serving.

And he talks about how Exodus isn't just like it isn't a declaration of independence.

God said saves his people, not just so that they might rule themselves,

because that's just another form of slavery.

He sets them free in order that they might learn to depend upon him and live under his good reign.

Because his reign isn't a burden.

It is a blessing.

But they're experiencing this hard kind of slavery right now.

And all of that is afflicting them, causing them to be bitter, to groan.

God is going to bring about some good in the future.

But the thing I want us to see here is that the good that God is going to bring about,

the blessing he's going to be bring about isn't just a future thing

because God's blessing is upon his people, even in the midst of their burdens.

So right here, even in their slavery, God continues to bless his people.

Notice verse 12 says, but the more they were oppressed,

the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad.

So here's the point that's being made here is that nothing is going to stop God from accomplishing

his good purposes in the lives of his people.

Even through their burdens, God is going to bless them.

I don't know if you've ever experienced a grease fire before.

I haven't experienced a grease fire.

But I'm told the worst thing that you can do if you see a grease fire is to do what?

Is to pour water.

Yeah, all over the grease fire because it's going to do what?

It's going to spread the fire everywhere.

And so you have almost a similar thing happening.

Pharaoh opposes God's people and he doesn't want to see them becoming many and mighty.

And yet they continue to multiply.

God continues to bless them.

We see this happening in other ways, like in the New Testament in Acts chapter 8.

God's people, the church are being persecuted.

And when they're persecuted, driven out of Jerusalem, what happens?

They then multiply.

They're fruitful and they're multiplying.

God's church grows and spreads all over the place.

And that happens time and time again throughout history.

Even in recent decades, you know, you see the growth of the church happening in places

like China or places like Iran where the church has been oppressed.

And yet it is growing.

It is multiplying.

The fact is that no matter how God's people are opposed, no matter how Satan seeks to thwart

the purposes of God, they will not ultimately prevail.

That's true on a grand scale, but it's also true in the lives of everyone who belongs

to Christ.

You know, Scripture will go on to use the language of slavery to speak about the problems

that we face in this world.

It uses it to speak about slavery to sin, being enslaved by sin.

It also speaks of suffering as a kind of enslavement as we're living in this fallen world.

But even in the midst of our suffering and even in the midst of our struggle with sin

or people sinning against us, even in the midst of that, God still accomplishes his

good purposes because he sent a Redeemer who sets us free from sin.

There's coming a day when he will set us free from all suffering and death will be no more.

So here in our text this morning, we see that the life of blessing that God calls us to

doesn't begin when he delivers us from all of our earthly problems that we are facing.

God's purposes are still at work even in the midst of them.

Even when we feel these burdens, we can know that God is still at work and if we are in

Christ, we can say that we are blessed with every spiritual blessing in him.

As it says in Ephesians 1.

But then you still have these burdens.

Do they feel heavy?

I mentioned a history museum where you're looking at Pharaoh.

Let's make our way over to an art museum.

Over recent years, I've started enjoying doing that kind of thing a bit more and you

can see a painting on like Google Images and you look at it.

But the thing about a painting that you see on Google Images as opposed to going to an

art museum is it kind of flattens the painting out a bit.

And so when you go to a museum, especially when you're looking at like an impressionist

painting or something like that, you can actually get right up close to the painting

and you can see the brushstrokes that are there and the gobs of paint that are there.

So you can see from that perspective of what's going on, but that you can also step away

from the painting and you can see the bigger picture of what the artist is actually portraying

there.

So you can see it from two different vantage points.

You're kind of experiencing it in a couple of different ways.

Well, that's a way we can look at Exodus chapter 1.

We can get right up close to the suffering these people are experiencing and say that

is awful.

It doesn't make sense.

We're right up against it.

But then it also invites us here in this chapter and the first couple of chapters to step back

as well and to see that even though they're experiencing that very real suffering, it

is part of a bigger picture, a bigger story, a greater thing that God is bringing about

through that.

A passage like this reminds us that we can do the same so often.

I don't know about you, but I live with my nose right up against the painting.

You know, I see the suffering that I'm experiencing.

I feel the hardships of life and a passage like this reminds me to step back, yes, feel

that, but also step back and see that God is still at work accomplishing his plan.

And that's not to say that I can look at every single individual thing that I experience

and say, well, oh, that's the reason.

That's the purpose.

I'm not saying that at all.

I'm saying we can see it in light of a God who is accomplishing his goodwill.

So let's see how this continues to play out here.

All right.

So plan A didn't work.

All right.

So Pharaoh tries to slavery, but that's not enough.

So he moves to plan B and he moves from affliction to elimination.

But he's undermined and he's undermined by five courageous women.

First, you see Pharaoh ordering two Hebrew midwives to kill the sons who are born to

the people of Israel.

So here you've got this enormous power differential between these midwives and literally the guy

who's in charge of the Egyptian Empire, probably the most powerful man in the world at the

time, still they decide to quietly disobey his unjust command and let these sons live.

What courage they had in doing that.

And then the explanation that they give is pretty hilarious.

They say, well, these women are just vigorous.

You know, they give birth before we even get there.

And it seems that Pharaoh buys it.

But one thing that's pretty interesting here is it's almost once again a reversal of what

we see happening in the Garden of Eden.

So imagine instead of the serpent deceiving the woman, the woman deceives the serpent.

So Pharaoh comes along and he's he's oppressing the people.

And yet these women now deceive the Pharaoh.

And God's blessing continues.

You see, he deals well with these midwives and he blesses them and he gives them families.

But notice why he does this.

You see this in verse 17 and verse 21, because they feared God.

They feared God.

So they were able to defy this powerful man because they feared someone who was greater.

Sure, Pharaoh was somebody to be afraid of, but they knew that they had someone far greater

that they were going to have to give an account to.

They didn't just see Pharaoh.

They saw God.

So many people live for the approval of others or under the eye of others or take the path

of least resistance in the world where we experience all kinds of pressures to conform.

But here we see that a life of true blessing is found by those, is experienced by those

who live before the Lord of all.

They don't live under the expectation of others.

They live consciously in the sight of God.

They remember the one who reigns over all things.

And yes, they fear the one who reigns over all things, just as Jesus told us to do in

Matthew chapter 10 and verse 28.

Here we see not only God's greatness as the one who's to be feared, but we also see his

goodness at work.

So God is sovereign over all, but he is sovereignly accomplishing his gracious plans for his people.

We see that even in what happens next.

Well, plan B doesn't work, so let's see the next plan.

Pharaoh moves to plan C, and it is horrific.

He orders that all the newborn sons be cast into the Nile River.

Let's come right up close to the painting again, the suffering.

Imagine the heartache that people were experiencing.

You know, chapter two begins with what should be a time of celebration.

You've got this wedding that happens, and then this woman has a baby, and when she has

the baby, they discover that it is a son.

It should be a wonderful time, a joyous occasion, but you can imagine the horror, the fear that

settles in.

What happens next is remarkable, and Hebrews chapter 11 talks about it as an example of

faith.

So it says, look at Moses' mother.

She's an example of trusting in God.

So what does she do?

She takes the son, and she puts him into the river, just as Pharaoh said, but before she

does that, she constructs this basket.

So she has this basket, and she covers it in this kind of waterproof material that you

read about here so that it'll float, and she puts him in that basket.

And yes, she puts him in the river, but it's in that basket.

And that's not the first time the word basket is used.

That's the same word that is called the ark in the book of Genesis.

So literally, she constructs this ark.

And in this ark, this little baby boy is put into this place that was intended for death,

and yet on the other side, he is brought to life.

God saves him.

Through this, God preserves and saves his people.

You have this amazing turn of events here.

Pharaoh's own daughter then comes to the water.

She sees the basket, and she sends one of her servants over to the basket, and in it,

she discovers there's this baby who is crying.

Over on the side of the river, Moses' sister sees all that's happening, and she offers

to go and to get one of the Hebrew women to nurse this baby for Pharaoh's daughter.

And amazingly, Pharaoh's daughter not only agrees, but she also says that she would pay

this lady to do this.

Of course, we read that this was his own mother.

So you've got this mother now reunited with this baby.

So God was at work, even through the pain, bringing about his good purpose.

But there's something even greater happening here.

The Pharaoh's daughter adopts this son to be her own, and she calls his name Moses,

drawn, because she drew him out of the water.

You see, through these seemingly tragic circumstances, God provided the deliverer of his people.

God was accomplishing his saving purposes.

Now, I can't imagine how hard it must have been for Moses' mother or for his sister,

but her experience here shows us that we can trust in God, that he is still doing something good.

We can hold even things that are dear to us with open hands, trusting that God is still in control.

So yes, like the midwives, we should fear God, but like Moses' mother, we should put our

faith in God, because he's not only great, he is so good.

Yes, there are times when we will go through unimaginable hardships, but even in those times,

as we cry out to God and wonder where he is in our groaning, we can still know that his good purposes will prevail.

God is providentially behind the scenes, as it says in Romans chapter 8,

working all things together for the good of those who love him, for those who are called according to his purpose.

And really, this whole section, it's really portraying what we read about in Romans 8.

God's accomplishing work and all these for the good of his own.

You know, we can say, if God is for us, who can be against us?

No Pharaoh, no opposition, no suffering, because God is for us.

We can say, nothing in all of creation, not even death itself,

can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

God is accomplishing his saving purposes, not only in the world, but in our lives,

and he's using everything to conform us to the image of his son, because he's multiplying his image-bearers.

He wants to be glorified through our lives.

And so, how should we conclude?

Let's conclude by knowing, first of all, that true freedom is knowing that we belong to the God

whose good purposes always prevail, no matter the problems that we face.

He blesses us through hardship.

Our lives can bear fruit even in the desert.

But there's no better place for us to end than by looking to Jesus himself.

You see, when Jesus was born, an ungodly king wanted him to be put to death.

He wanted all these baby boys to be killed, and yet God preserved his life.

And he preserved it in Egypt, nonetheless.

And Jesus continued to be opposed throughout his life.

And then, in the end, he was put to death at the hands of sinful men.

And yet, through their sinful actions and through his immense suffering,

God brought about the greatest good that has ever been known,

because through Jesus' suffering and his death,

he accomplished redemption from slavery to sin and death.

And through faith in Christ, we can know that we have passed from death to life.

We will be with him forever.

No matter how hard life gets through faith in him, we can step back, see the big picture,

and know that because of Jesus, God will bring about every good promise that he has made to us.

As we come to communion, this is what we are reminded of.

We are reminded of Jesus' body that was broken for us upon the cross.

We are reminded of his blood that was shed for us.

And all of this was to redeem us and to bring us to himself.

God accomplished his purpose in our lives through the death and resurrection of Jesus.

So when we come forward and we receive this bread,

we're saying, I'm putting my trust in Jesus who did this for me.

So if you have turned from your sin and put your faith in Jesus,

you are invited to come and partake of this bread.

If you've made that public through baptism, if you're willing to identify with Jesus in that way,

then we come and we identify continually with him in this way where we're saying,

I believe that he died for me.

I believe that his body was broken and his blood was shed.

So we're receiving this by faith with thanksgiving for what he has done for us

to redeem us and bring us to himself.