series: The God who remembers #
verse: Exodus 5:1-23 #
Main Idea: #
In the previous chapter, for the first time in decades, Moses receives a greater calling. To take his family to return to Egypt and do the work of God. Moses was convinced to take action, at the cost of a comfortable life. But Moses was unsuccessful at persuading Pharaoh and resulted in the Israelites living an even more difficult life. He begins to doubt himself and God and says, “Why have you sent me here?”. Disappointment is inevitable. It can even come from God. Why does God deliver us from disappointment instead of preventing it? Why am I constantly disappointed?
The cause of disappointment #
The reason why people become disappointed is we are mistaking God’s battle as our battle. Sometimes the obstacles we face are not for us to deal with, rather for God to deal with. When we carry God’s battles, the subsequent obstacles are not our own personal failures. We are simply carriers and vessels for these battles. A good example of this is when you’re doing evangelical work or just praying for your peers to find God. There is often times no result. But it is not our job to produce results. That’s God’s job. Our job is simply to be a servant, a vessel, a devout follower of Jesus Christ.
The effect of disappointment #
Pain is often the direct effect of disappointment, but what’s important to discern is the direction of the pain. If pain is not processed correctly, it can often be used as fuel to misdirect the hurt at other people. In the verses, we find that the Israelites are subject to worse living conditions because of what Moses had done. And as a result, the Israelites condemn Moses and Aaron, when in reality they should be angry at Pharaoh who is enslaving them.
The solution to disappointment #
But there is a good reason as to why God allows us to be disappointed. Because it leads us to address God directly, which will often grow an intimate communionship with God. Though the pain is still real, it will transform our hearts to have a greater relationship with God. Without pain, we often neglect God. When everything is going well, we sometimes think of ourselves as a god. But this is disgustingly incorrect, and we should understand our deliverance better. There are two avenues of response:
- Secular response
- Biblical response What was so special about how Moses responded? Although he complained, he at least turned to the Lord to complain directly at God. This is a stark contrast to how the Israelites responded because they were angry with Moses. God’s main goal was not to simply free the Israelites from Egypt. It was to get his people to serve Him (God), to draw them nearer to Him.
Why does God allow us to be disappointed? #
Disappointment exposes our false hopes and idols. Everytime we feel disappointment, we should use it as a reminder to reflect over what truly matters in our lives. Our hope should be rooted in God, and not in worldly things.
Prayer #
Gracious God, thank you. Thank you for showing to us how you are delivering through disapopintment. Lord, we don’t want to be disappointed by all of these people. Especially to those we trust. And more than anything we don’t want to be disappointed by you. But today lord we learned why we are disappointed. Because we have the wrong expectations. Your battle was mistaken for ours. we believe that we have to do somethin when it’s your word we have to continue trusting lord we pray that we will not be ovewhelmed by all of these disapointments and misdirecting this hurt to tohers. but instead turn to you as moses did, in honest communion where our pain is transformed into intimacy with you where we get to see your beauty, love, and care. as we remember this kind of love through your son jesus chrsit who came down and suffered for our behalf. he accepted and endured this pain and was crucified because he saw that victory is coming. May this same vision of hope be implanted in our hearts, where the pain is not in our hearts, but instead transferred to you so that we may have peace and be closer to you.