Today we’re starting a new sermon series. We’re still in Exodus, but it’s a whole new sermon series on learning how to navigate by God’s promises. And today we’re looking especially at trusting God when life falls apart. Has that ever happened to you where everything just kind of seems to unravel? Uh, you did the right thing. You prayed, you waited on God, you discerned, you got, you sought Godly counsel and you followed God, and you stepped out in faith, maybe in your career, in your marriage, in a move, in a ministry. Stepped out in faith, but suddenly the wheels just kind of seemed to come off. Yeah, and you end up wondering like, did I mishear God? Or is there something in me, some sin that’s blocking things up? Or why does everything seem to be falling apart? And that is where we find ourselves today as we begin this new sermon series navigating by God’s Promises. We’re gonna be looking at Exodus chapter five. So invite you to turn in your Bibles or devices there to follow along. Let me kind of set the context. We’re picking up right where we finished last week. Moses and Aaron, they’re finally ready to do God’s will in God’s Way. That was the last sermon series for eight weeks. We looked at that. They’re now going to Egypt and they’re gonna confront the most powerful person in the known world at that time. Pharaoh. King of Egypt and to man, let my people go. We had that sung at our former services. It was so well done. That was the message that God gave to Moses. And he gave Moses and Aaron these stunning signs of God’s power, his presence and his purpose going with them. And so when Mary Moses and Aaron arrive in Egypt, they meet with the leaders of Israel and they, they hear it. They believe God’s word, and they. Worship God following God’s will in God’s way. Things are going wonderfully awesome, most excellent. Finally doing God’s will in God’s way. And then when Moses and Aaron stepped forward and first meet with Pharaoh, ooh. Things go from bad to worse. The train comes off the track. So we’re gonna read this chapter five. Hang in there with me. It’s a bit long, but it is rich and thick in its tapestry of the narrative. So lemme start reading an Exodus chapter five. This is now after Moses and Aaron confront Pharaoh. Pharaoh said, who is the Lord that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord and I will not let Israel go. Then they, this is Moses and Aaron said, the God of the Hebrews is met with us. Now. Let us take a three day journey into the wilderness to offer sacrifices to the Lord our God, or he may strike us with plagues or with the sword. But the king of Egypt said, Moses and Aaron, why are you taking the people from their labor? Get back to your work. Then Pharaoh said, look, the people of the land are now numerous and you are stopping them from working. That same day. Pharaoh gave this order to the slave drivers and overseers in charge of the people. You are no longer to supply the people with straw for making bricks. Let them go and gather their own straw, but require them to make the same number of bricks as before. Don’t reduce the quota. They’re lazy. That’s why they’re crying out. Let us go and sacrifice to our God, make the work harder for the people so that they keep working and pay no attention to life. Then the slave drivers and the overseers went out and said to the people, this is what Pharaoh says. I will not give you any more straw. Go and get your own straw wherever you can find it, but your work will not be reduced at all. So the people scattered over all Egypt to gather stubble to use for straw. The slave drivers kept pressing them, saying, complete the work required of you for each day, just as when you had straw and Pharaoh, slave drivers beat the Israelite overseers.

They had appointed demanding. Why haven’t you met your quota of bricks yesterday or today, as before four. Then the Israelite overseers went and appealed to Pharaoh. Why have you treated your servants this way? Your servants are given no straw yet. We are told make bricks. Your servants are being beaten, but the fault is with your own people. Pharaoh said lazy. That’s what you are, lazy. That is why you keep saying, let us go and sacrifice to the Lord. Now get to work. You will not be given any straw yet. You must produce your full quota of bricks. The Israelite overseers realized they were in trouble when they were told you are not to reduce the number of bricks required of you for each day. When they left Pharaoh, they found Moses and Aaron waiting to meet them and they said, may the Lord look on you and judge you. You have made us obnoxious to Pharaoh and his officials and have put a sword in their hand to kill us. Wow. What just happened? Moses and Aaron, they were doing God’s will in God’s way. They stepped forward in faith. They obeyed, they confronted Pharaoh, they declared God’s word. And Pharaoh, he makes things worse and not just by a little bit, but brutally. So what’s going on? Good question, and I think it’s one that we might ask our today as well, that when we follow God’s will in God’s way, have you found that things don’t always go well? When life gets tough, and it does for all of us, we can begin to have questions ourselves, questioning God, is he good? Is he there? Does he care? Has he abandoned us? We see this in our text. So here’s my first assertion for us today, and I want you to hear this carefully. Following God may make things worse before they get better. It did so on our text. When Moses and Aaron bring God’s word to Pharaoh, Pharaoh doesn’t respond with repentance. He reacts with punishment, and who gets blamed? It’s Moses and Aaron. Even the Israelite foreman say to them, may the Lord look on you and judge you. You’ve made as obnoxious to Pharaoh. And so Moses does, I think what we all might do, he, he questions God, why, Lord, have you brought trouble on this people? Is that why you sent me? Now, listen, this isn’t Moses in disobedience. This is a, a disciple of God wrestling, honestly. And so hear this, sometimes the greatest evidence that you might be doing God’s will is not that everything goes right, but that the enemy hits back. Have you experienced that? Have you been there? You stepped forward in faith only to get knocked backward by reality. But my dear friends hear this, you must understand hardship is not always a sign of failure. In fact, in Christ, it may be the clearest sign that you are finally pushing back against the enemy, and it may be the very place and way in which God does his deepest work and gets the greatest glory. That’s when we need to remember the words that Andy read for us from Isaiah. They had their questions. Why do you complain, Jacob? Why do you say Israel? My way is hidden from the Lord? My cause is disregarded by my God. It’s that same kind of question and God’s response. Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God. He gives strength to the weary, those who hope. When the Lord will renew their strength, they will soar on wings like eagles. In other words, God doesn’t abandon us in our weariness. In fact, I think he can most deeply meet us in our weakness. Jesus himself said, in this world. You will have trouble, but take heart. I’ve overcome the world. In Acts chapter 14, the Apostle Paul teaches We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.

Friends, this is what the Bible teaches. But it’s certainly not what our culture wants to hear, and even in the Christian Church, it’s not always what’s being taught or preached in pulpit or on stages these days. And I think this is what makes Victory Lutheran special. The strong commitment to preach what the Bible says the entire council of Scripture, not necessarily what you or I want to hear. Let me kind of put it in a seminary level kind of way. Here at Victory, we do not preach a theology of glory. Here at Victory, we preach a theology of the cross. Let, let me explain. Just as following, God may make things worse before they get better. Get this the way of Jesus is the way of the cross. It was Martin Luther who made this clear distinction between what he called a theology of glory. And a theology of the cross. A theology of glory says, Hey, if I follow God, then life is guaranteed to be easy. It’s like God’s indebted to help me and bless me no matter what. A theology of the cross in contrast says, if I follow Jesus, it’s a call then to take up my cross. A theology of glory assumes that God is always found in strength and power, and success and comfort. A theology of the cross insists God is most revealed in weakness, suffering, and in the cross. In other words, according to the Bible, the, the smiling victorious face of God is hidden in the suffering face of Jesus Christ. Luther writes about this. He says he deserves to be called a theologian. Lemme just say you are all theologians. It just depends what theology you’re practicing. Luther writes, he does. He deserves to be a theologian who comprehends the visible. And manifest things of God seen through suffering and the cross. I mean, the Bible says, and Jesus said clearly, whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily. And follow me. He, he didn’t say, life’s gonna be easy. He said It’s gonna be marked by the cross. The apostle Paul knew this all too well. His ministry wasn’t marked by ease. Not at all. It was filled with hardship. He writes, I’ve worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely. I’ve been exposed to death again and again. Wow. Paul wasn’t boasting out of strength. He was boasting really in a posture of weakness. And why could he boast? It’s because he knew this, that God’s power is made perfect in weakness. Uh, I, I’ve got a personal experience of this in my own life. Um, I was, I had planned to go to seminary and I, I believe that God had called me to start my own business to fund it. So I started Matheson concessions. It was essentially a food truck or, or trailer, uh, that, you know, I had stepped out in faith. I believed that God was calling me to do this, so I, I financed it all the best I could. So I purchased the stand on credit, a step van, uh, another vehicle for the crew. All the equipment, hired the crew book the route only on the very first day to my very first spot. Totaled my trailer on the freeway on my way to that first spot I’d spent all that money I’d borrowed, leaving only 300 bucks left for starting change. I can clearly vividly remember driving to our first event. It was in Montana. The sun was shining in that big sky country of Montana and about a mile west of Mile City. Our first fuel stop. We’re going down this gentle left-hand curve on I 94 when I look back in my rear view mirror and there’s my trailer a hundred feet behind me. It detached from the step van, the single axle trailer cruising along, going downhill on the interstate. So I thought, okay, I’ll, I’ll slow the step van down and kinda get in front of it and bring it to a stop only to discover in the vast expanse of all the, the freeways in Montana. What to my wondrous eyes should appear, but a car in that right shoulder, and all I could do is watch it like in slow motion, my trailer coming down, kissing off the guardrail just to hit the car square in the rear.

I slammed on the brakes, ran back to the scene of the accident, only to see people climbing out of that car there were six. They’d been out there picking up trash on the freeway. Now none of them are hurt, which is actually the biggest miracle of all. It really is. I found out later that the problem with that trailer was that it was a four inch, uh, metal hitch. I had the safety chains hooked up to the, to the step van. It was at the trailer insert where that. The hitch had grown a fracture, crack all around it, and that’s what eventually broke off. I told the person who sold that trailer to me about this, he went back, his three other trailers like that had that same issue. We all fixed that. We welded it up, but I gotta say a long story short, and once all the people were tended to, I had that trailer towed into Miles City. And spent the next two days there working around the clock to try to rebuild the skin of the trailer, get it ready to pass health inspection, and to make all sure that all the equipment was working. I arrived at my spot, then two days late. But still had my space and we started to finally make some sales. And I vividly remember that Sunday morning at that spot in Fort Kipp Montana, reading in the scriptures for my morning devotions before we open for breakfast from James chapter four and get this, here’s from God’s word. Now listen, you who say today or tomorrow will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money. Why you do not even know what will happen tomorrow? What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, if it’s the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that. As it is, you boast in your arrogance schemes. All such boasting is evil. Bang, that just hit me square between the eyes. It’s what I could call one of my kairos moments when time just stood still, and I’m transfixed and I pray transformed by God’s word. It spoke deeply to me there because I think I was at one of my weakest points in life, and I pray that I’ve kept that spirit of in the Lord, in all who I am in my life and ministry. Hey, I was sure that God had called me to start that business to pay for seminary of all things, but it didn’t mean that the journey would not be fraught with challenge. Rather, God had a larger agenda in store, and that was for me to learn to navigate my life, not by my circumstances, but by God’s promises. And friends. It may be that very same for you this day, the suffering in your life, your setback, your frustration, whatever it might be. What, what do you do with that? What’s your functional theology? Do you get tripped up or stuck with a theology of glory that, hey, God is there for your personal comfort and blessing primarily, or. Is it more as Jesus would say, a theology of the cross that for God’s glory to be seen in your life, it happens when you are the weakest and you’re living according to his word, not your circumstance. Here at Victory, we preach and teach and live a theology of the cross. Where the Christian life, it’s about following Jesus. And as he said, taking up our cross daily as we follow him. Following God may make things worse before they get better. The way of Jesus is the way of the cross. And third and finally, God speaks his strongest promises when we are weakest. Let me take us back to Exodus now into chapter six. Chapter five. Things have gone from bad to worse. Moses and Aaron and Israel, they were at their lowest point, and yet this is precisely where they were learning to navigate by God’s promises, not their circumstances. Listen to what God says to them. Then the Lord said to Moses, now. You will see what I will do to Pharaoh because of my mighty hand. He will let them go because of my mighty hand. He will drive them out of his country. God also said to Moses, I am the Lord. I appear to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name, the Lord. I did not make myself fully known to them. I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan where they resided as foreigners.

Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the Israelites, whom the Egyptians are enslaving, and I have remembered my covenant. Therefore, say to the Israelites. I am the Lord and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment, I will take you as my own people and I will be your God. Then you’ll know that I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from another yoke of the Egyptians, and I will bring you to the land I swore with uplifted hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you as a possession. I am the Lord. Come on. Promise after promise, after promise. Reminders of God’s covenant promises made to his people throughout their history. Eight times in these verses, God says, I will four times. He says I am. Five times. He says, I can. He’s not saying you must. He’s not saying, Hey, if you’re strong enough, if you have enough faith. Rather you saying, I will, reminding them of God’s covenant, God’s power, and God’s name. It’s like what we prayed before, that His is the kingdom, God’s is the power. God’s is the glory now and forever. Amen. 17 promises not one command. In other words, when Moses and Israel are at rock bottom, God doesn’t say, Hey, come on, try harder. Rather, he says, watch me. I’ve got this. And that may be what God is saying to you this day. It’s what the Apostle Paul asserts in two Corinthians where he says. Speaking God’s word, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Let me take a pastoral aside here and just speak to us as a congregation at this point in time. Every so often, God gives a church a moment.
That can feel like we’re standing on a threshold. The door is open, the spirit is speaking, and we can sense that God is inviting us to take this next step together. I believe that’s where victory is right now in our existence. We’re calling it Victory Forward, a prayerful initiative to initiative to see God extend his kingdom through us here in the East Valley. Two weeks ago, our vis Victory forward vision team met this past week, followed by a staff retreat where we were prayerfully asking, God, where are you leading us? We had these times together with God kind of, and his burning bush, listening to his voice, discerning God’s will and how it’s to be done in God’s way, and we remembered. The ways that God has used victory in our 48 years of history to make a kingdom impact here in the East Valley and beyond. And we began to see more clearly how he’s uniquely shaped us for the future and this mission field that he’s placed us in. One thing stood out that God has uniquely called and equipped victory over the years to reach people in what we call the second half of life. Now, this is not to the exclusion of anyone else. We’re gonna serve all who are connecting with victory, all to whom God has sent us and is sending to us. But there’s a special mission field that we’re smack dab in the middle of people in the second half of life, that there’s no church plant going out to reach people preparing to retire and beyond. But that’s who we’ve reached. Wonderfully by God’s power and grace in these prior 48 years, it’s the way that he’s gifted us, and we wanna invest those talents to see those multiplied here at Victory people. In the second half of life and all who become connected with us are transformed by the power of the gospel and then empowered by the Holy Spirit to lead others into God’s mission. Frontiers. From these gatherings and the shared conviction, we’ve discerned five key initiatives, and it came out in the e-blast this week. Uh, you’ll be hearing more about it in the weeks ahead. It, but we wanna strengthen who we are as victory right here in Mesa, and then seek to expand beyond where we are here.

So we wanna. Ramp up our disciple making. We wanna expand the opportunities for volunteers and servant leadership. We wanna nurture and foster a joyful, generous stewardship culture among us. And we wanna form missional small groups to reach deeper into the communities right around us here in Mesa, and then somewhere else to plant another church here in the East Valley. These aren’t just bullet points for some brochure. These are invitations, all of them, to all of us, to pray, to serve, to give, to go. Teams are starting to form. Plans are in the early stages of taking shape, and I’ll tell you as your pastor, the road ahead, it’s gonna require courage and faith. And joyful sacrifice as we believe we are discerning God’s will, we want to do it in God’s way. But doing that, if you’re noticing our text, doesn’t mean it’s guaranteed just to be an easy walk. So if things get harder before they get easier, don’t panic. God isn’t failing. In fact, he may be working and he may just be bringing us to the place where his power and glory will be revealed and shine the brightest just as he did with Moses and Aaron and the people of Israel. Here’s a key proverb to keep in mind as we journey together in victory forward in their hearts. Humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps. In other words, we discern God’s will. As we can best understand it and then pray that God will guide us step by step. This is our moment for us now, our time to follow where he leads. Trusting that the same God who has led us this far will do a measurably more than all we can ask or imagine as together we see God move victory forward. Now let me close by asking what does all this, especially our text mean for you today personally? Well, it means this as you follow Jesus and yet your plans fall apart when your road gets tough, when you step out in faith and follow God’s will, and yet things don’t seem to go well. Don’t panic. Don’t quit. Don’t assume God has left you. Do this instead. Remember God’s promises. Remember Jesus. Remember the cross. When life falls apart, remember God’s word, his promises to you. And as you do remember that you are not abandoned and you may actually be on the very path. From which God has chosen to reveal his glory in your life, to you and through you, to others. And as you do, you’ll learn to navigate your life, not by your circumstances, but according to God’s promises. And get this, you, you are not called to carry the cross alone because Jesus first carried it for himself and he walks with you still. Remember this prophecy from Isaiah 53. Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering. He was pierced for our transgressions, and by his wounds we are healed. In other words, Jesus himself, he took the road of suffering, of humiliation, of rejection, even of death, so that you could walk the road of redemption and of, of restoration, and of resurrection. And that’s the good news of God’s love for us in Jesus. Jesus died for you. He rose again for you, and he now walks with you even. And maybe especially when the path gets dark, and one day Jesus will return and make all things new. Even so Lord Jesus, come quickly. And so today, trust him. Trust God, even when life seems to fall apart, because God’s promises never do. They are faithful and they endure forever. Navigate your life by God’s promises, not your circumstances. Jesus Christ himself, our redeemer followed the father’s will and it led straight to calvary. But through his death, God’s glory was most clearly revealed. And through this, we’ve received eternal life. Remember this promise from God, he who did not spare his own son, how will he not also graciously give us all things? And remember, Jesus didn’t just die. He rose again, and you will too. And that’s a promise you can claim. And clinging to not a life of ease, but clinging to a savior who bled for you, rose again for you, and now walks with you. So when you are obeying God and things go from bad to worse, remember Jesus. Remember the cross. When the mission is hard, lean into God’s promises and when you feel weak. Trust his promise of I am. I can and I will learn to navigate life, not by your circumstances, but by God’s promises. Join me in prayer.

Father, when we are weak, be our strength. When we are confused, be our guide. When the way ahead is hard, give us the courage to keep going because of Jesus. Thank you for your promises. Thank you for the cross, and thank you that even when life falls apart, you hold us together. I pray this in Jesus’ powerful name. Amen.