Today we continue our journey in the Book of Exodus with Moses especially, and we’re gonna be looking at God’s invitation that he gave to Moses and he gives to us today to take his hand and follow where he leads. We’re gonna see that for Moses and sometimes for us we can be stranded sometimes in life. Yes. Have you ever been like really stranded? And you know, maybe it might be geographically, but can also happen spiritually or emotionally or relationally ever. Find yourself waking up one morning and kinda saying to yourself, Hey, you know, my life isn’t what I had planned it to be. Or, this isn’t who I thought I was supposed to become. Maybe it was a diagnosis that ambushed you, a job loss, a betrayal. An aging body or just the slow ache of dreams that never have materialized. I can remember being stranded once very vividly. It was, it was a geographic, uh, stranding. It was Christmas Eve, 1980. My brother and I, we were just two teenage boys trying to make it on a road trip from Minnesota. All the way out to British Columbia to spend Christmas with some friends. Our parents had left a half year earlier to begin a 20 year career as missionaries in Africa, so we were on our own and in our teens. Now reach back in your memory banks, those of you who can. 1980, no GPS. No weather app, no cell phones, just these two teenage boys. And the 64 2 door, hard top, Thunderbird. And Iran McNally Atlas. Remember those? Love those. And also waiting for us. Unbeknownst was a North Dakota blizzard just down the road and somewhere around Minot, North Dakota, south of there at about three in the morning. In the pitch dark of winter, the T-Bird just died completely. No lights, no engine, no power, no heat. Turns out the alternator had failed and the battery had died and with it, so did every ounce of confidence that we had. When we left, we were stranded. I mean, truly stranded certainly wasn’t what we had planned. And so we just kind of sat there, you know, the wind was howling outside, snow was starting to pile up on the windshield, and we were praying in the darkness. Just two kids. With no backup plan and then headlights, actually red and blue lights in the rear view mirror. I’ve never been so grateful to see red and blues flashing behind me. Before it was a, a highway patrol. The officer, uh, drove up and, and he gave us a ride in a Minot to a garage. There. We had some friends we reached out to. They paid for the alternative repair, and by noon we were back on our way. A little Christmas miracle for us. But the story of being stranded doesn’t end there later that evening. Now we’d crossed the border into Canada. It was bone chilling, cold. My memory says 20 below Fahrenheit at least, and a bitter wind. And we stopped in Regina, Saskatchewan for gas, and I didn’t. It was so cold out, I didn’t check the oil just filled on gas and took off. Sure enough, 30 miles north. In Lumsden, Saskatchewan. I still remember the valley. We drove down into the engine and all of a sudden it just stopped. It seized up. I’d driven it dry of oil engine seized dead again, and this time for good. And there we are at five 30. Christmas Eve stranded a second time on the side of a rural highway once again. In the dark, in the cold alone again, and then headlights again, and the driver pulls over, took us up to a towing company, the end of the valley, and the owner on Christmas Eve towed our car and then let us warm up in his office in the basement of his home. The kindness that we never saw coming, but we’re so grateful for now. We were still stuck. So we had to make some phone calls and with friends, and then with a bus company. We arranged for a bus to pick us up along the highway, an unscheduled stop. So we began to prepare. We packed all that we could in our carryon, carry along luggage, and then left the rest behind in the carcass of that T-Bird. And that night, as we’re kind of waiting. For time to go. My brother and I, we had a, a little, uh, soft gift from our parents. We knew that they were t-shirts and, uh, so kind of with, you know, stuffed tears, a little sniffling, Merry Christmas kind of pathetically, gave gifts to each other, uh, feeling very much still alone.

Well, we had to get back out on the road about 10 o’clock to meet that bus at night, and another storm was blowing in. So we’re walking along this upward slope on that highway to where the bus was supposed to pick us up. And then one more miracle headlights. Once again, a car pulls over beside us and the driver rolls down the passenger window and says, what? He probably thought, what are you two idiots doing out here? But what are you two guys doing out here? And we told him we’re waiting for a bus to take us to Saskatoon. And he paused and he smiled and he said, get in. That’s where I’m going. And this Christmas Samaritan, I. Drove us all the way to Saskatoon, to the front door of our friend’s home. And that night we slept in warm beds on Christmas Eve, and the next morning we worshiped with friends at church. It truly was, I mean, the most memorable Christmas of my life. Stranded yet not forgotten. So I ask again, have you ever been stranded? You don’t know quite how you got to be where you are, just that you’re not where you expected to be. And that’s where we find Moses in Exodus chapter two. So if you have Bibles or devices, I invite you to turn there. Moses once a prince in Pharaoh’s palace, he’s now a refugee in the wilderness of Midian. If you’ve been following with us these last few weeks, he’s stripped of title, reputation. On purpose, but God’s not finished with him. God hasn’t abandoned him. In fact, this desert, it’s exactly where God would meet Moses and reshape him. Moses himself would later write about both himself and his and his people, which Anne Red Forest earlier. Remember the days of old, he found them in a desert land, in a barren and howling waste. He shielded him and cared for him. He guarded him. As the apple of his eye. That’s what God did for Moses, for his people. That’s what God does for you and for me. You know, for Moses, his desert wasn’t a dead end. It was actually a doorway into God’s better future. And it can be the same for you as well. So whether in the, in the cold bitterness of of winter, or the barren heat of the desert. God still reaches out his hand to you and kind and whispers, invitational and says, take my hand and follow where I lead. And I’m telling you today that if you might be in your own kind of wilderness season journey, hang on. God hasn’t forgotten you. He’s not abandoned you. He’s not done writing your story and his word, it’s life. So take it to heart and take his hand. Let me read for us our text from Exodus chapter two, beginning at verse 21. And Moses was content to dwell with the man and he gave Moses his daughter, Zipporah. She gave birth to a son and he called his name Ham for, he said, I have been a sojourner in a foreign land during those many days. Yeah, 40 years. During those many days, the King of Egypt died and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God, and God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel and he knew. Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horab, the mountain of God. The Word of the Lord. Thank you. Thank God. Let me pray for us as we continue. Thank you living God for your living word. A story here of what you are doing in Moses’ life and now by your Holy Spirit. Speak to us what you’re doing in each of ours. And help us to hear your word, to see your hand, and reach out to it and place it in yours and find that’s the best place we could be. I ask in Jesus’ name. Amen. Amen. We dear friends, receive this blessing, grace and peace to you from God, our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. I wanna jump right into this with that long introduction. First point, the desert strips so that God can shape. 40 years before our text, Moses had been royalty, educated, powerful, a leader in Egypt, but then everything unraveled. He tried to be a hero. On his own terms, you looked at that earlier. It backfired.

He’d killed an Egyptian, buried the body in the sand, and then ran for his life, and from all that he had known into the wilderness. Now in the land of Midian, Moses is nameless titleless, and perhaps he thinks useless. Our text summarizes what happened to Moses. This way. Moses agreed to stay with the man. Who gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage? Zipporah gave birth to a son and Moses named him Ham saying, I’ve been a foreigner in a foreign land. For those of you who have been able to name your child, did the naming have any specific purpose or meaning? Moses names his son Ham, which means a stranger there. Stranger in a strange land. I mean, that’s grief language. And Moses isn’t just describing something geographically, he’s, he’s naming an ache, really, of the loss of identity. He’s saying, I’ve become a foreigner. He says, not just in land, but in calling and in purpose and meaning in my life. Yet I think sometimes. God lets us be stripped of the things that we tend to lean on position or plans or, or even our own pride because those things can keep us from leaning on. God. Martin Luther has written this. It is God’s nature to make something out of nothing. That is why he cannot make anything of someone who’s not yet nothing. If you are in a desert, feels like a wilderness season. God isn’t trying to destroy you. He’s probably trying to reshape you. It’s kind of a biblical pattern. We’ve seen it. If you know your Bible in Joseph who is betrayed and imprisoned before eventually leading Egypt, David hitting caves before taking the throne of Israel. The apostle Paul spent some years in Arabia and to and Tarsus before his missionary calling, and even Jesus was led into the wilderness desert 40 days by the Holy Spirit to be tested before his public ministry began. And yet we kinda want fast answers, don’t we? We’re kind of a microwave people, but God’s like a crockpot, isn’t he?
Sometimes. And. Not crackpot, don’t get me wrong, crockpot. ’cause God works sometimes in slow formation. You know what I mean? Peter writes this, humble yourselves under God’s mighty hand that he may lift you up in due time, but we want it right now, don’t we? So here’s a takeaway. If you feel like you’ve maybe lost your identity or purpose.
Remember, God isn’t done. His plan is still unfolding, and he’s probably doing deeper work in your life through even the shadows of this day, the desert strips so that God can shape. Secondly, the wilderness is where we learn to listen. Our text in chapter three of Exodus verse one. Now, Moses was tending the flock of Jethro and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horab the mountain of God. I mean, for this journey, it’s kind of hard to miss the irony here. The former Prince of Egypt is now a shepherd. He’s not leading people, just some bleeding sheep through scrub brush and desert hills. And yet it’s there in obscurity and even monotony that Moses encounters the fire of God. We’re gonna look at that more next week, but let this sink in. God didn’t meet Moses when he is in the palace. He met him in the pasture. Chuck Swindoll, one of my favorite. Um. Radio pass was when I was in college, reflects on this very passage saying the desert strips from you. All the things you hang onto for comfort, all the things that kept you from hearing God speak and isn’t that true? Sometimes the, the noise of success or the clutter of comfort can drown out God’s voice, but it’s in the wilderness. When your calendar is empty and your heart is cracked open, that God can finally get a word in the scripture seems to me repeatedly to show the desert as God’s classroom the property.

Elijah, out in the in the mountain wilderness, heard the still small voice of God, not in the wind or the fire, but in silence. And the people of Israel themselves wandered 40 years in the wilderness, not because God was lost, but to teach them to depend upon him. In fact, Moses wrote about this later in his life, and it’s a passage that Jesus himself even quoted. He writes, remember how the Lord your God led you to humble and test you to teach you. That man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. And sometimes the very place that you want out of is the places from which God is speaking. And when he speaks, it’s a word of grace. Jesus himself said this, come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. So if you’re in the obscurity of the wilderness, don’t despise the silence. Don’t resent the slowness. ’cause it might be where God’s voice is clearest and best heard by you. The desert strips so that God can shape the wilderness is where we learn to listen. And third and finally today, the God who calls. Is the God who comes. The New Testament retells, this story of Moses with this very brief overview statement. When Moses heard this, he fled to Midian after 40 years had passed and Angel appeared to Moses in the flames of a burning bush. Now 40 years, I mean, that’s longer than some of us here have been alive. Well, very few of us apparently, but come on. 40 years. 40 days, 40 minutes can seem like an eternity in our impatient hearts, can’t it? But God didn’t forget Moses. Over those 40 years, God was shaping him, speaking to him, and then he came to him. And God comes to us also, and I think this is how God works with all of his people, including you. You see the gospel. It’s not about us climbing our way up to God. The good news of Jesus, the gospel is God descending, almost climbing down into our wilderness. You see, Jesus didn’t stay in heaven. He humbled himself and entered the dust of our world. He faced loneliness, temptation, rejection, betrayal. He went to the cross willingly so that nothing, not even death, could separate you from him. The right of Hebrews says then for we do not have a high priest who’s unable. To sympathize, empathize with our weaknesses. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence. That’s the imitation that God has for you and for me this day. This is the same God who says to you today, take my hand and walk where I lead. Fix your eyes on me alone. ’cause you see, you may not know what tomorrow holds, but you can know the one who holds your tomorrows. And in this, it’s what the Walk of Faith is all about. The writer of Hebrews again says, faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. So yes, you might be in a wilderness experience and you don’t see what’s God. Where is God in this? What’s his plan? But God’s not gonna waste your wilderness experience and he will not let go of you. You are not alone. You are not abandoned by God. He is not forgotten you. I want to try to wrap this up by putting this simply your, your past. It’s not a prison. If you’re in a wilderness, it’s not a waste. Your desert is actually where God can do his deepest work in you. Now, you may feel like you’re stranded or forgotten or maybe even finished, but my friends, the cross says otherwise and the empty tomb says otherwise. So Jesus is saying, take my hand. And walk where I lead. Keep your eyes fixed on me alone. Don’t say that the old days were better. Trust me with the future that you cannot yet see.

So for some of you or even online, this may be the very next step of faith that God is calling you to do. It doesn’t mean that you understand it all, but it means that you trust the one who does. And someday, maybe not right now, but someday. You might look back on this time of wilderness and say, you know what? That’s where God met me most deeply. Let’s pray. Lord Jesus, you walked in into the wilderness of our lives so that we would never be alone. And when our dreams turn to dust, you offer us your hand. When we can’t see the way forward, you say, trust me, follow me. So give us the faith to trust you and the grace to walk with you, and the hope that even this day, dry land, the desert can bloom once again. In your precious name I pray, amen.