Sunday 4th January 2026

I am on. Yes, I was on. Thank you. The Lord said to Moses, now you'll see what I will do to Pharaoh because of my mighty hand. He will let them go because of my mighty hand. He'll drive them out of his country. God also said to Moses, I am the Lord. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob with 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 oak 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 will know that I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from under 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. Moses reported this to the Israelites. They did not listen to him because of their discouragement and harsh labor. This is the word of the Lord. So before I went on leave, we actually were looking at the Book of Exodus. I said we'll do a short series.

So what we're gonna do is pick that back up, um, over the next, uh, three or four weeks. Title of my message today is When Things Don't Go To Plan. We've already seen a little bit of that this morning, so let's, uh, let's commit this time for the Lord. Father, we thank you for your goodness to us. We thank you for the power of your word.

Holy Spirit, we invite you to come minister to our hearts through the word for the glory of our Lord and save Jesus Christ. Amen. Now, I think most of us here are suckers for inspirational stories. Yeah. Who doesn't love watching a movie or reading a book? That's inspirational. No one do you get inspired when you see something?

Good. Thank you. Now. Do you remember the, uh, film Chariots of Fire? Do you remember this? This is an inspirational film. It's the story of a man named Eric Liddell. He was known as the flying Spot, and he was the favorite to win old in the 100 meter sprint in the, you know, the Paris Olympics in 1924. It was just one problem at a Christian.

He held very strong personal convictions, and when he found out that the heats full a hundred meter sprint will be held on a Sunday, he refused to to run. He said, I'm a Christian. I'm not gonna run on a Sunday. He with, he withdrew from the event for him. Sunday was the Lord's Day, and he believed that honoring God was, you know, more important, far more important than personal glory or national pride.

Now, of course, the British offic officials, they were furious with him and the media. They went to town on him. They mocked him without mercy. They were saying, you've thrown away a golden opportunity, you know, to win a gold medal. You could have personal glory, the 100 meter sprint, you could be known, but you've thrown it all away for your faith conviction.

Now with that door closed, he decided to enter the 400 meter sprint instead. Now understand this is a very different race. You are sprinting for 10 seconds versus, you know, you've gotta pace yourself over 400 meters and he'd never run in this race competitively before. Thinking he's not got much of a chance.

On the day of the race, sun handed him a note. The note said God honors those who honor him. Okay? We get inspired. He then went on to run the race of his life. He, he broke the world record, went on to win the gold medal. Now we hear this. How do we respond? Not only do we get inspired, but we lift our hands up to God and we say, yes, Lord.

Yes, God is good. Praise the Lord. Amen. It inspires us. And that's the thing. Wouldn't life be wonderful if you know things always panned out this way? Wouldn't it be great if every time you did the right thing made a sacrifice for the Lord and you were blessed in some tangible way? Wouldn't life be good if that's the reality?

Because the reality is sometimes as people of God, we do the right thing. We stand by our personal faith convictions, we honor the Lord, but things don't go the way we hoped. Yeah. Is that your reality? You do the right thing, you step out for God, and it doesn't always work out the way you expected. Lemme give an example.

I once heard a story about a young man named Ben, and he'd been engaged twice to this girl, and twice she'd broken up with him, and here he was just after this latest breakup. He's sitting in his car, he's angry, he's disappointed. He's feeling dejected and he's hitting the dashboard of his car so hard that his knuckles begin to bleed and he's in his car and he's screaming out to God, five years Lord, five years God.

This was the girl of my dreams and now it's over and I don't understand why. God did everything right. We set boundaries. We kept ourselves pure. In everything we did. We sought to honor you Lord. But you haven't done the right thing. God, you haven't delivered. God, I've done the right thing by you, but you've not done the right thing by me.

Now, have you ever thought like this, things don't go the way you anticipated. You know, these are the things we don't say out loud, but we can think them in our minds. Yeah. We can say, God, I tried to do what is right. God, I've tried to honor you. God, where's the payoff? We can think like this. I never thought to yourself.

All around me. All around me are people that are taking shortcuts. They lie, they, they cheat, they compromise, they do whatever it takes to get ahead in life and they don't care who they swash in the process. But not me. God. I'm a person of integrity. I'm true to what I believe is a Christian, but they're getting ahead Lord and not me.

God, it's not fair. Have thought like this. I've thought that maybe doing the right thing's not worth it. Maybe I should cut corners like everyone else. I want to get ahead. Maybe I should do what everyone else does. Here's the question, what do we do when following God doesn't work at the way we expect.

When we don't get the payoff that we anticipate, we're still still. How do we respond when following? God only seems to make life harder. I want us to think about these things today as we look at the life of Moses. If you cast your mind back, back to, you know, pre-Christmas, you would've seen, you know, as we looked at the life of Moses, have God from the very beginning had a destiny for Moses.

The boys are getting chucked in, he's getting rescued out from the beginning. He's the person of destiny. God has preserved his life. He's raised in the royal household. He's groomed as a future leader in Egypt, but things didn't go to plan. He sees his people suffering. He launches out to intervene. He, you know, he just wants to rescue God.

People who are suffering. And what happens is he ends up running through his life into the desert of median and there he was for 40 long years. He's a nobody and he's happy. He's given up. He's, you know, for him it's game over. He's happy, he's content. Being a sheep her. But then as we saw in my last sermon, God appears to him in a very special way in a burning bush.

God says, I want you to go back to Egypt, and I want you to tell Pharaoh, let my people go. Now, Moses didn't seek this and he certainly didn't want it. He was happy with his life. He was content, but he reluctantly obeys. So let's see how it goes. Moses does, has God, us, him. The first step he takes is in chapter four.

Let me read from verse 29. Moses and Aaron brought together all the elders of the Israelites and Aaron told them everything the Lord has said to Moses. He also performed the signs before the people. So you remember, you know, Moses is asking for some signs and his staff turns into a snake, and then he puts his hand into his clock and it becomes leper.

He does it again, it becomes healed. So these are the signs they see.

Performs the signs before the people and they believed and when they heard that the Lord was concerned about them and had seen the misery they bowed down and worship. Now you read this and you think so fast, so good. Moses doesn't want to go. He goes with Aaron and they give a report and it's very interesting.

The elders hear what God has planned. They see the miraculous signs, and a worship service breaks out. It's revival time. Everyone's saying, praise the Lord. Hallelujah. God said it. We believe it. That settles it. So far so good. It can't go any better than this. Everything's going well. Step number two, all Moses needs to do is just go to Pharaoh and simply tell him, Hey, God said this, and so let's see how that goes.

Let me read from the beginning of chapter five. Afterwards. So after they've had this time of revival breaking out a worship service, praising God, afterward, Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, this is what Yahweh, the God of Israel says, let my people go so that they may hold a festival to me in the wilderness.

Pharaoh said, who is Yahweh that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know this Yahweh and I will not let Israel go. So far, not so good. So Moses is very clear. He says, Hey, this is what God wants me to say to you. And Pharaoh says, who is this Yahweh that you are speaking of? I've never heard of him.

And understand, you know, Egypt's much like the rest of the ancient world, they're polytheistic. They've got Gods for everything. God, after God, after God. And Pharaoh himself, they would've looked at him and he would've been worshiped as God in his own rights. And he's thinking, I know all these Egyptian gods, but I've never heard of this God named Yahweh.

Who is he? Now, it's interesting you find some pictures online. They actually believe that Pharaoh was the incarnation of this God named Horace. He says, you know, like, uh, well, he's got a bird head, an eagle, Eagle head, a falcon. They also believe that he was, uh, the son of the sun God, ra. So you can see they're the pictures of Pharaoh.

He's got the son on his head. They look up to the son, they worship the son, son is mighty, and they see Pharaoh. He's the incarnation of the gods. If you want to know what a God looks like in Egypt, look at Pharaoh. And so here he is. He responds, and it sounds to us, it could just be ignorance, but it sounds more like arrogance.

He's saying, I don't know who this Yahweh is, and why are you telling me what to do? I'm Pharaoh, I'm a God. You don't tell me a God what I should do. This is his response. And so Moses, he's explained to Yahweh is, and exactly what he wants. He, he's gonna make it real clear. You don't know who Yahweh is and what he wants.

Let me explain verse three, he says. The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Now, let's take a three day journey into the wilderness. Offer sacrifices to Yahweh, our God, or he may strike us with plagues or with the sword. Now this is very interesting. Who's he gonna strike later? He's gonna strike out against Pharaoh in Egypt.

But at this point, Moses is saying, if you don't let us go, God might take his judgment out on us. You gotta do it Pharaoh. You gotta let us go. Our next are on the line. It's very interesting. Now the request, it seems reasonable enough, the Hebrew people, they're slaves, they're working hard. A short break, surely, you know, it's not, not out of the question, it won't hurt anyone but Pharaoh, it was like, how dare you even ask this of me?

How dare you have contempt to come before me and demand this, you know, three day break? Now we've got no problem with taking a long week, long weekend. Amen. This is all they want. Just give us a long weekend. And Pharaoh says Night's not gonna happen. If you wanna go into the desert to worship your God, then you've clearly got too much time on your hands.

I tell you what, if you've got so much time in your hands that you can take a three day break, how about from now on, you gather your own straw to make the bricks. We're not gonna help you anymore. We used to supply you. We used to help you. You've got so much time on your hands. Not anymore. We'll leave you to your own devices.

Can you see how what Moses has done has just made life harder?

So Moses has done exactly what got asked, and the situation is worse now than it was before. It's much worse and he's probably thinking, God, was this your plan? God, did you really want to make things harder for us? God, I'm confused. Has there ever been your experience? You take those initial steps doing what God wants you to do and things are just not working out.

Look what the Israelites think about all this in verse 21. If they let Moses and Aaron know exactly how they feel, they say this, may the Lord look on you and judge you. You have made a stench to Pharaoh and his officials and have put a sword in their hand to kill us. Are you reading this? In other words, they're saying, Moses, you came from the wilderness thinking you're a big shot.

You've interfered, and now what have you made us? You've made us nothing but a putrid smell to their nostrils. They hate us. They think we stink, and it's all your fault, Moses. You're gonna be the death of us. That's what they're saying. Here, you are gonna have us killed. Well done, Moses. This is ministry.

Pharaoh's against him. The people are against him. What do you turn? If you're Moses, you've done everything by the book. You didn't seek it. You didn't want it. You were happy living in the wilderness. You do it. Pharaoh rejects you, the people reject you. Where did he turn? Now, look what Moses does. He has the courage to bring back to God.

He has the courage to bring his disappointment and confusion back to the Lord. He doesn't keep silent. He doesn't repress it. He doesn't bottle it and push it down. He says, God, I've got beef and I'm gonna bring it to you. Can we do that? Can you bring a raw on cement before God when things don't go the way you think they should?

Verse 22. Moses returned to the Lord, he goes back to God and said, why, Lord? Why has that ever been the start of your prayer? Not our father in heaven, but why? Lord? Why? Why have you brought trouble on this people? Is this why you sent me? Ever since I went to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he's brought trouble on his people and you have not rescued your people at all.

Do you hear what he's saying? God, we've tried to do the right thing, but in following you, life has just gotten harder. God, you haven't delivered. You said you would, but you haven't. And now life is harder for me and your people. God, it doesn't make sense. I wonder if you, have you ever been here? It's been you, God, it doesn't make sense.

God, I don't get it. God then speaks to Moses. So Moses speaks to God and God responds, and it's the words we heard in our reading today as we heard. He reassures him that, yes, Moses, I've heard the cries of my people and I will do everything I've promised. And so Moses, he's, he's Boyd by this. He goes back to share it with the people and we read, okay, he's excited.

We read Moses reported this to the Israelites, but they did not listen to him because of their discouragement and harsh labor. Do you get that? He goes to Pharaoh. Pharaoh says, I'm not listening to you. He now goes back to the people. They're not listening to him either. He says to Pharaoh, God said, not listening.

He says to the people, God said, not listening. It's like he's all alone. This is a foretaste of what Moses will experience after the Exodus in the wilderness with these people. They're not gonna listen.

These people, they're like, Moses, just leave us alone. Just go back to where you came from. It's all too much Now. It's interesting. When you read Hebrews chapter 11, we on a Hebrews chapter. It's this chapter on these heroes of faith, men and women who have honored God, they've, you know, they've stuck their neck out.

God's honored them and, and they remember throughout the ages. Okay, we know this long list of people. We've got Abraham, Moses, Rahab, Gideon, Dave. We know their stories. We love their stories. Then as you read chapter 11, towards the end of that chapter, right at the end, there's a list of people, they're unnamed.

We don't know who they are. They're people for whom things didn't work out. So you've got the list of people at the beginning. We know their names, we know their stories, they are remembered, and we celebrate them. But you get to the end of the chapter, there's all these unknown, unnamed people. Things didn't work out the way they expected.

Let me read it from the message Bible. It's the paraphrase. Let me read. Eugene Peterson, he says There were those who under torture. Refused given and go free. Referring something better, resurrection others, braved, abuse and whips and chains and dungeons. We have stories of those who were stoned, sought into murdered in cold blood.

Stories of vagrant, wondering the earth and animal skins, harmless, friendless, powerless. The world didn't deserve them, or as the NIB says, the world was not worthy of them. Making their way as best they could on cruel edges of the world. Here's the rub. Not one of these people, not one of them, even though their lives of faith were exemplary, got their hands on what was promised.

These unnamed, unknown people. They died in faith. Faith was all they had. They had a promise, and they didn't get the the fullness of that promise in this life. They died in faith. That's all they had to hold on to. Now we all love these stories of people who stand for God and God honor them. Yeah, we love the story of Daniel in the Lions, Dan.

That's why we give it to the kids Sunday. So we love the story of Shadrach Meshek, Abbo, Neko. We love the story of Paul and Silas in a, you know, Philippian jail. We love all these stories of people who stand for God and God ons them. But here we've got these other stories, stories of faithful people. They honor God, they do the right thing, but they don't win, not in this life.

Hebrews chapter 11, what is reminding us is that this too may be our journey of faith. We love to identify with David. Daniel, and we want that to be our story. But the, the, the author of Hebrews is saying, it well may be that your journey of faith may be the story of those who don't receive in this life God has promised.

Can we be okay with that

guys? We might live good, our bright, faithful lives, and yet our reward for honoring God. It may not come in this. We have something better to look forward to. We have resurrection. That's the payoff. We get new life. Can I exhort you? Whatever you're going through, this is the big picture. We need to keep a forest that we always will keep things in perspective.

All of our challenges, all of our struggles, they can overwhelm us and we can magnify them and forget the promise of God in the midst of stuff we can't see beyond. We need to keep this big picture fixed between our eyes so that we don't lose heart, that we keep things in an eternal perspective. He may struggle now.

You may not get the payoff now, but one day God will act to bring about justice and blessing for his people. Do you believe that? Until then, life won't always go down the way we think it ought to.

There's an interesting story that comes from the Jewish Talmud. It's probably from the second century ED. It's about a rabbi, a Jewish rabbi named Kiva, and the story goes that he was traveling with a donkey, a lamp, and a rooster. He felt led by God to go to a particular town. So he gets this town. When he arrives, he says what he's there for, and the people, they just reject him.

They reject him, they drive him away. And as he's leaving, he pauses and says Everything that God does is for the best. And so he walks away, he finds a quiet spot in a nearby forest, and before going to sleep, he, he wants to read. So he lit the lamp. Then this strong wind comes along and blew out the lamp before he could do any reading.

Once again, he said everything that God does is for the best. During the night, his donkey was eaten by a lion and his rooster was more by a fox. Once again, he said everything that God does is for the best. The next morning he walks back to this town. He's believing God wants me to go back again. As he approaches, he could see that the town had been raided during the night by Bandits, and so the place had been burnt.

Some people had been killed and many had been taken as captives. And as he began to talk with those who were left, he realized that these bandits had passed through the very same forest where he was sleeping. But because his lamp was out, because his roost was not there to crow, nor his donkey there to Bray, the bandits had moved on quietly by him and never saw him.

And once again, rabbi Akiva said everything that God does is for the best. Now, the purpose of this story is to show that sometimes things happen and we don't know why. They happen 'cause God is doing something beyond what we can perceive and understand. Amen. Negative events supply a positive purpose in a divine plan, but that never becomes clear until after the event.

Until we have hindsight and whilst we're going through it, we may not understand what God is doing. We definitely don't see what God is doing. We're just called to trust that everything God does, he does for the best. So the issue is here, what's happening in Exodus? Why are the problems, why are the delays now?

There are probably many reasons why. Ultimately, I think God wants to show his power over and against Pharaoh and the gods of Egypt. He wants the, the watching nations to see his power unfold as he delivers his people. But he's also giving every opportunity to do what is right. Time again, Moses will come and he will have the opportunity to to do what is right.

There's all these horrible judgements. They're gonna come down on the Egyptian people and God is delaying and giving Pharaoh every opportunity by his mercy and his goodness to do what is right. God still exercising that same patience and mercy today. Think about the persecuted church. They don't understand why they're going through what they're going through.

They're asking for deliverance. God is giving time 'cause he's patient and merciful to those who are persecuting his people. What we see here in Exodus though, is we can talk about this theoretically, this patience and mercy. It comes at a cost for God's people. God's doing something more and all the Israelites can see is that life have become harder for them.

They're thinking, God, what are you doing? Why are you delaying? It's coming at a price for them personally. It's often the same in our own lives. God can be doing something bigger beyond anything we can see or imagine and why we wait. It's hard. Yeah, it can be hard to go through it. Let me say this. There is no faith in the Bible that goes untested.

There is no faith in the Bible. It goes untested. And even as we walk out and follow Jesus in faith, my faith won't go untested and neither will yours. That's in these difficult times that we're gonna get pressed and it's gonna shall unjust. Consider whether we truly believe what it is we say we believe.

Amen. You can pronounce I believe this and I believe that, but it's only when you're going through the mill that those convictions are tested and challenged. Amen. I like what Chuck's Windol says. We can only see the present in the past. The future is a little frightening to us. We need to hold onto God's hand and trust him to calm of fear.

Paul Trips says this, reflect on how little is under your control and celebrate that your Lord controls everything for His glory and your good. Both of these statements are affirmations of faith for when things get real, for when the rubber hits the road. This is when your convictions and beliefs will be tested.

It's easy to believe up on the mountaintop, but when you down in that dark valley, can you truly say Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd. He's with me through these dark valleys. Let me bring this back to our text. Start of chapter six, Moses goes to God and he says, why, Lord, why things haven't gone the way he hoped or planned.

So Moses is asking this question, Lord, I don't understand what's going on. What are you doing? And so God speaks. You see this in chapter six, and the very first thing he says, I love this. He begins with these words, I am the Lord. He wants to ground Moses in this reality that Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews, he is Lord.

After reminding Moses of the promises he's made to Abraham, Isaac, and Ja, to give them the land of Canaan, he says this. He says, say to the Israelites, I'm the Lord and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with my acts of judgment.

I will take you as my own people and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from under the yo of the Egyptians, and I will bring you to the land I swore with uplifted hand to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I will give it to you as your possession. I am the Lord.

Can you see that God begins with the, he begins and ends with the very same words, words that are meant to breathe life into us in the darkest of times. And those words are, I am the Lord. No matter what you are going through. God would say to you, I am the Lord. It's a reminder to Moses. It's a reminder to us that he is running the universe, not us.

That he is sovereign, not us. And I love what God says here. He says to Moses, I will bring, I will free. I will redeem. I will take, I will be, I will give. I am the Lord. Moses asks the question, why, but God doesn't give him the answer to that question. Why Instead God tells him who? Can I tell you, our hope isn't in why or even in what our hope is, in who we want the answer to.

Why We wanna know what, and God says, who I am the Lord. Sometimes we can do the right thing. We can honor God. Life becomes hard. We need to ground our hope not in the things that God brings or even in what's going on around us, as if sometimes we can try to make sense of them. Our hope is not in these things.

Our hope is in him. Remember what the Lord said to Abraham. He said, I am your shield. You are very great reward. That's our story as well. Then close by revisiting the story from Ben. Shared earlier, he was angry with God because he thought he'd done everything right and he, he's feeling God, you've not delivered.

He writes this, he said, I went through two broken engagements over a five year period. The same girl broke up with me both times. After the second and final breakup, I went to visit my friend Cliff. I was numb. I was tired of hurting. I felt dead inside. We talked for a while, and when I got up to leave, he suggested we pray together.

Okay. I said, so. I prayed first. Mumbling to God, the best theology I could think of under circumstances. And then I waited for Cliff to begin. My head was bowed, but nothing came for the longest time. I was about to ask Cliff what was wrong when I, I heard a sob. I asked him, cliff, what's wrong? All it could say was, it hurts so much.

It hurts so much. And I said, what hurts? What are you talking about? And he replied, what happened to you? Stupid? And he says, cliff was weeping for me. I could no longer weep for myself. There have been a few times in my life when I felt as comforted as this. He was a little bit of God's spirit at that moment as he entered the places in my heart that I would no longer enter.

He gave, gave no lesson to learn, no points to ponder about the human condition. All he gave was himself, and that was enough. Do you know we can come before God and we can say, why, Lord, why? What are you doing? We can ask the question and God's really gonna give us the reasons why, but he will always give us himself.

Amen. God will always give us himself. And the reality is this, more than understanding why. The very thing that will sustain us in the darkest of time is the gift of God's presence. And that's the promise that God has for us. Amen. The gift of himself.

Let's pray. Father, just bring before you, every, every person here, may it be our heart's desire in 2026 to please you, to honor you, to live for you. And Father, we do this with a realization as we take steps to obey you. Things won't always work out. We believe they should help us to surrender that to you. Help us to surrender, knowing why some things happen in a way we don't expect.

Help us to trust you. Help us to not lean on our understanding. Father, help us to continue though, to come back to you, to look to you to be sustained by you. You are our reward. You are our shield. You are enough, Lord, God. Lord, strengthen our faith for what lies ahead. Help us to receive the greatest gift of all, the gift of knowing you and through whatever circumstances come our way to shine a light brightly for you.

To those around us, you may wanna reach through what it is we're going through. Father, we commit this to in Jesus' precious name, amen. I gonna close the song, Renee and Shand are gonna come and lead us. Could I just invite you to come into this time now? It's the start of a, a new year. I just want us to bring our lives again before God, just as an act of surrender.

We don't know what the future holds, but we can do it all through knowing him. Amen. Thank you, Renee. Thank you, Shand.

That word was for you today. If you feel you are giving God everything and you're not quite getting the payoff, let me leave you with this benediction from Paul Galatians chapter six. He says this, let us not become weary in doing good for at the proper time, the proper time, we will reap a harvest. If we do not give up, may you walk with him.

May you be blessed by him. May you know him. Have a great week. Bless you.