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This in the second chapter, we have been dealing with life change and trusting God in the midst

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of it.

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And today we're going to look at Moses and find that the kind of life change that Moses

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experienced was a change in life expectations.

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Exodus chapter 2 beginning in verse 11.

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One day after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched

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them at their hard labor.

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He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people.

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Glancing this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the

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sand.

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The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting.

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He asked the one in the room, why are you hitting your fellow Hebrews?

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The man said, who made you ruler and judge over us?

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Are you thinking of killing me as you kill the Egyptian?

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Then Moses was afraid and thought what I did must have become known.

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When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses.

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But Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian where he was sent down by a war.

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And then this one verse from Acts chapter 7 verse 25.

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Moses thought that his own people would realize that God was using him to rescue them, but

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they did not.

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Have you ever been disappointed with God?

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Disillusioned with him because you expected him to work in a certain way and he didn't?

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Perhaps you prayed intensely and with some sorry regarding an urgent need in your life

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and that prayer was not answered as you had thought it would be.

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Maybe you gave sacrificially believing that God would then make you prosperous in return,

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but he didn't.

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Or perhaps you struggled with some issue of sin in your life, asking God to take away

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the temptation, but he didn't.

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Perhaps you prepared for service as a missionary, but were unable to raise the necessary financial

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support.

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Or maybe you prayed and began a business believing that out of your heart it was God's

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will only to see it fail.

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You see what we expect in life is not always what happens.

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Then what?

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There are a few life changes that strike more strategically at the Christian's faith than

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when we expect one thing from God and something totally other happens.

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It is one thing to feel that people have failed you, but when it seems that God has let you

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down, that's almost more than you can bear.

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It is an experience that can actually devastate you.

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James and Terri Alexander kissed their son Matthew goodbye at the airport.

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He was a senior at Wake Forest University and was on his way to spend a month of his

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summer with youth permission in Marseille, France.

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Following that, he was going to go to the University of Burgundy for a semester of study.

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He would be home to enjoy Christmas with his family.

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About at Kennedy Airport, he boarded TWA flight 800 last July 17th and he bowed with 229 others.

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The expectation of his parents of a spiritually enriching month for their son and a wonderful

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Christmas reunion with him was snuck out in an instant of time.

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What we're going to learn from Moses' life today is that change is what you have to expect

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in life.

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Change is not something that's unusual.

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Change happens over to great people of faith.

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And I hope that you will see today with me that when you encounter conflict in your life

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between what you expect God to do and what actually happens, that conflict becomes an

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opportunity for you to learn something more about God.

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These unrealized expectations I'm talking about do not mean that God has failed you,

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although that's what it feels like.

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Using Moses as our example, I want to make three observations today about life expectations.

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I think that we can better understand them and avoid the threat to faith that these disappointments

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can pose to us.

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The first observation I want to make is this, that one's theology forms his life expectations.

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Now that's natural.

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What we believe to be true about God, forges how we expect God to act.

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And through our theology, what we understand about God forms our life expectations.

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What did Moses believe about God?

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Remember, he had no penitence.

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He wrote it later.

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He wrote the book in Genesis, Exodus, the Zedekes, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

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He had no written inspired revelation from God.

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He had oral traditions, perhaps some written accounts of God's dealings in Israel's history.

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What he learned about God he learned undoubtedly through his mother in his childhood, as she

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cared for him and nurtured him until he was taken into Pharaoh's household.

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What did Moses believe about God?

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What we see from our text is that Moses in the first place believed in the true God.

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Even amidst the pagan deities of Egypt, Pharaoh himself being one of those deities, Moses

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stood to believe in monotheism.

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He believed in the one true God.

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His very name implies paganism.

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The name Moses, Josephus tells us, comes from two Egyptian words, the word mo, which means

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river, and sus, which means drawn out of.

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The Egyptians looked upon the river as a god.

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And perhaps when Pharaoh's daughter was beside the river that day, she was out there praying

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that the river would bring her a child when this basket appeared in the bulrushes.

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Which he named his child Moses, the one drawn out of the river.

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But Moses believed in the true God, the God of Ibrahim, Isaac, and Jacob.

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Secondly, he believed the true God had chosen the Hebrews.

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He believed that, his mother undoubtedly told him.

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And Moses believed that he was one of the Hebrews.

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It emphasizes here in Exodus chapter two and again in Acts chapter seven that these were

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his own people, his own people were enslaved, and he went out to save them.

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Hebrews 11, 24 tells us that Moses refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter.

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He did not want to identify with them because he knew that God had chosen the Hebrews and

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he was one of them.

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The third thing that he believed is that he believed that this God was powerful and intended

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to deliver the Israelites.

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He believed that.

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And fourthly, he believed that God had purposed to do this, notice, through him.

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This is before Mount Sinai.

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Moses is 40 years of age here.

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And he believed that not only was God going to deliver the Israelites, but that God was

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going to do it through him.

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These are Moses core beliefs and I ask you a question, what are yours?

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What are your core beliefs?

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Because those core beliefs make you what you are and they will fashion what you'll become.

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Your theology will frame your life expectations as they did Moses.

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Now this theological understanding spurred Moses to form an expectation of how God was

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going to use him.

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He had become famous.

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Stephen says in Acts chapter 7 that Moses had become famous and powerful in speech and

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action.

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He doesn't go into detail about that, but Josephus, the secular historian, records that

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Moses led an Egyptian army in defeat of the Ethiopians.

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And it was such a spectacular victory that even Pharaoh himself felt threatened by the

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ability of this young man in his court.

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And some of Pharaoh's court officials actually planned in some way to get rid of this young

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Moses because he was perceived as so popular and so powerful in speech and action that

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he had to be gotten rid of.

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And Moses probably concluded from that experience that God was going to use him to lead a rebellion

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among the Hebrew slaves.

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That's probably how he thought God was going to use him.

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But it may be that killing this Egyptian was intended by Moses as a signal to the Israelites

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to rise up against their oppressors.

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And thus he was shot the next day when he went back and he was rejected.

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And they said, who made you a ruler and a judge?

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Moses was devastated.

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Despite his sincere beliefs, his expectations were shattered.

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And Moses' theology was okay, but based upon that good theology, he made a wrong assumption

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and expected something that God hadn't said.

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God hadn't told him yet how he was going to use Moses.

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But I want you to write down that first observation that your theology, what you believe about

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God, forms what you expect out of life.

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It is very important that you believe the right thing.

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Secondly, there's this observation that wrong expectations can lead to disappointment with

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God.

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Moses thought he had it all figured out.

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But Moses needed yet to learn more of God before he was ready to be used as God's deliverer.

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Moses tried it his way and his expectation failed.

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It is not difficult to imagine the disillusionment that must have shrouded his soul, eaten away

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at his innards as he fled from Egypt across the Arabian desert and into Midian, the Sinai

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Peninsula whether in into Midian.

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He had 40 years to think about this disappointment, 30 years to contemplate on what had gone wrong,

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40 years to reexamine his theology and the fear of disappointment with God.

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And from the time he was 40 until he was 80 years old, there was no record in the Bible

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of any revelation from God.

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None.

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Can you imagine the loneliness, the questions, the wonderment that must have crossed through

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Moses' heart over those decades of his life?

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God uses our disappointments to teach us life lessons.

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By the time he was 80, Moses was humbled, good and humbled.

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He was broken of his reliance on his own ability and his wisdom.

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In fact, by the time he was 80, Moses even sees himself as weak and incapable and he

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is reluctant even when God appears to him on that holy ground on the Horde to accept

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God's commission.

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He is reluctant.

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He is humbled.

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But because of that, Moses is also usable.

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God had prepared him not only with leadership skills in his early life, but now he had prepared

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him with character.

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And God appears to him with a new understanding of himself at the bush and gives to Moses

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the commission and the enablement to accomplish that commission.

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Like Moses, you may have also had certain expectations in life based upon what you sincerely

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believed about God and about yourself, but your expectations were crushed and you are

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living today in some medium of your soul.

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Perhaps you were serving God in some sort of ministry and your dreams were rejected

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and you fled.

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Or you prayed for the health of a loved one and your expectations of answered prayer

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of recovery were not realized.

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Perhaps you were sure God was leading in a business decision and now that decision has

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got financial disaster to you.

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It may be that you read your children according to the book, but today they don't follow

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God at all.

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Perhaps you did what you believed God wanted you to do, but nonetheless your marriage ended

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in divorce.

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There are many, millions, many, millions where the soul can dwell.

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And it was in his soul's million that God called Moses to the burning bush and rescued

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him from his disappointment.

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And I get excited about thinking that it may be a time for God's burning bush in your life.

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There's a third expectation or third observation about life expectation that I want us to think

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about and that is that expectation built on God will be rewarded.

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You see what Moses had believed about God was not incorrect, but his conclusion was.

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He may have thought that he had God all to do that, but he needed to know more of God

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and to know God more intimately by his personal name.

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And that's what God gave him on that heart.

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Who shall I say is sick of me?

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asked Moses.

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And God says, tell them that I am what I am.

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I'll send you.

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And God revealed to Moses the meaning and the relationship of his name Yahweh.

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And then he received revelation of God's way, God's way, not Moses' way of rescuing the

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people that God loved.

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In your million, in your million too, God's goal is that you might come to know him and

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develop a loving relationship with him.

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Your daily encounters with God will give you insight into his ways and his purposes.

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And as you gain that insight, then begin to build new expectations of life and that understanding

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that he gives you.

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Moses' initial understanding of God wasn't wrong, but his understanding grew.

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And as a result of that, God did something greater in Moses' life than Moses could have

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ever dreamed of.

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Stop and think about it.

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If Moses had done it his way, he might have been successful.

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He might have been able to lead a sufficient revolt against the Egyptians to get some of

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the people out of Egypt, but thousands would have been killed.

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But God's way was entirely different.

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God had a better way.

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And it may be that God has allowed you to experience disappointment, but when you have

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interpreted it as his failure in your life, so that in the end he can teach you more about

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himself and do something greater in your life than you could have dreamed of.

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So what do you do with disappointments with God?

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How do you handle those?

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Well, like Moses, we may spend some time hurting.

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Hopeful it won't be 40 years.

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And nowhere does God say that 40 years was wasted either, but it was 40 years.

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We can answer that question by looking at Moses' life, but I want us to go to a New

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Testament scene to answer the question of what you do with disappointments with God.

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And to do that, you may want to turn your Bible to John chapter 11, because here we

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have another disappointment, this time with Jesus.

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Mary and Matthew send a telegram, so to speak, to Jesus telling him that his good friend

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Lazarus was sick.

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And he says that Jesus delayed going back to Bethany, but then he left him, headed back

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with his disciples to that place just outside of Jerusalem.

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And in verse 20 it says, when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet

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him, but Mary stayed at home.

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Lord, Martha said to Jesus, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.

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What do you think she's been thinking about for the last four days?

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What do you think has eaten away at her heart?

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Found her brother, exactly in that grave?

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She says, I know that even now, what God will do and whatever you ask, and Jesus said to

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her, your brother will rise again.

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Martha answered, I know he will rise again in the resurrection of the last day.

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Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life.

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He who believes in me will live even though he dies.

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And whoever lives and believes in me will never die.

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Do you believe this?

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Yes, Lord, she told him.

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I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.

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I have to make this very quick, but try to track with me.

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How do you handle disappointment like Martha and Mo have with Jesus?

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Like Moses had with God, how do you handle those kinds of disappointments?

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First of all, I noticed that Martha acknowledged her soul's pain.

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And that's what you have to do.

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There are some of us who think that it's spiritual to cover up the pain in our souls.

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And we think that I am not supposed to be disappointed with God, but I am not.

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And we deny what is actually there.

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That is neither spiritual nor godly.

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God deals with us on the basis of truth.

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And the first thing we have to do is to be honest with God.

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And if we feel that God has healed us, if we feel, now he heals us, but we feel it,

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if we feel that we're ready to tell him, just as Martha did, Lord, if you had been here,

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would you have been here?

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The second thing I noticed she does is that she affirms what she believes.

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Jesus led her to do this.

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She talks about what she believes in verse 22.

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I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.

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Verse 24, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection of the last bow.

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She believed these things. That's her theology coming out.

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And that's the second thing that we all need to do.

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Aren't we? We have acknowledged our pain.

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We need them to go back to the roots of our theology.

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What do I believe? What are those core beliefs in my life?

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Even if I feel that they've not been enacted, that I've not experienced the benefit,

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how do I nonetheless really believe about what?

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And then the third thing I noticed is that she built her new expectation on a new understanding that God gave her.

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Jesus said to Martha,

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I AM, notice by the way that's me, the same one that Moses got.

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But this time Jesus said I AM the resurrection and the life.

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And he goes on to elaborate on that.

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And he said, you believe this?

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And she said, yes I believe that the Christ, the Son, the living God,

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and she began to build her new expectation.

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And he knew that through her disappointment and the pain,

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that Jesus was able to come to Bethany and do something for her that she could never have imagined.

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For she understood that Jesus could heal the sick,

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but did she understand that Jesus could raise Lazarus from the dead?

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And so Jesus came and gave her a new understanding, I AM the resurrection, Martha,

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it's not that resurrection is coming in the future, that's true,

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but there's no Martha, I AM the resurrection, you're standing in the presence of resurrection.

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And having given her that new understanding, that new revelation of himself,

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she expresses this wonderful statement and then Jesus walks up to the grave and raises Lazarus from the dead.

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I don't know what God is going to do in your life, but I can tell you this,

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that if like Moses and like Martha and like a lot of us in our spiritual pilgrimages,

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you are sitting here today disappointed with God,

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and the expectations in life that you've developed is how you thought was good theology, have failed.

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God's in that, and God's teaching you something.

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And what you need to do is to acknowledge your pain to God.

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You need to go back and reaffirm what you believe to be true,

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and then let the Lord bring you a new understanding of himself,

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and give you his perspective on what you've been through in this disappointment.

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And to give you a new expectation,

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which will most likely be something far greater than you could ever have imagined on your own.

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Will you do that today?

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Instead of being angry at God and disappointed and disillusioned, will you come back to the Lord

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and say, Lord, here's the truth, here's how I feel.

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Lord, here's how I believe.

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Now show me yourself.

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And in some way, God is going to do that.

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And he will renew you.

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And you will have a vision, you will have a dream, you will have an expectation that will be God-sized.

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Let's pray.

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...

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If our heads are bad, I want to read to you just a few sentences from the James Alexander family,

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this young man who died in fight 800.

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The father said, It's done a lot to teach us about suffering and the common bond we have with humanity.

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We have gotten comfort even from unbelievers who are willing to cry with us.

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I believe, he says, that God, that's God's common grace.

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At the heart of it, it's just the grace of Christ that gets us through it.

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He's there, he's sufficient.

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Oh Father, I pray that some think he's here this morning and hiding inside,

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that today they find Jesus Christ's grace sufficient.

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And I pray that you will bring that child of yours in your arms back to yourself

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and meet them in the middle of their soul with a new understanding of yourself,

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a new expectation for life.

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And do that in such a way that you will be truly honored.

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Would you stand with me please and let's sing with our heads bowed to the Lord.

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Have thine own way, Lord, have thine own way.

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Thou art the Father, I am the claim.

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Noblery and nobly, after thy will,

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While I am writing, muted and still.

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Where Jesus, you are the Father,

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Where reminded that rubble of clay, from which you have breathed the breath of life.

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Now form and fashion us,

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Filling in our expectations of life upon what is true.

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Form and fashion us with expectations that only you can fulfill,

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And that you will do it for the glory of God.

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Thank you for not leaving us in midium,

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For not leaving us in disappointment,

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But for reclaiming us and causing us to walk on with you.

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Amen.