It’s never been more important to do good & be brave.
Back in September of 2014, this story hit the news. Jack Mook lives in Pittsburg. He was a single guy enjoying his bachelor pad & loving his job as a detective. After work, he would often head to the Steel City Boxing gym, where he volunteered his time teaching the sport to underprivileged kids. Jessee & Josh Lyle were two of those boys who came every week. Except, one day they stopped showing up at the gym after school. Detective Mook began to worry.
Watch this…
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obXeG-xl6Y8[/embedyt]Stories like these remind us why this is so important. Why it’s so important that we do good & be brave. Because we live in a world that is so broken. Everywhere we look there is pain, there are problems, there are people who are hurting, kids who need a loving adult, situations that will break your heart.
Some of you know because some of you have been there. Some of you are there right now.
Real People. Real Problems.
One of the things I love about the story of Moses is that it begins with real people facing real problems.
This story begins as a new king in Egypt rises to power & he’s afraid of what might happen if the Israelite’s, who are living in Egypt, continue to grow. He’s afraid of what might happen if they become a large & powerful nation within his nation. So his plan to fix the problem is to kill every baby boy that is born. He thought he had this all planned out, but the courage of two Hebrew midwives spoiled his first plan. So now he’s on to plan B.
In Exodus 1.22, we find out what this new king, the Pharaoh of Egypt, is going to do next…
Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: “Throw every newborn Hebrew boy into the Nile River. But you may let the girls live.”
Pharaoh orders every Egyptian to kill every Hebrew boy. His fear moves him to lethal action.
Exodus 2
1 About this time, a man and woman from the tribe of Levi got married. 2 The woman became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She saw that he was a special baby and kept him hidden for three months.
We won’t learn their names until later in the story, but the two people who get married are Amram & Jochabed. And they risk their lives to hide their child. Why?
Love leads us to do courageous things.
[Tweet “Love leads us to do courageous things. #DoGoodBeBrave”]And if you’ve ever loved a child you know there’s nothing you wouldn’t do for that child. There’s nothing you wouldn’t do for your newborn son or daughter. And these parents may have lived thousands of years before you & I, but their love for their child is something we can certainly understand. They are going to do everything in their power to protect & save the life of their child.
3 But when she could no longer hide him, she got a basket made of papyrus reeds and waterproofed it with tar and pitch. She put the baby in the basket and laid it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile River. 4 The baby’s sister then stood at a distance, watching to see what would happen to him.
5 Soon Pharaoh’s daughter came down to bathe in the river, and her attendants walked along the riverbank. When the princess saw the basket among the reeds, she sent her maid to get it for her. 6 When the princess opened it, she saw the baby. The little boy was crying, and she felt sorry for him. “This must be one of the Hebrew children,” she said.
Pharaoh’s daughter had compassion on the one her father wants to kill. So she decides to rescue this baby boy that was otherwise condemned to die.
Daughter’s have always loved finding ways to disobey their dads.
7 Then the baby’s sister approached the princess. “Should I go and find one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?” she asked.
Again, we don’t learn the name of the sister until later in the story, but her name is Miriam. And Miriam thinks fast. Or maybe this is this the crazy, unorthodox, out of the box way God decided to answer the prayer of a desperate mom & dad?
I don’t know.
But I do know this… God has a crazy way of saving the life of this child. The daughter of the one who was trying to kill every Hebrew boy ends up saving & rescuing the ONE Hebrew boy that will one day save all the Hebrew boys & girls!
God uses the enemy to rescue the one who will save the nation.
8 “Yes, do!” the princess replied. So the girl went and called the baby’s mother.
9 “Take this baby and nurse him for me,” the princess told the baby’s mother. “I will pay you for your help.” So the woman took her baby home and nursed him.
Not only does God use Pharaoh’s daughter to save & rescue the child, He gets her to pay the child’s own mother for nursing him! Why would she pay her? Weren’t the Hebrew’s their slaves?! But she does!
And right here in the middle of what was sure to be a tragic story, we have a picture of God’s amazing grace.
No doubt this family went from crying out to God for help & rescue, deliverance & salvation, to praising God & being overwhelmed by how good He is & how this was all working out!
10 Later, when the boy was older, his mother brought him back to Pharaoh’s daughter, who adopted him as her own son. The princess named him Moses, for she explained, “I lifted him out of the water.”
The Hebrew boy that should have died is saved & he is given an Egyptian name. And don’t miss this, because you & I know the rest of the story. We know that one day, this child would grow up & one day God would use him to answer the prayers of the people crying out to God for deliverance. We know that one day God is going to use Moses to go to Pharaoh & deliver his people from bondage.
And it all started with the courage of his family to try & save his life that would later lead to the opportunity & the courage for Moses to save a nation.
Your courage is never just about you
It’s an amazing thing to think about, you don’t know what your courage today will mean for others later. Because of their courage to save their son, to risk their lives to do the right thing, ALL of Israel would one day be saved.
Your courage is never just about you!
[Tweet “Your courage is never just about you! #DoGoodBeBrave”]This is what God does: He works through the brave. And again, the brave are not those who are unafraid. The brave are those who are so motivated by love that fear won’t stop them from doing the right thing!
I can’t help but think again about Jessee & Josh… living in the home of abusive foster parents, having to give up the one thing they loved… a few hours at a boxing gym where they could escape the pain of having to go home after school. And then, this detective finds Josh. And these boys who literally had no hope, no escape, no end in sight to their current circumstance end up in the home of a caring man. They went from one of the scariest places they could have imagined to one of the safest places they could have imagined. And they could have never predicted it.
And when you choose to do the right thing in the moment even though you may be afraid, you open the door for God to do immeasurably more than you could ever ask or imagine.
So right now if you’re in the middle of the thick of it, if you’re facing desperate times & crying out to God… hold on to hope. God often has crazy, unorthodox, out of the box ways of hearing our prayers & answering them.
Hold on to hope. Keep crying out to God. Be brave!
Your courage to do the right thing is always about more than just you.
[Tweet “Your courage to do the right thing is always about more than just you. #DoGoodBeBrave”]So let love lead you to be brave.
