God's Mercy Overcomes Man's Injustice part 1

[0:00] We've been looking in a series here talking about a resilient life, and the importance of it, of being resilient in our lives. And last week we finished up talking about Abraham and just his faith is how he learned that the journey is the reward.

[0:21] And we learned how that could be not because of the things that happened to us, but because of how the things that happen draw us closer to the Lord.

[0:31] They change us, they transform us, and they move us in a direction that God would have for us. And so as we realize those things, we're going to continue looking in our series here this morning.

[0:47] We're going to be looking here about overcoming discrimination, overcoming injustice. You know, because you know what, no matter what happens in life, there's going to be injustices that happen.

[1:04] You know, one of the problems that we have today is people think, well, there should never be any injustice. Well, that's a good thought, but that's not a reality of how we live. That's not the way things really play out in real life.

[1:17] You know, it's a grand thought, but those things in this life are not going to happen. And we're going to see here this morning, we're going to talk about a place that the Bible gives us some ways of dealing with injustice, with dealing with discrimination and dealing with those things where we say, oftentimes people say it this way today, it's not what?

[1:41] Fair. You know, how many times have you heard, it's not fair. What are they saying? This isn't just in what I want. This isn't what I desired.

[1:52] And we know these are the realities of the things of life. And so if you found Exodus chapter two this morning, we're going to read a few verses here. And as we get started this morning, because I think here in Exodus, you can definitely understand there was some injustices.

[2:09] There was some discrimination that was taking place. And we see here that the reality of this, if you look here in verse one, in Exodus chapter two, it says, And there went a man to the house of Levi and took to wife a daughter of Levi.

[2:24] And the woman conceived and bear a son. And when she saw that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months and she could no longer hide him. She took him for an ark of bulrushes and dabbed it with slime with the pitch and put the child therein.

[2:38] And she laid it in the flags by the river's brink. And his sister stood afar off to what would be done to him. And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself by the river.

[2:50] And her maidens walked along the river side. And when she saw the ark among the flag, she sent her maid to fetch it. And when she had opened it, she saw the child.

[3:01] And behold, the baby wept. And she had compassion on him and said, This is one of the Hebrews' children. Then said his sister to Pharaoh's daughter, Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee?

[3:18] And Pharaoh's daughter sent her, Go. And the maid went and called the child's mother. And Pharaoh's daughter said unto her, Take this child away and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages.

[3:30] And the woman took the child and nursed it. And the child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Moses, and she said, Because I have drew him out of the water.

[3:43] Let's pray. Heavenly Fathers, we just take a few moments here this morning as we look into your word once again. Lord, as we look at this lesson, the reality of you, of showing us how to work through injustices.

[3:57] Lord, even as we've talked about our faith, Lord, it takes great faith to trust you when things aren't going the way we think it ought to go. Lord, it's not going the way that we would desire it to go.

[4:09] But Lord, we can trust you even when those things in our life seem upside down. You're still there. You're above those things. Lord, you're still working in and through them.

[4:21] And Lord, we just thank you for that, that we can trust you. And Lord, we just ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. You know, we find here a story about Moses and just his family.

[4:35] And, you know, one thing we can rest assured is, you know, every mom wants her kids to get a fair shot in life, you know. Every mom wants to see their kids succeed. You know, it's kind of an innate thing.

[4:46] And we're going to see here about Jochebed here, Moses' mom, was no different. And what makes her story is such an example of resilience.

[4:58] Because I want you to understand, she was not overcome with the evil around her. You know, it's easy sometimes to, just to give up about the evil around you that's taking place.

[5:10] And we're going to see here this morning that here Jochebed was personally, she had experienced discrimination and her family was faced with it in the extreme.

[5:21] When it's extreme, they try to kill people. You know, and we see that today. You know, we see genocides trying to take place. And that's another overused word, but really genocide is just wanting to wipe out a people based on just who they are.

[5:38] You know, and genocide can mean everything from national origin to belief systems. You know, I want you to understand, there's that happening all over. You know, we find that this dynamic has happened throughout history.

[5:52] It's not something new to us, but when we come under this injustice in our life, we can succumb to that.

[6:03] And oftentimes what happens is people become hate-filled and bitter because things didn't happen or do the way they thought they wanted it to go. And we see here this morning as we understand how Jochebed overcame this situation, you know.

[6:20] But let's give a little background because we know about Moses and the bull rush. But, you know, we need a little understanding here before we get going. Because as you remember, the Israelites first entered Egypt when Joseph allowed them to come into Canaan or to come in because of the famine that was in Canaan.

[6:42] And over the centuries, we find that God told Abraham that the people were going to spend 400 years there before he would bring them out. And so they began to settle in and they were God-blessed and they began to multiply.

[6:57] You know, and we see this population begin to grow. But the Bible tells us that a new Pharaoh came to power. One that knew not Joseph.

[7:10] Because, you know, the ones that knew Joseph, they knew what? Joseph had proved himself what? Loyal. They understood the loyalty. They understood that they were not a threat.

[7:20] But you know what? Sometimes we find here that when one grew up and knew not Joseph, he was fearful of the population. He was fearful of the Hebrews.

[7:32] He was fearful because of the number that they had grown to. And he became so overwhelmed by it that he became insecure. And we find here that he began to oppress the people.

[7:47] You know, I want you to understand something very clear here because oftentimes insecurity causes us to oppress somebody else because we're trying to keep them down. Because of our own insecurity sometimes.

[8:00] This leader of Egypt, the Pharaoh, knew not Joseph, knew nothing about him. And if you study Egyptian history, you'll find that there was kind of a whole coup d'etat that happened through this sequence.

[8:13] And we find that the Hebrews, though, just remained faithful to what they were supposed to do. But this new Pharaoh was afraid. And so what he did, he says, I'm going to keep them so busy that they don't have time to do something else.

[8:29] I'm going to keep them so tied up in their job and their task. And it tells us that, therefore, he set what? Taskmasters to afflict them with burdens. And they built Pharaoh's cities.

[8:42] I mean, Pithom and Ramses were among that. We find that in Exodus chapter 1 in verse 11, that he had them begin to build these cities within Egypt.

[8:53] And they were busy. And the nation that had been given a home to Joseph had now changed and became an oppressor to them.

[9:05] And we see here, even though that Egypt survived because of the policies and things that God gave unto Joseph, they forgot the reality of that. And so we see here that Pharaoh began to increase their labor and their responsibility.

[9:22] You know, as we see and we look through these things, this oppressive nature that was put forth in the midst of this oppressive culture, we find a young couple.

[9:34] You know, oftentimes, how many times have you heard today? Well, we don't want, I hear today, young couples say, well, I don't want to get married. You know, there's so much evil. You know what? You're never going to find a time there's not evil. I want you to understand that you have to trust God in every generation.

[9:48] But we see Amran and Jochebed got married. They were a young couple under this oppression and decided to get married. They said, we're going to do what's right. We're going to do what God has instructed us to do.

[10:02] And then we're going to trust God in it. And we find that he took a wife. And we find that he was being obedient to what God had told them to do, to continue to multiply.

[10:17] And what we find here, that not only did Pharaoh enslave the nation of Israel, but enforced them to build his cities, he began to oppress them greatly. And then he came to the point where they kept multiplying.

[10:31] If you remember what he told them, he told them, look up in the chapter one there in the scripture. Look here in verse 16. We see this and it says, And they sent a messenger unto Joseph saying, Thy father did command before he died, saying, oh, I got, that's back over in Genesis.

[10:51] Page stuck, sorry. I'm like, that's not the right one. And he said, What ye do to the office of midwife to the Hebrew women and see them upon the stools.

[11:02] If it be a son, then ye shall kill him. But if it be a daughter, then she shall live. We find here that Pharaoh commands the midwives, he says, When the kids are being born, if it's a female child, let it live.

[11:15] If it's a male child, that's born to kill it on the spot. And if you're familiar with Genesis chapter one, you know that the Hebrew midwives were like, Hey, well, the Hebrew women are too strong and they just have these babies and they're gone before we get there, you know.

[11:34] And Pharaoh changes into a new plan. He says, We're going to gather up all the sons when they're born and we're going to cast them into the river. Now you imagine being a mom and giving birth to a child, knowing that somebody was going to try to take him and put him in the river.

[11:51] Because we understood what that meant. We understood that it meant certain death. But look in verse 22, and he says this, And Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, Every son that was born, you shall cast into the river, and every daughter you shall save alive.

[12:06] Now, the implication of this is pretty broad. Because basically, it says, Pharaoh said unto the people, So if an Egyptian saw a Hebrew mom with a male child, they could take the male child and throw it in the river.

[12:18] It's basically a license to slaughter young children. That's about as discriminatory and about as unjust as you can get in it. This is the culture, this is the dynamic that Amron and Jacobed were faced with.

[12:34] But yet they were willing to trust God. You know, there was kill the children. They were targeted for death.

[12:46] And it was oppression and hatred that was the day in which Moses was born. You know, today we find that prejudice isn't any different.

[12:56] People get insecure. You find that people, for all sorts of reasons, will discriminate against others and have issues because of all sorts of different things.

[13:08] I mean, everything from their ethnicity to physical appearances or even levels of education.

[13:18] You know, there's often a move amongst people that you have this standard of, well, if you're not as educated as me, you're subbed to me. You know what that is? That's a false idea that somebody has less value because of what level of schooling or degree that they might have.

[13:35] You know? One of my favorite sayings when it comes to that, you just got to remember that the number of curls in the pigtail don't make the pork any better. The number of degrees behind your name doesn't make you a better person.

[13:50] It doesn't make you a righteous person. You know? I want you to understand that these things happen throughout history and it's an ugly dynamic that happens throughout.

[14:03] But prejudice isn't confined to one location or time. You know? I want you to understand sometimes they try to paint in our society today that, well, we're the only generation that faces this.

[14:13] You know what? Every generation faces it in some form. But as believers, we ought to be able to identify and even trust God even when it's directed and it's difficult.

[14:27] To trust God in these things because it's not just one area that happens. You know, you can go back throughout history. You'll find people who preached the word of God were discriminated against and many of them were burned at the stake.

[14:41] They were killed. They were drowned. Why? Because of what they believed. It was counter to what those in command, they didn't want that to be available to them and to others to know.

[14:55] You know, as a matter of fact, the Bible tells us in 2 Timothy 3, it says, Yea, all and all that live godly in Christ Jesus shall what? Suffer persecution.

[15:08] In other words, you're going to find that those that are sinful, wicked people, those that want to hold to the standard of the world are always going to stand in contrast to those who want to stand with the word of God.

[15:21] There's always going to be that tension. That tension is going to be real around us. And I want you to understand that these things are happening and you see a shift even in our culture.

[15:33] You know? We see a shift of things towards even belief systems. There's a big conflict right now, isn't it? There's a big conflict between belief systems and people want to oppress and to put others out.

[15:46] And there's all sorts of different levels of this. But you know, we need to ask ourselves not why is it happening. But our real question is, is Lord, what do you want us to do?

[16:00] How do we deal with and live in a day that we have to walk? In our day, because every day is a little different, but I think there's some godly principles that we're going to see here this morning that are going to be beneficial for us as we understand these things because we need to respond correctly.

[16:22] You know, one of Satan's tricks is to not only cause the initial hurt that is caused by discrimination and prejudice, but also to get people bitter and sidetracked. You know, sometimes we can grab a hold of what happened and we get camped there.

[16:37] We're camped on the event instead of saying, yes, it happened, but we need to move forward from it. You know, a couple of Wednesday nights ago, we had a lesson about grief and you know, one of the things with grief and somebody, it's a journey and what happens in grief, if you don't continue moving, you camp and when you camp in grief, you know what happens?

[16:59] You become angry and bitter about what happened. Same thing when wrong or injustice is done to us. We can camp at the moment of injustice and it'll cause you to become bitter and angry.

[17:14] And those are things that God tells us not to be and they show up through things that happen throughout our life. So the question isn't is, when it is, or what, if it's going to happen, the question is, how are we going to deal with it?

[17:30] How are we going to avoid the pitfalls of being angry and bitter about what happens in life? You know, this is important because I want you to understand it starts here when we learn these questions from the lives of Jochebed.

[17:47] We're going to look at Jochebed because I think we're going to see here first, the ministry of a mom has a great impact. The ministry of mom is important because there's no greater opportunity to make an impact on the life of a child than a mom.

[18:03] You know, motherhood is downplayed today greatly, but I tell you what, motherhood and being a mom is probably one of the most influential, if not the most influential position anybody could be in.

[18:17] You directly shape the lives of the next generation. What a mom spends and invests in her children directly impacts the generations to come.

[18:32] Now, we know that dads are important, but today we want you to see her because Jochebed does something as a mom that gives us from her actions we can see these things in her life that Jochebed was a remarkable mom who had an opportunity to have a remarkable influence on her son's life.

[18:57] Even in the midst because notice how first she lovingly protects Moses. take a look here in verse 2 in chapter 2 of Exodus.

[19:09] It says, And the woman conceived and bare a son and she saw him that he was a goodly child and she hid him three months. You know, we find here that she saw something about a child.

[19:25] A child, the Bible tells us, is a blessing from the Lord. You know, children are not something that is just something that's required.

[19:35] I want you to understand your children are a blessing. You know, what we've been taught today that sometimes today we find that's being taught is children are a hindrance. Children hold you back.

[19:47] It almost puts the place of children as secondary instead of the blessing that God says that they are. And if we understand they are a blessing that God gives to us, it changes what we do and how we do it.

[20:02] Because you ever notice how you think about something influences how you work through or how you do things? You know, if you think something's a burden from the very beginning, what's your attitude? You know, usually it's you grumble and you complain and you, but if you consider and begin with that, hey, this is a blessing, this is something that's great, it's something important, something of value that I've been given to protect, you know what?

[20:29] It changes your perspective. You know, I want you to understand that she saw him as a goodly child. Now, I want you to understand because sometimes we read these words and we don't really connect what's being spoken about.

[20:44] The word goodly here talks about having value. It's a value statement about children.

[20:54] It was a goodly child. Refers to that they saw value and worth in Moses. You know, even in the midst of a time when they were killing all the baby boys, we see here this young couple recognized this little child was a gift from God.

[21:14] You know, to understand that they are a heritage, Psalm tells us in 127 verse 3, it says, low children are what? A heritage of the Lord and the fruit of the womb is his reward.

[21:26] You know, your reward, we look at reward as value, don't we? When we get a reward for something, we say, hey, this is something of value and we understand the value of life because life is not given and shouldn't be taken by people deciding those things.

[21:46] It's a gift of God and needs to be valued as such. You know, today we live in a generation where life is not valued but death is promoted.

[21:58] You see a shift in our culture. That's the reason you'll even see individuals that, and you'll probably notice this, have you ever noticed that most tattoos that are given all deal with death?

[22:10] They're either celebrating somebody's death or they have skulls, they have all sorts of things that are symbols of death associated with them. And we see an uprise of that in our society.

[22:23] You see an uprise in things that promote death and evil spirits and that's the reason you see all these vampire shows and you see all the witches and you see all this.

[22:34] This is all associated with death. It's a celebration of death because you know what is contrast to God because God says he's about life.

[22:44] death is a consequence of sin. God is always about life. It says that Jesus gave us life and that we might have it more what?

[22:55] Abundantly. To understand that thought is important because we live in a day where they want to just kill children. You know? I want you to understand that today in which we live that people promote death.

[23:07] I mean there's people that actually go out into foreign nations. That's one of the things that now I'm debling here but we'll step in here. When you find out that U.S. tax dollars went to kill children in foreign countries we ought to be appalled at that.

[23:23] We ought to be appalled that it's used to kill children in our country. Let alone someplace else. That's even worse. That's exporting it.

[23:34] But I want you to see here that this mom made a difference. You know look back over to the book of Hebrews for a moment. Hebrews chapter 23. We find here in Hebrews chapter 23 as we find Jochebed here she was protecting him but we find here in Hebrews chapter 11 in verse 23 it says by faith Moses when he was born was hid three months of his parents because they saw he was a proper child and they were not afraid of the king's commandment.

[24:09] You know that's a powerful statement. They were not afraid of what Pharaoh said was going to happen. Their faith was in God. You know it took faith to do what they did.

[24:23] But I want you to understand their faith isn't something abnormal. It ought to be something normal for a believer to say I'm going to trust God. I appreciate David's message this morning it kind of blended in real good to say on all this and you know God works those things through.

[24:40] I think God has an important message of we need to increase our faith. We need to have a faith of longevity and I think you see some faith that has some longevity here in the life of Moses' mother and the investment that she made.

[24:54] You know life is that it's a gift of God and when we try to distort those things we're going counter to the things of God and God has given parents the responsibility to raise up children.

[25:09] You know it's important that God gives us that. It's God's place that we oversee those things in our life their instruction.

[25:20] You know we see today often times the state stepping in trying to take children. That's a whole other dynamic. I could spend too much time on some of this stuff for a lesson for another day.

[25:32] But I want you to see here that they wanted to interject but she lovingly protects Moses. Parents today I want to encourage you you need to lovingly protect your kids.

[25:43] They're valuable. You know things we see value with we protect. But consider here when protecting Moses you know we have a lot of little kids around here.

[25:56] You know there's one thing you know when there's little kids and how you know they're there. How do you know little kids are around? Noise. They cry they squeak they make all sorts of weird noises.

[26:10] Can you imagine trying to hide a child for three months? Because you've got to understand that everybody around them was under an order to cast him into the river.

[26:21] I imagine Moses' mom put in a lot of effort and took a lot of effort and care to protect Moses in those first three months.

[26:31] but when it was impossible to hide him because you know sooner or later you're not going to be able to hide him. Sooner or later it's going to come out. But what did she do? Because not only does she lovingly protect we find she also trusts in God's providence.

[26:44] Now we talked about that a few weeks ago of God's providence that God's providence is that which God will work things through for his purpose.

[26:56] and we have to trust God's providence because sometimes things in life don't make sense to us. I mean when you read the scripture you'll find a lot of things didn't make sense.

[27:07] Earlier we just talked about Joseph. Did Joseph's life begin the way he thought it was going to begin or even his parents? No it was all upside down. His brothers sold him instead of killing him they sold him into slavery.

[27:21] Lied to the parents about his death. He ends up in Egypt. He's faced with all sorts of issues all to get him in a prison cell with somebody with an ear of the Pharaoh.

[27:35] Have you ever considered how God worked all those things all those things that everybody thought was evil but the Bible tells us in Genesis that God worked it for good to save much people alive.

[27:48] That's God's providence. But let's take a look here as we look at this. Look at verse 3. It says here in chapter 2 verse 3 when she could no longer hide him she took for him an ark of bulrushes and dabbed it with slime and with pitch and put the child therein and she laid it in the flags by the river's brink.

[28:10] Now this passage is an interesting passage because it carries with it when she's describing the ark here it carries a lot of the same word used back in Genesis to describe Noah's ark that he built and you find a lot of similarities in the construction.

[28:29] They wove it together they put pitch to seal it up. I mean you see a lot of things here but we find that here's Jochebed she does her best to both obey God and man.

[28:42] It's an interesting solution she came up with because remember where was Moses supposed to be cast? In the river. I found it interesting as I was thinking through this she literally obeyed the command of Pharaoh by putting Moses in the river.

[28:58] Now she didn't put him in there quite the way that Pharaoh intended but I want you to see here that she was obedient both to God and man and consider that she commanded by the Pharaoh to cast her son into the river.

[29:12] She chose a spot that she hoped he would be protected. I can imagine Jochebed that day as she laid Moses in the river just thinking and said Lord I've done everything I can do.

[29:23] Lord you have to take care of him. You know it takes a lot of faith for a mom to trust that God's providence is going to take care of things outside their control. You know one of the things of faith is giving up our own control to trust what God says.

[29:38] But our battle with faith is mostly I think within ourselves of trusting who do we trust more. Do I trust my thinking? Or God's thinking? What do I trust?

[29:50] But I want you to notice something here that throughout all this it's amazing that in those three months she didn't become angry or bitter. You know we have nothing of hatred recorded in her life but instead she responds by faith.

[30:08] And I want you to understand faith in God leads to a peaceful resilience. She was willing to trust God and when we are oppressed rather than retaliating we should like David cry out to God in our distress.

[30:23] Look over to Psalm chapter 7 for a moment. Psalm 7 in verse 1 the word of God tells us this as David is writing here he says O Lord my God in thee do I put my what?

[30:36] Trust save me from all them that persecute me and deliver me. you know the way people who don't know God when they deal with something that is uningest or discriminatory they take things into their own hand and they try to expend their energy fighting the system or the people who have mistreated them.

[30:59] You know Jochebed could have done this. I mean it's ironic that she you know maybe she could have organized a protest march or something you know sometimes that's our modern generation we'll protest it.

[31:13] You know and there's nothing wrong with certain things being protested but you know the methodology that we use is sometimes important because sometimes people put their trust in the protest instead of their trust in God.

[31:27] They're trying to make a big difference here and fail to make the little difference that changes things. Because it wasn't her fight to be against Pharaoh that was going to make a difference it was her trusting God that made the difference.

[31:46] To trust God and to fight for her son through faith you know it's counterintuitive to us. I mean it goes against who we are because by nature we want to take action of our own.

[31:59] We want to lash out. We want to try to get even. You know look over to Romans chapter 12 because here Paul is writing to the church at Rome now if you understand anything about history Christians in the time of Paul weren't exactly a popular group of people.

[32:17] They didn't enjoy the status in society. They were outcasts. To call upon Christ and to deny worshiping all the local gods that everybody wanted them to do set them apart and they were persecuted persecuted and prosecuted.

[32:37] But look here in Romans 12 look at verse 17 Paul's telling them in the midst of persecution in the midst of people doing wrong against you he says this recompense to no man evil for evil provide things honest in the sight of all men if it be possible as much as life in you live peaceably with all men.

[33:01] I want you to understand that he says our first option ought to be how can we resolve this and how can we live peaceably and not grab a hold of everything that we become angry and bitter because angry and bitter you know we have a word for that today and people live today it's called a victim mentality a victim mentality is rooted in bitterness and anger I'm mad because this happened to me I want you to be victim mentality a victim mentality is your attitude towards what happens being a victim means something happened to you you can have wrong happen to you wrong things happen to us throughout life things that aren't fair things that and the level of that varies but a victim mentality says that's where I'm going to camp at the event of what happened, instead of saying, God, I'm going to trust you in light of what happened. To trust him. Paul goes on to tell him, he says, be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with what? Good. We live in a day that we could really enjoy the liberty that we have in trusting Christ. Many places around the world don't enjoy the freedoms that we have to respond. You know, as Americans, we're probably the most unique in history for what we can do and how we respond to wrongs. I mean, right in the Constitution, we have an opportunity to address the government for wrongs. That's a common right we have. You know, most people in the world don't have that right. We ought to be thankful that we're born in a country that men that founded our nation saw that that was a principle from God that says we ought to be able to do that. It's a blessing that we have. We can do that. You know, I want you to understand that we can work through these things. We can get these things addressed in different ways.

[35:08] You know, we understand that it's important, though, to be thankful for the ability to speak out properly. You know, many people throughout history, you know, you have people like Frederick Douglass spoke out against the horrors of slavery and for the ideals of freedom that the United States wasn't living up to. Now, I want you to understand our nation in no means was perfect.

[35:35] You know what the problem is? People. Sin. Because let me give you a little insight, if you haven't figured it out yet, where people are, sin is present. People do sinful things.

[35:50] If people are there, there's going to be sin with it. They travel together. The Bible says it's our nature. We're born with a sin nature. When we understand the liberties, I'm thankful for people who are willing to stand for religious liberty, even in court. I mean, there's a lot of battles today that we find for religious liberty. You know, we can redress the courts. We can go through a legal process. I'm not saying just to get run over, but we need to understand we need to use the tools that God has blessed us with, but not become bitter or angry about it, but to say, how do we resolve this in a godly manner? Jochebed didn't throw a protest. She said, Lord, give me wisdom to resolve this or to work through this in a godly manner. I found it ironic that she obeyed the command of Pharaoh casting Moses into the river. It didn't make any sense. But you know what? She made a way of protection and provided for Moses in that. The point is not that you shouldn't speak up. The point is that you should respond with trust in God and a refusal to react out of spite or desire to get even.

[37:10] You know, it's interesting. She didn't take it out on Pharaoh's daughter. Matter of fact, I want you to, as we'll see, as we'll pick up here next week, because the preacher's out of time again. But I want you to see here that she trusts in God's providence. And sometimes I think we try to have our own providence, Lord, this is how I want it to work out. This is how I want it done. And say, God, let me walk by faith doing what is right and trusting that you will make it right. That takes faith that God is over our circumstances. Even in the life of Moses, Moses' mom was faced with some very challenging injustice and discrimination. But she said, Lord, how do I work through? I think she probably spent a lot of sleepless nights even praying, saying, Lord, how do I overcome this? How do I do the things that I ought to do? Lord, how do I protect Moses? You know, we can realize the importance this morning as we begin looking here. And we'll finish up here in a few weeks this lesson.

[38:22] Because next week we've got another special guest going to be with us next week. But, you know, overcoming these things. In the next few weeks, what I encourage you to do is think, how am I responding to things that go wrong in my life? Sometimes done intentionally by others, how do I respond? Do I respond in faith and trust God to say, God, I'm going to do what's right because you've instructed me to do it? Or am I going to try to take matters into my own hands and do it my way instead of God's way? But let's pray.