Sunday Mornings A Man with 2 Mothers May 9th 2010
Exodus 2:1-10 Now a man of the house of Levi married a Levite woman, 2 and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months. 3 But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. 4 His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.
5 Then Pharaoh's daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the river bank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her slave girl to get it. 6 She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. "This is one of the Hebrew babies," she said. 7 Then his sister asked Pharaoh's daughter, "Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?"
8 "Yes, go," she answered. And the girl went and got the baby's mother. 9 Pharaoh's daughter said to her, "Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you." So the woman took the baby and nursed him. 10 When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh's daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses, [a] saying, "I drew him out of the water."
Our mothers are a very important part of our lives.
We wouldn’t be who we are without our mothers.
The man Moses became the kind of man he was because of the type of mother he had. In fact, who he was, was very much determined by the type of MOTHERS he had, because God gave Moses two mothers.
And they were both good mothers because they both had some of the same instincts for their roles.
For example: They both loved babies
Now, that may seem like a given… but not every woman loves kids.
I once read the story of a woman who went shopping for swimsuits with her mother.
In the department store, she was having a hard time finding one that fit. After trying on at least 10, all to no avail, she grew increasingly frustrated.
Trying to calm her, her mother said "Look at it this way: what would you rather have – the husband and three children who adore you, or a swimsuit that fits?"
Before she could answer, a faceless voice from the next dressing room stall replied "I want a swimsuit that fits!"
Not every woman wants kids. But these two did.
And that WAS no small thing in their day because Moses’ 2 mothers lived in a culture of death.
A decree had gone out from the throne of Pharaoh that every male child born to a Hebrew was to thrown into the Nile and drowned. And Moses’ birth mother Jochebed was a Hebrew woman. So she had a choice to make.
The society in which she lived made it virtually impossible to keep her child and she could have decided to simply allow her child to be thrown away.
She could have chosen death (the easy choice)… but she chose life instead.
And this was not an easy decision for Jochebed to make.
It required her to hide her child for 3 whole months always fearing that Egyptian soldiers would discover the baby… and not only would they kill her child but punish her entire family for disobeying the law.
Choosing life was not an easy decision.
But then consider Pharaoh’s daughter.
She knew who this baby was. Exodus 2:6 “She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. ‘This is one of the Hebrew babies,’ she said.” She knew he was a Hebrew.
Her father had decreed these children should die.
Her society had decided that these babies shouldn’t live.
It would have been so easy to let the child die.
But she chose life instead.
Both mothers lived in a culture of death.
Both mothers lived in a society that has decreed certain children shouldn’t live. And so do we.
But Moses lived because Jochebed and Pharaoh’s daughter never accepted that culture of death. They chose life.
You may know of someone who has had an abortion… or you yourself may have had one. I want you to remember that: God is a forgiving God.
Today God tells us that we escape judgment – from ALL of our sins - when we apply by the blood of the Lamb of God (Jesus Christ) to our lives. By the blood of Jesus, God removes all of our sin from our lives.
When we believe in Jesus, repent of our sins and confess Him as our Lord God removes our sins as far as the East is from the West.
He buries it in the depths of the sea.
He removes it from our lives and remembers it no more.
Why would God do that for us?
He does that because our God is a God who chooses life.
Not just life for the unborn, but also for those of us who have made decisions that have brought us shame and guilt. Decisions that have robbed our lives of the joy and promise God created us to have. It’s only by the blood of Jesus that we have that hope in our lives.
Let me repeat: Moses lived… and became the kind of man he became… because his 2 mothers loved life, and loved babies.
2ndly – Moses became the kind of man he was because his mothers did everything they could for him.
Jochebed hid Moses in order to save his life.
Well, she decides to get a bit creative.
If Pharaoh wanted her child to be thrown into the river… that’s where she’d put him. But not before she had given her boy an edge, an advantage in life.
And then there’s Pharaoh’s daughter
Moses’ adoptive mother.
She loves this boy - takes him into her home and makes him her son.
She (like Jochebed) did everything she could for this boy as well.
Acts 7:22 tells us that “Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action.”
Pharaoh’s daughter wanted Moses to have all the advantages her culture could supply. She wanted him to be a leader of men/ a ruler of nations. And she succeeded, Moses was powerful in speech and action.
Both of Moses’ mothers loved him so much that they did everything they could think to do to give him every advantage he could have.
But only Jochebed gave Moses the one thing that changed his life.
Pharaoh’s daughter supplied Moses a knowledge of the wisdom of Egypt.
She got him into the best schools. She arranged to find him the best teachers
She had supplied him with the ability to be a man who was powerful in speech and action.
She had supplied him with all the training and education he needed to be a success in this world.
And yet Hebrews 11:24 tells us that the time came when Moses “…refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter.”
There was something Pharaoh’s daughter had not supplied him with.
Something was missing from his extensive education in the schools of Egypt
What was missing was a different kind of knowledge… a knowledge of who God was.
As parents and grandparents and uncles/ aunts we need to realize that even with the most advanced education our society can supply - without God at the center of our children’s lives there will be an emptiness that nothing else can fill.
In Ecclesiastes, Solomon looks at all the advantages a man can have in life.
Wealth, and education, and power, and success.
Toward the end of his book he declares "Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Everything is meaningless!" Ecclesiastes 12:8
Solomon ends his book on the meaninglessness of life with this advice: “Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.” Eccles. 12:13
What did Solomon mean? He meant that – without God – life become meaningless and empty. Only God can help us to reach the potential.
Only God can help us to realize our promise and possibility.
Once we know who God is… then we can realize that we’ve been made in His image, We are part of His plan
We have been created for a purpose and we have a reason to exist.
Ephesians 2:10 “… we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
We have purpose / We have value
We have a reason for our lives … because God is IN our lives.
And that’s what Jochebed gave her son.
She couldn’t read to him from the Bible. None of that had been written yet
She may have told him the stories of great men like Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
But I think she did even more than that.
I think she gave that knowledge of God by sharing HER faith in God.
She told him what she believed
She told him what God had done in her life… and in his
She told him what God wanted for their people (Promises)
And because God was REAL to her… God became real for him as well.
Jochebed loved her son so much that she wanted him to know the most powerful force in her life. And she wanted Moses to know her God.
And our children/ grandchildren/ nephews and nieces still need to know Him
