Aaron’s Staff

Well, once again, we’re so glad that you’re joining us here at Shepherds Gate, whether you’re in person, you’re joining online, maybe you’re streaming in later on demand, or you’re one of our friends at First Lutheran and Algonac, we’re glad that you have chosen to be with us today. My name’s Tim. I get the privilege of being one of the pastors here.

And we are in week nine of our 12-week sermon series on the first part of the book of Exodus, which is the second book of the Bible. Can you believe it’s March 1st? Does anybody know the first day of spring? Anybody know? Oh, you guys, March 20th, that means 19 days and God will just part the clouds. There’ll be no more snow, no more ice, and we’ll have 80-degree weather.

Oh, no, that’s Arizona. Oh, I forgot, okay. We live in the great state of Michigan, don’t we? Well, it’s so good to have you here.

I do want to pause for a moment and lift up a special prayer. We were also supposed to have a baptism today. A little baby, Charlotte, was going to be baptized, and unfortunately, her parents had to rush her to the emergency room, and that’s all the information that we have at this point.

So if you wouldn’t mind, just join me in a quick prayer. Heavenly Father, we know that you know Charlotte. We know that she is your child and that God, you have your hand upon her, and we just pray that you would be with her in whatever condition that she’s in.

Give the doctors and nurses and the specialists that are tending to her care wisdom and guidance. Wrap your arms around her parents, her grandparents, all of their family that I’m sure is so concerned about her, and God, may you just perform a miracle in that hospital room for her. So God, we know that you hear our prayers, that you answer them according to your will, and so we just ask for a great outcome for her.

We love you, we thank you, in your name we pray, amen. Amen. And thank you for doing that with me.

And you know what’s interesting, I don’t have my clicker. So let me go get my clicker. And so part of the way that we do Books of the Bible here is to be very intentional to take our time.

The last several weeks, we’ve been about 15 to 18 verses a week, but I did wanna let you know these last four weeks, today Joe did an incredible job reading the verses today, but you’ll see next week, we’re gonna tackle 108 verses. And everyone said, now, if we tried to tackle it within the worship service, it would take about 25 to 30 minutes just to read you every word of the text, which means we would have a three-hour service. How many, you’re good to go for three hours next week? Oh, some of you are in for it.

So we came up with a slightly different idea, because we figured that might be pushing it. We’re sending out an email today at one o’clock, where you can watch and listen to those passages, just being read. It’s an incredible interactive video.

It’s also gonna go out tomorrow morning in our Monday Motivation email, and it will be posted on our social media channels later this week. Or I would just encourage you, grab your own Bible and read through Exodus 7-10. Read it on your own, and it goes through all of the plagues.

There’s a lot of repetition in there, although the plagues keep changing, and that way you’re completely prepared as you come back next week. So just wanted to give you that special announcement today. But this is where we left off last week, Exodus chapter 6, 10 and 11.

Moses has already gone in one time and told Pharaoh that God came to him and told him he is to say these words to Pharaoh, that you are to let my people go. Pharaoh’s like, nah, I don’t believe in your God, I don’t believe that God spoke to you, and I’m really not interested in losing my workforce, because at that time the Israelites were enslaved, that he was using them brutally, even beating them to accomplish building his kingdom, and so the Lord tells him to actually go back in a second time and to say the same exact thing. Like, Moses, I already told you, you’re gonna have to do this over and over again, and Moses being Moses, because Moses apparently doesn’t always remember everything that God tells him, and I don’t know if you’ve noticed that Moses has no problem backtalking God, have you noticed that? I mean, he gets pretty direct with God, and so he says back to God, if the Israelites, the people of God aren’t gonna listen to me, Pharaoh’s not gonna listen to me, and I can tell you the reason why, it’s because I have uncircumcised lips.

And it’s a really weird couple of words to put together, because when God appeared to Moses in the burning bush, and God said, I got this incredible assignment, and I got this incredible future and destiny for you, you’re gonna be the mouthpiece, I’m gonna be using you to deliver the people out of slavery, Moses called the time out and said, no, you got the wrong guy, in fact, I have a speech impediment, so it’s never gonna work out, I’m a terrible public speaker, you should pick somebody else. Well now he’s doubling down by using these terms, uncircumcised lips, because he’s going from the natural to the spiritual. Two things happening, he’s saying, look, you don’t understand, I’m a sinful person, I have sinful tendencies inside me, which is why my lips are uncircumcised, and I don’t really have the spiritual authority to speak on your behalf, because look, nobody is listening to me, I’m doing what you tell me to do, I say what you’re telling me to say, and it just falls on deaf ears.

And so this is where we’re gonna start today, is in verse 13, so if you have your Bibles, you wanna turn there, Exodus chapter six, verse 13, the Lord speaks to Moses and Aaron about the Israelites, and he commands them to bring the Israelites out of Egypt, Moses and Aaron, you’re not getting out of this assignment, Moses and Aaron, I have called you, and I have destined you for this purpose, no matter what excuse you come up with. Then we heard Joe just beautifully read all of the names that are connected to Moses and Aaron, which on first, you know, kind of pass through the Scriptures, this is a weird place to put genealogy, if you were writing the book, if I was writing the book, we would put it at the beginning of the book, this is what you see in the New Testament, like, you know, this person begets this person begets this person, sometimes genealogies talk about people dying, and then this person died, and then this person died, and then this person died, and then this person died, some of you get into that, you like your family genealogy, and so when you get to these kinds of Scriptures, you scratch your head and you say, well, what’s the point of having these in the Bible, and why did you have Deacon Joe read through them? And I always say the first reason, the practical reason is, is that if you are with child, there are some really cool biblical names that I think we should recirculate. Many of you know, because Pastor Ben said a few weeks ago that he and his wife are expecting their fourth child this July, and I think we should have a competition here at church, oh yeah, you can give a clap for him.

All of their kids have biblical names, whether it’s the first name or the middle name, so I just think there’s some cool names in that list that maybe they would consider for this fourth child, I don’t know, that’s up to them though. But here’s really the bigger picture of the point of genealogies in the Bible. It shows how God keeps His promise through generations.

And sometimes this is hard for us to understand because we want God to make us a promise and to keep it to us in our timeline, and with our time on this earth. And the more you dig into Scripture, the more that you see God can make a promise to one generation and not even fulfill it for multiple generations. But it doesn’t mean that He’s not always orchestrating His plan in order to redeem all of mankind, which is what He is always up to.

Genealogies are also rooted in actual history. We believe these are real names from real families at real locations at a real period of time. Here’s my favorite part of genealogies, they include sinners, scandalous stories, and unexpected people.

Which means everybody you read is screwed up. And sometimes people don’t realize that if they’re not churched or they have this view of church and they think that we’re trying to be perfect or we’re holier than thou or we know better than they do. No, no.

We’re all messed up. We’re all in the same camp together. And even the lineage of Jesus all throughout Scripture, people screw up over and over and over again.

And it’s only by the grace of God that any of us are here and able to breathe today. And that’s what’s important. The humans in Scripture are not the heroes of the story.

Let me give you an example. Does Moses look like a hero at any point throughout what we’ve been through the last several weeks? In fact, if you could narrow it down to a percentage, what percentage would you say Moses has actually gotten it right versus gotten it wrong? Someone said 10%. That’s probably the camp that I would be in.

So imagine that. 90% of the time he’s talking back to God and telling God he’s wrong and he should do something different. Where 10% of the time he actually follows through and does what God commands him to do.

And remember, everything in Scripture, this is what we believe, teach, and confess as a church. Everything ultimately points to the person and work of Jesus Christ. Does that make sense now? All right.

So now we can go on to chapter 7. The Lord said to Moses, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron’s going to be your mouthpiece, your prophet. He’s going to speak for the Lord. Now, what’s interesting about these words is that you don’t find this anywhere else in the Bible of God making someone like God.

And so why is he doing that? He’s basically reversing what Moses is saying with his uncircumcised lips. Because Moses doesn’t say it just once. He says it twice to God.

I have uncircumcised lips. He’s like, you don’t understand. If I tell you to do something and I’ve destined you to do this and I’ve promised that I’m going to be with you in that, then it’s going to be my power that’s at work in and through what you have been commanded to do.

You speak for God. So take the assignment from me seriously. And wouldn’t you know, they did as the Lord commanded them.

Moses was 80 years old. Anybody feeling 80 years old this morning? And Aaron was how old? Who’s the older brother? Okay, you sure? How come Aaron is alive? Why wasn’t Aaron thrown into the Nile when Pharaoh ordered the murder of babies? Because he’s three years older than Moses. And when he ordered that, he would have been kept from that group of baby boys that were innocently murdered.

Now I want you to think about this this morning. Are you ever too old to be used by God? Anybody in here you just think like, I’m kind of done. I did kids ministry for a hundred years.

I, you know, I’ve made coffee at my church for a thousand years. I’m good just coming to church, sit, listen, and leave. Surely God understands I’ve served my time.

Anybody? I mean, even for the people that are 80 or plus, don’t you think we should just let them have a break? Like, we’re here to serve them. Everybody over 80 should be saying yes, that’s what you’re here to do. We should have valet parking for everybody that’s 80 or older.

I’m always perplexed when ages are included in scripture. Like in here, God is just starting to use these two. He’s just starting to unfold his plan.

Do you know that most books that are written, that are successful, are written by people that are 65 years or older? And why is that? Because it takes that long to gain that wisdom, that knowledge, and that life experience to have that kind of influence. What goes on to say this, the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, when Pharaoh says to you, prove yourselves by working a miracle, then you shall say to Aaron, take your staff, cast it down before Pharaoh, that ape may become a serpent. So before God had the conversation with Moses, he threw his staff down, it became a serpent or a snake.

Now whose staff is he going to use? Aaron’s. He’s now going to have Aaron do this, and he’s going to perform a miracle in and through an inanimate object by making it an actual living, breathing creature. Hold on to that concept of serpent, because we’re going to come back to it.

So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh, just as the Lord commanded. He cast down his staff, and his servants were there to watch this, and it did exactly what God said it would do. So this is the picture that we often see.

Those of us that were fortunate enough to grow up in Sunday school, or you had a children’s Bible at home, is this not the picture? We always think snakes when we think serpents. Couple observations. Number one, clearly Pharaoh continues to hit the gym every single day, right? Whoever the fitness people were at this time are doing a fabulous job on our ruthless dictator.

Second of all, who’s the older one? Who looks like the older one in this picture? Which one is Moses? What’s he wearing? And what’s Aaron wearing? Green. So why is it that we always, with our imagery, always have Moses looking like he’s older? Anybody know? Hollywood. Thank you.

Because why? Because he saw God, and it just aged him. You see God, you’re aging. Remember, he spent 40 years in the wilderness, and he worked for his father-in-law.

And if that doesn’t age you, I don’t know what will, right? Or our images are just screwed up. Someone said it’s because Aaron uses Just for Men. After the nine, they said that to me.

He just has a better hairstylist than Moses does. But think about that. Think about some of the things that we just assume in Scripture.

And I don’t know where you’re at if you’re feeling not just too old. Maybe you’re feeling too tired. Maybe you’re just overwhelmed with life circumstances.

I mean, I just had a doctor’s appointment last week, and I know this is why you came today, because you wanted an update on my physical health. And I’m sitting in the room, and she’s got her little gun, which she told me this is her favorite thing to do, and she’s zapping things off of my skin. She’s like, you know, just like freezing them off of my body, which I’ve never had that happen before.

And it’s just the smile on her face as she’s working within the vocation that God has placed her in. And she’s going over all of these things that she sees according to my blood work and my chart. And then she changes the conversation, and she says, because of your age, here’s all of the things that you’re going to be dealing with in the next couple of years.

I was like, this is a really encouraging, you know, doctor’s appointment. And then we get to the end of all of that, and my mind is racing, because I never had to deal with any of this before. I would just go once a year for my physical, get my blood work, get a pat on the back, and, you know, be sent on my way until the next year.

Do you know what she said to me at the end of the appointment? I want to see you back here in two to three months. I was like, what? She’s like, were you not paying attention in the appointment? You’re falling apart. I went home with tears in my eyes, and I said, Lisa, you’re not going to believe this.

I have to go back to the doctor in two to three months. And then it hit me. I’m dying.

And so are you, which is why we become so obsessed with the things of the world here and now, and yet Scripture’s always trying to get us to think beyond that in the life to come. Pharaoh’s actually not really impressed by this little, you know, trick, this demonstration of God’s power before him. In fact, he goes and gets his wise men, his sorcerers, his magicians, and they do some type of secret art, and they’re able to do the same exact thing.

They throw their staffs down, and all of a sudden you have multiple serpents, which we always translate as snakes. And there’s so much debate on this. Some would tell you that they were actual snakes and that you’re able to do something to them, those of you that like reptiles, and you probably study this, where you can make it look like a staff.

And so that’s what took place here. Others would say, no, no, this is the demonic before our eyes, that there is a spiritual world that is among us, and these are the forces of darkness, that these people are actually being used by the devil, maybe even demon-possessed, which is what’s giving them the ability to mimic what it is that Aaron has just performed before Pharaoh. But then it gets even weirder, because it says Aaron’s staffs swallowed up their staffs.

Why doesn’t it say that Aaron’s serpents swallowed up their serpents? Did they turn back into staff? And then how does an inanimate object consume another inanimate object? Or is it just a word that’s used in the text to describe what is happening in that moment? And so the image that we get, we love this image because it’s the big, bad, you know, snake, serpent from Aaron devouring the other ones that are there. Now, this morning, you know how we operate here at Shepherd’s Gate, that if the text is weird, we are not going to back away, we are not going to shy away from it, we’re going to go right at it. So how many of you, you’ll give me permission to get even weirder this morning, okay? First Sunday of March, let’s just go there.

The Hebrew word to describe a serpent or a snake is nahash. The Bible was written in Hebrew, the Old Testament of the Bible was written in Hebrew. The Hebrew word to describe Aaron’s staff and the magician’s staff is the same word, it’s tannin.

Here’s the interesting part. Why is he using a different word? Why not just use the same exact word that he used with Moses at the burning bush when he threw his rod down? Because tannin actually means some type of enlarged serpent or creature. It means much more than just a snake.

In fact, it could mean a dragon or even a sea monster. Some theologians will actually tell you this, that they actually believe the image of the snake is completely wrong, that it’s actually a crocodile, not a snake. Now follow me here.

Where are we at? What location are we in right now in Scripture? We’re in Egypt. And what is the biggest body of water that keeps being referenced? And what’s in the Nile? Crocodiles. And crocodiles were a symbol of Pharaoh and of power.

In fact, they find artifacts and stuff with that symbol on it all of the time. So imagine your Sunday school children’s book just got blown up. Imagine if there was a crocodile and now there’s other crocodiles eating the crocodile.

And the fact that this word is used in other places in the Bible, it’s in Psalms, it’s in Isaiah, even Ezekiel where Pharaoh himself is metaphorically called whatever this animal or weird creature is. Whatever it is, it’s something different than the snake that Moses saw. Why is any of this important? Why am I spending a couple minutes on this text alone? And this is why we need to know this, is that God’s power doesn’t match Egypt’s power.

It consumes it. That is the message that Almighty God is conveying to them in this text. That sure, maybe there’s some dark principles or dark abilities that they have, whether they’re manipulating things in the natural or whether they’re actually using the supernatural.

God is the creator of the universe. God is the creator of all things living and unliving, and God can do what he wants, when he wants, and how he wants to use it. And what you’re going to see next week when you come next week and we go over all the plagues, just as we’re seeing here in this moment, is that God is doing this on purpose.

He is dismantling every single thing that they worship as a false God, and he is showing his superiority and his sovereignty over every single creature that is on the planets. That is the point for you and I in this text today. Now, what happens next, we learned about a few weeks ago, because it tells us that Pharaoh’s heart was hardened.

He wouldn’t listen to them. He wasn’t buying the demonstration, the miracle as the scripture calls it, in front of him. And there’s something eternally wrong with what is going on in this moment.

Again, God told Moses and Aaron that he was going to harden his heart, that Pharaoh would harden his heart over and over and over again, and eventually God would allow him to live in that reality. And so here’s where I want it to get personal. Here’s where I want you to hone in this morning with me, because it can be so frustrating sometimes in our lives, or even the people around us, when there’s evidence, there’s proof.

And no matter how much evidence or proof you present to somebody, they still won’t believe. Have any of you ever run into this? It’s crazy if any of you are into the court TV shows and the way that they bring evidence and they prosecute people and all of the evidence. I mean, they literally could have somebody caught on video committing a crime and they go through the whole trial and they have a jury of their peers, and then finally at the very end, the person that they’re blaming for the crime stands up and what do they say? I’m innocent.

I have no idea where that video came from. I wasn’t there. I didn’t do this.

I mean, it’s mesmerizing sometimes, the levels and depths of the human heart. Sometimes when it comes to matters of faith, you ever talk to somebody and no matter what, no matter where God shows up in their lives, and even when it seems like the impossible has taken place, they will never, ever, ever, ever give God credit for it. It always goes back to their knowledge, their education, their ability to produce wealth or whatever it is that they think that they have within the course of what it is that they have done to get to where they’re at.

How about this next one? You ever had a heart and heart? Have you ever thought about that? Let me help you out this morning. Have you ever hated somebody so much that you were obsessed with them? That you could not stop thinking about them morning, noon, and night? In fact, when you wake up the next morning, no matter what, they’re the first person on your mind and you are literally in your head calculating how to destroy that person. And maybe it’s something that they said, maybe it’s something that you perceive that they did to you, maybe it was something that happened at work or within a friendship circle, sometimes within even our own families.

And the difficulty that that can be to navigate, the difficulty that sometimes those circumstances present in our lives. Can I be honest with you this morning? I’ve been there. Several years ago, I was so enraged and I was so caught up in anger toward another human being.

I couldn’t see straight. I didn’t sleep at night. I would wake up and I wasn’t really asleep and I thought that I was having a heart attack.

And it was because of pride in my own life. It was because of things that I felt that I was being treated unfairly or things were being said about me that weren’t true. And instead of going and having a conversation or bringing somebody else to have the conversation with me, I just let it fester and fester and fester and fester and pushed it down and pushed it down and pushed it down and pushed it down.

Until finally, I went and saw a professional counselor. And I still remember sitting across on that couch from him on that first session with his notebook. And he said, well, tell me why you’re here.

And I remember the first thing that came out of my mouth was, I am just angry. I’m angry. And he’s like, okay, that’s a good starting point.

And these people are professionals, right? They’re really good at digging into and finding out the root cause of maybe some of the things that we feel are happening in our lives. And can I tell you this? It wasn’t one or two sessions. It wasn’t just weeks.

It was months of sitting in that room and having him figure out the things that were happening in my life. And I really felt, and I know for a fact he was being used by God as he took circumstances from my childhood to circumstances that happened in the recent past, to circumstances that were happening now in my life in real time. And he was able to string them all together.

And as he exposed those things in my life, something broke mentally, emotionally, and spiritually in my life. And I realized that I was the one putting myself in that prison. Everybody that I was ticked off at just went on and lived their life as they saw fit.

And see, sometimes that’s what happens. Sometimes it happens even in our own lives. And that’s why we have to seek help and seek reconciliation.

God does not want especially his children arguing and fighting with each other. Here, let me give you another example. I just told you we got four more weeks in this sermon series.

There’s five Sundays in March. The fifth Sunday. Who knows what the fifth Sunday is? Say Palm Sunday.

Good job. The fifth Sunday is Palm Sunday, the kickoff of Holy Week. And some of you just went, crap, I got to see my family again in six weeks.

I barely survived Christmas. And isn’t it crazy? Come on, be honest this morning. I’m being honest with you.

Some of you, you have people in your life you do not want at your Easter table. Which is mesmerizing given the fact that the whole point of Easter is to celebrate the resurrection of our Savior in Jesus Christ and his defeat over sin, death, and the devil for everybody. No, thank you.

And listen, I know there’s caveats to this and it doesn’t mean you can’t have boundaries. And if you have abusive people in your life, that’s a whole different story. I’m talking about the day-to-day people that we interact with, that God has placed in our lives.

And to use something like this to stir something in us to get us to become clean before God and before others that we can get back to living the life that he’s called us to live. Amen? And that’s how the hopeless world that we live in turns to hope. Think about the children of Israel.

Remember what we’ve been talking about? Enslaved for 400 years. Moses and Aaron show up. Pharaoh makes their life worse, not better.

Now they hate Moses and Aaron. Remember they damned them, pointed their fingers at them. Moses and Aaron go and do what they’re told to do.

They’re not received very well and now Moses in particular is upset with God and pointing the finger at Almighty God. And here again, even after him seeing this miracle, and you can imagine the weight of Moses and Aaron in this moment. What do we do, God? What’s the next step? And this is the last verse that we’re going to look at today before we receive Holy Communion.

Because the Lord says to Moses, Moses, yep, Pharaoh’s heart, it’s hardened. He is gripped with anger and fear and it is hardened. And he is going to refuse to let my people go.

But here’s what I want you to do, Moses. Here’s your next instruction. You ready for this? Go to bed.

Wait, what? Yeah, you’re going to go to bed and you’re going to sleep on this. Because my plan is going to continue to unfold, but it’s not going to be in your time, Moses. It’s going to be in my timeline.

And sometimes that’s the most holy and religious thing that we can do in the midst of a storm. Are you ready for this? Go to bed. Go to bed, knowing and trusting that God is at work, knowing and trusting that God sees you and he knows you and he loves you.

And even in the midst of your life getting worse does not mean that he is not going to continue to unfold his perfect plan at the perfect place in the perfect time in the perfect situation for you. He loves you. He knows your genealogy.

He knows the baggage from the past. He knows your current situation and he has already working and orchestrating the events of your life for your future. Thanks be to God.

He doesn’t leave us in our sinful fallen state, but he is always working all things out for our good. Amen. Here’s the hardest part.

You have to wait. You have to wait for the Lord. He knows you’re tired.

He knows you’re exhausted. He knows that maybe you don’t have another breath in your lungs or another step that you feel that you can take. He’s going to come alongside you and he’s going to help you breathe.

He’s going to come alongside you and he’s going to help you take those steps. He’s going to come alongside you and he’s going to put those pieces together in your life that either you screwed up, maybe somebody else screwed up for you or some circumstance got you to where you’re at. He is never ever ever going to stop restoring you and working and making sure that all things work out for your good and the good of your family.

In fact, Paul actually goes back and quotes Isaiah, early church father, writing to the church in Corinth, which was going through insurmountable difficulties and hardships. And he reminds them of what is written in the scriptures that death is swallowed up in victory. And it’s the death of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, with outstretched arms on a cross as our sins and the sins of the world were placed upon him.

And in one final act, when he said it is finished, it has been finished ever since. And so now you and I, we enjoy the grace and the mercy, this side of the cross and this side of the resurrection, knowing and trusting that he is at work in our lives. Amen.

And so we’re going to prepare our hearts to receive Holy Communion this morning. And I want you, my friends, to go ahead and bow your heads at this time. If you’re a guest, our communion guidelines, you can look at the screen if this is your first time here.

If you’re watching online, you too can confess your sins and receive God’s forgiveness today. But our practice here at Shepherd’s Gate is to give you a moment between you and God to say whatever it is that’s on your mind, to confess whatever sins that you may have and whatever it is that God has spoken to you today through his word. And so let’s take that time now.

Almighty God and creator of the universe, thank you for hearing our confessions. Because of your son, Jesus Christ, because of the work that you did in and through him on the cross for each and every one of us, you have heard our confessions and you forgive us of all of our sins in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.