Recognise God’s Pattern

Good, we're going to turn now to our Bible reading for this evening, and Willie is continuing! his series through the early chapters of Exodus. So please do turn in your Bible. We have visitor! Bibles scattered around the back at the front here at the side, and you can grab a Bible there.

And we're in the second book of the Bible, Exodus, and chapter 2, page 45, if you have the visitor Bible.

So Exodus 2, and we're picking up the reading from verse 11. One day, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and looked on their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people. He looked this way and that, and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. When he went out the next day, behold, two Hebrews were struggling together, and he said to the man in the wrong, why do you strike your companion?

He answered, who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian? Then Moses was afraid, and thought, surely the thing is known. When Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and stayed in the land of Midian, and he sat down by a well.

Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came and drew water and filled the troughs to water their father's flock. The shepherds came and drove them away, but Moses stood up and saved them and watered their flock. When they came home to their father, Ruel, he said, how is it that you have come home so soon today? They said, an Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds, and even drew water for us and watered the flock. He said to his daughters, then where is he?

Why have you left the man? Call him that he may eat bread. And Moses was content to dwell with the man, and he gave Moses his daughter, Zipporah. She gave birth to a son, and he called his name Gershom, for he said, I have been a sojourner in a foreign land. Amen. May God bless his word this evening.

Amen. Well, do turn with me, if you would, in your Bibles to Exodus chapter 2. And if you need a Bible, there's some at the side, some at the back. It would be very helpful if you had one, and were able to see what it is we're speaking about.

Now, I'm sure you have heard cynics speak of the Christian faith as just a crutch, something to prop up feeble people who need some help to cope with life.

But I can tell you that no one who speaks like that really has any idea whatsoever about what it means to be a Christian, to be a servant of Jesus Christ, because to be a follower of Jesus is not to take up a crutch, but to take up a cross. And that means losing all the crutches that this world offers. And it means actually being exposed to far greater hardships and struggles than would ever come your way if you didn't follow Jesus Christ. So, if you're here and you're not yet a Christian, and you're thinking about becoming a Christian, do not think for a moment that that will make your life easier. If you belong to me, said Jesus, in this world you will have tribulation. So, be very clear about that. Being a servant of the one true and living God is very hard. So, by the way, if you're finding it hard, then be encouraged, because that means you are living a life of faith. You're not indulging in some sort of religion of fantasy. But serving God is hard not because our master God is a hard and wicked ruler. Serving God is hard because, in fact, He is wonderful. He's more wonderful than we, as mere creatures, can ever really grasp. And His purpose is far more wonderful than we can ever fully see. And that is why so often we find ourselves struggling. And so often we find ourselves perplexed.

Last week we sang the hymn, God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform. And that's so true, isn't it? And that's why that same hymn goes on to remind us to judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but to trust Him for His grace. Because behind what does often seem to us to be a frowning providence, He hides a smiling face. And we've seen, I think, that in reading Exodus chapters 1 and 2, we're helped to do that, to see through the dark clouds to that smiling face of God, to see what He's really like, to see what He's really doing, to help us see the invisible that Moses saw, so that we can trust Him amidst the toll. Remembering that His purposes are unchanged, they're unchangeable. However it might sometimes otherwise seem to us, He will always accomplish His purpose for the people He loves. And we can learn, as we saw last time, to rejoice in His providence, which is always at work, audaciously, marvelously, to bless all His people, ultimately, even if it can be agonizing and mysterious in the present for some of His people. God will frustrate His enemies. He will use even their worst evil for the ultimate blessing of His beloved people.

And now here we have, in the second half here of chapter 2 of Exodus, we have a very personal message to encourage, I think, every true servant of the Lord Jesus, like you and me, who may be finding it hard to follow God's calling in our lives. We're trying to, but sometimes we find it very perplexing. Sometimes we find ourselves even downcast, discouraged by events that are around us, even by God's people who are around us at times. And we might find ourselves wondering, what is God really doing? Has He? Has He forgotten about us altogether? Well, the message in this chapter is very clear, this section. Recognize God's pattern. Recognize His pattern. God's pattern in dealing with His servants is unmistakable. And it's ultimately wonderful, even if at first it can be perplexing and seem very disappointing. God turns His servants' present weaknesses and their rejection by others even, ultimately into a glorious victory of blessing for all His people. And that's the message of these verses about Moses, God's servant, about all these strange events that unfold around him and upon him as soon as, notice, as soon as he makes his first public identification with the people of God.

So let's look first of all at what these verses reveal about the pattern of this one great servant of God, Moses. Now you can see the story divides into three acts, so we'll look at them one by one. First of all in verses 11 and 12, which I'm going to call the Deliverer revealed. One day Moses, when he'd grown up, went out to his people and looked on their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his brothers. So he looked this way and that, and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hit him in the sand. Now we've suddenly jumped forward 40 years from the end of the last section. Acts chapter 7 tells us that Moses was 40 years old when this happened. And interesting, we don't get a biopic, do we, of Moses' life growing up in Pharaoh's court. We're not told anything about him. We're told about his birth, the birth of this coming Deliverer, far from expected circumstances. Then all of a sudden, what we hear about is his appearance bursting onto the public stage, showing himself as a Deliverer for his people. I wonder if a few bells are ringing there. There seem to be some other stories that I'm reminded about. I can't quite think where. Anyway, here's Moses among his brothers, says verse 11. Notice the footnote there, among his people. It's his brothers, and that's correct. And the text here is emphasizing that Moses is clearly identifying with his brothers, his true blood and kin. And you see, he has compassion on them.

And it's not a distant sort of theoretical compassion, is it? It's a compassionate act. He stands with his oppressed brothers. And he brings deliverance. He steps in to defend the oppressed man, in verse 12.

Now, be careful here. Don't read into this passage your own preconceived ideas about Moses' action. Very common for commentators and preachers to moralize against Moses here and assume that, well, Moses is in the wrong. Ah, you see, he's an unlearned man. He hasn't really thought about it. He's acted rashly, foolishly, wrongly. Shouldn't have done that. Well, we mustn't jump into these kind of moralistic lessons for us, however tempted we might be. What is the text here actually telling us?

Remember the context of this whole story in the book of Exodus. I think when we do that, we'll see it very differently, won't we? Who are the Egyptians? They are the great enemies of God and God's people. What are they trying to do? Commit genocide. Destroy every single one of the male births among the people. They and their Pharaoh and their gods absolutely are set against the one true God of earth and heaven, the God of Israel and all the people of Israel, God's people. So this is a crucial moment for Moses. It's a crucial moment for all Israel. Whose side is Moses, the prince of Egypt, going to be on? Is he going to choose the pleasures, the power, the privilege of sticking with God's sworn enemies? Or is he going to choose instead the mistreatment and the reproach of siding with God and God's people and therefore against the Egyptians, seeing them for who they really are, the enemies of God's purpose of salvation? Which way is Moses going to choose?

That's how Hebrews 11 in verses 24 to 26 summarize it for us. This is the moment when Moses publicly reveals himself as God's deliverer, considering, as the apostle says, the approach of Christ greater wealth than all the treasures of Egypt. He chose his true brothers. And therefore, when he sees a brother being struck down by the enemy in verse 11, he defends him and he strikes down the enemy himself. And by the way, it's the same word in verse 11 and verse 12 for beating and for striking down. And it's the same word that's used again later on in chapter 12, verse 12 of the Lord himself, who strikes down the firstborn in every household in Egypt. And goes on to say, on the gods of Egypt, I will execute judgment. So what this text is telling us here is that Moses himself is acting as God's deliverer. He is acting exactly as God acts himself, intervening to bring deliverance to his people. By the way, that's what verse 12 means when it says he looked and he saw no one and therefore he acted. It's nothing to do with him being furtive and seeing if anybody can see him.

It's exactly the same language that's used of God himself in Isaiah chapter 59, verse 16, and in Isaiah chapter 63, verse 5, where it says, God looked and he saw that there was no one, no man to save. And so his own arm brought salvation. Moses is acting like God and for God.

He is revealing himself as a deliverer from God's enemies. One scholar puts it like this, Moses' act should not be interpreted as an act of wrongful revenge or rash zeal, but as a proleptic, that is a pointing forward execution of divine justice against Egypt. I prefer Ralph Davis's version of saying the same thing. He says, it seems to me if you find an Egyptian beating the tar out of an Israelite, it's a no-brainer. Well, that's right. Absolutely. So the question is, whose side are you going to be on? God's side or his enemies? Are you going to stand with those who beat God's people and seek to destroy them and hate God? Or are you going to stand with God's deliverer?

In verses 11 and 12, you are showing us Moses as God's deliverer being revealed to his people. It's the first glimpse of what God is going to do all through the rest of the book of Exodus, defeating his enemies, bringing liberation to his people in slavery. And if you're having difficulty following me on this or believing me, well, that is how the New Testament unequivocally interprets this for us.

Read Acts chapter 7 later on in Stephen's speech. Seeing one of his brothers being wronged, says Stephen, he defended the oppressed man and avenged him by striking down the Egyptian. See, Stephen wasn't in any doubt at all. Who's the enemy here and who's the hero? And nor should we be. And Stephen goes on, by the way, Moses supposed that his brothers would understand that God was giving them salvation by his hand, but they did not understand. Which brings us to verses 13 to 15. God's deliverer resented and rejected.

And he went out the next day, behold, two Hebrews were struggling together. And he said to the man in the wrong, notice, why do you strike your companion? And he answered, who made you a prince and judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian? Then Moses was afraid and thought, surely the thing is known. And when Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and stayed in the land of Midian. So Moses once again seeks to intervene to right a wrong.

One of his brothers being struck down, same words as before, but this time it's by a fellow Israelite. Now again, be careful. Be careful not to read this and have sympathy with the man's words of defiance against Moses. Don't think, well, Moses, you know, he's got a point. Who are you to preach about striking people when you've just struck somebody dead yourself? Be careful. Because if you think like that and speak like that, you are putting yourself against God's deliverer. You are putting yourself alongside the man who the text here tells us very clearly was in the wrong.

Again, listen to Stephen in Acts chapter 7. This Moses, whom they rejected, saying, who made you a ruler and a judge? This man God sent as a ruler and a redeemer. That's pretty clear, isn't it? Now Stephen's whole argument in Acts chapter 7 is that this is the pattern of God's deliverers. Always they were rejected by his own people, the very ones he came to redeem and rule.

And that happened all through Israel's history, right up to Jesus himself, the great deliverer. And what does Stephen say? You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in hearts and ears. You always reject the Holy Spirit.

So this Israelite here in verse 14 is clearly in the wrong. He's rejecting the Holy Spirit of God because he's rejecting God's deliverer, Moses. And it's a pattern which you read again and again, all through the book of Exodus and Numbers. Again and again, God reveals Moses as his servant, his deliverer. Again and again, Moses is rejected by his own people. And this is the beginning of it.

And so Moses has to flee because it's become public. What's become public? What's the real issue? Well, obviously, Moses' clear identification of himself with the people of God and therefore as an enemy of Pharaoh and the court of Egypt.

And what was he afraid of? Well, not, I think, personal fear for his own life. Not fear for what Pharaoh would do to him as Moses. Hebrews 11 tells us explicitly, Moses did not fear the anger of the king.

But rather, I think it was his awareness of his destiny as God's deliverer that made him flee. However much it was still a bit foggy in his mind how God was going to use him, he knew, obviously, that God did have some special part for him to play.

And as Stephen says in Acts chapter 7, he supposed his brothers would see, but now he saw that they didn't see. And so he could sense that his hour, so to speak, had not yet come.

And that's why Hebrews 11 verse 27 says that it was by faith he left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible.

So he fled, if I can put it like this, full of the fear of faith, not the fear of unbelief. The kind of fear that trusts God and believes that God is doing something and does have a plan for us.

But at the moment, it's still very perplexing and foggy. And that can be quite desolating. That can leave us feeling full of disappointment, can't it? Full of despair.

I wonder if that sounds familiar to you. Maybe sometimes you have taken a costly stand for God. You've shown the reality of your stand with him by risking a lot, by publicly aligning yourself with Christ and his gospel and his people.

Maybe it's the first time you've taken a stand in public for your Christian faith at work or at school or university perhaps. Or maybe you've taken some stand in some other way.

It's been costly. And yet, instead of things going as you'd expected, instead of God blessing you outwardly and showing himself and showing things successful in terms of your stand, showing it fruitful, you find actually everything's gone haywire and everything's fallen apart and your life suddenly got very difficult.

And you find yourself in a slough of despair. We're not told about Moses' thoughts, but it's hard not to believe that he was feeling very much rejected and very dejected.

But look at Acts 3, because this is where we really get a turn up for the books. Here's God's deliverer revealed to his own people, but now rejected by them.

Now he's a fugitive. He's a wanderer. He's nowhere to lay his head. He's in enemy territories among the Midianites that we were hearing about this morning. Ask Moses readers what they think about Midianites, and they'll soon tell you those are the enemies of God's people.

Here he is wandering in Midian territory, and yet here we are in this final act, and what do we find? We find God's deliverer is received and rejoiced in. End of verse 15.

He sat down by a well. Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came and drew water and filled up the troughs to water their father's flock. The shepherds came and drove them away, but Moses stood up and saved them and watered their flock.

And they came home to their father, Reol. By the way, if you look down to chapter 3, verse 1, he's also called Jethro, more often than not. Occasionally he's called Reol. Let's call him Jethro Reol.

He came home to his father. He said, How is it you've come home so soon today? And they said, An Egyptian delivered us out of the hands of the shepherds, and even drew water for us and watered the flock.

And he said to his daughters, Well, where is he? Why have you left the man? Call him that he may eat bread. And Moses was content to dwell with the man. And he gave Moses his daughter Zipporah.

She gave birth to a son. And he called his name Gershom, for he said, I've been a sojourner in a foreign land. God is very gracious to his servants.

He may well lead us through times of great perplexity, but he does give us tokens along the way, doesn't he? To remind us that he really is still there, that he still cares for us.

Even when the big plans of your life seem to go into reverse, God gives us little reminders just to tell us that his silent hand is still at work.

And I think verse 15, the end of it, is one of those, isn't it? He sat down by a well. Well, we know what that means. You can just hear Moses' readers saying, Aha! A well! We know about that.

We've read Genesis 24. We've read Genesis chapter 29. Those stories about wells, remember? A well was where Isaac found his wife. God's wonderful hand at work.

Jacob as well. So when we read this in verse 15, we're reminded, aren't we, that God is still in control. This is the God of the encounters at wells. He must have good things in store for his servant.

And so he has. So now we read about Moses' third attempt to intervene, to reveal himself as a deliverer. And this time, he's not rejected, is he? He's welcomed as a savior, as a true deliverer.

He's rejoiced in. He's received gladly. But it's not by his brothers. It's not even by his sisters. It's by these pagan Midianite girls.

Outsiders. Traditional enemies, even, of Israel. And nobody. Notice verse 17 tells us that these girls normally got abused, no doubt manhandled, by the shepherd men.

But look at verse 17. The shepherds came and drove them away, but Moses stood up and saved them and watered their flock.

He saved them and he served them. Quite a stoop, isn't it, for one who was once the prince of the empire of all the earth.

And they recognized that verse 19, an Egyptian deliverer. He even drew water for us. He watered the flock. And so there, Moses was not rejected, but he was received as the delivery he was.

And though a sojourner in a foreign land, the Lord was with him and the Lord blessed him and gave him a wife, verse 21, and also a son, verse 22.

What did Moses make of all of that? Well, we don't know, do we? But the fact that he named his son Gershom in verse 22 does seem to speak about his perplexity, his sense of disappointment.

I'm sure Moses would have happily sung that hymn of William Cooper. God moves in a mysterious way. He certainly does. But God was performing wonders.

Because this pattern for Moses as God's servant wasn't to no purpose, was it? Not if we read on in Exodus anyway. For one thing, Moses didn't know it then, but he was going to spend 40 years of his life leading God's people through the desert, through this very territory of Midian where he was now going to live and get to know like the back of his hand.

And that's God's pattern, isn't it? Nothing. Nothing that he brings to pass in the life of his servants is ever for nothing. It's never wasted. Even the hardest times, the most perplexing times.

And though his brothers who rejected him meant it for evil, just like with Joseph, remember, God meant it for good, for the saving of many lives. And actually, if you read on to Exodus chapter 18, that's the climactic chapter of the whole of that first movement of Exodus, just before the giving of the law at Sinai, what do you find?

You find that the climax of Israel's deliverance from Egypt is all about Jethro and his people. Jethro and his pagan people being converted from paganism to worship the true and living God of Israel.

We find in chapter 18, Jethro blessing God for his redemption, offering sacrifices to God, eating in fellowship at the table of the people of Israel. So the rejection of God's servant, God's deliverer by his own people results in salvation coming to the pagan world.

To use Paul's words, through their trespass, salvation has come to the Gentiles. Israel's failure means riches for the Gentiles.

But perhaps above all, Moses' own experience of rejection and exile and alienation, it surely gave him an empathy, a fellow feeling with his own people's misery, which he could never have had, could he?

If he had just suddenly emerged straight away out of the glory of his former condition as a prince in Egypt, emerged straight out of that, to become a deliverer who'd never known anything of what it meant to be alone, to be oppressed, to be perplexed, to feel forsaken by God.

We might say Moses had to be made like his brothers in every respect so that he might become a merciful and faithful servant in the service of God.

We might say it was fitting that God should make the founder of his people's salvation perfect through suffering so that he would not be ashamed to call them brothers. There's some things that you can know and yet you don't really know until you've experienced them.

Isn't that right? And so that's why we see this pattern in Moses' life, in this pattern of this one great servant of God, the deliverer.

But if you've been listening to some of the words I've used, some of the allusions that I've made, I'm sure you've picked up a deeper reason that explains why this pattern was seen in Moses' life.

Because this is the pattern of Moses as a great servant of God, because above all, it is the pattern of the great servant of God, isn't it? The Lord Jesus Christ.

We just can't read this account without sensing that. There's so many echoes, aren't there, of our great Savior, the Lord Jesus. A deliverer who's revealed to his people, the one who would come at last in answer to all God's covenant promises to redeem and to rule.

And yet, what do his own people say? Who made you to be a ruler and a judge over us? They rejected him. He came unto his own, says John, and his own received him not.

He was as Isaiah too had promised, despised, rejected of men. And as Stephen said, his people always reject the Holy Spirit.

They killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the righteous one. They killed all the prophets. So they betrayed and murdered him. And then it did look like all was lost, didn't it?

The disciples of Jesus were certainly perplexed, utterly dejected. Read Luke chapter 44. The woman at the tomb on resurrection morning. The men on the road to Emmaus in the afternoon.

Even the disciples gathered together in the evening, perplexed, sad, defeated, frightened. Until the risen Jesus appeared to them.

And what did he say? Don't you understand the scriptures? Don't you recognize this pattern? It was necessary for the Christ to suffer all these things and then enter his glory.

Why? Well, listen to Paul, the apostle, explaining it later to King Agrippa in Acts chapter 26. Paul said, I'm saying nothing but what the prophets and Moses said would come to pass, that the Christ must suffer and that being the first to rise from the dead, he would proclaim light both to our people and to the Gentiles.

You see, a deliverer revealed, rejected, so that he might be received and rejoiced in not only by his own, but also by the Gentiles, by the Jethro's, by the Midianites of this world, by the Samaritan women of the world whom Jesus met where?

At a well. Like the Syrophoenician, the Cainite woman, who knew, as she said, she was but a Gentile dog that wanted to share the blessings of the deliverer, the deliverer of the Jews, Jesus.

So it wasn't all for nothing, was it? It wasn't all failure. God turns his servant's weaknesses and rejections into ultimate victory and blessing for all his people.

Their rejection of Christ, says Paul, their rejection means reconciliation for the world. That's God's pattern. We may never fully understand it all.

Paul says, how unsearchable are his judgments, how inscrutable are his ways. But we do need to recognize the pattern.

Because the pattern of the servant, the deliverer, is reflected back and explains the pattern that we see in Moses' life as the pattern of that great servant then.

And that same pattern is reflected forward into the lives of all of those who stand with Christ and who stand with his true brothers. You see, what we see here reflected in Moses' life as a servant of God is a reflection of the pattern of Christ himself.

And that will always be the pattern of all God's true servants. And that's why you find it a struggle to be a Christian believer sometimes, maybe very often.

You're standing with Christ, you're standing for Christ, for his people, against the enemy. And yet it seems so often that instead of God vindicating that stand, he's allowing us to be rejected.

He's leading us through many perplexing paths in life so that, well, we find ourselves saying with Moses, I'm a sojourner in a foreign land, that's how I feel. And when that's how you feel, you begin to doubt, don't you?

That God's still there, maybe even whether you really are a child of God after all. And you may feel that. I'm sure Moses felt that. And certainly we know the Lord Jesus himself felt that, did he not?

In his moment of dereliction on the cross when he said, he said, my God, why have you forsaken me? But God had not abandoned him forever.

Yet it was through his rejection at the hands of his own, that God's fullest purpose of blessing for his people was ultimately revealed to the world so wonderfully.

It's his pattern. It was for Moses, God's great servant then. It was for Jesus, the great servant. And friends, it is the pattern that your life will be shaped by two.

If you are a true believer, if you are a true servant of the Lord Jesus Christ today, just as Moses was then. That's the privilege of being able to call Jesus our brother.

It's been granted to us, says Paul to the Philippians, that for the sake of Christ, we should not only believe in him, but also suffer for his sake, engage in the same conflict that you saw that I have, and now hear that I still have.

it's the pattern, a genuine Christian discipleship, because it's the pattern of the genuine Christ, the servant of the Lord, the deliverer.

But through that pattern, he is working great blessing, and great victory, and great glory, so that there might be real blessing in his cause.

that's what the apostle Paul was engaged in, the great mission to the world of this gospel, to the Gentiles, to the Jethro's, to the Midianites of our world, so they might come to know God.

It's his pattern, so there will be blessing in the world of that great cause of Christ, but also so that there might be real blessing and victory in our own character, too.

For we know that God works all things together for good for those who are called according to his purpose. For those he foreknows, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.

These perplexities, these hardships, these battles are plenty. These are the things God is using to conform us into the image of his Son, just as he conformed Moses.

God our Father allows us to walk in the pattern of his Son because he means to make us like his Son, the Lord Jesus. And finally, you see, God allows this pattern in our lives so that we also will be able to minister to our brothers and sisters in their times of distress, and to do so in ways that are full of real depth and real understanding understanding of what they're going through.

Our Savior Jesus had to be made like us in every way, in every respect, knowing the real sorrows of the human heart, understanding these things in full so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God.

And you see, in just the same way, God fits all his servants to be merciful, to be a faithful kingdom of priests, to minister to one another, but also to minister to the world.

That's what you want, isn't it, when you're in distress, when you're really struggling. You want a comforter who understands. You want someone who can stand with you. You want someone who can help you, who can share your burdens, who knows and understands.

You don't want someone who's lived a charmed life, who knows absolutely nothing of what you're going through. And that's what Jesus wants us to be, to one another, but also to the world.

And that's why some of the perplexing and painful things in our lives do come to us. And that's why we should thank God for these things, hard as it is, not curse God.

That's what Paul does, isn't it, writing to the Corinthians, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our afflictions, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort also. You find being a servant of the Lord Jesus hard, perplexing, a struggle?

You feel at times like you're a sojourner, a foreigner, in a strange place you don't fit in, far from where you want to be. Or maybe you're feeling like that just right now.

Perhaps you're not, but if you're a real follower of the Lord Jesus, friends, there'll be times when you do feel like that. And this is a chapter for that time. It's a great message of encouragement to us.

It tells us, fear not. Your fragile faith, our fragile church, we have a faithful God. And even in our perplexity, recognize His pattern.

Recognize His pattern. It's unmistakable. And it is ultimately wonderful. Even if at times it is perplexing.

It will be painful. And remember, He will always, always turn His servants' present weaknesses and rejections into an ultimate victory of glory and blessing for you and for all His people, for all who according to His purpose are called.

Let's pray together. The pattern of every true servant of God. As it's written, for your sake we are being killed all the day long.

We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. But in all these things, we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I'm sure, neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

God. How we thank you, Lord, that it's been granted to us not only to believe in our great Savior, but to share also in suffering for His sake.

Help us, we pray, to rejoice therefore in every perplexing path in which you lead us. for we know that whatever the road we take, it's a road that leads us ultimately to the glory of the Lamb.

and we pray in His name. Amen.