Day 33 — Stephen's Defense: Moses Part 1 (Acts 7:17-29) | May 28

They said Stephen was speaking against Moses, and so Stephen's gonna talk about Moses. at length. Here's Acts seven, seventeen to twenty nine. As the time was approaching to fulfill the promise that God had made to Abraham, the people flourished and multiplied in Egypt until a different king. Who did not know Joseph ruled over Egypt? He dealt deceitfully with our race and oppressed our ancestors by making them abandon their infants outside so that they wouldn't survive.

At this time, Moses was born, and he was beautiful in God's sight. He was raised for three months in his father's home. And when and then he was abandoned, and when he was abandoned, Pharaoh's daughter adopted and raised him as her own son. And so Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. He was powerful in his speech and active. When he was forty years old, he decided to visit his own people, the Israelites.

When he saw one of them being mistreated, he came to his defense and avenged the oppressed man by striking down the Egyptian, and he assumed his people would understand that God was giving them deliverance through him. But they did not understand. The next day he showed up while they were fighting and tried to reconcile them peacefully, saying, Men, you are brothers. Why are you mistreating each other?

But the one who was mistreating his neighbor pushed Moses aside, saying, Who appointed you a ruler and a judge over us? Do you want to kill me the same way you killed the Egyptian yesterday? When Moses heard this he fled and became an exile in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons.

Okay, so Moses never really got a clean start. Pharaoh was slaughtered. Hebrew infants uh I'm sorry, Pharaoh was slaughtering Hebrew infants when Moses was born. His mother hid him for three months and and when she couldn't hide him anymore, she put him in a basket on the nine. God's providence landed him in Pharaoh's own household.

raised as Egyptian royalty, educated in the finest wisdom the ancient world could offer. But by every human measure this was a man prepared for greatness. But preparation doesn't guarantee welcome. God was shaping Moses for a purpose Israel wasn't ready to receive.

And so at forty, Moses felt the weight of his people suffering. He he watched an Egyptian beating an Israelite, and something in him broke. He intervened, he killed the Egyptian, he buried him in the sand, and he thought his moment had come. He assumed, Stephen tells us, that his people would recognize what God was doing. And they didn't.

And that line kind of requires a long pause from us. He assumed his people would understand that God was giving them deliverance through him, but they did not understand. It's a detail that we don't get in Exodus. We only get it here. Stephen adds it. Moses didn't act rashly or impulsively in his own interest. He believed God was moving. He stepped out in faith, confident that the people would see it, and they had no idea.

And the next day it got worse because Moses came across two Israelites fighting, and he tried to make t peace between them. And the one in the wrong turned on him. Who appointed you ruler and judge over us? And it stung, not not just because he was being dismissive. Moses knew the answer to that question the man was asking and and it and he didn't care. Moses had been appointed. He just hadn't been recognized.

See, God can prepare you for something that people aren't ready to receive. Man, that is tough when that happens. And so Moses fled to Midian. Forty more years would pass. He traded royal courts for sheep pastors, he became a husband and a father and a shepherd in the wilderness. If he thought his moment had come at forty, he must have spent the next four decades wondering if he'd completely misread the whole thing. He hadn't. God was still writing the story.

And so Stephen, the one who's delivering this message, is doing something really brilliant in front of the Sanhedrin here. Remember, they've accused him of speaking against Moses. And so instead, what he does here is he honors Moses so thoroughly that his portrait of the great deliverer becomes an indictment against the accusers themselves. And he's m he's pointing them to this pattern. God sends a deliverer, God's own people reject him.

And then God uses that rejection as part of the very plan that the rejection was meant to stop. So it happened to Joseph, it happened to Moses, and now even though Stephen hasn't said his name yet, it happened to Jesus. The Sanhedrin sitting in judgment of Stephen a are the latest in a long line of people who looked at God's chosen and said, Who appointed you? Rejection by people is never the final word when God is the one who sent you.

So what might a step of ordinary obedience look like today? So I want to give you a reflection today. Think about a time you stepped out in faith. And maybe you were sure that God was in it. And the people that you expected to understand completely missed it. Maybe they pushed back against you, maybe they questioned your motives or your authority. Maybe you've been quietly second guessing yourself along the way.

Moses spent forty years in Midian between his first attempt and the burning bush moment. And he didn't waste those years. He was being formed. And so I ask, where are you right now? What would it look like?