The Process Toward the Promise
Exodus 2:23-25
Tim Nay
Part of Wanderings & Wonders
Lessons from the Wilderness
June 1, 2025
24 And Joseph said to his brothers, “I am about to die, but God will visit you and bring you up out of this land to the land that he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.” —Genesis 50:24
PROMISE:
God PROMISES us many GOOD things.
God’s Promises:
• To give us the desires of our heart (Psalm 37:1-9)
• To work things out for good (Romans 8:28)
• To forgive and cleanse us (1 John 1:9)
• To give us eternal life (1 John 2:25)
• To provide for us (Matthew 6:25-34)
8 Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. 9 And he said to his people, “Behold, the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us. 10 Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and, if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.” 11 Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens. —Exodus 1:8-11
13 So they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves 14 and made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and brick, and in all kinds of work in the field. In all their work they ruthlessly made them work as slaves. —Exodus 1:13-14
22 Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, “Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live.” —Exodus 1:22
PAIN:
God NEVER promised us the PROCESS would be PAINLESS.
23 During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. 24 And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. 25 God saw the people of Israel—and God knew. —Exodus 2:23-25
PAIN:
God hears, sees, and UNDERSTANDS what we are going through.
13 Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years.” —Genesis 15:13
16 Go and gather the elders of Israel together and say to them, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has appeared to me, saying, “I have observed you and what has been done to you in Egypt, 17 and I promise that I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, a land flowing with milk and honey.” —Exodus 3:16-17
PLAN:
Sometimes God USES pain to help us be READY for His promises.
1 “The whole commandment that I command you today you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land that the Lord swore to give to your fathers. 2 And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. 3 And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. 4 Your clothing did not wear out on you and your foot did not swell these forty years.” —Deuteronomy 8:1-4
PROVISION:
God is very AWARE of what we NEED and WHEN we need it.
TAKEAWAY: View the PROCESS as the way God PREPARES us for His PROMISES.
