Quasimodo was the famous hunchback of Notre Dame.  After his death, the bishop of his Cathedral sent word through the streets of Paris that he needed a new bell ringer.

The Bishop decided that he would conduct the interviews personally and so he went up into the belfry to begin the screening process. After observing several applicants demonstrate their skills, he shook his head - none were as good as Quasimodo.

Just as the bishop was leaving, a man with no arms approached him and announced that he was there to apply for the bell ringer's job.

The bishop was incredulous. 'But, you have no arms!'

'No matter', said the man. 'Observe!' And he began striking the bells with his face, producing a beautiful melody on the bells.  The bishop listened in astonishment; convinced he had finally found a replacement for Quasimodo

But suddenly, rushing forward to head the bell, the armless man tripped and plunged headlong out of the belfry window.  Sadly, he died on the the street below.

The stunned bishop rushed to the armless man. When he reached the street, a crowd had gathered around the fallen figure, drawn by the beautiful music they had heard only moments before.

As they silently parted to let the bishop through, one of them asked, 'Bishop, who was this man?' .

'I don't know his name', the bishop sadly replied, 'but his face rings a bell.'

I can relate to the no arm - face bell ringer…guy

I have had many experiences in my life that were not the brightest ideas that were ever thought of.  I never used my face to ring a bell, but, I might as well of had, no arms to do the job well.

For example, I can still remember the excitement of graduating high school.  The whole world looked like the land of opportunity.  I could do anything I wanted.



Leaving high school was like being shot out of a cannon, I just could not wait to enter into a new and exciting life!

I had no responsibilities as a young man, no debt, no pressure to perform, no people to feed other than myself.  If I wanted to take the lowest paying job, that was more about having fun than making money, I could have.

If I wanted to go to college, I could.  If I wanted to move away, I could.  There was freedom, energy, excitement about what was ahead of me in my future.

I was young, I was relatively fit.  I had no medical issues.  If I wanted to do construction and move heavy objects all day, I could have.

No obstacle was in my way… the road was laid before me, I could go in any direction I wanted.

If I wanted to save the world, that was the time to do it!  I felt alive and I was overconfident.  

Remember feeling that way?  

I thought I knew enough about the world... to venture out... and try some things out.

And yet it seems, as time has moved along, and as I have traveled down many roads, I have distanced myself from that kind of unburdened life.  

I have tumbled out of a belfry or two in my day...  

I also found myself looking over my shoulder almost in regret over some of the poor decisions that I have made.  

In many ways, we… are all the same.  We all have had times of freedom, times of open air and excitement about what was around the next corner of life.

Likewise, we all have experienced the burden of our choices, or the regret of making bad choices.  

For example, some of our choices have determined our health condition.  If we worked in the coal mines, for example, we may have ended up with a disease of the lungs.

If we worked in an office setting, we may be overweight from a lack of exercise and have diabetes.

Or if we did construction, we could end up with a bad back.

Likewise, if we never ate our vegetables, never drank water, if we only ate sugar and cakes and all the party food the world has to offer, or if we chose to smoke or drink too much or even chose to experiment with drugs, we could be left with a hard road of physical consequences associated with our choices.

The reality is, that God has allowed us to experience freedom and a love for life, inasmuch as he has let us, by free will, to experience also the negative consequences of our choices and the feelings of failed attempts in doing what we thought were good things.


This universal truth seems to hit us all... and at some point, we come to realize, that we are as not as smart as we thought we were.

We had believed we were unstoppable, but life it seems, has balanced us out with all of its trials and obstacles along the way.

My charge to you today, is that if you lose yourself in your hardships, the best place to find rest, and peace, is in the attributes of God.


For this morning’s message, I wanted to be in Exodus 2, but I found this little nugget of truth in Acts 7 that says it so much better.

So turn with me to Acts 7

22 “Moses was taught all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was powerful in both speech and action.

23 “One day when Moses was forty years old, he decided to visit his relatives, the people of Israel.

24 He saw an Egyptian mistreating an Israelite. So Moses came to the man’s defense and avenged him, killing the Egyptian.

25 Moses assumed his fellow Israelites would realize that... GOD had sent him to rescue them, but they didn’t.

26 “The next day he visited them again and saw two men of Israel fighting. He tried to be a peacemaker. ‘Men,’ he said, ‘you are brothers. Why are you fighting each other?’

27 “But the man in the wrong pushed Moses aside. ‘Who made you a ruler and judge over us?’ he asked. 28 ‘Are you going to kill me as you killed that Egyptian yesterday?’

29 When Moses heard that, he fled the country and lived as a foreigner in the land of Midian. There his two sons were born.”

If we were to reflect on Moses brash involvement and the decision to murder an egyptian, our minds can easily digest a very simple truth - bad conduct, results, in natural consequences.

This is the stuff we teach our children everyday.  If Moses wanted to enjoy freedom, he shouldn’t have murdered his neighbor.

His fleeing Egypt was a direct result of his bad choices.  

These are the easily understood moral truths we have all come to understand.  If we did something wrong, we have to pay the price.

If we have made poor choices to obtain a lot of debt, we can understand that our credit report may not be the best.  

We say to ourselves, well, it is a hardship, but, it is my fault so I can deal with it...

*************

By Contrast, how do we process hardships when they are not our fault?

Ah...This is far more complicated is it not?

We do not like dealing with problems that we didn’t create, do we?

For Example:
How do we deal with early death?  Or how do we deal with disease of the body that came from nowhere?  

Do we revert back to the other side of the coin and internalize it by saying to ourselves,

“I must have done something wrong…? Only bad things happen to bad people… that is the rule!”

Well… no,  Some of the things that are hardships in our life has nothing to do with judgement for bad behavior.

In order to understand this, let’s go back to an illustration that fits the text, let’s look at the Abrahamic covenant.

So turn with me to Genesis 15, beginning in verse 12.

“12 As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him.
13 Then the Lord said to him, “Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there.

14 But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. 15 You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age. 16 In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”

Let me draw some insights out of here that we can apply… to our question of dealing with hardships NOT of our own doing.

First, we need to try to understand and yet firmly believe, that God knows the future, that he is all knowing, that he is Omniscient.

He knows what would happen hundreds of years ahead of time.  He calls it out.  Your people will be enslaved and mistreated, that’s a fact.  God already knew it.

Neither place in scripture says they deserved hardship, or that this was their natural consequence, but rather it was like a divine appointment, it was going to happen.

So to understand our trial, we need to understand and believe verses like:

Psalm 147:5 says, “His understanding is infinite.”

Hebrews 4:13 says, “There is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.”

What do these verses mean?  Simply that there is nothing not known by God.  He knows all, understands all, sees all, and nothing, no secret, no life, creature or human is hid from him.

He knows every life intimately, completely, and inside out.

Think about it this way, He saw your life completed even before you were born!  

How does that make you feel?

He knew all your sins, he knew all your trials, he knew all your successes, he knew ALL your fears, he knows you better than you know yourself.

He knows what motivates you, and he also knows, what you don’t know, about your own motivation.

Think about all of the things you know, now think of all the things you would like to know.  Now add to that all of the learning desired by everyone else in the room, now understand God knows what everyone knows in this room and what everyone here wants to know, he knows it all.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, for example, “that if a man were to start reading the books in the British Library on the day he was born and read day and night for seventy years, without taking time to eat or sleep, he would only be able to read a small section of the books in that collection.”

We, unlike God, are limited in knowledge, limited in our understanding, But God is not.  He has read all the books, and he knows more than all the books in the entire world!  His understanding is infinite!

When Sir Isaac Newton, the great English scientist was an old man, someone came up to him and said, “Dr. Newton, you must have a tremendous store of knowledge.”

He responded, “I remind myself of a little boy walking along the seashore picking up shells.  The boy has a small handful of shells in his little hand, but all around him is the vast seashore stretching in all directions as far as the eye can see.

All that I know is simply a handful of seashells, but the vast universe of God is filled with knowledge that I do not possess.”

Romans 11:33-36
33 “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! 34 For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who became His counselor?

35 Or who has first given to Him that it might be paid back to him again? 36 For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.”

Friends when the Bible says, lean not on your own understanding, or my ways are higher than your ways, you have to believe it!

When you are in a hardship that is not of your own immoral action, you must first believe that God was not surprised by its arrival, he saw it coming.



Secondly, God allowed the hardship. God is sovereign.


Genesis 15:13 “Then the Lord said to him, “Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there.”

Did that happen?  Keep a finger here and Flip over with me to Exodus 1:11 which says,

“So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh. 12 But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites 13 and worked them ruthlessly.

14 They made their lives bitter with harsh labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their harsh labor the Egyptians worked them ruthlessly.”

Yep, it happened.  The point is, that God not only knew that this would happen, but God did not stop it from happening either.  

Therefore, we can say, God sovereignly allowed it to happen.  God sovereignly allowed his people to be beat, to be whipped, and to undergo ruthless treatment.

Deuteronomy 32:39-40 reminds us

“See now that I, I am He, And there is no god besides Me; It is I who put to death and give life. I have wounded and it is I who heal, And there is no one who can deliver from My hand. 40 ‘Indeed, I lift up My hand to heaven, And say, as I live forever.”

Jeremiah 18:6 “Can I not, O house of Israel, deal with you as this potter does?” declares the Lord. “Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel.”

Chip Ingram said it this way, “If you were to look up the word “sovereign” in the dictionary, you would find words and phrases like “superior,” “greatest,” “supreme in power and authority,” “ruler,” and “independent of all others” in its definition.

But the way I like to explain God’s sovereignty best is simply to say, “God is in control.”
There is absolutely nothing that happens in the universe that is outside of God’s influence and authority. As King of kings and Lord of lords, God has no limitations.”

- I like that.

Therefore we, Christian, need to take comfort in promises like Romans 8:28:
28 “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”

What good was going to come out of Israel’s harsh treatment?

Genesis 15:14 says, “14 But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. 15 You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age.

16 In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, (where is that? The promised land)

Thirdy, God will deliver in his perfect timing.  God is faithful.

You know the Israelites story, did God bring them out of Egypt? Yes, he was faithful.

The hardest part of our Christian walk, is the wait, is it not?  We do not like wait.  

We are more like Moses and brashly try to do God’s work without making sure we have his support.

Have you ever sat back in your chair and thought, what is God waiting for?  

If God would just do it, I would not have to suffer anymore, or that person could take care of his family...  

If God would just show up in this church, we could do something so amazing for him!

Well… God has one more lesson for us… Look at exodus 2:23

23 “Years passed, and the king of Egypt died. But the Israelites continued to groan under their burden of slavery. They cried out for help, and their cry rose up to God. 24 God heard their groaning, and he remembered his covenant promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 25 He looked down on the people of Israel and knew it was time to act.”

In this text we get the sense that perhaps the people were more content to complain about their situation then turn to God.  They were described as groaning, and then, we are not sure when, but finally the groaning turns to an earnest cry to the Lord for his help.

Verse 23 “the Israelites continued to groan under the burden of slavery - period.  End of sentence.  Next sentence - “They cried out for help, and their cry rose to God.”

There is space in between the groaning, and the crying out for help.  

How big was the space?  It’s anyone’s guess.  But we do know that Moses saw their harsh treatment and tried to intervene, granted killing people was not the best solution, but after being rejected - 40 years went by.  

That may have been the longest space ever between two sentences.

Now, I can relate to the groanings, the complainings, the uhh… this again!  

In our home it seems a popular remark is - “so frustrating”…. “So frustrating”…  We say it way too often, but that is how we feel, just so frustrated by the circumstances of life.

And it’s so frustrating that we say so frustrating so often :)

There is a danger in grumblings however.  Grumblings are not solution oriented, nor does grumbling or complaining prompt God to supply you with help.

Paul would encourage us in Philippians 2:14 to “Do everything without grumbling or arguing,”

Why?

Well, from the standpoint of a Father and a husband, does complaining about something make me respond well to the situation?  No, it does not.

Would I encourage my wife that if she had only complained loud enough with all sorts of groanings, that I would have done it sooner?  No, I would not encourage that.

Well what would I respond well to?  Don’t answer that :)


The question we should be asking is, what kind of cry, what kind of attitude... brings God into our life to hear our cries?

After all, the Israelites finally did get their help:

23 “They cried out for help, and their cry rose up to God. 24 God heard their groaning, and he remembered his covenant promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 25 He looked down on the people of Israel and knew it was time to act.”



Well I think it would do us some good to remember who our God is and how he says he responds to us:

He is:
The God who “works for those who wait for him” (Isaiah 64:4);


The God who “withholds no good thing from those who walk uprightly” (Psalm 84:11);


The God who “pursues us with goodness and mercy all our days” (Psalm 23:6)


The God who “works all things together for the good of those who love him” (Romans 8:28);


The God who “did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, and so will surely give us all things with him” (Romans 8:32);


The God “through whom we can do all things” (Philippians 4:13);


The God “who supplies all our needs according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19);


**Love this one - The God whose “eyes run to and fro throughout the whole earth seeking to show himself mighty on behalf of those whose heart is whole toward him” (2 Chronicles 16:9);

When we have right perspective on who God is, and how faithful he is to us; when we reach him the way he describes he can be found, then He lovingly enters our life.  

He will work mightily in our lives when our whole heart is turned toward him.

For our text in Exodus 2, I believe this was the piece God was waiting for.  As soon as Israel had turned their whole heart toward him, he responded with a deliverer.



Friend, I cannot begin to understand all of the hardships you have faced in this life.  I cannot pretend to think that I have all the answers for how to deal with everyone.  But I do know this, God is all knowing.  God is sovereign, and God is faithful to those who have their whole heart turned toward him.

If you are guilty of complaining and groaning, end it today.  Give it up to a God who understands you better than you understand you.

Return to peace, return to joy, find your rest in his amazing attributes today.