Following a personal God is challenging. Sometimes you run into trouble when you specifically obey Him.
For example, making amends with someone will not always turn out well.
When you stick your neck out for God, sometimes the response is not always favorable.
Moses did exactly that, and he ran into trouble.
Sunday’s sermon, August 3, 2025, entitled “Confidence Pt 1,” details Moses’ struggle with confidence in God’s character after he basically tells Pharaoh to let the Israelites go.
Pharaoh responds by instructing his taskmasters to order the Israelites, who were slaves, to make bricks without straw.
It’s a no-win hugely unfair edict.
How can you make bricks without straw? It’s impossible. So when the Israelites fail to make their brick quota, they are beaten unfairly for something out of their control.
When Moses learns of this egregiously unjust situation, he takes his objections to the Lord.
In Exodus Ch. 5 verse 22, “Moses returned to the Lord and said, “Why, Lord, why have you brought trouble on this people? Is this why you sent me? Ever since I went to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has brought trouble on this people, and you have not rescued your people at all.”
Moses experiences backfire after obeying the Lord, and he brings a question of “why” before God.
The sermon notes state clearly “Warning: Unexpected outcomes as a result of obedience can cause us to lose confidence in continuing to obey.”
We may think prayers or thoughts like:
“I trusted You, and it made things worse.”
“Was this really from God?”
“Why are you letting them suffer?”
“This is not what I signed up for.”
Moses misses God’s character, and God shows it to him. God shares a new name of His for Moses–Yahweh–the personal God. God shows him His personal nature and goodness.
God presents Himself to Moses as not just El Shaddai, or The Lord God Almighty, but now as a God who satisfies, who will walk with Moses through this ordeal with Pharaoh as a personal God, one whom Moses can trust.
God restores confidence in Moses by reminding him who He is and the promises He has made.
In like fashion, God restores our confidence to obey His commands when:
1 God reminds us He is not only powerful, He is personal.
2 God reminds us He moved first.
3 God reminds us He is the source of our confidence.
God shows Moses how he loved the Israelites first by saying “I have remembered my covenant,” (Exodus 6:5b) the promise He made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give to His people the land of Canaan.
He then proceeds to tell Moses, in Exodus 6:6-8, seven “I will” statements to affirm His trustworthiness:
1 I will bring you out of the yoke of the Egyptians. (v 6)
2 I will free you from being slaves to them. (v 6)
3 I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. (v 6)
4 I will take you as my own people. (v 7)
5 I will be your God. (v 7)
6 I will bring you to the land I swore with uplifted hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. (v 8)
7 I will give it (Canaan) to you as a possession. (v 8)
Seven times.
Seven times God reinforces His promise. And then he says at the end of v 8, “I am the Lord.”
He says I am Yahweh. I am your very own personal God. And I will keep my promises to my people.
At a marriage ceremony, a couple says their vows once–“I will.” God says His vows seven times.
That’s how committed God is to us, His bride. That’s how trustworthy He is. That’s how personal He is.
Is your confidence shaken by trouble? Trust that God has a plan to redeem you and make things better for you in the long run.
Romans 8:28 reads, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”
God takes on the responsibility for deliverance. He does all the heavy lifting. When we try to go in our own strength, God intervenes and says to build on his leadership and not on our performance.
Our obedience is not powered by our own confidence, it is powered by God.
He promises that He will act, He will follow through, He will deliver.
God will do it.
—Ann Elizabeth Yeager