Exodus 06: It's Not About You

Obedience is supposed to make things better, right? Moses walks into Pharaoh’s court with God’s words and walks out with Israel’s chains pulled tighter. Exodus 6 starts in that gut-punch space where you did what God asked, and the results look like failure. We talk honestly about what to do when faith feels costly, progress stalls, and discouragement gets so heavy you can barely listen to hope. 

Then God speaks, not with a pep talk, but with His name. “I am Yahweh.” We sit with the weight of that moment and the cascade of promises that follow: I will free you, rescue you, redeem you, claim you, and bring you home. This is covenant language, deliverance language, redemption language and it’s the backbone of the Exodus story and a lifeline for anyone craving Christian encouragement, Bible teaching, and a clearer picture of God’s character when life is harsh. 

We also get personal about Moses’ reflex to turn the mission inward: “I’m not good enough. I can’t do this.” If you’ve ever argued with God using your anxiety, insecurity, anger, or lack of confidence, you’ll recognize yourself here. The big takeaway is simple and freeing: God doesn’t call you because you’re enough. He calls you because He is, and He knows exactly what He’s doing with an imperfect person in His hands. 

If this helped you, subscribe, share it with a friend who feels stuck, and leave a five-star review so more people can find the Bible Breakdown Podcast. What’s one area where you need to stop making it about you and trust what God wants to do through you?

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Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation (NLT).
Copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation.
Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Transcript

Welcome And Daily Bible Rhythm

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hey everyone and welcome to the Bible Breakdown Podcast. In this podcast, we will be breaking down the Bible one chapter a day. Whether you are a new believer or have been following Christ for a while, we believe that you will learn something new and fresh every single day. So thank you for joining us and let's get into breaking down the Bible together.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

Well, hello everybody. Welcome back to the Bible Breakdown Podcast with your host, Pastor Brandon. Today, Exodus chapter six, and there could have been so many titles, but we're gonna say today it's not about you. It's not about you. That was one of the things that I don't know about you, but I've talked to so many people who at some point in their life have to realize that they are not always the center of attention, right? That this idea of main character syndrome, and that is the idea that you know when you're watching a movie, you're you're watching a movie really focusing on one character, the main character, and you're getting the story from their point of view. And if we're not careful, we can go through life thinking that everybody else is a side character in our story. You'll even have like, you know, great speakers who will say, live your life like you're the main character. Well, the problem with that is that we're not the main character. God is. And that God is moving in our lives, and that is great, but we live, move, and breathe according to his goodness, and that's the best way to live, actually. And Moses is going to get a little bit of that, and I'm curious if God will speak to us

Why Life Is Not About You

SPEAKER_01 1:30

about that too. So if you have your Bibles, you've ready to go with me. We're gonna jump right into Exodus 6. But as always, I'm gonna take just a moment first and remind you to like, share, and subscribe to the YouTube channel and the podcast. Make sure you leave us a five-star review on the podcast, it really does help. And make sure you're going to the Bible breakdown discussion on Facebook. It's an amazing group of people doing a wonderful job, and you can get all that information at the Biblebreakdown.com. Well, if you've been with us, we are going through the story of the book of Exodus. And yesterday, when we left off, God had sent Moses and Aaron to talk to Pharaoh. And while they are there, it goes horribly wrong. I mean, Pharaoh is like basically laughing at them, and he's saying, You're lazy. That's the reason why you want to go off of some festival. You don't have enough work to do. And so he makes it even harder for them. And he said, You got to come up with your own materials yourself. We're not going to provide your materials. You got to go make them. It would be like if if a builder, you know, was going to build a house and all of a sudden the foreman said, We are not going to provide you with a drywall, with two by fours, with nails, with screws, whatever. You got to go find them. Where am I going to get them? Not my problem. Go find them, but you still got to do the same amount of work. That's that's what's happening. And so they couldn't keep up their quota. And so now they're getting in more trouble. They're getting, you know, physically, you know, in trouble. They're getting whipped and beat. And so they they're like upset and realizing this is worse. And Moses and Aaron are like, wait a minute, God, what where are you? You're supposed to, we were supposed to go talk to Pharaoh, and then he was gonna be like, hey, okay, great, we're gonna let them go. And we should be halfway to Sinai by now. But instead, we're actually having to work even harder. Like, what's

Pharaoh Pushes Back And Work Gets Worse

SPEAKER_01 3:10

the problem? And so we're gonna keep back going in chapter six and continue this conversation. The Bible says this in chapter six, verse one. It says, Then the Lord said to Moses, Now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh. When he feels the force of my strong hand, he will let the people go. In fact, he will force them to leave the land. And God said to Moses, I am Yahweh, Yahweh, the Lord. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as El Shaddai, the Almighty. That's Hebrew for El, which is God's Shaddai, the greatly capable one, the Almighty, the one who can do all things. So El Shaddai, God Almighty, but I did not reveal my name, Yahweh, to them, and I reaffirmed my covenant with them. Under its terms, I promised to give them the land of Canaan, where they are living as foreigners. You can be sure that I have heard the groans of the people of Israel who are now slaves to the Egyptians, and I am well aware of my covenant with them. Therefore, say to the people of Israel, I am the Lord, and I will free you from your oppression, and I will rescue you from your slavery in Egypt. I will redeem you with a powerful arm and with great acts of judgment. I will claim you as my own people, and I will be your God. And then you will know that I am the Lord your God, who has freed you from your oppression in Egypt. I will bring you into the land I swore to give Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I will give it to you as your very own possession. I am the Lord. Wow. So Moses told the people of Israel

God Reintroduces Himself As Yahweh

SPEAKER_01 4:58

what the Lord had said, but they refused to listen anymore. They had become too discouraged by the brutality of their slavery. Then the Lord said to Moses, Go back to Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and tell him to let the people of Israel leave this country. But Lord, Moses objected, my own people won't listen to me anymore. How can I expect Pharaoh to listen? I am such a clumsy speaker. But the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron and gave them the orders for the Israelites and for Pharaoh and the king of Egypt. And the Lord commanded Moses and Aaron to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt. These are the ancestors of some of the clans of Israel. The sons of Reuben, Israel's oldest sons, were Hena Hanoch, Paul, Hezron, and Carmi. Their descendants became the clans of Reuben. The sons of Simeon were Jemuel, Jamin, Ohad, Zekan, Zoar, and Shual. Shual's mother was a Canaanite woman. Their descendants became the clans of Simeon. These are the descendants of Levi, as listed in their family records. The sons of Levi were Gershem, Gohat, and Mereri. Levi lived to be one hundred and thirty-seven years old. The descendants of Gershem included Libni and Shimei, each who became the ancestor of the clan. The descendants of Koath included Amram, Ishar, Hebron, and Uzael. Kohath lived to be one hundred and thirty-three years old. The descendants of Mereri included Mali and Mushi. These are the clans of the Levites, as listed in their family records. Amram married his father's sister, Jacobed, and gave birth to his sons, Aaron and Moses. Amram lived to be at 137 years old. The sons of Ishar were Korah, Nepheg, and Zikri. The sons of Uzael were Mishel, Islahim, and Siri. Aaron married Shalibah, the daughter of Abinadab, the sister of Nashan, and gave birth to his sons

Israel Too Discouraged To Hear Hope

SPEAKER_01 7:00

Nadab, Abihu, Eliazar, and Ithamar, the sons of Korah and Ishir, Elkanah, and Abishath. Their descendants became the clans of Korah. Eliazar, the son of Aaron, married one of the daughters of Petuel, and she gave birth to her sons, the Phineas, to her son Phineas. These are the ancestors of the Levite families listed according to their clans. And then Moses, or Aaron and Moses in this list are the same ones whom the Lord said, Lead the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt like an army. And it was Moses and Aaron who spoke to Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, about leading the people of Israel out of Egypt. When the Lord spoke to Moses in the land of Egypt, he said to him, I am the Lord, tell Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, everything I am telling you. Moses argued with the Lord, saying, I can't do it. I am such a clumsy speaker. Why should Pharaoh listen to me? Wow. What is so amazing about this is God gives the nation of Israel such an amazing

God Uses Imperfect People Anyway

SPEAKER_01 8:10

promise. And Moses unintentionally is making this about him. Now it's not on purpose, and you see, he gets right. It's gonna be fine. But you think about it, he is free. He he he was able to get away from it. The people who wanted to kill him are dead, and now he comes back and he has all of his family, because he's still a Hebrew, all of his family are in bondage. He tries to go and it doesn't work, and then God gives the nation of Israel this amazing promise. I promised your ancestors I was going to set you free, and I will do it. I'm gonna get you out of here, then I'm gonna get you in your own land, I'm gonna make you a nation, and then he tells them I love this. He tells the slaves, Moses and Aaron are gonna lead you out, not as slaves, but as an army. But they are so upset, they are so weighed down that the Bible said that they couldn't even listen. They were just so upset. And Moses is so dejected, he feels like a failure. It didn't work. And so God says, I'm gonna go back and tell Pharaoh, let my people go. And he is going to be so overwhelmed by what I'm going to do, God says, that not only is he gonna let you leave, he's not gonna let you stay, which is awesome. But Moses is like, but I can't. So twice he says, I'm not good enough. And here's the thing is God is telling him, I didn't choose you because you were great enough. I chose you because I'm good enough. And that I've chosen you to do my work. What an amazing thing for us to hear today. Unintentionally, we will many times try to convince God not to have his way in our life. God, I'm not smart enough. God, I don't want to do this. I can't do this. I I can't do this, I can't do that. And I wonder how many times God is saying, I didn't choose you because you were good enough. I knew you wasn't perfect. You know one of the most comforting things I ever heard in my life? God factors in our stupidity when he calls us to his ministry. And everyone's a minister, by the way. You you may or may not do it vocationally, but ministry is anything you do for someone else as an act of worship to God. Everybody's in ministry in some form. And before God calls us to whatever it is he calls us to do, how we're gonna make a difference in our life, he factors in our stupidity. Does that not help you feel better like it does me? That means that if you're someone who is just naturally an anxious person, God is not surprised when he asks you to take a step of faith and you're worried about it. You think he didn't know that? God is not surprised when you, if you're someone who deals with on and off, you deal with insecurities. If you're someone who deals with anger, you think God had absolutely no idea? And the first time you got angry, he was like, oh Lord, I wasn't expecting that. Of course, he wouldn't have said, Oh Lord, he said, Oh me. I wouldn't expect him that. No, he knew exactly what was going on, which is why he has put so many things in your path to help you deal with that anger. He's trying to disciple you, he's trying to discipline you, right? We all got it. Yours is anger, somebody else is something else. And so God factors all of that in and he says, You know what? I still love him, I still got a big idea for him. Man, I'm gonna tell you something, that guy right there, he got 99 issues, but he's got one of me, and that's all he needs. And God is gonna work that out in your life. And so unintentionally, Moses is making this about him, and he gets it right. Next chapter, he gets it right. But is it possible that we are limiting what God is doing in our life because we're trying to make it about us, about what we can't do, about what we're not going to do, about we're not willing to do. And God is saying it's not about you, it's about everything I want to do through you. It was about God's love for the nation of Israel. And he was using Moses to get it done. And Moses is going, you know, it would be like it would be like a paintbrush saying to the great artist, but I'm not a good brush. I can't do this. And the artist is going, Can you just be quiet? I'm gonna put the right paint, I'm gonna put it right here. I know exactly what you are and exactly what you're not, which is why I chose you. Another paintbrush wouldn't work for this. I need you with all of your imperfections, all these different things. I'm gonna be working those out in your life. That doesn't mean that we we sit there and we say, Well, God's not working on me. I'm fine the way I am. No, no, no. God's always healing us, he's always doing this. At the same time, God needs an exact you right where you are as we are growing and becoming more like Christ every day to fit right there in that puzzle piece. And so we don't make it about him. We make it about we don't make it about us. We make it about him and we make it about all the people he sent us to impact. What if we lived our life like that today?

The Paintbrush Lesson And Closing Prayer

SPEAKER_01 12:53

Let's pray together right now. God, thank you so much for today. Thank you, God, that it's about you and it's about all the people you're trying to minister to through us. Thank you for the honor and the joy. And Lord, I'm so thankful that you know us. I'm so thankful that you know how jacked up and messed up we all are, and you still love us. Thank you for that, God. It is an honor to be in your kingdom. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. And anyway, what God's Word says in Exodus chapter six, verse six, it says, God says, I will free you from your oppression and I will rescue you from slavery. I love you. I'll see you tomorrow for Exodus chapter seven.