Fear and Fame from God’s Perspective

This sermon was preached for Capital Pres Fairfax on January 12, 2025  as a part of our sermon series “Exodus: Journey to Freedom.” Where do we turn to when we need direction, rescue, or peace? The Book of Exodus is an account of God graciously leading his people from slavery to freedom, teaching us about God’s passion to make his glory known and his commitment to be present with his people. Exodus helps us learn what it looks like to live in hostile environments and walk through wilderness seasons while relying on God’s grace to lead us to freedom. This week we focused on Exodus 1:15-2:10. A recording of this sermon will be available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. 

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This Winter, our church is running an adult Sunday School cohort working through the book When People are Big and God is Small. It’s a book that helps us unpack the ways our fear of people weighs us down like a burden, and how our fear of the Lord leads to freedom. Our passage this morning serves as a perfect introduction to that concept—a passage which on the surface sure makes it look like people are big and God is small. Pharaoh looms over all God’s people and God is hardly mentioned! But as we work through this text together, God will help us see a very different perspective. 

Two main things for us to consider this morning: fear and fame from God’s perspective. First, we’re going to look at the text to make sure we really understand what’s going on here. Then we’re going to consider two things based on the text: fear and fame. If you’re looking for a big takeaway up front, here you go. This is your sermon in a sentence: Faithful anonymity and fear of the Lord will lead to fame in heaven. 

Exodus 1:15 Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, 16 “When you serve as midwife to the Hebrew women and see them on the birthstool, if it is a son, you shall kill him, but if it is a daughter, she shall live.” 17 But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live. 18 So the king of Egypt called the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this, and let the male children live?” 19 The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.” 20 So God dealt well with the midwives. And the people multiplied and grew very strong. 21 And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families. 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.” 

2:1 Now a man from the house of Levi went and took as his wife a Levite woman. 2 The woman conceived and bore a son, and when she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him three months. 3 When she could hide him no longer, she took for him a basket made of bulrushes and daubed it with bitumen and pitch. She put the child in it and placed it among the reeds by the river bank. 4 And his sister stood at a distance to know what would be done to him. 5 Now the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her young women walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her servant woman, and she took it. 6 When she opened it, she saw the child, and behold, the baby was crying. She took pity on him and said, “This is one of the Hebrews’ children.” 7 Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and call you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?” 8 And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Go.” So the girl went and called the child’s mother. 9 And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child away and nurse him for me, and I will give you your wages.” So the woman took the child and nursed him. 10 When the child grew older, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses, “Because,” she said, “I drew him out of the water.” 

Understanding the Passage 

If you’ve got a Bible on you, open it back up to Exodus 1-2, it’ll be helpful to read along with me as we dive into the text. As a recap, let’s remember why we’re in Egypt. There’s a guy we meet in the book of Genesis named Jacob, the grandson of Abraham who God renamed “Israel,” who has brought his whole family into Egypt to escape a famine in Canaan. Jacob’s family exploded from just 75 people to thousands over the course of a few generations. A new Pharaoh rises to power and decides he doesn’t feel comfortable with this, so he begins a plan to control the Israelites. Plan A is harsh slavery and oppression, and while the Israelites suffer under Pharaoh, his plan fails; they keep growing. That brings us to our passage today, where we see Plans B and C. Pharaoh becomes murderous. He wants all Hebrew sons killed before they reach maturity. 

Plan B goes something like this. Look at verses 15-16. Pharaoh recruits the Hebrew midwives to kill any male child they help deliver. This is probably meant to be discrete—not soldiers barging into houses. Rather, he’s likely hoping the midwives will make these appear like natural deaths. Something that won’t immediately draw attention, but will silently kill an entire generation. Because it’s covert, the success of this plan won’t be immediately obvious. It might take a few years before the Egyptians can tell whether there’s a bunch of young Israelite boys running around or not. 

And so probably, a few years go by before Pharaoh to realizes the plan failed. He calls these two women back and demands an answer—and remember, this is a powerful, evil king who has no problem taking life. How do Shiphrah and Puah respond? Verse 19 “the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.” 

What does that mean? Scholars have different interpretations. Some believe this is an outright lie, and Pharaoh just accepts it. Some believe this isn’t so much a comment on biology as it is on cultural practices: Egyptian mothers may have depended more on midwives for birth and postnatal care, while Hebrew mothers were more involved through the whole process. Some believe this is a half-truth backed by a broad conspiracy for midwives to not be involved in the birthing process because of Pharaohs directive. Whatever the reason, Pharaoh accepts defeat. Plan B fails, so he moves on to Plan C.

In verse 20, the gloves are off. No more covert schemes, not subtlety. Pharaoh demands his people “If you see a Hebrew baby boy, you drown him in the Nile.” We can’t rush past the horror of this evil. This is merciless brutality and systematic, ethnic infanticide. We’re not told how effective Plan C is on the large scale. Instead, our story zooms in on just one family. A loving mother probably doing what many were trying to do: protect their sons for as long as possible. Three months pass until it’s too hard to hide the boy so what does she do? She moves on to her own Plan B—and honestly, it’s hard to tell what exactly the plan is here. She puts her baby in a waterproof basket among the reeds of the river. Is she intending to send her son on a desperate maiden voyage down the river? Maybe she’s intending to keep her son but has to hide him in a place further away from the home during the day—and places his sister on guard. 

Whatever the plan was, things quickly take a turn. Of all people, who finds the boy but Pharoah’s own daughter! Imagine if you were the sister standing there watching the daughter of the man who’s killing and oppressing your people find your baby brother! This has got to feel like the worst-case scenario, until just as shockingly, Pharoah’s daughter starts to coo and shush and comfort the boy. She shows pity. It swings from worst-case to literally best-case scenario! Not only does the boy live, he gets to be weaned by his own mother under paid for by Pharaoh’s own household! Again, we don’t know how many years pass here, but we know from historical studies that children at this time nursed until 3-4 years old. So the boy grows to be old enough to know his birth family and speak his people’s language before Pharoah’s daughter comes and adopts him, finally giving him the name we know: Moses. 

That’s the passage we’re working with this morning, and it is an absolute roller coaster of emotions. Over the course of our passage we’ve covered perhaps 6-10 years. And there’s a lot of questions we might have for the text which the text leaves unanswered. What Pharoah is this? When in history is all this happening? Were Shiphrah and Puah the only two midwives or were there more? Were they lying or not? What was Moses’ mom’s plan here? 

What do we do with all these questions? Two things. First, we can look in the rest of Scripture for answers, sometimes we find them there. For example: Who are Moses’ mother and father? Jochebad and Amram (Ex 6:20). What about his sister? Miriam (15:20). Does he have other family? An older brother Aaron (6:20), who we can guess was born during Pharaoh’s Plan B. Which Pharaoh is this? That’s not totally clear, but based on dates working back from King David, this is probably Ahmose I or Amenhotep I of the New Kingdom (roughly 1520BC). 

Still, we might find questions we can’t find any answers to. This can happen with any passage in Scripture—if you ask enough questions, eventually you’re going to run up against the boundaries of the text and won’t be able to go any further. So what then? Well rather than focusing on what the text doesn’t tell us, we do better to focus on what the text does tell us. The good news is, we don’t need every question answered to understand the main point. Later in his life, Moses will write Deut 29:29 “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.” 

In other words, God gives us all we need to know and sometimes nothing more. Especially in Old Testament narrative, authors have a tight economy of words. They don’t want you to speculate about what they left out, they want you to see very clearly what they left in. What is the main point of this passage? Why, of all the details the author cut, does he leave these specific details? A few main ideas are clear: Pharaoh is trying to oppose and suppress the Hebrews, but God providentially protects them through ordinary bravery of unlikely heroes. God is not abandoning his people. He is clearly planning something to fulfill his promise to Abraham. What makes someone’s name worthy in God’s view is not their worldly status, but their fear of him and faith in him. 

Fear

Let’s turn our attention to those main insights here in our passage: fear and fame from God’s perspective. First, fear. What is driving Pharoah’s murderous plan? What is pushing him to this great evil? Fear. Consider Exodus 1:8-10, 12. Pharoah is crunching numbers and considering outcomes in his head. According to his math, the Israelites pose a huge threat to his own power. Not because they’re actually trying to overthrow him or doing anything other than bringing blessing to Egypt. Just on the off chance that enemies march into Egypt and convince the Israelites to turn against them, he decides to take drastic measures. 

Friends, that’s what fear does when we fear anyone other than God more than God. That’s the whole story of the Bible. Fear is what drove our first parents Adam and Eve to eat the fruit and hide from God, they believed God didn’t have their best interest at heart. Fear is what drove the Israelites to forge the golden calf, and what drove them to idolatry and ultimately to exile. Fear is what motivated the pharisees and Sanhedrin to crucify Jesus. Every time, the result is the same: misery, oppression, death. Fear of anyone other than God leads to oppression and death every time. 

Think about this in your own life. Who are you afraid of? Maybe for you, it’s your coworkers. You’re afraid that if you share your faith at work, your coworkers and boss will think “you’re one of those Christians” and it will hurt my career. Maybe it’s your boyfriend or girlfriend. You’re afraid if you say “No” to them, they’ll break up with you, so rather than holding to your convictions, you give in. Maybe it’s your own reputation, it’s the way you think others see you. This is one I’ve really faced, especially with my own struggles with sin and mental health. I used to think “if I am honest with people about the things I am struggling with, they will shame me instead of help me, so I’m going to suffer alone.” 

People-pleasing, compromising your character, tearing down others to protect your own reputation, you name it. Every time, it leads to misery and oppression and death. That’s Pharaoh’s fear. 

Compare that to the other kind of fear we see here: fear of the Lord. What does it mean to fear the Lord? It means to care more about what he wants more than what anyone else wants. It means to consider his character and to act accordingly. Who did the midwives know this God to be? The God of Genesis, who created life and blessed it. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who showed mercy to their ancestors despite their faults. The God who cares about the lives of the vulnerable, Like Hagar and Ishmael. The God who hates evil and brought judgment against Sodom and Gomorrah. The God who has promised to protect the offspring of Israel and to bring them back to Canaan. 

Pharoah was doing some math to make a plan against Israel, but Shiphrah and Puah are doing their own math, too. And in their calculations, they realize that if they obey Pharoah, that puts them in direct opposition to this glorious, gracious, just, powerful God. To them, the math is clear. Same for Moses’ parents. If we jump all the way to Hebrews 11:23 we’re told “By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents, because they saw that the child was beautiful, and they were not afraid of the king’s edict.”

Above all, consider Jesus. He perfectly lives out fear of the Lord When he is tempted by the devil in Mt 4 he cites a verse written by Moses, Deuteronomy 6:13 “It is the LORD your God you shall fear. Him you shall serve and by his name you shall swear.” When Jesus preaches, he upsets a lot of people but he doesn’t fear them. Even when they scheme to arrest and execute him, and he is so anxious he sweats like drops of blood, what does Jesus pray? “Not my will, Father, but yours be done.” 

And what does Jesus’ fear of the Lord result in? Resurrection and life everlasting, not only for himself, but for all those who follow him. This is why Scripture so repeatedly tells us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, the fear of the Lord brings life. When you know who our God is, you care more about what he wants than anything else. To side with him is to side with goodness, to be found in him is ultimate joy and security. To be his friend is life itself, and to be against him is death. So no matter what anybody else thinks, no matter what demands or threats I face, I will not go against this God. That is the fear of the Lord. 

Friends, take some time today or this week and ask yourself “Who am I afraid of?” Identify your fears—parents, boss, friends, social media. Then crunch the numbers: that person, that Pharaoh, against God. Do the math. Who are you going to side with? How is that going to play out for you? 

Fame 

That brings us to our last point. Our passage subtly shows us what happens when we side with God. Look at who gets the fame in our passage. 

As much as we would love to have Moses tell us Pharoah’s name here for historical reasons, there’s a powerful lesson in leaving him anonymous. Look at who the text considers important enough to name: two random midwives and one random baby boy—by their own culture’s standards, utterly forgettable, unremarkable, ordinary people. And yet God has given them the dignity and honor of us knowing their names nearly four thousand years later. 

I’m reminded of 1 Corinthians 1 where, describing the church, Paul says “not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.” (1 Co 1:26–29) 

In his book The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis imagines what it would be like if heaven could have visitors from hell. At one point on his tour, Lewis overhears the sound of a roaring parade, with angels and animals shouting in celebration of a woman. Lewis figures this must be some radically important or famous person from church history and he begins to ask his guide who it might be. He writes: 

“Is it? … is it?” I whispered to my guide.

“Not at all,” said he. “It’s someone ye’ll never have heard of. Her name on earth was Sarah Smith and she lived at Golders Green.”

“She seems to be… well, a person of particular importance?”

“Aye. She is one of the great ones. Ye have heard that fame in this country and fame on Earth are two quite different things.” (118-119) 

Just an ordinary, anonymous Sarah Smith, but according to God, she’s “one of the great ones.” Nobody illustrates this better than Jesus himself. By the world’s measure, Jesus is a complete failure—a homeless rabbi and rejected messiah, crucified like a criminal and buried in a stranger’s tomb. But as Phil 2 says, “though he was in the form of God, [Jesus] did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Phil 2:6-11) 

Jesus faced every fear you can imagine, and the greatest fear of all, death, so that you and I could be free from them forever. He is the living God of love who invites you to know and to follow him, to taste and see freedom from whatever is oppressing you. Friends, this is what God invites you to be. We can aspire to faithful anonymity in this life, just ordinary faithfulness, because you can trust God will remember your name and bless you. If you know our God, if you trust in him, if you follow Jesus no matter what anybody else wants or thinks, God promises to remember your name—and no one, not even Pharoah, can thwart God’s promises.