Scripture reading: Psalm 63.

Sermon text: Exodus 3:1-15.

Nations in despair send their sons to foreign lands; distressed families pray to God for help; men leave behind family and friends, wondering if they’ll ever see them again.

For us, this sounds familiar. It should. After all, the Hebrews, Abraham’s descendants through his grandson Jacob, had spent nearly 400 years in Egypt, a great deal of that time in bondage and suffering following the Hyksos invasion of Egypt in c. 1720 B.C. Just when the Hebrews thought they had found a savior in Moses (or, at least, Moses thought of himself as their savior), the “savior’s” ill-planned murder of an Egyptian sent his plans for Israel’s deliverance crashing into the sand and Moses scurrying to Midian to escape Pharaoh Thutmose III.

In our case, New Hope today remembers our past year. This time last year, we had sent one of our own to Afghanistan with his National Guard unit to defend our nation against those who attacked us in 2001. Although you find little mention nowadays of that September, most of us here remember well where we were on the day Muslim terrorists attacked the United States. We remember our sorrow at the victims and outrage at the unprovoked terrorism. We also remember sending our own brother into harm’s way in service to our country. Like Moses, he probably wondered at times whether he’d ever see his family again. Like the Hebrews, we saw the family torn apart. And, like the Hebrews, we prayed for deliverance, but with a twist: We prayed not for our own deliverance, but for the physical protection and spiritual nourishment of a unit of the National Guard of the United states. We also knew that, barring circumstances, the 166th would complete their service and return home after a year in Afghanistan. Moses’ family had no way of knowing if they’d ever see him again.

In both instances, God’s people suffered the heartache of bidding farewell to a loved one. In both instances, God’s people prayed.

And, in both instances, God heard the prayers of His people and honored those prayers.

Today, we welcome our member back home to us. In the process, we recognize what God has done in our midst during his absence and honor God for what He has done in the life of the 166th Engineering Company during their time in Afghanistan. The sermon passage today describes in detail both what God did in Moses’ life and what He has done in our lives since February 2009.

First, God called us to draw near to Him as He called Moses at the top of Mt. Sinai. It’s said that nothing will strengthen our prayer life like a life-threatening crisis. Many of us pledged last February to pray daily for the 166th, praying for their safety, protection, and for God to make Himself known to the unit in special ways. Instead, God has made Himself known in our church as He honored our other requests. Some people wonder why we pray if God already knows the future.

Frankly, we pray because God has told us to pray. Earlier in this service, we prayed the Lord’s Prayer, the prayer lifted before God by Christians of every race and nation on this day. We received this prayer from Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God. If Jesus, the Son of God, thought prayer so important He would give us a model prayer to follow, then we should pray. If you doubt the power of prayer, perhaps you should consider beginning your prayer life with the Lord’s Prayer. This prayer alone has changed lives and brought God’s power into events beyond our understanding.

I also believe God has revealed Himself to New Hope in new ways this past year. “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Moses came face to face with the God of his people. God also uses prayer to draw us nearer to Him and to prepare us for moments when His Spirit will move through our own hearts. Moses saw the burning bush and had to investigate. Moses then found himself in the presence of Almighty God. “The place on which you are standing is holy ground,” God told Moses. This encounter began with a rocky start: “Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.” The relationship between Moses and God may have begun in fear, but we later read, “The LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend” (Exodus 33:11).

As Moses learned more about God, he realized his own unworthiness to stand in the presence of his Creator. Moses realized that he could not seek God’s aid without first submitting himself to God’s plan for his life. As we’ve prayed this year, I suspect many of us have found ourselves in Moses’ place, realizing our own unworthiness to ask anything of God without giving ourselves wholeheartedly to His will for our lives. Time spent in prayer equals time spent before God. We may first begin by asking God what we want Him to do for us, but we eventually — inevitably — move to asking God what we must do for Him. God calls us to serve Him by demonstrating the transformative power of the gospel in our lives. The death and resurrection of Jesus should give us joy as we understand the victory we receive through our confession of Jesus as Lord, believing in His resurrection.

Lastly, I believe God’s words to Moses apply to this congregation in another fashion. “I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.” Moses did return to Mt. Sinai with the people of Israel and worshiped there. During their worship at Mt. Sinai, Moses received the covenant God gave to Israel, a covenant He fulfilled in Jesus Christ, His Son.

We worshiped here last February as we sent our beloved member to serve our nation. When he left, we remained here, as Moses’ family remained in Egypt. We learned, as did Moses’ family, that God doesn’t tie Himself to one place. “I AM WHO I AM.” God is God in Afghanistan as He is God here in the Romulus community. We’ll never know all the times God preserved the 166th from danger that could have killed members of this unit; we do know that, because God preserved them in Afghanistan while He also guided us here, that the unit returned without any loss of life.

Today, we gather to welcome our brother back to us as we sent him into God’s care: With a celebration of Holy Communion. This past year has brought both joys and sorrows, places of intimacy with God and dry places where despair threatened to overwhelm us, on both sides of the globe. We have sought God for one another and prayed for God to guide and protect us. This celebration today bears witness to the goodness of our God. Today, we praise God not only for the resurrection of Jesus Christ that occurred in our history; we praise God that He continues to work in the lives of His people in the present. This table reminds us that, in the future, Jesus will return. Isaiah wrote that when Jesus returns, “He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more” (Isaiah 2:4).

As we gather around the Table of God, I encourage you to take heart; God answers your prayers. God answered the prayers of Israel for a deliverer from the Egyptians by sending Moses back to Egypt. God answered the prayers of Israel for a Redeemer from sin through His Son, Jesus Christ. One day, God will answer the prayers of His people for a peace that shall never end.