Sermon Tone Analysis

Me

When I was in high school I highly doubt anyone that was friends with me would have ever thought, “Hey, that dude… That dude is destined to be a Messianic Jewish rabbi...” In fact, I know this to be fact, because I am still friends with some of my closest friends from high school and they have made comments to me like, “Hey, who would have ever thought you’d be a rabbi?”.

This isn’t to say I was necessarily a bad kid growing up or that I wasn’t walking with the Lord.

But, I wasn’t a great kid either, and a lot of times my walk with the Lord would probably have been better described as “walking with the Lord-adjacent.”

Outside of synagogue I wasn’t really working hard to be a disciple of Yeshua, and I definitely wasn’t working hard to make disciples of Yeshua.

Honestly, Danielle and I were dating in high school and I was in NJROTC and those two things were pretty much the only things that mattered to me…

I didn’t have a great relationship with my parents in high school either… Not because I didn’t love them or vice-verse, but because I was hard-headed and generally a pretty angry and aggressive kid.

My dad and I were almost always at odds and I could have cared less about what they thought of choices I was making.

And trust me, a lot of the choices I was making at that point were not anything to be proud of, heck, a lot of choices I’ve made sense then aren’t anything to be proud of for that matter…

And trying to avoid sin was the least of my concerns.

And I definitely wasn’t thinking about what I was going to do for the Kingdom when I got out of school, much less standing here today leading a Messianic Jewish congregation.

But, I was raised in a Messianic Jewish household.

Even in my rebellion I was still sitting through Passover Seders and High Holy Day services.

I was still at synagogue every Shabbat… I was still hearing the Word and witnessing lives devoted to Yeshua.

At the very least, I know my parents were praying for at least a little osmosis to kick in.

Ultimately, as I got older I began to take ownership of my own life and take responsibility for my own walk with the Lord.

I began to feel the Lord calling me in T’shuvah.

I began to rededicate my life to Him.

And there are absolutely defining moments in my life I can look back at and see that these were the times where God was grabbing ahold of me and my hard heart was being softened and my life was being transformed.

It took a few years, but ultimately I walked away from my own ways and made the decision to prioritize God’s ways in my life.

And I can tell you numerous times the enemy tried to snuff out my life because he believed in God’s call on my life more than I did.

And despite several incidents in which I should have died God had much bigger plans for me and it just took me a little time to catch on and get on board.

We

And I highly doubt any of us listening to this message today are unable to relate to my own story in one way or another.

Heck, I am sure many of you have stories of what God saved you from that are way more interesting then mine.

And some of you may be sitting here remembering the shenanigans you put your own families through when you were running from God.

And some of you may be sitting here, like my parents were, praying for your own children who’s lives are, at best, adjacent to walking with God (or what I like to call “fire insurance”), and at worse running from God as hard and fast as they can.

And some of you may be thinking that, while my story sounds nice, you can’t see any way where yours flips around…

But the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is a God who loves a comeback story!

He is all about restoration and renewal.

In fact, He gave His only begotten Son specifically to provide a way back to Him.

And He has empowered us as disciples of Yeshua to live a life that points people to His mighty works of Salvation.

God

This week we read Parasha Bo, Exodus 10:1-13:16, in which we continue with the saga of Adonai freeing Israel from slavery in Egypt.

Exodus 10 relays to us plagues 8 and 9, Locusts and Darkness; and Pharaoh’s continual hardening heart toward Israel and HaShem.

Chapter 11 brings the details of the 10th and final plague, the death of the first born of all of Egypt—which, though sad, ultimately paved the way for Israel to be Shalach (sent out).

In chapter 12, through Moshe, Adonai reveals to Israel how they are to observe what we now know as the first Pesach, the first Passover.

And in this observance will Israel find protection from the 10th and final plague.

And at the end of Parasha Bo we read the beginning of chapter 13 which describes the prominence of the firstborn of Israel, both man and animal, and how Israel is to redeem their firstborn sons when they come into the Promised Land.

Now… there’s a particular aspect to Parasha Bo that dramatically stands out as we read through it.

And granted, yes there is a lot happening here… But there is one continual theme we see flowing through this Parasha, and realistically throughout the Word of God as a whole, that I believe is vital for the Body of Messiah and something we have solidified as a priority for us here at Congregation Mayim Chayim.

As we dig into the Word today we’re going to focus on and return back to a common thread we see sewing the entire narrative of Parasha Bo together—This thread is...

While the enemy wants to destroy our walk with the Lord, he is even more concerned with destroying our future generations’ walk with the Lord.

(Repeat)

So let’s dig into the text together, and because often the enemy, like I said a moment ago, believes in God’s call on our life more than we do, I want to start by looking at something Pharaoh says...

Here we see what is really the goal of Pharaoh in all of this… Pharaoh is ultimately a tool of the enemy… And while the enemy is annoying, he isn’t stupid… Pharaoh’s hardening of his heart is not just about those who are currently enslaved in Egypt now, he is fighting to keep the people of God enslaved for generations to come.

The early 20th century Yiddish commentary Maayanah Shel Torah (Wellsprings of Torah) describes the heart of Pharaoh’s intention here in this way:

Pharaoh was willing to let the menfolk go, as long as the children remain behind; for as long as the younger generation remains “in Egypt,” there would be no future for the people of Israel.

The “Pharaohs” of our day have the same attitude.

If the older folk wish to cling to Jewish tradition, that is perfectly acceptable; but the youth should be raised in “the spirit of the times” . . .

And though this is nothing new, it is very much a reality in the world around us today… The enemy would love nothing more than to entrap and keep our future generations in the ways of this world rather than thriving fully in the Kingdom of God.

But here’s the thing, while the enslavement of Israel l’dor v’dor was a priority to Pharaoh and to the the enemy, the freedom of Israel l’dor v’dor has always been the priority of HaShem for His covenant people.

And not just in what we’re about to see in Parasha Bo, but we can go back much farther to see God’s plan for the blessing that would be His covenant relationship with the future generations of Israel.

And again in Genesis 15:1-6

And this promise of a future inheritance with future generations to inherit it continues throughout the lineage of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob.

Now, let’s go back to Parasha Bo again.

As we’ve already established, the enemy could care less about the here and now of Israel, he is most concerned with keeping the future of Israel enslaved.

But what is God’s concern?

What is God’s plan?

What is God’s command to Israel?

While Pharaoh’s desire is to keep the future of Israel enslaved, Adonai’s desire is to free the current generation so they can tell all future generations about what God has done.

Why?

So that they too can find freedom in the Lord.

And we see this same theme again in several more key places throughout Parasha Bo.

So let’s take a quick look at those together.

Exodus 12 lays out for us the way the first Passover was to be observed, and in great detail, and that we are to keep the Passover l’dor v’dor.

He says in the future our children will ask us, “Why in the world do we keep doing this over and over again?

What does this all mean?”

When they ask us we are to tell them of all that HaShem has done for our people in freeing us from Egypt with His might and power.

Then we read further in Exodus 13…

And again at the end of our Parasha we read...

When we look at Parasha Bo we see that the overwhelming theme is the heart of God for our future generations.

And this is key because as we see when Israel finally leaves Egypt and begins their journey to the Promised Land the first generation is who becomes the failure over and over again.

But their children are who actually enter in and take the Promised Land, their children are who actually walk in relationship with the Lord, their children are who begin to live out the command to relay the Mighty Works of God l’dor v’dor!

And again, as we see in Exodus 10, Pharaoh knew good and well that the key to destroying Israel was in destroying their future.

E

Pharaoh’s goal is not just to demoralize Israel by keeping them enslaved, his goal is to destroy Israel by keeping their future generations enslaved.

And the enemy’s game has not changed at all in the last 4000 plus years...

While the enemy wants to destroy our walk with the Lord, he is even more concerned with destroying our future generations’ walk with the Lord.

[Talk about Shamar--Shamar- A primitive root; properly to hedge about (as with thorns), that is, guard; generally to protect, attend to, etc.: - beware, be circumspect, take heed (to self), keep (-er, self), mark, look narrowly, observe, preserve, regard, reserve, save (self), sure, (that lay) wait (for), watch (-man)]

This is why we see so much throughout the Bible about teaching our children the ways of God over and over again.

It isn’t so that we make robots out of our kids, it’s because the enemy wants to destroy our children and it is our job as parents, our job as the village, to Shamar (guard) His ways and to shamar our children in His ways.

And the Hebrew here is so important because in Deuteronomy 4:9 the phrase, “Only be watchful and watch over your soul closely” in Hebrew reads, “Rak hiShamer L’cha ush’mor naph’sh’cha m’od”—in which we see the root word Shamar (guard) twice…

And the Shema is another prime example…

Teach them diligently to your children and speak of them when you sit in your house… And listen guys, it isn’t just that we are to tell our kids about God’s word… It isn’t just that we’re to read the Bible with or to our kids… We must model a walk with HaShem in the power of the Ruach HaKodesh before our children at all times.

They should not only hear about the Ways of God from us, they should see them modeled in our lives before their eyes.

We see Yeshua’s heart toward children in several places throughout the Gospels, for instance…

As we look at the story of the Exodus we see that it is a foreshadowing of a greater prophetic reality.

While in the immediacy of the text the Passover is about Israel being freed from physical slavery in Egypt, it is a foreshadowing of the promised restoration through Messiah Yeshua, a foreshadowing of the promise of the freedom we find in Yeshua from slavery to sin.

And just as the Exodus is a foreshadowing of a greater prophetic spiritual reality, so is the actions, thoughts, and words of Pharaoh.

Pharoah was a foreshadowing and a tool of the enemy.

His goal was to destroy the future of Israel and in the same sense the enemy’s biggest goal is to destroy the future of the Body of Messiah.

The enemy wants nothing more than to destroy the message of salvation in Yeshua, of freedom from sin, of life everlasting with HaShem l’dor v’dor...

And in the world we live in today the enemy is working overtime.

Virtually everything happening around us today is for the distinct purpose of destroying the message of Messiah in the lives of our children.

The world wants to drag them down, to destroy their hope and dreams.

The world wants to ostracize them for their faith.

The world wants to make them feel alone and unwanted because of Messiah.

The world wants them to feel self-conscious because their faith makes them look and act different than everyone else…

I am still somewhat kind of young, but I can tell you the world I grew up in is not even remotely the same as the world my children are growing up in… Generation Z and Generation Alpha are experiencing realities that Boomers, Generation X, and even Generation Y (Millennials) never had to face.