Follow the Leader Preaching Outline
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SCRIPTURE ANNOUNCEMENT
Exodus 23:20—33.
SCRIPTURE INTRODUCTION
We have been going through the book of Exodus…
Israel suffered as slaves…
God delivered them…
Reshaped their values…
Now, God reminds them of His promise to be with them.
RE-ANNOUNCE SCRIPTURE
Exodus 23:20—33.
SCRIPTURE READING
20 “Behold, I send an angel before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared.
21 Pay careful attention to him and obey his voice; do not rebel against him, for he will not pardon your transgression, for my name is in him.
22 “But if you carefully obey his voice and do all that I say, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries.
23 “When my angel goes before you and brings you to the Amorites and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Canaanites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, and I blot them out,
24 you shall not bow down to their gods nor serve them, nor do as they do, but you shall utterly overthrow them and break their pillars in pieces.
25 You shall serve the Lord your God, and he will bless your bread and your water, and I will take sickness away from among you.
26 None shall miscarry or be barren in your land; I will fulfill the number of your days.
27 I will send my terror before you and will throw into confusion all the people against whom you shall come, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you.
28 And I will send hornets before you, which shall drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites from before you.
29 I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate and the wild beasts multiply against you.
30 Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased and possess the land.
31 And I will set your border from the Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the Euphrates, for I will give the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you shall drive them out before you.
32 You shall make no covenant with them and their gods.
33 They shall not dwell in your land, lest they make you sin against me; for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you.”
PRAYER FOR ILLUMINATION
INTRODUCTION
It was the championship game… it was tied 2-2… and there was only eight seconds left on the clock.
I was about 10 years old, and I had been called up to join a team that was a division higher than what I was in.
The fact that I was getting called up didn’t matter to me, what mattered to me was that I was getting to play with my best friend Josh.
He was my neighbour, and we played hockey all the time.
We played mini stick hockey;
NHL 94 on his Nintendo;
we watched Don Cherry’s Rock’em Sock’em highlight videos together;
and we played hockey on an outdoor rink that our parents made in between our yards.
Josh was a few years older than me, which meant that we never got to play together… until now!
His team needed a defenseman for a tournament they were playing in, so they called me up.
We played really well the whole tournament, and made it to the championship game.
This was in large part because of our captain, Quincey.
He was bigger than everyone else… faster than everyone else… and could shoot harder than anyone else.
This guy was terrifying!
The championship game was a really good game, and at the end of the 3rd period, with 8 seconds left, it was tied 2-2..
The faceoff was in our end, and after a timeout, our coach sent the best players out on the ice for the final 8 seconds, and I was one of the defenseman that got sent out. It must have been because all of the other defenseman were too tired!
I skated out and prepared for the faceoff. I looked at the scoreboard and saw the score 2-2 … 8 seconds left.
I can’t explain the feeling I had as I waited for the puck to drop, but I just knew Quincey was going to win the game.
I didn’t know how, I just knew he would.
Sure enough, at the drop of the puck he pushed it forward past the other teams centerman, blew past their defenseman, and barreling in on the goalie buried the game-winning shot.
It felt like a dream! As my brain came to, I realized I hadn’t even moved. I had just stood there and watched him.
TRANSITION
Oftentimes we face circumstances in our life where we don’t see a way out.
We want to believe God can help us… but if we were honest, we don’t think that God can, or will redeem our broken situation.
It’s in these moments that we turn to other “gods” in our lives to get help and answers.
Rather than putting God first and bringing our needs to Him, we elevate other idols in our lives, looking to them for our fulfilment.
But as we are going to see in Exodus 23 this morning, God alone deserves to be first in our lives because of His great promises to those who trust and follow Him.
MAIN POINTS
We must follow Christ because of His promise to lead us
We must follow Christ because of His promise to lead us
In light of God’s promises to bring his people safely to the Promised Land, the Israelites are to put God first by obeying His Word.
20 “Behold, I send an angel before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared.
21 Pay careful attention to him and obey his voice; do not rebel against him, for he will not pardon your transgression, for my name is in him.
22 “But if you carefully obey his voice and do all that I say, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries.
EXPLANATION
EXPLANATION
God wants to give the Israelites confidence that He is going to bring them safely into the Promised Land, so he tells them His plan to send an angel before them.
Who is this angel?
The text does not tell us, and there has been much discussion about the identity of the angel.
A few possibilities are:
the angel is the pillar of cloud/fire that led the Israelites;
Moses;
the angel Michael or Gabriele;
the pre-incarnate Christ. (An appearance from Jesus before He came in the flesh.)
Two key details in this passage lead us to believe this is the pre-incarnate Christ. Look at verse 21 with me:
Exodus 23:21 “21 Pay careful attention to him and obey his voice; do not rebel against him, for he will not pardon your transgression, for my name is in him.”
Only God has the ability to pardon transgression.
God’s name is in him
These key details lead most to believe that this angel is actually Jesus, whom God had sent before them.
This angel (Jesus) was responsible to guard the Israelites and bring them safely to the Promised Land.
Based on this promise, God calls on them to follow the angel. Exodus 23:21 says…
21 Pay careful attention to him and obey his voice; do not rebel against him, for he will not pardon your transgression, for my name is in him.
What God is warning the Israelites here is that there are consequences for their disobedience.
He is not saying that He will never forgive their transgression.. what he is saying is that it will not go unpunished.
“If you willingly disobey, if you rebel against My angel, you will be disciplined, because my name is in him.”
“He bears my holiness, and therefore sin cannot be tolerated.”
SUMMARY
Since God promises to protect and lead His people to the place He has promised them by sending His angel before them, He calls on them to be faithful to listen to and follow His angel.
ILLUSTRATION
ILLUSTRATION
It was the first year of a church that had just been planted, and Eric Peterson was overwhelmed.
He had been ordained for 7 years, but still felt incompetent.
He struggled with fear and doubt, and was pretty sure the church had made a mistake when they called him to serve as their pastor.
On a whim, Eric decided to call his dad, the well-known pastor, Eugene Peterson.
He shared his struggles, and asked if he would write him letters about the role of a pastor, to which he agreed.
They began to write back and forth, and they called they referred to them as “Timothy Letters.”
Like Paul writing to his true son in the faith to encourage and instruct him.
In one of these letters to his son Eric in January of 2000, Eugene Peterson shares his frustration with the culture’s obsession with leadership.
This obsession finds its way into the church and what it expects from their pastor.
They expect their pastor to be a great leader… but that is not the primary role of a pastor.
The primary role of a pastor is to be a great follower!
Eugene shares the story of Ray to illustrate his point:
Ray was the tour guide who led them on their trip through Israel in 1999.
Each day Ray would lead the group out to explore different parts of Israel, but would share very little about what the agenda was.
The people in the group wanted more details, so they would ask Ray questions like:
“What are we going to do today Ray?”
“Where are we going?”
“When are we going to have lunch?”
“Why are we going up this trail?”
But Ray wouldn’t answer… he would just ignore their questions.
But every once in a while he would say something like,
“Listen, I know where I’m going. Trust me. If I tell you ahead of time what we’re doing, where we’re going, you start forming ideas in your mind that will be wrong—walking by faith involves an openness to seeing, hearing what you don’t know, and can’t anticipate.”
“Follow the rabbi, let the rabbi do it his way, with his sense of timing. Trust him to make the right decisions along the way and get you where he wants you to go.”
Eugene goes on to say that when we have an “obsession with knowing where we are going, our aptitude for following atrophies.”
When we don’t have to practice our faith, we don’t learn to trust God and follow Him.
APPLICATION
APPLICATION
In our world it is easy to be addicted to getting the answers.
We have all most likely been in situations where we don’t know something, and someone immediately google’s it and finds the answer on their phone.
The problem is, that in a world where we can “get all the answers”, who needs God?
Not only can we “get all the answers”, but we all feel an overwhelming pressure to “have all the answers” since we are constantly reminded that we have more information at our disposal than ever before.
But what if God doesn’t want us to have all the answers?
what if God doesn’t want us to know all of the details?
what if God doesn’t want us to know all the roads He will lead us down?
The Israelites certainly didn’t know the route they would take.
They knew the destination, but had no clue how they were going to get there.
And that’s exactly where God wanted them to be!
As followers of Christ, we don’t know that much about what is ahead, so we must learn to follow our leader, Jesus.
Oh, we know that we are going to spend eternity in the new Jerusalem with our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ forever…
But as far as what God is going to bring in this life as we journey there, we haven’t the slightest clue.
And that’s exactly where God wants us!
God’s primary concern isn’t that we have all the answers, but that we learn to trust and follow Him because HE has promised to be with us and lead us.
After commanding His disciples to made disciples of all nations, Jesus said in Matthew 28:20…
Matthew 28:20 (ESV)
20 And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Because Jesus will be with us to the end, we must follow Him.
BUT… What does it look like to follow Christ?
Eugene Peterson says it this way…
We get out of bed each morning and pray, "Lord Jesus Christ, I follow you. I deny myself, I take up my cross, and I follow you." Our basic identity is not leader but follower. Jesus never tells us to lead; he invites us to follow.
Then, throughout day as we face challenges, disappointment, and temptation, we don’t look to the world, or our phone for the answers…
We look to Christ!
We follow His Word for our lives.
We pray for wisdom and guidance to be obedient to His Word.
Our trust in Him, comes from our confidence in His ability to safely lead us to the place He has prepared for us.
We must follow Christ because of His promise to give us victory
We must follow Christ because of His promise to give us victory
When God led the Israelites out of Egypt, He led them out with a strong and mighty arm, soundly defeating their enemies.
Even when the Egyptian army chased after them, God destroyed every last one of them in the Red Sea.
Now, God promises that when He brings them into the place He has prepared for them, He will defeat their enemies.
22 “But if you carefully obey his voice and do all that I say, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries.
23 “When my angel goes before you and brings you to the Amorites and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Canaanites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, and I blot them out,
24 you shall not bow down to their gods nor serve them, nor do as they do, but you shall utterly overthrow them and break their pillars in pieces.
EXPLANATION
EXPLANATION
God promises to give the Israelites victory over their enemies.
He is going to bring them into the Promised Land, and defeat the nations that are currently occupying the land.
I want us to back up for a moment so that we can see where we are at in the storyline of Scripture.
If you’ve been coming here for a while, you may have heard us say that though the Bible is made up of 66 books, it is ONE STORY!
It’s the story of how:
God creates all things good…
Man and woman are the pinnacle of God’s creation, but they sin by disobeying God’s rule…
The rest of the story of the Bible shows us how God seeks to restore the perfect relationship He had with Adam and Eve in the garden.
One day, we will dwell in perfect unity with God in the new heavens and the new earth.
We have been going through Exodus, where God has redeemed the Israelites as a people for Himself.
This is a fulfilment of God’s promise to Abraham in Gen 15:13-14
13 Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years.
14 But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions.
This promise was made more than 400 years before to Abraham, which helps us to see it is all a part of God’s plan.
He then promised Abraham in Gen 15:18-21
18 On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates,
19 the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites,
20 the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim,
21 the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites.”
Now God is telling the Israelites that He will fight for them against these nations.
WOULDN’T IT BE UNJUST FOR GOD TO DESTROY OTHER NATIONS SO THAT HIS PEOPLE CAN HAVE THE LAND?
NO!
We have to understand that God is a God of justice, and when He punishes sin, He is being just.
In the book of Leviticus chapter 18, God gives the Israelites a list of sins they are to avoid.
We learn that these very sins were the reason God was going to remove the wicked nations from the Promised Land.
24 “Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things, for by all these the nations I am driving out before you have become unclean,
25 and the land became unclean, so that I punished its iniquity, and the land vomited out its inhabitants.
26 But you shall keep my statutes and my rules and do none of these abominations, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you
27 (for the people of the land, who were before you, did all of these abominations, so that the land became unclean),
28 lest the land vomit you out when you make it unclean, as it vomited out the nation that was before you.
In the same way that God is going to remove the inhabitants of the land for their sin, God will remove Israel from the land if they commit those same sins.
God is holy, and therefore just to punish sin.
Since God is going to give the Israelites victory over their enemies, and bring them into the Promised Land, they are commanded to be faithful to God.
24 you shall not bow down to their gods nor serve them, nor do as they do, but you shall utterly overthrow them and break their pillars in pieces.
God knew that after experiencing victory, the Israelites would be tempted to serve and worship other gods…
So he reminds them to completely remove them from the land…
He desires that His people remain faithful to follow Him because of His promise to give them victory.
ILLUSTRATION
ILLUSTRATION
Later on, in the book of Joshua, the Israelites enter the Promised Land, and God does indeed give them victory over their enemies.
They begin to slowly take over almost all of the land.
God fulfills His promise to His people!
At the end of the book, before Joshua dies, he calls on the people to remember God’s faithfulness to them, and serve Him alone.
But shortly after his death, we read this in Judges 2:12
12 And they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They went after other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed down to them. And they provoked the Lord to anger.
Even though God was faithful to His promise to bring them into the land and give them victory over their enemies, the Israelites did not remain faithful to follow God.
They gave in to the norms of culture around them, and began worshiping many gods.
APPLICATION
APPLICATION
What God is teaching us in this passage is that He is the only true God, and therefore the only one worthy of our worship and obedience!
There is no room for worship of any other so-called “gods”.
He is to be our exclusive Saviour!
In the Israelites’ day, worshiping many gods was normal.
So for God to call them to worship Him alone was to go against the current of the day.
This is true of our day as well.
Our world does not believe in absolute truth, and so they believe the lie that all paths of religion lead to the same place.
“There’s some good in all of it.”
THAT’S NOT TRUE!!!
There is only one Creator who rules over the earth.
There is only one Judge who every person will stand before.
There is only one God who deserves to be followed and worshipped.
When we think of the sort of idol worship we see in this passage, we think of statues made of wood, metal or stone that people bow down to.
But idolatry is alive and well in our day… even in our own lives… it’s only more subtle.
We worship at the altar of money — trying to get a little bit more to be satisfied.
We worship at the altar of fame and reputation — trying to exalt ourselves and be more successful than others.
We worship at the altar of beauty — trying to find acceptance and praise from others.
We say we worship God, but we actually chase after and worship the idols of the world!
Bob Kaulfin, in his book “Worship Matters” says…
We profess to love the true God but actually love false idols.
This may sound harsh and uncomfortable, but we all struggle with this!
Here’s how we know it’s true… we worship what we love.
Bob Kauflin goes on to say…
How do I know what I love the most? By looking at my life outside of Sunday morning. What do I enjoy the most? What do I spend the most of my time doing? Where does my mind drift to when I don’t have anything to do? What am I passionate about? What do I spend my money on?
What makes me angry when I don’t get it? What do I feel depressed without? What do I fear losing the most? Our answers to those questions will lead us straight to the God or gods we love and worship.
God knew that after the Israelites experienced victory and success in the Promised Land, they were going to be tempted to worship false idols.
In the same way, we are blinded by success, or the idea that everything is going good and we are in control.
I mean, who needs God when we can get all the answers ourselves, or fix the problem ourselves?
So… we become the gods of our own lives, and we worship ourselves through attempting to satisfy every longing of our heart with earthly pleasures.
God needs to become first in our lives!
He is the One who has redeemed us, saved us, and given us victory over our enemies!
13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses,
14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.
15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.
Praise God for His great mercy!
Because He has shown such great love toward us in breaking our chains of bondage to sin,
let us not bow down to the gods of this world…
let us not follow the sinful ideas of those who do not follow Christ…
Rather…
let us utterly overthrow those idols in our lives, and break them in pieces!
Who you choose to worship with your time, money, and energy is no joke to God!
It’s a matter of life and death… blessing and cursing…
which is another reason we must follow Christ…
We must follow Christ because of the fullness of His promise
We must follow Christ because of the fullness of His promise
God doesn’t just want to give us victory over our enemies, He wants us to experience His blessing over every area of our lives!
We can see the fullness of God’s promise by noting three areas of our lives God promises to bless if we will wholeheartedly follow Him:
The first area of promise is:
His promise to take care of us
His promise to take care of us
25 You shall serve the Lord your God, and he will bless your bread and your water, and I will take sickness away from among you.
26 None shall miscarry or be barren in your land; I will fulfill the number of your days.
God was bringing His people into a new land that they were not familiar with, but God is assuring them that He is going to take care of them.
He is going to provide food and water for them.
He is going to give them health.
He is going to give them descendants.
God desires to bless His people with good things in this life when they trust and follow Him.
The next area of promise is:
His promise to defeat our enemies
His promise to defeat our enemies
27 I will send my terror before you and will throw into confusion all the people against whom you shall come, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you.
28 And I will send hornets before you, which shall drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites from before you.
29 I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate and the wild beasts multiply against you.
30 Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased and possess the land.
We already talked about God promising to defeat their enemies, but here we see God’s care in how He defeats their enemies…
through a slow, gradual process.
The land He is giving them is so big, that if He were too immediately drive all the nations out, it would become barren and overrun with wild beasts.
So God is careful not to give them more than they can handle.
This also serves as a test to see if they will remain committed and dependant on God.
But we see that God desires to bless His people through defeating their enemies.
The pinnacle of the fullness of God’s promise is:
His promise to give us an inheritance
His promise to give us an inheritance
31 And I will set your border from the Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the Euphrates, for I will give the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you shall drive them out before you.
God is going to give His people a land they can call their own.
They have been slaves in Egypt for 400 years, but they are finally going to have a land where they can build homes, cities, and build roots.
SUMMARY
God wants to bless every area of their lives.
Based on the fullness of His promises, God calls the Israelites to be fully committed to HIm by putting Him first.
32 You shall make no covenant with them and their gods.
33 They shall not dwell in your land, lest they make you sin against me; for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you.”
Because of God’s promise to bless every area of their lives, He calls on them to remain fully committed to Him, and completely remove them from the land so that they are not tempted to worship them.
Though God’s promise is to bless every area of their lives, He does not promise to do it immediately, but slowly over time.
This will require the Israelites to continually put their trust in God over time, as they follow His Word and wait for His victory.
There will be many struggles along the way, but as long as they wait for God they will experience the fullness of His blessing.
ILLUSTRATION
ILLUSTRATION
Young William Wilberforce was discouraged one night in the early 1790s.
He had been tirelessly fighting to end the slave trade going on in England for 10 years, and after yet another defeat, he was ready to give up.
Tired and frustrated, he opened his Bible and began to leaf through it.
A small piece of paper fell out and fluttered to the floor.
It was a letter written by John Wesley shortly before his death.
Wilberforce read it again:
"Unless the divine power has raised you up... I see not how you can go through your glorious enterprise in opposing that (abominable practice of slavery), which is the scandal of religion, of England, and of human nature.
Unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of men and devils. But if God be for you, who can be against you? Are all of them together stronger than God? Oh, be not weary of well-doing. Go on in the name of God, and in the power of His might."
(Don’t Read… just for reference… | Our Daily Bread, June 16, 1989.)
This was the reminder WIlberforce needed to continue fighting.
It would take about 40 more years, but William Wilberforce continued to battle until finally the British Parliament signed the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833.
His dedication and hard work, trusting in God working through him enabled Him to endure to the end.
APPLICATION
APPLICATION
We tend to become content with where we’re at because we don’t like the discomfort of hard work that results in change.
We must be willing to put in the hard work of our total commitment to God knowing the fullness of the promises He has given us.
CONCLUSION
Imagine six-year-old Kevin, whose parents have enrolled him in music lessons.
After school every afternoon, prompted by his mother, he slouches into the living room and strums songs he must practice but doesn’t like while watching his buddies play baseball in the park across the street.
That’s discipline without direction. It’s drudgery.
Now suppose Kevin is visited by an Angel one afternoon during guitar practice. In a vision, he's transported to Carnegie Hall.
He's shown a guitar virtuoso giving a concert. Usually bored by classical music, Kevin is astonished by what he sees and hears.
The musicians fingers dance on the strings with fluidity and grace.
Kevin thinks of how stupid and clunky his own hands feel when they halt and filter over the chords.
The virtuoso blends clean, soaring notes into a musical aroma that wafts from his guitar.
Kevin remembers the toneless, irritating discord that comes stumbling out of his.
But Kevin is in chanted. His head tilts to one side as he listens.
He drinks in everything. He never imagine that anyone could play the guitar like this.
What do you think, Kevin? Ask the angel.
The answer is a soft, slow, six year olds “w - o - w!
The vision vanishes, and the angel is again standing in front of Kevin in his living room,
"Kevin," says the angel, "the wonderful musician you saw is you in a few years."
Then pointing at the guitar, the angel declares, "But you must practice!"
Suddenly the angel disappears and Kevin finds himself alone with his guitar.
Do you think his attitude toward practice will become different now?
As long as he remembers what he's going to become, Kevins discipline will have a direction, a goal that will pull him into the future.
Yes, effort will be involved, but you could hardly call it drudgery.
50 I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.
51 Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.
53 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.
54 When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”
55 “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”
56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.
57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
58 Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
When we remain committed to God, and put Him first, one day we will experience the full blessings that He has promised us.