The Liberation of God's People

Introduction

Welcome

Recap

The Story of the Bible

Last Week: Abraham and the Promise

God makes promises (that sometimes don’t make sense to us)

Abraham trusts God’s promises (with his thoughts and actions)

We also have promises from God

A promise without action is just empty words

We see after God’s promise to Abraham (and throughout the entire Bible)—God’s plan of keeping his commitment to Abraham and his people

So remember what God promised Abraham?

A Land

A Great Nation

A Great Name

A Blessing to the other nations

And we’ll see this fulfilled as we continue through our Bibles

But this morning we are picking up in Exodus—The Story of Moses

Since Abraham has been out of the picture

God did come through—Abraham and Sarah had a son (Isaac)

Isaac had two sons: Jacob and Esau

Jacob had 12 sons (the twelve tribes)

And if we remember the end of Genesis

Joseph is sold into slavery in Egypt

He becomes Pharaoh's 2nd hand man

He provides for his family in a time of famine

And the Sons of Jacob all moved to Egypt

And everything seems good...

Until we read:

(SLIDE)

Exodus 1:7–14 (CSB)

But the Israelites were fruitful, increased rapidly, multiplied, and became extremely numerous so that the land was filled with them.

A new king, who did not know about Joseph, came to power in Egypt. He said to his people, “Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and powerful than we are. Come, let’s deal shrewdly with them; otherwise they will multiply further, and when war breaks out, they will join our enemies, fight against us, and leave the country.” So the Egyptians assigned taskmasters over the Israelites to oppress them with forced labor. They built Pithom and Rameses as supply cities for Pharaoh. But the more they oppressed them, the more they multiplied and spread so that the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites. They worked the Israelites ruthlessly and made their lives bitter with difficult labor in brick and mortar and in all kinds of fieldwork. They ruthlessly imposed all this work on them.

Today we are going to talk about the Exodus

Does anyone know what ‘Exodus’ means?

Departure

The Liberation of God’s People

Scripture Reading

Exodus 2:23–25 (CSB)

After a long time, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned because of their difficult labor, and they cried out, and their cry for help because of the difficult labor ascended to God. God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. and God saw the Israelites, and God knew.

Exodus 3:7–10 (CSB)

Then the Lord said, “I have observed the misery of my people in Egypt, and have heard them crying out because of their oppressors. I know about their sufferings, and I have come down to rescue them from the power of the Egyptians and to bring them from that land to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the territory of the Canaanites, Hethites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. So because the Israelites’ cry for help has come to me, and I have also seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them, therefore, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh so that you may lead my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.”

Exodus 6:5–9 (CSB)

Furthermore, I have heard the groaning of the Israelites, whom the Egyptians are forcing to work as slaves, and I have remembered my covenant.

“Therefore tell the Israelites: I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from the forced labor of the Egyptians and rescue you from slavery to them. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and great acts of judgment. I will take you as my people, and I will be your God. You will know that I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from the forced labor of the Egyptians. I will bring you to the land that I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I will give it to you as a possession. I am the Lord.” Moses told this to the Israelites, but they did not listen to him because of their broken spirit and hard labor.

The Exodus of Israel

Physical Bondage

When we hear this story we think of the cruel oppression Israel was under

They were slaves living in a far away land

They were at the bottom of social class

We live in such a comfortable and protected society

Imagine how brutal a life like this must have been

The first time Moses and Aaron as for a three day trip to worship God, this is his response:

(SLIDE)

Exodus 5:6–9 (CSB)

That day Pharaoh commanded the overseers of the people as well as their foremen, “Don’t continue to supply the people with straw for making bricks, as before. They must go and gather straw for themselves. But require the same quota of bricks from them as they were making before; do not reduce it. For they are slackers—that is why they are crying out, ‘Let us go and sacrifice to our God.’ Impose heavier work on the men. Then they will be occupied with it and not pay attention to deceptive words.”

God’s people were enslaved

What happened to the promise of Abraham?

They aren’t their own nation

The name of Abraham is forgotten

They have no land

They aren’t a blessing to Egypt—They are objects to be exploited

Worse than being nomads with no home

They were slaves being exploited and oppressed by a great and mighty nation

Spiritual Bondage

But behind all of the physical oppression there was a Spiritual oppression

And this is the picture we get throughout Moses confrontations of Pharaoh

Moses and Aaron as the spokespersons for Yahweh

Pharaoh as the spokesperson of the Egyptian Gods

And in this showdown… Yahweh shows his power

He shows that he is decidedly more powerful than any other

(SLIDE)

Exodus 9:14–16 (CSB) - Before the Plague of Hail

For this time I am about to send all my plagues against you, your officials, and your people. Then you will know there is no one like me on the whole earth. By now I could have stretched out my hand and struck you and your people with a plague, and you would have been obliterated from the earth. However, I have let you live for this purpose: to show you my power and to make my name known on the whole earth.

And he demands that Pharaoh let his people go

He has heard the cry of his people and nothing will stop him from coming to their rescue

(SLIDE)

10 Plagues - Let My People Go

Water to Blood

Frogs from the Nile

Gnats from the Dust

Swarms of Flies

Death of Livestock

Boils on People and Livestock

Thunder, Rain, and Hail

Locusts Consuming Crops

Three Days of Darkness

Death of the Firstborn - Passover

The Story of Israel

This deliverance becomes the story of God’s people

(SLIDES)

God’s Judgement on Egypt

The Passover Meal

The Flight from Egypt

The Crossing of the Red Sea

The Red Sea crashing down on Egyptians

This is what turned them from a oppressed group of slaves to a nation

This is where God revealed himself to his people

This is where God’s people were given a new life, a new purpose, a new identity

They were no longer under the physical and spiritual oppression of Egypt

And the story continues… as we will look through the Bible this year

But the theme of the Exodus comes up over and over in the Bible

The Exile of Israel

The Same Pattern - Exiles in Babylon

Fast forward and Israel is established as a nation in the Land promised by God

King Saul -> King David -> King Solomon

And eventually we see the Israelites forget their story

(SLIDES)

They forget who God is and how he delivered their ancestors

We see them compromise their way of living with foreign gods

And for this they end up in Exile

And fast forward even more… God delivers them again… they are allowed to return back

This is the end of the OT

The Same Pattern (again) — Exiles under Roman Occupation

But once they return we see the same thing yet again

But instead of being a slave in a foreign land like Egypt or Babylon

They are under oppression by the Romans in their own land

The Israelites hold onto the stories of the past

And they know a savior is coming for them… but its not like they expect...

Jesus enters the scene...

The Greater Moses

(SLIDE)

Luke 9:28–31 (CSB)

About eight days after this conversation, he took along Peter, John, and James and went up on the mountain to pray. As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly, two men were talking with him—Moses and Elijah. They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure [EXODOS], which he was about to accomplish in Jerusalem.

‘Ex-odos’ - Greek, not Hebrew

Ex - Out of, From

Odos - Way, Road, Path

Jesus came to lead his people out of exile

Remember, far deeper than the physical bondage was the spiritual bondage

Jesus came to set his people free

(SLIDE)

Luke 4:16–21 (CSB) - (Quoting Isaiah 61)

He came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. As usual, he entered the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up to read. The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him, and unrolling the scroll, he found the place where it was written:

The Spirit of the Lord is on me,

because he has anointed me

to preach good news to the poor.

He has sent me

to proclaim release to the captives

and recovery of sight to the blind,

to set free the oppressed,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

He then rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. And the eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fixed on him. He began by saying to them, “Today as you listen, this Scripture has been fulfilled.”

And this is exactly what Jesus has done

But remember the story of Moses

It didn’t go straight from the exodus to King Solomon in the temple (in all its glory)

The deliverance is real and definitive but there is a season of waiting and wandering in the wilderness before the promised land

Our Journey through the Wilderness

Exodus 16:2–3 (CSB)

The entire Israelite community grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in the land of Egypt, when we sat by pots of meat and ate all the bread we wanted. Instead, you brought us into this wilderness to make this whole assembly die of hunger!”

The people might have been out of Egypt

But Egypt was still in the people

As Christians, we too walk redeemed and set free

But in our hearts, like the Israelites, romanticize the times of oppression

We downplay the work of God in our lives

We forget how we have been delivered

We complain about the small things instead of trusting God

And in all of this, I want us to look at and consider our own Exodus deliverance

Our Exodus

Freedom from Spiritual Bondage

Guys we share the same story...

(SLIDES)

We are all born into Spiritual Bondage

Like the Israelites, they didn’t choose slavery… they were born into it

And our Spiritual Captors are cruel taskmasters just like Pharaoh

They always demand more and never give what they promise

You will be driven by a quest for more power, money, fame, pleasure, comfort...

And we all hit a point like the Israelites where with groaning we cry out to God

There has to be more to life than just the grind of our desires

And God hears our cries and provides a means of deliverance

And He has sent not Moses but his own Son, Jesus

And the Exodus story has Jesus written all over it

He is the Judge over the nations

He is the Passover Lamb

Averting God’s wrath on us

He is the greater Moses leading us through the Red Sea

Bringing us out of captivity into freedom

And walking free from Spiritual Bondage leads to a liberating life

Freedom from Physical Bondage

This way of living, in the light of what Christ has done as delivered and redeemed… is liberating

So often we want to go back into our habits of the past when there is so much more in store for us

Like the Israelites that complained that they missed Egypt (How crazy is that!)

And I want you all to know that much of our physical bondage originate from a spiritual reality

Our bondage to live life in fear and worry

Our bondage to anger and hate towards others

Our bondage towards addiction and compulsive behaviors

Our bondage to pride and selfishness

These aren’t just personality problems to try and fix

They are strongholds of the enemy that we need freedom from

And we often sit right on the fence

We cry out to God because of how much it hurts us and others

But we don’t want to or can’t leave it behind

Guys… I want you to know that there is fresh and life-giving freedom in Jesus

The question is… are you willing to go there?

Freedom doesn’t mean you can do anything with no consequences - We get this wrong

Freedom means nothing is controlling you and your thoughts and actions

And you can freely choose to say no to things that are destructive (no matter how enticing they might seem)

And you can freely choose to say yes to the right things (not under obligation, not coerced but in love)

We operate with freedom because our place in God’s kingdom is secure

It’s not something we have to strive to maintain in our own strength

You see when we decide to follow Jesus we are adopted into a family

We may have bad habits from our past but that is not the way of the new family

Story of Gerry and Cindy

Legally - New Family

Nature - Two Natures

Nothing will kick us out of this family

God is committed to us

Philippians 1:6 (CSB)

I am sure of this, that he who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

So going back to the story one last time, what is our response to this?

(SLIDE)

Exodus 4:31 (CSB)

The people believed, and when they heard that the Lord had paid attention to them and that he had seen their misery, they knelt low and worshiped.

Even when unbelief strike (at the Red Sea):

(SLIDE)

Exodus 14:10–14 (CSB)

As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up and there were the Egyptians coming after them! The Israelites were terrified and cried out to the Lord for help. They said to Moses, “Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? Isn’t this what we told you in Egypt: Leave us alone so that we may serve the Egyptians? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.”

But Moses said to the people, “Don’t be afraid. Stand firm and see the Lord’s salvation that he will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians you see today, you will never see again. The Lord will fight for you, and you must be quiet.”

Cease from striving—Look for the Lord, call out to the Lord, and trust Him

He will move and act on our behalf