The Establishing of God's People

Welcome

Scripture Reading:

Exodus 19:3–6 (CSB)

Moses went up the mountain to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain: “This is what you must say to the house of Jacob and explain to the Israelites: ‘You have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now if you will carefully listen to me and keep my covenant, you will be my own possession out of all the peoples, although the whole earth is mine, and you will be my kingdom of priests and my holy nation.’ These are the words that you are to say to the Israelites.”

Introduction:

Last week:

We talked about how the Lord has liberated his people

We looked at the Exodus story and saw how God’s people found themselves in physical and spiritual bondage

We saw the story of God’s definitive power in liberating his people from slavery

And we connected some dots

We saw how Jesus is the greater Moses

Setting God’s people free and shepherding them on the way to the promised land

And how we share in the story of the Exodus

We were all born into bondage

Our taskmasters are cruel and demanding

We have cried out to God and He has heard us

He has sent his anointed one to set us free

God sees the brokenness and abuse of his people and hears their cries out of compassion—and moves

Our God is a compassionate God that brings freedom and liberation

But what for?

What is Freedom For?

I think this is a question we need to seriously consider as followers of Jesus—What is freedom for?

Is it freedom to do whatever we want?

No

Is it freedom from consequences?

Certainly not

My main point today is that our freedom in Christ is not only freedom from our sin and slavery (which we talked about last week) but it is an amazing freedom for choosing to do the will of God

Our freedom isn’t only focused on our past but for right now and for what is in store for the future

Here is the truth:

We need more than an appreciation of our past liberation to continue to follow Jesus

We need a grand vision for the future

We need to know what we are saved for

Story of Steven

Tell Story

LWOP at 18

Married my mom

Started working towards improvement

Sentence commuted after 27 years

UCI PhD

Lessons

The world is a new and amazing place for him

New joys, new experiences, new people

But those things aren’t the reasons he has stayed out of trouble

It’s not about mustering enough will to maintain freedom

You need purpose

You need others

And the same thing was true for Israel

They were saved from grueling slave labor and oppression in Egypt

There was a whole new world of freedom

But it has to be more than just freedom for the sake of freedom

They needed a new purpose in life

They needed a new community to live this out

Going back to the Scripture reading this morning:

(SLIDE)

Exodus 19:3–6 (CSB)

Moses went up the mountain to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain: “This is what you must say to the house of Jacob and explain to the Israelites: ‘You have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now if you will carefully listen to me and keep my covenant, you will be my own possession out of all the peoples, although the whole earth is mine, and you will be my kingdom of priests and my holy nation.’”

(SLIDE)

Deuteronomy 4:5–8 (CSB)

Look, I have taught you statutes and ordinances as the Lord my God has commanded me, so that you may follow them in the land you are entering to possess. Carefully follow them, for this will show your wisdom and understanding in the eyes of the peoples. When they hear about all these statutes, they will say, ‘This great nation is indeed a wise and understanding people.’ For what great nation is there that has a god near to it as the Lord our God is to us whenever we call to him? And what great nation has righteous statutes and ordinances like this entire law I set before you today?

Our Freedom

This might be hard to understand at first but our freedom is the freedom to serve God

Contradictory

We are freed to serve?

If you look at the Hebrew words it is the same word ‘work’ used to talk about how the Egyptians imposed ‘work on the Israelites and the priests ‘working’ in the temple

We talked about this a few weeks ago but humans were created to work and rest

And God is redirecting these needs back to himself… We are to work and serve God and rest with Him

Humans are servants and worshipers

It’s part of what it means to be human

We all worship something

Every single human being

Whether it is pleasure, power, fame, a false god, our families, our comfort…

We all worship and serve

And the reality is… You become what you worship

What you prioritize and strive for changes you

Students that strive to go to a good school

At what cost?

Missing out on those around you

Ungratefulness for family

A lack of contentment and joy

And as Christians we are people who have been freed from selfishness and all sorts of other bondage to worship and serve our God

Deep down, what kind of person do you want to be?

Me? I want to be like the God of the Bible

In Exodus 34 God gives us, most clearly, who He is:

(SLIDE)

Exodus 34:6–7 (CSB)

The Lord passed in front of him and proclaimed:

The Lord—the Lord is a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love and truth, maintaining faithful love to a thousand generations, forgiving iniquity, rebellion, and sin. But he will not leave the guilty unpunished, bringing the consequences of the fathers’ iniquity on the children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generation.

And so in Exodus, Leviticus, Number, and Deuteronomy we get a lot of laws and rules

And these aren’t just arbitrary commandments

But God is showing his people what it means to be like him

But now, after the greater Exodus, we have something better than the law—which was cold, external, wooden

We have the Spirit of God dwelling in us

(SLIDE)

2 Corinthians 3:13–18 (CSB)

We are not like Moses, who used to put a veil over his face to prevent the Israelites from gazing steadily until the end of the glory of what was being set aside, but their minds were hardened. For to this day, at the reading of the old covenant, the same veil remains; it is not lifted, because it is set aside only in Christ. Yet still today, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their hearts, but whenever a person turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. We all, with unveiled faces, are looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord and are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory; this is from the Lord who is the Spirit.

And after experiencing the freedom from bondage to sin, we are God’s priests and representatives to the world

Guys, we are building something bigger than ourselves

We are a part of building God’s Kingdom that will last for all of eternity

Bigger than building up wealth, just to lose it all when we die

Bigger than fame and success that comes and goes

This is what God has freed us for

And like talked about… we need a new purpose if we are to walk in freedom

You are growing and becoming more like Jesus

You are pulling others in and sharing this truth

Whether they have never heard it

Whether they have and you are building them up further

We focus on avoiding the negative in the Gospel and not enough on receiving the positive

We haven’t just been saved from the evil of this world

We have been saved to be a light in this very dark world

I don’t know what addictions you all face

Or what destructive pattern of thoughts that you have

But we have freedom

Freedom from our compulsions and addictions

Freedom from selfishness and pride

We are free to put those things behind and follow Jesus into the new life

And this is what I have devoted my life to and I’m asking you to come with me

This is our great calling

To be a light on the hill

To be the salt of the Earth

To live freely for this new and wonderful purpose