God's Big Picture: The Partial Kingdom (People and Rule)

Recap

God’s Big Picture

God’s Kingdom

God’s people in God’s place under God’s rule and blessing.

We see aspects of all of God’s kingdom as we unpack the OT. But today as we focus on Genesis through to Leviticus. We focus in on the people part of God’s promises (Gen -Ex) the Rule and blessing part (Ex - Lev).

God’s People: Genesis 12 - Exodus 18

God’s promise back in Genesis 12:2

“I will make you into a great nation”

Seen again in our reading from Exodus today

Exodus 6:7 NIV

7 I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians.

Between Genesis 12 and Exodus 6, we see the focus of the Bible on how God fulfils his promise to Abraham that his descendants will be a great nation.

And as the story unfolds we see that it is not a smooth or easy process.

It begins with the problem of Abraham and Sarah being barren. Abraham, instead of waiting for God to fulfil his promises tries his own solution by seeking to have a son with his wife’s maid Hagar. But God makes it clear that it is not up to Abraham to fulfil God’s promises. This is something God will do.

Quite astounding when you consider the nature of the sin of Abraham, to commit adultery, and yet God’s grace still triumphs. Abraham has to learn to trust God’s promises and rely on them.

Sarah, nearly 100 years old, gives birth to Isaac. And at this point it’s hardly a great nation, but God’s promises of a great people, or a great nation, has begun to be partially fulfilled.

And the Bible continues to track the story of Isaac and his descendants, showing how God’s promise to Abraham is beginning to become reality.

Abraham has to continue to trust God even after Isaac is born.

In Genesis 22, God asks Abraham to sacrifice his Isaac, only to have God provide a ram to be killed instead of Isaac. As Abraham is climbing up the mountain his trust in God is on the line. God has promised to make a great nation from his descendants, he has given he and Sarah a child at a late age and now he is taking what Abraham thought was the fulfilment of that promise away by asking him to be sacrificed. In this somewhat horrific story to our modern ears, we see again Abraham trusting God. He trusts that God is still a good God who will make good on his promises even when he can’t understand Him. Abraham doesn’t know why God asks him to kill his son, but trusts him anyway, knowing that God will achieve his promises somehow.

As we see this first partial fulfilment begin, as we see God making a people for himself from the descendants of Abraham, we see in Abraham a great model for us.

He is an imperfect, sinful man who struggles to see what God is doing. And yet in his sin and imperfection he muddles his way along and keeps on trusting God. He doesn’t understand how he and his wife could have children when they’re so old and then he doesn’t understand why God would want to take his child from him in death, but even still he keeps trusting. Keeps believing the promises.

We need to be like this too. Trusting in God’s promises even when we can’t understand what God is doing in our own lives.

I don’t know what’s going on for you in your life today. You might be struggling to understand how God can be a good God who loves you given all that’s happening in your life. Or you might be struggling to believe that God is really alive and active given all that’s happening, or not happening in your life…

If that’s you…

Keep trusting God. For just as Abraham discovered, God is good and faithful even when we don’t understand.

Well from Abraham’s descendant flow a great many people.

Isaac marries Rebekah and they have two sons, Jacob and Esau.

Jacob receives Isaac’s blessing and he goes on to have twelve sons. Hardly making a great nation, but certainly a large family and the beginnings of the promise being fulfilled.

One of Jacob’s children, Joseph is not well liked by his brothers and ends up in slavery in Egypt. Again this looks like a bad thing for God’s promises being fulfilled, but it is actually God preparing to use Joseph to save his family. For ultimately Joseph ends up in Egypt as the 2IC of the kingdom and he saves his family from a severe drought that would’ve wiped them all out. And ultimately all of Joseph’s family with Jacob move to Egypt where they enjoy great blessing and much food thanks to God’s provision and protection.

That’s where Genesis finishes. And Exodus begins with God’s people now having grown into a significant size, but instead of being under the protection of Joseph. The move to Egypt has meant for the people of God slavery.

How will God make his people into a great nation if they are stuck in slavery in a foreign land? The people cry out to God seeking his salvation:

Exodus 2:23–25 NIV

23 During that long period, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. 24 God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. 25 So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them.

And this brings Moses to the scene.

Moses is God’s servant whom He will use to bring freedom for His people.

God reveals himself to Moses in the burning bush saying in Exodus 3:14

Exodus 3:14 NIV

14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’ ”

As we unpack the story of the Bible we see not only God’s work of salvation being revealed, but also his character. Moses knowing something of who God is, now goes and seeks to bring the Israelites out of slavery.

As God saves his people from slavery we learn that the people of God are a people who need salvation. In this case from slavery, but ultimately as the story progresses we see this was not the real problem. The real problem was human sin, and the only solution to that problem is Jesus. But more on that in later weeks.

God’s Rule and Blessing: Exodus 19 - Leviticus

Once God brings his people out of Egypt, the focus shifts and we see how God’s people are to live under God’s rule and blessing.

Before entering the land God was going to give them the people are given God’s law which if followed will lead to God’s blessing on the people.

In this period of history, the blessing promise is chiefly fulfilled by the giving of God’s law at Mount Sinai and his presence with the people in the tabernacle.

The Ten Commandments, and all the other laws, given to God’s people are given not to make God’s people God’s people, do this and you will be my people. No… they are given so that the people know how to live in response to what God has done in saving them from slavery.

Obedience to the law was never a pathway into membership as part of God’s people, rather it was given so that they could enjoy God’s blessing.

Just as Adam and Eve enjoyed the blessing of the garden when they followed God’s law (do not eat from that tree) so to the people of God to enjoy God’s blessing must follow God’s law.

So it is with us. We don’t follow God’s laws to win God’s salvation. Just as it was for God’s people in the OT, we are saved first and then in response to our salvation we seek to live out God’s commands.

So God promises a people, and against the odds he makes old man Abraham have a son and from that son comes a great nation whom he rescues out of slavery.

God gives to that nation after he rescues them the law. A way to live in response to their salvation. A way to live that will set them apart as God’s people.

Finally we also see that God also gives the gift of his presence to his people. Once they have been given the law, and are living under his rule again, God is able to dwell again with his people. Remember Adam and Eve enjoyed God’s presence in the garden. But once they rebelled they lost this privilege. Well now with the tabernacle God once again dwells with his people.

And that’s what the tabernacle (which is basically a movable tent version of the temple that will be built later in Jerusalem) is. The tabernacle is God’s dwelling place with his people. He dwells in the most holy place in the ark of the covenant. And no doubt if you’ve ever tried reading through Exodus and Leviticus you’ve gotten awfully board by the immense detail with which the fabric and dimensions of the tabernacle are described.

Of course God’s plan is not to live near his people in box in a tent. This is a partial fulfilment of what is to come when he dwells amongst us in the person of Jesus, and ultimately dwells in us in the person of the Holy Spirit. But just as it is now, so it was then. God cannot dwell amongst sin. That’s why in Leviticus we read of the many types of sacrifices. These are required so that God’s people can enjoy God’s presence albeit in a limited way. The sacrifices showed that in order for people to enjoy the blessing of God’s presence amongst them, their sins need to be dealt with. And the only way to deal with sin is death.

Leviticus 17:11 NIV

11 For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life.

We see how all this is pointing to a better sacrifice and a better dwelling that God will have with his people in the future. That God has with us today.

We don’t sacrifice animals on altars anymore or need special buildings to contain God because Jesus has died for our sins once and for all and his presence is free to live in you and me.

As we’ve unpack some of the story of the OT i hope you see just how connected our faith in Jesus is with this story. You’ve seen how God’s grace is still the same. You’ve seen how Jesus fulfils or completes the story and brings God’s kingdom to bare. I hope that as we continue unpacking the story, you see the great richness and depth to the person and work of Jesus that we will never fully grasp if we don’t do the hard-work of seeing the big picture of scripture.

God’s people living under God’s rule and blessing. In the story of Abraham through to Moses we see how God partially fulfils these aspects of His kingdom in the OT. And we’ve begun to see how our faith in Jesus connects to this story.

May you experience God’s blessing today as you respond to his grace with faith and trust just as the people of God did long ago.