Sermon Tone Analysis

Big Idea

Tension: How does God want Israel to look forward to their desert journey and ultimately their promised land?

Resolution: By remembering what God has done in the past in the Exodus.

Exegetical Idea: God wants Israel to look forward to their desert journey and and ultimately their promised land by remembering what God has done in the past in the Exodus.

Theological Idea: God wants his people to hope in the coming salvation by remembering what God has already accomplished through the death and resurrection of Christ.

Homiletical Idea: We look forward with hope by looking back to Christ’s work.

Introduction

In a paper for the American Psychology association, a team led by Ryon C. Mcdermott set out to investigate the value of hope for college students.

And what they found was that there were all these problems with college students: depression, anxiety, social anxiety, eating concerns (either eating too much or too little), hostility, substance abuse, and academic distress among others.

And they found that all these problems basically were driven by two bigger issues.

The one is what they call Attachment Anxiety.

And someone who has attachment anxiety is living life looking for someone to cling to.

They are like a barnacle in the ocean that is just looking for a ship to grab hold of.

The other is what they called Attachment Avoidance.

And someone who has attachment avoidance is someone who will not let himself get close.

They are the lone wolf, and they have difficulties feeling attached to anyone.

And both of these two, they go through serious problems with depression, anxiety, social anxiety, eating concerns, hostility, substance abuse, and academic distress.

And what they found is that for both of these groups of people, the people who have a tendency towards codependency and the people who have a tendency towards isolation, in other words, these are people who cannot stand being by themselves and people who cannot stand being around other people, that the solution to both these things is hope.

Because if you have hope, then you don’t have to trust in everybody else around you to fulfill all your needs.

You don’t have to be codependent on another person.

And if you have hope, you don’t have to try to figure things out on your own.

You don’t have to have control over everything.

Now here is the weakness of this study: they don’t tell you where to get hope.

They say, hey here are some things that tend to be true, but they never say: This is how you can give hope and this is where you can get hope.

So here we have this issue, we know that a lack of hope will lead to being overly attached on others or overly self-dependent, we know that either one of these problems will lead to depression, anxiety, social anxiety, eating concerns, hostility, substance abuse, and academic distress.

So we know that having hope is how we prevent depression, anxiety, social anxiety, eating concerns, hostility, substance abuse, and academic distress.

But we have no clue to find out where to get it.

And the problem is that time is running out.

With every passing generation, the suicide rate continues to rise.

With every passing generation, the family continues to disintegrate.

With every passing generation, we see debt increase, we see politicians come in and out of office always promising and never delivering, we see our jobs go away, we see our friends move on, we see our families disintegrate.

And all these pressures rob us of hte places where we have put our hope and we have no idea hwere to find it.

So where do you find hope?

Where can you find the peace that surpasses all understanding?

Where do you find the strength to press on and press forward?

Well the Israelites in our passage today had a similar problem.

They had all these unknowns before them.

They didn’t know how they were going to get into the promised land.

They didn’t know how they were going to survive in the desert.

They didn’t know how they were going to press on from hyear to year and generation to generation.

ANd God steps in, and gives them hope.

ANd what we’re going to see again over and over and over in our passage, is that God gives the Israelites hope for the future by showing them his faithfulness in teh past.

God gives the Israelites hope for the future by showing them his faithfulness in the past.

And we see this basically in 3 sections: 1) the feast of unleavened bread, 2) the dedication of the firstborn, and 3) the journey to the Red Sea.

The Feast of Unleavened Bread

Remember this day (1-3): The first thing that God tells them here is that they should remember.

What should they remember, how God brought them out of the land of Egypt from the house of slavery.

Moses specifically tells them to remember that God has brought them out with a “mighty hand.”

He wants the Israelites to look back and to remember the might of God in slinging the 10 plagues at the Israelites.

He wants them to remember his great works and wonders in the blood, frogs, the gnats, the flies, the livestock, teh boils, the hail, the locutsts, the darkness, and the firstborn.

God does not want them to forget for a second his mighty hand, and how God has literally moved heaven and earth to bring salvation to them.

No unleavened bread: And God wants them to do this by not eating unleavened bread.

Here, God is not saying never eat unleavened bread, but rather, during the feast of unleavened bread, they must never neglect it.

The reason for this is that unleavened bread has a very distinctive taste.

And every time they ate unleavened bread, they would remember the Exodus.

Because it was unleavened bread they baked and ate on that night becuase they did not have time to wait for the bread to rise.

And so God says, the way that you remember what I have done in the past, is by recreating those conditions, remembering what I have done for you.

Because when they ate unleavened bread, they were trusting that God really would provide for them in the wilderness.

They were trusting that God really would give them what they needed.

So when God tells them to eat unleavened bread every year, he is trying to get them to remember that just like he provided for them in the wilderness, even now he will provide for them.

He has saved them wiht a mighty hand, and with love he has nourished them.

He will never stop providing for his children, this is what we remember in the unleavened bread.

God will bring them: (4-5) Now, notice here that directly following this, where God shows them everything that he’s done in teh past, he says, now here is what is going to happen in the future.

Why?

Because if they forget God’s faithfulness to them in teh past, they will not have faith in him for the future.

If they do not remember how God vanquished the Egyptians, how will they have faith that God will vanquish the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, teh Hivities, and the Jebusites.

How will they trust that God really will give them?

In order to give them hope for the future, God remeinds them of what he has done in teh past.

They must not stop remembering (5-6): Now, here is what is important, God says even after this has all been done, even after I have brought you into the land you are wiaitng for and longing for, don’t stop remembering.

Don’t stop remembering what I have done.

keep this feast, in this t ime in this year, for seven days.

Keep doing it, keep remembering.

The reason taht God wants them to keep remembering his faith to them in the past is because there will never be a time in their future where they will not need to have faith.

He wnats them to make this a yearly celebration because they will every year need to be reminded that God saves with a mighty hand.

You will teach your sons how to remember (8): ANd God continues, that they will need to teach their sons to remember in the same way.

This is because their sons will need to remember.

Their sons will need to know what God has done.

Their sons and daughters, who were not aliv ein the Exodus, are going to need to remember the Exodus.

The only way that can happen is if the parents pass this on.

As a memorial to your eyes and onto your hands (9-10): God says, not only this, but you will bind this to your eyes and bind it to your hands.

Now, what exactly this is talking about is unclear.

In early days, people in this part of the world would actually tattoo themselves with messages on their eyelids and on their hands.

However, sometime in Jewish History, the practice of what are known as phylacteries developed, and that is where they would take peaces of leather or small pouches, and they would put bits of Jewish Scripture on the leather and in their pouches that they would wrap around their head and on their palms so that they could remember what God has done.

So what exactly he is talking about is unclear, but what is clear is that God wanted them never to forget what he had done for them in the feast of unleavened bread.

Keep it every year

The Consecration of the Firstborn

When God brings into the land of Canaan (11): You will notice again that Moses sets out that they are headed towards the Promised Land.

God here references the end that they are headed towards, he is going to bring them into Canaan.

Notice here that God says he will keep his promises to them.

He says, I am going to bring you into the land that I promised you.

I am going to keep the promise that I swore.

Now, here God is implying, “trust me.

take me at my word.

Believe that I will do what I say I will do.”

Set aside the first of the womb (12): So how can they have the trust that God will keep his promise?

How can they trust that God will keep his promise?

How can they take God at his word?

Well, God answers that question by saying, “set aside the first of the womb.”

God says whatever comes out of the first of the womb, the firstborn, of the womb, that is mine.

I own it, I deserve it.