Covenant 09/27/2020

Or this morning, we are continuing our series entitled forerunners of the face with a message Called Moses in the Mountain of God and a chance to look at that little believers who have come before us reaching all the way back to that first parent Adam and Eve the promises of God as they were made to them there in the garden and confirm with the wife of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob life of Joseph in which God rescued God's promise people from a worldwide famine only to find themselves enslaved in Egypt even as God had told Abraham 400 years earlier. This past few weeks. We've had the chance to look at the life of this man Moses an 80 year old man who was called by God from the Wilderness to go back to Egypt to tell pharaoh to let God's people go over this morning. We continue the story of Moses in the story of God's people on the banks of the Red Sea last week. We witness the keys part in God's people walk through on dry ground possibly one of the greatest Miracles ever witnessed in the history of the world simply. Certainly one of the most powerful demonstrations of gods might and Glory as he delivered his first born son Israel from the shackles of Egyptian slavery. After a deadly battle with the Pharaoh in 10 plagues that fell upon Egypt because of the hardened heart of pharaoh. God redeems his people they stand there on the shore of the Red Sea is they watch the Egyptian body is a wash in the waves and yet God did not simply rescue them to redeem them from Egypt, but he rescued them so that he can reconcile them to himself. It's a god charts a a b line from the Red Sea Shores to the mountain on which he called Moses a so many months earlier before he had deliver his people. Let me pick up the story from there and get before we jump into the story. There's something that we've got to think a little bit about and kind of imprint on our minds. We talked about it last week and in the weeks prior, but why is it that God showed his grace to this people this group is Hebrews Israelites and withheld his grace from others, but we're told a little bit later in the story is Moses prepares to depart from Israel and it Deuteronomy chapter 7 verse 6. Listen to what Moses divinely inspired by God tells the Israelites. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the Earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord has set his love on you and chose you for you were the fewest of all peoples but it is because the lord loves you. It is keeping the oath that he swore to your forefathers that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery from the hand of pharaoh king of Egypt. That's very important to recognize what grounds the Lord's relationship with Israel. It's nothing that's found in them. There's no merit or measure that the Lord determine was in them that was in no other people. It was simply that God had shown his love to them that he had set his love upon them. But he watched over and redeem them. You might say will this verse says that it's because of the promise that you made their forefathers. And so we've studied the lives of their forefathers in the grace that God chose to Noah and Abraham and Isaac and certainly the Jacob was not a Grace that they deserve. It was The Sovereign Grace and Sovereign Love that God poured out on their lives some demonstrative Lee before they had done anything good or bad. I didn't understand this. I don't think as a Young Man moving through the Old Testament to understand the story of God high and understand. It's God's grace Mark every step of the past of God's people from the very beginning. I jumped into the story and just began to watch it unfold and yet as an older man coming back in studying the scriptures. It's it's clear that it's not because of anything that was good in this people that God chose them, but it was simply because of his grace and mercy the fiery saying grace and mercy that marks the lives of Our Lives as the children of God today mark their relationship with God in this day and it's very important to put into your mind as we walk along side of the Israelites as we walk along through with long side of Moses through this definitive portion of their lives that it's the gracious hand of God upon them that sets their path and draws them unto himself. What even is Baton Rouge from Egypt Moses for Joyce's? You can only imagine how this 80 year old man who was once a a Shepherd in the pastures of Midian watch this God deliver his people from the mightiest Nation on the world on the world in that day and Moses has all of this comes to a climax in the conclusion right to a song of praise and Exodus chapter 15. It's one of the first songs of praise like it that we discover in the scriptures take a look at it with me. I want to read it to you just to capture his feeling the emotion in the delivering might that God demonstrated Exodus 15. We've been Moses and the people of Israel saying this song to the Lord the song that Moses had written for them saying I will sing to the Lord. Pretty of Triumph gloriously the horse and his rider. He has thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength and my song and he has become my salvation. This is my God and I will praise him. My father's God and I will exalt him. The Lord is a man of war. The Lord is his name Pharaoh's chariots and his hoes be cast into the sea and his chosen officers were sunk in the Red Sea the floods covered them. They went down Into the Depths like the stone your right hand. Oh Lord glory and power your right hand. Oh Lord shatters the enemy in the greatness of your majesty you overthrow your adversaries. You send out your Fury. It consumes them like stubble. The blast of your nostrils the waters piled up the floods stood up in the heat the deeps congealed in the heart of the sea. The enemy said I will pursue I will overtake I will divide the spoil my desire shall have his fill of them. I will draw my sword By Hand Shop destroy them you blue with your wind the sea covered them. They seem like lead in The Mighty Waters. Who is like you? Oh Lord among the God who is like you Majestic in Holiness. Awesome in his glorious Deeds doing wonders you stressed out your right hand the Earth swallowed them. You have lead in your steadfast love the people whom you have redeemed. You have guided them by your strength to your holy Abode. The people's have heard. They tremble paintings have seized the inhabitants of philistia. Now where the chiefs of Edom dismayed trembling seizes the leaders of Moab all the inhabitants of Hayden have melted away hair in Dred fall upon them because of the greatness of your arm. They are still as a stone to your people. Oh Lord pass by to the people pass by whom you have purchased you will bring them in and plant them on your own Mountain the PlayStore Lord, which you have planted them and made your Abode the same. Play Oh Lord with your hands have established the Lord will reign forever and ever and it goes a little bit further a few versus later in the first 20 Ben Miriam the prophetess the sister of Aaron took a tambourine in her hand and all the women went out after her with tambourines and dancing and Miriam saying to them. Sing to the Lord for he has triumphed gloriously the horse and his rider is thrown into the sea. Stop and think about the story that we witnessed so far this same Miriam some 90 years earlier and run along the banks of the Nile River watching that bulrush basket float down to an unknown Destiny and your 90 years later alongside of her brother Moses. They have witnessed the Deliverance of God as he's redeemed there peep his people from their bondage and both this Moses and this Mary and who he met his little children rejoice and the Redemptive might of the Lord God Almighty. Too often as we talked about in this series. We look at these stories in the Bible. If we remove ourselves from the reality of the experience that these individuals must have face, which is put yourself in Merriam shoes as she watches her brother returned from Exile with the rod of God in his hand and deliver God's people unto his glorious present. The pretty neat snapshot of the faithfulness of God in in in a way that frankly silence is all the foes and there's a reference here that Moses makes to the the quiet to the following up on the donations that surround Israel. If he drifts is defeated by the hand of God, then what of philistia or a painting or a v Dom and as you know God's intent as he redeem, his people was not simply to bring them to himself and head to make them his people to give him his law and to dwell in their midst but to take them to a Promised Land a land that Moses had never laid eyes on himself to the Mountain of Gods Not they're out in the Wilderness at Sinai but in the very area around Jerusalem itself into the people that they will face in the midst of this journey that they're there their fear of the Lord Has Fallen upon them as God makes a path before them. I don't recognize that none of this is the work of the Israelite. It's not their armies are their strength or their number that allowed for their Deliverance. It was merely the power of God acting on their behalf. Did witnessed firsthand the most miraculous signs that any generation has ever seen? And although many of these Israelites would not have been the bear in The Courts of pharaoh as as as Moses brought the threats of the Lord against pharaoh. And if those threats became a reality, they certainly would witness them from afar and the Nile turns to blood is the floss the frogs took over the shores had the first born sons of Egypt were struck down, but they are on the banks of the Red Sea they witnessed firsthand. The power of God. Is he separated the waters and brought them through on dry land this generation witnessed with its own eyes the power of God like new generation before it. Yet it's our story continues the hearts of this generation are tested and there are many ways found very wanting. Moses and the people of God make their way from the Red Sea to the Mountain of God Mount Sinai the very place where God Called Moses to go and redeem his people from Egyptian bondage and we pick up the story there in Exodus chapter 15 verse 22 turn with me. If you got your Bibles, here's what we read. Then Moses made Israel set out from the Red Sea and they went into the Wilderness of shur they went three days in the wilderness and found no water school when they came to Morocco, they could not drink the water of marah because it was bitter. Different with me and Mariah which means bitter and the people grumbled against Moses. What shall we drink? And he cries of the Lord and the Lord showed him a log and he threw it into the water and the water became sweet his in the Lord made for them is Statute in a rule. And and then he tested insane. If you will diligently listen to the voice of the Lord your God and that which is right in his eyes and give ear to his Commandments and keep all his statutes. I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians for I am the Lord your healer. What begins almost as soon as they leave the borders of Egypt his God begins to teach them? Not only is he a God who is mighty to a deliver Mighty to deliver, but he is a God who is faithful to sustain? But he teaches them and in a very strange way, at least I would say from from their perspective in and maybe even from ours he calls them from the Red Sea out into a Wilderness and there's no water to be found day by day. They had off in the Sands of this dry and deserted land and it begin to wonder that's great mass of people. I've seen some Scholars estimate this number from 800000 to 2 million people that left Egypt in this great Exodus. They wonder where will the water be to care for us and they cry out to Moses because the only water that they found in that first stop was bitter and unbearable to drink. It's a what does God do there at Marathi has Moses come and is assigned not of Moses's power. But of God's provision he touches the water with a piece of wood makes the water drinkable again. Do you know any piece of wood in your backyard that you can dump into bitter deadly water and turn it favorable to people certainly not this isn't a magical piece of wood that sound. It's amazing when you read biblical Scholars who aren't Believers how often they pass questions. I can maybe the Red Sea parted because the wind just blew really hard and it's separated and they'll be a bunch of fish died and they look for these naturalistic explanation, but the biblical account is not about a magical piece of wood that Moses found but the act of God to sustain his people and what does he tell them there if you trust in me diligently listen to my voice obey my Commandments that I will watch over you and provide for you. And the grumbling that they did the Moses was asswaged at least for a season and they set off from there again Exodus 16. They set out from Emily even the congregation of the people of Israel came to the Wilderness of sin, which is between a lien and in Sinai on the 15th day of the second month after they had departed from the land of Egypt and the whole Congregation of the people of Israel. What do you think? It's going to stay here grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness and the people of Israel sent to them. We had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt when we sat by the Meat Puppets and ate bread to the full. For you have brought us out into this Wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger. Can you believe how quickly the hearts of this people that God has redeemed has turned on him and him to question his provision on the one hand. It's somewhat surprising that they've seen the mighty acts of God and yet already they're proving Unfaithful and yet on the other hand if you put yourself in their shoes, how can you not ask the question where we find water and where we find how will we survive in the midst of this desert in the midst of this journey and get it seems from what Moses is pinned in these words that these were not simply honest question. But in this grumbling there were signs of disbelief and faithfulness seeds were planted even here in the first few days of their Deliverance that would mark their path for 40 years to come. Read a little bit further in Exodus 16:4 then the Lord said to Moses behold. I am about to rain bread from heaven for you. And the people shall go out and gather a day's portion everyday. What does it say that I may catch them for they will walk in my law or not on the sixth day when they prepare what they bring in and it will be twice as much as they gather daily. To Moses and Aaron said to all the people of Israel at evening. You shall know that it was the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt as if they didn't know that and in the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord because he has heard your grumbling against the Lord. For what are we that you Grumble against us? Moses said when the Lord gives you in the evening me to eat and in the morning bread to the full because the Lord has heard your growling that you Grumble against him. What are we you're grumbling is not against us but against the Lord. What's interesting here? Of course? It's a familiar story that you recall. It's it's it's the gift of manner that God provide the food to sustain his people in the midst of the Wilderness not only the man from the heavens, but great flocks of quails flew into the area on this day in the Lord provided meat for them to eat in the midst of their grumbling. The Moses made it very clear to his people and so did Aaron that their anger and frustration was misdirected at Moses or Aaron sit there grumbly with rolling was truly a grumbling against the Lord. Using an interesting hear the power of God that can do absolutely anything conceivable that he provides food for them, but he does not provide for them Beyond one day. Yes. Remember the Lord's prayer that are little kids memorize before they get their Bible to the moving through Sunday school Our Father who art in heaven Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come thy will be done on Earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. This is the very way that Christ instructs us to pray. Don't worry about tomorrow. You have no control over it the Lord will provide for today. And from the very beginning it seems that that God keeps his people on a tight leash. But they will learn to trust in him that they will learn to find sustenance and Care in his hands and not in the strength of their own might he could have provided read that lasted a year in an example of this man is put into the Ark of the Covenant that would last for all generations and get this man after one day would be filled with maggots and rotted to the point. It would be putrefied. For what reason that God might teach them to trust in him one day at a time. And yet although God had provided for their stomachs their hearts had not been fully and finally provided for it seems if they continue their grumbling ways in the decades ahead. Not only were God's people learning to trust in him in the midst of this journey that he had ordained for them from the Red Sea to the Mountain of God, but they also began to experience some of the challenges that they would face in the days ahead Exodus 17 that were told by Moses that even as they got the manatee eat in the quail to eat in their stomachs were satisfied as they continue to make the way on their Journey another great challenge arose not one of hunger, but one of war and conflict Although God entrust the Egyptians that's God this nation whose leader said who is the Lord that I should listen to him. I've never heard of the Lord. Go to the other nations that surround Israel at this time or Pagan to the core. In fact, God told Abraham that goes 400 years earlier that he was holding off on bringing his people to the promised land because the sins of the amorites and amalekites in pain and I had not yet reached its full as God brought his people from Egypt into the promised land he would use them to bring Divine judgment upon the Godless Nations at work in this land. It's a hard truth to understand completely but it's a judgment. That would be brought not by Israel on the nation's but by God on these Godless people and the first example of that is found in Exodus 17. When ambulance came and fought with Israel and refer Dean to Moses said to Joshua choose for us men and go out and fight with amalek tomorrow. I will stand on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand. Joshua did as Moses told him and fought with amalek while Moses Aaron and Hur went up to the top of the hill. When over Moses held up his hand Israel prevailed and whenever he lowered his hand and Malak prevailed but Moses his hands grew weary. So they took the stone and put it under him and he sat on it while Aaron and Hur held up his hands one on one side and the other on the other side to his hands were steady until the going down of the Sun and Joshua overwhelmed animal that can his people with the stored. A question for you. Do you think that Moses his arms had the power to defeat foreign armies. You think it Moses just lifted his arms. The foreign armies would fall whose power do you think was being demonstrated in the midst of this attack? We were told in the very beginning then what is it that Moses held in his hand but the staff of God the very staff that God had used in his signs to Fair Oaks to deliver his people unto himself and so in the midst of this war even as an Egyptian pharaoh had come against God's chosen people the promise people be inherited lines and through whom God has promised to Adam and Eve show to Anahuac brought his Warriors against Israel in the desert. And yet God Prevail and the people of the Lord recognize that their Victory not soldiers but slaves against this foreign of battle-hardened army was grounded upon the grace of God went with them wherever they would go and God use the demonstrable sign. It was so clear that most recorded for I said, they would not fail to realize that God was the one who deliver them. Until they're Victorious over the amalekite and they find themselves at the very Mountain of God. I'm not sure if you guys read the scriptures, you know, if there's ever versus that strike you and you think yourself well that's kind of an odd verse but I remember carefully reading the story of the call of Moses says he stood there before the burning bush appeared to him and we went over that story before and revealed himself to Moses and and told Moses who he was and what he was calling Moses to do and then Moses asked the Lord he said how will I know that you are the one who has sent me who is calling me to go do these things in Egypt and the Lord had the strangest possible response. Moses's question, how can I know that you are the one sending me what confirmation can you give me now? It will give me confidence to go to Egypt and do all of these things in the Lord's response is so strange the Lord says to him when you return. You will worship me on this mountain. I don't know about you, but that doesn't provide a whole confidence in the moment. I need a sign now Lord. God say when you return when you leave Egypt and bring these people you will worship me here. It would be a sign of God's hand and Moses's life in the life of this people that would come much later not to buoy him up in the face of the conflict with Pharaoh. But to Grant him endurance perhaps as this great group of people who had never met as he stood before the burning bush he would now know very well but Grumble that him countless times as he stands there at the Mountain of God perhaps it's God providing to confirm to Moses that his hand is still upon him as he arrived was this is the very Mountain that God has brought his people to I know that Moses remember what the Lord had said because he recorded it as the burning bush burned that God told him when he returned with him. He would worship there which would confirm it is the Lord God Almighty that sent him into his he stands before the mountain with God's people now redeem. He is encouraged the fresh. The God has been with him and will continue to be with him. The people of God gather around this mountain and one of the most remarkable events that anyone has ever seen. Because the God who delivered them from Egypt it's coming to meet with him. He's going to bring his presents into their mitt in an undeniable demonstration of his glory and Power in my it's an event that's never been forgotten for 4,000 years of human history Exodus 19 verses 2 through 9. We read that the Israelites in in camps in the wilderness there near Mount Sinai there is real in Camp before the mountain by Moses went up to God. The Lord calls them out of the mountain saying. You shall say to the house of Jacob and tell the people of Israel. You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I bore You On Eagle's Wings and brought you to myself now. Therefore if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my Covenant. You shall be my treasured possession among all people for all the Earth is mine and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel. So Moses went and conveyed these words the people he call the Elders of the people attend set before them. All these words that the Lord had commanded him all the people answered together and said all that. The Lord has spoken we will do and Moses reported the words of the people to the Lord and the Lord said to Moses behold. I am coming to you in a thick Cloud that the people may hear when I speak with you and they also believe you forever. On the morning of the Third Day verse 16 there was thunder and lightning in a thick Cloud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast should all the people in the camp Trimble. Ben Moses brought the people out of the camp. to meet God and they took their stand at the foot of the mountain outside. I was wrapped in Smoke because the Lord had descended on it in fire. The smoke of it went up like the smoke of a killed and the whole Mountain Trimble greatly and it's the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder Moses. Spoke and God answered him in Thunder the Lord came down on Mount Sinai the top of the mountain and the Lord Called Moses to the top of the mountain and Moses went up. You ever had a remarkable experience with the Lord? Will you thought your South mouth? The Lord was present here in this moment in this time? And what's a Believer? I can look back over my life and it doesn't happen on a weekly basis or a monthly basis, but periodically there's moments in life. where the spirit of God comes he speaks in in prayer and you're seeking his face in unique ways ways that sometimes change the course of your life. And you walk away from those experience somewhat awestruck. That's the God has been present in that kind of a palpable a few we wished it everyday could be like that you wonder why it's not but there's he's defended times when the power and presence in the glory of God come in a unique way either to strengthen us there to encourage SR22 pushes forward and if hit a new direction, I've experienced that. I'm sure many of you have experienced that this is a seminal moment for the people of Israel. I want you to stand and think. Slave girls in slave boys. Hope she maybe had not given a great deal of thought that the god whose name they're called by some of them. Probably given up hoping that God so many years in bondage and yet here they stand delivered from the most powerful nation in the world before a mountain in which the very God of all creation will soon descend. If they prepare themselves and they consecrate themselves, we didn't read that portion, but they they consecrated themselves because the Holy One of Israel was going to come and stand in their mitt. Got to believe that some of them maybe even at this point given their attitudes were scoffers if he continued to Grumble but others learn to see the Lord Heather's I'm sure went to sleep that night wondering what the next day would be it is this Moses just a conjurer or magician like the Egyptian add who's playing a trick or pulling the wool over his eyes is God going to truly appear. What's a woke up that next morning the Lord came and he came and power and might in such a way that it would redefine their lies and it would constitute the very nation that he would call his own. Mountain was full of thunder and lightning and smoke as the presence of God with my descended upon. It had great trumpet sounds reverberated from the mountain. It doesn't appear to be the trumpets of men but somehow the presence of God you think of what the the Apostle Paul tells us that the End of Time Christ will return with the trumpet shall out of a great archangel. The Wonder is if as the Holy One of Israel descended how could he not have descended with the host of Heaven those trumpet sounds the sounds of the Angelic host. It's around him crying. Holy holy. Holy is the whole earth literally in that moment. The sense was filled with his glory the lord appears before Israel. And what's interesting is what is his first act in their presence. It's the mark away before them that they are to follow from this day forward. He sets his law before then his ways before them. But if they are to be his people which they are it's why he redeem them then they would live like the one by whose name. They were called by the read these words for you because these are very significant words chapter 20. God spoke all these words saying I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. I want to stop for a moment before we go over the rest of these words and impressive something upon your mind. When did God give his ways when did God give his law to his people? Before he redeem them or after he had redeemed it. God's law does not furnace God's favor. We follow God's law. We live by his waist because he has redeemed. Because he has marked us as his own because he has set his great love on us in in a response of love and gratitude. We live our lives in his ways because they are good ways and true ways and right way. I was no less true for them that it is for us. God deliver them. He was the god who brought them out of the land of Egypt. He was The God Who would be their God and before them him they should have no others and because he was their God because he was their deliver because he was the one who had poured out his love on them. He set his ways before that. They would be marked with his ways even as they were marked by his name. You shall have no other gods before me you shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth below or that is in the water under the Earth You shall not bow down to them or serve them for I the Lord your God and the jealous God. Visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my Commandments. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain for the Lord will not hold him Guiltless who takes his name in vain? Remember the Sabbath day to keep it. Holy six days. You shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is the Sabbath to the Lord your God on it. You shall not do any work you or your son or your daughter your male servant or your female servant or your livestock or The Surge Sojourner who is within your gates for in six days the Lord made Heaven and Earth the sea and all that is in them and rested on the seventh therefore the Lord bless the Sabbath day and made it. Holy. Honor your father and mother that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife or his male servant or his female servant or softer is donkey or anything else. That is your neighbor.

And all the people saw the thunder in the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking the people were afraid and trembled and he stood far off. And said to Moses you speak to us and we will listen, but do not let God speak to us. Lest we die. Moses said to the people do not fear for God has come to test you at the fear of him maybe before you that you may not send. people stood far all by Moses Drew near to the thick Darkness where God was This is the story of the people of God the ones that he has redeemed the ones who he has called by his name. He redeem them from Egyptian bondage and he brought them unto himself. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt. Therefore do what I call you do and be who I call you. The even as God was holy he set apart this people as a consecrated people nation of a priest. isn't it for them to demonstrate his glory and as we've learned to demonstrate his goodness and his grace and his Mercy not simply to those who were the people of Abraham but to those who are far off not simply to those who are near with the Gentiles like ourselves who would have had no hope apart from the grace of God that was being worked out in the lives of this nation so many years ago, And what is it that God does with them. They're in the desert and makes a promise to them. They even as I am the god who brought you out of the land of Egypt who call you by my name, I will dwell in your minute. Before he came to dwell in their midst he sent his way before then because he is a holy God and they like we are sinful people. Do not too long after this. He established there and their mitts the the Tabernacle the tent of meeting with a very presence of God fell in the very middle of their community and when they send when they broke the laws that God had sent before them. They were called to bring a sacrifice recognizing their shortcomings recognizing their sinfulness recognizing the fact that the God who had delivered them was wholly and even as he dwelt in their midst. He was not like them. Covenant whenever we worship we have a confession of sin and Assurance of pardon. The confession of sin a cool thing, you know, it's really something that you want to do in a worship service. I mean, we will not come and confess our sins and yet whenever the people of God gathered before the Holy One of Israel, we are sinners in the presence of Our Redeemer, one of the first things that we must do from the very beginning. It's not confess our sin because he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us of our iniquity that we might once again be renewed and refreshed its his very people If you look at that poor Runners of our faith, we look at true that do not change about who the Lord is. His hand is upon you not because of anything that you've done. Not me cuz you're stronger than other or more intelligent than others or more powerful or influential than others. That's not why the Lord has called you the Lord called you. Because he loves you. Why does he love you have no idea? It's his Sovereign fish. How do you pour out his grace upon you regardless of anything that you have done or will do and that Grace will not be taken away. And even if he's poured out that Grace upon you and called you his son and called you his daughter. He's marked you with his name and he's set his way before you because he's going to walk with you to the end of your days in this life into all of eternity and he walks wants you to walk right lie before him and get when you fall not if he will provide. He provided a sacrifice for the people of Israel there in the wilderness a whole system that the articulated their sinfulness and his Holiness but in the fullness of time born of a woman under the law he sent his son to fulfill the law to be that great and final sacrifice that our sins would not be covered by the blood of bulls or page in or seeds for goats. But by the blood of his own first born son as we come in his glorious presence, we need never fear that we stand before God without condemnation. Because we are Justified because of the righteousness of Christ the Christ Alone. He's a remarkable truth. He's not invented by Moses or this people in this Wilderness, but these are the words of God to his people not only of that generation. But if each generation that is come including our you serve a mighty God. There's no enemy that will ever come against you. It is greater than The God Who Walks alongside? Close our time in the word of Prayer. gracious and holy God Did you thanks for for who you are and for all you've done? We recognize Lord, like the people of Israel that we do not deserve your grace or your mercy. And so we stand in all of you. Oh Lord.

And we come and worship. We realize that we worship a God who is claimed as our own and we have nothing to have compelled that decision or that decree. It's all we can do is give you faint for your overwhelming Grace and care. Walk with us, even if you walk with this people in A Cloud by day and Fire by night walk with us Lord, even as you have promised by the very presence of your Holy Spirit. that we might know you even more intimately than Moses did because Christ has died and he is risen he sent his Spirit to dwell within a that we may call upon the Lord whatever we need to weather in good time or in all these things we pray in the name of Jesus Christ our state