The Relationship

Introduction

Review of Covenant

Bond in blood

Exchange:

outer garments

weapons

token possessions

names

vows and blood

places in sacrifice

firstborn sons

bread and wine

ILLUST - My Reasons Not to Worship:

The day I couldn’t worship.

there’s a sermon in this worship

Rejoice in your worship.

Psalm 81:1–10 (ESV) — 1 Sing aloud to God our strength; shout for joy to the God of Jacob! 2 Raise a song; sound the tambourine, the sweet lyre with the harp. 3 Blow the trumpet at the new moon, at the full moon, on our feast day. 4 For it is a statute for Israel, a rule of the God of Jacob. 5 He made it a decree in Joseph when he went out over the land of Egypt.

This was most likely a song for the feast.

Most likely Feast of Tabernacles.

Each of these verbs are imperative because worship is imperative.

Sing

Shout for joy - (Let me hear you shout for joy)

You’ll praise God more when you recognize your reasons to praise.

Remember God your Redeemer.

I hear a language I had not known: 6 “I relieved your shoulder of the burden; your hands were freed from the basket. 7 In distress you called, and I delivered you; I answered you in the secret place of thunder; I tested you at the waters of Meribah. Selah

In several places in the Psalm the worshippers are to remember God’s work of redemption in saving the Israelites from slavery in Egypt.

5 He made it a decree in Joseph when he went out over the land of Egypt.

6 “I relieved your shoulder of the burden; your hands were freed from the basket.

10 I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt

Because of the covenant relationship:

Whatever the slave masters in Egypt did to the Israelites, they did to God.

Exodus 2:23–25 (ESV) — 23 During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. 24 And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. 25 God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.

Exodus 6:5 (ESV) — 5 Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel whom the Egyptians hold as slaves, and I have remembered my covenant.

This means:

Wherever you are, God is there with you.

Whatever is happening to you — maybe no one else knows or understands — God, in covenant with you, hears, knows, and is and is bound to respond.

God responds to the cry of the Israelites.

Respond with a big mouth.

8 Hear, O my people, while I admonish you! O Israel, if you would but listen to me! 9 There shall be no strange god among you; you shall not bow down to a foreign god. 10 I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.

Exodus 20:1–3 (ESV) — 1 And God spoke all these words, saying, 2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 3 “You shall have no other gods before me.

God calls Moses

Exodus 3:7–8 (ESV) — 7 Then the Lord said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, 8 and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians

Exodus 5:1 (ESV) — 1 Afterward Moses and Aaron went and said to Pharaoh, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.’ ”

First Plague - water to blood

Second Plague - frogs

Third Plague - gnats

Fourth Plague - flies

Fifth Plague - Egyptian livestock die

Sixth Plague - Boils

Seventh Plague - Hail

Eighth Plague - Locusts

Ninth Plague - Darkness

Tenth Plague - Death of firstborn

Leave Egypt — Egyptians chase — Red Sea parts — Pharaoh’s army dies.

They have victory, then. . . silent. Now what. They’re homeless in a desert. Now what?

Moses needs to lead all these people

What about money, Lord?

What about direction, Lord?

What about food, Lord?

What about water, Lord?

What about safety, Lord?

Ever ask those questions?

Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.

The picture here is one of dependent expectation.

ILLUST - The baby bird.

What about money, Lord?

Exodus 12:35–36 (ESV) — 35 The people of Israel had also done as Moses told them, for they had asked the Egyptians for silver and gold jewelry and for clothing. 36 And the Lord had given the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they let them have what they asked. Thus they plundered the Egyptians.

What about direction, Lord?

Pillar of cloud by day and pillar of fire by night.

What about food, Lord?

Manna and quail.

What about water, Lord?

Water from a rock.

What about safety, Lord?

Pillar of fire protected them.

Matthew 6:25–26 (ESV) — 25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?

What about money, Lord?

Will I have enough for retirement? Vacation? Job next year?

What about direction, Lord?

Do we get married? How do I heal this relationship? Where do we go next in our marriage?

What about food, Lord?

What about water, Lord?

What about safety, Lord?

Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.

Sometimes, though we come to God not like a baby bird but like Uber Eats.

We choose what we want him to solve and when and how.

“Whence it follows, that the reason why God’s blessings drop upon us in a sparing and slender manner is, because our mouth is too narrow”

— John Calvin

The only thing restricting the amount of God’s goodness and provision I receive is the size of my mouth.

. . . my willingness to receive it from Him.

How do we have a small mouth?

by not recognizing our dependence on Him (looking other places

Sometimes we are not desperate enough. There is but a few short steps from comfort to complacency and from complacency to perceived self-sufficiency.

Pray, “God keep me desperate for You!”

by not expecting God to provide good and needed things.

Looking to other places for provision

8 Hear, O my people, while I admonish you! O Israel, if you would but listen to me! 9 There shall be no strange god among you; you shall not bow down to a foreign god. 10 I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.

The strange gods today are not made of stone and gold but they take the shape of bank accounts and cars and houses and jobs.

If you became sufficient at dependent expectation, what would God not be able to do through you? What could you not risk for His sake?

It is the bird’s role to receive what it is given not to demand what it is fed.

ILLUST — perhaps the opposite of feeding a baby bird is feeding a baby human — pursed lips, refusal to eat.

Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.

Conclusion

We stopped reading at verse 10 because 11-13 explain how Israel did NOT respond with an open mouth. Instead, they responded with stubborn hearts.

An open mouth is the sign of humble dependence and closed ears is a sign of a stubborn heart.

What is God saying to you today?

What reason do you have to NOT worship?

Open your mouth wide and watch God fill it.

*PRAY*

Jesus attended the Feast of Tabernacles (Booths)

John 7:37–38 (ESV) — 37 On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ ”