The Called Out Ones
Notes
Transcript
Consecrated People
Consecrated People
Genesis tells the story about how the Lord desires to redeem and reconcile the world to Himself after being marred by sin and destined for death.
Exodus tells the story about how the Lord takes a people who have lost themselves as a result of their slavery and being immersed in a pagan culture.
Up to this point in Exodus, the Lord has been revealing the answer to the question Who is the Lord? He was answering it for Pharaoh who asks that of Moses back in chapter 5, but He is also answering it for His people who have lost their sense of who the Lord is.
Now the book of Exodus will begin to take a shift as the Lord now defines for His people what it means to live in accordance to who God is.
The Lord said to Moses, “Consecrate to me every firstborn male. The first offspring of every womb among the Israelites belongs to me, whether human or animal.”
The Lord lays the foundation for how our lives should be lived in accordance with who He is by first showing us our positional change as a result of the perspective of God. Our position has changed from of the world to consecrated by and for the Lord.
Consecrated means to take what is ordinary and set it aside and apart for the exclusive use of holiness and worship. The picture that we would see quickly would be the picture of the Lord’s Supper. Ordinary bread and grape juice consecrated for the Lord.
Then say to Pharaoh, ‘This is what the Lord says: Israel is my firstborn son, and I told you, “Let my son go, so he may worship me.” But you refused to let him go; so I will kill your firstborn son.’ ”
God sees Israel as His firstborn son and He has positioned Israel to be set apart from the ordinary purposes of man to a consecrated position of conveying the holiness and worship of the Lord.
What it means to be the people of God is to be consecrated or to belong to God. I am not my own, I belong to God and have been bought for a price so my purpose, reason, all that I have is for the worship of the Lord for I am His.
If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.
Paul writes that we belong to Him. We have been given new names, new understandings. When I was born, I was born to one family, but then I was adopted by another family and when they adopted me, they gave me a new name, a new purpose, a new sense of who I was.
In Remembrance
In Remembrance
Then Moses said to the people, “Commemorate this day, the day you came out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery, because the Lord brought you out of it with a mighty hand. Eat nothing containing yeast. Today, in the month of Aviv, you are leaving. When the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Hivites and Jebusites—the land he swore to your ancestors to give you, a land flowing with milk and honey—you are to observe this ceremony in this month: For seven days eat bread made without yeast and on the seventh day hold a festival to the Lord. Eat unleavened bread during those seven days; nothing with yeast in it is to be seen among you, nor shall any yeast be seen anywhere within your borders. On that day tell your son, ‘I do this because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.’ This observance will be for you like a sign on your hand and a reminder on your forehead that this law of the Lord is to be on your lips. For the Lord brought you out of Egypt with his mighty hand. You must keep this ordinance at the appointed time year after year.
“After the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites and gives it to you, as he promised on oath to you and your ancestors, you are to give over to the Lord the first offspring of every womb. All the firstborn males of your livestock belong to the Lord. Redeem with a lamb every firstborn donkey, but if you do not redeem it, break its neck. Redeem every firstborn among your sons.
“In days to come, when your son asks you, ‘What does this mean?’ say to him, ‘With a mighty hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. When Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the Lord killed the firstborn of both people and animals in Egypt. This is why I sacrifice to the Lord the first male offspring of every womb and redeem each of my firstborn sons.’ And it will be like a sign on your hand and a symbol on your forehead that the Lord brought us out of Egypt with his mighty hand.”
We are a people whose very souls push back against our consecration so the Lord has called us to commemorate or remember the faithfulness of God
Feast of Unleavened Bread or Passover was a reminder of the speed with which the Lord delivered His people but also of their wicked pull away from the consecration of God.
Compelled to Follow Him
Compelled to Follow Him
When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them on the road through the Philistine country, though that was shorter. For God said, “If they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt.” So God led the people around by the desert road toward the Red Sea. The Israelites went up out of Egypt ready for battle.
Moses took the bones of Joseph with him because Joseph had made the Israelites swear an oath. He had said, “God will surely come to your aid, and then you must carry my bones up with you from this place.”
After leaving Sukkoth they camped at Etham on the edge of the desert. By day the Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night. Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people.
The mercy of God led His people the long way for their own sake and perseverance. To bolster their confidence in Him and His mercy and grace, the Lord led them the long way.
Do not begrudge the Lord when He leads you the long way for it is because He loves you.
God never left His people. Pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. But we have something even better, God indwelling us and the Word of God in our hands.