Sermon Tone Analysis

Why Exodus?

In the Old Testament book of Exodus, we see God revealing himself to his people—he’s teaching them about himself, who he is.

He’s showing them how to live as a people who bear his name.

(all humans are created in the image of God, and God has chosen a specific family, from the lineage of Abraham, to bear his name).

He’s showing them what it means to worship the one true God.

How to live in the world as the people of God…

I’ve watched us (followers of Christ) over the past few years, especially over the past couple of very difficult years…and this is the same stuff we need to learn!

We need to learn what it really means to live as the people of God, the people who bear the image and name of God in our world.

Are crosses just things we wear, or is the way of the cross an actual way to live our daily lives?

We need to learn who God has revealed himself to be, apart from culture—you realize that neither the culture on the right nor the culture on the left accurately reflect the God of the scriptures—who is God? and who are we as bearers of his image?

And how are we supposed to live, as the people of God, in our current setting?

All of these questions are asked and answered as we look at the narrative of God and Israel’s story.

“There is a quest for identity—a need to find ourselves, find out who we are, what we're suppose to do with our lives—it's all at Mt. Sinai, its all in the book of Exodus.”

Bearing God's Name: Why Sinai Still Matters, by Dr Carmen Joy Imes

Today we’re going to tackle the entire first chapter, but before I do, I want to show you a little video by our friends at The Bible Project.

play the video to 2:07 “…and God responds…”

https://bibleproject.com/explore/video/exodus-1-18/

By the way – The Bible Project resources are spectacular.

The various videos, their podcast which go way more in depth than even we can on the weekends, and their new series of bible classes are absolutely wonderful, if you’re longing for some more help in understanding the scriptures, and how the entire bible tells one story that points directly to Jesus.

Check them out at bibleproject.com

So, for today, let’s look at a few of the points of this story in the text and make some application to our lives today…

Let’s turn to the first chapter and read the first few verses…

In Hebrew, this book literally begins with the word…”and”

You may think that’s a strange way to begin a new book!

But the writer is purposefully joining the book of Exodus to the book of Genesis.

This ancient Hebrew literature is known meditational literature, it’s meant to be read over and over again.

It’s written in a way to help you notice themes and repeating patterns.

It doesn’t only narrate the story, but it’s showing us, teaching us who this God is that created and continues to intervene in human history.

If you haven’t read these books at the beginning of the bible for awhile, or even if you have, I’d invite you to read them with me again this Autumn.

And take time to jot down, to make note of some of the repeating patterns and numbers and themes and words.

All of it is meant to teach us who we are as the people of God, as the followers of Christ in our day.

And we are going to highlight a bunch of these things as we walk through it together.

So as we look at this first part of the story, beginning with the Hebrew word “and”, we’re meant to reflect on how…

Exodus is to be read as a continuation of the past; it is one part of a much larger story.

However the people might choose to view their present circumstance, this author reminds them that the full story is one that stretches back to their ancient ancestors and even to the very beginning of the world itself.

It is only in seeing our situation from the bigger, divine point of view that we can hope to gain a full understanding of what’s going on in our lives.

It is this divine point of view that transcends the thousands of years to our lives today.

The people of God are never alone.

God is with his people like he was in the past, and he will be with his people into the future much father than you or I can see.

The people of God are never alone, no matter how alone you might feel.

God sees, and knows, and names his people, and he is with them—no matter what.

In our day, there is something even more endemic than Covid—it’s loneliness.

Whether its the transactional nature of our lives, or our compulsive attachments to our ubiquitous screens…

More recent studies have show that most people reach our maximum number of social connections around age 25, and that from then on the number steadily decreases.

But that bonds of friendship and support are critically necessary for our physical and emotional health—

And that about 43 million of us suffer from chronic loneliness which greatly effects our health.

We’ve been created for connection to God and to one another – in person community is vital to our health, God made us to need it.

God is always present to you…always.

The Holy Spirit is the experienced and personal presence of God.

The Holy Spirit is the way you and I experience God today.

I want each of us to experience the Holy Spirit in very tangible ways.

The Holy Spirit is God’s empowering, transformative and dynamic presence.

story of turning to God and experiencing him meeting me/someone…

Also, I’m only going to briefly touch on this today – the importance of the number of descendents.

There’s a storyline throughout the bible related to the number 7, and it begins on the very first page.

God created the cosmos in six days, and on the seventh day, He stopped and He settled into His creation to rest and rule with his human partners in a day that has no end.

The seventh-day rest is what we all long for and it's what God promises to recreate.

To start this recreation project, He chooses one family, the family of Abraham, and He wants to give them the rest that was lost and let them bring that rest to the whole world.

As we journey through the book of Exodus, we are going to see this theme over and over again.

The writer is reminding us that God has a purpose and that he’s relentless in accomplishing that purpose.

The people of God are never alone…

All the descendents of Jacob have moved to Egypt because of a regional famine.

That first generation has died… and they are multiplying.

This language multiplication and fruitfulness and increase is meant to remind us of where we’ve heard it before… God’s initial blessing to the very first humans…

The descendents of Jacob are experiencing the blessing of God given at creation.

And the descendents of Jacob are experiencing the blessing of God given to Noah.

This is the blessing of Eden which was forfeited by Adam and Eve when they brought a curse on the land…

God had singled out Abram and given him this blessing (Gen 12), and it has passed onto to the the children of Jacob.

The God of creation is a God who keeps his promises.

God is doing what he’d promised to do – and a big part of that promise was to bless Abraham so the Abraham and his descendents would be a blessing to the entire world.

Genesis 12:1–3 (NIV)

1 The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.

2 “I will make you into a great nation,

and I will bless you;

I will make your name great,

and you will be a blessing.

3 I will bless those who bless you,

and whoever curses you I will curse;

and all peoples on earth

will be blessed through you.”

The story of Exodus is the story of how God is continuing to bring about the fulfillment of this initial promise to Abram.

Remember that God had, through much hardship, placed Joseph in Egypt as a way to provide for Jacob, his father, and all of his siblings during the famine.

And through Joseph’s leadership, all of Egypt was blessed and provided for during the years of famine.

And there’s a word in verse 7 that stands out; in English it reads that they increased in number, but the Hebrew word means that they became mighty/strong/powerful in number.

This makes the next passage make more sense…

Exodus 1:8–10 (NIV)

So we have a new king/Pharoah who could care less about where this immigrant population had come from, about the history of how all Egypt had been blessed and provided for because of their presence…

And the writer is highlighting how this new king is meant to remind us of someone else by the language he’s using… This king is saying, “We should deal Shrewdly/craftily/wisely with them”…the same language used of the snake/serpent in Genesis 3.

The new king is thinking, “We don’t want a situation where they fight against us, and/or decide to leave us.

We want what they bring to our economy, but we are afraid of how strong they are becoming.”

This is the opposite of a blessing mentality, a mentality of abundance and generosity.

The people of God are meant to be a blessing, not just accumulate blessing.

We are to be a people shaped by God’s blessing trust, even when it’s difficult to trust.

“We are blessed to be a blessing”, is meant to be a key thought among the people of God.

Can we trust that whatever God has given is enough, even enough to share?

Yes we can.

The opposite of the shrewdness of the serpent and the Pharoah.

When we define our own reality, when we put ourselves in the place of God, we step out from under the abundance and generosity and provision of God.

The first humans experienced that, and now, under Pharaoh’s leadership, Egypt will as well.

Whether or not they were enslaved before this, we don’t know.