Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Speaker A: Ever gone on a trip or had an experience that then you spent some time reflecting back on that journey.
We were in community group, and Shannon and Carrie Lewis are in our community group.
[00:00:15] Speaker B: And so we were reflecting on some of the trips over to South Sudan,
[00:00:20] Speaker A: which I know some of y' all got the privilege of going on. And so it was like, oh, yeah, I remember that.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: That trip and these high moments and the fun things that he did, and just, like, getting to see God move and baptisms and some stuff like that. And then it was like, oh, yeah,
[00:00:37] Speaker A: Remember when you got sick? I was like, oh, man. And I wanted to die.
[00:00:41] Speaker B: Like, got dehydrated, got a parasite another time. Like, oh, yeah, I remember those times. And that there's a remembering of highs and lows as you journey in something. But that's what we see in the Book of Exodus, right? It's like, there's a journey that the people were going on, and there were highs and lows in the midst of that, and God taught them in the midst of that. And if you think about the last 10 months for us as a people journeying together, that some of you have experienced incredible highs of seeing God answer things, or seeing God move in ways, or just life has been great. And then others have experienced incredible lows. Like, I could have never imagined that
[00:01:24] Speaker A: I would face this.
[00:01:25] Speaker B: And some of y' all have experienced both. And you're like, I'm just tired of the roller coaster, right, that. That you're going up and down. And yet in the midst of all
[00:01:33] Speaker A: of that,
[00:01:36] Speaker B: God's still been the same, that God's still been journeying with you. And so I actually brought the sermon number one, the intro to Exodus sermon.
[00:01:50] Speaker A: And I just spent some time this week, and I started writing next to how we began some of the things that the Lord did in the midst of our journey.
[00:02:01] Speaker B: Let me just remind us a little bit that in the Book of Exodus that God is taking his people on a journey. But the main purpose is that he's
[00:02:11] Speaker A: going to display his character.
He's going to show who he is,
[00:02:18] Speaker B: and he shows how he interacts with
[00:02:20] Speaker A: his people, and he shows what he intends to do through his people.
[00:02:27] Speaker B: And so I want us to remember that and not get lost in just that.
[00:02:32] Speaker A: We've walked through the Book of Exodus. I want us to walk away going, amen. Let me tell you about the God that I met in Exodus.
[00:02:40] Speaker B: Would you pray with me this morning?
[00:02:42] Speaker A: And then we'll jump into this God, we're excited just about the summary of this and, Lord, there is just an excitement of having journeyed through a book together, that you reach the end of it together, and that there's a sense
[00:02:58] Speaker B: of accomplishment in us having come through it together.
[00:03:02] Speaker A: And the things which you've done along the journey, Lord.
[00:03:05] Speaker B: And so I pray that this morning,
[00:03:07] Speaker A: Lord, that by your spirit you might encourage our hearts to reflect and remember the salvation that you've provided for us of your presence among us and your glory which is to be displayed through us, Lord, that you would work in us this morning, that we wouldn't be the same as when we began, but that we would be able to look back and reflect on the things which you've done and the things which you've taught us and. And that we've got to do it together with you. We ask it in Jesus name. Amen.
Well, this is the last time that we'll see this bumper video. But the intentionality of the bumper video was there's these four themes, kind of that we see in the Book of Exodus that carry us through the Book of Exodus. That the first one, you see the
[00:03:53] Speaker B: shackles, you see the chains, that there is slavery. That Exodus we begin, and it introduces us with the setting of a people who have moved into Egypt based off of God leading them there because they were. They were being provided for, and God rescued them from a famine and he brought them into Egypt. And then the chapter one actually slows down and covers 400 years
[00:04:22] Speaker A: of the
[00:04:22] Speaker B: people of Israel in Egypt that there arose a king or a pharaoh who
[00:04:32] Speaker A: knew not Joseph nor the things which God had done.
[00:04:35] Speaker B: And so because they had forgotten who God was and they had forgotten who Joseph was in leading them to trust God, that they're in slavery and they're 400 years in slavery, that there is a real physical bondage that we see.
And so in chapters one through four, we see that who is God as he relates to his people who are in slavery, and that God is a God who hears, God is a God who sees. And the first four chapters introduce us that the people cry out to God, and it says that he heard their cries, that he saw their afflictions, and
[00:05:20] Speaker A: that he was moved to action.
[00:05:22] Speaker B: That we get first introduced to a people in slavery and a God who cares.
And so we saw in those sermons that God has moved to action, that salvation begins with a cry like, God, do you see me, God, do you hear me, God, do you know?
[00:05:40] Speaker A: And he says, I see, I hear and I'm moving.
[00:05:43] Speaker B: That we get introduced to this man who will become One of the main characters.
[00:05:49] Speaker A: God's obviously the main character in the
[00:05:51] Speaker B: book of Exodus, but he uses a man named Moses. And we get introduced to this man named Moses, who shows up and he's born into a predicament that Pharaoh wants to kill all the boys because Israel is growing too large. And so he wants to keep them small, but just small enough that they can't revolt, but big enough that they can continue to be small slave labor for the people of Egypt. And so Moses is born. And Moses. Mom trusts the Lord and knows the Lord. And so she hides Moses because she's like, I'm not going to obey Pharaoh and disobey God. I'm going to obey God. And so she keeps Moses hidden until she can't hide him anymore. And then the text actually tells us that she puts him in this little
[00:06:35] Speaker A: basket which is called an ark.
[00:06:37] Speaker B: She puts him in the little ark and puts him in the water, and she floats him down the river.
And he just so happens to come to the Pharaoh's daughter.
[00:06:48] Speaker A: And she sees him and she brings
[00:06:50] Speaker B: him in and she names him Moses.
[00:06:52] Speaker A: Drawn out of water that he was drawn up out of the water that
[00:06:56] Speaker B: this little baby that is an Israelite that's now living in the house of Pharaoh.
And he grows up with all the prestige of Pharaoh's house.
And yet he has a decision to make. And so as he gets older, he makes this decision of will he stand with the Hebrew people, the Israelites, or will he stand with the Egyptians? And he actually defends an Israelite.
And things go south because he doesn't get a pat on the back for it. He actually gets ostracized for it.
[00:07:32] Speaker A: That he.
[00:07:33] Speaker B: Things don't turn out the way he thought they would. And so he ends up actually getting run out of Egypt. He has to flee Egypt because he ends up killing an Egyptian. And then Pharaoh is looking for him. And so he flees Egypt.
[00:07:47] Speaker A: And we're like, well, wait a minute.
[00:07:49] Speaker B: This leader can't even rescue his people.
And so we continue to go that
[00:07:59] Speaker A: God is going to rescue his people, not based off of Moses, but based off of his power.
[00:08:05] Speaker B: Moses is out watching sheep, and he
[00:08:09] Speaker A: sees on this mountain this bush that's
[00:08:12] Speaker B: burning, but it's not being consumed. And so he walks to that bush, and as he's walking up to this bush to see it, then a voice speaks to him and says, whoa, you gotta stop.
You gotta take off your shoes, because
[00:08:25] Speaker A: the ground on which you're standing is holy ground.
It's one of the first introductions that we see that God invites Moses near. But God is holy.
He is near, but he is not ordinary. Moses must come to God on his own terms.
[00:08:45] Speaker B: That God is holy. And so he must remove his shoes. And there in that bush, God speaks to Moses and says, I'm going to use you to. To rescue my people out of slavery.
That I will bring about salvation.
[00:08:59] Speaker A: It's the second piece that we see there in the parting of the waters, that God's going to bring about salvation for his people.
[00:09:06] Speaker B: And so he sends Moses back to Pharaoh.
[00:09:10] Speaker A: But Moses goes, I can't go back to Pharaoh.
[00:09:13] Speaker B: Like, how will I know? And God says, this will be a sign to you. I'm gonna bring you back to this very mountain with the people of Israel. I'm gonna rescue them out of Egypt.
[00:09:24] Speaker A: You back to this mountain and you'll worship me here.
Moses goes, I can't. I can't go talk to Pharaoh. I've got a stutter, so I can't do that.
[00:09:32] Speaker B: God graciously comes alongside him and says, no, I'll take you and I'll provide for you.
[00:09:39] Speaker A: Aaron, to be your mouthpiece, I'll speak to you. You speak to Aaron. Aaron will speak to Pharaoh.
[00:09:45] Speaker B: And so God sends him back. And we get from chapters 5 to verse 15, we get this story of
[00:09:53] Speaker A: God working salvation from Egypt, that God
[00:09:57] Speaker B: is going to rescue his people.
That what we find in there is that God says, I am the Lord. Pharaoh asked this question, I don't know if you remember this sermon. He asked the question, who is the Lord? That I should obey him.
[00:10:14] Speaker A: And God goes on a full demonstration of who he is.
[00:10:20] Speaker B: It says that with a mighty hand
[00:10:22] Speaker A: he will rescue them.
[00:10:23] Speaker B: That God begins to command all of creation. That he turns the Nile into blood, that he brings frogs into Egypt. That he brings gnats and flies and locusts and hailstorms and darkness. And that God controls all of creation
[00:10:41] Speaker A: and he's working to rescue his people.
[00:10:45] Speaker B: We get to the final plague, and
[00:10:46] Speaker A: we've seen the fickleness of Pharaoh, that
[00:10:48] Speaker B: he says, okay, y' all can go. And then he changes his mind and
[00:10:50] Speaker A: says, no, you can't.
[00:10:51] Speaker B: And then he says, okay, you can go. Because I just want my circumstances to change, but I don't actually want to submit to God. So he goes back and forth and
[00:10:59] Speaker A: back and forth, and we get to
[00:11:01] Speaker B: the tenth and final plague.
It's where the judgment of God is going to come and judge every household but God, in his grace and in his mercy, he says, but there's a way that you can.
[00:11:15] Speaker A: You can pass over judgment that you're gonna take a lamb and it's gonna be brought into your house and you're gonna kill that lamb. And the blood of that lamb is going to go onto the doorposts of your house.
And that when the angel of death, the angel of judgment comes by, if it sees the blood of the lamb, it will pass over that night. There's a cry that goes out throughout all Egypt, because in every house that does not have the blood of the lamb, there is judgment and there's death.
[00:11:49] Speaker B: And so Pharaoh and all the Egyptians, they actually expel the Israelites.
[00:11:56] Speaker A: They kick them out.
[00:11:57] Speaker B: And as they're kicking them out, they say, just go. And they give them gold and silver and precious stones and all these things. These are things that God then later is going to ask the Israelites to give back to him in worship. But the Egyptians kick him out and send him with all this stuff.
And so the people of Israel, they go on this journey and they reach this point, and they're being led by Moses and by God, and they reach this point where they've got the Red Sea and they've got a mountain range, and then they've got the Egyptian army
[00:12:29] Speaker A: coming back after them.
[00:12:31] Speaker B: And they're terrified because they've reached a point where we saw that. Sometimes we get in a place where it's like, I can't fix it.
They can't escape. They can't change it.
They have no control.
[00:12:46] Speaker A: And God speaks to them and says, all you have to do is watch and wait.
Like what?
[00:12:57] Speaker B: That they're in a place where the Red Sea's in front of them and the mountains and the army.
[00:13:03] Speaker A: And God says, just wait and watch me provide.
God tells Moses to take his staff and to reach it out. And he reaches it out over the water and the water stands up.
That God provides an exodus. He provides the way out for the
[00:13:23] Speaker B: people of Israel that they walk across on dry ground. And then as the Egyptian army tries to come after them, then the chariot wheels are stuck in the mud and God brings the water back over the
[00:13:36] Speaker A: top of them in judgment.
But that the people of Israel went through, that they're rescued.
It'd be crazy for the Book of Exodus to end there. And then God said, like, and have a great life.
You're like, what?
[00:13:52] Speaker B: That wasn't the point of it, right?
The point of it wasn't just that they would be rescued out of slavery.
[00:13:59] Speaker A: The whole point of the Book of Exodus is that God would dwell with
[00:14:03] Speaker B: his people that they were saved in
[00:14:07] Speaker A: order that they might commune, in order that they might be with God.
[00:14:12] Speaker B: And so he rescues them out of
[00:14:17] Speaker A: Egypt. And then we see the third, this
[00:14:20] Speaker B: fire of God's presence.
It's something that we've seen all throughout the book of Exodus, that God has heard their cries, he's seen their afflictions, that he's moved to action. That God, whenever he protected them from the Egyptian army, he actually had a cloud come and provide a barrier of protection for them that he shows up to Moses in the burning bush, his presence with them. But then he's going to lead the people of Israel on this three month journey back towards this mountain that he
[00:14:50] Speaker A: said he would bring them back to.
[00:14:52] Speaker B: And so God takes them on this journey. And so from chapters 19 to 23 or from chapters 16 to 18, we see this journey.
The people of Israel having seen this incredible work of God, never struggle with doubt or fear again.
[00:15:08] Speaker A: No, that's not true.
[00:15:11] Speaker B: Three months and they get into the desert and they're like, they start complaining because they're like, God, what'd you do, bring us out here to die of thirst in the desert? We don't have any water.
[00:15:20] Speaker A: Must have had a lot of kids. They drank all their water, ate all their snacks, right?
[00:15:23] Speaker B: Like we don't have, what'd you do, bring us out here to die?
[00:15:29] Speaker A: God in his grace and in his mercy, he says, hey, take those sticks from that tree, toss them into that bitter water and it will become sweet.
God's so good.
[00:15:43] Speaker B: They then grumble and complain again, like, wait, we got no food.
[00:15:50] Speaker A: God says, no, I know what your needs are.
You're going to go out and collect every day that I'm going to cause this bread from heaven to come down, this manna, and you're gonna go out
[00:16:04] Speaker B: and collect it and I'm gonna provide for you all that you need.
[00:16:09] Speaker A: Some of the people were like, well, I don't want to have to walk by faith. I'm just gonna collect a little more today so that I don't have to trust God for tomorrow. And God said, no, you can't do that because you're gonna have to walk by faith every day.
Daily needs, daily dependence
[00:16:30] Speaker B: that the manna that they collected to hold over. God said, no, you can only collect enough for what you'll use that day.
[00:16:35] Speaker A: And then there will be manna for you tomorrow.
[00:16:37] Speaker B: They collected some extra. They go to open up the canister and it's got mold and worms in it.
[00:16:43] Speaker A: He's like, you can't do it your way. You have to walk by faith with me.
[00:16:49] Speaker B: Said, you shall collect six days. The seventh day is the Sabbath. That's the day of rest. And so I'll make that bread last
[00:16:55] Speaker A: for two days on the Sabbath.
[00:16:59] Speaker B: God's plans, God's ways, and it works.
[00:17:03] Speaker A: But we have to trust him.
[00:17:05] Speaker B: We saw that God meets their needs. The people then grumble and complain that all they've got is bread and water.
Oh, if we could just go back to Egypt where we had pots of meat.
Oh, if we could just go back to the slavery where we didn't have to walk by faith.
[00:17:23] Speaker A: And God says, I'll bring quail into your camp so that you have meat.
[00:17:30] Speaker B: He provides all their needs, and yet all they've done is grumble and complain.
And God has been so gracious and so merciful that he's showing them who he is as he interacts with his people.
[00:17:46] Speaker A: They get to Mount Sinai and.
And God says, don't go on the mountain.
Make a barrier around it. Don't let animals up there, no people up there, because I'm about to show myself to you.
He comes down on this mountain, and
[00:18:03] Speaker B: it says that, like, fire consumed the
[00:18:05] Speaker A: top of the mountain and that the
[00:18:07] Speaker B: earth shook and they heard the thunderous quake of his voice.
[00:18:10] Speaker A: That God just shows his glory and
[00:18:14] Speaker B: that he would consume and devour anything that's not holy.
[00:18:21] Speaker A: People are like, whoa, you go talk to God. Because we can't.
We get introduced to Moses as a mediator for the people of God.
[00:18:30] Speaker B: A holy God and a sinful people. And they need someone to go in between because they're scared to death of his holiness.
Moses goes up on the mountain.
[00:18:43] Speaker A: He receives the covenant from God that
[00:18:45] Speaker B: God says, you will be my people,
[00:18:47] Speaker A: and I will be your God, and that I will dwell with you.
[00:18:50] Speaker B: It's this incredible picture that a holy God would desire to dwell among his people, that he wants his presence among his people.
It's incredible.
And yet we see that these people that walked in slavery, they knew how to be slaves, but they didn't know
[00:19:07] Speaker A: how to be God's people.
[00:19:09] Speaker B: And so God gives them his instruction. He gives them the Ten Commandments.
This is a way, a path, a plan for their own flourishing in order that they might experience the fullness of God, that his commands aren't a burden to them. They're a path of flourishing for them. Hey, this is what it looks like to be my people and to live
[00:19:29] Speaker A: as the people of God.
This is good for you.
[00:19:35] Speaker B: Leads them in instruction.
He tells them how to live as
[00:19:41] Speaker A: the people of God.
[00:19:42] Speaker B: He gives them this covenant with them. He tells them that he wants to dwell with them. And so in chapter 24 through 31, Moses is 40 days up on the mountain, and he's getting this incredible instruction, incredible, detailed instruction about how to build this tent, that the presence of God is actually going to dwell among his people in their camp.
[00:20:05] Speaker A: They're like, whoa, this is incredible detail
[00:20:08] Speaker B: of what it's to be made out of and the measurements of how high and how long and how wide and what colors and all of this detail. And Moses is up there getting this vision from God and getting the tablets from God. And he comes down from the mountain, and he's got Joshua with him. And Joshua starts hearing this cry from the camp, and he's like, hey, something's going on in the camp. And Moses is like, that's not a cry from.
They're not at war. It's not a cry of anguish or agony or of celebration like, they've won. There's something else going on. And they get closer, and it's a celebration of singing and dancing and doing whatever they wanted to.
[00:20:47] Speaker A: Because while Moses was up on the mountain, they went to Aaron. He was gone for 40 days. A month and a half, they went to Aaron, and they were like, we don't know what happened to this Moses guy. He was our leader, but he's gone.
[00:20:58] Speaker B: So, Aaron, you make us. Make us a golden calf that we can worship God.
Make us something tangible that we can
[00:21:07] Speaker A: control, that we can worship.
Rather than having to walk by faith and trust God.
Aaron foolishly takes the gold and the silver that was supposed to be for worship of God. And he fashions it and he misuses it, and he crafts this golden calf.
People then sing, dance, they're Mary.
Moses comes down, he sees the golden calf, and he's like, no, no, no, no, no. Throws the tablets down. They bust. God's law has been broken.
But is God's covenant with his people broken because of it?
[00:21:42] Speaker B: And so we're waiting to see. And Moses takes the calf, and he grinds it up, and he smashes it, and he sets fire to it. And so it becomes ash. And he puts the ash in the water of the people. And he says, now drink this judgment.
[00:21:57] Speaker A: But he goes to the people and he says, choose who you'll serve.
[00:22:06] Speaker B: Will you turn away from your ways of sin and repent and stand with
[00:22:11] Speaker A: the Lord, or will you continue in your own ways? And it's one of the saddest chapters in all of Exodus and in Exodus 32, that.
That there's judgment and there's 3,000 people
[00:22:24] Speaker B: that die because they chose to stay in their sin.
And this sin always leads to pain, hurt, death, and destruction. That's what sin always leads to. And yet they chose that rather than repenting and coming to God.
[00:22:45] Speaker A: We move from Exodus 32 and seeing
[00:22:48] Speaker B: the consequences of this sin. And yet Exodus 33 and 34 show us that God's not done with his people.
[00:22:57] Speaker A: It's incredible.
[00:22:58] Speaker B: We see the character of God lifted up, that he's gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, who forgives their iniquities, their transgressions and their sins, who by no means will clear the guilty that he's just.
[00:23:16] Speaker A: Yet he's telling them who he is.
[00:23:20] Speaker B: He renews their covenant.
He gives Moses his new ten Commandments
[00:23:27] Speaker A: that Moses is supposed to write, and he brings them back down that God's still going to move forward with his people.
[00:23:34] Speaker B: But we looked at Exodus 33 and 34, and we saw in there that God offers the people of Israel. He says, hey, I'll send an angel into that promised land, the land that I promised you, and I'll drive out all the enemies, and I'll bring you into this land that's fertile and flowing with milk and honey. And then he says this at the end.
[00:23:57] Speaker A: And he says, but I will not go with you, but my presence will not go with you.
[00:24:03] Speaker B: And we had to ask the question,
[00:24:06] Speaker A: do we value the gifts of God more than the presence of God?
[00:24:11] Speaker B: We had to ask ourselves, like, is God's presence enough that God, if you're
[00:24:18] Speaker A: not in it, then the gifts aren't worth it because you're the gift.
And Moses makes a statement, and he says, if you won't go with us, then don't send us.
[00:24:35] Speaker B: He says, that's the only thing that makes us different from all the people, is that you're a God who's with us.
[00:24:44] Speaker A: So if you're not with us, we don't want to go.
God renews the covenant with them, that
[00:24:52] Speaker B: he's a God of second chances, that he makes the same covenant with them,
[00:24:56] Speaker A: to be their God, that His presence is with them.
[00:25:04] Speaker B: How do we know his presence is with them? Well, he said, build me this house, this tent, this tabernacle, and I'm going to dwell there, a holy God in the midst of a sinful people. How does God dwell with a sinful people? He made a way through a mediator, Moses and then he made a way through the tabernacle that he could be in the presence of God, but they
[00:25:27] Speaker A: had to come on his terms.
[00:25:29] Speaker B: They couldn't come on their own.
There was still a sacrificial system.
There was still blood that had to be shed. Because God is holy, he is near,
[00:25:39] Speaker A: but he's not ordinary, that he's holy,
[00:25:43] Speaker B: and yet he desires to dwell among his people. And so they build this tabernacle that God dwells among his people.
And we saw in what was just mundane, ordinary, usually skip over or speed, read through in your Bible reading plan
[00:26:05] Speaker A: all these instructions about colors and details
[00:26:07] Speaker B: and clasps and bars and all that stuff.
[00:26:11] Speaker A: And yet we saw the intricacy of
[00:26:15] Speaker B: how all those things weren't an end in and of themselves.
[00:26:19] Speaker A: They were pointing us forward to how a holy God would dwell among his people through the person of Jesus Christ.
That he's the bread of life, that he's the light of the world, that
[00:26:30] Speaker B: he is the Lamb of God, that he is the means in which we can dwell with that all who confess and believe in Jesus Christ can be saved. That Hebrews would tell us that we can enter the holy place with confidence because of the blood of Jesus, that
[00:26:48] Speaker A: He made the way.
And yet this tent was a shadow of what was to come.
And yet we saw in the building of that tabernacle that God was using ordinary people with resources and talents to serve his eternal purposes.
[00:27:06] Speaker B: And that the people there was a generosity of heart because of the generosity that God had bestowed upon them. They then became an incredibly generous people. And so as they needed supplies, they just gave freely to the extent that Moses and Aaron had to say, stop the giving.
[00:27:23] Speaker A: We got enough because it was in their heart to be generous, because God had been generous to them.
[00:27:33] Speaker B: We also saw in that section that God's blessing came through just very simple obedience.
I mean, it wasn't wild and crazy obedience.
[00:27:44] Speaker A: It was setting down and weaving at a loom.
And that God's blessing came through just simple obedience of using talents and skill sets and tasks to serve God. And.
[00:27:57] Speaker B: And the text tells us over and over that they did all that. The Lord commanded that just as the Lord commanded, so they did that. They did all that the Lord commanded, that they just simply obeyed.
[00:28:09] Speaker A: And they experienced God's blessing.
[00:28:12] Speaker B: They experienced his presence among them.
[00:28:16] Speaker A: And then we get to Exodus, chapter 40, and as they finish the building of the tabernacle, we get the final picture of the crown, the glory.
[00:28:31] Speaker B: It is this incredible statement. Having walked this journey and having known the People of Israel, how God brought them from a people of slavery, and
[00:28:40] Speaker A: he formed them into his own people,
[00:28:44] Speaker B: and he gave them the instruction. And it says this in Exodus 40, verse 34, that the cloud covered the
[00:28:50] Speaker A: Tent of Meeting and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.
[00:28:57] Speaker B: That God's glory, the glory which came down on the mountain and scared all
[00:29:04] Speaker A: of them, now filled the tabernacle in the midst of them.
That they had a way to dwell with a holy God in their midst through a mediator, Moses, through sacrifices, through
[00:29:21] Speaker B: the tent of meeting.
[00:29:23] Speaker A: And yet all of that was so that this people would display God's glory as a. As a little reflection that wherever they went, that they would reflect his glory to the nations.
[00:29:42] Speaker B: And so we see in the story of Exodus, if your friends just asked you, hey, can you tell me the story of Exodus?
Hopefully we could do it.
[00:29:54] Speaker A: God takes the people from slavery and he saves them, and he dwells with them all for his glory.
[00:30:04] Speaker B: See, but the problem is, a lot of times we just read Exodus, and maybe this was the way you came in. And that we read Exodus, and it's
[00:30:10] Speaker A: like we could tell you all the.
[00:30:13] Speaker B: The different commandments. And I got memorized the commandments.
[00:30:15] Speaker A: And I can tell you the story
[00:30:16] Speaker B: of the burning bush, or I could tell you the story of Moses being brought out of the water, or I could tell you the story of the golden calf, or I could tell you
[00:30:22] Speaker A: these stories, and yet we miss what they're pointing to. See, Exodus is a signpost, and it says, keep going, keep going.
That this is pointing you to something else.
[00:30:37] Speaker B: It's pointing you so that you wouldn't
[00:30:39] Speaker A: miss him when he shows up.
When the Son of Man would come to tabernacle with his people, would come to dwell with them, when he would.
[00:30:53] Speaker B: He would desire to dwell a holy God among a sinful people.
Jesus the mediator, the Lamb of God, the bread of life, the light of
[00:31:03] Speaker A: the world, the Savior to dwell among his people. I was reading the Book of John with a friend this last week, and I just came across in John, chapter 5 that Jesus is talking to the Pharisees.
He's talking to a people who could recite all the stuff about Exodus. They could tell you all the details. They could check the box. I read it. I know the story. I can tell you all the stuff.
It says this in John, chapter 5, verse 39, Jesus is speaking to them. And he says, you search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life.
He's like, you think that the Scriptures can save you.
[00:31:48] Speaker B: And so you're searching them.
[00:31:50] Speaker A: Listen, what he says.
He says, and it's they that bear witness about me.
[00:31:58] Speaker B: The scriptures are pointing to Jesus,
[00:32:02] Speaker A: that
[00:32:02] Speaker B: they're not the end in and of themselves. They're the means that we would know God and know Jesus Christ, whom he sent.
But he keeps going. He says, yet you refuse to come
[00:32:12] Speaker A: to me, that you may have life.
Listen, the tragedy would be that we would walk through the book of Exodus together and we would go on this journey together, and we'd get to the end of Exodus and think it's the final destination and go, okay, I read Exodus. I know Exodus. I can tell you about Exodus.
And that we'd miss Jesus, because that's what Exodus is pointing us to, the one who came to dwell among his people, because God made a covenant with his people that he would rescue and redeem a people to himself.
And we see the character of God, and we see how he wants, who he wants his people to be. And we see how he interacts with his people, that it wasn't anything that Israel did to earn their salvation.
It was the gracious God who brought salvation to them.
And then it all comes through Jesus. We're gonna spend the next couple weeks walking through the book of Hebrews, because
[00:33:13] Speaker B: this is exactly what the author of
[00:33:14] Speaker A: Hebrews does, is he goes, don't miss Jesus.
John continues. And he says this.
He says, do not think that I accuse you to the Father.
There is one who accuses you, Moses, on whom you have set your hope.
For if you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote of me.
Did you hear it?
The book of Exodus which Moses wrote, he was writing about Jesus.
We've seen the character of God, rescues us out of slavery, provides salvation for us because it's who he is, dwells with us in his presence in order that we might display his glory.
That's the book of Exodus. And it's possible because of Jesus. Would you pray with me?
God, we thank you for your word that teaches us, Lord. It is an incredible signpost for us, Lord, as we just think about the journey we've been on and how you've guided us and you've revealed things to us and you've convicted our heart and you've encouraged us and you've reminded us of your character, of who you are, how you desire to use us and interact with us, and how you set us out on mission to display your glory.
Lord, we thank you for the journey that we've been on. We pray that we might be a people that remember in order that we wouldn't forget the things which you've done in and through us as a people over the last 10 months. Lord, would we be your people to reflect your glory? We ask it in Jesus name, Amen.
