Exodus 14:13-14

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I’d like to give just a little bit of context to the passage I’m going to read in a moment. This comes right after the nation of Israel left Egypt. They were rescued essentially from being slaves in Egypt, and they had come now out of Egypt and had camped by the shores of the Red Sea. But while they were there, the armies of Pharaoh came because Pharaoh had changed his mind, decided he wanted them back. So they were charging forward. So Israel found themselves trapped between a rock and a hard place. Or the devil and the deep blue sea, if you will. Nowhere to go. Their doom is imminent. And after complaining to Moses, this is what Moses said to them in Exodus chapter 14, verses 13 and 14.

And Moses said to the people, “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.” (Exodus 14:13-14)

When God has taught us what he would have us believe and do. We know where we’re going, we know what his plans are. We know what his desires are for our lives. Yet there are trials that come up. There are difficulties that face us. We need to be strengthened in faith. I think of this phrase “you have only to be silent.” Sometimes you can say that as a parent. I’ve said that as a parent to my children. We’re going to get where we’re going! You just be quiet, right? Just stop complaining! But there’s more to it than that. There’s also a loving assurance that Moses is trying to apply here to the people of Israel, not only just shut up and stop worrying about it, but after their prayer to God has come. Now watch, wait, pray and wait.

This is how God comes to us through His Word and through His sacraments. The people of God have consistently seen the difficulties that will come. Think of the three men in the fiery furnace Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They faced imminent destruction, and yet they told Nebuchadnezzar, the king, we will not obey you. God will rescue us. He is able to take us out of this fire. But even if he doesn’t, we’re not going to bow down to the idols that you have put in front of us. They remained silent after that simple confession of their faith. After praying to their God, they went silently into their what looked like doom.

Ultimately, we see the fulfillment of this finally in Jesus. Isaiah describes him as a lamb before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. Of course, in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus had prayed and wept and said, Father, if you are willing, let this cup pass from me, yet not as I will, but as you will. Finally, when he was in the trial, he remained silent.

Our words are not as powerful or as great as God’s words. We pray to God because he has spoken to us, and after our prayers we wait. We hear him. We can continue to pray to him as long as we need, as long as we like. But he strengthens our faith when we are silent, and he comes to us with His Word, and we finally do see what he would have us believe and do is trust in His Son, who has paid everything for us and wins that eternal life for us.

For Israel, this deliverance came through this miraculous journey of a travel through the waters in the Red Sea as they parted, something that had never been seen before. Walking in water but walking on dry ground. And so our deliverance may come in something that seems impossible, for example death. Through it we will come to life. And on the last day, when Jesus comes again to judge the whole world, he’ll bring us to that eternal life that he has won for us.

God strengthens our faith through the word, and that is his will for us. We have only to be silent.

Acts 13:16-23

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In one of his missionary journeys, Paul found himself preaching in a synagogue, and here’s what he had to say to the listeners. We read from Acts chapter 13,

“Men of Israel and you who fear God, listen. The God of this people Israel chose our fathers and made the people great during their stay in the land of Egypt, and with uplifted arm he led them out of it. And for about forty years he put up with[a] them in the wilderness. And after destroying seven nations in the land of Canaan, he gave them their land as an inheritance. All this took about 450 years. And after that he gave them judges until Samuel the prophet. Then they asked for a king, and God gave them Saul the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, for forty years. And when he had removed him, he raised up David to be their king, of whom he testified and said, ‘I have found in David the son of Jesse a man after my heart, who will do all my will.’ Of this man’s offspring God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus, as he promised. (Acts 13:16-23 ESV)

Man, what’s fascinating about Paul’s preaching here is that in just several verses, he covers this wide swath of Israel’s history. Now Paul shows himself again and again to be just a master rhetorician. He’s able to construct a compelling argument to drive his audience to think and feel in a certain way, and ultimately in his preaching, to get them to behold with the greatest clarity: Christ.

So when he’s talking about all these Old Testament figures and events, we shouldn’t think the listeners are sitting there saying, blah, blah, blah, blah. We’ve heard all this before. No, these were the people and events, chiefly the works of God, that gave them and their entire culture meaning. The Old Testament was their story of salvation, where God was working through them not only to be a blessing, but to ultimately deliver the Messiah, the Savior of the world. So all of the meaning of their lives comes rushing forward as Paul recounts these events and these people. And where does Paul say this mountain of God’s work leads to? It leads to Jesus. Man, what an impact. What a place to land for him.

Now, you may be a little intimidated by the Old Testament. You may hear some of those names and not really know what they’re associated with. But we are the true continuation of the Old Testament people of Israel. We are God’s people, the New Testament church. The Old Testament really is a cliffhanger. It doesn’t find its completion. The promised Messiah has not come. The final atonement for sin, that all those animal sacrifices depicted has not been made. The king who had ruled over David’s house forever, over God’s people, has not yet taken his seat on his throne. All of this was waiting for Jesus. Now the Old Testament believers were just like us. They had faith in a Savior who would come. Just as we have faith in the Savior who has come. But they trusted in him in his blood and his righteousness no less than we do.

So, dear friends, these are your spiritual ancestors. If you’re a Christian like me who doesn’t ethnically come from the Jewish people. These are your heroes of faith. These are proof that as God was faithful to them, he will be faithful to you. That as God could use people, then as sinful and weak as they were to accomplish his great purposes so he can work through sinful and weak people just like us. And let me end with a very practical tip. If you’re new to the faith, unfamiliar with the Bible, maybe you’ve been a lifelong Christian, but the Old Testament seems difficult because it’s so long and complex and the history is unfamiliar. Get yourself a Bible written for children, or maybe teenagers. Something that kind of boils the stories down, still gets the substance across, and introduces you to all the main characters and events, but get one with pictures. I’ve gone through a lot of education, read a lot of dense material. Sometimes I love nothing more than sitting down with like, an illustrated atlas and looking at the pictures as I read the captions. There’s no shame in using a book with pictures.

And let this be your gateway into the Old Testament, that when you hear these names and think about how God has orchestrated all things for your salvation and for the salvation of the world, that you also would be swept up in this history, swept up in this meaning and purpose, and that it would land you as it landed Paul’s hearers right at the feet of Jesus.

Christian Freedom – What Is It?

Matthew 26:17-30, Mark 14:12-26, Luke 22:7-20, Exodus 12:1-28

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You have been set free in Jesus. But what is that freedom about? What does that freedom mean for your life? To help us think about that, it’s good for us to think about when Jesus chose to go to Jerusalem and when, according to God’s plan, he was handed over and betrayed and died. This all happened at the Passover feast. (Matthew 26:17-30, Luke 22:7-20, Mark 14:12-26) That’s not an accident. The Passover, and actually, when did Jesus institute the Lord’s Supper? It’s when he was celebrating the Passover. This is all on purpose. Which means, then, that the Passover can help us understand the significance of Jesus’s death and resurrection.

So let’s think back to the Passover. The people of God were slaves in Egypt underneath the power of Pharaoh. And when God calls Moses to go to them, he wants Moses to go to Pharaoh so that God’s people can be free to go and worship him and really become the people of God. All the things that Mount Sinai where the covenants established, and all of that can’t really happen until they are set free from slavery, from this power that was holding them back from going forward and being the people of God. And then the Passover comes because it’s at that 10th plague where after all of these plagues, with Pharaoh. And Pharaoh is adamant, no, you can’t go. And then he decides, yes, you can go. But then he change his mind, changes his mind. Finally, you have that that Passover where you have where God has him kill the lamb and have the blood over the doorposts. And then the angel of death would pass over so that no one would die in that house, but in other houses the firstborn would die. (Exodus 12:1-28)

It was that, the Passover celebrates that moment, remembers that moment, how God then had it, where they were finally sent out of Egypt to go and to be free, and to be the people of God.

Your freedom today is about the fact that you and I, we were all slaves to sin and death. We were held back from being what God created us to be, full of guilt and shame on a path towards death and eternity separated from God. But Jesus died to take away what separated you from God to free you from what held you back. Your sin is removed. Death is overcome. Jesus rose again to give you freedom to step forward now and to know that you are forgiven. You are loved. You are right with God. You are a child of God. You are part of the people of God. You have eternity ahead of you with God and you get to take hold of worshiping that God now.

You were held back as a slave, but you are free to be part of the people of God. That’s what your freedom is all about.

2 Corinthians 3:7-8,13,18, Exodus 34:29

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God’s ministry is glorious. That’s what the Apostle Paul tells us in Second Corinthians chapter three. He begins by saying,

Now if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with glory, so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory, transitory though it was, will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious? (2 Corinthians 3:7-8)

He compares two different kinds of ministry the ministry that Moses brought into the world through God, and then the ministry of the Spirit. Now there’s a glorious minister there, Moses. You’ve looked through the Old Testament, you’ve seen just how popular and important Moses was.

One of my favorite artistic representations of Moses is by Michelangelo, and it’s a marble statue. And you look at this statue and Moses looks glorious. He is powerful. You take a close look at his arms and his hands, and you can see the veins and the muscles on them. It’s real life, larger than life. He’s enormous. He’s huge. He’s powerful. And then you take a closer look at Moses, and you even see horns? All right, what’s going on there? So this is actually when Michelangelo and other Renaissance artists portrayed Moses, they would use a translation from Exodus chapter 34, verse 29 that said,

When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the covenant law in his hands, he was not aware that his face was radiant because he had spoken with the Lord. (Exodus 34:29)

Moses had had a glowing, radiant face, beams of light.

But there was also a mistranslation of that word in the Latin Bible, where it said Moses had not beams but horns protruding from his head. (Exodus 34:29 DRA) So sometimes you’ll see that. Paul gives us what it really meant here, because it talks about how the face of Moses was glorious. And that glory would fade. Moses would put a veil over his face so the Israelites wouldn’t see that glory fading away. (2 Corinthians 3:13) But God’s law was glorious. It was wonderful. And so was he.

But there was a problem. God’s law that tells us what to do and not to do, how to follow God can only really result in condemnation because we can’t do it perfectly. It’s a glorious ministry. It’s important for us to know God’s standards in the world would be a much better place if everybody followed what the Lord and what Moses told them to do, but it can only lead to condemnation on its own, because we can’t keep it perfectly.

Thankfully, there’s another ministry, and there’s another minister that is even more glorious. Picture Christ, picture him, maybe you remember on the Mount of Transfiguration when he’s with Moses and Jesus lets a little bit of his glory shine through and his face erupts in light and his clothing is bright. He’s glorious. Think of him when he rises from the dead in all of his glory, when he ascended into heaven and now rules over all things. Jesus is the glorious minister who came not just with a message of be better, do better, make this world a better place. But he came with a message of how he is perfectly kept the Law of Moses in our place, how he gives us his righteousness, how he transforms us from the inside out with his word of forgiveness and peace.

And now Paul goes on to say that as we are forgiven by Christ, as he’s given us his righteousness, not only was Moses transformed, not only is Jesus transformed and we got to see a glimpse of his glory, but we are transformed. Verse 18 says,

And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:18)

You’re transformed from the inside out. It might not always look like it to everyone around you, but God sees you as holy, righteous, and he gives you a glorious ministry to share the good news of Jesus, the Gospel.

Exodus 24:12, 15-16

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Life can be really busy between work and school and all our other commitments. There can be so many parts of our life that we have to juggle. Sometimes it feels like there’s too much going on. But what about in those times when there’s not a lot happening? What about those times when it feels like there’s not much going on? We can get so used to our busy lives that we don’t know how to feel when we’re not busy. It can feel uncomfortable, even wrong, at times because we are so used to always doing something.

But the Bible suggests that these periods when there’s not a lot happening can actually be a good thing. In the book of Exodus, when God gives the law to Moses. There’s this very interesting detail that often gets overlooked or even missed.

The Lord said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain. Wait there, and I will give you the stone tablets with the law and the commands that I have written, so that you can teach them.” Moses went up onto the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain. The Glory of the Lord settled on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered the mountain for six days. On the seventh day the Lord called to Moses out of the middle of the cloud.

Why did God make Moses wait on the mountain before giving him the Ten Commandments? Why didn’t God just have Moses come up on the mountain when he was ready to give him the law? Those are questions that I don’t have a good answer to. But what I can tell you is that God seems to find these periods when there’s not a lot happening productive. All over the Bible, you can find very similar situations where people had these periods where it felt like nothing was happening. Joseph spent months or even years in prison. King David spent years hiding out in caves. The prophet Elijah even was sent out of Israel to live by a creek for what could have been three years. And in all of these instances, these people probably were wondering how these periods that felt like nothing was happening could have made any sense. But God seems to find these periods productive in ways that we can’t quite understand.

We often want our lives to go at our own speed and work according to our own timing. But Jesus lived his life perfectly according to his Father’s will. He lived, died, and rose again to set us right with God. And he did all of it according to God’s timing. Odds are, right now your life is busier than not. But even during his busy ministry, Jesus had periods that looked like there was a little less happening periods when he went to be alone. Periods when he spent time with his Father in prayer.

So if your life is busy, that’s okay. Do what you can, but if it’s not, that’s okay too. And God might be using this period that feels like nothing’s happening for your benefit. It might be a period where you can learn, a period where you can grow in patience. Maybe it’s period for you to build your own spiritual life and spend time in the word and in prayer. But no matter what period of life you’re in, busy or not, you can be assured that God is working for your good as he has over and over again. Amen.

Exodus 14, 1 Corinthians 10:13

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One of the most iconic scenes from the Old Testament has to be when Moses led the Children of Israel out of slavery in Egypt. The armies of Pharaoh were chasing after him, and soon they found themselves wedged up against the Red Sea. In front of them was a watery grave, and behind them the soldiers and chariots of Pharaoh ready to cut them to bits. It seems as if no human escape was possible. But God had a plan. He had Moses hold his staff over the water, and soon the entire Red Sea was split in half, and the Israelites were able to escape on dry land. (Exodus 14)

This is an excellent reminder of how God is willing to work for our good even in seemingly impossible situations, and is one of the big points that Saint Paul writes about in first Corinthians ten, verse 13.

No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. (1 Corinthians 10:13)

This may sound all well and good to us, but how often do we practice this in our lives? When our bank accounts low and the rent’s coming due, how often do we trust in our own strength, our own abilities to deal with these and other problems? And when things don’t work out like we want them to? How often do we complain to God? God, what’s going on? I thought you wouldn’t give me anything more than I can bear!

How do we make sense of what Paul says here? The way to understand this is to realize that on our own strength, we aren’t able to bear things on our own. Far too often, we put our trust in our own strength, or in our money, or in the people we know. And far too often, these things disappoint. The answer instead lies with God. God is the one who’s created us. He is the one who provides for us. And he is the one who will help us in difficult times. We know this to be true because he has helped us with our greatest problem, that of sin and death.

You see, none of us have lived up perfectly to God’s law, and we deserve nothing more than to be condemned by him. But God helped us out of this seemingly impossible situation. He sent his Son Jesus into the world to live the perfect life that we could not. What’s more, Jesus went to the cross and died on our behalf. And because of his perfect life and his innocent suffering and death, we’ve been reconciled with God. Death has tried to swallow up Jesus, but it could not contain him. And he was able to escape its jaws of the tomb on Easter Sunday, showing once and for all his total victory.

And Jesus is still with us today. Through His Word we read about what he has done for us, and that gives us the strength to endure our trials. It’s because we don’t find our strength in ourselves, but rather we find our strength in Christ. If God was willing to give his only Son to die for us, how much more is he willing to be with us in our problems? He encourages us to pray to him, to ask him for help. Now, it may be that the answer to our prayers may not come as fast as we want, or it may not be the answer that we were hoping for. But God promises that he is working all things for our good. Beside His Word, God also gives us people in our lives, resources, such as parents, pastors, family, friends, all of these we can lean on in difficult times. And with all of this, we can be certain that because Christ has solved the biggest problem of our salvation, he is also willing to be with us in all temptation and provide us a means of escape.

Exodus 16:11-12

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In high school and college, I worked at fast food restaurants. And if you want to tip on how to deal with service workers, being nice always helps. Someone’s a lot more likely to do something nice for you if you in turn, are nice to them.

In the book of Exodus, God’s people are journeying through the wilderness on their way to the Promised Land, and they run out of food. But instead of trusting in God and asking him nicely to provide, they start to grumble and complain. This seems ridiculous. They’ve seen the miracles God has done for them. Why don’t they get it? But so often we fall into that same exact trap, but with things that are far more petty. We often struggle with contentment. There’s always a new toy to buy, another purchase to ponder, an investment or retirement account to worry about. We fall into that same exact attitude of why don’t I have what I want? Why isn’t God giving me what I want?

Although God had a reason to punish the Israelites and us, instead he chooses to provide for his people. We read from Exodus 16, verses 11 and 12.

The Lord spoke to Moses: “I have heard the grumbling of the Israelites. Say to them, ‘At evening you will eat meat, and in the morning you will eat bread until you are full. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God.’” (Exodus 16:11-12)

Who does this? Who is nice to people who complain against them? God is. Because he regards his promises higher than the sins of his people. God promised to provide for the Israelites, and he did so miraculously by sending them flocks of quail and making bread appear on the ground. God has promised to provide for us also. And he will do so as well.

But these physical blessings only make sense in the larger, more important context. God provides for us not just physically, but spiritually. When we were held in slavery by sin and death, Christ came to set us free by his death on the cross. Jesus is now leading us through the wilderness of this life into the promised land of the life to come. God provides for our bodies because he has already rescued our souls from sin, death, and hell. The physical blessings only make sense within the larger context. God provides for his people because he loves them and cares for them and forgives them. Amen.

(This is part two of a four part series. The rest of the parts will be collected on our Lord of the Sabbath page after they are posted.)

Exodus 20:9-11, Psalm 16:9b-10

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Last week we started talking about Jesus as the Lord of the Sabbath. Today I want to unpack the second major rest theme in the Bible with you. We find this theme thousands of years after the creation, when in the book of Exodus, after God has freed the Israelites from bondage in Egypt, he’s leading them through the wilderness where he commands that for six days they are to labor. But on the seventh day, that is to be a day of sacred rest. (Exodus 20:9-11) A day where they are to do no work at all, there to be perfectly still so that they can have a time of sacred assembly to hear God’s Holy Word.

Now, how good are you at holding still? It’s kind of a fun experiment to have with toddlers, actually. Tell them to hold still. And the more they think about holding still, the more and more they fidget. Or maybe if you’ve been carted into an MRI before and had to sit in that tunnel, and the last thing the operator always tells you is hold still. And it’s the moment that they say that, that all of a sudden you’re so consciously aware of that itch and it just drives you nuts. We’re not very good at holding still, are we?

Spiritually speaking, we can’t hold still. God says, be still. Let me do all the work. Let me do all the labor and heavy lifting. But our human reason, our human logic says, no, no, no, no, God, I’ve got to do something. I got to contribute. It’s got to be my faith or my faithfulness, or my good works that somehow contribute to me being saved. Or God says be still. Just trust in me. And you know what? The more I think about holding still, the more I think about I gotta trust in God. I gotta trust in God. The more I worry. I’ll even start to worry about my own faith. Whether or not my faith is trusting enough in God. We can’t hold still. That’s why Jesus is your Lord of the Sabbath. He’s the Lord of holding perfectly still. In fact, we see Jesus perfect trust in God, quoted in Psalm 16 When Jesus says,

My body also will rest secure, because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead, nor will you let your faithful one see decay. (Psalm 16:9b-10)

Jesus went into death. He died in perfect trust, trusting himself into his father’s hands. And the most beautiful moment after Jesus death is when Jesus fulfilled all of those commandments from Exodus by holding perfectly still as his body laid in the tomb on the day we call Holy Saturday. Jesus did no work. He didn’t even lift a finger. You see, for you and me, we can never have perfect trust in God. But what we can do is we can run to Jesus, who is our perfect trust, our perfect stillness, our perfect rest. And for all the times I’m lying awake at night and all the times I’m troubled, I run to Jesus and rest in his perfect stillness Amen.

Exodus 17:8-13

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Have you ever tried holding your hands up for a long time? Just holding them up just like this. Maybe holding up something? How long can you hold it? Five minutes? Ten minutes? 15? Maybe you’re strong. Maybe you could hold them up long. But soon enough, your arm started to get tired. And your hands start dropping.

The Israelites were battling against the Amalekites. And as long as Moses held up his hands, they were winning the battle. But, you know, his hands got tired, his arms started to droop just a little bit. And they started losing. And so Aaron and Hur came and they held up his hands. They pushed on his arms so that his hands could be still raised. And they won the battle because Aaron and Hur were holding up Moses hands during that battle. And of course, God was behind that battle. God was the reason they won. But look at the support that Aaron and Hur gave to Moses. They supported him as he held up his hands.

We might think our life of faith we can walk it all on our own, that we don’t need other people to help hold up our hands and to keep us going every day. And yet, when our hands get weary and struggles come into our life, they start to droop and we can’t keep them up. They’re hard to keep going every single day. And yes, God remains with us every single day. God does help us and he is with us and remains with us every single day of our life. And yet he also sends people like Aaron and Hur to help us. To hold up our hands, to support us every single day.

When we grow weary, there they are with words of comfort. Fellow Christians who love us and care for us. They encourage us, comfort us. Every single day we gather for worship or with other Christians. We get that encouragement and comfort. We’re holding each other up. When we talk with someone we love and care about and we hear what’s on their minds and we just listen and respond with promises of God. There we are holding up each other’s hands too.

What a blessing it is to have people like Aaron and Hur in our life that God sends into our life to bless us and to support us and encourage us every single day. Amen.

Exodus 17:6

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When you go to your kitchen faucet and you turn it on, what do you expect to happen? Do you expect water to come running out of that faucet? When you go to the store, do you expect to find groceries and food on the shelves? When you come to the table for a meal? Do you expect food to be there in the table that someone has so wondrously and graciously made for you?

The answer to all that is yes. We expect those things, we often take them for granted. But God’s people, well they couldn’t go to the faucet as they’re wandering in the desert. They couldn’t just go to the store and find food. And at one point they went and there was no water. And they grumbled and complained at Moses. And they were near rebellion against Moses because they were thirsty. So, so thirsty in the desert. So Moses went to God and God had an answer for Moses. Exodus chapter 17, verse six. God says to Moses,

Watch me. I will stand there in front of you on the Rock and Horeb. You are to strike the rock. Water will come out of it and the people will drink. (Exodus 17:6)

And so that’s what Moses did. He went to the rock, took his staff and struck the rock and water flowed out like a faucet. If we have all those things, the water from the faucet, the food and the grocery store, the food, our table, and all of a sudden they were gone. Would we complain like the Israelites? Would we grumble against God as if he wasn’t really providing for us at all?

What God said to Moses he says to us too. To watch him and watch him and he will provide. Just watch and see how God who created the world and preserves the world, he still provides for you and for me. He provides for all that we need, even if it doesn’t look like it. He’s doing a very good job of that. We know God keeps his promises. And we know God can and he does care for us every day. Just look at the Son he sent into the world, the Son he sent to die on the cross for you and for me. And if he’s done that, then certainly he will continue to care for us and provide for all our needs. Amen.

Exodus 14:11

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Do you like to sing? I don’t know about you, but I love to sing and seem like there’s special times of the year when maybe the singing it’s ratcheted up a little more. Christmas time, right? We enjoy singing those Christmas carols. Silent Night, Joy to the world, all in response to our Savior’s birth.

At Easter time, we celebrate our living Lord who was raised from the dead. And we begin our Easter worship with that wonderous hymn, Jesus Christ is Risen Today. Alleluia, we sing.

God’s people had crossed the Red Sea. Moses had led them across. God had saved them from the Egyptian. These saved them from slavery. And Moses and Miriam responded to that saving by singing. And we have an Exodus 15, a song of praise from Moses and Miriam as they sang in Thanksgiving to God. I encourage you to read the whole song, but I want you to think today about these verses. Verse 11,

Lord, who is like you among the gods who is like you, glorious and holiness, awesome in praise, working wonders. (Exodus 14:11)

Is there any God more awesome than God? Is there anyone else who has saved you from your sins? Is there anyone else who has loved you so unconditionally that even though you mess up every single day, he still loves you and he sent his only Son to save you? Is there a more awesome God than we have?

The God of our salvation. The God who works wonders for you. And for me. No other God we could ever cook up in our minds and worship in our our hearts and and serve with our hands. No other God compares. God is awesome. God is the awesome God. Working wonders, and he is worthy of all our praise. Every single day. The God of our salvation. Amen.

Exodus 14:13-14

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Do you ever just feel like you’re trapped? Like life just is closing in on you, on both sides and you see no way out. Well, the Israelites felt trapped, too.

After being freed from slavery, God had led them, he led them all the way to the Red Sea, and they couldn’t go any further because the Red Sea was right there. They couldn’t cross it. They were okay until they saw Pharaoh’s army coming from behind. And there they were, coming to take them back into slavery and they were trapped. The Red Sea on one side, Pharaoh’s army and the other nowhere to turn. And so they panicked. They were afraid. What should we do? Maybe we should go back to Egypt. It was better there than dying out here. And yet Moses encouraged them to just be quiet, to just be still and wait patiently, he says. This from Exodus 14.

“Do not be afraid. Stand firm, and see the salvation from the Lord, which he will perform for you today. For the Egyptians you see today, you will never see again. The Lord will fight for you. You must wait quietly.” (Exodus 14:13-14)

The Israelites had nothing to fear. God was going to fight for them. God was going to part the Red Sea. And that’s what He did. He provided that path through so they could walk through and dry ground. And then, and then God fought for them again as he went and confused the army of Pharaoh. And eventually that army was washed away in the sea.

We feel trapped in our life sometimes. On one side, we see our sins, the sea of our sins. It’s there. We can’t go anywhere. We know we can’t save ourselves. We can’t cross over past them. The guilt weighs upon our hearts. And then behind us, we see the struggles, the struggles of this world that we endure, the hardships, the challenges of our life that sin throws at us every single day. And we feel trapped. We panic. We’re afraid.

But what Moses said to the Israelites, he says to us too. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid. The Lord will fight for you. And you know he has. When you look at that sea of our sins, you know that the cross of Jesus there he was fighting for you, to save you to part that sea and provide a way to salvation just for you. And we know that he will continue to fight for you every single day as he helps us through all the struggles, the challenges, the hardships that we endure in this life. And so he says to us, be still. Wait quietly. The Lord will fight for you. Amen.