Sunday Service

Dr. Hal West
The Every Member Church  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented   •  47:32
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The Altar of Celebration Exodus 17:8-16 INTRODUCTION: Well, college football is over, but we’re in the midst of the NFL playoffs that will determine who plays in the super-hyped Super Bowl. In the end, when the clock on the jumbo-tran is double zeroes, only one team, one city, and one fan base will be celebrating. And speaking of celebrations, did you know that the NFL has a rule on excessive celebrations after a touchdown? The rule prohibits excessive acts of celebration that involves the goalposts, or dancing moves that appear lewd, violent gestures, or prolonged celebrations that delay the game. I bring that up to say this: How we celebrate our victories says a lot about what’s in our hearts. This morning we’re going to be looking at what one man did following a great victory for his people following a bloody battle with a formidable foe – He built an altar and worship God. If you’ve been with us the last several weeks you know that we’ve been looking at what the Scripture teaches us about Building Altars, which is the act and attitude of true worship, and this morning we’re going to look at The Altar of Celebration. This was the altar that Moses built after the Israelites defeated the Amalekites at Rephidim as he led them toward the Promised Land. Let’s look at the text. READ EXODUS 17:8-13. Let’s begin by looking at: THE BATTLE WITH THE AMALEKITES: The First thing we notice is that the Amalekites attacked the Israelites. • The Israelites weren’t looking for trouble. They weren’t looking for a fight. They were merely on their way to their destination, and the Amalekites instigated the battle. The Israelites had no choice but to fight back. • Who was this new enemy – the Amalekites? Actually, they were a distant kin to the Israelites, but had become a large group of militant thugs who marauded around the Sinai Peninsular, ambushing and plundering others as a way of life. And when they saw the Israelites moving through the area, they saw an easy target and attacked them unsuspectingly. • And you know the same thing happens to us on our journey though life. We get blindsided by an enemy in a sudden and surprise attack, and it can be devastating. Sometimes we know who the enemy is, and we go on the offensive. But sometimes we’re just trying to make it to our destination, and an enemy attacked us without provocation, particularly in the spiritual realm. • Listen. Satan and his forces of evil are like these Amalekites, always on the prowl, always ready to plunder, always intent to kill, steal, and destroy, and always ready to divide and conquer the people of God. That’s what the enemy does, and he’s especially good at it. • Evil is always opportunistic in this way. Satan is always looking for an unsuspecting prey to devour, always looking for a weakness, a chink in our armor, a crack in the door that he can exploit. He comes in and plunders our churches, our homes, our marriages, and our relationships, stealing our precious resources in the Christian life. • That exactly why the Scripture over and over again exhorts us to be watchful, careful, alert, and prepared. It’s why Paul tells us to be strong in the Lord and his mighty power and to put on the whole armor of God so that we can withstand the flaming arrows of the evil one, so that when the battle is over we’re still standing. And this is the second lesson we learn from this pivotal battle with the Amalekites: It teaches us that we have a power and resources the enemy doesn’t have. • In human terms there’s no doubt that the Amalekites were the far superior force. Warfare was their way of life. They lived to fight and fought to live. Scholars tell us that t was the Amalekites who domesticated the camel and used them like a Calvary uses horses. They attacked with speed and with power. They invented Desert Storm! • The Israelites were little more than ex-slaves, untrained in warfare, and weary from traveling, but they had something – they had Someone – the Amalekites didn’t have. In almost every way they were no match for the Amalekites, except for this one thing – They had El-Shaddai – God Almighty -the Presence, Power, and the Promises of God with them. And this made them no match with the Israelites. • This superior asset was manifested in the Moses’ staff – the rod of God. This is the same staff that Moses threw down at Pharaoh’s feet and turned into a snake; the same one he used to strike the Nile and turn it red; the same rod he used in the first part of this chapter to strike the rock and out gushed fresh water for the people to drink. • So when the Amalekites attacked, Moses instructed Joshua to lead his fighting men into a counter attack, and Moses goes up on a hill overlooking the battlefield where he could both see and be seen. And as the battle continued, Moses held up the rod toward heaven, and this battle that should have been over in an hour, lasted all day, because as long as Moses kept the rod lifted up, the Israelites took control of the battle. But when he lowered the rod, the Amalekites took control. And Joshua and his men saw all this, so to keep his rod uplifted, Aaron and Hur – one on either side – helped keep his arms lifted up with his rod. Do you think there might be a lesson or two here for the Israelite Pilgrims and for Christian Pilgrims as well? Three Lessons: 1. Lesson One: We can’t let our circumstances define or determine our faith. Being attacked doesn’t mean that God is not with us. Just before this great battle, the Israelites camped at Rephidim, but that were out of fresh water and became angry at Moses and questioned whether or not Gd was really with them. After all that God had done, and after all the ways God had demonstrated his power and faithfulness, they let their circumstances define and determine their faith. Listen. We have to be careful not to fall into that same trap, that same snare that Satan sets for us, that diminishes our faith, and we start believing that God isn’t with us when we face the trials and sufferings and battles of life. No! The Presence, Power, and Promises of God stand firm. It’s up to us to stand firm in that faith in his unfailing love, no matter what our circumstances might suggest. 2. Lesson Two: It takes all of us working together to defeat the enemy. It took a man like Joshua, a great leader of men, to lead them into battle against a superior foe. It took a man like Moses – a man of great faith – to lift up the rod of God toward heaven. It took men like Aaron and Hur to come to their leader’s aid and hold up his arms all day long. Listen. No leader can lead alone, especially spiritual leaders. I don’t want you to forget this: God will call some of you to be an Aaron and a Hur – both men and women who will be intercessors and encouragers and aides to him because his arms are going to get tired. It takes everybody doing his part. 3. Lesson Three: We must never forget that we are totally dependent on God for the victory. The Israelites didn’t stand a chance without God, and neither do we. The sooner we learn that lesson and apply it to our lives the better. It doesn’t mean that we are mere mindless, hapless pawns in this thing called life. We’re not pawns caught in the crossfire. Not at all. We’re partners with God. Real men and women fighting real battles; real men and women contending for the faith in prayer; real people who are empowered by a real God to overcome the very real enemy of our souls because of this: He has already won the victory through the life, death. And resurrection of Jesus, our Lord. What does Paul say about this? He says, “Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!” He says, “We are more than conquerors through him who loved us!” So, then, what do the victors do? They celebrate, right? That’s what Moses did. But look how he celebrated. He worshiped the Lord. He built: AN ALTAR OF CELEBRATION: READ EXODUS 17:15-16. After the battle was over, there was a victory celebration – a great celebration of great joy. But it wasn’t a man-centered celebration. There wasn’t a ticker-tape parade down Main Street. Moses didn’t pin a shiny medal on Joshua and the fighting men. He didn’t give out trophies to Aaron and Hur for being the co-MVP’s. They weren’t invited to the White House and served fast food. No. Moses led the people in a God-centered celebration. He built an altar – the Altar of Celebration, and he led the people in worship. He called that altar, Jehovah Nissi, which means the Lord is My Banner. The word banner here means signal pole. It wasn’t a flag like we think of a banner, but a pole used by the commander in the field to signal his troops in a certain way and encourage his troops as he lifted it up. And this is the picture of the rod of God that Moses kept lifted up toward heaven. And they all knew that is was God who had given them this great victory over the Amalekites. So it was the Lord who was their Banner, their Signal Pole, and he was the reason they could celebrate. RESPONSE: Remember, as I said earlier, how we celebrate our victories, reveals what’s in our hearts. But let me add this: How we worship reveals a lot about how we have fought our battles. Let me say it again. When we come to a place of worship and build our altars, whether it’s at home in our private worship, or here at the church in our corporate worship, do we build these altars in the spirit of rejoicing and the attitude of joyfulness and celebration? Do we enter into his presence with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise? See, here’s the thing. We get so caught up in the daily battles of life, we forget that God has already won the victory for us in Christ. So we limp into Sunday morning, so wounded and weary, so broken and bewildered, so grieved and hurt, and so angry at God – Yes, angry at God. Just like the Israelites at Rephidim – angry at God because they were thirsty and uncomfortable and miserable. Angry at God because they were on this difficult journey in the land of their enemies. I’m just going to say it: Some of the angriest people I have known are church going people - altar-building people, but they build altars without celebration, without joy, without shouts of victory. Listen, my dear friends. We need to learn how to build an altar of celebration to our Lord. We need to remember that the Lord is our Banner, that the Lord Jesus has won the victory, and we are more than conquerors through Jesus Christ our Lord. What’s God saying to you this morning, and how will you respond?
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