The Origins of God's People
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
This morning, I wanted to introduce our Fall series of messages just to get us prepared and hopefully excited about what is to come. In September, we will be looking at the book of Exodus from the perspective of how God created a people for Himself. And you might be asking yourself, why the book of Exodus? Besides being arguably the most famous book of the Old Testament and having a number of great movies made about the life of Moses, many of the truths and principles that we find in this ancient text have served as the foundations of western civilization for thousands of years. Just from a cursory overview, the idea of monotheism finds its roots squarely in this book and if you have ever played the classic computer game, Civilization, that is a critical turning point in the history of man. Monotheism allows large societies to share one view of the truth and to agree to live by a common set of ethics and values without the heavy hand of kings and emperors. This is actually what sets modern civilization apart from every other civilization that has come before it, rule by the people for the people. It is no coincidence that everywhere Christianity has gone, the rule of monarchs is eventually dethroned. Why? Because men and women realize they too are the children of God and have access to the same divine truth and are able to rule themselves by these God-given truths. But the problem is, democracy will ultimately fail if no one can agree on what constitutes truth. We will eventually turn from a society that is governed by truth to one that is governed by power. In essence, the group that is most powerful will be able to dictate their truth. Democracy cannot be sustained without a monotheistic view of the world. As such, monotheism is not some religious preference, it creates a different view of reality or what anthropologists call a worldview. Over the course of the Fall, we’ll look more in depth at the worldview that God desires to create in His people. A view of reality that begins and ends with the One God who is the sole giver of life, liberty, and truth. But before we tackle these topics, it’s important to look at the origins of God’s people, to see where we began and why we need this one God more than ever.
Bible Passage:
Bible Passage:
These are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob, each with his household: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin, Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher. All the descendants of Jacob were seventy persons; Joseph was already in Egypt. Then Joseph died, and all his brothers and all that generation. But the people of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them.
Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. And he said to his people, “Behold, the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and, if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.” Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens. They built for Pharaoh store cities, Pithom and Raamses. But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad. And the Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel. So they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves and made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and brick, and in all kinds of work in the field. In all their work they ruthlessly made them work as slaves.
There are just two main points I want to cover today:
We are more enslaved to the world than we realize
We are more dangerous to the world than we realize
Egypt as a spiritual symbol is a very interesting study in and of itself because it is both a place of refuge and oppression, if that were possible. Joseph, the one who was largely responsible for bringing everyone to Egypt, was first a slave in the house of Potiphar, then imprisoned for years, but ultimately he rose to be second in power to Pharoah himself. Then for many years, the families of Israel enjoyed a peaceful life in Egypt, until a new king arose, who didn’t know Joseph and didn’t understand the history and the blessings that come with living in peace with God’s people, and this Pharoah began to oppress them. And we see this paradoxical relationship with Egypt very clearly later in the book of Exodus because even as God is freeing the Israelites from the heavy hand of oppression, faced with the very first obstacle to their freedom, they revolt and clamor to go back to the old way of living in Egypt. If you remember, pinned against the Red Sea and with Pharoah’s chariots bearing down on them, this is the complaint they raise up against Moses:
They said to Moses, “Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us in bringing us out of Egypt? Is not this what we said to you in Egypt: ‘Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.”
Give me freedom or give me death is a nice romantic notion, one that might stir your heart as you watch Braveheart or Hamilton in the safety of your theatre seat but like these Israelites, when push comes to shove, most people will readily accept the known oppression of the world rather than the freedom that comes as you follow God into the unknown wilderness. True freedom often means following God into the unknown which can seem like a frightening proposition for many people. In so many different ways, we are more enslaved to the world than we realize which seems hard to believe since we live in what is known as the land of freedom. But let’s consider what Jesus tells the Jews who in the same way seem incredulous at the thought that they are not as free as they think.
As he was saying these things, many believed in him.
So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?”
Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.
You’ll notice here that Jesus is talking to those who at least claim some level of belief in Him but He makes the distinction between those who believe and those who are truly his disciples. Those two things are not actually synonymous. You can believe a great many things about Jesus and still not be His disciple because the main characteristic of those who are genuine, authentic followers of Christ is the ability to abide in His word so that the truth of His teaching sets you free, free from the power of sin, free from lies of the enemy, and free from the deceptive allure of this world. (Pastor David from Taiwan gave a great illustration of what spiritual freedom looks like at the AMI mission’s conference.) And here is a question that we all have to ask ourselves honestly, when is the last time the Word of God caused me to feel more free, less enslaved by bad habits and negative thoughts, filled with a sense of purpose, and really enjoying the fullness of life. If you have never experienced what I am describing or have not experienced it in some time, chances are you are more enslaved than you realize. And just like these Jews, you may recoil at that thought because you have forgotten where you have come from.
It’s odd that these Jews forgot one of the most salient points from their history which was their enslavement at the hands of Pharaoh and even as their talking with Jesus, they find themselves under the oppression of the Roman empire. They are the furthest thing from being truly free but instead of pointing out these obvious facts, Jesus chooses to define bondage at a much higher plane. He begins to point them to the bondage of the human spirit. Just because you are physically free does not mean that there is a freedom in your spirit. As Jesus teaches: anyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The presence of habitual sin in our lives, the inability to shake long held patterns of negative thoughts and emotions is a warning to each of us that there is a cruel and unrelenting master that will not let you go to follow God without a fight.
For these reason, Egypt has always symbolized the believers tenuous relationship with the world. Even in the early years of Jesus’ childhood, you can see this paradox being played out.
And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, “Out of Egypt I called my son.”
From an earthly sense, Mary and Joseph did what they needed to in order to protect their newborn child but when the time came for Jesus to fulfill the divine purpose for which He was born, God the Father called His Son out of Egypt. In the same way, the world sometimes provides us refuge but you also need to know when God is calling you out of the world and not fall for the subtle traps and the temptation to remain in the place of your bondage. After all you cannot serve two masters, its either God or mammon, meaning the evil influence of the world. And sadly, what became apparent to me over the past few years is that Christians get so comfortable with the world that we live in and we have become apathetic or unconcerned or even to cooperate with the power it has over us. We get so satiated by the good things that it has to offer that we forsake the true blessings of God. That’s a problem that the Israelites continued to have over and over again. Whenever things got a little difficult in their pursuit of freedom, they longed for the good old days in Egypt.
We remember the fish we ate in Egypt that cost nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. But now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at.”
Especially in the place that is as hedonistic as the Bay Area, with every pleasure available at the drop of a dime, it’s so easy to get sidetracked by our pursuit of the good things of this life that we forgot that God has blessings for us that the world knows nothing of. And this brings us to the second point which is we are more dangerous to the world than we realize. In the passage from Exodus, we read that Pharoah felt threatened by the growing number of Israelites and that they were becoming a formidable political threat.
Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and, if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.”
The Isaelites were certainly a threat to Egypt but not in a way that Pharoah could have ever imagined. God had a plan for His people and it wasn’t the hostile takeover of a one country, even the most powerful nation in the world at that time. That is still too small and too petty for the living God. In the book of Genesis, we read the true purpose for why God created a nation for Himself and it comes through this promise that was given to Abraham.
I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.”
The greater purpose for the existence of the nation of Israel was so that they would be a blessing to the world. But what we need to catch here is how the blessings of God are channeled through Israel to the surrounding nations. It’s not by befriending them or having great intercultural relationships. No! God tells Abraham, your offspring will bless the nations by possessing the gates of their enemies. That doesn’t sound very friendly nor diplomatic but that isn’t they way God’s blessings work. Possessing the gates of your enemy is exactly what it sounds like. As a nation and as a people, you are the one in control of what goes in and what goes out through your borders. Meaning you are a nation that is set apart from the influence (political, cultural, religious, philosophical) of the enemy nations around you. The task that was given to the Israelites as they left Egypt and repeated over and over again in the Old Testament was “don’t be like the other nations, don’t follow their worship practices, don’t take their system of government, don’t adopt their ethics and morals”.
“When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations.
Why, if they became like these nations, they can be never be salt and light. As you set yourself apart and only as you set yourself apart from the world, can you hope to become a channel of God’s blessings. Holiness is not just a matter of personal piety, it is the appointed way for God to release His blessing to those around you and to influence a society. And yet we along with the Israelites, fail this test over and over and over again and as we fail, we not only rob ourselves of God’s blessing, we actually fail to fulfill God’s mission of blessing the world. So many Christians wrongly assume that being set apart from the world is exclusionary, judgmental, intolerant, unloving, and even immoral. After all, what right do we have to look at the practices of those around us and consider them to be detestable in the eyes of God? But what we fail to recognize is the simple fact that what is destestable in the eyes of God is the very thing that keeps people from receiving the manifold blessings of God in their lives. If we are unwilling or unable to show the world what it looks like to live in the blessings of God, who will? The answer is no one.
In the 1970’s Dean Kelley, who was an important leader in the mainline churches, meaning those denominations that began to take a more liberal view of Christianity, wrote a very telling book called “Why Conservative Churches are Growing” largely in reaction to the decline of these mainline churches. And he astutely gave the 4 main factors for religion to flourish:
Those who are serious about their faith:
1. Do not confuse it with other beliefs/loyalties/practices, or mingle them together indiscriminately, or pretend they are alike, of equal merit, or mutually compatible if they are not.
2. Make high demands of those admitted to the organization … and do not include or allow to continue within it those who are not fully committed to it.
3. Do not consent to, encourage, or indulge any violations of its standards or belief or behavior by its professed adherents.
4. Do not keep silent about it [your faith], apologize for it, or let it be treated as though it made no difference, or should make no difference, in their behavior…
What Kelley nailed on the dot and what the progressive churches still have not learned is that in order for faith to flourish in a society and to be a conduit for God’s blessing, those in the faith have to be set apart. And these 4 things that he outlines is a good starting point of what it means to be set apart in our modern context.
Conclusion
Conclusion
But far more important than what a liberal Christian has to teach us is what Jesus taught. Near the end of his time with the disciples, Jesus gives us his seminal teaching on how we were meant to live in this world.
They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.
In the very next chapter when Pontius Pilate asks Jesus whether or not He is a king and where His kingdom is located, this is the answer that is given:
Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.”
Once you profess yourself to be a Christian, your priorities, values, your allegiance, and the way you look at the world has to be tied to a kingdom that is not of this world. And this fundamental struggle that we have as God’s people has not changed since the days of the Exodus but as the apostle Peter reminds us:
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
Brothers and sisters remember where you came from. We were all once enslaved to the darkness of sin but through Christ, we are now free to live in the marvelous light of God! My wife will tell you that I have never been the best rule follower. Maybe becasue I grew up here in the Bay Area, I considered following the law to be optional. Then I became a Christian, moved back here and saw this place and saw the world through spiritual eyes. In what I considered, at the time, to be the freest city in the freest society in the history of humanity, people were actually enslaved by their freedom. Because at the end of the day, freedom without boundaries is not freedom, it’s actually lawlessness. And when people are without a law they become a law unto themselves and in that condition, they are utterly bound by their sin, their pride, and every philosophical, ethical, and religious delusion that the prince of this world has to offer. And the worst thing is you think you are free when in reality, you are in utter bondage. And I also realized that the solution to lawlessness isn’t living by a bunch of religious or ethical standards because that too is of this world. In fact the only way to live free and to be free indeed, is to live like, to love, and to think like the one, the only one, who is not of this world.