Bible Overview 3 Preached at 8.15, C@10, and C@6 on 15 th May 2016 Exodus Intro I did warn when we started the series that there would likely be some tests! So we ve begun with the foundations of the Bible s story. What s the very first foundation? (Creation). How does creation help us understand the big picture of the Bible? (God creates out of nothing by speaking He is lord/ruler of HIS very good world People created in his image to share his rule Therefore, relationship between people and God always based on faith in his word). Second foundation? (Fall). How does it inform our understanding of the Bible? (Defines sin mistrust of God mankind grasping at God s right as creator and ruler to define what s good and what s evil So the good order God made people under God is turned upside down people want to call the shots God s anger and judgment is the result. Third foundation? (Pledge) God remains committed to his creation despite sin He chooses one man Abraham and promises to reverse the curse of sin and restore the situation of blessing though his descendants. Abraham to Egypt Now, because this is an overview we re not covering all the history of the Bible. So, after God s pledge to Abraham in Genesis 12, we fly over the remaining 37 chapters of Genesis. In those chapters is the story of God beginning to fulfil his pledge. Abraham does indeed have many descendants. His son, Isaac and his wife Rebekah had twin boys, Jacob and Esau. 1
The story follows Jacob s family line. God changes Jacob s name to Israel and he becomes the father of twelve sons, who are the fathers of the twelve tribes of Israel. And through a series of events God brings these promised descendants of Abraham to settle in the land of Egypt. And as the second book of the Bible begins, these Israelites really have become great in number, just as God had promised Abraham. They became so numerous that the Pharaoh or king of Egypt at that time subjected them to slavery so that they wouldn t become a threat to him or his people. Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died, but the Israelites were fruitful and multiplied greatly and became exceedingly numerous, so that the land was filled with them. (Exodus 1:6 7 NIV) Then a new king, who did not know about Joseph, came to power in Egypt. Look, he said to his people, the Israelites have become much too numerous for us. Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country. (Exodus 1:8 10 NIV) So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh. But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites and worked them ruthlessly. (Exodus 1:11 13 NIV) The Exodus God created a very good world. People destroy the good when they try to take God s place. God s judgment on their sin means they will need to be saved if the good is to be restored. And God has made a pledge or promise to restore blessing in the place of the curse of his judgment through the descendants of Abraham. But here they are in slavery as foreigners in a land not their own. 2
Friends, this is the point I was making at the beginning of this series that the story of salvation is a story that unfolds through the history of the Bible. The Bible isn t just a collection of documents that all have something to teach us. God reveals himself, his plan and purposes as the story unfolds. The fact that things haven t gone as we might have expected has something to teach us in itself. And that is that there will have to be a powerful intervention from God to do the impossible if Abraham s descendants are going to be the people who will bring God s blessing to the world. Moses and The Exodus And so we come to the next foundation for understanding the Bible the exodus. Enter the next major character in the story of salvation Moses. What do we know about Moses beginnings? (Sunday School, etc) Israelite Born at time Pharaoh was ordering all baby boy Israelites killed Put in a basket and pushed out into the Nile Taken in by Pharaoh s daughter and raised in Pharaoh s household God chooses the unlikely to do the impossible. This is the pattern of God s salvation throughout the Bible. We see it in the book of Judges we see it in the story of David And the pattern teaches us how to understand the gospel of Jesus the unlikely (humanly speaking) does the impossible. In the passage we had from Exodus 6 God: Remembers his covenant pledge to Abraham (not that he forgot, but affirms he hasn t forgotten) promises to free them from their slavery, and redeem them. 3
The way he will do it is through mighty acts of judgment against the Egyptians. And the reason God will do all this is so that Israel will be his people, and that he will be their God. Salvation s purpose is to bring about the situation before the fall people under God, not over him. And, they ll live in the place where they ll enjoy his blessing. The account of the exodus which we re not going to go through the details of, but I encourage you to read at home is God doing all of this. The plagues he inflicts on the Egyptians are both his judgment on them and the means by which he sets the Israelites free. Their slavery is ended as their enemies are convincingly defeated. In the greatness of your majesty you threw down those who opposed you. You unleashed your burning anger; it consumed them like stubble. By the blast of your nostrils the waters piled up. The surging waters stood firm like a wall; the deep waters congealed in the heart of the sea. The enemy boasted, I will pursue, I will overtake them. I will divide the spoils; I will gorge myself on them. I will draw my sword and my hand will destroy them. But you blew with your breath, and the sea covered them. They sank like lead in the mighty waters. (Exodus 15:6 10 NIV) God does the impossible to save. And he does it to restore his good plan for life in his world 4
In the third month after the Israelites left Egypt on the very day they came to the Desert of Sinai. After they set out from Rephidim, they entered the Desert of Sinai, and Israel camped there in the desert in front of the mountain. Then Moses went up to God, and the LORD called to him from the mountain and said, This is what you are to say to the house of Jacob and what you are to tell the people of Israel: You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles wings and brought you to myself. Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. (Exodus 19:1 6 NIV) People, in right relationship with God as his people. Let s just reflect on how the exodus helps us understand the unfolding story of the Bible Firstly, people are saved from something slavery. God doesn t just say to Israel come on, I ve got a nice place for you to live where I m going to make life great for you. Life in a world dominated by sinful people is ultimately unbearable slavery. Secondly, people are saved to something that is to be people who belong to God in a way that the rest of humanity doesn t. Not that all people don t belong to God The difference is that the people he saves acknowledge his God-ship over them the way God intended in the beginning. Thirdly, salvation is achieved by God alone through the defeat of his enemies who persecute those who he has chosen. As he judges his enemies he redeems, or takes back, what rightfully belongs to him. 5
The Exodus and Us I have very limited drawing skills! If I didn t have a camera when we went away on holiday there s no way I could draw you a picture of some of the great things we saw. Stick figures wouldn t do justice to sunsets over the Indian Ocean or how cute the little Quokka who came and sat under our table on Rottnest Island was. But in the exodus God has drawn us a picture of his salvation. In Luke 9:31, where Moses and Elijah are speaking with Jesus on the mountain where he is transfigured it says: Two men, Moses and Elijah, appeared in glorious splendor, talking with Jesus. They spoke about his departure, which he was about to bring to fulfillment at Jerusalem (Luke 9:30 31 NIV) The word translated departure is actually exodus! God s great act of salvation in the exodus is a picture of the even greater salvation that he will bring about at the cross! So understanding the exodus enlarges and fills out our understanding of what Jesus did on the cross, and what the cross means for people who have been saved through faith in him. Jesus death on the cross is a new exodus. His death has brought freedom from slavery for the people God has chosen. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin (Romans 6:6 NIV) Jesus exodus was to bring us out from under the yoke of slavery to sin. We don t understand salvation unless we see that living in rebellion to God is slavery. If we re not living under God s good rule, we re living under the harsh, oppressive rule of sin. 6
We re slaves who are serving the devil s purpose which is to keep us permanently from the God who created us as Pharaoh was trying to do with the Israelites. If we don t see our lives without God as slavery to sin and death, we won t rightly value our salvation. And we ll see sin as something we can deal with and keep under control, instead of slavery that we need God to rescue us from. Secondly, the exodus shows us that our slavery to sin and death was brought to an end with Jesus exodus at the cross, just like the slavery of the Israelites was ended. Our old slave-masters, sin and death, still exist in this world like the Egyptians still existed after the exodus but they are no longer our masters. Therefore sin is not to be obeyed or pandered to. Thirdly, God saves through judgment. God s judgment falls on his enemies in the same act in which he shows mercy to those he has chosen. And that s what happened on the cross with the amazing addition that the enemies were among those who are shown mercy, and that God took the judgment that they that we deserve on himself in Jesus. And like the Israelites, everyone who has been shown that mercy has been carried to God, as if on eagles wings, to be his treasured possession, and for him to be their God. In the great exodus of Jesus death on the cross, we have been redeemed to be God s possession. We ve been pulled out of the slavery we could never get out of ourselves so that we could be restored to be what God created us to be people who belong to him to live for him and bear his image. 7
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. (1 Peter 2:9 10 NIV) This is the final point for today. God hasn t done such a mighty thing so that we can be our own person. We have been redeemed bought back by our true owner to be his and to live for him under his rule. And we, together, are his people which is why being together at church is so important. God saved us and brought us to himself to gather together in his presence as his people. And when we go out into his world, we go out, not to do our own thing till next Sunday, but to declare his praises by speaking to everyone about his great exodus the death of Jesus for us. 8