The Bible s Big Story Part Three: God Sees Our Suffering Outline: 1. God s one-way (unconditional) covenant with Abram is the foundation for the Bible story. 2. God s covenant doesn t guarantee a problem free life. It guarantees that God will walk with you in your problems. 3. We learn about God s heart in Exodus 3: God sees our misery God hears our cry God knows our suffering God comes down to bring us up. 4. God creates a second covenant with Moses at Mt. Sinai (Ten Commandments) This is a two-way (conditional) covenant. 5. God gives Moses a detailed plan for his Presence to go with them (The Ark). 6. Joshua leads the people into the Promised Land after wandering for 40 years in the Wilderness of disobedience. Before we get into my teaching, I want to take a minute to pray for Emilie. If you are new here, Emilie is our new worship leader. She just took over for Pastor Sten who went to Hudson to start a new church. I m so happy to have Emilie with us. She came into Cedarbrook last year when she married Jon Menz. You ll often see Jon on the keyboard. Emilie grew up a pastor s kid. She s been in music ministry for many years and most recently she was a pastor at a Lutheran Church in Minnesota. Emilie is a strong leader and has a big heart for God, and I think God is going to use her to help us deepen our faith. So I hope you will give her your support. Message: Today is the second day of a six-week overview of the Bible. Let me start out with a question. How many of you have set out to read the entire Bible but got bogged down and quit? Come on, be honest. I know you are out there. There s no shame here. 1
I m pretty sure I know where you quit: Exodus 21. Up until Exodus 21, there is a lot of action. You recognize all the names: Abraham, Moses, Joshua. You read about the exodus from Egypt and the Ten Commandments. But then, you hit a wall because the story downshifts into chapter after chapter of rules. And I m pretty sure that s where the bookmark sits in most people s Bible. I commend you for your effort, but the problem with this approach to the Bible is you think it reads like a novel, and it doesn t. You assume it s all going to be relevant to your life. And it s not. I m not saying it s not valuable. It s just not all relevant. Most of us don t need to read twenty chapters on the proper way for a priest to sacrifice an animal. It s not real edifying. So, this series is meant to help you see the forest from the trees. It s meant to give you the big picture of what God is saying and identify key stories that will help you to know God. My hope is that, if you get the big picture, the Bible will start to make more sense and you ll want to read it more. The Bible s Big Story Eden Jesus Returns Noah Exodus Enter Promised Land Abraham-Moses - Joshua Judges Davidic Kingdom David Civil War: Judah/Israel Prophets Exile-Silence Spirit Comes Jesus 2000 B.C. 1000 B.C. 4 B.C. Church Era Now, I m using this graph to help us track the history of the Bible. It graphs out how close people were to God throughout history. In the beginning, Adam and Eve were in harmony with God. But that harmony was broken when Adam and Eve disobeyed God. Humanity did a free-fall spiritually and morally, turning to violence and other gods. And God starts over, first with Noah, and then with Abram. 2
Two weeks ago, we looked at one of the most important stories in the Bible in Genesis 15, where God created an unbreakable covenant with Abram. I called it a one-way covenant, meaning that there were no conditions on God s commitment to Abram: God took full responsibility for the covenant. In other words, God promised to be faithful to Abram even if Abram was unfaithful to God. And we have all been grafted into that same covenant. The entire Bible is built on this covenant. Miss this and you miss the Bible s big story. So if you weren t here two weeks ago, I hope you ll go to our website and read or listen to the message. Now, you might think that, if God created this covenant with Abraham, that his life would be perfect. He d have no problems. He d glide through life. But that s not true. Abraham had lots of problems. So the lesson is: God s commitment to us isn t that won t have any problems. God s commitment to us is, even if all hell breaks loose, God will never let us go. That s why God said, See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands Isaiah 49:16 Did you know that? that God has your name engraved on his hand, meaning he ll never forget you? That s easy to believe when life is good. But when you really need to know that, is when life is bad: when the bottom just fell out. When you were just served divorce papers, or you got a pink slip at work, or you were just diagnosed with cancer. That s when you need to know that God has you engraved on the palm of his hand. And that s what happens in our story. There s a famine in the land that sends God s people down to Egypt in search of food. At first, it s a good thing because they survive the famine. But what began as a blessing turned into a curse. The Egyptian government started to see the Israelites as a threat and put them into slavery. The second book in the Bible, Exodus, chapter one, tells the story: the Israelites were exceedingly fruitful; they multiplied greatly, increased in numbers and became so numerous that the land was filled with them. Then a new king came to power in Egypt. Look, he said to his people, the Israelites have become far 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. 3
So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites and worked them ruthlessly. They made their lives bitter with harsh labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their harsh labor the Egyptians worked them ruthlessly. Exodus 1:7-14 What I want you to see here is that just because God made a covenant with his people, that didn t mean bad things wouldn t happen to them. They were in Egypt for hundreds of years. They probably thought God had forgotten about them. But God didn t forget about them. God had a plan. God appeared in a burning bush to a shepherd by the name of Moses and we learn a lot about God in the next few verses: The LORD said, I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I know their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt. Exodus 3:7,8 I love these words because they show God s heart for us. This tells us a lot about God s response to our pain. First, God says he sees their pain, meaning that he s fully aware of what s going on. Second, he heard their cries. He s not deaf. But the word means more than to simply hear. It means to respond to someone s cry for help. So we learn that God is responsive. Third, God knows their suffering. The word for know means to have full understanding: intimate knowledge. In other words, God s not clueless. He gets it. He knows the pain they were in. And because God sees, hears, and understands he takes action. It says that God came down to rescue his people. I like the contrast here. God says that he came down to rescue them to bring them up to a good place. That s a great summary of the Bible right there: God came down to bring us up. Moses should have put that on a t-shirt and given them to everyone! I think we can all claim these words for ourselves. This is who God is. He sees our problem. He hears our cries, he understands our pain and he takes action. If you ve been crying out to God, this is good news. There are no guarantees as to when God 4
will take action, but he WILL take action. How do I know that? Because he is a God of covenant. God has covenanted himself to us, not based on our goodness, but his goodness. So God called Moses to lead the people out of Egypt: So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt. Exodus 3:9,10 Over the next twelve chapters God worked miracles to deliver his people out of bondage. The final miracle was when God told his people to sacrifice a lamb and put the blood of the lamb on the doorframe to their house. If they did this, their firstborn child would be saved from death. Then Moses led the people out of Egypt and God parted the Red Sea for them to escape. The Exodus story is THE defining story in the Old Testament that tells us who God is. God is the God who rescues his people and he did it with the blood of a lamb. That sounds familiar, doesn t it? God was so committed to his people that he even parted the Red Sea. What does that tell us? It tells us that God will stop short of nothing on our behalf. God is ridiculously committed to fulfilling his covenant with his people. After the Red Sea, Moses led the people to Mt. Sinai and the Bible tells us in Exodus 19: the Israelites left Egypt 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 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 God uses the word covenant here, but he s not talking about Abram s covenant. He makes another covenant with Moses but this is a different covenant this is a twoway, or conditional covenant. A two-way covenant implies a transaction or an exchange: God will do something if his people do something. The deal was: if the people obeyed God s commandments, he would use them as priests to the world, that is, God would use them as his representatives ins the world. You see, God wasn t just looking for believers. He was looking for people that wanted to honor God with their lives people that wanted to obey God no matter 5
what the costand represent him on earth to others. He s still looking for that today, BTW. Exodus 20 is where God gives Moses the Ten Commandments. This is an abbreviated version: I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name. Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy On it you shall not do any work Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor. You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor. Exodus 20:1-17 Now, these should probably be called The Top Ten Commandments because there are hundreds of other commandments that follow these ten. Some of them are seemingly so petty, you might wonder why they are even in the Bible. For example, in the book of Leviticus it spends fifty verses describing how mold defiles your house and how to offer sacrifices to make your house ceremonially clean again. Not exactly great material for your daily devotional. I was reading Leviticus last summer and struggling with all the rules. Frankly, some of them seemed silly. I asked God what his point was in all of the rules. And this is what I came up with: I think God was trying to tell people: I m not your run of the mill, every day, dime store God. Unlike the other gods, I am holy. I am totally different from anything you are familiar with. In fact, I am Unfamiliar. You can t compare me to anything or anyone. You see, God is so different that everything matters to him. Nothing is insignificant. God cares about everything, from the mold in your house, to the food that you eat, to your sexual practices, and the clothes that you wear, to how you treat your animals. It all matters. God has a purpose for everything. 6
Now, I may not appreciate all those rules. I may not understand their significance, but God was making a statement: that he was Holy. How you live your life matters to him. If the people wanted to be his priests, his representatives on earth, they had to obey God down to the letter. He was looking for people to show him how serious they were. If they really wanted to be priests, then they needed to live their life to please God and not themselves. You see, you can find self-serving people anywhere anytime. But God was looking for GOD-serving people. These aren t very easy to find. He wanted people who were willing to please God more than please themselves. These are the priests. This covenant wasn t about salvation. Abram s covenant was still intact even if people chose to disobey God. This covenant was all about who would represent God on earth. Part of the instructions at Mt. Sinai was for the building of a tabernacle. I ve referenced this many times over the years. The Tabernacle was an elaborate tent that served as a portable worship center as the Israelites wandered throughout the desert. This is where the priests performed the animal sacrifices and where God s spirit lived. It was situated at the center of the camp and was a dramatic visual reminder that God was in their midst. Well, God delivered the commandments to Moses and then Moses told the people. Let s keep reading: When Moses went and told the people all the LORD s words and laws, they responded with one voice, Everything the LORD has said we will do. Exodus 24:3 Their commitment is impressive, but then Moses goes back up the mountain to spend another forty days with God. Then it says: When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don t know what has happened to him. Exodus 32:1 Welcome to the Bible. This is such a great snapshot of the entire Bible. The Bible is a story of God s faithfulness to unfaithful people. Like a good parent, God disciplines his children, that means, he teaches them lessons when they go astray. We see that in what happens next. God allows his people to wander in the wilderness for 40 years. But when that generation died out, God raised up Joshua, to take over for Moses, and lead them into the Promised Land. 7
The LORD said to Joshua son of Nun, Moses aide: Moses my servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to them to the Israelites. I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses No one will be able to stand against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you Joshua 1:1-4 Notice the covenantal words here: I will never leave you or forsake you. Show graph again. Let me show you where we ve come so far. We heard about Abraham, Moses and Joshua. And we ve traveled from Canaan to Egypt and then back to the Promised Land, via Mt. Sinai. The message I want you to hear is God is faithful to his people. You see, this isn t just ancient history. The God of Abraham and Moses and Joshua is our God too. If you are wondering today, where God is, he s right here. He s with you. And he wants to be a part of your life. He wants to be a part of the solution to whatever problem you are facing today. So let me pray for you as we close out our time together. Father, you are the God of covenant. You never let us go. And you are holy. You are utterly different from anything we know. Help us to worship you for who you are and not who we want you to be. Meet us where we are at today and speak to our hearts. Amen. Going Deeper: use the following questions for personal reflection or to discuss with your family, friends, and/or small group. 1. Have you ever attempted to read through the entire Bible? How far did you get? Why did you stop (if you did)? If you made it through the Bible, were you able to see the Bible s picture or did you get lost along the way? 2. Read Exodus 3:1-10. What can we learn about God s heart for us in these verses? How might this be an encouragement to you in your time of trial? 3. Read Exodus 19. God was introducing himself to the Israelites. What kind of statement was he making to them about his character? 4. How is God s two-way covenant with Moses different from his one-way covenant with Abram? 5. Read Exodus 20. What do the Ten Commandments tell you about the nature of God? We are not saved by living the commandments. So, why did God give them to us? 6. Read Exodus 25:10-22. What is the significance of this piece of furniture? 7. Read Joshua 1. What does God continually repeat to Joshua as he calls him to cross the Jordan? Is this a word you need to hear? 8
Daily reading for the week: Monday: Exodus 1 and 2, the story of Moses early days Tuesday: Exodus 3, the story of Moses calling Wednesday: Exodus 13 and 14, the story of the exodus Thursday: Exodus 19 and 20, the giving of the Ten Commandments Friday: Joshua 3 and 4, Joshua leads the people into the Promised Land 9