Expository Sermon on Some Exodus Passages
by Maylan Schurch
Bellevue Seventh-day Adventist Church 8/3/2019
©2019 by Maylan Schurch
(To watch the YouTube recording of this service, click the link just below. The sermon starts at the 31:22 point.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-S3qQAxjRs
Please open your Bibles to Exodus chapter 3.
If you’ve been here the last couple of Sabbaths you know that I am beginning a new sermon series. It’s called “Jesus’ Bible Footprints.”
Once upon a time, on Resurrection Sunday, the newly-risen Jesus created some footprints while taking a long walk from the town of Jerusalem to Emmaus. He was walking with two of His disciples, who were very discouraged because their Teacher had been crucified. At this point they hadn’t heard that He had come to life again.
Jesus keeps His identity secret from them for the time being, and Luke 24:27 says, “And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.” The Bible makes clear that Jesus was present not just in a few Messiah-prophecy texts, but that He left His footprints in an astounding number of Old Testament places.
One of those “footprint facts” Jesus may have told His friends was something Moses said shortly before he was to die. This old man had led an entire nation from place to place in the wilderness for 40 years, and he had seen firsthand how God had traveled with him.
In Deuteronomy 32, verses 3 and 4, Moses had this to say about God: “For I proclaim the name of the LORD: Ascribe greatness to our God. He is the Rock . . . .” God had not only been the source of water when they needed it – on at least two separate occasions that water had burst forth from a nearby rock – but He had also been a rock of protection, and a rock of stability during those wandering years. He was always near.
And in 1 Corinthians 10:1 – 4, Paul tells us the amazing truth about who this Rock was: “Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ.”
As I mentioned last week, it seems clear that, all throughout the history of the Bible, Jesus was the member of the Godhead who interacted with humanity. John chapter 1 says He was the Creator – He made everything that was created. And this fact that Jesus was the Israelites’ Rock, the One who was with them as they left Egypt and headed toward the promised land, will add a thrilling new layer of significance to the story in Exodus. We will see His footprints everywhere.
So let’s go on a search for some of them. If you are taking sermon notes, leave enough space for three sets of Jesus’ footprints as we go along. Let’s find out where Jesus arrived, and what He did when He got there.
If you are familiar with the story of Exodus, you remember that as it begins, the Israelites have been in Egypt for several hundred years, most of those years as slaves of the Egyptians. An Israelite baby by the name of Moses was adopted by an Egyptian princess, and raised in her care. At one point he tried in an awkward way to inspire his fellow Israelites to revolt, but that got him nowhere, and he had to run for his life. For 40 years he has been herding sheep in a country called Midian.
But now the Lord decides that it’s time to rescue the Israelite nation from slavery and send them north to where He had promised Abraham He would set up a nation for him – the land of Palestine. And remember – this is Jesus Himself. Paul says that He was the “Rock” who accompanied Israel in the wilderness, and here we see Him at work to try to persuade Moses to become the human leader in this plan.
Exodus 3:1 – 8 [NKJV]: Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. And he led the flock to the back of the desert, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the Angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. So he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed. Then Moses said, “I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn.” So when the LORD saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” Then He said, “Do not draw near this place. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.” Moreover He said, “I am the God of your father—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God. And the LORD said: “I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. So I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites.”
So as Jesus walks personally into Moses’ life, what’s the first thing we discover about His journey through Exodus? If you’re taking sermon notes, here comes Sermon Point One.
Jesus walked to where He could become my Liberator.
Why “my Liberator” rather than just “their Liberator”? Well, over in First Corinthians 10, which I quoted a couple of minutes ago, Paul was using Jesus’ Old Testament Exodus leadership is an example for us to take our Christian walk seriously. In that chapter, Paul says, in effect, “Don’t tempt Jesus the way those ancient Israelites did. Learn a lesson from them. Let Jesus lead you in the same direction He wanted to lead them.”
Why do I need a Liberator? For pretty much the same reason these Israelites needed a Liberator. The Israelites had been enslaved by their host country, and there wasn’t a thing they could do about that. Human effort could not break that slavery. If the smart, palace-educated, military-trained young Moses couldn’t do it, then no other human being would stand the ghost of a chance.
And according to Paul, it’s the same with sin. In Romans chapter 6 he has quite a bit to say about how the natural human being is a slave to sin. And then in Romans 7, he gets really vulnerable. Put some sort of marker in Exodus 2, and turn to Romans 7.
Romans 7:18 – 24: For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
And then of course comes his famous answer, verse 25: “I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
So here we have the same Liberator at work for us. It’s a heart-liberation we need. In fact, that’s exactly what the Lord said back in Deuteronomy 5:29: “Oh, that they had such a heart in them that they would fear Me and always keep all My commandments, that it might be well with them and with their children forever!”
Can God change people’s hearts? He certainly can. In 1 Samuel 10:9, after young Saul had left the presence of the prophet Samuel, who had just anointed him king, it says, “So it was, when he had turned his back to go from Samuel, that God gave him another heart . . . .”
Do you see how significant that is? God wants us to have humble, teachable hearts, and it is God who can change our hearts for the better.
A couple of days ago – this past Thursday – I got an amazing phone call. Back when I was a college student in South Dakota, I got acquainted with a young family who was going through quite a crisis. I took it upon myself on Monday afternoons to take all six kids to the Dairy Queen, and then down to the city park so they could play.
The family had five boys and one girl, and later Shelley and I asked this girl to be a junior bridesmaid in our wedding. She was delighted, and felt really honored to have that role.
Over the years since then, this family faced a lot of challenges, and things were not going well, really, for any of them, including this girl. Every time I thought of them, I would give a sigh of sorrow that things could’ve gone better.
But then Thursday, I was at the church carrying a table downstairs to the junior room where we would be having board meeting that night. My cell phone rang. I looked at the screen, and didn’t recognize the number, but I noticed that it had a 605 area code, which is South Dakota’s.
I answered it, and it was this same girl, now a grownup woman. She was just bubbling over with happiness, and had asked my sister for my cell phone number, and my sister gave it to her. After many years of addictions, this girl had found the Lord, and had joined a church which had a name that suggested that it was founded for people who are struggling with addictions.
As I listened to her talk, she was saying all the right Christian things that I have heard in other people whose hearts have been changed. This lady is planning baptism on August 11 in a river that passes through a park in Aberdeen, South Dakota. She just wanted to let me know this had happened to her. We had a delightful conversation, and promised to keep in touch.
So it is possible for Jesus to change hearts. And Thursday’s phone conversation was Exhibit A. He can do it. He did it back in the Old and New Testaments, and He can do it this afternoon if you will let Him.
Is that what you like to have happen to your heart? I know that I would like it to happen, every day, to mine. We all need a daily renewal. Would you raise your hand to let God know you want that to happen to you?
Now let’s hunt for another set of Jesus’ footprints here in Exodus. Turn to Exodus 12. By this time the Lord– Jesus Himself – has convinced Moses to lead the nation of Israel out of Egypt. All but one of the plagues have fallen, and the Lord is giving Moses instructions about the first Passover, and how to keep the Israelite nation’s firstborn children safe. Notice what the Lord says to do:
Exodus 12:1 – 7: Now the LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, “This month shall be your beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you. Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying: ‘On the tenth of this month every man shall take for himself a lamb, according to the house of his father, a lamb for a household. And if the household is too small for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next to his house take it according to the number of the persons; according to each man’s need you shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats. Now you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month. Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at twilight. And they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses where they eat it.
And during the solemn events that followed, that lamb – depending on how conscientiously and carefully the Israelite people followed God’s directions – this lamb would mean the difference between life and death.
No animal, of course, can redeem from sin. In John chapter 1, John the Baptist begins introducing people to Jesus with these words: “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29)
So here’s the next place we can see Jesus’ footprints in Exodus.
Not only did Jesus walk to where He could become my Liberator, but Jesus walked to where He could become my Lamb.
In other words, the sacrificial Lamb who takes away the sins of anyone who wants Him to. I have a feeling that lambs have very little to do with your life anymore. After I left home for Lincoln, Nebraska, my dad got the idea that he would like to raise sheep. So that’s what he did. I got to see them every time I came back home on a visit, and I still remember the way they looked at me in such a startled way. They did not recognize me.
As I say, there’s a good chance that nobody in this room has gazed at a live lamb this week. Has anybody? But it was totally different with those Jewish people when John pointed at Jesus and called Him the Lamb of God. Everybody knew exactly what he was talking about. Even though nobody probably understood fully what Jesus was going to do – Jesus’ disciples certainly didn’t for awhile – the people could certainly understand that a Passover lamb meant sacrifice for sin.
A week from today during this worship service we will be celebrating the communion service, the Lord’s Supper. That was the ceremony where Jesus – the Liberator of Israel, the Lamb of God — changed the meaning of the Passover service. No longer was it pointing forward toward a final, once-for-all sacrifice for sin which Jesus would provide. Instead, the new symbols of His broken body and His spilled blood were to be taken within us.
So as we think ahead toward next Sabbath’s communion service, let’s remember how eagerly Jesus wants to liberate us, and how much He wants us to claim the incredible gift of His righteousness for ourselves.
Let’s take a look at one more set of Jesus’ Exodus footprints. We are having to skip over a lot, because of time. For example, Jesus left His footprints at the top of Mount Sinai, because since He was the Rock who followed Israel through the wilderness, it was definitely He who spoke the 10 Commandments aloud in the hearing of the people. Jesus came to where He could be our Lawgiver.
Let’s close with one more look at the footprints of Jesus, and I hope I and nobody else in this room forgets this one. Let’s go to Exodus 25.
Moses is spending 40 days up on the heights of Mount Sinai, spending them with God – spending them with Jesus the Liberator, Jesus the Lamb, and Jesus the Lawgiver. At some point during that holy time, the Lord lays out some special plans to Moses.
Exodus 25:1 – 7: Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying: “Speak to the children of Israel, that they bring Me an offering. From everyone who gives it willingly with his heart you shall take My offering. And this is the offering which you shall take from them: gold, silver, and bronze; blue, purple, and scarlet thread, fine linen, and goats’ hair; ram skins dyed red, badger skins, and acacia wood; oil for the light, and spices for the anointing oil and for the sweet incense; onyx stones, and stones to be set in the ephod and in the breastplate.
I wonder if Moses knew what the Lord was talking about here. He may have been thinking to himself, “What is happening here? It sounds like the Lord is planning some kind of building project.”
Well, whether or not Moses knew about it already, the Lord tells him why he supposed to collect these materials. And I believe this next verse may rank up right there with John 3:16 in importance. Because it tells me all I need to know about what God thinks of me.
Verse 8: And let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them.
If you ever have doubts about whether or not God loves you, remember John 3:16, but also remember Exodus 25:8. God doesn’t want to be a faraway lover. God doesn’t want to simply send us email updates from the faraway galaxy where His city is. God wants to come close. He wants to come close because He loves us.
God knew very well – Jesus knew very well – that the people He had just liberated would go through many spasms of jaw-dropping rebellion in the centuries ahead. And He knew that He would have to resolutely deal with that rebellion so that it wouldn’t spread further.
God could have said, “This is going to be too much stress. I think I’ll do this by remote control. That way if I have to cut my losses, it will be easier.”
But it was exactly the opposite – and it’s exactly the opposite today. God wanted to come close. Jesus wanted to come close. Every time the Hubble or any other space telescope shifts to a new position and lets their lenses gather light, they discover thousands and thousands of new galaxies. God had a lot of options for places to be. But He decided that He wanted to hover above a nicely made but very tiny tent in a desert on Planet Earth, and occasionally move down to within a tinier room, the Most Holy Place. He wanted to be as near as possible to the children He had created.
What does this tell me about where Jesus’ footprints lead Him?
Not only did Jesus walk to where He could become my Liberator, and my Lamb, but Jesus walked to where He could show us He wanted to become my Loved One.
“Loved one” is a phrase I heard a lot when I was a kid. A “loved one” could be a family member, or a relative, or in some cases somebody who really cared about you.
God loves us, but He wants to be a Loved One to us. And the only way you can get to love someone is to get to know them. And you get to know them because they want to be close to you. And that’s what God wants.
One of my favorite Bible passages is one I often read at funerals or memorial services. It’s a comforting passage, but I like it because it expresses how powerfully God loves us, and how deeply He desires to come close to us, and stay with us. It’s found in Revelation chapter 21. Let’s turn there right now and listen to God’s very words. John who wrote Revelation, speaks first:
Revelation 21:1 – 3: Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God.
Do you want to make God’s heart incredibly happy? Here’s how to do it. Keep telling Him that you love Him, and that you’ll allow Him to change your heart to where your happiest thoughts will be of the reunion with Him that He’s planning.
Will you do that? Let’s raise our hands again if that’s our desire.