So in summary, Jesus became the ultimate Passover lamb who bore our sins so we could escape death. He was the perfect payment, a spotless lamb, who shed his blood so that we could have eternal life with him forever. He bought our freedom and gave us a new identity in Him. May we remember God’s saving power and grace from generation to generation. 2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!!!
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“Pharaoh asks an interesting question that rings throughout the entire story of the Moses; ‘who is the Lord,’ that any of us should respond to him?”Typically we read the passage and do some reflection on it, but Exodus provides a unique challenge as it is heavy on exposition! I’d like to set the stage with a quick recap of what we’ve covered so far in Exodus, then continue in chapters 5-7 by dividing them into two parts:
“Who are you, God? How should I introduce you? What’s your identity?” Crash course in philosophy of identity The definition of identity is “the relation a thing bears only to itself.” We know identity is important: - People try to steal identity, and theft is typically only done when things deemed valuable - As humans, we tend to categorize and name things to understand them - Matt Damon has looked for it three times (the 4th time didn’t count) Philosophers have struggled with the concept of personal identity for ages, trying to determine the essential property, or the special sauce that makes you, you. What is the thing that preserves our identity over the course of time; through changes of environment, circumstance, memory, personality, and even internal beliefs & motivations? We still do not know. Are you the same person your parents brought home from the hospital? Our bodies change over time. Does your consciousness make you, you? Well, we often forget things, and no one remembers their earlier years, and old age, illness and even false memories can lead us to lose grasp on who we are. While we may never figure out the nature of identity, we can acknowledge it is important to us because it is the grounds for how we relate to things, and things to other things. As relational beings - anything without an identity, we simply cannot relate to.Which takes us to Exodus 3, where God first reveals his identity to Moses: Exodus 3 13 Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?” 14 God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” 15 God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’ “This is my name forever, the name you shall call me from generation to generation. Many smart people from the internet agree there is a level of complexity to the name of God, “I AM,” bit one thing is clear even without digging too deep: there is something about his identity; an infinitude, a timelessness, an absoluteness - something about his nature is not equal to anything else. And this is important because last week Steven left us with a really cool message, “If we don’t have the words, go and tell who it is sent you.” Tell about the great I AM who is above all things, like nothing else that we can know. Last week we saw that people of Israel indeed go on to believe in the message and on the messenger, Moses. Which takes us to chapter 5! A page and a half in!Moses’s initial confrontation with Pharaoh: Bricks Without Straw CHAPTER 5 Afterward Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Let my people go, so that they may hold a festival to me in the wilderness.’” 2 Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord and I will not let Israel go.” 4 But the king of Egypt said, “Moses and Aaron, why are you taking the people away from their labor? Get back to your work!” 5 Then Pharaoh said, “Look, the people of the land are now numerous, and you are stopping them from working.” 6 That same day Pharaoh gave this order to the slave drivers and overseers in charge of the people: 7 “You are no longer to supply the people with straw for making bricks; let them go and gather their own straw. 8 But require them to make the same number of bricks as before; don’t reduce the quota. They are lazy; that is why they are crying out, ‘Let us go and sacrifice to our God.’ 9 Make the work harder for the people so that they keep working and pay no attention to lies.” 10 Then the slave drivers and the overseers went out and said to the people, “This is what Pharaoh says: ‘I will not give you any more straw. 11 Go and get your own straw wherever you can find it, but your work will not be reduced at all.’” 12 So the people scattered all over Egypt to gather stubble to use for straw. 13 The slave drivers kept pressing them, saying, “Complete the work required of you for each day, just as when you had straw.” 14 And Pharaoh’s slave drivers beat the Israelite overseers they had appointed, demanding, “Why haven’t you met your quota of bricks yesterday or today, as before?” 19 The Israelite overseers realized they were in trouble when they were told, “You are not to reduce the number of bricks required of you for each day.” 20 When they left Pharaoh, they found Moses and Aaron waiting to meet them, 21 and they said, “May the Lord look on you and judge you! You have made us obnoxious to Pharaoh and his officials and have put a sword in their hand to kill us.” Pharaoh asks an interesting question that rings throughout the entire story the Israelites in Egypt; “‘who is the Lord,’ that any of us should respond to him?” Pharaoh didn’t know the Lord and the result was that he felt no need to acknowledge him. And I want to emphasize the “knowing” we are talking about here: In Hebrew there are couple words for “to know” (don’t ask me right now I forgot the first)- but the second which we find in this passage is Yā·ḏa‘ - it is experiential knowing, not just a cerebral intellect. It’s the difference between telling someone who’s never had ice cream before all sorts of things about it with scientific exactness: the chemical makeup of ice cream, details about ice cream’s internal temperature, and specifics about its texture… And handing that same person a scoop of Blue Bell homemade vanilla. The first way, they would know about it… the second way they would know about ice cream. There’s something different about taking a bite. (I digress). Pharaoh would have been well versed in the divine, and probably a believer of gods, and believing in their power, but he did not know Yahweh. Instead his gods led him to a belief that people are to be used, and things were to be loved. And a belief that perhaps he was in a sense - god. We too can easily fall into this trap when we do not know God, the trap of believing people are to be used, and things are to be loved… And we too can easily fall into the trap of believing we are god - and the people and things in life should serve us. And that doesn't really work. Fortunately for this world, God isn’t about that life - He is a God of justice, and does something about it.Which takes us to part 2... Conversation with God and Abraham afterwards: God Promises Deliverance 22 Moses returned to the Lord and said, “Why, Lord, why have you brought trouble on this people? Is this why you sent me? 23 Ever since I went to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has brought trouble on this people, and you have not rescued your people at all.” CHAPTER 6 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh: Because of my mighty hand he will let them go; because of my mighty hand he will drive them out of his country.” 2 God also said to Moses, “I am the Lord. 3 I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name the Lord I did not make myself fully known to them. 4 I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, where they resided as foreigners. 5 Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the Israelite's, whom the Egyptians are enslaving, and I have remembered my covenant. 6 “Therefore, say to the Israelite's: ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. 7 I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. 8 And I will bring you to the land I swore with uplifted hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. I will give it to you as a possession. I am the Lord.’” 9 Moses reported this to the Israelite's, but they did not listen to him because of their discouragement and harsh labor. 10 Then the Lord said to Moses, 11 “Go, tell Pharaoh king of Egypt to let the Israelites go out of his country.” 12 But Moses said to the Lord, “If the Israelites will not listen to me, why would Pharaoh listen to me, since I speak with faltering lips?” [There is a genealogy, which we should never skip because they are really important, but we’re going to skip it!] 28 Now when the Lord spoke to Moses in Egypt, 29 he said to him, “I am the Lord. Tell Pharaoh king of Egypt everything I tell you.”30 But Moses said to the Lord, “Since I speak with faltering lips, why would Pharaoh listen to me?” CHAPTER 7 Then the Lord said to Moses, “See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron will be your prophet. 2 You are to say everything I command you, and your brother Aaron is to tell Pharaoh to let the Israelite's go out of his country. 3 But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in Egypt, 4 he will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and with mighty acts of judgment I will bring out my divisions, my people the Israelites. 5 And the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring the Israelite's out of it.” If you are like me and are often questioning everything in the universe, you may read/listen to that and wonder, “what is God up to? Why is he not doing XYZ?” Why didn’t God just teleport the Israelite's out of Egypt? Why didn’t God just soften Pharaoh’s heart the first time? Why will God, as we see next week, send 10 plagues? Or maybe you are asking even more relevant questions: Why doesn’t God send me a husband or wife? Why doesn’t God provide me a job? Why doesn’t God take away this burden from my life? I think the answer to all of those things is found here, in Exodus. I think it’s often times in doing things (and sometimes not doing things) that we can really experience who he is - experiencing the one who is called I AM. We see in the story, God is not just wanting to reveal himself to Moses - but to Israel, and to the people of Egypt, and to Pharoah. We see the same word “yada” Wə·yā·ḏə·‘ū (Wa-yada-ew; “they shall know” or “you will know”). “Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and with mighty acts of judgment I will bring out my divisions, my people the Israelites. And the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord...” Again I think we can see it there; God wants to reveal himself so we can taste and see who he is… so we can experience him- in the highs and lows and ups and downs. And I believe ultimately he wants us not to just know he is good, but yada he is good, and respond to his presence, his identity with worship! And while sometimes that is difficult for us, I think as we trust the story, we will see that as God delivers the israelites, He delivers us as well. |
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