Mark 14:1-26 Jesus, our amazing rescuer!

Mark 14:1-26

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How many of you watched Usain Bolt win the 100m sprint in the Olympics. Imagine all the preparation that went into those a little less than 10 seconds. Hours and hours of practice, of discipline. Carefully planning your food, your training. Keeping yourself healthy. All for a sub-10 second burst.

That’s what we’re seeing here. Everything has lead up to these moments. And so just like in the Olympics when the race is broadcast again in slow motion so we can capture all the details, so Mark slows down his gospel. Chapters 1-13 cover about 3 years of Jesus life. These next 3 capture the last 3 days. Mark goes into (for him) slow motion so we can capture all the detail of these last couple of days of Jesus’ life here on earth. From his anointing for burial to his last meal with his disciples, to his sham (fake) trials, and to then the reason he came, his 100 metre sprint: his display of Kingly service on the cross as he dies for sinners like us. And then to the shock revelation when the tomb is found empty. This is what Mark wants us to hear, to understand, to believe, and in believing, have life. Remember how he began: This is the Good News (gospel) about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God.

Three points tonight:

1. Jesus is our Messiah

2. Jesus is our Passover Lamb

3. Jesus is our Sovereign Lord

1. Jesus is our Messiah (anointed one)

3 Meanwhile, Jesus was in Bethany at the home of Simon, a man who had previously had leprosy. While he was eating, a woman came in with a beautiful alabaster jar of expensive perfume made from essence of nard. She broke open the jar and poured the perfume over his head.

Three days before his death Jesus has an alabaster jar of perfume poured on his head. This is called “anointing” – you see the word there in v8 She has done what she could and has anointed my body for burial ahead of time.

To anoint something means to pour oil on it to set it apart for special or holy use. It was an Old Testament symbol, a sign that this person or this thing was holy, given over to God. Three types of people were anointed in the Old Testament: Kings (2 Sam 2:4 “the men of Judah anointed David king over the people”), Priests were anointed (Ex 29:7 “Then anoint [Aaron as priest] by pouring the anointing oil over his head”), and Prophets were anointed (1 Kings 19:16 “anoint Elisha ...to replace you as my prophet”).
The anointing symbolised being equipped for service by the Holy Spirit. King, priests and prophets were anointed, set apart to serve God in the power of the Spirit.

Now there might be a little question ringing in your head – wasn’t Jesus already anointed? And yes he was.
Mk 1:9–11 One day Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee, and John baptized him in the Jordan River. 10 As Jesus came up out of the water, he saw the heavens splitting apart and the Holy Spirit descending on him like a dove. 11 And a voice from heaven said, “You are my dearly loved Son, and you bring me great joy.”

At his baptism Jesus was anointed by the Holy Spirit as King, Prophet and Priest. Revealed to be the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One. King – remember Jesus says 1:15 “The time promised by God has come at last!” he announced. “The Kingdom of God is near! Repent of your sins and believe the Good News!”. The Kingdom is near because the King is here.
Prophet – the one who brings God’s word. 1:38 “We must go on to other towns as well, and I will preach to them, too. That is why I came.”
And he is Priest – the one who represents the people to God. Remember that’s why he was baptised. Baptism was for sinners – so why did Jesus with no sin need to be baptised? In order to be one of us. To identify fully with us as sinners as he prepares to take our sin upon himself.

7 You will always have the poor among you, and you can help them whenever you want to. But you will not always have me. 8 She has done what she could and has anointed my body for burial ahead of time.

The role of the priest was to offer sacrifices to God, to mediate (make clear the way) between sinful man and holy God. Jesus is not just the priest, but also the sacrifice. He himself will pay the price for sinful people like you and me to come to God. Did you notice his words: she has anointed his body for burial. He is preparing to die. This is why he came.

And to tie in to last week, this is the reason why the Temple will fall. Because of Christ it is no longer necessary. The stone Temple will fall because Jesus is now the true meeting place between man and God. He is priest, sacrifice and temple!

9 I tell you the truth, wherever the Good News is preached throughout the world, this woman’s deed will be remembered and discussed.”

And so it is. Here we discuss what she did: reminding us and those with him that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ. He is King, prophet, and Priest. He is sacrifice and temple. It reminds us of his baptism: only sinners need to be baptised - for baptism is a washing away of sin, dying to sin under the water and rising again to new life out of the water – and just as Jesus identified with our sin in his baptism, so now he completes that work of baptism by taking the penalty of our sin upon himself. His body will be broken, his blood shed, to break the power of sin over us, to set us free, to achieve the real Exodus: bringing his people from slavery to sin under the power of Satan to a new freedom in (ultimately) a new earth under his good kingly rule.

Jesus is the Messiah, the anointed one, God’s promised rescuer, and our King, our Prophet, and our Priest. Amen!

And he is our sacrifice, indeed, our Passover Lamb.

2. Jesus is our Passover Lamb

12 On the first day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover lamb is sacrificed, Jesus’ disciples asked him, “Where do you want us to go to prepare the Passover meal for you?”

Mark reminds us of the PASSOVER and the threat of Jesus death immediately in v1 It was now two days before Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread. The leading priests and the teachers of religious law were still looking for an opportunity to capture Jesus secretly and kill him. Then he is anointed for his burial. Then v12 On the first day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover lamb is sacrificed
v14 where shall I eat the Passover meal, v16 Passover meal

Ok, ok Mark, we get it! Remember that there was no bold or underline in the original manuscripts. So the way the authors could get our attention is to repeat things! So quite clearly the Lord God, through Mark, is saying we need to pay attention to the Passover.

It is just two days before the Passover, just two days before the Jews remembered God’s incredible rescue of them from slavery in Egypt, where the angel of death came over the whole country – but everyone who sacrificed a perfect lamb and put its blood on their doorposts were saved. When death saw the blood he passed over.

And Jesus deliberately echoes the Passover so that we can understand what is going on here.
22 As they were eating, Jesus took some bread and blessed it. Then he broke it in pieces and gave it to the disciples, saying, “Take it, for this is my body.” 23 And he took a cup of wine and gave thanks to God for it. He gave it to them, and they all drank from it. 24 And he said to them, “This is my blood, which confirms the covenant between God and his people. It is poured out as a sacrifice for many.

He takes the bread and breaks it. The bread would have been unleavened bread, that is flat bread, bread without yeast. It is bread you can make in a hurry, if you have to leave quickly. The Israelites were to make flat bread in preparation of the sudden call to leave Egypt, that very night. Judgment would fall on the Egyptians, and the Israelites would be set free.

And Jesus takes this flat bread and says “this bread, this symbol of God’s great rescue from slavery – this is my body.”
It is an outrageous statement to make.

And he follows it up with an even bigger one: “this wine, this is my blood, poured out as a sacrifice”. I am the sacrifice. I will be poured out. For I am the one who will rescue you from death. I am the true Lamb, leading the true Exodus. Not rescue from slavery in Egypt, but slavery from sin. Not just salvation to the promised land of Israel, but salvation to heaven itself. And not just rescue from physical death, but rescue from spiritual death. This is my blood, which confirms the covenant between God and his people.

Jesus is about to be sacrificed in order to fulfil the covenant (promise) God has made with mankind.
First with Adam: Jesus is the second Adam, the perfect son of God, righteous, sinless human. As Adam sinned and so condemned us – so Jesus will die in our place and save us.
Then Noah: Jesus is the Ark of rescue from the flood of judgement to come. On the last Day we will be safe from God’s judgement in Christ.
Then the promise to Abraham: Jesus is the descendant of Abraham come to bless all nations. Just look around! We’re from many nations.
And Moses: Jesus is the perfect Law-keeper, and the Prophet like Moses, bringing God’s life-giving wor.
And David: Jesus is the righteous, eternal, King. Just as was promised David: your descendant shall rule forever.

Jesus is the YES! to all God’s promises.

He is the Passover Lamb. He is our saviour.

In fact, he has always been the saviour. We’ll be reminded of Exodus again and again through the coming weeks as we look at these final chapters of Mark. The Exodus, the great miraculous rescue of a million people from slavery to a new home, was a mere shadow compared to what Jesus is achieving here. This is the real Exodus. Throughout time and history Jesus’ blood powers his mercy. Each time God relents from judgement: Jesus’ blood is there. Each time we see God meeting with sinful people: Jesus’ blood is there. Even the Exodus itself is only possible because of the blood of Jesus. The blood of lambs could not take away the guilt of the people! No, it was the blood of the true Passover Lamb, Jesus, shed 1500 years later, that washed away their guilt and spared them from the judgement on the Egyptians. God had told them what they needed to do to be rescued, and they placed their faith in his word, acting accordingly, sacrificing the lambs – and God saw their faith, and counted it to them as righteousness, covering their sins through the blood of the Son.

So the disciples meet to celebrate the passover, while the real Passover is taking place at that moment. Interestingly, the Passover meal consists of bread, wine…and a lamb. But there is no lamb mentioned here in this passage. Perhaps it is to make clear that the sacrificial lamb who will be slain is seated in front of them.

Jesus is our Passover Lamb.

3. Jesus is our Sovereign Lord

25 I tell you the truth, I will not drink wine again until the day I drink it new in the Kingdom of God.” 26 Then they sang a hymn and went out to the Mount of Olives. 27 On the way, Jesus told them, “All of you will desert me. For the Scriptures say, ‘God will strike the Shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.’ 28 But after I am raised from the dead, I will go ahead of you to Galilee and meet you there.”

Jesus was not some poor victim of circumstances outside of his control! He himself had planned this, with his Father and Spirit, united in purpose and love to rescue sinful humanity, and bring glory to the Godhead. All praise be to God! Such love that drives Jesus willingly to the cross.
We’re reminded time and again that Jesus is doing this by choice. Did you notice verse 16? 16 So the two disciples went into the city and found everything just as Jesus had said

And 18 As they were at the table eating, Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, one of you eating with me here will betray me.” 19 Greatly distressed, each one asked in turn, “Am I the one?” 20 He replied, “It is one of you twelve who is eating from this bowl with me. 21 For the Son of Man must die, as the Scriptures declared long ago. But how terrible it will be for the one who betrays him. It would be far better for that man if he had never been born!”

All is prepared beforehand. God is sovereign over all things, all events – even Judas. 21 For the Son of Man must die, as the Scriptures declared long ago. Whatever motivated Judas to act: greed, frustration, hatred - we don’t know. But even he in his evil is serving God’s purposes. Jesus must be betrayed. Jesus must die. But does God’s sovereign purpose mean that Judas has no free will – that he is not respinsble for what he’s done. Can Judas say “without my betrayal, there would be no cross. You needed me, you made me do it, therefore you owe me”. No! 21 For the Son of Man must die, as the Scriptures declared long ago. But how terrible it will be for the one who betrays him. It would be far better for that man if he had never been born!”

Judas is responsible for his decision – as are we responsible for the decisions we make. God is fully sovereign, knowing our thoughts before we think them, preparing the way of the Son before the dawn of time – and our decisions are real decisions, with real consequences. So beware how you respond to Jesus. Don’t be like Judas, rejecting the King, for you too will hear “woe to you, it would be better if you were never born”.
Instead, fall at his feet like the woman 2000 years ago, worshipping him with costly worship. Because we have been rescued, set free, by him. Jesus bore our sin on the cross. It is gone.

Respond rightly. Because Jesus is the sovereign King.

And Be comforted, for Jesus is the SOVEREIGN King. Evil cannot thwart God’s plans. You cannot jump out of His hands. Nothing would stop Jesus from his great work on the Cross. He completed that work. Our Passover Lamb dying in our place, his blood covering all who place their faith in him. Hallelujah!

And now history moves deliberately toward his return. The Return of the King, the great day when the veil over our eyes will be torn away, and we will see reality as it truly is, the great King Jesus upon the eternal glorious throne.

Jesus is the Sovereign king.

There are two impossible applications, one for non-Christians, the other for Christians

One is to reject Jesus. To say that’s fine, Jesus did all that, but I’ll take my chances by myself. That’s the impossible application from this passage. This should drive you to repent, not to follow Judas. It ended badly for him – he hanged himself, and his insides burst open. Not a great end – but the spiritual end is even worse. Be warned.

The other impossible application – for Christians - is to live like I am the Passover Lamb. To live like I bear my sin. To live in guilt and fear. To believe that I can fall out of God’s hands at any moment, that his sacrifice was not sufficient to bring me to glory. That’s the impossible application.

Instead, let us rejoice and sing. Let us thank God. Let us shout aloud to the God of our salvation! Let us praise him in our hearts and minds every minute of every day. We are set free! He has rescued us! All praise to the Christ, King!

All praise to our Messiah, our rescuer, our Passover Lamb, and our Sovereign King. Praise Jesus, Lord of All! Amen.

Isaiah 44:6-45:25 There is only one God

Isaiah 44:6-45:25

10 Who but a fool would make his own god— an idol that cannot help him one bit? 11 All who worship idols will be disgraced along with all these craftsmen—mere humans— who claim they can make a god. They may all stand together, but they will stand in terror and shame.

False gods – idols – are not God

Seems obvious doesn’t it? It kind of goes without saying. But if it goes without saying, then it needs to be said. Because the obvious we somehow forget. Because how often do we worship false gods? Oh, we might not necessarily bow down to idols – little statues, images of “gods” – but every time we sin against God, ignore his word – that’s idolatry. Every time we put something above God and his Word – that’s idolatry. And more often than not that something I put above God and his word is me. I will decide what I will do with MY life.
That is idolatry. We may as well make a little carving of ourselves and bow down to that.

So these verses are really for us! We are all fools, making our own gods. And we will be disgraced.

16 He burns part of the tree to roast his meat and to keep himself warm. He says, “Ah, that fire feels good.” 17 Then he takes what’s left and makes his god: a carved idol! He falls down in front of it, worshiping and praying to it. “Rescue me!” he says. “You are my god!” 18 Such stupidity and ignorance! Their eyes are closed, and they cannot see.

That’s us. Look around and that where most people are in our society. We don’t carve idols out of trees but out of ourselves. We bow down to ourselves. Even worse, what we often do is make an idol out of ourselves – but dress it up in Christian clothes and call it Jesus. How many are sitting in churches claiming to follow Jesus – but following a Jesus of their imagination. An imaginary Jesus. We put our own words in Jesus’ mouth, push our own wills onto him – and then get angry when “he” fails us. That’s what idols do.

We must keep coming back to the Bible. We must challenge our view of God with who he actually is. We are to worship God and God alone, for there is no other. Otherwise we’re just like the idiot going out to chop down a tree, then use half the wood to keep us warm, and the other half we bow down to and say “Oh my god”.

So today I have two points to help us fight the idolatry in our hearts.
1. There is no other God, but God – and he is sovereign
2. There is no other saviour but God’s saviour.

1. There is no other God but God – and he is sovereign

6 This is what the LORD says—Israel’s King and Redeemer, the LORD of Heaven’s Armies: “I am the First and the Last; there is no other God.

There is no other God but God. But who is God? Did you see the word “LORD” there is in capital letters? That represents the letters YHWH – Yahweh or in old translations Jehovah: In other words, the God of Israel. The God who has revealed himself through his interactions with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob (renamed Israel), and the nation of Israel, through to the kings of Israel like David, Solomon, speaking through the prophets like Isaiah, and, perfectly, finally, in the person and work of our Lord Jesus. That is the God we are speaking about. The God who made all things, the God who rules all things, the God who is in control. God.

So he is not just “God”. We cannot just fill the word “God” with whatever we want.

And what does he say: 6 I am the First and the Last; there is no other God.

There is no other like Him. In what way? That he is sovereign, in control of everything. Look at the challenge in v7 Who is like me? Let him step forward and prove to you his power. Let him do as I have done since ancient times when I established a people and explained (the word is proclaimed, declared) its future. V8 Do not tremble; do not be afraid. Did I not proclaim (same word) my purposes for you long ago? You are my witnesses—is there any other God?
No! There is no other Rock—not one!”

What makes God God is his sovereign power. His control over all things, including the future. Who is like me, he says, who can declare the future. This is what will happen.

Now we struggle with this doctrine. Let me just note here that God being sovereign doesn’t mean that we don’t have so-called “free will”. We’re not suddenly robots. We can choose what we want. We have real choice. But he is sovereign over that choice. Both are true at the same time. Like as a parent of small children – they make real choices, but they do your will.

We here in Norway, in the West, we struggle to believe that God is sovereign – to believe that God is God - because we are blessed. Because times are good.
When did Israel fall into idolatry? Was it when they were suffering? No, that’s when they cried out to God – save us! It was in times of plenty, safety, security. They forgot God. Or made him smaller, more manageable, tame. And I see that same arrogance in us, in me. Blessing breeds arrogance. We are not dependent on God (so we think) so we forget that he is sovereign, in control. Our food production we don’t see – we always have enough food. We are warm, we have nice houses, we have luxuries galore. If we lose our job the State pays us. If we get sick the State fixes us.
All these things are blessings from God – but we neither thank him nor think of him. Instead we pat ourselves on the back – how clever we are. God is not really sovereign. He’s not in control. We have done this.

Let me give you a quote from a Christian in a different situation – in Aleppo, Syria, under attack from IS. “The situation in our church is going well. There are many new faces and new people are coming to the Lord. Yes, the burden is getting greater but He is in control and in charge.”

Oh that we in comfort have lost our grip on the Godness of God. Just because we don’t see it.

An American theologian, RC Sproul, puts it like this. “If you don’t believe that God ordains everything that comes to pass, you don’t believe in God. You are an atheist.”
Maybe overstating things a bit to get his students to think, but I think God is making the very same point in these chapters – and indeed, throughout Isaiah. What makes God God is His sovereign rule. His absolute power and control over all things.
He is not an idol, worthless, no power.
He is not a man, limited in his promises because of things outside of his control. Limited power.
He is fully in control, so that when He promises, it happens. Unlimited power.

An idol cannot even make promises. It cannot speak. We give the idol words and sacrifice to it “Oh please let there be good crops” or “oh please let me win the lottery”. It can’t do anything. Why? Because it’s a block of wood! It’s made up.
I make promises, but I break them. I’ll be there at 5 – traffic jam – I’m home at 6. It was outside of my control. Or my own sin. I’ll be faithful to you forever, we promise. How often has that promise been broken?

But God’s word is unbreakable.

Our brothers and sisters facing persecution, those in Syria, in Iran, Iraq, northern Nigeria, India, Pakistan, Sudan – they know the comfort of a sovereign God. In the pain, in the tears, in the heartache and bloodshed and evil of this present darkness God’s unassailable light shines all the brighter. Undimmed, it can never be put out. A sure refuge and hope. I am God and there is no other.

That’s what he’s saying to his people captive in Babylon. Tempted to worship idols. Go with the flow. To not trust him. 24 This is what the LORD says— your Redeemer (saviour) and Creator: “I am the LORD, who made all things. I alone stretched out the heavens. Who was with me when I made the earth?

There is no other God but God, and he is sovereign, in control.

2. There is no other saviour except God’s saviour.

11 This is what the Lord says— the Holy One of Israel and your Creator: “Do you question what I do for my children? Do you give me orders about the work of my hands? 12 I am the one who made the earth and created people to live on it. With my hands I stretched out the heavens. All the stars are at my command. 13 I will raise up Cyrus to fulfil my righteous purpose, and I will guide his actions. He will restore my city and free my captive people— without seeking a reward! I, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, have spoken!”

God’s sovereignty is a source of great comfort to those who are suffering, those who are in danger. Because there is a sure hope. The God who stretched out the heavens has promised that he will be with us, that he will save us. As we saw last week, thinking about the cross and the resurrection, that salvation was bought at great personal cost. He is with us in our pain, not at a distance, but with us. He has been through it himself. Jesus experienced our tears, carried our sin, bore our evil, died our death - and one day he will wipe every tear away, and evil will be no more. And that day is set, set in stone, no even more solid than stone – that day is in the mind of God, promised. And He keeps his promises. There is nothing that can disrupt that. No molecule outside of his control that can have some huge butterfly effect and cause God’s plan to come crashing down. No, all things WILL be brought under his control.

How do we know?

Because he has shown us time and time again that he is in control. And in today’s passage it is that he will save his people, trapped in Babylon, the most powerful Empire on earth. Puh, that’s impossible. Oh really, says God, wait 'til you see this! Then you will know that I am the Lord. I will save you in the most unlikely way.

13 I will raise up Cyrus to fulfil my righteous purpose, and I will guide his actions.

It is a surprising rescue which speaks of God’s awesome power. God raises up this one man, Cyrus, to rescue his people. Notice again God’s absolute control. He is raising up not someone from amongst some nation to eventually hopefully take over – but this specific man from this specific nation at this specific time. God has done this 2 This is what the Lord says: “I will go before you, Cyrus, and level the mountains. I will smash down gates of bronze and cut through bars of iron.

Now I know some of you will be saying Ah but God sees the future and sees what choices people will take and uses that. So God is dishonest? He’s just pretending that Cyrus is doing his will? God was just lucky? Because Cyrus certainly didn’t choose God. 4 Why did I call you by name when you did not know me? And v5 I am the Lord; there is no other God. I have equipped you for battle, though you don’t even know me,

No. The Lord raises up a whole Empire – the Medes and the Persians – with this specific King, Cyrus, to, at the exact right moment, the moment promised by God through the prophet Jeremiah, 70 years after the exile began – Cyrus marches into Babylon and the Babylon Empire falls. And Cyrus immediately decrees that everyone shall go back to their homelands. Including the Jews. All the Jews can go back to Israel, just as God had promised.

All this – the rise of Empires, the emergence of great kings – all for this 4 “And why have I called you for this work? Why did I call you by name when you did not know me? It is for the sake of Jacob my servant, Israel my chosen one.
5 I am the Lord; there is no other God.

God raised the Roman Empire for the sake of the church. There was common written language (Greek), road and shipping network for rapid growth of the church. There was peace and stability in the known world. Everything was ready. Even cruel crucifixion God allowed so that Jesus could be cursed on a tree, crucified, in fulfilment of Deut 21:23 and Psalm 22. An Empire raised for this single purpose: for Jesus to save the world, and for his name to be proclaimed throughout the world for all time.

There is only one saviour, and his name is Jesus. Jesus has paid the price for our sins. Jesus is the reason God says in 44:22 I have swept away your sins like a cloud. I have scattered your offenses like the morning mist. Oh, return to me, for I have paid the price to set you free.”

Only in Christ can you be set free. And only the real Christ. The one who is Lord, sovereign over all things in your life. You cannot pray a prayer “I accept Jesus” and then go along with your life. No, your life is his. We are the pot. He is the potter. 9 “What sorrow awaits those who argue with their Creator. Does a clay pot argue with its maker? Does the clay dispute with the one who shapes it, saying, ‘Stop, you’re doing it wrong!’. He is the sovereign God, the sovereign saviour.

I realise that some of us may have some objections or questions in our minds. Some maybe quite big. That’s great. We’ll have time after communion to address them. But I want to ask you to them aside for a moment as we apply God’s word now to ourselves.
For all of us, Lord, will you put away excuses and objections and distractions and let us hear your voice challenging us.

1. There is no other God, but God – and he is sovereign
Do we believe this? Do we believe that God is in control?

We panic and worry about so many things. For Israel, it was “How are we going to get out of Babylon and back to Israel?” It was impossible. But God already had a plan. He was raising an Emperor at the head of a mighty Empire in order to rescue his people. Could they see that? No. But they believed it when Cyrus marched in and sent them back home! Just as God had said.

But you and I – what do we worry about? Here’s maybe a few things:

Money. Jobs. What if I don’t have enough? Isaiah tells us: Brothers, obey God first. He is in control, even over your job, your finances. Trust him. Start giving to gospel work as an act of trust. If you can’t start with 10%, start with something. You’ll be part of God’s saving work (woohoo), it’ll help the church (woohoo) – but more importantly, it will break the idol of worshipping yourself - of thinking that your job, your income, comes from YOU and YOUR hard work instead of God. What did Jesus say? Lk 12:29–31 “And don’t be concerned about what to eat and what to drink. Don’t worry about such things. 30 These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers all over the world, but your Father already knows your needs. 31 Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and he will give you everything you need.”. Obey God first, and see what he does.

What about Time. Do you trust God with your time? Maybe you’re working so much (or doing other things) that you don’t have time to serve at church (or even BE at church) or even serve your family like you should? Again, brothers, obey God first. Trust Him. Do what is right and leave the rest in his hands.
I made the scary decision to go part-time a few years back in order to plant this church. We didn’t have enough. It made no financial sense. And yet God provided. Again and again. Speak to my parents. Ask them how often God provided when we had nothing. Jesus carries on in Luke 12:32 saying “So don’t be afraid, little flock. For it gives your Father great happiness to give you the Kingdom.”

Money. Time. What about Sex and relationships? Again obey God first. Trust his word on sex, on marriage, on relationships. Honour God first. He does know what he’s talking about. Turn the porn off. Stop sleeping with your girlfriend. Move out if you’re living together. (If you’ve got kids together, maybe find another way to honour God. Daddy moving out might be traumatic). But do something to say I trust that God is sovereign over this area of my life. Do whatever it takes. I’ll be happy to talk confidentially with any of you if you’re wondering what to do in this area.

Whatever it is that we are facing. Obey God first. Daniel – obey God first. Why? Because he is in control.

One final thing. Salvation. Obey God first. He’s in control of salvation too! It’s his gospel. It is only through Christ that we can be saved.
We have seen the sovereignty of God in action in this church. If God were not sovereign I would not have been saved. He rescued me when I was not looking for him. He rescued me when I was busy worshipping an idol – a pretend version of Jesus who never bothered me and never made any moral demands of me and never told me to repent and change my life. Does that sound like the God of the Bible? No, “he” was an idol. And then the real God broke through, and, oh my, he told me to repent!

And many of us here have had the same experience, and we are seeing God at work in our friends and neighbours – isn’t it thrilling? Isn’t it amazing to serve a sovereign God? One who is not limited by past sins, or whether someone is “seeking” or not, or whether they’ve been to church or grew up in a Christian home or anything else. He kicks down the door and says grabs hold of the prisoners and carries them to the rescue helicopter. Get to the choppaa!

21 “Pay attention, O Jacob, for you are my servant, O Israel. I, the LORD, made you, and I will not forget you. 22 I have swept away your sins like a cloud. I have scattered your offenses like the morning mist. Oh, return to me, for I have paid the price to set you free.” 23 Sing, O heavens, for the LORD has done this wondrous thing. Shout for joy, O depths of the earth! Break into song, O mountains and forests and every tree! For the LORD has redeemed Jacob and is glorified in Israel

Q’s:

You might think of God as tinkerer, adjusting a moving train, master manipulator. Then can things go wrong? Can things go so wrong that he can’t bring them back?

Can anything happen that God doesn’t want to happen? IF so, then he wouldn’t be God.

But what about when we choose to do evil. Sin. Turn away. Is that God’s will? Is he sovereign over that? Well, yes. So then I can say ha, God planned for me to do that, so its God’s fault.

No.

God’s will is to let us have free choice.

Gods will is to let us experience the consequences of our actions

God’s will is to limit the consequences of our actions.

God’s will is to show us grace.

1 Timothy 3:16-4:5 True Truth

1 Timothy 3:16-4:5

What we believe affects us deeply. It affects how we see and evaluate ourselves, how we see and evaluate others, and how we see and evaluate all that happens in the world. If we believe this is a dog eat dog world where only the cruel survive – that will lead to a certain kind of lifestyle. If we believe that there is a God in heaven to who we are accountable, if we believe that all people are valuable, created in God’s image, if we believe that we are utterly sinful – but amazingly forgiven and loved – that will lead to a certain kind of lifestyle.

That’s why the Holy Spirit inspired Paul to write v14 and 15 “14 I am writing these things to you now, even though I hope to be with you soon, 15 so that if I am delayed, you will know how people must conduct themselves in the household of God. This is the church of the living God, which is the pillar and foundation of the truth”.

We looked at this two weeks ago, the key verses of this letter to Timothy, and saw how we need to know the truth, see the truth, and live the truth. But what is the truth?

1. Jesus is the Truth

What is the truth? The truth is the gospel of Christ Jesus as explained in chapter 1: the truth that we are sinners, we have broken God’s good law - but equally that we are forgiven “Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners” (1:11). That is, indeed, a trustworthy saying!
Those are the two dimensions of the gospel: sin, and forgiveness – and we need both to see in 3D, to see the full picture.
If we only have one: forgiveness but not sin, or sin but not forgiveness – it’s like watching a 3D movie with only one eye. You’re not getting the full picture! Forgiveness but not sin is no gospel – people hear “Jesus loves you”, and they think of course he does, why wouldn’t he? There is no repentance, no acceptance of Jesus as Lord, and that leads to many who say “Lord lord”, and Jesus will respond “I do not know you”.
Sin without forgiveness leads to harsh religion – the wagging finger, the great burden you’ve got to carry to earn your salvation. And either leads to Pharisee who think they’re right with God, but aren’t, or depression, because you can’t do it.
You need both eyes – see in 3D: sin PLUS forgiveness. Then we will see that the gospel is not about us oooh I’nm so loveable or I can do it – but about Jesus, the Christ. 16 Without question, this is the great mystery of our faith: Christ. (Christ means anointed one – he is the promised rescuer, the redeemer).

Verse 16 seems to be a quote from a hymn that was sung in the early church, and its focus is simply Jesus. He is the mystery of our faith. Not words, not ideas, but him.

The false teachers come with empty words – in chapter 1 we saw power through genealogies, being linked with powerful ancestors. And here we see strict rules to follow to make you acceptable to God. Do not marry. Do not eat. Then you will be acceptable to God. That is teachings from demons says 4:1. False philosophies and empty ideas from the pit of hell.
But the true Gospel is not empty ideas, not power through genealogies, not mere words, it’s not following rules – but a Person, the Living God revealed in the flesh, seen in both heaven and earth.

16 Without question, this is the great mystery of our faith: Christ was revealed in a human body and vindicated by the Spirit. He was seen by angels and announced to the nations. He was believed in throughout the world and taken to heaven in glory.

16 Christ was revealed in a human body is the miracle of the incarnation, that is, God becoming man. To look at Jesus was to see God himself. As Jesus said to Philip the apostle: if you have seen me, Philip, you have seen the Father. (John 14:9).
Do not be fooled by teachings from demons like that peddled by the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Iglesia ni Christo, who claim that Jesus is not God and that he must not be worshipped. That is not what the Bible says.
Jesus was seen by angels, not the “other” angels, but angels – and therefore he’s not an angel. But he’s not just a man – because he was “revealed” in a human body… greater than man but not an angel – there is only God.
And when we see that Jesus is now in heaven in glory, something that is never spoken of of angels, and when we see that the mystery of our faith is not that Christ reveals “Jehovah” the God behind Jesus, but that he himself is the mystery of our faith, and when the hymn calls us to believe not in Jehovah or the Father or God but in Jesus – I think we can safely say that the apostles, the early church, tell us that Jesus was God revealed in the flesh. That is a mystery indeed! Hallelujah! What a God we serve!

The Apostle John writes in 1 John 4:3 (ESV) ...[E]very spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist.
Our faith is focussed on Jesus. He is our good confession. He is the centre of our faith. Jesus is not a conduit (a pipe through which we flow to the real God). He is not a messenger. He IS the message. Jesus did not just bring the gospel, or just tell us about the gospel – he IS the gospel. Our confession is Jesus, not Jesus said, or even Jesus did. Our confession is Jesus. That’s why this hymn, this confession of faith, is solely focussed on him. He is the mystery of faith.

16 Christ was revealed in a human body and vindicated by the Spirit. The word vindicated means “to be shown to be right”.
When was Jesus shown to be right? When was all his words and actions vindicated? When was the seeming failure of the Cross revealed to be a great victory over death and salvation for all? That’s right, when he rose from the dead.
His resurrection was his vindication. When suddenly all saw that here was indeed the son of God, the King, the Holy One of Israel. He was indeed the promised Messiah (Christ).

His resurrection changed everything.
It certainly changed the apostles! They were all depressed, huddled in a room in Jerusalem. Other followers were walking home to Emmaus, faces sad, their hopes dashed. “We thought he was the Messiah”, they said in Luke 24. And the women, well, they went to the tomb with burial spices to anoint his body. All of them thought he was dead. None of them expected him to rise from the dead.

But he did. And showed himself to them. And that was the explosive truth that spread so rapidly around the world that within a few years it had reached Rome and within around 25 years was so large, so well-known, and so hated that in 64AD the Emperor himself, Nero, burned parts of Rome to the ground and blamed it on the Christians. It was a world-wide religion, reaching even to the Emperor of Rome, within about 20 years! That is the power of the resurrection life!

Not surprising that the hymn continues that Jesus was announced to the nations and ... believed in throughout the world. It is amazing to think that when 1 Timothy was written, in about 62AD, the gospel had already spread across the whole world. So much so, that singing about Jesus being announced to the nations and believed in throughout the world was a perfectly normal part of church. That is the power of Jesus. As he said in Acts 1:8 (Mia?) “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

Jesus is the gospel. Jesus empowers the gospel. And finally, Jesus is seated now in glory, overseeing the gospel.

V16 ends, having taken us through the incarnation, the resurrection, and the spread of the gospel, to lift up our eyes to heaven where Jesus now sits enthroned in glory. He was taken to heaven in glory.

That’s what we’ve just celebrated: Ascension Day (Kristi Himmelfart). After saying “you will be my witnesses” the next verse in Acts continues: After saying this, he was taken up into a cloud while they were watching, and they could no longer see him. 10 As they strained to see him rising into heaven, two white-robed men suddenly stood among them. 11 “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why are you standing here staring into heaven? Jesus has been taken from you into heaven, but someday he will return from heaven in the same way you saw him go!”

This is the glorious saviour we love and serve. Jesus is the gospel. He who knew no sin became sin for us. What love is this when God himself comes to bear our sins, pay the price we deserve, break the power of sin and death over us and set us free. Praise Him! And now to give us His Spirit so that we can share His joy, his forgiveness, this great Gospel with everyone around us.

Now, when you have such a glorious truth to share – why would you settle for anything less?

2. Satanic lies (anything other than Jesus is not the truth)

4:1 Now the Holy Spirit tells us clearly that in the last times some will turn away from the true faith; they will follow deceptive spirits and teachings that come from demons. 2 These people are hypocrites and liars, and their consciences are dead.

What does the Apostle Paul mean by writing that the Holy Spirit tells us that people will turn away? How does He tell us?

Well maybe it is a direct revelation from the Holy Spirit, but it’s probably because Paul knows his Bible! That’s where the Spirit’s voice is heard clearly, authoritatively, objectively.
The Holy Spirit reveals quite clearly what the leaders of God’s people are like in the history of Israel. You don’t really have to know the Old Testament that well to be able to say “the Holy Spirit warns us that people will turn away from the true faith”.

As the prophet Jeremiah warns us in Jer 17:9 The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked.
And so because of greed, lust for power, a desire to be God, these men have been lured away from the truth by Satanic lies, and now they peddle those same lies. And their method is always the same: appear to be godly, be impressive, have lots of pomp and ceremony around you – maybe flashy clothes and white suits, or big religious hats, collars, cloaks, and a large silver cross – all things that say “I am a representative of God”. And then speak words that seem true, but aren’t.
“Brothers and sisters, we must obey God. He has wiped our past sins away, but now we must earn his trust by obeying his law.” To some of you that will be very familiar – you’ve heard your teachers saying those very same words – words from Satan. We were saved, but now we have to earn our salvation. They are evil words, for they deny the sovereignty of God in salvation, and make our salvation dependant not on the finished work of Christ – but on our own efforts.
It is evil because it’s close to the truth, but it is not true truth. We are called to obey, but our salvation is not dependant on our obedience. It is dependant on Christ’s obedience. We do not obey to be saved – we obey because we are saved,

Satan always wants to tear down Christ from his position of honour. Beware of any teaching which puts man at the centre, and shifts Jesus away to the side. Because that is not the Gospel. Jesus is the gospel – not you, not me, not our efforts, not the church, not even the good of mankind – Jesus. To him be the glory, and no other!

But these men are not satisfied with just taking the focus off Jesus – oh no, they need the focus on them. So then they start making up silly, unbiblical rules – not only saying “you need to follow the law”, but, just like the Pharisees, adding to the law. Do not marry, they say. Do not eat certain foods, they say. That is how you impress God.
Ugh.

They did not care about the gospel. They did not see the church as the pillar and foundation of the truth. They did not care about the lost. All they cared about was themselves, their own power, their prestige. How many leaders in the church today are like that? Twisting the Scriptures to enhance their own popularity...
For example. Have you heard this “Brothers and sisters, the law of God is love. Same sex marriage is an expression of love. Love is not a sin. Same sex marriage is not a sin.” Hooray. I’m sure the fact that homosexuality now so accepted in our society has nothing to do with their change of heart. In fact, I’m sure all the bishops were championing this form of “God’s love” 20 years ago.
What, they weren’t. Oh. How strange.

If I replace the word with adultery we’ll see how deceptive it is. “Brothers and sisters, the law of God is love. Adultery is an expression of love. Love is not a sin. Adultery is not a sin.”
Both adultery (sex with someone other than your spouse) and homosexual sex (sex with someone of the same sex) are sin, just like lying, murder, gossip, and all the other things we do which God would not do!
May I just point out that being attracted to members of the same sex is not sinful. That’s often not something we can control. I’m deeply attracted to my wife – but I can’t stop myself finding certain other women attractive as well – because they are - just like a homosexual man will find certain men attractive – because they are. It becomes a sin when I act on that attraction – either in my head or by actually doing it. When I give in to the attraction.
There are many godly men and women with same-sex attraction serving the Lord. If you need help thinking through this issue, have a chat with me after the service. A website www.livingout.org is a great resource. However, the real problem in the church today is not homosexuality – it is our attitude to God and to his Word.

We are saying yes to things God said no to, and saying no to things God says yes to. And it matters because we are sending people to hell. The church is the pillar of the truth – not a hotbed of lies.

3 They will say it is wrong to be married and wrong to eat certain foods. But God created those foods to be eaten with thanks by faithful people who know the truth. 4 Since everything God created is good, we should not reject any of it but receive it with thanks. 5 For we know it is made acceptable by the word of God and prayer.

Where do we say that “in order to be a real Christian you need to accept Christ and... stop smoking, wear the right clothes, not eat meat with blood in it, not get a tattoo, not dance on Sundays, not read Harry Potter, not close your curtains.” The list goes on and on of stupid rules we can make up. And we need to repent.

There is freedom in Christ. Eat your food with thanksgiving. Enjoy life with praise. Ascetism (denying yourself things to impress God) is ungodly. Only Christ impresses God. Trying to impress God without Christ or outside of Christ is trying to impress God with sins!

Dear friends, Jesus is all that matters. Do we proclaim Jesus in the way that we live, eat, entertain, do church? Or do we proclaim Satanic lies? Where have we been guilty of saying to people “you need to do this and that and then Jesus will accept you” – perhaps not with our words but just with our actions. Is our church open to everyone?
Where do we put ourselves in the centre – our own efforts - instead of Jesus? It’s easy to slip into a DIY Christianity, where we’re judging our salvation by our performance, and comparing ourselves to others.

This is the mystery of our faith: Christ was revealed in a human body and vindicated by the Spirit. He was seen by angels and announced to the nations. He was believed in throughout the world and taken to heaven in glory.

Exodus 5:22-7:7 Our salvation depends on the LORD, not on us

Exodus 5:22-7:7

I don’t like today’s passage.

There is a part of me that rises up in great anger when I read today’s passage.

Because I want to be God in my life. I am me. I am independent. I am the captain of my destiny. No-one tells me what to do.

And this passage is all about GOD’S sovereignty.

But I love this passage.

Because God is sovereign, and I am not. Because my rebellion against him is forgotten, dealt with by him on the cross – not because I deserve it, or earned it, but because it is his nature to forgive. And because he is sovereign, because HE is God and I am not, he can override my sinful choices and compel me to come to him and be saved.

My pride might say I hate this passage. But I say, shut up, pride, for you are a fool. For this passage gives me eternal life!

1. I am the LORD, the sovereign God

2. I am the LORD God almighty. You are not.

3. I am the LORD, your saviour

1. I am the LORD, the sovereign God

Last week ended pretty badly, didn’t it. Pharaoh was angry, the Israelites were much worse off, now having to make bricks without the straw they needed to make bricks (and then being beaten for not making the bricks “it’s not our fault!”). Moses and Aaron are rejected by the Israelites for making them “stink” before Pharaoh. And Moses, the great hero of the Old Testament, the saviour of Israel… well he’s in a pit of despair and doubt.

How quickly we abandon the word of God! As soon as we run into trouble, we fall away.

But why? Why do we fall away? Isn’t it when things don’t go the way we had planned? That’s what we define as trouble isn’t it? Things didn’t go according to plan. But who’s plan? God’s plan? Or OUR (much better) plan.

Moses is in despair because things didn’t go the way HE wanted. Listen to his words Ex 5:22–23 Then Moses went back to the LORD and protested, “Why have you brought all this trouble on your own people, Lord? Why did you send me? 23 Ever since I came to Pharaoh as your spokesman, he has been even more brutal to your people. And you have done nothing to rescue them!”

The tone is accusatory, hostile. And he’s not so much worried about “the people” – he’s worried about him “Why did you send…ME”. I was having a nice quiet life in the middle of the desert – now you dragged me out here, nearly killed me on the way, put me in front of Pharaoh – only to make a fool out of me, and make everyone hate me.

And you’ve done nothing!!

Actually, God has done exactly what he said he would do. Remember a couple of weeks back, to 4:21 And the LORD told Moses, “When you arrive back in Egypt, go to Pharaoh and perform all the miracles I have empowered you to do. But I will harden his heart so he will refuse to let the people go.

We read sentences like “I will harden his heart” and we give a little nervous laugh, and a little cough, because this doesn’t fit in with our mental picture of God – and then we ignore it. Or try to explain it away. It’s unfair we say. Unfair? For God to pronounce judgement on a sinful, brutal, evil ruler like Pharaoh?

Many people, even Christians (especially Christians?) get very offended with the idea of God’s sovereignty. The idea that God is in control. That God decides.

The reason we struggle with that doctrine (idea or teaching), even though it is fundamental to our faith, should be painfully obvious to all of us who are Christian. The reason we struggle with it is that we want to be God! WE want to decide our fate (and indeed, the fates of others).

And so we simply filter what we want to hear. Moses heard “rescue” and “miracles” and power and prestige. God promised all that – but also hardship and refusal and a battle between Pharaoh and God that would reveal God’s glory. Moses ignored that bit.

It’s kind of like when Jesus said he would go to Jerusalem (yes, yes, to rescue your people, yes. Glory and power and all that) - well, not quite – more like my death, but don’t worry, I will conquer death and rise again. Yes, they say – and the first thing they do is say “I’d like to be on your right hand in the kingdom” – the position of power! They just… filtered away… his words about suffering and death. So they were shocked, SHOCKED, when he died. How could this happen.

Like Moses. Pharaoh will be hard-hearted and not let the people. And Moses is shocked, SHOCKED.

Like us. We live in a sinful world, as sinners, surrounded by sinners. We know we are not God. We know we are not in the new Creation. And we are shocked, SHOCKED, by hardship, or difficulties. Shocked when God calls us to lay aside our lives. To live self-sacrificially. To love the unlovable. To forgive deep, real, hurts. To pour out our lives in service to him. But what about ME and MY plans.

There is a God. You are not Him.

There is a version of the gospel which has been filtered to suit our comfortable Western existence. It is called the prosperity gospel (herlighetsteologi) – that God is on our side, that he will make us healthy and wealthy. That he will fulfil our dreams and grant us our deepest desires. Notice the focus? Me. Me. Me. My dreams. My desires. My health. My wealth. That’s not the gospel – that’s the American Dream – actually that’s insulting the American Dream, because that involves hard work – this is the American DayDream! Just have faith and God the magic genie will give it to you.

God is not there to do our will. We were made, by Him, to do His will. We are his servants – he is not ours. To disobey him is to rebel against the power at the centre of the universe, and is a foolish thing indeed. Pharaoh rebelled, and look at v 1! Then the LORD told Moses, “Now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh. When he feels the force of my strong hand, he will let the people go. In fact, he will force them to leave his land!” 2 And God said to Moses, “I am Yahweh—‘the LORD.’

God is God. The Lord is the Lord. There is only one God.
Moses, God is God. Not you.

Daniel, God is God. Not you.

2. I am the LORD God almighty. You are not.

There’s a big puzzle in this story, and that’s vv14-25 – the random genealogy (list of names). Let’s have a break here and bore you to death with a list of births and deaths! Just as the story’s getting interesting.

That might be just a clever literary device. God has just said “I am the LORD” and v13 The LORD commanded Moses and Aaron to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt. Ooh, the stage is set – and then we cut away to this list of names. It’s like an advertising break at a crucial point in a TV program. “And the murderer is….” Pause. Fade to black. “Buy our nappies”… argh!

But I suspect it’s more than just old style “advert break”. This list of the ancestors of some of the clans of Israel has been deliberately placed here, and the names carefully selected. Why?

That’s a question you should be asking when you read the Bible, and it’s a big part of my job in explaining it. Why? Why is it said like this? Why is it said here? It’s a surprise, and surprises should make us sit up and concentrate. A bit like Jesus’ surprising the apostles with “I’m going to Jerusalem…” (yes, yes, to be crowned King!) “…to die”. Huh? But they dismissed it – it didn’t fit with their framework – their preconceived ideas of God and the world – and so they ignored his word. Oops. And missed out on the very reason he came, the central work of Jesus, the message they would spend their lives proclaiming and die for: Christ crucified – the righteous who died for the unrighteous (us) to bring us to God.
Watch for the surprises… and allow God to shape your framework, instead of trying to shape God to fit your framework. If you don’t let the Bible shape your view of God, you will eventually find that you are worshipping a lie – a God made in your own image – a Jesus who does not exist – an idol. And that is extremely dangerous.

So, why the genealogy? Why only 3 sons of Israel? Why these sons? Why these families?

Well, let’s examine it. 14 These are the ancestors of some of the clans of Israel: The sons of Reuben, Israel’s oldest son, were Hanoch, Pallu, Hezron, and Carmi. Their descendants became the clans of Reuben. 15 The sons of Simeon were Jemuel, Jamin, Ohad, Jakin, Zohar, and Shaul. (Shaul’s mother was a Canaanite woman.) Their descendants became the clans of Simeon. 16 These are the descendants of Levi, as listed in their family records:

The author is not really interested in the descendants of Rueben and Simeon, is he? He mentions them only to get to Levi – because that’s Moses and Aaron’s clan. So why mention them at all? It’s to point out that Levi is not even the firstborn. He’s not the most important son. He’s down the list. Number 3. Then we get the sons of Levi Gershon, Kohath, Merari. Again, Moses and Aaron are not even from the firstborn of Levi. They are number 2.

The point is this: Moses, and Aaron his brother, are not anything special. They’re just ordinary guys, from an ordinary family, from an ordinary tribe. They have no special skills, no special promises, no special position in life (and even if they did, Moses showed how quickly you can mess that up: from the palace to the desert in one easy move!).

They are ordinary.

Actually, not even that. Reuben lost his birthright because of sexual sin. Simeon and Levi ransacked an entire town, murdering everyone out of revenge for their sister Dinah being assaulted. Moses and Aaron’s parents did something forbidden in the law: Amram married Jochebed his father’s sister. Korah, mentioned in v24, was the one who rebelled against Moses and who was swallowed up by the ground in Numbers 16.

Their family line is a mess. Rebellion and evil all over the place. There is nothing special about them.

But God.

God has called Moses, and together with him, Aaron, to be part of his salvation work. This whole story is God’s initiative – from the baby floating in the river to growing up in the Palace, to fleeing to the desert, to seeing the Burning bush – all to bring him to this point: The Aaron and Moses named in this list are the same ones to whom the LORD said, “Lead the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt like an army.” 27 It was Moses and Aaron who spoke to Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, about leading the people of Israel out of Egypt.

You know, you might be sitting there thinking “God could never use me, I’m not qualified. I’m no good at this. I’m born into the wrong family. I don’t have this skill or that skill. God can’t use me.” Guess what? You’re wrong! God doesn’t need the skilled, or those born into the right family, or with power, or connections. He can provide all that, if necessary. He is sovereign, after all. Your job is to simply be obedient. 7: 6 So Moses and Aaron (eventually) did just as the LORD had commanded them.

To share a personal story - I felt the same way when God called me to plant this church. Ridiculous, I said, I’m the wrong person for the job. I’m an accountant, for goodness sake. I don’t have these skills, or these, etc. And yet here we stand, 2 years old, God’s grace evident throughout this congregation. God is the difference. He works in our weakness.

But I also want to talk to those of us here who don’t really know God. If you’re sitting there thinking “God can’t accept me”, or “Daniel, if you really knew me and what I have done, you wouldn’t be saying that God can use me, God can accept me”. Well, you’re wrong. The whole Bible is story after story of God accepting the unacceptable. So if you’re unacceptable to God, you’ve got good company: Moses, Aaron, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, the apostles Peter, John, Paul, for example!

Why? Because

3. I am the LORD, your saviour

6:6 “Therefore, say to the people of Israel: ‘I am the LORD. I will free you from your oppression and will rescue you from your slavery in Egypt. I will redeem you with a powerful arm and great acts of judgment. 7 I will claim you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God who has freed you from your oppression in Egypt.

God is in the business of saving people. And did you see why he saves people? It’s a repeated saying, again and again. It’s there in v6 “I am the LORD”

Notice that LORD is in capital letters. This indicates the letters YHWH or Yahweh (or older translations had Jehovah). It is his name – his personal name revealed to Israel.

The reason he saves is because he is the LORD, Yahweh. He saves because that’s who he is. That is his character, his very nature.

That’s what v2-3 means: And God said to Moses, “I am Yahweh—‘the LORD.’ 3 I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as El-Shaddai—‘God Almighty’—but I did not reveal my name, Yahweh, to them.

This doesn’t mean that they didn’t know his name, Yahweh, before now. A number of names have a “yah” as part of them, like Joshua (Yeshu-yah) and Jochebed (Yah-kebed, meaning “Yahweh is glory”); and also because Genesis uses the name Yahweh 162 times! For example, after Isaac is redeemed from the sacrifice, Abraham names the place Yahweh-Yireh (the LORD provides).

So they knew his name – but now he will reveal to them what it means – who he really is. The saviour God.

The Exodus is an object lesson on the character and nature of our saviour God. That is why it is so important. We see in one great event the hostility of God towards sin and injustice: he is the Judge of the world, and he is irresistible. Justice will be done, must be done. And in the midst of his just judgement on the pride and arrogance and cruelty of Pharaoh and his people – we find mercy and salvation and patience and tenderness. We find a God who covers over the sins of his people.

For who is this Moses who speaks back to God in unbelief? He is nothing, a no-one – yet in 5:22-23 he moans against God. In 6:12 he tries to wiggle out of obeying God. In v30 he does the same “No God, I won’t do it”.

And yet God’s reaction is not judgement…but mercy. So, too, his reaction to the Israelites who reject his Word. 9 So Moses told the people of Israel what the LORD had said, but they refused to listen anymore.

God had every right to simply walk away. To abandon them. To terrify them in his wrath and subdue them. But instead he deals tenderly with them, patiently repeating his words and sending Moses and Aaron to rescue them anyway. He covers over their sins, the sins of Moses and the sins of the people of Israel, and says you will be my people, and I will be your God. (6:7). Why? Because I am Yahweh – the LORD – the covenant keeping God.

Exodus reveals the heart of God.

But Exodus is only a shadow of the reality to come. In Exodus we see in part who this LORD, this Yahweh, is – on the Cross we see it in full.

On the Cross we see the full extent of God’s justice as he pours out his wrath, his anger, on the sins of the world upon the shoulders of his Son. We see his justice as Jesus cries out “My God, my God why have you abandoned me”, and the sun goes dark and the earth splits open as with a loud cry Jesus dies. And we see in that same moment his amazing mercy as the one who is on the cross, the one paying the penalty for my sins, the one carrying all my wrongdoing on his shoulders is not me – but him. God himself, bearing the cost of our rebellion. Even Moses’ sin is there. The sins of the Israelites ignoring God is there. All the sins past, present and future committed by his people, all focused like a huge magnifying glass on that one moment in history, that one Man on the Cross, bearing our sin. What love! What mercy!

This is why in the New Testament he is not called Yahweh, but the Lord Jesus. Jesus is the full and complete revelation of Almighty God, El-Shaddai, Yahweh, the LORD.

1. He is the LORD, the sovereign God

2. He is the LORD God almighty. I am not.

3. He is the LORD, my, your, saviour

He is our Lord, our saviour.

Exodus 1:11-2:25 Slavery…and a saviour

Exodus 1:11-2:25

In the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes there is a character called Mo. He is the biggest boy in Calvin’s class at school, and is a bully. He pushes Calvin off the swing, takes his lunch money, shoves him in the dirt, etc. Calvin is powerless against Mo – he’s so much bigger and stronger. Help!
Calvin needs someone bigger than Mo to protect him against Mo. He needs someone to rescue him from Mo.

The Israelites need someone to rescue them from their bully, the Pharaoh (ruler) of Egypt.

And we need someone to rescue us. You see, we are just like the Israelites: enslaved. We are enslaved to sin. We cannot stop rebelling against God, and that rebellion is seen in our lives. It is seen every time we lie. Every time we sin sexually. Every time we gossip or are ungrateful or say hurtful things to those we love. Every time we are impatient or selfish or mean or arrogant. And every time we kill our unborn children, every time we steal, every time we murder and rape and destroy.

To be a sinner living in a sinful world is to suffer. Watch the news. We are enslaved to sin. We need a saviour.

And thankfully we have a God who keeps his promises. A God who is the saviour of the world.

1. God keeps his promises despite opposition (1:11-22)

Israel is in trouble. The Egyptians have turned against them, and the Pharaoh (king) of Egypt sees them as a threat.

11 So the Egyptians made the Israelites their slaves. They appointed brutal slave drivers over them, hoping to wear them down with crushing labour.
13 So the Egyptians worked the people of Israel without mercy. 14 They made their lives bitter, forcing them to mix mortar and make bricks and do all the work in the fields. They were ruthless in all their demands.
16 “When you help the Hebrew women as they give birth, watch as they deliver. If the baby is a boy, kill him; if it is a girl, let her live.”
22 Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: “Throw every newborn Hebrew boy into the Nile River. But you may let the girls live.”

The Pharaoh was a wicked and cruel king. He was wicked and cruel because he was afraid. And the more his plans failed, the more wicked and cruel he became. 9 He said to his people, “Look, the people of Israel now outnumber us and are stronger than we are. 10 We must make a plan to keep them from growing even more. If we don’t, and if war breaks out, they will join our enemies and fight against us. Then they will escape from the country.”

So he first attempts to work them into the ground. When that fails, he tries to get the midwives to kill them. When that fails he gets the whole county involved in his evil plan.

But we know that his plan to wipe out the Israelites will fail. Why? Because, as we were reminded last week, God keeps his promises. Gen 12:1–3 The LORD had said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you. 2 I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others. 3 I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you.”

No matter what Pharaoh does, he cannot stop the promises of God. Did you notice the irony, as the narrator basically makes fun of Pharaoh’s impotence in the face of God’s majestic power. 12 But the more the Egyptians oppressed them, the more the Israelites multiplied and spread, and the more alarmed the Egyptians became.
The more he multiplies the oppression, the more the Israelites multiply!
17 But because the midwives feared God, they refused to obey the king’s orders. They allowed the boys to live, too.
Pharaoah’s subjects do not obey him – he has no real power - and so 20 So God was good to the midwives, and the Israelites continued to multiply, growing more and more powerful.

So Pharaoh says “Drown the baby boys in the river!”. And what happens? His own daughter finds a baby boy in the river, and promptly drowns him, in obedience to her father. No! 2:6 When the princess opened it, she saw the baby. The little boy was crying, and she felt sorry for him. “This must be one of the Hebrew children,” she said. 7 Then the baby’s sister approached the princess. “Should I go and find one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?” she asked. 8 “Yes, do!” the princess replied.

Deep irony. Even within his own family, Pharaoh cannot stop God from keeping his promises. Pharaoh will fail. His wickedness will end in his own destruction. No matter what he does, he cannot stop the promises of God. Because it is God who guarantees his promises.

This is the message of Exodus, indeed the whole Bible. God is powerful enough to keep his promises and faithful to keep his promises. His word is trustworthy.

Whether we are an Israelite in exile in Babylon, a Jew living in the 1^st century, or a Christian in 21^st century Norway – this story reminds us that God keeps his promises.

And so no matter how much Pharaoh tries to destroy the Israelites he will not succeed. And no matter what the world does, the Church keeps on going. Its death has been predicted many times. We have almost destroyed it from the inside out, but each time it is reformed, renewed.
The church in Norway is in a huge mess. Maybe 2% go regularly to church, and most of what they are being taught is not the gospel but moralistic niceness. But even in this mess people still become true Christians. New churches are planted. There is still hope because the Spirit of Christ is active. As Jesus says “I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it.” (Matt 16:18)

God keeps his promises.

2. God protects his chosen saviour against opposition

So, we know God will save his people. The question is not “If”, but How? How will God save his people?

2:1 About this time, a man and woman from the tribe of Levi got married. 2 The woman became pregnant and gave birth to a son.

This boy was Moses, the future saviour of Israel. But we know that his life is under threat. This “special” baby’s life is threatened. He is to be killed by the law of Pharaoh.

His mother manages to keep him hidden – but babies, as those of us who are parents know, are not quiet little things (particularly at 3 am!). And Moses is no different. In desperation, Moses’ mother hatches a cunning plan. She will obey Pharaoh’s decree to throw the baby in the river – she’ll just build him a little boat!

Interestingly the word for boat there is ark, like Noah’s ark. To rescue him from the judgement of the water, Moses is placed in the ark. The future rescuer is rescued.

This seems to be working well – Moses is floating happily in the river, and his sister is watching over him. But then, horror of horrors, Pharaoh’s daughter approaches.

Think of the tension. Oh no. They are walking here! Why here? Oh no, they are getting closer – what if they see him or hear him? Oh no she’s SEEN the basket.
Can you imagine the despair? The princess has seen the basket. This is the end. It certainly looks like the end for God’s promises, doesn’t it. His chosen deliverer is threatened with destruction.

But for no reason whatsoever, she has compassion on the baby. She disobeys her father’s command. And not only that, she decides to ADOPT the baby as her own son. And in a wonderful little picture of the grace of God, Moses’ mother gets him back (and even gets paid to look after him).

9 “Take this baby and nurse him for me,” the princess told the baby’s mother. “I will pay you for your help.” So the woman took her baby home and nursed him. 10 Later, when the boy was older, his mother brought him back to Pharaoh’s daughter, who adopted him as her own son. The princess named him Moses, for she explained, “I lifted him out of the water.”

The stage is set. The people need a saviour. The saviour has been born. God has protected his chosen saviour: he was rescued, raised as a Prince of Egypt – he has been prepared for leadership, for power.

Israel, here is your saviour! Or is he?

3. God is the only true saviour, not Moses (11-22)

11 Many years later, when Moses had grown up, he went out to visit his own people, the Hebrews, and he saw how hard they were forced to work.

Many years later Moses goes to visit his people. According to Acts 7:23 he was 40 years old. What was he doing for 40 years? Living it up in the palace? I wonder what his people thought of him. I’m sure he carried the hopes of the people – one of ours is in the “White House”! He will bring the government around. “More straw less bricks.”
But it appears that Moses is a disappointment. 40 years of silence. 40 years of nothing, as Moses, the saviour, doesn’t save.

Until finally he “goes to visit his people”.
And what he sees appals him. Seeing the brutality of the “Egyptian” slave driver he suddenly becomes all patriotic towards his own people and decides to rescue this Israelite from the evil Egyptian. During his visit, he saw an Egyptian beating one of his fellow Hebrews. 12 After looking in all directions to make sure no one was watching, Moses killed the Egyptian and hid the body in the sand.
His rescue is sneaky (he looks around to see if no-one else is watching), and brutal. He murders the Egyptian without warning, and literally tries to bury the evidence.

Is this the great rescuer of God’s people? At best he is a vigilante. At worst, a murderous sneak.
And what’s he going to do? Kill the Egyptian slave drivers one by one? It’s laughable. It’s so small, so pathetic.

And things don’t get better the day after. Buoyed up by his show of patriotism, he visits his people again. As one commentary put it “The champion of the oppressed and underdogs went forth the next day—this time to settle a dispute between two of his own people. Expecting to be heralded as a leader he is shocked – shocked! - when his people, the people he is born to lead (or so he thinks), totally ignore him. V14 Who appointed you to be our prince and judge?
Who, indeed. It seems Moses is self-appointed. Moses has not spoken to the Lord. Moses is not following his commands. Moses is doing his thing, his way. I’ll do it my waaaaay! Sings Moses.

But his song is brought short by the next sentence that comes out of the man’s mouth “Are you going to kill me as you killed that Egyptian yesterday?”

Uh-oh. His crime has been discovered. Then Moses was afraid, thinking, “Everyone knows what I did.” 15 And sure enough, Pharaoh heard what had happened, and he tried to kill Moses.

So Moses’ rescue attempt is short-lived. He runs away, away to the land of Midian. There he rescues seven girls from the shepherds – Moses really did see himself as a rescuer, didn’t he? – but irony of ironies, they recognise him as… an Egyptian. 19 “An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds,” they answered. “And then he drew water for us and watered our flocks.”

Poor Moses. He tries to hide his murder – but EVERYONE knew about it. It was the front page of the Egyptian Telen!
He was born to be the leader and ruler of his people – but he is immediately rejected by his people ‘Who made you ruler and judge over us?’.
And as he’s running for his life from the Egyptians because he finally accepted that “I am a Hebrew, a Jew” and tried to set his people free – he’s recognized as…an Egyptian

Moses is hated by the Egyptians, rejected by his own people, an exile in a foreign land.
Moses names his son v22 Gershom, for he explained, “I have been a foreigner in a foreign land.”

Moses is a picture of his people – they are foreigners in a foreign land. Yes, they are multiplying, yes they are a people – but God’s promise of land is not fulfilled. They are not home. They are away.

Ironically enough it is Moses, the foreigner, the leader rejected by his people, who would be their saviour, their deliverer, their rescuer. Who appointed you leader and judge – well, in time, the answer to that question will be Yahweh, God Almighty! But Moses must first learn humility and patience.
He is the rescuer of God’s people, yes, but in God’s way, under God’s authority, and in God’s time.

Because Moses is not actually the saviour of God’s people. God is.

4. God, and only God, is the true saviour of his people (v23-25)

23 Years passed, and the king of Egypt died. But the Israelites continued to groan under their burden of slavery. They cried out for help, and their cry rose up to God. 24 God heard their groaning, and he remembered his covenant promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 25 He looked down on the people of Israel and knew it was time to act.

God keeps his promises. His word is trustworthy. As persecution multiplies, blessing multiplied all the more. His people were being preserved. A rescuer was born! And he was protected – raised indeed in the very palace of Pharaoh. But when Moses tried to rescue his people in his own strength… well that ended badly: murder, rejection, utter failure and exile.
Moses was not the one to rescue his people.

God is the true saviour. He is the one who will rescue his people and bring them safely through the desert to the Promised Land. He is the one who will keep his promises. He is the one who is strong enough to save his people and protect them.

And he is strong enough to save Moses. Because Moses needs a saviour. The one born to save is not good enough. He is weak, he is sinful. He ignores God and does things his way – that’s sin. And because he is a sinner, ignoring God, he sins in his actions too, and ends up murdering a man. Moses needs a saviour.
Moses’ failure forces us to look forward to the day when a perfect saviour will be born. A saviour who, like Moses, was threatened at birth, as Herod tried to destroy him by murdering the baby boys of Israel in Bethlehem. A saviour who, like Moses, was protected by the Lord God, not by an ark in the reeds, but by an angel telling his father Joseph to “Get up and flee!”. A saviour who, like Moses was rejected by his people: a crucified Messiah – yaaa, as they jeered and spat at him.
But a saviour who, unlike Moses, never failed, never faltered. He never went beyond his Father’s will. At each stage he prayed, waiting on His Father’s word. He obeyed perfectly. He had no sin to cover up. He did not need to run away from justice. He was innocent. And yet he took our punishment in order to rescue us.

Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, the Son of God.

Maybe you are feeling like Moses. Alone. A foreigner in a foreign land. Maybe you’ve really messed things up. You were destined for greatness, but now…. you are a reject, unacceptable, exiled.

Take comfort. God rescues the broken, the unacceptable, the foreigner in a foreign land. He keeps his promises. You can come to him, just as you are.

Maybe you are feeling like the Israelites. Under the whip. Enslaved. Can’t get free. You need a rescuer.

Don’t be a fool like Moses and try to rescue yourself. You know, self-help books. Yoga. Meditation. Religious practices. Fitness. Life coaches. Going on a trip to “find yourself”. None of these work. Even Christianity does not work - unless you come to CHRIST. Otherwise you’re just like Moses, rushing out with half the picture, “I’m the saviour” until you trip and fall flat on your face.
There is one Lord and one Saviour, and his name is Jesus.

Run to him. Cry out to him. Take comfort in him. For he keeps his promises. And he is powerful to save.

Exodus 1:1-14 Aliens and strangers

Exodus 1:1-14

How does God work in the world today?
Does he wind up the world like a clock and then let it run down?
Does he send down a bunch of operating instructions (the Bible, for example) and then wait and see what happens?
Does he play with us like dolls, like a child, and we are mere puppets in his play?

What we learn in Exodus is that none of those are correct. The reality is that God is sovereign (in control) and active in His world. And we are not puppets but real people with real choices and real responsibility, and somehow our choices and God’s sovereignty go hand in hand. God is active, for his glory – and we can be part of his glorious salvation plan!

Exodus takes place in history. These are historical events with real people and in real places. The Bible is not embarrassed by this, this dependence on provable (or disprovable) events. God reveals himself to us through time and history, through events that human being experience. This is not a book of dry philosophy, thoughts we must thing about God. Greek philosophy and Oriental mysticism always seek to remove man from nature, from creation. Matter is dirty. From Buddhism to Zoroastrianism to Hinduism to Star Wars (“luminous beings are we, not this crude matter” says Yoda) we are spiritual beings, and we must seek to throw off the shackles of the material.

The other extreme is of course our Western materialism which assumes that there is only a material world, that the spiritual does not exist.

The Bible is an embarrassment to both. Materialism is revealed to be only part of the picture – but spiritualism has a faulty view of the material. Remember that the end of the story is not that we become a bunch of floaty angelic spirit beings, sitting in white light playing harps – but a new heavens and a new earth, with new imperishable bodies (that is, bodies that cannot be destroyed).

So in Exodus we see great material events with great spiritual significance. It is what is called theological history. Theos is the Greek word for God, so theological history is history in relation to God or history through God’s eyes.
This year we’ve spent a long time reading theological history in the book of Acts. In Acts we’ve been reading the events of the growth of the Christian church, and at each point we are shown how it is God who is behind these events, how it is He who is growing his church, sending out missionaries, converting people. He is the Prime Mover of church history.

And we find the same revealed here in Exodus. It is God who orchestrates these events in order to reveal to us who he is: his character, his power, his glory, his Name. A refrain throughout the Old Testament is this “that you/they may know that I am the Lord (YHWH)”. He is the Prime Mover in all of history for one purpose: that we may know him. John Piper, based on Jonathan Edwards work, sums up the Bible, and indeed all of history, to be about one thing: the glory of God.

Ex 14:4 I have planned this in order to display my glory through Pharaoh and his whole army. After this the Egyptians will know that I am the LORD!

We are not the hero of the Bible stories. It is Christ. He is the hero of the Bible. Remember Jesus’ words to the Pharisees: “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.” (John 5:39-40 (ESV))

And remember what we learned from Colossians: Col 1:26–27 This message was kept secret for centuries and generations past, but now it has been revealed to God’s people. 27 For God wanted them to know that the riches and glory of Christ are for you Gentiles, too. And this is the secret (or mystery): Christ lives in you. This gives you assurance of sharing his glory.

Exodus is about Christ, and reveals to us the glory of God.

With that in mind, let us turn to the introduction to the book.

1. The people of Israel are blessed 1:1-7

These are the names of the sons of Israel (that is, Jacob) who moved to Egypt with their father, each with his family: 2 Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, 3 Issachar, Zebulun, Benjamin, 4 Dan, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher. 5 In all, Jacob had seventy descendants in Egypt, including Joseph, who was already there. 6 In time, Joseph and all of his brothers died, ending that entire generation. 7 But their descendants, the Israelites, had many children and grandchildren. In fact, they multiplied so greatly that they became extremely powerful and filled the land.

Here we have listed the twelve tribes of Israel, named after the twelve sons of Jacob (called Israel). And look how numerous they have become. V7 In fact, they multiplied so greatly that they became extremely powerful and filled the land.

The opening verse of Exodus remind us that God keeps his promises. What promise, you may ask? Turn back to Gen 12:1–3 The LORD had said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you. 2 I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others. 3 I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you.”

It’s an echo of the covenant (promise) God made to Adam Gen 1:28 Then God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it.”

The Lord is keeping his promise, Abraham’s descendants filling the land, becoming as numerous as the starts in the night sky, or sand on the seashore (Gen 22:17, God’s promise to Isaac, Abraham’s son). V9 is the first time Israel is called a “people”. The Lord is keeping his promise.

But not all of the promise is fulfilled, is it? They’re not in the Promised Land, are they? They are in Egypt! And so Exodus opens with a problem – how to get the people of God to move from their comfortable houses and good lands in Egypt, and get them to the Promised Land.

The start of God’s fulfilment of his promise to Abraham is surprising: the plan to bless Israel started with a declaration of slavery! (v11)

How powerful God is. How majestic. How surprising. How different. His ways are not our ways, his thoughts not our thoughts. He is a master at using our evil for good.

How often does something terrible happen to us – which later we see is of such a deep blessing to us. When I was at Sagavoll (here in Gvarv), one of my classmates killed himself – hanged himself in the cellar of our dormitory. And I discovered his body. That experience was like a wrecking ball whistling through my carefully constructed life. At one moment I was laid bare – and I realised that, at the end of the day, there is nothing but me and God. I stand before him, alone. Nothing else. It shook me up, and was the beginning of God’s saving work in my life (he saved me 9 months later in Drammen. Bing, the lights came on!). But that experience, terrible as it was in seeing my friends corpse, is not something I would ever give up. God used that to save me. God used that to show me where I stood with him. He knocked away all my other support structures to show me that He is enough.

The Israelites found themselves enslaved. And so what do they do? They cry out to the Lord. They realise they are helpless, that they need him. And they experience the most amazing rescue that history has ever seen – other than the cross of Christ.

God keeps his promise. His people will be blessed in slavery and in rescue. They will know that he is the Lord, and his name is glorious.

But before we carry on, let’s take a quick step back through the chapters of Genesis we skipped over, and get ourselves up to speed. Context is key to understanding the Bible, so what have we missed?

2. Genesis 22-50

Earlier on this year we covered the life of Abraham. If you’ve missed that series, download it and listen to it. What we saw was how God chose this man Abraham to be the start of his salvation plan for the world. We’ve already read the promise God made to Abraham in Gen 12:1-3, and the rest of the Bible follows the fulfilment of that promise: land, people, and blessing. The land of Canaan (Israel), the people of Israel, and the blessing of knowing God, and sharing that knowledge with the nations (Israel was a kingdom of priests, a light to the nations – at least, they should have been!). All this finds its fulfilment ultimately in Christ. We know Israel mess things up – sinning at every turn and generally behaving like…well, a lot like us if we’re perfectly honest! The Old Testament ends with the Abrahamic Covnenant still unfulfilled, and carries the tension “how can a holy God forgive unholy people”.
All that is solved in Christ. His death covers our sins and we receive his righteousness. And he fulfils the Abrahamic Covenant: we are his people, the church from every nation and tribe and people-group; we are blessed, his Holy Spirit is with us and in us; and our land is the New Creation, promised and guaranteed.

But that’s the end of the story. We’re still at the start. We saw how Abraham lived in a “bubble” of blessing – the Lord had promised to bless him and so he was blessed, even though, as we saw, he certainly did not deserve it, as he sinned against the Lord, a faithless, cowardly, adulterous man. Yet God forgave him and loved him. Gives us hope doesn’t it! If Christ can cover the sins of Abraham, he can cover our sins.

When we left Genesis, in chapter 23, Sarah had died and been laid to rest. Abraham bought a burial plot because of his faith in the Lord. It is the first piece of land he owns in the land promised to him by the Lord. He buys it, instead of accepting it as a gift, because he trusts that the Lord will keep his promises. For Abraham, it is a deposit guaranteeing (looking forward with certainty) his inheritance (the land). In the same way the Holy Spirit is our deposit guaranteeing our inheritance. We know that we will be with Christ upon the new Earth because the Spirit is with us now. (Eph 1:13-14)

In Chapter 24 which we hopped over, the story starts to focus in on Isaac and Rebekah, his wife, provided by the hand of God, and we see that God is blessing Isaac, just as he had promised. As we read in 25:11 After Abraham’s death, God blessed his son Isaac, who settled near Beer-lahai-roi in the Negev.
Because the story has now moved on from Abraham to Isaac. Chapter 25 spends a few verses on the final years of Abraham – and that’s basically it. Abraham’s part in this tale is over, his job is done – but God’s plan – oh, that is just beginning! Wait and see what God will do! After Abraham’s death, God blessed his son Isaac.

Isaac marries Rebekah, the bride given by God. A bride who is once again barren – oh no, what will happen to God’s promise? Ge 25:21–22 Isaac pleaded with the LORD on behalf of his wife, because she was unable to have children. And God remembers his promise: The LORD answered Isaac’s prayer, and Rebekah became pregnant with twins.

Those twins were Easu and Jacob. Jacob was a conniving sneak, as was Rebekah! And yet God chose him, despite the fact that he was the younger twin, despite the fact that he was a cheat and a thief and a liar, and Jacob receives the promises of God and birthright of the firstborn. God forgives and blesses sinners! Are we getting the message yet?
Jacob has two significant experiences: In Gen 28, in a dream he sees ladder between heaven and earth, and the Lord confirms the Abrahamic Covenant with him. The Covenant is the bridge, the way from earth to heaven, the Covenant which is fulfilled in Christ Jesus our Lord, whose outstretched arms ont eh Cross bridged heaven and earth as he gave his life so that sinners like us could be made righteous to be with the Righteous One, God Almighty.

Jacob’s second experience was when he received the name Israel. In a rather strange tale, Jacob wrestles with God (in Gen 32), and is renamed “Israel” which means “God fights” or “fights with God”, and is blessed, receiveing assurance that the Lord is with him and the Covenant is reaffirmed.

Israel then has twelve sons (unsurprisingly his wife Rachel was barren – oh no! But God again steps in to honour his promise). One of these sons was Joseph, and that brings me to my final point in setting the scene for Exodus.

3. Joseph, saviour of the world

8 Eventually, a new king came to power in Egypt who knew nothing about Joseph or what he had done.

What had he done? Well, we already know that Joseph was one of the twelve sons of Jacob, from which come the twelve tribes of Israel. Joseph was Jacobs favourite son because he was Rachel’s son, and Rachel was his true love – his other wife Leah, and their two servants he slept with…out of duty, I suppose? The books of Israel’s history hardly ever stop to condemn what the characters are doing – like polygamy and adultery is bad. No, it just tells the story, unfolds the consequences of those actions. Jacob’s multiple sexual partners ended up with a bunch of brothers who hated Joseph, because he was the favourite. It didn’t help that Joseph had a dream that they would all bow down to him, including their father and mothers. This made them furious and so they plotted to kill him.

Out in the fields Joseph came to them, and they attacked him, tore off his coat of many colours – the special coat given to him by his father Jacob, and threw him into a pit while they decided how to kill him. At that time a group of traders just happened to pass by, and the brothers thought “why kill him, when we can make a bit of money”, and sold him into slavery. The traders took him to Egypt. Little did they know that there evil actions, their prostitution of brotherly love – even that God would use, and turn into salvation for the whole world, including them!

Joseph learned humility as a slave, and worked hard for his new master, Potiphar. But Potiphar’s wife wanted to have sex with him, and when he refused, running away (good job Joseph), she falsely accused him of sexually assaulting her, and so he was thrown in jail, wrongly accused. But God had not forgotten him. At the right time he was brought before Pharaoh, king of Egypt, because of a dream he had. None of the wise men of Egypt could understand it, but God gave Joseph understanding: there would be a famine in the land, and this is how they were to prepare for it. Pharaoh was so amazed that he raised Joseph up to the highest position in the land, and gave Joseph charge over the preparations for the famine.

The severe famine came to the lands, lasting for seven years, but because of Joseph, Egypt was blessed and suffered no ill effects of the famine. People from the lands around came to Egypt for food, including, would you believe it, Joseph’s brothers! They came to ask him for food, but they did not recognise him, until he told them who he was. Joseph forgave them, understanding that what they had intended for evil, God had worked for good. There was great joy as the family was reunited by the love of God.

So that is what v8 is talking about: Joseph, the saviour of Egypt, and indeed, the world. But there is more to Joseph’s story.

Joseph was rejected by his own people, betrayed by his brothers for twenty pieces of silver, unjustly punished by the Gentiles for crimes he did not commit, but he was not forgotten by God, but exalted to the highest place in all the land where he saved the whole world. Sound familiar?

Philippians 2:6–11 Though [Christ Jesus] was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. 7 Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, 8 he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross. 9 Therefore, God elevated him to the place of highest honour and gave him the name above all other names, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

God gives us these patterns, these foreshadowings, so that when Jesus appears we will recognise him as the Christ. Here he is, the man of sorrows, rejected, unjustly condemned, but now raised up, the saviour of the world!

God reveals his glory to us through real events and people in history. Abraham, Joseph, now Moses and the people of Israel – and supremely in Jesus of Nazareth, his son, our Lord and Christ (Messiah).
So have no fear, the Lord is in control. He is ruler of history, and all things are moving towards one goal: At the right time he will bring everything together under the authority of Christ—everything in heaven and on earth. Eph 1:10

Jesus in the garden

Jesus in the garden

Introduction:

Whenever praying, have you ever thought to yourself:

“What’s the point”, Even if Jesus can hear me, He has no idea what I am going through!

We all realise that one time or another, that life is hard.  Even here, in such a beautiful country, a country that’s been so blessed. A country where most of us live with so much . Even here, we see that life can be so hard.

Statistics tell us that in Norway 25% of pregnancies end in miscarriages; almost 50% of marriages end up in divorce. On top of that, up to 33% of Norwegians have suffered from some kind of mental disorder last year.

We can only ask ourselves;

Where does Jesus fit into the suffering and struggle in Norway?

Do we write Him off as silly folklore, or as the opium of the masses? Do we write Him off, because He doesn’t fix the world, the way we want him to.

Do we say to Him “Jesus if you don’t answer my prayer, I’m going to stop believing in you”

As we know honest questions demand honest answers, so we are going to look at what the bible says about suffering and about Jesus. I have three points and they are: He was a man of Sorrow, He was alone, and He had a choice.

1. He was a man of sorrow. (He knew what suffering was)

So to my first point. Jesus was a man of Sorrow.

1.State the point:

When we look at Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, we see that He was familiar with sorrow, and suffering!

2.Show it in the text:

Have a look at Matthew 26:37-38

³⁷ He took Peter and Zebedee’s two sons, James and John, and he became anguished and distressed

.³⁸ He told them, “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”

3.Explain the point:

Jesus wasn’t a stranger to being tested.

He was man anguished and distressed. A man whose soul was crushed with grief to the point of death.  

We always speak about Jesus being 100% man and 100% God. But do we remember it? Jesus experienced terrible anxiety and sorrow, to the point where it almost killed Him.

Jesus fell to the ground in the garden while praying, crying out;

“Abba, Father,” “everything is possible for you. Please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.” Mark 14:35-36

Jesus prayed intensely being in such agony that His sweat fell to the ground like great drops of blood Luke 22:44.

Sweating blood is a real thing. Observed in people experiencing extreme physical, mental, and emotional pressure. Like Jesus who was carrying the sin of the whole world on and in his own body.

4.Illustrate the point:

Our sin caused Him great physical and mental suffering. Our sin caused Him intense sorrow and grief Matt 26:37-38

5.Apply the point:

Throughout the Gospels we most of the time see Jesus from His “godly” side. We forget that He was also fully human. Jesus the 100% God and 100% man, is the one sitting by God’s right hand in Heaven interceding for us. He does not have a theoretical understanding of sorrow and suffering. He has an intimate and personal understanding; Since He alone died, and lived through sorrow and suffering, for your sin and mine!!!

This gets us to my second point. He (Jesus) was alone.

2. He was alone

1.State the point:

Though He had a crowd of followers, He had to carry His grief and agony alone in the garden.

2.Show it in the text:

Let’s have another look at Matthew 26:37-38.

³⁷ He took Peter and Zebedee’s two sons, James and John, and he became anguished and distressed.³⁸ He told them, “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”

Now have a look at verse 40

⁴⁰ Then he returned to the disciples and found them asleep. He said to Peter, “Couldn’t you watch with me even one hour?

3.Explain the point:

Peter, James and John seemed unaware of Jesus’s agony. And the spiritual battle, being fought in the garden that night.

While Jesus was praying:

“My Father! If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine”.

His closest friends were far, far away in the land of dreams. They were not praying that He might be given strength. Nor making sure that no one disturbed Him, in His intense prayers. They weren’t thinking of Him at all, but catching up on their sleep. Already here, we hear the echoes of verse 31, where Jesus told His disciples.

“Tonight all of you will desert me”.

The first leader of the Christian church, the disciple whom Jesus loved, and his brother, had left Jesus alone, with His thoughts and fears, while carrying the sins of humanity. Later that night, Jesus’s prophecy in verse 31 came true in verse 56

At that point, all the disciples deserted him and fled.

4.Illustrate the point:

Peter, James and John did not keep watch with Jesus, although that was all He asked them to do.

All the disciples swore to Jesus:

“Even if I have to die with you, I will never deny you” Matthew 26:35

The same night after making this promise they all failed Him. There’s no doubt that the spirit was willing, but the flesh was weak! The disciples intentions were honourable, but they failed miserably.

5.Apply the point:

They all ran away from Jesus. He was alone, while carrying the sins of the world. Why did this happen, why did Jesus accept this, cause that is what He did. Well… My third point is that Jesus had a choice.

3. He had a choice. (but He desired to do His Fathers will)

Well… My third point is that Jesus had a choice.

1.State the point:

It’s easy to forget that, He had a real choice that night in the garden. The choice to save us or to let us fend for ourselves.

2.Show it in the text:

Have a look at verses 46-54. This is right after Jesus came back from praying a third time.

⁴⁶Up, let’s be going. Look, my betrayer is here!”

⁴⁷ And even as Jesus said this, Judas, one of the twelve disciples, arrived with a crowd of men armed with swords and clubs. They had been sent by the leading priests and elders of the people. ⁴⁸ The traitor, Judas, had given them a prearranged signal: “You will know which one to arrest when I greet him with a kiss.” ⁴⁹ So Judas came straight to Jesus. “Greetings, Rabbi!” he exclaimed and gave him the kiss.

⁵⁰ Jesus said, “My friend, go ahead and do what you have come for.”

Then the others grabbed Jesus and arrested him. ⁵¹ But one of the men with Jesus pulled out his sword and struck the high priest’s slave, slashing off his ear.

⁵² “Put away your sword,” Jesus told him. “Those who use the sword will die by the sword. ⁵³ Don’t you realize that I could ask my Father for thousands of angels to protect us, and he would send them instantly? ⁵⁴ But if I did, how would the Scriptures be fulfilled that describe what must happen now?”

We are going to have a look at why Jesus did that, starting with the beginning.

3.Explain the point:

Have a look at verse 36:

⁶ Then Jesus went with them to the olive grove called Gethsemane

Why is this significant? Well… in John’s Gospel we read that Judas knew Gethsemane, and that Jesus had often gone there with the disciples John 18:1-2 Judas also knew that it was a quiet place far away from crowds; and the chances of an uproar from His followers were small. Well aware of Judas’s plans Jesus didn’t change His. Knowing that Judas was coming He told His disciples:

“Up, let’s be going. Look, my betrayer is here!” Matt 26:46

Jesus could probably see and hear Judas’s band of merry men, long before they entered the garden. It might have been quite dark, so they probably carried torches. The chances of such a big group having ninja like skills, is quite slim. They were probably all rallied up, carrying their torches and pitchforks, ready to have themselves a good old-fashioned lynching. A Lynching is, when a group of people (a mob) capture and execute someone.

But to their surprise, Jesus came to meet the angry mob, on their way to arrest Him.

Why didn’t Jesus hide? Why did He tell Judas to do what he came for? Simply because Jesus chose to give himself up, He had decided to come quietly. Something that Peter made quite difficult, trying to slash of Malchus’s head. He missed and chopped of his ear instead.

You can just picture how: a quiet surrender could have turned into a massacre, 12 people against, an angry mob armed with clubs and swords. In Luke’s Gospel we get a deeper glance into the story.

⁴⁹ When the other disciples saw what was about to happen, they exclaimed, “Lord, should we fight? We brought the swords!” Luke 22:49

Jesus made it clear that He chooses to surrender when He says:

“Those who use the sword will die by the sword. ⁵³ Don’t you realize that I could ask my Father for thousands of angels to protect us, and he would send them instantly?

Another translation says in verse 53

⁵³ Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels. ESV

I can’t stress it enough! Jesus’s gave himself up freely. A legion is 6000, so 12 legions of angels would be roughly 72 000 angels. If Jesus wanted to He could have asked God to send 72 000 angels to free Him from his captors, but Jesus chose not to. Jesus fixed Malchus’s ear, and came with them quietly.

Why did Jesus come quietly? We know that He could have could have called for 72 000 angels and left a trail of dead bodies from Gethsemane to Jerusalem. We find the answer in verses 39, 42 and 44 where He prayed “yet I want Your will to be done, not mine”.

We also see it in verse 54 where Jesus says to His disciples;

^“But if I did, how would the Scriptures be fulfilled that describe what must happen now?”

Although Jesus had an actual choice. He loved His Father. Therefor His desire was to do the will of His Father, as we saw earlier as He prayed sincerely:

“yet I want Your will to be done, not mine”.

4.Illustrate the point:

Is there any Grey’s anatomy fans here today? Well if there is, you might remember when Denny say’s to Izzie;

“I chose you Izzie Stevens”, “I’ve been given a choice, and I chose you”!

Looking back into the garden that is what Jesus did.

HE CHOSE YOU! HE WAS GIVEN A CHOICE. HE LOVED HIS FATHER SO MUCH, THAT HE CHOSE TO GO THORUGH ALL THAT PAIN AND SUFFERING FOR YOU. HE CHOSE DEATH, SO THAT YOU MAY LIVE.

5.Apply the point:

After hours of agony, intense prayer and sorrow, Jesus gave himself up willingly. He came quietly, and He did not resist. The desire to do His Father’s will, was greater than His desire to survive.

Conclusion:

To sum it up.

He was man of sorrow. (He knew what suffering was)

He was alone.

He had a choice. (But He desired to do His Father’s will)

Jesus has endured, a great deal of suffering and agony for us. He has felt it all on His own body. He endured it even though He had the choice not to.

(EMPHASISE THIS NEXT POINT A LITTLE CHRIS, SLOW YOUR DELIVERY AND RYTHEM DOWN...)

HE – CHOSE - IT!

He knows what’s going on in YOUR  life,  FROM THE TIME YOU WERE CREATED IN YOUR MOTHERS WOMB, THROUGH YOUR TEENAGE YEARS, RIGHT UP TO THIS DAY IN YOUR HISTORY, AND EVEN NOW.....

(SLOW RYTHEM DOWN EVEN MORE LEAN ON THE PULPIT AND SAY )

He- sits- beside- His- Father- in- Heaven- praying- for... FOR YOU. That’s our Jesus, that’s our Lord and Saviour. He chose you!

(LEAN FROM THE PULPIT)

THINK ABOUT THAT AS WE READ HEBREWS 4:15 AND WITH THIS I’LL FINISH!

YOU CAN FOLLOW IT IN YOUR BIBLE IF YOU LIKE BUT I WILL PARAPHRASE THE VERSE, THAT MEANS MAKE THE VERSE SIMPLER FOR US TO UNDERSTAND AS YOU FOLLOW...

Vs15.  WE DON’T HAVE JUST ANY HIGH PRIEST WHO COULD BE DISCONNECTED FROM US AND THEREFORE UNABLE TO UNDERSTAND OUR WEAKNESSES, BUT ONE WHO KNOWS US VERY WELL (INSIDE and OUT) AND HAS BEEN TEMPTED JUST LIKE YOU AND ME...YET HE HAS DONE IT WITHOUT ANY SIN WHAT ‘SO EVER...

THAT’S THE PERSON OF Jesus INTERCEDING, MEDIATING, PLEADING FOR YOU RIGHT NOW.

AS WE GO INTO COMMUNION, TALK TO HIM...CONFESS TO HIM.... THANK HIM.... INVITE HIM TO BE PART OF YOUR LIFE AND THE DECISIONS YOU MAKE DAILY ....WHY? BECAUSE YOU WERE THE REASON FOR WHAT HAPPENED IN THE GARDEN OF GETHSEMANE. LET US PRAY .