Route 66: Exodus - From Slavery to Worship

Exodus, chapter 1.

Exodus 1 · chapter mention

For those that might be visiting tonight, or a reminder for those that are not visiting, we are going through a new series.

It's going to be through each of the books of the Bible, so we're kind of calling it Route 66 or a study in the book of books, and we're in Exodus tonight.

So we're going to be covering Exodus tonight.

Now some of you are thinking I got work tomorrow.

I didn't bring a sleeping bag.

Maybe I need to slip out.

Don't worry, we're not planning to be here till midnight.

We are going to cover Exodus, not in every little detail, but in broad strokes, and this is the one big theme I want you to take away tonight.

God redeems his people for the purpose of worship.

So if you can just take away one thing tonight, highlight that and note it.

I thought about having us all say it together, but I don't want you to feel like you're in kindergarten.

But God redeems his people for the purpose of worship.

So I'm going to read some from Exodus.

I'm going to read the first part of Exodus and the last part of Exodus.

Sometimes, when you're going through a book, the early verses and the last verses will give you some insight or window into the structure or emphases of the book.

Not always, but sometimes they will.

So I'm going to read Exodus, chapter 1, verses 1 to 6.

Exodus 1:1–6

These are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob.

Each came with his family Reuben, simeon, levi and Judah, issachar, zebulun and Benjamin, dan and Naphtali, gad and Asher.

The total number of Jacob's descendants was 70.

Joseph was already in Egypt.

Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation eventually died.

Now turn over to chapter 40 of Exodus, so the very last chapter of Exodus, of Exodus, the very last chapter of Exodus, and we'll read verses 34 down through verse 38.

The cloud covered the tent of meeting and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.

Moses was unable to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud rested on it and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.

The Israelites set out whenever the cloud was taken up from the tabernacle throughout all the stages of their journey.

If the cloud was not taken up, they did not set out until the day it was taken up, for the cloud of the Lord was over the tabernacle by day and there was a fire inside the cloud by night, visible to the entire house of Israel throughout all the stages of their journey.

Let's go back to chapter 1 of Exodus.

This is a continuing story.

So if you hold your finger in Exodus 1 and just turn back a few pages to Genesis 46, look at Genesis 46, verse 8.

Genesis 46:8

These are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt Jacob and his sons.

And then it goes on.

Now back to Exodus 1.

How does Exodus 1 begin?

These are the names of the sons of Israel.

It's the same verse.

Do you see that there?

So this is like a to be continued.

If Genesis is the series season finale, it's like a cliffhanger.

And then Exodus picks up, the to be continued with the same story that we saw back in Genesis.

And there's more of a connection point to Genesis here.

If you see what's going on there.

In verse number seven of Exodus one, the Israelites were fruitful, increased rapidly and multiplied.

Can you think about where in the Bible we've heard of being fruitful and multiplying?

That was back in Genesis.

So what God had wanted in the garden, we see it happening in some measure here.

It's like, wow, this is amazing.

What God wanted, the people are multiplying, they're fruitful.

But is it just like the Garden of Eden.

No, it's not just like the Garden of Eden, because you can see there in verse number six, all that generation eventually died.

So there's a fruitfulness, but there's still death.

That's pervasive there.

In fact, what we're going to see in Exodus, what we do find in Exodus, is that the people of God are in slavery, so they're subjected to harsh bondage.

There's a kind of pallor of death that hangs over the first part of the book of Exodus.

These people need deliverance, they need redemption, they need to be brought out from the slavery that they're in.

That's where the title of the book comes from.

The title Exodus is actually a Greek term that the Greek translators gave to this book gave to this book, and it describes people leaving a place.

We have exit signs.

There could be exodus signs in a certain kind of a sense, but the people are not just leaving because they want to go somewhere else.

They need to be rescued and delivered.

So there's this idea of deliverance in this theme of redemption that we see here.

So we do see in the beginning, with the death that's there, and as you go on in chapter one, you see more of the nature of this slavery.

There's a need, a real need, for redemption.

We see that plan worked out in the first 18 chapters of the book.

So that's the first half of the book.

If you can kind of divide the book in two halves.

The first half of the book, if you can kind of divide the book in two halves, part one of Exodus is God redeeming his people.

Why does he do it?

Well, that's where the second half of the book comes in, in chapter 19, the people come to Mount Sinai and they receive God's law.

And then chapters 20 to 40 are all about worship or about things that flow from worship.

And so what we got to there at the very end of the book, when the tabernacle, this tent of worship, has been set up, god's glory cloud comes down and the people are ready to worship and the people are ready to worship.

So yes, the book begins with the need for redemption, god redeems his people, and the book ends with worship.

There's kind of a quick flyover.

Let's go in and double click on both halves of the book a little bit more here.

So if you look down in verse 11, chapter one of Exodus, still we talk about God redeeming his people.

He redeems his people from slavery.

I mentioned that, but let's just make sure we have our eyes on it.

So, verse number 11, chapter 1, the Egyptians assigned taskmasters over the Israelites to oppress them with forced labor.

We see also in verse 16 that God redeems his people from the threat of extinction.

Verse 16, when you help the Hebrew women give birth, observe them as they deliver.

If the child is a son, kill him.

It's a striking instruction.

So, yeah, they're enslaved, but they're also trying to be extinguished in some sense.

And the person that gives that instruction is the king, is Pharaoh.

So if you go back to verse 15, the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives so there's, the bad guy in the book of Exodus is Pharaoh.

Only he's presented as a kind of satanic overlord ruling as a despot.

And in Exodus the ultimate conflict is not just between Moses the man and Pharaoh the man, but between the God of the Israelites and the false gods of the Egyptians.

And Pharaoh here, who is here, and God also redeems his people in remembering his promise.

Turn over to chapter 2, and you'll see that in chapter 2.

Look at verse 23.

After a long time, the king of Egypt died.

The Israelites groaned because of their difficult labor.

They cried out in their cry for help because of the difficult labor sent to God.

God heard their groaning and God now you might expect it to say God took pity on them and saw them in their suffering.

True, he is a God of mercy and compassion, but it says something different here in verse 24.

He heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob.

So it's God's own memory of his promise to Abraham, the father of the Israelite nation, and the way he reiterated that promise to Isaac and to Jacob that because of that promise God's going to redeem his people.

Now those themes should sound very familiar to us.

I hope they do.

Redemption from slavery John 8, 33.

We are descendants of Abraham and never been enslaved to anyone.

How can you say you will become free?

Jesus responded.

Truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin.

Redemption from the threat of extinction John 10.10.

A thief comes to kill and destroy.

I have come that they might have life and have it in abundance.

Redemption from satanic power Hebrews 2, 14 and 15.

Now, since the children have flesh and blood in common, jesus also shared in these so that through his death he might destroy the one holding the power of death that is the devil, and free those who were held in slavery all their lives by fear of death.

Redemption on the basis of God's promise Titus 1, 2.

In the hope of eternal life, that God who cannot lie.

Exodus.

Like so many parts of the Bible in the Old Testament, there are these patterns and recurring themes that get picked up and developed and repeated throughout the Bible.

We'll see more of those tonight, but there's just a sample of these themes of redemption find great echo and expansion and a deeper way for those of us who know and enjoy God that we can be redeemed from our own sin.

Also very important in this first half of Exodus is that God redeems his people through a mediator.

He uses Moses to be a mediator and there are also pattern-like ways in which Moses anticipates the Lord Jesus Christ.

Both Moses and Jesus are portrayed as shepherds and prophets and rulers.

In Exodus, chapter 3, moses has that encounter at the burning bush and many commentators think that who Moses is encountering is the Son of God.

Exodus 3 · chapter mention

It's described as a messenger of God or angel of God, but it talks about hearing the voice of God and seeing the angels, the kind of identity there.

Moses leads the people.

As the God-appointed mediator for this particular time and season, for this particular earthly redemption, moses leads the people in a ritual of blood redemption.

So when they come out of Egypt, how do they come out?

They come out right on the heels of the Passover, where there's this instruction from God put blood over the door.

I'm going to bring judgment wherever the blood is not, but wherever the blood is, I'm going to pass over and the people pass over the waters and through the waters, while the Israelite army is swallowed up in the judgment of God.

So those that have the lamb are rescued.

Mediator brings a blood ritual of redemption.

The Lord, jesus Christ, as the New Testament so wonderfully brings out, christ, our Passover lamb, is sacrificed.

We're redeemed with imperishable things, not with the blood of bulls and goats, but with the precious blood of Christ.

Unlike Moses though this is very important Moses instructed them about slaughtering the lambs.

Jesus Christ himself is the lamb.

That's where, again, these patterns are magnified in Christ and they're amplified in Christ that he himself is not only the mediator but he's the sacrifice.

Moses communes with God and seeks to bring people into communion with God.

Moses intercedes for the people.

Now, this is actually in the second half of the book.

But Moses intercedes for the people.

Our Lord ever lives to intercede for us.

So be looking for these divinely inspired patterns.

God redeems his people.

That's the first half of the book.

Turn over to chapter 19.

We'll double click now on the second half of the book, a little bit Exodus 19.

A lot of people, when they are in the book of Exodus the first part of the book they're so excited about.

There's the Pharaoh and the slavery and the plagues and the water and the blood and the rescue through the Red Sea and the dancing and celebration.

And then they come to the second part of the book and there's Mount Sinai and they're clapping.

And then they got instructions about the tabernacle and there's a lot of turbans and priestly garments and curtain rings and I started getting a little bit like whew.

I was like am I reading the blueprint for a bathroom design here?

What's with all the shower curtain rings?

I don't understand.

You've heard the expression don't lose the forest for the trees.

Don't lose the tabernacle for the turbans.

Okay, trees, don't lose the tabernacle for the turbans.

Okay, it's all important, it's all good, it's all divinely inspired.

So every detail is there for our edification, instruction.

But don't get so lost in the details that you forget to see the big picture.

This is all instructions about, of course, not a bathroom, but the place of worship for the Lord.

Exodus 19,.

Look at verse number three.

Moses went up to the mountain to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain.

This is what you must say to the house of Jacob and explain to the Israelites.

You've seen what I did to the Egyptians, how I carried you on eagle's wings and brought you to myself.

Now there's the redemption part.

Right Now, if you will carefully listen to me and keep my covenant, you'll be my own possession out of all the peoples, although the whole earth is mine, and you will be my kingdom of priests and my holy nation.

At the heart of this old covenant, or Mosaic covenant, is the priority of worship.

Sometimes we think of worship merely as performing certain rituals.

It includes rituals, but it's meant to bring us into friendship with God, into enjoying God, to communion with him.

God wanted to dwell among his people, just like in the Garden of Eden, and think about this for a moment Something so grand and magnificent as God redeeming his people out of Egypt.

What does he then have them do?

He doesn't have them immediately go out into all the nations and tell them about my redemptive work, and that's it.

I'm not saying it's not important, it's critically important for us.

But the very first thing he does after this grand redemption he brings them out into the wilderness and instructs them about worship.

That's stunningly important.

In God's mind, worship is what we're going to be doing forever.

It's important throughout the pages of the Bible.

It's important here in Exodus.

That's especially why God has redeemed us for worship.

Yes, there are do's and don'ts, ten Commandments, but even how the Ten Commandments begin no other gods before me Do you see how it's still grounded in no idolatry?

God wants us to belong to him.

He wants his people to revere him of everyone else.

So all the other do's and don'ts flow out of that God-centered perspective of keeping God in the center of place.

It's similar in the New Testament, romans, chapter 12, present your body as a living sacrifice in view of God's mercy.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

How we live should flow from a heart that's received God's mercy and adores the Lord.

Turn over to chapter 25, exodus 25.

There's another repeated idea here in this second part of the book of exodus and these instructions about the tabernacle.

25, verse number nine.

You must make it according to all that.

I show you the pattern of the tabernacle.

Then look down at verse number 40.

Be careful to make them according to the pattern you have been shown on the mountain.

God gave Moses a pattern to follow, a kind of blueprint.

Yes, interestingly, the book of Hebrews speaks of the earthly tabernacle as a copy and shadow of heavenly things.

God was giving the people a little slice of heaven.

Don't you want to get it right?

If you're going to get a little slice of heaven, I hope so.

We should right.

They should want to do that.

And the tabernacle was in many ways like Mount Sinai.

Can't go through all those tonight.

You can go back to Pastor Doug's message on the temple from a few weeks ago.

But just like Mount Sinai has God's word and his presence, the Garden of Eden had God's word and his presence.

Now the tabernacle is the place where we have God's word and his presence.

Now the tabernacle is the place where we have God's word and his presence.

So the tabernacle was almost in some ways like a little slice of heaven, a transportable Mount Sinai that people could pick up and take with them on all their journeys so that the Lord could be with them, so that the Lord could be with them.

God redeems his people for the purpose of worship and it's so we can worship together.

Each Israelite wasn't told to construct a little tabernacle in their backyard for their own quiet time.

Quiet times are great, not opposed to that at all.

We should worship the Lord in our closets.

But there's an emphasis here on the covenant people of God coming together to worship.

So it's no surprise that in the New Testament as well, we have this huge emphasis on the church coming together as the redeemed people of God to worship our king, coming together as the redeemed people of God to worship our King.

Don't think of coming on Sunday morning as simply, I got to have my routine for the week.

We need the kids to have kind of a moral foundation.

Those are good reasons.

But think of it as I'm gathering with the covenant redeemed people of God, to enjoy God and grow in my friendship with him and to exalt his name.

God redeems his people for the purpose of worship.

Now I mentioned this Exodus.

Pattern is developed in other portions of scripture.

We're going to consider some of those now as well.

Turn over to Isaiah 11.

So if you don't have your Bible, you can grab the pew Bible there in front of you.

We're going to be looking at a few different passages.

This pattern of an exodus or a deliverance that in this case, occurs through redemption.

This is a theme that comes up throughout the Bible, especially in the prophets.

And while I'm doing that, I'll just mention a couple resources.

Here's a book called the Gospel of Exodus.

This deals more with the theology inside of the book.

There's another guy named Alistair Roberts, so not Alistair Begg.

I know you guys know him, but Alistair Roberts has some lectures called Echoes of the Exodus.

There's a book as well, if you wanted to go online.

He focuses more on how the themes of the Exodus come in other pages of Scripture.

So you might find those resources helpful.

But Isaiah, chapter 11, look at verse number 11.

Isaiah 11 · chapter mention

On that day the Lord will extend his hand a second time to recover the remnant of his people who survive From Assyria, egypt, pathros, cush, elam, shinar, hamath and the coasts and islands of the west.

He will lift up a banner for the nations and gather the dispersed of Israel.

He will collect the scattered of Judah from the four corners of the earth.

Listen and hear that, in light of the Exodus story, he's going to do it a second time.

Well, that implies something's already happened.

It's come in the past and the prophets remembering the past.

But he's looking to a future event, and here he speaks also of there being a banner for the nations.

So there's hope that others will be brought into this new Exodus.

Turn over to Isaiah 27.

Isaiah 27.

Just a few more chapters.

Isaiah 27.

Isaiah 27.

Verse number 12.

Blown, and those lost in the land of Assyria will come as well as those dispersed in the land of Egypt.

There's the pattern that looks back to Egypt, but there's going to be a similar thing happening in Assyria.

And then look what they're going to do and they will worship the Lord at Jerusalem and on the holy mountain.

Turn over to Hosea 11.

This is the last passage we'll look at from the Old Testament, and then we'll look at just a couple passages in the New Testament.

Hosea 11.

So again, these prophets are writing hundreds of years after the historical events of the book of Exodus.

They're writing many years later, but they haven't forgotten.

They saw a pattern and they're going to say this pattern is going to happen again.

Hosea 11, verse number one when Israel was a child.

I loved him and out of Egypt I called my son.

That sounds very much like what we just read about in the book of Exodus, verse 2, israel called to the Egyptians.

Even as Israel was leaving them, they kept sacrificing to the Baals and burning offerings to idols.

So the people experienced redemption from Egypt, but Egypt was still in their hearts.

They needed a spiritual deliverance.

Just the physical movement of exiting didn't take care of the problem.

There was something deeper in their own hearts that was necessary problem.

There was something deeper in their own hearts that was necessary.

Now look down to verse number 11 of the same chapter, hosea 11.

Let's start at verse number 10.

They will follow the Lord.

He will roar like a lion.

When he roars, his children will come trembling from the west.

This is the Lord's declaration Pattern of redemption in the past, an expectation that it's going to happen again.

Assyria is going to take you captive, but God's going to bring you out of captivity Repeated pattern.

Now, this passage I just read is quoted in the Gospel of Matthew.

We already had a sermon on this.

That's okay if you don't remember.

Review is good, right.

So let's go over to Matthew for a moment.

Matthew, chapter 2.

Matthew 2 · chapter mention

So I'm trying to show you that you know it's not just my ideas about the patterns of Exodus.

The scripture writers themselves have these same patterns in mind and they're divinely inspired.

Matthew, chapter 2, verse number 13.

Matthew 2 · chapter mention

After they were gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying get up, take the child and his mother.

This is baby Jesus and Mary and Joseph.

This is baby Jesus and Mary and Joseph.

Flee to Egypt and stay there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to kill him.

So he got up and took the child and his mother during the night and escaped to Egypt.

He stayed there until Herod's death.

Now just pause here before we keep going on.

The king is trying to kill all the babies.

What does that sound like?

Sounds like a pattern we already had in the Bible, right?

So he got up, took the child during the night and escaped to Egypt.

Verse 15,.

He stayed there until Herod's death so that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled Out of Egypt.

I called my son.

He's quoting the verse I just read in Hosea, but he does it in a very interesting way, doesn't he?

When I read Hosea.

Hosea didn't say hear ye, hear ye.

In the last days, baby Messiah is going to come out of Egypt.

That wasn't what Hosea said.

It seemed like, when you're looking at Hosea, it seemed like Hosea was looking back at the exodus event of the people of God in Egypt and how they came out and God rescued them.

But remember, even in Hosea there was a pattern, because even in Hosea, at the end it talked about God bringing the people out again from a series.

So there's going to be a pattern.

It's going to be happening again.

So Matthew sees that pattern finding fulfillment in the Lord Jesus.

Hmm, that's very interesting, isn't it?

The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.

What was needed for the people was deliverance, not just from a geographical place, but from the idolatry of their hearts.

That can only happen through Jesus.

That can't happen by just moving people around physically.

And what happens to Christ happens to his people.

He's our representative.

You see that nexus actually with Moses.

Moses is in Egypt, Remember.

He kills the guy and he has trouble and he flees and he goes out to the mountain where God appears to him.

That's what's going to happen to all the people.

They're going to leave Egypt and go out to the mountain where God appears to him.

That's what's going to happen to all the people.

They're going to leave Egypt and go out to the mountain where God has.

So there's already a pattern in Exodus of the leader represents the people, and so here is Christ who represents those who belong to him having this fulfillment.

One last passage Turn over to the gospel of Luke Luke, chapter 9.

Luke 9 · chapter mention

Luke 9.

, verse number 28.

About eight days after this conversation, he took along this is Jesus.

He took along Peter, john and James and went up on the mountain to pray.

As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed and his clothes became dazzlingly white.

Can you think of other places in the Bible where someone went on a mountain and their faces were lightened up?

That was what happened to Moses.

Now Moses appears with the disciples here and Jesus far greater than Moses.

But it says in verse number 30, two men were talking with him, moses and Elijah.

So there's another confirmation of this pattern now coming in Christ in a greater way.

They appeared in glory and were speaking of his and the Christian Standard Bible here has his departure.

Anyone has a different translation there for that word in verse number 31?

They were talking about his.

Anyone else have a different one than departure, deliverance, anything else that all of you has?

Departure there, okay, his what?

His decrease?

What translation is that?

That's interesting?

Okay, spoke translation.

Is that that's interesting?

Okay, it spoke of his decrease.

That's interesting.

Well, the Greek word here is the word that you find in the title of the book that we're talking about tonight.

They were speaking about his exodus, jesus' exodus, verse 31, which he was about to accomplish in Jerusalem.

So when we think of an exodus, we think of it as usually a big group of people going somewhere, migrating somewhere.

How can one person, jesus, experience an exodus?

Well, it's said he's going to accomplish it at Jerusalem.

What is he on his way to Jerusalem to do?

He's going to suffer and die and bring deliverance from the slavery of sin.

And yes, he's just one person, but all those who belong to him are with him.

So the Bible can say when he died, we died.

When he rose again, we rose again.

So it is an exodus of a group of people in the sense of those who are in Christ and belong to him.

The scriptures are just radically Christocentric.

The scriptures are just radically Christocentric.

I don't mean by that that there's a lot of topics in the Bible.

Jesus is probably topic number one.

Church is another good topic.

I don't mean by Christocentric that he's the most important topic, although that is true.

I mean he's the center point from which so many other points of scripture converge.

It's more like the spokes of a wheel and he's the center part of the wheel, and I'll just give one application for that.

So when we talked about how this elaborate construction of the tabernacle shows the priority of worship and people gathering together to worship, and we come to the New Testament church and there's a priority of redeemed people worshiping and gathering together for worship, jesus blesses the tabernacle, he blesses the church, but he's the central thread that connects those two things, because when he came he tabernacled among us.

This has destroyed this temple.

I'll build it again.

He was talking about the temple of his body.

He is the tabernacle and the temple to which the Old Testament was pointing.

So that now, because we're united to Christ, we're a new temple, a new tabernacle of worship because we're in him, not just because it's similar or like the old covenant tabernacle.

So as we think about the scriptures, let's be looking for these patterns and let's rejoice that God redeems his people for the purpose of worship.

Let's pray, lord, god, how we thank you that there is such a richness and wealth in scripture.

We can barely take it all in, but we wanna drink it more and more.

We wanna see how your word itself explores these themes and brings our minds and hearts to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Thank you that he was made sin for us, who knew no sin.

That he faced your judgment, and not just the destroying angel, but the very wrath of God.

That you delivered up your firstborn son for us, that we might be free free from idolatry, free from fear of Satan and slavery to him.

Oh Lord, give us a heart that is bursting with praise.

Give us a heart that is eager to grab hold of all those who belong to this new temple and say let us worship the Lord together, let us adore him as we remember his work in the past and look forward to a future time when we gather in heaven before the glorious presence of our risen Savior, where we see the lion and the lamb, where we have the marriage supper, that lamb, where we have the marriage supper that is so much greater than the Passover meal Come quickly, lord.

We pray In Jesus' name amen.