Exodus: Overview of Exodus

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Lord Jesus, we understand sinking sand the past couple of weeks.

We understand that there's things that are that stand the test of time, that weather the storm.

We understand that there's things that cannot be flooded, that there's no threat of loss to.

And we believe, God, because you've revealed it to us, that you're the certainty that our life is to be built upon.

So we've come today, Lord, to dig down deep, to dig deep and dwell deep.

We've come today to dig down to the rock.

We don't come to build our life on the sand of a bunch of little uh life tips and principles.

We want to get down to the meat of your word, to the to the theological revelation of your nature, God, to you saying, This is who I am, therefore, this is who you have to be.

And so, Lord, we've come to submit.

That's not a big word in our culture.

We've come to submit and say, Jesus is Lord.

That's what we've come to do today.

Not to be stimulated as much as to be educated, to be bought and paid for is to be owned.

And so we're standing here today as an owned people.

If there's anyone in this room that is not owned by Jesus, that feels good on some levels, but on a lot of other levels, it all depends on them.

Put them in touch today, Holy Spirit, with the frailty of such a posture in such uncertain times full of sinking sand.

Thank you for the rock of truth.

Now, Lord, we speak to the rock and let water come from it and nourish our souls today.

We pray in Jesus' name.

And everyone say, Amen.

You can have a seat.

If you've got a Bible, I invite you to take it and open it up to Exodus chapter six.

And we're starting to preach to the book of Exodus today.

And I want to exercise a pastoral prerogative.

You say, if you're starting, why are you starting chapter six?

Because I want to kind of do an overview of the book of Exodus and kind of point to some things and say, here's some things you're going to see in the book of Exodus.

And I want you to get ready for them.

And so I'm going to read about three verses, and then I'm going to kind of give you seven things to look for.

Think of it like this it's as if I put all of us in a helicopter and flew us over the book of Exodus.

And I'm going to point down to seven different things and say, hey, remember that and take note of that because they're going to get to a certain point.

And if you and if you don't know that, then you're going to get offended and ask, why did God do that?

But if you if you kind of file this away, it it'll make more sense when you get there.

Does that make sense?

Exodus chapter 6.

Exodus 6 · chapter mention

By the way, this is what God is telling Moses to say to the people.

Exodus chapter 6, verse 6.

Exodus 6:6

I think it's also the theme of the book of Exodus, and really it could be a theme for us.

He says, say therefore to the people of Israel, I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment.

I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

I will give it to you for a possession.

I am the Lord.

And so God begins with this declaration of who he is, I am the Lord.

And then seven times he says, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will.

And then he says, I am the Lord.

And so what God does is bookend by the statement of who God is.

And so God, God kind of declares, say to the people, I am the Lord.

And then he says, and here's how I'm going to demonstrate that, and then he finishes with, I am the Lord.

And so seven things that I want us to just kind of, as an overview of the book of Exodus, to remember.

Number one, we're freed from, but we're delivered to.

We're freed from, but we're delivered to.

What do you mean?

Liberation theology gets it wrong because it presents God as kind of coming to set us free from whatever and whoever is oppressing you.

And if you're not careful, you can read the book of Exodus and consume it upon your lust because you begin to think of God as relief.

Oh, God's gonna get us out from serving Pharaoh.

Yes, but God gets you out from serving Pharaoh so you can serve him.

He doesn't get you out so you can just go be self-fulfilled and self-actualized and and and content and everything.

No, God says, hey, hey, it it you you got a bad leader.

You you got a bad guy over you, and so I'm gonna liberate you from him so you can serve me because I'm awesome.

I'm great, which is why I say to my kids all the time, when they're little, they would just laugh, and now they ain't little anymore.

And they kind of look at me and they're like, Mom, we think dad has problems.

Because I say this to my kids, and I mean this, I'm not being funny.

I look at my kids consistently and say, Don't sin against my awesomeness, or that will be to your loss.

And they're like, Well, why is dad talking like that?

Uh, can I tell them I'm awesome and don't transgress my awesomeness because you will miss out.

And and and now it's why my kids, if I say I'm going to the store, my kids like, I want to go store with dad.

My wife's like, Why don't they go store with me?

Because you make them spend their money.

We were going to the store this week, me and my 17-year-old, and she said, Oh, Dad, I need to get a few things, but I don't have any money.

I said, That's okay, babe, get what you want.

She goes, Well, I need some makeup.

I should have taken a hint there.

She kind of raised it up and said, But I need some makeup.

Don't give makeup away, by the way.

$9 lipstick and$16 this and this, that, and the other.

And oh, I saw a necklace.

She just came up walking up to the front store with a handful of stuff.

Oh, and I saw a necklace that I liked.

What?

I grew up with a stepmom from hell who made you hold on to the side of the shopping cart, go through the whole grocery store and not touch anything, put it in the cart.

She would say, Don't put anything in the cart.

My kids, they just think, hey, man, my dad.

And so we paid for everything.

And she said, Thanks, Dad.

And I said, Hey, babe, you got that not because dad's good, because dad is good, but because God's faithful and God provides.

Well, you know, I I can pay you back.

Pay me back.

Well, well, mom makes me pay her back when I buy stuff.

I'm not your mom.

That's why you don't need to transgress my awesomeness and say, Whoo, thanks for that.

Why?

Because when it comes time to meet a boy, I want my daughters to look to the lens of and see all the men in the world is you gotta be as good to me as my dad has been to me.

Which eliminates most of you punks in this room.

Bam.

That's what God says.

He says, hey, you're freed from, I'm gonna get you out of bondage, but you're delivered unto me as my people.

You say, Well, that's why all the Exodus, uh the entire Old Testament, it speaks of this threat of bondage to another nation with a leader that's not as good as God.

That's why God raised up the Assyrians and He punishes his people because they don't trust Him.

He says, You don't want me to rule over you?

Great.

Assyria's gonna rule over you, Babylon's gonna rule over you, you're gonna be taken into captivity until they realize you know what?

No one is gonna be as good to us as God is.

So I put a question before you this morning.

Who is gonna be as good to you as God is?

You've got to live and speak in such a way that your children believe the answer to that question is nobody.

Which is why when God did what God, only God could do, like when he parted the Red Sea, they burst into spontaneous song in Exodus 15.

He says, Who among the gods is like you?

Majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders.

You want to parent your kids in such a way that they look at you and think, nobody's gonna be as good to me as my stepdad.

And so I can obey him and trust him because that's to my benefit.

And not because your stepdad is great.

He, like me, stole that from God.

Because what God said to the Israelites was, hey, Pharaoh's been oppressing you.

Make bricks, now make them that straw.

I'm gonna liberate you from that so you can serve me and you're gonna be the better for it.

So the first thing we see all through the book of Exodus is we're freed from, but we're delivered to.

Now, now, by the way, when I say it's not just freedom from service to Pharaoh, but it's freedom to serve God, uh, this because they wanted to be freed from Pharaoh, but left alone.

And this is really the earliest manifestation of our desire to relate to God is Savior, but not Lord.

Save me, but but but don't be boss of me.

Don't lord it over me.

Fix me, but don't rule over me.

Help me, but don't tell me what to do.

Forgive me, but then leave me alone until I screw up again, and I'll call triple A and get you to come get me out of the ditch.

And God would always just kind of say, So you want somebody else to rule over?

Because here's the thing all of you in this room, everybody listening on the internet, you're gonna be ruled by someone.

It's just a matter of time.

You're gonna be ruled by someone.

Someone's gonna have the place of high.

I used to work in this as a chaplain in a 12-step recovery center, that 12-step program, and and it bugged me because they would, you know, you just got to pick your higher power.

And one guy in my group, he said, Well, my higher power is Michael Jackson.

Man, you're in deep weeds, dude.

You are in deep weeds.

And I had to go see the administrator of the clinic because I told the guy, Michael Jackson's your higher power.

You are in deep weeds.

And the guy says, Well, we we can't say with certainty that that's not a good idea.

I took my badge off.

I gotta quit.

And he goes, Oh no, no, don't quit, don't quit.

The patients like you.

I like the patients, but hey, we're not helping these people.

If we let them down, my higher power is my girlfriend and my boyfriend.

That's idolatry, that's not worship.

So if you got anybody but God on the throne of your life, you it's idolatry.

Second thing we're gonna see in the book of Exodus that God exerts himself to make knowledge possible.

God exerts himself to make knowledge possible.

That's why he says in verse 6, he says, so God says, save therefore to the people of Israel.

First four words, I am the Lord.

I am the Lord.

Now, think about this just for a second.

How can they be expected to trust, follow, and know a God whom they've never heard of and they cannot understand?

That's like you going to lunch today and someone walking over your table and saying to your daughter, I am your husband.

You're like, and I have a concealed handgun license right here in my boot.

Just keep talking, son.

Uh yeah, I mean, because we can look at the people of Israel and kind of go, Wow, why didn't they follow God?

They had no frame of reference.

Moses shows up and says, Hey, when I say that God exerts himself to make knowledge possible, what what I mean?

God says, I am the Lord, and then he says, Hey, by the way, here's how you're gonna know me based on what I do.

That's why he seven times says, I'll do this, I'll do this, I'll do this, I will redeem you with an outstretched arm with great acts of judgment.

I will take you to be my people, I will be your God, and thus shall you know that I'm the Lord your God.

When he says, I'll redeem you with acts of judgment, unless you understand that God's revealing to his people something about himself, you're gonna get mad and take up an offense against Pharaoh.

Like, why is God picking on Pharaoh?

Because God wants his people to know with certainty who he is and what he's capable of.

One of the ways that God exerts himself and makes knowledge possible is through what he does.

That's why after he says, I will, I will, I will, he says this little word, then.

Then you will know that I am the Lord.

Then you will know that I am the Lord because God labors with intentionality to get all of us to the point uh to get us to the then, where mom and dad don't have to talk us into going to church, or hey, come on, we hadn't been in six Sundays, we should go to church because God says, I will, I will, I will.

Then you will know that I am the Lord God who brought you up out from under the yoke of the Egyptians.

And once you have that knowledge, once you see that God's exerted himself to make himself known, because that's the way that's what God does also in the book of Exodus.

In Exodus chapter 5, uh, Moses goes to Pharaoh and says, God says, Let my people go.

Exodus 5 · chapter mention

Remember what Pharaoh said?

Pharaoh kind of bowed up and said, Who is the Lord that I should obey him?

I do not know the Lord and I will not do what he says.

And God says, Let me introduce myself ten different ways.

They're called plagues.

And I've had people come to me and go, Well, you know, God just seems really harsh.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

The man bowed up to the wrong person and said, Who is the Lord?

And God said, I have a capacity to introduce myself and impress myself upon you in such a way, you'll never ask that question ever again.

Who is the Lord?

What whoa.

And so God exerts himself.

So why don't why do I make such a big deal out of that?

Here's why.

So if a people can know God and their lives be influenced by his life, then a whole new way of existing has been interposed into humanity.

Up until this time, people didn't have a personal relationship with God.

They believed in a higher power.

They sat around and said, you know, well, I'm my higher power is my girlfriend or or my grandpa who's in heaven, and I prayed to his Indian spirit.

Wow.

What?

That's your see, that's what happens when you want relief and not the truth.

You get to be in charge because relief is whatever feels good to you.

But if you want the truth, then God's in charge because he relates to you on the on the basis of whatever's best for you.

And there's a world of difference in those two.

You don't say stupid things in your marriage like, well, I'm not happy.

I know God wants me to be happy.

And so this person makes me happy, so I'm gonna go be with them.

Grow up.

What are you, twelve?

They're my soulmate.

We met, I met online.

Oh, Jesus weeps, and this is why.

So don't miss it.

A whole new way of relating to God.

God comes down in tabernacles and sets down on Israel and says, I will be your God and you will be my people.

You will be my people and I'll be your God.

He exerts himself to make knowledge possible.

If he didn't, they would have no frame of reference.

Moses just kind of convincing them, hey, there's this God, he's really powerful, and you should trust him.

And they're like, eh, that's all you got.

No, God says, I will, I will, I will.

Why?

Because he wants him to have a frame of reference for what he means when he says, I am the Lord.

I am the Lord.

Third thing we'll see in Exodus is that God places a priority on worship.

God places a priority on worship, which is why more than a third of the book of Exodus is dedicated to instructions concerning the tabernacle.

Let me give you a definition for worship.

It's the expression of a right knowledge of God.

It's expression of a right knowledge of God.

Here's why.

Because knowledge always seeks to express itself.

You can't know something about something and it not come out of you and that topic comes up.

Case in point, I was flying on a plane one time and I sat down on the aisle and I kind of put my stuff in the seat next to me, and I was just kind of laying there with my eyes closed because it's southwest, open seating, aisle seats fill up, then the window seats, that's the last one to fill up.

We're about ready to close the door, and uh we're just a few seats left.

And so if you see open seat, jump in it.

I'm like, don't jump in this one.

So I start snoring.

And I hear a guy go, hey, hey, hey, I'm gonna get that seat right there.

And he's sweating because he's been running, and now he's gonna sit next to me and touch me with his sweaty, hairy arm.

And I'm just like, nah, nah, I'm good.

You can have a whole armrest.

And so we take off, and the lady says, Get something to drink.

I said, You got like a diet coke with a lime in it, and the guy's like, hey, that sounds good.

I'll have one of those too.

So what do you do for a living?

I pastor a church full of stiff-necked people who do not listen.

And if I could make money selling Amway, I would do that.

And just to get the subject off of me, I said, What do you do for a living?

And he said, I'm a car dealer.

And I was like, Why?

I'm not making this up.

For two hours that guy talked about cars.

He went off.

He's not just a car dealer, he started off a salesman, now he owns a dealership, and he's like, And then he goes, What do you drive?

I said, Oh man, I got like a 99 suburban.

And he goes, Is it L S or LT?

I don't know.

What does that mean?

It's got leather, got a towing package?

Yeah.

I can get you 13.5 trading for that right there.

What would you like to be in?

Oh, I would like to be in a cone of silence right now.

But here's the deal.

He knew so much about cars, he couldn't help himself.

He told me all about cars.

What's your credit score?

What?

What?

And the guy across the aisle with dying laugh, and he goes, Hey man, good luck.

And I went, wait a minute about my credit score.

You got a good credit, man.

I can get you great financing, blah, blah, blah, blah.

I mean, usually I tell people to go use, but you got good credit, you can get new, I can get you new.

I'm just like, can you get me a cup of shut up and you take a drink?

It dawned on me in the middle of it.

He can't help himself.

He's not trying to be obnoxious.

He's got so much knowledge, it just comes out of him.

Why do I tell you that?

Worship is the expression of a right knowledge of God.

And once you have a right knowledge of God, that's why in the book of Exodus, sporadically all through the book, they would just burst into song.

When's the last time you just burst into song?

It was so good.

When's the last time you couldn't help yourself?

It was just boom.

Because my my my my concern, especially for for us men, is that our our worship is kind of like, hey, I'm gonna kind of do like this and make sure no one hears me.

And I just God says, You shall know that I am the Lord your God.

See, worship is our passionate response to God's self-revelation.

Passionate because we believe that he didn't have to, but instead he chose to.

And to help us men kind of go, me at the top of the list, I want you to just kind of save the date.

Let me give you a little save the date card here, men.

June 25th at 7 o'clock.

We're gonna be doing a thing this summer called the gathering.

And we're gonna meet three times.

We'll meet once a month.

June, July, and August.

Uh and I'm not feeding you.

I ain't making coffee for you.

Uh, drink your own coffee, okay?

And we're gonna meet right here in the sanctuary at 7 o'clock on this Thursday night.

Oh, that's a work night.

Yes, my day off.

What are you complaining about?

Uh, and we're just gonna get together and we're gonna worship and we're gonna pray.

I'm not gonna preach, I'll kind of give a directional word or a shaping word and say, hey, now let's pray for our wives.

And one of those times I'm gonna tell you after we pray for our wives, I'm gonna tell you to go home, lay hands on your wife, and pray for her out loud what you prayed for her here.

Now, some of y'all are like, go back up, go home and lay hands on your wife.

I like that part.

And pray for her.

What are you talking about, Willis?

Yeah, yeah.

And so we're gonna do it once in June, once in July, once in August.

You're more than welcome to come.

We're gonna worship and we're gonna pray.

That's it.

We don't have an agenda, we have an opportunity.

And why do I tell you that?

Because God places a priority on worship.

Uh fourth thing the book of Exodus is gonna teach us is that God is relational.

God is relational.

That's why from the beginning, here's the thing.

You've probably known this your whole life.

I cried this week when this dawned on me.

I was like, why did I not know this before?

From the beginning, when God speaks to Moses, he says, You go tell Pharaoh, let my people go.

He thought about Israel as belonging to him from the very beginning.

And they were slaves and they were servants to Pharaoh.

And God's like, hey, hey, let my people go.

I remember sitting at my desk, choking my tears, kind of going.

Why am I crying?

I need therapy.

And that little voice said, No, no, I think the same way about you.

You see, the book of Exodus is going to reveal to you not a God that's far and away, but a God that says, Hey, I've been thinking about you the same way.

You you you belong to me.

So when I say God's relational, well, what what what do you what do you what do you mean?

It's why the New Testament, when he says, Hey, let my people go, the New Testament says it this way.

Don't you know you're not your own?

You've been bought with a prize, therefore glorify God when you're bothered.

If you're not your own, stop getting offended over things that are beautiful and should be invitational to you.

And you take offense, don't you know you're not your own?

Well, no, that's good news.

Why?

Because you belong to God.

He has oathed himself and said, Hey, I'll take responsibility for your well-being.

You you focus on me.

That's why all through Exodus will read this phrase, I am the Lord your God.

That's the essence of covenant, compressed.

I am the Lord.

You belong to me.

Your God.

I belong to you.

You don't own me, but I've made myself responsible for you in covenant.

You keep covenant with me, I'll keep covenant with you.

The New Testament says it this way.

Alan and Stacey read it a few minutes ago from 1 Peter chapter 2.

1 Peter 2 · chapter mention

Once you are not a people, but now you are the people of God.

And that something happens when you go from being anonymous to being specific.

Let me say it again.

I'll demonstrate.

Something happens when you go from being anonymous once you are not a people to being specific, but now you are the people of God.

Case in point, I'm mowing the yard the other day, and I look up and I see this little red weenie dog on the sidewalk, and I can tell that dog ain't been outside very long.

That dog is an inside dog.

Because the dog was like, I'm outside, what do I do?

Oh, I'm so overwhelmed.

And so I shut the lawnmower off and I was like, and the dog took off, running down the street, cupping a yard, and then it ran down the sidewalk, and it came over to me, and I got down, and I don't know what it is, but if a dog gets lost in my neighborhood, it comes to my house.

And so we found like six or seven dogs.

Same thing happens every time.

I should know better, but so I got down on my knee, called the dog, it came to me, I picked it.

Up and I just thought I'm gonna play a hunch.

Walked over to this house, rang the doorbell, and it was a weenie dog, a little red dog about that long, about that tall.

And when it was running on the side on the street, and something I heard this, and I thought, man, that dog got some claws.

That dog needs to turn them things back.

So I'm holding the dog like a football.

I ring the doorbell and I'm waiting there, and the lady opens the door and goes, skipper.

And that thing turned into a wilder beast.

It started just mauling me right there in my flesh, and I'm like, ah, ah.

I said, Is this your dog?

He said, Oh my God.

We've been moving, and the door got on.

I said, Here, here, here.

Just take the dog.

I'm fine.

The bleeding will stop.

I walked over to my truck and pulled my shirt up, and I'd just been mauled like a wild bear.

What happened?

For a while the dog was anonymous.

Just a dog.

And when the lady opened the door, the dog became skipper.

Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God.

And belonging to somebody changes everything.

Let me say that again.

Belonging to somebody changes everything.

And God says in He's relational.

You're going to see that through.

You go, oh, why is God doing it?

Because God is relational.

Belonging to somebody.

That changes everything.

That's the message that God speaks over and over next.

Hey, I am the Lord.

I am the Lord, your God.

I'm the Lord.

You belong to me, but I'm your God.

I belong to you.

You don't own me, but I've oathed myself.

I've made myself responsible to you because I trust myself.

I know who I am.

The question before us, beloved, before we turn one page of Exodus, is can you trust yourself to this guy?

Fifth thing we're going to see is that God is holy.

He's holy.

We'll see a balance of the transcendence as well as the eminence of God.

He's here among us, and yet he's beyond us, which is why he reveals himself in Exodus by symbols behind barriers.

Let me say that again.

He's with us, he's imminent.

That's immanence.

But he's also transcendent.

He's beyond us.

There's things about God we can't approach.

We need to reclaim that in the American church because we've gotten way too chummy with God.

There ought to be something about God, a little awe.

As Hebrews says, let us worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.

And so in Exodus, he reveals himself by symbols behind barriers.

What do you mean?

The Ark of the Covenant.

You'll see the way they handle that.

It's not that they're, oh, we got this gold box, these angels on top, and look how shiny.

I didn't realize this.

I started digging in the book of Exodus.

That thing was covered up and wrapped in hides of animals and behind curtains.

Even when they carried it, they didn't see it exposed.

Because it symbolized the presence of God.

And God he revealed himself, but it wasn't a full revelation.

Remember when Moses got all excited that God was going to go with him and he said, Now let me see your glory.

And God said, Easy.

Easy.

I'm going to push over in the cleft of the rock and my glory's going to, I'm going to cause all my glory to pass in front of you.

You ever wonder how long that took?

And then Moses looked up and saw the back of God's glory and his face glowed.

Why didn't God?

Because God said, This is this is transcendence.

God said, You can't see me and live.

Get you some of that.

You can't look upon me.

I will kill you.

First thing he says in Exodus, here's eminence and transcendence.

First thing in Exodus chapter 3, he says to Moses, he goes over and sees a burning bush.

Exodus 3 · chapter mention

We'll get in there in a couple weeks.

And God speaks and says, Take your shoes off, for the ground you're on is holy ground.

Exodus 19, God says, Hey, but put bounds around the mountain.

Don't come up the mountain.

Don't even touch it, or you'll be put to death.

Wouldn't you have loved to have said that to your big sister growing up?

Don't come in my bedroom.

Don't touch none of my Barbies, or I'll strike you dead.

Some of y'all are like, oh man, that'd be great to have that power.

God did.

God is so holy, He told these people, don't even touch my mountain.

I'm dwelling up on the top of the mountain.

Don't you come up here?

Matter of fact, don't even touch the base of the mountain.

And yet, here's eminence.

Exodus 33.

And the Lord spoke to Moses face to face as a man talks to a friend.

He's both and.

But God is teaching us something about Himself.

When He says, hey, all through Exodus, God is holy.

Sixth thing we take away is that the law is necessary.

You still with me?

See, see, we got to be careful.

And one thing the book of Exodus is going to point out to us and teach us is the necessity of the law.

What do you mean, the law?

Look at me.

This right here.

God takes himself so seriously, he refers to his words as the law.

See, now some of y'all didn't grow up with law.

I grew up with law, okay?

The law in my life was named Leon, okay?

And this was the law in my house.

We had a woody panel station wagon, country squire.

It was green and had woody panels on the side, and had a front seat, back seat, and then a rumble seat.

You can put it flat, you open up, and the back window opened up.

You know, we're driving to West Texas to the family reunion, and my dad said twice, it was five of us, me and my two brothers and my two stepsisters in the back, just going crazy, making noise.

And my dad just grabbed the mirror and said, Hey, knock it off.

It's getting a little loud back there.

About 15 more minutes down the road, grab the mirror again.

Hey, that's enough.

We're like a bunch of mirror cats.

Okay.

Went right back.

My kids can't fathom without traveling without a DVD screen flipped down, headphones on.

How much father to Chick-fil-A?

I'm gonna have to whip these kids just so they get grateful, okay?

And so when my dad, remember Clint Eastwood, Dirty Harry?

When my dad talked to his teeth?

We were at the by God stage then.

You about to get it.

And my dad grabbed the mirror and said, What did I say?

And we were like, but we couldn't help ourselves.

We were going to see our cousins.

We were all side.

I mean, it wasn't five minutes later.

We were down playing a game and I felt the car pulling over.

I felt the car pull and we look, are we there yet?

Oh, we were there yet.

On the side of the highway in West Texas, my dad got out, he opened the door, pulled the bell, we called it a rattle snake.

You can hear it in them bell loops on the way out.

Grabbed the door and just grabbed the first kid and started whipping.

Cars going by.

My dad just whipping on the side of the road.

We all jumped over the back seat into the very backpack back there.

My dad, after he whipped the first one, threw him back in there, reached in there and turned the key, lowered the window down the back, walked around, got on the bumper and just grabbed the kid and pulled him out.

Wah wah wah wam threw him down.

Five of us laying in the dirt of the dad put his bell back on and said, What did I say?

All right.

Then he reached in his shirt pocket for the ever-present pack of Salems.

Brother got so tired he had a lot of cigarettes.

You ain't getting back in this car until you're gonna shut your mouth.

We're like got in the car.

We're 45 minutes from grandma's.

We got to grandma.

My grandma was old school, smoked in palm malls.

Remember palm malls?

On the front porch in Children's, Texas.

We were still.

She's like, what happened?

Dad pulled the car over and whipped us.

Grandma was old school, she you probably deserved it.

Get in the house.

Grandma Dawson didn't say, Oh, let me make you some cookies.

She blew smoke in our face and said, You probably deserved it.

My dad just lumbered up them steps.

There won't be any problems here.

I can promise you that this weekend.

And my mind's like, no.

Why?

Because he was the law.

Now I don't know what's like in your house, but let me tell you something.

I want to whip some of your kids when I hear the way they talk to you.

Little disrespectful brats.

But I don't.

But if you want me to, see me down front.

My dad didn't do a lot of things right, but one thing he did very right was he was the law.

Here's how God redeemed my dysfunctional family and me understanding the law.

When I became a Christian and the Bible talked, God talks about his word as the law, I had a frame of reference for that.

Ask yourself, do your kids have a frame of reference for absolute authority?

Not circumstantial authority.

Well, it all depends on what?

I remember being in the in the hot sand on the side of the road, and my dad didn't get back in his car until you understand you're gonna shut up when I say shut up.

Okay.

You feel it in here?

Some of y'all are like, that was abuse.

That was law.

Grace is good, but law makes you appreciate grace.

If all you get is grace, you'll never respect the law.

You say, How do I know if I respect the law?

How do you feel like the word submit?

Because you're gonna submit to the law in our house.

My dad whipped a whole little egg team one time.

Saw them all night.

And they were like, Oh, Miss Leon ain't whipping me.

You spooked them chickens, and my dad's gonna whip all y'all.

We'll see about that.

Ten minutes later.

I was like, How are we seeing now, boys?

Why do I say that?

Because the law is necessary.

In the time of Exodus, pagan living was popular.

People, because people based their spirituality on how often they went and how generous they were at these pagan temples.

Here's the thing I couldn't understand.

If you go to Singapore, you'll see it, okay?

I was there and I saw it.

The pagan gods could do everything but feed themselves.

What?

I remember walking by and they had these shrines of the Buddha and all these oranges and incense.

I said, What are the oranges for?

Oh, we have to feed our God.

I don't think he likes oranges.

Because this one's been here a while, it's kind of getting blue mold on it.

Oh, sir, you shouldn't offend our God.

I'm not worried about you, God.

I don't think that's a God because can he not eat?

How often do you put these things here?

Well, in the time of Exodus, that's what the people were.

They were like, hey man, we we we got our gods and we we gotta feed them.

But if we bring a lot of food, then we can live like we want.

Why is the law necessary?

Here's why.

Stay with me, we're just about done.

God is the only one, the first one who demanded ethical living, which manifests itself in keeping the law.

God said, if you're gonna be in relationship with me, your life has got to look like my life.

Which is why the New Testament says, Be holy as I am holy, for without holiness no one's gonna see God.

That's not a new thing.

That was way back.

God said, Hey, the law is necessary.

God does not relate savingly to his people without expecting from them a proof of loyalty via keeping the commands, which is why Jesus says, You're my disciples, you are my disciples if you keep my commandments.

And so the law, don't get hung up on me and my redneck upbringing, go, I'm just abuse.

No, no.

No.

God's word, God, and you'll see it all through Exodus.

God thinks of himself and his word as the law.

It's absolute authority.

And your life would be better if you'd submit to that.

Last thing is simply this following God is a must.

Following God is a must.

Because to these people, to be somewhere without God was that was just unconscionable.

That's why when God at one point, we'll look at it later, God says to Moses, hey guys, you can you can have the promised land.

I'm not going with you.

I'm sick of putting up with you hard-headed, stiff-necked people.

And Moses said, If you don't go, don't lead us up out of here.

It wasn't, hey God, I'm gonna do this.

I want you to bless this.

God didn't bless what they initiated, they followed what where God led.

Let me say that again.

They didn't relate to God like, hey, I want you to bless what I'm initiating.

They followed where God led.

That's why the book of Exodus closes with this, and I'm done this morning.

You still with me?

Exodus chapter 40, verse 34.

Exodus 40:34

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

And Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the clouds settled on him, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle, and throughout all their journeys, this is what you want to say on your deathbed, Dad.

You want to look at your wife and your kids and say, Throughout all my journeys, wherever God was going, I was following, throughout all their journeys, whenever the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the people of Israel would set out.

But if the cloud was not taken up, then they did not set out to the day that it was taken up.

For the cloud of the Lord was on the tabernacle by day, and the fire was in it by night in the sight of all the house of Israel throughout all their journeys.

What do you mean?

Following God is a must.

I hear a lot of this these days.

You know, we eventually want to move back to a certain part of the country, or we want to live here, and I just trying to be people's pastors, say, what has God said about that?

What have you heard the Lord say about that?

I don't know what you mean, but that that that's always been our plan.

Is that God's plan?

Well, what do you mean?

Well, this all started with God saying to Abram, Leave the land of your forefathers.

You ever notice how it's always God's plan that we get to do what we want to do?

Be close to grandma so we get free babysitting?

Father, they say, Hey, wherever wherever God is.

I know where God is.

Here's my prayer, verse 38 for our church.

The cloud of the Lord was on the tabernacle by day, and the fire was in it by night.

If you want to pray anything of this church, pray that.

The cloud was over the tabernacle by day, and the fire was in it by night.

That's what I desire for our church.

That's what I desire for you.

Just following God is a must in the book of Exodus.

They're like, oh God, we don't want presence.

P-R-E-S-E-N-T-S.

We don't want stuff without you.

God said, You can have the promised land.

Go.

I'm sick of you.

You're you're you're a bunch of babies.

You wear me out with the smallness of your prayers.

Go, enjoy milk and honey, but you can't have me.

Moses said, Oh man.

Oh, God, we got this wrong.

We don't want that without you.

And one of the things you're gonna have to ask yourself as we journey to the book of Exodus is, do you want stuff?

Do you want presence?

Or do you want presence?

Father, we understand you to be our strong deliverer today, our strength and our shield.

You go before us, and yet you're our rear guard as well.

You're imminent, you're right here among us, but you're transcendent.

You're wholly other than.

And the world works because that's true.

You hold all things together.

And so I pray, Father, that we would be a people for whom your word and your will and your way is law.

We're not here today as prisoners.

We hear law and think prisoners.

We're here as people.

Once we are not a people, but now we are the people of God.

Is your people.

You've taken us for your inheritance, and you're not disappointed.

You do not have buyer's remorse.

Because the possibility still exists for all of us to conduct ourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel.

We give ourselves to that now.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

Just want to ask you a couple of questions before you leave.

Uh have you said all you're supposed to say to people?

Remember last week when I told you?

Make sure you say everything you're supposed to say to somebody.

Have you given what you're supposed to give?

Have you done what you're supposed to do while you're here?

We'll start in Exodus chapter 1 next week and we'll kind of go through the book of Exodus.

Exodus 1 · chapter mention

Somebody's already asked how long it's gonna take.

We'll break it up.

We'll do a little bit and take a break.

Relax.

We might be in Exodus when Jesus comes.

That'd be mighty fine with me.

Stand to your feet, let me speak a blessing over you.

Hold your hands out.

Once you were not a people.

And he saw you.

And he set his affection on you.

And now you are the people of God.

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the name of the Holy Spirit.