He Will Receive You (Pastor Vann Trapp)

And. Okay.

So, last several weeks, we've been looking at a passage in Exodus six

and a like I do.

You know, when we go through a passage like this,

I encourage you guys regularly just get into the passage and read it yourself,

because stuff will God will talk to you about stuff that I don't talk about here.

That he'll just be kind of lifting stuff out.

But we've been looking at it and I've been telling you last several

weeks where we've been working our way to the middle of that passage,

because in the middle of the passage is the main point.

And so, this week we're at the middle.

Yeah, right.

You guys are really excitable.

But anyway, so the middle, the main point this is where God,

he tells kind of the purpose of why he's given these promises.

So we've looked at several promises of the last several weeks

and he gave these promises.

And this is kind of where he sums it up.

And he says, and this is why.

And so, the purpose just a quick review.

First we saw that God said, you know what?

I want you to know me.

He says, I am Yahweh.

I want you to know me by my name.

I want you to know that I'm on

unlike any other God, and the salvation that I bring you into his.

Unlike any sort of salvation, other gods aren't even able to bring you into that.

The second thing he said, he said, I will get you out of this place of slavery.

I will bring you into a place of freedom so that you can live your life unhindered.

The life I intended for you, unhindered.

That's freedom, he said.

Next, he said, I will get the impact of this slavery out of you

so that you can live this life unhindered that I intended you for.

That's called healing.

So he says, I'll. I'll give you healing.

I'll bring you into freedom.

And then he said, I will do whatever it takes by the power that I possess

to bring you under my care, under my kind of tutelage, under my training,

so that you can continue to develop this life and develop the skills

and the habits to bring you into this life, this life unhindered.

That's called redemption.

So today we learned that why did he do these things?

That the purpose of these what it was, what is he trying to accomplish

in us through these promises?

And he says he says it in this way.

He says, I will then take you to myself as my people.

So we ask, you know what?

What does it take for God to shape us into his people?

What what do God's people look like?

Well, people, the people of God are those who are shaped by, they've been saved.

They've been rescued out of they've been healed.

They've been redeemed.

And all of the, where they are brought into this

ongoing relationship with him.

And that's what he says.

He says that's what it means to be the people of God.

People of Yahweh, who know his name and walk with him, reflect his heart.

So stand with me.

We're going to look at one last time, this one last week at Exodus six,

verse two through eight,

and the promises that he made

to his people then, and the promises that he makes to us now

says, God, continue talking, speaking to Moses, and said, I am Yahweh.

When I made myself known to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, it was his El Shaddai,

God Almighty, but not as now by my name, Yahweh.

However, I did establish my covenant with them,

promising to give them the land of Canaan, where they were living as foreigners.

And now I have heard the groaning of the descendants of Jacob, the one who

I renamed Israel, because the Egyptians are holding them in bondage.

But I have not forgotten my covenant.

So say to the sons of Israel,

I am Yahweh, I will bring you out from under the burden of the Egyptians.

I will suddenly release you from their bondage.

I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and great judgments,

and then I will take you to myself as my people,

and I will be to you as your God.

And you will know that I am Yahweh

your God, the one who brought you out from under the burden of the Egyptians.

And I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham,

Isaac, and Jacob.

And I will give it to you as a possession.

I am Yahweh.

Let's pray.

Father, this morning

we are those who you are calling to, who you are inviting,

who are you are reaching out to and saying, you know what I.

I long to know you as my people

and for you to know me as your God.

You are inviting us into this,

this place where we know you by name,

where you we see that you bring us out of places

where we are stuck and into freedom, and out of those places where we are

broken and beat up and into places of healing,

where you bring us out of those places

where we are just harassed and encircled by so many demands

and by so many gods and so many, just powers and dynamics

in our lives that call for our attention and distract and confuse.

And you bring us into the place where we clearly see that you, you alone, our God.

You are

the alone, our shepherd, the one who we follow

so that we might. Know.

Life as you meant it to be.

That we might know. You.

As our God, as our Savior,

as our our life, as the one who loves us and has always loved us.

So, father, this morning do do the work

that you do through your word and through your spirit.

Take this place and make it yours.

We give you our attention and we give you our eyes and our ears.

Speak to us, show us things that we need to see

and give us hearts to understand it, so that we might also turn to you.

Find your rescue.

Find your healing.

Find this place of safety and relationship with you.

It might know what it means to be your people.

So, father, we pray that you do that work today

in Jesus name for your glory by your spirit.

Amen.

Amen.

Have a seat.

So what does it mean to be the people of God?

Well, this passage is told us.

It told us, you know, God's people are those who

he has revealed himself to, right?

So he revealed his name.

It's those who he brings out of slavery and into freedom.

It's those who he brings out of brokenness and heals them

and renames them is those who he brings.

They have seen him fight for them.

The people that have seen God fight for them and removed all obstacles.

So they can enter into this ongoing relationship and know him as their God.

And that's a lot.

I mean, that alone is a lot.

There's a place in the in the Passover meal that the Jews,

the Jewish people sell celebrate every, every year.

And they get to the middle of it right about in the middle of this,

this place called, this part of it called the Diana.

And what it means is it would have been enough. Right?

And they say, you know, if God was just wiped out the gods of Egypt,

it would have been enough if we just left it there,

if he would have just, you know, given us a pass, it would have been enough

if we would have just done those three things,

you know, and guide us through the the sea.

That would have been enough.

But they go on and on and on.

He just keeps kind of,

opening up more and more and,

and, you know, just those four things would have been enough, right?

That's a lot.

But what we find is, as we look through the history of, of,

the nation of Israel and as we look through the history of

the community called the church,

the people of God, we find that God keeps showing us more and more.

It's like Exodus

was just the beginning of him showing what it means to be God's people.

Because later we find out, you know, we are those also who live under this.

I want you to think about this is undeserved, but unreserved,

unrestricted forgiveness.

Right?

I mean, we we go to God and we say, I'm sorry, and he never holds back.

His forgiveness is open to us all the time.

Unrestricted love of God,

right?

The people of God are those who understand that the people of God are those

who have been made into, become like signs and wonders.

That point to him, that point to his goodness,

that reflect his goodness in this world.

You know, in the New Testament, Jesus said, you will be my witnesses.

And that doesn't just mean that we go around telling you about something

that we haven't experienced.

It means literally almost like where we show up.

He shows up through us.

We witness of him through how he moves through us.

That's amazing.

Right?

It says that the people of God

are those who finally find we.

We learn day after day after day.

We learn that we have been crowned with like this glory.

We absolutely don't deserve this honor that we haven't earned at all.

And we've been called his children.

We've been made members of God's own household.

That's what it means to be the people of God.

And then

so what we find is that God, God calls to us when we find ourselves

in these places

that we're stuck, like we've been talking about the last several weeks

where we have find we find that we have become enslaved to various things.

And a lot of times we think about

is enslaved to like addiction is enslaved to bad habits.

But what about enslaved to like our own expectations of ourselves,

or the expectations of others enslaved to the circumstances

that surround us, enslaved to our emotions, enslaved

to our pursuits, enslaved to our possessions?

As to tragedies that have happened to us,

bound to offenses that we have taken up when we find ourselves in those places

and we're all locked up in our lives, we find that God comes in

in two different ways one, if we don't know him yet, he comes in.

He says, I want to bring you out.

I want to bring you into this place of freedom.

I want to get the impact of that place out of you and heal you up,

so that you can know the life I intended you for.

Or if we are his, he says, I want you like Israel was already belong to him.

He says, I want you to know what it means to be my people.

You weren't made to live in this kind of bondage, in this kind of slavery.

I want to bring you out.

I want to bring you back into that relationship

with me that you were made for, that you were meant for,

so that you might know life as I intended it.

So many times when you think about this invitation that God gives,

the one thing we don't think about is we don't consider sometimes there's why.

Why did God invite us in?

Right?

There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of reason,

because we know that he didn't invite us in because he needs us,

right? God doesn't need anything.

He was living father, son, and Holy Spirit

throughout all of time and eternity before time, right?

For all of eternity.

He was in the perfectly content in this, this community of three.

They had everything they need. So why?

Why did he created this? Why did he?

Why did he then invite us?

And well then we say, well, maybe it's

because he wants us to know that we need him, right?

Because we do. We need him.

Did you guys.

He doesn't invite us in just so he can prove a point.

He doesn't have, like this

massive God sized ego that somehow he has to stroke every once in a while.

I just need you to know how important I am.

He doesn't need that.

He doesn't need any of that. So why

he doesn't invite us in?

Because he needs us.

He doesn't invite us in because he wants us to know we need him.

He invites us in because he wants us.

He wants you.

He wants the relationship that he can have.

You know, we read Scripture.

That's the whole message of Scripture is that this love of God is such

that he finds incredible joy in first

creating these beings that can be in relationship with him,

but then sharing this life and this relationship

with those beings he's created just for that purpose.

The love of God is such that

he created us to share his life

so that we could be brought in so that we could

understand, and the joy of that life that he is

in, that community that he has shared for all of eternity.

But he knows that that life is only going to be found in a life that is with him,

a life that is

in him, a life that reflects that same nature.

We try and do it on our own, don't we?

And that's when we get messed up.

Yes, when we find some people bound up and other people bound up in other things,

and we're just all enslaved.

And we think some of us think we're on the top of the pile,

but the top of the pile just chains us to it, right?

There's no escape from that.

And God says, I want you to know the freedom of life, but it's only found here.

It's only found in this community that has existed

from before time began

this life.

And that's what it means to be the people's God,

to be his people

who know him, who live with him.

Now, Exodus is a story about how God

got Israel out of Egypt right?

And but then two books later, the Book of Numbers

is it picks it up on the other side of that rescue.

And we're going to look at a passage in the Book of Numbers.

But numbers is like it takes up and it tells a story about how God

then takes these rescued people and shapes them into his people.

Right.

Because those aren't always the same thing, are they?

How many you guys would agree with that?

There's kind of a side note for us, right?

The the rescue of God can be quick.

The transfer to the from the kingdom of darkness to

the kingdom of light can be can be as quick as a prayer

where we just turn to God and we say, God, I gotta get out of this stuff,

and he brings us out. That's the book of Exodus.

But the renovation of our lives, that takes time, doesn't it?

Doesn't it take a while to get our our minds kind of in line

with how God thinks and our lives in line with how he would act

and how he would love to get our emotions reined in to to gain those it takes time.

That's the book of numbers, right?

So God gets us out, but then he shapes us.

He ups form us into kind of being his people.

We are his people.

But so that will live as his people reflected that.

And so in the book of numbers, it starts out, you know,

second year it says, is the second year after they're out of Egypt,

year two.

And they learn, you know, they say, hey, we got to figure out

how many people are here.

So they take a count and they figure out how to set up a camp.

Right. God shows them that.

He says, you know, and this is in the tabernacle.

This is what that needs to look like and, and how the worship should go.

And who's in charge of that?

And he tells them a little bit about, you know, and you need to

this is what it means to reflect me in your life.

You know, some basic things about how you relate to each other.

But then at the end of chapter six, so at the end of chapter

six, God tells Moses, Moses, go, and I want you to talk to your brother Aaron.

Now Aaron had been appointed as the high priest over

all the other priest because as Moses, his brother, is one who had been kind of

in the presence of God and all this, but he was one who was kind of,

he was in charge of teaching the other priests

as they're learning how to be the people of God.

He was going to be training the other priests and holding them

accountable to do the things

you know of ministering to God, ministering to the people of of Israel.

So God says, go, go talk to your brother and go

tell him as the high priest, this is the blessing.

I want you to speak over the people of Israel.

This is the blessing I want you to speak every time they come together.

This is the blessing I want you to speak.

These are the words I want you to remind them of.

And you guys have heard these words.

You guys have heard these words.

Yahweh bless you and keep you.

Now we say the Lord, but his it was his name again.

He wants them to know his name.

So he says, Yahweh, bless you and keep you.

Yahweh, make enlightened his face to you,

and be gracious to you. Yahweh.

Lift up his face upon you and give you peace.

Every time they get together.

Speak those words over them.

Now we've we've looked at this blessing.

We've unpacked it a bit before.

The first line is all about God the Father, right?

God the father, bless you and protect you.

The second line is all about God the Son, Yahweh

showing himself through father, son, and Holy Spirit, all about the Son

and Yahweh make his face visible to you right?

Jesus, who made the invisible God visible,

enlightened his face towards us.

And he says, and bring you grace when Jesus is where we find his grace.

And then that third line is all about the Holy Spirit, who says, And Yahweh

lift his face, set his face upon you, so that others see him in you.

And so the Holy Spirit does just the work that he does.

He he transforms us

so that people begin to see more of Jesus, less of us in the way.

Right?

And so

in the last part where he says, and and give you peace is really

make you not only the recipients of peace,

but also the promoters of peace and the word there, Shalom.

What is Shalom?

Shalom represents make you promoters of recipients of and promoters

of the fullness of the life that God intended for you.

That's what pieces life as it was meant to be.

That Shalom, God's peace, your right

relationship, your crops coming in.

You have peace on all sides.

You don't have enemies that are surrounding you. No threats.

Life as it was meant to be, he says.

So as the Holy Spirit lifts up his face upon you,

he also commissions you as those who know peace,

but also who make peace in this world, who bring it about.

That's the people of God, isn't it?

That's what we're called to.

So he tells Moses in number six, he says, by speaking this blessing over

God's people, over Israel, time after time after time,

he says, my name will be set upon them.

My heart will be set upon them.

It they will understand that

that I am Yahweh, Yahweh, the God who rescues them, who

who heals them, who brings them into relationship.

And they will understand that they are my people who then turn and do

the same outwardly, that do the same out towards outward facing,

towards the world, because that's what it means to be God's people.

It means that we receive this gift, but we also reflect this gift outward.

We receive this blessing,

but we also bless those who are around us with the same.

So in the same way, we have found life that we try to give life

and bring life and describe life and invite people into life.

The same kind of life, that same kind of peace around us.

So we say, you know, why is it church?

Why do we set up seasons like the season of giving, for example?

Why do we do that?

Well, because we

know that together we're called to reflect

the same way that God has poured into us all that he had.

He didn't hold back.

We saw that in his promises, didn't we?

What did it take for him to rescue us?

What did it take for him to heal us?

What is it taken for him to bring us into relationship and

and conquer all of those things that stood in opposition or his barriers to us?

Well, it literally took him going to a cross.

He said, I will do that.

So here he is, poured himself out for us.

And he says, and so every year we have this season of giving where we say,

you know what? He poured himself out for us.

Can't we

generously pour ourselves out to meet the needs of others?

Can't we give of our time and of our efforts?

And we know. So that's one reason.

The other reason is why do we do that? Is because.

And tell me if this isn't true.

Because we know that if we don't establish those kind of times as a community,

if we don't establish those kind of times in our individual lives,

that the craziness of our schedules, right,

and the craziness of this world around us and demands

that they put, we're going to lose, we're going to lose sight of it,

and we're going to lose sight of who we are.

And instead will be brought into slavery again to something or someone

or this other thing or this other desire, this other, you know, demand.

And we'll forget who

we are, that we are the people of God.

Will you say, you know the book of Ephesians?

It says, it says we are supposed to be those who stand out

like like lights in the in the dark sky, like stars.

And what is stars doing those days?

Well, in those days, the stars were they were like signs that told people,

oh, it's time to do this, right?

It's this season.

Oh, there's the North Star.

That means I can figure out

my directions when it's dark, when I can't see anything.

These lights in the night sky.

They help me find my bearings.

They're the ones. They help me remember what time it is.

They were the ones that helped me know where I am and when I am.

And who we are and what.

What's the best next step forward in this place in this time?

In Ephesians says, you know what?

That's who. That's who the people of God are.

We're like these lights in the night sky,

so we can't afford to lose sight of that, of who we are,

that we're God's people and we have known his rescue.

We know his freedom. We know his healing.

We are those

who who know this relationship with him.

There's ongoing this continual growth.

And we are to shine

that outwardly so that others might be invited

and find their way into the same kind of life that we know.

So actually, the six

why does God say that he saves us from the stuckness?

Why does God say that he heals us from this brokenness?

Why does God say that he wipes out all of these oppositions,

all of these guys at five for our attention

and brings us into relationship with him? Why?

So that we might be.

His people.

Right. So that we might see that.

And not only are we loved by him and wanted desired by him,

but that he has made a way for us to know him in that, in that way,

to know him as our God, but to be known as his people.

So what do we do with that? Right.

That that's really and

you guys, that is, that's this is Exodus six,

the core that promises.

He says, you know what I want you to be known.

I want as you walk through this world, I want you to be seen

as like stars in the darkness.

So what do we do with that?

Well, first, you know, some of you guys, some of you guys might not know that.

God, in that way,

I I've hit this a couple of times, but, you know, a lot of times

we can grow up going to church, we can grow up

and we can in this in this culture, we can talk about being spiritual,

but those are not the same as being God's own people.

This is a this is a very

this is very clearly a

specific God, a very personal God, the God who created the universe.

And he is calling us in relationship with him.

There's a lot of spirits out there that you can have,

you know, you can get into spirituality all you want and never find him. You.

There's a lot of religions out there that you can go, and you can practice

all kinds of stuff and show up in places and do and never know him.

And he's not concerned about all that.

He he did all this so that we might know him

and we might be known as his own people,

that we might find that life and that that purpose that we were made for.

So there may be

some of you who don't know Jesus, that don't know Yahweh, that don't know

what it means to be filled with and walk in the company of the Holy Spirit,

the Spirit of God, and haven't found yet.

You know, I mean, right now he he he's here

and he wants you to know, you know, he's inviting you not because he needs you,

not because he wants you to know you need him.

He's inviting you in because he wants you.

He wants you.

That's what he created you for.

And he wants you to know that life unhindered,

that he intended you for.

So if you don't know God

as your God, if you don't know that God, I mean, this,

this freedom, this healing, this relationship that he offers,

he says, just turn to me right now.

He just turned to me.

Turn. And

we talk about simplicity of just we think about it.

We think, well, that's you know, this should be hard.

It isn't.

It's as easy, he says is turning to him

in the simplicity of a prayer and just saying,

God, Yahweh, Father God, I just

I need you to forgive me because I've been doing this wrong.

Help me. Turn me

because I need you.

I want to know your promise.

I want to know the freedom and the healing and the relationship

that you've offered me,

he says.

Do that just right now, just in the simplicity of a prayer in your heart,

say God. That's it. That's what I've made.

I was made for it. That's what I want.

Wherever you are,

we ask for his forgiveness, for his rescue, for his healing.

But then also his lordship is leadership in our life.

And he says he will instantaneously, like the book of Exodus talked about quickly.

He will move you out of darkness into life.

He will move you out of death and into life.

He will move you out of that place where you are in slavery

to that place of freedom.

And then he will begin the book of numbers right in your life.

So begin to shape you into

so that His spirit will take up residence within you and start

to teach you how to think his thoughts after him,

how to walk his walk, how to reflect his life

so that you would see the

blessing of of numbers six,

just a reality in your life, that he would bless you and keep you.

He would make his face to make himself known to you and show you his grace.

But then that he would lift up his face upon you, and others will see him in you,

and you would become you would become this minister of his shalom, his peace.

The same life for others.

So for those of you who don't know him,

just take the time

to say this simple prayer to him.

God, come into my life, rescue me

from this place and make me your own.

Now some of you, you do know him, right?

You've walked with Jesus. You've reflected.

You know what it means for the power of His Spirit to,

you know, make him known through you.

You know all these things.

You what?

What are we supposed to do them?

Well, you know this this last week, I was thinking about.

Because

this is one of those times, a year or two,

that we get pulled in all kinds of directions.

We get pulled by family, we pull by obligations,

we get pulled by busyness because we still get to get our job done.

And we got to try and get stuff done in time for vacation, right?

We we get pulled all kinds of ways.

And and in the midst of that, sometimes we're also asking

the question of God, what do you want to do in me?

What do you want to do with me? What am I supposed to be doing?

And we get confused, spun around and and, I want you to know that this last week

that was happening to me, too.

It happens to pastors, you know, happens to everybody.

Where we just saying, God, what?

What am I supposed to do? What am I doing to follow you?

Because we hear all these voices in these polls.

And he brought me to this place where he just showed me, you know, what

the one thing, the one thing that I know without without question,

the one thing that I know that I can invest myself in

and not have any question about whether it's real,

whether it's true, whether it's it's worth my time.

I know that God is worthy of my worship,

right?

If I'm ever lost and crazy and going where I know that God is always worthy

of my worship, not just for what he's done for me,

he did for me what he did for me because of who he is.

He is worthy just because of who he is, let alone what he's done.

And how much he's given.

But he is always worthy of my worship.

And so when I get confused,

he says, he says, why don't you just come back to that place?

And so I started coming back to that place and just

just spending time before God giving him my devotion.

And I praise and my thanks and fitting in with thanksgiving,

you know, kind of fits.

And we just give him our thanks.

Thank you.

You're worthy of my thanks.

You're worthy of that praise. Right.

And what I found was

that out of that place of just seeking his face out of that place, of

just giving him the honor and the praise that he deserves also.

And his spirit just started going out ahead of me, almost.

And he started like laying out the way.

He started making it a little bit clearer for me to see.

He started to make it.

So what are we who know Jesus?

What are we supposed to do?

We often we go rushing out and say, I gotta save the world because that's

what God wants me to do.

Know, sometimes he wants us that life starts

in him.

It starts as we just

spend time

before his presence, just recognizing who he is.

And he says, as that face is revealed to us,

and we as we see that grace,

then his face is lifted up in us and through us.

So he says, you know what?

If you know God, worship him,

let him be the one who leads you from

that place where you're seeking his face.

Let him be the one

then then leads you into that life

where you're making where he shows that face.

He shows that

himself through you.

Amen.

So this Thanksgiving, it's appropriate that we attend on this week.

Right. And we end on this week that.

What does it mean to be God's people?

It means to be those people who come before him.

Yes, with requests.

But he always says with Thanksgiving

right in that place of praise, where are you going

to get away from anxiety and be freed from that in his presence

as you give him worship for all that he has done?

He'll make the way.

He'll make stuff work for the good to those who love him and called

according to his purposes.

He's the one that'll show you were the open doors.

He's the one that opens them, and he's the one that directs you.

He's the one that will guide your path.

He's the one that will be your shepherd and your protector and your guide

in the presence and your inspiration and that banner that keeps you going.

He's the one that will be that. So start there.

Starting in a

place of thanksgiving and of worship.

He will rescue you.

He will rename you and reform you.

He will receive you as his own.

So we just respond to him in the faith and the devotion

that thanksgiving in that praise that he deserves, because that's

that's what it means to be his people.

Amen.