Exodus: Songs From Victory

Well, good morning.

So that was a song, quite a quite a song, right?

We don't quite sing songs like that too much anymore.

But that was their song.

So I was even looking at this sermon last night.

I was in my study and I was reviewing the sermon sermon, kind of going through it.

And at some point in it, I just felt like, and preachers feel like this, like this just isn't, this, this just isn't that good.

You know, I don't know if you might not know that feeling.

Maybe you've had a presentation before something, and right before you're like, it's just not that good.

I just, and that's how I was feeling.

I was like, okay, well, why do I feel like it's not that good?

And I think what the reason why I feel like it's not quite that good is because it is so connected to last week.

Like, really, maybe I should have preached for 45 minutes last week, you would have hated me, but that would have been the better scenario because this is so much part two of last week.

Last week was about these people crossing through the Red Sea and they get out on the other side and they erupt, they erupt into a song.

And so this week I'm talking about this song, but it's totally connected to everything that they've been through.

All right, so I I've had a few uh kind of turning point revelation explosions in my life when it comes to uh theology and spirituality, and I was thinking back through them this week, and for me, that maybe the first one was, and it was sometime in high school, and it was the it was the revelation that I can know God.

That was huge for me.

That was personal, that I had up until that point, maybe just kind of attending church here and there.

But there became a point where I realized, wow, like I can know him, and like he wants to know me, and then there's all these things I can do to know him, like I can pray and I can study scripture, and they have these things called devotional books, and and I was discovering all these different things that I can do to know him.

Huge revelation for me.

Huge, right?

And if you know this, maybe you're like so basic, buddy, that's real basic, but at some point it was a revelation to you as well.

Second for me was uh worship.

That worship was more than us gathering at the Baptist church, although it can be at the Baptist church, nothing against the Baptist church, but my experience was at the Baptist church where other people were worshiping.

I was bored.

That was just me there.

Other people, they were having a great worshipful experience.

I was bored to death, and that was my experience of worship.

And then I had this revelation, this you know, this breakthrough that, well, okay, so like God's called me to be a worshiper.

Maybe it doesn't look like the boredom that I was having there, but maybe something else.

And that bigger than that, it's not just worship and a gathering and Sunday morning and the one-hour worship service, but it was that it's life and that it can be where I'm in my car.

I remember the first worship CD I got because there were there was a time before, like worship albums.

I don't know if you realize that.

And it was it came off of the campus where I was in college, and and it was uh it was the CD was called Frost because that was the chapel on the campus, and I wore this CD out in my car because it was a breakthrough for me that I could be in my car driving, worshiping, and that this counted, right?

Like it wasn't Sunday morning, like this was actually worship, probably counted more, and that it was that was a huge revelation for me.

It was huge, and then thirdly, was about maybe five years ago or so.

We talk a lot about this here in our church, and that's where I came into the wholeness of the gospel.

Up until that point, even these things I just mentioned, like to know God and to worship.

But for me, the gospel meant I was forgiven of my sin.

Now go and do these things so that your standing with God can be secured by what you do.

And so this worship and these disciplines and all of this, it was me manufacturing and trying to feel secure on a daily basis of my approval and my acceptance before God.

And then I was exhausted as a pastor.

You know, I was just putting out more and more challenging to my challenges to my people, exhausting them to do the same thing.

And I came into the wholeness of the gospel to realize, oh my gosh, so Christ died for my sin, but he also died to give me his righteousness, and that I'm forever secure and beloved in his sight.

And that redefines those other revelations and explosions I had in my life.

So the disciplines and the worship, all of that gets redefined by the fact that none of that has to get used for me to feel accepted.

All of it gets used because I'm already accepted, and this was huge for me.

And I mention all of that because it has everything to do with Exodus 15.

Because what Exodus 15 is about is there's been this great victory.

And the victory is done, and the victory has been given, and the people are responding.

They're not responding, they're not singing to get the victory, they're singing because of the victory.

And like I said, this week is so connected to what we've been looking at the past couple months.

And what's been going on the last couple of months is these the people of God, the Israelites, they've been in slavery for about 400 years, and just day after day after day of making bricks for Pharaoh under enslavement.

They've had quotas.

If you don't make the bricks, you're out in the hot sun.

If you don't make your quota, you get beat, and you do it again and again and again, brick after brick after brick, day after day after day.

And we can imagine it for a day.

Maybe we can imagine it for a couple days, but that it would never stop.

That's enslavement.

And for us, it's a picture of what the enslavement of sin does when we're being defined by our sin and we're being defined by condemnation and shame and fear.

And so these people they've been crying out to God, just come rest, get us out of this, rescue us from this.

And finally, God moves and he gets Moses.

Moses had been out in Midian and he pulls him back, and Moses complains, he thinks he can't do it, and they go back and forth for a while.

And finally, the people of Israel come out.

Last week we talked about they thought they were gonna go the way of the land, the easier route to Canaan, and that wasn't the route because they ended up going the way of the wilderness.

They get down there, their backs are against the Red Sea.

The Egyptians and all the forces are coming at them, and they think this is the end.

And so, of course, this is how humanity responds.

They plead back to Moses, you should have left us back in our enslavement.

We were better off back there.

You shouldn't have bothered us, you shouldn't have rescued us.

None of this should have happened.

We were better in our slavery than this fearful position that we're gonna die, and then God moves and God acts and God gives victory, and they cross through, and then their enemy, that force that had been defining them for so long, that voice, that thing, was drowned.

And so last week we talked about, you know, that voice of condemnation or shame, it doesn't go away.

We still hear it, right?

That penalty of sin, we we we still feel some of the penalty of sin.

We won't feel it for eternity.

We feel some repercussions and the voices of condemnation and shame, we still hear them, but they don't have defining power over you anymore.

God's victory for you is the defining power.

So they come out on the other side and they erupt and worship, they erupt singing.

Because there's just no other way to respond.

There's just no other way to respond than when you've been rescued out of slavery, you've been being chased, or you're afraid, and your back's against the Red Sea, and you think this is it, and then God moves and you get victory, and you walk through.

And they just sing.

It's the only response.

When you're connected to that story, that's the response.

That's what it says, Exodus 15:1.

Exodus 15:1

Then Moses and the people of Israel sang this song.

Maybe you've had this moment.

You've had that stress and that heartache, maybe you've had that voice of condemnation and shame and fear, and all of a sudden you had some breakthrough, all of a sudden you realize, oh my gosh, I'm I'm I'm forever accepted by God.

He's always with me, no matter my emotional state, no matter my moral failure, that I'm accepted to the blood of Jesus.

Maybe you've maybe you've come to this revelation and it's just freedom to sing.

Those pieces finally fell in place that were stressing you out.

That relief finally came, that insight finally came that you so desperately needed.

And then you sang.

We were at the funeral for our friend who I talked last week, or our friend died last week, one of Christie's good friends and one of my good friends, and she died tragically and suddenly last week.

And so Monday was the funeral.

I was given uh like a little five-minute eulogy.

Um, some friends of mine were officiating the service, and so I got down there early since I was part of it, and uh I'm sitting on the front row, sitting on that front row, and sort of trying to get my mind around this.

And it's a weird thing when you participate.

Maybe you've participated in a funeral before, because most of the time you get to go to a funeral to grieve, but when you participate in the funeral, your mind's thinking about what you need to do, so you're not really grieving, you're kind of operating, and so I'm in operation mode.

And so just sitting there, and then uh I was sitting next to a a girl who was reading, and then they're seating the family, and like the place was packed out.

I mean, uh maybe a thousand people or so showed up for this funeral, just slam-packed, and they bring the family in, and there's just family kept coming and coming like wow, big family just kept on coming.

They reproduce well in this family, and they just kept coming in, and uh finally we're kind of looking around, like they're running out of rows, like you could have fit the family in this church, like in this building.

And so finally, me and this other girl, we we we walk up and we sit in the choir loft up on the stage because they just needed the seats, and so I'm sitting up there, and now I can look back and I see my friend Tommy, and I see his five kids just thinking about it, and I've been reading this story living and this Exodus story, and just going, man, like this is where they're at.

Like their back is against the Red Sea.

I mean, they they are gonna hear such voices of fear and doubt.

He will, those kids will.

Thursday night, I was with a group of men from the church that they go to, and they asked me to come and would you come and speak on grief.

Um, if you've been here a while, about a year and a half ago or so, we had a tragic death in our church, and we had to figure our way through that when we were a church of maybe 40 adults at the time.

I said, Can you come and talk about y'all's experience?

And so sat with 30 guys in a room and talked about this tragic death, and talked about the death in their church, and we just talked.

And and so much of the concern goes toward Tommy and the kids, right?

Like over and over again.

That's what kept coming up.

And then we had a prayer time, and man, I don't know.

Like this one guy who prayed, I'm like, you should be like a professional prayer.

I mean, he prayed.

I was like, that's fantastic.

Like, where do you look?

I mean, he bows his head, he's like, God, forgive us for our hard hearts and our callous hearts and our lack of understanding, our doubt of your sovereignty.

And I'm like, this is incredible.

I'm like taking notes, this guy's prayer, and just us praying, God, would you give them a song?

Would they come out on the other side?

Like, haven't we all needed this to come out on the other side when it just looked like I'm not gonna get through this depression, I'm not gonna get through this job loss, I'm not gonna get through this condemnation, I'm not gonna get through this addiction.

And you're just going, man, I don't have a song right now to sing, but I want to come out on the other side and I want to have a song to sing.

What's clear in this passage is that the song comes out of an understanding of the victory that's already been given.

And this is why we talk about God's victory on the cross every week, right?

You're like, hey, can you move on?

Can you move on to something else?

No, we can't move on.

We can't.

Because the thing that defines all the spiritual disciplines and the worship is the victory.

It's the thing that gives us the fuel, it's the thing that forms it.

Knowing the victory, abiding in the victory, resting in the victory, it's the thing that inspires us to want to sing because it's it becomes the core of our identity.

And what gets to happen is you get freedom because all the self-justifying works that just push you into legalism or they push you into escapism, all of those works can be quieted because your heart is quieted by the grace of God.

And then you're in bed or you're in your car, you're sitting in class, or you're on the way to class, or you're wherever you're at, and you're just you're overwhelmed by how much he loves you and what he did for you and how he can define you.

See, for these Israelites, there's this Red Sea moment.

That was their victory.

But what we understand having the entire scriptures and having the New Testament is that this is a this is a foreshadowing, this is a picture for us of the victory that God would do on the cross.

Incarnate love coming into the mess of humanity and taking on our sin and giving us his righteousness.

See, listen, listen, listen.

If you've shifted faith from all of your self-justifying works to what his work was for you, you are always accepted.

Always.

Wow, now now I have something to sing for.

Like when it's sort of up to me, I don't have a lot to sing for.

In fact, I'll probably use my singing to try to justify and feel like I'm accepted by God rather than the singing being a response to the victory that's already been given.

See, worship is this reaction to what He has done for you.

It's not an act for us to become more accepted.

I mean, for so long, that's what worship was to me.

It's like, if I can get emotionally aroused enough, then God will think I'm really spiritual.

It's like, no, no, no, no.

It's just a response to the victory that's already been given to you.

Maybe it's emotional one day, and maybe there's no emotion the next day, but we can still sing.

So, our text, finally, get to our text, halfway through second pages.

Okay, we're gonna get there.

So, Exodus 15.

The song erupts out of the people.

And here's five points, and I'm not gonna take long on each one, don't worry.

Five points, quick points, uh about this song, about praise.

And it's this the praise is about God's covenant, it's about God's character, it's about God's name, it's about God's work, and it's about God's purpose.

Number one, the praise is about God's covenant.

Verses one and two.

Then Moses and the people of Israel sang this song to the Lord, saying, I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously.

The horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea.

The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation.

This is my God, and I will praise him, my father's God, and I will exalt him.

What I love about these two verses is what we see here is what we've talked about in the past few weeks.

So entertain me if you've been around.

But what we see here is this combination of the personal and the covenantal.

Right?

So we've talked about how for years, at least for me, it was all personal, personal relationship with God.

Do you have a personal relationship with God?

Do you have a personal relationship?

Do you have a personal relationship?

I got the first time I got asked, I was on a beach in Panama City.

Didn't know, but it was like a ministry.

They walk around with these note cards and they witness, and so they asked me that at the time, meaningful question.

I needed the question.

The answer to that was no.

That question meant everything.

I needed a personal relationship with God.

I still need a personal relationship with God, but I need something even deeper.

And it's here in this text because there's covenantal relationship here also, and that's this that He has become my salvation.

So we see the personal, my strength, my song, I will exalt him, my Father's God.

Like all of it is personal to us, but there's something underneath it, and that's the covenantal.

And here's what covenantal means it's God saying to us, I will be what I should be, whether you are what you should be or not.

Do you hear the security in that for us?

I will be what I should be for you, even if you're not what you should be.

That's covenantal.

That he has covenanted with us.

And now our personal relationship that some days is so fantastic, and we're so spiritual, and we've done our Beth Moore study or our John MacArthur study, and we're feeling really good.

And then there's some days where you like you just maybe you just cracked the Bible and read one verse, or maybe you didn't even get to that, and you're just feeling like I'm not quite cutting it.

And God's covenant is speaking over you.

I will be what I should be for you, even if you're not what you should be.

See, that's the very thing that draws you back.

That's the very thing that draws you back.

That's the relief of the gospel, that He is my salvation.

He's all the rescue, all the justification, he's all the relief from the shame and the condemnation.

So that's that's it.

The praise is about God's covenant.

It's about God's character.

Number two, verse 11.

Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods?

Who is like you?

Who is this good?

He's who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders.

And this fuels what he does.

Verse 13.

You have led in your steadfast love the people whom you have redeemed.

You have guided them by your strength to your holy abode.

So it's about God's character.

Number three, the praise is about God's name.

Verse 11, the Lord, verse 3, the Lord is a man of war.

The Lord is his name.

Do you remember back to chapter 6?

We talked something about names of God, and there was an interplay there about the different names of God, and we saw this name El Shaddai, this name of God, and this name meant there's a name for God that reveals that God is sufficient for people who have personal inadequacies.

Anyone just like you like love that name, right?

Tattoo it just all over because I need that.

God is sufficient for those who have personal inadequacies.

And then this name here, Lord is Jehovah.

It's this rich name, this name meaning self-existent, one true God.

And you go, well, that's no big deal.

It means everything to these people because they just came out of Egypt where there's a God for everything.

There's a false God created for everything, and people give their lives for these false gods.

They toil, they sacrifice, they put themselves to work for something they created.

And now they're coming into this knowledge about the one true God that gives them the victory.

So they're saying, the Lord is your name, Jehovah is your name.

Number four, the praise is about God's work.

That's it, verses four through ten.

It's just praise about everything he's done for them.

You read back through it again later.

Everything that he's done for them.

It's just sort of a narrative, a timeline.

They are overwhelmed.

Finally, they're out of the slavery, finally they're free from their enemies.

Right?

That place, that voice, that sorrow, that enslavement, that thing that would never end.

Brick after brick after brick.

Finally, victory.

That's where we get that verse 11.

Who's like you?

Who's like you?

That can pull the power away from this force that's been dominating me.

Number five, the praises about God's purpose.

We see in verse 17 and 18, you will bring them in, talking about his people.

You will bring them in and plant them on your own mountain, the place, oh Lord, which you have made for your abode, the sanctuary, O Lord, which your hands have established.

The Lord will reign forever and ever.

So so clearly, praise is about God's purpose for his people, but for his glory.

And these people are finally starting to see something that God is doing something.

A few weeks ago, Mount Parents School, they they contacted us and they said, uh, hey, we have this really Really big picture of Jesus.

Would you like it?

A really big picture of Jesus.

And they was got it with a text and going, okay, big, like really big picture of Jesus.

Well, I really mean really big picture.

There was a man standing next to the picture of Jesus and is like normal man.

And then like Jesus was way above him.

And we're looking at it, and you know, we're about to start construction on a building and hopefully be moving into that building around February.

And so we're going, Well, this man, this could work out for us.

Like, let's figure out a way to get this.

And so I'm communicating with them.

So finally, finally, Rob and I go on uh this week and we go to pick up this picture of Jesus.

We've we've been finally, I finally have been just calling it Big Jesus because I didn't you know what do we call it?

It's Big Jesus.

And so I show up into the little lobby and I just say, Hey, I'm here to pick up the Big Jesus painting.

Apparently they've been calling him Big Jesus also.

I think there's not there's nothing else to call him.

I mean, he's huge.

And she's like, Oh, you're picking up Big Jesus.

We haven't known what to do with him for so long.

And I'm like, Well, you know, thank you for sharing Jesus with us.

We will take your G we will take Jesus from you.

And so it doesn't take long in the lobby.

People are walking through and they're like, oh, this is the Big Jesus guy.

I'm like, yeah, I'm the Big Jesus guy.

You're taking Big Jesus.

You know, everybody knows about Big Jesus.

And they're all saying, He's really big, he's really big.

And I hadn't seen him in person yet.

I hadn't seen Jesus in person yet.

And so I walk in this back hallway, down the hallway, and we get down there, and he's big.

Like he's big.

He's eight foot nine by eight foot nine squared.

Big Jesus.

And everybody's responses to Jesus is the same.

All these people in this lobby.

Um Rob finally gets there, he walks down.

Same response I had, and you just go, wow, he's big, big Jesus.

Like, wow, really, really big, really big.

So we start wrapping Big Jesus up, blankets and tarps and taping him up, you know, probably not supposed to tape Jesus up, but we're taping him up, bounding him, limiting him in our lives.

And so I put him on the back of our truck.

We put Jesus on the back of this little truck I borrowed, little Toyota little truck, and he's sticking out on both sides.

It looks ridiculous.

And Rob's driving a truck behind me.

And so we're cruising down Stilesborough quite slowly because Jesus is sticking out about two feet on each side.

And I don't know laws, you know, a lot of laws about driving and hauling things, not a big hauler of materials.

And so driving out Stylesborough, and there's a cop up ahead, and he's like there had been a little fender bender.

And I'm I'm starting to get a little nervous because I'm not sure, like do you like tie the little red streamers?

You know, sometimes you see the red streamers on things, I'll have red streamers.

And so I'm like, he might like just ask me to stop and ask me something.

And then there's this thought, I was like, yeah, but I get to say, well, you know, it's it is Big Jesus.

Like there was this part of me that I was hoping he would stop me just so I could say it.

But he didn't stop me.

He waved me through.

And also at the same time, it's dawning on me that this Jesus is not going through any double doors.

So about driving, I'm starting the place I was going to go, just quickly I realized he he won't fit.

Jesus will not fit in that place through those doors.

Like he needs a garage door, is the size of Jesus.

It's through a garage door, and so he's coming to my house.

Jesus is coming to my house.

He's gonna live in my garage for a while.

And so we get him in there, Rob and I, and we put them against the wall and we tie them down.

So Jesus is tied up against the wall of my garage right now.

So here's the point.

Um, even later, I think I took some pictures and sent it to some people, like, you know, look how huge Jesus is.

And everybody's response is the same thing.

Like, whoa, like he's so big.

Like that's like why?

Like, why is this picture this big?

Like, it's not a normal thing that you would have a picture this big of Jesus.

See, and here's the point, funny story.

Here's the point.

When we s when we see his goodness, when we see his love, when when you see how big his acceptance is of you, well, first off, it it's not gonna push you into apathy and laziness and rebellion.

That's not what it does.

Because what it does is it relieves your heart of self-justification, of legalism and escapism, and so it pulls you into himself, and you see how big his victory is for you.

And you go, wow, he's so big for me.

That defining power of slavery, that defining power of the need of approval, or that defining power of condemnation, like all of that's been swallowed up by his victory for me.

And it creates a new song in us because that's proclaimed over us all the time, never ending.

This week for me, I think I think I've realized in some regard at an early age, I learned how to not feel to a certain degree.

Like I learned how to operate.

And I think because this last week with our friend dying, you know, I just went in operation mode.

Like, what do I need to do?

How can I help?

What do I need to say?

Like, plan that, do this, like, and just this last night, this morning, just started to realize like, man, I still do that.

There's so much in me that I can just pretend my singing is what I can do.

I can just pretend it.

I did it for a while.

And I'm starting to learn that like it's okay, it's probably it's actually healthy to feel.

It's healthy to grieve, it's healthy to be at the place with your back against the Red Sea and to be honest about it.

The only way, the only way you're gonna get through the Red Sea and understand the victory is to understand where you've been and the enslavement that you've had.

See, if you're not real about your brokenness and about your sin, then you can't understand the victory and you'll never sing because of it.

It just won't be that big of a deal to you.

The grace won't be that big of a deal to you.

I say that to say maybe you're here, you're hurting in some way.

And we want to pray for you.

Because you you hear all that and you go, I don't want to sing.

Like you gave me five things to sing about God, I you just think not me, not now.

That's fine.

Feel that.

It's okay to feel that.

But I uh we want to pray for you.

And so as we bow in prayer, I welcome you.

If you you don't have to try to create more faith or anything, you can just, as we bow in prayer, go ahead and bow in prayer, as we bow in prayer, that you just just would open the palms of your hands, you would just open your hands, just just as a posture of humility.

If you're here, you'd say, I'm I'm hurting, I have no song, I'm doubting.

I still hear the voices of condemnation, I still let them define me.

I still let shame define me.

I still let that thing, that sin, that mistake, I still let it define me that you would just open the palms of your hands.

And God, we come before you.

And we are needy beggars because we are frail, we are insecure, we have fallen short of what you have asked of us, we are imperfect, we are broken.

God, would you help us with the thing, the voice, the thing that we give power over to to define us, rather than letting your victory for us define us?

Would you increase our faith in the cross where you have taken all of this, all of this brokenness and sin, that you have taken all of it, and you have paid all the price, there's nothing left for us to pay, and you have given to us, help us to help us to receive that you have given to us your righteousness, that we are forever accepted, we are always accepted.

And would you create in us a new song?

My brothers and sisters, may you see him and the greatness of his victory for us on the cross.

May your heart be drawn deeper and may you sing a new song.

Amen.