Salvation + The Law | Pastor Greg Ford Sermon | One Church Columbus

Amen.

We started a series of messages.

It's just going to be two weeks, last week and this week, so this will be kind of part two.

But we've built it off this question, who is Yahweh?

And we looked particularly through the story of Exodus, and God introduces himself with the name Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

And the Bible says that he saw the children of Israel, they'd been in bondage.

And it says he's the God who hears their cry.

And he heard their cry.

And it uses this Hebrew word Yada, which means to know somebody relationally, beyond to just be aware of who they are, to actually empathize, to be connected to them relationally.

It said that God knew the people and that ultimately he remembered his covenant and he watched them and saw them and then he ultimately delivered them.

And so we're going to kind of keep going with that a little bit today.

Now, I'll tell you kind of what I'm going to try to do on the front end here is uh what I want to do is take this Exodus story and talk about the relationship between the Old Testament Exodus story and the New Testament New Covenant story of the gospel of Jesus.

And sometimes uh it's hard to understand the relationship between the Old and the New Testament.

In fact, if you read them together, sometimes they seem a little disjointed or like they're two really separate stories.

The Old Testament, you know, focuses on uh the law, it focuses on the nation, there are kings, there are poems, there are prophets, all these things in the Old Testament.

In the New Testament, you have Jesus and you have the disciples and the gospels and eventually these epistles and letters and doctrine, and it's like, how does this all work together?

The Old Testament, when you we understand it, the more we we learn about it, we see that there are a lot of things in the Old Testament that are types and shadows that are introduced in the Old Testament that ultimately are fulfilled in Jesus.

And so we're gonna kind of jump back and forth through four movements, and so be ready to kind of go Old Testament, New Testament, and and kind of follow along.

I'm gonna start in Exodus chapter six, uh, starting in verse six, it says, This is God speaking to Moses.

Therefore, say to the Israelites, I am the Lord, I am Yahweh, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians.

I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and mighty acts of judgment.

I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God, and then you will know that I am the Lord your God who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians.

Okay?

Uh the first movement that I want us to look at, uh starting in Exodus, is this word, this movement of salvation.

That ultimately God says here uh in Exodus 6, I've heard your cry, I see your bondage, and I'm gonna lead you out.

Uh in this context, the word salvation is talking about a physical deliverance.

So there are times in the Bible that we'll see even in the New Testament that talks about salvation as something that uh that has happened because of the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Uh the gift, in fact, uh the blood of Jesus, right, that washes us white as snow when we take communion.

We're remembering and being reminded of what Jesus did for us.

And so sometimes we use the term salvation to talk about that right standing with God that we have because of Jesus.

Not by works, so no one can boast, but it's by grace that we've been saved through faith.

In this context, in the Exodus, it's actually talking about just a physical deliverance.

Okay, they're in there in bondage, and God says, I see your suffering, your psychological, your physical suffering, and I'm going to lead you out.

What's really important to understand here is that God's salvation or his saving of them had nothing to do with anything they did.

So there was no, uh, they had not accepted the law yet.

We've not gone to Mount Sinai and received the Ten Commandments.

They didn't agree to a covenant, they hadn't behaved well or anything.

It was just they were there, they were stuck, God saw them and heard them, and then he saves them and delivers them.

I want you to think about um, like if you were in a burning building, so you're in your house, a fire has started, the smoke is billowing, the the inferno of the house is just, you're in major uh danger, and I'm a firefighter, and I show up at the house and outside the window and I bust through the window, and you are trapped in the house, and you need help, and I stand there at the window and I said, Hey, I see you need saved.

Uh before I do, I'm I might do this, but before I do, there's a few things.

One, I need you to confess that you left the candle lit.

Okay, uh, you went to bed with the candle, and you know better than that, and you did that anyway.

So I know you lit the candle.

So I'm gonna need a confession.

Who lit the candle?

And number two, who didn't replace the battery and the smoke detector?

Because that would have got you out of the mess right away.

Okay, so I need a confession.

Number two, before I get you out now, I'm gonna read the county fire code to you.

And I need you to repeat it back to me, and then we have a few things we're gonna need to sign because I'm gonna need to get this in ready.

Okay, this is laughable to even think that someone would do this.

What do you do?

You bust in, you do whatever you've got to do to save this person because they're in dire straits.

If it means throwing them over your shoulder, taking them down the ladder, that's what you do.

Salvation comes before law.

Now, once we come down, we're gonna wrap you in a blanket, we're gonna calm down, and once we get our breath back, now we're gonna talk about how did this happen?

We're gonna talk about candles, and we're gonna talk about smoke detectors, and we're gonna talk about prevention, and we're gonna do all this.

That will come later.

As of right now, salvation comes before law.

So you see that God ultimately saves them first.

Um, you you take this into the gospel connection, okay?

This pattern is all throughout the New Testament, the New Covenant, in both the Gospels and the Epistles.

And just hold on to your hats, because I'm about to take you through some scripture to prove it, and you you won't be able to unsee it after I show it to you.

So in Matthew 1, verse 21, when Jesus is being named, okay, he's like about to be born, he's gonna be named.

Matthew 1:21

It says uh in Matthew 121, she, Mary, will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.

The word Jesus literally means Yahweh saves.

It's taken from the name Yeshua.

Yeshua literally means Yahweh saves.

So Jesus' whole name, his whole name is his purpose, which is to save.

In John 1.14, speaking of Jesus, it says the word Jesus became human, he became flesh, and he dwelled among us.

This is very Exodus coded.

It says we have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son who came from the Father, full, look at the sequence, of grace and truth, full of unfailing love and truth, full of salvation before law.

The sequence matters.

God did not save them because they agreed on all of his rules.

They didn't even agree to a covenant.

He said, You're stuck, I'm getting you out, get on my back.

In fact, the uh the language that you'll see uh in later on in Exodus is he said, I led you out on eagle's wings, I flew you out of here.

So when it comes to Jesus, look at this pattern.

We see this over and over again.

You remember in Luke 4 when Jesus opens the scroll of Isaiah and he reads it and he says, Um, you know, I come to bring good news to the poor, to that the blind will see, and he says, and will set the captive free.

Remember the story of the lost sheep?

Jesus makes up the fictional story so that we get our theology right.

What's the story?

It's not the parable of the lost shepherd.

The story is not that the shepherd's lost and that the sheep finds a way to get back and ask for forgiveness and then beg the shepherd to take them back.

The story is the shepherd will move heaven and earth, fight any wolf, go to any length to find that sheep to bring it back before there's any agreement that you won't wander off again.

Um you think about the story of the woman with the issue of blood comes in contact with Jesus and is healed, is healed in her contact with Jesus before they even had a conversation.

You think of the story of Zacchaeus, who is a man who was full of uh bad behavior, and eventually he would get to repentance.

But the first thing Jesus said is, I want to come to your house today, I want to connect with you.

And it was in the contact with Jesus that ultimately uh truth followed after the grace.

Um, in fact, it's that story of Zacchaeus that this great verse, Luke 19.10, Jesus says, For the Son of Man, speaking of himself, came to seek and save the lost.

Romans 5, 8 says, God demonstrates his love toward us.

While we were sinners, Christ died for it.

Not after you got cleaned up, not after you quit cussing, not after you quit uh doing all this stuff, not after you had agreed and gone through the discipleship class and gotten all clean and all that.

No, it says that while we were sinners, while we were stuck, while we were in bondage, Christ died for us.

Uh it doesn't seem like you believe me, so I'll keep going.

Uh 1 John 4, 19 says, We love why?

Because he loved us first.

Jesus says himself, John 15, 16, he said, You did not choose me.

I chose you.

He said, I appointed you.

Ephesians 2, 4 and 5 says, because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ, even when we were dead in transgressions.

It is by grace you've been saved.

Dead people don't initiate rescue.

God does.

Titus 3, 4 and 5 says, but when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, look at this, don't miss this.

He saved us, not because of the righteous things we have done, but because of his mercy.

He saved us through the washing of rebirth and the renewal by the Holy Spirit.

2 Timothy 1.9, I'm gonna keep going.

It said he saved us and called us to a holy life, not because of anything we have done, but because of his own purpose and grace.

This grace was given us in Christ Jesus.

Now, salvation, one thing you have to understand, salvation precedes law.

God brings them out of the bondage of Egypt before he takes them to Mount Sinai and instructs them on how to live.

Okay, and we see that pattern uh continue with Jesus.

In fact, Jesus also kind of links us to the second movement here in John 8, 34.

He says, Jesus replied, Very truly I tell you, anyone who sins is a slave to sin.

Okay, now again, this is this is hearkening back to Exodus and their time in bondage in Egypt.

So he's using sin in many ways as a picture.

He's using um the the bondage of the Egyptian Empire and the heavy hand of Pharaoh to talk about what sin unchecked, run rampant in your life will do, will create that sort of bondage.

And he said, now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever.

So if the son sets you free, you're free indeed.

So what you see now, again, in this language, is going from salvation to relationship.

Now let's hop back into the Exodus story.

Let's hop back into the Old Testament.

God brings them out.

Okay, if we go back to where we started in Exodus 6, 6 and 7, he says, I'll redeem you with my outstretched arm, I'll save you, I'll bring you out with mighty acts of judgment.

Verse 7, now look at this.

He said, I'll take you as my own people, and I will be your God.

And then you will know that I am the I am Yahweh, your God, who brought you out from the yoke of the Egyptians.

So he's saying, I will bring you out, but I'm not sending you into autonomy and abandonment.

I'm bringing you into belonging and connection with him.

Okay?

So by the way, this word in here where he says, Then you will know, you will know that I am Yahweh.

Again, this isn't you will just have the intellectual knowledge that I'm Yahweh, it's that word Yadah that we spent all last week talking about.

He's saying, in this process of salvation, the next thing will be, I'll bring you out, but now not only I will know you, but now you will know me.

And so it's about relationship.

I I love uh back to that verse I talked about in uh Exodus 19.4, he says, I carried you out on eagle's wings.

Okay, so I rescued you, I saved you, and then he says, and brought you to myself.

Not only saved you, but I brought you into relationship.

Uh Deuteronomy 7, 6 through 8.

This is great.

It says, The Lord your God has chosen you to be his own special treasure.

The Lord did not set his heart on you and choose you because you were more numerous than the other nations, for you were the smallest of all nations.

Rather, it was simply that the Lord loves you, and he was keeping an oath he had sworn to your ancestors, and this is why the Lord rescued you with such a strong hand from slavery, an oppressive hand from Pharaoh, king of Egypt.

Okay, this is really powerful because if if you look at what the prevailing belief of the ancient Near East at that time, the prevailing belief about the gods, and and frankly, everybody in power and authority, the belief was that the gods' only utility with people was what they could give the gods.

Right?

So their belief was that the gods had physical needs, clothing needs, food needs.

So in their temples, when they would bring food or they would bring gifts, their their belief was that these were to satisfy the gods.

And the people that worked in their temples were seen as the cooks for the gods, and they they were the caretakers for the gods.

And so the relationships were built on fear because the idea is these gods are needy, and if we don't meet their needs, then they're gonna punish us.

So they're you know, we bring them this stuff, meet their needs, then they hold the cosmos together, and then we'll, you know, have we won't have any more pain than we need to have.

And so that was the nature of the relationship.

Yahweh, here in contrast, is presented all throughout the Old Testament as a God with no needs.

I don't need, in fact, you remember when David tried to build him a temple, he goes, I don't you don't build me a temple.

I did I ask you for a temple?

I'd have no needs.

He said, I'll build you a house.

You don't need to build me a house.

Okay, so the idea is presented as God with no needs.

So why would God choose them if he didn't need them, but because he loved them?

So he's saying, I brought you into relationship uh not to put you in this perpetual state of fear that if you don't give me exactly what I want when I want it, you're gonna put a beat down on me.

He said, No, I chose you.

He goes, in fact, you were the smallest.

I didn't pick you because of your GPA, I didn't pick you because you had the best natural resources, I didn't pick you because you had military dominance, I didn't pick you because you were a port city, I didn't pick you because I needed your highway for commerce, I didn't pick you for any other reason other than I love you.

I love you.

So he said, I rescued you, I brought you out, and brought you into relationship.

Now, let's jump to the new covenant, the new testament, Romans 8, 14 through 17.

Said, for those who are led by the Spirit of God, those who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.

So it's talking about how through Jesus our relationship with God, the salvation, leads to relationship.

So he uses the most intimate relationship we know of, which is familial, family.

He says, You're children of God.

The spirit you receive does not make you slaves.

That was Pharaoh, that was Egypt.

He said, No, if you do that, you'll live in fear again.

Rather, the spirit you received brought about adoption to sonship.

And by this, by him, we cry Abba Father.

The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children.

Now, if we are children, then we are his heirs.

Heirs of God and co-heirs with Jesus.

Okay?

So salvation into relationship, and then the third thing here is instruction.

Okay?

So eventually he brings them through through the Red Sea into the wilderness to Mount Sinai, and he begins to give law.

Now let's go back to Exodus 19.

So just to get your bearings, Exodus 20 is where the ten commandments are gonna be given.

So these are the first ten commandments.

Eventually, there's gonna be 613 commandments, but it's gonna start with 10, and that's gonna happen in the next chapter.

So let's let's look here at Exodus 19, what we just read, verse 4.

I carried you out on eagle's wings and brought you to myself.

So I saved you and I brought you into relationship, and he said, Now, if you will obey me and keep my covenant, you'll be my own special treasure from among all the peoples on earth, for all the earth belongs to me, and you will be my kingdom of priests, my holy nation.

So I saved you, I brought you into relationship.

Now I want to instruct you, not so that I can extract from you, not because I need you.

I want to give you a purpose for the world to be functioning the way that I desire for it to be.

And your role in that human ecosystem is you'll be a kingdom of priests, bearing my image in the world and helping people to reconcile and see me clearly, is essentially what he's saying there.

Exodus 20 now is where we start to get the instruction.

So look really closely and notice the organization of this.

So God gave the people these instructions.

Verse 2 I am the Lord your God who rescued you from the land of Egypt, the place of your slavery.

Now, verse 3 is the first commandment, you must not have any other gods before me.

Now, if you're a history person or you'd like to do research, I got a fun one for you.

Uh, in about the last 120 years, archaeologists have found some really cool things that have helped us understand these texts a little bit better.

So, pre-1900, uh, when we read these things that God is saying in this covenant in Exodus, we assumed it was unique to Israel, or that God sort of dropped this out of the sky.

But what we found is actually uh archaeologists found a whole bunch of treaties, uh Hittite treaties, uh, Sumerian treaties, Mesopotamian treaties, thousands of documents of their treaties from nation to nation that were called suzerain vassal treaties.

Okay, so the suzerain think superpower, think they're the big nation, they're the empire.

And then you have a vassal, which is a smaller nation, and they come into treaty together in a way that's mutually beneficial, but obviously the big dog is the suzerain.

So in these treaties, they follow a consistent format.

Then when you look at God's covenant as it comes through Moses, it follows the same format.

It starts out with a preamble.

So it's the king announces himself.

I'm king so-and-so, the Hittite king, great and mighty and powerful.

And he says, number two is a historical prologue.

So they say, We've done, I've done this for you and I've done that for you.

And so it goes back to history of what's been done, and then it spits out the terms of the deal.

So, okay, here's what's expected of you.

Do all these things, and then it gets into if you don't, bad things will happen, and these bad things will happen.

And if you do good, these will be the blessings that will happen.

Okay, so when you see this, now look what we just read uh in Exodus 20.

When God starts to give them the uh commandments, he says, I'm I'm the Lord your God, okay.

Preamble.

I brought you out of uh Egypt, out of bondage, out of slavery, the historical prologue, and now he starts to get into stipulations of the treaty.

I think it's very cool.

I think it's cool that God used a motif they understood, but really what's cool when you really look at it, and this is where if you want to do some research, you'll have a good time if that if you're into that, but really where the power and the theology is, is in the contrast, in the contrast, not what's the same about the preamble and the prologue, but in the contrast of what's being communicated about who is Yahweh.

I could give you a whole bunch, but we don't have time.

Going to give you two of the most important contrasts in the suzerain vassal covenant that God makes with the nation versus the ones that the other nations made, treaties with one another.

The first is that in most of their treaties, or in all of their treaties, the suzerain king makes a treaty with the vassal king.

So it's king to king.

All the people of the vassal nation, okay, their behavior, whatever, doesn't really matter.

It's king to king.

So if the king behaves, the people are blessed.

If the king misbehaves, the people are punished.

And this suzerain doesn't really care what happens in your neighborhood, one neighbor to another, it doesn't matter.

It's king to king.

In Yahweh's suzerain vassal treaty, the suzerain, Yahweh, makes a treaty with every single citizen of the nation.

Every person is considered a co-vassal.

So why is that significant?

It's significant because if you sin against your neighbor, if you mistreat your neighbor, you're mistreating someone directly connected to the suzerain.

Okay?

In a normal suzerain vassal treaty, if another nation comes and attacks this vassal king, the suzerain will come to his defense.

So the the statement that's being made by God in this treaty is Moses is not the vassal king.

Moses is not a king, he's a conduit, he's a middleman, he's an administrator, he's a communicator between the two.

He's not a king.

God's making a covenant with everyone in the nation.

So when you lie to your neighbor, it's like you lied to the suzerain.

If you kill your neighbor, it's as if you've attacked the suzerain.

And so so it causes them to look at every individual, not based on a governmental hierarchical structure, but looking at the image of God, looking at the value of each individual person.

Okay?

The second really important distinction is that in the suzerain vassal covenant that God makes with them, over half, over half of his commands or laws are in how they treat one another.

Normally, the king, the suzerain king, wouldn't care how you treat your neighbor.

I only care that I have access to the sea from your ports.

I only care that I can extract your natural resources.

But when you look at God's law, over half of his laws are in how you and I treat each other.

So let's start, let's go with the Ten Commandments and just start there.

And again, we'll this will set the tone for 613 more.

But number one, uh no other gods before me.

Number two, don't make any graven images.

Not even to me, don't make any graven images at all.

Number three, don't take the name of the Lord in vain.

Number four, remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.

Now, five, honor your father and mother.

This is getting into how you think about and treat and behave people within your own nuclear family.

Uh number six, uh, don't kill.

Number seven, um, don't commit adultery.

Number eight, don't steal.

Number nine, don't lie.

Number ten, don't covet.

Now, we can we could easily make the case from five to ten, uh honor father and mother to ten is all about how to treat others, not how to treat the suzerain.

But I could even make the case if you go before the Sabbath.

Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.

That's ceremonial law in honoring God, but it's also civil law in not exploiting workers.

When he lays out the Sabbath, he says, this is how people re-self.

And he says, re-self, have your servants re-self, have the foreigner reself.

And he said, even have your animals to take a Sabbath and take a rest.

So it's civic and it's ceremonial.

However, you count it, you see that God, the suzerain, is showing his value system to us and instructing us on how to bring heaven to earth, how to bring shalom to this world.

And so uh he does it in a lot of ways using narrative and commands and rituals and memories and stories.

Okay, let's jump to the New Testament.

So Jesus writes Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5 through 7.

He kicks off the Sermon on the Mount in verse 17.

He says, Do not think that I've come to abolish the law or the prophets.

I've come to not to abolish them, but to fulfill them.

Okay, when he says, I've come to fulfill them, he's not saying, I've come to give you more instructions.

Okay, he's saying, I'm cut I've come to show you how the law is fulfilled through action.

It would be like your vows at a wedding.

Okay, you fulfill those vows in your behavior, not by adding more detailed instructions, but in terms of doing the things that you that you know, and demonstrating that day to day.

And so this is ultimately what Jesus says.

I came not to abolish, but to fulfill.

And then at the end in Matthew 7, 12, he says, in everything do to others what you would have them do to you, and look, look what he says next.

For this sums up the law and the prophets.

So he's saying that entire narrative, all 613 laws, bringing them into simplicity, here's what God wants from you to love your neighbor as yourself.

Before you say things to someone else you can't unsay, before you take action and do things that you can't undo.

Don't just jump to a conclusion about someone.

Do what God did and yada, understand where they're coming from.

Do for them what you wish someone would do for you.

Treat them in ways you'd want people to be patient with you.

You would want them to understand before they jump to a conclusion, and certainly treat them in a way that you'd want to be treated.

He said, the whole law, the whole reason God went in all this detail.

All these stories, what are they about?

It's like how you treat one another.

Okay.

Look what it says in uh Matthew 22, 35 through 40.

It says, an expert in the law came to test Jesus with this question Teacher, what is the greatest commandment in the law?

And Jesus replied, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind.

This is the first and greatest commandment.

He said, and the second is like it.

What he means is the second is right there with it.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

Verse 40, all the law and the prophets hang on these two commands.

Okay?

So again, he's bringing the complexity into simplicity.

Now, I want to pause here for a second, and if you're daydreaming, come back to me.

If you're day trading, come back to me.

All right?

Um the idea of salvation before law or grace before truth can make us a bit uncomfortable because the idea being, if if we if if we just believe that God will save us no matter how bad we get, we might come to the entitled, foolish conclusion that conduct doesn't matter.

In the instruction that you have in God's law, there is how to behave and how to be restored when you break it.

In other words, there is an assumption that human beings will do human things, and this is how you need to get back on track.

But a lot of times, even some of the older, more archaic language that you have around behavior and consequences is not to create a legalistic, shame-filled, fear-filled obedience, but it is to raise the standard that conduct matters.

Conduct matters.

If you lie to someone, you break their trust, they're gonna have issues of trust.

They're not gonna know who they can trust because they believed you.

You gave them your word, you didn't flinch, you didn't blink, and they believed you, and then it turns out that you lied.

So, so the cause and effect of poor behavior leads to lots of complications, brokenness, and again, effect to the cause.

Happens like crazy.

So the raising of the conduct, conduct matters because that's God cares about that because that's how we relate to each other, and that's each other's quality of life.

So, you know, you think about the fire analogy.

The fireman goes in, throws the person over the shoulder, comes down, wraps them in a blanket, gets them back on their feet, and then talks to them about what changes to make, some instruction.

Well, if you play it out and the person didn't take that to heart and just kept burning down houses one after another because they wouldn't listen, we would say something's wrong.

Some of you have heard, you know, people talk about the grace of Jesus and his work on the cross, and maybe you've heard something like, you know, God's like a judge and a father.

And so he has his child and comes in the courtroom and they've broken the law, and he can't just sweep it under the rug because he's just.

So he slams the gavel to the full extent of the law as a judge, because that's the right thing to do.

That's what the law says.

So he takes off the robe and he comes down and he pays the fine.

So the idea of he's just as a judge, but he's still a father who loves and he pays off that fine, and that's all good operating under the assumption of formation.

Because we would all cringe at a story of a judge who is a father who slams the gavel and comes down and pays the fine, and their kid just went out and said, Yeah, I can do whatever I want because my daddy will pay off my fines.

My daddy will take care of it.

We we would cringe at that.

In fact, the assumption in the story is not even really an it's that's not even a story about justice, because it's not justice.

If you sin and he pays, that's not justice.

That's not a revelation of justice, that's a revelation of love.

So the assumption in that is that that love, that revelation of love would form you, that you would understand the character of the judge father, and that you would accept that act of justice that should have fallen on you and didn't.

And instead of going out and just doing it because my daddy will take care of it, you operate with a commitment to knowing your father in relationship, receiving the instruction, and of course, as a human who's gonna have ups and downs, good days and bad days, nothing is up and to the right.

But at the same time, I will take formation seriously and make the changes that I need to make.

Look at this.

Uh, formation, let's go back to the Old Testament.

God is forming the nation not as just a group of people who know the rules, but a group of people that will become the kind of people that become like the one who delivered them.

Deuteronomy 10, 17 through 19 says, For the Lord your God is the God of gods and the Lord of lords.

He's the great God, the mighty and awesome God, who shows no partiality and cannot be bribed.

Don't miss that.

It's explaining a characteristic of God.

He shows no partiality and he cannot be bribed.

Why?

So you'll know who he is.

Why?

So you'll know who you're supposed to be.

The person who doesn't take a bribe, who doesn't show partiality.

It says he ensures that orphans and widows receive justice.

He shows love to foreigners living among you and gives them food and clothing.

So you too must show love to foreigners.

Look at this.

For you yourselves were once foreigners in the land of Egypt.

What's he doing?

He's saying, don't forget where you came from.

Don't forget where you came from.

He's using the memory of Egypt to say, don't get out of this and then forget where you've been and not fulfill what I've called you to do.

God didn't rescue Israel from Pharaoh so that they could become Pharaoh to someone else.

Deuteronomy 24, 17 through 18 says, true justice must be given to foreigners living among you and to orphans, and you must never accept a widow's garment as security for her payment.

If she comes and tries to give it to you, let her keep it.

She needs it more than you do.

Verse 18, always remember where you came from.

You were slaves in Egypt, and that the Lord your God redeemed you from your slavery, and that is why I have given you this command.

This would be like if you were in a situation in your life where you were down so bad, you were homeless, you're living on the street, you're going through trash cans trying to get food, you you have little kids that you're trying to keep alive, you're trying to keep some kind of shelter and living it outdoors, and and and I mean you're you're struggling as bad as a person can struggle day in and day out.

It's day-to-day survive.

And somehow, some way you end up getting some help, and you get out and you get a job and you claw your way out, and you you get a house, and you have a car, and now you have some clothes that you're proud of, and now you're not worried every day or you're gonna eat well.

In fact, some days you get to eat really well, and you get to put some clothes on your kids that they're proud of, and some shoes they're proud of, and you're able to now afford some things, and and one day you find out that your child has been going to school and terrorizing the poorest kids at the school, and making fun of their outfits, and making fun of where they're at and teasing them.

I mean, I'm not gonna ask for a show of hands, but I can feel the energy in the room changing right now.

You would cloud up and rain on your child.

And you would say something to the effect of, who do you think you are?

Don't ever forget where you came from.

You can be the kind of person that when you are saved and you're brought out of something, that you are now formed into a different person.

You can be the kind of person that when you've come out of that, now you see the power you now have as an opportunity to help somebody because you know how it feels.

Or you can be the kind of person who comes out of your bondage and spends the rest of your life trying to flex on the world and show everybody how big you are now.

And if you if your child did that, you it would be time for a lesson in don't forget who you are.

The people who once cried out to God can never become the reason somebody else cries out to God.

Deuteronomy 24, 14 and 15 says, never take advantage of poor and destitute laborers.

Who was a poor and destitute laborer?

They were building bricks for Pharaoh.

It says, whether they're fellow Israelites or foreigners living in your town, doesn't matter.

Doesn't matter.

You you must pay them their wages each day before sunset because they're poor and they're counting on it.

If you don't, they might cry out to the Lord against you and it would be counted against you as sin.

Who cried out to the Lord at the beginning of Exodus?

The children of Israel.

And he heard their cry and he said, Just like I heard your cry, I hear their cry.

And this is about me forming you into the type of person who hears the cry instead of making them cry out.

God rescued people who knew what it felt like to cry out under someone else's power.

And then he formed them to use whatever power they had gained differently.

Gospel connection.

Look at Jesus.

John 13, 34 and 35.

He says, Love each other as I have loved you.

Notice, Jesus' own behavior becomes the content and standard of his instruction.

Love each other as I have loved you.

You should love each other.

Your love for one another will prove to the world that you're my disciples.

John 28, 19 and 20.

Go make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Alright, seek and save the laws.

Go reach people, but help form people.

He says, Teach these new disciples to obey the commands I've given you and be sure of this.

I'll be with you even to the end of the age.

And with this verse, John 15, 5.

Jesus says, I'm the vine.

You're the branches.

If you remain in me and I in you, you'll bear much fruit.

Apart from me, you can do nothing.

So he saves us, he invites us into relationship, he instructs us into changing some learning and unlearning.

And then ultimately that's to form us into his image bearers in this world, to becoming like him.

Let's take a moment and pray.

I ask you to close your eyes.

If you're here today and um say, Greg, I I kind of get these four movements.

I see how it played out in Exodus, and I see how it's really comes to light in the gospel and the good news of Jesus.

That He's the one that moves to us, He's the shepherd that pursues the sheep.

And maybe today you know that there's some uh instruction that needs to happen, some changes that need to take place.

Maybe you're even honest enough to say there's a formation.

I need a transformation.

I I don't want to be the person I am today long term.

I want to make I want to change.

And I want to do that in the presence of God.

I want to do that with the power of God, in relationship with God.

But this moment right now is about receiving his salvation, receiving his grace that's given to you before the law, but right where you are right here, right now.

If you're here today and you say, I need to do that now, would you lift your hand right where you are?

I'm gonna pray with you.

Thank you, Jesus.

Go ahead.

Anybody else lift a hand.

Thank you, Jesus.

Praise you, Lord.

Put your hand down, Lord.

You see these hands, you see these hearts.

God, I thank you that you see us in the inferno and that you bring us into safety.

And then you bring us to yourself.

So I pray for these ones, Lord.

You know these hands, you know what's going on.

Often there are things within our own minds and our own past that we don't even want to look at.

But today, Lord, we know that in full view of those realities, that you love us and accept us, that you hear our cry, that you meet us where we are, and you love us too much to abandon us into autonomy, but to lead and love us to instruct and to guide.

So, Lord, we receive that today now.

Help us to walk it out moment by moment, day by day, for your glory.

In Jesus' name.

Everybody said amen.