THE EXODUS: Everything Must Go

Welcome to the Celebration Church Orlando podcast.

We are so glad you've joined us, and we hope you are encouraged by today's message.

Last week we kicked off our series just dealing with the Exodus and this whole narrative about people going from captivity to promise.

We see this theme kind of emerge throughout the course of scripture, this idea of the promises of God.

You may even have heard that at varying times in your own life, just trying to get the promises of God, get all that God has for you.

These are all phrases that we've heard in some form or another that just ultimately talks about the vision and the plan that God has for each and every one of us.

And it's perfectly illustrated through the children of Israel in the Exodus narrative.

This idea that God has a vision for his people and he wants to lead them on a journey so that they can accomplish it.

So last week we talked about what I consider to be one of the first stages in order for us to really walk in the promises of God.

And that's dealing with this principle of identity.

Understanding that in spite of all the mistakes we may have made, in spite of our flaws and things along those lines, that God still has a calling on our lives.

And what's important for us to understand is that our identity is rooted in Christ.

It's not based off of anything that we've done in our own strength, but it's really rooted in Christ.

And so looking at the life of Moses, this man who has this very interesting background, being born as a slave, being raised in royalty, killing a person now, being this vagabond who's kind of moved around.

But it's interesting how God used all of those experiences to lead him right back to the place where he would be the best person fit to help lead people from this idea of going from captivity to promise.

So in Exodus chapter 3, our kind of like our theme thought has been that God has heard the oppression and the cries of his people.

Exodus 3 · chapter mention

He sees exactly where they are, and he wants to get involved to help them reach their promised destination.

That's kind of like the theme thought around this entire idea of us going from captivity to promise.

We we seen last week how Moses wrestled with that a little bit.

He wrestled with a little bit of his own purpose and identity amongst it all, but yet he understood that I'm called.

And I want to encourage every one of us in here today.

You're called, but your response determines your reward.

We have to make choices with our calling.

And if we can make the adequate choices, I truly do believe that God can use us to do anything.

So picking up where we left off at, after Moses finally loses the wrestling match with God, he he relents and says, Okay, God, I'm going to do what you've called me to do.

He's then given instructions to leave and to go and connect with his brother Aaron.

He hadn't seen Aaron in quite some time.

But it's interesting how the areas that that Moses felt that he thought was the weakest for him, his brother Aaron was actually strong in.

So I love the idea that God has a vision for us, but it's not limited to us.

And sometimes he will surround us with people that are strong in the areas that we're weak in because we're never meant to accomplish the vision that God has for us all alone.

So looking at what the Bible says here in Exodus chapter 5, we have this tension point where Moses and Aaron are now going to go before Pharaoh.

Exodus 5 · chapter mention

And if you've watched Prince of Egypt or anything that's kind of dealing with the Exodus narrative, you see this statement that comes across, and we see it all throughout the course of this narrative.

Pharaoh, let my people go.

This is a recurring statement that we hear over and over again, and connected to that statement is let my people go so that they can go and worship me.

We see this back in uh modified from time to time, but the big picture is, let my people go so that they can worship.

Looking at what it says here in Exodus chapter 5, uh verse 1 through 4, it says this.

Exodus 5 · chapter mention

Afterward, Moses and Aaron Aaron went to Pharaoh, thus says the Lord, God of Israel, let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.

But Pharaoh said, Who is the Lord that I should obey his voice and let Israel go?

I do not know the Lord, and moreover, I will not let Israel go.

Then he said, The God of the Hebrews has met with us, please let us go.

They were polite about that.

Look at that.

Please let us go, three days' journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God, lest he fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword.

But the king of Egypt said to them, Moses and Aaron, why do you take the people away from their work?

Get back to your burden.

It's it's there's a couple of things that take place here.

Because what we see here is that Moses begins this conversation with Pharaoh in an effort to try to help them to experience freedom.

Pharaoh says, I don't even know this God.

And understanding from the context of Pharaoh, he lived in Egypt where there were multiple gods, but in addition to that, some of the pharaohs often viewed themselves as gods as well.

So you see this instance where he's like, I don't I don't know this God.

I don't know like why this God has authority over me as God or over these other gods that I serve.

So I'm not really feeling what you're talking about, Aaron and Moses.

Like, I got a good thing going on right now.

Like, I got a lot of free labor.

So why would I even make any inference of going forward with all of that?

But we see this persistence that Moses has that that's been inspired by God.

Because what we see is that God has a desire for us to be completely free.

Let me let me make sure that I that I that I accentuate what I mean by that.

It's it's possible that if that if we're not careful, that we will settle for partial freedom.

But when we have partial freedom, we still have total bondage.

Because God has never intended for us to be at a place where I'm free in one area of my life, but I'm bound in another area of my life.

The vision that God has for every single one of us is that we experience wholeness.

That wholeness word, that concept of wholeness, is actually the word shalom or peace.

The idea that there's nothing fragment, there's nothing broken, there's nothing compromised, that we're all complete.

That is the idea that the Bible had when it says that Jesus is our prince of peace, our prince of shalom, this idea that he is the person that brings us complete and total wholeness.

As we look at this narrative and the time that we're going to spend today, we're going to look at these areas where I believe that the Pharaoh and the enemy would love to get us to a place of compromise to convince us that it's okay to leave certain things behind.

So I want you to write this message title down before we pray.

Everything must go.

Let's pray and let's see what God wants to show us in the rest of our time together.

Lord, we thank you for your word.

We thank you for what you're speaking and showing us today in this amazing series, God.

As we journal these thoughts, God, and continue on this journey, Lord, I pray that we have open eyes that we can see you.

Lord, I pray for open ears that we can hear you, God, and I pray for open hearts that we can receive the truth of what it is you want to speak to us today.

We pray and believe all of this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

And amen.

Okay, so let's let's take a look at a couple things that happens here.

Because after after Moses and Aaron have this conversation with Aaron, um, with with uh with Pharaoh, something very interesting takes place.

What takes place is that it actually doesn't get better for the children of Israel.

We actually see um in the narrative where there's this idea of bricks without straw.

Some of us may be familiar with that if you've been raised around church, where now the children of Israel were responsible of producing the exact same amount of work that they were required to do before, but now they had no support.

Because in Pharaoh's mind, he was thinking, well, if they have so much time to be thinking about worshiping God, if they have so much time to be thinking about freedom, they must have a lot of free time on their hands.

So we're gonna put even more work on them.

So let's look at this for a second through the context and through the lens of the Israelites.

They've been in bondage for about 400 years.

They they have been crying out and asking God for relief.

Moses is their their brother who who's been raised in the palace, kills a man, leaves, going for 40 years.

But now, with Aaron's support, Aaron co-signs Moses and said, Hey man, guess what?

Moses is back in the camp, man.

He's actually gonna help us all get freed up, man.

Let's get ready.

So I can I can envision, if I can be real with you, I can envision them having a little bit of a party back in the Israel camp.

They're like, man, like we gotta get up out of here.

Like Moses is here, man.

I heard the okay, we're gonna watch Moses go up here and talk to Pharaoh.

Man, y'all ready to go?

Like, man, I wish I can come in there and watch this whole exchange.

So for them, there's probably this great sense of anticipation that the moment that Moses begins to engage this process, that it's gonna start getting easier for him.

The exact opposite happens.

It gets a lot worse, it gets a lot more tension involved.

And and watch this.

What we've what I've seen in my own life, there are moments when obedience escalates opposition.

There are moments when I'm trying to do my best to follow God, but in following God, it only seems to elevate opposition.

And some of us can can feel that.

Practically speaking, I I can say for myself, I I remember after I broke my ankle, and I've shared that in the context of our of our messages before, but when I broke my ankle, I had not lost all ability to go and work out for a long period of time.

So after I finally, after about a year and a half, got to a point where I felt like I could function again, I went back into the gym.

As you guys can probably see the results of it right now.

So I'm back in the gym, I'm doing what I do, but the first time I go back to the gym, I go, I go hard.

Like I do like I do like a full body workout.

And when I say a full body workout, I'm not talking about like, oh, like a couple of reps for your arms, a couple of reps for your chest.

Like I did a full arm workout, a full back workout, a full chest workout.

Like I'm trying to get these results, man.

I'm trying to get this thing popping.

The summer was coming, trying to get the six packs going.

So I did all that, but the very next day, my body was in such extensive pain.

I there were moments that I think that I may have just cried for death.

Like there were moments where I said, okay, I'd rather not be alive.

Like it hurt to breathe, it it hurt to think, it hurt to blink.

Like every part of my body was extremely sore because I was stretching muscles that I had not stretched in a very long time.

So see, here's the thing that I want us to know.

There are moments that when we exercise our faith, we're stretching out and activating things that we may have never activated before, and as a result of that, it may cause us to have some pain.

It may cause us to have some pain points.

And let me make it practical for some of us.

When you begin to walk by faith and not by sight, and you're exercising and stretching your faith, it may cause you to have some pain points with your relationships.

People that are that are going to look at you and you realize that once you remove the foundation of sin that you really don't have anything in common with them anymore.

Sometimes you'll deal with the the pain of rejection, the pain of feeling like you don't fit in with the Christians because you haven't been saved long enough, but you don't quite fit in with your old friends because you know God's doing a new thing in you, and you're in this weird nebulous space where you're dealing with this pain, this lack of comfort, this inability to move forward.

And it's in these moments that if we're not careful, that we could be so discouraged because of the pain, just like I was with my workout, it took me a long time to recover and go back to the gym because I couldn't move forward.

And unfortunately, a lot of times with us when we try to move forward in the things of God and we begin to face resistance and opposition, that we can find ourselves at this place where, okay, I I don't I don't know if this is good for me.

I don't know if I can continue to function in this way.

It's in these moments where our muscles are vulnerable, but I want to encourage us to have the proper diet, to have the proper nutrients, and to continue to move forward.

Because if we don't, we'll begin to compromise.

Let me talk to us for a couple of minutes around this idea of compromise because I feel like that is the one thing that has the ability to dilute our conviction.

Compromise is the one thing that if we if we're not careful, it can begin to work its way into our faith, and then we find ourselves fragmented because we're not bringing all the things that God has for us with us.

See, compromise was never God's vision for the children of Israel.

The vision that God had for the children of Israel is that I want them to leave and to go and worship me.

It was always connected.

It was never meant to be this separate thing that they're meant to be free just for the sake of freedom.

But compromise was I want you to be free because I want you to be bound to Christ.

See, what Paul says is that I'm a bondservant of Christ.

That's how Paul described himself.

So freedom is never really being free.

It's either I'm bound to Christ or I'm bound to the world, but there is no in-between.

And so what God was trying to lead them on a journey of is saying that I want you to be disconnected from the world, but I still need you to be connected to me.

And when we have those moments of the lack of comfort, those moments where we feel stretched and it's uncomfortable and it even feels like it's getting worse, those are the moments where a compromise can find a way to work itself in.

See, there's three areas that I see in this text that Pharaoh begins to negotiate and compromise with the children of Israel, and I see those same things play out in our lives every single day.

Here's the first one that I want us to write down: the compromise of proximity.

The compromise of proximity.

Let me tell you what I mean.

In Exodus chapter 8, verses uh 25 through 28, here's what it says.

Exodus 8 · chapter mention

And and Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron.

All right, go ahead and offer your sacrifices to your God, he said.

But do it here in the land.

But Moses replied, that wouldn't be right.

The Egyptians detest the sacrifices that we offer to the Lord our God.

Um look, if we offer sacrifices here, the Egyptians will see us and stone us.

So verse 27, we must take a three-day trip into the wilderness and offer sacrifices to the Lord our God, just as he commanded us.

Pharaoh's response, all right, go ahead, Pharaoh replied.

I will let you go and sacrifice in the wilderness and offer it to the Lord your God, but don't go far away.

Don't go far away.

See, after Pharaoh had engaged a couple of these plagues, it was getting uncomfortable for him.

When when when when when God began to move on behalf of the Israelites, they were now at this weird spot where, okay, so Pharaoh's like, okay, so clearly God is with them, and I don't know quite what that means, so let me see if I can begin to negotiate a little bit.

Okay, Moses, like what what exactly do you want?

We want to go so that we can go and worship God.

Okay, cool.

Um, just go and do that here in the land.

Don't don't go too far.

Moses is beginning this conversation, they're saying, no, like we have to go a three days' journey.

In other words, we need to have more distance between us and you.

Because I believe Pharaoh knew a couple of things.

Pharaoh knew that if I can keep them close to bondage, they will be too far from freedom.

That if I can if I can keep them from getting too far away from me, then I can make sure that they're always going to be within my reach.

I believe Pharaoh also knew that if we live close enough to our past, we won't make it to our future.

I remember um many years ago when my family and I, we ended up moving from one of our houses and we moved one mile down the road.

Just one mile down the road.

Exact same path.

I had, in fact, pass my old house in order to get to my new house.

And so there have been many times where I just by muscle memory, I would pull up and go to my old house just because it was so familiar with me.

So I remember this one time in particular where we were I'm coming home, it was a day that I was a long day at work, I was a little bit tired, I pull into um my neighborhood and I'm waving at all the neighbors and everything is good.

I pull up into uh the driveway, I get out the car, I walk up to the front door, and I'm noticing that my key's not working.

And I'm like, okay, like why why isn't my key working?

And then as I step back for a moment, it occurred to me that I had pulled up at my own house.

At my own now, now you have to understand.

Let's let's let's zoom in for a moment.

I pulled up at the wrong house and I'm trying to get in.

That could have gone south really, really quick.

I can only imagine how that could have played out on the news.

Like, I'm I'm I'm breaking and entering into a home that I once used to live in.

But here's the problem: I I pulled up into the driveway of my past because the past was such a short drive away.

I was still in proximity.

And unfortunately, a lot of times what happens with us is if we don't have the proper amount of distance between who we used to be and the person that God is calling us to be, it is so easy to pull up into our past without even realizing that we ended up there.

What God wanted to make sure of with the children of Israel is that there's gotta be an appropriate amount of distance in order for us to truly accomplish all that God has intended us to do.

Here's a familiar monologue that we may be familiar with just to kind of help us contextualize this a little bit.

See, Pharaoh said, don't go too far.

So here's how this translates to us sometimes.

Okay, fine.

Go to church, but don't don't start lifting your hand in worship.

That's weird.

You're you're going too far.

Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, go go ahead and go to church, but by all means, don't start being one of those weirdos that's like waving at people at the front door and welcoming people to church, like, okay, you're you're going too far.

In other words, yes, go to church, make make marginal increase, but by all means, don't become a person that radically changes your life.

He still wanted to have access to them.

And so ultimately, what we find in our own lives, there's these moments where our obsession to blend in comes at the expense of us standing out.

We can we can have this desire, like I just want to be a normal Christian.

I want to be like everybody else.

I want to kind of conform.

I don't want to be the guy that can't answer a question.

And believe me, we want to be the people that can answer a question.

So if you ask me, Keith, how are you doing?

I'm gonna say I'm good.

I don't have to say I'm blessed and highly favored, and I don't have to pray with my gun before I chew it.

What I'm saying is, but but there's these moments where we've seen the extremes on one end, so then we can begin to reject the common things that God just simply wants us to do.

We could we could become the people that we just want to blend in, but God's never called us to blend in.

I I love what it says here in 1 Peter chapter 2, verse 9.

1 Peter 2:9

It says, But you are not like that, for you are a chosen people, you are a royal priest, a holy nation, God's very own possession.

God's saying that I've called you out of the darkness into the light, I've called you to be different, I've called you to be set apart.

Everything that God did with the children of Israel, you began to see even with the plagues that it said, but the children of Israel they were separate.

That even the plagues as they came, there was a distinction between what they would experience versus what the Egyptians were experiencing.

I believe the same should be said of us that God wants to make sure that there's this distinction between who we are and the places that we used to be.

We can't distance ourselves from the things that keeps us at a distance from God.

We have to make sure that we gotta keep some things at a distance because Moses understood this partial freedom is total bondage because total freedom is what leads to wholeness.

Understanding that I don't want to be partially free.

So, no, I I don't want to like just have a life that's just good enough.

I don't want to live a life where, okay, I can just go to church, but I'm still an old version of myself.

Moses understood that for me to have total healing, I have to be fully committed, and the only way I can do that is if I have appropriate distance.

Here's the other area of compromise that I think we can look at as we see that Pharaoh as he negotiates.

The compromise of community.

The compromise of community.

Let me read to you what it says here in Exodus chapter 10, um, starting at verse number 8.

Exodus 10 · chapter mention

So Moses and Aaron were brought back to Pharaoh.

All right, he told them, Go and worship the Lord your God, but who exactly is going with you?

Moses replied, We will go, our young, our old, our sons, our daughters, our flocks, our herds, um, we will join together in celebrating the festival to the Lord.

Pharaoh retorted, The Lord will certainly need to be with you if I will let your little ones go.

I can see the evil in your plan.

Verse number eleven.

Never, only the men can go and worship the Lord, since that is what you requested, and then Pharaoh threw him out.

See, Pharaoh has now, it's it's escalated a little bit.

He's now dealt with the plague of the livestock, those are dying off, his his magicians and everyone around him, and they've experienced boils, hail has come and is literally killing off everything around them, and now they're about to deal with this mess of locusts.

So Pharaoh's at this point where Egypt is a mess, everything is falling apart.

So in Pharaoh's mind, he's thinking, okay, like everything's falling apart, but but how do I still maintain some ounce of control?

He says, Well, I'll let the men go, but everybody else has to stay behind.

Here's what Pharaoh was ultimately trying to do he was trying to divide people.

I want to bring division because if I can keep people from being united, I can keep them from being effective.

Pharaoh understood something about if I can divide the family, if I can divide the community, if I can keep them from being unified and connected together, I can keep them from being close-knit.

So let me let me explain to you the Israelite context.

Even though they were in bondage, even though they were slaves, they were a very close-knit community.

They were made up of individuals who were part of families, but even those families were part of the whole community.

So they were all in it together.

They were all intertwined, they were all on this journey together.

It was almost like this shared responsibility.

That's God's vision, that's God's plan for us not to be so individualistic that we lose sight of the whole, but if one hurts, then we all hurt, and if one wins, then we all win.

This this all-for-one and one-for-all dynamic, that's always been God's plan for God's people.

So when Pharaoh begins to respond with, let's divide the family, by all means, that's not a mistake.

Because he had seen firsthand that even while the children of Israel were in bondage, how blessed they were and how they were still effective at everything that they did.

That means that he saw that the hand of God was on them, not as an individual, but as a nation.

And so what he wanted to do was divide them to keep them from being successful, because he knew a divided community cannot have consistent impact.

It makes me it makes me have a lot more clarity around the kingdom of God.

And understanding that when Jesus was spending time with his disciples, how he went through great lengths to talk about and model this idea of unity.

We even see that his very last prayer is often referred to as the priestly prayer in John chapter 17, that the last thing that Jesus prays for is unity.

John 17 · chapter mention

Let's look at what it says here at John 17, verse 21.

John 17:21

This is Jesus praying.

He says this the goal for them is to become one heart and one mind.

Just as you, Father, are in me and I am in you, so let them be of one heart and one mind, that the world might know and believe, in fact, that you sent me.

Jesus is so, he is so focused on unity that he says that unity amongst his believers is literally the greatest testimony that we can have.

That unity amongst families is the greatest testimony that we could possibly have.

So when Jesus is praying this prayer, I want us to have context of who he's talking to.

Yes, it's written, it's written to us.

We are able to kind of look and see and understand and pull principles away from it.

But Jesus is literally praying in front of a group of people who have identities and uniqueness all around them.

So let me give you some context of some of the people that, as Jesus is praying, is at the table of who's sitting at the table with him.

A tax collector is sitting at the table.

Pharisees are sitting at the table, fishermen are sitting at the table, scribes are sitting at the table, zealots are sitting at the table.

These are all just like titles and phrases, and certainly you can kind of deduce what some of them mean, but let me give you some historical context.

These were all people that had nothing in common.

These are even people that will be enemies with one another if they were not there centered around Christ.

So let me translate that into the occult.

Today.

That's the equivalent of having Democrats, Republicans, Liberts, Conservative, Extremists all sitting at the same table.

It's in that context, it's with that perspective that Jesus pulls them all together and teaches them you need to focus on working together.

You need to figure out how can we how can we accomplish the big picture together.

If we look at the way that Jesus lived his life and you look at the way that he modeled things, this is what Jesus was all about.

He was like, okay, let's stop with the selective outrage in this cancel culture.

That's not what the kingdom is all about.

He's like, because actually none of y'all, and let me look into the camera, none of y'all have the trademark on righteousness and grace.

None of us do.

But unfortunately, if we're not careful, we will feel that my ideology is the right ideology and every other ideology is wrong.

But it comes at the expense of me ignoring the things that are flawed in my own ideology and explaining it away.

Jesus is saying, bro, like you're missing the mark completely.

That's not what the kingdom is all about.

I need for you guys to recognize that it's all about me and begin to build your life on that.

See, with all of this stuff, Pharaoh understood that if I can begin to manipulate and get division amongst God's people, they will never be effective in reaching the goals that God has for them.

Pharaoh understood that even if the Egyptians have the favor of God on their lives, if they're unified, they'll be effective, but if they're divided, they won't be.

You see, I think that we inherited this kind of like finger-pointing culture from our from our parents, Adam and Eve.

Because like if we remember, the serpent comes in, tricks Eve, they take the forbidden fruit, God shows up, and what happens?

Adam's immediate response is, God, the the woman that you gave me, so not only did he blame God, but he blamed Eve all in one statement.

The woman that you gave me, Lord, so technically, if we're really gonna be really like, I mean, if we if we if we're gonna go there, um, it's your fault.

Like, I mean, the woman you gave me, it's her fault that we're in this broken condition.

Let's let's pause there for a moment.

Like, taking no personal responsibility, always finding and vilifying everyone else, even God sometimes.

That's something that we all have inherited.

We all have those tendencies from time to time.

And even though Eve is far from perfect, here's what I love about, here's what I love about Eve.

Eve, even in the face of condemnation, even in the face of having her husband throw her under the bus in front of God, you know what Eve does?

Eve points to the serpent.

While all this tension and all this confusion is going on, we can point fingers back and forth with one another and completely lose sight of the fact that there's a serpent amongst us.

The Bible says this, we wrestle not against flesh and blood.

We can vilify one another all that we want, and we lose sight of the fact that there's a serpent that's been manipulating this the entire time.

And this is exactly what Pharaoh was trying to do.

He was trying to create this tension and establish this division so that way there would not be any effective movement amongst them.

So here's a couple of things that I've had to put into practice for myself.

Here's a couple things that I that I'm hopeful that can help you, and I'm still figuring out.

Whenever I'm having any point of tension, whether it be with my wife, whether it be with a friend, or any other scenario, here's what I say to myself.

Is this more important than us?

Is this more important than us?

I've I've sat across from many couples that are struggling with their marriages, and you know why?

Because they made this bigger than them.

That's good.

This is more important than us.

And when you really begin to dissect it, it's like, is that is that really worth your marriage?

Is being is being right that is it that important to you?

Is is proving that person wrong, is it is it that important to you?

And I've seen people not be able to respond because they haven't been able to simply recognize that everything can't be a thing.

And and that's literally what I say to my wife sometimes.

I'm like, hey, everything's not a thing.

We're not going to make this a thing because this is not important to us.

I'd rather fight for our unity than to fight to be right.

It's a decision that sometimes we have to make.

Here's another thing.

Sometimes there will be differences, and so here's what you have to say: can we find common ground?

Can we find a place in which we can find agreement?

What's the common ground in all of this stuff?

Fight to find that because if not, the enemy in that Pharaoh mentality begins to work its way in and then division, and we're not going to be as effective and be able to multiply the way that God had intended us to.

Let me go into the third and final one.

The other compromise that I believe that we see Pharaoh begin to initiate is the compromise of resources.

The compromise of resources.

Let's look at what it says here at Exodus chapter 10, looking at verse 24 through 27.

Exodus 10 · chapter mention

Finally, Pharaoh called Moses and said, Go and worship the Lord.

He said, But leave your flocks and herds here.

You may even take your little ones with you.

Verse 25, no, Moses said, We must take the animals with us as sacrifices and burnt offerings to the Lord.

All of our livestock must go with us, too.

Not a hoof can be left behind.

We must choose our sacrifices to our Lord our God amongst these animals.

And we don't know what we're going to worship with until we get there.

But the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart once more, and he would not let them go.

Let me give us some context of what's happening here.

Pharaoh has continuously negotiated, fought, lost, and now Egypt is a complete mess.

It's even worse now.

And so since the last time we've heard, here's some other things that he's dealing with.

The locusts have come and decimated all of Egypt, and now they've experienced darkness.

And I'm not just talking about like close your eyes, I can't see dark.

But it's like a dense darkness, like a spirit of darkness that the Bible says that it could be felt.

It's almost like I can't see anything, but I feel like this presence around me.

They were in that condition for three days, so dark that when they tried to light a candle, the candle would get consumed by the darkness, like that level of darkness.

So for three days straight, there's no vision, there's no ability to see, and out of desperation, Pharaoh says, Okay, Moses, come, like, go.

I want you to go, but here's what I need you to do: leave your herds and your flocks behind in Egypt.

Let me let me unpack this for us a little bit.

Because you would think, for Moses, that would seem like a fair deal.

This entire time, it's always been about the Israelites getting set free.

The entire time, it's always been, let my people go, not let my livestock go.

So, so why would why would Moses say, no, I'm not doing that?

What like why would Moses be so gung-ho that he's like, I would rather spend another night in Egypt than to leave our livestock behind?

The thing is that Moses understood that those livestock, those represented elements of worship.

They represented resources.

So in the mind of Moses, he was saying, I don't want to be fragmented.

I don't want us to be partially free, but then our resources still be back in Egypt.

We need to take these things with us because not only are we going to use them to worship God, but we actually will use them to establish our community and to begin to build the tabernacle itself.

There was this awareness where he understood that I need to take these resources out of Egypt so that we can begin to focus on the kingdom.

And here's the unfortunate thing with us.

Most of us don't really have a problem fundamentally when we begin to walk this thing out.

Most of us don't have a problem when it comes to us beginning this journey of the kingdom and saying to ourselves, okay, um, yes, I'll I'll I'll get some distance between me and my past.

I can do that.

Um, okay, I'll I'll begin to establish some community and I can certainly do that.

You know the area that most Christians struggle with is how to pull their resources out of Egypt.

And unfortunately, what we end up doing is we end up fragmented because yes, my life is in the kingdom, my community is in the kingdom, but my resources are still in Egypt.

And here's the thing: this is what Jesus says.

Jesus says it this way He says, Where your treasure is, there your heart will be.

Let's think about that for a moment.

Where your treasure is, where your resources are, that's where your heart will be.

So I believe Pharaoh knew that if you leave, but your treasure is still in Egypt, your heart's still in Egypt.

This is why when we talk about giving and honoring God with our resources and our substance, it has a lot less to do with how do we, how do we keep the church lights on.

I've I've I've seen this in my own life.

God doesn't need our money.

He doesn't.

Like God has the ability to make anything happen.

It's a matter of freedom for us when we recognize that God is our source and not Pharaoh.

And unfortunately, when we don't make that distinction and we don't get free from that, we can end up looking at the world as our resource.

We can begin to look at the world as our source, and we end up leaving all of our resources right back in Egypt.

Jesus never intended for us to be so fragmented that I'm trying to move forward with my life, but my resources are still at a place of bondage.

This is why we honor God with our resources, and this is ultimately what God's vision is for our life.

Moses saw this as so intertwined that he saw the resources and the people and the community and the vision that God has for them lives all intertwined together.

My question for us is: are there areas of our lives that we've left back in Egypt?

Are we too close to our past that we blend in so much that people can't even see the difference?

Do we find ourselves dealing with division and tension in this world that is desperately trying to keep us from being successful as we move forward in the kingdom?

Or even our resources, are our resources still back in Egypt because we haven't learned how to trust God with our vision as we move forward?

You see, as we as we close, I want to I want to share this thought.

Because after all of this, after the continuous uh refusal to, the continuous refusal to give in, Pharaoh's heart is so hard, and so now we find ourselves at the conclusion of all of this, and that is the Passover.

I love what it says here in Exodus chapter 11, verses 4 through 7.

Exodus 11:4–7

So Moses said, Thus says the Lord, about midnight, I will go out into the midst of Egypt, and every firstborn in the land in Egypt shall die.

For the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on the throne, and even the firstborn of the slave girl who is behind the handmill and all of the cattle.

There will be a great cry throughout all of Egypt, as one has never seen before, and never will see again.

But not a dog shall growl against any of the people of Israel, neither a beast or anything.

Because the Lord makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel.

Let me give us some context as to what's what's happening here.

What we're seeing is we're be seeing the beginning stages of the Passover being established.

This the sacred meal for the children of Israel that literally changed everything for them.

So they're given these instructions, and you can you can read it yourself through the journal.

But they're given these specific instructions of getting a lamb, allowing that lamb to be in their home, then killing the lamb, and and how they cook the lamb.

But there's this part where it says that the blood of the lamb is then placed over the doorpost.

And at around midnight, as we saw in the text, this death angel was going to go through Egypt, and everywhere that it saw the blood, it was going to literally pass over it.

That's where we get this phrase to pass over.

So for the people of Israel, they understood that if we can handle this lamb appropriately and apply the blood in the area where it's visible to judgment, then judgment is going to pass over us.

This is exactly the catalyst that once Pharaoh lost his son, that he finally decided to let the children of Israel go.

Of course, he ends up changing his mind, but I want to pause for a moment because I want to make a connection for us.

This Passover meal is the same Passover meal that Jesus ends up celebrating with his disciples that we commonly know as the Last Supper.

So that and communion are closely connected, even today in our Christian traditions.

But I want us to see the parallels here.

Because a lamb died for the Israelites, his blood was shed so that judgment could pass over them.

A lamb died, blood was shed so that judgment could pass over them.

John, when he sees Jesus in the Gospel of John, chapter 1, verse 29, John the Baptist, he sees Jesus and he says, Behold, the Lamb of God that comes to take away the sins of the world.

John 1:29

Are we seeing the foreshadowing here of how this Passover meal was setting the tone of what Jesus was going to be for us?

That somehow that when the shed blood of Jesus is applied on the doorposts of our hearts, that when judgment, that when condemnation, that when sin, that when guilt would ordinarily condemn us to death, that when grace comes in, it's going to cover us instead of judgment being found on us.

This is something that we have an opportunity to celebrate every single day, and knowing that when God looks at me, he doesn't see me through my flaws, he doesn't see me through my brokenness, he sees me through the blood of Jesus.

And with the blood of Jesus, I inherit the nature of Jesus.

So when God looks at me, he sees the finished work of Christ on the cross.

So the Bible literally says that I am the righteousness of God because of the blood of Jesus.

We sing these songs sometimes.

We talk about nothing shall make us white as snow except for the blood of Jesus.

When you think about it in the imagery of it, it's a paradox for us to comprehend.

But what God is showing us is that it's only the blood of Jesus that has the ability to wipe us clean.

This is exactly what the children of Israel experience, but what we get a chance to experience on a much grander scale.

Because of the sacrifice of Christ, that when God looks at you, when he looks at me, he doesn't see us through the lens of our brokenness, he doesn't see us through the lens of our flaws, he sees us through the lens of the finished work of Christ on the cross.

That is what this Exodus journey is really all about.

Is understanding one and for all who we are in Christ, that we do have a purpose and that we do have value.

But then the second component is that we don't have to live fragmented, we don't have to live sectioned off, but we have to make a choice.

We have to make a choice to be diligent in ensuring that I'm gonna fight for wholeness, and the way that I'm gonna fight for wholeness is I'm not gonna compromise.

I'm not gonna compromise by being in proximity to the world.

I'm not gonna compromise by by living a life where I'm living divisive and constantly in a state of arguing, but I'm also not gonna compromise as it relates to me understanding the power of the blood of Jesus.

It's when we don't compromise in those areas and saying that I'm gonna bring my resources out of Egypt as well, that we begin to experience the wholeness that God has for us because as we continue on this journey, every single thing that the children of Israel were tempted to leave back, they're gonna actually need as they go into the wilderness.

Maybe right now you're in the wilderness season and you're realizing that maybe you left some things back in Egypt.

Because the Bible says this about the enemy of our soul.

It says that he's a thief who comes to steal, to kill, and destroy.

And if we're not careful, we can be so focused on the killing and destroying part that we lose sight of the fact that he's a thief first.

And he loves to steal these little things.

And the thing about a thief is many times you don't know that your pocket's been picked until you actually need that item.

Man, I need my identity, but I left it back in Egypt.

Man, I need I need wholeness, but I left a portion of it back in Egypt.

What we want to do is we want to check our spiritual pockets right now to make sure that I have everything that I need as I go into the next stages of this journey, because I believe that God is leading us, but we can't leave anything behind.

Everything must go.

Let me pray for us.

God, I thank you so much, Lord, for your word.

I thank you that you're bringing us on this journey where we can go from captivity to promise.

It's my prayer, Father, in the name of Jesus, that if there's any areas, God, where we're fragmented, where we're not experiencing wholeness, that we're areas where maybe we've compromised, that Father, we would reaffirm who we are in you, and that we begin to pull those things into our lives, God, as we move into the next stage of the calling that you have for our lives, Father.

So, God, we plead your blood.

We plead your blood that it covers us of our brokenness.

We plead your blood over our struggles, God, recognizing that we are whole in you.

And Father, in the name of Jesus, I pray that we're empowered by your spirit, that we can resist the temptation to compromise in any area of your lives.

Father, we honor you and we give you our lives in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

God bless you, guys.

We pray that you're safe.

Thank you for tuning in to today's podcast.

For more information about Celebration Orlando or to get in touch with us, please visit celebrationorlando.org.