I Will Sing Unto The Lord

Morning, church.

Today's text is from the book of Exodus, chapter 15, verses 1 through 21.

Exodus 15:1–21

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.

The Lord is a man of war, the Lord is his name.

Pharaoh's chariots and his host he cast into the sea, and his chosen officers were sunk into the Red Sea.

The floods covered them, they went down into the depths like a stone.

Your right hand, O Lord, glorious in power, your right hand, O Lord, shatters the enemy.

In the greatness of your majesty, you overthrow your adversaries.

You send out your fury, it consumes them like stubble.

At the blast of your nostrils the water piled up, the floods stood up in a heap, the deeps congealed in the heart of the sea.

The enemy said, I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil, my desire shall have its fill of them, I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them.

You blew with your wind, the sea covered them, they sank like lead in the mighty waters.

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

Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?

You stretched out your right hand, the earth swallowed them.

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

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

The peoples have heard, they tremble.

Pangs have seized the inhabitants of Philistia.

Now are the chiefs of Edom dismayed, trembling seizes the leaders of Moab, all the inhabitants of Canaan have melted away.

Terror and dread fall upon them.

Because of the greatness of your arm, they are still as a stone, till your people, O Lord, pass by, till the people pass by whom you have purchased.

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

The Lord will reign forever and ever.

For when the horses of Pharaoh with his chariots and his horsemen went into the sea, the Lord brought back the waters of the sea upon them, but the people of Israel walked on dry ground in the midst of the sea.

Then Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women went out after her with tambourines and dancing.

And Miriam sang to them, Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously.

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

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be.

You may be seated.

Good morning.

Thanks for joining us this morning.

It's great to see you all.

My name is James Rathran, I'm the pastor here at Redemption Church Denver.

And I've got the wrong thing pulled up.

Now I have the right thing.

Let's pray, and we'll move into our text for the day.

Father in heaven, how glorious and majestic is your name in all the earth.

Your power is unspeakable.

Your deliverance is incomparable.

Lord, the strength of your right hand has set us free and called us to an eternal glory with you.

Lord, we receive that by faith in Jesus Christ, your Son, empowered by your Holy Spirit to grasp these wonderful truths of what you have accomplished for us.

Lord, we were once not a people, but you have made us your people.

So that these stories that we get to hear and celebrate, these songs that are songs from thousands of years ago, from another culture, Lord, these are our songs.

These are the songs of our people.

Those memories are our memories.

Lord, I pray that we would hear these songs, hear the song of Moses today on the other side of the Red Sea, that it would take root in our hearts, and that all that it proclaims about you we might trust and believe for ourselves and for our church.

Lord, I pray that the wonder of what you accomplished at the Red Sea, how it marches out into fear among the nations, that that might take place in your world today.

Lord, that your name might go it might go out into the nations, that the United States might turn to you, that all the nations of the world might turn to you, that you might be known and made glorious, Lord, in the hearts of your people.

Father, we pray that your word would work in our hearts this morning, that you would be glorified and honored in our worship of you, as you were in the worship of Israel on the other side of the Red Sea.

We lift this up in Jesus' name, amen.

So all my favorite memories from being a kid are they all have to do with music.

They're all music memories.

My house, there's constantly music playing in our house.

And when I think back on like one of my favorite times, it's all music.

And this is today's text is about a song.

It's uh a song that the Lord gave to Moses and that Moses sang and taught to the people of Israel that they sang right after crossing the Red Sea.

The only right response to crossing the Red Sea was a song.

You know, it's all it's all memories.

You know, when you hear a song and you just get taken right back to that place.

That was a really fun thing that I got to think about this week.

And it basically ruined one of my prep days.

Because I was like, yeah, like what song memories do I have?

And then I was just like on YouTube, like, you know, crying in my office.

K92 FM played all-time country and the latest hits, which is a great combination.

So I learned every I learned all the words to those songs to and from school and wherever we were driving in my parents' cars.

One time my dad got a car and he put a new sound system in it, and it was a sick sound system, it was incredible.

And uh so to really pump that sound system, we would play uh Why Can't This Be Love by Van Halen in that.

And so now when I hear that song, I'm just in that car on the way to Subway.

My mom loves Allison Krause, always has, so I love Alison Krause.

And uh whenever I hear her album Forget About It, you know that album?

It's an unbelievable album.

You should look it up today, it'll ruin your day.

But whenever I hear that album, I'm I'm on the way to middle school and I'm sitting next to my mom in the front seat, and she has the seat heater on, her seat heater on, and we live in Florida.

But I can I didn't remember that until I listened to that song again.

You know, it brings up these little details that you hear.

My um uh older sister had a boyfriend in high school, and he had this lifted Ford Ranger, which looked pretty good.

And it was a Ford, so you know, didn't look that good.

Uh but it was lifted Ford Ranger, and he had all these country music tapes, and so you'd listen to Chris Ladue.

You know Chris Ladeo?

That rodeo rock and roll, you know what I'm talking about?

So uh that's what turned me on to Chris Ladew, and I've been a fan ever since then because of her.

My other sister had a boyfriend.

My other sister actually she drove me to school, and so in her car, uh uh, you know, she's an older sister, she's doing the picking of the music.

I'm flipping through her binder, picking things.

There's what all that I'm saying to justify this music that I actually love.

But one thing that I was thinking as I was thinking about this in songs related to memories, I was wondering why do you have to go and make things so complicated?

And uh I love that song, and that song's so true, if you think about it.

Her boyfriend, uh, one year for my birthday, we both had birthdays in March, he burned for me all his Dave Matthews band CDs.

And I just my life changed.

It was like a there's like a B C and an A D of my life.

After Dave.

After Dave, yeah.

So I Matthew's here.

Oh, I remembered uh driving back from a we were always going to races as a family and driving back from a race one time with my dad and his best friend.

My dad just got this uh best of the sixties box set.

And I remember it my dad and his friend in the front of the car, and we were playing the song Radar Love, which is a great song.

You should also go back and listen to that song.

And I just remember his my dad's friend like was drumming on the dashboard, and he it was like he was the actual drummer in the band.

It was so and I just remember being like, this is the most impressive, this is the this is the coolest thing I've ever seen in my life.

This is as cool as you can be.

And when I hear that song, when I hear radar love, man, it's it's too it's almost too much.

It's almost too much.

I'm just back in that car, you know.

And that's what music is.

Clint Black, who was got a lot of radio time on K92 FM when I was a kid in these very formative years, he uh has a song, and in the song he goes, Ain't it funny how a melody?

Does anybody know the next part?

Can bring back a memory, take you to another place in time, completely change your state of mind.

And that's the truth.

Uh uh, that's what songs can do.

They're almost they're magic.

They're magic.

You know, music is it's magic.

It can just transport you, take you to another place.

And that's why God marks his moments, just like you do.

I I go on that just to be a little self-indulgent, but also just to hopefully conjure that imagination in your mind as well.

You you mark your life with music.

It already is.

It's not like you decide to mark your life with music or you decide not to mark your life with music.

Your life is marked with music.

It's the nature of music.

And it's connected to memories, and it doesn't, it's different than it's different than reflecting on something.

It takes you there, it puts you exactly in that spot.

It's it's almost um, it's like a time machine.

It takes you back exactly into that moment.

And that's why the Lord marks his wondrous deeds with songs.

That's why on the other side of the Red Sea, the immediate response of the people of God is a song.

And it's a song that will be quoted and echoed throughout the Psalms for thousands of years.

They'll be sung.

We still sing them today.

And that's a way of taking these memories and making them the memories of their whole people.

And then when they sing these songs together, you know, when when the people of God would sing the song of the Red Sea, they were back to, you know, walking to uh walking with their parents to the temple for the annual feasts.

And they'd remember, yeah, our parents sung this song.

You know, they sung this song right after the Red Sea happened.

And that's where this song came from, they'd say.

Like, that's the way that I talk about radar love.

You know, I'm like, this song, this is from my parents' day, but man, I got great memories with this song.

And they and they become my memories.

And they become a part of what was just my parents' story, it now becomes part of my story.

And that's why God gives us songs.

If you take your Bible and you just put your fingers in the middle and you open it up, you're at a song book.

Right in the middle of Scripture is a book of songs that the Lord has given us.

And why do why do we need a whole book of songs right in the middle?

It's because He He because the Lord does things that are so glorious and so wonderful, they require a song.

They can only really be expressed, they can only really be connected to if they have a song that accompanies them.

And so in Psalm 40, it says that the Lord has put a new song in my mouth.

What is our salvation?

What happens at salvation?

How's it described?

There's a new song that's put in your mouth.

It's a new mark, it's a new memory, it's a it's a this time capsule of what has taken place, what God has done for you.

There's a new song in your mouth.

Right now, in the throne room of God, surrounding the Father in his throne room, and his train fills the whole temple and the the uh the incense of our prayers fills the room, and he's surrounded by angels that have six wings, you know.

Uh uh two of them they used to cover their feet, two of them they used to cover their face, and then two of them they used to fly, because they're with a spare two, so you can fly.

And they're on fire, they're covered in fire, these attendants in the courtroom of God.

That's a pretty incredible thing.

But what are they doing?

You'd think their mere presence would be enough, but it's not enough.

Their near presence, their mere presence isn't enough.

They're singing.

They're singing.

You know, you can't fly and you can't be on fire for very long.

But you can sing.

You can sing.

And when you sing, when we sing, it says the Lord inhabits our praises.

And so we are joining in with the praises of the heavenly court.

We have to sing.

If you hear what God does, you realize we have to sing.

And so there are things that we see that the Lord does that are so wonderful and so glorious, we realize that the only appropriate response to them is a song.

And so I wish we could hear the song in Hebrew and understand its meaning and hear the meter that they sang it in.

It was something that you could go along to a tambourine with.

We know that much.

But we'll read the song and we'll read the lyrics of the song.

And hopefully these will start to become our memories.

And we'll see what was it that the Lord did that was so glorious that it had it could only be put down in song.

You know, to study just the Red Sea event without seeing the song that accompanies it, it would be like trying to understand the Titanic without my heart will go on.

It would be like, you don't really get it.

You aren't going to really get it.

So let's try and really get it.

It's a song in five stanzas.

Here's stanza one.

Exodus four fifteen, excuse me, one to 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.

Did any of you grow up singing the song to this?

Yeah.

I will sing unto the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously, the horse and the rider thrown into the sea.

Yes.

So that's it.

So you got it, you got the song.

I was just humming that song, walking through the Berkeley Lake Park this morning on the way here.

Uh it it's it's beautiful.

I mean, it immediately right after they sing to the Lord.

And what is this first stanza of the song?

The first stanza is God did it.

Look at what he's done.

God has accomplished our salvation.

This is the wonder of what the Lord has done.

What we're singing when we put this in song, what we're saying is, He is our hero.

He is our champion.

We sent him forward and we put all our hopes on him.

And it and it worked.

Man, he delivered.

He delivered.

He is our hero.

He is our champion.

And you sing those songs about heroes and about champions, you know?

That's what uh in order to just acknowledge it and to recognize it, like you gotta have the song, the walkout music.

Like this is the that's the way to think of this song.

It's a it's a song of triumph.

Like this is like a chest-pounding, we are the champions type of moment.

You know, a lot of our worship songs, they don't have enough of the we are the champions feel to them.

You know, there's uh that was the original stomp clap song.

The um uh the the but this is the feel of this song.

Like it's almost like you should you should more think of that than you think of like uh another type of hymn.

That's the that's the vibe here, you know?

And it it it is such a glorious thing to celebrate.

It reminds me of this Chesterton quote where he says, the the one perfectly divine thing, the one glimpse of God's paradise given on earth is to fight a losing battle and to not lose it.

That's a great that's Chesterton, man.

He's he loves things like that.

And uh I love things like that.

So that the that's this glimpse.

What did they just get?

They just got this glimpse of of the divine on earth because they fought a losing battle and they didn't lose it.

Oh, what's better than that?

You know, those are the those are the stories, and that's what they're in.

That's why they put it to a song.

And it's not just a song, it's a song about God as a as as the hero, as the champion, as the victor.

He has triumphed gloriously.

That's what the Lord has done.

But then it goes on and and it it becomes in order for us to really connect to that, we have to see that he is my God.

See, why are we singing and celebrating it?

It's because he's mine.

This victory that he accomplished is my victory.

This song that we're singing, who is God?

He is my song.

He goes, it says, God is my strength, my song, my salvation, my father's God.

The Lord is a man of war, the Lord is his name.

Like, why do you get to sing when your team wins?

Why do you get why why when our team wins do we sing, you know?

I imagine this happening, we are the champions.

You know, why don't we sing they?

They are the champions, my friends.

No, no, we sing we because we know by being a fan, there that's my team.

That's my God.

His victory is my victory.

And then think of this.

This is this means that the Lord is my song.

What is your song?

Your s our song is slamming screen door.

Our song is God.

My song is God.

That means that that the hymn of your life is who your champion is.

The song of your life, God is my song.

Who are you celebrating for the wonders of what have been accomplished?

You are celebrating him.

He's your song.

They knew that on the other side of the Red Sea, and that's why they sing, and don't you hear the covenant in it?

I will be your God, you will be my people.

When we sing of the glory of God, we are singing of what is our glory.

We're glorious because he wins for us.

We're glorious because he's our God.

The NASCAR championships are later today.

I know you're all you all already knew that.

And Denny Hamlin's going for his first championship, and he's a number 11.

He's got these signs that say number 11 against the world.

I just think that's the coolest thing ever.

And I'm a big Denny Hamlin fan.

And uh so I'm really pulling for him today.

And if he wins later today, I know I'm gonna feel like I won.

And I I didn't even help a little.

I didn't help even a little bit.

But it's gonna it's gonna feel like I won.

The Israelites didn't help even a little, even a little.

If anything, they were in the way.

But God is their song.

God is our song.

My God.

That's my God up there.

That's my God who did this.

God is my song.

So we see the first stanza is about God is the one who does it, and he's our God.

You see the glory of that?

Second stanza just shows that God is a conquering God.

Nothing can stand against him.

This is your God.

What is he like?

He's a conquering God.

In Exodus 15, 4 through 5, Pharaoh's chariots and his hosts he cast into the sea, and his chosen officers were sunk in the Red Sea.

The floods covered them, they went down into the depths like a stone.

You know, in order to see the glory of what our God has accomplished, we have to see the wonder of what his enemy was.

And it's Pharaoh, the host of Pharaoh's army, you know, all his chariots, the chosen officers of Pharaoh, the most glorious military achievement in In world history came against God.

And what did he?

The the they were sunk in the Red Sea.

The floods covered them.

What were they like?

It was like they were a stone that just sunk to the depths.

They were powerless before our God.

You have to see the wonder of his glory.

Who are we talking about when we talk about the God of Israel?

When we talk about our God who delivers us, no one can stand against him.

Send anyone forward.

Send us your best.

Our God will be victorious.

In verse 6 and 7, it says, Your right hand, O Lord, glorious in power, your right hand, O Lord, shatters the enemy.

In the greatness of your majesty, in your majesty, you overthrow your adversaries.

You send out your fury.

It consumes them like stubble.

So at this first part of this second stanza, we see the wonder of who he is victorious against, the strength of the enemy.

You know, a James Bond movie is only as good as the villain, because then you get to see how, you know, strong this guy is.

How does he beat them?

Easily.

It is not hard for him.

He did not break a sweat.

It was simple.

What were they like before him?

His right hand, it shatters the enemy.

No problem.

In the greatness of your majesty, you overthrow your adversaries.

They're gone.

It is over.

You send out your fury.

It consumes them like stubble.

You know, like when you you throw a pine cone into the fire and it's just gone.

Stubble, and they they it's such a it's such like a distractor.

It's the way to understand this.

Because there's the stubble is a reference.

The stubble is what Pharaoh made the Israelites collect for themselves so that they could make bricks for him.

They uh in when Moses first got on the scene and he says, Let my people go, and Pharaoh says, They're lazy.

Now we're not even going to get the straw for them to make my bricks out of.

They're gonna have to go collect it for themselves, and we're keeping the brick quota for this quarter the same.

That word was stubble.

It's the stubble that they're going out to collect, to make the bricks.

You make me collect stubble, God burns you up like you're stubble.

They would have heard that.

They would have gotten the connotation of what our Lord can do.

It is easy destruction.

And then it goes on and it imagines what the Egyptians were saying.

And there's just this string of verbs that the enemies of God were saying as they were coming to attack the Israelites I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide them, I will devour them, I will destroy them.

That's what the song goes on to say.

In Hebrew, it's pretty cool because it's just verb, verb, verb, verb, verb.

And then the next verse following that string of verbs of what the enemy says he will do, it says, Exodus 15, 10, You blew with your wind, the sea covered them, they sank like lead in the mighty waters.

Gone.

Gone.

Our God is a conquering God.

There is no enemy so strong that it can stand against our God.

He is our song.

Do you remember who you're praying to?

Do you remember who you're hoping in?

Your right to hope in the God of Israel.

There is nobody that can stand against him.

The might of Egypt was as nothing.

They were burned up like stubble.

Twice he says they sank like a stone, or they sank like lead in the waters that he covered them with.

And then the text goes on in verse 11.

The song continues as if it couldn't get greater than that.

They have to recognize the real greatness that's being demonstrated in the Egyptians, the greatness of the Lord's conquering.

In ver Exodus 15, 11, they say, Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods?

Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?

You know, it's one thing if you're to read the story, it's like, well, you know, the story is a bit of a um uh a god shows up and destroys mortal men.

It seems a little cheating, you know?

It's incredible, like it was a it was a very powerful mortal man, but still just a god showing up and destroying a mortal man.

Like, couldn't Thor have done that?

Couldn't Baal have done that?

Couldn't Zeus have done that?

But the Israelites see what's going on.

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

They realize, they recognize that the story of the Exodus was the story of the true God destroying and punishing the gods of the Egyptians.

That the whole story of the Exodus was him laying out their pantheon and going one by one and through each plague plucking off the gods of Egypt, as he is showing them in their rebellion against him, the gods' rebellion against him, that he is the true God, and there is no God above him.

He is the king of all the kings, he is the lord of all the lords, he is the God among the gods, he is the true God above them all.

Pharaoh was referred to as the son of Ra, their God of the Sun, the highest God in their pantheon.

God refers to Israel throughout the Exodus as my firstborn son.

You see, there is there's the gods, and there is their sons as their earthly representatives.

There is the cosmic battle taking place in the heavens with its earthly manifestation that is taking place, and who is the God of all the gods?

It is the God of Israel.

Who is the true son?

It is the Son of the God of Israel.

This was God's plan all along.

This is why in Exodus 12, 12, God says of his Passover, I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast, and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments.

I am the Lord.

On all the gods of Egypt, I will execute judgment.

Now we're not good at thinking this way because we have a very empty heavens in our modern conception of things.

You know, we're all, because of the culture that we grew up in, basically default materialists, and we carve out an exception for the true God.

But the organizing principle of the nations is the gods that they serve.

And this is always the organizing principle of nations.

It is the gods that they serve.

Now we imagine that our nations, our modern nations, are organized by principles, that is, by reason.

But when you say the word principle, I hope you recognize that you're not very far away from saying the word principality.

The difference is one is personal.

One has a person as the object, and one is impersonal, so that there is not a person as the object.

And we're wrong to think in the categories that we think in of principles as truth claims that don't have persons at the center of them.

And we should know that we're especially wrong about that, because what do we know?

How has the truth revealed itself to us?

We would say the question doesn't make any sense.

You should be asking, how has the truth revealed himself to us?

So the truth is not finally revealed in principles, the truth is finally revealed in something more like principalities, something like persons.

You see that this is a much more helpful way to recognize the organization of people, because we are not just gathering together to express particular principles.

That's not what cultures look like.

Cultures throughout the world, they don't look like principles being played out.

We try and make them look like that, but they don't look like that.

What they look like is personalities being played out.

They look like personalities.

And that's because they are submitting themselves to persons, gods, the scriptures say.

And so why was Egypt the way it was?

Why was Egypt in such rebellion against the true God?

Why was Pharaoh in such rebellion against the true God?

Because he worshipped another God as though it was the true God.

And that other God was in rebellion against the true God.

And so he takes on this personality of one who is hardened and absolute in being against the true God.

So let's go God for God, our God says.

And he goes to Egypt and he says of his people, These are mine.

You can send all of your gods against me in the heavens, and I will humiliate them.

They will all see, I am the true God of all gods.

All of the rebellion that took place in the heavens, the Lord will conquer.

So, what that means, and what you should think of this as meaning, because it's sort of like, okay, cool, what do I do with that?

It means that when you look out and you see there are cultural trends, there are movements that seem like they are so strong and so vital that they will take down Christianity, or they will make it impossible for Christianity to flourish in the world.

You should think of those not just as sociological movements, but you should think of those as movements that are counter to the true God.

They are movements of alternative worship, movements of false worship against the true God is what those are.

This is not mere sociology.

Sociology is a way of ignoring the true realities of the situation.

It's much more complex than aggregates.

And then you should think our God is stronger.

It doesn't matter the strength of the principality that they are gathered behind.

Our God is stronger.

He will conquer them, he will humiliate all of the principalities that stand against him.

In our modern minds, I want you to be going back and forth.

Principle, principality, principle, principality.

I want those to be connected in your minds.

That's one of my hopes of this sermon.

So that you would not think in an impersoned way about sociological movements or a de-personed way about sociological movements or cultural trends.

It's always a competition of gods.

It's always God at the center or another God at the center.

Always.

Always.

Who has the strength?

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

Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?

It is a great question to ask, right?

What God is there like our God?

Is there another God that has a Red Sea story?

You know, is there, is there another?

There's not, is the answer.

There's a, there's, you try and think through.

Like there's there's not another God that has a Red Sea story where he goes into another nation and he says, These people are mine, and he takes them out of that other nation by a strong hand and an outstretched arm, humiliating the gods of that nation.

You know, when you worship the sun god, and then the God of Israel can just make it dark, that's humiliating.

That's humiliating.

There is no God like our God.

Stanza for.

So we see, we what we've seen is that God has done it all.

We've seen the strength of the enemy that he has conquered and the ease with which he's conquered them, and we see the heights of the conquering that he has done.

Because it is not just a conquering of a God against humans, it is gods versus gods, and our God is the true God over them all.

Stanza 4, steadfast love and hope.

This is where the people of God celebrate because they see that the wonder of what God has accomplished for them is because of God's steadfast love for them.

In 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.

They say, Why is it that we can sing this song?

Because God loves us.

What is it when it says that God has steadfast love for them?

It means that He is, this is covenantal love.

God says, I have committed to you as your God.

You are my people, and I will show you my steadfast love to you by rescuing you.

And in the rescue that he has done, he purchases them, he has redeemed them for himself, so that he might lead them to their eternal home.

And what is their eternal home?

It is that you have guided them by your strength to your holy abode, to the temple where they might meet God, the tabernacle where he might join them in his presence, to the mountain where he will give them the law and call them in to be his covenant people.

He is showing them that by the Lord's strength you have been purchased for eternal life with God.

And what will you do with that eternal life with God?

You will enjoy his steadfast love forever.

Why did he go out in strength to redeem you?

It was because of his steadfast love.

Why does he rescue you to be with him forever?

It is because of his steadfast love.

And why does it take forever for the Lord to show you his steadfast love?

Because he has so much of it towards you.

Look at his strength.

Look at his compassion and steadfast love.

Look at our hero.

Look at our God.

Look at our champion, our song.

And then with this hope of being drawn home, Moses then looks towards the future of this people, because he knows the promise of God is to bring this people into the promised land.

It is not just to bring them out of Egypt, but it is to bring them into the promised land.

And so he looks forward to all the nations that they will conquer in order to inherit the promised land.

In Exodus 15, 14 to 15, Moses sings, The people have heard.

Now are the chiefs of Edom dismayed.

Trembling seizes the leaders of Moab.

All the inhabitants of Canaan have melted away.

You know, what Moses recognizes by this incredible victory in crossing the Red Sea and washing away the host of Egypt, he recognizes, oh, we got them all.

Oh, we're gonna beat them all.

In fact, this isn't even gonna be hard.

Because they're gonna hear this one victory, which felt like hopelessness hours ago.

This one victory, he realizes they're all gonna hear.

Try and keep this to yourself.

The peoples have heard, they tremble.

Pangs have seized the inhabitants of Philistia.

Oh man, they're gonna Philistia, people of the sea?

Yeah.

They're gonna hear about the parting of the Red Sea.

Edom, we're gonna have to walk right past Edom, dismayed.

The leaders of Moab, trembling has seized them.

No, we aren't gonna have any problems from the leaders of Moab.

All the inhabitants of Canaan, the land that we're gonna be driving away, uh, they will melt away before us.

Look what God has done.

Like we are talking, he is the it Moses gets what this means.

Their God is the heavyweight champion of the world.

He will take all comers.

And so this victory, this one victory, has ensured in Moses' mind the total victory over all their enemies.

He knows that the Lord will give this to them.

He knows the Lord will give this to them.

We can know, we can have this same hope in our future victory.

Don't you see they he lifts his eyes and he says, God will be the God of all these nations.

We do the same as Christians.

This is what the Great Commission is to us.

We lift our eyes, and because of the victory of Jesus Christ on the cross, because he has conquered death itself, Satan and all his and our enemies, we recognize that there is not a nation or a nation's gods that can stand against the advance of the gospel.

And why do we spread it?

Because of his steadfast love towards us and the recognition of his steadfast love towards all those from every tribe and nation and tongue whom he intends to save, so that all nations would worship God as the true God.

See, Moses sees this incredible victory of God on the other side of the Red Sea, and he just looks to the nations.

We do the same.

We see the incredible victory of Christ, and we lift our eyes and we see they're gonna hear.

They're gonna hear about this.

And all the other gods of all the other nations, they're gonna tremble.

They're gonna try and resist, but they won't be able to, because our God is the God of God.

It's the God of gods.

He is the one true God, majestic in his glory and power.

And so the hope starts to become through the nations and then this final incredible hope.

It's like an eschatological, like an end time sort of hope that this song culminates with in verse 17 and 18.

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

The Lord will reign forever and ever.

They look forward to the holy mountain of God.

It's it when you hear a holy mountain, you should think of Eden, and you should think of the temple, and you should think of Sinai, and you should think of Zion, and you should think of these holy mountains of the Lord.

You know, we love mountains here, right?

Because when you look off to the mountains, what does it look like?

It's like a point where the earth meets the heavens, you know?

You can tell that just by looking at it.

And so when we're being called to this holy mountain, we're looking at the culmination in like a physical form of that thing that we pray for all the time.

Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, that the earth would meet the heavens, and that it might be totally restored into a new heavens and a new earth where we might dwell eternally with God.

Do you see the picture of this song, how eternal it is in scope, and how it is our story?

It's the Christian story, a great deliverance on our behalf, fully accomplished by our conquering God against great enemies that we never could have accomplished a victory over on our own.

He accomplished that victory for us.

The slavery and bondage which we have to Satan, he has cast down that false God and destroyed him so that we are liberated and free.

And then he lifts his eyes to the nations which Satan had so bound, and he realizes all of these will bow the knee to the one true God.

And then he lifts up to the eternal glory of dwelling with God forever, as all the nations are brought in and restored new heavens and new earth.

This is our song.

This is our hope.

That's the story you're in.

Why?

Because of the The steadfast love of the Lord and the strength of his glory and might, because he is the true God.

That's what we remember.

And then one last event in this that I want to draw our attention to to show us, to show you that this song is your song, that in Christ this song is our song.

Verses 15, excuse me, chapter 15, verses 20 and 21.

Then Miriam, the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women went out after her with tambourines and dancing.

And Miriam sang to them, Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously, the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea.

Why do we get this image of Miriam taking the tambourine?

Pentecostal churches will be burdened by this text for hundreds of years as the tambourines are brought in.

Why is our attention drawn to Miriam here?

What are we being shown in Miriam being the one who leads on the singing of all the women who have uh come across through the Red Sea?

Miriam is the prophetess, which means she she speaks the these oracles of God, and she she is a uh uh but also real she has a relative, you know.

It says um the sister of Aaron, which is a kind of an odd way to say it, you know, because Aaron is the brother of Moses, so she's Moses' sister as well.

And we've seen Miriam before in this story.

Do you remember the last time we saw Miriam in this story?

Moses is uh a little baby, he's about three months old, and he's placed into the sea, you know, uh the river, the reeds, but he's placed into the sea in a little ark because all the babies of Egypt were being murdered, all the newborn Hebrew boys were being murdered, and so they snuck out Moses.

So you'll remember the story.

His parents hid him, and they snuck him out, and they put Moses into the basket, into the sea.

It's it's a little ark.

And uh one family member sticks around to see what's gonna happen to that little ark that Moses is placed in.

And it's Moses's big sister, his older sister, Miriam.

She watches by the side of the shore what's going to happen to this Moses.

And what does she see?

Moses is drawn out of the waters, and he's brought into the house of royalty, and he is made a son of the king.

Now, for the second time, Miriam gets to witness God rescuing her whole world by drawing it out of the waters and making them all the son of the king.

And so she goes out and she sings as she witnesses this.

Her little brother is now the king.

Her brother is now the king.

And she she's also there's this sense in which you know what it is.

Some of you are big sisters.

If you have a big sister, you know that they think of you as their kid.

I have two big sisters, which just means three moms.

And so there's this sense in which Miriam is like this mother of Moses, like this proud mom, but she's also the sister of Moses, who is now the son of the king.

And what is this, why this song, what is this drawing our attention to?

You know, when you see the women go out together and you see Miriam sing together, you should think women are singing to the thing.

You know what that is?

That's the church.

That's the picture of the church, who sees that her king has rescued her, who is also her brother, and is also, in a sense, her son.

Who is Miriam?

Do you know what that name is?

In it's Mary.

It's Mary.

It's the same name.

And what did Mary see?

Mary saw her son go into the depths of death, as if he was just set in a little box in the water, almost certain death for her son.

But Mary witnessed her son, the true son of God, go into true death.

Death itself.

And on the other side of that, what does she bear witness to?

But the resurrection of her son, drawn out of more than the waters, but drawn out from death itself, a conquering hero, to be declared the eternal son of God, and all authority in heaven and on earth has been given.

And so we sing.

This is like Mary's song.

This is the church's song.

And we as the church, we look and we see it what is what is Jesus to Mary?

He's her son, but he's her king.

He's her her her son, but he's her brother.

Just like Miriam.

Just like Miriam.

And so we sing with our tambourines, just like Miriam does, as the church, to worship the true Son of God.

This is our song in Jesus Christ, just as it was Miriam's song in the hope of Jesus Christ, just as it's Mary's song in the hope of Jesus Christ.

This is our song.

This is our song.

So let's sing it.

Let's remember.

Let's make the worship songs of God the songs of our lives, the songs that echo through our children's homes.

Let's let it mark these memories.

These are our songs, the truest memories we have.

Remember them, because they'll teach you who God is.

All right.

Are there any questions today, Carlos?

No questions.

Great.

Then let's take communion together.

Let's pray first, then we'll take communion together.

Lord God, we thank you for your loving kindness, for your strength, for what you've shown us in Jesus Christ, that this can be our song.

Lord, we are not descendants by blood of this story, though many of us aren't, some of us may be, but Lord, we are this is our song by faith, because by faith you grafted us in to the people of God.

By faith in Jesus Christ, our enemies are conquered, our sin is atoned for.

Lord, you are our song, you are our champion.

We ask that you might be praised in all glory and all honor to that end.

We lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.