October 4, 2026 | Jon Brown

I'll tell you more about my experience a little later if the morning goes well.

We're gonna burrow our way into just a couple of uh Bible verses this morning.

They're from the Old Testament, uh, from the book of Exodus.

Do not be afraid.

Stand firm and see the deliverance that the Lord will accomplish for you today.

The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to keep still.

I'm not entirely sure who needs to hear that this morning.

I'm guessing somebody.

Don't be afraid.

Stand firm.

See the deliverance the Lord will accomplish for you today.

The Lord will fight for you.

You only have to keep still.

I love most of that.

Here's the part I don't like.

Keep still.

No.

Uh-uh.

Nope.

I don't want to.

I'm not going to.

Because if I don't do it, who's going to do it?

If I don't fight, who's going to fight?

If I don't fight, they're going to win.

And if they win, then what?

You have only to keep still.

But they they tell me silence is complicity and your inaction speaks volumes.

Keep still.

But there's so much pain and hurt and heartache and injustice.

What do you mean?

Keep still.

Anybody tracking with me?

It's embedded in a really dramatic story that I want you to hear just to bring you up to the moment.

So Christians think God made the world.

It's got real bad, call that the fall.

Flood rises, Babel rises.

God makes a promise to Abram, gives Isaac a ram, Jacob a dream.

Joseph finds himself in Egypt.

Things go pretty well for a while, but an election sort of took place.

Government shifted, things got bad, real bad.

And the people of God, Israel, found themselves pressed under the thumb of an angry Pharaoh.

God's not going to let that last long.

Well, at least not any longer.

Listen, that's where we enter the story.

The Lord said to Moses, tell the Israelites to turn back and camp in front of Pi Hieroth between Migdal and the sea, in front of Baalziphon.

You shall camp opposite it by the sea.

Pharaoh will say of the Israelites, they're wandering aimlessly in the land, the wilderness has closed in on them.

I will harden Pharaoh's heart.

And he will pursue them, and I will gain glory for myself over Pharaoh and his armies, and the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord.

And they did so.

When the king of Egypt learned that Israel had fled, the mind of Pharaoh and his officers were changed about the people of Israel.

They said, What have we done letting Israel leave our service?

So Pharaoh had his chariot made ready and he took his army with him.

He took six hundred picked chariots and all the other chariots of Egypt with officers over all of them.

And they pursued Israel with their chariots and their chariot drivers, and they overtook them at Pihahairoth in front of Baalziphon.

As Pharaoh drew near, the Israelites looked back and saw the Egyptians advancing on them.

In great fear, they cried out to the Lord.

They said to Moses, Were there no graves in Egypt?

That you took us away to die in the wilderness?

What is this that you've done bringing us out of Egypt?

This is what we told you while we were still in Egypt.

Let us alone, let us serve the Egyptians.

It would be better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.

And Moses said, Do not be afraid.

Stand firm.

See the deliverance the Lord will accomplish for you today.

The Egyptians you see here today, you will never see again.

The Lord will fight for you.

You have only to keep still.

But you lift up your staff and stretch out your hands over the waters.

So the waters divide, and the Israelites walk through the sea on dry ground.

Pharaoh and the Egyptians with their chariots and their chariot drivers will go in after them, and I will gain glory for myself over Pharaoh and his chariots and his chariot drivers, and the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord.

The angel of the Lord, which was in front of the army of Israel, moved and went behind, and the pillar of cloud that was in front moved and took its place behind them.

It came between the army of Egypt and the army of Israel.

So the cloud was there, and the pillar of darkness, and it lit up the night, and one did not come to the other all night.

Then Moses stretched out his hand over the waters.

And the Lord caused the waters to turn back by a great east wind, and and and there was dry land, and the waters divided.

And the Israelites walked through the sea on dry ground, the waters forming a wall for them on their right and on their left.

And at the morning watch, the Lord looked down from the pillar of cloud and and and fire and on the Egyptian army and threw the Egyptian army into panic.

He clogged their chariot wheels and made turning difficult.

And the Egyptians cried out, Let us flee from the Israelites, for the Lord is fighting for them against Egypt.

And the Lord said to Moses, Stretch out your hand over the water so that the waters come back upon the Egyptians.

And at dawn, Moses stretched out his hand, and the waters returned to their normal depth.

The Egyptians fled before it, and the Lord tossed the Egyptians into the sea.

The waters covered the chariots and their chariot drivers, and all the army of Egypt that went in after them, not one of them remained.

But the Israelites walked through the sea on dry ground, the waters forming a wall for them on their right and on their left.

Thus the Lord saved Israel that day against the Egyptians.

And the Israelites saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore.

And the Israelites saw the great work the Lord did against the Egyptians.

And the people feared the Lord and believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

It's Exodus 14.

You can find it if you'd like.

It's the story of the parting of the Red Sea.

It's the story of the oppressed moving toward possibility, of the abused moving towards freedom.

It's the story that holds our verse.

Don't be afraid.

Stand firm.

See the deliverance the Lord will accomplish for you today.

The Lord will fight for you.

You have only to keep still.

What is it?

9 44?

This is my job.

I have nothing else to do today.

So I'm just gonna run with this sermon in three ways.

Something we need to be real clear on, something that's really significant, and then we'll contend with our verse.

Does that sound alright?

Here's what we need to be clear on.

At least as Exodus 14 unfolds.

God is God.

How's that?

Aren't you glad you came to church?

God is God.

It was under discussion at the time in ancient Israel.

Whose God is God?

And the debate really was determined by the circumstances of the people who worshiped the God.

Essentially, if your God is God, our lives will be better.

If your God is God, we win.

We have more.

We get more.

It works out for us.

That's how we know whose God is God.

We would never think that way now.

It was not good for Israel.

It was not good for a long time.

It wasn't like a bad stretch.

It was like a bad set of centuries.

Pressed, pushed, crushed, demoralized, diminished, and they're gonna say, God is God, our God is God, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob is God, the God of Israel is God, the God of the oppressed people is God, the God of the marginalized people is God, the God of the hurting people is God, the God of the woman who's not safe to walk the streets at night is God?

The God of the kids getting pushed around and pushed about and bullied all the time.

That God is God?

Exodus 14 says that God is God.

And I think maybe we would do well to claim it again.

In our sort of monotheistic assumptions and our Jesus saturated language, don't forget the fundamental claim of the Christian story, God is God.

The sort of pat everybody on the back vibe sort of kind of rubs against the grain of the fundamental claim of the Christian story.

Hero Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone.

Jesus is Lord, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, the God of Joseph, the God of Moses, the God of Miriam, the God of Ruth, the God of Esther, the God of Mary, the Atakos, the God-bearer, who comes to us in the person of Jesus Christ, that God is God.

And you can't really walk away from Exodus 14 without claiming it, naming it, saying it.

I mean, Exodus 14, verse 4.

Exodus 14:4

I will gain glory for myself over Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord.

Exodus 14, verse 17.

Exodus 14:17

I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they will go in after them, so that I will gain glory for myself over Pharaoh and all his army, his chariot and his chariot drivers.

Then the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord.

Verse 31.

Israel saw the great work that the Lord did against the Egyptians, so the people feared the Lord and believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses.

God is God.

Are you with me?

I mean, however you feel about how that God is God, that's a different conversation.

But this story is insisting God is God.

We should just be clear.

Now here's something really significant.

I think it is.

Salvation is on the line.

Salvation is at stake.

Verse 30.

Thus the Lord saved Israel that day.

So God is God and God saves, and we engage Exodus 14, and you gotta be like.

What?

Is this sort of like a pernicious, malicious God is God?

I just sort of decided arbitrarily.

It'll go well for you, but it'll go over for you.

Is this God kind of mean?

Sort of who knows what God's gonna do, you just don't know.

I mean, you know, the Egyptians weren't great.

Can we just let's just intellectually honesty requires us to acknowledge they were mean?

They were pressing and crushing for hundreds of years.

So like you just gotta say, like it wasn't great.

And the Exodus 14 story is is it it's self-consciously pointing to the larger story, like you maybe you notice there's some serious creation echoes in this story, like the pillar of cloud was there in the darkness and it lit up the night, which is kind of the darkness and light vibe.

You know, in the beginning, God hovers over the pre-creation chaos and says, Let there be light, and the separates the light from the darkness.

You kind of hear this the self, this Exodus 14 story self-consciously pointing to a larger story that it's a part of.

And then, of course, you get Moses stretches over his hands over the over the waters, and and the waters part and waters separate, they divide, and there's and dry land appears, which is day two of creation.

And then if you want to think about it this way, in Genesis 1, God saw everything that he had made, and indeed it was very good.

And in Exodus 14, they saw all that God did.

You kind of this self, Exodus 14 is self-consciously pointing to the much larger story.

And of course, the echoes of the flood narrative are obvious.

And the flood narrative gives way to the covenant story when God shows up to Abram and says, basically, here's the deal: I'll be your God, you'll be my people, and through you we're gonna bless the world.

It's not just arbitrarily choosing some to be kind to while others suffer.

It's it's the preservation of the story, it's the preservation of the mystery.

It's about blessing, it's about blessing the whole world.

Jesus Christ is the blessing to the whole world.

Thus, the Lord saved Israel that day is not just willy-nilly arbitrarily choosing some instead of another, but rather unfolding the whole drama of salvation until finally Jesus Christ would turn violence in on its head from the cross.

Finally, Jesus would come and turn glory upside down into humility.

Finally, Jesus Christ would come in this eye for eye, tooth for tooth, if you if you have, I must not have, gets all turned in on itself, and you turn the other cheek and you go the extra mile and you love your enemy and you pray for those who persecute you.

It's not just arbitrary, it's about the preservation of a blessing, a promise, a mission for the whole world.

Isn't that why in John's Gospel and our favorite verse, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so that whoever believes in him will not perish, but will have everlasting life.

For God did not send a sin into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved.

Are you with me?

If you're gonna read Exodus 14 and make conclusions about God, at least acknowledge it's a part of a much larger story, a much larger drama.

It is telling you it's a part of a much larger story that culminates in the person of Jesus Christ, whose heart is to save everyone who calls on the name of the Lord.

I just think it's really significant.

So God is God, that's point one of the sermon, if you're writing, if you're taking notes.

Jesus saves, that's point two, and then point three.

Keep still.

See the deliverance the Lord will accomplish for you today.

The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to keep still.

Which is kind of ironic.

I don't know if you picked up on this.

Moses preaches this amazing sermon, you know.

The sermon's application is keep still, and John Mark Homer's like, that's right.

That's a great sermon.

And then God says to Moses, what is what does God say to Moses?

Go forward.

What?

No, we did it, we just said keep still.

And now you say go forward.

What it which is it?

It's it's it's to keep still is not do nothing, not sit back complacent while a world suffers.

It's it's an inner confidence in a God who is God and a God who saves, so you go forward in stillness.

I've been reading this book, some one of you recommended it to me.

Uh Sit Walk Stand by Watchman Knee.

Christianity's a strange business.

If at the outset we try to do anything, we get nothing.

If we seek to attain something, we miss everything.

For Christianity begins not with a big do, but with a big done.

Isn't that great?

If God is God and Jesus saves, go forward in stillness.

Maybe you don't have to fight.

Maybe you don't have to yell.

Maybe you don't have to push so hard.

Maybe you can go forward in stillness into whatever big decisions this week has for you, into whatever pressures you face, into whatever pain is mounting, go forward in stillness.

So I was, this was, I don't even remember.

This like a month ago, three weeks ago.

I was standing in the back, you know, I preach these sermons, and you come to the table, and I sneak off the side and I stand in the back, and we're singing this old hymn, Oh the D.

Which I used to sing to my kids.

Have I told you this?

I used to sing to my kids when we'd swim in Lake Michigan.

You know, the waves pounding on us is the current of the high love.

Yeah.

Sorry about that.

So so we're back there singing, and you know, I this isn't really about my kids, don't be confused.

I'm using it as a metaphor, but my kids were there.

They were there.

They were in the here's a picture of my little spirit, I think we have it, of my little spiritual moment in the back a couple of weeks ago.

So I don't know if you just leave the picture there a second.

I don't know if you can see how how tightly I'm holding on.

Can you see that?

I mean, they're they're like they are like cocked over.

So there's two of the kids are out of the house, and the third one's there.

And again, it's just a metaphor.

It's not really about my kids.

It's just like, I feel like I've got to hold on.

I gotta keep it tight.

I gotta control it, because if I don't do it, who's gonna do it?

If I don't manage, who's managing?

You know, there's so much stuff in the world and in our lives and in our hearts.

Like, I gotta hold on.

And we start singing.

Uh you started singing, so I started crying.

Oh, the deep, deep love.

Liv, you want to hop up and try it with me?

Because it's gonna get bad if I do it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Go ahead.

Yeah, I'm very serious.

You just can you do it?

Can you try it?

The deep, deep love of Jesus.

He loves it.

You making the connection?

Do I need to spell it out?

This is an honest question.

If I don't do it, who's gonna do it?

If I don't keep him tight, who's gonna keep them tight?

The Lord will fight for you.

You have only to keep still.

God is God.

Jesus saves.

Go forward in stillness.

Amen.

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.