By His Strong Hand

We are going to take a pause in 2 Kings. Pastor Jason will pick that up next week, but this week we're going to be in the book of Exodus, Exodus chapter 12. You can turn there now.

Exodus 12 · chapter mention

As you turn there now, I want to remind you that this past Thursday was VE Day. That's Victory in Europe Day. That's because over 80 years ago, on May 8, 1945, the German armed forces declared their unconditional surrender.

World War II had been raging for almost six years at that point. It had claimed 70 to 85 million lives, they estimate. So Germany's surrender, it was a momentous occasion.

As the news spread, the Western world rejoiced. On that very day that the surrender was signed, crowds gathered in New York, in London, Washington, D.C., Toronto, Paris.

There were parades. People were literally dancing in the streets. Everyone was celebrating the Allies' victory in Europe. Well, today we're going to look at the end of Exodus 12 and the beginning of Exodus 13.

And our passage is like a VE Day for the people of God. They were in the middle of their own VE Day, but it was more like a Victory in Egypt Day instead of Victory in Europe.

After 430 years in Egypt, the people of God were finally being freed. On the eve of Israel's VE Day, God struck down Egypt's firstborn, from the firstborn of their animals to the firstborn of their sons, including Pharaoh's son.

By morning, Pharaoh agreed to let God's people go. The rest of the Egyptians begged them all to leave and to never come back again. They gave Israelites gifts of silver and gold and costly clothing, and they hoped to never see them ever again.

The Israelites took these treasures and the rest of their belongings, and they headed for freedom. As they were leaving, God gave his people instructions about how they were to celebrate their VE Day in the future,

calling them to remember what he had done for them on that day for generations to come. With that, would you please follow along as I read Exodus 12, 43 through Exodus 13, 16.

And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, This is the statute of the Passover. No foreigner shall eat of it, but every slave that is bought for money may eat of it after you have circumcised him.

No foreigner or hired worker may eat of it. It shall be eaten in one house. You shall not take any of the flesh outside the house, and you shall not break any of its bones.

All the congregation of Israel shall keep it. If a stranger shall sojourn with you and would keep the Passover to the Lord, let all his males be circumcised.

Then he may come near and keep it. He shall be as a native of the land. But no uncircumcised person shall eat of it. There shall be one law for the native and for the stranger who sojourns among you.

All the people of Israel did just as the Lord commanded Moses and Aaron. And on the very day the Lord brought the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt by their hosts.

The Lord said to Moses, Consecrate to me all the firstborn, whatever is the first to open the womb among the people of Israel, both of man and of beast, is mine.

Then Moses said to the people, Remember this day in which you came out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, for by a strong hand the Lord brought you out from this place.

No leavened bread shall be eaten. Today in the month of Abib you are going out. And when the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, which he swore to your fathers to give you, a land flowing with milk and honey,

you shall keep this service in this month. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. And on the seventh there shall be a feast to the Lord.

Unleavened bread shall be eaten for seven days. No leavened bread shall be seen with you. No leaven shall be seen in your territory. You shall tell your son on that day, It is because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.

And it shall be to you as a sign on your hand and as a memorial between your eyes that the law of the Lord may be in your mouth. For with a strong hand the Lord has brought you out of Egypt.

You shall therefore keep this statute at its appointed time from year to year. And when the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites, as he swore to you and your fathers, and shall give it to you, you shall set apart to the Lord all the first that opens the womb.

All the firstborn of your animals that are male shall be the Lord's. Every firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb. Or if you will not redeem it, you shall break its neck.

Every firstborn of man among your sons you shall redeem. And when in time to come your son asks you, What does this mean? You shall say to him, By a strong hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt from the house of slavery.

For when Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the Lord killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both the firstborn of man and the firstborn of animals.

Therefore I sacrifice to the Lord all the males that first opened the womb, but the firstborn of my sons I redeem. It shall be as a mark on your hand or a frontlets between your eyes.

For by a strong hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt. Would you pray with me again this morning? Heavenly Father, we thank you for this opportunity we have to study your word.

Your word is true and clear and powerful and sweeter than honey. So we pray, Father, that you would speak to us through your word once again this morning, and that you would make our hearts humble and grateful.

It's in Jesus that we pray. Amen.

So, the Israelites were supposed to remember what God had done for them throughout their generations. But how were they to do that? That's the question that this passage answers.

How were they supposed to remember what God had done for them? Well, for starters, they were supposed to observe the Passover. The Passover was a meal, the meal that the Israelites ate on the night before they were delivered.

On that night, God gave them specific instructions of what to do. They should stay inside. They should put the blood of the sacrificed lamb on the doorposts.

They should eat in haste. They should dress for departure. And the Israelites were told to eat this Passover meal, not just once, but over and over, once a year, every year, throughout their generations.

And so, in verses 43 through 49, the Lord gave them, gave his people more laws about this Passover meal. The first was that no foreigner was allowed to eat the Passover meal.

This might seem really random to us, like a random thing to say in the middle of this passage, but it was very relevant for the Israelites. You know, back in verse 38 of chapter 12, we were told that a mixed multitude was leaving Egypt with the Israelites.

This mixed multitude, they were non-Hebrews, they were foreigners that decided to come along with the Israelites. And not only that, not only were they traveling with foreigners, but they were traveling to a land of foreigners.

You know, the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, as chapter 13 tells us. So, it's not random because it's very relevant, because the people of Israel would be around lots of foreigners for the foreseeable future.

But God wants them to know that they were not to invite these foreigners to join in the Passover feast. Now, that wasn't because the Israelites didn't like foreigners, or it wasn't because God didn't like foreigners.

It was because, rather, Israel was special to God. Only Israel had been set apart for God, and only Israel bore the promise of God's blessing.

Only Israel had been saved during the actual Passover, when the angel of the Lord passed over them. So, only Israel should celebrate the Passover meal.

The Passover was a sacred event, and the Passover meal was a sacred meal. It was made sacred by God's grace, and only those who had received God's grace in the Passover were allowed to participate.

Foreigners could not eat because they were not part of the people of God. However, there was a way that foreigners could become part of the people of God, and if they did that, then they could partake of the Passover.

Foreigners who were purchased as slaves or servants by the Israelites, they could eat the Passover meal as long as they were circumcised first.

Circumcision was a sign that God gave to His people to signify His covenant with them. You know, by becoming circumcised or by circumcising your child, you were showing faith in God's promise and submission to God.

So, foreign-born slaves that were brought into an Israelite household and took up the sign of Israel's faith, they were no longer foreigners or outsiders, but they became insiders.

You know, they were part of the people of God. They were allowed to eat the Passover meal. But verse 45 emphasizes again, foreigners hired workers that did not have the sign of faith.

They could not eat of the Passover meal. And in verse 46, we see that the Passover was meant to be eaten as a household. It was not meant to be taken outside of the household.

It was eaten by insiders, and it was supposed to stay inside of their homes. And the meat was supposed to come from an unblemished lamb without any broken bones.

And in verse 47, we see that this meal was supposed to be eaten by all the congregation of Israel. Everyone was called to eat the Passover meal every year from this point forward.

But, if strangers were traveling among the people of Israel, those strangers, if they wanted to keep the Passover, and if they were willing to take the sign of Israel's faith, circumcising all their males, then those strangers would also be able to eat the Passover, just like in Israelite.

No uncircumcised person was permitted to eat of the Passover, but those who took the sign of faith, whether native or a traveler, a sojourner, they should be treated the same.

So the Lord gives all these instructions about eating the Passover, about foreigners, about outsiders and insiders. He gave these instructions to Moses and Aaron, and Moses and Aaron delivered these instructions to the Israelites as they were leaving Egypt, and the Israelites listened and obeyed.

And then we come to the start of chapter 13, and in verse 1, we see another set of instructions from the Lord. These instructions had to do with Israel's firstborn, these firstborn.

The Lord said to Moses, consecrate to me all the firstborn. Whatever is the first to open the womb among the people of Israel, both of man and of beast, is mine.

The firstborn were special in the ancient world. I think they're very special today. Well, I'm a firstborn. But they were also very special in the ancient world.

You know, firstborn, they had this place of prominence. They had a special worth to their parents. Firstborn had a special inheritance that they stood to inherit.

But God's saying from then on, Israel was supposed to take those things that were very precious to them, their firstborn, and they were supposed to consecrate them unto God.

That meant they were supposed to set them apart as sacred unto God. They weren't to keep them for themselves, but they were to give them over as holy to God.

And this included the firstborn among their children and even the firstborn among their livestock. These firstborn, the Lord says, they belonged to him.

They belonged to the Lord. They were claimed by the Lord. And these Israelites were supposed to recognize that by offering them back, giving the things that belong to God back to God.

We'll get a little bit more clarity on that later on. But in verse 3, we see Moses, he receives this word from the Lord, and then he begins to pass on that word to his people, to the people of Israel.

He says, Remember this day in which you came out from Egypt, out of the house of slavery, for by a strong hand the Lord brought you out from this place.

Israel's freedom from Egypt wasn't some random good luck. It wasn't an act of benevolence from Pharaoh. God was doing this. He powerfully intervened for the good of his people, and God wanted his people to remember that.

He wanted them to remember that he was the source of this blessing. And so to help them remember, God gave them a yearly feast, the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

And this feast was designed to help the Israelites commit what God had done for them to their memory. The feast was first introduced in chapter 12 of Exodus.

And it's brought up again in here, in verses 3 through 10. This time, the emphasis is on observing the feast in the future. So the first time it comes up, hey, this is what you should do about this feast.

Now it's, hey, in the future, when you take this feast, this is what you should be doing. God was going to bring his people to a better land, a land he promised to give their fathers, a land of bounty and of blessing.

And once God brought them into a new land, every year on the anniversary of their deliverance, they were supposed to observe this feast. So for seven days before the feast, the Israelites must not eat any leavened bread.

They should remove all the leaven from their territory. They should only eat unleavened bread. And this was to symbolize the quick delivery that God orchestrated.

You know, the people of Israel, once God heard them and acted, they were delivered so fast, their bread didn't even have time to rise. You know, God acted very quickly.

So they should remove leaven, and then on the seventh day, they should have a feast unto the Lord. And this feast would be a yearly opportunity to teach the next generation about the power of God that the previous generation had experienced.

You know, on the feast day, the oldest son of the household should be given an explanation for why in the world they were taking this strange feast.

He should be told, it is because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt. God wanted his people to remember what he had done for them.

Year after year, generation after generation, feast after feast. The saving acts of God, they should do this, they should remember these things so that the saving acts of God would be near to them, that they would be dear to them.

You know, they were to be like symbols worn on their wrists, like memorials being worn on their heads. That's what the passage said anyway. Some Jews in Jesus' day, or by the time Jesus walked the earth, they took this really literally, and they wore these little bits of scripture on their wrists.

They wore it on their heads, between their eyes. But most evangelical scholars tell us that the language in Exodus is really figurative. It just means that God, God's actions should be ever before his people, informing everything they do when they use their hands or when they think about things.

God's actions should be informing them. They should work hard to remember everything that God has done, and it's because the passage tells us they should remember so that the laws of God would be in their mouths.

Neglecting to remember God's acts would lead them to forget God's commands and even to forget God himself. So they must remember.

Then in verse 11, Moses returns to the consecration of Israel's firstborn. He reiterated that God's people should set apart to the Lord all their firstborn.

He explained that the consecration to the Lord meant one of two things. They could either sacrifice their firstborn to the Lord, or they could redeem their firstborn from the Lord by providing a suitable substitute for those firstborn.

And then in verse 13, we see a couple examples of this, how this is going to work out in the future. So the first example has to do with a firstborn animal.

This is a firstborn donkey. So if a male donkey, a firstborn male donkey was born, it belonged to the Lord. And that meant the people would either have to sacrifice the donkey to the Lord by breaking the donkey's neck.

That might seem really wasteful to us, especially to good Midwesterners like us. We don't waste things. We don't waste food. We don't waste anything.

We certainly wouldn't want to waste a donkey like this. But killing this donkey would have been a great sign of honor unto the Lord, giving to him that which could be used for personal gain.

It's kind of like when Jesus is anointed by that woman who breaks the very costly perfume and spreads it over his feet. That seemed really wasteful, but it was an act of honor.

The same thing could be happening with the death of this donkey. But if the killing of the donkey kind of offends your sensibilities, it's okay.

The donkey can be saved. There was another way. They could redeem the donkey from the Lord. They could provide an acceptable sacrifice in the donkey's place.

In this instance, a lamb could be killed instead of a donkey. So the lamb could die. The donkey could go free. So that's one way, you know, you could either sacrifice or redeem, provide a suitable substitute.

But that's when it comes to animals. When it comes to humans, though, firstborn sons, sacrifice is not an option for the Lord. He does not want his people to commit human sacrifice.

Firstborns, firstborn sons, would always have to be redeemed. They would always have to provide a suitable substitute for them. But we might want to ask, why should the Israelites consecrate their firstborn?

And that's a good question to ask. And verse 14 tells us that's the question that Israelite children would ask on the day of this feast or on the day when these firstborn are consecrated unto the Lord.

And when they do ask, hey, what gives? Why are we doing this? Israelite parents were supposed to connect the dots for them. They were supposed to say, by a strong hand, the Lord brought us out of Egypt from the house of slavery.

For when Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the Lord killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both the firstborn of man and the firstborn of animals.

Therefore, I sacrifice to the Lord all the males that first opened the womb, but all the firstborn of my sons, I redeem. Because Pharaoh refused to obey God and let God's people go, God judged Pharaoh and his kingdom by killing all of Egypt's firstborn.

But Israel's firstborn were kept safe. They were redeemed unto the Lord. A lamb was sacrificed in their place and its blood was spread on their doorpost.

The redemption price was paid and God spared Israel's firstborn. You know, what's going on here is I think really helpfully summarized by the scholar Douglas Stewart.

He writes, In effect, the child was to be told, our identity is that of God's chosen people who were rescued from slavery in Egypt and rescued from the death of the firstborn by faith in Yahweh.

We keep showing that faith by dedicating all the firstborn children and all the firstborn male livestock to God. But we buy back the children and the livestock that are inappropriate for God's offering because God is gracious enough to allow us to do that.

And in verse 16, we see that this system of consecration and sacrifice and redemption, and things like the Feast of Unleavened Bread and the Passover, this was yet another opportunity for the people of God, the people of Israel, to remember what God had done for them.

It was like a symbol and a memorial which would allow them to keep God's saving acts at the forefront of their lives. So that's kind of an explanation of what I think is kind of a complicated passage with a lot of strange events.

You know, I mean, in the middle of this exodus, God has given his people a bunch of instructions on what they should do in the future. I mean, they're in the middle of a kind of a cataclysmic, you know, joyful event, but they're getting information about what's supposed to happen in the future.

So for us, as we are kind of considering this kind of confusing passage this morning, you know, we're considering God's instruction concerning the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the consecration of the firstborn.

I think if we consider that passage and we try to boil it down to what it's kind of really all about, I think this passage is really all about what God has done for his people and how God wants them to live in light of that.

Okay? The Bible tells us, though, that his people are not just the Israelites. You know, the Israelites were not the sum total of God's people.

Today, everyone who believes in the Lord Jesus is grafted into those people, grafted into that family of God. So by faith, we also become part of God's people.

And if we have that in mind, then the events of the Exodus, we can see that they were preparing the way for what God would ultimately do for all his people through the gospel of his Son.

And we can see that these commands in Exodus, they contain these principles that still carry weight for us as God's people today. And so that's what I want to kind of like use as a framework as we consider moving forward today.

You know, what does this passage teach us about being God's people? What does this passage teach us about living as God's people today? So the first point I want us to consider is this.

God's people have been saved by a strong hand. God's people have been saved by a strong hand. This passage gives us some powerful images to describe the work of the Lord in the lives of his people.

You know, by a strong hand, the Lord brought out his people from the house of slavery. By a strong hand, the Lord killed the enemies of his people.

By a strong hand, the Lord redeemed his people for himself. And by a strong hand, the Lord promised to bring his people to the promised land.

But these images do more than describe how all that worked in the lives of, how God worked in the lives of his people 3,500 years ago. These images also point forward to what God would one day accomplish for his people in the Lord Jesus Christ.

In Christ, God redeemed his people once for all through the sacrificial death of Jesus. That's what we read in Ephesians 1. In him, in Jesus, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace.

Jesus was the only suitable redemption price. You know, the eternally begotten Son of God, the firstborn of all creation. Jesus was sacrificed so that we could all be spared from the death that we deserved.

But also in Christ, God brought every Christian out of the house of slavery. Slavery to sin and slavery to darkness. That's what it says in Colossians 1.

God has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son. Furthermore, in Christ, God brought down the great enemies of the people of God.

Sin, death, and the devil. That's what we read in Hebrews 2. Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil.

And in Christ, God has promised to bring Christians into a much greater promised land. That's what we read in 2 Peter 3. But according to his promise, we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

So, if you are a believer here today, you belong to the Lord in Christ, and these acts of the Lord have been applied to you. In Christ, like the Israelites, you have been saved by the Lord's strong hand.

And the Bible tells us, though, that God desires that everyone would be saved by his strong hand. So, if you're not a believer here today, you can still be saved by the strong hand of the Lord.

You know, the work of Christ can still be applied to you, but you can't work for those works. You can't study for them. You can't fight for them.

You can only receive them by acknowledging your sins and turning from them, turning to the Lord Jesus in faith. So, if you're not a believer today, I want to encourage you to ask the Lord today to take you for his own, to save you by his strong hand.

Those who belong to the Lord or the people of God have been saved by his strong hand. A second point I want us to consider this morning is this, point number two, God's people remember what has been done for them.

God's people remember what has been done for them. God wants his people to remember all that he has done for them. Even as he is actively delivering them, he gives them instructions to remember what he's doing.

You know, he says, keep the Passover to remember. Eat the feast of unleavened bread to remember. Consecrate your firstborn to remember. And why does God want his people to remember all that he's done?

Well, it's because when God's people fail to remember what God has done, they start to also forget what God commands, that's what the passage tells us, and they even start to forget God himself.

You know, we've been seeing this play out in our study of the book of 2 Kings. Think back to a couple weeks ago as we talked about the reign of Josiah.

You know, in the middle of that reign, Israel was a mess. You know, okay, so the people were neglecting to remember God. They were neglecting to remember, the passage told us they were neglecting to remember the Passover particularly.

They were neglecting to remember these practices that God had given them to remember. No Passover, no feast of unleavened bread, no consecration of the firstborn.

They failed to remember. And what happened? Well, they started forgetting that God was their source of strength and blessing, and they started looking to other sources for help.

We saw them blending in the worship of false gods in the hopes of securing power from those false gods in addition to power from the true God.

We saw them looking to foreign kings for protection, for safety. We even saw them starting to sacrifice their children, mutilating their bodies for blessing.

They forgot all that God had done for them, and they stopped looking to God for what they needed. And Josiah, he took several steps to turn the ship around, but one of them was reinstituting the Passover, which meant that he was teaching God's people how to remember once again.

God wants his people to remember all that he has done for them. That's a big theme of our passage. And in our passage, I think we are offered three types of remembrances, and all three types of remembrances are important.

The first type we see is personal remembrance. Personal remembrance. remembrance. That's what we see in this call for each person to have the acts of God near them, like a mark on their hand, or like a front lip between their eyes.

That's really personal language. And that tells us that each Christian should take time to remember what God has done for them personally, allowing those truths to shape who you are and how you live each day.

Personal remembrance. remembrance. There are many ways that each of us, each of you, can practice personal remembrance. One of them is Bible reading.

As you read the Bible for yourself, you're reminded of the many wonderful things that God has done for you. You're giving the Holy Spirit an opportunity to remind you of those truths and to impress them into your own heart and into your own mind.

But you could also keep a journal where you could pause and reflect upon and record what God had done for you in your life on a particular day.

That could be a way that you practice personal remembrance. You could also mark dates on your calendar when you personally experienced God's care, like the day you accepted Jesus, something you could mark on a calendar and remember each year, or the day that God provided you a job, or the day that God provided for

an unexpected expense, or the day that God brought healing to your life, or the day that God brought you through a tragedy. God wants each of us to take time to personally remember what he has done for us.

Personal remembrance. But God also wants his people to take time for family remembrance. Family remembrance. We saw that twice in our passage, didn't we?

Children asking parents, parents explaining to children. You know, it's Mother's Day today, and moms, we all know that you are the ones that kids want to ask questions of, right?

Your kid will walk right past Dad, travel the whole house, tracking you down, even into the bathroom, to ask you a question instead of Dad. That happens.

This passage encourages you that when those questions come, you should use them for a moment of family remembrance. So maybe you'll be asked why your family prays before every meal.

people. You can answer, well, we do that because God has provided everything that this family has, and so we want to stop and we want to thank him.

Or maybe you'll be asked, you know, why do you put up with that annoying neighbor? And you can say, well, God has been gracious to our family, and so God wants us to be gracious to others.

A moment of family remembrance. Or maybe you'll be asked, you know, why you remain joyful in a season of struggle. Maybe you'll be asked by that when your kids when they're older.

And you can say, well, God has always used hard things in life for our good, so we are confident that he will do it again. God wants Christian families to take time for family remembrance, opportunities to remember his goodness together.

But in our passage we saw a third type of remembrance, and we saw corporate remembrance, corporate remembrance. You know, the Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Consecration of the Firstborn, these were corporate events.

They were engaged by all of the people of God. That's what chapter 12 verse 47 said, all the congregation of Israel shall keep it. All the congregation should remember these things together.

God wants Christians today to also engage in acts of corporate remembrance. Now, this is important. Corporate remembrance today is different than it was then.

We are no longer required to observe the Passover or the Feast of Unleavened Bread or to make sacrifices for our firstborn. Those acts of remembrance were designed to point forward to Jesus.

And since Jesus has come, we no longer need to engage in them. But God has given us other ways that we can remember what God has done for us together.

And one very important act is what we're doing here this morning. That's corporate worship, the Sunday worship service. We gather every Sunday to remember and declare together what God has done for us in Christ.

We read about that together. We sing about that together. together. We pray about that together. Sunday mornings are an important part of how we honor God in corporate remembrance.

So, you know, applicationally this morning, I want to say, you know, what is that, how does that apply to your life? Well, go to church. You know, when you're tired or stressed out, go to church.

When you've had a long week, go to church. When you're traveling on a vacation, go to church. When you're so busy, you don't know how you're going to fit everything that you have to do in, go to church.

God wants his people to take part in corporate and in family and in personal acts of remembrance. They are important to God and they are important for us.

Here's a third point for us this morning, a third thing that we learn about being the people of God in this passage. God's people acknowledge the ins and outs of faith.

God's people acknowledge the ins and outs of faith. I'm taking this from the end of chapter 12. You know, all that talk about foreigners not participating in the Passover.

At its root, this is an acknowledgement that there are those who belong to the Lord and there are those who do not belong to the Lord. Those who have expressed faith in God are welcome to partake of that which is sacred to the Lord, but those who have not expressed faith, they're kept back, they're held

back. This shows us that God wants us today to acknowledge the ins and the outs of faith. You know, we should acknowledge the outs of faith.

Those who have not put their faith in Christ are on the outside. That's what Scripture says. Scripture says that unbelievers are not near to God, but they are far from God.

Scripture says that we are not all children of God, but unbelievers are rather enemies of God. Christians do a disservice to unbelievers when we treat them as if they are believers.

And this is one of the huge flaws of the seeker sensitive movement. I mean, those in the movement would say that we should, they would encourage us to downplay the distinctions between believers and non-believers.

That we should teach and pray using, you know, intentionally inclusive language so that unbelievers don't feel isolated or strange. We should allow unbelievers to serve, hoping that they will take steps forward toward Christ as they do.

We should make non-believers feel like they belong even before they believe. But with this passage in mind, we can see that this approach, while well intentioned, is not God honoring.

God wants us to acknowledge the outs of the Christian faith. Now, we certainly hope unbelievers come on Sunday. We certainly hope that they feel welcome.

But while they are here, we must acknowledge that those without faith in Jesus are on the outside looking in. Those without Christ are still far away from God and must be reconciled to God in Christ before it's too late.

We have to acknowledge the outs of the faith. But we also have to acknowledge the ends of the Christian faith. And by that I mean those who are in are in.

You know, think about those slaves who were circumcised, those travelers who were passing through. They were allowed to enjoy the Passover just as much as the Israelite who could trace his family tree right back to Abraham.

Because in, in in the faith, was in. In was in. And the same thing goes for Christians today. You know, as Paul said in Galatians 3, there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

That means that no Christian is holier than any other Christian. No Christian has more access to God than any other Christian, not even the Pope.

No Christian has less of a part of the family of God than any other Christian. In is in. And in order to fully acknowledge the ins of the Christian faith, Christians really need to fight against the sin of partiality.

You know, there will be some Christians that will be really easy for you to forgive, easy for you to overlook their offense, easy for you to bear their burden.

Usually it's those who you like to be around, you know, those who you share some affinity with. But for others, you get annoyed with them easily, you keep a record of wrongs, you steer clear of them.

That's not recognizing the ends of the Christian faith. That's treating some on the inside as if they're still on the outside. But God wants us to resist the temptation to show that kind of partiality.

We're called to act out one another commands with every Christian in our local church, not just the ones that we like. In is in. We need to acknowledge the ins and the outs of the Christian faith.

And lastly, this morning, the fourth thing this passage teaches us about being the people of God is this. God's people offer their firsts back to him.

God's people offer their firsts back to him. The Lord wanted his people to consecrate their firstborn to him, to set them apart unto him, their firstborn sons, their firstborn animals, their first, their most valuable, their most treasured.

The Lord already owned Israel's firstborn. He redeemed them for himself, but he still wanted them to offer their firstborn back to him, and they were to give back to God that which already belonged to him.

This same principle should apply to God's new covenant people, believers, us today. Everything any of us has is from God. He's the giver of life.

He's the sustainer of all things. He's the giver of every good gift. Furthermore, everything that we have belongs to God, because he has purchased every aspect of each of us with the blood of Jesus when we put our faith in Jesus.

And so God wants us to acknowledge that reality by giving our first and our best back to him. The Apostle Paul makes this point really clear in 2 Corinthians 9.

The point is this, whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

God wants us to be cheerful givers of our firsts. He wants us to give our firsts back to him. We can do this by giving the first day of our week back to God, by taking the opportunity to worship with God's people every Sunday.

We can do this by giving the first of our income back to God, planning to set aside a certain percentage of your paycheck, ensuring that no matter what happens to the rest of it, you will give back your first to God.

We can also give God first priority in our hearts. We are to love God above every other love. We are to seek to please God above every other pleasure.

We seek to serve God above every other potential master. God's people, if they have been purchased by him in Christ, and they have, we should seek to offer our firsts back to God and give cheerfully, thankfully, for all that God has done for us in

Christ. Christ. At this time, I'm going to invite the worship team to come back up, and they're going to lead us in a closing song so that we can worship the Lord together once again.

And as they do come, I want to invite you to pray with me once again this morning.

Heavenly Father, we thank you that you see your people, that you care for your people, that you work in your people's lives by your strong hand.

You've proved that in your Son, Father, in the Lord Jesus. We thank you for redeeming us in him. We thank you for delivering us in him. We thank you for promising to sustain us in him.

We pray this morning, Father, that you would help us to continually to remember what you've done for us in Jesus. May his life, his death, his resurrection and ascension be ever before us.

We pray now that you would be glorified us as we sing. It's in Jesus that we pray. Amen.