The Story of God: Out of Egypt

We live in a world of broken promises.  I remember the first broken promise in my life.   I was going to be in a Christmas Eve play at a Lutheran Church that my sister and I attended as kids. My dad was supposed to come and watch.  But he didn’t.  At the time I couldn’t understand why.  And all I remember was being confused and a little hurt.  Fortunately that wasn’t a habit for my dad.  So I got over it, but I never forgot it.  That’s the thing about broken promises.  They impact us.  My guess is that one time or another you have experienced the disappointment of a broken promise.  Maybe it was as a child when your dad didn’t show.  Or as a young adult when your spouse said she wanted a divorce.  Or maybe you experienced the disappointment of an employer who promised you advancement, but never delivered.  Or maybe it was a friend who said, “I’ve got your back” but bailed on you when you needed him most.  Parents break promises; Spouses break promises; Friends break promises; Employers break promises; and unfortunately Politicians break promises. And because we’ve all experienced broken promises at one time or another, many of us have grown wary of promise makers.

However, the good news I get to share with you today is this: We serve a God who keeps His promises. That’s what we’re going to see as we return to God’s story this morning. So if you brought your Bible with you, let me encourage you to find Exodus 12:31-42, where God fulfills His promises by bringing Israel out of Egypt.

But before we pick up the story, let me remind us of where we have been.  When we started this journey, we learned that the Israelites no longer lived under the favor of Pharaoh.  Instead they’d became so numerous that Pharaoh decided to enslave them, oppress them and even throw their new-born boys into the Nile.  Things got so bad that they began to cry out to God for deliverance. And God heard their cries.  And He chose Moses to be their deliverer:  Moses who was rescued as a child and grew up in Pharaoh’s court; Moses who tried to take matters into his own hands by killing an Egyptian; Moses who fled Pharaoh’s wrath and made a new life for himself in the desert. God met this Moses in a burning bush and said to him, “Go. I am sending you toPharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.” Exodus 3:10

But when God gave Moses this command, he’d been away from Egypt for 40 years, and was convinced God had the wrong man. So he gave God every excuse in the book to get out of it.  But God’s will would prevail.  He promised to be with Moses, to help him, to give Moses favor with the people and to work through him to confront Pharaoh.  He even told Moses what to say, and how He would strike Egypt with His mighty hand until one day, Pharaoh would let His people go.  And so that day has come.  One the heels of nine plagues that had destroyed all the gods of Egypt, God struck the death blow that would finally set His people free.  That’s where we pick up the story of God’s faithfulness to Israel.  For it is here that we see that Israel is finally…

Freed From Slavery Look at verse 31, During the night Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, “Up! Leave my people, you and the Israelites! Go, worship the Lord as you have requested.Take your flocks and herds, as you have said, and go. And also bless me.”Exodus12:31-32

“Up, leave and go!” Three words that tell us God is faithful.  Right here with these words out of Pharaoh’s mouth we see that God has kept His promise to Moses.  He told Moses that Pharaoh would one day let His people go.  He told Moses how it would happen.  God said He would bring His people out of Egypt through a man who swore he would never give in to what God wanted. Up till now, that had been true. Pharaoh refused to let God’s people go.  Every time he met Moses after a plague, he tried to get Moses to compromise God’s promise.  Every time he would give in a little, but would never truly let Israel go. First, he said they could worship, but not leave the land.  Then he said that only the men could go.  Next he said that the men, women and children could go, but they’d have to leave the flocks and herds behind.  But now devastated by the killing of his son, Pharaoh begs Moses to do what he’s been asking for all along. This is Pharaoh’s total surrender.  Now Pharaoh gives in to all of Moses’ demands: God’s people can go.  The women and children can go.  The herds and flocks can go.

God has kept His promise to Moses and to Israel. After living in slavery for over 400 years, God sets His people free from serving Pharaoh so they are now free to serve Him.  No longer are they in bondage.  No longer will they be treated with brutality.  Now they can leave their past behind and live as God’s people.

What a beautiful picture of what God has also done for us.  God’s Word says that that apart from the saving grace of Jesus, we were slaves to sin; ruled by the evil one; and in bondage to our fleshly cravings.  We were far from free. Listen to how Paul describes our slavery in Romans 6.  He says, When you wereslaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death!  Romans 6:20-21  But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.  For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Romans 6:22-23

Before Jesus set you free, your life was controlled by the world, the flesh and the devil.  These forces worked to keep you captive, to keep you from living the life God created you to live.  But when Jesus set you free, He set you free to live a new life: a life where you can now know the peace of God; a life where you can rest in God’s grace, know His pleasure; and be free to love others as He has loved you. As Paul declares:  You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love.  Galatians 5:13

“Up, leave and go!”These aren’t just words of God’s faithfulness, they are the marching orders for a new life.  Sometimes I think these are words we need to hear today: Wake up, leave the old life behind, and go with God into the new life He has prepared for you.”

God kept His promises to Moses.  Israel no longer had to live in bondage.  They were free.  And the same is true for us.  When you come to faith in Jesus Christ, God sets you free from your past:  You no longer have to be defined by your mistakes, your selfishness or your sins. You don’t have to live there anymore. Leave it behind and go with God into the new life He gives you:a life where you can be your true self – a life where you are free to live as His beloved and love others as God has loved you.  This is why Jesus set you free – not so you can do what you’ve always wanted to do – but so you can now do what you were created to do – to bring God glory!

“Up, leave and go!”  We serve a God who keeps His promises. He sets us free from slavery so we can serve Him.  But He does more than just free us from slavery.  Like Israel we are also…

Freed With Favor Look now at verse 33, The Egyptians urged the people to hurry and leave the country. “For otherwise,” they said, “we will all die!”  So the people took their dough before the yeast was added, and carried it on their shoulders in kneading troughs wrapped in clothing. The Israelites didas Moses instructed and asked the Egyptians for articles of silver and gold and for clothing.  The Lord had made the Egyptians favorably disposed toward the people, and they gave them what they asked for; so they plundered the Egyptians.  Exodus 12:33-36

When God brought Israel out of Egypt, He did not want them to leave empty handed, so He blessed them with the wealth of Egypt.  The Israelites did as God instructed and the Egyptians blessed them gold, silver and clothing.  After 400 years in slavery, God made it so that Israel would not crawl away as broken down slaves, but would walk out the front door with dignity.

This is the fulfillment of the promise God made to Abraham in Genesis 15 when he said to him, “Know for certain that for four hundredyears your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there.  But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. Genesis 15:13-14  We serve a God who keeps His promises.

God made the Egyptians favorably disposed to Israel because God was favorably disposed to Israel.  They were His people.  And God had made a covenant with Abraham, telling Him that He would always be with His people, for His people and would bless His people.  And now on the day they were freed, God made sure that they would know that Yahweh was not simply their deliverer, but their provider.

And God does the same for us in Christ.  God didn’t just rescue us from the domain of darkness; He didn’t just set us free from bondage to sin, but He richly blessed us with everything we need to live this new life with Him.  This is how Peter spells out the New Testament promise of God’s provision for this new life: His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these hehas given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.  2 Peter 1:3-4

God’s grace has been lavished on us.  The moment we trusted in Christ, we received every spiritual blessing in Christ:  He made us alive with Christ.  He gave us an inheritance in Christ that will never perish, spoil or fade.  He gave us the righteousness of Christ.  He gave us full time access to His throne of grace. He gave us the resurrection power of Jesus.  He gave us a new nature in Christ. He gave us a new relationship in Christ as beloved children.  And He gave us eternal life in Christ.  Like Paul said, In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us. Ephesians 1:7-8  We have been freed with favor.  God is favorably disposed to you.

And I don’t know about you, but when I begin to take hold of all God’s blessings to me in Christ, I’m not just grateful.  I’m free. I have so many blessings in Christ, that this world looses its grip on me.  This is the God we serve.  A God who doesn’t just keep His promises, but a God who richly, abundantly lavishes us with His grace.

Have you ever wondered why God does this?  Well, that leads us to the final aspect of God’s freedom to us.  He freed Israel from slavery.  He freed Israel with favor.  But it was all with an end in sight – the purpose that God has for His people.  They were…

Freed To Be A Blessing Let’s look now at the end of the passage: The Israelites journeyed from Rameses to Sukkoth. There were about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children. Many other people went up with them, and also large droves of livestock, both flocks and herds. With the dough theIsraelites had brought from Egypt, they baked loaves of unleavened bread. The dough was without yeast because they had been driven out of Egypt and did not have time to prepare food for themselves. Exodus 12:37-39

Now the length of time theIsraelite people lived in Egyptwas 430 years.  At the end of the 430 years, to the very day, all the Lord’s divisions left Egypt. Because the Lord kept vigil that night to bring them out of Egypt, on this night all the Israelites are to keep vigil to honor the Lord for the generations to come. Exodus 12:40-42

We have a God who Keeps His Promises! Here we see another promised kept.  Here is the beginning of the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham made back in Genesis 12: “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you.“ Genesis 12:2  As God is bringing Israel out of Egypt, Israel is no longer the original family of 70 sojourners who arrived under the blessing of Joseph.  Instead, they are now six hundred thousand men, not including women and children.  They have become a great nation just as God promised.

But God never intended for Israel’s greatness to be just numbers. Because God also promised Abraham: “and all the people on earth will be blessed through you.”Genesis 12:3   So what we see here is the beginning of that blessing, for with Israel’s freedom also came the freedom for the “many other people who went up with them.”  Who were these many others?  These were the many people of other nations who had been enslaved by Pharaoh and lumped in with Israel.  These “many others” had also believed with Israel.  These many others had sacrificed their lambs, been given the treasures of Egypt and were heading out to the Promised Land with Israel.

So what we see here is God freeing Israel to be a blessing to the nations.  That is their role in the story of God.  They were freed to be a blessing to the nations among them, and eventually to be a blessing to the nations of the world.  This is why God chose Israel and made them into a nation.  But here’s where everything God did for Israel then comes home to rest with us today: Because God kept His promise to Israel then, we can know Jesus today.  We can be freed from sin today.  We can receive the treasures of God’s grace today.  And we can be a blessing to the nations today.

Because God kept His promise then, there is hope for the nations today.   That’s where we fit into God’s Story.  And that’s where the Great Commission comes in. That’s why Jesus commands us – to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Matthew 28:19-20

Because God keeps His promises: Israel’s role in God’s story then, is now our role in God’ story today. We have been freed from slavery to sin to be included in God’s plan to bless the world.    So the same words Pharaoh spoke to Moses on the night of their deliverance must ring in our hearts today:  “Up, leave and go”

Let us wake up to our great salvation

Let us leave our past behind, and

Go be the blessing God has called us to be!

And let us do so as God’s people helping people become friends, family and followers of Jesus.  Let’s pray.