The Old Testament reading is Exodus 12, 29 through 42, in chapter 13, verses 1 and 2, 11 through 16. So first, Exodus 12, verses 29 through 42. And this is the word of God.

At midnight, the Lord struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon and all the firstborn of the livestock. And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he and all his servants and all the Egyptians. And there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where someone was not dead.

Then he summoned Moses and Aaron by night and said, Up, go out from among my people, both you and the people of Israel, and go, serve the Lord, as you have said. Take your flocks and your herds, as you have said, and be gone, and bless me also. The Egyptians were urgent with the people to send them out of the land in haste, for they said, we shall all be dead. So the people took their dough before it was leavened, their kneading bowls before, or being bound up in their cloaks on their shoulders. The people of Israel had also done as Moses told them, for they had asked the Egyptians for silver and gold jewelry and for clothing. And the Lord had given the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they let them have what they asked. Thus they plundered the Egyptians.

And the people of Israel journeyed from Ramesses to Sukkoth, about 600,000 men on foot, besides women and children. A mixed multitude also went up with them, and very much livestock, both flocks and herds. And they baked unleavened cakes of the dough that they had brought out of Egypt, for it was not leavened, because they were thrust out of Egypt and could not wait, nor had they prepared any provisions for themselves.

The time that the people of Israel lived in Egypt was 430 years. At the end of 430 years, on that very day, all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt. It was a night of watching by the Lord to bring them out of the land of Egypt. So this same night is a night of watching kept to the Lord by all the people of Israel throughout their generations.

And then going down to chapter 13, verses one and two. 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. And then beginning at chapter, verse 11 of chapter 13.

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 that first opens the womb. All the firstborn of your animals that are males 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 redee2m. 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 all the firstborn of my sons I redeem. It shall be as a mark on your hand, or frontlets between your eyes, for by a strong hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt.

And now let’s turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 6, verses 18 through 20 for our New Testament reading. 1 Corinthians 6, verses 18 through 20. And the Apostle Paul here declares a truth that is also very much evident in the passages that we read from the Old Testament, and that is that as those who have been saved by the Lord, saved by Christ, we belong to Him. We are not our own, but we belong to Christ.

So 1 Corinthians 6, verses 18 through 20. Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you? The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.

You may turn back to Exodus chapter 12 for our text this morning. If you are visiting this morning, we are working our way through the book of Exodus. And last Sunday, as we looked at the 10th and final plague, that the Lord brought upon the people of Egypt and that is the plague in which he killed all the firstborn of every Egyptian family and even the firstborn of the livestock and as we considered the Passover lamb whose blood saved the Israelites from that terrible plague the main lesson that we took from all of that was that as Christians our salvation is specifically a salvation from the judgment of God that we deserve because of our sin and guilt and we are delivered from that judgment by not the blood of a lamb smeared upon doorposts but we are delivered from that judgment by the blood of Jesus that was shed for us upon the cross.

So that was the lesson that we took from the Exodus last Lord’s Day and this morning as we continue to look at the Exodus and specifically the events of that final plague, the Passover, the killing of the firstborn, The main lesson that I want us to take from our passage today is this, that we have been saved by Christ. We have been delivered by Christ in order to belong to Christ, that we may be his, that we may no longer belong to ourselves, but that we may belong to him. And so we are not our own as Christians. We are not our own, but we belong to the Lord.

And we’ll proceed this morning by going through this passage and considering the details of what each section in this passage describes for us, and then we’ll give some thought to our overall lesson, which is that as Christians, we belong to Christ as our Savior and Lord. So first of all, in chapter 12, verses 29 through 32, we read about that terrible plague of killing the firstborn that the Lord brought upon the people of Egypt. and just as he promised that he would do, at midnight the Lord passed through the land of Egypt and he struck down all the firstborn of the families of Egypt. There were no exceptions. All the families of Egypt, all the way from the royal family of Pharaoh down to the family of the prisoner languishing in a dungeon, every single family was stricken with this most grievous judgment, and that is at midnight the firstborn in that family was killed, was struck down.

And the scene that Moses describes for us as we hear how he paints this picture, it’s a picture of utter sorrow and grief and misery In verse 30, he says, there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where someone was not dead. What an awful judgment that the Lord brought upon the nation of Egypt, one by one, as each family woke up that night to discover that their father or son or mother or sister was dead. The anguished cries of one family joined to the cries and the wailing of all their neighbors until the whole land of Egypt was filled with the sound of pain and grief as they mourned the loss of these firstborn.

Several years ago, Robin and I had to go to the emergency room. I don’t even remember what it was for at this time, but we were being checked in by the admitting nurse, and while she was checking us in, she got a call on her phone, and she looked very concerned and said something like, What do you mean? What kind of complication? What’s the matter? And she abruptly left us and then about a minute later we could hear the sound of a grown man sobbing very loudly in a couple rooms from us. And of course we didn’t need to be told what happened. His sobbing told the story. Death had come to his family that night in the hospital. Imagine that sad scene multiplied by thousands and thousands as every family and an entire nation experienced the sudden death of at least one person in their home. Who could even bear to hear that sound, that wailing? What an awful tragedy.

And finally after this 10th plague, after this most terrible plague of all, finally Pharaoh gives in. He finally breaks. He can no longer refuse the Lord’s demand that he let the people of Israel go, that they can leave the land of Egypt. In fact, Pharaoh does not just let the people go, but he He urges them to go. He commands them to go. He says to Moses and Aaron in verse 31, up, go out from among my people, both you and the people of Israel, and go, serve the Lord as you have said. And then rather pathetically, at the very end, Pharaoh says to Moses and Aaron, he begs them to bless him. His last words to them in verse 32 are, and bless me also.

What a different Pharaoh than the Pharaoh we were first introduced to earlier in Exodus. That Pharaoh was proud, he was arrogant, he was defiant against the Lord. I do not know the Lord, he said. And now here he is, desperately begging the servants of the Lord that he might be blessed. And so here is that arrogant king of Egypt, suddenly reduced to nothing, begging Moses and Aaron to leave, begging him, begging them to take the people of Israel out of his nation, and to please bless me on the way out.

I would like to say that this brokenness on Pharaoh’s part was representative of a real change of heart. that he was a different man, that this was the fruit of a man who was genuinely repentant, but sadly we know that that is not the case. His heart was too hardened for that. As we’ll see, no sooner did the Israelites leave Egypt than Pharaoh changes his mind and he sets out after them with his army and chariots. He doesn’t want the people to leave after all. They’re too valuable. He wants his slaves back. Even the most painful Severus’ personal tragedy would not truly break his heart and draw him to the Lord. For some people, that’s true of them as well. Not even a tragedy as awful as what Pharaoh experienced will bring them to God, to consider the truth that they are accountable to Him, that they must respond by faith in Him.

But here’s a picture in the heart of Pharaoh of the dreadful power of sin over the human heart, what the heart is capable of that is hardened, that is not overcome by the grace of God. It will remain defiant and in rebellion against God even in the face of the most tragic circumstances. And as we consider the bigger picture here, this picture of wailing and sorrow, here is a picture of the grief, the pain, the endless sorrow that will overtake every person who refused to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ in this life, and who therefore will be condemned and lost on the day of judgment when Christ comes to judge the worlds.

And just to remind ourselves of the lesson that we learned last week, that this judgment upon the Egyptians, it is a picture of that final judgment that will take place when Christ returns. And we see in the Exodus what our only hope of salvation is. The only thing that saved the Israelites from that judgment was the blood of the Lamb that was smeared on the doorposts and the lentils of their houses. And in the same way, the only thing that will save you and me from the judgment that is to come is the blood of Jesus, the blood of Jesus that was shed upon the cross. and that blood is yours. You are covered in that blood if your faith is in Christ, if you are resting in him by faith as your savior from sin and death.

In verses 33 and 36, moving down in chapter 12, after Moses describes the 10th plague, he goes on to tell us in those verses, 33 through 36, he tells us what happened when the Israelites finally left Egypt. He says in verse 33, the Egyptians were urgent with the people to send them out of the land in haste, for they said, we shall all be dead. The Egyptians were urgent. They were forcing the people to leave. And so the Israelites had no time to prepare their bread in the usual way. They did not leaven their bread. They took the unleavened dough as it was, they slung their kneading bowls and bags across their backs, and they hurried on their way out of Egypt. However, they did have time to plunder the Egyptians of their silver and gold and clothing. And so again, this was in fulfillment of what the Lord had promised. The Egyptians willingly gave their treasures over to the Israelites. This was not theft, this was not robbery, but the Lord put it on the hearts of the Egyptians to give them these things. Perhaps the Egyptians were hoping to avert even worse calamities by giving these kind of peace offerings to the Israelites. Maybe this was the Lord’s way of finally forcing the Egyptians to pay for all this free slave labor that they’ve had all this time. But in any case, in this way, the Lord was providing for his people. He was providing for them for the wilderness years that lay ahead. And he was also providing for the people of Israel the materials, in part at least, that they would need in order to build the tabernacle of the wilderness.

And then moving on in our passage in verses 37 to 39, Moses tells us about the Exodus itself. He tells us that 600,000 Israelite men started out on their journey to the promised land. And this does not include the Israelite women and children. and it does not include what Moses calls a mixed multitude of people who went with them. These were people of other nations, people of other races, perhaps they were also slaves with the Israelites in Egypt. But in any case, the total number of people who escaped from Egypt that night was probably somewhere closer to two million people. And finally now, the Israelites are seen the fulfillment of all that they hoped for, the deliverance of God from Egypt. They had been there for 430 years. Just as the Lord had promised, the day of their salvation had come. They were leaving Egypt for freedom. Freedom from Pharaoh’s tyranny and freedom to serve and to worship the Lord as his people.

And so in the Exodus, the Lord was not only freeing his people, but he was taking them to himself. He was becoming the Lord, the master of his people in the fullest sense. He was freeing them from being slaves to Pharaoh in order that they would be his servants and worship him and serve him.

And that brings us to chapter 13 verses 1 and 2. And in these verses the Lord tells Moses that the Israelites were to consecrate all their firstborn both of man and beast to the Lord because they belong to the Lord. So look at verses 1 and 2 of chapter 13. 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. To consecrate means to set apart and to devote to the Lord. And so the Israelites were to devote their firstborn child, specifically their firstborn son, to God. And we have a famous example of this in the New Testament when Mary and Joseph, when they travel to Jerusalem with their firstborn son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and they present him to the Lord there. When they did so, they were doing so according to this commandment in chapter 13.

And then Moses goes on to give more instructions about this consecration of the firstborn in verses 11 through 16. First, in verse 12, Moses says that all the firstborn of your animals that are males shall be the Lord. So all the firstborn of the animals that belong to the Israelites they belong to God. And so they were to give them to God through sacrifice. And we know it was by sacrifice that they were given to the Lord because in verse 15, the Israelite father says to his son, I sacrifice to the Lord, all the males that first opened the womb.

But you’ll notice that there was a different rule for the donkey. The donkey was not a clean animal, and therefore, being unclean, a donkey could not be sacrificed to God. It either had to have its neck broken, or it could be redeemed with a lamb. And so that means that if the owner of this firstborn donkey wanted it to live and to serve him, he had to sacrifice a lamb in the place of the donkey. And by this redemption, by the price that was paid in the blood of the lamb, the donkey was spared death and it became the property of the Israelite who then owned it and used it.

And you’ll notice that not only an unclean animal like a donkey needed to be redeemed, but so did every firstborn of the Israelites. Every firstborn son of the Israelites was to be redeemed. and it had to be redeemed rather than sacrifice or the baby had to be redeemed instead of sacrifice because according to God, child sacrifice, sacrificing a child to the Lord was an abomination. That was the evil practice that the pagan nations around the people of Israel engaged in for their gods, but the people of Israel were never to sacrificed their children to the Lord. Nevertheless, despite that, God still demanded that the Israelites acknowledge that this firstborn son was not theirs, but he belonged to God. He was the Lord’s. And the way that the Israelites acknowledged that was by redeeming their firstborn sons. And so when a firstborn son was born, The parents would redeem that son with money in order to acknowledge that the son belonged to God. But it was also a reminder of a far greater redemption. This individual redemption of the firstborn son was meant to remind the Israelites of the far greater redemption that took place on the night of the Exodus. The entire Exodus event was one great redemption. Back in chapter six in Exodus, the Lord told Moses that he was going to redeem his people out of Egypt. He used that word specifically, redeem. And so we think of Exodus in terms of deliverance or liberation. The people of Israel are set free from the tyranny of Pharaoh, and that’s what it was, of course. But it’s important to see that it was more than a mere deliverance. It was more than a mere liberation from their captors, but it was a redemption. a price had to be paid for the lives of the Israelites so that they could belong to God, be brought to Him and become His. And the price that was paid for the Israelites was the blood of the Lamb that was slain. That blood that was smeared on the doorposts that saved them from the plague of the death of the firstborn.

Earlier the Lord told Moses that he was to say these words to Pharaoh In Exodus chapter 4, we read this, verses 22 and 23, And so Israel was God’s firstborn son, and therefore the Exodus was God’s act of redemption redeeming his firstborn son from Egypt with the ransom or the redemption price of the blood of the Lamb and so again when the Israelites redeemed their firstborn sons they were reminded of this truth that they were all God’s firstborn son the entire nation was the firstborn son of Israel or the firstborn son of God whom the Lord redeemed from Egypt In Exodus chapter 13 verses 14 and 15 when his son asked his father what was the meaning of this redemption of the firstborn the father would explain that when the Israelites were rescued out of Egypt the Lord killed all the firstborn of Egypt and in the same way he laid claim to all the firstborn of the people of Israel in fact he laid claim to the entire nation they are my firstborn and for that reason the Israelites were to redeem their firstborn sons.

Let’s put this together and let’s draw from it the main lesson that I want us to take from all of this and that is this that in the Exodus, God was redeeming His people with the blood of the Lamb in order that they would be His, that they would belong to Him, that they would be the people who are the Lord’s, that they might worship Him, that they might serve Him in the land that He promised to give them. Again, their salvation from Egypt was not mere freedom in order that they could do whatever they want or serve whoever they will. but it was freedom from Egypt in order that they would serve the Lord, that they would worship Him, that they would be His servants.

And as Christians, the Bible tells us that our salvation is just the same. Your salvation as a believer in Christ is also a redemption. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of His grace. Of course, as a believer in Christ, you have been redeemed by something far more precious, far more valuable than the blood of a lamb. You have been redeemed by the blood of the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. This is what Peter calls the precious blood of Christ. Can there be any conceivable price more costly, more valuable than the blood of the incarnate Son of God the blood of Jesus Christ of course there cannot be this is the most costly most precious thing imaginable that the son of God the son whom God loved from all eternity that he became man and his blood was shed his life was laid down in order that we might be redeemed that was the price that God paid for our redemption and it testifies to the unfathomable depths of the love of God for us as his people, that he did not withhold his only Son, he did not shrink back from the shedding of the blood of his dear beloved Son for us, for our salvation. He gave him up as a ransom for us all.

And because you have been redeemed by Christ, Because you have been purchased with nothing less than the blood of Jesus Christ, then therefore, as a Christian, you are not free to live however you will. You have not been set free in order to be your own person, to follow your own desires, but you have been set free in order to belong to Christ, to serve and to worship Him. And so as a believer in Jesus Christ, you belong to him, not only because he is the one who has created you, and that in itself is enough for you to worship and serve the Lord, but you belong to Christ because also he has redeemed you. He has made you his own by his death.

And that is the main truth and the lesson that I want us to take from this passage, that as a Christian, you are not your own. In fact, the entire lesson of the Exodus can be summed up in the words of the Apostle Paul in Romans 14, seven and eight. For none of us lives to himself and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord. And if we die, we die to the Lord. So then whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.

This is not the message that we hear from the world around us. The world around us proclaims to us in so many different ways a message that is opposite of what the message of the scriptures is, and that is this. You are your own. You belong to yourself. You are the captain of your soul, you are the sovereign lord of your life, and therefore you do live to yourself. And since you do live to yourself, since you belong to yourself, it is foolish and wrong for you to deny any desire that you might have to pursue. For example, this idea, this lie, lies at the very heart of our society’s wrong and false ideas about human sexuality. The world says your body belongs to you and you have a right to do with it what you will with whom you will. No one has the right to tell you what you can do with your body. And that idea that I have personal sovereignty over my body, that is the justification for so much sexual sin that has caused so much pain, misery, and destruction in our world today. In fact, it is with that particularly in view that the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 6, he is speaking especially with sexual sin in view that he says that we are not our own. And so what the Bible is saying is the very first thing that we need to understand when it comes to our sexuality is this, that our bodies belong to Christ. They are not our own. You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. Your bodies belong to Christ because you have been purchased by the blood of Christ. So glorify God in your body.

But we can take this truth beyond that one aspect, this idea that we are sovereign over our lives, this becomes justification to living an entire life in every aspect merely to please myself. And this is the heart, This is the cry of the heart of the one who claims this autonomy, this sovereignty over self. I can live my life as I please. It is my life. No one can tell me what to do. If I want to devote my life to making money, then that’s my business and you have no right to tell me not to. If I want to live my life to satisfy my desires, that is my business. It’s my life. I will live it how I please. And for many people, The idea of a successful life is that they are able to come to the end of their life and to be able to say with Frank Sinatra, I did it my way. No one told me what to do. I forged my own path. I was my own Lord. I did it my way. That’s a powerfully seductive message. Our hearts respond. We’re attracted to that message. Be who you want to be. Live your life according to your desires. But like all of Satan’s lies, to believe it, to live a life according to that idea is to walk down the path that leads only to eternal death and destruction.

And as Christians, it may be easier for us to see among the unbelieving world how this idea that we belong to ourselves, that we are sovereign over ourselves, leads to such evil and sin. But let’s bring this closer to home. As Christians, we know that we belong to Christ, that we are his servants, but does your life reflect that truth? Are you devoting yourself entirely, every part of your life, to the service, to the worship of Christ? Do you live in such a way that you acknowledge that there is no compartment, no part of your life that does not belong to Jesus Christ, over which he is sovereign? or do you have some secret part that you are keeping for yourself, some area in your life that you are withholding from Christ, that you are sovereign over that little section of your life because you do not want to submit to His reign in that. As a Christian, that cannot be. The truth that you have been redeemed by the blood of Christ means that all that you are, all that you have belong to God. Everything, your body, your time, your money, your relationships, your online activity, your very life is not your own, but belongs to the Lord who redeemed you by his blood.

One Christian in history who lived his life as one who knew that he belonged to Christ was the great reformer John Calvin. And when you consider the amount, the intensity of the work that he did as a servant of Christ, it’s extraordinary. He was utterly devoted to serving the Lord with all the abilities and talents that God had given him. He was, of course, the pastor, the leader of the church in Geneva. He often preached daily throughout the week and twice on Sundays. He wrote commentaries on most of the books of the Bible. He wrote, of course, major theological works. He carried on correspondence with other reformers throughout Europe. The sheer volume of his labor is mind-boggling. When I compare myself to him, I’m 55 years old. I’ve already lived one year longer than John Calvin, but when I look at my own life, all I can say is I’ve dabbled in the ministry. I’ve served God rather half-heartedly. You look at someone who was devoted to Christ like he was. He did the work of three or four lifetimes of men. And of course Calvin did all this not because he was some kind of sick workaholic, but he did all that he did out of his devotion to Christ. And that devotion to his Savior is illustrated by his personal seal and motto. And that seal was a hand that was holding a heart. And the words next to the hand that was holding the heart in Latin said this, promptly and sincerely in the work of God. In other words, Lord, here is my heart. I give it to you promptly and sincerely. I devote, I consecrate myself to you entirely. And that should be the model, not just of some reformer from the 16th century. That should be the model of every believer. Every Christian should live by these words. Lord, here’s my life. Here are my abilities. Here are my gifts. Here is the strength, the energy, the time, the opportunities that you give them. I devote them all to you. I commit myself entirely to you, promptly and sincerely for your service, for obedience, for worship. You may do your good work in me and through me.

So the lesson of the Exodus, one lesson at least, is that we have been saved by Christ that we would belong to Him. We are His to serve Him. We are to consecrate ourselves to Him. But there’s also another truth that is here as well in that we belong to Christ and that is this. There is tremendous comfort. There is unspeakable comfort and encouragement knowing that we are the Lord’s, that we are God’s. and because we have been redeemed by the blood of Christ, because we have been purchased by Him, we are His and nothing will ever separate us from the love that He has for us. Nothing will ever snatch us away from the hands of Christ in whom we dwell securely.

One of the great catechisms of the Reformation, the Heidelberg Catechism, the question and answer number one of the Heidelberg Catechism could almost be a commentary on what we’ve seen in the Exodus, on the spiritual significance of the redemption of the people of Israel. And I’ll just read the first question and answer, and as we prepare to come to the Lord’s table, I’ll conclude with that. So this is question one. What is your only comfort in life and death? That I am not my own, but belong with body and soul, both in life and in death, to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins, with his precious blood a3nd has set me free from all the power of the devil. He also preserves me in such a way that without the will of my Heavenly Father not a hair can fall from my head. Indeed, all things must work together for my salvation. Therefore, by his Holy Spirit, he also assures me of eternal life and makes me heartily willing and ready from now on to live for him. Let’s pray.

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