Sermons

What do you do when redemption doesn't go the way you expected? Are you tempted to throw up your hands and say "This just isn't what I signed up for?" For Israel, and often for our own redemption, things got harder before they got easier. Redemption wasn't going like they thought it would. But in this trying time, we must remember that Jesus is enough; his redemption will come, albeit in his way, according to his Word, at his time, and for his own glory!

God had called Moses to be the deliverer of his people and he had promised that his Holy presence would go with him. But God doesn't stop there. Along the way, he prepares Moses, his brother Aaron, and the Israelites themselves for the work at hand. God is gracious in equipping the called. And he continues to do this in the church today through sanctification, corporate ordinances, Christian partnership, and opportunities to exercise our faith. The kingdom of God is advanced when his church embraces its role to move forward faithfully in all the means that God has appointed.

God's love for Israel is a covenantal love, which means that he will not only rescue them from their Egyptian bondage, but he will uphold his promise to bring them into "a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey." God works the same way today; he not alone declares us innocent through the work of Christ, but he adopts us as his own by that same work, by which we will ultimately enter into our promised rest. This means that we bear God's name and enjoy his presence, and it is through this relationship that Christians move in the world with confidence. There is one God, one covenant, and one people.

The Word of God speaks frequently to those who suffer. In the Exodus, God responds to his suffering people with a word of comfort as they cry out in lament. But the Scriptures also speak to those who are not suffering. It offers them a call to surround the hurting with the comfort that is made possible through Jesus.