This is a sermon that was preached on Sunday, September 17, 2017 at United Presbyterian Church of Sterling, KS. Listen to the sermon audio
here.
At that same
link, you can also listen to the prelude, choir anthem, offertory, and the special song that Rob Krabbe wrote and performed to go with the sermon.
Read the words to Rob's song at the end of the sermon below.
Read Exodus 14
here.
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A
little boy named Danny came running out of Sunday school all excited. He
searched frantically for his mom or dad. When he spotted his dad, he ran over
and grabbed him by the leg and yelled, "Dad,
that story of Moses and all those people crossing the Red Sea was great!"
His father looked down, smiled, and asked the boy to tell him about it.
"Well, the Israelites got out of Egypt,
but Pharaoh and his army chased after them. So the people ran as fast as they
could until they got to the Red Sea. The Egyptian Army was gettin' closer and
closer. So Moses got on his walkie-talkie and told the Israeli Air Force to
bomb the Egyptians. While that was happening, the Israeli Navy built a pontoon
bridge so the people could cross over. They made it!
By now his dad was shocked. "Is THAT the
way they taught you the story?"
Well, no, not exactly," Danny admitted, "but if I told you the way they told
it to us, you'd never believe it, Dad."
If I told you what really happened, you
wouldn’t believe it.
Maybe
that’s why for years archeologists and historians have been researching this
event. There are scores of books written
that theorize about what the land was like then, what weather conditions might
have been, where the Israelites actually traveled. There are as many different theories as there
are people coming up with them.
I
find it easier to imagine the Red Sea parting after some of the pictures that
came out of Florida last week when Hurricane
Irma blew in. Verse 21 of our
reading today from Exodus tells us that the wind blew all night turning the Red
Sea into dry land. It sounds pretty
far-fetched, but that’s exactly what happened, as the force of Hurricane Irma’s
wind sucked all the water away from some parts of the Florida coast. People were posting videos of walking on dry
land where there is normally ocean in the Bahamas and in Tampa Bay.
One
weather reporter commented that this is the sort of thing you read about in
textbooks but never expect to see happen. I think it’s like that for us reading
the Bible. We read about God rescuing
Israel from slavery with the ten plagues, making an escape route through the
ocean, and leading them with the pillar of fire and the pillar of smoke, and we
think, “If only God still did things like that today.”
What
if God does do things like that today and we just don’t see it because it looks
different than we’re expecting? Or we
don’t attribute it to God?
The
situation for Israel seems insurmountable—Pharaoh’s army is chasing
after them. There are two million
Israelites, but they are on foot and loaded down with children and livestock
and all the stuff that their neighbors gave them as they were heading out of
town. And Pharaoh’s army has horses and
chariots and weapons. Behind them is
the army, and ahead of them is an ocean.
Now what?
The
people are understandably afraid. It
looks like death awaits on either side. They’d
rather go back to slavery than death. They
say, “Were there not enough graves in Egypt so you had to bring us out here
to die?” Surely there were plenty of
graves in Egypt, and Moses has NOT brought them out of slavery to die, he’s
brought them out to live. But things do
look pretty bleak right at the moment. They can’t see beyond what they can
imagine.
So Moses points them to the answer to their fears. They cannot save themselves. Moses by himself cannot save them. But God is the one who has brought them this
far, who brought them through the plagues, and God is the one who will provide
the way through this situation, too.
What could possibly be next? Moses’ answer is in verse 13. It’s one of my favorite verses and is also on
the front of your bulletin today: Don’t be afraid. Stand still and watch God rescue you today.
In
other words, Stand firm. Don’t be
afraid. And trust that God is at work.
God
uses Moses and nature to make a way through the water.
This is
more than just a rescue. This is the
beginning of a new era, a relationship with God, the beginning of lifetimes of learning
who God is and how to trust him. God is
working on their hearts. So Moses
tells them to stand firm and trust God.
Don’t run away.
Be
still and know that God is God.
Trust
that God has a plan.
And trust
that God is good.
There’s
a hard reality in this story. Not only
does God rescue the Israelites, but he does it by drowning the Egyptians. We see in the next chapter of the story that
the Israelites are rejoicing about that.
But God is not rejoicing. The
Bible tells us in Ezekiel 33:11 that
God is sad when people perish. “As I live, says God, I do
not wish for the death of the wicked, but for the wicked to repent of their
way, so that they may live.”
There’s
a story about this in the Talmud, the Jewish book of commentary on the Old
Testament, that says, “When the Egyptian armies
were drowning in the sea, the angels in heaven broke out in a song of
jubilation. But God silenced them, saying, "My creatures are perishing,
and you sing praises?"
When DreamWorks made the film Prince of Egypt in 1998, they didn’t want to have the Israelites
singing for joy at the death of their foes so they had them begin singing as
soon as they left Egypt. Do you know the song they were singing? It was a hit single for both Mariah Carey and
Whitney Houston.
There can be miracles
When you believe
Though hope is frail, it’s
hard to kill
Who knows what miracles you
can achieve
When you believe somehow you
will
You will when you believe
I
love that they’re already singing that before they get to the Red Sea. They’ve already seen miracles. That’s why they’re able to leave Egypt, and
why they’re standing on the edge of the sea.
Their faith is already growing,
and the more they stand still and trust God and watch him work, the more it
will keep growing.
God rescues
Israel, but that’s not the end of the story. It’s just the beginning. What happens next
is the story of the relationship between God and his people, that continues
through the wilderness and into the promised land and forward all the way to
today.
There are two
great stories of salvation in the Bible – this rescue of Israel from Egypt, and the
salvation we have through Jesus Christ’ death and resurrection. All of
the Bible revolves around these two stories. One is the foreshadowing of the other, both
important parts of God’s great love
story – the story of God’s love for us.
We
can trust that what Moses says in verse 13 is true even more because God does
it again in Jesus Christ. Stand still and watch God rescue you today. God started working on doing this long before
we knew anything about it.
Ephesians 1:4 says, “Even before he made the world, God loved
us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes.”
Before we even thought to be seeking God, he was working on
our rescue.
Romans 5:8 says, “God demonstrates his own love for us in
this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
That
by itself is amazing, but God doesn’t stop there. God didn’t rescue us and then leave Israel, and God doesn’t rescue us
and the leave us. God has promised
to never leave us. God continues to help us.
and God is still with us, walking with us, working in our lives, helping
us through seemingly impossible situations.
Sometimes
writing a sermon is the seemingly impossible situation. That was the case for me this past
Friday. I had just learned the night
before that my best friend from high school had died. I haven’t seen her all that much over the
past 30 years, so I was surprised how hard the news hit me. Sitting alone in the church office, I
couldn’t get past the sadness. Our
church secretary Brandi doesn’t work in the office on Fridays, but she came by
anyway. She said she thought I needed a
hug. I burst into tears. A hug was exactly what I needed. She didn’t know my friend had died, or that I
was sad, but somehow God prompted her to be his messenger to me that morning. That’s just one example of the millions of
ways God sends us a rescue – he sends what we need to make it through.
God still
does amazing things today.
God sent
Moses and God sent Jesus, and God
continues to send us all to help each other.
We help each other seek and find God – in our daily conversations
and interactions with people. In
gathering together for Bible studies and prayer. On Sunday mornings, when we
meet together for worship we help each other seek and find God. As the choir sang this morning, God promises
us in Jeremiah 29: 13 “When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with
all your heart.” (listen at the link above)
You
probably noticed that this sermon is Part 2. Part 1 was two weeks ago when we
read about God calling to Moses from a burning bush, and we considered how God
might be calling us. I said two weeks ago that…
We are each uniquely qualified for the plan
God has for us.
Our church is uniquely qualified to do the
work that God has for us to do.
It may not look like we think it’s going to
look or happen in the way that we expect it to happen, but if we’re willing to
say yes to God, we will find those opportunities for which we have been
prepared.
God led Israel with a pillar
of fire and a pillar of smoke. They all
could see those pillars, if they were looking, but I imagine sometimes they had
to help each other see them. Maybe one
neighbor noticed the pillar was moving and pointed it out to the others, so
they could follow, too.
This is what we’re getting
together to do tonight – to seek God together and help each other see what God
is doing among us.
- What gifts and talents and assets has God put here?
- What ideas and dreams has God given us?
We’re not together by
accident. God has brought us
together.
We are in this place at this time to do God’s work together.
That might not look like
it’s looked before. I’m excited to see
where God leads us.
About
350 years ago a shipload of travelers landed on the northeast coast of America.
The first year they established a town site.
The next year they elected a town
government.
The third year the town government planned to build a road five
miles westward into the wilderness.
In
the fourth year the people tried to impeach their town government because they
thought it was a waste of public funds to build a road five miles westward into
a wilderness. Who needed to go there anyway?
Here
were people who had the vision to see three thousand miles across an ocean and
overcome great hardships to get there. But in just a few years they were not
able to see even five miles out of town.
They stopped dreaming, and stopped watching
for what God was doing next. God is
still doing amazing things in people’s lives today. I’m excited to see what God’s going to do
next in our world, in our church, and in each of our lives.
I Did Not Save You Just to Walk Away
© 2017 Rob Krabbe (listen at the link above)
Sometimes it seems to me, too much to bear,
Sometimes it seems to be, too hard to do,
Sometimes I feel I don’t, have just what it takes
To see it through.
Open the door, the mountain stands too tall,
Close the door, I’m much safer inside,
I’m not the one, to do what you’ve asked me to do
Not in this life.
In my heart of hearts, I hear, a whisper, I recognize,
Telling me things I need desperately to hear, giving me life:
I never said, that You had to go through this alone,
I’ll be there with You, every step on the way,
I’ll never leave You, I’ll even walk You home, one day
You have my word, You can trust the things I say
I did not save You just to walk away.
Somedays sadness, so much it stops me,
Somedays fear, so much I freeze,
Somedays death seems to take, far too much away.
Sometimes I want to shake my fist at the sky,
Sometimes I wonder, what You were thinking
Sometimes it seems dark, and lonely, and you feel so far away.
In my heart of hearts, I hear, a whisper, I recognize,
Telling me things I need desperately to hear, giving me life:
I never said, that You had to go through this alone,
I’ll be there with You every step on the way,
I’ll never leave You, I’ll even walk You home, one day
You have my word, You can trust the things I say
I did not save You just to walk away.
I read again, you’ve overcome this world,
I know again, the hope deep in my heart
The sacrifice, You already willingly, made for me
So take my life, it yours, do what You will
Take my love, its yours, I remember
You are my God, Lord I surrender, to You.
I never said that You had to go through this alone,
I’ll be there with You every step on the way,
I’ll never leave You, I’ll even walk You home, one day
You have my word, You can trust the things I say
I did not save You just to walk away.
