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Mountainside UMCJanuary 25, 2015

The Story – Message 4 – Deliverance

Recently I heard a funny story about a Texas farmer who had an interesting way of solving conflicts. Apparently there was this real affluent lawyer from Chicago who came down to go dove hunting in Texas. So the Chicago Lawyer is out hunting in a field and shoots at a dove and the dove lands across the fence in another field. So he climbs over the fence to get his dove and he notices this Texas farmer with his cowboy boots on sitting on his tractor. The farmer yells over to him and says, “What are you doing?” The lawyer said that he was walking over to pick up the dove that he just shot. The farmer says, “Well you can’t have that dove because it landed on my private property.”

The lawyer turned to the farmer and said, “I don’t think you know who you are talking to. I am a high profile lawyer from Chicago and if you don’t let me go over and pick up that dove, I am going to sue you for everything you have..you old fool. The farmer said, “Listen, that’s just not how we do things here in Texas.” “So,” the lawyer said, “Just how do you do things here in Texas?”

“Well, we have what we call the ‘The Texas Three Kick Rule” the farmer replied. What is that?, the lawyer said. Well I kick you three times and then you kick me three times until someone gives up and that’s how we determine the winner. So this younger Chicago attorney then sizes up this older Texas Farmer and says to himself, I can take this old guy no problem. “Let’s do this”he says.

So the old farmer gets off his tractor and walks up wearing his Texas boots on and says “I’ll go first” and in a split second he gives this lawyer a swift kick that knocks him off his feet and he realizes this farmer has more “kick” than he realized. He then rolls over to get on his knees but before he can get back up he gets a second kick right in the gut. He is rolling in pain.

He tries again to get to his feet and he gets a third hard kick in the head and he falls to the ground seeing stars. A few moments later he shakes the cobwebs off in his head and with the intensity of a Chicagoan, he stands back up and puts his hands on his hips and he says, “Now, old farmer, it’s my turn.” And the Texas farmer looks back at him and says, “Nah, I give up, you can have the dove.”

So we all solve problems differently. We all solve conflicts differently. That was a Texas way of solving a conflict and there are of course others. So I want throw a conflict your way that you are already familiar with and then ask you to ponder a solution. Everyone of us from birth are born with this fallen sin nature. Our immediate response to life is based on our self-centered sin nature and this is the one single barrier between us and God. Romans 3:23“For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”

This sin nature keeps us from a perfect relationship from God and with others and it is also the cause of our physical death. Here is the question.How are wegoing to confront and deal with this sin nature that is the cause of a broken relationship with God?

Most all of us who are here today admit that this is aproblem, it’s real and can’t be solved alone. Part of the reason we are reading through The Story is to get a clearer understanding of God’s solution to this problem and to experience a closer walk with the God who offers himself to solve this problem.

Today as we look at Chapter 4 called “Deliverance” we see God making the even clearer the meaning to the solution to this problem the source of our salvation. We got a hint of it when an animal had to be sacrificed to cover the sin of Adam and Eve. We saw another foreshadowing as Abraham takes his only son, Isaac, the son of a miracle to be led up to Mount Moriah to be offered as a sacrifice. Last week we also saw shadows of Jesus mirrored in the life of Joseph.

This week in Chapter 4 we see God setting up an event that will become an annual feast or tradition that the Jewish people will continue to celebrate even until today, which is the Feast of Passover. It was the Feast of Passover that Jesus was celebrating with his disciples where he clarified what Passover was really about and today we celebrate this feast as a sacrament that we know of today as communion. It is God’s Deliverance or solution to the sin problem.

So how did the Passover get started that we celebrate today as communion? In the opening of Chapter 4 entitled “Deliverance”

It’s been hundreds of years since the time of Joseph and the greatness of the population of the Israelites threatened the Egyptians who decided to place them in slavery. Then to compound the oppression they made an edict that all newborn Hebrew boys be thrown into the Nile river.

In the midst of this is born a baby boy whose mother refused to allow him to be drowned by the Egyptians so she hid him and then eventually made a little basket and put him in the river and this baby was then found by Pharoah’s daughter. She named him Moses meaning “drawn from the water.” Moses was then a Hebrew raised as an Egyptian. This created a conflict.

It manifests one day when he is older. Page 44.(2/3rds down page)“One day after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. Looking this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. The next day he went out and saw two Hebrew fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, “Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew? The man said, “Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian? The Moses was afraid and thought, “what I did must have become known.” YA THINK?

Notice Moses looks this way and that. He thought he could do whatever he wanted and it not be known.We often think the same. What Moses should have done and what we as followers of Christ can do is not look this way or that but to LOOK UP! Don’t look around but Seek First the Kingdom of God and his righteousness. Moses didn't look up but killed a man in anger and then tried to cover it up, but there was a toe still sticking out.

Jesus spoke a hard truth about this a number of times.InLuke 8:17 Jesus said,17For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open.There is this day is coming for every single person who has ever drawn a breath. Are we preparing for that day? How do we prepare? One way is to agree with God over those things that are sins in our life and in agreeing with God we judge that which is sin in our life and seek forgiveness.

Be like David-Psalm 51:1-4,17 Have mercy on me, O God,

according to Your lovingkindness; according to the abundance of Your compassion, blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against You, You only, have I sinned,and done this evil in Your sight, so that You are justified when You speak, and You are blameless when You judge. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.

So instead of looking “This way and that way” before making a decision, we need to “look up” and then we won’t have to carry the regret of a bad decision. The good news is for Moses is that just because he did make a wrong decision God didn’t remove him from his calling. However in no way did God overlook this act of Moses. In fact it definitely made it harder when God did call him to go back to Egypt and face those who wanted him dead.

This is typical of God’s call of discipleship in our life. To fulfill our calling, we often have to face the failures and the fears that we once ran away from. The symbol of Christianity is a cross, Jesus says take up the cross. One way to interpret that is that we don’t seek to run away from the problems or fears we face in life, but with God’s grace and strength we choose the High Road, the Hard Road, we choose the cross.Moses had to go2this undesirable place.

Sometimes we find ourselves in places or situations we don’t want to be in yet Jesus wants to be there and he wants to be there and present through YOU. It’s hard but that is the place where we find ourselves walking the closest with the Lord. Moses runs away from Egypt to the Desert in Midian for about 40 years. Finally God calls him up using a burning bush. Why a bush or tree? It reminds me of two trees in the Garden. It’s a choice we have to make. God tells Moses that he has seen the misery of his people and wants to send him to deliver the Israelites form the Egyptian slavery. Help?

Here is Moses’ response. Middle of Page 46.“But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharoah and bring the Israelites out of Egypt. And God said, “I will be with you. In other words what is important isn’t who you are in your eyes, but whether or not God is with you. So often when facing problems in our life we think the biggest issue or matter is who am I to face this problem when the greater matter is who is the Lordin me and with me to face this problem. It’s an opportunity for a Jesus revelation.

After Moses asks the “Who Am I?” question he then asks the “Who are You?” question to God in the form of who am I going to say sent me to do this. God says “I Am Who I Am.” Yes but “I Am” what…I am the Way, the Truth, the Life, I Am the Alpha and Omega the beginning and the end. I am the Light of the World. I am the Door, I am the Good Shepherd and Bread of Life, the True Vine and I am the resurrection and the Life. I am all these and more than you could imagine. What more do you need Moses?

Moses says, “I need an out… Please send someone else.”

Moses gives up and starts to go. So God is going to reveal the greatness of his power through the unleashing of the 10 plagues against Pharaoh and Egypt. The repeated conversation through this part of the Story is how Moses says to Pharoah, “Let my people go!” and Pharaoh says no then Moses says to God, then send the plagues. 9 plagues unfold. Each of these plagues confronts a false God worshipped by the Egyptians.

First plague attacks the River Nile and the Nile god called Hapi. The Nile god had his waters turned to blood and was not so Happy. My Favorite is the plague of Frogs. The funny thing about this plague is that after there were frogs everywhere..the boardroom to the bedroom, Moses asks Pharaoh when he wants Pharoah to remove the frogs. His response…tomorrow. He could have said now. But for some reason Pharaoh says...tomorrow as if saying, I just want to spend one more night with the frogs. Go figure.

Next is the plague of the gnats, then the flies, livestock, boils, hail, locusts and the darkness. Then finally comes the plague on the Firstborn which is not only a plague displaying God’s mighty power but also a revelation of his plan.

Read from the story Page 51(near top-first full P) Then the Lord said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, “This month is to be for you the first month… …Eat it in haste; it is the Lord’s Passover.”

Everyone had to not just hear this instruction from Moses from the Lord but they had to act on it. Believing wasn’t enough, being an Israelite wasn’t enough they had to believe that what God said mattered enough for them to act on it and they had to sacrifice a lamb and paint the blood of that lamb on the door of their house.

In fact in Exodus 12:22 it tells us that the Israelites were instructed to take a hyssop branch and dip it in the blood of the lamb and place that blood on their doorposts. In John 19:29 it is mentioned that they took a hyssop branch put a sponge on it and soaked it with wine and placed in on Jesus’ lips. It is the hyssop branch that touches the Passover lamb and Jesus the Passover Lamb who takes away the sins of the world. It was this plague and the death of Pharaoh’s son that led to the release of the Israelites from bondage in Egypt. What is it that God is saying through this story? The key?

The Israelites bondage in slavery to Pharaoh is teach us that we are in the same situation. We are enslaved. We are not enslaved to the Egyptians but we are enslaved to sin. We are enslaved to a reality of the heart that keeps us from walking in the plan a purpose that God created us for in the beginning. But only God has the power to deliver us. Only the Lamb of God can set us free and his giving us new life or new birth through the waters of baptism. In fact when God parts Red Seafor the Israelites to pass through this is a picture of a mass baptism which is deliverance for the Israelites but judgment for Pharaoh and his army. Salvation starts with Passover saying God I accept your Son-Jesus-the Lamb of God and the offering of his life to cleanse me from my sin. His life for mine. Then after that came baptism. Not through the Blue Sea, Green Sea or the Orange Sea. It’s through the Red Sea, Crimson Blood Red Sea. You walk through that sea and the enemy can’t rightfully condemn you when you are in Jesus. Romans 8:1 – Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

2 key questions.FIRST-Have we receivedSalvation? Once for all. Deliverance eternally from our sins?THE Major eternal question. SECOND-Is salvation being lived out today.Daily-Habits-Attituds It really matters - Person share – co-worker – brags all goes to church-being a good person. Report back gossiping/trash talking a co-worker for no reason. Gossip? Rude? Impatient? When God delivers us it opens the door to Lead others to DeliveranceinChrist.