God Alone is Holy

Do you want to see God? Do you have a desire to see God? My daughter asked me a few months ago. I want to see God. And then I started working through all the complications of how one would show God to a two year old. There's not a picture. We see God through all of his words written. We see God as we meditate by faith and think about what he has done and how he has described himself. We don't see God simply by looking at a picture. We study his word. We have to do it by faith. As I also wrestle with that, I realize that if I'm going to show my daughter God, I have to see God myself. And then it hit me, blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. If we want to see God, we must come to him as he has instructed us, as he has revealed himself by faith. And without sin. I hope this is your desire this morning, I hope it's your desire every morning to come together to sing and how glorious was the singing, how glorious is the God that we get to sing to. and to see God as we meditate on his word. If you're not a Christian this morning, I pray you will see God. You will see him all of his glory. You will see him in all of his perfection. And it will overwhelm you. When you see God for the first time, it's overwhelming because what you see is a holy and perfect God. And then you realize what a sinner you are. It's overwhelming at first when you see the beauty and the holiness of God, but then it's so peaceful because you see that that holy and perfect God is rich in mercy. He's steadfast in love. He's gracious. So if you're not a mercy, if you're not a Christian this morning, I pray you will see God and in seeing God, you will see your sin and you will see that he is the God who forgives sin. If you're a Christian this morning. My prayer is that we would have a pure and clear vision of God. We will see how faithful he is, how reliable and trustworthy he is, how glorious and powerful and patient our God is. We're starting a new study this morning. It's the book of Exodus. We're going to do a big overview sermon, and I'm not going to cover everything in Exodus. You're welcome. We're studying Exodus and as I've been meditating on it for the last few weeks, it's it has to be one of the most God revealing, intensive books of the Bible. Just the one passage Jim read alone in Exodus 34 is so rich in describing who God is, but almost every chapter it seems like is describing God and telling us of God. It's God always acting and moving and being patient. We want to see God more clearly. We must come and we must study his word prayerfully and with purity. Let's pray for that end. God, we want to see you. If there is not a desire to see you, bless us with a desire to see you this morning. Help us to come with that purpose. Help us to come prayerfully. Anoint. This message anoint your word, it is read and proclaimed and sung of this morning. Help us. To see you. Only you can allow us to see you reveal yourself this morning. In the name of Christ, we pray. Amen. Well, Exodus is a favorite story for many, it's a great story, it's engaging. Slaves are free. There's heroes. There's villains. There's a mighty battle. And the battle takes place spiritually. The battle takes place with flies and locusts. A very engaging story. There's God, Moses and Aaron. There's Pharaoh and his chariots. There's battles. There's a mighty act of God. There's God acting not only in nature, but in the very heart of people. There's a tragic downfall. There's Pharaoh in his hardened heart who refuses to listen to God. There's also Israel and their stiff neck who continues to hear God, but continues in fear rather than faith. There's a clear higher purpose of the book. There's moral lessons in the book. There's dynamic character development. We see Moses from an infant to a murderer, to the great prophet of God. As we study This book, I want us to first think about why are we going to study Exodus? It's not just an engaging story. Why are we going to study the book of Exodus? First, it is the most important book for Israel. In the Old Testament, this is the most important book. I'll explain that more because, well, I love Genesis. It is a foundational book, but Genesis is an introduction to Exodus. Exodus is the most important book for three reasons. One, the exile from Egypt, God's deliverance, God's redemption, God freeing the slaves in Egypt and taking them and beginning the process of taking the promise. And that is the most important salvific moment until the cross. Now, of course, the cross of Christ eclipses this as the greatest salvific moment. But until the cross, the exodus was the defining salvation, the defining moment of salvation. All of the Old Testament prophets will refer back to it. Isaiah, especially chapter one, verse 27, Zion shall be redeemed by justice. The word redeemed is coming from exodus and those in her repent by righteousness. You can see redemption and deliverance in Exodus language all throughout Isaiah chapter 43, 44, 51, 54, 60 and 62, especially are rich with Exodus language. So the book of Exodus is important, first of all, because it is the defining salvific moment for all of God's people until the cross of Christ. Secondly, if you're an Israelite, it's the defining moment of when you become a nation. Chapter 19 and 20 is taking a people and making them a nation. So if you're the nation of Israel, this is the defining moment. This is the identifying moment when God took you from being a people and made you a nation and then, of course, gave you his law. And thirdly, it begins the instructions for how God will make his dwelling place among you. the building of the tabernacle and all the instructions that go along with it. So there's three reasons why Exodus is an extremely, if not the most important, I believe it's the most important book in the Old Testament. It identifies God's deliverance, identifies his nation and identifies how he will dwell with them. So why else would we study the book of Exodus? We are Christians. We study Jesus. Jesus is our great prophet. He's a priest and king as well. Jesus tells us in Luke 24, he said to them, Oh, foolish ones and slow heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory? And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures of things concerning himself. Exodus is about Jesus. He interpreted all the things Moses spoke, beginning with Moses. This is all about Jesus. This is all about Christ being the rock, the bread of life, the Passover lamb. This book is about Jesus, the great deliverer. Even more precisely, we could go to 1 Corinthians 10 6. Paul says this about Exodus, these things took place as examples for us. Paul is citing there the grumbling and the deliverance, the grumbling of Israel, the deliverance of God, these things took place for us. This isn't Paul looking back and saying, oh, well, this is a nice metaphor for something happening now. No, he's saying God did that for us. All those things that happened to Israel happened for us. It's not retrospective and looking back and thinking, oh, this is a nice illustration. No, he's saying it's a prospective prophecy. God did that for us. God calls all these things to happen for his glory, for their good and for us to learn from. Finally. So especially important book, as we think about our sojourning. Many of us, I know, wrestle with the sojourning here, we wrestle with the constant temptation of sin, we wrestle with how to be faithful We wrestle with fear. This book shows you how God is patient and caring and provides for a stiff necked people. It's an encouraging book because we see failure after failure for the people of Israel and God remains steadfast. He keeps them. He loves them. So for anyone wrestling with their faith. Is anyone wrestling with fear? Is anyone wrestling with longing for heaven so that sin is abolished? This is our book because it's about God's people sojourning in a foreign lost land with their weakness, with their frailty, and God being patient. Before we jump into the book, there's a couple different ways I want to think about organizing the structure of the book. It's a dynamic book, no one clear outline really satisfied me, so I'm going to go from simplest to complex, alright? So the first way we could organize the book, in Egypt, in the wilderness, on Sinai. Now obviously this is organizing the book where Israel is. They're in Egypt, they're delivered, then they're in the wilderness, and then the last part of the book, they're on Sinai. So there's a way to organize a book with the three parts there where Israel is. Well, I think the book is about God, so I like to organize it with God. That the first section, God hears his people. They're in bondage, they're in slavery, they cry out, God hears them, he remembers his covenant, he sees them and knows them. Then secondly, God delivers his people. God delivers his people, God hears his people, then God delivers his people, then God makes his people a nation. And then finally and fourthly, God makes his people a dwelling place. God hears his people, God delivers his people, God makes his people a nation, God makes his people a dwelling place. I'll put these in the evangelist so you can you can see them. Finally, I want us to name some themes. I encourage you all to read through the book of Exodus and you'll hear these words and ideas over and over again. Here's some themes from the book. Firstborn. The firstborn is an important term as you read Exodus. God calls the people of Israel his firstborn son. And in doing so, he warns Pharaoh, if you do not let my firstborn son go, I'm going to kill your firstborn son. As most of us know, the tenth plague was the death of the firstborn of the family. So the firstborn is important, just as it was in Genesis. Who will be the heir? Here the firstborn takes on another meaning, a level of meaning. Land is an important theme. Israel is not in their promised land. They're in Egypt. God sent them there intentionally and purposely, but now he's going to bring them out and take them into the promised land. The concept of covenant is very important. When God hears them, he remembers his covenant. When God hears them, he remembers he made promises to a particular people that he would he would be with them, he would care for them, he would provide for them, and he would deliver them. Maybe one of the most important verses, there's so many important verses in Exodus, chapter 6, verse 7, I will be your God, you will be my people. That's a very important promise. That's what some call the covenant formula. If you want to know the covenant of God is that's it. He will be your God and you will be his people. You who are not a people, you who did not know God, who rebelled against God. He has said, I will be your God and you want people. It's merciful, it's gracious. It's God promising his presence. Redemption is obviously a theme. He's going to deliver, he's going to redeem his people. The lamb who was slain is an obvious theme. And then there's a few sins that keep creeping up. Yes, sins can be themes. There's sins that keep following us throughout Exodus. Fear. To read through Exodus, underline every time you see fear. It's prevalent. It's constant. Moses was afraid of God. The people were afraid of Pharaoh. Then the people are afraid of God, and they're afraid that they don't have a God again, so they build one. Fear runs throughout the book. Grumbling, complaining is a constant theme. Can we identify with that? That's what Paul is saying was written for us in 1 Corinthians 10. These things are written for you so that you would stop grumbling and complaining and trust God. Israel is a model for us for who not to be. Stop complaining, stop grumbling and trust God. And all this combines together with our stiff necks. We refuse to worship the one God. But before the book is rich in numerous ways and therefore I'm going to be less ambitious than I wanted to. And I'm going to give us just three sketches, three sketches that will walk through the book of Exodus just to help us wrap our mind around some of the things that are happening. The first sketch is this. God changes the status of his people. We're going to walk through and see how there's numerous stages of God changing the status of his people. Secondly, we're going to trace how the hearts of God's people are transformed. We're going to do this two times. Once we're going to look just to Moses. Moses is a very important figure in the book of Exodus, so we're going to look at how God has changed Moses's heart. Then we'll look at the people as a whole and how their hearts were changed. And then finally, as I said before, this book is about God. We're going to look and see kind of the main some of the main attributes and characteristics of God that we learned from this book. So, three sketches. One, the status of the people has changed. Second, the hearts are changed. First, with Moses and the people. And then we'll be looking at who God is. So, let's begin. The people of God receive a new status. Now, the book begins with a recalling that 70 people The 12 sons of Israel, the 12 sons of Jacob, they come in, there's 70 total when you count everyone together, and they are a people and they have the most precious choice land. They're given Goshen. There's 70 people when they come in. And then they multiply. That's another word you could underline as you read chapter one over and over again, as we'll see next week. God's people multiplied and they grew strong. And this made Pharaoh concerned. Pharaoh no longer knew Joseph, the new Pharaoh, and so he starts punishing them. So we have a people of God who then multiply. There's two stages. They come in and then they multiply. God brought them to Egypt for this particular reason. Egypt's an incubator. Goshen is a rich land. It's also an isolated land. It's also an isolated land, so that the Egyptians, they would not interfere with Israel. They're somewhat scared of them. They're somewhat, well, they think they're dirty because they're shepherds. We'll study this more next week, but the people multiplied. I'm going to go back to Genesis 15, starting in verse 12. This is one of the covenants that God made with Abraham, no promises. As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Avram and behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him. Then the Lord said to Avram, know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there. And they will be afflicted for 400 years. But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace. You shall be buried in a good old age and they shall come back here in the fourth generation for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete. God intended. His people to be in Egypt and he intended for them to be slaves. which is really our next stage. They go from being a small people to a multiply people to an enslaved people. And then they begin to call out to God. And God hears them. And this is when they become a freed people. God remembers his covenant. He stretches out his mighty right arm. There's another word you can underline as you're reading Exodus, anything that has to do with the hand of God, the arm of God. It represents the might of him to reach down and deliver and care for and provide for his people. It is going to rescue them, deliver them. Remember, he said you'll come up with great possessions in Genesis 15. Well, in Exodus, you're going to plunder the Egyptians. Eventually, they're actually going to start handing you all of their wealth to say, get out of here, go. We see there in the chapters three and four, the great plan of God. God reveals himself, he reveals his name, he reveals his purpose. He calls Israel his firstborn son. And then he's going to deliver that firstborn son in the most dramatic way, ten plagues. Over and over again, you see this dialogue with Moses and God with Pharaoh. There's a hardening. Who's hardening? Who's hard? We'll get into that. But only there's a dramatic, a dramatic deliverance. And from this, as we've already mentioned, there are major themes of salvation that come out. The Lamb is sung of in Revelation 15, and they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and amazing are your deeds, O Lord God, the Almighty. Just ensure your ways, O King of the Nations, who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify your name. For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship you, for the righteous acts have been revealed. The Lamb of God is the Lamb that was slain in the Passover, in the tenth plague. As we saw in Colossians, the concept of deliverance. You've been delivered from the domain of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of his beloved son. That is Exodus language. So you go from a small people, a multiply people and enslave people, then a free people. And then, as we mentioned earlier, this is an important book because the people become a nation. Chapter 9 chapters 19 and 20 are extremely important for us to study, because it's God changing the status of a people into a nation. Chapter 19, verse 5 is especially important. He says this. God says this. You will be my treasured possession among all peoples. A kingdom of priests, a holy nation. You'll be my treasure possession, a kingdom of priests, my holy nation. These are declarations God is saying you are the preferred people, you are my chosen people. I give you the greatest blessing, I will call you my people, you are my treasured possession. And there's the kingdom of priests there to be God's representatives to the world. They get to speak to God as the ones who have an access to him. And they're a holy nation, they're a people set apart by God and for God. So there's a commendation. And these these descriptors are very important, as we'll see in a moment, but before we get to that, he then gives the Ten Commandments in chapter 20. I am convinced that we should call them the Ten Commandments, but we also need to remember that they're the ten words as well. There are ten instructions because we can't leave out the very first word that God gives in these Ten Commandments. I am the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. That has to be necessarily included as we recite the Ten Commandments. Because it's just not any God we're worshiping, we're worshiping a particular God. It's also important because we see here the Ten Commandments start with grace. The Ten Commandments, the law of God starts with grace. I am the Lord, your God, I am the one true God, the God who has committed himself to you. I am the one who delivered you, redeemed you, you're my people. Now this is how you were to live. He's the king of the nation. And he is the one who has the sovereign right to order their lives. So they think about the Ten Commandments. Commandments start with grace. God is always beginning with grace. And then finally, the nation becomes a dwelling place for God. If you look at these chapters, Look how meticulous God is in describing his tabernacle. How detailed he is in telling us how Israel was to worship him. How clear and how focused, how much intentionality takes place in worship. See, worship isn't something you play at. Worship isn't something that's casual. After preaching on vocation from Colossians, someone So I've heard America summarizes this, we worship our work, we work at our play and we play at our worship. And that's a pretty good descriptor for a lot of folks. We'd be careful not to let that be described of us. We are not to worship our worker, we're to worship our God. We're not to play and worship. One of the most amazing things that takes place during the midst of the description of the tabernacle is a golden calf. While God is telling Moses, here's how you worship me, the people have gone, well, they've become afraid. And they start building a calf and then when Moses comes down, well, I don't know what happened. The calf disappeared. But while God is telling Moses, this is how you're going to worship me, the people have already rebelled. They're worshiping a golden calf. What's amazing is that God responds to that golden calf with mercy, with love and kindness. Now, why do these stages matter to us? Why does this matter to us? How is this written for us? Well, first of all, we are the people of God. The church, we are his people. As we look, Israel is called the firstborn son. If you read through the first part of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus is God's son. Jesus is the son that God calls out of Egypt. See, Israel was supposed to be God's firstborn son, which meant they obeyed God, which meant they represented God to the nations. The problem is Israel failed. Israel never was the obedient son. Since Israel cannot be the Son of God, God sent down his only begotten Son, who is the true Son of God. You see, Israel the nation isn't replaced by the church. Israel the nation is replaced by Jesus. Everything that is the nation of Israel is supposed to be Jesus fulfilled. Every promise is a yes and amen in Jesus. The Abrahamic covenant is fulfilled in Jesus. And now we get to be the sons and daughters by believing in Christ. You see, we are the people of God. We can look very clearly that Peter recognized this in first Peter two, beginning in verse nine. Listen to how he describes the church, a Gentile church. But you are a chosen race. a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. We're God's set apart nation. We're God's chosen people. The beauty of it is no longer a single race that's chosen, but it's a people from every race that's chosen. Now God is showing his blessing to us and we're to be his priests. We're to be his representatives. We're to proclaim him throughout the nation and we get to go into his presence and speak to him. All the promises of God are ours in Christ. The second thing we can see here is God shows favoritism. Not everyone can gulp after that. God shows favoritism. God has a people and there are others who are not other people. God recognizes there are two kinds of people. There are his people and those who are against him. And the only thing that really makes the difference is the fact that God has said his love on these people and they believe in him and the other people continue to rebel against him. Well, here's someone say, well, isn't there a verse that says, but God does not show favoritism? Yes, it's Romans two. There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, the glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek, for God shows no partiality. That's not saying that God doesn't have a chosen people, and if there's not a chosen people, that is if God chooses everyone equally. It means God does not choose people according to their race. He does not choose people according to their family. God chooses people according to his own grace. We can see the favoritism even in the plagues. When God sends the flies, he says, I'm not sending flies to Israel, I'm sending flies To Egypt, I'm making a distinction between the two of you. He says it very explicitly, I'm going to make a distinction between Israel and Egypt, between my people and those who are not my people. Now, the beauty of that is this to become one of God's people, you believe in Christ. You're not you're not born into being God's people. If you want to be one of God's people, you believe in Christ. It's a Christian. You are not one of God's people by being born into a Christian home or marrying a Christian. You're only one of God's people by trusting Christ. You're only one of God's people by recognizing you sinned against him, you rebelled against him. And yet still, he's given his love to you. He's forgiven you in Christ. Non-Christian, you should respond with sadness. Right now, you should realize you're in a sad state. You are not God's people. His blessing is not upon you. His forgiveness is not upon you. He still holds you accountable for your sins. But I realize you would respond by saying it's not fair. How come some people get to be God's people and other people do not? Well, the fairness is this. God is just and he must punish every sin. Every single person, me and everyone in this congregation is a sinner. We've all refused God's righteous right to rule. We've all refused his commandments. And he will hold us accountable as a just God, he must punish every sin. That's fair. God then brings in mercy. God sends his own son. God sends his son who takes on a human nature. Jesus Christ, he never sins, he's perfectly innocent and he goes to the cross and he dies as an innocent man for the sins of all who believe in him. That's not fair. But that's God's grace. See, we don't want justice. Justice means we die and are judged for our sins. We want mercy and we only find it in Christ because he alone can die in the place of sinners and take God's wrath away from us as we believe in him. So this morning is an opportunity. This morning is an opportunity to believe in Christ. To believe in him and have your sins forgiven, to believe in him and be free of guilt. Our second sketch. The hearts of God's people are transformed. Let's first start with Moses. Moses is one of the most important people in the Bible. There's very few people you see from birth to death. There's very few people that we have the full story from birth until death. We know he was saved as an infant. The Pharaoh had declared that all infants would die, and then God saved this infant. He even put the infant in Pharaoh's own household. And then Pharaoh, being somewhat of a hothead, he murders an Egyptian. Therefore, he flees Egypt. He goes into the wilderness. And there God calls him. And he calls him in one of the most miraculous ways. He calls him in one of the most emphatic callings we see in all of Scripture. Moses sees a burning bush, but yet the bush isn't consumed. So he says, I should go check this out. And then God speaks. Moses, Moses. And Moses said, Here I am. Then God said, Do not come near. Take your sandals off your feet. For the place on which you are standing is holy ground. And he said, I am the God of your father. The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. A few things are important here. It's holy ground. So there's such a thing as sacred space. We see it explicitly and intentionally in Exodus. There's sacred space, there's space that is sacred because God's presence is there. God claims this burning bush to be a sacred space. Later on, Mount Sinai will be his sacred space. And then he'll give us instruction for the tabernacle, which will be his sacred space. Another theme that runs throughout. The book of Exodus. I want to put out one other thing here, and Moses hit his face. For he was afraid to look at God. Again, fear runs throughout this whole book. God later said, I have seen, I have heard, I know I will commit to you. My mighty hand will come down and deliver you. Moses is afraid of God, but God continues to persist. I am going to deliver my people. I remember the covenant I made with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. I will deliver you with my mighty hand and you will plunder the Egyptians. Now, I'm going to walk through very briefly here, Moses' interactions with God. He says, I'm going to God says, I'm going to send you to Pharaoh. Moses says, But who am I? Now, Moses is first called, he says, Here I am, Lord. That's a good way of responding to God. That's the way a faithful prophet responds to God. But here, after given the instructions. Moses doesn't say, Here am I? He says, But who am I? Now, maybe this is good stuff awareness. The problem is, God said, I'm going to be with you. God said, I'm going to do it through you. So it's not about who you are. Moses here isn't being a good prophet. But who am I? He's responding with fear. Moses asks, what if they ask your name? He's trying to figure out ways of getting out of this. What if they ask for a sign? He then complains, I am not eloquent in tongue, in chapter 4, verse 10. God responds, I make men's tongues. I am the creator of the mouth. You need to trust me. He then pleads in 413, Oh Lord, please send someone else. Now in Deuteronomy 18, God says, I will send another prophet like Moses. This is the great prophet of the Old Testament. He's pleading for someone else to go. I'm not eloquent in tongue. Please find some other way. He's a man who continues in fear. That were not enough. God says to Moses in chapter 4 verse 1, by the way, when you go, I'm going to harden Pharaoh's heart. I'm going on a mission. And the objective is for you to proclaim what I'm going to tell you, and he's going to respond negatively because I'm going to make him do so. I'm going to harden Pharaoh's heart. If he's not already crushed, this was a crushing blow. But this is why Moses should have moved from fear to courage. I'm going to send you, I'm going to harden Pharaoh's heart, but I am with you. That's all you need. No matter what the mission is, no matter what the goal is, no matter what the calling is, I am with you. And of course, Moses, one last time in chapter seven, I am of uncircumcised lips. And this is where God gets a little frustrated. He says, all right, I'm going to make you like God, the Pharaoh. Be obedient, be faithful. It's amazing as we look at Moses and we see these failures, we see fear. God continues in persisting and chasing after Moses, he continues to speak to him, he continues to remind him of the promises, he continues to tell him what he's going to do and he does it. And after seeing God and walking with God, Moses goes from someone with great fear to great faith. That's why that line is so important, I believe, in chapter three. And Moses hid his face for he was afraid to look at God. This is the same man in chapter 33 that says, God, let me see your glory. We see a change take place, we see hearts transformed because he hears over and over again the promises of God, he sees the work of God and that builds up in him a great faith. We see hearts transform. Let's look at Egypt. When Egypt first heard the promises of God, they believed in chapter four, verse 31, and the people believed and when they heard what the Lord, that the Lord had visited the people of Israel and that he had seen their affliction, they bowed their heads and worship. So the first response from people who have been afflicted and have been crying out to God, they worship, they believe God. And then God sends Moses to talk to Pharaoh. Pharaoh's annoyed that they want to go out. So Pharaoh says, you still have to make this thing out of bricks, but without the straw, which makes the brick building so much harder. The people respond, you have made a stink before Pharaoh. You have put a sword in his hand. The same people who are bound before God and believing him because of some suffering, because of some trouble, they begin to doubt God. And they even cause Moses to doubt God. But here, God, in response to them accusing and complaining and grumbling against them, hear what God says. This is beautiful. But the Lord, the people are grumbling, but the Lord. Chapter six, verse one. But the Lord said to Moses, Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh for the strong hand. He will send them out with a strong hand. He will drive them out of his land, out of his land. God spoke to Moses and said to him, I am the Lord. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. as God Almighty, but my name, the Lord, I did not make him make myself known to them. I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they lived as sojourners. Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel, whom the Egyptians hold as slaves, and I have remembered my covenant. Say, therefore, to the people of Israel, I am the Lord and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. I will deliver you from slavery to them. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. I will take you to be my people. I will be your God and you shall know that I am the Lord, your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. I will give it to you for possession. I am the Lord. As the people complain. As the people grumble. God is steadfast. God is faithful. As we see fear, as we see failure, God is steadfast. I will deliver. I will be your God. You'll be my people. I am sending you into the family, into your land. Even more amazing, so the people complained there, but then after seeing 10 plagues that destroy the most powerful nation, the world had known up to that point. After seeing the Egyptians give them their goods as they leave Exodus, as they leave Egypt and they're in the wilderness, Pharaoh, well his heart's hardened. He comes with 600 chariots to destroy them and the Israelites. After seeing God act so mightily, they say to Moses, were there no graves in Egypt? Have you brought us out here to be slaughtered? They have failed again to trust God. But God mightily saves them once more, even in the wilderness, we can see in numbers 11. When they're out in the wilderness and marching and sojourning under God's provision, they start saying, remember, remember the great melons and the fish and onions and the leeks we had. Do you get how perverse and twisted that is? They were thinking about all the food they had in Egypt, forgetting the slavery. They're complaining to God, being free and being on the way to the promised land and being under your presence and being in your presence. That is great and all, but man, we really wish the food we had in slavery. What a stiff necked people, indeed. And then one of the greatest moments of failure, the golden calf. I won't read the passage again for the sake of time, but the passage that Jim read in the middle of the worship service. I talked about God being slow to anger, abounding and selfless love. That's God responding to the golden calf. He is faithful. He's continuous. We have to realize we are fearful. We fail regularly and we have to remember we weren't saved by our good works, we weren't saved by our goodness, we were saved by God's grace. We are not remaining God's household. We're not remaining God's family by our good works. We remain in God's family by his grace. When we are fearful of our own sin, we must not look to thinking about how we can make ourselves better so God will accept us. We need to look to the cross of Christ that forgives us and removes our guilt. We constantly wrestle with fear. We are constantly wrestling with sin. We must learn from the example of the Egyptians is not to look into our own selves and our own strength and complain and grumble, but look to the love of God revealed to us in Christ. Moses mediated, Moses was an intercessor for Israel, our mediator is so much better because he is God himself who has died for us. Finally, as we conclude. I'm going to just mark out a few of the attributes. We can't do all of the things that it reveals about God, but I wanted to discuss some of the major attributes of God that Exodus emphasizes. First, there's one God. That seems kind of obvious, but we need to remind ourselves of that. There's one God and we are not Him. This is a continuation of Genesis. There is one God. He created the world. He is forgiving sinners. He is called a people. He is with that people now in Exodus. The Israelites are going to have a temptation with idolatry all the way until they're taken into Babylon. There's an emphasis in Exodus that says there is one God. He alone is to be worshiped. All the plagues done in Egypt are attacking Egyptian gods and saying, I am the one God. They are not gods. So there's one God. Secondly, that one God is named Yahweh. He gives us his personal name, and really it's a it's a covenantal name. I am who I am or I will be who I will be. That name is tied to that covenant formula, I will be your God and you will be my people. Yahweh is his covenant name. One of the things we see also related to this covenant name is that God's presence is with his people. He dwells with his people and that makes his people sacred space. Wherever his people are gathered, their God is. When we look at this, we must realize that God is present among us. Our bodies are not temples if we're Christians, because the Holy Spirit indwells us. God's presence was known to Israel in the Exodus as a pillar of fire by night and a pillar of cloud by day. God's presence is so much more intense and intentional with us today. There's one God. His name is Yahweh. He's present with his people. He has promised salvation to a particular people. God, the one God, has promised salvation. We also remember he is powerful to deliver. He has made promises. He keeps those promises. And more so, he is able to keep those promises. He's sovereign. We see him controlling everything in creation during the plagues. During that great judgment, he's controlling everything in creation. Even hearts. God is absolutely sovereign. We also see that God is good. We can look to his law. And we can see that that law is good. Those laws are good instructions for us today. He is good. He keeps his promises. He keeps his people. Finally, we see the one God, Yahweh. He's holy. All those detailed instructions point to how holy God is. There is only one God, there's no one like him, and therefore we have to approach him in a different way. He is glorious, and we are sinners. He is righteous, and we are wicked. If we're going to come into the presence of the holy God, we must do so only by the blood of the Lamb. God is holy. We don't play at worship. We don't play in life. He deserves our reverence. He deserves our attention. He deserves our best. If you think about this one God, We know his name is Yahweh. We know he's good. We know he keeps his promises. We know he's able to deliver on those promises. And we know he's holy. I pray that we will see these fleshed out more and more as we go through our study together. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. God, we come before you. Because you have given us that great opportunity to come into your presence in the name of Jesus Christ. We come before you and we ask that we will see you more clearly. We will see our fear and our failures and we will not be distracted by them, but we will take them to you and we will find forgiveness in Christ. I pray we will see you more clearly in your glory and your purity and your beauty and your holiness. Help us all to see how trustworthy and powerful you are. Help our unbelief. Teach us. To believe. Teach us to obey. Help the words that come off of our lips to be praising you. Not grumbling against you or your people. Help us, Lord, to glorify you. Glorify yourself among us. In your holy name we pray. Amen.