HIStory: the story of a God who ... designs a destiny for his people
Exodus 1.1-2.25, 5.22-7.5.
Milford Baptist Church, 16 June 2002

Today we're going to start a journey in the Old Testament. If there's one Old Testament book that has captured popular imagination it's the book of Exodus. Movies have been made about it. Generations of children have been reared on stories from it. And no wonder. The story of the people of Israel's journey from bondage as slaves to the Pharaoh in Egypt to their bonding with God as his children is a thrilling white-knuckle action script. There are devastating plagues, thundering sea walls, fiery mountains, bread from heaven, water from rocks. The exodus is the story of the Old Testament. But it is not so much the history of the people of Israel and their escape from Egypt, or the history of Moses, the great leader of Israel. It is, above all, the history of the God of Israel. It is HIStory. It records how he freed the Israelites, how he led the Israelites, how he revealed himself as the one true God. Over the coming weeks let's follow this storyline and see what we can learn about God and his relationship with us.

These opening chapters set the scene. Just like the French national soccer team that this week fell from world champions to first round drop outs, the Israelites in Egypt have fallen from grace. Four hundred years after their emigration to Egypt as an extended family, they have become a sprawling ethnic subgroup and a military threat to their hosts. So much as a Southland farmer might attack a plague of rabbits, the Egyptians launch a brutal policy of population control to cull the Israelite population. They enslave the Israelites, ruthlessly oppressing them with forced labour. Like Black Africans in the 17th and 18th centuries, like child prostitutes in Asia today, the Israelites "groan" beneath their heavy burden. Today we might not be able to relate to slavery in this form, but do you know what it is like to feel burdened by a sense of failure or regret, to feel enslaved by an addiction, or selfishness, or guilt. Do you know what it's like to feel the pain of a relationship meltdown, the pressure of things not working at work, the weight of an adverse medical report? When we're in Egypt, when we're struggling, what can we learn from this story, God's story? From these first few chapters, what liberating lessons can we learn about God? Three lessons.

The first liberating lesson is this: God has designed a destiny for his people. 

One of the fascinating features of the first few chapters of this book is the way they don't so much commence this story as connect with past stories. The very first verse refers to Jacob, the patriarch who led his family into Egypt. Then in chapter six, with the story just getting out of second gear, the author brings it to a standstill by inserting a genealogy (6.14-27), a family tree going right back to Jacob. Why? Why this fascination with the past, with the patriarchs? In the past, God had established a covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He had promised to make their descendents his special people and to give them the land of Canaan (e.g. Gen 28.13-15). The people of Israel have a destiny. If they are to understand what's happening to them in the present, and where it's all heading in the future, they need to flick back a few chapters and remember how God has worked, what God has promised, in the past. God has designed a destiny for his people.

Carl Jung, the great psychiatrist, said that a third of his cases suffered from no definable neurosis other than the senselessness and emptiness of their lives. He concluded that the general neurosis of the modern era is meaninglessness. Where did we come from? What are we doing here? Where are we going? In this month's copy of Investigate magazine, there's an article about the theory of evolution and how a growing numbers of scientists are ditching Darwin's theory as non-scientific. Lynn Margulis, Professor of Biology at the University of Massachusetts, says that, "Darwinism will ultimately be recognised by history as a minor twentieth century religious sect." But in the meantime, if our young people are being taught that we are not the careful design of a loving Creator, but merely the chance product of random mutations - nothing more than "slime plus time," no wonder they are taking their own lives. What's the point of life? If there's no God, the painful events of our lives and our world have no purpose, no meaning - we're stuck in Egypt.

But like the Israelites, we need to flick back a few chapters, past Darwin, past the Enlightenment, right back two thousand years. When Jesus died on the cross, he sealed with his blood a new covenant between God and us, between God and every single person in the world. Through Jesus' death and resurrection, God offers to free us from slavery to sin and selfishness, to adopt us as his children, to lead us into a new life, a new land, a new home. If you haven't accepted that offer, why not accept it today? God has designed a destiny for you.

How's your week been? I had a shocking week. It was hard. But when we're in Egypt, when we're labouring under burdens, when the future looks bleak, we need remember how God has worked in the past, on the cross, in our lives, in the lives of other people we know. God has designed a destiny for us.

That's the first liberating lesson. But there's another: God is moving his people toward that promised land.

Seeing that slavery doesn't solve the growing population problem, Pharaoh turns to plan B: he commands the midwives to terminate the male Hebrew babies and he orders his people to kill all the Hebrew baby boys by throwing them into the Nile River. But ironically Pharaoh's decree, intended to murder Moses, actually serves to move Moses into the Egyptian palace, Pharaoh's own household, where Moses received the education needed to fulfil his future role as the leader of God's people. Forty years later Moses' life is again threatened after he murders an Egyptian. His mistake forces him into exile in Midian. But, again, God works it for good. As a shepherd in the deserts of Midian, Moses received the on-the-job training needed to lead his people through the desert towards the Promised Land. Like a master chess player, God uses every move on the board, even Pharaoh's devilish decrees, even Moses' miserable mistakes, to further his plan for his people. God was delivering his people not out of life's hardship, but through it.

High up in England's Winchester Cathedral sits a beautiful, stained glass window unique to its era. Its kaleidoscope of colours has a peculiar modern design, given the age of the building. The window is a relic from a violent time, when troops from Oliver Cromwell's army used iron bars to shatter the Cathedral's ancient windows. The troops left the ground outside littered with fragments of glass, which the people of the town picked up and stored until the time of frenzy had passed. Years later, a cathedral worker volunteered for the difficult task of re-installing the window. High on a scaffold the workman assembled the pieces into an abstraction of colour. It resembled nothing in Europe at the time, but today no one can deny that the reconstructed bits of glass form a work of great beauty. The play of light from the sun and clouds filters through the window to illuminate the cathedral in a constantly changing mosaic of colour.

A relationship with God - being a Christian - does not guarantee us immunity from the daily problems that afflict everyone else. Catching the flu, crashing the car. But whatever does happen, in our individual lives and in the life of this church, God can supernaturally work it for our good, to make us more like his Son, if we'll trust him. That's why James says, "Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may become mature and complete, not lacking anything" (Ja 1.2-4). A relationship with God does not promise us deliverance out of life's hardship, but deliverance through hardship. When we're in Egypt we need to flick back to previous chapters and remember that God has designed a destiny for his people, and we need to read between the lines of the story and see that God is moving us - even through hardship - towards that promised land.

But there's one more liberating lesson that we can take from this story: God will bring honour to himself along the way.

So after Moses had received his qualifications and been appointed to turn Israel Ltd around, he returns to Egypt and delivers to Pharaoh God's ultimatum: "Let my people go." What happens? Pharaoh just laughs. The Israelites problems compound. And so Moses complains to God. At the end of chapter 5 he says: "Lord, why have you brought trouble upon this people? Is this why you sent me? Ever since I went to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has brought trouble upon this people, and you have not rescued your people at all" (5.22-23). God, in reply, gives Moses a sneak peek at where the story is going to end. Turn to chapter 7. Read 7.1-5... "And the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring the Israelites out of it." That is God's goal. That's his end purpose, that's why he chose Israel as his special people, that's why he's going to free them from Egypt, and give them the Promised Land. He wants, through them, to reveal himself to all people, to draw all people to himself. In other words, God chose the people of Israel for the sake of reaching the people of the world.

As members of the church, as members of God's new people, that's our purpose. God wants us to be a community that glorifies or honours him, a community that reveals to the world what God is like, a community that draws people to Jesus. Like Moses, we are to be God to the world. How should this affect our behaviour? For one thing, whenever as a church we make decisions, whenever we face the tensions that come with growing as a family, the question at the top of our minds should be: Will this honour God? Will it make God look good? Will it show people out there how good God really is?

I was at a conference a couple of weeks ago. The speaker was Leith Anderson, a church leader from the United States. He spoke about one of his sons, who for a time went right off the rails and got into serious trouble. Often Leith would be called out late on Saturday night to rescue his son, and then on the following Sunday morning he would have to stand up and preach. He felt like a hypocrite. He would think to himself: "If only I could get out of this situation, just get past this difficulty, this struggle, I could really be an example to others and start honouring God." But then one day the counsellor who had been working with his son turned up at church. He said, "I've seen lots of people go through what your family went thorough, but I've never seen anyone handle it like that. I want to follow Jesus too." Then Leith realised that it is in the midst of our difficulties and weaknesses that we have the opportunity to honour God by the way we handle them. People are struggling with the same things as us, and looking to see how we cope. In the midst of our struggles, as much as our victories, we have the opportunity to be witnesses for Jesus.

So when we find ourselves in Egypt, let's flick back a few chapters and remember that God has designed a destiny for his people. Let's read between the lines and remember that God is moving us towards that Promised Land. And let's keep our finger in the final page. Keep our focus on what God wants to achieve through us: God will bring honour to himself along the way, if we'll just trust and obey.