Audio Transcript:

Welcome to Missions on Point, the Propempo perspective on church and missions.

Welcome back. Thank you for joining us for episode 228 of Missions on Point. This is the fourth episode in this series on preaching about missions. We’ve already talked about why and how to preach about missions in every sermon. And it’s important to note that I am not advocating for you to force missions into a sermon where it doesn’t fit. I’m advocating for you to preach with missions as a framework for biblical interpretation and that you can easily touch on it as you begin thinking and teaching with the tools of biblical theology. Global missions is not a side issue in the Bible. Global missions is the harvesting of the fruit of God’s redemption of mankind. It’s the culmination of God’s activity in this world before the return of Jesus Christ. And it all started with the first promise given to Eve, and realized with the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And the seed of this hope is literally passed down through the nation of Israel as Abraham’s lineage.

Last time, we considered the book of Genesis, and that book should greatly affect our thinking and teaching out of any passage of scripture, but it should especially be relevant when teaching from the book of Exodus, which we will look at today. Genesis left us with a problem in need of a resolution. The hope of the world for God’s promise to crush Satan through Eve’s offspring has been clearly established as coming through Abraham’s line. And the way in which God would bring forth that one offspring as a blessing for all nations would come wrapped in the context of a single nation that God calls for himself as different than every other nation. And Abraham is not only promised to have a nation come from him, but God also promises to him a land as an inheritance. Just as the Garden of Eden was one small piece of land from which God’s glory was meant to flow from its rivers to the end of the earth, so too, this one tract of land promised to Abraham would be the place from which the hope of the whole world would be born. And yet, at the end of the book of Genesis, what is the status of the fulfillment of these promises? There are 70 people who have moved to Egypt. They are not a nation and they are not living in the land. These are the things that God says he is going to give to Abraham so that he might be a blessing to all the nations of the earth, and he doesn’t have either one.

Furthermore, this is not an accident that Jacob had brought his entire family of 70 people into Egypt to live. God had promised to Abraham in Genesis 15 that his descendants would be strangers in a foreign country, enslaved for four hundred years. And it’s this mistreatment of God’s people that would be the fertile soil from which they would blossom into a vast multitude. And this is the pattern of God’s redemptive reversals. Out of rejection, persecution, exile, and death, God springs forth hope and a resurrected life. As God’s people are hated and even killed, their faith in the God who overcomes death then flourishes. The same is true today of God’s people all over the world who live as sojourners in a world that is not their home. They are hated and killed. The foundation of global missions recognizes that this world is not our home.  We are living in a foreign land, and we need to be rescued from it. The Apostle Peter teaches us that the premise of the book of Exodus is an analogy for the context we now find ourselves in, we are strangers, sojourners, and exiles. We are to expect suffering. And we have brothers and sisters who need the hope of the resurrection to find life in the face of suffering. We will call people to respond in two ways, to come out of this world, to be separate and distinct as the people of God, but also we call people to go into a lost world that is suffering and under the bondage of sin and need to be rescued, just like how God had called Moses to go back to Egypt and lead the people out.

As we look at the book of Exodus as a whole, we see three main divisions in the book. One, God brings his people out of Egypt, two he forms them into a nation, and then three he builds the tabernacle to dwell with them. In short you could say that he rescues his bride, he marries her, and he moves in with her.

Part 1 of this book, Chapters 1-18, are where the book gets its name, detailing the Israelite’s exodus from Egypt. It’s the story of redemption, and it should resonate with anyone who recognizes their need for salvation and their slavery to sin. The contrast to the book of Genesis is striking, now the nation has prospered and multiplied, they are a vast people, but they are oppressed under an evil tyrant. The central tension is the same for all people everywhere, wondering whether to fear the powers of this world or to trust in God. And before the people can be delivered we first see our need for a mediator of deliverance, exemplified in God’s call of Moses. Sovereignly protected from birth through the love of several women, Moses is a man just like us. His sin contrasts with the holiness of the burning bush. Moses cannot save the people by his own strength, only the powerful, promise-keeping, self-existent, great I AM can save. And the same is true of us. We can’t save anyone, only God can. Anyone who responds to God’s call to global missions must do so remembering that life is not about who we are, but about who God is.

God humbles the mighty Pharoah and the Egyptians through 10 terrible plagues, striking fear into every nation of the world. And God makes a distinction between his people and everyone else, marking them off through the redemption of the firstborn son, graciously passed over by the substitutionary sacrifice of the lamb. While the people are delivered from death through the firstborn, they are then delivered from the Egyptian army through the waters of the Red Sea, and birthed as the people of God. And even though they are brought into the wilderness to worship this powerful promise-keeping God, they prove that their hearts are not following God but their stomachs. And they need to be delivered from their cravings through God’s gracious provision of bread from heaven and water from the rock. And the same can be said of all people everywhere who crave the desires of the flesh in opposition to being satisfied in God alone.

Part 2 of Exodus is the giving of the Law in chapters 19-24, with the famous summary of God’s law in the Ten Commandments in chapter 20. Immediately surrounding the giving of the law is a scene of God gathering his people at the foot of the holy mountain, as they tremble in fear of God’s power. This bi-lateral covenant is a constitution for the people as a nation under God’s rule, requiring them to willingly submit to God under the threat of penalty for breaking it. In essence, it’s the same thing Jesus requires of us today: to love God with all our heart and to love our neighbor as ourselves. The people ratify this covenant before God in three ways: it is written down in a book, they are sprinkled with the blood of the sacrifice, and they commune with God in a meal. So, too, today, God’s people are constituted by these same means, and we are impressed with the reality that as we go into all the world, we do not simply evangelize the lost. Redemption means that God has purchased his people and formally constitutes them under his reign. The world needs churches who are washed by the blood, who read God’s book, and who fellowship at God’s table.

Part 3 of Exodus is a long-detailed section from chapters 25-40. We take a break from the narrative and the giving of the law and now we have the instructions about the design of the tabernacle: God’s house where he dwells with his people. The plans are given and then they are repeated as they are obediently followed. And they focus on God’s presence. The ark, the table, and the lamp are the instruments of worship. The tent is detailed and precious, showing the most value to the innermost holy of holies, where God’s mercy seat covers God’s law. The priests, too, are luxuriously dressed to make them holy so that God would meet with them.

And yet, smack in the middle of this design and its implementation we return to the narrative at the foot of the holy mountain. Our sin is typified in the idolatry of the golden calf. Disrespect for God’s servant and disregard for God’s command as we worship the unworthy. Total destruction is the only just solution. Yet Moses is torn as a mediator between God and man. The people need to see God’s glory as they live in an obedient relationship with him. They need God’s presence to go with them, yet if God goes with them, he will consume them like a fire. In order to be in God’s presence, they need to be holy, but in order to be holy, they need God’s presence. The people need a perfect mediator, in God himself, who would make his dwelling in our midst and die in our place, and it’s not Moses. Moses only sees a glimpse of the backside of God’s glory.

But we today, in a new and better covenant, have our faces unveiled, and we behold the glory of the Lord in the face of Jesus Christ, our perfectly obedient mediator. God’s presence is with us, and he makes us holy. God’s favor has come now to all nations to bring them to the foot of God’s holy mountain, not at one place, but all over the world, as churches gather in Jesus’ name.

The book of Hebrews teaches us that Moses looked into heaven, and saw the perfect dwelling place of God, and he recorded a copy of the blueprints into an earthly design. His was a temporary tent, meant to be replaced by something greater. Jesus teaches us that the earthly temple which replaced the tabernacle was also temporary, meant to be destroyed and then resurrected in three days. Jesus’ body was the better tabernacle. And now his church is the temple of God. In this life, before Jesus returns and brings the eternal kingdom, if people all over the world are to get a glimpse of who God is, if they are to have any hope of redemption, of salvation from their slavery to sinful cravings, if people are going to learn how to walk in obedience to God, dependent on God’s presence, if people are going to be called to worship the one true living God and behold his glory in the face of Jesus, then they need people of God who separated from this world and constituted as the church. Global missions requires the church to go into all the world, and we see the need for that in seed form in the book of Exodus.

I pray that as you preach through Exodus that you will call people to the glory of God and his global purpose to make his name great among all the nations. God has separated a people for himself for this very purpose. So we must obey him, because this is the command he has given to us now. May you and your church be blessed as you faithfully preach the word of God.

Thanks for joining us today on Missions on Point. We trust that you'll find more help and resources on our websites at Propempo.com and missioserve.org. We are so thankful for those who support us, enabling us to produce this podcast. Now to God be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus forever and ever. Amen.