Introduction
Before we start, a reminder. We are going to cover a lot of the Bible today, and in the coming weeks. The point of this series isn’t to cover every single story in depth, but to see how God is moving his story and his plan forward.
Some of us probably know bits and pieces of these stories, but putting them all together is a different challenge. You might know about Moses, the burning bush, the ten plagues, and the Red Sea. But how does all of that connect to the bigger story God is telling? That's what we're going to work through today.
But first, let me start with a different story.
In my sophomore year in college, I remember truly being forced to eat on my own. Freshman year, I had a meal plan which was awesome, my friend Brandon and I would get Panda Express for every dinner, and we would use the dining hall for a Caesar salad and French fries, such healthy young men. But, sophomore year, no meal plan. There was a Nutrishop, right by campus and my apartment and they were offering free weekly meal plans for college students, anything free while you're in college gets your attention.
So I went in, told the employee there what my typical week of eating looked like—Dino nuggets, WinCo sandwiches, and of course cheese and crackers, still a staple in my life today. They gave me a full week of detailed meal ideas, day by day, meal by meal, and said to come back in two weeks to see how it went and for another one... well two days after trying to follow it, I threw it in the trash, never went back and went straight to WinCo for another sandwich
The plan was perfect. It was free, it was detailed, it was written by someone who knew what they were doing. And I still didn’t follow it.
I was the problem.
Today, we’re going to watch an entire nation get the best plan ever written, handed to them by God himself, for free. And we’re going to find out what I found out in that Nutrishop.
A lot of us tend to think about the Old Testament like this: Israel had to earn God’s favor by keeping a long list of rules, they couldn’t do that, failed miserably, and then Jesus showed up and we got grace instead. Rules for them, grace for us.
Exodus says the opposite. God rescues first. He brings the Israelites out of slavery before they’ve kept a single commandment. The rules aren’t the price of the rescue. The rules come after rescue.
This morning, we are going to look at Israel and Moses and see primarily three things: God acts, God gives, and still, the heart rebels.
1) God acts: He sees his people enslaved and he rescues them.
2) God gives: He hands them everything they need, a good Law, a land, and even his own presence.
3) Yet still after all of that, the heart rebels.
The Law, the rules from God, are not the villain of this story. The Law is a part of God’s plan, and of course, that means it’s a good one.
Now remember, Israel is Abraham’s family. Abraham had a son, Isaac. Isaac had a son, Jacob, and God renamed Jacob “Israel.” Jacob had twelve sons, and those twelve sons and their families became the nation of Israel. So, when we say “Israel,” think of Abraham’s extended family, growing into a people.
Then a famine hits, and the family goes down to Egypt for food. That’s not a surprise to God. Back in Genesis 15, he told Abraham this would happen, that his descendants would live in a land not their own:
Then the Lord said to Abram, “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 four hundred years.”
Genesis 15:13 ESV
Last week, God promised Abraham three things: a People, a Place, and blessing for the nations. Here, the people are growing, but they’re in the wrong place.
Today, we’ll go quickly through Egypt, slow down at Sinai and the wilderness, and end at the doorstep of the Promised Land.
We will also notice something new. Until now, God’s work has centered on a representative for all of humanity: Adam, Noah, Abraham. Now the representative is just for Israel, and Moses becomes the focus. The lens is narrowing, but it’s still for the sake of the whole world.
With that, let’s go to our first point today.
God Acts
We see that Israel, the family that went down to Egypt for food is now a nation, and Exodus 1 tells us they were fruitful and multiplied. That should sound familiar to us because it’s the blessing from the garden, showing up in Egypt. But something is different, something is wrong, so let’s run Egypt through the lenses we’ve been using.
Four Lenses
People, Place, Presence, Purpose. The People are slaves, not free. The Place is Egypt, not the Promised Land. Presence is almost invisible. For 400 years, there’s no burning bush and no voice, and it feels like God has gone quiet. And Purpose has been replaced. These people were meant to be a blessing to the nations, and instead they’re making bricks, as slaves, for Pharaoh.
King and covenant
There are two kings and two kingdoms present here. Pharaoh sets himself up as the king who owns them. But Exodus 2 says:
And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.
Exodus 2:24 ESV
He hasn’t forgotten Abraham, and the true King is paying attention.
Life and death
Exodus 1:
Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, “Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live.”
Exodus 1:22 ESV
Pharaoh orders every Hebrew baby boy thrown into the Nile. Death is winning. If you came to this story wondering how God would fix it, it should feel impossible.
Representative
One baby survives. His mother puts him in a little basket and sets him in the river, and the Hebrew word for that basket is the same word used for Noah’s ark. It means a box or chest designed to preserve and protect living beings through dangerous waters.
Moses is saved through the water, and he will grow up to represent a people. Now let’s move quickly through the story:
Who is doing the acting?
The burning bush
Moses is eighty years old, working as a shepherd, and God shows up in a bush that burns and doesn’t burn up. God calls him. Moses doesn’t volunteer. He objects. Who am I? What if they don’t believe me? I’m not a good speaker. Finally, he says, “Please send someone else” (Exodus 4:13). Moses isn’t the hero of this story, God is!
The plagues
Ten plagues, and each one is a confrontation. Egypt’s gods were the Nile, the sun, the livestock, and Pharaoh himself. God says in Exodus 12:12 that he will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. Each plague takes a false king and a false god and shows that they can’t deliver. And notice Moses can’t even do this alone. He needs Aaron to speak and act for him. Moses isn’t the star.
Passover
This is the one we slow down for. The last plague is death for every firstborn in Egypt. But God provides a way. Each Israelite family takes a lamb, kills it, and puts its blood on the doorposts. God says, “When I see the blood, I will pass over you” (Exodus 12:13). The lamb dies in the place of the firstborn, its blood covers the doorway, and God’s people live because a substitute took their place.
Exodus
Then God brings them out, through the sea on dry ground, with the water standing like walls on both sides. Pharaoh’s army follows, and the water closes. Israel doesn’t fight. Exodus 14:14 says, “The LORD will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.” So, who did the acting? God did! God did it all.
The order in which God does this is important to see. It helps us to understand his character more. Israel is saved in Egypt before the ten commandments are given and God provides the grace. Israel receives it by faith, which looks like putting blood on a doorpost and trusting that what God said is true. And after that, is when the Law shows up.
It is not “Here are the Ten Commandments. Start living them, and then maybe, if you follow it well enough, you get out of Egypt.”
It looks like this:
RESCUE → RELATIONSHIP → LAW
In Exodus 19, God says,
You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself.
Exodus 19:4 ESV
Rescue, and relationship. Then verse 5 says:
Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine.
Exodus 19:5 ESV
The “if” comes after what God has already done. Then Exodus 20, and the Ten Commandments:
I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.
Exodus 20:2 ESV
You shall have no other gods before me.
Exodus 20:3 ESV
God doesn’t start with the command. He starts with who He is and what He’s done, and then gives his commandments. For us, that looks like obeying God out of response to what he has done for us through Jesus!
Think all the way back to the garden. God put Adam and Eve there, and he said, “You may surely eat of every tree,” in Genesis 2:16. He gave first, and the command came after. It’s the same God and the same pattern.
In this story, Israel goes to specific places, and those places start to carry meaning. Israel goes down into Egypt. Israel is called out of Egypt. Hosea 11:1 looks back on it and says, “Out of Egypt I called my son.” Remember that Exodus 4:22 calls Israel God’s firstborn son.
In Matthew 2:15, Jesus, a young child, is brought out of Egypt, and Matthew says this fulfilled what Hosea said. Matthew is telling us that Jesus is doing Israel’s story over again.
And there’s more. Israel passes through the water, then spends forty years in the wilderness being tested, and they fail. In Matthew 4, Jesus goes through the water, then is led into the wilderness, and he’s tested for forty days. I’m not going to tell you how that turns out today. The Bible is setting something up. Israel’s story is pointing to someone who will have to do what Israel couldn’t.
So, God has rescued Israel. He’s brought them out of Egypt, through the sea, and out of slavery. Which brings us to our second point…
God Gives
God has rescued them and brought them to Sinai. He doesn’t just say, “You’re free, good luck.” He gives them everything.
A nation of priests and kings
In Exodus 19:6, God tells them who they are:
A kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
And back in Exodus 4:22, he called Israel his firstborn son.
This echoes of the garden. We see priests in Genesis 2:15, Adam is placed in the garden to “work it and keep it.” That “keep” language, guarding the sacred space, is later used for what priests do in the tabernacle (Numbers 3:7-8; 18:5-6). Adam’s job in the garden sounds a lot like a priest’s job in a sanctuary.
And we see Kings in Genesis 1:28, God tells humanity to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and exercise dominion. Spread his blessing outward.
Before, that calling sat on one man, or one family. Now it sits on a whole nation. Israel is meant to carry what Adam and Eve were made for. God also sets apart Aaron’s family as the priests who guard access to his presence, but the calling is for the whole people.
The four Ps, tangible again
For the first time since Eden, the four Ps start to come together.
People. A nation. In Exodus 19, God calls them his treasured possession, out of all the peoples of the earth.
Purpose. A kingdom of priests. And the point is the nations. Deuteronomy 4:5-8, when the world sees Israel living by God’s wisdom, they’ll say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.” And then, “What great nation is there that has a god so near to it as the LORD our God is whenever we call upon him?” Israel’s life was supposed to be a window. Look at them and see what God is like.
Place. The Promised Land. And this isn’t just a promise made at Sinai. In Joshua 21, we see God gave them the land, and we see that everything God promised came true, every single thing.
Presence. Exodus 25:8: Let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst.
And at the end of Exodus, chapter 40, the tabernacle is finished and the glory of the LORD fills it. It’s so thick that Moses can’t enter. And it stays with them. A cloud by day, fire by night, in front of everyone.
Remember Genesis 3:8, the sound of God walking in the garden? God is walking with his people again.
This is the closest we’ve been to Eden since Genesis 3. A people, a purpose, a land, and God himself in the middle of them. What a beautiful picture this is.
The Law is good
The law is one more gift. It’s easy to hear that word and think of it as a bad thing.
But, Psalm 19 says:
The law of the Lord is perfect,
reviving the soul;
the testimony of the Lord is sure,
making wise the simple;
the precepts of the Lord are right,
rejoicing the heart;
the commandment of the Lord is pure,
enlightening the eyes;
the fear of the Lord is clean,
enduring forever;
the rules of the Lord are true,
and righteous altogether.
Psalm 19:7-9 ESV
And Paul, in Romans 7 says:
So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.
Romans 7:12 ESV
The law shapes how they worship, how they treat the poor, how they settle disputes, how they live as neighbors. It's a gift for a rescued people.
Now, some of these laws are a little weird, but even the weird ones teach us something about God. Let me show you a couple:
The left-handed neighbor. Leviticus 27. If a man borrowed a tool from his neighbor and returned it using his left hand, he was considered unclean until sundown and had to bring two pigeons to the priest…
Okay that's not real. I made that one up. Some of you were ready to write that down.
But, these next three are actually in the Bible:
Leviticus 13-14 has long instructions about skin conditions and uncleanness. It talks about leprosy and what that looks like, death on the body, and the people that have it are kept out of God’s presence and out of the camp. Now if we go to Mark 1, a man with leprosy comes to Jesus, and Jesus touches him, which no one would do, and the man is healed. The law shows us the problem, but then Jesus shows us the answer, so cool!
Cities of refuge, in Numbers 35. If someone killed a person accidentally, they could flee to a city of refuge and be safe there. But they had to stay until the high priest died. Then they went free. The one who had taken a life walks free, not because of anything he did, but because the high priest died. That's a strange law until we see Hebrews 9, which tells us about a greater High Priest whose death sets people free.
The scapegoat, in Leviticus 16, the Day of Atonement. The priest lays the people's sins on a goat and sends it into the wilderness. Sin gets carried away, out of the camp and out of sight. Then hundreds of years later, John the Baptist sees Jesus coming and says, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world."
Even these strange laws in the middle of the Old Testament, probably sections of the Bible that most of us skip over because they are so boring, even they can teach us something about God. They reveal God's character and ultimately point us toward Jesus.
God is with us... and something is still wrong
We have a people with a purpose, a land, a good Law, and God’s presence in the middle. The tabernacle tells two stories at once
It says God is here. But Leviticus 16 says:
The Lord spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron, when they drew near before the Lord and died, and the Lord said to Moses, “Tell Aaron your brother not to come at any time into the Holy Place inside the veil, before the mercy seat that is on the ark, so that he may not die. For I will appear in the cloud over the mercy seat.”
Leviticus 16:1-2
Even Aaron can’t walk into the Holy Place whenever he wants, or he’ll die. Access is restricted. Only priests go in. The sacrifices never stop. Day after day, year after year, the blood keeps flowing.
The tabernacle isn’t a failure. It’s a sign pointing us to God. It tells us that God wants to dwell with his people, and it tells us that something still stands between us and him. It’s preparing us for a final sacrifice and a final priest.
Rescue, a good Law, a land, and God himself living among them. If anyone was set up to succeed, it was the Israelites. What happens next?
And Still, the Heart Rebels
In Exodus 32, Moses is up on the mountain with God, receiving the Ten Commandments. Down below, the people get restless. Moses is taking a long time, and they go to Aaron and say, “Make us gods who shall go before us” (Exodus 32:1). So Aaron collects their gold, shapes it into a calf, and the people say, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.” (32:4).
Think about that. They just heard God’s voice from the mountain. They said, “All that the LORD has spoken we will do.” And literally right away they break the first two commandments before Moses has come down from the mountain.
We tend to make Abraham and David better than they were, and Israel worse than us.
We read this story and think, “How could they? I would never.” But they aren’t much different from you and me. This is the same heart as Eden. The question under the golden calf is the same question that was posed in the beginning of Genesis: Can I trust the King’s word? Moses is late, God feels far away, and the people decide to take matters into their own hands.
And it keeps going. In Numbers 14, they’re at the doorstep of the Promised Land. Spies have gone in and come back. Two of them, Joshua and Caleb, say, the LORD is with us; do not fear them. But the Israelites cried all night and say, “We would rather go back to slavery than trust God.” And that whole generation wanders in the wilderness for forty years.
They had rescue. They had God’s own words on stone. They had priests, they had the tabernacle, they had the Presence in a cloud and a pillar of fire. The problem was never their circumstances. The problem was never what God provided.
The Law is a tutor
So what was the Law for? If it couldn’t fix them, was it a failure?
No. The Law shows us more about the Lord. It tells us what he’s like, what he loves, and what a life with him looks like. But it can’t change a heart. Getting the rules doesn’t solve the problem.
Galatians 3 says:
So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.
Galatians 3:24 ESV
Paul says the law was our guardian until Christ came. That word, guardian, has a similar meaning to the word tutor. Think about what a tutor does. A tutor teaches you, corrects you, shows you what you don’t know. What a tutor can’t do is give you the actual ability. A tutor can show you how to do the math, but can’t make you someone who wants to do the math.
Theologians have compared the Law to a mirror. A mirror is honest. It shows you the spinach in your teeth. But it can’t take the spinach out. You still have to do something about it, or someone else does.
Paul says the same in Romans 7:
What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”
Romans 7:7 ESV
The Law lights up what was already there. And then in verse 12 says, “The law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.”
The Law is not the villain. Sin is. Sin takes something holy and good and uses it, and Paul says it does this so that sin would be shown to be sin.
The problem was never God or the law.
Deuteronomy 30
Now we get to Deuteronomy 30. By this point, Moses is an old man, standing at the edge of the Promised Land, speaking to the next generation. First, Deuteronomy 29:
But to this day the Lord has not given you a heart to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear.
Deuteronomy 29:4 ESV
Being rescued hasn’t fixed it, nor have miracles. The Israelites have seen everything, and their hearts are still the same.
Then in Deuteronomy 30:1-3, Moses says that blessings and curses are going to come, that the people will fail, and that they will be scattered among the nations. And then, in the very same breath, he says God will gather them back and have compassion on them.
Then comes verse 6:
And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.
Deuteronomy 30:6 ESV
Let me say that again. Moses is saying this many years before David. He is standing at the beginning, before Israel has even entered the land, and he already knows they will fail.
This is not a verse that says, “Try harder to change your own hearts.” Or, “Just follow the rules and then God will save you and love you.”
It says, “God will change your heart.” God does it. The only way the people love God with all their heart is because God does the work inside them.
It is easy for us to think that the Old Testament says “obey” and the New Testament says, “God does it for you.”
But Moses knows that external blessings, a good land, a good Law, even the tabernacle, aren’t enough. He looks ahead to a day when God does something inside his people that nothing outside them could ever do.
God acted. God gave. And still, the heart rebels. And Moses says something that still applies to us today: We will all need God, Himself, to change our hearts.
After this, Israel wanders for forty years in the desert. A whole generation dies in the wilderness, and God does not abandon his people. He feeds them, he guides them, and he keeps the cloud over the camp. And then he brings the next generation right up to the doorstep of the Promised Land. Joshua 21:43-45 tells us how the story ends: God gave them the land, and not one word of all the good promises had failed. Not one.
They’re at the doorstep. Moses is about to die. And the question that still remains is, who will lead them in? And who will lead them once they’re there?
Because if rescue, Law, land, and God’s own presence couldn’t create faithfulness, who can lead God’s people where their own hearts refuse to go?
We’ll pick that up next week. But here’s a hint: God’s people need a King. Not just any king. A perfect King.
Application
First, obey God’s commands because you love him! Grace first, then faith, then Law. Remember the order: God brought them out of Egypt before he gave a single commandment. If you’ve been treating obedience like a payment to earn God’s favor, flip it. Obedience is a response to what God has already done.
Second, stop expecting information or better circumstances to change your heart. Knowledge is good, but it can’t change a heart on its own. A new job won’t do it. A fresh start won’t do it. Israel had every circumstance in their favor and still needed something more. So be honest. Tell God, “I can’t change my own heart,” and ask him to do the work. That’s Deuteronomy 30:6, and it’s a prayer God loves to answer.
Third, recognize Israel as ourselves. They aren’t very different from us. So ask yourself two questions. Where am I building my own golden calf, the thing I turn to when God feels far away? And where am I not trusting the King’s word?
Conclusion
Remember my sophomore year week of meals from the Nutrishop? Free, detailed, written by someone who knew what he was doing, yet in the trash in two days. The plan was never the problem. It was me and how much I wanted to eat like a 20-year-old broke college student!
That’s Israel’s story, and it’s ours. God acts. God gives. And still, the heart rebels.
Let’s step back and see where we are in the Story. Creation: God makes a good world and puts his people in it. The fall: we doubt the King’s word. Sacrifice: God covers us. Noah: God preserves a people through judgment. Abraham: God promises a People, a Place, and blessing for the nations. And now Israel: God rescues his people, brings them to himself, teaches them how to live, gives them a Place, and dwells among them. And still, they need new hearts.
That’s our story, too. We can’t change our own hearts. But thankfully, God said he would, and we’re going to continue to see how he unfolds his story and his plan in the coming weeks.
Take a minute and write the next part of the story in your own words…
Here’s one idea:
“God rescued Israel because of his promise, gave them a good Law, a land, and his Presence. But the Law couldn’t change their hearts, so they needed God himself to do the work.”
For Discussion
Sermon Summary
The story of Israel and Moses continues God’s covenant promise to Abraham. Abraham’s descendants grow into a nation in Egypt, but they become enslaved under Pharaoh. Through the familiar lenses of people, place, presence, and purpose, Israel appears far from the life God promised. Yet God has not forgotten his covenant. He hears his people and acts to rescue them.
God calls Moses at the burning bush, judges Egypt through the plagues, provides the Passover lamb, and brings Israel through the sea. At every turn the decisive actor is God. Israel is rescued before receiving the commandments: rescue comes first, followed by relationship and then law. God does not give the law as the price of freedom; he gives it to the people he has already delivered.
At Sinai, God calls Israel his treasured possession, a kingdom of priests and a holy nation (Exodus 19:5–6). He gives them a calling to display his wisdom to the nations, promises a land, and dwells among them through the tabernacle. The law itself is good, revealing God’s character and teaching his people how to live. Even the sacrifices, priesthood, and provisions for uncleanness point forward to what God will accomplish through Jesus. Yet the restricted access to the Holy Place shows that sin still separates the people from God.
Despite these gifts, Israel rebels. The golden calf and the refusal to enter the Promised Land reveal that the fundamental problem is not a lack of instruction or favorable circumstances. The law exposes sin but cannot change the human heart. Paul calls it a guardian leading toward Christ (Galatians 3:24), and Moses acknowledges the deeper need when he says God himself will circumcise his people’s hearts so they will love him (Deuteronomy 30:6).
Israel’s story is also our story. Obedience is a response to God’s grace, not a payment for it. Better information or changed circumstances cannot by themselves make us faithful. The sermon invites us to recognize our own idols, trust the King’s word, and ask God to accomplish the heart change we cannot produce on our own. God acts, God gives, and still the heart rebels—but God promises to do the work his people need.
Small Group Questions
1. Read Exodus 2:23–25 and Exodus 19:4–6. How does God’s faithfulness to his covenant with Abraham shape the rescue of Israel? What does this reveal about who is driving the Story?
2. Jack describes the order as “Rescue Relationship Law.” How does Exodus 19:4–5 and 20:2–3 support that order? How would our obedience change if we saw it as a response to grace ratherthan a way to earn it?
3. What do Israel’s calling as a kingdom of priests, the tabernacle, and the good law teach us about God’s people, purpose, and presence (Exodus 19:6; 25:8; Psalm 19:7–9)?
4. In Exodus 32 and Numbers 14, what did Israel turn to when God seemed distant or difficult to trust? Where do you recognize similar temptations in your own life?
5. Read Romans 7:7, 12 and Galatians 3:24. In what ways is the law good, and what can it not accomplish? How does it direct our attention to Christ?
6. Read Deuteronomy 29:4 and 30:6. Why is a changed heart necessary, and who promises to bring about that change? What would it look like to ask God for that work this week?
