St Bart’s Anglican Church

Week 1: EXODUS – God’s People Enslaved Discussion Questions

Connecting from last week: Last week we completed our series on the letter to the Galatians. Over the last week have you had any opportunities to boast in Christ?

1. What is your Christian heritage? What is your story with God? How does that shape your everyday life and who you are?

2. What do you think it means to be a ‘rescued’ people? Why do you think this account of the Exodus (from Egypt to Sinai) was so central to Israel’s identity as a nation?

Read Genesis 12:1-4

3. What does God tell Abram (later Abraham) to do? What promises does God make to him?

Read Exodus 1:1-7

4. In what ways can we already see God’s promises to Abraham having been fulfilled?

5. How is the choice of words in verse 7 significant?

6. Why do you think the Israelites and the Pharaoh were ultimately set on a collision course? What is the ultimate disregard of Pharaoh that is problematic?

Read Exodus 1:8-22

7. What are the various ways that the Pharaoh attempts to crush the Israelites? What is the result every time? What examples of faithfulness and trusting in the Lord are demonstrated? What can we learn about this for our own lives?

8. In the Book of Exodus, how is this not just a rescue out of a bad situation, but a rescue into deep relationship and community with God, for his purposes?

9. What are the things in our lives that we are in danger of becoming enslaved to? How can we identify these and continue in obedience to God?

10. Were Shiprah and Puah justified in their actions? To whom were they ultimately obedient?

Read Exodus 2

11. How remarkable is the story of the birth and upbringing of Moses? What does this teach you about the nature of God? Do you find anything remarkable about the trust of Moses’ mother?

12. What parallels are there between Moses and Jesus? In what ways is Jesus’ deliverance greater?

For application this week: What are the things in your life that you are most susceptible of making your ‘master’ above and beyond God? What aspects of your relationship with God can help you rejoice in his goodness more over other things which fail to satisfy?

Talk 1/9 (Exodus: The God Who Rescues): 17/07/16 “God’s People Enslaved” by the Rev’d Adam Lowe

Bible Passage: Exodus 1-2

INTRODUCTION \\ INTRODUCTION TO SERIES

I’m really thrilled that today we begin a new nine-part series on the book of Exodus.

• Exodus is the second book of the Old Testament, and its name literally means, ‘going out’.

• It tells the story of the great going out from Egypt, the great rescue of the Israelites from the slavery to the Egyptians.

• Ask any Jew right up until Jesus was born, what was the defining rescue event for them as a people, and they would have absolutely said the Exodus.

• Of God fulfilling his promise to Abraham, multiplying Abraham’s descendants into a great nation, delivering them from slavery in Egypt, binding them to himself with a covenant at Mt Sinai,and leading them to the promised land.

• This book is all about the God who rescues, but it’s more than just the rescue out of Egypt.

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• It might start off with Israel in Egypt, but it ends up with Israel at Mt Sinai sealing their covenant with God, albeit with a bit of a wilderness detour in between.

• This is not just a rescue out of a bad situation, but a rescue into deep relationship and community with God, for his purposes.

• Pay attention to that as we go through the book,because it’s one of the keys to understanding that the Exodus is not just part of the identity for Israel, but for us too. //

• Sometimes, as sophisticated, modern people, we can be tempted to look back on ancient people and think oh, that was nice for them, but we don’t need God to rescue us. But actually we do.

• Exodus points not only to our need, but the ultimate way that God delivers.

So we start off with two chapters that are densely packed with action…

• So three parts we’ll look at today: • God Blesses;

Pharaoh Enslaves; andA Deliverer is Born.

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GOD BLESSES \\ EXODUS 1:1-7

First, God Blesses the people of Israel.

These are the names of the sons of Israel who went to Egypt with Jacob, each with his family: Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah; Issachar, Zebulun and Benjamin; Dan and Naphtali; Gad and Asher. The descendants of Jacob numbered seventy in all; Joseph was already in Egypt. Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died, but the Israelites were exceedingly fruitful; they multiplied greatly, increased in numbers and became so numerous that the land was filled with them.

• Whilst we can’t see it in our English translations, the very first word in Hebrew in Exodus, is ‘and’.

• If you sat down to write a book today, it’s highly unlikely that you would start with ‘and’.

• But the author of Exodus starts that way because everything that they are about to say, is fundamentally connected to everything that has proceeded it in Genesis.

• There’s a backstory!

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• The last third of Genesis is largely about Jospeh and his brothers, and their father, Jacob, as they ended up in Egypt with the favour of the Pharaoh.

• That’s the connection point. • In particular, what we note, in the list of Jacob’s descendants,

is that they have really been multiplying. • We see that in the space of a few generations they have gone from a handful,

to so many, they multiplied greatly, that ‘the land was filled with them’. • As soon as we hear that phrase, a lightbulb is meant to go off in our heads,

recalling not only the great promise of God to Abraham in Genesis 12, that through him they will be made into a great nation, but even back to Genesis 1, when God blesses Adam and Eve, and says ‘be fruitful and increase in number’.

• God’s not explicitly mentioned in the start of Exodus, but we’re to be left with no doubt that God is the one behind it.

• The implication behind all of this, is that this is not just a link through heritage, as God’s people, but there is also an underlying link to God’s promises.

• That’s why it begins with ‘and’.

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• Whatever we read after this point, we must be ready to see the promises of God being worked out for the whole family of humankind.

You might come from a very large family, or have a very large family, but this blows everything out of the water.

• Jacob’s descendants have completely outgrown the notion of family, and have now become a large nation.

• They no longer are the sons of Israel, but a people called the Israelites, a people who are distinct because of God, which sets them on a collision course when a new king arrives, who has no regard for these people, because he has no regard for their God.

• There’s a change in management, and that changes everything for the Israelites.

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PHAROAH ENSLAVES \\ EXODUS 1:8-22

So, first, God blesses his people, second, Pharaoh enslaves them.

Then a new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt. “Look,” he said to his people, “the Israelites have become far too numerous for us. Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country.”

• The new king on the block feels threatened by the Israelites. • The past Pharaohs knew that Joseph was discerning, wise, and filled with the Spirit of

God (cf. Genesis 41:37-40), but the new king has no idea about that. • And so as he sees this great number of people, remember so large that they’ve become

a nation of their own, he’s threatened by them. • It’s amazing that it’s actually the Pharaoh recognising them not as a family but a nation! • He’s worried that they pose a risk to his kingdom, so he decides to make them slaves,

to oppress them, in order to kill their spirit and crush their growth.

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In ancient Egypt there were many levels of slavery, some worked in mud pits, others had skilled jobs, but it didn’t matter what you did, the Egyptians were specialists at making people’s lives miserable.

• Yet the Israelites kept growing, they multiplied and spread,so the Egyptians oppressed them more and more…

• Just look at the repetitive descriptors in verses 13 and 14…. the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites and worked them ruthlessly,they made their lives bitter with harsh labor…in all their harsh labor the Egyptians worked them ruthlessly.

• This is not just hard work, they’re enslaved. • The Egyptians are trying to crush them, by setting masters over them,

who they have to serve and serve and serve and serve. • By setting masters over them, they haven’t been just enslaved to someone,

but their freedom to set God as their master has been taken away. • We know that, because when Moses goes to Pharaoh, he doesn’t just say “let my

people go”, he says: “let my my people that they may worship”. • That is, so that they can have the Lord God as their master. There’s a much bigger picture of salvation going on here…

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• That salvation is not just rescue from physical slavery, but it’s actually rescue from the misery and slavery of serving anything or anyone above God.

• That’s why the book begins with slavery but ends in worship. • Being free isn’t freedom to do anything, or free to have no master,

but freedom for relationship with God. • To serve anything but God will result in you being a slave. • You can’t have freedom without God. Only God can break the power of sin and death. • Just think about, if the ultimate thing you live for is:

professional achievement, having fun, sporting prowess, or amassing wealth, then your heart will be in servitude to those things, you become a slave to them…

• Because you can’t bear to face a reality when those things are taken away. • If the ultimate thing you live for is money, then you will orientate your entire life to

fulfilling that need because facing a life without it will lead you to despair. • You’re a slave, and actually there’s only one who you can make the master of your life

and it won’t crush you, and that’s God. • Your exodus out of slavery will not reach its final destination

until you find God as your master and seek to follow him. �9

The two midwives in the story show us what that looks like in their radical obedience, as Pharaoh goes from enslaving the people to acts of genocide.

• He knows that in order for them to continue growing they need males being born, so he orders the midwives, to kill all of the sons born.

• Midwives helped give birth and cared for the baby until the mother was stronger… • But here they show great courage and love for God, ignoring Pharaoh and obey the Lord. • They not only lie,

but the very excuse they give plays on Pharaoh’s fear of the Israelite’s fertility… • I’m not sure this as God endorsing lying, but rewarding them for obeying the true king. • And what I love, is that while scholars still argue who that unnamed Pharaoh may be,

the names of two supposedly lowly midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, have gone on to be remembered for thousands of years.

• So often faced with the challenge of obedience, of setting God as the master of our lives above everything else, we can feel like it doesn’t even matter.

• In the face of relative power and wickedness, we can feel powerless. Yet God can take our obedience and use it to have a lasting affect.

• Pharaoh enslaved, but God would not be thwarted. �10

A DELIVERER IS BORN \\ EXODUS 2

And so third, a deliverer is born.

• We’ll spend more time looking at Moses next week, but this is where his story begins. • When slavery wouldn’t work,

when killing the sons at birth wouldn’t work, Pharaoh demands that every Hebrew boy born must be thrown into the Nile.

• Exodus 2 tells the story of one mother who could not bear to do that to her son…

…when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him. Then Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her female slave to get it. She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. “This is one of the Hebrew babies,” she said. Then his sister asked Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?” “Yes, go,” she answered. So the girl went and got the baby’s mother. Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you.” So the woman took the baby and nursed him. When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses…

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• The mother, who was powerless to change Pharaoh’s Law, when she could hide her baby no more, trusted God and placed her son on the Nile in a basket, and that boy ends up going right into the house of the one who would have him dead.

• Just take in how remarkable God’s plan for deliverance is. • Born into peril with a death sentence on him,

he is spared by being set on the very river which was to drown him, treated with kindness by the daughter of the king who condemned him, assigned to be cared for by his own mother, to be raised and trained in the household from which he would deliver his people.

• If you’ve ever been surrounded by evil, frustrated by how little you can do, we can be tempted to look inwardly at our human predicaments, situations that can be humanly impossible… or concentrate on God and his power in order that we can see a way through.

• Even the smallest amount of trust, when placed with God, can have a profound effect.

Moses’ first attempt to liberate his people ends in disaster, with the killing of a man, and a self-imposed exile, but the time will come when God will call him to deliver.

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• The Lord God will hear the cries of his people, and will send Moses to them in order that they might be set free.

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CONCLUSION \\ JESUS IS THE GREATER MOSES

• Decrees for infants to be killed, wanted by the rulers of the land, alienated from his own people, sent into the wilderness to be prepared, anointed with the Spirit to lead people out.

• I wonder if any of that story sounds familiar? • Moses will liberate his people from slavery (spoiler alert!),

but everything he does points to the greater liberation that Jesus will achieve on the cross.

One day, Jesus goes up a mountain with three of his disciples: Peter, James, and John.

• When before their eyes, Jesus is transfigured before them. • And who should appear speaking to Jesus, but Moses and Elijah. • And what did Jesus chat about with them? We read in Mark 9:31…

They spoke about his departure, which he was about to bring to fulfillment at Jerusalem.

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But the word for departure is not any word, it’s exodus.

• Jesus was about to face the cross, the ultimate exodus, abandoned by his friends, alienated from God, cut off and despised, in order that through his death, he could bring you and me out of the ultimate slavery, so that sin and death could have no power over us.

• Moses was sent at the risk of death to liberate people from physical slavery, Jesus was sent at the cost of death to liberate the world for all eternity.

• It’s through Jesus that we can see how the Exodus makes sense. • It’s through Jesus that we can see how God has fulfilled his promises. • It’s through Jesus that we can cry out to God in order that we might be set free. • Exodus is not just a rescue out of a bad situation,

but a rescue into deep relationship and community with God, for his purposes,and it points to everything that Jesus will do,in order that we might not just be rescued out of something,but delivered with a purpose into relationship with him for all eternity.

• Our God is the God who rescues.

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