The Exodus (Exodus 12:31-13:16)

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Good morning church and go ahead, grab your Bibles, open up to Exodus. Chapter 12. Exodus chapter 12. We’ll be starting verse 31 today. Exodus 1231. As you turn in there, there is a hard luck family from Lake Wobegon, Minnesota. So it’s Swedish immigrants and their daughter. So young Swedish woman ended up running off with a Scotsman by the name of Campbell. They had three kids together before this Campbell fellow left her, which meant she had returned home in disgrace, not just in disgrace, but in poverty as well. She lived in a broken down trailer with her three kids, and was dependent on the charity of those around her, the pity of friends and family and neighbors, really just to survive until a letter arrived asking her about her family heritage, and especially about this Campbell guy. And so she responded, gave what information she had, and then another letter arrived a little bit after that, letting her know that her kids, through Campbell their father were actually direct descendants to the throne of Scotland, which, if you know political history, you know the throne of Scotland is vacant, the United Kingdom, all that stuff and whatnot. But, you know, direct descendants of the Stuart kings, basically. So they were heirs to the throne, and had no idea, in their hardship, they didn’t know who they were. As Christians, we know who we are, but in our hardship, we can forget. We can forget who we are, and so we need to remember. We actually maybe even seen that in the past couple of weeks, because we’ve been so hyper focused on the plagues, that it’s been easy to miss the promises, to forget God’s covenant, promises to go, Okay, we see that God is rescuing Israel out of Egypt. But why? Why is God choosing to rescue Israel? That’s what we want to remember. And so our big idea today, I’m gonna give you up from to you up front, just we can kind of work it out as we go through the text. But our big idea today is, consecrate yourselves to the Lord as you remember what he has done for you. So we’re gonna come back to that word consecrate in the last section, because that’s not a word we use all day, every day. But you know, to set yourself apart. Devote yourself fully to the Lord as you remember all that he’s done for you. We’re going to see three truths in particular to remember in our text today. And so this will be kind of our outline. These three truths that are there fill in the blanks in the bulletin for you. So first truth we want to remember from our first section, verses 31 to 42 consecrate yourselves the Lord as you remember his covenant faithfulness. As you remember his covenant faithfulness, so verses 31 to 42 let me read it for us. Now during the night, Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, up, leave my people, you and the Israelites, go worship the Lord as you have requested, take your flocks and herds, as you have said, and go and also bless me. The Egyptians urged the people to hurry and leave the country for otherwise, they said, We will all die. So the people took their dough before the yeast was added, and carried it on their shoulders and kneading troughs, wrapped in clothing. The Israelites did as Moses instructed, and asked the Egyptians for articles of silver and gold and for clothing. The Lord had made the Egyptians favorably disposed toward the people, and they gave them what they asked for. So they plundered the Egyptians. The Israelites journeyed from Ramses to Sukkot. There were about 600,000 men on foot, besides women and children, many other people went up with them, and also large droves of livestock, both flocks and herds, with the dough the Israelites had brought from Egypt. They baked loaves of Unleavened Bread. The dough was without yeast because they had been driven out of Egypt and did not have time to prepare food for themselves. Now, the length of time the Israelite people lived in Egypt was 430 years. The end of the 430 years to the very day all the Lord’s divisions left Egypt because the Lord kept vigil that night to bring them out of Egypt. On this night, all the Israelites are to keep vigil to honor the Lord for the generations to come. So if you’ve been tracking with us in this series so far, you know that this opening paragraph is deeply ironic. I mean, Pharaoh has to call Moses and Aaron back into his presence. He had told them, If you ever show up in front of me again, I’m gonna kill you. And he’s like, actually, if you could come in for another meeting, that would be great. And then he totally capitulates here. So what Moses has been asking of him. The last, you know, five months or so, Pharaoh is now begging them to do Moses is saying, Let my people go. And Pharaoh is like, Hey, would you and your people just go already? Yes, yes, we are willing to do this. Thank you for asking. And did you catch it also that the Lord’s purpose was fulfilled? Because what does Pharaoh say to Moses? He says, Go worship, not your God. He says, go and worship the Lord. Go and worship Yahveh. And this is where it all started, right? Moses went to Pharaoh and said, The Lord says, Let my people go. And Pharaoh said, Who is the Lord? Who is this Yahveh guy that you keep talking about? Well, now he knows this is a lesson. I think this opening paragraph for all who would seek to resist God’s will, because it accomplishes nothing other than hardness of heart and death. Pharaoh gained nothing and lost everything. Far better for us than to accept God’s claims on our lives, now, especially the claims of a God from whom all blessings flow like it is very easy to surrender ourselves to a master as good and gracious as he is, so the Israelites get to go. This is the Exodus. Finally, in our series on Exodus, here we are. This is the Exodus. And at the heart of the actual Exodus is God’s covenant faithfulness. There are three covenant promises fulfilled, all of which shows that we can trust him. We can always trust him. So three promises that were made to Abraham back when God established that covenant with Abraham. The first promise is this Genesis, 15. Verse 14, it says that the Israel is going to be slaves in Egypt for, you know, like a half a millennium or so, like that’s a long time, but eventually they’re going to come out, and afterward, it says they will come out with great possessions after these centuries of slavery. And here we see it right in verse 36 the Egyptians are favorably disposed toward them, and they gave what was asked of them, so they receive great possessions, the just payment for their centuries of hard labor. Then the second promise from Genesis 12, two, when God first calls Abraham and says, I will make you into a great nation. I will make you into a great nation. Now this was a promise that wasn’t looking so good in Abraham’s life, when he dies, he has one son, not exactly a great nation at this point. Wasn’t even looking good at the beginning of Exodus. Was it because we’ve got Pharaoh attempting a genocide on the Israelite people, which is not usually a recipe for becoming a great nation. But no, they were fruitful. They multiplied still, and we read that at about 600,000 men, and then you got the women and children. Now this does present a difficulty, by the way, because that would make them about 2 million people, and that is just too large for the number that would have come out at this time. Also would be really difficult, because they leave in a night, and if you got 2 million people on foot, it takes about two weeks for the back of the line to catch up to where the front started. So what’s happening here? Most likely could just be simple hyperbole. I don’t think that’s what’s going on, though, more likely that word that’s used for 1000 Hebrew word eleph, can mean a clan or division. So we’re probably talking about like you got 600 clan units that are coming out at this point, still a large number of people, though, as they’re a big group, they’re no longer just the 70 who came down to Egypt. They have indeed become a real nation, a great nation, at this point. And then the third promise from Genesis, 12, three, the next verse, all peoples on earth will be blessed through you. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you. And I can hear you guys, you’re looking at this story, and you’re going, okay, Brandon, but this doesn’t look like all nations being blessed. This looks very tribal. This is about Israel, and it’s really doesn’t look like a blessing on Egypt. That’s for sure. Are we sure all nations are being blessed here? Yes, like this isn’t tribal. You can see it in verse 38 many other people went up with them. It’s a very specific phrase that’s used, it refers to an ethnically diverse group of people. Isn’t that interesting? It’s not just the Israelites who leave Egypt. Now, who are these other people? Could be other slaves that were there. Could include some Egyptians as well. We don’t really know. We just know that it’s a it’s a motley group. Of people. We we can see what this looks like, because after Moses’s wife, Zipporah, dies, Moses marries a woman from Cush, we learn in numbers 12, a black Cushite woman be modern day Ethiopia. I mean, they’re out wandering in the wilderness, like, where’s he meeting women? She was there in the group. I mean, she probably came out at this point as well. So even though, yes, in this moment, God is drawing Israel out of Egypt, he is simultaneously drawing all nations to himself through Egypt, through Israel, sorry, through Israel. And so what we’re seeing here is what Ruth declares later. You’ve got these people who are going along with Israel. And what does Ruth say to Naomi, her mother in law, you know where you go, I’ll go, and your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. And that seems to be what these people are saying here. Of course, we this continues the great commission that is given to the church right make disciples of all nations. And then this culminates in the vision of revelation seven that we looked at in an earlier series, where you’ve got this this group from every tribe and language and nation and people worshiping the Lord together in heaven. So this moment here, even though it looks tribal, it’s like the first domino that’s falling. And, you know, all these dominoes later, like a Rube Goldberg machine or something, right? You tap the first thing, and then seven minutes later, you’ve got your toast and tea is made, or whatever, like that. That’s what’s happening here. I had no idea what was coming when this first domino fell. And then verse 42 where we end this little section is so interesting. It’s another way. We talked about a lot of ways last week to remember. Here’s another way to remember, because God kept vigil. He stayed awake all night. God doesn’t sleep, of course, but he’s watching carefully all night to make sure his people get out of Egypt. And so from then on, the Israelites were supposed to stay awake all night on this day to remember the Lord’s vigil. They keep vigil, to remember his vigil. But that’s the idea again, find ways to remember, to remember, especially that he keeps all his promises. Remember his covenant faithfulness. Paul tells us, in Second Corinthians one that all God’s promises are yes in Christ, no matter how many promises God has made, they are yes in Christ. And we say amen when we hear his promises as a result, look, we have seen so many more of God’s promises fulfilled than Israel had here at this moment. I mean, the very first promise that God was going to send a seed of woman to stomp on that snake’s head, to crush Satan, the enemy. That’s happened, God sent Jesus, and he’s the snake Crusher, right? So that one’s fulfilled. I mean, Genesis, 12, three, what we already looked at, yes, Israel became a great nation, but they become a blessing. Become a blessing to all nations. We are proof of that blessing even here Isaiah 53 we sang words from that text this morning, even. But yes, He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was on him that’s fulfilled. Even promises in Israel’s history, like Jeremiah 29 where it says you’re going to be exiles in Babylon, but just for one generation, just 70 years, and then I’m going to bring you back. Like, yeah, he did that. So you see the point. He always keeps his promise. He’s always faithful to his covenant. Do you struggle with trusting God? Sometimes? Sure, right, that’s the answer. You’re all like, I don’t know if I’m allowed to talk right now, yeah, and you can say yeah, also right, because we struggle sometimes with trusting God when we do in that moment, we remember, we look back at all the promises God kept. How do I know that he’ll do it? Because he’s always done it before. He always keeps His word. Now, it’s true. God has not kept every promise yet. Some are still future. Like, again, we just studied revelation. I’m looking forward to the day when there’s no more crying, no more sin, no more mourning, no more death. Like, yeah, but it hasn’t happened yet. And maybe there’s some personal promises, like Romans eight, he’s gonna work all things for your good. If you’re a believer in Christ, you may be going, I don’t know what that good is yet in this trial that I’m in, so it may be future. But the point is, he’s never broken a promise, and he never will, right? Like, go back to that Jeremiah 29 promise. It’s not like God said 70 years in Babylon, and then 1000 years later he was like, Oops, my bad. Like, you know, symbolic numbers, I meant 1200 years or something. That’s not how this works. He always keeps His word. So consecrate yourself to the Lord in trust, keeping vigil, watching for him to keep his promises, as you remember his covenant faithfulness. And then second. It, consecrate yourselves to the Lord as you remember your covenant. Welcome your covenant. Welcome the rest of chapter 12, picking up in verse 43 let me read it for us. The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, these are the regulations for the Passover meal. No foreigner may eat it. Any slave you have brought bought may eat it after you have circumcised him, but a temporary resident or a hired worker must may not eat it. It Must Be Eaten inside the house. Take none of the meat outside the house. Do not break any of the bones. The whole community of Israel must celebrate it. A foreigner residing among you who wants to celebrate the Lord’s Passover must have all the males in his household circumcised, then he may take part, like one born in the land, no uncircumcised male may eat it. The same law applies both to the native born and to the foreigner residing among you. All the Israelites did just what the Lord had commanded, Moses and Aaron, and on that very day, the Lord brought the Israelites out of Egypt by their divisions, as you remember your covenant welcome. And some of you are going covenant welcome, really, like in the NIV, at least the name for this section is Passover restrictions. So, like, here’s who’s not welcome to eat this meal. Not everyone is welcome, or are they, though? I mean, yes, God has to fence the table. It’s an old Scottish Presbyterian phrase to let people know who may and who may not take the Lord’s Supper. And we do it here. Of course, we fence the table every time we take communion, and say if you’re an unrepentant sin, or if you are not a believer in Christ, if you have not yet trusted Christ, then this is not the meal for you, because this is a covenant meal for those who have said, I’m a part of the Covenant community. So God does that here, because Passover is a covenant meal. And so he’s saying, okay, so it’s for the people who are part of the Covenant community. So he’s got to fence the table, especially because of the presence of those foreigners that we just talked about in this exodus group. May they eat this meal? Because foreigners at this time would have a tendency to worship foreign gods, not the God of Israel. And so no, they could not eat that. But I don’t think the question here is really who should be excluded from the meal. The question is really who may be included in the meal. And we get this wide variety of terms to describe everyone living in Israel at this point. So you get the foreigner, which is kind of a catch all term, but then you get some different sorts of peoples. You’ve got temporary residents. You’ve got hired workers. And then in verse 48 a foreigner residing among you. We’re talking about permanent legal residents, like green card holders, basically. So who can join in eating the Passover Well, circumcised slaves can because they belong to a household. They’ve been marked by the covenant seal circumcision, so they’re a part of the Covenant community. But foreigners may not, and then you almost see some hands going up in the back of the 600,000 people or whatever, going, Okay, but what about foreigners who live and work permanently among us on Moses, God says, Well, if they’re circumcised because again, that means they’ve joined the covenant community, then they can eat too. And did you see that in verse 48 by the way, not only can they eat it, but they eat it without distinction from native born Israelites. They eat it like one born in the land. That’s shocking. That’s absolutely shocking. At this moment in history, there is no distinction once you join God’s covenant people. There are no second class citizens in the covenant community. Paul draws out the logic, the Gospel logic of this in Ephesians chapter three, when he’s saying, the mystery of the gospel is that the Gentiles have been brought in, and so they are now heirs together with Israel, members together of one body and sharers together in The covenant promises, the promise in Christ, Jesus, no distinction, no second class citizens. Now circumcision is the deciding factor, because, as I’ve said, it marks your entrance into the covenant community. In that it is like baptism in the new covenant, which marks your entrance into the covenant community, into the church, and both happen by faith. By faith, Abraham believed God. That’s what was credited to him as righteousness, and then he is circumcised as a sign of his faith in baptism. We believe in the grace of Jesus Christ, and we show it visibly by getting baptized in the water. Errors, this connection to circumcision then binds Passover to God’s covenant with Abraham, right? It’s just this reminder again, so it’s not ethnic, because all nations are going to be blessed through Abraham, and it’s not deserved. It is by faith for all nations on the basis of God’s faithfulness, nothing has changed for us today. In fact, the inclusiveness of the church should be even more obvious, more pronounced. All are welcome in the covenant community, regardless of ethnicity, language, class, gender, the only distinction that matters is creed. Have you put your faith in Christ, Jesus? So that means it’s important that you remember your covenant welcome. And when I say remember your covenant welcome, I mean you are remembering that none of us should be here. That’s what that looks like. None of us should be here. We don’t belong in God’s covenant people because of iniquity, not ethnicity, but that sin means that we should not be here. And yet the glory of the gospel, God has flung wide the door of the church. All may enter who come by faith in Jesus, but that is the key. The door is wide open, but there’s only one door. So it’s this like exclusive inclusivity or inclusive exclusivity. I don’t care which way you look at it. The door is wide open, but there is only one door in His name is Jesus. He even said John chapter 10, I am the door. I am the door because there’s only one God as Pharaoh and the Egyptians just learned there’s only one God. So there’s only one way to be saved through that one sacrifice offered once for all time. But everyone, everywhere, can be saved under the blood of that sacrifice, as we saw last week. So remember your covenant, welcome. But equally, remember everyone else’s covenant, welcome. There’s such important corporate application for us here. How do we treat those who are different from us in the church? Now, maybe that’s ethnicity. Goodness knows, we’ve got some tension when it comes to race in our nation. More likely, I think it would be class for a lot of us, and maybe most likely in a community like ours, I think it’s messiness. Like we want people whose lives are put together. We want easy people in this community. You are welcome to come on in if you can contribute in all sorts of ways which you can, by the way, if you’re in Christ we talked about that. That’s the ministry fair idea, but that’s what we want, right? We don’t want people who are going to be a burden to us and make our lives more difficult. And so the question is for us, right? Do they find welcome? Do all people find welcome here in this church? So someone could come in with their life, not put together and go, I belong, because the blood of Christ, and maybe even more, do they find welcome, not just here, but in your home, as part of the Covenant community? Because, remember, there are no restrictions once there is faith in Jesus Christ. In fact, we’ve got this lovely communal focus in the last two verses of this section, verses 50 and 51 all the Israelites did just what the Lord had commanded. And on that very day, the Lord brought the Israelites out of Egypt by their divisions, by their groups, right? There’s nothing individual here, which is a good reminder for us in the highly individualistic West that salvation isn’t, mainly isn’t, first and foremost, personal. I know that’s an important part of it. We have to talk about that. Do you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ? Yes, that matters, but it’s not like your private possession. Then we’re being saved as a people for His name. We’re being saved together. And so it’s only right that we celebrate together, and that’s why we eat the meal together. You take communion in church, in the gathering of the local church, that’s where communion happens, and nowhere else, because it is a family a family meal. So there’s no such thing as a lone ranger Christian. The church, less Christian, we gather in community, consecrate yourself to the Lord in corporate worship, in multi ethnic, multi class, multi everything community as you remember your covenant, welcome. And then third, consecrate yourselves to the Lord. As you remember the covenant ransom, we read chapter 13, verses one to 16, the Lord said to Moses, consecrate to me every firstborn male, the first offspring of every womb among the Israelites belongs to me, whether human or animal. Then Moses said to the people, commemorate this day, the day you came out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery, because the Lord brought you out of it with a mighty hand. Eat nothing containing yeast. Today, in the month of Aviv you are leaving when the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Hivites and Jebusites, the land he swore to your ancestors to give you a land flowing with milk and honey. You are to observe this ceremony in this month for seven days, eat bread made without yeast, and on the seventh day, hold a festival to the Lord. Eat unleavened bread during those seven days, nothing with yeast in it is to be seen among you, nor shall any yeast be seen anywhere within your borders. On that day, tell your son, I do this because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt. This observance will be for you like a sign on your hand and a reminder on your forehead that this law of the Lord is to be on your lips. The Lord brought you out of Egypt with His mighty hand. You must keep this ordinance at the appointed time, year after year after. The Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites and gives it to you as he promised on oath to you and your ancestors, you are to give over to the Lord. The first offspring of every womb, all the firstborn males of your livestock belong to the Lord. Redeem with a lamb every firstborn donkey. But if you do not redeem it, break its neck, redeem every firstborn among your sons in days to come, when your son asks you, What does this mean? Say to him, with a mighty hand, the Lord brought us out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. When Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the Lord killed the firstborn of both people and animals in Egypt. This is why I sacrificed to the Lord the first male offspring of every womb and redeem each of my firstborn sons. And it will be like a sign on your hand and a symbol on your forehead that the Lord brought us out of Egypt with His mighty hand. So here we finally get our word, our key word, consecrate. Now this word has the exact same root in Hebrew as the word holy. So this is just means holify, which is not a word your sons every first born male. So to make holy, we’ve talked about this. Every time we talk about what holy means, it means set apart. That’s what makes God holy, is he’s totally different from all the rest of us, because He is perfect and we are not. So he’s saying set apart for me. Show that they belong to me, the firstborn of every house. Now there is a lot going on here. Of course, we can’t read what we just read in the last couple of weeks and not immediately. Think of the 10th plague the firstborn, the death of the firstborn. So the firstborn of Israel should have died also. We talked about that last week, but God spared them, and so now they belong to him. But I think it’s more than just that that’s going on because the firstborn is so important in this culture, the firstborn represents the family the way a captain represents a team they were given in this culture, in almost every culture in the history of the world and in many cultures, even still today, given special rights and a special inheritance. But of course, they’re given the special inheritance even I mean, you don’t even have to go back that far. You can, like, think you’re Jane Austen novels or something like that. Like, you know, the son inherits the estate. Why? For the sake of the family and the family’s future. And so the first born doesn’t just represent the family, but represents the future family too. So when a king finally had a son born to him, everyone went because the dynasty is secured and the line goes on. And so the firstborn is the whole family in perpetuity. And so God’s saying the whole family in perpetuity belongs to me, which makes sense. Moses himself says it later, Deuteronomy, 32 verse six, he asks the Israelites, is he not your father, your Creator who made you and formed you. And so you see the point there. It’s not just the firstborn by redemption that belongs to him, but by creation. We all belong to him. He made us. So we are His. We, all of us, belong to Him. Now I can’t read that without a quick word to parents, at least. Do you feel this way about your own kids, or do you see them as your own? And feel free to make them in your image. I’m not a first born. I’m a force born. They’re the best. I got an amen from Brielle, the only one who amens me ever. But I am married to a firstborn. I have a firstborn. My best friend is a firstborn, also my coworker. He is married to a firstborn, also my coworker. I am like surrounded by firstborn. You probably know some firstborns too. There are more of them than anyone else, right? First borns have a vibe about them, don’t they? Yeah, all the second borns are like, Mm, hmm, yeah, yeah, exactly. But why, like, why first born? They got tendencies, right? Most likely, most likely. Not all of them, certainly, but they’ve got this tendency more likely to be rule following type A perfectionists. Why? Because their parents thought they could make them that way, like with your first born, you can do everything right. And so you get the strictest sleep training, the strictest diet. Like Karis didn’t have sugar tissue. She was like 19. She’s got two years to go. Still, this is how we’re so we think we can make them perfect, and then we also have all these ideas for them, like we stamp our plans on them most deeply they got all this pressure. That’s why they’re always performing all this pressure. Maybe it’s academically, maybe it’s sports or other extracurriculars. So that’s how we think of our kids, and we’re slowly disabused of that notion when you get down to four or five and six and things like that. Okay, but contrast that how we approach the firstborn with Abraham, because Abraham takes his first born, who is his only born, his son, his only son, whom he loves, and he ties him to the altar and is ready to sacrifice him to the Lord. The Lord, of course, abhors child sacrifice. It was never part of his plan for that to happen. That’s why he provides the ram in the thicket that we talked about last week. But that’s the attitude we have with our kids. This is not mine. This is yours. Everything is on the altar. Lord, that’s why this is such a key moment in Israel’s history. But it’s such a good lesson for us as well. Like this is what we do in parent commissioning, when we when we have those services, you’re taking that kid and you’re going here, here, Lord, ultimately, he is not mine, she is not mine, and belong to you. Then verse three, we see that we are to commemorate. So there’s that remembering idea, again, to commemorate the deliverance of the firstborn, and also, of course, of God’s firstborn, which is the nation of Israel we saw way back in chapter four. So you need to remember that. And it is an active remembering, as we talked a lot about last week, the Passover, the feast of unleavened bread, all of that. It’s an active remembering that involves us instructing the next generation, which is what the firstborn represents, of course, the next generation. Do you see it there in verse eight, tell your son like tell your kids parents initiate instruction. Here’s why we’re doing what we’re doing. Because here’s what you need to know, here’s what you need to learn, here’s what you need to remember. Can I ask you, parents again, how are you doing this in your home? We started talking about this last week, the idea of weekly yearly rhythms. Let me consider this again, yearly rhythms, especially when it comes to the Holy Days, the holidays like Passover. You know, here’s this feast that is commanded in Scripture. What about our holy days? Christmas, Advent, Lent, Easter, Good Friday. Do you have traditions? But are your traditions about instructing the next generation in the wondrous deeds of the Lord, or is it elf and a fat guy in a red suit? Nothing wrong with those right we also watch elf. That’s not what I’m saying, but that’s like frosting on the cake. The cake is the wondrous deeds of the Lord. What you do for Christmas, what you do for Easter? Like, are your kids learning that? Or is it a bunny that drops eggs? You know which one matters, right now. I get it. Scripture does not command these feasts. But I just think we’ve got these opportunities here, Christmas, Easter, maybe other like Reformation Day, which is coming up this week. Of course, Thanksgiving again, it’s a national holiday, but you know what? We’re supposed to give thanks? Okay, I could do this one, right? I just think that some of. These ideas that are here in Scripture need to be a much, much bigger deal than Valentine’s Day or Halloween. We did fall festival again. It’s not like we’re anti Halloween, but like you understand, these don’t really have much significance to them, but even then, of course, getting to the deep spiritual meaning of these days, and not just their secularized cultural versions, but it’s not just yearly rhythms, although I hope your year has a gospel rhythm to it, but what about your daily and weekly rhythms? Also like we cannot guarantee our kids faith, but we can do all that we can to to ensure that this teaching is passed down. Looks like family worship, certainly daily, opening the Bible together as a family, instructing them in the word, explaining the story of the gospel. I mean, when kids are really little, this probably just looks like teaching the stories themselves. They’re just getting names and and, you know, plot down. And then as they grow, it, it starts to change. It starts to mature. The depth of engagement. What we do with the girls, at least the boys are at the learn the story stage the girls right now, we’re in Proverbs, but we do the meditation questions from Journey group, just together when they were learning how to meditate on Scripture as we open God’s Word together. That’s family worship. We model private worship. Of course, our kids see us in the Word, in prayer, in fasting, in silence, in solitude, whatever it may be, and then, of course, the weekly rhythm of corporate worship, which I have said before and will say again until the day I die, is sacrosanct, inviolable. Do you understand this is the most important time of your week, and I hope it is the favorite part of your week, also, like I know it is for me, not this part. I get tired of hearing myself, much like all of you do but, but it’s when I can hear all of you singing behind me. That’s why you sit in the front row. By the way, I have no idea why back row Baptists sit in the back row. You can’t hear people singing when you’re in the back row, so come sit up front, but don’t take my seat. Okay, hearing you all sing about the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the highlight of my week every single week. And so it’s not just that we make sure that we’re here, but there’s something we communicate about it. Do your kids know why you bring them to church? Like really? Have you ever asked them that question? Do they know that you’re here because he’s worth it? And doesn’t that change how you come to church, like when you’re getting them ready in the morning, which isn’t always easy. I understand. Does it have the feel of we have to get there, we have to go to church. We get to go to church. We’re going to see the King guys. This is awesome. Let’s do this. Those are some rhythms that we can keep so that, paraphrasing verse 10 here, we get to keep these rhythms at the appointed time, year after year after year. And then we get verse 11, and there’s this big shift, because all of a sudden, we’re talking about, you know, we’re commemorating, we’re consecrating, all that stuff. And then all of a sudden, oh, wait, we need to redeem the firstborn. And redeem might not even be the right word there. I think it’s actually more the idea of ransom. You know what ransom is? Right? It’s when you you pay money to save someone from death, and so they have to ransom the firstborn, because the firstborn belongs to God and should have died. So what does this look like? It’s a little bit like in back in the days the Cold War, East Germany. West Germany, there was this idea of freikov, which means the buying of freedom. So there were more than 30,000 East German dissidents who were ransomed by West Germany like spared capital punishment in exchange for things like fruit and medicine like that’s what’s happening here. With the first one. We have to give you something in order to save this person from death, and that’s why verse 15 you either sacrifice the firstborn animal or ransom, the firstborn son, who is then consecrated to the Lord. And so their substitution is just there in the idea of a ransom, like you give a lamb for a donkey. It sure feels like that’s getting us ready for what’s coming, right? I don’t need to tell you that one we talked about. This one. Quick aside. Did you see there in verse 14? So we already talked about parents are instructing tell your son, but then also verse 14, you’re ready to answer their questions. Like, this is beautiful too. When your kids come to you and they’re like, why do I do this? I’m so glad you asked. Like, let’s talk about this. You’re ready to answer their questions as. Well what this means, but you consecrate the firstborn to the Lord, then this is what Mary and Joseph do for Jesus. They bring him to the temple, and they offer the two doves, which is what you were allowed to do instead of a lamb, if you were poor or like Samuel, would be another really good example here. So Hannah, who is barren, prays for a child, and God opens her womb, she has Samuel, which he says, I will give him to you. If you give me a son, I will give him to you. Once he’s weaned, she drops him off at the temple. That’s where he lives. That’s what consecration looks like, by the way, but Samuel is especially helpful, because she consecrated Samuel to the Lord in the hopes that there would be more children to come, as indeed there were. And so the first born is almost like the first fruits of a harvest. I’m gonna give you the first because I know that more is on the way, which gives us, by the way, that many nations ideas again, because Israel is God’s first born son. They’re consecrated to the Lord in the hope that many others would follow. All nations, in fact, would follow. Which means, in this story, we move from redemption to consecration to mission. That’s the Christian life, right? There, isn’t it? Right? Salvation, sanctification, sending. We’re sent out. God saves us by grace, and we offer ourselves to Him to live lives worthy of the gospel, and then we proclaim that gospel in Word, but also in deed, living as salt and light in this world. Now, all of this, all of this, points to Jesus, of course, when Jesus is the firstborn of his family, as I said, that’s why the doves were offered. He’s also Colossians. Tells us the firstborn of creation, which is important, because that means He’s the heir. He gets the estate. It all belongs to him, and then he is, later in Colossians, the firstborn from the dead, the guarantee of that future eternal life. And thus becomes Romans eight, the firstborn of many brothers and sisters. But how do those brothers and sisters? You and me get into the covenant community? Because we shouldn’t belong to God’s covenant people. We need to be ransomed ourselves. Well, we know the answer. We know the answer. We talked a lot about it last week, God ransoms us by the death of his firstborn, trusting that there will be many more kids to come. God did not spare His own Son, but gave him up for us all, but that means that we are no longer our own right. First, Corinthians six, you are not your own. You were bought ransomed with a price. We know the price. We talked about it last week, not silver, not gold, but by the precious blood of Christ, a Lamb without blemish or defect. So if we’re not our own, but belong to him, because we were bought with a price. What do we do? Consecrate yourself as you remember the covenant ransom, as you remember Christ’s blood shed for you. Consecrate yourselves to the Lord as you remember what he has done for you. Like actively call to mind your salvation, and let it produce worshipful obedience in the words of the old hymn, right, take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to thee, my feet, my hands, my lips, my resources. Take it all, God. I give them all to you as instruments of righteousness and instruments of mission. Can you imagine how those young Campbell kids, if they even got to take their dad’s last name? I don’t know how these young Campbell kids felt when they learned they were royalty, like how that would have changed everything, if you trust in Christ your ransom, you also are royalty, sons and daughters of the King, and your inheritance is secure in heaven. Now I don’t know this for sure, but I am guessing those Campbell kids lived differently after that letter, like they may still have been poor. I’m guessing they walked into school with a swagger. Y’all know who I am, that’s right. You can bow if you want. I will understand they lived differently after that letter. Shouldn’t we live differently because we have experienced a much bigger change being brought from death to life. You are royalty. So live like royalty. Live lives worthy of your king and father. Consecrate yourselves to the Lord as you remember his covenant faithfulness, your covenant welcome and the covenant ransom the blood of Christ. Let’s pray you. God, Father, we thank You for Your covenant faithfulness. Thank you that you keep all of your promises, and that you kept those promises at great cost to yourself. We were ransomed by the blood of your first born son. That’s what it cost you to welcome us into your covenant community, to adopt us as your sons and daughters. Lord truth, that glorious demands commemoration that we would remember, that we would think of it actively and take steps to remember it well, but it demands consecration as well, Lord, that we would offer ourselves wholly to you, and so we do that. Now, Lord, would you take our lives and let them be consecrated to You? Lord, lived for Your glory and the furtherance of your mission in this world, we pray in Christ’s name. Amen.