Today the lectionary has us looking at the
beginning of Exodus at the story of Moses.
Moses is regarded by many as the greatest of the Old Testament
characters. Many Old Testament
characters can often be summarised or mainly remembered
in one graphic story:
So with David, it is: David and Goliath
Noah – Noah & the Ark
Daniel – Lion’s Den
Jonah – Whale
But with Moses – there’s the story of him in
the bulrushes
then the burning
bush
the 10 plagues
then parting the Sea
the 10 Commandments
He is a giant in the Old Testament, isn’t
he……
Just as Jesus is the giant or main character
of the New Testament …… so is Moses the giant of the Old Testament.
You know there is no New Testament without
Jesus.
There is no Old Testament without Moses.
So we are going to spend some time on Moses.
Like Jesus, Moses survives persecution at the time of his birth.
Herod had all babies under 2 murdered when
Jesus is born.
Pharaoh has all Hebrew boys murdered at Moses' birth.
No nation has known and survived such ongoing
and persistent persecution as the Jewish people, and they have survived not
because of any goodness of their own....... but purely because of the grace of
God.
The Grace of God.
What is the Grace of God – there are many
definitions. I want to lift one from the
story of Moses. Grace is undeserved
blessing. Grace is undeserved love.
It is something happening to me that I
haven’t earned or deserved. That’s
grace.
Moses was just another Jewish boy....not deserving of salvation any more than any other little Jewish boy.
When the Pharaoh’s daughter sees him, she
knows that. But she has compassion on
him (not on all Jewish boys – just him.
Never underestimate the value of your indiscriminate acts
of compassion) and she brings him into Pharaoh’s Palace and he is adopted by
her and he grows up as an Egyptian prince.
That is grace and it flows from her
compassion. Moses has done nothing to
deserve this.
We see in this story how God deals with you
and with me.
We have done and can do nothing that would
ever compel the God of Creation to seek us out in the bulrushes that are our
existence, to seek us out on the river that is our life. The Psalmist asks, “What is man that You, God
care about him?”
But God does care about you and me, because
of His love, His compassion – in fact because of who He is, not
because of who we are,...... He seeks us out.
That’s grace.
The New Testament
says that we are saved by grace through faith.
He pulls us from the river of this life,
which if we stay in it leads to the sea of eternal death, he pulls us out from
that river and say I want to adopt you as my own child and I want you to come
and live in my palace......life in my Kingdom, now, in Alberton, as you work and pray for my kingdom to come in Alberton.
That’s grace.
In John’s Gospel, Jesus says, “In my Father’s
house are many mansions and I’m going to prepare a place for you and when it is
ready, I’ll come and get you so that where I am you might be also.”
That’s grace – undeserved love shown by God
to you and to me, to sinners.
Paul reminds us that it was while we were
still sinners that Jesus died for us that we might have eternal life – we just
have to believe it, believe that what happened on Calvary to Christ, saves me,
saves you.
Just believe with a belief, a faith, that leads to action.
This means recognising our need for
salvation, that we need to be saved from the river of life which is not in Christ, we need to be saved from the way we are in when we realise that the way we are in, is not the way God wants us to be in; but
recognising also that just as the Pharaoh’s daughter saw through the black tar
basket and saw the innocent child within, so too God sees our blackness which
is our sin, deals with it on Calvary and then says believe that I dealt with
your sin on Calvary, and from that moment I see through the blackness and in
fact I see you as born again, as a new creation and I adopt you into my
family. That’s the story of salvation
offered to you and me.
Please believe
it.
What have we looked at today?
Well, in the story of
Moses we see the beginning of the deliverance of God by the grace of God.....we see Ephesians 2:8-10....we see the gospel:
We are saved by
grace;
We need to
recognise our need to be saved.
Imagine if Moses thought he didn’t need to be plucked from the
river. I’m happy as I am, I’m
comfortable here – leave me alone. Do you sometimes believe that.....that where you are and how you are living is exactly as God wants it....do you recognise the need to be saved from the rut you've got into?
Recognise your need for the salvation Christ offers.
And finally, a challenge:
A people who
have experienced grace must show grace – who can you reach out to this
week?
