This recording is from Willow Creek Church in Winter Springs, Florida, where Dr. Pete Owonson is our senior pastor. Today's sermon is part eight in a series on the Book of Exodus. This message is taken from Exodus chapters 15 through 17 and is called Celebrating and Thriving in Freedom. Now here's Pete with today's message. Father thank you for your goodness to us, thank you for your grace. Thank you that as your people, we can laugh, we can sing, we can dance because of the forgiveness in the freedom that we have in Christ. Thank you Lord that it's not about what we do, it's about what Jesus did, but Lord sometimes we struggle to live with our freedom and to know what that means to live as free people. So we pray today that as we look into your Word, you'd open our minds to it. We give you honor God for being the God who miraculously delivers His people always and how you set us free. And now as we look into your Word, show us how you've set us free and what to do with our freedom in Christ. And then how Lord you can take us and use us as we go on a big journey, Lord, to reach others with freedom. Be honored and glorified and teach us as we look into your Holy Word for we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Well that is one of the great Presbyterian hymns of the faith and I like that so much then Keith Green really was a devoted follower of Jesus Christ, completely sold out to God but he puts his finger on the point that sometimes we want to go back, we commit to following Jesus Christ and then it gets difficult, we go through trials, we go through difficulties and we want to go back to a simpler time, to a time when it was much easier to follow ourselves to do what we wanted to do, to make all the decisions, to do what we wanted to do in life and but we can't go back and so as we go forward in the book of Exodus we're looking at how God teaches His people what to do with their freedom, He's just set them free, they've just come across the Red Sea, 2.5 million people brought through the Red Sea, 2.5 million people under I mean Hotepp, number two, the Pharaoh. Finally broke loose His grip on Israel, set them free and now they're out there in the Sinai peninsula, let me show you on this map just briefly where they're at and so you can see as they cross the bitter lakes it may well be that that period that whole water area was connected down to the Gulf of Suez, the Red Sea, we don't exactly know where they cross but they crossed a major body of water miraculously by God and now they're traveling out into the desert, they're free, they're free, the question is what do you do with your freedom, once you're free what do you do with it, we're going to see in our text what God shows the Israelites what to do with their freedom, you celebrate your freedom and then you thrive under it, those are the two big points and not on your outline surviving your freedom but thriving on freedom, in freedom. So we're going to see that that's what He does, when you're free you celebrate because of it and then you thrive in that freedom. Let's take a look first of all about celebrating that freedom, what we're doing here on Sunday morning is celebration, it's worship and that's what they did in Exodus 151 through 21 it says that Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the Lord, I will sing to the Lord for He is highly exalted, we don't know if Moses wrote this or if one of the songwriters in Israel wrote it but they wrote it and then they sang it like crazy as a whole body of people, I will sing to the Lord for He is highly exalted, the horse and its rider, He has hurled into the sea, the Lord is my strength and my song, He's become my salvation, He's my God and I will praise Him, my Father's God and I will exalt Him, look at this, verse three, the Lord is a warrior, I don't know what your view of God is, maybe He is a hand holding shepherd, that's good, that's fine but He's also a warrior who fights for His people, the Lord is a warrior, the Lord is His name, Pharaoh's chariots and His army, He has hurled into the sea, the best of Pharaoh's officers are drowned in the Red Sea, the deep waters have covered them, they sank to the depths like a stone, your right hand O Lord was majestic in power, your right hand O Lord shattered the enemy, then verse 11, who among the gods is like you O Lord, who is like you majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders, I love the old but true statement about what happened with Abraham Lincoln, after one day he purchased a slave girl from the slave markets, he purchased her and he looked at her in the face and he said all right, you're free and she said what does that mean? That means you could do whatever you want, you can go wherever you want to go, you can follow whoever you want to follow, she says is that really true? He said yes, absolutely true, she said in that case I want to follow you, freedom is so amazing that what it does is it causes us to want to follow the one who said it's free because it's so rare that when somebody does something for us they're not demanding of us, he sets us free and we want to follow but we do need to be taught what do we do with our freedom because we're newly set free, what do we do? The Israelites, Israelites were newly set free, what do they do? The first thing is they celebrate their freedom and they've seen this, they have this 2.5 million people worship service, can you imagine that building the church for that? It was outside and they worship God, this is worship, what worship really is at its finest is celebrating God for what he's done, the deliverance that he's brought us and the character of the deliverer, they were praising God for being a mighty warrior who fought for them, for being a God who is highly exalted, a God of strength, a God who fought their enemies, when you're saved you can't say thank you enough. I was on the web and I know these are true because I found it on the web but these are these are some cases of people who were rescued miraculously. The one in the upper left hand corner is a story about a 500 pound young man who went tubing on a river with his other friend and his friend's father and the tube got punctured. How do you rescue a 500 pound friend? Well the father had to leave his son and the friend to go get help but they did it and you go in the web there is story after story after story. There's just not one news article, this was all over the country. Thankful because a miraculous rescue had taken place in the upper right hand corner. This was after the curse, remember the curse, the Russian submarine that went down and that was lost with all hands was lost, they couldn't and all those guys died and this was the sub that went down after the curse and these guys were rescued and one of the Russian wives said when her found out her husband was rescued, I danced and I danced and you can picture a Russian dancer, you know everyone of us can picture that. You dance when you're rescued or somebody you love is rescued and then on the bottom. Oh boy, last couple of years there have been a lot of mine disasters in America. This was the one that had a really really good outcome in Pennsylvania. I remember that one where they sunk that shaft way down into the ground and they actually brought these guys up through that skinny shaft 30 filthy wet cold they saved them. It was dancing in the streets of the city. When you're rescued you cannot not dance. You cannot, you can't just say, well you know that was kind of cool. Yeah, my life was saved. All right, that's worship. Worship is not just saying, hey you know God has rescued me from my sins and in Jesus Christ and you know now, you know I'm not going to hell that's not that's not pretty cool. No, the Israelites were delivered and they worshiped exuberantly. They didn't read out of some little book. God is great. God is good. Let us thank him for the food. Amen. Yeah, we got that done. Let's go to the beach. Worship is, what is worship? It's praising God for the what he's done. It involves four things. Worship is God centered because God is the savior. Jesus has done this for us. We didn't ask him to save us but he went to the cross. It's God centered because God is the savior. It's celebration not drudgery because it's just absolutely amazing that we're his people. It's verbally honorific. Worship has words that cause you to exalt the one who rescued you and then also worship is giving. It's not taking not one of the Israelites said, you know Moses is throwing this great big worship service. I don't know. You want to go? I don't know. Should we go? What are we going to get out of it? I don't know today. I don't know. He's probably going to preach too or he's going to have one of his other guys preach. I don't know. The messages haven't been too good lately. Marginal. All right, let's go because we're Jews. We've got to go. It's not, what are you going to get? It's what are you going to get because you've been rescued. What do you do with your freedom in Christ? You worship and that's why we worship every Sunday morning because it's easy to forget how much we were rescued, isn't it? It's easy for me to forget. And that's why Paul wrote in 1 Timothy 1, he said, I think Christ Jesus our Lord who has given me strength that he considered me faithful to pointing me to his service even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man. I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief. The grace of our Lord Jesus was poured out on me abundantly along with the faith and love there in Christ Jesus. I love this. Here's a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the very worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me the worst of sinners Christ might display the unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him to receive eternal life. Then he says, now to the king, eternal, immortal, the only God, the honor and glory forever and ever, what do we do with our freedom? We worship. And the reason we worship as the Israelites worship is so that we don't forget. Now we've been rescued. As we take the Lord's supper today in a minute we take the bread remembering that Jesus was on the cross literally bearing our sin in his body. We take the cup reminding us that his blood is what purifies us from all of our sins, not what we have done but what he has done. You do the freedom, your worship and you keep worshiping because if you don't you forget. By the way, Christians who stop worshiping and forget what Jesus has done for them they become hard and cold and narrow and angry and mean and nasty and demanding. You're not that way but this is why we do this
so that we can dance and remembering the God of our forgiveness. The second thing we do with our freedom is not only celebrate it but we thrive in it, not survive it but we thrive in the freedom. Now immediately I'm going to give you the heads up. Immediately do we have that map again, Kim is doing a wonderful job. She always does but try to keep up with me today is very difficult. Notice what we're going to see is them going to different stops tomorrow to refid them some other places. Immediately he's taking the Israelites out into the desert. Have you ever been out into the desert? Well you guys are Easterners you never really experienced a desert. What you need to do is go on a hike out west sometime take one bottle of water and go out in the desert and you will experience one of the most barren and dry and difficult experiences that you've ever had in your entire life. After setting them free what does God do with the Israelites? He takes them into the desert
and he tests them with four tests and we're going to look at those four tests briefly today. You say that's not very nice. Why does he take them into the desert to test them? Because God sets people free he has a reason for setting them free and the reason for setting them free is that he could build them. That he could build them into his people who reflect his image. I love this. Jesus has gone to the cross that our sins could be forgiven that we could be redeemed. Why? So that God could restore his image in us for whom he for new. These he also predestined to be what? Conformed to the image of his son. That's what God's about. Building his people I have never gotten older over. The fact that what God wants to do every day is say Pete I'm available to you as your father to develop you. One of my friends lost his father in the last couple of weeks. He's here in this service and this week he's going home to bury his father's ashes. And he can hardly talk about it and I understand. I understand because the story for a man and a daughter the story of our father is very big and most of us were well some of you have wonderful father experiences wonderful earthly father experiences and you say it's great. It was wonderful my kids do but most of us look back and we say he just wasn't there. He just didn't prepare me for life. My mom was there. My dad wasn't and I still know and we hurt deeply inside because we just haven't been developed by a father and we need a father all our lives.
But when I realized that God wanted to be my father changed everything. When he said to me because of your because of my son I'm your father pray this way our father weren't him. Son I am available to develop you. Okay I'm not an earthly father but I'm your heavenly father. I'm here for you every day 24-7 as soon as you get up I'm there but he trains us through our tests. See success does not breed success failure does brokenness does. He trains us through our brokenness and through tests and so he leads the Israelites as the tender loving father. He leads them into four tests to develop a test number one is found at mara Exodus 15 22 through 27 you can read this all later I'll read some of it but you got a lot of homework today okay this is great great reading but it starts out then Moses led Israel from the Red Sea and they went into the desert of shore for three days they traveled in the desert without finding water when they came tomorrow they could not drink it's water because it was bitter that is why the place is called mara so the people grumbled against Moses saying what are we to drink see a test like this would make you want to go back to Egypt doesn't it? Hey at least we had water there we had the Nile but God God who is holy wants to build holiness into his people I'm reading rereading RC Sprouls book the holiness of God and I'm getting again this picture of this incredible holy God who wants me to be holy too and one of the aspects of holiness is trust he takes them to mara where the waters are bitter how many days can you go walking in the desert without water half a day I don't know I can't go very long at all can you go three days without water I don't know for maybe but in the desert I don't know they've gone three days with by the way we've got a picture here of the skins that they carried water in sort of typical there's a skin and that you know don't ask me the details on this all right don't ask me how they cleaned that carcass out but they they filled it with water and they put water in it and they drank from it and there it is but those skins were empty now and they'd come to and so they'd come to the water after three days and they found that the water was bitter it was undrinkable and so God tells Moses if you read the rest of the story says Moses throw here's the stick throw it in there it's through the stick in there and the water became what yeah sweet not just drinkable sweet reminds me of the the miracle of Jesus at the at cana gallery when he creates the wine out of the water it wasn't just wine it was imported wine very good wine you see and and so here's the lesson is that God is developing this people you trust it and and he answers the prayer just like that and I hate this because this is just like what he does for new Christians you new Christians receive answers to prayers that we who've been around for a long time don't get all the time you've experienced that it's true you come to faith in Christ and if you hit your first crisis somebody says you know you need to pray about that let's pray right now so somebody prays with you you pray it happens two days later the prayers answered ticks me on but God does that a lot for brand new Christians why to teach them you trust me trust me with the future now the longer we walk with Christ he doesn't always answer prayers like that why because he's figuring that we've learned what we should have learned earlier that he can be trusted no matter what test number one can you trust me with the seemingly impossible trust me on this and I'll take care of you test number two is found in Exodus 161335 the Holy Israelite community sent out from Elim and comes to this desert of sin and and the test here read it later the test is not about water the test is about food you can go along with that food and you can go without water and so in this test it's about food and what does God provide for them you know the story God provides mana mana and you know sort of this this thin wafer it yeah you know it had seeds in it like this does this is Bible bread you can get it we're starting to sell it back here in the bookstore twenty five dollars a box this will make you holy if you eat this bread but it was like this it was it did you know did you know that in the Sinai there was an insect that actually produces what they call mana it's it's it's they used to think it came from the trees but it actually comes from an insect that secrets this thing and it falls into the sand or on a bush and if you get it before the sun burns it off it's very sweet it's kind of like well I described it in the first service as a cross between a trisket and a donut this is tasted really good and but this miracle was bigger and wider clearly supernatural in its scope and here God is saying to them I will provide for you every day every day when you guys to go out and get the mana don't get more than you need for today because as a story goes on what'll happen to it if you get more than enough for today it'll spoil now on the Sabbath you on on Friday you get enough for two days and it won't spoil and that's in fact what happened and the less the test is will you trust it will you will you do what I tell you to do will you trust for today plan ahead that's okay that's cool do that but will you trust me for today test number three is refideme at refideme can we see that map again Kim just look look at look at this look at there they are there they are mara elim now we're down at refideme and the test is about what water again water again there is no water this time and so what does Moses do and the story goes as you read the text Moses takes the staff that God gave him and he strikes the rock and out of the rock comes water the New Testament says the rock that followed them in the wilderness was Christ Jesus when he teaches on earth teaches I am the bread of life I am the living water he was there providing for them and he provided for them in an amazing way with a spectacular lesson of water which goes to this point the hardest lessons that I have to learn are the lessons I've learned before we've never thought about that God takes you through mara can you trust me about water sure and then he brings you back to the same kind of situation again can you trust me with money yeah God I trust you and then we come to another situation involving trust for money oh yeah I learned last time I could trust you but I'm not trusting you right now hardest lessons are the lessons I have to relearn in fact I found this a lot of times the father what he wants my character to reflect Christ so much that he'll send me through some of the same kinds of trials to teach me the same lessons until I get it like a good coach like a good coach he builds endurance he teaches us until until we get it these tests make us want to go back to Egypt but wasn't really better before we came to faith in Christ test number four Exodus 17 8 through 16 you can read it later in this one in this one God brings the amalachites descendants from Esau and here these puris real lights are they're just out in the desert just trying to find water just try they're just recently freed slaves they're trying to get water they're they're trying to get food they're trying to anybody ever asked you what how you doing I'm just trying to get by they're trying to get by and now they got an attacking band of amalachites coming after them and God sends Joshua out there and what does Moses do read the story it's so good Moses goes up to a mountain Moses is a very old guy he's not going to be down there with a sword he goes down there and he holds up his hands and he gets to the young guys to hold his hands up for him as he starts going down here and as he holds his hands up the battle rages in favor of who is real as Moses hands go down the battle goes in favor of the amalachites what's the test here the test is will you Israelites trust my anointed servant Moses will you trust his word will you trust that I'm working through him will you trust that he's the authority or are you going to come after him what did they do they grumbled and they came after him
read those texts man there was some leadership backlash on Moses big time he cries out to God and he's trying to teach the people that you can trust my authority through my authoritative spokesman Moses it's true today you can trust Jesus you and I can trust Jesus we can trust his word it never ever changes because God is a warrior God who fights for us
I read a great newspaper article this week a friend Bill McAllister sent me gave me to read and it was such a good story and I read his summary statements which were powerful I needed to hear this point number one it's not about you or me number two if you give you'll receive a number three to help a child is to receive jewels now you got to read the whole story to get I needed to hear that
because there's stuff in life that makes you want to go back to Egypt where you call the shots you got says son it's not about you for God I thought it was it's about what you give not what you get oh I thought it was about what I was trying to store up I need to be reminded of that and I got a gift of people who can't give back to me kids so I was helping my wife set up for vacation Bible school in sports camp thank you very much and I'm a little self-righteous about it I want you to know but God is a God who fights for us and when Moses held up his arms he held up the banner of God what's a banner you read that in scripture the banner of God his banner over me is love we hear that expression over and over again and and and in Exodus 17 it says Moses built an altar and called it the Lord is my banner he said for hands were lifted up to the throne of the Lord the Lord will be at war against the Amalekites from generation didn't did Israel defeat the Amalekites yeah they did they came out why because God was fighting for them and Moses offered up sacrifices to God and said God is my banner and I don't know men I don't know about you but I I struggle with that this banner idea God is my banner when you think of a banner what do you think of I think of this big long poster or in some churches with here's a banner this was the banner Moses staff maybe with a flag on it maybe as a rallying cry I am fighting for you this is the banner the Hebrew tells us that it wasn't a big banner taped to a wall someplace or that football players ran through to get on to the field it was the staff of God that says I'm fighting for you that's a banner I can get into
and a reminder that God is fighting for us the tests are these what do you do with your freedom celebrate it we're going to celebrate that as we take the Lord's supper you thrive under God's freedom as he takes you through your tests for tests trust God with the seemingly impossible trust God for each day and live one day at a time plan ahead but live one day at a time learn what you've learned before and eliminate grumbling I have never once grumbled as a follower of Jesus I was talking to a friend this past week and he and he told me that he was discouraged and I said don't be depressed he said I'm not depressed I'm just discouraged I thought about that you know there's a difference between honestly saying I'm just this is a difficult situation and I'm giving up be honest with the difficulty of what you're going through that's not grumbling
but there does come a point in our life when we know that God's in charge someone said your back is up against the red sea with this building isn't it Pete I said yeah but you know what I haven't lost sleep over the the finances he's always come through before and he will learn what you learned before keep going ahead and the last lesson trust God's authority his word his authoritative spokesman Moses the prophets Jesus I know some of you're going to say you're going to make a personal application to you aren't you Pete no I'm just a Bible teacher it's Jesus we follow he wants to develop you that's why he takes you through tests but the holiness of God would be flushed out in the world would stand back and say you are so different than you used to be and we can point to Jesus as we take communion we celebrate and we ask him to continue developing us so as our elders come forward let's pray together and ask him to help us celebrate and then to keep working in our lives Lord Jesus we honor you we know today that you are the bread that came down from heaven you you are the one who took in your body our sins so that we as your people are set free you're not and God is not angry at us because of you Lord Jesus oh Lord as we take this bread may you remind us that you're not angry and that even if we grumble or even if we mess up we're forgiven as we come back to you again and again and again thank you Lord Jesus that your sacrifice pays for all of our sins
and that we're yours meet us as we pray and you're strong holding it
Willow Creek Church is associated with the Presbyterian Church in America our website is www.willowcreekchurch.org and our phone number is 407-699-82-11