God Saves

God went to great lengths to bring us back to Him when we have strayed.  He sent His only Son to invite us back and to pave the way.  I’m going to school right now and I am constantly reminded of the things Christians agree upon and the things that we disagree about.  On this all of us agree: God Saves.  God has saved different people in different ways throughout history, but God saves us through the work of His Son, Jesus.

Once we understand this, the next natural question is this: “What must I do to be saved?”  This is a place where Christians struggle to communicate what God has said.  It really isn’t that difficult, though.  We can boil down our response to two passages of Scripture.

If you declare with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. (Romans 10:9-10 NIV)

Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off--for all whom the Lord our God will call." (Acts 2:38-39 NIV)

You believe that God provides a way back through Jesus?  Great!  Say it.  Say that Jesus is the Christ and your savior.

You want to leave your old way of life?  Great!  Turn around (repent).  Let Jesus lead you as Lord of your life.

You want to know that your sins are washed away?  Great!  Go down into the water and be baptized (dunked, dipped) in the name of the Father, the Son (Jesus Christ), and the Holy Spirit. 

Congratulations, you have come home to the Father through the Son and received the Holy Spirit.  You are ready to walk together with God.

God Wants to Save Us

Yesterday, we made a jump.  We pointed out that God Saved Moses and the Israelites.  Then I said that God wants to save us as well.  The prophet Jeremiah told us that God set a plan in motion that would work things out God would “forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”  That plan was to send his Christ.

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:6-8 NIV)

Christ was (and is) God’s solution to our problems.  That is why all the Israelites of the Old Testament days were looking forward to the arrival of the Christ.  Christ would be the solution to the problems caused by our sins.

For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. (1 Peter 1:18-19 NIV)

The blood of the lamb saved the Israelite nations when they were held captive in Egypt.  The angel of death would see the blood of the lamb on their doorposts and pass over their households.  The households without this blood would not be safe that night.  The same is true for us.  The blood of the lamb (the Christ) is not on our doorpost.  It is on the cross where the lamb was slain.  The angel of death sees it and passes over us still today.

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21 NIV)

Who is this Christ, this sacrificial lamb?  What the Israelites waited to see, we now know.  Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.  When Jesus sat down with his closest disciples to have a meal, they had gathered together to celebrate the Passover.  The meal would remind them of the night the angel of death passed over the households of their ancestors.  When he ate with them, though, he changed the meaning of that meal.

And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me." In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you. (Luke 22:19-20 NIV)

Jesus was explaining to them that he would become the final Passover Lamb.  God doesn’t just want to save Noah, Moses, and the Israelites.  God wants to save us as well.  That is why God sent His only begotten Son, Jesus.  Thank God that He wants to save us, too.

God’s Promise to Save

When the Israelites were set free, God committed to a relationship with them where God would continue to provide for them, protect them, care for them, and lead them well.  This covenant commitment would work well as long as Israel would trust God and walk in His ways.  We know, however, that they did not do that.  In fact, the parents are in the wilderness teaching their children because they did not trust God.  They were saved from the sins of others in Egypt.  They were not saved, however, from their own sins against God.

Later on, when the future generations did follow God and go into the Promised Land, the Israelites enjoyed the benefits and blessings that went along with walking together with God.  Over time, though, they walked away from Him again. One again, the Israelites were not being saved from their own rebellion.  This is when God made a promise to the Israelites that we still hear today.

"The days are coming," declares the LORD, "when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them," declares the LORD. "This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time," declares the LORD. "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, 'Know the LORD,' because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest," declares the LORD. "For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more." (Jeremiah 31:31-34 NIV)

God promised to save Israel and Judah.  This promise was made for us as well.  Remember, God promises to save.

God Saved the Israelites

God saved Moses from being killed at a time when his peers were being put to death as soon as they were born.

Many years later, when Moses had grown up, he went out to visit his own people, the Hebrews, and he saw how hard they were forced to work. During his visit, he saw an Egyptian beating one of his fellow Hebrews. After looking in all directions to make sure no one was watching, Moses killed the Egyptian and hid the body in the sand. The next day, when Moses went out to visit his people again, he saw two Hebrew men fighting. "Why are you beating up your friend?" Moses said to the one who had started the fight. The man replied, "Who appointed you to be our prince and judge? Are you going to kill me as you killed that Egyptian yesterday?" Then Moses was afraid, thinking, "Everyone knows what I did." And sure enough, Pharaoh heard what had happened, and he tried to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in the land of Midian. (Exodus 2:11-15a NLT)

Moses spent time in Midian settling down, getting married, and having a son.  He tended the flocks and cared for his family, but he never forgot his people in Egypt.

Years passed, and the king of Egypt died. But the Israelites continued to groan under their burden of slavery. They cried out for help, and their cry rose up to God. God heard their groaning, and He remembered His covenant promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He looked down on the people of Israel and knew it was time to act. (Exodus 2:23-25 NLT)

You probably know the rest of the story.  Moses encounters God in a bush that would not burn up.  God sends Moses to confront Pharaoh.  Pharaoh hardens his heart and God sends ten plagues to change Pharaoh’s mind.  With each plague, God makes it more and more clear that the Israelites are protected and safe.  Finally, after the tenth plague, Pharaoh lets the Israelites go free.

Their freedom is short-lived, though.  God leads them down by the waters of the red sea using a pillar of fire-cloud.  When they get there, Pharaoh comes after them with his army.  Moses is told by God to lift his staff over the waters and, when he does, the waters split in two – revealing dry land.  They cross to the other side of the sea – millions of them – and, when they get to the other side, they saw Pharaoh’s army coming after them on the same dry ground.

So as the sun began to rise, Moses raised his hand over the sea, and the water rushed back into its usual place. The Egyptians tried to escape, but the LORD swept them into the sea. Then the waters returned and covered all the chariots and charioteers--the entire army of Pharaoh. Of all the Egyptians who had chased the Israelites into the sea, not a single one survived. But the people of Israel had walked through the middle of the sea on dry ground, as the water stood up like a wall on both sides. That is how the LORD rescued Israel from the hand of the Egyptians that day. (Exodus 14:27-30 NLT)

God Saved Moses

We finished last week with the twelve boys of Jacob becoming the twelve tribes of Israel.  Joseph, the favorite, had been sold into slavery, so he ended up in Egypt where, by the grace of God, he became second in charge.  His God-led wisdom helped all of Egypt survive 7 years of famine and during those years he was reunited with his family.  The Israelites moved to Egypt, settled in, and flourished.

Eventually, a new king came to power in Egypt who knew nothing about Joseph or what he had done. He said to his people, "Look, the people of Israel now outnumber us and are stronger than we are. We must make a plan to keep them from growing even more. If we don't, and if war breaks out, they will join our enemies and fight against us. Then they will escape from the country. " So the Egyptians made the Israelites their slaves. They appointed brutal slave drivers over them, hoping to wear them down with crushing labor. They forced them to build the cities of Pithom and Rameses as supply centers for the king. But the more the Egyptians oppressed them, the more the Israelites multiplied and spread, and the more alarmed the Egyptians became. So the Egyptians worked the people of Israel without mercy. They made their lives bitter, forcing them to mix mortar and make bricks and do all the work in the fields. They were ruthless in all their demands. (Exodus 1:8-14 NLT)

I don’t know about you, but it was a ways down the road in my walk together with God before I made the connection that Joseph was the reason the family ended up in Egypt.  Fear was the reason the Israelites ended up in slavery.

Then Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, gave this order to the Hebrew midwives, Shiphrah and Puah: "When you help the Hebrew women as they give birth, watch as they deliver. If the baby is a boy, kill him; if it is a girl, let her live." But because the midwives feared God, they refused to obey the king's orders. They allowed the boys to live, too. So the king of Egypt called for the midwives. "Why have you done this?" he demanded. "Why have you allowed the boys to live?" "The Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women," the midwives replied. "They are more vigorous and have their babies so quickly that we cannot get there in time." So God was good to the midwives, and the Israelites continued to multiply, growing more and more powerful. And because the midwives feared God, He gave them families of their own. Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: "Throw every newborn Hebrew boy into the Nile River. But you may let the girls live." (Exodus 1:15-22 NLT)

The midwives disobeyed Pharaoh, so he ordered all his people to kill the Hebrew boys.  This was another “ah-ha” moment for me as well, because Pharaoh’s daughter would have been under the same order as everyone else.

About this time, a man and woman from the tribe of Levi got married. The woman became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She saw that he was a special baby and kept him hidden for three months. But when she could no longer hide him, she got a basket made of papyrus reeds and waterproofed it with tar and pitch. She put the baby in the basket and laid it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile River. The baby's sister then stood at a distance, watching to see what would happen to him. Soon Pharaoh's daughter came down to bathe in the river, and her attendants walked along the riverbank. When the princess saw the basket among the reeds, she sent her maid to get it for her. When the princess opened it, she saw the baby. The little boy was crying, and she felt sorry for him. "This must be one of the Hebrew children," she said. Then the baby's sister approached the princess. "Should I go and find one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?" she asked. "Yes, do!" the princess replied. So the girl went and called the baby's mother. "Take this baby and nurse him for me," the princess told the baby's mother. "I will pay you for your help." So the woman took her baby home and nursed him. Later, when the boy was older, his mother brought him back to Pharaoh's daughter, who adopted him as her own son. The princess named him Moses, for she explained, "I lifted him out of the water." (Exodus 2:1-10 NLT)