Stepping into God’s Story - Episode Three
RESCUE AND LAW
January 28, 2024
Glenn Garvin
Does being “good” get you into Heaven?
Studies show that 52% of Christians, 70% of Catholics, and one third of senior pastors all say “Yes.” Overall, 54% of U.S. adults believe they will get to Heaven after they die, and 63% of adults believe “having faith matters more than which faith you have.” So…what do you believe and why do you believe it?
Let’s discuss why God brought The Law (The 10 Commandments) and how they should affect the way we live now.
I llike the fact that this series frames the Bible as God’s story, but I also love the fact that His story is told through
Think of all the characters in the Bible that have captured our hearts, made us think and spurred us on to listen to God, believe him and obey.
Through CREATION AND THE FALL, we see this couple, Adam, Eve and their sons. Through PROMISE AND A PEOPLE, we see this patriarchal figure of
Today, we are discovering that God both rescues His people and gives them the law, which becomes the bedrock of a moral code that is still honored today – even if it is not directly attributed to God.
The quick backstory
God’s story picks up in Genesis 37 when the Joseph breaks into the scene with some bitter, brother jealousies and rivalry. Joseph doesn’t make it any easier when he says, to his brothers “I had a dream that you bow down to ME!” Every older brother just loves hearing things like that.
Genesis 37:2-4 NLT
This is the account of Jacob and his family. When Joseph was seventeen years old, he often tended his father’s flocks. He worked for his half brothers, the sons of his father’s wives Bilhah and Zilpah. But Joseph reported to his father some of the bad things his brothers were doing. Jacob loved Joseph more than any of his other children because Joseph had been born to him in his old age. So one day Jacob had a special gift made for Joseph—a beautiful robe. But his brothers hated Joseph because their father loved him more than the rest of them. They couldn’t say a kind word to him.
The brief synopsis is that Abraham’s family became a nation, a huge nation – but the entire nation then ends up in
How did they all end up in slavery?
Famine forced Jacob to relocate his whole clan to Egypt, saving their lives.
While there, the tribe grew rapidly because God blessed them and multiplied their numbers. Israel is now in Egypt had grown to be a naton within a nation. But the political leadership changed and the whole generation of Joseph’s
Exodus 1:6-10 NLT
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.
This new Pharaoh tried infanticide, to deal with the population explosion.
Moses is one of the baby boys that was on Pharaoh’s hit list to be drowned in the Nile River.
God delivers His people
The rescue of this nation, Israel, is its own grand story - read about it in Exodus 2-15.
God sees all of this and promises to free His people.
Exodus 2:23-25
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.
Intresting fact: Each on of the plagues was a judgement on the false gods/idols of Egypt. Read here later!
God directs His people
As we make our way through Exodus, we come to chapter 20 where God begins to tell the people, “Here is how you will live!”
Exodus 20:1-3
Then God gave the people all these instructions: I am the Lord your God, who rescued you from the land of Egypt, the place of your slavery. “You must not have any other god but me.”
God rescued, then He gives the commandments.
Not the other way around. Is it the same with us today? Eric Gieger says, “we obey because He was rescued us, not obey so He will rescue us”
Let’s spend a few minutes talking about God’s Law – the 10 commandments along with hundreds of health and social welfare laws.
The Bible Project does an excellent job the law. The 10 commandments plus hundreds of health and socail welfare laws.
Some questions to ponder:
Why do you think God gave the LAW to Israel?
Can you think of some common responses people have when given a law to follow?
I believe God gave Israel the commandments for two reasons: one
God dwells among His people
Moses, the tabernacle and the future temple showing us that God wants to dwell among us.
The Story of God, through Exodus: God delivers, God directs and God dwells. That ultimately takes us to Jesus who did all three!