Can We Be Saved?

The most important story in the whole bible is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The unfathomable miracle of God's deliverance for us in Christ, from death to life, accomplished in his death on the cross and the empty tomb; this is the central story that changes our lives and our world.

And so we have the baptismal font and the communion table encircling us here, these tangible ways of bringing that mighty act of deliverance out of the past into our present as we worship the living God. It's not just an old story that happened a long time ago, but a living story, our story, the resurrection of Jesus Christ alive with us and in us today.

What is that story in the Old Testament? It is the Red Sea crossing. God saw the misery of God's people who were Pharaoh's slave laborers in Egypt, and God intervened to bring them out of through the Red Sea to a new life.

The story is found in Exodus. Exodus 13:17-14:31

It was amazing to me that the people were more intimidated by Pharaoh's power than God's power.

Even before we crossed through the Red Sea, we had seen the greatness of God's power. Every time I went to Pharaoh, plague after plague, the power of God broke out in ways that proclaimed to all the earth that "Yahweh is God!"

At first, Pharaoh's magicians thought they could keep up. But after the plague of gnats and flies and diseased livestock and boils and locusts and darkness and death, everybody in Egypt knew whose power was far greater.

And when we finally did leave, God's presence went before us in a huge tower of glory, day and night.

But still the people were more intimidated by Pharaoh's power than God's! Perhaps they had spent too many years under his whip, under his cruel oppression, under his god-like status.

But I had lived in Pharaoh's courts. I was found in the river by Pharaoh's daughter when I was a baby, and I was welcomed into that family. I knew that Pharaoh was no god; he was a human being, just like you and me.

But I will admit to you that when I saw Pharaoh and his army on the horizon, racing toward us that day, I have never seen anything so terrifying in all my life! We were not expecting them to come after us, but there they were, hundreds and hundreds of the world's most powerful warriors, chariots and horses, stampeding toward us, and we were helpless to stop them. With the Red Sea behind us and Pharaoh's army stampeding toward us, everybody could see we were trapped with no way of escape.

I was not surprised when the people cried out in panic and sheer terror, but I was surprised when they turned on me with their old question: "Why don't you just leave us alone and let us serve the Egyptians?!" After all that God had done!

For years the people had been praying for God to deliver them, and now they were brought out with a mighty hand and there was nothing in them that wanted to trust in God; they wanted to turn around and serve Pharaoh! Pharaoh, who beat them, and worked them to death and murdered their babies! They wanted to trust this super power that they could see rather than the far greater super power who created them and loved them, who they could not see.

"Do not be afraid," I told them. "The Egyptians you see today, you will never see again. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance of God!"

God's word came to me with great clarity: "Tell the Israelites to go forward, not back. Lift up your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide it and the people will walk through on dry ground." As I did, the towering presence of God moved between our people and Pharaoh's armies; they never touched us. And the amazing power of God divided that great body of water! The power of God commanded the wind and the waters to move, and all heaven and earth were witnesses that day that God's plans and God's ways rule over all the greatest powers on earth.

When we made it to the other side and saw the sea close in over all that we feared most in the world, the people fell down on the ground and worshiped God. There was such rejoicing. There was such faith. The people believed and feared the Lord …for a while.

In the 40 years that followed, out in the wilderness, again and again when things got hard they kept begging to go back to Egypt! They longed for the old food, for what was familiar, what they could produce and see. They preferred the predictable life of slavery they could understand and manage rather than trusting completely in God. They forgot what happened at the Sea.

But with each Passover we remembered.

You know what I told them? I told them, "It is not God who killed Pharaoh and his men, but trusting in themselves and not God. There is a slavery that is worse than what Pharaoh did to you: it is the slavery of refusing to trust God!"

Every day in that wilderness, God was teaching us to be free of that old slavery. Every day when we had no idea where we would find water, when we had no idea where we would get food, we were forced to journey by faith and not by sight. We were forced to trust God for each day's manna. We experienced first hand that God provides everything we have, not we ourselves. We were forced to practice trust in God, not ourselves.

But it didn't seem to stick, especially when I was up on the mountain with God. Trust in God whom they could not see? Trust in my leadership when I was gone for so long? They couldn't do it. In an instant they gathered their gold jewelry and formed it into one of Egypt's gods and bowed down to that!

What a strong pull there is within us to go back to that old slavery, to trust in the work of our own hands and not God! What a strong pull there is within us to go back to that old slavery and trust human strength, military strength, instead of trusting God to fight for us.

The old pull of sin was strong in me too. I found myself trusting in what I could figure out and understand and not trusting God. After all those years of leading those people through the wilderness, they still did not trust God. All those people who experienced God's miracle at the Red Sea didn't even make it into the Promised Land because they refused to trust to trust God! "We have been defeated," I thought.

But then, long after I had left this world, God transported me to a mountain where the glory of God's Messiah, Jesus Christ, blazed so brightly that it knocked his disciples to the ground. There Elijah and I were told about

God's final act of deliverance that was coming in Jesus' death, that in his resurrection the waters would close in over the great enslaver once and for all. No more would we be trapped into trusting in ourselves, but we would be free from the power of sin forever, free to trust in God.

I wept when I heard this! I rejoiced more that day than the day we were rescued through the waters of the Red Sea.

I am here to tell you that God's deliverance was not just back then, it is now. God's first deliverance at the Red Sea, God's final deliverance at the empty tomb, was not just back then, it is now.

You face the same temptations we did then. Temptations are all around you to trust in what you can see and handle, and not God. Temptations are all around you to trust in what you know and can figure out, and not God. Temptations are all around you to trust in what you can make and accomplish and accumulate and manage, and not God. Temptations are all around you to trust in human might, even military might and not God.

I am here to remind you of the wisdom of your ancestors: Proverbs 3:5-6.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will direct your paths.

Every day you choose. With every challenge you face, whether small or great, you choose whether to turn to God and pray and trust in the way that God is opening, or to turn back to Egypt and trust in yourself.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

The pull to go back to that old slavery is strong, but it has been defeated. It doesn't own you or have power over you any more. God has delivered us from trusting in ourselves. Not just me; God has delivered us.

All praise be to Yahweh our God!