SPEAKER_00: This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
SPEAKER_01: My name is Jeremy.
SPEAKER_01: I am the student and family pastor here.
SPEAKER_01: I have a few nicknames, if you ask around, sometimes called the obnoxious one, the socially awkward one, the youth guy, but that's my name.
SPEAKER_01: That's what I do.
SPEAKER_01: I'm the student and family pastor.
SPEAKER_01: I want to welcome you.
SPEAKER_01: If you wouldn't mind turning your Bibles to Isaiah chapter 63, is where we're going to be.
SPEAKER_01: Want to welcome you to our first post-Christmas gathering together.
SPEAKER_01: I was supposed to preach last week, but God was so excited about my sermon that he sent a blizzard and canceled church.
SPEAKER_01: And so, um, but he apparently changed his mind because Jason, Pastor Jason sent me a text asking if I would preach for this upcoming Sunday to wrap up our series on redemption, the Redeemer Unveiled.
SPEAKER_01: We've had Pastor Jason talking about the promise of the Redeemer.
SPEAKER_01: And then Pastor Anton talked about the powerful Redeemer, how God is powerful to redeem those he came to save.
SPEAKER_01: And then we saw in the birth of Christ, the Redeemer came and we were able to see him.
SPEAKER_01: And now we're going to get to the end of our study on redemption on this uh this post-Christmas Sunday.
SPEAKER_01: We're about a week and a half removed from that fantastic holiday.
SPEAKER_01: And already our memories are beginning to fade.
SPEAKER_01: The farther out we get from Christmas, the more our memories fade because that's how we function and operate as human beings.
SPEAKER_01: Soon enough, five years from now, and then onward from that, this Christmas will be nothing more than a highlight reel in your mind.
SPEAKER_01: Details of the the day, the entirety of the day will begin to fade more and more.
SPEAKER_01: And it'll be more like ESPN's top 10 of Christmas.
SPEAKER_01: The reality of human forgetfulness is illustrated in the novel uh 100 Years of Solitude.
SPEAKER_01: Now, last time I preached, I I had the opportunity to also speak on human forgetfulness.
SPEAKER_01: And if you'll remember, I compared y'all to Goldfish, and I'll refrain from doing that this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Um, so I'll use a different illustration.
SPEAKER_01: This novel, written by Garcia Marquez, titled 100 Years of Solitude, uh, he describes in his magical but realistic way a village suffering from an insomnia plague.
SPEAKER_01: It's a plague that causes people to not sleep.
SPEAKER_01: And as it spreads and continues, it gradually causes the loss of memory.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you know this, but sleep helps you remember things.
SPEAKER_01: I learned that uh over the past uh over the past few weeks.
SPEAKER_01: Um uh as this plague continues, it gradually causes the loss of memory.
SPEAKER_01: And in order to try and salvage memory, Marquez describes the efforts of a certain man named Jose who develops a a system, a method of remembering things by labeling everything.
SPEAKER_01: So we take he'd take an ink uh brush filled with ink and he'd write on a door, door, and he'd go through and and mark the chair and clock and and wall, bed, pan.
SPEAKER_01: He'd mark everything what it was so that they wouldn't forget what it was.
SPEAKER_01: And then he would go out to the corral and to the barn, and he would he would mark the animals and the plants.
SPEAKER_01: He would mark the cow, the goat, the the corn, hen, banana.
SPEAKER_01: He got to the cat.
SPEAKER_01: Nah, well we'll go to the dog, dog, and and so it just it kept growing.
SPEAKER_01: And then eventually, though, as their memory continued to fade, Jose decided that they needed to be even more explicit because just labeling things was not enough.
SPEAKER_01: He needed to be more explicit.
SPEAKER_01: He posted a sign on a cow that read this This is the cow.
SPEAKER_01: She must be milked every morning so that she will produce milk.
SPEAKER_01: And the milk must be boiled and caught be boiled in order to be mixed with coffee to make coffee and milk.
SPEAKER_01: Thus, they were living in a reality that was slipping away, momentarily captured by words, but eventually those words would lose their meaning as they eventually forgot the very the very value of those words and letters.
SPEAKER_01: They lost their ability to remember how to read.
SPEAKER_01: And there's a parallel here between this fantasy novel and real life.
SPEAKER_01: You see, we we are an incredibly forgetful people, and I'm not talking about forgetting where you parked or forgetting where you put your wallet, although that's an issue, you might want to find that.
SPEAKER_01: Or forgetting moments and memories that we experience.
SPEAKER_01: We we forget the values of even the letters that comprise the most off-stated greeting to one another that we would constantly say throughout the past month.
SPEAKER_01: Merry Christmas, right?
SPEAKER_01: We forget the meaning and value of what makes Christmas so merry.
SPEAKER_01: Uh even church-going people, we forget that Christmas is not merely about family time.
SPEAKER_01: It's not about the feeling of goodwill towards others.
SPEAKER_01: I would even argue that Christmas is not about the birth of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: We celebrate and worship on Christmas because of what happens on Easter, of what the Christ child would eventually do.
SPEAKER_01: For over a thousand years, Christians have have celebrated Christmas not because of a baby, but because of the man that the baby would grow into.
SPEAKER_01: And not just any man, but God himself in flesh.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus Christ taking the sins of the world upon his shoulders as he died on the cross.
SPEAKER_01: God himself, Jesus Christ, defeating death as he rose from the grave.
SPEAKER_01: God himself, Jesus Christ, guaranteeing his return as he ascended into heaven and sent the Spirit of God to take up residence in his people.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I know you all probably had a perfectly fine time remembering all that during the holidays, right?
SPEAKER_01: But but I didn't.
SPEAKER_01: I struggled.
SPEAKER_01: So if you'll if you'll allow me, I'm gonna spend some time preaching to myself for a few minutes.
SPEAKER_01: I I had a hard time remembering the reason for the season as well, I didn't really bake many cookies, but I certainly ate a lot of cookies.
SPEAKER_01: Um I I del we did we did Christmas cards, we were busy buying gifts, we were busy with family coming into town, we were busy with family going out of town, we were busy figuring out where on earth are we going to put all this trash that came from all the stuff that they've gotten now, right?
SPEAKER_01: We're so busy that we forget, and not just not just during this time of year, but throughout the entire year, we get incredibly busy with a lot of different things that take up our time and attention to where we forget the reason, not just for this season, but for every single moment in all of human history.
SPEAKER_01: The reason for all of history, all of history centers on Jesus Christ coming in flesh and redeeming his people.
SPEAKER_01: And because we have a hard time remembering, I want to conclude our study on redemption with four aspects of redemption.
SPEAKER_01: I would like to call us to remember, not just now as we're starting off the new year, but throughout the entire year.
SPEAKER_01: Four aspects of redemption to remember.
SPEAKER_01: And if you don't, if you don't have a category for this word redemption, if you if you don't have a church background, what the Bible refers to as redemption means to be made right or to be bought back.
SPEAKER_01: And if you think about that for a moment, that that means that redemption requires some bad news.
SPEAKER_01: In order to be made right means that you are obviously in the wrong.
SPEAKER_01: To be bought back means that you are in slavery of some sort.
SPEAKER_01: And so that brings us to our first aspects to consider and remember.
SPEAKER_01: Our first aspect of redemption that I'd like us to remember is remembering the context of redemption.
SPEAKER_01: Write that down if you're into taking notes.
SPEAKER_01: Remembering the context of redemption.
SPEAKER_01: In Isaiah 63, we're going to look at verses 1 through 6.
SPEAKER_01: The context of this passage is rather frightening.
SPEAKER_01: It paints a dreadful picture of God as a vengeful warrior who brings his righteous wrath down on his enemies.
SPEAKER_01: Look with me at verse 1.
SPEAKER_01: Who is this who comes from Edom in crimson garments from Basrah?
SPEAKER_01: He who is splendid in his apparel, marching in the greatness of his strength.
SPEAKER_01: It is I, speaking in righteousness, mighty to save.
SPEAKER_01: Why is your apparel red, and your garments like he who tr his who treads the winepress?
SPEAKER_01: I have trodden the winepress alone, and from the peoples no one was with me.
SPEAKER_01: I trod them in my anger and trampled them in my wrath.
SPEAKER_01: Their lifeblood spattered on my garments and stained all my apparel.
SPEAKER_01: A thought that just occurred to me right now is I was supposed to preach this last week, and last week was a family Sunday.
SPEAKER_01: Praise God, children.
SPEAKER_01: Um Isaiah asks the question: Who is this who comes from Edom?
SPEAKER_01: Edom was a region in the ancient world that was used as a symbol of opposition to God and his people.
SPEAKER_01: In Numbers chapter 20, Moses sends messengers to the king of Edom, an envoy, asking the king to let the people of Israel cross through their land on their way to the promised land.
SPEAKER_01: They had been freed from Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: Uh they were they were cutting through the desert, and and the one place that they had to cut through was Edom.
SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, they'd have to go the long way around.
SPEAKER_01: So this was this was the most direct path to get where God was leading them.
SPEAKER_01: And so they go to the king of Edom.
SPEAKER_01: They send an envoy and they ask us in Numbers 20, 17, it says this, please let us pass through your land.
SPEAKER_01: We will we will not pass through field or vineyard or drink water from a well.
SPEAKER_01: We will go along the king's highway.
SPEAKER_01: We will not turn aside to the right hand or to the left until we have passed through your territory.
SPEAKER_01: Look, king, we we just want to get through.
SPEAKER_01: We're not we're not going to trample through any fields, we're not going to ruin any crops, we're not even going to drink your water.
SPEAKER_01: We're not going to touch a thing.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, the road that you constructed, we are going to use for travel.
SPEAKER_01: So that you don't have to worry about anything or anyone being damaged or us touching anything.
SPEAKER_01: And the king come out came out and said to them, You shall not pass through lest I come out with a sword against you.
SPEAKER_01: He didn't really have a reason.
SPEAKER_01: He's just kind of a grumpy old man that wants you to stay off of his lawn.
SPEAKER_01: He says, You can't do that, and if you do, I'm going to come out with the sword against you.
SPEAKER_01: And the people of Israel said to him, We will go up by the highway, and if we drink your water, I am my livestock, then I will pay for it.
SPEAKER_01: Because let's be honest, in every group there are those people.
SPEAKER_01: You tell them, Don't touch that.
SPEAKER_01: Well, now all I want to do is touch it.
SPEAKER_01: Don't drink their water.
SPEAKER_01: Oh man, now that you mention it, I'm incredibly thirsty.
SPEAKER_01: I just need a little drink.
SPEAKER_01: And so he they say, if if people do drink water from them or their livestock, then we'll pay for it.
SPEAKER_01: We'll we'll compensate you for anything that we consume in our passage through.
SPEAKER_01: Let me only pass through on foot, nothing more.
SPEAKER_01: That the king said, You shall not pass through.
SPEAKER_01: And Edom came out against them with a large army.
SPEAKER_01: Not only did he say no, he sent an army to ensure it wouldn't happen.
SPEAKER_01: And from that moment on, the kingdom and region of Edom is identified and used as a symbol of those who oppose God and his people.
SPEAKER_01: Going back to our text, what Isaiah is saying, God is returning from those who oppose him and his people, his enemies.
SPEAKER_01: God is returning, and he's got some stains on him.
SPEAKER_01: He's what Isaiah says, he's dressed in crimson, not because it brings out his eyes or because crimson is the new black, but because it's covered in stains.
SPEAKER_01: It's so stained that he he looks like someone who's been working on the wine press.
SPEAKER_01: In the wine press.
SPEAKER_01: Ancient wine presses were a series of pools carved out of rock.
SPEAKER_01: They would carve these pools out of rock, and you'd dump grapes into one pool and you'd send somebody in.
SPEAKER_01: Hopefully they would wash their feet before they got in, but they would step on the grapes, and as the juice comes out, it would flow from one pool into another where it would then ferment.
SPEAKER_01: And if you were doing this all day, you would get stains of grape juice all over your clothes.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what Isaiah says God looks like.
SPEAKER_01: He's returning from his enemies, and it looks like he's been working in the wine press all day, only it's not grape juice.
SPEAKER_01: It's stained because he has gone to war with his enemies.
SPEAKER_01: There are usually two opposing views of God that I hear frequently.
SPEAKER_01: If this doesn't settle well with you, of God as one with vengeful anger who tramples down on his enemies, there's two views that I hear frequently that attempt to contradict the God of the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: The first is that God is all loving and never angry, or the second view is that God is angry and never loving.
SPEAKER_01: I hear more of the former than I do of the latter.
SPEAKER_01: Those who would claim that God is love and therefore doesn't hate anything, oppose anyone, or have any semblance of wrath, they don't truly understand what love is.
SPEAKER_01: In order to paint God in the best possible light, they completely betray their motives by robbing him of any possibility of anger, which is a necessary component of genuine love.
SPEAKER_01: To illustrate, if I say I love my children, then you would naturally expect me to be opposed and even angry towards those things that would hurt them.
SPEAKER_01: If I were apathetic towards people, situations, and events that would cause my children harm, you would probably wonder whether or not I genuinely love my children.
SPEAKER_01: Now, if that's true of a human father, how much more so is it of a perfect heavenly father?
SPEAKER_01: How much more is this a reality of God?
SPEAKER_01: His love for his people is perfect, and therefore his anger towards those things that would hurt them, harm them, and oppose them is perfect, completely perfect.
SPEAKER_01: Furthermore, taking it a step further, if God is the rightful sovereign ruler over his creation, God created the world and everything in it.
SPEAKER_01: You're breathing air right now, God created you.
SPEAKER_01: Much more than that, God is sustaining your life right now.
SPEAKER_01: The time that you're living on is borrowed from him.
SPEAKER_01: The air you're breathing belongs to him.
SPEAKER_01: If God is the one who made you, who gave your life purpose, and you choose to rebel against that purpose and his rule in your life, he is perfectly just in his anger towards that.
SPEAKER_01: And let me just say, it is no small thing to make God your enemy.
SPEAKER_01: If you reject his rightful lordship over your life, if you dismiss his appeal for you to trust in him and surrender your life to him, then you are making for yourself the very worst of enemies.
SPEAKER_01: You are making an enemy of God.
SPEAKER_01: And this picture of God as a vengeful warrior towards his enemies is terrifying and incredibly disturbing.
SPEAKER_01: But I want to tell you this morning that the God who is a terror to sinners is a great friend of them also.
SPEAKER_01: He's the sinner's greatest enemy and the sinner's greatest hope.
SPEAKER_01: That's the reason we celebrate Christmas.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus Christ, God's one and only Son, came as Emmanuel God with us.
SPEAKER_01: Imagine rebelling against a king, and that king himself stepping off his throne and going to make right the rebels.
SPEAKER_01: It's why we sing, Joy to the world, the Lord is come, because God came to us.
SPEAKER_01: We sing, hark, the herald angels sing because God and sinners are now reconciled, not just through a baby, but again, in who that baby was and what that baby would eventually do 30 years later, as he died on the cross.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus took your rebellion towards God upon himself.
SPEAKER_01: He paid the penalty for your rebellion on himself.
SPEAKER_01: And he bled and died on the cross.
SPEAKER_01: And to show you that reconciliation and redemption had been accomplished, he rose again three days later.
SPEAKER_01: Friends, you do not have to be God's enemy anymore.
SPEAKER_01: I am here this morning to tell you you can be his friend, his people, his child.
SPEAKER_01: God is a vengeful warrior.
SPEAKER_01: There is coming a day where God is going to exact vengeance on those who oppose him.
SPEAKER_01: But at the same time, he offers with an open hand salvation, hope, and redemption.
SPEAKER_01: And that brings us to our second point this morning.
SPEAKER_01: We as we see the context of God making war with his enemies, his people call to mind who they are.
SPEAKER_01: Look with me in verses seven through nine as we consider our second point, remembering the act of redemption.
SPEAKER_01: Remembering the act of redemption.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 7.
SPEAKER_01: I will recount the steadfast love of the Lord, the praises of the Lord, according to all that the Lord has granted us, and the great goodness to the house of Israel that he has granted them according to his compassion, according to the abundance of his steadfast love.
SPEAKER_01: For he said, Surely they are my people, children who will not deal falsely.
SPEAKER_01: And he became their Savior.
SPEAKER_01: In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them in his love and in his pity, he redeemed them, he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to notice the first two words back in verse 7, as Isaiah staring at this picture, this vision of God as an eventual warrior coming from from it's not even a fight against his enemies, it's it's complete destruction of them as he sees God coming.
SPEAKER_01: We see this this response of Isaiah.
SPEAKER_01: Not I might or I should, I could, maybe.
SPEAKER_01: Let's see if everybody else is doing it first.
SPEAKER_01: He says, I will.
SPEAKER_01: Isaiah is going to authoritatively proclaim and declare God's love to God's people because of all that God has done for them.
SPEAKER_01: Rather than making them his enemies, God chose to make the nation of Israel his people, and not just his people, but if you look at verse 8, his own children.
SPEAKER_01: Not just his people, but his children.
SPEAKER_01: And he became their savior.
SPEAKER_01: He saved them.
SPEAKER_01: Not just once, not just twice, multiple times.
SPEAKER_01: He he was the one who saved them from slavery in Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: He was the one who saved them from the hands of defeat as they took the promised land.
SPEAKER_01: He was the one who saved them from the Midianites, not Gideon.
SPEAKER_01: He was the one who saved them from the Philistines, not Samson.
SPEAKER_01: He was the one who saved them from Goliath, not David.
SPEAKER_01: And over and over.
SPEAKER_01: And over and over again, he provides salvation for his people.
SPEAKER_01: And his salvation of his people isn't just decreeing from on high and waving his hand and making it happen.
SPEAKER_01: God gets extremely personal with his people.
SPEAKER_01: And when he saves them, he doesn't dispatch a thousand angels to go get the job done.
SPEAKER_01: He sends what Isaiah calls the angel of his presence.
SPEAKER_01: Or rather, he goes himself and does it.
SPEAKER_01: God is extremely personal in the act of salvation.
SPEAKER_01: He alone is the savior of his people.
SPEAKER_01: And in light of who he is to his people, his people, they remember and they declare all that he's done to prove it.
SPEAKER_01: They proclaim and remember the steadfast love of God according to all that God has done because of the abundance of his love.
SPEAKER_01: You'll notice the repetition of God's love in this passage.
SPEAKER_01: Isaiah is intentionally repetitious here because God's actions for his people are rooted in his love for them.
SPEAKER_01: God acts because he loves.
SPEAKER_01: And soak that in for a moment.
SPEAKER_01: God loves and he acts.
SPEAKER_01: It's not just a declaration of I love and then he just sits idly by.
SPEAKER_01: His actions are motivated out of his love.
SPEAKER_01: Why would God choose to save and redeem?
SPEAKER_01: It's definitely not because of anything that his people have done.
SPEAKER_01: If you read the Old Testament and look at the history of the people of Israel, they messed up a lot.
SPEAKER_01: And yet, God loved them and saved them.
SPEAKER_01: Think about it.
SPEAKER_01: God is victoriously marching back from his war on his enemies.
SPEAKER_01: And as you see him approaching, putting yourself in the shoes of Isaiah, as you see him approaching, you realize you are not one of them.
SPEAKER_01: You are not one of them.
SPEAKER_01: Not only are you not an enemy of God, but he himself has acted on your behalf to make you his child.
SPEAKER_01: He saved you out of slavery and from the hands of your enemies and brought you into a right relationship with him.
SPEAKER_01: And that's that's the essence of the Christian life.
SPEAKER_01: Rather than being God's enemies, he has made us his people.
SPEAKER_01: Think of how radical that is.
SPEAKER_01: If you're a Christian, it's not because of your willpower or superior morality.
SPEAKER_01: If you have an outside looking in view of Christianity, if you're not a Christian yourself and you think Christians are nothing more than morally superior people, you are completely fooled in your understanding of Christianity because Christianity are in Christians are enemies made right with God.
SPEAKER_01: Every single person here this morning was an enemy of God until God made them right with him.
SPEAKER_01: It's not because of who you are, it's not because of who you vote for, it's not because of the church you attend, any quality you possess.
SPEAKER_01: You are a Christian, if you are indeed a Christian this morning, because of the steadfast, abundant love of God.
SPEAKER_01: And because of his love, there is no need, no need whatsoever to worry about being God's enemy.
SPEAKER_01: Because God has made you his child through Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Soak that in for a moment.
SPEAKER_01: Remember it.
SPEAKER_01: Don't just remember it.
SPEAKER_01: Don't just call it to memory.
SPEAKER_01: Do what Isaiah is doing here in this text and recount it.
SPEAKER_01: Declaring it and proclaiming it.
SPEAKER_01: And this is a very practical point of application here this morning.
SPEAKER_01: If you take nothing else away, I want to challenge all of us that we would be a people who regularly recount the goodness, faithfulness, and abundant love of God in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: Remembering that God has redeemed us and declare it like we believe it.
SPEAKER_01: I've been convicted in preparing this and coming to this point, and I've spent time away from this point wrestling with it because I have been a coward at times in proclaiming the love of God in my life.
SPEAKER_01: When I drive down my street and I look at houses of people that I don't know, not merely because it's negative degree weather all the time, but because we just I I've been apathetic towards them, missed opportunities with the cashier, missed opportunities with relatives to recount, to remember and declare the abundant love of God, not just for me, but also for them.
SPEAKER_01: My hope and prayer this morning is that you and I, as we as we think about applying our text this morning, because one of the things you would think about is how we might recount together to the world around us the steadfast, abundant, redeeming love of God.
SPEAKER_01: God's redemption seems almost too good to be true.
SPEAKER_01: God does all the work, we receive all the benefit.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't seem quite right.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, many of us think that it's too good to be true.
SPEAKER_01: That's why we have just about every world religion that man has come up with has to do with men making their way up to God, having to do things in order to earn God's favor.
SPEAKER_01: Christianity says you can't.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, you are an enemy, and in order to be made right with God, God has to act on your behalf.
SPEAKER_01: And he does so not because of you, but because of his love.
SPEAKER_01: God does all the work, we receive all the benefit.
SPEAKER_01: And let me ask you this morning, how would you respond?
SPEAKER_01: How would you respond to such an offer?
SPEAKER_01: That brings us to our third point, if you're taking notes.
SPEAKER_01: Remembering the response of the redeemed.
SPEAKER_01: We have again God coming as a vengeful warrior from trampling his enemies, but yet God's people look at God and remind themselves that they are not considered God's enemy because of what God has done for them and redeeming them because of his abundant love.
SPEAKER_01: And then we get to verse 10.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 10.
SPEAKER_01: But they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, he turned to be their enemy and himself fought against them.
SPEAKER_01: Let me ask you this again.
SPEAKER_01: How would you respond to such a great offer?
SPEAKER_01: We typically think more highly of ourselves than we ought to, don't we?
SPEAKER_01: If God was so generous to me, and if God redeemed me, and if God made me a part of his people and a part of his family, despite all my many flaws and all my many sins, if God did that on my behalf, wouldn't I receive it with thankfulness and humble obedience to him all the days of my life?
SPEAKER_01: I like to think so.
SPEAKER_01: Gotta think again.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 10 is a callback to the response of God's people after God brought them out of slavery in the land of Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: Remember to set up, if you're not familiar with it, the people of Israel were slaves in Egypt for 400 years.
SPEAKER_01: They grew, they multiplied, they became a great nation.
SPEAKER_01: And so, in order to kind of uh enforce a form of population control, Pharaoh began to oppress them more severely and give them hard labors to perform.
SPEAKER_01: And when that didn't do the trick, he he went after their kids and attempted several times uh forms of genocide.
SPEAKER_01: One of them worked, one of them didn't.
SPEAKER_01: That that for 400 years they were going through that.
SPEAKER_01: And then God shows up to redeem them, to bring them out of slavery, to set them free, and to make them his people, put them in a right relationship with him, where they can worship him rightly.
SPEAKER_01: And not just that, but God says, I'm going to lead you into a land of promise, a land that flowing with milk and honey, a land where you will thrive and flourish so that I can fill my other promise to Abraham, so that you would be a blessing to the entire world.
SPEAKER_01: And so God, God flexes his strength through a series of plagues while they're in Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: And it brings the most powerful nation on earth at the time to its knees.
SPEAKER_01: And while the entire nation of Egypt is inflicted with plagues, the Israelites go completely untouched.
SPEAKER_01: Completely untouched.
SPEAKER_01: God's people don't suffer as the Egyptians do.
SPEAKER_01: And they're watching in front of them the destruction of this powerful nation.
SPEAKER_01: And after one final plague, when the people of Israel are finally on their way out of Egypt, God stirs up the Egyptians to give the Israelites gold, jewelry, and fine clothing.
SPEAKER_01: You would think that the Egyptians would be angry towards the Israelites because it's on account of their God that their nation is now in ruin.
SPEAKER_01: And yet God stirs up their hearts to give them gold and fine clothing.
SPEAKER_01: And so they're on their way out, they get to the Red Sea, and then all of a sudden the Egyptians are on the pursuit.
SPEAKER_01: They're coming after them.
SPEAKER_01: And the Israelites realize I have a sea in front of us, I'm not a good swimmer, and we got the Egyptians behind us on their way to reclaim what they think is rightfully theirs.
SPEAKER_01: It's probably going to be a slaughter, and whoever makes it back to Egypt alive is going to be worked even harder than we ever have been.
SPEAKER_01: And so with their backs up against the wall, what does God do?
SPEAKER_01: He parts the sea.
SPEAKER_01: He divides it in two.
SPEAKER_01: He makes it so that the water are as walls on each side.
SPEAKER_01: Look to the walls to your left and right and think of those as water.
SPEAKER_01: And then they walk across, not on slightly moist ground, not on muddy ground, but they cross on dry ground.
SPEAKER_01: And as they get to the other side, their pursuers come in after them, and God closes up the sea to completely destroy their pursuers, their oppressors, and they are finally free.
SPEAKER_01: Not only is God delivering them from their enemies, but now he's saying, I'm after all that, I'm taking you to the promised land.
SPEAKER_01: Now again, put yourself in their shoes.
SPEAKER_01: Put yourself in your shoes.
SPEAKER_01: Imagine all that you would have witnessed up to that point.
SPEAKER_01: And ask yourself, what would my response to God be in light of the magnificent and powerful acts of redemption that I have seen and witnessed that he has accomplished on my behalf?
SPEAKER_01: We get a picture of how we would respond in Exodus chapter 15, just a few verses removed from a praise song, praising God for all that he's done on their behalf.
SPEAKER_01: Just a few verses later, here's what we get: Exodus 15, 22 through 24.
SPEAKER_01: Then Moses made Israel set out from the Red Sea, and they went into the wilderness of Shur.
SPEAKER_01: They went three days in the wilderness and found no water.
SPEAKER_01: When they came to Mara, they could not drink the water of Marah because it was bitter, and that's why they called it Mara.
SPEAKER_01: And the people grumbled, complained against Moses, saying, What shall we drink?
SPEAKER_01: There's a lot more here than just a question of what shall we drink.
SPEAKER_01: There's a there's an implying here.
SPEAKER_01: You brought us out here, now what?
SPEAKER_01: Already, because of their base instincts to satisfy their thirst, they are forgetting the redemption of God.
SPEAKER_01: Look at chapter 16, verse 1 through 3.
SPEAKER_01: They set out from Elam, and all the congregation of the people of Israel came to the wilderness of sin, which is between Elam and Sinai on the 15th day of the second month after they had departed from the land of Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: So it's been a while, and they've actually seen a few things.
SPEAKER_01: That place, Mara, they threw a stick in it, and it made better, made it sweet.
SPEAKER_01: And the whole congregation of the people of Israel, once they get to this place, they grumble against Moses and Aaron again.
SPEAKER_01: And the people of Israel said to them, What would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt?
SPEAKER_01: When we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.
SPEAKER_01: Think about how insane that statement is.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, would we be back in slavery where we had some food, despite the fact that God delivered you out of slavery and is leading you somewhere far better.
SPEAKER_01: And then in chapter 17, all the congregation of the people of Israel moved on from that wilderness, but there was no water for the people to drink when they camped at Rephidim.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore the people quarreled with Moses and said, Give us water to drink.
SPEAKER_01: And Moses said to them, Why do you quarrel with me?
SPEAKER_01: Again, there's there's more behind just a question of give us water to drink.
SPEAKER_01: There's an implication here that you don't have anything for us to drink, Moses.
SPEAKER_01: You brought us out here to kill us.
SPEAKER_01: And in fact, they say that.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Why do you quarrel with me?
SPEAKER_01: Why do you test the Lord?
SPEAKER_01: And the people thirsted there for water, and the people grumbled against Moses and said, Why did you bring us out of Egypt to kill us?
SPEAKER_01: And our children and our livestock with thirst.
SPEAKER_01: This is a pattern of ungratefulness that we see over and over and over, and we see it uh stemming from base instincts merely to drink and eat.
SPEAKER_01: Those base instincts cause them to remember all the things that God has done on their behalf.
SPEAKER_01: And it continues over and over.
SPEAKER_01: And the people, the people at one point, when God is speaking with Moses on a mountain, the people begin to worship a calf made out of gold.
SPEAKER_01: A calf.
SPEAKER_01: That's right, think about it.
SPEAKER_01: A baby cow.
SPEAKER_01: Worshiping a baby cow made of gold.
SPEAKER_01: And they say, Behold, this is the God who brought you out of the land of Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: God's people are continuously making themselves the enemy of the very God who saved them.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what Isaiah says.
SPEAKER_01: They rebelled.
SPEAKER_01: They turned against God.
SPEAKER_01: They became his enemy.
SPEAKER_01: And like I said earlier, if you make yourself God's enemy, you are making yourself the worst of enemies.
SPEAKER_01: And if you continue to make yourself an enemy of God, God will eventually give you what you want and become your enemy.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what they were expecting in the wilderness by continually rebelling against God, but eventually there came a point where God said, Okay, fine, you want to be enemies?
SPEAKER_01: Let's be enemies.
SPEAKER_01: In Numbers chapter 14, he tells this generation that keeps complaining about God and his provision, despite his redemption of them.
SPEAKER_01: He tells them, the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron saying, How long shall this wicked congregation grumble and complain against me?
SPEAKER_01: I have heard the grumblings of the people of Israel, which they grumble against me.
SPEAKER_01: Say to them, As I live, declares the Lord, what you have said in my hearing.
SPEAKER_01: Remember some of the things that they've said in the hearing of God?
SPEAKER_01: Oh, that we would just die.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, you brought us out here to die.
SPEAKER_01: We are gonna die of thirst.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna die of hunger.
SPEAKER_01: God says, What you've said in my hearing, I will do to you.
SPEAKER_01: Your dead body shall fall in this wilderness.
SPEAKER_01: And all of your number listed in the census from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against me, not one shall come into the land where I swore that I would make you dwell.
SPEAKER_01: Now, if you're anything like me, you're wondering, you you recount that that whole saga and the continued saga of Israel, and you ask, what's wrong with you people?
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: What's wrong with you people after everything God has done?
SPEAKER_01: Why would you treat him in such a way after everything God has done for us?
SPEAKER_01: Why would we rebel against him?
SPEAKER_01: You and I do this more often than we think.
SPEAKER_01: This isn't a them problem.
SPEAKER_01: This is a present us problem.
SPEAKER_01: Every time we prioritize ourselves over God, we are effectively declaring war against him.
SPEAKER_01: Every time we give in to temptation and indulge in sin, we are declaring war on God because we are rebelling against his good and perfect will for our lives.
SPEAKER_01: Every lustful thought, every careless word, every wicked deed, it's all rebellion and war against the God who has provided redemption for you.
SPEAKER_01: And this is our natural response to redemption.
SPEAKER_01: Rebellion.
SPEAKER_01: That's how you and I are inclined to respond to all that God has done for us.
SPEAKER_01: And that's why I need us to remember that.
SPEAKER_01: You and I are not naturally good people who receive what God does with open arms.
SPEAKER_01: Our natural tendency is to rebel against Him.
SPEAKER_01: Think about it.
SPEAKER_01: God has supplied us armor to fight sin, and yet we refuse to put it on.
SPEAKER_01: God provides for our every need, but we refuse to believe it and trust Him for provision.
SPEAKER_01: God has forgiven us our sins, but we refuse to forgive others.
SPEAKER_01: God has given us incomparable joy in him, and yet we seek to find joy in anything and everything else.
SPEAKER_01: We are constantly rebelling against God.
SPEAKER_01: And if this is our response to the goodness and love of God, if this is our response to what God has done in redemption for us, what what hope do we have?
SPEAKER_01: Are we going to become enemies of God if we're constantly making ourselves his enemy?
SPEAKER_01: Is he going to turn and become our enemy?
SPEAKER_01: And that's that's where I want to conclude this morning with our final feature of redemption that I want to ask you to remember.
SPEAKER_01: And church, please, please hold this dear.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to remember the fourth point the faithfulness of the Redeemer.
SPEAKER_01: The faithfulness of the Redeemer.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 11.
SPEAKER_01: God's people are rebelling against him.
SPEAKER_01: Then he remembered the days of old of Moses and his people, where where is he who brought them up out of the sea?
SPEAKER_01: Where with the shepherds of his flock, where is he who put in the midst of them his Holy Spirit?
SPEAKER_01: Who caused me his glorious arm to go at the right hand of Moses, who divided the waters before them, to make for himself an everlasting name, who led them through the depths, like a like a horse in the desert, they did not stumble, and like livestock that go down into the valley, the Spirit of the Lord gave them rest.
SPEAKER_01: So you led your people to make for yourself a glorious name.
SPEAKER_01: God remembered.
SPEAKER_01: Again, verse 11.
SPEAKER_01: Then he remembered.
SPEAKER_01: He remembered the days of old.
SPEAKER_01: Despite the rebellion of his people, God remembered.
SPEAKER_01: And it's not as if God forgot.
SPEAKER_01: This isn't a memory that God just kind of catches on to.
SPEAKER_01: It's like, oh yeah, I remember those people.
SPEAKER_01: I remembered what I promised.
SPEAKER_01: I remembered what I did.
SPEAKER_01: This is this is rather an intentional bringing to the forefront of his will what he has done and what he has promised to his people.
SPEAKER_01: And in doing so, God does not remain the enemy of his people, but rather comes through and fulfills his promises to them.
SPEAKER_01: To the people of Israel, the promise was to give them a land.
SPEAKER_01: Despite the rebellion in the desert, God let them have the promised land to make them into a mighty nation, so that through them the people of the world might be blessed.
SPEAKER_01: And God came through with that promise.
SPEAKER_01: Isaiah describes the fulfillment of that promise like this.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 13, like a horse in the desert.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you've seen a horse running in the desert.
SPEAKER_01: I sure, I sure haven't, but I've seen videos of horses running in the desert.
SPEAKER_01: And there's nothing impeding them.
SPEAKER_01: And like a horse in the desert, they didn't stumble.
SPEAKER_01: They ran freely, and like livestock that go down into the valley, into a Nice green lush valley to graze.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord, the Spirit of the Lord gave them rest.
SPEAKER_01: That's another way of saying God gave them what He promised.
SPEAKER_01: The promised land is usually used as a term of rest, and vice versa.
SPEAKER_01: Because in the promised land, the people of Israel were no longer in slavery.
SPEAKER_01: They were no longer wandering.
SPEAKER_01: They were no longer fighting.
SPEAKER_01: They were resting.
SPEAKER_01: They were resting as God's people.
SPEAKER_01: My friend, the point here is that even while you are faithless, God is faithful.
SPEAKER_01: God fulfilled his promise to you.
SPEAKER_01: The promise of redemption has happened.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus Christ came and he bled and died on the cross to forgive our sins.
SPEAKER_01: God fulfilled his promise to you that he would give you his spirit as a guarantee of his salvation until he comes again and a guarantee and the proof that you belong to him.
SPEAKER_01: God is faithful.
SPEAKER_01: God is faithful, church.
SPEAKER_01: The God who redeemed you will see to it that you make it to the promised land.
SPEAKER_01: The God who redeemed you will see to it that he will never leave you nor forsake you.
SPEAKER_01: The God who saved you will never leave your side.
SPEAKER_01: Even when you fail, even when you sin, even when you don't feel like you are worthy, God is faithful.
SPEAKER_01: God is faithful when you are not.
SPEAKER_01: And he's writing to the church in Thessalonica.
SPEAKER_01: He concludes it with this: he says, Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely.
SPEAKER_01: And what that means, sanctify, means to be made holy.
SPEAKER_01: To be completely made holy.
SPEAKER_01: May God make you completely holy, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: That sounds like a tall order, because I know of just how unholy I can be at times.
SPEAKER_01: I know just how uh full of blame I am.
SPEAKER_01: And yet, what Paul says here, may the God of peace sanctify you, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: He follows that up with this one statement that I want to sink down into your minds and make its way to your heart.
SPEAKER_01: And I hope you'll believe it this morning and remember it throughout the year and proclaim it that he who calls you is faithful, he will surely do it.
SPEAKER_01: God does all the work, we receive all the benefit.
SPEAKER_01: Regardless of how great you are, regardless of how much you mess up, God will finish what he started in you.
SPEAKER_01: Now, as we as we close, I want to ask you this morning to trust in that promise.
SPEAKER_01: Trust in the God who's going to bring the fulfillment of all of his promises to you.
SPEAKER_01: He's going to make sure it happens.
SPEAKER_01: And I want to challenge you to recount the goodness of God.
SPEAKER_01: Remember his faithfulness to you, remember his love for you displayed on the cross.
SPEAKER_01: Remember it and leave here this morning, declaring it like we believe it.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we thank you for your redemption.
SPEAKER_01: You have made us right with you.
SPEAKER_01: You have bought us back from our sins.
SPEAKER_01: When we were utterly hopeless, and while we were still enemies, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly.
SPEAKER_01: How great a salvation you have provided for us, Lord, even when we are faithless.
SPEAKER_01: You died for us, not for when we would be at our best, but for us at our worst.
SPEAKER_01: And we have this confidence in our hearts this morning from your word that what you started in our lives, you will finish.
SPEAKER_01: And we trust that, I pray.
SPEAKER_01: And I pray we'll declare it boldly as if we believe it.
SPEAKER_01: We pray this in the precious name of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.
SPEAKER_00: Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.