Remember and Respond

Remember and Respond

Exodus 13: 1 – 16.

Introduction

One of the first things I did before moving to Lufkin was to read the book, A Light in the East Texas Forest—the history of the first one hundred years of Lufkin’s First Baptist Church. By the way, we recently discovered a case full of the books. So, if you want your very own copy, call the church and negotiate a price.

The book tells the story of how the city of Lufkin grew up around the railroad. In July of 1883, nine men and women got together and formed the First Baptist Church on land donated by the railroad. They started with nine people, but only two years later in 1885, they had declined to only seven members.

I am a little disappointed that our history book doesn’t tell the story of “why” these nine men and women wanted to start a Baptist church in Lufkin. We are left to assume that they had been Baptists in other towns and saw the need for a Baptist witness in Lufkin. Of course that says a lot in itself. A Baptist church is a church committed to the Lordship of Jesus; the authority of Scripture; the importance of a personal faith; the priesthood of all believers; and the importance of worldwide evangelism and missions.

Two remarkable facts about our history are (1) the way LFBC has impacted the city of Lufkin through starting new churches and (2) the way LFBC has impacted the world by sending out ministers and missionaries.

For example, did you know that there are 15 churches in Lufkin who got their start as missions of LFBC? Three of those churches are still missions of LFBC—Cross Timbers Cowboy Church; New Beginnings Baptist Church; and La Casa del Alfarero. (At this very moment, there are 190 people worshipping at Cross Timbers; 100 worshipping at New Beginnings; and 100 worshipping at La Casa—That is at least 390 people who have been reached with the Gospel over the past 5 years but are not in our worship service this morning.)

Another example is the story of Rick Warren and the Saddleback Church in Southern California. Today, Saddleback is one of the largest churches in North America…and they got their start right here in this sanctuary. In 1979, Rick Warren graduated from seminary and started preaching in churches all over Texas. He shared his vision of planting a new kind of church in California. He preached here at LFBC, and we were the first church to support him in his ministry. We sent him $250 per month for five years (1980 to 1984). He even names our church and a church in California as the two churches that sponsored him financially in his first book, The Purpose Driven Church.[1] (I also heard him speak to the BGCT annual meeting in Amarillo in 2008. He told the convention that he is grateful for LFBC and the way we believed in him and supported him.)

There was even a time when the executive director of the Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention came from our church—Baker James Cauthen. When he died in 1985, Billy Graham said he was “one of the greatest missionary statesmen in all American church life.”[2]

Two more examples even closer to home…Lawanda Bright came from our church and served as a Foreign Mission Board missionary to Nigeria. Jerry Merriman grew up in our youth ministry and went on to become the director of collegiate ministry for the Mississippi Baptist Convention.

Of course, you may be wondering what any of this has to do with the Book of Exodus…

So far in the Book of Exodus, we have read about how God’s people were held as slaves in the nation of Egypt. They cried out to God to help them, and God answered their cries. God sent Moses to be a kind of human mediator between God and the people. Then, God sent ten plagues on the nation and people of Egypt. After the tenth plague, Pharaoh had all he could take and sent them out of Egypt.

Pharaoh didn’t wait until the light of day. He sent for Moses in the middle of the night and told him to get out and get out now. The story of salvation has reached its crescendo. The action is taking place at a fevered pitch. But… all of a sudden… in the middle of the action… the Book of Exodus slows down. It slows down to tell God’s people how important it is for them to remember what God is doing for them.

Exodus 13: 1 – 16.

1 The LORD said to Moses,

2 "Consecrate to me every firstborn male. The first offspring of every womb among the Israelites belongs to me, whether man or animal."

3 Then Moses said to the people, "Commemorate this day, the day you came out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery, because the LORD brought you out of it with a mighty hand. Eat nothing containing yeast.

4 Today, in the month of Abib, you are leaving.

5 When the LORD brings you into the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Hivites and Jebusites-- the land he swore to your forefathers to give you, a land flowing with milk and honey-- you are to observe this ceremony in this month:

6 For seven days eat bread made without yeast and on the seventh day hold a festival to the LORD.

7 Eat unleavened bread during those seven days; nothing with yeast in it is to be seen among you, nor shall any yeast be seen anywhere within your borders.

8 On that day tell your son, 'I do this because of what the LORD did for me when I came out of Egypt.'

9 This observance will be for you like a sign on your hand and a reminder on your forehead that the law of the LORD is to be on your lips. For the LORD brought you out of Egypt with his mighty hand.

10 You must keep this ordinance at the appointed time year after year.

11 "After the LORD brings you into the land of the Canaanites and gives it to you, as he promised on oath to you and your forefathers,

12 you are to give over to the LORD the first offspring of every womb. All the firstborn males of your livestock belong to the LORD.

13 Redeem with a lamb every firstborn donkey, but if you do not redeem it, break its neck. Redeem every firstborn among your sons.

14 "In days to come, when your son asks you, 'What does this mean?' say to him, 'With a mighty hand the LORD brought us out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

15 When Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the LORD killed every firstborn in Egypt, both man and animal. This is why I sacrifice to the LORD the first male offspring of every womb and redeem each of my firstborn sons.'

16 And it will be like a sign on your hand and a symbol on your forehead that the LORD brought us out of Egypt with his mighty hand."

(NIV)

The Bible has a lot to say about remembering. In fact, you could even make a case that this is one of the reasons why the Bible was written. It was written so that we would remember and never forget what God has done.

In the same way, we need to remember all God has done in our church. We remember what God did in the people of Israel. We remember what God did through the first twelve disciples. We remember what God did in the early church. We remember what God has done in LFBC. However, it is not enough to remember.

Sure, one of the reasons the Bible was written was to help us remember. But, the purpose of remembering is not to dwell in the past. Dwelling in the past almost guarantees that we don’t have a future. It’s like saying God is through with us. He did all he could do with us in the past. All we can do now is waste our present and future by thinking about the past. The Bible has a lot to say about remembering, but the Bible also tells us to rejoice in hope and to live with joyful expectation of what God will do in the future.

Remember the Future

In Exodus 13, God tells the people to remember the past. But notice how God tells them to remember…

Exodus 13: 5, “When the LORD brings you into the land of the Canaanites…”

Exodus 13: 10, “You must keep this ordinance at the appointed time year after year.”

Exodus 13: 11, “After the LORD brings you into the land of the Canaanites…”

God tells us to remember with an eye toward the future. We can’t see the future. But we can see the past…usually with 20/20 vision.

No one knows what the future holds. Most of us have a difficult time explaining or even understanding the present. But, that is not the case with the past.

We can remember the past and in remembering, we can see the ways God was at work. Sometimes God works in miraculous ways. But, most of the time, God has been working behind the scenes. When God is working behind the scenes, we can only see him when we look back at the ways he has protected us and prepared us for what we are doing right now.

Biblical Way of Remembering

In this section of Exodus, God gives his people three ways to remember their salvation. He told them to remember by observing the Passover; to remember by observing a seven-day Feast of Unleavened Bread; and to remember by consecrating their firstborns.

All three of these remembrances come from the tenth plague. After nine plagues in which God used the created order to accomplish his purposes, God himself entered into the land of Egypt. In the tenth plague, God fulfilled his promise from Exodus 4: 22 – 23. Since Egypt held God’s firstborn son as a slave, God killed the firstborn sons of Egypt.

This plague did not affect the Hebrew people. They were told to sacrifice a lamb (one lamb for every household); roast the meat over fire; eat the entire lamb (served in a meal with unleavened bread); and to paint the blood of the lamb on the doorposts of their homes.

The Passover meal was instituted as an annual meal to remember the night that God passed over the homes that had the blood of the lamb painted on their doorposts.

The Feast of Unleavened Bread was instituted to remember that the Egyptians forced the Hebrews to leave the land of Egypt so quickly that they didn’t have time for the bread to rise.

The consecration of the firstborn was instituted to remember that the Hebrew firstborns lived when the Egyptian firstborns died.

Notice that all three of these remembrances can be described as “rituals.”

For some reason, we Baptists don’t really like ritual. We don’t like it, because we think ritual is the same thing as “dead ritual.” Of course, there is always a danger that ritual can become dead ritual. But they don’t have to be the same thing.

Dead ritual is what happens when we are simply “going through the motions.” Or, dead ritual is what happens when all we do is remember the past.

Remember and Interpret

Ritual can be a good thing when it accomplishes what God had in mind when he instituted the rituals. Ritual points us backward toward history. History, when properly understood, tells us something about God and the future God intends for us. When we understand God properly, he shapes the way we live our lives!

Ritual => History

History => Theology

Theology => A Different Kind of Life

It is not enough for us to remember. We must remember and interpret.

Take the consecration of the firstborn as an example. In Exodus 13: 2, God said, “Consecrate to me every firstborn make. The first offspring of every womb among the Israelites belongs to me, whether man or animal.”

Since babies can be born at any time of the year, this is not an annual event. This is something that happens whenever the first son, the first lamb, the first calf or the first donkey is born. This was a continual observance.

The firstborn lamb was to be offered to God as a sacrifice. The firstborn donkey was to be killed. However, God did not ask the Israelites to sacrifice their children. Instead, they could redeem their firstborn sons by substituting a lamb as a sacrifice.

The sacrifice is a ritual God instituted. The ritual points God’s people backward to their history. The firstborn sons of the Hebrew people were “saved” by the blood of the Passover lamb.

Their history reminds them that God is the God of salvation. God has been faithful to his people in the past. AND, God will always be faithful to his people in the future.

They are to order their lives around who God is and what God has done for them. In some ways, this is a lesson in stewardship. Since God is the one who saved the Hebrew people and established them as a nation, everything they have came as a gift from God. Therefore, the first of everything belongs to God. The firstborn sons belong to God. The firstborn lambs, calves and donkeys belong to God. The first fruits of the harvest belong to God. The first 10% of their income belongs to God.

Conclusion

In other ways, this points forward to the story of the Gospel. In the Old Testament, the firstborn son was redeemed or bought back by a sacrifice. In the New Testament, God’s firstborn son, Jesus, became the means of our redemption.

As Christians, you and I are not firstborn sons and daughters. We were not even sons and daughters of God until we BECAME sons and daughters of God through union with Christ. Jesus was the firstborn son and the sacrifice who brought us into relationship with God. We became sons and daughters of God through an act of Grace.

THIS is what we are supposed to remember. But, remembering is not enough. We must remember and respond.

Before we had faith in Jesus, we were slaves. The crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus redeemed us from slavery. Everything we are and everything we have came to us as a gift of God’s Grace. Therefore, we give God the first of everything we have. We give God the first and not the leftovers…The first of our finances, the first of our week, the first of our day…

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[1] Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Church (Grand Rapids: Zondervan), p. 37.

[2] http://www.nytimes.com/1985/04/16/us/baker-james-cauthen.html