Today I’m preaching at church and my task is to give an overview introduction to the book of Exodus. My big fear with such introductions is that they can risk becoming lectury … A little academic. However they can also give us the opportunity to preach the message or some of the messages from the whole book.
What I’ve been excited about the whole theme of Exodus is seeing how it is about the way God brings us, his people from slavery and death to freedom and life.
But also there are some big moments in the book where God’s people have to step out in faith. A family stick a baby in a basket and stick the basket into the very river where the authorities are trying to kill baby boys just like him. There’s no grand plan, they just take a step of faith.
A whole people have to step out into the middle of banked up waters of death and trust God to bring them safe through to the other side.
How are they able to do that? Well in the middle of the wilderness, God had met Moses at Horeb and spoken from a burning bush. He had told Moses that this was holy ground. Layer at the same spot, God would meet Moses again and give him the Law so that God’s people could live in the presence of the holy God who had made his dwelling, pitched his tent amongst them. Those are the words, by the way that John uses to describe Christ’s Incarnation.
Life is full of moments when we are asked to step out in faith. Back in 1996, my mum and dad took a step out in faith to go and live and work in China. They knew God was sending them there but they didn’t have a plan. About 10 years later I gave up my job , I was on the first rung of operations management, I’d built my first team, we were nominated for awards in the company. And I knew I had to quit that for the Gospel but I did not know exactly what next.
Then fast forward, it’s 2020, the pandemic is still happening and God tells me it’s time now to move on. Again, I did not know what I was moving on to.
You no doubt will have faced those moments and if not, believe me, you will. What does it mean to step out by getting baptized, choosing a university, getting married, having kids. What does it mean to step out with that shocking diagnosis and uncertain prognosis? How can you step out into that long and difficult journey of walking the last few years of life with mum or dad as their health begins to fail?
We step out in faith because Christ is with us. There was an old chorus we used to sing in Sunday School when I was a child
“With Christ in the vessel you can smile at the storm as we go sailing home.”
I think smiling at storms feels a little trite but it’s a kids’ song and you get the point. Better perhaps to say that “He gives me peace in the midst of the storm.” So, “whatever my lot .. it is well with my soul.”
I know that all through my life at every step of faith Jesus has been with me. So I know that whatever he calls is to step into next, he will be right there with us.
Faithroots 