The God Who Makes a Way

Automatically transcribed — lightly cleaned for readability. Wording is the preacher’s own.

Good morning, Conduit. How are you? Good. It's good to see you. My name is Cameron. I'm one of the pastors here. If you have a Bible with you, we are going to be in Exodus chapter 14. And we have been going through the book of Exodus here the last several months. Our intent is to continue to go through the rest of Exodus throughout the summer. And Exodus has a number of different themes, some of them that you're going to see on display this morning in Exodus chapter 14, which is a really, I guess you could say, it's a popular part of the Exodus story, one that even if you're not really familiar with the Bible, that you will recognize the story as the parting and the crossing of the Red Sea. It's become a little bit euphemistic even in pop culture of things that happen that shouldn't have happened. Major adversity and then some kind of breakthrough happens. It's like the seas parted, right? And we just walked right through them. And so there's even a sense of cultural awareness of the themes around some of the things that we'll be talking about this morning.

But to give a little bit of a recap of what's happened so far with the people of Israel, with the nation of Israel, is that for several hundred years, 400 some years, many generations, they had been in Egypt as slaves. And they cried out to God to free them from their slavery. And God came and promised that He would. Not only would He, did He promise that He would deliver them from their slavery in Egypt, but He would bring them into a new land, a land that He had once promised their descendants all the way back into Abraham in Genesis chapter 12. Into a land, He says, that's flowing with milk and honey. It happens to be occupied by other nations right now, but we will deal with that when we get there, God says. But this land I have set aside particularly for you. And I'm going to free you from your captivity. And I'm going to march you through the wilderness. And I'm going to give you this land where you will be a blessing to all of the nations around you. I am going to make you into a great nation.

I'm going to give you many descendants. I am going to bless you. And through you, all the nations will be blessed, God told Abraham in Genesis chapter 12. And so we get to this point now where the Israelite people are enslaved in Egypt. They're crying out and be like, hey, God, what about all these promises? And God says, don't worry, they're coming and here we go. So God threw a number of really significant plagues to the Egyptian people that Pastor Luke talked about a few weeks ago. They were released from their slavery or captivity in Egypt. And God, it says God Himself led them on a desert road, which is really best understood or best interpreted as the wilderness road. Is that Israelites didn't just set out into both a wilderness territory or a wilderness experience all on their own that God actually intended for them to take a difficult route to the Promised Land. It's an interesting theme there. But even though the route was going to be difficult and that God intended that this was the direction that they were to go, the one thing that sustained them in the difficulty of the route that they were going to take

Was that God promised that He would not leave them. That not just His general presence would be with them, like they would have an intellectual awareness that God is everywhere or God is with them like sometimes we tend to fall into, right? We tend to fall into sometimes this idea that, oh, I know God is with me. Not because I can see Him or not because I can necessarily feel Him or not because this presence is manifest here in this place or in this space or in this room, but just because I know and think and can kind of intellectually assent to the idea that God is indeed with me, that this is a different type of presence from God that the Israelite people were experiencing. It was His actual manifest presence with them. At the end of the sermon last week, we closed out chapter 13 with seeing just how God's presence was with the people. It said that by day the Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light so that they could travel by day or by night.

Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of night left its place in front of the people. That God was committed to His presence being with the people even in the midst of the difficult road they were about to travel. And if you remember, we can trace that pillar of cloud and fire all the way through to the end of the book of Exodus right before Joshua was to lead them into the Promised Land Himself. We're going to see that theme again this morning as well. I'm going to read for you the first 14 verses of Exodus chapter 14 and then we're going to get into the rest of the message this morning. "Then the Lord said to Moses, 'Tell the Israelites to turn back and encamp by the sea. They are to encamp by the sea directly opposite of Bales of Faun.' Pharaoh will think, 'Well, the Israelites are wandering around in the land in confusion hemmed in by the desert and I will harden Pharaoh's heart and he will pursue them. But I will gain glory for myself through Pharaoh and all his army and the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord.'" So the Israelites did this.

"When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, Pharaoh and his officials changed their minds about them and said, 'What have we done? We have let the Israelites go and we have lost their services.' The hardness of Pharaoh's heart was causing him to make a really poor business decision." Right? Like all that slave labor is now gone. We got to go get him back. We have lost their services. "So he had his chariots made ready, took his army with him. He took 600 of his best chariots along with all the other chariots of Egypt, with officers over all of them." It's a large army, the whole army of Egypt it seems. "And the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, so that he pursued the Israelites who were marching out boldly. The Egyptians, all Pharaoh's horses and chariots, horsemen and troops, pursued the Israelites and took them over as they camped." Opposite of Baal's fun. "As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up and there were the Egyptians marching after them. They were terrified and they cried out to the Lord.

They said to Moses, 'Was it because there was no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? Didn't we say to you in Egypt, 'Leave us alone, let us serve the Egyptians.' It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert." "Moses answered the people, 'Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today, you will never see again. The Lord will fight for you, you need only to be still.'" Now, that's not the end of the story there. Of course, the rest of the chapter details the moments where it says God sent a strong east wind to beat back the walls of the Red Sea so that there was a wall of water on their right and their left and the Israelites were able to march through or march across the Red Sea. We're going to get there in a moment. But this was just kind of like the beginning of what set the stage for one of the most incredible, and I would say iconic miracles of all of Scripture, parting of the Red Sea.

Now, as we talked about in verse 5 of Exodus chapter 14, "Even though Pharaoh had originally let the people go, and after the ten plagues culminating with the plague of the death of the firstborn, he had kind of had enough, and he had called Moses and Aaron back into his chambers. He said, "Hey, look, enough. Take your people, take your flocks, take your herds. I don't care where you go. You just, you got to get out of here, right? You must, you must leave. Leave Egypt and get out. Oh, and by the way, if you wouldn't mind blessing me on your way out as well, that would be great, " Pharaoh said. At some point, it seems that Pharaoh had a change of heart. It says, "Reports must have come to him that the Israelites were kind of seemingly wandering around in this little geographical area, butted up against the sea, and it appeared as though they were confused and didn't know where to go or what to do." And so Pharaoh, in the hardness of his own heart, was like, "Well, I guess we're just going to take all the whole army,

And we're going to go get them back, because we kind of missed the services that the Israelites offered to the Egyptian people." And so it says they took all of the chariots, 600 of the best, and then the rest of them, horsemen and troops and leaders over all of them, and they set off in kind of this breakneck pace to go and get back the nation that they had enslaved for their own purposes. And when they finally caught up with them, the way that it's stated here in the Scripture is kind of interesting. It says, "As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were Egyptians marching after them." It's almost like they were just kind of doing their own thing, tending the fire, and they just happened to recognize that the whole of the Egyptian army was at the doorstep. Now, there was two real types of responses that the Israelites had as they saw the enemy army approaching. One was, I think, a pretty good response, but a natural response, and the other was maybe a not so good response, so we're going to kind of talk about them a little bit here.

If you look at verse 10, you see the first response of the Israelite people to the Egyptian army coming. "As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, " verse 10 of Exodus 14, "and there were the Egyptians marching after them." They were terrified, and it says, "What did they do?" And they cried out to the Lord. Now, earlier in the year, this was, I don't know, maybe February or March, when we were talking about prayer and doing a series on prayer, as Pastor Luke said, prayer being one of our main themes for this year. We talked about this phrase in the Old Testament of people crying out to God. How this was not a, this was not kind of some calm, bless the meal before we eat type of prayer. This was when the Bible talks about people crying out to God. It's talking about this deep guttural, like almost don't have words to pray, so it just kind of like groans out of you prayer in the midst of a situation where there is no hope, no promise, no future, unless God shows up right now.

And the people cry out in prayer. I know some of you have been in situations in your life where it seems like the situation is so desperate, so dire, so enormously large, looming above you or before you, that it might have felt like I, like there is nothing else that I can do but cry out to God, but I don't even have the words, so it just comes out sort of like a groan. Like, Lord, I need you to show up in this moment. I need you to show up in this relationship. I need you to show up in this sickness. There is no other way out of the thing that I am in, Lord. I need you. And by God's grace, Paul tells us that this is not a unique experience, and so that God, by his grace, has given us the gift of the Holy Spirit to intercede for us when our soul is so overwhelmed where we don't have words to say it, say the things that we need to say. And so it's like deep groans come out of us and the Holy Spirit says, "I got you. I am with you. I pray with you. I pray for you."

And so the Israelites kind of had this deep moment of like, "We are in really big trouble." See, the Israelites knew who they were. If nothing else, they knew who they were. They knew the position that they were in, and they knew who the Egyptians were for sure. Now, who were the Egyptians? Who were the Israelites? And what type of position that they were in? Well, listen, the Israelites were a nation of people who had been enslaved for 400 years. They were not an experienced fighting people. They had not yet gone through the wilderness journey where they became warriors through the empowerment of God because they had to. For 400 years, generations had grown up not knowing how to fight because they didn't need to. So as they set out from Egypt into the wilderness, they were not a people that were hardened warriors ready to take on the whole Egyptian army. They were wimps, terrified. And not only were they not a fighting people, they were backed up against a large body of water. Where are we supposed to go? Coming at them was one of the greatest fighting forces that the world had ever known, especially at that point with 600 plus chariots and the rest of the Egyptian army.

The Egyptians were skilled, powerful, and large. And so the Israelites crying out was a prayer or a cry of desperation based on what they knew of the situation that stood before them. We are helpless. We are surrounded. Lord, if it's not you that's going to show up, we're doomed and it's over. Where are you? The kind of looming question was would God show up for them in this moment? Were all of the plagues and promises of a future and a land just empty promises? What about the hasty escape for Egypt from Egypt? Was that all for not in this moment? We're going to see here in a few minutes. Now their second response first was that they were terrified and they cried out to God. Their second response was one that we'll see will become typical for them as the Exodus continues or as their wilderness journey continues. And it's been my experience in my own heart when I have done this as well as in my role as pastor is that this second kind of response is not just natural for the Israelites in some ways it's natural for us all.

In a moment of adversity, in a moment of pressure, in a moment of feeling overwhelmed and terrified and full of fear, not knowing what to do or where to go, feeling backed up against a sea with no discernible option that was good, they looked at Moses and they were like, you leader, this is your fault.

I don't know what to do. I don't know what the answer is. I don't know what the next step is going to be, but what I do know, it's obviously Moses' fault. It's the guy at the front's fault. They see their fear boiled over into frustration and blame of Moses. Just look at how the language changes as they address Moses here. No longer is it, oh, God has delivered us from slavery to the Egyptians. God has fulfilled his promise. God brought the plagues. God led us out of the Egyptian land. Now it was, was it because there was no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die?

What, what have you done to us bringing us out of Egypt? They said to Moses, didn't we say to you in Egypt, leave us alone. Let us serve the Egyptians. It would have been better for us to die as slaves than to die in the desert.

And so in a moment of fear and frustration, in a moment where they didn't know what to do and the pressure was on them, they had two responses. One that was pretty positive, right? Cry out to God, the only one who can deliver them in this moment. And the other was like, well, if that's not going to work, we're certainly going to find someone to blame and it's going to be the leader. It's going to be this guy.

Now if we kind of put ourselves for a few moments into the footsteps or into the shoes of the Israelites, begin to understand a little bit of what happens. Why, after everything that they had been through and everything that they had seen in Egypt, all of the plagues that had decimated the Egyptians but had left the Israelites alone, how they could possibly at this moment be a people who doubted God at all. Who had any sense that God would actually continue to fulfill His promises among them. How could they be like, we read the story and we're like, I mean, isn't it obvious, guys, like God's with you? He's not going to just, He didn't bring you into the desert to get slaughtered by the Egyptians at the shores of the Red Sea. He's going to show up in some way, shape or form, don't you think?

And it becomes easy for us to sometimes like, maybe not easy for you. It becomes easy for me sometimes to look at this and be like, hey, guys, get your crap together, okay? Like God's got you, it's going to be all right. But if you think for a few moments about the process of deliverance that the Israelites went through and kind of drawing on my own experience of seeing people delivered and myself being delivered from things becomes, it starts to become a little bit more understandable why the Israelites would be thinking and feeling the ways that they were thinking and feeling. See, they had not long ago been delivered or set free from generational bondage. That means sons and fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers and great-great-grandfathers and great-great-great-grandfathers, generation after generation after generation after generation of a people who had been enslaved. Children who were born into slavery and died in slavery. Whole stories of a nation of people, we don't even remember when we weren't slaves. They had been so entrenched in generational bondage and slavery that they did not have really any form of national identity

Outside of who they were as slaves. Meaning they didn't see themselves as the called, consecrated, promised nation of Israel in the line of Abraham, the people of God marching to the Promised Land, full of hope, full of promise, full of purpose for blessing the world based on who God was with them. They saw themselves for who they had been for generations. We're just slaves. This is just who we are. And in a little bit of a way, this is kind of who we always will be. This is my identity. This is who I am. It is what slavery and bondage defined them as a nation. And probably even worse than that reality is that they truly believed it. They believed they were a nation of slaves and nothing else. And so they thought like slaves. They acted like slaves. They believed like slaves. They thought like slaves. Now, when God delivered them from their slavery and bondage to the Egyptians and brought them out of Egypt and was studying them on the path towards the land of promise, he began to place in them a new identity as a saved and delivered people,

A people of promise, a people of hope, a people of the future. And God was like, I want you to get this through your head, Israelites. You are not an enslaved people. You are a free people. You are my sons and daughters. You are the people of the promise. And I want you to hear that from my mouth, but I am also going to give you actual festivals and events for you to do every single year so that you don't forget who you truly are. Every year you are to celebrate the Passover. Make it a week-long festival. Eat all the foods that remind you of that moment. Sing the songs. Say the prayers. Tell the stories to the generations before you that God showed up and delivered us from the hands of the Egyptians. We are no longer slaves, but we are a free people full of the promises and purposes of God. God was like, listen, I'm giving you everything that you need to remember who you truly are. And I'm going to tell you who you truly are. You are a free people, a people of promise.

My sons and daughters, you no longer belong in Egypt. You are not a slave. So God was doing his level best to begin to change the identity that these people were carrying from an identity of slavery and desperation to an identity of freedom and promise. Now, I don't know if any of you have ever-- anyone ever had to-- anyone ever adopt a dog and had to rename it? And this is a silly example. I was wracking my brain for this example. All right. You adopt a dog. You go to a shelter. You have Spot over here. But who wants a dog that's actually named Spot, right? No offense to the Spot owners out there. But you want to name it something your own name. And so you had to go through this whole process of calling this dog by its new name. And they're just not listening, going off and doing his own thing all the time. And until you say enough, and enough, and enough, and enough, and enough, and enough, and enough, and enough, and enough, and enough, and enough, and enough. And finally, they're like, oh, yeah, that is my name.

Now I get it. Now it's like in me. I'm no longer Spot. I am whatever. Steve. Listen, we need more dogs named like human names. We're saying, we do. I mean, maybe this was a more apt example. You know that my family, most of you know that we have five kids. We've adopted them all. They have all come with different names into our homes. And our youngest son, if you know him, you will know that he has three names. And depending on what kind of mood he is in, when you ask him his name, he will give you one of those three names. Either the name he was given at birth, the name that we gave him at his adoption or his nickname that most people know him by, right? Renaming people, renaming things and changing their identity sometimes is a difficult, arduous, laborious process. And that's not even to say anything about the way in which, like the name that our heart has. We got a name that people call us, but we also have like our heart has a name. I'm enslaved. I am addicted.

I am anxious. I am fearful. I am alone. I am this. And that's a name that we carry in our hearts. It becomes an identity. And when we live in it long enough, it becomes truly a part of who we are to the point where it becomes difficult to be convinced that we are anything but that thing. And as God was trying to reshape the name and identity of his people, they hit this moment or this point of adversity, this point of pressure, this point of fear where they saw the Egyptians coming and all of a sudden what did they want to do? Man, we should just go back to who we were then. Forget this freedom stuff. Forget this people of promise stuff. It'd be better for us to just go back and be slaves once again. They suddenly forgot all that God had done for them in deliverance, forgot who they were as a delivered people. And now their old identity, the one they previously had cried out to God to save them from, was the one they wanted to go back to.

Because in moments of adversity and pressure, we like to return to old identities that are comfortable, were comfortable and normal for us. It looks appealing. Listen, fear and pressure and adversity can make us do really, really funny things, including returning to the things that we once begged God to deliver us from, and he did. When we get afraid, when we get our back up against the wall, when we get to a moment where we don't know what to do or we don't know where to turn and we have not filled our life with faith that God will indeed deliver us from this moment and the next moment and the next moment, typically one of our responses or reflexes in that moment of fear, in that moment of like overwhelm of I don't know what to do, as we just go back to what we know. I don't know that I can have faith in this moment. I'm going to go back to the fearful person that I was over here. I don't know if I can make another, make a different decision or move in strength and health.

So I'm going to go back to this substance over here. At least I was comfortable and knew what to expect then, even if I was in bondage. See, even after we have been delivered, the enemy uses moments of fear to entice us back into what was once normal for us. But listen, what was normal for us in the state of our slavery, we have at least as a delivered people come to realize now that even though it was normal for us, it was not necessarily good for us. In fact, what was normal in our lives tried to destroy and kill us. See, when you're enticed to go back to something that you have been delivered from, feel tempted to re-pick up the old identity that God has once set you free from. Whether that be some sort of substance, whether it be going back into bondage to fear, to isolation or anxiety, to pornography or sex addiction. We have a choice. I wrote this prayer this week. It's one that I've been trying to pray myself. And I'll offer it to you. You can take a screenshot of it if you'd like.

When moments of fear hit, when I am tempted or enticed to go back and to live into the normal of my old identity, even though I understand it was trying to kill and destroy me. Heavenly Father, remind me of my identity once again. I am not enslaved to that past life. You have delivered me. You have set me free. I don't need to go back and I don't want to go back. Deliver me from my current fear and pluck out of me anything that feels familiar and enticing from my old self. Now, how did Moses respond when the people came at him? This is sensitive to my own heart because I ask myself the question often, like maybe when there's criticism or even when there's not criticism, but just something is said like as a leader, how am I to respond in moments like this? I want to respond in a way that it's God honoring always. I want to respond in a way that is loving and gentle and kind, but also confident and decisive and forward-thinking. So how did Moses respond when the people came at him?

See, Moses was kind of a reluctant leader, remember? God had come to him and be like, "I want you to go to Pharaoh and tell him to let the people go." And Moses was like, "Ah, I'm good. No, thanks. I can't speak well. I'm not the right guy. Kick someone else." And God's like, "No, like really, I'm going to go with you. You can do this." And Moses is like, "Yeah, but are you sure?" And God finally is like, "Oh, go get Aaron. Maybe he can come along." Moses was not exactly like itching for the opportunity to lead. He was a reluctant leader. But there were times where you saw like, "Oh my gosh, he stepped up. He did a good job. He trusted in the Lord and he led others to trust in the Lord as well." How did Moses respond when they're like, "It's your fault. It's your fault. It's your fault." Moses is like, "Ah, it's your fault." No, he didn't say that. Verse 13, "Moses answered the people that do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring to you today.

The Egyptians you see today, you will never see again. The Lord will fight for you. You need only to be still." See, Moses could have responded by defending himself or even trying to defend God in some way. He didn't do either of those things. He could have lashed out against the people that were criticizing the decisions that he had made. But he didn't. Instead, what did he do? He drew people's attention not even to the situation that it was. He's not like, "Hey, just look at the fear. Look at the fear. Look at the fear. Look at the enemy. Look at the enemy. Look at the enemy." What he did as a leader was he was like, "Hey, listen. Look to the Lord. A leader's job is always in every situation, especially when moments are difficult or there is adversity or your back is up against the wall and things look hopeless, is to turn your attention back to the Lord. We need people like this in our lives. You need people like this back in your life. Do not be afraid. Stand firm. The Lord will fight for you. You need only be still."

So Moses sought to breathe hope into this situation and faith and trust in the Lord, even though the circumstances seemed way outside of their control. But it did require the Israelites to do some certain things. They were not just like neutral in this whole endeavor. What did it require of the Israelites in this moment? The first and most basic and obvious is that it required that the Israelites actually step towards and into the path that God cleared in the Red Sea for them. Now, that's not analogous to anything. That's not a metaphor for anything. It literally took... What did it take from the Israelites? They actually had to step on the dry ground where there used to be a sea. They had to take a physical step of faith in the direction that God was showing this way to deliverance. "This is the pathway that I have made. This is the direction that I want you to go." And the Israelites could have been like, "I don't know. I don't really trust the whole water as wall things. I don't know if that's where the direction I want to go."

Here's something that I've come to recognize in my own life, is that God's pathway towards deliverance doesn't always look very typical or the way that we would like it to look. Now, I'm assuming that the Israelites probably wanted their deliverance in that moment to look a little bit like the Egyptians not coming to chase them at all. Like, God, you want to inspire faith in us as a people? How about the Egyptians just go home? How about we never have to encounter this whole situation at all? Remember what we said a few weeks ago, is that it's not about, like, whether or not you are going through something difficult or not. Everyone goes through difficult things almost always. You're going through something difficult. It's not whether or not God will lead you through something difficult. It's who will you allow God to make you to be in the process of going through that thing? Will you let God transform and sanctify your heart in the midst of the difficult circumstance you're going through? And it's like God was saying to the Israelites, "Yeah, I could just poof and go on the whole Israelite army with the breath of my mouth, right?

But there would be no more development of your faith and trust in me in that moment." And the goal was not simply to deliver the Israelite people from the Egyptians. The goal was for God's glory to increase and their faith to increase. And so in order for that to happen, there had to be some circumstances where it was obvious that no other thing was going to come from this. You see, sometimes God's deliverance looks a little less like the big scary thing going poof and dissolving right before our eyes. It's like gone, like dust in the wind. And it looks a little bit more like, I don't know, humility. I want to be delivered. Can God get me out of this situation? Can He just like erase it like that? Can He? Of course He can, right? Of course He can. Will doing it like that develop the heart in you that God desires to see developed in you so that you're conformed more into the image and likeness of His Son Jesus? Or might it require the first step into the dry ground being like an act of humility?

Maybe the pathway for deliverance to you and what your experience looks a lot like confession to a trusted friend that you ask to pray for and with you regularly. Maybe that atypical path of deliverance looks a little bit like treatment or help from a professional. Or maybe it looks like additional or added strength to end a relationship that is unhealthy for you, the strength to walk away, the grace to start over. Listen, God rarely, rarely delivers us apart from some action that you must take.

God rarely will deliver you apart from some action that you must take. Can't God just take that thing away from me? Can't God just make it all go away? Can God? Yes, God can. Does God? Rarely.

See, we are not forced into the freedom that God offers to us in Jesus Christ. We must step into it by faith and He will give us a new identity as sons and daughters, free from bondage and slavery again. The second thing that it required for the Israelites is something that seems quite the opposite of taking an actual step of faith into some, you must actually walk the path. It seems something a little bit opposite. In verse 14, it says that the Lord will fight for you. You need only be what? Still, silent. Like, wait a second. I thought I had to do something here. Like, what is it? Do I got to be still and silent or do I want to take action? And the answer is yes.

You got to take action and at the same time be still and silent. Now, how could they move to the sea and still be silent at the same time or still at the same time? Stillness wasn't just a matter of physical movement. It's not just a matter of physical movement as we understand stillness. Stillness in this case was and is a measure of their heart. Their heart, their emotions, their thoughts, their posture.

Were they going to let their minds kind of run wild with the worst case scenario, giving way to kind of this heart of gloom and doom and anxiety of the mind, believing the lie that God just brought them into the desert just to die? Or would they allow their hearts, their emotions, their minds to be still in the knowledge and history of God's goodness, God's deliverance, and God's ongoing promises? Here's the truth about stillness. Stillness is the disposition of the heart that fully trusts in God. It is not about physical movement. God was not being like, "Hey, just stand still, don't move." It's like the Egyptians are like T-Rex, "If you don't move, they can't see you."

Not like that. God is like stillness is a disposition of the heart where you are showing that you fully trust in God. Now, in a life that is full of adversity and pressure and the sea up against your back all the time, what does it take to be still? Because that seems even more impossible than actually taking the physical step of faith, doesn't it? It does for me. Here's what I found to be true about creating a stillness of my heart in the midst of a very chaotic world. The first thing is, is that you must have a reservoir of truth in your heart.

What do I mean by that? If you, everyone's heard the phrase garbage in, garbage out, right? This is the concept here. This is the principle. If your heart is full, if you constantly feed your heart, a steady diet of fear, anxiety, desperation, darkness, if you feed yourself a steady diet of the things of the world, your heart's response or the disposition of your heart will be very unstill and chaotic.

We must have a reservoir of truth built up inside of us. So in moments of anxiety or pressure or when we are up against it, then what we are pulling from in that moment is not the core values of the world, but the core values of God's kingdom.

So it requires, that kind of like spiritual resiliency requires that we are being fed a constant diet of God's word. We must meditate on, feast on, fill ourselves with the word of God so that we have a reservoir of it when the inevitable moment of adversity comes.

The writer of the Psalms says that we should meditate on the law of the Lord day and night. In Psalm chapter 1, verses 1 through 3 says this, the writer of the Psalms,

"Blessed is the one who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers, but their delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night." What is the life of the person like that meditates on the law of the Lord day and night? He is like a tree planted by streams of water which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does, prospers.

But listen, meditating on the law of the Lord, like feasting on it all the time is not just about reading it and coming to some kind of like of just like burning through the pages and getting the Word done. It is also James said equally about not just hearing the Word of God but doing what? Doing the Word of God, right? Chapter 1, verses 22 through 25 says like basically like, "Okay, great. You read the Word a lot. You've read the Bible three times already this year. Are you obeying it?"

Having an intellectual knowledge of the Word of God makes us no more loving of a person than the Pharisee that has it all memorized but that can't love the people around them. Knowledge of the Word is not on the list of things that God is looking to develop in us for our eternal hope. What is the greatest command in all the Scriptures? The scribe said, "Well, you must know the Word, be committed to your personal theology and be able to argue it against anyone else."

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself, right? There is a doing of the Word that supersedes a knowing of the Word in the heart of God, okay? And to build a reservoir of truth in us, we can't just know the Word, we must do the Word. Do not merely listen to the Word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says, James says.

So to have a stillness of heart, we must have a reservoir of truth. Number two is we must remember the history. This is something that God continues to do. Remind the people, it was for reasons like this that God wanted the people to remember. How do you stay still and adversity? Looking back into the moments of my life where God has continued to fulfill his deliverance and his promises of my life. God has freed me from that, he freed me from this, he freed me from that, he freed me from that. I now stand on the foundation of the knowledge that he has freed me in the past. He will free me in the future so I can stay still. The disposition of my heart fully trusts in the one who has continued to free me. And number three, perhaps the one that we look past the most. How do I stay still? How do I have a disposition in my heart of trust? Listen, surround yourselves with people of God's promises and goodness, not the world's darkness and doubt. The people you surround yourself with matters.

That is why the community of believers, the family of faith is so incredibly important in the life of the believer.

Proverbs all over the place, Proverbs speaks of the importance of godly friends. Proverbs 1320 says that a companion of fools suffers harm.

Proverbs 1717 says that a friend loves at all times and a brother is born for times of adversity. Who is in your corner when your back is up against the wall? Your friends matter. The people you spend your time with matters. If you're filling your life with relationships that are just continually speaking the world's values into you, it's no wonder when you respond even as like a reflex in the same way.

We're gonna end with this here in Exodus 14, this last really little section here.

What happened when the Israelites or the Egyptians came up? Well, in verse 19 and 20 it says this, the angel of God who had been traveling in front of Israel's army withdrew and went behind them. The pillar of cloud also moved from in front and stood behind them coming between the armies of Egypt and Israel. And throughout the night, the cloud brought darkness to the one side and light to the other side. So neither went near the other at all. See the angel of God in the pillar that we talked about last week, literally changed his position from in front of the Israelites leading them to in between the Israelites and the Egyptians.

God placed himself in between them and their slaveholders. He remained with them bringing light to one side and darkness to the other. And that's not a biblical theme, I don't know what is.

Listen, when we step by faith into the pathway of God's deliverance, the one that he shows us, and our hearts display a still trusting disposition,

Then like a fierce warrior, God places himself between us and the things that seek to destroy us.

That God steps in between. Finally, I wanna say this, why be delivered at all?

The ultimate goal of our deliverance is the display of God's glory. God wants to deliver you because in your deliverance, it displays the majesty and power of his glory.

Your deliverance becomes a witness to the world around you and becomes a personal builder of your own faith. And where do we get that from? Well, there's two verses here in Exodus 14 where God himself would be like, "Hey, I just wanna let you know I'm gonna destroy Pharaoh and this is the reason why." In verse four and verse 17, he says essentially the same thing. "But I will gain glory for myself through Pharaoh and all his army and the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord." And then verse 17, as God is telling Moses what to do,

"Hold up your hands, the water will part and I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they will go in after them and I will gain glory through Pharaoh and all his army through his chariots and horsemen." That God was about to bring deliverance of the people of Israel, not even just for their own benefit, but for his glory so that all of the world knows that there is a God that delivers, that there is a God that promises, that there is a God that sets free, that there is a God that stands as a mighty warrior between the people of promise and the people of evil. And his name is Yahweh, the Lord.

Not only that, but it served to build the faith of the Israelites. In the final verse of, after this chapter 14, we see this last kind of like, almost like a commentary. "When the Israelites saw the great power of the Lord displayed against the Egyptians, " what happened? "The people feared the Lord and put their trust in him and in Moses his servant. Let the Lord's deliverance be the builder of your faith. And may you give him glory by proclaiming that the Lord has indeed set you free." Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word to us.

Or I pray now that you would let this word take root in good soil.

Father, let us not just be hearers of the word, but doers also. Expressing our deep and abiding trust in you. Lord, give us a stillness of heart,

A disposition that fully trusts in you, even despite or in the midst of situations where everything is desperate. Our backs up are up against the wall. An enemy stands before us and we cry out to you for help. Lord, let our hearts be still and trust in you.

Lord, we respond to the word this morning with faith and now we respond in worship.

Let the songs of our hearts, Lord, be pleasing in your sight, for you are to be glorified in this place, in Jesus' name. Amen. Worthy is your Son.

Heavenly Father, worthy is your Son, who is the Lamb that was slain before the foundations of the world to be for us and all of creation, a perfect sacrifice, the atonement of our sins. Lord, we express our faith in this sacrifice, your Son Jesus, who has become for us, Lord and Savior through our faith in Him. Lord, we thank you for the grace offered to us in Jesus. We go out from this place in responses of faith, not just merely listening to the word that was proclaimed, but doing what it says as a new and delivered people. In Jesus' name, amen.

Conduit, you are loved. Have a great week.