I'm going to be reading Exodus chapter six all the way through the chapter and then the first seven verses of chapter seven. So Exodus chapter six, verse one through chapter seven, verse seven, hear God's word. But the Lord said to Moses, now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh with a strong hand, he will send them out and with a strong hand, he will drive them out of his land. God spoke to Moses and said to him, I am the Lord. I appear to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name, the Lord, I did not make myself known to them. I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they lived as sojourners. Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel, whom the Egyptians hold as slaves, and I have remembered my covenant. Say, therefore, to the people of Israel, I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from the slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched hand with a great acts of judgment. I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God. And you shall know that I am the Lord, your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you for a possession. I am the Lord. Moses spoke thus to the people of Israel, but they did not listen to Moses because of their broken spirit and harsh slavery. So the Lord said to Moses, Go in, tell Pharaoh, king of Egypt, to let the people of Israel go out of his land. But Moses said to the Lord, Behold, the people of Israel have not listened to me. How then shall Pharaoh listen to me? For I am of uncircumcised lips. But the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron and gave them a charge about the people of Israel and about Pharaoh, king of Egypt, to bring the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt. These are the heads of the father's houses, the sons of Reuben, the firstborn of Israel, Hanuk, Halu, Hezron, and Carmine. And these are the clans of Reuben, the sons of Simeon, Jemuel, Jamin, Ohad, Jachin, Zohar and Shaul, the son of a Canaanite woman. These are the clans of Simeon. These are the names of the sons of Levi according to their generations. Gershon, Kohath, and Merari, the years of the life of Levi being 137 years. The sons of Gershon, Libni, and Shimei by their clans. The sons of Kohath, Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uziel, the years of the life of Kohath being 133 years. The sons of Merari, Mani, and Mushi, these are the clans of the Lehites according to their generations. Amram took as his wife Yocheved, his father's sister, and she bore him Aaron and Moses, the years of the life of Amram being 137 years. the sons of Izhar, Korah, Nepheg, and Zichri, the sons of Uziel, Mishael, Elzefan, and Sithri. Aaron took as his wife Elisheba, the daughter of the Minadab, and the sister of Nashan, and she bore him Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar. the sons of Korah, Asir, Elkanah, and Abiaseth. These are the clans of the Korahites. Eliezer, Aaron's son, took as his wife one of the daughters of Putiel, and she bore him Phineas. These are the heads of the fathers' houses of the Levites by their clans. These are the Aaron and Moses to whom the Lord said, bring out the people of Israel from the land of Egypt by their hosts. It was they who spoke to Pharaoh, king of Egypt, about bringing out the people of Israel from Egypt, this Moses and this Aaron. On the day when the Lord spoke to Moses in the land of Egypt, the Lord said to Moses, I am the Lord. Tell Pharaoh, king of Egypt, all that I say to you. But Moses said to the Lord, behold, I am of uncircumcised lips. How will Pharaoh listen to me? And the Lord said to Moses, see, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron shall be your prophet. You shall speak all that I command you, and your brother Aaron shall tell Pharaoh to let the people of Israel go out of his land. But I will harden Pharaoh's heart And though I multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, Pharaoh will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and bring my hosts, my people, the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great acts of judgment. The Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the people of Israel from among them. Moses and Aaron did so. They did just as the Lord commanded them. Now, Moses was 80 years old and Aaron 83 years old when they spoke to Pharaoh. That's where we stop. All right, that's a lot to bite off, especially the names that your eyes glaze over just a little bit. We were going through the names of the sons of Levi. That's OK. There is a point. God has now come back to Moses again after his first failure. Remember that he went before the people of Israel, he got them on board and then disregarding some of God's instructions, he went immediately just with Aaron to the king of Egypt, Pharaoh, and demanded that he release the people of Israel. We saw. Moses and Aaron and the people not paying attention to God's previous warning that Pharaoh would not listen to them. And so they're sort of wrecked when he doesn't listen to them. We also see them not paying attention to God's instructions to be essentially very polite and very modest in their first request. They were to go to Pharaoh and say, let my people go out three days journey so that they can worship me. It wasn't immediately to go and demand full release of the people. But now we see after Moses at the end of chapter five complaining, Moses comes before God and says, oh, Lord, why have you done this evil to this people? Why did you ever send me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has done evil to this people and you have not delivered your people at all. We now see God speaking back to Moses and saying, now it's going to happen. OK, here it comes. And here he comes. God says, now I am going to show you my wonders. And now the confrontation between me and the king of Egypt to show who is the true God of Egypt, who is truly in charge, is going to take place. And one really important thing that takes place in this exchange is God says, I am now going to reveal myself in a new way that I have not done before. It's a little confusing the way it's phrased. We'll try to track our way through this in the early part of verse of chapter six. Excuse me. God says in the past, when I spoke to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, I revealed myself as El Shaddai. You've probably heard that God Almighty, God who is sufficient, God who is able. I revealed myself as El Shaddai, but now I will reveal myself as Yahweh. I will reveal myself as the Lord, as he who is. OK, we talked a couple of weeks ago about that name, the importance of that name, that God is saying not just, well, here's my name, just so you know, I have a name. He's saying this is I am the one who is. I do not depend on anyone or anything else for my existence. I am the one who is. And God says, I am now going to reveal myself. I'm going to act in accordance with that name in a way that I have never done before. This is a turning point in God's revelation of himself to his people. He now says, you will know me by this name, not by that name. Now, there's a question. If you read the book of Genesis, you will come across the term the Lord or Yahweh. Did Abraham, Isaac and Jacob know him by this name? Well, you could read this two ways. You could read. I never revealed to them this name. I kept it a secret all this time. But I think it's better to read it as I never did the works that go with this name. I'm going to deal with my people in a new way. I want you to notice some of the changes that are going to take place. I want you to notice some of the promises that God makes for how he will now deal with his people. First of all, notice that in the past, God has dealt with his people, usually as individuals or as families, right? So up to this time, he says to Moses, I was the one who made myself known to three guys, right? To Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. and he was with them, but realized this is a small scale. On the whole earth, he is known to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in a clear way, and to their families. He's been dealing with individuals Or at most, with a big family. Earlier on in Exodus, it told us that, I can't remember, it was 70 or 75 people went into Egypt. That's the 12 patriarchs, the 12 sons of Jacob, and all of their kids. That's all. It's still, well, I mean, that's a big family reunion, but it's a family reunion. 75 people. And now that he is going to deal with them as a great nation, as hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people, and he's going to bring them on a massive scale out of slavery. By the way, it's interesting if you read through the book of Genesis and it shows up in Exodus as well. And even later on in the Bible, individuals fear God. Right. So early on, back in chapter one of Exodus, we learned about the two midwives who feared God. This is something that individuals tend to do. Individuals fear God, but the Lord promises that he will be God of the entire people. The redemption that he will bring about is for the whole nation. We see God's promises in verse four. He says, I established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they lived as sojourners. And he says, I'm going to keep my promises. First thing about God's redemption, he is keeping his promises. Second thing in verse five, moreover, I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel, whom the Egyptians hold as slaves. And I've remembered my covenant. Second thing is he hears our groaning and he hears our suffering. Third thing is, in verse six, say, therefore, I am the Lord and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians and I will deliver you from slavery to them and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. This may be the first time in the Bible where God says, I'm going to redeem. I'm going to redeem. We'll look at that in a second. He redeems and he rescues with mighty acts. He's answering Moses's plea back in chapter five. Moses is you've not delivered your people at all. He says, I'm going to do it now. You are going to know me as the Lord in a way that you never have before. He says in verse seven that the people of Israel will be his people and that he will be their God. And he says to us. He will be our God and we will be his people. And he says, finally, in verse eight, that he will bring them into the land that he swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as a possession. He says, I will give it to you for a possession. What does that mean? It's not just another way of saying I'm going to bring them there. He says they're going to own it. It is going to be their inheritance. It will be something that cannot be taken away from them. Do you understand that we are looking for a kingdom that cannot be taken away from us? The statistics are now that a third of all houses being sold in Rhode Island are foreclosures. That means that they were taken away. In many cases, probably rightly, people couldn't pay their debts. There's the whole economy. You can come up with whatever reasons you want to. But understand the point. This is a place where our things are taken away from us, where our houses do not stand forever, where our possessions do grow old and rust and thieves do take them away. We are looking for a land that will be our possessions. Now, I want to look at this idea of redemption that God promises for the first time. Now, the cultural and the biblical meaning of redemption, especially in the Old Testament, is very straightforward. It's getting something back. It's usually buying something back. This can take place. with ancestral land, okay? When God's people entered Israel, each tribe and in each clan and each family were given a possession, given a piece of land that was to stay theirs forever. And even if it were sold at the Sabbath years, every seven years, or finally every 50 years, those land possessions were to be given back. And there were rights built into the law that somebody who was a relative of the family that had sold the land had more of a right to buy it back than anybody else. They were redeemers. It was talking about redemption of the land, the right to buy something back. You could, in some cases, when you if you made a vow to the Lord, if you said, Lord, I will give you my house, if you will just get me out of this piece of trouble. Right. Vows were usually a sacrifice like a bull or a goat. You can bring it before God as an act of worship. You can't bring a house with you as an act of worship. Right. It's very awkward to carry the house into the temple. But what you could do was redeem it by taking the market price of the house and giving it to the priests and the Levites. It was buying back something that was in the possession of someone else. And the other place that we find this, and the two other places we find this, are with vengeance for a slain relative. Back in the day, In the old east, not the old west, the even wilder old east, there were no sheriffs. If somebody killed me, it was up to my brother or my closest living relative to track them down and do justice on them. And whoever has the responsibility of avenging me is my redeemer. It is responsibility for vengeance. not vengeance for its own sake, but to carry out justice. And the other place that we find this is in the book of Ruth is the best illustration of it is the idea of a kinsman redeemer who is responsible if you die for carrying on your family lines by providing a widow with a child who would carry on your name. God says he is going to go back and he is going to take take back and avenge his people. He will buy them back out of slavery. Because that's the other use of the term redemption even today, isn't it? You can redeem a slave. There are funds that are set up for redemption of slaves in Africa today, especially in the Sudan. God is going to buy back his people, not by bringing a cash gift to Pharaoh, but by paying the price with the blood of Egypt's firstborn. The cost will be the judgment of the oppressors. All redemption is costly. Redemption is costly. And one day, God himself would pay the price for our redemption. Now we see after this tremendous statement by God, now I'm going to do this. I'm going to redeem. I'm going to reveal myself in this way. Now go tell the people that. We get a very short answer. In verse nine, Moses spoke thus to the people of Israel, but they did not listen to Moses because of their broken spirit and harsh slavery. Do you catch that? They did not believe the good news because in some sense, the capacity to do so had been beaten out of them. They were unable to buy it, unable to get it. If you are sharing the gospel with somebody, do not give up when they reject you. Do not give up. Don't take it as an ultimate final rejection of the good news. Understand that apart from the grace of God working in our hearts, we are all too beaten down to receive the good news. Why would Pharaoh listen? Moses turns around and says, I can't even get the Israelites to listen to me. Why would Pharaoh listen to me? He says, I'm a man of uncircumcised lips, which is quite an evocative picture. But the sense is simply this. I am unable to do this. I will not be able to convince Pharaoh, especially if I haven't even been able to convince the Israelites. Now, almost At random, it seems like we get a genealogy plunked down into the middle of the chapter. Why? Why give us the genealogy of Moses and Aaron at this point? Well, very briefly, a couple of things. First of all, right now we have introduced to us a cast of characters as we go through the remainder of Exodus. In the future, we won't go all the way through the Pentateuch right now. In the future, as we look through the other books of Moses, we're going to see some of these characters again. We're going to see people like Nadab and Abihu and Korah and Phineas show up again, sometimes in very important ways. We're also given a link between past, present and future. We are given the genealogies of these sons of Jacob, Reuben and then Simeon and Levi to this current pair of mediators, Moses and Aaron. And in the future, we're given the genealogy of Levi as the priestly tribe. And so this gives us an understanding of why Moses and Aaron are legitimate representatives, why they're legitimate mediators. Moses and Aaron, because of their genealogy, because of their family background, legitimately represent the people to God. OK, they're not foreigners. They're not strangers. They are from among the people. They are known to be true Israelites, true recipients of God's promises. And so they can speak to God on behalf of the people. They are legitimate representatives of the people to God and legitimate recipients of God's promised grace. Really simple point I want to take out of this big, long genealogy with all kinds of fun names that I know you will be putting in your baby name book now. The mediator must be the right man. The mediator must be the right man. It's very easy for Christians to think about Jesus's deity, the fact that he is God. But we need to think also about his humanity, the fact that he is man, and not only that he is man in the abstract, but that he is a legitimate representative of God's people. He is a legitimate recipient as an Israelite of God's promises. He's an Israelite of known genealogy. Do you notice that two of the gospels give us genealogies of Jesus, right? He is part of God's elect people. He is one greater than Moses. son of David. We know who he is. But this is what I want to get at for kind of the big point of the sermon. It is God who redeems, not us. Yes, we know that, right? It is God who redeems, not us. We can't do it. Our entire lives are going to be spent as Christians getting this into our heads. And if we understand it, it's going to shape everything about the way we live, about the way we think, and about the way we pray. This is the focus of the first eight verses of the chapter I am going to redeem. God says that it is bound up in his identity. He says, I'm revealing myself according to this name now. And here's what it looks like when I reveal myself. It's in redemption. God says, I am the redeemer. And there are two mistakes people can make and commonly do about knowing God. The first is to say that he cannot be known at all. Right. We just say, well, there might be a god out there, but we can't really find out anything about him. The other is equally arrogant and equally wrong. That is that he can be thoroughly figured out by philosophers, whether they're professional philosophers or armchair philosophers. And the Greeks were really good at philosophy. I mean, they really were. Read Plato. You will be impressed. But the assumption is that we can reason our way to a full understanding of God. And what God says here is, you can't really know me unless you know my works of redemption. You may think you do. You may have a partial picture. You may know if you acknowledge me as creator. If you see the amazing things that I've done in creating the earth, you may know that I'm powerful and wise and complex. But you can't really know who I am unless you know me as Redeemer. God reveals himself through his works of salvation. And then this is really important. Redemption means a lot more than we usually think it does. Because you know what? We spiritualize salvation. We turn it into a purely spiritual category where it's about a relationship that I have with God. And it's about forgiveness of sins. And it's about an eternal destiny. And it is about all those things. But it's not only about that. It's not just forgiveness. It's change. It's personal change. It's seeing struggles in our own lives be overcome. It's seeing change in society around us so that when redemption is taking place in a community, in a nation, even in a family, we will see visible changes. Might not happen right away, but we'll see laws change. We'll see institutions become more righteous in the way that they deal with people, in the way that they serve. We'll see leaders begin to recognize that Jesus Christ is king. I mean, not just in some sort of vague spiritual way, but actually king. And we will actually give an account to him. And he actually offers grace. We'll see communities start to change so that they reflect reconciliation through Christ. They're no longer groups of people warring with each other, trying to get what they want from each other. We'll see habits. We'll see customs change. Redemption means help in time of trouble. This is amazing. Verse in Psalm 49, verse seven. Surely, no man can ransom another or give to God the price of his life. And the word for ransom is the same as redeem. We could go all kinds of different places in scripture with this, but I want to go just really quickly through some passages from the Psalms. I want to show you what when the psalmists write about redemption, what they mean. Now, we sang this earlier, Psalm 25, verse 22 says, Redeem Israel, O God, out of all his troubles. What is he talking about? Redeem? What are those troubles? Well, in the rest of the psalm, he deals with loneliness. Redemption from loneliness. Redemption from guilt. Redemption from enemies. Redemption from shame. In Psalm 26, verse 11, the psalmist says, but as for me, I shall walk in my integrity, redeem me and be gracious to me. You know, it's interesting there. If redemption just means forgiveness, this verse makes no sense. Because the whole song says, I haven't done anything wrong, but people are giving me a hard time anyway. Right. And if you read the rest of the song, he's asking God for help because his life is under threat despite his innocence. Redemption from being wronged. In Psalm 31, into your hand, I commit my spirit. You have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God. Through the rest of the psalm, we see he's looking for redemption from the threat of enemies, from mockery and from lies. I don't even think in this psalm there's any hint of forgiveness. It's redemption. Help me change my life. Give me help. Psalm 34, the Lord redeems the life of his service. None of those who take refuge in him will be condemned. Redemption from hunger. Redemption from everyday dangers. In Psalm 44, rise up, come to our help, redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love. The psalmist is talking about defeat in battle. He's talking about mockery of God's people by their enemies. And he's talking about the innocent suffering. These are the things we're talking about when we ask God for redemption. In Psalm 49, God will ransom my soul from the power of Sheol, for he will receive me. Redeem me from the threat of death. Psalm 55. He redeems my soul in safety from the battle that I wage for many are arrayed against me. Violence in the city. Threat in battle. Friends who have become traitors. Psalm 69. draw near to my soul, redeem me, ransom me because of my enemies. And this song is huge and it's packed with things that the song is asking for help with prayers long unanswered, grief and sadness, followers of God being ashamed because of me, weeping and fasting death, treacherous enemies, pain, more death. Someone 19 redeem me from man's oppression, that I may keep your precepts. He's dealing with uncertainty as to what to do next. He's asking how to please God. He's pleading that he's being oppressed. He's grieved that others do not obey God. In Psalm 130, a promise, almost an answer to Psalm 25, he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities. Unanswered prayer, sin, waiting for God to act. Do you get the picture here? Almost anything that you can pray for is a request for redemption. Do you catch that as we go through our lives and are weighed down with all kinds of stuff, not just our sins, though our sins are not the least part of it, but all of the things that are coming at us. As we're dealing with sickness, as we're dealing with grief, as we're dealing with uncertainty, as we're dealing with people who are out to get us, as we're dealing with sadness or loneliness, we cry out to God for redemption. And the scripture makes it clear. He alone can answer. We can't do anything for ourselves apart from his action. I'm going to say one thing and then I want to get to. Probably the most important practical point I can make out of this. This is the gist of what we call reformed theology. Why is it a big deal to be reformed? Well, the label is not as that important, but the point is this. Jonah says it in Jonah chapter two, verse nine, salvation. And again, it's a huge concept. Salvation belongs to the Lord. Salvation belongs to the Lord. That's it. That's it. If you could get that, you will be fully sanctified. You don't have to come to church anymore if you can completely understand this. Salvation belongs to the Lord. That is reformed theology right there. That is the emphasis, the focus of reformed theology, because I think it's quite right to say that is the focus of the Bible. We emphasize that God is in charge. We emphasize, we read our Bible and we read our own souls and we see that we are incapable of digging ourselves out, incapable of digging ourselves out of the massive sin that we are in, but also incapable of digging ourselves out of anything else that we're going through. We are dead in our trespasses and sins, Ephesians says. That's the bad news. But God is rich in mercy. And while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. The good news. He didn't give us a boost so that we could do the rest. He saved us, saved us. And yet we are so often people full of pride and anxiety. Isn't it amazing that having known forgiveness through Jesus Christ, there's anything left of pride. There's anything left of anxiety. This is the reason that we pray. We don't just worry. And I want you to think about this. Worry is the alternative to prayer. Anxiety is the alternative to prayer because it amounts to prayer to ourselves, right? If I think about it enough, if it's on my mind enough, somehow that's going to do me some good. We do not give up. We recognize that the task of helping, changing, saving anyone is beyond us. Just like Moses ran into with Israel, right? Isn't this an amazing thing that God says this incredible statement, I'm going to redeem them, go tell them. And then Moses goes and tells them and they don't believe him because of their broken spirit and harsh slavery. But God is able to do it. What do you pray for? What do you pray for out loud around other people? I think our praying tends to be very safe. It tends to be very low risk. We pray for things that we think there's a decent chance will take place. Because we don't want ourselves to be embarrassed. Maybe we don't want God to be embarrassed. Compare what you pray for with what you worry about. Seriously, if you get a second this week, make a list. Just make two lists. What am I praying for? What do I pray for very often? What do I worry about a lot? Are they the same? Why not? Do we believe that we are speaking to the one who brought Israel out of Egypt? If not, we will be weenies when it comes to prayer. I'm going to keep coming back to these two verses or a couple of verses in the book of James with regard to prayer, because I think this is so important. God saves. God says, if God redeems, if God can redeem and we cannot, we have to pray. We've got to pray a lot. We've got to pray together. We've got to pray individually. And James gives some awesome verses in chapter four and chapter five. He says at one point, you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions. We worry about stuff that we don't pray about. We pray by ourselves or worry by ourselves with stuff that we don't bring up with other people because it's embarrassing or because we're hoping that it'll just work itself out. The other thing he says is an answer to all of us who have sometimes thought I'm not good enough to like really have really effective prayer. Right. I think that's all of us at one point or another. We think my prayers. Okay. God answers some of my prayers, but I don't, I'm not one of the big guns, right? I'm not one of the prayer warriors. There are people who call themselves prayer warriors. I'll leave that alone. This is what James has to say to us. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. Now we think we're off the hook because, you know, he was righteous. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain. And for three years and six months, it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit. What's James saying here? He's saying Elijah was just a guy, OK? And he prayed to the one who is able to the one who is able to show his power in our lives in this world at this time. And he answered. And he prayed again. And he answered again. We must, as a church, become much in prayer. We've got to. It's got to be our thing. It's been an exciting couple of years for us, for a lot of us as individuals, for us as a congregation. We've had graduations, engagements, sicknesses, deaths of loved ones, babies, new folks attending and joining. We became a mission church. Then we became a fully organized church. We had the Presbytery here. That's the best part. I know that was the highlight of my last couple of years. It's been an exciting couple of years. Seriously, it has. I'm not making light of that. We've got to make sure that we don't allow ourselves to drop the central practice of our faith. John Calvin said, this is the most important. He said, basically, this is the central outworking of faith. If you have faith, you pray, right? Why? Because you're praying to the one who can do things. We can't do things by ourselves. We need him to do it. We cannot redeem ourselves, much less our neighbors and friends, much less this city that we're a part of. We must continually go to the one who redeems, the one who redeemed Israel from Egypt, the one who sent his son to be the redemption of the whole world. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we turn to you in prayer as the one who is able to redeem, the one who is able to save lives, the one who is able to wipe away tears, the one who is able to heal diseases, the one who is able to change the hearts and minds of neighbors and friends and enemies and family members and children and parents and everybody else. We come to you as the one who is able to redeem, and we come to you as those who are not able to redeem. Please help us to pray. Please help us to depend on you and to acknowledge you. We praise you as the one who revealed yourself to Moses, who told him to go to people that you knew wouldn't listen in the first place. but he was planning all the while to show not only your grace, but your power. We thank you for that power. We pray that you would teach us to understand it, to focus on it, to acknowledge it as real. Hear us, we pray, and answer us now and each time as we come to you. Amen.