Introduction
1. Well, there’s a new pirate movie out...
I’m sure most of you have heard about it...
Pirates of the Caribbean 3...
It has become a record breaking movie...
So far, as of Tuesday, after only 5 days...
it had made $160,831,171.
With all this interest in all things pirate...
I came across a pirate joke and I thought I would share it with you...
A pirate had a wooden leg, a hook on one arm, and a patch over one eye.
Someone asked him how these things happened.
He said that a whale bit off his leg,...
a crocodile had chewed off his hand,...
and a bird dropping hit him in the eye.
The other guy replied that he understood about the wooden leg having had his original bite off by a whale,...
and the hook was there to replace the hand the crocodile had chewed off,...
but a patch over the eye just because of a bird dropping ...
that he didn’t understand.
The pirate said...
“Aye...when the bird dropping hit me in the eye, that was me first day with the hook.”
2. Gospel means “Good News”...
The word “gospel” is only found in the New Testament...
and it is always a reference to the Good News about Jesus Christ...
We have the 4 Gospels in the New Testament...
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John...
They are called “the Gospels” because they tell the story about Jesus...
3. This morning, I want us to share a passage of Scripture from the Old Testament...
This passage of Scripture contains some “Good News” for the Children of Israel...
But it also is a foreshadow of the Good News we have in Jesus...
With that in mind, I want us to explore “The Gospel According to Moses”1...
Read Text: Exodus 6:1-8
I call this the Gospel According to Moses because Moses is the writer...
Much like Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were the Gospel writers in the New Testament...
Only, instead of the freedom from sin found in Jesus Christ...
Moses is telling the story about freedom from Egyptian bondage...
In this passage of Scripture, we have 7 “I wills” of God...
7 times, God says, “I will”...
1. First, God says, “I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians.”
A. The Children of Israel were under Egyptian bondage for a long time...
They were a displaced people...
for over 400 years (Exodus 12:40)
They were under bondage for so long...
that was all they knew...
that was their life...
And yet, now God tells Moses that they will be freed!
That certainly would be welcome news...
Good News...
And, coming from God Himself...you can take that as Gospel!
B. Compare that to Jesus Christ...
In Matthew 11:28, Jesus says,
“Come to me,
all you who are weary and burdened,
and I will give you rest.
Many people today are under bondage...
they are under a yoke...
perhaps the yoke isn’t slavery...
But it another kind of bondage...
2. The 2nd “I will” of God...I will free you from being slaves to them,
A. The Egyptians became harsh taskmasters...
the work load upon the Hebrews had increased...
Exodus 5:14 says,
“The Israelite foremen appointed by Pharaoh’s slave drivers
were beaten and were asked,
"Why didn’t you meet your quota of bricks...?"
The Egyptian leaders were demanding the impossible...
and then beating the Israelites when they couldn’t deliver...
The Israelites complained to Moses...
and Moses went to God...
And that’s when we come to this beautiful passage of Scripture...
The Gospel of Moses...
B. Sin can be a harsh taskmaster as well...
living a life of sin takes its toll...
sometimes it is obvious to the eye...
you can look at someone and see that they have really been “through the mill”...
And the Good News in all this is, again, found in Jesus Christ...
Colossians 1:13-14 says,
God “has rescued us from the dominion of darkness
and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves,
in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
3. The 3rd “I will” of God says...I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment.
A. All three of these “I wills” speak of redemption and deliverance...
“I will bring you out from under the yoke”...
“I will free you...”
and “I will redeem you”...
B. In the time of Jesus...
Zechariah sang a song about Jesus...
and in that song, he sings
“Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel,
because he has come and has redeemed his people.
He has raised up a horn of salvation for us
in the house of his servant David
Luke 1:68-69
C. God redeemed the Hebrew Children with great miracles...
and great judgments upon the Egyptians...
And God has redeemed all mankind...
with the great miracle of His Son Jesus...
And the great judgment that He bore upon Calvary....
4. The 4th “I will”...God says, I will take you as my own people,
A. After God provided for the redemption for His people...
they were not just left to fend for themselves...
He took them for His very own...
they were adopted...
they become a part of God’s treasured possession...
HIS people...
He provided for them...
He took care of them...
He loved them...
B. 1 Corinthians chapter 6 says...
You are not your own; you were bought at a price.
When Jesus died on the cross...
He paid the price for our emancipation...
And once He provided the sacrifice that was required for our sin...
Like the Hebrew Children...
We weren’t just left to our own devices...
We were adopted into God’s family...
Romans 8:17 says, “Now if we are children, then we are heirs— heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ
Galatians 3:13-14...
“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree." He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.”
5. The 5th “I will” of God...”I will be your God.”
A. The 1st 3 “I wills” speak of redemption...
the 4th and 5th one speak of adoption...
The beauty of this is the picture of mutual surrender...
We give ourselves to God...
and God gives Himself to us...
B. In many adoptions...
children are first placed in foster homes...
foster parents take the children into their home
and provide for them and care for them...
But sometimes, the foster kids don’t want to be there...
they are required to by the court...
But, when those foster parents decide to adopt those kids...
and the children decide that they want to be adopted into this new family...
they suddenly, overnight...
enjoy all the rights and privileges of being a part of that family...
6. The 6th “I will” of God is...I will bring you to the land I swore with uplifted hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob.
A. God promised to provide a new home...
a land to call their own...
And God brought them to it...
After He provided for their freedom from Pharaoh...
He led them and guided them throughout their travels through the wilderness...
and into the Promise Land...
the land flowing with milk and honey...
B. In the same way...
Jesus not only provides for our redemption...
and He not only provides for us the way to be adopted into God’s family...
But, He leads us into a new land...
a new home...
7. And the 7th “I will” of God...I will give it to you as a possession.
A. God led them to the Promise Land...
and He gave them the land...
B. Jesus said, “In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. 3And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” John 14
Much has been made of the parallels between the Children of Israel...
and our walk of faith in God...
with good reason...
As the Children of Israel were in bondage...
so are we...in bondage to sin...
God provided redemption for the Israelites...
and He provided for our redemption through Christ...
And God led them to a new home in the Promise Land...
and our Promise Land is in heaven!!!
Conclusion
1. That’s the Good News!!...
That’s the Gospel...
The Gospel found not only in the New Testament...
But right here in the writings of Moses...
Good News for the Children of Israel...
And that Good News was just the foreshadow of the Good News we have in Jesus Christ!
2. Fritz Kreisler (1875-1962), a world-famous violinist,...
earned a fortune with his concerts and compositions,...
but he generously gave most of it away.
So, when he discovered an exquisite violin on one of his trips,...
he wasn’t able to buy it.
Later, having raised enough money to meet the asking price,...
he returned to the seller, hoping to purchase the beautiful instrument.
But to his great dismay it had been sold to a collector.
Kreisler made his way to the new owner’s home and offered to buy the violin.
But The collector said it had become his prized possession and he would not sell it.
Greatly disappointed, Kreisler was about to leave when he asked...
"Could I play the instrument once more before it is consigned to silence?"
Permission was granted, and the great virtuoso filled the room with such heart-moving music that the collector’s emotions were deeply stirred.
He said, "I have no right to keep that to myself,...
It’s yours, Mr. Kreisler. Take it into the world, and let people hear it."2
3. One of the things that you will notice in the Bible...
is how important it was for the Children of Israel to pass on to their children all the stories about what God had done for them...
In fact, many of the Psalms are simply that...
songs about what God had done in leading them out of bondage...
into their new land...
When God does something as tremendous as He did for the Children of Israel...
well, they just naturally wanted to tell other people about it...
4. The same must be true for us as well...
God gloriously provided for our redemption through His Son Jesus...
He adopted us into His family...
and He is leading us to a new home!!...
We need to be like Kreisler...
we need to take that to the world...
we need to let people hear the Good News!!!
5. 7 Times...God says, “I will” in just 3 verses...
I trust that we can say it once...
as in, “I will share the Good News of what Jesus has done for me”...
1 I got the idea for this outline from “Handfuls on Purpose”
2 Our Daily Bread February 4, 1994
