The Gospel According to Moses
I. Introduction
1. Ticket when going to train station-going 60 in 40 zone. I wanted to fight it! The radar was wrong. When was the last time they checked it? I had just come out from a stop sign and the road was uphill, how could I be going 60? Impossible! Good thing I was not close to my church! Can you imagine, the pastor getting a ticket? Well, I might have been going a little fast. I left home a little late and I needed to get to the train station by 8:26 am to be at church and to help people!
2. I did not want to see one of those cars with the sirens and the lights on top. Don’t get me wrong! There are times, like last Thursday when Jacqui and I were driving into the parking lot and there was a fight! We were happy to see the patrol car. But, when I am in my car, and they are back there writing a ticket, I start thinking, why are they not going after criminals instead of giving a ticket to a poor pastor trying to get to her church? It is hard for me to remember what my Dad told me about the police being my friends.
II. How do you feel about God?
1. I am afraid that many Christians have similar feelings about God. They know that he is supposed to be there for us, but sometimes, it doesn’t feel like it.
2. There are Christians who believe that God is good, and caring, and loving, but... to others, not to them. They can never accepted by God. They either feel too INSIGNIFICANT –not as good as those who do all the work in church, or give testimonies; or they feel too GUILTY AND UNDESERVING; or they are sure that they will probably have to be a LOT BETTER than they are now for God to really love them.
3. Maybe that is not our problem. Some of us may even think that God is pretty lucky to have us on His side.
4. I hope you, graduates, know that God loves you more than you can ever imagine. (Speech I gave to my children when I was driving them from Anaheim to Riverside).
5. I know a person who has the concept that Jesus loves us, but not the Father. He is always angry toward us.
6. Last Sunday I read the story of what happened at the funeral of Sergeant Daniel Sesker in Ogden, Iowa. Members of the congregation pastored by Fred Phelps were picketing outside. Phelps talks of God’s hatred, and celebrates deadly events so many others mourn. "We pray for more tornadoes, we pray for more hurricanes, that Katrina’s just a tiny little preamble," he says near his closing. "That’s what we pray for." Phelps and his followers began appearing outside funerals of American troops killed in Iraq since last June. There have been thousands of protests since, at the funerals of homosexuals — but also at memorials for Mister Rogers, victims of Sept. 11 and West Virginia miners. There are only 75 members in his church, but they have been in 25,000 demonstrations.
7. Does God hate? Do I have to wait until I get to John 3:16 to learn about love? John says in 1:45 Philip found Nathanael and told him, "We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph." Jesus also said, in John 5:45 If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me.
8. a) Story of Creation. The fall, God gave a promise: Gen. 3:15 15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel." – A sign of God’s love for his creation; in spite of man’s disobedience, he gave mankind hope for the future.
b) Genesis 4:15 Then the LORD put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him. God punished Cain after he killed Abel, and told him "the ground is cursed because of you." But then God mitigated his punishment and afforded Cain protection by placing a mark on him.
c) Sin continued to spread to such a point that God regretted he had made the human race and was going to "blot out" man - but then, as the King James version says 8 But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD. [Genesis 6:6-8]. God then delivered Noah from the Flood in the ark.
d) Even though men created the Tower of Babel, God blessed the generations of Shem and gave Terah a son named Abram
e) Gen 12:1,2 1 The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you. "I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.
9. This is the gospel according to Moses: when God’s creation insisted on sinning, God insisted on saving. When humankind found new ways to sin, God found new ways to save.
III. CONCLUSION
1. Does it mean that God is going to save us no matter what? NO! We do have to accept the salvation.
2. What does it mean? That wherever we go, God will go with us. That if we fall, he will help us to get up. That when everyone leaves us, He stays at our side.
