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Audio TranscriptBeautiful singing. So I've not met you. My name is Aaron, and I'm the preaching pastor here and glad that you're with us today, this last Sunday of July. And so if you have a bow with you, if you'd open up to the book of Exodus today, our texture study is going to come from Exodus 12, verses 21 through 28. Although we're going to be spending our time in all of Exodus 12, this will be our primary spot is 2128.

And if you don't have a Bible with you, if you're not, there are Bibles scattered throughout the pews. If you want to find your way to Exodus, essentially on page 31, our text, if you want to open there, and then as you open your Bibles, please do keep them open. And so if you're visiting with us, so we do a style of preaching called expository preaching. And so we're going to spend a lot of our time just in the text and kind of throughout the sermon. I'm going to be pointing us back to the text.

And so I want us all to see what comes from the text. And so please do keep the Bible open. So Exodus 12:21 through 28. So please hear the words of our God. And then I'm going to pray and then we'll get to work.

So the Bible says that Moses called all the elders of Israel and said to them, go and select lambs for yourselves according to your clans and kill the Passover lamb. Take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood that is in the basin. Touch the lentil and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin. None of you shall go out of the door of the house until the morning, for Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians. And we seize the blood on the lintel and on two doorposts.

Lord will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to enter into your home and your houses to strike you. You shall observe this right as a statute for you and for your sons forever. And when you come into the land that the Lord will give you as he has promised, you shall keep this service. And when your children say to you, what do you mean by this service? You shall say, is the sacrifice of the Lord's Passover.

For he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt when he struck the Egyptians, but spared our houses when people bowed their heads and worshiped, then the people of Israel went and did so as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron. So they did. That's God's word for us this morning. Would you please pray with me?

Lord, we're here because we want to hear from your word.

Lord, we know that your word tells us that through the folly of preaching that you indeed do speak. You speak through your word, through the power of your holy spirit. And so God, in this time, that is our desire, that is our ask, that is our request indeed, that you would speak. God, please keep me from error. Please keep me from stumbling.

Help me to speak only that which is true. Please help the congregation just have good listening ears to hear what your spirit is saying to us today. Pray this out in Jesus name. Amen. So this morning, as we gather together, we do so.

It's a slight detour what we had planned at the start of our summer preaching schedule. So at the start of our summer, the original plan was to have this sermon series that we've had been working through in Exodus. The sermon is the beginning part of the life of Moses. And we're up to the plan was to the start of chapter seven, which is where we were last week, as Moses and his brother Aaron approached Pharaoh for the second time to tell Pharaoh to let God's people go, as Pharaoh was holding God's people in bondage as slaves. From there, then the original plan, starting this week, and to go back into our study of the Gospel of Luke, which is a study that we've been working through for some time.

However, today, and actually the next few weeks, there's going to be a little bit of a detour from that plan, which the detour has actually been on my mind for, I guess, a few weeks now, particularly when I was away on vacation, where I thought it'd be good for us as a church just to spend a little bit more time in the life of Moses, doing so in ways that relate to our church pillars, which you can see in the banners behind me. Worship, connect, grow and go. And I thought it'd be good for us to do this again just for a few reasons. So, first, we haven't done this in a while. So it's been actually well over a year since the last time we took time to, like, intentionally think through our church pillars in a sermon context.

So we're probably due to do this again. Second, the fall approaching typically brings a little bit busier time in church life. So I actually thought it might be good for us to maybe refocus a bit as a church before things get busier. Third, as a church, it's actually really easy to detour on the things that God would have us to do. So we know this, the busyness of life, the challenges of life, the disappointments in life, the frustrations in life, the false hope of life, even sometimes like the successes of life, which we'll be talking about more just a bit.

These things all have a way of, like, detouring us from the things that God would have us to do. So I thought it'd be good for us just to refocus a bit, to hopefully stay focused on the things that God would have us to do. Which, by the way, the reality of losing focus, being distracted, forgetting the things that God has done, things that God would have us to do. This is actually very present in our passage today where we see in the text today, God instituted things within, like the calendar, as a means to help his people actively remember, to help them to not, like, detour away from him, the things that he would have them to do and not do. So starting today and over the next couple weeks, what we're gonna do is continue to look at Exodus stories about Moses.

I think give maybe some fleshing out of our four church pillars that hopefully we can learn from and apply to our own lives. So today, from our text, the primary pillar we're going to focus on is that of worship, which for us not only is our first pillar, but this is the most important and most Central of the 4. This is the pillar that actually meant to be like, the fuel, the motivation that leads into the other three pillars. Now, before we get into the heart of our passage today, just for a few moments, let me just remind us where we left off last week in chapter seven. And after that, I was going to give you some, like, flyby details in Exodus and what happened from that passage where we left last week in chapter seven to our text in our today in chapter 12.

So just where we left off last week, we started that first. So as mentioned for a second time, Moses and his brother Aaron, who was like a prophet to Moses, went before Pharaoh to tell Pharaoh yet again, for a second time to let God's people go, where they also performed a miracle before Pharaoh, turning a staff into a great serpent. Whereas when last week, as Moses and Aaron approached Pharaoh, God hardened the heart of Pharaoh. So for a second time, Pharaoh refused to listen to Moses and refused to let God's people go, which we talked about a lot last week. This had to be, at least in some ways, if not a lot of ways, hard for Moses to grasp and accept.

I mean, God already had promised to free his people God even told Moses that he was going to be the deliverer. Moses is now doing the very thing God would have him to do. However, at least not yet. In chapter seven, freedom did not come. So one of the things we talked about a lot last week, for Moses, this had to be hard for him to grasp and accept.

In this reality. This actually is true for much of his life, where often Moses would do the very thing God would have him to do, instruct him to do, only for the things to not work out in ways that Moses necessarily would want him to do, where over and over again, at least in the moment, things did not work out the way Moses hoped. And for us, this actually is part of the reality of our faith. Yes, we can do the right things, the very things that we know God would have us to do, but according to his secret will, things might not work out, at least not according to the timeline that we might have. That's where we were beginning of chapter seven last week.

And then from there, over the next few chapters, which maybe you can read through this week, we see almost like this cyclical pattern on display where the Lord would continue to send Moses, his brother Aaron before Pharaoh, where Moses would continue to tell Pharaoh to let God's people go, where that message would be accompanied by signs and wonders. Yet God would continue to harden the heart of Pharaoh as Pharaoh refused to let God's people go. He even though in the cycle, even though there's these great signs and wonders, even though God did all these things, Pharaoh would still refuse to let God's people go. Now, if you've read through Exodus before, you remember that these series of signs and wonders were found in a series of plagues of judgment on Egypt. Was there a series of plagues that not only testified to God's power and God's glory, but it does seem, although this is debatable, it does seem that with each of these plagues, which were 10, that each of these God was like systematically defeating the many gods of Egypt.

Let me just give you a few examples on this. So the first plague, you may remember, this is the Nile river turning to blood. And this seemed to be the Lord taking an attack on the Egyptian God who, like, watched over the Nile. Then the second plague involved, like frogs, like, overfilling the land of Egypt. And it seemed like this is the Lord, like, attacking Egyptian fertility God, who was resented as a frog dropping down, like to the ninth plague, which involved darkness over the land.

This seemed to be the Lord attacking, defeating Ra, the Egyptian sun God, and the 10th plague, which we'll be talking about in part in our text today, involved the death of the firstborn of the land, which included the death of the son of. Of Pharaoh, with Pharaoh himself being revered like a godlike figure. As mentioned, there's a little bit of debate on this if this is actually what's happening, but it does seem that if you look at the 10 plagues, it does seem to be a direct correlation between the plagues and one of the many gods of the land. Okay, now just a couple of quick things I want to mention before we get to our text. So if we go back in as it relates to worship, this pillar that we're focused on this morning.

So worship was really always at the heart of God. In the Exodus, he would free his people from the bondage of slavery so that they might worship him. And we don't have time to work through all the places that we see this, but really from Exodus 3, where God came to Moses and revealed himself to Moses in the burning bush of the great I am, where at that scene, the Lord also commissioned Moses to be the deliverer of the people. At that scene, worship was at the heart of God so that through his deliverance, through the freedom of his people, they might worship him. And this continues on from like the first time Moses and Aaron approached Pharaoh, they commanded Pharaoh to let God's people go.

Why? So that they might worship the Lord. Then each of the plagues in this sickle event that continued to happen over and over again, Moses and Aaron continued to approach Pharaoh to tell them the same basic message. The purpose is why? So God's people might be free to go and worship him.

So worship is at the heart of Exodus, including at the heart of our text today, as worship is always at the heart of our God. Thus, if we're going to follow our God, worship will be on our hearts as well. Okay, so that is an introduction. Maybe fill in some of the gaps for us. Let's look back at the passage.

Our passage day involves, like, what took place right before this 10th plague and the death of the firstborn of the land. Well, our text today details some really important information, not only for the book of Exodus, but really for all of scripture. Because our text today involves the Passover. Our primary text today starts in verse 21, but just give maybe just a little bit more context if you want to look up to some of the details in verses 1 through 20 of chapter 12. In those verses, we see God came to Moses to let Moses, let the people know that they were to get ready.

Because the long wait of waiting upon the Lord to free them from slavery, the long wait was about to be realized. Freedom was about to come. The Lord's patient timing had now arrived. In the preceding verses, the Lord let Moses know that this freedom from bondage was going to change really everything for his his people, including their calendar, where from the day that they were freed, it was gonna be such a monumental work of God that salvation. So going forward, that day of deliverance would be the first day of the first month of their new calendars.

Making this new calendar centered on this salvation from slavery, which would be a marker that they were to never forget, but to always remember the salvation of their God. Furthermore, starting the start of chapter 12, the Lord gave to Moses some instructions on how this freeing would take place, which I'm guessing is not maybe a way that Moses would have expected, particularly as he witnessed the power of God on display all throughout Exodus. Because the Lord let Moses know that this freeing that he was about to do to bring salvation for his people would actually come through a Passover lamb. With the lamb being like one of the most gentle creatures in all creation, yet all powerful God would bring about his glorious salvation. How through a lamb.

And how the Lord would do this would be on the night of freedom, the night that all this things is about to take place. Yes. God would send a destroyer who would come to bring judgment, which is destroyed here mostly as like a death angel. The death angel, yes, would come into the land, would take the life of all the firstborn from the greatest of the land, including Pharaoh's own son, to the least of the land, to even the firstborn of all the cattle. That is, unless the home had a Passover lamb who provides salvation of death and judgment.

So in this dialogue between the Lord and Moses, Moses informed on the night that the death angel was to come, the people of God were to enjoy like a meal of fellowship together. A meal that they were to eat in haste, even instruction how they eat this meal, and they eat this in haste because of how quickly salvation was about to come for them. And this meal was centered on this, on this Passover lamb, which was a lamb that was to be a lamb without spot and blemish. This guy's people fellowshipped around this lamb. They were to take the blood from the lamb and cover the sides of the front door with the blood.

So on the night that the death angel came, as they saw the death angel saw the blood of the lamb, death would pass over the home. So God's people not only could be saved from judgment, but through the blood they would be set free to eternal or to a land that is to come, which we'll talk about more in just a bit. By the way, let me also mention the yearly calendars not only were to mark this night of the passover lambs, the calendar to mark the start of the calendar, mark this night, but in the beginning of chapter 12, going forward each year, God's people, from generation to generation were to continue to celebrate this Passover meal together so that they would actively remember that which the Lord had done for them and how salvation was found through the blood of the lamb. So in a very real way, on that night, the Passover lamb died so that they could live being set free. And the theme of our sermon today, be set free to worship the Lord.

So with those instructions in the preceding verses given to Moses and the Lord, now in Our text, verse 21, if you're going to take your Isaiah, we see that Moses took that which is given from the Lord. So now he can convey that information to the people. So in text we read that Moses called all the elders of God's people together to tell them, hey, this is what is about to take place. This is how the Lord was finally going to free us. Through this blood of the lamb, Moses instructed the elders to go select lambs from the midst of their flocks.

In doing so, according to the clan that you are from, as you go to the flocks to select a lamb, this Passover lamb that you're. The Lord then instructed in the text that this lamb that was slain, that they do next is take a bunch of hyssop. Hyssop is kind of like a. Like a bushy shrub. And this hyssop is to act almost like a sponge or a brush by which they would take the hyssop and dip it into the blood of the lamb that was just spilled, that was collected in a basin, our text tells us.

And with the blood of the lamb now on the hyssop, they're then to touch the lintel, which is the top beam of the door, to put blood there. And they're also to put blood up and down on the two sides of the door. So in a very real sense, the home would be covered by the blood. And on that night when the death angel came, because of the blood, they were safe.

Verse 22, because they were safe in the blood of the lamb, we read that none were to go out of the house until the morning, which for me is probably not instruction. I would need. Right. Death angels, come in. I'm going to stay safely behind closed doors, behind the blood.

No interest nor curiosity was taking place outside. But obviously for some, maybe more curious in nature than me, might be tempted to see what was happening, maybe in a real sense, wanted to see death. This is a real instruction for them. Yes, you might be curious, intrigued, what was taking place that night. But you must fight against temptation.

You must stay covered by the blood until the morning. Because if not, if you give in to your temptation, you will perish. But in verse 23 of our text, in this last and most terrifying of plagues, for the Lord himself will pass through to strike the Egyptians, those not covered by the blood, but where the Lord sees the blood on the lentil on the two doorposts, the Lord himself will pass over the door. And he will not let the destroyer, the death angel, enter into your house to strike you. Meaning as real and as powerful as death is, this death angel was even death was under the authority of the Lord, where, under the authority of the Lord, death would strike only those who, according to the will of God, were being judged that night, where death would pass over according to the will of the Lord, those who would live as life and death ultimately are in the Lord's hands.

Now for us, let's just hit pause here just for a second, just to consider what an incredible and awesome, albeit terrifying night this must have been for God's people. So let's just try to put ourselves in their shoes and just kind of think through some of what has already taken place. So for a very long time, God's people, the shoes they were in were the shoes of slavery, doing hard labor, doing many things that were just not pleasant at all in life, where for years and years they're praying, pleading to the Lord to come and set them free, only for Moses to show up. But as he shows up, he basically tells us, hey guys, I am the answer to your prayers. I am indeed the long awaited deliverer who God would use to free you from slavery.

Yet as we remember in our study, as he showed up, chapter five. For God's people, things actually went from bad to worse as Moses approached Pharaoh for the first time. Pharaoh became so annoyed at Moses that he ended up punishing the people by demanding that not only we continue to make bricks as slaves, but going forward, they'd also now have to start to like, collect the straw for their brick making work. And from there, all these terrible, terrifying plagues fell upon the land, which some of these actually affected God's people as well. These terrifying plagues came, and at different points, they actually kind of looked for God's people, that Pharaoh was going to finally let them go, only for Pharaoh to change his mind as the Lord continued to harden his heart to keep God's people in slavery.

So from chapter five, when Moses showed up until our text today, which just covers a lot of time here for God's people, this is an absolute roller coaster of emotions, ups and downs, twists and turns, hopes, disappointments, and all of it is leading to this, this one big, awesome, terrifying night where Moses had just let them know through the elders, death is going to enter into the land. However, even through death that is about to come, their salvation would also come. And it would come from all things through a blood of a lamb, as through the lamb, salvation would come through judgment. Now for us to put ourselves in their shoes. Imagine knowing all this history and now getting this message from Moses, from the elders of the clans that salvation was coming through the blood of a lamb.

Well, keep going to text verse 24, if you want to take your eyes there. As he got this message of salvation through judgment by the blood of the lamb, we see they also get some more instructions and how it passed down the Passover. And because they get more instructions again here, I think this stresses just how important this passing down was to the Lord. Verse 24, God's people will continue to celebrate this meal each year as a rite, as a statue for you and your sons forever. Meaning this is not just something they were to celebrate on the day they were set free, on that night as they celebrate the meal together.

This is something that God's people from generation to generation would continue to celebrate, to continue to remember all of their days.

By the way, if you read through the Old Testament over and over again, Scripture actually is pointing God's people back to this very night, this salvation from the Lord as a means to draw them back to worship. Verse 25. On that day when you come into the land that the Lord will give you, which the land that they're being saved too. So not only were they being saved from the judgment, saved from slavery, but God's people are also being saved to a land, a land in the text, a land that God promised to give to them, which we know is a land flowing with milk and honey. And as he entered into that promised land, even then the salvation of God found in the blood of the land, even then this right was to be on their minds, which only continues to stress the importance of this salvation.

Where Even then, this rite in the text, this statue, this service, even then is one you are to keep and observe. Now, this here, the Lord telling his people that to keep this service even as they enter into the promised land, this incredible land flowing with milk and honey. I think this is actually the Lord like, maybe already addressing a real challenge that would be before them, which is the challenge of, like, things working out. We're in this challenge. There's a real temptation.

When things like work out for us. Do you think that we actually no longer need the Lord or temptation maybe to put the Lord on the back burner of our life? And I do think for us, we know this challenge in our own lives, where, when things are kind of going well, how quickly it is to lose track of dependency, depend upon God. Where, when things are going well, whatever that well thing is, that can quickly become like our priority, where we maybe try to fit the Lord around that priority rather than making him the priority, keeping him the priority for us. Yes, no doubt there are challenges our faith when things do not work out the way that we hope, which say it earlier, this is true for much of Moses's life.

But at least for me, from my own experience, there are often more challenges to my faith, more challenges to my dependency upon the Lord.

When things are going well, keep going. Verse 26. When the children, the next generation, who are not present on this night, when they say to you, as you remember this Passover, what do you mean by this service? Why is it that we're celebrating this meal over and over again? What's the big deal?

What's its purpose? Why the lamb? Why the blood? Verse 27. As they come with you with those questions, you are to say to them, it is the sacrifice of the Lord's Passover.

You are to teach them that we do this, to remember, to never forget the night that the Lord passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt, where on that night he struck the Egyptians but spared our houses. Just a couple quick thoughts on this here. First, the question the children ask. What do you mean by the service? This is actually an obvious and legitimate question here.

The generation that came after, they weren't there on that night, they did not have firsthand experience of how God redeemed his people. So it's not like, just like innately, they would have known all this. They would have needed someone to tell them, to explain to them the why, the what, the how that they were doing. They would need someone to come to them with, like, beautiful feet to pass on the Story of salvation through a lamb, which in the context here specifically was their parents.

And for us just explaining to the children, this actually is the heart of like evangelism, discipleship. None of us just innately know all these things as you're saying earlier. We're all like on this hell bound race. So we need someone to have to explain things to us, just like someone had explained things to us.

So as we learn about the things of Jesus Christ, now in turn we pass down that which we received. And with beautiful feet we explain things to others. We explain all the things that we know that is true and believe about our God and ultimately the redemption found in Lord Jesus Christ. Something kind of tied to this. So there's a phrase, but there's a time actually use, times we actually use here.

Basically it says like one generation like believes the Gospel, which is the good news found in the redemption of Jesus Christ. But without like proper evangelism and discipleship, what can happen is the next generation then starts to like basically assume the gospel and then inevitably the following generation forgets the gospel. And this is such a true statement, not only because what we see this in church history proves to be true, but even in the Old Testament people of God, where over and over again one generation would believe, but the next generation would kind of assume before the following generation would just kind of forget about things all together. Only for the Lord to have to do some type of gracious work or maybe some type of work of judgment to bring his people back to himself. So this here in the text of needing to answer the question to the next generation to teach them about the salvation from our God church, this actually is really important.

This is something that ought to be a real high priority for us as a church. For us, this is something we can't get detoured away from doing. Back to the text, the end of verse 27, after the Lord gave to Moses all this information from the Passover meal, this discipleship command to teach the next generation. We see the hearts of the people were soft before the Lord. And in the text the people like bowed their heads and they worshiped him, which hold on to this, we'll come back to this at the end.

Verse 28. As the people had their hearts soft, soft before the Lord worshiping the Lord, then the people of Israel went and did so as the Lord commanded Moses and Aaron. So they did. Which here just kind of notice how basically the same thing is said twice in the text. Went and did so, and then at the end, so they did.

I think this is emphasis on the obedience of God's people, whose hearts were soft, whose hearts were stoked to worship, where they were joyfully willing to do the things that God would have them to do. Now, this is where we ended our text today. But I do want to finish off the story this in chapter 12, starting at verse 29, if you want to keep going or keep looking there. So according to what God said, at midnight that night the death angel came and indeed struck down the firstborn of the land from the son of Pharaoh to the firstborn of the cattle, where, according to his word, only those who were saved on that night were the ones who were covered by the blood of the lamb. And after this final plague hit, finally, at least in the moment, the heart of Pharaoh softened to the point that he would let God's people go.

The text tells us that 600,000 men, not counting women, children, were set free that night, bound for the promised land, where they left actually by plundering Egypt on their way. And as the people of God headed out, they did so still with soft hearts, still with hearts of worship. At the end of Exodus 12 tells us that they desired to obey God to keep the Passover from generation to generation. We're in verse 50, similar to verse 28, to further emphasize the soft heart to follow and obey God. We see in verse 50 all the people of Israel did just as the Lord had commanded.

Moses and Aaron is on that very day the Lord brought the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt by their host. And that's actually we're going to end in our text today. But before I end, I do want to give you some organized thoughts from this text as it relates to worship and how I wanted to do this. Just maybe try to answer a few questions on like the why, the how and the what of worship. Okay, so some thoughts here.

So let's start out with the why. And I do think it's always most important for us to get the why right before we move on to the what and the how. This is really important as a church. We must get the why right of worship. So some of the whys of worship, as I start to answer some of the whys, I do want to mention again, worship was at the center of why God desired to free his people from slavery in Egypt.

Now, yes, the desire of God is also one that was tied to, like God's love, where in his love he would do this for his people. This desire of God to free his people also is one that's tied to his promises, where in his word, God promised indeed he would free his people. And we know God is a God who makes and keeps promise. But even those realities are ultimately tied to worship. We're to say it again, throughout the story of Moses that we've been looking at this summer.

God would free his people. Why? So that they could worship Him. So for us, why? This is why.

This is why we exist, to worship God and why we should worship God. Well, we see throughout Exodus, throughout Scripture, because our God is the one who is worthy of our worship. Because our God is the one who is glorious in all who he is, as the great I am, which is Exodus 3 in all that he does, including his great salvation. And so for his glory, the Lord is calling us to worship. That's a real why of worship.

Why? Worship is always at the heart of our God. Why? Because he's worthy of it. Because his glory actually demands us to worship Him.

Very much tied to this why worship? This also is our design. So God created mankind to worship him, to keep him at the center, at the priority of our life, where all that we are to do in life, even the roller coaster relied in life. Big things, little things, even little things like eating and drinking, they all are to be done in worship of him, to bring glory to our God friends. That's actually why we exist.

This is part of the why of worship. This is where we find joy, we find meaning, we find purpose is in worshiping our God for us as church. This is why worship is not only a pillar, but the pillar, the most important pillar. Where our desire as a church is to joyfully pour out our lives in the worship of our God, knowing that is where our meaning, that is where our purpose is found.

However, unfortunately, tragically, sinfully, we know this as individuals, even as a church as a whole. This is something that we can easily detour from where there's so many other things that can get us sidetracked. So many other things like pull at our hearts in worship. We start to worship other things other than God. And if we do that, if we detour from our worship of the Lord, we must be quick to repent, to get this right, to put and keep God at the center.

Because if we miss worship, the why of worship, everything else is a house of cards that will not stand so for us. Even this morning, if you know, like the worship of the Lord, if it's not at the center of your life, where any like somehow you detoured and you're trying to put your hope in other Things repent come back to him. Which actually leads the next question relates to a how question. And the how question, I'm not referring to like, you know, some type of posture. Like, this is how we do it.

This is how we worship. By this posture, rather the how here, I'm actually referring to, like, how is it even possible for us to come to God in worship? And this actually is a pretty important question for us to know and understand. Because we actually all are sinners. And like Pharaoh, even by birth, by choice, we actually all have hard hearts.

And because we are sinners with hard hearts before God, we can't approach Him. We can't come to God on our own because God is like, perfect in all that. He is perfect in his holiness, perfect in his glory. So we can't, like, just like waltz in and try to approach the Lord in worship, like, just kind of on our own. And likewise, it's not like we somehow can, like, worship our way to God.

So this is actually important question of how that we must know. So, like, how is it that we can actually worship God as sinners? Well, in the text today, we need the Lord to act on our behalf. Our text today, the Lord acted through the blood of the Lamb, so that his people would be saved from judgment, that the Lord would pass over so they'd be set free, that they might worship him without the blood of the Lamb. They'd been bound in judgment as sinners, rightfully.

And for us, as real as the blood of the Lamb was in Exodus 12, as real as it was the salvation of God bringing his people out of slavery, the blood of that Lamb. That salvation in Exodus 12 is ultimately a pointer to a better, more spotless lamb that was to come, an even better salvation.

The Lord provided for his people a better Lamb, the Lamb of God, as God himself came to us in the person of the great God man, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, who came to take away the sins of the world, which Jesus did by willingly, joyfully laying down his life for his people, which he did on a cross where the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, spilled His blood for us, where he died in our place, so that through him, through Jesus, him alone, we'd be saved from judgment. We'd be set free, bound for eternal promised land that is to come. So that through Jesus, friends, that's how we can worship God. It's only through him, through us putting our faith in him, trusting in him, in the blood of his eternal covenant. It's us calling upon the name of Jesus as our Lord, as the One who died for us, only to rise again from the dead on the third day.

Which, by the way, is why, as a church, why we say the wooden cross and empty tomb mean everything to us. Because without it, without Jesus being our true Lamb, we would still be in the bondage of sin and there would be no possibility for us to worship God. We can only come to God the Father and worship through him, by the way, because Jesus Christ not only died as the Lamb of God, but because he rose again on the third day, which was a Sunday. Now, our entire calendar is actually marked with Sunday being the first day of the week, which is actually a unique and special day by which we were to gather together as a church body and worship, where we gather together not only to worship the Lord, but we do so in ways that we're sitting under his word, where we sing his praises, where over and over again, we celebrate the new Passover meal, the Lord's Supper, to help us to remember, to never forget what Jesus has done for us actually leads to the what of worship. So what should our lives look like if we're going to spend worshiping God?

Well, in the text, the heart of worship, our lives will look like having soft hearts before God. Soft hearts that are like, joyfully obeying all the things that God would have us to do, doing all the things that God has to do, and not doing the things that he would not want us to do. And these things change from being burdens or maybe even options. But when we're worshiping the Lord of soft hearts, all these things now become like the desire of our heart, where we want to do the things that God would have us to do, which is true of God's people in the text. So for us as a church, some of the things it looks like all includes not forsaking, meeting together on Sundays, which is a habit that's easy to get into.

But like God's people, we're to celebrate the Passover each year. Now, as God's people, we are to celebrate Jesus death and resurrection. Each Sunday we set our hearts to serve him, to serve others, not out of duty, but out of delight, because our hearts are soft to worship. And I know for various reasons it can be challenging at times, but at the heart of worship, these are challenges we seek to overcome.

In our language, this is very much tied to the pillars of connect and grow, to come to be around God's people week after week after. Furthermore, what. What are we going to do if we're Going to worship God tied to our pillar. To go in the text, what we will do say we're going to pass down the message of our faith from generation to generation. This is, this is part of our worship.

We're engaging our lives in evangelism and discipleship.

Word of a heart of worship. We're explaining to others the tenets of our faith. Centering on the salvation of God found in Jesus Christ is one not only we celebrate today and hopefully every day, but the one that we'll celebrate and worship even as we enter into the eternal promised land that is to come, where forever and ever our worship will be to the Lamb who was slain, the one who is worthy. So yes, today a little bit of a detour of what was originally planned. But my hope is that this detour actually keep us on track on that which is most important to us as a church family, which always starts, always ends with worship.

Through Jesus we are set free, forgiven of our sins, bound for the promised land so that we might worship him all of our days and all the way throughout eternity. As I close, if you know, for a host of different reasons, maybe you've detoured in your own life from this worship of Christ. So may the chorus of the song that was actually popular a few years back when I first made Christian, may this song, by the grace of God, be a true of you today. Just simply says I'm coming back to the heart of worship and it's all about you. It's all about you, Jesus.

Let's pray.

Lord, thank you for Jesus who is the true lamb of God, who came to take away the sin sins of the world.

And Lord, this morning we confess again that without Jesus there's no way we could come to you in worship because of our hard hearts, because of our sin.

Lord, thank you for your grace and your kindness, your mercy on us to help us to trust and to believe.

And Lord, I do pray that today all of us that have hearts to worship Jesus.

And Lord, I pray for those here maybe have yet to trust in Jesus, who've yet to have their lives covered by the blood, that today that you would do that in their life, that you would take out a heart of stone, but put in a heart of flesh that is now soft towards you.

And Lord, I do pray that you'd help us to keep the worship of you always at the center of all that we do. Pray us on Jesus name, Amen.

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