Author: Danny Panter

Danny is the Associate Pastor for NextGen Marrieds & Community Missions at FBCSA.

Saved for Worship

Re: Verse reading–Exodus 12:1-14, 24-27, 13:8-9 (day six)

Does your heart sing? Years ago as a college student in Hattiesburg, MS I went to worship at FBC Hattiesburg with one of my closest friends. During the sermon the pastor was speaking on the extravagant love of God in our justification through Jesus, and being unable to contain himself my friend erupted with a loud fist pumping holler (like one you would hear at a football game). Needless to say he frightened many people, and probably left many scratching their heads. He was overcome with inexplicable joy! Isn’t this how it should be for us? Full of joy and erupting in song!

This week in Re:Verse we encountered the spontaneous praise of Moses and the Hebrew people following their salvation out from the Egyptians (Exodus 15). This is both beautiful to behold and compelling. Should not our praise erupt out of our joy of God’s salvation?! Yes, and again I say yes!

In fact the root of our joy rests in the saving work of God. In that work we see God for who he is as loving redeemer and mighty warrior. When we see God, we can’t help but worship. King David’s sin (and ours) was born out of dysfunctional worship. In Psalm 51:8 he wrote, “return to me the joy of my salvation.” Let’s pray like David that we never lose sight of our God who is mighty to save, so that our praise will always be loud and true!

Glory

Re: Verse reading–Exodus 5:1-2; 6:1-8; 7:1-5, 14-18; 8:1-3, 16, 20-21; 9:1-4, 8-9, 13-18, 25-26; 10:3-11, 21-22, 28-29; 11:1-5 (day six)

Exodus 8:9-10
Moses does something extraordinary. During the second plague Pharaoh pleads with him to go back and ask God to relent, in turn Moses says, “Tell me when. When do you want God to lift the plague?” Why would Moses do that? So that Pharaoh would know that there is no one like the God of Jacob.

The plagues were not an effort by God to convince Pharaoh to set the Hebrews free. God didn’t need plagues to do that. God had one purpose, to reveal his glory to the nations; the people of Egypt, the Hebrews, and countless others that would hear of the plagues. Everyone’s greatest need, including the Pharaoh, is to behold the glory of God. We are no different. Beholding the glory of God moves us from self-knowledge to desperation, from love to worship. In Pharaoh’s case, he would learn that there is no God like the God of Jacob; He alone builds and destroys nations.

God gave us his creation and His Word that we too might behold the glory of God. Do we? Do you?

Identify

Re: Verse reading–Exodus 3:1-14; 4:1-15 (day six)
Who are you? Who are we? Exodus never lets us forget who these people are; they are the “people of Israel,” the sons of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They had a tremendous sense of corporate identity; they were God’s people because of God’s covenant with their forefathers. Even when God moved in the life of an individual it was always in the greater context of a people. Abraham was the father of a nation, and Moses led a people out of slavery; the people were always in view.

Maybe one of the messages of the Exodus, and the people of God, is that we must regain a perspective of our corporate identity. We tend to be so individualistic that it is hard for us to break free and participate in our corporate identity. You see, we don’t do church; we are the church. We don’t go to church for worship; the church worships. We love and serve others not because it is something we are supposed to do, but because it is who we are in Jesus. We are the church, a chosen race, a holy priesthood, called to be the people of God in a very broken world. We are the Kingdom of God breaking into kingdom of the world.

I think that is what Jesus meant in John 17:22-23:

“The glory you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may be perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.”

Let’s be His church!

Rejoicing in Hope

Re: Verse reading–Exodus 1:8-22, 2:1-10 (day six)

If we had never read this book before we would immediately be unsettled by the injustice against the Hebrew people; the slavery and drowning of innocents. Yet, right from the beginning we would see a glimmer of hope. From the beginning we set our hopes on a baby. We don’t know what he will do or how he will do it, but we know somehow he will right the wrongs and set the captives free. Our hearts are drawn to hope. We need hope. It is hope that pulls us into the next chapter, and not just the book of Exodus, but in our own lives.

The birth of a baby boy in Exodus 2 gives us hope in the present. The announcement reminds us that God is not blind to injustice, or our spiritual condition, or our situation. Not only does He know, but He acts; He ignites movements of abolition in the most unlikely and extraordinary places. The birth of a baby boy sets our sights on a greater historical movement of restoration and freedom, the birth of His very own Son Jesus. So, wherever you find yourself today, take hope that God is on the move and has been from the beginning to lift you up out of brokenness and bondage, to lead you to a future hope of peace and reconciliation.

Rejoice with us!