Talk 3 The Lord our Banner, Exodus 4- 17

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3LQYKjssRg

How to Win Friends and Influence People
In Dale Carnegie’s famous book, ‘How to win friends and Influence people’, which sold 15 million copies, he says:

Remember that a person's name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language. The information we are imparting or the request we are making, takes on a special importance when we approach the situation with the name of the individual.

A lot is in a name. Names can have little meaning and reveal little about who the person is or a name can be important and reveal something about the person. God had names. Not just one but many and each one of God's names tells us something about his character, something about God that we can depend on, that we can take to the bank and build our life on. And each one of his names is revealed in a classic story found in the Older Testament.

Jesus prayed for us to know God more in John 17:3 when he said,

“Now this is eternal life that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”

Eternal life, Jesus said, is not just about living forever. Eternal life is about enjoying a deep relationship with the God of the universe right here and now right as well. This is the kind of relationship that will go on forever and grow the more we know him, not just in our heads but in our lives and experiences as well.

So the name we are going to look at today is

Jehova Nissi or The LORD is My Banner.

And we find this name in Exodus 17 after Israel’s battle against the Amelakites.

A few weeks ago, you might remember, that Dom talked about us and our stories all being a part of this big story, this larger story of God and I think if we are to get the most out of this name and this passage we need to look at where this falls in the bigger story of God.

So to start of with Let’s take a look at Exodus 4 where we begin our journey today with Moses at the burning bush.

2 Then the LORD said to him, "What is that in your hand?"
"A staff," he replied.

3 The LORD said, "Throw it on the ground."
Moses threw it on the ground and it became a snake, and he ran from it. 4 Then the LORD said to him, "Reach out your hand and take it by the tail." So Moses reached out and took hold of the snake and it turned back into a staff in his hand. 5 "This," said the LORD, "is so that they may believe that the LORD, the God of their fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has appeared to you."

6 Then the LORD said, "Put your hand inside your cloak." So Moses put his hand into his cloak, and when he took it out, it was leprous, [a] like snow.

7 "Now put it back into your cloak," he said. So Moses put his hand back into his cloak, and when he took it out, it was restored, like the rest of his flesh.

8 Then the LORD said, "If they do not believe you or pay attention to the first miraculous sign, they may believe the second.

So here we see the introduction to “the staff” that we will see later on in the story. We can tell it’s just a regular staff because Moses had been carrying it around with him like normal. But God says that he will use both the staff and the hand of Moses to help the people to believe. They will be signs that point to God.

Then the story moves into the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and from slavery. God performs miracles to prove to the people who will not believe that He is God. And he finishes with the Passover where the blood of the lamb is put on the doors of the Israelites in to save them from death and pass over them. This is ties in with the bigger story because of Jesus’ blood that saves us from eternal death. But that is a bigger story and we need to move quickly.

So let’s jump ahead to Exodus 14:12 where we see Moses leading the people of Israel out of Egypt and they are being pursued by Pharaoh and his army and would surely die or be brought back to slavery if God does not intervene.

11 They said to Moses, "Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? 12 Didn't we say to you in Egypt, 'Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians'? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!"

13 Moses answered the people, "Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. 14 The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still."

15 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on. 16 Raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground.

And that is what happened. So we see the Israelites getting mad at Moses and then Moses revealing his trust in God, he says the LORD will fight for you, it’s a matter of what God can do and not what you can do. And then we see God act mightily. We see the staff raised and the hand stretched out as signs so that the people will believe and then God acts by parting the see and bringing the Israelites out of slavery and into their journey to the Promised Land.

And in Exodus 15 Moses writes a song in remembrance of God’s salvation of them from Egypt. He says that God is his strength and song and salvation.

Then the journey continues onto Marah. They travel south through what is modern day saudi Arabia through the desert. They travel for three days until they start to get upset.

24 So the people grumbled against Moses, saying, "What are we to drink?"

25 Then Moses cried out to the LORD, and the LORD showed him a piece of wood. He threw it into the water, and the water became sweet.
There the LORD made a decree and a law for them, and there he tested them. 26 He said, "If you listen carefully to the voice of the LORD your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the LORD, who heals you."

27 Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve springs and seventy palm trees, and they camped there near the water.

We see the people grumble against Moses because of their present circumstances. Then Moses cries out to the LORD. God tells responds and calls Moses to do something. In this case throw a tree in the water(probably as a sign). It didn’t make sense except that God said to do it. So Moses acted on faith and did what God asked him to do and God displays his mighty power in this world by turning the bitter waters sweet. And we see the LORD get a new name, “The LORD Who Heals You.” God does this miracle in response to their cries but we find out that they were only a short journey away from a place called Elim that had 12 springs of water and 70 palm trees. It sounds like a paradise. So God had good things planned for them if they could have only waited.

On to Exodus 16, just one chapter away.

2 In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. 3 The Israelites said to them, "If only we had died by the LORD's hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death." …

8 Moses also said, "You will know that it was the LORD when he gives you meat to eat in the evening and all the bread you want in the morning, because he has heard your grumbling against him. Who are we? You are not grumbling against us, but against the LORD." …

11 The LORD said to Moses, 12 "I have heard the grumbling of the Israelites. Tell them, 'At twilight you will eat meat, and in the morning you will be filled with bread. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God.' "

So God does another amazing miracle as a sign to the people so that they will trust Him. And to glorify his name so that people will know who he is, this God Almighty who heals and saves. For after all how can they come to him if they don’t know who he is. Why would they cry out to him or pray to him if they didn’t believe he could help them and save them.

So this is where the story picks up in Exodus 17. The Israelites have been traveling through the desert for about a month now. And each day God rains down 2 million people’s worth of bread or manna for them and supplies them with water. He has been guiding them with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. He has released them from slavery in Egypt and they are just about to receive the Ten Commandments and are on their way to the Promised Land.

One would think that these signs and miracles would be enough for the people to trust him by now, after all it’s only been a month. But as we’ll see, they continue to doubt that God is with them even after all this.

Hopefully you have been seeing a pattern develop by now.

2 So they quarreled with Moses and said, "Give us water to drink."
Moses replied, "Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you put the LORD to the test?"

3 But the people were thirsty for water there, and they grumbled against Moses. They said, "Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?"

So, hopefully you are seeing a pattern develop here. This isn’t the first time that the people grumbled and quarreled. It seems to be their auto pilot for whenever something goes wrong. Their first reaction is to quarrel and grumble.

I think we all have patterns that we fall into. The circumstances change but the pattern remains the same. How often do we get so focused on our present circumstances that we forget where we are in God’s story. All that he has done in the big story and in our story. And we lose sight of all that He has promised us. They were on their way into the promised land and just under Mt Sinai. God had great things planned for them but they did not want to walk through the valley of the shadow of death to get to the green pastures.

I believe that God has big things planned for us too. He does not what us to live lives of colorless dreams and dwarfed goals. He wants us to have life to the full. To live in the Promised Land.

One of my negative patterns is to care too much about being right. And I would rather be right than to trust God. There are times where I know that proving my rightness will not make a difference and that God is asking me to let it go. He’s saying that you should trust me because I love them more than you do and that the way to love them is not by showing them how wrong they are. It’s by trusting me.

We have been learning more and more about the way that these negative patterns effect us and are even passed down generationally if they are not broken. Moses says something in verse seven that show us one piece in breaking patterns.

7And he called the place Massah and Meribah because the Israelites quarreled and because they tested the LORD saying, "Is the LORD among us or not?"

Moses identifies the problem. He brings it to the awareness of the people. He says that you have been testing God and are always quarreling and names the place after these two attributes of the Israelites. Awareness is important. Whenever they recount their journey they will use those names and be reminded of the pattern of quarreling and testing that they had.

If we look ahead in the story all the way to the new testament Paul talks about patterns in Romans 12

2Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Don’t give into these destructive patterns. Patterns of sin, of waste, of hum drum lives. But how can we do that?

4 Then Moses cried out to the LORD, "What am I to do with these people? They are almost ready to stone me."

Moses cries out to the LORD. He goes to God. Moses knows what the situation is and is looking at it realistically and brings it before God. He prays. Moses knows that God has the power to transform lives and trusts him.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever! Ephesians 3

And in our story today I know that is true. I’ve experienced God’s power at work in my life. Creation, cigarettes, God’s love, lord and savior, change was real. Took a physical addiction I had and took it away from me without ever even knowing it until later. I was under the banner of love

5 The LORD answered Moses, "Walk on ahead of the people. Take with you some of the elders of Israel and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. 6 I will stand there before you by the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it for the people to drink." So Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel. 7 And he called the place Massah [a] and Meribah [b] because the Israelites quarreled and because they tested the LORD saying, "Is the LORD among us or not?"

God calls Moses to do something.

Then Moses responds in faith with by obeying God and striking the stone. Sometimes we can’t understand where God is going with something and sometimes he answers our prayers in different ways than we expect but the LORD is with us. He has done amazing thing in his written story that we are going through and he has done amazing things in our times today. I have friends who have spoken foreign languages with out knowing them, been cured of cancer, had changed lives, unnoticeable influence of God is all around us. Just need to look for it.

The the Israelites get sneek attacked by the Amalekites. The would kill those who were at the back, the young and old and weak. Isreal has never been in a battle yet. This is an unprovoked attack.

So Moses comes up with a plan- Joshua you go fight and I’ll go up on the hill and pray.

So what happens, They go out to the battle and every time Moses’ hands are lifted up to heaven in prayer the Israelites win. And every time they drop the Amakekites win.

This illustrates how it is God and not man who wins our battles. It is God who saves. He wanted them to know that it was not just chance that they won the battle. It was because of God’s intervention. Because of Moses prayers.

Joshua, whose name means, “Jehovah is his helper, or Jehovah the savior” Which is interesting because even his name acknowledges that it is God who saves, who gets them out of this mess or this battle and not man alone. What battles are you fighting?

Now, our fight is not against swords or flesh and blood enemies. But our fight is in the spiritual realm.

Lots of the time we think we can have a spiritual life and a family life and a work life, a financial life and a nutritional way, emotional way. But these things are not isolated from each other. All of life intermingles. If we have not money we may not be able to eat well. If we never exercise we may find that our spiritual life is less zealous. Body is a temple. Believe it or not how we spend our money is a spiritual matter as well as a financial one. The way we lead our spiritual life will directly effect how every other area in our lives are lived and vise versa.

So we have many battles of our own and most of them are within us or with in relationships in our lives. Are we trying to make take on these battles by ourselves without God or are we relying on the power of God to win the battle.

The trouble is that so often we listen to the call that God gives us and we stay in the land of comfort or in the land of slavery. Are we leading lives of colorless dreams, of dwarfed goals, of smooth knees, of sight walking, of tamed visions? Or are we living under the wild banner of God, being stretched to live the full lives that God has promised who follow him.

Moses says

So my question to leave you with is what banner are you living under? Do you walk under the banner of self, or commercialism or money or looks. Are we living what I like to call sanitized lives under the banner of safety, do we live under the banner of grumbling? Or do we look to Jesus who is both lord and savior, our Joshua who fights the battle and our Moses who intercedes on our behalf. Or are you living under the banner of the Mighty God, LORD of love, the God of healing the LORD our banner?

Let’s pray.