St Mary's

Today Talk from Nigel

6th September 2026

Good morning, we continue our journey through the Old Testament, last week David spoke about the burning bush, where God had heard the cries of the suffering Israelites and He called Moses to help bring about their freedom. Exodus is the story of the biggest escape in history. Over two million slaves escape from one of the most highly fortified nations in the entire world. It is humanly impossible, an extraordinary story, and it features a series of miracles, including some of the best known in the whole bible. The leader of the Israelites at the time was a man named Moses. Moses is the second greatest man in the Old Testament after Abraham. Recalling the story so far, God had made an everlasting covenant with Abraham, his descendants were Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, who was sold into slavery by his brothers, Joseph was key, appointed by Pharaoh to lead the Egyptian nation through the feast and famine, which lead to the eventual slavery of the Israelites. Today we revisit the Passover. Jesus said, search the scriptures for they bear witness to me. May we pray.

On the 21^st July 1969 Neil Armstrong said “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” when he turned from the ladder and set his left foot down on the surface of the moon – not just your average walk in the park, but a feat and an accomplishment that would never be forgotten.

For 430 years, the sons of Israel lived in Egypt.  For 430 years, the Promised Land was just a promise.  What do you think those first steps were like; those first steps out of Egypt?  “Small steps for a man, but a giant leap for God’s people”?

They left with bread dough carried on their shoulders – the quick bread with no yeast.  They left with the Egyptians’ articles of gold and silver.  They left with the Egyptians’ clothes.  They left with large droves of livestock – cattle and sheep.  And they left with their children, all of them – while each household of the Egyptians wailed loudly at the death of the firstborn – the Israelites were spared by the blood of the Passover Lamb, as God instructed.  They left with their whole family.  They left with their great enemy crushed.  They left with the Lord leading the way!

What do you think it was like for a father to take those first steps and dream of raising his family on their own property and build his own house and own his own animals?  What was it like for the elderly who had spent so many years of life working under the slave driver and the foreman, beaten and abused, to now think of retirement outside of Egypt, set free from his enemies?  What was it like for the mother who no longer had to fear that any male child might be taken from her and murdered?  What was it like for the child to observe the adults so happy, parents singing praises to God, and wondering what the rest of the world looked like?

I’m sure for all of God’s people – around two million of them – that they could hardly believe what was happening as they stepped out of Egypt by the power of God’s mighty hand.  So, this is what God’s deliverance feels like.  This is what his redemption looks like.

What a joyous time!  What a time of celebration!  “What a powerful and gracious LORD we have.  He kept his Word to us; he fulfilled his promises.  Everything turned out for us as he said it would.  The name of the Lord be praised!”

What are our steps like?  Small steps?  Great steps?  What characterizes them – how would we describe them?  Do our steps each day feel like we are leaving Egypt with our Lord?

The LORD established a new sacred calendar for his people based on this event.  Exodus 12:1–2 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, ² “This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year.”

In the Promised Land, the Israelites would use a civil calendar similar to many other nations of the Ancient Near East, a calendar they would use to keep track of seasons and planting times and harvesting times.  These were lunar calendars, following the phases of the moon.  The new year began in the fall, with the autumn rains.  The Egyptians had a calendar that was based off of the huge agricultural event in their year – the flooding of the Nile River, which they depended upon for all their farming success.

But that’s what makes this new calendar from the Lord so important.  This wasn’t just a new life, a new beginning for a new nation.  This was a calendar to mark the feasts and festivals that celebrated their God, remembered what he had done for them and encouraged them in their faith life.  When they said, “Happy New Year” in this calendar, they did it feasting on the Passover Lamb; they did it eating unleavened bread; they did it rejoicing in God who came to save them and make them his own people.  They said “Happy New Year” rededicating themselves and their families to the Lord who brought them out of Egypt with a mighty hand.

 “So that all the days of your life you may remember the time of your departure from Egypt.” God wanted them to always remember why they were no longer in Egypt, who brought them out, the great acts of power he had done for them.  He wanted them to always remember his love, his faithfulness, his power, his salvation.

These are all signs of the power of sin and death at work in our lives.  We need the Lord to take us out of that Egypt. That is why every March/April the Jews celebrate the Exodus, it is a festival of the Lord, a lasting ordinance Exodus 12 verse 14, this is a day you are to commemorate for the generations to come, a lasting ordinance, we all need to re-live our departure from slavery. We need to relive those small steps that mean so much because of what God has done for us.

Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed for all our sins!  For all our sins of habit and sins of choice.  For all the sins of waywardness.  For all the sins of pride; for all the sins of laziness and lethargy. Remember what Jesus has done, by taking the blood of Jesus and painting it on the doorframe of our hearts, by remembering those small steps to worship during Holy Week and remember the punishment Christ bore in our place and remember the joy of Easter Sunday and the hope of our resurrection.  Relive those small steps taken when we were brought to the baptismal font and God adopted us as his own.  remember Christ crucified as we take the small steps to receive and share in the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ that were given and shed for our forgiveness.

We rejoice that our slavery has been ended. Our enemy is behind us. The Lord goes before us.  And he is leading us on the road to eternal life. Take those small steps each day knowing how big they really are – we are children of God. We are freed from sin’s prison house!  Take each step remembering who we are and what God has done for us.

And, as Paul said, “Let us keep the festival.”  In our joy and thanksgiving, consecrate ourselves to the Lord each day, by taking up our cross. We are his own child, his redeemed firstborn. We belong to God. God empowers us to flee the influence of the pagan world and to get rid of the yeast of sin. God will sustain us to live for him each day through the food of his Word and Sacrament.

What God wants for us, is the same as what he wanted for his people in their New Year, the Passover: to live constantly in the memory of their deliverance. This year will not be the year of perfection for any of us. It will not be the year of heaven on earth or world peace.  It will not be the year of freedom from trouble or sorrow. But it will be a year of God’s deliverance and ongoing presence in our lives.  It will be another year of marital bliss with our Bridegroom, Jesus Christ. It will be another year for life as the people of God.

On average, people take about 4,000 steps a day. That’s about one and a half million steps a year. I pray that no matter how small the steps we take, that they all be taken like they are our first steps out of Egypt. Amen.

Jesus, tells us that if a brother or sister sins against us, then we should go and show him the fault. How do we pastorally care for those who are spiritually straying? Jesus instructs us on how to restore someone who has sinned, and he teaches the importance of forgiving those who sins against you.

In order to demonstrate that our forgiveness should be unlimited, just as God’s forgiveness is to us. Jesus tells the parable about a servant who owes the King an incredible debt of 10,000 talents, the equivalent of 200,000 years wages. In other words, infinite debt, just as our sin against God is infinite. Then out of deep compassion, the King freely cancels the debt.

Salvation is all of grace, there is nothing anyone can do to earn it. Yet, as Jesus has repeatedly warned while God does not set any conditions on sinners receiving His forgiveness, He does expect those forgiven to now live lives of faithful obedience. Salt must be salty. Light must shine. A good tree will bear good fruit. Forgiven sinners, that is us, must forgive those who come to us for forgiveness.

God’s will is that we forgive one another, and Jesus’s disciples’ hunger and thirst to do His will. This parable asks us two questions. Do we appreciate the cross, the amazing grace of God’s free forgiveness? Do we anticipate the coming judgement?

Gratitude for grace and fearful obedience will keep us persevering. When Jesus said search the scriptures, for they bear witness to me, He is pointing us to the Old Testament.

The book of Exodus has spiritual significance. The Israelites discovered that their God was the God who made the whole universe and could control what He had made for their sake. They came to believe their God was more powerful than all the gods of Egypt put together. Later they came to realise that their God was the only God that existed. God is the eternal one without beginning or end, always. Yahweh is His first name, but He has many second names too, always my provider, always my helper, always my protector and always my healer, and the 40 names we gave last week, in the A-to-Z search.

In the book of Exodus, we are also presented with the extraordinary truth that the creator of everything becomes the redeemer of a few people. The word redemption includes the idea of releasing the kidnapped when the ransom price has been paid. This is how Isreal was to understand her God. He is the creator of the universe and also the redeemer of His people. We do not become Christians by living right first, but by being redeemed and liberated and then living right.

In Exodus the Israelites liberation takes place in Egypt, the legislation takes place on Mount Sinai, as they travel to Canaan. They respond to God’s covenant commitment to them. The covenant takes form of a wedding. God says I will be your God if you obey me and then the people say We will be your people and obey you. But things go wrong, a journey that could have taken 11 days to walk from Egypt to the Promised land, took 40 years.

Jesus said search the scriptures, for they bear witness to me. The exodus is central to the Old Testament, all the books that follow look back to it as the redemption on which everything else is based. In the same way the cross is central to the New Testament. Six months before Jesus died on the cross, he was 4000 feet high on Mount Hermon, talking with Moses and Elijah, Luke tells us they talked about the exodus which Jesus was to accomplish in Jerusalem.

We have a double exodus to celebrate the Exodus of Egypt and the exodus of the cross, Christ is our Passover Lamb. There is still to come a future deliverance for Christian’s equivalent to the Exodus. In revelation we find that over half the plagues of Pharaoh will happen again. Those who remain faithful to Jesus will come through victorious. As we continue our journey, I pray that no matter how small the steps we take, that they all be taken like they are our first steps out of Egypt. I encourage us all to read the Book of Exodus, and follow Jesus’s request to search the scriptures, I hope this message is one of encouragement. In John Stott’s book Basic Christianity, the final chapter is about being a Christian. That we do our duty to God, our duty to the Church and our duty to the world. Let us finish with a prayer of adoration.