Matt Chandler - Falling Into Forgetfulness

Well, good morning, and happy Easter! If you have your Bibles, go ahead and grab those. Exodus 32 is where we’re going to be. If you don’t have a Bible with you, there should be a hardback black one somewhere around you. Let me just, right out of the gate, tell you where we’re going: I’m going to take the next 30 minutes, 30-ish minutes, as my word, and I want to tell you the story of the world. That’s my plan. I want to tell you the story of the world, the story that lays on top of every other story that has ever been told, including yours and mine. It’s a story that underpins all other stories and helps define and bring clarity to those stories. My plan is, in 30-something minutes—if you’re a member of The Village, you’re probably smirking at that idea—but I’m confident that in the next 30 minutes I can unpack for you the story of the world, including you, me, and our story.

Since August, we’ve been in the book of Exodus, and we’ve been in that book a long time. Here’s what we’ve already covered—so quickly, let me catch you up on 27 previous weeks. What we’ve picked up on is this: that God is gracious, kind, and good; that He is a good God who initiates and moves toward His people. He doesn’t move away from His people, but rather toward them to save them, deliver them, and give them the one thing their hearts actually need. We’ve come in here today, and look, we have all sorts of felt needs that are present, right? Maybe marriage is difficult, maybe we have a child that is acting out, or maybe we just found out we’re sick. Perhaps there’s only $325 left in the bank account; we’ve got some felt needs. Yet, the word of God would put a little pressure on us today: although those might be symptomatic of greater realities, what you need most is the presence and power of God. Our souls were created by a Creator, and they will be restless until they find rest in Him.

So, what we’ve covered since August is how God moves toward us, how He is generous, how He is gracious, and how He saves us from bondage. He pulls us toward freedom and away from slavery, pulling us toward life and away from death. It is God who started that and who moved toward us to accomplish it. That is the bedrock of the story. The story that sits atop every other story, including your life and mine, is that God is good, He is kind, and He moves toward us in generosity.

Now, we haven’t tried to make it prettier than it actually is; we’ve been very honest about the fact that because God is God, His godness sometimes makes it hard for us to understand and comprehend. There are things that play out in our lives that can be very confusing to us, and if we were God, we would actually do things differently, right? We’ve been honest that God’s plan is a good plan, but it rarely plays out as we think it will. You know why? Because He’s infinite, and we’re not. If we could establish any kind of humility as human beings, we would be able to swallow that with a bit more graciousness, right? That God is infinite; He has always been, He will always be, and He is unchanging. He’s going to operate differently than we would.

I’m self-aware enough to know I would make a terrible God, right? My mood can fluctuate on a dime; I can love you and dislike you in just a couple of seconds. But God doesn’t operate like that. He’s unchanging; He’s infinite. His word is His word. So we take refuge in the fact that He is unchanging. Sometimes, as we read earlier in the study, God had the people of Israel march the long way around toward the wilderness. Why? For their good. Does anybody feel like sometimes God has taken them the long way? My hands are up, not as an example for you but as a testimony that there have been times when I thought, «Okay God, I got it; surely we’re there, right? Are we not there yet? I think I’ve learned the lesson you’re trying to teach me.» Sometimes God takes us the long way around.

The bedrock of the story, Act One, if you will, is God’s kindness, His mercy, and His initiating love toward us. The people of Israel cried out in their oppression—not directly to God, just cried out—and God responded. God heard them, God saw them, God delivered them, and God provided for them. He made a way to give them what their hearts most desperately needed: Himself. Even in the last few weeks, we’ve been covering this, right? The idea of the Tabernacle—the Tabernacle is what? It’s the presence of God dwelling among men. Yet, it’s a weak picture of what was to come in Christ. Then we looked at the priestly garments and the role of the high priest and the sacrificial system, all of which have been realized in the coming of Jesus Christ. As they would look toward us, they would look at us with a great deal of jealousy, right? Here they are donning priestly garments, and we’re clothed in the righteousness of Christ. They have access once a year…