Matt Chandler - More Numerous than the Stars

If you’ll do me a favor and grab your Bible, we’re going to be in Exodus chapter 1. We started last week, and we will be in this book for the next 11 months. We talked about why that matters for us in 2016. So we did a flyover last week, and now I want to start to dive into the book. It’s important to note, in fact, I’ll remind you of this, especially when we watch this bumper video. Not every sermon will use that bumper video for 11 months, right? That would be like a year of our lives spent watching it. But I’m trying to give you a sense of what’s happening. Exodus is the second book of what’s called the Pentateuch—the first five books of the Old Testament. Those five books tell a singular story; there is one story being told across those five books of the Bible. If we pull just one out, we get confused.

Maybe this will be a helpful illustration: on December 18th, 2015, the highly anticipated film Star Wars: The Force Awakens came out. This was film 7 in the Star Wars saga. What makes that unique and confusing is that part 7 came out in 2015, part 1 came out in 1977, and part 4 came out in 1999. If you’re a nerd and really geeked out about all that stuff, you were excited, but trying to explain it to a non-nerd was complicated. It’s like, «Okay, so what happened?» «Well, Luke’s father—oh no, wait.» If you don’t know the backstory, you might be lost.

For instance, if you saw that movie on December 18th, there were exciting moments that a person not familiar with the Star Wars background wouldn’t grasp. When Han Solo boarded the freighter and everyone exclaimed, «Oh my gosh! It’s Han and Chewie!» someone without the context might think, «What’s that giant hairy monkey?» They lack the background knowledge. Oftentimes, what will happen to us in Exodus is that we will read something immensely significant, but if we don’t know the narrative, it may lose its weight. This text is one of those instances. The first eight verses contain an unbelievable moment that many of us read through without realizing what just happened. It’s akin to Han Solo and Chewbacca boarding the freighter, and if we know the story, we get excited.

If the Star Wars reference is completely lost on you, maybe this will help: this is William Wallace on the back of his horse with his face painted blue. It’s a moment, but if we pull it out of the narrative, it won’t seem significant. I’ve got two points: first, God is working a good plan; second, that plan, built on honest promises, rarely plays out as we expect. Those are my two points. God has a plan, and He is working that plan, but those plans and His promises rarely unfold the way we think they will.

Now, what to do about that? That’s really good news but also really hard news. Okay, let’s read Exodus 1, starting in verse 1: These are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob, each with his household: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Benjamin, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher. All the descendants of Jacob—how many people does your Bible say were there? Seventy. That’s going to be important. I’ll ask you again later, and you’re going to respond with seventy. So when I ask for a number later, just shout seventy, and you’ll be fine. I promise you, seventy is the only number I’m going to ask for, so file that away and you can participate a bit later in the sermon.

Seventy persons; Joseph was already in Egypt. Joseph died, and all his brothers and all that generation, but the people of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly. They multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them. Now there arose a new king over Egypt who did not know Joseph, and I’ll stop there. I probably should have even stopped at verse 7, but I want to leave that hanging for next week. Here’s what we’ve got: the people of Israel are in Egypt. They showed up as seventy people, and now we read in verse 7 that they’re growing. The kind of words they’re using to describe their growth are that they’re growing exceedingly strong and fast.