The Purpose Of Freedom Is Worship

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Exodus 15:1-18

15 Then Moses and the people of Israel sang this song to the Lord, saying,
“I will sing to the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously;
    the horse and His rider He has thrown into the sea.
2 The Lord is my strength and my song,
    and He has become my salvation;
this is my God, and I will praise him,
    my father's God, and I will exalt him.
3 The Lord is a man of war;
    the Lord is his name.
4 “Pharaoh's chariots and his host He cast into the sea,
    and His chosen officers were sunk in the Red Sea.
5 The floods covered them;
    they went down into the depths like a stone.
6 Your right hand, O Lord, glorious in power,
    your right hand, O Lord, shatters the enemy.
7 In the greatness of your majesty you overthrow your adversaries;
    you send out your fury; it consumes them like stubble.
8 At the blast of your nostrils the waters piled up;
    the floods stood up in a heap;
    the deeps congealed in the heart of the sea.
9 The enemy said, ‘I will pursue, I will overtake,
    I will divide the spoil, my desire shall have its fill of them.
    I will draw my sword; my hand shall destroy them.’
10 You blew with your wind; the sea covered them;
    they sank like lead in the mighty waters.
11 “Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods?
    Who is like you, majestic in holiness,
    awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?
12 You stretched out your right hand;
    the earth swallowed them.
13 “You have led in your steadfast love the people whom you have redeemed;
    you have guided them by your strength to your holy abode.
14 The peoples have heard; they tremble;
    pangs have seized the inhabitants of Philistia.
15 Now are the chiefs of Edom dismayed;
    trembling seizes the leaders of Moab;
    all the inhabitants of Canaan have melted away.
16 Terror and dread fall upon them;
    because of the greatness of your arm, they are still as a stone,
till your people, O Lord, pass by,
    till the people pass by whom you have purchased.
17 You will bring them in and plant them on your own mountain,
    the place, O Lord, which you have made for your abode,
the sanctuary, O Lord, which your hands have established.
18 The Lord will reign forever and ever.

 
 

What is freedom for?

This is one of the questions the Book of Exodus is answering. From the very beginning, we see that the purpose of the exodus is to allow the people of God to freely worship:

Afterward Moses and Aaron went and said to Pharaoh, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.’” [5:1]

And now, after their deliverance and the Red Sea crossing, the first act of the newly-freed people is to worship.

Most people around the world do not enjoy the civil freedoms that we enjoy as Americans. We are remarkably free.

So, what are you doing with the freedoms the Lord has given you?

 

Worship Must Always Be First

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When Mary of Bethany—sister of Lazarus—uses priceless perfume to anoint Jesus, Judas complains that the money should have been spent on the poor instead of “wasted” in worship. In reply, Jesus rebukes him and tells him that what Mary did was right.

The temptation for us to ignore worship and move to “practical” and “important” matters is always with us, and always wrong.

Worship must always be first, because God is always first. To care more for the created things than we do for praising the Creator is to get things exactly backwards. In fact, the surest way to honor and care for the things of this world is to make worship our first priority. When God is first, then everything has a place, and everything will be “very good.” But, when we decide what we think is most important and should be first, then the world becomes disordered and broken. The reason the world is the way it is is precisely because we decide that we know better than God that which should be first.

Put God first, and the rest falls into place.

How do you need to re-order your world today?

 

Today’s Scripture

John 12:1-19