Christ Reformed Church of Alexandria

When was the last time you had a great trip? Some of my favorite memories with my wife include our trips to visit family and friends. We have a young family, and so our adventures have gotten a tad bit more complicated. And as you can imagine, our adventures do not begin when we arrive at our destination, but develop along the journey. Often the trip are as memorable as the destination; for better or worse.

Some passages in the Bible are like this journey. We sometimes know where the highlights or “big stories” of the Bible are, and so we may be tempted to race through the other parts. But it is my encouragement to you today to learn to enjoy the journey as much as the destination.

As we continue at Christ Reformed Church (www.CRCalexandria.org) to work through the book of Exodus in our morning worship services, the temptation may be to jump over stories that may seem little in comparison with what is to come. But this is not how the Lord Jesus viewed Scripture, nor how the Apostles or the Early Church did for that matter. All of it was precious. Even the fourth plague concerning flies as found in Exodus 8:20-32.

Now flies may be the furthest thing from precious in our estimation. But the flies are merely a tool in God’s hands. If we actually, pause in our reading, and ask the question “What does this text teach me about God?” we’ll learn quite a bit. I am so bold as to say that in this passage we find nothing short of the heart of Christianity. Why do I say that? Because this text teaches most clearly that God cares for His people, of which you and I belong, if we are believing in the Lord Jesus Christ for our right standing with God.

Christians have never been content to simply claim the existence of some god. The sum of the Old and New Testament is really a declaration of what sort of God the LORD is. Have you ever considered that question yourself? Who is God to you? What sort of God is He? Now of course we have all sorts of textbook answers, popular answers, and the like. But when life gets complex and your whole world seems to go sideways, we demonstrate very clearly in those moments what sort of God we believe in. People’s views of God do not shift when their lives fall apart, all that happens is the camouflage they’ve erected around the God of their hearts falls, and we see the “man behind the curtain.”

God the Son did not take flesh upon Himself, humiliate himself to be born as a peasant, and endure the horrors of the cross so that we could have something interesting to do for an hour on Sundays. He doesn’t somehow think that a Sunday morning is the prime real estate of the soul. Instead the Lord reveals Himself, as the Sovereign Lord of every aspect of our lives, so that every outworking of our daily living ought to be done with Him in view. Every moment, no matter how public or private, reveals the God or god who sits enthroned in our hearts; for our eternal gain or ruin.

There is nothing more fundamental for us as Christians than to know that God cares for us. And yet we forget this. How have you forgotten it this week? Sometimes we forget because we are lazy, or by our sin. We often find ourselves buried in pits of despair we’ve dug ourselves because we’ve focused too much on everyone but the Savior Himself. Christ is not merely our hope for when He returns to judge the world according to sin, of which no outside of Christ can hope to stand. Christ is your hope today O believer. You and I need to cling to this. We most hold this dearly to our chest as a treasure as if it was the very last dollar we owned on earth. And even a text about a plague of flies shows us that. Why did our God send a plague of flies in ancient Egypt? Because He wanted Israel to know that He cared for them. That He was fighting for them. And that no tyrant, no matter how strong and wealthy, would stop God from keeping His covenant promises to them. And the same is true for you today O saint, resting on the righteousness of our Savior who has united us to Himself forever.