Formed by Grace

Transcribed from the video and lightly edited for reading.

A reading from the book of Moses. The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, "This month shall be for you the beginning of the months. It shall be the first month of the year for you. Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the 10th day of this month, every man shall take a lamb according to their father's houses, a lamb for a household. And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons according to what each can eat, you shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old.

You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, and you shall keep it until the 14th day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight. Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you and no plague will befall you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. This is the word of the Lord. All right, as we move toward our sermon, let me pray for us.

If you'd pray for me or pray with me. You can pray for me, too, but you can pray with me. God, thank you for this morning. I thank you for everyone who's here today. And I pray for those who couldn't join us today for a variety of reasons. Maybe it's illness, maybe they're out of town, whatever it might be. God, we are so grateful to be together and to have the opportunity to learn and grow together. And so, God, would you be with us during this time? Would you speak to us through your word? Would you make it clear to us what you've given us? And God, as we talk about grace this morning, I just I pray that I pray that no matter who we are and no matter how long we may have had a relationship with you or not, that you would meet us and you would just lead us and you would remind us of your goodness and your kindness and your grace.

Would it be for our good, would it be for your glory? We pray this in Jesus name. Amen. All right. Well, I am glad you guys are here yesterday, Halloween or Reformation Day, whatever other name you want to throw on it. You made it. I felt like we might have some missing people. Don't worry, I'll follow up with them this week and I'll show them anything but grace. Right. That's what we're No, not a good joke. Okay. But hey, for being here early, who wants some candy? Anybody want some? No. No. Yeah. Right. No. I Can you imagine if I took Silas's candy, my seven-year-old son, and gave it to you guys? It would be a a horrible situation at my house this afternoon.

But we had a great time and I'm so glad to be with you this morning and we are looking at this essential for our church. Last week or two weeks ago we looked at it's all about Jesus essentially that we are anchored in the gospel and today it's this amazing opportunity to look at what it means to be formed by grace. And so I want to start out just with this question, this honest question. I want you to think about it just for a moment when you picture God looking at you. So imagine God looking at you. When you picture God looking at you, what do you think he's looking for? Don't answer out loud, but just think about it.

What do you think he's actually looking for primarily first and foremost? What is it? Now, if we're being honest, some of us may picture God maybe with a clipboard, right? And he's kind of examining did you pray this week? Did you read? Did you lose it in the school pickup line again? Right, at work? What happened? Were you sure enough? Were you faithful enough? Were you together enough? And these are some of the metrics in which we might use that we imagine God is using and what he's looking for when he looks at us. But even with that, we we know the right words maybe about grace, but underneath them, there's plenty of us, and I would say all of us to a degree that maybe still feel like we are auditioning.

And it makes sense. We live in an economy of performance, don't we? We really do. Your phone counts your steps. Your job reviews you. And it's very easy to assume that heaven runs on that same currency, even if we don't mean to. And so this morning for a few minutes as we continue in this idea of the essentials in this preview service as we get going as a church where you're looking at being formed by grace. And it's so important that no matter where you are in your walk with God, whether you're a longtime believer, whether you're a new believer, whether you're simply curious and seeking, that that we understand this correctly because the implications to this couldn't be any bigger.

They're They're massive. And to get there, I want us to take a look at one night in the night of the very first Passover. And I want us to see exactly what God was looking for. So, what I want to do is I want to pray for us. And and here's here's what I know to be true. Weeks are busy and lives are complicated. And there is a good chance I'll say this often that that maybe this moment is is the first or is one of a few moments to be able to just sit and breathe and not have some type of noise coming in. And so I just want to give us one full minute to just be in silence and to ask God just to settle our hearts to allow us to receive his word.

But just to to be I think that's a good thing. So let's do that right now. Just take just take a moment and we will trust that God meets with us during this God, would you speak to us now through your word? We pray. All right, we're going to be in Exodus 12. And you heard it read some of it from Susan. Grateful for that. We're going to start in verse one here. And let's just dive right in and then we'll unpack this a little bit. It says, 'The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, 'The month shall be for you the beginning of months, this month. It shall be the first month of the year for you.

Tell the congregation of Israel that on the 10th day of this month, every man shall take a lamb according to their father's houses, a lamb for the household. And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbors should take one according to the number of persons, according to according to what each can eat. And you shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old, and you may take it from the sheep or from the goats. You shall keep it until the 14th day of this month when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight.

Now before we get to the blood here, look at what God look at who God is talking to. These are slaves who have been in Egypt for now 430 years. Four centuries of bricks putting them together in quotas and task masters and oppression. They had been formed by Egypt far longer than they had been formed by anything God said. They were they were oppressed but God never forgot them. And after a series of plagues and an unwilling king who didn't want to let them go, God makes one more move. And the first thing God does is he hands them a new calendar. What a thing to do. He says, "This month shall be for you the beginning of months."

Their story as a people starts with an act of grace before they've obeyed a single command. And this is so important here that your story with God, it starts the same way. It does. It begins with what he does long before you bring him anything. And hang on to that because that's really good news. And you'll notice here too, this was this was never a private event, right? It was a lamb for the household. If your household was too small, you shared with the nearest neighbor. Then at twilight on the 14th day, the whole assembly, they were to kill their lambs at the same moment. Grace was going to make a people out of scattered lives.

And from the very beginning, being formed by grace was something that God's people did together. And it really is the same for us even here in 2026. Look at these next verses. It says, "Then they shall take some of the blood from the lamb and they shall put it on two doorposts and the lintel of the house in which they eat. And they shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. They'll eat it. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roast it, its head, its legs, its inner parts, and you shall let none of it remain until the morning. Anything that remains until the morning, you shall burn.

In this manner, you shall eat it with your belts fastened, and your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand, you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord's Passover. For I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night. And I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast, and on all the gods of Egypt. I will execute judgment. I'm the Lord. But the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, check this out, I will pass over you. No plague will befall you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.

And so they painted blood on the doorpost and the beam across the top. And they ate that night with their sandals on their feet and their staff in hand. And they were dressed like free people while nothing outside their window had actually changed yet. Now look closely at verse 12. God says that he will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt. All of them. Being an Israelite didn't exempt anyone. An Israelite family that refused the lamb would have woken up the next day to the same grief as their Egyptian neighbors. Their ancestry couldn't protect them. Their suffering couldn't protect them. Their religious heritage couldn't protect them. The only thing standing between any house and judgment was what?

The blood. Which brings us to this sentence that that I've been thinking about a lot lately, especially this week, and I pray that is written over I pray is written over your entire life. Verse 13, when I see the blood, I will pass over you. Listen to what God doesn't say. He doesn't say, "When I see how sincere you are, I will pass over you." or when I see that you had the strongest faith or the cleanest record or the best most faithful past or how many times you showed up on Sunday, I will pass over you. He says, "When I see the blood, a lamb died so a son could live." Now, hold on to that lamb.

We're going to come back to him. Verse 28 says this, "Then the people of Israel went out and they did so. And the Lord as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron. Now verse 28 here, it's one of the plainest sentences in the entire chapter and it's one of the most important. The people went and did what God said. That's what faith looks like here. It's taking God at his word and it's putting the blood on the door. Now, let me put some faces on it here. This is actually this illustration is from a pastor and author Joel Beeke, but it's so good that I'm sharing it with you, but I'm not plagiarizing it. He gets the credit for this, but I think it's great imagery.

All right. So, imagine that as these people are given that command, just just imagine two neighbors, two two fathers, they they meet in the city, right? We'll give them really good Israelite names. Let's call them Rob and John. Does that sound good? Great. I'm not going to butcher Hebrew names today. So, Rob and John, they both are fathers. They both have a firstborn son. And they they meet up. And Rob is the guy that you really want leading in the church, right? You want him leading a city group. He believed every word that Moses said. He was unshaken by any of it. He had his sandals on since 3:00. He is ready to roll. Okay?

And he meets up and he paints the blood with a steady hand and he eats his lamb and and he will go to bed that night and not think anything else about it. And as they get into this conversation, you know, John John's like, "Hey, Rob, what do you think about this?" And Rob's like, "Well, absolutely this is going to happen. This is what Moses said. I have I have full confidence." And he said, "Do you not?" And John's like, "No, I'm just This is kind of strange, isn't it? Like, do you think God's really going to do this? Is is is this really what's going to happen? And and Rob says, "Well, of course."

And John, he Rob says, "Well, did did you put the blood up?" He Oh, yeah. Yeah, I did. I did. I put it up. I I did what Moses said, but this is kind of crazy. And so Rob, he he's a little bit different here. You know, next door John or John's a little bit different. John paints the door with blood, too, but his hand is shaking the whole time. And he's watched Pharaoh change his mind nine times. And so he he steps back and he he wonders if he got enough on the top beam and he he goes back out to add a little bit more. And when midnight he's sitting against the door with his son's head in his lap, praying the same broken sentence over and over.

And then morning comes. Which man's son lived? Both of them. God didn't walk through Egypt that night grading faith on a curve. What saved those boys was the object of their father's faith. And it was exactly the same at both houses. Rob's confidence added nothing to the blood and John's fear took nothing away from it. Some of you maybe you feel like John this morning you believe but your hand is shaking a little bit. Life drops a lot of things and it leaves you with a bit of uncertainty, maybe a bit of fear, maybe a bit of doubts or questions, right? The blood on your door is every bit as powerful as it would be if your hand had been steady.

This is called grace. Look at what verse 29 says. It says, "At midnight, the Lord struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt. From the firstborn of the Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock." Everything that God said came true. The most powerful man in the world could not perform his way out of that night. And neither could the lowest prisoner. Neither status or effort could save anyone. Only the blood could. And that's sobering. And it's meant to be because grace is free to us, but it was never cheap. It was never cheap. Check this out.

Every house in Egypt had a death in it that night. Either it was a firstborn son or it was an unblemished lamb. Grace costs something. Grace means that someone else took the death that was coming for us. And here's the deal. I grew up in church. And I went to church every Sunday and I went on Wednesday and I went when it wasn't open because my parents cleaned the church for a while. I was always there. And I grew up in Sunday school and I listened and I did what I thought I was supposed to do and I went on youth trips and camps and mission trips and everything But in all honesty, my view of God was not a gracious God who was looking at me through the lens of Christ.

My view of God is that I just needed to do the right thing. I didn't need to mess up. I needed to hold it to hold it together. I needed to look like a Christian, act like a Christian, do all of these things. And so my relationship with God was really not so much of a relationship as it was me just following rules and hoping that that would be enough. And when I graduated from high school, I decided it was time to take a break from the church because I felt such incredible weight and I could never hold it all together. And I was messing up constantly as we all do. And so, I took a Jonah year.

That's what I refer to it as. And I ran to a school in southern Missouri, the only school that I applied to. And thank goodness they accepted me. It's called College of the Ozarks. Go check it out. Hardwork University. Because they will. They put you to work and that pays for your education. That's pretty cool. But that's a side tangent. So, I went there and I spent a year at that school and it was a disaster. I was put on academic probation the first semester and then after the second semester I got that amazing letter that said, "Hey, you're you're not welcome to come back." I had a 0.4 GPA. I'm not even sure how that's possible.

I must have got a D in one of the classes and not showed up to the others. But I came home that summer and with with my head down and I w felt so much shame and guilt. And yet God used that summer to rebuild my view of God and start a real relationship with him in the sense that I opened up the Bible and I read verses like Ephesians 2:8-9 and for the first time grace actually started to seep in and it started to overpower this idea of simply rule following and performing. And here's what I finally saw in Ephesians 2:8:9 where it says this, "For by grace you have been saved through faith.

And this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one can boast." That's important there. If you fast forward a few years later, I got married to Laura and we moved to Atlanta, Georgia. And three weeks into our marriage, I decided that it would be a great idea to buy a 65 Mustang off eBay. It was not a great idea. And so, she came home from school one day teaching and I said, "Hey, we're going to take a drive to Savannah, Georgia." And she said, "Why in the world would we do that?" And I said, "Oh, I bought the a car that I really wanted off eBay.

We're going to go get this Mustang." She was not pleased about it. It's one of the biggest mistakes I probably ever made in my life. And we got this car. Anyway, over the years, I worked on this car as we lived in Atlanta, and I wanted to do everything myself because I wanted to learn more about vehicles. And here's the deal. When it comes to the way that you change brakes, the way that you work on brakes, it's important. It matters. Matters a lot. Here's the deal. We lived right in the heart of like Atlanta and we were on the highway a lot. And by God's grace, I'm still alive because I drove this 65 Mustang that I'm not even sure should have been on the road every day.

And I'm on the highway. And and one of these weekends, I decide to change out the brakes. But here's what I don't do. I don't bleed the brakes properly. I kind of go about it backwards. I was working way too fast. Well, here's what happened. When I pulled off my exit in Atlanta, headed toward my house, and luckily I got onto my road. But I pushed down on those brakes and nothing. I pushed down on those brakes about 20 more times and that car was not stopping. My brakes were gone. I didn't bleed them properly. There was air in there and I had no brakes. If you could have seen me that day, it have been the funnest video you've ever seen.

I knew that the neighborhood that I lived in went around a curve and then it kind of raised up. And so what I had to do because I didn't have brakes is I went around that curve and then I just bolted into somebody's driveway. The car raised up. It kind of came back and then I went back toward my house and I was going way too fast towards my driveway. And this driveway was on an incline and it was right next to my neighbor. His name was Mr. Esco. He looked exactly like Colonel Sanders KFC. And he was outside as he often would be, retired, drinking tea and just watching, right? And he worked for Ford and so we worked on this car together.

But he saw me coming and I hit that driveway and flew up that driveway with no brakes and threw that thing into park and the car jolted and slammed and I got out of that car and I've never seen him laugh as hard as he was laughing. He said, "You got no brakes." And I said, "No, I've got no brakes." Why do I share this other than to embarrass myself? Here's why. Doing things, understanding things properly, the right order, it matters so much. It matters way more when it comes to our faith. It would be easy to read this account and to say this. If I ask you, why were the people saved? It'd be easy to say, well, because they put the blood on the door.

But we would be wrong, wouldn't we? We're saved by grace. And that's the source. We're saved through faith. That's why that's the way that it reaches us. Grace provides the blood and faith is simply the hand that trusts it enough to put it on the door. Faith is simply agreeing with God that his grace is enough. Enough to save me and enough to keep me. It's an empty hand and all its value comes from what it's holding. Right? That's why Paul adds that no one may boast. Rob doesn't get to stroll through Egypt the next morning bragging about how strong his believing was. The only one who gets glory is the God who provided the lamb.

Now, this doesn't mean for a second that we stop pursuing holiness or that we make grace cheap or or we take it for granted or use it or abuse it doing whatever we want. It means that any good thing that comes from us and moves towards Christ is from our standing in grace, not for us to stand in grace. Does that make sense? And so if your faith is what saves you or if you think that's what saves you, you'll spend your whole life performing for it. But if grace is what saves you and sustains you and is forming you, we can finally rest and take a breath. In Exodus 12 toward the end here, it says this.

The time that the people of Israel lived in Egypt, as we said, was 430 years. At the end of the 430 years, on that very day, all the host of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt. And it was the night of watching by the Lord. He was watching over them to bring them out of the land of Egypt. So, the same night is a night of watching kept to the Lord by all the people of Israel throughout their generations. After 430 years, on that very day, God brought them out. He kept his promise to that day. And you'd hope the story goes smoothly from there, right? Like this is amazing. But it doesn't.

Within days of walking out, a lot of us know this. They were terrified at the sea. Within weeks, they were complaining about the food and saying that Egypt was better. And before long, they were dancing around a golden calf. They doubted, they feared, they and God kept leading them anyway. Cloud by day, fire by night. He got them out of Egypt in a single night. But getting Egypt out of them took a whole This is how grace forms a people. The rescue happened in a night, but the formation it took years. He He didn't take them the short way. He Exodus tells us that he led them the long way around because he knew they were weren't ready for the fight waiting on the short road.

Grace is never in a hurry. God cares far more about who you are becoming than about how quickly you get He fed them one morning at a time. The mana that they had couldn't be stored up. So every day they had to walk out of the tent with empty hands and they had to receive. People who had spent their whole lives learning, earning their bread under a taskmaster were learning one breakfast at a time to receive it as a gift. That's what grace does to performers like me, maybe you. It takes people who only know how to earn and it slowly turns into the people who know how to receive. And he never left. Like I said, the cloud by day, the fire by night, through the through every complaint and every failure, he stayed.

Their formation rested on his presence far more than on their consistency. And so does yours. He is just as patient with you on your worst day as he was the night you first And that changes what you do when you fail. I don't if you noticed this, but picture snapping at a kid on a Monday night. Not just a kid. Maybe it's your kid, right? Don't just snap at random kids. I'm not not trying to encourage you into that. Performance either spirals into shame or it builds a defense. Grace sends you back down that hallway to sit on the edge of your daughter's bed and and say, "I was wrong. Will you forgive me?" You can do that because your standing with God was never on the line when you So, here's the definition that I want us to carry out of this room today is that grace is God's unearned and undeserved favor toward us.

In Jesus Christ by which he saves us, sustains us, and forms us to be more like him. Favor, it means he is for you, and he is at work within you. Grace got you through the door. And grace is the air you breathe once you're inside. So, what does it look like for us as this brand new baby church to be formed by grace to be this type of people? Well, here's a few things that I think it looks like. First, I think it looks like a place where people can be honest. This means that when we gather on a Sunday morning, when we come to receive and nobody has that nobody has to have it all together to walk through that door.

If your faith is hanging by a thread that you find a seat at the table instead of a test to pass. And that honesty really carries into our city groups and our other groups that we're going to be starting like the commons for young adults and table groups where we're able to go deeper into God's word when where somebody finally says, "Hey, I got to be honest. I've been drinking more than I should or I've had some anger issues lately or I'm really struggling with this or that or whatever it might be." and nobody flinches because everybody in the room is standing under the same blood. A place of honesty. Second, I think it's a place where people are restored that when someone blows it, and we will, you will, I will, we won't talk about them in the parking lot or let them drift away.

Instead, we go to them. We tell them the truth in love, and we walk them back to the Grace never pretends that sin doesn't matter. It cost a lamb. But grace always aims at restoration, never exile. And your leaders will go first. If we as pastors pretend to have it all together, will train you to pretend as And so this is so important. And third, it's a place where the next generation learns to rest in Jesus. That our kids and new city kids and students will grow up hearing that God loved them before they ever believed. And he invites them into a relationship with them so that they don't spend their 20s unlearning about a god with a clipboard.

We are a people who have stopped making bricks because we've been set free. And so here's here's something I know this may sound a little odd, but I like rhythms. Maybe try this out this week. What it what would it look like if each morning before you pick up your phone, before you put your hand on the front, before you go and do a million different things, before you walk out the door, what would it look like to put your hand on your front door frame to remember this and and and to pray something like this? Lord, Lord, I'm yours and I don't have to earn that today. Would you form me by your grace?

And then at night as you wrap up the day, what might it look like to just be honest before God and to say because of your grace, I can be honest before you. Where did I perform today and where did I receive grace? And to not grade the answer, just to notice it and then maybe share that with somebody in community or a spouse or a friend as you are continually being formed by this beautiful thing called grace. Because all of this church, it rests on one thing. So let's come back to that lamb that I was asking you to hold because this whole night in Egypt, what was it? It was a shadow and the shadow was cast by someone.

For more than a thou more than a thousand years later, another Passover week came to Jerusalem. His families chose their lambs. Jesus, what did he do? He rode into the city. The religious leaders, they examined him. Herod examined him. The king Pilate examined him and said, "I find no fault in him. He was truly a lamb, the lamb without blemish." And he sat at a Passover table and he took his friends. He told his friends that the bread was his body. And he kept his own night of watching in a garden while his friends fell asleep. And the next day he was lifted up on wooden beams and someone raised a sponge to his lips on a branch of hyssop, the very plant that Israel used to paint the blood on their doors.

Do you see it? That in g in Egypt, judgment fell on every firstborn son whose house wasn't covered. And yet at the cross, judgment fell on every on the father's own beloved son. That God did not pass over him so that he could pass over us. That every house in Egypt had a death in it that night, a son or a lamb. And at the cross, the son became the lamb. And death didn't get the last word. That three days later, this tomb was emptied. And the greatest exodus in history began. That Jesus leads us out of sin and death and into the father's house. And it is absolutely finished. That the blood was shed once and for all and it doesn't need our help.

And for those in Christ, your best week can't improve it and your worst week can't wash it off. On the door frame of your life is the blood of Jesus. And that's the beauty of the gospel and that's what we hold on to. And that's what we're being formed by under his grace. And so one more time, when when God looks at you, what is he ultimately looking for? He's looking for the blood. He's looking for the grace of Jesus and anything and everything else good. Surrender, obedience, pursuing holiness, discipleship, all of these things that matter. Evangelism, kindness, a genuine love for God and one another. It is born from that, never for it. For every man, woman, and child.

No matter your race, your income, your past, your struggle, or your present, if you belong to Jesus, that blood is there. The God who kept watch over Egypt is keeping watch over you. And he is fully intends to finish what he started. And as a church family, we are saved by grace. We're kept by it. And we're being formed by it. And it's our motivation through Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit together. And I'm overwhelmed by the thought of what God might do with the people who take this lifechanging good news of grace, the grace of Jesus out there. Praise God for this grace that he shows us in Christ. Amen. God, thank you for your word this morning.

Thank you for this passage and thank you for the reminder that it is not our performance. It is not our that does anything to motivate you to encourage you to show us kindness. It is because of what Jesus has done because you sent your son, the unblemished lamb. And so I pray today that that would just be a reminder for us. I pray that if if anyone in here we never want to take for granted. If there's anybody in here, maybe they've maybe they've assumed that they have a relationship with you because they've checked some of the boxes, they've done the right things, but God, if there's if there's any sense in them that they need to surrender to you this morning and say, "God, would Jesus, would you would you take all my brokenness?

Would you take all the things that that I've done that I will do? Would you forgive me as the perfect spotless lamb and give me new life in you, God? It's not about a fancy prayer. It's about a heart that is being changed. God, for all of us as a people, would we never grow tired of grace? Would it always be on our lips? And would we constantly come and remember as we're about to do now, your body broken, your blood shed for our good, for your glory. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.