Limitless Passion
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I’ve noticed a change in myself over the past year in how I handle emotions. And I blame Adalynn. I used to be able to pretty stonefaced when it came to my emotions. When I was happy, you would know it. But when I was upset or angry or sad, you would never know it in public. Now I watch some sappy video about babies or parenting or families and my eyes start watering. No lie. We went to the Coke factory museum when some of our friends came to visit. And when you first go there, they show you like this 5 minute long Coke commercial showing all these stories of great family milestones, and of course Coke is with them every step of the way, as it should be. And I’m sitting there crying at this commercial. Its ridiculous.
It’s like I’ve gone back to being a child when you can’t control your emotions. Isn’t that the worst thing in the world as a kid. I used to be an angry cryer, which when you’re already in 6th grade is a terrible thing to be. If you don’t know what an angry crier is, its when you cry when you get angry. I used to get mad while playing baseball, and then it would make me cry, and then I would even angrier at myself for crying, and then it would make me cry more, and it was the most embarrassing thing in the world. But I couldn’t stop. Which might be the reason that once I could control my emotions when I got older, I made sure that I was always stoic when upset.
But this limit I put on myself is a limit that we put on God. We limit God’s emotions. We limit God by saying he can’t have emotions. He’s God. God can’t have emotions. If God has emotions, he might do something spontaneous or different because of those emotions. As if God acts like this.
Show confetti gif and Spock gif.
But I don’t buy that. God isn’t Spock. Nor is he a spelling bee champion that looks bored. God is a God of passion. God is a God who cares passionately about us. The Bible is filled with emotional language about God. And you might hear, especially any of you going to college soon and who take any philosophy courses, that the Bible is just anthropomorphic language to describe God. Big word time. That means using human terms to describe God because we have no other way to describe him. God doesn’t actually have emotions, we just don’t have any other way to say what’s happening to God.
To that, I say pooey. You don’t need to try to outsmart the Bible. The Bible describes God as having emotions because God has emotions. In fact, we have emotions because God has emotions. We were made in the image and likeness of God, and our emotions are a reflection of emotions that God also has.
So tonight we are going to be looking at God’s Limitless Passion. We are going to see that God cares without limits, and why that matters so much to us.
We aren’t going too much farther in the story, so turn in your Bibles to ’m going to start reading in verse 12, but let’s set the stage first.
We just heard last night about how God is sending Moses to free the people of Israel. Moses is worried the people won’t believe that God sent him, so God gives him a few miracles he can do to show them. First, he can throw his staff on the ground, and it will become a serpent. And when he picks it up it will turn back into a staff. If that doesn’t work, he can make his hand become leprous, and then make it healthy again. And if that doesn’t work, he can turn water from the Nile into blood. And even after all that, Moses is still whining. But God, I’m not a good speaker. And then we get to verse 12.
12 Now go! I will help you speak and I will teach you what to say.”
13 Moses said, “Please, Lord, send someone else.”
14 Then the Lord’s anger burned against Moses, and he said, “Isn’t Aaron the Levite your brother? I know that he can speak well. And also, he is on his way now to meet you. He will rejoice when he sees you.
Ex 4.12-1
God’s passion: Anger
God’s passion: Anger
The Lord’s anger burned against Moses. God is angry. God is passionately angry. For some of you, depending on the kind of church you grew up in, this is either something you’re hearing for the first time or something you’ve heard constantly. Churches like to go to either extreme with God’s anger. God’s not angry with you, he’s just disappointed. Or God is constantly angry at everybody all the time. Of course, neither of these options are good. God is not a God who stays angry all the time, but he also isn’t a God who never gets angry. He’s not the soft, lovey dovey who just says, “I’m disappointed.”
God’s anger burns against Moses because he is unwilling to obey.
Moses is unwilling to obey
Moses is unwilling to obey
God is asking Moses to do something, and Moses is trying as hard as he possibly can to say no. God, no, please, ask somebody else. I don’t want to do it. You’ve picked the wrong guy. No no no.
And I know there have been times where I was unwilling to obey. There have been times where God has asked me to do something, and I’ve said, naahhh. I think somebody else will do that. I specifically remember in high school being burdened and convicted that I needed to share the gospel with one my teammates. And I didn’t do it. I didn’t want to do it. I mean, the whole baseball team knew that I was a Christian. I lived the Christian life. I already got enough jabs and jokes thrown my way because of what I didn’t do and what I did do. I didn’t really need to add to that. I really didn’t need to give them more ammunition. I’m sure somebody else will do it eventually.
And when I look at Scripture, I’m fairly certain God was angry at me for doing that. I just said no. I’m not gonna do that. Now, I can’t look back and say this is how God’s anger manifested towards me. But that’s not the point. The point is that defying God angers him. His anger burns at disobedience.
I
If we skip ahead a few more verses to verse 24, we see God’s anger burning against impurity and forgetting the covenant.
Ex 4.24
24 On the trip, at an overnight campsite, it happened that the Lord confronted him and intended to put him to death. 25 So Zipporah took a flint, cut off her son’s foreskin, threw it at Moses’s feet, and said, “You are a bridegroom of blood to me!” 26 So he let him alone. At that time she said, “You are a bridegroom of blood,” referring to the circumcision.
24 On the trip, at an overnight campsite, it happened that the Lord confronted him and intended to put him to death. 25 So Zipporah took a flint, cut off her son’s foreskin, threw it at Moses’s feet, and said, “You are a bridegroom of blood to me!” 26 So he let him alone. At that time she said, “You are a bridegroom of blood,” referring to the circumcision.
27 Now the Lord had said to Aaron, “Go and meet Moses in the wilderness.” So he went and met him at the mountain of God and kissed him.
God’s passion: His Covenant
God’s passion: His Covenant
In , God commands to Abraham that all males are to be circumcised. It is the sign of the covenant, and it is the sign that the Israelites are God’s people. And his anger once again burns against Moses because he has forgotten the covenant. He has not remembered the covenant. He has not honored the covenant. In fact, he is impure because of it.
There are plenty in here who are impure, as well. You are not treating your body the way that God intended for you to treat it. You are giving parts of yourself away that God intended only for your future spouse. You are cheapening the good gift of sex that God has given. You are living in impurity, breaking the covenant of marriage that God has ordained. And God’s not disappointed, he’s angry. If you are a part of God’s people, then you are the bride of Christ. And you are bringing your impurity into the whole bride. And that doesn’t disappoint God. It makes him angry. Make some changes.
But the beautiful part of passion is that passion is not all about anger. God has a great positive passion for his covenant. In , God is talking to Moses again. Moses has already confronted Pharaoh once, and God is reaffirming to Moses what he will do.
5 Furthermore, I have heard the groaning of the Israelites, whom the Egyptians are forcing to work as slaves, and I have remembered my covenant.
6 “Therefore tell the Israelites: I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from the forced labor of the Egyptians and rescue you from slavery to them. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and great acts of judgment. 7 I will take you as my people, and I will be your God. You will know that I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from the forced labor of the Egyptians.
Exodus 6.
We talked about freedom last night, but I love this phrase God uses in verse 7. I will take you as my people. God says you are mine. And when you’re mine, I will protect you. I will love you. I will care for you. I will fight for you. Because you are mine. And it is all grounded in God remembering his covenant. I want us to go back and take a look at the covenant in . If you are unsure of what the word covenant means, it is a commitment that two parties make to one another. Except a whole lot stronger. Today you can sign a contract between two parties, but that can be broken. This is stronger than that. You didn’t break covenants.
4 Now the word of the Lord came to him: “This one will not be your heir; instead, one who comes from your own body will be your heir.”
5 He took him outside and said, “Look at the sky and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then he said to him, “Your offspring will be that numerous.”
6 Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.
7 He also said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.”
8 But he said, “Lord God, how can I know that I will possess it?”
9 He said to him, “Bring me a three-year-old cow, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.”
10 So he brought all these to him, cut them in half, and laid the pieces opposite each other, but he did not cut the birds in half.
11 Birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away.
12 As the sun was setting, a deep sleep came over Abram, and suddenly great terror and darkness descended on him.
13 Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know this for certain: Your offspring will be resident aliens for four hundred years in a land that does not belong to them and will be enslaved and oppressed.
14 However, I will judge the nation they serve, and afterward they will go out with many possessions.
15 But you will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a good old age.
16 In the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”
17 When the sun had set and it was dark, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch appeared and passed between the divided animals.
18 On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “I give this land to your offspring, from the brook of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates River:
19 the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites,
20 Hethites, Perizzites, Rephaim,
21 Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites.”
Genesis 15:
So you know what exactly is going on here, God and Abraham are performing an ancient covenant agreement. Moses cut the animals in half, and he places them on opposite sides of each other, creating a walkway. To seal the covenant, both parties would walk through the severed animals, and it was a sign of saying, this is what will happen to us if we break the covenant, that is be cut in half.
And then God explains to Moses that his people will be enslaved. He knew this was going to happen. Because while being enslaved was a terrible thing to happen to the Israelites, God deemed it necessary. It enabled the Israelites to grow into a great number and a great force. But when you get the end, verse 17, notice what happened. God passed through the animals to seal the covenant. But Abraham did not. God is saying I am establishing this covenant, and I will hold up my end. I’ve got this. I’m responsible for this.
And now in Exodus, God remembers his covenant. And he knows its now time to take his people. It’s not time to rescue his people, and he is going to do it in the most grand of all fashions. The impassioned God rescues his people from their evil oppressors.
But we can’t talk about God’s passion without talking about the most famous act of God’s passion: the Passion of Christ.
God’s Passion: Suffering for us
God’s Passion: Suffering for us
God’s passion is ultimately seen in Jesus. The passion of Christ refers to Jesus laying down his life for us. Sacrificing himself to rescue his people from the clutches of death. This phrase comes from the greek word pascho, which in Latin became passio, which means to suffer. How does God show his passion and his love to us, he suffers on our behalf.
16 This is how we have come to know love: He laid down his life for us. We should also lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.
Just as God remembered his covenant to Israel, Jesus established the new Covenant for us. When we trust in the work of Jesus, when we trust in the son of God who came to save us from our sins, God rescues us from death. He frees us from the penalty of our sins. He takes us from the grasp of the enemy. And he desires for each and every one of us to know that same passion.
We don’t serve a limited God. We don’t serve a robot God. We don’t serve an emotionless God. We serve a God who is passionate about us. A God who is passionate about who you are as an individual, a God who is passionate about how you live, a God who is passionate about how you behave, a God who is passionate about how you treat others, and a God who shows his passion up to the point of death. And a God who can lead us to live a passionate life as well.
Tomorro