Exodus 4:22-23

All lives stand before death. There is no distinction between rich and poor, educated and uneducated. Even a king cannot avoid death. Yet, many live with the thought: “This only applies to others, not me.” This is truly foolish.
The Israelites were under slavery in Egypt. God called Moses to free them and commanded Moses to go speak to the king of Egypt: “Thus says the Lord, Israel is my son, my first born. Let my son go that he may serve me.”

It was a declaration that Israel is given ‘the privilege of being blessed’ and ‘the privilege of serving God well.’ They were the people who had been mistreated for 430 years.
Their suffering was so severe that it was compared to the iron furnace (Deuteronomy 4:20, 1 Kings 8:51, Jeremiah 11:4). Yet, concerning the people under slavery and the land wherein they were slaves, God declared, ‘the privilege of serving God and of being blessed will dwell upon the land from this day on.’



From the slaves of Egyptians to the firstborn sons of God
In such wretched state of being completely abandoned, the Israelites trembled in fear as they could not even breathe freely or speak loudly. However, God have looked after the Israelites. He declared to them, ‘Do not tremble. You are at a different status now. From today you are my son. This land is the land of blessings and the land for serving God because you are in the land. So, straighten up your shoulder, be magnanimous. Live boldly in faith.’

Nonetheless, Pharaoh refused to obey God’s command. God then sent the ten plagues by His outstretched arm. All people in Egypt were too terrified to even breathe.

The tenth plague was to kill every firstborn in Egypt, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, to the firstborn of animals. Eventually, being unable to bear this suffering, the pharaoh let the Israelites go. The Israelites marched out of Egypt in martial array.
When they requested for the articles of gold and silver to the kings and the riches of Egypt, the Lord had given the people favor in the sight of Egyptians so that the Egyptians gave them what they had asked unsparingly. All 12 tribes of Israel came out of Egypt with great wealth.

In fact, this work had already been promised by God to their ancestor Abraham before. God fulfilled the Covenant of the Torch, in which He had said, ‘Although your descendants will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years, they will come out with many possessions’ (Genesis 15:13-14)
And with the possessions, the Israelites served God and built the tabernacle. Among His tribes there was not one who stumbled (Exodus 3:22, 11:2-3, Psalm 105:37-38).

As God made the covenant with Abraham, He said, ‘Do not worry, the covenant I am giving you will be everlasting to thousand generations’ (Psalm 105:8-9, 105:42-45). Even Shilla Dynasty did not last for a thousand years. Even if it did for a thousand years it would be more or less 95 generations. But if it is ‘one thousand generations,’ it is everlasting. God keeps His promise of thousand generations.
Dear saints, believe that we are the holy Israel and the firstborn sons of God.

Are you living up to your status as the son?
While it is great to be a son of a wealthy family, a national secretary, or from a prestigious family, how greater would it be to be called a son of God?
Saints are all ‘sons’ of God, regardless of their gender. Even if people live well, their days are only transient. It is the fate of life that people are born once and die eventually. It is such a great pity for them not to know God, Jesus, eternal life, and resurrection while living such a short period of life.
Because we believe in Jesus, we will live even if we die, and when we live and believe, we will never die (John 8:51, 11:25-26).

God called those who chose to serve God ‘My sons.’ God says to those people who lack money, educational backgrounds, talents, ‘You are my son. I will give you the privilege of blessing to serve God’.
How grateful and joyous is this! God gave birth to us (Deuteronomy 32:18, Isaiah 64:8, Psalm 2:7, Isaiah 9:6, Psalm 89:26, Malachi 2:6). Why are our faces full of worries when our Father is alive? Why aren’t we joyful all the time? Why do you walk so powerlessly?
God has come to the Pyungkang Cheil Church today and says, ‘You are my true sons and daughters.’
Just as bodyguards keep a president’s children safe, the angel of the LORD encamps around the sons and daughters of God (Ps 34:7).

God asks us, ‘Am I not your Father? Yet, did you truly believe me as your father?’ Praying, reading the Bible and listening to the Words without concentrating are grave sins.
The basic posture for saints is, ‘Attention!’ just like soldiers. We have to give attention and concentrate.

Although we haven’t read the Bible, prayed and served Him well, God takes pity on us and looks after us at all times, saying, ‘I have kept you, helped you, and allowed you to be healthy. But why can’t you devote yourself to Me?’
As parents pity their children, God pities us. Men would have turned away, saying ‘I have raised you for such a long period of time, yet you are still like this? A person like you doesn’t even deserve to be called a human being.’
But, God never curses on us. He takes care of us with grace till the end and hopes that we will understand. God is extraordinarily patient. God sometimes punishes and disciplines us, but shows His lovingkindness and mercy till the end (2 Samuel 7:14-15, Psalm 89:31-35).

God trained the Israelites with love and righteousness, like a father disciplines his son with a rod of love. Even though the fallen Israelites committed sins deserving to be destroyed, God remembered the covenant He made with Abraham, the father of faith (Galatians 3). Thinking of Abraham, He kept patient and encouraged them to make them understand His will.

We now have to understand that God has been patient with us and should not break His heart anymore. Regardless of whether someone is watching us or not, we need to read the Bible, pray, and serve Him with full concentration. We should not do those things idly.
Although church is built with bricks and stones, it is the body of God in actuality.
When we come and pray in church, we are in the body of God. And when we serve in the church, we work in the body of God.

We have nothing to worry once we realize that we are sons of God.
Before meeting the Israelites on Mt. Sinai, God commanded Moses: let the Israelites consecrate themselves, clean their clothes, and not go near to women for three days (Exodus 19). It was because it was a moment to decide whether they would live or die. It was a moment when they should fight against their enemy to gain victory.

The Israelites obeyed the command. And as a result they won everywhere they went.
All gentile nations envied them their wisdom, knowledge, and power, wondering where those came from (Deuteronomy 4). You do not need to worry if you understand the Word of God. God takes care of everything. He even set the boundaries of the Israelites (Deuteronomy 32:8).

Although the land of Canaan was an ordinary land like any other, once God set the boundaries, it turned into the land of blessing. Once they sow, plants grew without being eaten by insects. It was the land of milk and honey. If we believe and eat the food in the land of blessing, we won’t get sick and be able to do the works that please God. God blesses our water and food so that we will be blessed, well, and successful whenever we eat them (Exodus 23:25).

This means that we should not worry of what to eat to live. Although all lands look the same, some are good for growing spinach and another for cabbage. God even decided where to plant which crop. We too, if believe and understand the Bible well, will experience the blessed work of God in the land flowing with milk and honey (Exodus 3:8, 3:17, 13:5, 33:3, Leviticus 24:24).

In the wilderness, God has assigned each tribe its place to camp (Numbers 10). Although the lands varied from flatlands, uphill and downhill, as God made decisions, there were no fights among tribes. God said that His eyes are always on where He had appointed (Deuteronomy 11:11-12).
Do not worry thinking how you could do things by yourself. Believe that the eye of God is there.
Whether you run businesses or do sales, believe that God is with you and be thankful and joyful. Then there will be success.

The general assembly of the firstborn
God calls us “my son, my firstborn.” In original Hebrew word, it translates “Israel is my son, and even my firstborn.” They are not just sons, but the firstborn sons. How grateful it is? One might ask,
“How could there be multiple firstborns?” But in Hebrews Chapter 12, He referred them to “the general assembly of the firstborn.”
“But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect” (Hebrews 12:22-23).

Believe that you are all firstborns and that our gathering is the general assembly of the firstborn. The firstborn has the right and privilege to oversee younger brothers. The firstborn sits next to his father. We are to be seated at the right side of God’s throne as priests. It is God’s order to give double portion of inheritance to the firstborn (Deuteronomy 21:17). The firstborn receives God’s love (Jeremiah 31:20, Hosea 11:1).

The title “firstborn” carries the essence of the covenant. God took the Israelites out of Egypt to grant them the privilege to serve God. We believe in Jesus in order to serve God well and to obey the Words. As a result, we will receive 37,000 kinds of blessings recorded in the Bible both in the Old and New Testament. God made the Israelites as His own sons and firstborns and loved them and was delighted in them and made them as the leaders and heads of all the nations of the earth (Deuteronomy 7:6, 14:1, 28:1, Psalm 89:27). God never gives up on His firstborns. He surely takes responsibility for them. Dear Saints, we are God’s possessions. Make sure to believe that we will experience such blessing of God.

Learn lessons from Reuben
Firstborn directly inherits the power from the father. He is the beginning of the strength of God the Father. God gives the strength to His firstborns. However, there was a firstborn who misused that strength. It is Reuben, the firstborn of Jacob. "Reuben, you are my firstborn; My might and the beginning of my strength, Preeminent in dignity and preeminent in power (Genesis 49:3-4).”

However, Reuben did not use the strength for the will of God, but for his own lust. He ended up committing adultery with his father’s concubine. The New American Standard Bible records, “Reuben, you are my firstborn; My might and the beginning of my strength, Preeminent in dignity and preeminent in power. Uncontrolled as water, you shall not have preeminence.” As a consequence, the fourth son Judah became the physical firstborn and the 11th son Joseph became the spiritual firstborn.

The firstborn is the first fruit in the perspective of the administration of the redemptive history. All those who believe in Jesus are the firstborns (Exodus 4:22).
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life (John 3:16).”

Jesus is the Son of God. In fact, Jesus is God by nature but because man could not understand this, God came as the Son of Man (John 1:4, Hebrews 1:6). Jesus came to teach men that, “As I am the Son of God, you too are originally sons of God if you had not committed sin. With faith, you can all become sons of God.” If we believe in Jesus, we can be saved in the name of the Son of God, not by our own names. Our genealogies and family lines will change. So we should not mistreat or verbally abuse those who have become God’s sons. If we do so, angels will report to God (Matthew 18)

Galatians 3:16 said, “Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed He does not say, “And to seeds," as referring to many, but rather to one, “And to your seed," that is, Christ.” If we believe in this Jesus, we are God’s sons.

Jesus was raised from the dead as the first fruits of those who are asleep (1 Corinthians 15:20). If we believe in Jesus, we too will resurrect. Jesus is originally immortal. He has an eternal life and He is God Himself. Nonetheless, He underwent death Himself to set an example for us. If we believe in Jesus, He will go back to the place of God and we will go to the place of the son of God, where Jesus was. The goal of Jesus’ coming to us is to make us God’s sons.

Resurrected Jesus became the head of the church. And we are members of the body. If we understand the Word, God will make us as head. Parents do not hand down great wealth to their children, if they are not mature enough yet. Only when the children are educated and become rational, would parents give them the property. God too, makes us go through the same steps.
Jesus is in first place in everything, head of the church, and a mediator (1 Timothy 2:5, Hebrews 8:6, 9:15, 12:24, 6:17). A mediator provides everything to us. We learn from tutors when we are still young, but once we understand that we are the sons of master, we can rule over all the servants.

God calls all those who believe in and follow Jesus Christ His first son, as “firstborns” (John 1:12-13).
Jesus taught His disciples, “Go to My brethren and say to them, 'I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God'" (John 20:17).
It means that the Father of Jesus was their Father as well. Only then the disciples realized, ‘God could not come as God but came as the Son of Man to keep teaching me until I finally understand.’
Now we also must resolve to recover our sovereignty as God’s sons so that we can live in good faith. If we are led by the Spirit of God, we are sons of God (Romans 8:14-17, 8:23).

The concept of the firstborn develops further in the apocalyptical and redemptive historical senses. The Bible says that the number of the first fruits purchased from among men is 144,000 (Revelation 14:1, 4). God declares, “I, even I, am the Lord, and there is no savior besides Me” (Isaiah 43:11). This is a declaration only God can make.

God says, “O Jacob, And He who formed you, O Israel, Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are Mine!” (Isaiah 43:11) He called each of us by our name. He counts the number of the stars and gives names to all of them (Psalm 147:4). The names of men are nothing difficult for Him to remember.

You are all sons of God. How magnificent! We have the privilege to serve God and to receive blessings. Do not get discouraged. This land where we stand is like Egypt, and like Sodom and Gomorrah. I pray in the name of the Lord for you all to become sons, the firstborns who live according to God’s will by preaching the Word to this dark and hopeless world.

July 22, 2012, Lord’s Day 2nd Service Sermon