Shamot: Identity Before Calling
Transcript(from the video captions)
Aiden Shabbash Shamayan, we bless your name. We thank you so much for your goodness and your grace and your guidance, your direction and the way you shape and form us. We thank you for the book of Shimote that we are in a new sephair and we just pray that you would just continuously show us show us your glory. Show us your revelation as we step into it today to see things clearly for your sake and for our sake in Yeshua's name. >> Got some ice cream. >> Oh yeah, that's good. Yeah. Thanks. Appreciate it. >> He needs his energy and chocolate ice cream is >> Thanks. I have to Yeah. Okay. Yeah. If I drink If I eat too much of that, I'll get a sugar high. [laughter] >> I'll be in trouble. All right. Let's start out with a quick question today. Just a simple question. How many of you like chocolate ice cream? Raise your hand. A lot of people like it. Wow. Well, all right. To be honest with you, and my family can attest to this, I don't eat ice cream very often. But when I do, I like to eat at Menchies. Why? Because it's I know it's kosher. It's textured. It's safe. I can eat it. And it's good. It tastes good. And I'm
not a big toppings guy, but I have to I have to admit to you that that I am a chocolate sprinkles guy. I like chocolate sprinkles. But recently, we went to this place close to our home, this custard place, and they were out of sprinkles, and I was really disappointed at first, but then I I tasted this ice cream or this custard, and and it blew me away. It was so rich and so creamy. I thought to myself, it doesn't even need to have sprinkles. This is really, really good stuff. It was so rich. It was so good. And then I thought to myself, well, sprinkles don't really change the composition. They don't change what ice cream is. Well, what do they do? They sit on top. They decorate. They melt fast. And this is something that I want to use today to bring to your attention. And I want to say this very clearly and very carefully this morning. And that is Messianic Judaism is not Christianity with Jewish sprinkles. I heard an amen. I heard an amen. >> And what I mean by that, it's not taking a Christian framework and adding Jewish practices on top. Now that may be meaningful in some other places and it might not be a bad thing
other places but it's not who we are at Share Shalom. Why does this matter though? Why does this matter? Because if a community is going to grow an octity, then it must be formed by the the same or a shared covenantal framework that makes room for distinct callings, Jew and Gentile together in unity. Identity is not just personal, it's communal. Our community has a shape. It has a formation. It has a basis and it has an identity. And when we are formed from frameworks that don't line up, we might find ourselves not drinking from the same cup. How many of you want to drink from the same cup? Well, if you're sick, don't drink from my cup, please. [laughter] And I was going to take a bite of that ice cream, but I thought Mike might have taken a bite earlier. I'm not really a germ freak, but but yeah, you never know, right? Uh, right. But yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Here, here's the point, though. We can't live out what we were meant to do until we affirm who we are as true. Affirming that it is true. Who are we? This comes from birth. It comes from God. God shines a light on it. Revelation and formation forms.
We can't be self-declared. We have to be Hashem declared. And I I believe in fact I know our community already has that stamp on it today. Identity precedes calling. We find that today in the book of Shimote. Moshe is struggling with a bit of identity crisis here. He knows who he is internally. It's there, but he's struggling a bit and he has to step into his identity before he can step into his calling and be shalak sent by God. Some of the decisions he makes, they're just there's righteousness in it. But sometimes he proceeds too soon before God says, "Go. I'm sending you." So in parish shimote what we see here shaping up very clearly is how God retains names identity and covenants before power ever enters the story. And in fact, we see a form of power here. But this form of power is blind oppression, slavery. That's a stripping away, an erasing of identity, not a true spiritual formation as we see. So, the book of Shimote doesn't start out with miracles, although we like to think about the miracles. Probably next week or the week after we'll be talking about miracles potentially. It's all up
to God. But it actually begins with fear. Fear. Israel multiplies. Parro panics. He's panicking because of the multiplication. Vomo Israel ramen. Behold the people of the children of Israel are many and mighty. And that's where it comes from. Slavery is not just about forced labor. It's actually about erasing a civilization or erasing identity and peoplehood. Change their conditions, control their bodies, degrade their dignity, and what happens? You drown out their entire future. That's the devastation in that. That's abused, abused power. That is blind power. That's not God's power. And we have to identify this in the world. Slave labor was designed to erase Israel's covenant identity that came from God through sustained psychological warfare, exhaustion, humiliation, and a slow erosion of memory until all of a sudden we forget who we are. Who am I? What am I doing here? What is my purpose? And that's what starts to happen. It's a slippery slope of degradation and all of the sudden memory erased. But it actually happens gradually over time and it can happen in galute in exile as well. We have to be mindful of
that. When a person no longer knows who he is, he becomes susceptible to control and manipulation. So the first question of shimote is not how will Israel be freed. God's got that. He's going to send the redeemer. He's going to free us up out of that. Although 400 years is a long time to wait, right? That's a long time. But do you think God really wanted to judge the Egyptians? He has to give this time. There's a fullness of time for things to happen. But that's not the question. The question is, will Israel remember who they are? Will we remember exactly who we are in those types of scenarios? So after the genocidal decree is issued, before God speaks, before the bush burns, before redeemer is sent, women see. It is the women that create a chain of resistance against evil. They're the ones that take a stand against evil. This is kind of this could be muted depending on your reading of the text, right? But it's so pronounced. It's there. We need to look not just fast forward to the Moshe pages, right? Start at chapter one. We see that right away. Wow. What's going on here? Ah the midwives
they fear God. It says meanings they they they feared God. They feared God. And because they feared God, they refused to cooperate with death and destruction. They don't need a vision. They don't need permission because they see what faithfulness requires. And we have to ask the same question. Do we really see clearly what faithfulness requires? Because it requires clear faith formation and identity formation in Hashem. It requires clarity. Yed hides her son. Miriam watches. They see Bot Perau enters the story. She sees a Hebrew child crying. She has compassion within her own royal authority and freedom. She chooses life. She reaches out with her arm in a sense that where it seems unreachable as the daughter of Pharaoh to do something good like that. And notice this that the king parro is never ever named. Sometimes scholarship or we look back we want to just know who he is. Is it Ramsy's? Is it this guy or is it that guy? But the Torah doesn't name parro for a reason because Torah names those who partner and sustain life and it mutes those sometimes blotss out those who promote evil.
It's very clear and we shouldn't miss it. Torah creates a chain of moral agency starting with Shiffra and Pua who refuse to destroy life. They stand in the gap. They make life possible. Y conceals life and it survives on from there. Miriam guards life and life is guided forward. Bot Perau lifts life up, draws it out of the water and it is eventually elevated. Do we see that very clearly? And only then, and I repeat, only then is Moshe preserved and a redeemer can come. They set the stage for the redeemer of Israel to arise in Israel to deliver God's people. Although they're going to argue at one point if it's God's people or Mosha's people. Is it God's people or Mosha's people? But we know it's God's people, right? The redeemer stands to his right. And so we see that he's not just merely born a redeemer. He has formed one. What is God forming in you? And where is your vision? Is it aligned with community? Because vision must be communal and individual. It has to line up. It has to align. And that presses a question towards us we must ask ourselves and that is do we see clearly? Do we see clearly enough to
know what faithfulness requires? Because it requires clarity. It requires some sacrifice in our lives to see the vision God has put before us as a community. Share shalom as he's doing now. These women saw they saw and they acted. They saw the vision. They saw what faithfulness requires. And because this a child, a special child lives. Moshe is saved out of the water. He grows up in Parro's house. and Vila leav became her son. But this is not covenantal. This is legal. He was legally her son. Torah never says that Moshe forgot who he was. But it does unveil that he was struggling with a bit of identity crisis. But knowing who you are and becoming who God has called you to be are not the same. That distinction is important. Some of us know our identity, but we haven't yet stepped into our calling because some of us and especially our our young people, God bless you, you are trying to discover who you are. And for others, it's because the pain of exile and hurts, just pain, upbringings, all kinds of frameworks can cloud your identity, just finding your way through healing. So Mosha now
he's going to have to figure out who his brothers are. See, sometimes when we read the text, we say, "Oh, his brothers. Yeah, that's that's the Israelites. Those are the Hebrews, right?" But the text is not that explicit at first. And I believe the ambiguity is intentional. But when you read your translation, it may make a decision on you. And we see it right here. He went out to see his brothers and saw their burdens. He went out to see or to his brothers and saw their burdens. Well, there was the burdens of Israel because they were being driven. But there was also the burdens of Egypt because they were building the burdens and labor of of building. So who are his brothers is the question. We see this here. But as he goes out, what does he see? He sees an Egyptian beating a Hebrew there. And in that place of seeing is when his identity begins to form. He steps out of his palace identity and it begins to test his own identity. And as he sees this Egyptian taskmaster beating the Hebrew, the text says this vi is he turned or he looked this way and that and he saw that there was no man.
Now we may read this like, oh, he's nobody's looking. Let's kill this guy. But that's not really what the text is saying. It is saying that he saw there was no man to rise up in justice to do something about it. It doesn't mean nobody was watching. There were Hebrews around. No, it was that nobody was willing to act. And so the intention was good, but he was presumptuous and he ended up a manslayer. How do we know? Isaiah, he repeats the same pattern in Isaiah 59:16. Nobody is just. Nobody is righteous. Nobody, nobody, nobody. And so I myself will put on my helm of salvation and deliver you out from it myself. And then I'll send the redeemer. How do we know? Right here, the same phrase bar is in Isaiah 59:16. He meaning God saw that there was no man, no intercessor. The same phrase, scripture interprets scripture. We know what it really says now. Well, I I think that's probably the weightier reading of it. So Moshe is not just hiding sin here. He's confronting moral vacancy. It makes you see it in a different way when you read it for what it says. The Hebrews are most likely there. They see,
but the next day proves it because then he goes out again. He sees two Hebrews fighting. This time the Egyptians not the one fighting. It's it's two Hebrews. And one of them says, "Who appointed you ruler and judge over us?" So the issue is not murder first. It's authority. Who gave you authority to rule? Did parro give you authority? I know we've heard the stories. Moshe was a prince in Egypt. He was competing with Ramsies and all this stuff. That's Hollywood. [laughter] But when we see the richness of the text, we see it flesh out for us. Moshe acts righteously, but prematurely. He hasn't been sent yet, but yet he's acting. Righteous passion does not authorize calling. Calling must come from God. We cannot be self-appointed. That's vigilanteism. We've talked about that before. So Moshe now has to go into exile because of his choices. He has to flee. But God's like, "Okay, I can work with you for 40 years there in Midun. You're going to become a shepherd there." Redemption cannot be self-appointed. It comes from God. But we can set up a chain of resistance towards evil. Calling collapses when identity is
confused. Moshe had to find his way. He was leaning into his identity, but he needed to go further. Some of us have to press a little bit further and really take the challenge to say, who really am I? And what has God called me to do in community and of course in my life? We can ask that question. It's a great question. And we have the formation now arising as Moshe flees to Midyan here. And he does it again. This time it's the daughters of Yetro that are oppressed. This time he's not dealing with Jewish people. And he does the same thing. He rises up. same instinct, still unscent, but he's delivering them out from the shepherds that are trying to drive them away. Moral courage is present with him. He's got zeal, but covenant authority is not there yet. Okay, hold your horses. Slow down. Slow down. Take it in. Why be in a rush? Well, sometimes we do have to arise, but slow down and have clarity. But meanwhile, as he's being shaped and formed in Miden, God says this, "I hear your groaning. Your cries are coming up to me." In Exodus 2:24, God heard. He heard Yeshma. He heard their groaning.
Formation happens quietly. Sometimes in the wilderness, sometimes when we make bad decisions and we have to learn from them. But as it happens quietly, suffering on the other hand continues loudly at times. We have to understand that. We have to hear and listen and see. Circumstances may shape us, but they do not define who we are. They never define who we are. We're not a victim of our circumstances. We have to walk through inner healing at times and obtain wisdom. But we can do this. And that brings us to the burning bush, the center of the entire text. Moshe sees a bush burning. It's low. It's burning. It's still burning. It won't go out. What is going on here? Why, he says, will the bush not burn up? Why, medalo levar? Why won't a bush burn up? Well, the bush, the sages tell us, is Israel. The fire is the oppression. Israel will ultimately be be delivered out and sustained. God will put that fire out. He'll consume it. But sometimes it continues to burn. What are we going to do about it? But God does not say I stop the fire. He says he name. I am here. He says, "I I am here." God says his sheina, his divine
presence is there in the midst of it and he will work to extinguish it with us. But we have to listen and take heed. Redemption can begin before suffering ends. In fact, it always does begins before. And then God says this, "Remove your sandals for you are standing on holy ground. You're standing on holy ground because that means that holiness lives inside of affliction. It's present inside of affliction because it is there's affliction going on and God is there. Moshe now is starting to learn how to see history. Yeah, he's going to do his make his four excuses why he can't go and all of that. He's still figuring out who he is. Who wouldn't do that? But he's learning how to see himself [snorts] in this. His identity is forming. He's receiving and experiencing inner clarity of who he is. Now, when we look at this from a Messianic Jewish standpoint, the question is not because we're at the burning bush here, where can I insert Yeshua? But rather, it asks this, what kind of story is God telling to which Yeshua can step into faithfully? And that's very important. Yeshua does not override Israel's
calling. He embodies it and represents it. And our reading is very important how we read. God says this to Moshe. I have surely seen the affliction and now go. Here comes the shalia. Now he's sent. He wasn't sent before that. He sent now. Go. It says God has seen. God has heard. God has known. It's all about timing. It's the timing of the redemption. God knows the time and the hour and the day. We do not God knows that calling comes when identity and covenant are aligned. And today, well, I think it's no surprise that in messianic Judaism, we don't have full alignment, but we need to have alignment. And that's where authorized representation comes from. When identity and covenant come together, they snap together and they're aligned. Not everybody doing what is right in their own eyes, but seeing clearly together in their distinction. That's the power of unity. But in Paris Shimote, we now see God. He's going to authorize by coming down. But his way of coming down is not explained philosophically. It is shown relationally to send someone in his name, in his authority. There is our messianic
Jewish reading right there. God is sending a redeemer sent Shalia in his name. In his authority, we could say to bear his holy name or to bear his authority. At one point he says to Moshe, "I will make you like God to Pharaoh." He's not saying, "I'm going to make you god, but like a god to Pharaoh because I'm commissioning you. I'm sending you." So, we don't need to read Yeshua into the story to see he's already there, right there in that framework, snapped right in, aligned to that place. Moshe is not now a Shalia. He's sent. And this same pattern will shape the way we see Yeshua's calling and the apostolic writings as we learn to see it through a Messianic Jewish lens. That's the reading. But Moshe is not finished yet. See, he hasn't really fully realized his true identity yet. He's getting there. He's got to go through one more very difficult trial. It's probably inadvertent, but it's evidence that he didn't really know who he was. Moshe is on a mission, but something is still unfinished. He's been sent by God. He's the redeemer of the covenant. And yet, and yet he has not embodied it at home.
Well, what do you mean? He hasn't circumcised his son, Gersonne, yet. He hasn't circumcised his son. You're not embodying covenant reality in your own home. How can you deliver my people that are attached to me through covenant? What are you doing? Right? We're getting now to some of the the rich chocolate ice cream here, but you notice it doesn't need sprinkles. [laughter] Suddenly danger, near-death experience. But this is not a footnote. This is a seal. And who rises up once again? One of the faithful women. This time, not a Jewish woman. Zapora comes to the rescue and performs the circumcision. A bridegroom of blood you are to me because of the circumcision. Now our covenant house is sealed. Our household has now come under covenant. Now you can actually lead my people. Mosha's identity crisis does not end at the burning bush. Sometimes some of us stop at the burning bush and we say, "It's all good now. Get your popcorn out. It's good. We're going forward." No, it ends when the covenant he is sent to represent [snorts] now claims his entire household and we could say his whole household
comes under covenant. We cannot live out what we were meant to do until we affirm who we are as true aligned in covenant together. God here clarifies identity through covenant, not feelings. It's not about how I feel or being self-appointed. Although feelings are important. I don't want to undermine feelings. But when it comes to this, this comes from God. Messianic Jews are not sustained by memory alone. Messianic Gentiles are not sustained by passion alone but by covenant. We come together as one people and we need to remember that we are sustained and embodied by covenant. It must be lived out in our homes, in our marriages, in our children to the best of our ability and in community. We must live that and not turn away from that. Not turn to the right or to the left when it comes to that calling does not float around in the air somewhere or I can't grab it. No, no, no. It's lived inside of households. And it's never too late to start now. Right? It's not up here or I can't reach it. It's it's got to be here. It's got to be in my house. And it's not perfect. Any of these people perfect? we're
talking about. No, God's perfect. And that takes us to the next text of how Hashem Aenu, our father, rises up to tell us something very important. He tells Moshe this, "Israel is my son, my firstborn. Tell this to Pharaoh. Israel is my son. This is weighty. This is not poetry. This is covenant identity formation coming. There is no mistake about it. And this is why Israel's king can rise up to be called God's son. In Psalm two, you are my son today. I have begotten you. God says in Psalm two very clearly, the king does not replace Israel. He represents Israel. This is a messianic Jewish reading. So when Yeshua is called the son of God, he's not lifted up out of Israel's story to float in the air. He's located at the center of it. It has not replaced the firstborn son. He embodies him as the representative. That's how God places it all for us. And this is why Messianic Judaism is not Christianity with Jewish sprinkles because otherwise we're not going to see that. Messianic Jews are often pressured to surrender our Jewish calling. Messianic Gentiles are sometimes pressured to take it over.
But we just have to be able to see that because that's not shar shalom. That's not who we are. That's not who we are. We're not that. And we know who we are. So we are living inside of Israel's story, the covenant story into which Gentiles are graciously brought in and to into which Yeshua stands at the center of it all. He's at the center and we see him at the center of it all. both pressures, the one of of forgetting, we all have to deal with it in our own way, but they actually come from forgetting what the son of God means in Torah. Yeshua is God's son because he's Israel's Messiah. He's the king of Israel. And Israel is God's son because God named her so he named Shimote names. And Gentiles are not called to become Israel. Rather you are called to cleave to Hashem through Israel's Messiah as you are. And it's so powerfully beautiful and amazing that formation right there standing inside of the story with true belonging in that place because when identity is confused the entire calling collapses. So important. It's reality. It's reality. It's in the word. So in conclusion, God named Israel.
He named her and he said, "You are my firstborn son." You tell parro that God sent Shalia commissioned Moshe and God revealed his son Israel and we know who the divine son is. But the names mean nothing if they are not lived out. They must be. We must live up to our name and our calling to the best of our ability. Not imperfection but with truth and conviction and inner clarity of our identity because it is a beautiful thing as you are. That is a beautiful thing and that can be in in progress. Moshe had to bring covenant into his home before he could actually speak to parro. And we must do the same. We must bring it into our home and keep it there. Messianic Jews must live as Jews in covenant. Messianic Gentiles live as Gentiles in covenant. Both locked into covenant into alignment. And together we walk in perfect clarity with God's help inside of Israel's story, the story that God is telling even today. And you can see it snapped together. Because we cannot live out what we are meant to do until we affirm who we are as true. Let's pray. A shabbashayam, we bless your name. We sanctify your
name. We thank you for truth. And we just pray for your your presence to continue as we know it will, but just continue to be with us and shaping us, forming us, and giving us clarity as individuals and as a community. and help us to rise up in courage to work through whatever difficulties we have to face off with the truth and to rise up into our calling at the appointed time that you have made and to not be self-appointed but to to take a step back and prioritize covenant in our lives. And we pray this together in Yeshua's name. Amen.