“But the Israelites had walked through the sea on dry ground, with the waters like a wall to them on their right and their left. That day the Lord saved Israel from the power of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. When Israel saw the great power that the Lord used against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord and believed in him and in his servant Moses.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

What did it take for you to finally believe in God? If you’re not there yet, what would it take? For Israel, it took a pretty impressive display of power. Today, let’s recap this last part of the story, talk about what God was trying to accomplish here, and why believing in God is something worthwhile.

We’ll get into the celebration Israel had after crossing the sea and escaping the Egyptian army starting tomorrow. For today, Moses tells us that their first reaction to God’s saving activity on their part was to believe in Him and in Moses. It is interesting that Moses phrases things that way. Did they not believe in God or Moses before this? The evidence of the story so far suggests that if they did, it wasn’t very much.

Israel’s interacting with God and His activity on their part has been a pretty significant part of the story for the last few weeks as we have looked at God’s instructions to them before the final plague, but the truth is that throughout the plague narrative, Israel itself as a nation features very little in the story. In fact, other than some occasional notes that God didn’t inflict this or that plague on Israel, there are some long stretches in which they don’t get mentioned at all.

If you think about the last time they actually interacted with Moses before the instructions regarding the first Passover celebration, it is a little surprising they were willing to do what God said at all. I wonder if perhaps the only reason they were willing to play ball was because they were as overawed by God’s display of power at Egypt’s expense as the Egyptians themselves increasingly were. The last time we saw Moses interact with Israel’s leaders before then was when they told him to take a hike and leave them alone because Pharaoh’s initial response to Moses’ request for manumission on their behalf was to make their lives almost infinitely more difficult than they had been before he got involved. If you’ll remember more recently, that apparent failure on his part was something they held over his head when they first saw the Egyptian army coming after them before they escaped across the Red Sea.

No, while the people were willing to do what God said out of fear that He might turn the plague machine in their direction, they didn’t actually have any kind of meaningful trust in Him. They had even less in Moses. God’s holding back the waters of the Red Sea and the physical role He gave Moses in that miracle convinced them that, yes, these two really were for them. It was safe to trust in them. They weren’t going to lead them astray. And so, they believed in them.

This is all what God was trying to accomplish here and throughout this entire part of the Exodus story. He was working to establish a people who would be His own special people. They would be His people and He would be their God. But He understood perfectly well that He wasn’t going to be able to simply show up, announce that He was now in charge of them, and everything was going to unfold smoothly from there.

No, God knew very well that in order to create a people like this He was first going to have to establish a relationship with them. But this couldn’t be just any relationship. It was going to have to be a relationship based on love and trust. Yes, there was certainly going to be an element of their doing what He said since He was God and they were not, and yes, He could have used force and terror to achieve that end. But that’s not the kind of relationship He wants with us. He is not a God of force and terror. He is a God of love and truth. Everything He did with, for, and to Israel throughout this entire narrative is about His revealing Himself to them as someone they could trust, as someone they wanted to obey, as someone they loved.

I still remember when I first really started to trust in God. I had been following Him like the Israelites were following Him before this moment for several years at that point. I had been baptized years before. But when I was 16, sitting on the bleachers at the end of the Maybee Center at William Jewell College, while listening to the evangelist the group putting on the New Year’s Eve event my youth group was attending, I actually placed my trust in Him for the first time. It wasn’t a big, dramatic moment, and I didn’t tell a soul about it for years, but it marked an indisputable change in me. I’ve never been the same sense. I had been following Him as God, but after that moment, He was my God. There’s a difference.

Israel had been following Him as God before they crossed the Red Sea. When the waters crashed back down on the Egyptian army behind them and they saw the drowned bodies of the soldiers lying on the seashore, they realized just how much God was for them. They finally believed Him. In that moment He became their God. Now, as we will all-too-soon discover, this emotional moment didn’t last. At the very next challenge they faced, they were ready to throw up their hands and walk right back to Egypt. They still had a lot of growing to do in their relationship with Him. But there was a foundation of trust built in this moment that enabled them to weather all sorts of different challenges.

I’m curious: if you would say you are a follower of Jesus, is He simply God to you, or is He your God. There’s a difference. Everything He has done and is doing in your life and in the world around you is for the purpose of drawing you into a loving relationship with Him. He wants for you to trust Him as your God. The question is: Are you paying attention to His efforts? Are you willing to receive them? Are you willing to truly receive Him? The path from there won’t always be smooth and easy. Israel’s journey certainly proves that. But it will be good. And it will always be going somewhere good. You just have to keep following.