The Exodus. True Freedom.

Notes from Scott Sutton's sermon on Sunday, March 1, 2026.
Sermon text: Exodus 12:33-13:22

As I spent time this week reading through and praying through the text, I couldn't help but be drawn to the vastly different Exodus experiences of Egyptian and Israelite children. To capture the significance of the Exodus, I'd like for us to walk through the story from two very difference perspectives; first, as that of the Egyptian Child and second, as that of the Israelite Child.

Egyptian Children...

• First, many of them died in an instant.
• If you didn't die, you had an older sibling who did.
• If your parents didn't die, you had an aunt and uncle who did.
• Every child had multiple cousins who died.
• Every child had multiple friends who died.
• All of the gods who were supposed to protect you were powerless.
• As the wailing softens, you begin to hear a grumbling among your parents and your friends' parents... "We must get these Israelites out of here! They must leave!"
• But before they leave, you watch these Israelite families come into your homes. And without any yelling or violence, you watch your mom and dad take your finest gold necklaces and put them around the necks of the Israelite children. You watch them do the same with their silver. You watch them do the same with nice, ornate clothing.
• And then you watch these Israelite families, with all of their firstborn family members still alive, walk out of your home, and out of your life.... accompanied by a pillar of cloud and fire.
• And likely, you then watch your family go back to mourning the most profound losses the nation has ever experienced.

Israelite Children...

• First, you have been enslaved your whole life. Your family has been forced to make bricks without straw.
• Perhaps you have heard that Pharaoh will not let your family go and worship the Lord
• But lately, there has been a shift. The Egyptians are experiencing plagues and strikes that your family is somehow being protected from.
• You notice your family preparing for something important.
• You either watched or helped your dad bring an unblemished lamb in its first year into
• the home
• You have watched your father slaughter the lamb and prepare it with herbs and spices
• You have watched your father gather hyssop and dip it in the blood of the lamb and slather it on the tops and sides of the doorposts of the house
• You have, with the rest of your family, fully consumed the lamb
• What you don't hear is what Scripture refers to as the Winged Destroyer flying from house to house, passing over only those homes with the blood of the lamb on the doorposts
• At some point in the night, you begin to hear cries of terror in the distance...Egyptians weeping.
• What you come to learn is that every single Egyptian and every single Israelite home had a corpse in it. It was either the corpse of a firstborn or the corpse of a lamb.

• Then, it is time to go. Quickly! Your parents walk you into the homes of the Egyptians. You, a child, are loaded up with silver and gold and clothing from the Egyptians
• You walk with perhaps 2 million fellow Israelites and much livestock out of Egypt. You have experienced zero fighting. Zero resistance. Zero violence.
• And you are well supplied! Perhaps carrying on yourself more wealth than your family has ever had.
• As you walk, carrying as much Egyptian spoil as you can, you look up and see that there is a pillar of fire and a pillar of cloud leading you and your people out of slavery. Leading you to freedom.

You have learned something about your God. You have learned something about your
value and your worth in the eyes of God. Every year for the rest of your life, you would remember what the strong arm of the Lord has done, because every year your parents would gather the family for:

• A night of watching...
• A Passover feast...
• The feast of unleavened bread...
• As firstborns are born, a lamb is sacrificed to redeem the first born
• Every single time an animal births its first offspring, it is sacrificed to the Lord or it is redeemed with a sacrifice

And at some point as a child, you ask, "Why do we do this?" And God has directed your
parents to explain it to you, train you, and help you never to forget the strong arm of
the Lord that brought you out of slavery and into freedom. Eventually, you get married. And you have a child. And you sacrifice a lamb, redeeming
your firstborn, commemorating the strong arm of the Lord. And one day your child asks.
"Why do we do this?" And so the remembrance and celebration live on... generation after generation.

What does this generation learn from the Exodus?
1.) If you don't tell your children what is important, somebody else will.

• The Egyptian children experienced what they experienced, because of what their parents told them.
• For the Israelites, the goal wasn't that they had a list of do's and don'ts by the end of their childhood, but that when it came time to discern between right and wrong, they knew that they had access to God, whose ways are always right.

2.) God can change your life in a moment!

• "It's time to go." For some, He is saying that to you today! What does it mean to no longer be enslaved to sin?
• Some of us don't believe that our lives can change.
• Some of us don't believe that people can change.
• Some of us don't believe that our country and community can change.
• Your God can lead you to freedom!

3.) God means what He says.
A.W. Pink - "The vast majority do not believe that God means what He says. Nevertheless,
though often times men's threats are mere idle words and empty bombast, not so is it with the
threatenings of Him who cannot lie."

• This includes plagues
• This includes promises

4.) God frees you for service.

• The same word for the slavery to Pharaoh is the same word used in the appeal to ask Pharaoh to let Israel go for a 3 days journey to worship God.
• You are freed to serve God.

Discipleship Questions:

1. What did you learn from the perspective of the Egyptian children?
2. What did you learn from the perspective of the Israelite children?
3. Who is trying to tell our children what is important? What are they hearing?
4. Do you believe that God can change your life? If so, what needs to change?
5. Do you believe that people can change? Identify hopelessness and replace it with truth.
6. Why do people not believe that God means what He says?
7. Since God has freed us to serve, what does a life of service look like? What are some healthy patterns that you can work on as an individual? How can you bring your children along with you in that journey?