Parting the Red Sea
On August 17, Pastor Dave continued the Retold series with a message from Exodus 14, the story of the parting of the Red Sea. He began by sharing how a sudden illness left him bedridden for three days—an experience that, for someone who’s always moving and checking things off the list, felt almost unbearable. What struck him most wasn’t just the sickness itself, but how helpless it made him feel. Even the smallest tasks felt impossible, and his body’s quiet message was clear: “You’re not in charge anymore.”
That moment of helplessness became the doorway into the sermon’s central theme. “Maybe you’ve felt that too,” he said, describing moments when life pulls the rug out—illness, job loss, broken relationships, unexpected news—and reminds us that no matter how strong or resourceful we think we are, there are limits we can’t overcome. It’s exactly where the people of Israel found themselves in Exodus 14: trapped between Pharaoh’s army and the Red Sea, with no strength left to fight and nowhere to turn. It was in that place of total helplessness, Pastor Dave said, that “God showed His power most clearly.”
From that tension flowed the heart of the message: God fights for us when we cannot fight for ourselves, and God makes a way where there seems to be no way.
The first truth—God fighting for His people—came to life in Israel’s panic. “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die?” the Israelites cried. They had seen God’s miracles but forgot them in their fear. “Sometimes,” Pastor Dave noted, “fear has a funny way of making us forget what God has already done.” He pointed to Moses’ response as one of the most profound commands in Scripture: “Do not be afraid. Stand firm… The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.” God wasn’t improvising or scrambling; He was sovereign, already working behind the scenes.
That same truth, he said, still speaks into modern “Egypts”—our illnesses, anxieties, broken relationships, and hidden fears. “You don’t have to have all the answers,” he reminded. “You don’t have to muster enough strength on your own. Your job is to trust the One who fights for you.”
From there, the sermon moved naturally to the second truth: God not only fights for His people—He creates a path through the impossible. Pastor Dave read from Exodus 14:21–22, describing the moment when God drove back the sea and turned it into dry land. “This isn’t just a story about water moving,” he said. “It’s a story about a God who does what seems impossible, who steps into our chaos and makes a way when all hope is gone.”
That miracle, he explained, points directly to the gospel. Just as Israel stood powerless before the sea, humanity stood powerless before sin and death. But “Jesus, God in the flesh, stretched out His hand on the cross and made a way where no way existed.” He quoted Romans 5:6–8—“While we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly”—and connected it to Jesus’ declaration in John 14:6: “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”
Faith, Pastor Dave said, is walking through what looks impossible. The Israelites had to step forward between walls of water; we too must step forward in trust. “God provides the path, but we have to walk through it,” he said. “Faith is not passive—it’s obedience in motion.”
As the sermon drew to a close, he reminded the congregation that the Red Sea isn’t just about water and escape—it’s a living picture of salvation. “The sea was chaos, fear, shame, guilt, and sin,” he said. “But God’s presence was right in the middle of the impossible. In Christ, the greatest ‘impossible’ has already been overcome.”
Just as God split the sea for Israel, Jesus split the storm of sin and death for us. “He bore the weight of death so we could walk into freedom. He split the ultimate sea for us, making a way not just to survive, but to live abundantly in His presence.” The gospel, he said, isn’t abstract—it’s incarnate. It’s Jesus Himself.
In closing, Pastor Dave called the church to trust that same God in their own “Red Sea” moments—the fears, crises, and decisions that seem impassable. “Faith isn’t just a feeling,” he said. “It’s surrendering control to the One who holds all things together.” The message ended with a call to imagine what it would look like to give those impossible situations to God—the fears, the doubts, the pain—and to “step forward knowing that the God who split the Red Sea, the God who raised Jesus from the dead, is faithful to lead you through.”
“The walls may be high,” he said finally, “the waters may be deep, but the God who made a way through the sea is the same God who has made a way for you in Jesus Christ.”
