July 30, 2026
Thursday, July 30
I started the week with a made-up parable about a fugitive dad and his too-good-to-be-true daughter, who secures his freedom. In my parable, the father doesn’t take advantage of his opportunity for a new life. He’s free, but still lives like a fugitive. The Bible contains so many stories of salvation, in so many different forms, because God is trying to hammer home the most important message of all: I am your Savior. I’ve set you free, so stop living like slaves. When we think of Israel’s deliverance at the Red Sea in Exodus 14, for instance, we’re reminded of three things about our own deliverance:
Our deliverance is free
Our deliverance is complete
Our deliverance is ongoing.
Let’s look at each of those points over the next three days.
Our deliverance is free. Conventional wisdom says that all religions are basically the same, just different paths to the same goal. That’s a notion that seems right to our tolerant, unreligious age. And frankly, if you consider only the moral values and commands of each faith, you can understand where that idea comes from. All major religions teach rejecting the world’s values and living on a higher moral plain. All teach the importance of compassion for your fellow human. But one of the things that sets Christianity apart is the truth that none of these moral and ethical decisions makes you any more lovable to God. In the Gospel, your obedience doesn’t make God love you any more, and your disobedience doesn’t make Him love you any less.
All religions claim to be the path to get to God. But the Gospel says God comes to us. We don’t need a path; we have a Savior. In religion, it’s about what we do; in the Gospel, it’s about what He has already done. We’re like the Israelites. Moses essentially tells us, “Just sit down and shut up and watch what the Lord will do for you. The only way you can mess this up is by refusing to walk through the path He will make for you.”
“But wait,” you might retort. “Didn’t Israel had a covenant with God which included a list of Laws?” That’s true. The covenant said that if the people followed the Law, they would be blessed. They would draw other nations to God. They would lack for nothing, and their enemies would flee before them. On the other hand, if they broke the covenant, they would be on their own. That sounds like religion to us, not the Gospel. But in Exodus 14, that covenant hasn’t been established yet.
Don’t you see? This is the opposite of religion. This is grace. The covenant comes after deliverance. The Law comes after salvation, not before. If this were man-made religion, the story would go like this: God would offer the covenant to Israel and say, “Pledge to obey me, and I will save you.” He would probably go further than that, saying, “You’ll be on a probationary period for a few years. If you stay faithful over that time, THEN I will rescue you.” But instead, God delivers Israel from slavery before He even gives them the Law. That’s grace. And He’s still the same, gracious God. He saves us for free.
“Lord, when I get proud—as I sometimes do—please remind me that apart from your grace, I am lost. I contributed nothing to my salvation except the sin that made it necessary. I never want to forget that I am loved by you, but I never want to become self-righteous, either. In Jesus’ name, amen.”
Senior Pastor
First Baptist Conroe
More from Pastor Jeff at his website: jeffbergerwriting.com
