Mary’s song shows that God delights to lift the lowly and confront the self-exalted, and that his mercy is received only with empty hands. She praises God because he has looked on her nothingness, filled the hungry, and scattered the proud—revealing the very shape of the gospel. Our problem is that we choke on this good news, grasping for our own glory instead of receiving it from God. Yet in the incarnation, the Lord of Glory goes down into our lowliness so that he might raise us up. The call is simple: stop striving, stop grasping, come hungry and lowly like Mary, and receive the mercy God loves to give.

Psalm 142 shows us how to pray when life feels like a cave—dark, lonely, and overwhelming. David models biblical lament: turning to God honestly in prayer, naming the real pain we carry, and deliberately choosing to trust God’s character and promises even when our emotions say otherwise. Lament is God’s gift for weary people; it moves us from despair toward confidence that the Lord will deal bountifully with us. As Christ entered the deepest cave on the cross and rose again, we can trust Him with our sorrows, knowing He cares and has the power to redeem every grief.

This sermon traces the Exodus plagues as a cosmic “dragon-slaying” narrative: Pharaoh is portrayed as a chaos-dragon like the mythic Leviathan, humiliated when Aaron’s staff-dragon swallows his magicians’ staffs and finally vanquished when he is swallowed by the sea. The pattern prefigures Christ’s greater victory—Jesus, the true Dragon Slayer, humiliates the devil through his ministry, disarms him at the cross, and empties death’s power at the resurrection. Yet the dragon still writhes until the second coming, when Satan and death will be cast into the lake of fire and all chaos erased. Believers, living between cross and consummation, are called to expose evil, walk humbly, and persevere in rugged hope until the triumph and feast of King Jesus, the Dragon Slayer. (Note: we apologize for microphone glitches which occur throughout this episode.)

The plagues were not random punishments but deliberate judgments revealing Yahweh’s supremacy over Egypt’s gods and over all spiritual powers. The plagues expose false order and false mercy by unraveling Egypt’s Ma’at and showing that only Yahweh brings true order, light, and life. Through the chaos He sends, God displays His grace—holding creation together by His word; His mercy—sparing His people not because they deserve it but because He is compassionate; and His unrivaled power—defeating every rival deity, culminating in the darkness that shames Amon-Ra and anticipates the death and resurrection of Jesus, the true Light of the world. Therefore, like Psalm 105 urges, we respond by thanking, praising, seeking, and remembering the Lord for His mighty works and saving grace.

In Exodus 7:1–7, we meet the God who hardens hearts—not as a cruel puppeteer or powerless bystander but as the sovereign Lord who strengthens the will already set against Him, so that His name might be known in all the earth. Pharaoh’s resistance becomes the stage for God’s revelation: that He alone is Yahweh, the covenant-keeper who liberates His people and humbles the proud. Every act of judgment and mercy in the Exodus displays His faithfulness, pointing forward to the greater deliverance in Christ. At the cross, the God who once hardened the proud heart of Pharaoh softens the hearts of rebels, revealing His glory fully in Jesus—the One who laid down His own will to accomplish the Father’s.

In Exodus 5, Israel learns that everyone serves someone—and that the wrong master only multiplies burdens. Pharaoh’s command to “get back to your burdens” exposes the cruelty of false masters who demand more and give nothing. But Jesus, the greater Master, stands before the weary and says, “Come to me… and I will give you rest.” This sermon traces the contrast between Pharaoh’s yoke and Christ’s, showing that true freedom is not found in autonomy but in serving the gentle and lowly Lord whose service becomes our rest.

In one of the strangest and most debated stories in Scripture, God meets Moses on the road to Egypt—not to bless him, but to kill him. In Exodus 4:18–26, we see both the terrifying wrath and the steadfast love of God collide in one moment of blood and mercy. Moses, the chosen deliverer, had neglected the covenant sign; and yet through the blood of his son, the wrath of God was turned away. This strange encounter is not a detour from the gospel—it reveals it. In the blood that spared Moses, we glimpse the blood that would one day save us all: the Son cut off so that we might live.