“According to all that the Lord had commanded Moses, so the people of Israel had done all the work.”
– Exodus 39:42
Isn’t Exodus 39:42 a great verse? As we’re getting near the end of Exodus, we’ve been praying through this book. And you think about where this book started with God’s people as slaves in Egypt. How God delivered them out, brought them to the mountain, gave them His word. When they rebelled against them, He showed him His grace. He’s fed them with bread from heaven, water from rocks. He’s guided them, led them with a pillar of cloud by day and fire by night. Now they’ve constructed the tabernacle, and at the conclusion of that construction, this is the verse we read, “According to all that the Lord had commanded Moses, so the people of Israel had done all the work.”
Exodus 39:42 Reminds Us to Follow God’s Commandments
God’s people should seek to consider how their actions line up with the commandments of God.
Don’t you want that to be the verse that is read at the end of your life? And not just the end of your life, which we sometimes think as far off, even though none of us is guaranteed tomorrow, but let’s just think about today. Don’t we want this to be the verse at the end of today? “According to all that the Lord had commanded you, me, so we did the work?”
What if that verse, Exodus 39:42, was what drove us every single day to pray, oh God, we want to do today all that you command us to do. We don’t want to hold back anything today. And God, we want to obey your word completely. We want to walk in step with your spirit completely. God keep us from sin just as you taught us to pray, “Lord Jesus lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”
Exodus 39:42 Leads Us to Pray for the Spread of the Gospel
We pray that you would keep us from sins of commission or omission, omitting or not doing things you’re calling us to do. God help us to spread the gospel today. God help us to love our neighbors as ourselves today in our homes, outside our homes, and our workplaces, and as we gather for church. Any and everything we do today help us to do all that you command us to do today.
We pray that would be the story of our lives tomorrow and the next day and the next day. God, that it would be said of us, not just said of us, that it would be true of us, that we were faithful to do all the work you had given us to do. And we think, even as we pray, constantly on this podcast for unreached people around the world, we pray that you would help us to do the Great Commission to reach all the nations you’ve called us to reach.
This Verse Leads Us to Pray for the Unreached
You’ve commanded us to reach according to all the Lord had commanded Moses. God, we pray, help us to obey your command, to make disciples of all the nations among the Hadi in Bangladesh, no known followers of Jesus among this low caste Dalit Hindu group of people. We pray, we pray that disciples would be made among the Hadi, that you would use our lives to do this work, our churches to do this work, to finish this work that you’ve commanded us to do. Help us to obey the Great Commission far from here and starting right where we are today.
Far from here. And God, right where we are today, at this moment, help us to obey your Great Commission. Help us to obey your great commandment to love you with everything we have today. And to love others as ourselves today. God, may this be true of our lives when we lay our heads on our pillows tonight, according to all that you commanded us, so we did the work.
We pray this knowing we need you, Jesus, to live in obedience. We need you to experience fully all that you’ve designed for us. So we pray this in dependence on your grace and your spirit in us. May it be so, we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
