We’ve been tracing the major events of the Bible to show God’s faithfulness to different generations of his people. For some of you, if that’s new to you, some of the accounts and the stories as we’re connecting the dots of a single story, that’s okay. If you’re missing a couple of dots, just know that the other ones you’ll know and connect, and the overall picture should come into focus. We are in Exodus 19. The new nation of Israel is freshly released from their slavery in Egypt, and now they come before the Lord, their God, as he establishes his covenant with them at Mount Sinai. We look to the reading of God’s word if you join with me in prayer. Lord, you know that we are dull of heart, prone to sin, prone to carelessness. And so we ask that you would open our eyes to the truth of your gospel, that you would unplug our ears, that we might hear your word. And Father, that it would please you to transform us by the power of your Holy spirit. For it is in Christ’s name that we do pray. Amen. Amen. Exodus 19, beginning in verse one.
On the third new moon, after the people of Israel had gone out of the land of Egypt, on that day they came to the wilderness of Sinai. They set out from Rephidim and came into the wilderness of Sinai, and they encamped in the wilderness. There Israel encamped before the mountain, while Moses went up to God. The Lord called out to him out of the mountain, saying, ‘ thus you shall say to the house of Jacob and tell the people of Israel, ‘You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I bore you on eagles wings and brought you to myself. Now, therefore, if you’ll indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you should be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. ‘ These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel. The Lord said to Moses, ‘Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow and let them wash their garments and be ready for the third day. On the third day, the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people.
And you shall set limits for the people all around saying, ‘Take care not to go up into the mountain or touch the edge of it. Whoever touches the mountain shall be put to death. No hand shall touch him, but he shall be stoned or shot, whether beast or man, he shall not live. When the trumpet sounds, a long glass, they shall come up to the mountain. ‘ I’m sure you’ve had this experience where you’ve had someone treat you badly because they fail to do something they said they would do. It could be that they owe you money or they promise to do something for you or they committed to an obligation in some way and they didn’t keep it. The result, though, is that they often are angry at you, maybe even hostile to you for the thing they didn’t do. It seems strange, but we do get it. We have obligated ourselves and failed to do it various times, and we can get mad when we are reminded of that failure. All of us have done that as kids, to be sure. When you told your parents you would do something and you didn’t do it, and they said, Hey, are you going to do this thing?
And then in a big huff, you get all mad at them. I said I would do it. And you’re mad at them for the audacity to point out that you didn’t do the thing you said. That’s human nature. And we see this with the people of Israel a lot. God does amazing things for them. He calls them by name. He sets them free. He fulfills his promises. He gives them his law, all of this which reflects his holy character. And they, they are a bunch of ungrateful duds. They’re upset with the Lord for holding them accountable to do the things they said they would. At Mount Sinai, a holy God meets an unholy people. He enters into a covenant them as a nation. What he had promised to Abraham as a man is now expanded, the calling to Israel to be a blessing to the nations. But Israel will fail to accomplish God’s intentions for them. That will have to wait until Jesus, the true Israel of God, does all that God intended for Israel through him. And because the Lord must save his people, he also must prepare us for being his presence to the world through Jesus, the true son of promise, the giver of the new covenant.
A quick word on that word covenant. We use it all the time. Our name of our church includes it. What is it? What does it mean? A Covenant is a solemn pledge, a solemn promise, a contract of sorts. We rightly think of marriage as a type of covenant. A man and a woman pledge and make promises to each other that they are obligating themselves to fulfill to uphold. When God covenants with his people, he’s making a promise that he will uphold his end. And on the human side, we continually prove to be faithless. We are covenant breakers continually on our end of the agreement. And now at Mount Sinai, we see Israel has been set free. The Exodus, they’ve been brought out of Egypt. They are now are freed in order to serve the Lord faithfully, and they are to prepare to be in his presence. So they are set free to serve. Quick overview to catch us up. From a perfect creation to a terrible fall. Humanity enters into a state of sin and misery. We saw in Noah, Noah and the Ark, how God preserved the world from the destruction of the flood.
Noah and his family were set free from death to serve and to preserve God’s creation. Then Abraham was called out by God. He was set free from idolatry to serve the Lord in the land of Canaan. Then he called Jacob’s family into Egypt to preserve them from the destruction of a famine. You can recall from last week, Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers. It was the Lord who set him free in order that he would serve and be a blessing to the Egyptians to bless Egypt for their good. And not only that, he also was to serve his terrible family who had gotten him there through slavery to begin with. And what they had intended for evil against Joseph, God meant it for the good of everyone. Joseph had been set free in order that he could serve. Four hundred years goes by. Jacob’s family has moved a large clan to a small nation. A new dynasty, a new rulers in Egypt has come into power, and all the good thing that Joseph has done is forgotten. Israel finds themselves severely enslaved and oppressed by the Egyptians. That’s what the whole Book of Exodus is about, is them being set free.
There at the beginning, it said the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery, and they cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God, and God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel, and God knew. Telling us God is faithful to his promises. Repeatedly, Pharaoh is told to let God’s people go so that they may serve him. He refuses, God acts. And after the last of the 10 plagues, after they’ve celebrated the Passover meal, Israel takes off from Egypt. They pass through the Red Sea. Pharaoh’s chariots are sunk at the bottom. A few days into the wilderness, they start complaining because of a lack of water. God provides. More walking, more complaining. This time, the Lord provides something for them to eat. More walking and more complaining, the Lord provides some more water. And now, after this trip, they are camped right at the base of Mount Sinai. This is the place where the Lord had revealed himself to Moses in the burning Bush. And there he had told Moses, ‘You will come and serve me on this mountain.
And that’s where they are. When God sets his people free, it’s in order for them to serve him. Biblical Biblical freedom is never about a selfish autonomy where we just get to do the things we want to do. That’s very much our culture. I want to be free to do what I want to do, and who are you to tell me what I should do? Biblical freedom is You are set free in order to serve, to serve God, to serve others. We see that so clearly in Jesus. Philippians 2 reminds us that Jesus is being in the very form of God, took on the form of a servant. Jesus is the one who said, I did not come to be served, but to serve. That’s the very nature of what it means to follow Jesus, is that we have eyes away from ourselves to others in service. And so Israel was called to serve God, and they were then prepared to meet him. And that’s what we see taking place in the Exodus. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is also the God of Moses and Israel. The Lord desires to appear to them, to save them, to make himself known to them so that they will be his presence to the world.
Israel traveled about seven weeks from a good place to a worse place. They were farther to Mount Sinai than it would have been for them to go into the promised land. They’re at the very Southern end of the Egyptian peninsula. It’s further away than the promised land. The question The question would be, Well, why the detour? Why would you go out of your way to do this? They have had this vision of the land flowing with milk and honey, and now it’s been replaced with a dry and terrifying desert excursion. Israel is being taught to trust in God, to walk by faith and not by sight. And there in this place where they only can trust by faith because everything around them is miserable, God tells them, You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, how I carried you on eagles wings and brought you to myself. Now, if you obey fully and keep my covenant, then out of all the nations, you will be my treasured possessions. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom, a priest, and a holy nation. They were set free in order to serve the nations.
How? As the Lord’s representatives. They are to be set apart, to be holy. And by keeping God’s gracious laws, they mediate the Lord’s presence to the nations of the world. As a holy people, they are to be God’s Priestley presence. They are God’s treasure. And one thing we see repeatedly about God is that he delights to share his treasure. He intends to share Israel to the nations. And how do they respond to this call? The people tell Moses in verse 8, We will do everything the Lord has said. They promise they will keep their end of the bargain. We will do everything. And then the Lord consecrates them. A holy God brings the people to him and they consecrate, they set themselves apart. The Lord told the Moses, Tell the people to go and consecrate themselves, let them wash their garments. And the third day, the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in a full sight of the people. And you shall set limits for the people all around saying, ‘Take care not to go up to the mountain or touch the edge of it. ‘ Whoever ‘whatever touches the mountain shall be put to death.
‘ ‘No hand shall touch that person because they’re consecrated, they’re holy. They’re actually going to be stoned or shot. Whether beast or man, he shall not live. ‘ When a trumpet sounds a long blast. Then they come up to the mountain. Now, that is a terrifying picture. God invites you to him and says, Just don’t get too close or you will die. They are shown they cannot come to God like they are. One writer, he pointed out, he said, It’s striking that these people whom God loves, whom he has compassion on, are guided to this holy place to meet their God, and yet when they arrive, they are kept at arm’s distance. Only Moses is allowed to draw near to God. He’s in a unique place as the mediator between God and his people. Moses mediates God’s word to them. And this is also the role that Israel is supposed to have to the nations, to mediate to them. God is also communicating something to his people in the way that he appears to them. He is holy. Direct access is going to require something to be done about their sin. The Ten Commandments, the rest of the laws all set Israel apart from the nations around them.
By giving the law, after redemption, the Lord is making a huge statement, You are not doing something in order to get saved. You have been saved, and now I’m giving you my gracious laws that represent me and my character. Salvation and law. One writer, he notes this way. He said, The law is more clearly seen as a gift of God’s graciousness when it’s tied to the story. The law becomes another part of the larger story of God’s goodness and mercy. See, the law comes wrapped up in the story of salvation from Egypt. The very next chapter is the start of the Ten Commandments. And how does that begin? The Ten Commandments to begin with, I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. I am the God who delivered you. Now, here are my laws. The narrative enables a fuller picture of God that stands behind the law. The law enhances our understanding of this God who saves his people. Who is he? Well, this is the God he is. He cares about issues of justice and mercy, of loyalty and faithfulness.
The challenge always is to keep the law from being impersonal. The Lord’s presence has been with his people from the very beginning. He has personally cared for them. Remember, my obedience to the Lord who gave the law is not to the law itself, it’s to the Lord. Our motivation is not just obedience for obedience, It’s not for the sake of God, but it’s to delight in the Lord. Law is given for flourishing with God and with one another. We read through as a confession of sin, the Beatitudes. They love the Beatitudes. Oh, this is wonderful. Until you start to do it. Well, that’s just as hard as the Ten Commandments. Yeah, it is. It’s the same God. Yet it’s and wonderful. You want to do it. It’s like, I long for this to be the rule of my heart. And that’s the intent, is that we would know this God who has called us to himself. The beauty of his Holiness and his righteousness. The laws are not there to oppressed us. Think about it, we have laws that we obey all the time as well. And one of those is that You must have your headlights on at night.
Oh, those jerks are trying to oppressed me. Keep me from being me. Keeping you from a head-on collision. It’s not a dumb law. It makes a lot of sense. There’s lots of things that are that way. It’s not meant to rob your joy. It’s meant that you would have joy and abundance and fulfillment of how we care for and treat one another in community. The laws are not oppressive. A gracious and kind God speaks to his people who don’t know their right-hand from their left hand. And the terrifying presence on the mountain is not one of anger. Isn’t that something how we read that into it? It’s like you want to have little emojis in the scripture to let you know, smiley face, angry face, because you read something and We read the terrifying picture and we’re like, Oh, God’s angry with everybody. No, God is holy. He’s transcendent. And unlike the idles of the nations, God is not there to serve their needs. The creator has appeared to his creatures so that they would know him and worship him. The laws show God’s holy and righteous character, shows his goodness. And God, appearing in this way, it points out several things for them.
They’re lawbreakers at heart. We are lawbreakers at heart. How is a Holy God going to covenant to have a special relationship with his people? And if you go forward to the Book of Exodus, not very far, chapter 32, they’re making golden calves and worshiping them because Moses has taken too much time on the mountain. They couldn’t even make it that far. Israel, they’ve seen that the terrifying plagues of Egypt, the 10th plagues, none of them touched them. They see the great walls of water that they walk between safe and saw them collapse on the chariots of Pharaoh. And now they’re facing the terrifying presence of Almighty God who has called them by name, and they don’t even make it 40 days. That’s it. They don’t even make it 40 days. We don’t know what happened to Moses. Hey, let’s have a party. And In the mountain smoking, God is there and they’re like, What do you want to do now? And even when they get things back on track, they get mad at God and mad at Moses along the way. These same people who said, We will do anything the Lord asked. They will tell the Lord, Get off my back.
You’ve been riding me this whole time in the wilderness, even though I’m not doing the things I promised to do. And this very short excursion in the desert ends up on a 40-year wilderness wandering. Why? Because God’s people won’t trust God. After so many demonstrations of his care and his provision, they still won’t trust him. This is not the end of Mount Sinai. Mount Sinai comes back to us in the New Testament in the Book of Hebrews. Hebrews 12, the author there, he reminds Christians, For you have not come to what may be touched, the blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest. The sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made to hear is begged that no further message be spoken of. Indeed, so terrifying that Moses said, I tremble with fear, saying, That’s not what you’ve come to. The raw Holiness of God there was on display. The terrifying image of Mount Sinai, it pointed to one greater. How would sin be dealt with? The terror of another mountain answered that question. Mount Golgotha, the place of the Skull. Calvary. And this time, the one who died went willingly to touch the mountain to become a curse.
Only Jesus, as the God man, could fulfill both sides of the obligation of the covenant and apply his salvation eternally. That’s the story of redemption from Genesis to Revelation. It’s a single story told through thousands of years. Jesus, the fulfillment of the covenant promise. God-side, man-side, kept together for the first time. The writer Hebrews goes on. He says, But you come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to innumerable angels and festal gatherings, to the assembly of the first born who are enrolled in heaven to God, the judge of all, to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, to the sprinkle blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. The blood of Abel, you recall, crieded out in condemnation. Jesus’ blood covers that condemnation, atones for what we could not atone for. The terrifying presence of Mount Sinai, darkness and warning, threat of death to anyone who come near too close to the Holiness of God, gives way to that other terrifying presence on Mount Golgotha. The darkness also fills the land, we are told. As Emmanuel, God with us, hung as a cursed one, the gracious lawgiver takes upon himself the penalty of the law breakers.
That is why the gospel is good news. Christ is a fulfillment of God’s intention for Israel. The writer goes on in Hebrews, Therefore, because of this, let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken. When we pray the Lord’s prayer, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, we are praying for God’s unshakable kingdom to come, for his rule and his reign to be reestablished on the earth in totality. Think about it. What causes a great deal of our anxiety? It comes from not knowing the future, not knowing what’s in front of us. The great unknowability can cause us to lose sleep, to have worried hearts. We worry about our money, about our health. What if the market crashes? What if I lose my job? What if I get an accident? What if I get sick? How can I secure my future against such things? A world without God is a fearful place because I am left to fend for myself and to secure my own life. And much of the assurances that we try to come up with, they’re just smoking mirrors. Put an extra lock on the door, take a few more vitamins, hope that’s enough.
Just smoking mirrors. Trying to steal that anxious part of our heart. Because we don’t know what’s going to happen. Speaking of the Kingdom of God, Jesus says the Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field. When a man finds it, he covers it up and he goes and he sells all that he has. He buys the field. That’s how valuable the Kingdom is. The infinite worth of Christ is not immediately apparent to those who are living by sight and not by faith. When you actually see your own sin and shame, the gratitude for the work of our savior is much more easy to come by. The joy of hidden treasure in the Kingdom of God comes from apprehending by faith the infinite worth of Jesus. The terror of our sins has rested upon him. He bore what we could not. He set right what we had no hope of ever fixing. But notice Jesus does give a warning with that. Our savior warns us. He says, Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. See, to reject Jesus is to live for yourself apart from him.
It’s not to have his precious blood eternally covering you. You will stand before the judge of all the earth on your own merit and not on his. That’s a terrifying prospect. Because if your hope is in you, you will be shaken apart. Nothing will remain. We are to look to Jesus, the mediator of a new and a better covenant in him. We are the very treasure of God, free to serve others. That we would be the very presence of Christ to the world as an unshakable kingdom. One of the great principles of the sacrificial system that you see repeatedly in the Old Testament is that something befiled, if you touched it, you became unclean. How easy it is to move from a state of cleanliness to uncleanliness. Everything defiled you. And in Jesus, we now have the reverse. What we see for the first time is the Holiness of Jesus makes you and I holy. He takes what is defiled, what is corrupted, what is sinful, and he purifies it. It’s the great reversal of everything. We now are those people who have been set free from sin and death because of the grace given to us.
And then we have the joy of living out in community with one another, the gracious laws that God has given to us for our flourishing. That is extremely good news. It ties all these things together. It’s not a random story and a story here and there. It brings it all together. God fulfills both sides of the covenant of the promise, the side of God and the side of man, because we cannot. And how often it is we are hateful and distainful when we are shown our own sinfulness that we do, and we take it out on the one who shows us. How people have responded to the Lord of glory because his perfect righteousness, his perfect love, his perfect acceptance shows us where we have failed to do the same. And when the gospel shows us that, When we are put into the light, that terrifying and holy awesomeness of Christ, we will either go in repentance or we will go our own way, usually with resistance and hostility towards God. The good news for us, God’s desire for his people to call us out of darkness and light, that we would be his treasured possession.
Then as that treasured possession, it is never about just us. You take what God has given you, and then you are to be his presence to the world. That the blessing of Abraham to go into the world to bless through him, that becomes ours. That’s why Peter talks about this. He quotes right from Exodus 19, that the church, that we are a royal priesthood, a holy nation in Christ. And then we then, as the of God are called into the world to be his presence. The presence of a forgiven and a redeemed people who cannot look down on anyone else because somehow we figured it out or we did it better. We get to invite people to the Jesus who, while we were sinners, died on our behalf. We get to invite them to the the love of God, fully on display, that they are not coming to Mount Sinai in all of its terror. They’re coming to Mount Zion, the city of the living God, who has bought and purchased them to set them free to live for him. Pray with me. Father, as we come before you, Lord, we are a mixed bag.
Oh, Lord, we hear these glorious promises and we want to say yes and amen, and yet we see our struggles. Father, we ask that you would forgive us. Lord, we need more of Christ. We need more of his light. Father, show us more of what you have done on our behalf, of the grace that you’ve given to us, of his righteousness that we have received by faith alone. Father, open our eyes to see more by faith and less by sight. We bless you for the salvation that you have brought to us. And Father, I would ask, Lord, if there are any here who do not know the saving work of Christ, Father, I pray and ask you would open their eyes to see. You would unstop their ears to hear the good news of Jesus. We pray and ask this all in his mighty.
Discaimer: This sermon text was generated by an automated transcription service.