The Covenant at Sinai (Exodus 19:1-20:21)

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Good morning church, you can go ahead, grab your Bibles, open up to Exodus 19. Exodus 19, starting in verse one, and we will go through 19 and most of 20 today. So as you turn into Exodus 19, severe combined immunodeficiency is a genetic disorder that attacks a person’s immune system, making them extremely vulnerable to infection. Perhaps the most famous person who had this was a young boy named David Vetter, famous more for the nickname that the media gave him when discussing his case, which was bubble boy, because he spent the 12 years of his life in a sterile, plastic chamber until he received a bone marrow transplant from his sister intended to help him, but it had trace bits of a dormant virus in it, and so instead, it ended up killing him. His body simply could not tolerate infection of any sort. And in a similar way, our holy God can’t tolerate sin of any sort. The only difference being our sin is not dangerous to him, but to those who bring sin into His presence, which presents a bit of a problem for us, doesn’t it? Since we’re all infected with sin, how can we live with God? We can’t live with God. Can’t dwell in His presence, because we can’t make or keep ourselves holy. And yet here we are Exodus. 19. You’ve been tracking with us so far in the series. You know, we’re at Sinai, where God is intending to dwell among his people and enter into covenant with them. I will be your God. You will be my people. So how is that going to work? Exactly, that’s the question we need to have in our minds as we dig into this passage this morning, kind of the central passage in the book of Exodus. We’ll get it in three scenes. I’m going to spend a little less time on chapter 20 and the 10 Commandments, in part because Evie already took us through it, and in part because we also spent 12 weeks on it not that long ago. So if you’re wanting to go deeper into any of those 10 Commandments, go back see our series Big 10 that we did a year or so ago. But let’s start Chapter 19, verses one to eight, our first scene, covenant grace. Covenant grace. Let me read it for us on the first day of the third month after the Israelites left Egypt. On that very day, they came to the desert of Sinai. After they set out from Rephidim, they entered the desert of Sinai and Israel camped there in the desert in front of the mountain. Then Moses went up to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain and said, This is what you are to say to the descendants of Jacob and what you are to tell the people of Israel. You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt and how I carried you on eagle’s wings and brought you to myself. Now, if you obey Me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations, you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites. So Moses went back and summoned the elders of the people and set before them all the words the Lord had commanded him to speak, the people all responded together, we will do everything the Lord has said. So Moses brought their answer back to the Lord. Alright, it has been three months, at this point since the since Israel left Egypt and they arrived here at Sinai. This is where the burning bush was. And if you remember all the way back in Exodus 312 God told Moses, this will be a sign to you that everything I’m saying is going to come true. You’re going to worship at this mountain, which we said was actually a little bit surprising, because it is not on the way to the promised land. And so here they are back in front of that mountain, and Moses scurries up the mountain. It’s almost like he’s an excited little boy being like, you did it. God, like what you said you were going to do, you actually did it. So here they are camped at Sinai. They’re actually going to be here for 10 months. It’s tough to catch because there’s so many laws, but they’re actually here at Sinai from Exodus 19 all the way to numbers 10. A good chunk of that’s because we get Leviticus, which not a lot of plot in Leviticus, although there’s a lot of important stuff. But God speaks to Moses here as they get going, and tells him what to say to the people, as I said, this is really the center of the book, and central to Israel’s history into the story of their redemption. It is important to see that this is grounded in God’s past acts of salvation, what he has already done for them, his finished work. He delivered them from Egypt, as we’ve seen the last few weeks. He. Rescued them, as on eagle’s wings, he says, which is an interesting image. An eagle is, of course, a bird of prey. It’s a predator, right? And Egypt was the prey in this analogy, eagles aren’t famous for being rescuing birds, but that’s what it has become here in this image. So if you’re picturing like The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings, that is, I’m sure, taken from this idea right here, but this idea that it’s the past acts of salvation gives a gospel shape to our passage, which is so important to remember, because we’re about to get the law, we’re about to get the requirements of the covenant. And so we have to have that order right, or we will get our theology wrong. There is this unbreakable, unshakable order. First, God saves, that’s verse four. Then second, we obey. That’s verse five, the first little bit there, and then third God blesses. That’s the second half of five and verse six. So that’s important. That means that the law is not a ladder we climb in order to win his favor or earn his grace. No, it’s he freely bestows His favor, his grace on us, and then we respond in grateful love. We obey. As a result. How could we not obey? Though? Because we’ve seen what he’s done, we’re thinking, this is the God who delivered us in these mighty acts of power. Of course, we would live to please Him. You’ll you’ll see, sometimes in movies or even in real life, somebody will save someone else’s life, and the person who’s been saved, you know, is going, I am forever in your debt, like I’ll do anything for you. And it’s not begrudging, and it’s not trying to earn that, that salvation, or something like that. It’s just like the overflow of love and gratitude towards that person, and that’s what we would have towards God as well. Let’s look at that third part God’s blessing. What will Israel be by grace? Through active, obedient faith, we get these three powerful statements of gospel identity here. First of all, they will be a treasured possession. A treasured possession, very specific word that’s used. It refers to the personal royal treasure of a king, as opposed to the national wealth, which kind of also sort of belongs to the king. But this is that this is the families like so he’s saying Israel is the crown jewel among the nations, and it’s deeply personal, like he’s saying, I have set my affection, my love, on you. It’s actually there in the passage you notice in verse four, it says, I have brought you, not to Sinai, no, I have brought you to myself, to myself. So it’s this highly relational language. There will be a treasured possession. Second, there will be a kingdom of priests. So the whole nation is going to be priests, not just select individuals in it, which is interesting, because, of course, there will be select individuals in it who are going to be priests. So what exactly is going on here? Well, what do priests do? Let’s think of it that way. Priests mediate. That’s their main task. So they represent the people to God, and then God to the people, and representing God to the people, they teach, right? They bring his law, for example, and then in representing the people to God, they bring sacrifices, sacrifices in particular. So how does all of Israel do that? Well, I think what God is saying here is that Israel will be for the nations what the priests are for Israel, because Israel as a nation will bring God’s revelation to all other nations. Will bring his word to all other nations, will show them what faith in the One True God looks like. And, of course, ultimately, will bring sacrifice for the nations as well. Because, as Jesus Himself told us, salvation is from the Jews, because Jesus, the Lamb of God comes out of the nation of Israel. So there’s this delicate balance that means here in this passage, yes, Israel is God’s special possession, but for the sake of all nations, and all nations are on God’s mind. You can actually see that in verse five, if you obey Me fully, obey Me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations, you’ll be my treasured possession, although the whole earth is mine. So he’s thinking globally, even as he’s speaking nationally here. And then third, there will be a holy nation, a holy nation, just as the priests were. Set apart with distinctive dress, extra requirements, extra care in their preparation. In the same way, Israel will be distinct among the nations, they will wear a special dress, and that they will be clothed with righteousness, consecrated for special service to declare His glory to a watching world. So the hope here is that the nations could look at Israel and see who God is, what he’s done, and what it means to worship and follow Him. Now keep all of that in mind as I read to you from First Peter chapter two. This is God speaking to the church, but you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation. God’s special possession that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy, dear friends, I urge you as foreigners and exiles to abstain from sinful desires which wage war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us. This is fascinating too, because Peter is actually speaking to a group of Gentile Christians. We know from some clues in that letter. And so it’s the reminder that the church is the new and true Israel, and given the same task as Israel, the same gospel shape to the task. It’s there in verse 10, you’ve received mercy and earned this. It’s an act of grace. But So given the same task, the same gospel shape, and then given that same mission to declare the praises of him who called us from darkness into delight, in hearing of all and then living distinctive lives so that the people around us see us, see our good deeds and glorify God, because they know what makes us different. You are called to be a living representative of the living God, saying and displaying the good news of glorious grace. So how are you doing when you consider that mission? Do you have that missional identity? Does your life match the message you proclaim it’s a tough question to answer. Of course, take some self examination. The kind of thing we probably need to do in community groups. That’s what we’ll be doing this week in community groups, asking ourselves that question. But here’s the thing I’ll I’ll let you in on a little secret. Now, your life doesn’t match the message, at least not always, right? Anyone here want to fight me on that one? I didn’t think so. So we read verse eight, then we will do everything the Lord has said. And we roll our eyes because we know ourselves, but we also know Israel, like golden calf. Anyone will get there pretty soon, they are not going to do everything God commanded, as Evie reminded us just a moment ago. So the law, even the 10 words, the 10 Commandments that we’ll get to in this passage, it shows us how to live, but that means it also reveals our failure, shows us where we don’t measure up. And so that’s the bad news of the gospel Perfect, perfect covenant keeping is required for salvation. What does God say? Obey me fully, and we don’t obey fully, we don’t keep the covenant perfectly. That’s the bad news. The Good News of the Gospel is that God sent His Son to do it in our place, because there is only ever one who kept the law perfectly, and his name is Jesus. God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. That’s what I mean by covenant grace, by the way. So that’s Scene one, covenant grace. Scene two, it’s a good thing we got covenant grace because we are standing before a holy God. Let’s keep reading the rest of chapter 19, picking up in verse nine, the Lord said to Moses, I’m going to come to you in a dense cloud so that the people will hear me speaking with you and will always put their trust in you. Then Moses told the Lord what the people had said, And the Lord said to Moses, Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow, have them wash their clothes and be ready by the third day, because on that day, the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai, in the sight of all the people, put limits for the people around the mountain and tell them. Be careful that you do not approach the mountain or touch the foot of it. Whoever touches the mountain is to be put to death. They are to be stoned or shot with arrows. Not a hand is to be laid on them. No person or animal shall be permitted to live. Only when the ram’s horn sounds a long blast may they approach the mountain. After Moses had gone down the mountain to the people, he consecrated them and they washed their clothes. Then he said to the people, prepare yourselves for the third day. Abstain from sexual relations. On the morning the third day, there was thunder and lightning with a thick cloud over the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp trembled. Then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. Mount Sinai was covered with smoke because the Lord descended on it in fire, the smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, and the whole mountain trembled violently as the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and the voice of God answered him. The Lord descended to the top of Mount Sinai and called Moses to the top of the mountain. So Moses went up, and the Lord said to him, go down and warn the people so they do not force their way through to see the Lord, and many of them perish, even the priests who approach the Lord must consecrate themselves or the Lord will break out against them. Moses said to the Lord, the people cannot come up Mount Sinai because you yourself warned us put limits around the mountain and set it apart. It’s holy. The Lord replied, Go down and bring Aaron up with you. The priests and the people must not force their way through to come up to the Lord, he will break out against them. So Moses went down to the people and told them, so God is going to appear to Israel and to speak to Moses specifically in their hearing, they need to get ready. They need to consecrate themselves so that they can dwell in His presence. Now, God comes with much fanfare. It’s a little bit like royalty, or even what royalty looks like for us today in America, celebrity, right showing up. So you got, you know, lightning flashing. That’s the paparazzi cameras. You got the red carpet, you got guards, you got trumpets. It’s all here, declaring his presence, and in particular, we see fire and cloud, and those are really important manifestations of His presence, because we’ve seen those already in Exodus, like at the burning bush, for example. The fire is this symbol of God’s holiness. It is a symbol of his dangerous holiness as well. We talked about this fire kind of draws people to it, but not too close. And that’s exactly what we have here. And then we have the cloud, like the pillar of cloud that has been leading them by day, the cloud representing God’s shrouded presence, his veiled presence, so that he can be with the people, because if they were to look on him directly, they would die. The point here, though, is that when God comes, he comes in power. We’ve already seen that in Exodus. This is not new information. Egypt learned that lesson with the plagues and at the Red Sea, and hear Israel is learning it at Sinai, and it is terrifying, terrifying. If you’d been there, you’d be freaking out. We all would be it should be just as terrifying for us today, because God is no different. He has the same power, doesn’t he? Annie Dillard, who famous author who converted to Christianity late in life, wrote this at one point. She said, I do not find Christians sufficiently sensible of the conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or does one not believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning, it is madness to wear ladies straw hats and velvet hats to church. We should be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares. They should lash us to our pews. Do you have this sense of God’s awesomeness when you come to church, or do you come glibly just in few minutes late. No big deal. Unrepentant. God loves to forgive. I love to sin. It’s a great combination. When we come to the Lord’s table, you just, of course, I take the bread and the cup without a second thought. What else would I do? Or do you tremble in His presence. There’s a reason we start our services the way we start them. I know some of you have never heard it before because you haven’t been here on time. There’s a reason we start the way we start because the sacred does break in in this time, and it looks like this in the spiritual verse. Home, at least. And so we should come with a holy terror, yes, resting in grace as well. Of course, there’s a balance, but we come trembling, especially because then God declares his holiness. We can see his power, but we have to hear His Holiness. One of the things you get in this section of Exodus is the importance of hearing the Word of God. That’s why we give ourselves the the bulk of our time on Sunday mornings, the majority of it to hearing God’s word. But God declares his holiness. And again, this raises the central problem of the Bible, how can an unholy people dwell in the presence of a holy God? If we can’t make or keep ourselves holy, how can we then waltz into the presence of the Holy God? And God here says, You can’t. You can’t. I mean, most of this chapter is just one giant no trespassing sign, except it’s stronger than that. It’s the one that is, I hope, tongue in cheek. But it’s not tongue in cheek here anyway, that one that says Trespassers will be shot, survivors will be shot again. Like, that’s what this chapter just said in, like, neon lights. This is a problem. Hebrews tells us how significant the problem is. Hebrews 1214, without holiness, no one will see the Lord. Without holiness, no one will see the Lord. And there is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one holy. We all have sinned. We all fall short of the glory of God. So what hope do we have? Only this, only this gospel. Hope we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ, once for all, the good news of the gospel, standing before a God as a holy as this is that, as Hannah read for us earlier, we have not come to this mountain blazing with smoke and fire, but you have come, as she read for us, to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to 1000s upon 1000s of angels and joyful assembly to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the Judge of all, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, to Jesus, the mediator of a New Covenant, into the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. And then what does Hebrews tell us talks about the importance of hearing God’s word. See to it that you do not refuse Him who speaks. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful and so worship God, acceptably with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire. That’s the lesson of Exodus 19, right there. We cannot purify or consecrate ourselves. We can only be made pure and holy through the blood of Christ shed on our behalf. Once we learn that, know that, believe that, then we respond with grateful but reverent worship and loving obedience. There is the gospel shape to our obedience. Again, we move from despair to deepest joy in Christ. It is, as Jack Miller was fond of saying, the reminder that you are more sinful than you ever you know dared imagine, but more loved than you ever dared hope. That’s the gospel takes us, then to our last section, fearful goodness, chapter, 21 to 21 I’m not going to read the 10 Commandments for us, because, again, we covered them recently. We just read one and two, and then I’ll read 18 to 21 and God spoke all these words, I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery, and then dropping 18 When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke. They trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance and said to Moses, speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us, or we will die. Moses said to the people, do not be afraid. God has come to test you so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning. People remained at a distance while Moses approached the thick darkness where God was, I would think after that last section, we would be ready to obey, wouldn’t we, we’ve seen our sin and yet his love and grace, His Holiness, but his goodness also. And so we. Want to do the will of Him who loved us and saved us and promises to live with us, but just in case we forgot, God gives us the gospel shape to law once again, because he starts in verse two with past salvation. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. I’ve already saved you. That happens first, then that produces the present obedience. Again, the difference between covenant faith like this and every other religion on the planet is the difference between I obey therefore I’m accepted. I gotta earn it right and I’m accepted, therefore I obey. That’s the gospel. So we spent a lot of time on the 10 words already. I’m not going to go through them in details. I said, these do give us broad principles for living. These are not laws like these are principles under which you could write laws, as we’ll see even next week, but they’re showing Israel and us how to be holy, how to be that holy nation, that kingdom of priests, because in it, God shows us his character. That’s what we see in the 10 Commandments, the character of God, which, on the one hand, we strive to emulate, but on the other hand, is what motivates our obedience. We need to know Him, to want to follow Him, and we’ll see that in some specific ways. So since all of Exodus is about knowing God, it’s all answering Pharaoh’s question, Who is the Lord? What do we learn about God in the 10 Commandments? So first commandment, no other gods. We learn quite clearly that God and God alone is God, and that he is a jealous God, because He is the only true God. He will not share His glory for his sake, but for our sake as well, because he knows that idols will kill us because they’re not alive. They can’t help us. They can’t save us. Only he can. So he’s a jealous God. Second Commandment, no images we see jealousy again. In fact, it even mentions that verse five, the Lord your God is a jealous God, okay, but did you notice he’s also a loving God? Verse six, but showing love to 1000 generations of those who love Me and keep My commandments, he shows love to 1000 generations of those who love him. It’s actually the first time in the Bible that God is called a loving God is right here in the second commandment, interestingly, Third Commandment, then about his name. Of course, his name is his essence. We saw this when we were back in Exodus three. God is who He always is. It also reveals God’s supreme authority and power, because God is the only being who can name himself, because to name is to show power over so God names Adam, Adam names Eve. Everybody gets named all over the place, not God. God names himself. Then the Sabbath. This reminds us that our God is a working and then a resting. God resting because he finished his work also takes us back to creation, and so He is Creator, and Lord to honor your parents is to remember God’s authorities and how he exercises his authority through others and in the promise there, we remember His provision as well. When he talks about bringing us into the land that he gives us when we come to murder, we see that God is a living God and a life giving God. The whole reason that murder is so wrong is because it’s against an image bearer, right? One who bears God’s image. And so it reminds us that we are made in His image. When we get to adultery, we remember God’s faithfulness and holiness. He is the perfect husband who is committed to his bride even when she is adulterous, as she is over and over again, as we see in the Old Testament and in our own lives, when we get to theft again, we remember God’s provision. We have no need to steal, because he gives us all that we need with false witness, we remember God’s truthfulness. He cannot lie and will not fail to keep his word. And then with coveting, we see God’s goodness, His faithfulness and provision again, and we get the reminder that He alone is the one who will satisfy us. We could have all the treasures of this world, and it would not be enough. Our hearts would still want more, but Jesus quenches our thirst. That’s the character of the God who saved us, whom we follow and seek to please. And again, how could we not especially when we set these covenant stipules? Relations within the story, right the context of the 10 Commandments is so important. God has proven his character over and over again, so Israel has every reason to trust Him, to LISTEN to Him, to know that his commands are good. I mean, just take the theft one just as an example. Okay, so I’m not supposed to steal. Well, how do I know that I can trust God to provide what I need? As they’re scooping Manna up off the ground, right? Do you get it like he’s proven himself? You can. You can do this. You can follow these commands. Because I am with you. So how do the people respond? They tremble with fear. We see in verse 18, like they recognize what we talked about in the last section. I shouldn’t be here, right? I’m going to die. There’s no way I’m going to make it. And so they they know that they can’t approach and they know that they they shouldn’t be there. They’re like way out of place. The law shows them that the standard is too high. So they know that they need someone to approach God in their place and on their behalf. They need, in other words, a mediator. And so they send Moses up right verse 19, speak to us yourself, Moses, and we will listen, but do not have God speak to us or we will die. They want a mediator. They send Moses to represent them to God and God to them, to stand between us and a holy God, so that we are not destroyed. But the problem, of course, is that Moses needs a mediator too. I mean, Moses didn’t live up to the 10 Commandments, did he? We already saw him murder somebody. He’s not going to make it to the promised land because he got anger issues. So we’ve seen him sin. We’re going to see him sin again. That means we don’t need Moses. We need a better than Moses. And so we read in First Timothy two, for there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ, Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all people. There’s our hope. What we couldn’t do keep the law, he did, and then what he couldn’t do, sin we did, and we kind of just exchange rewards. Basically, it’s like Jesus says, I will take your law breaking and you can take my law keeping, and so I will take the covenant curses, the punishment for your sin, and you can take the covenant blessings, the rewards of my obedience. Now you understand why we sang earlier. Not the labor of my hands can fulfill thy laws demands. Could my zeal no respite, no could my tears forever flow, all for sin could not atone. Thou must save and thou alone, it had to be Jesus, and he did, thanks be to God. So that now when we approach the Holy God, we do so clothed in Jesus’s righteousness, his perfect performance record, all of his obedience. And we come then with an odd fear, the fear of Psalm 130 with you there is forgiveness, therefore you are feared like it’s the fear of knowing what we deserve is not what we have been given. So we don’t keep the law because we’re scared of punishment. We keep the law because we’re moved by grace. That’s what I mean by fearful goodness. There’s a fear, a right fear of the Lord and a right fear of his goodness that leads us to want to be good as well, like now we want to do good, to express gratitude to our good God, knowing that his commands are for our good. And how could they not be considering who gave them? I think this is a really important part of the gospel, motivation for our obedience as well, to go, Well, why did the Lord give us these commands? Can we really trust him? Are do we know that they’re going to be for our good? I mean, he rescued us by Christ’s blood to make our lives miserable like that. Doesn’t make any sense. Of course, we can trust his commands. And so our big idea, then, from this passage, when we talk about obedience, when we talk about law, what I think we need to have in our minds is this love the God who first loved you. That’s what it means to keep the 10 Commandments. That’s what it means to keep the covenant. It’s just loving. The God who first loved you. Because if, as Jesus said, You love him, you will keep His commandments, and as John His disciples said, His commandments are not burdensome, so we see His grace and savor His goodness and then seek to live in such a way that we please him, which means, what do we need to do as we go from here, we need to examine our lives again. Do we come glibly into His presence, or do we tremble? Are we on mission, aware of our mission as priests to the nations? Does our life match the message? We’ve got these 10 standards by which to evaluate our lives now, right? We got these 10 words that we can go back to and say, All right, let me see how I’m doing here. Now I do want to say to some of you who may be trying to climb Sinai on your own still like, I think we got it in this passage. You don’t have to take my word for it. We saw it there, right? But that is not a good idea. Okay, don’t try to get there on your own. Just lay your doing down. He already did it for you, Christ, our mediator. So just receive the gift of grace and then obey, because you have been accepted by grace. What we could not do, he did for us and in our place, Jesus, our mediator, love him who first loved you. Let’s pray. Lord, even now in prayer, we recognize that we shouldn’t be here, not in ourselves. At least we are too often unholy in our thoughts and words and deeds, and yet here we are in the presence of a holy God addressing you in direct speech, and so we remember, Lord, the cost of our salvation, the goodness of your commands and the glory of Your grace. We come to you not on the basis of what we have done, but on the basis only of what Christ, our mediator, has done for us and in our place, but as a result of that, we know that we can come boldly into Your presence to ask for grace and mercy in our time of need and Lord, our need we have seen in this passage this morning, our need is to be made more like Jesus, our need is to be strengthened to keep your law so that we can live as effective priests to the nations, saying and displaying the glory of the gospel to a watching world. Would you work that in us, Lord, for Your name’s sake, we pray amen.