remote sites are maybe 3 miles down a trail, not 3 months Ch 14-18 = 3 months Ex 19 – Numbers 10 …59 chapters… Occupy 11 months of 40 years of wandering 2.5 % of wilderness time occupies the next 59 chapters We need to slow down here, along with the text unless we rush ahead as the people were tempted to rush the mountain to their peril, We need to understand what’s going on and why
Here, on the verge of the LORD coming and speaking to His people, Appearing in a way that He has not Speaking in a way that He has not giving His people the Law … the “torah” the teaching, the instruction
He pauses to say “Let’s get a couple of things straight”
Before we get into these commandments … commands, things that you are TO DO the IMPERATIVES (statements of command)
Let’s remember the reality of this relationship, the INDICATIVES (statements of fact) WHO God is WHO you are
Indicatives (the realities of relationship) come before the Imperatives (the rules of relationship)
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WHO has GOD shown himself to be over the past 18 chapters?
You have seen, you have experienced … I AM the LORD
God is Judge…seen the Judgment on Egypt
God is Redeemer …experienced the blessing or being lifted out of slavery and brought to God on “eagles wings” … in strength and power
God is Initiator and Fulfiller … brought you to myself
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KNOW WHO YOU ARE …. WHY were you redeemed, why did God bring you to himself?
Given an identity: treasured possession Given a mission: kingdom of priests, holy nation
Pause for just a moment and remember who God is talking to… a complaining, doubting, ungrateful bunch … rather unlikely candidates for this calling
Like Time’s Person of the Year, People’s Sexiest Man Alive, and the Oscar for Best Exercise Video all going to Richard Simmons
An identity: A TREASURED POSSESSION (segullah)
Speaks of a “private royal fortune used exclusively by and for the king”
Ex of Royal property:
But remember, we’re talking about people here, not coins and jewels
Adoption: when a child is taken by those adoptive parents, that child has no say, usually can’t even speak. But that baby becomes the treasured possession of those parents, who have probably spent more time in preparation and prayer over that child than that child has existed!
They will surmount obstacles and gov’t red tape and pay expenses, tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees and processing fees … b/c that child is their treasured possession before they’ve even set eyes on the child!!!
Ex 4:22 Israel is My Son! My first born!
>>> God delivers his people, wages war for them b/c he loves them
“The whole earth is mine” God can do as He pleases And what pleases him is to take a people as his own!
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That identity carries with it a MISSION: 2 Fold
#1 KINGDOM OF PRIESTS
Specifics of the priesthood were yet to come (later in Exodus and Leviticus), but the people understood what priests were … from Egypt
Privilege, Rank, Influence … ACCESS
Great privilege of priests was intimate access to God. They drew near on behalf of the people.
Royal priesthood … priests in the service of the King of all Kings. But an entire kingdom of priests? Priests for WHO?
Priests for the nations
Just as priests were set apart as a class of people in society, so the people of God are a kingdom among other kingdoms to be mediators, go betweens, bringing the surrounding kingdoms before God.
Being a kingdom of priests speaks of how the people of God are to come before God in representing others.
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A character: HOLY NATION
Set apart … not in isolation, but in purpose
speaks of how the people of God are to go before others in representing God
set apart to reflect God’s likeness, to display HIS character
truly reflect and bear the Image of God in all that they DO and all they ARE
So that all surrounding nations will see what God is like
To glimpse the ways of God’s people is to glimpse the ways of God
Be holy as I am holy (Leviticus 19:2). Comfort as you have been comforted Forgive as you have been forgiven Love as you have been loved
Coquina: Bearing God’s image in our social, economic, cultural interactions
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Not being a certain way to gain the notice of God But of others
IF, IF, IF … “ you obey my voice and indeed keep my covenant”
A couple of important things to remember about covenant It’s not about RULES, it’s about RELATIONSHIP
And b/c it’s not about rules but relationship, It’s not about PERFECTION, but about DEVOTION We’re in a campaign season (NPR commentator refer to the past few weeks of bickering in the Democratic camps as “40 years of wilderness”)
Whoever gets elected is going to have some slogans and promises to live up to Obama on Letterman…appointing Romney the Secretary of Lookin’ Good
Do we honestly expect that all of those campaign promises will be fulfilled and completed?
NO … but we do expect that they will be faithful and devoted to pursuing them to the best of their ability
Or in a marriage, vows are taken … and we say I will! Do we expect perfection? OF COURSE, we married a perfect spouse, and so did they!
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The people say “all that the Lord has said we will do.”
They are committing themselves not so much to rules of perfection as they are a relationship of devotion
WHAT COVENANT?
The law that’s about to be given? Yes
Book of the Covenant Ex 20-24,
10 Cs are the launching point and over-arching summation of what is to follow
But the covenant does not start there
Peter Ennes, “not an initiation, but a continuation of God’s relationship with His people”
This relationship has “priors”
Look how they are addressed, very poetically with repetition
19:3 Say to the house of Jacob, tell the people of Israel
Points back to the patriarchs: Jacob, Isaac, Abraham
They are the people of A, I and J And God is the God of A, I, and J
There’s a prior history of relationship, a prior covenant, here that is being built on
a covenant that the LORD has remembered
READ Ex 2:24 (6:4-5)
Too often we get stuck in the trap of believing that somehow the law marks the defining moment in God’s relationship with us, when in fact it does not DEFINE but DEVELOPS that relationship
What is about to happen at Sinai, is not simply a new covenant, but a continuation and building on of a previous promise
God’s promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob Gen 12:1-3
governs everything that comes after
READ Gal 3:16-18
Think back to Adoption Parent does not say to the Child … if you do this and such, then you will be my child NO … you are my child, don’t forget who you are
And so act accordingly
House rules … not to become my child, but to show that you are indeed my child
Relationship with God in the time of Moses no more depended on works than today It’s always been based on promise, on grace
Indicative before the Imperative
But God’s people are called to show themselves devoted to the relationship in how we live, how we respond to God’s grace
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1 Peter 2:9-10 (Indicative)
But then the Imperative
1 Pet 2:11-12
And it all comes under the reality of … READ 1 Pet 1:13-21