Doing the Covenant

Exodus 24:3 ESV

3 Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the rules. And all the people answered with one voice and said, “All the words that the Lord has spoken we will do.”

Whenever I was younger, I was what you could call an avid sports fan. Whether it be baseball or football or basketball, I was pretty faithful to keep an eye on what was going on throughout most of the season.

I was usually pretty aware of how any team was performing at any given time and where they ranked in the standings. Without double checking, I could tell you who the top 3 to 5 players were who were leading the league in any given statistic. And I kept a close eye on trades and free agency.

But that has largely changed throughout the years. Today, you could tell me that the last placed team is in first place, and I would probably believe you, because I don’t keep up with sports anywhere as much as I used to.

I might check in here and there throughout the season and look at the standings every once in a while, maybe even glance at the league leaders, but chances are I could only name off a handful of guys who even actively play.

But that doesn’t mean that I have abandoned sports altogether, because when the playoffs come, I pay attention. I keep track of who is playing who and I have plenty to talk about.

So basically, what I like to do is skip the dedication of following the sport throughout the season so that I can just enjoy the excitement of seeing who wins in the end.

So, I suppose that by some people’s standards, I’m a sports fan. But am I really? No, not really. And my apathy towards what happens throughout the season reveals that.

Well, in like manner, many, many, many people who claim to be blood-bought, born-again children of God mirror this same behavior when it comes to the covenant that they claim that they have made with God through Christ Jesus.

They desire the blessings that they receive through the covenant of grace, but they have no interest in, indeed, they don’t even want to talk about anything that is expected or required of them as born-again children of God. They would rather just skip all of that and receive their blessings.

So, are such people real Christians? Do those who claim to be Christians who say, “Hey! I just got into this so that I can go to Heaven! Don’t expect me to actually worship God!” really Christians?

Do those who claim to be Christians who nonetheless say, “I’m a Christian, but I’m not one of those religious Christians. I see no need to go to church. I see no need to read my Bible on a regular basis. I see no need to know God more” really Christians?

Basically, these are ones who want nothing to do with God while they dwell on earth, but they do want Him to give them things occasionally, and even more, they most certainly want to go to Heaven when they die, so they say that they are Christians. But are they really Christians?

Think about what I just said about my lack of devotion to following sports. I said that I am apathetic about what happens during the season, but I usually follow what happens in the playoffs. I want to skip the dedication of following the sport during the season, but I want to enjoy the payoff. And when I asked if I was really a sports fan, I admitted that though some may think so, I’m really not, and my lack of devotion to following the sport proves that.

And in the same way, according to some people’s standards, those who verbally claim to be Christians yet lack any kind of fruit whatsoever may be legitimate Christians. But are they really? No, not really. And their lack of devotion, their apathy towards God Himself proves that.

And it may even be that these have made a verbal commitment, vowed to enter into a covenant with God through verbal ascent. And that which we vow to give to God is indeed a most serious matter, and thus, failure to fulfill that which we have sworn to commit to God has serious consequences attached to it.

As was mentioned last week, what we will be looking at as we work through the 24th chapter of the book of Exodus is the ratification of the covenant that God had made with the people, Israel, and what we will see in our reading for today is the people verbally accepting the terms of the covenant being offered to them by God.

The contents of the covenant, the main crux of it, the meat and potatoes of it if you will, is found in Exodus 19:5 where God essentially says to the people, “If you keep the covenant by obeying My voice, you shall be My treasured possession among all peoples”.

So, the covenant was, obey the “voice”, or the commands that God has passed on to them. And if this is accomplished, the result will be that they will be God’s treasured possession among all the peoples of the earth, an elect portion to Himself.

Then, as we read on through chapters 20-23 we see just what these commands were. Commands which God had given to Moses to relay to the people.

We then, as we look to our reading, at the beginning of this third verse, see Moses doing just that, relaying that which God had given him to give to the people, as we read:

Exodus 24:3a ESV

3a Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the rules.

This verse begins with the words “Moses came”, which reveals to us that the command that had been given to Moses in the first two verses of this chapter, when God told Moses, along with his brother Aaron, Aaron’s sons, and the seventy elders to come up had been given to Moses while he was still communing with God on Mount Sinai, before he had initially descended the mountain.

What this means is that God had communicated to Moses what He required of Moses and the people, now the people had to agree to the contents of the covenant, and once that was done, Moses and the others were to ascend the mountain to partake in the covenant meal with God, signifying the ratification of the covenant.

Thus, when our reading says that “Moses came”, it signifies that he descended the mount and came to the people. Once he had come, he then gathered the people together, and relayed to them what our reading calls, “all the words of the Lord and all the rules”.

The “words” which are spoken of here are in reference to what we know as the Ten Commandments; those which are found in the 20thchapter of Exodus.

The Ten Commandments are, what the Westminster Shorter Catechism calls, “the summary of the moral law”. The moral law is what our reading calls, “all the rules”.

Thus, Moses came to the people, and when he came, he likely reiterated to them Exodus 19:5 wherein God says, “If you keep the covenant by obeying My voice, you shall be My treasured possession among all peoples”. After reiterating that, he likely recited the Ten Commandments, and then lastly, reiterated the entirety of the moral law found in chapters 21-23.

Thus, God tells the people, through Moses, that if they are faithful to keep this law found in chapters 21-23 and summarized in chapter 20, they will be a manifestly blessed people, a treasure among all the peoples on earth.

After hearing the terms of the covenant, we read the response of the people in the last part of our reading, where it says:

Exodus 24:3b ESV

3b And all the people answered with one voice and said, “All the words that the Lord has spoken we will do.”

So, the first thing that we see here is that the response that was given was a unified response, as the text says, “all the people answered with one voice”. There was not one among them who differed, who were opposed to the terms that were spelled out for them.

And, in one voice, in complete agreement, the people, or more likely, the seventy elders who represented the entirety of the people declared that they would be faithful to obey the commands of God when they said, “All the words that the Lord has spoken we will do”.

This is where the rubber meets the road. The people do not simply say that they will acknowledge the words that God has spoken, but that they will do all the words that God has spoken.

You see, if I legitimately acknowledge something, I will then do something. What I mean by that is if I wholeheartedly believe something to be true, I will then heed to what I believe to be true by acting according to what I believe is true.

For example, let’s say that I hear something that changes my world forever. Let’s say that I hear someone say, “It is never ever acceptable for someone to wear a tie! So, no one should ever wear a tie, ever again!”.

Now, there may be some people who might hear that and say that that is silly and therefore they just keep on wearing their ties like usual. But I might say, “You know what? I think that what was said is right! No one, and that includes me, should ever wear a tie ever again!”.

You may be rocked by my words, you may say, “Wow! Did you hear that?! Pastor Nick is never going to wear a tie ever again!” but then I go home and come back to the church next Sunday wearing a tie. Suddenly you would know that my “declaration” was nothing but hot air, because I can say whatever I want, but my actions prove otherwise.

You would say, “He went on and on saying that no one should ever wear a tie ever again and then he turned around and put a tie on! Some profession! Some declaration that he made!”.

You see, I can declare anything, say anything, profess that I am this or that, or that I will do this or that, but if I don’t do it, then my words don’t really mean anything.

You see, the people of Israel here in our reading, what they were declaring is that they believe what God says to such an extent that they will not only acknowledge that it is true, but that they will actually do what God says, proving that their declaration is legitimate.

But if they don’t do what God says, if they don’t do the words that the Lord has spoken, then their declaration here doesn’t really mean anything at all.

All of us, I hope, at some time in our lives, came to a point where we observed what God has done for His elect people through Christ Jesus. All of us, I hope, at some time in our lives, came to a point where we heard, “the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” and trembled at the words and believed.

But indeed, as James tells us, even the demons believe and shudder! Even the demons believe this to be true and tremble at the recognition of the legitimacy of the gospel.

Beloved, we must do more than hear the gospel to be legitimate disciples of Christ Jesus, we must do more than believe the gospel to be legitimate disciples of Christ Jesus; beloved, we must do the gospel.

Our hearing of the gospel, our belief in the gospel must lead to the practice of the gospel wherein we receive what Christ has done for us on our behalf and then respond with loving, devout, sincere worship of Him. A worship which constitutes our entire being.

The covenant which God makes with us as believers consists of Him graciously saving us from His wrath, wrath that we justifiably deserve due to our sin nature. But in Him truly saving us, the response that we then naturally give is worship. Worship because God is Who He is, and He has given us a new heart that now longs to worship Him.

Listen carefully to that terminology; He gives us a new heart that longs to worship Him. And thus, the one who has truly been born again needs not to be forced to make his existence about the worship of God, for it is now, upon receiving his new heart, what he most desires to do.

Thus, the true Christian will never practice their faith in the way that I now follow sports. The true Christian will never sit back and say “I’m not going to worship God here. I’m just waiting for heaven!”

The true Christian will reckon his covenant with God and joyfully fulfill it, recognizing it as the very thing that he was born again to do. Joyfully worshipping Him all his days. In other words, the true Christian will prove himself to be a true Christian.

Beloved, may we all prove ourselves to be true Christians!

Amen?