Freedom From the Yoke of Bondage

Leviticus 26:13 ESV

13 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that you should not be their slaves. And I have broken the bars of your yoke and made you walk erect.

Whenever I have the opportunity to preach here at Courtyard Estates, I typically get pretty excited, not only because I have the opportunity to preach to you, but also because when I come to Courtyard to preach, I have the opportunity to break away from the series of sermons that I preach on Sunday mornings and preach from a different part of the Bible.

In fact, whenever I preach here, I try to preach on verses that are not normally preached on, and it’s not every day that you hear a sermon from the book of Leviticus so, that’s where we are today!

The time in which the book of Leviticus chronicles and when it was written was during the period of time when Israel was wandering in the desert after being freed from their bondage in Egypt.

And specifically in this book, what we see are the specific laws that God had given to Israel in preparation for them to inhabit the land that He had promised to their ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

When we come to the verse that we are about to study this afternoon, God had just finished describing to Moses the blessings that would come upon the people of Israel for their obedience to His commands and in our verse for today, aside from the potential blessings that will come their way upon obedience, God gives to the people the primary motivation to obedience.

We see this primary motivation at the beginning of this verse when the Lord says:

Leviticus 26:13a ESV

13a I am the Lord your God,

This should most certainly be the people’s primary motivation for obedience to the commands of God, that being because it is God Who commands it, and God has laid claim to the people of Israel specifically.

God had graciously chosen to mark these people as His own and to set them apart for His holy purposes. The purpose that they serve is to glorify God, worshipping Him alone in spirit and in truth.

Therefore, for this reason, first and foremost, they must obey the Lord, because He is their Lord.

And as we continue on in this verse, we see God remind the people, through Moses, what He has already graciously accomplished for them, when He says that He is the Lord their God:

Leviticus 26:13b ESV

13b who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that you should not be their slaves.

I’m sure that we are all familiar with this. The people, Israel had been oppressed as slaves in the land of Egypt, a land not their own.

But God was with His people, working powerfully among them, leading them out of the land, out of slavery, and leading them into freedom. It was not they, not Moses who led them out, it was God Who led them out. And it was God Who made them free.

And God emphasizes this to Moses using striking imagery as we continue in our reading, where God says:

Leviticus 26:13c ESV

13c And I have broken the bars of your yoke

Now, a yoke is the heavy wooden bar that ancient farmers would lay across the necks of their oxen to push their heads down in order to subdue them while they were utilizing them. Being kept under this yoke, the oxen had no choice but to keep their heads down and do whatever their master would have them do.

Well, God says that the people, Israel had been like these oxen, burdened and weighed down by the yoke of oppression, but God had done what Israel could not, He powerfully broke this yoke of oppression for them.

And the glorious consequence of God breaking this yoke of oppression is found at the end of our reading where God tells Moses, concerning the people, Israel, that He has:

Leviticus 26:13d ESV

13d made you walk erect.

Their bondage in Egypt caused them to be bent over in bondage, but God has powerfully freed them from that bondage and straightened them out. Theoretically speaking, He has caused them to stand upright.

And the most loving part of it all is when God says that He has “made” them to walk erect. Having removed them from their bondage, they knew not how to live as freedmen, thus God was gracious to make them do so. He made them live free!

Whenever we as born-again Christians apply this particular verse to what God has done for us personally the beautiful reality of what is being said in this verse bursts forth and causes us to reverence and worship the God Who done for us, as the elect people of God, something so much greater than what He had done for the people, Israel.

Like Israel, whenever we came into this world, we were naturally in bondage, slaves to sin, naturally at odds with God. But because of love that can be possessed by none other than God Himself, He willed to choose a people, an elect people, a people whom He willed to love despite our natural rebellion against Him.

And those of us who are savedtoday are among the ranks, among the number of God’s elect portion, and for us, Gods has broken the bars of our yoke. God has broken the bars of our bondage to sin, our bondage which ever rebels against Him.

He freed us from that bondage, and He made us walk upright in freedom. Today, we are who we are because God powerfully and lovingly made us who we are.

Now being who God made us to be, let us walk as freedmen in loving obedience to the commands of He Who loved us and chose us before the foundation of the world.