Are You Qualified?

Good Morning Church!

Exodus 19.

READ v. 1-25

Intro:

These people have been on one heck of a journey…

Enslaved in Egypt, saw many miracles, wonders, plagues…they were rescued…the red sea parted, the Lord destroyed the Egyptian army…God has rescued and provided

I rescued you…and brought you unto myself

Exodus 3:12 “He said, “But I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.””

NOW that you are here with me…

We are going to make an agreement…

READ verse 5

WHY?

Qualifications to dwell amongst the Lord: (3 qualifications)

You must be…Obedient (v.5-9)

Covenant agreement (conditional)

You= Obey my words and keep my covenant

What is the covenant? (Mosaic covenant, 10 commandments, the Law. coming in chapter 20)

God= make you above all things, a treasure to Him, a kingdom of priests, a holy nation

NOTICE: the grace in this…salvation from Egypt came unconditionally…salvation by grace led to obedience

If you want to be my people above all things, a treasure to me, a kingdom of priests…OBEY

The Lord lays this before the people through Moses…

The people respond “ALL that the Lord has spoken we will do”

The people of Israel have signed this contract with the Great I AM, they are in a conditional contract with a holy God.

God responds in verse 10 (READ 10-11)

2nd Qualification to dwell amongst the Lord:

You must be…Sanctified (v.10-15)

ESV “consecrate”

KJV “sanctify”

To be set apart as holy…

Make yourself holy…

Wash yourself clean…

Keep away from the desires of your flesh…(husbands don’t lay with your wives)

Prepare for me…

BE READY FOR ME…

This is an action…

The goal for this action is to be able to stand before the Lord…

In order to dwell amongst the Lord…

You must be…Holy (v16-25)

(Weird) Set a boundary… V12

First order of obedience requested…don’t come near…

Why…

Because the Lord is too holy for them to dwell amongst…

These people have already shown how untrusting, and unfaithful they can be…

Unholiness cant stand amongst the Lord!

God knows how unholy they are…

So He tells them to stay of His holy mountain and keep their distance from Him or else they will die…

So the trumpet sounds…the people approach the boundary that the Lord has set in front of them…

Look at the reaction of the people…

who have just attempted to prepare for this day, make themselves holy for the Lord…

3 days of holy preparation…

They should be ready right???

V16- tremble in terror, the mountain shook, on fire, thunder and lightning crashing down

Gods Holiness leaves us AWE STRUCK and TERRIFIED…

Real holiness is terrifying!

And its terrifying because it shows us how unholy we are!!

In fact look at what the author of Hebrews says about this very moment in Exodus 19…

Hebrews 12:18–29 KJV “For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which voice they that heard intreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more: (for they could not endure that which was commanded, And if so much as a beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned, or thrust through with a dart: and so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake:) …”

The Israelites are standing before God at the foot of the mountain…

AND REALIZE…THEY ARE NOT QUALIFIED!

All of us adults in here have had to look for a job before...

You ever been on a career website like linkedin or indeed…

Your looking for a job, you find a posting your reading about the job and its perfect…exactly what your looking for…

The salary is amazing, benefits incredible…

Then you get down to the qualifications part of the posting…

AND YOU JUST DON’T MATCH UP TO THE QUALIFICATIONS…

You get that defeated feeling….

Multiply that by about a Million…and add in the deepest fear imaginable…

The people of Isreal have been through slavery, deliverance, dependance…

Just to get to this moment…to finally see and dwell before the Lord…

And now…they realize they are not holy enough to do it…and it terrifies them…

And they must keep their distance…there is a barrier before them that they cant cross or it means death…

If you look in the text…there is a desire to come up the mountain…

We dont exactly know what that desire is…

But whatever it is…

The people are terrified…

yet they want to be near the Holy God…the Great I AM…

God keeps telling Moses to go back down…tell them to back up…to stay behind the boundary…

So here we are…NOT HOLY ENOUGH…NOT QUALIFIED…

And if we stopped right here church…If we shut our bibles right here and never opened them again...

This is where we would be sitting today…

NOT QUALIFIED TO DWELL AMONGST OUR LORD…

If we continue to turn the pages of God’s word…we run into one of the best words in the bible…

BUT…

Keep reading with me in Hebrews 12:21…

“but ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel.

Jeremiah 31:31–34 ““Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.””

Jesus says I am the new covenant

Matthew 26:26–29 “Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

BIG IDEA: The holiness needed to dwell amongst the Lord was achieved for us by the shed blood of Jesus on the cross

2 Corinthians 5:21 “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

COMMUNION

We need the constant reminder of what He did for us out of His love for us!!

And so as we end our time in worship and move into our text this morning…

Lets first take time to remember exactly how we became blessed…

Together as a body of believers, we are going to take communion…

Not just as a ritual, but because we need this constant reminder of Christ’s love for us!

THAT HE SHOWED ON THE CROSS!

We are going to take a little bit more intentional quiet time as a church body to pray and remember Jesus’s death on the cross, the blood spilled that gave us eternal life!

AS WE CONTINUE IN WORSHIP THROUGH COMMUNION…

Now, Communion is a time for those who have placed their faith in Jesus Christ alone.

If you have not trusted Jesus with your eternal salvation, I ask that you not partake, but instead take this time to reflect on the truth that Jesus died for your sins on the cross, and through His resurrection you can live eternally with Him!

SO, TAKE THIS TIME IN SILENCE …

CONTINUING IN PRAY AND WORSHIP AND REMEMBER THE LOVE JESUS SHOWED US ON THE CROSS AND WE WILL TAKE THE BREAD AND THE CUP TOGETHER…

QUIET PRAYER!! 3-5 MIN

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11,

“For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for[f] you. Do this in remembrance of me.”[g]

TAKE THE BREAD AND EAT

25 In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”

TAKE THE CUP AND DRINK