Our Identity with God

My Mum

Today, I will have to make do with just a phone call from my mum. That’s because my parents have driven off into the sunset, caravan in tow, and doing whatever it is that grey nomads do!

As I reflect on my mum however, I recognise that a lot of who I am, is a result of who she is. Many, if not most, of her values rubbed off on me over the years.

It’s a natural thing that happens with most mother-child relationships. It not that mum’s sit down and explain the values, although at times this will happen. But more often it is the sometimes subtle, sometimes not-so-subtle correcting of behaviour.

Of course, father’s have a huge role to play in this regard as well, but generally speaking, mothers have a nurturing role, which while not more important than the fathers role, but yet has a distinct place.

From my own childhood, I remember those times when the world was just too confusing, and when everything seemed to fall in a hole and I was reduced to tears, it was my mother who would put her arms around me and just be with me. Somehow, even with not many words, the world seemed to become less confusing.

Through her nurture, I started to see the world through her eyes. Now, I probably paint this picture through rose-coloured glasses - there were certainly times we didn’t see things eye-to-eye. But certainly my mother was very influential in shaping who I am today.

Seeing God through parents

Now I recognise that not all of you had the privilege of having nurturing parents. All too often, sin gets in the way and spoils the special relationship that God has given us.

And I believe that God has designed parents in this way. You see, the parent - child relationship, imperfect as it is, reflects the relationship between God and us. And so by looking at that inbuilt love a parent has for a child, we can begin to see God’s love for us.

If I just briefly go off on a small tangent and look at the ten commandments. What you find is that the first four commandments relate to our relationship to God. The last five relate to our relationship with other people.

But in the middle of it all - the fifth commandment is to honour your father and mother. I’m not going to get into detail of it now, other than to suggest that I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the fifth commandment sits in the middle. It is our parents that are to be the bridge of how we understand God and how we relate to others.

And so today, my plan is to take that idea of finding your identity in your mother, (or more broadly your parents), and see how in the same sort of way, we find our identity with God.

Actually, this is the beautiful thing. You see, even if your experience with your parents was a bad one, in the Bible, you are still know what a good father is. In fact, you’ll find a parent that far and away exceeds the best of our parents!

Exodus 19

Well, if you were here last week, I took you on a very quick tour of the entire Bible. I never stopped anywhere for long, but rather my intention was to show God’s heart and his subsequent mission that flows throughout the entire book.

Today, I still want us to keep that whole flow of scripture in mind, but my intention is to narrow in on a particular part of scripture that I will explore while seeing how it fits into the whole thing.

So let’s look at this particular passage.

The context

Well, let’s first get the context of the passage. Some of the detail of the context is going to come out as we explore the passage, but to place you in the right place, we find Moses arriving with the nation of Israel at the foot of Mount Sinai, where Moses is very shortly to receive the Ten Commandments.

This is a very significant point in time, because it is at this point that God most clearly articulates what he expects from his people.

But let’s take a step back and see where this fits in the bigger picture.

Last week I spoke about the importance of Abraham in whom God makes a very special promise - a promise that will ultimately affect all people from all nations. This promise comes after sin has made a good mess of God’s good creation. It was a promise that essentially has God saying - despite the humanity turning their backs on God, he will nevertheless bless them again.

It was a blessing they didn’t deserve, but a blessing he wanted to make, and in the process revealed how his heart for the world never changed from the day he first created it.

Now while this process has an end point, there is a long journey that takes place - a journey that helps forms the people he has chosen.

And so, while the promise started with Abraham, it was a few generations later that many of the things promised started to take shape.

I won’t track the whole thing, because I did that last week, but eventually his descendants became a nation, but they found themselves as slaves in Egypt before they were freed in very dramatic circumstances. These circumstances will be referenced in our passage for this morning.

But with this freedom, they needed formation, and so we see various ways in which God forms this nation to be his chosen people. Part of this formation involved facing some tough times where they had to rely solely on God for their provisions.

But

But then we come to chapter 19 where this formation takes on a new dimension.

The past perspective

Now as we dig into this passage now, what I want to show you is a special way God works.

He does three things, each leading onto the next. First, he shows us what He has already done (that is, the past). Then he shows us what He is going to do (that is, the future). And only after that, does he lay out his expectation for us.

It is verse 4 that God directly talks about what has just happened, but even in verse 3 when he frames what he is about to say, he is already reminding us of the promise.

You see, he frames his words by saying: “This is what you are to say to the descendants of Jacob”

You see, right there, God is reminding them of that original promise made to Abraham and then repeated through Jacob. You see, the very fact they are a nation at all is only because of the goodness of God.

But God continues, saying in verse 4: “You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles wings and brought you to myself”.

This is a direct reference to what they have just been through.

You see, going back to when they were still slaves in Egypt, God had created the 10 plagues - perfectly timed to show Pharaoh who was in control.

He then led them with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. He had led them to the Red Sea, which at first seemed like a stupid thing, but in God’s wisdom it was perfect, because as they miraculously crossed the parted water, they also managed to trap the incoming Egyptian army.

God had then provided for them when they had no water by drawing water from a rock. He provided for them when they had no food by providing Manna from heaven. And when they wanted meat, he provided Quail.

God saves first

Now there is something really important to note in all of this.

You see, last week I alluded to the poor interpretation that somehow considers the Old Testament as God’s plan A which failed and hence why plan B was needed. I talked last week about why that was a poor interpretation. But wrapped up in that interpretation is the understanding that the Old Testament was all works based. That is, God would only bless them if they did the right thing.

The reality couldn’t be further from the truth. And we can see that right here.

You see, coming out of Egypt was them being saved, and this happened before they were given the law. This happens time and time again in the Old Testament. God saves his people, and only then does he say: right, this is now how I want you to behave.

Now don’t get me wrong. You will find times in the Old Testament where they spell out rewards for good behaviour and punishment for bad behaviour. That is true, but even though this exists, it is still clear that the reason God wants them to act the way they do is based purely on what God has done first.

If I bring this back to the child - parent relationship, we see a similar thing. You see, though there are clear consequences for good or bad behaviour, the reality is, (at least in very general terms) a childs overall behaviour will actually correspond to their parents behaviour.

A child will be kind to others if they see their parents being kind to others.

Future perspective

So we have God first instructing Moses to remind them of the saving work God has already done - but he also gives them a glimpse of where this is headed.

We see this in the second half of verse 5. They are promised that they will be a treasured possession - that of course written in the future tense.

You could say in one regard that they already were God’s treasured possession, but God is suggesting that there is more to come - something which I suspect they didn’t quite fully appreciate at this point. In fact, to be honest, I don’t think anyone fully appreciated this until Jesus comes and truly shows what it means to be made God’s treasured possession.

God may have already done something really special for them, but there is more to come.

Present task

Now earlier I spoke about the poor interpretations of the Old Testament we have, speaking of the error of thinking that God introduced a works based system.

But another error we often make is to think that in this Old Testament time, God only cared about the Israelites.

But then between understanding the past work of God in their lives and having a glimpse of what is to come, God outlines the expectation of what they are to be.

Now in one sense, this passage almost seems to confirm such a position, after all, it even explicitly states that out of all the nations, they are to be the treasured possession.

Interestingly, what I want to show is that this expectation is actually tied to God’s mission.

This might not initially seem the case, particularly as we come to the first half of verse 5, where we read the expectation that they are to fully obey and keep God’s covenant.

And so we have to acknowledge this very special place that they had. However, while this is the case, God even

Now, that can just seem like a drag. It can almost sound much the same way that a child hears their parent when they are told to do their chores.

And if we were to keep reading and into the next chapter, we actually get the Ten Commandments.

But as every parent knows - there something about the way you phrase the task you give to kids that can make the world of difference.

The classic example in our family is cleaning your room. If you make it into a race, somehow everything changes. A race is far more exciting than just a boring job.

In verse 6, it’s not a race that God gives them, but he does give them two phrases which from my perspective, sound a whole lot better then the call to obedience in verse 5.

Firstly, he calls them to be a kingdom of priests, and secondly to be a holy nation.

And it is these two ideas I want to explore, and as I said before, we will find in them a missional stance.

As we take up these positions that God has set up first for the Jews, and subsequently for us, we will move towards the heart of God.

A kingdom of Priest

So let’s first explore this idea of being a kingdom of priests.

Now it’s worth pointing out that at this stage the system of priests within the Israelites had not been fully established. That being said, it is not long after this that the tribe of Levi becomes the priestly tribe, and we get what we call the book of Leviticus which outlines much of what the priests do.

But while all of this is still to come, it would have still been clear to them all what the role of a priest is - and that is to be a mediator between God and everyone else.

Now this is actually a very important role. We sometimes overplay this idea of God as our best friend but the reality is there is a chasm between us and him.

We are sinful. He is holy.

The priest however is set aside. It is not as if they are holy like God, but in setting themselves apart, taking steps to purify themselves, they are able to take up that space between God and other humans.

But there is something odd going on here.

It’s easy to think of an individual as a priest. Or perhaps even a group of people who have been set aside as priests.

But it actually talks about them being a kingdom of priests. The nation of Israel as a whole are to take on this priestly identity.

The missional aspect

Now I want to suggest that this has a distinct missional aspect to it.

You see, the priests taught others about God and also conducted the necessary actions to make others helped people to become right before God.

They were quite literally helping people to move into God’s kingdom.

If you think about a kingdom of priests, well, this nation would be bringing other nations to God.

Us as priests

Now to see how this directly relates to us, we need to look at how this plays out in the rest of scripture.

You see, while the whole system of priests is developed throughout the Old Testament, we constantly see failed priests as sin gets the better of them.

That is of course until we get to Jesus who becomes our great high priest. He perfectly fill the role for us. It is because of Jesus that we can now have access to God the Father.

This is why you will often hear me and others closing prayers with “In the name of Jesus”. It is because Jesus is that priest for us.

But while Jesus is the great high priest, this promise back in to be a kingdom of priests takes on a new dimension.

Now it’s important to recognise that because of what Jesus did for us and the access we now have, we take the place of spiritual Israel. Many of the promises given to Israel in the Old Testament can find fulfillment in us as spiritual Israel.

And so in this sense, we become this kingdom of Priests that was promised in . In fact, we more readily talk about the term “Priesthood of all believers”. It is the concept that we all have access to God because of Jesus - but it also has the flow on affect of us all having a role in building up God’s kingdom - or in other words mission!

A Holy Nation

But a want to turn now to the other phrase God used in verse 6, namely, to be a holy nation.

This idea of being holy is that idea of being set apart. They were not to just be like any other nation but they were to be distinct.

This was something that Israel really struggled with - and for that matter we still do today. Although we sometimes like to be different, generally speaking, we have a greater desire to just fit in with others.

But this is not what God called them to be. He wanted them to be set apart so that they would reflect who God is.

And that is just the thing. The more Israel, (and as a follow on: us, today) reflect God and his character, the more everyone else will be able to see what God is like.

There is a great challenge in this. Unfortunately, Christians are still subject to sin and we have failed many times.

This has sharply come into focus particularly as the extent of child sexual abuse within churches come to light.

It has been reported that this is now one of the big blockages of people coming to church. This has happened because we have not lived holy lives that God has desired for us.

But when we get it right, it is very different. And thankfully, while the failures often are more predominant in the news, there are many examples both throughout history and contemporary, where Christians have lived differently and it’s made a difference.

Throughout history we’ve had people like William Wilberforce and Martin Luther King Jr who stood up to the injustice against certain people, and people noticed.

But it’s not just these significant historical people. More often it’s the Christian who helps out at the soup kitchen, or volunteers for the tasks nobody wants to do.

People often ask - why can’t I see God? Well the reality is that you can see God. Through the men and women that God has set aside to be different.

This is the calling that each of us have, and because God is a God who has mission at his heart, it is also missional.

When we live the way that God wants us to live, we are demonstrating God to others.

That doesn’t mean we don’t need to proclaim the truth - in fact, that is a topic I’ll pick up on next week, but even as we get to the proclamation of truth, we need to recognise that fundamentally, we are called to be a holy nation - set aside to live godly lives.

Conclusion

This is a beautiful little section of scripture that sets up the framework for much of what God wants to achieve through his people.

You see, God has an identity for his people. An identity that now extends to all of us who believe.

That identity is to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

But we are to be this on the coat tails of what God has already done.

in the context of this passage, God already took them out of Egypt. For us however, God has taken us, not necessarily from a physical bondage, but from the bondage of sin through Jesus Christ.

Because of this, we are able to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

But the point I want to make is that in this identity that God has given us, we find ourselves in the heart of God’s mission. Bringing people to God and showing people who God is!

It is a wonderful thing to know this very special place that God has for each of us.

Let’s pray...