The Mosaic Covenant, Exodus 20:22-21:11

It is important to remember that when Russ was introducing the book of Exodus, he pointed out that in the near east, vassal treaties were common when one nation would concur another. A vassal treaty is an agreement between a lord and his servants based upon the actions of the lord.

The lord conquered the land and therefore had a right to rule it with complete authority.

Sermon Note Pages in the back.

I’ve added questions to the outlines. Those are there for the Life groups to use for more discussion or conversation prompts during their meetings.

Intro:

This is why we see God saying in 20.2 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

Last week we looked at Isreal's response to God when He was revealing Himself to them on the mountain.

God is declaring His right to command these things of Israel.

Isreal was afraid of God because they did not know Him.

They had seen Him at work, but didn’t have a personal experience like Moses did.

We talked about our role in joining God is to have those personal experiences then share them with others as an encouragement for them to seek God on their own.

As a result of Israel’s lake of relationship, they backed away from God and asked Him not to speak to them, but to speak to Moses.

They asked for a mediator. As we now know, that was the arrangement from that point until Jesus came into His ministry.

God spoke through prophets to the people, and as a result of the distance between God and His people, most never really knew Him.

God's desire and purpose in this covenant is to continue the process of restoring the relationship that was severed by sin.

As we will see today, it is a continual process that is still happening today and will continue until Jesus returns, and sin is abolished from the face of the earth.

We ended with the idea that we cannot join God if we are not being drawn to Him and going into his presence like Moses did.

The tragedy that we see in so many churches today is the result of people backing away from God instead of allowing themselves to be drawn into Him.

As we move forward in the text today, I want to remind you that when Russ was teaching the book of Exodus, he taught us that in the near east, vassal treaties were a regular from of agreement between two warring tribes or countries.

When one group would concur another, a vassal treaty was established.

A vassal treaty is an agreement between a lord and his servants based upon the actions of the lord.

The lord conquered the land and therefore had a right to rule it with complete authority.

This is why we see God saying in 20.2 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

God is declaring His right to command these things of Israel.

It is important for us to understand that because it is the basis of the relationship between God and Israel.

it was a well known and accepted concept in those cultures.

We see God using a cultural construct to reveal a new understanding about His character.

So as we look at the next few chapters, we need to keep this framework in mind.

Today we are going to see God speak to an accepted cultural construct for their time, that isn’t acceptable today.

God's right to command anything of Isreal is based on the fact that God is God, and He delivered Israel from slavery in Egypt.

God is speaking into that culture to reveal his character.

The next few chapters are broken down into different sections that deal with how we interact with God and with one another.

My intent as we move through this covenant is not to spend a ton of time on each section but to touch on each to understand the intent, make some application, and then end the covenant section with Israel's response to God's direction.

I think it is also worth saying from the outset that I am no expert. I have studied this week and asked God to reveal to me the application that He has for us in these chapters.

I'm am confident that at the end of today, we are all going to have questions, myself included.

There were many that I had this week that are still unanswered, but I know that as we seek God He is more than able to bring us into

Having questions is good and in my opinion, if you aren’t asking questions after I preach, I haven’t done my job well.

The standard tactic of the enemy is to take disputable matters and make them feel to have more weight than they do.

There are things that you and I just don't understand yet, and that is ok.

As we continue to walk with God, He is faithful to help us understand what we don't.

Sometimes we can move into understanding quickly, and sometimes it requires lots of study and discernment.

So today we are going to be covering two sections.

We are going to talk about the laws about altars and laws about slaves.

Exodus 20:22–26 ESV

22 And the Lord said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the people of Israel: ‘You have seen for yourselves that I have talked with you from heaven. 23 You shall not make gods of silver to be with me, nor shall you make for yourselves gods of gold. 24 An altar of earth you shall make for me and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your oxen. In every place where I cause my name to be remembered I will come to you and bless you. 25 If you make me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stones, for if you wield your tool on it you profane it. 26 And you shall not go up by steps to my altar, that your nakedness be not exposed on it.’

Ex 20:22-

Laws about altars.

This short passage gives Israel instructions on how to worship God, which is what the first four commandments are doing.

Remember,

God’s goal is to restore the relationship we once had with God.

In the garden, Adam and Eve walked with God. They spoke to one anther.

He is different from and other gods they have encountered before and should be treated accordingly. His goal is to restore the relationship He intended for us to have.

Contrast that with the exchange we see in .

What are the major differences you see between God’s interactions with Adam and Eve and His interactions with Israel?

There is quite a difference isn’t there?

Early on in youth ministry we learned that once a student missed a Wednesday or Sunday night, it was hard for them to come back.

If they missed multiple meetings it became even harder.

Because to the lapse in the relationships between that student, the other students, and the leaders there was a perception by that person that they had missed too much.

This was not an isolated incident. This phenomenon is nearly universal among students and I have even seen it happen with adults.

Why? We convince ourselves that the others have moved on without us, we’re behind in the subject matter, or maybe even that others talked about us when we weren’t there.

As humans, when we spend time apart from one anther, there is a gap that begins to form that is incredibly difficult to overcome.

I think this is part of what we are seeing in the story of Israel. They have been so long separated from God that they don’t know Him and are fearful of Him.

They are 400 hundred years removed

Think about this. Up until this point in the story of Israel’s deliverance, God has had Moses go off by himself to speak with God.

But what was the reason that Moses gave Pharaoh for Israel needing to go into the wilderness? To worship God.

Here is what I think is happening,

In addition to freeing them, God brings them into the wilderness to reveal Himself to all of Israel.

God wants to begin the process of being personal with Israel.

There is a difference now though, then when Adam and Eve walked with God.

Now there is sin and God cannot be Holy and be in the presence of sin.

God is beginning the process of redeeming His people and their response is to say no, we don’t want a relationship with you God.

God is initiating, He has come to them, He has done all this work to keep the promise made to Abraham.

He has done all this to bring them to Himself.

And they respond by saying no...

How has God been trying to reveal Himself to you? How have you responded?

We want you to have one with Moses, Moses can have one with us, and then he can relate to us what you are saying.

Right after this interaction Moses goes into the presence of God.

From this point we are going to see God setting forth an elaborate set of guidelines on how they are to interact with God.

Until Jesus comes we are going to see that there must be a mediator between Israel and God.

Israel chooses to distance themselves from God and God allows it.

Consider how big of a deal it is that God has done all of this for Israel and in response, they don’t want Him.

Why do we distance ourselves from God?

So God tells Moses, this is how we are going to handle this.

Remind Israel that they have seen from themselves that I have spoken to them.

They are to worship me alone and do not make anything in my image or in others image.

Make an alter for me and sacrifice on that altar.

The system of sacrifices will be how their sins are atoned for until Jesus comes and dies.

He uses this imagery of the giving of a life, through the shedding of blood, to foreshadow how He is going to redeem us.

Even though Israel chooses, just like Adam and Eve, to serve their own interest, instead of Gods’, God is not giving up on them.

He sets forth the regulations on how they are to interact with Him and He gives a ton of instruction on how they are to relate to one another.

The majority of this covenant is about how we are to treat one another.

It’s important to say again that God is setting Israel aside as His own to show others how different He is from all other gods.

Laws about slaves.

Exodus 21:1–11 ESV

1 “Now these are the rules that you shall set before them. 2 When you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free, for nothing. 3 If he comes in single, he shall go out single; if he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him. 4 If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master’s, and he shall go out alone. 5 But if the slave plainly says, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free,’ 6 then his master shall bring him to God, and he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. And his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall be his slave forever. 7 “When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do. 8 If she does not please her master, who has designated her for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has broken faith with her. 9 If he designates her for his son, he shall deal with her as with a daughter. 10 If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, or her marital rights. 11 And if he does not do these three things for her, she shall go out for nothing, without payment of money.

Ex 21:1-

Can we all agree together that slavery is wrong? YES!

OK, why then does God give such a large section here devoted to the proper treatment of slaves? I've been asking myself that for at least three weeks.

Let me point out that the Hebrew word for slave is most often translated as servant, but can also be translated, as it is here, as slave.

One of the commentaries I read this past week said,

"It is somewhat surprising that regulations concerning slaves come first in this listing of covenant terms. If such laws show up at all in law codes elsewhere in the ancient Near East, they are far down the list. Perhaps they show up here first because slavery had been such a recent Israelite experience. Thus, God was seeking to use the freshness of that experience to remind the newly freed Israelites not to fall into old patterns of oppression."

I'll admit, I too am surprised, but not that they are first, but instead that they are there at all.

It didn’t make sense to me and I need it to make sense.

I want to understand. I need to understand.

He goes on to say,

"While these laws assume the existence of slavery, they seek to ensure that persons in this sad condition are not thereby reduced to mere possessions to be used as such."

As I have been talking to God this week and asking for him to help me understand this passage, and especially what we are to apply from it, I have been persistent in my questions to God.

Because I don't want to either make a shallow application that is not actually in the text or an application that makes light of the inhumanity that is slavery.

This is a big deal. It is a weighty subject and I want to make sure that I represent the heart of God.

I was driving north on I-49 Friday and thinking about this text, and talking to God about it, I had this thought.

Look with me at this passage from 1 Samuel.

1 Samuel 8:4–22 ESV

4 Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah 5 and said to him, “Behold, you are old and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations.” 6 But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to judge us.” And Samuel prayed to the Lord. 7 And the Lord said to Samuel, “Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. 8 According to all the deeds that they have done, from the day I brought them up out of Egypt even to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are also doing to you. 9 Now then, obey their voice; only you shall solemnly warn them and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them.” 10 So Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking for a king from him. 11 He said, “These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen and to run before his chariots. 12 And he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. 13 He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. 14 He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants. 15 He will take the tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and to his servants. 16 He will take your male servants and female servants and the best of your young men and your donkeys, and put them to his work. 17 He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. 18 And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.” 19 But the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel. And they said, “No! But there shall be a king over us, 20 that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles.” 21 And when Samuel had heard all the words of the people, he repeated them in the ears of the Lord. 22 And the Lord said to Samuel, “Obey their voice and make them a king.” Samuel then said to the men of Israel, “Go every man to his city.”

Israel didn’t like the leadership structure they were living under and asked God to change it based on their desires, not on God’s word.

When have you asked God to change your circumstances based on your desires and not His direction? What as the outcome?

They choose this structure by asking God not to speak to them, but to a mediator.

They looked around and saw that all the nations surrounding them had a king.

So they decided they wanted a king and asked Samuel to ask God for a king.

God warned them of the results, but they didn't care. They wanted a king, and God allowed them to have a king knowing that the results would be more suffering.

Are you picking up what I'm laying down? Do you see where I’m going with this?

God does not force Himself on His people.

How does it make you feel when a person makes you do something? How does it affect the relationship?

He will not make us do anything.

That isn't how healthy relationships work.

God allows us to choose to walk our own way, but then we have to live in the consequences of those decisions.

Ok, you ready for it? Here is my thought.

God is not ok with slavery.

God did not make this rules to justify or promote slavery.

I know, revolutionary.

God did not make these rules to justify or promote slavery.

So why would God be addressing slavery right off the bat?

Look at verse 2. "When you buy a Hebrew slave..."

Even though Israel had just been freed from slavery in Egypt, there were still those living in Israel that were slaves to other Israelites!

This is mind boggling to me. God just set you free from Egypt, but they won’t set each other free?!?

God doesn't want His people living in slavery, but if Israel refuses to comply, He is going to provide a way out for those slaves.

If you look closely at these regulations, they are designed to make Israel see the servants as people, as image bearers of God that deserve the same dignity everyone else.

The classic argument for slavery is to reduce the slaves to less than human.

These rules require Israel to see them as image bearers of God.

Just like God does later with Israel when they ask for a king, He is going to allow them to continue to follow their own desires, but He is also going to continue to work that out of them.

If we choose sin over God’s commands, He is going to let us live in that sin until we get enough.

None of us are completely where God wants us.

None of us have made it to perfection.

Because we aren’t perfect, God is slowly moving us toward that by speaking into our lives and weeding out the sin in our lives.

Last week we were in life group, and Carey pointed out that there was a pretty obvious application that I didn't really make in my sermon.

Last week when we looked at the responses of both Moses and Israel, I made the comment that Moses wanted what Israel dreaded.

What I didn't say is that we all have to decide for ourselves. Am I going to be like Moses and follow God or be like Israel and choose not to follow God.

So here is our application for this passage.

Are we going to continue to live our way, or are we going to allow God to lead us?

I can't comprehend how Israel could be delivered from slavery, but continue to enslave one another.

It's easy to look at someone else's mistakes and scoff, but if you were to take a step back from your own life and examine it I guarantee you can see an area of your life where you are choosing to stay in an existing context because following God would be costly.

For the Israelites, it would have been costly for those owners to just release their slaves.

But it was even more costly for them not too!

They choose to continue to support a system of enslavement even after they were freed from it.

Many of us in the church made the decision to keep ourselves and others under the slavery of the law even after the price was paid for our freedom.

Christ set us free from that slavery just like God set Israel free from slavery.

God is calling us to live differently than our American culture.

I know that because American and Godliness aren't synonymous.

Example: Conversation with a manager at Petron about not talking about a former employee anymore.

He noticed that someone that he looks up too never says a negative thing about anyone. God pointed out to him how huge that was. It doesn't tear the other person down.

Continuing to belittle that person doesn’t give them room or opportunity to grow.

They are not allowed to move beyond their past failures because no one will let it go.

God was setting Isreal apart.

He wanted all those around Israel to see how different their God was by how different His people were.

God’s desire was for them to be a free people that worshiped a God that they loved.

How has God freed you? How can you share that freedom with the people in your life?

Israel wasn’t willing to give up their own desires, and choose to keep themselves in bondage.

But, even in the midst of their sin, God was working to move them toward being like Him.

They were obviously far from that goal, but so are we, just in different ways.

The objective hasn't changed.

God is still wanting to work in each of our lives to move us toward being like Him.

What is sin God working out of your life?

He wants us to join Him in setting others free and the way we do that is by setting aside our own agendas and following God.

An obvious application for this entire passage is working with God to break down the systemic racism that still exist.

It was on the news just this weekend. The high school homecoming game that was canceled because of racism.

We have an opportunity to speak truth into the lives of the people God has put us in front of.

The church, for decades was either participating in racism, or unwilling to speak out against it, which is a way of participating.

I’m not directing anyone to go out and start anything.

What I’m saying is that if we are daily pursuing God, He is going to give us opportunities to follow His lead in tearing down racism in this town.

I know that there isn’t a person in this room that doesn’t know someone who regularly speaks ill of POC.

Pray specifically for God to work in that person’s heart and watch for the work of the Holy Spirit and be willing to speak up when He leads.

Invest in that person’s life and earn the right to speak truth into that issue.

We are being called by God to follow Him, to change culture by being different.

By showing culture who God really is by the way we love him and love one another.

Everything we do must be done in love.

We must be willing to follow God.

Even if it is scary

Even if it is costly

Even if it is against culture.

Our willingness to listen to God and Him WILL set people free.

So as we look at the next few chapters, we need to keep this framework in mind.

Before moving into the legislation of the covenant that He is making with Israel, God gives some direction on how they worship Him.

Announcements:

Update on sale of building - Aaron

Women’s Retreat

Most of the next few chapters deal with regulations on how we treat and interact with one another.

New Member Training October 13th - November 17th right after church

This short passage gives Israel instructions on how to worship God, which is what the first four commandments are doing.

Trunk or Treat, Wednesday, October 30th

God is trying to help them understand two things.

Offering - Silver plate or faith life app

He is different from and other gods they have encountered before and should be treated accordingly. His goal is to restore the relationship He intended for us to have.