Sermon Tone Analysis

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:

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

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 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.

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.

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.

Contrast that with the exchange we see in Exodus 20.

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.

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.

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.