Meeting God

Meeting God

Exodus 19:1-16

What do you expect when you come to church on a Sunday morning? Do you come for the fellowship with like-minded believers? Singing songs you've learned to love over the years? Maybe listen to a sermon that encourages and makes you feel good? Or maybe you prefer to listen to a sermon that steps on toes, not yours, but someone else's? Is all of this just habit? You don't really think about it, but you do it because, well, that's just what you have always done?

There are a lot of other questions like this that we could ask ourselves about our religious practices and why we do them and what we expect to get out of them. Now, I'm only asking about church attendance because we're here today and it goes along with our text about the Israelites going to meet God on the mountain, their church, so to speak, but these same questions could be asked of any of the spiritual or religious disciplines we practice. We could also ask ourselves why we take time each day to read or study the Bible. Why do we pray? Why do we tithe? What do we expect to get out of any of these things that we do?

In our text today, Exodus 19, we see a pivotal moment in the life of Israel. Three months earlier they had been freed from Egyptian slavery. They crossed the Red Sea and Pharoah's army was devastated when they tried to follow but drowned instead. They have traveled through the wilderness to Mount Sinai, which is also known as Mount Horeb. Mount Horeb is the same mountain where Moses had his burning bush encounter with, I Am that I Am. It was in that encounter that God commissioned Moses to go back to Egypt to free the Israelites and then return to Sinai. God told Moses,

Exodus 3:12 ..."Certainly I will be with you, and this shall be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God at this mountain."

So, here in chapter 19, verses 1-16, Israel has reached the mountain, and God has called Moses to communicate His covenant to the people. In essence, God was going to define His relationship with His people. He had gotten them out of Egypt and saved them at the Red Sea, but that has been their relationship so far. Sure, God loved their forefathers and had made covenant with them, but these people had been in slavery for 400 years. From all their complaining and wanting to return to Egypt during their wilderness wanderings, there is no doubt they had picked up some of the religious practices of Egypt. If they had any relationship with the God of their fathers, to many of them at least, it had been syncretized with pagan beliefs and idolatry. After 400 years, I would imagine that their form of worship was more closely related to Egyptian worship than Hebrew.

In all honesty, they probably didn't know the God of their fathers very well, and God needed to introduce Himself again and then teach the people how to be in a relationship with Him. Their journey through the desert had led them back to this place. So, God fulfilled His promise to bring them to this holy mountain where He would enter into a covenantal relationship with them.

Now, a covenant is basically a promise where God is involved. As I said earlier, God had made an unconditional covenant with their father Abraham where his offspring would be as numerous as the sands of the sea, and that his descendants would be the channel of blessing to all people of the earth. This time however, to Abraham's offspring, He will extend this relationship to them through a conditional covenant, which means that certain terms would be involved. A conditional covenant typically involved some form of, “If you do this…then I will do that.”

God brought His people to Sinai so He could meet His People and lay down some ground rules. So, lets read our text today, and see what terms the Lord has laid out for them...

Exo 19:1-16 In the third month after the sons of Israel had gone out of the land of Egypt, on that very day they came into the wilderness of Sinai. When they set out from Rephidim, they came to the wilderness of Sinai and camped in the wilderness; and there Israel camped in front of the mountain. Moses went up to God, and the LORD called to him from the mountain, saying, "Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob and tell the sons of Israel: 'You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings, and brought you to Myself. Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.' These are the words that you shall speak to the sons of Israel."