Sermon Tone Analysis

Text: Ex 19:1-8, 1 Pt 2:9

Theme: God' people is a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.

Doctrine: kingship of God

Image: Moses and Sinai

Need: reminder of responsibility as God's people

Message: God commands you to be holy.

*God's People, a kingdom of priests, a holy nation*

Ex 19:1-8, 1 Pt.

2:9

*Sin infected God's kingdom.*

We all know the story of the origin of God's kingdom.

The Bible starts with it.

The creation story in genesis is the story of the Great King building his kingdom.

He created a kingdom to show his glory.

He created a kingdom where all creatures lived the way God created them to, all creatures living in unbroken fellowship with the Great King.

But Adam and Eve did not maintain that unbroken fellowship.

They chose to do what the King had commanded them not to.

The decided that they wanted to be like God, knowing good and evil; they wanted to be kings, not subjects.

This drove a wedge into the harmony of creation, creating distance between the King and his subjects.

This affected everything in creation.

It broke the relationship between God and mankind, Adam and Eve were now afraid of God and they were banished from the garden, thrown out of God's presence.

From there things just got worse.

Cain killed Abel out of jealousy.

Lamech, Cain's great-great-great-grandson claimed he was 11 times worse than Cain.

He said, “If Cain’s revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech’s is seventy-sevenfold.”

(Ex 4:24)  Everything went down hill so fast that after only ten generations God decided to destroy everything, and he started over with Noah and his family.

But after the flood, things did not get much better.

In Genesis 8:21 God says that every inclination of the heart of every human is evil from childhood.

God commanded the people to spread themselves over the earth, but instead they try to congregate around a single city, with a tower that reached to the heavens.

They tried to build a name for themselves, so God confused their speech and scattered them across the earth instead.

*God began the work of bringing the creation back to him.

*

After another ten generations God again acts in his kingdom, this time not to destroy, but to begin his work of bringing his creation back to him.

He chose one man, Abraham, who is seventy-five years old and married to his half-sister, Sarah, who is barren.

God promises Abraham that he will make him into a great nation, and that all the nations would be blessed through him.

After many years God gave that barren couple a child, Isaac, to Isaac he gave Jacob, and to Jacob he gave twelve sons, who became the fathers of the twelve tribes of Israel.

Jacob and his sons settled in Egypt for a time, and they became oppressed there.

They were forced to work as slaves, and the King of Egypt, Pharaoh, tried to claim them as his subjects.

But God had already laid claim to these people, and he brought them out of Egypt.

He fought with Pharaoh, and he won.

The Great King continued his work in blessing the nations through Abraham's descendants.

God miraculously conquered the Egyptian king and his army, and brought his people out into the desert, to Mt Sinai.

*God promises to make the Israelites his treasured possession.*

This is where we pick up the story.

Please open your Bibles to Exodus 19.

We will begin reading at v1 and continue until v8.

*SCRIPTURE READING*

The Israelites have travelled forty-five days since their escape from Egypt.

By now, no doubt, they are getting rather road weary.

They left Egypt in a rush, were almost overtaken by the Egyptians at the sea.

They did not know what was coming next.

Camped below Sinai, Moses now knew for certain who had sent him.

When God called him, from a burning bush on this very mountain, he said, “this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.”

(Ex 3:12) 

Moses, emboldened by his earlier visit with God on this mountain, goes up to worship him.

The Israelites are glad to have a rest from their travels.

They pitch their tents and wait the return of Moses.

The people could not believe the things that happened the past few months.

Walking around the camp you can hear people talking excitedly, reciting the things that happened.

One group is particularly passionate.

“Can you believe it?

We are free!

We no longer have to serve that insufferable Pharaoh.

I don't know about you, but I was not so sure about Moses when he came back from Midian.

I could not believe he had the audacity to set himself up as our leader.

Remember, at first he just made things worse.

The Egyptians forced us to make bricks without straw!

I was almost ready to get rid of Moses, so he could not continue to make things worse.

But God did all those signs through him.

There is no doubt he has a strong connection with the Lord.

I still can't believe we are free from Pharaoh.

I wonder what this Yahweh is going to be like.”

The Israelites were set free from the king of Egypt to serve the Great King.

The Great King had reclaimed some of his subjects.

*Restructuring of the Kingdom*

The Israelites knew they had been saved.

Even though it might be hard to believe, here they were, outside of Egypt, camped before a mountain, waiting for a word from the Great King.

When Moses reaches the top of the mountain, the Lord gives him a message for the people.

He presents Moses with a covenant between him and the people of Israel, a treaty between the king and his subjects.

In this covenant God gives the reason for his authority over the people of Israel.

He is the one who fought against the king of Egypt.

He was the one who brought the people out of their oppression.

He took them out from under the rule of Pharaoh so that they could serve their true King.

So they could serve the one who had chosen them through their father Abraham.

So they could continue God's work at bringing his creation back to him.

On the basis of this authority, he gives them the promise that if they obey what he commands, they will be his treasured possession.

Although all the earth is God's, even though the whole creation is still God's kingdom, the people of Israel will be his chosen instruments.

The Great King is restructuring his kingdom and giving the Israelites a privileged position.

God has chosen them, not because of their merit.

As Moses states in Deut.

7 “It was not because you were more in number than any other people, that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers.”

(Deut 7:7,8)  They were chosen to be a kingdom of priests.

To be the intermediaries between the Lord and his creation.

They will present God to the nations, and the nations to God.

They will purify the creation so that God could once again live among the nations.

They will be a holy nation.

They will be a people set apart; not to make them better than the nations, but to make them serve the nations.

There is an analogy between the Israelites role in the world and the structure of the temple which was built in Jerusalem.

In the outer court, the court which encircled the entire complex, all could come to worship Yahweh.

This is the place where all the nations were to gather to pay homage to the Great King.

As you pass through this court you come to an entrance with notices prominently displayed which read, “Only Jews can enter here.

All others face death to enter.”