God Liberated His People and Gave Them His Law

God’s people are identified by the worshipful obedience they offer in response to His redemption.

Due to some technical glitches, this Sunday’s sermon was not recorded.

I. Introduction: Can you pick a Christian out of a crowd of people? There are the things that are dead giveaways, like the cross around the neck or watching someone bow in prayer before lunch. What else makes Christians stick out? Is it what a person says? Where they live? Is it what they believe? What makes you a Christian? In our text this morning we’re going to see that God’s people are identified by the worshipful obedience they offer in response to His redemption.

II. God Liberated His People and Gave Them His Law (Exodus 20)

A. Recap

1. Creation — God created the world and prepared a perfect place for people (the Garden of Eden) and gave people a purpose (to work it and keep it in worshipful obedience).

2. Fall — But the first people rebelled against God’s authority and suffered the consequences of their sin (banishment from God’s presence and suffering under the curse), but God also promised to send a Redeemer who would provide forgiveness and renewal of the broken world.

3. Abraham — Last week we saw that promise take one step closer to fulfillment in God’s calling of Abraham and the covenant He made with Him to bless Him so that He would be a blessing. // We noted that for the blessing to come, Abraham’s descendants needed to be prepared. // This preparation happened, as it often does, through immense suffering. You see, God had told Abraham that the fulfillment of the promise who follow a 400-year period during which Abraham’s descendants would become numerous but suffer enslavement (Gen 15:13–14).

4. Exodus & Sinai Covenant — Abraham’s descendants, known in Scripture as the children of Israel, were enslaved to the Pharaoh of Egypt who had forced them to build his monuments and tombs. And during this enslavement, “The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them.” (Ex 2:23–25)

   God raised up a redeemer, Moses, through whom He demanded that Pharaoh let the people go. After he refused, God sent 10 plagues on Egypt, each one worse than the one it followed, until finally, God took the life of the firstborn of every family in Egypt, but His people were spared through the sacrificial offering of the Passover Lamb. // With the death of the firstborn, Pharaoh sent Israel away from Egypt, only to later decide to chase them to the Red Sea. And of course, you know how God opened a way for the people through, but brought the waters back onto Pharaoh and his army. // The Exodus story demonstrated God’s authority and His willingness to act on behalf of His people, and it defined the relationship of God’s people with Him, as the introduction to the 10 Commandments shows us.

B. The Ten Commandments Identify Israel as the Recipients of God’s Grace (Ex 20:1–2).

1. We often think of the 10 Commandments as the eternal and self-evident norms for human behavior, like they are the ethical equivalent of 2+2 in math. They just exist. // But before we can even get to the first command, we are confronted with the relational context for God’s commandments. // The 10 Commandments aren’t primarily about what God expects His people to do for Him, but with what He has already done for them.

2. When God spoke through Moses to give the 10 Commandments, He reasserted His claim over His people by reminding them of the way He had acted on their behalf. // Ancient Near Eastern worldview — They were in His debt. // (Deuteronomy 4:32ff.) Nothing had ever happened like this before. THEREFORE, this event was monumental in shaping the identity of His people. // The Israelites’ identity wasn’t just in their genealogy (i.e., as descendants of Abraham), but as the people God had brought out of Egypt. And in fact, there was a mixed multitude (Abraham’s descendants and others).

C. The Ten Commandments Define the Appropriate Response to God’s Grace (Ex 20:2–17)

1. Scripture consistently tells us that the freedom God gives to His people is not a freedom to do whatever they’d like to do. God liberates His people so they can offer Him their whole-hearted devotion. And the 10 Commandments define this whole-hearted devotion.

2. The Ten Commandments begin with four commandments that have a vertical, and God-ward orientation.

3. The final 6 commandments are the horizontal, community-oriented commandments.

4. For Israel, there was no distinguishing between their “religious” life and their “social” life—as if what they did in their everyday life didn’t matter as long as they were in church on Sunday // The 10 Commandments show us that Israel’s appropriate response to God’s grace was a life wholly transformed to live for Him and others.

5. And if Israel was going to receive God’s blessing and be a blessing to the world, it would be as they lived the life described in the 10 Commandments.

III. Application

A. God’s people are identified by their experience of His redemption.

a. OT — Exodus and keeping the law becomes the identifying marker of God’s people. It wasn’t just Abraham’s descendants, because the Law made provision for anyone to become part of the covenant community.

b. NOW, God’s people are defined by Jesus’ Death and Resurrection. (Titus 3:4–6; Eph 2:4–5) So, how can you tell a Christian from a non-Christian? In one sense, it’s only by their participation in the grace of God. Have they received the new life God promises to all who take hold of Christ in faith?

B. God’s people are identified by the life of worshipful obedience they offer Him in response.

a. OT — Ten Commandments were the guidelines of Israel’s response to God. To “love the Lord…with all heart, soul, strength”

b. What about now? When asked the greatest commandment, Jesus said Love the Lord & Love Neighbor This is to be the natural outworking of a heart that’s transformed. Just as an acorn planted becomes an oak tree, so too when God’s work of redemption takes root in our hearts, it gives growth to a life of worshipful obedience. So how can you tell a Christian from a non-Christian? Look at the life they’re living.

i. The Scriptures speak about it as bearing fruit (Jn 15:8; Rom 7:4; James 3:17). Are you bearing that fruit?

ii. Many Christians never discover the joy that comes from living according to God’s commands. They know their sins are forgiven, but they haven’t yet learned what it means “to—as we say around here—live for Jesus.” Because of that, their lives are not discernibly different from the people around them.

iii. God calls us, like He did with Israel, to recognize how great a salvation He has given us and to offer back to Him everything. This “Living for Jesus” means giving up our goals and dreams, ambitions, or aspirations, and looks to Him and says, “Lord show me your way. Make the path clear before me.” Have you ever said that to God? Do you need to say it again?