June 14, 2020 – Missio Dei 1
Restorationstaunton

Exodus 19:1-8
A Holy Nation, A Royal Priesthood
The Rev. Jay Traylor

Context
This is the start of a series we’ll be doing as we prepare to launch as a new church in Staunton. We’ll be looking at the idea of the Missio Dei, which is a very fancy way of saying the Mission of God. That is, we don’t think of mission as something that we came up with, in order to satisfy God’s command for his people. We think of Mission as something that God came up with, and commended TO his people.

God’s people have always been part of God’s mission in God’s creation. Today we are going to look at Exodus 19 as a very early picture of how God’s people were supposed to be on mission for God’s plan for God’s world, even in how they lived their everyday lives.

Let me pray for us as we open God’s word.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we would see Jesus today. Show us more of Christ through your Word, and bring us closer to Christ through your table. In his name we pray, amen.

Intro
So it’s been 3 months since the Israelites had left Egypt. And God has brought them to the next important place in their journey. Mt. Sinai. We’re not 100% sure where this was, but it was likely somewhere in what it today called the Sinai Peninsula, the easternmost bit of Egypt, right near Israel and Saudi Arabia.

The Israelites have already seen some pretty amazing things. All the plagues in Egypt, then the flight from Egypt when God killed the firstborn male of every house that wasn’t protected by the blood of the lamb. Then the parting of the Red Sea. Then, in the desert, the Isarelites have no water and Moses strikes the rock and water gushes out. Then, they had to fight a much larger army, and Moses stood on the top of the hill with his arms outstretched and, as long as his arms were raised, God gave the Israelites the victory. And that was their last stop, at Rephidim. So already, the people of God have seen some pretty amazing sights in terms of how God is saving them, protecting them, and guiding them.

So they get to Sinai and God says to Moses, “Here’s what you’re going to tell the people: ‘You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians.’” And how he bore the Israelites on eagles wings, allowing them to soar over trouble and by swiftly carried to him. Now, in reality, some of them might have been saying, “Yeah… eagles wings… we’ve been walking through this hot dry desert for 3 months. Not exactly a first-class ticket, God.” But, in comparison to what SHOULD have happened to them without GOd’s intervention, they pretty much were on eagles’ wings. Escaped Egypt, outran the Egyptian army, beat a whole nother army, drank from a river of water that sprang out of a solid rock… God isn’t wrong when he says he’s been looking after them.

So that’s all background. That’s just a poetic summary of what we’ve seen in chapters 1-18. Because now God is about to tell them what this is all FOR.

This is a line that I’m borrowing from my old pastor Dan Claire. Some of you know him. When we did a series on Exodus, man, had to be 6 years ago, the pastors reminded us every week that our salvation is not the ENDPOINT of God’s work, that our salvation has a PURPOSE, and it was a PART of God’s plan. And this is the story of Exodus. God saves his people FROM slavery, TO himself, FOR THE LIFE OF THE WORLD.

It’s illustrated right here in the middle of our passage.
Verse 4 and 5: “You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. 5 Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; 6 and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’”

So, we’ve touched a little bit on HOW GOD saved them, and the miraculous way he had cared for them so far. Now, what’s up with verse 5? If you know anything about the Old Testament, you might know what happens NEXT at Mt Sinai. God gives his law to his people. Moses goes up the mountain, comes down with the 10 commandments, and a lot of the next few books of the Bible has God telling Moses what the laws for his chosen people are going to be.

So – here’s the question – here in v 5, God says “now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples.” And then, verse 7, “7 So Moses came and called the elders of the people and set before them all these words that the Lord had commanded him. 8 All the people answered together and said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do.”

So… which covenant? Because God had already made a covenant with Abraham and his descendants back in Genesis 15. And it was a pretty one-sided deal. God said that he was going to bless Abraham and his descendants, was going to give them a land as an inheritance, and that through them all the nations of the earth would be blessed. And God showed that if he didn’t follow through on his promise that he would literally tear himself in half. And yet, at that point, nothing is required of Abraham. It wasn’t a contract – I’ll do this if you do that. It was a promise, a demonstration of one-way love.

And I think THAT’S the covenant that God is talking about here in Exodus 19. Because he hasn’t given the law YET. So how can he ask his people to “obey my voice and keep my covenant” when he hasn’t told them what it is yet? And the people say “all that the Lord HAS spoken,” not “all that the Lord WILL speak.” So I think God is calling them not to obedience to laws not yet laid down, but calling them to remember his grace and his one-way covenant to their ancestor Abraham, to build their life and put their faith in God’s promises. This is not a call to commit to remember the covenant of grace.

And even the law itself is an outgrowth of this covenant of grace. The law tells God’s people how to live in light of God’s promises that he freely gave to Abraham. If the promise was given before the Law was given, and if the law is supposed to show them how to live as a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, and if part of living that way was to be a light to the nations around them, then we can see that even the giving of the Law was both grace and mission. I know I touched on this the last time we were together, but part of the mission of the Israelites was to live in light of God’s promises and according to God’s law and to be a model to the people around them, who were supposed to look at how Israel lived and say “MAN what a just and loving God they serve. How can they have that system of laws? How can they be put so much trust in their God that they don’t try to maximize their wealth at every opportunity? How can they put so much trust in their God that they value protecting the innocent rather than punishing the guilty? How can they put so much trust in their God that they actually care for the weak among them? Why don’t they just let the strong kill the weak? That’d make them stronger in the end.” But that’s not what God’s law says, because that’s not how God’s mission to the world looks.

What does that MEAN? They weren’t missionaries, but they were called to be gracious and generous. Throughout the law there are provisions made for the “sojourner in your midst.” The law says that when you harvest your field, you don’t harvest right up to the edge of it, but you leave the edges for the poor and the sojourner. What? That’s YOUR field! You should have the right to harvest all of it! You have to maximize your return on investment, you have to provide for yoru family and your future generations! But what God is saying over and over to his people, both through is actions and through his Law, is, no, that’s NOT your field. That’s MY field. I BROUGHT you to it, I CLEARED it for you, I GAVE it do you, and *I* get to say how its used. And if you’re going to work MY field, you will sow the whole field and tend the whole field and give the sweat of your brow to the whole field… and then you’ll leave the outer edges of it for the poor and the sojourner. And yet STILL I will provide for you. You’ll STILL have more than you need.

When you have more wood than you need, you can either build a taller fence or a longer table. God gave his people more than they needed and then called them to build a longer table. So while this fledgling nation of Israel might not have been given the command to spread out to the surrounding nations and send missionaries to testify to the goodness of God, the place where God planted them was on such a crossroads of people groups, and surrounded closely by so many different nations, that it would have been hard for word to not travel about how these people were living.

Now, how were the Isarelites on mission for God? Were they given the Great Commission that Jesus gave to his followers in Matthew 28? Not… really. So that’s why Exodus 19 is a good starting place for us to talk about mission, but it’s not the whole picture. God had already set apart his people, and that group of set-apart people didn’t explode outward to include people from every nation on earth until after the resurrection. And after the resurrection, the roles kind of shifted. Here, Israel is in one place and is called to be a light to the nations around them. But after Jesus ascended, the Gospel exploded outward and now WE are the sojourners, WE are the strangers in another kingdom.

But the mission is the same. The way it works out might look different, but the mission is still the same. God here clearly states that Israel has a mission – a mission of praise and service. What’s a priest do? Worships God and serves those who are like him. So, they’re supposed to serve one another? Yes, but really a priest is set apart from those who are like him. So the nation of Israel was set apart from the other nations, and was supposed to serve them by being set apart from them. Same with us.

But how do we live for the life of the world in our day? That’s a question that has real relevance in our nation RIGHT NOW. How do we engage with people, how do we show God’s truth and God’s love to people? Now, I think the Bible is very clear that only God can change someone’s heart and only God can transform a person from unbelieving to believing. And yet, I also know that God in his divine will has ordained not only the ENDS, but the MEANS. Which means, he not only decides WHAT he wants to happen but he decides HOW he wants it to happen. And for whatever reason, he has decided that how he wants to bring about change in this world is through one of the least efficient means possible, from our perspective – he has decided he wants to bring about change in his world through preaching, through conversation, through dialogue. Seems like a VERY slow way of getting things done. Why not write it across the sky in neon letters that never fade? Why not have every single person on earth audibly hear the Voice of God at the same time? But no. God has decreed that change come slowly, organically, through conversation.

And that’s one of the two means available to us humans. Right? Conversation and violence. Those are the two ways, and the only two ways, to change someone’s mind or change someone’s actions. Words, or force. But the gospel is not found at the point of a spear. The Gospel is not spread by a display of oppressive power or majority rule or might makes right. It could be, and it definitely has been at various times, and God was pleased to use our sinful actions for his greater glory.

“Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; 6 and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.””

That word there, “treasure,” which in Hebrew is Segula – it doesn’t come up a lot, but it’s helpful for our purposes here to get a good definition for it. Think of that like a private, royal treasure that a king has full and sovereign control over. David is talked about how he used his Segula, and the teacher in Ecclesiastes talks about how he gathered to himself the segula of kings through his cunning and his worldly success. So, here God is using language that fits in with the next thing he says – his chosen people are his private possession which HE is in sole control of. And what is he decreeing that his possession is? What shape will it take? Well, the king says he wants them to be set apart, holy, used for a special purpose. So he gets to use them for however he wills.

And we are the same people. The church today is the same group, the same “God’s people,” the same “children of Abraham,” as the Old Testament Israelites. So he names Israel as his own treasure, to mold and shape and fashion as he sees fit. And he names US as his own treasure, to mold and shape and fashion as he sees fit. And what does he call us to be? A kingdom of priests, and a holy nation. A priest serves his people, in part, by being set apart from them. Set apart like… cloistered? Hidden? Are we supposed to just hunker down with one another and wait for Jesus to come back? No! The call on our lives is the same as the call on the Israelites’ lives. At bare minimum, we live open-handed lives of generosity and inviting in the sojourner and giving to those in need. Combine that with a missional attitude in our neighborhoods, our workplaces, our sports groups or college friends or whatever, and you’ve got a pretty good picture of how God wants us to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. We have been given the status of adopted firstborn sons when we are united to Christ. A whole chosen people of firstborn sons. That’s royalty. And yet, we are called to serve, not to be served. That’s a royal priesthood.

Now, let’s look at one more thing from this passage. There are parts of the Bible that are meant to be overtly comical. Parts of Judges, parts of Kings, most of Esther, and I think Paul writes some pretty sick burns. Now I’m not sure this part of Exodus is supposed to be funny, but when you read it looking backwards through the unfolding history of God’s people, this line takes on a comic irony. Verse 7: “So Moses came and called the elders of the people and set before them all these words that the Lord had commanded him. 8 All the people answered together and said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do.””

NO YOU WON’T. “All that the Lord has spoken we will do.” Hah! The people of Israel managed to pull off that level of obedience for like maybe 20 years in a row, and then they fell right back into living exactly like the nations around them. Worshipping idols, living as though God wasn’t God. “All that the Lord has spoken we will do.” And then they absolutely did not do that for the overwhelming majority of their history.

And yet, God kept them as his people. Even when he disciplined them, even when he punished them, even when he exiled them for abandoning their covenant, they were still his people. We can have the best of intentions. Often my best part of the week is Sunday afternoon. “Wow, I’m really gonna rededicate my life to God. It’s gonna be a whole new me!” And by Monday I have run out of fingers to count the ways where I have failed to live up to the calling God has placed on my life as an adopted son of God and brother of Christ. So we can say “All that the Lord has spoken we will do,” and we can even mean it! And that’s a good thing, for us to reach high and mean it! But we know we won’t live up to it. We know we will sometimes harvest to the edge of our field and not provide for the poor. We know that we will sometimes build a taller fence instead of a longer table. We know that we will intentionally cloister ourselves, hide ourselves, avoid the awkward conversation with a nonbeliever, fail to stand up for Biblical standards of truth, or justice, or mercy. And what do we do when that happens? Hide it? Ball up our fists and bear down and just WILL it to happen? No, we run to Jesus. We hold out all the “what we have done” and “what we have left undone” and we send it to the Cross of Christ. And we know that for those who trust in Christ, all the sins they have ever committed or will ever commit have been paid for on the cross. And, finally, we talk to one another. Because that whole thing about how the gospel spreads through conversation? That isn’t just external to the church, that’s internal as well. We build one another up in the faith and we partner with one another on mission to our city. So, this week, don’t lose sight of the fact that you are part of a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. We are called to be a light to the world, a light to the Valley, a light to Staunton. And it’s time to start dreaming together about what that looks like. Let’s pray.