Sermon Notes: Exodus 19:1-6 – The Good News Makes Us Holy Priests to the Lord

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The Lord Jesus has fixed his victorious ends for the church. The church as a whole will ultimately succeed in discipling the nations. The Lord Jesus will sanctify his church and she will be presented on the last day without spot or blemish.

And, the leadership and members of the local church can affect the local church’s temporal status. By the power of the Spirit, the Lord uses the holiness of the local church to propel them to wild heights of eternal increase, joy, delight in righteousness, and increased witness. Contrarily, sin can ruin a church’s temporal success, joy, and witness. Just look at the seven churches of Revelation. 

The good news of Jesus’ cross has secured the fixed eternal success of the church and has purchased for us the possibility of temporal success leading to eternal success as we live like holy and royal priests to the Lord. 

Let’s see that today in Exodus 19:1-6 as we see the good news and the application. 

Let’s read it!

Israel arrives at Mount Sinai 90 days after the Exodus. 19:1

It takes 29.5 days to go from one new moon to the next new moon, so it has been roughly 90 days since Israel left Egypt that they came to Mount Sinai.
1. Now, for the rest of our study in Exodus, the setting will be here at the camp at the base of Sinai.
  1. The two main events in this setting are the giving of the law and instructions on building the Tabernacle. 
Many significant events have taken place in 90 days, and the adventure is just beginning.

Israel camps at Mount Sinai. 19:2

It is not insignificant that the Lord chooses a mountain to meet with Moses and the people to give the law and instructions on building the Tabernacle.
1. Why?
2. If you are a student of the Old Testament, you might have noticed that the Tabernacle and the Tent of Meeting parallel in design where the Lord chose to dwell with his people and speak with them in the beginning.
3. Eden was the garden of God where he met with his co-regents and where he directed the work of humanity.
  1. Ezekiel also described Eden as being “God’s holy mountain” (Ezekiel 28:14).
    1. God chose to create and place Adam and Eve in the mountain garden of Eden.
      1. There in Eden, he fellowshiped with his image-bearers, and so he will meet with Moses on the mountain and the tabernacle will be decorated with art depicting a well-watered and fruitful garden full of the hosts of heaven, as instructed by the Lord. 
      2. God choosing a mountain and having them decorate the Tabernacle like Eden are some of the ways the Lord is declaring that he will restore creation to the place where he eternally dwells with his people and the current state of the curse of sin will not last.  
4. Another significance of the Lord meeting with Moses on the mountain is the fact that the “gods” of Canaan have turned Eden upside down in that they meet with their followers not in holiness, truth, and fellowship but in rebellion, distortion, and enslaving lies on mountain tops.
  1. Babel was an attempt to make a mountain in the form of a ziggurat for this purpose.  
  2. This is captured in Enoch’s detailed account of Genesis 6:1-4 when rebellious hosts distorted creation on a mountain.
    1. Although not a canonical book of the Bible, it was viewed by 2nd temple Jews and New Testament Judaism, as well as New Testament authors, as being a truthful explanation of the details of what Moses tells us from a high level. 
  3. By meeting on the mountain, the Lord is declaring judgment on the forces of evil.
    1. The Lord will bring the hammer on a mountain again when he comes in the flesh and is transfigured on the mountain of Genesis 6 for Peter, James, and John to see his glory, and he will take the wrath of the Father on the hill of calvary to begin the reverse of the curse.
      1. It is no insignificant detail that the Lord wants Moses to meet him up on a mountain.

Yahweh meets with Moses and gives Moses a gospel application message for Israel. 19:3-6

Moses is tasked with preaching what the Lord gives him for Israel. 19:6c
1. The Lord has a particular message for Israel, and he instructs Moses on what he is to say.
  1. The Lord doesn’t leave room for Moses to mess up the gospel, and he gives him content designed to lead Israel and the nations to Jesus.
    1. Let’s look at it one part at a time. 
The Lord reminds Israel that they have witnessed his saving work and how he brought them to himself. 19:4
1. The Lord calls Israel to remember what they have witnessed. “You yourselves have seen.” There is no excuse. They know the truth of the good news, and they know who the Lord is.
  1. Israel witnessed the Lord judge the “gods” of Egypt and those who followed the “gods” of Egypt.
    1. As a result of watching the Lord judge the rebellion of false worship, Israel understands the wages of sin is death. 
  2. Israel witnessed the Lord lift them from their plight and do the work of saving them. “…how I bore you on eagle’s wings…”
    1. Isaiah will reference Exodus 19:3 in 40:31 where he says that those who wait for the Lord will renew their strength because they will mount up with wings like eagles to run and not be weary and to walk and not faint.  
    2. Isaiah helps us in our interpretation. Israel has witnessed the Lord do the work of saving them without any saving activity from their hands. Their job was to believe and obey not rescue themselves.
      1. The Lord performed the signs. 
      2. The Lord killed the firstborn and plundered the Egyptians in the Exodus. 
      3. The Lord parted the Red Sea and had Israel pass through the waters as he rescued them from Pharaoh and destroyed their accuser.
        “Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to the cross I cling” rings true right here. 
        
        It was totally the saving work of God alone.
        He lifted them up on eagles wings and rescued them. 
  3. Israel witnessed the Lord bringing them to himself.
    1. Israel is to be learning the Lord saved them to bring them to himself, and in bringing them to himself he exalts his name in and through them receiving grace.
      1. Israel has witnessed this explicitly in all the Lord has done for them, and it will continue to be a painful lesson along the way as they are tempted to act as though they’re saved for themselves.
        They will have to learn their salvation is built on their relationship with the Lord. 
2. This call to remembrance underscores the truth that salvation is found in no one else.
  1. There is no other name under heaven by which they can be saved, and it is completely the work of the Lord to save them.
    1. Israel’s saving has nothing to do with them. 
    2. What they have witnessed leaves them with the belief that they are saved because God loves them.
      1. Deuteronomy 7:7-8 (ESV) 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, 8 but it is because the LORD loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 
    3. Israel is saved only because the Lord chose them, loves them, and keeps his word. 
If Israel obeys the Lord and keeps his covenant, they will be Yahweh’s treasured possession among all the nations because the whole earth is his. 19:5
1. “For all the earth is mine.”
  1. Since Yahweh is the Creator of all things and all beings, he has the sovereign right to elect for himself any he so desires for his good and eternal purposes of grace.
    1. This is part of what it means to be THE Creator. 
2. The “if” language the Lord uses is covenant language.
  1. In a covenant, each party has a responsibility to uphold their part. 
  2. The Lord did all of the saving work. We have seen that clearly. He bore them on eagle’s wings!
    1. None of Israel’s rescue is the work of their own merit.
      1. Their salvation is completely the good grace of God. 
3. Don’t let the “if” trip you up.
  1. The “if” does not in any way indicate the Lord’s saving is not complete.
    1. The “if” language of the covenant indicates that if a person belongs to the Lord, they will act like it.
      1. Their acting like the Lord’s people is their responsible part of keeping the covenant.
        They don’t have to save themselves. 
        
        They just have to act like they have been saved. 
      2. If they don’t act like the people of God, they prove they are not the Lord’s people, thus proving they have never received the Lord’s saving grace.
        This is not a mystery and it’s not a conundrum. 
        
        This is the Lord’s economy of the covenant. 
  2. So, “if” they keep his covenant, they will be the Lord’s treasured possession. They prove they are the Lord’s people.
    1. As the people of God, Israel gets everything that comes with belonging to the Lord including his protection.
      1. As his treasured possession, they are covered by and cared for by the Lord. 
      2. Genesis 12:3 reminds us that when enemies come against his people they come against him and he will defend his people and keep them.
        The Lord Jesus asked Saul/Paul in Acts 9 why he was persecuting him as Saul/Paul was persecuting the church because Jesus identifies with his people and will defend his people ultimately. 
  3. If, however, they don’t keep his covenant, they will find themselves under the same condemnation of Egypt not because the Lord failed to save or that his salvation is rooted in their merit, but because the covenant breakers refused to believe and thus obey the stipulations of the covenant.
    1. Belief and obedience go hand in hand for Israel.
    2. Israel does not get to be saved by grace through faith in Jesus and then act like they belong to Baal.
      1. In the covenant, Israel gets all of the Lord and they then are his people in every way. 
    3. This is true for us who are grafted into Abraham by faith in Jesus.
      1. We don’t get to act like Satan’s children while carrying the name of Jesus.
        Why does 1 John 1:9 have this “if” language when it comes to confession of sin and forgiveness?
        If I’m justified in Christ, isn’t my sin just sort of ignored?
        No. 
        
        The new covenant of the good news is still a covenant. 
        
        We get all of the righteousness of Jesus, and then we get to act like his people.
        Jesus’ people readily confess not just so we can get forgiveness, but because we can’t stand sin, and we readily confess. 
        
        Justified people confess, and confessing justified people are forgiven. 
Israel is to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. 19:6a
1. This part of the Lord’s message might be a little confusing because God would appoint the tribe of the Levites to be priests and ministers for the people while the nation as a whole would live holy lives. 
2. Why would he tell the nation they would be a kingdom of priests and then appoint Levites to fulfill that role?
  1. The Lord set aside Levi to serve this role for the people so they could have a historical reference point for what he would do in the person of Jesus Christ. 
  2. The call for them to be a nation of priests was a look ahead to what Jesus would do for us when he came to be the more perfect Levi, the more perfect servant priest, who would make a whole church made up of Jew and Gentile alike to be a nation of holy priests to the Lord.
    1. Jesus taught us how to read the Old Testament like this in Luke 24. 
    2. All Scripture predicts, prepares for, reflects, and results from Jesus’ person and work.
      1. Therefore, the Lord Jesus sets aside Levi to show the world who he is as the Great High Priest, and what he would do as the mediating servant of his people, so that they might go and be his body among the nations.
        Therefore anyone in Christ, the Great High Priest, gets to be one of his priests in the world to testify to who Jesus is. 
      2. Glory in that for a moment. 
3. So, the Lord gave Moses a message for his people Israel, and his church, so that we might know what he intends for us to be and do because of his work to save us.
  1. The Lord saved Israel to place them in the Promised Land as a kingdom of holy people with holy priests to teach the glory of God so that they would testify to his great name and prepare the nations for Jesus by inviting the nations to come to faith and keep his word. 
  2. You should be familiar with this language the Lord gives Moses because it is prominent in the New Testament.
    1. 1 Peter and Revelation quotes Moses in application to the church that consists of Jews and Gentiles alike. 
  3. Whatever the Lord’s eschatological plan for physical descent/national Israel might be, we can be confident that the church (those who have by faith believed in the Lord Jesus) is “grafted” into the elect of Israel so that we are children of Abraham by faith (Romans 11).
    1. Therefore, Peter will say to the church of Jew and Gentile elect from the nations:
      1. 1 Peter 2:5-10 (ESV) 5 you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6 For it stands in Scripture: “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.” 7 So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,” 8 and “A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense.” They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do. 9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
    2. As the church, our identity and work are not different from Israel’s in Moses’ day.
      1. Through faith in Jesus, we are priests and holy, and we are to proclaim the excellencies of him who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light. – 1 Peter 2:9b
        We are to live like holy priests on mission.

Application – What are we supposed to know from this gospel application?

The Lord’s message to Israel through Moses is the good news that will be secured by the cross. It is an application. There is no contradiction in being saved by grace through faith and striving to be holy priests to the Lord. If we refuse to strive to be a holy people, he will discipline us for our good and his glory. We are going to work these couple of sentences out in the following italicized points.
1. The Lord does not drop the “if” of covenant language in the new covenant. 
  1. In Christ, there is still the reality that I need to act like I belong to Jesus.
    1. Romans 10:9 (ESV) 9 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
    2. 1 John 1:9 (ESV) 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
      1. In Christ, there are actions required of justified people not to earn our salvation but as fruit from saved people. 
2. Jesus has come, and instituted the new covenant by his blood and paid for sin, and now he calls all men everywhere to repent, and he calls those who repent to work out their salvation, to act like they are saved. 
  1. Israel is going to struggle with this.
    1. The church struggles with this. 
3. The Lord saves Israel by sovereign grace through faith just like he saves us. 
  1. Again, we want to establish that the Lord saves without any contribution from us.
  2. Romans 3:21-26
    1. Again, don’t let the fruit of the “if” trip you up.
      1. None of us is saved by our keeping up our part of the covenant.
        Our “if” part is the evidence that we have received Jesus’ saving part of the covenant.
        Next is where it gets demanding for us.  
4. Saved Israel is to be holy. The saved church is to be holy.
  1. The work of justification does not imply that God puts on blinders.
    1. If that were the case, Hebrews 12:3-17 would not tell us that the Lord disciplines his church in love for sanctification. 
  2. The work of justification ensures that those in Christ will only receive good from the Lord, and correction for sin is a precious grace.
    1. Psalm 39:11 and Psalm 40:11 are not contradictions. They are precious paradoxes.
      1. Psalm 39:11 (ESV) 11 When you discipline a man with rebukes for sin, you consume like a moth what is dear to him; surely all mankind is a mere breath! Selah
      2. Psalm 40:11 (ESV) As for you, O LORD, you will not

restrain your mercy from me; your steadfast love and your faithfulness will ever preserve me!

Sometimes, the Lord’s mercy to me is to consume something dear to me so that I will wake up from my stupor of sin and see that I need to repent and get in the game rather than continue in the peril of proving I am a breath away from condemnation.
Justification ensures that the Lord’s present and active corrective activity for me is sovereign grace that moves me toward the kingdom of God rather than the Lord’s passive judgment that leads me to active and eternal condemnation.
1. Romans 2:5 should cause us to take account.
  1. Romans 2:5 (ESV) 5 But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.
  2. If the Lord is not actively correcting me, I’m likely receiving the passive wrath of God in him letting me just store it up for the last day when the hammer drops in eternal condemnation because I’m proving I don’t believe by my delight in sin. 
2. You want the Lord’s correction. It is proof we are his children.

Justification is never an excuse for sin nor a means of confusion when hard things happen to justified followers of Jesus.
1. This is important because we have to make sense of our justification and our call to be holy priests on mission in the NOT EASY living in the present kingdom that has not fully come and is in conflict with darkness continually as it advances.
  1. This puts us in our work as holy priests on the front lines, and we have to make sense of what we are reading in Scripture. 
2. We can’t say that the cross is of no effect when hard things happen to us, like salvation is some promise that hardship won’t come our way.
  1. Precisely because of the cross, the Lord keeps those who have faith in Jesus in such a way that he roots out their sin by grace through faith as they work out their salvation in fear and trembling while keeping them close as children of God. 
  2. Philippians 1:6 is the practical outworking of this truth. 
Therefore, our justification is never about allowing us to get away with sin, but making sure sin gets rooted out of us, and this is a gracious gift.

If WE are not holy, WE will incur the discipline of the Lord. This is good. 
1. Israel suffered as a nation when parts of the whole rebelled against the Lord.
  1. Joshua 7 is one of the starkest gospel presentations in the Old Testament as well as one of the starkest examples of how sin is atmospheric and how the sin of one affects the many. 
2. There is a shared reality to Israel’s salvation and holiness and therefore there is a shared reality to our salvation and holiness.
3. Because the Lord works in and through fellowship, we have to walk with others who are covenantally committed to each other in such a way that we know the Lord together.
4. And WE are to know the Lord together in such a way that WE know what he is doing in US to be able to encourage, walk with, instruct, and if necessary, correct. This is important because I can bring suffering on for you if I am not careful with myself. Let’s be aware of some options on how the “WE” of sin affects us as a people of priests to the Lord.
  1. Some get just judgment because they don’t believe, and the Lord separates the weeds from the wheat. The local church has unbelievers in it. Jesus was clear about this. 
  2. Some get discipline as fatherly correction because they are sons or daughters of God and he has saved them.
    1. Jesus will ensure that we pursue holiness through his good discipline so that we can experience maximum human flourishing as we grow up into Christ as ambassadors of his kingdom. 
  3. Some suffer because of the sins of others.
    1. This is a horrible by-product of sin, and yet the Lord does not waste such suffering.
      1. In unjust suffering, we learn hatred for sin.
      2. We learn thanksgiving for mercy.
      3. We learn that he stores up future grace for us.
      4. We learn that the Lord will bring truth to light.
      5. We learn in this suffering he gives us a deeper desire for holiness. 
  4. There is no evident explanation for some suffering other than the Dragon introduced suffering into the world when he successfully enticed our parents into rejecting the good in favor of evil.
    1. As in Job, there may be a heavenly contest over our faithfulness when our flesh is pressed into suffering.
      1. Jesus told Peter that Satan had asked permission to “sift him like wheat”.
      2. Jesus allowed the Serpent access, and yet Jesus prayed for Peter in such an effective way that Peter’s recovery was fixed, so Jesus told him when he had recovered to strengthen the brothers.
        These saints set their hopes on Job 42:5 that what we have heard of God’s good mercy will one day become experience. 
      3. This is the WE of what happens due to sin.
        This is probably not exhaustive, but sufficient for the point. 
5. Thus, our prayer from Ezekiel 36:37-38 is for the US not to individuals.
  1. The prayer is that the Lord increase “us” and make “us” holy people who are worthy to fill the waste cities who will tell of Jesus and make disciples.
    1. If we shun holiness, we can and will bring suffering on the whole, and hinder the Lord’s grace to increase us, grow us in holiness, and hinder our local and global work. 
TRC, in light of this I need you to hear something very important.
1. The Lord is blessing TRC with answers to our prayer of Ezekiel 36:37-38.
  1. This is amazing, and I hope you are seeing it and experiencing it.
  2. This is not our first time seeing the Lord answer this prayer in 21 years of public square work in Rome/Floyd County, and 23 years of work total.
    1. And we are no strangers to what sin will do to the good of increase.
      1. We have experienced the work of pruning. 
2. I exhort you in this season of increase to not take it for granted. Take heed. Don’t fall.
  1. Be careful with the tongue. Be careful how you speak to one another.
    1. James tells us about the dangers of the tongue.
      1. James 3:6 (ESV) 6 And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell.
    2. Watch out for careless words with no repentance. 
    3. Watch out that frustrations are not vomited up on innocent saints. 
    4. Watch out for tone and intent. 
    5. Watch out for passive-aggressive words. 
    6. Watch out for a little too much comfortability with course language. 
  2. Be careful with your eyes. Covenant with your eyes that you will keep them fixed on what the Lord has given you and not in covetous desire for what is not yours.
    1. Treat older women like mothers. 
    2. Younger women like sisters. 
    3. Older men like fathers. 
    4. Younger men like brothers. 
  3. Be careful with your location.
    1. Be aware of where you are and who you are with. 
    2. Men, be careful. Guard your eyes, heart, home, purity, and integrity.
    3. Women, guard your heart, home, purity, and integrity.  
    4. Be careful where you go.
      1. This is not some attempt to create some extra-biblical law. 
      2. This is a hip check to remind us to not take the Lord’s blessing for granted. 
3. The Lord will wash his bride with the water of his word or with the difficulty of rebuke and will see that she is presented without spot or blemish on the last day.
  1. And if the Lord needs to take away increase to root my sin out, he can, and he might, and we know he is perfectly capable. 
  2. This has been on my mind of late, and I’ve been hesitant to say it, and it fits today because of what our text reminds us of in the gospel call to be a holy nation of priests.
    1. Israel is camping at the base of Sinai and the Lord reminds them who he is making them to be, and it’s not citizens of an evil world system
      1. The Lord is making them a kingdom of priests to the Lord.
      2. Because of that gospel work, we are a kingdom of holy priests to the Lord. 
    2. Therefore, we are a different people who act differently because we are new creations and on a mission for the glory of Jesus who has brought us to Himself.
      1. Response?
        Repent if necessary. 
        
        Resolve to reject sin and rebellion. 
        
        Worship in song.