Exodus - Helpful Fear of a Holy God - Exodus: 19-20

Welcome to the roots, where it's all about Jesus. We

love God, we love people, we reach the lost, and

we make disciples. One of the main ways that we

like where we make disciples is by regularly going through

God's word. And so once again, my word count was

up there a little bit this week, so we're going

to jump right into it. Actually, last week I did

a surprisingly all right job of getting us out of here.

So we're gonna try again. But it's gonna be a

good time. So we have been in the Book of Exodus.

You can go ahead and turn there with me now,

But we've been in the Book of Exodus, where we're

seeing how God delivers, God demands, and God dwells. And

over the last several weeks we have been looking at

how God delivers. And now we're actually going to transition

in the Book of Exodus to God's demands, or more specifically,

we're going to see God, having after delivered his people,

the people of Israel, now brings them to himself. He's

going to invite the people to covenant with him, then

reveal himself and his commands, and then kind of what

those commands are, the placing as demands upon the people.

So we're gonna we're gonna be coming about two chapters

today and so I actually I'm going to read a

portion from our text and we're going to pray jump

right into his sound good, perfect. So we're gonna be

looking at Exodus chapters nineteen and twenty, and I'll be

reading from chapter twenty, verses eighteen through twenty one. If

you do not have a Bible, we have some out

in the lobby. Please go grab one and keep it

for yourself. Exodus twenty. Starting in verse eighteen, it says,

now when all the people saw the thunder and the

flashes of lightning, and the sound of the trumpet and

the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and

they stood far off and said to Moses, you speak

to us, and we will listen. But do not let

God speak to us lest we die. Moses said to

the people, do not fear, for God has come to

test you, that the fear of Him may be before you,

that you may not sin. The people stood far off

while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was.

This is God's word, Lord, we lift up this time

to you. We asked that as we sung these songs,

that you've been preparing our hearts to receive the word

that you have for us today. We asked that we

would have a higher view of your holiness. We'd have

a higher view of your name and your character who

you are. We would walk and fear and holiness and

love before you as your people. Please help your word

this day take root in our hearts. Help us be

ready to receive and willing to respond to Jesus name,

we pray. Everyone said, amen. All right, Well, I'm gonna

butcher this beginning, so you gotta just bear with me here.

Does anyone know what cidero dromo Phobia is? Kind of

a long word, definitely too long for me, but it

is the fear of trains. It is the fear of trains. Now.

When I was sixteen, my grandma took me to Italy,

which was really awesome for it and we went for

about three weeks and so we traveled everywhere by train.

It was really awesome. Got really used to being around trains.

It was quite an enjoyable experience. A lot of stories

from all kinds of experiences with those trains, but there's

one story specifically that sticks with me to this day,

and that was we had just gotten off at the

station and we were waiting to go to our hotel.

I was about sixteen at the time, and while we're

standing there, I kind of start dozing off. While we're

standing next to the tracks, well, all of a sudden,

a train started blowing its horn, and I was like, well,

surely it can't be coming on our tracks, because they

just one just came, and so I ignored it and continued

staring at the plastic bag that I saw blowing the

wind and not realizing that I had actually been over

the yellow line that they have. If you've ever been

to a train station, you know, or maybe a subway

station or something kind of like that, where they have

a yellow line that is meant to keep you from

the tracks a safe distance away in case the train

happens to show up in the station and you're standing there.

If you're behind the yellow line, you will be safe.

If you're on a and or over like I was,

you are in danger. And so finally, after several horn blasts,

I decided to turn to my left, in which case

I saw a train coming directly into the station at

a very alarming pace. It was kind of one of

those life flashed before your eyes situations. So in the

quick moment that I could respond, I took a step

forward and just in time for it to only hit

the back of my backpack and kind of knock me

a little bit to my side as I was walking forward.

So it was coming in. The conductor of the train

was not very happy. He came and yelled at my

grandma in Italian, so we don't know what he said,

but you can tell that he was not pleased. So

from that day on and several years afterwards, back in

the States with my friends, we're driving around in cars,

but anytime our car would approach train tracks, I would

start to tense up and kind of sees up that

there was this fear that would start to set in,

start to get uneasy. I wouldn't feel quite like myself,

and there wasn't a train in sight, it was just

being near the train tracks. Now, do you know that

there's a difference between a phobia and a fear? Do

you know that some of you? Maybe maybe you do

know that, maybe you don't know that. Well, here's the

difference between a phobia and a fear. A phobia is

an irrational fear of something. It's an irrational fear or something,

and a actual fear or something is just a fear.

It's like that's there's reasonable means or reasonable reasons that

you should actually be afraid, should approach with warranted caution

given the situation. So for a couple examples, if you

have a fear of sharks while at the aquarium or

while reading a picture book where they cannot hurt you,

that's a little bit more of a phobia because there's

nothing in that moment to be afraid of. Maybe you're

swimming in a lake where there's definitely no sharks, maybe

that phobia starts to show up. A healthy fear of

sharks is when you're swimming in the open ocean where

sharks live. That would be a healthy fear of sharks.

Maybe a fear of scissors or knives in and of themselves,

you don't want to be around them, maybe needles a caution.

That would be a phobia of like I can't even

be around those things, they're too dangerous. A real fear,

A healthy fear would be you're careful in how you

handle these scissors or these knives because you know the

damage that can be done, so you're cautious and the

way that you approach them. There's a healthy fear well,

a paralyzing fear of being around train tracks in and

of themselves is an irrational fear. Train tracks aren't going

to do anything to you. They're staying right there, but

a real consideration of the caution that needs to be

given when being around train tracks. There's a healthy fear

of when I approach these things, I should look both ways.

I should make sure that I'm not trying to beat

the train. If the little arms are closing and the

lights are flashing, there's a healthy fear. And it's important

that we understand the difference between these types of fear because,

just like in our text today, if we get or

if we have the wrong kind of fear, if we

don't fear how we should, then we won't respond how

we ought to respond. Instead of responding with caution and

intentionality or reverence, we may be paralyzed, we may run away,

or maybe miss the point entirely. And today we're going

to be looking at the proper type of fear that

we should have, the type of fear that we should have,

and the type of fear that God actually wants us

to have. And that could sound kind of weird because

it's like all these Bible verses that say like be

not afraid, be not afraid, and those are totally there.

But there is a healthy type of fear that God

wants us to have, not an irrational fear, but a

completely rational one. That is the fear of God, a

fear and reverence for his glory, for his holiness, and

for his words. What I believe we're gonna see from

our text today is this, if we don't fear God

as we should, then we won't love God as we ought.

If we don't fear God as we should, then we

won't love God as we ought. So today's message is

simply titled helpful Fear of the Holy God, Helpful Fear

of the Holy God. And we're gonna look at our

text actually in four main sections. The four sections are

the invitation of God's Covenant, the preparation of God's coming,

the declaration of God's commands, and the mediation in God's

care for us. So we're going to look and jump

right into this first section, the invitation to God's Covenant.

So after about three months of drinking water from rocks,

and having throwing logs in water to make it not

bitter anymore, and eating heavenly bread and meat at night time.

The people of Israel arrive at their destination, which is

the mountain or Mount Sinai, the same place that God

had first revealed himself to Moses in the burning bush.

It's the same place where God had commissioned Moses on

his behalf and told Moses that he would know that

God actually sent him when he wants a goods or

once again stood at this mountain with the freed people

of Israel. And just like God had said it would

happen here, it is now fulfilled. So Moses goes up

the mountain and meets with God, and God speaks to Moses.

So let's look at this. Verse three says while Moses

went up to God, the Lord called to him out

of the mountain, saying, thus you shall say to the

house of Jacob and tell the people of Israel you

yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and

how I bore you on eagle's wings and brought you

to myself. 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

you 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. So we're

gonna see this a lot today, this dialogue and information

kind of being passed back and forth by Moses from

God to the people, from the people to God. So

God tells Moses to speak to the people and remind

them about how God had brought them out of their

slavery and thus far taking care of them. But now

here we actually see God invites them to covenant with him,

to be his people. God says, if you obey my voice,

if you obey my covenant, you will be my special possession.

It would be my treasure in all the earth, that

all the earth is his, but you would be His

special people, a holy nation, a kingdom of priests, that

if they obey God's voice, that He will be their

holy God, and they will be His holy people, his

holy representatives. Out of all the peoples of the earth.

They would be a people who would serve God and

be a light to the world. On God's behalf. So

God has now redeemed them from slavery, brought them to himself,

and he doesn't force them into this covenant with him,

but he gives them the conditions of obedience to enter

into covenant with him and tells them the blessings and

promises of what that would mean for the people. So

Moses goes and relates us to the people of Israel,

and they respond with this. They say in verse eight,

all that the Lord has spoken, we will do. And

Moses reported the words of the people to the Lord.

And this, I mean, this is like, this is a

this is ten out of ten response from the people

of Israel. I mean, last week we looked at kind

of like poor response after poor response after poor response.

They finally come to where God has brought them to.

He says, if you would obey my voice, if you

will keep my covenant, you will be my people. And

the people respond with them everything he says, we will do.

So it's truly incredible. God offers to enter into covenant

with these people that they'd be his possession, his holy nation,

and the people agree to live according to all that

God speaks. And amazing enough, this is actually the same

exact language that Peter pulls from when he's talking about believers.

Look at this one Peter two nine. He says, but

you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a what

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. Once you were

not a people, but now you are God's people. Once

you had not receive mercy, but now you have received mercy.

That when God saves the people to himself, brings him

into covenant with himself, that he does so for the

purpose of us being his own possession. That we would

proclaim his goodness to those around us, the nations around us.

We proclaim the greatness of his works, the greatness of salvation,

that He's worked in our own life. That people would

look at our lives and see that we've been delivered

and set free by God, and know that there is

a God who saves and redeems and who is living

and active in the world today. So I think it's

a really fair question for us to ask ourselves if

people actually looked at our lives, is that what they

would see? If people looked at our lives, would they

see that you are not the same. I know who

you were, but you don't do those things anymore. You

seem like you have a new purpose, or you live

with some kind of hope, or you live with some

kind of intention in your life with all the actions

that you do. What is that? And I think here

we're seeing it plainly put that it's what would make

us look different. Is just the plain, humble, willing obedience

to his voice that when God speaks, we go amen,

and we don't just leave it there. We actually put

it into practice. We do what he says. And so

I think another question is do we actually have this

humble posture of acceptance to the things that God commands

us to do? Are we ready and willing that God says, hey,

you're my people. When I speak, what I ask is

that you obey. Now? Are we already hesitant or do

we have this posture just like we see the Israelites here.

I think it's a fair point for us to examine

this in ourselves, because if we claim to be God's

special possession and where his representatives, if we claim to

serve the living Holy God, and then people look at

our lives. Is that what they would see or would

that be bogus and be like, I don't see anything

holy about your life. You serve the Holy God, And

it's not to say that the grace that he extends

to us doesn't cover those sins and cover that and

it call us back, But it's not We shouldn't stay

in those places. He's brought us out of our slavery,

out of our sin. So again, a fair question for

application would be for us to ask ourselves, do I

represent a holy God? Well? Do I represent a holy God?

Well as a person in his holy nation? Do you

live a life under your Holy God? And that shown

by your obedience to His voice? See? Very plainly, that's

what we are seeing right here now. Like most of us,

I think that the answer is pretty clear. We're not holy,

we are not that holy. We're sin riddled, we're problematic,

we're quick to go back to our slavery. I mean,

that's what we covered a lot of last week. These

people were like, man, I had it better when I

was in slavery, and we go like, you guys are crazy.

But then we turn around and God's like, oh, by

my voice, I'm like sh by my sin. Here's the thing.

God knows that. And so moving on in our text,

God calls for the people to make themselves ready, to

prepare themselves for him to come to them. So we're

gonna look at the preparation for God's coming. Look at

this in verse nine, and it says, and the Lord

said to Moses, behold, I'm coming to you in a

thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak

with you, and may also believe you forever. When Moses

told the words of the people to the Lord, the

Lord said to Moses, go to the people and consecrate

them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their garments

and be ready for the third day. For on the

third day, the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai

in the sight of all the people, and you shall

set limits for the people all around, saying take care

not to go up into the mountain or touch the

edge of it. Whoever touches the mountain shall be put

to death. So God tells Moses that He's going to

come down in the sight of all the people, so

that the people will hear God speak to Moses in

front of everyone, and so everyone will have no doubt

that really God is speaking to Moses. So God tells

Moses that the people need to get ready. God's holy

train is on the way. God's holy train is coming.

That the people are to wash themselves, refrain from sexual relations,

to not cross the barrier set at the edge of

the mountain, and that is the barrier to keep the

people from coming near to the holy presence of God.

And that could seem kind of weird, but actually it's

much like the yellow line at the train station. Man,

it's saying, Hey, this thing's going to come pass through,

and you do not want to be in its way.

There's a proximity that's safe for you to be in,

but you need to keep your distance. And we're going

to tell you it's right here behind this yellow line. Now,

if you actually remember when Moses first has his encounter

with God at the burning bush. God told Moses to

do what remove his shoes. He's like, you're standing on

holy ground, so you need to remove your shoes. But

now God is going to come down in an inferno

on the mountain. The mountain is going to be covered

in this thick cloud on fire, So how much more

maybe a distance needs to be kept from a burning

bush where he's like, don't come close, take off your shoes.

This is holy ground. And now the whole mountain is

going to be lit up, and the people are told,

get ready, make these preparations and keep your distance. God

is going to make it evident to the people not

only his words, but also his glorious majesty and holiness.

God's holy presence is going to be on display to

all the people of Israel. And these unholy people need

to keep their distance. They need to clean themselves in

order to even stand before this great sight. But it

is really cool because we're seeing this holy God drawing

near to this unholy people. Look at this, and we

actually get this description of what it was like on

the third day when God arrives in the cloud. Look

at this. Verse sixteen says on the morning of the

third day, there were thunders and lightnings and a thick

cloud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast,

so that all the people in the camp did what trembled.

Then Moses brought the people out of the camp to

meet God. They took their stand at the foot of

the mountain. Now Mount Seina was wrapped in smoke because

the Lord had descended on it in fire. The smoke

of it went up like the smoke of a kiln,

and the whole mountain trembled greatly. So the people see

this cloud showing up and they begin to tremble. And

then God descends on it in fire, and the mountain

begins to tremble. And as the sound of the trumpet

grew louder and louder, Moses spoke and look at this,

and God answered him in thunder. God answered him in thunder.

The Lord came down on Mount Sinai to the top

of the mountain, and the Lord called Moses to the

top of the mountain. Moses went up. Now, have you

ever been in a thunderstorm? Yeah? Especially, here's the deal.

I thought we had real thunderstorms here, and then I

went like a couple of states east, and then you

realize they are the ones who have the real thunderstorms.

You just get to be in a valley and it

was actually really interesting. We were some family's house, and

their house was this large house in this middle of

this valley, so you could actually see the entire storm

as it was coming in. This is this dark cloud

and as soon it was over us, the thunder and

the lightning. It's shaking that. Now we have lots of

trees around here, we have all kinds of different wind

storms and all kinds of things like that. But that's

the scene that we're getting here is thunder that's shaking,

and lightning that's flashing, and it's it's this. It's awe inspiring,

and quickly you realize just how out of control you are.

You see these, You're like, how would you even fight this?

The wind's just going to blow, The lightning is just

going to strike, and the thunder is just going to shake,

and you all you can do is hide. All you

can do is try and cower or find safety before

it stand no chance, before these storms and God's thick

cloud and fire is surrounding the mountain. And it's interesting

because it says also that there's this trumpet blast that

gets louder and louder, like a holy trumpet declaring the

arrival of a king, or maybe like a train that's

coming into the station, saying it's on the way. That

God speaks in his voice is like thunder, And it's

crazy because it doesn't even say like thunder, just says

in thunder. That's how God answers him in thunder. So

for me when I have when I'm around thunderstorms, whom

my wife gets really freaked out about, and I'm like,

it's all right for me. I love it because it

reminds me of this scene. It's terrifying. But I go like,

that's what they experienced. That's what God sounded like, which

is terrifying. That should humble us. But here it's saying

he speaks him in thunder. So you want to know

what God sounds like when he speaks. He sounds like thunder.

It's powerful, and it's big, and it's deathening, it's truly,

it's terrifying, it's awe inspiring. And so then God, when

he shows up, he once again calls Moses back up

the mountain. And I can only imagine that Moses, who

by the way, is eighty years old, is just going

up and down, up and down this mountain getting his

steps in. God then reminds Moses again. Actually it's kind

of interesting if you're reading the text. God once again

reminds Moses of the warning he needs to give to

the people not to come up the mountain lest God

break out against them, to which Moses reasonably enough responds, God,

you already told us that, God, remember you said. And

it's interesting because it could seem like God forgot, but

that's God doesn't forget anything. So what actually is happening

is God is trying to make it very clear the

seriousness of the situation. Not only is there a death

penalty for crossing the mountain, He's like, don't let them

come up lest I break out against them. The people

need to stay back. The people need to take God seriously.

And I think we should take this into account. Too

many of us take God's presence for granted. What do

I mean by that, Well, I think we very often

think that God's presence is meant to be a space

that just makes me feel like comfortable, you know, where

I can let my hair down and really be myself. Really,

we think God's presence is like about us, that it's

for us. But first and foremost, God's presence is for him.

It's about his glory. It's about his greatness. And the

reason we know that is because every single time God's

like actual glories on display, people aren't like, oh, this

is just so nice. People's faces are on the ground.

People fall down as if they're dead. They pass out,

they're not okay, it's too much for them to take in,

and when they finally are able to speak, they start

either speaking gibberish like Peter did on the Mount of Transfiguration.

He's like, you want me to build tense for you guys,

and God's like, what are you talking about? Or or

you're like Isaiah, who's like, I'm a man of unclean lips.

Like you see your sinfulness, you see your depravity revealed

in the presence of God's holiness. Quickly you realize that

you aren't the main character of the movie, you're not

the main character of history, but that now these people

are standing before the true King, the real main character,

the real main character of history, the one who it's

all about, the one to whom all creation owes its existence,

to the one to whom all things were made for,

the one to whom everything is all about. And if

we don't understand how holy God is, we don't really

understand who God is. That doesn't mean we're gonna understand

him fully. It's not even that we can grasp. I mean,

he's infinitely holy. You will never grasp just how holy

he is. But the problem is that sometimes we don't

even think about him being holy, and there are things

about him if we don't understand that that if we

don't understand how holy he is, or that he's holy

in the first place, there's things about God that are

not going to make sense to us. Most of us

know that God is love, so the Bible tells us,

but we define that love, or we define love based

on what we think it should be and what we

feel like it is, instead of basing God's definition of

love in step also with his holiness and his justice.

That's where you end up getting pictures of the cross

where people can look at the picture of across me, like,

look at God's love. But if you remember, that was

not sunshine and rainbows, it was darkness and judgment because

the Holy God was pouring out his wrath on sin,

on Christ. So both of those things are present. God's holiness,

God's love. And when you don't understand God's holiness, there's

a lot of people who just think that God's a meani.

He's a meani, he's mean, that he's not nice, he

has all these weird rules. They don't make any sense.

He's arbitrary when people don't understand that God is holy,

God is just, God is righteous, God is the standard.

So when we're judging God's laws, we're in the wrong position.

He's the lawgiver. If we're not in alignment with his word,

we're the weird ones. You realize standing before God that

He is the standard, and frankly, you don't measure up.

We don't measure up. And here these people standing before

the Holy God have that made very clear to them?

Now because of Jesus, we know that we can approach

God with confidence, But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't

consider the reverence that we should still have in the

presence of our Holy Father. And what I mean by

that is that we shouldn't be flippant. So how even

in our quiet time and our lives lived before him,

how would this knowledge of God's pure holiness impact how

we live before him? Living before his face, knowing that

he watches us, he sees us. How do we prepare

to stand before him? Do we get our minds and

hearts right and ready to be before him? To try

and focus as we come into his presence? And there's

kind of some bigger answers to how we do that,

which we'll get to in a little bit, But something

worth considering is how we should think about how there's

a day where God is going to come in all

his judgment. He's going to come in glory and power.

And I think it's fair if we ask ourselves, are

we living in such a way that is preparing us

to meet God? Do we have the proper boundaries drawn

in our life to keep us from sin, to keep

us living for Him that will keep us ready for

when God shows up, that we're not growing lacks of

days ago, We're not growing tired or sleepy in the

things that the Lord has called us to do. Moses,

at God's command, goes back down to Aarin and while

Moses is with the people, God actually speaks to Moses

and the people. So God speaks while all of them

are there, and He's going to make very clear those

lines that need to be drawn. So we're going to

look at the declaration of God's commands. And this is

actually something really interesting that I learned to my study

this week. Is here when it says and God spoke

all these words, that's what we're going to see. It

says it says, and God spoke all these words. It

doesn't say commands, it doesn't say laws, it doesn't say statutes,

it doesn't say demands. Now they are all those things,

but it says God spoke all of these words. And

how a lot of commentators understand that as God is

going to lay out the foundation by which his people live.

It's kind of like we have a constitution in our

country that sets what it looks like to live in

our country. And God is going to speak these words

and it's going to be their constitution for how these people,

how God's Holy nation ought to live. And these guidelines,

these foundational documents, whatever you want to call them, and

we're their most popularly known as the Ten Commandments. So

we're gonna actually take a look at them. We're not

going to take a deep dive into all of them,

or else we would be here forever. But what we

are going to do actually is, in several months from now,

we're going to do we're going to do a series

on the Ten Commandments. We're going to take at least

a week to cover about each one and get to

go through them. So I'm really excited for that. And

so you can hold hold on for that that will

be coming. But God lays out these these foundational documents

and words for his covenant people to live by. And

now most helpful in summarizing and understanding the commandments is

understanding that they can be summed up in the first

and the second greatest commandment, that is, love God with

every thing and more than everything, and to love your

neighbor as yourself. So as we actually read through that,

which we'll do pretty quickly, you can see that the

first four have to do with love and God and

loving God first, and the last six have to do

with loving your neighbor. Let's look at this Exodus twenty.

Starting in verse one says, and God spoke all these words, saying,

I am the Lord your God, who brought you out

of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

You shall have no other gods before me. You shall

not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness

of anything that is in heaven above, or that is

in the earth beneath, or that is in the water

under the earth. You shall not bow down to them

or serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am

a jealous god visiting the iniquity of the fathers on

the children to the third and fourth generation, for those

who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of

those who love me and keep my commandments. You shall

not take the name of the Lord your God in vain,

for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes

his name in vain. Remember the Sabbath day to keep

it holy. Six days you shall labor, you do all,

and do all your work. But the seventh day is

a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you

shall do or not do any work, you or your

son or your daughter, your male servant or your female servant,

or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates.

For in six days the Lord made the heavens and

the earth, the sea, and all that is in them,

and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed

the Sabbath day and made it holy. Honor your father

and your mother, that your days may be long in

the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, You

shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness against

your neighbor, you shall not covet your neighbor's house. You

shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male servant,

or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey,

or anything that is your neighbor's. Now here's the deal.

I should have screamed all of that at you. The

only reason I should have screamed that out all of

you is because that's what the people were hearing. They

were hearing that in their own language in thunder. That

that is how that was being spoken to all of

the people before them. God lays out plainly what it

looks like to love him, that is, serve him and

worship him alone, don't take his name in vain, keep

his sabbath holy, follow his example. He also lays out

his expectations for how his covenant people are to interact

with others. This is God's law in its purest form.

We're gonna be looking at some other laws coming next week.

It's gonna be a great time. But a lot of

those laws can find their core, or you can kind

of trace them to one of these core tenets of

loving your neighbor. But there is a problem, as we

read through these, doesn't just tell me how I ought

to live, but it reveals that I, in fact don't

live how I ought. I don't love God perfectly, and

I don't love my neighbor perfectly. We know that Jesus

drives many of these deeper saying, if you even look

at a woman with lust, you've committed adultery in your heart.

If you're angry, angry with your brother, you're committing murder

in your heart. If anyone hates their brother, they're a

murderer in their heart. These guidelines, which are amazing laws

for life, show me just how far I fall from

the holiness that God requires of his people. So you're

driving on the freeway and you realize you're going twenty

over and you have been for a long time. And

it's at this that I believe that not only as

a result of the crushing revelation of their sin, but

also because of just the terror flying sound, the terrifying

sight that is before them, that the people come to

Moses with a request, and I need the bandic companies.

We're gonna look at the mediation and God's care for us.

Look at his verse eighteen. Now, when all the people

saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the

sound of the trumpet, and the mountains smoking. The people

were afraid and trembled, and they stood far off and

said to Moses, you speak to us, and we will listen,

But do not let God speak to us lest we die.

They come to Moses terrified and asked Moses to act

as their mediator between God and them, because they couldn't

bear to live under the voice of God without any

means of separation. It was just too much. They needed

someone to go between, someone to stand in the gap

for them. But before Moses goes back into God's presence,

he tells the people something crucial here. Everything that had

happened was very intentional on God's part. God had invited

them to covenant with him. God had revealed his holiness

and glorious commands to them. But this had resulted in

fear in the people. Not an irrational fear, but a

very reasonable one, a holy, wise and good fear, a

fear that wasn't gonna make them run from God, but

will make them run from sin. Look at this Exodus

twenty twenty. It says Moses said to the people, it's

actually a very interesting lyne here says, do not fear,

for God has come to test you. He says, do

not what fear. He says, do not fear for God

has come to test to you, that the fear of

Him may be before you, that you may not what sin.

Do not fear for God has come to te ask

to you, that the fear of Him may be before you,

that you may not sin. And this is where we're

gonna camp, because Moses has just said something huge here,

something that has echoed many times throughout the rest of

God's word, and that is the relationship to the fear

of God and our sin. Like I stated earlier, if

we don't fear God as we should, then we won't

love God as we ought. God has called these people

to obey his voice, then revealed his holiness to them

and his commands. And his commands were to love him

above all else. And the point of him showing his

presence to the people is that they would fear him

above all else. So we need to love God and

fear God and both go together. If we properly fear God,

then we will properly love God. But none of this

is possible because of our default condition as sinful man.

Our default condition is one of not fearing God and

one of not loving God. And so before we can

even do this, we need someone who can go before us,

someone who can go between, someone who can redeem us

and bring us into the presence of God and enable

us to be as we should use in our own strength,

we do not measure up, and we already fall so

short of what we should be. But that's where the

good news comes in. That just like Moses was appointed

by the people to be a mediator between God and

the people of Israel, there is another man who was

appointed not by man, but by God to be the

perfect mediator and reconciler and voice of God to sinful man.

And that was the Word made flesh, the God man

Jesus Christ. Look at this one Timothy two to five.

For there is one God and there is one mediator

between God and men, the man Christ, Jesus, who gave

himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony

given at the proper time that God took on flesh

to not only be our mediator, but actually came down

to solve our problem of unholiness, our unholiness that was

keeping us from His presence. So once again God is

drawing near to these unholy people to save them. That

by living the perfect life, Jesus fulfilled the law. But

not only did he live the perfect life, but Jesus

also died the death that we deserve for our sin.

That just like God had said that anyone who crossed

the boundary on the mountain shall be put to death,

so every single person who breaks God's commandments, who crosses

the boundary of God's commands, they also deserve to be

put to death. But God, being rich in mercy, sent

Jesus to do what we couldn't by perfectly obeying the

law and by dying in our place for our transgression

of His law, but then finally raising on the third day,

showing that he was God's chosen mediator to be the

only way for sinful man to be reconciled to the

presence of a holy God. That the only way we

can come into God's presence confidently is through Jesus. Is

in Jesus. That everyone who is in Christ, they can

now draw near to God, because when God looks at us,

he doesn't see our unholiness, but he sees us covered

in the obedience and righteousness of Christ and for those

who in Christ. There is now no condemnation for those

who are in Christ that instead of being like Adam,

who when he sinned and heard God's presence showing up

random hid that we can confidently draw near. But then

and only then, after we've put our faith in Jesus,

can we even begin to fear and love God as

we ought. And I want to explain what I mean

by this. All over scripture we are told to fear God,

and even starting with our text here in Exodus, we

are told why, and that's that God actually cares for us.

He cares for us so much that we have this

funny sentence where Moses can say, hey, don't fear God

just wanted you to fear him. But the where the

care is in that is because the end of us

fearing him results in us not sinning, which is which

results in keeping us in his presence and able to

be with him. It's our sin that separates us. He

doesn't want us to sin, so he gives us fear

of him. He gives us this healthy fear of him,

just like when we approach train tracks, just like when

we approach the edge of the Grand canyon. We can

still draw near, but we are intentional on how we

do so, and we're not flippant about our life. That

we live before God. That is, by the fear of

God that we are kept from sin in the first place.

And all throughout Scripture we see this relationship between fearing

God and keeping his commandments. Look at this Proverb six

sixteen six. It says, by steadfast love and faithfulness, iniquity

is atoned for. And look at this is amazing. You

put this verse in your back pocket. And by the

fear of the Lord, one turns away from evil Proverbs

fourteen twenty seven. The fear of the Lord is a

fountain of life, that one may turn away from the

snares of death. Ecclesia Ecclesiastes twelve thirteen says, the end

of the matter all has been heard. Fear God and

keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.

Tewod Corinthians seventy to one. Since we have these promises, beloved,

let us clean ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit.

Listen to this bringing holiness to completion. In what the

fear of God? And what is the fear of God,

what is it exactly? Well, Scripture even just tells us,

I love these parts in scripture. When scripture just says

this is what it is, look at this. Proverbs eight thirteen.

The fear of the Lord is hatred of evil. To

love our most holy God, we need to hate what

is evil. Fearing the Lord is hating evil. It's by

fearing the Lord that we turn from evil because we

hate evil. That if we fear God, we fear of

being a part of anything that God himself hates. Instead

of playing with sin, instead of being flippant or indifferent

to our sin in our life. It's something that just

like God hates, we hate also. And it honestly just

makes sense, Like this is so practical. This is actually

a practical thing. It makes if we hate sin, if

we hate evil, if we hate wickedness, how much easier

to turn away from it. Let me give you an example.

I hate mushrooms, and that might seem ridiculous. You have

to convince me to try and eat mushrooms. I will

quickly move the other way. When it comes to mushrooms.

You don't have to try and keep me away from them.

I don't like them. My body doesn't like them. Nothing

about them is great, and I'm sorry if you do.

That's okay. But here's the deal. It's an illustration. You

don't have to convince me to stay away from mushrooms.

And if we feared the Lord as we should, it

should not be hard to keep away from sin. Do

we hate our sin enough that we don't want anything

to do with it any longer? Do we hate our sin?

And how much it ruins and affects our life, how

it leads to death, how it keeps us from God?

How about because it offends God? How we store up

wrath and judgment because of it, which will either be

poured out on us on judgment day, or if we

put our faith in Jesus, Jesus absorbs and takes that

punishment for us. If we took God more seriously, we

would take our sin more seriously. And that's why God

reveals himself in such a way He wants the people

to take him seriously. Our sin keeps us from keeping

God's commands, among those being what loving him, putting him first,

serving him only. And it's interesting because you might be asking, yes,

we should fear God, but what about the love part

you've brought up love, and doesn't love get rid of fear?

And I'm glad that you ask. We're gonna address the

first thing. Like I said earlier, if we don't fear

God as we should, then we don't or we won't

love God as we ought. That's because if we don't

fear God, we will sin. And if we are sinning,

we're not keeping his commandments He's called us to. You

might say, but Jesus was all about love, not all

this commandment stuff. There's a lot of commandment talk. This

is why I stay away from the Old Testament. But

the God of the Old Testament is the God of

the New Testament. It's the same God, it's the same voice.

And it's actually a perfect example of how we favor

one of God's characteristics in favor of another. We don't

have the right to pick the parts we like about

God and reject the ones that sit funny with us.

We take all of God or we take none of him.

God is the judge we are not. And yes, Jesus

talked about love, but actually, look how Jesus puts all

of it together. John fourteen fifteen. He says, if you

love me, you will keep my commandments. Keeping God's commandments

is loving God. Loving God is keeping his commandments, and

we do so by a healthy fear in love for

our great God and Savior. Now again, it's not the

fear of judgment, because if you've put your faith in Jesus,

there is no more reason to fear, because Jesus is

taken care of it. But it is a healthy reverence

and fear of God that we can't afford to lose.

Because he says it's the remedy to sinning, it's the

remedy to actually help us stay away from to turn

away from our sin. The Holy God loves and wants

his covenant people to be holy like he is, and

so he supplies them with the fear of Him to

keep them from sinning. And our response of fear and

love to God is to keep his commandments. Is to

live before him, is his special possession, not trying to

earn right, standing before him, because we already see we

can't do that. We need Jesus to bring us into

his presence. We need Jesus to cover our sins. We

need Jesus to help us be obedy. But it's living

in light of the grace and out of love and

reverence and respect for our great, powerful, mighty and Holy God.

So my prayer is that the proper of fear of

the Lord would take root in our hearts, because as

God's holy nation, God's special possession, if we don't fear

God as we should, then we won't love God as

we ought. Amen. Would you guys please stand to your feet.