St. Paul Lutheran Church, Matteson, Illinois & Pastor Troester

God is about order and beauty as He gives Moses the dimensions, layout and the fabrics and colors of the temple.  It's the best of the best which shows the excellence of God and our relationship with Him.

God speaks to Moses about the worship of His people, centered around God's promises to be with them and bless them, and they promise their faithfulness and trust in God.

Read how God gives His people guidelines on living a blessed life, curbing our sinful desires, loving as we have been loved, with the promise that God is leading all the way.

After giving us the 10 Commandments and spelling out how we should act morally towards God and toward one another, now we read God's rules for living in the culture of the world, and God's puts boundaries on the actions, and demands accoutablility, and limits practices which are acceptable in the world.

Read how God establishes His Covenant relationship with His people, having heard them and delivered them, now affiming that love for them by giving them guidelines by which to live at peace with Him and with others.  We call those guidelines, the 10 Commandments.  Read about how much God loves you.

Reading about the mediator work that Moses does for the people, which foreshadow how Jesus is our Mediator between us and God.

Read how God cares for His people, both for their physical needs and for their protection, despite the grumbling of the people, and in the power of his might, as God fights and defeats their enemy, and as Moses lifts up his hands to the Lord on behalf of the people.

Read about the faithfulness of God, and the grumbling of His people, who quickly forget what God has done, and yet find mercy and blessing when they turn back to Him.

Read about how God prepares the people to move forward from their slavery in Egypt, by giving them yearly festivals to remember what He had done for them, and He also leads them to the Promised Land.

It's a new day for the Children of Israel, as God delivers them from slavery, just as on that first Easter morning, on the first day of the week, Jesus rose from the dead to give us new life.