The Covenant Confirmed (Exodus): Some people describe Christianity, saying, "It’s not a religion; it’s a relationship." But how can sinful people have a personal relationship with a holy God? In the covenant offered at Mount Sinai, God made a way where there was no way — so people might have peace and friendship with him. Today, in Christ, you don’t have to fear God's holiness or judgment. He is not a threat, and this is such good news. Recorded on Jan 19, 2025, on Exodus 24:1-18 by Pastor David Parks.

This message is part of our Exodus series called Journey to Freedom. Exodus is a story of liberation — of God working to rescue and redeem a people for himself, freeing them from slavery and leading them to the land he promised to the family of Abraham and Sarah. Exodus is also a picture of the gospel and the Christian life. In Christ, we, too, are freed from captivity to sin and death and led through the wilderness of life by God’s Word and Presence as we make our way to the Promised Land of the world to come. Join us as we make this journey to find true and lasting freedom.

Sermon Transcript

We’re working through the book of Exodus in a sermon series called Journey to Freedom. And Exodus is a story of liberation, of God rescuing and redeeming a people for himself. Yahweh God freed the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, led them through the desert wilderness by his word and his Presence, and brought them to Mount Sinai to enter into a covenant relationship with them (as we’ll see today). But God had promised to give them their own land in Canaan, known as the Promised Land. The Israelites had struggled and grumbled thorough a series of tests and battles, but Yahweh proved faithful and good time and again. We saw that God's great, big beating heart behind this whole Exodus project was to have a real relationship with people — people who were separated from a holy God by their sin — but people who were still greatly loved and precious to God. Today, we’re going to see this covenant relationship confirmed at Mount Sinai in a ceremony that might seem strange to us but was normal for them. And in this ceremony, we start to see a little glimpse of what God wanted out of this relationship. Have you ever heard someone describe the Christian faith this way: It’s not a religion, it’s a relationship. Have you ever heard that? Maybe you’ve said that yourself. It’s not a religion, Christianity is not a list of do’s and don’ts, it’s a relationship. And I like that. It emphasizes God’s personal and relational nature and God’s desire for a relationship with the people that he saves. But have you ever stopped to ask the question, what exactly is it like to have a real relationship with a God? Well, I guess it depends, right? What kind of God are we talking about? Yahweh is a God, as we’ve seen, who is the Creator of all, who is limitless in power and knowledge, who speaks galaxies into existence, who easily defeated the most powerful kingdom on earth, and who is perfectly righteous and holy. Wouldn’t you rather have a slightly less powerful God who only wants us to just have fun all the time? (And, of course, fun as we define it.) That seems like a much more manageable god to have a relationship with. Or maybe a god only for us, for our family, tribe, or nation? Who judges/defeats our enemies but lets us do what we please without trying to change us or interfere with our lives? That sounds like a nice god to have around. Meanwhile, at certain points in the Exodus story, I’m sure the Israelites wondered if they could even handle a relationship with Yahweh. Could they even be near him? It’s not a religion; it’s a relationship. Well, today we’re going to consider the nature of this relationship and we’ll see that a relationship with this God, the only true and living God, is actually far better than we could ever imagine. If you have your Bible/app, please open it to Exodus 24:1.

Exodus 24:1–4a (NIV), “1 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Come up to the Lord, you and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel. You are to worship at a distance, 2 but Moses alone is to approach the Lord; the others must not come near. And the people may not come up with him.” 3 When Moses went and told the people all the Lord’s words and laws, they responded with one voice, “Everything the Lord has said we will do.” 4 Moses then wrote down everything the Lord had said.” There are a few theories about where Mount Sinai was located. [Map slide] I believe it was probably toward the southern end of the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt today. But this is where God appeared to Moses in the burning bush. And this is where God said he would lead his people back to worship and enter into a covenant relationship with him. Yahweh rescued Israel by grace and then gave them the Law through the prophet Moses. This Law included the Ten Commandments and the 600+ additional laws governing all aspects of their society but was famously summarized by Jesus as being about loving the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and loving your neighbor as yourself. Last week, Nate did a great job showing both the vertical aspect of the Law in loving God and the horizontal aspect of the Law in loving people. After receiving the Law from God, “Moses went and told the people all the Lord’s words and laws, they responded with one voice, ‘Everything the Lord has said we will do.’” And then Moses wrote down everything the Lord had said. By the way, this is the basis for the whole canon of Scripture. It is from God, inspired by his Spirit, and given through human authors. Moses wrote the book of Exodus, along with the rest of the Torah, or the first five books of the Bible, but we believe it to be God’s word, not Moses’. We see this process in action here. Ok! So God gave the Law, the people agreed to obey it, and then God called the leaders of the people to come up on the mountain to himself. Moses was the prophet, Aaron and his sons were to be the priests, and the seventy elders of Israel were the leaders of the people that Moses appointed on the wise counsel of his father-in-law, Jethro (back in Exodus 18). 

Exodus 24:4b-8 (NIV), “He got up early the next morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain and set up twelve stone pillars representing the twelve tribes of Israel. 5 Then he sent young Israelite men, and they offered burnt offerings and sacrificed young bulls as fellowship offerings to the Lord. 6 Moses took half of the blood and put it in bowls, and the other half he splashed against the altar. 7 Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it to the people. They responded, “We will do everything the Lord has said; we will obey.” 8 Moses then took the blood, sprinkled it on the people and said, “This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.” At this point, some of you might be wondering what is going on. Why all the splashing of blood? Again, this is culturally strange for us, but it was normal for them. People entered into covenants all the time, and there was a well-established pattern for how this worked. In Genesis 15, Yahweh entered into a covenant with Abram (some 430 years earlier), which had many similarities to this scene at Mount Sinai. But in Genesis 31, we get a picture of this covenant-making process between two men, which shows us that this practice was a common practice at this time. In Ge 31, a covenant was formed between Jacob (later known as Israel) and his father-in-law, Laban. In their covenant, Jacob committed to be faithful to and provide for Laban’s daughters, Rachel and Leah, while Laban committed not to invade Jacob’s land. Now, you wouldn’t think you’d need a covenant to prevent your in-laws from invading…but maybe some of you could imagine that! Anyways, to formalize their covenant, Jacob and Laban built an altar and a pillar, took a solemn oath to one another in the name of Yahweh, offered sacrifices, and shared a meal together with their relatives — a feast to celebrate their new relationship, before parting as friends. We see all the elements of that covenant ceremony here between Yahweh and Israel. Moses built an altar and twelve pillars, representing the twelve tribes of Israel. We have the solemn oath that the people would do everything the Lord had said (they would obey God’s Law), while God had committed to take them as his people and to go with them and to provide for them. We have the burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, and then a meal with the representatives of the people of Israel, a feast to celebrate their new relationship, as we’ll see in the next passage. God was using this cultural practice to teach the people what he wanted and expected out of a relationship with them. This was a serious, formal, and legal relationship with mutual commitments, but it was also a loving, personal, and unconditional relationship, not unlike a marriage covenant. But still, why the blood? Well, there are two things going on here. First, in all the covenants in the Bible, there is a sacrifice made with the shedding of blood. This symbolizes what would happen if one of the parties were to break the covenant. Something like, “May the same be done to me if I break this covenant.”Second, the shedding of blood is needed for the forgiveness of sins. The author of the book of Hebrews writes, “…the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” (Heb 9:22). Blood represents life to God. And the wages of sin is death. So to allow for the forgiveness of sins (and for God to remain just), something needs to die — either you or a sacrifice made in your place. This is why God included the whole system of animal sacrifice in the Law: for the forgiveness of sins. Ultimately,