A Gracious Redeemer

Well, as we were starting our series in the book of Joshua, we came to the point in which God had told Joshua he must meditate on his law day and night. And so that provoked the question, what is God's law and how does it apply to us today? So today is the first day we officially start our series in Exodus chapter 20. as we take an excursion there. Exodus chapter 20, and we'll read the entirety of the chapter, but this morning we'll just be looking at the preface, verses one and two. Exodus chapter 20. Hear now God's word from the older covenant. 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 bondage.

You shall have no other god before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the waters under the earth. You shall not bow down to them, nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me. but showing mercy to thousands, to 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 and do all your work. But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work. you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day.

Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which 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, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's.

Now all the people witnessed the thunderings, the lightning flashes, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking. And when the people saw it, they trembled and stood afar off. Then they said to Moses, You speak with us, and we will hear. But let not God speak with us, lest we die. And Moses said to the people, Do not fear, for God has come to test you, and that His fear may be before you, so that you may not sin. So the people stood afar off. But Moses drew near the thick darkness where God was. Then the Lord said to Moses, Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, You have seen that I have walked with you from heaven, have talked with you from heaven.

You shall not make anything to be with me, gods of silver or gods of gold. You shall not make for yourselves. An altar of the earth you shall make for me. And you shall sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your oxen. And every place where I record my name, I will come to you and I will bless you. And if you make me an altar of stone, you shall not build it out of hewn stone, for if you use your tool on it, you have profaned it. Nor shall you go up by my steps to my altar, that your nakedness may not be exposed on it.

Prayer for Illumination

Let's pray. Oh Father, we thank you so much for your word. And Father, we pray that your Holy Spirit would teach us this morning. Father, we pray that we would sit at your feet and that we would learn who you are and what you require of us. In Jesus' name, amen.

Sermon

It's interesting if you look at almost every depiction of the Ten Commandments, almost never, Well, you see the preface written with it, verses one and two. But verses one and two are the foundation, the bedrock of what comes after it. And so it's wise of us to pay attention first to what God said before He spoke the Ten Commandments. J.G. Voss wrote in this, commenting on this, we need to resist the temptation of treating the preface as something to be glossed over and insist on the God-centered emphasis of the moral law. Brothers and sisters, if we see the Ten Commandments as nothing more than a list of suggestions or ways in which we can do things well and have a happy life, we miss what the core of it is, who God is, what His nature is like, and what He has done.

And out of that flows these commandments. And so there, there you need to remember what it was like when the Ten Commandments were written. Yeah, the Israelites heard from God Himself the Ten Commandments. Did you notice? It's not that God wrote these things down at first, but how did God first deliver the Ten Commandments to the people? Verse 1, And God spoke all these words, saying, God Himself, there upon Mount Sinai, with all the thunder, and all the lightning, and the trumpet blasts, and the smoke, out of that God spoke to His people, so much so that when we finish the Ten Commandments, what is the people's response? Fear and trembling, because they know that they had come in contact with the living and true God. The bedrock, the foundation of the Ten Commandments is God Himself.

And that's where He starts with the preface. And so this morning, my goal for you is that you would behold your God, you would know who your God is. Before we get into these commandments, you would know and you would fix your eyes upon who God is and what your God has done.

First Point

So first, Your God is the Great I Am. Verse 1, I am the Lord your God. I am the Lord your God. Sorry, verse 2, I am the Lord your God. If you look in your Bible, how is Lord written there? capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D. This is what theologians call the Tetragrammaton, Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh. If you're using the King James Bible here, it might say, I am Jehovah, your God. This is God's covenant name.

This is the name that he revealed to Moses in Exodus chapter 3 verses 14 through 15. Turn in your Bibles there. It's just a few pages back. Exodus chapter 3 verses 14 and 15. Moses is there standing before the burning bush. God has this theophany there where he's revealed himself.

And in Exodus chapter 3 verse 14, and God said to Moses, I am who I am. And he said, thus you shall say to the children of Israel, I AM has sent me to you. I AM, the self-eternal God, the one who has no beginning, who has no end, the one who is and was and is to come forever. This is the God that we serve before these cicadas were ever created, before the sky was ever created, before the heavens were there, before the foundations of the earth was laid, before there was sun, before there was noon, before there was the seas, before there were any creatures.

It was God Himself. I AM was there. He is a God who needs no one. My God needs no one. This is not a concept I grew up with, but it's a concept I have grown to love. I'll never forget when I was in the Navy, I was in a Bible study with our chaplain. It's a little small room. And as there were five of us gathered in this room studying the book of Exodus, this very passage in front of us, Chaplain Loguide looked us with his piercing blue eyes and he looked me in the face and he said, God doesn't need you. God doesn't need me. God doesn't need you. God doesn't need anyone. Theologians call this the aseity of God. He doesn't need anyone. He doesn't need anything. Everything that He does and everything that He has created is for His own glory, for His own pleasure.

This is what Acts 17.24 gets us to, Acts 17.24. You're more than welcome to flip to these places with me, or you can write them down and check on them on your own later.

But Acts 17.24 in the New Testament, this is what we're taught about God, Acts 17.24.

God who made the world and everything in it, since He is the Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. It is God who has made the world and everything in it. And guess what? He didn't need anyone or anything to do it. God spoke. And out of His will, He created everything. And He sustains it by the power of His might. Our God, your God, does not need anything. The psalmist speaks of this in Psalm chapter 50. Oh, this is one of my favorite things that God says in Psalm chapter 50 verse 12. God reveals this. He says, If I were hungry, I love this here. If I were hungry, I would not tell you. For the world is mine in all its fullness.

God doesn't need us to provide him with food. God does not need us as if His happiness depends upon us, or His being depends upon us. Our God needs no one. Your God, my God, needs no one. This is the God who is revealing Himself here. I am Yahweh, your God. I am Jehovah, your God. It is God who is eternal. My God is eternal.

Isaiah 44.6 tells you this.

Isaiah 44.6, who is the Lord?

In Isaiah 44.6, this is what God says. I hope that you're okay with me flipping the Bible here. I want you to know that these things are what God has revealed about Himself.

Isaiah 44.6, God says this, thus says again, LORD, capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D, Yahweh Himself says, thus says the Lord, the King of Israel, and His Redeemer, the Lord of hosts, I am the first and the last, beside Me there is no God. He is the Great King. He is the Sovereign. He is the Eternal One. He is the One who is unchanging. Numbers 23, 19. My God is unchanging. Is God a man that He should lie? Or a son of man that He should change His mind? Has He said and will He not do it? Has He spoken and will He not bring it to pass?

Our God does not shift around like fleeting shadows. He's not one way today and another way tomorrow. No, our God is unchanging. The same today, tomorrow, and forever. Brothers and sisters, our God is the great I Am. He is the One who needs no one. Your God is eternal. Your God is unchanging. Your God is indeed Almighty.

Deuteronomy 10.17 Deuteronomy 10.17 Our God is Almighty. This is what the Lord says there. Deuteronomy 10, 17. For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality, nor takes a bribe. Our God is almighty. He holds all things by the power of His right hand. He's the Lord of righteousness. He's the commander of armies. He is the one who can will a myriad, a legion of angels. My God is almighty.

Brothers and sisters, your God is also sovereign and gracious. Exodus chapter 33 verse 19. Exodus 33 verse 19. Your God is sovereign and gracious. When Moses asked God to reveal Himself to him, this is what the Lord says. Exodus chapter 33 verse 19. Then He said, I will make all My goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of Yahweh before you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. It is God who is sovereign. He is the great King. He does as He pleases. Because all that He pleases is righteousness and holiness. He's a gracious God. He is our sovereign, gracious Redeemer. But I need to ask you, do you actually believe this about God? When you hear these things from God's Word, does it make you want to love Him more? Is this the God you worship?

Do you read these things, hear these things about God, and is it boring to you? When you hear about God commanding the legions of angels, is it boring to you? When you hear about God sustaining all things by the power of His right hand, does it hit hard and dull upon your heart? Or does it make you fall upon your knees?

Are you grateful for the God who gave you breath this morning? It was God who by His sovereign grace opened your eyes and who fills your lungs with air this very moment. Is God nothing more to you than a figment of your imagination? Nothing more than just an ideological hook upon which everything lays? Or do you tremble before the mountain of God? Do you stand before His holy presence and want to fall down upon your knees?

That a gracious God would be mindful of you. That He would know you by your name. that even though He knows every sinful recess of your heart, He would show grace and kindness to you. Who God is, is the bedrock of our faith. Who Jehovah is, is the foundation upon which we believe. If we do not believe that He is almighty, if we do not believe that He is sovereign, if we do not believe that He is gracious to whom He will be gracious, then you worship an idol of your own making. Brothers and sisters, God calls us here in verse 2 to remember who He is. and Jehovah your God. Remember who your God is. Never lose sight of His perfections. There is nothing, I would dare to tell you, there is nothing more sweet and satisfying to your soul that will build up your faith than to meditate on who God is.

Do you remember what it was like when you fell in love with someone? For those of you who are married, do you remember what it was like to fall in love with them? You wanted to know everything about them. You wanted to remember, you wanted to know who they were, what they were like, what they liked, what they didn't like, what were the things they delighted in? What were the things that they have done? What were their aspirations? What were the things that they were going to do?

Brothers and sisters, do not forget your first love. Have your hearts enraptured with God Himself. Meditate upon who He is, but brothers and sisters, it's not just who He is, but it's also what He has done. Look with me at Exodus chapter 20 verse 2 again.

I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. As the Jews were standing there at the foot of Mount Sinai with all the thunder, and with the lightning, and the trumpet, and the smoke, that was the God who had saved them from genocide. The hand of affliction that was heavy upon them in Egypt, the house of slavery where they toiled day and night to a merciless master who had tried to wipe out all their males, who had tried to kill all their children, who had forced them into bondage, even though God had been gracious to Pharaoh and to his people.

God had redeemed them. They cried out to Him and He remembered them. God brought them out by His mighty power. God had brought the plagues. God had done everything to bring them out. They'd only been out of Egypt for a few days, a few weeks at this point. The Red Sea was not too far behind them, where they remember being trapped between the sea and Pharaoh's army, and watching the waters go up like walls on either side as they passed through on dry ground. This was the God who had redeemed them. Who they could see that they had once lived in these houses in the land of Goshen. And God had brought them into this area where now they were going to go and be brought into the promised land. And there was their God in front of them. And He was saying, remember. Remember the love I've already shown you. Remember the love I have shown you. That's always been the way. See, because in God's covenant of grace, it always starts, as Paul tells us in Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not a result of worthless.

Anyone should boast. Moses couldn't boast of their redemption. Aaron couldn't boast of their being brought out of Egypt. None of the Israelites could boast that, oh, I'm the one who brought us up out of Egypt. No, it was only God. Brothers and sisters, it is only God who could bring us out of spiritual darkness and bondage to sin.

And it's out of that that God tells us in verse 10 in Ephesians 2, that God has prepared good works for us to do. See, the Ten Commandments for the Israelites flowed out of their redemption. They were God's people. He had bought them for Himself. He had done it. And out of their love for this God, they were meant to then follow these commandments. They were meant to show their love for Him.

Violating these commandments, was showing their ingratitude to a God who had redeemed them. Every time I sin, brother, sister, every time you sin, it's an ingratitude to Christ for His redeeming us. That's what we show. come to God, not so that way we can, by some way following the moral law, we can earn His salvation.

It's never been that. That's the covenant of works. Only Jesus has fulfilled that. Doing everything His Father told Him to do. It's Jesus who redeemed us. Brothers and sisters, we need to remember who God is. We need to remember who we were. It's not too long ago. We were those who are dead in our trespasses and sins, walking according to the lusts and desires of our hearts. And God saved us by His grace alone. This is the foundation For why we keep His commandments. Why we love His commandments. Because we love the law giver.

You need to choose. Some of you, I don't know, there's a lot of visitors here today, I don't know all of you that well. Some of you have been coming here for years and maybe I don't know you as well as I ought. Do you come week in and week out and hear sermons that might make you feel good, but your heart is still cold to the love of God? You still found yourself wallowing in past sin? Struggling? Struggling with how do I love God?

Brothers and sisters, fix your eyes on Jesus. Do not leave here today under some type of illusion that it's not a big deal to just ignore this. The Israelites heard this from God Himself and they trembled. I pray you tremble this morning. I pray that you don't have an idol of God that you've made up in your own heart, but I pray that you fall upon your knees.

Closing Prayer

I pray that you look at Him in all of His holiness, all of His righteousness, all of His eternality and sovereignty, graciousness and truth, and that you bow before Him. and that you love Him with all of your heart, mind, soul, and strength. May this be the day that we purpose in our hearts that we will worship our God and Him only will we serve. Let's pray.

Oh, Father, what a wonderful God you are. Lord, I pray. Father, I pray that you might, by your Spirit, use this week. Father, I know a fallible sermon. Father, I pray that your Holy Spirit might grow us in our love for you. Father, I pray. We pray that you would let us know that there is living water to drink, and that you give it to us freely in Jesus Christ. Please, Father, let us know who you are and what you have done, and let us base our entire lives off of it.