HIStory: the story of a God who ... enters a covenant with his people
Exodus 19.1-24.18
Milford Baptist Church, 14 July 2002

Nicky Gumbell tells a story about a vicar who was leading a small boy around the church. He was showing him the memorials for fallen serviceman. He said, "These are the names of people who died in the services." The little boy looks up and asked, "Did they die in the morning service or the evening service?"

Abraham Lincoln once said, "If all the people who fell asleep in church on Sunday morning were laid out end on end, they would be a great deal more comfortable." Isn't that how people often view the church today? A sleepy, dying institution, irrelevant. In last year's census, 54 percent of residents on the North Shore ticked the box: "Christian." But how many come to church? As a rule, Jesus and the Christian faith poll pretty well, but the church - the body that Jesus left behind - doesn't poll too well with most people. Maybe, just like a political party that's lost its way, we need to rediscover who we are, what it means to be the church. So who are we? To answer that question we need to go right back to the beginning, to the very birth of God's people. Let's read Exodus 19.1-8. And so God proceeds to give them through Moses the Ten Commandments and a whole series of laws.

This encounter between God and the people of Israel on Mt Sinai forms the pinnacle of the whole book of Exodus, the climax of the entire Old Testament. It is like a marriage ceremony between God and the Israelites. They exchange promises and become united to one another. The people of Israel become the people of God, a people committed to obeying the laws that God gives them.

But this privileged status does not depend on their promises and what they will do, it depends on God and what he has done for them. See verse 4: "You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself." My niece, Latitia, has a stuffed doll, called Candy. It's dirty and threadbare. I couldn't tell you the number of times it's lost an eye or been ripped open and undergone reconstructive surgery at the hands of grandpa. By any objective poll, Candy would not rank as a particularly attractive doll. Latitia shouldn't love it. But she does. She just does. She has chosen to love that sad, little doll. And so all the family loves that little doll. In the same way, God has chosen Israel, and rescued Israel, a mob of unfaithful, ungrateful slaves, not because of who they are or what they will do, but because of who he is, and his gracious, undeserved love for them.

But if that's the case, why does God urge his people to obey all these laws? Three reasons. Three reasons relating to who they are.

a treasured possession

God says (19.5), "Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession..."

Lorraine has some little diamond earrings that I bought her on our first wedding anniversary. Occasionally, when she's wearing them, I take great delight in scaring her with the question: "Why aren't you wearing your earrings?" "What?!" Invariably she panics. Works every time.  Because she treasures those earrings and carefully looks after them. We have an old dressing table that Maurice Bartlett recently restored beautifully for us. When he was working on it he discovered a note scribbled inside one of the drawers. It turns out that my great-grandfather gave it to my grandma. It's an antique, I guess. Certainly now it's a family heirloom. And so we clean it and oil it. We treasure it. Just as we cherish and care for special jewellery or antique furniture or a special stamp collection, God cherishes and tenderly cares and provides for his people, because they belong to him. They are his cherished possession.

As God's people, that's the basis of our identity and worth: we belong to God. The US Secretary of State, Colin Powell is recorded as saying: "Never let your ego get so close to your job that if your job goes, your ego goes too." Do you? Do you base your identity and worth on what you do, on how you look ... or in who you are to God? Have you entrusted your life to Jesus? You are God's treasured possession. Dietrich Bonhoeffer said: "Who am I? You know O Lord. Whoever I am, I am yours." Your treasured possession.

a kingdom of priests

Then God says to the people of Israel that if they belong to him like this, and give themselves to obeying his laws, then "Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests..." (19.5-6).

Isn't this fascinating? Later Aaron and his sons were installed as the priests in Israel. It was their special role to represent the people before God and to represent God before the people. But God's original intention was that all his people would be priests. By obeying his laws they would make God known throughout the whole earth and help to reconcile the whole earth to God. That is why, according to the laws of the covenant, they were not to mistreat foreigners (22.21) or to curse their rulers (22.28) or to show favouritism to certain people (23.3) or even to ignore the needs of their enemies. Listen to this (23.5): "If you see the donkey of someone who hates you fallen down under its load, do not leave it there; be sure you help him with it". In other words, God says: "You are my treasured possession; I'll look after your needs. So you look after theirs ... and they will be drawn to me through you, my priests."

This reminds me of a definition for soccer that I once heard: "A game played between twenty-two people desperately in need of rest running around in front of twenty-two thousand people desperately in need of exercise." Among God's people, there are to be no spectators. We are all equally priests, ministers, clergy. That might be discomforting for some of us. It is often said that priests or ministers are people who were absolutely incapable of doing anything else. One advert in the Church of England Press said: "Are you forty-five and going nowhere? Why not consider the Christian ministry?"

Do you see yourself as a full-time minister for God in your street or study or kitchen or classroom or office of business? Are you praying for an opportunity to share your faith with someone there or to invite her to an Alpha course? Do you treat everything you do - driving at rush hour behind immigrants, chatting with your neighbour about our political leaders, responding to someone who seems to hate you - as an opportunity to honour God and draw someone closer to Jesus? God rejoices when just one of his lost treasures has been found.

a holy nation

If God's people are to obey his laws and be a kingdom of priests, they will also be a holy nation (19.6).

The word "holy" has had bad press hasn't it? It has a prudish, self-righteous ring to it. But what does "holy" really mean? If something is holy it is set apart for a special purpose. I have a pair of shiny lycra bike shorts. They are holy. They are set apart exclusively for riding my bike. I don't wear them to the movies or to church - just as well. The people of Israel were to be holy in that they were to be set apart for God. That's why God gives them laws like this: "Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong" (23.2). "Do not bow down before [other] gods or worship them or follow their practices" (23.24). They were to worship God alone. To trust God alone. To live for God and his honour alone.

Do we? As God's people, do we live for his honour alone? Or do we bow down before other gods, idols, like professional success or personal comfort. Like me, are you sometimes concerned less about making God look good and more about making yourself look good? If so, here are three great rules that Archbishop Benson used to follow. He resolved to:

* Never seek praise, gratitude, respect or regard.

* Never to let himself be placed in favourable contrast with another.

* Always to bear blame, rather than share or transmit it.

Nicky Gumbell also tells the story of a young mum who had a boy called Johnny who was bit naughty. So she took him to the vicar to straighten him out. The old man sat the boy down, and asked him very seriously, "Johnny, where is God?" The little boy said nothing. "Johnny, where is God?" Again, Johnny just stared back. So a third time the vicar asked him, "Johnny, where is God?!" The little fellow jumped out of his seat, sprinted all the way home, and breathlessly ran up to his dad: "Daddy, daddy, they've lost God down at the church and now they're trying to blame that on me too!" But it doesn't have to be like that. The clearest proof for the existence of God is the church, a united community full of genuinely loving, holy people.

I've been reading lately about Paul Brand, the world-renowned orthopaedic surgeon who, with his wife, devoted their lives to working among leprosy victims in India. One day, Sadan, a skinny, balding man with thick glasses and infected, leprous feet shuffled into Dr Brand's hospital. He'd been to many doctors. They'd all examined his feet from a distance. But Dr Brand took his infected, bleeding feet in his hands. He touched him. Sadan had nearly forgotten what human touch felt like. But even more incredibly, the Brands invited him to stay in their house for the night, this at a time when most health workers were terrified of leprosy. Over the coming weeks, the Brands performed a series of painstaking medical procedures to rehabilitate this "nobody." This social cast-off got his life back. He still suffered from the stigma of leprosy. When his daughter was married he had to sit in a car alone and watch from a distance, afraid that his presence would disturb the guests. But, incredibly, that man says: "Still, I would say that I am now happy that I had this disease. Because apart from leprosy, I would have been a normal man with a normal family, chasing wealth and a higher position in society. I would never have known such wonderful people as Dr Paul and Dr Margaret, and I would never have known the God who lives in them."

It was George Elliott who said, "It's never too late to be what you might have been." Let's be the church we are meant to be. Let's live as God's treasured possession, a kingdom of priests, a holy nation, and see him change lives.

Study questions

1. God loved and saved the people of Israel before they said "yes" to him at Mt Sinai. (See Deuteronomy 7.7-9.) Do you ever fall into the trap of thinking that God accepts you or loves you or has saved you because of what you do - your faith or your obedience?

2. Do you ever base your worth and identity on what you do or how you look, or on anything other than who you are to God? As a member of God's people, what is your primary calling? How does that affect the way you view your daily work?

3. Martin Luther said: "All Christians are priests and all priests are Christians." How is this true? Do you see yourself as a full-time priest or minister for God in your place of work? What steps can you make this week to better fulfil your job description as a priest for God there?

4. The Apostle Peter said that the church is "a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God" (1Peter 2.9). How do you think we fail to live holy lives?

5. Is the church just the sum total of people who believe in Jesus, or a community of believers bound together by our covenant with God? What are the implications of being part of this sort of community? Do you think formal membership is important in the church today? Do you have in the church friends that you can confide in, friends who can speak truthfully to you? If not, what can you do about it?