The Promise of Relationship
Exodus 19
St. John’s United Church of Christ
Greeley, Colorado
February 9, 2025
Rev. Juvenal Cervantes
God engages in a covenant with his people. He says, “I am going to do these things and you are you are going for follow in response to what I am doing.”
Today we are going to study about essentially a family meeting that God has with God’s people. They are at the foot of Mount Sinai; this is where the ten commandments come down. He is talking to Moses and he says, “I have done some things for you and this is what you are going to do for me in response.”
Family meetings are important. They take place because something has changed or because there is a change coming in the relationship and we talk about how we are going to move forward in the future.
Family meetings are important because there is understanding. Everyone is on the same page in regards to the relationship.
If we are not on the same page in the relationship there is confusion, hurt feelings, misunderstanding.
God wants us to be one the same page. We are going to see that God has promises for our past, our present and our future.
God promises a relationship for today.
Exodus 19:1-3a
On the first day of the third month after the Israelites left Egypt—on that very day—they came to the Desert of Sinai. After they set out from Rephidim, they entered the Desert of Sinai, and Israel camped there in the desert in front of the mountain.
Then Moses went up to God
Much has happened between last week’s sermon and this week. Last week we talked about Abram and since then much has changed.
Abram had a son named Isaac with his wife Sarah. Isaac had two sons named Jacob and Esau. Jacob has twelve sons and they all become the twelve tribes of Isreal. They all moved to Egypt to escape a family and they are very productive and reproductive in the land of Egypt. They become a large group of people so much so that Pharaoh gets a little nervous and begins to enslave them because he is scared at how many people they are. And God uses this to continue to multiply them and he brings them out. You know the story, there are the ten plagues, the Passover, the parting of the Red Sea, and then we are picking up the story three months later.
Notice the writer used the word “wilderness” a few times in these two verses. The wandering in the wilderness is exactly what you think it is. They are miserable, they are confused, nothing to eat, nothing to drink. God provides water for them. God rains down mana or bread from heaven.
There is nothing to drink again, so he provides water from a rock. They finally get to Mount Sinai where Moses met with God the first time. Moses receives the ten commandments.
In the previous chapter, Moses is constantly solving disputes among the people. It appears that God is absent and that He (God) does doesn’t seem to know that he is doing. Much infighting taking place and Moses’ father-in-law suggests, “Man, you are killing yourself, you need some help.”
Moses goes to meet with God. The people are left behind to care for one another, yet turmoil and confusion persist. They need help and comfort. When people need reassurance and comfort they turn to things and that is exactly what the people of Israel did. They said, “Let’s make an idol for ourselves, something that we can see, something that can guide us, something we can worship. That is the story of Exodus.
These people are incredible vulnerable, exposed, their needs are not being met.
Between the Passover and the promised land, the people are in a wilderness period.
Some of us may feel we are in wilderness period. You feel stagnant or feel confused because of something that happened in your life or circumstances or because of something of your own making.
Our wilderness experience may be about family, issues, unresolved conflict, distance.
Our wilderness experience may be about relationships, friendships, things that get in the way of healthy relationship.
Our wilderness experience may be about waiting for a medical report. There is angst and anxiety and you wonder who you will be able to move forward in life of how your loved ones will survive or thrive.
These are seasons that are part of the human condition. We feel like something is missing. Fear, worry grip our heart and we feel paralyzed, at minimum, lost and confused.
We begin to wonder, “What is the next thing in my life… and why is it not here yet?”
My friends, it is crucial that we become accustomed to the wilderness and hold on to God’s presence.
Day-to-day, night to night, in the stretching of life, we can be in touch with the master, even when we don’t feel like doing this.
God’s promise is for today, he said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” Our God is the one who said, “I will instruct you, I will show you the way you should go. You will not be like the mule that has not direction…”
Spending time with God will help you go through the wilderness.
In the absence of connection with our Creator, you and I have the potential to craft other things, idols, to make us feel better.
Your daily rhythm will affect how you deal with the wilderness and it will help you get out of the wilderness.
II. God promises a relationship for yesterday.
and the Lord called to him from the mountain and said, “This is what you are to say to the descendants of Jacob and what you are to tell the people of Israel: ‘You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Exodus 19:3-4.
Three things: 1) remember that I chose you, 2) remember that I brought you out from Egypt safely, and 3) remember that I want a relationship with you.
Egypt what the seminal moment for them. People did not request or deserve to leave Egypt where they experienced oppression. God in his grace decided to bless this group of people.
Christ experienced the same. Christ went through the water of baptism, similar to Isreal who walked through the parting of the Red Sea. Matthew 4 tells us that Jesus was baptized and taken to the wilderness where he spends forty days. Then he came out of the wilderness, fulfilled his purpose in life and ultimately died for us.
God extends his grace to us. The cross of Christ becomes the seminal moment for us, just as Egypt was the seminal moment for the people of Israel
My friends, for the believer, everything is colored by the cross of Christ.
“I’m going through a wilderness, yes, but Christ died for me.”
“I’m going thought challenges at home, friendships are severed, potentially loss of a job, yes, btu Christ died for me.”
“I’m feeling nervous because I don’t know what school I’ll choose for my studies in a career that I feel compelled to engage, yes, but Christ died for me.”
“I’m facing a diagnosis in life, yes, but Christ died for me.”
“I’m going thought a divorce, yes, but Christ died for me.”
Everything is colored by the cross of Christ. Even in our last breath, everything is colored by the cross of Christ.
Last week my daughter Sylvia invited me to go to the cemetery to fulfill a class project: a reflection of being in the cemetery. We went to Linn Grove Cemetery on east side.
We saw three vehicles with twelve or fourteen young people, all dressed in black. They spent time by a graveside and they got in their cars. I asked one of the teenagers, “Who do you have here?” In a choking voice he responded, “My friend who was 15 years old and was shot by an AR15 six months ago.”
Then we saw a woman in her 50’s. She stopped by a graveside and wept. I asked, “Who do you have here?” Tearfully, she said, “My husband. We live in a ranch in Gill, Colorado. My husband was going to work, driving 55 miles per hour and a 22-year-old young man turned at 10 miles per hour and my husband hit the car and he died instantly.”
I thought, “In the more than 216 funerals that I’ve conducted, nothing matters more than where was this individual in relationship to Christ and family. That’s all: faith, family, and friends.”
III. God promises a relationship for your future.
Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, 6 you[a] will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites” (Exodus 19:5-7).
God had a conversation with Moses and he said to him, “Go down there and ask my people, what is their intention. They are my treasured possession, they are priests, how will they respond?”
The people served Pharoah, now they are priests and kings. They will rule and reflect my glory.
My friends, we are a new people, a part of a new kingdom to glorify God with our words, our actions, our giving, our worship, our loving.
The words God told Moses are similar to the message of Peter:
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 1 Pt. 2.9
We are people in bondage to sin, death, and evil. Jesus, the new Moses, delivered us to newness of life. Will you take the challenge and be the people of God to live in his wonderful light?
This is the word of the Lord.