Essentials Of The Faith / Sunday Morning Sermon Series / Exodus

Exodus 19 04/18/04

Message Title: ‘Are you prepared to meet your God?’                                                                                         Text: Exodus 19

Introduction: I would like you to answer these questions in the quietness of your heart.

•    How long did it take for you to get ready to come to worship God this morning?
•    What did you do to prepare to meet God this morning?
•    Is Sunday morning the only time you meet with God?
•    Is it important or even necessary to prepare to meet God?

Almost everything, if it’s to be done well, takes preparation. What are some of the things we prepare for?

•    Weddings, vacations, tax returns, lesson plans, drivers test, exams..even dating.

ILL: Most of us are married here, but we were once single. How did we prepare for a date? Especially those first dates. We take a shower, brush our teeth, put on deodorant and cologne (a lot of cologne if you were like me). We change our shirt three or four  times so that we will really look cool. As we pull up to the girls house, we check the rear view mirror to see if our hair is styling (me I just checked that there was still some there) Then, before we get out of the car, we check our breath and pits to make sure our mouth wash and deodorant are working. As we make our way to the door, we do a quick turn around to check to see if everything is buttoned and zipped. Then, we nervously knock on the door. Why? Why all the prep work? Because we want to make a good impression. We want the relationship with this girl to work.

We prepare for just about everything; parties, vacations, exams, dating…don’t you think we should prepare to meet God?

Explanation: It is my belief and a hypothesis of my doctoral thesis that most Christians have too casual a relationship with God; their Creator, and Redeemer, the one who has forgiven their sin and upholds them in his grace. What do I mean by too casual?

    The spark is gone, the glow has faded, the passion and anticipation has subsided into a comfortable, easygoing, ‘hey, how ya’ doing God’ relationship.

Like the passionate couple who can’t think of anything else but the other person, they get married, settle down and get comfortable. ventually, showers are not as important, neither are  mouthwash, deodorant, and the right clothes. Am I right ladies?  Once married, there is little preparation to be with our spouse. We think since we’re now married, the relationship will…just work.

While this doesn’t work in a marriage relationship, it is truly sad when it happens in the relationship between a Christian and God.
And not only does it happen, I believe it is often the norm. Let me paint you a picture.
 
We give our life to Christ and when the passion and excitement wears off we get comfortable. Somehow we come to believe that our relationship with God will grow, will deepen, will…work, without any further preparations.

Let’s get specific.

We come to worship God corporately on Sundays, not having prepared for that meeting with God during the week. When we fail to experience God’s presence or feel the earth move, we say the pastors sermon wasn’t good, or the music was too loud, too soft, too fast or  too old.  When in reality, it may be that we just didn’t prepare for the most important, most life transforming meeting we will ever attend…
meeting God in worship.

In our text this morning God has initiated a meeting with his people. He has done this to deepen his relationship with those he has called to himself. To do this, God has set up a time and laid out a few rules for worship. How do I know it is worship? God will reveal himself and his people will respond. Revelation and response is the core of worship.

It is through these preparations and the meeting itself, that the peoples relationship with God will grow.

Transition: Open your Bibles to Ex. 19:1 where we will see what it takes to prepare to meet with God.

Exodus 19:1-6             Remember

God wanted his people to prepare to meet with him by remembering what he has done for them. What had God done?
•    He saved them from slavery in Egypt.
•    He saved them from death by Pharaoh’s army.
•    He saved them from death by Amalek’s army.
•    He provided food to eat and water to drink while they were traveling in the desert.
•    He made them his own people, a ‘treasured possession’.
•    God made the Israelites a kingdom of priests, set apart for himself.

God demonstrated his power, and manifested his presence to bring the Israelites into relationship with Himself. God did a lot of preparation in this relationship.

God expects that we will prepare for worship, meeting with God, by remembering what he has done for us…for you.

Read: James 1:17 ‘Every good and perfect gift comes down from God the Father.’

I know you know that. But
•    Do you remember what God did when you were in slavery to sin, when you were heading for a Christless eternity?
•    Do you remember when God meet your need for a place to live, a car to drive, a job to provide for your family?
•    Do you remember when God provided a friend to listen when you thought you were all alone?

When you intentionally remember these things, you can’t help but want to come into God’s presence, to worship and thank him for who he is and how he has demonstrated his power, love and grace in your life. And when you do this corporately, we all benefit by the joy and passion in your heart displayed by your actions.

Transition: We prepare to meet God when we remember what God has done in our life.

Exodus 19:7-8         Respond

I find this amazing. Moses told the people that God wanted them to agree to a covenant, a contract, without even know the details.

ILL: How many of you would do that if you were going for a loan and the bank said, look, this is a blank contract, just sign on the bottom line and I will tell you about the details later?

Why did the Israelites do it? Why did they say yes to God, before hearing the conditions of the covenant? Because they remembered what God had done for them in the past and that helped them to respond with trust. They trusted that God would care for them in the present and future, like he had in the past. God in his relationship with Israel had established the fact, by a lot of preparation, that he could be trusted.

We prepare to meet God when we decide to be intentional about our response to him. The Israelites decided they would do something as a result of their meeting with God, they would do what he said. They made that decision before they knew the conditions and before they met with him.

I wonder. Do we come to worship, having already decided that we will respond with a yes to what God reveals to us? Let’s look at this another way.  Do we come to worship having decided that we will respond to whatever God reveals to us?

Transition: Meeting with God should be transformational. You prepare for worship by planning to respond to the hands of the potter.

Exodus 19:9-15                               Prepare

It is here that God specifically tells his people they need to make preparations to meet with him. We must remember that this is before the cross, the emphasis here is on the Law about to be revealed. The cross is about the grace that was revealed in Christ.

With this in mind, they had to wash themselves and their clothes. Now understand that they didn’t have the wardrobes we have today. Most had one maybe two sets of clothes at best. So taking a bath and washing their clothes would not take a great deal of time. Then why three days tp prepare?

Because, God was teaching them that to come before God is no small thing. We may prepare for a meal, we may prepare for an exam, but now we are preparing to meet our Creator and Redeemer. We can’t properly prepare for that in the car on the way to Sunday Morning Worship. It takes time. And while we may say we don’t have the time, we have learned from our discussions at the Men’s Breakfasts, that what we are really saying is that we are not willing to take the time.
Here God is telling his people to take the time. You are my priests, ambassadors to the world, you can’t represent me by constantly shooting from the hip. Take time and prepare to meet me.

Transition: I realize I have left out some important things concerning boundaries from this part of the text. I will address them now with vs 16-25

Exodus 19:16-25               Obey

Rules. We hate rules. We don’t want anybody telling us what to do…even God sometimes. What rules does God give here? That the people can not go where Moses goes. The people can not go to the top of the mountain and speak to God directly. There is a boundary they can’t go beyond or they will be killed. God tells Moses twice to tell the people about the boundaries. Why? God wants his people to prepare for worship by obeying him and the rules he has established for meeting with him.

Does God have rules established today for meeting with him? For worship? Yes! But praise God Scripture reminds us that we can come boldly to the throne of God, we can come to the top of the mountain and speak directly with God. Why now and not then? Because Christ lives in us. He is the mediator between God and man and we come to the top of the mountain, we come directly into the presence of our Creator and redeemer because we come, in Christ. Are their still rules to obey? Yes. 1 Cor. 14 reminds us of some. But the rule we most often break is one that even the cross didn’t do away with, preparation. And that is a rule we must obey if we desire to have a fruitful and meaningful meeting with God.

Conclusion

Did you notice that the order of worship was a bit different this morning? If you haven’t looked at your bulletin yet, taken it out. Notice the divisions in the Order of Worship. That was intentional; it was designed so that you will see the different elements that are part of the Christians preparation for meeting with God. We do this every Sunday morning during our corporate worship celebration. My challenge to you is to make it a part of your Monday to Saturday relationship with the Lord.

Think about all the preparations we make. Perhaps you made plans for what you are going to be doing when this service is over…

Imagine what God could do in your life personally and our life corporately, if we gave serious consideration to preparing personally to meet God Monday to Saturday, if we prepare BEFORE we get here on Sunday?

Imagine what God could do when we his people are prepared to met him?