LAW HOMILY: From Slavery To Servitude

The Law, Legalism, and Obedient Gratitude

Every week we go through the law of God because we want to understand what God has to say to his people and we want to know what it means to actually obey and have a right relationship with the law. We know that the law does not lead us into legalism if we approach the law rightly.

We also know that it doesn't lead us into antinomianism, which is lawlessness if we know what the law is rightly. We should have a right view of the law. We should obey God because he has accepted us.

We don't obey in order for him to accept us. That's the distinction. Today we're in the first commandment as we go back through the ten again. I'll read it to you. It's Exodus 20 verses 2 and 3 and we will look through it together.

The First Commandment Begins With Redemption

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 gods before me. Now the first commandment, I'm the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, it tells us and it tells Israel what they must do.

He reminds them of what he's already done. So before he tells them what they must do, he reminds them of what they've done. Before the command comes the rescue, before the obligation comes the declaration, I brought you out.

Which means that we cannot properly understand the first commandment unless we understand why God begins there. Because the command to worship Yahweh alone is grounded in the fact that Yahweh alone rescued them.

Israel had been slaves for nearly 400 years. For generations, they had lived beneath the tyranny of the Pharaoh. Their bodies belonged to the Pharaoh. Their labor belonged to the Pharaoh. Their sons were threatened by the Pharaoh.

Their days were ordered by the Pharaoh. They served Egypt and then the Lord came down and he heard their cries and he remembered his covenant and he shattered Pharaoh's power. He humiliated the gods of Egypt and ten successive plagues and he covered his people through the blood of the Lamb.

He opened the sea, he drowned their enemies and he brought his people out. But God did not free Israel so that they could belong to themselves. He didn't free them so that they could become free in a libertine sense.

He freed them so that they would wholly belong to him. He transferred them out of bondage to Pharaoh and into slavery to him. That was the purpose of the Exodus from the very beginning that they would serve Yahweh.

Redemption Means Belonging to a Good Lord

When God sent Moses to Pharaoh, he said Israel was my son, my firstborn son. So let my people go so they may serve me. God didn't simply say let my people go. He said let them go so that they may serve me.

The Exodus was not a liberation from Lordship. It was a liberation from a cruel Lord in order that Israel would serve a good Lord. God didn't deliver them unto autonomy. He delivered them unto worship.

He didn't free them from having a master. He freed them from Pharaoh being their master. And this becomes even clearer when Israel arrives at the plains of Mount Sinai. God says you have seen what I did to the Egyptians.

He's reminding them how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. That's Exodus 19 .4. That is the destination of redemption. God himself. We are not redeemed unto ourselves. We are redeemed unto service to God.

Freedom Unto Worship and Service

Now, this is incredibly important for us today, because when we think about freedom, when we think about God redeeming us, we have to ask the question unto what? And if it's anything other than unto God, then we have not worshiped the Lord our God rightly because their connection, their service to God is connected intimately to their worship of God.

I am the Lord your God. I brought you out of the land of Egypt. You must have no other gods before me. I brought you out so that you would worship. I freed you so that you would be able to finally worship me.

Which means that if we want to have and if we want to obey the command, have no other gods before Yahweh, we must understand that he freed us unto service to him. He freed us unto slavery to him. He freed us from our taskmasters to have him as our Lord and master.

Repenting of Idolatry and Returning to God

So when we think about this command, have no other gods before me, we must remember that he set us free so that we may worship. And when we return back to the taskmasters of Egypt or money or control or jealousy or bitterness or whatever else, we're doing the exact same thing Israel did when they said we had it better in Egypt.

When we return back to those taskmasters, we act as though God is not a good master and a good Lord. So let us this morning repent of all the ways that we have shrugged God's kindness, that we've rebuffed his grace, that we've ran back to idols.

Repentance for Returning to Sin and Idols

And let us remember that he freed us for a reason, him. Let's pray. Lord, we tend to look at Israel in the wilderness. And all of their repeated failings and all of their grumbles and all of their despising of your kindness.

And we tend to look at it without really understanding how we are no different. We ask ourselves the question, how could they possibly want to go back to Egypt? After you had been so kind to them, after you'd freed them, after you had split a Red Sea in two, after you had done all manner of miraculous activity in opposition of the Pharaoh, how could they have spurned your kindness and grace?

How could they want something other than you? And yet, Lord, every one of us here has experienced a greater miracle than the parting of the Red Sea and that we were dead and now we're alive. We've experienced the miracle of regeneration.

And yet we still go back to the feeding troughs of sin and go back to the pig pods of iniquity and idols. Lord, would you forgive us of our wandering heart, of our very short memory of all of your good and kindness that you've done to us?

Lord, would you heal us from finding our satisfaction ultimately in anything other than you? Would you help redirect our misplaced affections onto you so that in whatever we do, whether we eat, whether we drink, whether we marry or whether we're given in marriage or whatever, let us do it all for the glory of God.

Let us do it all as those who find our complete and utter satisfaction in you. Forgive us, Lord, when we fall short and we play footsie with many idols. Lord, convict our hearts, but also give us great conviction in the power of your gospel to save and to forgive.

Loving and Obeying God's Law Through Christ and the Spirit

It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Thank you for listening to this homily on the law of God from our Covenant Renewal worship this past Lord's Day. We publish these messages each week because we believe that God loves his law and far from throwing it away, we believe that the death and resurrection of Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit will actually help us learn to love and obey God's law.

And that's our prayer for you, that as you chew on these expositions each week, that you would both learn to love and come into alignment with the law of God. And we pray that you would do that by the Spirit's power through the finished work of Christ and to the glory of God.

And with that, God bless you.