Exodus 19:1-8 | “The Lord’s Personal Treasure”

Preston Highlands Baptist Church

Does God Like You?

Does God love you? Many of you don’t hesitate to answer “yes” to this question. But are we as sure of this as we seem to be?

Kelly Kapic, in his book You’re Only Human, says that our automatic “yes” doesn’t always reflect our internal world and that underneath our quick responses we’re not so sure. He says that asking another question helps us see what we really think about God’s love for us: does God like you?[1]

We’ve heard “God loves you” so much that when someone tells us it’s like throwing a marshmallow at us. When it hits us we barely feel it. We know we’re supposed to believe that God loves us, but those words don’t hit us with any force.

The word “like” helps us see an aspect of God’s love that we struggle to see. “Like” carries with it a sense of preference, inclination, and delight. It’s what you say when you’re shopping and you see something you want and you say, “Oh I like that, I want that.”

“Love” is a beautiful word and loaded with all kinds of meaning and depth. But sometimes we use the word to refer to obligation and duty, not satisfaction and delight. “I love you” can sometimes mean, “I’m supposed to love you,” not “I delight in you.” When God says, “I love you,” he means, among other things, “I am inclined toward you, I prefer you, I delight in you.”

Grace Before Law

Why does God love and like his children? What’s the basis of his affection for you?

The only way to answer this without making God’s love dependent on you in any way is to say, “God loves you because he loves you.” His love is the result of grace and it can be trusted because it’s based on promises.

God has always related to his people on the basis of grace. This wasn’t a new development when Jesus died on the cross. From the beginning, God loved his people simply because he loved them, not because of their performance.

Today we’re entering into Exodus 19, the prologue to God giving Moses the law. But what we must see is that grace always comes before the law. The law will kill you unless you understand that God relates to his people through grace, not law.

In Exodus 19, the Lord inaugurates the Mosaic covenant. We’ll look at verses 1-8 today and 9-25 next week. Today, we’ll see the foundation of the Mosaic covenant (vv. 1-4), the function of the Mosaic covenant (vv. 5-6), and the failure and fulfillment of the Mosaic covenant (vv. 7-8).

The Foundation of the Mosaic Covenant

In verses 1-4, we see the foundation of the Mosaic covenant. Put simply, the foundation of the Mosaic covenant is grace, and this grace is related back to the Abrahamic covenant.

The language of “house of Jacob” and “people (sons) of Israel” links the Mosaic covenant back to Abraham. By introducing the Mosaic covenant by mentioning the Abrahamic covenant, the Lord is bringing out the continuity between them.

The Lord starts to redefine their identity by calling Israel the “house of Jacob” (v. 3). They no longer lived in the “house of slavery” but were in the “house of Yahweh.” They were no longer slaves but sons (4:22-23).

Their identity and role in the world would be based on sonship. This must shape the way we think about the giving of the law. They were rescued out of slavery before they had the law. They were God’s sons before they had the law. Grace always come before the law.

The Lord’s Interpretation of the Exodus

Verse 4 is a dramatic and beautiful portrayal of how God rescued them. This verse is the Lord interpreting the exodus experience for Israel. The first phrase, “You have seen what I did to the Egyptians,” refers to the Lord’s judgments on Egypt in the plagues and at the Red Sea.

The second phrase, “how I bore you on eagles’ wings,” refers to how the Lord brought Israel safely through the wilderness providing them with water and food and saved them from the Amalekites, despite their grumbling and contentiousness.

This phrase makes grace the basis for their lives. It says that Israel’s role in surviving in the wilderness was entirely passive. The Lord agrees with what they sang back in chapter 15, that he was their salvation (v. 2). Israel owes their life to the Lord. If not for him, they’d be dead.

Then the third phrase says, “and brought you to myself.” Israel’s destination was ultimately Yahweh, not Sinai or Canaan. The Lord unilaterally rescued Israel from death in Egypt and kept them alive in the wilderness because he wanted a relationship with them.

This was radical stuff in the Ancient Near East. There’s no record of another culture having a covenant relationship with their god. The other nations were terrified of their gods. Their rituals sought to “smooth the face” of their scowling gods.

But Israel’s God, Yahweh, rescued them from Egypt, cared for them on their journey, and brought them to himself because he wanted to be close to them, despite how they treated him.

Some say that the old covenant is based on law and the new on grace. But what we see here is that the old covenant is based on grace. God’s covenant with Israel at Sinai is gracious, not legalistic, because before he gives them the law he’d already given them his love.

The gracious nature of this covenant is clear because before any demands are given, the Lord reminds Israel of the grace he’d shown them. He doesn’t begin with demands and say they have to obey to be his people. He says, “You are my people, ‘now therefore’ (v. 5) be who I’ve made you.”

Grace precedes demands. Israel must obey, not to become holy, but because they already are thanks to God’s grace.

The Function of the Mosaic Covenant

In verses 5-6, we see the function of the Mosaic covenant. After interpreting the exodus for Israel, the Lord then begins to define what means for them to be his people.

The “Now therefore” signals a shift from the Lord’s grace to the implications his grace has for his people. They must “listen” to Yahweh’s voice. This begins by listening to the gospel, not the law. His speech here begins with gospel, as it does in 20:1-2.

“My Treasured Possession”

The Lord’s grace makes Israel his “treasured possession among all peoples” (v. 5). The word for “treasured possession” is only used eight times in the Old Testament, with six of them being used in this metaphorical sense to refer to Israel. The two exceptions help us understand it’s theological meaning here. In 1 Chronicles and Ecclesiastes the word is used to refer to the royal treasury, or the king’s personal treasure (29:3, 2:8).

The Lord says that the whole earth is his, so Israel isn’t the his only possession. But they are his personal treasure. The other nations are like common stones and Israel is like a rare jewel.

This wasn’t their status naturally. The phrase “among all peoples” reminds Israel that they’re part of humanity in general. But God deliberately selected them from all the peoples to be his special people.

Moses later tells Israel that the Lord didn’t choose them because they were the strongest, biggest, or moralist nation (Deut. 7:7-8, 9:1-24). Their selection was an act of sheer grace.

God chose Israel to be his special treasure. The whole earth is like a ring on his finger, but Israel is like a jewel in that ring. As King, Yahweh possess the whole earth, but he made Israel his personal stash of treasure.

Do you see how high Israel’s status is to God? It couldn’t be higher. Despite all their grumbling and contention he values them above all the people on the earth.

Name Tags

Kings don’t feel obligated to love the royal treasure vault. They don’t feel like they owe love to the vault. They love it and like it and delight in it and want to be around it. They enjoy and brag about and are happy with their treasures.

Do you think God feels that way about you? What do you think God calls you? What name tag do you think he puts on you? All of us wear name tags, labels on our souls that define us. These name tags are deep beliefs that others projected on us and that we’re usually not consciously aware of. What’s your go-to self-designation? Failure, stupid, not good enough, incompetent, weak, worthless, too sensitive, rejected, alone, worthless?

These name tags have a huge impact on our lives because, as neuroscience is beginning to demonstrate, the vast majority of our decisions come from our subconscious brain.[2] This is why the Lord wants to change our hearts, not just our behaviors.

What’s on your name tag? What lies govern your identity? How have you been shamed into thinking that you’re something other than what God says about you?

“Kingdom of Priests and Holy Nation”

If verse 5 is their identity statement, then verse 6 is their mission statement.[3] God didn’t make Israel his treasure to be an end to themselves. When God elects people, it’s always for a purpose. Election is about service and mission, not safety and comfort.

The Lord says that Israel will be a “kingdom of priests,” or better translated, a “priestly kingdom.” In Israel, the priests weren’t set apart for their own sake, but for the purpose of serving the Lord and the people. Just as the priests represented the Lord to Israel, so Israel was to represent him to the nations.

As the Lord’s representative among the nations, Israel would also be a “holy nation.” They were set apart to be devoted to the Lord. They would be a unique nation among the nations.

These two designations, “kingdom of priests and holy nation,” tell us that God’s intent for Israel wasn’t for them to just have a special relationship with him without paying attention to the rest of the world. Rather, as one scholar says, “they were to represent him to the rest of the world and attempt to bring the rest of the world to him.”[4]

Israel’s status was God’s personal treasure. Their role in the world was to show off the value of their king.

Hopefully, you can start to see why the Lord gives them these designations before he gives them the law. The purpose of the law was to make them categorically different than the other nations, to point the nations beyond Israel to the God of Israel. Israel was distinct not because they were better but because they were the Lord’s.

The function of the Mosaic covenant was to reveal God’s character through God’s people to God’s world. The law wasn’t about Israel. It was about the nations knowing God. Through Israel, God would make himself known to the world.

Peter says that the church is the new Israel in the world, “a chosen race, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Pet. 2:9-10).

The Failure and Fulfillment of the Mosaic Covenant

The next thing we see in verses 7-8 is that the people of God understand what’s expected of them. They agree to obey the God who saved them.

The problem was that no one could obey the law. Even the most holy people, the priests, had to offer sacrifices to cover their lawbreaking. The people couldn’t even keep the first ten laws, much less all the others. As professor Tom Schreiner says, “The Mosaic covenant was a gracious covenant, but the Lord didn’t provide Israel with the moral ability to keep its requirements.”[5]

The commitment of the Israelites was short-lived. They quickly lost faith in God and broke their word (32:1-6). God’s people decided to find another god who saved them.

The failure was on the part of the people, not the covenant. The people failed their God, but God wouldn’t fail them. The sin of God’s people was not stronger than the grace of their God. Despite their constant and deliberate sinning, he would keep his promises to them.

How could God’s people enjoy the promises of the Abrahamic covenant as long as the curses of the Mosaic covenant hung over them? As long as they were under the Mosaic covenant, how could they be sure that they would stay faithful to the Lord?

The bottom line is that they couldn’t. This is why, in God’s mercy, he had another covenant that he was going to establish with his people. In a new covenant he would give them the ability to do the things he called them to do (Jer. 31:31-34).

This covenant will not be like the Mosaic covenant. The Lord will write his word on their hearts (v. 33b). The external word of the law needed to be internalized. God would write his law on hearts instead of stone tablets.

How has God enacted this new covenant? Blood would have to be spilled, and it was. At the Last Supper, Jesus took “the cup after they had eaten, saying, ‘This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood’” (Lk. 22:20).

All the blessings of the new covenant in Jeremiah 31 had to be purchased and given to God’s people. We could never afford them ourselves. We could never earn them. We can only receive them. The payment for these precious promises was the precious blood of Jesus.

Jesus fulfilled the Mosaic covenant and enacted the new covenant. He perfectly kept the law and he received the curse of the law, so that everyone who believes in him might be considered righteous and given the Spirit (Gal. 3:10-14).

“Because He Delighted in Me”

Why would God do this for his people? Because we’re his personal treasure. King David says it like this, “He brought me out into a broad place; he rescued me, because he delighted in me” (Ps. 18:19). You do whatever you have to do to rescue those you delight in.

Do you understand the delight of God in you? Do you understand that it has nothing to do with your performance but is based solely on his grace?

This contrast was made clear to me this week at my son’s Field Day at their school. At one point they asked the dads to do the games all the kids had been doing, so I got to relive the glory days of embarrassing myself in front of hundreds of people by missing a lay-up. My heart sank when I missed the shot. I was so embarrassed and wanted to hide and pretended it was no big deal. I felt like such a loser and failure.

Later that afternoon at Elisha’s fourth grade graduation, as they started calling kids names, my heart welled up with pride that Elisha was my son. It wasn’t because he won an award or did anything special. I simply relished the fact that he was my son, and I was so proud that he was my son. My joy in him wasn’t based on anything he’d done, but simply on who he is.

That is how God loves his children. He dies for us because he delights in us. He wants to have a relationship with us, to bring us to himself, because we’re his personal treasure. He knows we can’t keep his law so he came to keep it for us so that we can be with him and then be sent out into the world with his grace.

But we won’t have grace to offer the world until we taste it ourselves. The way to taste it is to understand that Jesus doesn’t have to love you, but chooses to, by understanding that he loves you out of delight, not duty. Do you understand that? Do you believe that God likes you?

[1]Kelly M. Kapic, You’re Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God’s Design and Why That’s Good News (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2022), 17-18.

[2]See Daniel J. Siegel, Pocket Guide to Interpersonal Neurobiology: An Integrative Handbook of the Mind (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2012), 1-5, 13.

[3]W. Ross Blackburn, The God Who Makes Himself Known: The Missionary Heart of the Book of Exodus, New Studies in Biblical Theology, ed. D. A. Carson (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2012), 87.

[4]Douglas K. Stuart, Exodus, The New American Commentary, vol. 2 (Nashville: B&H Publishing, 2006), 423.

[5]Thomas R. Schreiner, Covenant and God’s Purpose for the World, Short Studies in Biblical Theology, eds. Dane C. Ortlund and Miles V. Van Pelt (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2017), 70.