God is a Fire
Exodus 19:1-6; 16-19
Dr. Larry D. Thorson
This sermon was adapted from
a sermon written and delivered by Dr. M. Craig Barnes at the Shadyside
Presbyterian Church in
Ex 19:1 In the third month after the
Israelites left
Ex 19:2 After they set out from Rephidim,
they entered the
Ex 19:3 Then Moses went up to God, and
the LORD called to him
from the mountain and said, “This is what you are to say to the house of Jacob
and what you are to tell the people of
Ex 19:4 ‘You yourselves have seen what I did
to
Ex 19:5 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,
Ex 19:6 you will be for me a
kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’
These are the words you are
to speak to the Israelites.”
Ex
Ex
Ex
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New
International Version
God is described in Scripture as a
fire and what we know about fire is that it cannot fit in our pocket without
burning us. This is a lesson the Hebrews
learned early in their journey with God.
Three months after escaping bondage in
Like the Hebrews, we are camping today
at the base of a holy mountain in our worship service. At the top of this
mountain is our Creator — the one who parted the waters of the
At the bottom of the mountain we
tremble because the point of life is to learn to obey God’s voice and we know
that we’re not getting the point. We
don’t even hear God’s voice most of the time because it is drowned out by all
the other voices around us. These are the voices that tell us we’ll never make
it to the Promised Land unless we try harder and achieve more, or buy something
else, or get a different job.
All of these voices speak as if the focus
is on you. “What are you going to do to get life right?” they ask. But it is a terrible
burden to get life just right, or as we say in church to make ourselves
right-eous. That is why we are so drawn to forms of domesticated holiness that
assure us God is on our side, rooting for us to succeed, and that he will help
us or give us a boost toward our dreams. But as the scriptures remind us,
holiness can never be tamed like that. “God is a consuming fire.”
The ancients thought that if they ever
encountered God, it would kill them, which helps to explain why everyone in the
New Testament is so frightened when they see an angel. So when we come to
worship and camp for an hour at the base of God’s mountain, we ought to
remember who we’ve come to meet. “On the
morning of the third day, there was thunder and lightning, as well as a thick
cloud on the mountain, and a blast of a trumpet so loud that all the people who
were in the camp trembled. Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet
God.” (Exodus 19:16)
There is a reason why our church does
not have theater seats, drive through windows, or a latte machine in the
narthex. It is the same reason that we are not peddling snake oil for your hurts
in life. We are not trying to make you comfortable with holiness. We are trying
to breathe life back into all of our souls. The only way to do that is to come
and take our place in holy worship — where we meet the consuming fire.
The fact that some of us are not
paying attention to the spiritual reality of this hour does not mean that it is
not occurring. And those who are paying attention should be too overwhelmed with
the glory to fret about the fact that the elements of the worship service may
not match their preferences. No one at the base of
Lutheran pastor Marva Dawn once said
that after the conclusion of worship someone complained to her that he didn’t
like the hymns they sang in the service. She responded by saying, “That’s okay,
we were not singing to you.” Part of
what it means to stand in the presence of holiness is to finally, at last, not be in control of the agenda.
And that is the beginning of getting life back into your soul. That’s the first reason why we come to reason;
to remind ourselves that we’re not in charge.
Then God said to the Hebrews, “Remember what I
did.” “Remember how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.
Remember that it was never about your hard work. Remember that it was I, the Lord
God, who changed your destiny from slavery to freedom.”
Remember. Remember. Remember what God
has done. It is only as we remember the past that we can see how to move to the
future. The problem that we have as Americans today is that we forget how we
got the Fourth of July. We’ve come to
think that we earned our freedom ourselves and that God had little to do with it. But as followers of Christ we know
better. We have been blessed to be a
blessing to the rest of the world.
So that we can be a blessing God has
provided us with a light for the journey.
But that light doesn’t shine in our eyes because if it did, it would
blind us. The light to our path, the lamp to our feet, shines from behind us.
That is why in worship we say creeds and read the holy words of Scripture that
were written thousands of years ago. It is why we participate in the church’s
old cycle of Advent, Lent, Easter, Pentecost, and why we sing the old hymns.
It is
because the greatest danger to our future is that we will not remember the
past. That past proclaims, “I know you’re confused about how to get to the
Promised Land, but don’t worry because it was never about you. It has always
been God who has carried you on eagles’ wings, and God will carry you all the
way home.” Remember that the Lord God
changed our destiny from slavery to freedom.
To be reminded of that is the second reason why we come to worship.
All you have to do, according to
Moses, is obey the voice of God. It was then that God gave the people the Ten
Commandments. The law was a way of remembering. It was a way of seeing the
light that shone from behind them and will lead home to God. But this brings us
back to our deepest fear in worship. At the base of the holy mountain we
remember that we have not remembered.
That is why worship begins for us with
the prayer of confession: “Forgive us, O God ....” We confess this at the base
of worship because in telling the hard truth about ourselves we can then hear
the deeper truth of the gospel: “In Jesus Christ we are forgiven.” We could
never climb the mountain to find God. It is too high and we have wandered too
low. But the gospel proclaims that holiness has climbed down to us because, in
Christ, God was dying to forgive us our sin.
The author of the book of Hebrews is
fascinated by how the coming of Jesus Christ has transformed our approach to
God. “The days are surely coming says the
Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and the
house of Judah; not like the covenant I made with their ancestors, on the day
when I took them by the hand and led them out of the land of Egypt ... for I
will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no
more.” (Hebrews 8:8) This is a
direct quote from the prophet Jeremiah who promised that a time will come for a
new covenant that is based not on our obedience but on the mercy of God.
For centuries and centuries people
waited at the base of the
Holiness is revealed to the whole
world when you forgive the sinner who hurt you. It is revealed when you return
good for evil. And it is revealed when you volunteer, give generously, and are
merciful. Holiness is revealed when the church is at work not only in its
worship service but also in its mission and in hospitals and nursing homes.
Do you see how Christ has changed the
whole notion of what it means to approach God?
“You have not come to something
that can be touched, a blazing fire, and darkness, and gloom, and a tempest,
and the sound of a trumpet, and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that not
another word be spoken to them.” (Hebrews 12:18) Notice that the mountain
is no longer to be feared. No longer do we have to cower at the presence of God
because of our sins. “But you have come
to
Maybe you thought that the New
Testament offered a kinder, gentler God than the Old Testament. No. What has
changed from the old to the new covenant is not God, but you. In Christ, you
are forgiven and restored and loved and freed finally to be merciful. In Christ, you are no longer afraid of God
the fire. But never forget that God is still a fire. And it is best not to try
to keep fire in your pocket.
Benediction: Fear God. But fear him not for
his judgment. Fear God for his mercy and love because these are things that
make him uncontrollable. Amen.