Podcast Introduction Our reading today is Exodus 17-20, and I’m calling the episode “Respect.”  Comments on Exodus 20 Let’s focus on verse 2 of chapter 20, which says, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” God spoke these words, and the entire Ten Commandments, to Moses, who was to take them to the people. And God Himself wrote these 10 laws on two stone tablets. It was not Moses who wrote on the tablets, it was God. Let’s break this sentence down, shall we? There is a tremendous amount of information that we can glean from these words. “I am the Lord your God…” God is asserting his authority, his right, to establish the Law to which you must be bound. The reason you must be obedient to this Law is that 1) God is the Lord, Jehovah, self-existent, independent, eternal, and the source of everything that is. Therefore, He has the absolute right to rule. 2) He was their God, in covenant, or agreement with them. They agreed to this arrangement.  “…who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” Therefore they were bound to obey Him out of gratitude, because He delivered them out of terrible slavery into a liberty they had never known. He redeemed them, and in doing so He had even greater right to rule them. They owed Him their service, their very lives.  Jesus redeemed us, beloved. And we owe Him our lives, and our service, as well. He freed us from the bondage of sin and death. Out of gratitude and love, we owe Him our very best in all we do.  The relationship we have with God through Christ is not the same as the one established on Mount Sinai. The people were terrified when they heard the thunder and saw the smoke. They told Moses that they did not want to face God. But Jesus said in John 15:15, “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.” And in Mark chapter 3 Jesus said we are his brothers, if we do God’s will. Beloved, if we follow Jesus, God is not a God to be terrified of like the children of Israel were when they heard the thunder and saw the smoke at Mount Sinai. Yes, we should have a healthy respect and awe, but not the kind of terror that comes from the uncertainty of an irrational, unreasonable, unpredictable force. God can be surprising, but He has revealed Himself to us through His Word, and we know above all, that He is love, according to 1 John 4:8. Design: Steve Webb | Photo: Lubo Minar on Unsplash Today’s Bible Translation