Declared to Be His People
I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from the land of Egypt, where you were slaves. (Exodus 20:2)
As God spoke to the Israelites from the top of Mount Sinai, he proclaimed his name and claimed them as his people. He was to be their only God and they were to be his people. As his people, then they were to live by the ten words that we now call the Ten Commandments.
Notice, though, that God doesn’t start out by telling the people of Israel to keep his commands, and then they’ll be his people. Instead, he declares them to be his people first. He has already established himself as their God. He has already declared them to be his people. And because our God does not change, nor will we stop being his people.
God knew that the people of Israel would break each and every one of his commandments; that they would go against every one of his words. Still, he called them his people. And he calls us his people too, even when we break his commandments and go against his words that tell us who we are. This he does because our salvation is not found in obeying the law but in the one who obeyed the law for us, Jesus. Jesus is the one who brings us salvation and makes us God’s people. And he gives us the strength and the ability to follow God’s law out of gratitude to God. He gives us the ability to show that we are God’s people by living how God wants us to live, according to God’s Word. Amen.
The song for today is “Forever” by Chris Tomlin