“Preparation for the Word”

Scripture: Exodus 19

Today we begin a 6 week series on preparing for a life in Christ. After all, what’s Lent about if not preparation? But the question for us today isn’t so much “Why should we prepare?”, but rather what is involved in preparing to receive Jesus into our lives? What do we need to do? What do we need to give up? What do we need to learn? And why do we need 6 weeks? Wouldn’t a week of focused effort be a lot more efficient?
The truth is that preparation for living and walking with Jesus can’t be minimized and it can’t be rushed! It needs to be a deliberate, intentional, and serious effort if it is to be faithful.

Hal Brady [of Hal Brady Ministries in Dallas, Texas], tells the story of a young man who came to a pastor and said he wanted to be a Christian. The pastor advised him to read the Book of Acts as preparation for this important decision. Weeks passed, but the young man did not return. The pastor began to think he had made a serious mistake in his suggestion.
Finally, almost a year later, the young man appeared. When the surprised pastor asked where he had been, the man said, 'you told me to read the Book of Acts. Every time I started to read it, it told me to do something. So, I stopped reading and went and did it. I have just been too busy to get back.'

Brady adds: That's the idea – learning and thinking and acting like Jesus!
-Brady, “No Markdowns Here!”, 10 March 1991.

Preparation to receive and process God’s word for our lives can take a while, and may involve a number of issues. During this Lenten season, we are going to look at a number of these concerns, several areas that need our attention, and today, we take a look at the issues involved when we prepare to receive the word of God for our lives. We begin by considering Israel’s preparation to receive God’s commandments at Mount Sinai.

Read Exodus 19:1-8

Receiving God’s call on our life is nothing to take lightly. If we aren’t committed to understanding the Lord’s plan for us, then we will never be willing to take even the first step in hearing about his great design. The first step in receiving the Word is in our acknowledging who God is, who we are, and what our relationship is all about.
In Genesis 15:1-6, God promises Abram that his descendants will be more numerous than all the stars in the sky, and that he would provide for their every need. This was God’s promise to him – not because Abram deserved this gift, but because the Lord wanted it to be. You see, it’s always about God!
- Yahweh reminds the people of what he has just done for them – that he is the reason that they have been freed from slavery, and he is the one who carried them out of Egypt.
He tells them that now that they are free to follow him, that if they listen and heed his call on their lives, that they will be his beloved nation – his “treasured possession”. Notice that God doesn’t become their possession – it’s the other way around!
They will hold an exalted position in his creation – they, and they alone, will be his priests and holy ones. This means that they will be the ones who will have the responsibility of bringing the Holy Word of God to the rest of the world. That’s what priests do – they are God’s representative to those who wish to draw near to the Almighty!
And how do the children of Israel respond to this call? “We will do everything the Lord has said.” How well do you think they did with this promise? Obviously, not so well – they couldn’t even wait to get the word before they would begin to celebrate in a decidedly un-Godly way! (Exodus 32)
And over and over, Israel would make this same commitment to God, only to promptly disregard their promise. But before we condemn those people too severely, how well do we do with our commitment?
You may have heard this prayer before, but hear it again:
So far today, God, I’ve done all right. I haven’t gossiped, haven’t lost my temper, haven’t been greedy, grumpy, nasty, selfish or over-indulgent. I’m really glad about that.

But in a few minutes, Lord, I’m going to get out of bed and from then on I’m probably going to need a lot more help. Amen.
- Homiletics Online

Are we smugly satisfied with how we are doing?
Are we overly confident that God must be pleased with us – pleased with the things we have been doing?
Israel was, at least, until now. But what comes next?

Read Exodus 19:9-13

“We’ve been right there with you Lord, but what’s this about 3 more days? We’re ready now!” So, how ready do you have to be before coming into the Lord’s presence? Perfectly! Not half way, not “good enough”, not to our own satisfaction, but perfectly – to God’s standard!
God tells Moses to “consecrate” the people through washing and setting limits and establishing boundaries for them. Washing signifies ritual cleansing – ridding our lives of those things that are not of God – our sinful ways. Only the spiritually clean can even begin to approach the Almighty.
They were told to stay away from the mountain until they were called by a long blast on a ram’s horn. They needed to exercise restraint – they had to wait until the Lord told them to come. And if they did as they were told, they would hear God’s voice speaking to Moses. The people were not to speak; they were to only hear what God had to say. No questions were allowed, no requests for clarification, no suggestions for improvements
– they were to come prepared - consecrated and bounded - with ears to hear and nothing else.

Read Exodus 19:14-19

Be consecrated (set apart), be washed (purified), and now they must also set aside the routine things in their day, represented by sexual relations. And on the 3rd day, when the people were fully prepared, the Lord begins his arrival.

Let’s think about this arrival for a moment. The people will hear the Lord speaking to Moses, but only after they have been suitably prepared to hear. And the preparations would take 3 days to complete. Is there any wonder that the people were shaking in their sandals when the mountain began to shake and smoke and trumpet the Lord’s coming?
- Regardless of the extent and quality of the preparations, how can anyone be ready for something like this? How can anyone be ready to receive the word of God? How can anyone be ready to stand in the presence of the Almighty Lord? In truth, no one can!

But we are called to hear his personal word for our lives all the time, and most folks manage to avoid hearing it altogether! There’s no shaking, no smoking, no trumpets – just that “still small voice” that Elijah heard on Horeb, and the din of our lives usually drowns it out! So what is the difference between Moses and his people, and the people of today?
The difference is that no matter who we are or how prepared we may think we are, we still fall far short of being who God needs us to be. The only way we can hear that Divine Voice, the only way we can come close to the Holy Mountain, the only way we can approach the heavenly throne, the only way we can ever hear and know the word of God, is by allowing Christ to be our preparation – our consecration, our purification, our call.
In Christ, we desire the word, we know that we need the word, but we also must understand that when we receive the word, we have to be ready to submit our lives and follow the word.

Read Exodus 19:24

Without proper preparation, if we try to force our way into God’s presence, the “Lord will break out against” us – or in other words, we will be destroyed. We cannot come to the Lord by our own means or by our own desires. We must come either perfectly prepared in the law, which no one has done yet, or through the grace and glory of Jesus Christ. That’s it! No other options! And in reality, we know that the law always fails us, so we have no other choice than to come to Christ with open lives and open hearts. And we must come to Almighty God through a relationship in Christ. There is no other option, no other way.

From Homiletics:
The culture in which we live, while honoring the Bible in all kinds of superficial ways, would really rather have the Bible remain closed.

A closed Bible has certain advantages.
You can place your hand on a closed Bible and swear the Presidential oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States”. [On a closed Bible!]
You can place your palm on a closed Bible and swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God. [On a closed Bible!]
You can position a closed Bible in the center of your coffee table as a token of God’s presence in your life - and, as you dust around it, you can feel like you have something to believe in. [For our closed minds and hearts!]

A closed Bible will never challenge us, nor cause us to ask questions, nor make us think.

It will confirm us prejudices, and it will allow us to believe pretty much whatever we want to believe.
- Anonymous (Homiletics Online

The third part of the great Commission in Matthew 28:18-20 is that we must learn to obey the commandments that came from Christ. And we can only begin to understand the commandments when we open our Bible. Prepare to receive the word of God for your life – not by displaying it, but by knowing it and living it. Prepare for a life in Christ, not by trying to attain perfection on your own, but by leaning completely on his perfect sacrifice.
A life in the word of God must always be a life in the Son of God. Any other way will only lead to disappointment, and ultimately to destruction! And that's no way at all!