Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Does God Meet Your Needs? | Torah | Exodus 19

Episode Date: June 14, 2022

Do you want to feel known and significant? What does God say about who you are? Does God meet your psychological needs? In today's episode, Tanya looks at Exodus 19 to discover something important God tells Israel before he gives them the 10 commandments. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Exodus 19 Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now.

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life in the time it takes to get to work. I'm Tanya Wilmeth, and right now we're in the book of Exodus. Educators know that kids have to have their basic needs met before they can learn. That's why we feed kids breakfast and lunch at school, and that's why we try to create safe learning spaces where kids can learn. That's why teachers foster relationships and community and build rewards into their environment and their curriculum.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs shows us through a pyramid diagram, how human beings must have basic things like food, warmth, rest, and safety at the core for our existence. These are the physiological needs that must be met for any next level of human flourishing to happen. After that, we need to have our psychological needs met through relationships and significance. All of this science is built into the foundations of our educational philosophies. Now, it's no surprise that something human beings have discovered and researched and implemented to make our world better is rooted in biblical theology in the very character and essence of God. As our ultimate creator, he, of course, knows exactly what we need. Now, Exodus chapter 19 is a turning point in the book of Exodus, where the focus shifts from

survival and escape from Egypt to Mount Sinai, where the rest of the book will take place. It's also a turning point in the way God will deal with and address his people. He has protected them, fed them, guided them. And in Chapter 19, we'll see God begin to address the ways he will satisfy their deeply rooted needs of relationship and significance. So how does Exodus chapter 19 relate to your life? Let's address that first. Some of you have a need to know that. Over the last few days in thinking about this episode, I've asked

some people this question. What do you wish someone would ask you? Here three answers. First one said, I wish my parents would ask me what I really want to do and how they can help me. Another one said, I wish my spouse would ask me how I want to be loved. And another person said, I wish my friends would ask me why I made the decision I did. Now, all of these experiments, a psychological need of intimacy, relationship, and significance. Exodus 19 is fascinating because before God talks to Israel about what they should do, he addresses their questions about who they are and what they mean to him. It was the third moon.

The third moon since God brought them through the Red Sea, which means it had been about seven weeks of travel through a pretty wild and desert area for all of the people to get to the base of Mount Sinai. and Moses was about 80 years old and probably didn't know that he was going to climb up the mountains seven times over the next few chapters of Exodus. And three of those are going to be in this chapter alone. But Moses was probably motivated with some fresh legs when they got to Mount Sinai because God confirmed that he really was in the right place.

Now remember back in Exodus chapter 3 verse 12 at the burning bush, when God told Moses to go to Pharaoh and lead the people out of slavery, Moses was super confused and didn't feel very confident. But God said, I will be with you, and this shall be the sign that I have sent you. When you've brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain. Now, here they are. So when they approached the mountain, Moses would have known. He would have known that God had been with him every step along the way,

and his confidence and his trust in God would have grown through all the hard conversations with Pharaoh through all the doubts people had about his leadership. And now that he's at the mountain, he can look back and see God's faithfulness and commitment to be with him and to grow him. Now, the people had also grown, mostly in number. God gave his covenant to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but that small family of 70 had grown into a great nation. And God brought the nation to the base of the mountain to establish a covenant that would include

all of them. Now, God had given Moses something we call a theophony at the burning bush, and that's just a fancy word that means he revealed himself or showed himself to Moses. At the bush, God revealed himself and His Holiness through fire. Now, through a combination of that experience, all the hardship in Egypt, conversations with God, things that happened, Moses had developed what we call a big G view of God. Moses knew God as king of his people. king of all people and creator and king of his life. Now God in his grace would expand that view for all of Israel to know him in this way. And though he does it is pretty cool.

So when they reached the region of Mount Sinai, God called Moses up while the people were camping at the side or at the base of the mountain. And he called to Moses, the Bible says, out of the mountain saying, Moses, thus, you shall say to the house of Jacob and tell the people of Israel, you yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagle's wings and brought you to myself. Now, therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine.

Now these are the words he gave to Moses on his first climb up the mountain, about three climbs before he gave him the Ten Commandments. It's relevant and humbling to recognize that before, he told the people what to do, he told them who they are. He established a covenant relationship with them. He included them in the blessing that he gave Abraham in Genesis 12, when he promised to bless him and make him a blessing to all nations. Now, God using highly relational language, satisfied their need for security and identity. He called on their memory to remind them how he carried them on eagle's wings out of Egypt. Through the Red Sea,

how he gave them manna and then he gave them water for their journey and he tells them who they are they are the receivers of his covenant and they are his treasured possession it's super important for them to know this and understand this because their obedience to his voice it would actually flow from these foundational truths they weren't going to receive and obey his commandments to earn his covenant and earn his love and loyalty and affection. They already had those things. They were going to receive and obey his commandments because they were the recipients of his love and loyalty and affection.

I wonder if you've ever been hurt by someone who is trying to follow God's commandments for life without knowing the love of God. I wonder if you've ever hurt someone by trying to obey or by expecting them to obey God's commands without knowing the love of God. God is beginning a long process with these people to expand their view of who he is so they can follow and obey in a way that brings blessing to them and blessing to others. Now there's a key word in chapter 19 that all of their relationship with God hinges on.

while they are at a physical location, Mount Sinai, that was symbolic of God's faithfulness, it's not the location or Mount Sinai itself that really matters. Listen one more time to Exodus 19, verse 4. God said, you yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I bore you on eagle's wings and brought you to myself. Now, while God had been in the business of satisfying all their physiological and psychological needs along the way, he did this so they could understand and know him as the one who satisfies our greatest need, him. Remember when Adam and Eve sinned and try to hide from God because they were afraid,

and yet God called out to them and provided for them. they needed to know that God was still for them. We all experienced times of uncertainty of how God relates to us, and God addressed this for the Israelites as he included them in the covenant blessing and brought them to himself. All their feelings for intimacy and significance are met in a personal relationship with God. He wasn't a little G-God. They gave them little blessings when they needed them.

He is the Lord, the I am, the one to whom all the nations of the earth belong. And that God, that holy God lowered himself to be in personal relationship with his treasured possession. Those people who grumbled and doubted and wandered, they were known and loved by God. When we're frustrated about God's limits and God's commands, we should remember the heart from which they come. They come from our holy Lord who loved us before we followed a single one of them. They come from a merciful Savior who went to the cross because we can't keep from breaking any of them. We try to be morally good people and do good things because it helps us, it helps us meet our personal needs for significance and worth, and it helps us have relationships with people.

But God is calling us to be a blessing to all the nations on the earth because he alone is completely satisfied our need for significance and worth and relationship in himself. And because the need has been met, we're free. We're free to enjoy affirmation. We're free to enjoy relationships without misusing them or mistreating them. Only we have to know the source and the giver of the covenant to do this. In your present circumstances, do you have a greater need to know God's love or obey God's voice? If you're in a time of deep, emotional need because you feel like you fall short. Will you remember that you are God's treasured possession when doubt and shame creep in? Now, if you're in a time of distance or disobedience,

how can knowing that God calls you to himself no matter where you are, soften your heart, or give you hope? The Bible is not a story of people who did something to make God love and accept them. It's a story of a holy God, so holy the people couldn't touch the mountain or say. But see his face, but yet he gave them himself, all of him, his son. He gave them his holiness through his blood and brought them into a forever relationship with him. Before you forget, sign up for the brand new TMBT newsletter. Hit the link in the show notes and you'll get an email every Wednesday that will help you beat the midweek slump and go deeper in your walk with Jesus. Thanks for listening.