3) He is establishing a community of people, who can one day bring forth messiah.
He's trying to set the ground rules in place, to have a culture in place, that one day messiah would come forth out of it, salvation will come to the whole world because of this.
4) He's establishing the kind of life, in a group of people, that the world can see what God looks like.
Ultimately in this, He wants me and you to show the girl at KFC what He looks like - even when she messes up your order. When someone cuts you off in busy Hastings traffic, how do you respond? Do you point your finger at the sky? Call them #1? Or do we show the world what God looks like?
There was an email that was sent around... (I never read those, but the person who sent it never sends it, so I decided to read it). It was a story about this lady, she was following really close behind this car; it was at an orange light - and if you stop, you're not wrong; and if you go through, you're not wrong - one of those. The guy in front decided to stop, and she was obviously in a hurry - She was going crazy! She was swearing at him out the window, I mean pointing her finger at the sky, she was doing everything. About that time this police officer came up (she didn't see him), and he knocked on the window. He takes her out of the car, puts her in handcuffs, and takes her to jail.
Two hours later, he comes and gets her out the cell. He said: I'm very sorry ma'am, I thought you stole the car. She said: why would you think I stole the car? He said: I saw the fish on the back; and I saw the 'What would Jesus do?' bumper sticker; and the 'Follow me to Sunday School' licence plate holder. Then I saw how you were acting, and I thought you stole the car. Ooh!
How does the world perceive us? We are meant to show the world what God looks like! Here's the message of the Ten Commandments, in a nutshell, in the first verse:
Now that the relationship is established, I want you to live in peace and joy. I want you to have My way of living, so that others will see who that I am.
It's not just about you. Jesus said it this way, in John 17: Father, as You are in Me, and I am in You, let them be in Us, so that the world might believe. It's all about showing other people what God looks like.
Two observations, before we get into the next big thing: rules never establish relationship - never.
Relationship establishes relationship; rules maintain it. You never establish a relationship with rules. You establish a relationship with love, and then rules maintain it, boundaries maintain it. This was a huge concept.
God chose to be their God before they did anything. Now I want to show you the first line of the Ten Commandments in Hebrew. This is the first line - here it is in English: “I am the Lord your God”.
In Hebrew it's three words: “Anochi Jehovah Elohim” The interesting part is this: you can say that sentence with just two words: “Jehovah Elohim” – I am the Lord your God. There's a hidden word in there that doesn't get translated, and it's actually the first word of the Katubah God is writing to His people.
The first word of the Ten Commandments is the word “Anochi” - four Hebrew letters: Aleph, Nun, Chet, Yud.
Now the Hebrew language was originally pictures. It wasn't letters (like today), it was pictures; so every Hebrew letter is a picture; every Hebrew word is a comic strip. Let me give you the pictures.
The Aleph is the picture of: an ox head going into a yoke. It conotates ‘authority’. Now remember: the people He's speaking this to, were slaves for 430 years; and the first word of His marriage contract with them is: Anochi. The first letter is Authority.