Freedom Formed by God’s Story

1. Introduction — Freedom Is Only the Beginning

In 2009, I was travelling for the first time out of the UK/Ireland, by myself with a team, to Senegal. From start to finish over those two weeks, it was one of the most formative times of my life—the constant experience of new things, whether food, driving, lifestyle, or culture. At every moment, I found myself being challenged in simple, naive ways about how I understood the world and life in it, but also thankful to God and for God, even as, for the first time, I met people who believed in God differently than I did. They where two weeks that had so many memories, so many moments where I remember thinking – that was God! The first time in my life, I prayed for something and saw it answered miraculously before me. In two weeks of so many memories, there has always been one thing that has stood out for me, one moment that I have struggled to shake, 10 minutes that stills me in discomfort. It was not something seen, but a conversation, that became a haunting memory.

The second half of that trip, we headed up to the far, far north of Senegal, where we spent 10 days doing friendship evangelism with an old Australian missionary who had been living among an unreached people for years. It was the most amazing experience. We were joined through that week by three secret Christians who had come to faith, but had been living in hostile places, so they had to work to keep their faith hidden. They were all the same age as the team: 19-21, and it was after a week of getting to know them through broken French and bad English that I was sitting outside under the light of the moon and in 35-degree heat that one of them came out towards me. We sat, we chatted, and she motioned for one of my headphones. Now, rather embarrassingly, I didn’t really want her to know that I was listening to! So I gave her the iPod and let her choose the Artist and Song. She went for Akon, the American singer and songwriter, and she put on one of the songs on the album that I had never heard or listened to “Freedom.”. As we sat there listening, through the lyrics, Akon rapped:

“From Senegal, West Africa, to St. Louis, Missouri, thanks to Katherine Dunham for giving my pops his glory…”

I could see my friend tearing up, becoming more and more emotional. Espically to the simplify of the chorus, and the longer the song went on and those words rose the more they seem to get emotional: “Freedom, Freedom, Freedom (Oh), Freedom Everything I have, everything I own All my mistakes fam, you already know I wanna be free, I wanna be free So I search to find my (find my).” Eventually, I paused the music and asked her if she was okay, then if she understood. She looked at me and said something along the lines: “Oui, Freedom est Liberty,” and then, after a breath, she said “Liberty… a dream… I never have” in broken English. It was those words that haunted me because, in that moment, I realised I was living a normal life, which was only a dream for so many people. We sat there in silence for a bit longer before the festivities of our last night took over. I think what made it more haunting, more challenging was that, but a few weeks after we were away, we learned that our friend had been married off by her family in her absence and to a man she had never met. Liberty is something we all long for, and if we are honest, we take for granted – especially in our contexts. Yet, Liberty isn’t something we often think labout, nor have we even had to consider it. Liberty, Freedom is just often assumed. We might have longed for it in some spaces of our lives, but have we ever found ourselves in a place where it’s something we dream of – knowing we might never get it on our own strength.

1.1 The Exodus: Considering What Freedom is For

You see, it’s in that place where the beauty of freedom becomes real, and where the question that Exodus poses to us becomes most real. It is in that place of knowing that true freedom can only ever be a gift that we might begin to ask well Freedom For What? Think about Exodus, and its grand narrative that Moses writes. It has two pillars and one movement in between: Pillar One, Slavery; Pillar Two, The Promised Land. The movement in between: One of freedom. Exodus is a book that is all about freedom, and showing us both theologically and practically what true freedom is, and how true freedom is lived: it is not a place, it is not a season: True freedom can only ever be received, and is only truly realised in process – that is the truth of the Exodus, and our the passage we are looking at today.

God’s people have been in Egypt for so long they have become a forgotten reality, the good that Joseph did has long been forgotten; the commands of Pharoh to gift his family wiht the best land have long been lost, and all that has become clear is that the people of God have been enslaved and put to work because they themselves have become such a great resrouce. Why have they been enslaved? Because they are distinct from the culture around them, ethically, culturally, and as memory fades and numbers increase, that distinction becomes more visible, and if we are honest, more threatening – they are different in ways. Culture threatens the status quo, so the state does its best to put down that which is different. The Pharaohs of Egypt moved to limit the freedom of Israel and the Hope of God’s people because the tribes of Jesse were seen as a threat to the Hope and Freedom of Egypt. Thus, through mud and squalor, the people of God Laboured and longed for a liberty they could never achieve on their own. They longed for Liberty, and then they cried out hopelessly, without knowing that the God they were crying to knows the heart of the hopeless. The cause of the oppressed, as by the very processes that were beating down the people of God, would begin the process of liberty through a baby in a woven basket floating down a river. Where Moses would learn the ways of the oppressor, the culture of those in power, and through it become the voice who would speak to them the plight of the people of God, a people longing for liberty. God raised from among them one who would be the vehicle by which liberty would come.

1.2 Context

A few weeks ago, you found yourself with the one whom God had raised to bring freedom, standing before the one who represented their oppression – Pharaoh. He spoke as the voice of God and said:“‘The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has sent me to say to you: Let my people go, so that they may worship me in the wilderness. But until now you have not listened.” If Pharaoh refused, Moses and Aaron warned him what was to come: 10 movements of God’s power that would make clear who was sovereign. Last week, Joshua explained the wonder of the Passover Meal, the hope it spoke to the people of God, and the hope it speaks to us today. Yet, there is no Sinai without God’s acting against Egypt.

I think sometimes we find it hard to fathom this moment; it’s one of those passages we wish were not in the Bible because of how vivid and drastic the language and imagery are. Sometimes it feels like a different God than the God we worship. Yet, if we are going to be honest, I think that says more about where we can be as individuals or a culture than where God is. We have grown up in comfort, and so anything that brings discomfort we want to dismiss or ignore. Yahweh with Moses in those moments can be one of those times, unless we are willing to humble ourselves and remember what Moses was up against. Egypt was not just a nation with a King; Moses was standing before a king who represent a power that had been established for over two thousand years; there was no power greater in the known world, and no nation that would dare confront Egypt for any reason, add to that the cult that had grown around Pharohs over the centuries of their rule, they where seen as divine beings almost akin to the God’s and deserving of Worship. Thus, Moses spoke as the voice of Yahweh, challenging the power of not simply an earthly King, but a ruler whose power was absolute and whose authority was untested; Moses challenge was not just so some decision about executive power – it was a challenge to the entire political, spiritual, social, and power structure of a nation. Thus, the warning to the hard heart of Pharaoh that if they did let his people go, he would systemically expose and tear down the cult of worship that had developed over a millennium in a moment among the people of Egypt. Israel has to be delivered from Slavery, and that is part of what God does here. Yet, there is something more beautiful displayed as each of the plagues rains down – judgment and justice. The God whom we worship is not just far off, he is not just a rescuer, he rescues by acting against the injustices of our world and sin as the ten plagues dismantle Egypt’s gods and their Pharaoh’s power in ten movements against them – culminating in the marking of Israel’s redemption by the passover meal.

Yet, God was not just acting to free a people from slavery, he was acting to show his heart, and the power that his redemption would effect on the world. In these ten redeeming movements, God is acting against Egypt’s representatives because the Story of Egypt speaks to the state of the world today. A Story where power rules; A Story where some lives matter more than others; a story where oppression is normal – it is that Story that God comforts today when we remember the Exodus and the beginning of freedom. Plague by plague, Yahweh tears down all that Egypt represented that was wrong with the world; until finally, at the Passover, God does something even more remarkable, with Egypt defeated, God provides not just freedom from slavery, but rescue in light of eternity through the Blood of the Lamb. As the judgment passes over, Israel walks free. Not because they were better, nor morally superior, nor innocent of guilt – but because God chose them to bring redemption into the world. It is by the 10 plagues that the Hand of God reaches out in redemption, and God’s people arrive at Sinai as free people for the first time in generations.

Yet, a question still lingers: Freedom for What? If Freedom is only escape, then it is still incomplete; if freedom is only release, then it has no direction; and if it was only ever about being out of Egypt, then it really did not need God. Thus, when we ponder what freedom was for and what the plagues achieved, the meaning of the mountain comes into perspective. As the people of God see the Red Sea split before them and they cross into the rescue of God by his saving power, they cross into what Freedom is for. As they journey from the ocean to the mountain, they are moving from a place of being set free to learning what freedom is for; and that is why Sinai matters. On Sinai’s side, God did not simply set out basic rules by which they would establish a new society: At Sinai, God brought his people to himself, and by the 10 Commandments, he offers them his presence and frames it through a covenant. The law is not simply about limits; it is about defining relationships and the presence of God with his people; it is about establishing the covenant. It is there on Sinai in the giving of the law that God makes himself known in presence as he speaks, forms, shapes, and guides. By the 10 plagues, God set his people free, and through the 10 commandments, he began to teach them what it means to live with Him in that Freedom.

To put it simply, God’s actions against Egypt culminated in the Passover, which shows us God’s power to save and bring freedom: As they crossed through the waters of Salvation and found themselves at the foot of the mountain Sinai, it shows us God’s purpose for the saved and their Freedom.

2 God Brings His People to Himself (Exodus 19:1–6)

2.1 A Rescued People

It has not been that long since all that occurred. Yet, how short can human memory be; how quickly can we forget the good that comes to us, or an act of mercy from someone? There is something beautiful and powerful in what god says to Moses at the beginning of Chapter 19: “ ‘You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.. That is why it’s important to understand all that God did out of love during his judgment against Egypt. The Plagues were the means by which God carried his people to himself, and Sinai was the moment they began to realise what this means. These were not ten random acts of Chaos; they are specific displays of revelation. They where all for reason:

• When the Nile turned to blood, it wasn’t just some weird show of power; it was God confronting the very source of Egypt’s security and the god they trusted to sustain them.
• When darkness fell upon the land, it wasn’t about confusing people’s sleep cycles; it was about a challenge to their sun god, a symbol of power and order.
• Finally, when the judgment fell upon the firstborn of Egypt, it was God acting to the very heart of Pharaoh’s supposed divinity, exposing that he was as human as every Egyptian man, and under the same judgment.
  

Plague by plague, God dismantles the false story Egypt had built its world upon, and then, in the Passover, He proves his own power by providing a way of rescue through the blood of the lamb, that allows his people to find new life and freedom that by the time we arrive at Sinai, enslaved people is no longer their identity, purpose or place – they are a people redeemed and Brought to the living God on his own wingsby the living God.

Do we see what God is grounding their freedom in his action:“You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt” Why? Because our Identity begins with God’s action, not individual effort, and by it we do not aim to aspire to belong to God, we are already there!

2.2 A Brought-Near People

Thus, the people of God stand at the bottom of a mountain having witnessed miracle after miracle from the heavens in love towards them. Now the one called by God speaks to them again, and after reminding them of what he has done, the second part of the image is ever more beautiful, even more loving – “I carried you on eagles’ wings” It’s not one of achievement, nor response. The lord does not now demand a response from them; he speaks with an image of Grace because Grace will always be the foundation of his covenantal relationship with his people. It was not just about freedom from something, nor removing his chosen people from their oppression in Egypt – It was Freedom towards something – God himself. He draws his people to himself, in the plagues they saw both how seriously God takes injustice and sin; and at Sinai we see why – love.

We have moved from Plagues to presence; a presence secured and defined in the 10 commandments, which, by Grace, speak to 10 promises of life if they trust the one who has rescued them. Salvation is so much more than rescue; it is not simply God feeling sorry for an oppressed people, deciding to rescue them and then leaving them on their own to face the world – that would be cruel: Salvation is redemption, and Redemption is nearness – the God who said I will be your God. You will be my people shows how much he meant it. Thus, we see something beautiful – that true freedom is relational before it is ever functional.

2.3 A Covenanted People (5)

A relationship that God initiates from the very beginning, a relationship that God has demonstrated He is committed to and present in. Yet, a relationship that requires something of us in response; not obedience to earn, but Joy because we have grasped the privilege of what has been offered through. Thus, to his call to remember, and his reminder of Grace God now speaks through Moses the blessing of response in covenant; not as a condition of the relationship, but as a joyful, thankful response to what God has done and his goodness: “Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice…” God is not demanding here, he is yearning; and yet even in his yearning we have the hint of his knowledge. This is what he longs for – joyful response of his people to his saving work, but we get the sense that Redemption is not finished in Egypt – there will be more to do.

What is Freedom For? A relationship with God, rooted in our redemption and carried by His grace. A Relationship that gives us two things: Identity and Purpose. Identity: If we respond in joy to what he has done for us, then we know the beauty of life with him and under his wings, we become a “Treasured possession… kingdom of priests… holy nation” among all the world that God owns: His most treasured possession is those whom he has redeemed. How much does God love his Children, so much that he rescued us when nothing else could, whether it’s crossing the Red Sea or the Cross of Calvary – redemption shows us the love of God, and our identity is rooted in that love and coperateness – we are not individuals being formed, we are his people being formed.. Secondly, so is our purpose, notice a few different things here: Moses is to tell the people that they will be a Kingdom of Priests and a Holy Nation. They have been redeemed for a purpose, and their purpose is in their identity. What do priests do? They minister to God, learn about God, and make God known. God’s people have now been given a national identity in this role, they together in the world and to the world will serve the Lord, and by their lives display God to the nations – that is what is meant by being a Holy Nation.

3 God Shapes His People Through His Word (Exodus 20:1–17)

3.1 Grace Before Command

What happens next is crucial to the whole narrative of the Exodus, of the Kingdom and our walk with Christ. Everything has been building to this point: rivers of blood, frogs, locusts, darkness, the passover, and the splitting of the Red Sea – everything was built to this moment, at the foot of Mount Sinai, having brought his people to himself, God now speaks. God speaks to demonstrate that he is God, but God speaks because God is not finished, and grace is still being outworked. It matter so much because it tells us somehting about the heart of God: if the rescue had stopped at Sinai, then And that matters, because if Sinai had stopped at rescue, then freedom would still be undefined and directionless – it would be no better than Egypt; Yet, our God has a heart of Grace and what he begins he will see through – He does not bring His people out of Egypt and then leave them to figure it out on their own; He draws near and then He speaks! Could there be any better words to hear, anything more gracious after all the people of God have witnessed, what God says sets the tone for everything, and let’s be clear by everything we mean his eternal relationship with those he calls to himself, what is begun at Sinai is displayed on the Cross, as he declares:

“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.”

Before a single command is given, God reminds them of who He is and what he has done for them out of Love, because relationship comes first! This is not “obey me so I will rescue you.” This is: “I have rescued you,” and now you can listen to me, trust me, know me, and walk with me. The order matters, because the order speaks to the heart of who God is and reminds us simply that the law given is not a condition of their freedom: it is the shape of it.. Every good thing has boundaries. Yahweh would have been no better than the oppressor if he had freed them and then left the people to their own devices. The commandments are given on the mount not because of morality, or judgment, nor simply as contract – the commandments are the means of Grace because they define boundaries and belongings, because true freedom has limits – otherwise it is just Chaos. Those boundaries are only established after God has established his relationship with his people.

3.2 The Law as the Shape of Freedom

I think sometimes, when we hear the word law as Christians, we default to a negative perspective. We think about the Pharisees and how they responded to Jesus, and we think of it as something opposite to Grace and the way of the Kingdom. We lose sight of the fact that God gave the law and Jesus taught that he had not come to abolish it, but to fulfil it. Thus, when God for the first time established the law, it flowed as part of his redemptive movement in human History. Thus, we can see the law given here more beautifully and personally; these are the terms of some contract of obedience, they are the shape of new life with Yahweh their Redeemer. The 10 commandments then become something more beautiful, more profound – this is not about establishing restriction, but revelation about life with God. Nor are they given without the presence of God, and more beautifully still, they become promises about what life in him and through him will look like. God does not impose ten restrictions to limit fun; he gives commandments that immediately help a people wandering in a world they do not understand begin to grasp what their new life will be. What we have in the commandments is not restriction but revelation. This moment is life-giving as God seeks to show what life looks like when it is lived with Him, under His wings, and in the freedom He has given. Especially, when we zoom out and think of the wider world at this point, and the chaos that would have been normal around the nations in which God would establish his children. The commandments given are not just about establishing morality or priority, they are to go toward the cause that God is calling all his people to: The issue is no longer Freedom, that has been established, now it is being defined – Because the question is no longer: are they free?

That has been answered! Now God wants to help us people consider what does a free life actually look like? The law that God gives in answer to this is not some burden for humanity to meet, and the answer God gives is not abstract — it is deeply practical, deeply human, and deeply relational. The law is Grace given, to establish what life with God will look and feel like, and his children witness to the world, and we can break them down into two chunks: The first five establish what right worship will look like, and the second block of five establishes right relationship.

To put it simply, the first five deal with our vertical relationship with God and the second five deal with our horizontal relationship with our neighbours and the world. Think about those first five commandments written into stone, there are Sinai and what they speak to – worship. God has rescued a people to himself, and he calls them to worship. Worship will be at the heart of the national life because they are his people, and so he is. The first part of the law speaks to worship:

• You shall have no other gods before me
• You shall not make for yourself an idol
• You shall not misuse the name of the Lord
• Remember the Sabbath day
  

It might seem strange when we first read this: if God orders a new society and people and a way of life, why give so much to worship? Well, firstly, and simply, it is the best thing for us! So its priority must be understood, and its heart must be clear. But secondly, there is the cultural reality: we are shaped by the waters we swim in; for hundreds of years, the tribes of Jessie have lived in Egypt and become part of its culture. Yes, they were distinct and treated poorly, but the cultural norms of Egypt would have had an impact on their perception of the world, worship, and God, thus God is reordering their worship, because Egypt had formed them to look elsewhere for life, for security, for identity. False gods, visible idols, systems of power — all of it had shaped them over generations. God might have systemically exposed the folly of Egypts culture and false worship in the plagues that feel against the nation; it is easy to tear something down, but it takes a long time to unlearn things And so God begins here, because if worship is disordered and confused then everything else that flows from it will feel the same effects: The foundation of our freedom is true Worship and that is where the law begins – by helping us know who God is, and who we are in relation to Him. Worship has been established, and from it now flows the fruit – our horizontal relationships with one another:

• Honour your father and mother
• You shall not murder
• You shall not commit adultery
• You shall not steal
• You shall not bear false witness
• You shall not covet
  

For so long, the people’s identity and order were established by those who ensalved them, and now from the very beginning God – this is God reshaping how they live together as a people. Because it has to be deeper than what was, it has to be better than it ever would be there. Otherwise, what would be the point of freedom, and how could God’s people witness to the world his holiness? In Egypt, even in these passages, we have had a vision of how life was cheap, truth was expendable, and power determined value. That was then but now in freedom we see something profoundly more beautiful – the centre of society is not something manmade but God and from that all else will flow: family is important – honour your parents; life is protected – do not murder; relationships are honoured – no adultry; truth matters don’t bear false witness; and even desire itself is brought under the rule of God – don’t make idols out of other peoples possessions.

Do we see it? This is not simply about order, it’s about learning, and in learning, it is about the undoing of Egypt Through the giving of the law and in love, God is dismantling what has been left from Egypt – the internal patterns that were formed in Slavery. To free them physically, he poured out his justice through the plagues, and to free them spiritually, he now pours out his love through the law. You know what we say – you can take the person out of a place, but you can’t take the place out of the person; the law of love given here begins the process of removing Egypt from the heart, mind, and culture of his people.

How? The law becomes the means by which God forms a people who actually live in the freedom they have been given, because to be truly free means being a people who will no longer live like slaves. The law is life because God is life, and so when the law is given it is to give life; when Christ says he come’s to fulfil it, he means to give And that is what the law is doing — it is giving structure to redeemed life, forming a people who reflect the character of the God who has saved them, and will witness to Him in the world! This is true freedom and a gift of Grace from God.

3.3 The Formation of a Holy People

This is the beginning of the life of faith; it is a glimpse of the Kingdom that Christ would establish in his Covenant with the people of God, but at this moment in Sinai, it is where everything comes together or at least is meant to. This is not about legality or moralism. Nor is this some sort of legal transactional; our God is not transactional – He is a loving God who wants to form people into something more. The law is given in love, so that individuals become a people whose identity is not in their nation, nor tribe, nor blood line, not even a thing – their identity is in what they worship – Yahweh. Then, in that worship, as outlined in the first 5 commandments, the Love of God that is being deepened in worship begins to affect how people live their relationships.

The law deals with our heart, and the life that flows through us. Thus, that which God gives is not just about establishing boundaries, it’s about something far deeper – formation. In the giving of the law at Sinai, God is forming a people for himself and his purposes, and they will look different in every way to the world around them. He has brought them to this place, and in the establishment of the Passover meal and its remembrance is helping them to understand their identity and purpose through the Story of who they are, and where God has lead them; the law is the heart of we would look different because it tells a different story to the world around us by how we the people of God might live. To put it another way, the commandments speak to the heart of our identity, and are God’s way of helping us to be shaped by all that is good in Him. We are all formed by something, and at times, even if we do not realise it. For generations, the people of God had swam in the cultural waters of Egypt, and that was the Story that formed them; where they were nothing but slaves, had no rights or privileges, and could not even go to worship their God. Egypt was where they were formed, and by the Grace of God, it has become part of the Story of the people of God, but no longer as the defining frame; Egypt has become the memory of not what was done to them, but what God has done for them. Once they were slaves: now they are free, and it is in the story of that freedom that they are to be formed over and over again.

To take a people out of a story without giving them a new one is simply to wait until the old becomes normal again – his people would simply end up back in the waters of Egypt in a different way, enslaving themselves to new idols and weights. God wants better for his people than what was, and so he begins to reshape from the moment he calls them to himself, at the foot of Sinai. The giving of the law is the beginning of a new chapter of this Covenantal relationship – a lived story that God gives to his people out of love. A Story that has a counter-cultural ethic because, as God’s people live by it, they are making him known to the world: It’s a story grounded in mercy, grace, and redemption, where love and presence is know; where truth matters, where faithfulness is honoured, and where Justice is upheld; all grounded in the beauty of right worship. The law is the Story of God being in the heart of his people as he shapes them in His image to show his majesty in the world. That is what it means to be a Holy people; it is knowing the holiness of God, and then, in joy, making it known in an unholy world: it is not about withdrawal, nor is it about isolation – it is about gospel distinction: light in darkness; being salt where God calls us to make known his story. When we grasp this Story, and it takes root in our heart through our worship and right focus, as the Spirit shapes us into His Holiness, a people who live in such a way that the world looks on and sees that something is different; something deeper, something almost tangible. This living is not just about being different in an ethical or moral way through speech, action, or religion; it is about love: we live differently because we have been loved differently, so the law moves us to treat one another better.

When we grasp the heart that which they where given to the people of God, we begin to see that they are not simply about shaping what the people of God where to do – they where about shaping who they are, and the story they lived by. not just not just in what they say, but in how they live, how they treat one another, how they worship, how they order their lives. They are story-forming because they get to our heart and affect what we love, desire, and value; then they are life-giving because they affect how we live, relate, and speak to people – they shape our community. The triune God who lives with us by the 10 commandments gives us the shape of life with him, and then in the Spirit gives us ten promises of what life will look like in the new Kingdom. By the commandments, God is forming a people who reflect His character; to show the world who He is through the story they inhabit. Not simply as rescued, but as free.

4 God Fulfils and Forms His People in Christ (Matthew 5:22)

4.1 The Mountain and the Greater Moses

As the story of Scripture moves forward, what we find is not a departure from Sinai, but a return to it in a deeper, more complex and more complete way. I am not sure if you are aware of the focus of Matthew’s Gospel: he writes in a way that is specific to the Jewish mind; he breaks the entire Gospel into five teaching sections to reflect the five books of the Pentateuch. And, as he writes, he gives us details that are to draw our mind back to the Old Testament: Matthew gives us such beautiful details in the Jesus Story, and he highlights how Jesus loves the mountain side, and to speak there; and remember when Jesus speaks, God speaks. Matthew gives us the scene where Jesus goes up a mountain, sits down, and begins to teach – it’s a new Sinai – , and that detail matters, because of what it is pointing us toward. Just as Moses went up the mountain and the people gathered to hear from the God who had brought them to himself, now Jesus stands in that same place of formation. Yet, there is a significant difference here: Moses received the law from the voice of God, but now Jesus speaks in a different way; his authority is his own! He is not simply hearing from God, and then delivering – He is the One who is now making known the fullness of what God has already begun.

What we are seeing is not that Jesus replaces the law; nor does something new with it, he is not taking Sinai apart, simply he is bringing it to its ultimate place, its fufilemtn, its completion because the same God who spoke at Sinai is speaking in the Son; and what was given in structure and command is now being revealed and the fullness of joy. The mountain again becomes the place where God is speaking to his people, in the hope they form him; but the voice is no longer simply one of giving, it’s spoken from a place of fulfilment; by one who embodies it, and then one who brings life from it.

4.2 The Heart of the Law Revealed

And when Jesus speaks we need to be listening; not just to what he says, but what he doesn’t say. This is not something new because the old has not worked; He does begin by loosening what God has said, nor by lowering the standard, but by drawing us into the very depth of it, the heart of it. Think about that moment in Matthew when he was challenged to think about what the greatest law was, not just about the Ten Commandments but all 653 laws that that had been established by the levitical text and the pharisees to make sure people did not step into sin, of all the burden the law had become Jesus is asked what’s the greatest commandments, and with ease he speaks to the heart of the law that he fulfils: “Love the Lord your God… and love your neighbour as yourself,” and then He says something that reframes everything we have understood about the law, that all the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.

What does that mean? It means that the law was never simply behavioural – it was at its heart about love! That what was given at Sinai was not a list of restrictions, because God does not want people to have fun; it was about light rightly ordered in a way to form a people by the Story of what God has done for them. The law is the gospel in a way that shapes life around loving God and loving one another. Jesus reveals what was always there, that the commandments were always pointing toward a heart shaped by love, not actions shaped by obligation and duty. Thus, he takes what was written on stone and brings it to bear on the deepest parts of who we are.

Jesus wants us to see something simple, something beafutilf – love is not simply an external thing; it must move inward to the depth of our heart and the story we are writing: and is so doing it touches everything by the Spirit who gives us his grace: anger, desire, motive, intention, the hidden places where life is actually formed and the story written. Slowly, by what Christ has done for us, the questions shift from: “What do you do?” to “what do you love?” because that is where the law was always leading, and that is what Jesus now brings into the light in each of our lives, and in the life of the church.

4.3 A People Who Reflect the Kingdom

Yet this is not simply a deeper reading of the law, it is the beginning of a new reality into the the law by what Christ has done on the Cross, and what Christ has fufiled; and now by his spirit we are being formed into his people: so that what was once heard as command from the outside is now written within by the same grace that saved us, is sustains us. It is writing a new story within us and through us. What God calls His people to be, He now works to bring about in them – that is how amazing Grace is. And this is not something new, an after thought – this was always the plan; it is the promise that has run through the whole story of redemption: that God would not leave His people to shape their story alone; that he would be wiht them, and in being with them give them the will and way to write a new story; and the by the gracious power of the Spirit the will to live it! That is what it means for the law to move from stone to heart; to be a people formed from the inside out.

How beautiful it is, how wonderful it is to realise that we are part of a people who begin to emerge differently; not because they are trying to keep rules more carefully, but because they are being changed more deeply by Grace, and the word of the Holy Spirit in their lives; a people who grow not just in outward obedience, but in love, in desire, in what they value and pursue. This is how awesome our God is! This is the undoing of Egypt at its deepest level, not just freedom from external oppression, but freedom from the patterns of the heart that once shaped them, as the Spirit works within them to form a people who reflect the character of the God who has redeemed them, a people whose lives begin to tell a different story in the world, not just as those who have been rescued, but as those who are now truly free.

5 Conclusion — A People Formed by Freedom

5.1 Freedom That Leads to Belonging

So here is where we land, with the same question that rang in the ears of those who watch the power of God poured out ten times against Egypt and tried to comprehend the splitting of a sea – the question that has girded everything: Freedom for what? We might be thousands of years from the exodus, but the same pondering remains: if freedom is only escape, then it is incomplete; if it is only release, then it is pointless and aimless in our normal lives. Yet, at Sinai, we see that God does not simply bring his people out and leave them to fend for themselves – God is too good and loving for that – He brings them to Himself. It is the heart of redemption: not distance or apathy -nearness, he is the good shepherd who walks with us through the valley of the Shadow of death. His nearness is not just rescue, it is nearness, relationship, intimacy – love. The God who acts in power against Egypt is the God who brings us near and in love at the mountain and says: “You are mine.”

That is still the shape of salvation for us in Christ, he who does not simply forgive sin so that we can go on living as we were before; He brings us near by the cross into the Presence of God, into the life of the trinity – into belonging. Their freedom finds its fulfilment not in individuality, but in communion as the new family that lives by a different rule, and as a people called to be a Holy people in this city, in this nation. By His Spirit, we become a people who can say together: The Lord is our God, and we are His.

5.2 Belonging That Leads to Formation

Yet belonging is not the end of the story; it’s something deeper, as God is writing a new chapter in each of us and through each of us together. The God who brings His people near is the God who begins to shape them for his purposes amid the normal that he has placed them in. That is what Sinai begins to show us, and that is what Christ deepens in each of us – and together as family – by his spirit. The law was never about control; it was about formation. Formation is God giving shape to redeemed life as he teaches his children what it means to live as those who are no longer enslaved, and to make known a new story. Now in Christ, that shaping becomes deeper as it is written on our heart, by the Spirit through Grace; and as we live out the call of the Kingdom, we write this transformative Story of Grace into the normal around us.

The Christian life then is a life that is being formed over time, in the normal where God has placed us – as we answer the call of love and service to live the better story and make known a better story in a world that desperately needs it. By the Spirit we are being shaped in this new Story by the Word; by our worship; and then through obedience and life within his kingdom, his community. The gospel reminds us that true freedom is not the absence of order – it is life rightly ordered under the love of God, because that is where we find our fulfilment. It is there we learn slowly and painfully: what it means to live as those who will no longer live like slaves.

5.3 The Story That Shapes Our Lives

So now we are brought to a truth we cannot escape: we are all being formed by something; there is no neutral ground – every day, through what we watch, what we listen to, what we give our time to, the world is shaping us by a certain narrative and story – but the choice belongs to us, will we chose to allow ourselves to be formed by the Egypt of our age that tells us what we want to hear rather than what we need to hear – or will we trust the better Story? Are we willing to admit that the culture we inhabit has its own liturgies, its own rhythms, and stories about what matters: Stories that try to convince us about what is good and what freedom looks like; then the more we rehearse them, the more they shape how we live and see the world, the more they shape our heart about what we love, what we desire, and give ourselves to. You might leave Egypt, but Egypt has a way of trying to remain in each of us and to shape us.

So the question is not whether you are being formed, but by what story you allow yourself to be formed. And this is where the wisdom of the Church matters, that is, where we have to look to the saints who have gone before us. Why? Because in the life of the church we are part of a people who have been formed by the ultimate story; a people for generations, God’s who have been shaped intentionally by His Word, His life-giving law. Not just on Sundays, but day by day: It is so simple and beautiful – We live as new chapters in a story where the Scripture has been read, Psalms have been prayed, and the Gospel heard again and again: We live as a people for whom the story of redemption is rehearsed until it becomes the story we live by, and make life known through. Why? Because the Word gives life – just as the law gave shape to life at Sinai and from Sinai; now by the Spirit; the Spirit forms us into the people of God, and through us makes known the Story of God in a way that confronts the lies of our age. Thus, by Grace through the presence of God we must chose to daily take up our cross; and again and again live out the Story of the Cross and Kingdom in our moment: by his grace we must place ourselves in the way of grace because what we rehearse, we become; so where the people of God will ultimately fail, let us by his Grace and Spirit go deeper into the better story; and live out the Story of the gosple to a people who desperately need it.