A People for God's Glory

⁜ Prayer ⁜

Intro

Alright, so we once again have jump over many chapters of material in Exodus. So to summarize what we have missed, we find sandwiched between where we left off last week - with Moses ascending Mount Sinai and being given the Ten Commandments - and where we are today at the very end of Exodus, a bunch of laws (mostly relating to how Israel is to be a just society), instructions for how to constructed the tabernacle and perform worship, and a number of stories thrown in to illustrate the gravity of God's law.

And all of that actually points us towards where we are now - which as we just read is the recounting of Moses making sure that all those instructions were followed... down to the very letter. This is why we see repeated eight times in today's reading that "Moses did everything exactly as the lord commanded him." You can find that in your Bibles in vv. 16, 19, 21, 23, 25, 27, 29, and 32.

And this highlights an important point for us to learn. Which is: when we pick up our Bibles it is important to look for little details like that! It is helpful to carefully read what is before us and notice patterns, such as repeated words and phrases... because in those patterns, God is trying to tell us something! And what we learn hear is that all of that detail - which we just read about - is important!

But the for us today the question is: Why? Why all that attention to the details of the tabernacle?

For us today, living a modern age which views the world around us, and even the skies and stars above as an enclosed space - closed off from heaven, closed off from anything that is supernatural, and even closed off far away from God... it is hard for many people to imagine spending any amount of time focusing on carefully constructing a place of worship for a God who may or may not even be out there. Such thoughts may perhaps even haunt some here in this room today or those listening in online.

But that is exactly where the story of the Bible meets us in our questions about what to make of this world and our place in it! This is why all those details we just read about are actually pertinent!

And what do those details reveal? Well, I would suggest that they reveal that there is a grander reality than what our culture tells us exists. All those details we find in today's Scripture reveal that: Yes, this world and what is in it is important, but that this world points beyond itself to the God who has created all of this!

That is why they built the tabernacle - and why God explicitly told them to do so. And he told them to build it with precious materials: such as gold, and brass, and fine curtains. All of those beautiful and special things of this earth were intended to convey to the Israelites how holy and precious is the God for whom they had built the tabernacle!

And for the Israelites, this was a no-brainer! Of course the world pointed beyond itself to the God who created it! But notice that in spite of that, even they needed the tabernacle and its various fixings to remind them of how holy God is!

This is why we read, for instance, in our passage today, that the tabernacle had a tent placed over it (v. 19), and that the tabernacle had a "shielding curtain" placed before it (v. 21). On top of that we read in vv. 26-27 that incense was to be burned before that "shielding curtain." All of this was intended to create layer upon layer of visible buffers which separated the inner area of the tabernacle from human sight. And all those layers reminded the Israelites of God's holiness.

But why care about all these miniscule details about what the ancient Israelites tabernacle looked like? Someone may even ask: "Surely, it doesn't matter...right? We know that Jesus even said in John 4:24: "God is spirit?""

But, all of this detail actually reveals something essential!

As we read this today, and hear about the ancient Israelites going about all these preparations for this tabernacle, we are reminded of the fact that there just may be something greater out there... something that transcends our daily mundane existence... something which deserves our attention and a response... something - dare we suggest it - Divine!

That is the reality that the Israelite's work here draws before our attention (even though they were likely not even thinking of such things)! But we need to hear that today! Don't we! We inhabit a world that has pushed God so far to the sidelines that it is easy to go a day - perhaps even almost a full week - without thinking of him!

But today the Scriptures confront us! And they place before us the truth that there is indeed something greater than our daily routine and our this worldly concerns.

Yet the Bible does so much more than simply make a vague suggestion! Yes, there is something spectacular that we see happening as our time in Exodus comes to a close. And really, this is what the whole of Exodus has been working towards.

We have seen that God proves himself to not simply be some vague spiritual energy floating beyond reach... sure this may have even been a temptation for the Israelites when we found them in the beginning chapters of Exodus... foreigners and slaves in another people's land.

But then God broke into their lives as he revealed himself and then proved himself to be there for them as he showed wondrous signs and powerful miracles, and then delivered them out of the Egyptians hands.

But he even went further than that when he allowed them to behold him descending in an awe inspiring veil of cloud and lightning, and then spoke from out of it with a booming voice... covenanting with them and revealing to them that they had a great mission into which he was calling them!

In all of this, God shows himself to be deeply personal - revealing himself not vaguely but very directly and powerfully and personally.

But today we see this go a step further. God not only reveals himself, and calls a people to himself to obey him and be his witnesses before the world.

No! That was actually just the beginning! But what exactly is it then that our attention is drawn to with particular emphasis today?

Well, turn to Exodus 40, vv. 34-38 with me. What do we find there:

34 Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.35 Moses could not enter the tent of meeting because the cloud had settled on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. 36 In all the travels of the Israelites, whenever the cloud lifted from above the tabernacle, they would set out; 37 but if the cloud did not lift, they did not set out—until the day it lifted. 38 So the cloud of the Lord was over the tabernacle by day, and fire was in the cloud by night, in the sight of all the Israelites during all their travels.

Do you see what is happening here? This is what the whole story of the Bible up to this point has been driving towards! Here the people are, gathered at the foot of Mt. Sinai, and what happens? Yes, "the cloud" - which we see mentioned here in v. 34 - is the same cloud which descended upon Mount Sinai - as we read last week in Ex. 19:16.

And here it is - the cloud is no longer hovering upon the the height of Mount Sinai - no, now it descends into the midst of God's people "covering the tent of meeting" which stands among them!

This is what God has desired... this has been the whole goal of him entering into covenant with his people, and making promises to them, and saving them from their abasement and slavery in Egypt!

Here is the moment when God is no longer a distant voice, booming from the top of a mountain... instead he descends into the midst of his people!

Dallas Willard nicely summarizes what this moment is all about when he writes that, here we see: "heaven invading human space!"

And this transforms the God's people's understanding of who their God is! Think about that! Of course it is going to change their understanding of who this God is! God was actually there... dwelling - not at a distance, but right there among his chosen people!

And we can see the joy and assurance that the Israelites drew from this experience! As we see in the Psalms, for instance, there is a close intimacy they experience with their God.

Let's just pull some verses from Scripture to gain a better understanding of the closeness the Israelites experienced with their God. ...

In Ps. 34, v.7 we read: "the angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and he will deliver them."

And in Ps. 125, v. 2, David wrote: "As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds his people both now and forevermore."

And finally, we read in Deuteronomy 33:12: "The beloved of the Lord rests secure in Him; for he protects them all the day long, and the one the Lord loves rests between his shoulders."

Notice the intimacy of the language here! For instance in that last quotation from Deuteronomy... the author writes "the one the Lord loves rests between his shoulders!"

Now of course God does not have shoulders! But what are we supposed to take away from this? What is between the shoulders? Yes... the heart! That is how close Israels experience with the Lord is, they knew that God's heart was where they were held! ...and all those expressions of intimacy can be traced to this moment when God descends among his people.

And we see in today's reading that he not only does so temporarily, but he chose to dwell among them, in the tabernacle, and that he was "in the sight of all the Israelites during all their travels" (v. 38).

Now of course God did not dwell there and abandon the rest of the cosmos. Even king Solomon, in 1 Kings 8:27 acknowledges this reality when he prays before God, after having built the temple in Jerusalem, saying: "The heavens, even the highest heavens, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built!"

But... we see in today's reading that God, nonetheless, makes himself visibly present among his people!

Commenting on this passage, the biblical scholar John Durham notes:

This final chapter... [reveals] the fulfillment of [all God's promises]: [the Lord] among his people, not in his mighty deeds, or in his rescue, or in his provision, or in his guidance, or in his judgment, or at a distance on a forbidden and foreboding mountain, but there in their midst; the symbol of his nearness visible to all, and all the time, [the Lord] protecting and guiding, [the Lord] teaching and blessing; [the Lord's] Presence settled in Israel’s center, [the Lord's] Presence filling their Holiest Space, [the Lord's] Presence in their living place, wherever it might be, and when.

And why? Well, both to prove to them how much he cares for them... that he cherishes them. And also to prove, by dwelling in their midst, that they are indeed his chosen people!

But, we should also take note of another important fact. And that is, that God dwells among his people so that they may point to his glorious presence among them, and call the nations to come and encounter the living God, who dwells among his people. Isn't that awesome! And what a great responsibility!

And so we see that as God enters among his people, he reveals something special about them. He has called them to be his people, and they exist as a people for the sake of his glory - to glorify him! As Keith and Kristyn Getty sing in one of their songs: "[It is] the glory of the Lord to be the light within our midst."

But, my brothers and sisters, we should note that what we see here in Exodus is not yet the complete fulfillment of what God's desires are for being present among his people! In the Exodus story, and indeed throughout the whole Old Testament, the deepest intimacy of divine presence was awaiting a further fulfillment!

We see this prophesied in Ezekiel 36:26-27, when God notes that his people's hearts are like stone, that sin keeps them from truly following him and truly being his people. So what does he tell them? He says that he will soften their hearts, and make them able to follow his way.

And how will he do that? ...well, not simply by dwelling among them, as he had been, but in a totally new way! Yes, God promises that he will do something new! And what is that... well he says there in Ezekiel 36:27, "I will put my spirit in you!"

This is what God's deepest longing is! To simply to dwell among his people, but in them!

My brothers and sisters... we do not need to wait for that! For that is what we have now!

Two-thousand twenty-three years ago, in the city of Jerusalem, something extraordinary happened. The Holy Spirit, whom Jesus, in Acts 1:4 calls "the gift my Father promised" descended upon Jesus' followers and entered into their hearts - as we see in Acts 2:4 "all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit."

That event in Jerusalem fulfilled what God had begun roughly 1400 years earlier in Exodus!

Perhaps you have thought... "If only I could see God visibly descend among us! How much easier it would be to believe in him... if only we could see his presence like the Israelites did." I know that I have had thoughts like that!

But my friends, consider this: we have something greater than the Israelites did! Not only does God dwell among use, he dwells within us! Yes God dwells within you and me. What Jesus' disciples experienced two-thousand twenty-three years ago, we also have! For, if you are a believer, the Holy Spirit dwells within you!

Paul reminds us of this reality in his First Letter to the Corinthians, when he writes: "Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God!" And in Romans 8:9 he says: "in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you!"

He hammers that point home in his Second Letter to the Corinthians when he writes, in Ch. 3, that we live in the time of "a new covenant... of the Spirit" who "gives life." And he continues to argue there that because in this new covenant, God dwells within his people, what we have is more glorious than what the old covenant could offer because it could not give life, precisely because God did not yet dwell within his people!

And so we can correctly say that we are a people who exist for the sake of God's glory in an even more special way... precisely because the Holy Spirit dwells within our hearts!

But my brothers and sisters, this is not something that we are meant to hold onto for ourselves! NO!

Just as God's presence among the Israelites in the Old Testament pressed upon them the honor and duty to invite all the nations to encounter the one, true, living God who was living in their midst. So even more do we have the duty to invite all people to come and encounter the living God who longs to dwell within their hearts!

We have a responsibility - a joy-full responsibility - to invite every person to come, and - in the words of Ps. 34, v. 8 - "taste and see that the Lord is good!"

My friends, as we consider this great mystery: that God's goal was always to dwell not only among, but within the hearts of his people, we ought to be both humbled and joy filled!

But this awesome reality should also cause us to carefully examine our hearts - for too many Christians have failed to acknowledge in their daily life the necessity of the Holy Spirit's presence and powerful working!

In a recent article, titled "Lessons from the Church in China," Julian Williams writes:

As we seek to worship and to preach the gospel, [we need to remember that] it is God alone who can transform a [person's] life. In our churches in the West, with so much emphasis put on presentation, new methods, and even being critical of what is familiar, we need to freshly realise as William Carey said, 'Without the Holy Spirit nothing effectual can be done anywhere, or under any circumstances?’

Yes, we may acknowledge the Holy Spirit and his work in a theological manner... reciting the Creeds and Confessions which speak about him. But do we acknowledge and experience our absolute dependence upon the Holy Spirit in our daily lives? Do we see his power at work in our personal lives and in our churches!? Or do we try to go about trying to live out our Christian way of life according to our own wisdom and our own strength?

Those are absolutely essential questions for us to be asking ourselves! We need to ask them, because if we notice that we cannot point out the Holy Spirit's power at work in both our individual lives and our life as a church, we need to get on our knees then, and ask him to pour himself afresh upon us!

Brothers and sisters, in the hallway - just outside of this sanctuary - there is a sign hanging out there. It says: "Pray for Revival!"

So, as we come to the end of this sermon, let me offer a final encouragement and challenge.

And it is this...

Currently, we are seeing the Holy Spirit moving across our country as revivals on college campuses are stirring up peoples consciences and hearts to acknowledge God... to acknowledge their need for God... to come to know him... and to share the gospel with those who do not yet know God!

These events ought to give us great hope! We are seeing in them that God is not silent... that he is still at work stirring up hearts. We are seeing that the Holy Spirit continues to reside in his people and that he is showing that in a particularly powerful way in our time.

Indeed let us pray for revival! And may it stir - not just elsewhere, but right here in the midst of our congregation as well!

Let us pray that the Holy Spirit stir our hearts to glorify God... to bear witness to God in both word and deed. And as he does so, we will see that God's ultimate purpose in the Exodus story is continuing to come to fruition in our day - throughout the world, including here in Allegan!

Yes, God has called us to be his people for the sake of his glory... so let us glorify him! And let us cry out boldly in prayer... come afresh O Holy One - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - revive our awareness of your indwelling presence, and make us into a people who glorify your name as you work powerfully in us and in the life of your church here and throughout the world! Amen!

⁜ Let us Pray ⁜