Moving In

Moving In Exodus 25-40 Intro Moving Day The Advisory Board will vote on the following fake resolution: “All Pastor’s of the Next Step Christian Church must live in another church member’s basement.” And, thank you very much, you have just volunteered your home to be our home. Dusty and his family are moving in. Now we take up a lot of space, so you’re going to have to make some serious room. Some shared space where we hang out together, but we need some personal space too. Maybe you need to build an addition onto your house. We are going to need furniture, and food, and clothing. We are moving in. Get ready… for the indwelling Presence of the Mackintosh’s. That’d be some great reality tv. I’d watch it… but I wouldn’t want to live it. If this was the “Next Step” in your life, you would be rightly terrified, and you would have 10,000 things to do to get ready. Where is he going with this? Be patient! We want “more of the presence of God.” We sing songs like this “We are hungry for more of you, we want more of you.” We are in effect, asking God to “move in” to our lives. What a recklessly dangerous prayer! You think the Mackintosh’s moving in is disruptive and life-altering? Wherever you are in your walk with God, in your “Christian maturity”, you are asking for “more” of an infinite, holy, perfect incorporeal being to invade more of your life, to intersect more of your life. This can be a scary thing, an intimidating thing, a terrifying thing, even. We look at everything we are “supposed to be.” A dwelling place, a tabernacle, a temple of God, the dwelling of the Holy Spirit, Perfect as He is Perfect, salt to the world, light on a hill. Ready… go be that now! Well, we don’t do this all at once, this is a lifetime journey, and God leads us one step at a time. In fact, this is our mission statement, to encourage and equip one another in taking these “Next Steps” with God. There are Next Steps that we barely notice we are taking, little baby steps… and there are Next Steps that feel like climbing a mountain. But it is always a step into the somewhat unknown, and taking a Next Step with God can still be terrifying. Now the people of Israel, starting in Exodus 25, are called to take one GIGANTIC next step. God is moving in. And over the last 14 chapters of Exodus, we are going to dwell on this idea of the Presence of God. The dwelling Presence of God. As God moves in to the midst of His people, this takes on such a practical shape. God is literally making furniture, He is literally designing His living quarters. So we are going to watch, week-by-week, for the next few weeks, how God goes about moving in with His people. The People of Israel In Exodus 25-40, God is moving in. This whole process is driven by God. It is something He wants. The people have now committed themselves in covenant with God, they are washed in the blood, they have had the fellowship meal, now God is preparing the Next Step: he is going to dwell in their midst. So he gives them a ridiculous ton of instructions. Like, put you to sleep, detailed instructions. Now there is a lot of detail to study here, measurements, and you can make graphs and tease out interesting historical details… but let’s not pretend that reading most of this isn’t boring. It’s a bit boring. I don’t read instruction manuals for entertainment. I read them if I’m the one putting something together. God gives detail upon detail for three major things: The Ark of the Covenant, the Tabernacle, and the Priesthood. We will talk about each of those in the coming weeks. There is a major hiccup between God giving the instructions on how to build and then the people actually building, we are going to dwell on that too, but then there is as much detail about how they built everything as there was in the instruction to build. A little bit boring. But the result of all of this, the outcome, is anything but boring. So God is preparing and commanding the next step into the With-God Life. God is moving in. And this could be incredibly intimidating. It probably was! I picture Moses frantically taking notes… for 40 days. So many cubits of cloth, this length and depth, and make the loops for the curtains like this, cut the priest’s robes this way and craft this lampstand like this… But there were things that could have easily been quick deal-breakers here. Two things come to mind, and these would apply to me if God told me to do all of this tomorrow. Materials God, I hate to break it to you, but I have no Acacia wood. None. I have no gold, maybe I could melt some silverware. I have no fine linens, I have sheets from Target. I am especially short on sea-cow skins. I have zero of those. And these guys are in the middle of the Sinai wilderness. No stores, no merchants, no sea cows. But God just says, take up a collection… and this sounds crazy, it’s going to be all voluntary. Because, remember when you left Egypt fleeing slavery… and I had the Egyptians load you up with gold and jewels and pottery and fine linens? And you fled into the wilderness having plundered the Egyptians. One might have wondered, what am I going to do with all this sweet loot in the middle of the wilderness. But even in the madcap, drama-filled plague-ridden Exit from Egypt… God was making his moving preparations. Yahweh was moving in. And… He equipped the people of Israel then with the material wealth they would need later to participate in preparing His place. And it ended up like this: Exodus 35:20-22 20 Then the whole Israelite community withdrew from Moses’ presence, 21 and everyone who was willing and whose heart moved them came and brought an offering to the Lord for the work on the tent of meeting, for all its service, and for the sacred garments. 22 All who were willing, men and women alike, came and brought gold jewelry of all kinds: brooches, earrings, rings and ornaments. They all presented their gold as a wave offering to the Lord. And the offerings go on and on and on. And God didn’t even command it, just as people’s hearts responded and they found that God had provided in such plenty that they had it to give abundantly. And then, this is so cool, they keep bringing and bringing and Exodus 36:6-7 6 Then Moses gave an order and they sent this word throughout the camp: “No man or woman is to make anything else as an offering for the sanctuary.” And so the people were restrained from bringing more, 7 because what they already had was more than enough to do all the work. God equipped the people of Israel then with the material wealth they would need later to participate in preparing His place. Artistry Okay, now I have all the stuff I need, God prepared me way before. I have another problem with following all of God’s instructions. I have no skills. I have some skills, maybe, but not enough skills. If I were making the tabernacle it would end up like a Living Room Fort. It is functional, there is an inside and an outside, but it is a 100 different things kind of leaning together, some binder clips in there, and a broomstick holding up the middle. And this is not an on-the-job learning kind of a thing. Oops, sorry I messed up the gold and onyx thingy. Looks more like a badger than a lampstand. Got any more of that gold around for my next try? Well, while God is in the business of moving preparations, wouldn’t it be cool if he had already prepared someone with the skills and the artistry, with the knowledge and ability to craft all of these? Exodus 31:1-6 1 Then the Lord said to Moses, 2 “See, I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, 3 and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills— 4 to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, 5 to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of crafts. 6 Moreover, I have appointed Oholiab son of Ahisamak, of the tribe of Dan, to help him. Also I have given ability to all the skilled workers to make everything I have commanded you This is the very first person in all the Bible to be said to be “filled with the Spirit of God.” And it’s not Abraham or Isaac, it isn’t even Moses. It is a person God prepared to be His artist, His craftsmen, His shaping hands. He is the guy building God’s house and furniture, and God also prepared His construction team, all the skilled workers. We got to follow Moses’ story in detail… probably because Moses is writing the book. You ever read a book series, and then you get to reread the story from another character’s perspective? I would love to hear the story of Bezalel. His life growing up as a slave in Egypt… but very probably learning the craft and skills, perfecting his skills under persecution and lash, to be freed by the hand of Yahweh. And when it came to the time for Yahweh to move in and dwell among His people… Being called by name. Bezalel, I have prepared you. And I have filled you with my Spirit. And you are going to put all of those brutally hard-won skills to work, and your work is going to glorify my Name for generations. Bezalel. Oholiab, not too shabby either. Again in Exodus 35, when it comes time to actually make the stuff, God repeats their names, and says again “he is filled with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills…” And then in the following chapters “And He made, and he made, and they made, and he made, he crafted.” “And it was all done just as Yahweh had commanded.” God was moving in. How old was Bezalel? Not zero years old. God had begun his moving preparations with the birth of Bezalel and his team, He ensured that Bezalel learned the skills, the craft, the artistry. God equipped the people of Israel then with the skills and artistry they would need later to participate in preparing His place. At the Earliest Opportunity God was moving in. And God prepared the material stuff at the earliest chance. Couldn’t give it earlier, they were slaves then. Just as they were leaving Egypt, but weeks before they needed it. And God prepared the people with the gifts and skills years before, probably decades before. In the middle of their persecution and suffering, God was preparing to move in. God was preparing the next step before they knew there was a next step. Before they knew His name, before they were engaged in new covenant, God was preparing the furniture and hiring the contractors for the home. God was preparing the next step before they knew there was a next step. God is Moving into You God is moving into You. Now there are a lot of reasons to come to church, but maybe one of your reasons, maybe even your main reasons, is to “get closer to God.” Get closer to God. What does that mean? For the Israelites that was insanely practical. In these next several weeks, as we look closer at God’s Moving Preparations, we will unpack a lot of what this meant for them, and what it looks like for us. God says that we are His temple. That I am His temple, that “we” collectively are His temple. His tabernacle. His holy dwelling. God wants to move in. We think about getting “closer to God” like we are climbing a ladder, but God is driving this process, and God describes it like He is inhabiting us, dwelling with us, living in us, walking with us. And we can see the life-long process of discipleship as God preparing, furnishing, upgrading His dwelling place within us. Making space in our lives for God. And that has the potential to be scary or intimidating. We may not know what to do. Or we may hear an instruction from God… and be terrified. Like we have an idea for improving our house… but we have no idea how to go about doing it! I don’t have the resources to do that! I don’t have the skills or artistry, the maturity, the knowledge, the wisdom, I don’t have what it takes. God wants to move in. God wants you to take the Next Steps into Christian maturity, and He wants to show you what those next steps are… but here is the coolest thing: God was preparing the next step before you knew there was a next step. That is comforting. Encouraging. It doesn’t mean it will be easy, it will probably take a whole lot of courage and strength and discipline and all of that. But God has provided everything we need to make our lives, our minds, our hearts, ourselves, a dwelling place for Him. God is Moving in at Next Step This applies beyond the personal level. God is moving into Next Step church. He is moving into our sphere of influence: Thornton, and Northglenn, Westminster, Broomfield, Longmont. (Not Lyons, though, too far). God has our Next Step planned out. And He started preparing our Next Step years ago. We are constantly discovering that the successes and the failures of ministry we have now are seeds of the next ministry. We can step forward with courage, even into the unknown, knowing that God has been preparing the way. God is moving in.