Friends with God

Friends With God Exodus 33:11–23 (NIV84) 11 The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend. Then Moses would return to the camp, but his young aide Joshua son of Nun did not leave the tent. 12 Moses said to the Lord, “You have been telling me, ‘Lead these people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. You have said, ‘I know you by name and you have found favour with me.’ 13 If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favour with you. Remember that this nation is your people.” 14 The Lord replied, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” 15 Then Moses said to him, “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. 16 How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?” 17 And the Lord said to Moses, “I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name.” 18 Then Moses said, “Now show me your glory.” 19 And the Lord said, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. 20 But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.” 21 Then the Lord said, “There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock. 22 When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. 23 Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen.” Friends, a lot has happened in the past 14 days since we have fellowshipped together: • 2 Sundays ago, Bert told us that Henny Maas has heard that there is no reprieve for her cancer. This week we will attend her funeral. • We will also have Kitty van der Vlist’s funeral to attend. • 2 Sundays ago, Bert welcomed Bob and Sarki back in church. Today we pray for Bob, who is in intensive care in Royal Hobart. • A friend of ours in Holland, Jan van der Eijk, heard last week that he has got less than six months to live. • The bushfires in NWS, QLD and SA, are still ongoing. Some say it is getting worse. • It seems as if the violence in Hong Kong has also gotten worse. • There is the ongoing Brexit saga in Britain with yet another election looming. • From America, we are bombarded with the impeachment inquisition. When we consider all these things that are happening around us, I sometimes wonder: How can a holy God dwell among sinful people? Friends, I think by nature we, as a rule, don’t look at complete pictures. We tend to hone in on snippets that interest us or apply to us. But we should look at the whole picture. Our Scripture reading only makes sense in its broader context. And the broader context includes Exodus 32 that tells the story of the golden calf that the people of Israel made in the wilderness while Moses was up on Mount Sinai receiving the Commandments from the Lord. “Up, make us gods!” said the people to Aaron. “As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” You see, they became impatient with God and Moses. They didn’t want an invisible God nobody could see and who only spoke through Moses. While Moses is on the mountaintop in the presence of the God who is really God — the God who revealed himself as I AM WHO I AM —the people down below are manufacturing gods for themselves – gods that suite their preferences. And the Lord said to Moses, “Go down; for your people … have made for themselves a molten calf, and have worshipped it and sacrificed to it, and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’ ” (Exodus 32:7–8) So, they demanded a crafted golden calf that everyone could see and worship! The Israelites wanted more of God, but their attempts to get more of God’s presence had the opposite effect. It had diminished His presence in their lives. And as a consequence, the Israelites were facing a life without God. There would be no divine presence in their camp — no tabernacle. So, Moses went down, and he found his people partying around their god. But the Lord had struck the people with a plague because of what they did with the calf Aaron had made. Exodus 32:35 (NIV84) It was a good news/bad news situation. The good news was that the Israelites were still going to the Promised Land, even after the great sin of the golden calf. The bad news was that God wasn’t going with them. “Go up to the land flowing with milk and honey,” he said. “But I will not go with you, because you are a stiff-necked people and I might destroy you on the way” (Exodus 33:3). It was just too dangerous. In his holiness, God might have to destroy the Israelites for their sin. When the people heard this, they cried tears of repentance and tore off the emblems of their worship. Then they waited to see what God would do. Would he stay with them, or would he send them off on their own? While the Israelites were waiting to find out, Moses went to meet with God. Now, in our Scripture reading, as before, Moses interceded on his behalf and that of the Israelites. He makes three requests. The first (verses 12-14) is, “Please be with me”. He says to the Lord, “Who is this angel? I don’t know who you’re sending. I don’t know what this means.” So, he makes a petition based on what God has already said. We see that in verse 12: “Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favour in my sight.’ If that is true, then may I have this favour in your sight?” Friends, it’s always a good idea to pray to God based on the things that He has already told us. We should come as Christians and say, “Lord, you have already told me that I have found favour in your sight for the sake of your son, Jesus Christ. You have chosen me, redeemed me, and purposed to be glorified in me.” Moses is praying as we ought to pray, based on the things that God has told him. In these verses, he uses the word “knowing” six times, and the phrase “finding favour in your sight” five times. In verse 13, he asks, “…please show me now your ways…” This is Moses’ way of saying, “Would you be with me?” We know God by knowing His ways, His laws, His statutes, and His Word. Knowing God is not a process of supernatural diffusion. You don’t just sit there and let things seep into your mind. No, it is to understand what God is like, what he has done, and what he commands. Moses says, “I want you to be with me. I want to know you. If I know you better, I know you are going to be with me. Tell me what you’re like. Tell me what you want and how to get there. Tell me what your statutes are. That’s what I want to know.” If you have no interest in knowing the laws of God, you have no interest in knowing God. If we’re not passionate about getting into our Bibles, it is because (among other things) we’re ultimately not that passionate about getting to know God. In his gracious response (verse 14), God says, “I will be with you, and I will give you rest. I grant your request.” It’s possible (even likely) that Jesus had this passage in his mind when he told the disciples, “Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Surely Moses was weary. Surely the thought of leading with a nondescript angel to the Promised Land made him feel burdened and heavy laden. But GOD says to him, “I hear you. My presence will go with you. When my presence is with you, that will be your rest.” Listen, there is no real and lasting rest apart from the knowledge that God is with you. That may be why some of you are so restless about your self, your family, and your career—with who you are and how you fit in. You don’t know that “My presence will be with you. I will be with you. I will go ahead, come alongside, and hem you in behind. Yes, Moses, I will answer your prayer and be with you.” It’s just like with a child. There are all sorts of scary things that a child has to face, but if that he knows, “Dad and Mom will be there. I’m going to go to this new place I’ve never been to, but Mom will be with me. Will Dad hold my hand across the street? Okay.” They’re still scared and unsure. It’s always hard. It doesn’t make all that go away, but they think, “Okay, I can do that. I can go somewhere that I haven’t been before if I know that they will be with me.” “Please be with me” is the first request, but Moses wants more. We already get hints of it at the end of verse 13: “Consider too that this nation is your people.” He’s asking for himself at this point: “How do I know who’s going to go with me?” And God says, “My presence will be with you, Moses. I will give you rest.” Now he’s hinting at, “Okay, but what about the nation?” Here’s his second request: “Please be with us!” Let’s talk about us. Notice the change in some of the language here in verse 16: “How shall it be known that I have found favour in your sight, I and your people? Is it not in your going with us so that we are distinct, I and your people…” Moses is saying, “Okay, I’ve been so bold as to ask that you would be with me, but now I have a second request: Would you not only be with me, but with this nation?” Have you ever noticed verse 16? This strikes me as one of those verses tucked away in the Bible that we don’t think much about, yet we could meditate on it all day. It’s astounding: “Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct”? What a fantastic thing for Moses to say! What distinguished Israel from the other nations? Their land? They had none. Their pedigree? They were recently enslaved! Their obedience and righteousness? Hardly! What set them apart was not what they had, where they were from, or what they looked like, but who was with them. That’s the covenant promise: “I will be a God to you and your children after you. I will be your God, and you will be my people.” I wonder how many of us could say, “This is what makes us distinct. This is why we go out into the world. This is the reason we hold our heads up high. This is the reason we feel like we’re somebody”? “Is this not what makes us distinct,” Moses said, “that you are with us? That you are God, who knows us and loves us, and that we are your people?” We all want to feel special in some way. Here, Moses hits upon the one thing that genuinely makes God’s people distinct. This is their “You are special” plate: God is with them. God, God, is our God. “Be with me,” Moses says, “and not only that, be with us! You said we were a holy people and priesthood, but we’re none of that if you’re not with us. If you send an angel, we’re nothing but good-looking Jebusites.” Many of us would settle for that. “We’re happy just to be good looking Hittites — just nice, moral, decent people. God gives us a few things. He gets us where we want to go and keeps us out of trouble.” But Moses knows better. He says, “No, that doesn’t make us special at all. We’re not looking to look like anybody else. The one thing above all things that makes us different is that you’re with us. You’re our God.” So, he’s bold enough now to make a final request (verse 18): “Please show me your glory.” You might think, “Well, Moses has seen plenty of the Lord’s glory.” And he has! From the staff to the snake, to the Red Sea, to the plagues, to the burning bush, he has seen more glory than anybody else, but he wants a fuller picture. He wants face-to-face glory. He wants as much as he can handle. He wants more than a lightning bolt or another cloud. He wants to see God as he talks to God: face-to-face. Of course, he cannot get a full-on sight of God in His glory. What can we compare it with? Maybe with looking into the sun. You may be able to see and feel the rays of the sun—you may be able to stare intently at the shadow cast by the sun—but it’s not a good idea to stare directly at that bright sun for as long as you can. To do that will do damage to your eyesight. Yes, you can know the sun. And it is also true that you can feel the sun as it irradiates you. But you can’t stare into the sun and keep your eyesight. So, it is with God and with his glory. So, God says, “I’ll let you see my back as I pass by.” We don’t know what this means. He may be using a figure of speech, saying, “You won’t see my face.” In this case, though, it probably means that Moses didn’t see anything physical. It’s not like he saw a giant man with a broad back passing by. It says, “No, you can’t see me face-to-face, but I’ll hide you in the cleft of the rock, and something of my glory will be clear to you.” What does Moses see? Well, Moses sees by hearing. The Lord shows his goodness by speaking two things. Notice what God says in verse 19: “I will proclaim before you my name, Yahweh.” To say the divine name in his presence is to give something of the backside of his glory. Then there’s a declaration of his character in verse 19. “And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.” The God who makes himself known, the God who is there, is fundamentally a God of sovereign grace. We’ll get a second, related statement in Exodus 34, which also talks about God’s lovingkindness and grace. But here, where Moses wants to see his glory, God says, “Well, you can’t see it, but you’ll get some of the afterburners of my glory.” And what does He do? He says His name, and He makes a declaration of His sovereign grace. “You want to know My glory? Let Me tell you about My freedom and mercy.” God’s sovereignty—His free decision to show undeserved mercy to whom He will—is not merely a reformed doctrine. It’s not a minor point. It’s essential for describing and defining what it means for God to be God. The freedom of God to hand out mercy to whomever He pleases, apart from any constraint outside of His own will, is the essence of what it means for God to be God. Many blessings come from knowing God: • There is the blessing of repentance, of being able to see our sin and turn away from it. • There is the blessing of forgiveness, of receiving a pardon for all our sin. • There is the blessing of justification, of being declared righteous in God’s sight. • There is the blessing of sanctification, of growing in godliness. • There is the blessing of adoption, of having all the rights and privileges of a child of God. • There is the blessing of perseverance, of staying with God to the very end. • There is the blessing of glorification, of having the unrestricted gift of eternal life. The blessings go on and on forever, but the most significant benefit is God Himself. Knowing Him is better than anything else we can imagine. We should not focus so much on what He does for us that we neglect who He is to us. How blessed it is to have a personal relationship with the living God. How wonderful it is to meditate on His many perfections—His infinite wisdom, power, holiness, goodness, and love. How privileged it is to know Him as one God in three Persons. How honoured we are to understand the Father as Creator, the Son as Redeemer, and the Spirit as Sustainer of life. This is what it means to be GOD! For God to be God, he must be merciful and sovereign. Both of those teach us something indispensable about God: namely, that he is gracious, and his grace is unquestionably free. That’s the glory and goodness of God. Some of us struggle and think, “How can God be categorically good?” Isn’t that what the Lord said in Exodus 33? “I will cause my goodness…” Have you connected God’s goodness with Paul’s doctrine of sovereignty and election before? In God’s mind, “I’m telling you how good I am because I show mercy according to my own freedom and after the council of my own will. Were it some other way. These undeserving people would not know mercy and grace.” This God of glory, goodness, and grace would now go with Moses and be with this sinful people, though they did not deserve it. He will show mercy on whom he will show mercy. Do you see how this is the heart of the gospel? Immanuel, God with us, is not any old God. You have an amazingly transcendent, sovereign God with you. Nothing is impressive about a little God going with you. It’s nice to have a friend on the way. But that’s not what I’m saying. We can understand how there might be some amazing, transcendent God of the universe way up there and out there, but the great mystery, majesty, and good news of the Christian faith is that this sovereignly graceful God draws near to be with us sinful people. The news gets even better because some people did see Him face-to-face. For a time, He made his tabernacle and dwelt among us, and he will come back: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” GOD said to Moses, “You cannot see me. I’ll hide you in the cleft of the rock, and you’ll get the afterburner of my glory. One day, though, I’ll dwell amid these sinful people, and you’ll be able to look face-to-face upon of all of my goodness and glory in the person of my Son. Friends, for those who will attend funerals this week the excellent news is that anyone who is friends with God through faith in Jesus Christ is known and loved by the God who rules the universe unto eternity. The merits of their mediator saved the Israelites. The grace and love that God elected to show to Moses also extended to them. God did this so that we would understand the actual basis for our salvation. We cannot be saved by what we have done. No one can. We are too sinful to merit salvation. So how can we be saved? Our salvation depends on the pleasure God takes in our mediator. Our salvation rests on the delight that God takes in the person of his Son and our Saviour, Jesus Christ. This is why the Father’s words about the Son were so meaningful. When Jesus came up from his baptism, a voice from Heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with Him, I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17). This is very nearly what God said to Moses: “I am pleased with you and I know you.” When he said this, the Father was doing more than merely identifying Jesus as his Son. He was expressing his pleasure in the Son as the acceptable mediator of our salvation. These were more than just words. The Father confirmed his delight in the Son by raising Him from the dead. The resurrection proved that God was pleased with the perfect life and the atoning death that Jesus offered for sinners. Jesus is our Mediator. He does for us what Moses did for Israel, only more perfectly: He prays for our salvation based on His standing before God. He asks God to accept us not because we’re acceptable (we’re not), but because He is. Jesus says to his Father, “If you are pleased with me, then save my people.” And the Father is pleased with Jesus. He has said it in his Word, and he has proved it by the resurrection. So, He says to Jesus, “I will do the very thing that you have asked. Because I am pleased with you, I will save everyone who trusts in you. O my beloved Son, I will be as pleased with them as I am with you.” What we need as a church, in the months and years ahead, more than anything else, is what has already been promised: that the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ will be with you, and will never leave you or forsake you. You need to know the God who makes himself known. He is the God of sovereign grace, and you need to know that he is right here with you. He can bring you all the way to the Promised Land. He will be your God as we are his people. Amen.