Exodus 40 Glory of the Lord
Sermon • Submitted
0 ratings
· 5 viewsNotes
Transcript
I don’t believe in God, but I miss him. Was a topic title on Reddit. that people could post about on Reddit, an online forum where people comment on different topics.
I don’t believe in God, but I miss him. Thousands of people, many of who were once believers, many Christians, who write longing of the time when they did believe. In it people talk about their experiences of God when they believed, of the hope they felt, the community, the sense of purpose, that they had when they did believe that they miss now.
Or the YouTube star Rhett McLaughlin, of Rhett and Link, who recently shared his de-conversion story. That is, he shared how he once believed and how he became an agnostic. As he talks he shares how he can't shake the reality that it feels right that the universe would be purposeful, that History is going somewhere. Even though he does not believe.
Maybe this is where some of you are today. Maybe you doubt more than you believe. Or maybe you believe and have doubts. Whatever the case, being a Christian in a secular age often means believing and doubting at the same time.
Maybe you believe in God, but often without thinking your default daily experience is of a naturalistic world where God is absent.
we behold him as someone who is so far away, and as someone who intervenes in our live on very rare occasions. Or in ways that are only private ways.
FCF: The presence of God seems so far away sometimes. And because of our secular age it seems like even believing in God can be difficult.
Even if we know that a purely naturalistic understanding of the world doesn't fully sit right, or feel adequate, still, it feels like the default is to make sense of everything in a naturalistic way.
It is not that you don’t believe in God, but only behold him as someone far away, and your experience of God is only rare, personal,and private.
That is, as if God is not present, and even if we believe in God, we behold him as someone who is so far away, and as someone who intervenes in our live on very rare occasions. Or in ways that are only private ways.
That is, as if God is not present, and even if we believe in God, we behold him as someone who is so far away, and as someone who intervenes in our live on very rare occasions. Or in ways that are only private ways.
In our passage this morning we are going to see is that God has manifested his presence in the tabernacle.
And that one of the ways that we move against the grain of our secular age with all its pressures and tension, is to behold the glory of the Lord.
Proposition: Because God manifested his presence we should behold his glory
Because God manifested his presence we should behold his glory
God manifested his presence in glory
God manifested his presence in glory
Look with me at verse 34
Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.
Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.
ex 40:34-
The tabernacle was completed and once it was completed the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.
The tabernacle was completed and once it was completed the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And as we see in the next few verses the glory of the Lord looks like a cloud by day and fire by night.
And as we see in the next few verses the glory of the Lord looks like a cloud by day and fire by night.
This was God’s way of inaugurating this new time for his people. That he would dwell with them in a special way in his tabernacle.
What is the glory of God?
Glory most literally heavy, and God’s glory is associated with brightness, splendor, and honor.
It is his visible presence with his people.
The cloud and fire is a particularly intense expression of the glory of God’s presence,
it is an intense expression of his universal glorious presence that he has with his people.
For his glory is not only in the cloud and fire,
but earlier in Exodus, we read that God’s glory was manifested in his victory over Egypt, the heavens declare the glory of God the psalmist says.
God manifests his glorious presence in extraordinary ways like the cloud and fire, as well as ordinary ways.
It is here his visible presence with his people. It is an intense expression of God’s presence, it is an intense
So Sara Frances and I have watched the first season and some of the second season of the show the crown.
And in the first season Elizabeth is crowned the queen of England.
And she is wearing this gold gown, has two scepters and this enormous crown is then placed on her head.
Her glory as queen is manifested for all to see.
Her coronation was a particularly intense expression of her royal glory.
But everywhere she goes even when she is not wearing her royal attire she has a weight to her, a kind of gravity that draws attention to her, because she is the queen.
So just because she is not wearing the crown, does not mean she is less glorious, her coronation was a particularly intense expression of her glory.
God’s presence in the tabernacle in a cloud and fire is his inaugural or coronation presence. It is an intense expression of his universal glory.
So what does this have to do with living in a secular age?
One of the things about living in a secular age as we do is that it is easy for our day to day experience to be flattened out.flatted out to a natural cause and effect, and God’s presence seems absent. In a flattened out world we lose our ability to behold the glory of God.
it is possible for us to imagine and we lose
everything is flatted out to cause and effect we lose our ablity to wonder at the glory of God.
our ablity to wonder at the glory of God.
Attentive to the glory of God
But photosynthesis tells us nothing about how we might
If we are not attuned to the glory of God’s presence in all creation, then all we will see the dull cause and effect world of a God who is absent, if he is real at all.
A strong indicator of whether or not we are attuned to the glory of God’s presence is boredom.
If you find that you are bored more often than not, or if you find that you are seeking to entertain yourself a lot,
it is a good indicator that you are not well attuned to the glory of God’s presence in the world.
If we behold the glory of God in all things, it means we experience all creation as a sacrament of God’s presence.
The thunderstorm, the washing machine, the fire of a dinner candle, can be signs of the presence of God if you are attuned to it.
The finch that sings outside your window in the morning sings not simply to find a mate but to awake the dawn, to glorify, with its song of praise, the risen son of God.
Their song is a resurrection song to the Lord of glory. For those who have hears to hear, let them hear.
And if you are attuned to the glory of God in all the world, it is hard to imagine the world without him.
Because God has manifested himself in glory we should behold his glory.
But we also see in our passage that
God manifested his presence in community
God manifested his presence in community
Look with me at verse 36
Throughout all their journeys, whenever the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the people of Israel would set out.
This glory cloud was seen by all the people, and whenever it moved they all saw it move, and they followed.
This was not a private religious experience. It was a communal reality, for all to see. It was not for a select few, or only for Moses, it was for all to see. It was something, they saw together, they understood together, and followed together. That God would manifest himself to them seemed plausible, because of the social fabric of their reality. They saw the glory of the Lord together.
We make sense of God and this world in community. And depending on what community we live in will be what impacts what we see as plausible. Our community shapes what we think could be real, or could be plausible.
Illustration:
Illustration:
When it comes to understanding reality sociologist have recognized that people in communities develop what is called plausibility structures.
That is there are certain things that fall within the realm of plausibility and things that could happen or could be true and things that could not happen, or could not be true.
So if I come home and see some cookies on my counter, I assume my wife purchased them. That seems plausible to me, it does not seem plausible that small tree-dwelling elves from the Keebler clan made them and delivered them to my house.
I don’t assume that small tree dwelling elves from the keebler clan made them and delivered them to my house. That is not plausible. That is I don’t really consider that to be an option.
I don’t consider that to be an option.
Now that is kind of extreme example, but take for example a story that I have seen pop up in the news a few times.
There were some Navy pilots who encountered an aircraft and they could not identify it.
So depending on your plausibility structure you will immediately have included some options for what this was, and excluded options for what this was.
And as they began to approach this object that looked like a tic-tac, the thing zoomed off, you can see the video of this.
The piolets who saw this thing, said that whatever it was, it was not “behaving within the normal laws of physics.”
Most people would not think it plausible that this was a time travel machine from the future.
But the reason it is in the news is that there are plenty of people that think that this thing could plausibly be....
Aliens,
It could also plausibly be some incredibly secret aircraft. O it could be some strange glitch in a computer system and the angle of seeing the object. Or a host of other things.
It could also plausibly be some incredibly secret aircraft. Or it is plausible it could be some strange glitch in a computer system and the pilots vantage point.
What forms our plausibility structure is the community we are immersed in.
Application:
We make sense of God and this world in community, not as isolated individuals because there is no such thing.
There is a big myth we beleive in western cultures like our own. And that is we tend to think that what we beieve has much more to do with our own individual choices than it does
There is a big myth we beleive in western cultures like our own. And that is we tend to think that what we beieve has much more to do with our own individual choices than it does
And depending on what community we live in will be what impacts what we see as plausible.
We make sense of God and this world in community. And depending on what community we live in will be what impacts what we see as plausible. Our community shapes what we think could be real, or could be plausible.
Our community shapes what we think could be real, or could be plausible.
Our community does not make God real or not real.
God is there. But community does shape our experience of his actions, and how we might interpret his actions.
If your primary community, that is the people you are closest to, do not imagine that experiencing the presence of God in a real way in a way that is not just in your head, is plausible.
But community does shape our experiences and expectations.
And often when I hear these de-conversion stories, the community the person is involved in plays a huge role.
You will find it harder to behold God’s presence in your life.
You will be more likely to interpret things from an exclusively naturalistic point of view.
A flat world where God is not involved.
In Western societies like ours often grossly over estimate our own individuality, thinking we have come to conclusions on our own,
and we fail to see the significant influence that our community has on us.
In our secular age, it is even more important that we are an intimate community. So that we perceive and make sense of God’s action in this world.
God has manifested himself to a people, so let us behold his glory together.
We are not isolated individuals.
We should also behold his glory
Because God manifested his presence in Christ
Because God manifested his presence in Christ
When the tabernacle was constructed the glory of God settled on it. This was an intense expression of his presence, it was an inauguration of sorts.
Once the Israelites entered the promised land the glory cloud left.
God had inaugurated his presence, the intense expression of his presence was no longer there, but his presence was there with them.
Then the tabernacle was replaced, it was replaced by the Temple, as God’s people were no longer moving about in a tent, so God’s presence with them became more fixed.
And when the Temple was completed, and The Lord inaugurated this new stage in the life of his people, and what happened, the Glory of the Lord filled the Temple.
The Lord was present, but the intense glory cloud did not stay there, for it was just the inauguration.
But it did nto s
Then the unthinkable happened, the Babylonians destroyed the temple, a foreign nations destroyed the dwelling place of God, and his people were taken into captivity.
But eventually, God freed his people, and brought them back to the promised land. And they gathered all the needed materials and rebuilt the temple.
Pentecost
And Israel all with bated breath watched and waited,
but the glory of the Lord did not show up. No cloud, no fire.
Then about 500 years later.
John chapter 1 verse 14
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.
The glory of the Lord manifested himself in Jesus. The next phase in God’s relationship with his people.
Jesus is new tabernacle, Jesus is the new temple.
And Jesus manifested glory is better than before, for he gives his glory away.
The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one,
Jesus gives his glory to his people, the church, the temple of God, the body of Christ.
For after Jesus ascended into heaven, the new Temple was inaugurated, and at this inauguration the glory of the Lord descended upon the temple:
fire from heaven descended on his new temple, the church, at Pentecost.
And fire decended
The glory of the Lord manifested in fire again, tongues of fire.
The presence of God now indwells his people through the Holy Spirit.
We don’t have tongues of fire over our heads this morning, but we have the same Spirit and the presence of God.
The glory of God in his people. And if we look at Jesus prayer again in
The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.
A restoration of
John
The glory of God is beheld in the unity of the church loving the world.
Illustration:
Application:
There is no new temple to inaugurate so we should not be looking for a glory cloud or fire. The glory of God is beheld in the face of one another.
In the bond and Spirit of love.
behold his glory in one another and loving one another in unity ()
The most effective remedy to all the pressures we feel in this secular age.
The most effective aid to our doubts is not an airtight argument or an attitude of “who knows.”
The most effective way to lean against the grain of our secular age: is love.
For we behold the glory of the Lord as we experience unity and love one another. There is no greater apologetic than the deep and abiding love of God settled on his people.
behold his glory in one another and loving one another in unity (John 17:22)
The Glory of the Lord has filled his new tabernacle, his new temple, his church.
So let us love one another, as God is love, and behold the glory of God.
You the fragility we feel in a secular age with everything being contested. All the pressures, and all the doubts, you know the most effect
For as we love one another,
