Presence and Rest

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Moses pleads with God (CEB)

Moses said to the Lord, “Look, you’ve been telling me, ‘Lead these people forward.’ But you haven’t told me whom you will send with me. Yet you’ve assured me, ‘I know you by name and think highly of you.’ Now if you do think highly of me, show me your ways so that I may know you and so that you may really approve of me. Remember too that this nation is your people.”

The Lord replied, “I’ll go myself, and I’ll help you.”

Moses replied, “If you won’t go yourself, don’t make us leave here. Because how will anyone know that we have your special approval, both I and your people, unless you go with us? Only that distinguishes us, me and your people, from every other people on the earth.”

The Lord said to Moses, “I’ll do exactly what you’ve asked because you have my special approval, and I know you by name.”

Moses said, “Please show me your glorious presence.”

The Lord said, “I’ll make all my goodness pass in front of you, and I’ll proclaim before you the name, ‘The Lord.’ I will be kind to whomever I wish to be kind, and I will have compassion to whomever I wish to be compassionate. But,” the Lord said, “you can’t see my face because no one can see me and live.”The Lord said, “Here is a place near me where you will stand beside the rock. As my glorious presence passes by, I’ll set you in a gap in the rock, and I’ll cover you with my hand until I’ve passed by. Then I’ll take away my hand, and you will see my back, but my face won’t be visible.”

Introduction: Meet Spud

There is someone I’d like you to meet this morning:

This is Spud.

When I was in high school, I was in our church’s traveling praise band.

One time when we were out on a “tour,” we stopped and had lunch at a King’s Resturaunt, and I played the claw game in the corner.

I “won” this little guy for 50 cents, and we had this deep division in the band about what animal we are looking at here.

Mouse?

Lion?

Bear?

From then on out, wherever we went, Spud was in the van with us.

Spud loves to travel.

When I graduated high school, Spud came with me to college.

While I was in college, Sarah had an opportunity to go to London for a school trip.

Since Spud loves to travel, I thought it would be great for Spud to go to London with Sarah.

So we have a bunch of pictures of Spud in front of Big Ben, and waiting in line to see the Queen, and all of that.

But as Sarah was flying home, she realized that Spud wasn’t with her. Spud was back in the hotel in London.

She came home and confessed to leaving Spud, but not until after she begged and pleaded with her parents, who spent WAY more than 50 cents having Spud shipped across the ocean.

This guy REALLY loves to travel. He’s been halfway around the world all by himself!

What’s really weird is that now, the boys have really taken a liking to Spud.

You can see at this point he’s all kinds of torn up, sewn back together where we can.

But still, it my eyes get a little sweaty when I look in the backseat of the car on a trip to grandmas house and see one of the boys snuggled up with Spud.

Isn’t it amazing what a little bit of a comforting presence can do for you?

Scripture

The Set Up

Moses is the leader of the people of Israel, and things have been going really well for a little while.

They finally got Pharoah to let them go.

Pharoah changed his mind, but God split the Red Sea right in front of them, allowing Charelton Heston to lead his people to victory.

They came to Mount Sinai, and Moses heads up the mountain to meet with God accompanied by a spectacular pyrotechnic display!

And then…things stop going well.

There’s this comedy of a golden calf, where the people get tired of waiting on Moses, so they make their own god.

(Side question: How long was he up there? Versus how impatient were these people?)

Moses comes down and freaks out at Aaron, who he left in charge, and Aaron suggests that it wasn’t really his fault, he just took all the gold the people gave him and threw it in a furnace and then magically this fully formed and shaped calf came out.

Parents, have you ever heard a better excuse from one of your kids? That’s some grade A work right there...

Weary

So when we come to our story, Moses is a little bit worn out of being the leader.

He’s kind of miffed at God!

By the way, this is a totally reasonable response sometimes in life, isn’t it?

He starts arguing with God “You said to lead and that I was your guy, but you haven’t exactly made me feel great about that.”

And he tags on this little dig at God “You know that these are your people, right?”

Truth be told, I think it’s vitally important to recognize just how many of the heroes of the Bible get tired, weary, worn out, and beat down.

Moses is exhausted in this story.

David gets run down and worn out all the time when he’s on the run from King Solomon.

We have stories in the Gospel that show Jesus hungry, lonely, betrayed, angry, and tired enough to sleep through a storm.

I don’t know if anyone in this room in particular needs to hear this, but getting worn out is part of the human experience.

It’s normal.

It’s natural.

It’s ok.

It’s miserable to go through, but no one should ever beat themselves up over needed a moment or two to rest.

Moses Request

What do you most need when you are weary?

Nap time?

Snacks?

TV?

A babysitter?

Moses knows exactly what he wants.

God, go with us.

In fact, this is going to make us different from every other people in the world.

They may pray to their god.

They may think about their god.

They may have legends and victory stories about their god.

But our God. Our God goes with us.

We have our God’s presence.

I think Moses knows this is what he wants because he knows what kind of ills this can cure.

The Junior Year Epidemic.

A few years ago my youth ministry co-workers and I noticed a pattern.

We had a student leadership team, and one year all of the juniors came to us and said that they didn’t feel God’s presence with them any more.

They did the same things they had always done, and they still loved God, but they just weren’t connecting with God the way that they used to.

Eventually we worked through it with each of them, but it was each and every junior on our leadership team.