Closer Week 1 (2)

Pastoral Welcome

Welcome to Faith Chapel this morning. I’m Pastor Lewis one of the Pastors at Ankeny First.

Call to Worship

The goodness of the Lord passes before us;

The name of the Holy One is proclaimed for all to hear.

God is gracious and merciful to whomever God chooses;

Show us your glory, O Lord, we pray!  

Pastoral Prayer

God, Help us to know You more and to love You better. We pray that we may learn to spend more time simply sitting at Your feet, listening to Your Word and communing with You in Your presence.

We pray that You will capture my heart, and ignite our imagination, teach us Your ways and draw us ever closer to You, so that we may learn more of You and the eternal truths of Your precious Word.

Lord in your Mercy; Hear Our Prayer

We come to you in need today.

We are hurting physically

and we need your healing touch on our bodies.

We are hurting emotionally

and we need your special presence and comfort

as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death.

We are hurting spiritually

as we suffer through a long, dark night of the soul,

and we need your light to guide us out.

We are hurting relationally

and we need your wisdom to guide us to know how to forgive

Lord in your Mercy; Hear Our Prayer

Lord God we lift us the many people who lead us through life

Bless our leaders who have big responsibilities to carry:

· the leaders of our city, our state, and our country

· the leaders of the churches,

· the leaders of our congregation

Lord in your Mercy; Hear Our Prayer

God we lift up those that feel distant from you

Distant from your body the church

Distant from a relationship with you

Distant from the love that you have for them

God would they be known by you, they might be transformed by your love

Lord in your Mercy; Hear Our Prayer

God we confess of the sins that have separated us from you

We confess of the things that we know that we do

but God we also confess of the ways that we hurt people and we weren’t even aware of it. Oh God we stand in awe of your grace that we don’t deserve and certainly couldn’t earn.

Lord in your Mercy; Hear Our Prayer

Lord in this moment of closeness with you and with each other.

Give us a child-like anticipation and joy of coming into Your presence each day, an ever deepening awareness of the future inheritance that you have prepared for us in heaven that will never fade or spoil. Give us a closer walk with You we pray, and may my daily fellowship with You become my dearest priority in life. We pray all of this in the name of the one who has taught us to pray by saying:

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power, and the glory, forever and ever.

Amen.

WCR

Offering Talk

Sermon Intro

If you are anything like me over the last year there are certain words that you are just sick hearing. And it doesn’t mean that their not important, it doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t take them seriously, but there are some words and phrases that if you are like me just make sigh a little bit.

Trying Times

Pandemic

Crises

Public Health

But probably the term that I cringe the most at and again this isn’t saying this isn’t important. But the term that cringe the most at do you know what it is? .....distance

Distance has become almost like a dirty for me

I’m sick of distance I don’t want to be distant any more

Even when I first heard the term social distancing there was just some grief that had. Maybe physically distancing but not socially distancing.

Throughout the last year this has been true.

Going to the grocery scared to even look anyone in the eyes because of fear that I would get in a conversation with them

The first times after pandemic that I saw people that were really meaningful to me

There were friends that I knew that I didn’t have an opportunity to connect with for an entire year that I saw and we had to learn once again how to be close to each other

This past year has changed how I understand relationships

In-person vulnerability is a challenge

Being close is a challenge

Being distant feels comfortable

I’ve forgotten how to be close to people and I’m just talking about physical closeness

Our ability to be close with each other has shifted

Our ability to be closer to God might have shifted

We understand our relationship with God in light of the relationships that we have with others

Have we let our relationship with God become distant?

Perhaps have we ever experienced closeness with God?

Scripture

We were made in the image of God

The trinitarian God made us in the image of community

We are told throughout scripture “I will be their God and they will be my people”

Scripture Context

Moses (with God’s help) is leading the people out of slavery in Egypt and into the promised land

The pillar of cloud lead them by day and a pillar of fire by night

Moses was leading the people through the dessert

Moses leaves to go receive the 10 commandments

When he is gone the people make the Golden Calf

When he returns he obviously gets mad about this, but even more than getting mad he goes back to the tent of meeting to talk to God about this.

Exodus 33:7–16 NRSV

7 Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, far off from the camp; he called it the tent of meeting. And everyone who sought the Lord would go out to the tent of meeting, which was outside the camp. 8 Whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people would rise and stand, each of them, at the entrance of their tents and watch Moses until he had gone into the tent. 9 When Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent, and the Lord would speak with Moses. 10 When all the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance of the tent, all the people would rise and bow down, all of them, at the entrance of their tent. 11 Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend. Then he would return to the camp; but his young assistant, Joshua son of Nun, would not leave the tent. 12 Moses said to the Lord, “See, you have said to me, ‘Bring up this people’; but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’ 13 Now if I have found favor in your sight, show me your ways, so that I may know you and find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people.” 14 He said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” 15 And he said to him, “If your presence will not go, do not carry us up from here. 16 For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people, unless you go with us? In this way, we shall be distinct, I and your people, from every people on the face of the earth.”

When We are seeking Distance God is Seeking Closeness

God wants to be close to us - Sentence this week

How crazy is it that God has absolutely every reason to be far from us and doesn't

God is like the coolest kid in school times 1,000 and yet sits at our lunch table

There is an emphasis through Moses’ to know God

Do you know God? that might be a question that you have asked

God help me to know you

I want to know you I want know your ways

God later in the passage hints that you won’t be able to understand me, he even says to Moses you won’t even be able to look at me

When we push away from God God seeks closeness with us, but it’s not so that we would God more

The point is not that we would know more about God and that God would know more about us, that’s how a lot of relationships work.

It is not that we would know, but that we would be fully known.

In God’s pressence We Are Fully Known

Exodus 33:17 NRSV

17 The Lord said to Moses, “I will do the very thing that you have asked; for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.”

In our desire for closeness with each other even the best of friendship, even best of marriages pail in comparison to the connection that is offered in being known by God

There are many people in my life that I would say “it’s good to see you” and hear back the response “it’s good to be seen”

In our spiritual lives, it is good to be seen by God, and if we let it, that is enough for our spirits

When Moses walks into this tent he is trying to know God, but yet instead of knowing God or knowing more about God, Moses walks out being known by God

We are able to sense someone else’s closeness to us when we realize

We All Need Meeting Tent Experiences

God is accessible to us

We are able to meet with God in a personal way.

Before we even get in the next week into the weeds of our response I just hope that this week you hear that God is already in pursuit of you

Even if God’s pressence has not been made know to you quite like Moses’ story through a cloud and through a specific meeting tent.

Maybe your meeting tent experience is your devotional time

Maybe you have a particular place that you have sensed as holy or sacred where you go to meet God

We all need meeting tent experiences with God

We need to understand the closeness that God offers us through those moments of connection

What holds the people back

Fear

Their Golden Calf

The belief that was for other people

Closing

If you heard nothing else this week know that God wants to be close to you.

That God’s pressence is accessible to us

That the tent meeting time that we set aside where it is just us and God transforms us by God’s Grace.

It is in spending time with God that we are fully known