IF GOD IS NOT WITH US

TEXT: Exodus 33:12-23

INTRODUCTION: Have you ever seen little children who were reluctant to try a new adventure unless they were assured that their mom or dad would go with them?  At the State Fair, or at the amusement parks, there are little ones pleading with their parents to go with them on the rides.  They want to go, but only on the condition that they have the security of knowing that someone they trust is by their side.

    That does not change even into adolescence as you see high school students agreeing to talk to that cute girl or guy only if their friends go with them.  In fact, most of our lives we prefer to boost our confidence by having someone along with us when there is a new challenge or adventure.

    Moses and the Israelites had been commanded by God to depart from Sinai and go up to the land He had prepared for them.  However, Moses knew that apart from the accompanying presence of the Lord God Almighty, there was no chance for their success.  Therefore, He prayed with zeal, fervor, passion, for the Lord to consent to go with them...or they simply would not go.

    How much trouble would we avoid and how much great delight would life bring our way if we determined as Moses did that we would do nothing until we had prayed for God’s abiding presence to go with us in what we were about to do.  Furthermore, if we would pray until we knew which way to go and until we were assured of His assent, our lives would be joyful witnesses to the power of prayer and the peace of His presence!

    Prayer is God’s plan for communicating with us, dialoguing with us about the things He has spoken about in His word.  Does your walk of faith depend upon an active prayer life, or are you content to go on without the assurance of His presence that prayer can bring?

I.           WHEN WE RECOGNIZE THAT REBELLION OFFENDS THE LORD, WE WILL GUARD AGAINST DOING ANYTHING THAT ALIENATES HIM.

--What happens when we abandon our pursuit of the Lord?

--When we get out of practice and allow our prayer life to slip, what can we expect to happen to our relationship with the Lord?

A.        We Forget Him Exodus 32:1  

1.      When Moses, their spiritual leader, was gone for a while, they forgot what he had taught them and reverted back to old ways of thinking.

2.      They wanted to maintain some vestiges of religious practice, but did not really have any interest in loyalty to the God who had freed them from bondage and who would save them from sin.

3.      When we go for a period of time without interacting with the Lord, we forget what we once knew of Him and follow our own way.

B.        We Forsake Him

1.      Sensing that religion was an important element in their national and family heritage, the Israelites came to Aaron with a request that he make a god that they could manage themselves.

2.      The God of Moses was too “high maintenance” and demanded more than they were interested in investing at a personal level.

3.      The result was a golden calf molded from some of the gold jewelry of the people...and their blasphemy came through in the honest proclamation made by Aaron:  “This is your god, O Israel...” to which he added the lie, “...who brought you up from the land of Egypt.” (Exodus 32:4)

a)      Give us a god we can control

b)      Give us a god who causes no fear

c)      Give us a god who lets us ignore him

d)      Give us a god who requires no struggles in prayer

C.        When we forget and forsake Him,

1.      We alienate the Lord and push Him away by our neglect

2.      Offend Him by our indifference

3.      Anger Him by our rebellious independent ways.

II.         WHEN WE REMEMBER THAT PRAYER ENGAGES THE LORD, WE WILL ALWAYS TAKE all OUR REQUESTS TO HIM.

A.        Moses was a man of prayer in a way that most of us will never understand.

1.      The model of his praying obviously had little impact on the rest of the Israelites but by the grace of the Lord, his praying was sufficient reason for God to spare the people from destruction.

2.      What we discover in the life of Moses is that his praying was not a mystical meditation but a dynamic engagement in active conversation with the Lord God Almighty!

B.        Finding Favor With the Lord

1.      The kind of prayer life demonstrated by Moses was not generated in this moment of crisis but cultivated over a lifetime of calling on the Lord.

2.      For forty years, Moses had been away from the spotlight he had once enjoyed as a key leader in the government of Egypt...he had gone into exile in the wilderness of Midian where for forty years he had been with the Lord, getting to know Him and learning to hear His voice. Exodus 33:17

3.      The long hours of conversation with God while tending the sheep of his father-in-law Jethro had impacted Moses in a way that led to this affirmation from the Lord, where he was known by name and favored by God.

4.      Whatever the subject, Moses knew that the favor he had with the Lord would grant him a hearing.

C.        Face to Face With the Lord

1.      The familiarity some of us have in personal relationships with others, Moses had that kind of personal base of intimate interaction.

2.      The only way to cultivate that kind of relationship is by spending time, face to face, in getting to know someone...in this case, the Lord God Almighty! Exodus 33:11

3.      The uniqueness of genuine prayer is that there is a personal, intimate side to it that does not exist in the rituals and formalities of prescribed words learned and repeated by rote.

D.        Powerful Encounters of God

1.      From the time in the wilderness of Midian when Moses learned in the quiet watches of the night to the times of watching the power of God at work in the miracles of the exodus from Egypt, Moses discovered that the One with whom He spoke was Almighty God Himself. Exodus 33:9-10

2.      The tent was called “the tent of meeting” because it was a place of face to face encounters between the Lord and Moses.

E.        Personal Conversations with God

1.      The mark of these face to face encounters was not just the awe Moses knew when he entered God’s presence in prayer, but the favor he enjoyed of the love of God. Psalm 62:11-12     

2.      Often we lose sight of either one or the other when we approach the Lord in prayer...and miss the fullness of all that He wants us to find in Him.

3.      If I know that you love me and want to give me what is best but I also know that you are not capable of doing so, I appreciate the love but do not count on the help.  With the Lord, we have both!

4.      Prayer takes us into the presence of the One who finds favor with all who come to Him in the name of Jesus Christ.

5.      Prayer draws us near to the One who will listen to us as we pour out of hurts, needs, dreams, and passions.

6.      Prayer brings us face to face with the God who loves us and can do anything He desires...and He always desires what is good!

7.      Moses had already discovered that so that when he now faced yet another challenge, he knew that God was ready to listen...but also to speak to him and show him the way to go.

III.       WHEN WE REALIZE THAT EVERYTHING DEPENDS ON THE LORD, WE WILL NEVER TRY TO DO ANYTHING WITHOUT HIM.

A.        Now We Come To The Matter At Hand...The Challenge Facing Moses Of Going Up Into The Land Held By The Foreign Nations, A Land To Which He Was Being Sent By The Lord.

1.      God commanded Moses to depart from Sinai and go to the land promised to his people.

2.      Yet there is a paralyzing twist to the story at this point: Exodus 33:3

3.      ”Do what I tell you, but I am not going to go with you!  You have alienated yourselves from Me to the extent that I would destroy you if I accompanied you...for I am holy, and you are a rebellious, stiff-necked, fickle, idolatrous people who cannot be trusted!”

a)      How would like to hear that from the Lord?

b)      But before you answer, let me ask you...how often do you go on ahead without consulting the Lord anyway?  How many times do we forget all about Him and go on without praying, without seeking His direction, without even caring what He wants?

B.        We Will Not Go Alone Exodus 33:15

1.      Your presence is our priority!

2.      Most of the time, we do not even bother to pray about what we do, where we go, how we respond.

3.      Moses showed us a better way when he said point blank to the Lord, “Look, if your presence is not guaranteed, we are not going anywhere without you!  We will not go alone!”

4.      How different would the life of the body of Christ be, if we agreed that until the Lord confirmed not just the direction but that He would go with us, we would not move forward?

5.      Often that means you have to keep praying until the Lord gives you clarity, confidence and confirmation of His way and His presence.

6.      We usually suffer from impatience and want to get moving too quickly and do not take the time to persist in prayer until the answer comes.

7.      Our prayer must be, “Lord, if you are not in this, neither are we...but if you are in this, we cannot help but be in it also!”

C.        We Will Not Blend In

1.      The distinctive character of the way Moses prayed can also be seen in the reason he kept up with the presentation of his case to the Lord.

2.      More than just wanting to get what he prayed for, Moses had a higher interest in mind, a loftier purpose than just getting his way. Exodus 33:16 

3.      What is at stake whenever we pray with passion and persistence is that our identity as a “people for His own possession” depends upon the character of a “prayer answering God.”

D.        That We May Be Distinguished

1.      When we beseech the Lord, plead our case, and lay out our burden, the primary reason Moses gives is that the people might be known as God’s unique, set-apart people...distinguished from all other nations on the face of the earth.

2.      What an awesome thing to be known as the people whose God answers prayer!

3.      When we are distinguished as the people of God, prayer will be our first and foremost distinctive because it sets us apart as a people who depend upon Him in all that we are and all that we do.

E.        That We May Know Your Ways

1.      In the kind of prayer we see in Moses, there was an expectation of an answer, a way for God to respond so that Moses and others would be instructed, guided and shown the way in which they should walk. Exodus 33:13

F.         That We May Know You

1.      More than just knowing the ways of the Lord, the privilege of talking with Him and hearing from Him reveals His heart and mind to us so that we come to know Him.

2.      One of the greatest pleasures of prayer is getting to know the Father and to recognize His voice from a myriad of others clamoring for pre-eminence.

3.      We will simply not blend in and become invisible in the culture of a fallen world because the glory of God, the power of prayer and the lives of distinction set us apart as His own!

G.       We Will Not Give Up...Until We See Your Glory!

1.      As Moses receives the assurance from the Lord that he will indeed go up with him and the people, his prayer moves up a notch to a higher plane than before. Exodus 33:18

2.      Many of us give up too easily and settle for just the answer we were looking for and do not ask for that extra measure of blessing that the Lord would gladly give if asked.

3.      The anemic, safe, careful prayers of many seem more intent on giving God an escape route than on clinging to Him until He pours our His blessings and actually shows us His glory!

a)      Are you satisfied just to learn something new? 

(i)      To get rid of some guilt? 

(ii)    To discover a solution? 

(iii)  To find a way to go?

b)      Why not pray and not give up until you are convinced that God is going to show you something of His glory?

4.      God wants to show us more than we are ready to see, but what a charge to our prayer lives to pray through the basic petition and request on to the other side where we can then ask for a glimpse of the glory!!

5.      When we think of Moses, we often think of his leadership and the way he allowed the Lord to use him to free his people from bondage.  We see him as a hero, courageously doing what God commanded, even when facing overwhelming opposition from his own people as well as from enemies in the surrounding nations.

6.      But the mark of Moses life that we seldom talk about is that he was a man of prayer...passionate, intimate, honest, direct prayer!  For Moses, prayer was not a devotional exercise to be checked off the “to do list,” but an indispensable necessity of life.  If he did not pray, he did not know what God wanted...and without that confidence, he was determined to do nothing!

CONCLUSION: Will you be the kind of man or woman who will be so constant in seeking the Lord in prayer that you will be resolved as he was “not to go up” if the presence of the Lord is not with you?

    What will it take for you to make this commitment?

First of all, it will mean that you must acknowledge that apart from the Lord you can do nothing.

Secondly, you must determine that in order never to depart from Him (getting ahead or lagging behind) you will persist in prayer until His presence is assured.

Thirdly, you must be honest and direct with Him in what you are requesting.

Last of all, you must not give up, give in or go on until you know that He has heard your cry and that you have heard His response (whether directly from His word, or in the quiet stillness of that gentle stirring in your soul).

God wants His people to be a praying people, a people who depend upon Him for all things and who will not go on until they know that He goes with them.  Will you make that commitment?