Well, I appreciate that kind introduction. I was going to joke with Chad that it felt like I was just here a few hours ago, but I was. But we are grateful that we can open up the facility to be used by you guys, and it really has been a great partnership, and it’s been great to get to know Chad a little bit more and to spend some time together and encourage each other. And I hope that you encourage and love your pastor well. That’s one thing I always want to tell folks when I go to speak someplace else, because they’re not going to tell you that. I’m going to tell you that. So love your pastors and your leaders well. Pray for them, encourage them, and just continue to come alongside and support them. Well, let me pray, and then we’re going to go to work in Exodus 33 tonight and take a look at the Bible. This amazing passage in the middle of the Exodus. So let me pray, and then we’ll take a look.

God, I thank you that you are a God who shows yourself. Lord, we know oftentimes we feel that you are hidden and you’re far away, but you are a God who speaks, and you speak clearly. Lord, we thank you for your creation, for through it we see your divine attributes and your amazing power and your beautiful creativity. Lord, we thank you for your word, that through it you reveal who you are and what you demand and what you’ve done. And we thank you for the revelation of Christ. Through him, you have come, to demonstrate what it means to follow you, to live a perfect life, to die a sinner’s death, to be as our substitute. And so I pray that by your word, through your spirit tonight, that we would have a greater understanding, a greater vision of who you are. Oh Lord, that we would be humbled and that we would be submissive to what you want to do. I thank you that though I can do nothing, of eternal significance, your word and your spirit are powerful and able to do work. And so we ask you to do that with us and in us and through us tonight. In Jesus’ name, amen. I want to start off tonight by asking you the question, when you picture heaven, what is it that comes to your mind? What is it that motivates you to want to be there? Now, I happen to, you know, use the Google machine and put in there because I kind of wanted to see what songs came to mind when people thought about heaven. And so the top one that I thought of or that came in the search there was Knocking on Heaven’s Door by Guns N’ Roses. If that is the place you get your theology from heaven, I encourage you not. You might want to go a little bit further down. But the second song that was up there is probably one that’s familiar to you. I can by Mercy Me. It’s a song that probably is played at many funerals. It’s a song that kind of brings together a certain image of what heaven might be. And I happened to watch a part of the video and it was interesting kind of the way that they presented it in terms of how they were kind of looking into some blank frames. And then all of a sudden throughout the video, all of those frames were kind of filled in by the people that were there as they were longing for the reunion that they would have with the people that had gone before them. And I think of that even with the loss of my own mother and other friends that have gone before. As we think of heaven, oftentimes we think of that reunion that we’re going to have, right? Also, as we get older, I think we also think of heaven in terms of the pain that is going to disappear, right? About five weeks ago, I fractured my leg and I just got out of a cast about two and a half, two weeks ago. And you know, that getting older, it just adds to the multiplied pains and difficulties. The creaks that come as you get out of bed seem to get louder and louder, right? And so when we think about heaven, oftentimes we think about all of those kind of things that the pain and the hardship and the difficulties will disappear. But let me ask you a question. If all of those things, those pains were gone, the reunions, were there, the joy that we might have existed, but God was not in heaven, how would you think of it? I think for some of us, many of us, I mean, even myself included at times, we would look at something like that and go, well, I mean, I really want all of those things. And I’m glad that God’s going to be there, but it’s really those things that are going to be there. And I think for some of us, many of those things, those reunions, those lack of pain, all of the rest that we will have there that I’m looking forward to. And you know, I’m glad God’s going to be there too. But I want to try to convince you tonight. I want to try to show you tonight that there is a necessity to think of God’s presence in the midst of that. In fact, there’s such a necessity to think of God’s presence in the midst of that struggle that without it, it would not be heaven. But there’s a difficulty. Even as we consider that, even as we think about that, you might think of it this way. If you want to live, you must have God. But if you have God, you may not live. It’s what comes up in this passage here in Exodus 33. It’s this struggle, this tension that exists, this desire to have God go with them. And yet, if God goes with them, they may not survive. If you have your Bibles, go ahead and open them up there. If you don’t, you can grab one of those black Old and New Testaments. You can flip it right to page 73, and it’ll put you where we’re going to be for our time tonight. But let me get you caught up to where we are, right? The book of Exodus is part two of a story. It begins in Genesis, really begins in Genesis chapter 12, where God makes some promises to this old couple, Abraham and Sarah. And he says, listen, I want to give to you three things. I want to make you God’s people. Now, that in and of itself is a crazy reality. Because Abraham and Sarah are not a 20-year-old couple. They are in their latter years, childless. And so the fact that they would have anyone that would represent them is insane. But God says, I don’t just want to give you a child. I want to give you a child. I want to give you a child. I want to give you a child. I want to actually make you my nation. I want you to be God’s people. If you have a whole bunch of kids, as both I and Chad can attest to, you need a place to put those kids, right? A lot of kids, you need a big place. So God says, listen, I want to make you God’s people. But secondly, I want to put you in God’s place. He says, I want to give you the promised land. I’m going to give you a spot that is you are going to be God’s people under God’s place. And third, I want to say you’re going to be God’s people in God’s place under God’s blessing. The rest of the book of Genesis from 12 on is the ups and downs of the carrying out and the beginning of the dawn of those promises being revealed. Abraham only has one son, and yet he begins to see the light of God giving him the things that he promised. And the generations go on to the fact that they end up being not just a family, but really end up being a clan, a tribe, a group of people. And those people are delivered from famine by going into Egypt. And God uses that as a vehicle to save them. And yet, as you flip over from Genesis to Exodus, now they are a people of millions, possibly. But they are a people that are now under slavery. The dawn had happened, and those promises began to be revealed. They are now multiplied, but they are not where they’re supposed to be. So the story of Exodus is really the kind of part two. He’s saying, listen, I’m going to make you not only a people, but I’m going to make you my people. And I’m going to take you and make you my people in my place. And so the book of Exodus is the playing out of that story. God gives a deliverer, Moses, Moses to bring them out. And he makes an argument that he alone is the only God. That’s what the plagues are all about. They’re not just God spinning a plague wheel up in heaven and saying, hey, I’d really like to throw a bunch of frogs on people today. But they are really an argument that he’s saying, all these gods that you have worshiped, Egyptians and the nation of Israel, these are no gods. And he says, I alone am God. And so it’s all an argument that he alone is the supreme God. They are delivered out of Egypt. They are brought into the wilderness and they are taken to Sinai. Now Sinai, we think of as the place in Exodus 20 where the 10 commandments are given. But I want you to think about it tonight maybe a little bit differently. God does give them the commandments. He does give them the commandments. He does give them the commandments. But there he’s making a covenant. If you want to think about it this way, there he’s making this people his people. He’s making a people that had been vast in number. Now he’s saying, now you are mine. In one sense, what happens at Sinai is a marriage. I’m going to give you the terms of this covenant. It’s the same way we talk about marriage in scripture, that marriage is a covenant. And this at Sinai is a covenant moment. He gives them the covenant, which includes how they will relate to him. Those first four commandments in Exodus 20 and then five through 10 are how you will relate to each other. He gives them how they’re going to worship him. And all of that seems to be going well as Moses is there on the mountain getting all this revelation from God. But down at the, there’s some problems going on. And right before we get to what we’re going to talk about here in Exodus 33, is 32. My friend called it the mess at the mountain. 32 is the incident of the golden calf, right? Moses is up there receiving the very words of God, having this marriage ceremony going on. And here are the people at the base of the mountain saying, give us this God who brought us here. He brought us out of Egypt. Take your gold off and throw it in the fire and fashion this God.

Moses, or really God sends Moses down the mountain and says, you need to take care of this. Moses comes down and smashes the tablet, not just in anger, but I think in very much of a symbolic moment, like we have just received this marriage covenant and now it is busted to pieces because the very first commandment is, I’ll have no other gods before me. And the second commandment is that you will make no image. So I don’t know if you’ve broken the first or the second, or you’ve done it all in one big shot, but you have definitely really messed this up from the very start. So much so that God’s judgment falls on these people and it falls on the people through the tribe of Levi and 3000 people are killed by their hand. And not only that, you have this kind of almost ominous, note at the end of chapter 32, then the Lord sent a plague on the people because they had made the calf, the one that Aaron had made. You think, man, here they are at this mountain. Here they are supposed to be coming God’s people. And from the very moment that it starts, it is in jeopardy. And so we come to 33. And the presence of God seems in jeopardy and far away, but God has an initial offer. God has something that he wants to say to Moses and to the people. He realizes the nature of the situation. He realizes the nature of their infraction. And so he proposes a solution here in these first few verses. Listen to what God says to the people and the solution that he proposes. The Lord said to Moses, depart, go up from here, you and the people whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt, to the land which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying to your offspring, I will give it. I will send an angel before you, and I will drive out the Canaanites and the Amorites and the Hittites and the Pezorites and the Hivites and the Jebusites. Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey. But I will not go up among you. At least I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people. When the people heard this disastrous word, they mourned, and no one put on their ornaments. For the Lord had said to Moses, say to the people of Israel, you are a stiff-necked people. If for a single moment, I should go up among you, I would consume you. So now take off your ornaments, that I may know what to do with you. And therefore the people of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments and from Mount Horeb onward. Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, far from the camp, and 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. And whenever Moses went, out to the tent, all the people would arise. And each would stand at his tent door and watch Moses until he’d gone into the tent. And 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. When all the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance of the tent, all the people would rise up and worship each at his tent door. Thus the Lord said, or thus the Lord used to speak, to Moses face to face as a man speaks to his friend. And when Moses turned again into camp, his assistant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, would not depart from the tent. God had made this promise that they would be God’s people in God’s place. And so we get to chapter 33, and it seems like this covenant is in jeopardy, but God has this initial offer. He says, listen, I’m going to make an offer to you. If you, are going to go from here, I will take you to the land. In fact, not only will you be able to go into the land, I will send an angel in front of you and he will wipe out all of the enemies of the land. And you will be able to go into this wonderful land that you will possess, a land flowing with milk and honey. Like the VeggieTales said, that seems a little sticky, right? But it’s just a picture. It’s a picture of the provision and the fertility of the land. The fact that it would be this land that would have all these blessings. He says, but I’m going to stay right here.

See, the problem was that God had realized and God had seen that these people were only going to frustrate his person and nature and character. Now, we need to be careful here because we read that and we might get a vision like I got as you’re reading through this, right? As a dad with kids going on any kind of road trip, right? You’re driving down the road and you’re thinking, man, I really want to just drive and get there and go in peace, right? And what inevitably happens? Everybody, everybody has a problem, right? He’s too close to me. She’s touching me. I want this that they have, right? That’s how it always goes on a road trip. And what do all dads end up doing, right? Sooner or later, you make the statement, if you all don’t get it together back there, I’m going to pull this car over and I’m going to give you all a whooping, right? I’m not originally from the South, but I can still say whooping. But that’s the picture that we might tend to get of God here, right? He’s going to pull this caravan over and he’s going to give somebody a whooping. But the problem with that picture is God is not a frustrated father ready to pull these people over. God is a holy, righteous God with standards and settled wrath on sinners. And as he looks at these people, and as we saw just briefly there in chapter 32, that’s a problem. Because these people have already violated the covenant. And he’s saying, listen, if I go with you, it’s only going to get worse. I’m going to consume you. And by the time we get to the land, I don’t know that there’s going to be any more. I’m going to consume you. I’m going to consume you. But he left. And so God’s initial offer seems like it might be something that would be worth considering. But the people realize that it’s actually dangerous. You heard me read verse 4, and it’s an interesting set there that the people are communicated to about what God is about to do. And they remove all of their ornaments. And that might seem a little bit strange. And we might wonder after chapter 32, did they have anything left? Because you remember in 32, right, Aaron calls for all their gold ornaments. He calls for all their earrings, right, to make the golden calf, which in a very fitting judgment, what does Moses do with? He grinds it up and makes them all eat it. It’s almost like an anti-communion going on. Like, you really want to worship this God? I’m going to have you consume me. I’m going to have you consume me. I’m going to have you consume me. I’m going to consume him. So the people still have something. And yet, when they realize this, what do they do? And the answer is they begin to repent. Because they remove all of these ornaments. Now, we kind of get this from the picture already. If you think about it for a moment, right, if you were to go to a funeral, there’s an appropriate dress when you go to a funeral, right? You go to a funeral, you think about what you’re going to wear. You tend to wear darker clothes, right? Somebody doesn’t walk into a funeral with bright neon clothes on. Same way you don’t walk into a wedding trying to upstage the bride. There’s an appropriate way that you dress. And what the people are doing here is they’re stripping themselves of these things because they realize what is happening. And now they are in the middle of a funeral. And they’re like, I’m going to go to a funeral. And I’m going to mourn them. They’re like, I’m going to go to a funeral. And I’m going to go to a funeral. And I’m going to mourn them. They fear that what God has promised them has died. And in a sense, it has. And it’s threatened. And this response is an appropriate response that they live with for the rest of their time in the wilderness. It’s interesting as well, the verse seven and onward, I’ve read the verse read before many times and actually kind of taken interest and comfort in this this these verses because they’re very amazing in the way that they display God and God’s relationship with Moses right this whole description of this tent of meeting where God and Moses meet and they come together and yet in the context here it’s actually a little bit of a fearful and scary thing because what’s emphasized in the text is not really God’s relationship with Moses what’s emphasized in the text is actually God’s placement with the people because if you remember when he’s giving the covenant to them before what’s the big part of the covenant right he tells them listen how are you going to relate to me you’re going to relate to me by worshiping in this tabernacle in fact the very word tabernacle has built into it this idea that God is among them it’s a word that’s you we use as a noun but could be used as a verb that God is tabernacling among his people he’s sitting right in the midst and it’s not here in exodus but later he’ll tell them how he wants them to arrange the camp where the tabernacle is sitting right in the middle of them and everyone would get up in the morning and they would walk out their front door and they would see the tabernacle And when they saw the tabernacle, they would know, God’s here. He’s right in the middle of us. And so when you come to Exodus 33 and verse 7, and it says, Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp. Far off from the camp. There’s an emphasis there. It’s not just that he doesn’t want to be around. He’s actually saying, listen, the God that I had told you was going to be here in our midst, that was going to be worshipped, he’s going to be way over there. And in fact, he’s not just going to be at the edge of camp. It’s not as if you went to the outskirts and the city line of the camp. It says he’s going to be far off over there. And if you want to go worship him, you want to go inquire of him, you have to leave where you live.

So all of this together helps us see the initial offer of God is not some sort of blessing, but it’s actually, in one sense, a serious problem. And what this tells us is God is serious. He’s serious about sin. And specifically, he’s serious about idolatry. I think sometimes we look at God and we think, well, you know, there’s certain things that are bad or certain problems that are difficult. Well, if we want to rank any of them, we should look at a text like 32 and 33 and go, I’m pretty sure that idolatry is bad. And I would describe idolatry as a sin. I would describe idolatry not just as looking at something that you’ve carven or made and calling that out as God, but basically making anything ultimate that is not God himself.

And so all of this tells us how serious God is about this sin and this idolatry. And it’s almost, even those last few verses to me are almost like an opposite version, of the garden, right? You remember the Garden of Eden? What does God do? He’s with Adam and Eve in the garden, and they sin, and what happens? He sends them out, right? Here, the people sin, and God says, I’m out of here. I’m going to be out over here. Far away. Far away. But Moses, is God’s mediator in many senses. In one sense, Moses himself is flawed, but he is also this mediator between God and the people that will bring the sins of the people to God and bring the forgiveness of God back to the people. And here, Moses plays that part of being their intercessor. Look at verse 12.

Moses said to the Lord, See, you say to me, bring up this 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 favor in my sight. Now, therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me your ways. That I may know you in order to find favor in your sight. Consider, too, that this nation is your people. And he said, My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest. And Moses said to him, If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight? I am! and your people, is it not you’re going with us so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth? Moses sets forth to be a negotiator with God. And he says, I want you to go with us. I want to know that we have not only your protection and your blessings, but I want you to know that we have you. In fact, he makes the statement here that us having you, God, having you with us, is what makes us distinct from all of the other people of the earth. Your very presence.

See, we kind of have to be aware of that. We have to be aware of that. We kind of know this inherently. If I were to change these circumstances a little bit and describe it more in much more human terms, but I think relatable terms, we’d kind of get this. Imagine for a second, a spouse that you get married to. And the spouse says to you, well,

I love the house that we have. And I love the car that we drive. And I love the number of zeros that we have in our bank account. But you know what? It’s so much more pleasant. And I enjoy life so much more when you’re not here.

Now, all of us think of somebody like that and we go, that is awful. Right? We call those kind of people gold diggers, right? We married you for what you have and what you can provide.

And yet, I wonder sometimes if that’s the way that we look at God. I love God for what he gives to me. I love God for what he has provided to me. I love God for the, the way that he protects me and watches over me. But when it comes to asking the question, do you love God and want him? That’s a little bit more in question. But Moses’s prayer is, listen, if you don’t go, I don’t just want you for the land. I don’t just want you for the blessing. I want you for you. If you don’t go, we don’t go. We’re not leaving here without you.

What I love about this and what I learned from this from Moses is this picture of prayer here, right? I feel like so many of my prayers, so many of our prayers are often, Lord, give me this. Protect me for that. Watch over me. In this way, care for me here. But how many of my prayers are like what Moses is asking and praying for here? God, will you be with me? Will you show me who you are? Will you let me know you? We would love that. We would want that in a marriage, right? But do we pray that to the God of the universe? And even more so, I love the way that Moses lays this out here because it’s not just about him. In fact, some commentators here look at the statement that is made in 14 and God saying, my presence will go with you and I will give you rest. And they look at that and think maybe the statement here is God saying to Moses, well, those people down there, they’re a pain, but you I like. And so my presence will go with you, Moses, but not them. Well, there’s some debate about exactly if that’s exactly what he’s saying, but either way, Moses isn’t having that because he’s definitely including when you go down to verse 16, himself and the people. And so we get back to that prayer, right? How do we pray for other people? Oftentimes we’re praying for other people. God, heal them. God, protect them. God, watch over them. God, give them what they need. All of those prayers are good, but I wonder here what we learn is we really should be praying in addition to those things and maybe even above those things. God, show yourself to them. Let them know you. In the midst of the hardship and the difficulties and the struggle, let them see you.

Pray that I’m a leader, a pastor, an intercessor like Moses here, right? That I’m not just praying for their blessing and their encouragement and their protection, but I’m praying that God would show them himself.

I mean, I think, I think if we were to match up this prayer in Exodus 33 with the prayers of the New Testament and Paul’s prayers, whether it’s for the Ephesians or for the Thessalonians or for the Colossians, they have a lot of parallels in that way, right? Because he’s saying, let them know the height and the depth of your love.

So Moses negotiates with God here. That he would go with them. But like any good negotiation, right? When things are worked out, you don’t just want to leave it there. You want to have some kind of confirmation. You want to have some way to know that this contract is sealed. And so what Moses asked for in this closing section is he asked for that confirmation. Look at verse 17. And the Lord said to Moses, this very thing that you have spoken, I will do for you. For you have found favor in my sight and I know you by name. And Moses said, please show me your glory. And God said, I will make my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name, the Lord. And I will be gracious to whom I speak. I will be gracious and I will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But he said, you cannot see my face for man shall not see me and live. And the Lord said, behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock. And while my glory passes by, I will put you in the cleft of the rock and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. And then I will take my hand away and you shall see my back. For my face you shall not see. Moses says, listen, I need you to go with us. And God says, I will go with you. But Moses needs this final confirmation and the confirmation that he asked for and the confirmation that he receives is to see God’s glory.

He wants to be able to tell the people, listen, I know things have been bad. I know that it looks like God is not going to go with us, but he will. And I know because I have seen him.

What I want you to see about this is something that I think we often miss. I’ve read this passage many times and in fact, it’s been a passage for me that I’ve returned to often here in 33, and 34 because it’s this amazing moment, right? This theophany moment where God shows up. And it’s a moment that we might look at and go, man, I would love to have something like that. But what’s interesting here is that while we might long for that experience, I don’t want you to miss something that happens. Because Moses isn’t after the experience. I say that because, right, go back one more page. What does he say to God in verse 13? Now, therefore, if I had found favor in your sight, please show me your ways.

He says something similar. And God reveals something similar, right? When he says, I’m going to do this thing. I’m going to pass before you. But what are you going to see? We tend to focus on the glory aspect and that’s quite amazing. And we don’t have time to talk about what that glory is tonight. I think it’s really just a physical manifestation of the beauty and the nature of God. But what does God do? Is the glory itself the focus? Not really. What’s the focus here? He says, I’m going to proclaim my name before you. So it’s not really about the experience. It’s not really about the display of this brilliant, almost unimaginable moment. It’s about the declaration, of who God is. Moses says, I want to know your ways. He says, I want to see who you are. And God says, listen, I’m going to tell you who I am. I’m going to reveal my nature to you. He says it right there. He says, I’m going to proclaim before you my name, the Lord, the name that he’d given at Exodus chapter three, at the burning bush, the I am statement. This is who I am. This covenant, keeping God. And furthermore, in this moment, what they needed to hear, what he was going to say next, that I will be gracious to whom I’m going to be gracious. And I will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. In fact, when it happens down in 34, it becomes even a byword for the nation of Israel. Look at verse six of chapter 34. The Lord passed by him and he proclaimed, the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgressions and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation. That’s a refrain that comes up in the Old Testament over and over and over and over again. But it begins here at this moment where God is revealing this very nature of who he is. What it tells me here is that is not about the experience, but it is about gaining a better understanding of who God is. The theophany, the display of who God is, is secondary to the revelation of him telling you who he is.

You see, I wonder if we long for this experience, if we long to see God, and yet oftentimes our Bibles are shut, we don’t really long for it. Because we want to have this moment, we want to have this experience, but God is there proclaiming, I am the Lord, the one who is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding, loving and loving kindness. He’s displaying that. And yet if our Bibles are closed, we can’t hear it.

So God’s confirmation is this amazing moment where he is going to display who he is.

This chapter is an amazing tension. Right? We cannot live without God. But we cannot live with God. This is a tension that remains throughout the whole of the Old Testament because this would not be the last time that the children of Israel would fail. In fact, their process would be a process of failure. I mean, we haven’t even gotten close to them getting to the edge of failure. We’re on the edge of the promised land and standing on the edge of the promised land and failing in that moment.

And so that tension of not being able to live without God and not being able to live with God remains. I do find it instructive and I do find it important the fact that the Apostle Paul chooses these words this day. The declaration of God here in Exodus 33 that I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and be merciful to whom I will be merciful to teach us about God’s mercy in Romans chapter 9. Romans 9 is one of those passages that we look at sometimes and we scratch our heads and we argue about because it talks about how God elects and chooses people to faith. And yet set in the context here and I think actually set in the context of Romans chapter 9 we actually argue with the wrong direction. Because we usually argue well why is God choosing certain people to be saved and really the question here in Exodus 33 and I think the question actually in Romans 9 too is why is God choosing anyone to be saved? No one deserves it. He’s declaring here in this moment listen guys you didn’t get this because you deserved it. It’s because you didn’t get it. It’s because I’m displaying my nature. In fact I would argue as some have that this moment and this refrain is where the greatest glory of God is shown when God is not only just and righteous and holy but he displays his grace and his mercy.

The picture there obviously takes us to Christ because it’s in him that that tension is released. We cannot live without God and yet God comes to us lives among us lives a perfect life dies a sinner’s death and provides us a way to live with God because he lived among us.

So this seal is ultimately a seal that points us to and reminds us of the very nature of God that is displayed most vividly and most amazingly in Christ himself.

So let me just take you back to where we started.

If you were to return to thinking about heaven and you had all of the joys and you had all of the goodness and you had all of the reunions and yet you didn’t have God would it really be a paradise?

See I think what he’s beginning to teach us here is that we like these Israelites are looking forward to a promised land. We’re looking forward to something that we’re traveling to. Right? This world that we’re going through we’re sojourners in. This is not our home. We’re going to someplace else. And yet we’re going to someplace else. we’re going to someplace else. We’re going to someplace else not just because it’s glorious. Not just because it’s wonderful. Not just because it will be filled with reunions and rest. But we’re going there because that’s where our God is.

Pray that we would look to and be reminded of as we look to God at a passage like this of God’s grace is to us. Because we should not and we must never look at the children of Israel in 32 and think we’re better than them. That we’re somehow our necks are not nearly as stiff or our sin or our idolatry is not nearly as great.

And yet God has been gracious to us by providing us a way through Christ. And so we look and we hopefully long like Moses was show me your glory. Let me know you. Let me find my hope and my rest. Not in what I long for but in knowing you. So that in this moment where things are difficult and in the moment to come we’re going to be able It builds our anticipation because we will be with the one who has bought us. It’s amazing to me that as you close out your Bibles right in Revelation 21 and 22 we look to those as the end the final state the new heavens and the new earth. They’re scant with some of the details that we like to fill in. Right? Of how things will exist and what things will be like. But they’re filled with the details of the fact that God’s there.

That his city is now among men. May we truly long for the promised land that is coming to us. Let’s pray. God I pray that you would help us in the midst of our difficulties in the midst of our hardships in the midst of our sin Lord to long for you. Lord may we lean into and may we rest in the reality that we have no favor to give and the only favor that we have is the one that comes through Christ. And Lord may we long for heaven not because we’re in it but because we will not hurt or we will see those that we love but Lord I pray that you would build a longing for heaven in us because we will be with the one who has saved us. Lord we need you to do that work in us. We need to see your glory. Lord open up our eyes. Open up our heart. That we might get a greater vision. A stronger experience. A longing for you. Lord do that work not because of us but because of Christ. And in his name we pray. Amen.