Alive to God
October 8, 2006
Exodus 33:12-23
The author Max Lucado writes:
One of my favorite childhood memories is greeting my father as he came home from work.
My mother, who worked an evening shift at the hospital, would leave the house around three in the afternoon. Dad would arrive home at three-thirty. My brother and I were left alone for that half-hour with strict instructions not to leave the house until Dad arrived.
We would take our positions on the couch and watch cartoons, always keeping one ear alert to the driveway. Even the best "Daffy Duck" would be abandoned when we heard his car.
I can remember running out to meet Dad and getting swept up in his big (often sweaty) arms. As he carried me toward the house, he?d put his big-trimmed straw hat on my head, and for a moment I?d be a cowboy. We?d sit on the porch as he removed his oily work boots. As he took them off I?d pull them on, and for a moment I?d be a wrangler. Then we?d go indoors and open his lunch pail. Any leftover snacks, which he always seemed to have, were for my brother and me to split.
It was great. Boots, hats, and snacks. What more could a five-year-old want?
But suppose, for a minute, that is all I got. Suppose my dad, rather than coming home, just sent some things home. Boots for me to play in. A hat for me to wear. Snacks for me to eat.
Would that be enough? Maybe so, but not for long. Soon the gifts would lose their charm. Soon, if not immediately, I?d ask, "Where?s Dad?"
Or consider something worse. Suppose he called me up and said, "Max, I won?t be coming home anymore. But I?ll send my boots and hat over, and every afternoon you can play in them."
No deal. That wouldn?t work. Even a five-year-old knows it?s the person, not the presents that makes a reunion special. It?s not the frills; it?s the father. (Max Lucado, Chapter 25 beginning, When God Whispers Your Name.)
Moses, the man in our text knew this. Moses in our text was adamant on seeing God, the Father. He wasn?t asking for the things of God, blessings from God, God to do certain things for him. No in our text, Moses desires to see and experience his Father. He wouldn?t settle for less. When I began to study this text, it seemed a bit peculiar to me. Why would Moses, this man who had as much as and seemingly more of God than most in the Bible, throughout these 11 verses keep asking for God. Moses, give me a break.
You encountered Him at the burning bush.
You were guided by God by fire.
You experience God?s power in the plagues.
You witnessed God?s abilities to turn a staff into a snake.
A river into a road.
A hard rock into liquidy water.
Two stone tablets into engraved pieces of law.
Moses, when I go over your life as recorded in our Bible, I see numerous encounters with God. In the desert, on the mountaintop. In the tent of meeting on the open plain. Moses you seem a bit greedy. Moses, nearly every page of the Book of Exodus records a situation when God is revealing himself, his purposes or his ways to you.
And yet in our text this seemingly
God drenched.
God saturated
God immersed man hungers for his Father.
He is at a point when he needs to see His Father.
V. 18- "Now show me your glory."
I think that he is at this point because he is tired. Disappointed. Lonely. Lacking the courage to lead the Israelites anymore. He?s been leading this wandering/grumbling/murmuring people for years. Judging the people?s attitudes and behaviors, one could say they hadn?t matured much. Seemingly little progress has been made. If you look at chapter 32, just 1 chapter before our text, these people who had been saturated by God.
rescued by his power.
cared for by his grace over years and years became anxious when Moses is gone from them. And their anxiousness leads them to make a big bad decision. They make a god. They form a golden statue of a cow. And claim that this lifeless human shaped thing will lead them. The people exchange their living God for a dead, golden 4 legged bovine.
When Moses returns to the camp, chapter 32:19 says, his anger burned and he threw the tablets (2-10 commandment tablets) out of his hands, breaking them to pieces . . . he took the calf they had made and burned it in the fire."
Moses is disgusted.
He has every right to be.
He is at wits end, but unlike the people who created their own god when they felt this way, Moses goes to, approaches the one who created Him saying vs. 18 "Now show me your glory."
I need not ask if you?ve ever been at the end of your rope.
Disgusted.
Lonely.
Traumatized or paralyzed by a circumstance like I believe Moses was in this situation.
To be - person is to experience these times.
A result of being in relationships is to go through these chapters.
So I won?t ask you to share your story and I won?t share with you mine, but instead I ask, In those times do you do as the people did or do you do as Moses did?
Do you make a god?
Create a god to trust in
Place hope in
Put before you
Or do you humbly ask God as Moses did, "Now show me your glory."
When you find yourself in one of these moments, do you settle for things? Do the boots, the hat, the snacks of the Father satisfy you or do you say, No, I want to experience the Father?
Moses gives us the courage to say, "Lord, show me your glory." "Lord, show me your glory."
I don?t want to settle. I want nothing less.
Moses is hungry for god.
He needs a sense of god?s presence.
Intimacy with God. Something deeper.
"Lord, this is me now - me Moses.
me on behalf of myself
me for my own good.
me - Lord show me your glory."
Now notice, though God had promised in verse 14 that His presence would go with him.
Though God had said that He was pleased with Moses and knew him by name in verse 17.
God still honors Moses? request. He doesn?t ignore it.
Saints, our God hears our requests for him, but he may not answer them as we?d like. God?s reply to Moses? request to see Him, to experience Him is found in verses 19-23.
"I will cause my goodness to pass in front of you.
I will proclaim my name in your presence
But you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live . . .
There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock. When my glory passes by I will cover you with my hand until I passed by. Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back but my face must not be seen." (19-23)
Moses? request to see God will be answered but in God?s way, "you will see my back but my face must not be seen."
All week as I tried to come to grips with the 4th Reality in Experiencing God - A reality that reads, God speaks by the Holy Spirit through the Bible, prayer, circumstances and the church to reveal Himself, His purposes and His ways I was drawn to this text.
Though I believe this 4th reality, that God does reveal Himself, His purposes and His ways from my experience it isn?t so neat and tidy for me it isn?t always such an easy formula. When I am in a dire situation, my experience is more like Moses in our text; I get his back and not his front. His vertebrae and not His face.
I?m not saying God ignores my request, he doesn?t. He will answer, but in his own way. "Moses, I will reveal myself. You will experience me but it will be my back."
Jewish scholars interpret these words of God to Moses to mean that Moses will only be able to see God where He just was. Where He has already been.
If you want to see God, experience God, look back. Reflect on what you?ve already been through. In a sense, the best we?re going to do. The most we are capable of is seeing God where he just was.
Now some of you won?t like this. Some of you will disagree with this.
But if I were explain those times when I felt God revealed Himself, His purposes and His ways it was most often not when I was going through a situation that I realized his leading and guiding but in hindsight as I looked back over it.
This text causes me to find my place behind God and not in from of him. This text causes me to follow God and not try to create a false one to drag along with me. This text gives me the courage to live in the needs of each day assured of God?s presence because of his faithfulness to me back in the past.
This text is giving me eyes to see and a heart to believe that:
Yes, God is always at work.
Yes, He pursues a love relationship with me.
Yes, He invites me to join Him in His work but the way he reveals Himself, His
purposes and His ways to me is when I take seriously my life and begin to see Him
and His weavings.
His hand.
His sculpting presence at work, in my past, behind me, when I look back.
"No-No-No. You cannot see my face, no look back. Look back over
where we?ve been
what we?ve gone through
and you will see bit by bit, piece by piece - Me.
May this give you the assurance you need to move forward. Do you want to see my glory? Look back and live!
There is a pick-up truck in town with these words on it. Moving Forward. And this emblem.
This veteran knows that to go forward, when we feel confuse, lonely, discouraged. When what we?ve been working so hard on seems to crumble before us. When people disappoint us. And circumstances seem insurmountable.
To go forward is not to get out in front.
To be a pace-setter but to look back.
Moses would say, to remember and remind yourself of god?s faithfulness and presence with you all along.
Friends, No gold cow that you create.
No horoscope
No palm reader.
No bead, crystal, chant.
Nothing that you put out in front of you will lead you like our God will. God may not be as glamorous. He may not seem to be as close or as clear, but He is God. He always has been and always will be.
Moses learned that day that God has his back and that as He followed God?s, He would continue to see His glory.
Some may ask -
Where is God leading?
Heck if I know.
Does make me a bit nervous/a bit unsettled? Yeah, a bit, but as I look back over my life and compare the times I?ve been leading with the times I?ve been following His back, I have all the confidence in Him in the world. Amen
