"When the Glory is faded"
Exodus 34:29-35
(Face the Music)
When Moses encountered the Lord on Mount Horeb his very appearance was changed and his face shone from the glory of being in the presence of God in such a way that nobody could stand to look at him unless he veiled or covered his face. We see from the text verses read here today that the people were afraid to even get near him because of the brightness of his anointing. The word anointing isn’t something we need to be afraid of but some people are terrified of that word. They’re scared of it because they don’t understand what the word actually means. In the gospel we know by revelation of God breathed scripture that Jesus is the "ANOINTED ONE". In Hebrew anoint is MESSIAS meaning the Messiah, Jesus was the Messiah. In Greek anoint is CHRISTOS meaning Christ, Jesus was the Christ. When someone uses the word annoint in context, all they’re really doing is talking about Jesus.
If you’re annointed it means that you’ve been covered in God’s glory because you
Have been around the presence of Christ Jesus, THE ANOINTED ONE!
1) The glory on the face of Moses was evidence of his relationship with God
2) Moses had his church face on!
· We know the difference
· Presence of the Lord rests upon them
· Moses had to backslide by hiding "the glory" so the church people would be comfortable around him
We would have called him a "fanantic" or a "spiritual nut" or a "charismatic" today. Turn to Psalm 90:17 (read)
Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us to establish the work of our hands upon us, yea Lord establish the work of our hands through your glorious presence. Do you know that we’re all called to be anointed?
· Matthew 5:14-16 (read)
· John 1:11-14 (read)
To realize such a high and holy calling as being light to the dark world around us should lay a heavy burden on our hearts to become all that God has called us to be. But there will always be some who say that the Christian life should just be rainbows and lollipops. Oh Brother Mike didn’t Jesus say the Christian YOKE would be easy and the Christian BURDEN light?
The world isn’t going to be reached with this easy believism junk the church has been putting out for years now. Our ears have been tickled and we’ve lulled our members into a false sense of security and they’re going to hell without ever having known the Lord Jesus Christ in a real and personal way. Our face is the most public part of our bodies isn’t it? When we take pictures for the yearbook, we don’t take a picture of peoples hands and then put their name under it do we?
THE FACE IS THE MOST RECOGNIZABLE PART OF OUR BODIES! Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 3:18 " Our faces then are not covered. We all show the Lord’s Glory and we are being changed to be like HIM. This change in us brings ever greater glory which comes from the Lord, who is the SPIRIT."
· Too many Christian Thermometers
· Not enough Christian Thermostats
HOW IMPORTANT IS MY FACE IN COMMUNICATING WITH YOU? My face can reveal what my heart is really thinking now can’t it? (ILLUSTRATE) Recognizing that my face is very important in speaking what my heart really feels and realizing that we’re talking about the glory of God being evident in my life, there are multitudes in the church who won’t let you look under their veil because if they did you would see they have allowed the glory of the presence of God to fade from their life.
· Ministry can and does become ROUTINE
· First message I ever preached was 7 minutes long
· After years of experience…
We can get very mechanical in our worship and find "comfort zones" where we don’t have to pray and study and seek God’s direction anymore. We just kind of go through the old familiar motions. Know that you think I’m meddling but God revealed this message to me after more than an hour weeping in His presence.
Doesn’t matter what you do…
· lead the youth
· teach a Sunday School class
· play the piano
· serve as a deacon
· or just scrub the toilets
YOU’LL BE BETTER AT IT IF THE GLORY OF GOD IS PRESENT ON YOUR LIFE! You’ll be better at it if you’ll get filled with the Holy Spirit and spend some time on your knees with a Bible in your hand. We’ve got people in leadership in the church that are terrified somebody will look behind their veil and see the glory is faded.
WHEW! Plenty of things I could stand to lose in this life I’m living but I don’t ever want to lose Jesus my friend! The scary thing about all this is we can keep people from seeing under our veil, our church face, but the ONE WHO GIVES US THE ANOINTING in the first place already knows how long it’s been since we touched the hem of his garmet.
(1) Revelation 2:2-5 (read)
· return to your first love
· repent of leaving the relationship and do the first works
Jeremiah 17:10 "I the Lord search the heart…"
1 Corinthians 2:10 "for the Spirit searches all things…"
Beloved you’re going to have to pull your veil aside and get honest with God this morning, most importantly you’re going to have to get honest with yourself. The greatest nations on earth have never been conquered from an outside force but have always been destroyed from within. Church’s die everyday not from the enemy without but from the enemy within because God’s children won’t pull aside their veil worried what everybody might think.
Psalm 139:1-13, 23-24
Want to let God close this service in a time of rededication and refreshing and personal revival (you can have personal revival TODAY). Psalm 92:10 says that if we’ll only come unto God he’ll anoint us with fresh oil and if we’ll let him he’ll fill us with his glorious presence to reach our family, friends and neighbors with the life changing message of Jesus Christ.
Time of Decision…
