Living In His Presence

When electricity became available to remote rural areas, one woman went to great

trouble and expense to have electricity installed in her home.

A few months after the wiring was installed and the power was turned on to her

house, the power company noticed that the home didn't use very much power.

Fearing that there may be a problem because they like to have their money,

they sent a meter reader out to check on the meter to make sure that the meter was reading properly.

Meter reader saw that the power was indeed working properly and then asked the

woman, do you use your electricity?

The woman replied, of course we do. We turn it on every night long enough to

light the candles and the lamps, and then we turn it off.

Doesn't that sound ridiculous? of us, having all of the power that we need and

all the ability to tap into all of that at any time we want,

and yet only using power enough to get by.

Nobody would ever do that, right? We would never do anything like that.

It just doesn't make sense.

However, we do this exact same thing a great deal when we apply the same reasoning

to the power and presence of God. We go out of our way to go to church and worship,

but have little relationship with God throughout the week.

We go through difficulties day after day, and only when we come to the end of

our own strength do we look up and ask for God's power.

We have the power of God at our hands, at our disposal all the time,

but yet we attempt to get by on our own strength.

Sound familiar? Of course it is.

We're a lot more like that woman who wouldn't use electricity than we would care to admit.

And the passage of Scripture that we're going to be reading is one that we've

read before about the glory of God, and we've talked about this with God revealing

himself to Moses, but we're going to read this again in Exodus chapter 33, verses 12 through 23.

Exodus 33:12–23

Moses said to the Lord, you have been telling me, lead these 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 with me.

If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways, so I may know you and continue to find favor with you.

Remember that this nation is your people.

The Lord replied, My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.

Lord Moses then turned to him

and said, if your present does not go with us, do not send us from here.

How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us?

What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?

And the Lord said to Moses, I will do the very thing you have asked because

I am pleased is with you, and I know you by name.

Then Moses said, show me your glory.

And the Lord said, I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you,

and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence.

I will have mercy on whom I will

have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.

But he said, you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.

Then the Lord said, there's a place near me where you may stand on a rock.

When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft of the rock and cover you

with my hand as I pass before you.

Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back, but my face must not be seen.

So in this passage, the first things we see is if we're going to be living in

his presence, we need to be living in the presence of God. Sounds pretty profound, doesn't it?

This whole passage is about what it takes to be in the presence of God and actually

what it takes for the presence of God to be in us.

God created all of humanity to have a deep personal relationship with him.

God literally walked in the garden with Adam and Eve.

Now, we don't know how long he walked in the garden with Adam and Eve before

they sinned and before they realized that they had to be covered with fig leaves,

but we knew that there was some point in time that they were wandering in this

garden and with God walking with them.

There came a point in time, however, when they heard God walking through the

trees, walking through the garden, they could hear his footsteps.

Isn't there something about that? Sometimes we can just hear God moving, can't we?

And they heard him and they hid themselves because of their sin and so the first

question we find in the bible is this very the very first question you will

ever read in the bible is god asking the question where are you adam.

And he was looking for Adam. But this is the very first time.

Now, think about that. Let it sink in.

God is physically walking and audibly talking with Adam and Eve.

They were able to completely enjoy God's presence anytime they wanted and anytime they didn't want.

God's desire for our lives is to have that same kind of relationship with us.

He wants us to be able to walk in his his presence, and he wants to walk in our presence.

He wants to be with us at all times. He wants his presence even to walk through us.

Moses speaks with God here and simply reminds God of his promises.

He says, why does Moses do this?

It's not like God could forget the promises God already made,

but Moses reminds God of his promises.

He had a genuine concern in this passage. God had removed his presence from the Israelite camp.

And there's a contemporary song about, if you all go with me, I won't go.

I don't know if you've heard it, but there's a contemporary song like that about

God going with us. If he's not going to go with us, we're not going to go.

And so there's this idea that we have to have the presence of God.

God had removed his presence from the Israelite camp, and there was no longer

a sense of divine among the nation of Israel.

I wonder how many Christians this morning around the globe go to church without

ever really having an experience with God.

Why would you go to church? Well, to greet your friends, to have donuts, coffee.

But I wonder how many people have never had a personal relationship with Christ,

never walked with God in the garden of their life.

I think the problem is that many of those who can call themselves Christians

are not really even seeking God anymore. We're seeking the fellowship of the church.

We're more churchians than we are Christians.

We're self-sufficient. Many times Christians settle for taking care of themselves.

Like the gentleman I met in the hospital one time when I was working at Deaconess

Hospital in Oklahoma City, I was standing outside one evening, I'd been working late,

and a gentleman was standing out there, and I began to strike up a conversation,

and he said he was here with his mother, was in the hospital,

and I said, boy, isn't it great to know that we have a God we can call on in these times of need?

And he says, well, I don't believe that there's a of God, and I'll just get

through this on my own. I said, well, how's that working for you?

And his face looked down. I

said, I want you to know there is a God that cares for you and for others.

And I asked, I said, is it okay if I pray for you? And I did.

But oftentimes we go through these lives, people go through our lives thinking we're all it.

We can build this tower to the heavens on our own.

We can do all this. We can accomplish this all on our own.

There's no need for God, or we simply settle for the status quo and leave out any God in our lives.

If we settle with that, if we settle with what we've already experienced with God, we cannot grow.

When we settle for where we are with God now, we'll never move forward.

If we settle for where we are, we'll be like the Israelite tribes that settled

on the other side of Jordan and didn't go into the promised land. We'll be fine.

For now. How many times have we seen people give their lives to Christ,

and it becomes fire insurance for them, keeping them out of hell,

but it has nothing to do with their love for anybody else and helping others.

When Moses sought God, he did so through fervent prayer.

He sought God by going to his needs. I think you'd have to agree with me that

one of the biggest problems in our church, in any church today,

is that we want a deeper relationship relationship with God,

but we don't want to pay the price for it.

I read when I went to one church, the previous pastor had left me a long dissertation

of the church, and one of the things he stated in there is these people want

to have progress in their relationship with Christ, but not at the cost of change.

I think we'd have to agree that one of the biggest problems is us.

Notice what Moses said to God in chapter 1, verse 3.

He wants three things from God if his life is to be pleasing to God.

First, he says, teach me your ways.

Moses wants to know God's ways so he can keep on following him.

If you will lead me, I will go with you. The second thing he says, he wants to know God.

There's a direct connection between knowing the ways of God and following him

and knowing God himself.

Then he says, let me live in your favor. Once we know God's ways and know God

personally, then the favor of the Lord can rest on our lives.

It's impossible for us to have the divine favor of God in our lives if we don't know him.

And how can we know God the best? Well, by the way, I just didn't know if you

knew this, but God happened to give us his letters to tell us all about him.

When we do these things, it opens our lives to the presence of God.

When we live to know God's ways and to know God personally, then he opens the

floodgates of heaven and pours out blessings upon us.

The second thing we learn in this passage is that we are learning to live in

the pleasure of God's grace.

Moses again speaks with God here and asks God to prove his faithfulness.

Show me your glory.

God's presence is connected to the reality of his pleasure.

If God's not pleased with our actions, he's not going to be present in our life.

He's not going to go where there's sinfulness except to redeem.

If a church is void of the presence of God, they're not pleasing him.

If God is not pleased by our actions, he'll not be present.

God proves his faithfulness through extending his divine presence.

I trust that every time we enter this sanctuary, and even in our lives outside

of this, we sense and know the presence of God and the pleasure of his grace.

One of the things we do in this is we please God by loving him.

Matthew chapter 22, verses 37 and 38, Jesus replied, love the Lord your God

Matthew 22:37

with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your minds.

This is the first and the greatest commandment.

And then he said, the second is like unto it, love your neighbor as yourself.

Our first priority is to love God with every fiber of our being.

The second thing we learn in this is we please God by believing in him.

Now, this doesn't mean just saying that we believe in him. This doesn't mean

just confessing with our mouth, but it means going on to live in such a way

that we show and prove that we are obedient to him.

Jesus talked about this oftentimes, but in Hebrews, we find this in chapter 11.

Hebrews chapter 11 is known as the faith chapter, and it says this,

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

without faith, it is impossible to please God.

There is no way that you will ever be able to please God if you do not believe in him.

We place our faith in God when we trust him completely, even when life doesn't make sense.

When life seems the most senseless, that is when we need to trust God the most.

And what is the proof of our faith?

Obedience and actions. Thoughts produce feelings, feelings produce actions,

actions have consequences.

And the third thing we see here is that we please God by obeying him.

Jesus said, you are my friends if you do what I command.

I no longer call you servants because a servant does not know his master's business.

Instead, I have called you friends for everything that I learned from my father

I have now made known to you.

And then Jesus later said, on this rock I will build this church,

and the gates of hell will not stand against it.

Jesus is wanting to be the closest thing to us, and he's wanting us to give

the power to be obedient.

He told the disciples that they would become friends with God through obedience.

We also please God by praising him. Psalm 150, verses 1 and 2.

Psalms 150:1

Praise the Lord. Praise God in the sanctuary.

Praise him in his mighty heavens. Praise him for his acts of power,

praise him for his surpassing greatness.

Do you see anything referenced in there where we're not supposed to praise him?

In everything. We are to lift the name of the Lord.

God deserves our praise for every single blessing he bestows upon us.

There's another song I heard on the radio talking about counting our blessings,

and it says, one, two, three, even to eternity.

We are counting the blessings God has given us, and then we please God by serving him.

God wants you to live out your life serving him. This means more than just showing up on Sunday morning.

It means more than just being here and accepting the donuts and coffee and shaking hands with others.

It means serving him as we go out of here. That's the best of life.

Worship for us is when we go and serve him in the streets, wherever we are,

in our workplaces, in our homes, in our neighborhoods.

And then third is living in the preeminence of God's glory.

This is found in verses 18 through 23 of our passage today.

Pre-eminence reveals the facts that God has an all-surpassing and never-ending glory.

The glory of God is far beyond anything that we will ever be able to comprehend.

And you remember the story, Moses appeared before God in the tent of meeting,

and God's presence came on him, and Moses was so much in the presence of God

that his face shone with the glory of God, and people couldn't look on him without

being blinded. But what happens with stupid little people?

When we're not with God, the glory begins to fade.

And so Moses did like many people do.

When the glory began to fade and his life began to not show the existence of

God as much, he began to put a veil over his face.

We cover things up. We make it look like everything's so great.

We put on a happy smile, but yet the glory of God is not in us.

The Hebrew word for glory is kabod, which means to have manifest honor,

utmost reputation, and the height of reverence for somebody that you give glory to.

The chief purpose of man, according to the Westminster Catechism,

the chief purpose of man is to glorify God. That's what we were created for.

The implication of what Moses is asking is staggering.

Moses is literally asking to see God in all of his splendor.

Even the most intimate relationship with God could not bridge the gap.

That is why God sent Jesus, so he could be our Emmanuel, God with us.

Jesus, God sent his presence in the person of Jesus and leaves his presence

in the Spirit, the presence of the Holy Spirit.

When Jesus died on the cross, do you remember Remember that the curtain in the temple was torn in two.

This was a place that was covering the Holy Holies, and only the high priest could enter.

The only priest could enter on certain times into this Holy of Holy.

When Jesus was crucified, when he died, that was torn in two,

meaning we have access to the Father on any time.

How do we get to the Father? Jesus said something like, oh, I,

by the way, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

So it is through the blood of Christ that we come to the Father.

There are two things that we must do to see the glory of God displayed in our lives.

One is we need to live in his presence daily.

We need to seek his presence in our lives, and we need to be willing to let

him cleanse us so that his presence will be in our lives.

You can't ask God to be in your house, your temple that you are unless you're

willing to have him clean everything out that doesn't belong to him.

And then we need to daily live in order to please God. We need to give our every

effort to bring pleasure to God.

Are you pleasing to God in the way that you live?

So here are some questions that I want us to ponder as we go through this week.

Are you living in the presence of God, and are you living as the presence of God in this world?

Are you living to please God, and are you living as the pleasure of God?

And third, are you living in the glory of God, and are you glorifying God in the way you live?

God wants us to know him more and more and deeper and deeper.

He wants us to experience more of his presence.

He wants to have us, as David said, or as Paul said, die to self daily.

He wants to be with us at all times. He wants to go before us.

He wants to go behind us. He wants to go around us.

He wants to protect us from all that is, but even more so, he wants us to be with him in presence.

Would you pray with me? Heavenly Father, as we close this time of service,

this worship time that we call worship, we know that our real worship is the

way we live in the world around us.

And so, Father, I pray that you will anoint each one of us with your presence

as as we leave this place, that we might glorify you in everything that we do

say and think. In Jesus' name, amen.