Face to Face, Friend to Friend // Exodus 33:1–11

We're going to be in Exodus chapter 33 in our Bibles if you want to turn there.

Exodus 33 · chapter mention

Exodus chapter 33.

Exodus 33 · chapter mention

World Cup today, is that right?

Man.

We'll get you out here on time, okay?

Let's wrap it up, Pastor.

We got places to go.

This is sermon number 84 through the book of Exodus.

We'll cover verses 1 through 7 in the text.

The title of the sermon today, if you're taking notes, is Face to Face, Friend to Friend.

We're working through a series I've titled Leaving the Darkness, where we watch Moses lead the people out of Egypt, into the promised land, into the wilderness, into a relationship with God, out of darkness, out of slavery, out from under the hand of Pharaoh, into freedom, into the light, into again a deep relationship with Almighty God.

And we've been watching this story unfold, and it's been a wonderful tale, really an amazing story.

So much color, so many things to look at here in the text before us.

And again, beautiful details before us again today.

Heard of a story, maybe you heard of this one.

Pastor Notice, a man who came to church every single Sunday, but he would stand in the back, he'd stand in the foyer, and he would never come and sit down.

It went on for months.

Finally the pastor caught him at the door and said, Friend, I'm so glad that you keep coming, but why won't you ever come and take a seat?

You know, and the man said, Oh, Pastor, I'd love to, but my wife told me to stay out of the pews until I fix my snoring.

So that's why I don't show up.

These are the jokes, people, and that's it.

That's all you get.

Suppose God came to you today with this offer.

I'm gonna give you everything: the house, the health, the finances, the land flowing with milk and honey.

All of it is yours, but one condition, I won't be going with you.

I won't be going with you.

You can have all my blessings, but you won't have my friendship.

Would you take that deal?

Now, because I think a lot of us would might potentially sign before God finished the sentence, all the blessings, and I keep my independence.

Where's the pen, right?

But that's the the tragedy of the human heart.

I think when we think of all of the blessings and having all the things up front, of course we get excited.

Who doesn't want all of that?

But then when it's it's finished with, but you can't have me, or you won't have the friendship, um, that obviously causes us to pause.

Um we want a God who provides.

We're not so sure we want to so sure we want a God uh who is super close to us, though.

I think that's what bothers people in the end, is coming close to God, yes, does involve great blessings and promises, but it also involves change.

It involves conviction, right?

We come close to a holy God, uh the light is shined on our lives, and we see who we are, and God doesn't allow us to say the same.

And that is the conflict.

That's been the conflict forever.

There is a man who wouldn't take this deal at all.

His name is Moses, and here in Exodus 33, when God makes almost exactly this offer, the people do something uh that ought to cause us to pause and stop for a moment because they are radical in their form, so different from the way they've been, and they actually stop and mourn uh when they see God say this to them.

They'd rather have God as their friend in a barren desert than have paradise without him, which I'm encouraged by.

And I think this text is going to strengthen you as we look at and watch Moses come close to God face to face as a man does to his friend.

We're in Exodus chapter 33.

Exodus 33 · chapter mention

Can we stand for the reading of God's word?

We always stand for the reading of God's word here at Legacy, to pay honor to him, to remember whose word we are reading.

Not my words, not my story, not my commands, not my ways, not my opinion.

Um we're really here to look at what God has said and to try to look at it closely, and then to apply it to our lives.

We stand to read, to remember who it has come from, and to give him honor and glory.

We read his word again this morning.

Exodus chapter 33, take a look at verse 1.

Exodus 33 · chapter mention

Then Yahweh spoke to Moses.

Go, go up from here, you and the people whom you have brought up from the land of Egypt, to the land which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, To your seed I will give it.

And I will send an angel before you, and I will drive out the Canaanite, the Amrite, the Hittite, the Parasite, the Hivite, the Jebusite.

Go up to the land flowing with milk and honey, for I will not go up in your midst, because you are a stiff-necked people, lest I consume you on the way.

Then the people heard this sad word and went into mourning, and none of them put on his ornaments.

So Yahweh said to Moses, Say to the sons of Israel, You are a stiff-necked people, should I go up in your midst for one moment, I would consume you.

So now put off your ornaments from you, that I may know what I shall do with you.

So the sons of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments from Mount Horeb onward.

Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, a good distance from the camp, and he called it the tent of meeting.

Everyone who sought Yahweh would go out to the tent of meeting, which was outside the camp, and it happened whenever Moses went out to the tent that all the people would arise and stand each at an entrance of his tent and gaze after Moses until he had entered his tent.

And it happened whenever Moses entered the tent that the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent, and Yahweh would speak with Moses, and all the people would see the pillar of the cloud standing at the entrance of the tent, and all the people would arise and worship each at the entrance of his tent.

Thus Yahweh used to speak to Moses face to face, just as a man speaks to his friend.

Then Moses would return to the camp, and his attendant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, would not depart from the tent.

Let's pray.

Father, we thank you for your word again today.

And we ask now, by the power of your Holy Spirit, you would ignite the text.

Lord, you would cause it to glow in our eyes, in our hearts, in our minds, that we would burn as we read the text for you, and that we would desire you above all things on the earth.

That we would want friendship, deep friendship with you above all things.

Lord, that is what our souls are craving and calling out for.

We worship you this morning.

We ask you would bless our time as we study your word.

We ask it in Jesus' name.

Amen.

You can be seated.

Allow me to set the table because you have to know where we are in our story and the weight of this, what's going on.

We're standing in the rubble of the golden calf.

Remember, uh Moses, the people danced around the golden calf, naked, worshiping it, and Moses destroyed it.

He ground it up into powder and he made the men drink it.

Um Israel committed spiritual adultery at the foot of the very mountain where God gave them the law.

Moses again ground this idol to powder.

3,000 men were put to death for doing this by the Levitical priesthood, and God sent a plague.

The smoke is cleared, and one question hangs over the camp.

The biggest question there is, after all of that, does God still want anything to do with us?

This is a friendship question now, isn't it?

Have I ruined it?

Is God done with me?

Every one of us has to ask this question, and in verses one to three, God answers, and it is the most bittersweet answer in the book.

Yes, you can have the land, the milk and honey.

I'll even send an angel to fight your battles, everything I promised, but I won't be going with you.

Point number one, if you're taking notes, blessings are not friendship.

Blessings are not friendship.

Verse 1 and 2 sound like nothing but good news.

The promises of God still stand.

The promised land is still coming ahead of them.

Heaven's angel will clear the road for them.

Then comes the phrase that turns the whole thing upside down, the back half, verse three, for I will not go up in your midst, because you are a stiff-necked people, lest I consume you on the way.

We talked about this stiff-neck, the stiff-neckedness.

I don't even know how you say that.

But being stiff-necked, we talked about this extensively.

Um it's a person who can't see, they can't, they're not self-aware enough to see when they're doing wrong enough to even acknowledge it so that they could actually change and grow.

It's a very dangerous place to be.

Remember, the stiff-necked ox is the one that will not be put in the yoke.

The farmer's like, let's go, ox, get your neck in the yoke so we can plow this field.

And the ox just stiffens, it just will not set into play.

It won't move.

And that ox obviously cannot be helped.

And God calls the people a stiff-necked people, and he says, For this reason I will not be going with you.

And you have to feel the weight of that.

God is offering the presence of his blessings without his presence, uh, the estate gift without the Father.

His reasoning is chilling, not that he stopped loving them, but that he is holy and they are sinful.

And if the Holy One walked in the middle of a stiff-necked people, his holiness would break out and destroy them.

It would consume them.

He's like, Because you guys are living this way, I can't even dwell amongst you.

And so, out of a strange, terrible mercy, he says, For your own sake, I will keep my distance lest I destroy you all.

God is patient towards us, isn't he?

Not willing that any should perish, but that all would come to repentance.

He has plenty of reason on the earth already to just wipe this whole place clean.

But he lets us stay.

And he gives a common grace to the earth, doesn't he?

The sunrise, he gives them the sunrise and the sunset.

He blesses the earth regardless of our great sin.

It's really wild to watch.

And church, you have to understand this.

You can have the blessings of God and not have the friendship of God.

And if you can't tell the difference, that's the surest sign you might have settled for the wrong one.

You can have the house, the health, the full calendar, the milk and the honey, and be thousands of miles away from his face.

The world calls that success.

But heaven calls that heartbreak, right?

The whole point of the cross is not to give us homes, it's to give us a home with him.

It's not to fill our bank accounts, it's to be connected to the one who owns the universe.

You see, it's relationship.

And to be honest, haven't many of us quietly negotiated exactly this arrangement?

We want God to bless our plans, fund our lives, guard our kids, and send his angel ahead of us on the freeway.

But walking with us that close, seeing everything in my life, God, uh, we'll take the angel thanks.

We're not sure we want the friendship.

And so we end up like Israel at the edge of the desert, blessed, but alone.

And the first application is definitely a gut check.

We've got to stop settling for the perks of God and start pursuing the person of God.

A relationship built on what somebody gives you isn't a friendship, right?

And what if that person stopped giving you those things?

Would you do you still like them?

And that's the litmus test now, isn't it?

Now, now we hope that the we we like the person, and part of the identity of that person is that they want to give us this or give us that, or that's it's an extension deeply of who they are.

But if for some reason those things stopped in their lives because they weren't able to anymore, you hope that you'd still want to be friends with them.

Right?

That's the the tale as old as time.

As soon as, as soon as everything stops flowing from your life to all of these people around you, all of a sudden they disappear.

I thought you guys like really liked me.

Oh, you like me because of that thing.

So you don't really like me.

And that that's a shame, right?

If that's the relationship with God, right?

But that is the story of the church.

Often, when when when instead of blessing trials come, when the storm shows up, and it's like, oh, I don't feel the blessings aren't flowing right now like they normally do.

What's going on here?

God, are you still there?

All of a sudden, people leave the church and you don't want to walk with God anymore.

You know, it's like I tried that God thing and it didn't work out.

They they've mistaken the relationship, the friendship.

A relationship built on what somebody gives you isn't a friendship.

I like you because I like you.

I love you because I love you.

And I love you because I love you because of who you are, and because of who you are, those things that happen in our relationship are just an extension of who you are deeply.

And I really do just like you.

And I'm grateful for the gifts when they come, I'm grateful for the blessings when they come, I'm grateful for those things when they come, but that's okay if they don't.

I still like you.

I still want to be friends for the next 20, 30, 40 years.

No big deal.

I remember Francis Chan saying this a long time ago.

He said, if I get to heaven and God isn't there, I don't want to be there.

God is what makes heaven heaven.

You think I don't want to be there with a bunch of people.

That's earth.

I want to be there with God.

God is what makes heaven heaven.

You can make a gold street down here.

You can pave it gold if you want to.

But it doesn't make it special.

What makes it special is that God paved that road.

That the river of life is there.

The peace of God is there.

No sin, no death, no hatred, no hurting each other.

Eden, my kids always want to talk about, they were there, you know, in depth talking about what animals they want to cuddle in heaven.

We were at the zoo this last week, and we got to see the tiger up close.

Pretty cool.

And uh the tiger came close.

I mean, they're wild.

They're the crazy long, I mean, the stripes, and Eden's like, I'm gonna cuddle a tiger in heaven, Daddy.

Shepe wants to hold the snake, of course.

Watch how Moses answers this very offer, Exodus 33, 15.

Moses says later in this chapter, I don't want to go too deep in it because man, it's a treasure.

Next week we'll look at it.

He says this in verse 15.

He says, God, if your presence does not go with us, do not lead us up from here.

Marty Goetz sings it in a song.

I'll bring it up again next week.

It's one of my favorite, one of my favorite Jewish pianists.

He played at my wedding, this guy.

Marty Goetz, Pastor Greg is a gift to Katie and I had Marty Goetz play at our wedding.

Incredible.

And he sings this song that says, How can I go on if you're not with me?

Show me, I pray thee, thy glory.

He says, I'm not going forward unless you're with me.

I'm not walking in this life if you don't go with me.

And Moses is saying that.

Hear the friend talking.

He says, Keep the milk and honey.

If you're not coming, I'm not going.

I don't really care about the milk and honey.

That's Psalm 27, 4, isn't it?

The psalmist, David, one thing I ask from the Lord, this only thing do I seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.

To gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.

To gaze upon his beauty.

Like that phrase throws a wrench in the whole system of religion.

Like, what do you want to do?

I just want to go gaze upon the beauty of God.

I just want to look at the sunset.

I just want to walk, I just want to listen to the music.

And do what?

Enjoy.

He is the masterpiece.

It's gazing upon him, it's enjoying him, it's interacting with him.

That's what we were made to do.

This is the chief and highest end of man to enjoy God and glorify him forever.

Simple math.

Matthew chapter 6, verse 26, Jesus said, What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world but he loses his soul?

Matthew 6:26

What if you gain the whole world but you lose God?

Who really cares?

Imagine the man handed the keys to his dream house, beachfront, every room perfect, paid in full, and he stands there grinning at the deed, and his wife walks up and says, It's a beautiful home, honey.

Enjoy it, because I'm not going to be living here with you.

How long does the dream last?

About four seconds, huh?

It was never the house that made it a home, it was her.

Strip the person out of the paradise, and this paradise becomes the loneliest address on the earth, and we have billionaires experiencing this now in this city.

Do you really like me?

Or do you like really like me?

Like, what if I didn't have all this?

Do you still like, would you still want to hang out and stuff?

They don't know.

They can't, they can't, they can't gauge it anymore.

And that's a sad reality, isn't it?

Augustine said this in his confessions 16 centuries ago.

Nobody has improved on this quote.

I've said it many times.

You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds rest in thee.

He didn't make your heart to rest in blessings, he made it to rest in him, and it will ache and grasp at milk and honey until it finally comes home to him.

Pastor Josh, what does that look like in real time?

It's very simple.

It's getting alone with God in prayer.

It's getting alone with God in his word.

It is really communing with him.

We're going to see it at the end of the text here.

What Moses did, what friendship looks like.

I love that these all of these words connect so beautifully.

Friendship and relationship and family and father and sons and daughters and all intertwined, deep connected relationships and friendships, all connected to the way we are to experience God.

But we built out all these structured religions and we say, that's the way into God.

And he says, What are you guys talking about?

Don't you remember the Garden of Eden?

Like, that's the way it was set up.

Like all of these structures and man-made things are just to help organize these sloppy human beings so that we can get in line and actually find God because they're so sloppy.

We can't even, without structure, we can't figure it out.

It's all about you can remove it all, you know, in heaven.

There will be structure, but it'll be very natural.

Might not even realize it.

Point number two, if you're taking notes, a friend grieves the distance.

A friend will grieve distance.

This is verses four to six.

Watch the people's response.

The turning point here of the chapter in verse four, the people heard this sad word and they went into mourning.

None of them put on his ornaments.

So when the Lord said, I'm not going with you, then he told them, Take off your ornaments.

They went into mourning and they did what he had said.

We've got to stop here, even though it feels like a negative in the text.

It's actually the good news sitting right here in the text, in the passage.

For the first time since the golden calf, Israel gets something right.

They hear, I won't go with you, from God, and it breaks them, breaks their hearts, and they don't shrug it off and say, Well, at least we still get the real estate, at least we still get the promised land.

Instead, the text says they mourn.

Losing God's nearness is to them worse than losing everything else combined.

The grief is the first.

Healthy heartbeat this nation has had in a long time because that's how a friend responds to distance.

We're not gonna see each other for a while.

And I'm gonna miss you.

Right?

Only somebody who wants their relationship grieves the loss of it.

And I remember um it's a really scary uh line in the Old Testament.

I remember it in the King James for whatever reason, but it says that Samson wist not that the Lord had departed from him.

Or he knew not that the Spirit of God had left him.

It's like, remember, he had the super strength, and he kept running away from God, and he kept falling into sin, and one day he didn't know that the spirit of God had left him.

And remember, Delia's like, the Philistines are upon you, and he goes to break free again, and he can't.

The Spirit of God had left him, he was alone.

Remember, the Philistines dragged him into slavery, and the text says they they put a stick in the fire and they burned his eyes out.

And then they strap him to an oxen mill, and he he pushes the mill, he grinds, he grinds the wheat with the oxen, pushing the mill by himself.

His final prayer, sad.

He's chained to the pillars of this built giant building.

His final prayer, the text says that he prayed, asking God to give him super strength again so he could push the pillars down, kill himself, and kill all the people.

To which God gave it to him.

And the Philistines were crushed.

But a sad ending, huh?

Like we don't ever say, hey son, when you grow up, be like Samson.

He wished not that the Lord had left him.

Man, please God.

Their grief does something, verse 6, it says, the sons of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments or their jewelry.

From Mount Horeb onward, think of the irony.

Where did all that gold get them the last time?

They melted their earrings down and made a calf, and they worshiped it.

The ornaments had come between them and their God, and so in real repentance, they take off their jewelry, their gold, and they put it away.

They say, We're not wearing it anymore.

We use that to worship another God.

We will no longer put on that jewelry, we'll no longer put on jewelry, period, anymore.

You don't recognize, you don't agonize a broken heart.

When you've genuinely grieved, the distance between you and God, the shiny things lose their shine in your life.

When you've genuinely grieved over what you've done to God in your friendship with Him, you say, forget this stuff, man.

I'm never, I don't want anything to do with it ever again.

Here's a lesson.

You can measure a friendship by what is what its absence costs you.

You can measure your walk with God the same way.

Most of us mourn the consequences of our sin.

Sorry we got caught.

Sorry it cost us.

But a friend of God mourns the distance.

When David sinned, listened to what he begged for.

He didn't beg for his crown.

He did not beg for his reputation.

He said in Psalm 51, Do not cast me away from your presence.

He said, Take not your Holy Spirit from me.

He didn't say, Don't take the crown from me.

He didn't say, Don't take my reputation from me.

He says, Don't take your spirit from me.

Create in me a clean heart, O God.

Renew a right spirit within me.

Real repentance always ends up taking something off.

It says, if this ornament, if this jewelry, if this habit, if this relationship, if this secret has come between me and God, then off it goes.

I'd rather stand bare and near to him than decked out in gold and far away from him.

Forget the gold, I want God.

Right?

I'm not going to heaven for gold streets.

I'm going to heaven because I want to be with God.

Jesus said, I go to prepare a place for you, for where I am, you will be also.

You will be with me.

And that is the joy.

That's what we look forward to.

That'd be the biggest bummer in all of history, huh?

You get to heaven, you're like, where's Jesus?

He's like, not coming.

What?

What do you mean he's not coming?

You gotta let your sorrow do something.

That's how we apply this.

Grief over sin that never gets off the couch isn't repentance.

Don't be like Judas.

Oh no, I sold him.

But he never repented.

It says he wept bitterly, but he never repented.

He never turned his life over to God.

You can feel sorry for something, but you need to turn your life over to God.

Real repentance moves, it strips off.

Ask yourself honestly, what's the ornament you keep polishing while it quietly keeps God at arm's length in your life?

Are you willing, like Israel, from Horob Amur, to take it off for the sake of the friendship with God?

That's what sin does to us.

God says, it's not that my arm's short that I can't reach you.

It's not that my ear is dull that I can't hear you.

He says in minor prophets, it is your sin that keeps the distance, keeps me from you.

Paul draws the line in 2 Corinthians 7, 10, the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance.

The word repent, remember, just means to change direction.

I'm going this direction, doing that.

I'm changing direction, and I'm going towards God away from that sin.

I'm going to stop that.

But the sorrow of the world produces death.

It's not good enough just to be sorry.

The sorrow should produce a change of direction, right?

Somebody just looks you in the face and says, sorry, and then they keep doing it.

Sorry, keep doing it.

Sorry, keep doing it.

Sorry, keep doing it.

That doesn't mean anything, huh?

But if you say sorry, and then you see them make an attempt to stop doing it, that is real repentance.

Nobody's going to be perfect in it.

It might take some time to change, but nevertheless, you've got to repent.

You've got to change direction.

James 4.8 makes it hands-on, draw near to God, draw, change direction, turn away from the sin towards God, draw near to him, and he will draw near to you.

Philippians 3 8, Paul stripping off every ornament he ever owned, he says, I count all things to be lost that I may gain Christ.

I count it all as lost.

Lead me to the cross.

Not gain heaven, not gain blessing, gain Christ, the friend himself.

Think of the husband who realizes, really realizes that his coldness has wounded his wife.

If he just feels bad and changes nothing, that's not love, that's guilt.

But watch what a man does when the relationship is what he's grieving.

The golf clubs stay in the garage.

The phone goes in the drawer because suddenly nothing he owns matters next to winning back the closeness of his wife.

That is Israel here at Orab.

The ornaments went in the drawer because the earrings and the jewelry went in the drawer because the friendship was way more important.

You clear it all out, you make them number one.

The missionary Jim Elliott wrote one line in his journal that captures this whole point.

He said, He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.

He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep.

He can't keep it anyways.

To gain what he could never lose.

You give up all this stuff that you're not going to be able to take to heaven anyway.

You ever seen a U-Haul truck strapped to a hearse?

What is that?

It's got ten U-Haul trucks going with them.

They built a pyramid and stacked all the stuff in it.

They think they're taking it into the next life.

The only problem is everybody in this life robbed it.

They stole the gold.

You give up all this.

They gain all of that.

Point number three, and finally, face to face, friend to friend.

I want to make one final point there.

The great trade of goods is the greatest trade of your life, the stock trade, the greatest stock pick of your life.

You trade the eroding things of this world to gain the eternal God who owns it all.

You win.

But if you hold on to the eroding things of this world, you miss the friendship, you lose your soul.

This is what God wants, point number three and finally, face-to-face, friend-to-friend.

Verse 7, Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, and he called it the tent of meeting, and everyone who sought Yahweh would go out to the tent of meeting.

Everyone who sought Yahweh, everybody who wanted to meet with him could go outside the camp to that tent of meeting.

That's awesome or what?

Two things here.

First, the tent is outside the camp.

Why?

The sin.

God manifest presence could not sit in the middle of that defiled camp, so the meeting place moved out.

And if you wanted God, you had to go out to him.

Leave the camp behind.

And notice it wasn't a Moses-only privilege.

Everyone who sought Yahweh could go.

The door stood open to any seeking heart.

Second, watch what happened when Moses went in, verse 9, the pillar of cloud came down and stood at the door, and Yahweh spoke with him while the people, verse 10, stood at their own tent doors and worshiped from a distance.

Then verse 11, the crown verse.

Thus Yahweh used to speak to Moses face to face, just as a man speaks to his friend.

I love that it says, just as a man speaks to his friend.

It gives us such a clear picture because everyone has a friend they have spoken to face to face.

You know what that feels like.

And Moses was talking to God this way.

Now let me handle that phase carefully because a sharp listener will catch something here.

Verse, the nine verses later, in verse 20, the same chapter, God says, Moses, you cannot see my face, for no man can see me and live.

So which is it?

Here's the answer.

Face to face is the Bible's idiom for intimacy, not optics.

Numbers chapter 12, verse 8 says, God spoke with Moses mouth to mouth.

Numbers 12:8

This isn't CPR, okay?

It's the same idea.

It's the difference between receiving a memo from a king through a note and sitting across a table from a friend.

No veil, no formalities, direct person, unhurried conversation.

Moses didn't see the unveiled glory.

He got something in some ways more astonishing.

He was on a friendly speaking terms relationship with the Almighty.

And we'll see later that God hid Moses in the cleft of the rock and he let God, Moses actually got to see God's physical back.

It's pretty crazy.

But here, he's getting to commune with the Almighty without seeing his face, thus he dies.

He's able to commune with him on a face-to-face friendship level.

You can't miss the last line there.

It says, young Joshua would not depart from the tent.

When the meeting ended and Moses went back to the camp, this young man stayed.

He couldn't get enough of the presence of God.

There's a whole sermon in that.

There was a reason he was the one who later leads Israel home into the promised land.

He would go and hang out in the tent of meeting with God by himself and just hang.

He'd just linger there.

Joshua, when are you coming out?

Shh.

Got a few more things.

But I love the idea of not just, I think oftentimes we think uh being with God is nonstop prayer, like we have to keep saying something, but that's not a friend.

We can sit on a drive on a road trip with a friend, and there could be silence in the car for 30 minutes.

We're listening to a tune, or just sitting in silence, just looking at things.

Or we go out and surf with a buddy and we sit on the water.

We're not just chatting the whole time.

We're watching the waves, we're watching the horizon, we're just sitting in peace.

Just being with someone.

Happens in marriage.

You know, of course, you talk a lot in marriage, but oftentimes it's fun, you know, when you especially when you get to a point on vacation where you can just sit and relax, just sit with the person and just hang out.

That's a friend.

Where there isn't the awkward silence where you feel like you have to fill every single gap of silence.

I think that's how it is with a lot of our relationship with God.

We don't even know how to sit in his presence.

We don't even know how to just sit and just be in communion with him without having to say a ton of things.

I think the church doesn't know how to listen to God.

We know to talk to God, we know to say a lot of things, but we don't know how to sit with our journal in our pencil, our pen, and just wait.

I remember that.

So a lot of this, a lot of my influence comes from this time that I spent in Mexico, and it was because there was a four-month block.

We lived there with this pastor named John Corson, and his goal was to teach us how to meet with God face to face, how to commune with him by ourselves.

And I remember we used to wake up 7 a.m.

Well, we woke up 5 a.m.

We'd do communion and worship in the morning, and then we'd go on walks and spend time with God, and then we would get together in a room about 7 a.m.

and we'd pray for an hour together as brothers.

And um I remember John would come in there and uh the guys would just be rattling nonstop, and they would pray lame prayers, vain repetition.

And John stopped the middle of the prayer one time.

I remember him in the early on, he said, guys, stop that.

You're just praying nonsense.

You can be in silence and wait for God to impress something upon you to pray, then pray that thing.

You don't need to just fill the room.

I love it.

Because it is.

It's kind of like when you can feel someone just won't stop talking because they're just filling space.

You're just like, you don't even want to really talk to me.

You're just saying stuff, you know.

Just as much small talk as you can get out, you know.

Just like, are we gonna have a real conversation here?

This is a waste of time.

But to get to a place where you can allow space, I would always try to find a Mount Sinai.

I had one there in Mexico, and when I got back home, I was looking for the mini mountain, the mini hill there by my neighborhood where I could go and sit on this little place and just see what God.

I just needed to be quiet.

I just need to be away, be quiet, and sit, and pray, and then read, and journal, and then sit, and pray, and then read, and then journal, sit, and sing a song, quiet.

Learning to have a friendship with God.

Maybe one of the greatest gifts given to me is I can retreat there quickly and get away from the noise, all the chaos, and find that find that communion, find that peace, find his presence, and just be quiet.

Isn't that the whole point of the cross?

What is the point?

He wipes away our sin.

He takes our punishment so we can get a bunch of stuff.

No, it's so we can have communion with the God who made us, who owns all the stuff.

What's the whole point of this whole religion?

To just come and do formalities?

No.

It's relationship.

It's always been that way from the garden.

And sin messed everything up, it messed up the relationship, and we're trying to get back to God.

Here's what's amazing: God has never been looking for admirers at the tent door.

He's always been looking for friends who will come inside.

Anybody want to come inside?

See the three postures in this scene in this text, the people at their own doors worshiping, but they want to go in, worshiping from a distance, watching the cloud worshiping.

Good, real, but distant.

Moses inside face to face, and then Joshua inside refusing to leave.

Your turn's over, Joshua.

Get out.

You've been in there for three hours already.

It's my turn.

In his presence is fullness of joy.

He's like, dude, I'm not getting out of here.

The son is nice.

Seek him like a friend.

This is how we apply this, and linger like Joshua.

Friendship doesn't grow in more formality and scheduled minimums.

No marriage survives on two minutes a day, neither does a walk with, neither does a walk with God two minutes a day.

Go out to the tent daily, deliberately, leave the camp's noise behind, talk to him plainly the way a man speaks to his friend.

And when you have said what you came to say, stay a while.

Some of the deepest work God does, he does in the ones who won't depart from the tent.

It's not even in the lyrics being sung when you have the guitar by yourself.

It is in the instrumental, when nothing is being sung, when the depths of your heart is being sung.

That is where the change happens.

It is driving in the car, communing with God by yourself, when the epiphany happens, when the lights turn on, communing with the Almighty, when you've prayed what you needed to, and you're sitting there and repentance takes place.

It is there.

That's what happens in the friendship, doesn't it?

It's not always in what someone says.

It's the fact that they were there at the right moments.

They maybe said the right thing, but it was not that they'd stacked the words correctly.

It was their presence.

It was the depths of their friendship that won you.

Wait for the Lord to speak, to impress something on your heart, what he desires for you.

Write it down.

Sit and listen.

Learn to listen to the Lord.

It comes through his word, no doubt.

But he will remind you of scripture that you have memorized.

He'll remind you of stories.

He'll remind you of many things.

And I would encourage you to take those things to heart.

The glory of the new covenant, what Moses had as a rare privilege, Jesus actually hands to us an open standing offer.

In James chapter 2, verse 23, Abraham was called the friend of God.

James 2:23

James the apostle is pointing this out, building the case.

John 15, 15, Jesus the night before the cross says, No longer do I call you slaves, but I have called you friends.

Concluding quote, Joseph Skurvin said, He wrote this, this hymn.

The church has sung it for 170 years.

What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear, what a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer.

Verse 11 open to you and me, not a rare privilege given to Moses, but a friend, the Lord Jesus Himself, who invites us to carry everything to Him at any hour.

No appointment needed.

Isn't that amazing?

So back to my question: do you want the blessing of God or do you want the friendship of God?

If He offered you everything but Himself, would you mourn like Israel or would you take the deal?

At the cross, the consuming fire that should have fallen on us fell on the Lord.

Jesus was consumed in our place, forsaken outside the camp, so we could be welcomed inside his friendship.

And this is what he says in John 15, 13 greater love has no one than this.

Then one lays down his life for his friends, and I call you friends.

That's the whole ministry, that's what he came to do.

Revelation 3 20, the Lord says, Behold, I stand at the door and knock, and if anyone will come in, let me come in and sup with him.

I'll dine with him.

That sounds like a meal together.

Friendship.

So don't leave the Lord out on the porch.

Don't spend your life at the tent door watching other people's clouds.

Open the door, come in, speak to him plainly, the way a man speaks to his friend.

Like Joshua once did.

When you're in, you don't have to leave.

You can stay for a while.

A lot of religious types don't like this kind of stuff.

Because it's too ambiguous.

You can't box it up.

There's got to be some formality to which we approach the Almighty.

That's the amazing thing.

Is the religious says, look at this guy, he's hanging out with wine bibbers and tax collectors and sinners.

What is he doing eating with those guys?

And that's the beauty of the Lord.

Is that he does.

He opens his arms, he welcomes, he's opened the doors of heaven so that any can come in and sup with him and dine with him.

That's my prayer for you.

Is that you put away the ornaments, that you'd stop seeking the blessings of God and just seek God and the blessings will come.

And that you would learn to commune with him face to face as a friend does with a friend.

Amen.

Let me pray.

Father, thank you for your word today.

Thank you for this church.

And I pray, God, now by the power of your Holy Spirit, Lord, would you take this text, would you take this unique text?

And would you help us to see that though you had built the tabernacle, though you'd built all these formalities and structure, you let Moses and Joshua come in, and anyone who wanted to seek Yahweh to come find you.

It's really amazing, Lord, that you would open the door like that.

Even after this great nation sin so greatly against you, you allow this.

We're in awe of your grace, we're in awe of your mercy, and I pray, God, that it would push us, that it would drive us, that it would call us to repentance, that we'd put away the gods, put away the things here on this earth, and we would worship you with our whole lives.

We turn our lives over to you.

We'd seek you with all of our hearts.

Bless us, church, fill us with your spirit, help us to turn to you, make you Lord and Savior once again today.

We ask it in Jesus' name.

Amen.