Exodus - The God of Second Chances - Exodus: 34

Welcome to the roots, where it's all about Jesus. We

love God, we love people, we reach the lost, and

we make disciples. I'm really excited that you're here joining

us today. This is the we're almost done. This is

the second to last message in our Exodus series. And

some of you are like, praise God because you've loved

it and enjoyed it so much and you're so excited

for all the good things to come. But actually, what

we're going to do is we're going to jump right

into it. And so if you don't have a Bible,

go grab one out on the desk, yours to keep.

Please keep it for yourself. But we're going to find

ourselves in Exodus thirty four. Exodus thirty four, we're actually

gonna read the whole chapter. So we're going to lock

in for a minute. But Exodus thirty four, and if

you're new here, we've been going through the book of

Exodus where we see God delivers, God demands, and God

dwells with his people. So Exodus thirty four, we're going

to read the whole thing, pray, and by God's grace,

we're going to love God more and we're going to

know who he is better, and we're going to be

walking away in more awe of who he is, in

light of who we are, or who we're called out

to be. And so let's read this and get into it.

Exodus thirty four. The Lord said to Moses, cut for

yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and I

will write on the tablets the words that were on

the first tablets which you broke. Be ready by morning

or by the morning, and come up in the morning

to Mount Sinai, and present yourself there to me on

the top of the mountain. No one shall come up

with you, and let no one be seen throughout all

the mountain. Let no flocks or herds grays opposite that mountain.

So Moses cut two tablets of stone like the first,

and he rose early in the morning and went up

on Mount Sinai, as the Lord had commanded him. And

he took in his hands or in his hand, and

two tablets of stone. The Lord descended in the cloud

and stood with him there and proclaimed the name of

the Lord. The Lord passed before him and 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, for giving iniquity and transgression 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. And Moses

quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped. And

he said, if now I have found favor in your sight,

O Lord, please let the Lord go in the midst

of us, for it is a stiff necked people, and

pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for

your inheritance. And he said, behold, I am making a

covenant before all your people. I will do marvels such

as have not been created in all the earth or

in any nation, and all the people among whom you

shall see the work of the Lord. For it is

an awesome thing that I will do with you. Observe

what I command you this day. Behold, I will drive

out before the Amorites, the Canaanites, or before you the Amorites,

the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizites, the Hivites, and the Gebusites.

Take care lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants

of the land to which you go, lest it become

a snare in your midst, you shall tear down their altars,

and break their pillars, and cut down their ashram. For

you shall worship no other god. For the Lord whose

name is jealous is a jealous god. Lest you make

a covenant with the inhabitants of the land. And when

they hor after their gods and sacrifice to their gods,

and you are invited, you eat of his sacrifice, and

you take of their daughters for your sons, and their

daughters hor after their gods, and you make and make

your sons horrizle after their gods. You shall not make

for yourself any gods of caste metal. You shall keep

the feast of unleven bread. Seven days. You shall eat

unleven bread, as I commanded you at the time appointed

in the month of the Bib. And in the month

of Bib you came out from Egypt. All that open

the womb our mind, all your livestock or male livestock,

the firstborn of cow and sheep, the firstborn of a donkey,

you shall redeem with a lamb, Or if you will

not redeem it, you shall break its neck. All the

firstborn of your sons you shall redeem, and none shall

appear before me empty handed. Six days you shall work,

but on the seventh day you shall rest. In plowing

time and harvest you shall rest. You shall observe the

feast of weeks, the first fruits of wheat harvest, and

the feast of ingathering. At the year's end. Three times

in the years, you shall shall all your males appear

before the Lord God, the God of Israel. For all

cast out nations before you, and enlarge your borders. No

one shall covet your land when you go up to

appear before the Lord your God. Three times in the year,

you shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with

anything leavened, or let the sacrifice of the feast of

the Passover remain until the morning. The best of the

first fruits of your ground you shall bring to the

house of the Lord your God. You shall not boil

a young goat in its mother's milk. And the Lord

said to Moses, write these words, for in accordance with

these words, I have made my covenant with you and

with Israel. So he was there with the Lord forty

days and forty nights, he neither ate bread nor drank water,

and he wrote on the tablets the words of the

Covenant the Ten Commandments. When Moses came down from Mount

Sinai with the two tablets of the Testimony in his hand,

as he came down from the mountain, Moses did not

know that the skin of his face shone, because he

had been talking with God. Aarin and all the people

of Israel saw Moses, and behold, the skin of his

face shone, and they were afraid to come near him.

But Moses called to them, and Aaron and all the

leaders of the congregation returned to him, and Moses them. Afterward,

all the people of Israel came near, and he commanded

them all that the Lord had spoken with him in

Mount Sinai. And when Moses had finished speaking with them,

he put a veil over his face. Whenever Moses went

in before the Lord to speak with him, he would

remove the veil until he came out. And when he

came out and told the people of Israel what he

was commanded, the people of Israel would see the face

of of Moses, that the skin of Moses's face was shining,

and Moses would put the veil over his face again

until he went in to speak with him. This is

God's word. Let us pray, Lord Jesus, we ask that

your spirit would be here now, lifting the veil of

our hearts, lifting the veil of our eyes, so that

we would behold your glory, that we would see you,

that we would know you, and we would worship you

because of how amazing and good you are. Lord. I

just asked. The words that we're saying have already tilled

the heart that you've already prepared us for this word. Today.

We thank you that you were faithful, that you were good,

that you were steadfast in your love towards us now,

and even that will be revealed here as we hear

your word. We give you this time, and we glorify

you in all things in Jesus name. Everyone said, amen. Now,

many of you maybe do know this, some of you

could tell. Maybe some of you do not know that.

For all of my life I was homeschooled. So in

my teen years, a lot of my friends who did

go to school actually chose to go. They did the

running Start program over at our local community college. So

I would spend a lot of my time hanging around

the campus waiting for them to get out of class

so that we could go hang out when they were done.

But one of the times that I actually got to

go with them was hanging out. Their teacher let me

sit on sit in on a class with them for

their music appreciation and they watched the video. That's what

they did in there, which is cool for them. I

can do that at home too, Just kidding. We were

in there, they were watching a video on one of

the most popular songs of all time. It was written

by a man named John Newton, and he actually had

a really interesting life, very troubled early years, so troubled

in fact, that he wound up working on a slavery ship.

This was a long time ago, just to be clear.

He ended up working on a slave ship and ended

up eventually running a slave ship. After some time, he

ended up there was kind of a storm and some

different things that came up, and he actually ended up

converting to Christianity. Eventually he tired from the slave trade

in England, he became a minister at a church where

he would spend a lot of time preaching and writing hymns. Actually,

later even in his life, he would be one of

the ones to help lead the charge in ending slavery

in England. That's one of the things he's most notable for.

But the thing that he's most famous for is writing

the hymn Amazing Grace. Many of us should be familiar

or maybe are familiar with this classic hymn, maybe readown

a bunch of different ways, but amazing Grace? How sweet

the sound that did? What saved a wretch like me?

We say, well, we smile, right, It's think about his

life for a minute. Think about when he thinks about

his past. You read some of the quotes from his

diaries and you could tell the deep shame and pain

that he had from looking at his past, knowing the

thing that he was involved in, knowing the things that

he was a part of. I mean, it's how fitting

for him to come to know God's grace and look

at his own life and go and God saved me

and I was involved in that. And why do you

think this is really important is because there's many things,

even in our own life that we can look back

and be like, ooh, we feel that guilt, we feel

that Wait, and here's the we might be feeling that

now knowing that we're wretched, that we're sinners. Well, here's

what's interesting. The God's word is so interesting. The more

that we come to understand how truly sinful and wretched

we are, the more we come to understand just how

amazing God's grace is. If you have a low view

of your sin, if you have a low view of

your wrongs or rebellion against God, then you're going to

have a low view of His grace and how amazing

it is. And just like in our text today, we're

going to see this. We're going to see God is

more gracious than we deserve. God is more gracious than

we deserve. And if you're taking notes, today's message is

simply titled the God of Second Chances. This is very

important because where we actually find ourselves in our text

today is one of the most dramatic scenes, probably in

all of the Old Testament, because as we've been looking

through Exodustries, have seen God deliver a people out of

slavery in Egypt, bring them to himself and say I

am going to make you my people. Here is my word,

here are my laws. Will you keep them? And the

people say yes, we will worship you alone. We will

do everything you've said, and will be obedient. And then

Moses disappears for forty days, and it only takes forty

days for the people to commit spiritual adultery on God.

They went against his commands and worshiped a golden calf

that they had made. But we see Moses last week.

We saw Moses go up and innercede between the people

and God because God was gonna wipe them out. And

Moses goes up and intercedes, and God relents. God relents

of the judgment he was going to bring. But we

see that it's it's not because the people like, oh,

it wasn't that big of a deal. It wasn't like that.

It wasn't because the people were good. He's like, well,

you know, normally they're great people, but they just slipped

up this time. No, the only reason that God relented

is because God is the one who is good. And

here's the deal. I mean, we do the same thing.

Imagine it, making your wedding vows and after only forty

days committing adultery. But how often do we do this

exact same thing to God? Usually in less time. All

of us are sitting here on a Sunday afternoon, singing God,

you're the only one. You are my king, you are

my Lord. I will do anything for you. I will

offer up my very life, and not even twenty four

hours later. We're serving other gods. We're serving our priorities,

we're serving other idols. We're treating other things like they

are more important than God. So we can laugh at

them and be like, wow, forty days, but you don't

even last twenty four hours. I don't even last twenty

four hours. Just to be clear, we're all in the

same boat. We are truly wretched, We're adulterous in our

relationship with God. And it's because this is the reality.

This is the reality. And because of that, we need

to realize that we don't just need God's grace to

be in relationship with him. We need God's grace to

stay in relationship with him. Does that make sense. My

kids they can't swim yet, and they take advantage of that.

They still love to go into the deep end of

the pool, and so they will ask me if we're

at places with a wave pool or different things like that,

they'll ask me to take them out. And here's the deal.

I pick them up and I carry them, and I

take them out into the deep end, but they still

need me to hold them once I've brought them to

the deep end. Because we're in the deep end, they

actually can't make it out here. I had to bring

them to this place and I have to keep them

in this place because of their inability to do otherwise.

If I drop them at any point, they will sink

and drown. And it's the exact same thing with God.

If God were to ever let us go, if we

were to ever push our way out of God's arms somehow,

the only thing that would happen is we would surely

drown because we can't do it ourselves by nature, by

who we are. We need his grace, or else we

we're lost or adults we wander from him. We need

God's grace. We need God's continued grace to continue in

his grace, because as soon as He would have let

us go, we drift off in all kinds of spiritual

adult tree. So after the people broke their covenant with

God and God relented of his wrath, he calls Moses

up on the mountain. And it's amazing because he calls

Moses up on the mountain and he says, bring two more,

Bring two more tablets, because you broke the first ones,

which you remembered last week. The reason that they got

broken is because Moses was coming down the mountain after

God was like, hey, you might want to go check

on your people. They're already sitting. He goes down there

and as soon as Moses is sees their idolatry, he

smashes them. He breaks the tablets of the Covenant, a

perfect picture of what the people had just done with

their blatant idolatry. But God tells him, hey, cut some

new new ones. Bring them up. He kind of almost

sets a picture. If you go back all the way

to Exdus nineteen Exodus twenty, before he first established the Covenant,

it's almost like we're getting kind of a short and

condensed redo or renewal of that event. But while he's

up there, God shows up. Look at this verse six,

because we're gonna spend most of our time because it's

one of the most important parts of this entire text.

Says the Lord passed before him and 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 transgression 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 fourth generation. So we're seeing. What

we see here is God's glory is revealed in his

giving grace to guilty people. This is a pivotal moment

in the history of Israel. God is showing who he is.

He's gracious, he's merciful, he's abounding and steadfast love more

than they could even fathom. Then, no matter how big

you mess it up, you could always return to him

and he would show you grace because that is who

he is. And here's the deal. The people of Israel

needed to hear this. The people of Israel needed to

hear this because over and over again, if we read

through our Old Testament over and over again, this is

what the people do. They break their covenant with God,

they go after different gods. And so because that happens,

this quote actually gets quoted. This verse gets quoted many

times throughout the Old Testament or alluded to to call

people back to repentance. Not only that this same generation

actually Moses has to appeal to Look at this, it's

in Hebrew or it's in numbers, I believe it. It's

right before they've kind of rebelled and they're like, hey,

we're not going to go into this promised land because

it's too scary. And God's like, all right, I'm done

with these guys again. Right, So what does Moses do.

Moses now appeals to who God is. Look at this

number is fourteen seventeen, says, and now, please let the

power of the Lord be great as you have promised, saying,

the Lord is slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love,

for giving iniquity and transgression. But he will by no

means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers

on the children to the third and fourth generation. Listen

to this, Please ease, pardon the iniquity of this people

according to the greatness of your steadfast love, just as

you have forgiven this people from Egypt until now, from

Egypt until now. Egypt is where God first delivered the people.

And Moses just said, I know we're asking again, but

we need that grace again. I mean, but think about it,

how much continued grace have you need have you needed

since the first time that God saved you? And I

hope your answer is too much to count, because here's

the deal. Even if you got saved yesterday, even if

you got saved during one of the songs you were singing,

it's still an infinite amount of continued grace that He

gives you in every breath that you take. But not

only does this get called to count of Hey, please

forgive this people on a collective level, but there's at

times where individuals needed to be reminded of who God

is when things had kind of gone wrong or gone bad.

And we're gonna look at two full psalms. We got

a lot of scripture today just because they can say

it better than I can. And so I want to

I want to sow God's word onto your heart, that

you would hear it, you would put it in there

and keep it for yourself. But look at this incredible

palm praising God and reminding us of who God is

and why we should turn to Him in our distress.

The first one, Psalm one five, a song of praise

of David. He'll be on the screen. It says, I

will like stole you, my God, and King, and bless

your name forever and ever. Every day I will bless

you and praise your name forever and ever. Great is

the Lord, and greatly to be praised, and his greatness

is unsearchable. One generation shall commend your works to another,

and shall declare your mighty acts, on the glorious splendor

of your majesty, and on the wondrous works I will

meditate or your wondrous works. They shall speak of the

might of your awesome deeds, and I will declare your greatness.

They shall pour forth the fame of your abundant goodness,

and shall sing aloud of your righteousness. The Lord is

gracious and merciful. Oh here we are slow to anger

and abounding in steadfast love. I love. This is one

of my This is next favorite verses the Lord. The

Lord is good to all, and his mercy is over

all that he has made. All your works shall give

thanks to you, O Lord, and all your saints shall

bless you. They shall speak of the glory of your kingdom,

and tell of your power to make known to the

children of you of man your mighty deeds and the

glorious splendor of your kingdom. The kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,

and your dominion endures throughout all generations. The Lord is

faithful in all his words, and kind in all his words.

I know we're only halfway through this, but I gotta say, like,

God is so good, because even the songs we were

singing today, just how perfect, how perfect they are. Setting

up our hearts to receive these words Verse fourteen. The

Lord upholds all who are falling, and raises up all

who are about down. The eyes of all look to you,

and you give them their food, And due season you

open your hand. You satisfy the desire of every living thing.

The Lord is righteous in all his ways, and kind

in all his works. The Lord is near to all

who call on him. He fulfills the desires or the

desire of those who fear him. He also hears their

cry and saves them. The Lord preserves all who love him,

but all the wicked he will destroy. My mouth will

speak the praise of the Lord, and let all flesh

blome Bless his Holy name forever and ever. This coming

from a man who knew God's grace. Because King David,

the man after God's own heart, was also well acquainted

with going against God's word. He had committed literal adultery,

gotten the lady pregnant, had her husband killed, and tried

to murdered, just to be clear, murdered, and then tried

to cover it all up like he was going to

get away with it. And God called him on it.

But because of that, because David knew who his God was,

knew who his God is, that even though he had

gone astray, he knew the way back. So even look

at this incredible psalm some one O three says, Bless

the Lord, oh my soul of David. Bless the Lord,

O my soul, and all that is within me. Bless

his holy name.

Bless the Lord, oh my soul, and forget not all

his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all

your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who

crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you

with good so that your youth.

Is renewed like the eagles. The Lord works righteousness and

justice for all who are oppressed. He made known his

ways to Moses, his acts to the people of Israel.

Get this. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to

anger and abounding and steadfast love. He will not always chide,

nor will he keep his anger forever. He does not

deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us

according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens

are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love

towards those fear him. As far as the east is

from the west, so far does he move remove our

transgressions from us. As far as a father shows compassion

to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those

who fear him. For he knows our frame. He remembers

that we are dust as for man. His days are

like grass. He flourishes like a flower of the field.

For the wind passes over it, and it is gone,

and its place knows it no more. But the steadfast

love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting, on

those who fear him, and his righteousness to children's children,

to those who keep his covenant and remember to do

his commandments. The Lord has established his thrown in the heavens,

and his kingdom rules over all. Bless the Lord, oh

you his angels, you mighty ones who do his word,

obeying the voice of his word. Bless the Lord, all

his hosts, his ministers who do his will. Bless the

Lord all his works in all places of dominion. Bless

the Lord, Oh my soul. Why I want to read

these psalms again I'm going to reiterate, is because there's

so much in there. There's so much in there. We

need to meditate on that and have that in our heart.

How much different would we interact and deal with life

if we remembered those things and believed them that we

call them in to remembrance of who God is and

what that means for our life, of where we need

to turn. That God is gracious, God is merciful, slow

to anger, abounding and stepfast love, faithful, forgiving. When we've

messed up, we need to remember who God is and

run to his grace, not from it. This isn't the

only thing our text tells us. Look at this again

verse six and seven, and it says the Lord passed

before him and proclaimed the Lord, the Lord of God,

merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast

love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity

and transgression 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

fourth generation. God is gracious, but he is also just,

meaning he will not clear the guilty. You might say,

duncan hold on a second. Then we just read like

over and over again, that he forgives us. Then we

just read over and over and over again, how he

wipes away the guilt of the guilty, that he removes

the transgressions, that they aren't called to remembrance and they're

so far removed from his mind. How how can he

do both? And it's gonna be one of the most

difficult things to grasp. Because of that, we can end

up making some major mistakes in understanding who God is

because usually we pit them against each other. We'll say

God is gracious or God is just, but he can't

be both, or we just gravitate towards one or the other.

We love that God's gracious, and because of that we

abuse it. We can abuse God's grace. We can't, We shouldn't.

Don't do that, So we might think that we can

abuse God's grace and take advantage of him. Some might

just think that God it's actually just more gracious than

he is. Just. God prefers to just be more gracious,

like yeah, hey, I have to kind of consider his justice. No, God,

what scripture clearly he tells us is that God is

every amount gracious as he is just. And how we

know this, how we can see this and is because

there's actually a tension there. This tension in the text

actually not only points us to but is ultimately resolved

at the cross. We actually already we actually sang it.

We're Justice and mercy meet at the cross. Because God

doesn't just sweep our sins and our guilt under the

rug and say, well, we're just not gonna worry about that.

Because here's the deal about sweeping things under the rug.

Everyone can feel it. Everyone knows you do it long

enough too, it's not really under the rug anymore. The

rugs lifted up. But God does not sweep our guilt

under the rug. Actually, better, God deals with it. God

deals with our guilt. That's great news. That is good news.

And he did this exact thing at the Cross where

God took on flesh God man, Jesus Christ came lived

the perfect life that we could not live. But he

didn't come down and just rub it in our faces.

He actually died in our place. He died for our

sins and rose again, showing that He had completed this work,

that for whoever believes in Him would have their sins

dealt with, their guilt dealt with, their condemnation dealt with,

and instead they could have and receive Christ's perfection, his righteousness,

his peace. This is good news because anyone who is

a believer, we need to know that our guilt has

been dealt with. We're still prone to feel guilty, but

anyone who feels guilt, what we need to do is

look at what Jesus did. He dealt with it. He

took care of it, and we need to know it's

been dealt with. It will be set free. Jesus already

took care of it. But for anyone who continues in

their sin and doesn't back to God, who continues in

their spiritual adultery, their spiritual wandering away and rebellion against God,

instead of Christ taking your sin, instead of him taking

the wrath, do your sin, He'll take it. And that's

just justice. That's just justice. God's not gonna let anyone

get away. Everyone's sins will be called into account, so

someone has to pay for them, and it could be you,

and it will be you unless you put your faith

in the finished work that Christ provided, where he where

he takes the sin, where he takes the guilt, where

he takes the punishment. If you don't put your faith

in Christ, instead of Christ taking your sin, you will

take the punishment. Do your sin, which is everlasting torment.

Just to be clear, everlasting torment. Do your sin, you

will be removed fully from God's grace. Because even right now,

even if you are in your sins, in rebellion against Christ,

and you just happen to be here but God's grace,

I believe that he will change your heart. But even

if you're here, every breath you take, every time your

heart beats, every time you go out and buy ice cream,

that is God's grace on your life, and you don't

deserve it. And Hell is where all of that grace

is removed. We can't actually fathom it, and we don't

want to, and we don't have to, but that's what

we deserve. We deserve Hell. We don't deserve God grace.

But because of this, either Jesus taking our sins or

us and ending up paying our sins in hell. Either way,

God is just either Jesus takes your punishment or you do.

And it makes in that those psalms that we looked

at not only tell us about God's amazing grace, but

it also tells us like we should fear him, like

this isn't something to mess around with, This isn't something

we should be flipping about. And it's definitely not grace

that we think we can get away with abusing. We

are wretched, But God is gracious. So after God reveals

who he is, his character and incredibly gracious, and you

also just Moses once again intercedes for the people, just

like Jesus does every single time for us now when

we sin. Exodus thirty four, verse eight says, and Moses

quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped. And

he said, if now I have found favor in your sight,

O Lord, please let the Lord go in the midst

of us. Listen to this, for it is a stiff

necked people, And pardon our iniquity and our sin, and

take us for your inheritance. Moses intercedes with the people.

He makes a request to God, and something incredible here

is He doesn't ask them to do it because they

were good. He just he's like, hey, you know how

these people are. You know how these people can be.

But now that God has just revealed who he is,

Moses asked that God would show that grace, that he

would fulfill that promise to the people and pardon the people,

even if the people were prone to break their side

of the agreement, which is so amazing and shows us

that even if we are faithless, God will always be faithful.

He will not He will never go against his own character.

We may change and go back and forth on our word,

but God never does. That's really good news. God does

not all of a sudden stop becoming ungracious. He's always gracious.

God never stops becoming just. He's always just. So. Then God,

as we already read, he lists out the new Covenant.

He's like, all right, let's do this again. Running it back,

he kind of does a condensed version. But here in

this covenant that he has them right down and he's

as basically kind of two things. The first one is

stop committing spiritual adultery. You're gonna go into this land

and they're going to be worshiping other gods don't do that.

That's bad. Don't let your guys's family's married, because they're

going to take them after other gods don't do that all. Also,

don't build a metal image and worship it. It's kind

of funny because like, so are subject at the moment,

you know. After that, he then says, and remember to

keep all my festivals, all my feasts, all the holy

days that I have set for you, all the ways

that God was supposed to be worshiped and remembered. He says,

do that, don't worship them, stay with me. So the

nice condensed version of this covenant is, don't worship other gods,

worship me. So Moses comes down the new tablets and

something incredible is happening, something that didn't happen before because

it's only mentioned here at this time, after having spoken

with him, been in God's presence, Moses is not the same.

And I don't know if you've ever met people kind

of like this, maybe not the face literally shining, but

I don't know if you've ever met someone where you're like,

I just met them, but I think they're a Christian

Like I just there's this, I got this. The spider sins.

I got something about it, like I think this person

knows the Lord, and then there's some Christians that you

do know, and you're like, that person is more of

a Christian than me, Like that person spends time in

God's presence way more than I do. You just tell

there's something that just like it's it's not even it's

not physical, but you can you feel and you can

see it, and you're like, there's like you know they

spend time in God's presence. Well, here he actually had

a physical way to show, a physical way to say no,

God is still with Moses. God is still speaking through Moses,

and our textas that his face is literally shining, which

is just crazy, like that's wild. His face is literally shining,

but it's not because of his own holiness. Moses isn't

like a good guy per se in the story. Yeah,

he didn't build the idol. He has his own problems though,

you see that if you keep reading. But Moses isn't

shining because of his own holiness, but it's because of

God's holiness that he'd been in the presence of God's glory,

that he had been in the presence of that is

what was making Moses shine. This is really incredible. He's

actually told that for everyone who has put their faith

in Christ, having been shown his grace, walking in his ways,

abiding in his presence, that we too are called to shine,

to be the light of the world. The light on

a hill actually kind of get a big, actually a

snapshot of this in a greater way. In Second Corinthians,

we're told that there's this the new covenant that we

have that's not written on a stone, but it's actually

written on our hearts. It's a new covenant, not in

the blood of animals, but in the blood of Christ.

We're in told that we actually enjoy an even greater glory.

The Moses and the Covenant that they were experiencing, they

experienced glory, but we're told that now in Christ, we

experience a greater glory than what those people got to experience.

Look at this tewod Corinthians three seven. Funny enough, another

song we kind of sang today, Glory to glory. Now

if the ministry of death carved in letters on stone

came with glory that the Israelites could not gaze at

Moses's face because of its glory which was being brought

to an end, will not the ministry of the Spirit

have even more glory? For if there was glory in

the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far

exceed it in glory. Indeed, in this case, well, once

that glory has become or has come to, have no

glory at all because of the glory that surpasses it.

Talking about the two Covenants, for if what was being

brought to an end came with glory, much more will

be what is permanent have glory. Look at this, Since

we have such a hope, we are very bold, not

like Moses, who would put a veil over his face

so that the Israelites might not gaze at the outcome

of what was being brought to an end. But their

minds were hardened. For to this day when the when

they read the Old Covenant, that same veil remains unlifted,

because only through Christ is it taken away. Yes, to

this day, whenever Moses has read, a veil lies over

their hearts. But when one turns to the Lord, the

veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and

where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom.

And we all with unveiled face beholding the glory of

the Lord, are becoming transformed into the same image, from

one degree of glory to another. For this comes from

the Lord, who is the Spirit. If we try to

be good with our own works, like in the Old Covenant,

we are shown to fall utterly short. The commands reveal

how far we fall. But if we come to God

through Christ, who has fulfilled the law perfectly in our

place and taken the punishment of our sins, we can

stand boldly in the presence of God. And not only that,

there's this factor where as we get to Nacci, behold

God's glory, Behold his faith, We're being transformed into that image,

into that glory. We're not staying hardhearted like the people did,

but having our hearts softened by the Spirit of God

that we who were once blind now see and that

because of the amazing grace in Christ, Jesus and I

need the worship team to come up. Please. Then, now,

because of Christ, we can walk in His ways. We

can be transformed into His image and likeness, to look

more and more like Christ. So let's talk about an application,

because I believe that there's three solid things here for us.

In this text. We could find many many more. Let's

try and keep it simple first. Well, I think it

go without saying that there is this sense of weight

and glory that I hope that this text evokes in

you as well to who God is and what He's done,

and how amazing our God is. But the first point

for application, we need to return to God's amazing grace

in Christ. Whether you've been straying, whether you've never put

your faith in Christ, or maybe you're starting to go

wayward in your heart, or maybe you just need a

good reminder to how good it is to be in

Christ and the amazing grace that is given. Because then

and only then can we be forgiven of our sin

and start to live for Him. We can't live for him.

We will not live the lives that we're called to.

We will not be do the good works, we will

not be obedient in the way that we've that He's

called us to, if we have not first come to

Him in faith for his forgiveness. That is the way

in like we talked about, it's what brings us into

relationship with God. The second one, it's just like in

our text, once God reveals his nature and who he

is and gives that forgiveness. He then still clarifies to

his people how they are to live what it looks

like to be the light of the world. That's the

same thing in Christ. And when we come through Christ

and the grace and forgiveness given by Him, that we

are called and actually told that if we know Him,

we will walk in the same way in which he walked.

That there's this obedience that comes from knowing Christ because

we are being transformed into His image, so we will

look like him. It makes sense. But part of this

is we need to not commit spiritual adultery with our idolatry.

We need to put Christ first in our life. Christ

has to be first. Look at your priorities. What do

you plan around, What do you plan around? What gets

first DIBs on your schedule? Who gets first DIBs on

your schedule? How do you plan your weeks? How do

you decide what comes and goes? How do you decide

what's necessary for your every single day? Is God in

any of that? Is Christ's present in any of that?

This is just reality. Like we can say we walk

in His ways, we can say we live for him.

We can say we're not committing idolatry, but our life,

How would anyone look at our life and think that?

Would anyone look at your life and know that you

serve Christ? Would anyone look at your schedule and be

like this person loves Jesus, calm down? Would anyone say that?

Would anyone think that from being around you, by looking

how you spend your money? Like you literally go across

your entire life, who is first? And does it show?

The last? One? Is to abide in his presence? All

of these are together. If you do one, you're pretty

much doing the others. If you've come to know his grace,

you will walk in his ways and long to be

in his presence. And it's hard, like there's forgiveness for

those parts of our hearts. Like I don't want to

read my Bible today. I don't want to do this again.

I don't want to stop for three seconds and pray

over day to ask that He would be with me,

like once again, that just reveals who we are, people

in need of grace, and He just keeps on giving it.

He keeps on loving us. But he also tells us

the truth. But that's not how we ought to be,

and that's only in Christ that we can find forgiveness

and the strength and the desire and the hunger and

satisfaction to be everything that God has called us to be.

It's all in Christ. So do you turn to Christ?

Do you look to Christ? Do you trust in Christ?

Do you prioritize Christ? And don't just like hear me

say the words you're at church. This is what you

got to say right now. I don't care if it's

me or someone else saying it to you. Look at

your life, is it about Christ or not? At the

roots is all about Jesus. So we want to actually

help you do that. We want to do this together.

We want other people to tell us and remind us

that is who we're called to be, how we're called

to live our life lives. Because we turn to other things,

we make our life all about me. We make our

lives all about whatever else you can fill in the blank.

Now we'll say, praise God that it's a sunny day

and you're here. So I'll give you that. But to

abide in His presence, spend time in His word and prayer.

What's the first thing you put in your brain and

in your heart in the morning. A lot of bad things.

We don't want that to be the case. His word,

spend time with him, calling his name, recount God's grace

shown to you. When's the last time he said that,

looked at your life and God, God, I saw you there. God,

I saw you there. God, I saw you there. God,

I see you there. God. I thank you there. God.

I praise you for that. God. I need you here, God,

I needed you there, Like like the psalms, you looking

at our lives and going like, where's God? Is he there?

And then and not just being like, oh yeah, cool,

he brought me through that, but just like, actually thank him,

recognize him in all that you do. And I believe

if we do these things that we have examples set

for us here, that we will be the lights that

God has called us to that nobody who's encountered God's

amazing grace should look the same. Imagine if I saw

an amazing movie and I thought it was literally the

best movie in the world, or I experienced something that

was just so incredible, you wouldn't really believe me if

you'd never heard me talk about it. I'm like, oh,

that's my favorite. They're like I never would have known.

But we cheat Jesus like that all the time, were like,

he's everything to me, and you've never once set him

to said anything about him to other people as if

he did mean everything to you, and that hurts me.

Nobody who's encountered God's grace should look the same. Now.

Your face may not be shining, but your life should be,

and not because of your goodness, but because of God's

grace in your life and on your life. Somebody called

today would be to let God's grace in your life

be the glorious light that shines before others. And let

us remember to love him and fear him and thank

him and praise him because God is so much more

gracious than we deserve. Amen, Would you please see on

your feet