Show Me Your Glory

Turn with me to Exodus 33.

This is called Show Me Your Glory.

I want to read, beginning in verse 12.

Moses said to the Lord See, you say to me, bring up this people, but you have not let me know whom you will send with me.

Yet you have said I know you by name and you have found favor in my sight.

Now, therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways that I may know you.

In order to find favor in your sight.

Consider too that this nation is your people.

And he said My presence shall go with you and I will give you rest.

And he said to him If your present does not go with us, with me, do not bring us up from here, for how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, i and your people?

is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, i and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?

And the Lord said to Moses This very thing that you have spoken I will do for, you have found favor in my sight and I know you by name.

And he said Please show me your glory.

And he said I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name, the Lord, and I will be gracious.

To whom I will be gracious and will show mercy?

on whom I will show mercy?

And he said You cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.

And the Lord said Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock And while my glory passes by, i will put you in a cleft of the rock and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by, and I will take away my hand and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.

Father, we ask for this moment that you inform in your people here gathered, that cry of Moses, your servant.

Show me your glory.

But we might look for it in the right place, in the face of the Lord, jesus Christ In our hearts, to cry out show us your ways.

We ask in Jesus' name, amen, amen.

I don't know if this is true, but it seems to be that a story has circulated about a woman during the administration of Abraham Lincoln who somehow got into the White House with a plate of cookies And as she approached President Lincoln she said quote Mr President, i didn't come wanting anything from you.

I was just thinking of you today and the load you are carrying and thought some cookies might brighten your day.

According to the historian who recorded this, lincoln was amazed and began to weep and said Madam, i see a great many people each day and they all want something from me, but of all the people I've seen since coming into office, you are the first one who came not asking something from me, but wanting to bring me something Close.

Quote.

Now I can't verify the truthfulness of the account.

Sounds Lincoln-esque, so it probably happened.

But as I read that, i thought it may be in a certain sense that God himself feels that way towards his children, that the majority of his children come to him regularly to get something from him, with little or no regard for his person.

Now, in one sense this story does not apply, and I'm aware of that because, truth be told, far from being, like Lincoln, tired of people who are constantly coming and making requests of him, god encourages us repeatedly in Scripture to come to him with all of our needs and constantly make requests of him.

For example, i was busted by the Holy Spirit in prayer in my devotions one morning this week for violating again Philippians 4, which is either lunacy or a great prescription for peace.

You know, it says be anxious for nothing.

And as I was walking around my office with all my anxieties, i read it and fell on my face and repented before God.

And this Scripture is one of my favorites because God, far from saying I'm tired of you bringing me your request, is inviting us to come with every burden, every care.

And if you couple that with 1 Peter 5, where Peter says casting it's a violent verb violently casting all your care upon him, for he cares for you.

So, far from feeling like we're tiring God to bring him all this, he in fact encourages us to bring him all of our care and all of our requests.

I believe that in a mature Christian life there has to be more to the relationship between the believer and his or her Lord that just simply coming to get our needs met.

There is a place where we never stop bringing our needs, but where we are no longer coming just because he is supplying what we need, but because we have become convinced that he himself is all we'll ever need.

So let me ask you this question.

I actually asked it in our staff devotion Tuesday morning, if we somehow could show a screen with your prayer requests over the last 30 days.

What would that screen look like?

What would it consist of?

Would it demonstrate that we are coming to God faithfully according to Scripture, bringing Him our various needs and making requests?

Would it reveal that?

which, if so, great?

But would it also reveal how hungry, how desperately hungry, we are for the living God Himself?

I'm afraid that the screens of many of us in this room would not reflect our hunger for God, but that we content ourselves with the things God gives us, and I love what God gives us and I come to Him consistently, more so in the last six months than I ever have in my life.

But is there?

I'm asking a basic question this morning.

I'm asking you to really take your pulse.

Is there, deep within your heart and bosom, a burning passion to know God and His ways?

If so, you and I are so instructed by Exodus 33 in the account of Moses.

In this chapter Now, to be fair to this chapter Moses actually starts his prayer asking for something.

So he himself is lives.

In accordance with what I said, we do need to come to God for his supply.

And that's what we see Moses doing in this chapter.

This chapter, by the way, is the follow-up chapter from the account in chapter 32 of the golden calf and Israel fashioning that idolatrous calf and beginning to worship it.

And all that happened with the broken tablets.

And the follow-up in Exodus 33 is the Lord had promised not only to take Israel into the land, but he had promised to go with them, to be with them, to personally guide them into the land of promise.

But after they sinned with the issue of the golden calf, god now threatens I will no longer go up into your midst, i will send my angel to guide you.

In fact, it was grace that said I will not go with you in your midst, because God told them in chapter 33, this is my mercy on you, because if I did go with you, i would consume you if I came into your midst.

And so God promises his angel but withholds his presence.

And that's what Moses starts his prayer with, if you read it carefully this morning.

He comes to God and says okay, god, you told us you're going to bring us into this land, but if you're not going with us, who are you sending to help?

He's crying out I need help.

Who are you going to send with me?

But as we look at this chapter and this is where I want us to be instructed this morning in these verses, there are really two stories in chapter 33, and they are beautifully woven together.

One is the story of Israel's failure to know the Lord himself and in juxtaposition to that is the story of one man who pressed on to know the Lord, who wasn't content merely with God's activity but was pressing in to know God's heart.

And these two stories are summarized essentially in a verse from the book of Psalms that I thought of when I read Exodus 33 this week.

Remember the psalmist who said this he made known his ways.

Psalm 103, verse 7, he made known his ways to Moses, his acts to the children of Israel.

Psalms 103:7

And there is an intention on the writer of the Psalm David to make a contrast between the two.

He said Israel, the nation, saw God's acts, he made them known, but he made known his ways to Moses.

And the writer makes a contrast between God's acts, the things God does that are visible and evident, and God's ways, which is how God is and why he does what he does, because of who he is.

I think you know the difference.

When we speak of someone's acts, we're talking about the things that one does, how one carries himself or herself.

And how do you become acquainted with somebody's acts?

You simply do so by observing them, and this is the story of Israel and the wilderness.

They kept observing God's works.

I mean, think about what they saw, and if you were there during those 40 years, they saw God single-handedly rescue them from a nation.

They saw plagues.

They saw God open a sea and take his people through and bring the sea to destroy the enemy Egyptians who were following them.

They saw God give water to a million people in a desert by splitting open a rock.

They saw a million people be served a meal meat.

In the wilderness.

They saw God lead them by a visible cloud of glory and by a pillar of fire at night, the cloud by day.

All of these acts of God were awesome and there was no nation on the earth that has ever had such visible displays of God's activity.

In fact, the Scripture celebrates again and again these acts of God throughout the Old Testament.

Psalms and the prophets recall how awesome God was in his acts.

But the contrast in this statement makes it evident that it is possible to see all of God's actions and all of his works, and not get it In a word a person or people can see and observe all of God's activity, but never really come to know God's ways.

Now, what are we talking about When we talk about God's ways?

when we talk about knowing someone's ways, we're talking about more than what they do.

We're talking about the style by which they do things, the reason for which they do things.

It's quite a funny because I thought about it.

I can go into a room in my house and know which son was in there last.

I know their ways and I know how they leave the room messy and I know which son was probably in there.

Think of Israel observing all these acts.

And I know you're thinking, man, i wish I could have seen it.

They would have been cool, but yet they never came to understand the God who was in their midst doing these wonderful acts.

In fact, do you know how God sums up that generation?

This is a little disturbing, because some of us think that God's provision is the same as his approval, because he provides for his children.

I must be good, but you know, god provided for that generation in the wilderness.

Unlike any generation and here's God's subnation of that generation They always go astray in their hearts and they did not know my ways.

Apparently, provision should never be mistaken for approval.

God didn't say they were great with me.

Look how I provided.

He said I provided, but they always went astray in their heart.

They never came to know me.

In other words, for Israel, all of these acts were just disjunct activities having no coherent theme.

But in contradiction to that, there is a man, the man Moses, who pressed in beyond the activities and said God, i want to know your ways.

You understand what's involved in understanding someone's ways and not merely their acts, don't you?

To know a man or a woman's ways requires a deeper acquaintance with him or her than that which is required in knowing his acts.

To know someone's ways, you must spend time with that person and you must do so in order to study that person and observe them carefully.

How many have heard that married couples, after I think it's 25 years, begin to really resemble each other and finish their sentences?

And there was one study I actually read it recently that said they start looking like each other.

So the contrast between God's ways and acts and Israel observing only activities and one man observing his ways.

And, by the way, i love this chapter because after God says I won't go in your midst, i will.

If I did, i would judge you.

Moses is seen as pitching a tent outside the camp and he goes into the tent and you can read that in the verses right before where we started reading in Exodus.

And Moses abides in the tent and it says the glory of God came down in the tent and he spoke to Moses as a man speaks to his friend.

Now the heart of this episode with Moses, and I don't have time to extract at all, but I want to center on one thing How is it that this man, what, or should I say what is it behind this request of all the requests that Moses could have made?

And he made his request for provision, for God to bring them, and that's all about But when he is really at a moment where he's got God's full attention.

I thought about this and I wanted to ask you this what would you ask for if God came down in a cloud in your bedroom tonight and said I'm here, what do you want?

Wouldn't that be the ultimate test?

And when it happened to Moses, his prayer and his conversation with God in Exodus 33, the text bears it out.

It is peppered with requests again and again let me now know your ways.

And that is summarized in his final request God, show me your glory.

I don't believe there is any greater request or a summary.

There's no possible summary of your heart's desire to know God's ways that could be framed more perfectly and succinctly than the request Show me your glory.

But I wonder how many of us really know what he was asking.

As I surveyed the internet this week and what postings I could find on people talking about the glory of God, i could give you a list of things that are at the top of the list of what people say.

But at the top of every list, without exception, is presence.

Many people are talking about the glory of God today and most of them are talking about presence, and I believe that's legitimate to a point.

For some or many, god's glory is an experience of his presence.

But there's a problem with that in this text.

If you go back to the beginning of the petition, moses is saying God, if you don't go with us, we're not gonna make it.

And God comes to Moses and he gives him one sentence.

Somebody gave this to me prophetically a few months ago.

I have been living off it and God says don't even think about that, my presence shall go with you and I will give you rest.

And that settled the matter for Moses.

But if Moses was thinking of an experience of God's presence only, he would have been satisfied at that point and would not have gone on to ask show me your glory.

So apparently God's glory is more than an experience of his presence.

Now, everybody look up here.

I love the presence of God.

I'm not minimizing it, i like to.

I have a saying the presence of God is the spice of life.

I believe we're to live in God's presence, we're to cultivate it.

I love it.

You know, i said to Jack during our elder prayer time this morning man, i wish we could resurrect that song.

In his presence, in his presence, there is peace.

Remember that And those songs.

So a man, it just came to mind.

And I love God's presence.

But it is possible to make the experience of his presence the ultimate thing, so that we're more addicted to feelings of his presence than we are God himself.

So what is it If Moses already had the assurance of his presence.

What was he asking when He said God, show me your glory.

Well, let's back up and remind ourselves of something When Moses cries out to see the glory of God, god tells him I'll let you see me.

You'll never see my face, you can only see my back, and I will hide you in a rock.

And the only way you can see me is if you're in a rock cleft a cleft rock from which, of course, we have so many Christian songs Rock of Ages, cleft for me.

Let me hide myself in thee.

And Moses has told if you want to see God's glory, i will put you in a rock.

I will pass by, you cannot see my face, but I will allow you to see my back.

That rock is interesting because it's in the book of 1 Corinthians that we are told that they all drank from a spiritual rock that followed them in the wilderness, and that rock was Christ.

So what was God doing to Moses?

for our instruction?

as all of the Old Testament?

Here is a picture in the Old Testament church of something that we do not fully understand until the New Testament That the only way we can ever see the glory of God is we must see it in Jesus, through the gospel.

That is where God's glory is revealed.

And I want to do this in preparation for the weeks that we will be looking at the lovely Son of God in our series.

You know Martin Luther.

When he broke into gospel freedom in the sixteenth century, near the end of his career, he distinguished between two types of theology.

One he called the theology of glory, which he said the Catholic church is pursuing.

And over against that, luther said my theology is a theology of the cross.

And here's the distinction Luther was making.

It's very important For Luther.

The Catholic church was pursuing a theology of glory.

In my opinion, sadly many are today.

That is, they are building their theology in the light of what they expect God to be like.

And it is not surprising that for many of these people God looks something like themselves.

But Luther came along and contradicted the theology of glory and said in the New Testament error, god is revealed only in the light of a crucified man hanging on the cross, and everything we learn about God must be centered in that cross.

And this was utterly revolutionary at the time, and guess what It still is.

For example, take the issue of God's power.

What do you think of when you think of God's power?

Usually and Luther said this theologians of glory use the term and say it's analogous to human power.

So they take.

In other words, they suppose that the way to arrive at an understanding of divine power is to magnify human power to an infinite degree and say God's like that.

But Luther came along and said God's power is not human power to the nth degree.

He said the only way we can understand divine power is in the light of the cross.

It is power manifest in weakness.

Luther said the ultimate place and Paul would agree in 1 Corinthians 1, where power is manifested is not the resurrection though the resurrection was certainly a display of power but the cross of Christ.

In the apparent defeat of Jesus at the hands of evil powers, god displays His ultimate power.

The same, he said, was true of wisdom.

What is wisdom?

And Luther said, wisdom is only revealed in the cross.

Who in this room would have thought up the idea, the foolish idea, that the way that a God who loves His creation would redeem that creation is by taking human flesh and coming to this planet and being rejected and crucified and dying a horrendous death for sinners that defy Him?

Who could have thought up the wisdom of God, the idea of God making sinners pure by becoming sin himself?

And Luther said both of these things, power and wisdom, have to be recast in the light of the cross.

You know what Luther called Christ crucified.

He referred to Exodus 33.

This is not I'm not being irreverent here.

He did.

He said Christ crucified is God's backside.

And he said it this way at the very point where God appears to be the very contradiction of all that we anticipated him to be.

That is where the glory of God is manifested.

It is glory revealed through suffering.

Now I got to tell you this.

This is not just a theological lesson.

It has incredible import for the Christian life.

It has import because it deals with how God, who loves us, deals with us.

We in the affluent West, when we think of blessing, what comes to mind?

We think of everything good.

A lot of money influence power, wisdom, and in thinking that way, we are thinking as other secularists.

We are thinking of power and wisdom and blessing on human terms.

Luther said, and the Bible teaches, that the cross reveals God's glory through suffering.

It is the ultimate statement that God takes evil and suffering and turns it to unspeakable good.

And for those of us who believe the work of the cross and have received its merit and are saved by the cross, this has incredible implications because it doesn't mean, as is popularly preached, that Christians now don't ever have to suffer or go through difficulties or disappointments because the victorious Christian life is enough.

Cash, never problems, no suffering, it all goes away.

But what it means is God will allow those things in our lives, but he uses it for incredible good.

Someone once said hasn't the curse been reversed, so the blessings now flow?

The answer is yes, but a theology of glory interprets that to mean that believers shouldn't have any difficulties or sufferings.

When a theology of the cross says God is now glorified in my life and yours by turning what Satan means for evil to good, because I am being transformed so that I become more like Jesus Christ, and that is what is unspeakable good, that comes out of unspeakable difficulty.

I mean, how many of you would be on I can't do that you, because you won't be honest but how many of you would agree that when you became a Christian you had an idea of what it was gonna be like and everything that's happened in your life you never bargained for You were lied to by preachers who told you, if you believe, it wouldn't happen.

Now, don't get me wrong.

I'm a blessed man.

I stand here this morning blessed.

I have the greatest Lord, i have the greatest wife, i have you all.

I feel blessed, but there's some things in my life that keep cropping up.

I'm trying to get rid of Difficulties, confusions, doubts, suffering and the power.

God is here and we believe in all of these things.

But the reality is, if you are a man or a woman who is drawn out to say show me your glory, where are you looking for that?

Do you side up with the theology of glory?

or are you a man or a woman rooted, like Luther said, in the theology of the cross, which means everything in our lives is not wasted, even though we may not understand it?

God has an unspeakable blessing for us and he allowed it for a purpose of affirming his love for you, so that we might be conformed to the image of his son.

No wonder Paul can say he's either crazy or it's true.

All things, how many work together for good.

Don't tell people it's all good, you know, i mean.

This isn't like my house just burned down.

That's good, brother Paul is not saying all things are good.

He's saying God allows these things because he's working all things that occur for our good, for those who love God and are called according to his purpose.

See, if your goal in the Christian life is just to get to heaven, have some earthly blessings, then you got a real problem understanding what's going on in your life.

But if your goal is the recognition, as I told someone recently, it's not so much about going to a place and I believe in heaven.

If I died tonight, i know where I'm going.

But the Christian life is not so much about going to a place.

It's about getting to a place, and the place he's getting us to is where we glorify God in our lives.

Faith is the victory that overcomes the world, faith that the God who saved me, who took upon himself his, my sin and my degradation, is now blessing me by the power of his spirit and guiding all things in my life and using the things in my life to conform me to the image.

But you won't ever understand it unless your heart cries oh God, show me your glory.

I want to know your ways.

I am so hungry to know your ways.

I am praying that, as we go through the months of November and December, god will hide you in the cleft of a rock.

The Rock's name has a name it's Christ Jesus.

It was cleft by God and he's hiding you and I in that rock.

I recently read a statement and I realized it's true to this effect and I close with this, most of life really is about perspective or attitude.

Most of life is about perspective or attitude.

So why are you a Christian?

why are you here?

what are you after?

what propels you to continue this thing called the Christian life?

I'm praying as we unfold, and more of this next week.

I'm praying that your heart will be drawn out to recognize that there's a place to bring him.

Our needs and all of the blessings of provision are there, but that you go beyond that and you're not a superficial Christian just after the gifts, but you are so hungry to know the giver.