A Concrete God (Hebrews 1.1-3)

My godfather’s name was Bill. He was a single man almost all of his life, and then in his seventies he met a woman named Nancy. He met Nancy, of all places, online. They chatted on Facebook for months. They had long conversations, but it was always through chat. (They lived far away from each other, and couldn’t afford all the long-distance phone calls.) After almost a year of chatting online, Bill and Nancy decided to get married.

They had never met in person, but they felt they had known each other for years. The first time they met was the day before their wedding.

I got the opportunity to see them both a couple of times before Bill died a few years ago. It was strange for me, because I had always only known him as a single man. But he was happier than I had ever seen him, now that he had found Nancy. I was asking about their experience, seeing each other for the first time in person, getting to know one another in person, and said it must have been strange.

But both of them agreed that it was exactly as they had expected, only better. They already knew enough about one another to know they loved each other and wanted to be together. And everything they saw when they finally met only confirmed and deepened that love, and made it even more real.

Now here’s why I’m saying this. I just spent the last three weeks in the U.S. And already, when I landed in the States three weeks ago, people had already put up Christmas decorations. My parents already had a Christmas tree in their living room. A lot of people expect a lot of things this time of year, and it’s easy to get distracted with the decorations and the gifts and the meals, especially if Christmas was a big deal in your home when you were young, like it was in my home.

But the real reason we celebrate this whole season isn’t because of all of these things, no matter how fun they may be. We celebrate this season because of the dynamic we saw between Bill and Nancy.

In the Old Testament, at least to a certain extent, we see God in the abstract. He made himself known through his laws, through the miraculous things he did, through his people, and through the prophets who spoke for him.

But no one ever got to see God himself. Even Moses only got the briefest glimpse of him, and even then, only in part.

And for the longest time, it seemed like that would be the way it would always be. The prophets had promised that a day would come when God would send the Messiah, this warrior-like figure who would conquer sin and free his people. But even then, no one quite understood what that would look like. They waited for hundreds of years for the arrival of this Messiah, but when he finally came, most of them didn’t recognize him, because he’s not at all what they expected.

But that fact—the unexpected nature of who Christ is—does not change this simple reality: Christ is how God has revealed himself. Not just his law, not just his will—himself. God is no longer abstract. He is concrete—visible and tangible and present.

So for this Advent season, that’s all we’re going to be seeing. We’re going to be looking at the first three chapters of the letters to the Hebrews. In these chapters, the author goes into great detail about this one main idea: in Christ, God has made himself fully known.

Context

Before we get started though, let’s give ourselves some context for what we’ll be seeing.

The book of Hebrews is sort of unusual. We don’t know exactly who the author is (I’m partial to Paul, but several people think it’s Apollos or Barnabas); it was finally decided it should be in the canon of the Bible because it is perfectly coherent with the other books. What makes it even more interesting is its structure: it’s structured more like a sermon than a letter, so a lot of people consider it a “sermonic letter”—a sermon that was written down and then sent out in letter form.

As far as the first audience goes, the traditional title “to the Hebrews” lets us know only that the original recipients were Jewish Christians. (Which makes perfect sense as you read the letter, because it is constantly drawing from the Old Testament; everything we just saw in the book of Exodus will be extremely helpful here.)

So let’s just read the text together—we’ll just be in the first three verses of chapter 1 today—and this will serve as a brief introduction to what we’ll be seeing these coming weeks.

Then and Now (v. 1-2a)

Hebrews 1.1-2:

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son…

There is a lot to see here. First of all, we need to see that the author is intentionally making several distinctions.

First, there’s a distinction of time. It begins with “Long ago, at many times and in many ways”. But in v. 2, he says, “but in these last days”. Jewish Christians grew up with a profound attachment to the past, to their history. The author wants them to know that God’s revelation is not just a thing of the past; it is present, it is actual, it is here.

Second, there’s a distinction of to whom God is making his revelation known. V. 1: Long ago, God spoke to our fathers (our ancestors). But in v. 2: In these last days, he has spoken TO US. The Jewish Christians revered their ancestors—it’s easy to believe God would have spoken to them, because they were these incredible, outsized figures. But no, the author says—God hasn’t only spoken to them; he’s spoken to us.

Third, there’s a distinction of through whom this revelation has come. V. 1: God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. (In biblical thought, whenever you talked about “the prophets,” you weren’t just talking about the prophets mentioned in the stories, but the actual authors of all of the Old Testament books.) The prophets were God’s spokesmen, his ambassadors to the world, making known God’s will and God’s Word.

But now, he says in v. 2, in these last days, he has spoken to us by his Son.

We don’t ever see Christ’s name in this passage, but it will become clear later on that Jesus Christ is the “Son” the author is referring to. A long time ago, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. But now, in these last days, he has spoken to us by his Son.

So there are a couple of questions that immediately spring to mind. The first is simple: Did God change his plans? He spoke for centuries through the prophets, then the prophets went silent for four hundred years. So it’s easy to assume that God’s revelation is finished, it’s all done. And if God was going to speak again, it would be reasonable to assume that he would do so through more prophets, since he had spoken through the prophets in the past.

So did God change his plan? If we keep reading, we’ll see that no, the Son isn’t a change of plan. Rather, he is the fulfillment of everything the prophets were pointing to.

Now this may have been a bit disconcerting for Jewish Christians. I just got back from a three-week trip to the U.S. for fundraising. We planned that trip, and the events that we did there, for several weeks. And I won’t lie, when I finally got there, and arrived at these events that were the culmination of these plans, it was a little nerve-wracking. What if it doesn’t succeed the way we hoped it would? What if the right people don’t hear the message we’re trying to send? What if the right people don’t respond? When you talk about the culmination of a plan, it can be scary, because if the plan doesn’t succeed…what’s left?

So the second question the author implicitly asks—the question he’ll spend the rest of this letter answering—is a simple one. If God spoke to our fathers in the past through the prophets, and now he’s spoken to us by the Son… How is the Son better? How is Jesus Christ better than everything that came before him? How is he better than the prophets? than angels? than Moses?

That is what we see in the following verses.

The Son: Revelation of God (v. 2-3)

V. 2 again:

…but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. 3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high…

So let’s just work our way through this real quickly. What does the author say about the Son, by way of introduction?

First, he says that he is “the Son”. Whose Son? Well, he is God’s Son. That isn’t to suggest that God was there before the Son, or that he made the Son. This is tricky, and we won’t go into great detail, but this is the way the Bible talks about God: that there is one God, who has always existed in three distinct persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. One God, three persons. The Son, the second person of the Trinity, became a human being and lived as a man named Jesus at the beginning of the first century A.D. He lived a perfect, sinless life, died and was raised again, and is now seated at the right hand of God. That’s who we’re talking about when we talk about the Son.

Second, the Son was appointed by God to be “the heir of all things.” When we think of an “heir,” we don’t usually think of someone who’s inheriting something small. It wouldn’t be worth mentioning that someone would be the heir of 30€ in a checking account and a mountain of debt. If you say, “He’s the heir of his father’s media empire,” that means something different.

The Son, we see, is “the heir of all things.” Not a few things, not even a vast fortune—ALL THINGS. Things in heaven and things on earth. Every corner of creation, every person, place or thing that exists, has ever existed or will ever exist… All of it belongs to him.

And that makes sense, because we see thirdly that the Son is the agent of the creation of all things: through [him God] also created the world. You remember, back in Genesis 1, when God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light? When God said, “Let there be light,” the Son is the one who flipped the switch. When God said, Let there be animals and plants and mountains and rivers and stars and, finally, people, Christ is the one who made those things.

Next, we see in v. 3 that he is “the radiance of the glory of God.” The glory of God is everything that God is, all of his attributes, made visible. It’s often metaphorically described as light.

It’s a little hard to picture this, but we can see it if we read the gospels. Jesus looked like an ordinary man, he talked like other men do. He learned a trade, he had skin and hair, in every respect he looked and sounded like us. And yet, during his ministry, what do we see? People gravitated toward him—even those who didn’t like him. They couldn’t help but be drawn to him. When they looked at him—not necessarily what he looked like, but what he was like—they could immediately tell that he was different from other men.

Why? Because, as we see next, the Son is “the exact imprint of [God’s] nature”. All of God’s character, all of his attributes, everything God is, was perfectly represented in Christ. People were drawn to Christ because he showed them what God was like. God’s nature was perfectly displayed in this man’s actions, in his words, in his character.

Now here’s where it gets crazy. Up until now we could say that what the author has said about Christ is relegated to the past. These are the things people saw when they looked at Jesus during his earthly ministry. But now we start to see Christ as he is now.

The author tells us that he “upholds the universe by the word of his power”. Think about this for a minute. Everybody, put your hand on your heart; do it until you can feel your heartbeat. (And if you can’t feel your heartbeat, we do have medical professionals here who can help.) Take a minute.

Now think about this. Every time your heart takes a beat, it’s because the Son is telling your heart to take a beat. Every time you take a breath, it’s because the Son is telling your lungs to keep breathing. Every time the wind blows, every time the sun rises and sets, every time a wave lands on the short, every time a bird manages to stay in the sky, it is because the Son is upholding all of those things by his powerful word. If he chose to do so, with a single word he could cause all of creation to stop. To just not be anymore.

Remember when Paul talked about rejoicing in the Lord always, about giving thanks in every circumstance? We just celebrated Thanksgiving together as a church. Some of you may feel like you don’t have a lot to be thankful for. But if your heart is still beating, if your lungs are still breathing, it is because Christ is making it happen. We always have reason to be thankful. We always have reasons to rejoice.

Next, we see that the Son made purification for sins. If you were paying attention during our series on Exodus, you know what this means. Humanity has rebelled against God; every individual person alive has rebelled against God. Humanity is totally and completely infected by sin. Our sin means that we can’t live with God; but the fact that we were created in his image means we can’t live without him either.

So God gave the Israelites a system of purification, a means of paying for the sin they’ve committed, at least for a little while. The priest would figuratively place their sin on an animal, and they would sacrifice the animal, who would essentially receive the punishment for that sin.

The problem, of course, is that for every sin that is paid for, there’s a whole lot more waiting just around the corner, so they had to offer those sacrifices again, and again, and again.

But the Son “made purification for sins” once and for all. He took all of the sin of all of God’s people throughout all history on himself, and he was crucified, and on the cross he absorbed all of God’s wrath against our sin. He acted as our priest, and our sacrifice—something no other human being was ever able to do. Only a perfectly sinless man could be the sacrifice for sinful people, and only God himself could absorb God’s wrath against sin. That is what the Son did.

And consequently, lastly, “he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high”. This means two things. First of all, it means that his purification for sin actually worked. The work of salvation has been completed, and there is nothing else for him to do to save his people—the work is done. And secondly, it means that since he has taken care of sin, the Son has now taken his rightful place, the place of supreme authority over all things.

Now obviously, that is a lot to digest in just two short verses.

1. Christ owns everything (even if we can’t see it yet).

2. Christ is at the origin of everything.

3. Christ is a perfect picture of God’s attributes.

4. Christ is a perfect picture of God’s character.

5. Christ keeps every molecule in movement.

6. Christ paid for the sins of his people, and thus:

7. Christ took up his throne to reign.

That is God, in a nutshell. When God wanted to fully reveal himself, he did it through his Son, who did all these things, and who continues to do these things and be this Savior.

If this is who God is, then we see so many of our common ideas about God have to be thrown out the window.

Like the idea that there are some parts of the world that didn’t come from him. The idea of a randomly generating universe is off the table if Christ is the perfect image of God.

Also the idea that you can see God’s attributes or character any other way. You can see some of God’s character by looking at creation, but you cannot go into the mountains and commune with nature and meet God in the process. You can go out there and get a hint of God, the way you can walk by a bakery and get a whiff of the bread that’s baking inside. But you cannot fully know God without knowing Christ.

Also the idea that there is anything in this world outside of his control. Christ upholds all things by the word of his power. A lot of things happen in this world that we do not understand; but nothing takes place outside of Christ’s sovereign will.

Also the idea that when he died, Christ made salvation possible for us, but that in order to be really saved, we need to be the ones to make it happen. There is a lot for us to do once we have been forgiven and saved of our sin, absolutely. But none of those things make us saved. We obey God’s commands not to be saved, but because we are saved. Christ has made purification for our sins, and we cannot add to that purification one bit. It is finished.

And finally, the idea that there are parts of the world or our lives that are “God’s territory”, and other parts that are ours. “God, you can have my Sundays and my social life, but my finances and my sexuality… I’m going to hang on to those.” It doesn’t work that way. Christ owns everything. God owns everything. Christ reigns over everything. There is no area of this world or of our lives over which he does not get to have his say.

Conclusion

This is our God.

But I’m not naïve; I’ve been doing this for a while now, so I know that some of you have already checked out on me. I know that some of you are listening to everything I’m saying and hearing it as if it’s just a story.

Don’t think I’m judging you for that; I completely understand. Sometimes I have a hard time thinking otherwise too. It can feel as if things have changed a bit since the author of Hebrews wrote this book. It can feel like God is once again abstract to us, because we weren’t there when these things happened, we don’t see Christ today.

But guess what? The people who read this letter for the first time… Chances are none of them had actually seen Christ in the flesh either. Maybe a few of the older ones did, but most of them had never seen him.

So what God does it say that Christ is the radiance of the glory of God, and the exact imprint of his nature, if none of us actually get to see him?

It’s a good question, and we find the answer in the fact that these things were written down for us. The author of this letter, and of all the other letters, and the gospels, and the book of Acts, wrote these things down, and believed they were enough.

We often say how much we would have loved to be with Christ like the disciples were. But this is a truth we may have a hard time believing: we see him better today than they did back then.

The disciples saw aspects of Jesus we don’t get to see, of course. They saw him when he was relaxed, they saw him laugh, they heard what his voice sounds like. But the opposite is also true. The disciples didn’t get to see all of Jesus that we see.

They weren’t with him twenty-four hours a day. And even when they were, they were were definitely moments when they were looking away, or thinking of something else, or simply misunderstanding what they were seeing.

But in the Bible, we have statements of intent. We have every vital moment recorded. We have descriptions of Christ’s feelings and attitudes and desires—things the disciples would only have been privy to if he had told them (which he didn’t always).

Do you remember what Jesus told his disciples in John 16.7? He told them it was better for them that he go away, because if he goes away, the Holy Spirit will come and live in and with God’s people. The Spirit takes these words that he inspired and anchors them in our hearts in a way that not even a physically present Christ could do.

This sounds complicated, but it’s very easy to understand. Think of the person you know best in the world—your wife, your husband, your brother or sister, your best friend. No matter how close you are to that person, you are still limited in your knowledge of them. You’re not with them every second of every day. You don’t get to read their thoughts; you don’t always know exactly how they’re feeling or what they’re thinking at every second. By definition, you’re outside of them.

Christ’s being not physically present means that his Holy Spirit is permanently present with us and in us. And that means that we have a 24/7 interpreter of Christ living inside of us. Every time we pick up the Bible and read these words about Christ inspired by the Spirit, we see Christ better than his disciples ever did. In the Holy Spirit-inspired descriptions of Christ we find in the Bible—in his words, acts and character, recorded for us—we have as clear a picture of him as we need.

In Christ as he is described for us in this book, we see God.

Now this is always important for us to know, but it can be particularly important at this time of year, because you walk outside, and you see Christmas lights. You walk in front of Printemps or Galéries Lafayette and you see the windows with all of the animations. We’re going to pick up a Christmas tree and decorate the apartment this week. If you have kids, the kids are going to be enamored with the decorations and the presents and the fun of it all. Family dinners, church events—even if Christmas is a hard time for you, there are so many distractions at this time of year.

But the center of our faith, the center of our very existence, is the truth that God has revealed himself to humanity, and he has done it in Christ. In Christ, we see God. In Christ, we can know God. In Christ, we can be united to God.

So before we even get into the swing of this season, that is what we need to keep in our minds. The truth we celebrate at Christmas is the truth we celebrate every day of every year of our lives, the truth we will celebrate for the rest of eternity.

In Christ, we see God.

God With Us (Exodus 36.8-40.38)

At Connexion, several couples are preparing for marriage.

We're delighted! It's always struck me that our spring marriage preparation course is one of our best-attended meetings. It's a beautiful thing.

If you're one of these couples, I wonder how you feel about the new phase of life that's coming up.

My wife and I celebrated 15 years of marriage this year. (Not at all the record for Connexion ...)

When I think back to the months just before we got married, I remember the mixture of contrasting feelings.

Impatience - I can't wait for this to happen! I can't wait for us to move in together. I can't wait!

But also nervousness - am I ready?

In particular, this little worry: once we're past the honeymoon and into our daily routine, why do you think she's going to put up with living with me?

How many socks on the floor will she tolerate?

And so on.

I wonder if we've ever experienced the same kind of anxiety about God.

Why should we believe that God will always bear to be present with us?

How can you be sure it will always be there?

We've come to the end of the book of Exodus, which we've been meditating on for almost a year.

Exodus showed us who our God is - the Lord.

A God who fights for his people.

A God who delivers his people for an intimate relationship with them.

A God of grace and compassion.

We also saw that the biggest part of this book is neither the 10 plagues nor the crossing of the Red Sea, the parts highlighted in the films.

The biggest part is the description of a tent - a very expensive tent - in which God wanted to dwell among his people.

Our question this morning is: what enables us to be confident in God's constant presence with us? X 2

If you're like me, there are some things that make you doubt it.

Our recurring sins.

I did it again! I've done it again! How can God bear to be present with me after this?

Sometimes I look inside myself and wonder who would want to live there? If you knew my thoughts, you wouldn't want to listen to me! And God is going to want to live inside me?

Our problems.

If God were really present with me, would he have let me go through this?

This failure? This disappointment? This suffering?

Where was he when this happened to me?

Or quite simply, we may doubt its presence because we can't see it.

What tangible proof is there? We can't see any!

What enables us to be confident that God is always with us?

I wouldn't be surprised if some of you are directly confronted with this issue.

Yes or no, is God there with me?

***

We've never stopped saying it. Exodus was the book to which generations of Israelites returned when they asked themselves this type of question.

Let's recall the story of Exodus so far.

God had led Israel to Mount Sinai, where he entered into a covenant with them.

He had invited Moses to go up the mountain to receive his commandments and instructions for the Tabernacle.

But while Moses is on the mountain, the people violate the covenant by making a golden calf.

God threatened to stop accompanying them, but Moses interceded, God forgave them and the covenant was renewed.

Imagine the question on the minds of the Israelites the next day.

That was a close one. God almost told us it was over.

In the end, he stayed, because he is full of grace ... but is his plan to settle in our midst still on track?

Won't he want to keep his distance?

According to this last passage from Exodus, we can have great confidence in God's presence with us!

God is determined to live with his people today and forever!

He changes his people to be able to welcome them

***

Four observations on this text before drawing any implications.

Firstly, this passage introduces us to ...

God's heavenly palace

That God dwells in the midst of his people is no small thing.

This text compares it to a return to the happiness and rest of the Garden of Eden!

I mentioned our couples who are getting married.

And marriage means visits from the in-laws. I hope I'm not scaring you by saying that!

I've got great in-laws. Great in-laws who, strangely enough, never ask to sleep over. Must be the socks on the floor.

But when the in-laws come to spend a little time, you who have just got married may know all that's involved. Everything has to be spotless! The best sheets, the best plates, the best cleaning. Everything has to be perfect - like heaven - to make them feel welcome.

In our case, it gives us a glimpse of what our flat is supposed to be like.

An overview lasting perhaps 2 or 3 minutes.

In this text, we see the paradisiacal perfection of the place prepared to welcome God.

Last Sunday Eduardo talked about how the Israelites set to work preparing the materials for the Tabernacle.

In the passage we have been read, the construction is being completed.

Let's look at how this is described in verse 32

"So all the work on the tabernacle was completed" ... this expression "completed" echoes chapter 2 of Genesis where it was God who completed, not the building of a tent, but the creation of the world.

Verse 43

"Moses examined all the work and saw that they had done it" ... just as God in Genesis examined his creation and saw that it was very good.

Again in verse 43 - when the Israelites finished their work, "Moses blessed them" ... just as God blessed the world at the beginning of Genesis.

See also Exodus 40 verse 1

"The Lord said to Moses: "On the first day of the first month you shall set up the tabernacle".

The construction of the tabernacle represents a new beginning. Like a new creation.

The materials used - gold and precious stones - materials fit for a king and reminiscent of those found around the Garden of Eden.

Finally, the building of the Tabernacle is preceded by instructions on the Sabbath, the day of rest, which we saw last time.

This suggests that, by moving in with his people, God aims to give them rest ... as on the 7th day of Genesis, when creation enjoys rest ... in God's presence.

That is God's purpose in dwelling among his people.

A return to the rest and paradisiacal perfection of the Garden of Eden.

On the one hand, as long as the Israelites lived in the desert, this return was only symbolic and imperfect.

They don't live in a luxurious paradise. They get up every day with sand and dust in their sandals.

But on the other hand, the tabernacle goes further than Genesis. In Eden, we see God passing by from time to time. In Exodus, he settles right in the middle of the people to whom he wants to give this rest.

But as well as God's heavenly palace, we also see ...

God's perfectly obedient people

I'll use the example of the visit from the parents-in-law.

When you're welcoming someone, you don't just have to prepare the house!

Tonight we're hosting. What behaviour are we aiming for?

Perfect behaviour.

That's something Anne-Sophie never fails to tell me.

All joking aside, this text shows an obedient people able to welcome their God.

If you've read the last few chapters of Exodus, you may have a feeling of déjà vu.

Let's go back a few pages to Exodus 25 verse 10

God gives instructions: "They will make a chest of acacia wood. It will be 125 centimetres long, 75 centimetres wide and 75 centimetres high. You will overlay it with pure gold, inside and out, and make a golden border around it. You shall cast for it 4 gold rings and put them on its 4 corners, 2 on one side and 2 on the other. etc."

Now let's move on to Exodus 37 verse 1 where the Israelites carry out the instructions:

"Bezaleel made the ark of acacia wood. It was 125 centimetres long, 75 centimetres wide and 75 centimetres high. He overlaid it with pure gold inside and out and made a golden border around it. He cast for it 4 gold rings, which he put on its 4 corners, 2 on one side and 2 on the other. "

It's almost word for word and it's the same for all the elements of the tabernacle.

We have five chapters of instructions, and then instead of saying, "the Israelites followed the instructions and made the tabernacle", the author gives us another 5 almost identical chapters on construction. Why does this happen?

To show how they carried out to the letter everything God had asked them to do.

Then look again at Exodus 39 verse 32

So all the work on the tabernacle, the tent of meeting, was completed. The Israelites did everything the Lord had commanded Moses to do, and they followed it to the letter.

Verse 42

The Israelites did all this work according to all the orders the Lord had given Moses. Moses examined all the work and saw that they had done it as the Lord had commanded; they had done it exactly so.

It feels like the author is trying too hard. We get it! They did everything as the Lord commanded!

But the author doesn't want us to miss it.

A change has taken place in the hearts of these people.

A few chapters earlier, they had used the gold of Egypt to make a statue to worship. Now they are using it to make a dwelling to worship God, in perfect obedience to his commands.

These people, who were on the verge of being rejected by God for their disobedience, are now ready to welcome him thanks to their obedience.

This raises a question: where does this change come from?

Third observation

God's transforming forgiveness

What explains this change of heart since the golden calf?

Something happened between the golden calf and the building of the tabernacle.

God forgave them their sin.

Moses went up Mount Sinai, God came down and announced:

"The Lord, the Lord, is a God of grace and compassion, slow to anger, rich in kindness and truth. He keeps his love to 1000 generations, he forgives iniquity, rebellion and sin."

Perhaps you've already had a task to do that you did badly because you lacked the will to do it and were criticised for it.

But instead of saying you're finished, we've forgiven you and given you another chance.

This time you're much more motivated to do well because you're grateful for this forgiveness and this second chance.

I have a feeling there's something like that here.

God's forgiveness transformed the attitude - transformed the heart - of the Israelites, making them a people who conformed to God's demands.

Even in those chapters that look like a copy and paste of the chapters before the golden calf, there is plenty to marvel at.

Everything is exactly as it was in the chapters before their sin ... as if their sin had never happened.

God forgave them.

Except that something has changed. The heart of the people, transformed by God's forgiveness and ready to welcome him.

I've already said that Exodus tells the story of not one but two deliverances.

The first is well known. It was the spectacular deliverance from Egyptian captivity.

The second is less well known, but it is the one that occupies the most space. It is the deliverance of Egyptian hearts.

This is not a criticism of our Egyptian brothers and sisters in the church. There was one who gave an excellent message to the men's group yesterday.

The Egyptian heart is rebellious and disobedient. The heart that rejects its creator.

It is from this heart that God wants to save us so that we can welcome his presence.

When our hearts are changed, God moves in!

Fourth observation ...

The permanent presence of God

Exodus 40, verse 34 - Moses builds the Tabernacle

"Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Moses could not enter the Tent of Meeting because the cloud remained over it and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.

At each stage, the Israelites left when the cloud rose above the tabernacle. And if the cloud did not rise, they did not set out until it did. By day, the cloud of the Lord was over the tabernacle; by night, there was a fire inside the cloud. It was visible to the whole community of Israel every step of the way."

We're delighted for our couples who are getting married. We're also delighted for those who are welcoming a baby! There are several of them.

The other day I saw one of your rooms being prepared for the new baby.

Everything has to be perfect for the big day! You need the cot, the changing table, the little decorations and the little TV for daddy when he wakes up at night.

It takes a huge amount of preparation.

But all this preparation only makes sense because of the person you are expecting to welcome.

What we're really excited about is the person who's going to live in it.

Exodus concludes with the glory of God coming down to dwell among the Israelites.

This is what we've been waiting for! God with us at last.

It would be possible to read these last paragraphs with the glass half empty.

When the glory of God fills the Tabernacle, Moses can no longer enter. Access denied.

In fact, you have to see the glass as half full. Moses' inability to enter anticipates the book of Leviticus, which sets out the sacrifices to be offered to allow access.

What we need to remember here is that God ... dwells ... at last with his people!

That was the aim all along.

God didn't save the Israelites and then say: ciao, see you next time, you've got my number if you ever have a problem.

No! He said to Moses: "I am the Eternal One, I will free you from the burdens of the Egyptians, I will deliver you from their slavery ... I will take you to be my people, I will be your God".

God saves for life in his presence.

True rest, heavenly rest you might say, is having God living with us.

Have you noticed how the text insists on the permanent nature of God's presence?

At each of their stops, the Israelites left when the cloud rose above the tabernacle.

"[The cloud] was visible to the whole community of Israel at every step they took."

This is not a visit from in-laws who leave after a few days. God is with his people all the time!

Have you noticed how this presence is not static, but leads the people?

"the Israelites left when the cloud rose above the tabernacle. And if the cloud did not rise, they did not leave until it did."

God is present, not just to live with his people, but also to direct them towards their final destination - the promised land.

***

What all this shows ... is that our God ... is determined to be present in the midst of his people ... today ... and forever.

He's not there to keep us at arm's length. 'Not very keen.'

He is determined to live with his people, even if they are naturally disobedient, impure and idolatrous.

***

And friends, what the Israelites experienced was a teaser of what we experience as Christians.

This change in the hearts of the Israelites, which enabled them to welcome the presence of God, did not last.

The same people who had obeyed God's orders for the Tabernacle later disobeyed and died in the desert under his judgement.

Centuries later, the book of the prophet Ezekiel recounts the moment when God is so fed up with their disobedience that his glory leaves the temple and moves away.

Their experience of God's presence was just the teaser.

But Ezekiel also announced that the day was coming when God would once again forgive his people, transform their hearts and live with them, this time for good.

Ezekiel 36 verse 25 - page 558

"I will sprinkle you with pure water and you will be cleansed. I will cleanse you from all your impurities and all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will remove the heart of stone from your body and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my Spirit within you.

So I will make you follow my decrees, keep and respect my rules. You will dwell in the land I gave to your ancestors, you will be my people and I will be your God."

***

This transformed heart, anticipated in Exodus, announced by Ezekiel, capable of welcoming the presence of God, Jesus has given it to us, if we are Christians.

He has transformed our hearts to welcome his presence.

It's not that if I work super hard to clean myself up perfectly, clean everything out, then God might agree to live with me.

We have this heart transformed by God's forgiveness, thanks to Jesus. It is his gift! 🙂

In case you're thinking: Joe means that our hearts can potentially welcome God's presence when we do our best to be a good Christian, that's not what I'm saying.

If we believe in Jesus, God has given us a heart capable of welcoming his presence.

We often don't feel that we have a heart that can welcome his presence. I said that if you knew my thoughts, you probably wouldn't want to listen to me. I dare say that if I knew your thoughts, I probably wouldn't want to talk to you ... so sometimes ignorance suits everyone.

But when the Bible talks about the transformation of our heart, it's talking about something else. It's a heart that receives Jesus' forgiveness, that receives perfect obedience as if it were our own, and that gradually begins to want to please God.

That's the transformed heart.

It comes from God, because he is so determined to make his home with us that he does everything necessary in us to make that determination a reality.

***

What are the implications? Let's highlight a few.

God with us today ... and God with us always.

God with us today

Just as God was with the Israelites every step of the way to give them rest and guidance, the same is true for us today.

God promises us many blessings.

Material prosperity, perfect health, perfect relationships, a life without suffering - he promises us all these things ... but not yet. In the new creation, our promised land.

But there is one blessing that God is already giving today. His presence.

The Bible compares our life in this world to crossing the desert.

We're on our way. It's often arduous. You sweat a lot. Sometimes it's really painful

We have nothing in this world. God gives us our bread every day. Sometimes he makes us stop at oases.

It's still a life in the desert. If you find life in this world hard, that's why.

Our greatest blessing in this desert is his presence every step of the way.

You no longer need sacred buildings to access this presence, whether it's this one, Notre Dame Cathedral or the building you'd like to buy.

The only purpose of a building is to shelter us from the rain!

Nor do you need to have extraordinary spiritual experiences to access it - be it intense times of worship or ceremonies in a monastery somewhere.

You can enjoy God's presence anywhere, anytime.

On Sunday mornings here, but also on Monday mornings when I open my prayer app or my Bible app on a crowded train on my way to work.

At any time I can approach God to pour out my worries, confess my wrongs, thank him for his forgiveness, rejoice in his love.

It's the rest he offers us on our way through the desert.

Perhaps, with the local project and the work it involves, it's a rest we particularly need at the moment.

By prayer and the word, we come closer to God in the secret place ... to experience the rest of his presence.

This is the foretaste that God gives us in the desert ... of life in paradise. The restfulness of knowing he's there and we're never, ever, alone.

He is with us today to give us rest and also to lead us.

We don't have a cloud floating in front of us. If you have this above your flat, you might want to call GDF to check that there's no gas leak.

What we have is his Spirit to guide us.

He directs us by speaking to us through the Bible.

He also directs us by ensuring that all our circumstances, good and bad, point us in the direction of his new creation.

It's possible that part of our frustration in our life with God comes from the fact that we haven't understood where his presence is leading us.

Not to a trouble-free life in this world ... but to eternal rest in our promised land.

The average age at Connexion is quite young. We'd all do well to think about how we're going to stay Christian over the long term. What choices we're going to make to go the distance for the next ten, twenty, fifty years.

We have a desert to cross. We don't know how long it will take.

What enables us to embark on this journey with confidence is the knowledge that God offers us his presence at every stage, the good ones and the more difficult ones.

For several months I've been following the news of a young man I know from a summer camp for teenagers.

His name is Gabin.

Some time ago, he was diagnosed with cancer.

He passed away this week.

But it took time. Months of excruciating suffering, all the while knowing that he was going to die.

I asked myself: how is it possible to support this?

But Gabin was a Christian, which means that at every stage, God was present, not to take away Gabin's pain but to lead him.

When he found out he was ill - God was with him.

When he learned that it was terminal - God with him.

When day after day his body was wasting away - God with him.

When he finally fell asleep in death - God was with him.

I'm here every step of the way, my child, and soon you'll be home.

Thank you, Lord.

Because if his presence with us is real but invisible today, when we arrive at our destination, it will be real and visible forever.

God with us always

Mariya read us an extract from the book of Revelation about what we'll see when Jesus returns.

Let's read it again, it's so brilliant

Revelation 21 verse 3

I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, "This is God's tabernacle among men. He will dwell with them, they will be his people, and God himself will be with them. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, death will be no more, and there will be no more mourning or crying or pain, for all that was before has passed away.

This is what awaits Gabin. This is what awaits us. God present to wipe away all our tears.

As I came to the end of Exodus, I couldn't help but think of the end of C S Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia.

If you haven't read them, they are stories about the adventures of 4 children who move from our world to the imaginary world of Narnia.

They are written as an allegory of the Christian faith.

At the end of the last volume, the children leave the world of Narnia to go to their new creation.

I'll read the last paragraph.

"This is for us the end of all our stories, and we can truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them, this was only the beginning of the real story. All their lives in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page. Now, at last, they were beginning the first chapter of the great story that no one on earth has ever read. The one that lasts forever, and in which every chapter is better than the last."

Crossing the desert is often difficult. God is there every step of the way to point us home.

But this sometimes harrowing journey is just the cover and title page.

One day we'll be with him, we'll see his face, each chapter will be better than the last ... God will be with us forever.

Exodus 35:1-36:7

Introduction

I don't know about you, but when I first had contact with the Old Testament - the first times I really tried to read it - one of the things that impressed me was the amount of repetition. 

There are texts that are almost identical, and I didn't understand why they were there twice. Are these two versions of the same text that have been taped together? - this is a hypothesis sometimes presented by skeptical intellectuals. But as Christians, who believe that the Bible was inspired by the Holy Spirit to teach us and therefore, if there is repetition, there is a reason. 

The reason I talk about this is because most of the content of today's text is present in the previous chapters of Exodus, and perhaps you were there a few weeks ago when we read these passages together. 

For example: 

• This passage begins with an instruction for the Sabbath, very similar to what was said in chapter 31; 

• In chapter 31 we also see the designation of the two master craftsmen, Bezaleel and Oholiab, with a list of the skills they received from God;

• And in chapter 25, we saw an instruction for the collection of offerings for the construction of the tabernacle, with a list of materials almost identical to what we see here. 

Why is all this information repeated? 

So that we can answer this question, we will look together at what is different in this text compared to the previous chapters because it is similar but not identical. And, by looking at the differences, we will be able to better understand repetition. 

A Moment of Grace

The first difference from previous texts that gave instructions for the Tabernacle is that this is a different time in the history of the Hebrew people.

Because the same information presented in a different context has a different meaning. 

So that we can clearly visualize, I will show here a small diagram of the book of Exodus: 

I'll try to summarize very quickly: 

• God frees the people from slavery in Egypt, using great miracles

• He guides them through the desert to Mount Sinai

• At Mount Sinai he concluded a Covenant with the people, where these people were supposed to belong to him particularly among all the peoples of the earth.

• Moses goes up to Mount Sinai to receive instructions, including very detailed instructions about the Tabernacle, God's dwelling place among the people, filled with symbols and images

And there, in a very anticlimactic way, this whole plan is interrupted by a great collective sin. In the absence of Moses, the people decide to do exactly what they should not do: build an idol. Make a god with your own hands. 

Even more than before, it becomes evident that a holy and perfect God cannot dwell among sinful and imperfect people. It is a sin that has consequences, and perhaps the most serious is that the plan of the Tabernacle, of a habitation of God among the people, seems completely canceled.

But Moses intercedes with God, imploring his grace, and he asks that despite this sin, that God keeps his plan and that he comes and dwells among the people. 

He said, “Lord, if I have found favor in your sight, let the Lord walk among us, even though it is a refractory people. Forgive our faults and our sins and take us as your possession.” (Ex 34:9)

And God chooses to be gracious! God chooses to renew the Covenant with his people. 

What I'm trying to say with this summary is that what we had seen before, these are the passages we had seen before, were the instructions for the Tabernacle. Now, in chapter 35, we see the beginning of the execution. Between instruction and execution, we find rebellion and forgiveness. 

The repetition of each material and element of the Tabernacle shows a restoration of the time before the rebellion. And it is no coincidence that the first thing mentioned here, the law of the Sabbath, is the last thing mentioned before the episode of the Golden Calf. It’s as if we were returning to the state before the Rebellion. 

This repetition, even more in this order, shows that with Moses' intercession and God's forgiveness, the sin of the people did not change the original plan of the Tabernacle. And now it is carried out according to the instructions. 

Expression of the Heart

And here we see the entire people participating in the making of the Tabernacle, either through offerings of materials or through their service. 

This is another difference in this text compared to the previous chapters: there is a word repeated 14 times which can help us understand what mobilizes all the people to give and serve. The word is “heart”. 

If you are having trouble finding the word heart 14 times (and, in fact, the 14th occurrence is in 36:8), it is because in this passage our translations use the word “skilled”, whereas the original text uses the expression “wise of heart”. 

We can take 36:2 as an example: 

And Moses called Bezaleel and Oholiab, and every wise man of heart, in the heart of whom the LORD had given wisdom to all those whom they heart brought him closer to the work, to do it; [Darby]

The repeated use of this word is voluntary: it is the generosity and service that come from the heart that allows them to participate in the work of the Lord. 

Here we do not see simply a mechanical obedience of instructions. Their intelligence is involved, their emotions are involved, their will is involved. Because when we see “heart” written in a Hebrew text, it involves all that: intelligence, emotions, will. 

Obviously, the people emerged from the episode of the Golden Calf, after sin and forgiveness, with a heart renewed. And it affected not just a few, but many people. 

This can be seen by the presence of several people working, not just the two artisans designated at the beginning - they have also received in their hearts the ability to teach others. Men, women, who voluntarily put themselves at service in different ways. 

We can also see this by the abundance of offerings, which is cited at the end of the text. The experience of grace deeply impacted the hearts of the people, God gave wisdom and mobilized their hearts so that they could participate, voluntarily, in his work. 

The Present Work

We saw a few weeks ago that the Tabernacle, ultimately, is an image, a concrete but temporary manifestation of God's plan to dwell in communion with men. 

It is an image of the work of Jesus, who comes to dwell among men, who gives his life to obtain forgiveness of sins, who acts as a perfect intercessor to reestablish communion with God. 

And Jesus establishes his church - the body of believers, individually and corporately - as the new temple, the new tabernacle, of the presence of God. 

There is this triple parallel, between the Tabernacle, the Body of Christ and the Church, as places where God dwells among men. And the Church here is not a place or an institution, but all the people reconciled with God through Jesus. 

The work that is built today is the Church. It is the place where the presence of God dwells, and which continues to be built. 

In the same way that the Hebrews are called to contribute to the construction of the Tabernacle, we are called to contribute to the construction of the new tabernacle, the Church - once again, we are talking about all believers. 

It is he who gave some as apostles, others as prophets, others as evangelists, others as shepherds and teachers. He did this to train the saints for the tasks of service for the edification of the body of Christ, until we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to the maturity of the adult, commensurate with the perfect stature of Christ. 

Ephesians 4:11-13

And when we talk here about “tasks of service for the edification of the body of Christ”, we talk about everything that makes the Church Church.

• Growing as a follower of Jesus, learning from his character and behavior, and helping others to grow too; 

• Witnessing to the whole world the Gospel of the Kingdom of God, by our words and by our actions; 

• Loving and praising God, individually and together; 

But all of these things have very practical, material, down-to-earth components. 

If we want to grow as disciples, together as a community, usually this involves people working full time for the Church, and who must receive a salary. 

If we want to praise God together and encourage each other, we need to have a place to gather. There is equipment that is used. 

If we want to bear witness, through our words and actions, it will take up our time, and perhaps our resources too. 

The fact that the current tabernacle is not a tent with well-defined equipment and supplies, but rather a group of people who live the Gospel together, does not mean that there are not very concrete needs. And we are invited to contribute to the building of this tabernacle by addressing these needs too. 

And the two elements that we saw today can better guide us in our participation in this work. 

A Moment of Grace

The first is that, just like the Hebrews in the desert, we must recognize that our service is only possible because we have been forgiven and welcomed by the grace of God. We were recruited neither by competition nor by application, but through the intercession of Jesus Christ. 

This should speak to someone who feels incapable of serving God because you may think you have sinned too much in the past or that your faith is too small. Our participation in God's work is not an expression of superiority, but an expression of his grace towards us. It is his grace that leads us from instruction to execution, it is his grace that works in our hearts, it is his grace that we enable. 

And if it’s true that there are certain life opportunities that will require us to let ourselves work rather than work. But I dare say that it is rather the exception in the life of a Christian that we are in a situation where we can neither serve with our time, nor serve with our material resources. 

The New Testament leaves very little room for the possibility of someone in the church who has not received any gift. On the contrary, we see people who receive different gifts and resources and who express God's grace in different facets. 

Each of you has received from God a particular gift of grace: may you exercise it in the service of others as a good steward of the infinitely varied grace of God. - 1 Peter 4:10 [Sower]

As managers of the resources he gave us. This should uplift the one who feels helpless - no, you have received a special gift of grace. And this should give humility to those who may possibly feel indispensable: let us not forget that we use in our service and in our generosity what we have received by grace. 

Expression of the Heart

And secondly, we can also see that our service and generosity in God's work must be an expression of our renewed heart, not less, not more. 

Yes, no less, no more. 

No less: it is normal as an expression of welcome of God's grace leads us to generosity and service. 

We see, in 2 Corinthians, the example of the churches of Macedonia: 

we make known to you the grace that God has granted to the Churches of Macedonia: even in the midst of the great trial of their suffering, their overflowing joy and their deep poverty led them to demonstrate great generosity. I attest, they gave voluntarily according to their means, and even beyond their means, and it was with great insistence that they asked us for the grace to take part in this service in favor of the saints. They did more than we expected, for they gave themselves first to the Lord, and then to us, by the will of God. - 2 Corinthians 8:1-5

No more: generosity and service cannot be imposed by constraint. 

As Paul later says, again in 2 Corinthians: 

Let each one give as he has decided in his heart, without regret or constraint, for God loves those who give with joy. - 2 Corinthians 9:7

It would have been easier to solve the material needs of the church through contributions. A kind of tax, everyone needs to pay a certain amount and we don't talk about it anymore. Everyone needs to contribute a certain amount of service hours and we talk about it more. It might have been easier for the organization. 

But that would not have been faithful to the model that we have in the Bible, to the model that we have in this text. 

Constraint does not engage the heart. So we limit ourselves to trusting in the work that God will do in each person's heart. We limit ourselves to encouraging, in the same way that Paul does here in Corinthians. We limit ourselves to inviting everyone to give and contribute according to their heart, in the same way that God commands Moses to do. 

And I want to invite us all, myself included, to continue to reflect on our service and contributions as an expression of our heart. And as an expression of the grace of God who saved us in Jesus. God will fulfill His plan - and by grace I have the opportunity and privilege to participate in it. When I welcome this grace in my heart, in my intelligence, in my feelings and in my will, in which direction am I led?

What incomparable grace (Exodus 34.4-35)

Please keep your Bible open.

For several Sundays now, we've been asking ourselves where to look when we realise that our relationship with God has broken down.

Where to look when we understand that because of our sins, God would have every reason to tell us it's all over.

This morning we'll be asking ourselves: is grace enough? x 2

What a question! Of course grace is enough, you'll tell me.

Grace is our greatest source of praise! It's the air we breathe! It's the firm ground on which we walk!

Think of the songs we sing Sunday after Sunday.

Your grace is incredible!
It is by grace that we come

Infinite grace

Of course grace is enough!

***

Let me rephrase the question. I've been known to explain the word grace to my children by saying that grace is when God gives us what we don't deserve.

It is God's free choice, because of his character, to give us what we do not deserve.

So my question this morning is: is this grace enough?

God's free choice, because of his character, to give us what we don't deserve.

I'm thinking of conversations with Muslim friends, to whom I've asked: what do you think will happen to you after death?

My good deeds and my evil deeds will be weighed in a balance, and if my good deeds weigh more than my evil deeds, I will go to heaven'.

Do you think you've done enough?

'I don't know ... but ... Allah is compassionate and merciful. He may choose, just like that, to forgive me.'

He can choose to give me what I don't deserve.

Is this grace, from the living God, the God of the Bible, enough?

The trouble with understanding grace in this way is that you risk being haunted by a little fear: 'what if this time I've gone too far?

What if I've abused God's generosity too much?

Is grace enough?

We are in a section of the book of Exodus that talks about how a holy God can live in the midst of a sinful people.

God gave Moses the instructions for the tabernacle, the tent of his dwelling place, but in the meantime the Israelites became impatient and made and worshipped a golden calf.

On Sunday Jason talked about how Moses acts as an intermediary to prevent God from abandoning his people, despite their unfaithfulness.

Moses pleads, "You told me I'm your friend, but how is that going to come out, if you don't continue to accompany Israel?"

Moses, God's friend, begs God to let others benefit from their friendship too.

God replies: I will do what you ask, because you have found favour in my eyes.

For Moses it must have seemed too good to be true. They had sinned, they deserved the relationship to be over ... and now God decided to give them another chance.

So Moses asked for confirmation: "Show me your glory!

Why this request?

If you're a Christian, you might take it for granted that God forgives. We've read the rest of the story.

Not Moses.

He knew God's promises to his people. He had seen God's patience with his people. But that God could forgive, after such a great sin, must have seemed hard to believe.

So he asks to see the glory of God, in other words, who this God really is who is announcing such surprising things.

That brings us to our first point.

Is God's grace enough?

1. Abundant grace
   

To be willing to love, to forgive, to be gracious ... that is quite simply the very character of our God!

How do you usually present yourself?

My name is __, I am __.

It often depends on the context. At church, my name is X and I've been coming to Connexion for x weeks, months, years.

At work, my name is X, I'm [the name of my job].

If you have an accent, my name is __, I come from such and such a country.

If we have an exceptional wife, my name is Joe, I’m married to Anne-Sophie.

But when there's no specific context and you introduce yourself to everyone - a status on whatsapp that everyone can read, a bio on the networks. How do you introduce yourself?

What could you say that would explain who you are at the deepest level?

My name is Joe, I'm ___.

Moses had asked to see the glory of God.

He went back up to Mount Sinai, ready to see God manifest himself, new stone tablets in his hand to replace the ones he had broken.

If it had been you, and you hadn't read on, what would you have expected? What would you have expected to see as a manifestation of God's glory?

Miracles - the mountain shaking, the fire coming down?

The laws of nature suspended.

Perhaps to see something even more impressive.

In reality, Moses couldn't see much.

God comes down, but he hides Moses in the hollow of a rock, covers him with his hand and makes his glory pass before him. Moses sees almost nothing.

But he hears something .

Exodus 34v6

"The LORD passed before him and cried out, 'The LORD, the LORD is a *God of grace and compassion, slow to anger, rich in kindness and truth. He keeps his love to 1000 generations, he forgives iniquity, rebellion and sin".

Let's take a closer look at these words.

God proclaims his name, "the LORD" - YHWH - a name that expresses the freedom to define himself as he wishes: I am who I am. I will be who I will be.

He repeats this name: The Lord, the Lord.

As if to emphasise that what he is announcing at this moment will be the ultimate presentation of who he is.

Then there are the majestic words that follow, which we would do well to learn by heart.

"A God of grace and compassion - who gives us what we don't deserve and doesn't give us what we do deserve

"Slow to anger" - that should correct any misconceptions we might have about the God of the Old Testament!

This summer at the Christian teen camp where several of us have served, we had to deal with a number of nocturnal runaways. I can tell you that at 4am, when we'd been looking for them for an hour and a half, two youngsters turned up ... my anger wasn't slow to flare.

God is not like that. He's patient. He doesn't rush into things. He gives us the chance to turn around.

"Rich in goodness and truth. We could also say, rich in loyalty and fidelity.

These words express God's commitment to his people. The fact that he doesn't let them down, even when they deserve to be let down!

"He keeps his love for 1,000 generations; he forgives wrongdoing, rebellion and sin".

He insists. He is a God of forgiveness.

In English, if you want to say that a certain virtue characterises you, there's an expression that says: this virtue is my middle name.

Patience is my middle name.

Honesty is my middle name.

Now, if someone needs to tell you that honesty is their middle name, they're probably lying.

But here, it's as if God is saying that forgiveness, grace, undeserved love, is ... not just his middle name, but his first name!

A fortnight ago I talked about Catherine the Great, the Russian empress, who said: "The good Lord must forgive me, it's his job!

That could not be more presumptuous. It is not God's job to forgive. He is under no obligation to forgive anyone.

It's not his job.

But it is his name.

It's as if God were saying to Moses: do you want to know why I'm prepared not to abandon you despite your sin? You want to know why I'm prepared to give you another chance? It's because loyal love, abundant grace and free forgiveness are ... my name!

That's my name!

This is how I wanted to present myself to the world - without being under the slightest constraint.

I am a God of abundant grace!

That's my name, that's my character, that's my glory!

...

Let's think of the other ways in which he could have shown who he was.

Some people have already heard me talk about it.

The universe contains 200 trillion stars. God created them.

But that's not the ultimate revelation of his glory.

The universe is 92 billion light years across.

God governs it.

Yet this is not the ultimate revelation of his glory.

The glory of God, the ultimate expression of his character, is the fact that when his people turn their backs on him, reject his commandments and commit spiritual adultery ... he forgives.

This is our God!

***

This is not in competition with the other descriptions of God in Exodus.

The Lord, the valiant warrior. The Lord my standard. The Lord, who sanctifies you.

It's not that he's sometimes one, sometimes another.

No, this presentation - the God of grace and compassion, rich in love and faithfulness - sums up and completes the others.

We saw God's commitment to his people. How he fights for them and provides for their needs.

Now we see that this commitment holds even when his people behave like his enemies!

He is ready to renew his relationship with them.

This is what we see in the rest of this passage.

Verse 10

"Behold, I myself make a covenant. I will do wonders in the sight of all your people that have never been done in any land or among any nation."

The broken relationship is restored. God will accompany the Israelites to the land of Canaan. There is a new wedding ring - new tablets of stone with the Ten Commandments written on them.

Then Moses came down, his face beaming - the sign that the glory of God was still in their midst.

All because it is the character of our God, the glory of our God, to be gracious.

It should make us question the image we have of God.

I spent my early teens deliberately behaving like an enemy of God.

If I could do something to offend those who believed in Jesus, I would, starting with my parents.

I hated the church and had no desire to conform to my idea of what it meant to be a Christian.

The turning point came when I realised that even though I was behaving like an enemy of God, God was ready to forgive me.

I received this letter on Tuesday 6 February 2001.

It is the glory of our God to be gracious.

This means that as long as we're breathing, it's never too late to come back to him.

Maybe this morning, that's what some people here need to do.

Perhaps others still operate with the image of a harsh God who has little desire to forgive them.

God is strict, in a way.

Faced with the golden calf, he said in no uncertain terms that the people deserved to be abandoned. Our sin is abominable to him. He hates it.

The glory of it is that despite this hatred of sin, it is always in his character to forgive.

Maybe we need to rethink our image of him.

He is abundantly gracious.

...

Now for the twist.

Our question is whether grace is enough in the face of a broken relationship with God.

Grace understood as God's free choice, because of his character, to give us what we do not deserve.

Which brings us to the second point ...

2. Sufficient grace ?

The answer to the question of whether this grace is enough ... is no!

***

If grace is when God passes over our sins and simply gives us another chance, well, we need more.

• Firstly, because God's justice is always the same

You may have noticed that God says things about himself that we've skipped over.

Verse 7 continues:

"He keeps his love to 1000 generations, he forgives fault, rebellion and sin, but he does not treat the guilty as innocent and he punishes the fault of the fathers on the children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generation!"

Let's start with what this verse doesn't mean. God does not punish innocent children for the sins of their parents. Elsewhere in Exodus, God says that he punishes those who have sinned. In the original language, this verse says that God 'visits' the sins of the fathers on the children.

In other words, when a parent sins, there is collateral damage for the family. We can perhaps think of sad situations where the consequences of a parent's alcoholism, for example, fall on the children.

One of the things that makes sin so horrible is that it reflects on those close to us.

God doesn't make the innocent look guilty ... but he doesn't make the guilty look innocent either!

God doesn't just sweep them under the carpet.

Imagine if he did!

Imagine if he let evil happen without ever being held to account. That would be atrocious!

God does not treat the guilty as innocent - at some point, the sword of His righteous judgement must fall.

Then ... the grace granted to the Israelites here is not enough because ...

• the alliance was always the same

God renews the covenant ... but it's not a new covenant!

The basis of the relationship was always the Ten Commandments, which they were obliged to respect on pain of being cursed.

God just gave them a second chance to succeed.

Which was a problem, if, thirdly...

• The people were always the same

Verses 10 to 27 contain a list of commandments.

You can read them and think: another boring list of rules.

If we take a closer look, we can see that this list focuses on two areas: how to avoid worshipping idols ... and the religious festivals to observe.

The two areas in which they had just sinned with the golden calf - idols and religious festivals.

It's as if God gave them back their copy with the teacher's comments in red. Here's where you need to improve to succeed.

That raises the question - can they improve?

There's a line from a comedian that I like.

Someone asks him: would you say that you've learnt from your mistakes?

Of course, of course. I've learned from my mistakes, and I'm sure I can repeat them!

If the people are still the same, we can give them a second chance. But why believe that things will go better this time?

I can try to run 10 kilometres in under half an hour. I can ask professional athletes to watch me and give me advice on how to improve, but the fact is I'm never going to run 10 kilometres in under half an hour!

Unless I take myself back ten years, change my whole diet, my whole lifestyle and probably my DNA too, I can't do it, no matter how many chances I'm given!

The people are always the same

And finally..,

• Access to God is always the same - limited.

Verse 30

"Aaron and all the Israelites looked at Moses and saw that the skin of his face was glowing; so they were afraid to come near him."

Then verse 33:

"When Moses had finished speaking to them, he put a veil over his face."

The glory of God is always present with the Israelites, but it frightens them. It has to be hidden behind a veil, as in the tabernacle, where it had to be hidden behind a curtain.

These sinful people still have only limited access to their holy God.

What all this shows...

is that if grace means giving a rebellious people another chance ...

... turn the page and sweep our sins under the carpet - as God seems to be doing in this passage ...

... this grace is not enough. X 2

***

There comes a time when there's no more room under the carpet.

It's coming out on all sides. A real clean-up is needed.

Grace has to clean under the carpet.

***

Joe, aren't you contradicting everything you've said about forgiveness?

No !

But God wants to teach us what kind of grace we will need if we are to be guaranteed forgiveness.

***

History has shown that it's not enough to give people a "get out of jail free" card like in monopoly, and a second chance to succeed.

These thousands of people forgiven by God after the golden calf did not enter the promised land because of their sin, with two exceptions.

Moses did not enter the promised land because of his sin.

A few centuries later, all the descendants were exiled because of their sin.

God was slow to anger, but after a while his judgement fell.

To truly repair a broken relationship with God, his grace must go further than simply sweeping our sins under the carpet.

He has to clean under the carpet.

At home, we try to encourage each other to say sorry when we need to.

It's not easy to prevent the word "forgiveness" from becoming a kind of magic formula that has to be said in the right way to be valid.

I'm so sorry!

Say it nicely!

I'm so sorry!

Looking you in the eye.

Sorry, sir.

But forgiveness is not a magic word.

In fact, what difference does it make to say sorry?

In a sense, nothing.

The wrong has been done, the damage has been done. There's nothing to say it won't be done again.

Why should saying sorry be enough to repair a relationship?

Don't get me wrong, forgiveness is essential in any relationship.

But if God's forgiveness is to be guaranteed ...

... it can’t just be about passing over sin.

Sin must be paid for.

It's not just about giving us a new chance. We need to change.

Exodus 34 confronts us with a tension

There is God's love, compassion and grace on the one hand, and his justice on the other.

If we affirm only some of these qualities and not the others, we are worshipping an idol.

So if God's grace is really going to repair our relationship with him, it has to come down from the mountain, deal with sin at its root and defeat the inner Pharaoh in our hearts once and for all.

She must descend from Mount Sinai, become incarnate, and ascend to the Mount of Calvary.

John 1:14

"And the Word became man, and dwelt - literally 'Tabernacled -among us...

full of grace and truth- two words that recall those of God on Mount Sinai... and we beheld - saw - his glory, which Moses had not been able to do

a glory like that of the only Son from the Father".

On Mount Sinai God had announced that his glory is his grace.

In the person of Jesus, this glory became flesh.

When do we see this glory shining brightest?

John 17.1 - the day before Jesus died

"Jesus looked up to heaven and said, 'Father, the time has come! Reveal the glory of your Son so that your Son [also] may reveal your glory."

I was discussing Exodus with a pastor friend of mine, who said that if you compress Exodus 34 to the max ... you get to the cross.

It is here, when Jesus bleeds to pay for our sins, that we see how God forgives sin while punishing sin.

It's not just an audible but a visible manifestation, this time, of the glory of God.

😊 And the Bible also insists that by contemplating the glory of the cross, we are not only forgiven but also transformed from glory to glory.

The inner pharaoh is defeated.

Where do we look when we realise that our relationship with God is broken?

In a word, to Christ.

So easy to say without measuring what's behind those words.

It is said that grace is free. And it is. But that doesn't mean there wasn't a price to pay.

But it is only this costly, transforming grace, which reconciles God's love and justice, that is sufficient.

What do you count on when you realise that you have sinned?

It's easy to think that what counts is the quality of our request for forgiveness.

A small sin - all you have to do is ask forgiveness once and then you can move on.

A big sin - you have to ask for forgiveness three times and feel bad all day.

A very big sin - you have to ask for forgiveness every day for a week and go without food.

We have to ask for forgiveness. But it's not the quality of our request that fixes anything. It is his grace.

Maybe we’re counting on God's compassion when we have sinned?

Of course you should! But as I said at the beginning, if we stop there, hoping that God will be indulgent, we risk being haunted by this fear - what if this time I've gone too far?

What really counts is this : since the Lord is rich in goodness, he sent a saviour capable of satisfying both his compassion and his justice.

That's what you can count on.

***

Three implications ...

First, there is a call to be heard. It's never too late to return to God. In Jesus, he has done everything necessary to welcome us with open arms.

Maybe that's what you need to do.

But there's also a warning.

If I go through life saying to myself: I'm going to do things my own way, without bothering with Jesus because the good Lord has to forgive me anyway - watch out!

God wants to forgive, but only if we bow before the Saviour he has sent.

Woe betide me if I take his forgiveness for granted and turn my back on Jesus.

But above all, we can see how much assurance we have.

That's been the theme for the last three weeks - assurance ... and where to find it when we understand that our relationship with God is broken.

We've said that we can't find it by putting our sin into perspective - it's not that serious!

Nor do we find it by imagining that God's forgiveness is easily granted - that's his job!

No! We find it by measuring, on the one hand, the size of the obstacle, which is insurmountable for us, and on the other hand, the size of his grace, because of which he himself pays the high price for the obstacle to fall.

If you're like me, you're often torn between presumption and anxiety about God's forgiveness.

Presumption: I'm familiar with the message of forgiveness. It allows me to live the way I want, knowing that it will normally pass.

Anxiety: I've done everything wrong. God is bound to make me pay for it.

God offers us assurance.

Yes, our sin is serious. No, God is not indifferent. No, we can't do it alone.

But God be praised for the glory of his grace ... who goes further, who pays the highest price ...

... which, in Jesus, finally ... is enough.

John Newton, the slave trader turned preacher and author of the hymn Amazing Grace, summed up what this assurance looks like just before he died.

"My memory is failing me, but I remember two things: I am a great sinner and ... Christ is a great Savior."

The Name of God: His Right to Choose

Exodus 33

In 1981, a film entitled simply Roar! was released. This film followed a man named Hank and his family living on a nature preserve in Africa, where they raised hundreds of big cats: mostly lions and tigers. What made this nature preserve unique was that the animals were totally free to go wherever they pleased—including inside Hank’s house. They’d camp out in the living room, wander the halls, get in the beds.

The movie itself isn’t very good; but the making of the movie is legendary. The director and lead actor, Noel Marshall, and his wife, actress Tippi Hedren, were passionate conservationists. They filmed this movie with real, untrained lions and tigers, in their real home, with their real kids. They loved these animals so much they wanted to make a film showing that humans and big cats could live together in harmony.

The problem is that lions and tigers are wild animals. Put them together in a house with human beings, and it’s not going to go well. Of the 140 people working on the film, 70 of them—including the lead couple’s own daughter, Melanie Griffith—were seriously injured, many of them multiple times. I’ll spare you the details, but Google it if you want—it’s gruesome.

Although this couple felt they couldn’t live without these animals, it became clear very quickly that they couldn’t live with them either.

Oddly enough, this is very close to the situation in which the people of Israel find themselves in Exodus 33.

If you were here last week, you’ll remember that while Moses was on the mountain receiving instructions for the tabernacle from God, the people of Israel grew impatient, and demanded that Aaron make an idol for them that they could worship, that would stand in for the God who seemed to be absent. Aaron, despite having received the commandment that they must not make any graven images or worship any other gods, built this idol for them.

God tells Moses what’s going on, says he’s going to go down and destroy them. Moses prays that God wouldn’t do this, and God answers his prayer. Instead, Moses comes down off the mountain and shatters the tablets of stone on which God had written his commandments. He sends the Levites out to kill the perpetrators, and 3,000 people die that day.

Essentially when we pick up the thread in chapter 33, Moses is talking to God and they are discussing what will happen next. But in order to get a feel for the situation in this chapter, I’d like us to skip down a bit.

What They’ve Lost (33.1-3)

In v. 7, we learn that Moses took a tent and pitched it outside the camp; he called it the tent of meeting. It was sort of a precursor to the tabernacle, and apparently anyone could go out there to pray and seek God.

But when Moses went out to the tent, things were different. V. 8:

8 Whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people would rise up, and each would stand at his tent door, and watch Moses until he had gone into the tent. 9 When Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent, and the Lord would speak with Moses. 10 And when all the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance of the tent, all the people would rise up and worship, each at his tent door. 11 Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.

Think about this picture. When Moses went out to the tent, people would stand outside their tents in the camp and watch him go. When Moses went into the tent, the pillar of cloud that guided them would come down and stand at the entrance. And when the people saw this, they would stand up and worship.

This was probably a joyous sight before Moses went up to the mountain, before the golden calf. But can you imagine what that “worship” must have been like after? The people of Israel stood there, watching Moses go into the tent and benefit from everything they think they’ve just lost. V. 11 says that God would speak to Moses “face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.” And this intimate relationship was accompanied by a sign of great power: the pillar of cloud.

That’s what the people stand to lose, now that their covenant with God—their relationship with God—has been fractured.

So the question is, what will God do with this sinful people who have broken covenant with him?

We Can’t Live With God (33.1-3)

Chapter 33, verse 1:

The Lord said to Moses, “Depart; go up from here, you and the people whom you have brought up out of the land of Egypt, to the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, ‘To your offspring I will give it.’ 2 I will send an angel before you, and I will drive out the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 3 Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; but I will not go up among you, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people.”

Already this is a grace. God says he will make good on the promise he made to the people, to bring them into Canaan—not for their sake, but because it is what he promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He does, however, establish a significant consequence. He will send an angel before them to drive out the people of the land, but God himself will not go with them.

Why?

Because, he says, “you are a stiff-necked people.” You are obstinate. You are unruly. And if I were to go with you, I would destroy you.

A lot of people might read this and think God is setting up guardrails for himself—like those people who decide not to have kids because they’re afraid they’ll be too impatient with them. Our reflex to this passage is to find God kind of childish; sure, the people are difficult, but he’s God—can he not hold his temper?

That’s not how we should be reading this.

God isn’t afraid of losing control of his own anger if he goes with the people. He’s a just God, and none of this is a surprise to him. He’s not worried. He’s saying that in the normal state of things, no matter how bad the people feel about their sin right now, eventually they will turn against him again. Which means that in his justice, God would have to consume them, because that would be the just punishment for their rejection of him.

In other words, in the current state of things, God with them would be dangerous for them. For the people to have God dwelling in their midst would be a foretaste of what hell will actually be.

If that sounds shocking, it’s because we’ve long heard that hell is the absence of God. That’s not true. God is omnipresent: he’s everywhere, all at once. God is present in heaven and in hell, and he is the Lord of all things—of both heaven and hell.

Hell is not the absence of God. It is the absence of union with God.

If we are united to God, God’s presence is a blessing for us. It is the presence of a benevolent and loving Father.

If we aren’t united to God, his presence is eternal condemnation and punishment for us. It is the presence of a righteous Judge, who hates the sin we have allowed to be our master.

What God is saying here, essentially, is simple: because of sin, God and human beings have become incompatible. God made man in his image, but man rebelled against God and became infected with sin. Sin and God’s holiness are fundamentally incompatible—like oil and water, like lions and people.

In the normal state of things, there is simply no way for man to live with God and survive. Sooner or later we will sin against him, and God’s justice would require him to punish that sin.

But even if this is true, its opposite is also true. We can’t live with God, but we can’t live without him either.

We Can’t Live Without God (33.4-6)

V. 4:

4 When the people heard this disastrous word, they mourned, and no one put on his ornaments. 5 For the Lord had said to Moses, “Say to the people of Israel, ‘You are a stiff-necked people; if for a single moment I should go up among you, I would consume you. So now take off your ornaments, that I may know what to do with you.’ ” 6 Therefore the people of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments, from Mount Horeb onward.

This is interesting. The people of Israel have seen these incredible manifestations of God’s power, rescuing them from slavery in Egypt, and guiding them into the wilderness, and coming down on Mount Sinai… And now they’re realizing they were ready to give all of that up!

So they mourn. They strip off their party clothes, the “ornaments” of their idolatry, and they mourn.

Now that is not to say that this is actual, true repentance. For some of them it probably was, but Israel’s history will show us that plenty of them weren’t repentant at all. They’re mourning over what they stand to lose, and not necessarily mourning over their sin.

The one person who seems to have fully understood the situation is Moses himself, even though he didn’t participate in their sin. Skip down to v. 14 (this is God speaking to Moses):

14 And he said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”

One thing that we can’t see in our English translations is really important. The “you” in verse 14 is singular, not plural. God is talking to Moses, and Moses alone here. He says, “Okay, I can’t go with them; but I’ll go with you.”

15 And [Moses] said to [the Lord], “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. 16 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?”

Listen carefully to what Moses is saying. First of all, he’s saying he can’t take God without God’s people. His response in v. 15 might seem strange, because God has just said he’ll go with him, and then Moses turns around and says, “If your presence won’t go with me, don’t bring us up from here.” But v. 16 explains what he means. He says, Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people…?

He’s telling God that Moses and the Israelites are a package deal.

And he’s not saying it for his own sake, out of loyalty to his people. He’s saying it for God’s sake. It’s exactly what we saw last week, when God threatened to go down and destroy them after they made the golden calf. Moses pleads with God not to do it, because God made promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and if God doesn’t do what he promised, then he will be maligned by enemy nations. It is for God’s sake that he’s pleading with him.

Here’s the second thing, that I find even more remarkable. God has promised them a beautiful country, “flowing with milk and honey”, with unlimited resources, incredible produce, all the good things they’ve been desiring for centuries. And God has just told them that he’ll send an angel ahead of them to get them there.

Even if I’m not with you, he says, you’ll get to where you’re going. You’ll get what I promised. But I won’t be there.

And Moses says, “If you’re not going to be there, keep us in the desert. That would be better than getting everything you promised us, but without you.”

So there is a natural tension to their situation. They can’t live with God, because they’re sinners; but they can’t live without God either, because he is their Lord and their Creator, their very life.

How can this tension possibly be resolved?

The Tension Resolved (33.12-23)

There’s only one way, and we see it in the following verses. V. 12:

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 also found favor in my sight.’”

Just to clarify: when God told Moses, “You have found favor in my sight,” he’s not saying, “Moses, I’ve looked at all humanity, and you’re the best. You’re the guy I want to work with.” He’s saying, “I have decided to give you the grace to belong to me and to lead my people.”

Keeping that in mind, look at what Moses says in v. 13—it’s really interesting:

13 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.”

Do you see what he’s saying? He’s saying, “If I have received your grace, show me your ways that I may know you, and continue to benefit from that grace.”

In other words, Moses is very lucid about his own situation. He knows that the only reason he’s here speaking to God, and not down there with the people worshiping idols, is because God has given him grace. And he knows that if he doesn’t know God, if he doesn’t know what God expects of him and what God’s character is like, even if he’s here talking with God today, he’ll run the risk of drifting away from him tomorrow.

So he is asking God to keep him. He’s asking God for a deeper knowledge of who he is, so that Moses might continue to be faithful.

And then he adds the argument we saw earlier, at the end of v. 13:

“Consider too that this nation is your people.”

He tells God, your presence is what is meant to make this people distinctive. Your presence is what sets us apart from other nations. You have committed yourself to this people, and everyone knows it. Just as Moses and the people of Israel are a package deal, so are God and the people of Israel.

So then in v. 15-16, we see what we talked about earlier: God offers to go with Moses, but not the people, and Moses refuses, saying, “No, I can’t go without my people—and if you’re not with us, leave us here in the desert.”

Now listen to God’s response, in v. 17:

17 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.”

It’s really important to see why God agrees to do what Moses is asking him to do. He says that he will go with the Israelites, despite the fact that they are sinful. But it’s not because Moses has convinced him or changed his mind. God is omniscient—he knows all things. He was not surprised by what Israel did, and he knew exactly how this conversation was going to go.

He is doing all this for Moses’s sake, and for the people’s sake. They need to know, in their gut, not just in their heads, that they can’t live without God. And the idea that they might get the promised land without God needed to be unthinkable to them. Moses understands it, and he will lead the people to understand it.

So God says that he will go with them, not because Moses has changed God’s mind, and not because Moses has been so super faithful. God says that he will go with the people, because he has decided to give Moses this grace, and he knows him by name.

God justifies his decision on the basis of his own gracious will—we’ll come back to this in a second.

Now put yourself in Moses’s shoes. After everything that’s just happened, he hears what God says, and it’s good news: but he’s hungry for more. V. 18:

Moses said, “Please show me your glory.”

Remember that at the root of everything Moses has just asked of God is his request that he might know God. He’s saying, I want to make sure that we stay on the rails here. So let me see you as you are. Let me know you fully. He’s essentially asking for a more intimate repetition of Mount Sinai, a covenant validation that God really is still with them.

And to this risky request, God (maybe surprisingly) agrees. Look at v. 21:

21 And the Lord said, “Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, 22 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. 23 Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.”

So he agrees, with a small condition attached. You can’t see me in all my fullness and live—you are still a sinner, and I’m too holy for you. But I will give you a glimpse of me, but I won’t show you my face.

It’s easy to get sidetracked by this (which we’ll see next week) and miss the most important part of this passage, which comes just before, in v. 19:

19 And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The Lord.’

So Moses won’t be able to see all of God’s glory. He won’t get to see God’s face.

What he will get is God’s proclamation of his name.

This is an idea that shows up over and over again in the Bible: God’s name is a representation of who he is. He will go on to give a longer, more detailed description of what his name entails in chapter 34, but right now he gives the essential, and it hits hard. He says in the second half of v. 19:

And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.

The apostle Paul quotes this verse in Romans 9 to show that when God saves a person, it’s not because they deserve it, but because God has chosen to save them. He chooses to save us, not on the basis of who we are or what we have done, but on the basis of his own totally free will to do whatever he pleases.

He is the God who is obliged to do nothing. He is the God who receives no commands, who has no rulers, who is subservient to no one. God is the God whose prerogative it is to forgive or not.

We talked about this tension: we can’t live with God, but we can’t live without him. This is what resolves the tension: it is God’s name, God’s sovereign right to do what he will.

Now obviously we don’t see how God’s right to do what he will ultimately manifests itself. A couple of weeks ago we talked about the limits of the sacrificial system God had already given the people, that they would need more than that. But God tells Moses that he will proclaim his name to him, and his name is “The Lord”—that is, the one who has the absolute right to be gracious to whom he will, and show mercy on whom he will.

And this is exactly what we see, hundreds of years later, when God sends Jesus Christ. This should make our heads spin. Just as God is under no obligation to forgive anyone, he was under no obligation to send Christ.

Jesus lived a perfect life in a human body, a body susceptible to temptation, tortured daily by the onslaught of sin in the world around him. He resisted temptation at every turn, and constantly showed his desire to love the unlovable, to live with sinful people. And ultimately, he suffered the punishment we sinful people deserve when he died on the cross for our sins.

No one was forcing him to do that. The Son of God could have stayed in heaven, and he still would have been God, because it is his right to be gracious or not, to show mercy or not.

But he chose to be gracious to his people. He chose to show mercy to his people.

This is what God was looking forward to when he told Moses he would continue on with the people of Israel, despite their sin. And this is what God was looking forward to when he gave Moses the grace to intercede for the people of Israel, to (in a sense) argue with God in favor of the people.

That was God, showing his people patience they didn’t deserve, because he knew Jesus was coming. Jesus would cover all the sins of his repentant people—including the sins that Moses himself committed—when he died on the cross. Jesus would stand as his people’s advocate before the Father, showing him proof that our sins were covered. So God could pass over their sins for now, and make his dwelling among them, despite what they deserve—exactly as he does for us.

So here’s what we have to see here:

This story is our story.

This text is a microcosm of the story of all of God’s people, throughout all of history.

We have a sinful, rebellious people, who deserve to be separated from God, as God promises. And we have one man who rightly understands the situation, and who stands as an intercessor for this sinful people. It shouldn’t matter what he says, because the people deserve to be separated from God.

And even so, God stays with them. He chooses to show them grace.

We have a sinful, idolatrous people, who deserve to be separated from God. And we have one man who rightly understands the situation, and who stands as an intercessor for this sinful people. It shouldn’t matter what he says, because the people deserve to be separated from God.

And even so, God stays with them. He chooses to show them grace.

All of us, at some point in our lives, will have an experience that makes us realize the immensity of our sin. We’ll think we’ve made progress, we’ll think we’ve grown up, we’ll look at our Christian lives and be proud of ourselves and all we’ve accomplished. And then in a moment, over the course of a single conversation, we’ll be left thinking to ourselves, I have made no progress at all.

One day we’ll find ourselves on our knees before him with nothing in our hands, nothing to show for ourselves except our sin. We’ll see that all of our accomplishments, all the seemingly beautiful the things we did without him, are just the ornaments of our idolatry.

He’ll remove all that, and we’ll be there, naked in front of him, feeling the shame and the fear of our sin, and we’ll hear him say, “I will show grace to whom I will show grace, and I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy.” And that will feel like a terrifying sentence to us.

And then we’ll hear him say, “But my Son says you’re mine. So I will go with you.”

The fact that God forgives the people of Israel is so astounding that we are almost left with a feeling of incompleteness, because God’s conversation with Moses doesn’t make a lot of sense. That argument shouldn’t have worked. But it did, because God is the God who has the sovereign authority to show grace to whom he will.

And he decided to save us.

So faced with this confusing, incomprehensible, undeserved grace, we have to ask ourselves a question: if we could have everything we have ever wanted without this God, would we take it?

That’s the question the text asks, because that’s what God says to Moses—I’ll send my angel with you, and they’ll drive out your enemies, and I’ll give you the land. It’s everything you’ve always wanted. But you’ll do it without me.

And Moses said no.

I wonder how many of us would be willing to say the same thing. If God promised to give you everything you prayed for, for the rest of your life, but without Christ, would you take that deal?

This is a question we have to ask ourselves, every day for the rest of our lives, because every day the world around us is going to present us with an illusion of happiness, an illusion of perfection. It will give us a million things we think we need in order to be happy, and we might even feel happy for a time. But a day will come when we’ll stand before God and realize that every good thing without God is actually another nail in our coffin, another idol we’ve worshiped, another lie we’ve believed.

But knowing that he is our ultimate good changes the way we see every good thing. Our happiness is no longer idolatrous. We delight in good things, not just because they’re good, but because they lift our eyes to the good God who gave them to us. We delight in the gift, for the sake the Giver.

The Christian life is a life of reordered affections. We want good things, yes—but most especially, we want God. So if we get those good things, we delight in God all the more. And if we don’t, then that’s okay—because we’ve still got God. This is why the apostle Paul can legitimately tell us to rejoice in every circumstance.

This is how the cancer patient can still delight in God.

This is how a funeral can still be joyful and filled with hope.

This is how a broken relationship can not destroy our lives.

This is how our children can not become idols to us.

This is how our jobs can be a good endeavor rather than the purpose of our lives.

This is how we can live sacrificially.

This is how we can be generous even when we have little.

This is how we can resist temptation.

We can do all these things, because Christ has made it possible for sinful people to finally live with God. He has made the choice to show us unthinkable grace. He has proclaimed to us his name, The Lord—he will be gracious to whom he will, and he will show mercy to whom he will. Why would we ever want anything without him?