Not Without You

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

If you remember back in the first week that Drew had preached on this, it's sort of like a ping pong game that started between God and Moses, where they're just sort of like, your people know your people. Your people know your people. To me, it's sort of like, you know, sometimes you ever see, I don't know, like my mom would sometimes say when my dad got home, you wouldn't believe what your son did today. And he would say, our son? And she goes, your son today. Right. That's sort of like how I see what's happening between God and Moses. God is like, your people, Moses is like, like, no, no, no, your people. Right. So that ping pong game has continued. And he calls them a stiff-necked people. Right. Stiff-necked people. This is kind of a it gives leeway. There's a lot of ways you can look at it, but a stiff-necked ox cannot wear.

The yoke. Right. A stiff neck, right. It won't move. It won't turn. It won't do what it's done. So this is kind of pointing towards a stubbornness, towards a selfishness and towards an un or towards a sinful people. OK, so we see that and we see the same word consume here that we use it that we looked at in verse 32 or in chapter 32 when he says, I'm just going to consume them all. Same word. Right. So he's he's still pretty angry. Right. It hasn't abated. It has not baited at all. And and God's not hanging back because he's pouting. Right. He's not hanging back. He's not doing the whole thing. Husbands, you know, like when you ask your wife if something's wrong and they're like, no, I'm fine.

But they're not fine. This is not that situation. Right. Like he he's not going back because we see an act of mercy here. And right. Did you catch it? And why is he not going back? Because he would consume them. So he's not going because God's in any danger. He's going because God's people are in danger. He would consume them all with his anger. So he's holding back. Right. So we see a first first act of mercy and it is a pet peeve. Right. I know I tell you all the time, I'm not going to talk about stuff, but we are. We are mercy and grace. When I was in college, I taught college and two weeks before the end of every semester, all of a sudden certain college students got the idea. They should start caring about their grade right on time. Right. So they would come to me. Hey, is there any extra credit I can do? And I would tell them, you know, the thing about extra credit

that's extra work on me. And why would I do extra work for your grade? But I told them I would consider it if you wrote me a three page paper by the next class period on mercy and grace. And which one are you asking for? The 15 years, how many people do you think wrote it? Zero. Because they would start writing it. And when they realized what they were asking for and what I was giving, it came to a whole new different situation. Right. So we're going to hopefully fix this again today. Right. Mercy is not getting what you deserve. Right. It's not getting what you deserve. Here we see, I mean, the people of Israel deserve to die,

but they weren't. God didn't go with them because he like so we're not going to get that punishment. We see an act of mercy. Grace is getting what you don't deserve. Right. What you haven't earned. We're going to see grace at the end of it. Sound good. But I just wanted to introduce the difference here between grace and mercy. And that here we are seeing a merciful God act. OK, because I said Israel deserved to be consumed, but all God did was just kill three thousand of them and then make them drink gold dust in their water. Right. I mean, there was some pretty harsh punishments. But the entire nation of Israel persisted. OK, the entire the entire nation.

Excuse me. Kenneth, Andrea, where's Kenneth? Not going to work if Kenneth isn't here. Let's use Matt and Brody. Right. OK. How long have you guys been married? Brody, how long have you all been married? Almost 10 years. Matt, how long has it felt you've been married? Just kidding. Don't answer that. No, no, that's that was a trap, guys. You young guys, that was a trap. Don't answer those questions. OK, so 10 years. Your next anniversary, Matt's going to come to you and he's going to say, hey, I have just bought you. The house that you were dreamed of every single amenity, every single part of a home that you wish was different or that you wanted. I have built for you. I built it in the most beautiful place with flowing streams, mountains, forests, anything you could ask for. I put a fence around it so that you're going to be protected. I've given you farm land so you're never going to go hungry.

I've even given you my favorite recliner and all his jarring stuff. And he's given you enough monies that you're never going to want for anything. But he's not going to go with you. Is it a gift? No, it's just a really neat divorce, right? We're seeing something very similar here. Let me give you another aspect. What here? So for the last 10 years, I've watched every basketball game, Tennessee football game, Tennessee baseball game with a friend of mine called Aaron Humphries, he passed in June.

Tennessee beat Alabama last week, right, Sean? By a lot, by a lot. At the end of the game, I just cried because I missed my friend. Does that make sense? His presence was that we didn't watch all those games together because we just love Tennessee that much. No, we love each other that much. So there was a presence missing. And the experience just isn't the same. I have only watched one Tennessee football game this year.

I don't even know who the starting quarterback is too much anymore. Because I realize, well, you know, you know what's important. That's what's happening here. God's saying I'm going to give you everything. But I'm not going to go with you. If we go back to what Drew mentioned a while ago about we treat God like a civil good, something that just keeps kids in line, something that, right, keeps the old folks in churches happy, whatever it is. If we treat God like a civil good.

That's going to be OK. And if you want me to I want to give you an end again, Drew has said some amazing things in the last three weeks that have humbled me on a daily basis. So I've come up with a diagnostic, Drew. For you to understand what a civil good looks like. Ready? Are you ready for your test? If God gave you every blessing that you ever wanted. That you had ever, ever asked for that you ever would ask for.

And then he left. How long would it take you to know this? Would Tuesday be just another Tuesday? Because there's a land here in Burleson, 2026. Where you have a good career, you have a beautiful family, you have a great 401k, you got a great job, you have a good church at UO2 every Sunday, but you don't have a single bit of hunger. For God, that's what this is going to that's what the promised land would look like.

Psalm 1611, David says, you make known the path of life in your presence. There was a fullness of joy, not in the land, not in the milk and honey, but where? In the presence of God, in the presence of God. This week, I'm going to ask you to look at what what gold ornaments you're wearing. What gold ornaments are you wearing? In the next part of Exodus, verse 33 or pardon me, chapter 33, four through six. When the people of God heard this disastrous word, they mourned. And no one put on his ornaments for the Lord said to Moses, say to the people of Israel, you are a stiff-necked people for 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. Therefore, the people of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments from Mount Horeb onward. So from this point forward, they were they were goldless.

And do you remember where they got the gold? I'm a professor, if you know, shout it out. Where did they get the gold? Why did they get it in Egypt? Why did the Egyptians give it to him? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Who made all that possible? So the gold is what? The gold is a gift from God. And what did we do? What did they do with it? What did they do with it? They took it and they melted it down and they turned it into a golden calf. That's what started this whole thing, right? That's why this is called a return to God. That's why this series is called Return to God. We're going to see it in a second. Is they he they made God so mad that a gigantic rift formed between God and his people. Right. Moses came down and they didn't repent, did they? No, most of them are like, oh, yeah, maybe we shouldn't have done that. No, not even Aaron gave the most comical line in the entire Bible.

The entire Bible. Right. He said, I just put all the gold in here and the calf came out. Like, come on, if my child had said that, it would have been an immediate whooping. Like the level, right. I mean, is that not the funniest line? I just put the golden in a calf came out. I don't know how it happened. Yeah. Right. They were an unrepentive people and they were punished for it. But here we see them taking off all their gold. There was a moment of realization here.

This is what we call repentance. Right. This is what we call repentance. They took off all the gold and they threw it down. And they mourned. There was an instant loss of self. Right. I think Drew mentioned the book. I know the name of this book. Don't don't tell me. Don't tell me Drew was saying that book by Tim reason for God. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we see that if you repent from something, you have to repent. No, that's a different one. That's a different one. You have to repent to something. I know my brain is a little slow this morning. That's it. All life is repentance. I knew I had it. I knew it. All life is repentance. Right. And so if you repent from something, you have to repent to something. And here we see the people of Israel repent repenting from that idolatry. And what are they who are they repenting towards?

Towards God. They immediately sought the thing that they desperately desperately desperately needed. So like I said, it was and it wasn't the punishments that did it. I think that's the most amazing part. Right. They were punished. Did they repent even after they were punished? No, it took the thought of going on without their God to bring them to their knees. To me, that's that's pretty amazing. That is pretty amazing. And I want to be clear is money evil is gold evil is is your job evil is all that evil. No, no, no. The problem is that we keep taking God's good stuff and we turn it into something that they were they were never supposed to be. We have golden calves everywhere. I think Drew said this before, right? We have golden calves every we just don't call them that we call it a good job. We call it a great retirement. We call it a hefty bank account.

We call it a great car. We call it a great education. We call it great kids. We call them great wives, great husbands. But good gifts are the things that we now turn our trust into. When you stress about money, do you go to God or do you check your bank account? You stress about money. Do you just work that extra shift instead of discipling? We've taken things in our lives and we've put them in place of where God should be.

And like I said, it's not rhetorical. What's your gold? What gold are you wearing that you need to take off this week? Now, Pastor Drew went through verses seven through eleven last week where Moses again pitched the tent outside the camp, right? We see Exodus 33:11 and just bring you up to where we are. The Lord used to speak. Excuse me. Thus, the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face as a man speaks to his friend.

Now, that's pretty amazing. Now we have Jesus, so this is really hard to grasp. But back then, they didn't have this personal relationship. God didn't just come to every single person. So the fact that God wanted this relationship, it was an intimate call. It was a face to face conversation. It wasn't a text message. It wasn't a it wasn't a DM on some app. It was a face to face conversation.

So in Exodus 33 chapter or verses 13, 12 and 13, Moses said to the Lord, see, you say to me, bring up this people, but you have not let me know whom will you send with me? Yet you have said, I know you by name and you have also found favor in my site. Now, therefore, if I have found favor in your site, please show me now your ways that I may know you in order to find favor in your site. Consider to that this nation is your people. I want to look at three things, right? Every good Baptist sermon has three points. So this is just three points, right? Three points. One, and this is correlated to if you've listened to Drew's sermon or you were here to what he talked about with prayer, right? I'm going to combine those true those truths. The first thing we see is that Moses prays God's words right back to him.

Right. Moses says all these things, right? He goes, Lord, I'm just quoting here, bro. Like you said this. I'm not making this up. Like you said this. All right. Point number two, point number two is that he doesn't just ask for directions. He doesn't ask for answers. He doesn't ask for clarity. He doesn't ask for all of that junk. What does he ask for? He asks to know God.

That was his request. He asks to know God. And if you remember when the first part of part of Exodus, do you remember the man Moses was God literally had to answer all of his questions, remove all of the barriers, give him any, everything he needed, explain every detail of the plan in order for him to go to Egypt. Moses is not that man anymore. He doesn't care about a single variable of God's plan. He does nothing. He doesn't even know what's happening next. All he knows is that he wants to know his God. What a spiritual growth. In case any of you are wondering, that's fruit. That's maturity. That's the goal.

And again, number three, I just wanted to point it out. Moses says, by the way, it's your people serves the ball right back. Still going back and forth, right? God's still a little angry, but Moses is not going to stop. He's doing the mediator thing. Hey, they're your people. They are your people. And then how does God answer? We see in 3314 and he said, my presence will go with you and I will give you rest. Translation. Hey, you know what? I'm going to go. You don't have to do this alone. Any, that's huge.

That is huge. My presence will go with you and I will give you rest. The desert didn't go away. The wilderness was still 40 years long. But God was with them every single part of it. And then Moses says a couple of verses that man, if you're looking for some verses to memorize, if you don't know what you're going to do this week, this is going to be a great set of verses for you. Right. Exodus 33, 15 through 16.

And he said to him, if your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight and I your people. Is it not in you or going with us so that we are distinct? I and your people from every other people on the face of the earth. Do you see what Moses is saying? He's saying, I would rather be stuck here in the desert forever than a single day in the promised land without you.

And if you go back to that week one, when we looked at those people at the bottom of right the bottom of the mountain. We got we see a people of God saying, I reef I'm refusing to wait to I'm not taking another step without you. Right. I want to make sure you can see that those contrasts. And 16 is huge because what makes God's people different from everybody else on the face of the earth? It's not their land. It's not their laws. It's not their army. What is it? It's God. It is God.

Chisenhall is no different than City Hall. The Rotary Club, your cool little HOA pool house building. It's no different. God doesn't sleep here. He definitely doesn't come here for the preaching. He doesn't come here because of the cool paintings, the awesome decorations, the cool laser lights and massive show we have on stage with the worship band. Is that why right? No, he doesn't at all. He does. That's not why God comes here.

If God's not here. Just like Drew said, we are a civil good with a parking lot. Are we not? Exodus 33 17 and the Lord said to Moses, the very thing that you have spoken, I will do for you have found favor in my sight and I know you by name. And just to be clear, this is the second time that that that Moses has gotten a yes. Right. Moses is praying these things. And like I said, just like Drew said, like you're not bugging God with your prayers. Let him have it.

Let him have it. And God just keeps saying yes. Pray bold. And there's and there's one thing I want you to chew on this week because if you look at what Moses is praying. I would love for you to take a look at how many times that you pray for God's blessings. Compared to how many times you pray for God's presence. Now, if I'm Moses and I've just gotten these yeses and I've pretty much I kind of won, right? If I'm a lawyer, I just won this court battle like yes, like I'm leaving the tent. High five. No bumping, you know, I'm yeah, yeah, but not Moses. He's a better man than I look at a verse 18. Moses says, please show me your glory.

If you ask me, this is one of the boldest prayers in the Bible. And it's amazing. And I know if you really are paying attention like Moses just keeps asking for more. And if you're in the presence of God, you don't leave wanting less. True or true? If you're in the presence of God, you leave wanting more. That is what that's what Moses is experiencing here.

And what does God do with this prayer, this bold prayer of God, I want to I want to see I want to see your glory. And God says in verses 19 through 20, I will make all my goodness pass before you and I will proclaim before you my name, the Lord, and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and I will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But you cannot see my face for man shall not see me and live.

And another thing, God defines his glory here. Right. God says or Moses said show me your glory. God says I'm going to make all my goodness pass before you. So God's glory isn't the miracles, the smoke, the thunder, the pillar of, you know, or the wind and the tornado looking thing in front of a tent. That's not that's not God's glory. God's glory is in his goodness, in his goodness.

And then he says, I'm going to claim I will claim for me, I will proclaim before you my name, the Lord. And I asked Drew if this was a fortuitous, you know, signing me up to preach this day because in March, March 8th, I preach a sermon in which the Lord told Moses who he was. He's right in and I don't know if I have it up here, but in Exodus chapter two, verse six, God spoke to Moses and said, I am the Lord. In chapter six, he was letting Moses know, hey, sweet cheeks right here. I got you. Not over here. Don't, don't, don't, don't look at the Pharaoh. Don't, don't look at that path. Don't look at all those obstacles. Moses, Moses right here. I got you and I am the Lord. It's a little bit different here because he's saying, Moses, I know you've got that. You know that I'm the Lord.

I'm going to show you the other parts of who I am today. And he answers Moses' prayer. And I also want you to realize that God didn't give Moses an explanation. He didn't give anything except for a revelation of who he was. And like I said, if you see it here, we see as soon as we come here, we've seen that mercy and grace we've seen it both. Right. Israel did Israel. No, I mean, we don't get just one.

We don't get just grace. We don't get just mercy. Just like with the people of Israel, God gives us both most of the time. I'll explain that here in just a second. If you make way all the way down 33 Exodus 33 21. And the Lord said, Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock. And while my glory passes, I will put you in a cleft of the rock and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed away. Then I will take away my hand and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen. So God's going to grant Moses what he's what he said. He's going to put him in a rock and he's even going to protect him from that after right from from the glory of what's going to happen because you understand God can't be in the same presence of sin. It would devour us. So all we all Moses gets to see is an afterglow.

Moses covers him with his hand. God covers Moses with his hand and he walks by and God gets to see the afterglow of God's presence literally between a rock and a holy place. Sorry. Sorry. But here's what's amazing. And I'm going to give you a spoiler. Sorry, Drew. I don't know if I don't know. We'll get to this later, but you know, Moses never made it to the promised land.

Never made it. God took Moses to the top of a mountain and just showed it to him. And then Moses died, never having reached the promised land. But fast forward over a thousand years later in Luke chapter nine. Now, about eight days after these sayings, he took with him Peter and John and James and went up on the mountain to pray. As he was praying, the appearance of his face was altered and his clothing became dazzling white. And behold, two men were talking with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.

So Moses finally reached the promised land and he got to see the glory of God's face. A thousand years later. The problem for asking God for blessings is you expect them immediately. But if you want to know the true glory of God, ask for his presence. And what is even more amazing, I know Drew is a language guy, but the word departure here in Luke, in Greek, do you know what that means? Departure means in Greek, Exodus.

Exodus. We were looking at a story of the first act. Moses led the first Exodus. And he's talking to Jesus, who's about to lead the greatest. So God moves in, God moves in and not one person got consumed. Just like with Jesus, when Jesus moved in, we're not going to get consumed. We're not going to be destroyed. This has been a pretty hard sermon. Personally, introspectively, I'm probably going to get emotional, but I don't care. You all know about my dad. He provided, he did everything he provided by the world's measure. By the world's measure, he did it all. We had the land, we had the house, he had the job, he had the paycheck, but he wasn't there. As far as I know, never, no one ever told him that the God who made him actually wanted him.

God doesn't want your work. God doesn't want your 401k. God doesn't want your car. He doesn't want your voice. He doesn't want your degree. He doesn't want anything. What does he want? You. That's a pretty simple ask. What's easier said than done. Some of you are living right now. You're in the good land, right? You're at the land is good. You're providing. You got the building. You're busy. You're tired in a way that maybe a nap just won't fix. Others of you have loved somebody who's living there. A dad, a mom, a son, a friend, maybe somebody that's going to keep you up at night.

If you remember me telling a story a long time ago about my mother and my oldest son and I were on a plane and there were some bad turbulence. I hate flying. And all of a sudden we decided to fly in a storm. And I'm not talking about like a little shaking like it was one of those turban things where you're dropping like 100 feet. You're like this is it. Right. And then you slowly come back up and the plane shakes the entire time. Like it was turbulent. My mom sitting right next to me, eyes closed, just white knuckled holding on to those armrests like she's holding the plane up. Right. Like she was she was holding on. Noah on my other side. Balling.

And I was like, hey, buddy, it's just turbulence. It's just air. We're just going through some rough air. You're fine. You're fine. And then finally, I just unbuckled them and I put them in my arms. You just felt every muscle in that kid's body just relax. It wasn't my wisdom. It wasn't my words. It wasn't my car. It wasn't the house I provided him. It wasn't the job that I was doing for him. All he needed was my prayer.

Is that God for you today? Some of you have been white knuckling your entire life, your marriage, your kids, your money, your past, your wealth. You've been holding on to the armrest so long. You forgot that there are arms holding you. If you look at verse 21 one more time, God said to Moses, behold, there is a place by me. Your father is saying to you this morning, there was a place by me. You don't have to hold on to an armrest anymore. I made the sacrifice. I died because somebody has to die for sin. I died.

Let go of the armrest and let me hold you. Feel my presence. It is only in his presence that you're going to find that joy that was promised, that peace that was promised. It's in his presence. Those aren't blessings he's going to give. It's his presence. How many times do we pray? Now I'm not knocking prayer, but how many times we pray for, oh, God bless this trip. I'm going to go on, keep me safe. And you didn't say, God, come with me.

His presence is the answer. Like I said, it's been a rough year. It's been a rough year. The hand that covered Moses in the rock church, that hand now has a nail scar in the middle of it. Come to me all who labor and heavy-bladed. And I will give you rest. It's the same promise. God made Moses. My presence will go with you and I will give you rest. Like I'm tired. This year has just sucked.

Like I am tired. I'm so tired. My insomnia has come back. I haven't suffered for insomnia in five or six years. I slept maybe a couple of days this week. I'm no longer on my strength. Does that make sense? And I can't do it without his presence. There's no amount of peace, joy, or wealth this world could offer that has made it possible me to be here this morning preaching to you on this, except for the joy and the peace, the mercy and the grace that I get from being in the presence of my heavenly father, my Savior.

Will you stand with me and you can go ahead and you can close your eyes and maybe you know somebody who's living in the land without the Lord today. Someone who needs to hear of his peace and his joy. Can you picture that person? That name is on your heart for a reason. That name is on your heart because God is opening a door and he doesn't want you to walk through it. He wants you to want to walk through it and share his grace, his love, his glory, his peace, his joy with somebody who doesn't have it. He wants you to love someone just as he did.

That person is the person that you thought of. That name wasn't there by accident. Not one more step without you, Lord. It's not the stuff church. It's not the promised land. It's you. Father, I just want to come before you right now. Lord, and I just want to be still. I'm going to take a breath and God, I invite your presence here. Lord, I confess that we have wanted your gifts more than we've wanted you. We have wanted land more than you. We've taken the very good things, the blessings that you've given and we've turned them into golden calves. God, just forgive us.

Lord, you know our hearts and I thank you for the mercy that you didn't give us what we deserve. I thank you for your grace that you gave us what we never could earn, never could deserve God. You didn't just send us an angel. You came yourself. You pitched your tent among us and Jesus, and we've seen your glory full of grace, full of truth. Jesus, thank you for being the rock that was split. Thank you that there was a place by you. God, for everyone in this room, everyone in your church who has been white and alkaline in their lives, Lord, let them let go today. Lord, let them realize you have never let go.

That we have been in your arms since the day we asked. Lord, there is a lap that we will never have to ask or crawl into. There was a place that we will find refuge, that we find peace. God, let us be reminded this week that we have that and there's nothing on earth that could replace you. Lord, I lift up every name that was spoken here in silence. The dads, the moms, the friends, the sons, the daughters who have land, but they don't have you. God, don't let them die without hearing it.

God, send us, give us the courage to love them enough to share your good news. But we take off our gold this morning. If your presence is not going to go with us, don't send us from this room. But we know you're going to go. Because you're a God of promises. Lord, we love you so much. It's your name we pray. Amen.