DESIRING GOD’S
INTIMATE PRESENCE
Is the Lord among us? Are we experiencing his presence in
our church today?
We know
that God is everywhere-present. That is a biblical truth that we believe. Psalm
139 declares that no matter where we go, God is there. We have this “head”
knowledge; I am not so sure we have a “heart” knowledge of this truth all the
time.
We go about
the many activities of “worship” and our programming quite mechanically. Seldom
do we, or shall I say “I”, stop to acknowledge or consider the presence of God.
This is not a criticism of our church per se, but rather a false reality that
everyone lives in. Living in a constant consciousness of God’s nearness is
almost impossible, even for the most devout believer.
That
does not excuse us from desiring God. Do we desire the presence of God in our
midst?
When the
Israelites promised to keep the Law that God gave them from Mt. Sinai, it was
scarcely 40 days before they broke that promise. Moses had been gone up the
mountain for so long they thought he was dead. In the absence of their leader
they grew restless, so Aaron made a golden calf for them to worship. Everything
went wild. People were dancing and singing and doing whatever they pleased. It
was chaos. God saw this and was angered; so angry he threatened to wipe them
out and start again with Moses and his children to create a new people. But
Moses reminded God of his promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to make a nation
from them and to be their God. (God didn’t forget; Moses was being tested).
Moses
came down from the mountain, saw the revelry over the golden calf, and smashed
the tablets he was carrying. Then he destroyed the idol, grinding it to a
powder and made the Israelites drink it. Moses interceded with God for the
people, but the relationship had changed.
Instead
of saying “My people” God said to Moses “your people” (32:7). And clearly this
sin had caused a rift in the relationship because God said to Moses, “Go up into the land flowing with milk and
honey. But I will not go with you, because you are a stiff-necked people and I
might destroy you on the way,” (33:3).
These
words of God caused Moses to make a petition, a prayer pleading for the
presence of God in his life and the life of his people. I believe that this is
a prayer that every Christian who loves God can make their own.
1. Request #1: “I want to know you”
Moses considered the responsibility that God had given to
him to lead these people. It was turning out to be a nightmare. These people
were grumblers, complainers and quick to turn back to their pagan ways when God
or their leaders failed their expectations. God said, “Lead these people,” now
Moses says, “OK but you have to do something for me.”
Moses’
first request of God was this, “If you
are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find
favor with you. Remember that this nation is your people,” (33:13).
Now
consider that God has asked Moses to lead a people who are new to God; they
don’t really know God yet. And he is supposed to lead this newly formed nation
to a land that is filled with idolatrous people who could influence his people
for evil. So it is no wonder that Moses is concerned about heading into Canaan.
And no wonder that he would like to know this God who is going with him.
God had
given his name to Moses when he first met him. He said to Moses, “I am who I
am.” That is the most holy name for God, Yahweh, the Great I AM. But Moses was
growing in his relationship with God and wanted more. So he asked two things of
God to know him better.
a) Teach me your
ways – Moses’ desire to know God’s ways is intimately related to knowing
God himself. That he desires to know God’s character helps him to know God’s
way of doing things. To know God’s ways is to know God and to better understand
how one should live in a way that pleases God. And then as Moses learns to
please God, his aim is to find favor with God.
This is
what a hunger for God looks like. To know God, to know his character, and to
know what pleases him. John Piper once asked, "Do you have hunger for God?
If we do not have strong desires for the manifestation of the glory of God, it
is not because we have drunk deeply and are satisfied. It is because we have
nibbled so long at the table of the world that our soul is stuffed with small
things and there is no room for the great. We are hungry not because we have
not tasted but because we have."[i]
b) Remember this
nation is your people – God was on the verge of rejecting Israel as his
people because of their sinfulness. Moses pled for grace. He asked God to
forgive them and if God had to, to blot Moses’ own name out of the book of life
in exchange for theirs (32:32). Moses wants God to view the Israelites as his
chosen people. I think that God must have grinned slightly because Moses
reflected his own heart for these people; Moses was growing a heart like God’s,
and that pleased God.
But God
replied, “My presence will go with you,
and I will give you rest,” (33:14). The “you” is singular and that was not
good enough for Moses.
2. Request #2: “We want you to be with us”
God’s assurance of rest and presence were for Moses as he
led the people to the Promised Land. That doesn’t say anything about Israel,
just Moses.
There
are two very telling features in this story concerning the presence of God. One
is that the tent of meeting where Moses met with God was outside of the main
camp (33:7-11). As Moses entered the tent the pillar of cloud descended and God
would meet with Moses. The people would stand at the doors of their tents
watching and worshiping. But no one else could meet with God in this way. God
was removed from them in spatial terms.
Two, as
mentioned, God was angry with Israel for sinning with the golden calf. So he
told Moses to go up and take the land without him. God said, “If I were to go with you even for a moment,
I might destroy you,” (33:5).
But
Moses replied, “If your presence does not
go with us, do not send us up from here,” (33:15). Moses would rather stay
in the desert where food and water were scarce, than go up to the land flowing
with milk and honey if God was not going to be there.
Are we
willing to say that? If God is not in it I don’t want it. I would rather be
poor with God than rich without him. I would rather be a godly failure than a
godless success.
This
week I was watching some Youtube clips and these ads kept popping up. Michael
Chang was promoting his fitness secrets. This guy is ripped and he wants
everyone to be ripped too. I considered my physique and was envious for a
moment. But considering this scripture I was working with I quickly thought, if
a muscular body costs me time with God, forget it.
As a
church, our desire is the same. We want the presence of God more than a full
church. A full church without the presence of God is truly empty. Moses said, “How will anyone know that you are pleased
with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish
me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?”
(33:16-17). The identifying mark of a gathering of people as a true church is
the visible presence of God. Otherwise we are a social club, nothing more than
a gathering of moralists and philosophers.
"The
world is perishing for lack of the knowledge of God, and the church is
famishing for want of HIS PRESENCE."[ii]
Therefore it is in the church, this gathering of people, that the world should
find the presence of God in a very tangible way. O God, we want you to be with
us!
3. Request #3: “I want to see your glory”
This is Moses’ boldest request, “Now show me your glory.”
What did
Moses want to see exactly? What is God’s glory?
In the
NT, the word "doxa" is used for glory and means beauty, radiance,
brilliance and is the total manifestation of God's attributes and revelation. “The
glory of God is the beauty and excellence of his manifold perfections. God's
glory is the perfect harmony of all of his attributes into an infinitely
beautiful and personal being."[iii] His
glory is the totality of who he is in all his holiness.
“You
cannot understand the purposes and plans of God unless you understand and begin
to grasp the glory of God. The purposes of God are wrapped around his glory.
The plans of God revolve around the orbit of his glory. The salvation of
humanity revolves around the essence of the glory of God because all throughout
Scripture from the beginning of creation until the end of creation it all
swirls around this gravitational pull of the glory of God. The glory of God is
the essence of who he is and is the manifest beauty of all his attributes. At the
center of what God wants to do is to reveal himself. In salvation, he reveals
himself. Through your life, he reveals himself. Through worship, he's revealing
himself. It is the revelation of who God is that changes you.”[iv]
So God
responded (read Ex 33:19-23). This
is what he said he would do. When God fulfilled this request God proclaimed his
name, Yahweh (I AM), (read 34:6-7).
Now this
seems out of our realm. To see the glory of God, the back of God and to hear
his name, is beyond our experience here. Moses received a very special answer.
But what are we to do with this request? If we should ask God to see his glory
what should we expect?
In the
gospel of John we are told something quite amazing. “The Word became flesh and lived for a while among us. We have seen his
glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of
grace and truth,” (John 1:14). The word “lived” should be translated
“tabernacled” or “tented” among us. While in Moses’ day the tent of meeting was
outside the camp, in the person of Jesus, the presence of God put on flesh and
camped right in our midst.
As the
disciples came to know Jesus they began to perceive his Sonship. Remember when
Philip asked to see the Father, Jesus replied, “Don’t you know me?” And Jesus
said quite clearly that he was “I AM,” (John 8:58). So when Jesus rose again
from the dead, the disciples were convinced and filled with joy. They had seen
the glory of God; they touched him, heard him, saw him and knew him. Knowing
that he could not stay with the disciples, Jesus promised them the person of
the Holy Spirit would come and live in their hearts.
We do
not see God’s back like Moses. We do not have Jesus in the flesh before us. So
how we can we know the glory of God? We have the Holy Spirit. J. I. Packer
explained the work of the Spirit like this:
“What is
the essence, heart, and core of the Spirit’s work today? What is the central,
focal element in his many-sided ministry? Is there one basic activity to which
his work of empowering , enabling, purifying, and presenting must be related in
order to be fully understood? Is there a single divine strategy that unites all
these facets of his life-giving action as a means to one end?
I think there is, and now I offer a view of it
– a view that I focus…in terms of the idea of presence. By this I mean the Spirit makes known the personal
presence in and with the church of the risen, reigning Savior, the Jesus of
history, who is the Christ of faith.” We can have the presence of God in our
lives more intimately than Moses, even more than the disciples. This is the
work of the Holy Spirit in us.
The
Apostle Paul reflected on this and considered that Moses, after he had been
with God, radiated the glory of the presence in his face. Not just glowed; radiated.
And after a while that glory began to fade so Moses put on a veil until he met
with God again. But Paul notes that the presence of the Spirit of God in our
lives is considerably different. He wrote, “Now
the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being
transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the
Lord, who is the Spirit,” (2 Cor 3:17-18).
A church had a special concert and the worship center was
packed. The congregation had one of their greatest times of worship ever! Later
that evening, a young mother from the church was putting her little boy to bed.
He had enjoyed the concert so much and couldn’t stop talking about it.
The
mother said the usual bedtime prayer with her boy, kissed him goodnight and was
about to leave her son’s room, when he surprised her with a deep thought:
"Mommy, I really had a good time at church tonight! I sure wish Jesus
could have been there!"
Is that
how our worship feels? Does it seem like its all good stuff but Jesus isn’t
there?
A piano
tuner tunes each key to one single source: a tuning fork. That fork is the
standard to which each key conforms. It doesn’t help to tune one key to
another. If each of us focuses on the presence of God in our own lives we will
find a remarkable affinity and unity with one another in this church.
I
believe that Moses’ prayer is a model for us and we should, each one of us,
pray:
I want
to know you Lord
I want
you to be with us Lord
Now show
me your glory Lord.
And the
glory will be found in the radiant faces of those who love and obey Jesus
Christ. The Lord is with us all the time. He will never leave us or forsake us.
But we need to invite him into the center of our lives every morning.
Let’s
desire his intimate presence with great passion.
AMEN
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