Show Me Your Glory

Good morning, church. It is so good to be back in this room with you. On these gym chairs, with this family, doing this one more Sunday together. I hope I never get over what a gift that is.

Last week we sat together in Acts 2, and we watched the Spirit get poured out. On the young and the old. On the sons and the daughters. On a hundred and twenty ordinary people who did one ordinary thing. They came near. And I told you that the Spirit comes when we come near.

I have not been able to put that down all week. And there is one piece of it in particular I have not been able to put down. Last week I stood right here and told you that the body of Jesus was torn open on a cross so that two people who could not stand each other could be made one. That our unity was never cheap. It cost Him His flesh.

Jesus died for that. He died to make us one. I was pulling some old sermons together this week, and I found a journal entry I had forgotten I ever wrote. It was from a night back in 2022. And the second my eyes hit it, I was right back there. I could feel that night again.

The Lord had woken me up in the dark. I am not going to make it sound more dramatic than it was. But I came up out of sleep with a prayer already on my lips, and I could not shake it. Lord, if we are going to move forward as a church, we have to be desperate for You. So I got up before the sun, I sat down in the living room with that same journal, and one sentence was the only thing my heart knew how to say.

Are we desperate for His presence.

I wrote that four years ago. And church, I am still asking it. Different church. Different state. Different room. Same question. Because some questions do not get answered once and filed away. They keep circling back around until you finally deal with them. And this week, this one found me again, in my own handwriting.

Slow down over that word Now I want to slow down over that word desperate, because I know how it can sound. For some of us, desperate is not a comfortable word. It sounds dramatic. It sounds like panic. It sounds like someone falling apart at the seams. And if that is what you hear when I say it, I understand why you would want to keep your distance from it.

So let me tell you what I do not mean, and then let me tell you what I do.

There is a desperation that comes out of fear, and there is a desperation that comes out of clarity. They are not the same thing. Fear says, I am losing control. Clarity says, I finally know what I cannot live without. One of them is panic. The other one is the truest thing your soul has ever said.

That second one is what I am talking about this morning. Desperation for God is not panic. It is clarity. It is the heart finally seeing that God is not one more thing we need, somewhere on the list. He is the One we need underneath everything else we need.

Think about it like this. When you cannot breathe, you do not negotiate for air. You do not sit there and weigh your options. When someone you love is in trouble, you do not casually hope that help shows up eventually. And when you feel unseen, or unwanted, or alone, something honest starts to rise up in you, and the ache begins to tell the truth.

Here is what I have learned about that ache. We are very good at calling it other names. We call it ambition, or anxiety, or being busy, or just keeping everybody happy. We dress it up so we do not have to look straight at it. But underneath all of it, the soul is asking a few very old questions. Am I safe. Am I wanted. Am I alone in this. Is there anywhere I can finally set myself down and stop carrying my own weight.

And hear me, that ache is not a flaw in you. You were made to need. Not as a weakness, as a design. We were never built to stand on our own, and the loneliness so many of us carry around is not a small thing or a shallow thing. It is the soul telling the truth about what it was made for. And what it was made for is God Himself. This is why I love the way Jesus said it. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst. He did not say blessed are the impressive. He did not say blessed are the people who have it all together. He blessed the ones who feel their own emptiness and ache for what only God can fill. Hunger is not hype. Thirst is not drama. They are your body telling you the plain truth about what it cannot live without. And Jesus says the person who feels that, and brings it to Him, is blessed.

So when I ask if we are desperate for His presence, I am not trying to work you up. I am not asking you to manufacture a feeling or perform an emotion for me. I am asking if we are finally willing to be honest about what we cannot live without.

And here is the gospel underneath all of it. Jesus does not stand off at a distance and tell desperate people to calm down. He comes near. He takes on flesh. He walks straight into our loneliness and our striving and our fear and our shame, and He does not flinch, and He carries us home to the Father. That is the One we are dealing with this morning.

So open your Bibles with me to Exodus 33. Because there is a man in this chapter who got honest about all of this a long time before we did.

The blessing without the presence Let me set the scene for you. Moses is up on the mountain with God. And while he is gone, the people he led up out of Egypt go to his brother Aaron and talk him into building them a god they can see. So they melt down their gold, they shape it into a calf, and they throw a party around it.

And I do not want you to miss one small detail in how it happened. Watch Aaron's eyes. EXODUS 32:5 Aaron saw how excited the people were, so he built an altar in front of the calf. So where was Aaron looking? Look at the verse again. He saw how excited the people were. That is where his eyes were the whole time. Not up the mountain. Not toward the presence of God. He was watching the crowd. He read the room, and then he gave the room what it wanted. And I want to be gentle with Aaron here, because I am afraid I understand him better than I would like to. Aaron knew about God. He could have told you all the right things about God. He had just never been ruined by Him. And if I am honest, there is a little bit of Aaron in all of us. It is so much easier to watch the crowd than it is to seek the face of God. It is so much easier to hand people what they want than to lead them to the One they actually need.

So God sends Moses back down the mountain. Moses pleads for the people. And then God says something to Moses that I want you to really hear. EXODUS 33:1-3 Leave this place, you and the people you brought up out of Egypt, and go up to the land I promised. I will send an angel before you and drive out your enemies. Go up to the land flowing with milk and honey. But I will not go with you. Go. Take the land. It is yours. Everything I promised, milk and honey, all of it. I will even send an angel out ahead of you to clear away your enemies. You can have the whole thing.

But I will not go with you.

And do not miss who He is saying that to. These are not faithful people. This is the same crowd that, while Moses was still up on the mountain in the presence of God, melted down their jewelry and threw a party around a golden calf. They had just betrayed Him to His face. And He is still offering them the land. He is still offering to send them in with every promise kept. Church, that much, to people like that, is already grace. The staggering part of this is not the part He offers. It is the one thing He holds back. Himself.

So let me ask you something, and you can be honest, because nobody is standing at the door checking your answer. There is something you have been asking God for. You know exactly what it is. Some of you prayed about it on the drive in this morning. Now imagine He looks at you and says yes. Yes to the very thing you have been longing for. But understand, I will not be in it.

Would you take that deal? Be careful how fast you answer. Because if we are honest, that deal is the version of Christianity a lot of us have quietly settled into. Pray the prayer. Get the ticket to heaven. Collect the blessings along the way. And do not trouble Me again until something breaks. Somewhere along the line we learned to want the gifts of God so much more than we want God.

And I will not ask you that question without telling you where my own heart has been on it. Because you might remember, a few weeks ago I stood in this same spot and told you I would rather miss the blessing and still have hold of the hand of the Blesser. I meant it then. I mean it more now. That turn came slowly in me, slower than I wish it had, and lower than I want to admit. But my heart has been learning to pray something like this.

Father, even if I miss the blessing. Even if the thing I was so sure You were going to do never comes, let me be just as glad as I would have been if it had, as long as I still have hold of Your hand.

That is the truest prayer I know how to pray. And it is really just Moses, put into my own words. Keep the milk. Keep the honey. I want Your hand.

But I have to be honest about the other half of it too. Because the moment I take my eyes off Him, the moment I feel my hand starting to slip out of His, it is so easy. So easy for my heart to wander off and start treating Him as useful again. As the way to get the thing, instead of the thing itself. And here is the only thing I have ever found that actually holds me there. It was never the strength of my grip on Him. It was the strength of His grip on me. I slip my hand out. He does not slip His. My heart wanders. His does not. He has been holding on the whole time.

Because hear me, church. Jesus is not useful. He is not the road to the blessing. He is the blessing.

Think about the verse you have known your whole life. You learned it before you could tie your shoes. JOHN 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. We can say it in our sleep. But stop on those last two words. Eternal life. When you hear that, what do you reach for? Streets of gold. A house with your name on it. Everyone you have buried, standing at the gate, waiting for you. All of it good. All of it true. But listen to how Jesus Himself defined it, in the same week, in the very prayer we are going to live inside this morning. JOHN 17:3 Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. That is the definition, and it came out of His own mouth. Eternal life is not first a place. It is a Person. It is knowing Him. And do not miss what that means, because we are coming back to it before this morning is done. To know Him like that is to be wanted by Him like that. So when the Bible says that Christ died to bring us to God, hear how far that goes. Not to bring us to a better version of this life. Not even, in the end, to bring us to heaven.

Then what is it? What are we actually chasing in this whole faith?

Listen to the prayer again. Everything Jesus prays that night is so that, through Him, He can bring us to the Father. As His own. That is the whole thing. Heaven is not the destination. The Father is. You could take away the gold and the houses and the reunions, set Christ alone in an empty room, and that room would be heaven. Because heaven was only ever the room where we finally have Him with nothing left in the way.

Because He was always the point. He is not the means to your joy. He is your joy. He is not the door to the treasure. He is the treasure. He is not the way to God that you leave behind once you arrive. He is God, come all the way down to get you.

If You are not coming, I do not want it So here is Moses, with the deal of a lifetime sitting right there on the table. Listen to what he says. EXODUS 33:15 If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. If You are not coming, then I do not want it. Keep the milk. Keep the honey. I would rather have a wilderness with You than a paradise without You.

And there it is. So what was the promised land, really? Strip God out of it. What is left? Without Him it is just real estate. Good soil and good weather under an empty sky. Milk and honey cannot comfort a soul that was made for the presence of God. Moses knew that. He had been close enough to God to know that nothing else would ever be enough again.

And notice where that came from. It did not come from a guilt trip. Nobody shamed it into him. It came from a man who had tasted the presence of God and could not take one more step without it.

Are we desperate for His presence?

Show me your glory Now watch what Moses does next. He has just turned down a paradise. And instead of asking for something smaller, something safer, he asks for more. EXODUS 33:18 Now show me your glory. Think about who is saying this. This is the man who saw a bush burn and not be consumed. The man who watched the sea stand up like two walls of water and his whole nation walk through it on dry ground. The man who had just come down off a mountain that was on fire with the presence of God. If anyone in history had seen enough of God, it was this man. And what does he say? Show me more.

How does a man who has seen all of that still ache for more? I will tell you how. Because that is what beauty does to you. Once you have truly tasted Him, you cannot stop. The glory of God is not like a good meal that fills you up and leaves you content to push back from the table. It is the opposite. The more of Him you see, the more of Him you have to see. He satisfies you and makes you hungrier in the very same moment.

And maybe that finally explains a prayer some of you have prayed a hundred times and never seen change. You have stood at your kitchen counter and said, Lord, I want to pray more. I want to be in Your word more. I want to know You more. I just cannot seem to get there. I have prayed that exact prayer with my own coffee going cold in my hand. And maybe the problem was never that you are lazy. Maybe the problem is that you have not yet tasted enough of Him to be ruined for everything else.

Because here is the truth about holiness, and I want to say it carefully. Holiness is not the old life managed better. Holiness is the old life losing its grip because Christ has become better. It is not mostly about trying harder. It is mostly about looking longer. You do not white-knuckle your way into loving God. You behold Him until the old appetites loosen their hold on you on their own. Now watch how God answers a man who asks to see His glory. Before anything else, before the cleft of the rock, before any of it, He says this. EXODUS 33:19 I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the LORD, in your presence. Do you see what just happened there? Moses asks to see His glory, and God reaches for His goodness, as if the two words were the same word. As if you could not tell them apart. And in God, you cannot. His glory is not bare power. A storm has power. A mountain has power. The glory of God is all of His goodness and all of His mercy, the whole weight of who He is, bending low toward people who have done nothing to deserve it. That is what Moses was about to watch go by.

And this is the thing I do not want you to miss about Moses. He was not desperate because something was wrong with him. He was desperate because Someone was beautiful in front of him. He had seen enough of God to know there was nothing in all the world more worth having than more of God. That is what was driving him. Not his emptiness. God's worth. When you have seen even a little of how good He is, wanting more of Him stops being a struggle and starts being the most natural thing your heart has ever done.

But then God tells Moses the one thing he cannot have. EXODUS 33:20 You cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live. And even in the no, God is tender. He takes Moses and tucks him down into a crack in the rock. He covers him over with His own hand. And He lets Moses see only His back as His goodness passes by.

Sit with that for a second. Moses, the friend of God, the man who spoke with God the way a man speaks with his friend, got to watch the goodness of God go by from inside the cleft of a rock. He got the back. He never got the face. That was as close as anyone could come and still live.

He wanted you first And here is where I have to turn this whole morning around on you. Because I have spent all of it asking whether you are desperate for His presence. But has it ever once occurred to you that He wanted you first?

Go back to the night before the cross. Before the soldiers ever came for Him in the garden, Jesus prayed. And in the middle of that prayer, listen to what He asked His Father for. JOHN 17:24 Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory. I desire. For a lot of us, that is not a safe word. Almost every time someone has desired something around us, they wanted what we could give them. They wanted what we could do. They wanted us to perform, to provide, to keep it together, to be useful. And somewhere along the way you learned that being wanted always comes with a cost. That nobody wants you for free.

So when you hear that God desires you, part of you braces. Part of you waits for the catch. What does He want from me. What is this going to cost me. Am I going to be enough for it.

Look at the word again. Jesus is not standing at the door with His arms crossed, weighing whether you have done enough to be let in. He is not reluctant. He is not putting up with you. On the night before the cross, with the weight of all our sin and all our suffering bearing down on Him, with every reason in the world to be thinking about Himself, He turns to His Father and says, I desire that they may be with Me.

He does not want something from you. He wants you. Not the version of you that performs well. Not the you that finally has it together. You. The one sitting in that chair right now, with all of it, even the part you would never let anyone see. He is praying you all the way into His presence.

Some of you have spent most of your life wondering if anyone has ever wanted you like that. If you are honest, you are not sure anyone ever has. Then hear this, and let it land somewhere deeper than your ears. One Person does. And the wanting did not start with you.

Before you ever wanted Him, He wanted you. Before you ever prayed, show me Your glory, He had already prayed that you would see it. Before you ever reached for His presence, He was already moving toward a cross to bring you into it.

So you can stop bracing. The wanting was never the soul clawing its way up to God. It is the soul waking up to the fact that He has wanted you near all along. Already prayed you close. Already bled to bring you close.

So when people walk away from you, and when the room goes quiet, and when the one you wanted does not want you back, you take yourself back to that one word and you plant your feet on it. He desires me. He desires me.

And read just one line further in that same prayer. JOHN 17:23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. Loved them even as You loved Me. Hear what Jesus is actually asking for. He is not asking the Father to tolerate you. He is asking that you would be joined to Him so completely that when the Father looks at you, He sees His own Son, and loves you with the same love He has poured over Jesus from before the world began. You are not tolerated in Christ. You are brought home in Christ. And do not miss what that means. The Son did not go to a cross for a people He was embarrassed to love. He did not die so the Father could just barely stand to have you in the room. He died to bring you all the way home.

The glory has a face now And now hear the best of it. What Moses begged for and never received, you have been handed. Moses got the goodness from behind a rock. He never got the face. But centuries later, a man named John picks up his pen and dares to write this. JOHN 1:14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling 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. Made his dwelling among us. Church, do not move too quickly past that. The word underneath it means He pitched His tent among us. He tabernacled among us. Think about what that is saying. The presence that used to fill the tent out in the wilderness, the presence Moses could only catch from inside a rock, has now come and filled a human body. The God who met Moses in cloud and fire has come near in flesh and blood.

Not as an idea. Not as a feeling. Not as a religious symbol to hang on a wall. As a Person. With eyes that wept at a friend's grave. With hands that reached out and touched the people nobody else would touch. With feet that walked toward sinners instead of away from them. With a back that was laid open with a whip. With a face that turned toward the cross and would not turn away.

So where do you go to see it? The glory Moses begged for, the glory God hid behind His hand, where is it now?

The glory has a face now. And His name is Jesus. 2 CORINTHIANS 4:6 God made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God's glory displayed in the face of Christ. Moses saw the goodness of God from behind a rock. We see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And that face is not cold. It is not distant. To everyone who comes to Him through the Son, it is not terrifying. It is the face of the One who was born in a barn, who knelt down and washed dirty feet, who wept at a grave, who let them drive the nails through His hands so that you could come near.

The goodness Moses had to watch from inside a rock is now standing out in the open, in the daylight, with a face you are allowed to look at. And when you finally look, you find that the face is kind.

So when Moses cries out, show me Your glory, the Father's full and final answer, stretching across all of time, is not a thing. It is a Person. It is Jesus. You want to see the glory? Look at Him.

And once you really look, you will understand Moses. You will understand how a man could turn down a paradise just to keep the presence. Because the presence is Jesus. And He is worth more than every blessing He could ever lay in your hands.

Are we desperate for His presence?

A family we cannot forget Now I want to bring this home, because desperation for God was never meant to be a private thing, just me and my own quiet walk with Jesus. Watch Moses one more time. When he pleads, listen to who he pleads for. EXODUS 33:16 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? Me and Your people. Did you catch that? Moses ties his whole future to theirs. He will not go in alone. He will not be blessed alone. If they are not coming into the presence, then neither is he.

Church, that is us. That is this room, these chairs, this family. And a family carries each other. GALATIANS 6:2 Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. For a long time I read that verse as one more thing I had to work up the strength to do. Try harder to show up for people. But that is not what it is, and remember why. Christ is in you now. So when you sit with a friend in the worst week of her life, and you have no words, and you just stay there in the room with her, that is not you gritting your teeth to be a good Christian. That is Christ in you, carrying her. Sometimes Christ carries us Himself. And sometimes Christ carries us in the arms of the person sitting right next to us.

So here is a calling worth more than anything this world could hand you. Learn to notice what is quietly crushing the person next to you. And then spend yourself making it lighter. Help them carry it, all the way to the feet of Jesus. And when you have done it, you will look back and realize it was Christ doing it through you the whole time.

One more thing before I ask you to do something simple. Moses looks at the size of what God has handed him. Lead a couple million stubborn, frightened people across a wilderness and into a land full of giants. And somewhere down in his bones, he arrives where every honest person eventually arrives. I cannot do this.

And I have come to believe that confession is one of the holiest things a person can say. Because the moment you finally say I cannot, you are finally in the one place where you can hear God say I will. We tend to lose our desperation for the Spirit right about the time we start to believe we can manage on our own. Listen to how Jesus put it. JOHN 15:5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. Not a little. Apart from Me you can do nothing. And that is good news. Because the size of what He has called us to is the very thing that drives us back down onto our knees. The day we finally say, God, this is too big for us, we have to have Your Spirit, that is the day we stop playing church and start being the church.

So look at Him So here is all I am going to ask you to do this week. I am not going to hand you a list. I am not going to give you five steps to becoming a more desperate person, because desperation does not come off a checklist. You cannot shame your own heart into hunger. I have tried. It does not work.

But you can bring your heart before beauty.

So that is what I am asking. Just look at Him. Look at Jesus until He becomes beautiful to you again. Look until the milk and honey of this world starts to look like what it really is next to Him. Look until you catch yourself, like Moses, turning down good things because you would rather have the presence. Do not try to feel more spiritual. Do not try to work up an emotion. Just look at Christ, and stay there, and let Him become beautiful to you again. Because desire is awakened by sight. The hunger comes back when the bread becomes beautiful again.

And when it does, when the wanting finally rises up in you on its own, pray it. Pray the oldest, boldest, most desperate prayer in the whole book.

Show me Your glory.

Pray it over your kitchen table. Pray it over your kids while they sleep. Pray it over this little church in this gym. Not Your blessings. Your glory. Your face. Your presence. You.

Because the same God who once let Moses see only His back has now shown us His face in Jesus. He wanted you in the room before you ever thought to want Him. And the same Spirit who fell in that upper room is still being poured out on every single person who will come near. He is not hiding from you. He is not far off. He is closer than your next breath.

And hear this last thing, because it is the whole sermon in one sentence. He is more beautiful than anything He could ever give you. The gift was never the point. He is the point. He always was.

So do not settle for the gift. Go after the Giver. Do not settle for the blessing. Go after the Blesser. Do not settle for the milk and honey. Go after the One whose presence was the only thing that ever made it the promised land. Are we desperate for His presence? Church, I think we are about to be.

Let's pray. Father, we come to You honestly this morning. We confess that we have wanted Your gifts more than we have wanted You. We have reached for the milk and honey while You stood there offering us Yourself. Forgive us.

Jesus, show us Your glory. Not from behind a rock. In Your face. Make Yourself so beautiful to us this week that the things we have been clutching lose their grip in our hands. Ruin us for anything less than You.

And thank You. Thank You that it was never the strength of our grip that held us. It was Yours. We slip our hands out. You never slip Yours. Hold on to us, the way You have been holding on the whole time.

Spirit, fall on this family the way You fell in that upper room. Take our I cannot and answer it with Your I will. Make us a desperate people. Not desperate out of fear. Desperate out of love. Desperate because we have finally seen how good You are.

We do not want the promised land without You. If Your presence does not go with us, then do not send us. But we believe You are going with us. So send us out of this gym wanting You, and finding You, all week long.

In Jesus' name. Amen.

A Desperate Heart

This week, on Wednesday night. The Lord jolted my heart awake. I awoke to find myself looking down a long black tunnel with a light at the end. There was this sense of urgency that came over my heart and all I could do in that moment was pray, “Lord, I am but a sinful man… I’m sorry, forgive me of my sins… and before he lifted from me I asked, Lord, If we’re going to move forward as a church we need to be desperate for you.

help us as a church be desperate for you” As soon as I prayed the Lord lifted His presence and I went back to sleep. As soon as I woke up early in the morning I came out into the living room and I began writing in my journal. All I could think about this week was, are we desperate for God’s presence. Our culture today doesn't seek the Holy Spirit anymore.

The church no longer needs the Holy Spirit anymore. I wager it is safe to say, that in our culture today, and in the churches of today, we’re a part of a religious system that has created a whole host of means and methods for doing church that, in the end, requires little, if any help at all from the Holy Spirit of God. We’ve created a church atmosphere where we no longer fall to our faces and fast for the church to grow.

We have marketing to do that. We don’t have to bring the crowds in through prayer anymore. We pay others to do those things for us. We talk of revival but we’re not willing to show up to a prayer meeting to seek revival. Have we grasped why prayer must become our native language of our heart if we are to be set apart and from the kingdom of God? Has prayer increased in my life.

J.I. Packer. Once said, "Revival is the visitation of God which brings to life Christians who have been sleeping and restores a deep sense of God's near presence and holiness." This is what packer is saying, “if we desire holiness and God’s presence We cant expect God to visit if God’s people aren’t asking Him to Come and expecting Him to come. This might be a bold statement but I do not believe it is an understatement.

“the greatest hindrance to the advancement of the glory of God in the world today is the attempt of the church of God to do the work of God apart from the power of the Spirit of God.” And so I ask, are we dependent on ourselves or are we desperate for His Spirit? Are we desperate for the Holy Spirit in our lives? Are we desperate to gather to pray?

Are we desperate to see People who we love come to Christ and for them to find a passion serving God and expanding His kingdom? Are we desperate for the Holy Presence in our life to consume our hearts with the Love of Jesus and the love for Jesus? Let’s turn our bibles to Exodus 33. As your finding that chapter in the front of your Bible, let’s stand together as we read together from the word of God.

Exodus 32. 3 All the people took the gold rings from their ears and brought them to Aaron. 4 Then Aaron took the gold, melted it down, and molded it into the shape of a calf. When the people saw it, they exclaimed, “O Israel, these are the gods who brought you out of the land of Egypt!” 5 Aaron saw how excited the people were, so he built an altar in front of the calf.

Then he announced, “Tomorrow will be a festival to the Lord!” 6 The people got up early the next morning to sacrifice burnt offerings and peace offerings. After this, they celebrated with feasting and drinking, and they indulged in pagan revelry. 7 The Lord told Moses, “Quick! Go down the mountain! Your people whom you brought from the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves. Now turn with me to Exodus 33: 1-3 “Then the LORD said to Moses, “Leave this place, you and the people you brought up out of Egypt, and go up to the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, saying, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ I will send an angel before you and drive out the Canaanites, Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites.

Go up to 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.” Now, go down to verses 15 with me… Then Moses said to him, “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. 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?” And the LORD said to Moses, “I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name.” Then Moses said, “Now show me your glory In chapter 32, Moses goes up the mountain to receive the tablets and while he is gone, the people who have walked with God and Moses are now talking Aaron, Moses’s brother, into creating an idol.

Most of us know this story as the story of the golden calf. The word says in chapter 32 verse 5, 5 Aaron saw how excited the people were, so he built an altar in front of the calf. Now, why is this important. It’s important because it shows us Aarons focus. Did you notice where Aaron was looking. He was wasn’t looking for God’s presence, but he was focused on what the people wanted.

He was being a people pleaser not a God pleaser. And When he saw how happy the people responded to what he approved to be done, he was excited to please the people by giving them what they wanted. I can assure you, this is and will always be a terrible idea. Lao Tzu an ancient chinease philosopher and founder of Taoism once said, “Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner.” Larcrae a modern Christian wrapper once said, “If you live for peoples acceptance, you will die from their rejection.” What we learn from Aarons decision is that Living for the approval of others is never a worthy goal.

He’s living for the dependence on what others want him to do. And before we get mad at him… and say wow, Aaron you blew it. Let’s just be reminded that there isn’t much difference in todays churches. In todays world, there’s a lot of Aarons who I believe mean well, and may even say that they are Christian and they even come to church and perhaps even serve, They know a lot about God.

but there is a difference between being a Christian by name and being a Spirit filled Christian who is in desperate pursuit of God’s Presence. The danger is, a christian that does not seek God’s presence is liable to seek the approval from others. Of course, God knows what is going on at the base of the mountains and He sends Moses back to them. Moses comes down the mountain and the people of God are worshipping this golden calf and indulging in all kinds a revelry.

Which Basically means, they are having this big huge party. It’s a big celebration. And guess what.. God was never invited. And in this moment, Moses begins to intercede for the peoples great sin against God and by the grace of God only 3,000 people die that day. So there Moses is. Standing before the people, interceding for the people. Pleading with God. God tells Moses, Listen, I made a promise.

I promised to give you this land. A land flowing with milk and Honey. It’s yours, go, leave here and go take it. But, and it’s a huge but… i’m not going with you into that land. And it’s an amazing offer… right? God is essentially saying. You can have it. You can have the blessing you want apart from the presence of God. How would you respond this morning if God came to you and said, you can have the blessing.

You can have what it is you desire, Peace, comfort, a church setting where it requires no sacrifice from you. You can have this promise, but my presence wont be with you. How would you respond? Be careful as you answer that question. Isn’t that exactly the kind of Christianity we have pursued today? Pray this prayer, go to heaven. Come and experience the great atmosphere and blessings of God. You don’t even need to live with Him as your savior and your God.

You don't have to experience HIs authority over your life on a moment by moment basis. We can set up a church where we live in perfect peace and comfort and there is no need for the desperate prayer of, Oh God, we cant move without you. Isn’t that the kind of religion the world is setting up? Moses pleads with God, God, I cannot even move one step forward without the fullness of your presence.

Keep in mind we’re asking the questions, are we dependent on ourselves or are we desperate for His Spirit? Why should we be desperate for the presence of God? We’re desperate for the presence of God because we have a god that we cant even fathom. We can’t Fathom HIm. Moses in verse 18 says: Now show me your glory! What a bold statement. Can you imagine standing before God and saying, Lord, show me your glory?

Think about this, Moses seen His glory in the burning bush, he was front row to the plagues in Egypt. He just went up the mountain and seen the glory of God. If there was anybody who had witnessed the glory of God it was him. But how can he ask such a question? Can I see your glory? He asks because once you taste the glory of God, you have this insatiable desire for more, and more, and more and more, and more.

When a Christian comes to Christ and we realize we have be saved by the grace given to us by God. My sins are forgiven because of Jesus Christ. All throughout that christians life, don’t we yearn and want and desire to be faithful christians. There is one saying I am guilty of and it’s this, Lord, I want to pray more, I want to read more, I want to be involved more.

I want to know the depths of your love, and understand you word more. I’ve heard it all almost be very church I’ve attended, pastor., I have this huge desire to know the Lord more than I do now, but I just struggle with actually do it… Do you know why we yearn and struggle for those things… We struggle because we’ve never been sanctified. God calls us to become holy.

But honestly, do you want to know why we’re not where we want to be and it’s only a desire within us? Because for the most part i am convinced that the church has failed at it’s mission to teach and lead others to ask God to sanctify them. The church of Christ has failed at being the church led by Christ. And if were not a church led by Christ then we will never be a church sanctified to Christ.

because we wont pursue him in desperation. Aaron’s issue wasn’t just not knowing, His issue included the act of looking to the people for their approval. QKListen church, we’re not sanctified by what others think we should do. We’re sanctified because we’re desperate for God’s presence to control all areas of our life. Moses had spent time praying and being in God’s presence. Perhaps I am wrong, but I haven found anything where it says, Aaron was taught any better.

He was a Jew, he knew of His god but he never really been taught how to intimately know God. Learning to be in constant prayer and teaching others to walk with God is the best way for the anyone to begin to see that they are lacking a real relationship and commitment. Prayer is what redirects our hearts off of ourselves and back onto Jesus. Prayer is the native language in the kingdom of God.

Prayer is what looks upon the throne of the Lamb and says to the king of kings, I am yours, Save me Lord. It’s intentional.. intentional relationship that develops through prayer. Just keep reminding yourself, relationship happens when we intentionally show up to be relational. When we realize who we have in us and we pursue a relationship to the Holy Spirt in our lives, it changes what comes out of us.

Visible Fruit can only be produced when we’ve had the Holy Spirit planted in our hearts and we water our relationship with him through daily prayer and reading out bibles. Listen church, if all we ever want see the Spirit of God as a force and an it and not as a person. We will always try to wield it rather than yield to Him. Secondly, We have a family we cannot forget.

Moses is doing what in verse 15 and 16.. he’s praying. And Not just for Gods amazing blessings for himself but for God’s blessings on the people. For 12+ weeks we gathered on Sunday night to pray, and on those nights we prayed for you. Our family. We are a family. We have a family here. We should be an earless church because your ears should have been burning so badly because of all the prayers for you that they should have fell of in a dusty crisp.

I don’t know who said it, but It’s in my heart.. “The greatest gifts we can give to each other, is to pray for one another.” Why would we pray for one another. Well, Galatians 6:2 tells us, “Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” Prayer unites us in community under the lordship of Jesus Christ. And it lightens the burdens of each believer.

Did you know that It is a loving act to pray for someone and join them in taking the pain of their heart to God. My heart is to see the Spirit of God move among His people here at Twin Hills. No one will see the Spirit move if we never tell of how the Spirit moved us. But let us remember this… ultimately, God’s work is individually, but it’s also about a people being conformed into the image of Christ.

We are together in this. Lastly, You probably knew it was coming. We are to be desperate for God because we have an mission we can’t fulfill. Moses looks at what God is calling him to do and he examines the task that God has put before him. He’s called by God to lead these people into the promise land, and guess what he says, ……I can’t do it God. I cant do it.

God, there is obviously an issue, there’s a conflict in what you’re calling me into vs the resources that i have to do it. He sees the depth, and the magnitude of the task that he has and that drives him to desperation. Perhaps one of the reasons we lose the sense of desperation for the Spirit is because we lose sight of the magnitude of the mission to which we have been called.

Think, just this week this world has seen countless innocent lives killed by war and murder. We watch the news and see the divide over politics and masks and vaccines and race. This week we’ve seen the anger and fighting over abortion. People are dying all across the world with little to no knowledge of the gospel. There’s a world crisis over hunger and people needing homes and security for their children.

As long as we think we can program our way out of this in the church, then we are hopeless. When we can say, “God, this task is too great for us to do, we’ve got to have your Spirit,” then we will understand. We have an assignment that we cannot fulfill. This is why we have to be desperate for His Spirit. Church, on this road to Pentecost. Ask ourself.

How desperate are we for the Holy Spirit to come and be a very intimate part of our life. Jonathan Edwards said, in the middle of the Great Awakening, “When God has something very great to accomplish for His church, it is His will that there should precede it, the extraordinary prayers of His people.” As we stand together, and prepare for our benediction. Let me give you four prayers.. May God’s presence come down.

Psalm 44:23, “Awake, Lord! Why do you sleep? Rouse yourself!...” Psalm 80:14, “Return to us, God Almighty! Look down from heaven and see!” Awaken us. May God’s presence come down in our hearts in a powerful way this week. May God’s Word come home. In Nehemiah chapter 8, Ezra opens up the book and everybody stands. They lift their hands and start shouting, “Amen! Amen!” They bow down with their faces to the ground in response to His Word.

In 2 Chronicles 34, “We found the book, the book we’ve neglected, the book we’ve ignored. We found it!” It sparks revival among the people of Israel. May God’s Word come home. May we receive His Word. May we receive the Word like they did when Ezra opened the book in Nehemiah 8 and people responded and worshipped. May we reproduce His word. Im not up here talking to entertain us.

I am up here giving eeryoje the word of GOd so that it can equip us to be ready and willing to walk into what God calls us into. lastly, May God’s holiness come through. I am praying that apathy be struck down in this room right now in the name of Jesus. I am praying that complacency be struck down and a fresh eagerness and desire to know the glory of God through the power of the Holy Spirit overwhelms our hearts.

I pray you walk out of here asking the very important question, how desperate are we for the presence of God in this church and in this community? Let’s pray Father, we come before you and express the depth of our need for your grace in this room. We know that not one of us sits where we find ourselves now by our own merit or work. We are saved by your grace.

We have your Word by your grace. We are dependent on your grace for the next breath that we breathe. We need you in every way. We pray that you would give us the sense that Moses had of the danger in trying to move one step forward, in our lives or as your church, apart from the power of the fullness of your presence. That you would give us hearts that cry out, “Show us your glory.

We want your glory. We are desperate for your glory” We pray that the power of your presence would be manifest in this room this morning—be clear, unmistakable. That your Word would ring in our ears and our minds and our hearts as treasure. We pray, God, that you would purify us and, by your grace, transform us this week. Awaken us. God, we pray that you would awaken us to your glory and to the reality of the things you say in your Word.

God, awaken our hearts and our minds to see you for who you are and to enjoy you and delight in you and worship you, to stand in adoration of you and to proclaim you—along with our persecuted brothers and sisters—to the nations. Father, we pray that your Spirit would permeate our time together in a supernatural, extraordinary, indescribable way. We pray, knowing that we can do nothing to manufacture that or make it happen, knowing that it is all according to your sovereign grace.

We plead God, show the fullness of your presence to us in your Word tonight. Help us experience your presence in our lives and in your church tonight. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.*

Alluring Love

What we see in this allurement is not to entice to trick, but this persuasion is to radically suggest a different option to the way we are living. What’s some of the qualities of alluring love… let’s look at two things.. Alluring Love never forces itself on others. I’ve always loved the Emmaus road story. and in that story, two men were walking away from Jerusalem and found themselves not only walking away from Jerusalem but also walking away from thier group.

Because the story they tell a Sojourner with them, is that they sent the woman, and then sent the men and instead of hearing the two testimonies, and believing, they began to walk away. And the word tells us that Jesus was present but hid their eyes from seeing him. This is that humble love that never forces itself on other. Jesus, comes along side of them… but he doesn’t overpower them.

Even after defeating death at the grave, Jesus still is humble and meek. He had every reason to boast and be like come on guys… you had two witnesses, but instead of putting them down, he simply showed them in the scriptures on how the word of God, points to Jesus. So, God doesn’t force himself upon the one He pursues… He simply, and freely offers a different option than the one we’re chasing after…

Those men had a choice, and the choice came when they realized that their hearts were burning… and so they turned and walk back to the 11 disciples and their group. God reaches out to the heart allured by sin and shame, and He allures the heart to himself by his love. And he simply says, would you be willing to consider something different? Would you be willing to see my goodness as greater than whatever it is, that you love more, than me.

In this moment Jesus, comes up along side of those men and walks with them, even in the direction away from Jerusalem… I often wonder about this.. I imagine sometimes, Jesus even walks those turning and walking away all the way to the gates of Hell trying to allure and persuade us to turn, repent and come back with burning hearts before it’s too late. But hat leads to another thing we realize about God’s alluring love…

Is that, Alluring Love never gives up. You’ll see that all throughout the book of Hosea… He never gives up, he’s faithful. In the love chapter of I Corinthians, Paul affirms this kind of “persevering love” Its a love that never gives up..… Paul writes, "Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance." And what Paul is teaching to the people of Corinth is that God’s persevering love requires relationship.

Think about Emmaus road.. an those two guys were in a relationship and walking away from relationship with Jesus and the relationship of the group. I think of my marriage often. Alicia and I have had many battles in our marriage. And I confided to you about how, 7 years into our marriage we hit a tough patch and divorce was on the horizon. We discovered that we were complete opposites.

We had love in common, but there was a lot things that we had uncommon… For instance, I’m an extrovert and she’s more of an introvert. I’m more physical in my love, touchy feely and she’s more practical, like doing and serving. What we learned during this time of hardship was, was that there was a lot of wrong and broken and selfish things in our lives, and so we were going to be determined to make this marriage work….

Not just for the kids, but because we do loved each other, and we love our kids, but more importantly, we both agreed that we love Jesus more. So, We had to learn to sacrifice for one another, and honestly what we learned was that we had to “grow up.” There’s a lot of Christians out there who’s been christians for 10, 20, 30 or more years into their faith, and their still infants in Christ.

Just because they have the years, doesn’t mean they have spiritual maturity. There is a difference between longevity of time and the deepness of intimacy when it comes to relationships. Alicia and I had to grow up, physically and spiritually. Especially since we both knew I was called to pastor a church. And although our struggles never stopped, we kept on loving, and forgiving, and showing grace to one another in our struggles.

We learned to communicate with one another. And above all… we learned we had to have Jesus as the head of our marriage. Have you ever wondered what the purpose of relationships are for? This might be foreign to you.. But Relationships are meant for holiness… It’s true. Holiness is Christ in me, but it’s also a testament to the fact that God doesn’t give up on us. Paul says: being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

Alicia and I, we’re going on 18 years of marriage this May.. and here’s the thing about relationships and marriage… just because we’ve been married for 18years, that doesn’t mean we’ve gotten it all figured out. We had to learn a lot of things in 18 years… One thing we had to learn in our marriage was how to love one another in our diffenrces. We had to learn that our relationship to one another wasn’t just to make “me" happy.

If marriage was just to make me happy, then love becomes selfish, not selfless. If church is only about coming into a building and having things my way, so that I can be happy. I’ve not made my worship or church about Jesus, I’ve made it about me. I’ve not made it about relationships, but rather about my own desires and preferences. True worship and church should be centered around serving and glorifying God, and building meaningful relationships with others in the community.

And any times selfless loves is overcome by selfish love, we find at the root, a heart that becomes indifferent. Phillipaisn says, ”Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others." When we make our faith about indifference rather than relationships with one another.. we risk losing the true meaning and purpose of what relationship means.

Relationships require effort, let me just add.. intentional effort, It requires compromise, and a willingness to put the needs of others before our own at times. When we prioritize our own happiness over others, and we become indifferent to the needs and feelings of others, we risk damaging or even destroying the relationship. But When we make relationship and persevering love about others, we’ll find that we can, in fact truly love without ever giving up because the one who loved us first, still hasn’t given up on us.

I think that’s the greatest example of persevering love. Did you know that there is a secrete to long marriage… do you know it? Have any of you figured it out yet? The secrete is the fact that there is no secrete…. The key to a faithful marriage is the willingness to let God’s love flow through you so that he can love others. The secrete to a long marriage is sacrifice.

Paul tells the Phillipians: “You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had” what’s the attitude of Christ? Love. Compassion. Humility. Sacrifice. Imitation love, will only last for so long. If we keep trying to fix marriages with imitation, and earthly love, at some point it’s going to wear out. That’s why we need Jesus’ love in us so we can offer lasting love to others. But We first have to open our life to him; then he can love others through us.

We’re called to pursue that love… it’s called holiness, we pursue holiness through relationship. Relationship with Jesus, and relationship with others. That’s why we call it, Radical Love. Look with me in the next line, because once we’re persuaded, or allured as the text reads, God does what? “He leads her into the wilderness and speaks tenderly to her” So, Speaking of relationships, the wilderness is more than just a place of trials and hardships.

It’s actually…. a place of intimacy more than anything else. But the truth is, at first.. we never see the wilderness as a place where intimacy grows… do we? Sometimes our wilderness is learning to make new friends, or finding new traditions. I think of the many times our family had to move with my job and how many times we had to make new friends, and recreate a new circle of stability where we were living.

I remember when we first moved to Colorado and we had plans to join this Baptist church, but I listened to a sermon from them on how woman are inferior to men, I decided that wasn’t a place where my family should worship. So by God’s grace, God sent us a flier from a church that happened to be a Nazarene church, which jump started my calling to become a pastor.

It was a wilderness moment for us, I didn’t really have any desire to go to church. We only went because Alicia wanted to go to a Christmas service. When we come into a wilderness moment, usually the first response is that we want out. Many times, our attitude is: when will this end, When will the sun shine once again on me, or my situation. When will you bring me through this, God?…

The problem with focusing on ourselves in the wilderness fuels this indifference while we are in the wilderness.. Think about Exodus chapter 15 and 16. Turn with me to exodus 15 and 16. The Israelites grumble about Moses’s leadership. Fresh on thier mind is thier captivity… thier bondage, thier old way of life. And once they crossed the red sea and make it to the other side, once they stepped into the wilderness…

they began to complain. Three days into the wilderness of shur, it says, in chapter 15 verse 24: The people grumbled to Moses. That means they brought thier indifference to him as thier leader. They were unsatisfied, they were unhappy. I serve on the Help net board, the compassion ministry in Ashland, PA, and I shared with our team this week, that the Pandemic EBT funds have been eliminated from those receiving extra benefits…

And I warned our team to make sure we’re prepared for an increase need for food compassion. Because for three years, those receiving these extra benefits, are going to begin walking in a wilderness. Thier way of life for three years is about to be tested, and just like the Israelites, I suspect there to be an influx of the need for food assistance, at places of compassion ministries. Now, the Israelites brought thier concerns to Moses, but then very quickly they begin to murmur and complain, and look with me verse 2, of chapter 16.

The entire Israelite community grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. They went from coming to Moses, to now coming against him. And what was Moses response? He tells them in verse 7, who are we that you complain about us, And he reminds the Israelites, your complaints are not against us, but against God. They were complaining against God. And while they complained, If only we would have died but he Lord’s hand in the land of Egypt, when we sat around pots of mean and ate all the bread we wanted.

Church, they were… They were focused more on getting OUT of the wilderness than what God would do for them IN the wilderness. The wilderness was there they experienced, Intimacy with God - God wanted to make a covenant with them. Greater understanding of ourselves (Most times our selfishness and hard heartedness is fleshed out in these wilderness moments.) Community and relationships are built in wilderness moments (God wanted the people to learn to rely on one another and support one another as they came and worshiped him.

It was a place where they had the opportunity to share the journey with one another. Grace is always best lived out in community. And it was a place of Clarity and perspective: the wilderness, is a place where we can be stripped of distractions and forced to confront our priorities and values. Jesus tells us, "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” When we come into he wilderness…

God’s radical love doesn’t force himself on us, we can reject him and walk out… but it does bring us to moments where when e seek him first.. he does promise that we will find him. And I Love this part, he speaks tenderly to her… I thought about this for awhile…. Why didn’t God speak to her when he was alluring her at first? The only time God speaks, he does so tenderly, but only in the wilderness…

And I’ve come up with this… Tenderly means gentleness and kindness.. it means it’s tender, easily to cut and chew. I think this… Those who God is alluring,… are people who wouldn’t of known or trusted his voice in the first place. So he needs to be tender when he is speaking to them in the wilderness… Jesus tells us, My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me..

You see, those of us who are deeper and already trusting in the masters voice, we willingly walk in the wilderness because we know and trust our shepherds voice… We know wilderness means deep intimacy and we desire to know our Master more. But those who do not know him, those who have been unfaithful, and unforgiving and unrepentful…Those still walking in sin, those who love the darkness, they don’t know his voice as, being good or loving.

Once they hear the masters voice, there’s a high chance they would turn from him… because of their shame. It’s the same reason why we hide our shame… because we don’t want others to know it. That’s why God allures us at first with his radical love at first. God’s love is his language. He tells Jeremiah, “You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart.” (Jeremiah 29:13, New International Version) This tenderly tone in God’s voice, has the meaning of speaking to her heart, to the very core of her being.

That although, like the Israelites we deserve judgment, we deserve wrath, we deserve God coming in and saying, I told you so. We don’t deserve the allurement of a holy God. We deserve the judgment of a holy God. We don’t deserve to be spoken tenderly to by a holy God who hates sin. We deserve to be cast out and condemned forever. Yet God in His grace and in His mercy, chooses to allure us.

To bring us aside from the stuff of this world that destroys us and to speak tenderly to our hearts. And here’s what is so beautiful about this truth… This is the gospel. We deserve eternal judgment before a holy God. But in his rich love, He has sent His son Jesus, God in flesh, to bear our judgment in our place on a cross. To rise after dying for our sin from the grave to make it possible for us to be forgiven of all of our sin.

Him, united with him, in relationship with him forever lasting life. Forever and ever and ever. Let’s stand together… My final question for you this morning is this… are you being allured, or are you still running away? *