Introduction
What if God said to you
today; “I am giving you one wish. Anything. You can have whatever you ask for. What
do you want? Just name it and it’s yours!” What do you think you’d say in
reply?
Some of you are living
with long-term illness. So maybe you’d say, “Lord, I’m sick. I need a miracle. My
one wish is for healing.” Or maybe, it’s for someone close to you. “Lord, my wife,
my son, my father, my granddaughter is critically ill. I want you to make them
well again.”
Perhaps you’re the only
one in your family who knows the Lord and it grieves you more than anything
else. “Lord, please let my husband or wife or my children come to know you as
their Saviour.”
Or it might be “Lord, I
need a job to pay the bills.” Or “Lord, I have a job but I want a better job
with a nicer boss.” (I see Sandra’s sitting up to attention, she can obviously relate
to that…)
In our reading from
Exodus today, God tells Moses he can have protection and power and provision. But
replies, “No, I’ll settle only for one thing; the one thing I really need.” We’re
going to explore together what he asks for and why.
Worship in God’s Presence
This is the third in
our six-part series on Worship this morning and today, I want to speak to you
about the presence of God.
By the way, I commend
the monthly programme for your reading where, amongst other things, you’ll find
six more brief reflections from some of our church family on what worship means
to them.
What does it mean to you? You may come here week by week and
I hope you enjoy it when you do.
But is entering these
doors an abrupt jolt to the system, where your awareness of God has been a bit
hit-and-miss, or is it a seamless continuation of a praise-filled life
Monday-Saturday?
I suspect for most of
us our answer to that question will be a bit mixed; it depends on the week. It
depends whether I’m spiritually up or down. It depends on what I perceive God to
be doing, or not, doing in my life…
We’ve looked at the
question of why we worship a couple of weeks ago with Scott – God is worthy of
praise and we are created to magnify his greatness in adoration. Worship, we
saw, is not about personality, temperament, personal limitations, church
background, or comfort. It is about God.
Then, last Sunday,
Kathryn spoke about excellence in worship; that we are to very intentionally give
our passionate best; not some half-hearted, half-baked, “that’ll have to do”
dog’s dinner.
But however sound our
definition of worship, and however well-prepared and beautifully crafted it is,
there is an x-factor, a vital ingredient, that lifts worship from the mundane to
the exceptional, from the common to the holy, and that vital ingredient is the
presence of God.
The American Book of
Common Prayer speaks of worship as “the lifting up of the heart and mind to
God, asking nothing but to enjoy God’s presence.”
In the Bible it says, “pour
out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord.”
The American pastor RT
Kendall tells of a Chinese pastor, who had suffered greatly for his faith but
who had also seen phenomenal blessing and growth in the Church in his country,
and who was given a tour of evangelical churches in the USA. At the end of the
tour he was asked, “What is your opinion of American churches?” He replied, “I
am amazed at what you can accomplish without God.”
I bet they wished they
hadn’t asked! Sadly, I’m sure he would say much the same if he were to visit
churches in the UK. What would he say if he were to visit All Saints’? Would he
say, “I am amazed at what you can accomplish without God” or would he say, “the
presence of God is here”?
That is the sort of question
that keeps me awake at night… More than anything else, more than healthy
finances, more than fine buildings, more than talented staff, more than outstanding
music, more than exceptional programmes, (and we want all those things) but
more than any of them, we need the presence of God.
You may say, “Wait a
minute, what do you mean God’s presence? Where is God’s presence ever absent? Every Systematic Theology
textbook will tell you in chapter one that God is omnipresent; everywhere. His glory
fills heaven and earth as the water covers the sea…”
Yes, God is everywhere,
but the weight of his glory and holiness and beauty and the radiance of his
perfections are sometimes impressed upon us with greater intensity than at
other times. The Bible speaks of this.
For example, it says
that in the presence of God we become aware of new realities. Jacob wakes up
from his dream about the ladder between heaven and earth and says, “Surely, the
Lord is in this place, and I didn’t know it!” The presence of God brings
revelation.
David says in Psalm 16,
“You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures
at your right hand.” No one looks grumpy and sullen in the presence of God
because it brings unspeakable joy.
The presence of God is also
about awe which we’ll explore more fully next Sunday. Isaiah 2 speaks of “the
fearful presence of the Lord.” There have been moments in my life, only three
or four, when God’s manifest presence has made my heart race with holy fear,
which is a strange mixture of dread and wonder. So in Jeremiah 5, God says, “Should
you not tremble in my presence?”
And when Jesus came, all
the fullness of the presence of God dwelled among us in flesh and blood. Jesus
perfectly embodies the presence of God. He says, “The time is now. The kingdom
of God is right here among you.
And as he bursts on the
scene, there’s power, there’s healing, there’s demons getting sent packing, there’s
release for prisoners, there’s life to the dead, there’s tables of money
getting chucked around in the temple, there’s holy chaos as heaven touches
earth and the glorious presence of God shifts all the darkness, all the sickness,
all the grubby and dead religion. And this
is what we want!
The founder of the
Vineyard movement, John Wimber, was one of the most anointed men of his
generation. He had an extraordinary gift of the word of knowledge where the
Holy Spirit would reveal to his spirit very specific details about people
attending his meetings.
Things like, “There’s a
woman here in her forties, who has bruising and swelling on her left knee,
which was caused by falling while running for a bus last Thursday.” That is an
actual example. My friend Mark Aldridge was actually present when that word was
given. And people would come forward and his team would pray there and then and
many were instantly healed.
I don’t think there has
been in my lifetime anyone else with the same acquaintance with the power of
God. Medically verified miracles, complete healing from sometimes acute or
apparently terminal illness, were a common feature of his ministry. The power of God…
But Wimber used to say
this: “We don’t seek God's power, we seek his presence. His power, and
everything else we need, is always found in his presence.”
Moses’ Request
Well, we’re going to explore
what it is to seek God’s presence, particularly in the context of worship. Let’s
dive into our reading from Exodus.
Exodus 33 is a pivotal chapter
in the book. To set the scene, after hardening his heart nine times, even despite
ten plagues, Pharaoh has finally given in and let God’s oppressed people go. Moses
has heroically led his people out of slavery and they’ve crossed the Red Sea to
safety.
But no sooner are they
freed from their chains and hard labour, they are moaning about how it was all
so much better before; are we there yet?
The food was better,
there was water on tap, Moses is a rubbish leader, are we there yet? The
camping is too rustic, the weather is too hot, no one mentioned there were
going to be snakes, it’s taking too long, and are we there yet?
They had seen wonderful
things! The Red Sea miraculously parted before them. Manna fell daily from the
sky. There was fresh quail to eat when they got bored with manna. Quail - tastes like chicken… God led
them on sensationally with a pillar of fire by night and a cloud by day. Water wondrously
gushed from a rock. Yeah, but... whatever…
So in chapter 32 Moses
goes off to meet with God (and probably to get away from them). While he’s gone,
they make a golden calf and bow down before it. “These are the gods that
brought us out of Egypt,” they say, as it all descends into a drunken orgy and God’s
judgement falls in plague and pestilence.
But despite all this,
Chapter 33, verse 2, God in his grace and goodness, promises Moses three
things:
1)
I will give your people protection – an angel – who’d be happy to hear
that God was assigning a personal angel, a mighty heavenly figure, built like a
tank and armed with a sword? That would be all right wouldn’t it? God says,
“He’ll bring you protection because he’s going to go ahead of you” like a
shield.
2)
More than protection, God promises power. He says he’s going to drive
out all the ‘ites – the Amorites and
Hittites and Jebusites, all those bloodthirsty nations that want to exterminate
you, you won’t even need to fight; he will take care of them. You haven’t got
to worry about a thing; the angel of the Lord is going to give your people
superior firepower.
3)
And God says, not only will he you give protection and power, he’ll lead
you into provision. God says, “my angel will lead your people into an abundant
land flowing with milk and honey. That’s the destination; you’ll never lack any
good thing.”
Most people would
settle for that. Power, protection and provision. But for Moses this is an
absolute bombshell. Because God has made himself clear. “I will send my angel
before you” means one thing (v3); “I (God) will not go with you.”
The presence of the
Lord is not going to be among his people.
This is where our
reading starts. Moses says (v12) “You have been telling me, ‘Lead these
people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. You have said, ‘I know you by name
and you have found favour with me.’ If you are pleased with me, teach me your
ways so I may know you and continue to find favour with you. Remember that this
nation is your people.”
I love this. “Teach me
your ways.” The Bible says, “All the ways of the Lord are loving and faithful.”
The ways of the Lord tend to be counter-intuitive to us because God’s ways are
not our ways. We tend to naturally choose a life of ease and comfort but the
way of Christ involves taking up a cross daily and suffering.
Howard Peskett is a
former missionary in East Asia with OMF International, and a tutor at Trinity
College Bristol where they train vicars. One morning he addressed the student
body, and his opening line was this: “In 200 countries and in 20 centuries
there have been 80 million Christian martyrs. Which of you will be the first to
die for Christ?” It was a bit of a shock, because most of those listening to
him were wondering about the Vicarage they'd get and how far the pension would
go!
Teach me your ways. Moses
didn’t have the Bible. We do. So, unlike him, we can read it to discover what
those ways are. The great Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon once said, “Some
people like to read so many chapters every day. I would not dissuade them from
the practice, but I would rather lay my soul soaking in half a dozen verses all
day than I would, as it were, rinse my hands in several chapters. Oh, to bathe
in a text of Scripture and to let it be sucked up into your very soul till it
saturates your heart!”
“Teach me your ways.”
But, as important as that is, Moses doesn’t settle for just knowing God’s ways.
It is essential, but insufficient. It is not enough. Jesus said to the Jewish
leaders of his day, “You study the
Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life.
These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.”
So God says to Moses,
“My presence will go with you and I will give you rest.” The “you” in Hebrew is
singular. God is saying that his presence and glory will be experienced by
Moses alone. It’ll be a private arrangement.
And Moses says, “No!”
He says, “Lord, you’re asking me to lead these people. I can’t do that unless
your presence is manifest amongst us. Giving them an angel is not good enough! Unless
your presence goes with all of us, don’t send us anywhere. It won’t work. I
won’t settle for less.”
People, we need the
presence of God among us.
Like John Wesley, after
years of meticulous and scrupulous religion, people said “he’s methodical, he’s
rigorous, he’s austere”, he began to confess his growing misery and was about
to give up ministry altogether, one day, 24 May 1738 he reluctantly walks into
a meeting in Aldersgate Street, London.
At 8.45pm Wesley says,
“while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith
in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an
assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me
from the law of sin and death."
The presence of God…
About 80 years earlier,
shortly after the death of the French mathematician and theologian Blaise
Pascal in 1662, a housekeeper is sorting through closets and clothing and
happens to notice something sewn into the hem of Pascal's coat.
In Pascal's
handwriting, beside hand-drawn crosses, Pascal had carefully written these
words: “The year of grace 1654. Monday, 23 November, feast of St. Clement. From
about half-past ten in the evening until about half-past midnight. Fire! The
God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob... The God of Jesus
Christ... Your God will be my God.”
He is said to have been
reading about the crucifixion when he was suddenly overwhelmed with the presence
of Christ. More than 30 descriptive lines tell the story of his "night of
fire," as he called it.
The presence of God…
More recently, the
British church leader Geoff Lucas talks about an outpouring of God’s presence.
“Out of all the thousands of services I have attended, there is one that stands
out as the most remarkable. Decades later, I still meet people who say
whimsically ‘I was there that night’…
After a powerful
revelation of God’s father-heart he says, “People suddenly fell to the ground,
instantly succumbing to the wave of the Holy Spirit that filled the tent.
Others cried out, a response to the unfathomable awe that pervaded… Within
minutes… a queue of people formed, folks who had been instantly healed in that
moment. I tried to preach – without success.”
The presence of God…
Ending
As I end, I want to insist
that the presence of the Lord is something we are to seek. Sometimes the Bible
describes it as seeking God’s face. Actually “presence” is a common translation
of the Hebrew word “face.” Literally, we are to seek his “face.” It’s an
idiomatic expression, meaning to be in his presence.
John Piper says, “God
calls us to enjoy continual consciousness of his supreme greatness and beauty
and worth. This happens through “seeking.” Continual seeking. But what does
that mean practically? …It is a “setting of the mind and heart” on God. It is
the conscious fixing or focusing of our mind’s attention and our heart’s
affection on God.
1 Chronicles 22.19; “Now
set your mind and heart to seek the Lord your God.”
Colossians 3:1–2: “Since
you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ
is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above,
not on things that are on earth.”
May the presence and
power of the Lord fill this place as
we set our minds and our hearts to passionately seek him in worship.
Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 28 October 2018
