For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Matthew 6:21)

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1 Page 1 Exodus 33,34 and 40:34-38 Show me your glory Gold, grace and glory Gold We have reached (again) a very precarious moment in the history of Israel. In chapter 32, while Moses is up the mountain receiving the commandments from God, the people of Israel are rebelling and turning to idols. Exodus 32:1-4 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Matthew 6:21) Whatever man loves, that is his god. For he carries it in his heart; he goes about with it night and day; he sleeps and wakes with it, be it what it may, wealth or self, pleasure or renown. (Martin Luther) What preoccupies our thoughts? What do we treasure in our hearts? God wants to fill our lives with his presence. But when we carry other things around with us, pursuing them by day and thinking about them at night, there is no room left for God. (Philip Ryken) Where the people put their gold, represented their hearts and their pursuit of God.

2 Page 2 We can watch the development of this over the next few chapters. With the making of the golden calf, an idol, something that replaced God at the centre of their hearts and affections they strip off their gold and give it to Aaron. The judgment of God follows, and a number of Israelites are killed by the sword or by plague. 33:1-3 And God speaks to Moses and tells him that He is withdrawing his presence. That he will fulfil his promises to them to bring them into the promised land, but that He will not go with them! This is not just a dip in the road for the Israelites. This is the end of the road. This is separation and alienation from God. 33:4-6 The Israelites stripped off their ornaments at Mount Horeb This is an act of genuine repentance and sorrow by the people. They were turning from their idols and recommitting their hearts to God. This was a permanent change, which is another sign of genuine repentance: getting rid of sin once and for all. When the Holy Spirit convicts us of any sin, we need to take off whatever is leading us into sin and never put it on again. (Philip Ryken) We see the progression:

3 Page 3 Earlier they took off their earrings to make the golden calf, using their wealth to turn away from God. Now they are taking off the rest of their jewelry as a sign that they want to worship God alone. Subsequently, they will use the same gold to build the tabernacle, a place to worship God. (Exodus 35:22) Gold. You can see where your heart is by what you do with your resources! Your budget is a spiritual ECG it tests your heart. By examining our patterns of giving and spending, we can see whether our hearts are in the right place or not. In this instance, God has spoken very clearly to his people, they are under deep conviction, and they come to a place of repentance of stripping off their idols and not putting them back on again. Grace The unmerited favour of God. Exodus 32:33 Whoever has sinned against me I will blot out of my book. I will not go with you. If I go with you, my holiness will kill you, because you are a stiffnecked people.

4 Page 4 And Moses goes outside the camp to the tent of meeting to intercede and mediate for the people. Exodus 33:12-19 (ESV) Favour times five 12 Moses said to the Lord, See, you say to me, Bring up this people, but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, I know you by name, and you have also found favour in my sight. 13 Now therefore, if I have found favour in your sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favour in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people. 14 And he said, My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest. 15 And he said to him, If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. 16 For how shall it be known that I have found favour in your sight, I and your people? Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth? 17 And the Lord said to Moses, This very thing that you have spoken I will do, for you have found favour in my sight, and I know you by name. 18 Moses said, Please show me your glory. 19 And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name The Lord. And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. A mediator goes outside the camp, and grace favour is granted to the people. Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. (Hebrews 13:12) Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant. (Hebrews 9:15)

5 Page 5 Grace the unmerited favour of a loving and kind God is what separates Christianity from every other religion and belief. Amazing Grace sang John Newton that saved a wretch like me Wonderful grace sang John Pantry that washes away my stains that gives me the time to change You see, just like the Israelites, we are an idolotrous people. Prone to wander. Prone to displace Jesus at the centre, prone to love other things and make them our treasure. We are deserving to have our names blotted out of God s book. We are deserving of having his presence taken away from us. We are deserving of the judgment of God. But a mediator has gone outside the camp for us. Outside the city walls. To the cross. The punishment and the separation and the shame that should have rested on me, rested on him. The separation from the Father that was mine became his. The sin that loaded me down with its weight and condemnation, was placed on his shoulders. He was wounded so I could be healed. He took the punishment, so that I could go free. Though sin abounds, grace abounds even more.

6 Page 6 Our mediator has stepped into the breach, and favour has been restored to us. The grace of a loving heavenly Father. God reveals this element of his nature to Moses, as Moses asks to see his glory. I am going to show you my goodness, says God. Exodus 33:19 And once again, as at the burning bush, where the call initially came to Moses, God restates his name, Yahweh, Jehovah, the LORD, I AM and he states that he is: The LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness (Exodus 34:6) The people repented and stripped off their idols. Moses mediated. And favour was shown. We are called to repent and to turn to God He has saved us and called us to a holy life not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. (2 Timothy 1:9) Glory The glorious presence of God. Cloud by day. Fire by night. Ark of the covenant.

7 Page 7 Tent of meeting. Tabernacle. The presence and the glory of God is what defined the people of Israel God s people and separated them from all the surrounding nations. Now God is saying I will not go with you, you will no longer have my presence with you. In essence, he is saying, you can have my presents, but you cannot have my presence. You can enter the promised land, you can reach your destination, you can have the milk and the honey, but not in my presence, not in relationship with me. This is not too far from what some Christians seem to want to accept and the reality in which they wish to live. They want to know that they are going to heaven to the promised land they want that guaranteed destination when they die, and they have asked God for this but they seem content and willing to live without his presence, without a living and vital relationship with their saviour and Lord Jesus. This is an absolute deal breaker for Moses, who says in essence, if you do not go with us, we are not going anywhere. Your presence, God, changes everything.

8 Page 8 It s the same cry of the Psalmist, David, in his cry of repentance after he has sinned and messed up and failed so miserably. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. (Psalm 51:11) In the conversation that follows, God says that he will be with Moses, but not necessarily with the people. Moses persists and God promises his presence. Moses wants it in writing. Show me your glory. Show me your presence. God cannot let Moses see his glory in all its fullness as it will kill him. He covers him with his hand, he puts him in the cleft of a rock, and he allows Moses to see the entrails of his glory. Just a glimpse. In Moses ensuing conversations with God on the mountain, where Moses spends 40 days and 40 nights, God s glory is reflected in Moses face, so that when he descends the mountain, his face is shining from the presence of God and he covers his face with a veil. (Exodus 34:29-35) Finally, as the tabernacle is built, the glory of the Lord fills the tabernacle. (Exodus 40:34-38) so powerfully that Moses cannot enter. 2 Corinthians 3 A new covenant and unveiled faces. We are beholding the glory of the LORD Jesus and we are being changed from glory to glory.

9 Page 9 Please show me your glory is our greatest prayer. It is asking the Lord to blow us away with his grace and mercy to the undeserving, so that we worship him and live for him and obey him with joyous new boldness. And the watching world begins to think, My life has fallen apart, and I need no one less than God to pick up the pieces. So that church is where I will go, because God is obviously there. (Ray Ortlund) Community group MAP: Meditation: For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Matthew 6:21) Application: Gold ~ What are the idols in our lives? What do we pay more attention to than God? What is it we need to take off to get right with God again and put him first? Grace ~ We need to remember it is by God s grace we are saved Is there anything we can do to contribute to His grace? Jesus has done it all, the sacrifice, the negotiation, the mediation. What will be our response? Glory ~ Are we content with our heavenly destination our presents or do we want God s presence too? God s glory in our lives is what sets us apart. Can we really be a light in the world without it?

10 Page 10 Prayer: Perhaps offer thanks to God for His grace in all of our lives and pray that we may display His Grace and Glory wherever we go. He has saved us and called us to a holy life not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. (2 Timothy 1:9)