Good Morning, Church! This is the day the Lord has made and we REJOICE and we are GLAD in it.
*Turn to your neighbor and tell he/she, I am glad I see you here today.
When was the last time you told someone, Oh! I can’t wait to see you! THINK ABOUT IT.
Or when was the last time you thought, I can’t wait to see . . . a person or something.
*There are several biblical accounts that tell us about both,
- People seeking or people asking to see God and
- How about God encountering someone? SURPRISE! I SEE YOU!
*Several of those stories are in the books of Genesis & Exodus:
- God seeking Adam & Eve in the Garden (Genesis 3:8-9)
- Abraham welcomed God and dine with God (Genesis 18)
- God encountering Hagar in the desert (Genesis 16)
- Jacob wrestled with the Angel of the Lord, etc. (Genesis 32)
- Etc. HOMEWORK: This week, look for others (wink)
But, before we go any further, how about we pray?
*Holy Spirit, thou art welcomed into this place.
Open our eyes to see,
Open our ears to hear,
Our minds to understand,
And warm our hearts to believe.
Now may the words of my mouth and the meditation of all of our hearts be
pleasing in your sight, Oh Lord our Rock and our Redeemer.
There is something about someone’s face, also called, countenance, expression . . . even if they have perfected the art of what we call poker face, which says a lot.
TRUE STORY: At one point in ministry, I used to be the worship leader and pianist of a small Hispanic in Wilmington. They had me, like we have Sandra, at the front. Everyone *could see my face, my reactions . . . not good. I am not great at poker face.
So, one time, this lady told me, O, I love sitting close to you, because your face would show when something was happening somewhere in the sanctuary). To which I thought, Oh, no. That is not good!
It was then when I realized the importance of how we communicate with our
Facial expressions, with our Body Language . . .
Even Our Names, our signature and handwriting communicate something about us.
The way in which we shake hands can create an impact.
Those things speak of our pursuits, intensions, and interpersonal skills.
BECAUSE, INTERESTINGLY, we DO bring these things in our relationship with God in prayer, on the way we share with each other, and how we negotiate to do God’s work.
Today’s story shows a lot about that.
*Moses was a man shaped by pride and ambition.
He had a name. He had a reputation. He had an impressive CV, a curriculum vitae, a respectable education and a position within the palace as the son of the daughter of pharaoh . . . UNTIL, suddenly, all of that changed.
One day, all of that meant nothing, because his life was in danger. However, the identity under which he grow up was so deeply ingrained, that it took him 40 years in the desert, by himself, to learn to put all that life aside and learn to submit to a god who fully knew him, yet Moses knew nothing about.
Moses left Egypt for killing someone. Then, he spent 40 years in the desert, hiding, denying himself a life he was trained for. He was probably desiring, hoping to see his country of birth & his Egyptian family.
I’d like to think he was missing his life style, his old routine, and religious rituals.
He was, most likely, longing to see his Egyptian mother and his family.
Longing is desiring, wishing for something so strong that you can almost see it or savor it.
What do we long for?
At this point in the book of Exodus, Moses has taken a lot in by leaving things behind, by embarking on a risky missionary journey with a multitude of people he doesn’t even like because they are ungrateful.
He had just completed a 40 day retreat in which God had given him the 10 Commandments, and, I can imagine that at this point, Moses is on cloud nine.
BUT, unfortunately, it does not last long.
It doesn’t last long because when he came down from Mt. Sinai, he found out that the people he had risked his life for, have now gone back to their old ways, denying the God of their ancestors, worshiping a golden calf.
*AND my guess is that he was most likely thinking, I did not sign up for this.
When was the last time you said those words, I did not sign up for this.
We say those words because whatever we are seeing is NOT the vision we were having.
I’d like to think that after the victory in Egypt, the victory that allowed the people of Israel to break away slavery victoriously, Moses had a vision.
I’d dare to say that in his mind, he was SEEING a future, a nice and prosperous life.
He was SEEING an AMAZING future, because only and AMAZING God who performs those AMAZING acts, can only produce an AMAZING future.
*In Exodus 19:5-6 we read that God told Israel, “you will be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” This was God’s vision for the people he chose to deliver.
In chapter 33 we see a Moses who has learned to depend so much on his new-found god, the God of his ancestors, that he negotiates with God.
We see a Moses whose past is no longer holding him down or back.
We see a Moses whose priorities have shifted.
And we see that in the conversation in verses 12-13,
*12 Moses said to the Lord, “You have been telling me, ‘Lead these people,’
but you have not let me know whom you will send with me.
You have said that you know me by name and that I have found favor in You.
13” Now, God, “if you are pleased with me, teach me your ways SO that I may know you and continue to find favor with you. Remember that this nation is your people.”
Sometimes we build ideas of how things are supposed to be, based on the past or on others’ experience, forgetting that we only know in part (1 Corinthians 13:12), but God is the one who has the whole picture.
*Interior decorators have come up with something that is called a Dream Board.
A dream board is where you tape, cut & glue things that you see and would like to see happening, A Vision.
In the book of Habakkuk 2:2, God gives the prophet instructions about how to handle God’s vision,
Write the vision; make it plain on tablets,
so that a runner may read it.
In other words, write it down and share it, to make it happen.
*God did NOT come back with a response Moses was expecting or hoping for . . . I Think.
Instead, 14 The Lord replied, “My Presence will go with you.”
That means, you don’t have to do it alone.
We don’t have to do it alone.
In John 16:13 we read that
When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth
“My Presence will go with you, says the Lord”