Farther Up and Farther In

Farther Up and Farther In

What makes for a good meeting place? It probably depends on the kind of meeting you’re having. If you’re having a serious work meeting a monster truck rally or speedway is probably not a good place to meet. If you are a counselor your meeting place must be a safe, private and quiet environment. You are probably not meeting at a football game or a loud rock concert. If you are meeting someone for a first date, a restaurant or coffee shop is probably a better meeting place than a library. If you are going out for a romantic dinner, you are probably not going to a fast-food restaurant. And if you want to meet to play basketball with your friends, you are probably not going to a theater. The meeting place needs to match the purpose for your meeting.

This brings us to the question of what makes a good place to meet with God? Where do you go to be in God’s Word to learn more about who He is and what he requires of you? Where do you go to pray to the Lord and seek His face? Now, the answer to this question will vary from person to person. For some it may be a very quiet place in your house. For others it may be outdoors walking through the woods or by a body of water. It may be while you’re listening to music or it could be while driving to work. Hopefully, when we gather here at Idaville Church on a Sunday morning with other believers, this is a place where you are also able to meet with God.

If we are going to meet with God and be in relationship with Him, we must first believe in his son, Jesus Christ, for salvation. If we’ve not accepted Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we won’t want to meet with God and can’t meet with Him. Once we have accepted Jesus, we can draw near to God but our hearts must also be in the right place. Our hearts must be clean, sinless and holy as we come before a holy God confessing our sins. We can then be forgiven and put back into a right relationship with Him. I John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” The only way to meet with God is if we have Jesus Christ in our hearts and life, we are striving for holiness and are becoming more like His son Jesus every day. God wants to meet with His people, but he also desires to dwell with His people in a fuller relationship of communing and fellowshipping with Himself. And this has been his plan from the very beginning of time. That brings us to our big idea this morning that God desires to dwell with His people.

Let’s pray: Holy God, we come into your presence asking for your Holy Spirit to be poured out on us. Give us open hearts and open minds to your Word this morning. May your Word be a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path as we walk in this world, serving you and telling others about your son, Jesus. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

There are two points this morning. The first is Moses Ascends, found in Exodus 24:12-14. Follow along as I read. This is what God’s Word says, “The Lord said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain and stay here, and I will give you the tablets of stone with the law and commandments I have written for their instruction.” Then Moses set out with Joshua his aide, and Moses went up on the mountain of God. He said to the elders, “Wait here for us until we come back to you. Aaron and Hur are with you, and anyone involved in a dispute can go to them.”

Last week, in our study of Exodus 14, we saw the leaders of Israel draw near to God as they went up the mountain to eat and drink in a covenant meal together. Those who ate and drank had offered sacrifices and the Lord had accepted them. They had been sprinkled with the blood of the covenant and were allowed to come to a holy, set apart, place to eat and drink with the Lord. It was the Lord who initiated the covenant, and it was the Lord who initiated this intimate meal with His people. As we have studied Exodus, we have talked about how God desires that we draw near to Him but I think it is a greater, more awe-inspiring thing to grasp that the Creator of the Universe, the Most High God, the One, True and Living God wants to draw near to us, he wants to come and meet with us, and he wants to dwell with us. Just think about that. If you have accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, God through the Holy Spirit is dwelling within you. Let that sink into your hearts and minds. Think about what that means. How should we be living? How should we be treating others? How should we be serving others? How should we be worshiping the Lord?

This morning in our scripture, this picture of eating and drinking and meeting with God is going to be taken a step farther. Moses is going to be summoned farther up the mountain and will enter into more of God’s presence. Moses is going to meet with God on the mountain and stay there for a while. This was not just going to be a meal with God, it was going to be communing with Him, and fellowshipping with Him. And there was a purpose to this meeting. God was going to give Moses tablets of stone with the law and commandments that God himself had written, which would be for the people’s instruction. This was a continuation of teaching the covenant to His people. The Ten Commandments and the instruction of them would show how God required his people to live lives pleasing to Him. There needed to be an official copy of the Law which would be kept in a prominent place to be a reminder to the people that they were bound by the covenant. Normally, covenants were between a king and his people. The king may have said he received it from their god or gods, but it was written and given to the people by the king. But this covenant was unique, in that it was written to the people by their God, himself. In this meeting, God would give Moses the official covenant, the Ten Commandments, that were written by the Lord’s own hand and instructions on where it was to be kept.

Even though it is not explicitly mentioned here, the fact that God wanted to dwell with His people will be seen in what follows in chapters 25-31 Not only will God instruct Moses on how His people can meet with Him, by obedience to the Law, he will instruct Moses on how they were going to worship Him and how he would dwell with them. The place God was going to meet with His people had to be a place that is holy and set apart, because God is holy. It had to be a place where the law would be, because God is the law-giver. It had to be a place where his mercy is seen, because God is merciful. It had to be a place of sacrifice and atonement because the people were sinful. It had to be a place where His people would be cleansed in order to serve Him. But it also had to be a place where God could meet with and dwell with his people while they were on their journey to the Promised Land. Without the presence of God dwelling with them, there would be no point in continuing the journey. Mt. Sinai was important, holy and sacred, because it was the place where God first met with His people. But the Lord didn’t want His people to stay at the mountain. The reason he had brought them out of Egypt was to take them to the Promised Land that he had promised their forefathers. So, the place where God would dwell with His people had to be a place that was portable. The place where God would dwell with his people would be the Tabernacle (Big Idea). The instructions for which Moses would receive during his time with God on the mountain.

We don’t want to get too bogged down in the timeline, but we can see that events are not happening in a linear fashion. Most commentators believe that the leaders of Israel went back down to the base of the mountain after eating and drinking with God. Then in verse 12, God calls Moses to come back up the mountain and meet with him to get the Ten Commandments. Then we probably need to skip to verse 14. Moses, realizing that “to stay here” means to hang out with God a while, makes provisions for the administration of his responsibilities while away. The elders are to wait until Moses and Joshua come back to them. And Aaron and Hur will be with them to settle any disputes that may arise while Moses is gone. He is delegating his responsibilities to Aaron and Hur. This makes sense, since Aaron is his second in command, so to speak, and the one who God will put in charge of the priestly duties later on. We have seen Hur before in Exodus 17, where he was holding up Moses’ arms during the battle with the Amalekites. Hur is probably mentioned here because one of his relatives will be instrumental in building the Tabernacle. Moses is leaving things in what he believes are capable hands.

Then in the timeline we come back to verse 13 where it says that Moses and Joshua set out to go up the mountain. Now where did Joshua all of a sudden come from? We also last saw him in Exodus 17, leading the battle against the Amalekites and defeating them. Maybe Joshua was one of the seventy elders that ate and drank with God, but we don’t know for sure. We are told that he was Moses’ aide. He probably attended to Moses as a younger mentee would with a mentor in that time and setting. Joshua is probably mentioned here because he would be the one to take over and lead the Conquest of the Promised Land once Moses died. So Moses may have been teaching Joshua valuable lessons in leadership and ministry, as an older mentor would a younger mentee. By serving Moses in these practical ways, he would learn the skills he would need later on. Joshua would also learn valuable spiritual lessons as well watching Moses interact with the Lord in various ways.

This is important for us today as well. The church should be the perfect place to either mentor someone in leadership, life and spiritual things or to look for someone who could mentor you in leadership, life and spiritual things. Our commissions and small groups are great places for these relationships to form. So, I want to challenge all of us to think about who can I mentor in these ways and reach out to them. Or be thinking about who can mentor me in these ways and reach out to them. This is how our church can develop the leaders that are needed to lead into the next decade and beyond. And this is how we all can develop spiritually, learning to become more like Jesus from someone who is doing it well. This brings us to our first two next steps on the back of your communication card which is Pray about who I can mentor in leadership and or spiritual things and reach out to them. The second is like the first which is to Pray about who can mentor me in leadership and or spiritual things and reach out to them.  ​​ ​​​​ 

That brings us to our second point, God Descends, found in Exodus 24:15-18. This is what God’s Word says, “When Moses went up on the mountain, the cloud covered it, and the glory of the Lord settled on Mount Sinai. For six days the cloud covered the mountain, and on the seventh day the Lord called to Moses from within the cloud. To the Israelites the glory of the Lord looked like a consuming fire on top of the mountain. Then Moses entered the cloud as he went on up the mountain. And he stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights.”

When Moses ascended up the mountain, the cloud covered it, and the glory of the Lord settled on Mt. Sinai. The Lord descended as Moses ascended. The cloud should be familiar to us as we have seen it before all the way back to when the Israelites first came out of Egypt into the wilderness. They have been led by the presence of God in the pillar of fire and cloud. The cloud is synonymous with the presence of God with His people. God descended on the mountain, and His glory settled on it. The “Glory of the Lord” is His reputation and majesty, His mysterious and awesome presence alongside His grace and mercy that manifested in the cloud. The word “settled” is the Hebrew verb meaning “dwelt.” It is what is called the “shekinah” glory of the Lord, “an outward manifestation of His presence to men” as Cole says. This word “dwelt” is also the word “tabernacled” used in John 1:14 that says, “The Word (Jesus) became flesh and “dwelt” or “tabernacled” among us.” We see the significance of the Lord dwelling with Moses on Mt. Sinai as he would later dwell with His people in the Tabernacle and dwells within His people through the Holy Spirit, today. (Big Idea)

For six days the cloud covered the mountain as Moses waited on God. Finally, on the seventh day, the Lord called to Moses from within the cloud. This should remind us of seven days of Creation and how God made the seventh day holy by resting on it. The seven days that God dwelt on the mountain made it a holy place where Moses, who had been consecrated and set apart through the covenant ceremony, could meet with the Lord and the Lord could dwell with him. Then we get a glimpse of what the people at the base of the mountain saw. The glory or the presence of the Lord looked like a consuming or a “blazing” fire on top of the mountain. This was the glory of the Lord’s holiness which represented His relationship with Israel on the basis of the Law. It also signified that the place and the event was a holy occurrence. Seeing the glory of the Lord and Moses entering into it would have been another authentication that Moses was God’s chosen mediator and stressed that what God was telling him would be of the utmost importance.

This was another spectacular event. Last week, the leaders of Israel ate and drank with God. Now we see Moses entering into the cloud into God’s presence and dwelling with Him. This was not just eating and drinking with God. Moses was communing and fellowshipping with the Lord, himself. This was living with, breathing with and dwelling with God in a close, personal relationship. Moses, the covenant mediator, spent forty days and forty nights dwelling with the Lord. Now you and I are not Moses but our relationship with the Lord should be continually growing, becoming fuller and fuller. I asked you last week, what the table of your relationship with Jesus looked like. Was it empty? (slide) Or was it full? (Slide). As we grow spiritually, we should be striving for a relationship that becomes fuller and fuller as we become more and more like Jesus.

So what does communing and fellowshipping with the Lord look like? I believe as we look at Exodus 11, communing and fellowshipping with the Lord is a full table all the time. There may be times when our relationship with the Lord wavers between an empty table, a full table or something in between. But what we should want and strive for and what God wants for us is to commune with Him, to be in fellowship with Him and to dwell with Him. Moses’ table is full as for forty days he is communing and fellowshipping in the presence of the Lord. May we be people who strive for a full table all the time. May we be people who strive for full communion and fellowship with God himself. This is what he wants. This is why he sent his son, Jesus, to this earth to die on a cross for our sins and then raised him from the dead. It was so God could dwell with us in full communion and fellowship. That brings us to our third next step which is to Strive to be in full communion and fellowship with the Lord. Now, we should strive for this kind of relationship while we are living on the earth, but I also believe that this picture of Moses communing and fellowshipping with the Lord for forty days and forty nights is a picture of what it will be like in Heaven. Heaven is the place where we will dwell with God and He will dwell with us in perfect relationship, in perfect communion and fellowship for all eternity.

We see this in The Last Battle by C. S. Lewis. The book ends with the old land of Narnia passing away and all true Narnians entering the new Narnia. This is a picture of Heaven, in which the old passes away and all things become new. There is a tremendous sense of excitement as the subjects of that new and glorious kingdom begin to explore. They leap over hills and cascade down waterfalls. Each new thing they encounter is more amazing than anything they have ever seen before. They don’t stop; they keep moving faster and faster. Everyone shouts, “farther up and farther in,” and then they rush off to see more wonders in their new land. This was Moses’ experience on Mount Sinai. He went farther up and farther in. God called him up the mountain. There the prophet saw God’s glory, heard God’s voice, and ate and drank with him. Then he entered into glory. He kept going farther up and farther in until finally he was enveloped by the luminous, radiant presence of God.

This is also the story of our own salvation, which Exodus 24 reveals from beginning to end. First God calls us to worship him, speaking to us by his Word. But we are separated from God by our sin. Therefore, we have to keep our distance until God provides a sacrifice of atonement through the blood of his covenant. God, himself, came to us in the person of his Son, Jesus Christ, to be our Savior and to reveal the glory of God. John 1:14 says “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” John’s point was that Jesus reveals the glory of God in his very person. Since he was the divine Son of God, he was the full expression of God’s glory. Like the bright cloud that settled on the mountain, Jesus came down to reveal the glory of God. Once we have accepted Jesus as our Savior, our sins are covered, and we can have fellowship with God. We can sit down to feast at his table. But that is not how the story will end. It ends with our entrance into glory. This is the goal of our salvation: not just to meet with God and to sit down with him but to participate in his glory. What happened to Moses will happen to us: God will come down and lift us up into glory and He will dwell with us forever.

We have been saved for the glory of God. Glory is our destiny as God’s children. I Thessalonians 4:16-17 says, “For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.” We will go farther up and farther in. Like Moses, we will be surrounded by the radiance of God’s glory. I Corinthians 2:9-10 says, “However, as it is written: “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived”—the things God has prepared for those who love him—these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.” Let us be people who live like we know where we are going. Let us be people who worship and serve like we know where we are going. And let us be people who know that God desires to dwell with us for all eternity.

As the praise team comes to lead us in a final song and the ushers prepare to collect the tithes and offerings let’s pray: Heavenly Father, thank you for these moments we have had studying your Word. I thank you for the privilege of your presence and your desire to dwell in us. Let us cultivate that relationship. May it be a fuller and fuller table as we are being sanctified. We look forward to dwelling with you for all eternity in the place that you have prepared for us. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Opening: gracefv.com “The Meeting Place”

Conclusion: Ryken Commentary on Exodus