Pastoral Resident Kenny Dyches finishes our Exodus series, preaching from the climax of the narrative in Exodus 40:34-38.
I was not invited into the puffy jacket club and you don't want to see me with a shaved head, so you're welcome. So the scene opens in an apartment building, in someone's apartment in Italy, and the woman has just come in. She's coming from work, she's getting ready for bed. Then the man comes in. They're in a relationship together and the woman starts talking to the man. She says, oh, I had a good day at work today. He goes, oh. She says yeah, we're getting close to catching the burglar, in this case that we're in, and she's in law enforcement. And he goes, oh. And she says, yeah, like, he left this shoe print, this specific boot, at the crime scene and we're pretty confident that this is going to be the nail in the coffin. He looks down at his shoes. He has a boot that actually is the same size as the one that she found and before you know it, he's in the bathroom and headed out through the window because he was that thief that she's going after.
Kenny:Now, if you're familiar with the movie Ocean 11 and Ocean 12, this is the opening scene for Ocean 12. Those movies are based on these characters who are thieves. It's a band of thieves that try to hit it big or these big scores. In the first movie they try to rob a casino, in the second one, going after some fancy egg or something, I don't know, but in both movies there's an under plot. There's another plot going on at the same time. In the first one, danny Ocean, the main character, when he comes out of prison, it seems like he's going after this big score, but what he's really going after is his ex-wife. He's trying to woo her back and win her back into a relationship. In the second movie, rusty, another main character, he's trying to not woo back this woman. Instead he's trying to reunite her with her father. And so throughout the whole movie she finds out that he's going after this big score and of course she's trying to hunt him down, probably partially vindictively, but also because it's her job, and eventually she kind of corners him and he thinks that she's cornered him, but he has really cornered her.
Kenny:In the whole movie she makes references to her father. She grew up with a father who also was a thief and she had been estranged from him for a long time because he had to flee as a result of being a thief, and so she finally runs into her father because her father and Rusty have actually the whole movie, behind the scenes, been working to bring her back into relationship with him. And so she sees him from about 10 yards out and it's this beautiful scene right next to the water and her father is sitting down looking at the ocean. And he turns and he sees her and he stands up and he takes off his reading glasses. And then there's this palpable moment where they're both looking at each other and she begins to walk towards him and she says where have you been? And he says waiting For what this? And he leans in and, with tears streaming down his face, he embraces her.
Kenny:See, I think we're a lot like Isabelle, that woman where oftentimes we haven't had a palpable relationship with our Heavenly Father, and our question to him, whether we know it or not, is where have you been? We look at the last year of our lives as the year comes to a close, maybe the last several years, maybe a whole lifetime of heartache, of estrangement, of all sorts of things that have been going on in our lives, and we want to ask God where have you been? And over the years we've built up hard hearts to God's presence. We don't quite want to see him and it takes him drawing us near in his good plan for us to finally encounter that embrace with him. See, god has come into his house already. He's already laid out a plan to draw us into deep and intimate relationship with him, to embrace us. And so my first point is that God has come into his house, has come into his house to speak with us. My first point is a little long, so bear with me. The other points are shorter.
Kenny:We're actually gonna go back and look at verse one of chapter 40, so go ahead and open your Bibles if you have them. The original text was verses one through 38, so you're welcome. So in verse one, it begins by saying the Lord spoke to Moses and he proceeds to give him instructions, which Moses then proceeds to carry out, on how to build the tabernacle. Now, I don't want to I think it's easy to go over that to miss the fact that God himself, yahweh, is speaking to Moses, a man We've already seen this a lot. Right, this is God's man. You know, they talk to him at the burning bush, he talked to him on Mount Sinai. Like they have a great relationship. We're like, yeah, he speaks to Moses, that's normal. That's good. However, I gotta say that is not what I usually experience. I don't experience God palpably speaking to me, and yet the Bible tells us that's who God is.
Kenny:John Frame, a well-known theologian who actually taught at Reformed Theological Seminary for a time, says God's speech is an essential attribute of his nature. By his very nature, god is a speaking God. Speaking is an act of his personality. He also says that only in biblical religion is there a God who is absolute and who speaks to his creatures. In his speech he brings himself to us. There's so much goodness we can unpack there, but what I want us to take away is that God's speech is an essential attribute of his nature. This is part of who he is, his personality. He is a speaking God, communicating to us and bringing himself to us. He's not just a distant God far away. He is near and drawing near to us. But my question for us this morning is do we experience that to be true?
Kenny:Do you have a great prayer life? Do you know what it looks like to not only hear from God through his word, but also to speak to him and have him respond? I remember honestly from much of my life, my relationship with God. My prayer life has often looked like reading letters from a lover or reading letters from a friend through scripture, right. And then my prayers have been responding back, writing letters back but never getting one in return. So I have the old letters, I write letters back, but I never get responses in return. Instead, I just write letters back, hoping that he's hearing me, trusting that he's working in the world around me and trying to see how he's answering my prayers. And yet when I read scripture, I see something different. I see something fuller. I see conversations happening between God and man and I wonder is that possible? Can we have a conversational relationship with God? Certainly Moses does.
Kenny:God is with Moses, he's present in conversational friendship. So you see this first at the burning bush. And I love this scene in Exodus, because the first thing that Moses asks God is not actually his name, but he asks who am I? God has just said I've seen my people, I've heard their cries. I am the God of their fathers. I am going to answer and I'm going to free them so that they can come into a relationship with me, they can have intimacy with them again, and I'm gonna send you to help me do that. And Moses says who am I? Who am I to go to these people? God, I need to know who I am, that you're willing to send me. And God responds I will be with you. Who is Moses? He is the man with whom God is. God himself goes with Moses and Moses finds his identity, at least in large part, by the fact that God goes with him as a friend. God is with him. Then God reveals his name Yahweh the great. I am the God who is with his people. This is the God that is with Moses and with his people. God is not far off. He's near to his people. He has never left them. He has always been near.
Kenny:Later on, in Exodus 33, 11, we see that Moses speaks face to face with God, says he speaks face to face with man, as a man speaks to his friend. That's intimate, present, conversational relationship. This relationship that Moses has with Yahweh is incredible. He's speaking to him as a friend. They're having conversations about who Moses is, about who God is and what his will is for the people. And, of course, yahweh has this relationship with the patriarchs, with the prophets, when God comes down incarnate in Jesus. He has this relationship with all sorts of people, especially his disciples. But does he have that relationship with us? Or is this just something for the prophets, the patriarchs, unique people in unique times? Well, I believe God speaks with all his people and Scripture tells us that.
Kenny:In Scripture we see something about God's covenantal presence. From Abraham, god makes it covenant with him into Israel and that covenant continues with us. And God is speaking even when Israel, even when his people aren't listening. And so what is getting in the way of Israel listening? For generations they were in Egypt without, presumably, direct contact with Yahweh. And so what is going on? Well, often what gets in the way of listening to God is sin.
Kenny:In Exodus 19, we actually see that the people do hear God's voice. God comes down in the cloud onto Mount Sinai and he speaks the Ten Commandments and the people hear him. But right before he does that, he actually gives a warning that the people not come up onto the mountain unless they die. And then, when he finishes speaking, the people say to Moses hey, you go and talk to Yahweh because we don't wanna die, right? They recognize that God is holy and that they are not, and this experience that Moses is having on Mount Sinai is something that they cannot enter into unless they be burnt up, coming into his presence. And so For God's plan, though, in building the tabernacle, is to bring the Mount Sinai experience into the presence of his people, to go with them wherever they go.
Kenny:See, god's plan in scripture from Adam and Eve forward, has always been to bring back that relationship that he had with his people in the garden when he would walk with them in the garden and have conversations with them when they were in the presence of God. And one of the incredible things about our passage especially verses one through 33, which we won't explore in detail is that there are a lot of thematic parallels with Genesis one. To give you an example, there's seven statements in Genesis about God creating the earth, and there's seven statements in our passage in Exodus 40, about God building the tabernacle. Because in both places God is building a tabernacle. He's building a place where he will dwell with his people. And so God's plan in all of scripture is to bring back, is to reconcile his people back to intimate relationship with him, where he can walk and have conversation with them in intimacy as a person, as a father with his children, and see, the tabernacle was built to be a place where God dwells with his people.
Kenny:Prior to Adam and Eve's sin and the fall in Genesis three, man was clean and holy and could walk with God in conversational relationship in his presence, in his temple of life, the holy of holies of the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve defiled the holy place, though in sin, and brought unclean and death into the garden. And ever since then, genesis and Exodus have been building up to this chapter where God comes down to dwell with his people in the new tabernacle. And yet we can often be a hard-hearted people. Israel was a hard-hearted people, and so God knows this. He knows that we have been estranged from him through sin and that we've hardened our hearts to relationship with him.
Kenny:And so Jesus says in Luke four "'Pay attention to what you hear. "'with the measure you use, it will be measured to you, "'and still more will be added to you. "'for to the one who has, more will be given. "'and from the one who has not, "'even what he has will be taken away'". What Jesus is talking about there is listening to the word of God about the kingdom of heaven, about what God is doing and drawing his people back into a relationship with him. He's inviting us to listen to his voice and he says the more you do, the more you will experience the kingdom of God, the more you will experience the blessings, the power, the love of God in Christ. The more that you fail to listen, the more you will become further and further estranged and your heart will become harder and harder. And yet God provides a way to know him in the tabernacle in Jesus Christ.
Kenny:In John 1.14, we see that John writes that the word became flesh and dwelt among us. That word for dwell is actually tabernacle, god tabernacled among us in Jesus Christ. Jesus is the new tabernacle. And in John 14, jesus says that those who believe in him, he sends the Holy spirits into their hearts so that the father and the son dwell with them. And in John 10, he says that those with whom God dwells, who are his disciples, like sheep, they hear his voice, they hear him call him by name and they follow him in and out. And so the life of a disciple is somebody with whom God dwells. The tabernacle has drawn near to us in Jesus Christ and, as we are in Jesus Christ, god dwells in us in the Holy spirit, and he addresses us by name, intimately inviting us to listen to his voice and follow him in all of life. In John 15, jesus, talking about discipleship, all those who believe and follow him, says as you abide in me and listen to my words, my spoken words, my love, and obey my commands, you can ask for whatever you want and my father will respond. He will be the one who produces the fruit. He will be the one who glorifies his name.
Kenny:The relationship with God that we are invited into is one of intimacy, of conversational relationship with a God who is drawing us near to him and reestablishing what man had in the Garden of Eden. And so the problem is not all of us experience life this way. We read about it in the scriptures, we intellectually understand it, we seek it out, but this just isn't a reality in many ways. And so let's imagine for a moment that you decide to see a prayer therapist right If one existed, maybe one existed, that's probably true To get your prayer life straightened out.
Kenny:The therapist says well, let's begin by looking at your relationship with your heavenly father. God said I will be a father to you and you shall be sons and daughters to me in 2 Corinthians. What does it mean that you are a son or daughter of God. You reply that it means that you have complete access to your heavenly father. Through Jesus you have true intimacy, based not on what you've done but on the fact that you are in the goodness of Jesus. Not only that, jesus is your brother, you are a fellow heir with him. So the therapist smiles and says that's right, you've done a wonderful job of describing the doctrine of sonship.
Kenny:Now tell me what is it like for you to be with your father? What is it like to talk with him? So you cautiously tell the therapist how difficult it is to be in your father's presence, even for a couple minutes. Your mind wanders. You aren't sure what to say. You wonder does prayer make a difference? Is God even there? Then you feel guilty for your doubts and you just give up.
Kenny:Your therapist tells you what you already suspect your relationship with your heavenly father is dysfunctional. You talk as if you have an intimate relationship with God, but you don't. Theoretically it is close, practically it is distant. You need help. So often we don't have what Moses has. What Moses has, we have more of what Israel experienced Distance from God. We wonder God, where are you, where have you been. And so his answer is in the Tabernacle it exists 40, but also in Jesus Christ.
Kenny:In Jesus Christ we receive the Spirit. Now I'm going to give you a few scriptures to show you what that looks like and then tell you about what that looks like in my life. So the first scriptures, 1 Corinthians 1. The Spirit gives us the mind of Christ. If you want to know what God thinks towards you and what his will is for your life, you can stop there. The Spirit gives us the mind of Christ.
Kenny:Ephesians 1, the Spirit helps us to know God, his hope, his blessing and his power. This is what Paul prays for the churches there in Ephesus. In Ephesians 3, paul prays that we would be filled with all the fullness of God and to know the love of Christ. Ephesians 6, paul invites us not to just pray, but to pray in the Spirit, in relationship with God, in intimacy with him. And then in Romans 8, even when we don't know how to pray, paul says the Spirit helps us to pray, and so, truly, god is with us, drawing us into intimacy with him, making himself known to us in conversational relationship. And so what if we prayed like all of that was true? What if we gave margin in our lives and just tried to start pushing God and say, God, is this who you are? Do you want to reveal yourself to me?
Kenny:Pragmatically, I think oftentimes what my quiet times have looked like. My times of prayer are reading Scripture, internalizing it, intellectualizing it, applying it to my life and seeking to live it out in obedience, which is great right. That is what God invites us into. We do encounter God in His Word, but then we're tempted to then seek to discern God's will by whatever we feel peace in. If we feel peace about a decision, then surely that is God moving us in the right direction.
Kenny:The problem is we can oftentimes kind of do with Scripture what we want, and we really want to move in one direction, and so we just assume that peace means that's what God wants for us, instead of talking to God like a person. If you were to go up to your spouse or a good friend and have a conversation with them to try to figure out where you wanted to go out to dinner, and so you're talking with them you're like, hey, I kind of want to go to Outback, but I also want tacos, but I don't want to go to that place. Oh, I know where I want to go. I want to go to 60 Vines, right. And so you have this whole conversation and you're like, great, I'll see you there. So you walk out and you just assume that that's where you both want to go, except the whole time the other person has never responded, right.
Kenny:But so often we can approach God that way, where we have this one-sided conversations and we never truly ask and sit in God what are you inviting me into, what do you want? And so sometimes in the morning I'll get up and I'll read Scripture and then I'll just sit in silence for a while, say, holy Spirit, give me the mind of Christ, help me to know what God's will is specifically in different areas of my life. And then I'll sit in silence and say God, what do I need to hear today? And I'll wait for a response and I'll say, god, if you're a person, if what I read here is true, you'll answer. And sometimes what comes to mind is Scripture. Sometimes I receive an image, sometimes it's words, like you're my beloved son. And of course I always measure what I hear by Scripture. But I invite God to speak to me intimately and purposefully and specifically about what he's doing in my life and in the lives of others and in the world around me.
Kenny:And my second point, then, is that God has come into his house to speak with us and to share with us his goodness. And so, in verse 34, if you'll check that out real quick we see that the cloud covers the tent of meeting and the glory of the Lord fills the tabernacle. Now, that's the same cloud that was on Mount Sinai, where Moses went up and God gave him the Ten Commandments. That's the cloud that descends is the same cloud that led the Israelites in the wilderness, the cloud that guided the Israelites out of Egypt, that provided reassurance of God's presence by remaining with them while they were in the wilderness, that moved in front of them to behind them to protect them from Pharaoh when they got to the Red Sea. That was the means by which God appeared and offered them food to fill and sustain them, from which God spoke to Moses and all Israel. The cloud is God's presence.
Kenny:God come down and his presence is good, not just morally or theologically, or ethically or theoretically, but an actual, physical, real experience. This is God's covenantal presence, and we see this in God's good name. We've heard a few sermons on the name of God, where he proclaims to Moses his name Yahweh. Yahweh, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. However, god has also lived out his name in the whole book of Exodus, right Pursuing his people, drawing them into intimacy with him, showing them his mercy and his grace and his faithfulness.
Kenny:Hughes, in his commentary on this passage, says that the glory that filled the tabernacle was a spectacular display of the radiance of God's being. The God of the Exodus, the God of power who made the heavens and the earth. The God of justice who plagued the Egyptians. The God of love who kept his covenant with Israel. The God of providence who led his people through the wilderness. The God of truth who gave them his law. The God of mercy who atoned for their sins. The God of holiness who set them apart for service. This great God was present in glory.
Kenny:When the people looked at the tabernacle, they could see that God was in his house. And so God doesn't invite us just to know him intellectually, to know about him, but to experience his goodness in all of life. Now, of course, as the Israelites were going through all of this, surely they were in terror. Surely they were days where they were wanting. Surely this didn't all feel like God's goodness. And yet God's goodness pursued them in the midst of it and provided for them. And so God invites us to taste and see that he is good. David, reflecting on God's presence in the temple, says one thing I have asked of the Lord this what I will seek after that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple. See God's tabernacle among the people was incredibly good news, because the God, whose covenant presence had already blessed them in so many ways, was now drawing even nearer to them.
Kenny:So on 34.8, we see David say that phrase taste and see that the Lord is good. He's inviting us to subjectively experience what we know to be objectively true. God has drawn near to us an intimate relationship and he is good. Ji Packer says on Psalm 34.8,. Taste is, as we say, to try a mouthful of something with a view to appreciating its flavor, like a good cup of coffee from lineage. Friends are, so to speak, communicating flavors to each other all the time by sharing their attitudes for each other and towards everything else of common concern, as they thus open their hearts to each other.
Kenny:Think of people in love. By what they say and do, each taste the quality of the other for sorrow or for joy they have identified themselves with and so are personally and emotionally involved in each other's concerns. This is what he says friendship with God should look like. Think of your best friend, think of a spouse, think of the people in your life who you've had just fun experiences with, where you've laughed together, where you've cried together, that have been there for you when you needed them, that you know intimately that you can just sit with and not do anything. You can just be in their presence and enjoy them.
Kenny:Do you have this relationship with God, with Yahweh? This is what Yahweh is inviting us to not to just know that he is good as we struggle throughout life, but to experience him as good in all of it, because God is there in every aspect of your life. He is pursuing you, he is with you in special covenantal relationship, and he is seeking an audience with you. He's seeking for you to be embraced by him as a friend. So we need a friendship with God that gives perspective on all of life to see his goodness, and so good illustration would just be date night, right? So if you've ever dated before or been in a dating realm or just are married and are still trying to date your spouse in the midst of all that you have going on in kids, then you know how important date night can be.
Kenny:So, as Lauren and I go on dates, oftentimes we'll go through the whole week and sometimes we'll be like ships passing in the night, especially with kids, and we'll get to the end of the week and we're like man, we need time to ourselves, like I haven't even talked to you about what's going on with you inwardly. And so we have five questions that we do every date night and this was given to us, so we can't take credit for it. But the first question being what has been your high and low of the week? The second one being what is God doing in your life? Third one being what are some things that I didn't do well this week? What's something I did do well this week? And of course, we do fun things too.
Kenny:We don't just interrogate each other, but the point of that is that in that moment we may have been distant all week, or even for a couple weeks, three weeks, but in that moment we know each other. We're looking at the last few weeks in the context of relationship with one another. In the context of relationship with God, we're seeing the goodness in one another. We're working through pain that we've given, that we've caused in the other person, we're reconciling and we're seeing, we're experiencing, we're tasting the goodness in each other and in what God is doing in our lives. We need that relationship with God. We need places to do that with God, to be in intimacy with Him and in conversation, to experience His goodness. My last point, then, is that God has come into His house to speak with us, to share His goodness and to fill us. God fills. So what does it mean to be filled?
Kenny:Well, throughout Scripture we see God talk about and in John 15, being filled with the joy of God. In John 15, jesus says I'm telling you all these things about discipleship because I want you to have my joy and I want you to be filled with it. David talks about this. He talks about beholding God and enjoying God. Beholding Him. There's this sense in which God just wants us to enjoy Him, like a child running up to their parent. Like you, enjoy a good friend, whatever it may be. God wants us to enjoy Him. We also see in Scripture, in Ephesians, a lot the desire for us to be filled with the love of God, to experience His power towards us, to know the hope that Jesus offers us in His death and resurrection and reconciliation with Him. To be filled with God is not only to know Him, to be indwelt by the Holy Spirit in His presence in you, but in all of your being, to be submitted to Him and enjoying Him. And so the question is how do we experience that? Well, I think there's something really interesting in our passage that can help us get there.
Kenny:In verse 35, we see something interesting. It says and Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled on it and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And so this is weird. Right, moses has, like God's man. He's spoken with God to face to face. They've had great conversations. He's gone up into the cloud. He's carried down the tablets. Right, he's probably pretty swole to carry those things all the way down the mountain. Like this is the man right, his face was shining. It was a billboard when he came down Like what? This guy can't come into God's house. What is going on?
Kenny:Well, stuart says in his commentary that it was no more appropriate for Moses to enter the tabernacle, even though he had been all through it as a building supervisor, than it would be for a house builder in modern times to train a key and enter a house at will that he had built. Once it was sold to its occupying owner, the tabernacle was now Yahweh's house and no one else's. See, this is the place that God had come to fill and to dwell, and Moses, even along with the rest of Israel, still carried vestiges of sin. He still was unclean. The tabernacle had a place for atonement and sacrifices so people could be temporarily atoned for and repentance as they came into God's presence through an intercessor, and that had not yet been established. The priests had not been ordained yet, and so Moses could not enter the house. And so what is getting in the way of Moses entering God's house again is sin. And yet in Jesus Christ, something incredible happens we become his house.
Kenny:In Hebrews 3, the writer says no, now Moses was faithful in all God's house as a servant to testify to the things that were to be spoken about later. But Christ is faithful over God's house as a son and we are his house if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope. Through Jesus we are God's house. We are a fragrant offering and a sweet, smelling aroma, much like the tabernacle would have been when the aroma, the incense was burned, when Moses put sweet ointment over the whole thing to make it holy. The tabernacle was sweet, smelling and incense filled and really tangible place. But through Jesus we become a fragrant offering and a sweet, smelling aroma because Jesus' death has wiped our sins from us. He is the atoning sacrifice by which we can come into his presence forever. We have entered into Jesus in his death and atonement for our sins and resurrection into new life. So now his righteousness is upon us and we are that sweet, smelling incense. We are the good aroma. We can come into God's presence and we actually are his house, individually and together.
Kenny:The author of Hebrews again says today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. We're invited to examine unbelief in our hearts, lies that are spoken, things that are in there because of the world around us, because the way that we were raised, because of sin in our lives that we need to be able to bring into the light. Paul also warns believers about hardness of heart, but calls them to put off the old self, corrupt through deceitful desires, and be renewed and put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in righteousness and holiness. We need to be able to recognize sin in our lives that is driving us in the wrong direction, that is hardening our hearts to God's voice, so that we pursue other things apart from God. And so one of the ways that I've learned and grown to combat this is really just after reading scripture or in prayer in my car, just sitting and asking the Lord, lord, what lies am I believing? And allowing God to bring those to mind? Because so often we are blind to the things that are blinding us, right, we can't see them, and then even asking follow-up questions Well, what is what brokenness? Is this stemming from? What idols are in my heart? How does this work itself out in sin? As I do that so often, god will respond. He'll bring things to mind, things that I can then repent and turn from and therefore have more freedom to experience him in relationship, to be filled with the fullness of God.
Kenny:I was reading Luke 5 this past week and I was kind of stunned at what I read in Luke 5. Peter, of course, who is the rock upon which Jesus built his church. When he first encounters Jesus, he says to him depart from me, for I am a sinful man. Oh Lord, it's no wonder Jesus called Peter. He was full of repentance. He didn't offer anything in that statement except that he was a sinner right.
Kenny:Jesus later in that passage says I have not come to call the righteous, but the sinners to repentance. Jesus is inviting us to bring all in our lives that is not focused on him, that is running away from him, that is sinful, and bring it to him in repentance. And then later in that passage, there is a leper who says Lord, if you will, you can make me clean as we bring our sins to Jesus, as we bring the darkness, as we bring the things in our life that we can't control, the areas we don't want to let go of, the relationships that are strained, the darkness wherever it is, jesus will make it clean. He will respond. And Jesus stretched this hand out to the leper and touched him, saying I will be clean. If we want to be filled with the fullness of God, we need to bring to Him everything that keeps us from being filled and he will be faithful to cleanse it.
Kenny:God has drawn near. He has drawn near to Israel by filling the tabernacle and provided means for them to be made temporarily clean and experience the goodness of His presence. He draws near to us in Jesus Christ, in whom the fullness of God dwells, and with the Spirit God's presence, you need to turn from lies and broken patterns in all of our lives and come to our great High Priest, who offers help and healing. And so, in conclusion, it's interesting to note that the tabernacle was actually set up on the first month of the year right, and we're obviously about to celebrate the first month and day of the year, and this was a way of linking the new year with worship, with God's worship, with God's indwelling coming down and dwelling in the tabernacle. In addition to that, we see the portability of the tabernacle. It was erected quickly and it could be deconstructed and erected again elsewhere. God's presence would go with them wherever they went, likewise for the church.
Kenny:In Matthew 28, jesus tells his apostles to go to all nations, to all peoples, to draw them into the family of God. And behold, he says, I am with you until the end of the age. Wherever we go, god is with us and he's inviting us to start our new year, forming our lives and practices that will help us to commune with him in intimacy, in power, in hope, to experience his nearness, his goodness, his voice in all that we do. So God has come into his house to speak with us, to share his goodness and to fill us so that we might be his priests, to praise his excellencies, to tell of the goodness of our friend of God in Christ, to be his goodness as salt and light to tell of his works in our lives and to the dark world around us.
Kenny:And yet, of course, we're busy. We have lives, we have kids, we have friends, we have things that push on us, we have patterns in our life that are difficult to get out of. We have just difficulties in our life that we strain against, and so it's hard to even have patterns where we can read scripture every day. Sometimes to pray Sometimes even the desire to pray is hard to come by. I've had that before, and so I encourage you guys. One way to do this is to build a way of life that allows for this intimacy with God, so the All of Life Guide is one great way to do that. I think we have some in the lobby if you haven't picked one up yet and so I encourage you guys, though, to spend some time this next week, this next month, to seek the Lord out and to look for ways that you can form your life around Him.
Kenny:And so, in summation, at the beginning we talked about Isabel finally meeting her father and saying where have you been? But, before the service started, my kids, who had only been estranged from me for an hour and a half two hours. They came in here and they saw me and they were all the way at the back and I was at the front and they just ran all the way over here until they finally just almost boldly over so that I could pick them up and embrace them. That is God, waiting for you to pick you up and embrace you, and I would hope that you guys would take a moment to run to Him, because he is there, he is present, he has come into His house, he invites you guys to know Him. So I'm gonna pray and then invite us to reflect on what we've heard today.
Kenny:Lord, thank you. Thank you because you're a God who makes Himself known to us. You're a God who speaks. You're not a God who is far, but you are near. You are here with us. We so often don't experience you this way. We so often don't run after you, and you don't chide us for it. You invite us to draw near. You draw near to us. You have come already and you're inviting us into deep intimacy with you. Thank you, lord. We trust that you are here with us. We ask that you would help us to hear your voice, to be in intimate relationship with you, to know you, to have the hope and power that you offer us. We pray this in Jesus' name amen.