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Tyndale University presents a series of recorded chapel services from Tyndale's very own faculty and guest speakers.
Good morning. I hope you can hear me. Is that it's all right, the microphone. OK. All right, let me open in prayer. Lord God, we thank you for this opportunity to gather in your name and to worship you. We pray that you would open our eyes to see you and open our ears to hear what you want to say to us this morning. And we pray these things in your powerful name, Jesus. Amen. Good morning. It's a privilege to be here. I was actually thinking what a privilege to be part of the Tyndale community and privileged to serve the Lord here. Last year, I published a book, and I so the reason. The reason why I wanted to share that there was a book called Show Me Your Glory, the Glory of God in the Old Testament, and it just took me a long time to write this book. 15 years. So I have to celebrate that I finally persevered. Persevered with the Lord's help to finish that project and because of that this topic is very close to my heart and I really feel compelled to share about some of the things that I learned. Some of the insights that I learned on that journey 15 years with God's glory in the Bible. So I want to talk today specifically about Moses’s encounter with God's glory in Mount Sinai. But I want to begin by asking a question. What do you think of when you hear the expression, the glory of God? What do you think of? We talk a lot about the glory of God. As Christians. We sing about the glory of God in our songs, and we glorify God in our worship. I often now pay attention to the lyrics of songs and see where we see glory of God expressed. And you may also know or remember that even our Tyndale mission statement mentions the glory of God. Let me remind us, as our President often reminds us, Tyndale is dedicated to the pursuit of truth, to excellence in teaching, learning and research for the enriching of mind, heart, and character to serve the church and the world for the glory of God. For the glory of God. So what is the glory of God? I asked that same question when I started studying this topic and working on this book. And as I said, we talk a lot about God's glory. But I wonder sometimes, do we really know what we mean by it? We might have a vague understanding, or we have different ideas about what God's glory is. Even as I asked that question, we all probably had different responses to what the glory of God is. And when I was studying this in the scriptures, I discovered that the meaning of glory God depended on the passage of Scripture I was looking at and the context. And so there is actually a manifold diverse picture of God's glory in the Bible. Just to mention a few, we know that the glory of the Lord was manifest as God's presence in a powerful, visible way, in an awe inspiring way, particularly through the exodus from Egypt when the Israelites were rescued and they experienced God's glory through many miracles and signs and wonders, including the pillar of cloud and fire, as well as on Mount Sinai. And then of course the glory fills the Tabernacle and so they experience the glory in the dramatic visible ways and signs that God was present among them. But then we also have other passages that talk about the glory of God being revealed in God's creation. The heavens are declaring the glory of God. The skies proclaim the works of his hands. Psalm 19 one the whole earth is full of his glory. Isaiah 6 three as we walk in the our in nature, I love to go hiking and walking. We at this time of season, well, we enjoy the beauty of creation and the fall colors and they are also a reminder of God's glory. Of course, the New Testament also speaks a lot about God's glory and ultimately the full revelation is seen in the Jesus Christ. So as I mentioned, the glory of God is when we look at scriptures, very diverse and manifold and it means different things and we can recognize God's glory in many different ways. So I'd like you to take today to think about how you have recognized God's glory in different ways in your own life. How have you experienced God's glory? Moses encountered God's glory on Sinai. But what did he really experience on that mountain? What? What? We're so we're going to look at that at this point. And when he prayed the prayer show me your glory. He prayed a very bold prayer, and the Lord answered it in a very gracious way. So let's read the first passage from Exodus 33.
Let me see if I can. Did it switch? OK, I need instructions. Am I supposed to point it here? Point it up here. OK. OK, it's going the wrong way. OK. All right. I should have practiced. I don't know. All right, maybe I'm going to have to ask. Can you change it in the back? OK. Thank you.
All right. OK, then, Moses said show me your glory. And the Lord said I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name the Lord in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. But he said you cannot see my face for no one can see me and live. Then the Lord said there's a place near me where you may stand on the rock when my glory passes by, I will put you in the rock. In the cleft of the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed away. Then I'll remove my hand and you will see my back. But you're my face. You cannot be. My face must not be seen.
OK, let me just see if I can change this again. OK. All right, now it's working. OK.
So if we are reading the whole book of Exodus, we learned that Moses and the Israelites have actually seen the glory of God several times on this journey from Egypt through the pillar of cloud and many at Mount Sinai. But so why is Moses asking this question again, or praying to see God's glory once again? If we read the context of the passage of Exodus 33, we discover that Moses is actually very worried and anxious. What's he worried and anxious about is he's concerned that God might not continue to be present among his people after the golden calf incident in Exodus 32, where the people got impatient and created. As you know, a golden calf this made Moses and God very angry, and Moses needed to be reassured that God would continue to accompany his people after this tragic event. So the Lord responds to Moses's prayer in a very surprising and profound way. And not only does God reveal his glory in a cloud or in fire, but he reveals something deeper, truths about his glory. He reveals his character, his divine attributes. He said he was going to cause all my goodness to pass before you. I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you and I will proclaim my name the Lord in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I'll have compassion in whom I have compassion.
The Lord's glory includes his character, qualities of goodness, mercy, compassion. Sometimes in church we say God is good and we respond all the time. God is good all the time, you know. It's an expression that we say, but it's also very true, something that we need to be reminded of, especially when things are difficult for us. We serve a good and compassionate and merciful God, and we actually experience in his glory when we actually experience his goodness and compassion and mercy. These qualities of God. We also learned that the name of God is glorious, he says that he's going to cause his goodness to pass by, but also he's going to proclaim his own name, Yahweh, the name that he revealed to Moses at the burning Bush. The very name of Yahweh communicates God's glorious presence and his faithfulness to his people. The other thing we notice is that Moses experience with God's glories is also going to be physical in a sense, in the sense that his senses will be involved. He will hear the Lord proclaim his name. He will see the Lord come down in a cloud and he'll experience the glory passing by. He will feel the touch of God as God covers him with his hand and keeps him in the cleft of the rock to protect him. It's a very intimate picture, intimate experience with God the Lord says. There is a place near me where you may stand on the rock. The Hebrew actually says there's a place with me. He is with the Lord and that he's going to experience this beautiful encounter with the Lord, yet at the same time this experience is qualified in the sense that it's too dangerous for anyone to see God's face directly and still live. You cannot see my face for no one shall see me and live. And so in that sense, the experience is qualified and limited, but at the same time Moses does experience a glimpse of God's glory, but not directly fully, but from behind. Moses needs divine protection. God puts him in the cleft of the rock and covers him with his hand. He's able to look to the Lord and look for the Lord from behind and catch that glimpse of God's glory. Let us pause and reflect briefly on this this intimate, profound experience that God gave Moses. God was willing to answer Moses's request in a time when he was very anxious. Some of us are a little bit anxious today of what's going on in terms of the election, right? But. We are, we might be anxious about other concerns in our lives about our future, about our studies, our work and Moses needed that reassurance, and we too, sometimes need that reassurance.
God is more willing than we can even imagine to meet us in our times of fear and anxiety, because he would like to show us his goodness, his compassion, his love in those difficult times. Just as Moses experienced. So now let's look at the passage in Exodus 34. In the next passage, Exodus 34, we we have the actual experience described. So in 33 we had the promise of God revealing his glory. But in Chapter 34, we actually see it happen or it's described as it happens. So let's read the Lord came down in the cloud and stood there with him, again that word with him. And proclaimed his name the Lord. And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming the Lord the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished. He punishes the children and their children for their sin of the parents, to the third and 4th generation. I just want to say just briefly a word about the reference to the third and 4th generation and verse 7. It's actually helpful to know that the Israelite household was made-up of a family of third and 4th generation, and so they were all living together in those households. And so what we find is passage is actually making a contrast between God's unfailing unlimited love his chassid, his loyal love with the limit to God's justice, God's judgment and justice is limited, but his unfailing love is unlimited. Notice again the Lord, the Lord, the compassionate, gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love, and. Faithfulness. Maintaining love to the thousands and forgiving wickedness rebellion and sin. In that verse you actually have the word love or steadfast love, loyal committed love repeated twice. It's the only attribute that's mentioned twice, and then it's used in the contrast to the limit of God's judgment to the unlimitedness of God's mercy and grace and unfailing love. And so the Lord proclaimed to Moses his beautiful qualities of compassion, mercy, grace, goodness, faithfulness, steadfast love, patience, forgiveness and justice. And so in the context of rebellion, this rebellion of the Israelites, this is very profound. The Lord extended his mercy and offered forgiveness, giving them a second chance. And this is the God we serve a God of second chances, third chances, fourth chances, unlimited chances. If we are willing to turn to him and repent. Moses also had a powerful experience in the sense that he was transformed by this experience. He physically was changed because his face became radiant, reflecting God's glory. And this is described in the next chapter in Exodus 34. So just like Moses, we have also experienced God's glory, but maybe in different ways, sometimes in powerful signs and wonders and miraculous ways, but also times when we recognize his goodness, compassion, the God who gives us second chances. This brings us to the New Testament, and I just briefly want to share a little bit about God's full revelation in Jesus Christ. Jesus, ultimately as God Incarnate as Emmanuel, God with us, his glories revealed in Jesus, we've got many passages of Scripture that mention this in the New Testament. The word became flesh and he made his dwelling among us. We've seen his glory, the glory of the one and only son who came from the father, full of grace and truth. For God, who said let light shine of darkness made his light shine in our hearts, to give us the light of the knowledge of God's glory displayed in the face of Jesus Christ. And we all and we all. Who, with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's glory are being transformed into his image with ever increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the spirit. Now, in the context of 2nd Corinthians 3, Paul is actually referring to Moses’s experience of Mount Sinai and he refers to that encounter in Exodus 33 and 34 and the subsequent impact on Moses's face. Right. He became radiant because of God's glory. Paul says that God's people can also experience God's glory like Moses. But also to be transformed by God's glory, but ultimately now seen in the face of Jesus Christ. Paul speaks about looking or contemplating or beholding there's different debates about how to translate these verses are reflecting God's glory, as in a mirror. And we have this expression and as you can see in the NIV translation being transformed into his image with ever increasing glory, the Greek is actually saying from glory to glory. What does that mean from glory to glory? It communicates this notion of of growth ever increasing glory, growing from stages to stages, and that as we contemplate as we reflect, as we look at Jesus, we are transformed in like a growth pattern as we are progressing in our walk with God and we become like him over time we are being transformed into his image. It's not something that we do, but by his spirit. He is transforming us into the likeness of Jesus and becoming more like Jesus. And so the more we get to know Jesus, we can also experience his character in our lives to become more like him. We too can grow in the fruit of the spirit. We can grow in love and joy and peace and patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. These are all divine qualities. They are the fruit of the spirit. That we are to live out, to live out the character of Jesus. And as we do, we may become radiant, maybe not physically, although sometimes when you become people are filled with so much joy, they do radiate God's glory on their faces. But there's also an inner beauty of God's character in our lives that we become more like Jesus, that we are transformed by being renewed in our minds. So let me go back to the question I asked at the beginning. How have we experienced God's glory in our lives? How have you experienced God's glory in your life? As I said earlier, some of us experienced God's glory and miraculous healings or powerful encounters or in worship in prayer in our devotional time where we sense God's presence and profound ways. We have also experienced God's glory in and his presence as we walk in creation and joy as nature, but we've also experienced it in his goodness towards us and his mercy and his compassion towards us in his steadfast, loyal love. But there are also other times when we have experienced God's glory in suffering and pain. Something we wish was not true, but that has happened for us. Jesus also suffered pain and as we if you read John's gospel a gospel of glory, John, and in John Chapter 12 talks about the son of man being lifted up on the cross, and that through that God would be glorified. Ultimately, the glory of God was revealed as Jesus died on the cross and then rose from the dead, so God's glory can also be revealed in our own suffering trials and pain. Jesus never promised us a pain free life. In fact, he said, in this world we will have trouble in John 1633.
So I just wanted to conclude this message by sharing a little bit of a personal testimony. As I was learning and studying about God's glory, as I mentioned to you, I took 15 years to write this book, but there was a lot of factors why that happened. But one of the challenges along the way is that I had a few health challenges and I'll just mention one at this point. In 2016, I started having seizures and I was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Meningioma, which is growth from the lining of the brain. I mean lining. Yeah, over here. I had it right up here. Golf ball size. Anyway, I'm thankful to say, first of all, it was not cancerous. It was benign, but I had to have surgery. At the same time, I had been invited to fly to the UK to be speaking at a conference and the surgery was scheduled just about the same time as the conference and the conference was on the theme of the glory of God. And so I was one of the speakers and I just felt like, OK, if something goes wrong with the surgery, the one. The last thing I want to do is I want to talk about God's glory. And then I'll go to glory. Well, I didn't go to glory. I'm here. But anyway, so I actually asked the surgeon. Can I postpone the surgery? You don't normally do that when you have a brain tumor. And I didn't know if it was cancerous or not, but anyway, he said yes. OK, let's postpone the surgery. But he scheduled it right after the conference. So I went and spoke, and then I came home. Two days later I was in surgery. Thankfully, it was benign and I'm here and my brain still works. I think my students think know that. Yeah, well anyway. So what I want to share though is in that whole experience I experienced God's goodness and compassion and mercy, his glory in the midst of the suffering and pain. And I had an interesting divine encounter in the hospital I was at Sunny Brooke Hospital. And so, you know, went from intensive care to less care. And then the last night before I was supposed to be like, set or whatever, it's set free to go home from the hospital. I had this, I call it divine encounter. This is an amazing for me it's still amazing to think about. So I was wheeled into a room. I was there by myself and then a little later I got someone else that was wheeled in, and of course the nurse also asks who, you know the name. So I heard the name of the person next door to me in the room and it was someone I've known all my life. From Sweden. I'm from Sweden. Originally we grew up together in Sweden in the same church. In the we, our families were so close that we did holidays together. When we moved to Canada, we moved to Kingston ON this family, moved to Kingston ON with us. And so our and we went to the same school, all of that. And so our families were very close and but after high school, our family moved to Saskatoon and I lost contact with this person. I'm not going to mention his name. But anyway, so he was a long lost friend. And I hadn't seen him for over, well, 24 years. He came to my mom's. Funeral. But I had not seen him really from high school days. And there he was in my room or our room, and we started speaking Swedish to each other. And we had not seen each other all these years. But what was amazing, though, is he had fallen away from the Lord, or he wasn't following very closely to the Lord and this cancer. He had cancer. He had a brain tumor. We had the same surgeon here we are. Think about it statistically. How could we be in the same room and and he didn't even live in Toronto, right. Anyway, God arranged for us to meet in that final year because he sadly did pass away, we kind of journeyed together as I was recovering, he was getting worse, but he also came back to the Lord. And so through both of our experiences, God was glorified. Even though it might sound strange that someone passes away and someone else doesn't.
But we both journeyed together and God was glorified in our experiences together, and we experienced God's love and compassion and mercy in a profound way. So I wanted to just share that in the sense that sometimes God's glory is actually revealed in the very difficult hard times of our lives. And we do look forward to a day when we'll no longer suffer pain and trials and suffering. And you know, all the tears that we shed, what we shed, you know, but in the midst of all those difficulties, God can wants to reveal his glory to us, his goodness, his compassion, his mercy. Just like Moses experienced. So while we're waiting for the day when there will be no more suffering, when we will see him face to face, we have the opportunity to still experience God's glory now, even if it's a glimpse of God's glory and we have the opportunity to become more like Christ as we wait upon him as we contemplate. As we reflect, we can become more like God, more godly, more like Jesus, who is also compassionate and merciful to us and to the whole world. So as we conclude, I invite you today to pray the same prayer that Moses prayed. Lord, show me your glory. But also pray the prayer. Transform me by your glory and let's see what God will reveal and what God will show you. Today. Amen. So I would like to say a benediction. As you go through this day, may you become more aware of God's presence. And experience his glory. Go in peace. Amen.