I just want to share a little bit of how I was planning for this.
A email got sent out to the school religion asking if anyone was available to speak here
today and I was actually at a praise team rehearsal for another church that I play at
and as I was playing piano I see this email come in on my phone and immediately I just
say to myself, okay, you know, I should do this.
So I just sent the reply, I said, yeah, absolutely, I'm all in.
And when the rehearsal finished, I thought to myself again, wow, I just committed to
a whole sermon in less than a few days.
So what do I do?
Now I need to put together a sermon and so as I thought and processed through the different
topics that I could talk about, what God was laying on my heart, I prayed and prayed and
prayed and prayed and I spent a whole day asking God, what do you want me to talk about?
I believe it was Wednesday afternoon when I kind of got the idea of the message that
I wanted to talk about.
And it was about God's presence, about God's face, but I did not know how I was going to
express it.
I did not know how it was going to flesh out.
So I kept praying and I said, Lord, you know, just impress me in my heart with the words
that you want me to speak.
And I sat down at the table, I pull up my laptop, I open it and I opened a document
and title it, If I Could Only See Your Face.
And I remember just staring at a blank piece of white paper on the screen and just thinking
to myself, how do I say this?
And in an instant, the first sentence came to my mind and then the second and the third
and the fourth and so on and in a matter of two hours, I had fleshed out the entire sermon
and by the end of it, I was asking myself, what in the world just happened?
That did not come from me.
So it's under that thought that I'm coming here today expecting God to even bless me
with this because this was clearly not of my own, this was God.
So I just ask that we can just bow our heads one more time and pray and invite God into
this place.
Lord, just be here with us, stir our hearts up and impress us in our minds, speak to us,
change the way that we view you, change it fundamentally that we may have such a huge
paradigm shift that when we leave this place, we leave absolutely madly in love with you.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Look, God's face is so mysterious, it's so powerful, it's so incredible, it's such a
mysterious topic to even talk about, right?
It's the face of God.
But when was the last time we asked to see God's face?
When was the last time we've experienced God's presence in such a way that it left us completely
changed?
When was the last time that we experienced God's presence in a way that it filled us
like nothing else?
When was the last time we've experienced God's presence in a way that we would want to come
back and come back and come back to it and not want to leave ever?
When?
When was the last time you prayed that prayer?
And I just want to highlight a story in the Bible that talks about a man who desired this.
We can turn to Exodus chapter 19 verse 18, if you have your Bibles, let's go there.
And it's Moses, we're going to dive into the story of Moses and how he was after God's
face after his presence.
Exodus chapter 19 verse 18, all the way to 20 actually.
So Exodus 19, chapter 19 verses 18 to 20 says, now Mount Sinai was all in smoke because Yahweh
descended upon it in fire.
And its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace and the whole mountain trembled violently.
And the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder.
Then Moses spoke and God answered him with thunder.
And Yahweh came down on Mount Sinai to the top of the mountain.
And Yahweh called Moses to the top of the mountain and Moses went up.
You see, God had descended on the mountain of Sinai in such an incredible way.
The mountain was on fire, right?
There was smoke, a ball of smoke completely covering the top of the mountain.
The Lord himself had descended on the mountain.
It was a holy mountain.
God's presence, his raw presence was on that mountain.
Yet it's interesting that even God bringing himself down to earth touching the tip of
the mountain asks people to stay away, to stay at a distance.
Look at verse 23.
We're still in Exodus chapter 19 verse 23.
Look at what it says.
When Moses said to Yahweh, the people cannot come up to Sinai for you have warned us saying
set bounds about the mountain, set it apart as holy.
Verse 24, then Yahweh said to him, go down and come up again, you and Aaron with you,
but do not let the priests and the people break through to come up to Yahweh, lest he
break out against them.
You see, the people had to stay away because if they came in the direct contact with God's
presence, they would die.
So God has come down to this mountain, his presence is there and he says, barricade the
mountain, keep the people away because if they venture too close, they can die.
But here is Moses going up the mountain all the way to the top in the presence of God.
And you see, Moses has this fascination that David has with the presence of God.
Moses desires to be in the presence of God so badly and David actually echoes this in
Psalms.
Look at Psalms 105 verse 4.
Psalm 105 verse 4 says, seek the Lord and his strength, seek his presence continually.
And not just that, David also recognizes that there's nowhere that he can run to escape
the presence of God.
Look at what it says in Psalm 139 verse 7, where can I go from your spirit or where can
I flee from your presence?
David goes even further, even further than that and says that he does not ever want to
leave God's presence by using the house of the Lord in that language.
He says, Psalm 26 verse 8, oh Lord, I love the habitation of your house and the place
where your glory dwells.
I just love it.
I love where your glory dwells.
I love the habitation of your house.
Psalm 27 verse 4 says, one thing I have asked from the Lord that I shall seek that I may
dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life and to behold the beauty of the
character of God, to behold the beauty of the Lord, to behold the beauty of Jesus and
to meditate in his temple.
David just wants to be in the presence of God.
He wants to behold the beauty of God.
And that same beauty, that same presence was the presence of God that had descended on
Mount Sinai in a very real and vivid way.
Thunder and lightning shot forth from the mountain.
That is the same God that David is talking about.
And Moses has the same fascination with God's presence as David has.
How many of us have such an ardent desire to know God in that way?
How many of us have such an ardent desire to stay in God's presence, to abide in his
house, to abide in his presence, to behold his beauty?
How many of us have that desire?
And when God came down on Mount Sinai, it was covered in smoke.
Could it be that Satan also tries to cover the presence of God in smoke?
That it seems like everything that God does is in the dark?
That the Old Testament is just too bloody and too violent?
That doesn't seem like the God of the New Testament.
It just has to be some mysterious thing.
It's just dark.
It's just smoky.
I can't see through it.
But what happens when we walk through the lies that Satan has placed around the presence
of God and we walk through, and as we're walking through the lies of Satan, as we're walking
through the darkness, as we're walking through all the different pictures of God that don't
align with his character and with his beauty and with his love, as we walk through that,
we start seeing a light in the distance.
We start seeing that light getting brighter and brighter and brighter and brighter.
And as Moses walks in, we start seeing that there is a light so beautiful inside.
If we could only be in his presence and behold God.
That you could walk in the presence of God and not help but be left transformed, conformed
to his image.
But Moses doesn't stop here.
You see, Moses wants more.
Moses wants more.
Moses wants an experience like no other.
Moses is not just content with the presence of God.
Now he wants to see his glory.
He wants to see his face.
While the people of Israel are shuddering in fear, while the people of Israel are afraid
of the mountain because it's shaking violently and God has descended upon it, Moses is going
up the mountain into the direct presence of God and he still wants more.
He still wants more.
How many of us are putting limits today on our relationship with God just because we're
at a good distance from the mountain?
How many of us are putting limits on how close we get to God just because it seems too mysterious
to investigate?
It seems too dangerous to go closer and closer.
How many of us are staying at a distance and we just say, no, our devotionals in the morning
are fine.
Maybe just listening to worship music is fine.
Maybe just reading one verse a day is fine.
How many of us are putting boundaries between God and ourselves?
How many of us are withholding and straining our own spiritual relationship with God because
we just feel safer at a distance?
We feel like we'd rather look at the big picture.
We feel like we'd rather stay back.
We don't want anymore.
And Moses proceeds to ask God this one question.
And I don't think many of us ask this question nowadays.
I really don't think so.
It's a question that I have not heard many people ask God.
Turn to Exodus chapter 23.
Exodus, sorry, not 23, 33.
Exodus chapter 33 verse 18 to 23.
Exodus chapter 33.
Look at what it says.
Then Moses said, I pray you show me your glory.
And he said, I myself will make all my goodness pass before you and I will proclaim the name
of Yahweh before you.
And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and I will show compassion on whom I will
show compassion.
But he said, you cannot see my face for no man can see me and live.
No man at all.
Then Yahweh says, behold, there is a place by me next to me, close to me, and you shall
stand there on the rock and it will come about while my glory is passing by that I myself,
I will put you in the cleft of the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed
by.
Then I will remove my hand and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.
My face shall not be seen.
Guess what?
David also expresses this same desire, this same fascination in the Psalms again.
Not only does David seek for God's presence, David also seeks for God's face.
So Moses and David are catching on to the same things.
Because you see in Psalm 27 verse 8, like we read in the scripture reading, it says,
you have said, seek my face and my heart says to you, your face, Lord, do I seek.
This is the same desire that David has.
And I want to ask you guys this morning, could it be that there is a connection between presence
and face, that we need to be in the presence of God in order to have that desire to see
his face, that if we're standing at a distance, we won't want to see his face because we haven't
even begun to digest the presence of the Lord, that when we actually stand in God's presence,
we start getting the desire, developing the desire, it starts growing in us, the Holy
Spirit places the desire to meet with God face to face.
What if it doesn't take being a Bible hero to see the face of God?
What if it doesn't take being some renowned person to see the face of God?
What if we could see the face of God in our families, in our problems, in our church,
in our community, in our relationships, in our friendships?
What if we could see the face of God nowadays?
So Moses stood on the mountain and the people were at the foot of the mountain.
They were afraid.
They were standing at a distance.
They did not want to walk any closer.
And Moses says, let me see your glory.
The people are at a distance and Moses says, let me see your glory from within the presence
of God.
Let me see your face.
In the same way that David would echo years later.
You see, God echoes his response in such a beautiful way.
He says again, he says, I will put you in the cleft of the rock.
I will cover you with my hand and I will remove my hand so you can see my back, but my face
shall not be seen.
Do we not see that God is a God that is open to communication?
God is the God that establishes communication and conversation with you.
God steps down to earth.
We never step up to heaven.
God always comes down, meets us where we are and still he takes the initiation of a conversation
from Moses as very serious.
And he wants to have a conversation with Moses where he's setting out kind of the boundaries
of what Moses can experience and what he can't.
And he says, you can see my back.
God invites us into conversation.
God wants us to know that he is beautiful, that he is safe, that he is approachable,
that he's not just some God standing at the distance.
God wants us to know that he's willing to talk with us in a safe manner and that he
wants to reveal himself to us.
He's not the God who wants to hide himself behind smoke.
He's the God who wants to make himself known to you.
And next thing you know, Moses just walks down the mountain with his face glowing and
he must wear a veil over his face because of how bright it was to protect the rest of
the camp.
If we could only see the face of God, could it be that when we meet with God and we ask
him to show himself to us, we cannot step away but be completely transformed with the
very countenance of our face changed?
Could it be that if we ask God to meet with him in such a powerful way, there is no way
that you can leave from that place without feeling blessed, without feeling full, without
feeling transformed, without feeling like you're different and that other people will
realize that you are different?
But hold on, wait.
Did God not say that no one could come on the mountain?
Did God not say that if anyone saw him, they would surely die?
Why is it that only Moses was able to have this experience?
Like it says in Deuteronomy chapter 34 verse 10, and there has not arisen a prophet since
in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face.
Why is it just Moses?
How come?
How is it that just Moses got this experience?
How is it that the people of Israel are in fear while Moses is having this completely
spiritual experience at the top of a mountain?
Why just Moses?
And before we get there, I just want to mention a brief parenthetical statement.
God is love in the most radical, life-transforming, crazy way.
God is love.
It doesn't say God is like love.
The Bible does not say God has the characteristic.
No.
The Bible says God is love.
Love comes from God.
It does not come from anywhere else.
God is the source for love.
Love exists because God exists.
When we fall in love with God, we fall in love with love itself.
We fall in love with God and we fall in love with love itself.
So when we walk into the presence of God, we're walking into the presence of love.
Have you ever felt an embrace so warm that you just wanted to stay in that moment and
soak it up?
Well, the presence of God is so much more than that.
The presence of God is the presence of love.
When we enter His presence, we enter the presence of love.
Hold on to that thought because we're going to use that later.
And I want to propose to you something else that we're also going to hold on for later,
that the face of God has a certain aspect that we have not yet ventured to talk about
much, at least that I've heard about.
That there could be some other aspect to the face of God that we have not considered before.
What if when God tells Moses, you cannot see my face, it is you cannot see my face yet,
period.
Look at what Paul says in 2 Corinthians chapter 4 verse 6.
Turn there to 2 Corinthians chapter 4 verse 6.
Look at what Paul says.
2 Corinthians chapter 4 verse 6 says, for God who said, let light shine out of the darkness
has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the
face of whom?
Of Jesus Christ.
Jesus is whom we can see the face of God in.
Jesus gives, he pours light into that dark mysterious thing that somehow we can't wrap
our minds against.
Jesus is the one who reveals what the face of God looks like.
He's the one who sheds light into that mystery.
Jesus came to bring light into the knowledge of the glory of God.
So when we understand the face of God in Jesus, Jesus fulfills this.
Jesus reveals the face of God.
So God is love and Jesus reveals the face of God.
Let's hold on to those two things.
And look, I just want to realize the sequence in which things happen and just further emphasize
this.
Jesus was in God's presence before he asked to see God's face.
We must be in the presence of God to experience his being, what he's all about, his transformative
power.
Yet that presence that caused the mountain to shake, that presence that had thunder and
lightning going from its midst, that presence that was in between the Caribbean, in the
Ark of the Covenant, at the top of the Ark of the Covenant, that presence that inhabited
the most holy place, that same presence was the presence that Moses was in.
But wouldn't we die?
Wouldn't we?
How?
If this morning what God has for us is that his presence is approachable, how is it that
we can approach it if we're sinners, if we're going to die?
If the presence of God is so deadly, how are we to get close?
How are we, if we're still sinners, and look, this is where it completely shakes my heart.
This is where it completely changes everything for me because it happened on the cross.
Jesus is hanging on the cross after fulfilling his ministry, his mission on earth here, and
he dies on the cross, ready to explain why no one else could see the presence of God,
why no one else could see his face.
Jesus is about to answer this extremely difficult question in one moment for all of eternity,
for the whole universe to understand.
Turn to Matthew chapter 27, verses 50 to 52.
You really do not want to miss this.
If you get anything from today, get this, Matthew 27, chapter 27, verse 50 all the way
to 52, Matthew 27, verse 50 says, and Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded
up his spirit.
And 51 says, and behold, the veil of the sanctuary was torn in two from top to bottom and the
earth shook and the rocks were split.
And verse 52 says, and the tombs were open and many bodies of the saints who had fallen
asleep were raised.
When Jesus died, the veil tore in two.
The presence of God that resided in the most holy place no longer resided there anymore.
It was not there.
The presence of God left that place.
And where does it go now?
The presence of God needs somewhere to stay.
Where is it going to go?
And look at what Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 3, verse 16, do you not know that
you are God's temple and that the God, that God's spirit dwells in you?
We have become the temple.
We have become the sanctuary.
God's presence is now not some distant thing that we see on a mountain.
God's presence is not something that's covered in a cloud anymore.
God's presence is not something that's at a distance that we need to be afraid of.
God's distance is inside us because of the sacrifice that Jesus paid on the cross.
But how can he live in us if we're sinners?
How?
How can he live in us?
Jesus died on the cross.
Jesus died on the cross and because of that, Jesus resides in us.
God resides in us because he sees the righteousness of Jesus, not yours.
God sees the pureness of Jesus' heart, not yours.
God sees a temple that is without desecration because it's the temple of Jesus.
Jesus paid that once and for all and showed that God's presence was not something that
needed to be hidden anymore.
And God takes it upon himself to live in you and me.
And now we are the temple and we are clean.
No matter what you do, no matter what I do, you are clean, we are clean once and for all
when we call upon the name of Jesus.
We have become the temple.
This is what David wanted.
This is what Moses wanted.
Look at this.
In the sanctuary, in Leviticus, it talks about what the priests would do in the sanctuary.
In the most holy place when they would kill the lamb, they would sprinkle the blood on
the Ark of the Covenant.
In the most holy place.
Now you may ask, what in the world is a priest doing, sprinkling blood on the Ark of the
Covenant in the most holy place where the presence of God is?
This would desecrate the presence of God.
Sprinkling blood in the most holy place of the sanctuary would ruin the presence of God.
It would ruin his most holy place.
It would ruin the glory and the beauty of that presence.
And you know what that symbolizes?
You know what that symbolizes when the priest would sprinkle that blood on the Ark of the
Covenant?
It means that the blood that was shed for you that symbolizes your sin, that blood that
symbolizes the nasty things that we have done, the impure thoughts that we have thought,
the life that we have lived, that sin got placed in the presence of God, on God himself.
And in one moment God says, I myself am responsible for your sin.
I myself am responsible for your sin.
God says that's no longer your sin.
That is no longer what you did.
It's no longer what you thought.
It's no longer what you lived.
It's no longer the environment you were in.
Now that's my sin.
Now that's the sin that I committed because the blood gets sprinkled in my presence.
It desecrates me.
It makes me unholy.
And that is what I'm willing to do so my creation can get back with me.
That is what our God does.
He takes sin upon himself and the responsibility for it.
And it was shown all throughout the Old Testament.
This is what the Jews would use to encourage themselves.
My sin would become God's sin and his righteousness would become mine.
That is the story of scripture.
This is why we cannot see the face of God.
This is why we could not see the face of God because, only because, he is love.
And there is such thing as a moment where you are so emotionally overdone.
When you are so burdened in your heart out of pain and sorrow and sadness that you can
quite literally, psychologically speaking, have cardiac arrest.
When God tells Moses that he cannot see his face and live when so many people died because
they tried seeing God's face, when they tried handling the Ark of the Covenant in incorrect
ways, when they tried entering his presence in incorrect ways.
When we see God face to face, we cannot help but be emotionally overwhelmed because his
eyes are so pure.
His face is so beautiful and the love that he's loved you with is so perfect that if
you were to look into his eyes, into the eyes of a loving God who's pursued you all your
life and whom you've turned your back upon so many times, if you were to look into his
eyes, you would feel so much guilt.
So much of your life would be turned upside down in that moment.
You would be so saddened and broken that you've broken the heart of God that you would be
so emotionally overdone that you would die.
It's not because God is so holy that he's going to kill you.
It's not that when you come into his presence, he's going to destroy you.
No, it's just that you could not handle a being so perfectly loving as he is.
You could not.
And that is why Jesus comes and he fulfills two things, two things that Moses and David
wanted.
Moses and David desire to be in the presence of God.
God, do not remove me from your presence, says David.
Do not remove me.
Let me stay in your house.
That presence that David wanted.
Now we can have it and it lives in us because of Jesus and Moses seeing the face of God.
Now we can see it because we are righteous, because it's available to us.
In Jesus, we can see the presence of God.
In Jesus, we can experience the presence of God.
Just let that sink in.
The almighty creator of the universe, the one who's perfect, the one who has gone to
extreme measures to show you his love for you, is living in you right now.
And that proves that Jesus' sacrifice actually worked.
All of us right now have a heartbeat because Jesus died for you thousands of years ago.
You're alive and that proves it.
God said to Moses, surely you cannot see my face and live because I myself would show
it and will show it on a cross, hanging on a cross, wearing a crown of thorns for you.
You can't see my face yet because I am going to show it on the cross and once and for all,
all of the universe is going to know that I am the God who weeps for my creation.
I am the God who is eternally burdened for your salvation.
Lord, thank you so much for your presence, for your love, for showing us your face in
the face of Jesus, that when we talk and think about the crucifixion, we can know that the
God of the universe decided not to stay inside a cloud.
He decided to make himself known for us.
God fill us with your presence.
May it overflow, may today be the day that a new relationship starts with you, a new
relationship where we can understand the glory of your love, the presence of your love.
May that fill us day and night.
May we not want to depart from it.
Like David says, may we abide in the house of the Lord forever and that we may say, Lord,
you said seek your face and that we may say, I seeked after your face.
I was searching for your face.
The verse that says, seek for me and you shall find me when you seek for me and search for
me with all of your heart.
That that verse may become a reality in our lives.
That we may not be afraid to approach you, that we may not be afraid to have communication
with you, that we may not be afraid because we wear your righteousness, God, and you wear
our sins.
Right now you look at us and you see a clean person.
You see someone clean that can be a vessel for your use.
So God, I ask that this morning your spirit may come into us in a way that it hasn't before.
That it may stir up our heart.
That it may stir up our entire being.
That our community may know.
That our family may know.
That our relationships with others, that our friends would know.
Lord, just reveal yourself to us.
May we desire to be in your presence.
And like Deuteronomy 34 says that there was never a person like Moses who was with God
face to face.
May we be a people that have encountered you face to face.
If I could only see your face, God.
If I could only.
Thank you, Lord.
In Jesus' name I pray.
Amen.