Todd's Road Grace Church would
like to invite you to listen to a sermon by our pastor, Todd
Nybert. We're located at 4137 Todd's
Road, two miles outside Manowar Boulevard. Sunday services are
at 10.30 a.m. and 6 p.m. Bible study is at
9.45 a.m. Wednesday services are at 7 p.m.
Nursery is provided for all services. For more information, visit our
website at toddroadgracechurch.com. Now here's our pastor, Todd Nybert. In Exodus chapter 33 verse 18,
Moses makes this request. I beseech thee, show me thy glory. Now there is no greater request
a man can make. I beseech thee, Show me thy glory. Now, everyone has asked God for
things. We get in trouble, we ask for
deliverance from that trouble. We get sick or one of our loved
ones gets sick, we ask him to heal those sicknesses. Whatever
trouble, maybe we're even asking for mercy or forgiveness, and
those are good things to ask for. But this is the highest
request a human being can make. I beseech thee, show me thy glory. Now, this is toward the end of
the prayer that Moses prayed after the golden calf incident.
Now, Moses had been gone 40 days. The children of Israel make a
golden calf. and practice abominable idolatry. The scripture says they sat down
to eat and drink and rose up to play. And it was even called
a feast of the Lord, a feast of Jehovah. They blended paganism
with the truth, and it's what most contemporary worshipers
seem like, rising up to eat and drink and to play. It's not according
to the scripture. But the children of Israel had
done this. And the Lord says to Moses afterward, then the
Lord said unto Moses, depart and go up hence, thou and the
people which thou hast brought up out of the land of Egypt,
unto the land which I swear, unto Abraham, to Isaac, and to
Jacob, saying unto thy seed will I give it, and I will send an
angel. not myself. I will send an angel before thee,
and I'll drive out the Canaanite, the Amorite, the Hittite, the
Perizzite, the Hivite, the Jebusite, unto a land flowing with milk
and honey. For I will not go up in the midst of thee, for
thou art a stiff-necked people, lest I consume thee." He said,
I'm not going with you into the promised land. Verse four, when
the people heard these evil tidings, They mourned, and no man put
on his ornaments, that which would beautify him. For the Lord
had said unto Moses, saying to the children of Israel, you are
a stiff-necked people. I will come up into the midst
of thee in a moment and consume thee. Therefore now put off thine
ornaments from thee, that I may know what to do unto thee. And the children of Israel stripped
themselves of their ornaments. by the Mount Horeb. Now, if you
come into God's presence, don't come trying to make yourself
look better. Come in honesty. Strip yourselves of any ornament
that you think would make you look better in God's presence.
You come as a sinner. And this is the way these people
were. And we read in verse 7, And Moses took the tabernacle,
Now, this is not the tabernacle that would later be constructed
with the Ark of the Covenant and the mercy seat and the brazen
altar and all the different paraphernalia of the temple. This was before
that was made. It's called the tabernacle of
the congregation or the meeting. Verse 7, Moses took the tabernacle
and pitched it without the camp afar off from the camp and called
it the tabernacle of the congregation or the meeting place. And it
came to pass that everyone which sought the Lord went out unto
the tabernacle of the congregation, which was without the camp."
Now, here's the difference between a believer and an unbeliever. A believer seeks the Lord. I want to know Him. The believer
seeks the Lord. The unbeliever may seek many
things, many blessings, Everybody wants to be blessed, but the
believer seeks the Lord. And we read in verse 9, And it came to pass, as Moses
entered into the tabernacle, the cloudy pillar descended and
stood at the door of the tabernacle. And the Lord talked with Moses.
And all the people saw the cloudy pillar at the tabernacle. And
all the people rose up and worshipped every man in his tent door."
Now, if you and I ever understand what the presence of the Lord
is or who the presence of the Lord is, there was a visible
presence at this time, the cloudy pillar. There's only one response,
worship. You'll only worship an absolute
sovereign, one in whose hands you are, and He can do with you
whatever He's pleased to do. They saw the visible presence
of God in a cloud. They didn't see God Himself.
No man can see Him. He said, No man can see My face
and live. But they saw this manifestation of His presence. And then we
read in verse 11, And the Lord spake unto Moses face to face,
as a man speaketh unto his friend. Now, is this because Moses was
so morally superior than the rest of the children of Israel
that God could speak to him face to face as a man speaks with
his friend? You know, Abraham was called
the friend of God. How can that be? This can only
be understood in light of union with the Lord Jesus Christ. Every
believer is one with Christ. So God can speak to every believer
through Christ, through union with Christ, face to face, as
a man speaks with his friend. And this is the relationship
every believer desires to have with God. I want to be his friend. I want him to count me as his
friend. And through union with Christ,
that's realized. Now, now Moses is going to begin
to pray. Here's the prayer, beginning
in verse 12. And Moses said unto the Lord,
See thou sayest unto me, bring up this people. Now this is where
we want to begin with the Lord. We want to begin with what he
has said. I love what David prayed at the
dedication of the temple. Do as thou hast said. That's what we want. You plea
what he has said. Now the Bible, remember, the
Bible is the inspired word of God. All scripture is given by
inspiration of God. And I realize many people might
have a hard time with that. Well, how do you know men didn't
pervert the original scriptures and it's men's ideas? How do
you think that it can't be the word of men as well? Well, you
believe God created the universe. Somebody says, well, no, I'm
an atheist. Well, there was one time when you believed it, because
all men by nature know that somebody made all this, and they see his
eternal power in Godhead. And to become an atheist, it's
a big leap in the dark. It's illogical. It's irrational. Somebody had to make all this,
and nobody made him. He is the cause, and he is the
one who inspired this book. The Bible claims inspiration.
All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and if it's not inspiration,
all we have is my opinion and your opinion. We need a written
revelation. So when you come into God's presence,
you come, you find out what He has said, and you plead what
He has said. When you listen to a preacher
preach, make sure he's preaching what the Bible declares. And this is where Moses begins.
He said, you said. Bring up this people, and thou
hast not let me know whom thou wilt send with me, yet you said,
I know you by name. And thou hast found grace in
my sight. That's what I want. I want the Lord to know my name.
not my name. And I need to find grace in his
sight. Now, look what he says, Now therefore
I pray thee, verse 13, Now therefore I pray thee, if I found grace
in thy sight. Now this is the one thing he
was pleading. Moses didn't talk about all he
left in Egypt. He was mighty in words and deeds
in the land of Egypt. Some people think he could have
inherited the throne. He was the son of Pharaoh's daughter.
And he didn't talk about all the riches he left and all the
things that he'd done. No, he said, if I found grace
in thy sight. And Moses knew what grace was.
He's the one who wrote this. Let me show you the first time
the word grace is used in the Bible. Genesis 6, verse 5 says,
And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth,
and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was
only evil continually. Now, that's what God sees. Somebody
says, I don't see that. Well, I'm sorry, but that's what
God sees. That's God's testimony of man. Every imagination of the thoughts
of his heart was only evil continually. Verse 8, but Noah found grace
in the eyes of the Lord. Noah was just as bad as all those
other people, but Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Grace made the difference. Thank God for His grace. He says, now if I found grace
in thy sight, show me now thy way. I want to know the way to
God. I want another way to the Father.
Show me. I want Him to show me. Show me now by way. Is this your
prayer? Do you bow to what He says? Christ said, I am the way,
the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but
by me. He is the way of peace. He is the way of righteousness.
He is the way of truth. He is the way of peace. He is
the way of hope. The only way you're going to
get into the presence of God is if you're in Him. No man comes
to the Father but by me. Show me now thy way that I might
know thee. I want to know the living God.
I don't want to know stuff about Him. I want to know Him. I want
to know Him to where He knows my name. And when I use His name,
I'm not name dropping. It's because I know Him. I want
to know him, I want to know you that I might find grace in thy
sight. This is one, my one great desire
is to find grace in his sight. Because if I know if he looks
at me apart from Christ, there's no hope for me. I desire to find
grace, unmerited, demerited favor in his sight. And consider that
this nation is thy people. I didn't bring them out of Egypt,
you did. This is your people." Now God replies, and He says,
My presence shall go with thee, and I'll give thee rest. What a blessing of grace. I will go with you. I know I
said I would send an angel. The Lord always knew he was going
to go with him, but he's going to have Moses seek his face.
Moses wouldn't have sought him like this had he not said, I'm
not going with you. And Moses is saying, please go
with us. We need your presence. And he promises, I will go with
you and I will give the rest. the rest of not working for salvation,
not trying to earn salvation. You have it freely for Christ's
sake. And He said unto him, If thy
presence go not with me, carry us not up hence. We don't want
to go if you don't go with us. For wherein shall it be known
that I and thy people have found grace in thy sight? Is it not
that thou goest with us? So shall we be separated, I and
thy people, from all the people that are upon the face of the
earth." Now, if you are a believer, if I'm a believer, it's because
God separated me from all the people the rest of the people
of the earth. Now, what does that mean? Well,
if you're a believer, God separated you in eternal election when
He chose you to be His child. If you're a believer, God separated
you on Calvary's tree when He put away your sins. And if you're
a believer, He separated you in the new birth, the Holy Spirit
giving you a new nature to believe. You've now got a new nature.
You're separated from all other people. And if God didn't do
this, no one would be saved. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 4,
7, who makes you to differ from another? God makes you to differ. And what do you have that you
didn't receive? He said, so shall we be separated
from all the people that are upon the face of the earth. And
then the Lord graciously says, and the Lord said unto Moses,
I'll do this thing also that thou hast spoken, for thou hast
found grace in my sight, and I know thee by name. And that's
when Moses says, I beseech thee, show me your glory. Now, think of what Moses had
already seen. He'd seen the bush burning with
fire that could not be consumed. And that is a beautiful portrait
of the Lord Jesus Christ. That fire didn't need the wood. for energy. It was utterly independent.
That's God. He has no needs. The wood could
not be consumed by the fire. That's the perfect humanity of
the Lord Jesus Christ. Moses saw that. And Moses saw
the ten plagues and how Egypt was destroyed through that. Moses
saw it. Moses saw the parting of the
Red Sea, and he and the children of Israel walked through the
sea as on dry ground with walls of water on the right hand and
on the left. Moses saw that. Moses saw the manna come down
from heaven, and the children of Israel had food. Moses saw
water come from the rock after it was spit in another type of
Christ. The waters of God's grace come
through the smiting of the Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary's tree.
Moses saw that. Moses saw the giving of the law. He saw the finger of God writing
in the tables of stone. He saw all that, and yet he says,
I've not seen your glory. Show me what you say is your
glory. I hope everybody listening to
me right now is praying the same thing. Lord, show me your glory. And God gives a threefold answer. He says in verse 19, I'll make
all my goodness pass before you. And I will proclaim the name
of the Lord before you. And I will be gracious to whom
I will be gracious. And I will show mercy to whom
I will show mercy. Now his answer to Moses' request,
show me thy glory. It's his goodness. It's his name. Now his name, what do you mean?
Jehovah? El Shaddai? His name represents
his attributes. His name represents the person
behind the name. And you can see that in Exodus
34 when he comes and proclaims the name of the Lord. Verse 5
of chapter 34, and the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him
there and proclaimed the name of the Lord. And the Lord passed
by before him and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God, merciful
and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and
truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression
and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty, visiting
the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and upon the children's
children unto the third and fourth generation. When he proclaimed
his name, he proclaimed his attributes. So His glory is His goodness,
His glory is His name, and His glory is His sovereign grace. Now, what is meant by sovereign
grace? He says, I will be gracious to
whom I will be gracious. You're not going to dictate to
me who I'm going to have mercy on, He says to Moses. Moses asked
Him to save all of them, and we ought to ask the Lord to save
everybody. I realize that. He saves whom He will. His grace
is sovereign grace. His grace is not His response
to you doing anything. It's simply because He willed
to do it as an act of His own free and sovereign grace. I will
be merciful to whom I will be merciful. Now let's consider
these three things. God's glory is God's goodness. Everything that God is is good. You, anything that comes from
God is good. He's originally good. He's essentially
good. He's infinitely good. He's eternally
good. He's immutably good. All that
emanates from God is good. His decrees before time began,
when he decreed everything that would take place, it's all good. Wisdom is good. His creation is good. His law is good. His providence
is good. Salvation is a declaration of
His goodness. You see, it's His capacity to
be good to people as evil as the children of Israel, me and
you. That's His goodness. They made a golden calf. I would
have wiped them all out. And God doesn't, because God
is good. Every attribute of God is good,
and it's the goodness of God that leads thee to repentance,
Paul says in Romans 2, 4. It's because God is good that
any man repents. He brings them to where they
repent. He gives them repentance, and
they truly have a change of mind, because God is good. Whatever
God does is good. God's even good in judgment.
Now, if there were a man, try to look at this scenario, if
there were a man that was guilty of killing children, abusing
their bodies and killing them, and he was caught, and he was
brought to justice, and he was executed for that, you know what
most people would say? Well, that's good. That's good that that happened.
God is good in all that He does. His justice is a good justice. Whatever it is He does is good
because He did it. Now, God's goodness, His capacity
to save people like the children of Israel, and then His name.
I'll proclaim my name before you now. God's name is His attributes. And you know that every attribute
of God is manifest in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
this is how He saves. This is why He saves. He saves
that His attributes might be glorified. God does all things
for His own glory. Remember, Moses is asking, show
me your glory. And God's glory is the reason
behind everything. It's why He does what He does.
Creation was for His glory. Salvation was for His glory.
Well, how does God save? By the cross of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And the cross of Christ makes known every attribute of
God. Now, in the cross, I see God's
purpose. Christ is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
I see God's holiness, even when sin is found on His Son. He turns
His back and forsakes Him. We see God's justice. All sin
will be punished. We see God's power too. God's
made a way for sin to be no more. He's made a way to make it to
where I have no sin before Him because of the justifying work
of Christ on the cross. God's wisdom is displayed. He has found a way to be just
and yet justify the one who believes on Christ, even though they're
sinful. He takes a sinful man and makes him just. The same
one who says, I will not by any means clear the guilty, makes
a guilty sinner absolutely just in his sight without sin through
the work of Christ on the cross. You see, every attribute of God,
His love, that he would love sinners so much that he'd give
his son his mercy, his sovereignty. Every attribute of God is fully
displayed in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. I will proclaim
my name before you. And then he says, I will be gracious
to whom I will be gracious. And I will show mercy on whom
I will show mercy. Now, he said, I will be gracious. I will be merciful." See, that's
God's nature. It's His. God must be gracious
because He is gracious. He must be merciful because He
is merciful. And you take that group that
forgot God so quickly and went out and made a golden calf and
said, these be thy gods, O Israel, that delivered thee from Egypt,
and worshiped that golden calf. And God says, I'm going to be
gracious to them. I'm going to be merciful to them. God is gracious
because that's His character. But He says, I'll be gracious
to whom I will be gracious. Now, Paul uses this in Romans
9 to demonstrate the sovereignty of grace. We read in verse 11
of Romans chapter 9, for the children being not yet born,
neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of
God according to election might stand. not of works. But of him
that calleth, it was said unto her, The elder shall serve the
younger, as it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I
hated. What shall we say then? Is there
unrighteousness with God? Is God unfair for loving Jacob
and not loving Esau? Look how Paul answers, God forbid,
for he saith to Moses, I'll have mercy on whom I will have mercy,
and I'll have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then
it's not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but
of God that showeth mercy. Now, what this teaches us is
that God's grace is not some payment to us for something we've
done. It's His sovereign prerogative. I will be gracious to whom I
will. It doesn't have anything to do with you asking God for
anything. It doesn't have anything to do with any merit on your
part. It's simply God being gracious. That is His glory. Now let's
go on reading. In verse 20, and He said, Thou
canst not see my face, for there shall no man see me and live. You know, I hear people talk
about casual worship. That's the most greatest oxymoron
in the world. Casual worship? There's no casual
worship of the living God. Thou canst not see my face and
live, for there shall no man see me and live. And the Lord
said, Behold, there's a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon
a rock. This is to picture the Lord Jesus
Christ. And it shall come to pass, when
my glory passes by, that I put you in a cliff to the rock, That's
where the hymn comes from, Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let me
hide myself in thee. Let the water and the blood from
thy riven side which flowed be of sin the double cure, save
from wrath, and make me pure. I'll put you in the cleft of
the rock, and I'll cover thee with my hand while I pass by,
and I'll take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts.
Now, God is spirit. He's not made of parts, and this
is given to accommodate our weakness and frailty. I'll take away mine
hand, and thou shalt see my back parts, but my face shall not
be seen. Now, God's back parts are His
works, or His work, His great work of salvation. Now, there
are two views of salvation. One is due. The other is done. Christ finished the work the
Father gave Him to do, the great work of salvation, and it's in
the great work of salvation that we see the true character of
God. We see His back parts, and His
face is only seen in His Son. God, who commanded the light
to shine out of the darkness, hath shined in our hearts to
give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, His name,
His goodness, His mercy, in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, we have this message on
DVD and CD. If you call the church, write
or email, we'll send you a copy. This is Todd Kniper, praying
that God will be pleased to make Himself known to you. That's
our prayer. Amen. To receive a copy of the sermon
you have just heard, send your request to tod.nybert at gmail.com. Or you may write or call the
church at the information provided on the screen.