Moses Again

What do we do when the Christian life does not look the way we thought it would? When our dreams are crushed, our circumstances feel out of control, and we find ourselves asking God the same question Gideon asked: if you are with us, why did these things happen? This message takes us deep into one of the most extraordinary moments in all of Scripture, when Moses, standing at the edge of spiritual exhaustion after Israel's catastrophic failure at the foot of Mount Sinai, cries out with stunning clarity: show me your glory. In that cry, we discover the simplest and most profound description of what the Christian life actually is. Not a list of disciplines to master, not a set of traditions to perform, not an emotional experience to manufacture, but beholding God. The passage from Exodus 33 and 34 reveals what God shows Moses when he answers that cry: a God who is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love. These are not abstract theological categories. They are the living heartbeat of a God who absorbs what we deserve and freely gives what we could never earn. And when that glory passes before Moses, something extraordinary happens. He falls to the ground in worship. Not because he tried harder, not because he followed a manual, but because beholding God transformed him from the inside out. His face literally shone. That is the promise held out to us as well. Beholding God is how we become like him.