[0:00] Good evening. Welcome to all of you. We're a little bit diminished from this morning. We had a good number out this morning and young people from the CY weekend from Middlesbrough and Leeds and other parts there on their way home again now, but we remember them in prayer in a little while.
[0:18] When we come together, it's so important that we remind ourselves who it is that we're coming to seek, who it is we're coming to worship and to praise. We're not coming in one sense to meet with one another. Lovely though that is, we're coming to meet with the living God. And beginning of the letter to the Hebrews, first four verses, just listen to this description particularly of God and of his Son, our Lord Jesus. In the past, God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways. But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe.
[1:03] The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty in heaven. So he became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs. That name, of course, is the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, the greatest name, the most glorious name. So we're going to sing together our opening hymn, join all the glorious names of wisdom, love and power. All are too mean to speak my Saviour's word. There's no name compared to the name of the Son of God, Jesus Christ. 165. Let's stand as we sing.
[2:04] Let's come to the Lord our God in that name, that glorious name of Jesus. Let us all pray. Let us all pray.
[2:42] That祭 we thank you. We thank you, Lord, that Jesus Christ, when we sing Father of all this, but also today, that Jesus Christ is sacred and above and now, otherwise, we pray. We thank Him that is when we pray. We thank you that he continues to work for our salvation. Thank you, yes, the price is price is paid once for all forever. Thank you there's nothing that more we can do to contribute to the salvation he has purchased for us. We thank you, O Lord, that even today we lean on him, we rely on him, we trust in him, we depend on him, we receive from him that grace upon grace.
[3:31] From him we receive the help of the Holy Spirit. Lord, we could not take one step in the Christian life, we could not last one day, never mind a week, if it wasn't for your sustaining, powerful, amazing faithfulness to us. We come again this evening, O Lord, because we love you who first loved us. We come again, O Lord, because you deserve our praise and worship, for you are the only true God. We come again, O Lord, knowing our weakness, knowing that we are in a battle, a spiritual battle, as we thought in that hymn, where the powers of hell and death are arranged against us. We have an enemy, a tempter, a deceiver, and, O Lord, without you, then again we could not do anything. We would surely fall at the first blow, but you have provided for us a wonderful protection. You are our protection, you are our refuge, our strong tower, you are our shield, and as you said to Abram of old, our very great reward. And, O Lord, we long again that even in this evening you might meet with us and deal with us, that you might strengthen and encourage us in our faith, that you might build us up in our walk with you, that you might put within our hearts a greater desire to serve, obey, and to follow you. We pray again, O Lord, that you would equip us for all that is ahead for the coming week. Thank you for this day.
[5:04] Thank you for the opportunities we have to be together in your presence. Oh, come amongst us and upon us, we ask now, and reveal yourself to us, that we might adore you all the more, that indeed we might count your name, the most lovely name, that name of Jesus, in whose name we come and pray and ask these things. Amen. 33 and 34. Now, last week we had a little break from Exodus when we had a visit from someone, and I'll mention that in a little while, and came and preached to us from the Ukraine, Sergei Timchenko. But up until then, we've been looking at these chapters in Exodus. And we're getting close to the end, we're not there yet, but we've been looking at, in the last several weeks, that particularly sad occasion in the life of God's people when they made a golden calf and worshipped it, much to the anger of the Lord. But we're going to pick up from verse 18 of chapter 33, and we looked at part of this passage a couple of weeks ago, but we're going to read from there through to chapter 34, verse 14. So Exodus 33, beginning at verse 18.
[6:24] Then Moses said, There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock. When my glory passes by, I'll put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back, but my face must not be seen. The Lord said to Moses, chisel out two stone tablets like the first ones, and I will write on them the words that were on the first tablets which you broke.
[7:22] Be ready in the morning, and then come up on Mount Sinai. Present yourself to me there on top of the mountain. No one is to come with you or be seen anywhere on the mountain. Not even the flocks and herds may graze in front of the mountain. So Moses chiseled out two stone tablets like the first ones and went up Mount Sinai early in the morning, as the Lord had commanded him, and he carried the two stone tablets in his hands. Then the Lord came down in the cloud and stood there 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 the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.
[8:26] Moses bowed to the ground at once and worshipped. Lord, he said, if I found favor in your eyes, then let the Lord go with us. Although this is a stiff-necked people, forgive our wickedness and our sin and take us as your inheritance. Then the Lord said, I'm making a covenant with you. Before all your people I will do wonders never before done in any nation in all the world. The people you live among will see how awesome is the work that I, the Lord, will do for you. Obey what I command you today.
[9:03] I will drive out before you the Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land where you are going, or there will be a snare among you. Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, and cut down their Asherah poles.
[9:22] Do not worship any other god, for the Lord whose name is Jealous is a jealous God. And we trust the Lord will help us and reveal something more of himself in his word to us.
[9:39] Please do open your Bibles to Exodus, and particularly chapter 34, because that's where we'll be looking this evening for a few moments.
[9:59] I wonder if you've ever got more than you bargained for. I mean, in a nice way, rather than a nasty way. Sometimes you say, well, he got more than he bargained for there. But in a nice way, perhaps, you know, you've gone out for a meal, and in the restaurant, you've ordered the meal, and they say, oh, tonight there's a complimentary drink to go with your meal, or a complimentary side dish, or pudding.
[10:23] And you think, oh, that's great. And the food comes, you think, oh, that's nice. Oh, this is better than I expected. It just seems to be coming more and more. It's more than I expected, more than I bargained with.
[10:38] I think when we get to Moses and verses 6 and following, Moses must have felt, as he witnessed the glory of God passing by, that it was almost unending.
[10:51] He was getting more than he'd even hoped for or expected. He was getting over and over again the goodness of God revealed to him. Just a couple of weeks ago, we looked at the leading up to this, and particularly how we looked at the first expressions of God's revelation of his goodness.
[11:11] The Lord, the Lord, his covenant name, remember, Yahweh, the compassionate and gracious God. And then, slow to anger, his patience with us.
[11:25] But as we go on from there, and this is where we're going to be looking this evening, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to a thousand, forgiving wickedness, rebelliousness. It's as if there's just an overflowing from the very goodness of God.
[11:39] Really, there aren't enough words to describe him. But here is Moses getting this one-to-one revelation of God. Instead of stopping, as it were, after compassionate and gracious, that would be enough, surely.
[11:56] Just those two words themselves would be enough for us to feast on and to rejoice, and he has compassion and he's gracious. But it just keeps coming. Surely Moses must have been thrilled, filled with an unspeakable joy, a wonderful delight, a great sense of marvel.
[12:18] So, we're going to move on into the deeper things of God, the more of God. But just to recap the situation, remember where this is coming about, how this is happening.
[12:33] Just a matter of days earlier, God's people had committed that atrocious sin, creating a golden calf, offering sacrifices it. Aaron saying, this is your God who brought you out of Egypt.
[12:47] Terrible idolatry against the Lord their gods. The response had been that God had sent Moses back down the mountain. The tablets that God had given him with the covenant law upon it were broken.
[13:03] The people were scattered as the Levites were sent to put the sword, those who continued in their sin. And even after that, the Lord sent a plague at the end of verse 32.
[13:17] Three thousand were killed. And from that, God's response to the sin of the people was to say to Moses, I'll make a new nation out of you.
[13:31] You can be the one. Go. Sorry, he says that earlier on in another place. But here he says, off you go. Go to the promised land, but I'm not going with you.
[13:43] My presence isn't going. I can't bear to be with these sinful people. I might break out against them. And Moses wonderfully intercedes for the people, as he's done before, and prays for them.
[13:54] Lord, if you don't go with us, there's no point us going, because without you, we are lost. There's repentance on behalf of the people. Moses intercedes for them.
[14:06] And God, in his mercy and grace, responds with a wonderful promise that he will answer his prayer. Verse 17 of chapter 33. I will do the very thing you've asked.
[14:19] And it's as if Moses is emboldened now. Because God has answered his prayer again and again, he then makes this incredible private prayer, this personal prayer.
[14:30] Now show me your glory. And the Lord says that he will cause his goodness to pass in front of him. As I said a couple of weeks ago, we thought about these revelations of the nature of God, the character of God.
[14:46] And we thought about how ultimately they point us to Jesus, the manifestation of the compassion. Remember how Jesus, we're told, had compassion over the multitudes, because they were sheep without a shepherd.
[15:00] We're told about the very graciousness of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of Christ. The patience he had with his disciples when they kept doubting him or questioning him or arguing with one another.
[15:12] Just as we read at the very start of our service, the Lord Jesus, the Son of God, is the radiance of God's glory. He's the outshining. He's the manifestation.
[15:23] He's the visible presence of the goodness of God. But we haven't come to the end of his glory. And I want us to look at these very briefly for a few moments this evening.
[15:37] Abounding, middle of verse 6, abounding in love and faithfulness. Now we know that the Lord our God is infinite. That means there are no limits to our God.
[15:49] There are no restrictions to our God. That's not just in the sense of space, if I can put it that way, that he is larger than the universe. But in all of his qualities, there is no limit to him.
[16:03] So when we think of God in regard to time, where we are time-bound, he is eternal, everlasting to everlasting. We think of his power.
[16:14] We are weak and our power lasts for a moment, but he is omnipotent, the almighty. And so it is with the goodness of God. Every characteristic of the Lord our God is infinite.
[16:30] Has no limit. And that includes, as we read here, his love and faithfulness. And what is so comforting for us is that this love and faithfulness of God is manifest and revealed towards sinners.
[16:50] Towards the undeserving. Towards those who shouldn't receive of it. There's that lovely verse in Romans in chapter 5. The AV puts it this way.
[17:01] Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. Where sin was manifest. Where sin was overflowing like a volcano erupting.
[17:15] Grace was bigger. Grace was stronger. Grace was wider. Grace was deeper. And so we have this wonderful phrase, abounding in love and faithfulness.
[17:27] There's that sense of it rolling on and rolling on. We think about the waves, the boundless waves, the abounding waves. Rolling on and rolling on.
[17:38] Constantly. Ongoing. Towards us. God is not simply full of love and faithfulness.
[17:50] That's true. But there's a sense of it being towards us. Overflowing into our lives. You see the very nature of God, the character of God is this. He cannot keep to himself, or rather he will not keep to himself, that which is his goodness.
[18:06] He cannot keep to himself that which is his love and faithfulness. His desire and his purpose is that we might experience and know that for ourselves. That it might be part of our lives.
[18:18] Not only in our lives in this world, but through eternity. Abounding through life. That lovely verse at the very end of the 23rd Psalm.
[18:29] The Shepherd Psalm. How does David conclude? After he's talked about and thought about the Lord being his shepherd. He says, Surely, certainly, definitely, goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life.
[18:44] And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. There's that sense of him being followed wherever he goes. Even into the valley of the shadow of death. Love and mercy is there. Can't escape from this.
[18:57] Love and faithfulness of God. God. Wherever you are, dear friends. Wherever I am. Can't escape from the abounding love and faithfulness of God.
[19:09] Because he is there. And his love and faithfulness is there. It may be in the very lowest place. His love and faithfulness is there. It may be in just the generalities of life.
[19:21] Maybe in the plodding of life. Or the weariness of life. His love and faithfulness is there. It's abounding. And so we find that the result of such abounding love and faithfulness is that he maintains love to thousands.
[19:41] That means God continues to show his love. Not just on a one-off occasion. Not just here and there from time to time. But maintaining.
[19:52] Martin has to maintain the steam engines on the railway. And sometimes, if you watch that program, it's on the telly at the moment, isn't it?
[20:06] Sometimes they don't get maintained very well. Not by you, of course. And they break down. And so there's no steam engine. They've got to put a diesel on. Because it hasn't been maintained.
[20:17] It hasn't been able to continue. It hasn't been able to carry on. And so it is. So it is with the love of God. The love of God is always maintained. It's always there.
[20:27] It's always in peak condition. It's always running. It's always flowing. It's never having to be exchanged for something else. His love is unstoppable.
[20:39] Maintaining love. To thousands. Not just to Moses.
[20:52] Not just to a few people. Not just to the Levites or to the priesthood or to the Joshuas and the other people. But to thousands. The love of God is not a love for a few.
[21:08] It is a love for many. The love of God is not a love which is, if I can put it this way, restricted. It is not a love which is caged in. It is a love which is overflowing.
[21:19] This is God's love. The infinite God. The God who is love. His love brings salvation to multitudes.
[21:29] We're just a couple of handfuls here this evening. But we know that we're not the only ones who are going to heaven.
[21:40] We know that we're not the only ones who have received of God's salvation. We know that throughout the world, even today, there are tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions even, who are worshipping and delighting in and rejoicing in the Lord our God.
[21:58] Maintaining love. Maintaining love. Maintaining love. The love of God is not a reservoir, as it were, that can run out.
[22:09] It's not a battery that can run down. It is an overflowing, living fountain. It never runs dry. It never stops flowing.
[22:22] Maintaining love to thousands, or literally thousands of generations. Remember earlier on when God gave the commandments. In Exodus chapter 20, in the third commandment, where he speaks about not making images and bowing down to them.
[22:42] There must be a connection here. He goes on to say, But, verse 6, Showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.
[22:58] A thousand generations. When we get to heaven, dear friends, it's not going to be sparsely populated. It's going to be comfortably full.
[23:11] What did John see when he went in the Spirit to heaven and saw the throne room of God and the people surrounding that throne room? What are we told? He saw a great multitude that no one could count.
[23:25] Jesus said much the same thing when he said to his disciples, The Son of Man has not come to serve, but to be served and to give his life as a ransom for many. And what is happening in our day and age is this.
[23:42] There's that Christ is counting in his sheep for whom he died. He is gathering in his church for whom he shed his blood. He is bringing in that many for whom he paid the ransom. Why is it that Christ has not returned yet?
[23:55] Why is it the world continues to spin on its axis and God has not yet stepped in with judgment against wickedness? Because he is still the God who maintains love to thousands.
[24:07] He has yet people to save and to rescue and to redeem and to bring into his fold, into his kingdom. What does it mean to receive of the love of God?
[24:21] We're told. Forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. When you speak to people of the love of God, they don't want to mention the word sin. They want to think about God as loving us just as we are.
[24:34] Accepting us just as we are. Oh, God would never judge us. God would never point the finger at our sin. God would never say this is wrong. God loves us with a wonderful, gentle, all-embracing, all-accepting love.
[24:48] Well, that denies the love of God because the love of God, as we see it revealed here, is a love that forgives. Not a love that brushes under the carpet our sin or ignores our sin or says, No, I'm going to turn a blind eye to it.
[25:02] But a God who faces us with who we are and what we are like and says, Yet I'm willing to forgive you. Even the iniquity and the wickedness of the people that made an idol and broke his commandments against him.
[25:22] And notice how all-embracing the forgiveness of God is. If we take away at the love of God, yes, it is wonderful, but the embracing love of God is that every sin can be forgiven.
[25:33] We have wickedness, rebellion and sin. God describes it in that threefold way. Wickedness. Well, the phrase often we have, iniquity.
[25:46] It describes a turning away from what is right and a turning to what is wrong. It speaks of something crooked or bent, not straight. That's exactly how God described the sin of the people when they committed idolatry.
[26:02] Back in chapter 32, in verse 8, They have been quick to turn away from what I commanded them. Wickedness. A turning to.
[26:17] God promises to forgive those sins. God promises to forgive us when we depart from doing what is right and choose to do what is wrong.
[26:29] It's a conscious decision. Again, we need to take hold of this. Yes, some people think, well, I've done some wrong things, but all the bad things I've done that I didn't mean to do, those will be, they don't count.
[26:43] Yes, they do. But the amazing thing about the forgiveness of God is forgiveness for deliberate acts of sin. And none of us are innocent of that.
[26:57] There are times when we have chosen what is wrong over what is right for our own personal pleasure, our own personal gain, our own personal pride.
[27:07] And yet God says, I forgive these things. These deliberate acts of iniquity and wickedness. And then he speaks about rebellion.
[27:19] Not just forgiving wickedness, but forgiving rebellion. That's the phrase transgression. It means to break a law, to disobey a law, to break a command.
[27:33] It's to violate God's treaty, as it were. It's to take what God has said is right and just and good and to go against it.
[27:46] Not just to deviate, not just to be crooked, but not just to turn aside from, but to deliberately rebel against it. You see, God is the God who rightfully expects us to be obedient to him.
[27:59] He created us. He made this world. He knows how it works. He's the one who's got the right to set the laws by which we live our lives. To reject his rightful place and to reject his rightful law is to rebel.
[28:15] It's to an act of treason against the Holy God. And yet God promises to forgive.
[28:26] In the old days, if you watch some of these history programs, you know that the most vile and hideous punishments were reserved for those who committed treason or raised a rebellion against the monarch.
[28:41] They weren't just simply hung. They were horrible, nasty, unpleasant things were done to them. The most vile crime considered was rebellion and treason.
[28:55] But God had given them a law. He'd given them a very clear law. Just a matter of days earlier, when he'd given them the Ten Commandments, which they knew only too well, where he had said, But they had done exactly that.
[29:16] As soon as Moses' back was turned, 40 days, they said, Where is he? Where is the God that we are supposed to worship? And Aaron makes this calf and they worship it and bow down to it.
[29:32] Even that rebelliousness of our hearts. In our lives, God forgives. And sin. And everything else, really.
[29:46] Every other rebellion. Every other iniquity. Those sins. Not just those open sins as the people committed. What about those secret sins? Secret sins of the heart.
[29:58] The secret sins of the thought. Those sins of the future. As well as those sins of the past. Whatever our sin, dear friends. Whatever our corruption. Whatever our wickedness.
[30:13] Whatever God sees in your life and mine. The things that we don't detect, but he detects. He has promised to forgive them all because of his love and faithfulness.
[30:26] Because of his compassion and grace. And he forgives them forever. Totally.
[30:38] We still have those skeletons in our cupboards, don't we? Which from time to time the devil likes to pull out to show us and dangle the bones in front. Well, remember that skeleton of when you were young.
[30:51] Or what happened when you were in that situation. And he likes to tell us that it's still there and God remembers it. No, he said I will remember your sins no more.
[31:01] And we know that this is true. We know that this is what God has done for us in and through the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not an empty promise. It's something that has been confirmed.
[31:12] Something that has been purchased at great price. In Ephesians and Paul's letter in chapter 1, he tells us in him, that's Jesus, We have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he has lavished on us.
[31:33] We need lavish grace because we have abundant sin. Do we daily rejoice in the forgiveness of sins?
[31:48] You see, the more we are aware of the state of our hearts, the more we will delight in the forgiveness of sins. That's why it's impossible for somebody to be a Christian and not be aware of sin.
[32:05] That's why the gospel can't be preached unless there is an awareness of sin. How can somebody love a saviour, a rescuer, a deliverer? How can they love a forgiving God when they don't believe they need forgiving?
[32:18] How can we need one to die in our place and bear the punishment we deserve if we don't believe that we deserve any punishment? Sin abounding leads to grace abounding and love abounding.
[32:41] Sin abounding leads to grace abounding and love abounding and sin. However, we might say, well, God, how can you do that? How can you forgive wickedness, rebellion and sin? That sounds like you're a soft touch.
[32:53] you're a god who well you're a god who's all cuddly a god who's like a jelly you you're not strong you don't stand against you you go with you allow you put up with but god doesn't stop there he speaks about the maintaining of his love to thousands the forgiving of wickedness rebellion sin he doesn't stop there he says yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished there is grace for all sin there is forgiveness for every sin but if we will not receive of that forgiveness if we reject that love and mercy of god if we will not have his grace then we shall have his judgment we shall have his righteousness we shall have the punishment of our sins he does not leave the guilty unpunished he punishes that's not a very modern view of god is it a god who punishes but here it is in black and white here it is not just in black and white here is coming from the very lips of god himself declaring to moses his goodness he is good that he punishes iniquity he is good that he punishes the guilty now we can get very hung up can't we because we say whoa this is this can't be right he punishes the children and their children to the sin of the parents of the third and fourth generation this can't this can't be true this this is the old testament god this isn't the god of jesus this is this is the old god before jesus this is this is a a a different god of course it's not a different god this is one god this is the same god yes we if we embrace him and receive him as the god of compassion and grace slow to anger and abounding in love and faithfulness if we receive him as a god who maintains love and to thousands and forgives wickedness rebellion and sin we've got to take the whole package and the whole package with god is this that he punishes sin but why this why this mention of third and fourth generation i think it's very simply this god is putting a comparison he said i'll forgive and maintain love to thousands but i won't let off three or four generations there's a comparison isn't there something huge and great by comparison his love compared to his punishment is so much greater his mercy and his grace is greater he's still just he's still uh righteous but as he says himself again and again i don't delight in the death of the wicked i'd rather they turn from their sin and were forgiven where sin abounds grace does much more abound it's a principle that permeates to the very scripture and it permeates and reveals to us the nature of god dear friends we cannot ignore the justice and judgment of god but dear friends what you must do is hold it in in wonderful balance with the greatness and the vastness of the goodness and grace of god how does moses respond to this this revelation of god this glorious vision of god given to him moses we're told bow down to the ground at once and worship shouldn't that be our response to god so often we come to these things and we and there's bits that we don't quite fully understand or bits
[36:58] that go against our our reasoned modern minds and we say well you know we need to work this out and we need to argue through this we we need to question this but no moses as he's revealed as god has revealed to him simply bows down he acknowledges that god is greater than him we must do that dear friends we must respond in adoration lord we don't fully understand your glory we don't fully understand and comprehend what it means but we know that it's wonderful aren't you glad that our god is a god who is just and not unjust even if we don't fully comprehend all of that aren't you glad that we have a god who forgives sins does not treat us as our sins deserve is my response that response of moses it shouldn't just be a response that happens every now and then that should be the attitude of my heart and life daily that daily i'm bowed in awe and wonder before god daily i'm in it i'm my mouth is open my jaw is dropped when i think of this goodness and glory of god but something else happens as well with moses do you notice he's not only in awe and wonder of god but the very revelation of who god is moves him to pray to pray for others to pray for their forgiveness to pray in one sense we might say for their salvation lord he said if i found faith in your eyes and let the lord go with us although this is a stiff-necked people forgive our wickedness and sin and take us as your inheritance when we see the glory of god the majesty of god as it is rightly displayed in scripture his grace and his judgment then we are moved to pray yes we know that these people deserve judgment just as we did but lord you are gracious please come to them and meet with them and make them known and bring them into your family the more we look upon the goodness of god the more we will be moved to pray for his goodness to reveal it you see if we have a small view of god if we don't see him as he is and we of course we don't see him as he is because no one can see him and live only in heaven but if we have a small view of him not the biblical view of him then actually that will stunt us in our christian life it will stunt us in our prayers it will stunt us in our worship but if we have a big view of the greatness of god in all his wonder in all of his abundance then it will move us not only to worship but to pray to pray that's what moses does he worships and he prays that's really the christian life worshiping and praying and how does god respond to that prayer wonderfully verse 10 again he responds i'm making a covenant with you before all your people i'll do wonders never before done in any nation of the world the people you live and we'll see how awesome is the work that i the lord will do for you lord forgive them go with us yes i will and i will covenant i promise i bind myself to this people to do them good and to reveal my glory in them this reminds us again of the god who is slow to anger and abounding in love and faithfulness he doesn't say well look you know one spit and twice shy they've had their chance i've delivered them from egypt and all these miracles i brought them to sinai they've had the commandments and immediately as soon as they can they break it and they commit spiritual adultery with me and idolatry that's it they've had that i've been more than generous when you say more than generous you see god is more than generous he's more than gracious
[41:02] and he gives and he gives and he gives again and it comes to one final thing here and it's there at the end of verse 14 because it's again another one of those mysteries one of those things that people question and say can't be right and must be the god of the old testament and not the new testament though he's the god who is the god of the bible do not worship any other god for the lord whose name is jealous is a jealous god god doesn't just say i am jealous he says my name is jealous i'm i'm known for being jealous but of course dear friends when we think of words we have to remember that when we are dealing with god we are not dealing with men and women he's not like us he's different everything about him is pure and good and upright it's not tainted with sin like our jealousy is when god calls himself jealous it's part of his glory it's connected with his loving kindness it's connected with his grace jealousy is very different to envy though we tend to merge them together envy is that craving desire to have something which is not rightfully ours it's that covetousness of heart that wants another person's possessions or another person's abilities or even another person's appearance god's jealousy is part of his passionate love to safeguard the affection of his people that's why we find through the scriptures both old and new testament god describing his relationship with his people as that between a husband and wife he has a jealousy of that relationship in isaiah 54 the lord god says for your maker is your husband the lord almighty is his name god believes in the sanctity of marriage and he believes in the sacredness of his relationship to his church he is our husband who is covenanted and bound himself to us in a marriage vows which he will never break and he is jealous that we his church the bride that he loves should be covenanted to him with that same love and faithfulness and devotion we some of you i know know the heartbreak of unfaithfulness some of you know the pain god is put within us hearts that feel because he has a heart of love that feels the jealousy of god is a jealousy of love and it reaches its perfect expression in the determination of jesus to have us as his beloved bride so so jealous is he of our love so earnest is he to have our love that he would let nothing not even the cross not even death and suffering stand in his way of owning us and taking us and making us his bride there's that wonderful teaching in ephesians 5 directed to husbands and wives but we're told that this is a picture of christ in the church husbands love your wives just as christ loved the church and gave himself up for her we talk about extraordinary love
[45:02] people doing amazing things to demonstrate their love to one another there's nothing more extraordinary more amazing than the love of christ that took him to the cross for you and for me to have us to to jealously obtain us and that jealous love of christ must respond be responded to with a zealous love of our own a zealous love which is shown in the way that we live lives which are dedicated to him as he dedicated himself to us notice again what paul writes love your wives as christ loved the church and gave himself up for her why to make her holy cleansing her by the washing with water through the word to present her to himself as a radiant church without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish but holy and blameless the greater we see the love of christ the greater our devotion to him the greater our desire for holiness the greater our longing for obedience the greater our desire to do his will this is the goodness of god that affects and changes transforms and as we come god willing next week to moses once more we'll see that this revelation of god this meeting with god in his goodness and glory has an absolutely radiant effect upon moses before the people have you prayed that prayer lately have you prayed that prayer when you come to the scriptures have you prayed that prayer before you come to church on a sunday have you prayed that prayer before you come to the lord in prayer show me your glory let me see something more of who you are let me see something more of your goodness that actually in my life that goodness and glory may also be revealed may god himself the god of peace sanctify you through and through may your whole spirit soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our lord jesus christ the one who calls you is faithful and he will do it amen before you so to please thank you and please so for