The Cloud of Glory (Exodus 39:32-40:38)

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Good morning church, you can go ahead, grab your Bibles, open it up to Exodus 39 starting in verse 32 Exodus 3932 as has been mentioned, we’ll wrap up our series this morning. If you don’t have a Bible, there’s a black one in front of you there in the pew. It’s on page 77 if you’re in that Bible, and if you don’t have a Bible, by the way, at all nowhere in your home, just go ahead and take that one. That would be our gift to you. We’d be grateful if you were to have one in your home going forward. But as you turn in there, Exodus 39 I’ve been doing a lot of premarital counseling this year. I think I’ve done as much in the last year as I’ve done in the almost decade before that. And it’s always interesting, I’ve done some of the ceremonies as well. So, you know, intimately involved in this process of planning a wedding, which is a big deal, like, there is a lot of prep, never mind the relational prep, like working on communication, all that kind of stuff. But you’ve got the reception, you’ve got that, you know, all this stuff happening, getting ready for the big day. It’s even what we call it, right? It’s the Big Dig, and everything comes together at that moment. And we love a good culmination, don’t we? That’s why there’s so much pomp and circumstance, including the song pomp and circumstance that attends graduation, because, you know, all those years that you put in, and here’s the celebration, or if you’ve done a building project renovation, what do you have to do at the end of it? You got to have a ribbon cutting ceremony with those giant golden scissors. And that’s really where we are here, too. That’s the closest one to what we’re doing here at the end of Exodus, because they’ve constructed the tabernacle. We’re getting ready for the ribbon cutting ceremony, and we have spent a lot of time prepping for this, not counting the couple chapters there with the golden calf and the fallout from that, we’ve spent the last dozen or so chapters either on blueprints for the tabernacle or a detailed description of its construction. So we’re ready for the culmination. But if you were reading this for the first time, never mind living it, there would actually be an element of suspense, I think, because of that whole Golden Calf thing that we’ve been talking about, like, Will God actually live in this tent? Will he come down and dwell with His people despite their sin? Because, if not, well, it’s a huge letdown, isn’t it? It would be a little bit like having the flowers and the candles and the tuxes and the touches and the dresses and the reception hall and the DJ, but the bride and groom decided not to go through with it like that’s not exactly a wedding, then, is it? And that’s where we are here. Will all this work have been for not, or will God come down and fill this place? Is a question, by the way, that we should be asking too in the present, because, of course, we’ve got our own Golden Calf problems in our own hearts, as we’ve been talking about, will God dwell with us? And if so, how some of the questions we ask as we look at these three scenes wrapping up Exodus. So scene number one, inspecting the work. This is the end of chapter 39 so verses 32 to 43 I’m not going to read all of it, because it’s a lengthy list of everything they built, which we’ve gone through already, but let me begin in verse 32 at least. So all the work on the tabernacle the tent of meeting was completed. The Israelites did everything, just as the Lord commanded Moses. Then they brought the tabernacle to Moses, and you get again, a long list of everything done. Drop down to verse 42 the Israelites had done all the work just as the Lord had commanded. Moses. Moses inspected the work and saw that they had done it just as the Lord had commanded. So Moses blessed them. So little bit of context for us, especially because where is this coming right after the part we didn’t read in our series. Why? Because these chapters 35 to 39 are almost in a verbatim repetition of chapters 25 to 31 which we did read. The only thing that changes is that those first chapters are the order of importance as God gives them the blueprints. And then these later chapters are just the order of construction, the actual order in which it was built. But the key phrase in all of those chapters, and we see it here even in verse 32 is as the Lord commanded, as the Lord commanded, we got those blueprints. Did they follow instructions? And yes, the answer is, they did it all as the Lord commanded. In fact, that phrase shows up nine times in chapter 39 and shows up another nine times in chapter 40. Like we get the point. Okay, they followed God’s instructions. Except it’s a really important point. If. Think about it, because the golden calf just happened, right? So we still got that hanging over there. They were not famous for doing what the Lord had commanded, but here they did. So Moses leads God’s people from scandalous rebellion to scrupulous obedience. It’s also an important point, given the tabernacle’s function, I mean, if God is going to dwell here, it has to be perfect. If this is where he’s going to live, if this is where he’s going to speak to his people, if this is where the high priest will make atonement for the sins of the people, there can be no flaws. And so we get in this section that is Moses is doing the final inspection before the ribbon cutting ceremony. If you’ve ever been involved in a construction project, you know what this is like? We did it here about five years ago, no, not quite five years ago, with city New and so at a certain point, the architect and I, along with some other individuals, Kyle, Gary, John, you know, people like that, who were deeply involved in the project. We walked around for a long time, and we’re checking, you know, did they do what we asked them to do and put together our punch list? The owner and the architect, going, Nope, this wasn’t quite right. Well, that’s, that’s what we have here. I mean, God is the owner and the architect, Moses, is kind of like the project manager, and he’s checking on Bezalel, who’s a general contractor, and all his subs underneath him. Did they do it right or not? Now, when we did this and again, if you’ve ever done a construction project, you know how this goes, we found some things right was a long punch list, actually, couple pages long. So verses 42 and 43 are, are shocking. No, it was it was done. There’s nothing to say. Yeah, good work. Everybody like kind of wishing Bezalel would open up shop in Chicago. We would hire him next time around, because of the care and dedication that we see in his work and the work of those under him, which makes sense, though, because they were again preparing the place where God Himself would dwell. So you’d expect that care and dedication, which raises a question for us, what are we doing with the temple of the Lord, with the tabernacle? Because we are, as we’ve said many times in this series, we’re the temple. Now, I mean 1 Corinthians, 6:19, do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit? So this is where God dwells. Once you put your faith in Christ, He dwells in your heart. Have we then done everything just as the Lord commanded? And here, here’s the thing, there will be a final inspection in the end of every life, every life God is going to walk through and see, did we do everything just as He commanded? The Punch List is going to be pretty long. I think we know that. I mean Jeremiah, 17, nine and 10. Chapter nine is the famous part of it. So it says The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked beyond cure. Who can understand it? The idea being you can’t understand even your own heart. You have no idea the shoddy construction that’s happening sometimes. I the LORD, search the heart and examine the mind to reward each person according to their conduct, according to what their deeds deserve. There’s the final inspection that will happen. So in light of that, what do we do? What do we do? In the meantime, I would say, first of all, start inspecting now, like it’s a great time to just kind of check in on your life. We say that to you, especially if you’re not sure where you stand with the Lord, because you will stand before the Lord someday, kind of whether you believe in him or not. And so this would be the moment to go, Okay, I should take this seriously. Start inspecting now, because your work will be inspected, I would also encourage you to ask others to help like this is a good place to have many eyes looking, and that’s the value of community. It’s part of what we do in things like Journey group and community groups is to put eyes on each other’s work going that’s probably not up to snuff. I’m not sure we’re doing everything, just as the Lord commanded. There’s another something we can do here, too. And this is, this is great. The Lord is very gracious to us, very patient to us. The Lord is a little bit like the teacher who says, you can turn in your term paper early, and I’ll take a look at it and give you some feedback, and you can try again. Not every teacher is like that, because that’s, that’s what David says in Psalm 139, isn’t that how isn’t that’s how he ends his prayer. Search me, Lord, and know my heart, test me, know my anxious thoughts, see if there’s any offensive way in me. Give me the punch list. Give me the punch list now, Lord, and lead me in the way everlasting. So start inspecting now. But then the other encouragement I would give us never. Stop inspecting. Never stop inspecting again. If you’ve ever been in a building, certainly if you ever owned a building or been in charge of a building, you know, they take constant upkeep, like as soon as you finish getting one part fixed, the next part breaks. A lot like city New we got a good chunk of the building renovated, and was a beautiful thing, and we still had to fix a leaking roof the next year because we didn’t touch that one in that project. And even now, you walk around at the new parts of the building and go, Oh man, there’s chips in the paint. Like, it’s a huge bummer. So, you know, you reach that point where you’re like, Oh, good. I got my tongue under control. Finally, sure you do inspect it again a little bit later. So start inspecting now. Never stop inspecting. But third and most important, what do we do? Take heart. You’re going to fail the inspection. Okay, bad news up front, you’re going to fail the inspection. But take heart, because Jesus is the tabernacle. And what did Jesus? What did God the Father say of Jesus when He inspected him? Matthew 317, this is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. Jesus lived that perfect life and passed the final inspection. He is the only one who did everything as the Lord commanded all of the time. And the resurrection proves then that his sacrifice that was offered in your place was acceptable to God. So we go on trying to do everything just as God commanded, knowing that we won’t not perfectly because we know that God will accept unacceptable us in Christ. He’ll accept us the faulty wiring, the chipped paint, the drafty windows, because he Christ has given us His perfect edifice, and we can offer then to God through faith in Christ. Well, like Jesus, who passes inspection, this new and this, this original tabernacle, passes inspection as well, which means, then, second scene, it’s time to set it up. So inspected the work it passes. Second scene, erecting the tent. Chapter 40, verses one to 33 I am not going to read all of that. I will let you know, but we will start in verse one. Then the Lord said to Moses, set up the tabernacle, the Tent of Meeting on the first day of the first month. Place the Ark of the Covenant law in it, and shield the ark with the curtain. Bring in the table and set out what belongs on it. Then bring in the lamp. Stand set up its lamps. Place the gold altar of incense in front of the Ark of the Covenant law and put the curtain at the entrance to the tabernacle. Drop down a little bit to verse nine. Take the anointing oil and anoint the tabernacle and everything in it, consecrate it and all its furnishings, and it will be holy. Then anoint the altar of burnt offering and all the utensils. Consecrate the altar, and it will be most holy. Anoint the basin and its stand and consecrate them. Bring Aaron and his sons to the entrance to the tent of meeting, and wash them with water, then dress Aaron in the sacred garments, anoint him and consecrate him, so he may serve me as priests. Bring his sons and dress them in tunics, anoint them just as you anointed their father, so they may serve me as priests. Their anointing will be to a priesthood that will continue throughout their generations. Moses did everything just as the Lord commanded him. So the tabernacle was set up on the first day, the first month in the second year, and drop all the way down to verse 33 then Moses set up the courtyard around the tabernacle, an altar, and put up the curtains at the entrance to the courtyard. And so Moses finished his work. First thing we notice here is the timing is really significant. They’re supposed to set up the tent on the first day of the first month. This marks this out, of course, as a new beginning. Then this is the next step in God’s plan. And so, of course, it happens on that day of new beginnings, New Year’s Day. And actually, if we read the text carefully, we’ll see a lot of ties to the original beginning creation. I mean, 3943 which we we just read. Moses inspected the work and saw that they had done it well, basically, Moses looked at it and saw that it was good. We could paraphrase and then look at the last verse I read for us there in verse 33 where it says, And so Moses finished the work, put those two together, and it sounds a lot like Genesis two, two, where after creation, God finished His work of creating and saw, inspected the work and saw that it was good. This is important because it means that just as God designed creation to be his cosmic temple, now the tabernacle is where he’s going to dwell, so it’s this new work of restoration, restoring creation to its original in. Intended purpose, which we’ll have to return to throughout this sermon. So all the elements passed inspection, which means they’re now ready for consecration. Consecration. So everything gets anointed with oil, including the priests. You can read about their consecration when Moses actually does it in Leviticus, chapter eight, so it’s coming up in just a little while here in in the text, as we have it, at least. But everything gets the anointing oil. If you don’t remember the anointing oil, Kyle took us through it way back in chapter 30, verses, 22 and the following, why the anointing oil? The why? The why this? This process. It’s to set apart these items and these people consciously to be, I mean, God’s dwelling place, to be that those who serve in God’s dwelling place, in order to do that, to be that they must be made holy. And so that’s why we get this work of anointing and consecration. Moses had inspected the work of others. That’s what we saw in that last scene. Well, now it’s time for him to do his job, and so he’s in charge of consecration and then setting up the tent. And like the rest we we read that he did it exactly as the Lord commanded. As I said nine times, actually shows up in this chapter. Did everything just as the Lord had commanded. And then we read that last sentence of this section. And then Moses finished his work. And you think of how satisfying that must have felt to go, okay, you know what I set out to do, what the Lord had given me to do, I have now finished. And so he proves himself, as Clint read for us earlier in the service, he proves Himself faithful in all God’s house. So what Hebrews three two says about him, but as we saw there in Hebrews three again, the passage that Clint read for us His faithfulness here points ahead, points to the new and true Moses, who is Jesus? Jesus not just a faithful servant in God’s house, but as God, he’s the builder of the house, and then he is son over God’s house. Hebrews three, verse six, and we even see in that passage that God’s house is us, right here, all of us. God is the son over God’s house. And here’s the very best news. Then, just as Moses finished his work, Jesus finished his work too, and he cried out on the cross as he ransomed his people from sin and death, It is finished. I’m done. The work is over. The great high priest gets to sit down because his work is done, and because he finished his work, we can finish ours. Acts of joyful worship in God’s house, because we know what’s been done for us. We know what our adoption means. It like we what we are, right? Like orphans plucked off the streets brought into this palace. You can understand how eager they would be to do some chore you want me to make my bed? Yeah, sure, because I have a bed now, like I’m willing to do that. You need me to clear my dishes Absolutely, because that means I ate today. That’s the same experience that we have with grace. I would be thrilled to do this because of who I am now in Christ, our work follows our redemption. Ephesians, two, eight to 10. For it is by grace you have been saved through faith. This is not from yourselves. It is the gift of God, not by works, so that noone can boast. There’s the orphan plucked off the streets. But then Paul goes on. We are God’s handiwork created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do, and so that’s the work that we’ve been given. Now, what does that look like? Means we make disciples of all nations. That’s our work. That’s our commission. We’re God’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us ministers of reconciliation. We’ve talked about recently, especially during our ministry fair month in October, part of our work is that each one of us needs to do the work here, in this room, in this place, among these people, to build each other up with the gifts that we have been given. We finish those works that Jesus prepared in advance for us to do so that in the end, we can hear that treasured accolade, well done, good and faithful servant in God’s house. So we expect the work, erect the tent, and then lastly, last scene, perfecting the plan. We’ll spend most of our time here. By the way, some of you are really excited. You’re like, gonna be a 20 minute sermon. This is amazing. No, it’s not. It’s not. You know that don’t get excited. You. Here we go. Rest of the book, starting in verse 34 then the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Moses could not enter the Tent of Meeting because the cloud had settled on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. In all the travels of the Israelites, whenever the cloud lifted from above the tabernacle, they would set out. But if the cloud did not lift, they did not set out until the day it lifted. So the cloud of the Lord was over the tabernacle by day, and fire was in the cloud by night, and the sight of all the Israelites during all their travels. So Moses sets up the tent, and then there’s no delay, right? There’s no break. He finished his work, and God rushes in, like people trying to to get the best seats at a concert as soon as the doors open, or like my wife at the gospel coalition conference throw in elbows in order to get the closest seats to John Piper and others. I’m just kidding. Amy would never do that. Instead, she made Jackie do it for her, and that’s a true story, and there are witnesses in this room, but that’s how eager God is to dwell with His people. And don’t rush over that. Like, let’s not skip by this. Like, Oh, of course, the glory of the Lord fills the tabernacle, there’s no, of course, there like why would he want to stay with these people, except everything we saw last week? In particular, because he’s the Lord, the Lord the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to 1000s. And so the cloud that comes it signals that grace and compassion and mercy, it signals his presence, his advent. These are the same words that are used when the cloud covers Sinai, like when Moses goes up to get the 10 Commandments and bring them down. And so what do we see? The tent is now this portable Sinai. It’s this place where God meets with them. The God of Sinai, the God of covenant love, is now always with them. And we know there He’s always with him, because it says that he the cloud settled on it. We’ve actually looked at this word a few times, although it was a while ago, so if you remember, that’s fine, but it’s the word that means dwells God moved in. This is his home now. This is his address at this point. Despite their sin, despite our sin, God dwells with us, and yet, and yet, Moses can’t go in. Moses can’t go in because the cloud settled on it and filled it, just like he couldn’t see the fullness of God’s glory in the passage we looked at last week. So this barrier still exists, in other words, like it’s such good news that God is dwelling with his people, but there’s this anti climax, almost in the moment good this would be like getting to the wedding day and then getting up there, and you know me as the pastor, saying, you know, Dearly Beloved. We’re gathered here today, all that good stuff, and then go. Only thing is, you actually got two more sessions of premarital counseling. So if we can get those scheduled real quick, and, you know, or you get to the ribbon cutting ceremony, and you you slice the ribbon, and it’s great, and everyone’s cheering and stuff, but there’s a gas leak, so nobody’s going in. Like, that’s what this feels like at this moment. It’s a huge bummer, but it’s also an important reminder that we cannot enter except by blood sacrifice, and there’s no sacrifice offered here in this moment. And it’s interesting, if you think about it, Moses, who went to the Tent of Meeting like he doesn’t get to go in. It’s only his brother that goes in, Aaron, the high priest, and again, only on one day out of the year. The whole book of Leviticus is about how you get to enter. It is a detailed book with a lot of blood in it, one guy one day, and that’s it. So you read this, as exciting as this moment is, we’re left wanting more. We’re left wanting Jesus so that we can march boldly to the throne of grace to receive mercy in our time of need. So the cloud that hovers over the tent and shows God’s presence, but also the barrier to his presence, we might be reading this thinking then that there’s this ambivalence on God’s part, which we would understand. Okay, so maybe a little bit like a couple gets married, but they keep separate bank accounts because the husband knows that his new wife has already been unfaithful a handful of times. That’s exactly the situation we’re in here, right? And so he was kind of that like, Okay, we’ll see. We’ll see. But that’s not it at all, not it at all, because we also get here the reminder of. Of how God dwells with his people. There’s no ambivalence. But at the same time, God is not at their disposal. He’s there as their Lord. That’s what verses 36 and 37 are about, and he is guiding them. In this process, they don’t choose when to break camp. They don’t choose where to go. You know, I think I know a shortcut to the Promised Land. Let’s turn left here and said, No, they they follow. God, it’s interesting. They don’t actually look for guidance so much as wait for guidance. Just eyes on the Lord. We won’t move without you, as we sometimes sing, here we’ll go. When you go, this moment is probably some help for us also, I would think, because, again, that that cloud of glory that hovers right over us now, the Holy Spirit dwells within us, if we belong to Christ by grace, through faith. And so like Jesus, we say not My will, Your will be done. So I’m going where you want me to go, Lord. And so we wait for guidance. We wait on the Lord the way Paul puts it in Galatians, which is where going next. We’ll start there next week is we, we keep in step with the Spirit. You just follow the leader, right there, especially when we remember the end of destination. That’s what makes following so easy when it comes to the Lord, I mean, God, here he’s guiding them into the Promised Land. Here they’re wandering in the desert having spent centuries oppressed and in slavery, and they’re going to a land flowing with milk and honey. Yeah, we’ll go. Lead us. We absolutely will follow you there. It’s even better for us. I mean, Jesus is leading us to glory. The Spirit leads us to the New Jerusalem, the new heavens and the new earth, everything we looked at at the end of Revelation recently, of course, we’ll go. Of course, we’ll follow you, Lord, especially when we look at verse 38 God is not just his guiding presence, but his faithful guiding presence, despite the barrier of sin. God is always there. God is always visible. He neither leaves them nor forsakes them. Hebrews 13 repeats that promise to us, same promise that we’re given he will neither leave us nor forsake us. Interestingly, that promise in Hebrews 13 comes right in the middle of a section about keeping ourselves free from sin like greed and lust. Of course, that makes sense. We’re still called to follow the God who is always with us and always guiding us, who leads us in the right paths. For his name’s sake, Psalm 23 has it. And if he’s always there with them, if he’s always here with us. We can really do anything. We can face anything. There’s a story of a man who served with Admiral Nelson, a great leader of the British Navy. Stopford was his name, and he wrote back home at one point, and he said, We are half starved and otherwise inconvenienced by being so long out of port, but our reward is that we’re with Nelson. It’s like, it’s fine, like I don’t mind that we’re on half rations or something like that. Because I am with Nelson, I get to serve with Nelson. Well, how much more so those who can say we can handle this, because our reward is that we are with God Almighty, our Redeemer and Lord, might be worth just stepping back here at the end of our series now and considering where we’ve been, what was the purpose of this book? We said it a bunch of times. The main theme in Exodus is, who is God, and we might know him more. Do we know him more as a result of spending these 40 chapters together? Well, we we know his name now, so that’s something. He’s Yahveh. I am who I am, the incomprehensible God, meaning you can’t be boxed in, reduced to slogans. We know his care and compassion. We saw that early on. We know that he sees suffering, hears cries, visits his people, and then acts. And we have seen his acts as well. That is, we know his power now too, his strong arm, his mighty deeds to deliver his people out of bondage. In Egypt, we know his judgment and justice, the rightness of His judgment. We saw that with the death of every first born in Egypt, the death of many others after the incident with the golden calf. Death. Our God is the just judge, judging rightly. We know his grace. At the same time that he rescued an undeserving people delivered them, we have been struck repeatedly by surprise, I guess, that he doesn’t just put all of us to death, but instead forgives those who trust in Him, we know His provision because we’ve seen Manna fall from heaven and quail brought in on the wind. We’ve seen a water flow from a rock that was struck. We know his guidance. We see it here. We know his teaching. He’s revealed His will for our lives and the 10 Commandments. We know Him as King. We know his protection. But above all, we know his presence, Emmanuel God with us, the God who wants to dwell with us, the God who makes a way for us to dwell with Him. And of course, he does. Of course he makes a way because that was his original purpose. He created Adam and Eve to dwell with Him in the Garden of Eden. They used to take strolls together in the afternoon. We remember why God put Adam and Eve in Eden. He gave them commands, right? He told them to multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. In other words, their their purpose there in the beginning, was to turn all of creation into God’s temple. That’s what I mean when I talk about the plan as our scene title here, perfecting the plan. That’s the plan, the mission of God, to fill the earth with His presence and glory. And so again, we’re left with this sense of anti climax. The fact that God lives among one people in one structure is not exactly fulfillment of that perfect plan. Again, we’re left wanting more. We’re left wanting what God declared through his prophet Habakkuk, chapter two, verse 14, for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. That’s the goal. That’s where we’re headed, which means what just happened here, as glorious as it is, is just a, as Christopher Wright puts it, just a foreshadowing in linen, goat hair and leather, of when the glory will actually the glory of the Lord will fill the whole earth. It’s just a foreshadowing, until that moment when we hear the angel cry out, look, God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and He will dwell with them. Revelation, 21 verse three, and we learned there that there’s not even a temple in the New Jerusalem and the new heavens and the new earth. Why? Because the plan was perfected. The whole earth is now God’s temple. His presence is there. So there is no need of a separate temple. Which means what we’re doing here today is closing a chapter, not closing a book. This is just getting us ready for the next stage in God’s big story, his great rescue plan. What we have here? It’s a little bit like that moment before the symphony starts. You ever been to the CSO, or even your kids, you know, orchestra on middle school or something, there’s that moment where the conductor, you know, kind of gets everybody going, and violinist, they play the A and everyone tunes to them, and a couple of people in English horns going. I got the big solo. I should try it out. You. You hear these bits of the theme that is about to unfold, this glorious symphony, but it’s discordant and disunified, and that’s where we are here. I can hear it. I can tell the song that’s coming. But this isn’t it. The symphony hasn’t started yet. What’s the next step? Prophet Ezekiel tells us, Ezekiel, 37 my dwelling place will be with them, says Israel, returning from exile, I will be their God. They will be my people.
Then, then the nations will know that I the Lord, make Israel holy when my sanctuary is among them forever. So the purpose isn’t just that Israel would know God, but that the nations would know God. And then what’s the step after that? Well, that’s when the Word becomes flesh and makes his dwelling, sets up His tabernacle among us, the greater Moses, leading us in a greater Exodus, where we see God’s compassion and power and judgment and grace and provision and guidance and teaching and protection on display, with Jesus leading us not just out of slavery in Egypt, but out of sin and death. And Jesus not just getting us out of Egypt, but getting Egypt sin and death out of us as well, and then leading us until we reach glory the top of Sinai and see him face to face in the fullness of His glory, all nations under Christ together. That’s perspectives, by the way, in a nutshell, right there. So you just got that whole point is. Mission of God to bring his glory to all people everywhere. In the meantime, in the meantime, while we’re still waiting for that moment, this here in Exodus 40, is an image of the church. I mean, what is this? This is the people of God journeying together as pilgrims, exiles in a strange land, journeying not as individuals, but as the people of God. Since we are just living stones in God’s temple, altogether, we construct God’s temple doing what God called us to do, finishing our work, the work of fruitful labor in the lives of others, that others would magnify Christ, knowing and showing the beauty of the gospel, knowing more of the beauty of the gospel, ever more ourselves, and showing the beauty of the gospel to a watching world. So the final word in Exodus, well, it’s two fold. It’s come out. Come out out of Egypt, out of darkness, out of sin, out of death and decay and disobedience. But it’s not just to come out. It’s come out and then come in, come in, come into life and light and love, into God’s very presence, because Christ, our Passover lamb was slain for us, because Christ our rock was struck for us, because Christ, our High Priest, offered Himself as the perfect sacrifice in himself, The perfect temple come out and come in in Christ, let’s pray together. God our deliverer. We see the oppression in which we live, the darkness and sin in our own hearts, we see that we are not passing inspection on our own. We see that we live among a people who do not pass inspection, who do not do everything that you command. We know Lord, that we should not be allowed to dwell in Your presence, and so we are Thunderstruck by the glory of Your grace, Lord, that You would make a way at great cost yourself by the blood of your Son, so that we can come in, into your presence and live with you forever, Lord, we pray in the meantime as we await that great day, when the trumpet sounds, when Christ comes again, when your glory will indeed fill the whole earth, as we await that day, Lord, in the meantime, we pray that you would, by your Spirit, lead us and guide us by your faithful presence and transform us from glory to glory as we finish the work that you have given us to do. We pray this for your name’s sake. Amen.