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[0:00] Thank you. I'm excited to preach for you guys today from God's infallible word as we continue on in our sermon series in the book of Exodus. So today's passage is going to be from Exodus 34, chapters, or Exodus 34 verses 29 to 35. 34, 29 to 35. If you don't have a Bible and would like a hard copy, which I definitely recommend using, you could just raise your hand and one of our members will be happy to get you a Bible. And that's our gift to you. You can keep it and take it home and you could use it for this time as well. And we are also going to spend some amount of time in our sermon today in Paul's excursus in a New Testament passage in 2 Corinthians 3, because it's closely related. So if you just want to bookmark that somehow, if you have that little ribbon thingy in your Bible or just want to keep your finger there, we're going to spend time there towards the end of the sermon. So let's bow our heads in humble prayer as we ask for God's help in understanding and being transformed by his word.

[1:13] Father, we pray that you would address us by your word and by your spirit's power.

[1:25] We know that this can only be done by your help. We pray that like Moses, we would grow in our desire, in our ability to gaze at your glory, and that we would see that that's everything that we've been looking for in our entire lives.

[1:49] I pray you would anoint me, help me keep my eyes on you, God, not on myself, not on these people, but on you, that I would behold, we would all behold your majesty.

[2:02] You are perfect, you are beautiful, you are more than enough for us, so we want to glorify you. In Jesus' name I pray, amen.

[2:18] If you're able, please stand for the reading of God's infallible, inerrant word. From Exodus 34, 29 to 35.

[2:29] When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand, as he came down from the mountain, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone, because he had been talking with God.

[2:46] Aaron and all the people of Israel saw Moses, and behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him. But Moses called to them, and Aaron and all the leaders of the congregation returned to him, and Moses talked to them.

[3:04] Afterward, all the people of Israel came near, and he commanded them all that the Lord had spoken with him in Mount Sinai. And when Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil over his face.

[3:18] Whenever Moses went in before the Lord to speak with him, he would remove the veil until he came out. And when he came out and told the people of Israel what he was commanded, the people of Israel would see the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses' face was shining.

[3:33] And Moses would put the veil over his face again until he went in to speak with him. This is God's holy and authoritative word. You may be seated. In a film that I've actually haven't seen personally, but I think it's a fitting introduction, in Andrei Tarkovsky's dystopian film noir sci-fi film called Stalker, he presents these two main characters.

[4:02] One's called the writer, and he's searching for the next big inspiration for his work. And the second is called the professor. He's looking for inspiration for his next big scientific breakthrough.

[4:16] And these men are led by a character called the Stalker, and they're trying to get through the barren wasteland to get to this place called the zone. And in the zone, there is a particularly special room.

[4:31] A room where it grants a person's innermost, deepest desires. So that thing that you've been waiting for your entire life, that thing that you've been working for, for years on end, it's just at your fingertips if you can enter into that room.

[4:52] Sounds great, right? But once the professor and writer get there, they start to slowly question, what if I don't actually know what I want?

[5:05] What if the thing that I most deeply want doesn't match the thing that I say or the thing that I think I want? It doesn't matter. The room only gives you what you most deeply desire.

[5:22] What about you? Would you go in? What do you think you would see in that room? If we're honest and take a hard look at ourselves, many of us, me included, we might be surprised at what we would see in there.

[5:39] We know all the right answers as Christians, but we confess that our deepest desires, they don't match what we say or what we think. While we are called to be the light of the world, to be set apart for God, to love the things that he loves and hate the things that he hates, to be a representation of God's glory here on earth, we struggle, don't we?

[6:03] We struggle to be conformed to God's image because instead we are conformed into the world's image. Because it's a well-known fact that we human beings, we're creatures of imitation.

[6:19] As babies and toddlers, it's of vital importance that they mimic and copy the faces, the words, the sounds of their parents.

[6:30] As they get a little bit older, we teach them the importance of choosing your friends wisely because we know just how much influence they have on someone's life. Even now, I find myself adapting the way that I talk, the way that I think.

[6:44] I feel like I've copied your little idiosyncrasies as I build relationships with you. And I see myself changing just from the influence from the people around me.

[6:56] I've gained new hobbies and new interests just because I've seen a friend love this thing. Seeing someone else love something makes me want to love it too. So, it's really a well-known fact that you become what you behold.

[7:12] Or in other words, what you behold shapes what you love. And while we may understand that our deepest loves don't match what we say, our passage today in Exodus 34 and that closely related New Testament passage in 2 Corinthians 3, it shows us the way, how to build that bridge between head and heart.

[7:35] That is, to become glorious, to become more like God, we must behold the glory of God by the unveiling of Christ. That's my main point of the sermon today.

[7:47] So first, we're going to see first how Moses beholds God's glory and how that transforms him. Then we're going to compare that to how Israel responds to seeing God's glory.

[8:00] And then finally, we'll see how we, as the New Testament church, as new covenant believers, how we are able to behold God's glory truly by the unveiling of Christ alone.

[8:11] So let's first start with Moses. Now with the remade tablets of the Ten Commandments in hand, Moses returns to the people from Mount Sinai after spending 40 days and nights in the presence of God without food or drink.

[8:28] And after spending all that time in God's presence, we read that his own face miraculously starts to shine. As Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 3, this is remarkable because this is more than just physical light emanating from his face.

[8:46] But this shining reflected God's own glory. His face didn't shine his own light, but it was God's. Like the full moon, you all know this, the full moon doesn't emanate its own light, but it's just reflecting the light of the sun.

[9:04] Moses, like this, Moses mirrors the blazing hot glory of God. Many times throughout Scripture, when the image of God is shown to man, it's surrounded in this amazing glory, this bright light.

[9:20] So much so that authors, if you just read through Ezekiel and other examples, they don't even have the words to accurately describe what they're seeing. God is so unlike anything in all creation that his image is utterly indescribable.

[9:37] And his appearance is always surrounded by this amazing, bright glory. So consistently and frequently throughout Scripture, whenever this blazing glory is recorded, it's directly emanating from God himself.

[9:53] Therefore, in our passage today, it is quite remarkable that God would be so gracious to let this initially stumbling, bumbling man in Moses, if you've been with us all the way through Exodus, that he allows this weak man to reflect his glory.

[10:11] And how does Moses' face shine? The text makes it clear for us. It's because Moses was talking to God. Later in Numbers 12, after Miriam and Aaron, his siblings, foolishly oppose Moses, God speaks of his interactions with Moses in this way.

[10:32] He says, If there is a prophet among you, I, the Lord, make myself known to him in a vision. Not so with my servant Moses. With him I speak mouth to mouth, clearly, and not in riddles.

[10:45] And he beholds the form of the Lord. You see, by interacting with God and gazing at his form, really like a sponge, Moses soaks in God's glory and becomes glorious and becomes more and more like him.

[11:04] Moses is our prime example in our text today that to become like God, to become glorious, we must behold God's glory. And you might be wondering, but why now?

[11:20] After all, if you've, again, followed us throughout Exodus, God has been speaking with Moses for quite a while now. At the burning bush, during the plagues, even throughout the thunderous, mighty presence of Mount Sinai, Exodus makes no mention of his shining face before.

[11:38] So, why now? Well, we'd be wise to read today's passage in the context that God, or Moses asked of God just two things before this.

[11:51] If you remember where we've been in the narrative of Exodus, Moses, while he was up Mount Sinai, receiving the law, the stiff-necked people led by Aaron, they made and worshipped a golden calf.

[12:04] As Sean has been teaching, this was a terrible, heinous thing to do. It was like a wife who would cheat on her husband on their wedding night while he was out preparing their future life together.

[12:19] And in response to their sin, God justly states that he would not go up with them anymore. but Moses knew, he knew how critical it was for God to go up with them.

[12:31] It was the only thing that would set them apart as a nation. Therefore, he intercedes on behalf of his stiff-necked people that God would go up and that God would pardon their egregious sin.

[12:45] And amazingly, God graciously accepts Moses' pleas. and truly as a sign that he will go up with them, Moses' face shines with God's own glory.

[13:00] He becomes a representation, really a conduit of God's presence itself. God didn't have to let Moses' face shine, we all know this, but as a loving father, he graciously reassures Moses and the rest of Israel that he is committed to them, that he will go up with them, that his glory will dwell among them.

[13:20] And it's a curious thing, really, that Moses writes in verse 29 that he had no face. He had no idea that his face was shining.

[13:30] He did have a face. He had no idea his face was shining. Given how long Moses fasted, perhaps it might not be surprising that he had no idea.

[13:41] Fasted for 40 days and nights. Could make sense. But I think the more likely reason that Moses had no idea was simply because Moses wasn't paying attention to himself.

[13:56] He was completely lost in God, enthralled in God's presence. When you're on the peak of Mount Everest, when you're on one of the cliffs of the Grand Canyon, it's the sign of an arrogant fool who is more absorbed, more enthralled in his own reflection, in his own image.

[14:18] when you listen to a transcendent musical performance that deserves a standing ovation, it's right and natural for you to give all your attention to the musician, to the act, not pay attention to yourself.

[14:36] The church has much to learn from Moses' example because, truly, if you're anything like me, you can struggle with excessive self-introspection and fear of man.

[14:50] That mode when you get into and you're thinking about me, me, me, all you're thinking about, what you sound like, what you did, who you are, you question, am I good enough?

[15:04] I don't like the way God made me. I'm such a failure. I have little use. Every time someone more impressive comes along, someone who's more loved than you comes along, then you doubt yourself and wonder, why did God make me this way?

[15:26] You know, I confess, when I was younger, I used to grade my prayers when I prayed in public, when I felt like I was eloquent and I could quote scripture from this obscure minor prophet, I would pat myself on the back and say, Ed, you got an A today, good job.

[15:45] And if I stumbled and bumbled and forgot my train of thought, it's just a bad prayer, I don't know, then it would just be a big fat F for me. And I'm pretty sure I spent entire prayer meetings, entire prayer meetings thinking about myself, thinking about what I was going to say, what I said already, what people might think about me.

[16:08] And simply put, that's pride. David Powelson once explained that our sinful nature has a centripetal force that pulls us inward rather than a centrifugal force that pushes us outward.

[16:25] Because this is the harsh truth that the natural condition of the human ego are these four things. It is empty, painful, busy, and fragile.

[16:39] Empty, painful, busy, and fragile. More than this, the famous theologian, C.S. Lewis, astutely observes in Mere Christianity, and I think I have this quote up here, pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next person.

[16:56] We say that people are proud of being rich or clever or good looking, but we are not. We are proud of being richer or cleverer or better looking than others. If everyone else became equally rich or clever or good looking, there would be nothing to be proud about.

[17:15] So what we're really beholding then in unhealthy introspection is not just ourselves. We then deeply gaze and study our fellow man, our sinful man.

[17:30] If it's true that we become like what we behold, we'll just become more like each other, more like sinful men. As long as we are beholding man, we will never become like God.

[17:47] We'll just be spinning our wheels on the long, treacherous path to heaven, to the celestial city. We just become the blind following the blind.

[18:03] To become glorious, holy, and happy, we cannot look at our fellow peers alone to think that'll lead us anywhere. I'm not denigrating having mentors or imitating others even, but truly, that only goes so far as long as they point us to Christ.

[18:24] Like Paul, we should all say, imitate me, yes, as I imitate Christ. Maybe, actually, you're on the other side of the spectrum and need to, in fact, frankly, need to examine yourself more.

[18:42] Just as Scripture prescribes in Lamentations 340 and 2 Corinthians 13.5, because, indeed, self-examination is, in fact, good. It's only when it detracts away from our faith instead of fueling it does it become unhealthy, does it become toxic.

[19:00] If you're on this side of the spectrum, you may struggle with not thinking twice about your words or your actions because you feel like you're always right. You may be blind to your sin and blind to your need for forgiveness.

[19:17] Your confidence is not in God, but it's in yourself and what you know and what you believe. And while these two symptoms might seem like opposites, both the disease and cure are still the same.

[19:34] The disease is pride and the only lasting cure is gazing deeply at God's glory. both persons look at themselves, their own image, too deeply, too intently, too frequently.

[19:52] While one is encouraged and the other discouraged, the only cure is to experience the freedom of self-forgetfulness. The classic quote by Robert Murray McChain is famous for a reason, right?

[20:06] You guys all know it, for every look at yourself, take ten looks at Christ. He helpfully highlights the contrast between the number of looks that you should take. But if I could be so bold, I would add one word to that quote.

[20:22] For every look at yourself, take ten looks at Christ quickly. Quickly. Brothers and sisters, whenever Satan tempts us to draw our attentions away from Christ, we must learn to take that thing that you're distracted by and truly just flip it on its head.

[20:46] Maybe you're discouraged by your impatience. Maybe you're puffed up by your self-perceived intelligence. So you keep looking at yourself.

[20:58] Let these thoughts trigger all the ways that Jesus is better. when you're discouraged by your impatience, reflect on Jesus' patience and kindness towards you.

[21:13] When you're tempted to be proud in your intelligence, humble yourself by reflecting on Jesus' infinite wisdom that his ways are higher than our ways. Then our hearts quickly turn from discouragement, sullenness, and pride, and turns to awe, wonder, and worship.

[21:34] For example, my own tendency is to feel discouraged by what I see in the mirror. When I feel like I fall so short of being a loving, patient, kind husband to my wife Christine, my proclivity, honestly, is just to stay there in that sullenness, just to beat myself up.

[21:56] But quickly looking at how faithful of a husband Jesus is, both to me and to Christine, that transforms my marriage, that transforms my outlook in life, that transforms my ability to love.

[22:12] We must be people who have the biggest views of God and smallest views of self. Would Trinity Cambridge Church be filled with people who need truly the smallest reminders, the smallest triggers to think about Jesus, that we would just be a hair trigger away to ponder the beauty of Christ.

[22:39] Because, frankly speaking, not everybody has that opportunity to gaze at Jesus' beauty. because now let's observe the juxtaposition between Moses and the rest of Israel and how they respond to God's glory.

[22:55] When Aaron and the rest of Israel beheld Moses' shining face, they cowered away in fear. Verse 30 says, if you look down, Aaron and all the people of Israel saw Moses and behold, the skin of his face shone and they were afraid to come near him.

[23:12] In some sense, this is an appropriate response, right? This is an appropriate response of a sinful nation. Time and time again throughout Scripture, when we see that man is shown the image of God, the appropriate response is fear and trembling.

[23:30] This happened just earlier in Exodus 19. All the people in the camp trembled at the smoke, thunder, roaring, lightning of the mountain. Take Isaiah in his book in chapter 6.

[23:42] Once Isaiah sees in the vision the mighty glory of God, he understands how undeserving he is to be there and declares, I am a man of unclean lips.

[23:57] Given the biblical precedent then, Israel's response to fear only makes sense. Therefore, Moses needs to call and coax first Aaron and the leaders and then the rest of Israel to come back to hear the word of God.

[24:12] Then after, to protect Israel, Moses veiled himself to nullify the effect of his shining face. Much like the fencing off of Mount Sinai, the veil was meant to shield its effects from sinful people, namely death.

[24:30] And while the narrative is not clear on this, it seems from verses 34 to 35 that this cycle kept continuing without end. unveiled, Moses would commune with God, hear from him directly, and then he would go out to the people, still unveiled, with his face shining, to share that direct message from God.

[24:52] And then he would veil himself to protect the people from standing in God's glory for too long. But while the initial reaction of fear may make sense, the reality is, still, something is not right here.

[25:10] In chapter 19, God reveals his intentions, his desires, that Israel would be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. But here, it's only Moses who can speak to God face to face.

[25:24] The rest of Israel can't even bear to stand in Moses' presence, who's just reflecting a fraction of God's glory. Even the high priest, Aaron, he is veiled off from seeing God's glory.

[25:37] How can you expect the entire nation to be full of priests if Aaron can't even commune with God directly? Brothers and sisters, we know that in the beginning, God created everything we see and know in six days and rested on the seventh.

[25:55] From dust, he created man in his image and he breathed life into him. There in the Garden of Eden, God dwelt with man without barriers, without veils.

[26:09] But once our representative of Adam, he fell. He brought the entire world in darkness and sin. And because of our sin, without his intervention, our relationship with God will never be the same.

[26:27] So this question has loomed since the fall. Will God dwell with his people again? Can we get back to the Garden? We have read of God's mercy and grace in forgiving this egregious idolatry of the golden calf in weeks past.

[26:45] And even today, we heard of God's graciousness and his willingness to go up with his people. But in the end, the picture in today's passage falls incredibly short of the intimacy shared in the Garden.

[27:00] We do well to remember that this passage is in the context of covenant renewal. After all, Moses has brought down the freshly remade tablets of the old covenant.

[27:14] And while there may be hope in the air that everything might be picture perfect and right between God and his people again, Moses' veil is that ominous sign that something, something's off.

[27:27] And if you know your Old Testament, you know that this covenant renewal, this second try, this wasn't it. This wasn't the solution.

[27:37] This wasn't the way back to the Garden. Israel cyclically and habitually ends up in heinous sin. Not much later in the book of Deuteronomy, after yet another covenant renewal and a plea for them to choose righteousness in life, Moses declares that he in fact knows that they will choose death, that they will perish, that they won't last long in the promised land.

[28:05] Ever the inspirational speaker, Moses, that guy. But hey, credit to him, right? He was 100% right. This is exactly what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3, 6, where he teaches that the letter or the old covenant, it kills.

[28:25] The letter kills. But the spirit gives life. That life is given in the new covenant alone. You see, this is the problem with second chance-ism.

[28:39] In my pride, I used to be a second chance-ist. So subscribe to this theology of second chance-ism. And what is that? What is second chance-ism, you ask? Let me demonstrate.

[28:51] Lord, I know I just did that thing that I said I would never do again. I said that thing.

[29:01] I went to that place. I watched that thing. But Lord, in your grace, please give me a second chance. And if you've been caught up in that cycle, you know that it doesn't stop at second chances.

[29:17] Just like the Israelites, we'll end up asking for five, ten, fifty, a hundred chances with no hope of changing. What we end up needing is not more chances, not more internal willpower, not more time.

[29:30] We need a completely new heart, an external intervention in our lives. Take again the example of Isaiah 6. Yes, Isaiah's right to respond in fear and trembling before God's glory.

[29:46] But what does God then do? He cleanses Isaiah of his sin so that he can stand in the presence of God. Compare that to here.

[29:57] What happens after Moses shares the commands of God? No cleansing of sin, but it's a veiling off. So here, there is a dual purpose of Moses to veil himself.

[30:11] Yes, it is Moses' gracious concession to protect the nation, but it's also an act of judgment on their unfaithfulness, on their sin that caused, that spawned that fear.

[30:26] Take a moment to flip to 2 Corinthians 3 and hear Paul explain the motive of Moses' veiling in verses 12 to 14. Verse 12, Paul is saying that his ministry is different because Moses, he was helpless, helpless to do anything about the people's hardened condition, whereas Paul's ministry, through Christ, veils are removed.

[31:18] Some have interpreted verse 13 to read that Moses wanted to hide the fact that his glowing face, his glow, was his only temporary, so he veiled himself off for whatever reason.

[31:30] But I actually think a more compelling interpretation is simply confirming that Moses had to veil himself so that Israel might not gaze at the outcome, the telos, or in other words, the death-dealing judgment of God's glory on sin so that they would not die and that the veil would nullify that effect.

[31:57] Therefore, he veils himself off to cut off access to God's glory, again, both as a mercy and as a judgment. Just like Paul teaches in Romans 1, it's really a fearful thing when God gives up sinful men to their sinful desires, their spiritual blindness, because he allowed the veil over their hearts to last.

[32:22] So literally, the veil was on Moses' face, but it was only because spiritually it was on their hearts. Brothers and sisters, that same veil was on our hearts, but praise be to God that he has done something new, something new in Christ Jesus, his son.

[32:44] Now that we are on this side of biblical history, we know that many times God foreshadowed what he was doing. He foretold of it most early after the fall to Eve that her son would crush the serpent's head.

[33:00] Most clearly in Jeremiah 31 and 36, we also read that God intends on stopping the futile, endless cycle of renewing the old covenant, but to initiate to start a permanent, more glorious new covenant.

[33:18] this is what he promised to do from Jeremiah 31. I will put my law within them and I will write it on their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be my people and no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother saying, know the Lord for they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest declares the Lord for I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more.

[33:52] However, being a perfectly just God, he couldn't just have snapped his fingers and willed himself to forgive. He needed to send his eternally begotten son, Jesus, the second person of the triune Godhead with whom he shared perfect love and intimacy for eternity's past to take on flesh to die and to resurrect as a substitution for sinners.

[34:23] Understand his great condescension for you for it is in Jesus we find the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature.

[34:34] That's what Hebrews 1 tells us. In fact, Moses' earlier prayer, that part 2 of his prayer, to see God's glory, it was only partly answered in Exodus because God only showed his back, if you remember.

[34:50] But it was answered in full in Luke 9 where Peter, John, and James, they go up to the mountain with Jesus to see him transfigured into full resplendent glory.

[35:06] Luke writes that the appearance of Jesus' face was altered and his clothing became dazzling white. And who is there next to Jesus? It's Moses.

[35:19] It's Moses seeing all of God's glory in his son. So we too find the full glory of God when we gaze upon Jesus' face.

[35:30] There is no greater sight, no greater beauty or treasure than our glorious Jesus. And this perfect Jesus was beaten, bruised, and bloodied so that we would be forgiven of our iniquity and that God would remember our sins no more.

[35:52] He did for us what we could never ever do for ourselves. It's only by this far more glorious permanent ministry of the spirit and righteousness can we be freed from this endless cycle of second chances and step into glory as God's children who reflect his image.

[36:14] How do we reflect his image? Because we know that yes, as Christians we have been given new hearts, we are born again, but desiring Jesus, looking like Jesus, it isn't automatic.

[36:31] So again, I belabor the point. We become what we behold, and what we behold shapes what we love. At the end of chapter 3 in 2 Corinthians, Paul affirms the same truth in this way.

[36:48] Verse 17 says, Now the Lord is the spirit, and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed from the same image, from one degree of glory to another, for this comes from the Lord who is the spirit.

[37:09] Man, I love these verses. Compared to the veiled Israelites, we have full access to gaze upon the glory of God by Jesus with unveiled face.

[37:23] Like Paul, the scales have fallen off our eyes, and God has lifted up the veils of our hearts so that we are free, we have freedom to behold God, and we are free to become glorious ourselves, just like Moses.

[37:41] Only when we behold his glory are we then progressively sanctified, are we transformed from one degree of glory to another. Friends, I ask, do you know the amazing privilege that you have now in the unveiling of Christ?

[38:02] Have you experienced the intimacy of the garden that Jesus has bought for you? Do you have that now? Can you remember a time when you were just in awe of God, basking in his glory?

[38:18] When that time when there were no distractions, all that mattered was just you in him? That time when your heart burned with zeal and with passion?

[38:32] Friends, if that's not you now, I urge you to fight, to fight for your first loves if you've lost them. I'm not saying that this is just about an emotional high, or it's just about emotions, because we all express our emotions differently, but if your love for God is flat, if it's lifeless, then something has to be wrong there.

[39:01] Note that in our passage today, the Israelites, they still heard the word of God, but their access and willingness to gaze upon God's glory was short and limited.

[39:14] Compare that to the long 40 days and nights Moses spent in the presence of God. In the busyness of life, and living in Boston and Cambridge, how often we're like the Israelites, who just for a moment hear the word of God, but are not transformed.

[39:34] We're not transformed from one degree of glory to another. We're not transformed in our loves. We're not transformed in our heart. Here, Charles Spurgeon, the famous 17th century preacher, we snatch a hasty minute of prayer, we afford a hurried quarter of an hour for Bible reading, and we think we have done well.

[39:59] But if for minutes we had hours, the gain might increase in proportion. Oh, for nights of prayer, oh, for the close shutting of the closet door, and a believing drawing near to God.

[40:13] There is no limit to the power we might obtain if such were the case. Though our faces might not be lit up with splendor, our lives would shine, our characters would become more pure and transparent, and our whole spirit would be so heavenly that men would regard with wonder the brightness of our being.

[40:37] Because what else are we beholding in place of the Lord? What else are we letting shape our loves? love? I fear that we can be oblivious to our surroundings, much like these fish.

[40:53] In this opening of David Foster Walls' commencement address in Kenyon College, it goes like this. There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish, and the older fish says to them, says, morning boys, how's the water?

[41:10] water. And the two fish swim on for a little bit, and eventually one of them looks over to the other, and he asks, what the heck is water?

[41:22] Sometimes we can be so oblivious to our surroundings and its influence that it has on us, because that's all we're used to. We forget how much influence the things that we behold shape our characters and our loves.

[41:37] in what areas of your life do you find your loves, your goals, your thought patterns more influenced by the world than by scripture?

[41:52] Then does that make you look, honestly, more like a non-believer than a believer? I'd encourage you to take some time this week and reflect on the different areas of your life where you've made it a habit to turn to the world, to turn to Google, to turn to Reddit, whatever it is, for advice, rather than conforming your life to scripture.

[42:15] Because I recently had a conversation with a close brother who confessed his idolatry of money to me. He shared how only until recently he was so used to taking financial advice from CNBC, from Nerd Wallet, that we'll tell you all these benchmarks, right?

[42:35] Save this much money by 30, have four times that much by 40, your housing cost should be only a fraction of your total gross income, all these different benchmarks.

[42:46] But he confessed that he let those pieces of advice rule how we thought about money rather than scripture. That the blessed are those who give, not those who saved 5x their income by 40.

[43:00] money, that God knows what we need and he loves to provide for us as a loving father, not that we need to set up multiple sources of passive income to make sure that we're okay.

[43:14] He said that obsessively checking his net worth and looking at the stock markets, it only made his love for money grow and grow. Because it boils down to this one question.

[43:25] Christian, what do you want? What do you love? Going back to earlier, what would you see in that room?

[43:38] Christian, if it's anything less than Christ, we must continue to gaze long at Jesus' face until our hearts understand what it should most want.

[43:50] After all, this question is truly an accurate stethoscope of our spiritual heartbeats. more than how many ministries you serve in, more than how many mission trips you've been on, even if you work in full-time ministry, the measure of true spirituality is love.

[44:10] Your love for Jesus and a desire for him to be glorified. We never graduate from growing in that desire because beholding Jesus, that reorders our faulty loves.

[44:24] And we begin to see everything else as rubbish. If you are here and you don't know who Jesus is, haven't put your faith in him, don't know his surpassing worth, I also ask you, what do you want?

[44:44] Because what you want and love is really what you worship. Whether you like it or not, whether you know it or not, we all worship something.

[44:55] Hear again from David Foster Wallace later on in that speech. In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshiping.

[45:07] Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly.

[45:19] And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. Worship power. You will feel weak and afraid.

[45:31] Worship your intellect. Being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. I think a lot of us have heard that before, but I think this next part is really where this quote shines.

[45:46] The insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they are evil or sinful. It is that they are unconscious. They are default settings.

[45:58] They are the kind of worship you just gradually slip into day after day. Consider this a plea and an invitation to break out of this unconscious worship, to take time this week, today, to reevaluate what do you love.

[46:16] What do you worship? Ask yourself if that thing is really what you want, and if you think that will really satisfy you. Please, look us up.

[46:29] Look Christians up when we say that Jesus is the greatest treasure. He's the best thing that we can find in this life. Please, don't just let this go one ear and out the other, because what David Wallace is missing in this speech is the truth, that you have eternity after this life.

[46:51] What you worship here will affect your eternity forever. Only if you treasure Christ will you get a glorious eternity after this life, in your future.

[47:05] Therefore, brothers and sisters, we must not take our eyes off our greatest inheritance and treasure Jesus Christ. Only when we fill our eyes with Jesus' light can we be a royal priesthood, a holy nation.

[47:22] Jesus has called you to be the light of the world. Only when we continually gaze at Jesus' light can we obey his command in Matthew 5, 16.

[47:34] Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. Because after all, we are creatures of imitation.

[47:49] Sometimes, someone just needs to see your light, hear about your love for God, to love him or herself. Let's let our light shine in this world with and for God's glory.

[48:06] glory. And as much as we bask in Jesus' glory now and are all of him now, the incredible thing, friends, is that this is still just a foretaste.

[48:19] We're getting back to the garden. And as Scott Hafeman, New Testament scholar, writes, the final result of being, becoming more and more like him in anticipation of the final consummation of this age is that we will one day participate in his glory in all its fullness.

[48:40] Our life with God begins and ends by entering into his glorious presence, now in the spirit, then face to face. Soon and very soon, with unveiled face, we will see Jesus.

[48:58] And it will be far more glorious than we can imagine. I can't wait. Let's pray. Lord, would you transform us as we look at your face, Lord Jesus.

[49:16] Help us to be everything that you called us to be, to be the light of the world, to let our light shine. Only by your grace, only by your power, can you do this.

[49:29] transform us. Help us to see what incredible treasure we have in Christ, that everything else would fall away as rubbish, and we see you as supremely satisfying, supremely glorious, that nothing else would be in that room but you, Jesus, alone.

[49:53]  Transform us. Help us. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.