Marvelous, Wonderful, Matchless Grace

Christ Reformed Baptist Church

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Amazing grace, how sweet the sound,

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That saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found.

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Was blind, but now I see. Those immortal words from the pen of John Newton have echoed through the centuries of human history.

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They have quite likely become the most familiar words that have ever been written about grace, even more so than Paul's declaration in Ephesians chapter 2, verses 8 and 9, where he says,

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For by grace you have been saved through faith and not of yourselves.

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It is the gift of God. The hymn Amazing Grace has been recorded more than 11 ,000 times worldwide.

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In 2020, the British Broadcasting Network, BBC, did a survey that ranked it being

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Amazing Grace among the five most recognized English hymns ever written.

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Data from Nielsen SoundScan, who records recordings over the last 25 years, have shown that each year, there are hundreds of commercial recordings done of Amazing Grace every single year.

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Statistically speaking, 9 out of 10 Americans, with many who may not have any knowledge of Scripture whatsoever, can quote the first line of Amazing Grace.

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Yet less than one in four can quote or even paraphrase the truth that is found in Ephesians 2, 8, and 9.

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That contrast reveals something that should be quite troubling to the church.

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Our culture can sing about grace. In fact, it's not uncommon to find

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Amazing Grace being sung in secular movies and shows and in places and in print, but our culture doesn't understand it.

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In fact, I would argue that much of the church, unfortunately, doesn't understand it.

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The word itself has been sentimentalized. It has been commercialized.

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It has been stripped clean of its depth. In the last 100 years, since 1925, an estimated 15 ,000 books have been written on the topic or allude to the topic of grace.

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These are just theologically centered books, books that are supposedly theologically centered.

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In that, this staggering number, in that we see that we have moved, even though we know that the printing process, the book writing process, has undergone massive change over the last 100 years.

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We've moved from the slow pace of a typewriter to instantaneous world of digital production.

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Many people with the proper tools can write books through software that will generate entire books in mere moments.

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All of these things have allowed this massive amount of information to be produced.

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Yet even with all that has been printed, truly precious little is grasp of what scripture proclaims about grace because we are relying on the words of men rather than the words of God.

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In fact, so much of what bears the name grace today actually drifts more towards self -help rather than salvation, towards comfort rather than conversion.

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See, if you look at Ephesians, that's about conversion, not comfort. The world is about comfort, not conversion.

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We have titles recently such as Abundant Life, Experiencing the Gift of a

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Satisfying Life, Heaven on Earth, Enjoying the Abundant Life, Grace Revolution, Experience the

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Power to Live Above Defeat, or even Grace Looks Amazing on You.

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All of these books present grace and there are many more. That's just a small sampling.

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All of these books present grace as an accessory to human happiness.

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How to be happy and clappy versus an act of the sovereign

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God that rescues those who are undeserving because you see, that is the truth of what grace is.

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For many modern writers, grace has become a marketing strategy rather than a miracle.

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It has become a slogan rather than something that Scripture reveals to us.

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But as we study the Word of God, we see that it presents grace as something far greater and far more glorious.

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Grace is not a feeling. It's not a philosophy. Grace is truly the unmerited favor, the unmerited favor of the holy

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God freely bestowed upon those who are unworthy.

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And it is bestowed through the mediation of Christ on Calvary's cross.

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It is by grace that we are called.

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It is by grace that we are redeemed. It is by grace that we are sustained.

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And it is grace that we now see displayed by God in the life of Moses and the people of Israel as he pleads before the

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Lord in Exodus 33, verses 12 through 17, where he seeks the assurance of God's presence, the confirmation of his favor, and ultimately, which we'll talk more about next week, the revelation of his glory.

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So if you will, turn with me in your copy of God's Word to Exodus chapter 33 as we read together from verses 12 through 17.

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Having found your place, please stand in reverence for the reading of God's holy, inerrant, infallible, authoritative, sufficient, complete, and certain

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Word. Beginning in the 12th verse of Exodus 33, we read these words.

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Then Moses said to Yahweh, See, you say to me, bring up this people, but you yourself have not let me know whom you will send with me.

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Moreover, you have said, I have known you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.

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So now, I pray you, if I have found favor in your sight, let me know your ways that I may know you so that I may find favor in your sight.

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See also that this nation is your people. And he, being

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God, said, My presence shall go with you, and I will give you rest.

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Then he, Moses, said to him, If your presence does not go with us, do not lead us up from here.

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Indeed, how can it be known that I have found a favor in your sight,

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I and your people? Is it not by your going with us so that we,

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I and your people, may be distinguished from all the other people who are upon the face of the earth?

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Then Yahweh said to Moses, I will do this thing of which you have spoken, for you have found favor in my sight, and I have known you by name.

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Our prayer this morning comes as it adapted from the Valley of Vision, a prayer called the

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Grace of the Cross. Our most gracious Savior, we thank you from the depths of our being for your wondrous grace.

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We thank you from the depths of our being for your wondrous love in bearing our sins in your body on the cross.

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Lord, may that cross be to us as the tree that sweetens our bitter morrows, as the rod that blossoms with life and beauty, and as the brazen serpent that healed only through a look of faith by your cross,

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O Lord. Crucify our every sin. Use it to increase our intimacy with you.

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Make it the ground of all your comforts, the liveliness of all of our duties, the sum of the promises of your gospel, the comfort in our every affliction, the vigor of our love, of our thankfulness, of our grace, and the very essence of our faith.

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By the grace of your cross, may we receive that rest without rest, that rest that is the ceaseless praise of you,

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O Lord and our Savior. You have also appointed each of us a cross to take up and to follow you, a cross that we must bear before we receive our crown.

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You have given it as our portion, our self -love hates this cross, our carnal reason is unreconciled to it, and without you granting us the grace of patience, we cannot bear it, we cannot walk with it, and we cannot profit from it.

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Remind us, O Lord, of the mercies that this cross brings to each of us, this cross which is hated by our rebel will and is a heavy burden because we seek to shirk our load.

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Gracious Lord and Savior, teach us, teach us that with our cross, you sent the promised grace in the form of the

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Holy Spirit, so that we may bear it patiently, that because of the work of the

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Holy Spirit, our cross, our cross is your yoke, which is easy, and your burden, which is light.

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Precious Lord, we ask all of these things in the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen. You may be seated.

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In order to properly study our text for today, it is necessary that we consider all of the events that have taken place here at the foot of the mountain.

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Now, as you may recall, that while Moses was meeting with the Lord God on the top of Sinai, the people at the base of the mountain grew weary and restless.

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Eventually, they approached Aaron and demanded that he make for them a

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God that would be their God because, in their words, in Exodus 32 verse 1, as for this

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Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him. As we study the first portion of this passage, we saw not only the speed at which the covenant had been broken by the people as they deliberately shattered the first two commandments, but we also saw a small glimpse showing us the true desire of human nature, which is rebellion against the holy and just God.

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Now, as a result of the people's sin, God sends Moses back down to them to take them out of his sight, out of his presence, that the light that was to shine in the darkness for them, in the darkness of the lives of these people, was to be ultimately removed.

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Now, we understand that looking back that this removal was a twofold action.

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One, that it was a punishment to the people for their sin, but that secondly, it was a tremendous act of mercy.

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This merciful action of God is the same action which he displayed in the garden when in his mercy, he spared

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Adam and Eve from immediate physical death. It's the same action which spares each of us each day.

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It is rather than consume them, rather than consume us,

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God would move us from his presence. For us, rather than consume, we are covered by the work of Christ on Calvary's cross, declared just.

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Now, last week we saw Moses in his great desire to remain in the presence of God, understanding that the mercy of God had been displayed, that he took up his tent, he went outside of the camp, he set up the tent of God.

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As the people saw these events, they not only began to show remorse and sorrow, we actually see at the end of that passage, that although they do not leave from their tents and go to God, they do give him proper place as they bow and worship him.

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We see here in these verses this morning, what A .W.

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Pink describes as Jehovah's response to this action of his servant, where he speaks face to face with Moses in such an amazing condescension, such wondrous grace, but that condescension, that grace was only manifested after sin had been owned and separation from it had been evidenced.

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Now, although Scripture clearly, does not clearly state, it is most likely that it is in that tent of meeting where this interaction takes place.

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It is there with God and Moses meeting face to face, just as a man speaks to his friend, that Moses comes before the almighty

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God. Now, you'll note in the

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LSB version, we see in verse 13, where he says,

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I pray. If you go to the King James version, you will note that that word pray is used as well.

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And although this is not technically classified as a prayer in the sense of Moses going off by himself in the way that we would understand prayer, where Moses would go off and go to God and give him a list of demands and maybe make a few real petitions.

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It does teach us of the true nature of prayer and that it is a time of communing with God.

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The difference between this prayer and the prayer of many believers today and all believers today is that Moses is receiving audible responses.

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He's having a literal conversation with God. Now let's be clear, that no longer occurs.

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If you think you're having a literal conversation with God where he is speaking in your ear, then we probably should meet after church and schedule you an appointment somewhere else.

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At the end of the day, what we see here though is this conversation, this discussion, that as Moses has entered the tent of meeting, the pillar cloud has descended and Moses is standing before the throne of God as the mediator between the people of the nation of Israel and God Himself.

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We've talked about this in the past that Moses serves as a type projecting forward to Christ, the one true mediator between God and man.

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This is what Moses does. Christ, just as Moses is doing here for the people of Israel, Christ now does for all believers.

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He stands before the throne of God. Before it was revitalized in the late 90s, the hymn,

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Before the Throne of God Above, was written in 1863 by Charity Lee's Bancroft.

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This hymn reminds us of the truth of our mediator and his work with these words.

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Before the throne of God above, I have a strong and perfect plea.

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A great high priest whose name is love who ever lives and pleads for me.

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My name is graven on his hands. My name is written on his heart.

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I know that while in heaven he stands, no tongue can bid me thence depart.

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The song continues on, but it is this mediation of Christ alone attainable by grace through faith alone that we are declared just and that we can therefore stand before God on that final day.

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The substance of this petition of Moses here is one that, while it is for a specific people, at a specific time, demonstrates much to us here and now.

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For you see, we are the people of God. And the prayer of Christ meeting on our behalf is very similar.

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We carefully look at the words of Moses. We know that he begins, not with the people.

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Moses actually begins this prayer on the basis of himself, kind of.

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Now this is an important distinction that we make. Because you see, if you remember earlier, back up in chapter 32,

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I believe it was, where Moses goes before God in verse 32 of chapter 32.

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And he says, but now if you will forgive their sin. And he stops and just says, but if not.

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Because Moses knew then that he was not worthy to truly stand in the place of the people.

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But Moses now goes before God based on himself and the words of God regarding Moses.

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Look at verses 12 and 13 for a moment. Then Moses said to Yahweh, see you say to me.

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Moses speaking to Yahweh is giving Yahweh his words back to him.

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Bring up this people. But you yourself have not let me know by whom you will sin with me.

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Now, if you'll recall from earlier in the text, God had already told

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Moses that he was going to send an angel with him. That was prior to the repentance of the people.

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Moses is bringing this back around and saying now the people have repented. Grace, mercy has been declared.

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I am now asking for grace. Who will you sin with me? Moreover, you have said,

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I have known you by name. And you have also found favor in my sight.

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So now I pray you, if I truly have found favor in your sight, if I really have found this favor, let me know your ways that I may know you so they might find favor in your sight.

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Matthew Henry writes in regards to the way Moses begins with himself in these verses, what favor

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God had expressed to the people they had forfeited the benefit of.

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There was no insisting upon that. And therefore Moses lays the stress of his plea upon what

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God had said to him, which though he owns himself unworthy of, yet he hopes he has not thrown himself out of the benefit of.

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If you take for a moment and you just begin to count the personal pronouns in those first two verses, you will see that in our

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English translation there are eight different occasions where either Moses directly refers to himself or he is quoting

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God's words that God directly spoke to Moses. It is not, again, that Moses has thought of himself more worthy.

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In fact, if you go back to Matthew Henry's quote, he acknowledges his unworth. You see, grace is based on unworth.

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If Moses had stood up before God and said, well, God, I'm worthy, it's no longer grace.

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It's something that's earned. Grace. Grace cannot be earned.

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Notice in verse 13 the term if. He transitions.

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He begins with these statements. And he says, so if all of this is true, this is what he's saying in verse 13.

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So if all of these statements of yours are true, and by the way, they're statements of God, which makes them true, because God is truth.

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He cannot lie. So Moses says to him, if these words are true, if I really have found favor in your sight, let me know your ways that I may know you.

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Think about this petition. Think about this effort of Moses on behalf of the people.

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Think about this effort of Moses simply to recall to God the words of God.

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How true is this should be of us as we approach the throne of God?

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Listen. The first thing that we all have to come to an understanding of, and this is one of those things that nobody really wants to hear, but it's just truth, right?

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Is that we're unworthy. We don't deserve it. Again, if we deserved it, it wouldn't be grace.

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If we had done anything to earn it, it wouldn't be grace. If we could have given enough, it wouldn't be grace.

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If we could have shown up enough, it wouldn't have been grace. If we could have said all of the right things at all of the right time, it wouldn't be grace.

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But if we cannot go to the Father with an understanding of our unworthiness, then we should not go at all because anything based on us won't work.

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But if we go before God and we understand our unworthiness, and we go to Him in reverence and in awe, and we recall to the

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Lord the words of Himself, not in an effort to remind

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Him. This isn't about reminding God of what He said. God didn't forget. God doesn't forget.

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He knows exactly what He said. This is about you demonstrating to Him your faith in what

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He said. Consider the words of Hebrews 4, verse 16.

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If we take those words to heart, therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace so that we may receive mercy and find grace and the help of need.

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And we pray using these words, Lord, I draw near to Your throne with boldness.

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Why? Not because of something I did, but because of what You did. We pray using the words of Psalm 100, verse 4.

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Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise. Our boldness, our thanksgiving, our praise are all demonstrative actions based on our faith in God's Word.

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You see, we don't boldly enter because of us. We boldly enter because of Him. We believe, we have faith in Him.

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We have faith in the finished work of Christ on the cross. We know what that has done for us.

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It has declared us just, and now we can enter into the presence of the

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Almighty. We pray the Word of God to God to demonstrate our faith, to demonstrate our reliance on those truths and on Him.

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Moses here is doing the same thing. He is communicating with God that His requests aren't based on Himself or anything that He has to offer, but on the words of God Himself.

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And it should also not escape our attention that as Moses brings this request, he not only reminds

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God of His Word, he not only bases his petition on God's Word, but he also seeks understanding of God's will and God's plan.

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Verse 13 says, Let me know your ways that I may know you. The word here that we translate way can be translated also as a direction or journey.

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It can literally mean directions in the sense of I tell you how to get from point A to point B. But more importantly, it can mean directions in the sense of an overall guide.

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Over the last 140 plus 22 weeks, we have read through the

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Psalms each Sunday morning. 22 of those weeks we spent in Psalm 119.

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And Psalm 119 contains for us this entire focus of the centrality of the

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Word of God in the life of the people of God. The necessity that we see repeatedly, we see in this

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Psalm this admonition of delighting in and understanding God's Word to us.

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So Moses received it face to face. He received this law.

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He recorded the words that God had given him. And even in doing all of these things, he desires more, he craves more, he yearns for more of God's Word.

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Because to know God, you have to know His Word. To know

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His will, you have to know Him. To know Him, you got it, you have to know

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His Word. It's necessity. If it was this vital for Moses, a person who, again,

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God is speaking to face to face, how much more vital would

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His Word be to us today? I'm glad you asked, because Peter actually gives us the answer.

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It's like in Peter 1, verse 19, and he says, and now, and we have as more sure.

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Now, I want to stop here for just a moment. I want to elaborate. This isn't even part of the sermon, but it's necessary.

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More sure. When you hold up this book, when you read from Genesis to Revelation, he performs, and you read of the life of Christ, and you read of the miracles that he performed, and you read of the truth that the

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Spirit will come after, and you see the things that happen in the life of the apostles, and you go, how in the world can this be more sure than that?

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But that's what God said it is. We can rest in it.

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We can trust it. Why? Because it's the truth of God.

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We could go into all of the reasons why we can have trust and faith, and you should, by the way.

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You should spend time doing that. Exercise. Why you can have assurance that this is what it says it is, but this is what's reality.

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We have more sure, the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention to as a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns, and the morning star arises in your heart.

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Now, if you take a moment and you consider the context in which Peter writes these words, Peter has been describing for us in the first 18 verses here the great and magnificent and precious promises of God.

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Then, beginning a couple of verses before this, he relays for us the encounter that he and James and John have on the

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Mount of Transfiguration, and then he says, but now we have the more sure prophetic word.

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Listen, this word is sustenance to the people of God.

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It is living water. This is the very word of God.

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To know God, we consume his word. To understand God, we consume his word.

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Unfortunately, people of God are often far too busy for the word of God.

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Too often they fail to spend time truly studying the things of God, truly seeking the whole counsel of God.

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Paul, as he was preparing to depart from Ephesus, met with the elders. And as he was getting ready to leave, one of the things he said to them in Acts 20, verse 26 and 27, he says, therefore

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I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God.

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Other translations use the whole counsel of God. I want you to understand something here.

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When you take a look at this passage, Paul's claim of innocence is just to demonstrate that if there is a failure of any person to come to faith, it is not as a result of Paul telling a half -truth.

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Paul says, I gave them the whole ball of wax. Everything.

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The whole counsel of God. He didn't have Genesis to Revelation, but he had

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Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, the

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Prophets, the rest of the histories, the Psalms, and whatever letters may have been written by this point.

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And he gave to them the whole truth that we find disclosed in the pages of Holy Scripture.

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So the primary purpose, again, is to show us that Paul didn't fail his duty to declare this.

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The secondary purpose is to provide instruction not only to those elders, but to the elders of the elders, to the people within the church, to us here today, that declares that it is necessary in the entirety of Christendom that we understand the whole

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Word of God. Not the portions that we like. We can't do like Thomas Jefferson.

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By the way, if you didn't know, Thomas Jefferson got his own Bible. Cut out all the stuff he didn't like. You can still buy copies of it.

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We didn't do that. We can't do that. We have to take all of Scripture. The whole of God's Word.

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And as we do so, we come as close as possible to understanding God. God Himself.

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And so as Moses concludes this first portion of the petition, based entirely on him, he concludes with one small sentence.

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Recall, see also, that this nation is your people.

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Again, it's not God needing the reminder. It is

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Moses demonstrating faith. Understanding that these people are the chosen people of God.

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I want you to understand also, when Moses says these words, these people have no right to that claim.

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I think this is one of the things that we miss so much in Christianity. They have no right to that claim.

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I have no right to the claim of the title Christian. Not in anything of me.

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It is by faith in Christ, through grace, that is all the gift of God.

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These people, these people had forfeited the right to be called the people of God.

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Yet Moses boldly stands as the mediator between God and men and says, oh yeah,

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God, by the way, you remember that group of people, your people.

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Christ today stands, and even though we have forfeited our right, by our own sin, by our own lives,

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Christ stands today and says, I have given him my righteousness.

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God says, then I count him just. I grant him.

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Recall back to Exodus chapter 32. Once again, verse 7, as God speaks to Moses regarding these people,

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He says to Moses, go down at once for your people whom you brought up.

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God gave these people over to Moses. If you recall in that same exchange,

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Moses tried to give them back to God. He recalls to God that these are his people.

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But then as Moses goes down the mountainside, as he reaches the bottom, he says to Aaron, what did this people do?

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In his anger, when he understood the severity of what they did, he again pushes them away.

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He desires now to not claim them for himself, don't claim them for God. Now Moses stands before God and says, recall these people, this nation, they're yours.

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Now what's interesting here, is first and foremost, we have seen mercy upon mercy upon mercy demonstrated in this entire event.

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God sends Moses down, God says take them away from me, because in my anger, I am going to consume them.

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Even though the people feel sorrow and they repent, God says, I still can't go with you, because in my anger,

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I'm going to consume you, because you're stiff necked, you're going to fall, and I will just sweep you away.

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When he could have just consumed them initially. Wiped all of them except for Moses, and maybe

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Joshua out and started over. For that matter, he could have done that in the garden.

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What Moses seeks here now, is even though he knows mercy has been displayed, now what

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Moses is asking for, is grace. As you look at this passage, in the

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LSB version, I don't know what version you have sitting in front of you, you see the word favor, favor, favor, favor.

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That word favor, shows up five different times, in these short few verses.

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That word, is the Hebrew word, can, which can also be, and is in many cases rightly translated, as grace.

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You see the favor that Moses is asking for, is unmerited favor.

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It's unwarranted favor. But he is asking

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God to provide, anyway, he is entreating God.

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First he does so, regarding grace to Moses himself, and secondly he does so, to the people.

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What's interesting though, is God's response to Moses in verse 14. Now if you read verse 14 too quick, you miss it.

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Because if you just do a cursory reading of verse 14, often you walk away with this idea that, everything has been successful.

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Moses has accomplished everything he set out to do. But then when you get to verse 15, it gets really weird.

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Because Moses begins repeating himself it seems. But if you take a moment, and you read verse 14 a little slower, you'll notice, that God's response to Moses, says nothing of the people.

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Look at the words. My presence shall go with you, and I will give you rest.

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Now in the original language, that first, with you, is not actually there. But it's a literary, or a grammatical structure.

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It's like we do in the English language. We could say, that Susan and Ted and Bob, brought their

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Bibles today. And what that really means, is that Susan brought her Bible, and Bob brought his

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Bible, and Ted brought his Bible. But to make it concise, we shorten it.

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So this is the same thing we see in the Hebrew language, in this verse. God's replying to Moses, and what he literally says to him, is my presence shall go, and I will give you rest.

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The implication being, that he goes with Moses, and Moses alone.

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This changes things a little bit. This begins to shift, what's happening here.

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And so Moses replies in verse 15. Moses understands what God's saying.

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God says to Moses, I'll go with you. I'll give you rest. And then

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Moses makes this as his reply. If your presence does not go with us, do not lead us up from here.

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Moses could have replied, thank you Lord, I'll keep these people away. And enjoyed the presence of God, and went on about his day.

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But he mediates on behalf of the people, at the detriment to himself.

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So here's the position that everybody is in right now, just in case you need a graphical picture, to understand.

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God has said to Moses, Moses I'll go with you, Moses I'll give you rest. The people of Israel, still need to be over on the other side.

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He hasn't promised them anything at this point. Beyond the fact that his presence will not go with them, because if it does, even if they falter for a moment, he would probably smite them out of existence.

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Moses puts emphasis, here on this second personal pronoun of you.

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You go with us, or we shall not go.

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The interesting thing about Moses, again, is Moses could have walked away at this point.

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Listen to how Hebrews describes Moses for a moment. Hebrews chapter 11, in that famous faith chapter, describes

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Moses in verses 23 through 29. It says, by faith Moses when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents, because they saw he was a beautiful child, and they were not afraid of the king's edict.

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By faith Moses when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God, than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin.

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Regarding the reproach of Christ, greater riches than the treasures of Egypt, where he was looking towards the reward.

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By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the rage of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is unseen.

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By faith he kept the Passover, and the sprinkling of the blood, so that he who destroyed the firstborn, would not touch them.

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By faith they passed through the Red Sea, as though they were passing through dry land, and the Egyptians when they attempted it, were drowned.

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It is by faith, that Moses does all of these things. It is that same faith, it is that same faith, that God promised, as a result of that faith, that God promised

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Moses, that he would go with him, and never entered. He was never allowed to breach the border.

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So this is a call for some people to say, well what did God mean then, to give him rest, if he was only going to take him to the end, where he could see the finish line, but not let him cross it.

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I would submit to you, that he crossed the finish line more victorious than many, because it is by that same faith, that Moses entered into the eternal rest.

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That is promised to all of us, rest in the arms of the

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Father, by the work of the Son. So as we again come to 15,

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Moses' words here are very similar, to those words of his forefather Jacob. You remember

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Jacob, on that fateful night, in Genesis chapter 32, where he wrestles with God.

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We find these words, it says, Then he said, Let me go, for the dawn is breaking. But he, the second he is

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Jacob, I will not let you go, unless you bless me. So he said to him,

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What is your name? And he said, Jacob. And he said,

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Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God, and with men, and have prevailed.

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The name Israel is a compound word, which literally means, striven with God. And it's not necessarily in a contentious manner.

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It's in a manner of knowing and understanding. It's in a manner of growing in faith and knowledge of who

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God is. Moses here says to God, If your personal presence is not with us, if it's not among us, if you don't dwell in the midst of us, leave us here.

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What a statement. What a statement. Can you imagine a church today with that growth strategy?

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People would lose their mind. But the reality is, that's the truth of where we all should be.

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If God's presence isn't with us in the form of the teaching of his word, in the form of the people of God gathering together in corporate worship, truly being what he called us to be, then we may as well just all go home.

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Because we surely will be left right here. Moses says,

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If your presence doesn't go with us, leave us here. Earlier, God promised the angel.

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Here, Moses basically tells him the angel's not good enough. Nothing less than the real, true presence will be sufficient.

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And he makes this statement based on the very glory of Almighty God. If you look at verse 16 for a moment, the stance of Moses here is this stance that how can we, me and your people be known as the truly separated people, those truly distinguishable from all other people if not by your grace.

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And we get God's response in verse 17. Verse 16 says, Indeed, how then can it be known that I have found favor,

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I have found grace in your sight, I and your people. Moses is projecting, he's assuming, he's presuming on the grace of God.

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I and your people, how can it be known that we find grace if you don't go with us.

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Is it that the very definition of how people will know that we are a distinguished people? Is it that the very definition of how they will know that we are set apart?

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That brings us to the very crux of the entire matter. Verse 17,

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Yahweh says to Moses, I will do this thing of which you have spoken, for you have found grace in my sight and I have known you by name.

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I will also do this thing you have spoken, for you have found grace in my sight.

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What an amazing response. It is the grace of God and only the grace of God.

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That's the heart of the matter. The marvelous, magnificent, matchless grace of God poured out upon His people.

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There's a lot of great richness in these last two verses, but we're going to focus this morning as we close out on two.

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First of all, the people of God, both then and now, must be distinguishable from the world.

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Listen, we live in an age and I don't think I have to tell any of you here this, but we live in an age that is obsessed with inclusivity.

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We want to blur distinctions. We want to question boundaries. Over the last hundred years, this spirit of equality has evolved into a culture that elevates self -esteem and self -definition above all.

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The result? The result is a society where parents are told, you should tell your children you can be anything you want to be.

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I'm here to tell you, brothers and sisters, you should tell your children that they can be anything God wants them to be.

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The church, the church, well, the church, unfortunately, has adopted the same stance, the same philosophy.

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Don't believe me? Look at the worship services. Look at what we do within our churches.

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Everything is built for attraction. Everything is designed to bring in.

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And often it is done under the banner of doing whatever it takes to get them in the door.

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And I'm just going to tell you, this has created a massive problem because what it creates is compromise versus being evangelistic.

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You see, what we've done is we've come down to the world. We've condescended to the world to make ourselves more palatable, more attractable, and in so doing, we compromise the very gospel that we stand for.

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We have many who would even invoke Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 9, verse 22.

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Well, I have become all things to all people after all, that by all means I may save some.

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Paul isn't talking about conforming to the world. Paul isn't talking about changing the gospel.

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True, we may communicate it differently to different people in different places at different times, but we don't negotiate on the truth.

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Romans 1, verse 16, I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.

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Believes what? The gospel. Not my version of the gospel, God's version of the gospel.

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What this book says. Not, well, let me paint this beautiful sign on the outside of my church that shows how this is a wonderful place where everyone just gets along and we're all one big happy family and you come in the doors and it's a freak fest.

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Because that's what exists now. Brothers and sisters, we ought to be sickened.

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Sickened by what is calling itself the church today. Because here's the thing, they're not the church.

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But we're too scared to stand up and say these people are false. Listen, by the grace of God, we believers are set apart.

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We are no longer part of this world. We are pilgrims.

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We are sojourners here. We belong there. We walk through this world as the people of God marked by covenant identity.

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Marked by the very word of God. Distinguished by the very grace of God.

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And someone would say, well, but you know, the scripture says and they will know us by our love. Yes, they will.

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Scripture also says don't love the world. I know we don't want to talk about that verse, right? But it's truth.

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Second, the distinction here rests solely upon the grace of God alone.

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We don't distinguish ourself based off of our merit, our ability, our wisdom, our will.

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We are distinguished because of divine mercy.

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This is where it becomes important to understand salvation in truth.

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And the reality that salvation is monergistic. There's your big churchy word for the day.

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Monergistic. Break that down for you. It means that all of God and none of you. God did it all.

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Start to end. You didn't do anything. Well, you sinned. That was your whole contribution.

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God did everything else. You said, well, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I have to accept. Yeah. How do you accept? By grace through faith.

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That's a gift from God. It's still all of God from beginning to end.

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It is grace alone through faith alone and Christ alone according to Scripture alone for the glory of God alone.

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That's what it is. God's people are his people not because we sought him but because he sovereignly set his electing love upon us, redeemed us by his son and sealed us by his spirit.

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That's the only reason we can use the term Christian. That's the only reason we can claim that.

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Not of us. All of him. Therefore, the church must resist the temptation to erase distinction.

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We are an exclusive group. Not everybody belongs to the family of God.

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I love the fact that Daniel took a few moments earlier when we read from Titus and explained what all meant because for some reason some people don't understand that all doesn't always mean all of everything.

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Yes, it means all but it can mean all of a subset. Right? That's an imperative thing that we understand.

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We are distinguishable from the world. We are different from the world. We stand apart from the world.

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We are demonstrating the fruit of God's gracious election. The evidence of his sanctifying work.

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We are to display his glory among those he has called out of darkness into his marvelous light.

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We are the reflection of him.

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So as we come to the end, we're standing where Moses stood before the very throne of God.

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We stand there dependent upon the grace of God alone.

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This conversation between Moses and Yahweh reminds us the distinguishing mark of the people of God is the grace of God.

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It's not our strength. It's not our wisdom. It's not our achievements. It never has been. It always has been and it will forever be the gracious presence of God among us by his grace and his grace alone.

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Moses pleaded, if your presence does not go with us, do not lead us up from here. He was confessing that a people without the presence of God are no people at all.

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God had already told him, go, go up to the land. I'll clear it out for you. Inherit the land.

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Moses says, we can inherit the land, but without you, it would be an empty possession.

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Without your presence, it would mean nothing. How many of our churches today have gone forth and we've built buildings upon buildings, upon buildings, program after program after program, follower after follower after follower, but there is nothing of the gracious presence of God and there are so many people who are in these false buildings, these false houses, these false pretenses that will crumble.

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They will fall away. The true church is not about popularity.

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It's about the presence. It's not about human ingenuity. It's about divine indwelling.

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Grace is not an abstract concept or a sentimental idea. It is the reality, the living reality of God's favor poured out upon an undeserving people.

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It was grace that spared Israel. It was grace that restored them to fellowship.

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It was grace that distinguished them as God's own. It is that same sovereign grace.

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It is that same sovereign grace that calls sinners from darkness to light.

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That same sovereign grace that justifies the ungodly. That same sovereign grace that sustains saints to the very end.

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We should not speak of grace as a possibility, but as a power that moves.

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Grace does not merely offer salvation. It accomplishes salvation.

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We need to understand the difference. The offer of salvation is contingent upon the acceptance.

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The accomplishment of salvation is contingent upon God. Grace accomplishes it, not offers it.

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This is why Moses could stand before the Lord and with confidence speak.

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Not because of himself, but because of God.

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Because of whom he, Moses, belonged to. And so the question is, have you known this grace?

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Not just the grace that we sing about. Not the grace that we admire from afar. But the grace that transforms a heart.

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The grace that humbles a soul. The grace that draws you into communion with a living

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God. For to know grace is to know

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Christ and to be known by Him.

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Only that we would be a people who like Moses will not move an inch without the presence of God.

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A people that would cry out, Lord, if you do not go with us, leave us here. Preferring to be in the wilderness with Him as opposed to the promised land without Him.

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May the distinguishing mark of Christ be not just demonstrated in our name, but in our labor.

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And that the abiding presence of His marvelous, magnificent, matchless grace would reign in our hearts.

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Let us pray. Gracious and sovereign

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Lord, we bow before you in humble gratitude.

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Lord, we confess that every mercy we possess is the fruit of your grace.

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Lord, we confess that you and you alone have called us out of darkness and into your marvelous light.

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You have written our names upon the hands of Christ. You have sealed us with your spirit.

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It is all of grace from the first to the last.

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All of salvation is a sovereign work of almighty God. A magnificent display of His beautiful, amazing grace.

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Lord, we confess that apart from you, apart from your presence, we are nothing.

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Lord, we could labor, we could preach, we could sing, we could do so. But without you, all of our laboring is in vain.

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All of our preaching is false and all of our worship is hollow.

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Lord, go with us. Lead us by your word.

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Sustain us by your spirit. Fix our eyes upon Christ and Christ alone.

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May the grace that saved us continue to sanctify us until we are fully conformed into His image.

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Lord, forgive us for we have sought to blend in with the world rather than be set apart for your glory.

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Renew in us a holy resolve to walk as pilgrims and as sojourners whose true citizenship is in heaven.

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And now as we prepare to depart from this place, may your presence rest upon us, distinguishing us as your people, redeemed, beloved, and upheld by grace alone.

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it is in the precious name of our Lord Jesus that we pray. Amen.