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Good morning.
I'm Melissa Arsuniega, and I'm part of the North Berkeley Tuesday Night Community Group at the Wesolowskis.
Today's scripture reading is from the book of Exodus, chapter 33, verses 12 through 18, as printed in the liturgy.
A reading from the book of Exodus.
Moses said to the Lord,
You have been telling me, lead these people, but you have not let me know whom you will send with me.
You have said, I know you by name, and you have found favor with me.
If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you.
Remember that this nation is your people.
The Lord replied, my presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.
Then Moses said to him, if your presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here.
How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us?
What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?
And the Lord said to Moses, I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you, and I know you by name.
Then Moses said, now show me your glory.
The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the Lord the Lord stands forever.
This week at our wonderful Wednesday gathering, we had about 20 people here, and we were talking in our adult breakout time about prayer and praying together.
And I asked people to write down, you know, what's a question or a challenge that you have in your own prayers to God?
And it was striking to me that out of this group of 20 people, a bunch of people mentioned the very same thing.
And they said, do our prayers affect God?
Do our prayers do anything?
And this is so important, because this is a sermon series where we're inviting you and challenging you to think about this one word, revival.
And particularly to pray this one simple prayer, revive us.
But of course, why would we pray this prayer if we're not sure that our prayers affect God, if we're not sure that our prayers actually do anything?
So I want to begin by saying this morning that I believe God has given us the prayers of Scripture, the prayers of Abraham, Moses, and David,
the prayers of the prophets, the prayers of Jesus and the apostles, so that we might learn how to pray like them.
Because God wants to be affected by those prayers.
God wants to take those prayers up to himself and pour them back down upon the church and pour them back down upon the world to accomplish his purposes.
And I don't think God would have given us these visions of revival, these models of revival in the Bible and in church history,
unless he intended for us to be inspired by them and therefore to pray earnestly for them.
And some of you, if you're new today, you might think, gosh, revival, what's he talking about?
This focus seems a little bit strange.
But we've reached an age in which the vast majority of church members, at least in our part of the world,
have ceased to think in terms of revival at all.
Up until about 1860, it was just instinctive to think in terms of revival, especially in our Reformed tradition.
If you hit a period of spiritual drought, if things were not going so well in the church or in society,
what was the first thing that people thought?
They thought to themselves, should we not enter into a time of confession?
Should we not humble ourselves?
Should we not enter into a season of prayer for God to come and visit us again?
But in our modern time, you know, we see the church languishing,
and our first thought is we should form a committee.
You know, we should host a potluck.
We should play more games.
But our spiritual mothers and fathers were much wiser than us,
and they said, you know, why are things so bad?
Why is it that we are seeing plagues and violence and drought?
Why is there seemingly an increasing amount of spiritual confusion and moral decline
and social division and economic crises and cultural breakdown and communal disasters?
That's what they ask themselves.
Why is it so bad?
And why is the church not more alive to God and not more faithful to the gospel?
And they thought to themselves, you know, we must have offended God.
Like we collectively as a society, we must have offended God.
We must have grieved him in some way.
Perhaps we turned our backs on God, and so he's turned his back on us.
And they thought, well, what can we do about this?
And the church said, well, we, representing all the people around us,
we can get down on our knees and we can ask God, please come back.
Please, we're pleading with you.
We're arguing with you.
We're reasoning with you, God, to send your Holy Spirit and to send revival.
And that's what the church would do.
They would plead the promises of God.
They would agonize in prayer until God heard them, until God visited them with the Holy Spirit,
until God revived not only the church but the whole society around the church.
And this is the pattern that's repeated over and over again in the prophets of Moses and Samuel and Elijah,
and the kings like Asa and Jehoshaphat and Josiah and Hezekiah,
and Ezra and Nehemiah, if you just go read the Bible, you'll see this pattern repeated,
that God is affected by our prayers,
and that God has designed things in such a way that he would take our prayers
and he would use those to revive his people and therefore to revive the whole world.
And so with that, I want to invite us to turn our attention to Moses and his great prayer for revival in Exodus chapter 33.
And this text today tells us,
ask God for more.
Ask God for more assurance, power, and holiness.
That's what Moses' prayer is about.
Ask God for more assurance, power, and holiness.
What does it mean to ask God for more assurance?
We've seen in these last few weeks that God withdrew his presence from the church of the Old Testament.
Israel, the people of God, they had this golden calf moment,
and God withdrew his presence, and in response to that, the people repented.
And Moses set up this tent of meeting, and he began to pray for God to have mercy on his people,
and this cloudy pillar of God's presence began to return to the church.
God was beginning to answer these prayers for revival, prayers that he would return,
prayers that he would not hold the sins of the church against her,
and that God would not withhold his favor and withhold his face from his people.
And I think Moses was extremely grateful to God for this.
And I think the people of Israel were extremely grateful to God for this.
They saw this cloudy pillar of God's presence come down upon the tent of meeting,
and we saw last week all the people began to worship.
And every person began to turn their own homes into a little tent of meeting
where they would pray and they would worship God.
And why were they worshiping?
Because God was returning.
Because God was listening to Moses and speaking to Moses.
And you would think that Moses would stop here,
and he would be content just to enjoy the answers to his prayers.
But you can see that Moses is not satisfied,
that Moses desires more,
and that he in fact goes back to the tent of meeting,
and he keeps on praying.
And he says,
Lord, what we have is not enough.
And that's the essence of revival.
The essence of revival is pleading for something more.
It's pleading for that which is additional,
and unusual,
and special,
and exceptional,
and extraordinary.
And this is not to say that we should be ungrateful to God
for all the things that he's given us.
We should thank God when we see the church knows who she believes,
and when the church is firm in the truth,
and experiencing God's blessings.
We should thank God when the church is conscious of his presence,
and full of the Holy Spirit,
and empowered for his work,
and seeing regular conversions.
We should hope for that,
and we should thank God for those things.
But that's not revival.
Revival.
That's just the regular,
usual,
normal,
ordinary state of the church.
But revival goes way beyond these things.
Revival is something startling,
something amazing,
something extraordinary.
And if I don't draw your attention to that,
you won't be concerned about it,
and you won't know that you need to pray for it.
You might think to yourself,
well,
things are going fine.
God is blessing us.
We should just keep on as we are.
Revival is not really necessary.
And Moses himself could have settled for that.
But we see here that he pleads for more.
And what did Moses pray for?
Well,
he prays for that same thing
that men and women always pray for
when they feel a burden for revival.
This characteristic prayer
that people who are praying for
and preparing for revival,
they pray this way.
And the first thing Moses prays for
is he asks for assurance.
He asks God for assurance.
And he says in verse 13,
if you are pleased with me,
teach me your ways
so I may know you
and continue to find favor with you.
Remember that this nation
is your people.
Now that sounds strange
because last week we saw
that Moses was spoken to by God
face to face
and person to person
like a friend.
So doesn't Moses already know God?
Doesn't he already have the favor of God?
And the reality is
that Moses wants to know God more.
He wants to experience
the favor of God more.
He's not content with mere knowledge
that God has accepted him
or that God cares for him.
He knows that.
He knows God's concern
and he knows God's kindness.
But what he wants
is a deeper
and a fuller knowledge of God.
He wants more personal
and direct experience
that God really loves him.
It's like a child.
A child might know
that you love them
but that child needs to hear from you.
You are my pride and joy.
I love you to the moon and back.
Right?
A child desperately needs to hear those words
and that's what Moses is praying for.
Lord, press your love so deep into my heart
that I'm confident of it,
that I'm assured of it.
And Moses is like a,
I imagine him like a little child
playing at the edge of the water on the beach
and he's praying,
Lord, I want to know
the mighty ocean depths
of your love for me.
I'm not content to stay here in the shallows.
Let me know beyond any doubt
how vast
and unmeasured
and boundless
is the ocean
of your deep, deep love for me.
And if even Moses had to pray that,
how much more do you and I
need to pray for this?
But Moses doesn't stop there.
He's like a daring child, right?
A daring child doesn't just ask for one thing.
They keep going
and he asks God for more
and he says in verse 13,
he says,
Lord, teach me your ways.
Now that's also strange
because Moses of all people,
does he not know the ways of God?
What does this mean?
He's saying,
Lord, show me your purposes
and your plans.
You've told us,
you've told Israel
that we can go forward
into the promised land
without you.
That we can go ahead
and have all the gifts
without the giver.
That we can go
and have this kingdom
without the king.
But Lord,
who can live with that?
You've got to come with us.
You've made promises to us.
You've sworn oath to us.
You've made a covenant
commitment to us.
So Moses is saying,
Lord, let me in.
Teach me your ways.
Show me your thoughts
and your mind.
I want to know
what your secret plans are for us.
Are you coming with us or not?
Is what he says.
And don't we need
this kind of assurance from God?
Don't we need this assurance
of his deep love for us?
I mean, we know that God
sent his son to die on the cross,
but doesn't that need
to be applied to me
so that I experience it
and so that I feel it
in my bones?
Don't we need this assurance
that God is going with us?
Yes, he's given his spirit
to the church,
but is he going to fill us?
Is he going to enable us
to move forward
into the future together
at Christ Church?
Yes, of course,
we all need this assurance.
It's one thing to know
about the love of God
and the presence of God,
but it's another thing
to know it,
to experience it,
to feel it,
to live in it.
Last night or this morning
as we were preparing ourselves
to come here
and meet with God,
did you offer any special prayer
that God might reveal
more of his love to us today?
That he might let us know
in some special way
that he's going to be here
with us?
Or did we just kind of show up
assuming that he'll do it
without asking for it?
You see, Moses teaches us
how to pray for revival.
He says,
Lord, on the basis of your favor,
on the basis of your mercy
and your grace,
and given everything
that you've done for us,
everything you've spoken to us,
I want to humbly ask
and yet boldly ask for more.
Will you please
build us up
in a new confidence
and a fresh certainty
and a blessed assurance
of your affections for us?
And won't you show us
how much we matter to you?
And won't you please
reveal to us
your intentions
and your specific purposes
for us,
your people?
Friends,
that type of praying
affects God.
That is the type of praying
that God wants to hear
and cause him to move
and pour himself out
and answer to our prayers,
and it's what he did
for Moses in verse 14.
It says,
the Lord replied,
my presence will go with you
and I will give you rest.
Friends,
are you feeling this desire
to be let into God's heart?
Are you wanting to know
whether or not
God is going to do
something great for us
here in the East Bay?
Are you wanting to know,
Lord,
are you going to revive us
or not?
Are you going to revive
your church
with a capital C
or not?
Are you going to revive
the city or not?
Teach me your ways.
Are you going with us
or not?
What's it going to be,
Lord?
That's the kind of praying
that we're meant to be doing
as a people.
So we should ask for more.
We should ask for more assurance
and we shouldn't stop there.
We should ask for more assurance
and we should ask for more power.
So verse 15,
Moses says to the Lord,
if your presence does not go with us,
then do not send us up from here.
And why does Moses say this?
Does he not hear God's answer
to his prayer in the previous verse?
See, he does hear it,
but the problem there in verse 14
is that God said,
my presence will go with you singular.
It doesn't say my presence
will go with y'all plural
or you's guys,
depending on where you're from.
And you see,
Moses doesn't just want to personally
be blessed as an individual.
Moses is praying for the church.
He's concerned to stress
the collective good of God's people.
He says in verse 13,
remember that this nation
is your people.
And do we pray in the plural like that?
Are we praying for me
or will you go with me
or will you go with us?
And you see,
the other problem in verse 14
is that the Lord said,
I will give you rest.
My presence will go with you
and I will give you rest.
And that word rest
got Moses praying for more
because that phrase,
I will give you rest,
can be translated as
I will lighten your burden.
And that's the phrase
continually found in the context
where God is bringing relief
to Israel
and giving her rest
from the burden of her enemies.
And this gets Moses thinking
about the great difficulties
that are facing the people of God.
It gets him thinking
about the great task
that lays before them
to go in and claim
the promised land,
the task to go
and set up the kingdom of God
in the midst of hostile territory.
And you see,
you got to remember
that this is a little ragtag group
of nomadic people.
They've been slaves for 400 years.
They've been wandering
without a home for 40 years.
They're about to cross
into enemy territory
completely weak
and vulnerable
and defenseless.
They're about to be attacked
by strong and armed
and fortified people
and this is overwhelming.
This is a terrifying reality
for Moses.
He's meditating
on the magnitude
and the immense problem
that confronts
the people of God,
the burden of her enemies.
And so he says,
Lord, do not send us
without your supernatural power,
without the power
of your presence
because we are going
to get crushed.
We're going to be destroyed.
We're going to be annihilated
without your strength
and without your might
and without your authority
going with us.
Now some of us today
might say,
well it's a good thing
that the church
today doesn't have
such big problems
and such scary enemies.
And if that's you,
I want to encourage you
to read the newspaper
and to read the New Testament
because we're told
that the church
has three great enemies.
The world,
the flesh,
and the devil.
Think for a moment
about our enemies,
the world,
and the flesh.
You're probably aware
of the stats
about church decline
in the western world
over the past 150 years.
You're probably aware
that church membership
in the United States
has gone down sharply
over the last two decades,
roughly the lifespan
of Christ's church.
I won't bore you
with all the data this morning.
You can read the polls.
You probably read
about the rise
of the nuns,
N-O-N-E-S,
people who no longer
have a religious identity
or a religious group affiliation.
You're probably aware
of this movement
in the Protestant world
of deconstruction
and deconversion.
And, you know,
those things didn't just happen
as a result
of the past few years.
The past few years
have not been
the cause of these things.
They've just revealed to us
the depths of the problem
of these things.
It showed us
how much power
the world is actually
exerting over the church.
It showed us
how the world
is conforming us
to its patterns
and squeezing us
into its mold.
It showed us
in a fresh way
how the world
is pulling us,
the church,
down into its secularity
and its functional atheism
and its godlessness.
Listen to these words
from the apostle
in his epistle
to the Romans,
chapter 1.
He says,
For although they knew God,
they neither glorified him
as God
nor gave thanks to him,
but their thinking
became futile
and their foolish hearts
were darkened.
They exchanged the truth
about God for a lie
and worshipped and served
created things
rather than the creator.
And the result of all this
is that they become
filled with every kind
of wickedness,
evil, greed,
and depravity.
They are full of envy,
murder, strife,
deceit, and malice.
They are gossips,
slanderers,
God-haters,
insolent,
arrogant,
and boastful.
They invent ways
of doing evil.
They disobey their parents.
They have no understanding,
no fidelity,
no love,
no mercy.
Now that's meant
to be a description
of the world,
but does that not
more and more
apply to the church
of North America?
No love,
no mercy.
We're getting pulled down
by this great enemy
and can't you see
our need for God's
supernatural power
in the church?
Or what about
our other great enemy,
the devil?
Jesus taught us to pray,
deliver us from the evil one.
And his lead disciple,
Peter,
says this in his first epistle.
He says,
be alert and of sober mind.
Your enemy prowls around
like a roaring lion,
seeking those
whom he might devour.
The apostle Paul says
in Ephesians 6,
he says,
take your stand
against the devil
and his schemes.
For our struggle
is not against flesh
and blood,
but our struggle
is against rulers
and against authorities.
It's against dark powers.
It's against spiritual forces
of evil
in high places.
Christchurch,
what if we believe that?
Would we not tremble
like Moses?
Would we not pray
more like Moses?
Would we not see
our need for God
to come down
in his power
and to lighten
our burden
and give us rest
from our enemies?
We live in the most
unchurched region
of the United States
of America
and we've been given
the one task
of making disciples
of Jesus Christ
here in this place.
Do you think
that we can do that
in our own resources
and with our own power?
You see,
Moses humbles himself
and he realizes
his great weakness
and his inability
and he says to God,
who am I
to meet this situation?
Lord,
I'm not enough.
I'm not,
I'm totally inadequate.
And he says,
Lord,
I'm not going to take
another step
unless I know
that the power
of your presence
is going to go with us.
I'm not going to go on.
I'm not going to even
attempt to do
one more thing
without you.
He's pleading
for an unusual
manifestation
of God's
supernatural power.
And if we
as a church
in North America
are confident
in ourselves
and we're proud
of our abilities,
then number one,
we don't know
our enemies
and number two,
we don't know
ourselves.
and it's
unless we
become aware
of our impotence,
of our weakness,
of our desperate
dependence on God
and his power
to carry out
his mission,
then we simply
won't pray for it.
The Apostle Paul
writes this
in 1 Thessalonians 1.
He says,
our gospel
came to you
not simply
with words
but also
with power
and with the Holy Spirit
and with deep
conviction.
Now,
do you think
the Apostle Paul
just rolled up
into that
Greco-Roman
pagan city
of Thessalonica
and he
just kind of
didn't pray
for anything
and stuff
started to happen?
No,
I imagine
him agonizing
in prayer
beforehand
just like
Jesus
agonized
in prayer
before every
great act
of his ministry
and I imagine
Paul saying,
Lord,
bring your gospel
to this place
and to these people
with power
and with the Holy Spirit
and with deep
conviction.
The Apostle
also writes
in 1 Corinthians 2,
he says,
I came to you,
I came to Corinth
in weakness
and with great
fear
and trembling
and my message
and my preaching
were not with wise
and persuasive words
but with a demonstration
of the Spirit's power
so that your faith
might not rest
on human wisdom
but on God's power.
How in the world
did his message
of Christ crucified
penetrate
and transform
that pagan city,
that port city
of Corinth?
Don't we think
the Apostle
and some of his friends
were agonizing
in prayer
and saying,
Lord,
won't you please,
please,
please accompany
the message,
accompany the preaching
of your gospel
with a demonstration
of your Spirit's power.
And oh,
how the church
needs to relearn
how to pray
for power.
It's the reason
we're so weak
because we haven't
learned to pray
and need to pray
for power.
But I would suggest
you shouldn't stop there.
Ask God for more.
Ask Him for more assurance
and ask Him
for more power.
And the last thing
I want to say
is ask Him
for more holiness.
Revival's all about
asking God
for more holiness.
In our ordinary
conversations
at home
or at work
or at school,
we often express
our urgency
to get something
or to get something
done by setting up
reasons why
this other person
should do this thing
for us.
Right?
We might even
seek the advice
of other people
or plan beforehand
what we want to say
in our conversation.
And Moses is kind of
like that.
He's like a lawyer
who's gone to court
and he's building
this great case
before God,
the judge,
and he's teaching us
that we too
should pray like this.
How do we communicate
our petitions to God
with the kind of intensity
and the persuasive
urgency of Moses?
His first step
is he says,
God,
I want to draw
your attention
to our own needs
and desires.
Lord,
we want to know you more.
We want to experience
your favor
and your pleasure.
We want to be assured
that you are going
to go with us.
And the second case
that he makes,
the second step
in his argument
is that he says,
God,
I want to draw
your attention
to your people.
Lord,
remember that this nation
is your special people.
And send us,
Lord,
with your power
and the power
of your presence
because he knows
that the Israelites
are not just
an ordinary people,
that they're the apple
of God's eye.
They're dear
to his heart.
He says,
Lord,
I want you to focus
on the special character
of your people.
Do not let us face
our powerful enemies
without your superior power.
But then Moses
takes his urgent prayer
one step forward.
Actually,
two steps forward.
We'll see the next step
next week.
But he takes it
one step forward
and this third step,
he draws his attention
to God's glory
among the nations.
And he says this
in verse 16.
He says,
How will anyone know
that you are pleased
with me
and with your people
unless you go with us?
What else
will distinguish me
and your people
from all the other people
on the face of the earth?
Who is anyone?
It's all the peoples,
all the nations
of the earth.
And Moses said,
How are they going
to know
that we are
the people
of your pleasure,
that we are the people
of your favor
and your grace?
The way they're going
to come to know that
is because you,
Lord,
distinguish us.
You make us
a different people
and a distinct people.
They'll know it,
Lord,
when they see
that you separated us,
you set us apart,
you made us holy.
They'll come to know you
when they see
that we've come
to share
in the honor
and the glory
of your holiness.
And that's what
revival's all about.
Lord,
if you allow
your people
to be diminished
by the nations
or to be assimilated
into the nations,
that is going to bring
about an unacceptable result
for your reputation.
But,
the nations of the earth
will come to know you
and they'll come
to know your glory
when they see
your holiness
reflected in the distinct
and distinguished holiness
of your people.
When they come
to experience
our holy lives
individually
and our holy character
collectively.
And this is a prayer
that the church
should be
as she's
meant to be.
Lord,
make your church
distinguished.
Make your church
set apart.
Make your church
unique.
Robert Murray McShane
is a great
Scottish pastor
and preacher
and he prayed
this prayer.
He said,
Lord,
make me as holy
as a pardoned sinner
can be made.
And that's become
my prayer for me
and for my family.
It's become my prayer
for our church.
Lord,
make us as holy
as pardoned sinners
can be made.
Lord,
make it clear
that we are not just
one among
many peoples
and many nations
in the world,
but make it clear
that we are the people
who are blessed
by your pleasure
and your favor
and your grace.
Lord,
make it clear
that we belong
to a holy
and distinguished
God.
And make us
so different,
so distinct,
so distinguished
that it will arrest
the attention
of the rest of the world
and they will come
to see the glory
of your holiness
expressed in us.
Christ Church,
how different are we
than other agencies
other bodies,
other institutions?
Is it clear
to them that,
to other people
that we're more
than just nice people
or respectable people
or likable people,
but that we're
holy people?
Is it clear
that we're more
than just a social club
or a community organization
or a political
affinity group?
Do people
look at us
and say,
we don't really know
what's going on
over there,
but we know
that what's going on
is not of human beings,
it's of God.
In Acts chapter 4,
shortly after Pentecost,
this little church
is facing
great difficulty
and they're experiencing
incredible resistance
to the gospel.
People are being
thrown in jail
and threatened
with execution
for preaching
the gospel.
And so what does
the church do?
the church gets together
and has a prayer meeting
and they say,
Lord,
do something special.
Do something extraordinary.
Distinguish us
and glorify yourself
among the nations
through us.
And what happens?
The Holy Spirit
came down.
The Holy Spirit
was poured out.
And that whole place,
it says,
was shaken.
And all the people there,
they were shaken
by the presence
of the Holy Spirit
in their midst.
Is that how we're praying?
Lord,
distinguish us
by your Holy Spirit.
Lord,
distinguish us
by your Spirit
of holiness
in us.
Because that's the prayer
we know God likes
to answer.
We know that's the prayer
God likes to have
affect him
and likes to use
to affect the world
because we're told
in verse 17,
the Lord said to Moses,
I will do this very thing
you've asked
because I am pleased
with you
and I know you
by name.
Christ Church,
may we ask
for more assurance,
more power,
and more holiness.
And may we ask
with confidence
knowing that God
wants to give us
this very thing
because he's pleased
with us
and he knows us
by name.
In the name of the Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit.
Amen.