The Glory of God (Exodus): After almost 30 weeks, our Journey to Freedom series on Exodus ends with a focus on the glory of God. From Moses’ radiant face to the glory cloud filling the Tabernacle, see how God’s beauty, grace, and goodness lead us to worship and reflect His light. Recorded on Mar 9, 2025, on Exodus 34-40 by Pastor David Parks.
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This message is part of our Exodus series called Journey to Freedom. Exodus is a story of liberation — of God working to rescue and redeem a people for himself, freeing them from slavery and leading them to the land he promised to the family of Abraham and Sarah. Exodus is also a picture of the gospel and the Christian life. In Christ, we, too, are freed from captivity to sin and death and led through the wilderness of life by God’s Word and Presence as we make our way to the Promised Land of the world to come. Join us as we make this journey to find true and lasting freedom.
Sermon Transcript
Well, it took us almost 30 weeks, but we did it. We’ve been working through the book of Exodus in a sermon series called Journey to Freedom, and today, we’ll bring it to a close. After today, we’ll start a new sermon series for Lent. And this is always bittersweet for me. I’ve really enjoyed this series and am a little sad we couldn’t just keep going until the Israelites finally entered the Promised Land, but we’d have to work through four more whole books of the Bible (probably too much). But I do hope this series has been helpful to your faith and especially to your knowledge of who God is. But I’m also excited to start something new as we make our way toward the cross and empty tomb. So one last time, we’ve said that Exodus is a story of liberation, of God rescuing and redeeming a people for himself. It’s the defining story for the people of Israel and reveals so much of who God is, which is why it’s the most referenced story in the bible. We’ve also said that the Exodus story is a great picture of the gospel and the Christian life — a story of God rescuing a people by his grace, then teaching them to follow his word and Spirit through the wilderness of life as they make their way to the Promised Land. Today, as we wrap up this series, we’ll consider the great theme of the glory of God. This is maybe the great theme of the Bible. Last week we asked the question, what is God really like? You can’t answer this question without understanding the glory of God. So, we’re going to do a little tour, making several stops to see the story of the glory of God. If you have your Bible/app, please open it to Exodus 34:29.
Exodus 34:29–35 (NIV), “29 When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the covenant law in his hands, he was not aware that his face was radiant because he had spoken with the Lord. 30 When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, his face was radiant, and they were afraid to come near him. 31 But Moses called to them; so Aaron and all the leaders of the community came back to him, and he spoke to them. 32 Afterward all the Israelites came near him, and he gave them all the commands the Lord had given him on Mount Sinai. 33 When Moses finished speaking to them, he put a veil over his face. 34 But whenever he entered the Lord’s presence to speak with him, he removed the veil until he came out. And when he came out and told the Israelites what he had been commanded, 35 they saw that his face was radiant. Then Moses would put the veil back over his face until he went in to speak with the Lord.” On the first stop of our tour, we have a passage that follows our passage from last week, where Moses had asked to see God’s glory. Yahweh El Shaddai, the Lord God Almighty, said Moses couldn’t handle a full experience of his glory (he would be destroyed), but God would allow him to see/experience as much as he could bear. “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence,” (Ex 33:19). The next day, the Lord appeared to Moses on Mount Sinai and gave him the famous statement, “Yahweh, Yahweh, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished,” (Ex 34:6-7). I share this again because to understand the glory of God, first, you need to understand who God is, his character, and his nature. The glory of God is the goodness and radiant beauty of all his attributes combined. It’s the full revelation of all of who God is. It’s the incredible combination of his compassion and his grace; it’s his wisdom, love, faithfulness, and justice; it’s his transcendent, sovereign power as the King of the Cosmos, and his caring nearness. God is glorious. Second, God’s glorious character leads to glorious works. God’s work of creation only increases and reflects the glory of who he is. As David wrote in Psalm 19:1-4 (NIV), “1 The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. 2 Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. 3 They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. 4 Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.” Even the most militant atheist senses the power and presence of something beyond this material universe, standing at the shores of the Atlantic or driving up above the clouds in Rocky Mountain National Park. Even someone who hates God can still marvel at the intricacy of the design of the human eye or hand. As the Apostle Paul wrote to the Romans, “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” (Ro 1:20). However, though we can learn much about God from what he has made, we don’t get the full picture without seeing the glory of God in his work of salvation. We see God’s power in creation but not his goodness. We see his divine nature but not his grace. We need the story of the fall, the flood, the Exodus, and countless others found in the word of God. Only in the gospel do we see the ultimate goodness and grace of a God who loves and saves and forgives, even the worst of his enemies. Third, as we see in Ex 34, the glory of God is often represented by radiant light. “God is light; in him there is no darkness at all” (1Jn 1:5). The Lord had already appeared as a burning bush when he called Moses and as a pillar of fire when he led his people out of Egypt. He had appeared in what looked like fire at the top of Mount Sinai. One of the qualities of fire is that it radiates light. We don’t know exactly how/why Moses was radiant after speaking with God, but it seems as if God’s glory was almost contagious. Is that the fourth lesson so far? The glory of God brushed off on Moses just from being in God’s presence. At any rate, it made Aaron and the others afraid enough that Moses wore a veil after meeting with God so he wouldn’t freak people out. But after reforming the covenant between Yahweh and Israel in Ex 34, Moses assembled the whole Israelite community and gave them the Lord’s instructions for the Tabernacle, or the tent where God’s glorious presence would dwell among his people. Those who were skilled came forward to build it while those whose hearts were moved, generously gave the expensive materials needed to build it. Exodus chapters 35-39 then describe the work of building the Tabernacle, all the articles and furniture used in worship, the priestly garments, and more. Our next stop on the tour will pick up the story when the work was done.
Exodus 39:32–43 (NIV), “32 So all the work on the tabernacle, the tent of meeting, was completed. The Israelites did everything just as the Lord commanded Moses…42 The Israelites had done all the work just as the Lord had commanded Moses. 43 Moses inspected the work and saw that they had done it just as the Lord had commanded. So Moses blessed them.” The reason for our stopping here, besides showing the faithfulness of Israel to actually do what God told them to do, is to see the connection between the glory of God and the worship of his people. The glory of God is first about the goodness and beauty of who God is, second, about what he has done in creation and salvation, third, is often represented by radiant light, and fourth, seems to be somewhat contagious. Fifth, the glory of God is the focus of the worship of God’s people. We see this in the fact that the Tabernacle (and later, the Temple in Jerusalem) would serve as the central place of worship for Israel. At many points in the Exodus journey, we’ve been confronted by the question of whether it was possible for a holy God to dwell in the midst of a sinful people. It seems that that would only be possible by the grace and mercy of God, not on the faithfulness or moral perfection of his people. They were a mess. But God loved them, and that made all the difference. He would forgive them. He would go with them. He would be their God, and they would be his people. But if that was the case, is it any wonder that the last quarter of the book of Exodus focuses on worship? How else should the people respond to this God than with gratitude and praise, than with worship? When you see the glory of God who is and what he has done, and you realize those good works were done for you, how could you not give God the glory due his name? This is the heart of true worship. It’s seeing or hearing — for the first time or for the millionth time — about who God is and what he has done and responding with faith, love, joy, thanksgiving, praise, honor, service, obedience, generosity, singing, and more. Glory leads to worship. When the Lord passed in front of Moses on Mount Sinai and proclaimed his name and his character to him, “Moses bowed to the ground at once and worshiped.” (Ex 34:8). Our next stop will be the end of the book of Exodus. Almost exactly a year after the first Passover in Egypt, the Tabernacle was built, the priests were ordained, and the work was finished.
Exodus 40:34–38 (NIV), “34 Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. 35 Moses could not enter the tent of meeting because the cloud had settled on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. 36 In all the travels of the Israelites, whenever the cloud lifted from above the tabernacle, they would set out; 37 but if the cloud did not lift, they did not set out—until the day it lifted. 38 So the cloud of the Lord was over the tabernacle by day, and fire was in the cloud by night, in the sight of all the Israelites during all their travels.” This is God’s word. And this concludes the book of Exodus in the Bible. Of course, the Israelites haven’t yet arrived in the Promised Land. The journey of freedom wasn’t done. There would be more battles and tests in the wilderness, more opportunities for the people to learn to trust the Lord with all their hearts or to lean on their own understanding. In fact, it would be another 39 years before God’s people, led by Joshua, Moses’s successor, would finally enter the land of Canaan. But here, at the end of Exodus, we finally have our answer to the question of whether a holy God could dwell in the midst of a sinful, stiff-necked people. Yes. The answer here was yes, by the grace of God. The pillar of cloud, which protected the people from Yahweh’s full presence, covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the Tabernacle. Though God is everywhere all the time, he is omnipresent, a special manifestation/appearing/focus of the glory of God’s presence dwelled there at the center of the camp, at the heart of his people. He was Immanuel, meaning “God is with us.” And this leads to our sixth lesson, which is that the glory of God not only brought a response of worship from Israel, but it also brought a response of obedience. When the glory cloud stayed put, they would stay put. When the glory cloud moved, they would move. Israel was learning to be their own people, but a people who were rescued and ruled by God. And a people who were called above all else to love the Lord their God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength. Now, I wish I could say, “And they all lived happily ever after,” but I can’t. Generations of Israelites struggled even after entering the Promised Land. The book of Judges is an utter disaster. Then came the era of the kings, from which even the best kings like David and Solomon were deeply flawed and sometimes outright wicked, not to mention the bad kings. Things got so bad that eventually, God pronounced his covenant was broken, he sent his people into exile in Assyrian and then Babylon, and Ezekiel had a vision that the glory cloud of God’s presence left the temple. The Old Testament ends with the same question of the Exodus: Would the glory of a holy God ever be able to dwell with sinful people? Or were we hopelessly separated from God and doomed to destruction?
Of course, the great answer of the New Testament is that once again, the answer would be yes — a holy God could dwell among his people, but only by the grace of God and because of the person and work of Jesus Christ. Nowhere else in all of creation or salvation history is there more glory than in the idea that God himself would become a man so that he could not only lead us on a journey to freedom but would die on the cross in our place for our sins to secure our freedom. And to ensure his own glorious presence would dwell not just in a tent or temple near us, but within our own hearts by his Spirit. The promise of the Exodus is fulfilled in Christ. The disaster and the destruction of the Exile are healed and restored in Christ. So, today, as we wrap up our series in Exodus, what does this teaching about the glory of God mean for us today? How might we apply this ancient story to our lives? Well, I’d like you to consider two streams of application. First, just as Moses’ first response to the glory of God was to worship, so today, worship must be our first response. The more we see/know/experience who God is and what he has done, the more we believe the gospel, and the more we will love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. How do we respond to Exodus? Worship. How do we respond to God? Worship. The more we see his glory, the more we will respond with faith, love, joy, thanksgiving, praise, honor, service, obedience, generosity, singing, and more. Glory leads to worship. This is true no matter what our circumstance might be. Job blessed the name of the Lord even when he lost everything else. Paul and Silas sang hymns of praise even when they were beaten and thrown into prison. When God is seen as truly glorious, everything and everyone else becomes less compelling, less worthy of our time and attention, and less beautiful. How’s your heart of worship? Are you excited to come and sing and serve and pray and love and give? Are you compelled by the goodness and beauty of God? If not, maybe you haven’t encountered him at all. C.S. Lewis wrote, “A man can no more diminish God’s glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word “darkness” on the walls of his cell. But God wills our good, and our good is to love Him (with that responsive love proper to creatures) and to love Him we must know Him: and if we know Him, we shall in fact fall on our faces.” (Lewis, C. S.. The Problem of Pain (p. 42). (Function). Kindle Edition.) This is absolutely right. Every time someone encounters God in the Bible, they fall on their face. Second, and finally, just as Moses came down from Mount Sinai reflecting the radiant light of the glory of God, the closer we are to God, the more we too will reflect God’s glory out into the world around us. This might be through a change in our appearance like Moses (or like Jesus experienced during his transfiguration), but usually is because the way of our life is a different way. Israel didn’t move unless God moved first. He led, and they went where he led them. This is true for us today in Christ. He goes first, and we follow him. This is what it means to be a disciple of Jesus: to love him and learn to follow his ways. But when we follow the way of Jesus, whether people understand what they are experiencing or not, they are getting a sense of the glory of God. This changes us. “And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image [that is, into the image of his Son] with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” (2Co 3:18) But this also becomes an invitation to all. The more we reflect the glory of Jesus out into the world, as we share the good news in word and deed, the more the people of the world have the opportunity to see and experience the glory of God themselves. And respond in faithful worship and obedience, as well. Oh, may it be so! May we be people who are so focused on the glory of God that it radiates from us. But instead of wearing a veil and hiding the glory of God, may we be people who are very bold. Willing to lay down our lives if need be so that every man, woman, and child everywhere might hear of and experience the goodness and the beauty and the love of our great God. He is so faithful, he has done great things, and his love endures forever. Amen.
