Sermon Tone Analysis

“Seeing the Face of God”

 

INTRO: The Christian faith has been a soul-nourishing force in human history for 2,000 years.

Its power to point the way to salvation, to inspire the highest ideals, to give hope to the oppressed, to transform whole cultures, and to promote goodness and justice, is unmatched by any religion, ideology, or noble cause on the face of the earth.

Yet passion for the things of God, and loyalty to the church, seem to be wavering and the pollsters concur.

They are deeply concerned and rightly so….

Inspirational preaching, spine tingling music are only a means to an end.

People need more than that, they need an encounter with the living God.

The goal of Christianity is to connect needy human beings to God.

The very word religion comes from the Latin word, ligio, where we get our word ligament from, and it means to bind together.

The whole point of Christianity is to provide the way back to God who is life and His provision of a sustained, life transforming encounter with God.

Our faith in its essence is about direct, life changing encounter with God.

Without sustained actual encounter with God, the practice of even the Christian religion deteriorates into man-made enterprise and loses its reason for being.

Recent church history is full of tragic examples of once-vibrant churches degenerating into mere social clubs or political organizations.

(ILLUS) In the February 12th edition of Newsweek there was a story reported about the churches in Europe.

The article was entitled, “Remodeling the Churches”   As European worship steadily declines, many grand old buildings have fallen into disuse.

What should become of them?*

Then it reports on Muslims taking some of them and turning them into Mosques, others taking them and turning them into bars, restaraunts, and even chic apartments..*

 

When Christianity fails to satisfy the deepest longings of the human heart, people will look elsewhere for spiritual satisfaction.

The scriptures make it clear just why this is so.

They explain in many beautifully-interconnected ways how God is both living and life-giving.

He is the source of life.

Where He is absent, and withdraws life-support, life withers away and there is only death and void.

Whenever He is allowed to fade from view, whether from rejection or neglect, invariably there is spiritual deterioration.

By contrast where He is present life springs forth.

There is awakening and animation.

In the presence of God our lives are infused with vitality and spiritual energy.

! I.       The OT portrays these realities in terms of the direction of God’s face.

The face of God is not a picture like Michealangelo’s painting on the Sisteen Chapel or the popular one you see of Jesus standing at the door and a little glow around His face, that’s not the face of God.

The face of God indicates His presence and even more than His mere presence.

It symbolizes His focused gaze and the direction of His benevolent concern and blessings He showers on His people.

!! A.   When God hides His face it ends in disaster and death.

Deuteronomy 31:16-17 And the Lord said to Moses: “Behold, you will rest with your fathers; and this people will rise and play the harlot with the gods of the foreigners of the land, where they go /to be/ among them, and they will forsake Me and break My covenant which I have made with them.

Then My anger shall be aroused against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide My face from them, and they shall be devoured.

And many evils and troubles shall befall them, so that they will say in that day, ‘Have not these evils come upon us because our God /is/ not among us?’

!! God said the people were going to play the harlot which is a prostitute.

It’s a pretty strong word God uses to describe His people.

This image is metaphorically applied to Israel who reject God’s provision to seek gain from other means.

Idolatry is the most common cause for their being labeled a harlot.

!! In Deuteronomy 6:4 you have what is called the Shema, “Hear O Israel the Lord our God, the Lord is One.”

The Israelites monotheistic stance is what distinguished them from the other cultures of the world.

And so th idea of monogamy was the prevailing characteristic in the life of Israel.

Single hearted devotion to the One God, like a woman in her relationship to her husband.

A harlot is a person who gives her body away to others for some sort of self-gain.

God likened their idolatry to this.

!! Seven times Israel is said to prostitute itself before other gods.

Leviticus 17:77 They shall no more offer their sacrifices to demons, after whom they have played the harlot.

This shall be a statute forever for them throughout their generations.”

’

 

Leviticus 20:66 ‘And the person who turns to mediums and familiar spirits, to prostitute himself with them, I will set My face against that person and cut him off from his people.

(ILLUS) So going to the fortune tellers is a no no with God.

One of the most wonderful things happened last week in Philadelphia.

City inspectors shut down more than a dozen psychics, astrologers, and tarot card readers after learning about a thirty year old law that bans fortune telling for profit.

2 Chronicles 21:1111 Moreover he made high places in the mountains of Judah, and caused the inhabitants of Jerusalem to commit harlotry, and led Judah astray.

 

2 Chronicles 21:12-1312 And a letter came to him from Elijah the prophet, saying,

     Thus says the Lord God of your father David: Because you have not walked in the ways of Jehoshaphat your father, or in the ways of Asa king of Judah, 13 but have walked in the way of the kings of Israel, and have made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to play the harlot like the harlotry of the house of Ahab, and also have killed your brothers, those of your father’s household, /who were/ better than yourself,

 

So God likens His people to a harlot or prostitute because of their unfaithfulness to Him and as a result of it the Bible says that God has hidden His face from them.

Jesus modeled what fidelity and loyalty was…..

When it speaks of God’s face as hidden it isn’t referring to His presence, He is always present, He is omnipresent.

He is never not everywhere, He is always everywhere.

But how He manifests His presence and acts towards His people becomes the issue.

God can manifest Himself in such a way as to bring blessing and prosperity, and satisfaction and fulfillment and enjoyment and all the glorious things the Lord can bestow upon His people.

But He can also manifest Himself in a way where His blessings and prosperity and fulfillment and satisfaction and enjoyment are removed.

Psalm 30:7 Lord, by Your favor You have made my mountain stand strong; You hid Your face, /and/ I was troubled.

!! B.    When God’s face is on us there is a life-giving, life-transforming encounter.

When the face of God turns towards us and shines upon us we are saved.

Psalm 80 is a great example of this:

Psalm 80:3 Restore us, O God; Cause Your face to shine, And we shall be saved!

Psalm 80:7 Restore us, O God of hosts; Cause Your face to shine, And we shall be saved!

Psalm 80:19 Restore us, O Lord God of hosts; Cause Your face to shine, And we shall be saved!

The glory of God radiates from this face, and somehow this radiance emanating from God’s face can be caught and reflected.

Psalm 34:5They looked to Him and were radiant, And their faces were not ashamed.

Like Moses descending from Mt. Sianai with his face shining, we can catch that reflection from God’s face.

The encounter with God is personally transforming.

!

II.

One of the primary places where this transformation takes place is in corporate worship.

The writer of Hebrews says not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together as some have.

And Christ’s presence is evident when there is a multiplicity of His disciples gathered, He said, “Where there is two or three gathered together in my Name, I am there in the midst of them.

There’s a special promise there.

God does some incredible things when His people are gathered together.

Most of us know what goes on when we gather together as a community of faith each Sunday is at the very heart of our life as a church.

What takes place in our services together reflects and in turn profoundly affects the health of our Christian discipleship.

!! A.    The crucial thing is to remember what this is all about.

It is so easy to get bogged down in the triviality of styles and tastes.

The purpose of our corporate worship times is to facilitate a renewing encounter with the Living God.

If it doesn’t happen then the churches will empty and turn into buildings for uses they were never originally designed for.

Over the short term people come to church for a variety of reasons.

Over the long haul church attendance has to be found significant at the spiritual level if it is going to be sustained.

(ILUS) Many people leave churches every Sunday complaining that they didn’t get anything out of it.

What they were actually saying is that there was no life-renewing encounter with God.

God’s face remained hidden from them.

Worship leaders that get frustrated with this sometimes are quick to point out the fact that worship is not primarily for the benefit of the worshipers, but instead is an act of devotion directed towards God.

Soren Kierkegaard argued that we the congregation are really the performers and God is the audience.

One things for sure, any attempts at worship are doomed if people approach church with a consumer mentality.

But by the same token it is wrong to expect people who are worn down by the demands of life, the cares and pains of their lives, and wearied by the toxins of a hostile society, to come to church and do nothing but to give out to God with nothing coming back.

God inhabits the praises of His people.

He will not leave it a monologue.

He turns His face and there is encounter and in that encounter the worshiper is spiritually nourished.

(ILLUS) On my second trip to Israel when I was gone for approximately 2 weeks it was a little tiring and I missed my wife and kids…..

Corporate worship should do that for us spiritually, seeing God’s face, having an encounter with Him spiritually revitalizes us.

!! B.    Worship is movement in 2 directions.

*It’s upward and downward if I can describe it that way.