Exodus: God as Friend

Moses pitched a tent outside the camp called the "Tent of Meeting." There, God would speak to Moses "face to face, as one speaks to a friend." Across scripture—from Adam and Abraham to Jesus' disciples—God desires friendship with His creation. Yet, in our modern culture, we are experiencing a "friendship recession." We must reclaim the depth of friendship, both with one another and with God, moving past the surface-level encounters we have settled for.

Key Points
1. God Desires True Friendship
God doesn't speak to Moses as a subordinate, but as a friend. When Jesus arrived, He wasn't known as a political leader or an entrepreneur, but as a "friend of sinners." He told His disciples, "I no longer call you servants... I have called you friends." Discipleship is friendship. Yet, we often reduce this profound invitation to a scheduled 15-minute "quiet time." God is everywhere; He desires a relationship that permeates our daily lives, not just an appointment on a calendar.

2. The Friendship Recession
We spend more time alone than any previous generation. Friendship has been reduced to a social luxury rather than a daily necessity. If we lack the capacity for deep, vulnerable relationships with the people around us, it will inevitably damage our capacity for a deep relationship with God.

Stop finding time; make time. You make time for what you value.

Stop finding friends; be a friend. If you go out to be a friend—focused on being interested rather than interesting—you will never lack friendship.

3. Grateful, But Not Satisfied (Show Me Your Glory)
Moses had seen more of God’s glory than anyone—the burning bush, the plagues, the parting of the sea. Yet, in Exodus 33, he asks, "Now show me your glory." He was grateful for past encounters, but he was not satisfied.

Many Christians are living off a spiritual high from ten years ago. We have become "domesticated tigers," settling for small, scheduled moments instead of hungering for the wild, full presence of God.

A true revival happens when God's people band together and declare, "Show us your glory! We will not be satisfied with what the previous generation experienced. Do it again."

4. The Ultimate Glory is Jesus
How does God answer Moses' request to see His glory? In Matthew 17, at the Transfiguration, Moses finally stands in the Promised Land alongside Jesus. The glory Moses asked to see in Exodus was ultimately revealed in the person of Christ. If we want to show a hungry generation the glory of God, we must stop pointing to ourselves, our cool aesthetics, or our trendy evangelism strategies. Like John the Baptist, we must simply and constantly point to Jesus in every season of our lives.

Conclusion
God has invited us into a profound friendship. As we reflect on what God has done in our lives and in our church, let us be deeply grateful, but never satisfied. Let us reject shallow routines and isolation, choosing instead to pursue God with a "greed for His presence," constantly pointing the world to Jesus.

Calls to Action
Evaluate Your Friendship with God: Are you treating God like a scheduled appointment or a true friend? Move beyond the 15-minute quiet time and invite Him into your entire day.

Be a Friend: This week, actively make time to deepen a relationship. Ask questions, be vulnerable, and focus on being interested in someone else's story.

Point to Jesus: In your victories and your defeats, make it your primary goal to point others to the glory of Christ rather than yourself.

Transcript

It's a little surreal to have Travis say nice things about me and know me by my name, because. So my wife and I, when we were in high school, we came to this church together, and we were we were part of Exeter High.

And so it was at the building near the Oval. And I had perceived as a teenager that Travis was a big deal. I had also perceived at that time my life that I was a big deal, and I felt like Travis and I are worlds should collide. So during the Greek time as a teenager, I would be lying to Travis and I had a routine.

Hey, Travis, my name is Daniel. Look him in the eye, shake his hand firmly, let him know what's up. We would run this play every week and we got into a routine. I'm coming up. Hey, Travis. My name is Daniel, and I feel like we are starting to bond and we're going somewhere in our friendship. After the sixth week, during the greeting time, beeline it again to Travis.

Make my way to Travis. Stick my hand out. Hey, Travis. Before I could say it, he looks at me and goes, Eric, great to see you.

And that's when we went to pipeline and never came back.

But so this church had such a pivotal like just Mark and my wife and I story. And you know, I feel like we really met God here. We got a vision for ministry. And I was here as a teenager. There really wasn't a youth ministry at that time. And so when I graduated, I kind of just faded out and went to college.

Did campus ministry in the Bay area and then in New York. And whenever we told our testimony, though, we would always talk about this church, Radiant Church in Visalia, California. And it occurred to me maybe five years ago, no one knows, like who we are or what we do from radiant. Like, this is an injustice. We I should go back and tell them thank you.

Like God used them to inspire us to do ministry and all these great things. And so I felt like the Lord had put it on my heart, said, hey, you need to go tell Travis one that your name is Daniel, and two, you need to thank him for all that he did. And I kind of put it off.

And because we're here, you know, twice a year if we're lucky. And one time I was here kind of on a whim, and I saw Travis at component just having a meeting, and I was like, well, here's my shot. I'm going to go tell Travis thank you. I have like a in my head, a great speech to tell him about all that God has done in me.

He will perceive my talent and gifting, give me a job on the spot. Maybe, I don't know. We're going to go on to do ministry for a long, long time. And so I interrupt his meeting and then I just draw a blank, and I look at him and I'm like, I mumble, I'm like, you, God, you saved my life.

And I could tell the way that Travis is looking at me. He's like, I think he even said this. I think he said, thanks, buddy. And I was like, I got a buddy. Dang it. That did not go the way that I thought it was going to go. I was like, man, well, so a few years ago, though, I finally got a real formal meeting with Travis and got to sit down with him, tell him our story, tell him thank you.

Thank you for what radiant has done in our lives. And so we always love coming back. And it's a surreal moment to come back and preach for you. My wife and I, when we travel, we do not travel light. We packed it in for this trip. We had a dog, a kennel, a baby, a crib, a stroller, a car seat, two bags and two backpacks and it takes us an hour and a half to get from our house to the airport, which in New York is like a mile and a half in actuality.

And when we get there, my wife goes, Daniel, where is your luggage? And it had occurred to me at that moment that my luggage was at home, and between me heard the baby and the dog. I was the most expendable. And so we got on that flight and I had no clothes. And so I stand before you promoted by component, radiant and goodwill and my family.

And I will tell you, you have never lived until you have preached a sermon in your father in law's underwear.

You just haven't. Okay, well, hey, you guys are an exodus. It appears you've been an exodus longer than ancient Israel, which is exciting. And Travis has tapped me to continue your series and Exodus. So we're going to party in Exodus 33, and we're going to talk about a lot. So would you join me in Exodus 33? We're going to start in verse seven and make our way through a couple of paragraphs.

But we'll start with just seven. Now, Moses used to take a tent and pitch it outside the camp somewhere some distance away, calling it the Tent of meeting. Now anyone inquiring of the Lord would go to the Tent of meeting outside the camp, and whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people rose and stood at the entrances to their tents, watching Moses until he entered the tent.

As Moses went into the tent, the pillar of cloud would come down and stay at the entrance while the Lord spoke with Moses. When the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance of the tent, they all stood and worshiped at the entrance to their tent. So what's happening is the Lord is having a meeting, a get together with Moses and the people of Israel watching this meeting.

In all of their relationship, they stand up when the Lord comes to speak with Moses. Now get this in verse 11, the Lord would speak to Moses face to face. Everybody say face to face. The Lord would speak to Moses face to face as one speaks to a friend. Read that again. The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as one who speaks to a subordinate, to an inferior, to a lower class citizen.

No, as one who speaks to a friend. God in this section of Scripture speaks to his creation, his kids, as friends. Have you ever spoken to your kids or your friends kids or just kids in general as friends? It never goes well. This week Ralph from Radiant Exeter hit me up. I like 1030 in the morning on a Wednesday and he said, hey man, I forgot.

I'm speaking at this Christian camp at your alma mater, Exeter High. Why don't you come down and give them a word on your heart? But I was like, dude, I'm ready. I'm going to go in the big shot from New York. Look at all that I've done, and I'm going to speak to them like a friend. I had six, seven Ri's all the cool kid words.

I knew what to do. I had been around the block, as they say, and I go in and let me tell you, it did not go well. They didn't enjoy it and neither did I. And yet God speaks to his creation as friends, and friendship with God is something that goes across the pages of Scripture. You just start in Genesis.

You have Adam and Enoch and Noah. They would go on long sunset walks with God. Think about that. Have you ever read any other ancient Near Eastern religion? Do you think they're going on walks with their god? No. God goes on walks with his creations, just like you would a friend. In Isaiah, God is speaking to the nation of Israel, and he named drops Abraham as his friend in order to gain credibility.

He's speaking to them because a Israel have you heard of Abraham? And they're like, and he's like, I know him. I was his friend. And they're like, you're that God. Oh my word. David in the Psalms says, anyone who fears God has friendship and is in the covenant. And in the New Testament, almost all the epistles, almost all the letters that Paul would write, or later in the Catholic epistles, as we call them, they start off with dear friends or dearly beloved.

And I think it's a little bit interesting that when Jesus comes on to the scene, the long expected Messiah, all of his enemies, all of the different sects, they look at him. What do they say there? It is a political conservative Jesus of Nazareth. There's Jesus in Enneagram eight. What a great entrepreneurial leader. Here is Jesus a non anxious presence to help you with your Sabbath.

None of that. And yet all of the people observing him say that guy is a friend of sinners. He comes on to continue the mechanism that God has started in the garden. He chooses to relate to his people as friends. And I think one of the most important chapters in the entire of the Gospels is John chapter 15.

Jesus's disciples have given up everything to follow him calling, vocation, family. They've surrendered it all in. Jesus looks at them and he says, no longer do I call you servants, but I have called you friends. He says this at the end, almost as if the point of discipleship is friendship, not something you do to try to get someone to only grow in their faith.

But you do it as a point of friendship. Discipleship is friendship. One of my favorite writers is a guy named Eugene Peterson, and he was kind of a pastor to pastors. And so at one point in his ministry, a pastor had reached out to him and said, Eugene, I need a spiritual director, I need help. I don't know how to marry people.

I don't know how to bury people. I don't know how to have pastoral counseling sessions. Please, please be my spiritual director. And Eugene Peterson writes back to him. You keep misspelling the word friend. We don't need a spiritual director as much as we need friendship with God. So I want to press this into you. What Moses had with God on that mountain you can experience right now at Home Depot.

And this is the point in the sermon where I tell you, go be a friend with God. Go Adam on Facebook, go Adam to your calendar. Go have a friendship. Make them your buddy. But there is a real problem with that. Because if I press into you, go have a friendship with God. Most of us right now, if we're honest, we have no capacity or ability to have a deep relationship or friendship with anyone, let alone God.

We are in right now what sociologists would say, and I'm not one of them, but they would call our generation the ones that are in a friendship recession that most of us no longer have spontaneous, unplanned time with friends. Right now, my generation spends more time alone than any other generation prior. In the 80s and 90s, people were worried about the technology boom that if this were to happen, we think a generation will come that is always connected and yet always alone.

And I think that is so true right now. Right now, all the talk in the spiritual discipline space is silence and solitude. Make sure you get your silence and solitude with the Lord. And I'm starting to get real worried that that is our only option. We are alone and we have no capacity to have real friendship. And so friendship has been reduced from something integral to daily life to a social luxury.

It's been reduced to a 45 minute coffee that we schedule out six weeks in advance. That component, or a monthly beer at barrel House, where the conversation sticks to the bulldog schedules and the kids nap time. And there's never any depth. It's always at the surface. We end it with an awkward hug or a fist bump, and somebody mumbles, we should maybe do this more often, and we have no intention of maybe doing this more often.

And the reason why I want to press in on this is because if you think this does not damage your relationship with God, you are wrong. You are wrong. I'll just give you an example. As a pastor, I often ask people. Hey, how is your relationship with God going? And nine out of ten times people will respond, well, my time with God is kind of been inconsistent.

My time with God isn't really as good as I as I want it to be. It's just not. My time with God isn't the best. And we talk about our relationship with God as something to be scheduled. My time with God. And I think, just respectfully, if the early church heard that statement, they would vomit. I think they would say, did you get time with oxygen as well?

Did you schedule a quiet time with gravity? God is everywhere, and I think Abraham and David, I think they would say they would hear your morning routine, your quiet time, and they say, let me get this straight. You have the Holy Spirit, the one we long awaited, and you reduce that to a quiet time in a chair for 15 minutes with a devotional and a cup of coffee and maybe some worship music in the background.

And that's the extent of your relationship with God. And you have the Holy Spirit. That's your friendship, man. God desires to have a friendship with you, but not your definition of friendship.

You know, we often say, show me your friends and I'll show you. I'll fill it in. I'll show you your future. But how about show me your friendships and I'll show you your God? Maybe there's a Christian out there. I just have never met them. I've never met a Christian who has deep relationship with others where they're vulnerable.

They have really good fellowship with people in their church. They meet regularly. They tell them what's going on in their lives. They pray for one another. They pray for their families. They have a deep friendship with others and then go on to have a surface level, no depth relationship with God. I'm sure they're out there. I've never met them because it seems that when we model friendship that we have, if it's deep now and we take that to the Lord, things will change dramatically.

And so and I don't want to come down on you. I just want to say I'm an introvert. I'm not trying to come down on you and say, you're not good at this. I'm an introvert. I love to make plans, but I love canceling them like it's a thrill. I get a rush if you ever can. Still on me, don't even apologize.

I can't believe I get to go home and read a book. I am so excited and I'm not great. I don't like to say that, but it's true. So I'm just. I'm not coming down on you, I get it. But I think we could all do a better job at having a depth of friendship with people in this room, so that we can have a better depth of friendship with God.

So two things for you that I just want to press to you. Stop finding things in friendship. Stop saying, I will find time. We will find time in all of human history. No one has ever found it. They never do digs in the Middle East and find time. It's never happened. You have to make time, as Dallas Willard would say, and you make time for the things you value.

I know none of us have time, and yet we've all seen the same shows that are an hour and a half, and we've all been on social media for 60 minutes a day, if not more. So you have time, but you choose to make time for the things you value. And if you want to have a friendship with God, then you didn't make time to have friendship with others.

Second, stop finding friends. You will never find friends. Daniel, you don't understand. I've been in a pack for nine months. I go every single week. I answer every single question. I'm there. I'm consistent and no one engages with me. I can't find any friends there. If you try to find friends, you will never find them. But if you go out to be a friend, you will always get them.

Just one example, Deb here in the front row. We went to dinner with Deb and Gunnar earlier this week. My wife and I. The entire dinner, Deb is incessantly asking us questions about us. What are you into? What do you like to do? Tell me your story. Where are you from? Where are you going? The entire dinner. She is focused on being interested rather than interesting because she wants to be a friend.

And by the end of that dinner, she got two sold out ones. So stop trying to find friends and go be one and watch your relationship with God. Absolutely take off.

Keep reading with me. I want to go to verse 12. 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. And 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 asked, because I am pleased with you, and I know you by name. So it's a dialog between friends. How is this going to play out? God, are you on our side or not?

Are you going to go with us or not? And then Moses says to God, now show me your glory. Everybody say glory. Now, this is a bit of a strange request because Moses asked to see the glory of God. But we just did the friend of friend face talk. And in fact, no one has had more access to God so far in the scriptures than I would say Moses.

Moses started off with a burning bush that was not engulfed, and then he did the whole Exodus thing, all the ten plagues talking to God throughout, crossing the sea, leading them in the wilderness, manna from heaven, constantly in conversation with God, the tablets. And then it says in Exodus 24, 74 of them went up there and had dinner with God and saw him.

Moses has seen and talked to God more than anybody in the Bible so far. And yet as he's having a conversation with God, he says, Hey God, show me your glory again. What is Moses doing? Does he just want one more mystical experience to feel good? Does Moses want to camp high? Come on man. God, give it to me.

I don't think so. I think what's happening is Moses is really, really grateful for all the times he's gotten to see God's glory. But I do not think he's satisfied.

I think he's saying to God, God, do it again. I want to see your glory one more time. Show them who you really are. I'm not satisfied. I'm grateful. But I am not satisfied. John de Rockefeller, who was the richest man in the 1900s, was once asked by a reporter, hey, John, how much money is enough? Rockefeller responds, just a little more.

God saying to Moses, Moses, how much of my presence is enough? Moses says, we'll take a little more. We'll take a little more. Now I want to press it on this in two ways. One, I want to press it on us. That man Moses here is some when we should model after. Because you and I are too easily satisfied with our encounters with God.

Some of us in here, in this room we are living off, we're having a whole faith based off one encounter we have with God in 2013, and we really haven't experienced him since. But we're satisfied. We don't think to say, God, show me your glory again. He said, God, you showed it to me one time. I feel pretty good with that.

I will go to church for the rest of my life because of what happened a decade ago, and it may never happen again like that. So it's good, but I'm grateful and I'm satisfied. And I feel like when we tell our testimonies and I'm guilty of this as well, we tell it like high school ball glory days. We're like, man, God.

God would do this thing where, man, I saw a woman get healed. I share the gospel. This guy received it. His life changed. So many things were happening. It was a rush. And then we get to the present day and it's just like, man, those were the days. That was when God was really moving. Then I had to go to work.

Amen. Even when we just went to celebration and we had a great time. But even the vocabulary around church camps, I always get a little bit cringey. And I love church camps. I'm a participator. Find me at the food court, I'll be there. But I don't ever like the vocabulary of man. If you want to experience God, you gotta go up there or we're packing up after a great weekend and we say, all right, God, well, don't.

Next Memorial Day. We'll see you then. And I think Satan would love it if you believed that you could only encounter God in a particular way, in a particular place, in a particular time. I think Satan would love to convince you. Hey, what happened to you in high school? Never happen again, so keep it there, but just keep living a normal life.

I think he would love to convince you. Hey, be satisfied with what you got. Live off a spiritual experience for a year and maybe next time a celebration. It might happen again. But don't ask for his presence. Until then, live your life. Pay the bills. I think we are too easily satisfied with our experiences of God.

My wife and I, we recently went to the Bronx Zoo, which is one of the best suits in the country, and they have a part where you can go see the tigers and the Bronx Zoo. The tigers are only separated by a piece of glass, so you can get with like in an inch of a tiger. And so we go to see the tigers, and there's this moment where the tigers just walk in, and then it locks eyes with me and it changes directions and just starts coming right at me.

And I remember, like, I just wanted that glass to be real thick at that moment, you know? And it's lock. And I to me and I had this moment where I'm looking at it and I'm like, this thing is supposed to be in the wild. This thing wants to kill me. This thing is violent. It's coming right at me.

And I feel like for a moment it's it's going back to its real self. And then on to the side. There's a trainer who's protected by a barricade, who had just had some chicken and just goes, hey, hey, over here, over here, come get it. And the tiger who was going full speed, just changes direction and eats the chicken and is satisfied with the chicken.

And it occurred to me at that moment that, man, this tiger has been domesticated. It was meant to run and to do great things. And it is settling for some chicken.

I wonder for how many of us God has made us to run. And Satan's just over here. Hey, hey, 15 minute quiet time. Don't go over there. Come over here, over here! Hey! Come here, come here. We got a tax deductible donation. Don't go. Come here. Eat it. Hey, we got a three day mission trip to Mexico. Three days.

Come here. Not for three. Come here. Comedian. And we were built to run. And the moment where we feel like God is calling us. We get distracted by some chicken. We become domesticated. We become too easily satisfied with our encounters with God. We have not been greedy for his presence. We've been content. Man, it was great what you did that one time.

And until then we'll just go to Winter jam every year. We are too easily satisfied. I want to press on this in another direction as well. One is when we talk about revival, so I don't know if you're in tune to the news right now, but there's a lot of talk and all the mainstream media Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, you name it.

On if there is a revival or not. Right now, it's a debate. And I'm not a sociologist, I don't know, but it seems like the younger generation is up to something that God might be doing something, and we might well call it a revival. And I don't know the markers of a revival, but I do know Bible cells are up by quite a bit, and the Bible is already the best selling book every year in every category, and has been since recorded history.

So cells are up. That means something. I also know that Wes Huff is on Joe Rogan talking about the Dead Sea Scrolls, and millions of people are loving it. That has never happened before. Forrest Frank made a song about lemonade that everyone listened to. I don't know if that's signs of revival, but something is happening. And here is my definition of revival.

Here's Daniels definition. You take it or leave it. But I think a revival is the culmination or movement of the Spirit of God that takes shape in his people, where they band together and shout with a loud praise, show us your glory! We will not be satisfied with what the previous generation experienced. Do it again. We are greedy for your presence and right now, Radiant Visalia is trusting that God will bring in a lot of people in the next few years, and we do not want the circulation of the saints.

As we say to New York, we don't want people who are disgruntled at Visalia first with the coffee. They're to come here because, like the coffee here, we don't want that. We want people on Main Street who are broken, who are hurting, who need help to hear about what Jesus has done for them, to heal them, to restore them, to walk in these doors and find a family with open arms.

That's who we want to come in this door. But I want to caution us because in church planting we have a phrase that we say, which is be careful what you win people with, because you have to sustain that in order to keep them. So if you're in here and you like this church because of Travis's jokes, and that's the only reason why you're here, I promise you, in a few years they will be less funny.

If you're only here because you like that this church is creative and your old church was was stale and there was no character I promised you in a few years. If that's the only reason why you're here, you're going to start getting particular. I don't like the way this thing is up here. I don't like that thing. If you're only here because of radiance, charismatic expression of worship.

If that's what's getting you through the doors, I promise you, in a few years you're going to become skeptical. Is that really God doing that? We have to be careful what we win people with. And the data is in the next generation. They want something of depth, which is why they're flocking to Catholicism. They're flocking to Anglicanism or Greek Orthodoxy or Eastern Orthodoxy.

They want the rosary, they want the incense. They want the stained glass windows. They want depth. Gone are the days of the emergent church and Rick Warren and all that. No more Ted talks like church. They don't want that. They want an in-depth experience with the spiritual realm. They will not be satisfied with good coffee and low five beats.

And so here's the reality. If the next generation is hungry for God and they want something of substance, here's our evangelism strategy. Give it to them. Just give it to them.

And I think our evangelism strategy, at least my generation, has been awful. Our evangelism strategy for the last few decades has been we're not weird.

We drink to. We have been to barrelhouse. We will cuss, but not the F word. We'll do all of them except the F word. You can be the same as you're currently are, except your Sundays will be a bit more busy and we would like a little bit of your money.

What kind of evangelism strategy is that? You can stay the same, but give us some money, friends. That's not evangelism. That's a Ponzi scheme. Our evangelism strategy has got to change and it must change to Moses is cry, Lord, show them your glory. So how do we show them the glory? How do we point them to a direction when they come in and say we want something of depth, what do we do?

Well, let me just point you to the New Testament really quick to Jesus transfiguration. This is a moment in Jesus's ministry where he grabs his inner core of disciples. They head up the mountain and Jesus fully displays his glory, fully displays his divinity. And I want you to read it with me. I'm going to be in Matthew 17 starting in verse one.

And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light. And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah talking with him. And Peter said to Jesus, Lord, it is good that we are here.

If you wish, I will make 3/10 one for you and one for Moses, one for Elijah. He was still speaking, when, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them. And a voice from the cloud said, this is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased. Listen to him now. Homework for you. There are so many parallels from Exodus 33 and Matthew 17.

Go look it up from the cloud, the tents, the talking. I mean, it's unbelievable. Even the same language from God. It's unbelievable. We don't have time for that. But what I do want you to notice is who is there with Jesus and the disciples? Moses, think for a minute. We often tell the story of Moses's life incompletely, which is that Moses was to lead God's people into the Promised Land.

But Moses trusted his own strength, and so he could not enter the Promised Land. And so he writes off. And Deuteronomy, they will go in, but I will not go with him. And he didn't listen to God, and that was his punishment. That is all true. That is just not all the story. Moses makes it to the Promised Land.

He's in the Promised Land with Jesus, and when he's in the Promised Land with Jesus, he looks up in his request. And Exodus 33 God, show me your glory. He gets to finally see it. God's glory revealed in Christ. It was not the way that Moses expected, but it was way, way better. And so, to push this question even further, how do we show the next generation or whoever is in this room, the glory of God?

You need to show them what Moses finally saw. You need to show them Jesus. How do we do that? Micah, would you put up the painting, please?

This is one of my favorite paintings from the medieval period. When the early church got started, they were looking for a logo basically, or iconography to get started. In the first entry, they came up with a fish because the Greek word for fish is ictus, which is an acronym. If you write it out for Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

So that was the story of the fish. But they wanted something more robust. So as a years went on, they established the cross. The cross was a symbol of Christianity. But there was one caveat. For the next few hundred years, most people would never actually put Jesus on the cross. And as we got to the medieval period, they started to put Jesus on the cross.

But he was always stoic, kind of like he was enjoying the time. And Matyas Gruenwald comes in and says, no, the crucifixion was absolute horror. It was grotesque. And so he paints this in all of the brutality. And I just want you for a moment to take in the full picture Jesus in all the characters, just for one moment.

There is so much to this painting that I enjoy. And perhaps the one that sticks out to me is John the Baptist over there. Do you see John with his elongated finger? Behind him in Latin is the famous John three verse. He must increase and I must decrease in. John is essentially painted in this painting as someone that's his whole ministry.

What was John the Baptist's role to make the way for Jesus to point people to Jesus when they came to him? John, are you the one? No, not me, but him. That was John's whole ministry, pointing to Jesus. And that is a great artistic rendition of it, because how foolish would it be if John was doing this?

I'm the hope of the world. It's about me in my problems and my mortgage, in my family, in my concerns. It's about me. Instead, John chooses to point at the one. And so when we ask the question, how can you show the next generation who is hungry for the glory of God? You need to stop doing this and start to do this on your best day.

You point to Jesus. On your worst day, you point to Jesus. When you finally get married, you point to Jesus. When your marriage falls apart, you point to Jesus when you read the pregnancy test and it finally says pregnant. You point to Jesus. When you have your third miscarriage, you point to Jesus when you are crushing it at work and everyone is in awe of you.

You point to Jesus and when you get let go, you point to Jesus in every aspect of your life at work, at home, with your family, with your kids, with your friends, when no one's looking and when everyone is looking, you point to Jesus and all that you do and all that you are. And so when people walk in off Main Street and they say, show me his glory, you say, bub, he's right there.

That is glory. That is beauty and that is friendship.

I'm going to wrap up here. I just want to say, man, I have really enjoyed my time here. I've been here for two weeks now and it's been very, very special for me. And man, I have been a little bit lost for words trying to communicate to you why you're so special. And I had this like, I keep running to this thing where I've met with a lot of you this week, and I tried to explain to you why you're so special and no one really gets it.

They're like, that's interesting. I kind of feel like, like, do you remember going over to your rich friend's house during the summertime in the Valley, like you'd walk in? It'd be 111 outside and you walk in and it's like 68, and it just hits you and you feel the wealth on your skin and you're like, oh my gosh.

You go into their kitchen and they're drinking purified water. They only use tap water to do the dishes, and they're not even throw them out that you're like, what? They use the dryer. And they also use it to like, fluff up their clothes to fluff them up. They don't hang them like you do. You walk into their entertainment center because that's what they call it.

And they have Blu ray DVDs, and they didn't rent them. They bought them. And you're like, you buy the Blu ray DVDs and they're like, yeah, doesn't everybody know Timmy? Everybody does not. Everybody does. Certainly not. And that's what I feel like with you all week. I'm like looking at you and I'm like, oh my goodness, you're so special.

God's hand is over you. This church is moving. You're a family on mission together. And you're like, doesn't every church do this? No, they do not. It's a miracle what's going on here. And I love this place because the extraordinary is the ordinary. And it seems miracles are mundane. And that is so special, man. And I'm so glad you don't even know it.

Because as a visitor, I'm in awe. And I love it. And so I just want to say, man, I love you and you're so special. And it particularly means a lot to me when I come home. I've been gone close to 15 years now, and to see the same people who led me in worship when I was a teenager, still leading me in worship today, but with even more hunger.

The same guy preaching, still preaching, and is somehow even better. Man, it is such a joy to see 20 years in. Can you believe it? 20 years in and counting. When I think about you and I talk to people about you, man, I am so grateful. But I am not satisfied. We're believing that God will do more and that these last 20 years God did a lot.

But we are just getting things ready. We're expecting him to do all the more. And so we, as we look around at what God has done, let us pursue him in friendship and do so with the greed for his presence with gratefulness, but never satisfied. And for the next 20 years would we cry out, God, show us your glory.

God, thank you for Radiant Church. Thank you for the people in this room. Thank you that you have adopted us in friendship, that you chose to speak to us as friends and God. Thank you that when Moses cried out, show me your glory. You heard that and you showed him your glory and your son Jesus. God, we are here today because we want to see that glory.

Would you show it to us? We will not be satisfied with a chance encounter ten years ago. We want more of your presence.

God, we love you. We are so thankful for Radiant Church. Amen.