Exodus 34:6-7

God's glory controls our worship

How do you want to be seen? How do you want to be remembered? How do you want others to view you? Well, today you can present yourself to be whoever you want through social media. A few posts, a couple edits, a little curating, a little manipulating, and you can present your ideal self to the world. But a post or a profile, it never truly depicts reality, does it? And sadly, this disconnect between social media and reality has been on full display recently in our news. You may have heard about Ruby Frank, a mom influencer from Utah, who was just given the maximum sentence for starving and abusing her children. Online, she had displayed a perfectly happy and healthy family. And you could have that exact same family if you just subscribed to her content. But reality, when the phones were down, when the cameras were off, her children experienced something much different. Today, terms like gaslighting and misinformation are common as we process what we see online. It's no wonder that Gen Z, the youngest generation who grew up with social media, they're said to be the most skeptical generation ever. Well tonight, we're gonna consider some curated content that is presented to us by God. It's a short verse, and God carefully crafts his words here. But while this verse, it doesn't tell us everything about God, it shouldn't leave us feeling skeptical. Instead, as we will see, should lead us to worship God for his glory and his love. Our passage tonight is Exodus 34, six and seven. If you're using a pew Bible, you can find it on page 74. Reminder, last week, June taught on Exodus 33, 18 and 19, where Moses asked God to show him his glory. God grants him his request. And we learned that God will be gracious and merciful to whomever he wills. From there, God gives Moses some instructions and prepares him to witness the glory of God. Tonight, we're gonna see what happens next. Follow along with me, starting in Exodus 34, verse four.

And he rose early in the morning and went up on Mount Sinai. As the Lord had commanded him, and he took in his hands two tablets of stone. The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the name of the Lord. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands. forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generations.

This statement, this revelation of God's glory was a turning point in Israel's relationship with God. Exodus 34, six and seven, it controls Israel's understanding of God. It defines their relationship to God and it dictates their communication with God. In Exodus 34, six and seven, it should control us as well. So my encouragement for us tonight is this. Remember that God's glory controls our worship. Remember that God's glory controls our worship. Three statements that will help us unpack this main idea. One, God's character reveals his glory. Two, God's covenant love expresses his glory. And three, our worship displays God's glory. So first, God's character reveals his glory. When we think of the word glory, we think of what makes something great or magnificent or awesome. Glory has a sense of weightiness to it, a sense of power and majesty, authority. For us, glory is something that we chase after. It's achieved, it's earned through our accomplishments. Athletes achieve glory by setting records, by winning championships. Musicians achieve glory by writing compositions that will ring out for generations. We've seen in the book of Daniel that kings achieve their glory through their military and their conquests. But God's glory, God's glory is unique. God doesn't achieve glory. No, God's glory is inherent to himself. He is glorious. He is awesome. He is mighty by his very nature. And his glory is incomprehensible to our finite human minds. So how does God reveal his glory to us? He speaks. Notice what God does in this passage. He passes by Moses and he speaks. He proclaims, he communicates about himself in a way that we can understand. And notice too, he doesn't talk about his accomplishments or his achievements. He doesn't start bragging about creation or the flood or Sodom and Gomorrah or the Exodus. No, he tells us about who he is. Verse six,

the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

While God could have proclaimed his power or his might or his righteousness or his holiness, he ties his glory here to his mercy and his grace and his love. God wants us to know that he is glorious because his heart for his people, because of his unfailing, unending, unrelenting heart for his people. Let's think about this in context. Israel had just spent 400 years enslaved to Egypt. They experience the harshness and the volatility and the burden of Pharaoh's reign. Then Israel is reacquainted with Yahweh and he redeems them out of Egypt. Just a few months after the Exodus, Israel is grumbling against God. They're regretting their decision to follow God out of Egypt and they rebel against God. and make a golden calf to worship. They're about to learn about the glory of God, right? I mean, in their sin, they've provoked the full force of God's weight to come down against them. What comes down on Israel is not God's justice or wrath here. It's the glory of God's covenant love. That leads us to our second point, that God's covenant love expresses his glory. Of all the attributes that God could have proclaimed here, these are the attributes that God's covenant people get to experience. Covenant, in a word, a simple definition, is a formal relationship that is marked by loyalty and a voluntary obligation. Sounds a little dry when I word it like that, right? But in the Bible, the covenant is the deepest and most sacred and most permanent lasting relationship that two parties can enter into. This is what God enters into with Israel, a relationship where he will be their God and they will be his people. He will remain loyal to them, faithful to them, and he will set his affections upon them. Israel is called to be obedient and faithful as well. But God places the burden of the relationship on himself. This covenant relationship, this is what God has allowed himself to be controlled by as he relates to his redeemed people. So God's people can be sure that God will not treat them or judge them or pour out his wrath on them like he will to the rest of the nations. No, God's people can expect grace and mercy, undeserved love and favor, pity and compassion in their weaknesses. They can expect patience, a God who is slow to anger. They can expect steadfast love and faithfulness. His constant, His consistent affection. You can expect forgiveness, that their transgressions, their iniquities, and their sins will be absolved. You can also expect justice. God will by no means clear the guilty. He will hold his people accountable for their actions and their guilt. But recognize the contrast in verse seven. the contrast between God's love and God's accountability. You may notice a footnote that proposes keeping steadfast love for thousands could also be translating keeping steadfast love to the thousandth generation. So God will visit iniquity to the third and fourth generation, but he will keep his steadfast love to the thousandth generation. His steadfast love will far outweigh and outlast his remembrance of sin when it comes to his people. What God has said, God will do. Leaves us with a tension though, right? Like how does that work? How will God ultimately forgive without clearing the guilty? How will he express his grace and mercy while upholding his justice at the exact same time? Before we answer that question, notice that this tension doesn't seem to bother Moses. Exodus 34, eight, Moses doesn't respond with confusion or skepticism or ask a clarifying question. No,