Can You See God's Face?

Automated transcript, lightly edited for readability. Scripture appears as spoken; the video is the authoritative teaching.

All right, what's Shabbat? All right. What's Shabbat Shalom everybody? Um We are welcome back to fit after a little bit of time off um with um with time away not only covering the the fall feast but also Sukkot and so it's it's good to be back uh for sure. Shall I switch? Last chance. Yeah? No? They're saying no? Is it All right. Someone said yes? Yeah? This is ridiculous. Yeah, okay. I'll reserve the boy string ground shaking voice for the one who deserves it. Um So Shabbat Shalom everybody. Welcome back to Founded in Truth Fellowship. Uh we've been away for a few weeks uh from the series the image bearer series and of course I can't make I have the ability to make a short series long and that's exactly what um I'm doing.

A Roman Border Town on the Euphrates

Today we're going to talk about the face of God and um and who has seen the face of God in the scriptures. Before we dive into that topic I'd like to start in a town in the in what would be modern day um Syria right in the border. Come on. And um right in the Euphrates River and it was a town called Dura-Europos. And Dura-Europos was a Roman border town. It was built on a cliff very very heavily fortified right up against the uh the the Euphrates River and uh it was right in the edge of the Roman Empire. And it was a very populated area. Uh it was packed with of course soldiers.

It was packed with Romans. It was packed with merchants. It was packed with families, Greeks, Romans, Syrians, Jews, and a handful of people who followed this crucified rabbi from Galilee. All of them inside one city. Uh kind of neat. Um because on the other side of the wall was another empire. It was Persia, new Persia, but Persia. Um and here is an image. What am I missing? There we go. There's an image of what's left of the city today. You can see kind of a retaining wall there or maybe a part of a building there right bumped up against the river. And around the year 256, um this side of Yeshua, uh the Persian army shows up um and the Romans have to decide how they're going to defend the city.

And three sides of the city are pretty well fortified whether it be by uh up against cliffs or drop-offs or up against right up the Euphrates River, but there was one side, the western wall, that was the weakest wall and they knew that's where the Persians were going to be coming. So, they said, "Hey, let's put a bunch of dirt in front of it." Like a lot of dirt. Let's build this huge retaining wall ramp of dirt and rubble and just cover that wall and reinforce it because we know the battering rams are going to try to get through it. It'll increase the density of the wall. It'll help structure it.

Plus, if they break through the wall, they still have to get through that. Makes sense. Um did it work? No, it did not. The Persians broke through and um it's the thing we You got to think like around the wall it wasn't just blank, right? There were shops there, there were houses there, there were things there and the Romans were just like, "Sorry, guys. We're just going to have to cover all your stuff up." Um so, the wall they build the ramp, the wall falls anyway, the city falls, um and then nobody ever move moves back to the city. Um over time it gets filled in with dust and dirt and sand and it disappears.

And then about 1,700 years later, in the early 1930s, a team of archaeologists from Yale and France, they start digging around the western wall uh because all of those buildings that were buried were completely buried and they were preserved. Everything was still standing, all the walls were still standing, all of the decorations, all of the painting on the walls were still there in full Technicolor, right? Full color. Um it was sealed. Kind of like Pompeii. Uh and so they begin um digging down and they discovered uh two rooms. Uh the first one I want to show you was inside of a synagogue. Um and then we're going to look at that one first in just a minute and then we'll move on to the second one, but it was a Jewish congregation that had finished rebuilding this building, renovating this building around the year 244.

Uh and they painted all of the walls um to match the stories of the Old Testament, right? So you you you walk in, right? Um imagine going to going to synagogue one day and you walk in and you have just full color beautiful murals on the wall of Moses at the burning bush or the sea splitting open in the Exodus story or Elijah raising the widow's uh son back to life or Ezekiel in the valley of dry bones. Um and so just imagine like the walls opening up and telling the stories. It's like a poor man's Bible, right? You walk in, you can see it. It would've been beautiful. Uh I love it.

Painting God as a Hand

Um but I want to show you what they did when they had to paint God. Because you're in a bit of a predicament when you have to paint God, because what do you paint, right? and so they painted, you know, water, they painted animals, they painted um all of these stories. And when it came to how God acts in the story, they painted a hand. Like a hand coming out of the sky, uh which I think is neat. I tend to make things that aren't funny funny, so if I find it a little just kind of neat in a weird way, it's I love it. I love our imagination. And what are we going to do for God?

Thing. It's going to be a hand, right? It makes sense, and and I believe they get that from Exodus 33, but um so let's uh let's see. Let's see what what we have here. Uh here is um can you guess what this is? Well, I already have it labeled. This is the Ezekiel in the Valley of Dry Bones, which I love how they actually illustrated appendages and uh heads and the bodies being torn apart because it's a battle scene, and not actually bones. Um and then you have this guy is Again, this is during the Greco-Roman era, um but that's actually Ezekiel painted as a comic strip in three different ways, because remember it says that God uh put his hand on Ezekiel and brought him to the place, right?

And so here, if you look at the far left corner, uh Ezekiel doesn't look happy, but they actually they actually have God like almost picking up him up by his hair and taking him to the valley. I wouldn't have illustrated it that way, but I like it. I think it's kind of funny and cool. And you go bloop, right? And so now he sees all of the bodies, and you you can't raise all these bodies, and you know the story. But where is God in the story? Well, he's a comic strip, so he's in several places, and he is There's the hand. That's how God is illustrated. You work with what you got, right?

let's see. What else do we have? Uh we have the crossing of the Red Sea. We have the army on one side and the sea in the other, but now you the arm you know, the whole thing army's drowning in the sea. Where is God in this? Here we go. We got the hands again. We have Elijah raising the widow's son, and where is the hand? Right up at the top, reaching down. There's God's hand. How many of these are there? Ah, the sacrifice of Isaac, right? Where is the hand? It's kind of hard to see. Way up in the corner. Right there. Coming out of the top. We found it.

We have Moses at the burning bush, and of course, God is there. Boop. Fingers coming out. This is how you can spot them. Lots of Ezekiel bringing people back to life. And I like this hand because it's well-manicured. The cuticles are very I appreciate the artistry and the decisions that were made to depict this, right? Yeah. There it is. And there's another depiction. No, they had the hair drawn well. Yeah. And so you get the idea. Um this one comes from uh a synagogue in Beit Alpha uh Beit Alpha in Israel. It's between Beit She'an and Afula. An old synagogue there. It was tile. Um and this is Those are not um teeth.

Oh, I don't have my laser. Those aren't teeth. That's actually a beard. But that's the hand. We got it. Right? So this is how God was portrayed historically when uh when when he was when he was drawn or wanted to be illustrated in uh in during this time period. And so those are the hands from the synagogue in this town that were preserved. Thank you for taking that journey with me. I I I No, this was after. After Christ? This is after. Yep. And so thank you for taking that journey with me. I know I didn't have to show you all of the hands, but I just thought that was really neat.

It's like try to find the hand. So um so this is on the same western wall if you walked down the street a little bit, we also found um a regular house in around the year 240, somebody turned this house into a meeting place for followers of Yeshua. It was a house church, right? Um and in that house there was a little room with a basin big enough to step into under an arched canopy, uh it was a baptistery, right? Uh and uh those walls are painted, too, right? And so, one of some of these paintings are this is on the wall not nearly as detailed, but this is the good shepherd, right?

With Adam and Eve very subtly and below it I can zoom in and There you go. That's Jesus carrying the lamb. It's the good shepherd, right? We also have uh two figures on the water. Let's see here. This is the scene uh with um Peter and Jesus raising him out of the water. Uh and I wanted to show Jesus' face, but it's kind of cut off in the top right-hand corner, but Jesus' face would have been there. And then we have Christ healing the paralyzed man. And this is a pretty clear. Look at that clean-shaven Jesus. I like it, right? Yeah. It was It's a nice depiction. All right? Um these paintings are among the earliest securely dated, like we kind of know when they were drawn, securely dated pictures of Jesus anyone's found.

So, that's why they're significant. It's just really neat. So, you've got two rooms going down the same wall in this town, and they're buried underneath the same uh defensive dirt. Um and one of them would only paint a hand and the other one would paint their face, the face of the one that they follow, right? God, if you will. So, here's the question. And it's probably something that we've thought random times, probably more as a kid, and then as you get older you quit thinking about it. What does God actually look like? Um is he just a hand that comes down from the sky, right? Which is neat. Uh or is there a face?

Can Anyone See God's Face and Live?

can anyone ever see it? Uh because as you probably know, the Bible puts forth kind of a rule pretty early in the scriptures, near the beginning in Exodus, in Exodus 33:20, and that rule is That rule is you cannot see my face nor humans cannot see me and live. Something that that God says to Moses. Right? That's the rule. Nobody sees the face of God and lives. So can Can anybody see the face of God and live? Well, the Bible's answer I would push is a yes, actually. There There is a face, and people have actually seen it and lived. But we're going to explore the Bible the way that I enjoy exploring the Bible, and I'm going to take you on a journey.

the Bible is a terrible answer book. If you've read it long enough. Um Like remember remember the math book in school back in the day that had the answers in the back? Right? But they were like only the odd answers, right? Yeah, they're only So the teacher would give out the the even ones, that way you know you couldn't cheat, right? And so you'd flip to the back, and you'd copy the answer, and you'd feel like a genius. And then what would the teacher do to make sure you didn't cheat? He You got to You got to show your work. But I just did it in my head. Mhm. Show me how you did it in your head, right?

And if we're honest, a lot of us want the Bible to work like that. Um we want just give us the answer in the back of the book, God. Just give it to us. Chapter and verse, right? What's the chapter and verse? Give me the chapter and verse. Um but the Bible doesn't have an answers-in-the-back section. Um it's a story. And stories make you walk through it. And it makes you show your work because walking through the story is the part that changes you in the Bible. The answer doesn't mean much unless you go through that process, right? Uh I used to be a really big chapter and verse guy.

That would be all I would focus on. What's the chapter and verse? Chapter and verse? Chapter and verse? Um give me the verse. I'm good. And uh and that's because I was being lazy. Um same as in school when I tried to flip to the back for an answer. Um that's a lazy thing to do. The The chapter and verse only matter in the context in which they were written. And sometimes that context, the authors span it over entire books of the Bible. Um we set our kids up for failure when we make them memorize verses without reading the stories to them, right? And so that's that's my hot take.

Uh so this is the question that we're going to explore today in the scriptures is can anybody see the face of God and live? And the Bible takes us through a whole line of people who try to get to that face. Um every one of them in a different way, and one after another they get so close to seeing the face, and they don't get there for a variety of reasons. And the whole um the whole journey that we're going to take is going to hang on the Hebrew word for face, which is panim. Panim. Um so we'll jump in. First candidate. Um first candidate is an obvious one. We're going to go through a journey in the Bible and see who these people are.

Adam Was Meant to Be the Face

If anyone was supposed to show the world God's face, it's the person that God made to be the face, right? And that starts in Genesis 1:26. And God said, "Let us make man in our image according to our likeness, that they may rule the fish of the sea, birds of the sky, livestock, the whole earth, and creatures that crawl on the earth." In our image. We've spent several lessons speaking about this in the series. It's the statue of a king, right? Um when you see the the statue of a king in the land, uh you know who the king is by looking at the statue. And that's the job of the image bearers.

Uh you want to know what God looks like? You're supposed to look at Adam. And Israel's temple never had a statue in it. Um when every other temple in the world it did, and I think that's part of the reason uh because God had already made a picture of himself. He'd already put his face out there. Uh he made you. You You are the You were meant to be the picture of God. Uh in a very real way. And um so is it Adam? He's made in the image. He's breathed alive by God himself. Uh he's walking in the garden where God walks. He's He's literally the image and picture of God to the world.

Uh the idea is that when people see the image, they know who God is, right? Uh but the answer is no. Because we know the story, right? He reached and he took. He disobeyed. That was the thing that happened when Adam and Eve disobeyed, right? And what happened next? God goes looking for them, and they hear the Lord walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and it says that they did what? They hid from the Lord among the trees. Um in Hebrew, hid from the Lord is mitpenei Yahweh. They They hid from the face of the Lord. The picture that was made to show the world God's face runs and hides from God's face.

And then we know everything that comes after that in the whole long story the story of the Bible. You know, humans, right? Um if humans are meant to be the picture of who God is, um then they don't go a good direction, A chapter later, you have a brother that gets killed in a field. Um a few books later, you have a king on a roof who sees a woman and sends for her and takes her. Um you have uh people on their faces in front of a 90-ft statue of gold in Babylon. And if you just watched us people long enough, understanding that we were meant to represent who God is, you might start to think that God might be a little jealous or petty at times or scared at times or just lives for himself, right?

If we're meant to be the images and representing who God is, that's a lot of times that's the message that we send the world, isn't it? Uh and that's that's what it means. That's what the commandment means to not take the Lord's name in vain. That's That's That's the context. Um that's what it actually means. It It has nothing to do with the words that you speak so much. Um it has to do with how you live to the world of I've seen I've seen righteous people cuss and I've seen evil people not. Uh that's not the biggest variable in that commandment. It's what jersey you're wearing when you're out there and what people are seeing.

Oh. Oh, that's I guess you represent your Don't take the Lord's name in vain. Don't act in a way that is counter to everything God is. So, okay. If we can't be the face as God intended in the story of Adam and Eve and all humanity fell very quickly, made it to through three chapters. I don't know if that's good or bad. maybe maybe somebody can just go up the mountain and see the face that way. If we can't be the face, maybe we can send someone up to go see the face, right? And they can come back down and they can tell us what it looks like. It's a pretty fresh idea.

Moses in the Crack of the Rock

Um so, who's next if that's where we're going? Moshe, of course, Moses. All right? Uh if you asked anyone in ancient Israel who got closest to God, it would be Moses, all right? That's one answer. And the very last chapter of the Torah, after Moses dies, uh it says it out loud. It says that no prophet has arisen again in Israel like Moses whom the Lord knew face to face. Uh so this looks promising for someone that we can examine to see if he actually saw the face. So um let's go a day ahead in Exodus 33. this is I'm sorry, this is not the day ahead. Exodus 33. Um something really big happened in Exodus 33.

If you remember, it happened uh it happened to be um happened to involve a lot of gold shaped into a cow. And it was the golden calf incident. And right after the golden calf, uh that's where Israel completely obliterated their covenant they had just freshly made with God. And now they're dancing around a golden cow. And they're saying, "These are your gods, oh Israel. These are the gods that brought you out of the land of Egypt." And in chapter 32, God is ready to wipe them out. Right? Um he's ready just to I'm just going to destroy him. And Moses talks him down in the story. and then um now God says, "Fine.

You can go up to the land and I want you to take the people. Um and I'll even keep my promise about milk and honey, but I'm not going to go with y'all anymore. I'm not going to do it because you're a stiff-necked people. And I'm pro- I'll probably destroy you on the way." I'm not saying I've ever wanted to destroy my kids. But as a father, they do test you. And sometimes you fear for their safety because of you, you know? And so that's exactly what's going on here. It's like, "Fine, you can still go to Disney World. Have fun. I'm going to pay for all your fa- lightning passes.

I'm not going to go. Uh you're you're too much for me right now. and and right in uh the middle of this conversation that's happening, um uh the narrator stops and tells you something that's happening with Moses here. The Lord would speak with Moses face to face just as a man speaks to his friend. Then Moses would return to the camp. Face to face in Hebrew it's panim el but in Hebrew panim is also the word that's used for someone's presence, not necessarily their face, right? You're before their face, you're in their presence. Um so when your English Bible says in the presence of the Lord, a lot of times the Hebrew in that is just it's his face.

You're in the face of the Lord. Um so just there's a nuance there. Uh like a man that speaks to his buddy, his friend. He's close and direct intimate. Um so Moses, if anyone's going to show God's face, I think it's him. Uh and then Moses standing there, he says, "Okay, God. Um while I've got you, there's this one more thing. And I know I've asked a lot of you, you know, talked you down, did all this. Uh I know this week has been pretty hard for everybody. Um but can I ask one more thing?" And here is what Moses says. And Moses said, "Please let me see your glory."

He said, "I will cause then he said, Lord, I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and I will be compassionate to whom I will have compassion." But he added, "You cannot see my face for humans cannot see me and live." There's that rule again. "Please let me see your glory." And God says, "Yes and no." Um yes, you can have my goodness. Yes, you can have my name, but you can't see my face. My face um yeah, it's can't see it. It's the rule. Didn't he just say face to face?

Because Moses uses himself or uses in in this way in Deuteronomy 4, he tells Israel you didn't see form. Um there was only a voice. And one chapter later in Deuteronomy 5, he tells the same people, "The Lord spoke to you face to face from the fire of the mountain." It's the same people, same day, and no one saw his face. Again, it's his presence, right? But he wants to see it. Moses wants to see the whole unveiled glory, and wants to see God as God actually is. of course God says no cuz I don't want to kill you. And he says, "And the Lord said, 'Here is a place near me.

You are to stand on the rock, and when my glory passes by, I will put you in the crevice of the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then, I will take my hand away, and you will see my back, and my face will not be seen. '" So, God tells him, "Yes, you can see some of me, but not all of me." God tucks Moses away into a crack in a rock. kind of like the way you would shield someone from like a big explosion or something. Just get back here. And then he puts his hand gives him a hand. He puts his hand over his face, and the glory passes by, and then God takes his hand away, and Moses sees God's back or backside, as some translations go.

That sounds like a completely different message, so we're not going to explore that anymore. But that's what Moses saw. Um he got the hand, right? Um And so, nobody sees the face of God and lives. Not even Moses. Not even him. So, if nobody can go up and see the face of God, and no one can be the face of God, maybe God can like send it down. Maybe he'll put it on us somehow. And now here's here's Here's what we have to understand about again, the face in Israel, because it's it's not simply something you look for. It could be the presence. Um it's which way God is facing as well.

Uh the scariest thing God ever threatens for his people is in Deuteronomy 31, uh when he says, "I will abandon them, and I will hide my face from them." Um that's another way of saying exile. I will leave them. That's the worst curse of Deuteronomy is exile. Um when David has a really bad night, what does he pray? How long, O Lord, will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face uh from me? Uh so that we may be saved. So, face turned away means that you're on you're on your own in in the story. Um face turned towards you means God's coming to rescue you. Um and it means you're home, you're safe.

You have God's peace and surrounding, right? Adam hid from the face in the garden, and Israel spends the rest of the story uh asking for that face to turn back toward them. And that's exactly what God does next with the uh not man, but men that we're going to explore here. Uh because God himself taught Israel to keep asking for the face in Numbers chapter 6. God tells Moses to tell Aaron and his son, who are the priests of Israel, uh he says, "This is how you are to bless the Israelites." Here are the words that you're going to put upon them. Um and a lot of we all know this one.

We say it every every week. Uh it's in Numbers chapter 6, starting in verse 24, and it's the Aaron's prayer. May the Lord bless you and protect you. May the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. And may the Lord look with favor on you and give you peace. Make his face shine upon you. Panim. Also, where it says look with favor on you, uh in Hebrew, that's literally may the Lord lift his face toward you. And so, it's panim again. Um so, two out of the three lines of the blessing are about God's face. Right? So, Aaron comes out. He's the high priest, so he has the entire wardrobe of the high priest on, miter, the vest, everything, the jewels, uh everything.

And um he comes out and he lifts his hands up uh and he blesses the entire nation and he speaks the face of God onto them. And in synagogues all over the world and some churches um till this day, we still say this blessing over the congregation. So, are the priests the ones that we're looking for that have seen the face of God? They're the ones handing out the face, I guess you could say, in the form of a blessing. Um they gave they got the prayer. but um but no. No, they never saw the face. They were just told to bless people in search of the face that God would do that.

May the Lord make his face shine. Aaron isn't pulling back a curtain and showing anybody the face of God. Um he's speaking it over to them. He's speaking it all over the congregation. And um that's the blessing, but it's not a sighting. It's not seeing the face. We want we want someone who sees it. Uh and that's not the priests either. Hm. So, if asking doesn't get you there and someone being the face obviously didn't get us there, can't be the face, and sending someone up the mountain couldn't get us there, maybe we can send someone else back up the mountain to try again. Should we do that? Rhetorical. That's how the story flows.

Elijah Wraps His Face in a Mantle

Because there is another person that goes back up Mount Sinai and he wants to see the face. It's Elijah. It's what Elijah does. Um if you want a candidate, Elijah a great great candidate for this figure. He calls down fire from heaven on Mount Carmel in front of 450 prophets of Baal. And and at the end of his life, he doesn't even die. A chariot of fire shows up and and he goes up to heaven in a whirlwind. Till this day at Passover we have a cup that's poured for Elijah because people are still waiting for Elijah to come back before the day of redemption, right? If anyone gets to see God, obviously it should be Elijah.

But 1 Kings 19 picks up right after the whole debate battle against the prophets of Baal. Man, he was courageous in that. Just boldly standing up, even started using sarcasm against them. It was it's a hoot. And then finally defeats them all. The fire comes down, slaughters them all. And then right after that happens, he has this grand victory. The queen of the north, Queen Jezebel, puts a price on his head. And the same man who just called fire out of the sky runs for his life. He sits down under a broom tree in the wilderness and he prays that he might die. I've had enough, Lord. I've had enough.

Take my life. It's a man who's hitting the gas pedal for such a long time with the anointing of God. And an angel comes. So, what do you do if you're burnt out? Food always helps, right? An angel comes and wakes him up and feeds him. Eat some food. Twice. That's in 1 Kings 19:8. And so he got up and he ate and he drank. And then on the strength from the food, he walked 40 days and 40 nights to Horeb, the mountain of God. 40 days, 40 nights. Who does that remind you of? Oh yeah. Horeb, the mountain of Horeb. Horeb that's what Deuteronomy calls Mount Sinai. It's Mount Sinai.

He's going back to the mountain. All right? He's going back up to Moses' mountain. 40 days, 40 nights. That's how long Moses was up on that mountain in Exodus 34. So, you see what the you see how the story is being illustrated and he's trying to connect you through this journey with Elijah. Um he's walking Elijah Elijah is being walked right back into Moses' story. And then in verse 9 it says that he entered a cave there and spent the night. Now, old Jewish commentary, the old rabbis read these two stories side by side appropriately so. Um and in uh a Jewish document of commentary and debates um and some good information about the first century temple called the Talmud, uh they talk about the cave where Moses and Elijah stood.

Um never says Moses was in a cave. They just kind of conflict the stories and they like to believe that this was the same crevice that Moses was in. We don't really know, but I appreciate it I appreciate the effort, you know? Um whether it's the same hole or not, it's still the same mountain. Um 40 days and 40 nights and God is about to pass by again. And God says, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" And Elijah gives this whole speech. Uh I'm the only one left. They're trying to kill me. I'm done. And then God says, "Why don't you go and stand on the mountain in the Lord's presence?"

in the Hebrew it says before the face of the Lord. And so, 1 Kings 19:11 is the account of this. Everybody still good? Okay. I love the stories that God has given us in here because like I said, this is what changes us when we understand the stories and we journey through the stories. Um but I also know I get really excited and I talk a lot when I get really excited. And so, thank you for 1 Kings 19 starting in verse 11. Then he said, "Go out and stand on the mountain in the Lord's presence." At that moment, the Lord passed by. A great and mighty wind was tearing at the mountains and was shattering cliffs before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind.

After the wind, there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake, there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire, there was a voice, a soft whisper. And when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. The Lord passed by, all right? Same verb that God used in Mo- with Moses. Um when the glory passed by. It's on the same mountain, and here God is passing by again with Elijah. Uh and it's everything that you would expect the scene would have, right? You have the wind tearing the mountains apart and the earthquake and the fire and the whole Sinai show, right?

Um but God's not in any of that. And then, a voice, a soft whisper. Um the Hebrew it's a hush. What it's it's a whisper. It's a hush. Whisper. and the King James version uh what's it coin it? The the still small voice, What does Elijah do when he hears the whisper? He wraps his face with his mantle. Puts a blanket over his head. he covers his face and walks out. And I think he knows the rule. I think he knows the rule. Nobody sees the face and lives. And so God passes by on the same mountain, and Elijah covers up and doesn't look. So is it Elijah? It's the same mountain as Moses.

Same kind of hiding. God passes right in in of him uh one more time, and he walks out and he covers his head. So, no. Elijah's Elijah's not someone that saw the face of God. So close. Um That's the list I got, right? We tried to be the face of God we went and hid in the trees. Adam. Uh, we tried to go see it and Moses only saw the back. Um, we ask for it and the priests are still asking. We're still praying the blessing for it. Uh, we went back up the mountain with Elijah and Elijah wraps his face in his coat. And that's when we come to the New Testament.

That's when we come to John and his beautiful beautifully directed gospel account. John opens his gospel by putting the entire Old Testament pursuit in one sentence in John chapter 1 verse 18. And here's how he he's starting his gospel account. No one has ever seen God. The one and only son who is himself God and is at the Father's side, he has revealed him. All right, we could have just skipped to that and realized no one else had seen him, but it wouldn't be fun that way, Um, no, John knows the scriptures. He knows about Moses in the rock. He knows about Elijah in the cave. Um, wasn't Adam. Wasn't any of them.

One Face Left on the Mountain

And then the second half of that sentence breaks it just breaks it wide open. The own the one and only son who is at the Father's side, he has revealed him. He has made him known. And to see how, I want to take you up on one more mountain. And this last mountain is in Matthew chapter 17. And in Matthew chapter 17, Jesus is walking, of course, he's with his three disciples, Peter, James, and John, and he leads them up a very high mountain by themselves. And here's how uh the account goes. He was transfigured in front of them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light.

And suddenly, Moses and Elijah appeared to them talking with him. It's the transfiguration. Right? Says that his face shone like the sun. I'm going to submit that's the face. That's the face. But why are Moses and Elijah standing there with Jesus on this mountain? Matthew doesn't tell us. Um and for the longest time, people have really good answers, like, you know, well, Jesus is the fulfillment of the law and the prophets, and that's why Moses and Elijah were there, and I love that. Um But look at who they are. Moses Moses once begged God, "Please let me see your glory." And God said, "You can't see my face and live."

So, God tucked him in the crack of a rock at Sinai and covered him with his hand. And then centuries later, Elijah is the one that runs to the same mountain, Horeb, and God passes by again. And Elijah wraps his face in his cloak and doesn't look. The two men in the whole Bible who came the closest to seeing God's face and never did, and now here they are on another mountain, and Yeshua's face is shining like the sun and they're looking right at it. They they finally get to see the face. All right? Luke tells this same story um and says that they appeared in glory, right? Moses asked to see the glory and here you go, you know?

Um and Luke actually tells you what they're talking about. Cuz that would be something nice to know. Like, okay, Jesus is now he's talking to Moses and Elijah, what are they talking about? Um and it says Luke tells us that it was about his departure. He was speaking to Moses about his departure. And what's really fun, if you're little nerdy and like to study, um says it was about his departure, which he was about to accomplish in Jerusalem. And the Greek word that you Luke uses for departure is exodus. It's the exodus. Uh Moses of all people standing on the mountain talking with Jesus about his exodus. I think that's neat, right?

But then but then you have Peter. God bless Peter. Peter has something to say. Always. Always has something to say. Always jumping out of a boat. He does that a few times. Just So in Matthew 17, here's what here's what takes place. Then Peter said to Jesus, "Lord, it's good for us to be here. If you want, I can set up three shelters here. One for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." And while he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud covered them and a voice from the cloud said, "This is my beloved son which whom I am well pleased. Listen to him." Three shelters. So the Greek word there is the same word that's used in the Greek Old Testament for sukkah, the booths at Sukkot, which is super interesting.

Um especially since we just came back from Sukkot, right? so you're on the mountain and you're with the three greatest guys in the history of Israel. And you know, you're ready to make it a weekend. Like we're going to hang out. You know, we're going to we're going to hang out here. Um one for Yeshua, one for Moses, one for Elijah. Three heroes, three shelters. Um and God doesn't even let him finish his sentence. He's like, "Whoa, wait, wait, wait. First off, this is three equal shelters. First off, you're not understanding the dynamics Okay? These aren't three equals. See, sometimes we read the story and we think like, "Oh, it must have been such an honor for Yeshua to be in the presence of Moses and Elijah."

That's not what's happening. It must be such a great honor for Moses and Elijah to be in the presence of Yeshua. Right? And so God interrupts him mid-sentence, doesn't even let him finish. Um and he says, "This is my beloved son. Listen to him." Not the three of them, him. Him. And the disciples hit the ground. It says they fell face down because they were terrified. Um absolutely terrified. And then it says Jesus came up and touched them and said, "Get up. Don't be afraid." And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus alone. Jesus came up and touched them. On Horeb, God's hand came down to cover Moses so he wouldn't look.

On this mountain, the hand comes down to touch scared people on the ground and it says, "Get up. Don't be afraid. Look up." Think about why they hit the ground. What's the rule? And three fishermen just did. And the first thing that face says to them is don't be afraid. That's that's the answer to our question, I guess. It's when they looked up they saw no one except Yeshua alone. Moses is gone. Elijah is gone. Every candidate we've been journeying through and auditing all morning, they're not there. And when the cloud clears, there's one face left on the mountain. Yeshua alone. Look what he just did. He's he's the picture Adam was supposed to be.

He's the face Moses asked to see on the mountain. Um and centuries later Moses and Elijah finally get to see it. He's the face shining that Aaron prayed for. Every one of them gets answered on that one mountain. It's him. But he doesn't stay up there. Remember what Moses and Elijah were talking about? His departure. Right? Something big is about to happen. The Exodus that's about to occur in Jerusalem. The thing he's going to accomplish. And a few paragraphs later, Luke says in Luke 9:51, uh it says that when the days were coming to a close for him to be taken up, he determined to journey to Jerusalem. That's the CSB version.

Set His Face Like Flint

Um but the Greek the Greek says that he set his face towards Jerusalem. In the Greek, it's a prosopon. Prosopon. The face. He set his face to go to The face that just shone like the sun is now pointed at Jerusalem. And he knows what's waiting for him there. Isaiah saw it coming. Uh in Isaiah 50, the servant of the Lord speaks. And let's see what he says. I gave my back to those who beat me and my cheeks to those who tore my beard. I did not hide my face from anyone from scorn or spitting. The Lord God will help me. Therefore, I have not been humiliated. Therefore, I have set my face like flint.

And I know I will not be put to shame. I did not hide my face. That's what it says. Adam hid the face from God. And here's the servant that Isaiah prophesied about. He says he won't hide his face from anyone. In fact, I've set my face like flint, hard rock. It's not moving. And that's exactly what happens. Yeshua is arrested. He's dragged in front of the council at night for a faux court hearing. and Mark tells us about the account of what takes place when he does that. Then some began to spit on him, to blindfold him, and to beat him saying, "Prophecy! Prophecy!" The temple servants also took him and slapped him.

To blindfold him, they covered his face. And Matthew says it plainly here. They spat on his face. Do you see what's happening? On Horeb, God covered Moses' face with his own hand to protect him from the glory. But here in Jerusalem, men covered God's face to make fun of him. The face Moses begged to see, the face the priests prayed would shine on Israel, the face that lit up the mountain like the sun, and they spat on it. And he let them. He set his face like flint, and he did not hide it. And then they nailed him to a cross. On the mountain, his face shone like the sun, and on the cross, Matthew says, from moon noon until 3:00 in the afternoon, darkness came over the whole land.

The face that shone like the sun went dark. And he went down into death with the scorn and the spit still on And the whole redemption story is he did that for us. For the messed up image that's hiding in the woods. But it didn't stay dark. On the third day, the tomb was found to be empty. And the face came back. And it came back looking at the people who ran. Years later, Paul writes to believers in the church in Corinth. Uh and he says this in 2 Corinthians 4 6. For God who said, "Let light shine out of darkness has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of God, knowledge of God's glory in the face of Jesus Christ."

Let light shine out of darkness. Where's the light coming from? The knowledge of God's glory in the face of Jesus Christ. The glory that Moses asked to see it has a face. Remember the old Greek translation we're talking about earlier? Um when it gets to number six, that Greek word, "May the Lord make his face shine upon you. It's the same word for face that is used for Yeshua, prosopon, right? When Paul says the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, the word there goes back to Numbers. For generations Israel prayed, may his face shine upon you, and Paul says it did. It's shining right now. The blessing has been and is being fulfilled.

The God We Picture

So, what does this mean for us? Well, for one, I want to talk about the picture that everyone kind of carries in their head of God. cuz everyone carries a picture of God around with us. And for a lot of us, if we're honest, that picture might just be a hand. Um a big hand in the sky waiting to come down. Uh maybe on you, maybe on your mistakes, maybe on your kids. and maybe the voice in your head goes something like this. Um yeah, God, that hand in the sky, he probably I think he puts up with me. He loves me. I know God loves me, but I think he just kind of puts up with me.

Um because he kind of has to, because he's forced to love me or something. But he's up there and he's watching and uh and I know just one of these days I'm going to push him too far and that hand's just going to come down. And I have a feeling there's a lot of people in this room that have this image of God, this story of God, this picture As if God truly doesn't love or care or want to commune and show his face to you. And I don't think that those of us who have that type of image in our head of the character of God, that narrative, I don't think we made that out of nothing.

I think we borrowed it through our own experiences in our life somewhere a long time ago. Uh maybe before we could realize what we were putting together and constructing in our head. maybe we learned what a father's face looks like. And for some of us that face was warm and loving and brought comfort and security. But for a lot of us maybe it was a face that you had to watch. Maybe it was a face that you had to learn to read whenever you came in the house or across the room. Maybe it was a face that wasn't around too much. You learned to read the face. You could tell from maybe how hard the door slammed.

And you may have spent years trying to earn a look from that face that never came. Maybe the face was around you all the time but it was always looking at something else as you were growing up. Whatever it was no one sits down and just decides this but whatever face you learned to watch as a kid a lot of times that's the image that gets molded onto the face of God that we believe in. We get it from our dads whatever experience that was. And a lot of times that hinders us from experiencing what glory feels like when it's love and security. And so in theology what that what that causes is a God inside your head that becomes a dad that you have to manage.

The one you might have to perform for. you. to be good enough for you. You have to meet these expectations because you learned early on. The one that you could never quite relax around because he might become upset if you do the wrong thing. And we walk in here and we sing about a loving father and maybe sometimes somewhere down deep when you sing those words you kind of get triggered a little bit. Because you know there's a piece in there that you've molded or constructed or plugged in that doesn't quite fit with what you're saying. And if that's you, I just want to let you know you're not crazy.

You're probably not the only one in the room. A lot of us have fixed that by trying to split God in two. We've got this scary God on the mountain and the fire and then we've got Jesus over here, right? And of course Jesus is the nice one. It's the preferred version of the father. yeah. And in some of our theologies, Jesus is the one that talks the father down so the father isn't mad at us anymore. Like Jesus is a good cop in the whole construct of our theology. And um stop it. Please stop. It's a It's a half truth. Jesus Yeshua is kind. but he didn't come to protect you from his father.

And whether you realize it or not, there's a lot of theology out there that molds in that and orient in that direction. That's not That's not true. That's not what the story says at all. Jesus is not the nice exception to a mean God. He's what God has been like the whole time. The God who told Aaron, "Go, put my face on my people." And the man who touched his terrified friends in the mountain and said, "Get up. They're not two different faces. It's one face from Sinai all the way to the cross, all the way to the tomb, all the way to the throne. And we finally got to see it.

And you become what you worship, right? And so people who are afraid of a God who is always having his hand up but no face, they tend to turn into people that are all hand and no face. Quick to strike and slow to actually see other people. See people with love and grace. So you don't start there. You don't start with your dad, you don't start with a verse you never understood, you don't start with a bad memory. You you try to start with Yeshua. You try to start with Jesus. And you read the whole story with his face in front of you. When I want to know how God feels about me, I look at Yeshua.

I look at the one who set his face towards Jerusalem knowing what was waiting, who let them spit on it, who came back. Because if Jesus is like God, then it goes around the other way, too. God is like Jesus. He always has been. The father that you may have been scared of looks exactly like the man who touched those terrified fishermen, the disciples on that mountain. Said, "Don't be afraid. This is not who I am." And so I wanted to give some homework today because it was such a jam-packed message with lots of references. I want you to go home this week and I want you to pick one story from the gospel accounts.

Um and I want you to read it slowly, look it over, and I want you just to ask one question. I want you to ask if this is what the son looks like. What does that tell me about the father? back to the Euphrates that we started out with, the town. Those two rooms sat buried in the dark for centuries under Roman uh occupation and then the dirt they filled it with. And in the synagogue, the faithful people who painted those walls painted Moses on the burning bush and they painted Elijah raising the widow's son and um over both of them they put a Um they painted Moses and Elijah and they stopped at the hand.

but that's as far as the story could take them when they were painting the stories. And down the street, followers of Yeshua painted the face on their walls. The face that Moses and Elijah finally saw on that mountain in Matthew 17. And so, please stand as we conclude with worship. But I don't know where you're at today, but if there's anything I would like for you to take home from this message, it's that we have a loving father who created you to be his picture. That was the whole thing about being an image of It was that when people see you, they would experience the fullness of who God is.

The fullness of God's love, the fullness of God's forgiveness, the fullness of God's mercy and grace. The hard things that the world makes hard for you to implement. And that's why we're called good soldiers of Christ. And so, if you're dealing with an image problem today or an identity problem today, and you look in the mirror and you just don't know how a heavenly father could X Y Z by default you're his picture. And we see the words, we hear the words, do not be afraid, get up. Commune, this is my face. All right. If you need prayer for anything today, guys, we have a prayer team on the side of the stage over here and during worship, it's an appropriate time if you want someone to pray with you about anything have anything to do with the message or not, you can do so.

if you brought something in here today that maybe you want to leave behind. Maybe it's a decision um that you want to make and you want to take your first step right here today. We have a symbolic altar here. And its sole purpose is to symbolically represent a new start. And it's appropriate for you for people to walk down um and symbolically set whatever that is that you've been carrying around, you can set it down. And you can stand up and you can walk back and you can leave it here today. Um during this time you can worship with us and pray with us um but I hope I hope that you leave with a better understanding of not only the story of the Bible and where God leads us and how it ultimately ends with the face of Yeshua uh but also that that is the face that looks at you.

Avinu Malkeinu, our father, our king, father, we thank you for this opportunity to come together this day and learn about your face uh and the one who bears it. Father, I ask that Holy Spirit would do what the Holy Spirit always does, father, that it would give us power and authority to face the things in our life that we need to leave behind and face the things in our life that are preventing us to grow towards you and face the things in our life that keep covering our eyes up to seeing your glory. That we would embrace this, father, but also understand what it means to be an image bearer and what it be what it means to be loved by a good good father.

We thank you father in the name of Yeshua. We pray. Amen.