This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Welcome to our look at Exodus chapter 34. That means we are in day four of
Exodus week chapter seven, and these chapters that we're walking through, these
chapters are powerful studies in who you are as a new creation in Jesus Christ.
Sometimes we can take our blessings for granted, and these chapters show us how
much we have been given in Christ.

We saw that yesterday in the glory of God. In the tabernacle and priests that
we've looked at these last few weeks, we see a picture of who we are now in
Jesus, who God is making us. In the cleft of the rock in the last chapter and
the veil that's put over Moses' face in this chapter, we see by contrast how
great our blessings are as followers of Jesus.

We don't need the cleft of the rock anymore. We have Jesus, and the veil that
we're going to read about in this chapter, something's changed about that veil.
In Exodus chapter 34, Moses goes back up on the mountain to receive the
commandments once again.

Remember, he broke them in anger, and God gives them to him again. And even as
God is giving the law to Moses, giving the law, I want you to notice what he
says before we get into the main point of this chapter. In verses six and seven,
as he passed in front of Moses proclaiming, "The Lord, the Lord, the
compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and
faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands and forgiving wickedness, rebellion
and sin, and yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished.

He punishes the children and their children for the sins of their fathers to the
third and fourth generation. " So even as God is giving the law, there's honesty
about the penalty of sin in our lives, but there's also the compassion of God,
the forgiveness of God. The law contains these words about forgiveness.

God is shown to be a forgiving and compassionate God in both Old and New
Testaments. And Moses is receiving the law, hearing from God, and then look what
happens. This is our main focus in this chapter.

Look at what happens when he comes down from the mountain. Focus on the veil.
Verses 28 to 35, "Moses was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights
without eating bread or drinking water.

And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.
When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the testimony in
his hands, he was not aware that his face was radiant because he had spoken with
the Lord. When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, his face was radiant and
they were afraid to come near him.

But Moses called to them, so Aaron and all the leaders of the community came
back to him and he spoke to them. Afterward, all the Israelites came near him
and he gave them all the commands the Lord had given him on Mount Sinai. When
Moses finished speaking to them, he put a veil over his face.

But whenever he entered the Lord's presence to speak with him, he removed the
veil until he came out. And when he came out, he told the Israelites what he had
been commanded. They saw that his face was radiant.

And then Moses would put the veil back over his face until he went in to speak
with the Lord. This veil over Moses' face that you see in these verses. You
could read this and think Moses had an experience of the presence of God like I
will never have and you'd entirely miss the point of what's happening here.

The Apostle Paul didn't miss the point. Paul talked about it to the Corinthians
who were being tempted to trust the law as something greater than grace, the old
way of doing things through Moses. You can look at this and think, wow, red seas
and veils over faces and tabernacles, that's more spectacular than what we have
now in Jesus.

And it is not. It is not. Here's the truth, Paul says.

He says, let's just take the wraps off of this. Let's get to the truth of this.
2 Corinthians 3, 13 to 18 are about this passage in the book of Exodus.

Listen to what those verses say. We are not like Moses who put a veil over his
face so the people of Israel would not see the glory fading away. But the
people's minds were hardened.

And even to this day, whenever the old covenant is being read, a veil covers
their minds so they cannot understand the truth. And this veil can be removed
only by believing in Christ. Yes, even today, when they read Moses' writings,
their hearts are covered with that veil and they do not understand.

But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, then the veil is taken away. Now, the
Lord is the Spirit and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, He gives freedom. And
all of us have had that veil removed so that we can be mirrors that brightly
reflect the glory of the Lord.

And as the Spirit of the Lord works within us, we become more and more like Him
and reflect His glory more and more. These are verses that turn our thinking
entirely upside down. You could read this experience that the people of Israel
had with Moses and think, wow, his face was always shining.

So he covered it sometimes so that it wouldn't shock the people too much. But
Paul gets to the truth of the matter. Moses would go in, he would be with God,
his face would shine.

But immediately after that, the shine would go away, the glory would go away. So
he covered his face not so that they wouldn't be shocked by the shine of his
face. He covered his face so that they wouldn't be shocked by seeing the shine
go away.

Because it faded so quickly. That's the problem with the Old Covenant. That's
the problem with trying to get close to God by the good things that you do.

You might feel good in a moment, but it fades so quickly, it just doesn't last.
And so Paul says here, that veil, in some ways, it comes over our hearts. How
does this veil come over our minds or over our hearts?

Whenever I think I can get close to God by the good things that I do, that's a
veil. And by the way, the more you try to do that, the stronger the veil gets,
because the more you've depended on yourself, and the more pride gets into your
life. The veil is a barrier in your understanding of God's grace, because you
think you can get there by yourself.

But then Paul says, and this fits in perfectly with what we've been looking at
in the book of Exodus, what we need is the Spirit of the Lord. When God's Spirit
comes into our lives, when the Holy Spirit comes in, he removes the veil.
Because, Paul says, wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

That's what we need, freedom. By God's Spirit, two things happen. First, the
veil is removed.

That veil that keeps you from understanding, it's all by grace. It's all by
God's goodness. It's all by God's love in our lives.

That veil gets removed. I don't have to live pridefully anymore. I don't have to
hold on to those old ways of thinking I can get close to God anymore.

I have the freedom, I have the humility to realize it's a gift. It's a gift of
grace. If you're thinking, I'm having a hard time accepting that, it begins by
accepting the gift.

It begins by asking God's Spirit to bring a new light into your life. He gives
freedom. By God's Spirit, the veil is removed, but then a second thing happens.

The veil is removed, but also by God's Spirit, we become a mirror. Instead of a
veil covering a face where the glory is fading away, we become our soul, our
heart, even our face, our body, become a mirror that reflects the glory of God
in the face of Christ Jesus. Amazing.

You're a mirror. We talked about the glory of God yesterday and the fact that
you and I now experience the glory of God in Jesus, but these verses, I can
hardly believe them. That you and I not only experience the glory of God, but
somehow we reflect the glory of God into other people's lives.

I don't see that happening because I look at myself. I see my faults. I see my
failures.

I look in the mirror. I see the ugliness of my face and think, how can anybody
see the glory of God in that? But in ways that you don't even understand or
realize because you know Jesus and the love of Jesus is in your life and the
grace of Jesus is driving your life.

As other people look at you, they see a light that they don't see anywhere else.
And it's not your light. It's his light.

It's not your glory. It's his glory. It's reflected off of you to them.

And that glory never fades away because his presence is not taken from you. The
only way you can keep that glory from getting out is by putting the veil back on
and trying to do it by yourself. But in Christ, we would never do that.

In Christ, we know we live by grace. These are amazing chapters in Exodus
because they tie so strongly to the New Testament, how God's glory is put into
our lives, how God's grace is seen in our lives. Let's take a moment to pray
together.

Jesus, thank you that by your grace, I can experience God's glory. And thank
you, and this is by faith, I thank you by faith that in some way, because I've
received your grace, other people are able to see your glory in me. The glory of
a normal human being, a struggling human being, who's been forgiven.

The glory of someone without hope, who now has a seed of hope that I'm clinging
to. The glory of someone who's done nothing but stumble, now finding a place to
stand. The glory of the fact that you would love me.

Jesus, let someone else see the glory of your love in my life today. I hesitate
to pray that because I know myself so well, but I have the faith to pray that
because I know who you are. So let someone see who you are through me in some
small, some big way today.

I pray this in your name, Jesus. Amen.