Hidden Holiness

Joe Henseler · Faith Church · Nov 8, 2021

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Workbench

Joe Henseler

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4,186

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14.2 words

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Key ideas· repeated words and phrases

god77moses41jesus31bush30people16old testament6jewish people6because15christ15verse13years ago5jesus christ5angel12lord11moment11jewish11burning bush4hide10faith10seek9shows9burning9sees9overwhelmed9

Pacing

avg 139 wpm · peak 220 at 0:00

Scripture references · 4 citations

Hebrews

Exodus

Rhetorical fingerprint · per 1,000 words · click to see examples · 24 scripture readings excluded

Repeated openers: “this is” (8), “he is” (5), “moses is” (4), “i mean” (3), “i can't” (3), “and this” (3)

Sentence structure · diagram + recurring patterns

0.15 adjectives per noun

playing hide and seek with kids is super fun.

I mean, my feet are sticking out from the bottom of the curtain, right?

Like the God of the universe, you want to interact with him, but he's hiding.

Recurring structural signatures — click to read examples:

Argument map · logical progression through the sermon

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Each step is a rhetorical move; the line follows the argument in order — click to read.

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Voice · pronoun mix, % of all pronouns

I / me (personal)

we / us (communal)

you (direct address)

he / she / they

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Theological claims · rough pattern match — subject + assertion

People mentioned

Moses ·33Jesus ·21angel ·9Moses. ·8Jesus. ·5Jesus Christ. ·3Abraham ·3Isaac ·3Jesus Christ ·2grace ·1angel. ·1This angel ·1

Places mentioned

Egypt. ·1mountain of God. ·1Egypt ·1

Rhythm & tone

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past (narrative)

present (exhortation)

future (hope)

Story vs teaching: 4.7% narrative

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love

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fear

Repeated phrases & openers

hide and seek ·7angel of the lord ·6angel of the ·6why don't you ·5take off your ·5so that we ·5hide and seek with ·4why don't you just ·4this is ·10he is ·5moses is ·4i mean ·3

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Transcript

playing hide and seek with kids is super fun. I remember playing with my kids and I would hide behind a curtain and they would look for me everywhere. I mean, my feet are sticking out from the bottom of the curtain, right? And yet they can't find me and you wait for like 10 minutes and you jump out and scare them, right? Hide and seek as kids, super fun, but you kind of grow out of hide and seek after a while. Then you graduate to manhunt. Have you played manhunt? Like as an adult, I've done the full camo, hiding up in a tree, hours, super fun. kid, manhunt as an adult, those are fun things to do, but hide and seek with God is not fun. Hide and seek with God. Isn't it feel like that sometimes? Like the God of the universe, you want to interact with him, but he's hiding. Where is he? It's like a lifetime game of manhunt. Where are you, Jesus? I can't find you. You're hiding. And this is what it feels like in so many times like why God why does it feel like if you are the king of kings and the Lord of lords why don't you just show up why don't you say here I am why don't you just tell us what to do because we want to follow you but when we can't find you life feels like hard enough why are you making this like a game have you had this feeling and we're going to ask the question today why why does it feel like God is hiding so we're starting this new sermon series called revealed and we're getting closer And it's so easy to think, to fall into the trap of thinking that Jesus just showed up 2,000 years ago as a baby. When in fact he has existed from eternity past, he showed up on planet earth as a person 2,000 years ago, but Jesus has been around forever. And so we're gonna lean into looking at who is Jesus before he shows up 2,000 years ago through this because what the Bible teaches is at the right time God sent Jesus as a person to show us the character of God in human form and to live and to die and to rise again. All of creation, all of history hinges on the revelation of Jesus Christ. He is the way, the truth and the life. No one gets to God the Father except by faith in Jesus Christ. And yet it feels like sometimes he's hiding. He shows up in hidden sort of small installments throughout the Old Testament to teach us what he looks like. So what we're gonna do in November is we're gonna work our way through some Old Testament scenes, snapshots, where Jesus shows up to reveal himself and his character and to produce in us a longing for Christ to come. And then in December, we're gonna look at when he shows up in life, what does he look like, point of this is that we're hoping that some maybe we'll find Jesus for the first time. And for all of us, we'll find things about Christ maybe we never thought of or never knew about before. And all of us would follow Jesus closer because isn't that the point? I mean, the purpose of the church is to glorify God by helping people find and follow Jesus. So that's where we're heading over the next couple of weeks and months and let's pray before we start. God, thank you that your word is You've brought us to this moment right here. People watching online, at home, maybe in their cars. People here on campus, you know our lives, you know our names, you know our story, you know our circumstance. You are close and you want to reveal yourself. You're not hiding from us. Help us to see you today. us grow our faith and our ability to see through these short moments we share together. I pray through Christ our Lord, amen. If you have your Bibles, exit this chapter 3. So the beginning of your Bible, exit this chapter 3, an electronic copy, paper copy, follow along with me, exit this chapter 3 verses 1 through 14. I think what you might be surprised by is how Jesus shows up in a hidden way in a familiar story with this significant leader named Moses and his interaction with the burning bush. This account not only reveals Jesus Christ to us, it also answers the question for us. In part, why does it feel like God is hiding from us? Like why doesn't God just show up and say, "Tada, here I am and tell us what to do." of God. So quick context, God has chosen the Jewish people to be the people that He reveals His grace and truth to. The Jewish people find themselves in slavery, they call out to God and ask Him to rescue them. God's going to show up and rescue them and He's going to use this person, this guy named Moses. Moses is an interesting character. He is a Jewish man who's been adopted by an of Egypt. He is Jewish, trained Egyptian, and as he gets older, he sees the mistreatment of his Jewish family, and it makes him angry. And at one point he gets so disturbed by the cruel treatment of the Jewish people that he murders someone. He kills someone, an Egyptian who's abusing a Jewish person, and he has to flee for his life. He lands in another country, he gets married, and 40 years in the wilderness. And this is where we pick up the scene in Exodus, chapter three, where we're going to get a small glimpse of Jesus in the Old Testament and learn an aspect of why God seems to play hide and seek with us. Exodus chapter three, verse one. Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. And he led his flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to horrib the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire, it did not burn up, so Moses thought. I will go over and see this strange sight why the bush does not burn up. When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush. Now stop and try to imagine this scene for a moment. Moses is an educated man. He's been 40 years in the wilderness as a shepherd. He's been doing this for a while. He's not stupid. He's an average guy. He's seen a thing or two in his life. And in this moment, he sees a bush burning that's not burning. This is curious to him. If I saw a bush burning that wasn't burning, I would be curious to. And so he walks towards this bush. What a strange sight. walks over and as he's walking over, a voice calls out to him. Moses. I don't know how it really happened, but it's probably like that, right? Moses. Because you're alone in the woods. There's nobody around but sheep. Of course it's gonna sound like that to you. And it's gonna freak you out, right? What's going on? Are these voices in my head? Is this someone speaking to me? He's looking around, but it's this bush. And verse two tells us who this voice is. The angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in the flames of fire within a bush. The text tells us this is an angel speaking through the bush. That's weird, right? But if you have a category in your mind for an angel, an angel is a messenger from God and this angel decides to wear a bush costume. 10, right? That's cool. Yet look at what verse 4 says. When the Lord saw that Moses had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush. Wait a minute. First you said in verse two, it was the angel. Now you're saying it's God. Who's speaking here? Who's talking? Well, I want you to notice in the text, Doesn't say that. It says, "The angel of the Lord." This angel of the Lord is the Lord. This is the God of creation. This is known theologically as a theophany. A theophany is an appearance of God, an appearance of God. And the only thing weirder than an angel putting on a bush costume is God putting on a bush costume. Like this is weird. He's talking a bush. God calls out to Moses from the bush and he uses his name twice. He doesn't do like when you're in trouble at home and your parent calls you like, "Joe." Or they use my full name. Joseph Adam Hensler, like they do that once when you're in trouble. This Moses, Moses is important because in the ancient world this was a way of expressing friendship, a way of expressing intimacy, You see, God's not trying to scare Moses. He wants to communicate with Moses. And Moses answers. He feels comfortable enough by this weird scene in verse four to say, here I am. And you can imagine at this point, he sees this bush burning. He's curious. He starts to make his way there. Then he hears a voice, Moses, Moses. Here I am and he keeps walking. And maybe he slows down when the bush starts talking. He gets close. What is this? Then the bush starts to talk. He keeps moving, but he slows down, but he's still walking towards it. Verse 5, "Do not come any closer," God said. "Take off your sandals for the place you're standing is holy ground." Then he said, "I am the God of your Father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. God. So he knows God is talking. God says, don't come any closer. This bush, this moment, this ground, it's holy. He says, take off your dirty shoes because you're standing on holy ground. And then God gets really specific, right? He names the names of Moses' heroes. Moses got a couple of heroes of the says to him, "I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." And in his mind, Moses would go, "You provided for my ancestors? You protected my ancestors? You spoke and used my ancestors?" And now you're coming and speaking to me? It stops him in his tracks. He hits the floor. He scrambles to take off his sandals, and he hides his face. Because the text says he was afraid to look at God. mind and body at this moment that he is in the presence of all mighty God. He has no idea what's going to happen next. He's just scared. This is weird. Bush's don't burn. Bush's don't talk. And the God of Abraham and Isaac, Jacob is talking to me. Of course I'm going to hit the deck and take off my shoes. And what happens next tells us something about the character of my people in Egypt, and I've heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I'm concerned about their suffering. Verse 8, "So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians." God tells Moses, "He's seen the misery of the Jewish people. He's heard And this entire moment is about God rescuing his Jewish people from slavery. And then following this, he's gonna say to Moses, I'm gonna use you, I'm gonna send you to go be the mouthpiece to tell the mightiest king of that time to let God's people go. And Moses is like, why would you choose me if you keep reading? Why would you choose me? And God's like, don't worry, I'm gonna go with you. And Moses says, well, when I go and I try to do this, what should I tell them? name of the person who sent me in verse 14, God said to Moses, I am who I am. This is what you're to say to the Israelites. I am has sent me to you. Moses is talking to the great I am, the creator, It might look like he's talking to a bush, but the one who's talking through the bush is God. And I would say more specifically, he's talking to Jesus. The angel of the Lord in the Old Testament is the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ. The incarnation is when Jesus comes to planet earth through a virgin. He was incarnate through. And this moment, this angel of the Lord is Jesus. This burning bush moment is Jesus being revealed to Moses. Moses is the author of the book of Exodus. Moses writes this scene down so that his Jewish audience would read about this moment and learn about Jesus, the one who comes to rescue. This burning bush scene is intended to give us of Jesus, because verse seven is so profound in teaching us that God sees, God hears, God is concerned about the suffering of people, so Jesus verse eight comes down to rescue. When the Jewish people heard this thousands of years ago in Exodus 3, they would catch begins to emerge about the character and the person of Christ. And when we read these passages in the Old Testament, we are to get a glimpse that God is someone who sees, that God hears our cries, that God cares about our suffering, and he has sent Jesus. He sent him 2000 years ago as a baby who lived and died in Rose again. He continues to use the life of Christ to rescue people. from our suffering through the person and work of Christ. And so, Exodus three points to Jesus, but I wanna answer the question, if God is concerned about human suffering, why does he hide? Like, why doesn't God just, I don't know, call Moses into his office, like, hey, Moses, come on over for a minute, I gotta talk to you. Hey, listen, here's what I want you to do. I want you to go to talk to Pharaoh, but give them real, maybe why doesn't he just text in the email? I'm like, why the hide and seek and the whole burning bush jazz and taking off your sandals? Like, why don't you just show up? Why don't you just talk to me? And maybe the best way to think about why he doesn't show up and talk like we want him to is to think about money for a minute. Think about money. If your boss came to you and said, for the entire year to come in one lump sum today. Before you even start working, I'm giving you your annual salary in one installment right now. What would you do? I'd blow it. I mean, some of you are like, I'm a saver. I would save it. I would totally blow it, right? I'd buy something and many things because when I get a large sum of money, I get overwhelmed. the other way, if you have to buy a car. Is it easier to buy a car with $250 installments a month or pay the entire thing in one lump sum? installment plan is much better because we get overwhelmed when humans have an overwhelmed sense. We get paralyzed and we do stupid things. to us so that we don't get overwhelmed. He gives little bits of himself at a time so that we don't get overwhelmed. So Moses talks to God through a bush, and God's like, "Take off your shoes, I'm holy." He hits the deck. Can you imagine if he's walking through the woods and all of a sudden Jesus Christ shows up and starts talking to him? Talk about freak out. He'd take off his sandals and his pants because he'd soil. them, right? Like if you're just walking along and Jesus in his full transfigured self shows up, scare the pants off of you. God wanted to interact with Moses. He wanted to talk to him. And when you talk to someone who you're overwhelmed by, you have a hard time relating and interacting, a bush and says, "Moses, Moses, I want to rescue my people through you. I have an assignment for you. I'm asking you to do something. I want to use you." So one of the reasons God shows up in increments, doses, installments is for our good. He is gentle and kind and doesn't want to overwhelm us. And we learned from this moment that God is perfect and holy, right? That's why Jesus tells Moses, "Take off your who's the ground you're walking on is holy. God is holy. It's a part of his character, right? He's separate from evil. He's pure. He's set apart perfectly without stain, not a trace of darkness, not a trace of evil. If God brought his full self of perfection into your presence, what would happen? My motives are stained, my words are stained, my actions are stained. Everything I do is tainted by my sinfulness. And in the presence of Almighty perfect God, what would happen to me? I wouldn't be able to stand or interact or to relate so God gives Himself in installments so that flawed Moses could interact with Him, be told what to do, and then go, purpose. There's a verse in Hebrews chapter 4 that I think you should write down and consider looking at. Hebrews 4-13 describes the holiness that I think Moses felt in that moment. Hebrews 4-13 says, "Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight." Leave this verse up and let's just look at this. Nothing in all of creation is hidden from God's I can't hide my motives, my actions, my thoughts. I can't put on any front to God and kind of impress Him. I can't fool Him. He sees everything. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him who we must give an account. Not only does this perfect God see all my flaws, all my foibles, all my impurities. He sees it and look at what He says. for all of that? Moses saw this and understood it. That's why he hit the deck. There's something about it where he could recognize the holiness, the purity, the perfection of God. If this holy judge just walked into my living room today, I'd be ruined. And I wouldn't be able to stand or talk or interact or relate at all. So it's in this way that God is gracious to us to give us installments of himself so that we don't get overwhelmed by his holiness, but instead we can interact with him. Beyond not overwhelming us, God gives himself an installment to us so that we would seek him by faith. This is the way God chooses walk by faith and not by sight. So he gives small glimpses of himself, right, through nature. This world shouts the goodness of God, that there is a designer, a creator, a sovereign who holds everything together. There are no accidents. The chairs you're sitting on today, the couch at home that you're laying on right now. Nobody just didn't show up. Somebody built it. Someone built this universe. And everywhere you look around, you will see the fingerprints of God. the Bible and gives us glimpses of himself throughout the old and new Testament. He speaks through Jesus. That Jesus shows up on planet earth. He clothes himself with skin, sets aside his divinity, puts on flesh, and then dies to show us the extent of his love for us. This perfect sinless Christ dying a cruel death for me. It's almost like he drops these little breadcrumbs all along in our lives that we see these little crumbs, these little installments, these little doses, and we would follow, and not be overwhelmed and not check out, but we would follow. We would see that Almighty God wants to live with me and talk with me and walk with me and connect with me by faith. Sinful Joe, instead of being overwhelmed and pushed away by the holiness of God, I'm brought near because of Christ and I can have a relationship by faith. this more. We're going to talk about it more over the next number of weeks. But a great homework assignment for this week is Hebrews chapter 11. Read Hebrews chapter 11 and the key verse in there. Hebrews 11, 6 says, "Without faith it is impossible to please God." Because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. The God of the universe doesn't with you and he invites you into his presence. He is perfect and I am not, but through Christ I can enter and be connected to him. And that's why he drops these little pictures in the Old Testament and in our lives today so that we would walk with God by faith. Now, I wonder if you've seen this in the supermarket. Ah, this little plastic basket of blackberries, right? Costco, Walmart, wherever you go, get yourself a little plastic basket of blackberries. And I wonder if you know what these blackberries are for. Right? What's the purpose of a blackberry? I would love to. Ready? I want to read to you a poem by a woman named Elizabeth Barrett Browning that explains and every common bush, a fire with God. But only he who sees takes off his shoes. The rest sit around and pluck blackberries. What's the interpretation? I'm gonna go to Costco this afternoon. You're gonna go to Walmart. You're gonna go through sections of food, fruits and vegetables like crazy. All the food you can imagine, packaged up for you to take home and cook something delicious and eat. Everywhere there are things to see. But most of us just go, oh, Blackberry, instead of seeing that these are dropped by God in front of us all over the place to lead us to Him. This is science. This is Mother Earth. This is not Mother Earth. universe who loves you and designs something for you to pick off a bush and put in your mouth and go, "This is delicious. This is a gift from God." But science and mother earth and random evolution has made us keep our shoes on and walk around like he doesn't exist. He won't to you until you give an account to him and have to answer when he says I dropped these blackberries all over the place for you to see. And I'm not going to overpower you. I love you. I sent my son Jesus to die for you. You talk about it at Christmas and Easter. It's some sort of Friday, on Black Friday, and then you do the Easter thing. Like right? You just ignore me, you do this holiday motion stuff, but you miss the fact that the baby Jesus is the risen Christ who I put in front of you, right in front of you, for you to see my holiness and my perfection and my goodness and my love and my kindness and my gentleness and my sovereignty. in your life in a box of blackberries. And only he or she who sees takes off their shoes. This week will you take off your shoes? This week will you look around, look up, look beyond, and see that the God of the universe is so gentle and kind to give installments of himself to you so that you would find and follow him because he is good and he cares and he wants to rescue people like you and me from our sin and shame. Would you pray with me? God thank you for being gentle with us and not showing up at Walmart and all your holiness and small doses and installments that cause us. To see that are intended by you to wake in our senses and our taste and our desire and our hunger for something more and something more, someone more is you. You have all that we need. You are life and love and hope and forgiveness and truth So awaken us, humble us. Thank you for being gentle with us. That though we are sinful and impure, your perfection doesn't drive us away, but invites us to come to you, to confess to you, to follow you, and you promise to change us. Thank you that the righteous will live by faith Give us faith. I pray in Christ's name. Amen.

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