EXODUS 29:42-46 GOD DESIRES TO MEET WITH YOU2015 Teaching by Jerry B Simmons

Teaching Transcript: Exodus 29:42-46 God Desires To Meet With You

You are listening to FerventWord, an online Bible study ministry with teachings and tools to help you grow deeper in your relationship with God. The following message was taught by Jerry Simmons in 2015. This morning as we look at Exodus chapter 29, the title of the message and the thing that God put on my heart to share with you is that God desires to meet with you.

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Now, as you look at the tabernacle, of course, there is much symbolism. There's a lot of things that you can look at in the tabernacle that speak to the coming of Jesus and the ministry of Jesus and the work that Jesus would accomplish upon the cross. But that's not the things that I want to get into this morning as we consider the tabernacle. Instead, what I would ask you to consider about the tabernacle is the purpose of the tabernacle.

And I would suggest to you that the purpose of the tabernacle is so that God would have a place to meet with his people. In verse 42, he refers to the tabernacle by a specific name. Look again with me at verse 42. It says, And then there's two words after that. He calls the tabernacle, the tabernacle what?

Of meeting. It's the tabernacle of meeting. Now the word tabernacle just means tent. It's not actually a special word. It's just, if you're going to go camping, you would take along with you a tent. It's a tent. That's what a tabernacle is. But this tent was special and unique. It was different, not because of the word that was used, but because of, well, whose idea it was.

Whose idea was it to put up a tabernacle? It wasn't Moses' idea. The people didn't get together and vote or have a committee and think about, you know, hey, we need a place that we can call the tabernacle. The tabernacle was God's idea. And it was God who gave Moses the instructions there on Mount Sinai on how to build this tent and all the specific details about it. And there was elaborate detail.

God went through all the details of the dimensions, of the materials, of the colors that were to be used, and all the exact things that were required for the building of this tabernacle. And sometimes as we read through this, we can get a little bit bogged down by all of the detail. In fact, if you've read through the book of Exodus, or if you're going through the Bible in three years with us, and so you're reading along, we just finished a

reading about all these details of the tabernacle. And then as we head into this coming week's reading, we're going to read all those details again because, well, now they're going to be putting together what God instructed them about. And as they put it together, we get to see all those same dimensions, all those same materials, all those same, you know, exact details that God was talking about. And for us, that can be kind of redundant, but we see a great emphasis here on all those details. And so,

And why do we need all those details? Why did God care so much and design so specifically the tabernacle? Well, we know one reason. The author of Hebrews tells us that the tabernacle is a shadow of a reality that exists in heaven. And so you can look at the tabernacle and learn a lot about heaven because it's designed after the pattern of what is in heaven.

But I think as we look at this this morning, that God wants to focus our attention on this aspect of the tabernacle. It was so important, and God cared so much about it because God greatly desires to meet with his people. And so that's the name that he gave this tent. He called it the tent or the tabernacle of meeting.

This was a place to meet. Notice he didn't title it the tent of sacrificing, although there were sacrifices that were done here. In fact, we read in this portion this morning, there were sacrifices that were to happen every morning and every evening here at this tent that God had called them to set up. But it's not called the tent of sacrificing, and it's not called the tent of religion. It's

And it's not called the tent of separation, to kind of separate God from the people. No, God gives us some great insight into the name that he gives this tent. He calls it the tent of meeting. I've made this point a couple of weeks ago as well, but it's worth repeating. And that is God always initiates the relationship with us. When it comes to God, for you and I, we are never the ones...

who begin the relationship. We are never the ones who are first with the idea. We never wake up and think, you know, I should spend time with God, unless God has already been calling out to us and inviting us to spend time with him. It's always God's idea first. He is always the initiator when it comes to a relationship with God.

It begins, of course, with creation, where it's God who was first. He created humanity to have relationship with him. That was his design. For you and I, we also look back at the cross, and we see that God abides

went to the cross, that Jesus became man and died upon the cross so that we could have relationship with him. We didn't say, you know, Heavenly Father, it would be really good if you sent the only begotten son to die upon the cross for us because we need a savior. It wasn't our idea. It was God's idea. He reconciled us. It was his idea. And that continues on to this very day. It's always God who initiates.

And anytime you have a desire to meet with God, to spend time with God, to do things for God, to walk with God, anytime, it's never your idea first. You never have to think about it and then say, hey, God, I'd really like to spend time with you. Do you think you could make time in your schedule to spend time with me? Do you think, you know, I could interrupt your plans or change around your plans and that you could meet with me this morning? It's always God's idea.

He's there first. He's the one who is calling out to us and inviting us because God desires to meet with you. And I want to encourage you throughout the message this morning to let that truth really sink in, how amazing it is that God desires to meet with you. I mean, I know some of you. It's amazing that God wants to meet with you. I'm just kidding, okay? But

Jake was telling me he doesn't even want to meet with some of you, but God wants to meet with you, right? It's amazing that God loves you so much, that God in his grace and his kindness towards us desires to be with us, to spend time with us, to speak with us, to hear from us,

That's what he wants. And so he created this tabernacle. He gave them the instructions for it. He designed it. He goes through all the details so that he would have a place to meet with his people. And it demonstrates for us today that God has this desire to meet with us. And so as we look at this passage, there's four points I'd like to draw out for you in

to help us understand God's desire to meet with us, and then our response to Him as He calls out for us to meet Him. And so the first thing we find here in verse 42 is that we are to meet with God regularly. Because God greatly desires to meet with us, and He's calling out to us, our response to His call should be to meet with Him regularly.

Check out verse 42 again. It says, This shall be a continual burnt offering throughout your generations at the door of the tabernacle of meeting. This shall be a continual burnt offering.

Now he's speaking about the two offerings that we just read about starting in verse 38, the sacrifices that God commanded for every morning and every evening. He tells us in verse 39 here that it's one lamb that you shall offer in the morning and the other lamb you shall offer at twilight. So in the morning, you'll offer this lamb.

And then in the evening at twilight, you shall offer this second lamb. And then here in verse 42, God goes on to say, this shall be a continual burnt offering. It's to be ongoing, continual, perpetual. This is a permanent instruction, God says to Israel. Sacrifice on the morning and the evening, these lambs, as I've called you to.

This is not just for a season. This is not for a temporary time. He doesn't say for the next 30 days or the next two years, offer a lamb in the morning and in the evening. No, he says this shall be a continual burnt offering. It's to always be happening. It's to be ongoing and it's to be happening every day, every morning and every evening. It shall be a continual burnt offering.

And this offering is to be taking place at the tabernacle of meeting. And there at the end of verse 42, he says, where I will meet you to speak with you.

This idea of the tabernacle of meeting and God says, I will meet you there. The word meet, it carries with it this idea of an appointment. It means to meet by appointment. The idea, it's a scheduled time. It's a time that's put on the calendar. It's scheduled ahead of time.

If you and I want to get together, let's say sometime this week, well, I will make sure that I put it on my calendar. I'm very detailed like that. I'm very particular because I have a terrible memory. And if I don't put it on my calendar, it's gone. We walk away. I was like, did we have a conversation? I don't remember. But if I put it on my calendar, then I'll remember. And so as I put it on my calendar, I'm getting the information. Okay, so what time? What day? Okay.

What's your name again? So I remember what to put here on my calendar. I need to know where we're going to meet. All those specific details. And we schedule it ahead of time so that then I can prepare for it. And I can know that it's there and I can arrange around it. In a similar way, he says this is the tabernacle of meeting. And there's going to be certain times, scheduled times of meeting.

And so they have these daily offerings. It's part of the schedule. Every morning and every evening, there would be these sacrifices. Now, this would not be the only time that sacrifices were offered here at the tabernacle. There would also be, well, opportunity for the congregation of Israel to come and bring their sacrifices anytime.

there were what was known as free will offerings that the children of Israel could bring. These weren't required, but just any time you wanted to come and meet with God, you could bring an offering and sacrifice it to the Lord. You would partake of that offering. It'd be a meal for you, and you would have fellowship with God and spend time with God in that way. But then there was also sin offerings that were required of the people.

And I think these are interesting because as we think about sin offerings, of course, we think about the need for a sacrifice as the covering for sin. And certainly that's built into this sacrificial system. But I like to think about it in a slightly different way as well, especially as we talk about the tabernacle of meeting. Think about it this way. If God was going to think of, if he was going to create a sure way that you would have opportunity to meet with him regularly and

Well, attaching that meeting to your failures is a perfect way to do it. If God said, all right, I want you to offer a victory offering, then every once in a while when you have victory in something, you could come and offer a sacrifice. But it would be occasional. But if you have to come and bring an offering for sin, that is, whenever you've failed, you're

Well, God ensures in that that it's going to be frequently because we fail frequently. We fall short of the glory of God frequently. We sin frequently. And so God ties this idea of meeting with him to failure so that the children of Israel, whenever they sinned, whenever they failed, they would go and meet with God. In a similar way for you and I today, as we consider these things, of course, the Lord calls us to sin.

In 1 John 1, verse 9, right? Confess your sin. And he's faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. That still when we fail, we are called to go and to meet with God. He attaches this meeting to our failure so that we come to him frequently, often, repeatedly. Now, sometimes when we fail, we run away from God, but that's opposite of what he's calling us to do.

And so they would have these regular sacrifices, these sin offerings, these free will offerings, and the daily morning and evening sacrifices that they would bring to the Lord. But then also there were the feasts that Israel would have throughout the year.

Now, God not only laid out the design for the tabernacle, but he laid out the instructions for their calendar. And he said, okay, here's going to be your holidays. Here's the feast that you're going to have. This is what you're going to do in those different feasts. And three of those feasts were required for them to go be before the Lord at the tabernacle.

And so three times a year at least, there was seven feasts on their calendar, but three of those, they were required to be there at the tabernacle to meet with the Lord. And so it'd be a huge, massive gathering of the nation before the Lord there at the tabernacle, later on at the temple. The point is, this was going to be regular. Every morning,

Every evening, every failure, whenever you want to, during the feasts, there were always going to be these regular meetings before the Lord because God desires to meet with his people. And again, I want to encourage you to appreciate that truth. Let that sink in. Understand that

embrace the idea. God desires to meet with you. He desires to meet with you. The tabernacle is a great picture of that. It was designed for that purpose, named to make sure that we understand it's for that purpose, designed and attached to the sacrifices in a way that we would come to meet with God regularly. Now, for us today as believers in Jesus, we don't

follow that sacrificial system any longer because it was completed by Jesus for us upon the cross. And so we come to God not with an animal sacrifice, but we come to God by faith in Jesus Christ.

But it's that same concept that we come to God regularly. He calls us to himself often, frequently, daily, regularly, every failure, and also special times to come to him by faith in Jesus. In John chapter 1 verse 14, the apostle John is talking about Jesus. He refers to him as the word.

And he says, the word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. The word became flesh. That is talking about God, Jesus being God, existing since all of eternity, became man. He became flesh. He put on humanity.

adding humanity to his deity. And then he dwelt among us. That word dwelt could also be translated, he tabernacled or he tented among us. So here's God in eternity. That's his home, but he decides to go camping. And so Jesus comes down. He goes camping here with us and hangs out with us for a

All right, you guys done camping? All right, I have a mansion prepared for you. We can go home. And so the picture here is he came and he dwelt with us temporarily. He tented with us, tabernacled with us so that we could spend eternity with him in a permanent residence. He came and met with us. He dwelt with us. He lived in tents with us because God desires to meet with you.

He did that to make a way to provide for us to be able to have right relationship with God. And so I want to encourage you this morning to respond to that. Respond to what Christ has done for us. Respond to God's desire to meet with you and meet with God regularly for all kinds of reasons. As they would have the daily sacrifices, well, you don't have to offer an animal twice a day to have relationship with the Lord, to meet with the Lord.

But you can connect with the Lord every morning and every evening. And I would encourage you to do that. Connect with God every day. But then also upon your failures. No, you don't bring a sin offering to the tabernacle and sacrifice it, but you go back to God. Every time you fail, every time you mess up, have a meeting with God. Connect with God.

You can confess it, but you can receive his grace and his mercy to you at the same time. Also in special seasons. You know, we're coming up on Easter. We're going to be celebrating the resurrection of Jesus. Make sure you have in those special times as well, those special meetings with God. Maybe it's special times in your life, you know, new things that God is doing. You can have these feasts. You can have these celebrations and connect with God in celebration times.

It's not only when you failed, but you connect with God with thanksgiving and rejoicing and gratitude over what he's done and is doing for you. God desires to meet with you. And he's always there first. He's always calling out to you. So meet with God regularly. It's not like you would be taking too much of his time. He's like, well, I'll meet with you once a week, but that's the most I can squeeze out. No, no. God is able. He's willing. He's there. He's available. He's

Meet with him regularly. Well, the second thing to consider as we continue to look at this idea of God desiring to meet with us is to meet with God to hear from him. This is the reason why we meet with God. This is what God wants to do as we gather together with him. He desires to speak to us, which makes sense, right? Because what do you do at a meeting? You talk, right?

That's what you do at a meeting. You don't have a meeting to sit around and look at each other. It gets a little bit awkward, right? You start thinking, well, is somebody going to say something? I don't know what to say, but I hope somebody else says something. Whenever you get together, when you have a meeting, we're getting together pretty frequently in preparation for the project that's coming. And so we gather together and we pray and then we talk.

And we talk and we talk and we talk and we're working out these things. We're talking about and discussing because that's what you do at a meeting. That's what meetings are for, to talk. Notice what he says there at the end of verse 42. He says, where I will meet you to speak with you. He says this offering, it's going to be a continual burnt offering at the door of the tabernacle of meeting where I will meet you to speak with you. God's intention is

of meeting the children of Israel there in the wilderness was to speak to them. Actually, it says to speak with them, which gives the idea the sense that there's this communication back and forth. Meeting with God is about speaking to God, but also hearing from God. Back in Exodus chapter 25, God referred to this as well as he was giving the instruction regarding the Ark of the Covenant.

And as he gave the instruction about the Ark of the Covenant, how it was to be built and the shape that it was to have, and he described this lid that was to be on the Ark of the Covenant, which is referred to as the mercy seat. And this mercy seat was to be made out of gold. It was to have two angels fashioned on top of it. And so God says, this mercy seat will go on top of the Ark of the Covenant. And he says, that's where my presence is going to dwell.

right there above the mercy seat between the wings of the cherubim. But then he says in Exodus chapter 25 verse 22, he says, and there I will meet you and I will speak with you from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are on the ark of the testimony. And he says about everything which I will give you in commandment to the children of Israel. God gave the law to Moses and

As we're reading the book of Exodus, we're reading what took place as Moses was on Mount Sinai with God. And you might remember the account there. First, Moses goes up to meet with God. He comes back down to the people. The people are freaked out because God has descended upon this mountain. And there's smoke and fire and earthquakes. And the people said, you know, this is way too much for us. Moses, you go talk to God.

And then come back and tell us what he says. But it's too much for us to hear from God directly. That's overwhelming for us. So you do that. And so Moses goes up the mountain and he spends time with God and God gives him the law. That's all the instructions for the tabernacle, all the instructions for the government system that was going to be established for the nation of Israel.

The things that we have recorded here in Exodus and Leviticus and Numbers, all these things are given to Moses there on Mount Sinai. And Moses wrote it all down. But here in Exodus 25, 22, God says, I'm not done talking to you about all those things. I spoke to you. I had you write it down. But there's more that I have to say. God was going to speak to the children of Israel ongoing. Not just the one time on Mount Sinai,

Not just to give them the law so that then, well, you don't have to meet at the tabernacle to hear from God. Just read the scroll and you can hear from God. No, there was more to what God wanted to do than what he had revealed to Moses. And so he says, this is the tabernacle of meeting where I'm going to speak to you. And I'm going to talk to you about the things that I've commanded. I'm going to give you more information. I'm going to give you more details about what I've commanded you.

I'm going to reveal my will. I'm going to bring correction when you're out of line. I'm going to give you direction for the steps that I want you to take. It's going to require this ongoing meeting with God to hear from him, to receive the rest of what he has to say. And for you and I, as we study these things today, that same principle continues. We have much greater revelation today than what was revealed in the law.

We have the whole rest of the Old Testament. We have the coming of Christ recorded in the Gospels and in the New Testament. We're incredibly privileged with the Word of God. And we have the complete Word of God. Paul refers to it as the whole counsel of God. And yet, I would say to you, God is not done speaking.

And by that, I don't mean there's going to be another testament or a new revelation about a different way of salvation. No, that's not what I mean. That's not biblical. But what I mean is that God is going to meet with you to reveal to you more, to speak to you more, and more specifically, about what he desires in your life.

When Jesus was meeting with his disciples as he was preparing to go to the cross, he said, the Holy Spirit's going to remind you of these things and teach you all things. There's going to be new things that I'm going to be bringing to you as you meet with me. And so meet with God to hear from him. Sometimes we meet with God just to talk to him. We meet with God because, well, he needs to know what we have to say.

We have lots of prayer requests. We've got lots of needs. We have a lot of things going on. Now, not to diminish any of that. Listen, God wants to hear from you. And he calls us to cast our cares upon him. Bring your requests to the Lord. But also, make sure that you take time to hear from God as you meet with him. Don't just let it be one-sided where you do all the talking, but receive back from him.

And that involves spending time in his word as you're reading the word, but you recognize it's not just words on a page, but that God wants to use those things to speak truths into your life. He wants to give you insight for your day, for your week, for your life. He wants to give you application that you would know his desire and his plans for you.

I like what the apostle Peter said in 2 Peter 1, verse 3. He says that God's divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us. He says God's given us everything that we need, all things that pertain to life and to godliness. Everything that you need for life, God is giving to you.

So that includes things like, well, you need some help in the workplace. You need some wisdom. You need some patience. You need some whatever you need. In the home, you need some wisdom. You need some patience. You need some direction. You need some guidance. You need some strength. Whatever you need in life, Peter says, God is giving to us all things.

that pertain to life and to godliness. Whatever you need to help you in your relationship with God, to help you become more like God, to grow as a believer in Jesus, to turn away from sin and to walk with him. Everything that you need, God is giving to you. And he says it's through the knowledge of him who called us. By knowing God, as we get to know God, as we meet with God,

He is speaking to us and he is giving us everything that we need for life and for godliness. God desires to speak with you. He desires to give you direction. He desires to give you strength, to bring correction in those areas that are out of line. He wants to reveal things. He wants to show you more of who he is. He wants to work in that way. Meet with God regularly and

but meet with God to hear from him. Oh yes, share your hurts, share your cares, but also give him opportunity to speak with you. Well, thirdly, as we continue to consider this idea of God's desire to meet with you, meet with God by yourself and with others.

This idea of meeting with God, as we look at the whole tabernacle setup and the instruction that God gave, we can very clearly see there was both kinds of meetings that were going to be happening. You can see here in verse 42, again looking at the last part of the verse, he says, where I will meet you to speak with you. But then go on into verse 43.

He says, and there I will meet with the children of Israel and the tabernacle shall be sanctified by my glory. So he says in verse 42, I'm going to meet you and speak with you. And then in verse 43, I'm going to meet with the children of Israel. And it gives us this picture of meeting with God as an individual. I'm going to meet with you and I'm going to speak to you. And also there I will meet with the children of Israel, with the whole congregation, with

And so there's this individual meetings with God, and then there's the congregational meetings with God. And the word that's used to meet or the tent of meeting can be used in both ways. Again, it's to meet by appointment or to assemble or to gather by appointment. And so it can refer to a one-on-one meeting or it can refer to a whole gathering together at a set and specific time.

Now, the children of Israel, as individuals, they would come and meet with God. They would bring their freewill offerings, their burnt offerings, and say, Lord, I want to commit myself to you and spend time with you. And they would have fellowship with God individually or even as a family. They would come and do that. But then there was also the times where they would come as a congregation, as a nation, as a whole. They would come and meet before the Lord individually.

at the tabernacle. And specifically, they would do this at the feasts. And so God designed it in that way, that they would have both types of meetings that were happening. As individuals, they would bring the freewill offerings. They would bring their sin offerings. Because of their sin, they had to go meet with the Lord and connect with Him. But then there were also the times where they would gather together with everybody, and they would all join together to spend time with God and worship God together.

And so God designed it for both kinds of meetings to take place. And the same is true for you and I today. As God desires to meet with you, understand that he wants to do that both ways. He wants to meet with you personally, individually. And he also wants to meet with you corporately. For example, as we gathered together this morning as a body, as a

We are the body of Christ. That's how the New Testament refers to us. Corporately, we gather together and we meet with God. We worship him. We spend time with him. We spend time in prayer. We spend time in his word. And we allow God to speak to us. Now, both of these are important. If you have just one without the other, well...

You're out of balance and you're missing out then on something that God wants to do in meeting with you. We see in the example of Jesus that he often got away to be with God. He would often ditch the crowds, even though the crowds wanted to be around him. Oftentimes he would get away from the crowds to just spend time with the Father. One example of that is in Matthew chapter 14, verse 23.

where it tells us that Jesus sent the multitudes away, and then he went up on the mountain by himself to pray, and when evening came, he was alone there. He spent time with God alone, by himself. When he was selecting the 12 men to be his 12 disciples, he did the same thing. He got away the night before, and he spent the night in prayer, just with him and God, him and the Father, spending time together, meeting God.

As God was speaking, as God was working. Remember with the final days of Jesus, as he was heading to the cross, that night that he was about to be betrayed, he went to the garden of Gethsemane. He brought his disciples with him. He left most of them at one spot. He took Peter, James, and John a little bit farther, but then left them at a different spot and then went off by himself and met with God.

And so you see this continual example in the life of Jesus as a pattern for us. There needs to be times that you get away from everyone else, that you send the multitudes away, parties over, send everybody home. I need to meet with the Lord. I need to spend time with God. I need to connect with him, just me and him.

That's the example that Jesus gave us. And so I would encourage you to have these kinds of meetings with God, that you would have these times of regular meeting to hear from God, to connect with him, just you and him. Now that can be a little bit difficult for us.

And some people, you know, wrestle with this a lot because, well, life is busy. You know, there's a lot of things going on, especially, you know, when you have kids and they're up early and then, you know, the day starts really fast and it's real hard to find time. But also it can be hard of just having that quiet time. We in our society have a tendency to crave entertainment, to crave kind of like a busyness,

And sometimes just sitting still, you know, meeting with God by yourself, it's not going to be, you know, with flashes of light and lots of entertainment. It's going to be a discipline of sitting quietly and your mind's going to want to wander.

Your mind's going to want to go all over the place and plan your day and think about all those kinds of things and be thinking about other things. And it's amazing, whenever you try to spend time with God, that that's when your phone rings, and then that's when something breaks, and then, you know, those kinds of things happen. It's going to take some effort. It's not like, you know, it all comes easy. Just like if you were back with Israel, getting to the tabernacle to have a meeting, it was going to take some effort. There was going to be some determination, right?

Especially, you know, as they moved into the land of Israel, depending on where they lived, they'd be traveling miles and maybe the, you know, wagon wheel would break on the way or, you know, the mule would get sick that they were riding on or whatever, you know, that there would be these, they would have to overcome, they would have to have a determination. I'm gonna meet with God in the same way. We need to approach our times with God with determination. There's gonna be opportunity to distract. There's gonna be opportunity to ditch that meeting.

Call up God and say, God, you know what? I can't make it today. These other things came up. We'll try again tomorrow. There's going to be that. But then there's also going to be those times where you sit down and God speaks to you and he meets you right where you're at. That's what God desires to do. And so make sure that you have this kind of determination, that you have this discipline of meeting with God by yourself, that you learn to have a relationship with God and learn to hear from God. And I say learn because it is a process of learning.

You do learn to hear God's voice. You learn to recognize his voice by spending time with him. And as he speaks to you, as he speaks to you, as he speaks to you, you start to recognize the voice of God and the way that God works in your life. And so you need to have those personal times with the Lord. But then also we need the other side. We need the corporate times with the Lord. There's something unique that God does as we gather together and worship the Lord is

You can go out and sing all those same songs by yourself between you and the Lord and have a nice time with God. But there's a unique thing that God does as we gather together and we join forces, we join voices, and we sing to God and we declare who he is and we celebrate his attributes and what he's done for us. There's a unique thing that God does in that.

There's a unique way that God speaks to us in this context, where he brings forth his word. He brings forth a message that he wants us to hear. And it's amazing how God often will speak to us. Sometimes what he's speaking to us through the message doesn't even have anything to do with the message. Have you ever experienced that? But God's speaking to you as we gather together corporately.

Not only that, but Hebrews talks about in Hebrews chapter 10 verse 24 and 25, we're encouraged to not forsake the assembling of ourselves together. He says, as is the manner of some. Some people forsake the gathering together of believers, but the author of Hebrews says, don't do that, but instead exhort one another. And so much the more as you see the day approaching.

As we gather together, we not only get to meet with God in the way of we worship together, we hear the word together, but then we also get the interaction between one another where there's this exhortation of one another. And God is able to speak to you and to work in your life and build you up through that interaction with the believers around you. And that's an important part of our growth in our relationship with God as well.

And so meet with God. God desires to meet with you. And that includes both times alone with God as well as times together with God's people. And both are needed. If you only have one, you're out of balance and you're missing out on the work that God wants to do and the things that God wants to say. And so I would encourage you, even this week, to set a few appointments to meet with God by yourself and with others. Put it on your schedule.

Yeah, there's gonna be distractions. There's gonna be opportunity to ditch those appointments if you want, but approach it with determination, with some discipline that I want to spend time with God and God wants to speak to me. Well, the final point as we consider this idea of God desiring to meet with you, I would encourage you to center your life around meeting with God. Center your life. Let your whole life revolve

around this idea of meeting with God. Again, in verse 42, he says, this shall be a continual burnt offering throughout your generations at the door of the tabernacle of meeting before the Lord, where I will meet you to speak with you. So he says, this is going to happen. These sacrifices are going to happen at the door. And he says, that's where I'm going to meet with you. And then in

Speaking to this specific place, that's where I will meet with the children of Israel. And so God says there's something significant about the placement of this tabernacle. There's something specific about the placement of where I'm going to meet you. Now, in the context here, the children of Israel are camped out in the wilderness. They've left Egypt.

They're at Mount Sinai where God's giving them the law. And then they're going to continue their journey in the wilderness up to the promised land. Now, as they're camping out in the wilderness, God is giving them very specific instructions about how they are to set up camp. And I think this gives us great insight into what God wants us to do in our lives.

In the wilderness, when they would camp out, they would set up the tabernacle in the middle of the camp. And so here on the diagram, you can see the tabernacle is there in the middle. It's there in white. And then they would have right outside the tabernacle door, the laver where the priests would wash. And then they would have the altar in front of that where the sacrifices would be offered. They would have this whole courtyard surrounding the tabernacle.

And then immediately outside of that courtyard, the Levites would camp. And so they would camp all around the tabernacle area. And then the rest of the tribes of Israel, the 12 tribes of Israel would be set to camp on various sides of the tabernacle. And this was all very specific. God said, this tribe camps here, this tribe camps there, this tribe camps there. And so they would always camp in the same spot in relation to the tabernacle.

And so you would have the tribe of Judah and Issachar and Zebulun. You would have Dan and so on and so forth. You see the point. They would all be on their specific sides of the tabernacle. Now, this paints a really good picture for us of God being the center. And so as you think about the camp of Israel, again, center your life around meeting with God. In setting up camp this way,

the people of Israel always knew where the tabernacle was. No matter what place they went to, as they moved from place to place in the wilderness, it didn't matter where they were camped, they would always know where the tabernacle was. It was always in the middle. It was always right there in the center. So they would always know how to get to God, how to get to that place to meet with God. And then if you think about it,

They wouldn't really know where to camp. So if God said, okay, we're packing up today. They pack up all their stuff. They start marching. They're working their way across the wilderness. And then God says, all right, set camp here. They would be waiting. Okay, where's the tabernacle going? And once they know where the tabernacle is, well, then they would know where they were to camp.

But they had to know where the tabernacle was set so that they could camp because they would always camp in relation to where the tabernacle was set up. And so their camp was set based on the meeting place, based upon where God called them to meet with him. In verse 45 here of Exodus chapter 29, God says, "'I will dwell among the children of Israel and will be their God.'"

And they shall know that I am the Lord their God who brought them up out of the land of Egypt, that I may dwell among them. I am the Lord their God. God says, I'm going to dwell among them. I'm going to dwell right in the midst of them, right in the center of them. I'm going to be right there with them. I'm going to dwell. The word means to settle down or to reside, to live. God says, I'm the center and I'm going to be the center of your camp.

I'm going to be the center of your life. I'm going to live with you. I'm going to dwell with you. That's what God desires. That's the kind of place that God wants in our life, that he would be the center, that your whole life would be based upon meeting with God so that you can't even build the rest of your life until you know, where's the camp? Where's the tabernacle? Where's the meeting place?

So if God's meeting place for you is in Nebraska, well, then you're going to have to build your life in Nebraska. Hopefully it's here in Corona, and then you can build your life here in Corona. But your workplace, it needs to be centered on, it needs to be based upon where's God meeting you? What's God saying to you? What's God doing in your life and your family life? It's not to be based on just whatever you desire, whatever you want. It's to be based on, well, what's God saying?

It's to be based upon meeting with God and hearing from Him. Our whole life should revolve around God. Now, we can easily get out of balance with this so that we come to the place, and I would think it's fair to say we've all been in this place, where what we would say is, you know, I really like the idea of meeting with God. I understand the concepts, and I've, man, had those amazing times with God, but I

I just don't have time to meet with God. I would suggest to you, listen, if that's our position, if that's our case, we're out of balance. We've left God out of the center. Something else has become the center and our life revolves around that. And then if there's time, then we get around to meeting with God. But the way that God set up the camp of Israel indicates to us something important, that he wants to be the center of your heart, your life,

that your life is built upon your time with him. That that must come first. That you meeting with God and following God's instruction, that must come first. And I don't mean that that means that we can only read our Bible and pray and that's all that you can do every day. That's all that you're supposed to do. No, God wants you to work. God wants you to minister to your family and do the things that you have responsibility to do. But he wants to keep himself the center. He's the core. He's the priority here.

And you meet with God. And that doesn't move. That doesn't change. Imagine for a moment in the camp of Israel, if every time that Israel camped, the tabernacle was in a different spot. It would make it very difficult for the people to meet with God. Because as they're wandering in the wilderness, it looks pretty easy to figure out here on the diagram, right? But we're talking about a couple million people. And so here you are, you set up your tent. You're like, okay,

All right, we got settled down. Our tent's up. Let's go meet with God. Hey, did you guys see where God settled today? I didn't see where God settled. Okay, well, I guess we got to go find it. And so you walk half a mile that way. No, he's not on this side of the camp. You walk back to the other side. He's not on that side of the camp. Well, maybe he's over on the other side. And so you're wandering around. Every time you move, you got to figure out where God is again. God said, no, I'm not going to let it be that way.

I'm going to be always the center of the camp. In the same way, God desires to be the center. He desires to be the core, the basis upon which everything else in our life is built. Once that's settled, the tabernacle is established. Then the rest of the camp knew exactly where to go. It all fell in line. And God said, I will dwell among them, and they will know that I am the Lord. I'm the one who brought them out of Egypt.

When we make God the center of our camp, the center of our life, we get to experience a relationship with God that is different than what we've known before. We get to experience a relationship with God where we know that he is the Lord who brought us up out of Egypt, that he is the Lord who called us out of our sin. He called us out of the bondage that we were in. We get to experience this relationship with God where

where he establishes himself as the Lord. It's not wishy-washy. It's not maybe, not just I think. But there's this reality to it. And he says, they shall know that I am the Lord their God who brought them out. And he says, I am the Lord their God. There's this established connection when he's the center. He's the Lord. He's my God. I'm his child.

There's this stability that comes from this established relationship. When God is the center of your life, God desires to meet with you. He desires it greatly. He desires it. And so he established this tabernacle as a pattern to show us, I want to meet with you. This is the tabernacle of meeting. Later on, he brought us Christ.

And he said, I want to meet with you. And so I'm willing to sacrifice my only begotten son to die upon the cross that you can have fellowship with me. He's expressed clearly his great desire to meet with us, to fellowship with us, to spend time with us. And so our response, he gives us now the opportunity to respond. And our response is to meet with God. And so I would encourage you to meet with God regularly.

Connect with God on a continual basis. Not just once in a while, not just occasional, not random times, but continually, regularly, day by day, every failure. Connect with God, hear from God, meet with God to hear from him. Let him speak to you. He has great revelation of himself, of your life, of his instruction, of things that he wants to do. Hear from the Lord. Meet with God by yourself.

But also make sure that you meet with God with others, that we join together to connect with him. And then lastly, I would encourage you to center your life around meeting with God.

Now, as we've been considering this idea of meeting with God and his great desire to meet with us, I think it's appropriate for us to then have an opportunity to just spend some time with God to close out the service. And so I'm going to invite the worship team to come up and they're going to lead us in a couple songs. And I would encourage you as we worship the Lord together that you would just take this time to meet with God.

And so maybe for you, that means you're singing the words that you're singing along with us and making sure that you're intentional, that you mean what you're saying. It's not just words that you're reading off a screen, but that it would be an expression of your heart to the Lord. Or maybe for you to meet with God right now, singing isn't the right thing, but maybe you just spend this time in prayer and just seek God. Maybe you just spend this time in quietness and just ask for God to speak to you. But let's take this time.

And look to God and meet with him and invite him to speak with us. Let's worship the Lord together.