Paul Daugherty - Closer to His Presence
In verse one of Exodus 33, the Lord said to Moses, "Leave this place, you and all the people with you who have come out of Egypt, and go up to the land that I promised". I wanna stop right there. What God was trying to tell Joshua here. Well, Moses, what God was trying to tell Moses here is where you are is not supposed to be where you stay. Just because you've come this far and you've gotten out of Egypt and you're no longer in shackles and chains doesn't mean that you've arrived. God was saying, I've got more in store for you. See, God has more in store for you. Just because you conquered an addiction doesn't mean that you've arrived at your greatest spiritual maturity. To get ready for what God has for you, you have to get closer to his presence.
You don't get direction for the future by just wandering aimlessly and living your life with no discipline to spend time with God. It requires an intentional effort to lean in and say, God, what are you speaking? Where are you directing me? What are you wanting me to do? And so Moses is leaning in. He's saying, "God, what are you saying"? And God says, "Moses, I have a land that I promised to your father, Abraham, to his son, Isaac, to Jacob, to all your ancestors. I have something greater for you. I have something that's far better than where you're at. Don't stay here". Everybody say, we can't stay here.
And then God says to Moses, "I'm going to send an angel ahead of you. And I'm gonna drive out the Hittites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, all the ites". He says, "I'm going ahead of you". And he says, "Go up to the land that's flowing with milk and honey. There's something greater in front of you". But then God says this to Moses. He says, "But I'm not coming because you are stiff-necked. And I might destroy you on the way". In the Old Testament, there was moments where God got so disturbed by the stubbornness of the Israelites. They were so stuck in their old ways. God was trying to get them to move forward. But they were stiff-necked. I mean, y'all know what it means to be stiff-necked, right? Like.
And when I was younger, I was like, "What is a stiff-necked person? I just thought they walked around, they couldn't move their head, you know"? But stiff-necked means you're stubborn. You're stubborn, you're unchangeable. I was trying to tell our three year old, the other day, Mac, to do something and he was like, "No". I was like, "Yes, you will. In Jesus' name". I was casting demons out of our three year old. Come on, how many y'all got some kids that you are still helping to overcome their stubborn moments? How many of y'all are those kids that sometimes get stubborn with your parents or with your spouse or with God? And you're like, I'm not changing, you know? Yes, you are. You're going to change.
And this is what God was saying to the Israeli. He's like, I'm trying to change you. I'm trying to lead you. I'm trying to help you. And the people were resistant to change. And I wonder if there's still people in the church today that are resistant to change. So God says to Moses, he says, "Listen, I'm wanting to get you out of this land and tell the Israelites, tell them that they are being stiff-necked, tell them they're being stubborn, and tell them to get ready, because I have something greater for them". So Moses goes to meet with God about this in verse seven, 'cause Moses is kind of like, God, I don't want to go somewhere that you're not coming with me.
So he goes to meet with him and it says, "He took a tent and he pitched it outside the camp," verse seven, "some distance away and he called it the tent of meeting. And anyone who was wanting to know what God had to say would go into the tent of meeting outside the camp. And whenever Moses went out to the tent, the people would rise up and stand until Moses entered the tent. And as Moses would go into the tent, a cloud would come down and cover the entrance of the tent while the Lord spoke with Moses". This was an interesting thing that happened in the Old Testament. "When the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance to the tent, they would all stand and worship at the entrance of their own tents. And the Lord would speak to Moses face to face".
So God would talk to Moses as a friend would talk to you. And God wanted to get close to Moses. Everybody say, get closer. God wants to talk to you this year. God wants to talk to you about your future. He wants to talk to you about your dreams. He wants to talk to you about your relationships. He wants to speak to you about matters that you need his counsel on. How many of y'all need God's direction on some stuff this year? Decisions, relationships, things that you're going. I made this decision, I just need to know that God's in it. Or maybe you're like, I've gotta make a decision, but I don't know what decision to make, where I'm supposed to go. There's never a season in our life where we don't need direction, and this is where the story of Joshua gets very interesting.
"But his young aide, Joshua, would not leave the tent". Joshua would linger when Moses left. Joshua would stay in that tabernacle, in that tent of meeting, in the presence of God. And I believe this is where Joshua got the courage to continue. This is where Joshua got the perseverance, that even though people didn't believe in his dream, that he was well able to conquer the promised land. See, Joshua and Caleb were the only two spies that Moses sent previously in the Book of Exodus. They were the only two spies that came back with a good report, with a vision, a dream, and yet for 40 plus years, they had to live with everyone else's disbelief. So how do you press through in a season when you're watching other people fulfill dreams and you aren't able to, when you're waiting for your dream to be fulfilled, I believe the way you press through is getting into the presence of God.
When I'm close to the presence of God, I can handle the disappointments that I'm walking through. I can keep pressing through. I can keep serving Moses. I can keep loving people. But if I'm not in the presence of God, I'm gonna quit in the wilderness. How do you stay with it? When you're walking through your wilderness season, you get closer to the presence of God. How do you move forward with faith into the promised land? You get closer to the presence of God. So then in verse 12, Moses said to the Lord, "God, you've been telling me to lead these people, but you have not told me who you're gonna send with me".
So Moses is saying, I can't do this by myself. I need a team. I need the Avengers. Like, where is my crew? I need some guys that are strong and that are ready to run with me. And I honestly think Moses was hoping for some guys his age that would help him get through this season, 'cause he was surrounded by Joshua and Caleb and guys that were 40 plus years younger than him. And I think he was looking for people that understood the weight of leadership, the gravity of what he was carrying, and what he was walking through. And God said, "Moses, no one's gonna understand it like you, but most importantly, you need to stop leaning on the crutches of every relationship in your life. As long as I'm with you, that's what matters".
God was teaching Moses to stop depending on human relationships to get him through the difficulties of life. We need relationships. But when relationships become our God, that's when we need to remember, it's only the presence of God that can sustain us. Look at this in verse 14, he says, "My presence will go with you. My presence. I'm going to guide you". When you're closer to the presence of God, he directs your steps, he orders your steps. The steps of a righteous man are ordered by the Lord. When you're close to God, he begins to lead you and direct you. And then Moses says this, he says, "If your presence doesn't go with us, don't send us from here". Moses was saying, "God, if you're not in it, I don't want it". No matter how big the paycheck is, no matter how great the opportunity is, even if my whole family is pressuring me into this decision, God, if your presence doesn't lead me, I'm not taking another step.
That's how close Moses was to the presence of God. He was saying, "I need your presence directing my steps". And on the other hand, if everyone is saying no, no, no, no, no, but you're saying yes, I would rather disappoint man and please God than disappoint God and please everybody else's opinions. Moses was saying, "I want your presence and your voice leading me". And then the Lord said this. He says, "I will do what you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name". Can I tell you this today? God knows your name, knows your address, knows the number of hairs on your head, and he has a plan for your life. So Moses said, "Lord, if your presence isn't leading me, I don't wanna go". And God said, "My presence is with you. I'm coming with you".
And so we fast forward. Moses passed away and Joshua was in charge. And in Joshua 3, it was time for a new season for Israel. This was what Moses had been praying for. This is what Moses had been leading the Israelites up until. And Moses told Joshua, "I won't be able to take the next step, but you will". But what Moses told Joshua before the Book of Joshua, he said, "Make sure you follow God's presence. Make sure you carry the Ark of the Covenant with you, which represented the presence of God. Wherever you go, let that lead you".
So in Joshua 3, Joshua had been leading these Israelites and he had preached some good sermons, he had cast some vision, but he hadn't seen any miracles yet. He grew up with a mentor who had witnessed the 10 plagues come through Egypt, staff turning into a snake back into a staff, water turning to blood, the spirit of death coming through the blood of the lamb, covered the doorpost of the Hebrew children. Joshua had seen the miracles displayed through Moses, but he had never seen a miracle displayed through his ministry. And in Joshua 3, "Early in the morning Joshua and all the Israelites set out from Shittim". Everybody say, get out of Shittim. Come on, you are not called to stay in Shittim. This is your year to break free of all of Shittim.
"And went to the Jordan River, where they camped before crossing over. After three days, the officers went throughout the camp, giving orders to the people. 'When you see the Ark of the Covenant, when you see the presence of God, move out from your positions and follow it.'" Everybody say, follow it. Follow the presence of God. It, that Ark of the Covenant, represented God's actual presence with the people. "Then you will know," verse four. "You will know which way to go, because you've never been this way before".
The only way we're gonna know which way to go is when we are close to his presence, close to his presence. When the pandemic hit, people were saying, Paul, you need to do this. Paul, you need to do that. You need to do this. You need to do exactly what so and so is doing. Did you see what Life.Church? Did you see what Transmit? Did you see what Elevation is doing? Listen, I honor all of those people. I love them, they're friends, they're great leaders, great pastors, but I need to hear from God on what we're supposed to do, because we're not supposed to just follow every ministry out there. And God's leading them, but God's leading us too. And noise comes in when you open the door for so many opinions. And you go, okay, what should I do? I'm calling people, I'm texting people. What do you think we should do? You gotta be careful whose opinions weigh the most in your life.
My dad used to say, "Consider the source". If they've never carried the weight that you're carrying, don't give them too much weight in your decision. If they don't understand the consequences of a decision that they're pressuring you to make, be careful how much you let them pressure you into doing what they want you to do. 'Cause at the end of the day, you live with the results of your decision, they don't. So you need to know you heard from God. And I remember when the pandemic hit, I had to silence the mechanism, 'cause it was coming from everywhere. And I came in this room and I said, "God, what do we need to do? What are you asking us to do"? And that's when the direction began to flow for what we did as a church these last couple years during the pandemic.
And anytime we've faced a difficult decision, I've had to come back to that closeness of the presence of God. God, what are you asking me to do? Lord, I wanna be close to your heart. By the way, don't just get close to his hear when you're in a crisis. Joshua was in the presence of God before he hit the Jordan River, before he was facing Jericho. He was close to the presence of God before he was walking through a circumstance. Don't just wait this year until things are bad to run back to church. Make an intentional effort to be in the presence of God when you're on the mountaintop before you're in the valley, When you're in the valley, get deep. Just say, Lord, what are you asking me to learn right now? What are you wanting to teach me? What's the next step here? I need to know.
So God speaks to him. He says, "Follow the Covenant. Follow the promise. Follow the presence. You will know which way to go, because you've never been through 22 before. And the things I'm about to do, you need to make sure you're following the presence". And he says, "Keep a distance of about 2,000 cubits between you and the Ark. Do don't get near it". Now, he wasn't talking about not getting close to the presence of God, he was talking about honoring the presence of God, because people would disrespect the Ark of the Covenant. And you might go, well, that happened back then, that doesn't happen today. It does.
We come into the presence of God and we check out on our phones and we play games and we're on social media. And y'all are like, crud, he saw me I'm putting my phone up. No, it's because I've done it before too. And we go, well, this series isn't for me, this is for someone else who needs direction. Oh, you don't need direction? God says, "This is for you, man". You need to lean in, because God wants to speak to nine year olds and 90 year olds today. He wants to speak to 19 year olds about what they're doing in college and the relationships in your single season and your married life season and your kids and your finances and all the stuff you're walking through.
And God says, "If you would just honor my presence and you would treat it like it's sacred and it's holy and it's beautiful and it's worthy of your attention, then you would get so much more direction this year". We miss out on what we don't honor. The more I honor something, the more I get out from it. But the less I honor it, the less I get from it. So Joshua says, "Honor this presence". Verse five, he says, "Consecrate yourselves". Consecrate means to set apart to make something holy and sacred. He says, "Consecrate your hearts, because tomorrow God is going to do amazing things among you".
Consecration precedes expectation. Once I set something apart, I can expect something great from it. When I bring something to the alter and I say, Lord, I'm, consecrating my phone to you. I'm saying, Lord, I'm setting this phone apart. By the way, technology is not bad, it's just what we do with it. So I'm saying, Lord, use my phone this year to bring a whole lot of hope, a whole lot of grace, a whole lot of love. Lord, use everything I have. Lord used my life this year. When I consecrate, when Hannah consecrated her son on the altar in the temple, Samuel, she was saying, "Lord, he's your boy. He's not mine, so help me not to manipulate him. Help me not to try to control him to fulfill mama's wishes. Help me to release his future into your hands that he would hear your voice more than he follows my voice as his mom".
How many of y'all want your kids to hear the voice of God even more than your own voice? About half the hands of the room. Some of y'all are like, nope, I am the Lord's voice to my kids. At some point, we've gotta trust that God speaks that there is no junior varsity Holy Spirit, that he's speaking to young and old and he's directing steps and he's opening doors and he's closing doors. And Joshua said, "Consecrate yourselves. God has something great for you". "Take up the Ark of the Covenant," he said to the priest, "and pass in front of the people". And the Lord said, "Today, I will begin to exalt you, Joshua, in the eyes of all Israel, so they may know I am with you as I was with Moses".
God's getting ready to do something spectacular through you this year, not for your glory, but for his glory. And then he says, "Tell the pastors who carry the Ark of the Covenant, 'When you get to the edge of the waters, step into the river.'" This is a pastoral message, I think. For anyone in the room who desires to lead or do ministry, you have to be the first one who steps into the water before the others do. Faith without works is dead. And oftentimes, God's looking for a leader who will activate the miracle. Miracles are motion-activated. So he is looking for pastors who will step in front and say, I'll take the hit for you. I'll walk up to the edge. I'm getting all these guys in my connect group. We're gonna cross over this year from death to life, from addicted to free. But I'm gonna be the first guy to be vulnerable in the connect group, and I'm gonna step into the water with my vulnerability.
I'm going to risk the scary place of being honest in front of all of you. God's looking for leaders who will take the first step into the flood before everyone else will. God's looking for ushers who will let everybody else into the room and then sit down. Leaders eat last. Pastors crossover last. They're the first ones to step into the water and they're the last ones to walk out of the river. They're the first and they stay in the middle. He says, "Once you step in, don't you run ahead". You wanna go fast? Go alone. But if you wanna go far, go together. If you wanna see great fruit this year, help other people cross the river with you. So he says, "Priest, I need you to step into the water first, because you're gonna activate the miracle".
And when they did in chapter three, it says, "The second their feet," and by the way, this river was flood stage level. This was not Arkansas River, this was like Niagara Falls before you hit the falls, the rapids were crazy. They were stepping into a scary place. Faith is not faith until you are scared to do it. I got faith. I got faith to give a dollar in my wallet. Yeah, but you just made $10,000, so giving a dollar wasn't a scary thing. It's when you do something that scares you, it's when you go somewhere, it's when you step out, you witness, even when you're afraid of what they might do or say, and you start the conversation and say, how are you doing? It's that getting outta your comfort zone. He says, "I want you to step off, I want you to take a step into the scary place, the flood waters".
Faith without works is dead. Once they did, the water stopped. And part of it went to a town called Adam and the other part flowed into the Dead Sea. And the children of Israel crossed over on dry ground. A million plus people walked across a flooded river that dried up right in the center. And the priest stood in the middle, and they helped people get across. I wonder how many of us have ran ahead because we're so excited. And God says, "You left that teenage boy that I needed you to help cross over the middle". You left that single parent mom to raise those kids by herself. You left some people that you need to go back and serve as a mentor. You need to go back and serve to help make sure those kids get across that river. You need to make sure this year is not just about you fulfilling your dreams.
See, when Martin Luther king Jr said, "I have a dream," it wasn't just about him, it was about his kids, it was about schools in America changing, it was about people getting past bigotry and racism and crossing the river to love other people. He was trying to help a whole nation cross the Jordan River. Who are you going to serve this year? If your dream is all about you, your dream is too small. Get your dream bigger. Who can you minister to this year? Who can you help cross over? So then when they crossed over, they reached Jericho and they stood on dry ground. "And when the whole nation had finished crossing the Jordan," chapter four, verse one, Joshua says, "Choose 12 men".
God speaks to Joshua and he says, "Choose 12 men to go and find 12 stones in the middle of the river. The same place that I just performed a miracle, I want you to go back there and get 12 stones from the middle and then set those 12 stones up," in verse 80 says, "set those 12 stones from the middle on the other side of the Jordan, so that one day when your kids ask you, what do these stones mean? You can tell them, this is the place where God showed up. This is what God did. When we were standing in front of a flood, God carried us through the river of pain. God carried us from the other side where we had lost mom and dad and we had lost friends and we had lost people and it was tough and we were stuck in Shittim for 40 years. This is the place where God moved in our family. He let us across this place".
It's different than what we expected. It took longer than we had hoped, but we made it to the other side. You need to tell the next generation, if you're alive today, you're a living, breathing miracle. You've got a testimony. God said, "Stack these stones and remind the next generation. Remind your kids, where God guides, he provides. Where God directs, he protects". Your lost Bible found a new home. Those things you walked through that were painful, God's going to use them for your glory. The stuff that you thought was gonna sink you is gonna be the place that God propels you. The river that was supposed to flood your home is actually gonna be the river that God leads you through on dry ground to somewhere greater.
God was saying, "These stones represent my faithfulness. These stones are a memorial". You cannot walk with confidence into the future. If you forget what got you there, if you forget what brought you here. How many of y'all can say God has done something good in your life today? Raise your hand. What kept the Israelites parents from entering the promised land is not that God wasn't good, is that they got so focused on what was wrong, they got focused on their disappointments, and they allowed that to turn into complaining and murmuring, and they missed out on the promised land.
So Joshua leads a new generation and he says, "We are not gonna get focused on who we lost or what went wrong, we are going to focus on the good, we're gonna remember the good thing that God did in the middle of the river, that God did it in a dirty place. God did it in a messy place. That we were in the middle of a miracle, we didn't even realize how great it was". Let that be our confidence booster this year, that God is guiding us, he's directing us.