Darren Tappouras - The Power of His Presence - Class 4

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:00

   Before our brother Darren comes up, we’ll take a reading to introduce this evening from Numbers six. Number six. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When either man or woman shall separate themselves to vow a vow of a Nazarite to separate themselves unto the Lord, he shall separate himself from wine and strong drink, and shall drink no vinegar of wine, or vinegar of strong drink.

2. 0:39

   Neither shall he drink any liquor of grapes, nor eat moist grapes, or dried all the days of his separation shall he eat nothing that is made of the vine tree from the kernels even to the husk. All the days of the vow of his separation, there shall no razor come upon his head until the days be fulfilled. In the which he separateth himself unto the Lord he shall be holy, and shall let the locks of the hair of his head grow. All the days that he separateth himself unto the Lord, he shall come at no dead body.

3. 1:20

   He shall not make himself unclean for his father or for his mother, for his brother, or for his sister when they die, because the consecration of his God is upon his head. All the days of his separation. He is holy unto the Lord.

4. 1:40

   And if any man die very suddenly by him, and he has to file the head of his consecration, then he shall shave his head in the day of his cleansing. On the 7th day shall he shave it, and on the eighth day he shall bring two turtles or two young pigeons to the priest to the door of the Tabernacle of the congregation. And the priest shall offer the one for a sin offering, and the other for a burnt offering, and make an atonement for him. For that he sinned by the dead, and shall hallow his head that same day.

5. 2:19

   And he shall consecrate unto the Lord the days of his separation, and shall bring a Lamb of the first year for a trespass offering. But the days that were before shall be lost, because his separation was defiled.

6. 2:37

   And this is the law of the Nazarite. When the days of his separation are fulfilled, he shall be brought unto the door of the Tabernacle of the congregation. He shall offer his offering unto the Lord. One he lamb of the first year without blemish for a burnt offering. And one you lamb of the first year without blemish for a sin offering, And one ram without blemish for peace Offerings, and a basket of unleavened bread, cakes of fine flour mingled with oil, and wafers of unleavened bread, anointed with oil, and their meat offering, and their drink offerings. And the priest shall bring them before the Lord, and shall offer his sin offering and his burnt offering. And he shall offer the ram for a sacrifice of peace offerings unto the Lord with the basket of unleavened bread. The priest shall offer also his meat offering and his drink offering.

7. 3:39

   And the Nazarite shall shave the head of his separation. At the door of the Tabernacle of the congregation shall take the hair of the head of his separation and put it in the fire which is under the sacrifice of the peace offerings. And the priest shall take the sodden shoulder of the ram, and one unleavened cake out of the basket, and one unleavened wafer, and shall put them upon the hands of the Nazarite after the hair of his separation is shaved, And the priest shall wave them for a wave offering before the Lord. This is holy for the priest with the wave breast and heave shoulder, and after that the Nazarite may drink wine. This is the law of the Nazarite, who hath vowed, and of his offering unto the Lord for his separation. Beside that that his hand shall get according to the vow which he vowed, so he must do after the law of his separation. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto Aaron, and unto his sons, saying, On this wise ye shall bless the children of Israel, saying unto them, The Lord bless thee, and keep thee. The Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee.

8. 5:06

   The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace. And they shall put my name upon the children of Israel, and I will bless them. We now ask her brother Darren to come forward and. Continue his study on the power of the presence of God. Thanks, brother Nathan, and good evening, my dear brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ, our dear young people. It’s lovely to be back with you again to continue our thoughts on the presence of God.

9. 5:44

   Tonight we want to change gears a little bit. We’re going to probably. To be a little bit more reflective on some of the things we’re going to talk about and think about, but there’s a couple of loose ends I want to tie up first. So if I can have a couple of minutes just to bring the expositional part of our studies to a conclusion, If you want to turn with me to Hebrews Chapter 10, if that’s OK. And we’ll just make a few closing comments on some of the and bring some of the threads that we’ve been following through together.

10. 6:22

    Remember how we began our series, looking at the concept of the presence and trying to define it as best we could? And we thought the word closeness? The English word close captured the idea of the of what presence really is, and we thought about the fact that closeness has a number of dimensions to it. So you can be.

11. 6:42

    Physically close or spatially close to someone and you can also be relationally close to someone. And as we follow the presence of God through Scripture, we find those two dimensions coming together in and they come together in the temple concept of God dwelling with his people. So the relational closeness of God is really emphasised and comes into existence by something called the New Covenant we spent. A fair bit of time looking at the New covenant, the concept of the new covenant that really allows God in his righteousness and allows us to have this, this closeness, this presence in our life.

12. 7:21

    And so in chapter 10, the references there in verse 16 to the New Covenant, we’ve talked about it already. So I don’t want to go over all the elements of the New Covenant, but it’s really spelled out clearly there in verse 16. This is the covenant, the new covenant. I will make with them after those days. It’s talking about believers now, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts and their minds, and I’ll write them on their hearts and their minds and their sins and iniquities.

13. 7:49

    I’ll remember no more. So this is the new covenant we are under. We remember every Sunday, of course, as we take the wine. This is the blood of the New Covenant, very powerful symbol that reminds us of the way that we can have this relationship with God. And also here in Hebrews 10, we’ve got the spatial closeness to God that’s also emphasized. So if you drop down to verse 20, we’re told the the, the results here and what happens because of that relationship we have. It says, therefore, brethren, we have boldness to enter into the holiest, into the very presence of God. Does that idea of holiness depicts the holiness by a new? And living way again, it’s new just as the the covenant was new.

14. 8:38

    So this access to the presence of God is something new. It’s this new and alive or Zoe way this new and living way through that that Christ has consecrated. It says they’re in the AV it really means inaugurated. He opened up and started it and and inaugurated this whole new and living way as depicted there symbolically as.

15. 9:01

    Entering through the veil into the very presence of God. So we are there with him in a sense. So we’ve got these two dimensions that are caught up here in the in the results of what we have in Christ. We have this relationship through the new covenant which is just so beneficial SO1 sided. And I hope we got that that reality across in our in our thoughts on it.

16. 9:26

    And also, we are in the very presence of God. We’re connected to God in a very unique way, very incredible way. We thought about believers under the Old covenant. Did they have access to the the holiest? Did they have access to the presence of God? Did they have access beyond the veil? Well, they didn’t. In fact, the presence of God was very restricted. If you remember, Psalm 15 says who? Will ascend into my mountain, into the into the mountain of the Lord.

17. 10:00

    And who can stand in his holy place and remember who could, Who could? What were the conditions that Psalm 15 says? Well, you had to walk uprightly. You had to all your works had to be works of righteousness. You had to speak truth. You had to be honest. You had to be someone who put yourself out for others and didn’t misuse your power. There’s a whole lot of conditions. You had to be righteous to ascend that hill. Anyone want to read the conditions there in Psalm 15 and put their hand up and say they could have? They could have walked up the hill into the presence of God? Well, I couldn’t.

18. 10:38

    I don’t think any of us could. Psalm 24 says exactly the same things. Same thing. Who can ascend the hill of the Lord who can stand in His presence? You had to have clean hands. You had to have a pure heart. There had to be no vanity in you. No, you had to have be a person of absolute truth without any hint of a lie or or or subterfuge in your life. When you Add all these characteristics together of who could walk into the presence of God under the old covenant, no one could, of course.

19. 11:10

    And if you Add all those conditions and all those qualities together, you have something which we may call perfection. So to enter into the presence of God required perfection. Only one person in history has been able to walk to that hill and stand in the presence of God in that way and meet those conditions, of course, and that’s our Lord Jesus Christ. But as a result of that, Hebrew says he’s opened up this new and living way through the new covenant that all of us can live in the presence of God, even though we’re not perfect as described in that in those.

20. 11:47

    Conditional Psalms. Now what’s the result then of this ability for us to be able to stand in the very presence of God, to have this amazing relationship with God as depicted by the New Covenant and the New and living way? Well, this nineteen starts with these words having therefore. This is where this is the this is the final verse we want to think about brothers and sisters having therefore.

21. 12:18

    So these two strands have come together, these two temple strands of God’s presence, his relational connection to His people, and the the spatial connection that He’s with his people through His spirit. These two things have come together. What does it all mean? What What’s the take away? And the writer of Hebrews is now going to tell us having therefore.

22. 12:42

    That word therefore, in the Greek it’s it’s this word UN, which is one of these logic words like a a progressive word. And therefore it’s it’s the result, it’s now the the objects being met having therefore what the right of Hebrew says, the number of things we have a number of things because of the new covenant, because of the new and living way, something we have in Christ. We have something called boldness. Just think about that.

23. 13:15

    What does that mean? Boldness. If you look up Strong’s concordance, the definitions, they are outspokenness. You can It’s something to be outspoken, to be frank, to be blunt, there’s something we have with God. Because of the New Covenant father child relationship and the fact that God is in our life present with us, we can have boldness.

24. 13:39

    I know some of the new translations have confidence there, but I think I think the the King James has got the right nuance. This word really is a has an external element to it. Rather than confidence you can be confident. It’s just an internal composure. But boldness is something even more boisterous, more out there.

25. 13:57

    And here it’s saying because of their relationship with God, because under the law the blood of bulls and goats couldn’t make you perfect, but the blood of Christ. Can make us perfect. Can allow us to walk up the holy hill of the Lord and stand in his most holy place. It gives us something called boldness, and I want us to think about that. It’s hard for me to define what that means in all our individual lives, but there’s something about our connection to God that we have boldness, which is something we may shrink away from, in a sense, because it’s the dead opposite of how we may feel sometimes.

26. 14:32

    It’s the opposite to how Adam and Eve felt when they seemed and they felt the shame and the and the and the horrible. Conscience effect that sin had and they hid themselves from the presence from the the presence of God and and mankind lost that connection to God. And now in Christ it’s been rectified. Man is now perfect or those in Christ are now made perfect. They’re able to be in the presence of God. They’re able to have boldness and I try and think of a relationship that captures that the. The child parent relationship, I think is the best way to try and think about boldness a child has. There’s a level of boldness that a child has with their parent, even if their parent is the president of the United States or the king.

27. 15:17

    The child has boldness in the presence of that August person. And I know with my own father, I know, I know there’s a sense of I have a sense of boldness when I talk to Dad. Because we we, whenever we get together, we talk about the Scripture. He’s got a lot of crazy ideas and I have boldness to go back at him and say that’s rubbish.

28. 15:36

    So there’s a sense of but but we do it in love. Of course there’s a sense of boldness. I have my own father because I know he loves me and I know regardless of our interactions we’re we’re we’re we’re united together in a in a way that can never be separated. So there’s a sense of boldness there.

29. 15:52

    How we translate that to God is something to think about isn’t it? But it’s not. I haven’t made this word up, brothers and sisters, this is inspired words, inspired word that’s been given to us. And it means what it says, and it’s a very strong word. We’re also told, therefore, as a result of this relationship with God, we can draw near this, this word Prussia Komai, which is used seven times in the book of Hebrews.

30. 16:20

    And I have an exhortation that just runs through those seven times because that’s a really powerful thing, the idea of drawing near to God. And it’s it’s the theme in Hebrews. You could say it’s. Something about the blood of Christ and our relationship through the New Covenant allows us to draw near. When under the Old Covenant they’re often pushed away, rightly so, in the sense that that God could not, could not tolerate their wickedness of course, and and that that is, that was the appropriate thing. But something has changed under the New Covenant that allows even sinners to draw near.

31. 17:01

    And there’s this other word to Therefore, as a result of our relationship, we can have something called full assurance. In Greek, it’s this word pleuro thoria, plural, which means full. It’s a pretty common New Testament word. But this other word, thoria, it’s it’s an incredible word. And building to the word is a metaphor. The idea of of fullness, the idea of weight, is caught up in this word.

32. 17:31

    And the metaphor that is depicted in this word is a ship that has its sails absolutely full of wind. It’s like it’s caught in a Gale and it’s just been propelled across the ocean and nothing can stop it. It’s just full pelt across the ocean, smashing through waves and spray everywhere. It’s it’s unstoppable, it’s full and it’s compelled and motivated and moved.

33. 17:59

    And so because of this relationship, brothers and sisters, I hope it’s not just been all verses that we’ve looked up and and just read and thought about it. Theoretically, there’s something powerful that comes through from all this. We have something called full assurance plurothoria, even connected to the word euphoria. In a sense, there’s something powerful and compelling about what we have in Christ boldness with our Heavenly Father.

34. 18:28

    The ability to draw near and this full assurance in Christ, it’s it’s a it’s an emotional feast, isn’t it? It’s so powerful and and I hope in a little way I’ve been able to try and get some of that across. And it’s not being based upon good feelings or nice ideas. It’s been it’s very much anchored and and and cemented down by the inspired word of God and the concepts that have been revealed to God by God, to us. So as I said that hopefully that brings together the the concept of God’s presence from an expositional point of view. And as I said, we wanted to change gears a little bit and be a bit more reflective and think about how this all works and and what what what, what we can take from it. Personally, we’ve been talking about presence as a relationship.

35. 19:24

    There’s a relationship with God, and that’s at the very heart of the presence of God. And when there’s any relationship, there’s there’s two parties to a relationship, isn’t there? And we want to think about both parties in this relationship. And so in this particular relationship, there is God and there is His creation, there is man. We want to talk about how those two are connected, how they are linked together, because that’s really at the very heart of all this and maybe there’s a bit of, bit of. Time to recalibrate maybe our thinking when it comes to God and man and and how God sees his creation and see if our thinking is is exactly biblical or not.

36. 20:09

    Sometimes our perception, how we see things mentally and how we think about things can have a a practical outworking or a behavioral outworking in our life. And so it’s good to challenge some of our perceptions and to see how. Biblically sound they are in some ways because our behaviour follows some of those mental perceptions we have. Here’s an example, the one talent servant in the parable of the talents.

37. 20:34

    Remember the words he said when he’s confronted by the Lord and asked what he’s done with that talent in the Lord’s absence. And he says, Lord, I knew you and I knew that you I knew. So he’s not saying I thought I knew or I had this impression or I had this idea that someone had.

38. 20:52

    He said I knew he was very confident. I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you where you did not seed, and look at the the practical result that had on him as a result of his so-called knowledge of the Lord, he says. I was afraid and I went and hid your talent in the ground.

39. 21:14

    There was a paralysis that came about because of this misconception of the Lord that he had. And so you can see this overwhelming fear of his Lord led to this inability to even serve His Lord. There was something wrong in the relationship. There was a misconception coming from coming from the human end and we just want to think about this a little bit tonight and see if our calibration needs a little bit of tuning there.

40. 21:43

    Let’s first think about man. That’s that’s us, of course, and how how how God sees us and how God views us. Because in our language there can be sometimes a very negative perception of humans and humans are evil. There’s no doubt about that. And and there’s many verses in the Bible that talk about the human heart.

41. 22:04

    But we sometimes get this picture that humans are just this wretched creature of the dust. That’s the term we use and there’s an appropriate place to use that language but we’re going to see is that is that really the whole picture is is are humans just this depraved, wretched horrible thing that is so offensive to God?

42. 22:26

    Is that is that really what what a human is. There are places in the Bible that compare us to say grasshoppers in God’s sight and that we’re we’re nothing in God’s sight. God’s so great above us and our thoughts are not his thoughts, and they are appropriate comparisons because God is so great and so holy.

43. 22:48

    But sometimes you can extract from that this this idea that man is absolutely nothing man. Man’s a disgusting, horrible thing that that that has no no way is is man connected to the presence of God or has any connection to God whatsoever. But let’s think about man for a moment. In In the big picture, God, of course created man.

44. 23:15

    In the creation record, of course there’s this word good. When God observes his creation as it progresses through the days and God sees something, he says it was it was good. And he said and behold, it was it was good. It’s not until man is created that God looks at the whole of creation and says it was very good.

45. 23:33

    There was something about man that was the pinnacle of God’s creation. It was something that God was working towards and all the other platforms and elements that were part of the creation were, were coming together to provide a place where God could put this thing called man, this, this this creation that he calls man.

46. 23:56

    And there’s something very special and unique about man. And we’re told in Genesis 127, These of course are very well known, very well known words that man was made after the image of God, and the image and likeness of God after his own image. God created man. It’s hard to really define the idea of image it’s got.

47. 24:17

    There’s lots of different commentators and experts talk about what it may mean and we talk about the fact that we might reflect that we’ve got human consciousness is a unique and unexplainable phenomenon that no one can really explain. How this software got into our physical being that that allows us to have self-awareness and and and maybe that is how we are in the image of God. The capacities we have for for rational thought and worship and thinking, intelligence, the ability to make moral choices. All these things are no doubt part and parcel of what it means to be in the image of God.

48. 24:55

    But ultimately the image of God is a family thing. Ultimately, it’s saying we are God’s offspring. We are God’s children. Humans are not an animal. They are not part of the animal world. In that sense, there’s something different. Although there’s a lot of features in common with the animals, and we eat similar food to the animals and have similar morphological and and and biological processes.

49. 25:26

    There’s something different and unique about humans and here’s this quote in Genesis 5. Three that I’m sure many of us know but it shows with this word, with this concept of likeness is used in connection with a with a human child. So Adam lives 130 years. He has a son in his own likeness and after his own image and calls him Seth was because Seth was a little Adam. Seth came from Adam.

50. 25:53

    He was in his image and likeness and if we wind that back then Adam is made in the image and likeness of God. We are God’s children. There’s something very incredible about being a human. There’s something very amazing about it. And sometimes we think in terms and and rightly so. You know what is?

51. 26:18

    What is man? As Psalm 8 says, what is what is man? That God’s mindful of him or the Son of man that God visits him. That man seems like nothing, and that is right. At one level. There is this gulf between us in from a wisdom and power point of view, but so is there a gulf between a father and a little newborn child. But they’re still connected.

52. 26:42

    There’s still a connection between the two of them. I know it at my work. I work, my office is in the western suburbs, so my my office is like the United Nations. We’ve got every tongue and kindred under heaven there, which is lovely. And we all talk about interesting things. But in my office I have a Palestinian Christian, believe it or not.

53. 27:03

    And he’s very pro Israel, and he’s got cousins in the Israeli army. And we have, we have good conversations, but he likes this is very, very incredible. He’s a Palestinian Christian who loves listening to Jewish rabbis. So occasionally he’ll give me a a little YouTube clip or something from a rabbi that he likes to listen to, and he’s got a few favourites, but there’s one of them. I was listening to it in the car and it was a rabbi and he was explaining what Judaism gave the world. And he says a lot of people think Judaism gave the world monotheism, which is worshipping one God. That was the unique gift that that that Judaism gave the world, he said.

54. 27:41

    That’s not really the case. That’s not really what the Jews gave the world, he said. We what we really gave the world was the fact that there is a God who is relational, that has that wants a relationship, that has personality and feelings and is wants to be connected to his creation. He said that was the real gift that Judaism gave the world and and of course changed the world. And this is this start really started started me thinking and he said this.

55. 28:13

    God is presented to us in a way and presents himself to us in a way that he has feelings, he has emotions, he gets jealous, he gets angry, he gets he’s sorrowful, all these different things. God is, God is connecting with his creation. There’s a there’s a there’s similar emotional feelings that his creation reflects and has.

56. 28:37

    And he says God also has needs. Now this threw me. I have to say I threw me when he when he said God has needs. We think of God as self existing of course and not needing anything and and and that is of course he’s right. We’ll we’ll expand on that in a moment.

57. 28:57

    But it’s interesting to say that if he is like his creation that he has feelings and he has emotions. The rabbi went on to say why did he even create people? Was it just a science experiment? That God was just saying, I’m going to make little puppets or I’m going to make a little Ant and I’m just going to see how these things work and I’m going to look and say no, God was making companions for himself. God has needs.

58. 29:24

    Now, you may feel uncomfortable about using that language, and if if you do, you can say it’s desires or wants, if you like it, that makes you feel better. But let’s let’s just flesh this out for a minute. God created Adam in his own image and likeness. This is this is in in paradise.

59. 29:47

    There’s no scene entered the world. Everything says it should be and he’s Adam made in the image and likeness A reflection of God. John Thomas says the image is like a mirror. His his his mirror is clean, very clean. At this point of creation is the image and likeness of God. And on day one, Adam, day one, he got some jobs to do. He’s naming animals.

60. 30:13

    He’s done all this. On day one. He gets lonely. Think about that. Day one, he gets lonely. Does God condemn him for being lonely or to say you baby grow up or, you know, get over it, you’ve got more work to do. God actually says in his response to his loneliness. There’s something intrinsic in Adam, who’s reflecting in the very purest sense of the word, reflecting the Creator as a son. God says it’s not good that you should be alone. So not only did God not condemn the loneliness, God said it’s not.

61. 30:57

    Loneliness is not good. And even though my creation is very good, there’s something not good in it. There’s something that’s missing. And so of course, Evie’s made as a companion. But the very fact that Adam has this need for a connection for a relationship reflecting his very own father, who created him. As I said before, sin and death entered the world.

62. 31:20

    So I thought I might look at this a bit more deeper. So I went into Genesis to have a look at it. While I was sorry, I forgot to talk about the the concept of being in the image of God has very serious implications through the whole of human history. Genesis 9 following the the flood.

63. 31:41

    You know, God steps into the flood because of the violence and because of murder. And so in Genesis 9 there’s a prohibition placed upon killing you. God says you can kill all the animals and eat them. Don’t kill humans. Why? Because they are made in the image of God. There’s something about humans. Act 17.

64. 31:59

    We’ve talked about this already. Paul says we are his offspring. He’s not just talking about believers in Christ, he’s talking about all humans. We are his offspring. And there’s interesting verse in James 3 where James says don’t curse humans, don’t curse men who were made in the similitude or the image and likeness of God.

65. 32:17

    He’s not just talking about believers there either. So there’s something about humans. There’s a level of dignity, there’s a, there’s a, there’s a level of protection they have under the eternal divine law because they are God’s children. We don’t, we can’t kill somebody under that. Let’s just think about Genesis in the creation record to try and get a picture of how important man was in this in in the creation of the world.

66. 32:51

    So you’ve probably heard before how Genesis One and Genesis 2 are significantly different in the language and the style of language that he that he’s used, even the Hebrew words that he used. And some people have wrongly

67. 33:04

    called these two creation records. I don’t know if you ever heard people say there’s two creation records. There’s not two creation records. Genesis 2 is an expansion or a drool down if you like, into the into the 6th day in the creation of man. But but it is interesting and it is very true that there are significant differences in Genesis One and Genesis 2. So in Genesis, One God is referred to by the title Elohim, and it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s has an impersonal aspect to it, isn’t it?

68. 33:34

    Elohim is is referring to the the ale, the power of God. So it’s God’s power, God’s energy. And that’s how God presents himself in those in that very first chapter. And as you read through that first chapter, you have God in a sense like a distant king and he’s he’s calling out commands. He says let there be light and then bam, there’s light and let the dry ground separate from the water and the waters rush back and the and the king is making these these commands and his word brings about this physical reality as things happen from his commands.

69. 34:11

    When you get to chapter 2, it’s very, very different. In chapter 2, God is now called Yahweh, His personal name. We know someone’s name is a very intimate thing, isn’t it? When you hear your name mentioned, you, you lynch and you, and you turn around your name something close to something important to you. God now presents his covenant name. When we get into chapter 2, no longer is God creating by by command, by just yelling commands. Let there be light.

70. 34:41

    Let the earth bring forth this and that. Now God’s down and and personal in the creation record. He’s right. He’s down in the garden, as it were, not calling out things from from an apparent distance. He makes man. Now this is really where it gets interesting. He makes him, as it were, with his own hands. He forms him out of the clay, out of the dust of the earth. He makes man.

71. 35:08

    He hasn’t done that with the animals, with the mountains, with the dry land, with the fish of the sea. They they’ve just come into existence from his, the power of his word. Now he’s forming man like a Potter. He’s making man. It’s very personal, very intimate. And then he breathes into his nostrils, the breath of life.

72. 35:33

    Now, how this all played out is, is hard to know in reality, but it forgot to do that to an inanimate body. Got his innocence getting down on his knees, isn’t he? He’s he’s coming. He’s condescending down and he’s fixing his lips around the nostrils, which is again, a very intimate and tender part of one’s body.

73. 35:55

    You don’t touch people’s nostrils at the whole, I imagine. So the nostrils are very, you know, intimate. It’s now connected to God’s mouth, if you like. He breathes into his nostrils, the breath of life. You can see there’s a very much a different picture of creation here than just commands by Fiat. And now God breathes that life into man.

74. 36:18

    God then goes on to plant the garden. He puts man in the garden. The words like, hey, you would place a puppy, if you like, in a in a basket of places man the garden. We know in the story. Later on in the narrative there God walks, as it were, in the garden with adamant, even converses with them.

75. 36:33

    So we do have this, this intimate connection between this very special part of his creation, which is which is man. And this is this is something that’s I think it’s quite profound when we when we think about it. When I I, I went to look at this for myself so I I said I saw this rabbi talking about this concept and I thought wow this is this is quite amazing but you know is is there is there some other is there evidence for it. So I went and looked at Genesis One and I use I use Esau because I don’t like change.

76. 37:12

    I can’t get out of my habits. I love Esau in any sort. I have a Christadelphian commentary called the Agora, which is a fantastic little tool if you don’t have it, and it has a basically a commentary on every every verse in the Bible written by brother George Booker from the United States.

77. 37:34

    With this idea in my mind already. I went to Genesis, looked at Genesis one verse 26, etcetera, trying to look at this idea. And then I looked at, I looked at the Agora, looked at the concepts, and I was, I was sort of blown away. It’s one of those times when you get some amazing confirmation on something you’d never thought about before. And in the commentary, this is the Christopher commentary on the On the Agora by the George asks this question. He says, is it true?

78. 38:00

    Also. So it was not good for man to be alone, he says. Is it true? Is it also true that it was not good for God to be alone? Can we read something back into this? If God reveals that it was not good for Adam to be alone, but that he needed a companion, surely it was patterned or figurative way of saying it’s not good for me to be alone.

79. 38:22

    I too must have a companion, he says. Look at it another way. If our own observation, our own experience, shows us how unsatisfactory life can be lived entirely alone, with no regard for or fellowship with others, and how much we need a we need companionship, both personal and spiritual, and sympathetic and loving.

80. 38:42

    And if two, we are made in the image and likeness of God, then reason backward. It’s not good for God himself to be alone. So if God made us, and we reflect him, and we feel the need for companionship and fellowship, then wouldn’t that tell us a little bit about God himself? Then he makes this very interesting, practical point on this same lesson he says on the same verse. He says.

81. 39:07

    I remember some years ago a young sister to Bible class asking Why does God love me? The questions, he said. The question passed with perfunctory discussion, and I at first dismissed it from my mind as no great consequence. But then the question came back to me again later, and it suddenly seemed to be of enormous import.

82. 39:25

    Why does God love me? Not just the fact that he does love, or that he is love, but he needs someone, he says, but the rationale behind it. I finally came to the conclusion that God loves me because he needs someone to love and he needs someone to love him, and that somehow even the omnipotence of the universe would be incomplete without the love freely given of his creation.

83. 39:52

    And then he talks about how this ties in with free will and he says this is what God is looking for. And This is why he had to create beings like Adam and Eve with the potential to choose having free will and hence the potential to disappoint him greatly. But also the potential and what a potential.

84. 40:10

    To actually please him, I thought this really, this really changed some of my thinking in this regard. God has this need. That’s the very reason he created didn’t just create as a project, as a experiment. He created in his plan to have companionship with his creation. And if when I say need, we have what we call existential needs, these are needs we could we wouldn’t be able to live without. So we have need for food and water. God doesn’t have existential needs, but we also have needs for companionship like Adam and and fellowship with each other and interaction with people.

85. 40:51

    These are needs that we could we could live without them, but the quality of our life would be diminished with if we didn’t have them. Also, we think of needs. Needs reflect who we are. Our very being, in a sense, our very inner person, can be reflected in a need. What do I mean by that? I’ll give you my wife, Susan.

86. 41:13

    Many of you, of course, know her very well. Susan is one of these underdog people, right? So she always at the meeting. If she thinks anyone’s ever been sort of either hard done by or have been oppressed in any way, or anyone’s having, she just has a need that she has to get involved. It’s just drives me crazy.

87. 41:31

    Sometimes I say just settle down there, it’s going to be all right now. It’s not our business. We don’t need to get involved. But she has something built into her that she just has to say something. She has to do something. She feels something about the situation, and it’s just part of her very essence, her very character. It’s a it’s a need that I don’t particularly have. I have high empathy, but not the need to just jump in and try and help people who I feel have been badly treated or whatever the case might be.

88. 42:03

    Another example is my my own dad. He’s a, he’s a classic, you know, sick of talking about him, but he just turned 80 on Saturday, so we just had a little party for him. But dad’s a dad’s a fearless sort of guy and when he worked for the state rail he used to work in, he worked between Redfern and and and town hall on that inner city area, there on on on maintenance and things he told me. He told us once.

89. 42:26

    He came out and told us and it was no big deal, but I was impressed, he said. He came home, it was back in the 80s and there was a a gang of Asians. It was like a triad and they’ll kicking some guy on the platform. This is like four or five in the morning when Dad used to work and they’ll just laying into him and kicking him and and Dad said, oh it’s horrific.

90. 42:45

    I’ve just beating into this guy and Dad walked over. So there’s commuters getting off trains and they’re just heading up the stairs and no one wants to get involved in anything like this. But Dad would have a dad’s got a need. He couldn’t just let that go. So Dad walked over and he said, come on fellas, he’s had enough.

91. 43:02

    He’s had enough. Now come on, move on. He’s had. And eventually the the guy’s got a last kick in and kept walking. And to me that’s like dad has this need. He could not. I I would have just bolted up the stairs and saw, well, this is the police’s job. It’s not my job.

92. 43:15

    But he had a need that he had to get involved at that point. So when I talk about needs, I’m not talking about needing to eat or drink or whatever the case might be. It’s something that comes from our very essence, from our very being of who we are and we have, we have those, those needs.

93. 43:30

    Now God has a character and a personality and he has he’s, he’s revealed that to us. So what can we learn about that from him? And he, I think it’s captured nicely in Psalm 94 that says does he who fashioned the ear not hear? Does he who form the eye not see? And so based on that logic we could assume, does he who made man us humans to long for companionship and need companionship and need fellowship and interaction? Does he also have those similar feelings? It would it would logically follow I think, if we follow that through.

94. 44:09

    And as we said, God has revealed himself to us very clearly in his word, hasn’t he? And probably the most, you know, the famous revelations of God. XSA, Exodus 34. Sorry, I’ve written numbers 14. I’ve got that wrong. I think I’ve seen numbers 14. But I think Exodus 34 captures it very well. God reveals himself as abundant.

95. 44:34

    You know, sometimes we think about God being this balance. We go, oh, God’s balance is, is a perfect balance of goodness and severity. Do you reckon balance is the way to think about that? It’s got balance between I mean if you’re a parent you say, well I’m balanced. I like to build my kids 50% of the time and be nicer than 50% of the time because I like to be balanced.

96. 44:54

    That’s not quite that’s not quite the concept is it? We don’t we we’ll discipline our children. We can go, we’ll go there and then we’ve got the emotional intelligence to do that when it’s needed. But that’s not that’s not what we’re that’s not what not why we had children that’s not what we’re take joy and pleasure in is it? That’s not who we really are.

97. 45:12

    We we know it’s necessary, and I think the same applies to God. When God reveals himself, he says I’m abundant in certain qualities. And these qualities, this idea of abundance as we apply it to God, relate to these qualities that in the Hebrew are called hesed and emit goodness and truth in the in the Authorized version, God says he’s abundant in these qualities of goodness. Of Hesed.

98. 45:43

    Hesed is covenant love, as we’ll see in a second. It’s a love for your people, for yours, just like a parent has this Hesed for their own children and their own wife and their own family. It’s a connection, love, It’s a relationship. Love and emit is translated truth, but it’s not really propositional truth as we think about it. It’s more being true, being faithful like a husband, being true to their vows or and things like that. So God’s it’s their relationship words emit and hesed. These are relationship words, connection words with people and it’s God’s not saying I I I display hesed and I display emit.

99. 46:30

    He says I am. This is what I this is what I am. My very being is is relationship, love and goodness and or mercy. However it’s translated and this faithfulness to my connection to my to my relationship. And so there’s many verses that pick this up. Micah, seven, who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression because he delights in mercy. That’s what God delights in mercy. So that’s not like a 50% on bad 50%. I do.

100. 47:05

     Good God will bring judgement in His righteousness when it’s necessary. But he delights. That’s the the the weight of the scale is on on mercy on his chest, set on his loving kindness. That’s where God sits. You think about like you know if your your kids ask you dad what was the what was the what what memories do you have of me as a kid.

101. 47:31

     And you think Oh yeah. Remember that time I builded you when you were like a naughty kid at Sunday school or remember that time I made you sit in the car when you were being cheeky. You know you don’t Remember Remember those things do you You know I remember that time I grounded you for six weeks because you broke the window at home or something.

102. 47:49

     That’s not what you that’s not who you that’s not that’s not a relationship that. Yeah it was essential at the time. Those of you know Johnny of know of course it was essential but it it it’s not I can’t even remember doing that half the time because Susan mainly did that. So I just so that’s not what what our relationship is made-up of is it it’s it’s the the love it’s the it’s the beautiful moments it’s the it’s the chesed. The chesed that he Jews he said get it right from the gestural sound there.

103. 48:23

     God says I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked. Yes. That has to happen in God’s righteousness. That’s that’s not who he is. That’s not what he is in a sense that it’s it’s it’s something that has to happen but it’s not. God said I’d rather they turn from their way and lived That’s really what what God would would like this idea of he said translated often loving kindness in in the Old Testament emit this idea of truth or faithfulness as as strong as defines that there are trustworthiness it’s a relationship would have been faithful to your commitments in a relationship that’s that’s what God is. He’s a Hebrew expert.

104. 49:02

     I’m not going to. I’m running out of time. So we’re dwell on all these but he’s connecting Hesed. You know God loves the world, but Hesed’s particularly relevant to his actual people that he’s in relationship with. That’s his that’s a God and his people word. I am your God and you’re my people.

105. 49:23

     And Hesed is God’s love word, his kindness word compassion in that relationship. And the Hebrew experts say it’s a covenant word. That’s what does this writer, he say. It constitutes the essence of a covenant. It’s at the very base of a covenant. Look at these famous words from Exodus 34. The Lord passes by and he proclaims Yahweh, Yahweh. Twice.

106. 49:48

     He says that this is, this is if you want to know me and what I’m what I am, this is all that I am. What is God? What is he, essentially? And he’s very core. God declares himself as merciful, gracious, long-suffering, abundant in hesed and imit. That’s what God is. That’s what he is. What does he do though?

107. 50:13

     What does he act? Well, he also He is hesed, but he also does hesed. He’s what does God do? He keeps hesed for thousands, forgiving and equity and transgression of sins. He also does does things that are negative in a sense where he visits iniquity on on people that are sinners. That’s what he does.

108. 50:35

     What he is his goodness and truth. That is what God is at his very core, his very essence. And so the idea of the he said God’s God’s love connected to his faithfulness to his relationships is is is runs all through scripture. He’s Exodus 20 verse six. Another covenant passage. God shows this covenant faithfulness is hesed as the century Jewish Bible translates it to 1000 generations of those who keep my commandments.

109. 51:04

     And this is this is who God is. This covenant faithfulness. Deuteronomy 7 another covenant context. Therefore know that the Lord your God he is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and hesed. See the the Covenant and Hesed linked together for 1000 generations as I 54 For the mountains shall depart, and the hills shall be removed, but my Hesed shall not depart from you, nor shall my covenant of peace be removed.

110. 51:34

     Connection with covenant there. And Hesed praise Yahweh, or you Gentiles Lord him, or you peoples, for his Hesed is great towards us, and his emit the emit of God is faithfulness endures forever. Praise the Lord, and it goes on, and on and on. If that is the case, brothers and sisters, that God essentially is a being of relation, A relational being, a being who wants to connect to others. And maybe he, he’s created us for that very purpose, to have a relationship with his people, with his creation. It explains why there are verses in the Old Testament particularly that talks about us giving God pleasure. Now I want you to think about that. It’s easy to read and go, yeah, we give pleasure to God. Think about this.

111. 52:21

     You can give pleasure. That means you can change the state of the emotional state of the being that created this universe. You can give pleasure to the architect and creator of this universe. I mean, that is phenomenal. That is almost hard to believe. But it’s true. Again, it it feeds back into the evidence, isn’t it? That God is a relational being who delights, wants, needs, whatever words you want to use there. But it’s a God of connection, a God of covenant. He doesn’t take delight as someone for what he says in the strength of the horse, the technology, the all those things.

112. 53:06

     He takes no pleasure in the legs of the success of humans in that in in the sense of achievement and success. The Lord takes pleasure in those who fear Him, those who acknowledge his existence to acknowledge him and count him as their God, and those who hope in his hesed, those who are linked to him in a relationship. And he’s He said God takes pleasure in that. Psalm 149.

113. 53:32

     The Lord takes pleasure in his people, His people. People can give pleasure to the creator of this incredible universe and that. That’s just mind blowing when you think about it, but it makes sense. We get pleasure from our relationships, from connections to people. Why then would not God extract pleasure from his relationships with us?

114. 54:00

     And so we are his offspring. As Paul says in Acts 17, God takes pleasure from our connection with us. And here’s the flip side, and this is where it really is powerful. It’s a win win relationship, very rare in our world. In a sense only in, you know, marriage and in close family connections and close friendships you have a win win situation where the relationship benefits both parties. In an absolute sense, God gets pleasure from this relationship and we get pleasure, we get joy from that relationship. And so the two, the two partners here, the two potential partners, the two relational partners, get incredible benefit.

115. 54:50

     Both sides, even the more powerful side, gets benefit from the connection from the kindred spirits. And I’ll quickly flick when out of time, so I’ll flick through these verses, but so many verses talk about this presence of God and have an emotional connection to it. You’ll show me the path of life in your presence is fullness of joy at your right hand of pleasures.

116. 55:12

     Forevermore, let us come before His presence with Thanksgiving, with the joyful noise, with Psalm. So the Lord, with gladness coming before his presence, with singing, righteousness and justice of the foundation of your throne, hesed and emit, go before your presence before your face. Blessed are the people who know the joyful sound they walk, Oh Lord, in the light of your countenance of your presence in your name, they rejoice all the day long. Look at these rejoicing presence, connections. Will the Lord show us any good lift up, put a lot of your countenance upon us, your Presence. You’ll put gladness in our hearts, and so forth. And so, just to finish up, brothers and sisters want us to think about the presence of God.

117. 55:55

     Remember, in our first session we said the the Presence, the Word for Presence. This word, pinayim, is also translated face and used to describe the face of God or the face of a person. So there is something in the Hebrew concept of the face, somebody’s face and somebody’s presence. And we we sort of use that.

118. 56:13

     We say get out of my face or let’s have some FaceTime, let’s get together face to face and talk about this. So there is something special about being in someone’s presence, in their in their very face. Even these little things that people have on their phone messages are called emojis. There’s an emotional, there’s emotional emotion conveyed in these emojis, isn’t there?

119. 56:36

     In these faces where they’re smiling, whether they’re sad, whether they’re happy. So the face communicates a lot of a lot of emotion. There’s a lot of psalms and a lot of references in the Old Testament about seeking God’s face, about wanting to be in his face, if you like, in God’s presence, he Psalm 69. Don’t hide your face from your servant Psalm 27. When I when you said seek my face, my heart said to you your face, Lord, I will seek.

120. 57:07

     Do not hide your face from me as this. It reminds us of Acts 17, which we talked about earlier on. Isn’t it that God says, I created you so that you can feel for me and seek for me and touch me? God wants that. God wants that connection with his people and it just runs all the way through the Bible.

121. 57:25

     Listen to the people who know the joyful sound they walk in, a lot of your countenance, etcetera. So I might just finish up here with a just a few minutes thinking about this beautiful part of the scripture that Nathan read for us tonight. Towards the end of #6, there’s this beautiful set of stands as if you like this, this, this, this priestly benedictional blessing that was given to the people, blessing them and bringing God’s presence into their life. Let’s just let’s think about this and just in the whole context of God’s presence.

122. 57:57

     Remember Hebrews 10. The boldness we can have in God’s presence, the pluriphoria, the full assurance of God’s presence, the ability to draw near to God. And here it is in AI think lived out in a very and expressed in a very practical and beautiful and a very emotional way.

123. 58:22

     What can we say about this section of scripture? Well, let’s make a few observations. 1 You’ll notice how each of the stanzas begins with the name of God. Yahweh. Yahweh Bless you. Yahweh. Make his face. Yahweh. Lift up his counter. So it’s very personal, isn’t it? It’s God’s. God’s placing his own name here, and you normally tell your name to people that you want a relationship with, don’t you?

124. 58:46

     You say my name is Darren or whatever, and you’re now starting this connection. If it’s someone you know, you’re not going to see someone selling you a ticket or a sandwich. You don’t tell them your name necessarily. Because there’s no, you’re not going to have a relationship with them. So God is saying, I want to have a relationship. I’m giving you my name so we can talk together. And so it’s anchored in who Yahweh actually is. It’s anchored in his very person Notice and particularly those of you who have the King James Bible, of course will see that the blessing relates to thee.

125. 59:17

     The Lord blessed thee, which is the singular in the the Old English. And and this is, this is a singular concept which is, which is very fascinating, isn’t it? Sometimes we we shy away from talking about ourselves in the context of God’s blessing. And we don’t. We’d like to sort of make it a more collective phrase but hear the blessings, individual personal Yahweh bless you Darren, you know this is me. Yahweh.

126. 59:44

     Make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. Yahweh lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. It’s it’s a personal blessing from Yahweh personally to you personally. Notice the repetition there of the of the of the presence of God. So it’s translated in this is I think new King James.

127. 1:00:05

     Here it’s translated his face. This means it’s Pin AM, it’s presence. And in the third stance there, it’s translated countenance. In that translation others have face again, but it’s presence, it’s Pin AM, it’s God’s presence that permeates this little blessing. It’s about God blessing you with him. He is the blessing, in a sense. Notice that part of the blessing. The second stands, that there is God being gracious to you. This is a beautiful word, the word gracious. If you look up strong concordance, it means to bend down or stoop in kindness to an inferior. It’s like a little child has fallen off their scooter or the skateboard and they’re on the ground and they’ve cut their leg.

128. 1:00:49

     And you, as the adult kneel down, you stoop down behind beside them and you. And that stooping brings comfort into their, into their presence, that your presence gives comfort to their presence and there’s a connection there. And they, they feel thankful and and reassured that you’re there. And so God has stooped down into our life.

129. 1:01:08

     Of course the greater in this relationship by, you know, a billion trillion in million times is not even a you can’t even define that. But it’s still a real relationship and he Stoops down to connect with the the lesser party in this relationship and notice where it leads us. Yahweh lift up his presence upon you and give you Shalom, give you peace and this word Shalom is such a comprehensive and and holistic word. It’s so beautiful.

130. 1:01:42

     It’s not just the absence of fighting or or just a quiet time. This Shalom has it at its very core, the idea of even welfare and and healing and tranquility and contentment and peace in the true sense. So there’s a there’s an emotional power that comes from being in the presence of God. This is the core of the blessing. The blessing isn’t just an intellectual, academic thing. There’s a power that comes from being in the very presence of God.

131. 1:02:15

     I just want us to finish up by focusing on this phrase. Shine. Yahweh, bless you and keep you. Yahweh make His face His presence shine. It’s an interesting idea in the Hebrew. In the Hebrew here, the word shine means to light up, to be lit up. If you look at the lexicon. So in some way, God shining on you, His presence, it’s shining, may not be physically discernible to our optical receptors, but there’s God is shining, His presence upon us.

132. 1:02:48

     And of course, building to this word, shine is an idiom. God isn’t literally shining in that sense, but He’s shining something. There’s something coming from God into our into our presence. And the idiom and how it’s using Hebrew and other parts of the Bible. The idiom here of shine is the idea of smiling.

133. 1:03:14

     God is smiling upon you. His face is smiling. And we we use this idiom even in our own life today. We talk about someone having a beaming smile. Well, there’s not really light beaming from someone’s face, but we we use that idiom. Someone has a glowing smile. Someone has a radiant smile. It’s the same idea.

134. 1:03:35

     There’s some radiate something radiating from the face. Her smile lights up the room. You know, you’ve got a little gorgeous little granddaughter and her smile just lights up the room or lights up the place. We use that idiom ourselves. So it’s it’s it’s quite understandable in that sense. There’s something amazing about a smile.

135. 1:03:56

     When you think about it. The smile is a dynamic phenomenon that is hard to describe because what actually is it? What is a smile? It’s just muscles. It’s just my face now and my face now. My face. It’s just the movement of some muscles. That’s all that’s happening. Muscles moving the eyes don’t really shine anymore. They seem to.

136. 1:04:18

     But something magical happens in your eyes. But it’s just muscle movement. It’s a it’s a little miracle, isn’t it? A smile’s a little miracle, a little reflection of God. But think about what the smile does. It it draws people to you. When someone smiles and you’re in a crowd and they smile, there’s an attraction, there’s you’re drawn to that person.

137. 1:04:39

     There’s something lovely about a smile. It’s also contagious. When someone smiles at you, you, you, you smile back. Usually it makes you smile. Even if you’re not feeling the best you, you smile and you know our capitalist world knows that. And they train the McDonald’s girls to smile at you. I’m happy for other reasons, but but also the smile’s nice. The smile’s nice as well.

138. 1:05:03

     Smile is a gift as well. When you smile at someone, you’re giving. It’s a giving. It’s a beautiful thing and you’re giving something to somebody and it’s also transformative. A smile transforms the atmosphere, the situation. It can make a tense situation, awkward situation better. A smile transforms and changes the your state of mind and those with you as well. It lifts your emotions.

139. 1:05:31

     It can give you a dopamine hit and raise your spirit. It can spark off endorphins in your in your brain. A smile is a very powerful thing and yet it’s just muscles on your face that are that are that are moving and a positive smile can surge through your body. Some of the some of the dynamic Bible translations have picked up the idiom and translated it.

140. 1:05:52

     Not not being literally they’re picking up the the idiom behind the word. So the the New Living translations got May the Lord smile on you, the Nirv says may the Lord smile on you, good word Bible, the Lord smile on you, the message got God smile on you as well. And they’re not wrong. They’re not technically translating the word, but they’re not wrong in the sense of the idiom is a smile. So what do we what do we what do we got here? What have we been told?

141. 1:06:20

     The blessing of the blessing, the priestly blessing that we have, particularly now under the new covenant, this blessing ramps up big time, doesn’t it? Our high priest is so superior than the priest giving these blessings under the old covenant. The blessing says, Yahweh, be with you. And we’ve seen through our study that he actually is with us, isn’t he?

142. 1:06:46

     He’s with us. I think we laid out the evidence for that reasonably strongly. He’s with us regardless of the circumstances. Yahweh is with us, the Lord be with us. He’s gracious unto us in the way He’s forgiven us our sins, deemed us righteous, all those things that we’ve talked about. He’s blessed us, brothers and sisters, with his presence in a relational sense through the New Covenant, but also in the sense that He’s spatially with us in our life and that should, if we think about the reality of that and make that real, brings peace, brings Shalom.

143. 1:07:23

     I can’t put it any better than number six. It’s Shalom that comes from the presence of God in its absolute sense. So there’s a connection to the smile of God and his face shining in salvation. Haven’t got time to flesh all these out now, but I just want to take us to the end of the story, which of course is Revelation 22. And there’s some interesting little verses in chapter 22 and one of them is is here in verses verse four it says, and we don’t quite know.

144. 1:07:56

     This of course is still the apocalypse. So the literal nature of how this all works itself out is is gonna remains to be seen in its ultimate sense. But you can see what the inspiration is telling us. If we link it back to the Old Testament and to the blessings of God under the under the old covenant we’ve got some incredible things to look forward to.

145. 1:08:16

     Revelation 22 says those who are in this new heaven, new earth, shall see his face, his presence, It was lost back in Eden. God knew it was going to be lost in the full knowledge of God. He knew that already. It wasn’t a plan that went awry in that sense, as we sometimes may but sort of portray it. God knew Jesus Christ was going to come, but the narrative tells us what happens because of sin and what the results were. And we we’re told that we God’s presence was lost and Adam may hid themselves from the presence of the Lord. We’ve been restored under the new creation that has happened now in our life.

146. 1:09:04

     The new creation came into effect when Jesus was resurrected. He’s the first born of the new creation. We are part of this new creation, the connection that God’s been repaired. We have boldness to come into His presence, into His face. But of course the completion of that, the fulfillment of that is not till we get to the very end of the Bible.

147. 1:09:24

     They shall see his face, His name shall be on their forehead heads. And it’s expressed in such a way that because of God’s face there’ll be no night there. There’ll be no lamp or light or even the sun. As I said, how this practically works out, we don’t know. But think of the the concept here.

148. 1:09:44

     The Lord shining his face and giving us Shalom. He’s the ultimate expression of Shalom. God’s face will be our light. He will shine his smile, as it were, into our, into our hearts and into our lives. And So what we experience now of the presence of God and the smile of God in our lives is really a flickering reality.

149. 1:10:07

     It’s true and it’s a reality, but it’s a flickering reality of in comparison to what awaits us all when God is All in all. So let’s finish on the verse We started with brothers and sisters just to again re anchor ourselves in the reality of this Paul’s preaching Acts 17. He’s talking to Pagan philosophers in the Pagan city of Athens and what does he tell them? He says God made the world and everything in it. He gave breath and life to all mankind and set the bounds of their habitation for a reason.

150. 1:10:40

     That you want to know what his reason was? That these humans that he created with his, as it were his hands in the clay, getting his hands dirty, getting down and dirty in the creation, breathing with his own mouth into the nostrils. He did that for a reason that these creatures created in his image and likeness.

151. 1:11:01

     His children, his offspring, should seek him and feel their way towards him and actually find him ’cause he’s actually not far from everyone of us or in him. We live and move and have our very being. Thanks.