Exodus: God Goes Camping

Before moving into our main topic—the Tabernacle—we begin by examining the fifth commandment: "Honor your father and your mother." Often relegated to "kids church," this command was actually given to a nation of adults. In a culture that frequently despises or makes light of the elderly, God calls us to give weight to and highly value them. Furthermore, unlike other ancient documents, the Bible explicitly commands honoring both the mother and the father, demonstrating God's consistent elevation of women.

Key Points

1. The Purpose of the Tabernacle When we read the detailed instructions for the Tabernacle in Exodus, we shouldn't get lost in looking for obscure meanings in every measurement or crossbar. The big idea is this: The Tabernacle was God making His home among the Israelites. From God's perspective, the climax of the Exodus story wasn't the parting of the Red Sea; it was coming down from the mountain to dwell—or "go camping"—with His people. True freedom isn't just about escaping slavery; it's about being free to live in the presence of God.

2. The Walking Tabernacle (Jesus) For hundreds of years, the Jews wondered where the presence of God had gone after the temple was destroyed. John 1:14 provides the answer: "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling [literally: tabernacled] among us." Jesus was the walking Tabernacle. The glory of God, once restricted to a humble tent, was now restricted to a humble human body.

• Example 1: The Samaritan woman at the well was closer to the glory of God in her conversation with Jesus than the High Priest was in the Most Holy Place.
• Example 2: When Jesus visited Mary and Martha, the "Most Holy Place" was sitting in their living room. Martha chose dishes, but Mary perceived the sacredness of the moment and chose to sit at His feet.

3. We Are the Tabernacle Now Where is God today? After Jesus ascended, He sent the Holy Spirit. Now, instead of one physical Tabernacle or one human body, there are millions of "little tabernacles" running around. The glory of God dwells within believers, both individually and corporately. God still comes in ways that are outwardly humble—through the people of the Church—but hold sacred glory on the inside. You cannot experience the fullness of God's presence in isolation; you must interact with His people.

4. The Ultimate Fulfillment We experience God's presence now, but not in its fullness. We look forward to the day described in Revelation 21, when God's dwelling place will permanently be among His people, wiping away every tear and making all things new.

Conclusion

From a tent in the wilderness to the person of Jesus, to the Church today, and finally to the new creation, God's ultimate desire has always been to dwell with us. Wisdom is knowing where God is and choosing to sit near His presence.

Calls to Action

• Honor Your Parents: Regardless of your age, find a way to honor and give weight to your mother and father, and the elderly in your life.
• Seek His Presence: Like Mary, choose what is better. Don't let the distractions of daily life keep you from sitting at the feet of Jesus.
• Embrace the Church: Reject isolation. Recognize that the presence of God is found in community with other believers, despite our outward flaws.

Transcript

Hey, we're going to. We're going to continue the the Mother's Day extravaganza in the sermon for just a few minutes. So if you guys remember a couple weeks ago, I preached through the the first four of the Ten Commandments, the ten words as they're known.

It's like I'm in a classroom every week, and this is supposed to be the one time where I don't have to tell everyone to sit down. You guys love each other. It's good.

So instead of just moving on to the the subject that we're talking about today, which is the Tabernacle, which I'll get to the Tabernacle and the book of Exodus, I wanted to just go to the next commandment, because it just so happens to do with mothers and fathers. And so I want to read that and talk about that for a few seconds.

And, and then we'll stand and do our Bible reading and kind of officially start. But Exodus 20 verse 12 says this. It's word number five. Commandment number five says, honor your father and your mother so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you. And been thinking about this this week.

And I was thinking about those words, honor your father and your mother. And I wanted to. I don't often do word studies on Sunday mornings, but I thought this would be worth it just to look at the word honor. This is what Christopher Wright says in his commentary about this word. He says honor is the strong word to give weight to regard as of high value and worth to glorify.

Remember, we're we're talking about mothers and fathers as we read that definition. It's opposite is Khalil, which is sometimes rendered to curse, but is more precisely to make light of regard as of no value to despise. And actually was thinking about that second part to kind of the opposite of honor. And I think sometimes there's some cursing of mothers and fathers that goes on in our day, for sure.

But I think the second part of that, the to make light of regard as of no value and despise, I think, I, I think I see that a lot in our culture when we're talking about moms and dads. And I was thinking about the last few decades, and I was thinking about 90s sitcoms where there's always the doofus, dad, you guys remember that?

There's always like the dad who's just an idiot and doesn't know what he's doing. Just thinking of the 2000, the the punk rock scene, which I was very much a part of, which was all about defying authority, giving the finger to parents. I was thinking about the 20 tens. When we introduced okay, Boomer into our vocabularies, and then I was just even thinking of 2020 and Covid and where we all moved online.

And the the wisdom that I heard again and again was youth and beauty is what gets clicks. Youth and beauty. And that's true. And I think because of that, because we we do what gets clicks. That's just sort of where all the influencers and the videos went. And I think we missed out on something. We missed out on a lot of influencers who are probably older, probably didn't have as much beauty behind the camera, but they had a lot of wisdom to give, and I think we missed out on some honoring.

And I say that. But I actually know a lot of young adults today who are hungry for mothers and fathers, and they're they're vocal about it. They they know they they need mothers and fathers and they want to honor. I think that's really encouraging. The Proverbs say this. It's very different from our culture. Proverbs 6016 verse 31 says, gray hair is a crown of splendor.

It is attained in the way of righteousness. And and obviously that's not about hair, right? It's about age. Because it's not just mothers and fathers that we despise. It's the elderly in general. So here's here's what's interesting, because some of you might be thinking, I thought this commandment was for the kids. Like, I mean, isn't this the kids church commandment?

Why are we talking about it here? I mean, is this like to pass on for our nighttime Bible studies? And it's it's true that Paul adapted it in the book of Ephesians for kids. He took this commandment and he gave it to kids. That's that's exactly right. But in the original context. And we're going through the book of Exodus, we want to be faithful to Exodus in its context.

This commandment was given to a nation of adults. Think of the other ten adultery, idolatry, murder. Were those mostly for the kids? Those were for the adults. And God didn't stop for a second and say, okay, now this one's for kids. Church honor your moms and dads. He was talking to a nation of adults, and he was commanding them to honor their elderly mothers and fathers.

That was the original context of this commandment. This is another quote here. This is from actually my my current professor at Talbott Seminary. He says this in his book. He says this commandment, however, was not primarily addressed to children, but to a nation of adults gathered at the base of Mount Sinai. What does honor look like at the other end of life, when our parents are aged, which is what God most of all had in mind when he gave the command to adults at Sinai.

This was kind of this was kind of new to me, really, just turning this commandment a little bit and taking it from the kids church to this is for me, this is not for me. Like, hey, kids, honor me. This is for me. Like to honor my mom and my stepdad, and it's for you. It's for us to honor.

So that's the first. The first point is that this is for a nation of adults. This is for us today. The second is that the Bible specifically says, honor your father and your mother. And that would have been unheard of in the documents of that time. So this is what James Bruckner says in his commentary. He says this commandment mentions both mother and father, and actually the mother first in Leviticus 19 three.

In contrast to the Akkadian Code of Hammurabi 1750 BC, that only expressed concern for the father. And I just thought, how, how beautiful is that, that all these other ancient documents of the time, at most they have something about honoring your father or obeying your father. And then here comes the Bible. Here comes God at Mount Sinai saying, honor your father and your mother.

God always valuing women from page one all the way to the end of the Bible I, I love it. Okay, let's now stand and I'm going to read our. Yep. Stand up. Yep. There you go. There you go. Look, look. Hesitant like this is not what we normally do.

Don't worry. The rest is shorter.

Okay? Hebrews nine one through five. This is our text for the day. Hebrews nine one through five. Now the first covenant had regulations for worship and also an earthly sanctuary. A tabernacle was set up in its first room, where the lampstand and the table with its consecrated bread. This was called the Holy Place. Behind the second curtain was a room called the Most Holy Place, which had the golden altar of incense and the gold covered Ark of the covenant.

This art contained the gold jar of manna, Aaron's staff that had butted, and the stone tablets of the covenant above the ark, where the cherubim of the glory overshadowing the atonement cover. But we cannot discuss these things in detail now. Let me pray, and we'll sit down. God, would you just give us understanding and wisdom and and just speak to us this morning?

Amen. All right, let's stand.

Sorry. Sit. Wow. It's been a long week.

Let's just keep on going. Up and down. Stay awake.

I like that last line that was up there, because obviously we read a passage from Hebrews and we're going through Exodus, but it's a nice little summary of the Tabernacle and the different furniture that's found in there. And, and I like how he kind of cuts himself off as, as if he was tempted to go on in detail about each item in the Tabernacle and to talk about it, symbolism and deeper meaning.

And he kind of cuts himself off like a lot of teachers have to do, like, but we can't go into these things in greater detail now. And I thought, you know, that's probably the difference between the purple, the, the people who first heard this in us today, who are listening is that we probably breathe a sigh of relief like, thank you God that he's not going to go more into detail in the Tabernacle items.

But the people who first heard it probably were bombed. Like, give us more. The first, especially the first Israelites, the Jews who heard this were like, no, this, this is our life. Like this is sacred to us. Tell us more how these things relate to Jesus, our Messiah.

We're typically not too excited about the tabernacle passages in Exodus. We're we're going hard in the book of Exodus. The plagues, the Red sea, even the wilderness. There's some relevant, exciting stuff in there. And then we get to measurements, qubits, like lots of qubits going on in the Tabernacle passage. And it's kind of like, what? What the heck is going on here?

I mean, why why do we care? I mean, it'd be one thing if it just said and then they built the tabernacle, but that's not how it reads. It's actually chapters and chapters of details about the Tabernacle. So how do we read this? I want to I want to start there with just some wisdom on how we go about these passages.

Kind of some, because I'm always looking for help myself and reading the Bible. So I want to give some of that. And the first, the first principle is this that these passages matter. Okay. They're not just to be skipped. They actually matter. Here's a quote from a Dutch theologian from a few hundred years ago. He says this God created the whole world in six days.

But he used 40 to instruct Moses about the tabernacle. A little over one chapter was needed to describe the the structure of the world, but six were used for the tabernacle. So he's making the point that this is a big deal. There's no wasted ink in the Bible, right? I mean, this this has a purpose. Now, on the other hand.

Here's the second principle. And it kind of balances the first principle a little bit. The the second principle is that, on the other hand, we don't want to get weird with the Tabernacle passage. I don't know if you've ever heard a teaching or a YouTube video that gets a little bit weird with it, but you can. And so here's a quote that kind of gives us this wisdom.

It says, when we consider the meaning of the tabernacle for us as Christians, we must stay with what the scriptures and especially the New Testament say and look at the Tabernacle as a whole, rather than seek a deeper meaning in every loop, clasp and crossbar. I think that's helpful because sometimes we can look at it like, yeah, there is a lot of room here given to it.

It must be really important. The table of the bread was two cubits long. Like, what does two cubits mean? Does that represent heaven and earth? You know, does that represent the word in the spirit? Like we just and this has been done throughout church history, is some very in-depth, strange interpretations of the Tabernacle passage. And so we want to we want to stay away from that.

And and especially this morning, we're just going to we're not going to lose the forest for the trees. We're going to look at the big picture of what God was doing with the tabernacle back then. So I want to watch a short little video here of the Tabernacle. It's it goes pretty fast. So I'll try to narrate the best, as best as I can.

AI being used for good here. Okay, so we're we're going in. There's the sacrifices. This is where they offered the animals. Here's the water. This is for ceremonial washings. Only the priests were allowed into here. So that's the most holy place we're going in. Sorry. This is we're going into the Holy Place, the center section. Right now we have the table of the bread.

We've got the menorah or the lampstand.

We've got another altar for sacrifices. And then finally we're going into the Most Holy Place. We've got the Ark of the covenant in there. And inside the Ark of the covenant. It'll open it in a second. We'll see the stone tablets and more was added to that over time. The the rod of Aaron and some other things. And now we're moving backwards again.

We're moving out. We're leaving the tabernacle, and there's the cloud of glory right there above it. So there you go. Just a little visual. If you have a study Bible that will have pictures, and it's just helpful to to look at it to, to see it. So here's the big idea with all that again we could talk about the lampstand.

Jesus is the light of the world, right? This the table of the showbread. Jesus is the bread of life. I mean, we could go through each one and that would that would be legit. That's not getting weird. That's I mean, the book of John actually uses the Tabernacle to show us more about Jesus. But for this morning, I just want to stay with this one idea that the tabernacle was God making his home among the Israelites.

That's the big idea. That's what it was all about. This was where God lived.

Another another quote from Christopher, right. And his commentary. He says, God at the top of the mountain wants to come down the mountain and dwell in the midst of his people in a tent. God wants to go camping with his people in a portable habitation similar to theirs. In fact, God says this is what he has been wanting to do all along.

This is the climax of the story from God's point of view. I love that God goes camping. That's the that's the title of the sermon this morning. And so interesting that he said that at the end, this is the climax of the story from God's point of view. I mean, probably not from our point of view. Right? Probably the Red sea.

I mean, Prince of Egypt. I mean, they knew what they were doing. And after the Red sea just kind of fade to credits. That feels right to us. But if God was directing the movie, that's not where the movie ends. The climax in his perspective is him coming down and dwelling with his people. Because remember what we talked about a few weeks ago?

In God's eyes, freedom is never just for freedom sake. Just I'm going to set you free from Egypt just so you can do whatever you want. That turns out not to be true freedom in the end. True freedom is when we're freed to worship God, to be in relationship with God, to be near God. That's the only place that true freedom is found.

And so the climax of the Exodus story is God coming down and dwelling in this tabernacle, his very presence. This would have been so sacred to the Israelites.

Also think of how I mean, I don't know if that tabernacle seemed gaudy and ornate to you, or if it just seemed kind of normal, but on the outside it was kind of normal. It was just kind of a humble tent. I mean, goat hair, you know, just normal, average, mediocre goat hair covering it. Now on the inside it was filled with gold.

But even that gives us a picture of the way that God comes. He comes in ways that are outwardly humble and maybe not the most attractive, or maybe not the most impressive. But inside there's gold, and inside there's glory. I mean, it's just he. This is the way God always comes. So the story moves on from there. If we would move on from Exodus, we would have God dwelling with his people in the tent, in the tabernacle.

Then it transitions over to this temple, kind of the same structure. You know, the outer court, the holy place, the most holy place that that only the high priest can go into once a year. But they transition all that to this temple. It's more permanent, lasts for a few hundred years. But then finally the temple is destroyed. So?

So where is God now? After the Old Testament ends? Where is God? And that's probably what a lot of the Jews were asking. Where are you? Where are you? God? This was our way to interact with you. This was our way to meet with God. Is it was. We see it as a as a setback or something boring or mundane.

But for them, it would have been a privilege. Like, this is where God lives. We get to go near to the presence of God. And for hundreds of years they were wondering, where'd you go? Where are you? We're enslaved to Greece. And then Rome. Where are you? And this is what the Gospels say. This is what's profound, is that they don't they don't drop the Tabernacle language and say, okay, moving on from that, we're done.

It keeps on using the Tabernacle language to describe what happens next. This is John chapter one, verse 14. It says, the word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only son, who came from the father, full of grace and truth. Here there's more to it than that.

It doesn't come through in the translations. So I, I know I use a lot of quotes in my messages, but I have another quote here from a study Bible. The NIV Application Bible says this about this verse. It says this verse is one of the most important verses in the Bible. The word did not just appear to be human.

So who are we talking about? The the Word is Jesus. The word did not just appear to be human. The word became flesh. This word made his dwelling among us and revealed his glory. This verb for dwelling is employed in the Greek Old Testament for the tabernacle of God. The glory of God, once restricted to the tabernacle, is now visible, intangible form in Christ.

So in Jesus we have a walking tabernacle. The presence and glory of God no longer restricted just to a humble tent, but it's now restricted to a humble human body that can move around, that can go places. I mean, this is this is where we're moving forward. God is getting closer in the story of redemption. He's getting closer and closer to us.

Think of all the emotions you would have had as a as an ancient Israelite thinking about the Tabernacle, the privilege of going near this tabernacle and experiencing God, the fear of the Lord and the Holy. Or that this is where God lives and I can go near to him. And then finally, just the joy, the excitement of it.

Now all of those emotions are transferred over to a man walking around in first century Galilee. And think about this. Just I want to look at this through the lens of a couple stories in the Gospels. First of all, think of the the Samaritan woman of John. For most of you have probably heard that story. This woman at the well who had had multiple husbands, a Samaritan, she had probably never been to the Jerusalem Temple before, and certainly she had never been in the Holy place or the Most Holy place, because she wasn't allowed.

Only only certain people were allowed. But that woman, the Samaritan woman of John four, was closer to the glory of God in her conversation with Jesus than the high priest of that day was going into the Most Holy Place. It's mind boggling to think about that. We have the the, the high priest once a year going into the sacred place, and yet he's farther from God than the Samaritan woman.

Just having a simple conversation. Now, let's look at one other story through this lens of Jesus tabernacle among us walking around is the very presence of God. Luke ten. Another kind of familiar story says this in verses 38 and through 42, as Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him.

She had a sister called Mary who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work? My myself? Tell her to help me, Martha. Martha, the Lord answered, you were worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed, or indeed only one.

Mary has chosen what is better and it will not be taken away from her. Okay. Think about this story from the lens of Jesus, the the very walking tabernacle and glory of God.

The tabernacle shows up to Mary and Martha's house. The Most Holy Place shows up to their house and Martha chose dishes. Martha chose a clean house. Now servings big in the Bible servings good. Martha probably had the best of intentions, but now we understand why she missed it. And Mary got it. Because Mary perceived something sacred. Something enormous is happening right now, that what was reserved for the Most Holy place for the Ark of the covenant is sitting in my living room.

I have to be close to it. I have to glean from it. I have to receive from it. And Jesus says, you got it. That's it. That's what wisdom is, knowing where God is and sitting at his feet, being as close as you can.

Okay, so the big question today is where is God? Today we talked about where God was in Exodus in the Gospels, but Jesus ascended to heaven. He's not physically with us anymore. He died. He rose. He ascended into heaven. The the tabernacle left. He's gone. And so where is God now that that should be? The most urgent question is where?

Where are you now? God? And Paul answers that question. He says that actually Jesus first answered it and he said, I have to leave and it's going to be better for you because the spirit is going to come in my place. And at the time everyone's like, better. This doesn't make any sense. He says, no, no, no, it's going to be better.

The spirit's going to come. And now the tabernacle is not going to be restricted to just one human being, but thousands and millions of human beings with the very Holy Spirit, with the very glory of God inside of them. This is what Paul says. He says, you're the tabernacle now. You are. And he uses both corporate and personal language.

He says, no, you are individually a bunch of little tabernacles running around with the glory of God. And then he also uses corporate language. And also we are the Tabernacle, and I don't I don't know what your responses to that this morning. If it's like excitement like, oh my gosh, this is so beautiful, now God is inside me.

For those who have put their faith in Jesus, the glory of God dwells inside of you. The same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is inside of you. But maybe some some others of you are like, oh man, what a bummer. Like it was way better when Jesus was walking around because that's like, yeah, I mean, we could see that, you know, he's healing most amazing teachings the Earth has ever heard.

Like, yeah, we have seen his grace and glory, for sure. That makes sense. But like, oh my gosh, like Glenn and Danny and Gunnar and Mike like man, that's that's a little disappointing. No offense guys. You know, like that's where God is and that's where he is. I mean, come on Sunday mornings, this is where he's at now.

And the answer is yes. But member the way God comes, he always comes in ways that are humble on the outside, but sacred and beautiful on the inside. So if you're looking for Jesus today, yeah, yeah. Read the Bible. Yes, pray. But there's going to come a point where you have to interact with the people of God. There are no Lone Ranger Christians.

There's no isolation in the kingdom of God. And if there is, you're missing out on his glory and his presence because this is where he wants to dwell today. This is where he wants to live.

I know it's disappointing and beautiful all at the same time, right? But this is the way God chooses to do things. This would be a good place to end. But I want to end this morning where the Bible ends because there is an element of God is his kingdom is here, but it's not fully here yet. Right?

And I think that's why we feel a little bit of legit disappointment. Like, man, I thought there was going to be more. And there is, because God is here right now and I want as much of him as I can. I want as much peace, as much power as wisdom, healing all of the things I want as much of it as I can have now.

But there's there's always going to be that barrier, that limit, because we're not we're not at the fullness, we're not at the climax. But the end of the Bible tells of a time when God will come down again in his fullness. And so I want to stand one more time for real. And we're going to read this last.

We're going to read this last passage from the book of Revelation. And just think of everything we've talked about so far, where we've been with the presence of God, the tabernacle, the temple, the prophets and Jesus incarnate, the glory of God, and now the church carrying the very glory and presence of God together, individually. And now we get to look forward and hope to the time when, when Jesus will come back and the spirit will still be inside of us, and the Father himself will come down.

Never before happened in all of history. This is what revelation tells us. It says, and I heard a loud voice. This is a revelation 21 verses three through five. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, look, God's dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. He who is seated on the throne said, I am making everything new. Then he said, write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true. Worship team, you can come on up and God, we we ask for perception where we can see where we're where you're at today.

Would you show us what you're doing in our lives and the people around us?

And would you give us hope for the day that you come with even more fullness, where you tabernacle among us with even more glory and power? In your name, Jesus. Amen.