Living Hope Church

Pastor Phil Steiger: Did you know that so many people struggle to know how to read the Bible and truly connect with the Lord on a consistent basis? Would you like to know how to experience a truly meaningful quiet time with God, one that will draw you close to His heart? Join me in Exodus chapter 34 as I share four essential keys that can make your time with God truly life-changing.

We are in a series called The Next Step. What is the next step for you? Today, we want to be very practical and talk about how you can have a meaningful quiet time and how to spend time with God. This is very basic and very practical. The reality is that many people do not know how to do that. They want to, but they are not sure how. They look at the Bible and think it is a really big book. They wonder how to get to know God, what to do, and where to read. They are not sure how to pray, and it just seems awkward to them. That is what we want to talk about today: how to spend time with God so that it is a meaningful, life-changing time.

As our text this morning, we want to look at a guy who knew how to spend time with God. It was time that changed his whole life. That man is Moses. In Exodus chapter 34, verse 29, Moses has spent 40 days and 40 nights with God on Mount Sinai. He did not eat or drink anything during that time; he was just spending time with God and writing out the words of God on two tablets of stone. Remember, God wrote them the first time, but Moses broke them when the people fashioned a golden calf and began to worship it. Moses came down off the mountain so angry that he threw down the tablets and broke them. God said, "Now, we are going to do this again, Moses." So he spent that time with God, carving and chiseling the Ten Commandments on both sides of the stones.

The Bible says, "And it came about when Moses was coming down from Mount Sinai, and the two tablets of the testimony were in Moses' hand as he was coming down from the mountain, that Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because of his speaking with Him. So when Aaron, his brother, and all the sons of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him. Then Moses called to them, and Aaron and all the rulers in the congregation returned to him, and Moses spoke to them. Afterward, all the sons of Israel came near, and he commanded them to do everything that the Lord had spoken to him on Mount Sinai. When Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil over his face.

"But whenever Moses went in before the Lord to speak with Him, he would take off the veil until he came out. And whenever he came out and spoke to the sons of Israel what he had been commanded, the sons of Israel would see the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses' face shone. So Moses would replace the veil over his face until he went in to speak with Him." Moses spent time with God, and the people could tell. How can you spend meaningful time with God that would truly change your life? There are four essentials.

Essential number one: make it the priority. This is time with God, so we are going to make it the priority of our day. What is the most important thing that you and I can do in a day? Spend time with God. It is so important to make it a priority. If you do not, it will get pushed to the back burner. When things get pushed to the back burner because you have spent all your time at work, at school, on social media, or watching TV, you find yourself at the very end of the day, right before you go to sleep, saying, "Oh, I did not spend any time with God. Lord, give us this day our daily bread." The day is over, you are going to sleep, and you missed it.

Make it the priority of your day. Jesus said, "Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you." The things that you and I worry about, stew about, fret about, and fear, the Lord says if you will seek Me first, then I will add all those things to you. I will take care of all those things for you. It is a great privilege to meet with God. Can you imagine? God is the King of everything. He is the Sovereign of the universe, and He invites us to come meet with Him.

I am meeting with someone who loves me and someone who is for me. I love Psalm 56:9, where David says, "This I know, that God is for me." God is not against me; He is for me. Romans chapter 8 says, "If God be for us, who can be against us?" I am meeting with someone who loves me through and through, someone who wants the best for me, someone who is for me, and someone who has all power and all authority. What a privilege to meet with God.

So, carve out time to spend with God. I encourage you to make that the first part of your day. In the Lord's Prayer, the Lord teaches us to pray, "Give us this day our daily bread." You do not pray for daily bread at the end of the day; you pray for it at the beginning. It is best to meet with God first thing and give Him the first part of your day. Not only do you make it a priority, but you also prepare the place. You need to have a special place.

Moses had a special place where he would go to meet with God. Exodus 33 says, "Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, a good distance from the camp, and he called it the tent of meeting. And it came about that everyone who sought the Lord would go out to the tent of meeting which was outside the camp." You need to have a special place that you go to meet with God. That might be on your back porch, in your backyard, in your bedroom, in an office, or in the den. Debbie and I go to the den to seek the Lord.

If you are a stay-at-home mom with little kids and your life is hectic, your special place might be the bathroom because that is the only place the kids leave you alone—at least for a few minutes before they start knocking on the door. Maybe it is your car. Wherever it is, make it a special place and a priority. It is important because you are spending time with God. If you do not see it as the priority of the day, it gets pushed back until it does not happen.

The second essential is to understand the purpose. Why are you doing this? What is the purpose of this time? Exodus 33:13 shows Moses talking to God, saying, "Now therefore, I pray you, if I have found favor in your sight, let me know your ways that I may know you." Is the purpose of meeting with God just to get things from Him? Is it to bring our laundry list or grocery list of needs? No, the purpose is to know Him.

When Moses said, "Lord, I want to know you," the word for know in Hebrew is 'yada.' It is the same word used when the Bible says Adam had relations with his wife Eve and she gave birth. It means to know someone intimately and personally. He wanted to know God in an intimate, deep way. That is the purpose of a quiet time: we meet with God to get to know Him better.

The Apostle Paul's passion in Philippians chapter 3 was "that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death." Was the driving passion in Paul's life to know Him? Yes, even though he had already encountered the risen Christ on the road to Damascus. He wanted to grow in his knowledge of God and his depth of relationship with the Lord. That is the purpose: to get to know God better. As you get to know God better, you love Him more.

That is the greatest commandment of all. When Jesus was asked what the great commandment was, He said, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your mind." We meet with God to know Him better and to grow in our love for Him. Mark this down: to spend time with God is to know God, and to know God is to love God. I cannot really love God until I know Him, and I cannot really know Him until I spend time with Him.

Debbie did not really know me when we first went out in 1985. She had some preconceived ideas about me being quiet or boring. I am not boring; I am a lot of fun if you give me a chance. She had these ideas, but then she spent time with me. She walked away saying she wanted to marry me. Her perspective changed by spending time with me. Your life will change and your love for God will grow as you spend time with Him and get to know Him.

Understand the purpose. We meet with the Lord to know Him better and love Him more. Rick Warren says that when he gets up in the morning, he sits in his bed and says, "God, if I don't do anything else today, I want to end this day saying I know you a little better and I love you a little more." If he can say that at the end of the day, it was a good day. It does not matter what else happened because he fulfilled the greatest commandment.

The third essential is to bring the particulars. These are the articles you need to spend time with God. When Moses went to meet God on the mountain, God told him to bring two tablets to write down what he was told. He had to bring tablets, a chisel, and a hammer. What do we bring? We bring our Bible, a pen, and paper or a journal to write things down. Maybe you bring a devotional.

You definitely bring an open heart to the Lord. The Lord says He is the potter and we are the clay. The only thing you and I can really do is be soft clay in the hands of the Master. We do not want to be hard or stubborn clay; we want to be soft. So, I come before the Lord with my Bible, pen, and paper, and I bring a heart that says, "Speak, Lord, your servant is listening. I want to hear from you and do what you say."

Time with God is not a monologue; it is a dialogue. We talk to Him through prayer, and He talks to us through the Bible. That is how God speaks primarily. Lastly, the fourth essential is to display the proof. After Moses spent time with God, everyone knew because the skin of his face would shine. He was in the presence of God, and the glory of God was so strong that he had an afterglow. People would back up because his face was shining.

Moses recognized that people were afraid, so he put a veil over his face. But they knew. There was proof that he had spent time with God. Now, has that ever happened for anyone else? Did David, Daniel, Elijah, or Elisha have that? No, just Moses. But all of us who know, love, and walk with the Lord can experience the glory of God on our lives and display the proof. The apostles did that.

When Peter and John were arrested by the Sanhedrin for preaching Jesus, they stood up and boldly proclaimed Christ. Acts 4:13 says, "When they observed the confidence of these men and understood that they were uneducated and untrained men, they recognized them as having been with Jesus." They sounded like Jesus. Their boldness and confidence were like His. People did not see their faces shine, but they could tell they had been in the presence of the Lord.

If we really spend time with God, people will notice because our lives will be different. Remember, to spend time with God is to know Him, and to know Him is to love Him. The way you know you love God is by obeying Him. Jesus said, "He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me shall be loved by my Father, and I will love him and will disclose myself to him." If you really love God, you will obey Him.

If you say you are spending time with God but do not do what He says, you are a forgetful hearer and not an effectual doer. You will not be blessed, because it is the doers of the Word who are blessed. You will not shine for Christ or make a difference in this world if you do not do what He says. Jesus asked, "Why do you call me Lord, Lord and do not do what I say?" If you really love Him, you will obey Him.

The Pharisees spent a lot of time reading the Old Testament and the Law of Moses. They would memorize the first five books of the Old Testament. Try memorizing Leviticus; it is a difficult task. It is full of laws and rules, and we can be thankful we live under a new covenant now. They memorized it all but missed what it was about. They were lovers of money, not lovers of God. You can know the Word of God and not know the God of the Word.

The goal of spending time with God is to know and obey Him. A meaningful quiet time makes you more like Jesus. The goal is to be the person He wants you to be, used for His glory and kingdom, shining for Christ and sharing the great things He has done. Paul talks about this in Second Corinthians chapter 3, saying we are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. That is the Christian life. We grow in our relationship with Him.

We see our children grow from newborns to toddlers, then to teenagers and young adults. Spiritual growth is similar. You do not see it day to day. You do not have a quiet time today and wake up tomorrow as a "super Christian." You notice the change in people month to month and year to year. That is what happens in the Christian life.

We were talking recently about miracles, and I was asked what the greatest miracle I have ever experienced was. The greatest miracle was the transformation that came when I gave my life to Christ and began to grow in Him. I got saved on the 17th. A guy I went to high school with, who knew what I was like before, told me years later, "Shreve, you were the meanest guy in our school." I denied it, but he insisted.

I was not the guy beating people up, but I was cutting. I liked to cut people down and say mean things. That is why he thought I was one of the meanest guys. But what a praise that the Lord would take someone like that and change him from the inside out. He made me a preacher, a pastor, and a witness for Christ around the world. That is the greatest miracle of my life. The same thing can happen to you as you receive Christ, walk in Him, and spend time with Him. Let His Word richly dwell within you. He will change your life. Start today.