Unlimited Grace

Bryan Chapell: This is what I'm focused on. The holiness of God is my priority, and it drives every other concern out of my life. That holy fire is consuming the distractions because the holiness of God holds me.

Guest (Male): So glad you joined us for today's Unlimited Grace, the audio broadcast ministry of pastor and author Bryan Chapell. In today's episode, Pastor Bryan shares a lesson from Exodus chapter 3. Dr. Chapell investigates the story of the burning bush and God's presence making it holy ground.

As we seek to follow the Lord's calling and welcome His presence, we too will find ourselves on holy ground. You can find this lesson and many others when you visit unlimitedgrace.com. And while you're there, look for this wonderful resource from Dr. Chapell: Holiness by Grace.

In this book, Pastor Bryan will guide you through reassuring scripture passages to discover how works and obedience are not a means of establishing or maintaining salvation, but a grateful response to God's mercy. Let's hear now from Dr. Bryan Chapell as he shares the lesson, "Holy Ground."

Bryan Chapell: Many of you will know that Kathy and I ministered for 30 years at Covenant Seminary in Saint Louis. A great, blessed time in our lives where we were involved in the training of pastors and missionaries and counselors and teachers. It was a wonderful time for us, but not without question at times about what we were doing and where we were doing it and even the appropriateness of everybody who was there.

At times, we were surprised when we would be on the campus and there would be a stranger walking through the campus or maybe somebody from a local church who really wasn't supposed to be there with the other students. If I or a security officer were to come across that person, we would always ask, "Can I help you?" which is just a polite way of saying, "What are you doing here?"

Often the answer was, "Well, I'm facing a difficult decision in my life," or "My marriage is in trouble," or "I've got a health issue that I just want to talk to the Lord about. I want to have that conversation with the Lord on holy ground." Now, as I said, we were at Covenant Seminary a long time, and we knew not only the nature of the grounds, we knew the nature of the people who walk them. Sometimes saints and sometimes sinners. Sometimes noble and sometimes petty. There were more than just holy things that went on at Covenant Seminary.

When at times I would come across those people who were saying, "I just want to be on some holy ground when I talk with the Lord," it might have been at a time that I had just come out of a difficult budget meeting, or maybe a time that I had just come out of a meeting on student discipline, or maybe I had just answered a letter from some angry constituent in the denomination. When somebody would say, "I just want to be on some holy ground," I would think, "You need to find another place."

But then there was a time when I myself was wrestling in mind and spirit about a difficulty, and I was just walking in the woods that are around the campus. I came across a little clearing in the woods. I knew the campus well enough to know that clearing had never been there before. In that little clearing was this little scrap of carpet and a little stand to hold a book and a candle.

I recognized that somebody had made a little clearing in the woods to talk to God. In that moment, I needed that place, and I recognized for me right then, it too had become holy ground. We long for it, don't we? We long for that place where we can be close to God and believe that He is close to us, that there's been a clearing made in our circumstances and our worries and our crisis where God is close and we are close to Him. We long for the holy ground.

My goal in this message is simply to tell you we can still find it. You may say, "Wait a second. I have not seen any burning bushes in my neighborhood lately. At least not ones that burn and are not burned up. So how can we find holy ground today?" By recognizing what God reveals in the places that are holy ground.

If we will learn to recognize the marks of what God is revealing, then we'll recognize the holy ground on which He is revealing it. After all, what is God revealing to Moses on this holy ground that we still long for? God is first revealing about Himself that He is a holy God. Verse two is so plain to us. The angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in a flame of fire out of the midst of the bush. It is that great symbol of holiness that appears over and over again in the Bible.

Right now it's just a flame in a bush, but later when the people of Israel return to Horeb to Mount Sinai, the whole mountain will be lit up in lightning and flame as God will declare, "I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I am the holy God of Israel, and I dwell in this place." It will happen over and over again.

We remember that moment when later Isaiah will be in the temple of God, and in ways that we don't quite understand, the roof opens above him, and he sees up even into the heavens itself where God is seated in His glory. Above God on all sides are the seraphim, the heavenly host whose very name means "burning ones," as God Himself is surrounded in flame.

Not just surrounded. Later we will read in Daniel how God Himself sits on a throne of flames, a throne that not only is based in flames but has wheels of fire, as though this holiness not only is all around God, but He can take that holiness wherever He intends to fill up the entire earth. Ezekiel will later tell us that God's glory appears in flames of fire. Then in the book of Revelation, we finally see it when Christ returns in His glory.

When He returns, we are told even His eyes are flames of fire. Here is this image of fire consuming, cauterizing, purifying, as if to say when God is present in all of His holiness, it burns away every other impurity. Every other stain of earth is gone in the purifying holiness of God. He is the holy, holy, holy God of Israel, and He is the holy, holy God of all time. It is His purity that is on display before us, and it's not merely in image. It is in the very words that are being declared.

Verses four and five: When the Lord saw that Moses turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, "Moses, Moses." And he said, "Here I am." Then God said, "Do not come near. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground." Just the reaction to the holiness: Take off your sandals. Why? It's more than a matter of hygiene. If you're a shepherd in the desert and you take off your sandals, your feet are still dirty. No one's washing them.

Why take off your sandals? Because if you take off your shoes, you're not going any other place. This becomes the priority. This holiness of God is attracting and focusing. Sometimes the reason we are not on holy ground is we're still going about our business. "God, I'll get back to you later. I've got this contract to think about." "Lord, I'll get back to you later. This game is right ahead of me right now."

"Lord, I'll think about this when I'm a bit older and I'm not concerned for the people that I'm trying to get to approve me right now." When you take off your shoes, you are saying, "This is what I'm focused on. The holiness of God is my priority, and it drives every other concern out of my life. That holy fire is consuming the distractions because the holiness of God holds me."

But it does something else, revealed in verse six. And God said, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob." And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. We get it. If God were to appear before us in this very moment in the flames of glory, we would fall on our faces, and at the same moment, we would look away. "God, I can't look at You."

God calls out, "Moses, Moses," and Moses hides his face, and something deep in our hearts recognizes the same. If God were to not name Moses but say, "Bryan, Bryan," "Mark, Mark," "Karen, Karen," "Tom, Tom," we would say, "What, Lord?" and we would cover our face. For like Isaiah, even a prophet, when he saw God revealed in all of His glory, his first comment was, "Woe is me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, I live among a people of unclean lips, and I've seen the Lord."

When that glory is revealed, it radiates the taint and the sin and the iniquity in us. We recognize if we were to ever hear out of the burning glory of God our own names, our first reaction is precisely this reaction: we would want to hide. "God, don't look at me. I don't want You to see this. I don't want You to know me. I don't want You to know what I have done."

But right in the same passage is not just the mark of the great purity of God that would drive us away. There is the mark of the great compassion of God. Verse two: The angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of the bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. The writer of Hebrews just says plainly, "Our God is a consuming fire." So we're in dread, and we hide, and we turn away. And then there is this mark from the burning bush. It burned but was not consumed. For that reason, it becomes attractive to Moses.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Unlimited Grace, the audio broadcast ministry of pastor and author Bryan Chapell. God instructs us in His word to be holy as He is holy. How can God expect us to be as holy as He is? Such a standard seems either to ignore our frailty or to impose certain failure. That is, until we understand how God views us.

In this challenging yet heartwarming book, Holiness by Grace, Dr. Bryan Chapell illustrates the principles of grace, the practices of faith, and the motives of love in living a life of holiness. Pastor Bryan will guide you through reassuring scripture passages to discover how works and obedience are not a means of establishing or maintaining salvation, but a grateful response to God's mercy.

Holiness by Grace draws straight from the heart of God, as Pastor Bryan's encouraging words will help you understand that your holiness is not so much a matter of what you achieve as it is the grace that God provides, a grace so rich as to make the pursuit of His holiness your soul's deepest delight.

You can request your copy of Holiness by Grace when you go online to unlimitedgrace.com or by calling 844-4-GRACE. That's 844-414-7223. Now, more from Bryan Chapell on today's Unlimited Grace.

Bryan Chapell: We understand whenever there's great display of fire. Think of the volcanoes that are in the news these days. You know that people are fleeing, and the rest of us are saying, "I'd like to see that." It draws us somehow. When God is making clear to Moses not only is His holiness this consuming fire, but there is a nature in the same moment that keeps the object from being consumed, we begin to recognize there may be some hope for those who ought to be consumed.

The image of the burning bush has been used various ways in the history of Israel and the history of the church. Even now, if you go to Israel, the symbol of the nation that appears at times in flags and images and symbols is of a burning bush because the nation of Israel thinks of itself as having been burned in persecution through the centuries and yet surviving, burned and not consumed.

The early church often used the image of the burning bush to indicate the church itself. We have been persecuted but not destroyed. Sometimes the burning bush is used to present who a believer is, those who deserve the wrath of God for their sin, and yet we are not consumed. God in His compassion preserves those who ought to be consumed.

But perhaps there's no better way to think about what that burning bush represents than to think in detail about who is being represented in the burning bush by who is speaking and how He is speaking. The words of verse two throw us a bit. The angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in a flame of fire. Because of our Western tradition, we think of an angel with wings and long, flowing white hair, and playing a harp somewhere.

But the word angel in Hebrew just means messenger. There is a messenger of God who is speaking out of that burning bush. What else do you learn about Him? Verse four: When the Lord saw that Moses had turned aside, God called to him out of the bush. There is a messenger of God who is identified as Jehovah and speaks for God. Are you thinking of anyone? He is a messenger of God, identified as God, and speaks for God.

It becomes even more clear when you get to verse six, unusual language. And He, that is God, said, "I am the God of your father," note the singular. "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob." Every other time in this chapter, when God is referring to Himself, He says, "I am the God of your fathers," plural, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But in this place where He's explaining who He is, He said, "I am the God of your father Abraham, speaking to you out of this bush."

Why is that important that the focus would be on Abraham when somebody is speaking out of a bush? If you think of Abraham and a bush, what do you think about? You think of that time that Abraham believed he was going to be honoring God by sacrificing his son Isaac on the mountain. When he lifted his knife to sacrifice his own son, what did God say? "I will provide the sacrifice." And in a thornbush was a ram of God's provision.

It would not be the last time that God would speak out of thorns. After all, the word for bush in this particular place is a word for brambles or thornbushes. Even the mountain that is sometimes identified as Sinai is identified as such because throughout the mountain, there are mineral deposits you would recognize as dendrites, but which appear to be burning bushes or bushes of thorns.

There's a picture that we'll try to get on the screen here. Throughout Mount Sinai even now, there are limestone rocks that appear to have thornbushes going through the mineral deposits within. Here is one. This is from Mount Sinai. Stephen is going to just pass this around to various people. This is a rock from Mount Sinai, and you'll see that even in the rock, there are images of a bush of thorns.

It's not the last time that God will speak from a thornbush. When is the next time? But when He will be on a cross and wear a crown of thorns and He will say beneath the crown of thorns, "It is finished," as God provided the ultimate sacrifice from those thorns for you and for me. As God is saying ultimately what we must recognize is when we want to hide our face and run away from Him, He is not just showing us His holiness, He is showing us His provision, His purity and His provision.

He is showing His compassion and His wonderful care for us so that I begin to hear my name in different ways. If only I hear His holiness, I hear the threat, "Bryan, Bryan," and I want to run. And then I recognize out of the bush He has spoken of the provision that He will make. Even where the throne of God was appearing in thunder and lightning on the Mount of Sinai, He was at the same moment saying, "I will make provision."

Bryan, Bryan. Karen, Karen. Tom, Tom. Come unto Me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. He is speaking to us when we have turned aside from our thoughts and our ways and our crises and our distractions and our priorities and seek Him. We begin to hear the voice of a God who is teaching us who He is. Yes, I'm holy. But I'm not just holy in My holy standards. I am holy in a good heart.

That goodness of the righteousness of God is made clear as God is not only saying in this passage, "I am holy," but "I am here." And here for you. Verse eight, as God is explaining who He is, He says in verse eight to Moses, "I have come down to deliver them," that is the people of God, "out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey."

We hear the words and forget their impact. Here is God saying, "I'm here. I could be holy and removed, separate, untouched by earth's taint. But I have come down and I'm here for you." Who's you? God is here for a terrible people. Why are they in slavery in Egypt? Yes, they came to get relief from famine, but they get relief because a brother was sold into slavery by betrayal.

Those brothers multiply now. Yes, they multiply now, but by the time they begin to worship God, they forget the practices of God and they forget who their God is. The great evidence of that is Moses himself. Moses, remember, spent early years in his mother's house among the Hebrews who he learned to love them, but he did not learn much about God.

Now he's being called to go back, and he's already married outside the covenant in this pagan land. As he begins to come back to lead God's people, not only does he not worship God, he's not dedicated his children to God. None of his children have been circumcised. So while he is going back to lead the children of Israel, God actually says, "I'm going to have to kill you." "What?" "You're trying to lead My people without Me."

We learn that Moses, the very one being chosen, is himself not just a murderer, he's one who has abandoned his God and he's being called back. God comes down to a terrible person. He comes down at a terrible time. The children of God are not prospering; they're slaves. They're in an awful condition. He comes to a terrible place.

This God of all glory, He should be coming to some palatial palace temple and He comes to a desert mountain on the crags of the wilderness. That's all He's got, and yet this is holy ground. What are we learning about holy ground? The ground is not made holy by the people or by the time or by the place. The ground is made holy by the presence of God.

Guest (Male): That's Pastor Bryan Chapell, and you've been listening to Unlimited Grace. If you've missed anything that you'd like to hear once again, just visit unlimitedgrace.com. Please be sure to join us next time as once again we endeavor to put Christ at the center of our efforts so that lives might be transformed by His unlimited grace. This ministry is brought to you by Unlimited Grace Media and continues to be made possible with your generous financial support.