Sermon Tone Analysis

! Introduction

We like to discover what is hidden.

One of the joys of Christmas is unwrapping gifts.

Some people slowly and carefully unwrap each gift so as to save the paper and prolong the pleasure of discovery while others are so curious that they rip open the gifts as quickly as possible.

No matter how we do it, we all want to know what is inside.

One of the games that children enjoy playing is hide and seek.

There is always great laughter when the person hiding is found.

Some of you enjoy discovering the solution to a Sudoku or a Crossword puzzle and others enjoy uncovering what is hidden by reading or watching a “whodunit.”

We find it much more difficult to live with mystery.

I play a little game with my grandson.

I pull my thumb off and he is mystified.

He is 4 years old and that is just the right age to know it shouldn’t happen, but not old enough to figure out how it is done.

That is just like most of us who are driven nuts by sleight of hand artists who make things disappear and change places in an instant and we just can’t figure out how they do it.

Isn’t it interesting that God has asked us to live with mystery?

We want to know everything about God, but He has veiled Himself in mystery and we can’t just walk away and ignore Him because He desires to live in a covenant relationship with us.

So what God is asking us to do is live in a close relationship with mystery.

How do you live in a covenant relationship with mystery?

This morning we will look at two passages of Scripture which reflect on this.

We have already read Psalm 50:1-15 and now I would like to read I Kings 8:6-13.

!

I.                   The Mystery of God

!! A.                 The Mystery of God’s Presence – I Kings 8:6-13

The context of I Kings 8:6-13 is the occasion of the dedication of the temple which Solomon built.

All the people gathered together in order to prepare for worship in the temple.

In previous times, the presence of God had been with Israel in the tent of meeting particularly in the Holy of Holies where the Ark of the Covenant was kept.

Now that the new temple was completed it was time to move the Ark into this new temple.

The priests moved the ark into the Holy of Holies with the poles and left the poles in place.

The text mentions that the poles were so long that you could see them from the Holy Place but not from outside the Holy Place.

As the priests came out of the Holy of Holies after placing the ark, a cloud filled the temple.

It is described as a thick cloud which plunged the area into darkness.

I imagine it was like driving through a thick fog on a cloudy day.

Things were hidden and it was impossible for the priests to do their work of offering sacrifices.

The cloud is declared to represent “the glory of the Lord filling His temple.”

When this fascinating event happened, Solomon commented in verse 12 that, “The Lord has said that he would dwell in a dark cloud.”

What does he mean by that?

This was not the first time that a cloud had been associated with the presence of God.

When Israel left Egypt, we read in Exodus 13:21 that God accompanied them in a pillar of cloud during the day.

When God entered into covenant with his people at Mount Sinai, we read in Exodus 19:9, "The Lord said to Moses, “I am going to come to you in a dense cloud, so that the people will hear me speaking with you...” When the wandering people of Israel finished putting together the tent of meeting we read in Exodus 40:34, "Then the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle."

Even in the New Testament there are references to God making His presence known in a cloud.

At the transfiguration, we read in Matthew 17:5, "While he was still speaking, a bright cloud enveloped them, and a voice from the cloud said, ‘this is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.

Listen to him!’"

Later when Jesus ascended into heaven, we read in Acts 1:9, "After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight."

When Jesus returns we once again have mention of God’s presence in a cloud as we read in Luke 21:27, "At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory."

What all of these incidents tell us is that the presence of God is hidden from us.

There is a mystery to who God is.

Although much has been revealed to us about God, including all that has been revealed to us in Jesus, there is still a lot of mystery about who He is.

We just don’t know everything about God.

We understand that this is deliberate.

If we knew everything about God, He would be somehow less than He is.

Because God is so absolutely holy, it is impossible for us to be able to see God.

He is so glorious and so amazing and so pure that in our sinful humanness we are unable to know all there is to know about God.

That is why God has always revealed Himself to human beings in a cloud.

Much of who God is remains hidden from us and so we must live with mystery.

!! B.                 The Glory of God’s Presence – Psalm 50:1-15

What we do know is that although the cloud veiled God, yet those who were present got a sense of the glory of God.

We read in verse 11 that as the temple was filled with the cloud, “the glory of the Lord filled his temple.”

One question which came to my mind was how did God’s glory appear when His presence was so hidden?

How did they recognize the glory of God?

What did they see?

The Bible tells us much about the glory of God and one of the other passages which we read today was Psalm 50:1-15.

In this passage, there are a few glimpses of the glory of God.

The glory of God is seen in the names of God.

This Psalm begins with a very powerful first verse in which three names of God are given.

The fact that there are three names of God is quite awesome because when something is repeated three times in the Bible, it is something that is important, something that is emphasized.

All three names for God are piled up one after another.

El is the first name for God.

NIV translates it “the Mighty One” which is accurate, but it would also be accurate to say God.

Elohim is the word that is most often used for God and refers to God as the one who is the powerful creator.

Jehovah is the third name of God and reminds us that God is the redeemer who is in a covenant relationship with His people.

All three names declare the powerful, creator, redeemer, covenant making, one and only God.

The glory of God is revealed in these names.

The extent of the glory of God is seen in the next phrase which declares the authority of God “from the rising of the sun to the place where it sets.”

God is God over everything.

There is no place on earth, or in heaven for that matter, where God is not the sovereign ruler.

Verse three allows us to see images which display the power of God.

The words of Psalm 50:3, "…a fire devours before him, and around him a tempest rages" give us images of what may be behind the cloud.

These pictures evoke in us a sense of wonder as we perceive the power and the uncontrollable nature of our God.

We do not control His presence, we cannot domesticate God.

He is fire, He is a tempest that rages and we have no control over what He chooses to do.

In His awesome and powerful presence we see the glory of God.

In verses 8-13 we read that God does not need our sacrifices.

At the time, of course, part of the worship of God was through animal sacrifices.

In showing that God does not need those sacrifices there is an interesting description of how God owns all creatures on earth.

The fact that God knows everything and that every animal is his reveals the sovereignty and power of God.

When our children were young and we travelled through parts of Saskatchewan and Alberta we often were moved to sing, “He owns the cattle on a thousand hills…” I had never realized that this is actually from scripture because Psalm 50:10 says that “the cattle on a thousand hills” belong to God.

So once again we see the glory of God in His sovereign power and control over all that He has created.

The Bible is filled with images of God’s glory.

There is the glory of God the creator, the glory of the presence of God and the glory of God’s work as redeemer.

Some of that glory is visible to us.

We see the glory of His creation and we see the glory of the work God has done in saving us.

But much of the glory of God is still hidden from us.

We do not fully understand what is behind the cloud.

For example, we do not understand how God can be three persons in one God.

Because God is so wonderful, so amazing and so much beyond us, it should not surprise us that we do not understand everything about God.

It is up to us to get to know as much as we can about God, but we must always live with the humility to recognize that we won’t ever know everything about God.

Can we live with that mystery?

Will we always need to live with that mystery?

The day will come when the mystery will be revealed.

The promise of Revelation 21:23 is, "The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp."

At that point, there is no mention of a cloud, but rather of light because then, the glory of God will be much more clearly seen.

For now, however, we live with mystery.