GRACE FROM BEGINNING TO END

"Then Moses said to the LORD, "See, You say to me, 'Bring up this up people!' But You Yourself have not let me know whom You will send with me. Moreover, You have said, 'I have known you by name, and you have also found favor in My sight.' "Now therefore, I pray You, if I have found favor in Your sight, let me know Your ways that I may know You, so that I may find favor in Your sight. Consider too, that this nation is Your people." And He said, "My presence shall go with you, and I will give you rest." (Exodus 33:12-14 ESV)

It is a wonderful thing when God opens our eyes up to His glorious truths. The past few years have been a season in my life where each day my eyes are more opened to the wonders of God's free and sovereign grace as I read the Bible. Exodus 33:12-14 is one of those passages that demonstrate how God gives us conditions for His blessings to us and then graces us with the blessings of His grace in order to fulfill His conditions. In short, from beginning to end, the Christian life is a life of amazing grace!

Look at this. First, Moses finds favor in the eyes of the Lord (verse 12). He finds favor with God with absolutely no condition or reason for finding favor. As a matter of fact in verse 19 God says, " I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion." So Moses finds himself as a recipient of God's free and unconditional grace. God has known Him by name and Moses has found favor in the eyes of God for no other reason than God's grace!

So because of that amazing grace, notice that Moses prays in verse 13, "If I have found favor in Your sight, let me know Your ways that I may know You..." Moses desires to know God's ways in order to know Him better personally and intimately. There is a kind of seeing of God's working that Moses desires that will cause Moses to have a spiritual apprehension of God in His beauty, worth, and glory.

But then Moses adds, "let me know Your ways that I may know You, so that I may find favor in Your sight." THIS IS INCREDIBLE! Moses wants to know God so that he can find favor in His sight. So the blessing of knowing God is the condition for which more blessing will come and Moses is asking for that. So what we learn here is first, that the grace of knowing God is the result of God's gracious grace to Moses. Then second, that the grace of God is the cause of God's being more gracious to Moses. "If I have found favor in Your sight, let me know Your ways that I may know You, so that I may find favor in Your sight." In short, grace is the CAUSE of knowing God and grace is the RESULT of knowing God.

What I see here is that grace gives me the conditions of God's blessings, grace causes me to will what God wills, grace fills me with God's desires, grace causes me to pray what God wills, grace causes me to fulfill God's conditions, and grace causes God to act with more grace. To put it another way, grace is the cause of my knowing God and grace is the effect of my knowing God. The Christian life is all about God's grace from beginning to end!

I see this woven into every one of Paul's epistles. At the beginning of each Paul pronounces for those who are about to read his letters. For example: "Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ" (Romans 1:7). At the front end God is offering grace to see, perceive, understand. Then at the end of Paul's epistles he promises future grace to be with them in order to live out what God has graced them to hear. "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you " (Romans 16:20).

Spurgeon said, "We give God much glory when we receive from him much grace." "Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! "For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?" "Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?" For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen" (Romans 11:33-36)

Standing in awe, wonder, and love for my beautiful God of grace,
Pastor Bill