Meet God Face to Face, Part 2

God is inviting you and He's inviting me to a special place. Dr. Tony Evans says in that place we can develop an up-close and personal relationship with the Lord. You can be inspired in church, taught in church, but church is not a face-to-face meeting. This is the alternative with Dr. Tony Evans, author, speaker, senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas, and president of the Urban Alternative.

We secretly wonder if there's really anybody on the other end listening. Let's turn to Exodus 33-7 as Dr. Evans explains how we can be sure. He's talking about an intense experience with Him that plummets the depth of being. So he's not talking simply about collecting information or throwing out theological or spiritual serendipities that sound good and make you seem like you know Him. Moses has a tent. This tent was the tent of meeting. This was a special tent that had a special purpose.

The purpose is given in verse 7. If you wanted to inquire of the Lord, if you wanted to consult with God, if you needed to talk to God and have God talk to you, He says anyone who sought the Lord would go to the tent of meeting. And He says the tent of meeting was outside the camp.

Don't miss that. In other words, the tent of meeting was not inside the camp. Now the camp referred to the nation would camp. Whenever it stopped on its trek through the wilderness, they would create a campsite, if you will, a huge campsite, but a campsite. But the tent of meeting was not in the middle of the campsite. The tent of meeting would be outside of the campsite.

That is, watch this, it was separated from the masses. The campsite was where everybody was. The tent of meeting was a special location that was distance or separated from where the mass of other people were.

Why? Because this was a special place where when people really wanted to meet God, they would go there. This meant that you had to leave the ordinary where you normally hung out, your own tent. And you had to make your way to a special place for a special purpose because you needed to meet with a special person. Why was the tent outside the camp? Because God was no longer dealing with His people inside the camp.

Remember, you are an obstinate people. I will not go with you. But even though I'm not going to be collectively with you, I will make myself personally available to the person who really wants me. Because the person who really wants me will go outside the camp, away from the masses, and it's available to anybody who would seek to inquire of the Lord.

If you really want me, come get me. Because I'm not hanging out inside the camp because the camp is full of folk who call my name but don't want me. Whenever Moses, verse 8, went into the camp, all the people would arise and stand at the entrance of his tent and gaze after Moses until he entered the tent.

Wait a minute. Verse 7 says everyone who sought the Lord would go out to the tent of meeting, which was outside the camp. Verse 8 says when Moses went to the tent, everybody would come out and stand at their tent.

Come on, you didn't miss that, did you? God was available to anybody who went to the tent of meeting. But what they wanted to do was piggyback on Moses. They wanted to come to church to hear what the preacher had to say. They wanted to hear what Moses had to say. What it doesn't say is they left their tent to go outside the camp to the tent of meeting.

They wanted to find out what God told Moses. But verse 7 says anybody who wanted to hear from God for themselves, anybody who wanted to seek the Lord, that tent was available for their own personal use. God was still accessible, but he was not accessible to the campsite tents because the people had decided that they would collectively go another way. God was not going to go with that collective decision, but he would be available for individuals within the camp who were willing to follow him. Whenever Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent, and the Lord would speak to Moses. Moses would get away from the crowd, get away from the everydayness of life, he would get away from the regular programming, because in what he was facing, the challenge he was dealing with, the people he was around, he needed a word from God. His situation, human advice couldn't fix.

His problem, taking polls, a popular opinion wouldn't address. He needed a word from God, so he went to this special place, this special tent, for this special purpose, to meet with this special person, because he needed a special and specific word from God. When he got alone to be with God, it says the cloud, the glory cloud, which represented the presence of God, would descend upon the tent, and God would speak to him there.

What was the purpose of the tent? The purpose of the tent was for Moses to talk to God—watch this—and for God to talk to Moses. It says the Lord would speak to him there. Okay, you say, but that's fine, that's good, but that's in the Old Testament. What about us today as New Testament saints? Turn your Bible to Hebrews, chapter 13. The book of Hebrews, chapter 13, verse 12 of Hebrews 13 says, Therefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people through his own blood, suffered outside the gate. So let us go out to him outside the camp, bearing his reproach.

For here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come. Now, this is the New Testament church now, but he piggybacks on the phrase from Exodus, chapter 33, Moses set up the tent outside the camp to use the same concept for New Testament Christians. It says Jesus was crucified, verse 12 says, outside the gate.

What does that mean? Outside of the city of Jerusalem. Jesus was crucified outside of the city of Jerusalem. Why was Jesus crucified outside the gate of the city of Jerusalem?

Why? Because Jesus rejected empty religion. Remember, it was the Jews who said, crucify him, crucify him, because he rejected empty religion. So they took him outside the city, outside the city walls, which had a gate outside the gate, and they crucified him. They crucified him on the outside, on the outside of everyday life, on the outside of regular religion, on the outside of the typical schedule.

That's where our Savior died. He died on the outside. He was an outsider. Your salvation comes from an outsider. Your salvation comes from somebody who wasn't accepted by the masses, received by the masses, who wasn't embraced by the masses. He was kicked to the curb. Your Savior. Do you know your Savior was an outsider? He was rejected and he was kicked. He was an outsider.

But guess what he says? He says this outsider is sanctifying his people outside. Verse 13, outside the camp. In other words, as a New Testament Christian, if you want to heal from God, you've got to be an outsider. You just can't be part of the crowd. You can't be satisfied by the fact that you showed up at church with everybody else.

That makes you an insider, because you're with everybody else. Nothing wrong with being everybody else, but where God is doing his special work, where God is giving his special information, where God is talking to folks face to face like a friend is outside the camp. That's where face-to-face meeting comes. You can be inspired in church, encouraged in church, taught in church, but church is not a face-to-face meeting. That's outside the camp. That's away from the crowd. That's away from all the religious activity and religious programming.

That's outside the camp. So what keeps us away from our own personal tent of meeting? Dr. Evans will have the answer when he continues our message in just a moment. To truly know God means an authentic connection, not just knowing about Him. It's a relationship completely fused by love, and it's the kind of relationship with God Dr. Tony Evans explores in his latest book, DVD and Bible study, Knowing God. Discover a connection with God you've never known before. Live that kind of relationship with God and experience life in all of its true fullness. Discover more at TonyEvans.org.

TonyEvans.org. Part of the church experience is meeting with friends, even if these days it's online or from a distance. But Dr. Evans says the main point of worship is meeting with God.

If you don't feel like you have that kind of intimate relationship with the Lord, do some deeper study by getting a copy of his current series, Knowing God. It'll teach you how to move from a casual acquaintance to an intimate friend, feeling so close to the Lord that he changes you from the inside out. We'd like to send you a copy of all eight full-length lessons in this collection as our thank-you gift when you call or go online and help us out with a contribution. In fact, along with the teaching series, we'll also send you Tony's just-released book, The Power of Knowing God, along with the companion study guide and resource DVD to help you get the most out of it. That was our way of showing our appreciation for your faithfulness. Get all the details and make your request online at TonyEvans.org or call us at 1-800-800-3222 before this special offer runs out.

I'll repeat that information for you later in the program. But right now, here's Dr. Evans with more of today's message. James 4 says friendship with the world will automatically make you an enemy of God. Friendship with the world, that is, being committed to this system. You're supposed to live in the world. You're supposed to go to work and work with non-Christians.

That's living in the world. What God wants is you to be in the world like a boat is in the water, but he doesn't want the water taking over the boat. See, some of us are too tired to the world to go outside the camp. And you know why we don't want to go outside the camp? He says it, so let us go outside the camp bearing his reproach.

We don't want the rejection that comes from being too committed. And God is a gentleman. He will give us the world.

You just won't get the cloud. And the thing about this cloud is God spoke back to Moses as a man speaks to a friend. You got a two-way communication going on. Our world today is in a crisis of epic proportions. Everywhere you look every day, things are going downhill. And we don't even have to talk about the world. We can just talk about your world or my world. You know, mostly everybody in here got something going on. Everybody in here, or mostly everybody in here, has things in life that are weighing heavily, and just being alive won't fix it. God is inviting you, and He is inviting me to a special place, time away from the distractions of life to meet with Him, to get an answer from Him for what we ought to do about us, about my situation. See, if I'm hurting, I don't need some general conversation.

I need divine guidance for me in this situation. Numbers of us, in the span of our life, have been on blind dates. Blind dates usually mean you've got some information, but you've yet to get face to face. Somebody has told you some good things. You've got to meet Him. You've got to meet Her. I mean, let me tell you about Her. She's nice. She's intelligent.

She's smart. He's handsome. He's this.

He's that. You've got to meet Him. And what that information does is whet your appetite. It gives you enough to want more. Now, it may be a big lie, but when it's presented, when the information is stimulating, then you want to move from a blind date to a face to face experience.

God has given us more than enough information to whet our appetite, to want to know Him, see Him, experience Him. But that happens outside the camp. It doesn't happen in the midst of all the chaos and confusion.

It doesn't happen when you are tied to this world order. It happens in this place, and there is a negative side to it happening, and that is His reproach. Because when you join Him outside the camp, there will be other folks who will reject you like they rejected Him and put Him outside the camp. See, you can't be everybody's friend and Jesus's friend. See, you can't have that. You can't be popular with everybody and popular with Jesus. You can't have that because there is reproach. But what you will have is a face to face meeting with the living God.

So what should you do? We've asked you to make this year a year of solemn assembly by once a week identifying your tent. This is the place you go without distraction to be with God for an extended uninterrupted time. This is not a quick five-minute devotions before you run out the house. This is not, you know, saying two sentences in your bedtime prayer.

That's not what I'm talking about. This is where you intentionally go outside the camp, remove yourself from the everydayness of life, and say, God, we need to meet. This weekly extended time where you give up something, you give up a meal, you give up a favorite television program, whatever it is, and you sacrifice that thing and say, God, life is too deep right now. I'm joining you outside of the everydayness of life.

And now there may be some people here who say, but I'm not hungry for God like that. I know I should want to do it. I know I do need to do it. But I've just been away so long that I don't have the desire for it. How do I get the desire to even want to go outside the camp? Look at the last line of verse 11 of Exodus chapter 33.

When Moses returned to the camp, his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, would not depart from the tent. Here's what you do. If you've lost your appetite for God, you're a Christian, you've accepted Jesus, but through life circumstances, through your own disobedience, whatever, you've lost your hunger for God. This verse gives two recommendations for you. Number one, go to a place that cooks good food. You ever not been hungry, but then you hit the right spot and they were cooking up a storm, and even though you weren't hungry, you got hungry because the smell was so good that it enticed you to eat when you didn't think you wanted anything.

And then somebody just said, try it. And you took one bite and ate the whole thing because it made you hungry. Hang out in hungry places with other hungry people. See, it says Joshua went to the tent with Moses. So Moses took him to the tent. So he hung out with a hungry man in a hungry place. So when the hungry man left the hungry place, he didn't want to stop eating.

He hung around there. If you can't get there by yourself, find somebody you respect and say, do you know where some good food is? Let me do this with you for a while. And let's eat together until I learn to eat by myself. When a person's in the hospital and they can't eat, but the doctors know if they don't eat, they'll die, you know what they do? They put tubes in them and force feed them.

They put tubes in them and make them eat until they get well enough to eat themselves. If you're an ICU spiritually and you can't eat, and sometimes you can. Sometimes life has weighed you down so heavy you can't pick up a fork.

You know, life can cause you to lose your appetite. And you don't want to eat. You don't want to talk to God. You don't want to hear the name of God. You may be mad at God and all that. Give permission to be force fed until your health returns and you can pick up a fork on your own.

But don't settle for no food. Don't settle for just religion or church service. Many of us have been in church for years and nothing has changed.

We're still inside the camp. My challenge to all of us is to make the priority of meeting Him in this special place to hear His special voice in the midst of our special circumstances. Dr. Tony Evans, talking about what it takes to develop a face-to-face relationship with the Lord. You can find out more when you visit tonyevans.org and follow the link that says Jesus. You'll find everything you need, including a special invitation from Dr. Evans and some free resources to get a new life with Christ started off right.

Stay with us. The reviews for Dr. Evans' study Bible and commentary have continued to pour in. Glenn wrote, If you hunger to do a deep dive into the Word, this is without doubt the best tool available.

My sincere appreciation to everyone that played a role in bringing this volume to fruition. Get a copy of Dr. Tony Evans' study Bible and commentary today. You can request your copy at tonyevans.org. And while you're there, don't forget to take advantage of the special limited-time offer we're making available today, Tony's brand-new book, The Power of Knowing God, along with the companion study guide and resource DVD, plus all eight messages from his current Knowing God series on CD. All these are our gift to you as our way of saying thanks when you make a generous contribution to help keep Tony's important teaching available on this station and on other outlets around the world. Just contact us right away at 1-800-800-3222 to make the arrangements before time runs out.

Resource team members are standing by to assist you. Again, that's 1-800-800-3222. Or request the Knowing God package online at tonyevans.org.

Again, that's tonyevans.org. Whatever happens when you come face to face with the Father, you can be sure of one thing. It will never be the same. Dr. Evans will talk about that transformation tomorrow. I hope you'll be with us. The Alternative with Dr. Tony Evans is brought to you by the Urban Alternative and is made possible by the generous contributions of listeners like you.