Bible Passage: Exodus 33:14-45
Pastor: Joel Jenswold
Sermon Date: December 31, 2025

Bulletin – New Years Eve

In the name of, and to the eternal glory of, Jesus,

You’ve got to have the right person with you. That makes all the difference.  It is a lesson learned early on in life.  Ask the child, “Who do you want to go with you?”  Work your way through the list.  “You want me to take you?”  A little head shakes, “No.”  “Do you want Uncle Squirt?  He’s fun!”  Still shaking “no.”  “You want Aunt Deb?”  No.  “Do you want mommy to go with you?”  Now we’re getting somewhere!  Now you have mentioned the one who is always there!  Now you have mentioned the one who can always be trusted!  Now the head goes up and down!  “Yes!  I will go IF mom goes!”

We are standing on the verge of a brand new year.  2026 looms before us.  365 days of the completely unknown.  Ready to step out of 2025 into 2026?  Who do you want to go with you?  You want me to go with you?  You want Uncle Squirt?  You want Aunt Deb?  You want mommy and daddy to go with you?  While any, or all, of these may afford some measure of reassurance as you begin a new year, we have something better than all of that.  We have the promise that our Lord will be with us in this new year.  And that, my friends, is everything.  And so tonight, as we ready ourselves to enter a new year, we say with Moses, Not without You, Lord!

Just what is going on around this interesting little dialogue in our text?  The place is Mt. Sinai.  The time is right after the shameful incident of the “Golden Calf.”  Remember that?  Moses was up on Mt. Sinai with the LORD.  The Israelites grew impatient waiting for him to come down.  They told Moses’ brother, Aaron, to make them a god they could worship.  So Aaron had made them an idol out of gold that looked like a calf.  The Israelites then proceeded to hold a disgusting festival of worship for their new god.  The Lord was about to be done with them all.  But Moses went to bat for the people.  He pleaded for their lives.  The Lord relented.

Now it was time for the people to move on from Mt. Sinai.  They had a long journey in front of them.  It was a journey the length of which they had no idea.  That would take them through snake-infested desert.  They would venture out, millions of people, without a supply chain back to Egypt.  It was a journey that would take them near, and even THROUGH, enemy territory.  It was a journey, quite frankly, that would scare the bejabbers out of most of us!

So, before they go, the LORD, the LORD whom they had just terribly offended by their unfaithfulness with the golden calf, says to them, My Presence will go with you. (v. 14)  That’s an interesting turn of phrase, not so?  “My Presence” will go with you.  Why not say, “I will go with you”?  That’s the way we’d say it.  Literally, the LORD says, “My face will go with you.”

Hebrew is a very concrete language and the Jewish people thought in very concrete terms.  “Face” is a very concrete thing.  A person’s face is the person!  That’s why we put pictures of people’s faces on our walls.  I don’t have pictures of my family members’ arms and feet on the wall in my office.  I have pictures of their faces!  That’s why social media has FaceBook, not ArmBook, or EarBook.  It’s all about the face!  Faces are intimate.   Faces are personal.  The LORD promises his spiritually immature people, “My face will go with you.”

There is something else very personal tucked in the LORD’s words.  Something we cannot tell in English.  When the LORD says, “My face will go with you,” the “you” is in the singular.  Now, certainly the LORD would go with the entire nation.  But he speaks these words very personally to Moses, an anxious, jittery leader unsure about all of this.  “Moses, my face will go with YOU!”

Overlay those words over this evening.  My Presence will go with you.  What most causes you anxiety about the coming new year?  Your job situation?  Your finances?  The thought of a hospital bed or surgery?  Will the chemo work?  What will happen with my child?  What will happen with this relationship?  Will 2026 be the year that is chiseled into a gravestone with my name on it?  Who do you want to go with you into all of this?  With Moses, I cry out, If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here! (v. 15)  Not without you, Lord!

And he answers, My face will go with you.  You, whoever you may be.  You, whatever your specific anxiety is.  You, whatever makes you terrified of the future.  If you go to hospital, or a nursing home, or a chemotherapy clinic, or an unemployment office, or a funeral home.  If you change your FaceBook status this year from “in a relationship” to “single.”  The Lord says, “My face will be with you.”

How do we know the Lord is in earnest about this?  How do I know when the LORD uses the singular “you” he means ME?  You know it because of Jesus!  Remember Jesus?  He is “Emmanuel.”  Emmanuel means “God with us.”  God came to be with us in the person of Christ.  And in the person of Christ, he became “God instead of us” on the cross.  There he endured the most frightful thing of all, the just wrath and punishment of God for your sin.  And because he was willing to go there “instead” of you, you can be sure he will now go “with” you wherever you go!  The Savior who died for you, rose again to say to you, Behold, I am with you always, to the very end of the age. (Matthew 28:20)

The LORD adds one more comforting promise in our text we do not want to miss.  I will give you rest. (v. 15)  He promises rest, not an easy journey.  And he would be their rest.  Rest only comes after exertion.  The LORD has not promised us an easy journey.  Not all of 2026 will be easy. The LORD may stretch and work some spiritual muscles you have not used in a while.  It may be painful and tiring.  But there is a place of rest.  The LORD.  Find settled rest for your soul in him as he gives that rest in his Word and in this Holy Supper.  That rest will be there every day of 2026!  Ready for 2026?  Not without you, Lord!  And his answer remains:  My Presence will go with you and I will give you rest. (v. 14) 

Amen.