In this brief devotional video, Rick Lee James, with his son Alexander audible in the background, prepares listeners for the upcoming Sunday worship at First Church of the Nazarere in Springfield, Ohio. He highlights the new congregational song “Open Up the Heavens,” which draws its lyrical inspiration from Exodus 33. He walks through the passage, emphasizing Moses’ prayer to see God’s glory (or beauty) and God’s promise to accompany His people. James connects this biblical theme to the church’s practice of sending young people and teachers out into the world, urging the congregation to expect and experience God’s presence, beauty, and glory both in worship and in daily life. He concludes with a warm invitation to attend the service at 901 East Home Road, encouraging attendees to come with expectant hearts to witness the Lord’s beauty.
Chapters
Hey, this is Rick Lee James here, and you may hear in the background my son Alexander. He's over there playing on the floor. I don't know if you can see him, but anyway, he may be a part of this video today. Just some quick thoughts getting our hearts ready for Sunday morning. I am going to be leading at First Church of the Nazarene again this week. One of the songs we are singing is called "Open Up the Heavens," and I am sure a lot of you are familiar with that one. It is a new song, and we are going to be talking about sending our young people off to school, our teachers off to school, different places that we go to. Exodus 33 is where this song particularly comes from, and it is a very famous passage of scripture. Then the Lord said to Moses in verse 1, "Leave this place, you and your people you brought up out of Egypt. Go up to the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, 'I will give it to your descendants.' I will send an angel before you to drive out—" and then it names the different peoples that are there and tells them to go up into the land flowing with milk and honey. You know, and so after God has told Moses this, Moses has some prayer time with the Lord, and he wants to make sure that God is really going with them. He says to God in verse 12, he says, "You have been telling me, 'Lead these people,' but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. You have said, 'I know you by name; you have found favor with me.' If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so that I may know you and continue to find favor with you." Remember that this nation is your people. Verse 14, the Lord replied, my presence will go with you, and I will give you rest. And then really getting down into where this song comes from, verse 15, Moses said to them, if your presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all other people on the face of the earth? And the Lord said to Moses, I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name. And Moses said, verse 18, now show me your glory. Now this phrase of, you know, show me your glory, it's very important. We're going to be singing that, open up the heavens. We're going to start the song singing that way. Show us, show us your glory. A way of Thinking about glory, another way that maybe would get closer to the word glory in our understanding in English is beauty. Moses is literally asking to see the beauty of the Lord, to see— hey, there's Alex— to see the beauty of the Lord. And what a beautiful way for us to pray as we worship together, as we send out into our world, as we leave our church really every week, to sing this song which the words are as ancient as can be, although the song is new, that says Show us your glory, show us your beauty. And let our prayer be that he has drawn us here and he's sending us out, but he is going with us at the same time. So just some thoughts to keep in mind as we come together to worship Sunday morning at First Church of the Nazarene, 901 East Home Road in Springfield, Ohio. Hope to see you there, and I hope you come expecting to see the beauty of the Lord and And I pray that we can leave that place together with the beauty, the glory of the Lord going before us, leading us in all that we do, and leading us as we worship together this Sunday. See you there, hopefully.
