“Moses immediately knelt low on the ground and worshiped. Then he said, ‘My Lord, if I have indeed found favor with you, my Lord, please go with us (even though this is a stiff-necked people), forgive our iniquity and our sin, and accept us as your own possession.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

There are some people around whom you are expected to behave a certain way. Society expects you to toe that line. The person in question expects it. You even expect it of yourself. And what’s more, you weren’t taught that. You just know it. There’s a kind of sixth sense when you are around the person that behaving in ways other than the right way simply won’t do. Now, exactly what the right way to behave around a given person is going to vary depending on the person and the circumstances. All the same, if you get it wrong, everyone is going to know it. When Moses encountered the presence and glory of God, He responded with worship and repentance. Let’s talk about why this was the right reaction, and how we can mimic it in our own lives.

Moses encountered the glory of God in a more personal and direct way than anyone before him and only a few after him have similarly experienced. Isaiah saw it in a vision. Ezekiel saw some wild stuff during his ministry. Peter, James, and John witnessed the transfiguration of Jesus which had to have been pretty wild. John, of course, later saw a vision of Jesus in His full glory which left him figuring he was toast. That’s about it at least as far as what we find in the Scriptures.

In every one of these instances, including the ones who encountered God’s glory somewhat unexpectedly and who were sure they weren’t going to survive it, the response was always the same. It was perfectly in line with Moses’s response here. They always responded with worship. Encountering God’s presence compels us to worship, to ascribe Him worth that goes far beyond any created thing. When Moses encountered the glory of the Lord, His response was to fall to the ground and worship.

Well, worship is composed primarily of three different things. When we worship we are acknowledging, celebrating, and participating in God’s character in the world around us. We see elements of all three of those here. He celebrated God’s character by bowing down in humble reverence and submission before Him. He acknowledged it by seeking favor from Him with a spirit of repentance, something God is always ready and willing to grant. Finally, he participates in God’s character by pursuing righteousness in both his life and the lives of his people. He does this by confessing their sin and seeking God’s forgiveness.

Moses’s reaction here offers us a model to follow with our lives. Still today, when we encounter God’s presence in the world around us, worship is always the right response. Acknowledging, celebrating, and participating in God’s character will always set us on the right footing with Him. We seek His favor. We acknowledge who we are before Him (sinners). We seek His forgiveness for our sins. And, we strive to receive Jesus’s offer to become a part of His family. We can strive and reach for this path most surely because He is worthy of it. It is the right response to being in His presence.

There is a difference between what Moses sought from God and what we can expect from Him in Christ when we respond with worship. The way I worded that points to what this difference is. It’s Jesus. Moses sought these things from God with a hopeful uncertainty. He was appealing to God here to act toward Israel in response to the character He had just revealed, but before God revealed His character and glory, Moses didn’t fully understand that doing this kind of thing was in God’s nature. He was still learning just who exactly this God was.

In Christ we know for sure. We can go to Him with humble confidence. He has promised us forgiveness in Christ. The apostle John spells out this guarantee for us particularly well. “If we say, ‘We have no sin,’ we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” That forgiveness like what Moses sought here is there for the taking if we are willing to receive it. We only have to go to Him in humble repentance like Moses demonstrates here. But if we are willing to do that, there’s no doubt we’ll receive it. John doesn’t include any caveats or exceptions there. He understood very well who God is and is passing that along to us as clearly as he can.

There are many gods who aren’t. They don’t exist. They are little more than glorified reflections of us with all of our faults and failings magnified as well. The God who is, however, is indeed. He is just as He described Himself to Moses. When we encounter Him, humbly seeking for Him to be Himself, rejoicing in who He is, and seeking to mimic that character in our own lives is really the only proper way to respond. Anything else suggests we really didn’t understand who we encountered.