Exodus 33:17-19,


I trust that we all have something of the heart and the attitude of Moses here. What are they? Well, certainly humility and also a hunger and thirst for God. Here in chapter 33, he makes what you might even call a Mount Everest kind of request, “Show me your glory.” Spurgeon has a sermon on this, he said,

But clearly the man has a big faith, that explains his big prayer. Big faith takes hold of a big God and the bigger our God the bigger our prayers. I think every Christian wants to pray bigger prayers and better prayers. The key will be our knowledge of God and how much we know him and how much we see of his glory. So how do we pray bigger prayers? How do we pray better prayers? Well, we have to grow in the knowledge of our God and let me give you four biblical answers that you could say, if we're going to grow in our faith, have a bigger faith so that we pray bigger prayers and have a bigger view of God.

God wonderfully answers the prayer of Moses here to show him his glory. Then God gives Moses, you could call it a spectacular display of his attributes. But you can be sure of this, this wasn't Moses’ first time that he saw God’s glory. He's desiring a greater sight of God’s glory. He'd seen God's glorious attributes before in different ways, but he wants to see more. He has a greater hunger and thirst. So this big prayer request by Moses is a result of having seen God's glory and now he wants to see more of God's glory, more of God's goodness and his greatness. We have to study his attributes, we have to know how big our God is.

The Bible says, “Great is the Lord and great are his works.” What are the three great works of God? Creation, providence and salvation. Genesis 1, the story of creation tells us he made all things and according to Romans 1, “By the things that God has made he has revealed himself.” We can know God by general revelation. We can see something of God's bigness by the things that he has made.

The second great work of God is providence. Again, God's attributes are on display, his wisdom, his power, his mercy, his grace. You've seen that in your life, in his providential dealings in your life. And we see that in the lives of God's saints and the more we see of God in terms of his providence, the more our faith grows and the more, Lord willing, our prayers will coincide.

We can see God's bigness. How? By his attributes, by his works, creation, providence and then salvation. That's where God shows his attributes more than anywhere else. Someone has put it this way, “At the cross, you have a dazzling display of God’s glory.” We see his love, his infinite love. We see his passion, we see his wisdom, his justice, his wrath, his righteousness at the cross. The cross says, “Behold your great God and your great Savior.” Big prayers require a big faith and a big God.

Think of the way Peter describes the promises of God in 2 Peter 1, “They are exceedingly great and precious.” Think of the promises that you and I as Christians can plead: the promise of forgiveness, the promise of heaven, the promise of the resurrection, the promise that he will never leave us nor forsake us, the promise of new heavens, a new earth. Those are exceedingly great and precious promises that come from a great God.

Go to the gospels, why are there so many miracles on display by Jesus? Someone has said Jesus in all likelihood performed more miracles in one day then all the prophets of the Old Testament. He demonstrates his power and authority over nature by walking on water. He displays his power and authority over storms by bringing that hurricane storm to a silence. His authority over disease by healing lepers, etc.; over death, the raising of Lazarus; authority over sin by forgiving the paralytic and that woman caught in adultery. And think about this one, he shows his authority over animals, the animal creation. How does he do that? Those two miracles of the fish, catching the fish. He shows his power and control over animals.

So here's the big lesson, a big faith and a big God explains big prayers. Moses prayed big prayers. Abraham, we heard about that Sunday night, David prayed big prayers, Elijah and Elisha prayed big prayers. We could take courage that we have a big God. We have a big God who can do far above what we could ever ask or think. So let's commit ourselves to knowing him more and praying bigger and better prayers.