Gods Glory Revealed Part2

Let's stand and pray. Heavenly Father, we come before you this morning. Lord, I pray that you would speak to us.

Lord, we come before you acknowledging that we are created by you. Lord, we realize that we have no authority in questioning you, your existence, your power, your will. Lord, we are in a place where we strive to bring our own will, our feelings, our struggles, our thoughts, under the subjection of your will.

Lord, thank you for your word this morning. I pray that you would bless it to us. And Lord, as we hear, I pray that each one of us could in some way feed on it and be helped or be blessed, be encouraged.

And Lord, help us to strive and to be grateful as we are in this race where you are our king and you want to give us life. And you've given us a time here in this world where we can live for you, but as you take us from here, you want to give us eternal life. Help us, Lord, to have the right perspective.

Thank you, Lord, for your mercy, your grace as you have over many, many years been merciful and patient, working in the hearts of mankind, drawing them, teaching them, you desiring to love them and to give them life. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord, that you've done that for us where you've worked in our hearts.

You've drawn us, Lord, you've taken us through many circumstances to teach us. Again, Lord, we question not your love. Your love for us is perfect.

Lord, teach us to love you in a more perfect way. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Well, I greet you in Jesus' name and I trust that you're rejoicing this morning. I guess sometimes specific thoughts, they bring out a bit of a pattern of thoughts and they help us, they cause us to think and this morning I feel that as I've been pondering different thoughts about what I want to share here as an extension from last Sunday, I still find myself rejoicing, though today, this morning it might be more educational or looking at a fair bit of it might be a repeat from last Sunday, but we want to look at different verses and to just see what Scripture tells us about the glory of God. Last Sunday I asked the question, what do you want to get out of living for God? And we had some feedback there.

Yeah, what do you want to get out of living for God? I'm trying to recall Myron's answer. What was that answer again? To be separated from sin? To be freed from sin. Okay.

And then we had other answers as well. Yeah, let's ask ourselves that again here this morning, just to ponder that a bit. What would you like to get from serving God? Or if we are struggling to serve God then our question should be, what do you want more than serving God? What desire of yours is stronger than that of what God will give to you as you serve Him? We as children of God, we often, very often, make this mistake, just as they did in the Old Testament.

We often make this mistake where we say that we want to serve God and we, you know, there's many times in my younger years where you go to hear preaching, there's evening services, and you're convicted, maybe you're convicted of backsliding, you're convicted of the sins that you've allowed yourself to participate in, and then you come to a place and you say, Lord, I want to recommit my life to wholeheartedly serving You. And I think that is also a good time when we find ourselves there, that's also a good time to ask ourselves what is it that you want? What is it that you want from serving God? If our strongest desire is that we want to, one, that we believe that God is creator but also judge and that we want to give God His proper place in our life, that's good. And then second, the aspect where we realize my weakness and sinfulness so twofold, if we can look to God and recognize Him and then look at our own weakness and then we see our own weakness and failures and we can look to God in His perfection and then our desire to grow much stronger that we want to be freed from this body of sin.

So it's a good thing to look to God and a good thing to realize our own weakness and those two things coming together may be giving us that desire as Paul said that he would desire to be with the Lord. Another question this morning as I was pondering this and it came to my mind and that is this, the first question was what do you want to get out of serving God? That's from our perspective but the second question is what does God want from us? And as I was looking at the overview of this topic it just kind of came out to me to see that God is busy and He wants something. We could again when we look at our side and we tend to come from a viewpoint where it's my life, my decisions, it's what I want it's what feels good to me, it's what's important to me.

We have all these ways of processing what is valuable to us. Talking to a young man and why he would not surrender his life to the Lord. He says to me well I'm afraid of all the things I will have to give up.

You ever been there? Thinking of James sharing. It was kind of a difficult conversation to have but asking the young man why do you refuse knowing what you know, knowing the amount of knowledge you have of godly things. Living a life with much of what he does is already on that good path.

Much of his life is already making decisions that would please God. If they were done in faith for God they would please God. And so asking him why can you not surrender? And there was something within his own heart, a value system that said well basically I'm going to say this respectfully but it was kind of like this.

It was like saying if I give up what I know I have to give up then I'm just going to be a loser. And the people's view, the people around me, those that know me, right now it's the pride and sin that I partake of that makes me someone. It makes people pay attention.

Then they can look at me and it makes me feel good. It makes me feel like I'm worth something. So again, in other words, it's like saying if I accept Christ and I know the thing I have to give up then I'm just a loser.

I will feel like a loser. That's a sad, sad state. So for this young man to value something of this world more than God and for him to choose to hold on to that so that he can get praise from men because he feels like a nobody is sad, very sad.

I could ask him, what is it that you want from serving the Lord? And he wanted, he had a mental and emotional need and he wanted security around him. I want friends. I want people to like me.

I want people to say good things about me. I don't want to be the whatever competition there is in life. That was more important to him than the life that Jesus wanted for him.

So we are often guilty of backsliding where we can make a recommittal. We can say I'm going to serve the Lord. I want to do what's right and then find ourselves starting to value these other things again and taking things off the shelf and saying, you know what, it's very important to me that people think I'm smart.

It's very important to me that people think that I am the best. It's important to me that I'm not the weakest. And all these things build up.

What is it in our heart that's valuable? What blessed me so much, and I know, again, a lot of this is familiar to us. What blessed me so much is to walk, to have this overview of what does God want. There is no one busier, there is no one busier, there is no one that paid more than God did to try to get a hold of a very distracted, self-destructing heart of man.

We see it in the Old Testament. But God in his perfect being who does not need you or me, God can exist without any of us. God who does not need to prove himself.

Again, I've said it before, I'm always blessed by that. If you ever notice, there's times where God, yes, he gives judgment, but God does not make a habit of proving himself. If somebody says, like they did to Jesus, well, if you can do miracles, take yourself off that cross, then we'll believe you.

And Jesus did not do that. Jesus has never fallen to a low state of mankind state to say, oh, I need to prove myself, I'm going to show myself strong. So what you see, God does not need man, and yet God wants something, and he is busy.

He's busy in his creation, and what does God want? God wants his creation is built to such a depth that he does not need us, and yet it seems that he has woven together a plan that it pains him, if I can use that word, it pains him when we're not there. God longs. In Ephesians chapter 1, we would see how God is compelled.

It's the word he uses, he's compelled. How could we quickly explain that word? God has something within him that forces him, that drives him to try to save mankind. We could start maybe a quick recap here.

So God's glory is also used in a word as an attribute. I did not know that, but yeah, God's word, God's glory, so the glory of God can be used to speak of his attributes. Just like you would of his righteousness or his holiness, God's glory is one like it.

As an attribute, God's glory refers primarily to his majestic beauty and splendor and the recognition of it by mankind. However, it is also an ethical concept and embraces his holiness. The opposite of that would be Romans 3.23, for to sin is to fall short of the glory of God.

Actually, I want to back up here now a little bit. I just want us to picture, starting with Adam and Eve in Genesis chapter 3, I'd like us to picture the setting of mankind. Adam and Eve, they had things perfect, everything was, they had all needs met, they weren't sweating in labor, they were, I'd imagine even their work was enjoyable.

It's like me saying, when am I done my work so I can have some fun? And I wonder if Adam and Eve, for them, it was always fun. The work was fun, the chores were fun, they were in a perfect world, in a perfect realm. We want to consider ourselves in Adam and Eve's shoes there.

Adam and Eve were in a perfect world and they allowed a deceiver to come to them and open up a want in their heart where they would ask themselves what if? Or what more? And so, we could ask ourselves as we already stated with the question, what do you want from serving the Lord? What if Adam and Eve had been asked that question in a perfect setting? Everything is healthy, everything is wonderful, there is no need, there's no tears, there's no pain, it's all perfect. And someone would have said to them, what do you want from your walk with God? There was nothing missing. And I guess I want to use that just to highlight a little bit of a motive check here.

The motive check that we want to test is how often is our heart after something else than actually after God? So, Adam and Eve coming from a perfect state who could not say, well if the weather was better, if my job was different, if my church was this way, if my life had this, then I could serve the Lord. Adam and Eve didn't have that. They had it perfect.

They had a perfect fellowship with God and they chose to allow this temptation to come to them where they would desire something else. And we struggle with those temptations all the time. But just to highlight, just wanting to highlight that it looks to me more now than it would have been Adam and Eve's time, but very much for them as well, it looks like there is a sacrificing that needs to take place in ourselves, in our heart, and a choice that needs to be made.

And that is this. A sacrificing of the list of wants that can come our way and a choice that will choose to be content in Jesus Christ. So, a very good definition or a good decision made by you and me in our lifetime is this.

As a Christian, as a believer, a wonderful and God-pleasing decision from us would be this. I want to take the time that I have in this world and live for God. And I would want to say this, and I mean this plainly.

I don't mean I'm going to be a missionary. I'm going to be a preacher. I'm going to be all these things, not those things.

More than ever, I find many of those are tainted with something else, but bless you and bless anyone serving. That's wonderful. But what I mean is overall for humanity, I think a wonderful decision is that each soul can simply state, I want to take the time that I have in this world just to live for God.

To live by faith and to live by His Word. And then allow that to lead you on. If you're a missionary, praise the Lord.

If you're a preacher, praise the Lord. If you sing songs and help in that, praise the Lord. I think of many of the songwriters, such wonderful music that's been made by souls that were serving God.

So, if I would ask you again, what is it that you want in your life, in your walk with God? And just as an overall answer, I trust it is for us that the answer is, I want to take the time that I have in this world to live for God. More on a personal level. On a personal level where there is a personal focus on how can I serve God.

And I was thinking about trying to bring out a little bit of a desire and how I would make this comparison. And it was a little humorous to me, but I thought I would take the fishing one. I believe Myron, no, Joshua went fishing, Ben went fishing.

I don't know how much fishing you've all done, but I really appreciate this example in some way as Christians. You ever been somewhere fishing and someone is at a certain spot, they cast out, they pull in big fish. What's the thing that everyone else does at that time? Okay, I'm looking for one other thing.

They go fish where he was fishing. You're sitting in a boat, water is all the way around you, you drop your rod in, thing goes down, eight feet over, you're on that side, your rod goes down, this one catches a fish, he says, oh, I want to go fish over there. Now, I appreciate that desire is what I want to lift up.

Hunting could be the same way. You go hunting somewhere, they catch something, might be the only deer there, the next time they find out, oh, he hunted over there, that's where their deer are. So we all go over there and hunt for a deer.

I appreciate the desire, this desire for what is right. And I wish in this way, it's a real blessing to have brothers and sisters in a church life, that the reality for us would be in this desire of serving God with the life that we have, where we would live in such a way as we find more ways and we learn more ways of serving the Lord, that our desire would kick in and say, that's where I want to be. I want to serve like that.

I want to serve God like that. Okay, back to where God is busy. I question myself a little bit with the setup, how God came and revealed himself to man.

We start in Genesis chapter 3 and it says, this was the it was after Adam and Eve sinned, but it gives us an example of God communing with Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve have run, they've run away because they've chosen, they wanted more than what they had, which was perfect. And so they run away and here's what it says in chapter 3 verse 8, and they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden.

And again, I don't know what exactly that is, what that means, but they were fellowshipping with God. God was coming into the garden, but they had ran. So we have God who created mankind and God is fellowshipping with mankind here in Genesis.

Then we have the whole fall of man and man takes a sinful direction, a personal direction. Just to expound on that a little bit here, so the idea of taking a personal direction. The young man that I had spoken to who said he could not surrender his life to the Lord, he would risk, he was willing to risk his fear of death, he was willing to risk that he could die and face judgment, just over the reality of the pressure around him, that I can't surrender now because I will feel like a loser.

And if we look at what happens here and we compare it to the need, just the need of man, where as a Christian, we could live day to day, looking to God and wanting to do His will, participating and wanting to glorify Him. I guess I'd like to explain just that blessing of this, you have this person who walks in the presence of God and how could we, or what words should we use to quickly build a value system for this? The idea of living, you know they have a free conscience, they are active, they're living, doing many different things in life all the way from eating and sleeping and working and so on but this whole time they can have a view every day that I'm living for the Lord. And as they have this view, I'm living for the Lord, they have this battle with the flesh, temptations and so on, and they have this reality every day, I'm putting my flesh aside God's glory dwells within.

I'm living for God I'm putting my flesh aside, God dwells within. So that is a right Christian life, that's how it will be for us here on this earth. We can do many things, we can live what we'll call a good life, but we can live it in faith, having faith in God and we can live it righteously.

The obstacle we face is how do we bring our flesh under the rule of Christ Now, what happened to Adam and Eve? Well, and it moves on from Adam and Eve well, after the fall something which is hard to explain, but where the flesh took over and the flesh took hold, and the flesh would refuse to do God's will The flesh of all mankind would find it, and how can we explain rebellion? So in the Garden of Eden, the glory of God shines in God is with Adam and Eve, all things wonderful Adam and Eve sinned against God and God is not visiting with them like He did before. Maybe we should say the absence of God in the Garden gave much power to the self-will and sin So now you take the rest of the following, you know, you take Cain for an example. Well, we have Abel Abel who is a man who has learned of God, maybe Adam and Eve taught him and he allowed himself to accept that God was in authority God was God, this is what God wanted from him, so he served God.

We have Cain who did not have the courage, he did not have the strength, and he would not accept God's ways or that God was going to be in charge, that God was God. And so Cain, he struggled under this dark rule where we're going to say that self-will was in charge. For Cain, self- will was completely in charge.

So for Cain the glory of God was pulled back. Cain didn't have the glory of God in his life and by it he was overtaken by the strength of sin and he became the first murderer in this world. In our time here today, just like this young man, this young man has this choice to make where who will he please? Will it be himself? Will he go about making sure he feels good or would he accept Christ and by it feel much better but have peace with God? So following Adam and Eve, we have this self- will nation.

The Bible tells us that everyone did what was right in his own eyes. It was a very sinful, sinful people. And here's where I want to go to point one that we mentioned last Sunday.

Point one is God's glory in the Old Testament. What we won't do here is put God in a box but I do want us just to notice this a little bit. It just seems to me it's a blessing and it's personal.

It seems that God shows himself and he shows his goodness. When we read the Old Testament and even part of the New, we can read it and we can get this feeling of God's expectation is very high and mankind keeps falling. Mankind keeps sinning and then mankind keeps being judged.

So that can be the feeling that we get here but looking at what God does, here's what I see. I see God giving mankind everything and mankind saying that's not enough. Mankind had that willful choice just like Adam and Eve.

The deceiver comes to Adam and Eve and he bids them here there's something more and for Adam and Eve they just had a choice to make and the choice was you're already eating all the best food. What more could you want? Could there be enough courage in their hearts? Could they value God enough where they said God we know what you said and we have it perfect. There's no way we're going to breach this covenant.

There's no way we're going to break our promise to you. You've created us. We value you the most and therefore we refuse to heed the deceiver.

With this thought let's ask ourselves something here. What could be offered to you today where you would be willing to say no to God and yes to yourself? Could I as the story that James had there, could we offer you treasures? Money? How about glory? Fame? Would fame do it? Us coming from Florida here and we've been there in February. It's just shocking how many massive mansions that are there.

Would a mansion do it? What could someone give you that will give you enough of a puffed up feeling this will be my life where you will say no to the humble peaceful life that Jesus gives? Adam and Eve didn't gain twice the Garden of Eden. It was just the taste of a different fruit and that was enough for them. You know what? I need to know what that tastes like and behind that taste will be the glories of knowing everything.

Being like God. That was there for them. That's what they wanted.

So after this rebellion against God, this sin against God here's what I see. God starts to show himself not as the God that says I've told you ten times to stop doing that, I'm going to judge you. No.

If you take the Old Testament as an overview quickly, you see God it's like God entering the room softly. Not to surprise anyone, but to get their attention. Here mankind has decided to fully and wholeheartedly reject God and please himself in the self-destructing sins.

God comes in and this is where the point number one comes. The God's glory in the Old Testament. God uses different methods to get their attention and start to teach them, wait, you're busy feeding your bellies, waiting to be destroyed.

That's what's going to happen to you. So God says and his glory he comes in a glorious way to them and reveals himself. That to me is amazing.

Again I want to just highlight. Not the angry God that's mad at the sin and is waiting to judge him. He could have done that right from the beginning.

But the gentle God who sees the wickedness and the self-destruction that they're partaking in that gentle God who reveals himself and says there's a better option. There is a better option. You don't need the mansion here in this world.

There's a better mansion to come. There's a better option. So God reveals his glory and we see this and we're going to look at this starting and there's a few different places.

Again, like I said earlier, we're not going to put God in a box, but you have where there's angels you have different ways that God reveals himself to the people. But let's turn to Exodus chapter 13. In Exodus chapter 13, which is what I referenced last Sunday, and even before that maybe we should go in light of this point number one, God's glory in the Old Testament.

Here's what we want to think. So we're going to start. Our starting point will be the Israelites in Egypt.

And what we see here is the Israelites, they are in bondage. They're God's children. They're going through something very horrible and it says that God heard their cry.

They were in anguish, anxious, crying out against the evil that they were facing. And this is a good reminder and it should have been for the Israelites as well. This is a good reminder of the sin of forgetting God.

The evil that can come with it. So they cry out to God and God hears them. So then we have the story of them in Egypt with Moses and the miracles Moses does.

Moses comes to God and Moses is in a field or in a desert and this bush just keeps on burning. God there had a gentle way of getting Moses' attention. God had a plan for Moses.

God reveals himself in a strange way. In this way of there's a bush, it's on fire and it doesn't stop. The bush doesn't burn up like they would have been used to.

You put a board in the fire and give it half an hour to an hour and it's ashes. Then you add more. And for them, he did not need to add anything.

This bush is on fire and it continues to burn. God did not reveal himself as a person openly or fully. God tells Moses take your shoes off, your sandals off.

This is holy ground. God had a, can I use the word a subtle or a but it was a gentle, but there was such a gap between humanity and God and the sin gap which was there which we know from later from Moses' experience. God said you cannot see me.

For you to see me, you will die. So God uses this burning bush and he gets Moses' attention. He uses a supernatural power and he lets Moses know God is God.

And as Moses asks who shall I say that you are, God responds to him and says just tell them I am or I am that I am. The self-existent one, God. God has come to Moses and God wants to get his people's attention.

So then we have all the plagues that go through Egypt where God destroys the gods of Egypt allowing everyone to see that Jehovah was God. He finalizes, yeah he finalizes this state. He has shown everyone that nothing will surpass him.

Jehovah God is God. So that's the state of the people now. They have seen God's great work.

They have seen how God overtook everyone, everything. Pharaoh let them go and Moses takes them and he leaves. And we would think that the people's hearts would have said praise the Lord.

We have found God. Our hearts are committed. We are serving the Lord.

Now God does a greater thing here which we referenced. In verse 21 it says and the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud to lead them the way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light. To go by day and night.

He took not away the pillar of the cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night from before the people. God reveals himself. Here God reveals himself through fire and a cloud.

Why did God do it this way? To me the only thing I have been able to process this far is God had to meet the people where they were at. And God tried to reach them and he showed them in different ways how they could focus on God and see him. So God shows his glory in the Old Testament.

We also know the story of where they build the Ark of the Covenant. God resides or God is on the Ark of the Covenant. So they have the Ark of the Covenant in a tent.

This goes back to what I said about this is an outward relationship. God is there. God is by the Ark of the Covenant.

Here for a time in their travels. First God was with Moses and the people learned of God and the people chose that they would follow Moses and follow God. And then as they come out of Egypt then God presents himself in a pillar of cloud and a pillar of fire.

Now each one, not only can they look to Moses but they can look to this fire and cloud and they can see God working and they can choose to follow. And from there God gives them instruction. During this time they commit great sins against God.

But then God gives them Ten Commandments and helps them to understand more of who he is and then they build the Ark of the Covenant and God resides there. And the people can face the Ark of the Covenant. They can face the tent and see God.

But it's an outward relationship. And that's how we go through the rest of the Old Testament. There is a time where, we'll just highlight here at some point I want to expound more at least from my own mind, the combination here but you have here where God reveals himself to them he shows them his glory.

And as I shared last Sunday, part of that glory is his majesty, his reverence, his power. Seeing him do this work with the cloud or with the fire or bringing water out of a rock or separating the waters in the sea, a mighty work. And they can glorify God.

And that's God's glory, his strength. But within that is also the reality of who God is. So what we would have seen happening through Egypt and all those plagues there would have been a realization of their sins and we could even use the word in some form, God clarifying who he is and who he is not.

God wanted to be separate from the evil that was in this world. So throughout the rest of the Old Testament God works in different ways until his plan is fulfilled. But God does it with specific miracles.

But it's always an outward relationship. I'm going to stop there for point number one. In God's love he worked in the heart of the people of the Old Testament and he drew them.

He showed them their wickedness. It's like when, may I say in a small way, when they sinned God did give them consequences to teach them the consequence of choice. But God in his gentle way revealed himself, showed his glory, showed himself to mankind.

This was God's heart. God's heart was, as man was busy serving self, he would reveal himself to man and he would call man and he would say, I have created you for a purpose and it's much better than you trying to get rich and you trying to get famous and you trying to do all these other wicked things. Maybe it's for Pharaoh.

It's shocking in those days how quickly a king would call himself God. Very quickly he would desire the power and take charge of all things and Nebuchadnezzar would say, I have done this, I am God. God wanted, God showed the people there's a better way and it's not a selfish, wicked way.

And then we have the people they sinned against God and a sad state takes place. A battle takes place, I believe this is in Samuel's time, when the ark is lost in battle against the Philistines. A child is named Ichabod and the name meaning for the glory has departed from Israel.

Then the cloud makes no appearance, so it's like God not being in the midst of them. The cloud makes no appearance before Israel until the ark is recovered then the glory cloud fills the new temple that Solomon built and fire devours the offerings. God reveals himself again and is present in this temple that Solomon built.

Israel however did not obey the God in their midst. They denied his glorious presence and exchanged the glory of the Lord for idols made by human hands. And again it could be the worship specifically to God and they change that to idols but as we would know today as well, it's also a way of life.

Instead of serving God and it's when you serve God, it's like saying we would more naturally or we would be more prone to worship God properly. When serving God and worshiping God when serving God is healthy, worshiping God is easier. People are more prone to do that properly.

So then you have their, they turn their focus to idols and their way of life is the same. It is wicked. Because of their disobedience, judgment came against Jerusalem the penalties of covenant violation were enforced.

God would no longer be the God of a disobedient people. God's presence in the glory cloud leaves the temple and Israel goes into exile. And this cloud, this glory of God, this communicating that God is doing stops.

God no longer directly communicates with the people of Israel until we have God coming in a different way. The second way that God communicates with the people is not through this, it's not this outward relationship where it's where we would look to the Ark of the Covenant, there's a cloud there, God is there and we would I'm here, the Ark of the Covenant is there. I'm trying to communicate with God, I go to the temple, I talk to the priest and different things.

God changes his method of reaching his people. So God departs from being with the children of Israel in this form of a cloud and God returns as the Son of Man. I just want to highlight here, so we have something people cannot relate to.

The fire, the cloud, different things, the Ark of the Covenant, the distance, there isn't this emotional connection, there is a big separation. And then God does this second miracle in how he reveals himself, which is through Jesus Christ. So God sends Jesus as a child, Jesus grows, becomes a man and starts his ministry.

And here is two things that we want to notice. One, this blessing of having Jesus in this world, now God decided that he would relate to mankind in a more personal way. Now he would send his Son who could talk to man to man, person to person.

He could understand the emotions. There is a different avenue of connection here on how God would reveal his glory. And to me again, I find this amazing that God would say, in the Old Testament, I've given them the Ten Commandments, I've taught them, I wanted them to put their hearts where I am.

And you and I both know how difficult that is, even today. We realize the struggle of, we know better, we would say we're a child of God, but it's so hard to choose sometimes, doing God's will instead of mine. That's the struggle they face.

Now you have Jesus coming, and Jesus has this perfect way of showing them who God is. That's what Jesus wanted. Highlight here, God gives us this blessing that he would show us who he is through Jesus Christ.

And why? So that we could see God, come to God, and have life. Again, it's this powerful story of love. It wasn't judgment is why Jesus was sent.

It was love for us to relate to, and so we could come to him. So Jesus comes and reveals God's glory. Jesus shows those around him, he teaches those that are willing to listen who God is.

And what do we hear him teach? The wonderful, perfect ways of God. The perfect law, this perfect peace, this perfect love is what Jesus teaches while he is in this world. It would be a very beneficial blessing in light of this to think of, if we were to give it a caption, just a little highlight, and we would say, God reveals himself, God tries to reach us by revealing himself in Jesus Christ.

And under that thought, in that theme, read the gospels. And that, it portrays a perfection, a wisdom, and a love that is amazing. So that was the second point, God's glory through Jesus Christ.

The very practical instead of so-and-so, you need to go to the temple. Or if somebody wanted to meet with God, like King David says, King David loved to be in the temple in the presence of the Lord. Now you have a season where people that want to see God, they don't go to the temple.

They don't go to the priest. They go to Jesus. And they can walk with him, they can see him do miracles.

And I wonder if, as they were in his presence, that they had this acknowledgement, this reality with them, we're walking with the Son of God. It seems to me that the people were in a very difficult state, far away from God. We see that through, there were not many that came to Jesus.

But at the same time, it also seems to be a much closer personal relationship. So God does this preparation. He reveals himself in the Old Testament through different things, an outward relationship.

Then he reveals himself through his Son, and it becomes a personal relationship. But it's still outward. It's Jesus is there, I am here.

Jesus walks around the villages, does miracles. Jesus knows it seems that there were times where he knew he's here and he knows what's over there. But what we do not have is we don't have Jesus doing two things at once.

We don't have Jesus doing a miracle here and over there. Jesus is in a form of man. He walks the streets.

It's a personal relationship, but it's an outward relationship. He was there, or he is there, I am here. And then we have God who allows Jesus to give his life for us, so that we would have forgiveness of our sins.

Picture God, and this is a beautiful picture, picture God busy through all of humanity, laboring and laboring and laboring, trying to save souls. How many of us here, and I would like you to raise your hand, how many of us here at some point in our life had this thought, God is angry and he's a mad God, waiting to beat me? Anyone had that? I don't think it's wrong, I want us to raise our hand, I mean, really you wouldn't have needed to, but I realize that it's also a growing thing and a maturity in our need. I'm not wanting anyone to feel condemned for it.

But I do want us to recognize it. So often we have this hard view of God, but let's just ponder this. Let's ponder this wonderful reality here.

God is busy and working in the children of Israel, and he does these things where he'll tell them make me an altar, give sacrifice, why was that? Because of God's goodness. And on and on that story could go. He tells the people, teach this to your child, and they will teach it to their children, and they will teach it to their children, why is that? Were they supposed to pass on this information that God is angry and he will strike you if you don't listen to him? No, I believe it was a beautiful message.

A beautiful message where how good is God? In the midst of humanity seeking to please itself and buy it, destroy themselves, God is busy and God is working to save. What does it take? And I look at my own life as a young teenager. Prior to me giving my heart to the Lord, I was probably one of the, I think I was one of those people that God should have struck with lightning.

My mouth was so foul. I could sit in church and mock every good thing that was said. Horrible, horrible.

How is it that I could you know, humanly speaking maybe God should have judged me. And yet what did God do? Extend his time. Show mercy and call and work to save my life.

Okay, so God through his son reveals himself. A wonderful you watch this relationship in all of the conversations that take place Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and as you would read through that, you would see this relationship. And what you see is a relationship between Jesus and God being revealed to man.

So God reveals himself through Christ. And God allows him to pay for our sin. For us that believe and have come to God and accepted him as our savior, we now have a tremendous gift.

A tremendous gift. We're going to separate the spiritual and the carnal a little here. But imagine if you lived in the Old Testament, you were the children of Israel and God came to you in Egypt and God said to you, if you will accept me and believe I'm going to make you free.

Or maybe if God had said as he promised to the Israelites, if you will believe and accept me, I'm going to make you a nation like no other nation. Now the physical side for us today would be, imagine if God said to you, if you will decide to believe if you will accept me and believe, I'll make you a billionaire. Would you take it? Would it make a difference for us if God gave us a physical reward? I think to a tremendous amount of humanity, they would.

They would say, if I can become a billionaire being a Christian, I'm going to do it. What's their heart after? Being a billionaire. A sad thing.

But here's the difference. Here's the comparison. Here's the reality.

So if God has saved you, he has saved you from more than the lack of being a billionaire. If God has saved you and you have accepted him, God has given you a gift that is something we should treasure with everything that we have. So the idea that today, that's my third point, God's glory in you.

So us being able to come to God and worship him is a privilege. For us to be able to understand knowing God's word, the teaching of God, who God is, we participate in a lot of God's glory. And then for us to be able to read his word and live out his teachings is that second side of experiencing God's glory.

So let me say it like this. You didn't come to God to become a billionaire. You came to God to be separated from your sin.

God paid for your debts so that you could be separated from your sin. And now God gave you his spirit. God put within you, within me, God put within us his glory.

So now we have within us a spirit. We can go through John 14, 15, 16, 17. Now we have within us a spirit that will lead us to become like Jesus.

And he works in us and works in us. And he will help us to participate more in enjoying or being part of being in God's glory. The reality or the thing we want to take out from this here now is I want us to find ourselves blessed.

I want us to find ourselves thinking, wow. And let's make this comparison again. It's like someone who decides to give you a gold coin.

It's worth who knows how much. And you would think, wow, how come I got the gold coin? Like what a benefit to me. You would rejoice.

Maybe somebody gave you a car. Somebody gave you a house. And you would say, oh my.

Like I'm so blessed. I'm so happy that somebody was so nice to me. So that would be a very physical feeling and we could feel along with that.

But I want us to see that and feel more of that here as we think of God's glory being with us. So as God has done his work and as we think of this as being his children, I want us to treasure this thought. So the thought is God is within you.

And you can experience God's glory more and more as we give ourselves to him. So treasure that. Treasure the fact it's much more than having that good friend.

Oh my best friend took me out for coffee. I was so blessed by it. That's good.

But this is much more. So just this heartfelt gratitude that you and I are able to experience God's glory. We can think about this topic of are you experiencing God's glory? And we would ask ourselves different questions.

So Monday to Friday. Monday to Saturday. Are you experiencing God's glory? And I'd look at myself and I'd say, well, I'm complaining about this.

Not happy with that. And all my list goes on. My week is tough.

I'm exhausted. I wasn't feeling well. Whatever the things are.

All the difficult things. Not really living in God's glory there. Right? That's not practical.

How do I live in God's glory? And this is that separation again. It seems like this missing thing in Christianity is this. Do you participate in dwelling with God? Will you allow? Will I allow God's glory to work in me? So as so much stuff goes wrong and we're so disappointed, what's my highlight? My highlight would be, well, if things went well, I'd be happy.

That's a wrong highlight. That highlight will perish. It'll be gone.

But the highlight is as everything went wrong, I was walking with the Lord. As everything went wrong, God's grace spoke to me. God's grace.

Through God's grace, I received help throughout the whole thing that I'm going through. I'm side by side with my Savior. I'm experiencing God's grace.

All that just to say, it's like your best friend beside you as you go through these difficult things. And again, I say this because you can always ask yourself or you can always test yourself to see how you are doing and how I am doing. And I just realize that I am very guilty of this, of not realizing how the heart of God is really looking after, working in you.

Not in some dramatic, charismatic way. Just in that everyday heart set that says, no matter what, I will serve the Lord. And so, God had an outward relationship with the children of Israel.

Then God had a more personal relationship as He was here, as Jesus Christ was here in this world. But today, God has an inner relationship. His spirit within us.

So can we say, would you rather have walked with Jesus as He did miracles beside you? You're standing beside Him. He's got the basket of bread and He's handing out bread. You go home and you say, Mom, Dad, I can't believe it.

That basket of bread never ran out. Would that be worth it? I would have loved, that's the question here. Would you have rather been in person with Jesus? Some of us, I too, I would feel like, man, it would have been so nice to walk with Him.

Well, I believe as Jesus says, Jesus says it is better for us today than it would have been to walk with Him in the streets. Jesus says it's needful for me to go that I will send the spirit to be within you and that spirit will teach you all things. And so, we are, if we're willing and if it's something that we can see, if we see this relationship that God wants with us and if we see God's heart and how He's tried to reach people and then He came through in the flesh and now if we have received Him, that He is within us, we have a better relationship now or we could say the best relationship that we could have.

The spirit within us is the strongest blessing of relationship that God gives us. Jesus said it's needful that I go that He could send the spirit. Here's the blessing.

God reveals Himself through you and me and it was an outward relationship in the Old Testament. It was an outward relationship with Jesus but today it's an inward relationship with all of us. If Jesus was walking out on the street and we were here we could not relate to Jesus.

He's over there. But this morning, we can all relate to Jesus because He's all here. We can all walk with Him.

It is a better way. It's God's way. So this morning, God wants to walk with us.

He wants to show us His glory. God has a heart to show us His glory. And then He says to us in Revelations if we will be faithful, this is a neat saying if we will be faithful, then we will be with Him in glory.

Now let's meditate on that a little. We experience His glory. We participate in His glory here.

He reveals His glory to us. But then it says if we will be faithful, we will be with Him in glory. What will we be part of? And it's our perfect eternity.

So those four things. God's glory in the Old Testament through objects, through different things, fire, the cloud. God reveals Himself through Jesus Christ, which is a wonderful gift to humanity.

He also through Jesus pays for their sins. And if we accept that, then God reveals Himself to us. We have His spirit within us.

God's glory is within us. And if we will be faithful, then we will be with Him in glory. If there's one thing that I wish that we would ponder and take with us, that would simply be this thought of how God was active in trying to reach a relationship with us.

And that today He labors to relate to us so that we will be able to walk with Him. Again, the way I could give an example is the idea of waking up in the morning and just praising the Lord. You know, you have a new day and you think to yourself, I can walk with the Lord today.

And let that be a stronger motivation than my job this, and my this, and my that, and the other thing, and my money here, and my house there, and all this trash. May the frontrunner of the morning be, I get to walk with the Lord today. That's all I will share.

God bless you.