Revealed Glory
Sermon
NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE
Sermons For Pentecost (Middle Third)
Glory is best defined as the outward shining of God's inner-being. Or as George F. Handel contended, "The glory of the Lord shall be revealed." Glory is, then, the revelation of God to the world. The New Testament writers see the glory of God in the person of Jesus Christ. It was the Apostle Paul who told us, "For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,' made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ… (2 Corinthians 4:6 NIV)." Then again, the gospel writer John offers a powerful recitation in declaring, "The Word became, flesh and lived for a while among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth… (John 1:14 NIV)." So, then, in New Testament thought there is consistency in the position that revealed glory was the sharing of self in Jesus Christ.
However, our attention today is directed to a people who lived hundreds of years before the advent of Jesus Christ. During times when even prophecy of the Messiah was unheard of, the Israelites, who represented God's chosen people, only had God to depend up on. Not Jesus, nor the Holy Spirit, just a relationship with Moses and Aaron. They were the leaders of the people of God on their pilgrimage from bondage to liberation.
It is interesting to note that Moses and Handel, separated by thousands of years of time and space, have come to a place of agreement in the declaration that the glory of God is revealed. No longer is God's glory a hidden commodity or expression, no longer is the glory foreign or even an impossibility experientially. God's glory is a present reality. Moses declared that it's as close to you as the morning. Allow me the time to explore three significant things we ought to remember from our study of revealed glory.
The first significant thing we ought to remember from our study of revealed glory is that looking back is deadly. The Israelites said,
"If only we had died by the Lord's hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death… (Exodus 16:3)."
In other words, they argued that death by the hand of God is more honorable than death by starvation. The Israelites became guilty of looking back. To look back means that one takes his or her eyes off the road immediately ahead. To consistently look back means that one loses sight of the future and begins to live in the past. The past is not only stagnant, but is dead. It will never again be alive on the contemporary scene, but is left eternally in the pages of history and the annals of the human mind. So, certainly to look back is dangerous because we no longer see the road leading to our destiny. More importantly, looking back is deadly.
Consider the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah as found in the 19th chapter of Genesis. Lot, a servant of the Lord, was warned to take his wife and two daughters and flee the city because of its pending destruction. They were instructed not to look back and not to stop anywhere in the plain. "Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away… (Genesis 19:17)." Verse 26 tells us that, "Lot's wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt." The thought of what happened causes, even today, an eerie internal feeling. Something grips me on the inside and won't let me go. Not the fire shut up in my bones, but the knots in my stomach. Lot's wife was guilty of looking back and was also guilty of being disobedient. The end result was death.
The church dies today when she consistently looks back and is disobedient. Are we not sometimes guilty of living in the past? The comfortable desire to only do things the way we have always done them, with the same wonderful people doing the same old things. No new ideas nor the willingness to break from tradition so that we can be forced from the slavery of the past. The shackles of our past must be cut loose so that newness and freshness of life can flow in the Church of Jesus Christ. Looking back, my brothers and sisters, is deadly. Choose life, not death, for our sake, look ahead!
The second significant thing we ought to remember from our study of revealed glory is the promise of God. Then the Lord said to Moses, "I will rain down bread from heaven for you… (Exodus 16:4a)." Following on the heels of Israel's complaint, God makes a resounding promise. "I will rain down bread from heaven for you." The implication is that there is more than enough bread in heaven to meet all of your human needs. To prove the point, God is promising to send so much that it will be as if rain is falling.
A gospel song explores this concept further, "Bread of heaven feed me till I want no more." And then the words are repeated for added emphasis, "Bread of heaven, feed me till I want no more." The words of this song infer a faith that God will take care of us and meet our every need.
Israel had obviously forgotten the covenant that God had made with them. God had promised to be their God and they would logically be the people of God. Bonded to each other by a word of commitment, but the promise loses its credibility when the people forget. May we never forget that we are the children of God. We are a royal priesthood, a holy nation. May we never forget the promise of, "I will rain down bread from heaven for them."
The third significant thing we ought to remember from our study of revealed glory is the declaration of prophecy. Verse seven simply says, "And in the morning you will see the glory of the Lord, because he has heard your grumbling against him." You grumbled and God responded. In the freshness of the morning, the glory of God will appear. Not now, but in the morning.
Words from "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" speak to this theme in the declaration, "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord." Again, the inference is made upon the personhood of Jesus Christ. God was in Christ reconciling the world. The work of salvation received credentials in Jesus the Christ. Now, eyes, even dimmed by time and circumstances, will behold the glory of God. Obviously, the ability to behold the face of God will be glory enough.
The prophecy is real, in the morning you will see the glory of the Lord. May your morning come real soon and may your night be short.
The fourth significant thing we ought to remember from our study of revealed glory is that we get two meals a day. The scripture tells us, "The Lord will give you meat in the evening and all the bread you want in the morning." We need to be reminded that the proper flow of the day is evening and morning. This is consistent with Genesis; how we read in the creation story, there was evening and there was morning -- another day. Evening always preceded morning. God experienced darkness in the very beginning and that is obviously tantamount to evening followed by morning. So, there is meat in the evening and all the bread desired in the morning.
Some of us might be inclined to take the evening meat and the morning bread and make a sandwich that would put McDonald's and Burger King out of business. But, let us keep in mind that the intent of the text is to deal with the complaints of the Israelites who looked back to Egypt where they had lots of meat and ate all of the food they wanted.
The response Jesus made to Satan after completing a 40-day fast, that man must not live by bread alone, is not relevant in this instance. It is, however, true from a spiritual perspective that we survive off the Word of God, but the situation of the text is centered around the glory of God; and that the glory of God was made manifest, in part, in the reality of food. The Israelites needed to see food that was indeed eatable. Not a mirage, but real food. God gave them food to eat.
Nutritionists would raise the issue of a balanced diet. A balanced diet is not a relevant issue in the face of world hunger. When there is no food, any food becomes a blessing. God blessed Israel with bread from heaven, thereby, enabling them to sing words like those of the spiritual, "Glory, Glory Halleluia, Since I Laid My Burdens Down." The burden of hunger and the threat of starvation is now behind Israel, because God graciously provided for them two meals per day.
The fifth significant thing we ought to remember from our study of revealed glory is revealed glory itself. The text tells us, "They looked toward the desert, and there was the glory of the Lord appearing in the cloud… (Exodus 16:10)." The desert, a place of intense heat and little or no coolness. The desert, the place where death becomes imminent and life so difficult to maintain. And yet, the glory of the Lord was revealed as the people looked toward the desert. The very place we seek to avoid was indeed the place where the glory of the Lord was revealed.
God appeared in the cloud. Too high for humankind to reach or touch and yet within the realm of visibility the people saw the glory. The people saw the glory, the willingness of God to engage in human situations, just to keep his promise. The integrity of God is beyond question.
Think of the experience of Isaiah as he describes his call in the sixth chapter of that prophetic work. Isaiah saw God as a Holy being and even the cherubs flying around the throne began to sing as an angelic chorus, "Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord Almighty, the whole earth is full of his glory… (Isaiah 6:3)." In other words, there is something special, something different, something peculiar about God. God is Holy, therefore, the whole earth is full of his glory.
James Ward, in his book Thus Said The Lord, contends that "The whole earth is the setting and the measure of the glory of Yahweh… (p. 45)." God cannot be confined to time nor space, for he is in charge of eternity. He is the author of everlasting, the creator of every good and perfect gift, too wise to make a mistake. He forgives the sinner because of love. It is this God who uses the whole world as the canvas of the artist and the blueprint of the architect. The psalmist declared, "The earth is the Lord's and everything in it… (Psalm 24:1)." And then David declares, "Be exalted, 0 God, above the heavens, and let your glory be over all the earth… (Psalm 108:5)."
We, today, ought to see at some juncture of our lives the manifestation of the glory of the Lord. It is revealed to us today. God makes the divine presence known and felt in human experience. One who confesses a relationship with the Christ ought to be able to claim the revealed glory.
Now, let us neither forget the position of New Testament writers insisting that the glory of God comes alive in Jesus Christ, nor the saints of old who claimed that glory was the final destination for those who lived and died in the Lord. They talked about and sang that old song, "When I Wake Up In Glory." "One of these days, when I lay this body down to get up no more, when my eyes will be shut eternally in death, when friends and loved ones call, but fail to get an answer, I just want to wake up in glory." This was the testimony of Christians. Glory was for them anywhere that Jesus was. For them everyday would be Sunday, and every Sunday would be in the month of May, and the Sabbath would have no end. They declared an eschatological hope that dying would be no more, neither would they be sick or experience pain. There would only be joy in that land where they were bound.
Moses said, "In the morning you will see the glory of the Lord." My grandmother would say, "When I wake up in the morning, I will be in glory land." We can all thank God for being willing to share himself with the world so that his glory is revealed.
However, our attention today is directed to a people who lived hundreds of years before the advent of Jesus Christ. During times when even prophecy of the Messiah was unheard of, the Israelites, who represented God's chosen people, only had God to depend up on. Not Jesus, nor the Holy Spirit, just a relationship with Moses and Aaron. They were the leaders of the people of God on their pilgrimage from bondage to liberation.
It is interesting to note that Moses and Handel, separated by thousands of years of time and space, have come to a place of agreement in the declaration that the glory of God is revealed. No longer is God's glory a hidden commodity or expression, no longer is the glory foreign or even an impossibility experientially. God's glory is a present reality. Moses declared that it's as close to you as the morning. Allow me the time to explore three significant things we ought to remember from our study of revealed glory.
The first significant thing we ought to remember from our study of revealed glory is that looking back is deadly. The Israelites said,
"If only we had died by the Lord's hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death… (Exodus 16:3)."
In other words, they argued that death by the hand of God is more honorable than death by starvation. The Israelites became guilty of looking back. To look back means that one takes his or her eyes off the road immediately ahead. To consistently look back means that one loses sight of the future and begins to live in the past. The past is not only stagnant, but is dead. It will never again be alive on the contemporary scene, but is left eternally in the pages of history and the annals of the human mind. So, certainly to look back is dangerous because we no longer see the road leading to our destiny. More importantly, looking back is deadly.
Consider the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah as found in the 19th chapter of Genesis. Lot, a servant of the Lord, was warned to take his wife and two daughters and flee the city because of its pending destruction. They were instructed not to look back and not to stop anywhere in the plain. "Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away… (Genesis 19:17)." Verse 26 tells us that, "Lot's wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt." The thought of what happened causes, even today, an eerie internal feeling. Something grips me on the inside and won't let me go. Not the fire shut up in my bones, but the knots in my stomach. Lot's wife was guilty of looking back and was also guilty of being disobedient. The end result was death.
The church dies today when she consistently looks back and is disobedient. Are we not sometimes guilty of living in the past? The comfortable desire to only do things the way we have always done them, with the same wonderful people doing the same old things. No new ideas nor the willingness to break from tradition so that we can be forced from the slavery of the past. The shackles of our past must be cut loose so that newness and freshness of life can flow in the Church of Jesus Christ. Looking back, my brothers and sisters, is deadly. Choose life, not death, for our sake, look ahead!
The second significant thing we ought to remember from our study of revealed glory is the promise of God. Then the Lord said to Moses, "I will rain down bread from heaven for you… (Exodus 16:4a)." Following on the heels of Israel's complaint, God makes a resounding promise. "I will rain down bread from heaven for you." The implication is that there is more than enough bread in heaven to meet all of your human needs. To prove the point, God is promising to send so much that it will be as if rain is falling.
A gospel song explores this concept further, "Bread of heaven feed me till I want no more." And then the words are repeated for added emphasis, "Bread of heaven, feed me till I want no more." The words of this song infer a faith that God will take care of us and meet our every need.
Israel had obviously forgotten the covenant that God had made with them. God had promised to be their God and they would logically be the people of God. Bonded to each other by a word of commitment, but the promise loses its credibility when the people forget. May we never forget that we are the children of God. We are a royal priesthood, a holy nation. May we never forget the promise of, "I will rain down bread from heaven for them."
The third significant thing we ought to remember from our study of revealed glory is the declaration of prophecy. Verse seven simply says, "And in the morning you will see the glory of the Lord, because he has heard your grumbling against him." You grumbled and God responded. In the freshness of the morning, the glory of God will appear. Not now, but in the morning.
Words from "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" speak to this theme in the declaration, "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord." Again, the inference is made upon the personhood of Jesus Christ. God was in Christ reconciling the world. The work of salvation received credentials in Jesus the Christ. Now, eyes, even dimmed by time and circumstances, will behold the glory of God. Obviously, the ability to behold the face of God will be glory enough.
The prophecy is real, in the morning you will see the glory of the Lord. May your morning come real soon and may your night be short.
The fourth significant thing we ought to remember from our study of revealed glory is that we get two meals a day. The scripture tells us, "The Lord will give you meat in the evening and all the bread you want in the morning." We need to be reminded that the proper flow of the day is evening and morning. This is consistent with Genesis; how we read in the creation story, there was evening and there was morning -- another day. Evening always preceded morning. God experienced darkness in the very beginning and that is obviously tantamount to evening followed by morning. So, there is meat in the evening and all the bread desired in the morning.
Some of us might be inclined to take the evening meat and the morning bread and make a sandwich that would put McDonald's and Burger King out of business. But, let us keep in mind that the intent of the text is to deal with the complaints of the Israelites who looked back to Egypt where they had lots of meat and ate all of the food they wanted.
The response Jesus made to Satan after completing a 40-day fast, that man must not live by bread alone, is not relevant in this instance. It is, however, true from a spiritual perspective that we survive off the Word of God, but the situation of the text is centered around the glory of God; and that the glory of God was made manifest, in part, in the reality of food. The Israelites needed to see food that was indeed eatable. Not a mirage, but real food. God gave them food to eat.
Nutritionists would raise the issue of a balanced diet. A balanced diet is not a relevant issue in the face of world hunger. When there is no food, any food becomes a blessing. God blessed Israel with bread from heaven, thereby, enabling them to sing words like those of the spiritual, "Glory, Glory Halleluia, Since I Laid My Burdens Down." The burden of hunger and the threat of starvation is now behind Israel, because God graciously provided for them two meals per day.
The fifth significant thing we ought to remember from our study of revealed glory is revealed glory itself. The text tells us, "They looked toward the desert, and there was the glory of the Lord appearing in the cloud… (Exodus 16:10)." The desert, a place of intense heat and little or no coolness. The desert, the place where death becomes imminent and life so difficult to maintain. And yet, the glory of the Lord was revealed as the people looked toward the desert. The very place we seek to avoid was indeed the place where the glory of the Lord was revealed.
God appeared in the cloud. Too high for humankind to reach or touch and yet within the realm of visibility the people saw the glory. The people saw the glory, the willingness of God to engage in human situations, just to keep his promise. The integrity of God is beyond question.
Think of the experience of Isaiah as he describes his call in the sixth chapter of that prophetic work. Isaiah saw God as a Holy being and even the cherubs flying around the throne began to sing as an angelic chorus, "Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord Almighty, the whole earth is full of his glory… (Isaiah 6:3)." In other words, there is something special, something different, something peculiar about God. God is Holy, therefore, the whole earth is full of his glory.
James Ward, in his book Thus Said The Lord, contends that "The whole earth is the setting and the measure of the glory of Yahweh… (p. 45)." God cannot be confined to time nor space, for he is in charge of eternity. He is the author of everlasting, the creator of every good and perfect gift, too wise to make a mistake. He forgives the sinner because of love. It is this God who uses the whole world as the canvas of the artist and the blueprint of the architect. The psalmist declared, "The earth is the Lord's and everything in it… (Psalm 24:1)." And then David declares, "Be exalted, 0 God, above the heavens, and let your glory be over all the earth… (Psalm 108:5)."
We, today, ought to see at some juncture of our lives the manifestation of the glory of the Lord. It is revealed to us today. God makes the divine presence known and felt in human experience. One who confesses a relationship with the Christ ought to be able to claim the revealed glory.
Now, let us neither forget the position of New Testament writers insisting that the glory of God comes alive in Jesus Christ, nor the saints of old who claimed that glory was the final destination for those who lived and died in the Lord. They talked about and sang that old song, "When I Wake Up In Glory." "One of these days, when I lay this body down to get up no more, when my eyes will be shut eternally in death, when friends and loved ones call, but fail to get an answer, I just want to wake up in glory." This was the testimony of Christians. Glory was for them anywhere that Jesus was. For them everyday would be Sunday, and every Sunday would be in the month of May, and the Sabbath would have no end. They declared an eschatological hope that dying would be no more, neither would they be sick or experience pain. There would only be joy in that land where they were bound.
Moses said, "In the morning you will see the glory of the Lord." My grandmother would say, "When I wake up in the morning, I will be in glory land." We can all thank God for being willing to share himself with the world so that his glory is revealed.
