GLORY

Exo 33:18, Then Moses said, "I pray Thee, show me Thy glory!" 19, And He said, "I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you, and will proclaim the name of the LORD before you; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion."

Romans 9:15, For He says to Moses, "I WILL HAVE MERCY ON WHOM I HAVE MERCY, AND I WILL HAVE COMPASSION ON WHOM I HAVE COMPASSION." 16 So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.

GOD'S GLORY COMES FROM THE WAY HE LOVES AND WHO HE CHOOSES TO WORK THROUGH

1 Cor 1:19, For it is written, "I WILL DESTROY THE WISDOM OF THE WISE, AND THE CLEVERNESS OF THE CLEVER I WILL SET ASIDE." 20, Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21, For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. . . . 25, Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. 26, For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; 27, but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, 28, and the base things of the world and the despised, God has chosen, the things that are not, that He might nullify the things that are, 29, that no man should boast before God.

Three men worked on a large building project. One was asked, "What are you doing?" "I'm mixing mortar," he said. The second man said, "I'm helping put up this great stone wall." When the third man was asked, he replied, "I'm building a cathedral to the glory of God."

Those three men could just as well have been working on a car, a truck, a house, a road, or any legitimate product or service a man or woman might provide. Most people work to earn a living, attain success, or amass wealth. Such reasons, however, must not be the Christian's primary motive for working. Like the third man in our story, we need to see that what gives work eternal value is not the product or service of our labor but the process of laboring itself -- doing the job faithfully to the glory of the Lord.

MAN'S MISTAKE IS TO PATTERN AFTER MAN'S GLORY - NOT GOD'S

Rom 1:22, Professing to be wise, they became fools, 23, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. 24, Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, that their bodies might be dishonored among them. 25, For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

GOD'S LOVE IS NOT LIKE MAN'S LOVE

Mat 5:43, "You have heard that it was said, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR, and hate your enemy.' 44, "But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you 45, in order that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46, "For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax-gatherers do the same? 47, "And if you greet your brothers only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48, "Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Those who deserve love the least need it the most.

GOD LOOKS AT GREATNESS DIFFERENTLY

Mat 20:25, But Jesus called them to Himself, and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. 26, "It is not so among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, 27, and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave; 28, just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many."

If God only used great things and people to do things, the glory would belong to them, but He uses the weak.

2 Cor 12:9, And He has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness." Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may dwell in me. 10, Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.

CHRIST WAS GLORY OF GOD

John 1:9, There was the true light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man. 10, He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. 11, He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. 12, But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, 13, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. 14, And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. 15, John bore witness of Him, and cried out, saying, "This was He of whom I said, 'He who comes after me has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me.'" 16, For of His fulness we have all received, and grace upon grace. 17, For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ.

We know that Jesus lived. He was a man in history, as well as a man for all times. Tacitus, perhaps the greatest Roman historian born in the first century, speaks of Jesus. Josephus, a Jewish historian born A.D. 37, tells of the crucifixion of Jesus. A contemporary Bible scholar said that "the latest edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica uses 20,000 words in describing this person, Jesus. His description took more space than was given to Aristotle, Cicero, Alexander, Julius Caesar, Buddha, Confucius, Mohammed or Napoleon Bonaparte."

A number of years ago a story appeared which told of a man who picked up a beautiful rock from a North Carolina stream bed and used it as his cabin doorstop. Years later a geologist who was hiking in the area stopped at the cabin and noticed the doorstop, which he immediately recognized as a huge lump of gold. In fact, it proved to be one of the largest gold nuggets ever found east of the Rockies. Like the man who failed to recognize gold when he held it in his hands, the disciples failed to recognize the true nature of the Lord - even after more than three years with him. What about you? Do you know who He is?

MOSES' GLORY WOULD FADE

2 Cor 3:7, But if the ministry of death, in letters engraved on stones, came with glory, so that the sons of Israel could not look intently at the face of Moses because of the glory of his face, fading as it was, 8, how shall the ministry of the Spirit fail to be even more with glory? 9, For if the ministry of condemnation has glory, much more does the ministry of righteousness abound in glory. 10, For indeed what had glory, in this case has no glory on account of the glory that surpasses it. 11, For if that which fades away was with glory, much more that which remains is in glory. 12, Having therefore such a hope, we use great boldness in our speech, 13, and are not as Moses, who used to put a veil over his face that the sons of Israel might not look intently at the end of what was fading away. 14, But their minds were hardened; for until this very day at the reading of the old covenant the same veil remains unlifted, because it is removed in Christ. 15, But to this day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their heart; 16, but whenever a man turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. 17, Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. 18, But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.

EVEN JESUS' GLORY WOULD FADE

Luke 9:30, And behold, two men were talking with Him; and they were Moses and Elijah, 31, who, appearing in glory, were speaking of His departure which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.

CHURCH HAS A MISSION TO BRING GLORY TO GOD

2 Cor 4:5, For we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond-servants for Jesus' sake. 6, For God, who said, "Light shall shine out of darkness," is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. 7, But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassing greatness of the power may be of God and not from ourselves;

The new Miss America, Debbye Turner, says she became a follower of Christ at age 7. Originally from Jonesboro, Arkansas, she is the third black and the first Miss Missouri to wear the crown. Her goal is to become a veterinarian. She credits her parents with much of her success. Her mother, a lay evangelistic worker, kept a marimba (A large wooden percussion instrument with resonators, resembling a xylophone) in the dining room and encouraged her to master it. She thinks race relations could be improved if Americans taught their "youth from a very young age to ignore the exterior of a person and look at the substance of that person inside."

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