Glory! Glory! Glory! by John

Glory! Glory! Glory!
John 17:1-10
1. I have a hard question for you, Christians! What do you do - what do you say - How do you live - That causes people to say from their hearts, “Praise the Lord!”
2. Did you know that the basic meaning of the word “Glory” signifies an opinion, estimate, and hence the honour resulting from a good opinion?” (quoted from Vines).
3. When God revealed Himself to the Israelites in the O.T., His glory shown to the people was called in Hebrew, “kabode!” It meant light so bright that a human being was in danger of death if he even saw it.
(1) There are a number of words ts glory, but this one is used often to describe the visual glory of the Lord.
(2) The glorious character of the Lord involves His revelation of Himself through His acts, His Person and particularly through His Son Jesus.
4. When people see what you do, hear what you say and see how you live, and they say, “Praise the Lord!” That’s great! God has revealed Himself through you, and you are bringing glory to God as you should!
5. Let’s examine glory as best we can. There are several kinds, or sources of glory.

I. First, God is already glorious.

1. He walked and talked with people in the early days of the human race. (It doesn’t make any difference whether that was 4,000 years ago, or 75,000 years ago. He did it! And that makes the difference.
(1) During that time, Adam, Eve, Cain, Seth and Enoch were among those first people who walked and talked with God.
(2) Later Abraham talked with God, and Lot was saved from destruction in Sodom by the angel of God!
(3) In Exodus, Moses met God at the burning bush and had nightly conferences with the Lord before the people of Israel were freed from Egypt.
2. Through all of these times, it is evident that God’s power was never even tested! He always was prepared, and He always accomplished exactly what He intended!
3. On the way to the Red Sea, God appeared lighting the way for the Israelites, and at the same time He appeared shrouding the Egyptians and made them wish they had never even heard of Him.
4. At the Red Sea God made the impossible possible for the Israelites, and He made the possible impossible for the Egyptians.
5. God has always been glorious, and He always will be!

II. God is glorified by others.

1. In Jn 17:5, Jesus says He glorified the Father by His obedient accomplishment of His Father’s will.
2. John 15:8 says, “This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.” So we glorify the Father by trusting the Son and following Him!
3. All creation glorifies God Who spoke it into being! That’s true even of His enemies! We see them either changed, or utterly destroyed, and that too, is glorious!

III. Jesus, the Son, is glorified.

1. In Jn 17:5 Jesus glorified the Father, and now He asks that the Father glorify Him with the glory He had before the world began! And I want you to note that an integral part of that glory is the Son’s presence with His Father!
2. All of us who follow Jesus glorify Him!
3. God’s Spirit of Truth glorifies the Son, too. He does it by taking knowledge from Jesus and giving it to us! That glorifies God the Son! How does that make you feel about Bible study and preaching? It should help you see just how valuable it is!
4. Jesus is already glorified, and He is being glorified right now by every one of you who follow Him! Jn 17:24.

IV. We are being glorified. Too.

1. You should have already realized that God’s glory preceded our creation, and Jesus shared that glory with His Father.
2. I always thought of glory as that bright physically active light that the Israelites saw at Mount Sinai, but that is like looking at the tip of an iceberg without realizing that there is far more ice under water than on top!
3. As far as we are concerned, we are glorified by God’s gift of adoption.
(1) We are saved by the shed blood of His Son Jesus Who died for our sins! Who arose to give us life eternal!
(2) He made us the children of God, sons and daughters!
(3) The Father sent His Spirit to seal us to the day of redemption, to guide us into the deepest truths and to be with us so that we never are alone!
(4) We are also glorified when we glorify Jesus! Because it is God’s Spirit within us that does all the work!
(5) Hoyt Lemon, when he was pastor of First Southern Baptist in Arkansas City, KS, told of being in a home for a meal. It was so dirty that he could not eat. The milk was fresh from the cow and cold, so he just drank that. His hostess offered to get him some more, and he told her to keep her seat, and he would go get it himself. In the fridge was a huge pan of milk with a dipper, and several dead flies floating around in it! He thought that was horrible, but I thought it was a good illustration: Most people think that in heaven we will be like those flies, and of no value! Just little black specks in the pure presence of our Father! But we won’t be! We are already inhabited by His Spirit. We are His messengers now! We are already washed white as driven snow! We are already sons and daughters of God! We will be completely glorified in glory! Amen?
4. Christians, we have nothing to fear when we get there, and we have nothing to fear now!
5. That means we should visualize ourselves as we are, the children of God!
6. It means we should live glorified lives on earth, and that we should actively seek to glorify our Father and our Savior by the way we live, by what we do, by what we say, and by who we appear to be to other people!

Conclusion:

1. Our first responsibility in life is to seek forgiveness for our sins and be saved by Jesus!
2. Our second is to lead others to do the same thing!
3. Our third is to so live that other people will glorify God because of us!
4. Have you trusted Jesus?
5. Are you leading others to Him?
6. Does your life show others that you believe in and belong to God?

ECC 4/10/2005