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You can take your Bibles and
turn to Psalm 29. Psalm 29 gives us our title we're
going to be looking at tonight. God of Glory. And I wonder as
you're turning there, if you were teaching a Sunday school
class, say with four or five year olds, and perhaps teaching
a lesson on doing everything for the glory of God. We know
the verse, 1 Corinthians 10.31, whatever we do, Whether we're
eating or drinking, whatever it is, we're supposed to do all
things to the glory of God. What if you were teaching that
lesson, or similar lesson, and you had a four or five year old
raise their hand and say, teacher, what is the glory of God? What
does that mean? What would you say? If we're honest, we preach an
awful lot about the glory of God. We teach about it in the
classroom. We sing about it. To God be the glory, great things
he hath done. But what exactly does it mean?
Are we prepared to give a response, even to a child that might, in
their simple understanding, just have a question? Well, I want
to clarify this tonight because the title we're looking at is
the God of Glory. You're here in Psalm 29. We'll
begin reading in verse 1. The psalmist writes, give unto
the Lord, O ye mighty. Give unto the Lord glory and
strength. Give unto the Lord the glory
due unto his name. Worship the Lord in the beauty
of holiness. The voice of the Lord is upon
the waters. The God of glory thundereth. The Lord is upon many waters.
We could read through the entire psalm. We won't because the purpose
of tonight is we're getting to know our God as we have in this
last series by trying to unpackage these names, if you will. And
in order to really fully understand what is meant by the psalmist
here with this title, the God of glory, we're going to begin
by looking at what does the word glory mean? And I trust, I want
to make this as simple as possible. And I found there were some very
complicated authors who were bringing up some very interesting
thoughts, but not necessarily biblical ones, not necessarily
what was in the text. But I trust you're going to see
tonight the simplicity of this title will cause us to respond
to the Lord in three ways. In worshiping Him, really, for
who He is, what's wrapped up in this title here, in fearing
Him, and in seeking His face for God to work on our behalf
in a particular way. So who is the God of glory? We're
going to look at what does the word glory mean. In our Old Testament
Bible, when you see that English word in your Bible, glory, it's
translated from the Hebrew word that I believe is pronounced
kavod. And of course, you may have been familiar with it, or
heard the Arabic translation of that word, Shekinah, the Shekinah
glory it's talked about. That's the most popular word
for glory used among the Hebrews. And then in the New Testament
in the Greek, there's the word doxa that we studied a lot in
Bible college. But what I found as I studied
this is as you get to the New Testament, the authors are having
a hard time really making this word very objective. In fact,
in the New Testament, the word doxa, the word for glory, can
mean any number of things. It has a very broad meaning.
And when you find that word glory in the New Testament, you really
have to read the context. What's going on in this chapter
in order to find out how that word is really being used? But
in the Old Testament, the Hebrews had a very specific, kind of
more concrete meaning in this word. So the English translation,
glory, comes from the Hebrew word kavod. And you say, what
does that mean? Well, that word, let's take it
a step further, comes from a root. The root would be pronounced
kavod, meaning this, to be heavy, weighty, or burdensome. say, what does that tell us about
God? One author said, perhaps it's that the subject of God
is very weighty. There is no other more significant
subject that we could give our lives to studying and thinking
about than the study of God. That's certainly true. But you
know what we find when we read this word glory, especially as
it's attached to the title of God, the God of glory, that this
isn't just speaking about the subject of God, it's saying,
it's talking about who God is. In other words, it'd be like
saying God is weighty, God is heavy, God is burdensome. And I kind of scratched my head
at that. I said, well, what's, what is that trying to convey?
But as we understand a few other few things about the Hebrew language,
it becomes clear, using the same root from which we get the English
translation glory, the Hebrews would derive another word, the
word wealthy or to be rich. And in ancient Hebrew, there
was a saying, this is fascinating, and I think this sheds light
into how this word is used in Psalm 29 3. In ancient Hebrew,
they would combine those two ideas of being heavy and rich. And they would have a saying
that went like this. If someone was very wealthy, they would
say, that person is heavy with treasure, or that person is weighed
down with riches. It'd be equivalent to the modern
saying, that guy's loaded. Okay, so to help us illustrate
this, I took a picture of Christian's suitcase downstairs. And the
idea is, he's loaded. Man, this guy is rich. Okay,
not really Christian, but get the idea. It's like you're weighed
down. He's got wealth busting at the
seams. That's the idea. Let me ask you,
when we apply that in that sense though to God, what is God loaded
with? What is God full of? What is
it, as it were, God is weighed down with? Not money. But I see someone talking, you're
throwing a few ideas out here. You know, it's any number of
things. It's his unparalleled attributes. It's his power. It's his love. It's his knowledge, his goodness,
his justice. All of these things that really
are only perfectly held in the person of God, only perfectly
born by God himself. And the idea is, God is filled
with these things. That's an interesting thought.
And obviously the idea of being heavy there is purely figurative. It's not that God is actually
weighed down with all of these attributes, these godly qualities
that he has. But did you know what, if anything,
when I studied this word, if anything, the idea of weight
is not a good connotation, it's a bad one. The idea of being
a burden, being overwhelming, being overwhelmed by these qualities,
that's part of this idea. It's kind of like this. I don't
know if any of you are familiar with avalanches. I love avalanches.
I love nature videos. Maybe it's just because we didn't
get out a whole lot in the city to see wildlife and stuff like
that. But avalanches particularly fascinate
me. And I would love to see a good,
you know, watch an avalanche from my living room on a television
screen on, you know, History Channel or whatever. And I'd
sit there and say something like, wow, that's awe-inspiring. That's
incredible. That's spectacular. But if you're on the other side
of that avalanche, suddenly it becomes terrifying. And they
claim at least 150 lives every year in accidents and incidents involved
with avalanches. That's frightening. Perhaps this is what the authors
were trying to convey when they're talking about glory as far as
it connects with the person of God. When we look at the God
of glory, we see a God who is absolutely full, loaded with
these qualities that if anyone else tried to share, it would
be absolutely overwhelming. And He's so full of these qualities,
He causes us to step back, drop on our knees and say, wow, praise
and bring worship that's worthy of a God like that. But it should
also cause us to fear. Because He's a God that has some
overwhelming capabilities. And I know of some people, born-again
believers, who have run from God. Thinking, I'm a child of
God. I know I'm saved. And they've
experienced chastisement. And they're still saved, and
I'll say their heart's still beating, but that's pretty much
it. Why? They were on the wrong side of
the God of glory. You know, I was studying this.
It did strike some fear into my heart. Actually, it changed
some behavior of mine this very week, actually, some decisions
that I was going to make I didn't make, because I stopped and thought,
Josh, do you really want to get on the other side of that kind
of God? That's the idea here. There is so much power. Number
one, it causes us to respond in praise. But this ought to
cause us to fear our God as well. So we're trying to figure out,
what does glory mean? Well, in one sense, it's God's reality. It's God being loaded with these
unparalleled attributes, weighed down, as it were, with these
qualities, power, knowledge, love, et cetera. But we find
it's actually more than that as we read through the Old Testament.
Not just God's reality. Do you remember why Isaiah 43
says you and I were created? Anybody remember? We were created
for what? For His glory. That was the purpose
you and I were created. Let me ask you this. Does the
fact that you and I created and does the actions you and I take
in a day, the way we respond to God, does that change God's
reality? Does that change who God is?
No. God is unchanging. God is the
same yesterday and today forever. So why did God make us? He made
us to manifest who he was, who he is. That's why he created
us. But if you study your Bible from
the very beginning, all of who God was and is could not be fully
manifested once Adam and Eve sinned. Do you remember that?
Suddenly God was no longer dwelling here, walking among his creation.
People couldn't see him. They couldn't walk with the God
of glory. Talk with the God of glory. But
as you keep reading your Bibles, you know what you notice specifically
beginning, most obviously beginning with Abraham and the call of
the nation of Israel and Isaac and Jacob and then down into
Egypt and then with Moses and the nation of Israel in the wilderness
and into the promised land. What do we notice? If you study
this word glory, it's fascinating. You'll see it starts being closely,
very closely intertwined with the Hebrew word for God's presence
and God's face. so that it means more than just
God's reality. It really points to the manifestation
of God's reality. That's the idea of glory. And
this idea kind of climaxes in Exodus chapter 25, verse eight. And if you remember this story,
it's when God tells Moses, I want you to build a tabernacle. A
tent of meetings was another name for it, where I want to
dwell with you. I want to start showing myself.
And that's where we get this idea of the Shekinah glory, the
Aramaic translation that's most popular, most popularly used
among the Hebrews today. What are the Hebrews? What will
they tell you about the Shekinah glory? It is God, when God shows
up, when God manifests himself. That's the idea here. Put all of this together. And
what does it really tell me about the God of glory? If this idea of glory really
means the manifestation of who God really is, there's some applications,
like I mentioned at the beginning. And these, I find, are very,
very helpful when we practically want to come to the Lord and
worship Him as the God of glory. Number one, praising Him, the
God of glory, loaded with these divine qualities. Lord, I praise
your name that you're the only one who can bear these qualities,
that you're the only one who has them. No one else can share
them with you. and that you're so full of them, it's as if you're
weighed down. Though, of course, that's figuratively
used. We fear Him, the God of glory, with overwhelming capability. Never wanting. Think about this
this week. When we're tempted to make a wrong decision. I'm
telling you this will stop you dead in your tracks if you spend
enough time meditating on it. It's a scary thought. I don't
want to be on the wrong side of that. As foolish as it would
be for someone to stand in front of an avalanche and say, I think
I might be able to stop this thing. It's just as foolish for
someone to put their hand on the edge of the Ark of the Covenant,
where God's glory was known to dwell, and say, I have a pretty
good reason. It's about to fall. I think I
can grab this. And what happened to Uzzah? God
smote him dead. As I was studying this and meditating
on that passage, you know what came to my mind after I was thinking
through that? Well, obviously, what else was
going to happen to someone like that? who tried to interact in
an unholy way with the very glory of God. It's a frightening thought,
and it ought to cause us to put a healthy fear in our hearts,
to stay away from sin and serve the Lord, but also to seek Him.
Why? Because the God of glory is the
God who desires to manifest Himself to the world. Somebody said it's
like the glory of God. One author says it's the invasion
of God's reality in the human sphere. You know God is wanting to show
Himself? God is not sitting up in heaven
saying, I hope there's other ways that they can figure out
that I'm God. The God of glory is a God who
is longing, Faith Baptist Church, to say, please be that vessel. like the nation of Israel was,
a priesthood. Be that people that I can show
myself to the world through. I want to close with this, an
illustration, a true story of a friend I have who lives in
a third world country. Sometimes it's in third world countries
they experience some stuff that perhaps we should experience
a little more of today regarding the power of God, the manifestation
of who God is. But this friend, I believe it
was his pastor who was involved in this incident, he was sharing
with me, he's in a third world country, he walked into a village
where there was some demonic worship going on of some sorts,
if I remember the story correctly. And his pastor came there with
an open Bible preaching Jesus and saying, I serve the true
God, a God who is more powerful. You don't have to fear the demons
anymore. Serve the one true God. And they
really started mocking him. And do you know what they said?
They said, if your God is the true God, stand in front of that
fire. They said, we have a number of
people we could point to here who could stand in front of that,
who could stand in that fire, and by the power of the spirits,
not be burned. Boy, what would you do? Imagine? You just came here. And I believe
he wasn't alone. I believe there were some others
who were with him and sharing the gospel. So now your testimony's
on the line. What do you believe, preacher? Psalm 29, verse 7 says what? The voice of the Lord divided
the flames of fire. This preacher, what my friend
told me, did not hesitate. He walked right into that fire,
he opened his Bible, and he preached the gospel standing in that fire. And that village was converted
to Jesus Christ. Why? Because this preacher understood
the God of glory. He stood back in awe at a God
who was filled with those divine qualities. He had a healthy fear.
He wasn't a preacher who was living his own life the way he
wanted to. No, no, no, no, no, no. He knew there was one true
God, and I don't want to get on the wrong end of this, but
when I'm on the right end, I'm going to see something spectacular."
And he wasn't afraid to step out and do something impossible.
Why? Because he knows that God of glory is just longing and
waiting to manifest himself to the world. Just like he was of
old. Just like he was in the Ten of Meetings. Just like he
was when he split that Red Sea wide open. Guys, the God of glory
is the same. I'll close with this. What's
so fascinating about this God, another thought that was incredible,
He said, this is the same God who Paul writes to us and says,
we can at any moment come to him and call him daddy. He's not so awe-inspiring that
we have to come into his presence trembling, saying, Lord, please,
would you, if you could, I know I'm a nobody, but please do this
for, we can come to him as his children and say, daddy, father.
Just like a child would do when he would say, scared at night
because of a storm outside, daddy, would you stay here in the room
a little bit longer because I'm scared? That's that kind of use of the
word, childlike. And we can come to the God of
glory at any moment. God, I need this for you. That's
incredible. Folks, that's reason to praise
our God. It's reason to fear him. And
it's reason as a church to seek him, to manifest his presence
through us to a lost and needy world.
God Of Glory
Series Names Of God
| Sermon ID | 719152041341 |
| Duration | 19:15 |
| Date | |
| Category | Midweek Service |
| Bible Text | Psalm 29:3 |
| Language | English |
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