Unveil The Glory, Part 1

Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ.

I want you to be manifesting the glory of God. And here's the point, if we're not, we're all wasting time here. Your life is a waste of time. This church is a waste of time. My ministry is a waste of time, unless it's glorifying to God. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt.

Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana. Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's word meets our world. When the great Methodist evangelist John Wesley was asked the secret of his impact for Christ around the world, he answered, When you set yourself on fire, people love to come and to see you burn.

As I looked at that quote, many, many times I've seen it in the past, I was left with three questions. Am I on fire? Are you on fire? And what is fire? You see, in the past, I've often been wrong about the fire of John Wesley. In the past, I thought maybe the fire was his commitment. Or maybe maybe the fire was his passion or the fire was his perseverance to just keep going.

And those are all good things. And no doubt about it, John Wesley evidenced those things in his life and ministry. It is said that John Wesley traveled over 200000 miles on horseback. And preached 40000 sermons for the cause of Christ. Now, that's commitment, that's passion and that's perseverance. But something else, John Wesley said, made me change my mind.

It is reported that when Wesley was in the last minute of his life and he had loved ones and friends around him that he set up. And simply said this. Best of all. God is with us. And then he died. Best of all.

Now, a teacher right to his death, he is talking to them about them. But to me, what he's meaning is best of all. God is with me. That's the fire. God is with him. And he radiated. The glory of God. When you set yourself on fire. People love to come and watch you burn.

That's what they did with John Wesley. You see, I think we often think of glory as who gets the credit. And there is that element of glory who gets the credit.

Give them the glory. But glory is more than that. Glory is the presence of God. And glory is what emanates from God. And without glory, your life, my life and this church will never be what God intends it to be. Open your Bibles to Exodus Chapter 33, Exodus Chapter 33, a famous passage. Moses is talking to God.

That's always a good thing. You get it firsthand. And in Chapter 33, in verse 12, Moses writes, and then Moses said to the Lord, See, you say to me, bring up this people. But you yourself have not let me know whom you will send with me. Moreover, you have said, I have known you by name. And you have also found favor in my sight.

God, this is a big job. I mean, I've got about two, two and a half million people that I'm leading. And who's going to be with me?

How's this going to work? He says, Now, therefore, I pray you, if I have found favor in your sight, let me know your ways that I may know you so that I may find favor in your sight. Consider, too, that this nation is your people. And God said, My presence shall go with you.

I will give you rest. And Moses said to God, then, if your presence does not go with us, do not lead us up from here. That's a great line. Only a man who's walked as many years as Moses has with the Lord can say that. Lord, if your your presence isn't going to go with me, I'm not going anywhere.

I don't want to go any further. If your presence is in my ministry, Lord, and my ministry. If your presence isn't in this church, Lord, just close the doors. You see, that's what Moses is saying. Then he says this, For how, then, can it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people?

Is it not your going with us so that we, I and your people, may be distinguished from all the other people who are upon the face of the earth? And the Lord said to Moses, I will also do this thing of what you have spoken for you have found favor in my sight, and I have known you by name. And then Moses says, OK, I want a prayer request.

Show me your glory. Now, think of this. What has Moses seen up till now? Aaron's rod that butted. He saw the Nile turn to blood. He saw Nat so thick that you couldn't breathe. He saw locusts a foot deep. I mean, think of the things he saw. He saw the firstborn all die. He saw it all. I mean, what could have he said?

What would you have said? Could have he said, God, just be Mr. Canaan. Would that be too hard for the Lord? Remember how old he was?

God, how about making me 40 again? This is a long walk. You know, he could have he could have said anything. He says to the Lord, show me your glory. Literally, the Hebrew word means your weightiness.

Show me your weightiness. One hundred ninety nine times that term is used in the Old Testament. In the New Testament, the word the Greek word that is also translates the Greek version of the Old Testament is the Greek word Doksa. And Doksa means the light that comes from something brilliant that's emanating. It means it just comes out.

He said, I want to see that. In other words, as heat is to a fire, glory is the God is what is the water. Glory is the God. Glory is what emanates from God.

It could be specific or general. Jonathan Edwards, a great American theologian, said his glory is his infinite knowledge, his infinite holiness, his infinite joy, his infinite happiness, his infinite ability, et cetera, et cetera. It's the essence of God.

Show me that. Verse 19. And he said, I myself, he says, will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim. He says the name of the Lord before you and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and show compassion whom I will show compassion. But he said, you cannot see my face. No man can see my face and live his holiness. Then the Lord said, behold, there is a place by me, he says, and you shall stand there on or on the rock. He says, and it will come to pass that while my glory is passing by, that I will put you in the cleft of the rock and cover you with my hand until I passed. And then I will take my hand away and you shall see my back. But my face you cannot see. What a great demonstration. But he gave him exactly what he wanted to see.

Show me your glory. See, show me your substance. Now, understand what started this whole idea was Moses is not real confident.

The job seems too big for him. And so what he wants to say is, look, you're not going to tell me who's going to help me. You haven't told me what really the plan is going to be. You don't know what assets I have. How about this? Could you just show me your glory?

In other words, if I'm going to have just you with us, can I be confident that that's more than enough? Was it? Yes. By the way, how was he affected by it? Remember what happened? He glowed. He just glowed. He just radiated.

All we saw was the reflection and he starts glowing. Now, think about that from the point of view even of the New Testament. Paul says in the New Testament, Christ in you, the hope of glory, the certitude. You see, when it comes to the glory of God, you're not asking God, can I get a glimpse of it? You're indwelled by it.

You're indwelled by it. Now, when Moses got a glimpse of it and he radiated, everybody saw it. Who sees it in your life? Everybody should.

Christ in you, the hope of glory. It should just come out of you. It should radiate from you.

Everybody should be able to see this. You should be different because of it and yours won't fade. But also, it may never manifest itself.

It really depends on you. You see, glory is what emanates from God. You don't see God. You just see evidence that God is present and he's at work.

The world doesn't see God when it looks at the people in our church. But I hope it sees the presence of God and the work that God does and how it emanates from God. In Psalm 19, verse 1, the psalmist wrote, the heavens or creation are telling of the glory of God. In verse 2, day to day, it pours forth speech. In other words, he says, look at creation.

He said, what does it do? It proclaims the glory of God and it proclaims it every day, every day. People see creation, there is a God, there is a God. You see, that's the whole idea. Isaiah said that the angels say the whole earth is full of his glory.

We see it. What has been and should be our consuming purpose then is to live in such a way that the evidence is that God is in us and he's at work. You see, we should be manifesting the glory of God.

And here's the point, if we're not, we're all wasting time here. Your life is a waste of time. This church is a waste of time. My ministry is a waste of time. Unless it's glorifying to God, unless it's the glory of God.

You see, it wasn't Wesley's fire that the people came to see. It was the presence of God. You see, it was in a sense its own Shekinah glory, the very presence of God. What would that look like in your life? You see, if that is true in your life, what would that look like? Let me just give you a few scenarios. I know a lot of people who've gone through what you're going through and they didn't handle it the way you've handled it.

And you say that is God? Or, wow, I just don't see how you stayed in your marriage after that. I know mine would have blown apart by now. I don't see how you keep going. Or, I can't figure out why you do business the way you do. Anybody else would have had their hands around my throat, demanding what they earned. But you're different.

What's up with that? Or, man, you're dying. You're suffering. I don't see how you can sing.

How do you manage when others are facing less that they cannot manage? You must have something, a secret or something. Well, they'd be right. There is a secret, but it's not really a secret. It's just something. Christ in you, the hope of glory. Do you understand that when you became a believer, God put his glory in you? And right, he has promised in the context of his church that the glory is to be in the church. And what we're to do is emanate that glory. And that sounds easy, but it's not, apparently, to us.

What would it look like? Turn to John, the Gospel of John, Chapter 1. The Gospel of John, Chapter 1. In this great chapter, John, starting in verse 14, says this. And the Word, and that's the Word from verse 1, In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God, the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ. Okay, he says, and the Word became flesh, the Son of God became flesh, the incarnation. And then he says this, and dwelt among us. So now, God is in human flesh, and he lives right among us.

Now, what's the next phrase? And we saw his glory. Better translation, we beheld his glory. We saw his glory. See what John is saying? I saw the glory.

What? I saw the presence of God that emanated right out of him. I saw it. Well, he saw the glory. Glory as of the only begotten from the Father, and then a greater description, full of grace and truth.

He said, that's the glory. Full of grace and truth. You know, that's not a human characteristic. Lots of human beings are full of grace, and lots of human beings are full of truth. Very few human beings are full of both.

You think about that. Think of how many people are what they call truth tellers. I'll tell you the truth. You want to hear the truth, I'll tell you the truth.

That's one thing I do. I tell people the truth. They may hate me for it. I may make them cry, but they're hearing it, because I'm a truth teller.

Then there's the kind of person that's the grace person. All they want to do is minister grace. They are afraid to tell somebody they're on fire. They're afraid. They're afraid to do, I don't want to do anything that hurts anybody's feelings no matter what. So I'm never going to tell anybody the truth. Not ever.

What if they didn't like me for it? Jesus is full of grace and truth. You see, when you manifest the glory of God, it looks like that.

Boy, is that a wonderful combination. If your life is nothing but emanating grace and truth, you'll be amazed what you'll do for God. Turn to John 17 with me. John 17, same gospel, in this great prayer of Jesus Christ.

And Jesus begins, it says, Jesus spoke these things, and lifting up his eyes to heaven, he begins to pray. And he says, Father, the hour has come. Now watch. Glorify your son. Father, glorify me.

Now watch. So that the son may glorify you. This is the circular nature of glory. He says, let your glory be in my presence and radiate from me. You will glorify me by doing that, and I will glorify you by what I'm about to do. He said, even as you gave him authority over all flesh, that to all whom you have given him, he may give eternal life. That they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on this earth. I glorified you. I showed people the glory, full of grace and truth, having accomplished the work which you have given to me to do. Now, Father, glorify me together with yourself, with the glory which I had with you before the foundation of the world, before the world was.

Now, he doesn't stop there. He begins to pray then for the disciples and then for us. In verse 15, he says, I do not ask you to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Set them apart. Sanctify means set them apart. Set them apart in the truth. Your word is truth. And as you sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.

He says, for their sakes, I set myself apart, that they themselves also may be set apart in the truth. Truth and grace. The gospel is grace. We operate on the basis of the truth. And then he says this, I do not ask on behalf of these alone, that's the disciples, but for those who, notice, those also who believe in me through their word.

That's us. So Jesus said, I'm just praying for everybody here, and I'm certainly praying for you. Now, notice what he wants to do. He says that they may all be one, even as you, Father, are in me and I in you, and that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you sent me. The glory which you have given me, I have given them. He says that they may be one, just as we are one.

Notice how this works. It's like a glory marathon relay race. You know, Christ says, I took the glory, I brought it from heaven, the Father gave it to me, I carried the glory out of my life.

I'm leaving now, and I'm going to give you the glory. And that's why Paul said, once Christ is in you, it's the hope of the certitude of glory. The real question is, do you manifest that?

Because if you do, it's amazing the results that you would get. See, that's the prayer. That's the prayer. Father, manifest your glory in my life, in their lives, individually, and our life collectively as a church. You know, there's really no other prayer. That's the prayer. If it was good enough for the Lord in summation, it's certainly good enough for me. But that's the whole idea. He says, look, if God's glory isn't in this, there's no point in doing this at all.

All of what we do, there's no point in it whatsoever. Turn with me to a verse that means a lot to me in chapter 7 of John. Chapter 7 and verse 18. John 7 and verse 18.

And this is a sobering verse to me. He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory. He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory. But he who is seeking the glory of the one who sent him. He is true and there is no unrighteousness in him.

That's sobering. He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory. You can do that.

I know I can do that. I find that as a warning passage. I spent a lot of my years thinking about that passage. One of the great reasons why I'm so committed to expository preaching from the Word of God verse by verse is I want you to get an idea of what God said, not what Bill said. Whenever you say, wow, that really helped me, give God the glory. You see, the only thing you can glorify is the message, not the messenger. That's one of the reasons after services I never stand in a prominent spot and want to shake your hand and you tell me what a great message that was.

You know what will happen? I'll start believing that. Peter Hendricks called that the glorification of the worm.

And I have believed that my whole life. My Lord and Savior said, beware when all men speak well of you. You see, you've got to go out of your way. You've got to go out of the way. You've got to think about this. Am I going to get in the way? Because here's the problem we have. It is so easy to get in the way of the glory of God that we don't even know when we're in the way.

We never emanate any glory at all. You see, I can be just clever enough to do this on my own. And I might fool you, but I'll never fool God.

You see, we live in a culture now that we are so committed to pragmatism and methodology that we believe somehow that if we just figure out how to do everything, it'll be fine. And it only will at a very superficial level, but there's no glory in it because God is not in it. As a church, we simply have one task about us, one thing to do that is exclusively ours, unveil His glory. That's all we have to do, unveil His glory.

Christ in us, the hope of glory. We don't need to draw people in. We don't need to figure out how can we be more attractive to people.

We don't need to woo anyone. We need to allow Jesus Christ to shine in our individual lives. You do that, I do that, we'll be fine. You see, if I do that in my individual life and you do it in yours, you'll be fine.

We're going to see right now just how fine you could possibly be as we go on with this. But right now, we live in a day and age where churches are all about this. There's just way too much wooing going on.

I mean, over the years, the kind of things that I have seen at websites and advertisements and paper and a newspaper and stuff, it's mind-blowing to me. I mean, you see someone like me as a church, say, hey, come visit us, we're cool. We're cool? Oh, yeah, you could have a latte in our lobby.

Oh, a latte, yeah. I mean, you ought to hear our musicians. You get our music going, boy, you will not be able to contain yourself.

Music, music, music. I mean, we're going to do it. I have promised an eight-minute sermon. It won't be boring. You can just simply suffer through the eight minutes and get on with it.

And the worst I'd ever seen, free door prizes of the first 100 people in the building. And here's what's so sad that's going on. But let me tell you something, it's sadder. It works.

It works. You get a crowd, but you don't get glory. There is no glory in that at all. The church is for Christ. The church is about Christ. The church is through Christ.

The church is for the glory of Christ. Music You've been listening to Pastor Bill Gebhardt on the Radio Ministry of Fellowship in the Word. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts, or maybe you would just like to listen to the message one more time, remember that you can go to a great website called oneplace.com. That's oneplace.com, and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online.

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That's fbcnola.org. At our website, you will find hundreds of Pastor Bill's sermons. You can browse through our sermon archives to find the sermon series you are looking for, or you can search by title. Once you find the message you are looking for, you can listen online, or if you prefer, you can download the sermon and listen at your own convenience. And remember, you can do all of this absolutely free of charge. Once again, our website is fbcnola.org. For Pastor Bill Gebhardt, I'm Jason Gebhardt, thanking you for listening to Fellowship in the Word.