Unveil The Glory, Part 2

Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ. Everything that can limit the glory of God emanating from this church and from us as people is us. And I think what happens to the biggest reason we often don't emanate the glory of God is simply this. We make our own plans.

And we got to get enough affirmation on the horizontal plane to say, Okay, that sounds really sound, then good, go ahead and do it. And we reap what we sow. But there's not much glory in it. 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. 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, come visit us. We're cool. We're cool. Oh, yeah. You can 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 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.

The first hundred 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.

And unfortunately, that's getting lost and that's dangerous. Look at Chapter five of John Chapter five and verse forty four. John writes this, the Lord speaking, how can you believe when you receive glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God? You see, that's what we do. We seek glory from one another.

That's the way it works. Seeking glory from one another collectively as a church. Or individually as individuals, we seek that glory. To take glory that belongs to God is sinful.

He said, I will not share my glory. You see, that's the whole point. And the way the glory works is it starts with God's presence in our life. And then through that presence. That radiates out of us. God doing it all. And then he gets the glory.

It's a perfect circle. It's the glory of God. It's the only way we can operate. And sadly, we found other ways to operate. Let me ask you, could have they got out of Egypt on their own? They couldn't have. Only God could have done that, right? Let me ask you this. Could you get saved on your own? I mean, can you do anything to contribute to that? No. No. Could you be a righteous servant of God on your own? No. Not on your own. Could you have the marriage that God intended you to have just on your own? No.

Can a church be what God intends it to be on its own? We see and we say, no. But you know what? Are there people that think they're saved? That they did it on their own? Yes. Yes. There are people that think they're saved. Are there people that think they've done ministry for God on their own?

Yes. Remember what Jesus said? He said, not everyone who says, Lord, Lord, will run to the kingdom of heaven. He said, in that day, there'll be people that come up to me and say, Hey, Jesus, haven't we done great things in your name? I mean, we cast out demons in your name. We worked miracles in your name. How about that?

He said, Get away from me, you sons of iniquity. I don't know who you are. You see the glory on your own, the horizontal glory. It doesn't work. It's impressive.

We like it, but it doesn't work. That's what he's saying. To do it on your own. Every circumstance of our life is an opportunity to reveal the glory of God. Turn to chapter nine of John chapter nine, verse one, a famous miracle. John writes, and he passed by and he saw a man blind from birth.

Very unusual. And his disciples asked him, said, Rabbi, who sinned this man or his parents that he would be born blind? That's the prevailing truth of the day. That's what the culture believed. If you were born with an infirmity, that man, either God did it on the basis of sin you were going to commit, or more likely he did it because your parents or grandparents sinned really bad and you're getting punished for it. And they asked the question, who did it? Was this his sin or their sin?

Jesus said it's neither that man who sinned nor his parents. He said it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him. Why was that man born blind? For the glory of God. He was born blind for the glory of God.

You see how this works? Whatever it is that ails you, whatever your psyche is bruised by, whatever is running your self-esteem can be to the glory of God. You see, you're you for the glory of God. And I'm me for the glory of God. And we're us for the glory of God. You see, it's for the glory of God. That's what he is trying to tell us. See, we'd have said this is a terrible thing.

But it wasn't a terrible thing. Now, by the way, to those who have fake glory, to those who live on the horizontal plane, they brought to the Pharisees the man who was formerly blind. Now, it was a Sabbath on the day that when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes and then the Pharisees also were asking him again how he received his sight. And he said to them, look, he applied the clay to my eyes.

I watched it. I see. Therefore, some of the Pharisees were saying, this man is not from God because he does not keep the Sabbath.

Now, see that? Because that's what people who have their own glory do. They're religious.

And we've set it up on the horizontal plane how you get honor. And you can't do this stuff when you break our rules. We have rules about the Sabbath. You can't let blind people see on the Sabbath. Lame people walk, deaf people hear. You can't do that.

Why? Because all they were about was one thing, horizontal glory. The glory of one man giving it to another man.

That's what they're doing. And, boy, it is infectious. You see, what happens in this whole thing with glory is even though we have it in us, we never get it really out because somehow we buy into the horizontal plane. About a week or so ago, Pastor Brad and I were talking about marriage counseling. And we sort of had this subject in mind without even knowing it. And what we said was that it's interesting when people come to us, it ends up often being reduced into methodology or pragmatism. In other words, you want to give them something to do, you know, so that it'll be better. And so, you know, one of the things you do, we do commonly is, you know, what you really need is to set up a weekly date night with your husband or wife. Go out on it. Now, there's nothing wrong with this idea. So don't say, hey, I don't have to take you out.

Pastor Bill said, don't have to do that. The point is, though, we say you need to go on a date, okay? And then we got stuff, other tools, very pragmatic, like the languages of love. What's your language? What's your love language? And then we say, look, you need to figure out what her love language is and what your love language is and then you've got to make your love language be her love language. And the point of it is we keep trying to methodology and pragmatism and we try to give you some insights and we tell you there's a conference.

If you go to Baton Rouge to a conference, boy, that'll get you going. But you know the reality of it is if you're a believer in Jesus Christ, let Jesus Christ have the marriage. Let Jesus Christ, let Jesus Christ emanate from that marriage.

Let the glory show you would have a marriage you wouldn't even dream of if you let Jesus Christ. But see, so often on a horizontal plane, we kind of think, no, no, he can't really do that. He needs a little bit of help from us. Our methodologies and our pragmatism, that's what will carry the day. And now that's even infected the churches where we say, how can we do this if the Lord didn't exist and still get a crowd?

And of course, that's exactly what we do. You see, let me show you a verse that is really convicting to me and I hope it's convicting to you. Ephesians chapter 3, Ephesians chapter 3. A prayer of Paul, verse 14. Paul says, for this reason, I bow my knees before the Father. He said, I'm going to pray right now. He says, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that he would grant you.

Now, I want you to think of you personally. He would grant you, yes, you, according to the riches of his glory. Now, see, how is God going to grant something?

According to the riches of his what? His glory. See, the glory is the essence of God.

It's the presence of God radiating from you. That he would grant you according to the riches of his glory. Now, here's what he wants, to be strengthened with power through his spirit in the inner man. He said, I want you to be so much stronger than you are and I want to give you the power that's available to you and the limit of the power is the spirit of God, his spirit. How much power does the spirit of God have?

Infinite power, resurrection power. He says, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts and now here comes the key phrase for us, through faith. If you don't have faith, you really don't get to have much of the glory.

You see, without the faith, there's not much glory. Usually, God will not do through us what we will not allow God to do in us. He says, through faith and that you being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and the length and the height and the depth and to know the love of Christ. He said, once you really get a hold of this, it's just going to flow from you full of grace and truth. He says, which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up with the fullness of God, that you may be controlled by the fullness of God.

In other words, you're going to burn. You set yourself on fire in these verses and you just burn and people love to watch people burn. Now, here's the verse I think that you may not have ever really thought about. Now, to him who was able to do exceedingly abundantly, exceeding abundantly, how do you exceed abundantly? He said, God is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us. To him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus in all generations forever and ever and amen.

Do you see what he's saying? If you live the kind of life that you allow God, the glory of God to just emanate from you, what will end up happening in your life? You'll live a life that is beyond anything you'll ask or could possibly think. Now let me ask you, is that your experience? You see, is that your experience? You say, look, I couldn't have even asked or dreamed or thought any of this. You see, I have, by the way, when we pray, don't we have pretty specific prayer requests? And basically what God is normally saying is, hey, those are fine, I'll do what I can, but they're too little. You see, I want to give you what is way beyond what you'd even ask.

I want to give you and I want to put this into your life something you wouldn't even think about. You see, because that's what he says. That's what the glory of God does.

You see, the glory of God is way beyond anything that seems rational. I mean, do you really think that a bunch of slaves are going to leave the Egyptian empire? No.

Do you really think that once you go through the Red Sea that the Egyptian army is going to be drowned in the sea? No. You see, what was his point? Look, I'll go way beyond this. I'll go beyond anything. Let me ask you, what has God done in your life beyond what you could have ever thought or asked? And I think for most of us, if you're honest, you'll say not much.

Not much. And the reason is our faith. It's not in the power of the Spirit of God. It's not in the glory. The glory has everything possible that could be there.

There's no doubt about it. That's what he says with the glory. The only thing that can limit the glory of God emanating from this church and from us as people is us. And I think what happens to the biggest reason we often don't emanate the glory of God is simply this. We make our own plans. And we get enough affirmation on the horizontal plane to say, okay, that sounds really sound and good.

Go ahead and do it. And we reap what we sow. But there's not much glory in it.

One more thing. Turn with me to Matthew chapter 16. Matthew chapter 16. Famous passage. Verse 16 in Matthew 16. Jesus asked his disciples, who do men say that I am?

They gave it a lot of shots. John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, some prophet. Peter was listening to it all and finally come up with something. But by the way, he didn't come up with it on his own even. Jesus did make sure that Peter couldn't take credit for it in a minute. He said, but who do you say I am? And Simon Peter said in verse 16, you're the Christ. You're the son of the living God. Jesus said to him, blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal it to you, but my Father is in heaven.

This didn't come from your keen insight. This came from my Father. And then he says this. I also say to you that you are Peter, pebble, and upon this rock, your statement, I am the Christ, the son of the living God. Upon that, that statement, I will build my church. I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. There is a categorical statement. I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it, will not overpower it.

It's almost like we have to pretend we're in first grade. You see, we can have all the kids together. Who's saying this? Who?

Who said this? Jesus. What did he say? He'll build his church. Who said? Jesus. What did he say? He'll build his church.

Tell me that. Jesus said he'll build his church. Jesus said he'll build his church.

Then why are we trying so hard to build it? Remember what Solomon said? When you try to build a house on your own? He said if you tried to build a house, your household on your own, you'll labor in vain. You see, what Jesus is saying is he didn't say, and upon this statement, I want you to get out there and build me a church. That's the last thing in the world he said. I will build the church, is what Jesus Christ said. That's what he's going to do. Every single month, it seems like to me, I get bombarded with mailings of the new sensational conference just for pastors so I could learn how to build a church.

They have them every single time. Come to Chicago, come to Dallas, come to L.A., and learn how to actually build a church. I mean, we'll bring in the experts. We'll show you how to raise money from your people.

It won't matter how white-knuckled they are, how hard they hold on to it, you'll squeeze that money out of them. We'll show you how to get things done politically, that you'll get the land you want even if they didn't want to give you the land. We'll show you how. We'll have surveys. We'll have so many surveys that you'll appeal to every possible demographic that exists. You see, come, and we'll show you how to do this. And the scary thing about it all is it works.

That's the scariest thing at all. It works. You get the crowd. You get the crowd, but there's no glory.

There's just a crowd. See, that's our problem. The reason we never really get to be part of the glory of God is because we somehow believe on our own we can do this, and we fail. And what he is saying right there is, I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.

I will not fail. Jesus is basically saying to us as a church, I will build my church with this church or without this church, but I'll build my church. One other thing. When was it in the history of the church that we actually believed when Jesus said I will build my church that was numerical? When did we get that idea?

I can tell you when, about the last 30 years in North America. You look at the history of the church in the time of Christ until the present time, and boy, the true church of Jesus Christ has been a small remnant of believers all over the earth all those centuries. But he was building it. You see, he was building it, but somehow we have turned it into something else. You see, that's why the apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians, and he said we preach Christ, not ourselves, because it's so easy to preach yourselves, proclaim yourselves.

I mean, I'm astounded by it. I mean, I see the slogans. We are the friendly church. Now, I'm all for you being friendly.

Someone here you don't know, be friendly. I'm all for you being friendly, but this church isn't about you being friendly. This church is about Jesus Christ, the Lord and Savior of all. That's what it's about. It's about Christ.

I like to be around a friendly group of people. They certainly beat the alternative. I don't want to have any problem with that, but that's not what church is to be about. You see, the glory is not in the giftedness of the pastor. The glory is not in the magnificence of the building. The glory is not in the variance of the programs.

The glory is not in the competence of the music. The glory is only in Jesus Christ. You see, it's the only product we have. We have one product in this church, one Jesus Christ. That's all we're selling, and we're not selling anything else.

Apart from him, we can do nothing. See, that's why you said, I am the vine, you're the branches. Abide in me. I'll show you the glory. You see, stay close to me.

My yoke is light. I'll show you the glory. You stay close to me and then let me do the work.

That's true of us collectively, and it's true of you individually. Our strategy should be simple in our lives. Unveil the glory of Jesus Christ. I challenge you to change your prayer life.

Change it this way. Just for a week, every prayer, show me your glory. Lord, show me the glory. I want to see the glory in my life. I want to see the glory in my church. I want to see the glory in my marriage. I want to see the glory.

I believe you'd be changed. Whenever you see that glory, it is full of grace and truth. It's not only for our good, but it's always back to God's glory. You see, Wesley was right. He was exactly right.

Whenever you set yourself on fire, people will come from everywhere to watch you burn. And the best of all, God is with us. To God be the glory. Let's pray. Father, I fear that this subject of glory is too abstract for us. I fear that the idea is we can't really get our thoughts around it. But Father, we need to. We need to understand that there's nothing we can do in and of ourselves. We couldn't save ourselves.

We can't keep ourselves. We don't do righteous acts on our own. We are dependent on you for every good thing in life.

Every lasting thing for eternity comes through you. So Father, I pray that each of us understand that. And that we collectively understand it as a church. We simply want you to reveal your glory. We want you to emanate from us, your people, in such a way that others see our good works and glorify our fathers in heaven. Father, I thank you for the glory of God. I thank you for the dependency of the Apostle Paul. I thank you for the insight of the great Moses. I thank you most of all for your Son, our Savior, in whose name we pray.

Amen. 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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