Changed Before Our Eyes Series

Sermon – Glory – Changed before our eyes!

1. Introduction (joke, etc about being changed)

a. Joke:

i. Hospital waiting room. One rather self-important individual was getting impatient. Unwilling to wait any longer, he barged in and demanded to be seen by the doctor. "Don’t you know who I am?" Shouted the man. The secretary calmly pressed the button on the microphone of her loudspeaker system and asked the waiting patients. "I have a gentleman here who doesn’t know who he is. Can someone please assist him in finding out? Thank you."

ii. If you were to go around asking your friends, "What do people say about me?" Or "Who do you say I am?" they might take it as an evidence of pride or dementia. But what people believe and say about Jesus Christ will determine their destiny. Your confession concerning Jesus Christ is a matter of life or death.

iii. The Glory of God being unveiled in Jesus Christ affects what you believe about who Jesus is and why He came to this earth.

b. We have spoken of the glory of God being revealed for these past 3 weeks in Jesus Christ.

c. Hopefully you are remembering the number one priority of God is to Reveal His Glory.

i. He wants to make Himself known to His creation.

1. He wants us to worship Him and to take our place before Him in the role we were created for…to have a relationship with Him…and to worship Him.

2. Why are we studying the “glory of God.”

a. It doesn’t seem really practical…like what does it have to do with MY life?

i. But it is practical, because it is foundational to every human being.

ii. If you build your life on the assumption that you are at the center of the universe, that “its all about me,” then you will be sorely disappointed, both in this life and in the life to come.

b. We need to know that God is our creator, and that He indeed is God and that you and I are not. This must be our first step in the journey of our lives.

c. The second step is that we need to recognize that we are separated from God because of our pre-disposition to rule our own life.

i. The bible calls this “sin.”

ii. It is an attitude that says, “I want it my way.”

d. God saw your and my rebellion and desires to bring us back into a relationship with Him as our Head, as our Ruler, as God.

i. It is for this reason that He sent Jesus, His only Son, to come to earth, clothed in humanity, to bear the consequences of our sin.

ii. He did this so that by trusting in Jesus, we could experience a renewed relationship that would last forever with God.

ii. If you not in the middle of an intimate relationship with God right now, then you are missing the very best that God has for you.

1. You are choosing second best or worse.

2. You are choosing leftovers and are missing the wonderful life He designed you for!

3. Do you really want less than God’s best for yourself? He made you! He knows what will make you happiest. He, Himself is the answer to your deepest needs.

d. That is why we are pursuing this study of the Glory of God, because seeing the Glory of God, in your heart, through your spiritual eyes, will lead you to acknowledge God as God, to worshjip Him with all of your heart, and lead you to a life that is led by the One who created you!

e. So what is the glory of God?

i. The Glory of God can be defined as the Visible Majesty of the Divine Presence.

f. This morning, we will look at the third significant instance where the bible says that Jesus displayed his Divine Majesty.

2. Humanity of Jesus

a. I think it is important for us at this point to reflect upon the humanity of Jesus so that the context of this revelation of His divinity can catch us with the same surprise that it did those who knew Him.

i. Keep in mind that Jesus was born in a perfectly normal way, while his conception was miraculous, his birth was ordinary…he was delivered into the world as a small, frail and vulnerable infant. He grew up in a small village in Galilee and worked quietly as the son of a carpenter.

ii. When Jesus began his rabbinical ministry, kind of like a traveling preacher, it was the folks that knew him from his childhood that had the greatest trouble. In fact, Isaiah has prophesied that “Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up before him like a tender shoot and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire Him.” (Is 53:1-2)