The Glory of God March 30 2003
Those of you who receive Richard Long’s Together news letter via email would know that he and Michael Lafluer are just back from England. They visited Leeds where they met with a multiple number of key leaders in the emerging city-wide church. They call this movement "Building Together"
The stated vision of "Building Together" is the "re-evangelization and transformation of England, so that England itself may be a blessing to other nations." Though I heard them say with a smile that it is intended to be a invisible subversive force, the mission statement goes like this - "To encourage, enable and support the body of Christ in towns, cities, and regions to stand together in unity, in prayer, in prophetic insight and wisdom and to be agents of the kingdom of God in every sphere of society."
Encapsulated in that mission statement are the four elements that Mike Love (a regional leader) described as being vital in the process.
1. Relational Unity among church leaders and the people of God in any given geography.
2. Prophetic Insight and Revelation
3. Informed Intercession
4. Permission and equipping for the people of God in the context of their life and work.
I think that we are getting better are the 1st point, in Toronto, but we are weak in the other three. Although I would love to talk more about all the points, I want to deal with the last point “Permission and equipping for the people of God in the context of their life and work.”
Permission to use your spiritual gifts in all areas of your life, not just in what we call church life – giving the freedom to be more involved in other areas rather than only serving the church community and institution.
Equipping – training our people to be the church in every sphere of our lives.
Let’s pray….
A few years ago, the a video came out called “Transformations” – the transforming power of the glory of God not just on individuals, and families, but on communities, cities, and whole countries. I know that some of you have seen it. One of the things that that video did for many people was to give us a desire to see God’s glory manifest in my neighbourhood, and in our city.
There are amazing stories in the scripture about the glory of God, and the power of his glory
Incidents of his glory
Moses hid in the cleft of the rock In Exodus 33:12f Moses ask God to see his glory, but
God’s Glory filling the tabernacle – In Exodus 40:34 God had told the people to build a big tent or tabernacle where he would come and meet with them – sort of a portable temple. When they had built it to God’s specifications, and set it up, God’s Glory came and filled the tent in such a way that not even Moses could enter the tent.
God’s Glory filling the temple – in 1 Kings 8:10-11 and again in 2 Chronicles 5:14 When the temple has finally been completed by Solomon, God’s Glory came and filled the temple to such a degree that it says that the Priests could not even stand to do their duties
The promises of His glory
Prayer for his Glory
Psalm 72:18-19
Praise be to the LORD God, the God of Israel,
who alone does marvelous deeds.
Praise be to his glorious name forever;
may the whole earth be filled with his glory.
Amen and Amen.
Promise of God’s Glory
Habakkuk 2:14
For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD ,
as the waters cover the sea.
My Desire to see God’s Glory now:
David Ruis wrote a song that echoes what many of us desire. The chorus goes like this
Let your glory fall
in this room
Let it go forth
from here to the nations
Let your fragrance rest
in this place
As we gather
to seek your face
God’s Glory in our time
The Transformations II video tells the story of people praying in Scotland in the night. There were a number of people who felt called to spend the night in prayer, and you could see the warm glow of the coal oil lamps in the windows of a few houses as peopled prayed. The story goes that as the night wore on, you could see more and more lights coming on, as people were awakened by God to pray. People reported that you could actually see shimmering lights above the houses as the people prayed. It wasn’t just that people prayed, or that strange lights were seen, the people of the town and in the region got right with God, and with each other in droves…
Orkney Islands – When revival came to the Orkney Islands off Scotland, The Spirit of repentance was so strong that sailors sailing past found that they had to put into port and find a church to confess because the weight of their sin was so great.
J. Edwin Orr, a professor of Church history has described the great outpouring of the Holy Spirit during the Welsh Revivals of the nineteenth century. As people sought to be filled with the Spirit, they did all they could to confess their wrong doing and to make restitution. But it unexpectedly created serious problems for the shipyards along the coast of Wales. Over the years workers had stolen all kinds of things, from wheelbarrows to hammers. However, as people sought to be right with God they started to return what they had taken, with the result that soon the shipyards of Wales were overwhelmed with returned property. There were such huge piles of returned tools that several of the yards put up signs that read, "If you have been led by God to return what you have stolen, Please know that the management forgives you and wishes you to keep what you have taken."
These sorts of things have happened throughout the history of the church, ever since Pentecost up until modern day.
I have these dreams of seeing God’s glory come to a community in such power that people are walking into churches in droves just looking for someone to pray with them so they can become Christians.
I, along with others have prayed passionately that God would do this sort of thing here in Toronto – that his glory would fall on this place, that we would see revival in our time.
There is a place in Exodus 19:9 where God says to Moses “I am going to come to you in a dense cloud, so that the people will hear me speaking with you and will always put their trust in you.” - “Lord, I would like some of that, come down in a cloud and tell the people that they should listen to what the Christians are saying!”
God does these sorts of things, and we should expect them and pray for them and do the things that we think are required to see them happen. But our experience tells us that the times of revival are dispersed throughout history with some rather lengthy waiting periods in between. God has a definite plan for the in-between times, and that plan is not any less important than his plan for revival – in fact it may be more important.
The story of the feeding of the 5,000
Luke 9:10-17
When the apostles returned, they reported to Jesus what they had done. Then he took them with him and they withdrew by themselves to a town called Bethsaida, but the crowds learned about it and followed him. He welcomed them and spoke to them about the kingdom of God, and healed those who needed healing.
Late in the afternoon the Twelve came to him and said, "Send the crowd away so they can go to the surrounding villages and countryside and find food and lodging, because we are in a remote place here."
He replied, "You give them something to eat."
They answered, "We have only five loaves of bread and two fish--unless we go and buy food for all this crowd." (About five thousand men were there.)
But he said to his disciples, "Have them sit down in groups of about fifty each." The disciples did so, and everybody sat down. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke them. Then he gave them to the disciples to set before the people. They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over.
I used to think that Jesus was joking, ribbing the disciples a little – like I do sometimes when my kids asked to be carried “I’ve been carrying you long enough now, you carry me!” But more and more I am thinking that he wasn’t joking – “you feed them.”
The reason that I don’t think he was joking is that more and more as I pray for God’s glory to be shown in this city, I hear God saying “you do it, you show my glory.” And he is not joking.
In fact, this is God’s Plan - that we who are Christians show His glory to the world that is around us. – this is no simple thing – this is the same glory that would have killed Moses if he saw it, it is the same glory that knocked the priests on their faces so they could not do their jobs, the same glory that drove sailors into ports to get right with God. This is the glory that we are to show.
God’s glory in us filling the whole earth
In Psalm 72 and Habakkuk 2:14 we have this dream of seeing the glory of God filling the whole earth and in the New Testament we see that God’s plan for doing this is you and me, his church.
In Colossians 1:27, Paul is explaining his ministry and he says this amazing thing. He says “To (the Christians) God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Christ in you, the hope of glory.
All this time I have been hoping that God would come down and blast us with his glory, and what he says is that the hope of glory is that Christ is in me, in you, in us! The fact that Christ is in us is the hope that we have for seeing God’s glory in the world.
I might wish that I had what Moses had, but Paul tells us that what we have is even better!
In 2 Corinthians 3:12-18 Paul explains that when Moses brought the Law down from the mountain his face shone with the glory of God, but over time the glory in his face faded, so he wore a veil so that the people would not see that the glory was fading.
Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold. We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from gazing at it while the radiance was fading away. But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away. Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
The Glory of the Spirit’s work in us doesn’t fade; in fact, it gets greater as we allow him to work in our lives!
In Ephesians 1:22-23, Paul has been talking about how good it is to know Jesus, and he says about Jesus, “And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.”
I could never quite figure out what this means as a description of the church “the fullness of him who fills everything in every way” But now in light of the fact that it is God’s purpose to fill the whole earth with His glory, and his main method for doing this is His church, I can see that we, the body of Christ – the way that he works on earth - we are to be his glory carriers throughout every sphere of creation! The way that he fills the whole earth with his glory is through his glory carriers, the church.
Let me use another image that has hit me deeply lately. Jesus uses it in Matthew 13:33 & in Luke 13 as well. “He told them still another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough."
Our favorite images for Christians in the world are salt and light – salt that adds flavor, preserves the food, purifies the wounds, melts the icy hearts, light that shows the truth of God to a dark world. These are great images, but they are lacking if we do not grasp the idea of yeast as well.
Who here bakes bread? What does the yeast do?
Two things about yeast that are important for this image
1. the yeast works its way throughout the whole dough
2. yeast transforms the structure of the bread
There is no place in the world that is not supposed to feel the transforming power of the Kingdom of God – the Glory of God working through you. Every sphere of life is to be touched – your workplace, your school, your family, your recreation, into every area we are carriers of the glory of God
Just as yeast transforms the bread, the Glory of God that you carry transforms the structures of these spheres that God has placed you in.
When we pray the Lord’s prayer, we pray “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” What would your workplace look like if the kingdom of God came, what would your school look like? What would your family look like if it was touched by the Glory of God?
What does it mean to bring the kingdom to these places?
– John Perkins learning the Lord’s prayer as a boy – asks the question what does heaven look like, the teacher answers, it is where people from every nation, tribe and tongue praise God with one voice. John left school and looked down the road to the all white church, and down the other way to the all black church and said “These Christians don’t really believe what they pray!” It was a miracle that God broke through the hypocrisy of the Christians around him and saved John all the same, and John has dedicated his life and ministry to seeing God’s kingdom come here on earth as it is in heaven.
When we act like yeast, when we are conscious of carrying the glory of God into our home, school, work, community groups… we will end up changing the structures to be more glorifying to God.
What makes God glorious? – we need to reflect Him
His attributes – love, forgiveness, mercy, sacrifice, holiness, justice…
When we live out those attributes in the world, we carry God’s glory into that place.
How
How do we fulfill our destiny of filling the whole earth with the glory of God?
We ourselves need to be filled.
Refer to “How to be filled” talk
My Heart, Christ’s home – where are the rooms in your heart that are not filled?
If we are going to transform the world around us, we must be different
Romans 12:2
2Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will.
We need to change the way we do church
Not, “how can we get God to show his glory out there so that we can get people in here?”, but “how can we carry the glory of God to fill the whole earth?”
Not how do we get the world into the church?, but how do we get the church into the world? Not how can we get that big lump of dough into the yeast, but how do we get the yeast into the dough?
We often think of training Christians to serve each other in the church, and there is merit in this, but we also need to train to be yeast in the world around us
This means the we do not separate the idea of sacred work and secular, but as the scriptures say in Colossians 3:17 “whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”
If you clean houses, do it to the glory of God, if you run your own business, do it to the glory of God, if you raise your children, do it to the glory of God, whatever you set your hand to, do it to the Glory of God. If you play soccer, do it to the glory of God, if you mountain bike, do it to the glory of God…
In these spheres of influence that we have, we must ask the question, what does the kingdom look like here? How do I carry the Glory that is within me into this part of the whole earth?
