Reflecting God's Glory Series

Week 5: Reflecting God’s Glory

Scripture Passage:

1. We have been speaking for 4 weeks now about the Glory of God and how it is God’s intentioned priority to reveal His glory to mankind so that you and I will assume our created place in His wonderful plan.

a. Today, I wish to turn our attention to the CONSEQUENCES or RESULTS of seeing the glory of God.

i. Remember that God’s glory is the physical manifestation of the Divine Majesty.

ii. What happens TO US we see, encounter, bask, or sit in God’s glorious presence?

1. Previously, we have said that the first thing that happens to us when we encounter God’s glory, is that we are propelled to the attitude and posture of worship.

a. Worship is that assumption of the rightful place of the creature before its creator. We cannot stand in God’s presence. We are humbled, awed and struck to our knees by the awareness that He is God and we are not.

b. The bible says that one day, “every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord (God) to the glory of God the Father.” That is, everyone will see His glory and worship. There is no other response that a creature can do.

2. The second thing, which we will try to come to grips with today, is that our faces will reflect, like mirrors, what we have seen and experienced.

a. Last week, we encountered the moment in time when Jesus was “transfigured” before his disciples.

i. Who He was became VISIBLE to the three disciples with Him.

ii. What was inside became visible outside.

iii. The Greek word used was Metamorpho, which means to change form.

iv. This same word will help us understand what is supposed to happen to us as well. It is used twice in the New Testament.

1. "Do not model yourselves on the behavior of the world around you, but let your behavior change, (that’s the word "metamorpho"), modeled on your new mind." (Romans 12.2)

2. " And we, without unveiled faces reflecting like mirrors the brightness of the Lord, all grow brighter and brighter as we are changed (metamorpho) into the image that we reflect. This is the work of the Lord who is the Spirit." (2 Corinth:3:18)

2. Exodus 34:29-35 Let’s look back at one of the first times God’s glory reflected on someone’s face:

a. “ It came about when Moses was coming down from Mount Sinai (and the two tablets of the testimony {were} in Moses’ hand as he was coming down from the mountain), that Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because of his speaking with Him. So when Aaron and all the sons of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him. Then Moses called to them, and Aaron and all the rulers in the congregation returned to him; and Moses spoke to them. Afterward all the sons of Israel came near, and he commanded them {to do} everything that the LORD had spoken to him on Mount Sinai. When Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil over his face. But whenever Moses went in before the LORD to speak with Him, he would take off the veil until he came out; and whenever he came out and spoke to the sons of Israel what he had been commanded, the sons of Israel would see the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses’ face shone. So Moses would replace the veil over his face until he went in to speak with Him.”

i.

ii. Moses had the glory of God reflected upon his face when he came down from the mountain after a meeting with the Lord.

1. Moses had been in the very presence of God, and as a result, his face shone for some time to come. The passage says literally, that the “skin of his face shone.”

2. In fact, the Hebrew word that is used there means to “shine or emit rays of light.”

3. One commentator indicated that Moses’ face was “IRRADIATED with God’s “glory.

4. I cannot imagine what that must have looked like. It defies my imagination to think of a face with a flashlight behind it.

5. I don’t think that his radiant face was merely a sunburn.

6. I doubt that he just had a great big grin that was so warm that everyone said his face shone.

7. I have to use my imagination to try to understand that what happened to Moses’ face was remarkable and never before seen by people.

8. The passage let us know that when Aaron (his brother) and the people saw his face glowing, they were afraid!