SPEAKER_00: This podcast is a Ministry of Rand Parkway Baptist Church, helping people go.
SPEAKER_00: Enjoy and glorify God.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about Rand Parkway, visit RandParkway.org.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, when we say that we'll give you all the glory, we are not flattering you with our willingness.
SPEAKER_01: We are rising to our created purpose.
SPEAKER_01: We are created to be people for whom the glory of God is the governing centrality of our life.
SPEAKER_01: And so when we say we'll give you all the glory, that's not our idea.
SPEAKER_01: That's your idea.
SPEAKER_01: That's what you create us for.
SPEAKER_01: That's why the Bible says, whatever you do, whether you eat or drink, do all for the glory of God.
SPEAKER_01: And so, Lord, impress upon us this morning the glory of what matters so we don't waste our life on things that don't.
SPEAKER_01: We pray all this in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: And everyone said, Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: You can have a seat if you've got a Bible.
SPEAKER_01: I invite you to take it and open it up to Exodus chapter 40.
SPEAKER_01: Exodus chapter 40.
SPEAKER_01: We've come to finish the book of Exodus this morning.
SPEAKER_01: I know you'll be sad.
SPEAKER_01: I've got your emails.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, thank you.
SPEAKER_01: And in response to that, I just say if my kids had their way, we would eat Chick-fil-A every night.
SPEAKER_01: But man does not live by French fries alone or waffle fries alone.
SPEAKER_01: Every once in a while you've got to have a roast with some roasted asparagus that's been drizzled with olive oil and some cubed sweet potatoes that have been baked in the oven and homemade bread and coffee and dessert.
SPEAKER_01: What am I saying?
SPEAKER_01: Let's go right now.
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: And so I want to talk to you this morning about the glory of what matters, because the book of Exodus, if you've not been here, let me just summarize what we've been uh on for the past year.
SPEAKER_01: Is that God set his affection on a people that were slaves and he raised up an ex-murderer?
SPEAKER_01: God uses people with a past.
SPEAKER_01: So if you have a past today, don't slink down in your chair like, oh, I hope God doesn't know I'm here.
SPEAKER_01: God uses people that have a past because he redeems your past and gives you a future, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Uh and so God raised up a man named Moses and said, You're gonna deliver my people because I've heard their cries and I've seen what they're going through, and I'm a God that does something about it.
SPEAKER_01: And so Moses goes and he says, goes to Pharaoh, says, Let my people go.
SPEAKER_01: Pharaoh says, Who is the Lord that I should obey him?
SPEAKER_01: I do not know the Lord, I will not do what he says.
SPEAKER_01: And God says, Let me introduce myself.
SPEAKER_01: Here's two different expressions of how I'm more powerful than you.
SPEAKER_01: And at the last, if if this was UFC, God got him in a standing guillotine choke and just choked him out.
SPEAKER_01: And he tapped out and said, You guys go.
SPEAKER_01: And then he changed his mind and came after him.
SPEAKER_01: And God said, You don't want to mess with me.
SPEAKER_01: And so God drowned them all in the Red Sea.
SPEAKER_01: Not because God's mean, but because God's right.
SPEAKER_01: And then after he'd set them free, he gave them the law, the Ten Commandments, and said, This is how you stay free.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible changes the way we think about the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: And so the last part of the book of Exodus is God getting them ready to have a place He's given exacting directions about how, hey, hey, you're gonna build this thing called the tabernacle, and that's where I'm gonna dwell with you.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna be among you.
SPEAKER_01: Because at one point God got so mad at them, he said, You can have the promised land, but you can't have me.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna go with you because if I go with you, I'm gonna smoke all you fools, okay?
SPEAKER_01: And so God, they said, Oh, that's horrible news, God.
SPEAKER_01: We don't want the promised land without your presence.
SPEAKER_01: And God began to say, you know what?
SPEAKER_01: I think these people might be getting it.
SPEAKER_01: And so, as that most the most obvious expression of God's presence, he said, Hey, I want you to build a tabernacle, and it's gonna tell the story of salvation, how unclean people get clean before a holy God, how people that are not right with God get right with God, and they dwell with this God.
SPEAKER_01: And so we've come to the last part of it this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Exodus chapter 44, starting in verse 33, and he erected the court around the tabernacle and the altar, and he set up the screen of the gate of the court.
SPEAKER_01: So Moses finished the work.
SPEAKER_01: And then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.
SPEAKER_01: And Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the clouds settled on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle, and throughout all their journeys, whenever the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the people of Israel would set out.
SPEAKER_01: But if the cloud was not taken up, then they did not set out until the day that it was taken up.
SPEAKER_01: For the cloud of the Lord was on the tabernacle by day, and the fire was in it by night, and in the sight of all the house of Israel throughout all their journeys.
SPEAKER_01: What do I mean when I say the glory of what matters?
SPEAKER_01: Let me give you three things that the book of Exodus and especially chapter 40 kind of press in on us that matter.
SPEAKER_01: The first one is simply this the tabernacle matters.
SPEAKER_01: The tabernacle matters.
SPEAKER_01: Now there's a phrase that you never thought you'd hear come out of someone's mouth.
SPEAKER_01: Uh but let me start off way off in the kind of up in the clouds, not in a negative way, but in this, hey, I would have never thought about that.
SPEAKER_01: And then I'm gonna bring it down.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna take four steps down, and I'm gonna bring it down to where we all live, every one of us sitting in this room in these chairs on November the 20th, 2016, because the Bible covers the spread.
SPEAKER_01: It starts off with the most random thing you would never think about to the most obvious thing you think about every day.
SPEAKER_01: Amen?
SPEAKER_01: And so that's why we don't get up and try to tell you, oh, the Bible's really relevant and you should read it and listen to it.
SPEAKER_01: No, no, no.
SPEAKER_01: What I mean when I say the tabernacle matters, first of all, let me just speak to the obvious.
SPEAKER_01: American Christians, if we don't have much of an attention span for things that are not immediate and obviously available to us.
SPEAKER_01: And if you're not careful, your spiritual intellect and your appetite is the same from year to year, and you just put another thin layer of guilt and religious determination over it.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, because what happens is we prefer inspiration over education, which leaves us stirred but never really changed.
SPEAKER_01: We're like, oh, oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01: Because I love Chick-fil-A.
SPEAKER_01: If my 13-year-old had her way, we'd eat Chick-fil-A every day.
SPEAKER_01: Every day she says, Hey Dad, what's for supper?
SPEAKER_01: That's your mom's apartment.
SPEAKER_01: Uh I think she's cooking.
SPEAKER_01: Oh why, uh, because I wish we could go to Chick-fil-A.
SPEAKER_01: What?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, the waffle fries are good, but they ain't that good.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, but but she's that that's just the way she thinks about the world.
SPEAKER_01: That that's and I so when I come and say the tabernacle matters, it's like me saying to my daughter, hey, your mom's worked like for the past couple hours to get this ready.
SPEAKER_01: Let's respect your mom's hard work by coming to the table with a good attitude.
SPEAKER_01: She rolls her eyes.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's not a good start.
SPEAKER_01: Just just so you'll know, that's not a good start.
SPEAKER_01: So, what I mean when I say the tabernacle matters, why should it matter to me today?
SPEAKER_01: Let me give you four reasons.
SPEAKER_01: Number one, the tabernacle is a microcosm of creation.
SPEAKER_01: The tabernacle is a microcosm of creation.
SPEAKER_01: Moses building the tabernacle should remind us of God creating the universe.
SPEAKER_01: You're like, what?
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
SPEAKER_01: When it when it's uh when the Bible talks about in verse 33 and it says, so Moses finished the work in the Hebrew language with the book of Exodus is written in, it's the exact same words in the Hebrew as back in Genesis 2 when it says, only in Genesis 2 it says, and God on the seventh day finished the work.
SPEAKER_01: It's the same thing.
SPEAKER_01: And so the Bible's so subtle, it's just kind of pointing like, hey, don't miss this.
SPEAKER_01: It's a microcosm of creation.
SPEAKER_01: Secondly, the tabernacle is a new creation.
SPEAKER_01: The tabernacle is a new creation.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I want you to look at verse 1 of chapter 40.
SPEAKER_01: It says, The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, On the first day of the first month, you shall erect the tabernacle of the tent of meeting.
SPEAKER_01: Now, again, the Bible speaks with such this uh amazing peace and this loud authority that it doesn't always raise its voice.
SPEAKER_01: And so this is one of those things that you could just miss when I say, Well, the tabernacle is a new creation.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, when he says, On the first day of the first month you shall erect the tabernacle, why on the first day of the first month?
SPEAKER_01: Here's why.
SPEAKER_01: Because the Exodus takes place on the first day of the first month.
SPEAKER_01: And God's kind of saying, Hey, when God brought his people out of slavery into freedom, they rearranged the calendar.
SPEAKER_01: It'd be like me saying, Hey, something happened today that's so history-making that now New Year's Day is gonna be November the 20th.
SPEAKER_01: You'd be like, uh, don't throw me off there, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Some of you are like, I'd love to fast forward to New Year's Day right now.
SPEAKER_01: Skip everything that's fixing to happen.
SPEAKER_01: But that's what happens for God's people.
SPEAKER_01: Their calendar got started over with the Exodus, and God says, Hey, by the way, you came out, this exodus started on the first day of the first month, and I want you to build a tabernacle on the first day of the first month.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because God was taking the people that were not a people and making them the people of God.
SPEAKER_01: And so with the tabernacle, God's creating something new.
SPEAKER_01: Third thing why it should matter today is the attention to detail reflects the created order of the universe.
SPEAKER_01: Just start reading in chapter 25, and I mean it just gets, I mean, it is exacting in detail.
SPEAKER_01: And it's a reminder that, hey, this attention to detail reflects the fact that God put a lot of thought into creating the universe.
SPEAKER_01: Now you look around and you look at our culture and look at our world today, and it's kind of like, man, this thing is not uh, it doesn't have a whole lot of uh order and detail to it.
SPEAKER_01: We got people marching through the streets and people, and by the way, this is what happens when you raise a generation where everyone gets a trophy.
SPEAKER_01: They don't know how to lose.
SPEAKER_01: And so this is free.
SPEAKER_01: This is not in Exodus, this is in Neil, so I got to get it out so I can get back to Exodus, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Just this is not Democrat or Republican, this is just obvious, okay?
SPEAKER_01: But but see, here's the thing: it's not that we people in America don't hate Muslims, we don't hate gay people, we just love the truth.
SPEAKER_01: And we're tired of nonsense.
SPEAKER_01: That's all you're seeing.
SPEAKER_01: And so I you can't protest your way out, just just go back to work, man.
SPEAKER_01: Just just settle in.
SPEAKER_01: Just that's free.
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, uh, so it's easy to look around and go, well, it's attention to detail.
SPEAKER_01: Look at the world like it is, because man stopped trusting God a long time ago.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the now we're down to where we live.
SPEAKER_01: Now I'm gonna lay this in your lap.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the fourth reason why the tabernacle should matter.
SPEAKER_01: The tabernacle should inform how we think about our bodies.
SPEAKER_01: Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_01: Whoa, say what?
SPEAKER_01: Say what?
SPEAKER_01: Go back to using those big words.
SPEAKER_01: The tabernacles of Icro calls them of creation, loser.
SPEAKER_01: You religious nerd.
SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah, the tabernacle should inform how we think about our bodies.
SPEAKER_01: See, this is the first time God, remember this, okay?
SPEAKER_01: I I I we meet as a staff and we pray at 8 o'clock on Sunday morning.
SPEAKER_01: I told them this, and they all looked at me like, he's been alone.
SPEAKER_01: Just smile and nod.
SPEAKER_01: He says crazy stuff.
SPEAKER_01: I said to them, the moral arc of the universe always bends towards justice.
SPEAKER_01: That's what that's what uh uh Martin Luther King said in one of his speeches.
SPEAKER_01: Because the people were pressed and they were beat down.
SPEAKER_01: He says, the moral arc of the universe always bends towards justice.
SPEAKER_01: God doesn't always take a straight line and a sharp stick.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes God just arcs something, and it takes thousands of years before it gets to you.
SPEAKER_01: But when it gets to you, it lands on you with a weight.
SPEAKER_01: Unless you understand the historicity of your faith, you don't get it.
SPEAKER_01: You're just like, uh, what?
SPEAKER_01: Come on.
SPEAKER_01: You say, Well, what do you mean?
SPEAKER_01: When I say the tabernacle should inform how we think about our bodies, this is the first time that God has dwelled with his people.
SPEAKER_01: And so it's tabernacle.
SPEAKER_01: And after this, this is a movable structure.
SPEAKER_01: After this, they're gonna build a temple, Solomon's temple, because that signified this is where God said, I'm gonna meet with you.
SPEAKER_01: But you get into the New Testament where we are now, and God doesn't live in the tabernacle, and God doesn't live in the temple.
SPEAKER_01: God lives in what?
SPEAKER_01: Inside you.
SPEAKER_01: And so your body is now the temple of God.
SPEAKER_01: You it it's it's the place where God has said, I'm gonna dwell with you.
SPEAKER_01: And it's so consequential that what God sets in place back in Exodus, starting in verse 20 in chapter 25, saying, Hey, you I want you to build this tabernacle.
SPEAKER_01: God was reaching out and laying claim to your body and what you do with it.
SPEAKER_01: So anybody that says, It's my body, I can do what I want, that that's not the confession of a God follower.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says it like this in 1 Corinthians chapter 6, verse 18, flee from sexual immorality.
SPEAKER_01: Now let's let those four words settle in on you and the absurdity of saying that in a high school cafeteria nowadays.
SPEAKER_01: Just get up and say, have a have a high school assembly or a college assembly and say, Boys and girls, today I got four things to say to you.
SPEAKER_01: Flee from sexual immorality.
SPEAKER_01: And they'll laugh you off the planet.
SPEAKER_01: They just will be like, then come on.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we're progressives, we got this.
SPEAKER_01: Every other sin, a person, see, God makes this statement that He doesn't back away from, and then all of a sudden, the arc of the moral universe, you should, like Wiley Coyote, you should hear this that shadow's getting bigger and bigger and bigger.
SPEAKER_01: And the acme 20-ton anvil's about to land on you.
SPEAKER_01: Not as punishment, as enlightenment.
SPEAKER_01: Flee from sexual immorality.
SPEAKER_01: Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.
SPEAKER_01: Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?
SPEAKER_01: You are not your own, for you were bought with a price.
SPEAKER_01: So glorify God in your body.
SPEAKER_01: Here's a question I want you to think about in your community group.
SPEAKER_01: And it's simply this if you thought of your body as the temple where God lived, what changes would you make to what you do with it?
SPEAKER_01: If you thought of your body as the temple where God lived, this is where God lives.
SPEAKER_01: Let's just face it.
SPEAKER_01: There's certain behaviors, this is not the temple of God, this building, but there's certain things that we do Monday through Saturday.
SPEAKER_01: You'd never come in here and do on Sunday morning.
SPEAKER_01: And the Bible says, take that same kind of sobriety and think about your body.
SPEAKER_01: And it's not just sexual immorality, it's food immorality.
SPEAKER_01: Is this morning I'm reaching for a second helping to breakfast, and the Holy Spirit said, Does your temple need that?
SPEAKER_01: Well, see, whoa, whoa.
SPEAKER_01: See, uh no, it's it's it's just good, and I like it.
SPEAKER_01: This is this is the temple where and so one of the most life-altering you shaping, me changing things we could do is just think think about all the implications of the tabernacle.
SPEAKER_01: Peter N said this, he says, sometimes what the Bible does is change how we think about God, ourselves, and the world we live in.
SPEAKER_01: Only after think our thinking is properly adjusted can we behave in ways that reflect that thinking.
SPEAKER_01: Hear that last sentence again.
SPEAKER_01: Only after our thinking is properly adjusted can we behave in ways that reflect that thinking.
SPEAKER_01: Just let me draw your attention to those two words, properly adjusted, and ask you this question Have you ever been to the chiropractor?
SPEAKER_01: Uh okay, we got chiropractors in our church, and and and and we got I had friends that go, they they go consistently and they're like, hey, I had scoliosis and it's corrected, it's great, and I and all this stuff.
SPEAKER_01: I I love the chiropractor, and the chiropractor scares me to death because one of the first times I went, a man came up to me after the first service, he said, Yeah, I went once and I described it as a five-minute plane crash.
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, mine wasn't that bad, but I was nervous because I'd never been, and the whole time he's talking, he's going, he's holding my head, going, relax, relax.
SPEAKER_01: Give me your head.
SPEAKER_01: No, no, I'm stiff as a board.
SPEAKER_01: And so he goes, he says, turn over on your stomach.
SPEAKER_01: And I turn on my stomach and he starts kind of pushing and feeling, oh yeah, that seed, this and that vertebrae, blah, blah, blah.
SPEAKER_01: And he says, relax.
SPEAKER_01: And all of a sudden, pushes on my back, and all I know is my foot came up and hit me in the back of the head.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm telling you right now, if you put a gun to my head, I couldn't do that.
SPEAKER_01: And so people say, What do you think about the chiropractor?
SPEAKER_01: That's a place where the supernatural happens, okay?
SPEAKER_01: That's what I think.
SPEAKER_01: That's my endorsement of the chiropractor.
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, What was that?
SPEAKER_01: He said, Well, your foot flipped pitching the back of the head.
SPEAKER_01: You are of the devil.
SPEAKER_01: What?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I was just like, so I thought about that when I was studying a couple weeks ago and I read this sentence.
SPEAKER_01: Hear it again.
SPEAKER_01: Only after our thinking is properly adjusted can we behave in ways that reflect that thinking.
SPEAKER_01: Let me give you another question to think about, and it's this how is the Bible adjusting the way you think these days?
SPEAKER_01: How is the Bible adjusting the way you think these days?
SPEAKER_01: Because if the Bible doesn't adjust the way you think, then it will never adjust the way and change the way you live.
SPEAKER_01: Second thing that the text says is the glory of what matters.
SPEAKER_01: First of all, the tabernacle matters.
SPEAKER_01: Secondly, finishing matters.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 33.
SPEAKER_01: The last five words of verse 33.
SPEAKER_01: So Moses finished the work.
SPEAKER_01: When I was studying, I read that.
SPEAKER_01: I read it over a bunch of times, but about two or three weeks ago I read, so Moses finished the work, and it just kind of arrested me.
SPEAKER_01: Something kind of said, pump the brakes and just think about that for just a minute.
SPEAKER_01: So Moses finished the work.
SPEAKER_01: The necessity of this is magnified by the word, the first word of verse 34.
SPEAKER_01: Look at it.
SPEAKER_01: Then, which means not until Moses finished the work.
SPEAKER_01: Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.
SPEAKER_01: So the finishing matters.
SPEAKER_01: And you say, I don't know what you mean.
SPEAKER_01: Look back at verse 16 and just kind of follow the train of thought of what happens and says, This Moses did according to all that the Lord had commanded him.
SPEAKER_01: So he did in the first month.
SPEAKER_01: And by the way, this narrative started in chapter 25.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: Way back in chapter 25, God was given exacting detail about how to do this.
SPEAKER_01: This Moses did according to all that the Lord commanded him, so he did in the first month in the second year, on the first day of the month, the tabernacle was erected.
SPEAKER_01: Moses erected the tabernacle, he laid its base and set up its frames, and he put in its poles and raised its pillars, and nothing happened.
SPEAKER_01: And verse 19 says, And he put and he spread the tent over the tabernacle and put the covering of the tent over it as the Lord had commanded Moses.
SPEAKER_01: He took the testimony, he put it into the ark, and he put the poles on the ark and set the mercy seat on the ark, and nothing happened.
SPEAKER_01: And verse 21 says, And he brought the ark into the tabernacle and set up the veil of the screen, and he screened the ark of testimony as the Lord had commanded Moses, and nothing happened.
SPEAKER_01: You should be asking yourself, okay, why do you keep saying and nothing happened?
SPEAKER_01: Because the work wasn't finished.
SPEAKER_01: And beloved, some of you in this room right now are frustrated.
SPEAKER_01: You may, yay, you may be mad at God because what you've been praying for hasn't happened yet.
SPEAKER_01: And it hasn't happened yet, not because God's not able, but because you're not finished.
SPEAKER_01: You have interpreted obedience.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, God said this, but I'm gonna do this, and then I'm gonna need God to show me a little something to motivate me to do the rest.
SPEAKER_01: God is not like your baseball coach.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 24, he put the lampstand in the tent of meeting opposite the table on the south side of the tabernacle, and he set up the lamps before the Lord as the Lord had commanded Moses, and nothing happened.
SPEAKER_01: And this refrain, as the Lord had commanded Moses.
SPEAKER_01: What I'm saying is this you should notice that nothing happens until everything is just as God instructed.
SPEAKER_01: God takes himself very seriously, and he's looking for people who will reciprocate that attention to obedience by doing what he says.
SPEAKER_01: And so when I say finishing matters, that's what I mean.
SPEAKER_01: Is that sometimes there's things that aren't happening in our life because we haven't finished what we were supposed to finish.
SPEAKER_01: We started and we run a great 20-yard dash, but it is a marathon, beloved.
SPEAKER_01: So ask yourself, here's another question to think about.
SPEAKER_01: Just thinking back over this past year, what's unfinished in your life?
SPEAKER_01: The reason some of us dread Thanksgiving is because we have some unfinished conversation with some family members.
SPEAKER_01: And before you subject everybody to the awkwardness of not being reconciled with somebody in your extended family, why don't you break them off a phone call this week and say, hey, before we sit around the Thanksgiving table or the Christmas table and act like everything's okay and smile at each other, like, hey, good to see you.
SPEAKER_01: God, I hate you.
SPEAKER_01: Man, oh, I hate your kids too.
SPEAKER_01: Good to see you.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm kind of glad your first husband left you because I left you too.
SPEAKER_01: Would you like some more ham?
SPEAKER_01: Ask yourself this question: what's unfinished?
SPEAKER_01: What's unfinished?
SPEAKER_01: Because Moses finished the work.
SPEAKER_01: Finishing matters.
SPEAKER_01: Thirdly, glory matters.
SPEAKER_01: Because so Moses finished the work.
SPEAKER_01: Then, then it's a conditional statement.
SPEAKER_01: Something has to happen before the glory comes down.
SPEAKER_01: Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle, and Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because a cloud settled on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.
SPEAKER_01: And then throughout all their journeys, whenever the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the people of Israel would set out.
SPEAKER_01: But if the cloud was not taken up, then they did not set out until the day it was taken up.
SPEAKER_01: For the cloud of the Lord was on the tabernacle by day, and fire was in it by night in the sight of all of the house of Israel throughout all of their journeys.
SPEAKER_01: When I say glory matters, what I'm what I'm saying is that what we see here is a centrality of the glory of God for the people of God.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, they didn't make a move until they had a clear sense of what God was doing.
SPEAKER_01: Here's a question to think about how do you know what God's doing?
SPEAKER_01: How do you discern what God's doing and how God's leading?
SPEAKER_01: Because when I go home today, there will not be a cloud over my house.
SPEAKER_01: And tonight, when the sun goes down, there won't be a pillar of fire kind of going, Neil, this is God.
SPEAKER_01: This is what we're doing today.
SPEAKER_01: That would be great.
SPEAKER_01: What do you mean?
SPEAKER_01: Let me give you a definition for the glory of God.
SPEAKER_01: The glory of God is the expression of the fullness of his nature and the enjoyment.
SPEAKER_01: Required.
SPEAKER_01: Let me say it again.
SPEAKER_01: The glory of God is the expression of the fullness of his nature and the enjoyment required.
SPEAKER_01: Underline that last part because Jonathan Edwards said, God is not only glorified when his glory is manifested, but when it is delighted in.
SPEAKER_01: God's not just glorified when he manifests his glory, but when it's delighted in.
SPEAKER_01: Let me paint a picture in your mind.
SPEAKER_01: One night this past week, Marcy and I took dinner to some friends, and after dinner, we had dinner, and then we uh uh they said, hey, let's go sit outside.
SPEAKER_01: And they have a beautiful, beautiful patio cover and a pool and a hot tub.
SPEAKER_01: We're sitting out there talking and they have a little fire pit and they fire that bad boy up, and I'm like, man, that is awesome.
SPEAKER_01: Uh I have like a redneck fire pit.
SPEAKER_01: Uh it's a metal trash can lid I just turned over and put some newspaper on it.
SPEAKER_01: Come out by the fire, honey.
SPEAKER_01: Hurry, we got 18 seconds.
SPEAKER_01: Uh but they've got like blue crystal glass and gas and it whoosh.
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, that is awesome.
SPEAKER_01: And then the man goes over and picks up this remote control about that square and starts pushing buttons, and the pull lights come on blue.
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, shut up.
SPEAKER_01: And then the hot tub lights up.
SPEAKER_01: And I said, What?
SPEAKER_01: Before I can say that, my wife's like, What's that?
SPEAKER_01: He goes, Well, I can control my pull from here.
SPEAKER_01: He can turn on the hot tub from there.
SPEAKER_01: Because what's it like in the hot tub?
SPEAKER_01: It's hot in the hot tub.
SPEAKER_01: And so he's got all this stuff, and I'm just like, and the lights go green, they go blue, he can make them red, and I'm just like, that is fascinating.
SPEAKER_01: Now, you say, why do you tell us that?
SPEAKER_01: Because when I say that the glory of God is the expression of the fullness of his nature, that is expression.
SPEAKER_01: But that's not enjoyment.
SPEAKER_01: If I really wanted to enjoy that, I would have grabbed my wife, threw her over my shoulder, and jumped in the deep end.
SPEAKER_01: The whole time I'm heard going, what, what, what?
SPEAKER_01: Because I've been at that same house before.
SPEAKER_01: I was there on the 4th of July when they had a get together and they invited everybody on staff to come to their house and bring their kids.
SPEAKER_01: And I was sitting in the house, and some little kid walked in, and he got about three steps in the front door, and apparently he had been there before.
SPEAKER_01: So expression wasn't enough.
SPEAKER_01: That cat was heaven-bent on enjoyment.
SPEAKER_01: He ripped his shirt off.
SPEAKER_01: He took his shorts off, and I was like, uh-oh, this is getting off the reservation.
SPEAKER_01: But he had a swimsuit on underneath there.
SPEAKER_01: And he threw them down and started running to the back door, and one of the legs, his foot was still in the shore.
SPEAKER_01: And so he was running, kicking, trying to kick the stuff off.
SPEAKER_01: And finally, he just kicked them and they just cartwheeled up in the air.
SPEAKER_01: And he ripped the door off the hinge and ran and jumped in.
SPEAKER_01: That's enjoyment.
SPEAKER_01: He didn't say, Hey, what's the remote control?
SPEAKER_01: Can you turn the pool lights on?
SPEAKER_01: Can we get the fire pit going?
SPEAKER_01: I want to sit here and talk about marriage and life.
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: He wasn't content just to sit there and witness an expression of the glory of the pool.
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: That brother has been thinking about that pool since his parents said, we're going over to the McKee's house.
SPEAKER_01: And I mean that brothers are just stripping down to get in that pool.
SPEAKER_01: And I was just like, whoa.
SPEAKER_01: That's what I mean when I say the glory of God is the expression of the fullness of his nature and the enjoyment required.
SPEAKER_01: See, ask yourself today, am I more wired up to just to just to uh observe the expression of God's glory?
SPEAKER_01: Or am I more wired up to enjoy God's glory, the experience of God's glory?
SPEAKER_01: Man named John Piper said this.
SPEAKER_01: John's a preacher, went to a church and just inner city church and stayed there like 26 years.
SPEAKER_01: And just preached through the Bible over and over and over again.
SPEAKER_01: And changed the way many people in America think about God.
SPEAKER_01: He said this, he said, I believe the glory of God is the going public of his infinite worth.
SPEAKER_01: When we live for the glory of God, it means feeling, thinking, and doing whatever we do in such a way that it gives evidence of his supreme greatness.
SPEAKER_01: And when that goes public in creation, the heavens are telling the glory of God.
SPEAKER_01: And human beings are manifesting his glory because we're created in his image and we're trusting his promises so that we make him look gloriously trustworthy.
SPEAKER_01: You got to ask yourself, we make him look gloriously trustworthy.
SPEAKER_01: How are you making God look these days?
SPEAKER_01: Because whether you acknowledge it or not, whether you agree with it or not, every day you and I breathe on this planet, we are making God look something.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe a better way to ask it is just to ask, how has God glorified himself in you these days?
SPEAKER_01: And before you ask, answer the question, let me just love you enough as your pastor to tell you this.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes God glorifies himself not by healing you.
SPEAKER_01: Not rescuing you, not bailing you out, not mending the marriage.
SPEAKER_01: And going through, here's why.
SPEAKER_01: Because in going through hardship and suffering and staying faithful, God is glorified because he's seen it's better than relief, he's magnified as the truth.
SPEAKER_01: And think of Job, who said, Though he smite me, yet will I serve him.
SPEAKER_01: Now, having said that, sometimes God glorifies himself by not doing what we're asking him to do.
SPEAKER_01: How is God glorified himself in you these days?
SPEAKER_01: Because if the way God glorifies himself in you these days is by you always getting what you want, people will envy you, but they won't want your God.
SPEAKER_01: But if people can see you and I go through hardship, yea, even suffering, and you look them in the eye and go, God's faithful and God's good, God is unchanging in all of this, they are shook to the core and they want to know what you know.
SPEAKER_01: So now, whether we realize it or not, the question becomes simply this.
SPEAKER_01: Now that you understand that God is not only glorified in our success, but in our failure, not only is God glorified in our prosperity, but in our poverty, not only is God glorified in us getting out of a situation, but going through the situation, now we got to ask ourselves, do I still want to know, follow, and worship this God and do all that you do for his glory?
SPEAKER_01: Because that's what the Bible drives us to.
SPEAKER_01: 1 Corinthians chapter 10, verse 31, Paul says, Whatever you do, whatever you do, whether you eat or drink, do all for the glory of God.
SPEAKER_01: Whatever you do, whether you work, whether you retire, how do you retire for the glory of God?
SPEAKER_01: How do I be married for the glory of God?
SPEAKER_01: How do I be single to the glory of God?
SPEAKER_01: If you're single and you keep hooking up, you're not glorifying God, you're saying to everyone around you, yeah, yeah, God and Jesus, God and Jesus, but when it comes to me and my appetites, I'm gonna do what I want because I am not going to be lonely.
SPEAKER_01: I would impale the character of God on my loneliness before I would be alone and do without.
SPEAKER_01: And so again, you've got to ask yourself, knowing all that, do I still want to know this God?
SPEAKER_01: Do I still want to follow this God?
SPEAKER_01: Do I still want to worship this God and do what I do for his glory?
SPEAKER_01: Because that, beloved, is the glory of what matters.
SPEAKER_01: Because if you're not careful, and listen carefully, if you're not careful, if you don't bend your mind, your attention and your affection and your appetite towards the glory of what matters, you will waste your life.
SPEAKER_01: And I will waste my life on things that don't.
SPEAKER_01: And that's hell on earth.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_01: Let's just take a moment and just think about what the Bible said to you today.
SPEAKER_01: And just ask yourself, what do I what do I do with this?
SPEAKER_01: How do I think about this?
SPEAKER_01: If God started off in the tabernacle and then the temple, and now my body is the temple, my body is the is the space that God occupies, then how should that affect what I do with my body?
SPEAKER_01: And if finishing matters, if the glory doesn't come down until Moses is finished, and then the then happens, shouldn't I be asking myself what's unfinished in my life?
SPEAKER_01: And if I'm supposed to do everything I do for the glory of God, maybe I should understand what the glory of God is.
SPEAKER_01: Not just in expression, but in enjoyment.
SPEAKER_01: Let's think for a minute about these things.
SPEAKER_01: Father, I pray that we would think and live in such a way that on our deathbed that we look to those around us.
SPEAKER_01: If there's anybody there and we just smile and we say, Jesus led me all the way.
SPEAKER_01: That's what you want to say when you die, God.
SPEAKER_01: You don't want to say, Oh, I wish there would have this, and oh, I should have done that, and I should have given that away, and I should have not done that.
SPEAKER_01: We want to just smile and say, Jesus led me all the way.
SPEAKER_01: The children of Israel could sing to us today and acquire, we could amass the millions of them on the stage.
SPEAKER_01: That's what they would sing to us.
SPEAKER_01: They would testify to the faithfulness of God.
SPEAKER_01: And so, Lord, we want to be buoyed by their lives and by the legacy they left behind because their story is our story.
SPEAKER_01: That's why we spent over a year drowned in the book of Exodus, because we are a people that have been delivered from bondage and we're not into the promised land yet.
SPEAKER_01: And we want to be faithful.
SPEAKER_01: We want to hear Jesus cheering for us, every winding path we trod.
SPEAKER_01: And so, Holy Spirit, let your word go out and accomplish the purpose for which you send it today in our lives and in our city.
SPEAKER_01: We pray in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: And everyone said, Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: If you're our guest today, let me say thanks for being here.
SPEAKER_01: When you came in, you were given a little worship folder.
SPEAKER_01: It has information about various events at our church, also has a little part uh where it asks for some personal information.
SPEAKER_01: If you fill that out, would you just tear it off?
SPEAKER_01: Drop it on these wooden boxes by the doors uh on your way out.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, that's also where we collect our offering.
SPEAKER_01: So if today's a day you you're practicing obedience or generosity, uh, that's where you do that as well, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Myself and some of our pastors and elders will be available down front.
SPEAKER_01: If you have any questions about anything you heard, or we can pray with you about anything you got going on.
SPEAKER_01: We think that's a more natural environment to have spiritual conversations.
SPEAKER_01: So if you grew up in the church, that's where you would respond to the invitation.
SPEAKER_01: Because the invitation here is always open.
SPEAKER_01: We always want you to see and savor who God really is.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says it like this taste and see that the Lord is good.
SPEAKER_01: We believe that once you taste that, you won't want anything else.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: So have any questions about anything about that?
SPEAKER_01: That's why we're standing down here, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Stand to your feet.
SPEAKER_01: Let me speak a blessing over you.
SPEAKER_01: Hold your hands out.
SPEAKER_01: Because the nature of your God is glorious, is sufficiently glorious, all he can do is express himself.
SPEAKER_01: He can't help it.
SPEAKER_01: And he expresses his glory for you to enjoy it.
SPEAKER_01: Depart now and live as if you can't help yourself.
SPEAKER_01: You cannot help, but do what you were created to do, and that's to enjoy the glory of your Father.
SPEAKER_01: Depart now and give yourself to this kind of life and this kind of living.
SPEAKER_01: In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Bless you.
SPEAKER_01: You're dismissed.