Glory in a Box Pt. 2

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  Glory in a Box Pt.2

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  This week we're in 1 Samuel 4, and we're going to take another attempt at finishing this chapter. I did come in last week with the intentions of getting through the whole chapter and made it halfway and learned a lesson there that there was more than I expected, more than meets the eye. Or as one of our toddlers used to say, more than eats the eye, which is gross. Um, but it is a fitting way to get back into subject matter of this chapter. That phrase there's more than meets the eye is a common phrase suggesting something is more complex than what it initially appears. And I would say it's very accurate when talking about the glory of God that there is more than meets the eye. In fact, of all the subject matters in the Bible, let alone anything you could come up with, there might not be a more complex matter than the glory of God. Paul at the end of Romans 1 through 11, in highlighting our great salvation ends, they're saying, oh, the depth of the riches. Both of his wisdom and knowledge of God are. How unsearchable are his judgments and unfathomable his ways! For from him and through him, and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. To see the glory of God, we can look outside in creation. Psalm 19:1 says that the heavens declare the glory of God. And that's true right now. In particular, most of us are probably happy to be outside and letting the heavens declare his glory in all the green and all the colors that we see around us. It would take 100,000 lifetimes to explore every nook and cranny of our wonderful planet, to see God's glory in the largest and smallest ways. So we can attest to what the psalmist says, that the glory of God is everywhere for us to see, but to see the glory of God in himself. To talk about actually seeing his glory takes it to a whole nother level. The closest we get to that in the Bible is people wanting to see the glory of God. Perhaps first that pops in your mind is Moses, who, as it says about him, unique to him, he spoke to God face to face like a friend. And yet when he says, I want to see your glory, God's response is, you can't handle it. Exodus 33:22. It will come about while my glory is passing by, that I'll put you in the cleft of a rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. That's the closest anybody got. I can hide you in a rock. And I can turn you away from me. And I'll turn away from you. And that'll be enough that when Paul records what happened there in 2 Corinthians three seven, Moses comes back down. What does he say? The sons of Israel could not look intently at the face of Moses because of the glory of his face. I don't think he's commenting on on how handsome Moses was. It was that by being in the presence of the glory of God, He came down, lit up, and people couldn't even look at him. They had to turn away. That was the effect on Moses of being hidden from the glory of God. And so back to my point. When we start talking about the glory of God in Scripture, there's much more than meets our eyes, because our eyes can't handle it for certain. But with eyes of faith, we can see it in this passage. We started to see it last week. Israel thought they knew it. They thought they had God's glory in a box. And they found out the hard way that when you have a misunderstanding of the glory of God, when you think you know what it's about, when you have lived your life like Israel had for generations, toying with God, if you will, going their own way, doing what they wanted to do, and then all of a sudden become apologetic, like we see in the book of Judges, that cycle of sin where, okay, now that we've been given over to our enemies and we've been taken captive and under their rule again, we'll clean up our act. God. But did they really take his glory seriously enough that at the point we left off last week, verse 11, they had been defeated, utterly wiped out, completely annihilated. Israel's defeated. Every man runs for his life. The slaughter was so great that it was 30,000 foot soldiers, the best of their men had fallen. And then at the end of verse 11, the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were dead because Israel put their hope in a box. They put their faith in the Ark. They thought there was something about the Ark that was glorious, and that was the best they could do, because they had long before that, in their disobedience and their disregard for God's glory, they had long before that lost sight of his glory. They thought God existed to serve them. They had forgotten that they exist to serve him.
  And we'll see in our text today that when we misplace the glory of God, we will be certain to misunderstand any activity on his behalf in our lives. Because when you think it all revolves around you and then you look around and see what. And ask, what is God doing in my life? If you think you are the center of the universe and God is just one of those other planets revolving around you, how do you think you're going to interpret anything around you? You're going to interpret through what kind of lens? A self-centered lens. It was the Copernican revolution when Copernicus said, look, wait a second, I think we've got it all wrong. I don't think the sun and all the planets revolve around us, guys. So any calculation we're going to try to make about how our universe works, we're off. No, the sun is the center and we are all in an orbit around it. Changed everything. And so it is for us. The glory of God can have an effect on your life as a Christian. I'm not just speaking to the unbeliever right now. The glory of God for the Christian opens up a whole new realm of this is just how great of a God it is I serve. It's not something that, when we talked about last week, rests on us lightly. The word itself means heavy, but we could certainly lose our way, just like Eli did. Just like Israel did, thinking we are serving the living God. And end up figuring out we've been serving ourselves. And we'll see that in two ways today. Misplacing and Misunderstanding the Glory of God, part two. Finishing off chapter four this week. Follow along as I read. Chapter 4. First couple verses to set the context again. Remember, we're leaving off the Ark of God's taken the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead. Verse 12.  
  "Now a man of Benjamin ran from the battle line and came to Shiloh the same day, with his clothes torn and dust on his head. And when he came, behold, Eli was sitting on his seat by the road, eagerly watching, because his heart was trembling for the Ark of God. So the man came to tell it in the city, and all the city cried out. When Eli heard the noise of the outcry, he said, what does the noise of this commotion mean?" Open our eyes, Father, that we may see the wonderful things in your Word. Most importantly, the glorious things about you. And in the meantime, teach us about ourselves. We ask. Amen.
  So picking up in verse 12. A man of Benjamin. And as the storyline has unfolded in the first four chapters of Samuel messenger's, No Name, messengers or insignificant messengers by appearance only seem to be popping up in Eli's life with devastating news for him, don't they? A few chapters ago, in chapter 2, a nondescript man of God comes to Eli to rebuke him, to tell him the error of his ways both as a priest and a parent. And then in chapter 3, in a seemingly insignificant character in Eli's eyes, this young boy, Samuel, the Lord, comes and speaks to him in the night. He doesn't come and speak to Samuel, and he wakes up the next morning and he knows Yahweh has a message for him. And so here we have a third time. A man of Benjamin. Is this man of Benjamin significant? All we know is the Benjamites, they are a troubled tribe at the close of the Book of Judges, where we leave off and pick up here the last three chapters in judges 19 to 21 center around the despicable behavior of the people of Benjamin, the tribe. So bad that the other 11 tribes come to wipe them out if they don't repent. Is there something behind then this detail we get that this is a man of Benjamin coming from the battle line? It might be. I mean, this man of Benjamin would have been part of the tribe of people that, just back in the book of judges, would have been fighting for their own lives against their own people, the Israelites, for their sinful behavior. Kind of ironic, isn't it? this man escapes, and he comes to Shiloh the same day with his clothes torn and dust on his head. So the scene is set, the battle is over, and we don't know how long that battle took. Maybe it was, it ended pretty quickly. 30,000 soldiers dead. But in that same day, he runs the 20 miles from Aphek to Shiloh. And, it says he gets there that day, so he is out of breath running 20 miles. I know for you marathoners, you're like, big deal. Do it all the time. Three hours and 42 minutes or whatever. You write it in. You know what? I'm out of breath just reading that. Soyeah, 20 miles in a day is a big deal to me. But the detail that his clothes are torn and dust on his head is not referring likely to. He was in the fight. He was repentant and contrite here. That's the dust and ashes of Job. When you have seen the hand of God act against you and you know you need to change. You tear your clothes and you put dirt on your head. And that's what he's done. This man is in such a hurry to tell Shiloh the bad news. He runs right by Eli, who can't see him because he's going blind. Verse 13 says, when he came, behold, the director wants you to stop and see as this guy is flying by, Eli is sitting on his seat by the road, eagerly watching though he's blind. Why was he so eager to find out what's happening? Because his heart was trembling for the Ark of God. Now that could be a summary statement. He's really worried and concerned that the Ark got taken into battle. What's going to become of it? But who went with the ark? His sons did. Hophni and Phinehas. They would have signed off when the elders of Israel in verses 3 and 4. Um. They come and say. You know what? Oh, we got defeated today by Yahweh. Um, clearly he's upset with us that we lost his furniture. We didn't take the Ark with us. Ah, now he'll be pleased because we got him in a box. We can predict his next move. If we just bring him with us. He will give us victory like the days of old. So the elders have that bad idea. Hophni and Phinehas go. I'm down. Let's do it. And they all end up dead. The man comes to tell him in the city, and the city cries out. The last great commotion we heard was what? In verse five, when the Ark is going in. The people are celebrating an early victory. Now that the Ark has gone out, the people are doing what? Weeping and wailing. My. How the tables turn pretty quickly in those triumphant cheers. God's people can really rev it up when we think we're on top of the world, having no idea God isn't with us. His glory isn't gathered where we are. We can still make a lot of noise and be very empty, spiritually speaking. Just like Israel was here and now it's turned around. There's a great commotion, there's a great cry, but it's the cries of families who have lost fathers and sons, 30,000 of them. You don't think that would have been devastating? Every single one of those mothers and daughters saying they're not coming back. Every single one of them dead. Eli hears the commotion. Verse 14. And he said, what does the noise of this commotion mean? Does that ring a bell? That question. It was already asked a little bit earlier in the text. The Philistines heard the noise of the shout when the Ark came in. What does the noise of this great shout in the camp of the Hebrews mean? That's what Israel should have asked when they lost the first skirmish and 4000 died rather than, oh, we forgot the Ark. Let's send it in. It was the pagan Philistines who knew something was happening when that Ark came in and they say, what does the shout mean? Because they understood the Ark of the Lord had come into the camp. Now that the Ark of the Lord is gone, Eli asks the same question what does it all mean? Why all the noise? Well, the man had already breezed right by Eli's blind eyes. He had heard the pitter patter of his feet flying by, and Eli's just sitting there, a pitiful sight. Verse 15, 98 years old. Eyes were set so that he could not see. And the only thing moving faster than the man of Benjamin's feet is the beat of Eli's troubled heart. He knows something is wrong. Verse 16, the man comes to Eli. I am the one who came from the battle. Indeed, I've escaped from the battle. We do this when we are vexed, out of breath, worn down. We got a message to deliver. We repeat ourselves. He identifies himself. He doesn't actually give any information of what happened. He's just panting and out of breath. And that's all he could think to tell Eli is to say, I was a witness to this, but I escaped. And you can rely on me for this information. And then the scene slows down because it's been a fast scene, all of it happening very quickly. And then old Eli slows it down. How did it go, my son? Do you see the camera freeze on his dead, colorless, lifeless gaze? Staring off into the distance but asking the question, how did it go, my son? Well, now that the man of Benjamin has caught his breath. He delivers the report. Israel has fled. There's been a great slaughter. Your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead. And the Ark of God has been taken. Just like that. Eli can now see the bloody battlefield, can't he? He can picture there's nothing left. The men of Israel defeated, his two sons laying there, and the Ark is gone. The gavel of God's justice for Eli's injustices finally falls. This word of prophecy, of this devastating moment was told to Eli twice back in chapter two, verse 34, when the man of God came and told him, this will be the sign to you which will come concerning your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas. On the same day both of them will die. Prophecy number one, true, prophecy number two. When God had a message for Samuel in the middle of the night, that Eli wanted to know what it was the next morning. First Samuel 3:11 and 12 the Lord said to Samuel, behold, I am about to do a thing in Israel, at which both ears of everyone who hears it will tingle. That's just happened in Shiloh, hasn't it? Word got out. It's over. In that day I will carry out against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house from beginning to end. For I told him that I'm about to judge his house forever for the iniquity which he knew. You know, all those years Eli knew what was going on. He knew the Word of God. He knew the warnings not just for his own life, not just for the own sin he was allowing to happen under his roof and on his watch. He had been warned. He also knew that when you abandon Yahweh like that, when you go your own way, Israel, the Lord shall cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You will go out one way against them. You will flee seven ways before them, and you'll be an example of terror to all the kingdoms of the earth, not a terror from those kingdoms, a terror from the God you say you serve. The bottom's going to fall out on you. And now it just did. Not even the high priest is allowed to play games with God. And presume upon his grace. Maybe he'll give me one more chance. Time was up. Verse 18. When he mentioned the Ark of God, Eli fell off the seat backward beside the gate. It wasn't the slaughter, the great slaughter among the people that took that trembling heart in and just paralyzed him. It wasn't the death of his two sons that did it. It was that the Ark of God was taken. That's why he loses it. Falls backwards. His neck was broken, and he died because of the news of the Ark. What do you do with this guy? What sense do you make of that? If you were the coroner to show up on the scene in Shiloh, what would you have recorded for the cause of death? Heart attack?Obesity? Broken neck? Broken heart? I mean, we could see some of those things with our eyes in the text, but with eyes of faith. What are we really supposed to see here? The cause of death was misplaced glory. And that's the summary lesson on Eli's life. There's detail that illustrates the misplaced glory in a really unforgettable way. He falls over, he dies. For he was old and heavy. Why would we get the detail of he being heavy? We already know he was old. We were told he's 98. Why is the last word on Eli's life? His weight? That word in Hebrew, heavy as applied to Eli is the word khaved? The Hebrew language. The majority of words in it. If you were to look in a Hebrew dictionary, the majority of words have three consonants. It's a triliteral root system, and by putting vowel pointings above and below those consonants, you add vowels, and that changes the meaning of a word. And so this word here, if you were to have been hearing this read or reading it for yourself, learning a lesson and you knew Hebrew back in the day, you would have heard he was. He died, for he was old and heavy, khaved in E. But this whole passage has been about some other departure, hasn't it? Not man's weight, but God's. And the word for God's glory is the Hebrew word kavod. The only difference is one little vowel pointing on that word. Khaved is man's physical weight. Eli's weight. Kavod is God's weight. Both words come from the same root. What does the narrator want you to see and compare? In this corner weighing 300 pounds coming out of Shiloh with a record of zero and two. Failure raises sons to fear the Lord. Failure to be a priest. To lead people in holiness. Eli. And in this corner. Weighing infinitely glorious and holy. The champion Yahweh. That's an unfair fight. But when you misplace the glory of God for your own, that's the fight that you're picking with God. And that's the word on Eli's life. Misplaced glory that hung around his waist for us to see and learn from. If you look back at First Samuel chapter 2:29, it's maybe a detail that we missed in our first pass through it. As the man of God came to pronounce judgment on Eli and his household. This man of God came to Eli years earlier and told him, did I not indeed reveal myself to the house of your father, the Aaronic line, when they were in Egypt in bondage to Pharaoh's house? And did I not choose them from all the tribes of Israel to be my priests, to go to my altar, to burn incense, to carry an ephod before me? Did I not give to the house of your father all the fire offerings of the sons of Israel? Incense? Did I not set you apart? Have you not been part of that priesthood? Did you forget what you were called to? Eli? Why do you kick at my sacrifice and at my offering, which I have commanded in my dwelling, where I dwell, in my presence in Shiloh, in the tabernacle, in the Holy of Holies, at the Ark. Why have you kicked at it and disregarded it, and honored your sons above me by making yourselves fat with the choicest of every offering of my people, Israel. Now, do you see how he's incriminated? And he wears it around his waist. He honored self over God. The ultimate offense. Verse 29. But the means to that selfish behavior was at the sacrificial offering. So when the narrator mentions the heaviness of Eli at his death, he's tipping his hand and pointing us back. Eli was guilty, too. It wasn't just passive approval of his sons' evil. It was his active participation. He dishonored God. He kept God's glory for himself, just like his sons were doing, when they would thrust the fork into the cauldron and steal meat that wasn't meant for them and got fat off of it. The misplaced glory of Eli's desires over God's. Is seen in the sins of his sons and the fat on his belly. And the narrator. Wanted you to see it. Because sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words, right? A lesson. God fulfilling his Word. He wasn't messing around all these years. Warning, Eli. And yet, though the glory of God's reputation in the eyes of man was tarnished and the loss of the ark, it was really a tarnished priest that had misplaced the glory to begin with. It was long gone before it was gone, wasn't it? You misplaced the glory of God in your life like Eli did? You may see some consequence come on later on in life and you stand around and say, Where is God in this? How could this happen? Were you asking that a week or a month or a year earlier, when you were doing what Eli was doing all these years, taking his glory and putting it in a place that only God deserved? Were you asking that question then? No. We usually ask it in the moment, don't we? Where's God in this? But where was God and all of that believer? Seeking your own glory above his. Honoring yourself or others above him, time after time after time? Where was his glory then? Is the question you have to ask. Because in the moment that everybody's saying the glory of God has been taken and it's gone, it was already gone. Die the death of a thousand choices to disobey in Eli's life. All along the way. All the way up to his 98th year. A passive father, a pitiable priest, a pained worshipper. Why couldn't he get his act together? Because he misplaced the glory of God. He kept it for himself. He kept it for his sons. He knew the right things to do and didn't do them to the fullness of what the law required of him. So what's the first step back? To reset our vision, to see the glory rightly placed? There's a lot of talk of the glory of God in the Bible. But we just want to say I need to. I need something just to hit the reset button in my heart. Psalm 115 not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name be the glory. That's your starting step back. Not to me, not to me, but to your name be the glory. That's why you created me. That's why you chose me. That's why you redeemed me. That's why you set me apart. Is that your name would get the glory and not me. And somewhere along the line I lost sight of that. So let me recenter my life back around you by saying not to me, not to me. To your name. Give glory. Why? Next verse. Because of your loving kindness. Because of your truth. Isn't that what resets our life? And we see God as glorious? Once again, we go back to the gospel. Where else do we go to see the glory of God? Where else? Where are you going to go today to see the glory of God more than in the gospel of Jesus Christ and in the Old Testament, according to Psalm 115:1, it's summed up in these words, your loving kindness and truth, His loving kindness. That while we were sinners, God demonstrated his love for us and that Christ died for us. That's his loving kindness. He made the first move. You didn't. That's the truth that resets our minds and hearts back to the glory of God. To say, not to me, not to me, but to your name be the glory. It's interesting where the psalmist goes next in this. Why should the nations say, where now is their God? See, they play the same game, don't they? Oh, you're losing. I guess your God lost. Things go bad for you, Christian? Where's your God now? He let that happen to you some god. That's what the pagans say. The heathen. And your only response is verse three. But our God is in the heavens. He does whatever he pleases. When things go bad, believer. When you don't understand them. When you don't have an explanation for how you've ended up in the place you're in. Maybe even today. You rest yourself on the sovereignty of God. You don't excuse it away. You rest on it. You stand on it and you say, My God is in the heavens. I might have lost sight of that. I might have forgotten that. But that's where my God is. Mocker. Scoffer. He's in the heavens, and he does what he pleases. And I can live with that. Can't live with anything less than that. Later on in Psalm 115, verse nine, it says, O house of Aaron, who belonged to the house of Aaron? Eli, did O, house of Aaron trust in the Lord. If somebody would have just come up and shaken Eli and said, would you just trust in the Lord and stop trusting in yourself and stop worrying that if you kick your sons out of the temple because they're long overdue for that. Would you just trust the Lord? It'll be okay. No, he kept them in because he trusted in his own wisdom. He thought they would get fixed. He could fix some it. Could we all do it? O house of Aaron, trust in the Lord. He is your help and your shield. You who fear the Lord, trust in the Lord. He is your help and your shield. The Lord is mindful of us. He will bless us. But you got to put your trust in him. All this time, Eli might have to some degree still feared the Lord. To some degree, but he certainly didn't trust him when every time he was warned and told, he didn't change and he kept right on going because he misplaced the glory of God. That's the first lesson we learn.  The second one is the weight of misunderstood glory. If you misplace it, you're surely going to understand it. If you've moved yourself to the center like in Eli, and honored yourself and honored other people above God, how are you going to ever understand how the glory of God is at work in your life? How possibly could you do that? And that's what we see happening in the next section. It's misunderstood glory, and it's not in a old priest who should have known better. It's in a young lady who probably her whole time connected to Eli's household, never maybe was taught the right thing, but certainly caught the wrong thing. You know what I mean? She heard the right things being said by Eli. Maybe even Hophni and Phinehas were really great at they knew what the Bible said, but they didn't do it. And so she learned hypocrisy. Verse 19. Eli's daughter in law. Phineas wife. It's the only detail we get about her. We know she was married to an unfaithful man back in first Samuel, chapter 2, verse 22. Eli was very old, and he heard all that his sons were doing to all Israel, and how they lay with the women who were serving at the doorway of the tent of meeting. Everybody knew it. She knew it. She knew the phony her husband was. She knew the phony her father in law was. That's the detail we get when we're told it's Eli's daughter in law. She was pregnant and about to give birth, but when she heard the news that the Ark of God was taken first in the list, and her father in law and her husband had died, she went into labor. She kneeled down and gave birth. And verse 20 just smacks us right in the face with another sad scene of death that's been around the corner in every place in chapter four, the time of her death. Just like that. Eli's dead. Her husband's dead. She dies. But at the time of her death. Meaning in the labor, the women who were standing by her are trying to encourage her. They're seeing the vexation. They're seeing the distress. And they say what any Hebrew midwife might have said in that moment. Hey, don't be afraid. You have given birth to a son. This is good news. This is the news Hannah had prayed for her whole life that she would have a son. The good news for many Israelite women. It's a boy. I've given my husband a son for our name to carry on. And of all people, she would she they would think, wait, wait, you're this son. He can carry on the line. No, he won't, because God said he won't. He'll be an orphan now. He'll be, as Hannah talked about back in her prayer, those who were full hire themselves out for bread. And those who were hungry cease to hunger. The great reversal the Lord kills and makes alive. First prophesied there, and then prophesied later by the man of God to Eli about his household. Verse 36. Chapter two. Everyone who is left in your house is this kid going to be left in his house? He will. Will he have a future? He won't. We'll come and bow down for a piece of silver or a loaf of bread. He's going to have nothing. In fact, Shiloh is going to be wiped out. History tells us that after this, it's done. Probably some other group. It could have been the Philistines. Maybe someone else comes in and it's gone. We learn this in Psalm 78, verse 60. God abandoned the dwelling place at Shiloh, the tent which he had pitched among men. He gave up his strength to captivity and his glory into the hand of the adversary. It was over. But when you misunderstand the glory of God because you've misplaced it, you think it's been taken, right? Like she said, she misunderstood it. She thought the Philistines took it. They weren't even up against a fight. Why? Because God gave up his strength to captivity. It's a play on our theology, isn't it? How could God lose? He's infinitely stronger. He can't lose unless he chooses to lose. And that's when you misunderstand the glory of God. Like she did. That's what's the tragedy of her life. She thought she had lost everything and seen with human eyes. She did. Home, husband, heritage, if you want to call it that of the sacrificial system at Shiloh. The Ark is gone. What? Nobody's going to come here. It's over. It's over. And so that mentality overwhelms her with grief. To the point. The only thing that comes out of her mouth is Ichabod. The glory is gone. That's what the word means. She repeats it. The glory is gone. And the women around her are trying to say, no. It'll be okay. Hang in there. Stick with it. You've got a son. And as she's dying, all she's repeating is the glory is gone. The glory is gone. That's tragic, because she didn't have to believe that. You know, Samuel was around all this time. Chapter four tells us that at the beginning, the Word of Samuel came to all Israel. She's part of all Israel. The Lord revealed himself to Samuel at Shiloh. She lives in Shiloh. Was she listening? You know, when you misunderstand the glory of God, the Word of God could be all around you, but you can't hear it. And when you've misplaced the glory of God, you can't see it because you're consumed with self and you're only going to hear what you want to hear. Was she right? Is the question a lot of writers and preachers ask at this point? Was she right when she says the glory has departed from Israel, for the Ark of God was taken. I don't like asking that question to the audience, because I'll probably get half yeses and half no's and everybody's like, oh, he asked me a trick question, slink in the seat. Yes and no. If he would have said yes or no. My opinion, you're right. She was right and that there was something that was taken. She's right when she says the Ark of God is taken. She's wrong when she says the glory has departed. That's something no man can take. God delivers them over to captivity. God ordained it. God allowed it. Why did he allow it? Because we said last week that he will suffer the risk of his own humiliation of his name. To teach us a lesson on where his glory is truly found, he'll let it all be burned to the ground, won't he? If that's what's going to take for us to look up and listen up and pay attention, he'll let it all fall apart. And that's what she's thinking. It's all gone. It's all over. But it wasn't. More there than her eyes could see. And it was so hard on her. It was so painful. It puts her in a state that she dies believing the wrong thing. Misunderstanding where the glory of God is to be found. So as we draw to a close today, we should ask ourselves the question. It's a good question to reflect on as we would move to the Lord's table. It's just this. You just take those two words. Misplaced and misunderstood. Where have I misplaced my glory for God's? And how, in light of that, might I be misunderstanding where there is something that I would call a loss that might actually be a gain, that God's glory actually is not departed from my life? For the Christian, he says, he'll never leave you nor forsake you, Christian. So any thought that the glory of God has departed from your life is a lie? Now you could be living in disobedience. You could be under the chastening of God. We've seen that in the last few months. But to do what she did and jump to this faulty idea that his glory is gone was because she never put it in the right place in the first. She maybe had it in her husband. She maybe had it in Eli. She had it certainly in the Ark. We do the same, don't we? We think God's glory is in a place. It's in a building. It's down front. If I invite you here, or we have to sing a song that says, we ask you to fill this place, and we forget we already have the Holy Spirit in us. You don't have to invite the Holy Spirit into a worship area. You are the worshiper. You have the Spirit. You bring the glory of God in here, brothers and sisters. So to try to foment or foam up in in some kind of state of. We need to ask him. He's already here. You can enjoy his presence wherever you go because he's with you. He's with you. You have the Spirit with you. His glory is not in a performance, a sacrament. We're going to take communion today. His. His glory is not in the sacrament. By taking the bread and the cup will not do something magical in your life to change you. It's in the remembrance. The glory is found in the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's what the cup. That's what the bread is meant to do for you. Remember the glory of the cross. If you're not in Christ today. You may understand the facts of the gospel. Absolutely. You could repeat back to me, probably Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He came and lived a perfect life. He completely obeyed the Father loved him with heart, soul, mind, and strength. Lived the life I couldn't live so he could die. The death that I deserve to die. He died in my place. He rose again. Three days later. He ascended to the right hand of the father. You can rattle off a creed. You can tell me what the Romans Road is. You can mention it all. But if it's just information that's not glorious, it hasn't saved you. Can I be that honest? Because that's what the Bible tells me. 2 Corinthians. If our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In whose case the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ. You can hear the gospel of Christ. You can understand it. You could write it down. You could preach it to other people. But if it's not glorious to you, it hasn't changed you. So you're blind. The word glory changes everything, doesn't it? When something is glorious to us, we are blown away by it. We lose our mind over it. Our heart explodes because of it. That's what the gospel is. It changes you. You love the Lord. You live for him. He brings you joy. And if none of that is true in your life, you've not believed Savingly. That's what the kingdom of heaven is like. A man who finds a treasure hidden in a field, and in his joy he sells all that he has to buy that field because it's glorious field. It's forgiven sin. It's life eternal. I was at a car thing last night. That's how much I know about car things. It was a guy in our church who invites people to bring fast and furious cars, and he puts them on this thing where he can hit the gas and they don't fly away. They're chained, and it's called a dyno, and it's. And I'm sitting there watching. People are hanging, talking. And then he puts a car on this thing, and it was like moths to the light. When they hear the sound of horsepower, they all come shink and they come shink to stand with their phones out in record a car on a thing with wheels spinning fast. It's not moving. It's not up on two. It's not racing anything. They thought it was cool. No offense. None taken. I was just amazed at they saw glory in that, they did. Smiling and high fiving. And when my friend put his supercharged something on it, it went, he told me 2000 horsepower. I don't even know how to say that. Right. It went super fast. Um, so fast. The people behind it, their hair blew back, dirt was blowing in their face, exhaust fumes, and they're fired up. And he asked me to preach the gospel. And I said, some of you here, you think there is glory in that? And that's great. I think there's glory in basketball. Driving home, I knew there was a game coming down to the last minute. I put it on Am radio, kids, have you heard of it? I found an Am station where I was going. Florida, Auburn. Because I think there's glory in sports and it's okay. So those things, some of them that God is, it's his world. He's given us all of it. So yeah, the mechanic that could figure out how to rev up an engine to blow your face off in the exhaust. There's glory. And I told the people there, I said, you know, I sit and watch you take glory in this thing and it blows you away. But here I am with the gospel of the glory of Jesus Christ. Right? And so I could do this. I could tell you the good news of the glory of Jesus Christ in the gospel. And you could be like me watching cars, just going, what's that big deal? And you could tell me it's 2000 horsepower. It's I can't name anything else. That's the only thing I know. And you could give me all the facts and try to convince me. It's glorious. And I'm like, see you next year. I'll preach again. I'm not going to read a magazine. I'm not going to go buy a dyno. My point is, it's got to do something in you. It changes you from the inside because it's a glorious message. That's what the gospel does. If it hasn't done that, you know the gospel, but you don't know the glory. See, when you're like, how does my life get changed around today? Is he glorious to you? It's the only way. God said, light shall shine out of darkness is the one who is shown in our hearts. He did it for me. I didn't do it to myself. He has shown in our hearts to give the light the truth of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. That's where it is, and that's only where it is. So for the unbeliever in here today. The glory is in Christ. It's not in you. The glory is in the gospel that tells you the sinner. You could be forgiven of your sins if you trust in him right now. And if you're in Christ, the glory is in Christ. Nothing changes, does it? You come back to this gospel and you say, the reason I could have had the week I had and sinned the way I sinned and messed up, the way I messed up and come in here and I'm not just evaporated is because of the gospel. Because he keeps you. If he loved you enough to die for you, why would he get rid of you? Why would he be done with you if he loved you enough to die for you, believer. You didn't earn your way in. You can't sin your way out. But you can come to grips today with maybe you've been taking him lightly. So ask him to restore the weight of his glory. Whether you've misplaced it or misunderstood it today. Let's take this time in communion and ask the Lord to readjust that sight in us.
  Father, we thank you for your Word today. We thank you for its power and clarity. How easily we, your creation, your creatures, your redeemed, your children want to put our own glory on the pedestal and lose sight of yours. And thank you that the gospel of Jesus Christ puts it right back in the focus. Because everything we have is in you and apart from you, Christ, we can do nothing. Thank you, Spirit, that you are in our hearts and we are not to be pitied. And we do not lose hope because you pour out the love of God in our hearts like a flood. So overwhelm us with your glory now, as we would turn our attention to remember Christ and Him crucified. Amen.