SEEKING GOD’S GLORY (PART 1)
Text: Exodus 33:18-23
18And Moses said, I beseech You, show me Your glory.
19And God said, I will make all My goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim My name, THE LORD, before you; for I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy and loving-kindness on whom I will show mercy and loving-kindness.(A) 20But, He said, You can not see My face, for no man shall see Me and live. 21And the Lord said, Behold, there is a place beside Me, and you shall stand upon the rock, 22And while My glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft of the rock and cover you with My hand until I have passed by. 23Then I will take away My hand and you shall see My back; but My face shall not be seen.(AMPLIFIED)
People have priorities, something they want more than others. For example students even when they do not study, want above every other thing to pass their examinations. That is why sometimes they cheat. If there is anything that Senators Obama and McCain wants more than anything, it is to win the 2008 presidential elections. That is what any politician wants more than anything. That is why in some countries, it is by hook or crook, do or die business. We all know what is happening in Zimbabwe right now. Businessmen want more than anything else to win big contracts. This is priority. What is your priority?
God too has priority. John 4:23 says “A time will come, however, indeed it is already here, when the true (genuine) worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth (reality); for the Father is seeking just such people as these as His worshipers.”
God is seeking for those that would worship Him in Spirit and in truth.
Whatever you seek, you are likely to get, provided you seek it correctly, diligently and with all your heart. Isaiah 55:6 says “Seek ye Jehovah while he may be found; call ye upon him while he is near:
Seeking God is not praying casually, carelessly, it is not 5 minutes prayers. Hebrews 11:6 says 6But without faith it is impossible to please and be satisfactory to Him. For whoever would come near to God must [necessarily] believe that God exists and that He is the rewarder of those who earnestly and diligently seek Him [out]. If you are seeking God diligently, you will be rewarded today in Jesus name. Your seeking will not be in vain in Jesus name.
Psalm 34:10 says that “I prayed to the Lord, and he answered me. He freed me from all my fears.
In America, there is this policy called, buy one and get one free, people who coined the idea got it from the Bible. Buy one and get one free means that if you are seeking for something, you are likely to get something extra.
II Chronicles 1:6-10 says “6Solomon went up there to the bronze altar before the Lord at the Tent of Meeting and offered 1,000 burnt offerings on it. 7That night God appeared to Solomon and said to him, Ask what I shall give you. (An open check) 8And Solomon said to God, You have shown great mercy and loving-kindness to David my father and have made me king in his place. 9Now, O Lord God, let Your promise to David my father be fulfilled, for you have made me king over a people like the dust of the earth in multitude. 10Give me now wisdom and knowledge to go out and come in before this people, for who can rule this Your people who are so great?
Solomon asked for only wisdom and knowledge, but he got extras. The Bible says in verse 11-12 that “God said to Solomon, “Because your greatest desire is to help your people, and you did not ask for wealth, riches, fame, or even the death of your enemies or a long life, but rather you asked for wisdom and knowledge to properly govern my people—12 I will certainly give you the wisdom and knowledge you requested. But I will also give you wealth, riches, and fame such as no other king has had before you or will ever have in the future!”
So if you seek something and you seek it desperately, you are likely to get it and something extra.
Also, David was seeking for only one thing, Psalm 27:4 says “4One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek, inquire for, and [insistently] require: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord [in His presence] all the days of my life, to behold and gaze upon the beauty [the sweet attractiveness and the delightful loveliness] of the Lord and to meditate, consider, and inquire in His temple., however, David got something extra. In Psalm 92:4, 4 For thou, Jehovah, hast made me glad through thy work: I will triumph in the works of thy hands. To know more about other things that the Lord did for David, read Psalm 23.
Also, John in John 3:29 says “29He that hath the bride is the bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice: this my joy therefore is fulfilled.
John is saying here that he wants to be the best man of Jesus. We all know what happened to John, he became the best man of Jesus and they were unable to kill him.
Paul in the book of Philippians 3:1o -11 says “I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, 11 so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead!
Amplified puts it this way “[For my determined purpose is] that I may know Him [that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognizing and understanding the wonders of His Person more strongly and more clearly], and that I may in that same way come to know the power outflowing from His resurrection [[a]which it exerts over believers], and that I may so share His sufferings as to be continually transformed [in spirit into His likeness even] to His death, [in the hope].
He got to know Christ and the power of His resurrection, but not only did he get these, God gave him also powers to work miracles. The book of Acts 19:11-12 says, “And God did unusual and extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, 12So that handkerchiefs or towels or aprons which had touched his skin were carried away and put upon the sick, and their diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them. Paul got more that he asked for.
Also, the application can be the other way round, for example, they advertised buy one, get one free for bad stuffs too, like cigarettes, and probably drugs too. So if you are seeking for a bad thing or seeking for a good thing in a bad way, you are likely to get something extra.
For example, Gehazi also got more than he asked for, he got prosperity and he got leprosy.
Judas got thirty pieces of silver, but he got both physical death and eternal death.
What are you looking for? Depending on the way you go about it, you are likely to get it and get something extra.
Today I want to encourage us to seek God’s glory, the beautiful thing is that we will get God’s glory and probably get something extra.
Let us examine the lives of those who saw God’s glory. Matthew 17:1-2 says “Six days later Jesus took Peter and the two brothers, James and John, and led them up a high mountain to be alone. 2 As the men watched, Jesus’ appearance was transformed so that his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as light.”
It was this account that John gave in the book of John 1:14, it says “14 So the Word became human[a] and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness.[b] And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son.
Let us examine closely the lives of Peter, James and John and probably learn one or two things that qualified them to see God’s glory.
PETER
He was a man chosen by grace. In the book of Luke 5:2-3, there were two boats, but it was Peter’s boat that was chosen. God will choose your boat today in Jesus name. He obeyed God, he gave his boat, he did not ask for money. Many of us will ask, how much are you going to give me? That must be settled first before we work for God. Let there be a change of heart. The Minister that came last week, we gave some amount of money and he rejected it, he said he is sowing it back to the church. He will definitely need it. Even after he had caught a boat-load of fishes, he forsook all and followed Jesus. There are some people that cannot do anything free for God, let there be a change of heart. When you work diligently for God, you are going to see His glory.
In Mark 1:17, Jesus told Peter, “Come, follow me” Every step of the way till Peter’s death, he never failed to follow Jesus although he often stumbled. For you to see the glory of God, you must never stop following Jesus, even if you will stumble once in a while.
Peter was an ordinary fisherman, but became a new person with new goals and priorities; he did not become a perfect person. We do not have to become perfect to see God’s glory, but our goals and priorities must be that we must see God’s glory.
When Jesus gave him the name “the rock”, he was not acting like a rock much of the time, however, when Jesus was choosing His followers, he wasn’t looking for models, but for real people with potentials. You don’t have to be a model before being chosen for God’s glory. God is looking for people that could be changed by His love, people that are teachable to be sent out to communicate that His acceptance was available to anyone, even to those that often fail. Even with Peter’s failures, he saw the glory of God and went on to do great things for God. Despite your failures, if you are willing to keep following Jesus, you will see God’s glory. God’s faithfulness can compensate for our unfaithfulness, and it is better to be a follower that fails once in a while than one who fails to follow at all.
JAMES
He was among the three singled out for special training, a member of inner circle of Christ. Are you a worker in this sanctuary? Are you a member of the inner circle? To see God’s glory, you have to belong to the inner circle, doing something worthwhile for God. James died serving Jesus. He was outstanding among the disciples of Jesus. We must be ready to go out of our comfort zone to serve Jesus. On Saturday July 26th, we must be willing to come here in the morning to distribute flyers and tracts to the people in this neighborhood. Someone has knocked the doors of millions of people just to tell them of the gospel. In some places, they will accept him, in some they will reject him, throw him out.
Why was James killed? He must have been a thorn in the flesh of the authorities. You must be a thorn in the flesh of the enemy.
He too was not perfect, he misunderstood Jesus’ purpose, he and his brother tried to secure positions in Jesus’ kingdom, they had anger problem as they wanted to call down fire down from heaven to destroy one Samaritan village, (I realized that there are some people here too who will like fire to fall on their enemies), also he had a limited view of what Jesus was doing on earth, picturing only an earthly kingdom that would overthrow Rome and restore Israel former glory. So despite the fact that he struggles with temper (Luke 9:54) and selfishness (Mark 10:37), he was able to see the Glory of God.
James wanted to be with Jesus, he saw Him as the right leader, and he was ready to die for Jesus because he knew that Jesus had conquered death, the doorway to eternal life. To see God’s glory, our expectations about life should not be limited to this earth alone; there is life after the physical death. God’s glory will be shown to those that can trust Jesus till death and those who will believe His promise.
JOHN
Being loved is the most powerful motivation in the world! Our ability to love is often shaped by our experiences of love. We usually love others as we have been loved. John wrote some of the greatest statements about God’s loving nature because he experienced the love of God in a unique way.
He loved God and God loved him. He called himself “the disciple whom Jesus loved”in John 21:20. It is easy to say “I love someone, but it is not easy to say “somebody loves me.” When we really look at the word love, some husbands do not love their husbands, some wives do not love their husbands.
To see God’s glory, we must be able to comprehend genuinely that “Jesus knows us and He loves us and we must be able to know and love Jesus fully. If you know that you are loved, it is a great motivation for a change. We should know that His love is not given in exchange for our efforts, but His love frees us to really live. So to see God‘s glory, we must be able to accept Jesus love in our lives.
Also, despite the fact that John was the most loved and the closest disciple to Jesus, he chose to remain out of limelight. We all want to be seen. If the reason why you are doing certain things for God or the house of God is for you to be seen, you are not going to see His glory. Those who want to be seen will not see Him.
Also, in John 19:25-27, when all other disciples have fled, John was at the feet of the cross, to see God’s glory, there must be faithfulness to the end.
May you remain faithful to the end in Jesus name.
Let us rise for prayers.
Prayers
You are destined to show God’s glory, however, the glory of God has not shown in your life if you have not gotten your breakthrough, if people are laughing at you in the back, that is not the glory of God. People are talking and immediately you entered the room, the room became silent, that is not the glory of God
You are going to say these prayers with all your might and anything that is causing you to weep and your head down will be destroyed in Jesus name as you pray these prayer points. Psalm 3:3 says that “But thou O lord art a shield for me; my glory and the lifter of mine head. God is going to lift your head up today.
First of all begin to thank God for this message that you have heard, begin to ask for forgiveness of your sin, every sin that will not allow your prayers to be answered today, begin to ask for cleansing by the precious blood of Jesus, any sin that will not allow you to see the glory of God, that will not allow people to see the glory of God in your life, begin to appropriate the power that is the blood to cleanse them.
1. God the Father, in the mighty name of Jesus, every situation that is causing me to weep silently, causing me to worry unnecessarily, causing anxiety and tension in my life, that is making my head to be down, Father, let there be a change for the better in Jesus name.
2. God the Father, let every unprofitable businesses in my life, every obstacles of impossibilities in my life be totally destroyed in Jesus name. Let every mountain of difficulties begin to give way in Jesus name.
3. God the Father, give me other opportunities as from today in Jesus name so as to showcase your glory to the world.
4. Father of Glory, turn my mourning to dancing, my weeping to laughter and my sorrow to joy in Jesus name.
5. God of Glory, as from now on, I will begin to fly, people will see you glory in my life as I fly for you in Jesus name.
Resources
Pastor Enoch Adejare Adeboye (The General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God’s Sermon Notes for RCCG North American Convention, June 2008 in Floyd, Texas.)
Life Application Study Bible, 1978 edition.
Some prayers are from Prayer Rain by Dr. D.K. Olukoya.
