A Moment of Glory

Exodus 33:18-23; 34:5-8

There is something in us that longs for glory.

Seahawks. Steelers. Looking for glory.

Fans with their faces painted, bodies painted, weird hats, strange costumes – hoping to get on television at the game tonight.

Why? Looking for a moment of glory.

Advertisers like Burger King, Sprint, FedEx, Unilever, Gillette, and Cadillac – paying around $2.5 million for a 30-second spot.

Why? Looking for a moment of glory.

But any kind of earthly, man-made glory winds up being a disappointment.

John Burrough, played for the Atlanta Falcons in Superbowl XXXIII (33). Listen to what he said about his 1998 Super Bowl experience:

In the middle of all the explosions and hoopla and hype, all I could think was, Is this it? Is this all it is? Why, this doesn't even compare to worshiping my God! (Sports Spectrum; submitted by Mike Herman)

As a believer in Jesus Christ, John Burrough knew that he was created for a greater glory than a football field or any other thing on earth could have to offer.

"What is eternal? What lasts? What will be with us, who will be with us? What lasts in our hearts to give us that eternal joy, that forever happiness? That's what I want. And that comes from Christ alone. Period."

Tonight, I want us to see and hear the testimony of a man who witnessed God’s glory.

Moses – plenty of man’s glory in his lifetime.

Grew up in Pharaoh’s palaces in Egypt. A prince. A member of the Royal Family in the most lavish, wealthy, and ornamented dynasty of his day.

· The glory of Egypt’s wealth and gold.

· The glory of its learning and scholarship.

· The glory of its military power and might.

· The glory of its artistry and culture.

Then, banished from Egypt and from his own people, Israel, on the backside of the wilderness, keeping his father-in-law’s sheep – Moses saw a bush that burned with the fire of God and that miraculously was not consumed.

His first glimpse of God’s glory.

Saw God’s glory manifested as the Lord worked mightily to bring His people out of Egyptian bondage.

Saw God’s glory lead the people of Israel by a billowy cloud in the daytime and a burning fire at night.

The more he got to know God, the more Moses longed for God’s glory.

Listen to his bold request of the Lord:

Exodus 33:18 And he [Moses] said, “Please, show me Your glory.”

I want us to think about that request for a few minutes this afternoon, as we consider the only One to whom real Glory is due – Our great and mighty God.

Consider first …

1. The Hunger for God’s Glory

As leader of God’s people, taking them across the treacherous terrain of the Sinai wilderness, Moses knew how much he depended on God’s glory.

Beginning in verse 14, we’re allowed to eavesdrop on an intimate conversation between Moses and the Lord.

Exodus 33:14 And He said, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”

Exodus 33:15 Then he said to Him, “If Your Presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here.

Exodus 33:16 For how then will it be known that Your people and I have found grace in Your sight, except You go with us? So we shall be separate, Your people and I, from all the people who are upon the face of the earth.”

Exodus 33:17 So the Lord said to Moses, “I will also do this thing that you have spoken; for you have found grace in My sight, and I know you by name.”

God promised his presence to Moses. Then Moses made an audacious request. A request not only for God’s presence, but to see the fullness of His glory.

Exodus 33:18 And he said, “Please, show me Your glory.”

Glory – The Hebrew word means “heaviness” It means to be mighty or weighty.

In His glory, the Lord possesses a weighty worthiness – a holy heaviness that merits our reverence, fear and praise.

God is full of glory. The prophet Habakkuk gave this witness of the majestic worthiness of God:

Habakkuk 3:3 His glory covered the heavens, And the earth was full of His praise.

All of heaven cannot contain God’s glory, and the tongues of the tribes of all earth cannot adequately express the praise He deserves.

But though we cannot describe or even comprehend the height and the length and the depth of the glory of God, there’s something in us that longs for, that hungers for, that thirsts after God’s glory.

Most cars are made to run on gasoline. A typical engine will not run properly on anything else but gasoline.

You can put in water. You can put in alcohol. You can put in kerosene. You can put in diesel fuel – all with varying results. But that car is made to run on gas.

God designed the human machine to run on Himself. On his glory. He himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn. His glory is the fuel that our spirits were designed to feed on.

There is no other.

Success. Money. Attention. Pleasure. Entertainment. Achievement. Education.

None of those things adequately fuel the human spirit.

No, we must have God! And we must have His glory.

Moses knew that. So he asked for a glimpse of God’s glory.

But notice with me secondly …

2. The Magnificence of God’s Glory

Listen to how God answered Moses …

Exodus 33:19 Then He said, “I will make all My goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.”

Exodus 33:20 But He said, “You cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me, and live.”

God: My goodness. My name. My grace. My compassion.

But not the full measure of my glory. It would consume you. It would overwhelm you.

“You cannot see My face” – my holiness is such that you cannot see Me and live.

Moses did not see the fullness of God’s grace that day.

But there came a day when Jesus – the glory of God – came to this earth. And on a mountaintop he met with His disciples – Peter, James, and John. And there he revealed His glory.

His face and his appearance became like a shining light. His clothes glowed with the radiance of the holiness of God.

And Moses, along with Elijah, appeared on that mountain, too. And rejoiced to see the glory of God’s only begotten Son.

On the night before He was crucified, Jesus prayed to the Father …

John 17:22 And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one:

John 17:23 I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.

John 17:24 “Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.

Experiencing the glory of God – in your personal life:

1. Find a place to meet regularly with God.

· A chair, a room, a desk, a place somewhere that you know – I meet with God here.

2. Prepare yourself to meet with Him.

· You can’t amble into God’s presence with an idle mind, hands in your pockets, listening to a song on your ipod.

· Thirty minutes, bare minimum.

· Make time, prepare yourself.

3. Have your Bible open.

· God reveals His glory, His will, His plan through the Scirptures.

· Stephen – this is all fine. I’ve heard this before. Great. Do it.

4. Keep a record of what God shows you.

· Journal, a notebook, the margins of your Bible.

· Somewhere, be ready to write down what God shows you.

· Moses did.

3. The Expression of God’s Glory

Beginning in verse 21, God promised to allow His glory to pass by:

Exodus 33:21 And the Lord said, “Here is a place by Me, and you shall stand on the rock.

Exodus 33:22 So it shall be, while My glory passes by, that I will put you in the cleft of the rock, and will cover you with My hand while I pass by.

Exodus 33:23 Then I will take away My hand, and you shall see My back; but My face shall not be seen.”

Notice that God is using human language to describe himself.

My hand. My back. My face. God does not literally have a back, a hand, or a face. Using anthropomorphic language so that Moses would understand and we will understand.

Exodus 34:5-7.

Exodus 34:5 Now the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord.

Exodus 34:6 And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth,

Exodus 34:7 keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.”

“the name” – the character, the attributes of the God

Began to express some of His attributes

· Merciful – God extends compassion to those who offended His justice. Through Christ, gives us mercy.

· Gracious – God offers eternal and abundant life as a gift of His grace.

· Longsuffering – patient. Not ready to “zap” you. “Not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.”

· Abounding in goodness and truth – Because God is good, He delights in the happiness of His people.

· Forgiving – lifting the burden of our sin and carrying it away.

· By no means clearing the guilty – just. His perfect righteousness will not leave the guilty unpunished.

What does a sunset look like? You can describe it.

The reds and oranges and yellows as the sun fades.

The long shadows that grow even longer as the sun races toward the horizon.

You can describe a sunset.

What does your mother look like? You can describe her.

Silver hair. Slight wrinkles around her eyes and mouth from years of smiling.

Blue eyes that glisten with joy when she sees her grandchildren.

Soft voice that you can remember hearing sing lullabies when you were a child.

You can describe your mother.

What is God like? Children ask such questions, but so have countless Christians throught he ages.

Describing another man or woman is relatively easy. We can find the adjectives to describe them. But describing God is more substantially difficult. Language and thought fail us. He is beyond our words.

Glory. Glory. Glory. He is glorious.

4. The Response to God’s Glory

Exodus 34:8-9 show us how Moses responded to God’s glory: He worshipped.

Exodus 34:8 So Moses made haste and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshiped.

Exodus 34:29 Now it was so, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai (and the two tablets of the Testimony were in Moses’ hand when he came down from the mountain), that Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone while he talked with Him.

How do we respond to God’s glory?

We worship Him.

And we submit to Him that we might be changed ever more into His glory:

2 Corinthians 3:18 But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.

Dennis Byrd was a professional football player. As an up-and-coming defensive superstar for the New York Jets, he was predicted to help turn the Jets organization around. Then tragedy struck.

On November 29, 1992, the Jets were playing the Chiefs. Dennis was about to sack the quarterback when he collided with a teammate and his spinal cord was snapped. In a split-second, his football career ended. He was paralyzed from the neck down. Everything he had planned for his life came to a screeching halt.

Later, he wrote about waking up in the middle of the night at Lenox Hospital in a halo brace, not knowing where he was, not knowing why he couldn't move, not knowing what was happening. Suddenly, he went from dreaming of making it to the Pro Bowl to hoping he could someday hold his daughter in his arms again.

From a worldly perspective, Dennis was no longer able to reach his potential. But in God's eyes, Dennis Byrd is capable of much more than sacking quarterbacks. In God's eyes, Dennis Byrd is capable of giving him glory, and Dennis has done that in a tremendous way.

The world watched and listened as Dennis Byrd told the media that Christ was his source of comfort in his time of tragedy. The doctors announced to the media that Dennis may never walk again, and it would be years before they would know. Dennis told the media that with God's help, he would walk again—soon.

On opening day of the 1993 football season, less than a year after the tragic collision, millions of television viewers watched Dennis Byrd walk out to the middle of the Meadowlands Stadium while 75,000 fans stood cheering in ovation. The miracle in Dennis Byrd's life is not that he broke his neck and walked again. The miracle is that the injury that destroyed his career didn't destroy his life.

God’s glory didn’t fail Dennis Byrd. It didn’t fail Moses. And it won’t fail you.

As you hunger for His glory.

As you ask to be transformed by His glory.

As you seek to glorify Him.

His glory will shine through in your life.