God glory is a revelation or manifestation of his character, beauty, nature, power, worth.
God’s glory is God revealed.
God’s glory is revealed in all of his works.
John 9
As he(Jesus) was passing by, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” 3 “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” Jesus answered. “This came about so that God’s works might be displayed in him.
That is a hard truth…
God’s glory is revealed in suffering, in storms, in his power and our lack of power, and in his people’s response to suffering…their own and that of others.
God’s glory is revealed in his “giving” and in his “taking away” and in our response to it.
Arash: Interesting
We tend to think of God’s glory in the “good” but it is often revealed in what is seen as “bad.”
We talk and sing about God’s glory, often without contemplating the “weight” of its implications for our lives.
This is not a criticism; it’s just a fact of our humanity.
There are many good things…that require us to exert ongoing effort and attention to them if we are going to hold them front and center in our minds.
We have to worship and remember the glory of God in all things…if we are to live thriving lives that reveal his glory.
Without this ongoing effort and attention…we will all begin to bear the image of our pets more so than our creator.
A dog lives in the moment for the moment, it does not contemplate purpose and meaning and glory.
This is great for a dog; it’s one reason people love them, they admire their temporality(they don’t seem to worry about the future, they live only for the moment)…but it is terrible for a human being to try and live this way.
We should try to live “in” the moment, but not merely “for” the moment…we are eternal, not merely temporal beings.
It’s why we are here sitting under God’s word and turning our hearts to him in worship.
We need to remember our place in creation and history, and God’s glory.
Our pets aren’t invited here…for several reasons.
One reason is they don’t need to be here.
Their mere existence gives glory to God.
They don’t need to worship and train to trust God.
We train our children to repent of their sins, we don’t do so with our dogs.
We train our dogs to not bite, bark or urinate on the floor…but we don’t believe they need 1 John 1:9…the confession and forgiveness of sins.
We may need 1 John 1:9 after our dogs do those things.
Humans are made in God’s image…we must continually strive to give him glory, to remember it, to marvel at it…and to reflect it in our lives.
In the Scripture we see that:
God’s glory is displayed in creation.
His glory is displayed in his actions in history like the Exodus…and there was a lot of hard in that revelation of glory. We will be there next week.
His glory is displayed in his people.
His glory has been manifested physically in history as bright light surrounding his presence.
God is spirit, he is not made of physical substance…so this light is a created physical manifestation of his glory for the human eye to behold.
His glory is, of course, displayed through Christ…his birth, his death, his resurrection and his ascension…and one day in his return.
Hebrews 1:3 “Jesus is the radiance of God’s glory.”
The picture being painted with those words is the brilliant light of the sun.
All darkness is instantly obliterated in the brilliant radiance of the sun’s rays.
The sun and the photons that emanate from the sun are one and yet distinct.
It’s not a perfect picture but it is a powerful one.
The sun and all the stars in the cosmos, reveal his glory to our minds as we consider that God has made them from nothing.
“When I consider the heavens, the work of your fingers…the moon and stars which you have created…who are we that you take note of us?” Ps 8
They also give us a continual physical, visible symbol of God’s glory.
We can’t even look for long at our sun, without suffering permanent damage to our eyes.
Imagine the glory of this nuclear ball of plasma burning at 5.4 million degrees.
Glorious. Awesome. Terrifying.
The Old Testament word most often used for God’s glory…means “heavy” …it became a technical term for God’s revealed presence.
In Isaiah 6, Isaiah had a vision of God’s glory…it was spectacular.
Powerful angels called out, “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of Armies (hosts); his glory fills the whole earth.”
Isaiah was filled with terror for his own sinfulness in the presence of such white-hot holy glory.
The weight of God’s presence physically manifested on Isaiah was his glory revealed.
Job is a book about a real person, but it is not written as a mere historical data driven biography.
It is the story of suffering, struggle, faith…and ultimately…the heavy weight of the glory of God.
So, it has prayers, complaints, poetry, conversations, disputes, emotion.
It full of human passion and pain and God’s glory is revealed in it all.
Not too long ago I was told, to calm down, as I became fired up about something is near and dear to my heart.
Normally, that is good advice…I can get spun up…and we should all watch to not say dumb things during those times.
In this case I said to person who is very close to me…”No, I can’t be calm about this…not this.”
Job is not irrational, but neither is he objective, or calm.
How could he be?
This is his life, his family, his faith…this is about literally everything.
As I said last week: read Job with your head and your heart…respond in the same way.
Here is a short outline:
Job’s inexplicable suffering.
Job and his friends go round and round.
God finally speaks.
Job’s response to the Word of God.
Job’s fortunes restored.
Today, we will look at an overview of what God said to Job.
Then we will focus on Job’s response to God’s word.
God finally begins to speak in Chapter 38:
First, Job gets a rebuke, “Who is this who obscures my counsel with ignorant words.”
Job will also be told that unlike his friends he has spoken rightly about God
This doesn’t mean that everything Job has said has been right, it hasn’t been…thus he gets rebuked for what was wrong and acknowledged for what true.
Job was right in that his suffering was not the result of his sins…he was wrong when he cast blame on God.
Job has been asking for the opportunity to plead his case, and now he has it.
But he will not be questioning God, God will question him.
First question: “Where were you when I established the earth?”
Some might think that this is very unkind of God to overpower Job like this when he is suffering.
There is a time when sufferers need nothing but the ministry of comforting presence.
There is also time when they need the ministry of the comforting truth…even if that truth is, at first…uncomfortable.
God loves Job…he loves him too much to merely say, “I understand you are having a hard time.”
Job, needs to know God, he needs to have truth…more than to merely feel justified or understood.
God understands Job, no question about that…Job needs to understand who God is.
The obvious answer to the question: “Where were you when I made the world” is…”Uh, not born”
That’s right…so Job listens as God gives poetic details of his creative power…his glory in creation.
If you read it this week, it is a beautiful description of an artist interacting with his creative work.
It is full of poetry, not mere scientific descriptions.
In chapter 39 he doesn’t tell Job about Equus caballus, the scientific name for a horse.
He talks about an animal that clearly he is proud of and that he delights in… he is glad he made horses, they are cool.
He describes a war horse whose snorting fills people with terror…war horses at this time were a terrifying and deadly weapon to foot soldiers.
This is poetic and powerful…he is giving Job facts but in ways that touch heart not just head.
He then rebukes Job again for trying to justify himself by accusing God of having done wrong. (40:8).
Job was not being punished for sin, but in his self-defense, instead of just pleading ignorance…he arrogantly said, “I know I haven’t sinned, so this is all on God.”
If you read Job you will encounter two beasts called Behemoth and Leviathan.
Some believe these are poetic descriptions of actual animals like a Hippo, Crocodile or Great White.
You may think, who is afraid of a hippo? Anyone who lives near them.
They kill more people in parts of Africa than Crocodiles do.
Some think Job describes dinosaurs prior to their extinction.
Still other evangelical scholars think God is referring to symbolic descriptions of death and Satan here.
People at the time had turned the dark forces into symbols like this.
Perhaps Job was challenged in God’s first speech to him to try and control, let alone, understand the created natural world…good luck Job.
Here, in a second speech, Job may be challenged to try and control the supernatural powers of evil, Satan and death…good luck with that.
It doesn’t matter to the point of the narrative which view you take.
God is in control of these fearsome foes, whatever they are…they are like house pets to him, but they could destroy Job in an instance.
If Job can’t even contend with these…how does he propose to contend with God himself…The God who made them and who controls them.
Job, finally understands.
Not “why” he has suffered so much, but why he can’t pretend to understand all that God does.
Job 42
Then Job replied to the Lord: 2 I know that you can do anything and no plan of yours can be thwarted. 3 You asked, “Who is this who conceals my counsel with ignorance?” Surely I spoke about things I did not understand, things too wondrous for me to know. 4 You said, “Listen now, and I will speak. When I question you, you will inform me.” 5 I had heard reports about you, but now my eyes have seen you. 6 Therefore, I reject my words and am sorry for them; I am dust and ashes.”
Maybe you have had arguments with people who verbally outdueled you or maybe were in a position of power over you…a boss, or commander, parent, teacher…and they just shut you down.
You may have decided to just give up.
Your mind has not been changed, let alone your heart…you have just given up trying to win.
That is not what this is.
This is not merely words of “I give up, who can win against you.”
These are words of genuine repentance and worship.
Two things that are necessary for ongoing relationship with God.
Which if you think back over the course of the book…this is what Job most wanted and was most confusing to him.
He truly wanted relationship with God.
He was confused as to why God had suddenly “turned” on him.
He thought he had to understand “why” God did what he did, before he could really have relationship with God.
This is not true…thanks be to God.
If we have to fully understand God in order to have relationship with God…we would all be without hope.
We have to have accurate and adequate understanding to have relationship with God.
We do…a child can understand the gospel and believe.
We do not need exhaustive or perfect understanding.
For those who say, “You Christians and your blind faith…you just trust God no matter what. He gets credit for the good and no blame for the bad, you are like children.”
Yes, in the best case…we are like children.
In fact, Jesus said as much.
“At that time, the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “So who is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” He called a small child and had him stand among them. “Truly I tell you,” he said, “unless you turn and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child—this one is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 18:2-4
Job was trying to be an “adult”, trying to address God as a peer.
Now, he has become in his mind, what he has always been in reality…a child, with a father.
When I was a small child I ate an entire bottle of aspirin. Not the flavorful baby kind, but normal, bitter aspirin.
I was taken to the ER and had a tube rammed down my throat and they pumped my stomach. Not sure if that is still the approved method but it was in 1962.
I remember that my mom lay in the bed beside me.
Interesting, I don’t remember now, feeling the pain, I do remember her being there.
There I was, a child and my mom was inflicting me, for some mysterious reason, with this pain.
But I didn’t tell her to “get out of this bed”, I hugged her close.
This is what children do when they trust their parents, even when they don’t understand why.
Complete understanding of why isn’t required to have trusting and loving relationship.
Again…good thing it isn’t.
We would be without hope…because we don’t have capacity for the full understanding of God’s ways.
Let’s go back through Job’s response:
Then Job replied to the Lord: I know that you can do anything and no plan of yours can be thwarted.
What God is doing as he runs the cosmos, is enormously complex…that is an understatement if there ever was one.
Job now knows, “Who was I kidding to think I could get my mind around it.”
Contemplate for just a moment…8 billion people.
8 thousand, million people.
Right now, there are around 110 armed conflicts in the world…involving millions of people…how many prayers are on the lips of all those people.?
There are millions in hospitals, 400K babies will be born today, about 170K people will die today.
Inside each of those 8 billion people are on average at least 6 thousand distinct thoughts per day.
6000 times 8 billion…God knows our thoughts
He is orchestrating all this to his own ends.
That is just this our little blue planet…he is overseeing the entire cosmos.
Some conclude that this is impossible…so they come to the truly impossible conclusion that it all just happened by cosmic accident.
Job rightly concluded…God is smarter than me, he has a much harder job than I do.
But in fact, it’s not technically “hard” for him.
3 You asked, “Who is this who conceals my counsel with ignorance?” Surely I spoke about things I did not understand, things too wondrous for me to know.
I thought I knew more than I did. There are things I can’t fully understand. How could I have ever believed otherwise?
4 You said, “Listen now, and I will speak. When I question you, you will inform me.” 5 I had heard reports about you, but now my eyes have seen you.
One of my favorite verses…my ears had heard but now my eyes have seen.
This is experiential versus merely intellectual relationship with God.
6 Therefore, I reject my words and am sorry for them; I am dust and ashes.”
Sometimes when people are found in their sins they will give mock humility and repentance.
“I know, I’m a terrible person. I’m just a pathetic loser.”
Then they look at you to say, “Okay, it’s okay, no, you are not, you are a good person”
It’s really a game for these people…they are not sorry from the heart; they are trying to manipulate you in an attempt to get out of being held accountable.
Job is not playing at this and neither is God.
Job does have his fortunes restored and don’t think the moral of the story is “See, God will give you all you want, eventually.”
“It will all work out in the end”…meaning, I’ll come out on top.
Do you think Job was ever “over” all his loss?
Do you think he was the same person this time around in regard to what God gave him?
The ending is every bit as much a mystery as the beginning.
When our girls were young and first began to notice that not all the kids at their schools had loving families they began to ask “why?”
It wasn’t “Why is God bringing this bad into my life.”
It was “Why am I blessed and not them?”
Why did God give so much back to Job? I don’t know.
Because he wanted to.
It wasn’t a reward for being good any more than his suffering was punishment for being bad…mystery in the suffering, mystery in the blessing.
God did it because he chose to do so, because it is how he was glorified in the life of Job.
The Lord gives, the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord.
A close friend of mine had a terrible and traumatic childhood and has suffered much because of the things that happened to his family and to him.
Last week he told me that he often wondered why his mom, in particular, was dealt the terrible hand she was given…and that in turn made his own life enormously difficult.
He then told me this, “But I know God…I know him personally. I cannot doubt him, I love him. I trust him.”
My ears had heard of you, but now my eyes have seen you.
APPLICATION
For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
2 Cor. 4:17,18
That is a very important passage…and it gives us the very difficult tension that we must hold.
Our troubles don’t seem light or momentary…they can be enormously heavy and go on for years.
We must keep them in perspective.
Compared to the “weight of glory”…they are light and temporary
So we must live in the moment, taking what God give us day by day…but we must see more than the weight of each moment.
We must see the “weight of eternal glory”…it is more than the weight of our troubles today.
When you are suffering…it almost seems like the second hand on a clock is thunder…you feel each one ticking by.
If you think I am exaggerating…you have not been there yet.
We must do the work to keep perspective on the weight of glory.
CS Lewis wrote an essay entitled the “Weight of glory”
It is there that the famous quote comes about how go about making mud pies in a slum when we are offered a holiday at the sea.
He goes on to write that if we are made for heaven, the desire for our proper place will be already in us, but not yet attached to the true object, and will even appear as the rival of that object.
What he means is we have eternity in our hearts…yet we are drawn in our hearts to the temporary over the eternal.
Instead of human love pointing us to God…it becomes an idol.
Instead of the natural world and all its design and wonder teaching us that there is more than the natural world…we desperately attach ourselves only to our lives now.
All the things that touch our hearts are echoes of heaven, but our sinful hearts turn them into idols and rivals of heaven.
What are we to do?
We must train for godliness. We must watch our life and doctrine closely.
Since it is true that our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.
We must…fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
This is intentionally an intriguing play on words.
Look at what cannot be seen with our eyes.
How do we do this?
- We continually repent of our arrogance. We are children, God is not our peer.
He can do whatever he wants, and whatever he does is right.
You can, if you want, try to dispute that philosophically, or argue against it rationally…but you will not win.
He is smarter and better than you are.
- Then we must continually worship.
Through tears, through pain…in joy, and in great gain…we worship him.
We give him all the credit (glory) and we never blame him…we only trust him.
For those who say, “That’s not fair.”
He is not your peer, you have no idea who you are dealing with, for you to even think that way.
He will be friend, father, savior…but never peer, only always the Lord God Almighty…whose glory fills the earth.
As we worship him we see that he is not just powerful, and really smart, he is good.
Again, we have, what Job did not.
The Cross of Christ in our history.
“God demonstrates his own love for us in this, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8