1168. We Change by Seeing the Glory of the Lord

Welcome to The Daily Platform from Bob Jones University in Greenville South Carolina today on The Daily Platform will be getting a three-part series called walking with God.

Today's message will be preached by BJ Pres. Steve Pettit take your Bibles and turn with me please to the book of second Corinthians 2nd Corinthians chapter 3 this morning began with asking just a very basic question as we consider our theme this week I want to start with a different question that question is this. Have you ever gotten to a point where you wanted to really change, and you just got to a place where you didn't know what to do. I want to be a different person.

We think of television a day in Internet and infomercials and so me different ways of communication. Houston is being communicated out how to change how to be a different person or let me ask you this way, have you ever again gotten sick and tired of being you. Why is it that on this way while I struggled with this, or perhaps you got to a place in your life, or you're very frustrated spiritually because you feel like you tried to live for the Lord and maybe take a step forward and then suddenly you fall backwards in you feel like you keep hitting your head on the ceiling and you can't go any higher and and in your spiritual life your walk with God. Your overall life in general is very frustrating and you ask yourself, how do I change this morning. My message is really addressing how it is that we change or go see it today in second Corinthians chapter 3 verses 17 and 18. What I want to say today is this is the only way that I know how to change.

I'm going to give you today as it were sitting in my office and we were just talking about how to change, to give you the advice that I would give anyone I give myself this. How is it that we fundamentally change and we find that answer here because we do have the power to change. Let's look at what he says in verse 17 and 18. Paul's writings is now the Lord is that spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord are what's the next word sat with me are what are changed that were change right there is a word for metamorphosis it's it's a caterpillar going into a cocoon and coming out a butterfly in the picture that Paul sets for us is how is it that we go through this radical change in our life as a Christian I know a lot of young people grow up in a Christian home and they say why haven't had a radical change in my life, and the truth is maybe not externally but internally. If you're a believer. Everybody's experience the same new birth Newhart new like new nature.

But how does that come out of our lives that we live that out, and that's what Paul is talking about, he says, but we all, with an open face beholding as in the glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the spirit of the Lord. So here's what he is saying here is is first of all that we can change that is a positive. That's a definite. So the question is how do we change and he actually tells us notice what he says we all, with open face beholding holding is in the glass the glory of the Lord are change.

How do we change, we change by seeing the glory of the Lord. So I have to point to my messages morning firstborn is what is the glory of the Lord, take a good portion of the time to explain that and just let you know by the time I'm done it will be woefully inadequate is like trying to explain the Pacific Ocean, with a little thimbleful of water, but at least we can start here.

We are changed by what we see and what we see is the glory of God. So the second question is do we see that glory. And he tells us notice what he says but we all, with open face beholding as in a glass or in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are changed.

Where do we see the glory of the Lord. He says in a glass or in a mirror so that's the second question, the first question is are we change by the glory of the Lord. So what's the glory of the Lord in the number two what's the mirror that we look into that. We see this glory by seeing this glory in the mirror were change that's the two questions what's the glory of the Lord and what is the mirror and by that, and we see how we change so let's begin with the question what is the glory of God. Paul is writing here and he tells us that we look in this glass and we see God's glory and justify seeing it. It changes us. Now think with me. We have all gone through events in our life where we've seen certain things and they've affected us. But this is a complete transformation of your whole life. When you see the glory of God. So what is God's glory when he litigated a couple of illustrations in a hopeful lease maybe set it up in your mind number years ago I took a trip overseas with Dr. Sam Horney and I went on the trip to the country of Greece and we went to survey the locations where the apostle Paul planted churches, so we went to Philippi and Thessalonica. We went to Athens we went to Corinth.

We also went to a little town called Berea and as we were coming out of Berea. Our guide said we are going to go to another town called Vera Gina and Vera Dino were going to go see an archaeological discovery that the Greek archaeologist archaeologist discovered in 1977. What they discovered was the tomb of the father of Alexander the great, whose name was Philip King of Macedonia, who died about 330 A.D., somewhere in that neighborhood and out. What I also found out was that when they discovered his tomb. They also discovered that it had never been looted and everything that he was buried with was there intact, so we got pretty pumped up because we were to see all these artifacts and so we get to the location. We literally go down on the ground because they literally built the museum in to the tomb.

When we walked into the museum there.

We could see all the artifacts that they had found the helmet that he wore and battled the Greek helmet. The shield that he carried when he fall and we saw all his crown. His royal diadem. It doesn't look like the king of England's crown. It was it was made to look like an olive branch around the top of the head, but it wasn't something small that sat on his head. I mean it was huge. I mean the dude had a big head and as soon as I saw it I was so overwhelmed I said wow that guy had some serious glory. What we mean by glory will one word doesn't adequately describe it like honor, splendor, dignity, abundance, riches well when we want to describe something that we have seen are something that we have experienced that to us is unusual in credible a little bit overwhelming. We use various words to describe it like it was unbelievable. Or we use words like that was also that you can't you can't make this up is unbelievable number years ago my son and I were in Phoenix Arizona and I was preaching in a revival meeting and we used to go exercise together.

We would go find a local gym like a stripmall gym where you can go in and lift weights and so I I took my son Stephen with me and we found this Jim. It was literally called dog Jim DA W. G. And it's is where the men are men and the women are to if you enter Salem talk about so we went to this Jim and just let you God let you know that there's not a lot of intelligent communication going on in these type of gymnasiums and there was a guy in there that was absolutely humongous. I mean his chest was so big that the chest came in to the gym five minutes before the rest of his body came. I miss you and you know you just look at it may just be just that you just was a specimen and he walks over to the flat bench press and he takes 45 pound weights, which is generally the largest weight you find in the gym, and he puts 545 pound plates on one side and five on the other side, which came out to be a total of 495 pounds and we just rounded up to 500 pounds and then he went and got three guys to spot him. That is one standing behind in one on the chin just in case a good edit. So I said to my son but you better watch this because you may never see this. The rest of your life. So this guy lies down the flat bench press and this is the chest press, you grab it out here. You bring it down and bring it up and works alcohol chest muscle but he didn't put his hands there. He put his hands here now. That works out a completely different muscle it works out.

What we call your triceps. So what is the tricep tricep is that muscle right there some you guys may need to check to see if you actually got one but anyway it's back there. So this guy lays down on the flat bench press and he's gonna work out his triceps with 500 so he grabs the bar literally brings it up. He pulls it down and this is about what he was doing as he was bringing it up and down and then of course he did about eight Rhapsody put it back on the rack and about who is this guy gotta be famous so he came walking by me and essentially I said to him, who are you ever the next 30 minutes he told me who he was. Come to find out he was a flat bench press Champion forgot over 50 years old, drug-free, and he was a play professional football for the Seattle Seahawks, so he told me his whole life story and I have never forgotten what that God did.

Now what we solve that was so overwhelming that display of strength is one little idea of the word glory and the Bible tells us that the glory of God is when God in his awesomeness displays we who he is, but I want you to understand that there's a massive difference between seeing the glory of a man, and the glory of God.

Moses said to the Lord, show me your glory to God. I want to know you in a greater way there things about you.

I haven't seen I haven't seen it all, or to unveil yourself to me and God said what Moses we have a problem because you can't see my glory because you wouldn't live long enough to even enjoy it because when you see the glory of God.

It will not thrill you, it will kill you okay now were talking about something different because the glory of God for man. In some ways is deadly. So what is the glory of God, but to give you a theological textbook definition is very simple is the sum total of the intrinsic nature of God put on display. It is God displaying who he is. When I say intrinsic I'm saying something that is with in him. For example, you and I as human beings have an element of glory what is called a scribe glory. It's a glory that is given to us and people spend their lives trying to make themselves glorious weather by what they achieve, or what they acquire, or how they appear. People live their lives, hoping to achieve a choir or appear in a glorious manner that's called a scribe glory people give that to you but folks God has glory. Whether you give it whether you ascribe it to them or not, God's glorious just because he is the God of glory as of the glory of God is the sum total of his being his attributes, his character, his perfections all put on display and somehow we could if we could see the essence of God, what would we see it's very interesting that in the Old Testament God dwelt in a tent and in a room called the holy of holies above, a piece of furniture called the ark of the covenant in his presence there was called the Shekinah glory and what was it. It was a brilliant bright light in the New Testament. The apostle Paul when he speaks of the Lord. It says that he dwells in the light which no man can approach unto whom no man hath seen nor can see God is light and in him is no darkness at all. And here's the issue. This lie is unapproachable, it will literally kill you only think of it this way if you went outside today and you stared at the sun from this morning after chapel until the sun sets this evening. At the end of the day what would your eyesight be like to be blind, usually blinded by the light we see every morning and the sun.

Now if you can't handle the brilliance of the SUN what about the brilliance of the SON who likes heaven. In other words, we can't handle it is like the guy who says on Thursday he sticks his head in Niagara Falls is just a little too much you can't handle the glory of God. And so what is God do God reveals himself in ways that we can understand him just overall appearance of God, for all of us. We would fall dead on the ground so in many different ways God reveals himself why because the passion of God is always for the display of his own glory. There is nothing higher than God. There is nothing greater than God and the greatest blessing of our life is that we can actually come to know God in his so how does God then display this glory in ways that we can understand it number one God displaces glory and creation of the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament show with his handiwork day on the day under his speech night and the night show with knowledge there is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard everywhere we go in this creation we see the power of a creator. I mean, who's not been in fall enthralled with beautiful mountain peaks or standing on the shore of the ocean watching the waves come in, or maybe doing some snorkeling in Clearwater lie down in the Bahamas are over in Hawaii and you drop your head below the water and suddenly you see a world of different kinds of fish and see sea turtles and so forth.

As you swim around and you just overwhelmed you're appalled at what God has created and creation teaches us the glory of his story. He reveals his power and divinity for the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and God and Godhead, so we see God in creation. Secondly, we see God in his son Jesus Christ.

The Bible tells us that Jesus made everything all things were made by him and without him was not anything made that was made.

And here's the glory of the story and that is the creator God became a human being and the word became – and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the father full of grace and truth.

You see, God revealed himself to us in terms that we can understand and what is that revelation. It is a human being, the incarnation of God in the person of his son Jesus Christ. That's why we should be enthralled in understanding Jesus we should spend our life. We should get a PhD in Jesus a man we should get a PhD in Jesus because when you read the Bible. It's all about him either.

It's in the Old Testament where it is enfolded in the New Testament where it's unfolding where the pictures and the prophecies and everything in the Old Testament was a finger-pointing to the date when the Lamb of God would come into the world, we should be enthralled with Jesus because he is God in human flesh in an amount to the transfiguration.

He showed three of his disciples, his glory when it was almost as if he zipped down his humanity on that mountain transfiguration by the work way the word transfigure in the New Testament Gospels where Jesus was transfigured is the exact same word in second Corinthians 318 where it says we are change a metamorphosis, something happened to Jesus what happened up brilliant bright light literally began a burst out of his body.

I mean, almost as if we walked out of the front campus and we see those two lights beaming up to heaven behind the wall of the 9/11 memorial and we think of the brilliant light of Jesus like the sun is bursting out of and what is he say showing who he is, is God in human flesh we see his glory and creation we see his glory in the person of Christ and then thirdly, we see his glory. Every Sunday morning when we go to church because what is the church. The church is the body of Jesus. The church is God demonstrating his glory by doing what taking dead sinners and giving them a resurrection by taking blind sinners and giving them sites to see who he is by taking laying sinners and giving them the ability to wall by illumination by regeneration by redemption. He has taken those who were slaves and made them free and he's taken those who are enemies and made them his friends he's taken people out of the family and brought them into the family and every time we walk in the church we hear the word of God preached and we see the power of God and the church. What we sing on demonstration. Sing the glory of God not told you take me about most the time to explain the glory of God and what I just said he was woefully inadequate and yet it's seeing these things that changes us, so that leads me to the second and the final question and that is where we see the glory and go back a second grid is a think 318 and knows what he says but we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord are change. So the question is what is the glass is a mirror is something that reflects the glory of God.

So where do we look to see the glory it if I can see the glory. Where do I go to see it as a let me just back up if I can very quickly and just sort of lay a quick foundation for the purpose of this chapter. Second Corinthians was written for Paul to defend his apostleship. Everywhere he went he had people attacked him and they were primarily people were preachers of the old covenant that is in order for you to have a relationship with God. You had to follow the law. We called them Judaizers or legalist. So in second Corinthians 3, Paul said we are not ministers of the old, but ministers of the new.

But Paul does not throw the old covenant under the boat or under the bus. I should say he actually explains the difference between the old and the new look at what he says in verse six of second grid history who also is made us able ministers of the New Testament, the new covenant, not of the letter but of the spirit of the letter kills, but the spirit gives life.

What is the letter is the law. We can't keep the law, it kills us the spirit gives us new life or seven but if the ministration of death as the old covenant written and engraved in stones. That's when Moses got the 10 Commandments was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance, which glory was to be done away. How shall not the ministration of the spirit rather be glorious. In comparing the two. He sang the old covenant and the new covenant.

Both have glory, but you can't compare them because the old cabinet doesn't even compare to the new covenant, and how do we know that because when Moses went up on the top of Mount Sinai in the presence of God what it is to do. It started to shine his face changed. By the way, when you're in the presence of God. That's what happens when he came down off the mountain. What he put over space. He put a mask on his face just like you have and why did he put a mask on the face because what happened to the glory what it do it started to fade away and what the people in that they did not understand is that the fading away of the glory that was on the face of the Moses was to be an object lesson to teach them that the old covenant would eventually become obsolete and it would be replaced by the new covenant found in the person of Jesus. Because the old was pointing us to Jesus, but he said it had a glory. But it doesn't even compare to the new covenant. Now notice verse 12. Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech and not as Moses, which put a veil over space and the children of Israel could not steadfastly look to the end of that which is abolished, they couldn't see that that the old covenant would become obsolete. Verse 14. But their minds were blinded for until this day remains the same veil untaken away in the reading of the Old Testament which veil is done away in Christ.

But even in this day, when Moses is read veil is upon their heart.

What is he talking about when they read the Old Testament, they don't see Jesus. Now when I read the Old Testament as he Jesus rocks because in Genesis 1. He's the creator in Genesis chapter 3.

He's one that bruises the head of the serpent in Genesis chapter 4 he's a lamb slain by Abel in Genesis 6, seven and eight.

He's the art that delivers us from the floodwaters of God's judgment. In Genesis chapter 12. He is the fulfillment of the Abraham covenant. You see what I'm talking about the whole Old Testament is a picture new prophecy of the coming of the person of Jesus Christ. When Jesus came the old was done away because the new came and it was better than the old. What is he saying he says to this day the Jews read the Old Testament, but they don't see Jesus, but notice what he says in verse 16.

Nevertheless, when it shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away. What is it is your own heart is when your heart turns to the Lord. When you hear the message of the gospel when the spirit of God speaks to you and you turn to the Lord. What is he do. He takes the mask away to gunning down, takes your mask away your mask lists and what you see you see the glory of God.

So the question is where do you see the glory of God. What is the glass. What is the marrow is Artie told us is in the reading of the Scriptures.

So how do you change you read the Bible you say I'm not changing read it more you know why you know why the students of Bob Jones University don't change and others do change on tell you right now is not based on separate self effort is not based on keeping rules is not based on the wall.

It's based on the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And if you been saved your your your your eyes have been opened but you need to read about Jesus by first year as a Christian I was taught to read my Bible every day and I started reading my Bible.

My sophomore year in college I would get up in the morning and spend 30 minutes a morning reading the Bible and I'm telling you this, and I been doing it ever since I was 19 years old that if you read the Bible every single day and spend time in the word of God under the dependence of the Holy Spirit, asking God to reveal himself to you in the person of his son Jesus Christ and God will give you a little glory to get some glory today to get some glory tomorrow and you get some glory. The next day and some glory. The next day and before you know it after year you're a different person, you may look the same. You may in some ways dress the same but your inner person is changed from the inside out new man is being renewed day by day and so for you to change you have read your Bible not talking about reading the Bible for class.

I'm not talking about hearing the Bible in chapel not talking about when the Bible is read a church and all those things are important, but there is no substitute for you reading the Bible read the Bible and that's how you change and you keep reading it. You say I don't understand it. Keep reading your brain to work, your brain will kick in gear salary.

The whole chapter my want mind wanders go back and read it again you will get in the Bible. Your life will be transformed. You will be changed. Father, thank you for the word that you've given us. Help us to hold our Bibles is precious is the revelation of yourself to us and help us to read your word in Jesus name, amen. You been listening to a sermon, which was part of the series called walking with God preach by BG Pres. Steve Pettit listen again tomorrow as we continue this series on The Daily Platform