What Does God's Glory Look Like on You?

So, let me just tell you what a roller coaster of a ride the Holy Word of God is. How many of you open your Bible up every single day? Raise your hand. That's good honesty. I would hope that you know perhaps in the near future we could ask you how many of you open your Bible every day and every hand would go up because I'll tell you what there's something about this book that will change your life. It will thank you. It'll not only change your life, it will change your neighbor's life and it'll change the world. And when you read this book, you're going to find that there's secrets that God has put in here for his people that when they're filled with the Holy Spirit of God, they have the ability to read it and see things that we can do to actually hasten the coming of the Lord.

If you don't believe me, go ask Peter about it. He tells you that we can hasten the coming of the Lord. Or we can sit here and we can pray and hope for the rapture to come and just put our thumbs and not contribute to the things that God's asked us to contribute to. Because if you only come to church on Sunday and you only sit out in those chairs and listen to the guy up here, the gal up here preaching to you and you don't open it up on your own time in your own place with the spirit of God, you're going to be so far behind God's plan that you're going to get caught twiddling your thumbs wondering what on earth just happened. And I'm only telling you that because that is the message that God put on my heart of all places in the middle of John chapter 12.

That's the book chapter that we're going to be studying today. But I want to warn you that as I'm reading in John chapter 12, as God lifts the story out of not just John, but out of this particular chapter, it's um it impacted me. It impacted me because there's a story buried behind the pages here that we're being told that we have to dig into. And I want to start first by I want to read to you in Proverbs 2. Something important that should become the cry of your own soul and your own spirit. So just hear this, my son. If you receive my words and you treasure up my commandments with you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding.

Yes. If you call out for insight and you raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and you search for it as for hidden treasures, then then you will understand the fear of the Lord and you will find the knowledge of God. That's Proverbs 2. And I'm going to tell you something. Go read that at home and listen to the posture of your heart and your mind and your soul and what we're told it needs to look like in order to gain an understanding of our God and to pick up his knowledge and to obtain his wisdom and to be able to understand the treasures that he's laid out for us, not just in his word, but in our lives individually that are this great, fantastic adventure that require obedience.

So we can unveil to us these living parables that we each have an opportunity to go on. But the only way we're ever going to know and hear that is if we figure out what does God's glory look on like on us individually. So the question is what does God's glory look like on you? Okay. So I want to give you some couple of warnings here. First, do you know what glory means? When we talk about, listen to what we say in churches and just in our casual everyday lingo when we talk about show me your glory, Lord. Right? Fill this room with your glory, Lord. We talk about glory as if it's this tangible in front of us that somehow we reach out, we grab a hold of, we study for a minute, we experience.

I'm not saying that it's cannot be those things. But I want you to realize that the true glory of the Lord is God made visible. That's his glory. That's what Moses was seeking. When he asked God, what did he say to him on that mountain? Show me what? Show me your glory. And what did what did God say to him? He said, listen, I'm going to pack you up behind a rock. I'm going to pack you up behind my hand. I'm gonna pack you up behind the backside of my goodness as I go by. But I'll show you my goodness and I'll declare my name because the only way that we can understand what God looks like is the cleft of that rock that Moses was stored in which represents the rock of ages for us today.

We realize that the glory of God being made visible came through who? Jesus. Jesus Christ is our visible look into who our God is. Right. So, John 12. Paul, what a chapter. Because he's going to explain to us a couple of things about what exactly I think is expected of us when it comes to not just seeking God's glory, but wearing it and expressing it through ourselves. Only one way we can do that, through Christ Jesus. Right. So, sorry. So, a couple of things to highlight as we get going into this. Number one is that um I think it's on the next slide. Yeah. So, a couple of things. You recognize and realize that you are not needed for God to express his glory, right?

And you also recognize and understand almost how desperately God wants to express his glory through you, right? And you hold it out as the greatest honor of your life to be a child of the almighty God with the opportunity for him to shine through your life as a representative of the glory of God in

your everyday walk. you understand what an honor that is for us. So when we start recognizing what an honor it is, we weigh it against the fact that he doesn't need us to do that. o I want you to first and foremost know that how unnecessary are because that does start setting a stage for us to come into an understanding of what a treat we are to God and what as I say what a you're the apple of his eye. on the apple of his eye. What a sweet orchard we are to God who really does enjoy this adventure with us and the opportunities that he gives us to express who he is not just to one another but to the world around us. But we're not needed. And yet somehow if you look and you go back through the beginning where God first begins to express himself would have been through creation, right?

Then we see him coming through the tabernacle and the glory of God in the temple and we watch this flow to where as we're going to get into here as Jesus mind you in chapter 12 of John a few days short of going up on the cross that's where we're at in his timeline here but we're going to realize that God has chosen us to express his nature to the world and when we hold that out as the honor that it is it should change our lives and I mean It should change every single moment of our lives. And we're going to see just how much it should change us right out of the words of our Lord as we dig into the chapter. Um, Matthew 5:16, in the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give and give glory to your father who is in heaven.

And in 1 Corinthians 12:4-5, I have it up there. Now, there are varieties of gifts, but the same spirit, and there are varieties of of service, but the same Lord. So, what we're seeing right here is just a couple of verses I wanted to show you where there's a reason we're all so unique. The reason that we're so unique is because God is one truth. one truth that contains all truth that we could never fully comprehend in our minds. And we are these unique little opportunities for that expressed nature of God to come into the world, never looking the same even though he is the same. Because as you see right there, first thing we know is we're here to glorify God.

The very reason we were created in the first place was to glorify God. The reason we're all so unique, as we see in Corinthians, is because there's this variety of gifts that God wants to be able to express himself through. Those gifts being you and you and you, what he's awarded you, what your personalities are, what your life has sculpted you into both before and after you found Jesus. We are these unique little this the body of Christ is a bunch of unique servants to the Lord expressing him through gifts that he's bestowed upon us. Okay, it's the same Lord different services. And the main thing here we want to get to as we go on the next slide is we want to find out what exactly does the same glory our God look like when it shines through different lives.

So, I guess we're almost I kind of beating this up because I I want to get a few things before we turn into John. Um, he's the same God. His glory is the same. It's different lives. I want you to think back in the beginning. Take Adam and Eve for instance. Move that way. I'll move that timeline up. Let's take Noah. Tell me based on the conversation so far, if God wanted to express who he is and the characteristics and the virtues of who he is through humanity at that time, how many people is he expressing through? How many got on the boat? Eight. Okay. How many is he expressing through today? You see how cool that is? He's the same God. As much as he was with eight, he is now with millions.

Okay? In fact, if you read about the the fulfill or the fullness of the Gentiles, this coming number that only the father knows, right? When everything seems to be wrapping up, it's almost as if, and this is just Mark talking, that there's this certain number that's required of us silly little little creatures that become sons and daughters of an almighty God who he excuse me, he now has expressed himself through in such a way that the fullness of who he is is covering the land through us. You see that? o if we know based on uh I like to look at it like this. Think about your house. Think about electricity in general. The electricity that comes to the to your home, it's the same power, but when it hits the light bulb, it turns a light on.

When it hits a heater, it turns heat on. Right? When it hits the fridge, it keeps tonight's dinner cool. When it hits the microwave, it warms it up. So, the power itself, the glory of God never changes. But because of who we are and what we look like and the the members of Christ that we play in his body, we get to express what we play. The problem is most of us have no clue whether we're a microwave or a bulb or a heat box. Is that fair? And I think also in all fairness, most of us are seeking the how much time we invest in that, I don't know. That would probably skew us back into the negative. Let's stay in the positive. We are seeking. We are seeking to some extent or another.

Who am I, Lord? Who am I to you and for you? And as we're going to learn in the question here is what what does your glory look like on me, God? So, as we move here, recognizing that I got those verses up there. I'm going to I'm going to roll through

these verses. So, we know here in John 17:5, so we know God was already glorious before us. We weren't necessary for his gloriousness to be right. John says, "And now, father glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed existed. We've established his glory long before we showed up, right? God doesn't need anything from us. We can establish that in Acts 17:25 right here. Pretty pretty uh easy to understand. Nor is he served by human hands. as though he needed anything since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. So he certainly doesn't need anything from us. What an honor.

Number three, we display what is already his. Matthew 5:16, in the same way, let your light shine before others. Now, this is Matthew in Matthew 5. We're coming through the biatitudes here. We just got through the you're the salt of the earth, but you lose your savior. Where are you going to get results? You're not going to get that flavor back. Now you're good for nothing. Be cast down and trotten under the feet of men. But hey, good news. You're the light of the world. But we don't take that candlestick and set it under a basket. Right. right after that because we didn't do that. We're told in the same way since you're the light of the world, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your father who is in heaven.

So you're so you're saved, eh? And almighty God said, "I have a gift for you. His name is Jesus. He's my eternal son. I sent him into time to get on a cross, let you spit on him, torture him, and crucify him that you might come into eternal life, and I might adopt you in as my own children. Now, what I see this war that's happening in in Christian land out there, this whole crazy concept to me of this fight over works and this fight over grace. And I just don't get it because the minute I met my Messiah, I was ready to do anything I could for him, knowing that I was with him and always would be. There was no distinction needed to me. I knew that he put a light in me and chased me in such a way that I was compelled to take it and shine it wherever he wanted to send me into whatever dark corner it happened to be.

Had no clue what that would be. Was only willing to go. And so we get this verse which is important to understand that there is a certain works that is worked out of you after your salvation and during your salvation mind you and prior to your salvation because this is a whole cosmic terminology that we use when we talk about God that as you are set free from your old life and you're brought into a new one there is this new kingdom work where a father who you love who Jesus has set you in front of now has needs from you even as he doesn't need you to propel his kingdom into the hasting of bringing into the reign of his son and that's what we're participating in unless we're not right.

So moving into the next slide the question is going to be what does the same glory look like? No, that's not it. Yeah, that's it. As we're talking about the different lives, here we go. How long did it take? 25 - and we are now in John chapter 12. So it's only because I had taken so many drinks of water. So verses one through three. This intrigued me. Should intrigue you. Maybe, maybe not. What do I know? I know that here we are in this setting that we've come out of we've come out of a place where Lazarus was just recently brought out of death and into life. Right? And we know Mary, right? We love Mary and we know Martha. Remember Martha? So, we are and I'm sure there's other people in the room, but there is like a party going on because Jesus is there and there's a bit of a celebration.

And I as God starts kind of showing me look at this Mark. Um the first place I got any hint was right here in verses one through three where let's just read the verses real quick. go on to that next slide and well I don't have to come back to this one. I got notes but I'll read these verses. So verse one chapter 12 of John. Six days before the Passover Jesus therefore came to Bethany where Lazarus was whom Jesus had raised from the dead. That's pretty cool. So they gave a dinner for him there. Martha served and Lazarus was one of those reclining with him at table. Mary therefore took a pound of expensive ointment made from pure nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair.

About a year's worth of income if you were wondering is what the cost of that pure nard was. About a year's worth of income. Keep that in mind. And the house was filled with the fragrance fragrance of the perfume. What's the question we're talking about today? Father's glory. What does it look like on me? So, right here, we get three examples right out the gate. What does the glory of our almighty God look like on Lazarus? What does it look like right here in this moment? One word, life. Life. Here's a guy that you can see later. We're not going to cover every verse, but you would see later in chapter 12. Feel free to read it. I behoove you to read it.

It's a great read that they want to kill Lazarus because the very fact that he is alive is a testimony to Jesus. Okay. But here what we have before there is wow. The glory of God on Lazarus is life. He was dead. Now he's alive. Remember Jesus hasn't been crucified

yet, right? What about Martha? Martha's I'll give you a hint. the glory of God on Martha here. Looks like what we kind of expect Martha to be doing based on what we know, serving. Once again, here's Martha serving. But notice there's no squawking this time. There's no issues this time. There's something beautiful about this setting. She's just out of her heart with Jesus in the house serving and everyone happy with that participation. That's the glory of God on Martha. Okay. And then we got Mary. There's something special about Mary. So Mary takes something that we can agree is extremely costly and pours it out. I mean a year's worth of wages.

I don't know. It's a different kind of work back then than we do now. So I don't know if that really does justice, right? I mean some people make a really good money a short amount of time in today's world and it's not that kind of labor. So Mary, her devotion, the glory of God on her. Not only not only is it this there is nothing too valuable for you, God, it's this understanding of the value of the Lord, but notice that her pouring out fills the whole room with the beautiful fragrance. So we see what's who's in the room with them. Christ. How do we see the glory of God? Christ. He is that God made visible. Right? So the true glory of God as we move along, it's not a setup and it's not a trick.

We're going to find for us, we know that step one to knowing what the glory of God on us looks like is do we have the expression, the 100% only way to be tapped into that glory living in us via Christ. Holy Spirit ultimately leading us into the truth of Christ in us. Right? So we see here though that it's the same Christ who's bringing forth different expressions through each of their lives. Hold on to that fact. So what is Jesus about to show us that God's glory ultimately looks like? This is where it gets good. I don't believe I wasted 20 - on the other stuff. This is the good stuff. It's all good. Uh on this next slide, this is Jesus. As we as we we read in those verses, John chapter 12, I'm not presenting all the verses because you need to read them.

I'm giving you the parts to get us through and get the overarching theme that God says needs to be seen. And we see here that unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit. That's John 12:24. So, question for you, right before that, what we've seen coming to lead up to this moment is a bunch of Greeks showed up. And Greeks, who are they? We know them to be what back then? Gentiles. So, so what's happened is we now have some folks that have stepped into the ring here and Jesus recognizes it. Jesus sees that there's a nation that has moved into proximity here where it rings a bell so to speak spiritually where he goes here they are.

What's Jesus's work here? What's he doing? He's reconciling all the nations to him. So here comes the Greek and the Greek say where's this Jesus? We want to chat with him. So through a couple of disciples, Philip and Andrew, thank you. go to Jesus. And in that moment, Jesus goes, "Oh, the hour has come." The hour has come for what? To be glorified. Now, watch this. If this hour doesn't come, what are you and I? The same thing we were I was two and a half years ago. trash, piles of dust, just running about living a life that was no life at all. Right. So, right here we see, oh, I did put that up there. Shoot. Sorry, my notes were backwards. We can read it.

Now, among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks. So, these came to Philillip who was from Beda in Galilee and asked him, "Sir, we wish to see Jesus." Philip went and told Andrew. Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. And Jesus answered them, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Thank you, Lord, that that hour did indeed come." His hour of glory based on the verse right here. Let's Can't believe I'm out of order. Of course I can. So let's go to the next slide. This is this is the one right here. So now Jesus recognizes that the hour has come for the son of man to be glorified. So what's he doing now? He's about to tell us how.

And the next couple of verses here are uber important to us and it's not going to be fun because it might not be something honestly we've truly pondered in our whole walk of Christian life because I don't hear it and I don't hear people talking about it and if now that I know about it it's all I want to talk about. Um, and I think it's the not so fun part and the glorious part and the amazing part and the suffering part and the surrendering part of Christianity that really throws people off. And it's a really sad thing because it starts showing you the spectrum of faith and you start sharing in the agony in the morning of our Messiah and what he must feel to know what he did and how so many of us have such little faith truly truly in who he is.

And here's where he starts explaining how the cow eats the cabbage. Verse 24, for the son of man to be glorified, here's what must happen. And he's talking about himself. He says, "Truly, truly I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves me, he must follow me. And where I am, there will my servant be also. And if anyone serves me, the

father will honor him. Listen three verses. Jesus said, "This is the moment where I must die. He knows just a few days from now he's going to be on the cross suffering the sins of the entire world dying only to go into the ground like a kernel of wheat into the tomb so that he can be resurrected ascend to the father and send what we'll all need for the eternal life that we're all so grateful we have because what he's going to send is as important as the eternal life itself. We just don't think that way because we got our ticket to heaven and eternal life when I said, "I believe. I'll see you on the other side." And I would propose to you that that's extremely sad because what Jesus is saying here is whoever loves his life loses it and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

So listen, the word hate here, it's just like um there's a verse elsewhere in the Bible that says like you don't hate your mother, your sister, your father. I'm butchering it totally, but the key word is hate. This is hate that is about prioritization. Meaning if you if I am not the most important thing, person, human, thought, moment in your entire life above everything else, you cannot be my disciple. You can only give me word service because the minute you'll put something above me, we got a significant problem in who we are together. Because you just want to say you knew me, but the minute this showed up, you forgot all about me. You can be saved in this moment and drop your $1,500 iPhone and watch it shatter on the concrete and lose your salvation and all about who Jesus is as you cry over your cracked screen just like that.

So Jesus is saying right here, do you love your life? You notice he doesn't say you can like it. He doesn't put a middle Jesus does not put a middle path into any of his language for us. In fact, that's how sweet he is he's his words can be truly profound and complicated and yet so simple all at the same time because he does give us exactly what we need to know if we'll do in Proverbs 2 and we'll seek him like treasure and we'll seek for her like silver. Like what are those things in our lives? I would quit if you told me there was a million dollars worth of jewels hidden in the the foothills of Cedar City, Utah. Do not think that I won't quit my job and sell all that I got and go up and find it and commit my whole life.

You see treasure hunters doing it all the time. And so Jesus is saying that you cannot if you love this life, you've already lost it. Let me explain why. Because in the second if you hate this life if this life becomes the lowest priority then you will keep it for eternal life. So let me see if I can explain this in a simple way. The day that I realized that my true life was not determined by days and years here and that I was now eternal and not just eternal but a son of the almighty God and not just a son of the almighty God but sitting with Christ somehow in some crazy way that my mind can't comprehend staring into the face of a holy father I never knew I had and that I had all of eternity never to be scared never to be fearful nothing to ever worry about In that moment, this little life became nothing to me because I could give it all to that.

That's what Jesus is saying. If you think these years on earth, if you cling to them like they're all you got, you've already lost. Even if you know him, you've lost. Even though you have a salvation in entrance into a heavenly place, you've already lost because you need to get into the rest of this Bible that starts breaking out part two of your walk with Jesus. Because the entry into him, the relationship with the I believe, however you want to package up the beginning of your salvation in Christ, it's just that it's your beginning. There's a whole little life here that God is saying now, now invest that into me and see what happens. And it's that part that we miss.

So here in the middle of John chapter 12, Jesus starts saying it's the hour's come for me to be glorified, father, and in order to be glorified, I'm going to have to die and go into the ground like a kernel of wheat. Why? So that the shape of who I am, which cannot possibly hold that which I'm meant to be, can go away. That I can become all that I'm meant to be. And not only that, but now I can bear much fruit. So what fruit has the Messiah bore? I'm looking at his orchard right here. I can go into the street and I can look at his orchard here and there and everywhere. Some of you look like peaches and some of you look like apples and pineapples and grapes.

And you're all uniquely created with different flavors, with different shapes, spiritually speaking, of course. But we are that fruit. Now watch. Check this out. This gets really good. This gets good. It's like God paused the clock for me. Thank you, Lord. Oh, sorry. Sorry, Marilyn. Why? It It's just set up. Anyway, watch. This is how it goes on Sunday church. Marilyn's over here working her tail end off, sign language, and we're like, "Hey, do you need a drink?" And we forget that her only job is to sign our words. So, she's getting when we come over and start talking again while she's drinking, thinking we just gave her a break. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. But that was all on purpose, you know. So, listen to what? See what we get in verse 26 right there. Telling you these three verses. My goodness. If anyone serves me, he must follow me. Let's just stop there. Hang on. If anyone serves me, he

must what? Follow me. Do you serve him? Now, I'm going to ask this a couple times, and I don't I'm not trying to put you on spot, but I really want you to think about this like I could cry. like do you serve him or do you have your own spun up idea to make you comfortable in your relationship with God so that you can say yeah I serve him or do you really serve? Do you even really know what really serving him means? Like, do you ever sit down and seek these answers like they were the beginning of the end and a new beginning all at the same time? Because they are. This life is not it. And even though you can sit here and say, "Oh, I love you, Lord, and I'm on team Jesus, and I'm going to heaven, and I'm waiting for you to show up in the rapture."

Like I'm telling you, the more you seek it, the more you're like, "Lord, you know my heart desires you, but please don't come yet." You want to know when you're serving the Lord is when you're serving the people. When the heart of God changes your heart and you start, it beats through the heart of Christ to where you're like, "Hold up, please." like I will be uncomfortable for you and serve you and be here and suffer through the gunk just to bring more in, but please don't come yet, but instead we're over here going, "Come, Jesus, come." Like, not even thinking, what would Jesus really do? What does that bumper sticker look like? Jesus would say, "Will you suffer?

Will you suffer with me please a little bit longer so we can get more and more people in the kingdom so that for eternity whatever this book is saying about you that don't believe me in eternity whether it's eternal torment destruction whatever I'm telling you it ain't good I know that it's not good and so our job is to sit here and seek him like precious silver and search out the wisdom and the insight and the understanding of our almighty God so that he can change who we are in such a way that we will suffer with him so that others aren't going to have to suffer in eternity. That's what it's about. So he says it right there. If anyone serves me, he must follow me.

Okay, now hang on a minute. Follow you where, Lord? Well, all you got to do is go up one verse. Because this is the verse following what he just told you to do. To do what? To glorify the son of man. What does he got to do? Die. But the kernel of wheat, unless it dies, is just sits alone, of no good, bearing no fruit. So he's now telling us now, thank you, Lord, that we don't need to die that death. You're not telling me to go plan it out, get across, and just start line out this moment to come of great suffering and torture and punishment. But what he is saying, sorry to be the bearer of bad news is he is saying, I want your life. I want the one that just one verse above there.

I told you the one that if if you love it, you lose it. But if you lose it for me, you gain it. So what does that mean? What does that mean? What's he saying? What are you saying, Lord? What are you saying? Come follow you. And you want me to die and you want me to follow? You're the first seed. Have you heard that before right here? Who's the first kernel of wheat to fall and die and bear much fruit? It's him. And we're the fruit. So now that we're the fruit, what does he say? He says, "Now that you're my fruit, you're grafted in. So I am the vine and you're the what? The branches. So what are we doing as the branches? Bearing fruit. How do we bear fruit?

Well, hello. It's not rocking. Just go right here. He tells us how to do it. Die. Take your life that you think it is and come before me and give it to me. Good news. We're going to be able to explore that just a little bit further right here. So the first thing we look at is that we know that Jesus here is the first seed. We know that his death produced much fruit. We can look at it for the last 2,000 years. Everything that has come. We can then see that Jesus is turning the pattern towards us. He's saying whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. And he's saying that following me Jesus as your Lord and your Savior means following me into surrender because that's what he did.

Ultimately, I'm following him into surrender. If anyone serves me, he must follow me. Therefore, his pattern becomes ours. So, as we go on the next slide, here's the question. What does the pattern actually look like in our lives? This is what the glory of God looks like in our lives. In your life and your life, your life. So, look at it from a internal view of you. It's life. This is the true life that I'm breaking down with the silly little acronym. First one is lay it down. Die to self and surrender to the father. Well, what does that look like? Well, I'll just tell you right now. It means sitting down and taking a look at all the ways this world has a hold of you.

What do you now? How are you beholden to this world? And I hate to pick on these people, but it's the greatest example when you start seeing the ripple effects of the $800 truck payment in your life to keep up with the Joneses. I'm not talking about business. There's business is different. But there's so many people that just buy a big old fancy truck and now the world's got them because it's an $800 payment. So when they get married in a few years and they have kids and they're still paying on this eightyear loan, they're having to work extra hours at work. You see the ripple effects? So now their their mom

needs the job. So now the kids are latch key kids, both parents working to cover the debt of the world who snagged them up with pride till they can have the nice house because who wants to say sorry I can't afford that like that. So we can't just say that. So we go ahead and we just fall into the pits of the world and we get snagged up in the snares. It's all in here by the way. All this is in the word of God. or we get in a hurry for a mate. And so instead of bringing them to church and letting the church vet them out and people wise in the ways of Lord and the Holy Spirit discern on our behalf, hey, what does this person look like in my life?

The side pow-wows, we end up marrying somebody that we had no business being with because we were so anxious for that part of life because we didn't have what? Patience and trust and faith. Because we aren't turning to God saying, "Lord, what would you have me do?" Because our relationship is so superficial with him. Who could imagine asking the almighty God, the invisible God, should I? No one thinks like that because he's so far away. Which is the whole purpose of this. Lay it down. Because you start laying things down. You start looking into the eyes of your father in heaven and you start asking him questions about your life. All of a sudden, you find out something crazy happens.

He starts answering you. I want you to get an answer or two. I'm just telling you, everything changes. So, we have uh we're going to lay it down. We're going to imitate Jesus. You know how we're going to do it? Anybody know how we're going to imitate Jesus? Jesus served, right? We're going to imitate the characteristics of who the Messiah is. But he actually tells us the easiest way to do it. Abide in me. Like, okay, what does that mean? Well, he tells us you just every question you have, you'll keep breaking down. Sit down and talk to me. Pray with me. Ask me questions. I actually put in you the Holy Spirit of God because the Holy Spirit is going to be the is going to be that whispering voice that tells you what direction to go in your life.

And what direction is the Holy Spirit of God leading you into? I'm going to tell you one. What is it? Into all truth of who? The one you're trying to imitate? Jesus. So, what do you do to imitate Jesus? You form a relationship with the Holy Spirit. Start recognizing what his voice and the wind of God sounds like inside of you. And then what you're going to find yourself doing is you're going to start obeying him. And then you're going to start seeing fruit come forth in your own life because you're abiding in the vine. And the natural 100% guaranteed consequence of hanging with the Lord is the fruit of the Lord will come out of your life. And there ain't a dang thing you can do about it once you start doing it.

And then E in life. What's happening as we get to the end? The E in life. You can't help it, but you're going to just start expressing the one that's renewing your mind literally into the mind of Christ himself. So look what your life does. You all of a sudden see through his eyes. You start thinking through his mind. Your heart beats through his. Your compassion flows through the compassion of Christ. There ain't no better compassion. You ain't got enough mercy to touch what's in the pinky finger of the Messiah when it comes to mercy. But you can begin to express it because the spirit of God and the obedience to the voice will lead you out into this real world to take you on lessons.

The Bible tells you that you will be able to test it. Well, it's a real life test, kids. It's a real life test, living parables of your own life. And if you've laid your life down, you have plenty of time to go on field trips with the spirit of God. And once you go on a few field trips, you start realizing the monkeys at the zoo are real. I'm just telling you, you start your eyes come open to the things of God that you never knew before because you simply didn't have time for that kind of a life. So, oh, I have some verses. Perfect. Did you guys read that one? So fruit comes forth. Hit the next slide. Express his glory. Matthew 5:16. That's the one we picked up at the start, right?

So in the same way, let your light so shine before others. Because the works that will start coming out of you when you're operating as a son or a daughter of God, not just a wannabe, and I'm not saying you're that, but there's a lot of that. You know how I know? It's right here. But Lord, Lord, man, I never knew you. You've used my name your whole life and you've done things on my behalf. I never knew you. That's how I know that there are a lot of people that are fluffy when it comes to Jesus Christ as the true Messiah. Like they can't even imagine the concept of Christ in you, the hope of glory, right? They can't even imagine that. But that's our only hope is that a Christ is with me bringing me into this relationship with my father so that I can change the world with him participating.

This is the crazy participating in this glory. It's kind of wild if you think about the loop that he lets us step into in that relationship. So then uh John 15:8, by this my father is glorified that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. Hang on. What? So my father in heaven, as Jesus just said, is glorified by the good works that I do, shining the light of Christ in me of the world. So you're telling me I can glorify the father now? Of course I can

because I'm sitting right here sharing a seat with Jesus at the right hand of God. That's exactly what this is the whole point of all this. Not this lesson, but this life is to be doing that. All right, next slide. So, here's our couple of issues we run into. I think we're on the wrap-up. Not bad. Human glory versus God's glory. Here's our biggest problem. I've talked before about kingdom and and empire, right? Empire is this world. It's your life in this world. This is empire. God's glory. This is the life of kingdom as a son or a daughter of God. This is the real life. This is the eternal one. which makes this little life look like a speed bump when you truly understand life eternal.

Okay. So, human glory is all about your self-promotion. Me self-justifying constantly. We might do this in our relationships, in our marriages as a father, a mother of our kids. Like, we got to look at these things. What parts of my life are all about me? That's how we start laying it down. That's the stuff we don't want. So, we see the things that are all about me. We lay them to the side. We start changing. The Holy Spirit starts convicting and things just start happening. And guess what? I really didn't do anything but pay attention and make moves when the spirit animated me. And God's just teaching us as we go. Applause of people. Whether you believe it or not, I can participate in applause because I'm over here behind my closed eyelids going, "Wow, Lord, I ain't even here if it isn't for you."

like I I don't even know what I'm talking about quite literally. I just would have this language to me is so foreign. It's only him. I don't know this language. This stuff in the Bible and him and the Holy Spirit like all I know is it's all real because it all happened to me. So when someone applauds or says thank you, I very easily I'm over here going, "Father, thank you. It's all you." And you know what he does sometimes like he's like he's like that's my boy. And I'll be like, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's all the Messiah." And he'll be like, "Oh, that's my boy." Like, you know, but that's the loop. That's the loop we get to participate in.

This loop of glory with our father in heaven. So, one of these directions, human glory, moves towards self. The other one moves towards surrender. I want to surrender to God. You want to surrender to God. Trust me. Surrender to God. You got habits. Lay them down. If you got the spirit of God in you, just lay them down. If you can't lay them down, then I would hit my knees and really talk to God about the spirit of God in me. Like you can visit these things because if you start understanding who you are and who he is and you realize there's nothing there's just nothing that we can comprehend that God couldn't do with the twinkle of his eye. Like there's just nothing all this everything that is came from this almighty God.

your Marboro habit or your booze habit, your cocaine habit, your porn habit, your gambling habit, your abusive, domestic, violent, terrible dad mom habit, whatever your hypocritical habit. Like, I'm just telling you, the best thing you could ever do is to go up to someone that loves the Lord, you know it, and say, "Can I talk to you?" and puke it on them. Because as soon as it gets out of you, something starts happening. And then somebody's going to help you get you into a place where you can experience true freedom. When you get true freedom from that, you know what happens? You change. And suddenly your testimony changes and the strength of your words changes and you become a proclaimer for God, proclaiming who his son is and what this book means and who who we are and what's really going on around here.

That's what you start doing. And it's it's important for all of us because see, I need you and you need me because we're all running a race. And if you're just weak and you don't get off your butt and you don't you can't pass the baton even. It's like like I'm not trying to be mean, but you're Come on, you're slowing us down. I'm just saying you're slowing us down and you should. But I'm also telling you that the oranges in that race are really sweet. These are spiritual oranges. Like God feeds us on that run in such a way that this world can't even touch it. So just start running and let God start touching your life and feeding you spiritual things.

And then you're like all of a sudden you find yourself blazing past everybody and kind of laughing and just you don't need to stop for breaks anymore. It's pretty fantastic. We all need each other to run the race like a couple of bosses. So let's go. So uh service over status. I'm telling you, nobody needs labels. We need to get down each other's feet and find out how can I help you? What can I do? And serve one another. Service and humility and surrender. Something about those three words. I mean, it'll change the world. I'm just telling you, it'll change the world. What's our next slide? John 12. All right, look at this. Coming to the end of John 12.

That was easy. Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in him. But for the fear, but fear of the Pharisees, they did not confess it. So, look what's happening. There's some people over here. They know, but because of the world, they're fearful that I'm going to get sucked into this crazy vortex if I commit, if I say, "Hey, like," and you'll see that sometimes in believers that maybe they come

out, they have a moment, some encounter of some sort, and they're like, "Yeah, he's real." Then the next time you see him like real and then you just don't hear about it anymore because that's the world sucking them back into the world. I mean, we can read all about that right here in the parable of the of the soils and the rockies and the path and the birdies still in the seed. And you can find it everywhere all the time. Any page you turn to, you're going to find stories about this. Get my point? So, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue. Their fear was to be moved out of their comfort zone, moved away from people that were like-minded and that cared about one another.

They had their little group. They didn't want to be moved out of that group. Are you that? Let me ask you a question. If God tells you, how do you what if God doesn't want you sitting in this church? What if he wants you somewhere else? How would you know if you don't understand the voice of God or you hear do you even hear the voice of God? Have you sat with the spirit? If you said, "God, I need to learn how your voice sounds so I can move for you in this life." Have you ever done that? Like, don't raise your hand. I'm just saying. I'm planting these questions to get you to think because once you start hearing his voice and it's special for you and it's unique for you, don't worry about their guy says this is how I hear it.

Like half the time they're probably lying because they want to put on a holy robe and look like some holy holy, right? But you'll know the ones telling you the truth. They're the ones telling you the voice of God is going to sound different for you than it will anyone else because you're different than anyone else. And God is just amazing. Going to speak your language, a language of you. And do you want it? Do you want to hear it, know it? And then the first thing he says is, "Leave that church. What have you been waiting on? I have a different place for you. In fact, leave that town. While we're at it, let's do some things." He's going to start moving on the course or you can sit here for the next 20 years and you ain't even running the race.

And that's what I'm saying. You got to run the race. But you're not running my race. We're running our race. The race of the Messiah's race. The race he invited us into. So that when we all get to heaven at the beac seat, it's truly a celebration and we don't have to watch everyone balling because of all the opportunities they missed and all these great rewards and eternity that they're going to miss out on because they bought a new truck and can't even afford to take a day off to go minister on the streets. Come on. See what I'm saying? It's just there should be nothing more important. You got to hate it all. There could be no other priority other than God in your life and a relationship with the one that saved you in the first place.

And you got to figure that out. It's way important to figure that out. So look what happened. For they love the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God. So we tickle each other's ears with a bunch of crap. You come in and you say you feel this way or you're this way. And sometimes, you know, sometimes always compassion is needed. But the devil wants to take truth and love and separate the two because those two things separate are are individual cannons for the devil. They are they are a weapon of mass destruction when they're separate. But you bring the two together. It's the weapon of God. This is God. This is the truth with love.

Because now you can't isolate one from the other. Truth without love can come across harsh and in a tone that isolates and condemns. But love without truth can become intolerant. I mean you can just everything goes now. Uh because it's just all love. Um yeah don't worry about it. Yeah. Drink your black velvet every night. Just don't go drive. Come on. You know that's Yeah. Truth. Maybe is that love? Maybe. But you put the two together and I'm telling you, listen, I love you. God loves you. Notice your black velvet bottle or your gym beam ain't going to change that. But I need you in the race, which means I need you healthy and you got a good 40 years left.

So, what do we need to do to get rid of the bottle? I'll come sit with you in service at a at a celebrate recovery meeting and we'll talk about Jesus and the things to help us unwind the habits off of our soul because you're new in the spirit. You don't you actually don't have those troubles anymore. The problem is we need your soul to catch up to your spirit that is seated in a heavenly place. I'll sit with you. Will you sit with me? Will we sit with each other? Will we? I don't know. That's a question we got to talk about on another day. So, so they chose uh let's go into slide 16. Oh yeah. John 12:27-28. Now look at Jesus. Now is my soul troubled and what shall I say?

Father save me from this hour but for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father glorify your name. Then a voice came from heaven and said, "I have glorified it and I will glorify it again." Where's Christ at right now? So, we know he's there. Where are you at? Are you seated there, too? Are you seated at the right hand of your father? You have to be if you're seated in Christ Jesus. Do you understand? So if you're seated with Christ Jesus at the right hand of your

father, then read that again with that. Keep that in the front of your mind when he says, "Father, save me from this hour." No, can't ask for that because I for the joy set before me, I ain't moving. I'm here. I'm going to finish this. But for this purpose, I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name. Where's Christ at right now? He's in you. You know how I know it? Because right here. Because Paul told us. It's the great mystery that was hidden from the beginning. Because if Satan had known what crucifying Jesus was going to do to eternity, he would have never crucified him. So there was this mystery hidden. And the mystery was this.

Christ in you, the hope of glory. What's the glory? To become an imitator of Jesus Christ who's in you and the Holy Spirit is bringing you into imitation of who he is. You're sharing in the divine nature of Christ right now. So now one more time with that in mind, Lord, I'm your son or your daughter. your prayer to him. Father, I don't know what is my hour in this life. Thank you that is nothing like the Messiah, but you have an hour planned for me, God, as your son. And so I ask you, whatever that hour is for me, whatever suffering you ask me to participate in, please, please let it glorify your name. That's that's our life. It should be the only part of our lives that we should become in this culmination, the grand finale of all the things.

Whatever my life is, as I walk it out, God, let it glorify you. And if you have an hour for me, that is a moment in time, the grand finale of sorts. Come on. Like, I don't I don't need to be lifted up on a cross, but maybe I got to go through some things so people see me. Maybe I need to uh lay my life down in such a way that somebody sees me. Maybe it's one person. Maybe it's dozens of people. Maybe it's thousands. I don't know. But it's somebody. I can promise you that. Why? Because it's all right here. Just saying. So, the last thing we'll leave off with is a new question at the end. And that's that. The new prayer. Father, today what do you want your glory to look like through me?

And then how do I make it so that your glory is through me? Is I just come into deeper and deeper relationship with my Messiah. And all that he is shines out of me. And I get to become the light of the world because the light of the world is in me. And I want to be just the greatest imitator of that I could ever be. So, if you don't mind, let's pray because we're going to wrap this puppy up. John 12. John 12. Dear God, we are so grateful, Lord, for the opportunities that we have like this to just gather into a building that you provide, Lord, with hearts that are willing and desirous to sit for a moment of their time and hear about you, God, and to hear about your word.

Lord, we pray today that you would just transform us in ways that we've not been transformed yet, God. That you would create in our hearts a desire for you, Lord, beyond what we've ever contemplated, that you would take our words and that you would cause us to become doers of who you are and that glory that you are, God. That we become doers of it. We don't want to just hear and we don't want to just speak. We want to do, God. We want to serve and we want to love. And sometimes that's really, really hard, Lord. And it's in those moments that we thank you for your great immense mercy that gets us from one day to the next. We thank you for fellowship that sometimes gets us from one day to the next.

And we thank you for your love, God, the all-consuming love that most definitely gets us from one day to the next, Lord. Father God, I would just pray that if there's anybody here today, Lord, that hears anything out of your word or anything that comes out of my lips, God, if the Holy Spirit moves someone where they have things to contemplate, whether it's a relationship that comes deeper and deeper into who you are, Lord, if it's things they must confess, God, that you would lead them to the right people, that they would have discernment and wisdom to know who to talk to, that we could help each other become free, free from this world, God, and free to do the work of a holy Messiah that is trying to guide and animate our lives.

Lord, that we could truly be the light of the world. God, I would just pray, Lord, today that there's anybody that doesn't know you, man. Just knock them back on their heels, Lord. You just set them down. You give them a talking to in their spirit, Lord, that they would just know that there's just not another option. And there's not another option they should want, Lord. The only option is the love of an almighty God who wants to give us an eternal life, who wants us to fill the old life and and see how it just doesn't fit right. God, if your life's never fit right, God's saying to you, I sent my son to bring you a new life, a life that will fit right, a life as a son of an almighty God who wants to bring you to an eternal family. Thank you for the Holy Spirit, Lord. Thank you for my brothers and sisters and for all the opportunities and thank you God for changing my life. I praise you and I give you all the honor and all the glory in Jesus mighty name. Amen.