We have seen that the glory of God is intrinsic to his nature that we do not add to it nor take from it. We merely reflect it as an image, a mirror to the world. Or we fail to reflect it to the world and we do not give glory to God. We do not make him glorious. He innately and intrinsically is glorious. We reflect and announce that glory to the world by many different ways. First of all, by aiming at his glory, by setting the Lord ever before us and judging every situation and moral determination and act in our lives in light of how it relates to the manifestation of the glory of God. We have seen that we give God glory by receiving Jesus Christ, his Son, as our Savior. Paul says in Philippians, So then every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father. This little book is about the manifestation of the incarnation of the glory of God revealed in the human body, Jesus Christ. And we cannot manifest the glory of God until we manifest in our lives our faith in the living Savior, the Son of God. We've seen thirdly, that we receive, we manifest the glory of God and reflect it when we are willing to be outdone by others who do the same thing we do better than we do, or with more apparent seeming physical success and not really caring just so long as God is glorified. We have seen that we manifest the glory of God when we have a zeal for the things of God. It is a mark of our Christianity that we are concerned that he is our high priest. It is a mark of our maturity that we are concerned that though our high priest suffers for us, that we have the opportunity of suffering for him. And when his name and his cause and his work suffer and are desecrated, we are, we are, we hurt. Jesus said, the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up. And I think that geologically this word means an embodiment of contrary emotions of, of love for God and hatred for that which takes away from the glory of God. We have seen that God is glorified by the confession of our sins. That's where we left off last week, because the acknowledgement of our own guilt exonerates God of guilt and makes him glorious and perfect and without guilt. Now tonight, I want us to see two or three other things, and there are about six of these. I think we'll get through two, maybe three in the next 10 or 15 minutes and then conclude with the last, uh, next, uh, three or four next Sunday night. Number five or six, according to your outline there, and we have a re, uh, revive this as we've gone through it a little bit. I want you to turn to Romans chapter four and verse number 20. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, the sixth book in the New Testament for our Methodist friends of Romans chapter four, verse number 20. Now we're talking about Abraham and Abraham's faith in God and his revelation of the glory of God specifically embodied in that faith, Romans chapter four, verse 20. This man had a tremendous faith in God. He is called the father of the faith. And Paul says of him that he staggered not. Nothing was too much for him to believe about God. It didn't amaze him. It didn't overwhelm him. He didn't say anything's too hard for God or too big for my God. He can't do it. No, he said he did not stagger at the promise of God through unbelief. Now he's speaking specifically about the promise that his wife, a hundred years of age nearly, was going to have a child. And God put him to that test as he tested his faith. Just as he tested his faith, again, when he raised his own, when finally God gave him that son that he promised the nations the world would be blessed through, and now God said, kill that son. And he said, I'll do it. I don't understand it, but I'll do it. And he raised the dagger and started to plummet it into the breast of Isaac. And when in the heart of the father Abraham the commitment was as good as made, when in his own mind the act was as good as committed, the father said, stop, you don't really have to do that. Now I know you trust me, you believe me in faith. And this man was going to have to have an awful lot of faith in God to be the father of the faith. And so he didn't stagger at the promises of God. Now that one in particular, all of them in general, but he was strong in faith, giving glory to God. In that act, in that manifestation of faith, he demonstrated to the world glory to God. And when a man cables and changes before circumstances and impossible situations and says, my God can't handle this, I guess he's changed. We're going to have to back up and slow down. God is not glorified. When a church, when a nation, when a people, when a man refuses to bow before circumstances and believes God anyhow, regardless of the age of that woman, regardless of the condition and imminent peril of that son, regardless of anything, he just believes God without qualification and makes no fine print in the escape clause of his contract with God just in case the Lord doesn't come through. He does so to the glory of God. Now we talk about a God who can do anything, a God whom we believe that an answer to prayer is able to work miracles as long as it doesn't conflict with a particular situation around us and the world is not impressed with our kind of faith. Unfortunately, the world believes the Christian. I wish they would believe the Christ more than they believe the Christian. I wish they would read the Bible more than they believe us. I'll not forget, I had a very strange and unusual and wonderful experience yesterday afternoon for five hours at South Main Baptist Church in a joint Bible study with a group of Southern Baptists and Church of Christ ministers and college professors jointly, openly studying the Word of God together. And it was a very enlightening and a refreshing experience. And it was a pleasure to me to find that when we see the glory of God manifest and when we understand that God is doing different things in different places and we can open the lines of communication, all of us might just be surprised at what God is doing around the world and in other places, folks who don't agree all the way with us. And I think the glory of God is revealed and manifests. So when we learn to trust Him, we... Okay, I know you used to try to cover that up. I forgot where I was going. Okay, I just remembered. Several of these Church of Christ preachers, of all people, three of them came up to me, and as a matter of fact, you know, several, that means one or two. Three, actually, came up and said, Preacher, we just want you to know that when you all voted to go on and build that building in face of the financial difficulties in the world, it gave all of us hope. The pastor at St. Paul's Methodist Church called me and said the same thing. Numerous other men have given glory to God. Numerous other churches have reflected the glory of God in believing God because we did. And in that act, they saw His glory, and they likewise are manifesting the glory of God. So we glorify God when we trust Him. But there come times in our lives when it appears that we can't trust Him. The Bible says, My God shall supply all your needs according to His riches and glory in Christ Jesus. Oh, there comes times when we say, But you don't understand my circumstances. Oh, I don't know how God's going to get me through this, and you wouldn't say that if you really knew what I was going through. And in so doing, we manifest to the world a credibility gap in the promises of God. And we assume that God is not really able to do what He says He's going to do. You see, there's no problem with the glory of God. The problem is in getting the glory of God from God out to the world, and unfortunately, it has to go through us. We say we're Christians at the office. We sing, Nothing is Impossible. The world knows that we are, and the first problem that comes along we crater, and we wipe out so easily. 1 John 5, verse 10 says, He that believeth not God maketh him a liar. And God is not glorified when our unbelief in Him says to the world, I'm not really sure I can believe God. And when in spite of circumstances our actions say, I am sure I can believe God, Paul says that as Abraham, the glory of God is manifest in that. I want you to turn over to 1 Corinthians 10, verse 13 for just a moment, please. 1 Corinthians 10, verse 13. Are there things in your life which you don't really believe God can handle? Listen. There hath no temptation. Now scratch out that word temptation. It's an old English word, which in our modern society means an inducement to evil. That's not what it means here in the Greek. It means a trial. There's no trial, no difficulty, problem, overtaken you literally, but such as is common to man. Is it any help to you to know that whatever you're going through, everybody else is going through? You say, oh, you don't know my problems. Listen, let me say it again. Everything you suffer and every trial you have and everything you go through, that is a test of your faith and a trial of God in your life to one degree or another, everybody else is going through it or has gone through it or will go through it. And the beauty of it is that millions of people have already been through it and found God to be faithful. There's no trial taken you but such as is common to man. But God is faithful. You say, well, you don't know how bad my problem is. God is faithful. Well, my circumstances are impossible. God is faithful who will, with the temptation, provide for you a way, what, of escape. That doesn't mean to get out of it. That means victory through it. The tunnel, the light at the other end of the tunnel, which goes through the problem, what? That ye may be able to bear it. He says you can stand it. It can be done. God knows how much heat and how much pressure to put in the trials of life. And when that's too much that you can't bear, he'll take the heat off. He knows just how much is enough and just how much is not enough. And he says you will be able to bear it for his glory, whatever it is. There's no need for the Christian to crater in the presence of difficulties. I remember the story of the three Hebrew children, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego. How in this world anybody would name their kids Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego? I don't know, but they did. And here these three Hebrew boys, with a great faith in God, were caught praying to the Lord. And they were told, if you pray to your God one more time and you don't bow down and pray to the heathen God, you're going to be cast in the fiery furnace. And they wouldn't do it. And they cast them, and they brought them to be cast into the furnace, and they stopped them at the door, and they said, wait a minute, heat up seven times the hotter, such that those were burned when the furnace heat came out, the furnace interior, and opened the door. And Shadrach and Meshach and Abednego in Daniel 3, 17 said, hey, wait a minute, we're willing to go, but everybody gather around, come on, got an announcement to make. They got up a big crowd, and all the soldiers came in, all the politicians came in, said, we've got something to say. Our God is able to deliver us, and will deliver us, and marched in. You know, they didn't stand there and try to get their little proof text, and open up the index, you know, and thumb through the list of emergency clauses. Let's see, fiery furnace, fiery furnace, you know, nothing here to cover that. No, they didn't try to figure it out. They didn't examine if there was going to be a door on the other side. They just said, don't worry about a thing, boys, we'll be back, and walked in, and walked right out. And there was a fourth man, likened to the Son of God, in there, and it was cool in the furnace. And boy, when they did that, God was glorified. And he was always glorified when we trust him in spite of problems and situations. Now, what if they would have groveled on the dust and fallen down before the doorway and said, oh, God, help us. Oh, we can't go in there. Our God can't handle this. No, they just made the announcement, said, we'll be back, and walked right in. And they came back, and the glory of God was transparent in their lives. We glorify God when we trust him. We glorify God when we believe him, as Abraham did, and in so gave glory to God. Next, we glorify God when we praise him audibly. Somebody said to me today, in my office, we were talking, said, well, you don't really have to go to church to be a Christian. No, you really don't. You don't have to go home at night to be married. You know, you can move to Africa and leave your wife in Houston. But, you know, it helps a good deal. I mean, it's sort of the normal thing to do. I mean, you know, that's just kind of, you might not be married too long, I suppose, kind of the way it's done. There's an awfully lot of good that comes by the fact that we do get together as believers. Now, why did God want us to get together and worship on the first day of the week? Why go to church anyhow? You can hear the same gospel at home on the radio. You can get the same sermon on television. But let me tell you something. There is something that you can't get anywhere in the world apart from an assembled body of believers, and that is the power of the fellowship of the praise of God. We saw that last Sunday night. We have never had a service in this church without preaching in which we did nothing but just sing his praises and worship him in music and recount the glory of God that heaven did not come down and we sense the presence of God Psalms 50 verse 23 turn back with there if you will with me for a moment please everybody can find the Psalms almost anywhere in the Old Testament you'll find the Psalms just shut your eyes and go like that and you'll find it Psalms chapter 50 verse 23 want to see that the praise of God is done the glory of God is done through the praise of God Psalms 50 verse 23 back with there if you will with me for a moment please everybody can find the Psalms almost anywhere in the Old Testament you'll find the Psalms just shut your eyes and go like that and you'll find it Psalms chapter 50 verse 23 want to see that the praise of God is done the glory of God is done through the praise of God Psalms 50 verse 23 whosoever offereth praise glorify me and to him that order of his conversation is matter of living aright I will show the salvation of God now let's look at that again whosoever offer a praise glorify me when you come to the Psalms and the Proverbs and to the great books of wisdom and praise and to declare the power and the glory of God you find that a Hebrew a kind of a linguistic and grammatical device called Hebrew parallelism is is employed and it was it was that which the Greek New Testament writers used of course with their Greek Hebrew listeners John for example in the beginning was the word Jesus the logos the manifestation of God and the word was with God and the word was God all things were made by him without him was not anything made that was made he said the same thing five different ways and to say something and then to reset to declare to tell over and over again the glory of God demonstrated in the works of God which is the glory of God as it becomes the sum total of his attributes is the primary way that the writers and worshipers of the Old Testament praise God let me run that by again the primary way that the writers of the Old Testament expressed the glory of God was to say again over and over the manifestation of the glory of God by reciting the works of God the sum total of which attributes are the glory of God the Hebrew word Barra means to create the Hebrew word Barak means to praise it is very similar and it still is today why do we read the Old Testament why do we read the great books of faith in the New Testament why the 11th chapter of Hebrews the roll call of the faithful because it is a declaration of a retelling of the manifestation of the glory of God demonstrated through a recounting of the great works of God our God has done this and he's done this and he's done this and he's done this and he's done that therefore here's what he has created here's what he has done here therefore he is glorious and to be praised and he is to be believed there's nothing in this world like a group of believers together recounting the glory of God through the singing of great hymns which express the praise of God next we manifest the glory of God by fruitfulness by fruitfulness John 15 8 herein is my father glorified that ye bear much fruit remember Jesus cursed the barren fig tree not because it had bad fruit but because it didn't have any fruit and Jesus said you can be fruit inspectors we're not supposed to be judges we're not supposed to say well this man's not sincere and that one is this is not safe that and that one is but we can certainly inspect fruit and he says by their fruits ye shall know them but he goes a step further and warns about men who not only don't bring forth bad fruit they don't good fruit or even bad fruit they don't bring forth any fruit remember Jesus says in Revelation thou art neither hot nor cold thou art indifferent you're lukewarm therefore I'll spew you out of my mouth now you can translate that a hundred theological ways and it boils down to plain old Oklahoma talk friend indifference makes God sick of his stomach a nauseated a a a fruitless Christian who just really doesn't do anything gives the Lord the bellyache I remember a preacher who who made a sick a fish sick in his stomach remember that I'm sure God says I'll spew you out of my mouth he says I wish that thou weren't hot or cold You see, a Christian who turncoats and says, it's all of the devil, it's no good, and he lives like the dickens, and he goes out, nobody wonders what he is. Everybody knows what he is. He's a hypocrite. He's pretending to be a Christian, and he's lost. He really isn't. But the man who comes sauntering down to church and pretends to be so pious and lives like the devil, that man who has an act of being one way, when in reality it's something else, he's really just kind of lukewarm. He's just sort of Sunday morning and tossing a buck and see a God next Easter. You know, that kind of, he says, that makes God nauseated, sick of his stomach, and he spews that man out of his life, out of his mouth. I don't know what all that means, but I tell you, I sure wouldn't want to find that. I just know that the Bible says that fruitfulness manifests the glory of God, and doesn't the Lord, and doesn't the world have the right to expect that in the life of the believer there will be some of the fruits of the Spirit which demonstrate what God is like, and that manifests the character of God to the world. When a church, which is supposed to be the embodiment of all the attributes of Jesus Christ, fusses and fumes and fights, and the world sees that, they say, if that's religion, I don't want it. But when they see a beautiful church that harmonizes and functions in love as a complete unit of the body of Christ, they sense that Jesus is there. They are like Jesus. They come down the aisles 20 and 30 a week and say, I want to be a part of that. They are attracted to him, not repulsed from him, and God is glorified because the fruit of the Spirit is love. Well, let me say in closing that God is glorified by the contentment of the believer when the Christian is content. Let me ask you a question. Do you really believe that God is sovereign, that God is Lord, that God is God, that he's in charge of the affairs of your life? Do you really believe that? Or do you complain about circumstances? Do you complain how God created the circumstances of your life and complain how God created you? Turn over your world first to Philippians chapter 4 verse 10. Let me give you two contrasting illustrations and we'll be through. First, Philippians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians chapter 4 verse 10. About two -thirds of the way through the New Testament, we'll find that. Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians chapter 4 verse 10. Now Paul is writing a letter to the Philippians who have just sent him an offering. And he says, I rejoiced. I rejoice. I'm happy. I rejoice in the Lord. He says, I didn't rejoice in the offering you sent me. I rejoice in the Lord. But now at last your care of me hath flourished again, wherein you were also careful. I mean, you wanted to before, but you lacked the opportunity to send to me and take care of me. He said, not that I speak in respect of want. I don't have to have your money. That's my, my life's not contingent on that. For I've learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased and how to abound everywhere and in all things. I'm instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. He says down in verse number 17, you see, it isn't because I desired a gift that I'm rejoicing. I desire fruit that it might be, might abound to your account. Then over in verse 19, he says, my God, you see, shall supply all of your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. Now then God and our father be, under God and our father be glory forever and ever. So what is glorifying? Yes. Why? Because he's just got an offering. They sent him a bunch of money. If somebody had sent me a bunch of money, I'd glorify God too. I'd be happy if I got an offering. Now, wait a minute. There's another opposite extreme of that situation where he still is content when you go to the opposite extreme of the circumstance. And with this, we'll close over in 2 Corinthians 11, 23. 2 Corinthians, turn back a few books now. 2 Corinthians 11, verse 23. And in 2 Corinthians 11, 23, Paul is telling what's happened to him. He said, I've been in stripes above measure. I've been in prison more frequent, in deaths often. Of the Jews, five times I received 40 stripes, that is except one, 39. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. A night and a day I've been in the deep. In journeys often, in perils of water, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils in false brethren, in weariness, in painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often and in cold and beside all this there comes up on me daily the care of the churches he says who's weak and i'm not weak who's offended and i burn not he said i must needs glory and i must i will glory of the things which concern my infirmities he said look what's happened to me and still i'm going to glorify god what's he saying he says i am as content and therefore manifest the glory of god because i believe in the sovereign justice of god who orders the affairs of my life i am as content when i've got an offering as i am when i'm broke i am as content when everybody is praising me as i am when i'm down in the jail i am as content when the stock market's up as when it's down when i've got a job as when i don't and when a person can find contentment in jesus christ regardless of circumstance the manifestation of the glory of god which says i believe my god is the god of all circumstances and i'm not going to worry about things still i believe in him god in that is glorified you remember one day how the disciples came home and boy they'd been casting out demons and raising the dead and working miracles like crazy boy they're just jumping up down they're so excited jesus said wait a minute don't rejoice because the demons are subject to you i imagine they were surprised jesus said rejoice that your names are written in the lamb's book of life why because he knew there'd come a time when the demons weren't subject to them it wouldn't be long they'd be coming back and saying lord why couldn't we cast this one out you see circumstances would change but there's one thing which wouldn't change and that was that their line names were written in the land book of life they were children of god he said rejoice in your relationship to god rejoice that as a believer you have opportunity to manifest god's glory to the world don't rejoice in circumstances because you'll be rejoicing when they're up and be gloom when they're down that takes a lot of christian maturity but a mindset like that is one which certainly declares the manifestation of the glory of god to the world and next sunday night we'll talk about the last four things we'll mention regarding how to glorify god shall we stand together please thank you father for your love and for your life and that we can live to your glory help us to do it in jesus name amen we're going to sing three verses of an invitation it'll just take about a minute and a half and we invite you tonight to join our church invite you to trust the lord jesus christ as your personal savior and come and invite christ into your heart and life invite you to recommit your heart to him in a moment of wonderful rededication as he speaks to your heart come it'll just be a brief time and we welcome you as you do let's sing together you