Glory

Have any of you ever been in a crisis of faith? Have you ever experienced this season of doubt? Have you ever been in a place where you say, God, what the heck are you doing? Have you ever needed a faith pick me up? You feel like I don’t feel you. I don’t see you. God, I need a faith. Pick me up. Can you relate to the dad and Mark nine, who brings his son to the disciples to get healed from demon possession?

Hopefully you can’t relate to the demon possession part, but you know you need the healing and the disciples fail and he comes to Jesus and said, Lord, I believe, help me with my unbelief. Maybe you can relate to that right now. Or maybe that’s something you’ve experienced. In 2007. I was in that place. If you were here when I have have spoken before, I shared about my daughter Faith, who, when I was 20 weeks pregnant, found out that she had trisomy 13, which is a condition that they told me was not compatible with life.

She had a cleft lip and a cleft palate and an impala seal and a heart defect, and at four days old, she ditched us for heaven. And during that time, I actually experience God’s love and presence more than I had ever in my life. I it actually took me out of a season of doubt and into this blossoming season of faith.

In fact, it’s one of the main reasons I’m actually here today, because out of that, death was birthed a speaking ministry. And so I knew that God can work in the UN healings because we were praying for her to be healed. People were praying for us. People were praying for healing, and she didn’t get healed. What it also led to is a ministry for me to other women who are experiencing crisis pregnancies.

And so people would call me and say, Wendy, I’ve got this friend and she’s pregnant and they just got this bad news when you talked to them. So I’d walk through this with families and come in 2007. So five years after we lost faith and I dealt with multiple women who experienced loss, I started doubting God and getting frustrated with the lack of healing.

I had this one woman I was helping and she was pregnant with a baby that didn’t have kidneys. And so they were praying fervently for her that God would restore and heal those kidneys. And they believed so strongly she was healed. They went to healing services. They did all the things you can do for healing. And they had the faith.

And then she didn’t get healed. My God, why? Why is it always better? Somehow it brings you more glory to not heal people. And if it’s based on faith, like she had enough faith to heal, but it’s not that whole name it and claim it prosperity teaching. It says if you have enough faith, you will be healed and you will get whatever you want and you won’t have suffering.

That is garbage. FYI, that’s not how it works in real time or in scripture, but I was ready to see something different. I journaled in November of 2007. Where was God? Because I know he was working. I know there’s purpose in trials, but I still don’t get it. Wouldn’t healing that baby bring God more glory, draw more people to himself?

It certainly would increase my faith. Or so I think.

And as I was journaling that I was pregnant with my daughter jaundice. So we had lost faith. And then we had Elijah, who was four at this time, and then Lydia was two, and then I was pregnant with jaundice and I was still wrestling. I was in that season of doubt with God and I got diagnosed with thrombocytopenia with jaundice, which is a fancy way of saying my platelets were dropping, the blood clots were dropping.

It’s the same thing. I had experience with Elijah and Lydia, so there was a protocol and that is go on friendzone. That was the only thing that could help with the platelets to not drop too low. There was no like green juice. Wear a pirate patch and hop on one leg and don’t eat anything that has the word the in it.

And you know, if there was some dirty hippie method, I would have tried it. But the only thing was the Brenda zone. And so the same thing started happening at the same week in my pregnancy. The platelets started 210,000. Then they’d go to 170 down to 130, and then at 34 weeks, like clockwork, I was to go back to the doctor.

And that’s when they would say, you got to take this prednisone. And so as I was approaching that next appointment, and I didn’t want to go on to the Prentice on this time for several reasons, I said, Lord, as I’m wrestling with this doubt, I said, I need a little somethin, throw me a bone. Like, how about a baby miracle?

A little not a baby miracle, but a teeny baby. You know, there was a happening with the babies, but I just wanted a small thing. You can make those platelets stop dropping. Can’t you at least do that? God. So I prayed, okay, Lord, I need this for my faith. I need you to show up. Make it so my platelets don’t drop.

Essentially, I was saying, God, show me your glory. Show me your presence. Show me your power I need you. Show me your glory and my charge for you. This morning. Blue Oaks is going to be. Ask God to show you his glory wherever you’re at in your faith, but especially if you’re in a slump. Ask God to show you his glory.

Open to Exodus 33 with me. If you use your Bibles or your phones or the screen or the app, that’s where we’re going to be is in Exodus 33. Connecting this to Moses. We’re going to be looking at verses 12 through 18. But let me get you up to speed. A little bit of background there. The Israelites are camped in the wilderness of Sinai shortly after the Golden Calf incident.

Do you remember the golden calf incident? There go. They’ve been taken out of slavery. They’re heading to the Promised Land. Moses goes up to meet with God and they get restless because he’s gone for a while. So they’re like, Where is Moses? Where is let’s build a golden calf as one does. So Aaron collects all the gold they formed into a calf.

They start worshiping the calf, thanking the calf for bringing them out of slavery. What? So then Moses is talking to God and God says, yeah, I’m going to take you to the wilderness, but not with those people. Those are stubborn, stiff necked people. Look what they’re doing. And so then in response, Moses goes back to God and pleads with him, intercedes for his people outside of the camp.

So this is where we’re at in Exodus 33, verses 12 through 18, Moses said to the Lord, you have been telling me, lead these people, but you’ve not let me know whom you will send with me. You have said, I know you by name, and you have found favor with me. If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways, so I may know you and continue to find favor with you.

Remember that this nation is your people. The Lord replied, my presence will go with you, and I will give you rest. Then Moses said to him, if your presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. How will anyone know that you’re pleased with me and with your people? Unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?

And the Lord said to Moses, I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you, and I know you by name. Then Moses said, now show me your glory. He’s begging for God’s presence, saying, I can’t do this without you. Show me your glory. And so what happens? What’s the response? God places Moses on a rock and then in the cleft of the rock, and he covers Moses with his hand, figuratively speaking, and his glory passes by.

Then he removes his hand, and Moses sees God’s back, not his face. The Lord descends in a cloud and he proclaims his name and his character, the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, while shielding Moses from the full, overwhelming sight of his presence. So the whole rock in the clouds and that kind of thing is it’s symbolic.

It’s figurative language describing God’s perspective of Moses and protecting Moses. Excuse me? Protecting him from the over whelming glory of God’s presence. It’s a partial revelation of God’s nature enough to transform Moses, but not so much to destroy him.

God, show us your glory. So what is God’s glory? That’s kind of a churchy word. And we sing it and we hear it. But what is it? We’re going to define it. Break that down. The Hebrew word is covered, which is the weight and heaviness. God’s glory is the weighty, overwhelming reality of who God is. It is the manifestation of God’s presence.

It’s when the invisible God makes himself visible. His holiness, his power, love, truth, and character. I love what Tim Keller says. Tim Keller has passed on. He’s in heaven, but he is a fan, was a fantastic preacher and theologian, and has written a ton of books. He’s probably one of my favorites. So he said this God’s glory is so weighty, so radiant, that when you truly see it, it humbles you without without crushing you, and it affirms you without inflating you.

And so there’s a difference, too, between intrinsic glory and ascribe glory. This morning, as we’re worshiping God and singing Glory to God, we’re ascribing him glory. It’s a it’s a different word. We’re giving him the praise and the honor that he’s due. It’s our response to his actual glory. God’s glory is intrinsic, and that’s mostly what we’re going to talk about.

This morning. It can’t increase or decrease. It’s it is what it is at all times. C.S. Lewis says, A man can no more diminish God’s glory by refusing to worship him, than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling darkness on the walls of his cell. It’s God’s glory. Ask God to show you his glory. Why? So why should we ask to see his glory?

Is it because we have a candy dispenser? God, a Santa Claus God where we just ask and get what we want? Is that why we want to see God’s glory? No. It’s to know him more, to build that relationship, to see that he is the provider, the miracle worker. We ask God to see his glory so that we can grow closer to him, and our faith can grow.

Second way. Second reason is to reveal God to others. Moses said, how will anyone know you’re with us without your glory? Our lives become a display of his presence. No pressure at all. But as we worship and as we obey, and as we live out who God has called us to be, and loving others and serving others, and loving the Lord with all our heart, soul, and mind, we are ascribing God glory, and we’re revealing that to others.

In Moses’s day he had a physical reaction. He, his face would shine that doesn’t happen so much now, I don’t know. Check yourself after you go out of worship at the end here and see if you’re glowing. You’re probably pregnant. It’s probably not the god glow, but our lives are a display of his presence. And then the third reason is to empower us for his calling, to empower us for his calling.

What has called you to do that you cannot do without his glory? Like Moses, we pray, God, I need your power to get through this. Maybe you’re facing something pretty tough. Ask God to show you his glory. Tell him you can’t do it without his glory. So what is God’s glory look like today? I have not seen a burning bush.

I have not seen fire by night, cloud by day. And some of the things that happened in the Old Testament God has not changed. But sometimes the way he’s revealed himself to us changes. So the first way.

Is through creation, through creation. So at conception, there is one cell.

However, that single cell has all it needs all the instructions to build a brain with 86 billion neurons, one cell to 86 billion neurons. It has the information instruction to create a heart that will beat 2.5 to 3.6 billion times in a lifetime, a body with 37 trillion cells from one cell by birth, there are trillions of cells, and some of you are in biology class or anatomy in school, or you’re scientists.

And this maybe you’ve heard this stuff. This is mind blowing. Y’all. What? Okay, I, I honestly cannot hear what you just said. What did you say? Oh, there was an earthquake. Oh, I didn’t what’s up? God’s glory. There was an earthquake just now. That’s so crazy. I didn’t even feel it. You know what? God’s got this. Yeah. He’s like, yeah.

You don’t feel my presence. Boom! Ducking cover. Y’all. My gosh, all that. I’ve never been speaking where all of a sudden everyone’s shouting at you. And I’m like, are you speaking in tongues? What is happening? I don’t get this. Okay? We’re in a preacher. Okay. Think so. Powerful reflection of God’s glory. Okay. Now. All right. Bill, trillions of cells.

Oh, my gosh, this is my daughter, Judas. I brought a picture of her. This is trillions of cells. And you can see. Look at her fingernails. She comes out tens of thousands of cells in those fingernails alone. And they’re created for a purpose. God’s glory is revealed in creation in our DNA system. Your body contains a genetic code more sophisticated than any human made computer program.

ChatGPT and all those. I cannot do this. They cannot make one cell into trillions that will never happen. God is in creation. There are over 3 billion base pairs of information in every cell, and I don’t even know what that means, but it’s beyond comprehension. God’s creation Francis Collins, a Christian geneticist, former head of the Human Genome Project, says this the language of DNA is the language of God.

I love that the language of DNA is the language of God. And check this out. Moses did not have this information. It’s so easy to look at things in the Bible and the Old Testament will like, yeah, God, if you spoke through a burning bush, I would believe if you came down with I put your car, I would believe.

But we have so much more information that just keeps pointing to a creator. Psalm 19 one through two says, the heavens declare the glories of God. The skies proclaim the work of his hands. And I just threw up some pictures from Alaska. Look that that’s God’s creation. And you don’t have to go to Alaska. As I’m prepping for this message and I’m praying and saying, God, show us your glory.

Show me your glory. I’m on my walk that I do, and I come over the hill. And I almost didn’t want to post this picture because the picture does not do justice. But then I see this tree line and I just think I just was like, hit with the power of God and His presence. Asked God to open your eyes to see his glory.

That’s Danville, that’s not Tahoe. It’s all around us. Sometimes we just don’t have eyes to see. Romans 120 says, for the since the creation of the world, God’s invisible qualities, his eternal power and divine nature and nature have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. You are God’s creation. You are God’s creation.

Three years ago, I was giving a similar message to my women’s Bible study about God’s glory. And so it was much on my radar and in my small groups, radar and were praying for each other. And we’re texting each other our prayer requests. And there’s a lot of heavy stuff in recovery from a car accident that’s caused chronic back pain.

And my mom had been hit by a drunk driver and was going into surgery for her leg. And so I’m having them pray for my mom, and we’re going back and forth and all this heaviness. And so in my text, I said, God, in the midst of all the stress and pain of the world, show us your glory.

Even a little glimpse will do. And so as I send that text, I go out on a run. And when I say run, it’s loose term, very slow, very slow jogging, very slow. And normally a lot of times I like to listen to True Crime podcast. So I have any true crime podcast junkies. Anyone else wants to admit that they listen to murder stories?

Great. Okay, I don’t know. Thank you. I see you, I see you great. So. But this day, as I’m trying to focus on seeing God’s glory, I decide I’m going to listen to worship music. I’m going to really look for God’s glory and open my eyes and ears as I’m slowly jogging on the Iron Horse Trail. And as I’m jogging, I run into Annie, who’s in my small group, and she says, hey, Wendy, wait, wait.

I’ve been meaning to tell you, you know, about my background with growing up, and and I, I want to help with your mom. And I’m like, no, I don’t know about your background. What are you talking about? She says, well, I grew up in assisted living homes, and so I’m used to taking care of older people and physically.

And I know you need someone for your mom and I. I can help her. I’m like, are you kidding me? Because that was such a big stress as my mom had to go into acute care and get help, and it was going to need help at home. And how do you find someone you trust for that? And here is Annie, the sweetest person on earth.

That’s in my small group, and I didn’t even know that that was her background. So I took a picture of Annie and I on the trail and I sent it to our small group, and I said, God’s glory just showed up on the trail. You are God’s glory. And he showed up to me as God’s glory. So often I miss it because I’m so distracted by all the things in the world.

It’s so easy to miss. Ask God to show you his glory and open your eyes to see. The other way God shows up today is still through miracles, looks different. They’re miracles. They’re supernatural. They don’t happen all the time. You can’t just command them and they always happen. Although I know there’s some schools of thought that feel like that can happen, and that my experience has not been that the miracles are few and far between.

And until that, you know, the baby thing, I wasn’t seeing anybody getting healed.

We already know that God didn’t show his glory that way to me. We all have the know healing stories.

So my platelets back to that story. I’m praying God, show me your glory. Just don’t let my platelets drop. So I go into my appointment. In my crisis of faith, in my season of doubt. And the doctor says, Wendy, my platelets were at 130, so now they’re going to be at like 120, he says, Wendy, I don’t know what happened, but your platelets are at 148,000.

And as you can imagine, I had a response to my doctor, who I don’t believe is not a believer. I said, Doctor Leech, do you know why it’s from praying. I’ve been going through the season of doubt, and he knew I was a believer. He came to me. He walked me through the baby faith stuff. He came to her mom, his her memorial.

So I’m just giving him the backstory. I’ve been doubting my faith Doctor Leech because God hasn’t been healing baby. So I asked him. I said, God, show me, show up for me, this baby miracle, please. And he did. Not only did he keep them constant watch, my prayer was just keep them the same. God raised my platelets without the Brenda zone.

And so Doctor Leech, he says, well, I’ll have to tell my other patient because she’s on prednisone and it’s not working. I need to go tell her to pray. I’m like, yeah, you do. God, show us your glory. He does show up. It’s not when we want it. It’s not how we want it. But he does do miracles, big and small.

And since then, actually last, last spring, I saw someone’s back get healed. Like with my own eyes. I don’t know about you, but I am the doubting Thomas. Like, if you’re telling me you were healed, I want to see long term proof evidence. I don’t buy it. I don’t want to see a temporary like, oh, my arm doesn’t hurt, and the next day it’s hurting again.

I’m like, that wasn’t real. Anyone else like that or some of you have the gift of faith and you’re just like, not me. I want evidence. And I’ve started to see it a little bit more. He does work through miracles today. Maybe it’s restoring a relationship that’s broken. Maybe that’s a miracle. We don’t always know what is a miracle because we don’t have a peek behind the scenes.

God works through miracles. He works through creation. And he works through Jesus. The better Moses. In Hebrews three, Jesus is called the better Moses. Moses brought the law that exposed sin. Jesus brought grace and truth that overcame the sin. We had the servant Moses. We have the son Jesus. If I can give you some homework, it’s going to be read.

Hebrews three. It’s so cool, especially in light of Exodus and Moses and Jesus. John 117 says, for the law was given through Moses. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. We see the clearest picture of God’s glory in Jesus and his humility, his sacrifice and his victory. Hebrews one three says, the sun is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.

After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty in heaven. Jesus is the exact exact representation of the glory of God. And guess who else didn’t have that? Or see that Moses. We don’t have the burning bushes. We have Jesus. Moses was pointing to Jesus without really even knowing it. He is the better Moses.

In John 114 we see glory through Jesus. Colossians two talks about the fullness of God living in Christ. Hebrews 13I already talked about the radiance of God’s glory, Jesus the greater, greater Moses. Tim Keller and the reason for God says Jesus lost his glory so we could be clothed in it. He was stripped of it so we could enter the presence of God.

We have creation. We have miracles. We have Jesus. Ask God to show you his glory. That’s not it. I just covered three ways. Ask God to show you his glory. Back to that journal entry where I was saying, God, wouldn’t it bring you more glory to heal that baby? I don’t know exactly how to answer that to field healings, disappointments, divorces, painful things in our lives that we think for sure God would get more glory if it happened differently.

But I can tell you about my story with with faith. A small sample of how not healing can bring God glory. And that’s really what we’re created for. To know him, to worship him, to love him. And then out of the overflow, we serve and love others. So about four years ago, one of my good friends texted me and said, this week I thought of faith as I watched parents say goodbye to their trisomy 18 baby.

Maybe Faith had something to do with me ending up in this field. So my friend is saying that it’s likely that she is a chaplain in hospitals because of the loss of our daughter, because our daughter wasn’t healed. My friend is now ministering to hundreds and hundreds of people in the hospital who are facing crisis and death and being a reflection of God’s glory to those people.

That’s just one small glimpse of how God’s glory can be delivered in unexpected ways.

We don’t always understand what God’s doing. Part of understanding the weight of who God is is that he is in control, and we are not, and we do not see the big picture, even though we think we do and we think we would know. And for those of you who have been around the block a little bit, you probably have come onto the other side of a trial or something and thought, wow, if it would have gone my way, things would be so different.

Life can be really hard. We need God’s presence. We need his glory to shine.
Ask God to show you his glory. Let’s close in prayer.

Lord, thank you for your presence. Whether we can feel it or see it or not, I pray for anyone here who is in that crisis of faith, that season of doubt, who needs an encounter with you not for selfish reasons or just to get what they want. But Lord, some of us are desperate to feel your presence and to know that you are real.

Show up for that person, please. This week in the Scripture through worship on the trail, show us your glory, Lord, so that we can be a reflection of that glory. Glory to a hurting and broken world. In Jesus name, Amen.