Who Gets the Glory? - Joseph M. Stowell

please pray with me father we thank you for your spirit who allows us to worship our Lord Jesus Christ and to remember all the good things he's done for us thank you for your spirit who has inspired your word that we might hear about our Christ and all that he's done for us and this morning father we pray that your spirit might have freedom in our hearts as we have worshipped you and now as we listen to your word we pray in the name of Jesus amen this week in Chapel we've had the Nathan D Mayer Memorial Series in Bible exposition with dr. Joseph Stoll if you've been in Chapel these last two days or you read about this online you will know that dr. Stoll has been over many years I'm a servant in pastoral ministry in administration in preaching and in writing but our Lord has not only used him in the past he has used him this week among us here at DTS I want to you to encourage yourself to discipline yourself during this time to listen with your head and your heart to what the Lord would have you say Lord but have dr. Stowell say to us please join me in welcoming dr. Stowell [Applause] thank you so much hey good morning must be Thursday right like actually that was pretty good I will say that well it's been a delight to be here and as Marty and I were praying about being with you and we're saying what could God use to enable you to prepare for an effective ministry to the glory of God over there being counseling or in teaching or pastoring or other forms of ministry and one thing we know for sure is that it was vitally important that you would embrace your core identity in Christ that above and beyond everything else you are a follower of Christ and that will advise everything you do and lead you to effectiveness it's also clear that going into ministry with high expectations you know long lists expectations probably who's going to spell some measure of disaster because they rarely come true so I love Paul we learned yesterday that we'd go into ministry with one throbbing expectation and that is that no matter where we are or who were with we will magnify Christ this wonderful expectation that you can control every day of your life this morning I want to talk about the tension of who gets the glory now when my wife and I were rearing our family but obviously you start out with really little kids right that's the way how it starts and we had this little game we used to play with our kids like think for instance like a little two-year-old sitting in a highchair right and you walk up to them you go like how big are you and they would go so big anybody remember thinks so big all right so let's everybody stand up come on so I came all the way from Grand Rapids to say how big are you and you go like Oh big York that was great you may be seated and so it's a great game to play with kids but it's not a great game to play with God especially if there's so big is all about you and not about him and one penetrating point in Israel's history just demonstrates the danger of being sucked into living for our own glory and it's found in numbers chapter 20 and the central character is Moses our hero now read through the text make a couple comments and then we'll unwrap it verse one and the people of Israel the whole congregation came into the wilderness of zin in the first month and the people stayed in Kadish and Miriam died there and was buried there this is Moses sister there's a little history here Korah the one of the chief priests has just led a rebellion against Moses hoping to take over the leadership and now Moses his sister has died I would assume that the children of Israel will be over would be overflowing with sympathy and compassion to Moses like oh you're going through such a difficult time by the way don't ever expect people being sympathetic with you when you get into ministry like so and your sister let's bring you dinner or whatever not the case keep reading now there was no water to for the congregation they assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron and the people quarreled with Moses and said would that we had perished when our brothers perish before the Lord why have you brought the Assembly of the Lord into the wilderness that we should die here both we and our cattle and why have you made us come up out of Egypt to bring us to this evil place it is no place for grain or FIGS or vines or pomegranates and there's no for us to drink then Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly to the entrance of the tent of meeting and fell on their faces the glory of the Lord appeared to them and the Lord spoke to Moses saying take the staff assemble the congregation you and Aaron your brother and tell the rock before their eyes to yield its water speak to the rock so you shall bring water out of the rock for them and give drink to the congregation and their cattle and so Moses took the staff before the Lord as he had commanded him then Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock and he said to them hear now you rebels so we know he's really ticked with these people right like here now you rebels shall we bring water for you out of this Rock and Moses lifted up his hand struck the rock with his staff twice and water came gushing out there abundantly and the congregation drank and their livestock but the Lord said to Moses and Aaron because you did not believe in me to uphold me as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them if there are any passages in scripture that you wish weren't there this is one of them for me like really your man has one bad day and he doesn't get to go into the Promised Land so obviously there's something deep going on here so God has a plan God has a plan number one that Moses would take his staff now as you probably know his staff was the symbol of his authority and power the staff that he carried through it Egypt to confound the magician's of the Pharaoh it was always his authority and his power and God said take her staff secondly get the people together Showtime let's get everybody together number three speak to the rock number four I will bring water from the rock for the people that was the plan so obviously as we read the text Moses aborts the plan Moses does take his staff his authority and power and he stands before the rock and God in the verses has a critique of what went wrong and here's the critique number one God says you did not believe me now I want to be fair to Moses here is a really tough assignment I mean he's used to doing things right through his rod he'd be in an earlier historical moment he has struck the rock for water so this is normal procedure this time God says talk to the rock to put yourself in Moses his sandals there is all the people and here's this massive rock formation hey Brock awkward I mean what happens if it doesn't work I mean I know how to make it work that my staff awkward this was a hard obedience I just want you to know that it's a hard obedience when God calls us to do something for him it's a hard obedience when we forgive people we feel vulnerable we feel we can get back Matthew chapter 5 says you know what we said the other day love your enemies bless those who curse you pray for those who despitefully Yisrael what would you do that so that you might be like your father who is in heaven so you can tell people the only way it did this because my God is a forgiving God and I can uphold his holiness and I can glorify his name it's that hard obedience that leads ultimately to the glory of God and we are in our first pastor it as my friend Howard Hendricks some of you know that name used to say we had way too much month left at the end of the money do I have a witness here yeah and I remember someone opening the Word of God and talking to us about biblical stewardship and that what we really ought to do is stop going into debt we got to start giving to the Lord in fact give double to the Lord and trust God to provide for us that was hard but we committed to it you know when you make a commitment Galleries gives you a weight you know test your commitment we were driving old beat-up Volkswagen one of the tires had about like an eighth of an inch of rubber dust between the air and the tire and the road right so normally I would just take out my magic plastic Genie and this time we said we're gonna trust the Lord we actually got our kids together praying let's trust the Lord for what he would provide and my son who was about six when we said we're praying for this he said to me don't bother God don't bother dead God's too busy drinking Pepsi weird then it struck my mind that maybe when he had a need in his little life he had come to me and I was reading the paper and drinking Pepsi and I said not now I'm because I'm his father and when I was talking to his father who was in heaven the next Sunday the financial secretary of our church handed me an envelope that somebody put in the offering and it said for pastor stole and his family I opened it up to Chris $20 bills which back then was plenty to buy all four tires and what a joy for me to uphold the holiness of my God and His glory to tell my son this is the kind of God our family worships but it's hard so Moses resorted to what was easy what he was used to he struck the rock secondly in verse 12 god critiques him because he says you did not uphold my holiness now I think we need to stop here because as you trust you have learned theologically the holiness is not just his purity as many people think it's much bigger than that his holiness the word actually means separate that he is separate from that he is different that all of his character his mercy his love his justice his righteousness just name all that God is that nobody is like this no competition nobody in second place that he is absolutely separate from everybody else this magnificent God that we worship and interestingly enough it's a direct connect to his glory John Piper makes an interesting statement when he says in Isaiah 63 the angelic beings crowd holy holy holy the whole earth is full of his glory it doesn't say the earth is full of his holiness he goes on to say that his glory I love this God's glory is what His Holiness looks like when it goes public when it fills the earth and if when it's made visible for humans to see so really God saying you didn't uphold my glory and then we read the crux of the problem in verse 10 Moses stands before the rock and says to this rebellious Israel must we give you water from this rock some 106 33 that recounts this historical incident says this about Moses is problem not that he was angry not that he struck the rock but the psalmist says he spoke ill-advisedly with his lips and his Piper goes on to say Moses his opportunity was student take the intrinsic holiness of God's power and love for his people showcase his glory by the public miracle of water from the rock and he failed and instead showcased the power of his rod to his own credit and he took the glory to himself now I just wonder you know why is God so consumed with his own glory like why doesn't he get over himself like like he's always got to be into his glory right well I remember that guy Seiya 48 makes it very important its comment God says I will share my glory with no one he's jealous for his glory Nebuchadnezzar builds this great idol to himself claims to be God and God says you like grass he robbed him of God's glory seven years as an animal eating grass acts in acts we read that Herod claimed to be God and called people to worship Him and God struck him dead and the text ads and he was eaten with worms so obviously impinging on God's glory is an important thing to him but I have to see if why it's not too difficult God's glory his holiness made public is the way he reveals himself how else will the world know an invisible God what an invisible God is like if he doesn't choose opportunities to show the world this to show the world his love to show the world his justice to show the world his mercy to show the world his grace his glory is the ultimate reveal of who God is and now I get thinking about going into the land of Canaan one of the things Israel will do is show a pagan world who worships gods of wooden stone that can't see or talk or hear actually sacrifice their children to these pagan gods how desperately does Canaan need to know who the true and living God is and this rule will go in and God will do great miracles through them and through those miracles Canaan will know who the true and living God is they will see the glory of God this is a very critical moment and I wonder I just wonder if Moses doesn't get to go in because God can't trust him with God's glory Kanan doesn't need to know what a great leader Moses is Canaan needs to know what a great God he worships in service and maybe that's why it's huge which leads me to the sobering question can God trust me with his glory and gain God trusts you with his glory you realize don't you that we've been called to glorify Him first Corinthians 10:31 what know ye the first Corinthians 6 know you not that your body is the temple of God therefore glorify God 1st Corinthians 10:31 whether you eat or whether you drink it's like basic do what all to the glory of God this is our call I find it interesting that if you read through scripture there are four instruments of revealing God's glory to this world one is creation Psalm 19 says the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows forth his handiwork get away from Dallas light some night and go out into the country and gaze in a cloudless night at the massive universe before you and it just says something about the glory of God doesn't it like my the power he speaks the universe into existence creation it's so important all says in Romans that people will be judged because they refused to see the glory of God in their own body and in creation the second means of revealing God's glory is Israel God says Israel my glory which brings me back to how important this would be for Moses to bring glory to God as they went into Canaan so Israel is an instrument of showing the world what God is like the third one is Jesus Christ and we beheld John and we beheld his glory the glory as of the only begotten of the Father neither is full of grace and full of truth and the forth reveal is through you whether you eat or whether you drink do all to the glory of God classy company that we get to be in that game with living for his glory and show forth and show showing forth his holiness which brings me to the question that I constantly have to ask myself do I live for his glory or do I live for my own living for my own glory reminds me of little jack horner anybody remembered the nursery rhyme I don't know if this is a generational thing or not but us the whole time we all remember a little jack horner right little Jack Horner sat in a corner eating his christmas pie he's stuck in his thumb pulled out a plum and said what a good boy am i the glory of my self but you have to exegete the story seriously I mean if he's a good boy what's he doing sitting in the corner and if I remember correctly as a kid when I'd see the the picture of him he's sitting in the corner with a whole pie on his lap like I've never known of a mother to give a kid a whole pie he stole that from the kitchen it's very clear and if you don't even like what's he doing with his fingers in the food right like and at least he could have done look what a great mother I have she cooked these and cleaned them and shopped for them I've got no instead he just steals all of her and I think about how broken we are how sinful we are how not yet quite fully redeemed we are and how ludicrous it seems for us has fallen broken people to claim the glory for ourselves instead of giving the glory to God so in conclusion let's talk about three arenas in which you get to choose to glorify God one of them is in what you say what do you say when God does something good in you or through you and you get an attaboy or if you're getting it at a girl what do you say every once in a long while people come to me and say that was a great sermon I'd go like of course what did you expect here's what I know I know that if God hadn't given me the gifts he's given me reared me in the home that he chose to rear me and given me the educational opportunities that I had here at Dallas seminary that if I didn't have the power of God's Word I would be nothing nothing so I learned a long time ago the one interesting thing that kind of proves the point of the power of God's Word to me as people come and say when you said this it was just what I needed and I pressed the replay button no I don't think I ever said that which reminds me that God takes his word through me and kind of Taylor makes it for a person's need and I get to mystical here but someone sat out there with need in their life and God took something I said and made it made sense to them for right where they are and I can't think of the horror of me taking credit for God's work through his word so I've had to learn to say things like really when they say you know what a great sermon I bless me so much so you see how much God loves you I didn't have a clue what you needed this morning but God laid that on my heart just for you and thanks for the encouragement or one of my life goals is to be used by God in somebody's life somewhere and if that happened to you today I'm so encouraged I'm so thankful to God for that so I turned the spotlight when I was a seminary student here our hebrew professor was dr. bruce walkie some of you remember him he taught me to love the Psalms I'll be forever grateful friend of mine was working at Kohl's student of mine was working in the bank and he saw dr. walkie walking up coming to the teller that was next to him and so he's kind of listening I don't think dr. walkie recognized Paul but so he did the trance trance action walk he walks away counts his money and says and realizes he got over changed turned around said to the teller you gave me too much money she counts the money she says well thank you you're a really honest man and my friend heard Bruce walkie say this it's not that I'm an honest man it's that Jesus Christ has changed my life turn into spotlight you're probably saying I'm not that clever I would have never known how to say something like that which leads me to the second arena and that is what you think that's what you say and it's what you think getting your head into the game some time ago I was out running in the morning and Marty asked me to stop by Starbucks and get a couple of cups of coffee to bring home so I finished my run and I went into Starbucks and it was just opened up and there was one guy in there and he was just like ripping the barista party out of New York Times in one hand and a $50 bill in the other hand and he said what do you mean you don't have change I've got my money I want my newspaper how can you run an operation without any change in the tape I'm normally not this good but so I just kind of snuck up and I said hey I'll pay for his paper don't worry I got I told the breeze to put it on my account I'll pay for the paper the guy goes really I said yep that's fine and he turned around started leaving and he said everything I have is your which didn't include the $50 bill obviously then I stepped up to the barista and he said to me mister that was really a nice thing you did this world would be a lot better place if there were more people like you and I'm going I need to say something right now like and nothing came and I just kind of uttered some self-deprecating remark and walked out with my coffees I'm walking down the side I think what should i okay and then it came to me here's what I should have said I should have said well the world wouldn't be a lot better place if there were more people like me but it would be a lot better place if there were more people like Jesus because he taught me how to do that I said I'm going back so I turned around went to go back and by this time there's a huge line and I'm saying this is not going to work to put into the line and make a religious speech right now is not going to work so I turned around and a few steps down the side or what I remembered I was wearing my old beat-up Moody Bible Institute cap and I prayed Lord could that barista have read the cap and know the Bible people do this kind of thing so epic fail but my head was in the game that was the thing you got to get your head in the game and I think after a while it comes a little easier in the whole spirit will give you the right things to say but get your head in the game then the third thing the third arena what you say what you think and what you do Matthew chapter 5 says you are the light of the world let your light so shine that people may see your good works and glorify your father in heaven I like the fact that the good works isn't the word is an Agatha's righteous activity you might think well I just need to be a more righteous person I can win my world to the Lord like you tell your unsaved neighbor like you ought to be a Christian then you could tithe you don't accept Jesus you don't have to sleep around anymore they want to sleep around I think righteousness is really important that the word is Kalos which means the good works of benefit and blessing as Christ constantly through his whole life blessed and benefited people with the power of his love and His grace and what he did you may move into a neighborhood and your neighbor may be weird like always arguing over property lines or why does your kids ball always come into my backyard and all of a sudden he's struck with serious cancer and you're the first one at the door with help and something to eat for their family kalos I think people who glorify God with what they do they live in a neighborhood and neighbors go like I don't get these Christians but our neighborhood is a much better place because they live here friend of mine in Connecticut refused to bring his church into an interfaith prayer service with Muslims and Jews and Protestants in his town he felt that would compromise the true doctrine of Prayer you know when when I think about interfere prayer meetings I was wondering are there any in the Bible I found one Elijah on Mount Carmel but other than that we have no examples right so the local newspaper literally ripped this pastor by name it to shreds called arrogant self-centered it's Christians like you that don't belong in this town a couple months later the writer of the op-ed her Hudson committed suicide that pastor was the first one by her side come and pray with her and to bless her and what can I do to help it's what we do let your light shine that people may see your good works and what bring glory to your father who is in heaven so I was watching the Masters golf tournament several years ago and it happened to be on Easter Sunday so after church I came home turned the TV on to watch the conclusion and Bernhard Langer was winning and he walked up the 18th fairway sunk the putt and what golf's most covetous prize the Masters the green jacket so I'm watching this happen and then of course the media talks to him right and the guy holding the mic in front of his face says by the way this must be the greatest day in your life Langer said it's probably the greatest day in my golfing career but it doesn't compare with the fact that 2,000 years ago today my Lord and Savior rose from the dead give me everlasting life I was on the floor seriously that in his most glorious moment he could turn the spotlight onto Jesus Christ and bring glory to him so can you be trusted with God's glory in the old baseball stadiums there's only two good ones left Fenway Park and Wrigley but in the old baseball stadium it used to be able to get really cheap tickets they were called obstructed view you bought that you sit behind a post right yeah like can hardly see the game like what's happening hey what just happened why is everybody cheering yeah don't ever be the obstructed view get out of the way let people see what your God is truly like let's pray Lord may you call us to the wonderful joy of living for your glory forgive us though for those times that it was about us and not about you help us to know what to say how to think what to do that our world might see the reveal of your holiness made public and will thank you for the privilege that brings from rescuing us from the shallowness of ourselves in Christ's name Amen by the way does anybody still feel bad about Moses not going into the Promised Land do have a few well here's the good news he made it on the Mount of Transfiguration Moses was there so there you

Channel: Dallas Theological Seminary

Views: 5,089

Keywords: Dallas Theological Seminary, DTS, Jesus, Bible, Grace, Community, Dr. Joe Stowell, glory, humility, ministry, priority, Numbers 20

Id: Z70PqVBuLf0

Length: 35min 28sec (2128 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 07 2019