God’s Glory

Last week, we talked about the power of our memories and how they shape our identity. Today, we begin a ten-week series called Great God! focused on the characteristics of God.

We are going to talk about His justice, goodness, mercy, wisdom, and love—how He is all-powerful, all-knowing, everywhere, and unchanging. We are launching this series with God’s Glory.

Glory is a difficult word. We use it often, but we rarely slow down to understand what it actually means. In Scripture, we see glory connected to angels announcing the birth of Jesus. We see it on the road to Damascus when Saul encounters Christ. We see it at the resurrection and the empty tomb. It is definitely a churchy word, but we struggle to define it.

So let me take a stab at it.

When my girls were little, something happened every day when I walked through the door. Before I said a word, I would hear it: “Daddy is home.” And then all four of them came at once—arms around my legs, hands on my ankles, someone climbing my back, someone pulling on my shoulders. I would be standing there completely smothered, unable to move.

They did not treat me like a stranger. They did not analyze me. They did not decide how to respond. Everything they knew about me came into the room with me the moment I walked in—their love, their trust, their security, their joy. It all surfaced the moment I arrived.

They did not do that with anyone else. They did not respond that way to another man. I did not earn it that night. I did not explain myself. I simply walked in, and who I was determined how they responded.

When you walk into a room, everything people know about you walks in with you. Your character walks in. Your reputation walks in. Your history walks in. Those things do not arrive one at a time; they come together as one reality.

That is an illustration of God’s glory.

God’s glory is the sum of all that He is, fully present, all at once. Everything true about God is present when He reveals Himself. But God’s glory does not depend on what we know about Him.

God’s glory is the fullness of who He is whether it is recognized, understood, acknowledged, or ignored. God does not become more glorious as we learn more about Him. He already is glorious. And when God reveals His glory, all of His characteristics and attributes show up at once.

Over the next ten weeks, we are going to slow down and look closely at what that glory contains.

God is just and righteous.
God is good.
God is wise.
God is merciful.
God is love.
God is all-powerful.
God is all-knowing.
God is everywhere.
God is unchanging.

But today, we start by talking about God’s glory.

In our Leadership series, we talked about Moses and the burning bush experience. Moses was just a shepherd doing his job, walking through the desert, when he noticed something that should not have been possible. A bush was on fire, but it was not burning up. Moses stepped closer to examine it—and this is the first time Moses experienced the glory of God.

Exodus 3:2–6 (NLT)

There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire from the middle of a bush. Moses stared in amazement. Though the bush was engulfed in flames, it didn’t burn up. “This is amazing,” Moses said to himself. “Why isn’t that bush burning up? I must go see it.”

When the Lord saw Moses coming to take a closer look, God called to him from the middle of the bush, “Moses! Moses!” “Here I am!” Moses replied. “Do not come any closer,” the Lord warned. “Take off your sandals, for you are standing on holy ground. I am the God of your father—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” When Moses heard this, he covered his face because he was afraid to look at God.

That was Moses’ first encounter with the glory of God. Before God gave Moses instructions, God revealed Himself. Before Moses knew what God wanted him to do, Moses learned who God was. And the first thing Moses learned was that God is unlike anything else he had ever known.

God is unmatched in worth, holiness, and power

The bush was on fire, but not burning. God was outside of everything Moses had comprehended so far. God operated outside the laws of physics. God is unmatched in worth, holiness, and power. Later, after the Israelites had been rescued, Moses stood at the foot of Mount Sinai.

Exodus 24:16–17 (NLT)

And the glory of the Lord settled down on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days. On the seventh day the Lord called to Moses from inside the cloud. To the Israelites at the foot of the mountain, the glory of the Lord appeared at the summit like a consuming fire.

The mountain shook. Fire covered the peak. A thick cloud settled in. Thunder rolled. Scripture says the glory of the Lord rested there, and Moses climbed up the mountain and went straight into the weighty cloud of the glory of God.

And you would think that experience would be enough for Moses. But it wasn’t. There is something about encountering the presence of God that creates a yearning in our hearts for more.

Later, Moses asked God directly to show him His glory.

Exodus 33:18–20 (NLT)

Moses responded, “Then show me your glorious presence.” The Lord replied, “I will make all my goodness pass before you, and I will call out my name, Yahweh, before you. For I will show mercy to anyone I choose, and I will show compassion to anyone I choose. But you may not look directly at my face, for no one may see me and live.”

God hid Moses in the cleft of a rock, passed by, and proclaimed His name. And instead of describing His power, God revealed His character.

Exodus 34:6–7 (NLT)

The Lord passed in front of Moses, calling out, “Yahweh! The Lord! The God of compassion and mercy! I am slow to anger and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness. I lavish unfailing love to a thousand generations. I forgive iniquity, rebellion, and sin. But I do not excuse the guilty. I lay the sins of the parents upon their children and grandchildren; the entire family is affected—even children in the third and fourth generations.”

God did not describe His power when He revealed His glory to Moses; God revealed His character. His character is His glory. Compassionate. Gracious. Slow to anger. Abounding in faithful love and truth. It is who God is.

God knows there is nothing in all existence like Him. And because there is nobody in existence like Him, He must point out that He is the greatest to His creation. God is not announcing His greatness to seek affirmation. He does not need validation. He is stating what is objectively true. If God were to stay silent about His supremacy, He would be allowing creation to misplace glory, trust, and allegiance.

And God does not deceive.

The second thing we need to understand about the glory of God is this:

God’s glory impresses, disrupts, and reorders our lives

When the glory of God is revealed, the first thing it does is impress us. Moses was impressed at the burning bush. And by impress, I do not mean entertain or inspire. I mean it makes an undeniable impact. It presses the weight of who God is onto our awareness.

Moses did not have to be convinced that God was real. The burning bush did that. The fire that did not consume made it clear that Moses was standing before a God who operated on an entirely different level. But God’s glory never stops at impression. It disrupts.

The moment God told Moses to take off his sandals, everything changed. Ordinary ground became holy ground. An ordinary day became a defining moment. Moses did not control that disruption. He did not schedule it. God’s glory interrupted Moses’ assumptions about how life worked and who was really in charge. That is what glory does. It exposes the limits of our understanding and confronts the illusion that we are in control.

And once glory disrupts, it reorders.

After encountering God’s glory, Moses could not go back to life as it was. His identity changed. His calling changed. His priorities changed. He went from tending sheep to standing before Pharaoh to being placed in the cleft of a mountain while God passed by and revealed His character. The revelation of God’s glory forced everything else in Moses’ life to find a new place.

When the weight of who God is becomes clear, everything else in our lives is forced to move. The glory of God does not negotiate. It reorders what we value, what we fear, what we trust, and what we obey.

Scripture consistently shows that encounters with God’s glory are never neutral. People fall to their knees. People confess sin. People change direction. People surrender plans they were convinced they needed to keep. And this is where many of us get uncomfortable.

We like God’s glory as long as it stays impressive. We struggle with it when it becomes disruptive. But you cannot separate those two. If God truly is unmatched in worth, holiness, and power, then His glory cannot leave our lives unchanged.

If nothing in my life is being reordered, then I have not truly encountered the glory of God. I may know about Him. I may believe in Him. I may attend church. But glory always rearranges our lives.

You cannot experience the glory of God and walk away unchanged.

And that leads to the final point:

Obedience is how His glory gets seen

When we obey what God has instructed us to do by applying His Word to our lives, we reveal the character of God, and His glory is seen by others.

Obedience flows from knowing who God is.

When Moses stood before Pharaoh and spoke truth instead of backing down, that was obedience shaped by the glory of God. When Moses followed God’s instructions in the wilderness instead of returning to comfort, that was obedience shaped by glory. The same pattern applies to us today.

When we forgive instead of retaliating, we reflect a God who is merciful. When we tell the truth instead of protecting ourselves, we reflect a God who is faithful. When we obey God’s Word even when it costs us something, we reflect a God who is worthy. That is how other people see God’s glory in our lives. Not through religious talk. Not through emotional moments. Through lives that move in alignment with God’s character.

If obedience never shows up in my decisions, my relationships, or my priorities, then God’s glory has not reordered my life. I may admire God. I may believe in God. But obedience is the evidence that I trust God.

Moses was not perfect. But after seeing God’s glory, he never treated God casually again. That is what obedience looks like.

God’s glory leads us to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and God’s glory compels us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.

God’s glory compels us to live changed, transformed, and faithful lives for Him.