The Glory of God

Transcript S3E3

 The Glory of God

 [00:08] 

Hello, I'm Tony Kostas, and welcome to Led Into Love.

 [00:13] 

There's a wonderful verse in the book of Habakkuk in the Old Testament. It's a prophecy and it's speaking about the days that all of this world and history is swiftly heading towards.

I love these words, not just because they're thrilling and they've been talked about for centuries by God's people, but simply because my heart says this is true: “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters of cover the sea.”

Beautiful words. They're poetic words and they paint a lovely picture.

[01:00] 

But the danger is, with knowing these words – knowing these scriptures and talking as Christians, as believers, talk – we tend to use words as if we really know what they're about.

But you have to understand that words … language … are very limited, and a lot of the things that you read very much depend on what you understand by it.

Because once you sort of grasp hold of something, saying, “Right, that means that,” then we tend not to stop and say, “Well, does it really mean that?” And terms like ‘the knowledge of God’ or ‘knowing God’ can easily be like that.

[01:46] 

When I was a young Christian, and we used to talk about ‘knowing the Lord,’ we meant if someone has gone through a certain response to God … perhaps somebody has brought them to a point of wanting to open their heart to Jesus, or they've convinced them of the truth of what Jesus did for them. And so that person is given help to understand. They prayed for it and they're told, “Okay, well, now you know the Lord. You know God.”

Maybe they've come to know Him or maybe they haven't. But God is not just someone that you get introduced to like another person – and you say, “Right. I've made their acquaintance”.

[02:28] 

Knowing God is all about intimacy. Now, yes, I talk about this a lot, and I will always talk about it a lot. Why? Because at the heart of real relationship, as far as God is concerned, is a love commitment –  an intimate love commitment.

Whether it's friendship or in marriage. In relationship to God, we are told that we are to love God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength, and we are to love one another in the same way. That's something that is actually beyond our human understanding.

[03:07] 

When we talk about the knowledge of God, it's not about what you know. The trouble with having a Bible that you can study … the trouble with having an academic subject like theology that you can really get immersed into … is that you can amass knowledge, so that you can quote the Bible freely and you can pinpoint things in the Bible. You can teach from the Bible. You can consume books about the Bible. Or you can study God and the history of the church, and all kinds of things, in a much broader way – and unfortunately just become a source of knowledge and information.

But where are you living with God? Where is your relationship with God? And even worse than that, when someone is in that position, they easily become a source of knowledge to others who know less than they do.

[04:09] 

When Jesus came in His day, the people who opposed Him were the people who knew the most about God, who knew the most about the scriptures, who knew their theology so well.

Do you remember when Nicodemus – that great teacher in Israel – came to Jesus one day? (There it is in John chapter three.) He came actually not one day; he came by night to see Jesus because he obviously didn't want anybody to know that he'd come to see this man – this preacher who was right outside the System. And he was standing up before crowds and going around saying things that were very questionable. In fact, worse than questionable in the minds of many of those who were the leaders within the religious system! 

And Nicodemus came because something was tugging at his heart. And he came to see Jesus because he wanted to try and get a handle on who this man was. He said, “Jesus, no one could do the things that you do unless God is with him.” He's trying to get his mind around … trying to pigeonhole Jesus … trying to find a context for this man and what He was doing, because Jesus did not fit the religious mould.

[05:30] 

And so Jesus said to him, “Look, unless you're born again, you can't see the kingdom of God”. Like, what is the kingdom of God? The kingdom of God is that realm in which God rules. And, you know, it's all around us because God is everywhere. 

I don't mean that ‘everywhere is God’. I don't mean that stone, that tree, are God! What I mean is everything. To use the Bible verse which says, ‘the things which are seen … which we see with these physical eyes … are temporary. The things which are unseen are eternal.’

[06:11] 

All around you, there is an unseen world that is the world that will never pass away. I call it a ‘world’ because I don't know what other term to use for it right now. But it's a whole reality!

All these things that you see and touch and are all around you – they're all temporary. They're going to pass away. Permanence only exists with God, and everything that pertains to God.

When Jesus said To Nicodemus, “Unless you're born again, you can't see the kingdom of God”.

Nicodemus is trying to … like he tripped over at the first statement. What's this about being born again? So he says to Jesus, like, “Can a man go back into his mother's womb and be born again?”

Now, maybe he was saying that in a bit of a derisory way, or maybe he was saying, like, “Come on, like, tell me something that I can … that I can get my mind around here!”

And Jesus said, “You are a teacher of Israel and you don't know these things? If I talk to you about earthly things and you can't grasp them … what are you going to do if I talk to you about all these heavenly things?”

Jesus was talking about something way beyond Nicodemus' human understanding. But more than that, way beyond Nicodemus' religious understanding … way beyond his theological grasp of things. This man who could stand up with authority and teach the Israelites – God's people – was just floundering to get his mind around what Jesus was saying.

And Jesus was simply saying, “Unless you're born of the Spirit … unless God's Spirit creates a new life in you and makes you a new person on the inside, you don't even know the beginning of the things of God.

[08:13] 

I want to say to you that wherever you are, whatever your relationship with God is or is not, because Jesus said no man can come to Him unless the Father draws him.

I'm assuming that the very fact that you're listening to this podcast is because you either know that you know God, or you are being drawn to God. And if you're being drawn to God, I ask you to open your heart to Him … to open your heart to what I'm saying right now … to let God's spirit make Him real, even through the words that I'm speaking to you. So that you know that this living God is someone with whom you are in relationship – someone to whom your eyes have been opened.

Don't try and conceive of God. One of the things I often think of when I'm with somebody that I know is not a believer – if I say to this person … if I say the word ‘God’ or if I say the word ‘Church’ or anything like that – I've got no idea what their minds will conjure up. A lot of it will be because of things either that they don't know or things that they've experienced. 

But I know who I'm talking about. I know the living God because He came into my life many years ago and transformed me. And he wants to do that for everybody who will come to Him and respond to Him.

[09:49] 

But to do that, believe me, you've got to drop every other preconception. 

And I'm talking to you – if you are at all what you would call yourself a Christian – to be sure that you have actually let go of all the normal mind concepts of God and opened your heart to Him.

Just think of that verse again, that I quoted before. “The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”

Now, the knowledge of the glory of the Lord … of the glory of God … that's going to cover this whole earth, is something beyond human comprehension!

It's not like suddenly a whole lot of people know a lot more information about God. It is, a whole lot of people will be overwhelmed by the reality of God. They will know God. They will see God for who He is.

“The knowledge of the glory of God …”  

To experience the glory of God. To experience the greatness and the power, the majesty and the love – beyond anything that we know of God, sweeps everything else away!

[11:16] 

Now, God is preparing for Himself today, in these days in which we live, people called by Him to be people who are a people who will glorify Him in this world.

Back in the Old Testament, when God called Abraham and He promised him a whole lot of descendants, that would be like the sand on the seashore and like the stars of the sky. 

He was always wanting a people for Himself. And because Abraham was a faithful man that responded to God, and kept responding to God, God entrusted that to him.

Now in these days, God is calling people to Himself. Because right back there in those early days, historically, of the Old Testament, they were still beginning days. But today we're coming to end days – the days when God is moving to wrap everything up.

And don't you worry … God will be glorified! This verse from Habakkuk … He's not saying it might happen. It will happen! 

I believe with all my heart – I know with all my heart – that God is going to be glorified in this world!

I know with all my heart that God is going to get back the world that the devil hijacked when he led Adam and Eve into sin in the Garden of Eden.

He will have His world back and he will have a people for Himself. And those people will be those who respond to Him for who He is.

[12:55] 

I know from my own ongoing and wonderful experience – personal experience – of God, that you can know Him for who He really is, beyond anything that your mind can comprehend, and beyond anything that you can actually adequately verbalize or describe. 

Just like when I, when I come to make these podcasts, I know the things that are in my heart, but I'm always praying that what is in my heart – way beyond the words that I speak – will touch your heart. Because the reality of God is so immense.

But our human ability to put that together and you can't study God, you can't put God under a microscope, you can't describe God within the covers of, not one book but a million books, and say, “Just devour that. Read that. Digest it, and you'll know everything there is.”

Jesus said to Nicodemus, “You must be born by the Spirit of God”. Those who are led by the Spirit of God are God's sons, or God's children. And when God's Spirit not only comes into your heart, but when you allow the Spirit of God to flourish in your heart, what you discover is that something much bigger than you is alive within you.

[14:19] 

I can't understand how the God of the whole universe who, if you like to think in physical terms – like God holds this universe in the palm of His Hand. How the God of the universe actually fills my life. I mean … how can that be? Because we're not talking about physical limitations, that's how.

We’re not talking about physical things. We're talking about spiritual things.

And God fills our lives, and fills us, and fills us, and fills us – and leads us … if only we are abandoned to Him and believe in Him. This is not Christianity as we normally know it. This is not religion as we normally know it.

You see, if you try to have a belief in God without this relationship with God, then you have religion.

Religion is a terrible, terrible substitute for relationship with God. Religion has to have systems. Religion has to have everything defined because it's a man-made system.

That's what Jesus came up against in His day. Something that had begun with God – begun with people like Abraham and Moses and men of God who God called, and responded to God. 

And then became so rigid, so set, that men had to define it and control it and preserve it, which is why they finally crucified Jesus.

[15:52] 

I want to fill your heart with hope. Firstly concerning yourself, and secondly concerning this world. Because many Christians, many believers, despair when they see what's happening in this world.

I'm telling you this, not just because it's written in the Bible. As I often say: these words are not true because they're in the Bible. They're in the Bible because they are true.

And these words that say, “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God,” are the truth.

They're the truth for you.

They're the truth of what will happen.

They're something that you have a privilege to be a part of and share in.

Some Christians – many Christians - who even believe that God is going to wrap everything up, and God will have His world back and God's kingdom will come, are kind of expecting to be spectators.  Sort of in the grandstands, in the arena, watching God do His stuff.

But we are not called to be spectators. We are called to be participators. We are called to be a part of what God is doing.

You don't have to even understand what that means. But if you are willing to put your life in His hands, then He will be free to be glorified in and through you. Yes, humble you, ordinary you, human you with all your limitations! There is no telling how God will be glorified in your life, and my life. 

We don't have to even be able to think about that, let alone figure it out in any way. But if you give God the freedom to be yourGod… There's a wonderful verse in the Old Testament, in Daniel, that talks about: “the people who know their God shall be strong and do exploits”. I don't even know what that means. But I know it thrills me, because I know it's true!

[17:51]

I know my God. I love knowing Him more, and more, and more, and more, all the time. And I want you to know my God … who wants to be your God if you open your heart to Him.

I don't know what the details of your life are. I don't know how God wants to be glorified in your life. But I want to encourage you to settle for nothing less than what God wants for you.

Don't ask Him for a script. Don't ask Him for a preview. Give Him your life.

Keep abandoning your life to Him and let God be glorified in your life.

This earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God.

I know it. I'm thrilled about it. And I'm so glad that I have the privilege to be a part of what God is doing.

Not because of anything about me, other than I want Him with all my heart, with all my mind, with all my soul and all my strength. I love Him like that.

May you love Him like that, too.

Now, I want to leave you with that. I want to urge you: just stop and just know what is going on inside your heart. And if your heart is responding to God, tell Him so … tell Him. Ask Him to make these things real.

I never want to convince anybody of anything. But oh, I really, really do want everybody – everybody who will – to know Jesus … to know God … and to be His in every way.