The Hope of Glory

as you're making your way back to your seat shake someone's hand as you're being seated i would i would like to extend honor where honor is to you pastor and sister sloan who have had the opportunity and to go and minister to to a a gentleman who preached for us not too long ago brother vitanza uh out in north carolina and he they're they're ministering to their churches today and with that someone draws a short straw uh no it's an honor i i'm not i'm not meaning to that i want to give honor to them for allowing trusting me to be in the pulpit guys that is i'm telling y'all it's the scariest thing in the world i know i've said it i probably every time because it scares me to death every single time honestly like it just does but i'm very thankful for them and for the leadership they provide i i don't know if y'all can feel it or not but you can always feel right when the pastor because the pastor i feel like carries a different type of burden and it doesn't mean he drops it when he leaves but when he ain't here i think it's a little more noticeable to us isn't it i noticed some of y'all praying a little extra hard you know everybody's like god please show up me too but i want as you're being seated i want to give honor to everyone that has done what it takes for us to get to this point in time we've had sunday school this morning but then we've had greeters we've had security we've had musicians that practice from the wee early hours of the morning we've had prayer we've had production all of that everyone just does it for fun that's it that's the only reason right no they do it to be a church a body of christ and i thank you so much for allowing me to just talk to you for a moment to preach to you because that's a lot of hard work guys and if i if if i come up here in myself and i waste your time just shoot me right but i have prayed i've sought god today god what it empty me of me sister jennifer asked me she was like you you ready i was like well i don't know about that she's like is god ready as a you better hope so because if not we will be in a mess but i know something that god has moved on us this morning have you felt him like i felt him i ain't trying to be super spiritual just because i'm preaching but man let me tell you you can feel it when the anointing just settles into a place can't you i'm thankful for that but not to deconstruct that but to get us to where we're going today i brought a bean bag so whenever whenever you get tired and sleepy just come up here and take a nap it's great for it honestly this thing it is the centerpiece of our furniture at home last year i got a i got a weird hairs before i got married right so i was like i can sell all that i have and don't have to worry i think this is gonna be the last time in my life that i can do this i just sold it that's facebook marketplace and soda i was like i want a bean bag and that was that was it that was all i had for a while ethan was like dude what are you doing we were roommates at the time so but i i got it and we'll we'll get to it the kids i told them they're going to have to do a wwe somebody's going to jump off the top and land on it all right so jedi where are you at bud i'm just kidding i'm just kidding the ever since the sin of adam man has been separated from being able to freely walk with god in in the sense of being in a free relationship or covenant with god right he's he's instituted different things since then to be able to commune but freely walk with god daily adam was the first man he was the only one able to do that and when he sinned it was as though he lost his best friend you ever done that do you remember the first friend you lost like school right it's always like kindergarten i don't want to be your friend anymore the worst day ever and maybe we've done that to someone else and you know that's life maybe we shouldn't do it anymore i don't know but when you lose a friend there's a feeling that accompanies that the feeling of dejection anger emptiness spite hurt or just plain sadness we we get sad it leaves a void in us and as we go through life we will encounter these feelings many different times many different ways it changes relationships change those it just happens sometimes we learn coping mechanisms such as bottling it up who's a bottler up in here yeah and then like one day you're like someone like and you're like what is the matter with you don't point what's the matter with you we bottled it up or some of us it's it's outward expressions um whatever that is maybe it's shopping i don't know or trash talking fighting physically fighting um basically any type of vice right people run to vices for coping mechanisms if we're just being real i don't want to deal with my problem right now so let me distract myself to feel that void that void and here's the thing though then we start to well let's get a little healthier with it right and that's fine that's good it we should we shouldn't all like go and gamble all we own every time we get a little sad right like we we probably shouldn't do that it's not very good but we'll we'll then we'll put a lot of pressure on a friend this friend needs to fill this void in my life or a mate spouse or children even you ever seen anyone living uh vicariously thank you through their children like you're gonna be the best in the world at baseball and this kid's got like one arm and you're like maybe he's not gonna be the best at baseball you know not making fun of the kid but the parent there like maybe he's not gonna be the best at this sport or you're gonna be the world's fastest swimmer and like the kids like wearing floaties in a three-foot pool so you're like i don't know you know those those types of pressures then maybe someone puts their to try and feel that a lot of times especially as americans we become workaholics instead of alcoholics we're like man eight thousand hours a week i can do it yeah it happens and it grabs ahold of us but at some point in time in our life it may be on our deathbed but we're going to get to the end of the day and we're going to know that it's not going to be there all right now i brought the bean bag y'all should have seen me trying to get in the car this morning i almost was like but i got i got a couple boys israel where you at jedi israel come on where you guys at connor all right now i need you guys to help me for a minute all right so let's make sure we're not going to fall on anything come here no y'all come over this side all right because can everybody see it all right you got the idea all right connor mccade yeah yeah you're supposed to come too sorry bud all right you know where you're supposed to be yeah you do you got that sign all right how many has ever done a trust fall we did it today all right stand over here mckay all right connor come on you're going to be trusting today come on all right boys you got to get line up on each side all right put your arms out now catch him wait wait wait wait all right come this way all right now close your eyes put your hands up all right go oh you called him all right let him go further down you gotta let him get a little further down all right one more time all right catch him oh okay all right all right come on now to die i need you to do something i need you boys to keep doing that for just a minute all right all right now when we put our trust in something we expect it to catch us but then go ahead connor go ahead they miss our job fails come on you got to push him you got to time him you timing push him not not shove him hard our job fails our relationships fail and we don't have a big soft cushion here right you're like so all the time that we spent investing in working a thousand hours a week all the time we spent saving for retirement no y'all keep going all the time that we spend investing in social circles all the time that our purpose our passion we thought it was going to save us it keeps falling all right now let me remove the beanbag why don't you why don't you want to follow that why it'll hurt you don't trust those guys to catch you you want to remove it and let them see if they'll catch you you don't trust them thank you boys thank you why don't you trust them give them a hand you see we live in a society that as we we go we focus we do and we see generation after generation right i i know some things that my parents did that i'm like man i really don't want to do that and i know they did something they they had that same thought in their mind right so if i may there was a generation maybe that trusted in the work of their hands they said if we go to work for 40 years every day same company we're going to have a good retirement and that's the way we're going to live but then those companies started filing for bankruptcy and somebody spent 40 years of their life was left with nothing that'll break you want it 40 years of your life then then there was another generation that said well you know what we're not gonna we're gonna work hard but we're gonna put all our trust in maybe our hobbies we're gonna fish our life away we're going to because if i make dad worked his life away i'm going to have fun with it i'm going to fish my life away i'm going to i'm going to and those hobbies then become to consume all the extra time all the extra energy all the extra money and it left them with nothing at the end of the day now we're at a generation if i'm not that i saw a generation the generations before them trust in work or trust in hobbies or trust in church and churches are people are part of people or people are part of churches and churches fail all right we're called to be the body but we fail that's that's just it church hurt is a real thing and the distrust in those institutions make it feel as though there is no trust to be had in anything we live in a postmodern society people question the very foundations that we thought we could we could trust in the culture of today is i'm not going to trust anything i'll just trust in myself right i can do it you can't tell me anything i can't trust you because someone abused them or someone let them down and it hurt and so anything it feels like there's no safety net for them to fall into they are a generation that does not trust and it's not their fault if i may add like i'm not trying to excuse them because i don't i don't want to just polite a bunch of you know but it's not it they didn't do it to themselves it's a situation of circumstances of generation after generation putting their trust in something that is going to fail so we've got a we have got a nation a culture of people a whole a whole nation almost that will either put their trust in a political candidate or nothing at all and that's it and what they don't know is that's gonna fail too and then we get there and then they can't even trust themselves because they can't make up their mind who they are or what they are okay and the reason is because nothing they've ever touched has ever been stable nothing has ever been there nothing has ever been solid because they put their trust in man i talked with i talked with a gentleman or lauren and i talked with the gentleman here the other day who and and understand what i'm saying this man he's a little older good man he's the type of man that you i don't know that he's kind of funny and so we were we were talking with him he got to telling us about his family about himself and turns out that his father served in world war ii his grandfather served in world war one i think he had a great guarantor that served in this in the civil war he had uh uh on down the line they traced it back to one that had served in the revolutionary where he himself had served in the vietnam war and this man he's older now obviously and he is disillusioned with where the country's at he has a vested interest in our country he has put his blood sweat and tears into it and he says i don't understand i was raised this way i was at church i was i went to prayer meetings i've done these things and maybe i've gotten away from it but now that no one even does that at the end of his life as he's getting older he's looking and seeing what have i accomplished what did i watch my buddies die for and why and he's coming up with with really not a whole lot and in fact as we were talking to him it was comical he's a little bit uh just says what he wants to say so it's always a little funny you know as long as you're just very careful about it and you don't laugh too hard i guess you're all right he he is he's just that and i can't i'm not going to correct him he's my elder or whatever and it's kind of funny i couldn't argue with a lot of the things he said but he said it from a a point of pure despair he had had family members dying and you know that happens but this was just an overall outlook this is where i'm at in life i'm retired i've i've worked my time i've got my retirement i'm blessed but what was the end i'll tell you everything we do it's going to end that it's going to end that way the u.s of a is not going to last forever right i mean we're blessed but it ain't going to last forever at some point in time in the history of man it will go away western civilization the culture that we have grown up in or the culture that we know it will disappear because it's all man-made there was in exodus chapter 33 we find that moses is talking with god this is after exodus 32 exodus 32 the golden calf that he'd come off the mountain and the people were worshiping the golden calf and he had ten commandments and he just threw him down he was like what am i even doing so then he went and interceded for the people on god's behalf or he went in leadership with god on the people's behalf i don't know if you've ever interceded for something but man let me just tell you it'll leave you feeling empty you'll be empty as empty can be how am i even going to take my next breath imagine interceding for millions of people this guy was he was running on negative and so in exodus chapter 33 he's talking with god god what can i what can i do you know i i i want to know why i am doing this i want to know what i am doing because i'm i put my blood sweat and tears into this people for your name sake can you show me a little bit about yourself exodus 33 verse 17 and the lord said to moses the very thing that you have spoken i will do for you have found favor in my sight and i know you by name verse 18 moses said please show me your glory now if i may this is the only proper response to an encounter with almighty god god i want more that's it he's he moses and he goes on god says in verse verse 19 he said i will make all my goodness pass before you and i will proclaim before you my name the lord and i will be gracious to whom i will be gracious to and will show mercy on who i will show mercy to but god said but you cannot see my face for for man shall not see me and live all right so he says i'm gonna pass before you now moses is down and out he is indeed he is he's talking with god but he's trying to figure out the purpose for it so god says let me do something for you he says let me show you my goodness i can't show you my glory let me show you my goodness now i want to step into something here because moses is responsible for r for compiling writing the pentateuch the history of the world so to speak or the history of creation when he done this he had to know what he was talking about so he god said let me show you my past let me show you my goodness things like on the first day god created and it was good on the second day god created and it was on the third day it was on the fourth day it was on the fifth day it was and on the sixth day it was very good god said let me show you my goodness now i wanna i wanna visit that for just a minute because when you're down and out just think on the goodness of god when you're struggling and when you ain't got nothing else and you're running on empty god i know what you did for me i know i'm here in your house today because of your mercy and because of your grace if it had not been for you lord i'd be dead laying in a gutter right now if it had not been for you lord i would not be here the goodness of god will sustain you but it won't give you purpose it will sustain you so he said i cannot show you my glory i can't show you what i'm going to do i can sustain you moses i'll give you just enough and i know you want more but i can't show you everything you cannot see my face first peter i if i if i may the literary analysis of this maybe not a maybe not the best one but if he shows him the past and he shows him the goodness then his face allegorically is going to be looking to the future right because in first peter 1 it says something concerning this salvation the prophets who prosecute crucified prophesied all right about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully inquiring what person or time the spirit of christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of christ and the significant glories the subsequent subsequent glories it was revealed to them that they were serving not for themselves but for you and the things that you had that have now been announced to you through through those who preach the good news to you by the holy spirit sent from heaven things into which the angels long to look second corinthians 4 6 4 god who said let light shine out of darkness has shone into our hearts get to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of god in the face of christ jesus he said what moses was wanting and what moses was hungering after after talking and searching with god and talking face to face with him but he could not see his glory let me tell you something ladies and gentlemen you have an opportunity today to not have to just rely on the goodness of god to sustain you you've got the opportunity today to walk in the glory of almighty god you've got an opportunity today to walk in his goodness and his mercy and his grace talking with him face to face come on now now how can we talk to god face to face because no man can talk to god face to face and live we can't the bible can't contradict itself or it's not the bible right john 20 verse 7 and the face cloth which had been on jesus's head not lying with the linen cloths but folded in a place by itself verse seven folded in a place by itself the noted separation of the paint the face cloth could have been an indication and i think it was that god was ready to reveal his glory i think that that when he made the extra effort he said this is a nugget for maybe samuel to find later on and give him something to preach about but this i'm ready to show it now i i'm not going to go into it too much because when they saw him they didn't recognize him he had to prove to them this is who i am so something about him changed but then he goes on down and he says i'm not everything's not done i've got 40 days and i'm going to be with you and then i'm going to leave you you know i've got 10 days 10 days i got my numbers mixed up there y'all he had 10 days he spent 50 days good lord jesus have mercy y'all this is what i was nervous about right he had a he had a bit of time to spend teaching his disciples and showing them what he was going to do because on the day of pentecost when he wasn't there he sent his spirit now that spirit was what they were looking for because they weren't just looking for a christ to to die and to rise again but they were looking for something that revealed unto them the greater ways of god almighty that revealed unto them that is closer and deeper than anything possibly can be for in for for in colossians 1 and 26 the mystery hidden for the ages and generations but now revealed to his saints to them god chose to make known how great among the gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery which is in you the hope of glory let me tell you something we can be like moses and we can be like that man i met the other day and got to talk to and we can get all messed up thinking about how things used to be we can get all discouraged and thinking about how how the world was in in in and romanticize the past if we want but not me because i've got something that is greater than anything else in the world i've got the hope of glory i've got the hope that passes all understanding i've got the peace that goes deeper and greater and wider oh come on somebody aren't you thankful aren't you thankful for the love that jesus has revealed unto you aren't you thankful for the mercy that is revealed unto you our spirit can be renewed we can be sustained on the goodness of god but we can go forward and walk in something when god steps into our hearts and steps into our minds now how i asked the question earlier and i didn't fully finish it how can we see the glory of god how do we do that we're not alive but john 3. you know where i'm going with this he said you must be born again so to be born again you got to die you got to be buried in the water and you got to be raised again but then of the water and of the spirit somebody hear me now you can you can be in being baptized it looks a little silly and i'll give you that i'll give you that it looks a little silly but we can get by with it we're like okay it's not that big of a commitment to be baptized per se but when it comes to the holy ghost you've got to be born again of the spirit that's no easy thing now i'm coming to a close if you you stand with me the spirit part of this is something that i struggled with i stubborn y'all couldn't imagine that that's pretty stubborn i i received the holy ghost at six but i didn't really remember it honestly i mean honestly i'm six years old what do you remember from six you know like maybe it was five i don't i don't remember the exact age i just remember i got the holy ghost and that was that was it and for years after that i i knew i had the holy ghost but there's always that voice you don't have the holy ghost i think that's why god gave us a sign wasn't it but he and i i prayed i would pray i would pray i would pray and every now and then i would feel i would i would it would be like i would i would speak your tone just a little bit all right and now i wasn't and maybe that was my problem i was praying to speak in tongues or something i didn't probably understand what i was asking for but eventually i got to the point i was in a service and i wasn't even in the front you can believe that you you don't even have to be in the front of a of church to get something from god and i remember i lifted up my hands and the spirit of god was moving over it and it was like he unlocked something in me that was different it was it was i wasn't just a kid anymore it was something more it was it was it was something that i cognitively had to work through now there's there's two ways two things about this one you can you can have the holy ghost and you may be like i don't want to say the man's name i want him to come across this this on live stream and think i'm picking on him but you can be like the man i met her earlier this past week he had done some good things but in his old age i don't know about y'all but in my old age i'm getting pretty containerous i tell lauren it's because she's so sweet and nice i have to balance it out and it's just going to get worse from here i'm just going to get to be a contankerous old man y'all can't wait but containers old man just can't find good in anything right everybody knows one all right don't point but everybody knows one because he's just relying on the things of the past just well i did this i did that but there's something about the spirit that says be born again that's why we need a refreshing doesn't matter how long we've been in church it doesn't matter how long we always need a refreshing because that there's something about that when it just grows a little still a little stale we'll get a little cantankerous and we'll start thinking about the hope of yesteryear instead of the hope of glory and we'll forget that while we're here on heaven or here on earth we've got some heaven to get to and everything becomes a little cantankerous now i've used old men just because i'll be one one day so i can pick on them a little bit maybe hopefully i'll be one one day but every one of us have that we can get stale and cold and bitter and cantankerous and just downright hateful god i need you to work a new work in me because that glory is so beautiful and so optimistic and so mighty and so great that glory god i need the taste of it again and then there's the second part of that is initially getting the holy ghost now it's every time but the first time's always the hardest to me it because it involves something that you cannot do right we're not saved by our works we can't save ourselves but our salvation is tied up in us doing absolutely nothing to that point to we're with god and we lay our will down say god break it that i think that was where i had to get to mentally for me to be able to see that to really understand god it's not me it's you the wheel of a man or a human is one of the hardest things in the world to break you can look at if we want to look back at the holocaust people starved to death 50 pounds grown men and women 50 pounds 60 pounds 70 pounds skin and bones and they can't even walk somebody have to come up and just give them some super to kill them but they're still hanging on to life you tell me that's not some grit and some will and that serves us great in everything else in the world we need that for our job we need that to survive we need that and that's what makes us human but that's what god says i need you to lay down my opinion my will my desire god that's the hardest thing in the world for me to do and it does it if i may as a man it's easy to what can i do where can i put this but it's not that it's god i can't do it i can't put it somewhere i can't carry it i can't do it on my own i need a savior and i'm closing today would you gather around this altar and i don't care if it's your first time or if it's your last or if it's your eight thousandths time gathering around an altar break your will before god today trust in him when all of these things fail this world is going to pass away relationships are going to pass away jobs are going to end hobbies will leave you feeling empty education will leave you feeling foolish all those things will end and pass away but god will forever be here one of these days everything's going to melt in a fervent heat and the only thing there is going to be is you and god why don't you talk with him just a minute you don't want that to be the first time you talked with him face to face you want to commune with him god i need you today i need your mercy today i lay down my will i lay down my heart i lay down my mind i trust you lord i can't trust anything in this world but i can trust you i can hope in you i know there's a better tomorrow because of you god i lay down my heart i lay down my mind and if you've never received the holy ghost there is a sign that follows and it's the sound of tongues because the tongue can't be tamed by you but god can somebody surrender your heart somebody surrender your body your mind your your tongue god i give it to you i can't control this thing i can't carry this weight this separation i can't carry this voice oh my hope in the world is gonna fail but god i need you today i need your mercy and your grace your glory god is is is let us become more aware of your presence the glory of your goodness let us become no aware of your presence let us experience the glory of your goodness let us become more aware of your let us become more aware of your presence let us experience the glory of your goodness is overcome by your presence but you're thankful for the hope of glory as as we're leaving today i want us to remember something that for ages and ages the prophets the men of god they hoped for what we have and guess what there's a world full of people missing something they don't know it's up to us guys it's an awesome responsibility to be able to say you've got some hope there's going to be a world that is more broken than it is today and there's going to be some people that need to know about jesus as as we're leaving as we're being dismissed if you can let's lift up our hands one more time put your hand on your neighbor whatever's appropriate god ask you lord to move on us god help us lord as a body to shine forth the light of your glory lord help us lord to to it not be in in distinction of just dress let us not rely on that crutch but let us lord have the fruits of the spirit just pouring out of us lord we've got a world to show your hope and your glory too god help us lord as we go this week god put in our path or put our path in somebody else's way whatever we got to do god help us lord to have those encounters in those moments help us to recognize them to be nimble god that we can talk to someone about you lord that we can share your glory and we can be their safety net god will be so grateful and so thankful in jesus name we pray amen you're dismissed in jesus name thank you so much for your attention to the word of god