Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

The Christmas story is so ingrained in us that we could go nearly recite it if we were asked to.

At least we would be able to get all the details and probably close to the order in which they happened.

And it can be so familiar that it loses its grip on our hearts.

We can become so familiar with it, that we overlook, what seems like, mere details.

Yet, one of the greatest events—second only to the death and resurrection of Jesus—does not contain just mere details.

No words were wasted when it came to telling of the birth of God the Son.

That includes the glory of God that Luke writes about.

The people of Israel longed to see God’s glory again.

Only a few shepherds beheld God’s glory as it wrapped around them on the hill.

But more astonishingly, they gazed upon that glory as it was wrapped in swaddling clothes.

And as we look at this portion of the Advent story, I hope we begin to long to see God’s glory even as Moses longed for it.

Perhaps the best way to do that is to focus on attributes that describe God’s glory.

God’s Glory is Devouring and Dazzling

God’s Glory is Directing and Defending

God’s Glory is Distant

God’s Glory is Delivered

God’s Glory is Devouring and Dazzling

As we study these attributes, we need to first focus on the fact that God’s glory is a devouring glory and a dazzling glory depending on how you approach it.

Do we approach it in faith and faithfulness or not?

Look at how the people of Israel saw God’s glory on Mt.

Sinai.

For a few days now, the glory of God had been leading the people of Israel through the wilderness as a pillar of fire by night and a cloud by day.

Now it rested on top of Mt.

Sinai and it was into this devouring fire of glory that God called Moses to join him for forty days.

And it was from this devouring fire of glory that Moses would go in and out whenever he spoke to God.

And being in the presence of such dazzling glory, caused his own face to shine.

Moses who walked in faithfulness, came out with face shining.

Yet when Aaron’s sons walked faithlessly, making unauthorized incense at the dedication of the tabernacle in the presence of God’s glory, we read:

God’s glory is at once dazzling and devouring; dazzling to faithful Moses to the point his face shined, but it was devouring to faithless Nadab and Abihu.

Sadly, there are many Nadabs and Abihus in churches today, who think they can act faithlessly and not be devoured by God’s glory.

Beloved, we who are nearest to God—by the blood of Jesus—be dazzled by God’s glory and so walk faithfully by working our jobs, serving our loved ones, and seeking the good of our neighbors, showing God as holy that he would be glorified.

As Jesus would say:

And by walking faithfully, I mean walking by faith—living in the power of the Holy Spirit by faith.

What we began in the Spirit by faith, must be completed in the Spirit by faith.

God’s Glory is Directing and Defending

God’s glory is more than devouring or dazzling; it is directing and defending.

I put these two together because they are two sides of the same coin when we see God’s pillar of fire and cloud.

It was this pillar that led the people of Israel through the wilderness.

As Moses would write at the very end of Exodus:

It was God in his glory that directed Israel in her way.

But it also defended Israel.

Remember it was God’s glory that stood between the people of Israel and Pharaoh’s army.

It was Isaiah who told of the pillar of fire and clouds coming again to defend Israel from its enemies.

As Gary Smith wrote, “God’s glory is imaginatively pictured as a shelter or refuge from the harshness of the weather.

These symbols represent any danger that might threaten the people of God.

God is there to care for and to protect his people.”

We live in a world which rejects the glory of God.

The vast majority refuse to walk in the light of God’s glory.

Yet, we are promised, beloved that if we walk in the light as he is in the light we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all unrighteousness.

God’s Glory is Distant

Along with the idea that God’s glory was directing and defending, comes the idea that God’s glory was near.

God’s glory dwelt among the people.

As we saw, God’s glory was in the tabernacle.

It was only when it came out and moved that Israel would follow after it.

But something happened.

After God’s glory dwelled with Israel for hundreds of years, at first in the tabernacle and then the temple, it left.

And so God’s glory is distant.

The people of Israel and Judah had rebelled against their God for so long, that he gave them what they wanted: life without him or his glory.

No more direction.

No more defense.

No more dwelling.

Many remember that Malachi was the last prophet of God.

And so we know God remained silent for four-hundred years.

But we often forget that God’s glory left nearly 200 years before then and had not returned.

Ezekiel had prophesied that it would return, but it had yet to do so.

God, his glory, his word, was so distant to the people of Israel.

The same can be said about today.

God, his glory, his word, is so distant from billions around the world.

But he has called his church—his body—to represent him to this world and show how glorious he is.

We are the ones called to show that God does not have to be as distant as he seems.

That we were once in darkness too, but he called us out of the darkness of our sin and moved us into his marvelous, wonderful, amazing—dazzling light!

Those who remain in darkness can still experience what we have experienced.

God’s Glory is Delivered

Why can we make that claim?

Because God’s glory is not only devouring and dazzling.

It is not only directing and defending.

It’s not only distant from those who walk in darkness.

God’s glory has been delivered.

The people of Israel longed to see God’s glory again.

Only a few shepherds beheld God’s glory as it wrapped around them on the hill.

But more astonishingly, they gazed upon that glory as it was wrapped in swaddling clothes.

For hundreds of years, God’s glory was prophesied to return and for hundred’s of years it had not come.

Suddenly, on Shepherd’s Hill, an angel appears and the glory of the Lord shone around them.

Often we focus on the angels that appeared on the hill.

But the angel is just a servant, a messenger to the shepherds to tell of the good news to all the people.

The focus is on the message and the message is glorious because what God was doing was glorious.

God send the Savior of the world.

He sent the Messiah—the Christ—of Israel.

He sent the Lord, very God of very God.

And so the angel is joined by his fellow angels to give glory to God.

They angels glorified God because they understood how glorious he was and how glorious his plan was to save the world.

They delighted in it.

John Piper has quoted many times C. S. Lewis’ explanation of what it means to praise and glorify God and I want to pass it along to you.

“I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation.

It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed.

It is frustrating to have discovered a new author and not to be able to tell anyone how good he is; to come suddenly, at the turn of the road, upon some mountain valley of unexpected grandeur and then to have to keep silent because the people with you care for it no more than for a tin can in the ditch; to hear a good joke and find no one to share it with. . . .

The Scotch catechism says that man’s chief end is ‘to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.’

But we shall then know that these are the same thing.

Fully to enjoy is to glorify.