May 5, 2024
The Crown of Glory
Exodus 34:5-8
It’s been said that if you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans. I’m a walking testimony to that this week. My plan for today was to finish up our sermon series on the crowns by speaking on the final two crowns and what we are supposed to do with them once we have earned them. Then this week's focus is on Mother’s Day (now you can’t say you weren’t warned) and start a new series the week after that. However God made it very clear to me that’s not what He wants for us this morning. Therefore this morning we will just be looking at just one of the crowns and then if the Lord allows (James 4:15), we will have our Mother’s Day service next week (Hint, Hint). Then we’ll finish off this series the week after. Now let’s look at the crown God wanted us to look at exclusively today ― Crown of Glory.
We see the Crown of Glory mentioned in only one place in scripture (like many of the other crowns). This time it’s not Paul who is speaking of the crown, but rather it is the Apostle Peter who speaks of the Crown of Glory. He does so when he is encouraging Pastors in 1 Peter 5:4 when he says, “And when the Great Shepherd appears, you will receive a crown of never-ending glory and honor.” This crown is not only promised to Pastors, but to all who believe in Jesus as their Lord and Savior (2 Thess. 2:14). Just like the righteousness that was talked about with the Crown of Righteousness last week, this glory that the crown represents is shared and imputed unto us as well. It’s a glory that we experience at salvation (John 17:22), it’s a glory that we grow in as a follower of Jesus (1 Corinthians 6:19-20), and it’s a glory that we will see in its entirety when we get to heaven (John 17:24). Even the lost get to experience the glory of God because the entire Earth is filled with His glory right now (Isaiah 6:3). What exactly is God’s Glory? It’s a phrase we use many times at church and in our Bible studies, but I’d venture to bet that very few of us could really describe its true meaning when it comes to describing God. The word literally means “weightiness or heaviness” in the Hebrew, but out of the 376 times it’s used in the Old Testament we see it used only twice in its literal sense. The more you dig into Scripture to understand the glory of God, the more you will struggle to come up with a simple definition of the word. Jonathan Edwards (The great preacher of the early 1700’s) struggled with this as well and thought that glory is not a definition, but rather a doctrine because how can you sum up God in a few simple sentences that are required for a definition. The Glory of God seems to be like an art mosaic. It has many facets that are all unique and add to the wonder of the overall picture. We don’t have enough time this morning (or possibly even in our lifetimes) to understand and study all of God’s Glory that He has revealed to us in the Scripture (and don’t forget there will be even more revealed when we get to Heaven). However we can start to understand what this Crown of Glory is all about, a great place to do that is in the book of Exodus when God’s Glory is center stage. We will be looking at Exodus 34 when we see God speaking with Moses about their upcoming journey to the promised land and Moses asks God personally to go with them on that journey. God replied that He would because He looks favorably upon Moses and knows Him intimately. It’s at that point in their conversation that Moses asks God to “Show me Your glory”. God says He will but not like how Moses had asked because He will have to hide him in the rock and shelter him by His hands so that Moses will only see God from behind because no one can see God’s face and live. It’s in the event that follows Moses' request that we can see a few (not all) of the facets of God’s glory revealed for the first time to Moses and to Israel.
God’s Radiant Glory. - Exodus 34:5
Then the Lord came down in a cloud and stood there with him; and he called out his own name, Yahweh.
Many times when we think about the Glory of God we think about His radiant glory. We see it literally many times throughout Scripture, like here in Exodus when God descended onto Mount Sinai and appeared as a consuming fire (Exodus 24:17). This cloud that came down to Moses was just like the one that led the children of Israel in the day and led them as a pillar of fire at night. Both were God’s glorious presence leading them. We even see His radiant glory at its fullest in the new Jerusalem described in Revelation. “And the city has no need of sun or moon, for the glory of God illuminates the city, and the Lamb is its light.” - Revelation 21:23. We also see God’s Radiant Glory figuratively in Scripture as well, especially when it comes to Jesus. In John 1:5, Jesus is proclaimed as the perfect light that shines into the darkness of sin and the darkness will never overcome it. Jesus, in one of His seven “I am” statements, states in John 8:12 says “I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you won’t have to walk in darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life.” While the literal radiant glory of God is probably one of least important of all the types of Glory we will see this morning, the figurative Radiant Glory that we see expressed in the light that only comes from Jesus is one of the most important because it’s in that light that we have life. This is definitely one of the connotations that are found when Peter speaks of the Crown of Glory, it’s the Light who saves us from the darkness of sin and it’s a never-ending glory that we will get to enjoy forever and ever.
God’s Revelatory Glory. - Exodus 34:6-7
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.
Every time we see a manifestation of God’s glory in Scripture, we see Him reveal more of His character and attributes. Every time it’s either through His words or His works. Here in this verse specifically, we see that He reveals Himself by His Word. The verse starts with God revealing and declaring His name for the first time, Yahweh, which many scholars believe means “He Brings into Existence Whatever Exists”. It’s with just a declaration of His name that God reveals He is the great creator of all. He is the uncaused first cause. He is all eternal one and those implications of that declaration go on and on and show us much more of His character, His power, and His position. This declaration, in and of itself, would be enough for Moses to ponder on for a lifetime and realize more and more about who God is, but He doesn’t stop there with His revelation of Himself. He declares His name twice. The word we translate as “Lord” is Yahweh. He is saying Yahweh, Yahweh and He does so to establish the importance of Him being the all-powerful and uncreated one. God is often seen as powerful and merciless especially in the Old Testament, but here God puts those notions to rest by revealing Himself as gracious and merciful. He gives people what they don’t deserve (Grace) and holds back the punishment that they did (Mercy). A major part of this conversation that Moses was having with God was his plea for God to travel with the stubbornly sinful people of Israel. God is giving him the answer to his request as He is revealing his Glory as a God who is merciful and gracious. That grace and mercy wasn’t only for Moses and those he was leading to the Promised Land. The grace and mercy of God is available to everyone because of the cross of Jesus that can be experienced by everyone who will call upon Jesus as their Lord. God then reveals that He is slow to anger. Moses needed to know this because the children of Israel were going to be a handful on their journey to the promised land. Knowing that God is slow to anger along with his grace and mercy. Moses would be able to rely on that attribute of God time and time again. Pastor Jon Courson says it this way “Although I give the Lord plenty of reason to be exasperated with me, but He doesn’t get uptight. He doesn’t drink coffee. He’s not wired. He has no ax to grind. He’s not wounded. He’s not trying to prove His point. He’s beyond patient. His long suffering.” He says He is filled with unfailing love (God is love - 1 John 14:6) and faithfulness (He will not leave you nor forsake you - Hebrews 13:5), and He lavishes these attributes upon thousands of generations. The idea is that His love and faithfulness are overflowing in a way that Moses and the children of Israel have never experienced before, nor will they ever experience outside of Him (The same is true for us as well). He declares that He is the only one who can forgive sins, but He does not excuse the guilty. This almost seems like an oxymoron, but this is a wonderful picture of how those who trust Jesus will be justified to God through the blood of Jesus Christ that was shed on the cross when He took the punishment for our sins. God was revealing that He is perfectly just and cannot just excuse the guilty, someone must pay the price in their place ― there must be a substitute. God continues this revelation by sharing the nature of sin and the fact that even though you can be forgiven, sin still has an impact and can last for a while in a family. There are many people who feel like this section of God’s revelation means that they must pay for the sins of their family, but that’s not what Scripture teaches. Ezekiel 18:2–4 is a great example of the fact that you are responsible for your own sin and not the sin of others. Each one will be held accountable for their own sin. Through Jesus we can all be forgiven no matter how great the sin, but there are still consequences for those sins.
Now this was the first time that God verbally declared these attributes to the world, but they were not the first time these attributes and characteristics were seen in the world. Romans 1:20 tells us that “For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities — his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.” We see from scripture that God’s glory is revealed in nature (Psalms 19:1-2) as well as in His Word (The Bible). No one has an excuse to say they didn’t know there was a God. The problem is people see this glory revealed in nature and they worship the creation instead of the creator (Romans 1:25). When we speak of the Crown of Glory in 1 Peter and we are thinking about the revelatory glory of God, we cannot help but think of it when we see the Great Shepherd. It’s the ultimate revelation of who He is, when we see Him face to face and all His attributes and character come shining through.
God’s Kingly Glory. - Exodus 34:8a
Moses immediately threw himself to the ground
Peter talks about the Crown of Glory as unending and as having honor. Honor is part of the next aspect of God’s Glory that we see in Moses’ encounter because after God showed him His Glory, we are told that Moses fell at His feet. This was an action that showed Moses’ submission to the sovereignty and lordship of God, Yahweh was Moses’ King. This wasn’t the only time we see the kingship of God spoken of in the book of Exodus. In Exodus 5:2 Pharoah calls into question the kingship of the God of Moses. By the time Exodus 10:16 rolls around and after the consequences of his sinfulness. Pharaoh changed his mind about the King of all the heavens and says that he has sinned against the Lord your God. We even see God’s Kingly Glory in the song of deliverance of the people of Israel recorded in Exodus 15 when God is called “the King who will reign forever and ever.” We even see this Kingly Glory revealed in the New Testament when Jesus returns in Revelation 19 and is riding on a white horse to set up his millennial kingdom. Not only does His robe have “King of King and Lord of Lord”, but He shows His Kingly Glory through His actions when He merely speaks and the war to end all wars is over before it even started. The Crown of Glory is given by the one who is supreme. There is none that is greater or higher than the one who will be awarded the crown.
God’s Praiseworthy Glory. - Exodus 34:8
Moses immediately threw himself to the ground and worshiped.
We give an invitation at the end of every Sunday service because every sermon should lead us to respond to God’s Glory. Revealed in His Word and that is because the Glory of God revealed always leads us to a response. When Moses beheld just a few of the facets of the Glory of God, he couldn’t help but respond in worship. This is true for all parts of God’s Glory that are ever revealed to us, everyone that we experience demands a response as soon as we are exposed to it and yes ignoring it is a response. It’s a negative response but a response, nonetheless. All throughout the Old and New Testament we see this played out time and time again God’s Glory is revealed, and the people respond sometimes in worship, sometimes not. What does praiseworthy glory have to do with the Crown of Glory? Well, you will have to wait till next week to see that.
Glory takes on many different forms in Scripture and we have seen very few today. There is one more I want to speak of that is the fact we are created to shine or reflect God’s Glory into this world (Matthew 5:16, Isaiah 43:7, Revelation 4:11, 1 Corinthians 6:20). How does one do that? I think we can do that by focusing on the Revelatory and the Kingly Glory of God. We can show God’s Kingly Glory by not only saying Jesus is Lord, but living a life fully and unashamedly surrendering to Him so that people see that we have submitted to Jesus as King of King and Lord of Lords. I think one of the most powerful ways is to reflect the attributes of God into our world. it’s how we bring light into the world as well. By showing compassion and mercy, God’s attributes shine through you. By being slow to anger, people will see Jesus in us. By showing love and faithfulness to the world, people will know we belong to Jesus. We can't forgive sin, but we can connect people with the One who can and with those who have experienced it and can testify of His goodness. This sermon has not done the Glory of God justice and what a 30-minute sermon could. Maybe this morning we have seen God revealed in His Word and we will leave this place ready to let God’s Glory shine through you, through your words, as well as your deeds, so we can connect people to Christ and His followers.
