First off, have you ever defined the word Glory in a spiritual/Biblical sense? He was using a power point display and put a Bible dictionary definition for the word glory,
...honor stemming from visible and supernatural manifestation of the majesty of the Almighty God...
What he does that makes his sermons memorable is the use definitions like this in context of using the actually word, to demonstrate the need the for such a word. Imagine how cumbersome it would be to say "the angels came in all their honor stemming from the visible and supernatural manifestation from the Almighty God." That's a mouthful, but shows us the need for a five letter word like Glory.
As is a staple in his sermons, he gave us the title and four parameters or points for us to understand the title and the charge of Ever Increasing Glory from II Corinthians 3:18. At first I said to myself, I've heard this one before, but in all honesty, I don't remember anything more than the title itself. The points were easy to understand, but difficult for the hard of hearts. For the soft hearted, it was encouraging and a gentle push to keep calling ourselves higher for God.
First point, Ever Growing Righteousness, II Timothy 2:20-22. We are a vessel or tool for God to use, but if we are filled with filth or not soft in heart, how could God ever use us? For a professional cook, like myself, it's like going into work and all the saute pans and sheet pans are dirty, I can't make a single thing until I clean the pans first, if you want tasty food fast.
Second point, Everlasting Love, I Thessalonians 2:17-20. The call is a return to Discipleship with a focus on one an other relationships more like the paradigm outlined in the Epistles versus the Gospels. The Gospels shows us Jesus with the 12 Apostles as a vertical relationship, which is where our fellowship of churches are moving away from and moving more toward a peer or horizontal accountability partnership.
Third point, Everdeepening Faith, Romans 4:17-21. The biggest take away for me was this, "if God can do it, so you can do it." Find what area in my life I find faithless in and get after changing that, because your faith is a deep as the weakest area of your faith.
Finally, Ever Expanding Dreams, Ephesians 3:20-21. The challenge is to have great and incredible dreams that will only be achieved by God's hand and not ours. He said, as we age in our spirituality, we tend to allow our dreams to shrink, and to find those off the wall dreams and fan them back into flames.
So that's what I learned from the sermon yesterday, I'm just hoping to step up my life for God in greater ways to increase God's Glory.
