Transcription
Christian influence we have on the planet at the moment. [Applause] And his life and his ministry speak profound volumes to each one of us in how to harness the meekness of God and the power of God to his glory. We salute him for the enormous testimony he provides for the body of Christ. A life of holiness and integrity and the power of the Holy Spirit. And to live this long and live without scandal and without a smear on his character, we honor the servant of God for who he is.
Tonight I address you on the subject of the great restorer. And there is no greater restorer than the man Jesus himself. In Luke chapter 19, after Jesus had had an encounter with Zakius and that man had had a profound transformation in his life, people were surprised that Jesus will go to the house of Zakayas. And in verse 9, Jesus said to Zakayas, "Today salvation has come to this house." And in verse 10, he says, "For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost."
The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. The Son of Man did not just come to seek and to save him who was lost, but that which was lost. That which was lost is not just the person that was lost, but what the person lost. That which was lost. And that which was lost is what the popular verse in Romans 3:23 talks about when it says all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. When Jesus comes into our lives, he restores glory. And that is what I'm going to address today.
The word glory is a very interesting word. It means weight. It means honor. It means brightness. It means majesty. It refers to the presence of God, the manifestation of God's power, and the majesty of God's kingdom. When we talk about God's glory, we are talking about the fullness of everything that he is and the weight that comes with his presence. This glory is what we have fallen short of as a result of sin. And it is that for which Jesus came to seek and to save. He came to restore glory to us.
The word restore is very interesting because it has a "re" which means again and a "store." That is a place where things are kept together. Jesus came to put back to the store that which the enemy has stolen from the store. When we read John 1:14, this is what the Bible says about Jesus. "And the Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us. And we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." We beheld His glory.
When Jesus was on the earth, everybody who saw Jesus saw the glory of God. When he healed the sick, that was the glory of God. When he walked on water, that was the glory of God. When he turned water into wine, that was the glory of God. When he stilled the storm, that was the glory of God. When he raised the dead, that was the glory of God. And when he walked on the earth, he was the only one who had that glory. The Bible says we saw his glory and the glory was the of the only begotten of the Father. His glory was seen, but it was only seen in him. The glory of God was so real in the life of Jesus. The power of God was so real in the life of Jesus. When people saw Jesus, they knew they had encountered something profound, something powerful, and something very significant.
And later on, after Jesus died and resurrected and went to heaven, the Apostle Peter, who was the one closest to Jesus physically in his earthly ministry, wrote in 2 Peter 1:16-18 talking about this glory. He says, "For we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received from God the Father honor and glory when such a voice came to him from the excellent glory: 'This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.' And we heard this voice which came from heaven when we were with him in the holy mountain."
Peter is saying that they were on a mountain and on that mountain they saw the glory of God physically and Peter says that glory came from the excellent glory that is from God the Father. God the Father showed glory and and there on the mountain saw the glory of God. Now for us to understand what Peter is talking about, we have to go to the mountain where he saw that glory so we can have a sense of what that glory looks like and the impact and the power of that glory.
So we go to Matthew chapter 17:1-2 and then later verse 5 and we see where that glory was manifested. And we read it says, "Now after six days Jesus took Peter, James and John his brother and led them up on a high mountain by themselves and he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the light, like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light." Then verse 5, "While he was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and suddenly a voice came out of the cloud, saying, 'This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.'"
Now, this is what Peter is talking about. He says, "We saw his glory. We saw the glory. The glory of God can be seen. And when it was seen, it had an effect on the person of Jesus Christ. And there are three things that the glory did about to Jesus." The Bible says first, his face shone like the sun. His face. That talks about personal transformation. The glory of God upon our face is is reflective of when we are transformed personally at the individual level. So a person with the glory of God, the first thing you're going to see is there is a new face, a shining face, a glorious face, a beautiful face, an overcoming face, a healthy face. The glory of God touches your face. And may that glory touch your face today. So that is how the glory was seen on the face of Jesus.
But that was not all. The glory also was manifested on his clothes. The Bible says that his clothes became white as the light. Now the clothes are not the person. The face is the man. The clothes are not the man. The clothes are external to the man. But when the glory touches him and touches his face, it touches also his clothes. In other words, when the glory of God touches your person, it also transforms your appearance. It transforms your public life. You cannot say I have the glory on my face, but there is no transformation of my clothes. Because the glory on the face must manifest in a transformed life. So there is personal transformation, there is public transformation. And when the clothes began to shine, Peter saw it. James saw it. John saw it. The face is affected by glory. Clothes affected by glory.
And the third thing that happens is that there is a bright cloud. A cloud talks about atmosphere. The atmosphere was transformed. So there is a transformation of the face, transformation of the clothes, transformation of the atmosphere. The glory of God when it comes upon our lives touches your face, you change personally. Touches your clothes, you change in your public life. But not only that, also changes the atmosphere that you operate under. So wherever you go, glory goes. When you sit in the office, glory is in the office. When you sit in the bus, glory is in the bus. When you drive your car, glory is driving the car. You cannot go anywhere without the glory of God because it's on your face. It's on your clothes. It's in the cloud around you.
But all this thing that happened, it happened only to Jesus. Jesus was the only one whose face was glorified. Jesus is the only one whose clothes were glorified. And Jesus is the only one that the cloud surrounded. So if you were Peter, James, and John, you would say, "Yes, I see the glory." But it's on him. He is the only one who has the glory. He's the only one that God has glorified. And that is how it was. Jesus had the glory. Jesus moved in glory. Jesus had the power of the glory. But the disciples didn't have the glory because something had happened that made all men fall short of the glory of God.
But just before Jesus goes to die on the cross, he says something very interesting in John chapter 17:22-23. Jesus says something very profound. He says, and this is a prayer that he's praying to the Father. He says, "The glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one. I in them, and You in Me, that they may be made perfect in one, that the world may know that You have sent Me and have loved them as You have loved Me."
Note the prayer of Jesus. "The glory that You gave Me, I give them." When Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost, he came to show us the glory. But he didn't just come to show the glory. He also came to share the glory. He came loaded with glory, not to keep to himself but to share that glory. And when he comes to live inside our lives, the glory comes into our lives. So when you look at the mission of Jesus, first he demonstrates what the glory is. He shows what the glory is and then he shares that glory. In other words, what you have seen manifest in me, I'm sharing with you.
And in John chapter 12, something very profound happens. John 12:20-24. Jesus is in the temple. He has just cleansed the temple. He's ministering in the temple. And a message comes to Jesus. And this is how the Bible records it. It says, "Now there were certain Greeks among those who came to worship at the feast. Then they came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida of Galilee, and asked him, saying, 'Sir, we wish to see Jesus.'" Jesus came and told Andrew. Philip came and told Andrew. And in 10 Andrew and Philip told Jesus. But Jesus answered them, saying, "The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified. Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it produces much grain."
Now if you look at the passage carefully, the answer of Jesus does not correspond to the question. Jesus is in the temple. Some Greeks come to the temple. They say to Philip, "We want to see Jesus." Philip goes to tell Andrew. Andrew, there are some Greeks here. They want to see Jesus. Andrew and Philip go to Jesus and say, "Sir, there are some Greeks here, they want to see you." Now ordinarily, if you hear such a message, if somebody comes and says to you, "Oh, there are visitors who want to see you," don't say, "The hour has come that I must be glorified," or "The time has come for me to die," because these Greeks have they're not going to kill Jesus. So they said, "We want to see Jesus." And Jesus says something very strange. "The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified. Most assuredly I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it produces much grain."
The answer doesn't correspond to the question. Jesus, we want to see you. We are from Greece. Jesus says, "Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it abides alone, but if it dies, it yields a rich harvest." What is Jesus talking about? I like how the Amplified version puts John 12:4. It says, "I assure you most solemnly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just one grain. It never becomes more but lives by itself alone. But if it dies, it produces many others and yields a rich harvest."
So why did Jesus respond by saying this when people say they want to see him? Because at that time, the only place and the only person who contained the glory of God was Jesus. He's the only begotten of the Father. He's the only one who has the glory. He's the only one who could manifest the glory. And when people wanted to see the glory of God, they had to travel to where Jesus is to see the glory. And these people had come from Greece all the way because they want to see the glory. So when they asked Jesus and said, "We want to see Jesus." Jesus says, "This system is about to change. For now, I am the grain of wheat. I am the one who carries the glory. I am alone with the glory. But this grain of wheat is going to fall to the ground. And when this grain of wheat falls to the ground, there will be other grains of wheat." In other words, the same thing I carry will be reproduced when I fall to the ground.
So what Jesus is saying is the next time somebody wants to see the glory, they don't need to go to Jerusalem to the temple to see one man who has the glory. The next time they want to see the glory, they can go to Ara and see the glory. They can come to Lagos and see the glory. They'll go to your neighborhood and see the glory because you are also a grain of wheat that was produced from the grain that fell to the ground. [Applause]
When you plant a grain of wheat and it falls to the ground, it doesn't produce second-class grains of wheat. It doesn't produce inferior quality grain of wheat. It reproduces the same genetic material that is in the original grain of wheat in the subsequent grains of wheat. So the other grains of wheat that will be produced will not be inferior carriers of the glory of God, but they will carry the same measure of the glory as the original grain of wheat. The mission of Jesus therefore was not to be the only one carrying the glory but to multiply that glory so that if somebody lives with you in a compound house and the person says, "I want to see Jesus," they don't even need to go to your church. Right in that compound house, you are the grain of wheat. You are the carrier of the glory of God. Your face has the glory. Your clothing has the glory. Your atmosphere is saturated with glory.
If somebody in your office comes to the office and the enemy has knocked them down and they are depressed and they have no answer to their lives and they say, "I want to see Jesus. I want Jesus to help me." You can rise up and say, "I'm here. I am here." We want to see Jesus. Here I am. Because the same grain of wheat that fell to the ground is the same grain that has produced me. Jesus came to reproduce himself. He didn't come to be a spectacle to be observed. He came to be a sample to be reproduced. So that when a person says, "Lord Jesus, come into my heart. Forgive me of my sins. Wash me from your sins." As many of you are going to do today and and run up to the front here and receive Jesus. When you come to the front, you haven't just come to the front to occupy space. When you come to the front, you have come to receive the glory of God. You have come to see receive the same thing that Jesus carried.
Hebrews chapter 2 explains the process a little further for us. Hebrews chapter 2:10-11. It says, "For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through suffering. For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren." This verse is very, very loaded. So I will unpack it a little bit.
Now when you look at the verse, first there is mention of someone whom the Bible describes as "for whom are all things and by whom are all things." Now who is this person "for whom are all things and by whom are all things"? We get a clue from John's gospel 1:13. "All things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made that was made." So the person "for whom are all things and by whom are all things" is Jesus. And it says that "He came to bring many sons into glory." He didn't just deliver us from sin. He took us from sin to bring us to glory. He took us from darkness to bring us to glory. He took us from the kingdom of darkness to bring us to glory. He took us from the hand of Satan to bring us to glory. He took us from prostitution to bring us to glory, from alcoholism to bring us to glory. Jesus doesn't just deliver you. He delivers you into something.
Now, for most of us, we know what we have been delivered from, but we don't know what we have been delivered into. He delivered us out of into something. He didn't deliver us out of and and leave us. He brought us out to bring us in. Out of darkness into light, out of shame into glory, out of defeat into glory. The Son of God delivered us out of to bring us in. The Bible says that he brought us into glory. Now, what kind of glory did he bring us into? Well, he prayed earlier and he said, "Father, the same glory." This is the deal. Father, when Jesus was going to the cross, he had to negotiate what we call the new testament or the new covenant. The new covenant is established upon better promises. It's not our promise. It's the promise of Jesus. It is the negotiation between the Father and the Son. Jesus says, "I'm going to go to the cross. I'm going to redeem these people. You sent me to redeem them. This is how we're going to do it. When I redeem them, this is what I want out of it. If I die, this is what I want." And one of the things I want, and there were many things that he talked about in John that he wanted as a result of his death. But one of the things he said is, "If I die for them, I want You to give them exactly the same glory that You have given to Me. The same glory." In fact, Jesus described that glory as the glory he had with the Father which he left is what he returns us to.
So both "He who sanctifies," the one who sanctifies is Jesus, and "those who are being sanctified," you and I, "are all of one." We cannot be separated. For which reason "He is not ashamed to call them brethren." When Jesus came and died for us, he became not just the Son of God but our brother. Jesus, my brother. Jesus, my brother. Romans chapter 8 says that not only do we become his brethren, Jesus becomes the firstborn amongst many brethren. How did Jesus move from only begotten to firstborn?
There is a time when a child is an only begotten. I have four children. I didn't have all the four at the same time. Thankfully, I had one at a time. Four. My first child is a girl. When I had my first daughter, she was an only daughter, only begotten. The only one, the only product, the only one who carried my genes and that of my wife, the only one. And as Christians, we didn't wait for too long because the Bible says, "What you do, do quickly." [Applause] So one year, one month later, just as quickly as possible, we had a second daughter. When we had a second daughter, our first daughter was not only was no longer the only begotten. She's now the firstborn of a sister. Then we had another child and then another one. So you can say she's the firstborn of many brethren.
When John talks about Jesus in John chapter 1, John chapter 3, Jesus describes himself as the only begotten. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." But as of now, God does not have only one son because that one grain of wheat fell to the ground. And when that grain of wheat fell to the ground, it reproduced other grains of wheat. You are that grain of wheat that came as a result of the sacrifice of Jesus. When he went down and died, you didn't come out as corn. You didn't come out as carrots. You didn't come out as tomatoes. You didn't come out as barley. You didn't come out as millet. He was a grain of wheat and we are grains of wheat. "As He is, so are we in this world." [Applause]
Now, somebody will say, "If we were truly that, how come we don't do what Jesus did?" If you are something and you don't know you are it, you cannot produce something. If you are somebody great and you don't know you are great, you will never produce greatness. If you are a king and you don't know you are a king, you will never rule. The problem is not the glory. The problem is you don't know you have the glory. You don't know that Christ in you, the hope of glory. Christ in you. What the Bible calls the mystery. The mystery that was hidden for all generations. Abraham didn't have Christ in him. Moses had to go and see God in the burning bush. He had to go to the mountain to see God. Abraham had to see God in an angel. Noah had to see God on the outside. But you, you don't see Him on the outside. He lives in you. For as He has said, "You are the temple of the Holy Spirit." He lives in you. The glory of God that used to be in the ark of the covenant in the Holy of Holies is now sitting inside you. You are, if you are born again, you are a holy child of God.
Now, does it mean that all of a sudden everything changes? No. That is why our whole Christian life, we are living from glory to glory to glory to glory. The measure of Christ is the ultimate. But we progressively, with knowledge, with righteousness, with holiness, with prayer, with fasting, with trusting God, with believing God, we are changed from glory to glory. So the glory of last year will not be the glory of this year. The glory of this year will not be the glory of next year. All of that is you capturing the fullness of the glory that you have inherited in Christ. I don't know whether in our lifetime we will see all the fullness of who we are, but that is what our Christian life is all about: to become as He is every day, learning from Him, submitting to Him, listening to Him, taking sin out of our lives, living in holiness, living in righteousness, praying and fasting, giving everything we're doing, coming to Congress. All of that is so that we can be transferred from glory to glory until we get to the fullness of the measure of the stature of Christ, that you can fully now say, "If you see me, you have seen Jesus," because I carry the same glory that He carried.
May the glory of God rest upon you. May the glory of God manifest in your life. May you manifest that glory at your home, in your office, and wherever you are. Lift up your hands to God and begin to call upon Him and ask Him to cause His glory to manifest over your life. Pray to Him and say, "Lord, let Your glory be manifest in my life. I want to see Your glory in my business. I want to see Your glory in my marriage. I want to see Your glory in my family life for the manifestation of the glory of God." In Jesus.