1 Samuel 6:13-7:2 | "The Joy and Danger of God's Glory"

This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

Good morning.

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

My name is Jeremy.

I'm the student and family pastor here at Faith.

Glad to have you all here.

If you have a Bible, go ahead and turn in them to 1 Samuel chapter 6, is where we're going to be.

1 Samuel 6 · chapter mention

And as you're turning there, I want to consider this question that is significant to what we're going to be looking at this morning.

And that question is what is God's glory?

What is God's glory?

If you spend any amount of time in a church, this is a word, glory, God's glory, that gets kind of attached to everything.

We want to reach people for God's glory.

We want to disciple students for God's glory.

We want to have excellent music for the glory of God.

You can literally attach God's glory to anything the church does to justify what the church does.

But have we ever stopped to ask the question what is God's glory?

A definition.

This is not original to me.

I go to dictionaries for these things.

I'm not that intelligent.

God's glory is the manifestation of the perfection of all of his attributes.

So it's the manifestation, the physical and visual, the experiential aspects of all of his perfection, of all of his attributes.

The doctrine of the glory of God emphasizes his greatness and transcendence, his splendor and his holiness.

God is said in Scripture to be clothed with glory and majesty.

So it's not something God does, it is who God is.

God is glorious.

And if God is glorious, then everything he does is glorious as well.

It's meant to manifest his glory.

And there are so many ways that God manifests his glory, but I'm just going to give a few easy examples.

The first is that God manifests his glory in his creation.

Numbers chapter 14, verse 21, God says, Truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord.

Numbers 14:21

Psalm 19:1, you might be familiar with this.

Psalms 19:1

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky proclaims his handiwork.

So all around us, all of creation is declaring the glory of God.

It is revealing his infinite power and his infinite wisdom, his glory in creation.

God's glory is also revealed in mankind.

Psalm chapter 8, verse 5 says that God has made man a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.

Psalms 8:5

What is the glory that man has been crowned with?

It is the glory of being made in the image of God, the image and likeness of God, according to Genesis chapter 1.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

There are many other ways that God manifests his glory.

Like I said, those are just easy examples.

And not just to not to shift gears too much, but I want to go from God's glory, which is manifest in many different ways, to our response to that glory.

So going back to God's glory revealed in creation, when you see a beautiful sunset and you marvel at that sunset, you're just awestruck with the beauty of that moment, you are responding to the glory of God in creation.

When you are in awe of humanity, when we create something beautiful, put a man on the moon, create new technologies, innovate.

When we find new ways to communicate, when we solve complex problems, and we are just in awe of just the capabilities of humanity, you are marveling at the glory of God in the image of God.

Those are just a few ways we respond.

But however, we don't always respond to the glory of God in the ways that we ought to.

I remember in 2009, um, the Denver Nuggets, which is my favorite basketball team being from Denver, they had one of the best teams that they had ever assembled.

They had Carmelo Anthony, they had Chauncey Billups, just a whole team of just top-tier talent.

And in 2009, for the Western Conference Finals, the Denver Nuggets faced off against the LA Lakers, who was at that time led by one of the top five talents in Kobe Bryant.

Now, Kobe Bryant was a sight to see.

He was just spectacular when he played.

He always made the top ten on Sports Center.

He is easily considered one of the greatest basketball talents of all time.

He's the kind of guy that if your team is playing his team, you buy the tickets, yes, to go watch your team, but you really actually want to see Kobe Bryant play.

And so when I got these nosebleed tickets to the Western Conference Finals, of course I wanted to see my team play.

Of course, I wanted to see my team win, but this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see the greatness of Kobe Bryant.

But I wasn't cheering for Kobe Bryant.

Every time he got the ball, me and the dozens of people around me, in fact, I'd say 15,000 other people around me, would boo him.

We would jeer at him, we would hurl insults at him.

Not all of them made sense, but you know, like we're just trying to throw him off.

He's getting ready to make free throws, and we're shouting, you're gonna miss it.

Just anything and everything we can do to throw him off his game.

But that didn't make his game any less glorious or great.

In fact, it was his 30-point average through that series that completely spanked my Denver Nuggets and sent them packing while the LA Lakers went on to the NBA finals.

We don't always respond to greatness and glory in the way that we ought to.

And for our purposes this morning, I want us to consider three responses of God's people towards God's glory as we examine 1 Samuel chapter 6.

1 Samuel 6 · chapter mention

And we're going to be in verses 13 through chapter 7, verse 2.

The three responses I want us to consider, and this is not an exhaustive list because we can spend a lot of time in the Bible examining all the different ways that God's people don't respond properly to God's glory.

But for our purposes, I want us to examine three responses: joy, irreverence, and longing.

And in order to understand what's going on in our text this morning, we have to back up a few chapters to get the context because it's really important to understand where we're going to be picking up in verse 13 of chapter 6.

Back in chapter 4.

Well, even before that.

1 Samuel takes place in the time of the judges.

That's where it begins.

The time of the judges in Israel's history was a time of moral decay, spiritual compromise.

You had this cycle of apostasy that kept replaying itself in the life of Israel.

So God's people, they'd be okay for a while, they would worship Yahweh, and then they would begin to go after the gods of the peoples around them.

They began to worship all these false idols, and God would remove his hand of protection and he'd bring in another nation to discipline them.

And so, under the weight of oppression of these nations moving in, they would cry out to God for help and deliverance.

God would raise up a deliverer to deliver them, and then the people would experience national repentance.

But it only lasted a while.

And that's the time period that we find ourselves in in 1 Samuel.

The people are in this cycle, and they're kind of in a cycle, they're kind of in the part of the cycle where they're somewhat faithful to God, but not quite.

In chapter 4, verse 1, Israel goes out to battle against what would be considered one of the arch nemesis, the Philistines.

And they lose.

They suffer 4,000 casualties in verse 2, chapter 4, verse 2.

In light of this loss, the elders of Israel hatch an idea.

They come up with a plan.

Hey, let's try this again, but we got an ace in the hole.

We got a good luck charm.

Let's bring the Ark of the Covenant with us into battle.

If we bring the Ark of the Covenant with us into battle, then surely the power of God has to go with it, and we can't lose, guys.

So they bring the Ark of the Covenant, they remove it from Shiloh, which was the center of worship in Israel.

They bring it from there, they bring it to Ebenezer, where Israel was encamped.

And when the Ark is brought into the camp of Israel, again, they're they're facing off against the Philistines.

When the Ark is brought into the camp of the Israelites, the Bible says that they gave a mighty shout.

Like a shout so loud, so collectively huge that it shook the ground that the Philistines were standing on.

And the Philistines began to be afraid.

They trembled at first.

But then the Philistines, though they were trembling, they actually collectively resolved to fight even harder against Israel.

They resolved to be courageous and fight the Israelites so that they would not become Israel's slaves.

That's chapter 4, verse 9.

And then what you read in the pr and the verses that follow is that Israel suffered an even greater defeat than they did the first time.

30,000 soldiers fall.

Israel is utterly humiliated in that defeat.

And what's more, the ark of God that they thought would be the ace in the hole for them is captured by their enemies and hauled off.

Now something you need to know is that the glory of God in Scripture is very closely connected with the ark of God, because the ark contains within it certain permanent signs of his promises to his people.

Three components to be specific.

There were the tablets of stone that had written on them the Ten Commandments, and these were the moral terms of God's covenant with his people.

There was a container filled with manna, the heavenly bread, which God filled and sustained his people with while they were wandering in the desert.

It was a sign of God's provision for his people when they had nothing.

And then there was Aaron's staff that was supposed to be evidence.

And as a sign that God will always provide a mediator between him and his people.

Captured by Israel's enemies.

And the essence of what has happened in this one moment is captured in a sentence.

And while the Ark of God is in Dagon's temple, it falls twice.

The first time they're like, hmm, that's a little weird.

And so they set it back up.

They're like, okay, well, we'll we'll come back later.

And then come back later.

The statue has fallen again, and the head and hands of Dagon are completely busted off.

As a sign to the Philistines that their God does not see and their God cannot do.

And that their God ultimately must bow down before the God of Israel.

That doesn't quite persuade them.

They hold on to the Ark for a little while longer.

And as they hold on to the ark, something peculiar begins to happen among the peoples of the Philistines.

They begin to develop these tumors, these growths on them all over the place.

And as you can imagine, there are some significant health difficulties associated with the growth of tumors all over your body.

A lot of people die.

And so they start freaking out and they begin to say, okay, let's let's take the ark from this town, let's send it over there.

That way it won't bother us.

And so let's send the ark over to this Philistine town.

It goes there.

Same thing happens.

Well, hey, we don't want it.

Let's send it over there.

So they send it away to another Philistine town.

And everywhere the ark goes, this judgment on the Philistines follows.

And so the Philistines they begin to craft a plan.

They can't keep the ark.

It's nothing but trouble for them.

So they get their holy men together, their diviners.

They get them together in a council and they they begin to craft this plan.

Hey, let's send the ark back with a guilt offering, okay?

Um let's put the ark on a new cart pulled by two cows who have never been yoked.

So two cows that have never pulled a plow or anything, just cows who have just grazed in the field.

That's all they know.

Take their calves away from them and send the cows away.

So this plan is we're gonna set the ark on a cart, we're gonna bring these two cows that have never pulled anything, okay?

And we're gonna take the calves of these cows and put them away.

Because the idea is a cow's natural response is it's going to want to go towards its calf.

But if this is truly the judgment of Israel's God, then God will guide those cows, not back towards their calves, but back towards the people of Israel.

Are you tracking with what I'm saying?

This is the plan that they're coming up with.

It's actually, it makes sense, right?

Wherever let the cows pull it wherever they go and watch.

If it goes back to Israel, then Israel's God has brought judgment on them and they know.

If it doesn't go back to Israel, if the cows just turn around and come back to the Philistines, well, hey, this is all just one weird, crazy coincidence.

And that's where we find ourselves in verse 13.

Before we move on to our text, I want to bring us back to the question of how do we respond to the glory of God?

How do we respond to the glory of God?

And for the people of Beth Shemesh, they first respond with joy.

Look at verse 13.

Now the people of Bethshemesh were reaping their wheat harvest in the valley.

And when they lifted up their eyes and saw the ark, they rejoiced to see it.

The ark, uh the cart came into the field of Joshua of Beth Shemesh and stopped there.

A great stone was there, and they split up the wood of the cart and offered the cows as a burnt offering to the Lord.

And the Levites took down the ark of the Lord and the box that was beside it, in which were the golden figures, and set them on the great stone.

And the men of Beth Shemesh offered burnt offerings and sacrificed sacrifices on that day to the Lord.

And when the five lords of the Philistines who were following behind the ark, watching what would happen when they saw what was going on, they returned that day to Ekron.

The people of Beth Shemesh are out harvesting their wheat, and that might seem like a minor detail.

But in their mind, they're actually thinking that there's going to be a very important offering coming up for them.

It was the offering of the first fruits.

That would have been weighing heavily on their minds because if the glory of the Lord has departed, if God's ark is gone, what do they do?

Where do they go?

How do they offer their offering of first fruits to their God?

And so imagine they're out there harvesting wheat, not just to collect food for themselves, but they're thinking, I need to offer something to God.

How am I going to do that?

Lo and behold, in verse 13, while they're reaping, while they're harvesting their wheat, they lift up their eyes, they see the ark, and they rejoice.

They're happy.

They're filled with jubilant emotions.

They're so filled with happiness and joy that they're compelled to worship in that moment.

This is a significant occasion.

Like the ark of God could have gone anywhere, but it came to this one town, Beth Shemesh, right?

This little town out of, you know, not very significant in any way, but it came to us.

We got to celebrate, guys.

This is huge.

They chop up the wood, they slice up the cows, they toss it all on this giant rock, burn it all as an offering to God.

And they even take the offering from the pagan Philistines and they set it beside the ark of God, a gesture that was no doubt showing that even the Philistines need to pay homage to the God of Israel.

And as you'll know in verse 16, even the Philistines here are happy.

They see it and they breathe a sigh of relief and they head back home.

The glory has returned, and it is a reason for joy.

It's a sign that God has not abandoned his people.

It is a sign that God has not abandoned his promises to his people.

Now it's important to note that the ark and the glory of God are not bound to one another.

And here's what I mean: God's glory and presence and promises are not dependent upon the Ark of God.

The Ark of God is a sign of those things.

I'll give you an example.

A wedding ring does not make a person married, it is a sign of that marriage.

There was a beautiful summer day when a woman named Jane went for a walk in the park and she had been married for five years and she had a very unique wedding ring.

Her wedding ring was one of her most prized possessions because it had been passed down through her family for generations.

And it held a lot of sentimental value.

As she's walking in the park, she begins to fiddle with her ring finger and she notices that it's not there anymore.

You can imagine the panic, right?

I've had one of these moments.

I went tubing in Boulder Creek one time with a group of students, and after getting flipped and tumbled down one of the little minor rapids there, I came up and I did the same thing.

I was like, oh, my ring's not there.

You can imagine the panic that she's experiencing, not just because it's her wedding ring, but because of the significant meaning that that wedding ring had.

She searches high and low.

She retraces her steps.

The ring is nowhere to be found.

She's devastated.

She can't stop crying.

A few days later, a man named John was walking through the Same park and he stumbled upon a shiny object on the ground.

What do you know?

As he got closer, he realized it was a wedding ring.

And he knew how important the wedding ring could be, so he decided to try to find the owner.

He checked with the parks lost and found.

No one reported a missing ring.

He contacted local jewelers to see if anyone had reported a lost ring.

And after a few days of searching, he finally found a jeweler who had actually worked on Jane's ring a few weeks back, and he recognized it and said, I know exactly whose ring that is.

So he contacts Jane and tells her, I found it.

It's coming back to you.

It's going to be returned.

Can you imagine the joy that Jane experiences in that moment with the return of the ring?

Not because the ring makes her married, but because of what the ring represents.

The joy that the people of Beth Shemesh experience is because of what the ark represents.

The absence of the ark, while it was in the enemy's hands, it did not nullify God's promises to his people.

Nor did the absence of the ark remove God's presence entirely from his people.

I don't know if you know this, but while the ark is gone, there's still a man of God named Samuel who is ministering to the people of God at this time.

God is certainly not gone from his people.

God's promises and presence were not bound to the ark, but the ark was a sign of such.

And the ark's return was a sign, an affirmation from God that he would not abandon his people.

And when the people of God see the glory of God uniquely manifested in his presence and promises, it ought to generate joy in them.

I'm going to say that again.

When the people of God see the glory of God uniquely manifested in his presence and promises, as the people of Beshemesh would have seen in the ark, it ought to generate in them joy.

In fact, I would say God's people should be some of the most joy-filled people on earth.

If you're a curmudgeon, I would say you're out of step with some of the fruits of the Spirit.

They should be the most joy-filled people on earth.

The very presence and glory of God, for God's new covenant people, dwells within us.

The Holy Spirit resides in you.

1 Corinthians 3.16 that says that you are a temple of the living and holy God.

You now, you, your body, is a dwelling place for God.

And God's glory is especially manifested in the crucified and resurrected Jesus Christ.

So we have these two aspects.

We have God's glory, which dwells within us, and we have the glory of the uh crucified and risen Lord Jesus Christ, that ought to create in us joy because God's glory has been revealed towards you in his grace and mercy.

We have to ask the question, because I think I've preached before on joy.

I'm a joyous guy.

I like to have a good time.

I've never been accused of being angry.

Even in my lack of sleep.

I have a newborn baby in my home, and I'm functional, okay?

I'm functional.

I don't get too cranky, I don't think.

What is joy?

Joy is a state of being that reflects a sense or feeling of gladness or happiness.

Joy is a willful response to God regardless of the circumstances.

So it's very possible to be going through difficult circumstances and still have joy.

And having joy does not mean you need to walk around through life happy, slappy, smiling all the time like an idiot.

True, authentic, genuine joy means that regardless of what I am going through at this present moment, I delight in the God who is going to see me through this.

I delight in the God who has saved me.

I delight in the God whose presence indwells me.

I delight in the God who has promised me that which I don't deserve.

Does the glory of Jesus Christ bring you joy?

Does the glory of Jesus Christ bring you joy?

Does the Spirit of God in you bring you joy?

Again, joy is a fruit of the Spirit.

And perhaps the reason you aren't experiencing joy is because either you have your eyes focused on yourself and not on Christ, or you are giving yourself over to the desires of your flesh and are choking out the fruit of the Spirit in your life.

That's what Galatians 5, 16 through 17 says in Colossians 3.5.

Talks about not giving in to the desires of the flesh, but letting the Spirit produce in you joy.

Joy is a good and right response to the glory of God manifested among his people.

And the people of Beth Shemesh experience joy.

And as you can see in this text, verses 13 through 16, they just respond in worship.

They're so excited, they respond in this spontaneous worship service.

But this joy is short-lived because of their concurrent response, which is a reverence.

Responding to God's glory with a reverence.

Look again at verse 14.

The cart came into the field of Joshua of Beth Shemesh, stop, and it stopped there.

A great stone was there, and they split up the wood of the cart and offered cows as a burnt offering to the Lord.

There's a problem there.

Cows are not supposed to be offered as sacrifices to God.

Only male animals are to be offered as sacrifices to God.

And this might seem like a minor detail, except the people of Beth Shemesh were Levites.

This would have been one of the towns allocated to the Levites when Joshua led the people of Israel in the conquest of the promised land.

And not only were these people Levites, but they were Kohithites.

And this clan was tasked specifically with the handling and care of the ark.

If anyone in all of Israel knows how to respond and how to handle the Ark of God, it would have been the people of Beth Shemesh.

But right away they get off to a very bad start by offering an unauthorized sacrifice.

Not only that, verse 15, they took down the Ark of the Lord and the box that was beside it.

So they are handling the Ark of God now, which is a big no-no.

The Ark of God was designed with these big rings on the side of it so poles could be slid through it so that you would not defile it with your human hands.

You were not supposed to touch it.

And you have the men of Beth Shemesh manhandling the ark so they could set it on this stone.

Strike two.

Strike three, they take the offerings of these pagan Philistines and place it right beside the Ark of God.

The most holy object that the Israelites have, they defile it with these offerings from the Philistines by setting it up side by side.

Strike three.

They look upon the ark, right?

They see the ark coming.

So I don't believe that this particular offense is that they necessarily look at the ark.

I think the language indicates that they are looking inside the ark.

Now, if they were not allowed to handle the ark with their own human hands, how much more so were they not authorized to open it up to inspect its contents?

And that's exactly what they do.

This mishandled worship is rooted in irreverence for the God that they are worshiping.

And the holiness of God lashes out at their irreverent worship, and at least 70 men are dead.

I think an important principle here is that irreverent worship has dire consequences.

Irreverent worship has dire consequences.

And very quickly, the joy of the men and people of Beth Shemesh has turned to mourning.

He struck the seventy men of them, and the people mourned because the Lord had struck the people with a great blow.

You might think this isn't a big deal.

They're just doing their best, right?

They're just excited.

Why is God being all like nitpicky about this?

Why is he lashing out at his own people?

Like, couldn't he have he just sent Samuel and say, hey guys, you need to stop, okay?

Let's stop this silliness.

Okay?

Let's get some order here.

Put the lid back on the ark.

Stop being silly.

Couldn't have God done that?

Why is God parsing out all these different rules?

Why does it matter so much about how these people worship God?

Now, if you take this attitude towards other things in life, it gets very real very quickly.

When I was uh in the Marine Corps as an infantry rifleman, I was taught very quickly there are certain things that I carried on my person that you need to have a particular reverence for.

Um my my my typical loadout for a patrol, of course, I would have my rifle, I would, I would have a uh a radio, depending on whether or not I was um either the fire team leader or the patrol leader, or if I was just the uh radio man, the designated radio man for the patrol, and I would have uh usually some grenades on a belt that I carried, and then I would also have uh either a flashbang or a pin flare.

Now, the reason we had the flashbang and pin flares was not for clearing rooms or anything, it was actually a part of our escalation of force.

So if we were on a patrol, a foot patrol, and there are uh vehicles coming towards our patrol, we would first try to wave them down to get them to stop so our patrol could just finish going where we're going, right?

But if the vehicle didn't stop, the next step up would be a pin flare.

And a pin flare was just a little flare you screw on the top of a of a uh a device that looked very much like a pin, you push it down and it shoots out a flare.

I didn't have a pin flare, I carried with me a flashbang.

And so with the flashbang, just like a grenade, you pull the pin, you let off the spoon, and you throw it.

And sure enough, it makes a big boom, makes a big flash.

That'll get their attention, right?

That's much better than the next step, which would be lethal force.

Now, carrying this flashbang, I remember being on a patrol in Husseiba, Iraq, and I was the patrol leader.

And we had a car coming towards our patrol, and I was waving the car down trying to get them to stop, and they didn't see me.

So I went to the next step and I grabbed out my flashbang, pulled the pin, but as soon as I pulled the pin, the car stopped, of course.

Now what do I do?

The the 20-year-old me would have just like wanted to throw it over the the wall into someone's house and just have give them a good scare.

That would have been funny.

But um, as the patrol leader, I was thinking, okay, I gotta handle this responsibly.

So I figure, okay, I I should put the pin back in, which is not a bad idea, but if you're gonna do that, you've got to be very careful to hold that because the moment you let go of your thumb and that spoon comes up just a little bit, it ignites the fuse.

And so as I'm getting ready to put this pin back in, my thumb slips just ever so slightly, and I hear a little tss, you know what's coming.

In three to five seconds, my hand goes numb, I can't see anything, and my ears are ringing.

Because I mishandled this device.

Now, it wasn't like a flashbang that shoots out shrapnel, there are guys who have lost limbs and things like that.

It was the kind of you put a little uh well, I'll spare you those details, but mishandling that led to uh my glove looking like wily coyote.

It led to my arm being completely numb for the rest of the patrol.

I was incapacitated and impaired for the rest of the patrol, and I just kind of had to continue on, acting like everything was okay.

Now imagine if I'd if I had handled a grenade with that same irreverence.

The consequences would have been dire.

I, plus whoever was around me would have lost my life if I had handled not a flashbang, but a grenade with that same care.

There are certain things in life that you cannot just play around with.

You have to have a reverence for them, or there are dire consequences.

Irreverently handling something of great power has drastic consequences.

And when we lose sight of the fact that we're worshiping the all-powerful, all-knowing, sovereign creator of the universe, who is infinitely holy, infinitely righteous, if we lose sight of that fact, we are in very real danger if we think we could just casually stroll up with him and worship however we want.

You and I don't get to define how we worship God.

God defines how he is to be worshipped.

Yes, God is loving, he is gracious, forgiving, and merciful.

But do not think for a moment that that also means God will lower his standards for worship.

He will lower his standards of holiness to yours.

This is the very thing happening, I would say, in 1 Corinthians chapter 11, when the Apostle Paul is correcting their attitudes when they're coming to the Lord's table.

1 Corinthians 11 · chapter mention

Yeah, the church in Corinth coming to the Lord's table to remember the death of Jesus Christ, the blood shed for them for the forgiveness of their sins, his body broken for them for the forgiveness of their sins.

And they come and they treat it like a party.

They're pulling bread about, and I mean, they're just eating, they're just drinking the wine, they're just completely irreverently doing whatever they want with it.

And what Paul says in that text is that that's why some of them are sick, is because of their irreverent handling of the glory of God.

Some of them are sick, and some of them have even died.

Now, just a side note sickness and death is not to be necessarily equated with irreverent worship.

However, I would say sometimes that's what God does to get the attention of his people.

There is very real judgment in the mishandling and the irreverent worship of God's glory.

So the question is: do you treat the glory of God with reverence or irreverence?

Does the glory of Christ shine through you in your good works towards others?

Jesus says in Matthew 5, 16, let your light shine before others so they may see your good works and do what?

Glorify your Father in heaven.

Does the glory of Christ shine through your good works?

Do you irreverently mishandle the opportunities God has given you to demonstrate that good work?

The glory of the gospel is revealed in our marriages.

Husbands, is God revered as holy in your marriage?

As you sacrifice yourself for the good of your wife?

Is God glorified in that?

Or do you take your marriage for granted?

Do you irreverently handle your marriage and irreverently handle your wife?

Wives, is God revered as holy as you submit to your husband?

As unto the Lord.

And I could go on with a lot of different examples because God's glory is literally everywhere.

So much so that Paul would say in 1 Corinthians 10, whatever you do, okay, whether you eat or drink, whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.

So God's glory literally extends to every facet of your life.

All of God's goodness and grace in your life ought to be responded to with reverence.

Is God being glorified through you in your office?

Is God being glorified through you in your home?

Is God being glorified in what you listen to and what you watch?

Is God being glorified on your Facebook and Instagram feed?

Is God being glorified as you're scrolling the internet at 2 a.m.?

Everything that you and I have as God's people is an opportunity for God's glory to be on display.

And so often, and this convicted me so much how much time I even lose with my family, with my own kids.

Time is a precious gift given to all of us as parents.

And that's an opportunity for God's glory to be on display and demonstrate.

But how often do we just set the Bible aside and turn on the TV so that they don't bother me?

God's glory is everywhere, it touches every aspect of your life.

And the question is do you respond with reverence or irreverence?

Joy turns to sorrow for the people of Beth Shemesh because of a response of irreverence.

That's not the end of the story here, though.

God's people ultimately end up responding to the glory of God with longing.

In verse 20, the people of Beth Shemesh realize that they've messed up.

The men of Beth Shemesh said, Who is able to stand before the Lord this holy God?

And to whom shall he go up away from us?

So, guys, we've messed up.

Who can stand before this holy God?

Where are we going to send him away to?

The ark is too hot for us to handle.

God is too holy for us to stand before him.

We need to send him away.

We need to get rid of them.

So they summon the residents of Kiriath Jiraim.

Verse 21.

They sent messengers to the inhabitants of Kiryath Jiram, saying, The Philistines have returned the ark of the Lord.

Come down and take it up to you.

I love how they leave out the detail, like, hey, we messed things up really bad.

Okay?

The ark of God returned.

Hey, the Philistines just returned the ark.

You want to come get it?

Oh, yeah, by the way, we might have lost 70 guys.

We didn't do things the best.

Like they leave out that little detail.

They're just like, hey guys, Kirith Jerem, you guys want to come pick this thing up?

The Philistines returned it.

And so the men of Kiryath Jerem, chapter 7, verse 1, they came and took up the ark of the Lord and brought it to the house of Abinadab on the hill.

And they consecrated his son Eliezer to have charge of the ark of the Lord.

From the day that the ark was lodged at Kirith Jirim, a long time passed, some twenty years, and all the house of Israel lamented after the Lord.

Twenty years passed from the time the ark came to the people of Beth Shemesh, from the time it was moved to Kiryath Jirim.

And there is a collective response to the spiritual and cultural changes that have happened.

Going all the way back, I would say, to chapter four.

Only seven months prior to this event at Best Shemesh, the Israelites suffered that humiliating defeat we covered at the beginning.

The ark was captured by their enemies because they treated God's ark, they treated God's glory as if it was some sort of good luck token, good luck charm.

And the Israelites are not just morally defeated, but they are spiritually defeated.

There's no way they can mount a counteroffensive to reclaim the ark after what just happened, after losing 30,000 of their own men.

And not only that, they have no way, no means to go and meaningfully worship God.

They are completely morally and spiritually defeated.

They carry on and go about their lives in despair that the glory of God had departed from his people.

God doesn't need an army to come get the ark.

Instead, he demonstrates his power and judgment on the Philistines until they send the ark back.

And the people of God are filled with joy at first until they forget that their God is infinitely holy and demands to be worshipped with the utmost reverence.

Seventy men are struck by God, in which the men of Beth Shemesh just want to send it away.

And the ark goes to Kiryath Jereum.

It's never returned to Shiloh.

You notice that?

If you're not familiar with Shiloh, Shiloh was the central place where the tabernacle was set up, where all the people of Israel came to worship Yahweh.

That was the place.

But the ark doesn't go back to Shiloh.

I would say that indicates that when the Israelites suffered that humiliating defeat, the Philistines prevailed so much so that they destroyed the tabernacle.

They destroyed where the Israelites worshipped.

The people of God in all of this have been the sole contributors in the destruction of their relationship with their God.

The people of God have been the sole contributors in the destruction of their relationship with their God.

And recognizing their role in this breakdown, they lament after the Lord.

This word lament doesn't mean that they're just sad.

Certainly they are mourning after God.

They are grieved because of what they've been doing, how they've been mishandling God all along.

They're grieved by it, but not just that, they are longing.

There's this longing after God that accompanies their grief.

It's like a child who has acted out against his parents.

And naturally, like any good parent, there are consequences for their behavior.

And when the child finally realizes the implications for his actions, he wants nothing more than to be reconciled with his parents.

He longs for their parents in such a way that he will grab a hold of his father's leg and cry out, please forgive me.

I don't know if, dads, if you've ever had this, but as you're like walking through the house, you've got that one kid just holding on to you, right?

That's what the Israelites are doing right now.

They are longing after the Lord.

They're holding on to as much as they can, and they're saying, God, please forgive us.

They are mourning and lamenting and holding on to the good and great promises that He has made to them.

The Israelites are filling the weight of their sin, and that rightfully creates in them this mournful longing for the restoration of the relationship.

The Israelites have what the Apostle Paul would call godly sorrow.

In 2 Corinthians 7, the Apostle Paul says, For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.

What you'll notice, and we actually are stopping at verse 2, but what follows after this event is national repentance.

Samuel takes the opportunity to say, hey guys, you've messed up.

You have sinned against a holy God.

You need to put away all the idols that you're worshiping.

You need to put away all the ways that you are not taking this seriously.

And they commit to the national repentance.

They have godly grief.

Godly grief is originated in God.

This is what makes it different than worldly grief.

Worldly grief, Paul says, produces death.

Godly grief is supernaturally given, not superficially generated.

It comes from a loss of communion with God, whereas worldly grief comes from a loss of our selfish desires.

Sometimes we get so sad about our sin, not because we've sinned against God, but we're sad we got caught.

We're sad that it caused the destruction of a relationship, but we're not necessarily sad at what we did against a holy God.

That's the difference between godly grief and worldly grief.

Godly grief is God-centered.

Worldly grief is me-centered.

Godly grief produces what Paul says, repentance.

Worldly grief only produces regret.

I wish I had not gotten caught.

I wish I had done things different.

Repentance says I sinned and I need forgiveness.

Regret says I wish I had done different.

Godly grief produces action.

Worldly grief produces navel gazing.

Or you sit there and you look at yourself and you're just so sad about what you've done, you don't do anything about it.

Godly grief is necessary for the restoration of our fractured relationship with our good and gracious Savior.

Godly grief first requires that we examine the ways that we have sinned against a holy God.

Godly grief doesn't require that you try and fix it.

And I know we had some flack a few weeks ago about Pastor Hughes coming in and talking about the differences between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism.

But this is this is another separation between the Roman Catholic faith and Protestant faith.

You don't go to a confessional and are given Hail Mary's to say in order to make yourself right.

You don't fix it.

This is not go read your Bible more and you'll be okay.

Go pray more, you'll do better.

You don't fix the problem.

Godly grief doesn't require that you fix it, it requires that you merely confess your sin, seek forgiveness from Christ, and turn from your sin.

There's no six-step program to make it better.

It's simply confess your sins and repent.

So let's ask two questions.

Are you, like the people of Israel, when they get to this point after 20 years of reflection of all the ways that they have destroyed their relationship with their God, are you aware of your sin?

You cannot grieve that which you do not know.

Are you grieved of your sin?

Does that grief activate you towards repentance?

Does it cause you not to try and do better and barter with God?

Hey, I'll read my Bible about it more if you just help me out with this.

Does that grief activate you towards repenting, turning from your sin?

Not just turning from your sin, but turning towards Christ.

The glory of God rightly handled should produce two of the responses that we've gone over this morning.

Joy and longing.

Joy because the glory of God's mercy has placed the penalty for your sin on the shoulders of Jesus Christ.

When you have irreverently approached God, that sin is not placed on you.

It is placed on Christ.

All the ways that you have casually treated God as if he's just the big guy in the sky, all the ways that you sinned against him by irreverently disobeying all of his commands.

He's placed that on Christ.

That should create in us joy because no longer do you suffer the penalty for your sin.

Christ suffered the penalty for your sin.

We should have tremendous joy because of the glory of God's mercy.

We should have tremendous joy because of the glory of God's grace.

Not only has he removed the penalty of your sin, but he has adopted you as his son or daughter.

We should have joy because we know that when we do sin, we can go to him confidently and ask him for forgiveness.

We can have joy because we know and it can have confidence that when we sin, God will give his people repentance.

You and I, when it comes to seeing the glory of God in Jesus Christ, experience the glory of God in our lives through the Holy Spirit.

You and I should have tremendous joy.

And I pray, I pray that we would be aware of all the different ways that we irreverently handle that, not to beat you down, but so that you and I could also respond with a longing for more of God's glory in our life.

That He would purge the sin out of us, that He would make us more like Christ.

Let us not mishandle the glory of God with a reverence.

Rather, let us long after the glory of God with godly sorrow for our sin and godly longing for more of God's glory.

Let's pray.

With eyes bowed and eyes, heads bowed, eyes closed.

I want to ask us the question that we asked at the very beginning.

What is your response to the glory of God?

God has revealed his glory in his son, Jesus Christ.

Father, you have shown us your glory.

Glory in your son who took on flesh, lived among us, fulfilled the law on our behalf, died in our place.

Your son is glorious.

Your gospel is glorious.

And my prayer right now, Lord, is that as we as we behold the glory of your gospel, that we would not irreverently pass it by, we would not irreverently ignore it, but rather will let us respond with joy and let us respond with mourning.

Joy for what you have done on our behalf and mourning and longing because we have sinned against you.

Pray this in Christ's name.

Amen.

That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.

Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.

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