Hope of God’s Glory
Lesson Aim: To show how the vision of sharing in God’s glory is an integrating force in a Christian’s character and personality development.
Scripture: Rom. 5:2-5.
Word Definition:
1. Hope (Elpis) favorable and confident expectation.
2. Glory (Doxa) the honor resulting from a good opinion.
3. Tribulation (Thlipsis) pressure, affliction.
4. Perseverance (Hupomone) patience, endurance, continuance.
5. Proven Character (Dexine) experience, proof, testing.
Lesson
The law of faith gives Christians peace with God. After Christians are at peace with God, ourselves and our fellowman, we are able to dare to hope to share in God’s glory (Rom. 5:2). We will learn in this lesson how the clarity of this vision becomes the determining factor in our character and personality development.
To clarify what it means to share in God’s glory we need understand the word glory. Glory, basically, means to have a good opinion. What then is it about God that we are to get a good opinion? The glory of God is often thought of as the proverbial mansions in heaven; streets of gold, and pearly gates; however, more often God’s glory is about God’s attributes. Our clue is found in II Cor. 3:17, 18. Here we find we are able to change into the image of His glory. We are able to change our personality. In this scripture, the glory is the person of Jesus Christ. Christ’s glory is the same as God’s glory (Heb. 1:3).
Because of Christians’ peace with God as a result of our justification, we are able to view the glorious attributes of God. We can hope to share in a heavenly society of spiritual beings with God. We can hope to “re-invent” ourselves into His glorious nature (Gal. 6:15; Col. 1:27). God’s holy glory in action is a manifestation of God’s righteousness. The hope of sharing in God’s glory then becomes the integrating force in our lives. Our daily behavioral goals are determined by the manifestation of God’s righteousness.
Everyone is aware of the value of a goal oriented life on this earth. We have seen lives fall apart after they have accomplished a long sought goal. It happened because there was no plan for another goal. When we have God’s glory as our goal, it will work for us all the way to and through our physical death. Christians’ main goal for glory resides in eternity after time is over. Now we train and serve (I Pet. 4:7-10). Our rest will come after we have our inheritance (II Cor. 1:21, 22; Heb. 4:9).
The way a goal works for us is that it integrates all of our programs to satisfy our innate desires. We will refer to these desires in this lesson as our inherited drives (God given). Some of mankind’s obvious drives are hunger, social acceptance, achievement and security. The sex drive develops as we mature; however, it is innate – not learned. It is a driving force for healthy marriages.
When anything inhibits, or blocks, the satisfaction of one of these drives, Christians accept it as a challenge. These are the scenarios in which we have developed our present personality. The person who has experienced too many failures may have a personality dominated by fear and anger. The person who has successfully met the challenges and learned the proper emotional attitude to attain satisfaction for their inherent needs has a personality dominated by faith and love. Most people have some of all four emotional attitudes in the makeup of our personality. It is a question of which ones are dominating our present lives. However, when our main goal is the hope of sharing in God’s glory in eternity, we are able to accept life’s challenges and use them as a part of our program to attain our life goals. Those who have moved on a path of sanctification based on faith and love have learned and developed other emotions taught by Jesus (Matt. 5:3-10).
Here is how this works. Since God’s glory is, at least in part, God’s perfect righteous and holy Person, our goal is to develop a personality that will enjoy a place in God’s eternal presence. To coin a phrase from Jesus Sermon on the Mount, our goal is to “be perfect therefore as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Matt. 5:48.
Armed with God’s own nature as our goal, then any program assisting us to develop His nature will be the type of training course we are willing to take. We may not enjoy every minute of the training; however, we will rejoice when we are given the opportunity to train if we keep our “faith goal” in mind. This goal is our hope spoken of in the definition of faith (Heb. 11:1; Rom. 8:24, 25). These exercises are what the world calls “problems;” however, they are the training courses for Christians. Consequently, we do not consider the challenges in our lives to be problems. They are trials, or as Paul said, “we also rejoice in our sufferings.” Since our training for our goal of sharing in God’s glory must continue until our spirit (self) departs from our physical body, patience has high priority in our training course. This virtue can only be gained by the discipline of tribulations (Rom. 5:3, 4; 8:35-37).
We do not have to guess very long as to whether or not we have patience. Our next tribulation will give us our answer. If our trial does not produce patience, it will disintegrate our control center. We will not be able to think and act in a manner consistent with our goal of developing the type of character with which we could hope to live with God. This particular trial is no longer a tribulation developing patience. It is now a problem taking away our peace and causing our goal to fade. However, when patience is the result of our tribulation, our mind (control center) stays in control of the situation. We stay on the course of the law of life (Rom. 8:2).
Since Christians are sons of God and God is writing His laws on our hearts and minds, we actually have God’s law in control during our time of trial (Heb. 8:10; Rom. 8:29). We can readily see how an experience of this type will test, as well as strengthen, the fiber of our character. It will make us ready for more tribulations as they come our way, and at the same time, make us better prepared for the Lord’s service. The life “in Adam, in Christ” after is a life of discipline by tribulations to develop children for God – in spite of the fall (Heb. 12:5-11).
Please note, in our following Paul’s line of thinking in Romans 5:1-5, it now appears we are back where we started. That is, we started with hope (V. 2). After our successful experiences with our tribulations, we are back to hope (V. 5). He said; “We now exult, that is, rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” This hope came as a result of peace with God. From verse three, we now understand how tribulations bring about perseverance (patience) and perseverance brings proven character. Proven character gives us hope. True, it is still hope, but we are further up the hill of the development of the new creation of our selves, than we were back in verse two. There, we had a vision of sharing in God’s glory. Our hope has become more plausible because we have been involved in a program of developing character like God’s nature. We have not attained our goal but we are convinced we are in the proper training course because God and Jesus are present with us by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit (I John 3:21-24).
Developing character like Jesus is the number one program in God’s plan for Christians right now. It is a hard program, but at the same time, it is a thrilling and rewarding program once we totally give ourselves over to the full training course (Rom. 8:17). One of the most unique parts of the entire program is when we make progress; we are never disappointed in the result. We never feel like we have suffered in vain. We are storing up a treasure in ourselves for heaven (Matt.6:20). No one can take it from us, even though they may kill our soul life on earth.
Hope developed by proven character never disappoints. People hope for happiness from their early years all the way to their death beds. Sometimes they undertake great projects requiring years of trials to attain goals they hope will bring happiness. Because of intervening problems and changes in conditions, they often are sorely disappointed. There is perhaps nothing more disappointing than after contending with a great trial for a cause, to have it disappoint us. It is comforting to know our hope “in Christ” will not disappoint us. The scripture attributes this wonderful blessing to the fact; the love of God is being poured out within our hearts by the Holy Spirit. How has the love of God been poured out into our hearts in this experience? God fellowships us as our Father here in our life in this world by the presence of the Holy Spirit. We, no doubt, will never fully understand this scripture without first experiencing the program (Rom. 5:5; Gal. 4:6).
There is a relationship between proven character and God’s love. His quality of love is the “top rung of the ladder” in character building (II Pet. 1:5-8). Paul said; “And beyond all of these put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.” Col.3:14. A hope that leads in a character building program toward God’s own glorious nature will be an encouragement to us because of the outpouring of God’s love on man and in man. God poured out His love when it was not deserved by sending Jesus Christ so Christians can enjoy God’s fellowship by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
We pour out our love in service for God and develop love as a part of our character. We cannot develop love without loving first. The Holy Spirit, who constantly is in fellowship with Christians, is able to fully comprehend God’s love (V. 5). We will discuss the nature of God’s love in our next lesson.
Let us conclude by saying that a hope of sharing in God’s glory will integrate all of our programs to satisfy our drives. Developing as a son of God is the only goal that can satisfy every drive at the same time – even during tribulations. The power in our “will to act” is developed between our innate needs and the goals we choose for their satisfaction.
Questions for Discussion
- What is God’s glory?
- What can we change about ourselves that causes us to be like God’s glory?
- Explain how Christians are able to get a vision of sharing in God’s glory eternally.
- What does it mean to share in God’s glory in eternity?
- What value is our hope of sharing in God’s glory to us now?
- How can Christians take all challenges and make them work to attain our eternal goal?
- Why do people subject themselves to rigid training courses?
- Explain the training course Christians joyfully accept when we have God’s glory as an eternal goal?
- Why is patience so important in our training course?
- What happens when we are impatient with a tribulation?
- How does the love of God prevent disappointment of our hope (Rom. 5:5)?
- Who is the Person within us that is able to fully comprehend God’s love?
