Seeing Glory at Work
Background Insight
Driving to a prayer meeting about Christ at work in “all things” (Acts 3:19-21) I had a scintillating sense of the glory of the Lord. The next morning, I had much deeper insight into what this means. As I laid hands on a brother in regular employment (not a pastor), but who is writing glorious hymns in the most trying circumstances, I sensed we were back in Acts 16. Paul and Barnabas had been unjustly beaten and thrown into the pitch black dungeon, “about midnight they …were praying and singing hymns to God”. I prophesied, “You…are back there now in the one undivided eternal glory of Christ which moved the apostles to praise the Lord amidst their distress (cf. Acts 5:40-41), and it’s moving you now to share in their praise. For you and them are with the ascended Christ in the Spirit around the throne of the Lamb NOW sharing in the holy worship of heaven (Col 3:1-4; Heb 12:18-24; Rev 5).” The Spirit of the Lord has been filling out this theme of glory in all things everywhere (2 Cor 3:16-18).
What and Where is Glory?
Based on the vision of Isaiah and the seraphim’s cry, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” (6:3), it has been profoundly said, “The holiness of God is his glory concealed. The glory of God is his holiness revealed.” (Bengel). Wherever the Lord has placed his holy presence his glory is destined to be revealed. Today the Lord is saying this applies to the people, who, following Joseph, Daniel and the majority of Jesus life, whom he has set apart to serve him as priests and kings (1 Pet 2:9; Rev 5:10) in the workplace. Glory can be revealed at work because the essence of holiness is to be set apart for divine service. Jesus was set apart to work as a carpenter and to learn the ways of his Father through the righteous Joseph (Matt 1:19; John 5:19-20) as surely as he was set apart for his public ministry., Why is the glory of the Lord largely dormant in Christians-at-work and what is the Spirit saying about releasing it now (Rev 1:10)?
Why we Don’t See the Glory
I was in a meeting once where a prominent pastor spoke of the Church as like an army where God’s “generals” were folk like her and “sergeants” were ministering outside of Sunday gatherings. When did you last hear a sermon series on the workplace as the site of your prophetic/priestly/kingly calling?? When the people of God accept this radical division between the sacred and the secular, and believe revival is necessarily a Church-gathered phenomenon, rather than an anywhere act of God, of course we don’t see the glory of God breaking forth in all the spheres of society: education, media, business, trades, law, politics, sport, the arts etc. Calvin spoke of creation as “the theatre of the glory of God” and excluded no space into which God has called humanity from such splendour. Jesus was a working man from Galilee and not a guru or hermit. In Jesus, God in the flesh brought the resources of divine glory into every human space. Sadly, most believers in affluent nations have submitted to the lure of the devil and have been beguiled into chasing “the glory of the kingdoms of this world” (Matt 4:8). The world will never believe in the glory of Jesus if we don’t yet see that his glory is resident in our midst in the workplace (John 17:22-23). True as all this may be, it is missing the main point, the glorious scandal of the cross (1 Cor 1:18-24).
Missing the Cross
In expounding the blindness of the contemporary religious experts to Jesus’ identity (John 12:37-40 = Isa 6:9-10), John says, “Isaiah said these things because he saw his (Christ’s) glory and spoke of him.” (v.41). The glory which Isaiah saw hundreds of years before Jesus was born, is the same glory which Jesus had just prayed about: dying that the Father might be glorified through his being “lifted up” in cross and ascension (John 12:27-33; Acts 2:33). This is the eternal glory of the sacrificial Lamb “slain from before the foundation of the world” (Rev 13:8). Christ was in this glory with the Father in eternity (John 17:5), and in time this glory precedes you, but in the Spirit, you were chosen in Christ’s glory “before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight” (Eph 1:4). And as the glory of the Father completed the Son in resurrection you will be perfected in the same love (Rom 6:4-5). In Christ the glory of God is the essential sphere of your existence; in it you “live and move and have your being”, even in “the realm of the dead” (Acts 17:28; Ps 139:8).
For Glory and For Beauty
The robes of the High Priest were “for glory and for beauty” (Ex 28:2) because his atoning ministry in the holiest place was a symbol of the coming splendour of the once for all sacrifice of Jesus (Heb 9:12). Wherever God has called you to work, you need to see that you have been perfectly set apart/sanctified (Heb 10:10 cf. Jer 1:5; Gal 1:15) as a sort of “mobile temple” to offer sacrifice (Rom 12:1-2) on the humble altar of your hearts whose sweetness arises into heaven and releases unlimited (1 Cor 3:21-23) prophetic, priestly and kingly ministry (Rev 5:10; 8:3) in union with Christ. These are sacrifices of much prayer and lowliness on behalf of your work colleagues, especially the least likeable (2 Cor 10:1-5). I have glimpsed this glory and sought to testify to it (http://cross-connect.net.au/about/cross-connect-vision/). It is a glory resident in the world of “ordinary work” sanctified into a space (2 Cor 9:15) of indescribable holy beauty through the presence of Christ in you in the world (John 17:17; Eph 5:27; Col 1:27).
Conclusion
Dutch PM Abraham Kuyper said, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!’ This glorious reality (Zech 2:5 cf. Isa 4:2-6) has rarely been realised in the Church distributed throughout the world. It has been obscured by a common tunnel eyed obsession with revival through preaching, praise and prophecy. The way to the revelation of the glory of our Lord and Husband in the marketplace is simple, childlike and costly (Matt 11:25; 19:14; Acts 14:22). This coming suffering is not just that the boss will give you a harder time, and you will be more ridiculed at work, it is trouble with your older brothers. Elect children of God we all are (Gen 37:11; Acts 7:9), but preceding you in time, call and dignity, your elders will mostly not understand the glorious call of God on your life and fall into envy and jealous ambition (Matt 23:2-3; 27:18; Acts 5:17; James 3:14-16). Pray you will obey the high call of the Lord in the workplace (Phil 3:14), and for mercy upon Church leaders.