Now, this is a shock to you folks
not to have music. It's not such a big shock to
me. But it seems that the lady who's
been playing the piano, she's at McDonald's now. And she would be scolded severely,
but she has the pastor's grandson with her. Turn back with me to 1 Timothy
chapter 3. It's been such an undeserved delight to me to be
here. I appreciate you putting up with
me and I'm thankful for the fellowship and the kindness I love you, and I pray for you,
and I'm thankful for the fellowship. I always get encouraged when
I come. That's something I'm always needing. Let's look back at our verse
this morning. That 16th verse of 1 Timothy
3, we're down to that last phrase. He says, and without controversy,
great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh,
justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the
Gentiles, believed on in the world, and then this last part
of this complete statement of this mystery of godliness, and
that is that this One who is none other than Christ, God manifest
in the flesh, He was received up into glory. Now, most people think of glory
as a place. And in some ways it is. But glory, especially as the
consummation of this mystery of godliness, is much, much more. You see, it is not a dead Christ
on a cross that we worship. If you ever notice, most of what
goes on in idolatry, as far as outward symbols and such, it
usually leaves Christ as a dead person. I remember walking into
the big Catholic cathedral a large city in Mexico, in Isamal, and
they have there the Virgin of the Yucatan. And I walked in
the door to look, and you just can walk in and out, but I walked
and looked, and there in the back is this big statue of a
limp, dead, supposedly Jesus laying in the arms of Mary. That's not our God. But rather,
we as believers worship and rejoice in the fact that ours is the
living Christ who was received up into glory. And this is something that Paul
prayed for the people at Ephesus and something that we should
desire to enter into more fully in our understanding and in our
realization. Turn back to Ephesians chapter
1. Ephesians 1 and verse 15, Paul
says, Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the
Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints, cease not to give
thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers. That the
God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give
unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge
of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened that ye may
know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches
of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the
exceeding greatness of his power to usward, usward who believe
according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought
in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at
his own right hand." Actually, this is in the heavenlies. Far above all principality and
power and might and dominion and every name that is named,
not only in this world, but also in that which is to come, and
hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the
head over all things to the church which is his body, the fullness
of him that filleth all in The Lord Jesus Christ, Paul says,
I would have you to know and be reminded and be enlightened
and grow in understanding as to the high place of exultation
that Christ was raised to. And you see, Part of the glory
of this is that Christ was received up into glory in the same flesh
as that in which he was manifested. You see, it begins, God was manifested
in the flesh. And then it goes on, and the
consummation is that in that same flesh he was received up
into glory. I remember the first time I ever
came into this assembly, and people were still talking about
a sermon. I don't know who, but some man
a long time ago preached, and I believe it was entitled, There
is a Man in Glory. And that is an amazing thing,
that there is a man in glory. A man failed and fell in the
garden of Eden, and when he fell, all his race fell in him. But another man, who is described
as the man, he was received up into glory And his being received
up into glory is the exaltation of his people. Received up into glory. The scripture says in Luke 24
that it came to pass while he blessed them, he was parted from
them and carried up into heaven." Old John Owen, not right about
everything, but surely right about a lot of things. He said,
all perfections whereof human nature is capable abiding what
It was in both the essential parts of it, body and soul, do
belong unto the Lord Jesus Christ in his glorified state. There is a man in glory. And this is a very fundamental
article of our faith, or of the faith, and that is that he is
in the same body in heaven that he was in here on this earth,
and they still, the faculties thereof in their highest form,
continue in him. You know he is described also
as our forerunner. And he is that one that is spoken
of in our text verse, and this speaks of the success and the
exaltation of Christ because of what he accomplished in his
incarnation in his sufferings, in his substitutionary death,
in his resurrection, because all throughout the scripture
it has said of the Lord Jesus Christ, but as he was simply
known of as the Messiah or the coming one, It was said of him
that his sufferings would be the threshold to his glory. When he revealed himself to those
disciples after the resurrection, And they were so downcast and
they were so put out because this one that they had such hope
in, he had been taken out and crucified and died and was no
longer, they thought, with him. But do you remember what he said?
When he came and revealed himself to them, he said, O fools and
slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. He said, if you see the prophets
aright, they were saying, every one of them, that this glory
would be His, this exaltation would be His, because of His
suffering. It would not end His glory. It would reveal His glory. And so what he says in this,
that he was received up into glory, it is, as I said, a picture
and a reminder of his exultation and recognition. You see, this is the glory that
is revealed, but which was his before the world began, but it's
not so much talking here about His essential glory as God. You see, this is His glory as
the Redeemer. This is what we call His mediatorial
glory. Because when you stop and think
about it, his essential glory as God could certainly not in
any way be increased. But this is a glory that is manifested,
a glory that is given him because of what he as God manifests in
the flesh accomplished. Hold your place and turn over
to John chapter 17. John chapter 17, and look with
me beginning in verse 1. We call this the great high priestly
prayer. This is one of those occasions
when we are allowed to eavesdrop on what our Savior says to the
Father. It says, These words spake Jesus,
and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is
come. Glorify. thy son, that thy son
also may glorify thee." Now, we know that Christ glorified
the Father every day of His life. And we know also that the Father
glorified the Son every day of His life. But he is now about
to approach the cross, and there is something in this cross work
of Jesus Christ, in his sufferings and in his death, there is something
in what he does in this that glorifies the Father and which
causes the Father to glorify him. What does it mean to glorify
something? Well, such passages as Romans
8 where it says, them he also glorified, and others where it
says that they glorified God. If you stop and think about it,
if we had nothing more than simply that one statement that men glorified
God. We know surely that they didn't
make him better, did they? They didn't make him more perfect? And not only that, but in Romans
8 there, it's spoken of as having taken place in the past tense concerning all his people. You see, to glorify simply means
to honor or to recognize or to confess all that can be said
or known that is true about something. They glorified God. What's that? They honored him,
recognized him, confessed him to be just as he says he is. And he glorified these people,
his elect, in that he identified them as those that he had loved
and chosen and predestinated and justified and called his
own. He identifies his people, he
glorified them in that he identified with them and made known that
they were his. Do you remember on the Mount
of Transfiguration? when Peter and James and John
were there on the mount with him, and that what appears to
be a miracle in our eyes, whenever he shone with such a brightness,
it was manifest, his bright, what we would say, glory, all
that was was simply for that moment Christ unveiling the majesty
of himself. So listen to the Father, or the
Son. He says, Father, the hour is
come, glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee. Kola, whatever follows, got something
to do with that which glorifies God and that which God in turn
glorifies his son. He glorifies this man who is
God himself in the flesh, and this is what it says, that thou
hast given him power over all flesh. Now, if you like those
universal statements, that's a definite right there. He has
been given power over all flesh, but it is to do something. that he should give eternal life
to as many as thou hast given him. What will glorify Christ? What will glorify God? It is for him to give. I don't mean to offer or make
available. His glory lies in his giving
eternal life to every one of these that the Father hath given
to him. He goes on, I have glorified
thee on earth. I have finished the work which
thou gavest me to do. And now, now listen to this,
O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory
which I had with thee before the world was. Now what glory was that? It was
that he was established from the beginning As this mediator,
as this redeemer, as this angel of the covenant, he was that
person occupying this role and office, a glory that would be
his in the accomplishment of it in human flesh on this earth. And when he did that, when he
successfully accomplished it, when he finished that work, when
he satisfied God, when he honored God in the Godhead in all its
honor and attributes and character, when he did that, the evidence
it was received and accepted was not only that he had done
so by the resurrection But he was received up into glory. It doesn't say he just went busting
in the gates of heaven, does it? No, he was received up into
glory. Look down in verse 10, because he says, And all mine
are thine, and thine are mine, and I am glorified in thee."
It's like Brother Richard was talking about, you know, let
your little light shine. We used to hear people say, let
others see Jesus in you, when the truth is they didn't see
Jesus in Jesus. He says, I am glorified in them. How is he glorified in them?
In that he did not lose not one of them? In that he saved and
did everything necessary to their salvation and the accomplishment
of righteousness before God on their behalf? because he bore
in his own body their sins, because they are made the righteousness
of God in him, he said, Father, I am glorified in thee. Verse 22, And the glory which
thou gavest me I have given them that they may be one even as
we are one. They are in this sense glorified
in the sense that they are the recipients of those benefits
from that work which gives to him all the glory. received up into glory. Now, one of my favorite Psalms
is Psalm 24. Turn over to Psalm 24. And look down at Psalm 24 beginning
in this third verse where he says, Who shall ascend into the
hill of the Lord, or who shall stand in his holy place?" Now,
that's a good question. I guess you could say it equates
to something like this. How good do you have to be to
go to heaven? How do you have to be to enter into the holy
place? that hath clean hands, and a
pure heart, who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor
sworn deceitfully, he shall receive the blessing from the Lord, and
righteousness from the God of his salvation." Now, if that
applies to me and myself, there ain't no glory for me. And I hate to tell you this,
if that depends on you, you'll never make it in. You'll never
be received up into glory. But if you notice this, just
a further verse 7, there's a command. And this command is simply this.
It says, lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up,
ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in. The King of glory. What would you think that means?
I think it basically means The only one who gets any glory.
Is that not right? He's the only one at any point
from eternity past to eternity future that will ever and could
ever get any glory in our salvation. I know how we are. We'll say,
well, we give God the glory. right after we've told everybody
what we've done and what we are and what we don't do. I'll tell
you what we're like. We're like when a kid, when I
ever did get an orange, you know, and you just take and cut a hole
in the end of it and squeeze it and roll it and squeeze it
and suck it and squeeze it some more. And I mean squeeze it until
you can get it right down to the very hard grip of your hand
until the last juice was out of it. And then somebody said,
you want an orange? That's the way we are by nature. But those first words of that
hymn are true. To God be the glory, great things
He hath done. He said, who is this King of
glory? Who is this one going to Who
is this One that can meet this standard? Who is this One that
the very Father commands that the gates of glory be opened
up and this King of glory enter in? Who is this King of glory? The Lord, strong and mighty. The Lord, mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, O ye gates,
even lift them up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory
shall come in." Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts. He's the King of glory. Now, you know, it's amazing how
many different notions and preconceived ideas you have concerning things. thought of the Lord of hosts,
I always thought of these hosts as being angels, angelic hosts,
you know. Well, in a sense, Christ is,
you know. He's the angel that redeemed. He's the king of the angelic
hosts, you could say. But I don't think that's what
he's talking about here. As a matter of fact, probably
not what he talks about in most places. He's the king of of glory. He's the Lord of hosts. He's
the Lord of this people, this host of people that He redeemed
by His blood, that He saved from their sins, that He saved to
the glory of His own self. He's the King of glory. His humiliation in being made
a man And in having all the sins of his people imputed to him
and laid on him and his pouring out of his life's blood and his
obedience unto death, that satisfied God and was accepted by God to
such a degree that he is glorified by God. He is received in the
glory. He ain't go sneaking off somewhere
to still be your little Jesus boy. He ain't walking down around
the Sea of Galilee in sandals and a robe. He's not all these
stupid unholy familiarity type expressions we hear in our day.
He's the King of Glory. When he had by himself purged
our sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on
high." He was received up into heaven
and sat down on the right hand of God. Paul expresses it like
this in Philippians 2. As a matter of fact, I've said
that here in Philippians 2, Paul begins in this description of
Christ entering into humiliation and then being raised to glorification. Philippians chapter 2 and verse
5. He said, Let this mind be in
you which was also in Christ Jesus. who, being in the form
of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made
himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant,
and was made in the likeness of men, and being found in fashion
as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death,
not just any death, but the death of the cross. You see what that next word is?
Wherefore, or maybe because of this, God also hath highly exalted
thee. One of the first things that
the Spirit of God condemned my heart for immediately when He
began to reveal Himself to me was this whole notion of anybody
making Jesus Lord. You need to make Jesus your Lord. You need to exalt Him and raise
Him up. No, God doesn't beat you to it. He highly exalted
Him. How high? To the highest. And has given Him a name. You know where I come from when
they say, you know, they use an expression, they say, well,
he's got a name for being a good fellow, or he's got a name for
being a good cook. What does that mean? That's kind
of their renown. That's what their renown, that's
what they're known for. He says, and he has given him
a name which is above every name. that at the name of Jesus every
knee should bow of things in heaven, and things in earth,
and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father." You see that name, Lord, Jehovah. had to do with the Messiah in
His redemptive character. Isn't that right? As Savior. What is He? He's all my salvation. Like old Simeon, Lord, I've seen
thy salvation. Salvation is of the Lord Jesus
Christ. It's in Him. It's in what He
did. to the glory of God the Father. You remember old Joseph? Joseph,
I mean, he starts out on a rough road. His brothers despise him,
but his father loves him. His brothers despise him, they
jealous of him, and they do just what men did to Christ. They
take him, they cast him into a pit, they tell his father lies
on him, and then they take him out of that pit, sell him into
slavery. He goes down into Egypt, and
he's finally cast into the prison in Egypt. He keeps going down,
down, down, down, down until that hour that God lifts
him up. when he was exalted to the next
of Pharaoh over every person in that land, it says, then Joseph,
who had been shown of God the coming famine and who had been
told by Pharaoh to gather up everything that could be grown
and saved and preserved for the years of famine. And then it
says in Joseph, from that throne, open up the storehouses. My friends, our Redeemer, He
ain't in that tomb anymore, and He isn't appearing as a mere
mortal on this earth. He's on the throne like Joseph
was to open up the storehouses of His grace and to apply the
benefits of that work which He accomplished. in his person and
work. He was received up into glory. And this glory is inseparably
joined to his people, all who believe on him, because their
oneness is with Christ in the everlasting covenant, and their
oneness is with him in his death. and their oneness is with him
in his resurrection, and their oneness is assured in his glorious
ascension and enthronement in glory." Why? Because when he came, he came
as a representative man. When he lived in this world,
he lived as a representative man. When he hung on that cross
before God, he hung there as a representative man. And by
that, I simply mean that whatever he did was in full application
and applied and affected everyone he represented. And the same thing is true. when
he was received up into glory." Turn back to Ephesians. And look here in Ephesians 1.
I was talking to these brethren this morning, and this is like
part of one of those proof texts supposedly people use to talk
about regeneration. But if you notice here in the
first verse that in the King James, Those third, fourth, and
fifth words are in italics, which you know means that they were
added by the translators, when it says, actually, and you who
were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past ye walked
according to the course of this world, according to the prince
of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the
children of disobedience, among whom also we all had our conversation
in times past in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires
of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as
others." We were by nature just like everybody else, but by grace. He said, we're the children of
God. But God, who is rich in mercy,
for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were
dead in sins, hath quickened us together. Now, that kind of tells me right
there that the subject is probably not regeneration, but the subject
is how that we in this oneness and union with Christ are partakers
together with Him in everything. Listen. Have quickened us together
with Christ by grace Ye are saved, and hath raised us up together,
and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." When He died, we died. When He
was buried, we were buried with Him. cut off in that death from
all our old connections to Adam, all the law, all the things that
we failed in, not only in our head but personally, and raised
to life in Christ. And when he was received up into
glory, because he's our head, he's the head And his church,
his elect, are the body. When he was received up into
glory, we were received up into glory in our head, and it says,
and seated with him in the heavenlies. Somebody says, you go into heaven?
I'm really already there in my head. And if my head is safe, I'm safe. You go out in the water, and
you wait out to your ankles. Are you safe? Well, yes. Wait
on out a little farther, up to your knees. Are you still OK?
Yes. Wait on up to your waist? OK? Yes. Wait up to your chest? Yes. OK. Wait up to your neck?
We say, well, I'm up to neck in trouble. It's OK. You're okay as long as your head's
all right. And we're safe on this earth
because our head, our representative, has already been received up
into glory. And therefore, where do we go to find help and
grace and everything in every time of need? He said, we come boldly to the
throne of grace. He has made the throne of glory
to be the throne of grace for His people. His reception in glory assures
the reception of all who trust Him who plead his blood alone,
who look to Christ the way and turn from every false way, and
who, like Paul, can truly say, yea, doubtless. And I count all
things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus
my Lord, for whom I suffer the loss of all things, and do count
them but done that I may win Christ and be found in him, not
having mine own righteousness which is of the law, but that
which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which
is of God by faith. There is a man in glory, and my whole hope and position
with regard to that glory is in that man, that representative
man who stood in my place, who suffered what I should have suffered,
who died the death that I could not die. But God said, lift up ye everlasting
gates. and the King of Glory shall come
in." And he's like that king coming back from a victorious
triumph. As a matter of fact, that's what
he's likened to in Scripture. Takes his spoils with him. What
are they? A bunch of sinners that shall
be to the praise of the what? Glory of Our Father, this day we praise
you and your dear son, the Lord Jesus Christ. The one who, like David of old,
stood out in representation of spiritual Israel and triumphed
over the devil and death and hell and the grave and sin. and in whom, Lord, we are exalted
and raise Christ our head, and we as his body, the fullness
of that body of which there shall never be any absent one. We thank you that when you received
him unto glory, you received us in our head, which guarantees
that one day at the hour that you have appointed, you shall
change our vile body, life unto His glorious body. And whether
it be in death or whether it be when He comes in the air,
you will in all the fulfillment of it receive us into that unending
and undisturbed glory, the glory of a crucified Christ. And so, Lord, we would say now
as the Apostle, God forbid, that we should glory in anything but
Christ. Thank you for these days and
for your blessing to us. We are also unworthy, but worthy
is the Lamb that was slain. And we thank You and pray in
Him. Amen.