Second Thessalonians, I know
I said last week we were closing that out, but I want to transition
into chapter 2 doing something. Chapter 2, if you've read through
this letter, you know that Paul begins to talk about the second
coming of Christ, and specifically that there are rumors and false
teaching and maybe fake letters that have been circulating through
the church of Thessalonica about the second coming of Jesus having
already happened. In other words, they missed it. It's one of the discouragements
that they had in the first letter where they felt like they had
missed the day of the Lord, which includes the redemption of the
saved and then the what? Judgment of the wicked. So going
into chapter 2, I felt like the contrast was contrasting the
man of lawlessness or the whole of the world that is wicked,
that stands in direct contrast with the glory of Jesus Christ
that is righteous. And so in order to get the sense
of that, I felt like I wanted to take more time and really
focus in on the message of verse 12 of chapter 1. So let us look
there at 2 Thessalonians chapter 1. Starting in verse 5, I'll
read down through verse 12, and then I will discuss a few things.
This is the evidence of righteous judgment of God, that you may
be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also
suffering. Since indeed God considers it
just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to
grant relief to you who are afflicted as well. Jesus is revealed from
heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance
on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey
the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment
of eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord and
from the glory of His might when He comes on that day to be glorified
in His saints and to be marveled at among all who have believed,
because our testimony to you was believed. To this end, we
always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of His
calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work
of faith by His power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may
be glorified in you and you in Him, according to the grace of
our God and the Lord Jesus Christ. So we want to focus on a specific
topic today that's driven home, not only with the first letter,
but also this follow-up letter in this first chapter, introducing
this letter to me. And that is the glory of Jesus
Christ. I want us to ask the question,
what is it that is so glorious about Christ? What is it that
is so glorious? If you were to answer that question
on paper today, what would you say? And is that that you would
answer? Is your answer congruent with
Scripture? Does it match? Is Jesus glorious
because of something He's done? Is Jesus glorious because of
something that He is? Is Jesus glorious because of
the way we feel toward Him? Or do we feel these things because
He is glorious? A few thoughts. We gather weekly,
some of us twice, some of us three times, for the teaching
of God's Word. This is good. I believe more
of us should gather more often for the teaching of God's Word.
After all, it is our spiritual food. It is the food and the
sustenance of our soul. And being food, it satisfies
us that we are better in our fellowship. Something else to
consider. We either, as we meet and gather
and eat, we either grow into Christ in our eating, or we grow
obese in our spiritual minds. The difference would be that
as we grow in Christ, we grow into maturity, which is evidenced
by our love for each other. If we grow spiritually obese,
it's an obese fullness for our own glory. Not willing to be
equipped, but rather just wanting to be fed. It's much like I've
told many people through the years. And the very first day
that I preached as a pulpit supply in Newark, California at First
Baptist Church, when I opened my eyes and praying at the end
of that service, there was a gentleman standing here to my left, tears
rolling down his face. And I walked down to him and
he says to me, we want you to consider being our pastor. To
which I responded, you don't even know my name. nor anything
about me, you don't want me to be your pastor." That's exactly
what I said to him. Oh yes, we do. I said, no, you
want me to preach. You don't want me to hold you
to that preaching. There's a difference in hearing a sermon from a preacher
on the internet or hearing a sermon from some book that you read
and being held accountable by a local congregation to the preaching
that just came to you. One is preaching, the other is
pastoring. Shepherding is guiding, directing,
holding, barring, guarding, defending, rebuking, correcting. And all
of us, even though we are all sheep, and I may be your figurehead
shepherd, we are all shepherds of one another through the Word
of God. And those who oversee the assembly,
they do so with fear and trepidation that they might not abuse the
Word of God, but might, for the joy of the flock, hold fast to
truth, in prayer, in study, to see that the church is equipped
to do the work of the ministry. Something else to think about
as we begin today. When we're through eating, to one degree
or another, to spiritual maturity that evidences itself through
love and fellowship and intimacy and ministry, or the other through
spiritual obesity is just about us and our knowledge that we
get puffed up. When we're through with those things, when we're
through with the feast, we leave. We leave service each week. We
leave our gathered time, and sometimes we do so without consideration
of what we are. Or who we are. Or more importantly,
whose we are. We point our direction in the
way of life and we leave the glorious behind. We leave the
sublime that we experience through the Word, through singing, through
prayers. We leave the feel and the movement of what we call
God and we walk out the door and it's over. We shut Him up
and we shut Him out. Beloved, the purpose of this
gathering is that we are encouraged and strengthened just a little
bit more so that we might live just a little bit more out there
together and in the world, but not of it, with joy and with
power and with purpose. I did not answer the call to the
pastorate so that I could be a motivational speaker. I could
do that much more lucratively without the Bible. I did not answer the call of
the pastor so that I could fill my Sunday mornings up with something
to do, for if I were not a man of God, I would definitely be
at the range, shooting and enjoying my day,
riding a bike, lounging on the couch. I did not answer the call
of the pastor so that I could be esteemed and loved, for surely
it has not come my way. Some of you might, well, I love
you, we're good. We are the minority that love each other in the church.
We are the minority that love, that's why it is such a wise,
powerful display of God when people like us can love each
other. I answered the call to pastor
because there was nothing else I could do. I tried, I tried to be a
part-time preacher and just preach in different places. I tried
to just be a good Christian businessman. I try to just be a full-time
student for the rest of my life. But pastoring is not something
you just choose and pick. It's something God calls you
to, and it is a divine calling that you can't retire from. It
is a divine calling that you cannot get over. It is a divine
calling that you are willing to lose all that you have for
the sake of not your own glory, but at the cost of yourself,
for the sake of the joy of those people who stand before you and
who come around you. This is why we do what we do,
that you might, beloved, grow in the joy of Christ. We've all come here today in
pain. We've all come in here with some type of pain, with
some type of reason to doubt, with some type of hardship, with
some type of anxiety. Every one of us in our minds
this very day has frustration. Every one of us has sin in our
lives and every one of us has an excuse as to why we should
not be engaged in the body of Christ. Some of us even go as
far to not even show up on Sundays because of fatigue. Lord have
mercy if I were not to show up to anything because of fatigue,
you'd never see me. I didn't sleep last night. Who
does? But yet there seems to be a misunderstanding
of the obligation of the spiritual maturity of each Christian that
if this pulpit were empty today and no one knew where I was,
you would be infuriated. But I'm under no more obligation
than you are to assemble in this place today. Even if I had a
salary package of a billion dollars, I'm under no more obligation
than you are to be here today. The people of God are not under
obligatory attendance in a building. They're under supernatural, divine
influence of a God who has put a love for Himself in their hearts
and for each other. And we want to assemble because
we've all come here with reasons why we shouldn't. We've all come
to this place with enough excuses to wreck our faith, but it is
precisely these reasons that we are to be invested in
each other and intimate with each other. The point of being
the body of Christ is that we work in the horrors of life with
joy together in power. If you're waiting for your life
to be free of obstruction, and frustration, and pain, and tension,
sorry to man! Oh, when I get my sin under control,
then I'm gonna get invested in the lives of other Christians.
Well, hallelujah, you're a hermit for the rest of your life. And
hermits don't make good brothers or sisters. The church is something, is not
something we attend. We do not attend church. We have
never attended church We gather as a church. The point
of the word church means assembled. So the church doesn't exist until
we're all here. The church is the people. The church is the body. It's not some place we get together.
It's not a check obligation to please God. It isn't getting
our spiritual fix for the week. It's a people who have been saved
by God through the person of Jesus Christ and we as a people
together reflect the glory of our Redeemer now in this world
and eternally forever. It's why God saved us that we
might praise His glorious grace forever and reflect the beauty
of His nature forever. Worship. Everyone that I speak
to on the street, my entire life, We get to talking about church,
and I love to ask the question, why do you attend church? See, that question's wrong. But
it's the right question for 99% of people. They attend a place. They are not a people. Why do
you attend church? With those people, why do you
gather there? Because it usually comes after
a big dialogue, or monologue, not a dialogue, a big monologue
about how awful the church is, and how awful the pastor is,
and how awful the people are, and how wicked everything looks,
and how smelly it is, and how ugly it is, and how weird it
is, and by God, I just hate it. And then I say, well, why do
you go? Why do you go to those people? And then they ask me
something like this. It's either one of two things.
Here's the first one. Well, I just, this is my family's church. No,
this is your family's building. Because it's got the name of
your daddy on the side of the plaque. I see it. It's your family's
building. Guess what? God didn't destroy
that building. Why else do you come and gather? Oh, so I can
worship God. I can worship Jesus. That's the
right answer. We ought to worship together. Because that's what we're preparing
to do forever. The problem is if we hate each
other, if we're bitter, if we're frustrated, if we underpin our
sin, we can't worship anyone. We can't come in here under false
pretenses and say we're doing spiritual things when we're not.
We can lie to ourselves, we can lie to each other. We can even
lie so much that we believe it. But God knows the truth. We come
to worship because it is what is within our hearts. It's what's
within our souls. It's why people long for vacation
so much. They need to get away from life.
They need to go take a break. Friends, you get a vacation every
Sunday. And not just a vacation. A faithful. You get a real one. Because you
get together with the people who are going through the same
thing you are going through. And even if we're not experiencing the
same difficulties, we are sympathizing with one another because we're
the same body. And it's not just a break. It
is a divine appointment. We reflect the glory of our Redeemer
now and eternally. What is it that we truly desire
to have in this life? What is it that we're working
for? What is it that makes us driven to study and to live and
to pray and to put aside fleshly things and to fight the fight
of faith and to fight against sin and to run the race of holiness?
What is it that engages our hearts and minds and bodies to do such
things? What do we want? Who are we most
longing to be around every day? What do we desire more? To be
alone or to be with God's people? What makes church appealing to
us? I just love Grace Truth Church.
I'm so glad I got the church because this church got the gospel
right. Are you here to help me get the
gospel right? I hope not. Because it's not like you'd be
anywhere else that got the gospel wrong. So that's like a no-brainer. Are we here this morning together
because God has put a love for Him and a love for each other
in our hearts? Are we committed? See, worship
comes corporately to the extent that it is done individually.
Satisfaction in Christ. Glory in Christ. This is the
ultimate end. This is why we live. This is
why God has saved us and kept us in this earth. That we may
give glory to Him now in preparation to give glory to Him forever. So let's ask a few questions
in relation to the glory of God. In verse 12 there it says, so
that the name, there's a cause, this is the reason. What is the
point? I'm praying that God will, what? Make you worthy of His calling
to fulfill every resolve for good and every word of faith
by His power. What did we talk about last week?
That God, though we are made worthy by Christ alone for the
kingdom of God, that in this life God then works in us good
deeds to show that we are His people. to give glory to Him
here, so that we can say what Paul has said. It's not I who
live, but Christ who lives within me. Don't praise me because I can
live without cursing. Don't praise me because I can
live without murder. Don't praise me because I can
live without lying, because in reality, in my flesh, I'm a cursing,
lying murderer. And it is Christ who keeps me
from these things. And when they happen, guess what?
It's my flesh, not Christ. Well today, the end of it, we
want to live as a people, and all of these things that God
has called us to do, that means every New Testament letter and every
command written in the New Testament letters to the church, friends,
is for us to follow. And Paul tells us that the will
of God is for our sanctification, so it is going to take place
in the life of His people, because God's will is always done. And when we're praying for each
other, remember I said this last week and the week before, sometimes
we get discouraged with sin in our lives and sometimes we get
discouraged with the lives of others. But beloved, we ought
to pray for these people so that God would change them instead
of trying to figure out what kind of therapy and frustration
and aggravation or worse, avoidance might work. Why? Because when we live this
way, The name of the Lord Jesus is glorified in us. And when
we live this way, we are glorified in Him. And we know that it happens
according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
It is by the mercy of God. But what does it mean when we
talk about the glory of God? First, we know that God is glorious. We see all throughout the Old
Testament, God is glorious. I mean, God is glorious before
the earth had formed. God is glorious before the earth
existed. God is glorious before there
was anything. God is glorious. God is glorious
in creation. God is glorious in being. God
is glorious in holiness. God is glorious in majesty and
love and power and in justice. God is glorious in Himself. And
He is glorious if He had never revealed Himself. He is glorious. You use that word glorious. What
does it mean? What does it mean when I hear,
well we see glorified, we pray for that, we long for that, we
use the word constantly. Do we not know what it means,
beloved? What does it mean? What is glorious anyway? Well,
several definitions. Two go together. One is how we respond. Glorious is defined as high honor
and renown. Mainly because of what someone
accomplishes. So God is glorious and is highly
renowned and is honorable and worthy of honor because of all
that He does. But a second definition of glorious
is also fitting of God. Glorious means splendor. beauty, majesty. Even if God
had just existed and we look upon Him, He is glorious. Even
if God has done nothing and moved in no way to create anyone to
behold His glory, He is still infinitely worthy and infinitely
glorious to be beheld. He is worth all things. What about being glorified? What
does it mean to be glorying in God's glory? Well, here's what
it means. Look back up at verse 10. When he comes on that day to
be glorified in his saints and to be marveled at among all who
have believed. See, that was three weeks ago.
We've forgotten it already. Yet Paul is still leaning the
page here. And what's happening in chapter 2 is he's going to
give a grand contrast between the glory of Christ and the glory
of sin. Glorying in Christ, glorying
in God means that we recognize His renown, we recognize His
honor, we recognize His majesty and His splendor and His beauty,
and we take the highest pleasure in it. You see that? So glorying in
God is taking pleasure in Him above all things. The highest
pleasure that anyone could experience. is only truly found in Jesus
Christ. Last week I quoted John Gospel
chapter 17 verse 10 where Jesus says, all mine are yours and
yours are mine and I am glorified in them. That's how I closed
the service. And I felt so discombobulated that I thought I've got to finish
that thought. In John 17, if you'll go there
with me, I want to read the entire chapter. When Jesus had spoken these words,
He lifted up His eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has
come, listen, glorify Your Son that the Son may glorify You. I want you to hear all the times
Jesus mentions glory. since you have given authority
over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you have given
them. And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only
true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you
on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to
do, and now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with
the glory that I had with you before the world existed. The
same glory I had, I want it again. Before there was anything, I
was infinitely glorious, and I want it back. Verse 6, I have
manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave
them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that
everything that you have given me is from you. For I have given
them the words that you gave me, and they have received them
and have come to know the truth that I came from you, and they
have believed that you sent me. I'm praying for them. I'm not
praying for the world, but for those who you have given me,
for they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours
are mine, and I am glorified in them. I'm no longer in the
world, but they are in the world. And I am coming to you, Holy
Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that
they may be one, even as we are one. While I was with them, I
kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded
them, and not one of them has been lost, except the son of
destruction, that scripture might be fulfilled. Judas Iscariot
is who he's speaking of. But now I am coming to you that
these things I speak, they are not, excuse me, that these, and
these things I speak in the world that they may have my joy fulfilled
in themselves. Verse 14, I have given them your
word and the world has hated them because they are not of
the world just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that
you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the
evil one. They are not of the world just as I am not of the
world. Sanctify them in the truth, your word is truth. as you sent
me into the world, so I have sent them into the world, and
for their sake I consecrate myself that they also may be sanctified
in truth. I do not ask for these alone,
but also for all those who will believe in me through their word,
that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and
I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may
believe that you have sent me. Verse 22. The glory that you
have given me, I have given to them. that they may be one even
as we are one. I in them and you in me that
they may become perfectly one so that the world may know that
you sent me and love them even as you loved me. Father, I desire
that they also whom you have given me may be with me where
I am to see my glory that you have given me because you love
me before the foundation of the world. Oh, righteous Father,
even though the world does not know you, I know you and these
that you have sent me I made known to them your name, and
I will continue to make it known that the love with which you
have loved me may be in them, and I in them. Now I've already
talked about all of this today in introduction. And I'm not
going to exegete that or preach that, but the points that I want
to make are found there. This is an illusion, if you will,
2 Thessalonians. Paul understood the theology
of what it means to glory in Christ and to be glorified in
Christ and for Christ to be glorified in us because Paul knew the words
of Christ in John 17. Did he have it? No. Did he know
it? Yes. How? The Spirit of God gave
him all knowledge. Beloved God is glorious before
there was anything to behold it. Jesus Christ was glorious
at the coming as a human being. Jesus is glorious eternally before
the world began. Jesus is glorious humanly in
the incarnation. He's perfect and true. He's glorious. He's worthy of honor. He's in
slender and beauty. Jesus is glorious obediently. Father, let me do that which
you sent me to do. I have accomplished all that
I've been sent to do. I've glorified you in obedience.
Jesus is glorious reflectively as He reflects the nature of
the Father, the face of the Father. And I'll show you how that is
explicitly taught in Scripture in just a moment. Not just John
1, not just Hebrews 1, not just Colossians 1 and so on, but all
through Scripture, especially in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, it
even uses the very language that I just said. Jesus Christ reveals
to the Father the exact imprint of His nature. All the fullness
of deity was pleased to dwell. He was from the Father and fully
from the Father. Jesus is glorious in all of His
works, in all of His words, in all of His being, but He is most
glorious in the salvation of God's people. Not that there's
a comparison. In 2 Corinthians chapter 4, you
can turn there if you want to. Paul begins to, excuse me, yes,
Paul begins to, I was almost saying Moses, he's talking about
Moses in chapter three. Paul begins a comparison of that
which was veiled and unably seen. In other words, we cannot see
God, Moses didn't see God. He saw unveiled, he looked at
the tail end of the train of the robe of His glory. He could
not see it. But John tells us that God is
revealed perfectly and the fullness of the glory of God is revealed
in Jesus Christ. Paul writes that to this little
irritating church of Corinth. And he tells them, after they've
straightened up, do not worry about what you cannot see and
about what others cannot see. For God is revealed in Jesus
Christ. He says that Satan blinds the
eyes of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the
gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God. So therein lies the problem.
The greatest joy, the eternal life, is knowing you, the one
true God, the Son of who you have sent. How do we know God?
By knowing the Son, whose face perfectly reveals God. That's
how we have eternal life. So that God would say to us,
Jesus Christ, the Son, who is God, would say, I knew you, versus
I never knew you. This is bad news that Satan blinds
the unbelievers. But the good news is glorious. Listen to the good news. What's
the good news? In verse 6 of that, it says this, But God who
said, Let light shine out of darkness. The blindness is darkness. Unable, unwilling to see. God who said, let there be light,
and there was light, the revelation of His glory to something He
has made that was beheld, and He was seen, and He was loved,
and He was honored, and He was glorified. The good news is, for God who
said, let light shine out of darkness, has shown in our hearts
to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. Jesus is glorified in salvation,
most of all, because He is gloried as a Savior by His people. And this salvation, this good
news is the perfect plan of God before there was the world. Beloved,
do you know God created the heavens and the earth and the infinite
cosmos and the infinite, immeasurable, ineffable attributes of all the
solar systems to show the insignificance of all of it in comparison to
the glory of Him. The Old Testament says the heavens
declare your glory. But yet in Revelation we see
that they're going to be folded up like a sheet. And they're immeasurable. How
is something that displays the glory of God anywhere close to
the glory of God in creation? The only thing that can perfectly
display the beauty and the infinitely eternal glory of an infinitely
eternal God is that there is the God, the Son, that comes
and forever shows us the face of this ineffable God. Friends,
I like to tell people in our little theological discussions,
we think all knowledge and understanding and wisdom and all that's going
to just pop into our heads when we stand before Jesus Christ,
we will have no more questions, is true. But friends, we will
never stop learning the depths of the glory of Jesus
Christ. You hear me say often, you've
just got to look to Christ. You've got to die to yourself.
You've got to lay down your life. You've got to lay down this issue.
You've got to stop being the God of your circumstances and
look at Christ. As Daniel looked at Christ in
the lion's den, as Meshach, Shadrach and Abednego looked at Christ
in the furnace, as the people of Israel looked at God,
as those who looked at the serpent, as Jesus would allude to in John
3, and they believed and they lived. They looked to Christ. Finally lifted up. if you believe in me. Do you
believe in Christ? See, believing in Christ is not
a cultural thing. It's anti-cultural. It's counterintuitive to the
very way of life we live as American citizens. It takes lordship away
from us. It takes our, even the way our
government is established as many kings. And then we're mini
kings to our state, and our state, each state is its own mini king,
and each little state is its mini king. That's what a republic
democracy looks like. We have a voice, and then our
state has a voice, and then state governments have a voice, and
the federal governments have a voice. Jesus as Lord is counterintuitive. Jesus as treasure is counterintuitive
to economics. The kingdom of heaven is counterintuitive
to the American dream. So when we live and we say that
Jesus is truly the only thing that we should see, but we cannot
do it, is it because we cannot see it?
I want you to listen to me. I can whip you into grieving
guilt and you'll be here. I can manipulate you into harsh
preaching and break the corner off again, you know, fix it,
glaze it. And I can get you to feel like,
man, I just got to be involved in the church. I have 25 people
mopping in here. If I just said it the right way. We could, if
we got into a couple of books, and learn personal holiness,
and learn some Lordship Salvation rules, and learn some, a lot
of little things, and I mean, we could hang the 10 Commandments
on the refrigerator and perfect them. Just like the Pharisees
did. And we would look like, we would
look like the be-all, end-all of Christianity. They put us
on the front of every atheist magazine. We gotta stop these
people. Because they're living as proof of Jesus Christ, as
God. And we could all be lost. Are you able to see Christ? If
you can see Christ and He's your treasure, God has opened your
eyes to see the good news. Can you see the beautiful, glorious,
majestic, honorable, awesome, Awful, full of awe, reality of
who God is. And it changes us. It changes our affections. It
changes our thinking. It changes everything. You know
what that's called? The new birth. It's regeneration. When God takes
the scales off our eyes, when God removes the power of the
enemy to keep us from seeing, and we can see, we love Him.
Salvation is seeing. and seeing is God's work. Salvation
is hearing and believing, and hearing and believing is God's
work. This is a powerful, awesome,
decreed, divine work of God, whereby He takes us who cannot
see, and He gives us eyes to see. And when we see, we love
what we see. And when we can see Jesus for
who He is, we see God for who He is, and we love Him with everything
that we are, because that's the natural response. That is the,
listen, the natural response for being able to see God face
to face. The wages of sin is death. Inclusive
of the ability for God to send Satan to blind a believer's eyes
so that they cannot see. And that is a righteous judgment
of God. But the mercy of God is that
in His love and kindness, He takes the scales off of those
who believe so that they can believe. And that's glorious. It's glorious. Why is the book of James and
the book of first John, the book of Hebrews, chapter six and in
such a problem in so many Christians? Because they just can't imagine. That if they just do right, that
God would throw them in the hell. We can't imagine it. They do
what's right and wrong on us. Friends, the greatest righteousness
that we could muster in our imagination, we could not even fulfill it.
And if we could, it would still be wicked. You want to see perfection? We
can see it face to face in Jesus Christ. So there is no other
glorious opportunity for us to live except in Christ alone. We will not glorify Christ unless
we trust in Christ. Eight years ago, today, I wrote
a short little journal entry on my blog and it popped up so
I could see it. That's what you were thinking
eight years ago. I'm trying to forget that. Thanks, Facebook. We cannot have faith in our faith,
faith in the fruit of our faith, faith in our own righteousness,
faith in our own practices, faith in our own obedience. We have
faith in the One who is faithful, and His name is Jesus Christ.
Friends, the Gospel is glorious. Jesus is glorified in salvation
because it is all of Him. Listen. If it were some of us
and some of Him, then we deserve that glory. But the Scripture
doesn't say that we are glorified with Christ. It says we're glorified
in Him. His glory is given to us. We
share in His glory. We bring nothing. Jesus is glorified in all these
things. He's glorified in His person. He's glorified in His
power. He's glorified in His people
who are the church. Back to our text. To this end,
we always pray for you that our God may make you worthy of His
calling, may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith
by His power so that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may
be glorified in you and you in Him according to the grace of
our God and Lord Jesus. What does it look like for the church to be glorified?
Some things came to my mind as I prepared this week. And every time I think about
the church, I always think about Paul's teaching to the Ephesians.
And for those of you who were not here during those first few
years, I actually have all of those sermons minus about two
on the church website. Sadly, I'm missing 26 sermons
out of my Hebrew series. I don't know where they are.
Oh well, I have to preach again. But I've been going back through
some of those sermons for that first year, when we were in our
living room, planting as a church, to remind myself of the very
thing that I wanted to remind you, some of you, who were there,
of who we are and why we are. that we are to live and exist
by the grace of God. We are one people under Christ. We're no longer aliens, no longer
strangers to the promise, no longer lost, but we're alive.
And the whole reason that we're alive is that we display the
manifold wisdom of God in His absolute glorious gospel. And the outcome of that is we
praise Him for His glorious grace. And so that God is glorified
in saving the people that do not deserve salvation. God is
glorified in condemning the people who do deserve condemnation. God is glorified in the praises
of those people with whom, for whom He saves. And God is glorified
in the destruction and the angst and the pain of those people
who have wrath. And Paul argued that. We saw
that a few weeks back. But in this we need to recognize
that our coming together each week is because we've been unblinded. We have light, so we must live
therefore in the light. Our eyes can see who He is and
we behold His glory, glory as the only Son of the Father, full
of grace and truth that is the namesake of this fellowship.
John 1, 14. We are astonished and we are
in love with Him. We are a glorified people who
have received a glorified grace. And because of that, we strive
in this life by His power, by His mercy, to be a people who
reflect His work and His mind and His nature and His glory. Are we living that way, beloved?
Does our Christianity stop at the door when we leave? Does
our Christianity quit when we're on the job and unbelievers start
to ridicule Christian stuff? Does our Christianity halt when
anger rises up in us? No. Because our Christ doesn't
stop. Our Christ doesn't stop saving
us. Our Christ does not stop interceding
for us. Our Christ never stops atoning
for those for whom He died. He paid our debt, and it is paid. And so the worthiness of standing
in glory with Christ is not our own, but beloved, oh, how we
should be motivated by that reality. The picture of glory, this picture
of glorification is the point of life. You hear me? Nothing else. Our future plans,
our present realities, our past mistakes are not the point. What are we doing this day to
glorify God and Jesus Christ? Are we living in Him? As I've already shown you, the
Scripture teaches us in verse 10 of that. We see in verse 9
of chapter 1 of 2 Thessalonians that they, those who do not believe,
will suffer punishment of eternal destruction. Away from the presence
of the Lord and the glory of His might, when He comes on that
day to be glorified. He comes on that day in order
to be glorified in His church. in His saints, and to be marveled
at among all who have believed. For those of you who have been
with us on Tuesdays, we looked at chapter 8 of Revelation this
past Tuesday, and when the seventh seal was opened, there was silence
in heaven for half an hour. This very moment, and for all
of eternity, in heaven, has been a glorious song of praise. never
ceasing, never ending. But when Christ returns and brings
judgment, we who are the saints will be
quiet. And I make the point, Tuesday night, that the reason
that worship stops is because we're struck wordless. When we think we have seen the
beauty of all that Christ is, and all that He's done in redemption,
to see the culmination of the finished work of Christ, where
He takes wickedness and He destroys it, and He glorifies His church
perfectly. I think it takes us half an hour
just to figure out how to open our mouths again. We have to
readjust our worship. We have to readjust our praise
from a different perspective. Our worship of Christ is not
like a child at the candy bar, or a quick ride in the adrenaline
of a boat race. Our worship of Christ is not
about like when we see our bride walk through the doors of the
wedding chapel. Our worship of Christ is not
anywhere close of seeing the birth of our children time and
time again, over and over. Our worship of Christ is nowhere
near the greatest joy that we can find in this world. Every
great joy in this life is nothing in comparison to the beauty of
the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And when we
see and we look and we continue to gaze, we see that the things
of this world don't matter anymore. pain, heartache, stress, work,
troubles, physical ailments, mental problems, emotions, relational
strife, none of it matters because Christ is so much more glorious
than it all. To love Christ and to see Him
is to marvel at Him. What is it, beloved, that makes
so many professing Christians willing to take a back seat to
the assembly of God's people to hear about the glory of His
majesty? What is so amazing that would
take us from this divine call? Tiredness, fatigue, illness,
financial calamity, flat tire, cold weather, sin, May God continue to be merciful
toward us and to work in us the desire for every good deed in
His power that we might resolve every day to love Him and enjoy
Him forever, starting now. What would keep you? In April of 2002, I said this in a service, a large
attended service. I could tell that the time was
coming close to the hour because I could see this. And the slick guys in there, arm around their wife
and look at their watch. And it struck me wrong. See,
we're leaders in the church, and the church was going through
a lot of trials, and we needed prayer, we needed the Word, we
needed fellowship together. But the roast in the oven, the
family gathering, whatever it might be that everybody else
had, seemed to be more important. And I just paused right there,
and I held my hands out, and I closed mine. We had two rooms
to either side where you could go in for counseling that led
into a big baptistry and a choir room and all that. And I said,
you know what I think? This is called point in your
preaching. It's a bad idea. A bad idea. But the point was
taken. Do you know what I think? I think
some of you claim to love Jesus, but I guarantee you if all of
a sudden I got a divine revelation, it was possible. And Jesus walked
into the side door and said, hey y'all, right after service,
I'm gonna be over here in this room if you wanna see me. I said,
you know the saddest reality of that? There would not be a
line. I said, because many of you are
ready to leave now. You're sick. It's hard to preach to that.
I mean, you know. But that is the truth of the
world. Beloved, it's not the truth of the church. I'm not
saying we don't have things to do. We shouldn't be prompt, shouldn't
have a schedule. Your pastor shouldn't be so verbose. How many people got up at 2 in
the morning to go shopping? Nothing wrong with going shopping.
Don't tell me you can't be at church at 10.30. If you got,
what was it you said at breakfast? A $10 crockpot at 3 a.m. I got to go save five bucks. It's amazing what we do in the
name of desire. marveling at Christ, the beautiful
reality of our hope, face to face. Imagine what that looks
like. This is the reality of the kingdom
of God come down to us. We see Christ, as I was just
saying, and all of the things seem to have no value in comparison.
Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in
a field. And the worker of that field
finds the treasure and covers it up and with joy goes and sells
everything that he has that he made by the field. It didn't
say he went and sold some of it. It didn't say he begrudgingly
went away and got it because he really wanted the treasure.
It says with joy he left and sold everything. The kingdom
of heaven is like that. It's a simile. The pearl of great
price. We saw time and time again where
people would forsake everything that they were, their very family,
so that they could follow after Christ. Christ even calls one
man to come and he says, let me go bury my father. To which
Jesus Christ, the God of heaven says, let the dead bury the dead.
The hard sayings of Jesus say that we are not worthy of him
if we put our hands in the plow and turn back, like Lot's wife. And all of us are in a position
to where we start to struggle. How are we gonna be this way?
You know why we're not this way? I know that's what everybody
wants. Give us the outline of how we're
gonna be this way. We're not looking at Jesus. We're not looking at Christ.
We're not looking at Him. We're not thinking about Him.
We're not talking to Him. We're not hearing from Him. We're not
with Him. He's not with us in reality of our lives and how
we live. He's not there. We're mired in our circumstances.
We're mired in our job. We're mired in our fatigue. We're
mired in our illness. We're mired in our frustrations.
We're mired in all the financial problems we're having. We're
mired over and over again. We've bogged down into these
things that we think they're ultimate, but they're really
not. What would happen if people really start putting our children
on the fire? If we said we believe in Jesus
Christ? Friends, the churches would be empty. We see Christ and everything
else in comparison becomes of no value. We see Christ and some
things that are of value only have value through Him. Like
what? Like family? Like doctrine? Marriage, work, suffering. It
means something because of Christ. It means something when we look
at Christ. We understand it. It has its place. It has its
purpose. God in His divine decrees has
purposed these things in life to portray Himself. To reveal
Himself. In the plan that He gave. Give
me an example. Marriage. Ephesians 5. I say,
this is a mystery, but I say it responds to Christ in the
church. So God created Adam, and then
out of Adam took Eve, and the two became one flesh. These two
that were separate now became one. This is a picture of Christ
in the church. Husbands, love your wives as
Christ loved the church, who gave himself up for her, that
she may be without spot or blemish. Kids, why in the world children
don't matter outside of Christ? It's just a big, colossal waste
of time. Teaching our children, study
hard, work hard, earn a lot of money, and die. And teach your
kids to do the same. What is that? That's a horrible
existence. I know board games are more exciting. Like life. Nobody likes that game. Afterlife,
age 12. It's not what it's about. Things
have value because we understand them through Christ. When we
see Christ and His value, we understand that this is the point
of life. When we see Christ, we long for the eternal opportunity
to see all things pass away. So that we can look at Christ
face to face. It may seem very odd to end this
sermon with what I'm about to say, but I want you to understand
that it makes perfect sense in the context of this text. I want
you to say, wait a minute, you told us we're not looking at
Christ, how do we look at Christ? I say it every week, every week,
every week. Listen. Follow me around and
watch what three hours without the Bible does. You think I'm
trying to be special because I carry a Bible with me almost
everywhere? No. Because it's like leaving the
house without shoes on, without a belt, and your pants are too
loose, or I don't know, in your underwear. I can't. I fall into sin. I fall into the flesh. I have
to have God's Word continually. Because when I'm in God's Word,
I'm abiding in the vine. I'm abiding with Christ. Christ
is with me. I'm being reminded that He's
there. It doesn't make Him there. He's here. He's faithful. Now that's just too simple. Does
it work? Yes, it does. It does. When we're in the Bible,
people can spit on us and we pray for them. Blessings. When
we're in the Scriptures, our children can rebel right in front
of us and stick their tongues out and are like, I should murder
you, but Lord have mercy. What about God's holiness? Isn't
that worth glorying in? God's justice and His righteousness
is one and the same. The church is a picture of God's
justice because God poured his justice out on Christ that we
might be redeemed. The condemned are a picture of
God's justice because they will receive their just justice. We are all guilty. Christ has
suffered in our place, thus God is just in forgiving us. His
judgment is true. He has declared us just before
Him because He has condemned the just one in our state. And because of this, beloved,
we are worthy of His Kingdom. And we're worthy of His Kingdom
because we are like the King. And as we live in this world,
waiting for that day, when we take our place in that kingdom
forever, glorified, immutable, never sinning, can you imagine
what it's going to be like to never, ever have a sinful thought
again? Makes my head want to blow up. Until then, by His grace, we
are revealing our worthiness in Christ Jesus this present
day. Why? To the praise of His glorious
grace. And Church, it is my prayer before
I ever met any of you, before I even moved to this state, my
desire was to see us be a people of this type. A people for His glory, by His grace. I thought I was so creative.
I've got 50 books on it now. That's what Scripture teaches.
I want you to think about that every day. Every time together. Every moment you pray. Not just
for your own spiritual walk and your own maturity, but praying
for ours together. For our intimacy, for our maturity.
For God's glory being revealed through us as a people. Because
there is a dark world out there that needs not only hope, but
light. And we are to be a city on a
hill. Will you shine? Well, brothers
and sisters, if you're in Christ, you already shine. Let us shine
together. And if you're not in Christ this
day, my call to you is to plead with God, to cry out to God,
to be in the Word, to seek after Christ as much as you can, and
that we would pray with you and for you that God would open your
eyes to see. Will you believe on Christ this day? and the next, that you might
forever be counted worthy of His kingdom. Let's pray. We praise
You, Father, for this Word. We praise You, Lord, for Your
grace and Your mercy. We praise You, Lord, that we
can understand and see Your glory in such a way that very few people
can understand except they be born again. And so, Lord, as we close our
time, let us not just leave for the sake of going, but Father,
let us leave connected and full and pursuing glory by Your power
and for Your namesake. Father, I pray for our children
today, Lord. I thank You, God, they're so attentive and they're
listening. And I pray, Lord, that they would
hear these words as they assume they learn language just by observation. Father, may they learn to hear
your word in the same way. That you would save them, that
we would be together forever eternally in heaven and in the
new created world with Christ as our light. In Jesus' name
we pray.