Going for Glory

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

You are absolutely just stuck with me talking at you For the message tonight the kids at least have a corner That a gail more made for them this afternoon No keynote slides to look at I’m not even preaching off of technology Other than paper which is significant technology if you really think about it, but If you’re a note taker The title for tonight’s message is Going for Glory. It is a summer Olympics year. This is more than going for gold. This is going for glory. A subtitle would be, or, painting a picture of getting the picture. Going for glory, or painting a picture of getting the picture. I mentioned this morning my aim for tonight, even more specifically my assignment for tonight’s message.

In a conversation this last week among the elders, we were talking about what would be appropriate or helpful for tonight’s service. And Jim suggested who didn’t even bother showing up. Now I can say that because I texted him and told him how brutal that was. He said he was going to be live streaming. So yes, Jim, that’s brutal. To assign me this task and then. Not even bring his face to be here with us. But he suggested he recommended this is not an assignment I took up. Without gladness. But he suggested that I try to paint a picture of a person who gets the picture. That is what a man or woman or child would look like if he or she fully understood and applied everything that we’ve talked about at Trinity Evangel Church for the last 15 months.

That’s all I have to do. is try to summarize that, list that out so that we could all know what the picture of that ultimate person might look like. Well, of course, that’s impossible. It’s impossible for a couple reasons, at least impossible on one sense. It’s not something that depends on a person’s occupation. In fact, just the opposite of that. It ought to be whatever the picture is, it ought to be something that applies regardless of occupation. Whether you’re a business owner or an employee or a mama or a grandmama or a young person, whatever your job, whatever your gender, whatever your age, Whatever we really are aiming for should be something that can apply across the board.

Well, that’s tough to talk about things in specific terms other than, well, you should be more like Jesus. Because that’s true.

We should all be working and then even as the Apostle Paul worked to present every person, complete or mature, perfect in Christ. So there’s a sense in which we could say, well, the picture of a person who gets the picture is a person who is completely like Christ. That’s totally true, but that’s not necessarily, I don’t think, what Jim had in mind, nor is that what I’m aiming to try to talk about tonight. While it is on one hand impossible to try to answer the question, it is an entirely profitable exercise and in fact an important exercise because presumably, we’ve talked about the trellis and the vine, presumably we ought to have an idea what direction we’d like the vine to grow and what kind of fruit would come from a healthy vine. We ought to have some sort of an idea what the taste of fruit would be from a healthy vine. So what are we hoping to taste? Well I thought about trying to just repreach a bunch of key sermons. Sermons that have taken place over the last 15 months.

Sermons such as the very first one from Revelation 5. And in fact I’m I want to just go off for a couple minutes right now in reminiscing on the glories of why we worship before the battle is done. We don’t wait to worship until the battle is over. There’s a lot of enemies, rebels, still to be defeated in Revelation chapter 5 when they’re still worship of the worthy one around the throne in heaven. Worship is something that not only we do before the battle, worship is part of our battle, our spiritual battle. See I could just repreach that one. Thought about re-preaching the series on the name of our church. I think there were four messages there. A couple messages from Sunday nights on the religious affections, which so attacks the truth tube idea that I have tried to topple and pick at and poke at over the last year or so.

There was a six month review message that I did. There was a 52 week review message back at the beginning of 2012. There were marks of a maturing church. We would assume those would probably be connected to what we want the vine to look like, the fruit to taste like. And then could have tried to recapture a couple highlights from the most recent worship series. But as I thought about whether I should repreach some of those messages, it just seemed like that might eat into too much afterglow time. I probably need to shorten it up a bit and take another approach.

I also thought about stealing Jim’s three points. I don’t know if you’ve been in a life to life group where Jim has talked about these or heard him describe it anywhere. I thought about stealing his three points because they’re alliterated and they’re only one word a piece and they’re memorable and I like them.

Maybe you’ve heard him talk at some point about worship that leads to a worldview that results in a certain walk. That’s fantastic. Worship worldview walk. Worship in particular our corporate gathering. Worship of God leads to a worldview. Dave taught a whole message on the worldview wheel. Could redo that one every week as we try to get it into our heads and out of our hands. And into then our worship worldview walk. It’s worship of Christ with a worldview that is a view of the universe under His Lordship, His total and complete control as disciples who follow in his steps, in his walk.

We worship with a worldview that results in a certain sort of walk. That’ll preach. And at some point I’m gonna ask him to write it out, but I won’t steal it for tonight. So what to do? How to paint a picture of getting the picture. I’ve given up hope of providing an exhaustive list of channeling my inner Picasso and painting a fantastic picture. I’ve given up hope of that. I suspect, I’m already lowering other expectations. I suspect that this is not going to be, quote, the most downloaded MP3 ever, unquote, from the church website, like maybe in the thousands someday. Wow, we just didn’t know what the Christian life really looked like till that one Sunday night in April when 15 people got together and listened to what it was all about.

So what I am going to do is try to give, I can’t give an exhaustive list. I don’t figure this is going to be the last time we ever talk about some of these kinds of things. What I am praying and hoping and going to aim to do is provide another taste of the kind of life, the kind of drive, the kind of loves, affections, passions, and practice. From a passage that, no it or not, it has shaped our name and much of what we’ve discussed.

Which if you’ve got a kid and you’ve cheated by looking at their paper, you know, that’s 2nd Corinthians especially chapter 4 but starting at the end of chapter 3 one of the most important repetitions you can take your copies of God’s Word turn there because I’m gonna Look at any number of verses throughout that passage tonight One of the most important repetitions in the chapter begins both the first paragraph and the last paragraph. I cannot hear this repetition too many times. We do not lose heart. Verse 1, therefore having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart. Start of the final paragraph, verse 16, so we do not lose heart. That expression provides precious book ends on a fantastic chapter. Whatever it is that enables such conviction, we want that so that we can say and own we do not lose heart. Great bookends, fantastic and important repetition that we see. But I recently realized that there is another set of bookends around verse 1 and verse 16. It includes both of those two

verses. So we do not lose heart in verse 1 and verse 16. Sure, our bookends, but but there are still wider bookends outside of those two. Not only are these two repetitions outside of verse one and verse 16, they also are found throughout the passage. I didn’t have a lot of time, so my best illustration for this is like a Big Mac where there’s a bun in the middle too. So this particular repetition covers both sides and some in the middle. The repetition that is even more precious than not losing heart is the repetition about glory.

Look at chapter three, verse 18. And we all with unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

Then look at chapter 4 verse 17. This slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. As Christians, as gospel believers and hopefully practices, as well as proclaimers, we are all about glory. I think that’s a weird way of talking. I don’t show up at the breakfast table and say, hey, how you guys gonna go after glory today? We don’t talk like that. In fact, usually when we talk about glory for ourselves, it’s an automatic no-no. We are allowed to talk about doing everything for the glory of God, but we get nervous. And like I say, we just don’t really use that terminology when it comes to ourselves. But we are, yes, all about the Lord’s glory. That is what we behold. Chapter three, verse 18, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord. Look at chapter four, verse four, in their case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from from seeing the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

That’s what we want to see multiplied in the work. Look at chapter 4, verse 15. It is all for your sake so that as grace extends to more and more people, it may increase thanksgiving to the glory of God. When God works supernaturally In our hearts, He gives us vision. He gives us sight of His glory. Look back at chapter 4, verse 6. For God, who said, Let light shine out of darkness, has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. We are all about glory. We are all about seeing God’s glory in Christ. We are all about spreading His glory so that thanksgiving would increase for even more of His honor, for His fame, for His glory.

But that is not the bookends. Him getting glory, us getting to see His glory by itself, that’s not the bookends. We not only get to see and spread God’s glory, We get to share it. That’s unbelievable. See it. That takes supernatural work. Spread it as we proclaim the Gospel, as we proclaim His name among the nations. That’s a fantastic privilege. But neither of those actually compare to Him sharing His glory with us. I don’t mean that we get a percentage. And as soon as you confess faith in Christ, it’s a 90-10 split. And then as he sanctifies us, it moves like 70-30 to then 50-50. That’s not what I’m talking about when I mean he shares his glory with us, as in he shares credit with us.

We never get any credit for having come up with something or having done something in our own power or our own wisdom. But we do share in His righteous, eternal joy what makes Him eternally, infinitely awesome God. His righteous joy among the Trinity, that glory He shares with us. It happens when we worship. He is transforming us back into better image bearers. Chapter 3, verse 18. We all with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image. The image of what? The image of the glorious Lord that we’re looking at. As we behold, as we look, as we see, we are changed into that glorious image.

are changed into the image of Christ, that means… because we’re more comfortable saying that. That He’s predestined us to be conformed to the image of Christ. Well, that’s pretty fantastic glory. That’s a glorious image that He’s changing us into. That’s why it’s called glorification. He is giving us divine eternal glory. He’s sharing that with us. And he does it, at least he starts doing it as we worship. We were made to reflect him, to show what he’s like. A couple Sunday night messages from the book of Genesis, talking about how he created us, what he created us to do, who he created us to be, that is his image bearers.

And when we meet with him and draw closer to him, Worshipping Him, seeing His glory, we are being changed into that same image. We are from one degree of glory to another being transformed. A person who gets the picture of what we’re trying to do at Trinity Evangel Church looks like a person who is becoming more and more glorious. more glorious in the ways that Christ is glorious. Nevertheless, he is sharing his glory with us. It starts as we worship, but he is also preparing us to share more glory.

Isn’t that the point of the opposite bookend in chapter four, verse 17? He is not only transforming us from one degree of glory to another when we behold him, He is through afflictions, preparing us to be able to receive, to hold even more glory in the future. Chapter four, verse 17, this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. We are headed toward unimaginable glory. unimaginable glory. Amazing divine glory. It never ends. That’s the part about it being eternal. It really can’t be held up. It’s too weighty by us, at least in our current condition.

His glory is so great that he’s got to prepare us to receive more of it. One of the ways he does that is by our beholding worship. The other way he does that is by afflicting us, by letting us be used up and worn out and varying degrees of suffering. And if you remember hearing me talk about this verse before, switch the image just a little bit. Basically, we come in to his presence with thimble glory holder holder size. And what he’s doing is taking our little thimble that can hold glory, and he is smelting it down, hammering it out, reforming it, so that we can have honker buckets for glory. He is in the process of sharing his glory with us.

He is not in the process of rubbing our faces in the dirt to show us how beneath Him we are. That’s not why He sent His Son. That’s not what the gospel is about. That doesn’t make for good news that God just is always about an eternal agenda to make us feel bad. He is working to prepare us for an eternal weight of glory. Maybe you remember a few weeks ago when we studied in John 5. Jesus confronted the religious leaders because they received glory from one another and did not seek the glory that comes from God. What Jesus points out in John 5 is that we are all glory seekers. It is not a difference between those who don’t and those who do.

It is a difference between those who seek it from God and those who seek it from other places. But it is by default turned on inside of us that we are seeking glory because we’re made in His image. Built into each one of us is a hunger for glory. God made us that way. And the only true and infinite and eternal glory is that which comes from God through Christ by the Spirit. Back in chapter 3, verse 18, Paul mentions it doesn’t come by the law. The law is the beginning part of chapter 3, but it comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. We are being transformed and prepared for more glory beyond all comparison. Now if that’s true, and I’ve just spent a few minutes arguing that it is.

So my if is just setting up the argument. If that is true, that we are glory seekers. If that’s true, then we can never be guilty of seeking too much glory. We can be guilty of seeking it in the wrong places or in the wrong ways. But a person who gets what we’re doing at TEC will be a glory go-getter. That’s with hyphens. glory go-getter. Not satisfied with the world’s glory. We won’t rest until the image of the glorious God is fully stamped on us. Now I realize this far into the message, perhaps someone is thinking in the best way. Blah, blah, glory, glory. What does that mean? Thank you, Calvin. I appreciate that.

sympathy laugh. Perhaps others are thinking glory talk, seeking this glory makes me uncomfortable fine. So let’s see what a glory go-getter in the right sense looks like. Six things. This is my attempt to paint the picture of someone who gets the picture. This is my attempt to provide one taste, one way of thinking about it that shows what it is, what’s happening, what marks a person who beholds the glory of the Lord and is being transformed into that same image and who is enduring slight momentary affliction while the Lord is preparing for them in eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. These are things that I think might describe that sort of person.

Number one, if we are glory go-getters in the right sense, number one, we will be eager to worship. It’s not the same thing as the attendance chart where when you’re in second grade, You were so excited when you had stickers for every Sunday. That was super awesome. And then you got candy at the end. Maybe around Easter time, you got peeps. Saying that we will be eager to worship is not the same thing as saying, we are desperate to make sure that God knows or other people know that we’re in attendance on a regular basis. If we were married to bear His image, if we become like what we behold, then we cannot be who He made us to be without beholding Him in His glory.

That’s why worship is so important because it actually tells us who we are. That’s why worship is so important because in that process of beholding Him, He’s changing us. Now the Lord requires that we not forsake the assembling of ourselves together. Hebrews 10, 24 and 25. He sets apart the Lord’s day for his people to worship him, but this is not a day when he wants Christians, his people, his church, to gather together to fill up a bunch of notebooks with truth about God. As important in the process as that might be, The reason He’s given us a day together, the reason He calls us to not forsake the assembling of ourselves together is so that we can behold Him when we meet with Him.

We are always being transformed by how we worship, good or bad. That’s part of the reason I’ve spent so much time opening my mouth about the how. because I really believe 2 Corinthians 3.18. Not because we need to take our liturgy number one styrofoam pointer finger and shove it in every other church’s face that our liturgy is better than your liturgy neener neener neener. We are so awesome look at us we can kneel at the same time. for those who want to. Right, the how of worship is important because it goes into changing who we are.

Most of us, like this, I’m stepping out from behind the orange pulpit of authority. Me, you, us, right here. Most of us have been transformed into the image of Grumpy. Most of us have been transformed into the image of finding out every unrighteous, wrong problem that could ever be happening with somebody else that we can see across the pew that bugs us to death.

We have been changed by worship into being grumpy, righteous nitpickers. I’m arguing that’s bad. We have been led to believe that God sent His Word to us, but not Himself, that His Word is filled with minute laws so that His omniscience and sin-punishing power can just heap on the guilt. We have not learned from worship gracious desire to have fellowship with us. And so we go out grumpy, not gracious. We go out nitpicking and removed rather than seeking fellowship with other people. Jim asked me on the way to T4G, see he’s not even here, it’s all his fault. Jim asked me during one of our layovers on the way to T4G if there was one thing.

Right? Like, how’s a preacher supposed to narrow anything down to one thing? I’ve got three names, the lone, narrowing down one answer. Anyway, he asked me if there was just one thing that I wished as a church we all understood better, what What would it be? I get one. What is the one hope, desire, if I could guarantee that everybody in the flock got this, what would that this be? And I’m not a super quick answer anyway, but I thought about it for a while. And based on our context, and I say that because I don’t know that this would, this answer is good for every church everywhere. But I think for us, the one thing I wish everyone got, I long for us to grasp that God is glad with us because of His Son.

He’s glad with us. At the highest cost He could pay. Yes, there’s a sobriety in his gladness, but he didn’t pay the price, the spotless, perfect lamb slaughtered in order to make us feel guilty, but just let us get into heaven. He didn’t send his son to take on flesh so that we would just remain as miserable as we were, but not have to go to hell. Hey, well at least we’re not going to burn forever where there’s weeping and gnashing of teeth. This is better than that. The Gospel doesn’t only get us out of hell, it gets us into the glorious fellowship of the Trinity. If we got Trinity evangel, we would be glad. We would be eager to come and meet with a glad God through His Son, the death, burial, and resurrection of His Son.

But what did that get us? That got us forgiveness for our sins and fellowship with the Father through the Son by the power of the Spirit. We would be eager to come and see His glory together. Number two, a person who gets the picture would be like this. We will be confident in the power of the gospel, of the evangel. I think that means a couple things. It means that we know how to fight discouragement. That’s the part about we do not lose heart. We don’t lose heart because of this ministry we’ve been given, which is a ministry of the Spirit, not the letter, of life, not death. It’s not that we don’t ever get discouraged.

It’s that we know what to do when that happens. And so we know how to fight it. Not only does confidence in the power of the Gospel mean we know how to fight discouragement, It also keeps us from tampering or tweaking or watering down or compromising or contextualizing the good news. Look at chapter 4 verse 2. Paul says we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth, we would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God. Another way to say that in light of what we’ve already talked about tonight, in light of John chapter 5, is that we’re not going to compromise the message in order to get glory from men.

We’re going to be faithful with the good news He’s delivered to us because we are seeking glory but from God. We don’t have to take an endless amount of surveys to see what would make people want church. What would make them think it was super awesome and woo them in somehow. But just because we’re not compromising doesn’t mean that we’re going to be quiet about the message either. This is still under the confidence and the power of the Gospel. Look at verse 4. In their case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God.

And right? It doesn’t matter what instruments you have in your worship team when it comes to the God of this world. Instrumentation doesn’t beat Him. He’s got good music, even if not all of it. The devil knows what to do with instrumentation. He knows what to do with drama. He knows what to do to keep the people blinded from absolutely glorious things. How do we overcome that? Well, we don’t. The Gospel does. By God’s power. Look at verse 6. For God who said, let light shine out of darkness, has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. God says, let there be light in the soul.

God removes the blinders so that they can see what is truly glorious. We keep proclaiming the Gospel and trusting God’s power. That’s why we don’t have to be ashamed of the Gospel. That’s why we want to articulate the Gospel. We want to explain it. We want to proclaim it. We want to spread it. That is part of the reason, right? Why our liturgy has value in that it represents. It is a picture of the Gospel through the various elements where there’s a call to worship God. You can’t worship God because there’s sin separating between men and God. What to do? Well, confess. Confess those sins. receive the forgiveness that Christ promises to all who confess and believe.

Once we confess and believe He forgives, He then starts to shape us and set us apart for Himself, draw us closer to Himself, ultimately to the point where we actually commune with Him, we share with Him, we participate in a meal with Him before being sent back out, commissioned and blessed to take His name to our neighbors, to the nations, wherever we might be going. As we are strengthened in our faith through even our worship service, let alone our study of gospel specifics, as we are strengthened in our believing, we will speak. Look at chapter 4, verse 13. Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, I believed and so I spoke.

We also believe and so we also speak. That’s another reason why the Lord’s Day gatherings, as… and this presumes that this is what happens, but it is at least a goal, that believers are strengthened and encouraged and their faith is nourished because when we believe, we will speak. We don’t speak because we don’t believe. But when our faith is strengthened, and we see stories about how Jesus loves to put us in positions where all we can do is either trust Him or drown. We see His graciousness to invite us to trust Him. And that will cause us to speak. We will be confident in the power of the Gospel.

Third, in painting a picture of someone who gets the picture, we will be often at our breaking point breaking points. We will be often at our breaking points. I said we are glory seekers, but that is God’s glory that he shares, not our own glory. And so he puts us in positions to show him. Follow those pronouns for a second. He puts us in positions to show him. It’s not just he puts himself in positions to show himself or he puts us in positions to show us. He puts us in positions to show him. Look at 2 Corinthians 4 starting in verse 7. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way but not crushed.

perplexed but not driven to despair, persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed. These aren’t contrasts. These are both on the same road, the same bad road, it’s just one is at the end of destruction and one is right before you get to the destruction. They’re not contrasts, they’re both in the same direction, I think that they’re more like breaking points. It’s as if someone were at the edge of a cliff with the wind blowing strong and they were just not quite yet knocked over. Glory go-getters are the ones who are going to be worn out, spent, exhausted, knocked down, but not quite out. A person who gets what we’re doing at TEC will be simultaneously overwhelmed and encouraged. I can’t do any more. I can’t believe how much more I’ve got to do. If If we were to borrow Paul’s language from chapter 1, starting in verse 8, we will be utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despair of life itself, skipping to verse 9, in order to make us rely not on ourselves, but on God who raised the dead.

There isn’t true glory that comes without a cost. Do you know how we know that for sure? Jesus. And we not only articulate the gospel, we incarnate it. That is, we put it in flesh. Look back at chapter 4 verse 10. I know people are uncomfortable with incarnating language because we’re not God taking on flesh, but look at how much body and flesh stuff is here. First 2nd Corinthians chapter 4 verse 10, always carrying in the body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, right? So that’s not a one-time and done martyrdom.

We who live are always being given over to death. You can’t be being given over to death more than one time if it’s actual, you know, bullet in the head kind of death. It’s a life of dying so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you. We cannot redeem anyone, but we can reflect His sacrifice for us as we die for others. A TEC or who gets it will stop trying to protect their pot. You’re the pot. We are the pots. The jars of clay. us. Someone who gets it is going to stop trying to protect the pot. Will spend himself or herself in serving and suffering in order to slosh grace onto other people. We’re too often waiting for another pot to give the grace.

Somebody else will give the grace. Or trying to put our pot in front of their pot to get some credit or putting our pot behind their pot to avoid being used or criticizing another pot who seems to be doing a lot of work. A person who gets it is going to be a person who is regularly often at their breaking point to show that the power, the surpassing power, is God’s not their own. The last three are more quick. The The fourth is we will think eternally. We’ll think eternally. We are aware of the God of this world, chapter 4, verse 3. We know that our outer nature is wasting away, chapter 4, verse 16. We experience affliction, but we can compare it to eternity.

And as it’s compared to eternity, we find that our affliction now is momentary.

is just no way to go through one sleepless night and think that that’s momentary unless we’re thinking eternally. Minutes seem like forever unless the standard of comparison is eternity. This requires us, as verse 18 in chapter 4 points out, to look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen, for the things that are seen are transient, for the things that are unseen are eternal. That doesn’t mean we don’t start small businesses. It means we do it for eternal glory, not for a paycheck. Living on unseen things doesn’t mean we don’t go to work. It changes why we go to work and what we do while we’re at work. Living on unseen things doesn’t mean we forsake our families, it means that we love our families in a way that serves to lift their thinking up to eternity. We cook meals and we wash laundry and we discipline disobedience. We don’t forsake the seen things in front of us. We take care of those because we’re living on eternal principles. It doesn’t mean earthly education is bad. It means that we use our education or provide education

to pass on a culture of gospel people. The glory that we’re being transformed into and that God is preparing for us is eternal. We must think beyond the now. And the now is what screams for our attention. But we need to think Thank you, internally. Number five, we will be increasingly thankful. True glory go-getters are not grumblers. They’re not grumpy. The little ones need to be taught how to be true glory go-getters. True glory go-getters find more things more quickly to appreciate than to complain about. Our goal here is to increase thanksgiving. Look at chapter 4, verse 15. For it is all for your sake, all of this breaking point, dying, believing, speaking, serving, sloshing grace, all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people, it may increase thanksgiving to the glory of God.

That’s what we want. We spend ourselves and serve so that more people will be more thankful. people are more glorious than whiners, right? Think of white imaginary person on this shoulder who’s very thankful and pitchfork person on this shoulder who’s always whining about stuff. Which one is more glorious? Why are thankful people more glorious? Why aren’t we impressed by the really good grumblers, those who can always find something that could have been aren’t those the people with high taste? Shouldn’t they be the ones who are glorious? Aren’t grateful people missing something? Really? There’s no way you really understand what’s going on if you’re going to be that thankful.

Nobody can really be mature and happy and thankful at the same time. thankful at the same time. When you grow up, you’ll realize how miserable you really ought to be in light of how many things are just super bad. Why is it that worriers and whiners are not glorious? Because God isn’t like that. God’s glory isn’t whiny. The reason it’s built into us to recognize glory in thankful people is because God is glad.

God knows better than anybody how many problems there are. His own son suffered and died, which was bad enough of a problem, let alone that it was our sin problem that made it necessary. But Jesus endured the cross for the joy that was set before him, not so that He could stand back from all the people He died for and point out how awful, how guilty and shameful they should always feel because of His sacrifice. We know that He who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us into His presence. That’s why we can be thankful. It is an unshakable commitment that He has made to us. So we are thankful.

That was from verse 14. He is bringing us… just as He raised Jesus, He is bringing us into God’s presence. There is glory and gratefulness because we serve a glad God. Last, a person who gets it will look like this. We will always be maturing. We will always be growing. If He has predestined us to be conformed to the image of His Son, Romans 8.28, then as long as we’re on the planet, we’ll be in the process. And it brings us back to the bookends. If worship, if beholding His glorious image transforms us, we must have more need for transformation. If affliction and difficulties make our thimble into a honker bucket, and that eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison is His glory, which is an infinite and eternal glory, then our bucket will never get too big.

Finite creatures are never going to get too big of buckets for an eternal and infinite God. Those who get what we’re trying to do at TEC will get that. We always need to grow. We will not get finished singing, speaking about the gospel, serving one another, suffering for others, or sloshing grace. I would like to think that in another 15 months when Jim asked me a fantastic question and tells me, yeah, try to explain this. I would like to think that 15 months from now, I will have grown. We all will have matured more so that we have an even clearer understanding of what the picture looks like. I’d like to think that in 15 years, if He doesn’t come back and get us, that we will have even more glory among us, more eagerness for more glory to come and be able to explain it.

And it’ll be fun to try to describe it again and again. what it looks like. What we should be pursuing. So, in conclusion, to be deepening our worship, developing our worldview, directing our walk. That’s a prayer that God would deepen our worship, develop our worldview, direct our walk. May we seek Trinitarian glory and gladness. May we really know Him as we fellowship with Him because of His Gospel. May we be gladly worn out giving our lives for others. May we get over petty, bitter, whiny fault finding and instead grow in gratefulness, in thankfulness to the glory of God. Lord, we need your help to do that. Thank you for the opportunity we’ve had tonight to sit in some of these thoughts, and in particular, in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, I pray that your spirit would have even more so developed a taste on our tongues for what this kind of life is like, what this kind of church life is like, what eternal Trinitarian joy is like.

And that even in the midst of being tired and the many discouragements and the God of this world that seems so powerful, that you would lift up our heads, that you would encourage our hearts, that you would make us into better image bearers of your glory, which brings you glory. And we pray this in the name of Your Son. Amen.