Good morning everybody, happy long weekend.
Happy actual summer weather outside.
Excited about that. Turning your Bibles to Luke
Chapter 9, Luke Chapter 9, verse 28 to 36, where we're going to
be today. If you don't have a Bible,
there's some Bibles under some of the chairs and seats here in
the auditorium. And if you don't have one of
your own, take that as our gift to you.
We want you to have the word of God in your hand, and we would
love to see you take one home if you don't have one already.
If you have a ton of Bibles, don't take one.
You don't need a Bible collection.
This is not your missing piece, OK?
I just want to encourage you. We had an announcement that went
up. The big serve is less than two
weeks away and I am so excited about the opportunity that we
have to go out and serve our community in Cambridge, in
Kitchener, Waterloo Region, in Brant County.
Because I was just reading this week in my devotions from
Matthew chapter 5, verse 16, that we're called to go and do
our good deeds. Let our light so shine before
men so that they would see us do our good deeds and praise our
Father who's in heaven. That as we go out and we serve
in the name of Jesus, Jesus name gets lifted up.
And I want to encourage you if you haven't signed up yet, we've
got a lot of great projects. There's also a lot that are
fully filled up. So you want to get on this.
You don't want to wait till the last second or you might not
find the project that you're hoping for, but we're praying
that over 400 of us will go out over that Friday and Saturday
and serve and just lift the name of Jesus high.
And it's also a great opportunity.
I know Tammy mentioned this a few weeks ago when she was on
stage to invite others in who don't know Jesus yet.
Friends, neighbors, coworkers who just love the idea of
serving in the community and help them see why we serve in
the community. Help them understand the why
underneath the what. And so I just encourage you to
put that little thought in your mind.
Got an announcement here? Before we get going, some of you
will have seen this e-mail, but I know based on how many emails
get opened up, because we can track it, they're probably like
70% of you who got this e-mail haven't opened it up yet.
But Pastor Kirk and I did a little video announcement
letting you know something that is both on a personal level and
as a church. It's going to be a little sad to
us, but also really, I think there's a lot of joy and I'll
explain that in a second in this, that Pastor Kevin and Jen
Pence are going to be leaving our staff come August 5th.
I know many of you have been impacted deeply by Kevin.
Jen. They have been here and on staff
for almost 20 years. Jen has spent almost her entire
life in this church out of a other than a brief foray to
California for 10 years. And this is not an easy decision
for them to come to. I can just tell you, for me
personally, my entire time on staff, they have been on staff.
And they're not just staff, they're friends to me.
And so there's a sadness there that I know.
But here's the joy that I want to tell you about.
They are going to a church and Tillsberg Pastor Kevin is coming
on staff as pastor of discipleship there, where God is
going to use them in such a great way.
They are just desperately needed there.
It's my home church, so This is why I know it's the church I
came from. My parents keep on kind of
cheering and celebrating every time I go home right now, which
is a little frustrating, but they're so excited because that
church has exploded to like from like 150 people to like 450
people. And they desperately need some
reinforcements there. And we talk about the fact that
we're a multiplying church and a multiplying church is our core
value means that there are going to be times where we send people
out. We did that last year.
We sent a whole crew of people out to start a new location and
brand. And I'm excited to be sending
out again because a Kingdom win is never a loss.
And I know that they're going to be a blessing there.
And God's got great plans for the Pence there.
And I know that then he's also got something for us and that
God loves his church. He's building his church.
And so here it forward. I know God's got something in
store for us. We don't know what that is.
You can be praying for us as we enter into a season of figuring
out who to bring on next on to staff to help us take our next
step as a church, but also be praying for the pens.
They're going to be around for a while.
He said August 5th, I think I told you already, is their last
Sunday. And so we're going to have lots
of time to celebrate them and say our goodbyes, but wanted to
make sure that you were all aware of that this morning.
We are in a passage in Luke that is known as the Transfiguration.
Theologians, historians, church historians, This is what they
have called this. It is a moment where the
disciples, Peter, James and John, the three are going to be
up on the mountain and see Jesus in his full glory in a way that
they have never experienced before.
And it got me thinking about late 90s, early 2000s ROM coms.
As you can imagine, it probably did.
How many of you were around in the 90s and 2000s?
And by around, I mean old enough to actually watch movies.
Put your hand up. Don't be ashamed.
Now my hand is up and they're OK.
OK, for those of you who don't and weren't around, there was
this movie trope in that period of time with romantic comedies.
Legend will call it the Ugly Girl Makeover.
Some of you already know what this was, right?
That there was apparently this girl who was so ugly that nobody
paid any attention to her, and she was picked on and
marginalized. And the makeover was they took
off glasses and took the scrunchie out of the hair, and
she was transformed. And the male lead for that movie
couldn't believe what he hadn't seen in front of him the entire
time. It's about as believable as
nobody knew Clark Kent was Superman, right?
Because he put glasses on in today's passage.
We're going to have that type of transformation, but like, real,
where people are really going to Peter, James and John are really
going to see Jesus differently than they've ever seen this guy
who they've been traveling with day by day for almost three
years now. They are going to get a glimpse
of the glory and the majesty and the beauty of Jesus such that it
is so going to make a mark on Peter that we know that when he
goes to send a letter out to the churches about 40 years later to
Christians who are who are scattered around the
Mediterranean. He marks this as a marker of
like firming up his faith. How he knows without a shadow of
a doubt that Jesus is God. Let me read these verses to you
from second Peter 116 to 18. Peter writes and he says for we
did not follow cleverly contrived myths when we made
known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
He said, I know that we're not making up who Jesus is in all of
his power and all of his glory when he came, how does he know
that? He says, instead we were
eyewitnesses to His Majesty. He received honor and glory from
the Father when the voice came to him from the majestic glory
saying, this is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased.
Now, this is not a Jesus baptism.
No, we ourselves heard this voice when it came down from
heaven while we were with him on the holy mountain.
This moment that we're about to encounter today, it changed
Peter. Now there's going to be a whole
lot of Peter that still comes out and comes up over the days
ahead as we walk through the Gospel of Luke.
There's a whole lot of stuff that still need to be changed.
And Peter, but somehow this moment was a marker for Peter.
We've been looking at this question, Luke's been taking us
to this question over the last few weeks, who is Jesus?
Who is Jesus? We think 2 out of the last three
weeks, maybe two of the last four weeks, that is the
question, who is Jesus? And today, all week, I have been
praying. God just give us just a little
glimpse of the glory of who Jesus really is.
I think if we got just a glimpse today, just even a little bit
more understanding of who Jesus is, just like it changed Peter,
it could change us. It could be a marker point for
us because seeing the glory of who Jesus is, that's what it
does changes us. We see him, not really see him.
Our hearts are changed. Somebody here today, you're here
and you are exploring spirituality, you're exploring
faith. Maybe you're exploring
specifically the person of Jesus, and I am, I say this all
the time, but I'm super glad that you're here.
I would want this to be a place where you are welcome on your
journey to to figure out who God is and who Jesus is.
But you need to see a glimpse of Jesus that wipes from your mind
any idea that Jesus is is simply a good teacher or a good
example. That Jesus is maybe just a
source of wisdom or morality. That Jesus was merely another
religious guru that we could learn at the feet of even that
he was in some way specially and specifically miracle worker
empowered by God. You need to see that Jesus is
God made flesh who came to dwell among us and died on the cross
for your sins. He is the one who spoke
existence into being. He spoke this world with a word
and then He came into the world for you and some of you may
you've been walking with Jesus a long time and by God's grace,
you've got a number of times in your life where you've got
glimpses of Jesus. My my prayer this morning.
So you get a fresh glimpse that that your heart would be set a
fire and a flame again as you see Jesus for who he is.
That if, if you've lost a little bit of your awe and wonder over
the years, that would just get stoked up inside you.
If you got a Jesus who has become too comfortable and too
safe that you see a lot bigger, a lot more fulsome Jesus today,
you would, you would not allow Jesus to become the beautiful
girl with glasses on in front of you that you're missing those
glasses that scrunch. You would, and you would be
captured again and afresh by the beauty of Jesus that we all
would be able to say, like Peter, we leave here today, man.
We are eyewitnesses of His Majesty.
And so here's what I'm going to do.
I'm going to invite us just to just to pray and, and just ask
the Holy Spirit to do this. I'm just going to hold out my
hands. You can do that too, because
here's the truth. There's nothing I can say today
that's going to give you that glimpse of glory.
My words are insufficient to the task.
We need the power of the Holy Spirit in this room today.
And the good news is that Jesus says in John 1614 that part of
the role of the Spirit is to glorify the Son.
Part of the role of the Spirit is to help us see the glory of
who Jesus is. And so if you want to join with
me, just opening your hands and just praying, Holy Spirit come,
Holy Spirit, come and help us see Jesus maybe for the very
first time that our eyes would be open to who he is, or maybe
just a fresh and undo with the new wind, the new empowering in
us that we would be transformed as we encounter Jesus today.
And it's in his name we pray. Amen.
So we're going to walk through this passage and then I'm going
to break it down starting in verse 28, says about 8 days
after this conversation. And just as a reminder, that's
eight days after the conversation of last week.
That's eight days after the I have to die, but I'm not going
to stay dead conversation. The conversation where he said,
oh, and by the way, if you're going to follow me, you better
be prepared to die. That's that's the eight.
It's eight days after that conversation, he took along
Peter, John and James and went up to the mountain to pray.
Now we don't know what mountain this is for sure.
There is debate amongst scholars as to whether it's Mount Tabor
or Mount Hermon. It doesn't matter.
Let them argue about it doesn't matter.
As he was praying, that is Jesus, the appearance of his
face changed, His clothes became dazzling white, and suddenly two
men were talking with him, Moses and Elijah.
They appeared in glory, and we're Speaking of his departure,
which he was about to accomplish in Jerusalem.
So Moses and Elijah show up and they're talking about his death.
That is to come on the cross in Jerusalem, His departure.
This is a plan. This is a necessity.
This is the reality for which Jesus came.
It's not. It wasn't an accident.
It wasn't a side side quest. This is the reason for Jesus is
coming. Peter and those with him were in
a deep sleep and when they became fully awake, they saw his
glory and the two men who were standing there with him.
Now if you struggle with not falling asleep while you're
praying, you're in good company right now.
The original Greek here, the word probably is best translated
overcome with sleep and and there is some sense maybe that
God was behind kind of putting them to sleep into a deep sleep
In that moment as glory descended upon the mountain as
the two men were departing from him.
So as Elijah and Moses are getting ready to leave, Peter
said to Jesus. Peter's got another brain wave.
Master, it is good for us to be here.
So let us set up 3 shelters, one for you, one for Moses and 1:00
for Elijah. Not knowing what he was saying.
Poor Peter. I just, I think this is
important to Mark. I just, I always like to point
this out because I I think if you're a skeptic about whether
the gospel stories are real, my question to you would be if
these things were written later on, why would Peter be written
as such an idiot all the time? Why would you include in all of
these accounts that make the guys who are the founders of the
faith, the leaders in this movement look like dummies?
That is not how you myth make. It's not how it works.
These read like eyewitness accounts of the things that took
place without edits. While he was saying this, a
cloud appeared and overshadowed them.
They became afraid as they entered the cloud.
Then a voice came from the cloud saying, This is my son, the
chosen one. Listen to him.
After the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone.
They kept silence and at that time told no one what they had
seen. So this is just an amazing
scene. An amazing story is Peter, James
and John go up with Jesus onto the mountain and Elijah and
Moses kind of come down and and the glory of heaven kind of
encompasses and comes down on this place.
So what can we learn about this? How do we see in this that
seeing the glory of Jesus will change us?
Well, let me give you just a few ways.
The first is this. I think we see in this that
Jesus often gives gives us glimpses of his glory in moments
to strengthen and steady US. Jesus had just said eight days
ago some pretty hard stuff to the disciples.
He had told them, I'm the Messiah that you need, but not
necessarily the type of Messiah that you were hoping for.
That that I've come to rescue and I've come to save.
But the salvation that I'm coming to bring you is going to
come through a cross, not a crown.
These guys are are they've been watching Jesus, right?
Do miracles and healings and even raising people from the
dead. And they are, they're pumped.
They're excited the Kingdom is coming because the king is here.
They're watching the crowds go and they're saying, we're guys,
we're in the inner circle. We're going to be a part of
this. The king is coming and we're
kind of his crew. And Jesus says, yeah, about
that. Guys, I know you have dreams of
how this is all going to go. It's not going to go quite how
you expect it, but it's going to go the exact way that it needs
to. I've I've got to die, but don't
worry, death can't hold me. And in Matthew and Mark, if you
read that same account, in that moment, Peter rebukes Jesus in
Matthew 1622, says this right after Jesus makes this
declaration, he says Peter took him aside and began to rebuke
him. Oh no, Lord, this will never
happen to you, right? That announcement shook these
guys. And that wasn't the totality of
it, because then Jesus says what he says.
Oh, and by the way, following me means you're going to die too.
You got to be willing to pick up your cross if you're going to
call follow me. And I think the disciples,
probably like a lot of us, are like Jesus.
I like the parts where you say come and see.
I'm not so sure about the parts where you say come and die.
Like Peter, I have had a lot of Lord No moments.
You recognize the irony in those words, right?
Back-to-back Lord, Which means you're the boss, you're in
control. You are head over everything.
No, it's a rebuttal of what you just said and I've had a lot of
those moments. I've had those moments where I
felt the Lord calling me to hard uncomfortable things.
I've had those moments where I felt like God, you, your word
can't honestly mean as you can't honestly be asking me to do
this. I felt, first of all, God say I
want you to go into ministry. I've told this story before when
I was 13. I did not want to hear that.
In fact, there's a whole bunch of things that I didn't want to
hear from the Lord. In my understanding, Jesus had
saved me. Now he could advise me.
Then I had to come to grips at the age of 13 with what was it
really going to mean to follow Jesus?
Not just to be saved by him, to know him not just as Savior, but
as Lord. Because those two don't get
separated out. And even as I came to a point in
the back of a church tearing up and saying, yes, Lord, I had a
whole list of no's that I gave him in that moment.
Yes, Lord, to ministry, but no to any place rural, no to youth
ministry, and no to anything global.
The first church I ever served that was in Burford as a youth
pastor. Some of you know I oversee our
global engagement piece now and I've had the opportunity and the
blessing to travel all sorts of places into all sorts of gnarly
situations and uncomfortable spots to see God at work and to
bless the people who are doing God's work in those places.
Later on I would feel the Lord calling us into church planting
to which I understood the Lord to mean help other people plant
churches into which he said to me how about you go plant church
and it was another one like God. I just don't want to do this but
but but but alongside all those and almost always in concert
with him in his grace. Part of the way that he has
moved my heart to be able to fully and more fully overtime
surrender and I still have Lord no moments was by giving me
glimpses of his glory and goodness by providing for Amanda
and I improving himself as good and as faithful over and over
again. We were in Burford and God had
sent us there, and the church had no money.
And I've shared some of this before you, but we had just
story after story at the beginning of our ministry life
together of tires not wearing out and clothes not wearing out.
And somebody slaughtering a cow and bringing beef over when we
had no money for groceries and somebody dropping off a basket
full of cleaning supplies and we had no money to buy those.
And for the only time in my life, in my ministry life,
having just a check that somebody felt compelled to write
for the exact amount that we didn't have to cover Amanda's
medical supplies. And they had no idea that I had
woke up that morning in tears, crying out to God saying what we
get. What am I supposed to do as a
husband? And he gave me glimpses of his
glory and his goodness. Because sometimes fallen Jesus
requires us to believe things and to do things that are hard.
And I want you to see here that God made a promise in verse 27.
We didn't get into this last week because I wanted to cover
it here. Verse 27 at the end of what he
said to them, the end of the hard things, right?
He says, truly, I tell you, there are some standing here who
will not taste death until they see the Kingdom of God.
That fulfillment is the 8 days later that we find right here.
See, God has given them some hard things, but then He said,
hey, I want to prove myself to you.
We give you a little glimpse of my goodness and glory so that
you can trust me in these hard things.
He fulfills this close promise, right?
This, this smaller promise so that he, they would be able to
believe the bigger promises that he's making.
That he's going to go to the cross and die, but that he's
going to rise again, that he's going to come back when he
ascends, he's going to come back again.
They, they, he's going to ask them to believe some stuff.
And so he's got to give them some glimpses of his goodness
and His glory so that Peter can say we didn't follow cleverly
contrived myths. When we made known to you the
power and the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We were eyewitnesses of His Majesty.
That's why we can declare these hard things as true things.
He did what he said he would do on the mountain.
That means that he will do all that he says He will do.
And it's a it's I give this to you because it's important for
you to mark when God shows up. I think far too many of us in
this kind of moment by moment culture that we live in, this
crazy, hectic, no memory of anything culture, We don't mark
moments. We just get caught up in the
next moment. You need a mark when God shows
up and gives you a glimpse of His glory.
When He does, when you pray a prayer and he shows up and he
answers, you mark that down. Is there going to be moments
where you need that glimpse to go back to, to remind yourself
that He's true? These are glimpses of goodness
and grace and trustworthiness. And those glimpses, just like
they were for Peter, James and John, they're meant to
strengthen and steady you. Because things will get tough
and things will get hard and things will rattle you.
So tell your stories. Write down your stories.
Share your stories with others. Because sometimes we forget that
we need somebody else to whisper in her ear.
Yeah, But you remember when God showed up in that He'll show up
for you again. Jesus gives us glimpses of his
glory to strengthen and steady us.
But there's a second piece here that's really important.
These glimpses of glory are meant to fuel us, not to freeze
us in place. Peter, James and John, they wake
up to this unbelievable scene of Jesus and Elijah and Moses, and
Jesus doesn't look. He's Jesus, but he looks
different than Jesus because he's glowing and he's radiating.
Moses and Elijah are there in their perfected bodies.
And just a side note, I think this is like kind of a cool
little thing. It's a reminder that in our
resurrected body, somehow, some way, you're going to be
recognizable for who you are. I don't know what that looks
like, but they knew it was Moses and Elijah, and they're taking
it all in. They don't want this moment to
end. And so when Moses and Elijah are
getting ready to say their leaves, So if they were
Canadians, they said goodbye in the living room, and then they
said goodbye in the lobby. And then they stepped outside
the door and they said goodbye and they were waving goodbye
from the car, right. Peter says, wait, hold up.
I got an idea, Master. It's good to be here.
I don't need to go anywhere else.
Keep Moses. Keep Elijah.
You stay here. We'll stay here.
We'll build you all little shelters, and let's just camp
out in the glory. It's so good.
And if you've had times where you've got glimpses of God's
glory, I'm sure you felt this way.
I know I have. Maybe it's been in like a a time
of worship where you just like you're something different going
on. Your heart opens up and you're
just seeing Jesus and his beauty in a way you've never seen it
before. Maybe it's out of retreat.
You get away from all the noise and you just have time to jump
into his word. You're surrounded by nature and
you experience God in a powerful way.
Or maybe it's at a conference. I was just at the Alpha
conference and I don't know how many times I turned to a man and
say, hey, can we just stay in London?
Man, this is so good. Join it with 6000 other
believers worshipping across the nominations, across continents
and just raising the name of Jesus.
I don't want to leave. Just want to stay here.
Even got a worship song, right? Worship song called nothing
else. This is the word.
Part of the words are, I'm caught up in this holy moment.
I never want to leave. It's OK to feel that way.
And I'll let you know someday that day will be every day.
That's what heaven looks like. So the new heaven, new earth
looks like it's every day is that it's glorious.
But that's not today. Ultimately, on earth, when we
get moments of glory, they're meant to fuel us so that we can
go out. They're meant to give us fuel to
leave. That's the problem, though.
Peter's. Peter's suggestion, well, has a
couple of problems. First, he's obviously still
struggling to understand what it means for Jesus to be the
Messiah because he says, hey, we're just going to build 3
equal shelters up for up here for you.
And I think he thinks that he's elevating Jesus in a really
positive way by saying one for Moses, one for Elijah, one for
Jesus. But Jesus is not an equal of
Moses and Elijah. Only one person on that mountain
was worthy of worship. Moses and Elijah, by the way,
are there why? Why are why those two will
Moses, he represents the law, right?
He's the lawgiver. And Elijah represents the
prophets and the Jewish people referred to the Old Testament as
the law and the prophets. And in a Jewish setting, it took
two or more witnesses to witness to the truth of anything.
And so in this moment, the law and the prophets are witnessing
to the truth of the glory of Jesus, that this is all about
him. Peter, he still wants a Messiah
who's going to make life easy. He wants a Messiah who's going
to take him into glory and leave him there.
He he, he still wants Jesus Kingdom in a way that bypasses
the cross. He still doesn't get the
mission. Moses and Elijah, they were
speaking to Jesus about his mission.
They're up there on the mountain talking about the mission which
was Jesus was about to accomplish through his departure
in Jerusalem. That word departure is the same
Greek word as is used for Exodus, which is the Old
Testament paradigm for God's salvation and rescue.
Moses and Elijah are there saying the true the better.
Exodus is about to take place through Jesus at the cross.
The fullness of salvation that the the Old Testament only
points towards is about to take place through Jesus.
And the problem if they stay up there is you can't get to the
cross. You can't get to the cross from
the mountaintop. Jesus has to go down in order to
get to the cross. And that's where salvation is
going to be found. We often make the same mistakes
as Peter. We get you get a taste of glory
and it's meant to fuel us for mission.
But instead, getting the taste of glory becomes our obsession.
It becomes our fixation that takes us off the mission.
Man, lots of Christians want to spend all their time in
Christian bubbles. Just get me another Bible study,
get me to another worship service.
Get me to another retreat. Get me to another conference.
Find me another Christian book. Here's another Christian podcast
to listen to. And all we want is fuel.
But the fuel is meant to send you out.
If you don't go out, you just try and live on the mountain
top, you don't get the mission. We need to go out into the hard
places on Earth. The mission is often going to be
hard. It's going to take us into the
valleys and away from the mountaintops that we want to
stay on. But if we stay where it's easy,
if we stay where it's pleasant, if we spend all our time in the
church and around Christians but never get out into the
community, if we spend all our time in the Word and in prayer
but never in the world. If the glimpses of the goodness
and glory of Jesus and His Kingdom become our goal, rather
than the mission of moving people towards Jesus and His
glory, then we'll fail in the mission.
We need glimpses of the glory of Jesus to strengthen us and
steady us, but they're meant to be a fuel for the mission rather
than to freeze us and fix us in place.
The third thing is this Seeing the glory of Jesus helps us move
towards obedience. While he was saying this, a
cloud appeared and overshadowed them.
They became afraid as they entered the cloud.
Then a voice from the cloud came saying, This is my Son, the
chosen one. Listen to him.
Do you know the more we see Jesus for who He truly is, the
more it ought to drive us towards obedience to Him.
At the core of sin always is a failure to fully see Jesus for
all that He is. It starts with coming to
salvation, choosing to follow Him.
If you're going to choose to follow him, you're going to need
to see some things about Jesus. You're going to need to see that
you can't save you and you make a terrible Lord, that there's
nothing that you can do to fix yourself up.
It's not about doing better, trying harder, pulling it
together, making up for the past mistakes you made by doing more
things better moving forward. There's nothing that you can do
to make yourself right with God. And actually, when you try and
be God, you screw it all up, make a hash of it, make a mess
of your life. And that seeing that Jesus can
save you and that he's the Lord worth following, you got to have
both those things. You got to see that Jesus really
was the creator God of the universe who takes on flesh and
enters into the story to live the perfect and sinless life
that you may try to live, but you'll fail miserably on that.
He takes that perfect sinless life and He goes to the cross to
pay the penalty for your sin, because He was the only one who
could pay it. And that if you trust in Him,
His righteousness and His Holiness become yours.
And when you understand that, then you see that there's a God
who loves you so much, who's so glorious, that why wouldn't you
follow him? He obviously has your best
interests at heart all the time, even when you struggle to see
it. But seeing Jesus, it doesn't end
with your salvation. It's also the means of your
sanctification. It's the means by which we grow
and we change. Is is to see Jesus more fully.
And that's not just my words. This is what Paul says in 2nd
Corinthians 318. We're going to put it up on the
screen. We all with unveiled faces, are
looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord.
That's Jesus and are being transformed into the same image
from glory to glory, so that somehow as you and I see more of
the glory of Jesus, we become more like the glorious Jesus we
see. That's what Paul's saying.
The the, the key, one of the keys to sanctification
transformation is, as Pastor Keith said this morning,
beholding to become what we behold.
We become. John Owens, the great Puritan
writer, said this in his book, The Glory of Christ.
Let us live in the constant contemplation of the glory of
Christ, and virtue will proceed from Him to repair all of our
decays, to renew a right spirit within us, to cause us to abound
in all the duties of obedience. It will fix the soul upon that
object which is suited to give it delight, complacency, and
satisfaction. When the mind is filled with the
thoughts of Christ and his glory, when the soul thereon
cleaves on to him with intense affection, they will cast out,
or not give admittance unto the causes of spiritual weakness and
in disposition. Nothing will so much excite and
encourage our souls here unto as a constant view of Christ and
His glory. Let me put it this way, behind
all sin is a failure to see Jesus for who He truly is.
You don't just need to stop sinning, you need to start
seeing Jesus more fully. Once you close your eyes for a
moment, I'm going to read a couple passages of scripture.
Just ask the Lord to help you hear these and see Jesus in
them. John chapter one one to three.
John talking about Jesus says in the beginning was the Word.
The word was with God and the word was God.
He was with God in the beginning and all things were created
through and apart from him. Not one thing was created that
has been created. Now hold that picture in your
mind, Jesus, Creator God, who speaks existence into being and
holds it all together by His power.
If we truly saw Jesus in His glorious fullness as the Creator
God, what would that begin to change in our lives?
If you really believed in this moment, you exist.
Everything exists only because He wills you too.
That nothing exists apart from His say so that all of the
resources of the universe and beyond, because the universe is
His creation, belong to Him. What righteous fear would that
put in our souls when we choose to stand in defiance to Him and
sin? What confidence would it put in
your soul when you know that you're walking in obedience to
Him in saying yes and Amen to what He has called you to do?
What ah and wonder would it place in you that that God chose
to come and die for you? Give you one more scripture?
John 15/9 As the Father has loved me, I have also loved you.
As the Father has loved me, Jesus says that's how I love
you. What would it mean for you to
believe that you are fully and completely both known and loved
by Jesus? That he knows everything about
you? Yes, even those things, the
things you try and block out from yourself and you hope
nobody ever finds out the ugliest parts.
And he loves you, and he runs towards you instead of away from
you. What acceptance would you be
able to feel if you could see the glory of that?
What peace would you feel inside of yourself with joy?
How would it kill your constant need to compare yourself with
others, to compete with others, to destroy others through gossip
and slander because you just want to puff yourself up?
You don't need to puff yourself up.
You're loved. How would it change the way that
you hear His word and trust it if you knew He loved you that
deeply and that much? And what would you entrust to
Him and be willing to give up to Him with open hands?
If you knew His love that deeply?
Watch Him just open your eyes. You know that God gave us more
than a glimpse. He gave us a guarantee that we
are loved by Him. He gave us a promise that you
can be forgiven, accepted, redeemed, and restored by the
blood of Jesus on the cross. And then he gave us this
constant reminder through taking communion that it is true to
strengthen and to steady us a glimpse of His glory.
That's what communion is. It's a glimpse of his glory.
And so if, if you're a follower of Jesus today, I would invite
you to take part with us as we take the communion elements
together. If you're not a follower of
Jesus, this is for those of us. What we're doing is we take
this, we're confessing. This is true for me.
Jesus died for me. His body was broken for me.
His blood was poured out for me. If you don't have one, you just
put your hand up in the air if you didn't get one coming in.
And we've got some people who will hand them out to you from
our hospitality team. See on on the mountain, the
disciples saw the glory of Jesus revealed.
But at the cross, at the cross we see the glory of Jesus
defined, that the glorious Son of God would be willing to have
his body broken, be willing to have his blood poured out for
the forgiveness, not just of randoms, but from for my sin,
for our sin. That what looked like defeat in
a moment was actually victory for all time.
What looked like weakness on the cross was in fact glory.
When we gaze upon the fullness of Jesus, when we see His
Holiness, we see His righteousness.
It should move us to see that we are more unworthy and sinful
than we could dare realize. But when we look at the wonder
of His body broken on the cross and His blood poured out for the
forgiveness of our sins, it should also make us realize that
we are more loved than we ever dared hope.
So we're going to take these elements together.
We're going to mark this as a moment and remember once again
the glory of a God who loved us so much to die for us.
Take the wafer and let's pray over it together.
Father, as we take this wafer, we take it not just as a piece
of bread, not just as a ritual, but as a reminder of your
goodness and grace and glory. Your body broken for us.
We declare it to be so. Father, thank you for loving us
so much. May your love and the wonder of
that love grow in US. May it transform us.
May we move as we look at the glory of it, from glory to
glory. We ask this in the name of the
Jesus who died for us. Amen.
Let's take a knee the same way we take the cup.
We're told as a marker of the new covenant, as the new
relationship, that that it is Jesus blood and Jesus blood
alone that creates the conditions for us to come into a
right relationship with God. The wonder and glory that God
would so graciously gift us that we don't earn it, we don't
deserve it. It is given as a free gift to
receive. Let's pray over the cup.
Father, thank You for the glory of the gift of the blood of
Jesus Christ, which watches away not just a few of our sins or
some of our sins, but all of our sins, and allows us to stand
holy and glorious. You see us through the glory of
the sun and make us your sons and your daughters and adopt us
into Your Kingdom. We wonder that you would choose
us. What wonder?
What glory? And we thank You.
In the name of Jesus Christ, let's take and drink now let's
worship and let's sing and praise and adoration to the King
who is worthy of our worship.