Church Matters: Beholders of Glory
Church Matters • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 38:25
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· 9 viewsJesus is the radiance of the glory of God, the exact imprint of His nature, and we have seen Him; Christians then are primarily a beholding people.
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Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets,
but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.
He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
As we try to build our theological understanding of the church.
We CANNOT begin with questions like...
What does the church do?
What should the church be doing?
We must begin with far more fundamental questions about the nature of the church.
We must begin by asking...
Who is SHE?
What does it even mean to be the church?
How are we to understand the church?
I want to give you a lens to see the church for who she is...
Martin Luther described two kinds of theologies the church could have.
The first is what he described as...
Theology of Glory
Theology of Glory
This sounds good but it was actually a very negative term.
He means a kind of self-centered “glory”
Smart Enough
Smart Enough
This can also be called, “We know better!”
Smart enough means that we place our own intelligence over Scripture.
People don’t typically say that, but it sounds like this...
“I live by my gut instincts!”
Good Enough
Good Enough
This can also be called, “Three steps to….”
Good enough means that we place our own morality out front.
We can be good enough.
“Three steps to removing this persistent sin”
“Seven steps to having a better marriage.”
Strong Enough
Strong Enough
This can also be called, “Try harder!”
This idea is appealing because if we just...
“Have the right marketing department”
“Have the trendiest designs as a church.”
“Have the right church ascetic.”
These ideas are appealing because they present a quick fix.
They present a promising fix.
The theologian of glory is attractive because he offers seven steps for a successful life or three steps to overcoming a persistent sin. The liberal theologian of glory is attractive because he promises a bright new future that we can see, touch, and taste. We like that.
This is the theologian of glory.
The theologian of glory desires for the church to be a part of LOT’s of things.
Without considered first and foremost, who she IS.
The problem with this is our definition of GLORY.
We reason that God, being God, really is the center of the universe, so he has and deserves glory to the highest degree. But, while God has no serious competition for his glory, we read into God’s glory the same kind of standoffishness and self-centeredness that tends to course through our own.
The great danger here is a theology of glory that hasn’t passed through the prism of the gospel of Jesus. We risk projecting our own darkness and selfishness onto the living God, making him far less good and beautiful than he really is. This will always be the result of starting out with our own assumptions rather than his word to us.
If we don’t understand the GLORY of GOD rightly.
We end up confused on the nature of the church.
When we begin to see Jesus as himself the Glory of the Father and let him shape our idea of glory, we find that God is far better than we ever dared to believe, and his glory, beautifully different from our own.
Theology of the Cross
Theology of the Cross
“God’s Definition”
The theology of the Cross is how the church should understand herself.
For the church to be the church.
She must have a theology of the cross.
What is the glory of God?
The Glory of God
The Glory of God
We use the term “glory of God” a lot.
Typically, I think we think that “glory” must mean the same thing as what humans mean when we talk about a person’s glory.
In our fallen thinking, for God to be glorious is simply for him to be great. Of course, this is the sort of glory we would quite like for ourselves: we want to be recognized, given credit, and known for our skills and abilities.
-Daniel Hames
We speak of glory as if it is just God’s reputation.
Then God just becomes made in our own image and this is idolatry.
I want us to take a short survey of important biblical texts to discover what the Bible means by glory.
In the Old Testament, Moses used to meet with God on behalf of the people of Israel.
Exodus 33:11 (ESV)
Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.
The people of Israel whored after the golden calf.
Moses pleads with the LORD to NOT abandon the people.
And he said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”
God’s promise here is His general blessing upon the people.
You and I may have been okay with that....
And he said to him, “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here.
We need your PERSONAL presence.
NOTHING else will do!
Moses asks Him.
Exodus 33:18 (ESV)
“Please show me your glory.”
NOT ONLY do we want you to go up with us....
I WANT to see YOU!
Exodus 33:19–20 (ESV)
“I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The Lord.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.
But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.”
The glory of God at some level we need to see as a dangerous thing.
That word for GLORY in the OT means, “weight” or “heaviness”
God’s glory then would go on to dwell in the tabernacle behind the Holy of Holies.
It was dangerous to enter the Holy of Holies because of God’s glory.
It’s the kind of dangerous vision that Isaiah saw in Isaiah 6.
In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple.
Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.
And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!”
The heaviness and the weightiness that would lead Isaiah to say…
And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”
The glory that Isaiah saw in the heavenly vision.
The glory that was veiled in the cloud that led Israel in the wilderness.
The glory that sat over the mercy seat in the tabernacle.
If God were like you and I.
We would be content to be WHO we are.
We would have no desire to share ourselves with others.
But the GOD of the Bible is MORE Beautiful than we could ever imagine.
Philip will ask Jesus later...
Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.”
Philip has a theology of Glory.
“Show us something special, Jesus!”
“Show us marvels!”
“Reveal to us the true glory of the Father!”
But Jesus’ answer is profound.
Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?
If we have seen Jesus, then we have seen the Father.
This is the same truth which is said in other places...
The Glory Revealed
The Glory Revealed
If we were to expect the GLORY of God to come down...
How would it look?
But when we turn to the pages of the New Testament.
We see an entirely different picture before us.
John 1:14 (ESV)
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory...
Even more clearly shown just a few verses earlier…
The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.
He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him.
He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.
But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,
Jesus is the glory of God.
God in and of Himself is GLORIOUS.
And unlike you and I.
He desires to share that GLORY.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
The glory of the Father has been made known in the person of the Son.
Application
Before the church can be known by what she does.
She must be known by WHO SHE IS.
She is first and foremost ONE who beholds glory.
She is PRIMARILY one who has looked upon the beauty of Jesus Christ.
Where do we see this glory most clearly?
The Radiance of the Glory of God
The Radiance of the Glory of God
Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets,
The writer to the Hebrews begins by remember the various ways and times that God has formerly spoken to His people by the prophets.
He remembers the various ways, the manners that he spoke to them.
This could be through the prophet Ezekiel laying on his side,
or through the prophet Jonah in the belly of a fish,
or through the prophet Job who God spoke through his immense suffering.
By comparing the former revelation to the later, the author highlights the final and authoritative revelation of Jesus Christ.
This is the point of the writer when he then says…
but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.
The age which the Father created through the Son by the Holy Spirit are coming to an end.
The end of this age has found its culminating point and this is on Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
This Son of God is the final revelation from the Father.
In these last days, God has spoken to us by His Son and its in Him that the heir of all things can be found.
This leads the author of the Hebrews to speak of the Son of God in these terms...
Hebrews 1:3 (ESV)
He is the radiance of the glory of God...
The Son is the radiance of the GLORY of God.
The term “radiance” comes from a word which can mean “outshining” or “brilliance”.
The Son of God radiates the glory of God to the world.
The glory of God is the cross of Jesus Christ.
The glory of God is seen in the Son of God giving His life as a ransom to many.
The glory of God is seen in the resurrection of the Son of God.
He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,
When we see the phrase, “exact imprint of his nature” we need to have in our brains something like a “stamp” which makes other images.
Christ is the image of God in the sense that He is the image by which all other images are patterned.
We can tell exactly what the Father looks like by examining the original stamp from which all the coins look like.
We can tell exactly what the Father is like by looking at the Son.
Created in God’s Image New Testament Teaching
Every trait, every characteristic, every quality found in the Father is also found in the Son, who is the Father’s exact representation.
We don’t have to wonder, “What is God like?”
Application
We don’t look for another messenger.
To look at Jesus is to look at the Son of God.
“Jesus is God shining, going out from the Father in radiant revelation to give himself to us. He is God’s face turned toward us, God’s name dwelling with us, and God’s glory flashing upon us. Jesus shows us a God who is fundamentally outgoing, outshining, and self-giving.” -Daniel Hames
When we look at the Lord Jesus, we see the heart of God.
The heart of God which hated sin so much in the flesh that He laid it upon His Son.
But so loved us that He has poured forth life!
What does this mean about the nature of the church?
Jesus is the radiance of the glory of God, the exact imprint of His nature, and we have seen Him; Christians then are primarily a beholding people.
Beholders of Glory
Beholders of Glory
So the sisters sent to him, saying, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.”
But when Jesus heard it he said, “This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”
Jesus says that Lazarus’s death will lead to great glory.
That Jesus Christ will be glorified through it.
Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus has died,
and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”
Lazarus’s death is for the glory of God.
That the Son of God may be glorified in it!
But what happens....
People believe on Jesus!
People trust the SON of GOD!
These aren’t opposed to one another.
Actually Jesus is GLORIFIED when sinners treasure and TRUST HIM above everything else!
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.
For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.
For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
This glory is the same glory that John sees in his vision of the heavenly throne room in Revelation 5:5
And one of the elders said to me, “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.”
The Lion, the ONE who is the majestic ruler of all has conquered.
And it’s at this point that we start to see the glory of God taking shape.
Glory is not some triumphal, chest beating, praise seeking reality.
No, glory is actually the next picture that we see.
He hears of the MAJESTY of the LION from the TRIBE but then SEES the lamb of God slain and resurrected.
Revelation 5:6 (ESV)
And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain...
The glory of God is seen in the life, death, burial, and resurrection of the Son of God.
When God desires to share His Glory with the world.
He doesn’t do it through military conquest.
He doesn’t do it through the brightest and best.
He doesn’t do it through ascetically appealing things.
He does IT through the MOST unlikely.
A LAMB who would bear the wrath of God for SINNERS.
Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands,
saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!”
And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!”
And the four living creatures said, “Amen!” and the elders fell down and worshiped.
Do you know what this means for us?
Application
When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand as he came down from the mountain, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God.
We like Moses behold the GLORY of GOD in the face of Jesus.
We shine, not because we work hard to shine.
We shine because we have been with Jesus!
This is just like the New Testament church...
Even after Jesus had been resurrected.
They were preaching the good news of Jesus.
Acts 4:7 (ESV)
“By what power or by what name did you do this?”
They wanted to know, how are you doing all of these things?
How are you able to heal and love one another?
And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
Listen to how they responded...
Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus.
Jesus says of His disciples...
“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.
We are first and foremost people who have seen and beheld the light of the GLORY of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house.
In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.
Jesus is the radiance of the glory of God, the exact imprint of His nature, and we have seen Him; Christians then are primarily a beholding people.