Let’s all stand to our feet as we read the word of god together Roman chapter 8.
We will read it in its in the section of which we’re studying in total, this part, by the way, theologically, if you’re in a a seminary course, you would wanna break it up in chapters, uh, chapter 8 versus 8 or 18, I should say, to 30, uh, but we’re reading verses 18 to 23.
Taking this section. I’ll start out in verse 18 if you’ll pick it up in verse 19.
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time, think of that.
Are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in the creation either of the rights for the revealing of the sons of god.
For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope.
Bodies of corruption due to the glorious integrity of the children of god.
For we know that the whole creation groans and laborers with birth pangs until together until now.
For the evaluation of our eyes.
In all god’s people said, hey, man. You can be seated.
You can feel that as it wraps to the conclusion. Lord, we feel it in our bodies.
We’re looking at a message series titled, what are you waiting for? What are you waiting for?
Beyond any other vocation, by the way, beyond any other work, the Christian.
You, we’ve been singled out by god to accomplish an amazing mission on earth.
A lot of talk these days about aliens and strange things.
Well, I want you to know that according to the Bible, you’re an alien, and I’m an alien, in a world in which we no longer belong.
And, uh, that world doesn’t want us here anymore, but that’s okay. We don’t wanna be here either.
Uh, they want us out of here.
So do we, they want us to disappear, and I hope that happens today. That would be awesome.
But until then, we’ve been given a mission by god.
And that mission given to us by god is to make sure that people understand that our god is a redemptive god, a loving god, a god that is pure, just and holy, but also because he is holy, that he’s the god of all righteous judgment.
And, uh, until that day come, god has given you and I the opportunity, to tell others about Christ.
And it all began, by the way, with a promise, a promise from Jesus Christ himself to send us the Holy Spirit.
The church is manipulated and powered by and led by the Holy Spirit.
In Luke chapter 24, verse 46.
Jesus said, thus it is written and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, the 3rd day.
And that repentance here it is. Here’s the mission.
That repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name to all nations beginning at Jerusalem.
And you are witnesses of these things.
Behold I send the promise of my father upon you. That’s what Jesus said.
But wait in the city of Jerusalem until you are in dude with power from on high.
Don’t do anything in your own strength or power.
Jesus is a saying, I’m gonna be ascending to heaven I’m gonna send the Holy Spirit.
My father’s gonna, uh, hear my prayer, and the promise will be given, and the promise is the Holy Spirit.
He’s the power behind our Christian walk. You gotta get that down, everybody. It’s not you and your efforts.
The power of the Holy Spirit will use you, but he will be your efforts.
He will motivate you. He will move you as we lean and press into the spirit of god.
And that promise was given to do exactly that, to equip us for the purpose of living life to the glory of god.
Acts chapter 1 verse 4 begins there by saying and being assembled together with them, he commanded them not to depart from rules him, but to wait for the promise of the father, which he said you have heard from me for Julie for for Julie.
That’s Julian truly.
For John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with The Holy Spirit, not many days from now.
What an amazing statement. And then that promise was fulfilled on the day of Pentecost, and it’s being fulfilled today because the spirit of god is still here.
In fact, regarding the church, he’s gonna be with us until the day he hands us over to Jesus in the atmosphere, actually in John chapter 14.
I hope I pray that we’re the generation that sees that.
In Matthew chapter, uh, 28 verse 19, go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I’ve commanded you.
And low or behold, I’m with you always, even under the end of the age.
But we leave off with this. Acts chapter 1 verse 8.
And you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, not in you, the Holy Spirit already lives inside the believer, the spirit of god comes upon you for power.
And he says, you will be witnesses to me in Jerusalem.
Notice the criteria is a mission But the the way it’s accomplished is by the power of the Holy Spirit, and that great mission is to tell as many people, men and women and boys and girls about Jesus as possible.
Jerusalem, Judaism, Samaria, and up to the ends of the earth. I love how the epicenter starts in Jerusalem.
It just emanates out until it eventually came to your ears. And so this is a beautiful thing.
So we often listen to church family as we get into this precious portion of scripture, We often, uh, I think, fall victim to our, uh, uh, at at our own hands, to our own devices.
We fall victim because we often crastinate about things, uh, especially when it comes to God, we kinda we kinda maybe are very spontaneous about the things of the world.
If your friends get together and say, Hey. Let’s go to the beach. He’s like, yeah. Let’s go. No.
Nobody would say, you know, let’s pray about let’s pray about that for a minute.
But if somebody says, hey, let’s go to the plan parenthood and stand outside and pray, or let’s go share Christ down at the mall.
Or whatever it might be. You have a tendency to kind of pull back and even use some Christianese to cover it up.
Well, you know, we should maybe pray about that.
Those are things we don’t need to pray about. Those are things that we are to obey.
But we often fall victim to our own devices when we go out and try to live our Christianity apart from the Holy Spirit’s empowerment to live our lives in the face of difficulty, hardship, struggles, and one more verse before we get into this.
Philippians 4, verse 11 says, for I have learned whatever state I am in to be content, Paul said.
He said, I’ve learned how to be abased, and I’ve learned how to abound.
I’ve I’ve learned how to be content in whatever state I’m in.
And the word state here in the Greek is California. No. I’m kidding. Whatever.
Get it. Did you get that joke there? Whatever state I can be content?
I got news for you. I know it seems shocking, but god is moving in California.
In fact, I think he’s gonna make 49 States jealous pretty soon.
I think the spirit of god’s gonna move in a place that people have written off Oh, calif what what any good thing could come out of California?
Oh, we qualify. I’m expecting god to do something. So listen, what are you waiting for?
In verse 18, we saw this just by way of recap, when time is running out, there’s a sense of urgency in the life of the believer.
Pulses in verse 18 for I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
Suffering. Everybody suffers. And for some strange reason, what is it about us that we have fallen for an ancient false doctrine of heresy that’s suffering for the believer is because you are some sort of remedial Christian.
You are some sort of subterranean Christian.
If you are suffering wailing to you, my my goodness, what has happened to you?
And Paul suffered more than anybody that we know. Suffering. Nobody signs up for it who wants to.
You don’t do that. But for the believer, every bit of suffering that comes to our lives, listen with pain, with with sorrow, with broken heart, we can weep with hot tears knowing I don’t understand it, but god’s gonna work something good out of this.
And we rest in him, I’ll tell you it takes more faith, the rest in the will of god through suffering than any other thing.
We’ve all gone through suffering.
And if you’re not a Christian, you’ll go through suffering alone.
I just want you to know that right now. You need to know that.
That ought to scare you enough in a good way to say I want Christ because we all go through suffering, but Jesus holds our hand.
I mean, seriously, I gotta tell you.
I can often sense the presence of Christ in a in a way.
I just I I I think that he allows me uh, to sense that at times, when I feel like I should be afraid or scared or whatever intimidated, The moment that happens to me, I just say, oh, lord, and I sense his presence.
And then I I it doesn’t matter anymore. Uh, but we know this of those that were martyred.
We know that, uh, when you’re serving Christ, there’s a there’s a power and an energy and a strength that’s outside of you.
It’s the hand of god. But Paul will teach us another portion of scripture, but he conveys it to us that the greatest sufferings that he experienced resulted later in the greatest ministry achievements.
So my question to all of us is, are we willing to suffer for the glory of god?
Are we willing to go through things that god might get the glory?
I was just talking to miss Robin, my secretary.
She’s been at least a nice secretary for 33, 34 years.
And she’s nursing her mother-in-law through these last stages.
Maybe grandma is walking through the valley of the shadow of death right now.
We do not know but Robin has been carrying this load.
And I told her, just a moment ago, before coming out here.
She said, you know, because her life in the last 11, 12 years has been filled with tremendous grief.
And, uh, to be honest with you guys, she’s just too good of a witness.
Robin is faithful, and she’s praying, and she’s witnessing the nurses and doctors.
And, when her mother-in-law dies, she’s gonna go straight into glory.
So we prayed this morning that god would take her into glory.
But if he doesn’t take her, it’s not her mother.
Her mother is like the stadium, and Robin is the preacher.
And the crowd that’s occupying the stadium are the nurses and the doctors at that hospital.
Do you get what I’m saying?
They’re watching her love and pray and cry and then share hope with other people.
Those people will never go to a crusade. They’ll never go to a just church event.
They’ll never come to church. But by the suffering of one saint, another saint in a different type of suffering preaches the gospel, And to god, it is worth it.
To us, we’ll see later. We don’t get it now. We don’t understand.
But god uses these things, and Pulses wake up, dear church at Chino Hills wake up if you only knew what was coming, after you’re suffering, you wouldn’t get weak need about it.
You wouldn’t worry. You wouldn’t say, oh, no. What was me? You’d say, oh, hey. Hey. God’s getting me ready.
The greater the suffering, the greater the glory. That’s what’s coming.
And so we look to practice expectation.
We should be a people that are very, very I like to put it this way.
Spurgeon put it this way, pregnant with hope.
You know, when you’re pregnant, uh, you’re you keep growing until its baby day, until its birthday.
You can only be pregnant for so long, and then delivery day comes.
Listen, as a believer, we are pregnant with hope And our hope keeps growing because we know the god of heaven, we know the god of comfort, and we know how this all ends, that as we grow in Christ, there comes a day when we outgrow these bodies and enter his presence.
But he’ll never leave us our forsake us, And you can live an expected life on that.
And our perspective regarding that, our view regarding that is very, very important.
The Bible says in first John chapter verse 16.
1st John 2 16, for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the father, but is of the world.
And the world is passing away and the lust of it, but he who does the will of god abides forever.
Is that in your heart to do? Do you wanna do the will of god? Of course, you do.
I trust that’s why you’re here today. We get upset at ourselves when we don’t do the will of god.
Why is that true? Because the spirit of god is in us, and he is awaken us to follow god, even if that road is rough or painful, The Bible also teaches us that you and I clearly, as it says here, we live in a very fallen world.
And I know that you and I are fallen creatures.
The Bible says so, you and I are not sinless, but the amazing thing is that with all that’s going on around us, if we would begin to practice this expectation of what’s in store.
It might just rub off on other people, and they might want what you have.
I’m not I’m not talking about being a weirdo when something goes wrong.
You know, because there’s weirdos that do that stuff.
Things happen, and they go praise the lord. And the world doesn’t understand that.
Look, if you’re if If it’s just us in a room in your senate, I understand Christianese.
But when you speak like that outside the world, they don’t understand Christianese.
Oh, my dog just died. Praise the lord. No. Don’t say that out loud.
Everybody knows. Right? You said your dog born born again?
That’s a joke, but maybe not.
Have you noticed one of our missions in life, if you think about it, if you read the gospel, if if people could be more like dogs, what a world this would be?
Think about it. But god wants to use our transformed lives.
And so when he says, consider, we saw this last time that we are to reckon to count.
We are to uh, understand it’s to do the math or in the Greek.
It’s run the numbers and come to the conclusion. It’s a powerful statement.
In 2nd Corinthians 318, the Bible says, but we all I love this, but we all speak into the church with unveiled face, behold, as in a mirror, the glory of the lord, that is like we dream about it.
We read the Bible, and our imaginations go off on god, what it’s gonna be like, and what is it like now where you’re at, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory just as by the spirit of the lord, god’s changing you and I.
Chirts, can I say it again? We’re becoming more pregnant with expectation and hope.
As a believer and suffering if we could only receive in faith, what he’s announcing to us, It wouldn’t shock us so much.
We wouldn’t be so afraid of it. He’s the great redeemer.
And John chapter 16 verse 33, Jesus says, these things I’ve spoken unto you that in me, you will have peace, but listen, In the world, you’re gonna have tribulation.
That’s difficulties, but be a good cheer. Jesus said, I’ve overcome the world. Good. What an awesome statement.
Listen, if you know somebody that’s sick, you ought to put that all over their bedroom or hospital room.
That’s a great verse. Print it out, post it up there.
Maybe you’re going through other types of tribulations, difficulties, could be relational, marriage, whatever it might be.
I had somebody just talked to me recently, a very, very high powered financial guy in this world, and, interesting comment he made.
He said the days are looking, uh, interesting to say the least, never before like this, and that is consulting uh, the great giants of credit, uh, cards, American Express Chase, all these corporations, they’re very concerned because, you know, they look 50 to a 100 years out, you know, and they realize that the credit card world is going to evaporate pretty soon in their time.
Because there are people that are growing up.
They don’t want credit cards, and they wouldn’t even qualify for a credit card.
They don’t even wanna have driver’s license. They don’t want a job.
And and now if you’re a mister American Express.
Can you imagine looking down the road 30 years from right now when people wouldn’t even be qualifying?
And a lot of people are nervous.
And you always know it’s nervous time when you turn on the radio and it’s by gold. Right?
I am so sick. Of these people telling me this is the best gold company in America. Right?
Oh, just come on. Listen. The Bible says in the last days, by the way, there’ll there’s gonna be a trend and it says that men will heap up to themselves silver and gold for the day of destruction.
You can’t eat it. She said, no, but you can go down to Albertsons and buy a blue over bread.
Really? You know, lug some gold down to Albertsons?
The first time somebody knows you got gold in your pocket, you ain’t eaten any bread.
I’ll tell you that. And I’m not knocking. Um, I’m not knocking gold investment.
I just don’t know what I’m talking about right now. So I’ll stay out of that.
James chapter 1 verse 2 tells us James chapter 1 verse 2. My brother encountered all joy.
This is in your bible. Count it all joy when you fall into various trials.
Please, it’s trials, not temptations.
Temptations come from my flesh, Satan, in this world. Trials come from god.
Trials are tailor made for your life. Temptations.
The enemy is just shooting darts every which way to try to get you. You’re to resist those.
Counted all joy.
When you fall into various tryas knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience, but let patients have its perfect work that you may be perfect and complete lacking nothing.
Listen. This is not popular.
But without difficulties in trials and suffering, you will not grow very deep spiritually.
And you know it, Christian. The deepest people you know spiritually have suffered much.
A spiritually mature man or woman. Paul speaks of Philippians chapter 3 verse 7.
And he says, but what things were gained to me? These things I counted lost for Christ.
Yet indeed, I also count all things lost for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus.
My lord, for whom I’ve suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish that I may gain Christ.
That doesn’t mean that having things is bad. What’s bad is those things having you.
There are many of you that are blessed of god. God bless you.
That’s amazing. And rejoice in that. Just know this.
You have been given a huge responsibility to be a steward over vast influence.
That’s spooky if you think about it. Oh, god. May I conduct myself right? Look.
For me, it’s not money, but for me, it turns out to be I can say something and do some good or do some damage.
For you, it’s the area that god has called you to be.
Maybe you’re a professor or instructor at a school somewhere, the influence you have.
A woman came up me last week and said, I wanna get involved in ministry, and she had 2 little twin three year olds with her.
Beautiful. And she was a a widow on top of it.
And I said, I go, what are you talking about? She shared her vision.
And I said, well, I tell you what, that’s that’s gonna be very time consuming.
She’ll have I I I think so too. And they said, well, I’ll tell you what.
I’m not saying yes, and I’m not saying no. Who am I? But I will tell you this.
You go and ask god which ministry comes first in order.
These 2 are what you think he’s calling you to do. I already know the answer to that.
My family I mean, I love all of you. You know that. My family comes before you.
Did you know that has to happen? I’ll prove it to you.
The Bible says in Timothy, if my family goes astray and goofball, then I’m no longer fit for ministry. Right.
Right. It’s god first always Alright? Then my family.
And with that’s intact, then I get to come here.
I pray, right, with the anointing and the power of the Holy Spirit.
That’s he how he would have us to serve. But all of us go through trials and difficulty.
My goodness, it’s a glorious moment for the believer of growth.
And Philippians 310, this is very personal to me.
Philippians 310 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection.
I used to know that verse a certain way. I’ll tell you in a moment.
And the fellowship of his sufferings being conformed to his death.
I used to study this, and I always loved the first part of verse 10.
And then it dawned on me many years ago, that I cannot experience the power of his resurrection without the fellowship of his sufferings.
Why? Because the fellowship of his sufferings that is what he’s prescribed for my life that causes me to con be conform to his death.
See, what does that mean? His death That means Jack doesn’t live anymore.
The demands of Jack, the commands of Jack, the will of Jack has been gutted out of Jack, How does that happen?
Supernatural work of suffering brings me to the point of saying, god, I’m dead. You live through me.
And I gotta tell you, then I got sick. We were a home bible study group.
We were it was big, but we had our first Sunday, Easter Sunday service as a home bible study group in Chino Hills at a park, and hundreds and hundreds of people came that day.
We were shocked. And later on that day, I I felt like a little bee sting in my stomach.
I just I thought, like, oh, that was a funny little bite.
And I thought, uh, my my maybe I’m getting the flu or something.
And all of a sudden, I had this intense, kind of pain, and I had to run to the bathroom.
And, uh, I didn’t stop going to the bathroom for 10 months.
Lost £30 in and out of the hospital. Uh, it was it was terrible.
Every kind of test, doctor, telling you what we’re gonna we think you have cancer of the intestines.
And then we we think you have this and you think you have that and it took months and you know what happens?
I gotta tell you. You get to a point where you just say lord, It’s so crystal clear.
No one knows what they’re doing. I don’t know what’s going on.
The experts can’t tell me anything. And so this is your business.
And I if there’s anything in my life that needs to be taken away from me, how I need to be gutted, so be it.
And let me tell you, I was sick. The corporation I worked for was so kind.
They let me take time off beyond HR’s approval, they covered for me.
And, I actually learned how to suffer with that thing.
I’m not gonna tell you what it is, but I if if I left my house, it’d be by faith.
I’ll tell you that. And, um, I’d been I’d get on an airplane and fly from here to Moscow.
And I’m thinking, oh lord, please, please. Oh god, please. Oh, please. Please. And he was faithful.
And, uh, my body belongs to him.
Your body belongs to him, if you know it or not.
And, uh, let him do with you as he’s so fit and chooses. Just know this.
He’s gonna glorify your name, his name, and your life. He’s gonna glorify his name through your life.
And so, yeah, you know what?
Uh, lord, if your power needs to be upon my life more, then I invite you lord Jesus to bring suffering into my life because I know you love me, and I know that you’re not gonna give me more than what I can handle according to the scriptures, your grace will be sufficient.
I’m good with whatever you do in my life. And Paul knew that better than any of us.
But what are you doing? It hurts.
I know we do the natural thing, the humanly natural thing, and so maybe so we should.
We we start eating right or we get some holistic help or whatever.
We start, you know, we get out of dairy, maybe it’s that’s the issue or, you know, you need more vitamin d.
What I mean, that’s a good thing to do, but I’m talking about hurting on the inside.
Where do you go when you’ve loved on your husband?
And, you know, he might even say, well, I love you, but I’m not in loving you.
Not exactly sure what that means.
Or your wife leaves you a note when you get home Friday night.
She’s gone. Her and the kids, they’re gone. What do you do with that?
In first Peter chapter 1 verse 6, the Bible says, In this, you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials.
You ever been there? That the genuineness of your faith being much more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire, may be found to the praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen you love, is that wild?
Come on. Let’s be honest. We love him. Say, how do how do we know we love him?
We obey him. Isn’t it funny? Listen. Do we all obey the police officer that’s driving by in the car?
To a degree. As soon as he turns left, We go back I’m grateful he’s there, but I don’t love him.
But we love god. So we obey him. But we’ve never even met him.
That’s big love. That’s big love. Takes time to fall in love with somebody.
You gotta know him. Isn’t it great? He wrote us a letter.
This I told you before, I’ll do it again right now. It’s pretty fun. Here’s Genesis.
This is Genesis. Let’s get this Okay.
So, look, this is the creation of all that there ever was and is.
This is the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve. Yep.
Adam and Eve sins right here between these pages. See how thick that is?
And then god says, I love you. Please come back. This is the plan of redemption.
Read this book. You’ll find your way back home. Wow. What a god.
How good is he? The perspective matters in verse 18.
These things that we’re going through the knot, were they to be compared? This is awesome.
They’re not worthy. The word worthy is exos in Greek, and it means appearing here in the negative sense, by the way, as in not weighty.
The things that you and I deal with, they’re not weighty enough. They’re not substantial enough.
They’re not even detectable enough.
Not being in the same league, the word means, not deserving of any attention or comparison.
What you and I experience in this life, whatever it is, the good, the bad, and the ugly compared to the glory that heaven has for us, nothing here can be compared.
Listen. Please, I don’t mean to upset any, uh, any of the, uh, thousands of authors who’ve written books about heaven except one.
Read one book on heaven by Randy Alcorn. It’s the only thing worth reading reading.
It’s called Heaven by Randy Alcorn. It’s a theology of heaven.
It’s about this book big of a book, and it’s worth every page.
He wrote that book to debunk all the stories that people were talking about the glories of heaven.
Oh, I died, and I saw this. And somebody died, and they saw the opposite.
This little boy saw saw this, and this old man saw the other thing.
We all had wings, and the angels didn’t. The angels did, and we didn’t.
Whose book is right? I don’t get balled up in that stuff.
I do not read books about heaven. Oh, you gotta read this guy’s book.
He died and went to he went to heaven.
And before he did, god showed him hell, and why would I why would I do that when I can read the book of of of absolute truth that god has given us?
And the reason why I say that is for this reason.
Paul the apostle says that he saw heaven and would not write about it and would not speak about it.
If the Apostle Paul could not talk about the glories of heaven, in his verbiage that he used, He implied that English or English, the languages of earth could not qualify to be used to describe the beauty of heaven.
That’s where we’re going. I love how CS Lewis does this comparison.
CS Lewis talks about um, our fallenness and our glorification.
And he says, when you look at it by scale, he says, for example, Uh, when you look at a cow, when you look at a bad cow, how do you tell the difference between a bad cow and a good cow, CS Lewis’s So, man, that’s a you have a bad cow.
What does that mean? He he stands this way. Well, what’s a good cow deal? He stands this way.
I mean, there’s not much of a difference. He’s black and white. He looks the same from whatever angle.
But, listen, if you have a bad dog, That could hurt.
A bad dog is a little bit further away from a good dog.
A bad cow and a good cow. They’re the same.
You see where I’m going with this? It’s going up a funnel and reverse.
You go up and and, uh, if you have a bad angel, how good has he fallen?
How good can an angel be? Hoof. We’ve been creating the image of god.
We listen, Adam and Eve were created. Perfect. How far have we fallen?
How bad can man be? Well, listen. How good can man be?
That’s what we’re gonna find out. It’s called heaven.
Because in this life, you and I cannot be as good as god designed us to be because we are still weighted down by the influences of sin no matter how good we try.
But when we weigh anchor from this fallen world, imagine what heaven’s gonna be like Oh my goodness.
Just thinking, a crowd this large at this service, some of you are gonna be in heaven this time next year.
And you’re gonna cheat us all by getting there early. And you’re gonna see things.
Things that the Bible says, wait for them to get here to find out.
It’s the that’s too glorious for them to know. They can’t appreciate it.
I told somebody on this If we knew how great heaven was and you and I were having a bad day today, I think god keeps us from knowing how great heaven is.
Because we’d be looking for banana peels to slip on.
But time is running out in this world around us, but we have a we have a destination verse 18 ends here by saying, uh, for us to be looking forward to the beginning with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
The word one of the most important words, if not the most important word here, is the word in.
It’s English, I n, in Greek, it’s e n, in.
The glory is going to be revealed inside of us. Watch this.
It implies watch that the kingdom that’s in you now as a believer, the Holy Spirit resides in you, there’s gonna be a coming out day.
There’s gonna be a day when you and I come out for the glory of god.
There’s gonna be a day, kinda like this day.
Do you remember when Jesus took James and John and Peter to the mount of transfiguration.
Remember those guys? And those people have often accused Jesus of having favorites.
He says he he just doesn’t respect anybody over the other, but why does he always do these special events with Peter James and John?
And that’s true. He does He tells the other guys, can you guys just stay right here?
And then he brings Peter James and John over here. And then something amazing happens. You say, that’s not fair.
This is the because he’s a fair god, I think this is exactly how it came about.
He probably got Peter James and John to start white.
Can you guys head to that oak tree over there second. I will kick. I’ll let you know.
And then he he turns to the other guys and he says, listen.
I’m gonna take them for the extra class so they can figure out what you guys already know.
I think it was the special class.
Peter, James, John, Watch this.
And he goes to pray, and the Bible says he started glowing.
Peter James and John saw that. And then Moses appears in Elijah.
And Peter, of course, see it to prove it. Peter goes, this is awesome.
Nope. By the way, it says that Peter did not know what to say, so he started speaking.
How’s that? Peter didn’t know what to say, so he said.
This is awesome. Let us build 3 tents.
One for you, Jesus, one for Moses, and one for Elijah. This is great.
What happened?
The inside of Christ came out In that moment, he was in his glory.
And the Bible tells us he was brighter than the noonday sun Paul encountered that on the Damascus’s road, Christ brighter than the noonday sun.
Right now, Jesus, according to the book of Revelation, is brighter than the noonday sun.
And someday, the spirit of god who dwells within you, think of think of inside of you.
I mean, technically, wouldn’t it be great if you and I stretching out our arm. Maybe we’re just stretching.
We’re doing exercise of our stretching. And our little armpit, the little light shoots out a little bit.
We stretched too far. You’re hanging on a jungle gym and light beams coming out of your knees.
But think about the glory in you. The holy spirit dwells within you.
And there’s a day listen, there’s a day when you’re gonna be glorified, and that moment is gonna be the moment of the rapture or or your death both are great news for the believer.
And if you’re not a believer, you should panic over these things. But for the believer, we should say, yes.
God until now and then, let me be faithful to you.
Let me live my life to bring you all the glory and all of the praise and all of the honor, lord, for you alone are worthy.
Wonderful. And that word, by the way, glory.
It’s a famous word Duxa, where we get the word Duxology.
The words of glory, that’s what doxology means or the study of or the words of glory.
We need to study this more people.
Um, I mean, this very seriously, um, don’t don’t say anything out loud, but do you have a trip planned?
Do you re do you care about it? I’m not talking about a business trip.
I’m talking about, like, you have, like, a — amazing, oh, that’s a good idea. Israel.
You know, we, you know, those 10 buses filled up in 7 minutes.
Israel. That’s a good one.
So whatever it might be for you, song, my my wife and I were gonna go somewhere, or whatever.
My kids were gonna hike Mount Whitney or that’s great. And you’re excited about it?
So what do you do about it? You go to triple a.
You get books and tour guide things on. You go online.
What to do on the top of Mount Whitney, and you wanna know Right?
What to do in Tahiti? What to do in London? Where where are you going? You’re excited?
We start thinking about the trip. We start looking about some of the features because we’re excited.
And I’m guilty about what I’m about to say.
Is as Christians, we don’t hear enough sermons about heaven. It’s where we’re going. Yes. Now I get it.
We’ll talk about it a lot when we get there.
But in the meantime, it gives you a lot of encouragement to know. Hey.
I’m gonna roll up my sleeves and get busy about my father’s business. Because retirement is in heaven. Amen.
A lot of people today. I get it.
Maybe I’m pro this probably comes from a deep rooted psychological deficiency on my part that I’ll never retire.
But I know you are, so I’m like a little jealous about that. Maybe not. I’m thinking.
Why retire in this world?
I mean, if you’re gonna retire from Ford Motor Company, by all means, take their money. It’s yours.
Right? Yes. Take it. But don’t buy a fishing pole in a rocking chair.
You don’t wanna sit around and rot?
You wanna say, lord, this is awesome.
My retirement program is gonna fund the ministry that you’re calling me to do and and start your life.
The end is the beginning for us.
Oh, look, we saw we heard from Billy Graham a moment ago. Oh, Billy Graham died. Oh, how sad?
Sad for who? Okay. Sad for the family? I don’t maybe.
They’re gonna miss them for a little bit. What are you with me? Yes.
Sometimes you don’t know what to say. So oh, may he rest in peace?
Where’d he go? He went to heaven.
Rest in peace in heaven?
Have you read the little bit we do know about heaven?
People come here sometimes and they go, really, pastor?
I listen on I listen on the radio, but I came here and you have drums in your sanctuary.
Oh, this is for real. You have drums. I’m appalled. Really drums.
Have you ever read Psalm 150? Yes.
Apparently, there’s drum sets about every Three Blocks in heaven and Cymbals and tambourines.
I don’t like tambourines, but I guess god likes them. If he likes them, it’s fine with me.
Are you hearing me? It’s gonna the Bible says it’s gonna be loud, there’s gonna be praise, There’s gonna be rejoicing.
The Bible says that those who are praising god, it’s as though the waters are flowing.
Never been to crashing waterfall. It sounds both the voice of god and heaven singing. Yeah. John want it.
You have a good peace and quiet. Heaven’s not for you. It’s gonna be amazing.
Colossus’s 3 forces when Christ who is our life appears, then we also will appear with him in glory.
Put your ear plugs in. It’s gonna be loud. And it starts with a trump blast or — Trump.
— at the last moment of your breath.
We can know from Steven in the book of x, he’s gonna be called up.
You’re gonna be called up. If you pass as a believer before the rapture, god’s gonna call you up.
And I don’t think it’s gonna be like, stay. Jack.
I think it’s gonna be. Hey. Come up here. Your time’s off. Come on.
Get up here. Come on home. What an amazing moment. Titus chapter 2 verse 11.
Titus 211 says for the grace of god that brings salvation, grace, Remember that acronym, god’s riches at Christ expense.
You can’t buy your way into heaven. Can’t be good enough. Nice enough. You can’t do enough.
That brings salvation has appeared to all men. That means everybody’s heard the message.
Teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lust, we should live soberly, righteously, godly, in this present age.
Looking for, and by the way, I think this is the fuel that keeps that happening, verse 13, looking for that is a very active verb It means as a believer, watch me, I have to act it out.
The word is best seen, and it looks like this, to be looking for the blessed hope and the glorious appearing of our great god and savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us that he might redeem us.
Friends, listen. Uh, the the Christian is supposed to be living our lives, and we’re scanning the horizon.
That’s what that word means. We do our jobs.
We do them the best because we’re Christians. Listen.
If somebody hired you, you better be the best employee that they have if you name the name of Jesus.
Okay. And, like, if you’re if you’re a crummy employee, take the sticker off your card.
Stop wearing the Christian t shirt.
If you’re a good employee, then then put the sticker on your card, and you can teacher.
But the Christian should be the best employer.
And by the way, if you’re a Christian boss, you should be the best. Alright?
Galatians chapter 5 verse 1, stand fast, therefore, in the liberty, by which Christ has made us free and do not be entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
No longer. Listen, don’t go back. Watch.
If god delivered you from the barbed wire and all of the horrific broken pieces of your past, why would you go like this?
Why would you inch your way over to it? What are you doing?
I’m just kind of checking out how it used to be. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Uh, they they they called.
They were asking And I just I just thought maybe no. No. No. Don’t think. Run. Yeah.
Go the other way. Yeah. But I haven’t seen them in a long time. How about this? Oh, the grief.
Listen. Ministry, you hear everything.
I’m convinced now, doctors, attorneys, law enforcement and ministry. You hear everything.
Pastor, my wife’s gone. What happened?
She kept she kept calling back her friend.
She went to her, um, high school reunion after 40 years.
And then they stuck up uh-uh struck up a conversation online, and then they went offline, and she left us.
For her old boyfriend from 40 years ago. How’d that happen?
Getting near the Bob wire. Just take wait. Whoops. Whoops. Right? What are you doing?
The Bible says, can you take hot coals off of an altar?
And hold it to your bosom, to your chest, and not be burnt?
You mentioned Israel earlier. Listen. We’ll end with this.
Oh, maybe you were on this trip with us.
We just got up to the mount of beatitudes which is it’s beautiful because number 1, we don’t have to guess.
You know, there’s archeological sites where we will tell you in this region.
We don’t know if it’s this spot, but in this region, here is what happened here.
This is where Solomon, for example, had his stalls and his horses, and this is where he had one of his summer homes.
And we know this. There’s other areas where in the vicinity.
There’s other areas This is the actual spot.
When I’m done teaching you, I want you to come before you get back on the bus and stand on the spot.
It’s marked. Remember, by the way, side note?
Remember when they played a game when Jesus was captured by the praetorian guards and they were casting lots they were playing the king’s game.
It’s called the king’s game. Did you know that they archaeologically?
You can you’ll see it with your eyes when we go to Jerusalem.
That game is inscribed in 2500 year old Roman Stones where they played dice. That game is right there.
And the location is the spot where they dealt with Jesus, where they said, when they beat him, and they said, who just hits you?
Who hit you? Professor. Tell us who smacked you because they blindfolded up. Remember that?
In the spot, the southern steps, Neil Armstrong said, now standing here.
This is the greatest step I’ve ever taken where Christ stood. That’s an awesome statement.
And you can do that, but here’s the thing.
We went to the mound of beatitudes, and there’s a geological set up to the natural terrain, there’s only one spot where Jesus would have been able to give the mount of Beatitude’s sermon.
Thousands of people were there, And the acoustics, all under natural environments. There’s nothing there to hype it up.
It’s amazing. You can talk in a it just goes. It’s a it’s a it’s designed by god.
And so Jesus being god, knowing that he made that spot, said, I’m gonna do the amount of beatitudes from this really great sport here, and he did it.
And we were there, We’re teaching on that.
And as we’re leaving, um, we noticed 2 dogs that were by a, uh, a backhoe, you know, tractor, a backhoe, right, that thing?
And, um, so some of the some of the guys started making their way over to the 2 dogs, and one dog ran away.
And the other dog was just flailing around. Couldn’t get loose, and they looked closer.
And the dog was chained to the tractor. And, uh, didn’t look healthy.
And so somebody said, I think it was John Strash, Morgan Lawrence.
There’s a few others. I think I don’t remember who else was there, but those 2 guys, they jumped into action.
They opened up the tractor housing to the cockpit of the tractor.
They began going through the toolbox, and they found out that that a chain listen, a chain was wrapped around.
It was a German shorthaired pointer. You know what that dog is?
And, uh, the chain was wrapped around its neck, and it had been there so long that the chain had grown into the neck or I should say the neck had grown around about half of the chain.
So they realized yikes. And they subdued the dog the best they could, and they cut the chain loose.
And it’s gonna it’s gonna bleed some, but it’s gonna live. But what was what was going on here?
As soon as it was cut loose, it it was like, um, I’m like, free to run from you guys now.
And it took off and it took off in its friend.
It’s the other dog came out of the bushes and stuff and joint up with it, and they just took off.
And then they got far enough away and they turned and they look back.
And then they took off. And you think about that in life right now?
What kind of suffering could that dog tell you about?
Who leaves the dog tied up that long and abandoned it?
That was that other dog maybe bringing his buddy food? I don’t know. Did the owner die? We don’t know.
But, listen, the past the past of that dog had grown around its neck.
And that dog was bound by its past, and some stranger steps in and cuts it loose and it’s free.
Scars to prove of their previous life, but free In your life and in my life, I can tell you about the things I’ve gone through.
You can tell me about the things that you’ve gone through.
Those are scars that are no longer scars as victims. These are scars of victory.
These are scars that we can say, hey, you know what?
I used to be tied to a tractor.
The chain in my life grew around my neck. It was gonna kill me eventually.
And some stranger stepped in to cut me free.
That’s true in my life.
I had a chain around my life deeper than that dog had around its neck.
That dog had a better chance of getting that thing off his neck than I had a chance of surviving my chain.
And a stranger I had no knowledge of slipped into my world, and cut the chain loose from my heart, my soul, my brain, my mouth, and set me free.
Jesus Christ can do the same to you, and he wants you to be with him and glory.
Father, we pray in Jesus name right here right now, almighty god, that you would work in the midst of us and through us and father that you would cut the chain loose from our lives.
We don’t want it. We wanna get away from it. We don’t wanna get back into the mire.
We don’t wanna get back into the barbed wire or the chains of our past father.
We pray that the power of your holy spirit would arouse our hearts to glory We are going to glory.
The greatest positive confession the world could ever hear is come with us to glory.
And thank you, Jesus, for dying on the cross, for buying that ticket to glory.
And thank you, lord Jesus, for being risen from the dead to guarantee that we will arrive in glory.
To god alone, be all the glory.
We praise you lord in Jesus name and all guts people said. Amen.