A Heavy Glory

Let me invite you to turn in your Bibles this morning to Romans chapter 8. Romans chapter 8 for time of study in the word this morning. This is the part of our worship where we listen to God. As he speaks to us through his word, and we have been doing a verse by verse study through Romans 567, and 8, a journey to the heart of the gospel.

And as we continue in our study of this part of the book of Romans, we come this morning to Romans chapter 8, verse 18. And my goal this morning is to cover verses 18 and 19. I was tempted to actually start in verse 17. This morning, but, just quickly and then to move on from there, but I thought better of that and realized if we started in verse 17, we might never get out of that verse.

but we'll be in verse 18 and 19 today. And if you want to give a title to the message this morning, it is a heavy glory. A heavy glory. And I think you'll see in the next few moments how even calling this a heavy glory is a little bit redundant because the idea of glory is heaviness.

in fact, let me just read verses 18 and 19 to you. And then I'll explain something about the word glory that we encounter in verse 18. Paul says, for I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us, for the anxious longing of the creation. Was eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.

The word glory that you see at the end of verse 18 is a translation of the Greek word doxa, which is the Greek word we get like our word doxology from when we sing the doxology, we're singing God's praises, we're giving glory to Him. That's why it's called the doxology. That's from the Greek word doxa. And that is the word Paul uses at the end of verse 18, and he uses it another time or two in this chapter.

and to unpack the meaning of this term, at least one of the places that you would want to go is to the Old Testament, and to find out what the Old Testament equivalent is of this Greek word. And the Hebrew word for glory is Kavod, Kavod. And in the Greek Septuagin or the Greek translation of the Old Testament that was translated 100 or 2, 100 years before Christ, when they were putting that translation together, whenever kavvod was found in the Old Testament scriptures, typically in most contexts, they would translate it with this Greek word doksa.

So to understand what this Greek word means, we would at least want to consider what the Hebrew word kavvod means.

And as you see on the screen, the word Cavvod speaks of something that is weighty, something that is heavy. And it can have the sense of something or someone that is important, something that is dense in the sense of being substantial, something that is impressive and immense. In fact, there are times where this word in the Old Testament is used in a literal way., Eli, for example, in First Samuel was a fat man. He was a large man.

And, and first Samuel, he is described as covered. All right, he was heavy, a heavy man. So if someone is describing your body, for example, and they say, wow, you are covered, in most cases, that, that might not be A compliment, but it has that literal idea of heaviness or weightiness. But when it is used to speak of God, it speaks of the weightiness of God, the heaviness of God, the density of the person of God in the sense of his importance.

he is, substantial. He is impressive. It speaks also of the immensity of God. And when it speaks of the heaviness of God, it's not like you put God on a scale and weigh him.

But it's the way we use the word heavy in our language today, if someone says something or we're looking at something, and we say, wow, that's heavy. What are we saying by that? What we're doing is we're saying that's really substantial. This is very heavy, and it weighs very heavily upon those who hear this and those who witness or see this, and that's the idea of caved and something of that meaning.

is imported into Paul's use of glory here in Romans chapter 8. And basically, in verse 18 through 25, Paul is going to tell us a number of things about the glory that, that is coming to us, all of the amazing things that are coming to us and what that future is going to be like. But in a sense, you could draw a circle around all of the things that are revealed in verse 18 to 25, and put a label on it and call it glory. And this guy is heavy.

It is weighty. It is important. It is immense and impressive. It is substantial.

It is dense, indeed, and packed with power and with meaning. The question I was left asking myself, and I'll start by asking you this this morning, is what is important or weighty to you? we'll ponder tonight in our care groups like, what is, what does the world esteem to be impressive, and important, and weighty? What are those things that are weighty or important to us?

What is it that carries weight with us? What is it that impresses us as a goal worth pursuing, or a prize worth winning? What are the weighty things that we deem to be weighty, and we pursue them, because we esteem them to be important and substantial? What are those things that, that we view as so substantial that we just make it our ambition?

I'm going to go after this and try to achieve this. One of the things, guys, that you notice, and there are many in our church that could give testimony to this, that all of us in our lives, we have, we have come to an estimation of certain things as being substantial, and important and worth pursuing. And we're like, man, if I could just get that, that's where the real substance is. And I will indeed be full and satisfied.

And then many times we may have ended up getting the very thing that we esteem to be weighty and important, only to find out that it was as light as a feather. And there was not the substance to it, the sole satisfying substance to it that we thought, and we're left looking beyond that. Surely there's something else beyond this that is weightier that we need to pursue. Tom Brady is the quarterback of the New England Patriots and has experienced phenomenal success in the NFL since he launched his career in playing for the Patriots and, I believe by the age of 30, he had won 3 Super Bowls.

he signed a contract back before, I believe 2007. for $60 million over a period of 10 years, and that's probably been increased since then, but experienced wild success, in his career. And yet amazingly, on the 60 Minutes show, I believe it was back in 2007, Tom Brady made a startling confession to the man that was interviewing him. Listen to what Tom Brady said.

He said, Why do I have 3 Super Bowl rings and still think there's something greater out there for me? maybe a lot of people would say, hey man, this is what it is. I've reached my dream, my goal, my life is, but me. I'm thinking, God, it's got to be more than this.

So here he is experiencing this success. And having attained these things, and he's left empty and thinking this can't be it. There's got to be something more. There's got to be something greater out there that I have not yet attained to.

And he aroused the curiosity of the man who was interviewing him, and the man responded by saying, Well, what's the answer then? If there's something greater out there, what is the answer? And Tom Brady replied by saying, I wish I knew. I wish I knew.

That is the groanings of a man who Set his sights on things that he thought were substantial, only to discover they were light and unsubstantial as a feather upon attaining them. There's a sense in which we actually can feel some kinship with Tom Brady even as believers. As believers, we are left feeling, we're experiencing the riches of Christ and the gospel. We're justified, forgiven.

We are redeemed. We're loved, we're accepted in The beloved, we've received the Holy Spirit who pours out God's love inside of our hearts day by day. We are part of Christ's body, we get to be a part of the church, and we get to experience our brothers and sisters as a part of our gospel inheritance and on and on the list can go. And we're walking in the fullness of that.

And yet we are still left with the feeling that there is something greater. There is more, there's got to be more. Only whereas Brady says, I wish I knew, I wish I knew, we say, we know what that other something is, that is of even greater substance than what we have already experienced. Even as believers, though, we feel a holy discontent in this life, realizing that there is something more.

And Paul expresses this groaning in verse 23. He says, we groan within ourselves waiting eagerly. This is Paul walking in the fullness of Christ. And yet he's obviously experiencing some discontentment.

And he's groaning within himself, and he's waiting eagerly for something that he has not yet received. He says in verse 25, with perseverance, we are eagerly waiting for it. There is something, and we're calling it glory. There is something weighty, and substantial and important and immense.

That is still yet to come. And it is so glorious that we groan and wait eagerly for it. Paul, in our passage today is going to begin to unfold what this glory looks like, and we're going to observe five descriptions of the glory that is coming. to us.

by the way, let me, let me try to illustrate it this way. If God, for example, the glory that is coming to us that we will experience in Christ, if God could somehow remove the scales from our eyes and give us one second. 1 2nd of a glimpse of that glory, and then close our eyes to where we cannot see it any longer. Just 1 2nd of a glimpse would pierce us.

With such pain because we would then for the rest of our earthly existence, be pining away for that glory that he gave us a glimpse of. CS Lewis in his book, or in a sermon, a weight of Glory speaks of this glory as the inconsolable secret. It is the secret which hurts so much. With penetrating sweetness.

He describes it in that sermon. There is a glory coming, guys, in the lives of those who believe in Jesus, that is weighty. It is dense. It is amazing.

It is immense, and it is coming to us and we eagerly are longing and waiting for it. Paul's going to give a number of descriptions in the coming verses. Today we're only going to have time. To look at 5, actually 4, if it's like the first service, and we'll just barely touch on the 5th of these descriptions.

Let us look at these descriptions and learn to fix our eyes upon this glory to come and then allow these glories to shape our lives. Description number 1 that we observe and we see this in verse 18 regarding this coming glory is that it is a glory that will be revealed into us. It is a glory that will be revealed into us. Now I know that sounds weird, but just hang with me.

What we're trying to do is word this as literally as we possibly can. Paul says in Romans 8:18, for I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory, literally, that is to be revealed into us. That's literally how that reads. Now in the new American Standard, it says the glory that is to be revealed to us, and some translations say the glory that is to be revealed in us, and other translations have other ideas trying to capture what actually is a difficult concept to capture.

In fact, I had to laugh when I saw how the amplified Bible translated this final expression. They translate it this way, the glory that is to be revealed to us and in us, and for us, and conferred on us. So if you can't decide, just throw all of those phrases in there, to us, in us, for us, and on us. And I think that's a decent effort to comprehend what Paul is trying to convey here.

But however you want to translate this, your idea needs to be inclusive of the concept of this glory being revealed, not just in front of us to where we see it. It's not just revealed to us, but it's something that enters into us. It is revealed into us. This is really good news for us.

In this life, we can often see beauty. But the mere sight of that beauty, the beauty we see is not powerful enough to automatically change us and to make us exactly like what we see. We can get up in the morning on vacation and, and see a pure and pristine morning scene, but that pure and pristine scene does not enter into us and make us pure and pristine. We can behold a beautiful rose, but that beautiful rose does not make us beautiful.

We can behold someone of noble virtue and character, and observing that in a person. As it's displayed and their actions might inspire in us a hunger to want to be like that. But observing nobility and virtue in another person does not make us automatically noble and virtuous. We're simply left with a hunger and a desire perhaps to pursue that.

What we're left hungering for is a beauty. And a purity and a nobility and a virtue that is so powerful that when we look at it, it makes us noble and pure and beautiful. And Paul is cluing us into that here, that when we enter glory, the glory, the beauty, that we behold, that will be revealed is so immense. It is so dense, it is so substantial, so overwhelming, that it will not only be revealed to us, but it will be revealed into us, it will enter into us, and it will transform us, and then become manifested in us and out of us.

I hope that's clear. CS Lewis and his sermon The Weight of Glory, which by the way, I would encourage you guys to go online, Google that The Weight of Glory, CS Lewis, download a PDF of it and read it because it's an incredible exposition. It's not intentionally so, but it's a great exposition of the second half of Romans 8. But he touches on this very concept.

He represents all of us when he says, we do not want merely to see beauty, though God knows even that is bounty enough. if we got to heaven and God said, I'm going to let you see all the beauty of heaven, all of my beauty, you're not going to be changed by it, but you get to see it, we would spend all eternity praising and thanking God for what he allowed us to see. But if we could ask whatever we wanted, Lewis says, we would say we don't want merely to see beauty. We want something else which can hardly be put into words.

We want to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves. to bathe in it, and to become a part of it. Paul says that's gonna happen. It's gonna happen to us in glory.

We will behold the beauty of Jesus Christ. The beauty of God's glory and so powerful and substantial is that glory that the mere sight of it will transform us into that likeness, and we will become personally transformed by it. We will bathe in it and become a participant in that very glory. Paul says, one of the great things about this glory to come is that it is a glory that will not just be revealed to us or in front of us, but it will be revealed in us.

There's a second description that we can observe here in verse 18 about the coming glory. And that is that it is a glory that even now is near to us. Even now, it is near to us. Many of the translations don't capture this, and so I have on the screen Jung's literal translation to bring out a particular nuance that I think is important to at least make note of.

Listen to how he translates this in Romans 8:18, for I reckon that the sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory about to be revealed. In us about to be those that's a key concept there. Paul is not simply saying that there is a glory that will be revealed to and in us. He says there's a glory that is about to be revealed to and into us.

There is a difference between saying something will happen and something is about to happen, right? If I came up to you after the service and we're dialoguing and at some point in the conversation, I said, I will give you $100. You could understand that in different ways. All I'm really saying is at some point from now to throughout the future.

I'm going to give you $100 and that could mean I'm going to give it to you right away or it could mean tomorrow or next week or a month from now or a year from now. Maybe I say that to you and five years from now you come up to me and say, Pastor Milton, you told me 5 years ago you were going to give me $100 and I could respond by saying, I will, I will. All I said is I will do that, but I gave you no time frame, OK. But if in that conversation, I say to you something like, I am about to give you $100.

That's different, right? In fact, how would you respond? You'd probably hold out your hand and say lay it on me, right? What I'm saying by that is not at some vague point in the future.

I'm saying this giving of the $100 is imminent. It is very near, right? And that's what Paul is saying. He's saying that there is a nearness to us that this glory possesses.

It is a glory that even now we wait for it, and it is coming, but it is already near to us. We have this language in the New Testament in various places, like in James 5:9. James is telling us, don't be complaining against one another, grumbling against one another. Behold, the judge is standing right at the door, depicting God is right at the door, and he's ready to break in at any moment.

as the judge of all. First Peter 4:7, Peter says the end of all things is near. Philippians 4:5, the Lord is near, which almost certainly includes the idea of God is always near us, but he's also speaking of, the coming of the Lord is near. And that's, that's a An odd thing, however, to say.

That this glory is about to be revealed and that the Lord and the Judge and the end of all things is near, when in fact When we look at simply from the standpoint of a timeline. it's been 2000 years since Paul said this glory is about to be revealed. 2000 years have passed, and we get the impression, well, I guess it's not so near. But we need to be careful in how we think about this.

There's two ways of thinking about this. If we think about it solely from the standpoint of a timeline in a linear way, this won't entirely make sense. because, this coming glory is near and it might be 5 decades before we die. And then even after that, who knows, it could be hundreds of years before the day of the resurrection when the Lord returns at His second coming.

so if you think about it from the standpoint of simply a timeline, it may not seem so near and yet Paul is very comfortable telling us that this is near. And the way to think of it, guys, is to think of this glory. As right next to us, as we're walking on this timeline of our own life journey towards the glory to come. It's not like the glory is simply at the end of that.

The glory is right beside us, in a sense, a few feet away, and it is always right next to us, ready to break in at any moment. It is always near. It might be 50 years before it fully breaks in, but it is always near. And when it does break in, and we are fully glorified, there will be a sense that we have then of how this glory was always near to us all along.

Matthew Henry captures this well in his commentary on this passage when he speaks of this coming glory is very precious, very sweet, and behind the curtain. Alright, so we're in front of the curtain. And the glory is just behind the curtain, but it's just a few feet away, as it were, and it will break in. At any moment, does that make sense?

Let me illustrate with this. This week, I was really touched by a story and a video that I came across. Of a sergeant in the Army National Guard who was stationed in southern Iraq. And when he found out when he was supposed to be returning from his tour of duty, he worked together with the people at his school to develop a really elaborate setup for his nine year old daughter to surprise her.

And what they did at the school is they set up this spelling bee of all things. And they determined that they would have him appear during the spelling bee, and so she was up there and and near the end of the spelling bee, they gave her a word to spell, and it was the word sergeant. And fortunately she spelled it correctly. her dad is right behind her and she doesn't even know it, just behind the curtain.

And she spells it correctly, and then they ask her, is there any sergeant in your life who is special to you? And she said, my dad. And at that point, the curtain behind her opened. And she turned around to see what the noise was, and there stood her dad, and she just ran into her dad's arms and they experienced a wonderful and tearful reunion between the two of them.

I was intrigued. It was, I think it was the next morning they were on some morning news show and the dad was describing what it was like for him to be standing behind the curtain. And listen to what he said. He said, I couldn't wait.

I was behind the curtain and I kept telling the lady operating the curtain, open the curtain, I'm ready. My daughter was only 3 ft in front of me. We were that close, but the curtain separated us, and she didn't even know. He was close.

He was near. It was imminent, but even if he had to wait a half hour, he was always just a few feet away. And when he did appear, she not only sees him, but she's aware of the fact now that wait, he was standing there all along. That's the sense that we will have when this, this glory comes to us.

We will rejoice in the receiving of it, and there will be a sense looking back of how near that was to us all along. So let's relish this. It's not just a glory to come. It is a glory that is even now near to us.

There's a third description of this glory to come that we observe in verse 18, and that is that it is a glory that is infinitely greater than the sufferings of this present age. It is a glory that is infinitely greater than the sufferings of this present age. Paul says, for I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed into us. Paul is saying, you take all of the sufferings that we experience in this life and this fallen human existence in a fallen world, take all of the pain, all of the grief, all of the sorrow that you experience, The physical pain, the emotional pain, the relational pain that you experience, those moments where maybe you have received a diagnosis of cancer.

Or of a terminal condition, or perhaps even more painful where someone that you love deeply has received a diagnosis of a terminal condition and you must watch them whom you love so greatly slowly pass away. Think of the pain that you experience in your relationships, the pain that we experience as parents, as we love our children, and we would, we would take whatever pain that they experience, we would happily take it for them, but we can't, and we have to watch them struggle and hurt and suffer and experience pain, and that hurts us as parents just as greatly as it is hurting our children.

And sometimes in the parent-child relationship in the back and forth there, there's pain. In our marriage relationships, there's wounds and, and there's pain, there's hurts that are experienced back and forth, and in all of our relationships we experience that you add on top of that persecution that we experience in the name of Christ that comes in various forms.

We suffer, guys, and the suffering is indeed heavy, and it weighs upon us. We feel it, it is vivid. And yet here is Paul saying, I consider that the sufferings of this present time, take all of those sufferings and lump them all together with all the heaviness and all the weight. And how substantial they indeed are.

And he says, all of these sufferings are not even worthy to be compared to the glory that is about to be revealed into us. You cannot even compare the two. Paul is not saying to believers, hey, you guys, I know your suffering is heavy, but I want you to know that the glory to come is just as great as the suffering. He doesn't say that If you give a weight, let's just say for the sake of illustration to suffering and glory.

He's not saying, you're suffering, which is 1000 pounds of heaviness on you. I want you to know that when the glory comes, it will also be 1000 pounds. That would have been great. But that's not what he's saying.

And he's not even saying the suffering you experience that crushes you is, is 1000 pounds heavy. But I want you to know that the glory to come is 1500 pounds. He's not even saying that. He's saying you can't compare.

He says, I can't even, I can't even use an analogy. It's not even worthy to be compared to the weight of the glory. It would be like taking the weight of the entire planet Earth, and comparing that to the weight of a feather, a single small feather. And even that Paul would say, I just said there's no comparison, and you just compared Milton.

But I only use that to say that Paul would probably even find that offensive. Guys, the glory that is coming is so dense. It is so substantial that when it comes, we will look at our suffering and see our suffering as light as a feather. And notice what he says here.

He could have said in verse 18, for I will consider. In that future day that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is now revealed in us. He could have said that, and we even talked that way. He could have said, Hey, when this glory comes, I'm telling you I'm going to be able to look back and know that the sufferings I experienced back when I was on Earth don't even compare to the glory.

He could have said that and we wouldn't have thought anything of it. The amazing thing is, here is the apostle Paul in the midst of his own sufferings. And he's saying, I consider at the present time, this is a present tense verb right now in the midst of my sufferings that crush me now and weigh upon me right now, here's the way I think. These sufferings I experience right now are not even worthy to be compared to the density.

And the weight of the glory. That is To come It doesn't even compare, and you might say, well, who is Paul to talk about suffering? How did he suffer? Well, Paul would be happy to tell you.

how he suffered In 2 Corinthians 11, he says, I've been beaten times without number, often in danger of death. 5 times I've received from the Jews 39 lashes. 3 times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned.

3 times I was shipwrecked. A night and a day I have spent in the deep. I have been in labor and hardship through many sleepless nights and hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And by the way, that's not even the total list.

Read chapter 11 of 2 Corinthians to get the full list. And then he says, apart from such external things, almost as if to dismiss all of that. He's saying all of that. That's actually nothing compared to this.

Apart from such external things, there is the daily pressure on me of concern for all. The churches, the wounds I've experienced at the hands of my brothers and sisters in Christ, and just the pressure of being concerned for them. Basically, when you look at the Book of Acts and Paul's epistles, you realize that for over 25 years, almost from the day of his conversion till the day he was martyred for his faith, he experienced nonstop pressure and suffering. In fact, on the day of his conversion, basically Jesus said to him, I'm going to show you how great things you're going to suffer for my name's sake.

Imagine Jesus saving you and then letting that piece of information. He suffered from beginning to the end of his earthly pilgrimage, and yet that over 25 years of suffering that he experienced, he's saying, I consider that these sufferings, they're not even worthy. They're not even worthy to be compared. To the glory that is to be revealed to us.

How could Paul have this perspective? That's, that's what we need to ask. How can a guy who suffered this much actually think this way? We actually have a clue in 2 Corinthians 4:7.

Listen to what he says. He says our momentary light affliction. This is a guy who suffered for over 2.5 decades. Our momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison.

So my 2.5 decades of suffering, it's just momentary. It's but a second, he says, compared to eternity. And my suffering as heavy as it feels, it's light, compared to the weight of eternity. It is light compared to the density of the glory that is coming to us, and the glory when it comes, is going to blow.

This suffering away when anyone might try to compare it. Now, how could Paul look at his 25+ years of suffering, as intensely as he suffered and say it's momentary, and it's light. How can he think that way? The clue is in verse 18.

He says, while we are looking, not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. Now he's telling us, let me tell you what I'm looking at when I speak this way. He's staring at something. He says, I can talk this way, while we're looking not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen, for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

Paul lived his life with his gaze fixated on the glory to come. And he was attracted by the gravity and the density, the immensity of that glory, and he viewed his sufferings and his pains and his griefs and sorrows and the duration of all of them and the weight of all of them against the backdrop of this glory that was coming. And if Paul demonstrates anything, he demonstrates that it's possible for us to think this way. The glory that is coming to us is infinitely greater than the sufferings of this present age.

Please understand Paul is not minimizing suffering. He's not demeaning suffering, saying get over it. You should, should not even hurt you. He wouldn't, we know he doesn't think that way because in chapter 12, he says, hey, when people are weeping, weep with those who weep.

Sit down and weep with them. Don't lecture them, weep with them because you're reflecting the heart of God when you do that. And he's also saying I can't be with you guys to weep with those who weep. So can you please, on my behalf as a brother, weep with those who weep.

He's not minimizing suffering. But what he's doing is giving us an idea of how great the glory is. Guys, we will all be fully persuaded when the glory comes. We will look back on our suffering and say our greatest, harshest, weightiest suffering was but a feather.

It is so, it was so unsubstantial compared to the weightiness and the density of this glory that is now mine in Christ. There's a 4th description that we can observe of this glory to come, and that is, it is a glory that involves our revelation as sons of God. It is a glory that involves our revelation as sons of God. He says in verse 19, for the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.

That word revealing, that's the word revelation. that we find in the book of Revelation, we often think of, when Christ comes, he's going to be revealed, unveiled, we'll see his glory, and that is definitely true. But we're going to be unveiled. There will be a revelation of us on that occasion as well.

And what the revelation is, is that there will be a revealing or a revelation of us as the sons. of God as children. Of God There are two ideas here in terms of our revelation as sons or as children of God. The first is that we will be recognized as such in glory.

This is the divine acknowledgment of us as sons and daughters of Him. This is that fame with God, the approval with God, appreciation, the divine accolade that we talked about. Two weeks ago. It is when we enter into glory, one of the greatest blessings of entering into glory, and being fully glorified is that God will look upon us and recognize us as His children, and he will speak that and say, I know you, you are my child.

And I am not ashamed to call you my child. And we will be keenly aware that those who are workers of iniquity, though they may have done some things in Jesus' name, but they never fully put their trust in Him, that God will look at them and say, I never knew you. Christ will say, I never had a relationship with you. I don't recognize you.

We have no relationship. And yet he will look at us and say, You're my child. You're my child. See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us that we would be called children of God.

And yes, indeed, right now, we are children of God, and God calls us His children right now at the present time. But there is one way of looking at the day of resurrection, guys, that that will be the day in which God most powerfully declares us to be His sons. In fact, in Romans 1:4, Paul says that Jesus Christ, listen, was declared to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead. When he was raised from the dead and glorified, like with a glorified body, that event was de facto God declaring with power, this is my Son.

Christ was his Son all along, but the resurrection, of Christ from the dead was a powerful declaration of God that Christ was the Son of God. And there's a sense similarly that when we, our bodies are raised from the earth and clothed with immortality and with glory, and we are raised to life again, that on that day in that event, God is for all of the creation to witness. He is pointing to us and saying, these are my children. This is my son.

This is my daughter. And as we enter into glory, we will be recognized by Him and treated by Him as such. I don't know about you, but I can live without streaks of gold. But having this from God, this recognition and treatment from God towards me, that's like, that's one of the greatest things about heaven.

In Hebrews 2:11 we are given a beautiful glimpse. of something that's happening even now, but it also includes an eternity. That Jesus Christ in the presence of His Father brings us into the presence of His Father and it says he's not ashamed to call us His brethren. So when we get to heaven, the Father says, You're my children.

I recognize you as such. And Jesus looks at us and says, You're my brother, you're my sister, and there's no shame. There's no embarrassment from the Father and the Son in speaking to us and treating us in this way. And when that moment comes, what glory that will be to have this divine fame, this fame with God.

Also involved in this revealing of us as sons of God is an unveiling of us in a fully glorified state. we will be revealed in a fully embodied, glorified existence. Now we are children of God, John says, and it has not yet appeared what we shall be. We know that when he appears, we shall be like Him.

John's like, we look at each other now and there might be things about each other that impress, I look at you and there are things about you that impress me, or you might look at me and There might be things that you like and there might be things that bug you about me and as we look at each other, but the truth is the day is coming when we are fully glorified and we're going to look at each other as we are revealed and unveiled, and we're going to be blown away by what we see.

On that day, there are two revelations that are fused together. Colossians 3:4, when Christ who is our life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory. There is the revelation of Jesus, and there's the revelation of you, clothed and transformed utterly by the very glory.

of Jesus I would encourage you guys, when you look at yourself in the mirror, Figuratively speaking, Do not simply see yourself for who you are today. See yourself for who you're going to become. See yourself for who you will be in that day, and know that you're headed in that direction. And I also encourage you, when you look at your brothers and sisters in Christ, with all their failings, and imperfections, and struggles and sins that may pain you and irritate you, and you feel put off by them, or you're ministering to them, and it's like, man, haven't we gone over this 100 times and now we got to go over it again.

When you look at your brothers and sisters in the Lord, do not simply see them for who they are today, see them for who they're going to be. In glory, because when you do see them in glory, You will really wish you had loved them even better. You'll be so blown away by what you see. And you'll be like, wow, I never dreamed he would look like that.

She would look like that. Wow, how utterly amazing. We need to give off that same vibe that Paul gave off to the Philippians and Philippians one, where he says to them, I'm confident of this very thing about you that he who began a good work in you will perfect it until, up until the day of Jesus Christ. What he's saying is, I love you, Philippians.

I love you for what you've done for me. You've blessed me so greatly, but I also love what you're going to become, and I want you to know when I see you now, I'm not just seeing you for who you are now, which is great, but I'm also seeing you for who you're going to be, and I am so confident about your destiny. All the way to the day of Jesus Christ, and I want to speak that confidence into you as I begin this letter. This is a serious thing.

This realization of coming glory is almost a burden. It is so dense. It is so weighty, and we carry this realization in a way that people who don't know Christ, they have no comprehension of the density and the weightiness of what is coming, both for the lost and the saved. CS Lewis in his sermon, The Weight of Glory says this, listen to this.

He says, it is a serious thing to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may 1 day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else, a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. It is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub.

and exploit Immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. And in that context he explains how whether we are conscious of this or not. In all of our dealings with our fellow men, we are either we are helping them to one or the other of those destinations. We are assisting them to become everlasting horrors.

Or assisting them on the path to becoming everlasting splendors, draped with the glory of Jesus Christ. Do you see the seriousness about this, how encouraged we ought to be, but how we ought to look at each other as destined for this, and how does that inform and shape the way we relate to one another, the confidence that we have in God's working in our brothers and sisters, and the sense of nobility and excitement about I get to be involved in the life of this person who one day is going to blow me away.

As I see them draped in the transforming glory of Jesus. We're out of time, but I'll let you fill in the blank here.

This glory, a 5th description is a glory that creation itself is eagerly awaiting. Paul says the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. let me just read the, the way JB Phillips in his paraphrase of this verse translates this. He says at the bottom of the screen, the whole creation is on tiptoe to see the wonderful sight of the sons of God coming into their own.

All of creation is, is leaning forward on tiptoe, craning their neck forward. Anxiously longing for, and wanting to see what you look like, what I look like, what we look like, when we come into our own draped in the transforming glory of Jesus. Let me ask you to bow your heads. Lord, there is There are so many things that we see around us in our world today that seem so bright, vivid, colorful, and substantial, but ultimately, God, it is fluff.

It is, it is but feathers and a pillow. And it will burn, it'll blow away, and there will be a day when we look back and see how unsubstantial it was. Lord, so much even in our lives as believers, how much of our attention is given over to the things that lack density, that lack weightiness. That lack substance and it's all it's going to burn, it's going to, it's going to blow away like the chaff of wheat.

How much time do we spend on that which is truly enduring, that will survive the fires of Judgment Day? Especially in the lives of other people, both lost and saved, Lord, There, there are no mortals that we talk to and deal with. Everyone is on one of those two paths of everlasting doom or everlasting glory. And may the realization of the weightiness of these things be a burden that we happily bear and allow the imminency and the nearness and the promise of this coming glory.

Gives shape to the way we think, to the way we invest our time. the way we invest in people, the way we go about loving people and the things we talk about. Make us a substantive people. who are already Shaped by the substance of the things of eternity, the things of glory.

Lord, if there's anyone here today who their life has just given over to the feathers of this world and And your spirit is piercing their hearts right now to just understand how unsubstantial the stuff of this world is, and, and they have a hunger for something deeper and more glorious. I pray, Lord, that You would encourage them with your love, that you would draw them to yourself. Please, Lord, give them the courage to come up to me or to other people and just talk to us and And may they know that we'll love them and be happy to pray for them and assist them in any way we can.

But may eternally significant transactions occur in this room.

And on this day, That will redound and resonate for eternity. Thank you, Lord, for this opportunity to give of our offerings to you. We ask that you would take these funds, every penny that is given and do much. With them for the spread of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And for the glory of His name. At the same time, we give ourselves to you in Christ's name, and all God's people said,