SPEAKER_00: Morning everyone.
SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to our online Sunday service.
SPEAKER_00: It's good to have you watching along with us.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you wherever you're tuning in from.
SPEAKER_00: We're continuing this morning to consider God's word to us from Paul's second letter to the Corinthians, the passage that Rory read for us.
SPEAKER_00: Please keep 2 Corinthians 4 open in front of you.
SPEAKER_00: Either grab a Bible or have it on your phone, look it up a Bible gateway so that you're able to make sure that what I'm saying actually is coming from the text of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: And with that in mind, let me pray for us.
SPEAKER_00: Give us reasons, plant them deep into our soul this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Reasons to not grow wary.
SPEAKER_00: Reasons to not become overburdened with discouragement.
SPEAKER_00: Help us this morning by your spirit.
SPEAKER_00: In the name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: I was speaking to someone this week just after the Taoq had been on the radio and giving his interview, saying that uh really there's going to be uh very little by way of uh lightening the restrictions uh coming up to Easter.
SPEAKER_00: And the person that I was talking to is like, look, I like I'm really good at kind of keeping the restrictions, don't even go walking with other people uh who aren't in my in my family, but I don't know if I can keep on doing this.
SPEAKER_00: Like I don't know if I can go another uh couple of months uh with all of these restrictions and limitations that it uh that it that it brings.
SPEAKER_00: And uh honestly, I have felt the same.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I think Christmas was the one that broke me, if I'm honest, kind of locking back down after that.
SPEAKER_00: Um that was the uh the one that I found particularly uh discouraging, while I understand that it's uh it's probably uh necessary.
SPEAKER_00: Uh still find it hard and find myself wondering, can I keep on doing this?
SPEAKER_00: Um, do I want to keep on doing this?
SPEAKER_00: I suspect that uh that I'm not alone in that.
SPEAKER_00: Uh that people, as they face uh the uh the restrictions and the impact that they are having on each of our lives, wonder uh whether or not we can keep on going.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but more importantly than that, perhaps one of the uh the questions that we ask ourselves from time to time is not just can I keep on going with COVID restrictions for a few more months, but can I keep on going as a follower of Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Can I keep on persevering in that?
SPEAKER_00: I'm actually finding that deeply discouraging and finding that difficult and challenging, whether it is because of suffering that has befallen us in this last year or issues to do with mental health, anxiety, and depression.
SPEAKER_00: We wonder can we can we cling on?
SPEAKER_00: Can we put another foot in front of our ourselves spiritually speaking?
SPEAKER_00: That is a human reaction.
SPEAKER_00: That is a human reaction to the call of following Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: That from time to time we wonder, can I keep on doing this?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I should just drag it, you know, just jack it all in.
SPEAKER_00: Life in lots of ways would be easier if we didn't say to ourselves that we were following Jesus, whatever the cost.
SPEAKER_00: And even if you aren't thinking that right now, maybe there is just a sense of feeling fed up.
SPEAKER_00: Sense of weariness.
SPEAKER_00: Paul, as we've already mentioned in these weeks, Paul in this letter is having his excuse me, his reputation, his character, his ministry, it just rake through the mud.
SPEAKER_00: People are are deriding him, calling him ineffective and and useless, unimpressive, unpersuasive.
SPEAKER_00: The people that he had poured his heart out to, he's poured his life out to.
SPEAKER_00: Or if you flip over uh the page or scroll down to verse 16, verse 16 says, So, that is, given what is come before, so we do not lose heart, though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.
SPEAKER_00: Paul, in the midst of circumstantial discouragements, has reason or reasons not to lose heart.
SPEAKER_00: It is important, it is imperative for us this morning and next week as we view similar circumstantial discouragements of your relationship breakdown, suffering, ill health, being maligned for being a Christian, similar circumstantial discouragements.
SPEAKER_00: We need to know the reasons why Paul doesn't lose heart so that we, when we are facing the same weariness, the same discouragement, that we won't lose heart either.
SPEAKER_00: Lord willing, most of us watching this this morning will have decades of following Jesus left ahead of us, decades of long obedience, following Jesus through good seasons and difficult seasons.
SPEAKER_00: And so how will you not lose heart?
SPEAKER_00: How will you not give up what Paul wants to show us the reasons why he doesn't lose heart?
SPEAKER_00: I think there are four in this short passage this morning.
SPEAKER_00: The first reason why he doesn't lose heart is because he remembers the mercy of God.
SPEAKER_00: So remember the mercy of God.
SPEAKER_00: Verse one, therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, so the mercy of God is the causal factor, that is how this ministry has come to him, that's the means by which his mercy has come.
SPEAKER_00: It's come to him by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart.
SPEAKER_00: Because of the mercy of God, we do not lose heart.
SPEAKER_00: Paul draws his strength not from the circumstances around him, not from the results of his ministry, but from the mercy of God that has given him this ministry.
SPEAKER_00: He draws his strength from the mercy of God, not from the fruitfulness of his ministry.
SPEAKER_00: And what is this ministry?
SPEAKER_00: Uh, just to remind ourselves, but it's the ministry that Paul was talking about in the passage that we looked at last week.
SPEAKER_00: It's the ministry that brings life, it's the ministry that has the surpassing glory of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: It is the ministry not of condemnation, but of righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: That's what he says on up in in chapter three, verse nine.
SPEAKER_00: It's that ministry, it's gospel ministry has come to him by the mercy of God, that ministry that writes the law, not on tablets of stone, but on hearts of flesh and renews and brings people to life.
SPEAKER_00: Because he has that ministry by the mercy of God, he doesn't lose heart.
SPEAKER_00: He's focusing on the right thing.
SPEAKER_00: He's focusing not on the responses of people, not on the results of his ministry.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's what the the so-called super apostles were doing, the people who were coming in and uh and deceiving and manipulating the Corinthian Christians.
SPEAKER_00: They were looking at they were looking at their megachurch, they were looking at the the offering plate.
SPEAKER_00: Paul said, no, no, I'm not looking at that, I'm not focusing on those things, I'm focusing on the mercy of God that enables my faithful obedience, that enables my ministry.
SPEAKER_00: It's really important to focus on the right thing in order to be able to persevere.
SPEAKER_00: John Crosston is probably not a name that is known to very many of you, but John Crosston was on the beach in Thailand on Boxing Day 2004.
SPEAKER_00: And some of you being uh of being not born in the year 2000, right?
SPEAKER_00: Happy birthday, Jenny, uh, will remember Boxing Day 2004 because that was the day of the tsunami that happened in uh in Thailand and Sri Lanka.
SPEAKER_00: And he was on the beach.
SPEAKER_00: And as he was on the beach, he saw the tide pull back and he knew what that signified.
SPEAKER_00: And so John Crosston began running up and down the beach and said, You have to get off the beach, you have to get to safety, you have to move to higher ground because there's a tsunami coming.
SPEAKER_00: Many people laughed at him.
SPEAKER_00: Said it's a glorious day, the sun is shining, everything is fine.
SPEAKER_00: Merry Christmas.
SPEAKER_00: He said, No, you're not listening.
SPEAKER_00: Look at the wave, it's coming, and then he would run on to another person, and maybe they might respond.
SPEAKER_00: But so many people laughed at him, derided him, thought that he was insane.
SPEAKER_00: If John Crosson was focusing on the results, on the responses of people, how many, how many deriding comments does it take for him to stop?
SPEAKER_00: And go, well, sought these people.
SPEAKER_00: I'm finding the nearest mountain and climbing it.
SPEAKER_00: But he persevered.
SPEAKER_00: He persevered because he was focusing on the right thing.
SPEAKER_00: He had his eyes fixed on the right point, and the right point is not the responses of the people on the beach, it's the wave that's coming.
SPEAKER_00: If we focus on the discouragements that happen around us that demotivate us, it will cause us to give up.
SPEAKER_00: The fixed point on the horizon for the Christian in terms of long obedience is the mercy of God.
SPEAKER_00: We keep our eyes fixed on that.
SPEAKER_00: And we keep going.
SPEAKER_00: Telling people that a wave's coming.
SPEAKER_00: God's mercy, whether you realize it or not, is being extended to you.
SPEAKER_00: You are watching this this morning by the mercy of God.
SPEAKER_00: You do what you do by the mercy of God.
SPEAKER_00: You have been placed in the lives of those who love you and who you love by the mercy of God.
SPEAKER_00: You've been placed in the lives of people to commend Jesus to by the mercy of God.
SPEAKER_00: God has taken you and made you a co-worker with him in his plans to save human beings by the mercy of God.
SPEAKER_00: You know it's by the mercy of God.
SPEAKER_00: I at least I know it's by the mercy of God, because I know how inept and sinful I am.
SPEAKER_00: So do not grow weary.
SPEAKER_00: You are where you are by the mercy of God.
SPEAKER_00: Do not be scared.
SPEAKER_00: He is equipping you by his mercy.
SPEAKER_00: This mercy leads Paul, verse two, to renounce deceitful ways.
SPEAKER_00: He says, But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways.
SPEAKER_00: We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's word.
SPEAKER_00: But by the open statement of the truth, we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God.
SPEAKER_00: The super apostles, the people that were coming in seeking to replace Paul, they were they were twisting and embellishing or knocking off the rough edges of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: You know, we don't want to talk about sin, we don't want to talk about hell or any of those things.
SPEAKER_00: And goodness me, I feel that that temptation, but they were tampering with with God's word in order to make it more palatable so that more people would commend them, follow them, build their platform, congratulate them.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul says, No, I'm not focusing on that, I'm focusing on the mercy of God.
SPEAKER_00: And so what that frees me to be like is it frees me to still have integrity.
SPEAKER_00: You see, if you forget the mercy of God to you, what you will replace it with is the praise of people.
SPEAKER_00: If you forget the mercy of God, you will look for the congratulation and love and affirmation of others above all else.
SPEAKER_00: People's opinion of you, love for you, approval of you.
SPEAKER_00: And it's all fickle, and Paul knows it.
SPEAKER_00: There's such a temptation to chase it, but you'll sell your integrity to do it because what happens is they become underhanded, deceitful, manipulative.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, no, no, no, I'm not looking at it, I'm looking at the mercy of God, and because I'm looking at the mercy of God, I'm going to plainly state the gospel that he has given me and entrust the results to him.
SPEAKER_00: And in doing so, I commend myself to everyone's conscience in the sight of God.
SPEAKER_00: Paul draws courage from the belief that his ministry comes from God.
SPEAKER_00: It is empowered by God, it is done not in the sight of people, but ultimately in the sight of God.
SPEAKER_00: He lives for the audience of one.
SPEAKER_00: What audience are you living for?
SPEAKER_00: Is it for the congratulation of the crowd?
SPEAKER_00: Or is it for the audience of one?
SPEAKER_00: It is the one who will ultimately assess his ministry and give his approval, not any human being.
SPEAKER_00: We persevere when we have the right fixed point on our horizon, and that is the mercy.
SPEAKER_00: The mercy of God to you.
SPEAKER_00: Remember the mercy of God.
SPEAKER_00: The second thing that encourages us to keep on going, to not grow weary, though it might sound counterintuitive, is to remember that we are in a battle.
SPEAKER_00: That we are in a battle, a spiritual battle.
SPEAKER_00: Have a look at verses three and four.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, and even if our gospel is veiled, he's picking up the language of chapter three, even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing.
SPEAKER_00: In their case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
SPEAKER_00: We are in spiritual battle.
SPEAKER_00: It's so hard, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Believer, brother, sister.
SPEAKER_00: When you've been persistently sharing the gospel with somebody and it just feels like it just feels like you know, bullets ricocheting off Catlar.
SPEAKER_00: That they just don't get it.
SPEAKER_00: Our patient, loving, persistent sharing of the gospel suddenly becomes very wearisome and discouraging.
SPEAKER_00: Paul here helps us by showing us what is going on in the unseen realms, by lifting the veil, as it were, to give us a glimpse behind the realities of what is seen.
SPEAKER_00: And what he shows us there is that no one will ever be argued into the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: No one will ever be persuaded by by mere human words.
SPEAKER_00: Though don't hear me wrong, words are necessary, but it is not our persuasiveness because the problem of unbelief is not an intellectual problem, it is a problem of blindness.
SPEAKER_00: Where does this blindness come from?
SPEAKER_00: Well, Paul says it comes from the God of this world, small g.
SPEAKER_00: This is the only time in the Bible where the world the word for God, small g, is used to describe Satan.
SPEAKER_00: It's very curious.
SPEAKER_00: The god of this world.
SPEAKER_00: The word world here, it's the world, it's the it's the word Aeon, right?
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and it is probably better understood as age.
SPEAKER_00: It's not the it's not the word for the the ball that we're standing on, right?
SPEAKER_00: It's not the word for the globe, the planet, the earth, right?
SPEAKER_00: It's more to do with the age that we are in, the god of this age.
SPEAKER_00: It is not that Satan rules the physical globe, it's that Satan rules this present age.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what is this present age?
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's the age of rebellion.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, the Bible in its mind only has uh two ages.
SPEAKER_00: There are only two epochs of time, right?
SPEAKER_00: There is uh there is the age now and the age to come.
SPEAKER_00: And the age now began with Adam and extends to to us here.
SPEAKER_00: It is the age when when humanity is uh is arrayed in uh in in treasonous rebellion against God, where we don't want anything to do with him, where our hearts are hardened towards him.
SPEAKER_00: That's the age that we are in currently, and the age to come is the age when God will make all things new.
SPEAKER_00: The age that was inaugurated with the coming of Jesus and will finally be consummated when he comes again.
SPEAKER_00: And so, in a sense, we live in in an overlap of the ages, but they this present age is the age of rebellion, and Satan is having a field day.
SPEAKER_00: He is the he is the small girl.
SPEAKER_00: God over this present rebellious age.
SPEAKER_00: But even in saying that, Paul has things to encourage you with.
SPEAKER_00: Not least of all, because it means that Satan isn't God over all ages, over all times or all places.
SPEAKER_00: He has been given a rule of sorts for a time.
SPEAKER_00: There is implied limitation here.
SPEAKER_00: The God of this age.
SPEAKER_00: The God of this world, not all worlds to come.
SPEAKER_00: And how does he rule it?
SPEAKER_00: He blinds people.
SPEAKER_00: He blinds people so that they cannot see the glory of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: This is really important for us in understanding evangelism.
SPEAKER_00: What it means to evangelize our friends and our family, that unbelief is at root not an intellectual problem, but it is blindness to glory.
SPEAKER_00: That is, that people look at Jesus and they do not see him as beautiful, they do not see him as glorious, wondrous, sweet, majestic, or compelling.
SPEAKER_00: But like the aroma analogy in chapter 2, they they smell the smell of the gospel and it smells like death.
SPEAKER_00: They look at Jesus and go, Him?
SPEAKER_00: You want me to you want me to follow him?
SPEAKER_00: And yet the Christian sees the Lord Jesus and go, Yes, him.
SPEAKER_00: For he is wondrous and glorious.
SPEAKER_00: There is a light that emanates from the gospel, just as it did from Moses' face.
SPEAKER_00: That is the light of the unfading glory of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And people by nature, because of what the God of this age has done.
SPEAKER_00: They cannot see it.
SPEAKER_00: That just to refer back to last week's text.
SPEAKER_00: That is why boredom is so dangerous.
SPEAKER_00: Because boredom could just be another way of acknowledging I don't see the glory of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I don't see him as beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: I don't see the glory of Jesus in the gospel anymore.
SPEAKER_00: When I read about who he is or what he's done, or consider what it means.
SPEAKER_00: I just see words.
SPEAKER_00: While this is while these things are not a happy thought, they are a necessary one in order to help us to navigate the discouragements that we find in our life and enable us to persevere.
SPEAKER_00: It's good to know that there is other agency behind the veil of this reality that are at work.
SPEAKER_00: It's good to be fully apprised or as apprised as we need to be of those things.
SPEAKER_00: Wouldn't it be worse to be in a war and completely ignorant of it?
SPEAKER_00: You wouldn't be on your guard then.
SPEAKER_00: You wouldn't have your antennae up, you wouldn't have your senses rightly attuned.
SPEAKER_00: It's better to know what's going on on the ground.
SPEAKER_00: And we'll come to this, but it's also good because it's good to know how God has worked in us.
SPEAKER_00: When it says about the God of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, that's not us standing in judgment saying that we're better people who are than people who aren't followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: It's just it's a statement of reality, and it's a reality that was true of us.
SPEAKER_00: It was a reality that was true of Paul while he was a religious Pharisee.
SPEAKER_00: There was a reality that was true of me before God opened my blind eyes, and it is reality that is true for you.
SPEAKER_00: But God has worked, and we'll come to that when we come to our fourth point.
SPEAKER_00: It is also helpful in those times and seasons when we see people reject the gospel, when we see people start well and then walk away.
SPEAKER_00: We find that deeply demoralizing, deeply discouraging.
SPEAKER_00: Paul here reminds us of the spiritual realities that are at play.
SPEAKER_00: People are blind, and we cannot open blind eyes.
SPEAKER_00: Only God can do that.
SPEAKER_00: So remember the mercy of God.
SPEAKER_00: Remember the spiritual battle that we are in.
SPEAKER_00: Third, remember that it's not all about us.
SPEAKER_00: Because we will persevere when we remember that it's not all about us.
SPEAKER_00: Paul's competitors made their ministry all about them.
SPEAKER_00: Their flashy oratory and persuasiveness.
SPEAKER_00: But when you put yourself at the center of your own universe and you make life all about you, you find yourself in a very treacherous position.
SPEAKER_00: Because when you make life all about you, it isolates you from others.
SPEAKER_00: It sets you against those who love you.
SPEAKER_00: It stunts your growth as a person because what you conclude then is that everybody else has a problem.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody else needs to change and not you.
SPEAKER_00: It also means that when tragedy and failure strike, it's devastating.
SPEAKER_00: Because you have nothing more durable to live for than yourself.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to persevere in the Christian life, it is good that we realize that it is not all about us.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 5.
SPEAKER_00: For what we proclaim is not ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: That's what the super apostles were doing ultimately.
SPEAKER_00: They were addressing it in kind of Christian language and Christian veneer, but they were making it all about themselves.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ is Lord with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake.
SPEAKER_00: That's the that's the gospel dynamic right there.
SPEAKER_00: That's the right gospel dynamic.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is Lord, and I am his servant for the sake of others.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is Lord, and we are his servants for the sake of others.
SPEAKER_00: That is the higher call.
SPEAKER_00: That is the the greater thing that we can give our life to.
SPEAKER_00: This little phrase, Jesus Christ as Lord.
SPEAKER_00: You just can't skim over it, don't you?
SPEAKER_00: It has huge implications.
SPEAKER_00: If you sit back and you think about it, I I was thinking this week, I was like, well, what are just some of the implications of this phrase?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus Christ is Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus Christ as Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Well, just off the top of my head, I could list six.
SPEAKER_00: Well, that I'm not I am not Lord, I am not sovereign over my life, over the lives of other people.
SPEAKER_00: I cannot control the decisions of others, nor should I try to.
SPEAKER_00: It takes me back to to history and it blows my mind that this man from this rural town would be God's king.
SPEAKER_00: It means that Jesus of Nazareth is God.
SPEAKER_00: He is Lord.
SPEAKER_00: That is the the Old Testament, the Old Testament way of talking about God is to call him Lord, capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul doubtless is is resonating with that.
SPEAKER_00: It means fourthly that Jesus is supreme over every area of my life.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus rules my relationships.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus rules my career and the decisions that I make about that.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus rules what I do with my money.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is Lord over my marriage.
SPEAKER_00: He is Lord over my romantic life.
SPEAKER_00: He is Lord over every breath that I take.
SPEAKER_00: It means, fifth, that every human being that we encounter, every human being that has ever lived, is ultimately accountable to him as Lord and God.
SPEAKER_00: And it means sixthly and finally, but certainly not exhaustively, that all other allegiances are relativized by my primary allegiance to him as my Lord.
SPEAKER_00: If you grasp that Jesus Christ is Lord, you have grasped the Christian gospel.
SPEAKER_00: And what we proclaim is in ourselves, it isn't our own little petty lordships.
SPEAKER_00: It is Him.
SPEAKER_00: Because sustained life comes from sustaining meaning.
SPEAKER_00: And the only sustain sustaining meaning that you will have in your life is to live for something bigger than yourself.
SPEAKER_00: And there is nothing bigger, more glorious, more supreme, no more eternally enduring than to live for Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You live for Jesus Christ as Lord and proclaim him in word and deed.
SPEAKER_00: Then you will have given yourself to something, to a meaning and a significance that no discouraging circumstance can ever take you from.
SPEAKER_00: That is how you persevere.
SPEAKER_00: Find a meaning that suffering cannot take away.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Fourthly and finally, we persevere when we remember that God has shown us his glory.
SPEAKER_00: Persevere by remembering the mercy of God.
SPEAKER_00: Persevere by remembering the spiritual battle, those realities that we find ourselves in.
SPEAKER_00: Persevere by remembering that it's not all about us, and persevere by remembering that you have seen by faith the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 6.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: If unbelief is blindness to glory, then it is ultimately God's work and his good pleasure to open blind eyes, so that we, by faith in Jesus, might behold the surpassing wonder of him.
SPEAKER_00: It is through faith that this is done.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Or, and I think this is more probable given for given with what we're going to come into in chapter five, there's an allusion to creation, to Genesis, the very first chapter of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: And the God who says, Let there be light, creation lay in darkness and chaos.
SPEAKER_00: And God said, Let there be light, and when he did, order and life sprung into being.
SPEAKER_00: So too, when he speaks to the dead and darkened heart.
SPEAKER_00: Through the light of the gospel, when it dawns in our life, it brings new life.
SPEAKER_00: It brings order to the chaos that we feel.
SPEAKER_00: The same word that spoke light into existence still speaks in the person of Jesus by his living word, and he brings others to life.
SPEAKER_00: This is what Jesus says.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says this in John 5.
SPEAKER_00: The day is coming when those who are dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and come back to life.
SPEAKER_00: And just as darkness conceals, so light gives knowledge.
SPEAKER_00: What does this light give knowledge of?
SPEAKER_00: The glory of God in the face of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: There isn't two competing glories, there's one glory intensifying, flowing through Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: That is that is what we were made to see as human beings.
SPEAKER_00: We were made to be beholders of glory.
SPEAKER_00: We were made to be people who would with unveiled faces view the glory of God in the face of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We were made to be in awe of him, and that awe would eclipse everything else that vies for our affections.
SPEAKER_00: This is the ultimate end of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: This is why you are a follower of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: This is why Jesus came to save you, not simply so that he would make you innocent, not simply so that he would give you eternal life, not simply so that he would take your sins away, but that all of those things would flow to one singular end, and that is to behold the glory of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: That is the end and goal of the gospel, that you would see Jesus for who he really is.
SPEAKER_00: That is why he has worked in the world, that is why he came, that is why he died and rose again, so that you might behold his glory.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to the American pastor John Piper, who could only uh talk about this and talks about it much better than I ever could.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to what he says.
SPEAKER_00: He says, This is the highest and best and final good that makes all other goods promised in the gospel good.
SPEAKER_00: Justification is good news because it makes us stand accepted by the one whose glory we want to see and savor above all things.
SPEAKER_00: Forgiveness is good news because it cancels all the sins that keep me from seeing and enjoying the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
SPEAKER_00: Removal of wrath and salvation from hell are good news because now in my escape from eternal misery, I find eternal pleasure beholding the glory of God in the face of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: If I were John Piper, I would be doing this a lot.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see all of the benefits of the gospel are so that we might glimpse with ever increasing fullness the glory of God?
SPEAKER_00: What encouragement there is here in the midst of difficulty, apathy, and suffering.
SPEAKER_00: The God of this world and the blindness that he inflicts won't be the final word.
SPEAKER_00: God opens blind eyes, big G God opens blind eyes, and he does what he has promised that he will do.
SPEAKER_00: He opens blind eyes so that they can see, so that we can see the surpassing beauty and goodness of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: How astounding.
SPEAKER_00: How astounding that he would invite us to participate in that.
SPEAKER_00: That that would be the ministry that he calls Paul to, that by extension, we as followers of Jesus are called to.
SPEAKER_00: How astounding that God doesn't just say you've got nothing to give here.
SPEAKER_00: Sit back and just watch me do all the work.
SPEAKER_00: No, he says, Paul says, I'm a servant of this.
SPEAKER_00: We are called to be servants of that.
SPEAKER_00: Our gracious Heavenly Father invites us to participate with him in that ministry.
SPEAKER_00: He uses our faltering words and our failing witness, and he uses it to open blind eyes to see the glory of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: This is the Christian family business.
SPEAKER_00: And our Heavenly Father says to us, his children, it's gonna be hard, it's gonna be discouraging, but I will pour out my mercy on you, I will pour out my mercy and enable you.
SPEAKER_00: And once in a while, just every once in a while, you'll see me blow the doors off somebody's heart, and you'll see the scales, you'll hear the penny drop, and you will see them behold the glory of Jesus, and that will increase your joy and that will help you to persevere.
SPEAKER_00: Just every once in a while.
SPEAKER_00: Can I encourage you that you need to strain to see the glory of Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: You need to ask your Heavenly Father, give me a renewed glimpse of the glory of Jesus in the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: When I look at this book, may it not be words on a page, but may it illuminate my face and my heart, may it warm my affections and stir my will.
SPEAKER_00: May I see him more clearly.
SPEAKER_00: Sing songs which speak of his glorious person and his wonderful work and sing them with gusto.
SPEAKER_00: Let them seep into every pore of your soul so that you might behold his glory more, because that's how you will persevere.
SPEAKER_00: Share with one another the beauties and joys that you have glimpsed in the gospel, that you have come to understand in the person of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Tell that in your prayer triplets, tell that in your community groups, recall to one another his work in your life.
SPEAKER_00: Cry out to him together for that mercy that he promises to give.
SPEAKER_00: Bring your weary souls to him and there find rest in the warmth of his glory.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Father, we need to see afresh the Glory of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I want to behold the glory of Jesus more this morning.
SPEAKER_00: I want to see as much of who he is as my soul can bear.
SPEAKER_00: Because I am weary.
SPEAKER_00: And I know that my brothers and sisters are weary too and discouraged.
SPEAKER_00: In your mercy, you have met us this morning and encouraged our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: Now I pray.
SPEAKER_00: May we glimpse the glory of Jesus with our new spiritual eyes.
SPEAKER_00: And in doing so, would we have a renewed vigor and desire to follow him, whatever the cost?
SPEAKER_00: I pray these things in the name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Amen, everyone.
SPEAKER_00: See you soon.