One of the things I love about travel is going to places that have a history behind them. To visit Rome, to see the Coliseum or the Roman Forum, to walk on paving stones that are 2000 years old, that maybe even Paul walked on when he was brought before Caesar. Last year I preached in a church that dated back to the 13th century. They had a stone coffin in their crypt that dated back to the time of the crusades. We visited the Scottish/English border and saw the remains of Hadrian’s Wall. It’s one of the things we miss out on here in Australia, unless you visit some ancient Aboriginal cultural sites. So we tend not to have a feel for being part of ancient history in our daily life, do we?
Yet, I wonder if you’ve reflected over the past few weeks about just what an amazing thing we’ve been brought into as Christians. We’re part of a history that goes back thousands of years. We’re part of a community built around Jesus Christ the Son of God. But it’s just too easy to read the Bible, to hear someone like me or Roy or Garrett talking about it and let it float over your head as just another piece of interesting information.
So let me remind you of some of the amazing things we’ve read about over the last few months along with some that have been there but we’ve skimmed over them.
Abraham was just an ordinary man like any of us. He and Sarah understood disappointment, infertility, perhaps even despair. But God chose to speak to him, to call him to follow him, to become the father of a great nation, against all hope, against all human wisdom. And as the years passed, the promise became a reality. Israel became a great nation.
Moses was raised as an orphan. He was rejected by his own people, hunted out of Egypt by the king. Yet God came to him and spoke out of a burning bush, revealing a little of his glory as Moses watched and the bush remained intact.
God led the people out of Egypt with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of flame by night. He provided them with food to eat. He went before them so they defeated all their enemies.
But the greatest thing he did was to reveal to them how they should live. He called Moses to go up Mt Sinai where he appeared to him and gave him laws to govern their life together. And when Moses came down from appearing before God do you remember how he looked? His face glowed so brightly that the people couldn’t look at him. The glory of God remained, reflected in his face, like the hands on one of those old fashioned alarm clocks when you first turn the lights out. Perhaps it was a sign of God’s Spirit present within him.
David was just a young kid, a shepherd boy, when God picked him out as someone after his own heart, to be the new king of Israel. But what was it that made all the difference, that turned David into a great king? It wasn’t the state of his heart. It didn’t take long to discover that his heart was as flawed as everyone else’s. No, it was the fact that God poured his Spirit into him. God went with him, enabling and empowering him at every step, giving him victory after victory. The state of his heart mattered because he needed to listen and obey, but it was God’s Spirit working within him that brought him all his success.
Similarly Solomon, the king whose wisdom became legendary, became wise because he asked God for wisdom. God’s Spirit gave him the wisdom he needed to rule so well.
Then a few weeks ago Roy brought us the story of Ezekiel and the valley of dry bones. That story of a once great army, now dead, now just dry bones. But the bones begin to shift. There’s a rattling noise as they come back together, flesh, muscle, sinews, form over them. Ezekiel cries out to the four winds and the breath of God comes and fills the bodies so they live again. And a mighty army stands ready to fight another battle. And what is it that’s done it? The Spirit of God.
But of course that’s just a vision; a dream that Ezekiel has had. Those Bible characters we’ve talked about were just individuals, lone operators in the midst of a people who didn’t have the first idea of how to obey God, let alone the strength to actually do it consistently.
Yet, having said that, these were God’s people, God’s nation, called out, in fact created by God, to show the surrounding nations the glory of God. They were called to demonstrate by their lives the transforming power of God and the blessings that come from being God’s people, living under God’s law, in God’s place.
So why didn’t it work out like that? Why is it that for all their advantages, all the times God spoke to them through prophets, priests and kings, they still failed?
Was it because on their own they were incapable of pleasing God? Was it because they were sinful human beings who needed God’s forgiveness and grace if they were ever to be right with God?
Yet despite their failure, despite their ongoing rebelliousness, God continued to appear to them, to speak to them through his prophets. Why? Because they were still his chosen people. Because he’d promised Abraham that through his descendants all peoples would be blessed. Most of all because God’s plan was about to reach its fulfilment in the coming of Jesus Christ to save his people from their sins.
It’s interesting: as you look around this building you see lots of things that need to be done. Painting that’s looking the worse for wear, carpets that are getting threadbare, floors that need resurfacing, heaters that need to be replaced. So why haven’t we done that apparently necessary maintenance? Well, it’s because we’re hoping that in the near future we might be moving to a new building, isn’t it? Whether that’s a sure hope is another question but nevertheless that future hope affects what we do now. And so it was with God’s attitude to Israel as they continued to fail in their task of obedient submission to God’s law. He held off judgement because the time was nearing when Jesus would appear to begin a new Israel.
And as we saw last week, finally the decisive moment arrived. Jesus, having died and risen again, ascended to the Father and the Holy Spirit came to take his place. The Church was born.
Now, rather than it just being individuals who were filled with the Holy Spirit for particular tasks, all of God’s people are given the Spirit to dwell within them. Now all of us are brought face to face with God, as it were, through the indwelling of his Spirit. Listen to what Paul says in 2 Cor 3, the last verse of the chapter before the passage we just had read for us: "18And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit." (2 Cor 3:18 NRSV)
You see Paul’s thinking about Moses, whose face shone with the glory of God after speaking to him face to face. And now, he says, we’re filled with God’s Spirit. He’s been poured out on us. He asks how much more should our faces glow knowing that God’s Spirit lives within us?
Here’s the point Paul has just been making in 2 Cor 3.
He says the Spirit’s ministry through Moses was to bring the law which in the end brought death and judgement. Yet his face glowed with the reflected glory of God. But think about what’s happened now. How much more glorious is the Spirit’s ministry now, since it now brings life and righteousness in Jesus Christ?
Look at v6: "4:6For it is the God who said, ’Let light shine out of darkness,’ who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." The gospel that we proclaim is a message of light, a message that brings understanding, enlightenment; that helps us see where we’re going. It’s a message that shows us, most importantly of all, the glory of God.
And what does he mean by that? How does the gospel demonstrate the glory of God?
He says first of all that the glory of God is seen in the face of Christ. Can you imagine Paul sitting down, writing this letter? He’s just been reminding them of the glory of God glowing in the face of Moses and suddenly he remembers his own conversion. Do you remember what happened to him? He was travelling to Damascus when suddenly Jesus Christ appeared before him and the glory of God shining from the face of Christ blinded him. And now he’s remembering that blinding light that was so unmistakable as a sign that this was God speaking to him.
But there’s more to it than just that. The gospel shows the glory of God because it reveals the completion of his plan, formed before the creation of the world and now complete in Christ. It reminds us that this didn’t just happen by chance. Jesus’ coming was planned long before Adam and Eve sinned.
What’s more, it reveals the glory of God because it shows us the way of salvation, the way that we can be made right with God, the way that we can be brought safely into his presence to live with him forever.
For us, the gospel brings the glory of God into our own lives. First because it brings the Holy Spirit to live within us.
One of the things the Holy Spirit does is to begin the process of transforming us into God’s likeness once again. You see, as I just said, in previous times there were a few men and women who received the Spirit’s filling for a time or a task. But now every one of us has been filled with the Spirit. And we’re filled not just for a particular task but in order to transform us, to remake us in the image of God. So we’re "being transformed into [God’s] image from one degree of glory to another." (2 Cor 3:18)
But secondly, the gospel brings the promise of a new creation, of a time when all of us will be brought into God’s presence with our bodies renewed. As Paul says in 1 Cor 15:51-53: "Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, 52in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality."
Here’s the glorious promise of the gospel. Broken, weak, worn out bodies remade to match the glory of Christ’s risen body (Phil 3:21). That’s worth thinking about next time you go to the gym!
Finally the glory of the gospel is shown in the way we’re called to live together as Christ’s Church, as the new people of God. Just as the Israelites were called to demonstrate to the nations around them the glory of God as they lived in harmony with one another and in obedience to God, enjoying the blessings he provided for them, so we’re to show in our life together what a difference the Holy Spirit makes to ordinary people.
But having said that the reality often falls short of the potential doesn’t it? The glory of God shining from our lives is often dulled by the weak human nature we exhibit. Paul says "6For it is the God who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 7But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us." Sometimes we get frustrated that we don’t seem to be able to live up to our calling, to live up to the potential we know is within us. But in fact that’s part of the glory of the gospel. Christians aren’t perfect, they’re just forgiven! God chose us, knowing that we were fallen creatures, knowing that we were tainted by sin. From a human perspective most of us were a lost cause. Probably all of us in fact! Yet the most lost among us is now being transformed by God’s power back into the image of God. The worst among us is now being imbued with the glory of God.
What a message! How amazing! There’s hope even for you! Even for me!
And even when life is tough, when it seems like there’s little glory to be seen in our life, we know that God is at work in us. Look at vs 8-10: "8We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; 9persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; 10always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies."
If we suffer now as Christians we know that Christ is still working within us, preparing us for the day that’s to come, when we shall see him face to face and will be given a body that’s like his glorious body.
Next week we’ll be thinking about the great promise of the final fulfilment of God’s great plan for the ages as we look at Rev 21&22. There we’ll see a faint picture of the bright and glorious future to which we’re moving. In the meantime listen to Paul’s conclusion in vs 16-18: "16So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. 17For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, 18because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal."
The glory of the gospel is the promise of eternal life with God, made possible by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. As we wait for that yet unseen future God’s Spirit continues to prepare us, transforming our fallen nature to be more like God’s perfect image, with ever-increasing glory as the Spirit does his work within us.
While we wait, our task is to cooperate with God in his transforming work within us, to listen and obey. And it’s to continue to share the gospel with those around us; to share the glory of God with them. In the next chapter he goes on to remind us that we are God’s ambassadors: God makes his appeal to the world through us. So let’s work on showing the glory of God in our personal lives and in our lives as a community, so that even if we do have this treasure in earthen vessels, its glory might shine out of our lives to bring light to the world around us.
For more sermons from this source go to http://home.vicnet.net.au/~sttheos
