[0:00] Romans 8, verses 28 to 30. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
[0:14] For those God foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called.
[0:26] Those he called, he also justified. And those he justified, he also glorified. Please be seated, and let's hear the preaching of God's Word. Well, this morning we come to the last link in this golden chain of salvation that we've been studying for several weeks.
[0:49] And dear believers, I want to ask you, are you personalizing these things? We are meant to do so. This is not just some abstract discussion about salvation.
[1:02] It's your salvation that Paul is speaking of here by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Your salvation began in eternity past, before the creation of the world, when God the Father knew you.
[1:19] He foreknew you. He chose to set his love on you. He predestined you to become like his Son, Jesus Christ. And then, in time, he broke into your life, and he powerfully called you to the Lord Jesus, and brought you to him in faith.
[1:39] A faith that also justified you. And we saw that in justification, God did not make you righteous, but rather declared you to be righteous in the courtroom of heaven.
[1:53] God justifies the wicked who trust in Christ. And he justly declared you righteous when you cast your trust upon him.
[2:04] Why? Because on the record books in heaven, the blood of Jesus blotted out all of your sins, and Christ's perfect obedience was credited, imputed to your account there in heaven.
[2:19] This is the gift of righteousness from God, which becomes yours through faith in Jesus Christ. It did not change you, but rather changed your status, your standing with God the judge, from guilty and condemned to not guilty, but righteous.
[2:43] But now, God's plan of salvation does not end with justification. For those he justified, he also glorified.
[2:58] God created us in his own image. We've heard a lot of that in the Sunday school. And as such, our purpose was to reflect the glory of God, his likeness, his beauty, his glory.
[3:12] But we all have fallen in Adam. We all have sinned, and in doing so, we have come short of the glory of God.
[3:24] Short of what we were created to reflect in our character, in our lives, in our relationships. That original glory in which we were created has been shattered, has been ruined, leaving us to glory in our shame.
[3:42] so that we're more like Satan than we are like God. That's what sin did to us. We were like the ruins of a great coliseum of the past in Europe.
[4:00] Maybe you've seen pictures, or even visited, and you've seen these glorious buildings that have been reduced to rubble by wars, times rude hand, erosion.
[4:20] Most of the marble pillars are fallen, broken in pieces. Only a few left standing. Weeds and bushes and trees have grown up among the shattered pieces, hiding everything but the bare outline and hints of what used to be.
[4:37] The splendor of that building when it was in all of its glory. That's us. Just the image of God remains in us, but it's just hints and pictures of what we used to be.
[4:58] Ichabod is the name befitting us. The glory has departed. In sin, we've fallen so far short of the glory we were created for.
[5:09] So did God just abandon his original design. Not on your life. Rather, he planned a great salvation by which he would restore some of humanity to their original purpose of being image bearers of this glory of God.
[5:26] Image bearers of this God of glory. Our glorification, then, is the glorious end for which salvation was planned, accomplished, and applied.
[5:40] To glorify you. To fill you with glory once again. So though in justification, God does not change you, but your status in heaven.
[5:53] In glorification, he does change you. And that's where you're headed. So walk it back. Those he justified, he also glorified.
[6:06] So this is why God justified you. We saw it there in our, as our brother referred to Titus chapter 3, that having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.
[6:22] He justified us in order that he might glorify us. That was not only the purpose of justification, justification. It's also why he called you to Jesus Christ in faith.
[6:36] You've been called according to his purpose, Romans 8, 28. This is the end purpose for which God called you. He called you to Christ that he might glorify you.
[6:50] Peter says the same thing, that the God of all grace, 1 Peter 5, 10. The God of all grace who has called you to his eternal glory. That's also why he predestined you before creation.
[7:06] Verse 29 of Romans 8, he predestined you to be conformed to the image of his son. That's glorification. You've been predestined for glory.
[7:18] And that's why he ever foreknew you before creation. He chose to set his love upon you. As Ephesians 1, 4 says, he chose us in him before the creation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him.
[7:34] That's glorification. To be as pure and holy as Jesus. Now each one of these works of God then in salvation are connected and are leading on to this glorious end when God will glorify all of his people.
[7:53] Now this work of making the sinner holy began at the moment of our calling when he regenerated us. It's a change so drastic in us that it was called a new birth in Scripture, a new creation, a resurrection from the dead.
[8:11] The sinner is given a new heart and enabled to repent and believe in coming on to Christ. And though that change was drastic, it was not a perfect change.
[8:24] No, indwelling sin remains in us. So your calling began the lifelong process of sanctification by which you are progressively being made holy more and more like Jesus Christ.
[8:41] a sculpture was hired to chisel a block of marble into a life-size horse and when he was finished it was a glorious picture or replica really of a real horse.
[8:58] And when asked how in the world he did it, he said, I simply chiseled off everything that did not look like a horse. That's what God is doing in your life right now, Christian.
[9:12] Already. He's chiseling. Are you feeling it? Some of it's painful. He pulls out the hammer and the chisel of afflictions and suffering and trials and the file of his word and his spirit and he's getting out all that is not Christ-like.
[9:32] He's begun that work ever since he called you. To Jesus Christ. And the work is often painful, slow and hard.
[9:44] But he's working toward a goal. The last link in the chain of salvation. He's going to glorify you. The complete, perfect conformity to the likeness of Jesus, the perfect man, the God-man.
[9:58] Now, I want to consider glorification this morning under three points then. It's certainty, it's essence, and it's influence.
[10:09] First of all, the certainty of glorification. The final glory of the Christian is something God wants every believer to be absolutely certain of.
[10:22] It's Paul's aim right here in Romans chapter 8 as he's seeking to build the assurance of salvation in God's people.
[10:33] Every link in God's work of salvation is inseparably connected to the rest, and it all ends in glorification. So that there is no fallout along this chain.
[10:45] All he foreknew, he predestined, and all he predestined, he called, and all he called, he justified, and all he justified, he glorified. So he who began a good work in you, we can be confident, will continue that work even to the end.
[11:04] The day of Christ Jesus. None that he foreknew will be missing in that final roll call in glory. Jesus said it, I will lose none of all that the Father has given me, but will raise him up at the last day.
[11:19] John 6, 39. So, if this is God's purpose and plan, as verse 28 tells us, then it cannot fail. John Murray calls it an undefeatable plan because of what Isaiah says and what the Lord says in Isaiah 46, 10.
[11:39] I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, my purpose will stand and I will do all that I please.
[11:54] So if glorifying you is God's end purpose in calling you to Christ, then if he does not get you all the way to glory, he's a liar and he's a failure.
[12:08] He said he would, but he didn't. He tried, but he couldn't. The very idea is blasphemous to even hold on to.
[12:21] That would be to un-God God because God cannot fail. It's impossible for him to lie, the scriptures tell us. Being glorified is so certain that though it is yet future, you notice it's written in the past tense in our Bibles.
[12:40] Indeed, as the scriptures were given by inspiration. Those he justified, he glorified. It hasn't happened yet for us who are living, for Paul's hearers, and yet it's stated in the past.
[12:55] That's Paul's way of saying that it's as certain as if it's already done. Consider it done. Someone says that to you? Well, that's what God's saying. Consider it done.
[13:05] If you're on the track of salvation, consider it done. You will be glorified. It cannot not happen. That's why top lady can write, more happy but not more secure, the glorified spirits in heaven.
[13:20] Those who died in Christ are now happier than we are, but they are not more secure than we are. Because what God has purposed and planned will happen.
[13:31] Nothing is more certain than the believer being glorified. Just a couple more texts even outside of our passage.
[13:44] 2 Timothy 2.10 Paul says, I endure all things for the sake of the elect that they too may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.
[13:58] That they may obtain those that God chose might obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. There is no salvation but what is in Christ Jesus.
[14:10] Are you in Christ? There is no salvation but that which comes with eternal glory. It never falls short of eternal glory. And that's why Christ in you is the hope of glory.
[14:27] Colossians 1.27 We could multiply other texts that clearly show that the glorification of the saints is an absolute certainty and therefore child of God it is something you need to know with absolute certainty for your comfort and joy.
[14:48] Well that's it's certainty. Let's move on then to it's essence. What is it to be glorified? Could you come back and ask me that in heaven?
[15:01] Well of course then you wouldn't need to ask me because you would know by experience but it will take all of eternity to unpack all that it means for God to glorify us.
[15:17] It involves all the happiness of heaven. Let me summarize it in this way. Glorification is seeing and sharing in the glory of Christ.
[15:30] it is seeing and sharing in the glory of Christ. First of all consider it it is seeing to be glorified is to see the glory of Christ. This is something that our Savior promised in that great sermon on the mount chapter 5 and verse 8 blessed happy are the pure in heart for they shall see God.
[15:58] Theologians have referred to this as the beatific vision. Literally the sight that makes happy. Here is a sight that will make us happy forever seeing God seeing his glory.
[16:14] glory. We have hints of it in the Old Testament. Psalm 27 4 David says one thing if I desire to the Lord that will I seek after that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life that I might gaze upon the beauty of the Lord.
[16:37] Not just catch a sight but to just look and look and look again the beauty the glory of the Lord.
[16:48] Job said it I know that my redeemer lives and that in the end he will stand upon the earth and after my skin has been destroyed yet in my flesh I will see God. I myself will see him with my own eyes I and not another how my heart yearns within me.
[17:09] Isaiah 33 17 your eyes will see the king in his beauty and view a land that stretches afar. Yes the Old Testament holds out that picture of glorification being seen God.
[17:24] Now we know that the Bible teaches that God the Father is invisible. God is pure spirit. He does not have a body like men.
[17:37] So it is in seeing Jesus Christ that we will see God. For he is God. He is the Son of God the eternal God the Son.
[17:53] The perfect image of the invisible God. The outshining of his Father's glory. In 2nd Corinthians 4 6 says that the glory of God is seen where?
[18:06] In the face of Jesus. That's where we'll see God. Jesus told Philip if you've seen me you have seen the Father.
[18:20] Paul says in 1st Corinthians 13 12 now we see as through a glass dimly but then face to face. Do you think about that meeting?
[18:34] You and him face to face. Face to face with Christ my Savior. Face to face.
[18:45] What will it be when with rapture I behold him Jesus Christ who died for me? It's going to happen.
[18:57] It's going to happen. Revelation 22 4 says of the servants of the Lamb they will see his face. and it was this that our Savior prayed for on the night of his betrayal in John 17 24 Father I want those you have given me to be with me where I am and to see my glory the glory you have given me because you love me before the creation of the world.
[19:26] We will see the King in all his glory his splendor his majesty and that too underscores our first point of its certainty if Jesus prayed for it his prayer is not going to be rejected.
[19:41] All that the Father gave him will be there with him seeing his glory and so to see Christ face to face in his glory is no small part of what it means to be glorified.
[19:57] Revelation 1 7 says when Jesus appears at his second coming every eye will see him. Even those who pierced him, his enemies, will see him.
[20:13] That will be a terror to the lost but it will be glory to the saved. For something amazing will happen to those who belong to Christ.
[20:26] We will not only see him as he is we will be made like him. That language is familiar to you because it's 1 John 3 2.
[20:39] Dear friends, now we are children of God and what we will be has not yet been made known. 1 John 3 2.
[20:51] But we know this that when he appears we shall be like him for we will see him as he is. No longer through a glass darkly but as he is face to face.
[21:09] Seeing him we will be made like him. Seeing his glory we will also share in his glory which is to be made like him.
[21:20] This is the other part of what it means to be glorified. seeing and sharing in the glory of Christ. Romans 8 17 says it we're heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ if indeed we share in his suffering so that we may also share in his glory.
[21:42] Glorification will not just be seen as glory it will be also sharing in that glory ourselves. And to share in his glory is to be made like him.
[21:55] The very sight of him will be transformative. Now already this same dynamic is taking place in the believer progressively as I said from calling onward this process has begun in the new birth.
[22:09] We're given a new heart, new mind, new desires, new direction on our wills and our affections and all the rest. So 2 Corinthians 3 and verse 18 describes this becoming like Christ.
[22:25] 2 Corinthians 3, 18 We who with unveiled faces all behold the glory of the Lord. How do we behold his glory now?
[22:37] Not by sight, but by faith in his word. We who with unveiled faces all behold the glory of the Lord are being transformed.
[22:50] into his likeness with ever increasing glory. Or as the old King James, from glory unto glory which comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
[23:11] As we see his glory in scriptures already, we are beginning to share in that glory as we're becoming increasingly like him from one glory to another.
[23:25] And glorification is simply the great finale. When seeing him face to face in his glory, we shall be made like him and share in that glory.
[23:38] glory. Let me spell out this further in two points. Glorification will include therefore, first of all, a great increased knowledge, a greatly increased knowledge of Christ and his glory.
[23:58] To see something is to come to know it in a clearer, fuller, deeper way. You may hear someone tell you about the glories of the Grand Canyon.
[24:10] They may be very good at describing it to you. But when you stand there before it, you come to know that glory in a whole new level, a whole new depth.
[24:25] The Queen of Sheba had heard of the glory of Solomon and his kingdom. She had heard the report of it, but when she came and saw it for herself, she said, the half has never been told.
[24:40] Well, that's it. There's this whole new level of knowing when we see something. And when we come to see Christ in his glory, face to face, our knowledge of him will then be perfected.
[24:55] We'll see more glory in Christ than we ever saw before. And that will go on and on through all eternity for the finite I cannot ever completely encompass the infinite glory of God in Jesus Christ.
[25:18] John Owen, the Puritan of the 17th century, wrote a lot about the glory of Christ. And on his deathbed, he said that he was going to see the glory of Christ now in a way that he had never yet seen it.
[25:35] That's it. He was moving on to glory. And he would catch a clearer, deeper view of Christ's glory. And that's what glorification is.
[25:49] And it will fill us to overflowing joy in his presence throughout the eternal ages. Seeing and sharing in Christ's glory will mean then that our knowledge of Christ will be greatly increased.
[26:04] But secondly, being glorified will also mean being perfected in holiness. Perfected in holiness. We'll be made like Christ in his moral character. Perfect purity, sinless perfection.
[26:20] Yes, I do believe in sinless perfection. But not until we see Christ face to face. sinless only then will I be made like him as pure as he is pure.
[26:36] Only then will I be without sin. But until then, every Christian knows this inward struggle with indwelling sin that Paul talks about in the previous chapter, chapter 7 of Romans.
[26:51] And though sin no longer reigns, it still remains. It refuses to be evicted. It won't leave. And it puts forth its energies. It opposes every step of holiness that I take.
[27:05] Everything that Christ says I should do, it says no. And everything Christ says I shouldn't do, it says yes. That's still in me.
[27:15] That's the flesh. That is indwelling sin. Tempting me. Pulling me away from Christ.
[27:26] Such that when I would do good, I find that evil is present with me. Yea, in me. Paul says. Resisting every holy thought and desire and decision and action and plan and ever mixing something of itself in every single thing I do.
[27:51] Preaching, praying, included. And just to be clear, our indwelling sin is sin.
[28:04] It is real sin. That's what Paul calls it, sin that dwells in me. The very sinful desire within is sinful, even if I never act on it.
[28:19] God. And therefore, it gives us much to confess and to be sorry about before our God. But when we see Christ, we will be made like him, glorified in sinless perfection.
[28:41] No more inward desires to sin. No more slowness to obey. No more partial obedience to God's commands. No more weariness in worship or in serving the Lord.
[28:55] No more coldness of heart towards him. No backwardness to commune with Christ, such as I know now in prayer. No more unbelief or pride or lust or selfishness or greed or envy or malice or discontent or ingratitude.
[29:16] No more disappointment of sinning against those that I love the most. No more sinning against the Lord Jesus who loved me and gave himself for me.
[29:27] No more sinning against my heavenly father who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all. No more sinning and grieving the Holy Spirit who stooped to come down and take up his residence in my heart just to help me, my helper, sin.
[29:46] In life. No more battle with sin. No more need to mortify it. No more need to guard my heart, to starve my flesh, to cut off things as precious as right hands, right feet, and right eyes.
[30:01] No more guilt. No more regrets. Oh, if only. No more sorrow for sin. No more broken relationships due to sin.
[30:12] no more anxiety, worries, and karking cares of life. Our own sin is by far our greatest trouble in life, isn't it?
[30:26] It far exceeds any other problem we have. Indeed, it is the root of most all of our troubles, and to be rid of it once and for all is to be glorified.
[30:39] Everything that does not look like Jesus, gone, and gone forever. And instead to find within us perfect, holy thoughts, and desires, and choices, and motivations, Christ-like attitudes, and behaviors just flowing out of us naturally, without anything resisting it.
[31:09] perfect love of righteousness, perfect obedience, perfect love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
[31:28] Perfect likeness to Jesus, fully restored to the glorious image of God. God. That's to be glorified. That's to share in His glory, the perfection, the beauty of His holiness.
[31:44] And that's the aim of salvation. And it will bring all glory to God and great good to me. One of the marks of the new birth, of regeneration, of those who are called to Christ, is that there is planted in the new birth, a new desire within every child of God to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength.
[32:22] A longing to be like Him. Yes, Christ's love is so much better than life. We long to love Him with unsinning heart.
[32:34] To have no competing desires, no rival loves in our heart, no struggles of will with His. That is the longing of the bride of Christ for her bridegroom.
[32:47] To be found pleasing to our bridegroom. To be beautiful in His eyes, without any sinful spots or wrinkles or other blemishes.
[33:02] nothing ugly in His sight, nothing that would repel Him, only that which would attract Him. That's what the bride wants before her bridegroom.
[33:14] But we are so aware in this life, so aware of our sinful spots and wrinkles and blemishes. It's like a teenager with a pimple on her forehead.
[33:28] She looks in the mirror and she doesn't see anything else. she just sees that pimple and she thinks that's how everybody else sees me. And she's very self-conscious about that pimple.
[33:41] That's the way we are with our sinful spots and wrinkles and blemishes. They mar our beauty and we know it. We know of their ugliness.
[33:52] They make us self-conscious in the presence of the perfect bridegroom. Doesn't have any of that in Him. And oh sure we are still loved and accepted in the beloved.
[34:05] No, our sins and spots and blemishes do not change our standing in heaven before God. We are accepted in the beloved. Loved for Jesus' sake.
[34:21] He does not divorce us or love us less. But those blemishes do mar my enjoyment of His love.
[34:32] Those spots and wrinkles spoil my communion with Christ. Just as in marriage, sinful offenses mar the intimacy of husband and wife.
[34:47] But here's the wonder of our bridegroom. He is out to perfect the beauty of His bride. the beauty of holiness. And how does He do this?
[34:59] Psalm 149.4 says He takes great delight in His people and He beautifies the humble with salvation. This is His plan to beautify His bride.
[35:16] And He's doing a makeover on us even now as we're here this morning. when He found us we were His ugly enemies full of wickedness that He hates and void of the righteousness that He loves.
[35:29] But He loved us anyway as His bride and He gave Himself up for her to make her holy. Ah, that's why He gave Himself up for her to make her holy.
[35:45] Cleansing her by the washing of water through the Word. And when He's finished He will present her to Himself as a radiant church without spot or wrinkle or any such thing but holy and without blemish.
[36:07] And then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their father. Matthew 13.43. Lit up now with the glory of God's holiness permeating us from head to toe.
[36:22] Not only in our soul but our bodies too will be raised in glory conformed to the glorious body of our resurrected Lord's body.
[36:36] Have you thought about that? Have you thought about your glorification? That when you see Christ face to face for the first time it will not be like you are now Christian.
[36:53] Still in the beauty shop of His Word and His providence under the chisels and fires of affliction and files of affliction. The sanctifying work still going on conscious of the pimples and wrinkles and stains of sin that mar your beauty.
[37:11] Know you will then be the finished product. Standing before Him perfectly holy without spot or wrinkle or any such blemish that would mar your beauty.
[37:24] That would bring you up short of the glory of God. You will be adorned with every virtue found in Christ.
[37:34] Beautified with every grace. Nothing to repel Him. everything to attract Him. At last that longing planted in our hearts at the new birth will be fulfilled.
[37:50] Will be perfectly pleasing in His sight and will know it. And all sense of failure and sin will be gone. All self consciousness of that sin and those spots that we had on earth that spoiled our enjoyment of communion with Him vanished will be a perfected radiant bride.
[38:14] The bride eyes not her garments but her beloved's face. grace. I will not gaze at glory but upon my King of grace.
[38:27] You've seen weddings in this building. The bridegroom stands here. The bride walks in. I'm usually standing behind the bridegroom.
[38:39] So I don't always see what He's looking at but I think I know what He's looking at because I have sat out there before and watched. He's looking at the bride and the bride isn't just gawking around looking at her guests.
[38:54] She's looking at this bridegroom waiting to receive her. She's decked out in beauty and she can see the love and pleasure flowing from His face as He gazes upon her.
[39:14] As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride so will your God rejoice over you. Isaiah 62.5 And as the bride looks into her beloved's face she finds his love for her.
[39:28] His pleasure in her. Streaming from His face. And now without any hangups about anything displeasing in her. any spots, wrinkles or other blemishes.
[39:41] It's all gone and replaced with the pure beauty of holiness. She will know that the King is enthralled with her beauty. Psalm 45 verse 11.
[39:55] Her beauty which is His own completed work in her. work in her. She is His workmanship created in Him. And His own righteousness will not only be imputed to her in heaven for her justification, it is in glorification now imparted to her.
[40:26] She is given this righteousness so that her very being is pure righteousness, pure holiness, without sin.
[40:38] And so she can, for the first time, perfectly enjoy His love for her. To the full.
[40:49] Drinking in His pleasure in her. Relishing it. The sight that makes happy. The beatific vision. And then to return that love.
[41:02] Now in perfection for the first time. Will that not be glory for you, Christian? That will be glory enough for me when by His grace I shall look on His face.
[41:14] That will be glory. Be glory for me. Seeing and sharing in His glory. You know, Jude comes to the end of that chapter.
[41:25] One chapter letter that he wrote and says that he will present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy.
[41:40] You'll be without something and with something in that day. When he presents you to himself at that wedding of the lamb and his bride, you will be without fault.
[41:54] Whew. You will be with great joy. To be without fault is to be with great joy.
[42:09] You see, God our maker knows best how to make us happy. Holiness and happiness are two different things, but they are intimately, inseparably connected.
[42:20] You cannot be happy, truly happy, unless you are truly holy. Adam and Eve found that out the sad way, the hard way.
[42:34] After they sinned, they learned that instead of being holy and happy, they became sinful and miserable. God is the holy one.
[42:47] None is holy as Him. He is the most holy, but He is also the most happy. Titus 1.11, the gospel of the blessed God, the happy God.
[42:59] And it is not by coincidence that He is most holy and most happy, and it is not by coincidence that it works that way for us either, that when we are most holy, we find ourselves most happy.
[43:11] holy. And the more holy, so then in glorifying us, when He makes us perfectly holy, we'll find ourselves more happy than we ever dreamed we could be.
[43:26] No wonder the Apostle Paul speaks of the appearance of Christ, the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. He calls it the blessed hope, the happy hope.
[43:41] Because when I see Him, I'll be like Him. And I'll be more happy and more holy and more happy than I've ever been in my life.
[43:52] Peter says something in 1 Peter 1.8 that's interesting. Whom having not seen, you love. Now Peter saw the Lord and His glory. But those who He wrote to, they had not seen Him.
[44:06] You and I have not seen Him. And yet He says, though we've not seen Him, though you've not seen Him, you love Him. You love Him. And you're filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, a joy full of glory already.
[44:22] But if we love Him now without seeing Him, what will our love be then when we do see Him and see Him face to face?
[44:36] And how will that cause even greater inexpressible and glorious joy when we see Him face to face and see His love beaming for us?
[44:52] and hear His lips say to us, well done, good and faithful servant. Happy hope, glorious hope, glorious joy to see and hear His approval, to experience the joy of knowing that we are pleasing to the one that we were created to please.
[45:19] Yes, the righteousness of Jesus put on our account, but now the righteousness of Jesus filling our hearts, our soul, our mind, our affections, our will, yes, even our body.
[45:31] Glorified. And if this be joyful, so joyful to you, remember what it will be for your Savior, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising its shame.
[45:46] what joy could ever cause a man, because Jesus was a real man with real nerve endings and real affections and emotions, what joy could ever cause a man to endure the torturous death of the cross and to despise its awful shame?
[46:09] Well, chapter 2 and verse 10 of Hebrews tells us it was the joy of bringing many sons to glory, bringing many sons to glory.
[46:22] What will be His joy then in seeing you there with Him? You know, that's exactly what He purposed and planned before the creation of the world. That's what He left heaven for in the first place.
[46:36] That's what He prayed for on the night of His betrayal. That you whom the Father gave Him might be with Him and see His glory. It's what held Him to the cross, despising the shame until He had drank down that cup of God's wrath and shouted, It is finished.
[46:56] And that's what's bringing Him back to earth. the joy of bringing many sons to glory, bringing you to be with Him, to see His glory, to be changed into the likeness, the holiness of Himself, seeing and sharing His glory.
[47:22] glory. Well, that's just my best for this morning on what the essence of glorification is.
[47:37] As I said, come along with me and we'll taste and see together in heaven just what this glorification is. But we remember what a God is preparing a place for us.
[47:52] We will not be disappointed. And so we've seen this morning the certainty of our glorification in Christ. Nothing could be more certain to those who are in Christ.
[48:03] We've seen the essence of what it is to be glorified, to see and share in Christ's glory. We're going to have to wait until next week to look at the influence of our glorification because Paul, in holding this glory before us, would say, yes, it is future.
[48:22] But that glorious future is to have an influence upon your life now. And so it's really the application of glorification that we'll come to next week.
[48:32] The influence this should have on us. What should this do for us? To know that that's what's waiting us. We're just a breath away from it, folks. So don't miss it.
[48:48] That's my conclusion this morning. It's so glorious. What a shame that any here should ever miss it. You need not miss it.
[48:58] Jesus Christ is calling you this morning. Come to me. Accept me. Receive me. Turn from your whole way of life. You've been living without me.
[49:10] You're supposed to be living for me. You've been living for you. Turn your back on that. And come and receive me as your Savior and Lord. The one to save you from the result of your sinfulness.
[49:24] The one who can transform you and put all my righteousness to your account and all your sins to mine and then change you. Put my righteousness in you.
[49:35] And one day have you be as righteous and holy as I am. He's the one who in the gospel says, come to me. And this gift is yours in me.
[49:45] Whoever has the Son has this life. This life that is really called life. Life with him. But he who has not the Son has not life.
[49:57] Be sure you're in Christ. And if you know that this Savior is yours, then you can know with absolute certainty of arriving in glory. Let that press you on to that goal.
[50:10] We'll see more of that next week. And let our closing hymn be the application that we make as we as we cry out. Finish then thy new creation.
[50:22] You started it. Finish it. That's what we're praying for. That's what we're singing, longing for. That's the desire that was planted in us. Finish then your new creation.
[50:35] Pure and spotless. Let us be. Let us see thy great salvation perfectly restored in thee. It's number 460.
[50:48] Let's sing it to our Savior and long for the day when this will be reality for us in Christ. 460.
[50:58] It's the second tune. The one we most usually sing it to. Let's stand as we sing. Our Father, we thank you for this passage of Scripture that reminds us what you are preparing for us.
[51:11] Eyes have not seen. Ears have not heard. Neither has it entered into the minds of men what you are preparing for those who love you. But you have revealed enough to make us long for and thirst and hunger for.
[51:26] So, until that day, we are asking that we might see you more clearly. That we might love you more dearly.
[51:38] And that we might follow you more nearly. Day by day. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Amen.