The Gospel of the Glory of Christ

Our scripture reading for this morning is found in 2 Corinthians 4.! Therefore, through God's mercy, we have this ministry.

! He's talking about the ministry of the Holy Spirit in our lives. We have this ministry. We do not lose heart. Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways.

We do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly, we commend ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.

And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The God of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who said, Let light shine out of darkness, made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard-pressed on every side, but not crushed.

Perplexed, but not in despair. Persecuted, but not abandoned. Struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.

For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.

It is written, I believed, therefore I have spoken. With that same spirit of faith, we also believe and therefore speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in his presence.

All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God. Therefore, we do not lose heart, though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.

For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen.

For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. It's the message of hymns like those that make it so wonderful to be a preacher of the gospel.

We read in 2 Corinthians, we do not preach ourselves, but we preach Jesus as Lord. That's our pleasure as your pastors.

It's my pleasure this morning. Have you ever thought you saw someone across the room, recognized someone, but you really didn't?

So you saw them across the room, and you waved and said hi, and then you got closer, and it turned out not to be the person you thought it was. And you say all sorts of things to yourself at that moment.

One time, someone thought I was someone that I wasn't, and it nearly got me killed. Believe it or not.

Seriously. I was driving to work one day. This was about eight or nine years ago. I was in my red Chevy S10, and I was just coming off the ramp, on to 31.

I know you people from Arizona have no idea what I'm talking about. So on to 31, and coming down the right lane, down the highway, is this truck, and in this truck were these two guys.

And as they went past me, they both turned and stared at me, and I thought, oh, what's going on here? Do I have a flat tire or something? And I'm thinking of something like that.

But as we're driving down the road, the guy in the passenger seat kept on turning around and staring at me, and I get a little nervous, and I'm thinking, maybe my truck's falling apart.

If you remember my truck, it probably was. But we pulled up to the red light, and they were in front of me. And then these two guys get out of their truck, and they come back to where I'm parked, or sitting there.

And I like to think of myself as Rambo, but apparently, apparently, when push comes to shove, I'm more like Barney Fife. And so, I just, I rolled down my window just a tiny bit, and the guy, this one guy says to me, the guy who owns this truck stabbed my brother in the stomach.

And I was like, no, he didn't. And the second, then, he says, man, the guy who, that was a Ford, this is a Chevy.

And, so I was like, whew. Sometimes a case of mistaken identity can be just embarrassing.

And then, very rarely, it can be deadly. It can be dangerous. If you think you have heartburn, but you're really having a heart attack, it can be dangerous.

What you think something is, and what something is, matters. To understand what something is, and what you think it is, those two things need to fit together.

And I wonder, do you know what the gospel is? What the gospel is about? You see, a lot of people think they know what the gospel is, but they don't.

They think they know what the gospel is about, but they are mistaken. They've labeled it wrong. They've misidentified it. They think they see something, and it turns out it's not that.

And so, because they've mislabeled it, and misidentified it, misidentified it, they do the wrong thing with it. So today, I want to talk to you this morning about what the gospel is not about, and what the gospel is about.

What it's not about, and what it is about. And we're going to start at 2 Corinthians 4, verse 4. We just had read to you. The God of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

Let me read that last part to you. Some of you were turning pages. So that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

The God of this age, that is the devil, Satan, has blinded the minds of unbelievers so they cannot see the light of the gospel. They don't understand it.

They don't see it for what it is. And so most people will say, yeah, I know what the gospel is about. I know what Christianity is. Well, test yourself then. Test yourself then by what is written.

first, what is the gospel not about? Well, the gospel is not about you. It's not about us.

And we are such selfish, self-centered creatures by nature that we, it becomes impossible for us to see the light of the gospel without God's help because we're so bent in on ourselves.

So you're looking at the yearbook and you turn to your class photo. Let me ask you, who is the first person that you look for? It's always you, isn't it?

It's always you. And you'll say all sorts of things about yourself. Look at those hideous glasses. I can't believe my mom let me go to school like that. You'll say all sorts of things about yourself and about this and that.

And maybe you'll say a few things about this person or that person but the focus is on you. Jeremiah the prophet said, the heart is deceitful above all things who can know it.

And the deceitfulness of the heart appears no more than it does here. Here, this is where it appears the most. It says to itself, it's about me.

It's about myself. I'm at the center. And so in all their thoughts, there's no room for God. Well, what are we thinking about? Think about me, me, me.

And that's what makes it so easy for us to think we understand the gospel, to think that we see the gospel and then to actually be blinded to it.

because we can easily mistake the gospel for something it is not. It's about the glory of Jesus, 2 Corinthians 4.4 says. It's not about us.

It's not about our doings, our comings, and our goings. It's not about our self-improvement projects. And so we mistake the good news for the good instructions.

We hear the word of God preached and we think at heart it has to be something about what I need to do. I need to turn over a new leaf. I need to fix this.

I need to clean up. And so it becomes like a puzzle that we have to put together. And if we can just get all the pieces to fit together, all the pieces of our life, then I'll be saved.

I'll just, I just have to get it right. But that isn't what the gospel is. It's not about that. The gospel is a word. It means good news.

That's not news to most of you. And good news is something to believe first. It's not a set of instructions. So when World War II ended, most of you don't remember that, maybe a few of you do, when World War II ended and all the newspapers screamed, the war is over, Japan surrenders, what was there to do?

Well, there was, you just simply believed. What did the civilian at home have to do? Nothing. He just had to believe what the newspaper said. And then, you know, out of that belief, he went out into the streets and he cried, it's over, it's over, we won.

And he celebrated, he rejoiced. It was good news. Whatever the gospel is about, it is that first. It is good news.

And so that means it's not the way that you save yourself. It's about what Jesus has done to save sinners. So the gospel is not about you and your comings and goings and your self-improvement projects and the plans.

And it's not even God saying, oh, I'll come in and help you do those things. Look at what it says in verse 4. If it's not about you, what is it about?

It's the gospel of the glory of Christ. It's the good news about the glory of Christ.

So the gospel is about Christ's goodness. It's about his splendor, his perfection. His work, his performance, his mighty accomplishments for sinners.

It's his victory. It's a story about him. It's not, first, a story about you. And so it's the news about how amazing and spectacular Christ is.

We sang about all these things when we sang about his glory. That's what the gospel is. It's the good news about Christ. It's the glory, the gospel of who Christ is as a person.

His glorious person. So who is Jesus Christ? The tail end of verse 4, it says he's the image of God. Jesus is the perfect picture picture of the unseen God.

When we see Christ, we see God. We understand God. So Hebrews says, in the past, God spoke to our forefathers, to the prophets at many times and in various ways.

But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his son. The son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being.

So Jesus Christ, the good news is that Jesus Christ is the full, the final revelation of who God is. When we see Jesus, we finally come to a full and complete understanding of who God is.

Now, we haven't exhausted who Jesus is. And he's an infinite person and so we're going to spend eternity getting to know him. But, when we see Jesus, we finally get the clear, the accurate, the final picture of who God is.

And it says he's the exact representation of his being. that's the Bible's way of saying he is God. If someone exactly represents me, in every way he's like me.

And in every way if you see him, you would see me. That means he is me. Now, in the human world, there's no such thing as an exact representation.

But, Jesus is the exact representation of God. And that means he is God. To be the image of God like that is to be God himself.

And so that's the glory the gospel is about. It's about who Jesus is. He's God, but he is man. Christ Jesus, who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant.

So he's God, and he takes upon himself man. He became a man. Now, he didn't stop being God. He didn't transform from God into man.

He took upon himself the nature of a man. He added humanity to his identity. And so imagine you're at work. Imagine you work at this office or this factory and wherever you're at.

And one day your president, the president of the company, the highest man, the man with the most authority, is walking through the factory, walking through the office, and he notices all this trash around everywhere. And people aren't picking up after themselves.

And so he decides that the way he's going to fix it is to become a janitor as well. He's going to take on a second job. He would become a janitor. And so one night you come into work and there's the president of the company who normally wears the suit, but now he's in blue overalls.

He's in a janitor's outfit, uniform. And you say, why are you dressed like that? And he says, because I'm a janitor.

Oh, have you stopped becoming, are you no longer the president? You've been demoted? No, I wasn't demoted. I've just become something else. I've taken on this work of a janitor.

I'm still the president. I not only make all the decisions, but I clean up the messes. And I clean the toilets, and I pick up garbage. Now, that illustration isn't very good for one reason, because that doesn't happen amongst men, does it?

But that's what Philippians says. God, he was God, but he didn't consider equality with God something to be grasped. And he took upon himself the form of a servant.

That's what Jesus did. He was God, he was ruler, he made the decisions, and he became man. And he didn't just put on the blue overalls, he didn't just appear as a man, he became a man.

He became the janitor, if you will. And that's the gospel. God humbled himself to become man.

The son of God became one of us, and he became our Emmanuel, God with us, connected in solidarity with us.

And so, no one can say now that God can't understand, because he suffered all the slings and arrows of misfortune, just like we do, and he was tried in every way, just as we are, and yet was without sin.

So the gospel is the story about who Christ is. It's about his glory as the God-man, as God becoming man, as God in the flesh.

It's more than that, it's about his glorious life. So he was born of a woman, born under law, to be a servant means that you must obey.

And Jesus was born under the law. The lawgiver came under the law. And that meant that he was required to obey the law in order to have a righteous standing before God.

Do you understand the humility of Jesus? He who was God became a man. And he had to obey God now. He had to obey the law in order to have a righteous standing with God.

And he had to obey, and he obeyed it perfectly. That's the glory of Christ. That's what the gospel is about. He obeyed it perfectly. He could say at the end of his life, I always do what pleases my Father.

The gospel is about that. It's not about you. It's not about your half-hearted efforts. You're mostly failing, always in perfect obedience.

It's about Christ's perfect obedience. So, in the gospel, in the good news that it's my joy to proclaim, righteousness from God is revealed.

It's from God. Its source is God. So, what's the stuff of this righteousness? What's its content? What is it made of? Well, it just didn't magically appear. You know, it's not like a financial thing out there in the world of the stock market where money just sort of somehow magically appears, apparently.

It's the lived out actual real life obedience of Jesus Christ, the God man. So, it was his day in and day out.

Little boy, teenage young man, working man, son, brother, friend, righteousness of Jesus Christ.

In the gospel, righteousness from God is revealed and it's Jesus' perfect life. It's his law keeping. It's his good works. And through faith, God gives that righteousness to all who believe.

That life becomes the believer's life. that record becomes their record. And so when you read the gospels, you're not reading just Jesus' life and Jesus' record.

You are reading that and that's first and foremost what you're reading. But you're also reading the story of the righteousness and the standing that you have before God. That perfect life is your perfect life in Christ.

That glorious good life is yours through faith. Not just his, but yours because you've been joined with him. And so do you see why the gospel is not about my doings, my comings and goings, about what I do first?

There's no room in the gospel. There's no room in the gospel for my half-hearted mediocre works. There's no room and there's no need.

His glorious life is enough. It fills everything up. We have fullness in him. And so you don't serve hot dogs and you don't serve Kraft macaroni and cheese at a five-star restaurant.

Why? Because they don't fit. They don't meet the standard. And you don't need them. You don't need them. In the gospel, you have something better than what you do.

You have something better than your Kraft macaroni and cheese and your hot dogs. You have Jesus' five-star righteousness. You have his glorious life. So the gospel is the good news of the glory of Christ, his glorious person, his glorious life, and his glorious death.

Because even though he obeyed God's law perfectly, he died. And that's not the chain of events that normally happen.

See, we all sin and so therefore we all die. But Jesus who knew no sin died for sinners. So Jesus was tried by men and he was found to be the worst of sinners.

They call them a blasphemer. And he was crucified with criminals. And Peter, as he's preaching to the people of Pentecost, he said, that's God's doing.

This was God's plan. This was God's devising. Jesus was dying in the place of sinners. sinners. So Jesus died instead of the disciples.

Jesus died instead of Barabbas who was let go. Jesus died instead of you, believer. So what happens when the God man dies?

When the glorious person of the God man dies? Well, sin is atoned for. It's taken care of. The anger of God is turned away. All the wrath fell upon him.

And so now the wrath of God is satisfied. That's what the gospel is about. It's not about me. It's not about you pacifying the wrath of God.

It's about Jesus pacifying the wrath of God by Jesus taking care of it. And see, it's not about me trying to appease God by being a nice guy and being a nice husband and being a nice pastor or being a nice person by being a good person and somehow I can make it up to him.

It's about what Jesus has done. It's his glorious death for sinners. And so we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all.

So his death opened the way to God. Now God's righteous anger, rightful anger has been turned away. And so the way to God is opened.

This week in family time, family worship, we read about Jacob's dream. You remember Jacob had to run away from his family and the first night he falls asleep out in the wilderness with a stone for a pillow and Jacob had a dream of a stairway.

It started on earth and it went all the way up to the throne of heaven. And on that stairway angels were coming up and down. Well, what was that dream about? Very strange dream.

And it takes the New Testament to really come to figure out everything of what's going on. And Jesus says in John 1, that's me. That stairway is me.

You're going to see angels coming up and down on me because I'm the one who opens heaven to sinful men.

God was showing Jacob that there is a stairway from right where you are to the throne of God. And Jesus says that's me. And so how can sinful deceitful man like Jacob, like me, like you, come from earth to heaven?

Well, it's through Jesus. Not just his life, but his death. He opens the door by dying. Because his death paid for my sin.

It paid for all of my sin. My sin, not in part, but the whole, is nailed to his cross, and I bear it no more.

So he paid the debt in full, and so there's nothing left to do. And that's why our suffering doesn't make us right with God, because there's no room for our suffering, because Jesus' suffering is so glorious and so perfect.

That's the message of the gospel. It's about the glorious death of Jesus. How magnificent and how perfect and how complete and how just utterly glorious it is.

And it's about his glorious resurrection. Do we preach a dead Savior? Do we preach a dead Savior? For what I received, I pass on to you as of first importance, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried.

That means he was dead. Dead, dead. And that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures. And so the gospel, this message, is about the glorious resurrection of Jesus.

And so I know I'm accepted. And believer, you can know that you are accepted because he lives. And I know that God is satisfied because Jesus lives. The one who died in my place, God raised him from the dead.

And so he lives. He lives. He's broken death's strong hand upon us, the curse upon us. And so we can say, where, oh, death is your victory?

Where, oh, death is your sting? See, that's the glory of Jesus Christ, that his resurrection is not just a one-time deal. It's the first of many.

It means that I'm going to be raised if I'm united to him. Listen to what one writer said. We can liken the resurrection of Christ to a breach in the North Sea, in a North Sea dike.

So in Europe, the North Sea, there's all sorts of dikes that keep the water back. And so we can liken the resurrection of Christ to a breach, a hole in the North Sea dike.

Just as once a hole has been made in the sea defenses, the sea comes rushing in. And so once a hole has been blown through the death's defenses, life comes flooding into the world's graveyard.

Jesus' resurrection wasn't like the resurrection of Lazarus. It wasn't like the resurrection of several other people who died, who died again. He was raised and he lives.

Death has been put down. And so five, six years ago, Katrina, we saw what happens when waters overwhelm a dike, when holes break through the wall.

The water doesn't leak in. The water rushes in. It overwhelms everything. And when Christ punched a hole and threw death, life and immortality came to light.

light. That's the glory of the gospel. That's the glory of Christ. There's more to come. I'll be there.

You'll be there, dear believer. Our love lost ones are who've gone ahead is what I mean. They, they'll be there because he has already defeated death.

And so we can say, thanks be to God. He gives us the victory through the Lord Jesus Christ. We have victory over death. That's how real and amazing and remarkable the gospel is.

But more than that, the gospel is about Christ's glorious ascension. Jesus came back for 40 days. He showed himself to the disciples and then he ascended to the right hand of God.

So he not only lives, he reigns. You have a king, believer, a king over the kingdom of God, who that kingdom is going to crush the kingdoms of this world.

And in the end, they're going to say the kingdoms of this earth have become the kingdom of our Lord. Jesus reigns. So one of us is there.

It's all connected. He's the Emmanuel. He's the God man. So there is a man, a real life man who knows you, who understands you, who's on the throne. That's good news. That's glorious good news.

But more than that, he lives as a priest. We sang of that. Now a priest is not someone who dresses up funny and does some weird religious things.

I mean, in a lot of religions, that's what it is. But that's not what a biblical priest is. A priest is someone who represents man before God. A priest is a go-between, an advocate, an intercessor.

And that's what Jesus is alive for. He lives for this. Because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood.

Therefore, he is able to save completely those who come to God through him because he always lives to intercede for them. Jesus lives to intercede for them.

It's his joy, it's his delight, it's his life, and he's alive for that very purpose. God gave him this priesthood because God wants sinners to come through him and be made right with him.

And so, brothers and sisters, that is the glory of the gospel that our Savior is alive. He's alive, and he is well, and he's reigning, and he's praying for you.

So not one night passes without him there for you. I understand there was some lost sleep this week. Jesus was awake, and he was praying.

Not one day goes by without him praying for you. All of our prayers come through him, and Jesus picks out the dead, bad, selfish parts, and he says, Father, that's what they prayed, but let me give them something better.

And when we pray for something good, he says, this is good, Father. Let's do this for them. He prays for us. He intercedes for us. And when we sin, we don't have to come before him all by ourselves.

We have an advocate before the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous, and his atoning death makes us right with God. So from first to last, Jesus is enough.

Jesus is enough. That's why the gospel is the good news about the glory of Christ. It's not about my comings and goings, my doings and my actions. It's about his work.

It's about his glory. It's about his glory. It's the God-man. It's about his glory, glorious life and death and resurrection and ascension forever. It's the gospel of the glory of Christ.

That is what we proclaim. Now, I want to end with a question. What do you do with good news? What do you do with good news?

good news? Well, you believe it or you don't believe it. You can believe it or you don't believe it. The gospel is something to believe.

What does it mean to believe Jesus? What does saving faith look like? What does saving faith look like? Well, imagine that you needed brain surgery.

you had a tumor. And the doctor comes to you and says, I have to operate or you're going to die.

I'm going to have to cut into your head or you will die. But the good news is I can save you. The good news is I can save you, but I have to operate.

I have to take out the tumor. It's going to hurt for a while, but you'll live. So what do you have to do to be healed? You have to trust the doctor, don't you?

You have to put yourself into his hands. It's not that you don't, you just don't have to believe that there's something wrong with you. You need to believe that.

You not only have to believe that he could fix you, you have to believe that too, but it's more than that. You have to put yourself into his hands. You have to entrust yourself into his care.

You have to let him put you to sleep, cut open your head, take out the tumor while you're lying there helpless, unconscious, unable to do anything, defenseless.

You have to trust him that he knows that he can take care of you. You have to put yourself into his hands and let him do his work. that's the kind of faith that the gospel calls you to.

I've told you about the good physician. I've told you about the glorious Savior. He's everything you need. So, don't go to your own home remedies, your own fix-it-up projects.

Don't deny that there's a problem. Entrust yourself to Jesus. He's done everything to save sinners. Everything that needs to be done.

And so you quit trying to save yourself. You quit living in your sin and you give yourself to Jesus. You trust him. What do you do with good news?

You believe it. Now, what do you do with good news? Believers, you preach it. Look at the next verse. Verse 5. For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ is Lord.

some Christians are afraid to evangelize because they think that the only way that their evangelism will work is if they are perfect. And so much of the time we say, but they know I'm a sinner.

They know I've messed up a lot. Why would they listen to me? Now, there is a place for having a reputable life that can mend the gospel.

but the gospel is not, first and foremost, about your perfect life. We do not proclaim ourselves. We preach Jesus Christ.

Evangelism isn't trying to convince them that you're a good person or that Grace Fellowship or the church in Arizona is a good church. You're not a salesman. You're a newspaper boy.

And a newspaper boy isn't responsible for how the people receive the papers. The newspaper boy's job is to say, we've won. We've won.

Japan surrenders. You have the good news. Jesus has come. He has lived a perfect life that everyone needs.

He has died the death that we all deserve to die. He rose again and he reigns. He's torn a hole in this dark world and life and immortality is streaming through.

That is good news. It doesn't depend upon my righteousness or my glory. He is glorious.

Tell others about him. That's what you do. You preach Jesus. Now, what do you do with good news? This is the last thing. And again, it's a word to believers.

believers. You believe it for yourself. You believe it for yourself. And that means you don't lose heart. You don't lose heart.

Look at verse 16. Look at verse 16. life is death.

eyes on what is seen. Let me get this right. Not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. Life is hard.

Life is hard. It's very hard right now for some of you. You face death. death. Or one of your loved ones faces death.

And some of you are facing family difficulties or personal issues. We read this. Paul was being constantly persecuted.

And he wasn't above it all. It hurt. And yet he said we don't lose heart. We don't lose heart. Why?

Well, how can we? If we have such a good gospel, how can we? If Jesus is going to take me to himself, that he's going to raise me from the dead with him.

So my sins are forgiven. God's wrath is satisfied. My Savior reigns. He lives for me. He loves me. He loves me.

With an everlasting love. And so we don't lose heart. We can't lose heart. Jesus is alive. God has done something amazing for us. And so we fix our eyes not on what is seeing, these wasting away bodies.

All of us are going through that, just wasting away the curse of sin. But we believe the good news for ourselves so we don't lose heart.

So brothers and sisters, dear friends, turn your eyes on Jesus this week. Set your eyes there. There's good news. There's hope. There's comfort.

There's life. There's peace. Fix your eyes on Jesus. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this wonderful gift of Jesus Christ, your Son, who meets every single one of our needs, who is glorious for us.

Thank you for opening our eyes to see the light of his glory. And I pray that you would open up sinners' eyes this morning to see the light of the glory of Christ in the gospel.

Those are doors that men cannot open. Those are curtains that we cannot draw back. Holy Spirit, come. Come into the depressed person's heart, whose focus has been all on himself, herself, whose sins feel like they're climbing up to the sky.

I pray that you would show Jesus to them and show them the power of the cross, the perfection of Jesus' life, the glory of who Jesus is for sinners.

I pray for the person who is your child and yet is worn and beaten down. Oh, give them the fresh breezes of the gospel to blow through their hearts and encourage them.

We love you, Lord Jesus. We want to praise you. We want to live every day in the light of your glory. And we find ourselves so cold and so dead and so prone to wander.

Lord, we feel it. Pray that you would bind our hearts. May your grace bind our hearts to the Lord Jesus Christ, that we might live and love him.

live for him and love him. We pray these things for your honor, your glory. Answer them according to your will.

It's in Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Please stand and, well, take your grace hymns and stand, turn to number 15. Number 15, In Christ Alone, is a song that goes through the story of the gospel.

And we find here all of our hope for life and for eternity. Number 15.