"Taken Up in Glory" 1 Timothy 3:16 Sunday Morning Worship Service

1 Timothy 3 16, the church's oldest Christmas hymn, declares, Great indeed we confess is the mystery of godliness.

He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, and taken up in glory.

As a clown yearns to play Hamlet, so I want to write a book on the glory of God.

So begins J.I.

Packer's wonderful work on the glory of God, the knowledge of God.

He compares his own study to it to a clown that desires to play Hamlet.

And that's really where we all are, isn't it?

As we try to learn the attributes of God and study the glory of God, we are all just skimming the surface at this.

God's glory is who he is.

He is a fountain.

It comes from him and overflows from him.

We are only recipients of it.

We are like the person that drinks a little mouthful of ocean water and declares himself to be a marine biologist.

That's what it's like for us to study the glory of God.

We are just trying to keep up.

The Bible describes God's glory as revealed to us through creation.

Very creation proclaims the glory of God.

And though God's glory is evident in creation, it is personified in the person of Jesus Christ.

God's glory is given to humans as we're made lower than the angels, but we are crowned with glory and honor.

We are the capstone of creation, so to speak.

God's glory, which is evident in creation, is most evident in people.

He shared his glory with us, crowned us with his glory, the Bible says.

But his glory is fully embodied by Jesus Christ.

God's glory is seen in the book of Exodus as Israel flees.

It's seen even more clearly as Israel is guided through the wilderness, and even more clearly in its return to Israel as the promised land is, as the Jordan River is parted and they enter into the promised land.

But God's glory is most clearly seen in the person of Jesus Christ, more than the Exodus, when he enters into Israel again through the waters of baptism.

And the voice of God from heaven declares, This is my son, and the Holy Spirit settles on him.

That's a revelation of God's glory more extreme than anything in the Exodus.

Moses saw God's glory in the burning bush, in the fire on the mountain, in the fire that led the Israelites by night, and yet God's glory burns hotter and brighter in the Lord Jesus Christ than it did in any of those bushes or trees or columns or pillars.

In the Old Testament, God's glory is related to that of a cloud.

In the New Testament, it's a person.

In the Old Testament, there was a Sabbath rest to meditate on God's glory.

In the New Testament, Jesus Christ is the Sabbath rest because he is God's glory.

God's glory, here's the best way to contrast it.

God's glory was manifest to Moses.

God's glory is Jesus.

When John thinks of Jesus Christ, he said he's filled with grace and truth, and this is the revelation of God's glory to us.

That he is the glory of God.

The glory, John says he's full of grace and truth, but we've beheld his glory.

Glory of the only begotten.

Notice in verse 16, there's movement of God's glory here.

God's glory goes from heaven to earth, as the Son of God is manifested in the flesh.

God's glory dwells on earth in the person of Jesus Christ, vindicated by the Spirit.

God's glory is seen by angels as he moves to the grave and proclaims himself over the angels and the souls that have died in Sheol.

God's glory comes back to earth, as he's beheld by angels again at his resurrection.

God's glory scatters into the world as it's preached to the nations, believed on in the world.

And then this little hymn ends with God's glory ascending into heaven.

His glory came down, down even further, back up, and then finally it goes up, up and away.

Which will be our outline this morning.

Jesus came to earth, glory on display, and then up, up and away, which makes us sad.

Really, you feel lacking.

God's glory incarnate on earth for such a short period of time.

I mean, what did Jesus live?

33 years, people say.

I mean, the Bible doesn't say that exactly.

It could have been 40 years.

I don't know.

Anywhere between 33 and 40 seems reasonable to me.

That's so short.

Think of the scope of human history.

And yet Jesus dwelled among us for a handful of decades.

And then is gone.

And then is gone.

And so the hymn ends there where the gospel story really uh comes to its fruition here.

He was believed on in the world.

We looked at that last week, and then he's taken up in glory, taken away from us.

This occurs on the feast of the first fruits, which is the first day after the Sabbath after Passover.

That's described in Leviticus 23.

Passover is when Jesus was crucified, of course.

He was the ultimate Passover lamb, the sinless, spotless lamb who was taken to the cross, died a death for our sin.

Jesus, after he was crucified on the cross, buried the penalty for our sin, his body, of course, was placed in the grave.

His soul descended into Sheol where he went.

This is where he remains and proclaims victory until we see the first element of his taking up in glory is the resurrection.

After the cross, his body goes to the grave, his soul descends into Sheol.

He proclaims victory over the angels that are held there over the other souls that have died.

Victory by conquering sin, by paying his atonement on the cross for sin.

He bore our penalty for sin in his own body.

Victory over the devil because he thwarted the devil's plans.

And his soon resurrection.

And this is where verse 16 starts to take shape here.

He's taken up in glory from the grave, from Sheol, back to earth.

His soul comes from the grave to earth, returns to the grave itself, reclaims his physical body.

Remember when he was crucified, it's the body he was put in the grave.

His soul reclaims it.

The Holy Spirit reanimates the body of Jesus Christ.

He comes back to a physical life.

His body is glorified to the working of the Holy Spirit.

The stone is moved away by the angels, not necessarily to let Jesus out, but to let the women in, and I think to make fun of the Roman seal on it.

And Jesus now resurrected in his glory, leaves the grave, and walks on earth for 40 days.

This is the first fruits.

It would have been an incredibly busy Sunday because it was a feast day in Israel, the Sunday after the Passover, after the Sabbath had completed.

Remember, the Jews, their days start at sundown, you know, so the day ends at sundown, the next day begins at sundown.

That makes celebrating New Year's Eve so much easier in Jewish households.

You know, we have this arbitrary midnight, you know, you've got to stay up to midnight to see in the new year.

And uh yeah, parents' tip, you can set the clocks back an hour.

Front row, pay no attention to that.

If you're in a Jewish family, it's the new day starts at sundown.

So Jesus was crucified on that Friday on Passover.

He had to be in the grave by the start of the Sabbath.

Sundown on what we would call Friday night.

There would be the start of the Sabbath.

So that's the day two.

Day one, Friday, he's in the grave.

Day two, Sabbath, he's in the grave.

Sabbath ends on what we would call Saturday night.

Sabbath is over.

The start of Sunday, the first day of the week, begins what again, what we would call Saturday night.

He stays in the grave throughout that night.

This is the third day.

He stays in the grave for, I don't know, eight, ten hours of that third day and rises from the grave Sunday morning.

In the grave for three days, it is the feast of the first fruits.

Israel would be filled with activity.

It's the celebration of the barley harvest, which starts in the spring.

The very first ripe barley that's able to be harvested.

You bind it up and it's a sacrifice to the Lord.

It is a festive holiday, and that is the day.

It's celebration.

And Jesus rises on that day.

He comes out of the grave with his glorified body.

It was his actual body from before, but glorified.

This is the image of salvation.

It's the image of conversion.

This is why we baptize people.

They go under the water in their death.

They rise in newness of life.

Conversion is somebody is when somebody is dead spiritually comes alive spiritually.

Conversion is when somebody goes from darkness to light, blindness to sight, death to life.

They're spiritually dead and they're made spiritually alive.

And I dwell on this point because it is the Holy Spirit who made Jesus' body spiritually alive.

He came resurrected or physically alive.

He came resurrected by the Holy Spirit.

The same Spirit that formed him in Mary's womb so that he could be born.

Mary would was pregnant by the Holy Spirit.

That same Spirit reunites his soul with his physical body and transforms his body into a glorified body.

That's important for me to explain to you because that is how salvation works.

Salvation works in the exact same way.

The Holy Spirit takes you, a person who is spiritually dead, and causes you to become spiritually alive.

Peter says this in 1 Peter 1, verse 3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Peter 1:3

According to his great mercy, he caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

So you put your faith in Jesus Christ.

That's how you're saved through faith in the resurrection of Christ.

You look at the cross and you say he paid for my sin.

You look at the empty grave and you say God accepted that payment.

Now the grave is empty, my sin is paid for.

I put my faith in that, so you're saved through faith in the resurrection.

This is the work of the Holy Spirit.

It was the Holy Spirit who caused Jesus to resurrect from the grave, and it is the Holy Spirit to use Peter's language that causes us to be born again.

This is the work of God.

He does this.

He makes you come to life through faith in the resurrection and through the same spirit that caused the resurrection, to cause you to be born again.

I mean, talk about even the language of this.

Born again.

That's a new birth.

That's death to life.

It's called born again.

It's not called starting over.

You know, it's not called go back to go.

Don't collect$200.

There's no restarts in this.

It's not a do-over, not a mull again.

No, it's death to life.

Death to life.

Through the resurrection of Christ.

This doesn't stop with the connection to the resurrection doesn't stop with your own conversion, with the regeneration.

It goes on into sanctification.

You live your life to become more like Christ.

Paul says this in Philippians 3, verse 10, that I want to know him and the power of his resurrection.

Philippians 3:10

Now, pause real quick.

Paul is writing this as an apostle.

He's in jail, being persecuted for being a Christian.

He is an apostle to the Gentiles.

He's arguably the most mature Christian in the world when he's writing this.

And he says, I want to know the power of the resurrection.

He's not saying he wants to get saved again.

He's not writing like, oh, I need to know the resurrection to get saved.

He's saying, no, my whole life, my whole energy as a mature Christian, as an apostle to the Gentiles, as a church planter extraordinaire, my whole energy and life in existence is to know the resurrection of Christ.

That's what's going to energize me, he says.

Gonna make him do ministry.

He goes on to say, I want to share in his sufferings.

So that by any means possible I can obtain the resurrection from dead.

He even says in the middle there, I want to become like him in his death.

I mean, that's that's craziness.

He says, I want to know the resurrection so I can suffer for Jesus and die just like he died.

And he's gonna get his wish.

Paul's gonna be martyred, he's gonna be put to death for his faith.

He's going to die like Jesus died.

I mean, this is how the resurrection energizes Christian living and Christian life.

You realize that Jesus died, and what happened to him?

He rose again.

That has such a clarifying effect on your life and your priorities, doesn't it?

You know, the worst case outcome of any situation you're ever in is you get to resurrect from the dead.

That's the worst case outcome.

Resurrection.

That has a way of just clarifying your life and your struggles.

That's where Paul goes.

He's in jail for being a believer.

He doesn't say, hey, pray that I get out.

He says, pray that I know the resurrection, because that's what's going to fuel him.

He's, you know, people are, it's natural to be afraid of death.

Hebrews 2 says we're held in slavery to the fear of death.

Knowing the resurrection of Christ frees you from that slavery.

You're enslaved to the fear of death, and then you hear about the empty grave, you hear that Jesus conquered death, and you say, I don't have to be a slave to the fear of death anymore.

That's gonna make you be bold for Christ.

That's gonna make you recalibrate and recalculate all things in life.

I mean, the grave is empty.

That one fact should change everything.

And that's what Paul says.

I just want to know the resurrection of Christ so that I can suffer like Jesus suffers, so I can die like he died, so I can obtain the resurrection from the dead.

That's where Paul knows where the bus is going.

Okay, he got on, he knows where the next stop is.

He's going to glory.

And the power that raised Christ from the dead is the same power.

I mean, just receive this.

It's the same power that is in you.

If you have faith in Christ, the Holy Spirit who caused Jesus to resurrect from the dead dwells in you.

And that means in this life we make sacrifices.

In this life we don't live like non-Christians, we don't prioritize the things non-Christians prioritize.

We're not consumed by the same things they're consumed with, because we're consumed with one goal to become more like Jesus Christ.

That's what we're at.

That's the race we're running.

We're not wrapped up in 10,000 other things.

We're wrapped up in one thing, to know Christ and the power of his resurrection.

You know, Jesus is not the only one in the Bible who's resurrected.

Did you know that?

Remember the grave robbers in the Old Testament and they rob in a grave and they see the army coming and they ditch the body and it lands on Elijah's bones and the dude resurrects?

Wow.

Or Lazarus, he resurrected.

The little girl who was sick, she died, Jesus rose her from the grave.

Jesus interrupted her funeral and raised the dude from the dead.

There's been other resurrections in the Bible.

What's different about Jesus' resurrection?

Well, first, Jesus got a glorified body.

When he resurrected, it was his old body, but in glorified form.

All those other people resurrected in their old bodies.

Even Lazarus, who had started to decay, came back, and I'm sure his body was reanimated and re-energized, and the decay healed itself, but he didn't get a glorified body.

But Jesus comes out glorified.

I mean, the guy can walk through walls in his resurrection.

He has the kind of body that can move through walls but also eats fish.

I don't understand how all that works out.

I don't get it.

But it happened to him.

That's one way Jesus is different than Lazarus, for example.

But here's the bigger way is that all those other people died again.

You can't go see Lazarus today.

He's not still here.

And the guy would be making a killing, by the way.

He would probably have like a museum or like 20 minutes with Lazarus, ask him anything.

You pay big bucks for that.

What was it like?

And he tells you the same story for the millionth time in his life.

There's no Lazarus anymore.

He's in heaven.

He died and went to heaven.

Jesus resurrected from the grave and did not die.

He was raised in glory.

And that again changes everything.

That links mortal flesh with immortality.

That links our temporal nature with God's eternal nature.

We want to be made like Jesus, we want to suffer like Jesus, we want to live like Jesus.

We have the spirit of Jesus and the hope of the resurrection like Jesus had.

That makes us pursue a sanctified life.

And listen, our goal is to be more like Christ and to be sanctified, but do we always succeed?

No.

Do we fail in sin?

Yes.

But the resurrection is proof positive that God's not going to give up on us.

If you've ever done like a home renovation project, you know, like the final cost is always twice what they say originally, right?

So the contractor's like, oh, it'll be$10,000.

And your mind you're like,$20,000.

I got it.

It's like, no, I said$10.

Well, I heard$20.

You know, and the first bill comes and you say, you know, you said that would only be a thousand bucks.

Here's the bill for 2,000.

It's like, yeah, it's, you know, inflation.

And every project is like that.

Have you thought, like, what is your what if your sin is like that?

God sent Jesus, who died for your sin.

He paid the penalty for your sin.

He wants to redeem you.

He gives you faith.

He sends you his spirit.

But then you keep sinning.

And you think one day God's going to get the bill and be like, hey, no, I chose to save him and pay for his sin at that level.

And then he shows up with this much sin.

I'm cutting my losses.

I'm out.

The resurrection is your evidence that God paid for all of your sin, no matter what the final bill comes out to be.

All of it.

The grave is empty.

Jesus is not still in the grave paying for sin.

He rose back to earth and he resurrected, and that is proof positive that God received his sacrifice.

So the first way we go up, up in a way is with the resurrection.

The second way Jesus' glory goes up, up in a way is with the ascension.

With the ascension.

So Jesus is resurrected on the feast of the first fruits.

50 days after that feast is Pentecost, which just means 50, and that's the feast of the first fruits of the whole harvest, not just the barley harvest, but the first fruits of the whole harvest, all the initial fruit that starts to ripen early summer then.

But 10 days before that, 40 days after the resurrection, 10 days before Pentecost, Jesus is taken from this world and goes up to heaven.

He spent those 40 days walking on earth.

He was seen by 500 people.

He didn't walk the streets of Jerusalem so that everybody could see him.

But he was seen by a lot of people.

And there was something, again, mysterious about his resurrected body where he could walk with people who knew him in this life but didn't recognize him.

But then he had, there's continuity in his body too, because people recognize him when he broke the bread.

They're like, oh, that's Jesus.

Like their eyes were opened, or they heard him pray and they recognized that's Jesus.

So people knew him, recognized the way he broke bread, they recognized the way he prayed.

But just walking with him, they didn't necessarily recognize him.

Forty days that happened.

And at the end of 40 days, he was taken up into heaven.

Now, this is the what's often called the wave offering in Judaism.

Between the feast of the first fruits, the barley and the Pentecost, the massive first fruit celebration where the first fruits are given to the priests for worship, there's the wave offering.

That's where you bundle the very first ripened fruit, the very first fruit that you're ready to pick early, early summer.

You bundle it together and then you wave it towards heaven to demonstrate that you're relying on the Lord.

This is all the Lord's mercy.

You're surrendering all this to him.

It's at that period where Jesus is ascended to heaven.

He's taken from this world in bodily form.

He's not the first ascension, of course.

Enoch lived and then lived no more, was taken up to glory.

Elijah was taken up in a chariot, but those two guys hadn't died.

They were transformed somehow in their glorification.

We know Elijah was.

He's seen at the Mount of Transfiguration with Jesus, but they hadn't died.

Jesus' ascension is a glorified person.

He died, glorified in his resurrection, and then ascends up into heaven.

And it's just a massive point in the scripture.

This had never happened before.

This is the answer to the question Psalm 24 raises.

We've been reading Psalm 24 together as a church for the last, I don't know, months, all through Advent.

Psalm 24 asks the question: Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord?

Who shall ascend the hill of Yahweh?

Who will stand in Yahweh's holy place?

Who gets to walk up Yahweh's hill?

Now, in Psalm 24, there's a sense in that just who's going to journey to Jerusalem, who's able to get back to Jerusalem and go to the temple.

There's a sense in who can go into the holy part of the temple.

That's only the high priest, and he only gets to go in once a year.

But the main thing Psalm 24 is talking about after all that, forget the earth, forget Jerusalem, forget the temple.

Who gets to walk up God's mountain and sit in God's court?

This is the consummate question.

You know, when you die, what's going to happen to you?

Do you think you can walk into heaven and take a seat?

Who gets to do that?

That is the question.

Who gets to go to heaven and sit down?

Psalm 24.

Who can ascend the holy place of Yahweh?

Well, Acts 1 9, verse answer, Acts 1, verse 9 answers that question.

Acts 1:9

When he had said these things, when Jesus had taught that these things here, as Jesus taught for 40 days in the kingdom of God.

After teaching about God's kingdom for 40 days, as they were looking at him, he was lifted up.

This is the wave offering.

He was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.

Again, notice the passive action here.

Jesus is being acted on.

He didn't fly, he was lifted up.

And then a cloud took him.

That's all we get.

Angels are watching.

Cloud did the taken.

We don't get more info on that.

Where did he go?

Is he just in the stratosphere somewhere?

We know where he went.

That's answered in Hebrews 1, verse 3.

Hebrews 1:3

After making purification for sins, speaking of the cross, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in high.

So descent, resurrection, ascension to heaven, and he sits down at the right hand of God in heaven.

He's become much superior to the angels, as the name he has inherited is much more excellent than theirs.

I mean, he inherited a better name.

Inherited means somebody died, right?

That's what the word inherited means.

Jesus is the one who died here and he inherits his own name.

I mean, that's that's power right there.

You die and you inherit your own power.

Because he conquered death, you inherit things from your parents or grandparents when they die because they don't resurrect in this world.

So their stuff stays.

Jesus, when he dies, he resurrects and he has his glory and his riches with him.

So he inherits his own stuff.

Angels don't get an angel doesn't get to sit down at the right hand of God.

Angels get to go in the throne room, but they don't get to sit down.

Sitting down at the right hand of God, by the way, has this when you're sitting at the right hand of the king, you are speaking for the king.

You have the will of the king, you have the power of the king, you act as the king.

The person who sits at the king's right hand is acting as the king in conjunction with the king.

An angel does not act as God.

An angel doesn't get to sit down at God's right hand.

But the Lord Jesus Christ does because he is the Son of God.

This is a Trinitarian kind of concept.

Jesus ascends into heaven and continues acting as God.

It wasn't it something he pulled off on earth.

Remember, Jews wanted to put him to death because they say, you keep making yourself out to be equal to God, as if it was a stunt he was pulling on earth.

It's not a stunt he pulled on earth.

He goes earth to heaven and he sits down and acts like God in heaven.

This lets you know that he lost none of his deity.

None, even though his deity may have been veiled in his incarnation, you couldn't see it clearly because he had a human form, a human body, and a human soul.

It's all still there.

And it lets you know that his deity remains with his humanity even in heaven.

He sits down at the right hand of God in heaven.

He is the God man.

He is truly God and truly man even in heaven.

I've heard people surmise that Jesus kind of left his deity in heaven to act as man here.

And then after the ascension, he returns to acting as God.

Because they say you can't have both God and man acting in one person the same way at the same time.

So he checks God at the door like a coat, acts in his humanity, then can return and get the coat back later.

Okay, that's if that were true, then he couldn't sit down at the right hand of God as the God man because he still has his human nature.

Divinity and humanity coincide in the person of Jesus Christ.

Philippians 2, verse 9 refers to this as God highly exalting him.

Philippians 2:9

You can say that again.

Sitting down at the right hand of God.

This shows Christ's ascension shows that his mission was accomplished, that God entirely accepted his work on the cross and his resurrection.

So what's he doing?

We know where he went.

He went away in the cloud.

Where'd he go?

Heaven, sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

What's he doing while he's sitting there?

That's Romans 8, verse 34.

Romans 8:34

Who is to condemn?

Christ Jesus is the one who died, and more than that, he was raised.

He's at the right hand of God, speaking of the ascension, and he who indeed is interceding for us.

So he is praying for us right now in heaven.

This should be just so encouraging to you.

Here is a union between heaven and earth.

Here is a union between God and man.

Here is a union between eternality and the temporal, finite human nature.

Jesus is the God man forever and ever, and he's praying for you in heaven to his heavenly father right now.

We know that it's the eternal world that matters, right?

We get that.

To borrow a phrase from C.S.

Lewis, we know that until we have faces, we don't have faces.

Until we get to heaven, this is not the real world.

But we also know that because of the ascension, this world does matter.

The real you you don't get to experience until heaven.

But the real you is also here.

You are the real you.

You get better in heaven.

But you're the real you here.

It's hard to know what our glorified body will be like.

You know, the example Paul uses is an acorn to an oak tree.

You can put an acorn under a microscope all you want, study the socks off that thing, you know?

But you're not gonna deduce the oak tree.

You're not gonna look at the acorn long enough and figure out it's an oak tree.

That's what we're like here.

We're we're small here.

We're gonna be big, but it's the same thing.

The oak tree really is the acorn.

And Jesus' presence in heaven lets you know that the acorn you is significant.

That he's praying for you now.

I mean, there is this temptation in our minds to think God is sovereign over billions of people and the whole planet, and there's lots of plates spinning, there's a lot going on.

So God wouldn't care about little old me or even something in my life that is big and complicated that's going on right now.

We think, yeah, it's big for me, but in the scheme of all of the world, I feel almost meddlesome to bring that to God.

It's too small for God to be concerned about, it's too small for God to care about.

It's just, it's big to me, but it's gotta be.

I feel bad bothering God with that.

And the ascension lets you know that Jesus is at the right hand of God right now, praying for your the little things in your life.

They matter to God.

They matter to the Lord because the Lord knows He was on earth, He is a human like we are.

So He knows our sorrows, He knows our weaknesses, He knows our problems, He knows what it's like to run out of wine at a wedding.

He knows what it's like to not have enough food.

He knows what it's like to not know where you're gonna go to sleep at night.

He knows what it's like to have a friend die.

He knows what it's like to have strife in the family, he knows all of those things.

And he's praying for you in heaven right now.

God is light, and Jesus has flesh, and they're united in heaven.

He knows your weakness and he brings it before the Father.

So his glory goes up, up and away.

He's taken up in glory in the resurrection, taken up in glory in the ascension, and finally, taken up in glory in the congregation.

Now, what I mean by congregation here is there's a very real sense in which God's glory remains living and active and present in the church.

When Christ ascended into heaven, he left behind the kernel of the church, he left behind the seed for the church.

When he ascended into heaven, 40 days he spent walking on the earth, 40 days he spends, then he ascends into heaven.

When he leaves at day 40, there's 120 believers in Jerusalem.

120 people who are his disciples, they're following him, they're knit together with the 12 apostles, they're all there.

They stay there for 10 days.

On day 50, which is the feast of Pentecost, the celebration of the new harvest, the new life, the new fruit, and all that.

On day 50, the Holy Spirit comes.

Those 10 days, by the way, were days of confusion.

You read Acts chapter 1, they did not know what was going on in those days.

Acts 1 · chapter mention

They're drawing lots, okay?

That's what's happening in those 10 days.

But the Holy Spirit comes on day 50, and the church begins.

The Holy Spirit energizes the faith of these, this meager bunch of people, energizes Peter's preaching, saves thousands of people, and the church is launched and scattered.

It still took a few years for them to work out the details, like elders and deacons and how to care for the poor.

That's what the story of the book of Acts is about, how they figured all that out.

But the church begins on Pentecost, that 50th day, and the gospel goes global.

That's the working of the Holy Spirit.

Would it have been better for Jesus to stay on earth than to ascend?

I have a friend in pastors in California who often asks the question Do you think it would be better for pastors, would they have a better sermon if they had Jesus hanging out in their study with them?

And it's a silly question, but it raises all sorts of profound implications.

Would this sermon that you're hearing right now be better if I got to hang out with Jesus last night?

Like, what if I got to ask him questions about this text?

If I got to say, Lord Jesus, I'm looking at 1 Timothy 3, verse 16.

1 Timothy 3:16

Taken up in glory.

Does that include the resurrection or is it just talking about the ascension here?

I mean, you know the answer help.

Like, would that make this a better sermon if I had Jesus I could ask the questions to?

There's a sense in which you want to say yes, of course.

There's that sense, but Jesus in his physical body is finite, you know?

He's if he's in my friend Paul's sermon in Los Angeles, or my friend Paul's office in Los Angeles, he can't be in my office, too.

He can't be in the pastor, the office of every pastor.

So do we all text him questions?

Or how exactly would this work?

And you have to get to the point where you realize, like, it's actually wouldn't be better to have Jesus here.

It just wouldn't.

It's actually better that he went away.

And he said this it's better for you that I go away.

Why?

Because he will send the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit, the same Spirit that raised him from the grave, that Spirit will come and dwell in our hearts.

And when the Spirit comes, he seals us, he sanctifies us, and he gives us gifts so that we can serve each other.

Picture it this way God's glory in the Old Testament filled the tabernacle.

Then it filled the temple.

Then God's glory came in the person of Jesus Christ, who was taken up in glory, and now God's glory dwells in the hearts of every believer.

This is what was prophesied in the Old Testament.

Psalm 68, verse 18.

Psalms 68:18

You ascended on high, speaking about the Messiah.

You ascended on high.

He came to earth, then he ascends, he resurrects, and he ascends back to heaven, leading a host of captives in your train.

Speaking of all the people who died in the Old Testament, who died in faith, Jesus rescues them from Sheol, rescues them from the grave, he leads them up to heaven.

And on his way to heaven, he gives gifts to men, it says.

Speaking of men on earth, even among the rebellious, so that Yahweh God may dwell there.

So Jesus goes from Sheol up to heaven.

As he passes earth, he distributes gifts.

He then goes to heaven with the captives.

He leaves gifts with rebellious people, meaning still sinners, on earth, so that God can dwell with those people through his gifts.

Very mysterious prophecy in the Old Testament.

How does God dwell with people?

If I give you a Christmas gift and I say, This is so I can, so part of me can be in your house forever.

That's very weird.

Like, is it a camera?

Like, what is it?

I would get that thing checked.

But that's what Psalm 68 says, that Jesus goes to heaven and he leaves gifts here so that Yahweh can dwell with us through his gifts.

Now the New Testament, Ephesians 4, answers that by saying it's the Holy Spirit who gives the gifts to people as we build the church.

So every believer has spiritual gifts.

Those gifts are not what you do on your own time for your own pleasure.

That's not a spiritual gift.

A spiritual gift is something that's used in the congregation to edify the church.

Edify just means to build up.

So your spiritual gifts is what God gave you so that you can make this church better.

That's your spiritual gift.

And Jesus is saying it's better for you to have those kind of spiritual gifts than it is for him to be here.

His glory dwells here.

Psalm 47, verse 5.

Psalms 47:5

God has gone up with a shout.

Yahweh, with the sound of a trumpet, sing praises to your king, sing praises.

God has gone up, another ascension verse, to heaven with a shout and with a trumpet.

We respond by singing praises.

How do we sing praises to a God who's in heaven through the ministry of the Holy Spirit who is here with us on earth?

When I read 1 Timothy 3, the end, verse 16, taken up in glory, the first thing that jumps out to me is the connection of this to the third commandment.

The third commandment, if you remember, is don't take the Lord's name in vain, don't take Yahweh's name in vain.

That word for take Yahweh's name there, it's in the Greek the translation, it's lembino, it's to lift up, like you would a flag.

The third commandment is, you know, don't use God's name as a curse word, of course, but the third commandment is less about that and more about somebody who waves the banner of God over their life and yet leads an empty life.

Somebody who waves the banner of Yahweh says, For me, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord, but then doesn't.

That's the third commandment.

You know, you put a Jesus fish in your car and drive like the devil.

That's the third commandment.

Don't take Yahweh's name in vain.

It's the same Greek phrase, really.

It's here at verse 16.

That Yahweh's name is taken up in glory.

That Jesus is lifted up.

The church, it falls to the church to lift up the name of God.

And we don't want to do it in vain.

We lift up the banner of Yahweh.

We lift up the person of Jesus Christ through how we worship, how we live, and in the context, how we use our spiritual gifts to strengthen each other.

So this little song at the end of 1 Timothy 3 here stands out, jumps out at you because 1 Timothy 3 is a very well-known passage.

Seminary students memorize it, but you lose this sight, you lose this little song at the end.

I can't tell you how many times people have come to me in this series and said, I didn't know that this verse was there.

I didn't know this verse was in the Bible.

I see some of you shaking your heads.

You can be an expert in 1 Timothy 3 and not know this verse is here, because 1 Timothy 3 is about elders and deacons.

And then you get this hymn at the end.

What is this hymn doing here?

Well, verse 15 is your hint.

Apostles, I'm writing this, writing 1 Timothy 3 about elders and about deacons.

I'm writing it to you so that you know how the church ought to behave because the church is the pillar and the buttress of the truth.

How you're supposed to live, how the church is supposed to work while Jesus isn't here.

That's why this hymn makes so much sense here.

Because the hymn ends with the church doing just that.

Lifting up the name of Yahweh in glory.

God, we're grateful that you have left the church on earth.

You went away.

There's part of us that wants to see you face to face.

But we know we don't get it.

Yet the day is coming, of course, where we will see you face to face, and our faith will go away and we'll become sight.

Our hope will be realized, our prayers will turn to praise.

But in the meantime, you've left us on earth with your spirit.

You've left us with a calling to seek you, to serve others, and to share the gospel with boldness.

We pray that you would fill us with your spirit to help us do just that in this new year.

God, we pray that um I pray that if there's anyone here this morning that has never given their life to you, they've never come to terms with the fact that they're spiritually dead, that they're a sinner, and they need your grace.

I pray today they would set their eyes on the cross and they would believe the gospel message.

We know your spirit brings that belief, but it does so through conviction of sin and through opening eyes to the truth.

So I pray that you would save people today that are here in this church.

They would turn their eyes to the cross and that they would believe today.

We ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

And now for a parting word for Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thanks for joining us.

If you're in the Washington, D.C.

area, I would love to see you at Emmanuel Bible Church.

For more information on our church or our current service times, go to IBC.church.

For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to tms.edu.

I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel with boldness.