[0:00] Mark chapter 8. Some of you say, well, Pastor, you were there last week. And you were right.! We finished up Mark chapter 8 last week, and we are positioned to begin Mark chapter 9.
[0:13] It's going to make our way through the gospel according to Mark. Each week, when I come into the office, I begin to kind of reset.
[0:25] Sundays are very long days traditionally for me. This one will be unique. My mind is usually gone by Sunday night. So does my mind, and that's okay.
[0:36] So Monday morning, I try to reset and go back and look again where I have been. Resetting for Wednesday night, I'm resetting for the coming Sunday.
[0:47] The old preacher adage is, Sunday's always coming. So you have to always be ready in season after season. And that resetting process is to reread the passage that I've just preached.
[0:59] It is to go back so that I do not do the very thing that I encourage you not to do, and that is to take the text out of context. So I always want to reposition my new text within the context of my new preacher.
[1:12] And so I go back, and I will read again the passage I've just preached, and then always move forward into the next passage knowing that they are connected together.
[1:23] This past week, as I began to do that, I went back and I read the latter verses of the 8th chapter. But the Lord caused me to tarry and did not allow me to move beyond Mark 8, 38.
[1:36] So I never got to do that. So we will be in Mark 8, verse 38, this morning. And I will not get beyond that, but we had fall festival on Wednesdays, so there were no Wednesday night Bible studies.
[1:52] And we're having fellowship meal tonight, so there are no Sunday night Bible studies. So this is a good way for me to tell you, I have been thinking and praying and considering one verse all week.
[2:04] And it has been a joy. And hopefully we'll be able to unpack that verse, for it is a very powerful verse and has application to each and every one of us. When I shared that reality with my wife, she said, you might want to warn the congregation that you've been thinking about a single verse for the entire week so that maybe they can get comfortable.
[2:24] But hopefully we will not be any longer than the Lord wants us to be. Four or five hours should do it. Hopefully that won't be that long. But if it is, it is.
[2:35] No, I'm just joking. So anyway, so if you're physically able and desire to do so, would you join with me as we stand together and we look in Mark 8, verse 38. So that we can keep it in its context, I'll remind you that immediately preceding this, Jesus is asked the question, who do people say that I am?
[2:55] He gave their responses. And then he looked at his disciples and said, but who do you say that I am? And we have what we call Peter's great confession of Christ. Following that great confession, Jesus begins to speak immediately of his impending death, of his betrayal and crucifixion.
[3:11] Peter opposes him and he calls him, he commends Peter for the revelation received from heaven. And then he admonishes Peter and says, get behind me, Satan, for you're not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of the devil.
[3:24] And then Jesus issues what we have called the most repeated refrain in New Testament. The most repeated phrase of Christ is that whoever desires to be my disciple must take up his own cross, pick it up and follow after me.
[3:41] For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's sake will save it. And then here in the verse 38 as we get to this last refrain, he says, for whoever is ashamed of me and my words and this adultery and sinful generation, the son of man will also be ashamed of him when he comes in the glory of his father with the holy angels.
[4:12] Father, we thank you so much for this day. What a gift of time. What a glorious opportunity to be encouraged as we fellowship with brothers and sisters in Christ.
[4:24] And as we come to the word of God, we pray that by your spirit we would gain understanding, that it would be opened up unto us. Lord Jesus, that you would speak your word in our hearts.
[4:38] And as you do so, that you would do a work in us which you see fit, that God may be glorified and honored above and beyond all things of this world.
[4:50] And we ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. Jesus declares to the crowds that if anyone wishes to come after me, in verse 14, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
[5:12] And he speaks of suffering and really the shame has to be carried by the follower of Jesus Christ. Some five times in the Gospels, this refrain is repeated as the words of Christ.
[5:28] It is the most repeated phrase of Christ that we find in all of Scripture. That Jesus says that if anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself, pick up his cross and follow after me.
[5:42] It is positioning oneself into a place of absolute surrender, of counting one's life as loss, but the life of Christ and the sake of the gospel as loss.
[5:55] Peter writes, or Mark writes after the preaching of Peter. He has followed Peter around as he preached, historians tell us, until Peter is crucified upside down as a martyr for the faith.
[6:12] And then Mark, also known as John Mark, writes the gospel of Mark to get the word out quickly. And it is written to the Gentiles and to the Greeks. It's not written to people of Jewish mindset.
[6:25] It's not written to people of scholarly intellect. It is written to the average man, that they may understand the gospel. And he resonates the call as well as the Spirit of the Lord moves the man of God to write the word of God, that it is the call of Christ to deny one's life.
[6:44] Immediately that is followed up in the verse before us, for it says, For whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.
[7:04] I want you to see this morning what it looks like to live unashamed. I do not think it coincidental that Mark, the author of the gospel, was two different times a traveling companion of Paul.
[7:21] We know that he was with Paul on the first missionary journey, at least partway. It was Mark who was fearful and returned back home. That Paul later on said, We can't take him with us, though Barnabas wanted to take John Mark along.
[7:36] Paul says, I'm not going to do that. There was a sharp disagreement concerning the person of Mark between Paul and Barnabas, so much so that Paul took Silas and completed his missionary travels that we have recorded for him.
[7:51] Barnabas, the son of encouragement, took with him Mark. Mark later traveled with Peter. Later on in Paul's life, there was reconciliation for Paul while sitting in the dungeon cell, said, Would you send Mark to me for he's beneficial for the gospel?
[8:06] I do not think it coincidental that when Paul pens his magnum opus, his greatest work of the gospel, the book of Romans, in the 16th verse of the first chapter, Paul says, For I am unashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
[8:24] For he had heard that refrain, and maybe by this time, Mark had already written this gospel where it says, Whoever is ashamed of me, Paul makes his stand and says, I am unashamed.
[8:37] What does it look like to live unashamed, and what does it take to do so? I want you to see a number of things from this passage, things which have application in the time of Mark's writing, things that had application in the early church, things that have application in the church today, and things that will have application throughout all of our lives.
[8:59] Realities which we must accept, be adhered to, that must be understood so that we can be those who live unashamed for the sake of the gospel.
[9:12] The first thing I want you to notice is that there is an inclusive reality. There is an inclusive reality. Look at what the word of God says in this verse, and you don't have to get very far.
[9:24] What does it say? For whoever. Just stop right there. I almost overlooked this one, just to be honest, and if the Lord had not given me so many days to consider it, and if it had not given so many days for it to dwell within my mind, and some of you know my practice is to kind of work out an outline and to kind of have it there, and then once I kind of work out the skeleton of the outline, I leave it alone, and as Adrian Rogers used to say, I kind of put it in a crock pot and I let it slow simmer just a little bit and let the Lord kind of work on it over here while it slow cooks and then let him speak to you.
[9:58] It's just called dwelling. A.W. Tozer used to say, the man of God ought to meditate twice as long on the word of God as he studies the word of God. Think about that for just a moment. You meditate on it twice as long as you study it.
[10:10] Why? Because you may read it in a moment, but it takes a lifetime for it to read you, and you dwell upon it, and you think upon it, and it's upon that simmering process as we call it that really the truths of the word begin to take heart in our lives, and I remember I was driving.
[10:26] Actually, I did a bus route a couple of times this past week, and I was fulfilling my responsibilities to be a sub-bus driver. Some of you know I did that for 10 years, and now I sub-drive occasionally, and that's okay.
[10:38] I don't mind occasionally. I used to say when I was driving a bus, I could put up with anything for 45 minutes. Now I have found I can put up with anything for 45 minutes occasionally, so I do it occasionally, and anyway, I was driving along, and the bus was empty.
[10:54] I was going to get the kids, which is a good time to think, and the Lord just began to speak to my heart. He said, for whoever, because you know what the whoever is.
[11:04] Whoever means whoever. It is an inclusive reality. That within that one word, it includes all people of all times, of all ages, of all standing, of all positioning in society.
[11:25] It is something that none are exempt from, and none are more prone to. It is a reality that must be accepted that from what follows this phrase, simply because of their associate, their standing in society, or their affiliation with a political entity, or their extremity, that is, it doesn't matter the public opinion of us.
[11:56] It doesn't matter the status we have in you within the world in which we live. It doesn't matter the heritage stock that we came from. You say, oh, well, my grandparents, and my parents' parents, and all the way back then, they were faithful, and I'm riding on the coattails, if you will, coming along.
[12:15] I used to love this. I remember, and I'm kind of, get a little preach on you for just a little bit. You know, I read from the New American Standard. The NASB is a translation I preach from.
[12:25] Some of you know this, and I love all translations of scripture. I have a reasoning for why I used NASB. We'll get to that at some point. And I remember I had someone that was opposing me one time, and they were really kind of getting argumentative.
[12:40] Now, something you need to understand about your pastor. I'm not argumentative by nature, but I am a man of conviction, so if you come argue with me, I know my standing, so I will listen to you, and then I will defend my position.
[12:54] This individual in particular was kind of beating me up. I was a young preacher. I was preaching from the wrong translation, and he wanted me to preach from the historical translation.
[13:06] He wanted me to preach from the King James. I love the poetic language of the King James. I love the beauty of it. Don't think me any wrong, but he pushed me so hard, I finally said, listen, my friend.
[13:18] My family was in the courts of King James when he issued the decree for the translation. And you say, were they really? Yes, the Calverts bought the land of Maryland from King James himself.
[13:30] I have a historical, I can trace it back in my family tree. I said, and this Calvert says, we've come a long way. I don't have the riches of Maryland, and I preach from a different translation, so that's okay.
[13:43] I was standing on my heritage. But we can't do that with our faith. See, whoever means whoever. We can't say, well, I have this lineage of great people in the past.
[13:57] I have this lineage of faithfulness in my family. But whoever means the individual. Whoever includes each and every one of us personally. Because we know that on that day when we give an account, we will not stand with our ancestors.
[14:12] We know that on that day when we give an account, we will see him face to face. We will see him as individuals. And that in that day, when we are before him, he will not ask us what the world thought of us.
[14:28] He will not ask us, did everyone like us? He will not ask us, did people judge us? He will not ask us how well we did in business or finances. He will not ask us what party we voted for in the political realm.
[14:42] He will not ask us any of these matters which seem to be so important. He will say, where do you stand with me? Who do you say that I am?
[14:59] And in this phrase, we see that each and every one of us will stand before him someday and give an answer to that. If we read enough church history, we will find that there are those who thought they were exempt from certain realities simply because they held high offices within the church.
[15:22] Just because I happen to be a pastor in this world, for I will still have to answer the question, who do I say that Christ is? We see this inclusive reality that if whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved means whoever, then the whoever here should mean whoever as well.
[15:45] It has application to me. It has application to you. It has application to each and every individual that we will come into contact with. It is all inclusive. But not only do we see inclusive reality, keep reading, because we find, which is one of the most glorious things here, the inseparable truth.
[16:07] For whoever is ashamed, look at this inseparable truth, of me and my words. Of me and my words.
[16:20] In one phrase, Christ unites eternally both his person and his proclamation. Don't lose sight of that, my friend.
[16:32] In one phrase, for whoever is ashamed of me and my words, it is an inseparable truth which must be accepted by all who come into contact with it.
[16:45] He forever uses who he is as an individual and what he has declared as the word of God. For in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.
[16:58] Christ is the word of God. Nothing has came into being without him for through him and by him and for him all things were created. That is what it says, in the beginning God said and you don't say any things with words.
[17:11] So we find Christ all the way back in the book of Genesis in the first verse and here we find the reality that Jesus says you cannot separate who he is as an individual and what he has said as a great speaker, as the word of God.
[17:27] And so now we are confronted with this reality, this thing that historically tried to separate that Jesus is a great individual, he's a great teacher, he's a great example to follow and the whole time they deny his identity, the fact that he clearly is God in the flesh.
[17:45] For I know it's kind of hard to hear, it's not even very comfortable to say, some great teachers have told us either Jesus is who he says he is or he's a madman and a raving lunatic.
[18:05] He cannot be anything in between for he has declared that I and the Father are one. Without a doubt, Jesus himself has said he is God.
[18:19] And we cannot say, well he's a great example and deny his words for what does Jesus says, for whoever is ashamed of me and my words.
[18:32] It is here that we have to come to the reality that the future must be accepted. This is why we put such great emphasis on the truthfulness of the word of God, that the word of God is absolutely true, that it is without error, that it is divinely inspired, that there is no part nor portion of it which contradicts itself.
[18:56] If we come to a passage of scripture from Genesis to Revelation in which we find Christ, all we must just confine it to the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, for it is there that we find the red letters in our red letter editions of scripture.
[19:10] And I don't mind red letter editions of scripture. It is there that we find the words of Christ. So let's just focus on the red words. Friend, I found Jesus speaking all throughout scripture. I found the angel of the Lord meeting with individuals.
[19:26] And the angel of the Lord is a Christophany, that is a picture, a manifestation of Christ before we have the birth of Christ for he is eternal. I find him in the Old Testament all throughout its pages encountering individuals.
[19:40] When God encountered Moses in the burning bush, God spoke to him, did he not? And it says that he used words when he spoke to him, does it not? Yes, it does, for he used words. When in the beginning was the word, and the word was God, and the word was with God, and the word came and dwelt among us, and we call him Emmanuel.
[19:54] So in the burning bush, that's Jesus speaking. We find it all throughout the Old Testament. We cannot pick and choose which portions of scripture that we like.
[20:06] We cannot say, well, that one's trustworthy, and that one's not. Because to be ashamed, and I looked it up, by the way, and the Greek, to be ashamed just means to be ashamed of. So I said, okay, well, the Greek's pretty straightforward.
[20:16] It means to be ashamed of something. So let's go a little bit further. So I looked up Noah Webster's definition. You said, oh, you mean Merriam Webster? No, Noah Webster, 1828-ish, and I like old dictionaries for they had good meanings back then.
[20:27] It's in the Noah Webster dictionary. And to be ashamed of is to count something of disrepute or to condemn it of misdoing.
[20:38] It is, I am ashamed of my actions when I say what I did was wrong or I have lived out some form of misconduct or it is of disrepute.
[20:54] And to be ashamed of Christ or to be ashamed of his word is to say it is in some way performing misconduct or it is to be untrustworthy. And it is here that we come to this reality.
[21:07] Jesus says, you cannot separate who he is from what the word of God says. And if we come to a portion of scripture and we say, oh, well, it seems to contradict something else.
[21:18] The problem is not in the word of God. The problem is in our understanding of the word of God for we are limited in our understanding and our thoughts. And I can agree with you. There are so many things I read in scripture.
[21:29] I say it doesn't seem to make sense to me, but it is the fault of the word, but rather it is the fault found in me, the one reading the word. So therefore, I must study and I must look at it.
[21:41] Why? For I must not count the word of God of distrust. I don't want to be ashamed of it. There's no portion of scripture that I am ashamed of.
[21:52] There are difficult passages. I've been asked about a number of them. Well, what about this, pastor? What about this? What about all these things that go on in scripture, these things that are hard to explain? And I say, yes, they are hard to explain.
[22:02] Let's read the rest of it. Don't be ashamed of the word of God for these are inseparable realities. We cannot. Jesus says, whoever is ashamed of me and my words, those are an inseparable truth.
[22:23] Third, we find in our passage, not only an inclusive reality, whoever means whoever, not only this inseparable truth that Christ cannot be separated from the word of God, he is who he says he is and he is what the word of God proclaims him to be.
[22:42] And therefore, we hold on to them. Third, we look at the indictment of the time in which we live. Notice this. Look at the indictment of the time.
[22:56] Jesus says, for whoever is ashamed of me and my words, in this sinful and adulterous generation. In this sinful and adulterous generation.
[23:14] We have said before that the one who creates something can define something. The creator has the sole responsibility of declaring what that thing gets to be used for.
[23:33] It details with an accurate account of its purpose, of its design, of its intended uses. I remember many years ago when the restaurant on Potts Road was still opened, sitting in the restaurant eating.
[23:53] I believe I was actually there for a fish fry. It's a good fish fry. And I remember a little sign on the wall right above the booth. And in that sign, there was a sketch of a tool that had been designed.
[24:08] And then below it was a description of what that tool was to be used for. It's purposes, it's plans, it's usefulness. And it was a patent that had been sent off to be developed by that family.
[24:25] I did not argue with that sign saying that's not what you used that for. I have one of those. I did not contradict its thought because the one who had signed it at the bottom was the one who had designed it.
[24:38] And therefore, the designer has the right alone to tell me what something is to be used for. So when we come to the word of God and we found the one who created it all, who formed it all, and who fashions it all, and he alone sets the standard of how it should be used and what it should do, and then he tells us what it has become, we need to take notice.
[25:03] When he begins to bring an indictment against his people, it is not judgmental by nature, but it is a declaration of a reality that the thing which he has created has deviated from the purpose of its creation and origin.
[25:20] And he defines the generation. The word generation is a word that is full of meaning in scripture. It is not confined to a certain span of time as we know it.
[25:33] It is not like gathering for multiple generations for a family photo. Generation just means the people you live beside, or the people you live among, the time in which you live.
[25:44] It is kind of open-ended in its usefulness of scripture. It is an implication and an indictment of the type of people that are living at that day and that day moving forward.
[25:59] And Jesus here says, in this adulterous and sinful generation. Make no mistake about it, the creator is declaring to us what the times we look like are really all about.
[26:20] It is an adulterous generation. Scripture tells us we have left our first love as the pinnacle of God's creation. He created all things and declared they were good and then he created man and woman and said, behold, they are very good and he gave them a purpose was to love the Lord their God with all their heart, with all their soul, with all their mind, with all their strength, love one another and to procreate and to fill the earth.
[26:46] It was to love the Lord and walk in all of his commands. That was the purpose of man, to love and obey him. Man along the way began to adulterate that love, began to leave that first love and became an adulterous people.
[27:02] We find the judgments of God throughout the prophets of God in the Old Testament over and over again. He refers to them as being people who are committing spiritual adultery.
[27:14] People that have left the lover of their soul and chased after other lovers. Some of you are reading the book Hosea in your daily reading and Hosea is all about that reality.
[27:28] He is prophesying. He's one of those minor prophets who is prophesying at the time of God's judgment immediately before and partially during the Babylonian captivity.
[27:40] Hosea is told to go and take a woman of really, you know, not really well named. She is a woman of disreputable occupation, a woman of adultery.
[27:51] We would say she's a prostitute. Hosea goes and marries a prostitute and he has children with her and she leaves him and goes back to her former profession and Hosea is told to go take her again and Hosea buys her off the auction block and pays the highest price.
[28:07] That's his wife that they're auctioning off and he pays more for her than anyone else is willing to pay and he redeems her and calls her back to himself and the Lord says, I had you do this, Hosea, for this is exactly what my people are doing.
[28:22] They are my people. I love them. I call them out of filthiness. See, we didn't start out good. I call them out of filthiness and I love them and I poured my love but yet they committed adultery and said, I don't want anything to do with you and I'll go do this but I redeemed them again.
[28:37] I bought them off that auction block of sin. Over and over again in the Old Testament we are told that God's people have committed spiritual adultery and then when we get into the New Testament it is the same reality.
[28:50] It is an adulterous generation. People who are positioned to be loved by the Lord God Almighty for God is love.
[29:01] We know that phrase. People use it all the time. He is the full embodiment of love but our adultery is because we begin to chase that which is appealing what does Scripture tell us to the flesh, to the eyes, to the belly and to our life.
[29:14] Those things which are sensual to us. They feel good and for a moment they are good. they are not eternal.
[29:26] They are not true love. They are pleasures and that is the generation in which we live. Friend, listen, that is the world in which each and every one of us inhabits. A world that is completely chasing after that which feels good.
[29:43] It is a world in which we don't want one who loves us unconditionally. We just want one who will love us temporarily. It is an adulterous generation and it is a sinful generation.
[30:00] Now this isn't a doom and gloom message. This is just the time because what does Paul say for there are none righteous? No, not one. Each one has done what is desperately wicked in his own eyes.
[30:12] We are a sinful people. So when we are called to live unashamed we are called to live that way among such people.
[30:27] And it is the very people that we are apart from Christ. It is the people that we are had Christ not like Hosea paid a higher price for us than anyone else would.
[30:39] It is the people that we are left for our own devices and our own ways for there are none righteous no not one but we have the imputed righteousness of Christ that is a righteousness that is counted towards us not that we have earned but one that he has given freely in Christ Jesus our Lord.
[31:00] we are called to live unashamed among such people as we used to be for those of us that know Christ.
[31:13] And we should not be shocked by that reality for that is the world in which we live. It is an adulterous and sinful generation and it will be until he makes all things new.
[31:28] he said well pastor this doesn't make me feel really good well I have got one more and it is the good news okay. Because we see here before us not only this inclusive reality that whoever means whoever inseparable truth that we cannot separate who Christ is from what he has declared in the word of God not only do we see the indictment of the time and really if we were to pause and consider it we would not need anyone to tell us the time we know the days that we live in are not good and glorious days.
[32:10] I read somewhere that if you want to go back to the good old days and you have to go back to the garden of Eden before Adam and Eve ever took of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil those are the only good old days behind us people we're looking forward to good old days not back.
[32:24] which brings us to this fourth and final one look at this it is an incentive to hope. How do we live unashamed? How could Paul say for I am unashamed of the gospel?
[32:40] How is it that we see that Mark tells us that we ought to live unashamed for whoever is ashamed of me and my words and this adulterous and sinful generation the son of man will also be ashamed of him and we don't want that?
[32:56] How are we to live unashamed? How are we to live steadfast? Well it is because of this incentive that's given to us here. Look at what the word says and we almost miss it. The son of man will also be ashamed of him.
[33:10] Here it is. When he comes in the glory of his father with the holy angels when he comes.
[33:21] How do we live steadfast in the world which is an adulterous and sinful world? How do we live steadfast being unashamed of Christ and his word?
[33:33] How do we have what incentive do we have because surely it does not give it to us because it makes us feel better for immediately preceding this we are told to take up our cross and follow after him and no one bearing a cross feels good.
[33:48] For a cross leads to a miserable agonizing death. The cross is a place of shame of being stripped naked publicly and crucified raised up above the earth so that people can mock and make fun of you.
[34:04] It is not an incentive because it feels better. It's an incentive that is given to us as there is a hope on the other side of the cross we carry called faithfulness.
[34:16] Jesus is a and is when he comes. Matthew in his gospel immediately following the command to take up your cross and follow after me.
[34:33] Matthew gives this same set of verses here but the words of Matthew say it a little bit more pointedly. In the gospel of Matthew it says for the son of man is going to come.
[34:50] For the son of man is going to come. The gospel of Luke says it the same way. It says for the son of man is going to come but he adds one more phrase there.
[35:06] In his glory and the glory of the father. See the glory of the father is the glory of the son. And just in case we miss it when we get to the ninth chapter I did read ahead a little bit when we get to the ninth chapter we go to the what we call the mountain of transfiguration and three of the apostles are there.
[35:27] Jesus begins to radiate. And he shines with the glory it says that no launderer could ever bring upon his clothing. And the wording there is that the glory of the glory is proceeding not on to him but from within him.
[35:44] It is not the glory of standing in the sun and reflecting in the light of the sun so that others could see the sun upon your face. It is not the glory Moses had when he came down off the mountain.
[35:55] He had to put a veil over his face because his face shone with glory and was passing away. No the glory that's on the mountain of transfiguration is the glory that comes out of Christ.
[36:06] It radiance because see in his humanity he veiled his glory. His glory is contained within himself. And that is why when he walks away from the temple for the last time we've said this and it tells us in the gospel of John that when Jesus walks away from the temple for the last time Jesus makes this statement for the glory has departed and he walks away.
[36:27] That's a really cool statement. Bible student you read it because when Jesus walks away from the temple then you can write across it but for he is the glory.
[36:41] And his exit from the temple ensures the reality the glory has left. But the incentive that we have for faithfulness and living unashamed is that when he comes for he is coming he will not come with veiled glory but he will come with radiating glory and the glory of the father which is the glory of the son.
[37:10] First John tells us I believe it's in the second chapter of first John therefore we abide in Christ so that we may not shrink back in shame and hide when he comes in his glory.
[37:28] It is the reality that Jesus Christ is coming again and when he comes he comes as he always has been. We dare not be ashamed of how he came the first time because when he comes the second time none will be able to deny the reality of who he is.
[37:50] He will come in the glory of the father and with the holy angels. Again I go back to the gospel of Matthew it says for when the son of man comes for the son of man is going to come in the glory of the father and I like how it says and his holy angels.
[38:06] Oh you see oh you mean the father's holy angels. No his that's possessive his holy angels those are Jesus' angels following him. And read a little bit further in scripture you will find the angels all throughout scripture they're fighting in the heavenlies so that they may give revelation to the saints that are praying in the old testament in the book of Daniel.
[38:28] The angels are all throughout there going up and down this ladder which is Jesus himself and the angels are descending and ascending or ascending and descending. They're starting here and going up there and they're going back and forth on Christ for he is Jacob's ladder.
[38:43] We find the angels all the way through scripture. We find them announcing the birth of Christ. It says that he sent forth. They are from the Lord. I love this in the Christmas account by the way. I kind of get caught up in this one a little bit.
[38:55] It says angels were received a commission from the Lord to go herald his birth. And that is before he stepped down into humanity he said hey go tell them.
[39:06] And then he went down there as they were going to tell them for they are his angels. And then we read in the book of Revelation that those angels they have the keys to the abyss right. So they can lock up Satan down there.
[39:18] So the angels who have the keys over the one that we are afraid of the most are coming back with him. For they are his angels. And the incentive to hope is the reality.
[39:31] The son of man is going to come. And when he comes he will come as he has always been. Not as he temporarily was at one time in history.
[39:47] He will come in his glory and the glory of the father with his holy angels behind him. And we will see him face to face. If we have already died in Christ then he will raise us to stand with him.
[40:03] If we have died being ashamed of Christ then he will raise us to stand before him. But he will come. And on that day he will respond to how we have responded to him.
[40:18] The call is to live unashamed. Let's pray. Father thank you so much for this day. For your word. And the riches that it contains therein.
[40:34] Lord I know. That all too often I am but a broken vessel. So I pray that nothing inside of me will be a hindrance to what you're doing in the hearts of your people for your glory.
[40:48] May you work according to your purposes and plans. And may Christ be magnified. For it's in his name we pray.
[41:00] Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.