"Mind-Blowing Glory for a Purpose"

Sunday Sermon: March 18, 2018

"The passengers on the Titanic didn’t know that they were heading for trouble. As they headed for the iceberg, they were having the party of their lives. In the film, there were even those who deliberately ignored the warnings. But whether they liked it or not, the reality was that every single person on that ship was in serious danger."  Rico Tice

1. The ­­­­­­­­­magnificent gloriousness of unveiled divinity is mind-blowing.

"Then he [Jesus] tries to reform their understanding of what messiah means. He says, 'The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life' [c.f. Mark 8:31]. This seems pretty straightforward to us, but there is no way that Jesus’s disciples understand these words at this time. Or, if they understand the words, they certainly don’t believe them. The strongest proof of this assertion is that when Jesus is finally crucified, his disciples are shattered. When he is in the tomb, they are not secretly celebrating, breaking out joyful instruments, offering adoring worship to God, and saying: 'Yes! Yes! We can hardly wait till Sunday!' They still do not have any category for a crucified and risen messiah. They haven’t absorbed it."  D.A. Carson

2. Trust, rely, put your confidence in His Word; and persistently obey.

“On the night he was betrayed, Jesus prayed, ‘Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth’ (John 17:17) – and there will never be much sanctification apart from the Word of Truth. It is the entrance of God’s Word that brings light; it is constant meditation on God’s law that distinguishes the wise from the unwise, the just from the unjust (Psalm 1). I do not deny that certain kinds of Bible study can be singularly arid, skeptical, merely formal, just as certain approaches to the Lord’s Supper may do more harm than good (1 Corinthians 11:17). But the heavy stress on understanding, absorbing, meditating upon, proclaiming, memorizing (‘hiding it in ones’ heart’), reading, and hearing the Word of God is so striking that it will be ignored at our peril.” D.A. Carson