The sermon explores the concept of bringing heaven's glory down to earth and the surprising truth that God's people have true glory, which survives in heaven. It emphasizes the importance of making resolutions, rooting out ugliness, meeting with the Lord, engaging in whole church life, rejuvenating family life, allowing God to be the builder of one's life, and creating a beautiful city.

Please open your Bibles to Revelation 21, verse 22. I'll be reading 22 to 27, But the focus of our time will just be on two verses, and that would be verse 24 and 26. So Revelation 21 verse 22, this is the holy, inerrant, all-sufficient, sweeter than honey word of God. Verse 22, but I saw no temple in it for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it for the glory of God illuminated it.

The Lamb is its light and the nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light, and the kings of the earth bring their glory and honor into it. Its gates shall not be shut at all by day, there shall be no night there. And they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it but there shall by no means enter anything that defiles or causes an abomination or a lie but only those who are written in the Lamb's Book of Life. Let's pray. Oh Father, pray that you would show us your glory and Also the glory that you have bestowed upon your children here in this room to rejoice in the glory of your saints, the beauty of the living stones, the illumination of the Lamb in the living stones of your church, bringing their glory on earth into heaven.

Lord, I pray that you'd help us to understand this surprising truth. Amen. Please be seated. The focus here is the fact that when God's people enter into heaven, they're bringing their glory in. They're bringing wealth in, they're bringing treasure from heaven into heaven, from the earth.

That's the startling fact of this passage of scripture. And it's hard to grasp because we think so poorly about ourselves. We see our flaws, our weaknesses, the stupid things that we've done, the ways that we're distracted day to day. It's hard to imagine that the glory of God really shines through us. And yet this passage of Scripture seems to contradict that.

We tend to think I fall so short, I'm a failure, I'm a loser. And yet, one of the blessings that we have as fallen creatures is that the Word of God instructs us to think rightly about things because we don't even always think rightly about I'll just say it our glory our glory And this passage is an argument that God's people have true glory and that glory actually survives in heaven. It's so striking. You know David said they looked to him and they were radiant. Their faces were not ashamed.

That's a picture of glory upon the saint. Paul said that we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellence of the power might be of God and not of us that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our body that he's talking about this earth talking about how we feel how we think how we operate with one another in the church, in the family, in our jobs. And we're told that As we behold the face of Jesus Christ, we are transformed into his glory on earth, as it is in heaven. It's such a remarkable thought. But we all with unveiled face, beholding as a mirror the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory just as by the Spirit of the Lord.

Placeholder stop there we'll get to this later when we get to the verse it says and I can't wait to get there and they shall see his face. It's such a remarkable thing. Well, welcome to 2023. This is a New Year's message, how about that? I woke up this morning and I read the first three chapters of Genesis, which is the book of beginnings and you have these these new things these These beginnings the beginning of light the beginning of the earth the beginning of animals the the Garden of Eden man marriage the serpent the fall the new clothes and When you go to Revelation at the end of Revelation you have the new heavens and the new earth.

And everything is being remade, regenerated as we talked about. A new year really is about a new life because it actually is appropriate to continue to think about renewal and transformation and sanctification. The New Year's a great opportunity to do it, and I hope all of us do that. But Genesis is the book of beginnings, and Revelation is the book of the new heavens and the new earth in chapter 21 and 22. And that's where we are now.

And in Revelation 21, all the way to chapter 22 verse five, there's this description of the New Jerusalem, the holy city, the holy mountain, the bride adorned for her husband. What's the theme? It's beauty, It's beauty. God is the beautifier. He's the regenerator and the glorifier.

And in this city, the people are actually, and don't take this wrong, are gloriously beautiful. The people of God are gloriously beautiful. But they were already being beautified on the earth. The only reason that they're beautiful in heaven is that they're beautiful in the earth. Because God was beautifying them by his spirit.

I think tomorrow, I'm gonna launch a podcast about New Year's resolutions. Eighty percent of New Year's resolutions fail by early February. And people have all kinds of New Year's resolutions, and I want to talk about seven of them perhaps in this message today. But, you know, the top New Year's resolutions are exercise more, eat healthier, lose weight, live more economically, spend less time on social media. Nobody says spend more time on social media, okay, and they fail by February.

But often, there are many problems and I don't want to make this a big discussion about New Year's resolutions, but often intent is disconnected from routine and they fail. So here we are in Revelation, this remarkable testimony. It's a doctrine in pictures, it's pictorial theology, and we get that now here again. You have these symbols that are meant to impact, To shake us up a little bit and to help us understand what how God thinks and how he desires things to be and so At the bottom of it our text here at least these two verses 24 and 27 They are in 26 they they They teach us that this earth is a preparation for heaven and that as the believer has heaven in his heart, has heaven in his thinking, heaven in his actions, heaven in his music, heaven in his internet searches, heaven in his movies, heaven in his home, heaven in his work, heaven everywhere, as He has heaven in his marrying and given in marriage, as he has heaven in his heart as a child, heaven in his heart as a adolescent, heaven in his heart in middle age or in old age.

That person is bringing heaven down. That person is bringing the glory of God into his soul. That person bears the glory of God. The riches and the wealth of the kingdom of God rest upon him in this world. And then again, that's why, one reason why Jesus taught his disciples to pray your kingdom come your will be done on Earth as It is in heaven.

Isn't that amazing? You're bringing heaven down What a glorious way to live in every area of life. Now when we think about our glory, We don't think much of it. The true Christian has a difficult time thinking much of their own glory. It's just the way we're wired because we see we fall so short.

But here's a question that might help clarify a little bit. Is the beauty of the Lord overtaking your ugliness? Yes, you are also ugly How that how about that you're both beautiful and ugly at the same time Turning away from ugly is so is so important is the light shining You know so brightly in your body in the temple of the Holy Spirit? Are you an ever beautified bride being adorned for her husband, bringing his beauty into every corner of your life, edging out the ugly that's there. But really, it's so important, I think, that we understand, especially as we relate to each other, that we actually are relating to a being made in the image of God who has the glory of God.

If they're a true Christian, that glory is real. It's substantial. It's good. We should rejoice in it. We should rejoice in our brothers and sisters who have the glory of God upon their head.

We should think well of one another in many ways. David said, you are my glory and the lifter of my head. Psalm 3.3. The word glory that's used in this passage and in this whole context is the word for weight. You know in Isaiah 6, holy, holy, holy is the Lord.

Kavod, kavod, kavod is the Lord of Hosk. It means weighty, it means heavy, it means honorable, it means splendor. And that same splendor of God is shared among the creature. Isn't that amazing? It's true.

If you're a Christian, the glory of God rests upon you. You are his glory. He is your glory and the lifter of your head. In Isaiah 61, which we spent quite a bit of time in last week, Isaiah 60 and 61, arise shine for your light has come and the glory of the Lord is risen upon you. It's shining on you.

It's illuminating you. It's you. The source is God. But it still is your glory, it's a derivative glory. Well, all glory that man possesses is derivative glory.

But it's still His glory. It's shared. God's glory. God gives glory. Psalm 84, 11.

"'For the Lord God is a sun and a shield. The Lord will give grace and glory David says in Psalm 57 8 awake my glory awake my glory So I'm here to encourage us to awaken glory. Be aware of the glory in one another and in your own soul. Give thanks, give thanks for the glory of God that has existed in your soul since the day you were saved. Because you're not the same person you used to be.

It's because of the glory of God. Working progressively, beginning with the setting you free from the law of sin and death, breaking the power of sin, filling you with the Holy Spirit of love and joy and peace. Your glory is upon you from heaven. All glory comes from God. But we don't want to just diminish that and say, well, I'm nothing, because that's not true.

God is not saying that. Well, these verses, of course, just correlating to the text here, they explain the beauty of the city and the stunning, shining beauty of the inhabitants and what they bring into the city. What do they bring? They bring themselves and the glory that God bequeathed upon them. Abraham grew up in a city of idols and God brought him into a city whose builder and maker was God.

Beautiful city. We're like Abraham. The city is the builder and maker is God, okay? Builder and maker, this is really, really important. Builder means architect, In other words, he's the designer.

The glory comes from the design of God. He's the builder and maker, that's the constructor, the contractor, the person who does the work and does the building. You have the architect and you have the actual construction. And God is the architect and he's the constructor. And as architect and constructor, he's architecting and constructing glory in the human soul.

And the city of God, the New Jerusalem, is that city whose builder and maker is God. That's why it's so absolutely beautiful. And we've seen vestiges of its beauty, and I just wanna go back and recount it but but let's look at verse 24 and The nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light." That's the light of the lamb, okay? Remember the lamb is its light. The lamb is its light.

The nations, and that's peoples, people, who are saved shall walk in its light and the kings of the earth bring their glory and honor into it." So these are people who are saved. Do You see that? And the nations of those who are saved. The word that he is using is the word ethnos, it's people. People from every tongue and tribe and nation.

And they're bringing their glory. They're bringing what God has done into this glorious beautiful city. They are actually beautifying a beautiful city. They're not tarnishing the city. Because nothing defiling will go in there.

We'll get to that next week. But they are saved. That's so significant. Saved means to make you safe. That's what the word means.

It means that you're pulled out of a destructive pattern. It means that you're pulled away from something harmful. It means that you are rescued from a dangerous trajectory. That's what it means to be saved. When you say are you saved, you need to understand what it means.

It means have you been rescued by God from your flesh and the world and the devil? He'll tear you apart limb from limb, throw you on the ground. And even if you love the devil like the harlot in Revelation, the beast will finally kill you and throw you away. Because when you're saved, you're saved from a serpent who is gonna bite you and kill you and throw you away. But to be saved means to be delivered from, well, condemnation, from judicial wrath, and from the corruptions of the ways of the Gentiles, the ways of the world.

You're saved, you're rescued, You're shielded now from all that. So it says, and the nations, the people of those who are saved shall walk in its light. Okay, we talked about that a lot, about walking in the light of Jesus in heaven. You can do that today in this earth, but in heaven, completely unconstrained light, beautiful light. And in the last phrase in verse 24, and the kings of the earth bring their glory and honor into it.

I just think that's astounding. You walk up to those pearly gates. I don't think St. Peter's gonna meet you as all the jokes pretend, but you're gonna walk up to those pearly gates and you will be received as glorious into glory because the Lamb has always been your light because the Lord has always enveloped your temple. You know, Jesus said, you are the light of the world, a city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden.

You've already been walking in the light. It was real. Imperfect, but real and true and good. Walking in the light is the very best thing you can do. Peter said it like this in 1st Peter 2 9, but you're a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own special people that you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

The Christian is walking in the light and they step into the city of light. It's so remarkable. And in verse 26 we read of this very same idea, and they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it. So now you have this kind of expanded picture of what's going on. In verse 24, it was the people, you know, the ethnic groups, all coming together.

And now you have the glory of the nations into it. And again, this is like the other verse, it's those who are illuminated by Jesus Christ, who walk with Jesus Christ, who were led by the light, and now they are coming in. Now, you know, this verse is really a foundation for missions, it's a foundation for all of our evangelism. There's no culture that's out of reach of God. There's no culture that's too defiled for God.

And so, you know, we should work on bringing the gospel to as many people groups and language groups as we can while we're in this world. Isaiah 42 really explains this verse 6, I will keep you and give you as a covenant to the people, as a light to the Gentiles to open blind eyes. Okay, so What's this about the nations bringing their light and their glory here? Let me read to you Gregory Beale, a great commentator on Revelation. The reason Revelation 21, 24 to 26 refers to the nations bringing glory and honor into the city is to highlight that they are bringing not literal riches but themselves as worshippers before God's presence.

The glory and honor arising from the nations arises from the praise to God and to the Lamb. Here's one thing this means, and I think it's very significant, but I don't understand it all. The cultures of the world where the gospel spreads are purified, but they're not all obliterated. Like there are ways that people operate and worship God and discoveries in the nations that are different. And the beauties of those things are brought in.

But they will bring their glory. You know, we were singing that song, Oh Come, Emmanuel, with that quote out of Haggai 2.7. Oh come, desire of nations, bind thy sons and daughters in one heart and mind. Bid envy, strife, and quarrels cease. Fill the whole church with heaven's peace.

Rejoice, rejoice, Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel." So the desire of nations really is the desire for the treasures of the kingdom of God. They want the good things of God. That's the desire of nations. They want the wealth of the kingdom. That's what that verse is really all about.

But you have this language in different parts of scripture in Isaiah 55 verse 5. This is, you know, that famous passage that starts, Ho, everyone who thirsts come to the waters, He who has no money come, buy, eat, you know. Why do you spend your money for what's not bread? But then he Says this surely you shall call a nation you do not know and Nations who do not know you shall run to you because of the Lord your God and the Holy One of Israel." And who is speaking? Well it's the Father speaking to the Son.

He says, surely you will call a nation you do not know and nations who do not know you shall run to you and Why the answer is given because the of the Lord your God and the Holy One of Israel for he has glorified you In other words the nations the people of the earth are attracted by the glory that's in the church, by the love, by the joy, by the peace, by the patience, by the kindness that's in the church. And people look at that and say, wow I don't see that in my corporation. Where did that come from? And the nations run to the church because she has something very, very special, something very beautiful. She actually has the best culture of any institution.

There's no better culture than the culture that God has designed for the church. Okay, I wanna elaborate on this whole matter of what it means for the nations to bring their treasure into heaven. And people say some really interesting things about this that I'm not sure, I don't know if it's true, but I'm just going to read you some quotes. Bruce Milne, He says, everything which authentically reflects the God of truth, all that is of abiding worth from within the national stories and the cultural inheritance of the world's people will find its place in the New Jerusalem. All of the very colored expressions of the glory of God among the nations.

Cornelius Venema. In other words, the glory and honor of the nations will only provide a starting point. In other words, the glory that comes upon the people of the world because of Jesus Christ is just the beginning. He says, what creative possibilities await us in the unfolding of the eternal ages no present imagination can begin to unravel. And since we're going to a heaven of among other things, unprecedented cultural creativity, what authentication this gives to the worthwhileness of all such endeavor in the present.

In this too we may dare to believe that our labor in the Lord is not in vain. First Corinthians 15 58. What he's saying is that cultures operate in different ways, the gospel comes to it, and it always makes the same transformations, but it might make them in a different way, in a different culture. You know, if you might go to a house church in China today because the churches can't meet like we're meeting today, they just can't their buildings have been demolished taken away and They're meeting wherever they can on the run So there's a certain there's certain things that are produced by that, that aren't being produced here, because God's glorifying himself in the nations through the various experiences and persecutions and wealth and resources and environment. God glorifies himself in those things.

And what this author is saying is this, every legitimate and excellent fruit of human culture will be carried into and contribute to the splendor of life in the new creation. Rather than the new creation being radically new beginning, in which the excellent and noble fruits of humankind's fulfillment of the cultural mandate are wholly discarded, the new creation will benefit from and be immensely enriched by its receiving of these fruits in other words The splendor of the glory of God in every tongue and tribe and nation will be brought into heaven and it will be glory even though it might be different. Now I don't know about this, think about it. There nothing of the diversity of the nations and peoples, their cultural products, languages, arts, sciences, literature, and technology, so far as these are good and excellent, will be lost upon life in the new creation. I don't know how far you're supposed to take that or if it's even completely true.

But let's just take, I read one writer who said, even technology will be in heaven. I said, really? Well, where does technology come from? It's discovering the way that God wired the world. That's technology.

So I don't know how far this goes, but here's what I do know for sure. The glory of the power of the gospel in a human soul the good things that God has done in your heart and the way that you glorify him even in the smallest way will survive forever and you might say well I'm just I'm a failure I'm a nothing I'm a worm well you might be a worm but you're a glow worm in heaven We could talk about the gates that are open, but we won't today in verse 25. Next week I want to further expand these these matters here. Like for example in verse 27, but there shall be by no means anything in or into it that defiles or causes an abomination or a lie. We'll get to that next week.

And then only those whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life are there. We'll expand on that as well. Your name is written somewhere. Where is your name written is the most important question. But we'll walk through that.

I want to give you some applications. I want to give you seven applications, seven ways to beautify your land, to radiate the light of Jesus Christ as a living stone, to bring heaven down to earth. And let me just be very clear. We have to think of this in terms of the two great categories of human transformation. And one is justification and the other is sanctification.

I wanna focus on sanctification. Justification is a judicial act of God where you are judged righteous apart from your works. That's justification. Sanctification in contrast has to do with what you do and what I do to increase glory because we have a responsibility to increase the glory. Justification is never a good argument for just saying, well, whatever I am is fine, because the Bible never leaves you there.

Faith always comes out in works, or else not true faith. So, just so that we understand the distinction between justification and sanctification. Justification is a work that is done and you cannot contribute any of your works to it. Sanctification is a work that's not done and you need to do a lot. You know by the way I've been reading a biography of Vladimir Lenin and I'm so struck at how hard-working these revolutionaries were.

Extremely hard-working, way more hard-working than you or I, okay? The Marxist revolutionaries are very hardworking. Are you as hardworking? Am I as hardworking as the Marxists? Well, at least we have the grace of God to carry us through, but I was just so struck by how absolutely devoted they were to the revolution.

I remember many years ago, I was reading a news article about the conflicts in Israel and Yasser Arafat, you know, who was in the middle of really Marxist revolutionary activities in Israel and the whole Middle East, but an interview is asking him, how come you, how come you always have a six-day beard? He said because to save time. He says you don't understand Fatah or the revolution is my woman, it's my family, it's my life, every second is given to the revolution. So he doesn't even shave except once every six days. Well okay, this is about sanctification.

This is about powering up. This is about, this is about, first of all, bring, you know, awaken the glory by making resolutions. Awaken the glory by making resolutions. That's the first of seven. Awaken your glory by making resolutions.

It's a virtuous thing to aim at objectives. Ezra, for example, in Ezra 7-10, He prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord and to do it and to teach his statutes and ordinances in Israel that was his revolutionary activity He set his heart to it That has to do with making a commitment. In the Old Testament, the people of God would come to the temple and they would make oaths in the temple while they were hearing the word of God. In 1 Timothy 6-11, Paul told Timothy to flee certain things and pursue wholesome words. He says, but you, oh man of God, flee these things, pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness.

This is a pursuit. It's a good thing to make resolutions and to pursue things, to write things down, to mark them down and say, I'm going there. That's where I'm headed. That's what a resolution is. In Isaiah 32, eight, the prophet is talking about how men, they devise things.

We know that Satan has his devices, but men also have their devices. And he says this, a generous man devises generous things, and by generosity he shall stand. You know, so first, awaken your glory by making resolutions. Awaken your glory by making resolutions. Awaken your glory by making resolutions.

You know the areas that you're falling short that you need to improve in. You know what they are. But it's a good thing to paint the target and say, I'm aimed right there. That's where I'm going. Resolutions should be specific.

They should be reasonable. And hey, well, I'll just leave it at that here. There's much to say about making resolutions, but it's a good thing to make them. Secondly, awaken glory by rooting out your ugliness. Rooting out your ugliness.

Ugly attitudes toward your parents, ugly attitudes toward your spouse, root them out. Repent, forgive. Root out your ugly thoughts toward your boss. Root out your ugly thoughts toward your boss root out your ugly thoughts toward your deacons Root out your ugly thoughts, especially toward your pastors. Root them out.

Root out your ugly responses, root out your ugly internet addictions, root out your slovenly ugly routines. Root them out, get rid of them. You can do it. God gave you agency over your life. So second, awaken your glory by rooting out your ugliness.

Everybody has it. Third, awaken your glory by meeting the Lord early in the morning. Awaken your glory by meeting with the Lord early in the morning. You know, George Mueller didn't want to didn't even want to see anybody's face until he got his soul fixed. Because you got to get your soul fixed first.

Before you're really fit to even meet with human beings. You know, it's very difficult I know for very busy mothers, a lot of children especially. And I'm here to say, try to find some way to meet with the Lord before the day begins. There are lots of ways that can be done. You know, I know some very, very busy women.

The first thing they do is they listen to the Bible, reading through the Bible for a year. It takes about probably 12 minutes. But it's very important that you meditate on the word of God, not just hear it or not just read it. But that you take one thing away, just one thing. It's hard enough to remember just one thing.

But awaken your glory by meeting with the Lord early in the morning. I read a verse that I heard Elizabeth Elliott quote one time, Habakkuk 2.1. And it reminded me, actually what I want to do every morning, it reads like this, I will stand my watch and set myself on the rampart and watch to see what he will say to me and what I will answer when I am corrected." Habakkuk 2.1. And I try to do that every morning. I have an incredibly routine morning.

I don't, you know, you can track my steps every morning. I get up, I drink a glass of water, I go put on a cup of coffee. After I brush my teeth, I put on a cup of coffee and I go to my chair and I open up my Bible and I read it and then I read Matthew Henry's commentary on it. Now I might take two hours doing that. I know nobody can do that.

I'm doing that because of my season in life and I'm a pastor and I want God to shape my soul. I wanna just take time to soak myself in the word. And last year I decided I was gonna read through Matthew Henry's commentaries a few times. I'm doing that, I heard George Whitefield read Matthew Henry's commentaries twice on his knees. And I thought, wow, that would be helpful.

It has been helpful. Everybody can't do what I do. I'm not saying that you should, but you have a different life, you have a different schedule, so that's good. It's a good thing. I will stand my watch and set myself on the rampart and watch and see what he will say to me.

What will he say to me in his word? God speaks to me every day. I don't always listen as well as I should. My mind wanders, you know, and I will watch and see what I will answer when I'm corrected. You know, Moses said, set your hearts on all the words which I testify among you today.

This is Deuteronomy 32-7. Which you shall command your children to be careful to observe all the words of this law For it is not a futile thing for you, because it is your life. And by this, your word shall prolong your days in the land which you cross over the Jordan to possess. It's your life. Where do you get your life?

Where are you getting the thoughts for your life? Where are you getting the creative energies of your life? Are you getting it from God? This is your life. Well, guess what?

You're gonna get your life from somewhere. You might as well get it from God. You might as well increase your glory. You might as well do everything you can to manifest God's glory and diminish the inglorious worldliness that's all around us. You know, Habits tell us who we are.

Habits always tell us who we're living for. They're so important. Establish routines that make you be the person that you want to be, the person with the glory of God upon your head. You know, having consistent routines is really, really important. You know, There's a way that you can be wildly successful on autopilot, not by rushing around like a chicken with your head cut off, but by just doing the things that really matter every day.

Fourth, Fourth, awaken your glory by dialing into a whole church life. Awaken your glory by dialing in to the whole church life. The whole church life. Don't be a church minimalist. Don't be a church minimalist.

Hey, I show up on Sunday morning, but I could care less about the elders calling me together to pray, and I don't really care that much about particularly bringing the men together to study the word of God, to be galvanized by that word. I'll just sort of pick and choose whatever's convenient to me. I'm here to say, dial in to the whole church life as much as you can. Some people, they have work schedules that are prohibitive and things like that. I'm not talking about that.

But what you have in a church is you have shepherds who are saying, we want to make you healthy, we want to make you strong, we want to magnify your glory. And the way you do that is by the Word of God in prayer, so please come. It's really very simple. You know, be one of those people in Isaiah two, you're grabbing your friend and say, you say, let us go up into the mountain of the Lord and he'll teach us his ways. And by the way, this is a prophecy of the latter days in Isaiah two.

It shall come to pass in the latter days that people will say, hey, let's go to the church. Let's go worship God. And he will teach us his ways and we shall walk in his paths. Zechariah is trying to encourage a really discouraged church there in rebuilding the temple after the Babylonian captivity and he says that there's a revival coming and men are gonna do something. Here's what they'll do.

In those days ten men from every language of the nations will grasp the sleeve of a Jewish man saying let us go with you for we have heard that God is with you You know people grabbing one another and saying let's go pray. Let's go worship. Let's go. Let's go get into the word You know there and they're just practical matters of really being involved in whole church life. So your elders are here to say, we want you to come into this church early so you're really ready to worship.

Don't be late, you don't have to be late. Don't say I'm a late person, stop being a late person. All you have to do is leave 15 minutes earlier, it's all you have to do. You're not a late person. So don't be a late person.

Hey, here's the deal. When you walk in this church, by the way, you have men who have prayed like crazy for you to lead you, and a man stands up here, and he reads the word of God, and then he prays, and then he leads you in a song, and then there are prayers, and then there are more songs. Okay, and the scriptures are read over and over again. All these things are meant to feed your soul, to awaken your glory. Don't miss a second of it.

Some of you just walk in here, like you're walking into Walmart and you're just looking all over the place. No way. I mean, you are here to meet with God. You know, Habakkuk says, let all the earth be silent, the Lord is in his holy temple. So quit being late if you're a late person.

And get in here. We don't want you to miss the first word out of the man's mouth who's ministering to you. But some of you don't really care. And about a third of you are here right when we start the service. That's really bad.

You know, I have a friend, you know, he really makes me jealous, you know. You know, he told me one time, you know, that everybody's always there when they start I'm thinking man can I come to your church no no I don't want to go to that church I like this church but prepare for you be here just like you would if you were meeting with the king? Because you would be on time or you wouldn't meet. They would lock the doors. Also prepare your family.

If you have children, if you're a single person, prepare your family for the preaching. We give you every opportunity. We tell you what we're gonna preach on. And then we grab men and boys to talk about it on Monday morning so that the saturation of the word of God is maximized. This because we want to awaken the glory of God in the world.

Hey, if you haven't been coming to Men's Bible Study, I'm just here to say, hey, come, we are equipping you. Hey, one of the things that happened in the first decade of this church was we had a lot of young men who learned how to interpret the Bible because they came to Bible study when they were eight, nine, 10, 12 years old. And like they can preach, they can actually accurately handle the word of God because they were in Bible study and They learned hermeneutics, they learned exposition, they learned how to talk about and debate and discuss things in an honorable way, disagreements and things like that, it's beautiful. But now we seem to have some that they don't have time for it now. I'm here to say, I'm really here to encourage you, bring your sons to men's Bible study.

If you got a son that's six, seven, eight years old, you should be bringing him to men's Bible study. Teach him how to study the Bible, because he'll learn it in an environment that's helpful. We have prayer week coming up. We're gonna dedicate a whole week of prayer at the end of the month. You know, be dialed in on that.

We're gonna have a night of preaching on January 22nd, when some of our men are gonna come and give messages on a Sunday night. We won't have Sunday afternoon service. So here's the deal, awaken the glory by getting really dialed in on church life. Hey, here's the deal. We're your pastors, We're your shepherds.

Right now, we're the only ones you got. And we're here to say, come together, come to the mountain of the Lord and grab your friend. And stop saying I'm too busy, because you're not too busy. Every man is busy with the things he wants to be busy with. Okay.

Men always have enough time for the things they want to do. Hey, I've been hanging around men a long time. I know that's true. Men will do what they want to do. If a man says he's too busy, well, maybe we can talk about it.

Maybe there are just some things that need to disappear off of his list so that he can live a lifestyle that's not frenetic and crazy. Fifth, awaken your glory by juvenating and rejuvenating your family life. Juvenating and rejuvenating. I don't know if juvenating is a word, but I think you get the idea. I just want us to recognize how important the years of family life that you have.

They pass so quickly. God has given a charge for parents to teach their children when they sit in the house, when they walk by the way, when they lie down, and when they rise up. So what that means is that parents need to be really, really dialed in on their children to teach them. It's a 24-7, all-consuming, all-encompassing schedule that a parent has to teach their children. Teach your children, bring them up in the training and the admonition of the Lord.

Don't have a child run home. Don't let your kids become peer driven. Don't fall into the marriage pitfalls. There's so many marriage pitfalls. There's so many things that couples say to themselves and one another that are just so harmful.

Don't fall into those marriage pitfalls. If you're in any of them, I'd be happy to talk to you about them. Have a holy family. On the Lord's day, make it a holy day. Make it the best day of the week, the holiest, most unusual day of glorifying God.

You know, Zechariah 14, he talks about how holy, just how holy you're talking about. He says, in that day holiness to the Lord shall be engraved on the bells of the horses, the pots in the Lord's house shall be like the bowls before the altar, and every pot in Jerusalem and Judah shall be holiness to the Lord of hosts, okay? Your shoes, your clothes, your house, your car, your pots, your pans, your hair, your eyes, everything. Everything is holiness to the Lord. Everything your family does.

Every second you spend together, holiness to the Lord. You say, well, that's too much for me. Well, this is what God has called us to do. Sixth, Awaken the glory with God as the builder of your whole life. God as the builder of your whole life.

God is the constructor. God is the architect of your life. Everything is made somewhere Materials matter plans matter who built it matters You know who who turns it out matters, you know back in the 1960s if it was made in Japan you knew it was a piece of junk. Well, that changed. But where something is made really matters.

And God has given your life and my life to have an architect and a builder, and it's God. Let God be the builder of your life. Build on the solid foundations. No wood, hay, and stubble. You know, you want to build your inner and private world on the promises of God and on the commands of God.

That's how you build a life. That's our greatest objective in life. Seventh, seventh, awaken your glory by making a beautiful city, a beautiful temple, a beautiful land. Elaborate on this next week. It's a sparkling, glistening, radiant, beautiful city.

It's a lovely land. It's a fruitful land. What would you do to make your life more beautiful? What would you do to fill your heart with more glory? Real, live, everlasting glory.

Bring the glory in. Take the glory from heaven. Rejoice in the glory that God has laid upon your head. All the things He's done for you. All the ways he's sharpened you and changed you.

It's real glory and it'll last forever. Praise the Lord for God's glory. Let's pray. Lord, why would you take people like us, these earthen vessels, and give them your glory? Why would you do that?

But we're so thankful that we are your glory. You are the lifter of our heads. We have the mantle of glory and grace and we're just so thankful that you've done that. Help us to praise you for every ounce of glory that has fallen upon our heads. Amen.