APR 6 2025 | Road to the Cross: The Upper Room S1E3 | The Battlefield of Glory

Sea Change Church · APR 6 2025 | Road to the Cross: The Upper Room S1E3 - The Battlefield of Glory
John 13:31-35
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

We have to hold on Tightly to our money And help us be generous And when we give It'd be awesome To watch what you do For your kingdom We ask that you bless These tithes And offerings In Jesus' mighty name Amen 1 through 35 When he was gone Jesus said Now the son of man Is glorified And God is glorified In him If God is glorified In him God will glorify The son in himself And will glorify Him at once My children I will be with you Only a little longer You will look for me And just as I told The Jews So I tell you now Where I am going You cannot come A new command I give you Love one another As I have loved you So you must love One another By this Everyone will know That you are my disciples If you love one another This is the word of the Lord Last time we met With a lonely room We were as close together As a riding room We ate the food We drank a wine Everybody having a good time Except you You were talking About the end Of the world Right on If you have your Bibles Open up We're in the upper room discourse You're going to be in John 13 31 through 35 We're in the ESV That's the English Standard Version Is the Bible we're using We have some copies Of the ones We're going to be Putting in your pews You can get them They're a great little Bible To take around A little on the road Bible Take to the park Bible They're at the bookstore They're really inexpensive But they're just awesome You can check those out Go to verse 31 If you would We're going to start With that And in verse 31 And 32 The word glorify Or glory Or glorified Is used Five different times I believe In the passage That's what we're going To be talking about today And we're going to be Talking about How to share in God's glory Which is a really Interesting concept Right That we Get to share it God takes his glory And obviously He puts it upon Jesus You see Jesus Being glorified At the Mount of Transfiguration You see him Being glorified In the resurrection In the book of Revelation But it actually says In the scripture And as we're going to see That he actually Glorifies us Now what do I mean by that Does he say Oh you're amazing I'm going to worship us No it's not that It's that God has glory And he takes his glory He puts his glory Upon us And he shares it with us And so we get to share In his glory We often times Have to share in his suffering To get that way And so I want to talk today About how we share In God's glory Because it's an amazing concept Imagine if there was A bucket of God's glory And you could scoop Into God's glory And then just Pour that glory Over yourself Once again You are not being glorified But we are sharing In the glory We're going to see that here Go to verse 31 And that is the main Kind of the main Idea today Although we have a main point Verse 31 When he was gone That's Judas When he was gone Jesus said Now Now Circle now In this moment The son of man Is going to be glorified Circle glorified And God is glorified Circle glorified In him Verse 32 If God is glorified Circle glorified In him God will glorify Circle glorify again And the son of man In himself And he will glorify You know what to do there Him went once I'll read it all the way Through this time Without all the interruptions When he was gone Jesus said Now the son of man Is going to be glorified And God is glorified In him If God is glorified In him God will glorify The son In himself And he will glorify Him At once We'll look at The rest of the passage Next week Looking at this idea Of glory I want to begin By talking about Jesus And his understanding In a Jewish culture In a Hellenistic culture Roman culture Of the understanding Of glory We tend to Compartmentalize Jesus Into little boxes And we kind of Forget who he is We kind of forget How he grew up Jesus Was a child Of antiquity He was born In antiquity He was surrounded By antiquity And what that means Is he understood The history Of what had come Before him I tend to make Jesus the generation I am So I see Generations You know Generations As like Gen X I kind of Just subconsciously Jesus is kind of Like me Right We kind of Have this picture Of Jesus And in our culture Today we talk About all these Different generations That's really important But I want to Just tell you Where Jesus came from And I want you To understand What he thought About glory What the bible Says about glory And once again How we share And partake In his glory Because to share In the glory Of the eternal God Is an amazing Concept And an amazing Ability that we Have to do that First I don't know If we got the slide Up The worship Had already started And I went And gave them A slide And Alan Just looked at me And went No No I'm sorry So second service We might have it 800 years Before Jesus Okay it looks like I got it to him A little late No worries 800 years Before Jesus Homer wrote The Iliad Now I don't know If you were In English class I was in AP English For two weeks Boring book I didn't want To read it Jesus Was well versed In Homer And the Iliad He was from An educated family He would have Known that It was just Obvious reading At the time He was 800 years Before Jesus Plato Was 300 to 400 years Before Jesus They had Jewish Stoics That were influenced By that We often times Don't realize How far Even older than America That Jesus was From Plato Aristotelian thought Right There was all these Ideas From him Alexander the Great 300 years Before Jesus Macedonian king Who went all the way To India If you haven't read A book on Alexander The Great Incredible Greatest warrior Of all time Jesus knew Who Alexander the Great Was Cleopatra This one I thought Cleopatra Was along Further away 30 years Before Jesus Cleopatra died Caesar 40 years Before Jesus And he set up A Roman empire Which Jesus Lived within He was surrounded And he was at When he was in Jerusalem One of the crossroads Of the world India was People from India Were coming over There was trade roads And routes that were happening He was surrounded on this And one of the concepts Of antiquity That Jesus Was immersed in Was the concept Of glory Glory Honor Virtue These are things That the Hellenistic Greeks Thought of That they argued about Up at the Acropolis And this idea Of glory Was something That was said To be That everyone Was going after This was not A society Of pain avoidance They understood That when you Ran into battle The greatest death That you could have Maybe even Not winning But dying A glorious death In battle I have a quote From Achilles From a bit of Homer's Iliad That I did read Achilles said this If I stay here And fight I shall not return alive But my name Will live forever Whereas if I go home My name will die But it will long Be heir Before death Will take me And what he's saying Is this Better to die young A glorious death Than I might be remembered In the songs That would come after me Than to go home To flee away From something And have no glory And honor Now the Jewish Understanding Back to the Bible Here In this five times That Jesus Is speaking about glory This teaching That Jesus says In this verse Is fully immersed It is baptized In this understanding Of glory And understanding Of you can die A glorious death Now Jesus dies A death on the cross And we see here In this passage That in the midst Of that death Jesus Is glorified There's a Hebrew word There's actually A term Excuse me A Greek term Called kleos Kleos in the Greek Means to attain glory In battle Worthy of recognition So you might be Remembered in eternity That's kleos Now let's go to the Hebrew and the Greek Right The Hebrew word For glory Is kavod It's kavod Kavod means this It means weight It means heaviness It means worthiness It means honor The word is used In Exodus 24 16 When it says The glory The kavod Of the Lord Dwelt on Mount Sinai And the cloud Covered it for six days And on the seventh day He called to Moses Out of the midst Of the cloud When you look At the Old Testament The term of glory Is oftentimes Associated with a cloud The cloud Would go before Israel The cloud Would go behind Israel There'd be this cloud And the cloud Was the embodiment It was the visible Physical manifestation Of the glory of God The kavod of God When the scripture says That we share As I'll show you In the New Testament In a moment In the glory of Christ In the glory of God Through his suffering On the cross You are being surrounded By the kavod of God You are being surrounded By the cloud of God Now you might not see The cloud of God Upon you But it says That when we share In his sufferings It is at kavod If you look In the New Testament There's a different word The word in the New Testament Is doxa Doxa means Radiance Honor Majesty And divine Splendor Let's go back To that verse again Verse 31 and 32 Because when Jesus Is speaking here He's redefining glory We often time Think about glory On the victor's podium We think about When you get the laurels In the Greek games At the end They would put the laurels Upon your head And you get the glory there But if you were to understand The culture of antiquity Glory is not won On the victor's podium It might be acknowledged On the victor's podium But they understood That glory Was won In battle And the battlefield Of God's glory Was the cross You see When Jesus Was on the cross It is when He was glorified And until recently When I started Studying this passage When Jesus was saying I'm going to be glorified I'm going to be glorified Every time I read This passage I pictured Jesus In heaven I pictured Jesus Raising from the dead There's glory When he did that I pictured Jesus After the fact But the fact is Is when Jesus says Is if you look at these words That he says In verse 31 and 32 He's saying I'm going to the cross He tells Peter in a moment You can't go with me But eventually You're going to follow Because he was crucified Upside down As we know But he is saying I'm going to a place Of suffering And in the place Of suffering I shall find My glory I will glorify God And he will glorify me How do we often How do we share In the glory of Christ Oftentimes It's on the battlefield Of our own sufferings What I want to do today Is help you redeem Your sufferings Christ redeemed Your sufferings But to give an understanding That when you struggle In the middle of the night With those thoughts That come over you Or a health battle Or a relationship battle It is in the midst Of that suffering Inviting Christ Into that suffering That is the battlefield Of Christ's glory And the way In which we suffer Either by facing The suffering Or running away From the suffering Either invites God's glory His kavod Into our suffering Where we will Experience his glory Or it shuns God When we try to escape It through other means And we don't face Those things In Christ With him And in his sufferings And so let's go To verse 31 and 32 When he was gone That's Judas Jesus says Now Now the son of man Is to be glorified That word now Is important Doesn't mean later Doesn't mean when he's resurrected It means now We were hours away From Jesus being beaten Spat on Humiliated Nailed to a cross Subjected to Incredible torment Now the son of man Is going to be glorified So let's stop right there And think When you are in the midst Of really hard times Do you see that As the moment Where you say Now In the midst Of this suffering God may you be glorified I feel your glory I feel the This is the place Where I will experience Your glory I don't feel that way Because I never understood it I'm waiting To have victory over it And after the victory I want to God you did it You're amazing And God will be glorified Looking back In heaven Jesus will be glorified Because of what he did But the glory Is not won after the battle The glory is won As Achilles knew In the midst of the battle Even in losing battles That Christ will win Because it looks like He lost on the cross He took victory Upon the cross So now is the moment And I want to say That now word's important When you're suffering Realize now is the moment That I share In the glory of God Because he shared In my sufferings And I share in his It says The son of man Is glorified And is glorified In him You see this Reciprocity Of glorification God I'm glorifying you That's just why Paul talks about We give praise And we praise God In our sufferings While we thank him Even though that's difficult We thank him We invite him in Because he suffered for us Verse 32 Jesus says If God is glorified In him God will glorify The son in himself And will glorify him All at once While glory is celebrated On the victor's podium It's not where it's won Glory is won on the battlefield And in the trenches Of life's suffering The son's glorification Begins with the cross Not the resurrection Or the ascension It is his self-giving love That God's character Is most fully revealed That's D.A. Carson This is a paradox This is a paradox Because most people Won't see Most people in our Modern society Won't see Almost losing Or struggling In a battle Where you don't feel Like you're gaining victory They won't see that As a victory They won't see that As something Where God would bring glory Because we live In a different society That shuns suffering Not that you go after Suffering Not that you go after Self-harm But the age of antiquity Would say The way in which You go through Your suffering Is the thing That brings you glory That's what Homer would have said That's what Homer did say That's what Achilles Says in the Iliad This was a main thought Of how you suffer Matters Not that we want To go after it We want God To reveal us But how you suffer Matters And in the midst Of suffering For God For his sake It says that He will bring And share his glory With us The cross was not A detour from glory It was the realm Of God's glory The cross was not A detour from glory Even though He had God turned His back It says On the sin of Jesus Says he had it For that brief moment However long it was It was You know But the glory Was still there Because even In the midst Of being Perhaps having His father Turn his back On him He was still Taking victory Over death And he was still In the glory And he was being glorified Jesus said In this passage That basically Let me just put it In a paraphrase When I go to the cross I will be glorified And my father Will be glorified And he will glorify me And I will glorify him And we will share In the glory Of God Once again We live in a world Of pain avoidance At all costs Pain avoidance At all costs Never face our issues When we see the crosses And the sufferings Of our lives As the battlefields Where we glorify God And in turn Share in his glory It changes the very nature Of our existence Let me just say that again Because for me This was so important This week Moments up and down Like everyone else And in these low moments As I was Just I've been really Enjoying this sermon series Because it's actually Blessing me I preach better When it changes my life When we see the crosses And the sufferings Of our lives As the battlefields Where we can glorify God And in turn Share in his glory It changes the very nature Of our existence We see our sufferings As a time Where the kabod of God Comes upon us We see that When we don't face pain We run from the glory When we don't face our pain Joe and Andrea We're talking about The skills And it is fully Bible based It changed my life I took it I'll probably take it again There's also marriage skills When we don't face The pain in our life What we do Is we run from the glory And so we go find These little distractions I've been fascinated With the difference Between Christ's journey Out of the wilderness To the Galilee Versus Israelites journey As they had all these Distractions along the way Jesus took a solid path From the wilderness And how you walk out Of a wilderness matters I thought if anybody Wants to write that book I thought it would be A great book to write How to walk out Of the wilderness Right Because a lot of us We've never been taught In a society That goes for cheap fixes To walk out of a wilderness With integrity And virtue Here's your practical takeaways That I had for today One First one is this How do we do this How do we How do we How do we Actually do it I can talk about it How do we do it I would say One Invite God Into your battles Invite him Into your battles Invite him Into the crosses Of your life Go to verse 32 Says if God Is glorified God will glorify The son in himself And will glorify him At once And there will be That moment You will see I found this There was these moments This week Where I would invite God in And it would seem like God it's not getting any better This is I'm battling Battling mental thoughts Battling Battling And maybe you Understand that That battle right Back and forth You're doing those Mental gymnastics You'll figure it out soon enough Sometimes I just need to lay it down I began to invite God into it And say God I just invite you into this battle I want the kabod I want the glory And there was moments Where it was like You could feel it come in How do we do that Well simple invitation Simple invitation Take a moment Say God In this situation I invite you in Suffer with me God be with me Another one is faithfulness Be faithful Don't go for the cheap fixes Faithfulness is showing up When you know it's difficult When you know there's a cheap fix You've gone to that cheap fix Over and over and over You've made it a habit To say no I'm going to say no To that cheap fix I want to go And continue to be faithful Faithfulness is one of the ways We invite God Prayer obviously prayer Begin to pray Make a list Ten things Sit with God Begin to ask of him The way to learn how to pray To pray You're not going to learn how to pray By not praying The only way to pray Is to pray And to continue on And you will find that As the scripture says in Romans No one knows how to pray So just take that as like That just lowers the bar right Paul didn't know how to pray It says no one knows how to pray Also says that the Holy Spirit Fixes all your prayers So when you send up a Prayer that is Needs a little work Under the hood Says the Holy Spirit He's going to fix it He's going to change the carburetor He's going to give it to Jesus Jesus is going to get it And he's going to intercede On your behalf Because he's constantly Interceding before you Every bad prayer you pray Is fixed by the Holy Spirit So just pray Keep praying bad prayers You don't have to think about You know Whatever it is The number one thing Is just to keep your mind focused That's the biggest battle If you have to Speak aloud And then God's word I gave someone my I've said this I've told you this It's one of my favorites So I say it all the time When you have an issue In your life My mom says Read the Bible Until God gives you Three scriptures for it Just keep reading Keep reading Go back to it If it takes a couple days Whatever Just get in a book Find a book Your favorite book John Whatever He will give you answers Ask for wisdom That's one That is the first thing So invite God Are you inviting God Into your battles When we don't suffer with him It says when we suffer with Christ It says this in Philippians When we suffer with him We will experience his glory Through the fellowship Of his sufferings Fellowship means We're sharing with him It's like we're taking a meal Like this last supper meal And you're taking your suffering And there's a mutuality of suffering This is why he tells Peter To touch his wound He says put your finger In the very wounds that I have That we might share In the reciprocity The reciprocal understanding Of suffering together Because when we suffer together We share my glory You might you know As we continue to look at that I want to give a couple verses About that have to do with that Before we begin The final point is this In regard to practical takeaways Use the weapon of the cross The cross Jesus' cross is a weapon I want to share these We have these little holding crosses I don't know if you've ever seen A holding cross They're I think they're Celtic They're thousands of years old And Christians have used them And they're shaped like your thumb We have them in the bookstore They're like four bucks Five bucks Something like that But you just hold them And it's not an idol No magical power or anything But for me It makes me focus on the cross And I just sit there And I pray And I begin to pray The power of the cross over it I want to pray I give you a couple verses Because the cross is a weapon And if you know believers Who walk in power Oftentimes You'll pray with them And they'll say God Jesus The power of your cross Let the power of your cross Attack this issue in my life Or let it have this Go against this issue in my life 1 Corinthians 1.18 In the ESV For the word of the cross Is folly To those who are perishing But to us Who are being saved It is the power Of God Colossians By canceling The record of debt That stood against us He set this aside Nailing it to the cross He disarmed the rulers And authorities And put them to open shame By triumphing Over them In him It is the power Of the cross I want to tell you Like I said This is just This is just to keep focus This is just a little thing To keep focus That's all it is Right So don't think I'm telling you There's an amulet That has power Okay I'm not saying that I'm not a crusader From the first century That found a shard Of the cross And we're taking it Into battle They did do that I'm not doing that What I'm saying is Remind yourself Use the power Of the cross The cross is a weapon Speak the name of Jesus The name of Jesus Has power The cross has power Say by the blood Of Jesus May this be changed By the power Of the cross Might this be changed That in that We share In the glories Of Christ Richard Wumberland Was a Romanian pastor Who was in prison For 14 years Under communist rule Because he would not Stop preaching Christ They'd let him out of prison They'd say Don't preach Christ He'd say okay Go right to the square Start preaching Christ Bring him in Torture him a little bit Don't preach Christ Send him back out Okay Go back out Start preaching Christ again Over and over again In Romania We were not allowed To preach He spent years In solitary confinement He was tortured Starved Beaten Put into the freezing cold But he never broke In his book Tortured for Christ He writes Alone in my cell Cold, hungry And in rags I danced for joy Every night Sometimes I was so Filled with his presence I felt I would burst If I didn't worship The guards couldn't Understand it They had stripped him Of everything But they could not Take the glory That had lived Within him When he was finally Released and asked How he endured He said The suffering Made me rely Not on what I could Do on my own But on who Christ is And his glory Shun the brightest In my darkness How do we share The glory of God Well one of the places We share it Is in our sufferings We all have sufferings We can invite him Because he wants To be there And this is the battleground Of his glory Amen Let's stand if we would We have a communion Amen Yeah if the helpers Can come up That would be amazing Name's Joe Branny I'll be leading you Have the honor of leading you And partaking of communion A little bit of administration Is this side's After I read the words You're going to come up Row by row You'll take the bread You'll take the grape juice And then you'll go back And sit down And pray Do work with the Lord In scripture It does say examine yourself So maybe there's Something you need to confess Something you need to let go Before you partake And then I'll read The words of Jesus And we'll take it together Which represents We're a corporate one And the context Of the Lord's Supper Is it was Passover time And the Israel people Were under slavery For 400 years With Pharaoh And God got them Out of slavery From a Passover lamb That they ate together And they took the blood And put it over their homes And then Jesus Gathers his 12 disciples And he starts a new covenant A new covenant In his blood He is the new Passover lamb So if you put your faith In him This is your meal The Lord Jesus On the night of his arrest He took bread And after giving thanks To God He broke it And he gave it To his disciples Saying take and eat This is my body Given for you Do this in remembrance Of me In the same way He took the cup Saying this cup Is the new covenant Sealed in my blood Shed for you For the forgiveness Of sins Whenever you drink it Do this in remembrance Of me Every time You eat this bread And drink this cup You proclaim The saving death Of the risen Lord Until he comes Family Church If you want to celebrate His death And his resurrection Come and partake Let's start with The first rose please I need thee I need thee Every hour Most gracious Lord No tender voice Like thine Can peace afford I need thee Oh I need thee Every hour I need thee Oh bless me Oh bless me Now my Savior I come to thee I need thee Every hour Stay thou near by Temptations lose their power When thou When thou art When thou art I I need thee Oh I need thee Oh I need thee Every hour I need thee Oh bless me now My Savior I come to thee I come to me I come to me I lo- �� �� �� �� �� �� �� I need Thee every hour In joy or pain Come quickly and abide For life is made I need Thee, oh I need Thee Every hour I need Thee Oh bless me now my Savior I come to Thee I need Thee every hour Most Holy One Oh make me Thine indeed Thou blessed Son I need Thee, oh I need Thee Every hour I need Thee Oh bless me now my Savior I come to Thee Open our eyes Lord We want to see Jesus To reach out and touch Him And say that we love Him Open our ears Lord And help us to listen Open our eyes Lord We want to see Jesus It's a beautiful thing I mean look around you Everybody here that's taken Jesus' body and blood The symbolic form is saying I need a Savior You know I need a Savior God is doing something in San Diego God is doing something globally And you are part of it We are hungry for you Lord Jesus and your cross And He said Take and eat This is my body given for you Do this in remembrance of me Let us eat together family In the same way He took the cup Saying this cup is the new covenant Sealed in my blood Whenever you drink it Do this in remembrance of me Let us remember Jesus And drink together Gracious God May we who've received this sacrament Live in the unity of your Holy Spirit That we may show forth your gifts To all the world We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ And all God's people said Amen Let us stand and pray the Lord's prayer together And afterwards Pastor Adam will give a blessing Our Father Who art in heaven Hallowed be thy name Thy kingdom come Thy will be done On earth as it is in heaven Give us this day our daily bread And forgive us our trespasses As we forgive those who have trespassed against us And lead us not into temptation But deliver us from evil For thine is the kingdom And the power And the glory forever Amen Amen Amen Before I bless you I want to give you that verse I forgot to give it to you Out of Romans 8.17 I want to give you a New Testament context quickly Romans 8.17 If we are children of God Then we are heirs Heirs of God And co-heirs with Christ And if we share in his sufferings We will also share in his glory I want to bless you And pray this over you If you extend your hands May the Lord who revealed his glory Not in power But in the cross Meet you in your suffering With the weight of his presence May you see the beauty of Christ Even in the broken places of your life May his spirit give you strength When the burden feels heavy Hope when the night feels long And joy that defies the circumstances May the glory of God Not the words of the world Transform your hearts Rest upon you Rise within you Radiate through you And may you know this That even in your hardest moments You are not abandoned You are being glorified with Christ Amen If you need prayer Please come forward Our prayer to him be here We love you We'll see you next week