Subject: CHRIST IN YOU, THE HOPE OF GLORY
Scripture: Jeremiah 9:23-24; 1 Corinthians 1:26-31.
Text: Colossians 1:27: "...Christ in you, the hope of glory:"
From the little infant who cries for attention all the way to the elderly person right on the edge of eternity, there is something in human nature that cries out for recognition and that clings to a hope for a measure of earthly glory.
Have you ever watched a red-headed woodpecker clinging to the side of a tree hard at work after some insect or worm in the trunk of the tree? It pecks away furiously for a little while and then stops, cocking its head to one side almost as if to see if anyone is noticing the wonderful work it is doing.
It is said that late one afternoon an old mountaineer was hurrying his mule along a mountain road, trying to get home before a thunderstorm broke. The skies were black with clouds. The lightning was flashing, and peals of thunder were rolling across the mountains.
Up on the side of a mountain, high up on an old dead snag, the mountaineer noticed a red-headed woodpecker hard at work, trying to bore a hole into the trunk of the tree. It would peck away with all its might for a few moments and then cock its head to one side almost as if to say, "Is anybody looking? Is anybody looking?" Then it would go at it again.
Suddenly a bolt of lightning flashed across the sky and struck the old snag, splitting it from top to bottom.
"I suppose," the man thought, "that old red-headed woodpecker died thinking that he had done that mighty deed himself with his powerful pecking."
Maybe so. I don't know that much about what goes on in the mind of woodpeckers.
But I do know enough about human nature to know that the desire for recognition and the hope of attaining some measure of attention and glory is a rather universal trait.
A few years ago someone published a book entitled THE STATUS SEEKERS which rapidly gained quite a bit of attention and became one of the best-sellers in our country. The central theme of the book had to do with the fact that to a large degree people are status seekers, and do a lot of the things that they do in an effort to make an impression on other people. It is amazing how much of the energy of the human race is expended in the struggle to acquire status symbols rather than those things which add to a real improvement in human welfare and happiness!
Far more than most of us realize, the kind of houses we live in, the kind of cars we drive, the kind of clothes we wear, the way we wear our hair, the places we go, and even the food we eat are influenced by the perhaps hidden desire to make an impression on others and gain some recognition for ourselves.
Do you remember the "Maggie And Jiggs" cartoon strip of years gone by? If so, you no doubt remember what Jiggs favorite food was: corned beef and cabbage. Maggie liked it, too, but she was a social climber and would not permit it to be cooked in her house because she thought it was too common a food to be eaten by people in "high society". She was always trying to make an impression on people whom she thought could further her social ambitions, and gave Jiggs a hard time because he wasn't careful about the things she thought would impress other people with their importance and status.
From the little child who seeks to be the center of attention to the school student who burns the midnight oil in order to be at the head of the class to the teenager with a hotrod car, a muffler that magnifies rather than muffles the noise of an over-sized engine, and has a jacked-up rear end and enough chrome for a Rolls Royce, to the athlete who seeks to be the star of the game to the TV and movie stars who struggle for an Oscar to the businessmen who burn the candle at both ends long after attaining sufficient success for the material needs of life to preachers who seek to become bishops or district superintendents or who seek ever larger churches for the prestige they offer to all the rest of the human race who seek, in one way or another, for personal recognition and earthly glory, the desire to stand out, to be the center of attention, to receive the praise of others is common to human nature.
Jesus noted that the scribes and Pharisees of New Testament days did things to be seen of men, and John noted the fact that even some of the chief rulers loved the praise of men more than the praise of God. The desire for human praise and earthly glory has been around for a long, long time.
Yet, this is a vain and fruitless desire when it is based on human effort.
Peter tells us that all the glory of man is as the flower of grass which falls away.
Such glory as we may attain through our own achievements is a vain and passing thing, soon over and done with and forgotten by the world.
King Louis XIV of France called himself "the Great." He was the king who made the famous statement, "I am the State." His court was the most magnificient in all of Europe, his funeral in 1715 A. D. the most spectacular.
After he died, his body was dressed in the richest of robes and placed in a golden coffin. To dramatize his greatness, an order had been given that instead of thousands of candles as one might expect, the cathedral was to be lighted by a single candle. Flickering in the semidarkness, it cast a softly shimmering light on the gleaming coffin.
Thousands of people crowded into the cathedral for the funeral service. The hushed silence was broken only by the noise of their weeping.
Then, the bishop who was in charge of the service began the funeral oration. The funeral oration may have been the shortest in the history of mankind. It consisted of only four words. Slowly reaching forward,he snuffed out the one, lone candle, and said, "Only God is great!"
There is an old story told about King Canute of England of long ago. He lived in much splendor and was constantly surrounded by people who thought they could please him by praising him. "You are mighty and powerful," they would say. "Nothing in all the world would dare to disobey you. Your glory will last forever. Your kingdoms are safe from any army. You are so great that no one will take a foot of your land."
Finally the king got tired of hearing such stuff. He was a very wise king and he knew that what people were saying just wasn't so.
One day he turned to his servants and told them to bring his great chair of state and follow him. He went down to the seashore. The tide was out. He had his chair placed right at the water's edge and then sat down in it facing the sea.
After a while, the tide turned and began to come in. A little wave washed over the sand and right over the feet of the king.
Then King Canute stood up, stretched out his hand toward the sea, and called out in a loud voice, "This land whereon I stand is mine. None of the people on this land dare resist my rule. I command thee, sea, not to mount up on my land nor wet my feet. I command thee to retreat right away."
Just as he finished speaking, another wave, bigger than the first, came foaming up the beach. It covered his feet and ankles and poured over the legs of the people who were standing around his throne chair.
Then King Canute spoke again: "Let all the people on earth know," he said, "that kings have no power that God does not give them. The power of kings is vain. No one is worthy the name of King except Him who made the land and the sea and whose Word is the law of heaven and earth."
Earthly glory is an empty thing and soon over with.
To the Corinthian Christians who seemed to have been in danger of thinking more highly of themselves than they ought to think, the Apostle Paul put the question: "What hast thou that thou didst not receive? Now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?"
Glory belongs unto God. Only God is truly great.
If we have special talents and abilities, it is God Who gave them to us.
If we excel in the things which we do, it is because God enabled us to do so.
In comparison with God, our human wisdom is but as foolishness; our human strength as weakness; our greatest accomplishments but as a vain show.
Today's "Who's Who" is tomorrow's "Who Was", and those who stand in the limelight of the world now will be little missed and seldom if ever remembered by future generations. "As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more."
Is, then, this desire for recognition, this universal craving to be a somebody, this ambition for status and a measure of fame and earthly glory, simply a vain longing that can never find fulfillment?
The Biblical answer is "Yes" if we seek along worldly and self-centered pathways and through our own efforts.
But there is a pathway that leads to genuine and lasting glory. Peter tells us in his epistle that Christ has called us to glory.
And the Apostle Paul tells us, in Colossians 1:27 what the hope of our glory is. It is Christ in us. The pathway to becoming somebody, the pathway to truly worthwhile living, the pathway to eternal glory, is simply the pathway whereby we receive Christ by faith and He lives in us as an indwelling Spirit. "Christ in you, the hope of glory," Paul says.
When Christ lives in and through us, we are no longer nobodies, destined to run life's little course and then be buried in the sea of forgetfulness. We are somebodies. Our names are written down in the Book of Life. We are children of the King! We can throw our heads back and sing,
"I once was an outcast stranger on earth,
A sinner by choice and an alien by birth;
But I've been adopted, my name's written down,
An heir to a mansion, a robe, and a crown...
I'm a child of the King, a child of the King:
With Jesus my Saviour, I'm a child of the King!"
Not only is Christ within us the pathway to being a "somebody", but having His Spirit dwelling in us and living through us is also the pathway to genuine greatness. Jesus came not to be ministered unto but to minister, to serve the needs of mankind in a spirit of love.
When His Spirit lives in and through us, then, we, too, find ourselves motivated by love along a pathway of service to others in a needy, troubled world.
You may remember Jesus' two disciples who came to Him seeking the places of honor at His right hand and at His left hand when He came into His kingdom. They wanted to be great and have places of honor and recognition.
Jesus told them that the pathway to greatness is the pathway of loving service. "Whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister, and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant," Jesus said.
It is said that many years ago, when she was nine years old, Princess Elizabeth II of England went shopping with her grandmother, Queen Mary, in one of London's leading stores. Crowds began to gather outside the store, waiting for a glimpse of the little princess when she and her grandmother came out.
Queen Mary took longer with her shopping than little Elizabeth liked and she became very impatient with her grandmother for spending so much time in the store. "Please hurry, Grandmother," she said. "I want to go out and let all those people see me."
Sadly Queen Mary led little Elizabeth to the rear exit of the store and they returned to Buckingham Palace by a roundabout way. She said to Elizabeth, "England must never see one of its princesses when she is full of foolish pride and conceit, my child. England loves its rulers because they serve, not because they rule. Never forget that, Elizabeth."
That is a truth all of us need to remember. People are remembered and honoured in life, not for what they receive and accumulate and gather unto themselves but for what they give, the service they render and the contributions they make to the lives of others.
Jesus came not to be ministered unto but to minister, to serve; and those in whom His Spirit lives are also on pathways of service to others in a spirit of love, and, as they live for others, they share in the glory of unselfish service.
Beyond whatever glory a person may experience in this life, however, there is a kingdom of glory hereafter that all of us surely want to have a place in. Our text tells us how to have a place in that kingdom. The pathway: "Christ in you, the hope of glory."
In Romans 8:11 we read: "But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you."
When we receive Christ into our hearts and lives as an indwelling Spirit and let His Spirit live in and through us, not only do we become somebodies, children of the King, and not only do we come to experience the honor and glory of unselfish service, but we also are on the pathway to that realm of eternal glory and abundant life that awaits those who love the Lord and who shall experience the glories of Heaven in the world to come.
John Hamilton tells how, on one occasion many years ago, his father, a Methodist preacher, was helping another minister in a series of a revival services. One evening they went out to supper in the home of one of the faithful women of the church where the husband was not a church goer.
When the meal was over, the husband invited the preachers to go outside with him. He was a farmer and everything about the place testified to his diligence and hard work. Pointing to his large barn, he commented that it was full of feed from the previous year and he did not know where he was going to store the new crop then in the making - that he supposed he might have to build more storage space.
He pointed with pride to his large, well-kept fields and said, "All these are mine."
As he pointed out one thing after another he kept saying, "This is mine. I have worked my fingers to the bone for all of this," he said, "and it is mine."
They looked down across the fields and meadows to where a creek flowed through the farm. "That creek and all of those meadows and pastures are mine," he said.
In a distant patch of woods, smoke was seen coming from the chimney of a small tenant house. The farmer said, "That's my tenant house, where my tenant lives. It's mine, too."
The pastor was growing weary of hearing him say, "That is mine" or "That belongs to me," and he spoke out: "In that little tenant house, there is an old 88-year old woman, the mother of your tenant. I have visited her. She is one of the Lord's saints, and she can say, 'Jesus is mine!' You can't say that!"
Unless we can truly say, "Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine! He lives in my heart and in and through me," any glory we may experience or hope for is but a vain and empty and passing thing.