The Promise of Glory!

But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

I know that this will turn out for my deliverance through your prayers and the provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, according to my earnest expectation and hope, that I will not be put to shame in anything, but that with all boldness, Christ will even now, as always, be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.

Paul had an earnest expectation of hope! God’s glory provided ballast to His mind, heart, and soul! His faith prioritized his emotional response to his circumstances, his mental health through the situation, and his priorities of decision making for his lifestyle. That is what the promise of glory gives us—it calms our hearts, orders our minds, and directs our paths.

You weigh your options based on their urgency and their importance. There is a competition for our attention and whatever weighs the most wins! This happens at a level we are not even aware of and we have lots of ways of explaining it: it is heavy, it grabbed me, it caught my attention, it’s got a hold of me, etc.

For example, if there are bills pressing you, making money weighs the most and decisions reflect that priority. If you are in pain or have a pressing medical diagnosis, seeing the doctor and medical treatmentsweigh the most and all else that was important are put in the back seat. If there is a broken relationship, a heavy heart weighs you down and shades your perceptions of everything else.

What weighs us down shapes our perceptions of life and determines our decision making!

Important things, left unattended will eventually become urgent, but if we can prioritize them by the weight of their actual importance before their urgency starts weighing us down emotionally, then potentially we can save ourselves a lot of pain, anxiety, and heart ache. Here is a quick list of everyday examples:

• You don’t take the time to get your oil changed (though it’s important) until the tow truck is taking you to the mechanic after your engine seizes up on I-70 (now it’s urgent). A $50 bill becomes $1000!

And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ; having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

The promise of glory minimizes the emotional hijacking of the urgent, the mental kidnapping of anxiety-producing circumstances, and the physical straight jacket of your stress response to bad news. It allows you to put everything in right perspective to God’s overarching reality—your salvation is signed, sealed, and delivered. You are justified, sanctified, and glorified. Rest! Believe! Trust!

The promise of glory is how you can be a peaceful presence and a loving person in the midst of the raging storms around our world, nation, and community.

The promise of glory is not only the promise of being raised up to Heaven in perfect union with God, but it is the promise of being intimately yoked with the One who walks with you every day to that destination. I can only live that way and think that way because I know my destination is secure and that death is not the reality of my eternity. Therefore, fear, anxiety, and insecurity will not outweigh God’s promise of glory!

I have been raised up because I am in Christ and I have my eyes fixed on His glory—past, present, and future. May God’s glory be your motivation and help you discern your decisions each and every day. May your emotional well-being and mental health be stabilized by the weight of glory in these turbulent times.

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FOOTNOTE:

The Promise of Freedom!

Galatians 5:1 (NAS95)

Pastor Jerry Ingalls of New Castle First Baptist Church on July 4, 2021

I.  The Yoke Imagery.

The yoke concept within the Hebrew literary traditions is strongly related to the idea of the Sovereignty Covenant. God laid his yoke on his people. His people either bore the yoke (an obedient, proper relationship) or broke off the yoke (a relationship of rebellion). God’s people might choose to attempt to wear the yokes of other gods, which was the same as throwing off the yoke of Israel’s god. Obviously, one could not wear two yokes at the same time. The wearing of the yoke as viewed in Hebrew scripture was the outward sign of an inward relationship. Thus one might bring the offerings and do all of the things of religion and still not be bearing the yoke in terms of attitudes and relationships. Hebrew scriptures can thus view the bearing of the yoke of God’s sovereignty as joy, honor, and privilege rather than tragedy, hardship, and sorrow.^[1]

God is passionate about upholding His covenant with His people as we read in Jeremiah 2:20, “For long ago I broke your yoke and tore off your bonds; But you said, ‘I will not serve!’ For on every high hill and under every green tree you have lain down as a harlot.” God continues in Jeremiah 5:5-6,

“I will go to the great and will speak to them, for they know the way of the Lord and ordinance of their God.” But they too, with one accord, have broken the yoke and burst the bonds. Therefore a lion from the forest will slay them, a wolf of the deserts will destroy them, a leopard is watching their cities. Everyone who goes out of them will be torn in pieces, because their transgressions are many, their apostasies are numerous.

This connection to the concept of the yoke as God’s sovereign rule over His chosen people, as opposed to their bondage to idols and false gods cannot be lost, nor ignored. Jesus aligned His usage of yoke with the Old Testament, as seen in Matthew 11:28-30 when viewed in context with His declaration of the people’s apostasy in verses 20-24.

The yoke imagery would not have been lost on the original New Testament audience. Jeremiah Garrett explains in the Lexham Bible Dictionary, “Some New Testament Letters seem to rely on the Old Testament understanding of yoke as an instrument of slavery (e.g., Gal 5:1; 1 Tim 6:1).”^[2]

You are either in the yoke of faith (trust and obedience to God and His ways) or in the yoke of slavery (rebellion against God’s plan and ways)!

II. The Context of the Promise

That transitions us to our second point of the lesson. Let’s now understand our memory verse and the Holy Spirit’s promise of freedom within its original context by reading Galatians 4:21-31 & 5:1:

Tell me, you who want to be under law, do you not listen to the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the bondwoman and one by the free woman. But the son by the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and the son by the free woman through the promise. This is allegorically speaking, for these women are two covenants: one proceeding from Mount Sinai bearing children who are to be slaves; she is Hagar. Now this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free; she is our mother. For it is written, “Rejoice, barren woman who does not bear; Break forth and shout, you who are not in labor; For more numerous are the children of the desolate Than of the one who has a husband.” And you brethren, like Isaac, are children of promise. But as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so it is now also. But what does the Scripture say? “Cast out the bondwoman and her son, For the son of the bondwoman shall not be an heir with the son of the free woman.” So then, brethren, we are not children of a bondwoman, but of the free woman. It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.

Obviously, Paul just gave us an Old Testament lesson to help us understand his teaching on the freedom Jesus has given us. This promise of God is birthed in the ancient Genesis story of the first Patriarch couple—Abraham and Sarah. I will paraphrase this story from Genesis 15—21.

God promised Abraham and Sarah that they would have a child and through that child their descendants would be more numerous than the stars in the sky. God promised that rulers of nations would come through Sarah’s womb, but into a very old age her womb remained closed. In a desperate moment, they took matters into their own hands and Sarah, the “free woman” gave Abraham Hagar, her handmaiden or as Paul called her, “the bondwoman,” to conceive a child. In this moment of fear and anxiety, Ishmael was born, and the results have been disastrous to God’s people and the world ever since! You hear about it nearly every day!

Let’s now connect that story to Paul’s teaching in Galatians 4. Ishmael is the “son by the bondwoman [who] was born according to the flesh.” Later, God performed a miracle and though Sarah was well beyond her biological capability to have a baby, her and Abraham conceived Isaac and he is called the “son by the free woman through the promise.” Paul says that these two women and their respective babies allegorically correspond to two different covenants: (1) Ishmael and his offspring are the slaves to the Law of flesh and death, corresponding to Mount Sinai and “the present Jerusalem” (that is the Old Covenant based on the Mosaic Law) and (2) Isaac and his offspring are the “children of promise” who correspond to “the Jerusalem above” and are born according to the Holy Spirit (that is the New Covenant based on Jesus Christ and His promised baptism of the Spirit, that we have discussed so often over the last month).

III. The Application

The yoke is easy because God has made a way for you to have a personal relationship with Him through Jesus’ own relationship with the Father, and the burden is light because God gives you everything you need for life and godliness through your baptism of the Holy Spirit!

As Paul teaches us in Ephesians 2:1-10,

And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

What is very interesting is that after both Galatians 5:1 and Ephesians 2:1-10, Paul contrasts the distinction between those who are circumcised of the flesh (Old Covenant) and those who are in the Spirit (New Covenant), once again reinforcing today’s teaching and the importance of understanding the New Covenant through Jesus’ fulfillment of the Old Covenant requirements and the pouring out of the Spirit at Pentecost.

Here is the invitation: Believe God, rest in Jesus, and walk in the Spirit. This is the yoke of faith. This is the Covenant of the Spirit—the easy yoke of Jesus shatters all other yokes! The Fear of the Lord drives out all other fears! Greater is the Spirit of God who is in me than he who is in the world!

You must choose today which yoke you will put on and walk in. The yoke of slavery or the yoke of freedom!

The hard yoke of Law is all about you taking matters into your own hands and producing an Ishmael with devastating results to you and others. It is when you strive to make life work out for you the way you think it should work out.

The easy yoke of Jesus leads to freedom through trust in God for His plans and His ways to bring about what He promises you—Isaac! Jesus promises you freedom from the anxiety and fear that tell you that you must take control of your life if you want to see God’s abundance! We can rest in God’s promises!

I conclude with a powerful call to strive to live this life of rest. From Hebrews 4:8-11,

For if Joshua [the Old Covenant] had given them rest, He would not have spoken of another day after that [the New Covenant]. So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His. Therefore let us be diligent to enter that rest, so that no one will fall, through following the same example of disobedience.

Strive to enter God’s rest by taking the yoke of Jesus Christ on to yourself and become like Him, gentle and humble in heart! You will believe God and His promises, and you will experience the fulfillment of all God’s promises. Walk in the Spirit who has given you everything you need for life and godliness.

How do we stand firm and resist the yoke of slavery? We do as the psalmist commands each of us in Psalm 46:10, “Cease striving and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”

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FOOTNOTES:

[1] Charles L. Tyer, “Yoke,” ed. David Noel Freedman, The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary (New York, NY: Doubleday, 1992), 1026.

[2] Jeremiah K. Garrett, “Yoke,” ed. John D. Barry et al., The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016).