The Glory Of God Pt 3

Okay, and we'll talk about God's glory again for the third week, so if you would join me in prayer. Father, we thank you. We praise you. We rejoice in this opportunity to study your glory. We would even say that right now we glorify your name. We give you the credit for your work in our lives that we can be here, that we are no longer unwilling, unable, and unaware, but by the sheer power of your effective grace, we are willing, able, and aware of being here in your presence and opening up your word.

I pray that you would now just instruct our minds and our hearts. I pray that we would leave here better equipped to glorify your name. We ask these things in Christ's name. Amen. Okay, so week one, we talked about what God's glory is. Can anybody summarize that?

Anybody who was here? How would you summarize? If somebody asked you, what is God's glory, what would you say? Anybody? Nobody knows? Nobody can say?

Mom wasn't here. She would answer, but she just wasn't here. What is God's glory? If I asked you that, let's say I was new to all this, and I said, you know, I was reading this Bible and it says glory all over the place. What is glory? God's risen Son.

There's glory in the resurrection, right? What is glory, though? Respect and honor. It's tied in with fear, right? This idea of I revere you. Remember, glory means it's that sense that you get when you're by something really big or really powerful.

Something that makes you hush and just watch. That's glory. God's glory is such that when people would see it, when God would manifest Himself, they'd fall down as though dead. That's an extreme form of being hushed. Anybody else? What is God's glory?

Mom? Yes. Yes, yes. So His glory, one way that... Right one way that glory is defined is it the manifestation of God perfections which would include His holiness but it the outward display of His manifold perfections That's a little bit more theological and abstract, but it is connected to holiness. God's holiness is maybe an attribute that He has.

He's entirely separated, set apart, but His glory is the outward expression of His holiness. Remember, the word means power, it means weightiness, it means riches, it means having a good reputation, being praiseworthy. This is what glory is. And last week we looked at the idea that God is number one priority and all that he does is to glorify himself.

And that thought will revolutionize your world. If you take that to heart and consider that God's mercy and love as well as God's justice and wrath, God's creation and God's redemption are all geared toward glorifying His own name. Today, we want to look at what it means to glorify God. We looked at last week the idea that God did not create because He was lacking something.

He didn't create this world because he was lacking glory and he was like, boy, I could really use a little bit more glory. So what can I do? Oh, I know, I think I'll create a world and put my image in it and send my image all around the world. He didn't do it because he was lacking glory. He wasn't lacking anything. He doesn't need us to supply some amount of glory that he's lacking.

So what does it mean then to glorify God? What does it mean to give him glory if he's already got it all? I was I was blindsided by a guy who thinks he knows theology we were discussing and I mentioned giving God glory and he said that's impossible to do, you can't give God glory God's already got all the glory was he right in saying that? yes and no right?

I mean yes he's right because you can't give God any glory, he's got it already he's not missing any, it's all his But aren't we commanded in Scripture to glorify God, to give God glory? I mean over and over again that a command So he was on to something but it wasn the full story So theologians talk about two aspects of God glory And are there any sheets left over? Any extras?

No? Okay. Then does anybody need one that doesn't have one? Maybe one or two, three. Steve, you can run like five more. That'd be really great. two aspects of God's glory.

And what we've looked at so far is theologians refer to this as his intrinsic glory. It's what he has inside of himself. This is God's... Well, somebody who has the paper, would you read what it equals? What intrinsic glory equals? All right, it's His internal and eternal glory.

So Jesus' high priestly prayer, Father, glorify me with the glory I had with you in the beginning. This idea that God has forever existed in glorious triunity. Within Himself, He's full of glory. He doesn't need something outside of Himself to complete His glory. So God's glory is intrinsic, and we cannot add to God's intrinsic glory. Can't do it.

But remember, He's like the sun, and we're like those solar driveway lights that soak up the sun all day and then emit this pathetic little light half the night until we get run over by a car and crack. That's God's intrinsic, eternal, internal glory. And all we can do is, like those lights, we can absorb it and reflect it. And so this is what theologians call His ascribed glory.

Ascribe to the Lord. Ascribe to the Lord glory and thanks and honor. Ascribe it to Him. It's His anyway. It's just ours to declare that it's true. And that's what...

Would someone read what I have after ascribed glory? I like it. That's in stereo. Could you keep that going? Pam, I can hear you better, so you're kind of central. Yeah so it a response a reaction to God I take one too Steve so I know what I wrote It helpful I can catch my typos this way.

Thank you. And it's our reaction, our response, it comes through what we say and what we do. Now what we say is a subset of what we do, like saying is doing, right? Saying, speaking things is an action. but it's also how we do what we do, right? And I think that's an important distinction. We could do one action for the glory of God, and someone else could do the exact same action not for the glory of God, right?

So it's not just what we do, but how we do it, our motivations behind doing it, and so forth. But ascribing glory to God is the proper reaction, the proper response. So does anybody have any questions or thoughts about these two aspects aspects of God's glory? Right. Right, right. To magnify it is to...

I think it's John Piper who likes to use the illustration of distant galaxies, distant solar systems. these huge glorious flaming balls of gas and we from earth like Tim was saying this morning we live in cities and stuff we can't even see most of them and even when you can see them it's a certain kind of glory when you're out somewhere where there are no city lights and you see the Milky Way you see these star systems but then if you take a nice telescope and Debbie on Instagram she likes or she's subscribed or whatever to the NASA page. And they'll have these pictures of these solar systems and these stars, these distant galaxies that are just breathtaking. And they're out there, but they're not accessible to most people.

You have to have a telescope to realize the awesomeness of these distant celestial bodies. And in that sense, that's kind of like ascribing glory to God, magnifying the glory of God. We're taking something that is awesome, but distant, and bringing it close and revealing it. We're manifesting it so that it's known, it's revealed to those around us. Is that similar to what you're going for?

Yeah. So we're not adding to those solar systems. We're not adding anything to those solar systems. We're just making them known in our dark corner of the universe, right? To bring the metaphor home. Anybody else on these two?

Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right. Right, right. Yeah, yeah, or the hip-hop artist who wins an award for all of his very nasty, worldly, fleshly, vulgar songs.

First and foremost, yeah, first and foremost, I want to give thanks to God, right? And, well, come on. Good, Joyce. Right, yeah. So it's, these, ascribing God glory is not something that you, ideally it's not something you do on the outside and then it becomes internal. It's something that is internal, this motivation that God is awesome and I recognize that, so I want to declare it.

I want to proclaim it. Now sometimes we do, we're calloused and we need people around us glorifying God and it starts as an outside thing and then we realize, oh, this is a good thing to realize God's glory. Yeah, Paul? I'm trying to get that third chapter. That's what I'm going to say. may be included in those. Okay.

I would say intrinsic, ascribed, observed. Observed? Observed. Okay. Even nature testifies to that. Right, okay, okay.

So, yeah, the heavens declare the glory of God, right? So how would you define observed then? Who is doing the observing? Like we're observing nature glorifying God? The angels glorify God. God glorifies God.

Christ glorifies God. We glorify God. Right. Yeah, so as we ascribe... So nature testifies to the glory of God, right? That would be nature ascribing glory to God.

All creation. Right, right. And then we observe nature ascribing glory to God, right? Even the rock would say that. Right, yeah. If these people didn like Jesus says going into Jerusalem for the last time right If they didn cry out these rocks would Does God cry out He absolutely does That was last week We looked at that last Sunday night.

Were you here last Sunday evening? Yeah, we talked about the idea that God made a paradise. I used the example, let's say I made an island paradise and built a mansion on it and then filled it with statues of myself and portraits of myself. You'd think I was arrogant, but that's exactly what God did in creating the world. He created this paradise and put His image in it and said, fill my created world with my image.

So God's doing everything He does to glorify Himself. He sent His Son to glorify Himself. And He glorifies His Son as He glorifies Himself. So yeah. Did you? Yeah.

Yeah, John the Baptist. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. that's a phenomenal saying. What's cool about when John the Baptist said that, so John the Baptist had his heyday and his disciples were upset because more people were going to Jesus than to John the Baptist. And John the Baptist said, I'm not worthy to untie his sandals and he must increase and I must decrease.

And that's a beautiful thing that he said there because it's not just... So John the Baptist paved the way, like he's the road crew paving the way for Jesus. And he didn't say he must increase and you know what, don't worry disciples because I'm going to increase with him, right? He didn't say he must increase and we can just hold our own. He said he must increase and I must decrease.

So there's part of glorifying God that maybe is self-deprecation as we exalt God, right? There's this idea of, I think philosophers call it unselfing, right? This idea that we lose track of ourselves. We deprecate ourselves Not in the sense of self-consciousness, but in the sense of we think of ourselves less and more of God. That's a necessary aspect, I think, of ascribing glory to God.

Thanks for bringing that up. That's a really good cross-reference. All right, so glorifying God. These are some fill-in-the-blanks. You can guess at these if you want to. But let's look at these passages.

We'll divide and conquer here. who would look up Psalm 22, 23? Dennis? Isaiah 25 1 Mom And let skip over Luke because it happens all the time in Luke You just read Luke you find it over and over again But the really good one here is Revelation 15. Who would read that one? This is one of my... Emma, thank you.

One of my favorite hymns in the book of Revelation. So let's go through these, Psalm 22-23. All right, so praise Him, glorify Him, stand in awe, right? What about Isaiah 25, 1 through 5? I'll unpack that a little bit. God's getting praise and He's getting glory from ruthless, powerful people because He has destroyed them, right?

Just let that sink in. One more and then we'll bring this together. Revelation 15, 3 and 4. So the Lord has done righteous acts. He's revealed His power to save and to judge. And so in all of these passages, we see that ascribing glory to God is related to praise that declares God's awesome deeds.

So it's related to seeing God's awesome deeds, recognizing them as God's awesome deeds and then praising Him. Which could be through song, it could be through, like in Revelation, it could be through poetry otherwise, like in Psalms or in Isaiah. It could be, we didn't read it, but in Luke, after the blind, I think it's a blind man there, it might be a deaf man, but after he's healed, he goes away glorifying God, telling other people, praising God for what God had done.

We skipped over the two quotes I had above that one Most famously to us probably is John Piper statement that God is most glorified in us or in me when I'm most satisfied in Him. And below that is, this is a quote from an article by Steve Lawson, but he's talking about Jonathan Edwards and how Edwards was resolved to live for God's glory and that meant to exalt His most glorious name, to live consistently with His holy character, it means to proclaim, like we see in point number one here, to declare or proclaim His supreme greatness. And this is the highest purpose for which God created us.

So I wanted to highlight those quotes for you. And we might unpack those a little bit more as we go along here. But point number one, it's related to praise that declares God's awesome deeds. Number two, Psalm 86, verse 12. Now, what we're doing here is like, is really just the epitome of proof texting. Now, proof texting isn't bad, but it's not as good as diving into the Scriptures and like really immersing in them.

So just bear that in mind. You can check on these things to make sure what I'm teaching. Be Bereans about this. But we're just kind of doing a survey here, and I'm picking out Psalm 86, verse 12, which says, I give thanks to you, O Lord my God, with my whole heart, and I will glorify your name forever. For great is your steadfast love toward me. You have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol.

So here we see that ascribing glory to God is related to thanksgiving. It's related to a heart that's thankful, that remembers God's marvelous deeds, not just in some kind of distant sense, like, God, you've done amazing things, like the song in Revelation or like Isaiah's prophecy. But this is more internal. It's God's amazing deeds have been worked out on my behalf, and so I glorify him, and that's related to thanksgiving. next up is this I'm pulling this one from Acts 13 verse 48 turn there with me See, the Gospel's going out.

And it's declared. I think this is from Isaiah where he's quoting. Yeah, Isaiah 49.6 where Isaiah's quoted, I have made you a light for the Gentiles that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth. And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the Word of the Lord and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed. The idea here is that glorifying God is related to rejoicing.

And that's what John Piper said in his quote. This idea that glorifying God isn't something we do after we've enjoyed something. Glorifying God is something we do along with rejoicing. And when we delight in what God has graciously given us, when we're ecstatic, when we're exalting in the good gifts God's given us, that's when God is glorified. you can imagine someone his friends, his co-workers, his peers his relatives, everyone around him decided to throw him a banquet, a birthday party let's say and it wasn't a surprise birthday party, he knew about it and they said we're going to throw you a huge party we're going to have all kinds of food, we're going to have a huge cake for you entertainment, all your favorite things are going to be there and the guy shows up and brings his own lunchbox and sits in a corner by himself and talks to people whenever they walk up to him.

That's not how it goes. If his friends would honor him like that and give him such amazing gifts, that person's sort of responsibility is to participate in the good things that his friends were doing for him. And it's a similar thing here. I'm reading a book right now on this topic. It's called Things of Earth, and it's really helpful. The guy who wrote it, his name's Joe Rigney, he wrote it as a compliment to John Piper's book, Desiring God.

And the idea is, you know, John Piper really focused on this idea that, Psalm 73, Earth has nothing I desire besides you, right? My heart and my flesh, they're going to fail. They can fail, they're going to fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. So it's this tension. How do we say I don't need anything in this earth and yet glorify God for the good gifts that are in this earth right And it a really good read Again it called Things of Earth by Joe Rigney and he really harps in on this idea that we glorify God as we properly enjoy the gifts that He's given us.

So it's related to rejoicing. Next up, would someone go to John 16, 14 and read that? Let's divide the next few up here. John 16, 14, who would get that one? Susan? Susan?

Okay. Romans 15, 5-6, Ann. And Micah, would you get Matthew 5, 14-16? Let's go ahead and get those other two then. Who would do 1 Corinthians 6? Jim and Dad, would you do 2 Thessalonians 1?

So we're going to get the next few of them here. First up, John 16, 14. This is Jesus talking about the Holy Spirit's ministry to the disciples. After Jesus would leave them, the Holy Spirit would come. And go ahead, read John 16, 14. So the Holy Spirit's role, the Holy Spirit's primary role, according to Jesus, is to glorify the Son. and in John 16, 14 he says this happens by taking from what Jesus has and knows and is and revealing it, making it known to his disciples so ascribing God, glory to God takes place as we receive revelation from God as we receive things that are true about him it takes place via revelation If you notice that in John 16, 14, Jesus says, He will glorify me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you.

Right? It's the way the Holy Spirit would glorify the Son is by revealing true things about the Son to the disciples. So we glorify God by speaking true things about God. Right? Revealing truth about Him to others. alright next up Romans 15 5-6 alright so does anyone want to take a guess at this fill It takes place via what Relationships, unity, harmony, being related to one another.

It's with one voice, one harmonious voice that we glorify the Father. So we can glorify God as individuals, but we glorify God in a unique kind of way as a body, as we exist in unity with one another and with one harmonious voice declare the revelation, the goodness, the gifts, the awesome deeds of God. So it takes place as we experience unity, as we strive for unity.

These next three go together. So we'll read all three and see if you can guess it to fill in the blank. Matthew 5. Go ahead. All right, thank you, Micah. Next up, 1 Corinthians 6.

All right, and last up, 2 Thessalonians 1. All right, so does anybody want to guess at this one? We glorify God. How do we ascribe glory to Him based on these texts? Fleeing sin, proclaiming who He is, and especially through obedience, right? Living a life of faithful obedience.

In all three of those texts it very clear that it not works righteousness Jesus says you are the light of the world right In 1 Corinthians Paul says you have the Holy Spirit living in you In 2 Thessalonians, it's you are recipients of God's amazing grace. And so, therefore, be light. Honor God with your body. Be obedient and fulfill all His holy will.

So it's through obedience. There's one I didn't put on there, but I think it's 1 Peter 2. Is that on here later? We'll check it out in just a little bit here. But Peter picks up on the same theme. I think it is in here.

Maybe I left it out. We'll see. We'll see where that goes. But we'll turn to 1 Peter in just a moment, so we'll pick it up then. All right, so it takes place via obedience. Faithful obedience. so these are the last three of the ones and this is just a quick survey like this is just just type in the word glorify in the little search bar and read the passages that come up you'll see these themes simple bible study method it's such a blessing we should glorify god for living in a digital age right we can look up the we have bibles that are electronic you just type in a where you look it up, it's amazing.

It's so helpful. It used to be you had to have Strong's Concordance, and it was like this book that was thicker than it is tall, and it's heavy, and the print's really small, and you had to use the King James for it to work. So anyway, check it out. Yeah. You could if you want to. Yeah.

It must be a really strong shelf. You used to hide the Strong's Concordance on the high shelf? Oh, to step on it, to get up there, yeah. Alright, these last ones then. Let's divide and conquer again. John 13, let's turn there together.

This is Jesus starting his final discourse in the Gospel of John. This is after he washed the disciples' feet, after he predicts one of them betraying him and right after Judas leaves to go betray him, Jesus says this in John 13, 31, when he had gone out, Jesus said, now is the Son of Man glorified. And God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and glorify him at once.

A lot of glory in those two verses, right? But the idea is that God's going to do something to glorify the Son. And he said this at the hour of his betrayal. So let's hold on to that thought and we'll look at these other passages. Philippians 2, 5-11. Philippians 2, 5-11.

Let's look at that together. I think many of you know this passage. Philippians 2, 5-11 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, Jesus, was in the form of God, did not consider or count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Therefore God has exalted him highly and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. If you notice, that's really similar to Isaiah 25, what Isaiah said in Isaiah 25, that even his enemies are going to glorify him, right, because of his power to destroy and to save. There's one other passage, though, 1 Peter, and this is where we will turn over to 1 Peter.

And I have 4.16 written down, I think. Yeah, 4.16. Where Peter writes this, Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name. So here's a person suffering, like Jesus in the garden being betrayed. Here's a person suffering who's looking forward to glory, who's glorifying God for this hour of trouble. The other reference in 1 Peter that I'm surprised I didn't put on your sheet.

Where is it? There it is. 1 Peter 2. It's just a page back in your Bibles. Verse 12. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable so that when they speak against you as evildoers they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation And that a verse that actually applies to the previous point and also this one The idea here is that God is especially keen on getting unexpected glory.

He gets extra glory when something like this happens, when His Son takes on human form and is obedient to the point of death on a cross. and yet God exalts him and his enemies bow down. He's glorified when his son washes his disciples' feet and one of the disciples whose feet were washed goes out and betrays him. He's glorified when his people are pursuing righteousness but they're misunderstood and persecuted for it.

God gets unexpected glory. That's what's all... Remember when Tim went through the book of Revelation, that's what it was. Remember heaven's perspective is different from earth's perspective. Earth's perspective is Christians are the floor mats on which we are wiping our feet. They are a nuisance in society.

They're being exterminated. But heaven's perspective is no, the lamb is on the throne and he's victorious. And the end of the story is not what you think it is right now. And God gets more glory because he's not just the God who creates, but he's the God who saves. And that's an answer to the question, you know, we asked the question last week, why did God create the world?

Well, for his glory. But you could make the question a little bit more specific. You could say, why did God create this world? This world where he knew that there would be sin. This world where he knew that he would send his son to redeem his enemies from their filthiness and their rebellion. Why did God create this world?

And I think the short answer to that is because God gets more glory when he redeems things. He gets more glory when it's unexpected. I mean, isn't it, Ohio State just won the national championship. They weren't expected really to beat Wisconsin because they had their third string quarterback. Then they definitely weren't expected to beat Alabama. And then they certainly weren't expected by some people, like Jeremy Smith, right, to beat Oregon and win the national championship.

Isn't there more glory, right, when it's not expected? When it's expected that you're going to be defeated, but instead you win. That's way more glory than if the number one team just sails through and destroys everybody and gets the trophy Everybody like yeah that was expected God gets more glory We have a sense of this when it looks like things are just completely out of hand completely defeated and yet he raises up victory out of defeat He gets more glory That should be instructive to us.

The cross-reference there with Acts 5.41, the apostles are being persecuted, and they praised God that they were counted worthy to suffer for the name of Jesus. It's what Peter writes in 1 Peter 4. Glorify God that you bear the name of Christ. Glorify God that you give thanks and consider it a blessing that you're being persecuted for bearing Christ's name.

Next up, we're already in 1 Peter. Many of us are. So look at 1 Peter 4, verses 10 through 11. Can someone read that? Yes. Alright.

It comes from the proper use of God's gifts. That's what this text says. It says, as each has received a gift, each believer has received a gift from God, and Peter says, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's varied grace. And he goes on to say that if you're speaking, or if you're serving, do it in a way that you wouldn't just do it in your own strength, in your own wisdom, but do it in a way that's completely dependent on the Lord's strength and the Lord's wisdom.

So as we serve one another with the gifts and the substance that God has provided, God is glorified, right? As we properly use the gifts that he's given. Genesis 1, 27 through 28, we know this text. And so God created man in his image. Male and female, he created them, right? And then he said to them, be fruitful and multiply.

You know, I've given you every green plant for food. It's good, it's tasty, it's nourishing, and have a lot of kids, right? Now there a lot of delight in that passage right It fun to make kids right It fun to have kids It fun to eat good food right These are good good things but it was also the very vehicle by which God was glorifying his name. As they would properly use his gifts, right, God would be glorified.

As Adam and Eve used the gift of complementarity, right, and of reproduction, God would be glorified as his image is spread throughout creation. Sin, you can see how terrible sin is. Sin twists God's good gifts. I see a lot of people chuckling. It's because I said something like it's fun to have kids. Oh, make kids, yeah.

That's because I was thinking, remember that robot? The movie about the robots and the dad comes home what's that yeah yeah yeah yeah well that's from the text right be fruitful and eat eat kids yeah Ellen is all here tonight and she's happy and healthy gotta wait until she's a little bit plumper yeah wait a minute that would be an improper use of god's good gifts i think i'll have to do some research on that one but no it's probably not going to happen uh but you get the point here you get the point as we use and enjoy god's good gifts he's glorified right and sin what sin does is he twists those good gifts so that the use of them, we try to bring glory to ourselves, right? Or we consider that the enjoyment is the final end of these gifts.

Like my personal enjoyment is the final end of this gift. No, the final end, the purpose of that gift is to glorify the gift giver. That's all I'm saying. Does that make sense? Chuckles aside? All right.

Lastly, we know this verse, 1 Corinthians 10.31. Whether you eat or whether you drink or whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God. We're supposed to glorify God in everything we do. Whether it's having children or eating good food, coming to church, driving our cars, reading, working, voting, having fun at your hobby. being sick, whatever it is you do, do it all to the glory of God.

Getting a traffic ticket to the glory of God. So let's talk about that. We'll round out our time by mentioning, let's get specific, maybe not confessionally specific. What's that, Jeremy? Jeremy? Yeah.

Amen. Yeah, good summary. Christ-like behavior. I mean, Jesus glorified God on the earth. He prayed that and the Father confirmed it. So absolutely, let's run through those, Jeremy.

You've kept track of them evidently. Did Jesus declare the mighty works of God and praise Him? Rejoicing. Okay, they're not quite synonymous. There's a slight distinction. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. And just to tease them out, they're very related. They're interconnected, right? They are interconnected. But praise is vocalizing the awesomeness of God.

Thanksgiving has to do with God's goodness to me. and rejoicing. I can rejoice in God's gift to someone else, right? Like, it's the happiness that comes with seeing that. There's also, some theologians make a difference, a distinction between praise and adoration. Like, adoration is just saying, God, you're awesome, where praise is more specific. But yeah, they're all very related, and Jesus did these things.

He declared the mighty works of God. He gave thanks to God. It's interesting to see how many times Jesus gave thanks. Like, pretty much every time he ate, like, whether he's feeding 5,000 or establishing the Lord's Supper, he would give thanks before he would pass around the meal. And Jesus rejoicing? I know he did.

Can you think of a place where Jesus rejoiced? He thanked God that the Father revealed his truth to little children, but hid it from the wise. That one place where Jesus I don know if it uses the word joy but he definitely was glad that God was doing such a thing He definitely declared revelation from God He definitely, what's that? He is the word incarnate, right?

Yeah, the eternal word made flesh. He definitely produced and promoted unity. The world will know you're my disciples by the love you have for each other. Servant leadership. He was certainly glorified God through his obedience. We just read that in Philippians.

Absolutely, yeah. I mean, the whole thing about Matthew 18, when you win your brother back, great rejoicing, right? When the lost sheep are found. And that's what Jesus did. He went to find the lost sheep of Israel. So thanks, Joyce, for that one.

Yeah, so it's Christ-likeness. Jeremy, you're absolutely right. This is a good summary. But let's get specific nitty-gritty. We have just a few minutes left. Pick any of these.

Let's be specific. How can we glorify God? How can we ascribe glory to Him using the categories that we've pulled from Scripture? How can we glorify Him at home, at work, in society? I put politically there, but just in society. In fellowship with other Christians, in our thought lives, in our free time, in our use of money.

How can we glorify God? Be specific. What can you think of in just a few minutes here that we have remaining? Let's just whet our appetites here and start thinking very specifically about how we can glorify God. Jelena? Yeah.

So recognizing. I think that ties in with what Paul said about observing it, right? Just seeing it and adoring God for his wisdom and his power, his creativity. I had a discussion this week with a lady who is a self-proclaimed atheist. and we were talking and she used to be a Christian she says and she said you know when she became an atheist she was able to enjoy and there was a tree outside the window She like for instance I now able to look at a tree and feel a lot of happiness than before I never did.

And what's that? Well, yeah, you wonder, right? And it's like, well, I think I can do one up, right? I can do one better than you. I can really be grateful and thankful and rejoice in that tree because I know what that tree was made for, right? Like, you can give thanks that it provides fuel and lumber and it's aesthetically pleasing, but I know what it's really for, right?

I know what its perfect, proper end is. And anyway, not to get into that whole conversation. It was good. I was able to, that wasn't one of the points, but I was able on two or three points to show her how her worldview was just really deficient. And pray for her. Her name is...

Oh, what is her name? It's a weird name. The weird-named atheist. Pray for her. So, anybody else? How can we glorify God?

So we glorify God as we look at creation, right? And we think about the connection. That's here because God is wise and powerful. And we're declaring truth to ourselves in that moment, right? Ann. Uh-huh.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Not grumbling, but being thankful, right? That's a point of obedience.

But that comes from this faith, right? My God is sovereign. He's in charge. And He does loving, good things to His children. So even though it might be rough right now on the surface, I know God's doing good to me. And so translating that truth into thankfulness, even though everyone around us is grumbling, suddenly you stand out as a bright light, maybe an annoyingly bright light.

Right? To the people around you. Just want you to help them grumble. Right? They want help. They want assistance.

Join our chorus of grumbling. But instead, you're joyful. That glorifies God I love 1 Peter 2 where he says people accuse you of wrongdoing but if you persist in doing good you going to glorify God I love that because it doesn take someone recognizing me glorifying God for me to glorify God, right? The other people around me don't have to know that that's what's happening.

They might, I mean, they're unaware, unwilling, and unable, right? They might see my glorifying God and be annoyed by it because it exposes their sin. It's still glorifying to God. It doesn't take all of my peers to see it. God sees it. Jim and then Joyce.

Yeah. To serve others. Yeah. How many of you, I want to see, don't be bashful, how many of you have ever had a job where you worked with unbelievers and you were singled out by either one of your co-workers or a customer or your boss even, and they said to you something like, you're different, you really seem to care about people, who's experienced that?

Way to glorify God, right? To stand out. I mean, that's an extraordinary thing. That's not a pat on our back, Emma. That's us reflecting the sun, right? That's us being our pathetic little solar driveway light selves.

That's glorifying to God. Your wife was first. Which one? Grateful or grumbly hateful. What's your attitude? Yep.

Attitude. Yep. Absolutely. Herb. What's that? If you don't tell others what Christ means to you, what God's done for you through Christ.

Right. If you're not willing to share that. Don't deny you as a judge. in hope and in joy, it's going to make people start questioning what's different about you. What are you on? How are you happy? Because your life is horrible.

And that's when we have to be ready. You're absolutely right, Herb, to declare to them the works of God. The Gospel and how it's made a difference in our lives and how the good news is offered to them as well. Paul. Paul. at our home. In our home.

Yeah, marriages. So husbands love your wives like Christ loved the church and wives submit to your husbands as the church submits to Christ. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and also at home, the idea of raising godly children.

Not just making children, but raising them to glorify God, to reflect God's glory, right? That gets into some real specific stuff, like praying with your children and teaching them. I'm feeling that right now as a dad. To work in our homes and our marriages and with our children in our homes to teach the gospel, to live the gospel, to exemplify two-in-oneness.

Do you realize that in a marriage, the two become one is an image of God's triune self? Diversity and unity, right? It picturing and it depicting Christ in the church Human marriages are just a metaphor of the greater reality which is Christ in the church Yeah right Anything else? How we can glorify God? Mom? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Good. One more question.

I'll get real specific. How can we glorify God in the way we drive? Don't speed. Obey the law. Give thanks always. All right.

How else can we glorify God in the way we drive? Pray with your eyes open. Good one, Paul. Absolutely. Yeah, your thought life as you drive, right? Pray with your eyes open, though.

What else? Yeah, love your neighbors who are driving. When someone cuts you off. Yeah. Yeah, don't cut someone off. don't cut someone off if you have an ichthus on your bumper. Yeah.

What about give people rides. Right? Offer to use the vehicle God's given you to loan your car out even if it's a bit of a risk or have you ever given someone a ride who you afraid had bed bugs Right Glorify God Love other people then wash your car right When we start thinking about this okay, what God's glory is, that God does everything for His glory, and we can't add to it, but He's called us to live a life, each of us to live a life where we are ascribing glory to His name.

This, this really, it affects every aspect of our lives. And so I hope this is helpful to you. As a closing thought, don't think that you have to glorify God infinitely. You're not an infinite creature. Creatures are not infinite. You're finite, right?

We're not called to love God or glorify God infinitely, but we are called to glorify God in all that we do. All right? So, No, we're not infinite. There's nothing infinite about us. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

And Christ can, and we in Christ. I suppose I'm following you a little bit, but what I'm saying is this, that Christ is the fullness of Him who fills all in all. The church is the body of Christ and these sorts of things. But me as an individual, right, I shouldn't operate under this weight of I can't sing a decibel louder. I can't stay awake 25 hours a day worshiping God, right?

Just realize this. It should be a closed set for us. It's not do every possible thing to the glory of God. It's just do everything that you do to the glory of God, right? It's realize you're a creation. We're creatures. we are by definition we are limited it is a good thing um and and just realize because i think when we talk the reason i bring that when we talk about glorifying god and all that we do it suddenly feels like an impossible task but insofar as you are god's creation created for his glory you are capable of glorifying him in all that you do right and it not it not like the Shekinah glory shines on you all day It not like you in a Disney movie and there like a soundtrack with birds singing around you all day It just that in all you do you're living like Christ, aware of the Father and of the Gospel at work in your life.

Sin does come in. Absolutely. And that gets into another topic. But as Christians, we have the power to say no to sin and yes to Christ. And that's why we talk about these sorts of things is because even though it's possible for us to glorify God in all that we do as finite creatures we need to be reminded of these things because sin causes us to forget.

So let's pray. Father we thank you for this time in your word and we pray that you teach us to glorify you in all that we do. to not live for selfish reasons. Save us from the fear of man, from saving face, from promoting ourselves, from striving just to have more stuff, from being worried about tomorrow. Save us from these narrow-minded, short-sighted thoughts that too often captivate us.

I pray that we would be individuals in a congregation who is unified and living for your glory and ascribing glory to you in all that we do. Father, we pray that you'd be at work in our lives as we come together and as we're apart in our homes and at our work and just doing our thing that we would live our lives as you've created us and as you've redeemed us, as your workmanship created to do good works and to bring you glory. We look forward to the final day when every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

And I pray that you'd give us thankful hearts based on the fact that we can do that now. That we can bow our knee now and glorify you now for your awesome power and your saving deeds. I pray for each of my dear brothers and sisters here this evening and we ask for your blessing for your glory. Amen. Thank you.