Confessing Jesus as Lord and Glorifying God B

When you confess Jesus as Lord, that's the beginning. When you bend to His Lordship to the point where you are content to give Him glory no matter what it costs, you are aiming your life at His glory.

And you are moving toward maturity. With autopilot and satellite navigation, it's pretty hard for modern airliners to fly off course. The aircraft makes constant adjustments to speed and altitude and direction, with more precision than a human pilot. As you think about your life as a Christian, you know your goal is to honor God in everything you do, but maybe you sense you're flying a bit off course. You don't have autopilot. You need to make the adjustments.

So how do you do that? What are the basics for flying the course in order to glorify God? Find out today as John MacArthur continues his look at the fundamentals of Christian living here on Grace To You.

His current study is titled Back to Basics. And now with a lesson, here's John. If glorifying God is the master key to spiritual growth, what are the other keys that make up that master key? First of all, we glorify God by confessing Jesus as Lord. Secondly, by aiming our lives to obey His Lordship.

Now what does that mean? To say that I submit an obedience to His Lordship? To say I aim my life at that? To say whether I eat or drink or whatever I do, I do it all to the glory of God? Just exactly what does that mean?

Well, let me say it this way, and I'll just give you a few sub points right here. First of all, it means that you will give God glory no matter what the cost. Secondly, if I aim my life at His glory, it means that His glory becomes so consuming that I hurt when He is dishonored.

And this is a very important concept. I can usually tell when someone is aiming their life at the glory of God by how they react to God being dishonored. For example, David in Psalm 69, 9 looked at the temple and he looked at the worship of Israel and his heart broke. He said this, And I have such a tremendous love for you and such a tremendous hatred for what dishonors you. I concern myself with your temple and your presence and your worship so that it literally tears me up. And in the remainder of the verse he said this, In other words, when you're dishonored, I hurt.

And I'll tell you, I understand that a little bit as a father. You hurt my child, you hurt me. You hurt my wife, you hurt me. You hurt somebody I love, you hurt me. I've cried more in my life over things that have happened to other people I care about than I've ever cried about things that happened to me. In fact, it's pretty hard for me to cry about things that happened to me. It's much easier for me to cry with somebody whose heart is broken for whom I care.

And that's because I identify with them in love. And when you have identified with God, the things that break your heart will not be the things that happen to you but the things that dishonor God. And that's the kind of mentality that really is saying I am so focused on God's glory that what breaks His heart breaks my heart.

Do you live your life that way? That is aiming at the glory of God. That is focusing on God's glory.

Number one, you don't care what it costs. And number two, you're consumed with how things affect Him. You know, one of the greatest statements made in the book of Revelation is easily passed over. It is made in chapter 2 in reference to the church at Ephesus.

It's a little word but it's a very, very important one. Of the church at Ephesus it was said, Thou canst not bear them that are evil. That was one of the great characteristics of that church. They couldn't tolerate people that were evil.

Why? Because they knew evil impinged upon the holiness of God and His will. I'm amazed how few Christians understand this. I'm amazed how many Christians are so consumed in their own will, so consumed with their own comfort, so absorbed in their own problems that they don't really feel the pain when God is dishonored. They feel it mostly when they are dishonored. And that's the wrong focus.

But once in a while somebody gets the message and boy is it exciting. I remember a young girl who came to California some years ago. She came out here to live with a guy at UCLA who was a student. She was not a Christian.

He was not a Christian. Obviously they were just living together. She was a high school girl. After a while he decided to kick her out. She had come all the way from a little town in West Virginia and he was tired of her and so like some old half used rag he just threw her aside.

She wandered around a little bit and tried to take her life and had slashed herself many times in many places on her hands and arms with razor blades and bled and somehow or another always been spared death. We came across this girl, had the opportunity to lead her to Christ. I'll never forget that time, my sister and myself talking with her and she opened her heart to Christ.

She said, my life has changed and I want to go back to my hometown. I want to tell my mother about Christ and I want to tell my friends about Christ and I want to get everything straightened out in my life. And I said to her, I said, well, is there a church there that you can go to?

Is there somebody that can disciple you? She said, no, I don't know of a church. And she said, I really don't know any other Christians there, but I'm going to go back and I gave her the Bible, you know, in great fear that I'd have to leave her up to the Holy Spirit, right?

Make sure he could do the job without me. So anyway, off she went and I prayed for her and she wrote me a letter. And as I saw the letter, I was deeply concerned with what it might say, fearful that she had probably wandered away and was writing for some counsel in the midst of a terrible situation. But this was what I read.

I hope everything is well with you. I've really begun to put things together in the Bible. By reading the Old Testament, I've been able to see how God deserves much more recognition than He's getting.

I can see how He gave people so many chances and how they continued to break His heart by worshiping idols and sinning. God wanted the world to belong to Him. God also wanted Israel to sacrifice lambs and goats and oxen and things like that as an atonement to Him for sins. He is God, after all, and He had to have some payment for the terrible sins of men.

Let me interject at this point that she didn't have any tapes or study books that I know of. This was just from a reading of Scripture. She says further, to think that God actually talked and was in the visible presence of these people and yet they kept on complaining and sinning. Listen, I can almost feel the unbearable sadness that God feels when someone rejects and doesn't glorify Him. What an amazing insight for such a new believer.

He's God, she said. He made us. He gave us everything. We continue to doubt and reject Him. It's awful when I think of how I hurt Him.

I hope I can make it up. And then she goes on at the end to say, I have a soft spot in my heart for God now. I can feel His jealousy when I see people worshiping idols and other gods.

It's all so clear to me. God must be glorified. God must be worshiped. He deserves it.

It's long overdue. And I can't wait to just tell Jesus and thus tell God indirectly that I love Him and kiss the ground He walks on because He should be worshiped. I want God to be God and take His rightful place and I'm tired of the way people keep putting Him down. It's amazing, isn't it, that somebody so new in the faith understood the whole picture of living to the glory of God so that you hurt when God is dishonored. Now listen. I glorify God by confessing Jesus as Lord and then I glorify God by bending my will to that lordship no matter what it costs me and so that I feel the pain that God feels. There's a third element of this second point and that's this. You aim your life at the glory of God, watch this one, when you are content to be outdone by others. Hang on to that. You can always tell somebody who's really living for the glory of God because they're content to be outdone by somebody who does exactly what they do better.

That's a tough one. You know, somebody said that when Satan fell, he landed in the choir loft. I don't really know if that's true. But you know, every once in a while you get in the choir, everybody wants to sing solos. And when somebody doesn't get to sing the solo, then everybody else begins to complain.

I never get to sing the solo. They're not so concerned about God being glorified. They're concerned about them being heard. Now that's not just true of the choir, not just true of people in the pew, it's also true of people in the pulpit. I remember two pastors having a contest to see who could get the most people in Sunday school and the one that lost, got sick and threw up. Didn't want to lose to another pastor. Jealousy is a factor in the Christian life.

You know why? Because we're more concerned about who gets the credit than that God be glorified. When you can rejoice that somebody does something for the Lord better than you do it, then you're aiming at His glory. When you can rejoice when somebody can preach better, when somebody can teach better, when somebody can do whatever you do and do it with a greater blessing or greater response, then you're aiming at His glory.

Let me give you an illustration of this that I think is very, very wonderful. It's in Philippians chapter 1. Philippians chapter 1. And this is a tremendous truth illustrated in the life of a wonderful man that we all know and love, the Apostle Paul.

Now to get you into the picture a little, let me remind you of this. As Paul writes Philippians, it is most likely that he is a prisoner. It was in that kind of a setting that the Apostle Paul really was coming to the end of his line. I mean he'd lived all the glory years, the great adventures through the expansion of the church in Asia Minor and into Greece and the wonder of preaching in Athens on Mars Hill, the great accomplishments in Corinth and the blessedness of Thessalonica, the tremendous joy of the Bereans who searched the Scriptures, all of the adventures of going back to Jerusalem and traveling again across the Mediterranean, the shipwreck, the victories and all of the things that came into his life.

This man is summing up a great life, but he's pretty well on the shelf. I mean he had a tremendous influence. Like no man who lived at that time in the Gentile world, he was everybody's hero. In fact, when he came to preach the sermon, he could preach all night if he wanted and they loved it.

A guy would fall out of the window and die. They'd just go downstairs, raise him from the dead, go back up and preach the rest of the sermon. I reminded somebody that one time, you know, that Paul preached all night even when people, you know, died.

He kept on preaching and they said to me, well, when you can raise him from the dead, you can keep going too. But anyway, Paul was so beloved by everybody that they listened and when Paul came to town, they had braced him. When he left town, Acts 20, the Ephesian elders fell all over his neck and kissed him and wept all over him because they wouldn't see his face anymore and they loved him so much.

Now, you know, I'll tell you something. You know, living in the world of that kind of acceptance and living in the world of that kind of affection, living under that kind of love would be a tremendous experience, wouldn't it? Tremendous to be so beloved, to be so accepted, to have everybody doting on you and sending you love gifts such as even the Philippians sent him. Oh, he was beloved.

But you know what was happening? He was getting on the shelf now and a new breed of young preachers was coming behind him. And man, they were capturing the fancy of the people and they had little nuances and new ways. They had learned all the best of what Paul had and maybe advanced a little bit in technique. And you know, they were the sharpshooters of the new era and they were moving in behind Paul and now Paul's a prisoner. He can't move.

He's lost his mobility. And these guys are attracting the attention of the crowds and the people are beginning to dote on them and they've forgotten those old fellas that have passed along, the apostles and Paul. Those are memories. You know, I often meet an old man like that. I remember meeting a dear old man of God in the Midwest and he was 96. He hadn't been able to preach for about 15 years but he preached from the time he was 20 until he was about 81. And he sat in the congregation. He listened to me preach with his old Bible and he kind of shook and his teeth didn't work too well.

They clicked a lot but I don't know whether they chewed very good. And nobody even knew who he was and he was very obscure, an old black suit and a string tie. And he had to wonder about all the glory days and all the great years when he was a shining sword in the usefulness of the Lord. Well, Paul was kind of in the shelf kind of time of his life and it wouldn't be long before he'd lay his head on a block and an axe had it flashing in the sun and sever it from his body and it would be over for him in this world. And along behind him were coming these young men.

And as young men are prone to do, to find their own place in the sun, they invariably criticize the generation ahead of them. Well, you know, those old boys didn't really have it. They weren't up. They weren't with it. And they were saying things like, well, you see, Paul's a prisoner because, you know, the Lord just kind of gently shelved him. I mean, he wasn't contemporary. He may have blown it in his life.

We don't know all the things that went on. There's a reason the Lord stuck him away like that. And so Paul says concerning them in verse 14, And many of the brethren in the Lord, becoming confident by my bonds, are much more bold to speak the word without fear. Some people, you know, now that they see I'm a prisoner, they've become more bold. They're saying if Paul can be a prisoner for Christ, so can we. He's our model.

He's our example. In other words, some are still following me. Some still believe in me.

And boy, they're becoming bold even though I'm a prisoner. But some, verse 15, preach Christ of envy and strife. What do you mean, Paul? Well, some are out there preaching Christ, but it's out of envy. In other words, they're envious of what God has done in my life. They're envious of my reputation. They're envious of my place in the church. They're envious of the love that I have. And so they create strife in the body over their envy. Verse 16, they preach Christ contentiously, not sincerely. They want to add affliction to my bonds.

It's not enough that I'm a prisoner, but they're taking shots at me and they're double hurting me. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine young men coming along taking shots at the Apostle Paul?

I can't. It's easy for a young man. It's easy to think the sun rises and sets on you and the old generation have faded away. What do they know? That's why God lifts up the hoary heads. That's why God talks about elders, because there is something they know that young men need well to learn. They don't have all the answers. The longer I live, the fewer answers I am sure about and the more I look to the wisdom of the old. But they were preaching Christ and knocking Paul. But what's his attitude?

I love this. Verse 18, so what? Notwithstanding every way. I don't care how they preach, whether it's pretense or truth. Christ is preached, and in that I do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice. In other words, what Paul is saying, look, if Christ is preached, who cares what they say about me?

Isn't that great? I'll tell you something, people. That is a level of spiritual maturity. When you confess Jesus as Lord, that's the beginning.

When you bend to His Lordship to the point where you are content to give Him glory no matter what it costs, when you begin to feel the things that dishonor Him, and when you don't mind being dishonored, if He is honored, you are aiming your life at His glory, and you are moving toward maturity. Now this is where it has to begin, with a life of obedient submission to Christ. Could I invite you to look with me at 1 Peter for a moment, and maybe we can sum this up in 1 Peter 4 and verse 14. 1 Peter 4 and verse 14.

Just listen to this great thought. And remember that Peter is writing to some believers who are really going through it. I mean, they are being persecuted. They are being tried for their faith. It is tough to endure what they're enduring. They are suffering.

They are being confronted by people who want to know answers about what they believe. Verse 14. If you be reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are you, happy are you.

Now wait a minute. Most Christians wouldn't experience that happiness. Most people, if they're reproached even for the name of Christ, get angry, get reactionary, retaliatory, vengeful.

You can't do that to me. I've seen people on the job be reproached for the name of Christ. I've seen athletes on professional teams be reproached for the name of Christ.

I've had people mock me for the name of Christ. Can I say, I'm happy? I'm happy.

Well, that's what Peter says. You should be happy. That's a special blessing. That means Christ is visible enough for you to be reproached for Him.

Look what he says. For the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. In other words, if you are so living your life in obedience to His will that the world can't tolerate that kind of living, then believe it, the Spirit of glory is evident in your life. You are obviously living to the glory of God.

Isn't that great? Now if the world can take you and you just flow with the system, you're not aiming at His glory. You're not progressing. On their part, verse 14, Christ is evil spoken of. But on your part, He is what?

Glorified. You know, He says, when you're reproached, they may speak evil. That's their view. His view is, He is being glorified.

And you know something? That's nowhere better illustrated than in the cross. While it looked like hell was having a carnival and Jesus was bleeding and they were mocking and spitting and reproaching, God was being glorified. Where Jesus Himself prayed, Father, glorify me. And He was anticipating the cross as a part of that glory. In John 13, He said, I'll be glorified. And He was pointing to the cross. But verse 15 says, this is important, 1 Peter 4.15, but let none of you suffer as a murderer or as a thief or as an evildoer or as a busybody. Good grief.

How did a busybody get in there with a murderer and a thief and an evildoer? But what He's saying is, look, if you're going to suffer, verse 16, suffer as a Christian. Let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God on this behalf.

You ought to be glad to suffer along with Him to bear the reproach of Christ. People, listen, it's that simple and I'll just boil it down as we close. If I want to grow spiritually and if I don't want to grow spiritually, there's a good question whether I'm really saved because I think one of the characteristics of life is that it reproduces. It matures. It progresses. If I have confessed Jesus is Lord and I'm redeemed, I'm born again, I'm alive spiritually, now I want to grow beyond that point, then I aim my life at that growth. I focus on that growth from the viewpoint not of how am I going to grow, but how is God to be glorified? And as I am content to be outdone by others as long as He's glorified, as I am content to bear His own anxieties and reproaches, as I am content to suffer no matter what the cost, I will be living to His glory.

And the sum of what it means here is very simple. What it means is you're going to run head on into the system. You cannot grow spiritually and be comfortable in the world.

It can't happen. Now by this I don't mean you've got to be some kind of obtuse character that can't fit into anything. I don't mean by that you've got to be less than charming.

I don't mean you've got to be obnoxious. But what I mean is that if you live a Christ-like life, you will bear the reproach of Christ. Now listen, we live in a day when everybody wants to make Christianity easy. The Bible always wants to make it hard. We live in a day when everybody wants to make Christians lovable. God wants to make Christians reproachable.

Why? Because they are confrontive. Because they cross the system. They fight the system.

They antagonize the system. You see, Christianity must be so distinct that it points out sin before it can bring about a remedy. That's why we don't want cheap grace, easy believism.

Love Jesus and you're okay. We want to confront an evil world. And there's a reproach to bear. One writer said it beautifully, and I closed our study with this. He said, Let my candle go out, if in that the sun of righteousness may rise with healing in his beings. This is Grace to You with John MacArthur. Thanks for being with us. Today's lesson is part of John's current series on the fundamentals of Christian living.

He calls it Back to Basics. John, for a couple of days now we've been talking about confessing Jesus as Lord and glorifying God, and we're coming up on the Christmas season, which presents all kinds of wonderful opportunities to do that, to share Christ with our neighbors, to glorify God. We also provide lots of resources that will help people who may be a bit afraid to broach that topic with their neighbors. Yeah, I think equipping believers to be effective in evangelism basically is part of the ministry of Grace to You, if not the heart of this ministry. And this is the time of year when you start thinking about gifts, and we'd like to suggest that some of our resources would make a tremendous impact on people's lives. First of all, this is in demand every Christmas, the MacArthur Study Bible. That is the text of the Bible, New American Standard, New King James, ESV, along with the text of the Bible, 25,000 footnotes that I've put together to basically explain every passage in the Bible, and a whole lot of other helps within the covers of the MacArthur Study Bible. We have all kinds of covers available, even a premium beautiful goatskin cover edition of the MacArthur Study Bible.

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