A Life for God's Glory #2

Once you become aware of this theme of the glory of God, you realize how quickly you've read past it and overlooked it as you've gone through Scripture. The glory of God bursts through the pages of Scripture like the sun bursts through the dawn of the morning sky. If someone were to ask you to define God's glory, what would you tell them?

And is it even possible to put into words? Welcome to The Truth Pulpit with Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. I'm Bill Wright, and today, as Don brings his series called The Glory of the Gospel to a close, he'll show us that as we seek to better understand this all-important but almost incomprehensible subject, we'll find ourselves growing in our relationship with Jesus Christ. And Don, trying to comprehend God's glory is kind of like an ant trying to understand the internet, isn't that right? Well, my friend, there's a couple of things that I would encourage you with in response to Bill's question.

One is this. God is an infinite God with infinite glory. And so when we contemplate him, it's going to be things that are beyond our understanding. We cannot know him exhaustively. We can't know everything that there is to know about the glory of God.

But my friend, here's a point of encouragement. We can know it truly. The things that we know, we can know truly because they are according to his word. And secondly, we see the glory of God in the person of Jesus Christ.

Jesus said in John 14, verse 9, The one who has seen me has seen the Father. And so as you read about Christ in the scripture, you are reading about the very glory of very God himself. It's a wonderful thing to realize that we can open up a Bible and read about the glory of God as it is made known to us in our Lord Jesus Christ. And if you are a Christian, as you study Christ, as you meditate on him, the Bible says that you are transformed from one image of glory to another. Increasingly, God conforms you to be like Christ as you reflect on the glory of God in Christ.

Thanks, Don. And friend, let's join our teacher now for part two of a message called A Life for God's Glory. By the way, Don has already covered the first two points, Seek Salvation in Christ and Seek Church Unity. Today he'll start off with his third point as we join him now on The Truth Pulpit.

Let's go to point number three. We've said that a life for God's glory is found in salvation in Christ, first of all. Two, seeking church unity.

You could say protecting church unity. Point number three, seek spiritual maturity. Seek spiritual maturity.

And I'm going to go more quickly through these final five points, famous last words. But point number three, seek spiritual maturity. Beloved, you glorify God when you grow in understanding of biblical truth, when growing in biblical understanding, biblical doctrine is a priority in your life, when that matters to you, and you actually do it. Look at Ephesians chapter four, verse 14. Ephesians chapter four. Remember, everything is built on the glory of God as you go forward in these final three books of Ephesians. But in chapter four, verse 14, the apostle Paul says, talking about the unity of the faith again in verse 13, which we saw is clearly related to the glory of God. He says in verse 13, until we all attain to that unity and there's something else about it, of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be children tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness and deceitful scheming, but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ. Beloved, this is lofty.

This is lofty. Once we come to salvation in Christ and we become part of a local church, we are to grow up. We are to move from one level of basic understanding through elementary school, middle school, high school, college. We're supposed to grow up, as it were, progressing.

I'm speaking metaphorically here. We are to progress in our knowledge of Christ, to build on the basics, to go from milk to meat in Hebrew's five language. This is one way that we glorify God, is that we grow. And so, for those of you here that are Christians, what I want to tell you and encourage you with is this, is that you are glorifying God by being here to study God's word with other believers. Spiritual growth glorifies God. It honors Him. It praises Him. And so, as you study Scripture publicly, as you read and grow in Scripture privately, in the privacy of your own home, that pursuit of God's word is one of the ways that you glorify Him. And the love that so many of you manifest for the word of God, and you email me about the things that you're studying and the things that you're excited about, or the things that, you know, can you point me to other resources?

That is a manifestation. You are glorifying God as you do that. This is what God wants from His people. Now, for the sake of time, I won't have you turn to this verse, because I'm only going to stay here for a moment, but you can jot this down in your notes. 2 Peter 3.18. 2 Peter 3.18.

The whole letter ends on this same note. This is another spoke from the Ephesians hub where Peter closes his letter by telling his readers to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity.

Amen. Grow in grace. To Him be the glory.

You see these themes wedded together in Scripture. So that, how do you glorify God? You glorify God by confessing Christ as Lord in salvation. You glorify Him by seeking church unity and contributing to it. You glorify Him in seeking spiritual maturity.

That brings us to point number four. Point number four, and it's this, is that you seek personal purity. You seek personal purity. We alluded to this last time out of 1 Corinthians 6. Let me just show you here in Ephesians that you glorify God as you separate from the world's mindset and its conduct. We glorify God, in other words, in our holiness.

Holiness is an expression of purity, but it's also a word that expresses separation. We see the direction and the philosophies and the mindset of the world, and we say, uh-uh, that's not for me. I've been set apart for a different way of thinking and a different way of living. Chapter 4, verse 17, the picture, the metaphor walk is an expression of the manner of life. Chapter 4, verse 17, Paul says, having just exhorted us to spiritual maturity, verse 17, so this I say and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, the hardness of their heart. He goes on, verse 20, but you did not learn Christ in this way.

There is a contrast between you and the world. Verse 21, if you've heard of him and have been taught in him, if you are indeed a true Christian, then here's the consequence of that. This is how you glorify God in the whole context of Ephesians. Verse 22, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth. My friends, my brothers and sisters in Christ, one of the ways that you glorify God is that there is this increasing division in your mind between what you were like before you came to Christ and who you are and what you are and what you think now. You look back at your former manner of life, which was like the world, which was in the world, which was of the world, and your love for sin and your rejection of Christ, the ungodly patterns of thinking that marked your life beforehand. Today, in this life that God has given to you today and now you are in Christ, you look back on that and say, I'm leaving that behind. I'm turning my back afresh on that to go after and to pursue this new life that God has given to me. And as I do that, I am pursuing, look at the end of verse 24, a life that in the image of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth. I'm done with the false philosophies of the world.

I embrace the truth. I cultivate. I sow toward S-O-W. I sow toward the new life that has been given to me in Christ, and as you separate from the world and pursue your new life in Christ, that growth in righteousness glorifies God.

Now, turn ahead. For me, it was only one page to the book of Philippians, chapter 1, as we see this principle of seeking personal purity to glorify God, reflected also in what Paul said in the book of Philippians, a book that was written in the same general timeframe as Ephesians. And Paul is praying again. It's remarkable the doctrine that comes out in his prayer.

But he's praying for these Philippian believers. In chapter 1, verse 9, he says this, 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. And the purpose of it all is to the glory and praise of God. Paul prays that they would grow in discernment, that they would grow in righteousness, that they would grow in knowledge and sincerity and blamelessness. And the whole point of that prayer, the whole ultimate final purpose of it, is that their lives would increasingly glorify the God who is producing that within them. The glory of God in our personal righteousness.

And so we've seen four so far. Salvation in Christ, church unity, spiritual maturity, personal purity. I ran out of words that end in I-T-Y for point number five. But let me just say to close this on the personal purity matter, is that when you, in the privacy of your own heart, when you, at your own keyboard before you or your phone before you and temptations pop up, when you resist those ungodly thoughts and ungodly influences, in the privacy of those moments, my friends, you're bringing glory to God as you're growing in righteousness and being filled with that godly holiness that the Spirit of God produces within us. Point number five. Point number five, you forgive personal offenses. You forgive personal offenses. And how do we glorify God when you've been offended? Well, you show grace, you show kindness to others just like God showed to you in your salvation. You glorify God by being like Him in how you respond to offenses. Chapter four, verse 32.

We're skipping over a lot that I really shouldn't skip over, but I've already explained why we're doing that. Chapter four, verse 31. Remembering the whole book of Ephesians is built on a foundation that salvation is to the glory of God. The practical outworking of salvation in our daily lives, therefore, is to the glory of God.

One aspect of that is found in chapter four, verse 31. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. Look, the glory of God is seen in Christian salvation. Christian salvation declares that God forgives all of the sins of those who receive His crucified and resurrected Son, who trust in Christ alone for forgiveness and eternal life, and that by faith alone, without works of righteousness or works of merit, God forgives the one who receives His Son fully, completely, and eternally. What we find here in Ephesians chapter four, then, is that one of the ways that we glorify God is by forgiving those who sin against us in a manner that reflects the way that God has forgiven us. Jesus, in different parables, made a big point of this in His teaching on the nature of forgiveness. And so, my friends, when you forgive someone, particularly within the church, particularly within your home life, when you forgive someone for wronging you, you are glorifying God. The Spirit of God brings this to your mind.

The Spirit of God gives you the power and the desire to do this. It reflects what God is like. It reflects, it mirrors back how God has dealt with you in Christ.

God forgave all of your sins, then you freely go and freely forgive. Look over at Romans chapter 15 as we see another spoke coming from the Ephesians hub here. Romans chapter 15, Paul says, Therefore, accept one another, just as Christ also accepted us to the glory of God. You know, once you become aware of this theme of the glory of God, you realize how quickly you've read past it and overlooked it as you've gone through Scripture. The glory of God bursts through the pages of Scripture like the sun bursts through the dawn of the morning sky.

He goes on to say, verse 8, I say that Christ has become a servant to the circumcision on behalf of the truth of God to confirm the promises given to the fathers and for the Gentiles to glorify God for his mercy. And so Paul here writing in the context of the Christian church, of accepting people who have different opinions about matters, he says you accept one another and you do so for the sake of the glory of God. And so, of course, as we go through life, as you go through your marriage, as you go through work relationships and different aspects of life, beloved, of course we're going to bump into each other along the way.

Of course there's going to be times where conflict comes. Just understand that this is an occasion, this is an opportunity within the broader life that God has given you to glorify him by the way that you respond to that other person. And when you forgive your spouse, that fellow family member, that fellow church member, that fellow work associate, this is what brings glory to God.

It's very practical. It's very private. It's not something on display where we practice the glory of God and where we honor him. Well, point number six, you practice corporate worship.

You practice corporate worship. Ephesians chapter 5 verse 18 says this, And do not get drunk with wine, and, you know, being intoxicated does not glorify God. Do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit. What's the consequence of being filled with the Spirit? Well, it's not speaking in tongues, as some would say. Rather, it's this corporate dimension of worship. Verse 19, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord. Notice that it's plural, that we're doing this in the context of corporate worship, honoring God with our songs.

Verse 20, always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father, and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ. When we gather together corporately, when we sing, it is an act that brings glory to God. It's why we approach it, or at least we should, with a sense of enthusiasm, of earnestness as we sing, with our hearts engaged, not mumbling out the words, but singing it out to the glory of God. We do it with earnestness because we understand that this is an act which glorifies God, and we want to give him our best as we do. 1 Peter 4, verse 10, As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another. Corporate aspect, you can't serve Christ and glorify Christ strictly alone.

He gave us the church for a reason. We gather together for a reason. As each one has employed a special gift, employ it in serving one another. As good stewards of the manifold grace of God, whoever speaks is to do so as one who is speaking the utterances of God. Whoever serves is to do so as one who is serving by the strength which God supplies, so that unto this ultimate purpose in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. This is all over the New Testament, this theme and this importance of glorifying God.

Now, one final point here, point number 7, is this. It's to nurture godly relationships. Nurture godly relationships. Chapter 5, verse 22, Wives, be subject to your own husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, he himself being the savior of the body. Wives, the way that you respond to your husbands is one of the key ways that the Lord, one of the key realms that God has given you to glorify him.

Husbands, verse 25, Love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her. In chapter 6, verse 1, he talks about the relationship between parents and their children. Verse 1, children obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. This is how you glorify God as a young person.

You do so in the context of the way that you respond to your parents. Verse 4, parents, it goes both directions. Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. And so what have we seen about a life for God's glory? Salvation in Christ, church unity, spiritual maturity, personal purity, forgiveness, corporate worship, godly relationships. It's not in the great magnificent public deeds that we glorify our God. We glorify God in the realm of private life, personal interactions that are your platform.

The life that God has given you is the life upon which he intends you to glorify him. And in one sense, it sounds simple, it's multifaceted, but we realize that it's not something that God has placed beyond our realm. And yet, and yet, and yet, isn't it true that you find, in these realms of life of which we've talked, haven't you found that it's a battle? Sometimes. That this is sometimes difficult to live out?

Why is that the case? Paul says in verse 12, our struggle is not against flesh and blood. He acknowledges a struggle after all of this. There's a struggle against rulers and spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.

As we see the preeminent priority of the glory of God, we see the realm in which it is to be lived out, we realize that we need spiritual help, spiritual assistance, supernatural ability imparted to us by the God of our salvation if we are to succeed in the task which he has given us. That's Don Green bringing our series called The Glory of the Gospel to a close. Well, you've been listening to The Truth Pulpit, and we hope you can join us again next time as Don continues faithfully teaching through God's holy word. Until then, if you'd like to find out more about this ministry, just go to thetruthpulpit.com. Once there, you'll find all of Don's messages at no cost to you as well as other great free study resources. Again, be sure to check it out today at thetruthpulpit.com. I'm Bill Wright, and we'll see you next time on The Truth Pulpit.