Sunday, January 14 - Focused on God's Glory
2024-01-14
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqK7rfH4woM

Now what? And so that's where we're going this morning. Let's pray. Father in heaven, I thank you for your goodness. I thank you for your grace, and I thank you for your church. So we spend these next seven weeks or so thinking about what you have called us to, and what you would have us to do, and how you would have us help and encourage one another as a church, as we seek to glorify you, and as we seek to reach out, as we seek to stand for truth, that you would, first of all and most of all, help us to see the call is to glorify you in everything we do. Help us this morning. Help us. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So, I had been preaching for about six months. I began at this little church on the border of the Mississippi on the Illinois side in the middle of the winter, and it was about six months in.

And it's one of those things where if you've ever started a new skill or something like that, there comes a point where you sort of seem to think you've got it all figured out. And this particular Sunday morning, I thought that I probably had the best sermon that was known to man. My points all made a whole bunch of sense. All of my illustrations were great. And in my mind, as I walked into church, it was like, "I am God's gift to preaching." And so I walk into this little church that I'd been preaching at for about six months, and they were incredibly gracious and incredibly good. Especially when I walked in in those scenarios, they were like, "Okay, Brandon, it's okay." And they did such a wonderful job. And this particular Sunday, I get up and I start preaching.

And our little church was on the side of a hill not far from the Mississippi. And everybody, as I began preaching the greatest sermon known to man, everybody's just kind of looking like this and like this, and they're leaning over and whispering to their neighbors. And I'm like, "Well, you know what? I just need to go louder and harder because this is the best sermon known to man." And so I keep preaching, and everybody's just kind of like, "Oh, kind of looking around and all this." And I'm like, "Man, this must be the worst sermon." And so then my preaching began to reflect that because I went from excited to discouraged. And finally, I get done and crash the plane into the ground. We pray, we sing, and I was like, "Man, worst sermon I've ever preached."

And as I'm talking to some folks, one of the guys goes, "Man, there was a whole herd of deer right out those windows." And they were just frolicking, and there's new little babies, and they were adorable. And I realized it ultimately had nothing to do with my preaching, although in retrospect, it probably wasn't that good. It had to do with the fact that everybody was looking out the window, watching the baby deer bounce around the yard of the church. And in fact, for a lot of years, preachers were real concerned about that kind of distraction. In fact, if you look at our windows, you can't see out. You know why that is? Not because of me, but because when they built this church, they said, "We don't want people looking out the window and getting distracted."

So they put film over all the windows. Like, that was literally the thought process behind it. We don't want people getting distracted. We are used to distractions in our world, right? There's times where distractions are fun, right? We go see a good movie and distract ourselves from life, or a good book, and distract ourselves from all the busyness for a while. There's times when distractions, not fun, but maybe add a little bit of difficulty to our lives. Like, we put something in the oven, get distracted, forget about it being there, and now your pizza is a charcoal briquette. And then there are times when distraction, and the results of that distraction, becomes deeply and significantly painful. So we live in a world of distraction. And distraction is not just a reality for us. If we're sitting in church trying to look out the window, or we're reading a good book distracting ourselves from life,

or in our car checking our text messages as we drive down the interstate at 80 miles an hour, right? Distraction is not just a thing for our physical life, but distraction is a thing that is present in our spiritual life as well. And here's the reality: when you and I become spiritually distracted, it universally leads to brokenness. It may be the brokenness of sin. It may be the brokenness of hopelessness or fear. It can even be things that we'll see in a little bit. Distraction in the church can lead to bad theology. It can lead to disunity. And even in our personal life, things like greed and struggling to forgive can all be a result of distraction. Universally, if we are spiritually distracted, it will lead to pain and brokenness. There's no funny spiritual distraction. There's no inconvenient spiritual distraction.

The only thing that spiritual distraction does in our lives is brings us pain. And I want to try to describe this for you with just a simple sentence. Spiritual distraction, very simply, is just this: looking away from the glory of God. God's glory is a theme that runs through our Bibles from the beginning to the end. Something like 600 times in total in your English Bible, depending on how the words are translated, maybe like 610 or 615. But 600 times throughout your Bible we hear about God's glory. And so for a moment this morning, I want us to unpack what God's glory is, or what does it mean to glorify God, or what do we mean when we say God is glorious. Understanding God's glory, I think, can be difficult for us to define because it involves both knowing and experiencing, right?

And it can be difficult for us to describe because it has both a head and a heart component, right? We have to know some things, but we also have to feel and experience some things as well. And so God's glory isn't just simply knowing, it has to be experiencing. So, for example, think about pizza, which very simply, right, you can know all about pizza. Somebody who's never had pizza says to you, "What is pizza?" You take dough, you spread it out in a circle if you're a traditionalist. You put some tomato sauce with some spices in it, sprinkle some cheese and some meat, some vegetables, cook it, and you eat it all at once. And they may intellectually know what a pizza is, right? That it's some kind of dough that's been cooked with cheese and sauce and meat.

However, there is a difference between intellectually knowing the facts about pizza and then getting that hot, fresh slice of pizza and taking a bite. And one of the reasons I'm thinking about this is because as I was writing this, I was really hungry, right? And I'm thinking about pizza, right? And we say, "Man, that's good." Because we don't just know about pizza, right? Because we've eaten it and we have experienced it. And the same is true when it comes to knowing God's glory. It's one thing to intellectually say, "I know what God's glory means." It's another thing to say that we have experienced it. And I know this because as we talk about God's glory and we speak about glorifying God, we sing about it in the church all the time. But biblically, when God's people see God's glory, they end up on their face in worship.

And so there is a difference between the intellectual understanding, which it requires, and the heart experience, which also requires. So what do we mean when we talk about the glory of God? I'm going to share with you the definition and then try to unpack it. This is from John Piper. There's a million definitions of God's glory. This is probably my favorite out of all of them. The glory of God is the infinite beauty and the greatness of God's manifold perfections. And what he is simply saying is that God's glory is when you look and see all those things that make God infinitely wonderful. His infinite grace, His power, His holiness, His might, His eternal nature, the fact that He is all-knowing. When you glimpse who God is, you are seeing His glory. Seeing God's glory means we see those things that are characteristics of God.

Let me try to illustrate it this way. I love, growing up, fast cars, especially exotic fast cars from Italy. Now, growing up in rural Vermont, we don't have a lot of Ferraris or Lamborghinis driving around. However, one day we discovered, not far from our house, driving down this little back road, I looked over, and I was like, "There's a Ferrari sitting in this guy's yard." I was probably ten years old, and I was, like, over the moon, and so I kept telling my parents, we'd come home from the store, we'd say, "Hey, can we drive by and see if one of the cars are out?" And I'd see them, and I'd be so excited, and one day, Dad, being the extrovert that he is, there's a car sitting out there, some guy walking around, Dad just pulls in there with his ten-year-old,

and goes, "Hey, my son loves your cars." And the guy says, "Oh, yeah, come take a look." And we walked into what looked like a normal barn, and it is just filled with exotic Italian supercars. And it turns out, he doesn't just collect them, but in part, he holds on to them, people who want to drive their Lamborghini through the fall mountains of Vermont, but they don't want to take it back and forth to where they live, they'll store it with him. And we walked through, and he was talking about them, and one specific car, in fact, I was so young, I don't remember the name, but he's like, "This is one of 20 that was ever made." And he pops that door open, he doesn't want to sit in it, and 10-year-old Brandon's feet didn't even touch the ground, right?

This is like a foundational memory, like this beautiful, exotic, red Italian supercar, and here I am, sitting in the driver's seat, and it was amazing, and it was wonderful, right? And here's what's happening. I'm getting to experience the beauty and the power and the value and the rarity of this thing that I knew all the information about. Here I am, sitting and getting to experience it, right? That's the glory of the Ferrari, right? That beautiful lines, the colors, the engine, the design. That's the glory of the Ferrari. And that isn't even a trillionth of the glory of God. All of God's goodness, His strength, His holiness, His righteous power, His love, His justice, His knowledge. All of the things, when we see it, it changes everything. We see the infinite beauty and the greatness of all God's perfections.

When that glory is revealed, that's when we see God's glory. Now when we talk about glorifying God, what we mean is lifting that up and saying, "Look at who God is." So just like when I got home from seeing the Ferrari, I told everybody in the world, "Look, I got to see this amazing car." It wasn't me that was amazing, but I talked about this amazing car. When we talk about glorifying God, what we are saying is God's infinite beauty and His greatness and all of His perfect nature. We're saying, "Look at this!" When we glorify God, we're not adding to, but seeking to reveal who He is to the world in which we live. And so when we talk about glorifying God, what we're talking about, first of all, is seeing who He is. That's His glory.

And glorifying means seeking to make that known. Right? Glorifying God means that I live differently because of His power. And when people look at me, they say, "He's different," not because I'm good, but because God's good. Maybe we talk differently by His grace. And everything is different about our life because of God, and because of that, it points to Him. Let me give you three foundational truths about the glory of God. The first is simply this: It is right that God is glorified above all things. And when I say that, what I mean is that it is just and it is fair that God is glorified above everything else in this world. Alright, so if I was to race you, and maybe we put a large cash prize on the line, I am probably going to lose to everybody here, with the exception of Brent.

Right? Like, I am just not going to be able to win. And so we go and race for this glory and this prize, and you win handedly. Like, you beat me by ten minutes. And I get there, and I walk right up to the winner's circle, first place, take the giant check, and say, "Thank you." Everybody looks at me and goes, "That guy didn't win! Why is he getting the prize?" And when we talk about glorifying God, He is greater, more powerful, and more wonderful than anything in this world. And when we glorify anything else other than God, what we are doing is taking the 90th place finisher and putting them in the winner's circle and saying, "That's who won!" It is right that God is glorified, and anything else in our life that is glorified, right, it's unjust, and it's wrong, and it is assault against the truth of the reality of who God is.

Secondly, it's good that God is glorified. Not just that it's right, but it is good. Have you ever tried to use a tool for something that it was not designed for? So yesterday we were working on our van door, and my tools were like in the kitchen of our house, and the van was outside, which was really far away. So instead of going to get the tools, I grabbed this bar from a broken desk I had in my office, and I'm over there trying to wiggle it and poke at it. I'm like, "This is not working," and I'm getting frustrated and I'm mad because here I am trying to use this thing for what it was not created for. Many of us in our life, we feel like that. We feel this feeling that it's not working like it should.

We begin to get frustrated, and we begin to get upset, and sometimes that is a result of the fact we are not living for how God created us. God's glory is not just right, but when we glorify Him, that is good because it is what we are created for. Isaiah will talk about those who He created for His glory. And if you are not living for the glory of God, you are like that piece from the desk trying to fix a door, and it is never going to work, and it is never going to feel right. You and I are called to live for God's glory, not just because it is right, but because it is what we are designed for, and it is what is good. It is why Jesus says that I am the water that will never leave you thirsty. I am the bread that will never leave you hungry.

And I am the one who will satisfy our soul. The glory of God is good because everything else in this world will leave us hungry and thirsty, except for the glory of God. Third, the glory of God is not selfish. And it is right that God demands to be glory. Let me read to you. I don't know if this is in our slides or not. We will see. There we go. From Isaiah 43:6-7, let me read this to you. "For my name's sake, I defer my anger. For the sake of my praise, I restrain it for you, that I may not cut you off. Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver. I have tried you in the furnace of affliction for my own sake. For my own sake I do it. For how should my name be profaned?

My glory I will not give to another." It is right and it is good that God demands His glory. It is easy for our hearts to glorify everything but God. And when we do, we react to these words where God says, where God will say in Isaiah 48 and in verse 11, "My glory I will not give to another." You see, we struggle in our modern self-centered world. We struggle with putting the glory on anybody other than ourselves. Look at what God says, "For my name's sake, for the sake of my praise, I have refined you, I have tried you for my own sake, for my own sake. How should my name be profane? My glory I will not give to another." Right? This text is a hammer on the self-centeredness of us glorifying ourselves. And it is right that God would do that, because God's glory ultimately is our only hope.

So it's been like, I don't know how many years, probably 2017, so about seven years, that I went to see my kidney doctor, and my kidneys weren't doing very well. And she said, "We need to have a talk. It's time. There's really only one thing that can cure the problem with your kidneys." And she said, "That's a kidney transplant." She didn't try to tell me a bunch of things that might alleviate symptoms. She said, "There is one thing that will help you, one thing that will fix you, and that's a kidney transplant." She wasn't being rude. She wasn't being proud. She says, "There is one medical treatment that can save you." What you find when it comes to the glory of God is it's the only thing that will save you. It's the only thing that will treat you, and God is not selfish or proud when He looks at you, and He says, "There is only one hope for you.

There is only one cure for you. There is only one thing that will save you, is that you see who I am. That you see my goodness and my grace and my power and my justice and my holiness and my strength and my eternal nature." And He says that to us. He says, "That's your only hope." Just as a doctor who says, "There is one thing that can save you." God says to us, "There is one thing that can save you, and that is myself." The only thing that will satisfy your soul is God's glory, and He says, "I'm not going to give that to anybody else because it won't satisfy you." It's not selfish or wrong for Him to say, "I'm the only one that can save you." Our hearts struggle with this. Not because what God says is wrong, but because we don't do very well with correction.

The number one competition for glory in your life is you, competing against the glory of God. And our enemy, the devil, who becomes our enemy, because he seeks glory that is not his, seeks to turn us away from the glory of God. And ultimately, our struggle with God's glory comes because we would rather glorify ourselves. And when we do brokenness results, let me just give you just a couple very, very quick examples. Genesis chapter 3, Eve. As Satan is tempting her with the tree, what does he say? God knows that if you eat the fruit of this tree, you're going to have the same knowledge he has, what he's saying to her is glorify yourself. Yes, God has all of this knowledge, and that's wonderful, but lift yourself up, glorify yourself, and sin results. Same happens with Cain and Abel.

As Cain kills Abel, the first murder in the Bible, he does so because he is upset about him not listening to God's commands, God rejecting his sacrifice, and in order to glorify himself, he kills his brother, so there's no comparison. Go to Genesis chapter 6. The whole thought and intent of man's heart is evil. Do you know why? Because man had pursued his own glory, and what made him feel good, and what he desired, rather than pursuing the glory of God. You see, where the glory of God is not pursued, the brokenness of sin will abound. And there's a chance that you might say that sounds like a stretch. Let's take a look at Romans chapter 1. I'm going to start in verse 18. Listen to what is said. "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men,

who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. The wrath of Almighty God poured out upon those who will not hear and see and obey God." Listen to why that happens. "For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking. Their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools." Listen to what their ultimate sin was. "They exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things." They gave God's glory to another. And what you find, if you continue on, that results in all kinds of cultural brokenness and perversion and sexual immorality. And ultimately you'll see lost impurity, immorality. And you read the rest of Romans 1, and it's not just about twisting God's design for sex.

It's everything from evil speech to murder to disobedience of your parents, all because we get God's glory wrong. Hopelessness is also a result of not glorifying God. As Israel stands by the sea, and they look at it and say, "Do you bring us out here to die?" Why are they hopeless? Because they've forgotten the glory of God who saved them in Egypt. Elijah, in his discouragement under the tree, as he has triumphed over the prophets of Baal, he's discouraged because he has lost sight of the glory of God. Peter, in his fear, as he's walking on the water and the winds and the waves, he looks at them instead of the glory of God in Jesus. In the Corinthian church, they're struggling with theology, because they've run after their own preferences rather than the glory of God.

God, they're struggling with disunity because they've sought to elevate themselves by what team they're on instead of seeking the glory of God. Everything ultimately is dependent upon seeking God's glory. I don't want you to see the problem that we don't glorify God. I want you to look at a solution. If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above. Where Christ is seated at the right hand of God, set your minds on the things that are above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, you will also appear with him in glory. First of all, to glorify God, we need transformation, not superficial change. When a caterpillar turns into a butterfly in that cocoon, that's not an easy change.

It's not just painting some wings and getting some pretty colors and coming out with a different set of clothes. That caterpillar dissolves and is rearranged into a butterfly. Before you and I can glorify God, we must be transformed and dissolved and rebuilt by the gospel. We see in Colossians that first of all, this requires a constant effort. He says, "Seek the things that you need." The things that are above. Now this means to investigate. And to get to the bottom of is one of the best ways to see God's glory is to dive right into it. It's so easy for us to become distracted. And what Paul says in Colossians is you need to sit down and you need to dive into this and see the wonder. I've been working on reorganizing my office downstairs and moving my books. And Rachel came to help me yesterday.

You know what I wanted to do? I wanted to do the same thing I did when I cleaned my room as a kid. You find something cool and you just sit there and you dive into it. And I kept finding books and not letting her put them on the bookshelf. I was like, "Oh man, I want to look at this again. I want to read this again." And what Paul is saying is that we need to set aside all those other things, the opposite of what I was doing with Rachel yesterday, and see that glory of God and just sit down in the middle of the floor and dive right into it. To let it fill our hearts with joy. And one of the things you know is once you open that up and dive into it, it captures your heart.

Secondly, this requires our hearts and our hands. When he says, "Set your minds on things that are above," this is a hard thing to translate. Because it has a feeling of like your gut, of your emotion, but also the practical application of this. Several years ago, before I was married, it was real icy out here. And that stop sign by where Derek and Christy now live, there was a guy, and I heard tires spinning. And I look out there, he's not in the ditch, he's just sitting at the stop sign, tires spinning. It's like, "Oh man, it's icy, he's stuck," and went back to doing whatever I was doing. It's dark and cold, and I wasn't going to put on shoes and go out there. And I listened to his tires spinning for another few minutes, and I was like, "Man, I kind of feel bad for him."

Like, if I was out there by myself, and my car wasn't going anywhere, I'd want somebody to help me. And I went back to what I was doing, and finally that feeling said, "You know what?" So I put on my boots, put on my coat, and went and helped him get his car off the ice. The worst place to get stuck is completely flat, but it was solid ice. It didn't matter what you did, so you had to push and pull and try to drive slowly. There was a knowledge, and there was a feeling, and ultimately an action. When it comes to God's glory, the picture here, we said, "Set your minds on things above. You have to know." But it's not just a knowledge of your intellect. It has to be a knowledge of your heart, and a knowledge that results in actions.

In these verses, we see the foundation and motivation of what has already been done for us. We've been raised. We've been hidden. We will appear with Christ, through Christ, and with Christ. So how can this be a reality in our life and in our church? So we have to seek the glory of God. And if we don't, brokenness results. The simple answer is we have to see and be reminded of the gospel. It's real easy to say. How does this happen? Let me give you one example of how we can see and be reminded of the gospel. Just one example out of so many. Think about how we've gathered this morning here at church. We began with the 147th Psalm, where it says we're going to sing to God, and then the psalmist lists all these reasons.

How he strengthens. How he binds up our wounds. How he names and numbers the stars. And then we sang, "I can sing with my whole heart. I have all that I need in Jesus my Savior. My joy is complete. Onward to glory, yet here I will wait. I will trust in Christ every step that I take." And then we sang, "Here my hope is found. Here on holy ground. Here I bow down and worship to God." We worship to God, and then we gathered and we prayed. And it's one of those things that can be a struggle for us because in that moment we're vulnerable, but it's so wonderful. Because we share our joys and we share our sorrows. We're moved by the goodness of God as we gather together in prayer. And then finishing up prayer, we sang at the cross, "I surrender my life and I'm in awe of you."

And we gathered around the goodness of the gospel that Jesus died in our place and he rose for our victory. And we reminded and sought to remind ourselves of the gospel through the bread and the cup. And here we're opening the word, and in just a few moments we're going to sing, "Oh, let not this world of sorrow steal my only hope away. For the power of the gospel shines within the jars of clay. In affliction you bring wisdom that my comforts can displace. How my true and greatest treasure is you, the God of grace." And before and after this we drink some coffee, we eat some snacks, we encourage one another, and we strengthen one another. Just one practical way in which we can live the reality of the glory of God in our lives, reminding us of this glory,

is when we meet together, and as we read Scripture together that points us to God's glory, and as we sing together, and I'm singing, and I'm singing to God, and I'm singing to myself, saying, "Look at God's glory." And as we hear each other sing, we're saying to each other, "Look at God's glory." And as we pray, we're saying, "I trust God because His glory is my hope." And as we eat and partake of communion, we're saying, "We're transformed by the gospel so I can pursue God's glory." And as we dive into the word, we're encouraged and taught, and as we spend time fellowshipping with one another, we encourage one another. We stir one another up more and more as we see the day drawing near. We're sitting in a world of distractions, and we want to say, "Look at God's goodness as a church.

Look at His holiness. Look at His power, His justice." Another way of saying that is, "Look at His glory." It's one way. There's others. But as we think about our purpose in the church, we want to live for God's glory in how we sing, how we pray, how we interact with one another, the things we do to invite people in, the things we do to share the gospel, the way we encourage. We want to live and display and share the glory of God. And maybe, as you're listening to this, it's not you. Right? You want it to be, but sin is overwhelming your business, and discouragement, and struggle is filling your life. And you might say, "How can it be that I can be transformed and hear and see the glory of God?" You see, the gospel calls you to lift your eyes.

One of my favorite stories, and every time I talk about Jesus, it's my favorite story. But in Luke chapter 13, he's in the synagogue. And there's a woman there who is struggling. It says she has a disabling spirit. So I don't think the problem is just simply physical, but it's spiritual. And it says for 18 years, she has been bent over. What that means is for 18 years in church, she looks at her shoes and everybody else's. For 18 years, she looks at her kids' shoes. For 18 years, when she talks to her husband, she looks at his shoes. And here on this particular Sabbath morning is Jesus. And Jesus comes to her. The one person in the midst of everybody, the only one who can fix, it's Jesus. And it says he lays his hands on her. And I don't think it's Jesus going,

"Be healed." I think what happens is Jesus comes to her. And he puts his hands on her. And he says, "Be healed." And he lifts her up straight. And I want you to think about this. Because for 18 years, the first person she gets to look in the eyes of is Jesus. Think about the wonder of that. 18 years. And the one who comes and embraces you and lifts you up and looks you in the eyes is Jesus. What she did immediately? She glorified God. That if you are struggling under the weight of your sin and your sorrows and your hurts and your discouragement, there's hope. And maybe it's not that you need to come to Jesus for the first time. Maybe it's repentance and restoration. Maybe it's recommitment. Maybe like the prodigal who comes home, covered in slop from the pigs, and the father sees him a long way off and runs to him and throws his arm around his dirty, smelly son and welcomes him home.

Maybe it's repentance. Maybe it's recommitment. Maybe it's running toward Jesus for the first time. In whatever situation, whether you're refocusing and repenting, coming for the first time, we're going to sing about grace in just a minute. I want you to hear that. And for us, it's time to act. Maybe it's repentance in our hearts of all the areas where we have not glorified God. Maybe it's seeking to come to Christ for the first time. Maybe it's a recommitment to that. Maybe you look at that and you say, "I can't do it alone." We'd love to be able to do that with you. Maybe that's prayer. Maybe that's answering questions. Maybe that's teaching you what it means to see Jesus and to know Jesus. Talk about it now. We can talk about it later. I just want you to see that there is hope, and that we are called to glorify God. Let's pray.

Father, in repentance we come for all the ways in which we have not lived for your glory. Forgive us. May we see your glory and your goodness in me. Like this woman, may you lift us up, look us in the eyes, and we see your glory, and we glorify you. Help us as individuals and as a church to live for your glory. We thank you for your goodness and for your grace. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.