We are never the final reason for anything. God is.

God’s final and ultimate purpose is to display his glory in all things. Isaiah 48:11 offers insight into the scope through which God consistently acts: “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.” Everything God does is intended to put His infinite greatness and worth on display. This is a dominate, overarching theme throughout all of Scripture.

In the end, we are not the ultimate goal of Christ’s saving work in the Gospel. The glory of God is.

Man was created to manifest the infinite perfection and greatness of God (Isaiah 43:7). In sin, man exchanged the glory of God for lesser things (Romans 3:23) and in so doing committed an outrageous crime against Him by failing to treasure Him above all things. Yet God refuses to corrupt His glory by sharing it with anything not deserving of it (Isaiah 48:11). For our salvation and the preservation of His glory, God sends Jesus to absorb the consequences of our sin in our place (John 12:27-28). As a result of the work of Jesus on our behalf, in redeeming us from the condemnation of our sin and adopting us into the family of God, the “praise of His glorious grace” is put on brilliant display (Ephesians 1:6)! We are saved so that God might be praised and glorified – so that his infinite greatness and worth might be seen and praised.

The Gospel maximizes the glory of God by eliminating our ability to take credit for anything He has done on our behalf. It strips us of all grounds for boasting in ourselves. It turns our affections from the lesser things and redeems them back to God, the only true and beautiful and substantial object of our exultation.

Is God an eg0-centric, self-absorbed God for demanding so much attention, praise and notoriety for Himself? Do we worship a God who is more concerned about preserving His reputation than working for the good of the people He claims to love?

Of course not. God’s self-glorification agenda in all things is in fact a profound demonstration of His love for us. He loves us, and part of loving us is making available to us that which brings us fulness of joy. God pursues us to give us what is best – Himself! The ultimate aim of the Gospel is God glorified. The ultimate gift of the Gospel is God. Through Jesus, we get God – the most beautiful of all things. It would be unloving of God, and unfitting to His glory, to give us anything less than Himself.

In the end, God gets the glory, we get the joy.

Our affections are hard-wired towards glorious things. We make a big deal out of things that, in their own right, are a big deal (i.e. the Super Bowl, weddings, Olympics, etc.). It’s what we do. The problem is not that we celebrate glory, it’s that we are far too easily pleased in things that glory is not due. God, in His grace and for His glory, intercedes on our behalf through Jesus, putting on display His infinite greatness and worth, bidding us to the highest form of all praise in Him. He lovingly calls us to Himself knowing only He can satisfy the affectionate, joy-seeking longings of our hearts.

Something deep in all of our souls says, “I was made for this. I was made for this kind of joy. The things I give glory to aren’t worth that honor…they leave me joyless and empty.”

So we look to God as the greatest and highest form of glory…and the most sustaining and fulfilling source of our joy. God is most glorified in us when our hearts are most at rest in Him; when our identities are most secure in Him; when our hopes are most rooted in Him; when our joys are most enraptured in Him; when our dreams are most realized in Him; when our fears are most settled in Him; when our anxiety is most calmed in Him; when our treasure is most found in Him; when our affections are most stirred in Him; when our needs are most met in Him; when our requests are most grounded in Him, and when our lives most fulfilled in Him.

Join us this Sunday as we conclude our “Sola” series and celebrate the glory that is due God above all things! Click HERE for location information.

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Tags: glory to god alone, sola series, soli deo gloria, woodlands point community church

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 25th, 2011 at 9:31 am and is filed under Pastor's Blog.