For His Glory
Sent Missional Church Community is about advancing the kingdom of Jesus for his glory. But what does it mean to give him glory? If you google the definition of glory you get:
high renown or honor won by notable achievements
By this definition, Jesus definitely deserves our high renown and honor for what he achieved on the cross. He lived a perfect life in obedience to God yet was pierced for our sinful lives - all to defeat sin and death and provide a way for us back to God.
A Living Sacrifice
But glory isn’t just us thanking Jesus for what he did. It goes much deeper than that.
1 Corinthians 10:31 says
So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
In the context of this verse we see that the glory of God is the impetus that drives everything we do as believers in Christ. It involves what we do with the totality of our lives. If glory is the reason, then praise and worship is the medium through which we glorify.
No, praise and worship is not a genre of music. It’s what happens when we are face to face with the glory of God. Charles Spurgeon preached on 2 Corinthians 4:6 about how the glory of God is in the face of Jesus. To know Christ is to encounter the glory of God. And when we encounter the glory of God, we have no choice but to worship.
Romans 12:1-3 says
Therefore I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.
Worship is about what we decide to give our lives to and what we decide to glorify as a result. We are all worshipping something or someone. Usually, we are worshipping something that is not worthy of our worship. Today, most of us are trying to feed our desire to be comfortable, so we worship the gods of convenience, entertainment, sexual gratification, etc. We live in a harsh world. It feels easier to escape into these areas. Functionally, they become gods that we glorify by virtue of our obedience to them.
So we give our lives to the things that will distract us, preoccupy us, maybe even numb the pain we feel inside. When we worship, we are giving ourselves over to something. It may not look overtly like worship, but it is.
Romans tells us to give our lives over to God as an act of worship. The idol of escapism is never satisfied: the more we feed it the more empty we feel; the God of our salvation is always satisfying: the more we worship Jesus, the deeper his joy fills us. Worship is marked by surrender. Instead of living for ourselves, we subject our daily lives under Christ, which determines how we live, how we interact with people, what we say and do. When we proclaim the good news of Christ and embody his gospel in how we live, we are magnifying God and showing the world his glory.
1 Corinthians 6:20 says
for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
What has our escapist idols ever done for us that deserves our undivided attention and worship? It only pushes us deeper into a need that can’t be satiated. But what has Christ done for us? He purchased our freedom on the cross so that we are no longer slaves to the never ending demands of these idols. He gives us rest and wholeness in Him. The only proper response is to trust him with our lives and how we live.
The Love of Christ Controls Us
Each day we can glorify ourselves and our idols or glorify Christ. Think about this, when we glorify ourselves we would never enter situations that makes us uncomfortable or go against our desires. We would never spend time with people who we deem unworthy of our energy or time. But When Christ is the object of our praise, we are compelled to live differently.
2 Corinthians 5:14-15 says
For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.
There’s a switch that turns on inside of you once you understand that Christ died for you personally out of love for you. That moment of surrender when you are made His. It’s newness of life. Then you get to the heart of what this means.
Colossians 1:27 says
To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
This is the marked difference of the life of the believer: Christ in us. Living for the glory of God conveys a powerful truth: Jesus is the power of God to breathe true life into us.
We can have a life-giving connection to God thanks to Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. Not only do we now have direct access to the creator of the world, but his actual presence is IN us. The same spirit that rose Christ from the dead dwells in us and is what makes us spiritually ALIVE. All of the idols we give glory to can’t do that. Escapist gods may give our flesh temporary satisfaction, but only the spirit of the living God can actually give us true life. So even though the world beats us down and things seem hopeless, we have this “treasure in jars of clay.” Though our bodies are wasting away, Christ, the hope of glory is in us.
2 Corinthians 4:4-10 explains
In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.
The light of Christ shines into our hearts. John says Christ is the light of men and that in him is life. Whereas there is no life, no lasting hope in whatever else we glory in. So even when our bodies decay or circumstances of life devastate us, we always have the hope of Christ in us, who will never forsake us or leave us. That’s a message worth proclaiming.
There’s a reason you feel deadness in this world. Christ came to redeem creation from the bondage of sin and death. Without him, we are in the same pit of despair. Sure, we experience those common joys of life, but when you’re in the quietness of your soul, do you see light? Because when day to day life doesn’t produce any joy, the hope of Christ does. He frees us from the hamster wheel of life.
Application
So practically I can wake up in the morning and frame my day around letting this light shine. I can make time for people and build relationships and proclaim and embody this gospel message to them. I can turn away from feeding idols and instead glorify Christ in how my schedule looks.
You may think that seems like a burden or super intense to do everything for His glory but in actuality the real burden is the constant effort to try to feel any semblance of joy through means of a job, a relationship, entertainment, or really the need to be preoccupied at all times. But if we approach the job, the relationship, or the entertainment through the lens of glorifying God, then those things don’t become ways we seek to derive joy but things in which we seek to bring our joy. This ultimately produces the effect you are looking for anyway: to be content in your circumstances.
Paul says He has learned the secret to being content in everything, in all circumstances. whether these circumstances make him feel high in life or whether they make him feel low in life. “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength” he says. That’s what being made new in Christ is all about. His Spirit dwells in us. The Spirt empowers us to go into the world as one’s who glorify him with how we approach the daily mundane nature of life. Then, the ordinary things of life are met with an extraordinary Christ. When the light of Christ shines into the darkness of life, the only logical response is worship and to glory in him.
It’s not about being uber-religious to please God; it’s about Christ sustaining and empowering us no matter the circumstance. So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, it’s all for the glory of Christ.
There’s always opportunity to evaluate our daily lives and see where we can reorient toward God. Maybe on a fundamental level you don’t have that connection with Christ and everything about life is darkness. Christ was crucified and rose again to provide that life-giving connection back to God. If by faith you turn from glorifying those idols and instead glorify Christ by surrending your life to him, his life and spirit will be with you. You’ll have that direct, sustaining connection with God no matter what in all circumstances. Consider offering your life as a living sacrifice to Him.
Taste and See
And honestly this isn’t just a get out jail free card. Sure, surrending your life to Christ in faith secures that eternal life, but we must abide in him. We have a whole life to live - are we going to just keep on living for ourselves like a Paul says in Romans 6? By no means,. Walk by the Spirit of God and see the love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control that come to fruition.
That’s why as a church we are motivated for his glory to advance the gospel because we know it is a treasure that people walking in darkness need. Because we all need it.
1 Peter 2:1-3 offers a good action on how to glorify God,
So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation—if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.
The qualifier is if we have “tasted that the lord is good.” If we have given our lives to Christ we have tasted and seen that the Lord is good. So before we do anything in this list, we are called to surrender over to Christ in saving faith. Not by works are we saved, but by God’s grace through faith. Taste and see.
Like a newborn infant, once she tastes milk she knows that’s why she was crying. She then keeps coming back for more because she just instinctually knows that the milk is how she is sustained; how she grows. The milk satisfies the most basic need in the newborn. The problem is that we go to any other source looking for satisfaction but it can’t satisfy our fundamental need to be set free from the bondage of sin. Only the “pure spiritual milk” that is life in Christ sustains us.
The verse in Peter references Psalm 34
Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him. Fear the LORD, you his saints, for those who fear him lack nothing. ... The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles. The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
So blessed is the one who takes refuge in the lord. See how that’s an act of faith. You’re saying, “I believe the Lord is the only one who can shelter me.” Giving God the glory is trusting him as a covering over your life and making a spiritual 180 from whatever else is functioning as your cover. Isn’t this repentance? Peter says put away all malice, deceit hypocrisy, slander and turn to the Lord. Faith and repentance go hand and hand.
Turning to the lord implies you’re turning away from something else. Sticking with the taste theme, if you say you believe eating healthy will benefit your life, yet you only eat junk food, then what does it matter that you “believe” in healthy food. That’s a worthless faith that does nothing for you. Unless you actually change your diet and start acting on that belief, nothing will change. Likewise if you say you believe Jesus can give you life, yet you persist in spiritual junk food, what good is that belief? It’s worthless. Unless you actually taste the lord and turn from the spiritual junk, then that’s a faith that has worth. Doing all things for the glory of God is a willingness to turn from the spiritual junk food and taste and see that the Lord is good.
If faith is the assurance of things hoped for, then what is our response to Psalm 34 - that the Lord hears the cries of the broken-hearted, that if we cry out to Him he will deliver us and save us. Faith is not just saying “I believe those words” it’s actually saying those words. It’s actually crying out to him for deliverance. Giving Jesus the glory means we believe that he reigns in a kingdom that cannot be shaken and then we live according to that belief.
Conclusion
How would your life look different if instead of fearing your circumstances you feared the Lord? Instead of glorifying your circumstances (because that’s what fear actually is) you glorify the Lord? Psalm 34 says those who fear the lord will lack nothing. All of your needs are supplied in him.
Doing all things for the glory of Christ releases us from the uncertainty of outcome and unleashes us to the certainty of his promises. We can then be active participants in his kingdom, and then we’ll see - as the song says - the wonder working power of the blood of the lambi in our lives, in our churches, and in our communities.
