”What is the chief end of man? To glorify God and worship Him forever!” We are to exist and live in light of His glory and worship each day. “Whether you eat or drink, whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31). May every Christian be, what Luther said, “a living doxology”. This is what it means to “present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable, and pleasing unto God – this is our just and spiritual worship.”
The Dilemma:
The Erosion Of God-Centered Worship
Wherever in the church biblical authority has been lost, Christ has been displaced, the gospel has been distorted, or faith has been perverted, it has always been for one reason: our interests have displaced God’s and we are doing His work in our way. The loss of God’s centrality in the life of today’s church is common and lamentable. It is this loss that allows us to transform worship into mere entertainment; gospel preaching into marketing; believing into technique; being good into feeling good about ourselves; the pastorate into profiteering; the sacred desk into therapy; and faithfulness into being successful. As a result, God, Christ and the Bible, have come to mean too little to us and rest too inconsequentially upon us.
Lucifer fell from heaven because he would not glorify God and tried to exalt himself above God by desiring worship for himself (Isaiah 14; Ezekiel 28). King Nebuchadnezzar lost his throne and was driven to insanity for seven years for not giving God glory (Daniel 4:19-36). Herod in Acts 12:20-23 was struck by an angel of the Lord, eaten by worms, and died. Why? “Because he did not give glory to God” (verse 23). And this will be our end too. As Charles Bridges has said, “Pride is self contending with God for preeminence.”
Consider Jesus as the centerpiece of glory:
“The head that once was crowned with thorns,
Is crowned with glory now;
A royal diadem adorns
that mighty Victor’s brow.
No more the bloody crown,
The cross and nails no more:
For hell itself shakes at his frown,
and all the heavens adore.”
We must focus on God in our worship, rather than the satisfaction of our personal needs. God is sovereign in worship; we are not. Our concern must be for God’s kingdom, not our own empires, popularity or success. Worship does not begin with man and his needs but with God and His glory!
The Definition:
What is the worship and glory of God?
1. The glory of God, is the visible manifestation of every perfection of His Godhead. It is that which is absolutely pure, righteous, lovely, and true; and His holiness is the beauty of His attributes. It is to honor the One Triune God of the Bible in the fullness of His Person as to how He has revealed Himself through general and special revelation.
Isaiah 42:8 “I am the Lord; that is my name! I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols.
Psalm 115:1 “Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but to Your name give glory because of Your mercy, because of Your truth.”
2. The worship of God then, is our heartfelt, loving, joyous response in paying homage and reverence with joy for who He is and all that He has done. Biblical worship is ascribing worth to the One Triune God, in how He has ascribed worth to Himself according to His Word, in the power and sufficiency of the Holy Spirit, out an obedient life. “Kiss the Son, worship the Lord with reverence, and rejoice with trembling.” –Psalm 2:11
Worship is living all of our life for all of His glory!
The greatest songwriter in the Bible, David, exclaimed, “Sing to Him, sing psalms to Him; talk of all His wondrous works! Glory in His holy name…” (Psalm 105:2-3). The centrality of glorifying God is also proclaimed in Psalm 29:2, “Give unto the Lord the glory due to His name; worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.” This Old Testament truth is brought forward into the New Testament. God’s glory is described as being great (Psalm 138:5), eternal (Psalm 104:31), rich (Eph. 3:16), highly exalted (Psalm 8:1); and and His glory above the heavens (Psalm 113:4). God’s transcendent glory is a visible manifestation of His presence (Ezekiel 1:4-28). All the heavens declare the glory of God for they demonstrate His eternal power and divine nature (Psalm 19:1-6; Romans 1:20-21). God will even be glorified in His wrath, for in judgment too He is holy, just, perfect and righteous (Romans 9:22-24).
The Doctrine:
Living daily in the presence of His glory
The Apostle Paul says, “Therefore we also pray always for you that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfill all the good pleasure of His goodness and the work of faith with power, that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and you in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thess. 1:11-12).
Question: How do we bring glory to the Lord each day in the problematic world that we live in? We bring glory to Him when we confess Christ as Lord (Phil. 2:11), through praise (Psalm 50:23), as we plead in prayer (Psalm 79:9), as we daily confess our sin in the beauty of holiness (1 Chron. 16:29), and as we exercise a recurrent life of repentance exemplified in the fruits of righteousness (Phil. 1:11). We glorify God when we are privileged to suffer for Christ (1 Peter 4:12-16), and are patient in affliction (Isaiah 24:15), even die for Him (Job 13:15a). We glorify Him when we rely on His promises (Rom. 4:20), and honor Him in our body and spirit—for we are the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:20). We glorify God for His holiness (Exodus 15:11), mercy and truth (Psalm 115:1; Romans 15:9), faithfulness (Isaiah 25:1), grace to others (Galatians 1:24), deliverance from sin (Ephesians 1:6-14), and for our eternal salvation (2 Timothy 2:10).
BECAUSE HE IS GOD:
HE is holy, His anger burns against sin.
HE is righteous, His judgments fall on those who rebel against Him.
HE is faithful, the solemn threatening of His Word are being fulfilled.
HE is omnipotent, no problem can master Him, no enemy can defeat Him, and no purpose of His can be withstood.
HE is who He is and what He is that we now behold what we do – the gathering clouds of the storm of Divine wrath, which will shortly, burst upon the earth.
HE is almighty He is one who speaks and it is done, who commands and it stands fast. He is the One with whom “all things are possible” and “who works all things after the counsel of His own will.”
Such is the God of the Bible, the God who throws out the challenge, “To whom then will ye liken God, or what likeness will ye compare unto Him?” (Isaiah 40:18). And as though that were not enough, in the same chapter He asks again, “To whom then will ye liken Me, or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high and behold who hath created these things, that brings out their host by number: He calleth them all by names by the greatness of His might, for that He is strong in power, not one fails… Hast thou not known? has thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, faints not, neither is weary?” (Isaiah 40:25-26, 28).
The Decree:
We affirm that because salvation is of God and has been accomplished by God, it is for God’s glory and that we must glorify Him and worship Him always. We must live our entire lives before the face of God, under the authority of God and for His glory alone. We do not glorify God by elevated admiration, or eloquent expressions, or pompous services of Him, as when we aspire to a conversing with Him with unstained spirits, end live to Him in living like Him.We deny that we can properly glorify God if our worship is not according to what He has commanded; or is confused with entertainment; if we neglect either Law or Gospel in our preaching; or if self-improvement, self-esteem or self-fulfillment are allowed to become alternatives to the gospel. God cannot be glorified where sin is pacified.
Romans 16:25-27 “Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past, but now is manifested, and by the Scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the eternal God, has been made known to all the nations, leading to obedience of faith; to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, be the glory forever. Amen.”
The Duty:
A Call To Repentance And Reformation
The faithfulness of the evangelical church in the past contrasts sharply with its unfaithfulness in the present. Earlier in this century, evangelical churches sustained a remarkable missionary endeavor, and built many religious institutions to serve the cause of biblical truth and Christ’s kingdom. That was a time when Christian behavior and expectations were markedly different from those in the culture. Today they often are not. The evangelical world today is losing its biblical fidelity, moral compass and missionary zeal.
We need to repent beloved. We repent of our worldliness. We have been influenced by the “gospels” of our secular culture, which are no gospels. We have weakened the church by our own lack of serious repentance, our blindness to the sins in ourselves which we see so clearly in others, and our inexcusable failure adequately to tell others about God’s saving work in Jesus Christ.
And so we say Luther… Here I Stand! At The Cross Church we stand firmly on the One Triune God of the Scriptures – three persons of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We stand on the once for all delivered to the saints faith – the Word of God which is sufficient for all matters of life and godliness. We stand on the gospel of God – the chief article of faith – sola fide. That salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, because of Christ alone. And so we dedicate ourselves to the worship and glory of God in our personal lives every day!
