Why
God Does Everything!
Why does God do what He does? I was
greatly helped in understanding this question by something Dr. J. I. Packer
wrote in his book Hot Tub Religion. He said: “The only answer that the Bible
gives to questions that begin: “Why did God do this
or that is for His own glory.”
Everything
God does is for His own glory. Everything God permits is for His own
glory. Everything God pursues is for His praise through Jesus Christ” (1 Pet.
4:11, “… in order that in everything God may be glorified through
Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen”).
From
beginning to end nothing in the Bible is more ultimate in the mind and heart of
God than the glory of God — the beauty of God, and the radiance of his manifold
perfections. At every point in God’s revealed action, wherever he makes plain
the ultimate goal of that action, the goal is always the same: to uphold and
display his glory.
Why
did God create and redeem a people who would be called by His name? He did it
for His own glory (Isaiah 43:7, “everyone who is called by my name, whom I
created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”).
Why
did God raise up Pharaoh and harden his heart? He did it to make known His
glory (Exodus 14:4, “And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and he will pursue
them, and I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host
…”Exodus 14:18, “And the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD, when I
have gotten glory over Pharaoh, his chariots, and his horsemen.”).
§ He predestined us
for his glory (Ephesians 1:6).
§ He created
us for his glory (Isaiah 43:7).
§ He elected Israel
for his glory (Jeremiah 13:11).
§ He saved his people
from Egypt for his glory (Psalm 106:8).
§ He rescued them from
exile for his glory (Isaiah 48:9-11).
§ He sent Christ
into the world so that Gentiles would praise God for his glory (Romans
15:9).
§ He commands his
people, whether they eat or drink, to do all things for his glory (1
Corinthians 10:31).
§ He will send
Jesus a second time so that all the redeemed will marvel at his glory (2
Thessalonians 1:9-10).
Therefore
the mission of the church is to, “Declare his glory among the
nations, his marvelous works among all peoples” (Psalm 96:3).
The
Hebrew word for “glory” means “that which is heavy or weighty.” When used
figuratively, it refers to God’s intense, profound presence, his sheer
“weight.” By contrast, David Wells says that God is regarded by many modern
Christians as “weightless.” We must rediscover God’s glory.
Sam
Storms gives a simple, but profound definition of the glory of God: “Glory is
the beauty of God unveiled! Glory is the resplendent radiance of His power and
His personality. Glory is all of God that makes God, God, and shows Him to be
worthy of our praise and our boasting and our trust and our hope and our
confidence and our joy! Glory is the external elegance of the
internal excellencies of God. Glory is what you see and experience
and feel when God goes public with His beauty!”
Like
a diamond, the glory of God is a treasure with many facets. God’s glory is too
active to fall into a simplified man-made compartmentalization of the subject.
Indeed, we see in the Scriptures that this glory is very active and
diversified. It comes (Isa 60:13; Ezek 43:2, 4; Micah
1:15), departs (1 Sam 4:21–22; Hosea 10:5), passes (Exodus
33:22) goes down (Ps 49:18), goes up (Ezek
11:23), goes out (Ezek 10:18), arouses oneself (Ps
57:9), arises (Ezek 3:12; 10:4), flies away (Hosea
9:11), stands (Ezek 3:23; 10:18), dwells (Ps
85:10), sends (Zach 2:12), shines (Isa 60:1), fills (Exodus
40:34,35; 1 Kings 8:11; 2 Chr 5:14), rejoices (Ps 16:9)
and sings praise (Ps 30:13).
The
glory of God is overwhelming. God is not like the dumb idols. The “comfort”
found in false religions is that somehow the deity needs me. Their deities must
be brought his food, moved into position, dusted, and repaired. But the glory
of God declares that the living God does not need us. Sinful men must stagger
back, painfully conscious that God is self-sufficient and we are completely
unessential. The biblical terminology for glory has two aspects. One
is the renown God deserves because of the weightiness of his reputation.
The other is radiant and resplendent light.
God’s
glory is the perfect harmony of all his attributes into one infinitely
beautiful being. The glory of God summarizes the seriousness, the perfection,
and the infinite significance of all of the attributes of God. It sums up who
He is, in the awesome brightness and weightiness of all His perfections. What
does it mean then for us to glorify God? We cannot add to His glory, for He is
already perfectly and infinitely glorious. Rather, for us to glorify God means
for us to ascribe the glory that is due His Name in worship. It means that we
acknowledge His glory by living as though His perfections are as serious and
significant as they really are, so that we reflect His glory through a pure
mirror. It means that nothing horrifies us more than the thought of bringing
dishonor to His glorious Name, and nothing delights us more than to feel His
pleasure as we live to the praise of His glory. It also means that we declare
His glory among the nations, inviting others to join us in our love affair with
His glorious perfection. Glorifying God thus consumes and defines every aspect
of our life and witness as well as our worship.
In James 2:1 the
Lord Jesus is referred to as, “the Lord of glory. Some translations smooth out
the passage to read: “our glorious Lord Jesus Christ,” or “Jesus Christ, the
Lord of glory.” But what James actually wrote was “our Lord, Jesus Christ, the
Glory.” James is stressing an important fact when he calls Jesus “the Glory.”
When the Bible speaks of glory, the word usually refers to a cloud of radiance
— light, color, and sound– that appeared from time to time in the Old
Testament, the shekinah glory. Those allowed to see into this cloud, as in
Ezekiel 1, saw within a myriad of shining angels surrounding the throne of God.
This company manifests the glory of the shining Being at the center. That
Figure, seated on a throne, is the source of glory, the source of light
reflected and refracted through the angels. He is Glory Personified. James,
writing from a Jewish perspective to Jewish converts, wants his readers to see
that Jesus and the Shekinah Glory of the Old Testament are the same.
Christ
is the incarnation of God’s glory (John 1:14),
and it is the vision of this glory in the new heavens and earth for which we
all hope. When Jesus walked the earth, this glory was usually hidden from plain
view and only visible for brief moments to a select few of His disciples (Luke 9:28–36). But all who love and serve the Messiah will one
day get to see the beauty of His glory. In the new Jerusalem we will see Him
face to face (Rev. 21).
The
great sin of the world is not that the human race has failed to work for God so
as to increase His glory, but that we have failed to delight in God so as to
reflect his glory. For God’s glory is most reflected in us when we are most
delighted in Him!
Dr.
John Piper illustrates so articulately: “God has no deficiencies that I might
be required to supply. He is complete in himself. He is overflowing with
happiness in the fellowship of the Trinity. The upshot of this is that God is a
mountain spring, not a watering trough. A mountain spring is self-replenishing.
It constantly overflows and supplies others. But a watering trough needs
to be filled with a pump or bucket brigade. So if you want to glorify the
worth of a watering trough you work hard to keep it full and useful. But
if you want to glorify the worth of a spring you do it by getting down on your
hands and knees and drinking to your heart’s satisfaction, until you have
the refreshment and strength to go back down in the valley and tell people what
you’ve found.
You
do not glorify a mountain spring by dutifully hauling water up the path from
the river below and dumping it in the spring. What we have seen is that
God is like a mountain spring, not a watering trough. He is most
glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.
In
other words, this unspeakably good news for helpless sinners — that God
delights not when we offer him our strength — but when we wait for
his this good news that I need to hear so badly again and again, is based
firmly on a vision of God as sovereign, self-sufficient and free. If we
do not have this foundational vision of God in place when we ask how we can
please him, it is almost certain that our efforts to please him win become
subtle means of self-exaltation, and end in the oppressive bondage of legalistic
strivings. A lifelong hope in the overflowing grace of God to meet all
our needs (“according to the riches of his glory!)simply will not
stand without a deep foundation in the doctrine of the greatness and the glory
of God.”
We
urgently need to recapture the centrality of glorifying God in our lives and
work. Too much of what passes for evangelical Christianity in America is
man-centered or even self-centered for the glory ourselves and not the glory of
God.
Open
up the gates and let the King of glory come in
Fill
the whole earth with praises as we lift our hands and worship You
Open
up the doors and let Your glory fill the earth!
Message
by : Pastor Wade Trimmer
