Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Hebrews 13:20-21

Sermon text again this Lord’s day is Hebrews 13:20 and 21. Please stand for the reading of God’s word.

Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant make you complete in every good work to do his will, working in you what is well pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ to whom be glory forever and ever.

Amen.

Let’s pray. Lord God, we do pray that what we do here now would bring glory to your name. In Jesus name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated.

I want to begin today with referencing a recent article by a man named David Selborne. He is the author of a book called The Losing Battle with Islam and had an article I think in the London Times a couple of weeks ago on 10 reasons why we’re going to lose the war with Islam under present circumstances.

I want to begin by talking about that just a bit and helping us to give thanks to God for the resurgence of radical Islam. And then at the end of the sermon, I want to quote from a song by a group called Arcade Fire. I’ll quote with some lyrics. I’ll end with a quote from some lyrics of theirs as we consider what’s going on in our country and why it is we’re losing this war.

Selborne identified several reasons. He quotes in his recent London Times article from the Saudi scholar Suleiman al-Marwa who declared in June of 2004, “Islam is advancing according to a steady plan, America will be destroyed.” Selborne’s analysis is that under present circumstances in the present situation, that’s accurate. It’s going to happen. And he lists 10 reasons. They’re fairly compelling reasons.

I won’t go over all of them, but I will go over ones that are pertinent to our talk today. His first reason is the lack of unity amongst the West in terms of what to do about all this. So the disunified West is the first reason he says why we’re not going to be able to win this war with Islam.

His second reason is, as he reads from his article: the second reason why, as things stand, Islam will not be defeated is that the strengths of the world community of Muslims are being underestimated and the nature of Islam misunderstood.

So the second reason why we’re not going to win is because we underestimate their strength, their value and tactically then we go about doing things that are rather silly. Trying to democratize people that are committed to Islam is a task that’s bound to fail. They have a worldview that is consistent, focused, direct. And our worldview is no longer consistent, focused, and direct. Those are the first two reasons Selborne gives: number one, our own disunity, and number two, a failure to understand the basic unity of Islam.

They have a particular vision and we do not understand that. Islam believes, quoting from his article, that it holds the solution to mankind’s problems. It believes it holds the solution to mankind’s problems. Donald Rumsfeld wrote in June of 2005 that the insurgents in Iraq don’t have vision, they’re losers. And Selborne says that not only is that dead wrong about fundamentalist Islam, or Islamofascist, I guess is the recent terminology—we would just say those Muslims who are consistent with the teaching, life and practice of Muhammad—not only is Rumsfeld wrong but it’s exactly the reverse.

They are committed to Allah. They’re committed to a god of their own making, no doubt, but they’re committed to it. They believe it’s the solution to all the world’s problems. They’re not interested in market theories that might make them more money because more money is not what they’re about. What they’re about is submission. That’s what Islam means. Submission to their version of God and giving him, we might say in terms of the discussion of today’s sermon, all glory.

All glory to Allah. And they mean it. They don’t just say it. Those who are radically committed to it, who are doing most of the jihadist work are those who are radically committed to a singular vision. And that vision is that Islam is the answer to the entire world’s problems.

Western leadership has incoherent war plans, Selborne says, because they have incoherent vision and we would say they do not have a worldview. They don’t have a religiously held worldview as Islam does. Islam seeks for the well-being of the world through its own version of truth and its version includes striking people on the neck if they don’t submit to Allah. It is, Selborne says, to misunderstand the inner strength of Islam’s revival which is owed not to victimhood but to advancing confidence in its own belief system.

You know, people say, “Well, they just are conspiracy. It’s a victimhood mentality and this is what’s wrong.” And he’s saying, “No, that’s 180 degrees wrong.” What you have to understand is no matter how it came about, what’s come about now is a worldview that is radically committed to a particular belief system and with radical confidence. We could say they’re postmillennialists. Okay? They believe this is what’s going to happen. They believe this is what the world needs and they are trying to subject everything in their lives and in the world to the well-being and glory of Allah.

And we are not.

I read this article a week or two ago, last week on TV, the head of Hezbollah, huge rally in Lebanon, Beirut, claiming that it was Allah that gave them this victory against the Israelis. And you know, the truth of what happened is irrelevant in these people’s mind. They serve a sovereign God who they’re trying to give all glory to, and they have an eschatologically optimistic view of how that will work its way out in the world.

They are a counterfeit Christianity. You know, Bin Laden when 9/11 happened—you know, if you saw the tapes afterwards of Bin Laden and these men or if you read their writings—you have to understand that they interpret the event as the hand of Allah graciously giving them victory. They never expected the towers to come down, but Allah rewarded their submission to him and they’re seeking his glory.

And that’s what the head of Hezbollah was saying last week in Beirut. Allah has graciously given us a victory we could never accomplish by ourselves. The Israelis were always undefeatable and now we defeated them. We ran them out and we got 100,000 people chanting in a square, you know, glory to Allah or whatever it is they chant.

Now, we should be thankful for this. Why? Well, first of all, because God says to be thankful in all things. And this is a thing that’s happened and we should give God thanks for it. And I think that the reason why we should be particularly thankful is it is a stinging rebuke, an indictment written in letters you know, in letters writ large. You know, Dorothy could go home up in the sky so she could see it. The Lord God is writing to us: Christians, you are not glorifying me. You’re not living your lives for the sole purpose of bringing glory to my name. And you don’t believe what I tell you about the promises. And I’m going to raise up opponents who are going to be a counterfeit of what’s happening here and in my sovereignty I’m going to use them as a rod and I’m going to whip your backside.

The church of Jesus Christ is having its backside whipped but it’s so drunk with the view of American, you know, in many corners various perversions of what biblical Christianity is. It’s so drunk with the things that we have and materialism and all this stuff, that we don’t even know we are being kicked. Proverbs talks about that. I saw a guy once like this nut in San Francisco so drunk the guard to this art museum was kicking him trying to get him—he had no idea he was being kicked, getting the stuffings kicked out of him. Didn’t know. Well, that’s what’s happening to us.

The Lord God is chastising us, I believe, by raising up his counterfeit to tell us: You’re not convinced that my word controls the future. You’re not convinced that you have the solution to all the world’s problems, and you’re certainly not committed to glorifying me in everything and if need be suffer great privations of your personal well-being for the sake of my glory.

I believe that Islam has been raised up for many other purposes. I’m sure God has. But the Lord God has used it as a whipping boy to teach us that we’re the ones being whipped, not it. God is correcting us.

I want to talk today about glory. The benediction ends: “To whom be glory forever and ever.” This is the culmination of the benediction and this is the culmination of the purpose for our lives. So I want to talk about glory today.

First I want to look at three texts. I have three texts on glory on your handout, and I note first of all the Hebrew term glory is kabod. This is synonymous with the Greek term doxa. Doxa is the Greek term that’s translated glory. It is used also to translate those texts where kabod is used in the Old Testament. This is important. Remember that one of our big problems we’ve got is a New Testament devoid of the Old Testament. A New Testament that uses words from a Greek culture that uses a Greek language that if we’re not careful, we’ll get things wrong.

Doxa had its origins in a word meaning to think or make an assessment. So to give glory is to think, to make an assessment about something, and so it can be thought of just in purely intellectual terms. But if we remember that it’s tied to the Old Testament concept of glory, the Hebrew word kabod, and it’s tied through the translation of this term across the testaments, there’s a very useful thing to do. When you find out Greek words, understand their Hebrew connections to flesh out the meaning of the Greek word. And the Hebrew word kabod has its basic meaning as weight, heaviness.

Now it can also mean a good opinion, considering somebody weighty or heavy, but the point is it’s not insubstantial. It’s not an idea. It’s a substance. It’s a reality. And so we’ll look at these texts here that talk about this, some from the Old Testament and some from the New.

First of all, Psalm 29:1-3. And this was the call to worship this morning that Elder Hayes read:

“Give to the Lord, O heavenly beings. Give to the Lord the glory and strength. Give to the Lord the glory due to his name. Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. The voice of the Lord is over the waters. The God of glory thunders.”

So God is described as being the God of glory. This is in essence what he is. When we understand it, it’s not a particular attribute of God. It has to do with all the divine attributes wrapped up together. God is the God of glory.

This is repeated in Acts 7:2 in the New Testament. Stephen said: “Brothers and fathers, hear me. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia.”

1 Corinthians 2:8:

“None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.”

Jesus is given the same designation: the God of glory, the Lord of glory. It is who God is to be glorious.

Hebrews 1:3, describing Jesus Christ says:

“He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature and he upholds the universe.”

The present work of the Lord Jesus Christ is this glorious manifestation. He is the radiance, the bright shining forth, the refulgence—King James word—of the glory of God, the brilliance of God. So God is the God of glory. From the beginning, from the Old Testament to the New Testament, they tell us this.

God has made all things and he is all glorious. This is a synonym, and can be used as the title of who God is: the God of glory, the Lord of glory. But this God of glory thunders. Psalm 29 says: “The Lord of glory thunders.” Now, you know, so you don’t think about that much, but that’s what I’m paid to do—is think about this stuff, meditate on it and help you to think about it too.

The Lord of glory—and we tend to think of glory as sort of abstract, spiritual, in the sense of being not material thing. But what this text tells us is that the Lord, the God of glory in his glory thunders. He impacts the earth. So part of the glory of God manifests itself in the context of the physical reality of the creation.

Psalm 72:18, the end of the second book of the Psalter:

“Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who alone does wondrous things. Blessed be his glorious name forever. May the whole earth be filled with his glory.”

And if you do a study on glory in the scriptures, you see that glory is not some abstract thing away from us. It’s a thing that God—the glory of God thunders. It has an impact on the world. He does wondrous things. Blessed be his glorious name. So his glory is linked to what he accomplishes in order and it’s linked to the whole earth being filled with his glory. Amen and amen.

It is the glory of God to change and transform the world and to have people all over the world, you know, have their allegiance to him and seek his glory.

Romans 11:36 says—excuse me, Romans 16:26-27:

“But this has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has made known to all nations according to the command of the eternal God to bring about the obedience of faith. To God only be glory through Jesus Christ forever. Amen.”

Now again we take the end of that—the last verse in Romans—and sort of abstract it out, make it into some eternal ephemeral thing out there. But the text is an immediate response to the fact that God has preached the gospel. He’s manifested Jesus Christ that this might be made known to all nations according to the command of the eternal God to bring about the obedience of faith. It is to the glory of God’s name that the whole earth become transformed through the proclamation of the gospel.

That is God’s glory at work. It’s not abstract. It’s not relegated to eternity. It’s not moved away from what’s happening in the context of our world. It is very much integrated in terms of what happens in our world.

We’re to give unto the Lord glory. So God is the God of glory. But this glory moves in the context of the earth and God is glorifying himself through the created order and through specifically the actions of people.

We’re to give glory to God. Now this brings up what Van Til referred to as the full bucket difficulty. God is all glorious, right? But the creation adds glory to him. The creation glorifies God. And specifically when we do certain things, we glorify God. And we’ll see more texts like this in a couple of minutes. Well, how could this be? If he’s all glorious to begin with, then why does he create a world to give himself glory? And why does he call on us to give him more glory?

And there’s no answer to this. This is where our human understanding and finitude is exposed. But it’s just what the scriptures teach and it’s what we’re to believe. So the fact that God is all glorious doesn’t take off our responsibility to bring glory to his name and to add glory to it. God says that is explicitly what we’re supposed to do.

1 Chronicles 16:29 says the same thing:

“Give to the Lord the glory due to his name.”

Psalm 29:2, we just read. Psalm 96:7-9:

“Give unto the Lord ye kindreds of the people. Give unto the Lord glory and strength. Give the glory due unto his name. Bring an offering and come into his court.”

So to come into the worship of God gives glory to God who is already all glorious. It’s what the scriptures declare.

1 Corinthians 6:20:

“You are bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit which are God’s.”

So we’re supposed to glorify God by things we do with our bodies. Okay? So it’s very much related to the purpose of God’s creation of the world.

Psalm 50:22, consider this:

“Ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver. Whoso offers praise glorifies me.”

So he got your attention. If you remember this: if you don’t remember this, I could tear you in pieces. And what he says is: “Worship me, and when you do offer praise to me, you are glorifying me. And to him that orderth his conversation right will I show the salvation of God.”

So God says that he’s all glorious. His glory is connected to his act of creation and his acts of providence in the creation. And specifically he calls on you and me to give glory to him. And he warns us that if we don’t, he’ll tear us in pieces.

This is our purpose. This is why we’re here today: to praise God, to glorify him. And the end result of that is the right ordering of our conversation.

Matthew 5:16:

“Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your father in heaven.”

It’s your job to bring glory to our father in heaven by doing things in the world in your week to bring light shining in the midst of what we do. So we’re called to go into the world and our actions glorify God directly. But they also add glory to God because other people see the light shining forth from us and glorify God. Now we’re light.

I was at this Polish festival yesterday and they had these various paintings of the Madonna and one of them was like a little picture of her face, but then everything around it is gold. There’s like sunbeams, there’s angels, there’s the moon, there’s a crescent underneath her, you know, she’s glorified. And this strikes us as gaudy or strange at first, and you know, it is weird in the context of the Roman Catholic view of Mary and all that’s wrong, of course. But the point is, we’re supposed to be like that. We are clothed with the glory garments of Jesus Christ. Light. We’re to be children of light walking into the world tomorrow. Sunbeams shining off, moon under our feet. We’re supposed to be that golden thing going into the world to the end that the rest of the world might glorify God more.

So God gives the glory of God. Psalm 19, right? The glory of God is his shining forth as the sun and we have the reflected glory of God and we’re supposed to bring glory to God through our actions in the context of the week. All right.

Now, let’s talk about Exodus 33. Turn there, please. Exodus 33:18 through 34:10. And we’ll see an important aspect of God’s glory. Now, in chapter 34, what’s going on here is God is giving his law to Moses, but Moses wants more. He wants to see the full glory of God. And then in chapter 34, he’s going—God’s going to come and Moses is going to see his backside. And so that’s the story, right?

But the story is set up in verse 18 of chapter 33. And Moses says: “I beseech you, show me your glory.” And he said: “I will make all my goodness pass before you. I will proclaim the name of the Lord.”

So Moses says, “Show me your glory.” God says, “I’m going to show you my goodness.” So the parallelism: God’s goodness is his glory. Okay. So now we skip down to chapter 34 and now God’s going to fulfill the request. Verse 5:

“The Lord descended in the cloud, stood with him there, proclaimed the name of the Lord. And the Lord passed by before him and proclaimed, ‘The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgressions and sin, and that will by no wise clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and upon the children’s children unto the third and to the fourth generation.’”

And Moses made haste and bowed his head toward the earth. Moses is confronted with the glory of God and he bows, he lays down in front of the glory of God.

God comes, he says, “Show me your glory.” God says, “Okay.” Well, what is the text telling us that the glory of God consists of? Now, this isn’t—you know, we’ve seen God’s glorious in the thunder, God is glorious as the sun, all that stuff. But here, the glory of God is described as his character.

He’s merciful, gracious, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy of the thousands, forgiving iniquities. There’s the glory of God. Moses says, “Show me your glory.” God says, “Here I am. I am merciful. I’m good. I’m patient. I forgive people.” That’s the glory of God.

Now, in the context of this is the giving of the law of God. And it doesn’t just end there. He also says, “I will by no means clear the guilty visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children of the third and fourth generation.”

It is the glory of God to forgive sins, to be merciful, compassionate. His very character—God is the God of glory. His character is compassionate, merciful and forgiving. But his character also is that it is not cheap grace. God also judges people and his destruction of people is also his glory as is the giving of his law. Right? That’s what’s going on in these chapters.

So God’s glory is connected to his providence and works. He calls on us to glorify his name. And his glory is connected to his law, to his merciful, compassionate nature, but also to his wrath visited justly against obstinate, rebellious people who don’t give a rip about God.

Remember we believe in predestination, but we also the scriptures teach us that fallen man is unable, but he is also unwilling to bow the knee to the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s not as if somebody wants to be a Christian and God says no. Apart from God’s grace, none of them want to. They’re unwilling. They’re in ethical rebellion against God. And God says that to those that are in that kind of ethical rebellion against me, high-handed, presumptuous sin, I’m going to judge them. And that is what gives glory to God. It gives glory to God.

And when we are told, “Give glory to God. Confess your sin.” You see, so God’s judgment is part of the manifestation of his glory, his law. We read responsibly and sang Psalm 19. And it seems odd at first. You got the sun, the glory of God is the bridegroom. And then all of a sudden, the middle starts talking about the law of God. Well, it’s not odd if you understand that there’s no distinction between that.

God’s glory is revealed in his character. His character creates a law for us to live by and when we live in the conditions and the context of his law as a way of life for us, we give glory to God. We’re shining as lights. Then we give God glory in what we do. And we’re little glorybearers of him. We’re lights shining in the midst of a dark world.

So God’s glory is not some kind of ephemeral, you know, ethereal thing disconnected from the physical world. It’s not spiritual in the sense of being in opposition to physical. It’s spiritual and lifegiving as being opposed to death in the context of the world.

John 17, let’s look at that a little bit. Turn to John 17. More things about God’s glory that are given to us in these texts. And this is, you know, the most astonishing thing, and we’ve kind of mentioned it already, but this is incredible.

John 17, beginning at verse one:

“These words spake Jesus, lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, ‘Father, the hour is come glorify thy son that the son also may glorify thee.’”

Well, right away, what’s the first thing that we learn about the high priestly prayer of the Lord Jesus Christ? We learn from this that as we’re Christians, we’re supposed to be like this, too. But Jesus’s purpose in life, his goal was to glorify his father in heaven. Now to that end he prayed that the father might glorify him in the context of the cross.

So we have this exchange of glory going on in verse one. “Glorify thy son that thy son also may glorify thee.” Now, when we understand the scriptures teach that there are three persons of the triune God, the glory that God has in eternity is a glory that goes from person to person. The father giving glory to the son, the son giving glory to the spirit, the spirit giving glory to the father. It is a glory that is given as we see here in this verse one.

Now verse four:

“I have glorified thee on earth. I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.”

Well, how can we glorify God? By being finishers. I know some of you—I can think of your names right now. It’s the last thing you want to hear today. But that’s what we are. We give God glory when we finish the work. Jesus said, “I glorified your name. I finished the work you gave me to do.” And we can apply this, you know, to projects that we’ve got going on to be finishers. We can apply it to the whole of our life: is to give glory to God. And we can’t say we’ve given glory to God unless we finish well what we began in the power of the spirit.

So Jesus glorifies God by finishing stuff.

And then in verse five, he says:

“And now, oh father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world once.”

So you see this exchange of glory. The son has the glory of the father in eternity. And the son now says glorify me that I may glorify you. And we have this—the big fancy word is perichoresis—this indwelling and service to one another glorifying each other in the context of the trinity. And here it’s father and son but we can by application I think or implication see that exists in the context of the holy spirit as well.

Now drop down to verse 10 and he says:

“All mine are thine and thine are mine and I am glorified in them.”

He’s speaking now of the people that God had given him. And what he says is I am glorified in them. So again it is our responsibility to glorify God with our lives. And when we live lives of being lightbearers for him—the law, the character of God reflected in our lives—then we give glory to Jesus. So he’s glorified in the church.

Now verse 17:

“Sanctify them through thy truth. Thy word is truth. As thou has sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.”

This is very interesting. There’s a doctrine, the procession of the Holy Spirit. The spirit proceeds from the father. The father sends the spirit into the world. The father sends the son into the world and Jesus tells us when he gets when he is ascended he sends the spirit. So the spirit proceeds from the father and the son, as we sing in the Nicene Creed which we sing here sometimes.

But here what’s interesting is that Jesus is going to send the spirit but just as the father sent the son into the world to manifest his glory, so Jesus is sending his people into the world. God sent the spirit into the creation to change and glorify the world. And Jesus says that in the new creation that he affected 2,000 years ago, you are the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit works now. He sends the spirit to empower you. And it’s as if you were the spirit of God sent forth into the world to glorify him.

Now, I don’t want to, you know, blur the distinction between deity and creator-creature. No, no, no. I’m saying the spirit empowers you to be the representatives of Christ, to be light. Now, it’s not, you know, we’ll see a verse here in a little bit in Isaiah. God says, “I don’t give my glory to anybody.” It’s not your glory. It’s Christ’s glory. It’s the father’s glory. It’s the spirit’s glory. But you are the means by which that glory shines into the earth. That’s what our job is. You’re supposed to process out of here as being lightbearers for the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, verse 22:

“The glory which thou gavest me, I have given them that they may be one, even as we are one, I in them, thou and me, that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that you have sent me and has loved me them as thou hast loved me.”

So, you know, and then at the end, he prays for those that are coming behind as well. But here, what he’s saying is that now—we think of glory as what God gives us in eternity. But Jesus says here, he puts it in the past tense. “I have given these ones, the church, Christians, saints. I have given them your glory. I’ve given this glory to them that they may be one even as we are one.”

Our glory consists again in the character and truth of God, self-sacrificial love for one another, putting each other first, one-anothering one another. This is glorious. This is a glorious thing to live in that way. And Jesus says then that the glory of God, not only is it tied to the creation, and it’s his in his own personhood, but it shines forth in the context of the created order. It shines forth in us.

We’re called to give glory to God. And we are actually incredibly the recipients of the glory of God as well. An amazing truth.

Isaiah 42:8 says:

“I am the Lord, that is my name. My glory I will not give to another, nor my praise to carved images.”

And yet in Daniel 2:37, Daniel says to Nebuchadnezzar:

“These are you, oh king, a king of kings. For the God of heaven has given you a kingdom, power, strength, and glory.”

So Daniel says, “God gives him glory.” Isaiah says, “I don’t give my glory.” Jesus says, “He has given us glory.” Isaiah says, “I will not share my glory with another.” What’s the difference?

Well, the difference is the sun, moon, and stars, the Shekinah, the light of God that appears on the first day of creation, his character, the essence of who he is. He is the God of glory. There is no glory apart from him. And so the only glory that he gives us or he gives to Nebuchadnezzar is a reflected glory. There’s no glory inherent in us. In other words, it’s not of us. It’s a reflected glory coming from the God of glory who has called us for this specific purpose to show forth his glory, his light in the world and as a result bring many people to obedience to the faith.

Now, there are seven texts in Hebrews. I’ve got them on your outline. Hopefully, you have them there. We’re going to go through them real quick, just a couple of them. I think it’s significant that there are seven texts, seven usages of the word glory in Hebrews. And the concluding one is the one we just looked at in the benediction: “To whom be glory forever and ever, amen.”

And it begins. The first reference to glory is in chapter 1 verse 3 and we read that already: that Jesus is the brightness of the glory of the father. So Jesus is the bright shining forth, the refulgence, the shining of the glory of God. And it ends with the assertion that all things would happen to the end that God would be glorified.

So it begins and ends with these references to the father and the son and their glory. But other things happen as this develops. We read for instance in chapter 2, verse 9—the third occurrence—that for the suffering of death he was made lower than the angels but for the suffering of death was crowned with glory and honor that by the grace of God he might taste death.

So the third reference to glory shows its relationship to his suffering and being raised up. And remember in John’s gospel, his glory is most in view on the cross itself.

But in verse 10, the fourth reference:

“That he would bring many sons unto glory.”

So, at the center of these seven references is a reference to us and we don’t postpone it to eternity because he said already in John 17 that he has given glory now and in fact to postpone it to eternity is a complete rejection of our basic role in life which is to glorify God and to shine forth his glory into the world.

So Jesus says that he’s bringing many sons to glory and again what do we have on the fourth day? Sun, moon and stars—the reflected glory of the light that is the Shekinah glory of God at the beginning of creation shining forth. And what do we have in the middle of the references to glory in the context of Hebrews talking about the work of Jesus? Well, the work is to the end that he might sanctify a people. He might prepare a people not for heaven that too, but for work on earth to be sons of light.

He bringing many sons to glory here in the context of the earth to shine forth into the world. So, you know, at Pentecost, there’s little tons of flame. You know, Alexander and Cyrus and these old emperors, you know, a divine flame would go before the emperor and people would see the flame coming and here comes Alexander. This is the glory of Alexander. His law, his providence will rule in this region. And so the emissaries brought lights to represent these world rulers. And at Pentecost, we’re the lightbearers. Little tongues and flame distribute to each of us, not corporately, but to each of us individually. We have those lights to carry into the world saying that the Lord is coming. Jesus was sent by the father. Now he sends us.

We’ve got the glory shining forth before us. We’re the sun, moon, and stars. Jesus has brought many sons to glory. That’s our job: to glorify God in heaven by showing his reflected glory in the context of this world. We are the lightbearers of God. Light shining in the midst of darkness.

Little children, when you grumble, you put a little thing over that light and you’re not a lightbear and you’re not doing your job. When you’re thankful and don’t grumble, don’t dispute, and your light shining forth, you’re glorifying your father in heaven. Your parents see it. Your brothers and sisters see it. Other people see it. And they give glory to God: “What wonderful Christian children. You see, they give glory to God. And somehow, even though God is all glorious, a little child can add glory to God. That’s what the scriptures tell us.

Wonderful thing. Praise God. All right.

So, we could spend a little more time, but I just give that to you for your own meditation. I think we can see some connections between those seven instances of glory and the new creation that Hebrews says is coming to pass through the work of Jesus Christ. But I wanted to point out the beginning and end is the glory of God. You know, light, Sabbath God comes be with his people. But at the middle, he brings many sons to glory. That’s you and I.

Now, Hebrews 13:21 has a structure. At the very center of it is this blood of the everlasting covenant. And the blood of the everlasting covenant is the means whereby God creates peace in the world and the means whereby his name is glorified.

When we read at the end, “To whom be glory forever and ever,” people say, well, is this talking about Jesus or is this talking about God in verses 20-21? And I believe it actually refers not primarily to Jesus there, but up to the father. Remember Jesus said that he came so that the father might be glorified, right? God has given Jesus glory. So, we could say maybe it refers to both, but I think technically it’s referring back to the first phrase, the God of peace.

So God affects his blessing, his thunders fill the earth, his graciousness, his compassion at work, his character, his law comes into the world producing peace. To him be glory forever and ever. So all these wonderful things that happen are to the end purpose, the terminal result of all of this is that God is glorified. All right.

Some comments then.

Our joy lies in being well pleasing in God’s sight. We talked about this last time we dealt with this benediction. You should get up every morning: “Can I get dad’s favor to rest upon me today? Can I get the father to really love me today and be really happy with what I’ve done?”

You know, you should do that with your earthly fathers. And you should certainly do it with your heavenly father. And I would say that if you’re not doing that with your earthly father, you’re probably not doing it no matter what you think to yourself about your heavenly father either.

You should seek to be well pleasing to your employer, to your spouse, to whatever it is. See, and God says that he’s affecting the purpose of the benediction is to make us well pleasing. That’s joy to us. It is joy to have father’s face, his countenance be lifted up to us and smiling, beaming bright lights to us. That makes us feel really good. That’s our joy in life. It’s joyful to be well pleasing to the father. And the amazing thing is that is exactly what God says his purpose for your life is: that you would make him happy.

And it’s not tough to do. Remember, children, obey your parents. This is well pleasing in God’s sight. Put aside Christian liberty. This is well pleasing in God’s sight. We gave four specific examples. Look it up on the internet or your own notes. It’s not hard to do. It can be done and it produces joy.

But secondly, we accomplish this by making our ultimate goal the glory of God. We’re to do things that are well pleasing in his sight. “To whom be glory through Jesus Christ forever and ever.” The end result of the thing is not that we just have a great time with father beaming on us. It’s that we desire to glorify him.

And of course, those of you familiar with the Westminster Shorter Catechism, this is what I’m referring to here. What’s man’s chief end? Why are you here? Why are you on this earth? Why are you here today? What’s your purpose? “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.”

You’re going to enjoy him if you’re living a life well pleasing to him, right? That’s going to be joyful to know that dad is shining upon you. But you get there by putting the glory of God first. Ultimately, what we want to do is say the glory of God is our ultimate goal. It’s kind of hard to figure out sometimes if God is pleased with us or not. We don’t know it sometimes. But if we’re seeking to make the glory of God our goal, well, then we can do these things and we can be assured that the Lord is well pleased with us.

Third comment: we are to glorify God in all things. This is comprehensive.

1 Peter 4:11:

“You know these things. If a man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God. If a man ministers, let him do it as of the ability which God gives, that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ to whom be praise and dominion forever and ever.”

And everything that you do, you’re supposed to seek to glorify God. And by way of synecdoche, by way of, you know, saying in a brief thing which is true in an overall thing:

1 Corinthians 10:31:

“Whether therefore you eat or drink or whatsoever you do, do all to the glory of God.”

If you get up tomorrow morning and say, “Lord God, I want to honor and glorify you today in my life,” that’s it. That’s the one thing. In that movie about crucial conversations, the one thing is keeping dialogue flowing. Curly in that movie about whatever it was, cowboy movie, there’s one thing that he dies for. He tells you the one thing. For us is to glorify God. That’s it. That’s the one thing. Well, how do we do that? We glorify God.

Point number four. And I’ve given you four things here. These are from Thomas Watson’s Body of Divinity, a book I highly recommend you all keep on your shelves. It’s a Puritan commentary on the Westminster Shorter Catechism as well as the Lord’s Prayer. It is an excellent book. I keep going back to it for 20, 25 years and he has a section right off of course on question number one: glorifying God and enjoying him forever.

And you know the way they did it back then—that they had this system of logic where they broke everything down to little points—and that’s what Watson does of course and it’s useful. Well, he says we should glorify God by first of all appreciating him.

Psalm 92:8:

“Thou oh Lord art most high forever more.”

Psalms 97:9:

“Thou Lord, art high above all the earth. Thou are exalted above all the gods.”

When I first met my wife, I was—one of the things I loved about her and just delighted in—she had drawn a little book, a sketchbook for little kids based on Isaiah 40:15-17 about who God is. And verse 15 of Isaiah 40 says:

“Behold, the nations are as a drop in a bucket. The nations are as a drop in a bucket. They are counted as the small dust on the scales. Look, he lifts up the isles as a very little thing. Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor to be sufficient for a burnt offering. All nations before him are as nothing, and they are counted by him less than nothing and worthless.”

The immensity of the God whom we serve is described in those verses. My wife did a wonderful job capturing that in some drawings for little children. You know, we glorify God by appreciating him, by understanding his characteristics, his divine attributes, by understanding his immensity. His glory is described in that way. We’re accounted as nothing in his sight. The nations, the created order are—there’s not a scale of being between them and God. He’s totally beyond them. There is nothing—drops in buckets.

We appreciate God. That’s how we glorify him first of all: by focusing on who he is as the scriptures reveal him to be and we appreciate the Lord God for that.

Secondly, Watson said we adore God. Adoration is an important part of glorifying God.

“Give to the Lord the glory due unto his name. Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.”

Again, Psalm 29 verse two. We’re to adore God. We’re to worship him. We’re to give him praise and worship. A consideration of his attributes and an appreciation for them should lead us—as it did with Moses—just to prostrate ourselves before him and to worship him and bring him glory in that way.

Third, our affection.

Deuteronomy 6:5:

“Thou shalt love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and with all your might.”

If you’re going to glorify God, it means you love him for who he’s described himself to be, how he’s declared himself, how he’s manifested himself through his scriptures and in your life. There should be an appreciation, an adoration, and an affection—love for God from our hearts.

And then finally, subjection.

2 Timothy 4:16-18:

Paul said, “At my first answer, no man stood with me. All men forsook me.” This is what Paul went through. This is how God glorified Paul and glorified himself through Paul. Nobody, zero standing with Paul. Scorned, shunned, isolated. We know what Paul went through. He walked in the suffering footsteps of the Lord Jesus Christ. He’s describing some of that here.

“I pray God it may not be laid to their charge.”

He reflects the glory of the merciful God who desires greatly that men might come to repentance, that God wouldn’t hold it against their charge. He’s like Moses. He knows the glory of God was demonstrated in his compassion and mercy and forgiveness. He doesn’t presume upon it, but he prays that it may not be laid to the charge of those people who mistreated him.

“Notwithstanding, the Lord stood with me. The Lord, you know, we got nobody else but the Lord. Who else do we need, right? If God is before us, who can be against us?”

The Lord stood with me. Strengthen me. Some of you men feel all alone at work. Nobody’s with me. Everybody’s against me. Well, the Lord is with you. You can glorify the Lord in your work by recognizing his presence with you.

If you understand who he is and have come to an appreciation of his immensity and his beauty and his marvelousness, and if you’ve adored him today in your worship, and if you’ve come to learn to love him. And tonight on your bed as you raise your hands and say, “Lord God, I thank you for loving me. I love you, Father, for what you’ve accomplished, what you’ve done in the world, your manifestation of who you are. This world is filled with beauty even in its sin state, is it not? I love God for it.” And we subject ourselves to him.

Then when things don’t turn out the way we want them to turn out, we’re seeking the glory of God anyway. And the Lord God is with us.

“The Lord stood with me, he said. Strengthen me that by me the preaching might be fully known and that all the Gentiles might hear. And I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion. And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom. To whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.”

Paul knew that part of seeking the glory of God was properly subjecting himself if need be to very big difficulties, trials, and tribulations, having everybody hate him, have everybody turn against him. Paul knew that his goal was to glorify God in the day, not be successful every time we go out. Now, that’s going to happen. Paul knew he’d be vindicated in the long run. We have to know that. But Paul knew to glorify God was to be in subjection to this God. This is the God of all glory. And I will grumble about what he’s done for me today? This is the God who has called me to believe in him, to trust him, and he’s demonstrated through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ and his death, his love, his mercy, his compassion. And I’m going to be upset with him today? No. I’m going to glorify him today. And when I do that, it leads me to actions which are well pleasing in his sight.

So Watson: four ways to do that. Five in your outlines.

We should aim at God’s glory by first properly prioritizing the glory of God.

Deuteronomy 33:9:

“Who said unto his father and to his mother, I have not seen him, neither did he acknowledge his brethren, nor knew his own children, they have observed thy word and kept thy covenant.”

He’s talking about the blessings here upon Levi. Why does Levi get to do great things for God? Because he properly prioritizes the glory of God above the thing that’s most dear to us: the family. This is not an anti-family statement. Nor is Jesus’s remarks about him coming to bring war in families and who is my true family. No, this is a statement that takes the most wonderful, one of the most wonderful gifts of God to us—just about the most wonderful gift—home, family, parents, brothers, sisters. We never want to, you know, bring that down. It’s a tremendous gift. But you see, the idea here is that even the family cannot compare when it’s either them or the glory of God. You must seek the glory of God above the best gift that God has given to us in terms of human relationships, families. Are you ready to give up your family if need be?

“Let goods and kindred go,” Luther wrote, “This mortal life also.”

Why? Because Martin Luther saw beyond his family, beyond his own goods, beyond his enjoyment. He properly prioritized the glory of God. It’s the one thing, the one message from today: properly prioritizing the glory of God and moving our lives in terms of that.

Paul said in Philippians 3:8-14:

“Indeed, I also count all things lost for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. Not a few things, not just this or that, all things lost for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as dung or rubbish, that I might gain Christ, be found in him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith, that I may know him, the power of his resurrection, the fellowship of his sufferings being conformed to his death if by any means I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.”

Paul said that he properly prioritizes the glory of God and in comparison to that all things—the best things in life, the love of husband or wife, children, parents—all things are dung, rubbish compared to the exceeding value of seeking the glory of God.

How many families have failed at this point where, you know, blood is thicker than water. You know, the family, you know, it’s most important and well, you know, we’re going to prioritize them. Instead of speaking God’s truth to our family, we’re going to want peace in the family more importantly. God says, “No, that’s why we’re in this mess we’re in.”

Think the Muslims—the radical ones—prioritize family above Allah. They do not. They do not. They’re willing to send their children off, blow them up. Now, I know it’s horrific. It’s demonic. I understand that. But understand, it’s a counterfeit of something that is true. And what is true is we must properly prioritize the glory of God above every other thing.

If we love our children more than we love the glory of God, he is going to judge us for that. And it is no love to them to put that kind of love upon a child and to say to the child, you’re more important to God. That’s the worst thing you can do to a sinner who walks around with that old human nature, that old Adamic nature, just waiting to be fed from some sort of foolish parent who takes that tack.

We must properly prioritize by yielding to his will.

Matthew 26:39:

Jesus, garden of Gethsemane, “If it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.”

He said he completed his work to the glory of the father. “I’ve glorified you by finishing the work.” This is it. He finishes his work by saying, “Not my will but thy will be done.” That’s our savior talking. That’s the second person of the trinity.

We prioritize the glory of God by saying it is most important. His will must have priority over my will. Setting it aside. I’m not interested in, you know, successful Christianity or feel-good Christianity or making you feel good about your life if somehow the goal to the whole thing and underlying it all is not the glory of God.

There’s lots of churches out there that’ll make you feel good in all kinds of ways, give you all kinds of spiritual rushes based upon yourself. But God says that he must be number one. His glory must be what we attain to. Yet is his blessing to us to put us through trials and tribulations to perfect our sense of the prioritization of his will, not ours in seeking his glory first.

To seek his glory and not—I don’t know. Proverbs 25:27:

“It’s not good to eat much honey for so for men to search their own glory is not glory.”

Now listen to this. 1 Peter 5:10-12:

“The God of all grace who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus. After you have suffered a while, make you perfect, establish, strengthen, settle you to him. be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.”

Do you see that? We want glory properly. We’re made in the image of God. God promises us that we’re going to be his glorybearers into the world. But to seek our own glory instead of seeking his glory means we lose glory. We become shamefaced.

Then you know Peter says, “Yeah, God’s called you to his eternal glory, but in order to get there, you have to glorify him. You got to put him first. Then to help you do that, he’s going to make you suffer. Then he’ll establish and strengthen you.”

Our trials and tribulations we suffer are for the purpose that he would correct our value system, properly prioritize the glory of God. And as a result of that, we will indeed receive them. He’s called us to his eternal glory. He’s called us as lightbearers. We’re supposed to be light shining in the world. We’re that fourth use of thing—Jesus has brought many sons to glory. It’s his purpose of his work. But it’s the reflected glory of those who seek first the glory of God.

Don’t seek your own glory by seeking other’s glory. And I won’t read this text, but Philippians 1:15—you know, if we’re seeking the glory of God, it means we’re also seeking the glory of people around us. We don’t want to be number one. We want to help somebody else be glorious. God says, you know, don’t say you love me if you don’t love your neighbor. And don’t tell me you’re glorifying me if you’re seeking your own glory before other people.

And so Paul was like this. Well, you know, whether they’re doing bad or good, the word of God must be glorified. To seek the glory of the people around us. You see, this is part of properly prioritizing the glory of God.

Fifth, by being faithful.

John 15:8:

“Here is my father glorified that you bear much fruit and so you should be my disciples.”

How do you glorify God? By being fruitful. By being disciples, being accomplished in what you’re doing in the world. Being fruitfulness in your family, work, vocation, political arena. Being fruitful. Being productive for the kingdom glorifies God.

Verse 11 of Philippians 1:

“Being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God.”

So be fruitful in the context of the demonstration of the gracious character of God in your life. We glorify God by living cheerfully as well.

Psalm 100 verse 2:

“Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before his presence with singing.”

We’re supposed to be cheerful in what we do and we worship and praise God. We glorify God by praising him.

Psalm 50:23:

“Whoso offers praise glorifies me to him that orders his conversation right will I show the salvation of God.”

Psalm 86:12:

“I will praise thee, oh Lord my God, with all my heart, and I will glorify thy name forever more.”

God says that we’re a people who are to seek his glory above our own. We’re to be more committed to God because he is the true God of all creation. We’re to seek his glory in his glory alone. But I’m afraid that what’s happened in this country—and the Lord God is showing it to us by this disunity of the Western world, the disunity of America, all kinds of schemes and different ideas about how to attack these radical Islamists—all failing because we don’t know what we’re doing.

We have to properly prioritize the glory of God in this matter. And he is using, I believe, this struggle—as difficult as it may be for us to accept this—I think to tell us that we fail by the test of even a counterfeit religion, we come up short.

You know, Kabod, I said earlier—the Hebrew word is kabod. When the glory of God is departed, when God left the nation of Israel, a son was born, they named him Ichabod. The glory has departed. No glory. That’s what America has become. America is Ichabod. The glory of God has departed. It’s left us.

We don’t get together and have a hundred thousand people anywhere in this country saying “The Lord God and his sovereignty, the King Jesus has delivered enemies into our hand.” We don’t do that. We don’t properly prioritize the glory of our God, saying that everything else, including our own children, are subject to that.

Now, I understand it’s demonic. It’s a weird twisted form, but you see what I’m saying, right? America’s Ichabod. And it’s Ichabod because we’re Ichabod. Because each of us fail more often than not to prioritize the glory and honor of God in our life. You know, I’m just—I want to, you know, compassion and all that stuff is so important, but I’m telling you folks, we need to be strong encouragers to each other of seeking the glory and honor of God. That’s the way to be truly compassionate to somebody who’s struggling in the faith.

Ask him, “Are you glorifying God? Are you seeking to honor God when you get up in the morning? I don’t care what kind of job you’re going to. Are you honoring and glorifying him?”

I mentioned Arcade Fire. Let me read you a lyric of theirs. And I know there’s some rebellion in here and stuff, but you know, listen to this. And you parents listen to this:

“Woke up with the power out. Power’s out. Not really something to shout about. Ice has covered up my parents’ hands. Don’t have any dreams. Don’t have any plans.”

That’s the American church. The power of glorifying God has left our hands. Hands are a demonstration of power. We don’t have vision or plans for the future because we’ve become retreatist. We’ve taken the faith out of its significance for the world. No plans, no dreams, icy hands, accomplishing nothing.

“I went out into the night. I went out to find some light. Kids are swinging from the power lines. Nobody’s home. Nobody minds.”

Kids are going to hell in this country. Why? Because the parents don’t glorify God. And they don’t pass on that power and light to our children.

“I went out in the night. I went out to pick a fight with anyone. Light a candle for the kids. Jesus Christ, don’t keep it hid.”

Now, you could see that as blasphemous. Or you could say that is exactly what Jesus Christ told us, isn’t it? We have the glory and the glory of God that we’re supposed to be carriers. Don’t put it under a bushel basket. Don’t keep it hid. If you’re trying to glorify God in your heart, express it to your children. Express it to our culture. You know, Jesus says, “Don’t keep it hid. Light a candle for the kids. Seek the glory of God.”

That’s where the light is. That’s the shining refulgence of God—it’s Jesus’s glory. Light a candle for the children, for the next generation.

“Ice is covered up my parents’ hands. Don’t have any dreams. Don’t have any plans. Growing up in some strange storm, nobody’s cold. Nobody’s warm.”

I don’t know if they probably just lucked into this connection, but if we’re not warm or cold, Jesus spews us out of the mouth. If we’re not covenantally faithful, seeking his glory in good times and bad, he spews us out. It’s a strange storm we’re in this country because we’re not walking covenantally.

“I went out into the night, went out to find some light. Kids are dying out in the snow. Look at them go. Look at them go. And the power is out in the heart of man. Take it from your heart. Put it in your hand. What’s the plan? What’s the plan? Is it a dream? Is it a lie? I think I’ll let you decide. Just light a candle for the kids. Jesus Christ. Don’t keep it hid cuz nothing’s hid from us kids. You ain’t fooling nobody with the lights out.”

If all you’re doing is seeking your glory with your children, they’re not stupid. They see it. If there’s darkness in your home, don’t think you can do a counterfeit light to them. They understand.

“They see the power’s out in the heart of man. Take it from your heart. Put it in your hand. There’s something wrong in the heart of man. Take it from your heart. Put it in your hand.”

That’s what the problem is. God is front page, front page of the paper every day. God is telling America: glorify me. And he’s using it by whipping us with a ridiculous counterfeit religion of compulsion, making people submit at the point of the sword. We’re gospel preachers. That’s the power of God. But the power of God are those people that seek his glory and honor.

What about your house? Is the light out in your house? How about your heart? God says the candle is there. Uncover it. Move from seeking glory of God in your heart to seeking the glory of God in what you put your hands to do today and tomorrow.

The Lord God says this is our calling: to place his glory as the most ultimate truth in our lives, to get up tomorrow morning and seek to glorify God and as a result enjoy him forever.

I want us before we do the offering to stand up and on the handouts you’ve got it—the Nouthetic song that I don’t know if this is the version they sing in Moscow or not. There’s no music. I’m just going to do it a cappella. This is from Psalm 115 verse one. It’s what the message is today: to seek the glory of God.

“Not unto us, not unto us, but to thy name be all glory forever and ever.”

Let’s stand up and I’ll just lead this out. May sing it twice.

“Not unto us, O Lord. Not unto us, O Lord, but to your name, but to your name. May all the glory be.”

Now God says when we praise him, we glorify him. One more time, please sing loudly. Understand that this is your purpose in life: to glorify God.

“Not unto us, O Lord. Not unto us, O Lord, but to your name, but to your name. May all the glory be.”

Please be seated and we’ll proceed with the offertory.