Princeton Presbyterian Church

Princeton Presbyterian Church Sermon # 1645

July 7, 2024

Ephesians 3:14-21                 Click here for audio worship.

Dr. Ed Pettus

 

“To the Glory of God Alone”

 

 

¹⁴For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, ¹⁵from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, ¹⁶that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, ¹⁷so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, ¹⁸may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, ¹⁹and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. ²⁰Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, ²¹to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

 

• Reformed Doctrines

 

In the last nine weeks we have covered some of the basic doctrines of the Reformed Faith. We started with total depravity that we are so deeply affected by sin that we cannot do anything to get ourselves out of that sin disposition. Unconditional election teaches us that we do not have to meet any certain condition for God’s salvation and grace. God chooses whom He wills. Limited Atonement teaches that the cross is sufficient for all but only effective for many. Many are called, few are chosen (Matt 22.14). Irresistible grace teaches that God’s grace effects our total depravity in such a way that we do not want to resist God’s grace as we once did in our depravity. Perseverance of the saints, or preservation of the saints informs our understanding that nothing can snatch us out of God’s hands. God has elected His own, saved His own, and will preserve His own to the end.

Then we proceeded to the five “alones”, Scripture alone, which teaches that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are our sole authority for faith and life. Christ alone, that Jesus Christ is the only mediator between God and us. Faith alone teaches that we come to Jesus Christ only by faith. We accept the justification of God by faith. Grace alone, our salvation only comes by the grace of God, the unmerited favor of God. These four and the TULIP doctrines all reveal the glory of God and so we end today with our final “alone”, to the glory of God alone. This one is relatively easy, all glory, honor, and praise is due to God alone. The glory of God is revealed in the Scriptures. God’s glory is evident in His amazing grace. We see God’s glory in the gift of faith. And Christ came to show us God’s glory, God’s love and power and generosity.

 

• Our Chief Goal in Life

 

The Shorter Catechism begins with the question: What is the chief end of man? That is, what is our goal for life? The answer: Our chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever. We do not use the word “glory” in every day life, but mostly in the church. Of course, the way many words are misused and abused in society, I think it is a good thing that “glory” has been protected and reserved for church use only! When we think of the term glory, we know of many uses in the Scriptures. We use it as a noun and as a verb. As a noun we understand glory to be the honor due to God. We experience God’s glory in His attributes of goodness, power, righteousness, love, grace, and in so many others – they all point to God’s majesty or glory or awesomeness! We also use glory as a verb, to glorify the Lord. We glorify God or give glory to God through praise and worship. In one sense the verb form is why we were created – to glorify God. Isaiah 43 says: “bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made” (43:6-7 ESV). We have been created for the glory of God, not for our own glory, not for our own sake, but that we might give glory and bring glory to God in our lives.

 

John Piper writes: “the proper understanding of everything in life begins with God. No one will ever understand the necessity of conversion who does not know why God created us. He created us ‘in his image’ so that we would image forth His glory in the world. We were made to be prisms refracting the light of God’s glory into all of life” (Desiring God, p. 55). Piper is saying that we are created in such a way that God’s glory might be revealed to others. To that end Paul writes to the church at Corinth, “whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all for the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31). It is perfectly right that since we are created for his glory, our chief end would be to glorify God in all that we do. So we might consider asking ourselves in making decisions: what decision would bring glory to God? What decisions would reflect the life-giving redemption God has given us in Christ? You probably remember the once popular question “what would Jesus do?” WWJD. Maybe a better question would be WWGG – What would glorify God?

 

• Give Glory to God

 

We glorify God in recognition of God’s attributes. We glorify God in living out the life God created for us to live – faithfully, obediently, loving, and grace-filled. It is our sin that prevents us from glorifying God. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Falling short is doing anything that fails to bring glory to God. We exchange glory to God for something of lesser value. Idolatry is one example – “Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles” (Romans 1:22-23 ESV). Glory to God alone means being who we were created to be, each an image of God, created for His glory. Anything that does not reflect that glory is a distortion, anything that glorifies self or another god or another doctrine other than what we have in Scripture alone is a false glory. The “alones” all point to the same thing – God’s glory.

 

One commentator says that “the other four [alones] are summed into the fifth. It is the Scriptures alone that are our only ultimate and infallible source of authority. This is so because God in His mercy and faithfulness has seen fit to preserve the Scriptures down through the centuries. The proper roles of Church tradition or the teachings of the officers within the church are the same; all in submission to the ultimate authority of the Scriptures. God is therefore glorified alone. It is the incarnate second person of the Trinity to which the Prophets and Scriptures point. It is the ministry of Jesus Christ sent by the Father to accomplish His purposes in His covenant of Redemption. There is no other Mediator nor Redeemer other than the one provided by the Father Himself to fulfill the righteous requirements of His law. God is therefore glorified alone. It is only by His grace that we may stand before Him. Through the good pleasure of His mercy, He graciously imputed to us the righteousness of His son and imputed to His Son our sin where it was judged upon the cross. God is therefore glorified alone. The grace of God has its affect upon us by faith alone. We do not merit the grace (otherwise grace would not be grace) nor is this grace infused in us in order to make us righteous in ourselves. Instead, the grace of God imputes the righteousness of Christ to us and we believe this by faith alone. We have no other basis upon which to rely than the accomplishments of Christ” (Brett Baker at http://www.trinitykirk.org/transcripts/Soli_Deo_Gloria_537_1998_08_16.pdf).

 

There are many ways God is glorified.

 

1 - God is glorified through the nations. Psalm 86:9-10, “All the nations you have made shall come and worship before you, O Lord, and shall glorify your name. 10For you are great and do wondrous things; you alone are God.”

What a great day that will be! There will come a day when all the nations will glorify the name of God.

 

2 – God is glorified through faith.

Speaking of Abraham, Romans 4:20-25, “²⁰No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, ²¹fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. ²²That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.” ²³But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone, ²⁴but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, ²⁵who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.”

 

Exercising our faith, trusting in God brings glory to God.

 

3 – God is glorified in our bodies. We are called to glorify God with our bodies;

1 Corinthians 6:18-20, “¹⁸Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. ¹⁹Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, ²⁰for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”

 

Our bodies, created by God, are the temple of the Holy Spirit. We do not own our bodies! We belong to God…so Paul tells us to glorify God in our bodies.

 

4 – God is glorified through good works.

1 Peter 2:12, “Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.”

 

5 – God is glorified in His grace unto salvation.

Ephesians 1:11-12, “¹¹In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, ¹²so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.”

 

6 – God is glorified through the Church.

Ephesians 3:8-13, “⁸To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, ⁹and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things, ¹⁰so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. ¹¹This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, ¹²in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him. ¹³So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory.”

 

We can see that the glory of God expressed throughout the Scriptures and that the Scriptures reveal the many ways glory is attributed to God in our lives, in nations, in creation, and in the church.

 

 

• To the Glory of God Alone

 

Our scripture reading today marks a prayer that reflects the glory of God alone:

 

¹⁴For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, ¹⁵from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, ¹⁶that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, ¹⁷so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, ¹⁸may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, ¹⁹and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

 

It is out of God’s glory we are given strength, faith, love, understanding, filled with the fullness of God. It is similar to the list of Psalm 29.9, “The voice of the Lord makes the deer give birth and strips the forests bare, and in his temple all cry, “Glory!”

 

Paul concludes the prayer of Ephesians 3.20-21,

 

²⁰Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, ²¹to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

 

To God be the glory, God alone, for it is God who has done all these things we have examined over the last couple of months. Psalm 118.23 says it best, “This is the Lord's doing; it is marvelous in our eyes.” It is marvelous because in all these things we see a glimpse of the glory of God. Amen.