Okay. Today we'll be continuing
our study in what is important to God. Last week we looked at
His name and how His name is important to Him. Today we'll
be looking at a few verses in Ephesians. Ephesians chapter
1. And today our topic will be what
is important to God is His glory. His glory is important to God.
And we'll be using verses 6, 12, and 14 as an introduction
to the message, to the lesson here. What is important to God
is glory. Look at Ephesians 1, 6. It's
scripture declares... Actually, let's read the context
of these verses here. Let's start in verse 1. Paul,
an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God to the Saints
which are at Ephesus and to the faithful in Christ Jesus. Grace
be to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord
Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ who had blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ. And note, it's He
hath. He hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ. It's not a maybe,
and it's not dependent upon us. God has done this in Christ.
According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation
of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before
Him in love, having predestinated us into the adoption of children
by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will,
to the praise of the glory of His grace," here's one of our
verses, "...to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein
He hath made us accepted in the Beloved, in whom we have redemption
through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches
of His grace, wherein He hath abounded toward us in all wisdom
and prudence, having made known unto us the mystery of His will,
according to His good pleasure, which He hath purposed in Himself."
Now note so far, this is all about what God is doing, and
what God has done. We're recipients, beloved, of
His marvelous grace. Scripture continues, and we'll
pick up in verse 8 again, wherein he hath abounded toward us in
all wisdom and prudence, having made known unto us the mystery
of his will, according to his good pleasure, which he hath
purposed in himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness
of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ,
both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in him,
in whom also we have obtained an inheritance, we've obtained
it, it's in Christ, being predestinated according to the purpose of Him
who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will."
Again, here's another one of our verses, that we should be
to the praise of His glory who first trusted in Christ, in whom
He also trusted after that she heard the word of truth, so the
gospel must be preached and proclaimed. The gospel of your salvation
We hear the word of God preached. God gives us an understanding.
The Holy Spirit illuminates the scriptures for us. And it's the
gospel of my salvation. And if you're saved, your salvation,
it's real to us. God has done a work in us and
made the word effectual for us, which is the earnest of our inheritance
until the redemption of the purchased possession unto the praise of
his glory. So last week we started this
new series on what is important to God, and we looked at His
name and how He's identified by His name. His name identifies
Him. Jehovah identifies who He is, the self-existent One, the
Eternal One. It identifies exactly who He
is, exactly who He is. And in the Sunday morning message,
we also looked at the fact that God chooses to place His name,
last week, where He pleases. wherever he pleases for his will
according to his will and and it causes great joy and rejoicing
amongst God's people when he places his name with us say we
get we rejoice chose me because we know we never would
have chosen him she chose us is left in our natural state
We would never have come to God, but beloved, praise be to God,
He makes us willing on the day of His power. So today we'll
look at how God's glory is important to Him. Turn if you would to
Isaiah chapter 48, and then I'll have you flip over six chapters
back to Isaiah 42, but we'll look at Isaiah 48, 11 first.
Today we'll look at how God's glory is important to Him. It's
so important to Him that the scriptures declare that He will
not share it with anyone. His glory is so important to
Him that He will not share it with anyone. No one. Look at
Isaiah 48, 11. For mine own sake, even for mine
own sake, will I do it. For how should my name be polluted?
And I will not give my glory unto another. He will not share
His glory. Look at Isaiah 42, verse 8. And
this is him speaking against idols that people make, graven
idols that people make. And look what he says here, and
think of this too. People steal his glory when they
say, and we know that they're lost, but when they say that
salvation's their choice, they're robbing God of the glory. We
know we know that salvation is the Lord. It's all his doing.
It's all his doing. We ascribe to him all the glory. Look at Isaiah 42 verse 8. I
am the Lord. That is my name. So I am Jehovah,
the self-existent one, the eternal one. Right. That is my name. That's that's he's identified
himself. Is Jehovah. And my glory, will I not give
to another? He will not share His glory with
anyone, beloved. Neither my praise to graven images. So the context of these verses
here is that He will not give His glory to another God, a false
God, little g, a false God. As He alone is the one true God.
He alone is the one true God. He alone is the one to be praised.
He alone is the one to be worshipped. He alone is the one to receive
all the glory and all the honor and all the praise. This is speaking
of the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit. The three in one.
God the father, God the son, and God the Holy Spirit. They
will not share their glory with him. No. There's one God, too,
we know. Three, one. He will not share. God will never share his glory
with him. So here before us in our text,
look at verses six. To the praise of the glory of
his grace. We see here before us God's goal
and God's delight in all things. All things, which is what? The
praise of his glory. The praise of his glory. This
world was made to the praise of his glory. We are created
to the praise of his glory. The stars in the universe spoken
into existence to the praise of his glory. Christ coming down
to redeem his people to the praise of his glory. Everything glorifies
him. The glory of God, Jehovah, the
self-existent one, the eternal one, speaks of the kingly majesty.
The kingly majesty which belongs to him, his supreme ruler. He's
an absolute supreme king. His majesty in the sense of the
absolute perfection of deity, the glory of God speaks of his
honor, of his splendor, and of his dignity. One commentator
said this about God's intrinsic glory, which is glory that never
changes. It's not affected by you and I. His intrinsic glory
is. One commentator said this, when
we speak of God's glory, we mean first what is being called his
intrinsic glory, which is the sum total of the greatness of
his divine being. It is all that God is the whole
of all of his attributes. In this sense, we do not give
God glory. We cannot add to his intrinsic
glory. We cannot add to his greatness. He's already all glorious. I
like that. He's already all glorious. We
just acknowledge his greatness, don't we? As the God, the commentator
goes on, as the God who was, is, and is to come, he is forever
glorious and perfect, eternally the same, unchanging in his glory. Therefore, the glory of God is
intrinsic to himself, never diminished nor increased, unaffected by
outward forces or circumstances, end quote. He is altogether glorious. We don't add anything to it.
We glorify it. We give Him praise. We give Him
praise. And everything He does is to
the praise of the glory. To the praise of His glory. So
the glory of God, think of this too. The glory of God is manifested
and magnified in Christ. Manifested and magnified in Christ
Jesus our Lord, who is God incarnate in the flesh. His glory is manifested. Let's turn, if you would, over
to John chapter 1. John chapter 1. Look at this. John chapter
1. And we can only know about the
glory of God as He manifests it to us. There was a time when
I didn't have a clue about the glory of God. I still don't know
a whole lot. But there was a time when I didn't even think about
the glory of God. Didn't even think. Now, oh my. I want to give him a look at
John chapter one verses 14 to 17. Look at this. And the word
we know from the first part of of chapter one, that the word
is God. It's Christ. And the word was
made flesh and dwelt among us. And we beheld what is glory. The glory is of the only begotten
of the father, full of grace, full. Oh. John bear witness of him and
cried This was he of whom I spake he he that cometh after me is
preferred before me For he was before me and of his fullness
of all we received in grace for grace For the law was given by
Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ Look at this
though and the word was made flesh and dwelt among us and
we held The glory of God manifested in
Christ Jesus our Lord. And God's preachers, we proclaim,
we proclaim the glory of God in and through Jesus Christ our
Lord. Again, in the word, Jesus Christ,
the Son of God, was made flesh, there's the incarnation, and
dwelt among us. They saw him, they heard him,
they touched him. And we beheld his glory, the
glory is of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace
and truth. So we gospel preachers, we just
proclaim the glory of God in and through the Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen. Through the Son, the Savior,
the Lord Jesus Christ, we behold the glory of God. We have a vision
of the glory of God in Christ, our Savior. The glory is of the
only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. The believer in Christ beholds
the glory of God in Christ, and we only behold these things by
faith, and they are precious to the believer. They are precious
to the believer because they're revealed by the Holy Spirit.
We would never know that. We would never know about Christ
if the Holy Spirit hadn't revealed it. So Christ becomes more and more
precious to the believer as we read scripture and as the Holy
Spirit illuminates the scripture more and we go, I've never seen
that. And we just marvel, what happens
when that happens to us? Because it happens to all of
us. What happens? We go, oh, glory to you, I've never seen
that. And it just makes us fall in
love more and more with our Savior, more and more. Think of this
in Christ. The glory of his wonderful person,
the God-man. 1 Timothy 2.5 says this, for
there is one God and one mediator between God and man. Man, Christ,
Jesus. The glory of his wondrous person.
He's the one mediator. He's the God-man mediator. The
glory of his perfect righteousness, Romans 5.19 says this, for as
by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, we fell in
Adam. We died in Adam, right? Dead spiritually. So by the obedience
of one shall many be made righteous. All the elect will be made righteous
in Christ Jesus our Lord. And we'll look at that tonight,
the righteousness of Christ, the righteousness of Christ and
how the believers clothe in righteousness of Christ. the glory of his sin
atoning sacrifice for he hath made him to be sin for us Christ
our sins were imputed to Christ right his righteousness is imputed
to us who knew no sin he's perfect spotless sinless he's the lamb
of God that we might be made the righteousness of God in him
the glory of his sin atoning sacrifice and he did that if
you're one of his people the king left the glories of
heaven die upon the cross, the glory of his sovereign domain.
We preach this in Christ. For to this end, Christ both
died and rose and revived, that he might be Lord both of the
dead and of the living. He's Lord over all. And we preach
the glory of that. We proclaim the glory of this.
Christ is a king. He's a king. He's a sovereign. Oh my. The glory of his tender sympathizing
humanity, right? Hebrews 2, 16. Turn up there
if you would. Turn up there. Hebrews chapter 2. Look at this.
Verses 16 and 18. The glory of his tender sympathizing
humanity. Because he's fully man and fully
God. What a thing for us to marvel
in. Look at this, Hebrews 2, 16 to
18. For verily took not on him the
nature of angels, but he took on him the seed of Abraham. Wherefore
in all things it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren,
that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things
pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. He's
sinless. He's making reconciliation for
my sin. And who are the people? He came
to save, right? He came to save His people. He
came to save His people from their sins. His elect. Oh my! For in that He Himself
has suffered being tempted, He is able to secure them that are
tempted. He was tempted yet without sin.
We're tempted and we sin. But He was tempted without sin. My! So in this humanity, He knows
what we go through, yet without sin for Him. And then we preach
on the glory of His heavenly intercession. 1 John says this,
My little children, these things I write unto you, that you sin
not. And if any man sin, it's not a question of whether we
will, because we do, don't we? If any man sin, what? If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ,
the righteous. We have an advocate. If any man
sin, and we do, to our shame, we have an advocate with the
Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. And he is the propitiation for
our sins. He's the one who turns away the
wrath. for us, because it fell upon Him in our place. For our sins, and not for ours
only, but also for the sins of the whole world, for all His
people, for all His elect. And then we preach on the glory
of His preserving love. Turn, if you would, to Jude. Jude. And I'll read John 13,
1, which says this. Now before the feast of the Passover,
when Jesus knew that His hour was come, that he should depart
out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own, which were
in the world. He loved them unto the end, unto
the end. Now you always hear folks in
religion say, you gotta just, you got to hang on. You got to
do this, right? I'm looking to the one who's
holding on to me. Look at Jude. Two marvelous verses
in Jude. Look at this, 24 and 25, look
at this. Now unto him that is able to
keep you from falling. We can't keep ourselves from
falling, but there's one who can. There's one who can. Now unto him that is able to
keep you from falling and to present you faultless. Look at that word. Just let that sink in to us.
Faultless. No condemnation for those in
Christ Jesus. No judgment for those in Christ
Jesus. It's not going to be a big TV
screen there. All our sins are going to be replayed for us.
That's what I used to believe foolishly. That's not going to happen. I thank God that's not going
to happen. My sins are bought and paid for. Now unto him that
is able to keep you from fall and to present you. Remember
he presents his bride what? As a spotless bride, doesn't
he? Here it is. Before the presence
of his glory. What? With exceeding joy. It
brings him great joy to present us. a spotless bride, beloved,
to the only wise God, our Savior. Now look at this, be glory, majesty,
dominion, and power. Oh, he's just subscribing all
the praise and glory to God, isn't he? Now and then. Now and ever. So we, we proclaim
the glory of his preserve and love. Christ, we also proclaim
the glory of his final triumph. Turn, if you would, to Revelation
19, verses one to six. So the glory of God beloved is
unspeakable words never give the proper glory or honor that's
due to our God We praise and glorify our God as he is revealed
to us And we give him all the glory for revealing himself to
us Look at this Revelation chapter 1 verses 6 or 19. I'm sorry Revelation
19 verses 1 to 6 and glory of his final triumph. And
after these things, I heard a voice of much people in heaven saying,
hallelujah! See, the folks in heaven, they
ascribe all salvation to Christ, don't they? Look at this. Salvation
and glory and honor and power unto the Lord our God. Only folks
here on earth think they saved themselves, but everyone in heaven
knows that they're saved by the Lord Jesus Christ, in the name
of the Lord. Everyone. Everyone in his people. Hallelujah, salvation and glory
and honor and power unto the Lord our God. For true and righteous
are his judgments. For he hath judged the great
whore which did corrupt the earth with her fornication and that
bends the blood of his servants at her hand. And again they said,
Hallelujah. And her smoke rose up forever
and ever. And the four and twenty elders
and the four beasts fell down and worshiped God that sat on
the throne saying, Amen. Hallelujah. And a voice came out of the throne,
saying, Praise our God, all ye his servants, and ye that fear
him, both small and great. And I heard, as it were, a voice
of a great multitude, as the voice of many waters, as the
voice of mighty thunder, saying, Alleluia, for the Lord God omnipotent
reigneth." He reigns. He reigns. His final triumph. So the glory of God is unspeakable.
Words are never sufficient, but we praise Him and we thank Him
for revealing Himself to us. The glory of God is unsearchable.
We'll never plumb the depths, though. We'll never plumb the
depths of it. We'll never mine all the depths of the glory of
God. But we who love the Lord love to study the things of Christ. We love to study His word. We
love to hear the gospel preached and proclaimed. We love to hear
the things of Christ. And through the illumination
of the Holy Spirit, we're able to learn more and more, more
and more about the glory of God. And we marvel, we marvel in the
fact that he's revealed it to us. That'll never stop. Don't you ever, as you hear a
message or you're reading, you think, Lord, you showed me grace. Never stops. And the glory of
God is unchangeable. Because God never changes, his
glory never changes. Never changes. He's the same
yesterday, today, and forever. So the one who keeps us, the
one who salvation's in, is the same yesterday, today, and forever. See, that's the difference when
your salvation is based upon a God who's absolutely sovereign,
and who's in full control, and in a false salvation, which is
based upon man. Oh, I thank God that my salvation
is based upon Christ in Him alone, in Him. Nowhere else. Nowhere else. Now we tell what we know, and
we only know what we know about God because He reveals it to
us, and I believe that we're just scratching the surface.
Well, we're not. We're just scratching the surface,
but we're thankful when He reveals wonderful truths to us. And when
we start to ponder the greatness of our God, the greatness of
His name, Jehovah and how he identifies himself as the self-existent
one, the eternal one, the ancient of days, the great I am. When
we start to ponder this, we glory in who he is and we give him
all the glory for who he is. We start to ponder his glory,
his divine attributes, his holiness, his righteousness, his sovereignty,
his wrath, his grace, his goodness. We're soon in very, very deep
water, aren't we? Real quickly. but we give him
all the glory. We give him all the honor and
all the praise. When we consider that our God is perfect in every
way, perfect. We're imperfect beings. He's
perfect in every way, perfect. And that all things, all things
that we see, the whole thing going on in the world, and think
of this, from the history of Adam all the way till now, all
things working according to his glory and according to his purpose
and according to his will. That's incredible. And you start
to ponder this, and you quickly give the Lord all the glory. And we're quickly also, we're
quickly also find out how indescribable God is. We only know about him
what we know because he's revealed to us. But there's so much more
to it. There's so much more to it. Rejoice, beloved. This is our
God. This is the God of the Bible.
It's not some peanut God that somebody's made up, like Brother
Henry Mann used to say, out of their imagination that they cooked
up. No, this is the God of the Bible. This is who He is. He is God. He is sovereign. This is the one who the Holy
Spirit reveals to us. And this is the one who the Holy
Spirit reveals through the preaching of the Word. Lord Jesus Christ,
God incarnate. The angels sing glory to God,
the heavens declare the glory of God. Psalm 19 says this, the
heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth
his hand. It's all around us. The heavens
declare His righteousness in all the... Turn here, turn to
Psalm 97.6. I was looking this up. I was
looking this up this week. This was, look at this, Psalm
97.6. Psalm 97.6. The heavens declare His righteousness
and all the people see His glory. It says again, the heavens declare
His righteousness and all the people see his glory. Here is
manifested his justice in punishing his enemies, the lightnings and
thunder in the heavens, the tokens of his wrath and the instruments
of it, his wrath itself, which is revealed from heaven and the
people see it. Now think of this, hurricanes,
tornadoes, they're all manifestations of his righteousness, of his
power. Think of this, we are powerless
against him. We wouldn't have known unless
he revealed to us right look at that Heavens declare his righteousness
all the people see his glory his power his majesty Our master
says this in his high priestly prayer in John 17.1, he says,
Father, the hour has come. Glorify thy son, that thy son
may also glorify thee. The Holy Spirit is sent to glorify
Christ. How abate when he, the Spirit
of truth has come, he will guide you into all truth. He'll guide
you into all truth, right? For he shall not speak of himself.
He shall not speak of himself, but whosoever he shall hear,
whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak, and he will show
you things to come. He will point you right to Christ.
Right to Christ. John 16, 14 continues and says,
He shall glorify me, for he shall receive of mine and show it unto
you. All things that the Father hath
are mine, therefore said I that he shall take of mine and shall
show it unto you. John 16, 13 to 15. So the Holy
Spirit reveals Christ. He will not speak of himself.
He reveals Christ. He illuminates the scripture,
regenerates us. We're born again. Dead sinners
are born again, made alive. Who do we look to? Christ. Christ. So when we preach the
Word of God, we must exalt the glory of God in all things, in
and through the Lord Jesus Christ. God's glory represents the greatness
of who He is, His name, and we looked at that last week in our
study. When we preach about the glory of God, we preach about
His majesty, about His power, and His mighty works, both in
providence, and the heavens declare His handiwork, It's already there before us.
Go out and look up at night and see all them stars. And that's
just a little wee fraction. Go out and see the birds and
the trees flying around. They don't toil. The Lord takes
care of them. Oh, my. So the heavens
declare His In the redemption of his people, we preach the
redemption of his people from all their sins by the great work
of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. And he gets all the glory.
He gets all the glory on Calvary's cross when he died as our substitute. Don't forget, though. Don't forget.
He lived a perfect life as our substitute. See, folks often forget to mention
it. They tell us, well, you have
to do this. Yeah, we do. We're obedient to God. We desire
to live a holy life. But Christ fulfilled the law
in my place. In his life. And in his day. God's preachers proclaim this. We preach about the glory of
God. We proclaim our God Its glory is great. Psalm 138 5 says
this. Yea, they shall sing in the ways
of the Lord for great is the glory of the Lord. Great is the
glory of Jehovah. We proclaim God's glory is eternal. Remember, he's the same yesterday,
today and forever, right? So we proclaim his glory is eternal. It says this in Psalm 104 31.
The glory of the Lord shall endure forever. He doesn't change. He doesn't change. Forever. The Lord shall rejoice in His
works. We proclaim His glory as rich. Turn if you would to
Ephesians chapter 3. Ephesians chapter 3. We proclaim His glory as rich.
Rich. Look at this in Ephesians chapter
3. God's preachers preach the unsearchable
riches of Christ. Look at this in Ephesians 3 verses
14 to 19. For this cause I bow my knee
unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family
in heaven is named. Verse 16. And he would grant
you according to the riches of his glory. His glory. He's rich in glory. Riches of his glory. To be strengthened
with might by his Spirit in the inner man. We need to be strengthened,
don't we? We need strength. That Christ
may dwell in your hearts by faith, that ye, being rooted and grounded
in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints." Well, He
has to give us the understanding. What is the breadth and length
and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ which
passes knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness
of God. So we proclaim His glory is most highly exalted above
the heavens. He's rich in glory. Psalm 81
says, O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth,
who has set thy glory above the heavens. So we add nothing, let
us remember, we add nothing to his intrinsic glory, just as
the Lordship of Christ, right? We don't make him Lord, he's
already Lord. He's already Lord. We acknowledge God's glory, we
acknowledge his Lordship. We ascribe to him that which
is already his. which is already his. So let
us remember that God's glory is very important to Him. He
will not share it with anyone. So each of us will in our own
way be glorifying to our God. We will be objects of His sovereign
mercy in and through the Lord Jesus Christ to the praise of
the glory of His grace. Or we will be objects of His
wrath to the praise of the glory of His grace. Every single person
will either be one. May God be glorified through
the preaching of His Gracious Heavenly Father, we just come
before you and we glory in who you are, give you all the glory
and honor and praise. And we know that we add nothing
to you, but we seek to glorify you and praise you for what you've
done for us. And we pray that you'd be glorified
today and magnified and lifted high and mighty today in the
preaching of your word, in Jesus' name.