Ephesians 1:4-14 (Soli Deo Gloria [To the Glory of God Alone]) Ron Owen 7/12/26 [Evening Service]

I want you to turn to Ephesians 1.

I realize that we just did a study of this whole uh section.

Y'all know how much I love these verses, uh, but it's really background.

This is a topical sermon tonight.

Uh, it is not necessarily a expositional, except that it is biblical.

And uh I uh uh Psalm 87 is our next psalm.

Very interesting psalm, very short, seven verses.

And uh, but as y'all know, we had a busy week this week, and so I need to uh study a little bit more on that before I I do it.

I was joking this morning, I told him, I said, Man, I gotta come up with a message for tonight.

Well, that's not quite the way it went.

I just it's just been a busy week.

And uh I got to thinking about this, and um, we did a whole series on the five solas uh several years ago, and I got to thinking about this.

If there is an answer, a one answer for anything, why do we do VBS?

Why do we do mission trips?

Why do we have church services?

Why do we pray?

Why do we read our Bibles?

Why do we eat?

Why do we drink?

Why do we chew gum?

Why do we walk?

One answer to every one of those.

For the glory of God.

We want people to get saved.

It is a thrill to us that four people profess Christ this week.

Amen.

I've been praying for that, and I wanted God to do that, and I'm hoping God will give us some some in-house fruit from that, and He's He's working.

God's been doing some great things amongst some of our young people and and in the VBS.

But really, the bottom line is we do it for the glory of God.

Everything.

Why does God send his son into the world to die, to be resurrected, for his own glory?

Why does God judge the earth and judge the wicked and judge his enemies for his own glory?

Now here's the thing about it.

We think if someone is a he's a glory hog, you ever heard said that about somebody?

She's just a glory hog.

Well, that gives a negative connotation to that because the reason for that is whoever seeks glory in this earth, human beings, they don't deserve it.

Necessarily.

Read a verse here in a minute.

It says you don't have anything you did not receive.

You weren't given.

But God, when he seeks glory, he deserves it.

It's not pride, it's not arrogance, it's not rudeness, it's righteousness.

Say amen.

That's it.

It is a righteous thing for God to seek his glory because he deserves it.

Right?

And how many times have you not done things for the glory of God?

And what has he showed as Tim just testified?

Mercy.

Why did he show mercy?

For his own glory.

Because he is a good God, he is a loving God, he is merciful, he's gracious, but he also deserves all the glory.

And by the way, I want to tell you something.

He demands it, and he will get it.

And so in the five solos of the Reformation back in the 1500s, when when uh when uh folks started coming out of the Catholic Church and singing the apostasy of the Catholic Church and rediscovering justification comes by faith alone.

There were five certain things.

It was solo sola scriptura by the Bible alone, sola Christus through Christ alone, sola fide through faith alone, sola graze through grace alone.

I think that was the four, and then sola deo gloria to the glory of God alone.

I want to tell you something.

It's not something you can over-emphasize.

I ought to preach on it every quarter of the year.

That is the glory of God.

And so for a background text, I don't think you can go anywhere better than Ephesians 1, starting in verse 3.

Let's read that together.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

You know, I'm going to use this so much, oh, I have this memorized.

Praise God.

Of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.

In other words, every spiritual blessing you ever have comes for the merciful, gracious hand of God.

Whoo, glory to God.

I tell you what, I think I'd rather hear me preach than anybody else.

I'm loving.

I'm it's God that's been on me lately, and I thank God for that.

I'm not being, uh listen, I'm nobody or nothing.

You know I was just joking about that, but I just get I just get thrilled.

Look at verse 4.

Just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to himself.

This is God the Father, according to the good pleasure of his will.

He did it why?

Because it pleased him to do so.

And then verse six, you get it, to the praise of the glory of his grace, by which we have been made accepted in the beloved.

Verse 7, in him we have redemption.

This is Christ's work in salvation.

Through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace, which he made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery of his will, according to what?

His good pleasure, which he purposed who?

In himself.

He didn't have a counsel with nobody but himself, and said, I'm going to do it.

It's my purpose.

Verse 10, 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 in him.

It may seem chaotic in this world, but believe me, believe you me, God has got it right on track.

It's all working out for his purpose and for his glory.

Where did I end?

Verse having made on this Mr.

Will.

Verse 9, according to the good pleasure which he purposes himself, that in the dispensation, I've read all that, and in Christ, in heaven which is on earth and in him.

Anyway, verse 11, in him also, that was confusing, wasn't it?

Verse 11, in him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his own will.

That we who first trusted in Christ should be to what?

The praise of his glory.

In him you also trusted after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise.

And there's that third person of the Trinity, sealing us, guaranteeing us.

Listen, if you lose your salvation, the Holy Spirit is an impotent God.

Because he's the one that's supposed to guarantee us, he's the one that's supposed to keep us, and he will.

Who is the guarantee of our inheritance, verse 14, unto the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of his glory.

That ought to throw your soul.

If you love God, if he's your number one, you ought to love to talk about the glory of God.

Sola Deo Gloria to the glory of God alone.

The Catholic Church says that Mary, being a co-redemptrix, can give you grace through her merits, and that the saints, which they include to be just a select few of Christians, can give grace by sharing with you some of their leftover merits.

That they were so holy they have leftovers they can give you to help you get out of purgatory, which the Bible says nothing about.

And you can earn grace by your own merits through penance and the sacraments and indulgences and your own good works.

They believe there's many different ways, and all of it usually has to do with money to help you get enough righteousness to get out of purgatory and into heaven one day.

That's not a gospel.

That's not good news.

God says in Isaiah 42, 8, I am the Lord, that is my name.

And my glory I will not give to another.

Not his mother, not or not his son's mother, not Mary, no saint.

By the way, if you're saved, you're a saint.

I just gotta let you know that.

Nor by uh for uh and my glory I will not give to another, nor my praise to carved images.

Isaiah 48, 9, for my name's sake I will defer my anger.

Thank God.

And for my praise I will restrain it from you, so that I do not cut you off.

Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver, I have tested you in the furnace of affliction for my own sake.

For my own sake I will do it, for how should my name be profan profane, and I will not give my glory to another.

R.

C.

Spruell, who we've talked about, I was telling the men or my class today about a message called the cursed motif of the gospel.

Uh you can ask Brother Greg, he'll back me up on that.

One of the greatest messages ever preached on this earth, this side of the Jesus and the apostles.

And I told my class to look it up and listen to it.

R.

C.

Spruell's great man of God, great scholar.

Uh he's terrible on baptism and a couple other things on the covenants, but he's great on the gospel.

He said the word glory, now listen to me closely, this gets a little deep here.

The word glory in English and Latin, it's the same in English and Latin, that comes, it comes from a Greek word doxa.

That's the Greek word in your New Testament of glory.

When you see the word glory, it's doxa.

And what is it?

Y'all, what do we sing?

The doxology.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

Praise him, all creatures here below.

Praise him above, ye heavenly host.

Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

It's called the doxology because that's the Greek word for praise and glory, excuse me.

And it comes from a Hebrew word, kabod.

Kabod, meaning weighty.

Now, folks, I'm about to get happy.

The word doxa, glory, what other other word I just used there, he says, comes from the original Hebrew word, which means weighty.

Heavy.

Speaking of the substance or the gravity of a person or a thing.

We say of a person's meaningful speech or or uh really influential comments, man, that was heavy.

Right?

Y'all getting following me?

That's what we say of a speech.

Man, that the sermon by RC Sprue, I would say it's a heavy sermon.

It's weighty.

Or in contrast, when someone ignores someone or disregards them, we say they made light of them.

We belittle them.

Someone or something we have no respect for.

But we have a weighty feeling over those we respect and hold in reverence.

God deserves all the weightiness of our heart, mind, and soul.

When you come in here, when you came in here this morning or and you came in here tonight.

Now listen, you know me.

I I I have some friends that think you ought to come to church and be sovereign and quiet and home home.

My mama plays dominoes better than your mama.

That's the way they think church ought to be quiet and reverent and stuff.

I want to tell you something.

You look at the Old Testament under the law, look how they worship.

Clap your hands, all you people.

Shout unto God with a voice of triumph.

How much more should we worship him?

I'm not saying getting carried away, being indecent, but bless God, there ought to be some visual and audible signs that you are praising God.

And you believe He is weighty.

And I think a lot of times we should be reverent and we should be uh quiet.

We ought to be on our faces before God sometimes.

But sometimes when you think about God, you just want to dance, don't you?

When you come in here today, what was your thoughts when you came in here today?

What were your thoughts of God?

Were they weighty or light?

Weighty or were they light?

Your salvation, past, present, future, is all the work of God.

We just read it right there.

I just proved it by scripture.

And he alone gets all the glory for it.

Not a Pope, not a priest, not a saint, not a Mary, not a church gets any glory.

I praise God that Emma came to know Jesus through the influence of this church and her family and her nephew.

But I want to tell you who brought them to Jesus.

He did.

God did it, and thank God He used us to do so.

Amen.

He deserves all the glory.

There's nothing wrong with appreciating people.

Paul did it in the Word, but I want to tell you, God gets the glory.

If this church hadn't done it, I want to tell you, God would have sent them somewhere else to hear the gospel.

Solid deo gloria to God be the glory of alone.

That's what it means.

And you got to put that alone on there.

Let me give you my outline.

We'll go home tonight.

First of all, we see the expansive glory of God in his creation.

Creation.

We were talking, Robert, and uh talking about, you know, what about people who have never heard the gospel?

Is God going to send them to hell if they don't call on the name of the Lord?

Yes, he will.

Because of his sovereignty and his elective purposes, and nobody's innocent, and everybody has light that they can respond to.

And the first one is the creation.

Isaiah 6, 3 says, and one cried to another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.

The whole earth, the whole universe is full of his glory.

John Piper said this.

This is a great statement.

He said, This universe and everything in it is mainly about the glory of God.

Amen.

It is Abraham Lincoln said, I can see how a man can look down on earth and not believe in God, but how a man can look from earth up into the heavens and not believe there's a God.

I don't get it.

This is the great reason for all created existence, including yours.

If someone asks you, why is there such a meaningless vastness of uninhabited galaxies and only one tiny dot of human existence?

Your answer should be this universe is not intended to portray the importance of man.

It is intended to give man some inkling of the grandeur of God, and it is an understatement.

That is a great statement.

Why can't I think of things like that to say?

Revelation 4.11 says, You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they exist and were created.

I want to tell you, creation shows you and gives you a great glimpse of the glory of God, the power of God, the eternality of God, the almightiness of God.

Number two, the emerging glory of God in his coming.

First, the expansive glory of God in his creation, and then we see the emerging glory of God in his coming.

Turn, if you would, to Revelation 19.

Everybody turn.

I know Riley will follow me in Revelation 19, verse 1, but you got a copy of God's word.

Revelation 19:1

Let's use it tonight, okay?

And of course, I am most likely this will be from the King New King James Version, but uh I think you'll be able to follow along.

Revelation 19 and verse 1.

Revelation 19, verse 1 says, After these things I heard a loud voice.

Revelation 19:1

Now, this is, by the way, this is in heaven.

This is around the glory and the throne of God.

After these things I heard a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, see, saying, Hallelujah or hallelujah.

Salvation and glory and honor and power belong to the Lord our God.

Say amen.

Verse 4 says, And the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down, and they worshiped God, who sat on the throne, saying, Amen, hallelujah, hallelujah.

Then a voice came from the throne saying, Praise our God, all you his saints, and those who fear him, both small and great.

And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, as the sound of many waters, and as the sound of a mighty thundering, saying, Hallelujah, for the Lord God omnipotent reigns.

Verse 7, let us be glad and rejoice, and give him glory.

For the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his wife, the church, has made herself ready.

Verse eleven.

Now I saw heaven open, and behold a white horse, and he who sat on him was called faithful and true.

And in righteousness he judges and makes war.

His eyes were like flames of fire, and on his head were many crowns.

He had a name written that no one knew except himself.

He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and his name is called the Word of God, and the and the armies of heaven, clothed in fine linen, that's you and me, white and clean, followed him on white horses.

Now out of his mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it he may sh that he should strike the nations, and he himself will rule them with a rod of iron.

He himself treads the wine press of the fierceness of the wrath of Almighty God, and he has on his robe and on his thigh a name written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

This is in heaven Jesus getting all of the glory.

You know, anytime we discuss these verses, someone will ask, uh, will Jesus really be coming on a white horse?

Or how much of Revelation is really just symbolic or whatever.

I don't know.

It says, though, here what it says is he will that he will be on a white horse.

It doesn't say it's like a white horse or in the appearance of a white horse, but if it is symbolic, okay, let's just give it that.

If it is symbolic, I have never seen where the symbol was ever greater than the reality.

What must it be if it isn't some great white horse?

Amen.

So if it is symbolic, you cannot imagine what he'll be actually riding when he comes to earth to cut down his enemies and began the millennial reign here on earth.

One thing you can know for sure, it will be imminently glorious.

Glorious.

There's one thing I don't like, one reason I don't like some of these other eschatological hyp hypotheses.

They do away with the glory.

They make it something, they make it like it's it's nothing.

It's more glorious to read about it.

Than it is to experience it.

I don't believe that.

I believe he's coming, and he'll be light, and the glory of his countenance will destroy most of his enemies, and then the word of his mouth will destroy the rest of them.

And we'll be following him on white horses.

The essential glory of God in the cross.

That's the third point.

The expansive glory of God in creation, the emerging glory of God in his coming, and then the essential glory of God in the cross.

Now, I want you to understand something here.

The creation.

Now, we could go into creation.

I've skipped a lot of that.

Awesome.

Galaxies.

I have a sermon I preach and I go through the scientific facts that we know about other galaxies, the distance.

It's amazing.

I mean, it's breathtaking.

It's hard to comprehend how awesome the universe is.

And God created it all with his own word in six literal 24 hour days.

If I can't believe Genesis 1, 1, and 2 and 3, I can't believe Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

And he created it all with the breath of his mouth.

Isn't that awesome?

Don't let these people evolution is still a theory.

It's a bad one, and every day they know it's a bad, bad, bad, bad.

Since the discovery of genetics and the discovery of DNA, every day it proves more and more evolution is a stinking lie of the devil.

But I'm not going to talk about that.

But we know how awesome the glory of God is by creation.

And then the essential, or no, excuse me, the emerging glory of God is coming.

We just read it.

Is that not glorious about him coming in the clouds on a white horse with robes dipped in blood and dames and flowing robes and the armies of heaven falling behind him, flying down through the universe, down to this earth to take it over and to set up a kingdom for a thousand years where he'll rule and reign.

It's glorious.

But I'm going to tell you, it pells in comparison to the glory of the cross.

Just one little, ugly, skull-shaped hill.

More glory happened on that hill than happened the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth day of creation.

The essential glory of God in his cross, his glory in the works of the cross.

John 17:1 says, Jesus spoke these words, lift up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come.

John 17:1

Listen to what he says.

Glorify your son, that your son also may be glorified, may glorify you, as you have given him authority over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as you have given him.

He says in another place, God now grant the glory, give me the glory that we had with you before the worlds were made.

That's the glory that happened on the cross.

How in the world is the cross the greatest glory of Christ?

Now listen, this is good.

I know I've preached this to y'all before, but it's worth repeating.

Do y'all want to hear Allison sing come, uh, Jesus come again?

How many of y'all would like to hear sing that again?

Then you can handle me preaching a sermon twice.

How is the cross the greatest glory of Christ?

Wouldn't he, being a conquering king or a cunning creator, be more glorious to us than a bloody dying sacrifice?

Well, if you were terminally ill and had no way of survival from your disease, would you rather meet a king or a person with a cure?

I don't need a king.

I needed a savior.

Who would you who would be more who would be worth more to you?

Who would you appreciate more?

The cure or the crown?

When you realize that when you realize that our sin and our rebellion has separated us from God and from goodness and has killed us spiritually, you will understand you don't need Jesus for religion.

You need him for regeneration.

You don't need Christ's crown.

You need Christ's cross.

Make no mistake, he is the king, he is the conqueror, and that only adds to the worship of his beautiful glory.

But we'd never appreciate it or know it had it not been for the cross.

Paul said, I would know nothing among you except Christ and Him crucified.

I I used to use this a lot talking about heaven in the afternoon.

If you died and you got to heaven and all it was was an expanse of white nothingness and Jesus.

I'm what you get.

Would we be disappointed?

Would we be disappointed?

Ma, I think about that and get to feeling bad about myself.

We shouldn't be.

Christ is the prize.

Heaven's not the prize.

It's a promise we get.

Hallelujah.

No more death, no more sickness, no more sighing, no more crying, no more dying.

All the things we get when we go to heaven because we've trusted Jesus as our Savior, we are getting all that because he promised it.

But my friend, I want to tell you something.

I think for the first million years, we will not even realize we're standing on streets of gold for looking at the glory of his face.

Woo! Glory to God.

I'm about to get all Babdecostal now.

He deserves, he gets and receives all the glory.

The glory in, let me get back here.

The glory in the work of the cross, and then the glory in the work of the Trinity, and that's what we read.

The Father's partner, salvation, planned, purposed, and perpetrated it, Jesus who who purchased it, and the Holy Spirit who protects it.

It's all the glory of Christ.

For the Reformers back in the 1500s, this was the argument.

No priest, talking about the Catholic priest, no Catholic priest, no church priest can absolve sin.

No Pope speaks for God.

No saint can impart merit or grace.

If they could, they would have something to glory in.

When the Bible is very clear, to God alone goes the glory, honor, worth, and power.

Excuse me, and power.

Him alone.

In our text, you will notice over and over again the phrase in him, in him, in him, in Christ, in Christ, in Christ, in Christ, in Christ.

Used over and over again.

He does it in Colossians too.

Salvation is null and void without the central part of God's salvation plan.

That is the sinless life, the sacrificial death, the burial, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And in that glory, he saves all of his people.

All of his sheep.

As we've studied about this week.

I've heard people say things like, I'm glad I was smart enough.

I tell you, I have an album.

I listened to it just the other day.

We're coming home and I listened to it, and I understand.

They speak out of ignorance.

They don't mean anything.

But I've heard people say, I'm glad I was smart enough.

I'm glad that I was wise enough.

I'm glad I had enough sense to come to Jesus.

Some of you may have even said that about yourself.

I want to tell you something.

That's a misnomer.

You were running as fast away from the cross as you could when Jesus tackled you in your sin.

When the Spirit came to you.

But is that the language of Scripture?

I'm smart enough, good enough?

No.

Is that the testimony of the apostles and the prophets?

Absolutely not.

Here is some of their testimony.

Let's read some of it.

Ephesians 2.8.

For by grace, you know what grace means?

We say God's reach is at Christ's expense.

Wonderful.

That's a wonderful acrostic.

It means God giving you what you don't deserve.

You deserve hell and punishment, separation from God forever because of your sin.

Because God is holy and perfectly righteous, and you are not, and you don't deserve to be in his presence, but he has made a way for you to be in his presence forever in a loving relationship with him.

And that comes by unmerited favor.

He just gives it to you.

For by grace have you been saved through faith, through simply believing, trusting in, relying on him, and that not of yourself, not of yourself.

It's a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.

My friend, if you ever boast one inkling about your salvation, you don't know what you're talking about.

And you have stolen, and I know probably unknowingly, unwittingly, you wouldn't have done it if you knew better.

You have stolen the glory from Christ.

You've stolen the glory from God.

Not of works lest any man should boast, for we are his workmanship.

We were created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

1 Corinthians 1, all of chapter 1, 1 Corinthians, just become my favorite, but verse 28.

He has chosen the base things of the world and the things which are despised, God has chosen, and the things which are not to bring to nothing things that are.

Now listen, why does he do that?

That no flesh should glory in his presence.

There will be no one glorying in the presence of God, but of him, of him are you in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God.

If you are wise, it's because God gave you wisdom.

Right?

He's become the wisdom from God and righteousness.

If you are righteous, you're going to heaven on the righteousness of Christ, not yours.

And he is sanctification, he has set you apart, and redemption, he redeemed you from the curse of sin, that as it is written, He who glories, let him glory in the Lord.

There it is again.

These are quotations from Jeremiah, and I'm including them.

I almost took them out, but I just like the verse.

It says, Thus says the Lord, let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty men glory in his might, nor let the rich man glory in his riches, but let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows me that I am the Lord, exercising loving kindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth.

For in these I delight, says the Lord.

Jesus told the disciples, don't rejoice that demons flee at your word.

Rejoice that your names have been written in heaven.

And God did it.

1 Corinthians 4 7, for who makes you to differ from another?

This is it.

Listen to this.

This is so simple.

For who makes you to differ from another?

And what do you have that you did not receive?

What is it you have that you did not receive?

Now, if you did not did indeed receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?

In other words, everything you have comes from God.

You say, Brother Ron, I practiced.

I practiced.

And I learned my craft.

And I should get some glory for that.

I want to tell you something.

If God had touched you and you're five years old, you wouldn't have gotten out of a wheelchair.

If God had touched your eyes when you were younger, someone would have to lead you around.

If God had touched your ears and not been as merciful and gracious to you as he has, someone would have had to communicate in a different way to let you know what people were saying.

My friend, everything you have is a merciful gift, a gracious gift of God Almighty.

Romans 3 27.

Where is boasting then?

It's excluded.

By what law?

Of works?

No, but by the law of faith.

We cannot boast in our own salvation.

God did it.

Jonah said it many, many years ago.

Salvation is of the Lord.

Romans 11, 36.

This answers all questions.

But I'm going to tell you, there's not we say things for floweriness, for poetic uh oratory.

We may add a few words and meaningless phrases to make the words around that we want people to hear to make it look better.

I'm going to tell you something.

The Bible doesn't do that.

Every word is inspired by the Holy Spirit of God.

And this is what he said.

Romans 11 36.

For of him and through him and to him are all things, to whom be the glory forever.

Amen.

Amen.

To God be the glory.

Great things he has done.

So loved he the world that he gave his own son.

The pure and higher and greater will be.

Our wonder, our transport when Jesus we see.

Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord.

Let the earth hear his voice.

Praise the Lord.

Praise the Lord.

Let the people rejoice.

Oh, come to the Father through Jesus, the Son, and give him the glory.

Great things he has done.