John: All Thanks For His Glory

So just to start us out, Psalm 100, jumping in, verse 3, says, know that the Lord is God.

It is He who made us.

In case you're wondering who you are, it is He who made us.

And we are His.

We are His people.

In case you didn't get on the first time, let's say it again.

We are His people, the sheep of His pasture.

The relationship's pretty clear here between who is who here.

Who's the creator?

Who's the creation?

We were His.

In case you're wondering what we're doing here this morning, verse 4, enter His gates with thanksgiving, his courts with praise, give thanks to Him, praise His name.

Why?

Because the Lord is good and His love endures forever.

And what that means, I mean we kind of say that, we read it a lot.

What that means is it doesn't end.

Like when you screw up, you mess up, you have all this fear, you have anxiety, you act out, you speak out.

It means the love is still there.

It endures forever.

His faithfulness, not your faithfulness, mine or mine, his faithfulness continues through all generations.

So what that means is it means that when your faithfulness is not perfect, he's still faithful to you.

And this is where we just we just breathe a sigh of relief.

Right?

I mean, we just breathe a sigh of relief that his love endures forever and his faithfulness endures forever.

And some of us hear that and we go, yeah, I mean, that's great, right?

I mean, because life is good, you know, I got the promotion, I got the new car, I got the job, the relationship's going good, the family's going good.

I mean, everything's working out.

The grades are working out, everything's working out.

So, yes, his love endures forever, he is faithful, everything is so good.

And then others of us hear that, you go, yeah, I know that.

I know the Lord is good, I know he's loving, I know he's faithful, but you know what?

Like the test is still out from the doctor, and I don't know the results yet.

Or maybe I heard the results and it wasn't good.

Or like my kid's sick.

Or I lost my job, or I feel like I don't have any meaning, and really in this moment you hear something like that, and you go, I get it, I know he's loving, I know he's faithful, I get that, but but there's part of us that that's going, you know what, I'm looking at kind of difficulty in life and stress in life and anxiety and suffering in life, and I'm going, you know what, God, would you say something here?

Because I'm not hearing anything, I'm not feeling anything, and and you're in a moment that's that's difficult.

And if you live long enough, and I'm I'm 34 years young, and I've lived long enough to get here, so if you're older than me, you know this.

You will get messy, bloody, you'll get hurt, things won't work out.

And in that moment, it's so easy to say, I thought you loved me.

I mean, I I I thought that's what was going on here.

I thought there was like, I thought it was love from you to me, but but this is not working out.

I thought you loved me, and it's so easy to go, yeah, maybe just kind of forget you for a while.

That's so easy.

I mean, I I think about my little girls, and I think about Christy, and I think about the church, and I think about our home, and I think about all the possibilities of things that could go wrong.

And all this fear that can happen, or maybe you're here and maybe it's a little bit different, maybe you're here, and the type of fear that gets created in you, if you got honest, would be is that things just aren't working on your timeline and you're not becoming who you wanted to become.

And maybe you wouldn't say it out loud, maybe you wouldn't pray it, but in your heart there's this resounding thought when you look at your situation, there's this resounding thought of like, I thought you loved me.

So, what about this love?

I mean, what it what about this love?

Here's the question.

As he loves us, what is God's goal in the world?

And so we're gonna read a few verses in John chapter 8.

John 8 · chapter mention

We've been working our way through John chapter 8.

John 8 · chapter mention

We're gonna read a few verses in John chapter 8, and really, really, this morning is opening the door for two more sermons the next two weeks, which is in John chapter 9.

John 8 · chapter mention John 9 · chapter mention

And then I'm just gonna read a bunch of scripture this morning.

I uh, and I hope that's okay.

I don't think anybody's gonna complain, go, you know what, he just read too much scripture.

Like it was just too much of God's word.

That was too much of God's word.

I just wanted him to talk more.

I wish he had told more stories.

I don't think anybody's gonna kind of admit that.

So you're just gonna have you don't like the amount of scripture every this morning, you're gonna have to stay quiet about it, probably, is what's gonna happen.

So uh in in chapter 8, there's been this continued conversation between Jesus and the Jews.

And the the Jews are very religious people, these Pharisees, and they're all about the law, and they're all about keeping their system that's been there.

The problem is that system was there to point to Jesus, and now Jesus is there, but they like the system.

The Jews like the system, Jesus is threatening the system, and so there's all this conversation, all this hostility, and basically the Jews, they they just want to do away with Jesus.

He's a revolutionary, he's a radical, he's upsetting the system, and and so they're just trying to figure out how can we catch them, how can we catch them making a claim, how can we catch them doing something, how can we get them in a fix?

How can we lock them up?

How can we get rid of them?

And so I'll be honest, I mean, we're only in chapter 8.

It feels like the same conversation over and over and over again between Jesus and these Jews.

And so we're in the middle of the of another conversation, and I'm not gonna go through because they're kind of discussing the same things we've talked about in the past, but there's something Jesus mentions.

And so I'm gonna jump in in verses 49 and 50, and then we're gonna go to verse 54.

That it's interesting if we grab hold of this, it would change our lives.

It'd be huge for our lives.

So John chapter 8, verses 49 and 50, and at this point the Jews have just said, you know what, you're you're demon-possessed.

John 8:49

Like, I mean, you you you know, you're claiming to be God, you're doing, you know, you're doing miracles, you are possessed by a demon.

And he says, Jesus says, I'm not possessed by a demon, but I honor my Father, and you dishonor me.

I am not seeking glory for myself.

But there is one who seeks it, and he is the judge.

See, the Jews think they're glorifying God by trying to catch Jesus in a fix.

And Jesus is saying, No, no, no, no, like you're actually the ones that messed up.

It's actually, I'm here, I am glorifying God, and actually God is glorifying me.

And then again, they keep questioning him, who do you think you are?

Who do you think you are?

And then he responds in verse 54 if I glorify myself, my glory means nothing.

My Father, whom you claim as your God, is the one who glorifies me.

So the Father glorifies the Son, and yet we know, Jesus keeps saying over and over again, I'm here to glorify God.

And Hebrews chapter 1 says the Son is the radiance of God's glory, and the Son glorifies the Father.

Hebrews 1 · chapter mention

Glory is this huge word in the Bible.

And it's this word, it's trying to come close, just trying to, this word's trying to come close to God's greatness and beauty and splendor.

It's it's the manifest beauty of his holiness.

It's the way he puts his greatness on display for us to see.

And what Jesus is saying is Jesus is saying the Father is looking at the Son, he's saying, Glory to you, glory to you, glory.

And then the Son is looking back at the Father, and he's saying, No, glory to you, glory to you.

And in this way, God is self-existent and self-fulfilling.

And it's not an argument between the two, it is a never-ending exchange of giving greatness to each other.

And in this way, God is all about himself.

And something just saying that, right, it feels egotistical.

I think we talked about this a few weeks ago.

But the problem is he is God.

It's not prideful, it's just true.

So last week we were out of town, a friend of mine has a house in Big Sky, Montana, good friend to have.

And so he offered us the house for a few days, and so we went out there with some other friends, and so we fly into Bozeman.

I've never been to Montana.

We fly into Bozeman, it's a huge, wide valley, and it's you land and you're at one of those small mountain airports where it's just windows along the sides, and as soon as you get there, you look out the windows, and it's just beautiful mountain ranges on both sides, and snow up on the mountain range.

It's just unbelievably gorgeous.

Get the car.

Uh Josie and Christy flew in a little bit later, so I hang out, and then I pick them up, and we're driving from Bozeman up into the mountains, up to Big Sky, hour drive, and so we start driving up into the mountains, and we're we're just, I mean, it is gorgeous, beautiful.

These mountains just rising up, and you know, granite cliffs and the you know, beautiful trees, and there's snow everywhere, and we're just driving through there's a river kind of coming down through the valley, and they're just driving along this river up into the mountains, and you go, Oh, look at that, look at that, right?

I mean, we've been in this moment, right, where you get somewhere and go, oh, it looks beautiful, look unbelievable, it's unbelievable.

So we get all the way up into the mountains, and we go and we get our ski stuff, and then we get to the house and we settle into the house.

And we think we have seen a lot of beautiful stuff at this point, and the house is beautiful looking out of the valley, it was ridiculous, beautiful.

And so the next one we wake up to go ski, and so we get all our gear, and it takes forever to gear up, and so we get all our gear and we drive back to the little town, about a 10-minute drive from the house up to the ski mountain.

And we thought we had seen the mountains.

We had not seen the mountains, apparently, because the mountain you ski on is the mountain.

And so we're driving up even further, and you just kind of make a couple, you make a couple curves, and all of a sudden you see Lone Mountain.

And it is it is bigger, it is higher, it is tall, it is it's Lone Mountain, right?

I mean, that's the name of it.

It alone, it is alone up there, is 11,166 feet.

It is far above tree line, and all the little mountains around it, they just don't quite look the same anymore.

And it's not that it's just a bigger, greater mountain.

It's just true.

And you see it and you go, yeah, okay, got it, got it.

It's bigger, it's greater, it's taller, it's more glorious.

I get it.

It's just it's just true.

I see it.

It is alone.

See, God being about himself.

It's not egotistical.

It's see, he he is the perfection of goodness, of beauty, of kindness, of compassion.

He's the perfection of those things, and then he's all-knowing.

So what are his options here?

What's he gonna be about, right?

I mean, we're all about Jimmy Fallon right now.

He's got his new show.

Everybody loves Jimmy.

If you hate Jimmy Fallon, it's like hating babies and hating the Olympics.

Everybody loves Jimmy Fallon.

We love Jimmy Fallon.

People are about the tonight show.

Oh, the love Jimmy Fallon, right?

Every time you're trying to television.

Is he gonna be about Jimmy Fallon?

Is that the option?

Right?

I mean, what is he gonna be about?

No, he's gonna be about himself, the perfection of goodness and beauty and kindness and justice and righteousness.

He just is this and he knows this.

He is the glorious supremacy of the world.

It's all over the scriptures.

I'm about to read a bunch of scriptures, so hang with me.

I'm gonna reference some, I'm gonna read some.

They're not in the bulletin.

If you brought a pencil, you could do that.

If not, I can I can hand you my notes afterwards if you're really interested.

So you're just gonna have to listen.

We don't have, oh, you can look at the screens.

Okay, we don't have screens.

Psalm 19.1, the heavens, what are they doing?

They declare the glory of God.

The skies proclaim the work of his hands.

Isaiah 49 says God's people are called, are called for his glory.

Psalm 106 says that he rescued Egypt, he rescued the Israelites from Egypt for his glory.

Exodus 14, 4.

It reads this, and I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and he will pursue them, but I will gain glory for myself through Pharaoh.

You think Pharaoh's a hot shot?

Like the wealthiest, most powerful man in the world.

I mean, this is the guy, you think he's a big deal, he's not a big deal.

It's actually all wrapped up right now somewhere in Egypt, not a big deal.

And actually, I will glorify myself through him and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord.

So the Israelites did this.

Hebrews 1 3, the sun is the radiance of God's glory.

Isaiah 43 says, We're created for his glory.

Matthew 5 and 1 Peter 2 says, We are to do good works for his glory.

Colossians 1 16, for in him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities, all things have been created through him and for you?

Him, for him.

Ephesians 3, verse 20.

Ephesians 3:20

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever.

Amen.

Don't get tired, got a few more.

2 Thessalonians 1.

Jesus is coming again for the glory of God.

John chapter 17, Jesus is the ultimate aim for us, that we would see him and that we would glorify him.

John 17 · chapter mention

Romans 11 says that everything that happens is for the glory of God.

1 Corinthians 10, 31, whether you eat or you drink or whatever you do, so that includes whatever you do.

Do it for the glory of God.

So the second day that we were up on Lone Mountain, I'd gone up, my friend Kevin was with us, and so uh we were skiing some with him, and I come down and ski some with Christy, and we're just having a great time.

And so I had been down with Christy and Josie, and Kevin comes in.

I'm a I'm an intermediate skier.

Like I'm a blue, if you know what that means if you ski.

I'm a blue, okay?

Like a blue, feel safe on a blue, I have a good time, I'm not risking like my life, like a blue.

Kevin's like, he's a black.

He likes to go to the to the to the black course, those.

Okay, so he comes down and we had gone, he had taken me up early that morning up above the tree line.

He said, There's a great blue up there.

It's you know, it's on the side of a bowl, it's gorgeous.

You're above the tree line, it's gorgeous, you gotta come up.

He's like, I'll I'll lead you, you'll be great.

It's a blue, you're good.

And we had done that.

We'd done that a few times.

It felt it was it was a blast.

And so he comes back down and says, I got a new route for us.

I'm that I want to take you on a new route.

I got the new route.

He said, It's good, you'll be fine, no big deal, not a problem.

So we're on the lift up, and we take one lift up, and you have to traverse over, take another lift up, and so we're on this other lift, and we're just talking, and I'm I'm I'm looking down, and there's this huge bowl at the foot of the peak, of this kind of granite peak, and there's some guys that's going to the top.

I'm not going up there.

That's not, I'm not, that's not available to me.

But there's this huge bowl, just I mean, it's just massive, massive.

I mean, the spacing is unbelievable.

A huge bowl.

And we had gone down this side, kind of a nice cruiser, and but this bowl is looking kind of scary.

And he says, All right, here's what we're gonna do.

We're gonna when we get off, we just we just kind of loop right around.

See that little trail?

And I'm looking down, and there's the trail, it's like it's like this wide, it's the top of this bowl, and it's just dropping off.

And so he says, You'll be fine.

I'm gonna take you where I'm taking you is fine, not a big deal.

And so I I kind of just follow him, and I'm on the side of this little trail at the top of this bowl, and I'm I'm looking down, but I'm leaning this way, right?

I'm leaning up just kind of on my skis, and I'm hating him more and more as we make our way out.

And he's like, Oh, he's looking back, it's up here, you know, and I'm and there's no, I can't get back at this point.

There's no, I mean this is my only option.

And so we we get out there a little bit and we stop, and I just say, Hey man, uh I I hate you.

I uh I'm hating you right now.

And he says, No, he's it's not a big deal.

He said, The the rough parts at the beginning.

Oh, great.

You know, I've I've I've I've seen this storyline happen before, I feel like.

And so he says, just cut hard a couple times, and then it opens it, you'll be fine.

It opens up.

And and and he he was right.

He says, I'm dropping in, and he's off.

Boom.

You know, and I'm standing up there, and I'm like, all right, here I go.

And I just I just do that hard diagonal for a while, and then turn my skis down, which is scary, and then I hard back.

And after two hard cuts, and then it did open up.

And I and I stop once I get through that that rough heart, I stop and and just I'm in the middle of this beautiful bowl, you know, this peak behind me, looking out, mountains everywhere.

And I'm thinking, I'm thinking Psalm 90, verse 2, before the mountains were born, or you brought forth the whole world from everlasting to everlasting, you are God.

Psalms 90:2

And then you think the mountains are great, God's saying, No, no, the the mountains point to me.

That's what that's what they're for.

The beauty of the mountains, the beauty of the ocean, the beauty of the river, the be the beauty of the sunshine.

It points to me.

In Psalm 97, verse 5, that the mountains melt like wax before the Lord.

Psalms 97:5

You think they're great?

They melt.

They're nothing.

Before the Lord of all the earth, the heavens proclaim his righteousness, and all peoples see his glory.

I mean, God's saying, you think that's great, it's nothing.

This points to me, and I'm going, yeah, go God.

You know, I mean, I mean, I mean, I'm at the top of a, I'm in the middle of a bowl in Montana, you know, skiing.

I mean, it is a bluebird day, the sky is blue, life is perfect, you know, and ski the rest of the bowl.

But there's also this other thought, and this other thought is just like a week before, I'm on a doctor's table and there's an EKG machine plugged up to me, to my heart.

And I'm thinking, I'm 34?

Why is there an EKG machine plugged up to my heart?

Like, that's not like a yay, go God moment.

You know, I'm skiing a bowl.

You know, and the results came back and I was fine.

But the results could have come back and I could have not been fine.

I think even that night, Christy said, hey, you know, we have some friends that live in Birmingham, and she said, um, they had to take their little boy to Nashville to figure out what's wrong with them.

Doctors can't even figure out what's wrong with this child.

Next week in John chapter 9, we're gonna see a uh a child who's born blind.

John 9 · chapter mention

I mean, these aren't the yay, go God, I'm skiing on a you know beautiful day moment.

I mean, I mean, this is difficult.

And even when the New Testament teaches that suffering is for our good, even when we can look in the past and we can think about some suffering, we think about difficulty and go, wow, you know, I came out of that, I was a stronger person, I learned something.

That's actually kind of amazing that there's some redemptive value there.

Even when we've been through that, we still, it's still so hard in those moments to go, yeah, go, God, glory to God for this horrible suffering.

And yet it is for his glory, and that's what we're gonna talk about next week.

But I I think we wonder, we wonder if God loves me, and his love for me is one way, and it's and it is it is just unending toward me, and he's all about himself.

How can he do this?

How can he be all about himself and getting himself glory and still love me?

I I love it in Romans chapter 3, starting in verse 23.

Romans 3 · chapter mention

This is where it comes together for me.

For all have sinned, and what have we done when we sin?

We fall short of the glory of God.

And there's just a bunch of good news coming right now, and all are justified freely by his grace.

So freely, I mean, you didn't do anything, you don't have to do anything, you don't have to do anything tomorrow for it.

Freely by his grace, through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus, he did the work.

It's free to us.

God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement through the shedding of his blood to be received by faith.

You want to do something better this week?

Do something greater this morning?

Place faith in Jesus more.

Rest more in Jesus this week.

And why did he do this?

He did this to demonstrate his righteousness.

Because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished.

In case you didn't catch it in verse 25, Paul repeats himself in verse 26.

He did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

So when we look at the cross, the cross is not just all about me.

I love the cross, oh, Jesus died for me, Jesus loves me.

It's not just that.

It is for God's glory to demonstrate his righteousness to the world.

Then later, chapter 5, verse 8, but God demonstrates his own love for us in this, that while we are still sinners, Christ died for us.

So the cross is both.

It is both God's love to us unending and the demonstration of his glory and his righteousness.

Here's what I know.

Maybe it's buried under kind of layers of numbness of television or numbness of Pinterest or brownies or wine or shopping or busyness.

I don't know what your escape is.

I got my own set of escapes, but it's In there, what's in there is this divine call that your life would mean something.

And the mistake we make is to think that for my life to mean something, I gotta go and accomplish a lot.

So we just set ourselves to work.

I gotta look a certain way.

I have to do something.

I have to write my own story, and my story has to be great, and my story has to be glorious, and everybody has to want to read my story and adore my story, and that is not it.

That is not what meaning is.

Meaning is connecting your little story in Marietta or wherever you live, your little story to this story that God has been doing throughout history of making Himself known.

What's the purpose of my life?

What's the purpose of this mediocre job, or this little family, this marriage, or what's the purpose of my sex?

What's the purpose of my money?

What's the purpose of my hobbies?

I'll tell you what the purpose is.

You are here.

You are here to be rescued by God from the futility of all the good things and all the mediocre things and all the horrible things, so that you might treasure in God more than all the good things and all the mediocre things and all the horrible things.

And by you treasuring in him more than all of that, you are glorifying him to the world.

And maybe your life is full of good things, or maybe your life is full of mediocre things, or maybe your life is full of horrible things, but by treasuring in him more, you are glorifying him.

So when we had that first snow day, we've had our share of snow days, right?

When we had our first snow day, we all we were, you know, we were ready for that as, oh, this is so much fun once you got home.

You were ready for that.

And so we walked out about five o'clock, uh, Josie and Josie's five, Izzy's three, and myself, and we walked out, we are ready for our sledding.

And I had two sleds.

I had one that I had bought a while back, and then on a random fall day that's like 70 degrees, I bought another sled of ace hardware, which felt really strange to buy a sled when it was warm enough.

But the time for my redemption had come back, and it was today.

I'm walking out of my driveway with my two sleds.

We walk out, and there's all these other little kids in our neighborhood, and they got the trash can lid and they got the Tupperware bin.

I'll be honest, they're not going anywhere.

They're on the hill and they're kind of trying to get that sucker going.

They're not going anywhere.

It looks ridiculous, they're let down, everybody's let down.

Why don't we have a sled?

Oh, you have a sled.

I have two sleds, is what I have.

You have a trash can lid is what you have.

You look ridiculous.

You're not going anywhere.

Walk out there and eventually we share our sled after we look over what they're not doing well.

See, they were on trash can lid.

It was created to put on top of the trash can.

It wasn't created and engineered to go on snow down a hill.

The Tupperware bin was created to put all your little knick-knacks in, your winter clothes.

That's what that's for.

That's why it's not going down the hill.

It wasn't created for that.

We know this moment, right?

We know this moment because you're thinking, all this snow, all this possibility, it's just not working out over and over again.

All this life, all this goodness around us.

And sometimes we feel like everybody else is zooming down the hill and we're not going anywhere.

See, when we make life about ourselves, writing our own story, trying to get as much glory for ourselves.

Rather than saying, you know, it's just not about me.

It's about in everything I do, whatever comes to me, I will glorify his goodness and his love toward me.

Now you've moved from trash can lid to a real sled that can make life meaningful.

That's the relief of this morning.

None of this is about you.

Even your salvation wasn't about you.

Isn't that good news?

That what that means is that if it's not about you, it wasn't even about what you did or what you're going to do.

It's just about his greatness and his glory and his goodness to you.

And you were made to be loved by him, his love to us.

You were made to reflect his glory, not to keep it.

And it's not popular, but it is true.

I've said it before, I'll say it again.

I read it in Psalm 100 at the beginning of the sermon.

You are his.

You're his.

This is what God's saying over and over and over again in the scriptures.

You're created for me.

Your little story in Marietta can connect to the great story of the universe.

And all of it's for my glory.

And this is what we read.

Everything, the mountains, the clouds, the stars, good, bad, suffering, glory, greatness, comfort, discomfort, all of it.

All of it is shouting.

He is glorious.

This is what he shouts over us.

It's what the mountains are shouting.

It's what hope in the midst of hurting is shouting.

It's what redemption out of suffering is shouting.

It's what it's what just beautiful moments that are just blissful and perfect.

How can life get any better?

It's what that is shouting.

It is all shouting.

It's what the virgin birth is shouting.

It's what the life of Jesus, of loving poor, broken, cripples.

It's what that's shouting, it's what the cross is shouting, it's what the resurrection is shouting.

It's all shouting the same thing.

It's the intricacy of a snowflake.

It's the fact we have like 600 beetles?

Did you have 600 beetles?

Why do we need 600 beetles?

He would love us?

Like feeble, faithless people, and he would just, and that love would endure forever?

He's shouting, is what all this is doing.

And it is one song.

It's one song coming out.

And it said, I am the glorious supremacy of the world.

And so you were made for this.

And that's just relief.

Because what it means is we can stop trying to make our lives as glorious as possible.

And we begin to say, whatever comes, whatever comes, I will glorify you.

I will make much of you.

Let's pray together.

God, we thank you.

And we just confess we love to write great stories about ourselves.

But this world and my life is about your story of your glory.

And that the relief of this morning is that my little life can reflect your glory.

I don't have to get bigger and bigger and bigger and more beautiful and more beautiful and high and more achievement, more achievement, more successful, and the world to applaud me.

I don't have to have that for my life to mean something.

Just my my little life can reflect great glory.

And the glory, the glory is you.

You are perfectly good.

You love us though we try to write our own stories.

You love us so we are faithless.

You love us so we screw up.

You love us so we we we don't even care about you.

You that you love us no matter what, and and so we just say thank you.

Thank you.

Glory to you.

Amen.