We Glorify God

The crown jewel in the 7-week series we’re bringing to a close this Sunday is this final message on the glory of God. How could it not be? Everything has been building to this point. C. S. Lewis wrote in The Problem of Pain that, “Man is not the centre. God does not exist for the sake of man. Man does not exist for his own sake.” It’s a lifelong battle to believe and practice that; to embrace the reality that it is not me, not us, but God at the centre of all things. We have spent these past weeks looking at the DNA of our church. We have aspired to be all of these things, declaring, “We are Harvest,” and ultimately it comes down to one thing in this seventh and final message: We glorify God. Perhaps more correctly, we seek to glorify God.

Series: We Are Harvest
Message: We glorify God
Pastor Todd Dugard
Harvest Bible Chapel
February 27, 2022

We seek to glorify God…

Glory: Hebrew (OT) kāḇôḏ; Greek (NT) doxa: weightiness which indicates importance; impressive; substantive (Kittel)

…in our believing (2 Corinthians 1:20)

Isaiah 43:8a

Man is not the centre. God does not exist for the sake of man. Man does not exist for his own sake.
C. S. Lewis

…in our doing (1 Corinthians 10:31)

The glory of God is the manifest beauty of his holiness. It is the going-public of his holiness. It is the way he puts his holiness on display for people to apprehend. So, the glory of God is the holiness of God made manifest.
John Piper

Mission: To glorify God by making more and better disciples of Jesus who love God and love people.

…and in our being (2 Corinthians 3:18)

2 Corinthians 3:16

What Jesus did and suffered in the fulfillment of his mission, is esteemed, reckoned, and ascribed to us with all the fruits and benefits becoming ours as if we had done and suffered the same things ourselves. And this union of Christ with us is an act of his own mind and will, wherein he is inexpressibly glorious.
John Owen (paraphrased)

When the glory of God is the treasure of our lives, we will not lay up treasures on earth, but spend them for the spread of his glory. We will not covet, but overflow with liberality. We will not crave the praise of men, but forget ourselves in praising God. We will not be mastered by sinful, sensual pleasures, but sever their root by the power of a superior promise. We will not nurse a wounded ego or cherish a grudge or nurture a vengeful spirit, but will hand over our cause to God and bless those who hate us. Every sin flows from the failure to treasure the glory of God above all things.
John Piper, Preaching the Cross

God is glorified when the foundation
of our lives is Jesus Christ.

God is glorified when the church
preaches without apology,
worships without shame,
prays without ceasing,
and witnesses without fear.

God is glorified when every disciple
worships, walks with, works
and witnesses for Christ.

God is glorified when we love him
with all of our heart, soul, mind,
and strength.

God is glorified when we love people
from every tribe and language
and people and nation
regardless of status, gender, or age.

God is glorified when we’re on mission
to make disciples and plant churches,
seeing sinners turn to him
in faith alone, finding hope in the gospel.

And God is glorified when
in our believing,
and in our doing,
and in our being
we show that the centre of all things
is not us but Christ.