Created For His Glory

Amen. You may be seated. Please turn to Isaiah 43, that can be found on page 602 of the

Pew Bible, Isaiah 43. We'll be looking particularly at verses 5 through 7.

I will read all of verses 1 through 7 for context. Please stand when you have that for the reading of God's Word. But now thus says the

Lord, He who created you, O Jacob, He who formed you, O Israel, fear not, for I have redeemed you.

I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. And through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you.

When you walk through fire, you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the

Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Cush and Sheba in exchange for you, because you are precious in my eyes and honored, and I love you.

I give men in return for you, peoples in exchange for your life. Fear not, for I am with you.

I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you. I will say to the north, give up, and to the south, do not withhold.

Bring my sons from afar, 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. Amen. You may be seated.

Dear Heavenly Father, we ask that You would open this passage up to us, that You would open our hearts, our eyes, our ears, that we would be receptive to Your Word and understand that all things are for Your glory.

In Jesus' name, amen. It is a distinctive hallmark of Reformed theology that all things are for the glory of God and that all things should be done for the glory of God.

Maybe you're familiar with the five solas of the Reformation, one of them being

Soli Deo Gloria, for God's glory alone.

Now, you may be surprised to know that that sola was not really considered one of the five solas until about 70 years ago.

It is not actually – the five points of the Reformation are not something that have been a longtime thing.

There were three that were particular for Luther, but the other two, if I'm remembering what they are correctly,

I suppose it might be Solus Christus and Soli Deo Gloria were added later on as a way of summarizing the main tenets of the

Reformation. Yet, all the same, it is one of the most important truths that God gives us, that all things are for His glory, that all things should be done to His glory.

Now, He explains that here in this passage. This is one of the most – this is probably the most critical proof text or most common proof text that is used for this concept, that everyone exists for God's glory, but most particularly

God's people exist for His glory. It says here in verse 5, "'Fear not, for I am with you.'"

This is a statement that's been made a number of times already. In Isaiah 41 verse 10, it said, "'Fear not, for I am with you.'"

In verse 13, it says, "'It is I who say to you, fear not, I'm the one who helps you.'"

Verse 14, "'Fear not, you worm of Jacob, you men of Israel, I'm the one who helps you.'"

So repeatedly God has told them not to fear, and why should they not fear? Well, because the reason why they might fear is because they have a difficult journey ahead of them.

This is speaking prophetically of their time in Babylon. They are going to go off into exile.

They need to be restored back into the land, and it is going to be difficult for them in order to make that transition, in order to live out their time in Babylon and be restored in Israel and the land of Canaan.

And He has described this in verse 2 by saying, "'When you pass through the waters,

I will be with you, and through the rivers they shall not overwhelm you. When you walk through fire, you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.'"

So He's described their difficulties as being fire and flood, as being all kinds of difficulty, so they might have reason to fear, but God will be with them, so He tells them not to fear.

And in particular, as we looked at last week, this passage just before where He says that He's willing to exchange other nations for them.

He's willing that other nations be destroyed in order that Israel be restored. And so this is why they should not fear.

It's because He cares about them in a special way beyond the way that He cares for others.

Then it continues here in verse 5, it says, "'I will bring your offspring from the east and from the west

I will gather you.'" These are people who are scattered. They're scattered away from the land of Israel, from the land of Canaan, and they need to be restored back again, taken out of Babylon.

But in describing this, using all four cardinal directions, if you notice it says to the north,

He speaks to the south, He talks about the east and the west. All these cardinal directions demonstrate that He has something in mind that is more than just people being brought from the east out of Babylon.

He's talking about not just Judah having gone off to Babylon, He's talking about a greater kind of restoration.

All of Israel at various times has been captured. You have the northern kingdom that was captured by Assyria, you have various people being let off at different times, and so the people are spoken of as being a people that has been scattered in all directions, and they are all going to be gathered back in.

So what's being pictured here is a more global restoration than just restoration from Babylon.

In verse 6, it says, "'I will say to the north, give up, and to the south, do not withhold. Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth.'"

He speaks of these as His own children. He cares for His children. More than that, they bear

His name. When He says that He has…that everyone who is called by My name,

He speaks of them as being called by His name. To have someone's name means that their reputation is staked on you.

And so because God's reputation is staked on His people, if they are destroyed, it makes

Him look like a not -good God who can…who's not strong enough to protect His people. Because His name is on His people,

Israel, He must save them. So it describes this notion of offspring, and then

He says, "'Everyone who is called by My name, whom I created from My glory, whom I formed and made.'"

He speaks of this now in terms of creation. On one hand, this is an inclusio.

An inclusio is an end that matches up with a beginning. So in verse 1, it said, "'But now thus says the

Lord, He who created you, O Jacob, He who formed you, O Israel.'" It ends this passage with saying, "'I created from My glory,

I formed and made.'" So it's an inclusio. But then on top of that, these are all words that are used throughout

Genesis 1 and 2, created, formed, made. He really is evoking images of creation.

This is a people that is created, and for what purpose? Particularly for His glory.

First of all, all things exist for the glory of God. When I say that all things exist for the glory of God, I do not mean that He can increase in His intrinsic glory.

God is all -glorious. That glory that He has within Himself intrinsically is maximal.

He is perfect. He is absolute, which means that all things are measured by Him. You can't measure something else by Him and say that, okay,

He is more glorious or less glorious because He's conforming to some other standard of glory. No, He is the standard of glory.

All things that are glorious at all are measured by Him and how glorious He is. So, His intrinsic glory cannot be increased, but there is an extrinsic glory, which is

His glory as it is recognized by other people. And that is the glory that can increase because people do not recognize

God's glory perfectly, but as they see His greatness, they can know more and more about His glory.

You can see this in various parts of Scripture. In Psalm 19, 1, it says the heavens declare the glory of God.

Just the way that He has made all of creation is designed to speak of His glory, to show mankind that He is glorious.

In Romans 11, verse 36, it says, For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things.

To Him be glory forever. Amen. All things are from Him, all things are through Him, and all things are to Him.

What does to Him mean? That means that their purpose is for Him, their purpose is to elevate Him or to show that He is elevated.

All things are for the glory of God. To Him be glory forever. You see this also in our confession.

I meant to bring up a copy with me. I have one here. If you just give me a very brief moment to look up section 5 .1.

It says, He governs according to His infallible foreknowledge in the free and unchangeable counsel of His own will.

That's from Ephesians 1. His providence leads to the praise of the glory of His wisdom, power, justice, infinite goodness and mercy.

Okay, so His providence, that's His governing of all things. So He has… God has two kinds of actions. There's creation and there's providence.

His works are categorized into those things. He either creates or He governs the things that He has created.

His works within creation, obviously, He has activities within Himself. He doesn't rely on creation to exist.

But what does it describe? His providence, His governing of all things leads to the praise of the glory of His wisdom infinite goodness and mercy.

So God has all these various attributes, and His providence, His governing of all things is so that you can see the glory of each one of those attributes.

Each one of those aspects that you might consider Him by is glorious, and His providence has arranged all things to demonstrate that glory.

Now, of course, if you've used our confession before, you know that there are proof texts for all these things. God has arranged all things for His glory, and He has stated this repeatedly throughout

Scripture. But the question now arises, if all things are created for His glory, how is it that there is a particular people that He describes here who are created for His glory?

Does that mean that some are not created for His glory? Does it mean that some glorify

Him less? Does it mean that some of His enemies are successful in robbing

Him of glory? The answer is, of course, no, that they glorify

Him likewise, and they glorify Him as much as they are supposed to glorify Him. Just one more summary statement, once again, summarizing

Scripture from our confession 3 .3. It says, By God's decree and for the demonstration of His glory, some human beings and angels are predestined or foreordained to eternal life through Jesus Christ to the praise of His glorious grace.

Others are left in their sin, leading to their just condemnation to the praise of His glorious justice.

So, either God's grace is praised and glorified, or His justice is glorified.

His grace is glorified in the saints and His people. His justice is glorified in the wicked and their destruction.

Both of these things are true. But now, once again, okay, even if both are true, how is it that we can say that there is a particular people who is created for His glory in a way that others are not created for His glory?

What does that mean? I think there are three ways at least that you can think about this.

One is that there is a people who are particularly created to reflect

His glory. Okay, so the wicked show that God is just in their destruction, that He does not tolerate sin and unrighteousness, but they do not reflect

His gloriousness themselves. They demonstrate

His glory by their lack of it. But God's people are supposed to show

His glory by reflecting it. It's said in Isaiah 42, verse 21,

The Lord was pleased for His righteousness' sake to magnify His law and make it glorious. If you remember that verse, in context what it's talking about is that He wanted

His people to be an obedient people, that He could lavish them with gloriousness, with prosperity, in order that He could show that His law is good, that these people who are obeying

His law are a flourishing people. So there is a way that we glorify

God particularly as His people in that we reflect His glory.

Secondly, and this is what the focus of the message last week was on, is that there is a sense in which that which befalls the wicked, that glory that God shows in His justice is subservient to demonstrating

His glory in the mercy that He shows to the righteous. One glory is a subservient glory to the other one.

Romans 9, 22 to 23 says, What if God, desiring to show

His wrath and to make known His power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction in order to make known the riches of His glory for vessels of mercy, which

He has prepared beforehand for glory, even us whom He has called, not from the Jews only, but also from the

Gentiles? So this is saying that God's purpose in enduring the wicked to prepare them for destruction is ultimately to show

His glory to the vessels of mercy. Those are His people that it explains here, those of us whom

He has called. So while He is showing His glory in both, one glory is subservient to the other glory.

In fact, you could not have that glory of grace apart from the glory of justice being demonstrated and also being demonstrated in a far larger measure, grace being incredibly precious and exclusive and rare.

One of the things I pointed out last week is it's not just that God has chosen very few by in His love selecting some that He would love.

And as the Bible says, we love because He first loved us. It is not we who chose

Him, but He who chose us, as He said to His disciples. It is not just that among people, but even among species.

And by species, I'm using that in a very abstract sense here. So it's not just that God has not chosen to save animals.

He has also not chosen to save angels. The demons that have sinned against Him have no hope of salvation.

It explains in Hebrews 2 that He did not come to save angels, and those other ones who have not sinned against Him have no need for salvation, so they don't get to experience

His mercy. So we are especially, it is an especially precious thing, and it would not be an especially precious thing apart from God having done it in this way where you have this larger group who are glorifying

Him for His justice in their own destruction. And that is a subservient demonstration of glory to the demonstration of His mercy, because that is

His main purpose. This is why He has created the world and permitted it to come into a fall, so that He could show

His mercy in Jesus Christ. Everything is pointed at the cross. The whole purpose of this creation is to show

His glory to us, and most particularly His glory in Jesus Christ. Apart from there being a fall, there would be no need for a cross.

Apart from there being a cross, you would not see the mercy of Christ. All these things are centered in Jesus Christ.

So that is the second way that you can also see this, as being one of these glories is subservient to the other glory.

And then there is also the fact that we are… that we bear

His glory in that we bear His name. In Acts 11 .26,

it says, When He had found Him, He brought Him to Antioch. And for a whole year there, they met with the church and taught a great many people.

And in Antioch, the disciples were first called Christians. We bear the name of Christ, and so there's a particular way that we are representatives of His and are tasked with representing

God's glory. Now, another way that you can think about this is in Romans 8 .28,

when it says that all things work together for good to those who love God. How is that possible if all things work together for God's glory and all things are also at the same time working together for the good of God's people?

How is that possible for both of those to be the thing that all things are working together for? Well, it turns out those are the same thing.

That's the only real answer here, is that the good of those who love God is found in the glory of God.

All things work together for the glory of God, and by that, all things are working together for the good of those who love

Him, as it says in Romans 8 .28. And so, there is also an answer in that why is one people said to be more particularly for His glory?

Because it is in their good that God is made most glorious. So, in all these several ways, we see that while all things exist for God's glory,

God's people exist to glorify Him in a special way. And thus, it famously says in the

Westminster Shorter Catechism, question one, what is the chief end of man? The chief end of man is to glorify

God and to enjoy Him forever. This is the purpose of mankind. This is the best purpose of mankind.

Not everyone has this end, but this is the chief end, the best end of mankind is to glorify

God and enjoy Him forever. And this is something that only His people in particular do.

And this is found in the church. He has created

His church for His glory. Ultimately, this passage speaks of something much greater than the people of Israel in saying north, south, east, west.

What it has in mind is not restoring people just from Babylon, not restoring people just from Assyria. It has in mind restoring people from all over, from all over the world to be gathered into the people of God.

And this is what Caiaphas prophesied before Christ is crucified. Is it not better for one man to die than the people of God to be scattered abroad?

Not recognizing that he was prophesying that many people would be gathered in from the nations through the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

This is prophesying something much greater. This is prophesying something for the good of God's children, those who are sons being in the

Son of God, Jesus Christ Himself. These are the ones that He has most especially given

His name. We are even called Christians, followers of Christ.

One way to think about this notion of creation is that this is

God's act of making things glorious. If you notice in Genesis 1,

He chose not to create the whole world as it stands immediately.

He instead created all things and then subsequently on days 1 through 6 formed it into the way that it should be formed.

But before that, it was dark, it was void, the Spirit of God moved over the face of the deep.

It was a giant muddy slurry. It was maximum entropy.

If you know that word, entropy just meaning chaos, just meaning just a mix of everything without anything being distinguished, all just random static, that is destruction.

Entropy is destruction or a lack of creation, whereas what happens in creation, what happens in the forming of things is a reversal of entropy so that things have a particular order and a shape that makes it more glorious than a big mud slurry.

If you have a bunch of lights or sources of light and you gather them into one place, that it becomes much more glorious than if they were scattered all over the earth.

And that is what you see here. The way He glorifies Himself is with creation, is not with the people being scattered.

It is with them being gathered together so that the entropy of the scattering is reversed so that they are gathered.

You see that with Israel. This is how He talks about glorifying Himself by taking a scattered people and gathering them, but it is also how

He talks about His church. We are sheep without a shepherd all over the earth, and He comes along and He gathers us into the fold.

And more and more, He makes Himself glorious by reversing entropy and bringing us together into one.

And this is something that Scripture speaks of a number of times, but one verse that comes to mind is

Matthew 18, 20. It says, where two or three are gathered, there I am among them.

That's not talking about just any gathering of Christians. It's talking particularly about church gatherings of Christians. In that passage, an excommunication is taking place.

That's not something that happens at a workplace prayer group. It's something that happens in a church context.

And so that statement that where two or three are gathered, there I am among them is saying that when we gather together as the people of God, Christ is with us in a special way, and He is made especially glorious as we gather together.

And the local church anticipates the universal church.

You know that the term church, to speak of Christ's body as a whole, to speak of all

Christians everywhere, is a very interesting term in some ways because what does the word church mean?

It just means gathering. A lot of people will tell you that ecclesia means called out ones because that's etymologically what it means, but that's kind of silly because you don't say, well, butterflies are flies made out of butter or anything like that, right?

Etymology doesn't always work like that. So, what is a church? Church is just a gathering. And in what sense is the universal church gathered?

It really isn't physically, and so there's a way that that term to speak of the universal church is anachronistic, but yet true in a sense of anticipating that it will be gathered together and glorify

God ultimately. And there is a sense in which it is even gathered now presently, at least those who have joined it are gathered together to it, though it is not yet complete in being gathered.

Hebrews, Hebrews chapter 12 verses 22 through 24 says,

But you have come to Mount Zion. This is describing a worship service once again. But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living

God, the heavenly Jerusalem. So, remember, what's he talking about in Isaiah?

He's talking about the people who are scattered being gathered back to Zion. That's what's going to happen from north, south, east, west.

They're going to be gathered back to Zion. What's it saying here that it's happened? Well, you have gathered to Zion. You have come to Mount Zion to the city of the living

God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect.

So, it's saying you're gathered together with angels. You are gathered together with those who are not here right now that are

Christians. You're also gathered together with those who have passed on and are dead but are in the

Lord, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

You've gathered together with Jesus. Here in this assembly, we are present in a sense where we are especially united through the work of the

Spirit to all of God's people. There is a gathering that has happened here that will become manifest, that will become physical but does truly exist spiritually even now.

On that last day, God's whole church will be gathered together in a way that fully glorifies Him physically, but now spiritually that glory does exist as we are gathered together and locally, and we are in spirit gathered together with even those who are not present here who are in the

Lord. The main conclusion for all of this is that you should do things, do all things, whether you eat or drink, as Paul says, for the glory of God.

If you are a person who is trusted in Jesus Christ, you should do all things for the glory of God.

If you are someone who does not trust in Jesus Christ, know that the only way that you will glorify

Him is through destruction. There is no other way that you would glorify

Him. But if you turn to Him and trust Him, you can glorify Him in a much greater way by reflecting

His glory, by not just glorifying Him like any part of creation might glorify Him, but in the special way that only

His people can glorify Him, reflecting His glory, all things working together for your good because your good is found in His glory.

And this is the question that you can bring to any situation. How can

I glorify God in this situation? And many times that is a much more effective question to ask yourself than some of the other questions that get posed.

One common question is, what would Jesus do? That's a pretty good question, but a lot of times as I ask that question, the answer is

Jesus would not have gotten Himself in this mess in the first place. But if you ask yourself, how can

I glorify God in the situation that I'm in, sometimes the answers become more apparent.

God would have me suffer through this situation with endurance in this particular way. He would have me speak with boldness in this particular way.

He would have me act with humility in this particular way. Ask yourself what you can do for the glory of God.

And as you come to Scripture and you understand what His glory is, you can obey Him. If you do not understand

His glory, how it is that He desires to make Himself glorious, you know, we spoke last week about the ways that His love is not the same for every single piece of creation.

If you are under the mindset that He glorifies Himself in a particular way that He doesn't, something that you have invented in your own head because it kind of accords with the world's notion of a

God, you are not going to be able to serve Him as you ought. But if you come to Scripture with a humble mind, eager to see how

He desires to glorify Himself, you are going to learn how to glorify Him in ways that are not just intuitive given your upbringing and the world you live in.

There are going to sometimes be things that are countercultural that will be truly glorifying to Him.

One thing that has struck me, and I've been trying to collect quotes whenever I can find them, is how

Scripture speaks many times without qualifications on things. I think this is just an example because many times what people think, the way you glorify

God in your speech because they're just assuming and not actually going to Scripture to find out, the way that you glorify

God in your speech is by making all the qualifications necessary so that no one is offended.

Right? And this is how you glorify God and be a very nice person because that is the eleventh commandment is to be nice.

Sometimes that's referred to as the eleventh commandment. But frequently you see

Jesus say things without qualification, without explanation. He says very difficult things, and sometimes there are generalizations that are used that would offend all kinds of sensibilities.

The classic one is Paul's, all cretins are gluttons, liars, lazy drunkards.

This testimony is true. Right? That is not something that people would be comfortable saying in contexts where it would be appropriate to make those kinds of generalizations.

But yet, as you come to Scripture and you realize, well, God would have Himself be glorified in some particularly bold ways, in some particularly pointed ways with speech, with action, with relationships that are not the way that I'm being taught by the world how

I'm supposed to glorify Him, you will learn how to more fully glorify Him. And this is the way you go about learning how to enjoy the

Christian life. Remember the catechism question, what is the chief end of man?

The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.

It is in the glorification of Him that you are enjoying

Him. Now, there is a difference between those two. One is in one direction, the other is in the other direction, right?

As you're glorifying Him and you're praising Him and you're exuding statements of how glorious God is, what's happening on the other end is that you are receiving from Him joy.

So, what that catechism question is doing is showing both directions, but they are two sides of the same coin, that it is in glorifying

Him that you are learning to enjoy Him more fully. And this, this ultimately is the good of the

Christian life. Christ has died just as in Caiaphas, the high priest's prophecy, to gather the people of God together in order that God would be made more glorious.

God is made more glorious in His Son, and He's made more glorious in His Son gathering His people together, and that is still happening now.

Value the gathering of us together. Value it as it is growing in maturity, as it is united to Christ, abide in the vine that we might have the unity that we are to have.

Value the potential gathering, those who are not yet part of the fold but could be because you do not know

God's hand in election. Share the gospel eagerly with others that they might join into the body, and then look forward to that eventual gathering, that one that exists now even as we are gathered in worship but will be fully manifest physically on that last day because it is then that His glory will be made known most supremely, and we will be able to enjoy

Him most supremely. Amen. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank

You for Your glory. We thank You that You have chosen a people for Your glory. We ask that if there are any here today who do not know

You, that they would trust in You so that they might too be a people especially for Your glory.