Ways We Can Glorify God

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And as you're sitting and getting a handout, please turn to Psalm 29 in your
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Bibles. Psalm 29. Pastor Steve and Sister Janet are away this weekend, and Pastor Steve had been teaching the class in theology.
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And he asked if I would cover this week while he's gone. Gladly doing so.
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And I thought I'd try to do a practical lesson this morning that is kind of along the same lines.
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It speaks of the Lord. It speaks of our great God and King. And if you would, follow along with me as I read in Psalm 29.
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I'm reading from the King James. Psalm 29, verse 1. "...Give
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unto the Lord, O ye mighty, give unto the Lord glory and strength.
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Give unto the Lord the glory due unto His name. Worship the
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Lord in the beauty of holiness." And here we see in these verses here that David is exhorting princes, those that are the mighty, to give glory to God.
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And if you read on in this psalm, he speaks of the power of God.
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The voice of the Lord is upon the waters. And this is the reason why we ought to give glory to God, saying here, first for His power.
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It says in verse 3, "...The voice of the Lord is upon the waters. The God of glory thunders.
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The Lord is upon many waters." The voice of the Lord, verse 4, is powerful. The voice of the
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Lord is full of majesty. "...The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars. Yea, the Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon.
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He makes them also to skip like a calf, lemon and Syrian, like a young unicorn.
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The voice of the Lord divides the flames of fire and shakes the wilderness." Verse 8 and so on.
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And then near the end, it says, "...The Lord will give strength unto
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His people." Verse 11, "...The Lord will bless His people with peace."
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And here, he's talking about God overshadowing His people, giving them peace and protecting them. And so, God is worthy because He is powerful, because He is protecting them.
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He's worthy of glory and we're to give glory to God, as He's saying here in this psalm.
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If you were to read, if you take your Bibles and turn forward to Psalm 86, I just want to lay the ground with a couple of verses here.
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Psalm 86 and in verse 9, "...All nations whom thou hast made shall come and worship before thee."
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So, the nations will come before the Lord. And what are they to do? Psalm 86, 9, "...They come before the
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Lord, O Lord, and shall glorify Your name." Glorify Thy name. And then we know these verses from Revelation chapter 11.
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You don't have to turn there, but if you can turn that quick in Revelation chapter 4. And in verse 11, the
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Bible tells us, "...Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive..." What? Glory. "...God
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is worthy to receive glory and honor and power, for You have created all things and for Your pleasure they are and were created."
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God is our Creator. He's worthy of glory. And then in chapter 5, we read a similar verse.
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That's God speaking of in verse 4. And here it speaks of the Lamb, the Lord Jesus. In Revelation 5, 12, there's this host of people around, the angels and the elders around the throne.
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And then in verse 12, "...saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor..."
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And what? Glory. Honor and glory and blessing. So, we have these verses in the
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Bible that speak of that God is worthy of glory, that God is to be glorified, that we are to give
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God glory. It's a command of the people of God. Now, I didn't have you look at the sheets. And if you've looked at them, you haven't obeyed this morning.
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You're not supposed to be looking at the front of the sheet. But on the back of that sheet, I want you to write down just some bullets.
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Just take a minute. What does it mean? Or how is it that we are to glorify the
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Lord? How is it that a Christian, a believer... I mean, we're told here to do it. This is what we're supposed to do.
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And really to... And the meaning of to glorify God comes from the
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Greek word doxo or doxadzo is the verb.
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And it sounds kind of like our English word doxology, right?
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And we sing the doxology. And we sing what? Glory to God, don't we?
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And what it means is to render or esteem God glorious. To glorify
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God means to render or to esteem God glorious. I want you to write down some things because sometimes we say and we know that we're supposed to do certain things in our
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Christian life, but we can't put Bible verses to it. We can't kind of connect the dots.
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We know that we're to glorify God, but what does the Bible say about what we specifically can do to glorify
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God? Write down what you think might be some answers to that question. Just a couple free bullets.
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I'll give you a minute. And then I'll ask a few of you. And really try to come up with some
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Bible verses, some specific Bible verses that say what we do to glorify
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God. Because I think this is one of those things that we know generally as a believer, as one redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ, we're saved by God, God has changed our hearts,
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God has forgiven us because we've knelt, so to speak, at the cross of Christ and we've looked at the sacrifice upon the cross of Christ and said, that's me, that's for me,
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He died for me. And God has opened up our hearts to that truth and we're believers. And yet as believers, we're to live our lives in a certain way.
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And that way is to bring glory to God. One, but maybe 30 more seconds to think about some
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Bible verses. And we're not going to cover all of them this morning, but we'll look at some.
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All right. Give me some of your ideas. Anybody have one?
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You can raise your hand. Bruce? Okay.
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And really, okay, I'm going to say that's a great verse. And that still talks about what we're supposed to do.
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But it really doesn't say how we're supposed to do that. I mean, yes, you said in your family and probably you could say, what would you say beyond that?
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In your family, what would you do, Bruce? Okay. All right, well, it's starting to open up the door.
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We're starting to break the ice on the surface and getting down to it. Brian, what do you think? All right, preaching the
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Gospel would be... And did you find a verse on that? That says, if we preach the
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Gospel, you know, it glorifies the Lord. That's okay if you didn't, but that's where I'm heading.
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We're a Bible verses that says, if we do this, it glorifies God. If we conduct ourselves in a certain way, if we practice something, if we say something, if we think a certain way, this brings glory to God or gives
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God the glory. Yes, Pamela. Okay, and these are the ways that she said, by thinking in ways that are pleasing to the
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Lord and submitting to the Lord, this brings glory to God. Romans 12, you know, that we're to not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
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This is generally how we think when it comes to glorifying God. We think about what we do brings glory to God and it does.
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But what I'm going to do, and now you can flip your page over, is we're going to take a look at actual verses in the
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Bible that says, if you do this specific things, specific ways and practical ways that we can glorify
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God. And at the top of the page is what I already had said, the definition of the word to glorify
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God means to render or esteem God glorious. To glorify God is to bring Him the honor and high reputation that is due to His name.
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It means that through our lives, we are to make the Lord shine. And there's no better way, of course, to do this than Brother Brian Casey said, when
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Christians share the gospel message of the free and sovereign grace of God. And when sinners are saved and everyone comes to see the marvelous work of salvation, that brings glory to God.
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God is magnified when lost sinners are saved. And when the gospel is preached, we make
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God known. And whether a person accepts that gospel or receives Christ as Lord and Savior, or whether they do or don't, it brings glory to God because His name has been known.
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His character, His attributes, and His person have been made known.
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But so far, we've looked at verses in the things that we talked about. And I think we do that a lot like, is a believer supposed to love
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God? Yes. Then if we're to love God, how do we show that? Well, we go to the
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Scriptures where Jesus said, if you love Me, then you will do what? You will keep
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My commandments. And if we think biblically, if we search the
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Scriptures, if we look for practical ways, it helps us to be able to put some flesh on the bones of the general statement like love
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God. What does it mean to love God? When we say that we are to glorify
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God, we can speak in general terms. We can say many of these things, but it's great for us to go right to Scripture.
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And this Scripture tells us exactly what we are to do in order to bring glory to God. And that's the journey that we're going to be on in this short
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Sunday School class this morning. We're not going to be able to look at all of them. And the first practical way there you'll see is by confession of sin.
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If we confess our sins, it brings glory to God. And the verse that's there is Joshua 7 .19.
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If you want to turn there, feel free to do so. But here we have a man named Achan who disobeyed
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God. You remember when they went into Jericho, they were not supposed to take anything out of there.
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None of the money, none of the clothing. It was all supposed to be devoted to God, set aside for God.
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They were supposed to leave it. They were just supposed to go in, defeat the enemy, and not take any of the spoils out as they typically would do.
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But Achan did. And he hid them. And it came that when they went to the next city, they were defeated at Ai.
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They found out there's sin in the camp. They've got to find out who it is that did this. And it goes by tribe. And then it gets right down to the family.
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And it gets right down to Achan that he had done this. And Joshua confronts Achan in Joshua chapter 7 and verse 9.
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And he says this, Joshua said unto Achan, My son, give, I pray thee, glory to God, to the
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Lord God of Israel, and make confession unto Him, and tell me now what you have done.
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Hide it not from me. To confess sin is a way that we glorify
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God. And he says it right here. Give glory to God and tell us what you've done. And because if we make excuses for our sin, or if we try to justify our sin, if we try to hide sin, that casts a reproach upon God.
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Do you remember it says in 1 John 1 .9, if we confess our sins, He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
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And we probably heard that that definition of that word confess means that we agree with God.
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That we agree with what we have done is wrong. That what He says, if He says that we are to do something like in Achan's case, do not take, because it's devoted unto the
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Lord, and yet he did. When he hid it all, he was going against God's command.
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He was going against what God had said that they ought to do. And he was taking his own path.
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And by hiding it and covering it up, he wasn't receiving, of course, mercy of the
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Lord. And he was going in a way that was opposed to God. And with the covering up, that brought a reproach upon God.
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Therefore, God dealt with the nation, and they were not allowed to proceed any further until that sin in the camp was dealt with.
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But when we confess, that glorifies God because it clears
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God of any wrongdoing. It says that we're wrong, God is right. That we're unholy, and that God is holy.
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And it acknowledges that He's holy and righteous in all things, and we are the ones to blame.
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So first and foremost, this is just a simple one, to confess sin is a way that we glorify
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God. Now these verses are in order in the Bible, so we're going to be going from left to right in your
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Bibles. And our next stop is going to be Psalm 50. And I think you'll see as we kind of go along in the class how this is unfolding.
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But my desire was to make us students of the
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Bible and to make us practical. Rather than just saying, I know that I'm supposed to glorify
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God. What does the Bible say that I need to do and we need to do as believers that are practical ways for glorifying
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God? Look in Psalm 50, the very last verse. Psalm 50, verse 23.
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This verse says, whoever offers praise, what? Glorifies Me.
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This is the Word of God. God is saying that if you offer
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Me praise, it glorifies Me. And praise is a vocal, public presentation of our delight in the
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Lord. When we speak well of the Lord, when we're delighted in God, when we're not thinking about ourselves, but thinking about who
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God is and His wondrous person and what God has done as far as saving us and keeping us and protecting us and feeding us and guiding us and we lift up our voices in praise.
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When we enter the worship service this morning and we begin to sing unto the
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Lord, not unto us, but this is not pointing at self, this is pointing towards the Lord.
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When we worship God and we adore Him and we proclaim that in a way where we call it praise and we praise
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Him in song or we praise Him in thought or we praise Him in word as we're speaking to each other,
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God says that when you praise Him, it brings Him glory. Now why is that? What's the definition of bringing
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God glory? Esteeming Him glorious, right? So when we praise
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Him, we're focusing on Him and not us. And we're giving Him that glory that is due to Him because He's worthy.
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Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive the glory. Why is Christ worthy on the behalf of His people?
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When we think of Jesus Christ, why is He worthy of praise? Because we were worthy of condemnation.
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We were worthy of judgment. We were worthy to be cast into hell away from the presence of God forever.
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And through the love of God demonstrated on the cross of Christ, we've been purchased, we've been redeemed, we've been forgiven.
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And all glory goes to Him. And all praise goes to Him. And when we praise God, it glorifies
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Him. Did you ever think of that? That when you praise God, He says that when you praise
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Him, you are glorifying God. You're probably thinking, now when we first started, I asked the question, what do we do biblically?
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What does the Scripture say that we do and what we can do in order to bring glory to God?
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And here's a specific example. Do you see it right in the verse itself? Whoever offers praise glorifies
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Me. So on the contrary, if we boast or we brag about ourselves,
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God is not honored, right? If we point the finger at us, look what I did by my strength.
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Look what I did by my might. Look at how smart I am as a believer.
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Well, isn't that a crazy thing to say? Because we've received everything, haven't we? God has revealed it to us.
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He didn't have to, but He's revealed. Anything that we know as believers, God has graciously and God has mercifully revealed it to us.
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He's shown it to us. And because of that, He's worthy of praise. And if we praise
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Him, it glorifies His name. The next one, Matthew 5. Let's look there.
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I'm going to ask probably for an example here with this one, so you'll help me out. In Matthew 5, and some of these are verses that are just so well known and we didn't even think about it.
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We didn't even connect it that when we do these, when we obey these verses that we're bringing glory to God and we're glorifying
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God. In Matthew 5, Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said in verse 16,
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Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works.
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And if you didn't even look in your Bible, you'd be able to finish the verse, right? That they may see your good works and glorify your
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Father which is in heaven. So here we see that the
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Bible is telling us that Jesus is saying as residents of the kingdom, as kingdom people, those who are saved by the grace of God and living righteously before God, it says that if we let our light shine, and the light here
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I believe is the godly life. A godly life declares the saving, life -changing power of God's salvation.
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And a godly life is a life that glorifies God. And it's likened unto a light shining in a dark world.
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Really, that's what, when we look at this, let your light so shine, the light of your life so shine in this dark and crooked and perverse world.
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Let our light shine. Our testimony that God has saved us by His grace, let it shine.
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And when it shines, it says here, other people will see the good works in our lives and God will be glorified.
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And it just kind of flows, right? And there it is, another example to us of what we ought to do, a practical way that we can do that.
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Now, what's the opposite of this? As a Christian, as a believer, as someone who claims to be saved by the grace of God, what is it that a person could do to the other extreme, in the other direction that would not bring glory to God?
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As a matter of fact, it would bring reproach upon the name of Christ. What's the other example?
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One is shining the light. One is hiding it, right? Hiding the testimony of Christ.
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And what does that mean? What kind of a life would that mean? Worldliness. And it would be who -centered?
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Would it be other -centered or self -centered? Self, of course, right?
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Because the person whose light shine, what was manifested in their lives, according to the verse?
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What happened in their lives? What was it? Somebody said it.
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Good works? Yeah, good works, right? The life of a person who lives godly, it's been ordained by God for them to carry out good works in their lives, there's going to be works of love, there's going to be works of mercy, there's going to be works for the name of Christ, the cup of water given in Christ's name.
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That is going to be manifested in their life and other people are going to look at that and they're going to glorify God. But as someone who professes to be a
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Christian, and yet there's no good works in their lives, there's nothing taking place in their lives.
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We're going to kind of get on this pretty soon too, I think maybe the next one, yes. When it talks about fruit in the life, there's nothing evident in their life.
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What they're saying is the powerful God of the universe killed his son on my behalf.
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He died for me and was buried and he rose again and God grabbed me and saved me and changed my life and yet nothing is happening different in my life.
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There's ungodliness, there's worldliness, there's self -centeredness and that what then?
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If that person says they're a Christian and they're supposed to point back to the God that saved them, it's a reproach to his name.
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And it is not giving glory to God. Or if the person boasts and brags upon themselves, they're trying to bring honor and glory to themselves and God is not getting the glory.
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But a person whose light shines, people will see it and God will be glorified. Turn to the
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Gospel of John for the next one. Any questions or comments before we go forward?
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John chapter 15. Yes, Brian. Yeah, I remember reading in the
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Psalms where it says, O magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt his name together. Magnify, are we going to make
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God bigger? No, we don't. When we glorify
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God, is it that we make him more glorious?
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No, he already is majestic. He already is all holiness and all righteousness and wonderful and a great
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God and King. And what it is, is we're doing it in our own eyes and estimation.
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Because when we glorify God, remember the definition is to render or esteem
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God glorious. He already is and you're right. He already is glorious. He already is holy.
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He already is wonderful. He is amazing, the great God and Savior, the chief shepherd and bishop of our souls, our shield and our buckler and God cannot be any more holy.
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He cannot be any more wonderful. He cannot be any more righteous. He cannot be any more powerful.
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God cannot learn anything. He knows all things. He's self -sufficient. And what we're doing is in our estimation and in our time, space and time continuum, in our own hearts, we are ascribing greatness to the
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Lord because He's already perfection. He's a great God and King. And you're right. Yes?
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To show His glory. Right. And really, when we're praising God, I think of the example in 1
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Corinthians 14, when there's the worship service going on in a local church and someone comes in from the outside and they're lost, they're not a believer, and they look at what's going on and they see the people of God praising
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God in that service and preaching the Word of God and teaching the Word of God and exercising their gifts, that that person is just stopped.
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That person is just arrested and they say that God is in you of a truth. They recognize, they're looking and seeing that there's a people over there that live differently than me and they're rendering praise to this
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God and I don't have this God. And I'm outside of this fellowship.
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I'm an alien of the commonwealth of Israel. I'm a foreigner and a stranger from God.
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I don't know God and yet they do and it renders praise to Him. Here, in this verse that we last looked at in Matthew 5, wasn't it that we are doing good works not so that we can get a check mark or not so that we will be elevated, but we're just doing what
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God, by the grace of God, because God has saved us, we desire to give that cup of water.
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We desire to serve one another and to love one another and to bear one another's burdens and to go out into the world and even to the lost that we would extend mercy and have pity upon people and desire that God would save them and share the gospel or meet people's needs and when that takes place, others see what we're doing and they glorify
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God. They say, you know, they look at our lives and they say there's something that God has done in that person's life and that God that saved them must be glorious.
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He must be powerful because I'm not like that. I'm selfish. We're talking about a lost person.
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I'm outside of all this. I don't understand what's going on, but I see in their lives that the God that they say that saved them is wonderful, is powerful, has changed their lives and it magnifies
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God from that person's perspective. Any other question?
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All right. Let's look at the next verse in John 15 and in verse 8.
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John 15, verse 8, where Jesus said, Herein is My Father glorified.
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Okay, He's going to say in this way, there's going to be a certain way, there's something that certain individuals do that's going to bring glory to God.
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Herein is My Father glorified that you bear much fruit, so shall you be
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My disciples. And Jesus said here that by bearing fruit, our lives bring glory to God.
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And when God plants the Gospel seed firmly in the heart of a sinner, now that's just another way of saying when
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God takes the powerful Gospel of Christ and it becomes known to a person, and that person is saved, that person's life will inevitably bring forth fruit.
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It's going to happen. We've already kind of mentioned this already in the Sunday school class. And when that person's life, in that person's life who has been saved, there's fruit in that person's life, that esteems
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God glorious. On the other hand, it dishonors God for a person to claim to be a
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Christian and then have a barren life, to have an empty life, to have a life, so to speak, that is like a tree that has no fruit, doesn't even have any buds.
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No buds, no leaves, no fruit on that tree. That brings dishonor to God.
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But on the other hand, fruitfulness honors the Lord because it's what God says.
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Another way that God is honored and glorified and lifted up is when God says something and then that takes place in our lives,
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God gets the glory for it. And when God saves us, He says that when He saves us, there's going to be fruit in our lives and that fruit is going to bring glory and honor to God.
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Now some of us kind of get in this mentality. I don't know if you've ever heard this before, but some people think that there's only one type of fruit that God recognizes in our lives.
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And that fruit is when we preach the gospel and people are saved by the gospel that we preach and it is like Proverbs 11 verse 30
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I think where it says the fruit of the righteous is a tree of life and he that wins souls is wise.
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I think it says there. Proverbs 11. Yes, the fruit of righteousness is a tree of life and he that wins souls is wise.
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And some people think that the only fruit that God recognizes is when people are saved. It's when we share the gospel and people are saved and because when they preach the gospel, maybe people are not saved readily.
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People can get discouraged and I want to encourage you this morning here and I put some verses on the page that tell us and show us that there are many types of fruit and even when it was talking, when it's talking in here in John chapter 15, if you read this context, you can see that in this context, it's not talking about people being one to Christ.
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It's talking about the life of a person who's associated with, who's united with, who's linked with Jesus Christ.
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That person is a person who remains in Christ. That is a person who abides in Christ. They're like the branch that is connected to the tree that gets its sustenance from the roots and Christ is the root of their life and the source of strength for them and they're living and abiding in the tree,
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Christ being the root, supplying the needs for those branches and those branches being us and off of our branches coming fruit and that fruit is the fruit of a changed life and when you see in Matthew chapter 3, that was when the religious leaders came to be baptized by John the
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Baptist. The words that he said at that time, he said, what are you coming to me to be baptized for?
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He says, bring forth fruits that are fitting repentance. You haven't repented.
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Why are you coming to be baptized? And there's a fruit in a person's life of repentance.
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It's that we are people who exhibit that God has graced us or given us repentance in our lives and we used to love sin and now we turn from it and turn to Christ and therefore that is the fruit of repentance.
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In Romans chapter 6 verse 22, it talks about the person who is associated with Jesus Christ again there in that chapter and it says that we are no longer slaves to sin, living a life that is ungodly and unrighteous, but we have now reckoned ourselves to be dead with Christ and therefore alive unto
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God and because of that, there is going to be the fruit of holiness in the life of a believer.
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And then in Galatians chapter 5, excuse me,
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Galatians 5, 22 and 23, the fruit of the spirit and it lists love, joy, peace, long -suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, those self -controlled.
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That fruit is to be evident in the life of a believer, the fruit of the spirit. And then in Philippians chapter 1,
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I would like you to turn there please. Philippians chapter 1, when
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Paul is praying for this church and considering them, in verse 9 he says he prays for them and one of the things that he desires in their life is in verse 11,
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Philippians 1 .11, being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God.
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So we see that one, in this verse we see that there is the fruit of righteousness or the fruits of righteousness, this godly living, this living where we exhibit love and mercy and good works towards others and we reach out and we labor, we roll up our sleeves for others.
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And here the fruits of righteousness by Christ and they what? They are unto the glory and the praise of God.
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Now what would be the opposite of this? When it comes to the fruit in the life of a person, again right, if there is no fruit, barrenness in the life of a person who says,
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I am a trophy of grace. I am a person who
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God has reached down and plucked up out of the horrible pit. I am one who was, my understanding used to be darkened and now
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God has opened up my understanding and as it says in 1 John 5, God has given us an understanding that we may know him that is true and we are in him that is true, even in his son
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Jesus Christ. That is the profession of a Christian. We have an understanding that we did not have before and yet we are barren.
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There is no fruit on the tree. What was Jesus' reaction to the person in John 15 who had no fruit on the tree?
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What did he say due to that branch? Cut it off, right? Cut it off.
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Because it is so unlike what he says for the person who is to remain in him.
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But the person who has fruit on their branches, what is Jesus' words? What is the reaction there?
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What does he say to do to that branch? Whoever does gardening, you have those little shears?
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Prune it, so that it will bring forth more fruit in that person's life. So barrenness, reproach to God, dishonors
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God. But fruitfulness in the life of the believer and yes, God is working in us both the will and the do of his good pleasure,
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Philippians 2, 12, but in verse 13, I believe it is verse 13, it says that we are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling.
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We are to be a people who press on. We are to be a people who are obedient and submit to the word of God and devote our time to serving the
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Lord by serving other people. To read the scriptures so that sin falls away in our lives.
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We hide God's word in our heart that we might not sin against the Lord. We look for the need of another person and we do good unto all men, but especially,
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Galatians 6, to those who are of the household of faith. And fruit comes out of our life.
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Not only that we've repented, but we live righteous and godly and holy in the day in which we live and that fruit can do nothing else but to render or esteem
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God glorious. Okay, let's look. We're in John. You're in John. I know some of you turned to Philippians, but you can turn back to John chapter 21.
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This one to me isn't as strong as some of the other ones, but I thought it was notable. I believe this is where the
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Lord Jesus is speaking to Peter. In John 21 and in verse 19.
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And he's telling Peter about the end of his life and how people are going to bring him where he doesn't want to go.
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Things are going to happen. So Jesus gives a prophecy here concerning Peter's death. And notice what it says in John 21, 19.
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This spake he signifying by what death he, or this
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Jesus spoke signifying what death Peter should what? Glorify God.
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By dying it brings glory to God. And specifically when
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I think about, let me look at the notes here. Whether we live or whether we die, we are the
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Lord's. And when it comes to our death, it's appointed unto man once to die.
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Our times are in God's hand. And God has determined the exact year, month, day, hour, minute, and second that we'll leave this world.
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And when we submit ourselves to that, as I believe after Peter learned this lesson here, submitted to the word of Christ when it came to his life, it was one that he didn't know at this time, but later as it says in other writings outside the
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Scriptures, it is said of Peter, did not want to be crucified. When they killed him, they crucified him.
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He did not want to die in the way in which his Lord did. He was not worthy, so he asked to be crucified upside down.
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And in his death, he brought glory to God. And we think of that, I don't know if you've ever read
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Foxe's Book of Martyrs, or read of other people who have, I remember reading of Charles Spurgeon when there was a plague in England and he went from house to house because other ministers were afraid to go in to get sick because many times you'd go in to minister to people and you'd catch the disease and you would die also.
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But he was younger, I think he was in his 20s, he went in from house to house to house and he was well known for taking and tending for the flock.
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And it just reminded me of Psalm 115 verse 6,
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I think it is where it says, Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. And he would say when a believer died, it was just so glorious because they were totally resting in God and God gave them dying grace and they were able to give
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God the praise and glory even in their death. So in dying, we even bring glory to God.
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Okay, we've got to move on. Let me pick out some of the... Oh, here's a good one, Romans 4, if you'd turn there please.
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In Romans 4, in verse 20,
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Romans 4, verse 20, speaking of Abraham, it says,
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He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith giving glory to God.
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And I believe what this verse is telling us here that if we believe God, not just believe in God, but we believe
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God. And specifically, if we believe God's promises, like, and you can look here in this chapter and if you go in Hebrews chapter 11 and read the account of Abraham's life and Sarah, they regarded
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God faithful to keep His Word. They knew that God's Word, behind God's Word was
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God's character. That God is true. Men are liars, but God is true. Everything God speaks is true.
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And when He promises something, it's going to come to pass. And they didn't stagger at the promise because unbelief, really brethren, unbelief is an affront to God.
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When God says something and we don't believe it, what we're saying, like in 1 John chapter 5,
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I believe it's in verse 10. In 1 John 5, 10, it says that God has given the record of His Son Jesus Christ.
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If we don't believe the record that God gave of His Son, we make
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God a what? A liar. And it's a reproach. When we say
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God, when God says something and we say, no, that's not true, it will never come to pass, we're dishonoring
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God when we do that in that unbelief or in that doubt. But when we, by faith, believe
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God and trust God and cling to the promise, that brings glory to the
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Lord. So I encourage you as you read the Word of God and you see the promises of God, trust in Him.
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Romans 15, 6, you can look at that one there, but it talks about if there's unity in the local church, that brings glory to God.
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But I want to turn to 1 Corinthians 6. 1 Corinthians 6, this is a well -known verse.
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1 Corinthians 6, 19, What? Do you not know that your body is a temple of the
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Holy Ghost, of the Holy Spirit, which is in you, which you have of God and you are not your own? Verse 20,
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For you are bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are
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God's. And I believe that what he's saying here, and if you look at the context of this chapter 6, and it talks about people who are in promiscuousness, sexual sin is talked about in this chapter.
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And if a person is doing that and claiming to be a Christian, it's just oil and water.
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It doesn't mix. It doesn't go together. If you are a person who claims to be a Christian, you know that your body is a temple in which the
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Holy Spirit of God, God Himself, lives within you. And because you've been purchased by the blood of Christ, you're supposed to, you ought to, exercise self -control when it comes to this area of your lives, and bring glory and honor to God by having control over your body.
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And by doing that, you are glorifying God in your body and in your spirit. Look in chapter 10, if you would.
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1 Corinthians 10. This one, I know, mostly everybody in here knows this verse.
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You've heard it at least one time before. 1 Corinthians 10, and in verse 31, where the
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Apostle Paul said, Whether therefore you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
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And this just kind of takes us round -robin right back to the beginning. All of you who wrote down, whatever you wrote down on your page, give me some of your examples.
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What did you write down in one of your bullets? How do you glorify God? What did you write down?
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Come on, somebody give me, don't be bashful. Brad, what? Giving thanks to God, okay.
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Honoring God. Obedience to God. Praying to God.
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Is that whatever you do? Right. Ryan? In your work, at work, like your job, working there for God.
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I mean, it says there in this verse, whatever you, even in the mundane, simple, plain, routine, matter of fact, what we would think, you know, we're not out in the mission field.
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We're not preaching like Pastor Mike. You know, we're not teaching at the conference. We're not writing some book.
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But I'm home brushing my teeth. I'm cleaning the house. I'm mowing the lawn.
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I'm raking the leaves. I'm painting the child's room. Can I do that in such a way that it doesn't bring glory to God?
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Couldn't you do something like that where it doesn't bring... How would that happen? Grumble.
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Moan. I gotta do this another time. I have to wash the dishes one more time.
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I gotta change that one more diaper. I gotta go to the store.
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And I have to do this all the time and moan and groan and complain. And that dishonors
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God because does God know that you're supposed to mow that lawn? Does God know that you're supposed to brush your teeth?
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To paint that room? To go to your job? To do your homework? Does God know?
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Of course, He ordained that in your life too. And when we moan and groan and complain, we're saying, what God has brought to me,
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I'm just not content. I'm not happy. I don't like this. God doesn't know what
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He's doing. He doesn't understand my... And you see how it dishonors God? But when we're sitting...
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When we're standing in front of the mirror and you have to shave... I know men could probably...
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I just don't want to shave that one more time. I just can't stand it. It just bugs me to have to do this.
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Maybe in heaven we won't have to shave. And those kind of thoughts go... But if you're in front of the mirror and you're shaving, you say,
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God, thank you for the health and strength to be able to hold this razor in my hand, to be able to move it across my face, to be able to curl those ladies as you do the eyebrows and put the makeup on the face.
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I can do it and to fix the hair and it takes, you know, minutes and an hour or whatever to get ready.
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I've got to do it one more time. But I have hair to do it with. I have a body and a desire and I want to go out and live my life for God.
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And it brings glory to God. And it's not... Sometimes we think we've got to be doing something big to the glory of God.
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But in the smallest, most mundane thing, those things are sacred. They're sacred.
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Sitting here in this church service this morning, you can do it under the glory of God or you can so displease
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God or so dishonor God by being out in left field, thinking about your own problems, thinking about what that person is wearing over in the row over there.
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I can't stand this. Grumbling in the morning. I don't like the music anymore. They're turning the lights down in the front now.
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I can't even see Pastor Mike. You know, it's dark there. Why do they have the windows closed over there? I want them open.
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No, I want them closed. Closed. I want them open. I want that white thing open to be able to see moaning and groaning and complaining.
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And we're thinking about all these things and not bringing glory to God. And the reason why we came here this morning was to render to Him the praise due to His name because that glorifies
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God. So whatever you eat or drink or whatever you do, you can do it all to the glory of God.
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You might not think, well, I don't matter much, and I don't. Yes, you do. Because whatever you do, you can do to the glory of God.
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Yes, KC? A person who's bedridden, a person who can't do much, somebody has to drop groceries off to them, take care of them, maybe lift them out of their bed for them to be able to even get clothed or whatever.
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That person is in that place where they're at, ordained by God, and they can bring glory to God. Okay, I've got to finish up.
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We're not going to be able to get through all of these, but you'll see that through obedience to the Gospel, including our giving, our financial giving, that brings glory to God.
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In Philippians 2 .11, the name of Jesus, every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is
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Lord. The confession, the agreeing that Jesus Christ is Lord, what does that do? To the what?
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To the glory of God the Father. In 1 Peter, there are a few verses there, but one of them there, in 1
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Peter 2 .12, it talks about Peter's teaching in there that the believers were being accused of improper living, immorality, idol worship, and all this stuff.
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And Peter was saying that if you live godly before the unbeliever, that person is going to eventually, one day, could glorify
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God because of your good works. The righteous living in your life. And I believe, this is what
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MacArthur wrote about that. You might not even have thought of it this way. Peter was teaching here that when the grace of God visits the heart of an unbeliever, he will respond with saving faith and glorify
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God because he remembered the good testimony of a believer that he had previously observed, that he thought was doing wrong, but then it comes back to him that person was living godly, and that brings glory to God.
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And then you'll have to just read these verses on your own. In 1 Peter 4, 11. And in 1 Peter 4, 14 -16.
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When we suffer willingly and properly before the Lord without complaining, that brings glory to the
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Lord. I think I just want to read just one of those verses. 1
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Peter 4, I believe it's in verse 16. Yes. Yet if any man suffers as a
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Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God on this behalf.
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You're suffering for the name of Christ, and you're suffering under the providence of God.
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God is bringing that suffering to us for our good, for our growth, to prove the genuineness of our faith and for His glory.
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I'm going to conclude by just looking, look down at the bottom of the page. It is glorifying
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God, Thomas Watson wrote, when we aim purely at His glory. It is one thing to advance
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God's glory and another thing to aim at it. God must be the ultimate end of all actions.
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And really, that's the point of the Sunday School. Everything that we do and think and say, what we ought to do is be thinking of it, will that bring glory to God?
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Will that, in the church and in the world, will people understand that what
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I'm saying and what I'm thinking, what I'm doing is rendering God glorious. And it's magnifying God and lifting up God before a sinful world.
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Thus Christ Jesus said in John 8 .50, wasn't it? His motivation, His motive, I seek not my own glory, but the glory of Him who sent me.
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And I just want to close by asking this question. In the Westminster Shorter Catechism, the first question,
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I believe, is what is the chief end of man? Or what is the ultimate aim of man?
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And it says, the answer to that, man's chief end is to what?
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Glorify God. The second part is to enjoy Him forever, but first and foremost, it is our chief end to glorify
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God. Now this Sunday School class, I brought it just so that we could have some practical answers to the question, if you ever think about this, how do
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I glorify God? It was kind of tough at first, right? Look at your bullets on the backside, flip them over, take a look.
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How many of you had at least one of the Bible verses that, you don't have to raise your hand, but how many had one of the
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Bible verses that we looked at? Many times we think in general terms, we don't think specifically of Bible verses that we can go to that show us practical ways that we can glorify the
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Lord. And isn't God good to give us these types of verses? Let's pray. Father, thank you for this time that we've had together to study your word, to look, to consider this subject.
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And we pray that we would be a people who would live a life where we do not grumble, we do not complain, we do not do anything that would bring reproach upon Christ, upon your blessed name, but we would live lives that would be worthy of giving you the praise that is worthy and due unto your name.
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We ask that you'd forgive us for not doing so and give us strength to be able to do so by the power of the spirit of God living within us for Christ's sake and in his name we pray.