The Chief End of Man

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I want to invite you to remain standing and turn in your Bibles with me to 1st Corinthians chapter 10.
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And this morning we're going to look at just one verse, verse 31.
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1st Corinthians chapter 10, verse 31.
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The title of today's message is The Chief End of Man.
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So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
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Father in heaven, as I seek now to preach your word, a message which I have longed to preach this week, that I have looked forward to preaching, that I am thankful that you've given me the opportunity to preach.
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I pray that it would, Lord, be used of you by the power of your spirit to go out into the hearts of your people and urge them and move them toward a greater understanding of your glory and what it means to live to that glory.
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And Father, for those who are here today who maybe have drifted, maybe have gone far away, Lord, let it be today that they see that their lives are meant to glorify you.
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The very chief end for which we were created is to bring glory to our triune God.
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Father, for those who are not believers today, for those who are maybe living in rebellion against you, maybe are only here because they're being forced to be, or maybe they're here only because they feel like society thinks they should be.
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But Lord, they have no affection for Christ.
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May they see today that they're too called to glorify you.
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And they will.
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They will either glorify you here in faith and repentance, or they will glorify you on the last day when they glorify your justice and your wrath.
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So, Father, may it be that you call them today to repentance and faith.
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Your word tells us you do not take pleasure in the death of the wicked, but Lord, it does glorify your justice when you exercise justice on the ungodly.
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So I pray today, Lord, that they would glorify you in your grace by receiving your mercy, by the power of your spirit, by the regenerative power that only you can bring.
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I pray, Father, that this message again would be used of you, that you would keep me from error, that you would bless it with your truth, that your Holy Spirit would speak.
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And I pray it all in Christ's name.
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Amen.
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Anyone who has heard me preach for any length of time has heard me expound on the importance of context.
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And I've said that the foundational principle for proper biblical interpretation is context, understanding the passage in light of its grammar, in light of its history, in light of its syntax.
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All of those things are necessary.
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But while all passages must be interpreted according to their context, some verses have the ability to stand out and be understood and applied uniquely because of the profound nature of the subject matter that they address.
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This doesn't mean that we would ever violate their context, but what it does mean is that they have power that is clear even without a context.
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John 3, 16 comes to mind, a powerful verse that within its context is very powerful.
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But even without a context, we hear, For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him will not perish, but have everlasting life.
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That one verse has changed lives all by itself.
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First Corinthians 6, verses 9 to 11 is one like it.
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It talks about the fact that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God, but those who do will be washed and sanctified and justified.
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And certainly it fits within a context.
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But even outside of a context, we can read it and grasp the beauty and wonder of what it's saying all by itself.
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And I make this point because today we're going to examine a passage which speaks to a profound truth in one sentence.
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Certainly it belongs within a context.
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And if you've been here, you know the context because we've been going verse by verse through this book and we've read all of this and we've gone through what these passages mean.
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Paul is examining the Christian liberty that some are using to abuse their brethren by doing things that are offending their brethren and eating meat that's offered to idols.
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And Paul has said, no, you ought not do that.
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You ought not offend your brethren.
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And you also not sit at the table of demons.
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He said these things.
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And certainly the context is that.
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And he's challenging this group toward a higher standard of Christian living.
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But then in verse 31, he says this thing that, as I've said, by itself is a tremendous truth.
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The context certainly is sure and important, but by itself, this passage is true.
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Whether you eat or drink, whether you do anything and whatever it is you do, you are do all things to the glory of God.
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In Colossians chapter three, he says something very similar.
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In Colossians chapter three, verse 17, he says, whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
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Both of these passages together express a truth from the Apostle Paul, which is foundational to Christian ethos.
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Some of you might not be familiar with that word ethos, it comes from the Greek, it means character.
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Webster's defines it as the distinguishing moral nature or guiding beliefs of a person, a group or an institution.
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And it's where we get our word ethics.
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Christian ethics, Christian ethics is a is a is a broad and sometimes foreboding subject within it are subjects such as difficult subjects like divorce and abuse and sexuality and anger and pride and jealousy.
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And then there's beautiful things like love and devotion and faithfulness and patience.
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All of that falls under the sphere of Christian ethos or Christian ethics.
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And there's a sense in which it touches every part of our lives and sometimes it can be extremely complicated.
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Yet, when we consider this passage for the day, Paul really makes Christian ethics very simple.
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If we consider first Corinthians 10 31.
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He makes ethics easy.
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And if there's anything in the world that sometimes doesn't seem easy, it's ethics.
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But Paul makes ethics easy.
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He said everything the Christian does, no matter how important or how mundane, everything the Christian does, whether at church or at home, everything the Christian does, whether at work or at play, everything the Christian does is to be done with a singular goal of glorifying God.
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Paul uses the example of eating and drinking.
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And in one sense, you can say, well, the context is eating idle meat.
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And yes, I think that that's the context where the word, the idea of eating comes from.
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But he expands it out from that.
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He adds in drinking, which he hadn't been addressing up until this point to round out, I think, to round out the sense of mundanity.
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The two most basic things we do to survive are eat and drink outside of breathing, right? We breathe first.
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You stop breathing for about two minutes, you die.
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You stop drinking for about two days, you die.
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You stop eating for about two weeks, you start to die.
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All right.
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It's interesting how that works.
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Our whole lives are built in breathing, eating and drinking.
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And Paul says, whether you do these things, whether you eat or drink, it's all about you do everything to the glory of God.
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In fact, he doesn't stop at eating and drinking.
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He says these things, the mundane things of eating and drinking certainly are to be done to the glory of God.
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But then he goes on to say, whatever you do, that word, whatever, is is a very small word in the Greek.
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It's only two little Greek letters.
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Ti.
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And it's an indefinite pronoun.
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And that refers to any anything, anybody, anyone, somebody, something.
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It's indefinite, meaning it's expansive in nature.
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When Paul says, whatever you do, he means anything you do.
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Everything you do.
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King James Version, whatsoever ye do, that make it a little more understandable, maybe not.
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Charles Ellicott has a commentary on the Bible and it can be useful at times.
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And I really like what he says about this passage here.
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He says these words embrace all of life.
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The definite acts of eating and drinking are mentioned expressly as they are the subject immediately under consideration.
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They are, however, to be regulated by the same principle which guides all true life.
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The modern idea of some acts being, listen to this, because this really got my head thinking this week.
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The modern idea that some acts being religious and some secular is neither here nor elsewhere recognized by St.
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Paul.
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No act of life is in itself either religious or secular.
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The quality of each act depends on the spirit which guides it and motive from which it springs.
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The commonest thing may be done in a high Christian spirit.
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The greatest deed may spring from a low and selfish motive.
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A religious act done in a secular spirit is secular.
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Likewise, a secular thing done in a religious spirit is religious.
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This is the great first principle of Christian life is our whole life lived to the glory of God, or is it just the religious things that we do to the glory of God is our whole life lived to the glory of God, or is it just what we do at church or around church folk? Another commentator writes this, he said, there is much grander in the sweeping universality of the rule, which implies that all life and every act of life may be consecrated by holy motives.
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All of life can be consecrated to God.
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And should be.
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We don't get to have a box for God's stuff and then a box for everything else and the God stuff touches this side or doesn't touch this side and this side doesn't touch the God side.
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And the God side is where we keep all our little sanctified things and the other side is where we keep all the fun things.
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That's how we look at it, right? We got our God side, which is sanctified and holy and and dressed well and looking good.
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And the other side is where all the ugliness is and never the two shall meet.
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In fact, that's the first point of today.
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I have three points.
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I don't do that because I have to.
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It just sometimes works out that way.
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But I have three points and it's really in the form of three questions.
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First question, how much of our life is to be lived to the glory of God? How much of our life is to be lived to the glory of God? Answer, of course, the apostle Paul says, I've already given the answer, all of it.
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This means there is no way to compartmentalize life when it comes to God.
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There is a comprehensive sense in which we must live to God.
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People have a tendency to compartmentalize life, especially men.
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Men are the worst.
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I can just say that and get an amen, probably.
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But but I mean, but men in particular have a sense where we have a work life, we have a home life, we have a hobby life, we have a church life, and we sort of put people in these boxes.
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And that's that life, right? And so it's worse when we have a birthday party, because then all these people from all the different boxes are together and you don't know what to do.
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You sit over there and you sit over there.
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Because I got to act a certain way around you and differently around you.
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Everybody's laughing because, you know, it's true.
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My wife, I remember when I used to work in an office, she'd come home and she was at that time we didn't have kids and she worked at an office and so did I.
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And we'd come home at the end of the day.
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And she'd tell me about how she talked about our life with her friends all day.
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And she said, did you talk about our life with your friends? I said, no, I didn't.
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That's a different compartment.
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My brain doesn't do that.
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My brain literally compartmentalizes that part of my life.
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And I just didn't take it there.
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When I'm there, I think about that.
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And when I'm home, I think about this.
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And it's not that I'm not thinking about you, but I'm not.
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That's just not how my mind worked.
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And it very easily compartmentalized that part.
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So I don't know if other guys do that.
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I've heard men sort of do that, put things in boxes.
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The point of the matter is, though, Paul is telling us here that there's a comprehensive sense in which God is supposed to be a part of all those boxes.
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If we're putting things in boxes, that's not a problem.
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But the issue is we're putting God in a box and he only gets this one part.
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God is supposed to be the driving force and the binding agent behind everything.
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His glory is supposed to be what drives every box.
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He's a part of everything, driving us forward toward him.
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How many of you are familiar with the West Wing? Westminster Confession of Faith.
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My Presbyterians better raise their hand.
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Now, those folks who came out of the Presbyterian church know it.
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Westminster Confession of Faith.
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The confession is a wonderful confession, one of the probably greatest acts of writing in church history.
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And people often think there's a thing called a catechism goes with the confession of faith.
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People often think of catechism as being Catholic.
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You shouldn't think that way.
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Catechisms aren't necessarily Catholic.
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It's actually a form of teaching that is classical in nature.
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It's intended to teach by way of rote memorization.
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You teach children to memorize these things.
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And as they grow and the Lord saves them by his grace, these things are brought to their remembrance and they're able to then understand doctrine and things even better because they've learned by rote memorization.
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Well, the reason why I bring this up is because the Westminster Shorter Catechism, which is part of the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Westminster Shorter Catechism begins with a question.
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And if you're unfamiliar with the title of my sermon, it's because you're unfamiliar with that particular catechism, because the first question of the catechism is this.
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What is the chief end of man? Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.
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Man's chief end.
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Now, you may say, well, that verse, that's not a verse of the Bible.
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Tim Challies, writer, mentions that he said he said this isn't a phrase drawn from scripture, but the wisdom behind it surely is.
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The Bible tells us with great clarity that man was created in order to bring glory to God.
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Thus, the chief end of Christians and the church is to bring glory to God.
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That's the chief end, meaning the chief goal, the chief purpose, the very reason for being.
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Everything that we do should bring glory to God.
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A few years ago, Jennifer and I started a little small business and most of you are familiar with what we do.
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We make T-shirts and we have a scripture verse on our business cards.
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We have a scripture verse on our website and it's that verse.
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It's not it's not first Corinthians 1031.
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It's it's it's Colossians 317.
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And our motto is we make shirts for the glory of God, and I like Martin Luther on this point.
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Martin Luther said the way a Christian shoemaker proves his faith is not by putting little crosses on his shoes, but it's by making good shoes.
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And I thought about that, I said, you know, I know Mike Collier, he owns a business and he paints walls and he paints walls of the glory of God.
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And when he does it, he does a good job, not because the job requires it, because he's doing it unto God.
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When you drive a forklift, you can drive a forklift to the glory of God when you help people with investments, you can help people with investments, the glory of God.
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I mean, you know, Chris and Dale, when you do whatever you do, Mike, with software, even attending meetings, which I know you hate, you can attend meetings to the glory of God.
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You can be retired and love your grandchildren to the glory of God.
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You can be a mother who serves her husband and children and teaches them at the home to the glory of God.
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You can you can do dishes to the glory of God.
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You can drive down the road to the glory of God.
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The comprehensive purpose of life.
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Is to bring glory to God, there is no part that's not consecrated to him, we don't seek to have a closet of ungodliness that's hidden from him.
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Did you know in the Muslim faith there is a myth among, well, the entire Muslim faith is a myth, but that's an that's an entire other conversation.
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There's a myth among the Muslims, though, that there's a land that you can visit that's off God's radar.
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It's called Bahrain.
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You ever heard of that place? Bahrain is a is a place where people can go and they they gamble, engage in prostitution.
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They do all kinds of things there.
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And they say this is where God doesn't see this.
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It's off God's radar.
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He doesn't care what happens in Bahrain.
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It's a it's a closet of ungodliness.
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There is no place that God doesn't see, there's no closet that God can't get into, there's no country that God is too small for God to care about.
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Our entire life.
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Is to be lived toward him and his glory, so that so that's the first question, how much of life, all of life, second question, what does glory mean? Because I've been saying all morning, we're supposed to live to the glory of God, what does that even mean? I want to tell you, I spent some time this week really thinking about this word because it's a very common word in our vernacular.
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We sing it in our songs, we say it in our prayers.
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Sometimes we even hear it during a sermon.
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Oh, glory, you know.
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In the Greek, it's doxa.
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You've heard the term doxology, it means to the words of glory.
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In the Hebrew, it's kabod or kabod.
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Interesting narrative from the Old Testament in 1st Samuel 4, there was a battle which was raged and the enemies of Israel came and stole the Ark of the Covenant.
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Well, when this happened, a woman gave birth.
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And when she gave birth, because the Ark had been stolen and her husband was killed in battle, she named her son Ichabod, Ichabod, Hebrew, no glory.
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What a name, but because she said the glory has departed from Israel because the Ark had been taken.
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I consulted several dictionaries and lexicons in an attempt to try to help me understand the sense of this word and its meaning.
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And I don't think they really helped.
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I'm going to be honest, dictionaries sometimes come up flat.
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But I'll tell you, somebody who helps me understand the glory of God and to help me understand what that word meant.
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And he's a he's a pastor that I know many of you love.
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Many of you've heard of him.
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Many of you've read his books, John Piper.
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And some of you are more like it seems to be like two camps in reform, like either MacArthur or Piper or, you know, it doesn't matter.
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They're great.
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Both of these men are good men of God.
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But but let me tell you something about this.
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R.C.
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Sproul is known for being focused on God's holiness.
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And if you've never read The Holiness of God, I recommend you do.
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It's it's one of the great works of our last generation Christian literature.
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But if as much as John or as much as R.C.
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Sproul was focused on the holiness of God, John Piper was focused on the glory of God.
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And if you've never heard him talk about the glory of God, I would recommend you do.
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There's a sermon, Don't Waste Your Life.
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It's great.
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And I would encourage you to listen to it.
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But I want to just read, if you don't mind, I want to read how he defines the glory of God, because I think he does a good job.
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And and I'm not here to reinvent the wheel.
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If somebody says something better than I do, I'm just going to say it the way they do.
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This is what he said, quote, Defining the glory of God is impossible because it's more like defining the word beauty than the word basketball.
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So if somebody says they've never heard of a basketball, they don't know what a basketball is.
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And they say define a basketball, that wouldn't be too hard.
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You say it's round, it's hard, it bounces.
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But you can't do that with the word beauty.
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There's some words in our vocabulary which can commute, which we can communicate with, not because we can say them, but because we can see them, we can point to them.
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If we if we point at enough things and we see enough things together and we say, that's it, that's it, that's it, we might be able to come to a common sense of what beauty is.
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But you try putting the word beauty into words and it's very difficult.
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The same thing is true with the word glory.
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He goes on to say this, the holiness of God is God being in a class by himself, his perfection, his greatness, his worth, his infinite perfections, his infinite greatness.
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And Isaiah 63 says this, holy, we read it this morning, holy, holy, holy.
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The whole world is filled with his holiness, with his glory.
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So Piper says the definition that he has come up with in his life is that the glory of God is the manifestation of the holiness of God.
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It's the going public of God's infinite greatness.
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It's the way he puts his holiness on display for people to comprehend and apprehend.
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So the glory of God is the holiness of God made manifest.
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It's the infinite beauty and greatness of God's manifold perfections.
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Think about Psalm 19, verse one, what does it say? The heavens declare the glory of God.
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What does that mean? It means God is shouting to us.
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He shouts with the clouds.
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He shouts with the blue expanse.
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He shouts with the gold of the horizon.
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He shouts with the galaxy in skies and he shouts, I am glorious.
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Open your eyes and see my infinite perfection and might and power.
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Do you ever look at a sky and a sunrise and just feel infinitely small and then remember that God didn't just create that, but he created everything else as well.
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Do you realize we live to magnify God's glory? Turn in your Bibles just very quickly to Ephesians chapter one.
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In Ephesians chapter one, Paul talks about having we having been made the objects of God's predestinating and electing grace.
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But I want you to see in chapter one of Ephesians, verses 11 and 12, the end of that.
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Because oftentimes, you know, we talk about predestination, we talk about election, we talk about all this as part of reformed theology and our understanding of it.
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But what's the end? What's the end of that? Verse 11, in him that is in Christ.
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In him, we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.
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We are living as the elect of God to magnify the glorious power and love of God.
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We live in to magnify that.
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We live to show that and that's why our lives are supposed to be lived for that purpose.
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And so we get to question three, how can I live to magnify God's glory? First question was how much of our lives should be lived to God's glory? How much should be lived to God's glory? All of it.
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What is God's glory? It's his manifest perfection.
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It's his holiness on display.
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It's his wonderful power and might on display.
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How are we to magnify that? First Corinthians tells us in verse 31 of chapter 10, anything we do, we are to do to the glory of God.
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That means our whole lives.
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But what does that look like? I love this.
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United Bible Society, United Bible Society is a translation service.
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They do a lot of good work, but they also put out commentaries, UBS commentaries.
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If you're ever looking for a good commentary, they have a decent it's a textual commentary.
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It's pretty good.
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But on this text, it says this.
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It says, do everything, do everything in such a way that God will be honored, do everything in such a way that God will be honored.
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Can we say that we live that way? Can we say that we live to the honor of God? Is what I'm about to do going to bring honor to God or maybe my next decision, is it going to be made to magnify God's holy nature? You say, well, pastor, that only applies to the big decisions, the big gestures, not the mundanity of life.
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But again, Paul says it's comprehensive.
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You cannot compartmentalize this.
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You cannot leave God out of some parts.
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J.R.
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Miller, a pastor in the 1800s on this very passage, he says we may not cut our existence into two parts and saying over this Christ will rule, but over that he will not.
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He goes on to say true religion knows no difference between Sunday and Monday.
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True religion knows no difference between Sunday and Monday.
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Holiness, he says, is to be the Christian's dress all week long.
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Holiness is to be the Christian's dress all week long.
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In every hour of conduct, how many of you know Francis Chan? I don't know why I'm asking everybody this morning, you know this guy, you know this guy.
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I've just spent a lot of time thinking about this week and listening to different people.
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Francis Chan is an interesting character.
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And maybe you've heard great things, maybe you haven't.
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But he certainly has a way with with how he expresses the gospel and in talking about the glory of God, I think he gave a good illustration.
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It actually made me think of Walter Heaton, and I'll tell you why in a minute.
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Y'all know Walter.
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He's our missionary in Croatia.
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Francis Chan was talking about the glory of God and he had a cookie.
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And I thought about bringing a cookie this morning, but my wife had me on a low carb diet, so there won't be a cookie this morning.
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But he ate a cookie while he was preaching.
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And I thought that's unique because I don't know if I'd get away with that.
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But he ate the cookie and he was talking about how when he ate it, how he enjoyed it and how his mouth sort of enjoyed the taste and the texture of the of the caramel and the chocolate and the nuts and how how as it began to go down his throat, he could feel it slipping down into his neck and filling his stomach.
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And he could feel that goodness of the cookie and the goodness of that food that God had given to him, that provided for him.
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And he said, and this is what it is to eat to the glory of God.
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I'm actually thinking and appreciating what God has given me in this wonderful gift.
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He said, you know, plants don't get to do that.
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Plants get all their nourishment by being stuck in the ground and getting their sunlight.
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And that's how all of these things, the plants don't have teeth and they don't have mouth.
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And don't tell me about venus fly traps.
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We'll talk about that later.
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But I'm saying most plants have to get all their food from the ground.
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And we don't do that.
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We don't walk around and our feet stick to the ground and we suck up nourishment and we don't have to go out three times a day and lay in the sun and suck in nourishment.
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But we get to go and we get to take a steak and we get to cut into that steak and we get to smell the savor of that steak and we get to taste it.
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And it's great.
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He went on to say, isn't it great that God didn't say, OK, when you hold your wife's hand, she becomes pregnant.
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But there's intimacy involved in that.
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And God created that, too.
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And you can glorify God even in that.
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We can glorify God in everything.
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And I remember when Walter Heaton was here, I mean, back to Walter, but Walter Heaton's here.
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I always take him to eat.
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We enjoy having meals together.
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And every time he prays, he prays for how the food tastes.
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And it's interesting if you ever had him eat with you and pray for you.
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He always prays about how it feels in his mouth and how it tastes and how it goes.
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I don't know if he heard from Francis Chan, maybe Francis Chan heard from him, but it was an interesting thought of the fact that we can we can eat a cookie to the glory of God and we can thank God for the blessing of that cookie and we can praise him to his glorious grace of giving us just the ability to eat.
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Jennifer told me of someone, maybe one of you, I don't know, she said somebody who had a had a had a procedure where they had lost the ability to taste food.
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I don't remember who it was, but I thought I thought, you know, that's that's sad.
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If that's if that is one of you, that's that's sad, but it really is.
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That's one of the blessings that we have.
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It's just the taste that we have of our food.
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And that's something we can do to the glory of God.
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And we ought to do everything with an eye to the magnification of that.
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But this also lends to one other aspect of thought, and that's where I want to take and not turn a page, but just in your mind, think of it another way, because while we can do everything to the glory of God, this means that there are some things we ought not do because those things do not magnify the glory of God.
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They do not honor God when we do them.
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Gordon Fee, in his commentary, said this, he said, Certainly, Paul intends that this rule dictate the appropriateness of behavior, what is not or cannot be for God's glory probably should be excluded from whatsoever we do.
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So we ask ourselves, are we honoring God or magnifying God when we sin? No, we're not honoring God when we sin.
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And we're certainly not magnifying his glory when we engage in sin.
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But here's having said that, I want to I want to I want to make a point.
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This sermon is not a do this and don't do this message.
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Because you have to understand, this is what all of life is about, Christian ethics is important, and that's the do this, don't do this stuff.
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But what's more important is that this is your purpose.
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This is more more than just do this, don't do this.
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Here's a list of things you can do.
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Here's a list of things you can't do.
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It's this is your reason and purpose for being.
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This is the chief end of man.
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And if you want to know what a life looks like, that glorifies Christ, look at or glorifies God, look at Jesus Christ.
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If you want to know what it looks like to never, ever cease to glorify God, never, ever cease to glorify God in thought, word or deed, you look at Jesus Christ.
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A few years ago, somebody made a million dollars on bracelets because they came up with the slogan, what would Jesus do? And and they sold a bazillion bracelets and T-shirts and everything else with the title WWJD, what would Jesus do? And honestly, it's an attempt to instill Christian ethics.
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So in that sense, it's not bad.
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But I want to say this.
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I think there's a more important question than what would Jesus do? I think the more important question is what did Jesus do? Jesus glorified God.
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Jesus glorified God in everything and nothing he did brought dishonor to God.
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The entire life of Jesus was a magnification of the glory of the Father.
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And while he is our example and everything we do should run through the question of what would Jesus do? That is a good ethical question to ask ourselves.
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But Christ was more than an example, beloved.
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He was our substitute.
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People think about Jesus as being a substitute on the cross.
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Let me tell you this morning, Jesus is more than just your substitute on the cross.
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Jesus is your substitute from birth to death.
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Jesus is your substitute from the time you wake up in the morning to the time you go to bed and while you're asleep.
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Jesus is your substitute for whole life because his perfect obedience brought perpetual glory to God.
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And that perfect obedience is yours by grace through faith.
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You see, my relationship with God is not founded on how much I can bring him glory because guess what? If it was founded on how good I glorify him, I would not have a relationship with him.
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My relationship with God is based on Christ and how he glorified the Father in everything he did.
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That doesn't mean that what I do doesn't matter, but it reminds me that neither my triumphs nor my failures will change the fact that God sees me as righteous in his son.
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We are to live for the glory of God.
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And when we fail in that pursuit, and we will.
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This should cause us to cling ever more tightly to the righteousness of Christ that's been given to us by grace through faith.
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Paul tells us in Philippians, chapter three.
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I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus Christ, my Lord.
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For his sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.
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Beloved, Christ glorified God, Christ glorified God on our behalf, and Christ perfectly glorified God in his body.
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And he gives us that righteousness by which we stand before God perfect in him.
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And Christ calls his disciples to follow his example.
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Jesus told his disciples, if anyone would come after me, what must he do? He must take up his cross and follow me.
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What I do won't save me, but what I do does matter.
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What I do won't save me, but what I do does matter to Christ because he calls me to follow him.
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Cross in hand, follow him.
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And in every area of my life, I am to seek to glorify him.
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So the question of the day, really not the three questions I've asked, but the question today is, are we living to the glory of God? Is this on our mind when we make decisions or are we looking rather for ways to hide from God? Do we say, well, God's not going to care if I cheat on this or God's not going to care if I take this or don't take that, or God's not going to care if I do this or I don't do that, because this area of life doesn't really matter to God.
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Do we look for ways to fail or do we look for ways to glorify him? And when we do fail, do we look to Christ? If you're a believer, I want to say this, if you're a believer, a person who claims faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, if you're a believer, if you're a person who claims to believe in Jesus Christ and you say God has saved your soul, if the glory of God does not concern you, then I would question your confession.
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Maybe you're a believer and you worry that you don't glorify God enough.
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I would say you're right.
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And neither do I.
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Only did Christ cling to him and follow his example.
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But maybe you're an unbeliever.
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Maybe you have no desire to glorify Christ.
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I want you to know this.
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You will glorify God.
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You'll glorify God in one of two ways.
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If you're an unbeliever today, at some point in the future, God may save you.
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He may save you today.
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He may open up your heart of stone.
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He may take it out and give you a heart of flesh.
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And by the end of this sermon, you may be crying out, Abba, Father, Jesus, save me.
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You may cry out for mercy today and become an object of God's grace and glorify him in his grace.
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That may happen.
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Let me say this, if you continue in your rebellion, if you continue in your sin, you will still glorify God.
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Because on the day when he pours out his wrath on the unbelieving, on the day when he pours out his wrath, he will do so in justice and the judge of the universe will always do right.
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It says that in Genesis, the judge of the universe will do right.
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And when the judge of the universe does right, he will glorify himself in your eternal punishment.
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Beloved, I want to glorify God in his grace, not in his punishment.
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I pray your hearts the same.
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The gospel call goes out to everyone, trust in Christ, trust in him, receive the mercy that only he provides and know that your sins are forgiven and that his obedience is yours by grace through faith.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank you for your word.
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I thank you for the glory of God that we've gotten to express and confess this morning.
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And I pray that we would live to it, not just in this one hour a week that we come together and call church, but the whole week when we live as the church in the world, being salt and light in our workplaces, being salt and light in our businesses, being salt and light in our families, being salt and light even when we are at play.
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Lord, may it be that we seek to honor you in all that we do through your son, Jesus, we pray.
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Amen.