Do We Really Know How To Glorify God?

Do We Really Know How To Glorify God?

 

Good Morning Friends,

 

Yogi Berra once said, “I came to a fork in the road and I took it.” We laugh at this because we know that we have to choose. Every day we have to choose and some paths we will take together with our brothers and sisters in faith in other denominations and some paths we will take with the people in the worshiping community we attend and some paths with just with our family and some with our spouse and some choices will lead us down our own path. Jesus, the one we follow, prayed that we, His disciples would be one, loving one another and making disciples of all nations, walking a righteous path. David prayed that we might glorify God together and Paul taught that in our diversity the Body of Christ might come together, and His path becomes our own. It is not always easy to listen to the Lord in making decisions that honor God. So today we face up to the fact and ask: Do We Really Know How To Glorify God?

 

Scripture: Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that is taking place among you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you are sharing Christ’s sufferings, so that you may also be glad and shout for joy when his glory is revealed. If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the spirit of glory, which is the Spirit of God, is resting on you. But let none of you suffer as a murderer, a thief, a criminal, or even as a mischief maker. Yet if any of you suffers as a Christian, do not consider it a disgrace, but glorify God because you bear this name. For the time has come for judgment to begin with the household of God; if it begins with us, what will be the end for those who do not obey the gospel of God? And “If it is hard for the righteous to be saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinners?” Therefore, let those suffering in accordance with God’s will entrust themselves to a faithful Creator, while continuing to do good.

 

1 Peter 4:12-19 (NRSV)

 

Do not fear, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you; I will say to the north, “Give them up,” and to the south, “Do not withhold; bring my sons from far away and my daughters from the end of the earth— everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”

 

Isaiah 43:5-7 (NRSV)

 

Truly, O people in Zion, inhabitants of Jerusalem, you shall weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry; when he hears it, he will answer you. Though the Lord may give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself any more, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. And when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left, your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.”

 

Isaiah 30:19-21 (NRSV)

I am going to send an angel in front of you, to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared.

 

Exodus 23:20 (NRSV)

 

O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together.

 

Psalm 34:3 (NRSV)

 

The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

 

John 17: 22-23 (NRSV)

 

Message: God’s act of creating a clean heart in each of us can be agonizing. Giving up our pride is difficult. Getting old can be a pain. Facing up to the challenge can be uncomfortable. But we have been formed to glorify God in all things. The past can guide us and the future, one of hope, can bring us, but it is God with us…love with us that shows us how to glorify God on the journey. For it is here we stand in the creative tension of this moment in the balance between the law and grace, between the covenant promises and the commandments, between faith and works, between prosperity and simplicity, between enjoying and enduring, between the Word and the Spirit, between the gifts of the Spirit and the fruit of the Spirit, between the internal and the external, between quantity and quality, between separation and association, between zeal and wisdom and finally we have to decide. We must decide to act in the tension between the love of comfort and the love of discipline. Friends, we are to let love bind our decisions in ways that glorifies God and brings the body together. That is the Jesus Way of prayer, courage and faith. No, we may not get infallible, irrefutable answers, but we will have the gracious assurance of seeing God at work in us and through us. Friends, behind us we have a still small voice and in front, an angel, helping us to see love even in the darkness. Press on friends, the best is yet to be.

 

Pray that we might carry out the purpose of our existence to glorify God and lead others to this love. Pray we glorify God through our acts of faith and works even when it gets difficult. Pray we expect the miracle of Christ’s love for us in all things. Pray when necessary we demonstrate a sincere and living faith by overcoming unpleasant circumstances to glorify God. Pray we pray with others so we might find how we can glorify God in relationship with a better understanding of God’s will. Pray we learn to apply the teachings of Jesus, the guidance of the Holy Spirit and the love of the Father in our lives so that we might glorify God in changing the world. Pray we learn to ask for things that glorify God in our hearts and households. Pray we rejoice in the spirit of glory when God is revealed.

 

Blessings,

 

John Lawson