How To Glorify God, Pt.3

In this third installment of a four‑part series, the speaker reviews the previous lessons on God’s intrinsic glory and then introduces new ways believers can glorify Him. He emphasizes that God’s glory is part of His nature—unchangeable like sunshine—and that humans can only reflect or enhance it, never add to it. The first two methods discussed are aiming every action, even the mundane, toward God’s glory (citing 1 Corinthians 10:31) and recognizing that true glory comes when we suffer with Christ and bear holy anger against injustice, as illustrated by biblical examples such as Moses, Peter, and the zeal of the temple cleansers. The sermon then moves to four practical steps for glorifying God: (1) confessing faith in Jesus, whose obedient death leads to divine exaltation (Philippians 2:9‑11); (2) being content when others outshine us in gifts or recognition, thereby directing all acclaim to God; (3) understanding that the message, not the messenger, is what God blesses, illustrated by Paul’s prison testimony and a story of a preacher who discovered his lack of salvation; and (4) confessing sin, which absolves God of guilt and upholds His righteousness, as shown in the accounts of the thief on the cross, Achan’s trespass, and the prodigal son. The speaker concludes by outlining that these are the first four of a larger list of ways believers can keep God’s glory at the center of every aspect of life.

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Houston's First Baptist Church is a relevant biblical community where we gather our hearts, grow our souls and give our lives as we seek to fulfill the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20). This podcast provides weekly messages from Pastor Gregg Matte and others. Visit us at HoustonsFirst.org to learn more about HFBC, and visit us in person the next time you're in Houston!

Now tonight is the third part in a four -part series on how to glorify God. Last Sunday night, in my absence, Brother O 'Kelly did a masterful job, and it was a wonderful service, I know, and I've heard some wonderful reports about it. But because it's been two weeks now since we looked at this theme specifically, I would like for us to go back just for a moment and review a little bit for two or three minutes of what we've learned to this point and then introduce some new material tonight. Of course, we have said that the nature, that the glory of God is intrinsic to his nature, that we do not add to that glory when we glorify him. As the sunshine is always beautiful, bright sunshine, you can't make it more bright or less bright. You can merely reflect it or you can cover it up, but it doesn't change it. Just so the glory of God is intrinsic, God is always glorious. We cannot add to his glory, nor can we take from it. We can reflect his glory. We can enhance his glory. The Bible says we can adorn the doctrine of God. That means the teaching about God. And so as we adorn the teaching, we reflect the news about the reality of God's glory, but we do not simply make him glorious. And yet it is possible for us to glorify him. And when we glorify God, we are not making him glorious. We are simply announcing, declaring, and reflecting to the world that God is intrinsically and innately glorious. Now we saw last week that the first way that we glorify, two weeks ago, that the first way that we glorify God is to aim at his glory. This simply means to set a reflection of the image of the glory of God over, above, through, and beyond everything that we do, so that always there is the master design of how does this relate to the resplendent and reflectant glory of God, that that is set ever before our minds. And we saw that the apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10, 31, whatsoever you do, whether you eat and drink, do all to the glory of God. It does not simply mean that we go out and eat and drink in order that we might glorify him, but that when we do eat and drink, even something that menial is to be done in context with in mind the desire to glorify God. We saw that we glorify God by aiming away from our glory. And when we go out to preach or to teach, ultimately in our mind should not be, I hope they like me. How was my sermon? Did I teach well? But was God glorified? Spurgeon used to say that the test of every sermon and every musical concert and every public demonstration of worship of God was not that the people would go out and say, My, what a preacher. My, what a singer. My, what a choir. My, what a sermon. But my, what a Savior. It is a byproduct, therefore. We do not glorify God simply by not aiming at his glory. The resultant honor that comes to men is the byproduct of putting him first. And as they glorify him, as honor comes to them, they are the more honored and blessed. As God finds men with whom he can trust his glory, for he will not share his glory with any man. Moses' face shone when he had been in the presence of God, but he knew not. He was not conscious of it. There always comes an honor to the man that glorifies God, but it is the byproduct and not the end result. It means to aim at the glory of God means to desire his glory at any cost. Jesus prophesied to Peter that one day he would be led about with arms outstretched where he desired not to go. And John adds, this he spake, signifying what manner, by what manner of death he should, what, glorify God. It means to glorify God that we suffer when he suffers. And we saw that it is a sign of real Christian maturity, that when we don't just see that Jesus is a high priest to suffer for us, but that we suffer for him. And the Christian immaturity might be appreciation that he suffers for us, but that when we have the chance to suffer for him, it is Christian maturity. In Psalm 69, 9, we saw that Jesus, that David said prophetically what the Lord Jesus would say when he drove the money changers from the temple who were cheating the people. And that was the problem. The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up. He had his holy anger up. And it's good to have anger. It's good to have temper when it's holy. There are injustices worth getting mad at. And that's what Jesus was mad about. But he never sinned. And his name was defamed. His name is desecrated. His word defamed. His day blasphemed. His money stolen. His integrity impugned. And it glorifies God that we have a holy concern about the things of God. And that we are interceding for him and defending him and representing his integrity and reflecting his true worth and honor to the world. Paul said something like that when he made the statement, I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus. He says, he was saying, I have learned how to hurt in his place. Now tonight, we're going to look at two or three other things briefly by which we glorify God. I want you to turn to Philippians chapter 2. Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians about halfway through the New Testament. In my Bible, it's on page 952. I don't know what page it is in yours. Philippians chapter 2. And I want us to look at verse 9, please. We're talking about Jesus' death on the cross. He did not think the most desirable thing in the world was to be equal with God. He regained his glory by losing it. And he left it to come to earth and die for sins. Wherefore, in that obedience to the death of the cross, Philippians 2, 9, God also hath exalted him and given him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. What? To the glory of the Father. When a man confesses and acknowledges and makes public attestation and profession to the honor and homage and homage and lordship of Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. When he trusts the Lord Jesus, when he believes on him, when he accepts him, when he is saved, he does so to the glory of God. You cannot glorify God at all apart from faith in Jesus Christ. If you're going to live a life to the glory of the glory of God, you've got to start with salvation. To aim at the glory of God is to be aiming at, is to begin by aiming at Jesus Christ. That's the first thing, to accept Jesus as your Savior, to confess him as Lord to the glory of the Father. Now next we see that we glorify God, and this is very interesting I think, when we are content to be outdone by others in gifts and talents and recognition just so long as God gets the glory. Now that's good. Think about that for a minute. That's good for Christian workers. That's good for Christians. We aim at the glory of God. We aim away from our, from, from, at the glory of God by aiming away from our glory. God will not share his glory with any man. I told you last, uh, two weeks ago how Jesus in this Sermon on the Mount said, don't be like the hypocrites. They come in and make a little to -doot to -doot with their fanfare trumpeters and do a couple little plunk plunks in the offering and say, see me, see me, see Jack give, see Jack give money, see Jack give money now. Boy, everybody looks at him and that's wonderful, and he does so. Jesus said that he may be glorified of men. You cannot aim at the glory of God without totally aiming away from your own glory. Now listen closely. If another preacher comes and wins the accolades of the people and out -preaches me, if another choir director out -directs Gerald, if another teacher out -teaches Harry Pilate, our response to the response of the people to that situation says an awfully lot about our Christian maturity. It is to be pleased when others outdo us in talents and gifts and service, not to care who gets the glory, but to be grateful because God is glorified, period. Boy, that's a tough test for us. It isn't for Gerald, but brother, it is for me. Okay. I want you to turn over also in Philippians, back just a few verses now, to chapter 1, chapter 1, please. Verse 15. chapter 1, I think we'll back up to verse 13. Now the Apostle Paul is in jail, and, well, let's read it. 1, 13, so that my bonds, he said, I'm rejoicing even though I'm in jail for preaching the gospel because my bonds in Christ are manifest, everybody knows why I'm here, in all the king's palace, and in all other places. And many of the brethren, waxing confident by my bonds, are much more bold to speak the word without fear. Now he says, some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife. Now there were some who were saying, see, see, oh, Paul's wrong. He couldn't be right and be in jail, could he? So Paul's wrong, and we're right. Don't listen to Paul. Don't believe Paul anymore. Believe us. Listen to us. Let us be your heroes. Let us be your leaders. And they, the people were turning from Paul, and they were following these other preachers. And they were popular, and they were winning the accolades of the people. And Paul says, some are doing it out of strife and content. And he said, some are even doing it of a good will. He said, some preach of contention, not sincerely. They're doing it in mockery. Supposing that by going around and preaching Jesus insincerely, they're going to break my heart and add affliction to my bonds. But others do so of love. He says, not knowing that I am set. Man, I've made up my life for the defense of the gospel, and there shouldn't be a period here, because the thought really continues. What then, notwithstanding, in every way, who cares? Hallelujah. Whether it's in pretense or in truth, Jesus Christ is preached. That's all I care. He said, I don't care who preaches. I don't care who gets the glory. I don't care what a man's motive is. Now, you cannot separate yourself from a life of personal holiness and integrity as God preaches and works and teaches the life of Christ through you. However, it is not the man God is blessing. It is the word the man preaches that God blesses. I know a preacher who preached for 13 years and decided he wasn't saved. And he came down and he got saved. His name is E .F. Halleck at First Baptist Church in Norman, Oklahoma. And he said his first question that he had of himself was, then all these people that were saved under my ministry for 13 years weren't really saved. And he said, I realize that's foolish. God can talk through the mouth of a fool and talk through the mouth of a fool. He can talk through a mule. He can talk through anybody. It's the word that he blesses. And Paul says, doesn't matter who's preaching it or what the motive is. He said, it matters. But what matters the most is that Jesus Christ is preached and God is glorified. Isn't there a powerful lesson there for those of us that serve the Lord? Now, another thing, and I want to close with this. God is glorified when sin is admitted and confessed to God. Remember the thief on the cross. He said, Lord Jesus, you have, he said the other thief, this Lord Jesus hath done nothing amiss, but we receive the due reward of our deeds. We suffer indeed justly. Luke 23, 41. You remember the story of how at Jericho, God had told the children of Israel not to take anything in the spoil after the battle. And Achan went in and began to gobble up all the goodies that were left over and God told him not to do it. But he thought that nobody would know. And so he took it to his tent and dug a hole and buried it in the bottom of the tent. You know, he didn't think God could see through dirt six inches thick, but God can see pretty good. And Joshua came to him, Joshua 7, 19, and said, Achan, my son, give, I pray thee, glory to the Lord God of Israel and make confession unto him. He said, God is going to be glorified when you confess your sin. Why is God glorified? Why do we aim at the glory of God when we acknowledge our sin? Because we acknowledge that it is our sin. And we thusly exonerate God of guilt. You know, we tend to blame. Adam said, Lord, this woman. No, he didn't blame this woman. He said, this woman that thou gave us me. There's the real problem, Lord. You know, I'm weak. You arranged the circumstances of my life. You know, I couldn't handle it. You know, you put me in this position. We tend to blame somebody else, but to aim at the glory of God by the confession of sin means to absolve God of all guilt by accepting the blame ourself and to confess God, to confess that we will dare not assign to God the possibility of unrighteousness whatsoever. I think God is sorely displeased when people blame him for wars and sickness and death and cancer and disease. God made a beautiful world, but he gave man a free will and everything bad that's ever happened in this world is because somebody got out of God's will and created a hell where God had created a paradise. God didn't start this thing in motion. He gave us a volition to choose him, to honor him, to love him and to serve him. But with that choice, there was the risk of the wrong choice and we are to blame for our sins. That is not to say that that sick child is paying for his sins, but it is to say that certain forces have been operative in society from the history of the world, which are responsible for creating a lifestyle of a society in which there can be problems and disease and trouble and difficulty and heartache and heartbreak and sin and death. Jeremiah 9, Nehemiah 9, 33 says, thou art just in all that is brought upon us. I want to finish by looking for a moment at a little brief Old Testament story over in 1 Samuel chapter 5. So turn back there in your Bibles, please. This is about a third of the way into the Old Testament. 1 Samuel chapter 5. I want to tell you this story. The story is very simple. The children of Israel had camped, gone out to camp in the Mount of Ebenezer to do battle with the Philistines. Now they hadn't remembered God for a long, long time. And they were being defeated. They had already lost 30 ,000 troops. And at the fever pitch of the battle, somebody remembers the Ark of the Covenant, the symbolic presence of the God of Israel Israel and says, quick, run down and get the Ark. You know, God is some kind of a utilitarian genie. He said, let's get him up here real quick to help us out. We need him. We can use him right now. The chips are down. And so they went up and got the Ark. And guess what happened? The Philistines captured the Ark. And they took it away from them and drug it off into captivity for seven months and placed it in the temple of the evil God Dagon in ridicule and jest to the people. Now let's pick it up right there. In verse number three, 1 Samuel chapter 5. And when they of Ashdod, the Philistines and Ashdod, arose early on the morrow, they went into the temple of Dagon. And behold, Dagon was fallen on his face. Well, that's pretty good. I like that. Clean down to the earth before the Ark of the Lord. And they took Dagon and set him in his place again. And when they rose early on the morrow morning, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the ground before the Ark of the Lord again. And this time, the head of Dagon and both the palms of the hands were cut off upon the threshold. Only the stump of old ugly Dagon was left to him. You see, God didn't like being in that holy place. And boy, he was going to let them know that their God was going to bow down to the one who was the true God. Therefore, neither the priests of Dagon nor any that came into Dagon's house tread on the threshold of Dagon and Ashdod unto this day. But the hand of the Lord was heavy upon them of Ashdod, and he destroyed them and smote them with Imrods. And that's translated boils and carbuncles and internal cancerous type tumors, even of Ashdod and the coast thereon. God was not pleased. Why? Because he was not glorified and he was sending a plague upon the people. And they were filled with internal cancers and tumors and boils. Now we see as you come down to verse nine, and it was so that after they had heard carried it about, the hand of the Lord was against the city with a great destruction, and he smote the men of the city, both small and great, and they had Imrods, there's that word, in their secret parts, that means in the internal organs of the body, they were internal, not external. And boy, they began to cry and pray and said, what are we going to do? And the priests of Dagon and of Astod, the Philistines, got together and said, well, let's start by getting that ark out of here. The God of the Israelites is displeased and upset, and the plague's not going to go away until their God is glorified. And they said, take him away, and away he went. Now, verse 3, they began to think, now, if we send back the ark of God to Israel, send it not empty, but in any wise, return him a trespass offering, then ye shall be healed. Let's do something here to appease this God. And so they decided, in verse number 4, what shall be the trespass offering which we shall return unto him? And they answered, five golden Imrods. Now, it was typical of those days that any time a plague came upon the land, that they would take what was ever the form of the plague. And they would make five golden images of that plague form and offer it, or make golden images of that plague form, whatever it was all was. It was called a votive offering, and offer it to appease the God, to give him back the disease, the ruined thing represented that the plague had come in the form, but covered with gold that he might be pleased. So they said, let's make five of these tumors out of gold and appease him. And he says, and five golden mice. So there was obviously a plague of mice, not mentioned elsewhere, but came with it according to the number of the lords of the Philistines. For one plague was on you all and on your lords. Wherefore, ye shall make images of your Imrods and of images of your mice that mar the land, and ye shall give what? What's that called the God of Israel? And so it is critical, it is critical that God's glory, which is the sum total of his attributes of righteousness and holiness and mercy and justice and love, be impugned from any unholiness, unrighteousness, and unmercifulness. And that's the way God is glorified. When he is exonerated from all guilt of unrighteousness in the minds and eyes of men, God is not glorified when we blame God for depression and wars and cancer and sickness and, and, and, and bankruptcy and divorce and death. God is not glorified. God must be exonerated. His integrity, his righteousness must not be impugned. And when there is evil, when there is wrong, it can only be handled by accepting the blame ourselves. Thusly, the glory of God is established when sin is acknowledged and guilt is confessed that we have sin. Remember over there in Luke chapter 15, how the prodigal son decided to go back to God. He had lost everything. He had the world at his feet. They traded it all in for the sins of the world and ended up out slopping hogs. A terrible thing for a man that had fallen so far from the privilege that was his. And he decided, I will go back to my father and I will arise and go and I will say, and let's stop right there for a moment. Many a person has gone back to their father and they have said, and the prodigal might have said, well, Lord, I'm sorry I got in this mess, Father, I'm sorry I got in this mess and I want to come back. But Lord, you, you know that the blame's not fully mine. You know, he might have said, Lord, your father, you know, you, you made me go to church and you crammed religion down my throat and I got enough. So I just had to go out. No, he didn't do that at all. He said simply, I have sinned. I am to blame. You are righteous. You are the sum total of your glory is the sum total of your characteristics, a part of which is righteousness. I am unrighteous. You're righteous. You're innocent. I'm guilty. When they did this, God was glorified and God was blessed. Now we're going to look at about 10 things in two Sunday nights or at least one, maybe two to come, probably two on the glory of God and how to glorify him. We've seen that we glorify God by reflecting his glory. Understand we don't add to it. We merely reveal it. We glorify God by aiming at that purpose, no matter what the cross above everything else in life. We aim at his glory. We glorify God by receiving Jesus Christ. We glorify God by being content when others outdo us in gifts and service and talents and abilities to the Lord and not caring but being grateful just as long as God gets the glory. And we do so, fourthly, by the confession of our sin which imputes God of all responsibility and maintains the integrity of His glory. So these are the first four of 10 or 12 steps by which we shall see that we can glorify God. May we bow our heads together. Our Father, bless us, we pray, and grant that over, above, through, and beyond everything that we ever do, there shall be an image of God's glory and all of life's decisions made in perspective to how it relates to the glory of God. And Lord, we know that you don't share your glory with any man and you bless this church and her people in a wonderful way. And dear Father, we just want to say, to God be the glory. In Jesus' name, amen.