All for His Glory

"For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another." (Isaiah 48:11 ESV)

"God loves His glory more than He loves us, and this is the foundation of His love for us." John Piper

Sometimes I think about American Christianity. If the Biblical saints could see our worship, our fellowship, our evangelism, and our theology, I wonder if they would recognize the faith that they bled and died for. We seem to have so many "Christians" who sing the song, hear the message, possibly even pay the tithe, but as Jonathan Edwards said a few hundred years ago, "they first rejoice . . . that they are made so much of by God; and then on that ground, he seems in a sort, lovely to them." The Religious Affections, ed. by John Smith, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 2 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959), pp.250. Edwards was describing church goers who seemed to do and say all of the right things. But there was a problem with their faith. The problem was that their foundational delight was in themselves. When they looked at the Gospel it seemed to them that God had made much of them. So their attraction to God was rooted in their own self-centeredness. They had transformed the Gospel into a formula for supporting their own self-esteem. Obviously they must be important if God would send Jesus to die for them. God was not glorious to them simply because of His own worth. He was glorious to them, in a sense, because they believed that God was centered on them rather than centered on Himself. Edwards had a name for these people. He called them hypocrites. And for Edwards a hypocrite was not a straying believer; a hypocrite was no true believer at all.
When I first read Edwards' quote, it horrifically reminded me of American Christianity. We need to be reminded in America that God is God-centered. We tend to ignore passages like Isaiah 48:9-11, where God explicitly tells His own people Israel that He is showing patience to them for His own name's sake. In Ezekiel 36:22 God even goes further by saying bluntly that "...It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came." How many times have we presented the Gospel as a means to make much of ourselves, rather than making much of Jesus? How many times have we attended a worship service with our own benefit in mind rather than the Glory of God? Yes, the Gospel demonstrates God's love for us (Romans 5:8), and yes we do benefit greatly from it (John 3:16), but the primary goal of the Gospel is for God to be glorified. In Ephesians 1 Paul recounts the blessings of God in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. With each proclamation Paul gives the purpose for God's blessing toward us..."to the praise of his glorious grace..." God is God-centered. He acts and works for His own name's sake. And His name is praised supremely through the redemption of sinners by the blood of His own Son. Let us not be hypocrites. Let us not think God is lovely, in a sort, because we believe that He makes much of us. Let us not do Christian things for our own benefit. Instead, let our goal in all of our Christian activity be the same as God's goal...for His name to be glorified.