Title: The Glorious God
Scripture: 1 Timothy 1:17
Speaker: Nate Pickowicz
In 1973, J.I. Packer penned what has now become the classic book, Knowing God. Not thinking that it would make much of a splash at the time, Packer gave his reasons for writing the book, namely, he says, to confront two unhappy trends in evangelicalism. The first, he says, is that Christian minds have been conformed to the modern spirit, the spirit that spawns great thoughts of man and leaves room for only small thoughts of God.
And the second trend was that Christian minds had become confused by the modern skepticism, he says, which effectively downplayed the study of theology. But Packer responds to these trends, and he notes this, the questioner clearly assumes that a study of the nature and character of God will be impractical and irrelevant for life. In fact, however, it is the most practical project anyone can engage in.
Knowing about God is crucially important for the living of our lives. Disregard the study of God, and you sentence yourself to stumble and blunder through life blindfolded, as it were, with no sense of direction and no understanding of what surrounds you end quote. Furthermore, we read in John 17 3, Jesus Himself says that eternal life consists of knowing God.
This is where theology comes in. The very word theology, the two Greek words theos and logos, literally refer to words about God or the study of the doctrine of God. And while the study of the actual person of God is known as theology proper, theology proper is when you study the Father Himself, but the question is, well, what can we know about God? What does the Bible teach us about God? Well, in many places we learn about God's divine attributes or perfections, as some scholars call them.
In other words, these are characteristics to describe what He's like. We hear words like omniscience, the fact that God is all-knowing, omnipotent, He's all-powerful, omnipresent, He's ever-present, always-present. These are examples of the attributes of God, and yet many people tend to balk at theology because it doesn't seem to be practical or accessible.
What impact will studying theology have on my daily life? Let me frame this in the form of a question. How much do you know about your spouse or your children or your parents? How much do you know about them? In most places, people who are closest to you are close to you because you know them pretty well. And I would even add to that, what would people say of you if they asked you about your spouse or your children or your parents, someone you were in close relationship with, if they asked you, well, tell me something about them, and you say, well, I really don't know much about them at all.
How would they respond? They'd look at you kind of curiously, wouldn't they? The same goes when you tell people that you're a Christian, that you know God. And they say, well, what do you know about God? And you say, well, actually, I don't really study theology. It's inconsistent.
If you know someone, you're going to learn about them because to learn about them is to know them even better. But it goes beyond this because studying God to know Him, to know Him is to worship Him. In fact, you can't worship a God you don't know.
It's very interesting that when the writers of Scripture break out into praise, and what seems to be spontaneous praise of God, they do so oftentimes by declaring His attributes. They declare who He is. In fact, this is the common practice of the Apostle Paul, as we'll see shortly here.
And one of the most glorious exaltations of theology and doxology comes to us in 1 Timothy 1.17. And so, if you haven't already turned there in your copy of Scripture, turn over to 1 Timothy chapter 1. We're going to look only really at verse 17 today. But 1 Timothy 1.17 comes on the heels of the Apostle Paul's own testimony of saving faith. He has already expressed the necessity of stewarding what he calls the glorious gospel of the blessed God in verse 11.
And then he showcases how God saved him by that very gospel. And frankly, all the elements of the gospel are there. God, sin, Christ, and the response, all of that is in his profession if you were to look at it and examine it.
He talks about the mercy and the grace and the patience of the Lord, the character of God, which is elaborated also in verse 17, which we're going to look at today. He declares the sinfulness of his own former condition. He says, I was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor.
He confesses his sinfulness. And then he shares the work of Christ in verse 15. Now, granted, it is in brief fashion here, but he talks about the work of Christ to save.
He says in verse 15, this is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am the foremost. He even includes here the needed response to the gospel in verse 16, that others would believe in him for eternal life. So there's the mandate for us to believe this gospel message.
So all of this is there. Paul gives not just the word of gospel, but also the testimony of a person who's been transformed by the gospel. Of course, through all of this, one key truth stands out, that the gospel, the salvation of the gospel, is all of grace, and that it is all for God's glory.
In fact, that's how Paul concludes this section with a declaration of praise, a doxology. Look with me at verse 17. Now, to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever, amen.
This is one of many doxologies in Scripture. Several I was looking at this week and sort of writing them down and noting the different themes and the context, and really was overwhelmed at the majesty of how these are put in the Scriptures here. But just to give you a few examples, just before the address of the error of false teachers in Galatians chapter 1, the Apostle Paul declares just prior to that in verses 3 through 5, he says, the Lord Jesus Christ gave himself for our sins that he might deliver us out of this present evil age according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forevermore, amen.
Not just a statement of gospel, but also a statement of doxology. It expresses both the marvelous work of the Lord to save and also praises Him and ascribes glory, because that's what doxology is really all about. It's about glory.
Well, what is glory? The Greek word doxa, doxology, doxa means glory, and these are expressions or words of that glory. Now to be very clear, when someone will say to give God glory, we know that they're actually not giving Him anything, because what do we have that God does not already possess? Furthermore, what could we possibly add to His magnificent glory? There's nothing lacking in His glory, nothing lacking in His person. It's not as though God created us because He was missing something.
He is complete and total perfect in Himself. And so we're not talking about actually giving Him something He doesn't already possess, but rather as Psalm 29 commands, we are to ascribe to the Lord glory and strength, ascribe to the Lord glory, do His name. And then the psalmist says, worship the Lord in holy array.
And so what we're doing is we're recognizing, we're acknowledging, we're extolling what we behold already in Him. It's when you see that the Lord is glorious and you declare almost as if in spontaneous praise, yes, O Lord, you are glorious. We're meant to do this, we're built to do this.
Did you know that you weren't just created to live here for a hundred years and then leave? You were actually built and designed to glorify God. Now the Bible teaches that those who don't do this suppress the truth in unrighteousness, but that God-sized hole, that vacuum in your heart that's desiring to be filled, the throne in your heart that you fill and place idols onto, that is meant for God. You were built and designed to love, to know, and to glorify God.
We oftentimes talk about what is the meaning of life. Our men's theology study is going through that right now. What's the meaning of life? The meaning of life is to glorify God, and by doing so you enjoy Him forever.
And so doxology is an expression of praise and worship and adoration for the glory that belongs to the Lord. And so we also ask in doing that, we want to continue to drill down into this concept here. What exactly is God's glory? Again, doxa, literally in the Greek, it literally refers to splendor or visible brightness.
That's literally what the word is referring to. But with regards to the Lord, when it's talking about God, we understand that His glory is the manifested sum of His divine attributes. What does that mean? It's all of who He is displayed.
It is all of God's holiness, all of God's love, all of His justice, all of His transcendence, His omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, immutability, grace, mercy, sovereignty. Everything that makes God God is the fullness of His glory. He's hard to comprehend, but all that is God is the glory of God.
And yet there are places in Scripture where we read of these attributes and express praise and thanksgiving for them. It's when you praise God for who He is. For example, at the end of the long discourse of the blessings of salvation and unity in Ephesians, Paul offers this doxology in Ephesians chapter 3, verses 20 and 21.
He says, Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever, amen. Paul is wrapping up the attributes of God, who He is, but he's wrapping that in praise and adoration of His glory. Or, at the conclusion of Paul's teaching on the purposes of God for Israel, he declares in Romans 11, 33-36, he says, Oh, the depths of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! Then he quotes Old Testament Scripture.
He says, For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has become His counselor? Footnote, no one. Or who has first given to Him that it might be paid back to Him again? Again, no one. And then he says this, For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to Him be the glory forever, amen.
We see here the wisdom and centrality of God in all things. It's as if Scripture is teaching that all of existence is wrapped around and pointing back to Him. And why is that? Well, because it is.
Again, from Him, Creator. Through Him, Sustainer. To Him, the final end, are all things, to Him be the glory forever.
And so, when we get to 1 Timothy 1.17, we're arriving here in the great tradition of marvelous doxology. We arrive here at a place that has given Christians pause for generations. In fact, we read the words of a 17-year-old young man, the great American revivalist and Puritan born out of time, Jonathan Edwards.
Jonathan Edwards wrote this, referring to himself as a 16 or 17-year-old young man. And he says, As I read the words of 1 Timothy 1.17, there came into my soul, and it were diffused through it, a sense of the glory of the divine being. A new sense, quite different from anything I have ever experienced before.
Never any words of Scripture seemed to me as these words did. I thought with myself how excellent a being that was, and how happy I should be, if I might enjoy that God, and be wrapped up to God in heaven, and be, as it were, swallowed up in Him. A 17-year-old boy, reading this verse, enraptured by thoughts of the divine being.
And so I want us to share in that sentiment this morning. I want to just pull back the curtain and look at this verse together. Look at what this verse is teaching us about God, so that we might rightly give Him glory.
Verse 17, Paul addresses all of his affections. He says, This is to the King. To the King.
Now, at first glance, we might be thinking that Paul is referring to Jesus, who is called the King of kings and Lord of lords. Certainly that is always and forever true. But as a general rule in Scripture, when you read doxologies, for the most part, doxologies are addressed first and foremost to God the Father.
There is a glorious attribution to the Son and to the Spirit, but we're talking about the first person of the Trinity. That's generally how we understand doxology's source here. There is no division within the Trinity, we might add.
What is true of the Father is also true of the Son and of the Spirit. But I think we can be pretty sure here that Paul has the Father in mind, especially when we consider that one of the things he points to is the invisibility of God. Certainly, that's something that's not generally associated with Jesus Christ, because He became incarnate, we could see Him.
We don't see Him by sight today, we see Him by faith. But there were believers alive at that time that could see Him by sight. And so again, we're leaning more toward, this is attributed or describing the first person of the Trinity, the Father, God.
However, it's helpful, I think, to examine what we know that Paul is definitely saying. Because I don't want to get us into this Trinitarian discussion, I don't want to lose ourselves in that. But what is Paul focusing on here? He's focusing on the kingship of God, the kingship of God.
We think about Old Testament references to God, such as Psalm 10, verse 16, "'The Lord is King forever and ever. Nations have perished from His land.'" Referring to the fact that God is forever, nations rise, nations fall, and they're forgotten. But God stands as King over all.
Or Psalm 29, 10, "'The Lord sat as King at the flood. Yes, the Lord sits as King forever.'" And pointing to God as King, we see God's transcendence. We see His sovereignty, sovereignty.
Charles Spurgeon said that the sovereignty of God is a pillow on which a believer can lay their head at night. We can rest in God's sovereignty. That God is in control over everything, and He's exalted over all creation.
You don't have to worry and fear about what's going to happen, because the sovereign Lord is over all things. And nothing happens apart from His say-so. All things have been designed and orchestrated and ordained through His provident hand.
And so He is King. But in His address to God as King, Paul focuses on four aspects of God's transcendence, four things that we learn about the King of glory here. And we're going to look at His eternality, His immortality, His invisibility, and His singularity.
So if you're taking notes, His eternality, immortality, invisibility, and singularity. First, Paul addresses the King eternal, eternal. The Greek word rendered eternal here refers to the ages, the ages.
It's a little bit obscure when you think about it, just words in general. But we're talking about long stretches of time. Age after age after age is the idea here.
Some have actually rendered this phrase here not just the King eternal, but the King of the ages. That's accurate too. But the sense here is of God's timelessness and His eternality.
See, as created beings, I think it's hard for us to wrap our minds around the eternality of God. You say, oh, forever and ever and ever. And that just seems like craziness to us because we have no frame of reference.
Because we, as the created beings, we are born into time and we're trapped in time. For us, 100 years is a lifetime. A person gets to 100 years old and we say they've lived a long, good life.
And for us, 1,000 years, that feels like an eternity. Well, how long has this gone now? All this empire, we have ruins that go back 1,000 years and we say, 1,000 years, wow. 1,000 years is a long time.
But God is outside of all time constraints. In fact, 2 Peter 3.8 says with the Lord, one day is as 1,000 years and 1,000 years as one day. Now, you can't do a one-to-one correlation here.
Peter's not talking about measuring time that makes sense in God's economy here. He's simply saying that days and months and years and millennia have no effect on God. It's not as though God has a watch and He's worried about the time.
He's not trapped in it. He's not mastered by it. He's not bound by it.
He doesn't exist in time. Psalm 145.13, your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom and your dominion endures throughout all generations, whereas we are worried about time. Every day that goes by, we are keenly aware of how much time has gone by and how little time we have left, whereas we are worried about the time we can only accomplish things for one lifetime.
We can do only what we can do for this life and then it's over, but God, God is king eternally. He never stops. It never ends for Him.
He's not bound. He's not worried about the future. He's not having regrets about the past.
God simply is. God is. Frankly, this is utterly mysterious.
This is awe-inspiring. As Jeremiah 10.10 notes, the Lord is the true God. He is the living God and everlasting king.
He is God over all things past. He's God over all things present and over all things future. He is the king eternal.
He is also the king immortal, immortal. The Greek word that Paul uses here is aphthatos, which means incorruptible, imperishable, lasting forever. It's not as though God merely exists eternally, but He's some sort of aging being.
You watch movies, you watch fantasy movies or read books and when you have a creature, a mythical creature that's very old, you look at them and they're very archaic looking and their skin looks like rocks and stone and there's cracks and wrinkles and when they move their joints crack and the rocks sort of crumble around them and there's this sense of, you know, they're archaic. That's not the way that God is. God is not some aging being who just groans and wrinkles under the time.
Quite the opposite. God never ages. He never depletes in any way, whereas we are mortal and we're subject to the awful trappings of immortality.
1 Corinthians 15.52 says that one day, there's going to come a day for you and for me, if we're in Christ, that our bodies will be raised, not perishable and mortal, but imperishable and immortal. Well, how is that going to happen? How in the world are you and I going to be raised imperishable from being perishable? Because we will be changed by the one who is himself immortal and imperishable. He's able to take all that he is and use it to raise us to become somewhat like him in that way.
And yet we read in the Sinfulness of Humanity, Romans 1.23, that those who have exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for the image in the form of corruptible man. Human beings in our sinfulness, we take what is immortal and incorruptible and we put it over here and we say, I'm going to take something that is mortal and perishable and corruptible and I'm going to place that in the place of my heart where there's worship. That's folly.
That's folly. You're missing out on the brilliance and the majesty of who God is. You're cheapening your worship.
When you worship something that is temporal, mortal, perishable, a celebrity, when you're worshiping a car, a job, a vacation, yourself, whatever you worship that is not the true and living God is folly and it's a waste of worship. And yet God, His being never diminishes. He never degrades.
He is always perfectly and pristinely God forever, incorruptible, imperishable, immortal. And then Paul adds, God is invisible. He is invisible.
This aspect of who God is is particularly noteworthy. And as I was looking at this this week, you know, I'm looking at the immortality of God and the eternality of God and they're very grandiose things and then I go, okay, invisibility. That doesn't feel in the moment as grand as the other two.
Why does Paul reference this here? What is it about God's invisibility? Because here's the thing, as humans, we desire to worship that which we can see. Again, that desire, that pulse in us that wants to worship, we want to see what we're worshiping. That's why we go to idolatry.
That's why every culture has always and ever gone to idolatry because they want to see what they're worshiping, which is why so many false religions, including Roman Catholicism, features statues and icons and pictures to be venerated and honored. That's why iconography is so awful because it's not what the Lord desires at all. Well, how do we know? Because the second commandment prohibits the worship of grave and images.
That's there for a reason. That's not just some old archaic thing because we read commandments like that and we say, okay, as long as I don't carve a statue and bow down to worship it, I'm okay. But that's not at all, or there's more, I should say, to the sense of it than that.
He says in Exodus 20, verse 4, you shall not make for yourself an idol or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on earth beneath or in the water underneath the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God. Furthermore, Jesus said in John 4, 24, God is spirit.
God is spirit. Spirit is invisible. And those who worship him must worship.
Jesus says they must worship in spirit and truth. He doesn't say find a thing to worship and bow down to it, draw pictures of it. He says we must worship the true and living God in spirit and in truth.
And so as the divine spirit, God is invisible. He's invisible. We cannot see him with our own human eyes.
In fact, the Lord told Moses in Exodus 33, 20 that no man can see me and live. We want desperately to see something. That's why Jesus' movies are so popular, by the way.
Now, I'm not going to ruin your Saturday night watching movies about Jesus, but I will say that that's why we're drawn to movies and TV shows and pictures. In the Renaissance when they were painting pictures of Jesus, that's why we're drawn because we love Jesus in our hearts. We want to see him visibly.
But we can't see Jesus by sight. We must see him by faith in order that one day we will see him by sight. So the longing in your heart to see him as he is, it will be realized when you see him in heaven someday.
But it's not for right now. He is invisible to us. And yet when the Lord told Moses, you can't see me, it's interesting because even when God disclosed himself to Moses on the mountain, which was a very unique and individual thing, he passed by him very quickly, revealing only a muted expression of who he is, his glory.
But then he declares to him his divine attributes. It wasn't about what Moses saw. It was actually about what he heard.
He heard God declaring truths about himself. He said of himself, the Lord, the Lord God, compassionate, gracious, long-suffering, loving, truthful, forgiving, just. When Moses beheld the glory of God, it wasn't just the brightness.
It was a declaration of who God really is from the mouth of God himself. Now to say that God is invisible does not mean he's incomprehensible. We can understand him on some level.
Well how do we know this? Well, Romans 1.20, for since the creation of the world, listen to this, his invisible attributes, his eternal power and divine nature, listen, have been clearly seen. I just told you that you can't see them. How does that work? How is it possible that we can clearly see his invisible attributes, his eternal power and divine nature? He says, Paul says, they've been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made so that they are without excuse.
In the same way that we can see the wind, which is invisible, we are able to see the effects of the wind and thereby verify its existence. Have you ever seen wind? You've never seen wind. You've lived this entire life and you've never seen wind.
You've seen things blowing around in the wind, haven't you? But you've never seen wind. No man has seen God at any time, the Bible says. And yet we know that he's real and that he's working because of what has been made.
Even though natural revelation and creation, God is clearly seen. John 1.18, Jesus is said of him, it says no man has seen God at any time. But then it says, Jesus, who is the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known to us.
Jesus has explained the invisible God. After all, Colossians 1.15 says that Jesus is the image of the invisible God through the incarnation. And so if you want to see God the Father who is invisible, look at Jesus Christ the Son who is visible in time, at that time, but now we see him in the Scriptures.
And we bear witness to the work in our lives that he's done. There's evidence, evidence throughout nature, evidence in our conscience, evidence in salvation even. And one day there'll be evidence that'll be undeniable in the consummation of all things.
But this brings us to the last modifier here, of God the King, Paul says he is the only God. Literally, it's monos theos, that's where we get monotheism. We do not believe in multiple gods.
The Trinity is not multiple gods. There's only one true God. And yet we recognize in the fourth century the early church began using this word Trinity to understand the mystery of the Godhead.
Because Scripture is very clear that the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. And yet Deuteronomy 6.4 clearly states the Lord our God, the Lord is one. One God who exists eternally in three distinct persons.
Yet Paul is not looking to get into Trinitarian theology here, that's not the goal of this verse. Scripture talks about this in other places, but what is Paul doing here? Again, the nature of the verse is doxological, it's praising God. And so in referring to God as the only God, or in Romans 16.27, the only wise God, the purpose here is to declare the supremacy of the only true God amid a world of false gods.
Remember back in your mind, Ephesus was inundated with Greek philosophy and pagan religion, which showcased a myriad of false gods. I mean, the church would be traveling around the streets and they would go down and they would just see a pantheon full of false gods everywhere. So they were very aware of the multiplicity of so-called false gods.
Even when Paul visited the Areopagus in Athens, he walked down the street and he was aghast at the sight of all these statues to various gods. Statue upon statue to false gods. And so when he saw one statue with just a known name ascribed to it, it just said to an unknown God.
It's as if the Greeks were just trying to cover all the bases, if we forgot one, we'll just give it to an unknown God. Well, Paul sees that and he seizes on it and he goes before Morris Hill, he goes and declares before the wise men of the city, he declares this unknown God to them and he refers to the true and living God, the only God. He preached to them the King eternal, immortal, invisible, completely unique.
There's none like Him. There's no one like God. We are reminded of Hezekiah's prayer in 2 Kings 19.15, where Hezekiah says, O Lord, the God of Israel, who is enthroned above the cherubim, you are God, you alone.
Of all the kingdoms of the earth, you have made heaven and earth. There's no one like Him. No one like Him.
And so we see in brief staccato fashion, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, Paul has declared the truths about God all so that we could ascribe worship to Him. And so we ask, why is this kind of exercise so important? Why do we do theology? Because that's all we've done this morning. That's all the sermon has been, is just doing the work of theology.
Understanding who God is. Why do we do this? Because you cannot worship a God whom you don't rightly know. Otherwise, you'll end up praying to a God of your own making.
And so, mark this, sound theology leads to profound doxology. Sound theology will always lead to profound doxology. We must know the Lord according to what He has revealed about Himself.
God, what do You say about Yourself? Because that's what I want to know. I don't want to invent my own thoughts about God. So many people do that.
So many people who claim to be Christians write books about that. They stick words into God's mouth and say, that's God. It's not.
To understand God is to mind the Scriptures, to look at what has been displayed to us in His Word, observe the creation, and piece this together and say, this is what You say about Yourself, O Lord. I want to spend my life knowing who You are for real. Because why build worship into your life that's false? Don't waste your life on worthless worship, my friends.
Worship the true and living God. And so, the more that we do that, the more that we study to know who He is, our worship becomes more and more pure and true. And so, Paul declares the perfections of the King, and then he ascribes here, he says, be honor and glory forever and ever.
Amen. The word honor here refers to value, esteem, or respect. It's when you see the Lord for who He is, and you assign to Him the highest value, the utmost respect, and the greatest esteem.
Let me ask you the question. Is God valuable to you? Now, you're going to give me the Christian answer, the Sunday school answer, and that's fine. But ask yourself rhetorically, ask yourself, is God valuable to you? What is He worth to you? If you could attain to knowing God at a high price, would you sell everything to obtain Him? That's what Jesus said about the kingdom.
The kingdom is like a treasure hidden in a field. And when a man finds it, and he understands it's there, he covers it back over, he goes home, he sells everything he has to go and buy the field, because I want that treasure. I want to know God.
Or put this another way, is His opinion of you and your life most important to you? Or are you most worried about what other people think of you? Or are you worried most about your own self-esteem? That word has been co-opted by culture. Self-esteem. What does that even mean? Lifting yourself up? Doesn't the Scripture say to humble yourself down that Christ might be lifted up? I'm not talking about self-deprecation here.
I'm talking about genuine humility that recognizes that we are the creature and we are meant to worship the Creator. Is God's opinion of you the most important opinion? When you live your life, when you make decisions, when you go here, go there, buy this, do that, are you thinking about, Lord, what do You think about this? I want to do things that please You. And I'll tell you, that gets really hard when God's desire and the world's desire or my desire are in conflict.
Will you stand for God? Will you stand for truth? For example, God commands that one day in seven, at least, you set aside time to worship Him. But how often is something else taking precedence over that? I was talking to someone this week. That's the bane of culture.
It used to be even unbelievers in culture didn't open the stores on Sunday. If you wanted a gallon of milk, you had to wait till Monday. That's gone.
Now we have sports games that meet on Sunday mornings and drive Christians to the place where they have to decide between doing the thing that my kid loves to do and going and worshiping God with other believers. It's a real challenge. There's lots of other ways that we see this meted out.
And I'm not picking on any one person or specific thing. I'm just saying, ask the questions. Examine yourself.
Is God most valuable to me? Is the worship of God the most important thing? Is carving out time... People say, I don't have time to read my Bible. I work a lot of hours. Make the time.
If I gave you a million dollars to read your Bible every day, would you do it? Well, how about two million? How about ten million? If I gave you a billion dollars, would you read your Bible? Well, if it's a billion, I guess. God is the God of all things. He is the preeminent One.
Please don't hear me guilting and shaming you, but rather extolling you to see God for who He is. Do you see Him as worthy? Do you see Him as glorious? Do you see Him as valuable? Can you really say, with Paul, with psalmists, to God be all honor and glory? Let's talk about glory. We've already said that you cannot give God glory that He already possesses, but you can worship Him in the full array of His glorious splendor.
Again, we are meant as His creation to marvel at the wonder of the Creator. He alone belongs on the throne of our hearts. John MacArthur writes of the glory of God, one glimpse of God's glory in its full unmediated potency would literally be fatal to unglorified human flesh.
The Apostle Paul described it as unapproachable light whom no one has ever seen. Nevertheless, a yearning to see God's glory is one of the hallmarks of true belief in Him." We declare that God is glorious. Our hearts long to see that glory.
Jesus says we long to see Him as He is, because we understand that, again, He is the source and the sustainer and the satisfaction of all things. For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. What are His next words? To Him be the glory forever.
1 Timothy 1.17 We read that this glory is to be His forever and ever. It's the same phrase referred to back when He talks about God eternal. It's the same word here.
Forever and ever literally means age after age after age after age. There will never not be a time when God is glorified. He will receive all honor and all glory forever and ever.
It's almost as if you could say, really, Paul, is that true? If you could even deny the truthfulness of v. 17, He ends it with, it is true. Amen. This is the most undeniable truth that there is.
That all honor and all glory belongs to God. Again, this is a short verse, but it's transcendent truth. Let our hearts never grow tired of singing praises of our glorious God.
Jude concludes his letter, Now to Him, who is able to keep you from stumbling and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless and with great joy. To the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority before all time and now and forever. Amen.
Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I'm keenly aware that my words by themselves are inadequate. I cannot describe Your majesty, Your attributes, Your glory in my own words and let them be sufficient.
Lord, even the tonality of my voice, I cannot yell or preach or sing or extol loud enough, high enough, long enough. There is nothing that my feeble tongue can say that will hold even a candle to Your glory. And yet, when we read the words of Scripture, Your Word is sufficient.
Your Word declares the majesty of who You are. And even though our hearts and our ears and our eyes cannot behold and comprehend and even stand before Your glory, by faith, even as mortal, sinful people, by faith, we can get a glimpse of Your glory. And You've done so because You've given us Jesus Christ.
You've given us a mediator between God and man. You've given us the perfect One, the Holy One, the author and perfecter of faith. You've given us Jesus to stand before us in the gap, to be our advocate with You, the Father.
You've given us a Christ who even though He's taken on the frailty of humanity, sinlessly so, He sympathizes with our weaknesses. He looks like He's mortal and perishable. He looks just like us.
And yet, dwelling within Him, somehow, mysteriously, is eternal God in human flesh. And this wonderful, beautiful Jesus came to earth and gave His life as a ransom for us. Satisfied all of the requirements of Your law.
Your perfection, Your holiness, Your sinlessness. He took on our frailty, our sinfulness, our wretchedness onto Himself, and He went to the cross and He bore Your wrath, O Lord, on His body and He died in the place of sinners. And not just to die, and not just to be buried, but to rise again victoriously and gloriously to declare that Your truth and Your Gospel and Your grace and Your mercy overpowers the darkness and overpowers death.
That You redeem and restore and transcend all of the trappings of time in humanity. That You are glorious and You redeem and make glorious for Your own purposes. And You've raised us up and seated us in the heavenly places in Christ.
And there, not just by faith, but one day by sight, we're going to see You. Our eyes will be restored and renewed. Imperishable and with imperishable glorified eyes, we will behold at least something of Your glory.
And we'll see You face to face. And our eyes will behold the Creator who gave us life and who redeemed us in Christ and who brings us home to You. And one day our souls will find rest.
And there, true worship will have the reality of itself. We will see You as You are. And the Bible says, every knee will bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth.
And every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. To what end? To the glory of God the Father. Let this be true of us, O Lord.
In Jesus' name.