Dear Church Family,
At the opening of yesterday’s sermon I quoted a pastor named Scott Lee who after a few years of ministry realized, “It’s all about God and His glory!” Just a few words about what “it” means in the context that Scott Lee used it, as well as other things “it” must mean for God’s people.
Lee writes of a time of crisis when his “preaching had become somewhat schizophrenic – an uncertain trumpet sound! But as I kept moving verse by verse through Scripture, trying to let it speak for itself, I began to see things more clearly. Chief among them was God’s sovereignty and how it extended even to salvation. That pesky passage from Ephesians 1:4-5 continued to haunt me, “…even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will.” I began to scare myself. This wasn’t what I was taught in seminary! I started to wonder if I was slipping into heresy. The Bible seemed to be saying one thing – it’s all about God and His glory – but I had been taught something else – that it depended on me working the right programs.”
Clearly in that paragraph (that is worth reading slowly) directs us to the message of the Bible. The Holy Spirit inspired words of the Bible from Genesis 1 through Revelation 22 proclaim God as Creator, Sustainer and Redeemer with the purpose of showing His glory. If you do not see this as you read the Bible, you are missing its ultimate purpose.
As the Bible directs us in how we are to live, “it” refers to all of life for us. As people redeemed through the shed blood of Jesus, we must center our lives on Jesus. Just as we sing “To God Be the Glory”, so we put those words into practice as we intentionally “do all things to the glory of God.”
Think how different our lives would be if we could live with the determination to do all things for the name of Jesus and not for self. As we do so we joyfully fulfill the Greatest Commandments found in Mark 12:30-31, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: Love Your neighbor as your self.”
I am grateful that by God’s grace we can know AND live out the words of Scott Lee: “IT’S ALL ABOUT GOD AND HIS GLORY!”
Living by grace to His glory,
Pastor Gillikin