Bringing Glory to God... Alone
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Big Idea
Big Idea
Tension: In order to remain salty, how does the community of Jesus make sure they are glorifying the true God?
Resolution: By removing false perceptions of God.
Exegetical Idea: The community of Jesus makes sure they are glorifying the true God by removing false perceptions of God in order to remain salty.
Theological Idea: In order for the Church to preserve the gospel, the Church ensures true worship by removing idols.
Homiletical Idea: To guard our gospel, we must glorify the true God by removing idols.
Outline
Outline
Introduction: First sermon “Centering on Christ,” “Scandalous Church” series. Stories to stay salty. The next few weeks will really be about stories that are at the core of our narrative as a church. When we think about what makes our church us, I really want these three stories to be on teh top of our minds. This is why I reference all three of these stories in my sermons, because they really are relevant.
Salt and Light
What is the “Salt and Light”? It is nothing other than Jesus Christ himself. He is the salt and the light. Centering on teh gospel.
The church that does not keep its salt.... the Church that loses the gospel is good for nothing.
But the Church that does holds it high - But the Church that does is evident. It is at the center of everything. This is why we preached the “scandalous church” series. I was trying to show you that the gospel is at the center of all of our practices. When that happens, when the center of the church’s life is the gospel, when it permeates everything, there are three important things that happen.
This church will produce good works. - In other words, it has fruit. As people are confronted by the grace of God, they will be changed and transformed. It will be like Matthew the Tax Collector, who when he meets Jesus has love for God spark in his heart and his whole life changes.
This church will evangelize. It will share the good news of Christ. It will baptize. It will witness. It will reach out to those who are far from God and welcome the prodigals home. This is why it says that others will see the good news and give glory to the Father who is in heaven. It will, like Nathan the disciple who tells his friends, “Come and See.”
This church will glorify God. Ultimately, God has created the Church and given us the gospel and called us to discipleship and sent us to share the good news of the gospel for his glory. That is the purpose of disciopleship, the purpose of evangelism, is what, it’s worship. At teh end of all eternity, we want to say with all the saints and the angels, “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty.” Or, as we pray in teh Lord’s prayer, “For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.” There is no one else, no thing else, which is worthy of our glory.
Glory to God Alone
Glory is our Goal - So the goal of the church’s mission, the goal of us proclaiming the gospel, the reason we try to grow as Christians, the reason that we try to make disciples is the sum total of this: we want to bring glory to God alone.
If giving glory to God alone is our goal, that is also the best thing for us. In other words, there is no thing that is more worthy of your life, no thing more satisfying to your soul, nothing more joyful than losing yourself in giving glory to the one true God.
This can only be accomplished through the gospel, growing as Christians, and making disciples - And that means that for God to get the glory that he wants, we have to preach the true gospel, grow as CHristians, and make disciples. If our church preaches a false, watered down, esoteric gospel, if you are not growing as a Christian, if you are not sharing the gospel and helping people be reconciled to God, then you are not giving glory to God. This is an all or nothing proposition, you can either preach the true gospel, be true disciples, and make true Christians and glorify the true God, or you will preach a false gospel, be fake disciples, and make converts of an idol and give some foreign idol the glory that God alone deserves.
By the same measure, our gospel, our Christian life, and our evangelism will conform to the God we give glory to. So if you and I are really worshipping an idol, if we are even glorifying a false picture of who God is, then we will slowly but surely preach a false gospel, we will slowly but surely be disciples not of the one true God but of the false God we have set up, and worship an idol. If you and I are glorifying the wrong God, or the right God in the wrong way, then sooner or later our gospel will lose its integrity and fall apart, and salvation along with it.
Which means, the Church must always be in the business of making sure we are worshipping the right God in the right way. Part of the Church’s prophetic mission is to constantly lay down our idols, to constantly name and condemn the false gods that would vie for the glory that God alone deserves. We need to clear away anything in our hearts, anything in our soul which, even unintentionally, will compete with the one true God for the glory that he alone deserves. Every idol, every competitor, every false god must be thrown down and smashed to pieces.
Transition: Which is why I want us, as a church, to be very familiar with 1 Samuel 5. If this passage becomes one of the origin stories, the foundational narratives for our church, we will be in good shape.
1 Samuel 5
Story
Background: The ark was where the priest would put the blood of the atonement once a year. It was supposed to symbolize the throne of God. On either side of the ark were the Cherubim, and in the middle was supposed to symbolize where the throne of heaven was, and where God ruled over all things. Whenever the Levites moved thee ark, it symbolized the presence of Yahweh moving frome one place to another.
Exposition: The Israelites had taken the ark out to battle. They were trying to use the ark as if it was a magic talisman, a lucky charm, to fihgt their enemies. You know what that is, right? It’s witchcraft. Rather than praying ot him and begging him and pleading with him and interceding for their people, they were trying to manipulate God into giving them victory. And God will not be beholden to mortals, so he allows the ark to be captured by the Philistines.
Crisis: So the Philistines actually bring the ark back to their temple.
Rising Action:
3-5 - Well you know, the next day they come back and the statue of Dagon is knocked down. So they put the statue back up, and when they come back the following day, Dagon has fallen down again and is basically decapitated and his hands are knocked off. One comentator calls this beheading of Dagon a ritual decapitation.
6-10 - So the Philistines are afflicted with all kinds of aweful illnesses and sicknesses. And so the Ashdodites are afflicted, and they send it to Gath, and Gath sends it to Ekron. And everywhere the ark goes, it strikes the people of Israel with an aweful illness.
Climax: So the Philistines gather together and ask that the glory of God would go away because they cannot handle it.
COnclusion: And we see that this story ends with men being struckw ith this plague and crying to heaven. Eventually after this chapter, of ocurse, the ark does get sent back to Israel, where many men in Israel are themselves struck because they fail to give glory and honor to the true God.
Implications:
Syncretism: Notice how they put it beside their chief god Dagon in the temple. In this, they were actually trying to do honor to the God of the Israelites. THey actually thought that if they showed reverence to Yahweh, maybe Yahweh would actually not side with Israel against them anymore. So they give him a place of honor, next to their chief god, Dagon. This is called “syncretism.” It is when you try to mix the worship of the true God with worldly culture. It is worshipping the true God in the wrong way. It is not just enough to say we worship the God of hte Bible, we have to worship him as he demands and we have to worship him as he really is.
The Glory of God will, on the one hand, give life, and, on the other, give death. We see here, that when the glory of God was not iwth Israel, that they were defeated in battle. The glory of God protects and heals and shapes God’s own. Yet, the glory of GOd is also a terrifying and awesome presence that will destroy all competitors. The key to this chapter is in vs. 6 and vs. 11, where we see the phrase, “the hand of the God was heavy.” Well that’s a play on words. Because the same word in Hebrew for “heavy” is the word “glory” or “cabod.” God’s glory is his supreme weight, hsi supreme worth. And it is a magnet that will pull in all those who love and long for God. On teh other hand, it will repulse all competitors, it will smash every idol, it will destroy every thing that opposes him.
The Tragedy: So here is the supreme tragedy of this story. It is not that all these people die. It is not that there is a plague and a sickness going through the land. Here is the tragedy: they sent away the glory. They sent away the glory of God. The sent away their opportunity for true communion with teh Lord. THey sent away their chance to worship the one true God. They sent him away. HEre they had the offer of eternity, and instead they said, “We cannot bear to be in its presence one more second”. Maybe you say, “well, what else were they supposed to do?” And I would say, “They could have left their idol in the dust where it belonged.” They could have repented of their idolatry.
But instead, notice the grip of idolatry on them. When their idol was knocked down, what did they do? They put their idol back up. When God decapitated their idol, what did they do? They set him back up. When God struck them with ap lague, what did they do? They sent him away. Notice the words they say, “His hand is too heavy against us and against Dagon our God.” (vs. 7). Rather than giving up their god and being healed in the presence of the one true God, they would rather keep their idol. The supreme tragedy of this story is that they preferred the presence of dead, lifeless idols to the pulsating, terrible, aweful glory of the one true God.
Application:
This plays itself out in our personal lives all the time. Your life is what it is right now so that God can destroy your idols. God is constantly in the process of knocking down our idols. Maybe God is trying to show you just how gracious he is because he’s revealing your sin, maybe he ist rying to show you that he’s in control and you’re not, maybe God is trying to show yout hat he is infinite by showing you your own mortality. But the thing is, just like the Philistines You and I are constantly picking them back up. ANd God knocks them down again. We can either choose between our dead idols or the one true, living Lord. Don’t commit the folly of the Philistines; don’t put that idol back up. Don’t send the glory away. It is better to experience hte loss of our idols than to send away the true and eternal God.
In the same way, I believe God is always knocking down idols in the churhc. Our church is exactly where God wants it to be so he can knock down our idols. Our church has the people who are here, it is the size it is, it is the syle it is, to shake us of our idols. So what are those idols? Well, I’ve spent this week really praying and thinking and meditating hard on the ways that we could potentially misunderstand God here. So I have 6 idols that I think as a church we need to leave in the dust, 6 idols that I think we need to let God remove from us.
I am not God. I don’t know that this is the biggest idol, but for my own soul, I need to list this first. Many of you are incredibly loyal to me. I know that. I am so thankful for that. That often keeps me going. I don’t know what I would do without that. And, somewhat paradoxically, I also know the situation that the pastor is usually the lightning rod. If someone is angry, they have a problem with the church, or they’re grumpy, usually it gets directed at the pastor. That’s just part of the job, I get that. But both of these attitudes could show a deeper problem, namely equating the pastor with God. On the one hand, it might cause some of you to overlook my faults. And on the other, it might cause some of you to see nothing but my faults and only to see the ways I fall short. And I just want you to know, that I am not God. I am an undershepherd. I am one of 3 elders. I have one vote. I often lose votes in the elder room. ANd I’m okay with that. I am not perfect. Jesus Christ says “I am teh shepherd of the sheep.” I am his helper, his assistant. Yes, I believe he works through me, he speaks sthrough me, and he leads through me. That’s what being a pastor means. But I am a pastor, not The Pastor. Listen to me, there is only one person who saves, and it’s not me. That is true of every pastor. So maybe there is a pastor who was really influential in your life, thank God for him. But if you are worshipping him, you need to repent of that. If you worship me, you need to repent of that. Because God is the true shepherd, the high shepherd. I am only a man.
God is not the God of a Golden Age. One of our church’s greatest strengths is that we are an intergenerational church. We have kids from 6 all the way up until… a bit older. We have a good srpead across all ages. That is a good thing! We should be thankful for that and celebrate that! But that sometimes is a hurdle. Because both the younger generation and the older generation is prone to thinking that God’s presence is really only associated with a golden age. If you’re a bit older, maybe you start to think that God was really present when you were younger. ANd now evertyhing’s just garbage and going to hell, and if we could only just get back there then everything would be just right. Or if you are younger maybe you’re thinking, man in teh future, when all htese people are dead, then that is when we’ll really see God work. As soon as they just let me be an elder or let me do what I think needs to be done, then life will be really good. And both need to cool their jets. God is teh alpha and omega. There has never been a time when he wasn’t working, and never a time when he won’t be working. Maybe you think today is jsut a bunch of garbage, but I can tell you, GOd has a good purpose in our church for our time right now. There’s a reason that Psalm 90 teaches us to pray that God would teach us to number our days. Listen if you associate God with only a golden age, whether that’s fifty years ago, or fifty years from now, you will miss out on who God is and what God is doing. Who God was is who God is is who God will be.
God is not your Butler. A lot of us just think of God as someone I pray to when I have a need to be met, but the rest of the time but the rest of the time I don’t really need to bother thinking about him, or praying to him, or considering him. A lot of us think that God exists to make my life comfortable. That’s a dedaly attitude in church. Because you start to htink of church as if it exists for you. It’s about you making happy. It’s about being sensitive to your wants. It’s about making you feel comfortable. It’s about you. And therefore, any church that doesn’t do everything how you think it should when you think it should is wrong. And any church that asks you to sacrifice is too in your face. And any church that doesn’t let you serve where you want to serve when you want to serve is wrong. And I just want to tell you, lovingly, that God is not your butler, and neither are we. We want you to be happy, we want you to be comfortable, don’t get me wrong. But we will ask you to risk all for the sake of CHrist. We will put you out of your comfort zone. We will call out your sin, step on your toes. Church is not about me and it’s not about you. Church is about God. This church is bigger than me, and it’s bigger than you. God calls Christians outside of themselves into radical churches. Into making ffamilies. Into impacting their communities. That’s going to stretch you. And that’s good. It’s good to give up all to gain for teh sake of Christ.
God is not weak. It is interesting to me how many Christians think of God as really weak. They think that if a church has really good technology, that if a church has a really good program, does the right kind of out reach, if a church certainly puts them in control, if a church just grows, then God can really u se it. And I just want to say, what a pathetic view of God. God can use this church as is. He doesn’t need flash. He doesn’ tneed strobe lights or a smoke machine. He doesn’t need thousands of people. He doesn’t need any of us. But he instead invites us in. If you keep thinking that God needs something else in addition to him, you’re going to miss out on the beauty of this church as is. You’re going to miss out on the opportunity to see God do amazing things here in this place. You’re going to miss out on great God using a weak people to do amazing things.
God is after his glory, not ours. God is after his glory, not ours. We all want our church to grow. In fact, we long and we hope and we pray that God would, through us sending out other pastors, through growing, give us 1% of the city. How wonderful would it be if we had 2 or 300, if we had dozens of sister churches in this area that God gave us the chance to bless by helping equip them and prepare them. I so want that for this church. But, if God wants our church to be the same size that it is now, that’s okay. What? Do you think God can’t use a small church. Do you think God can’t work in a small church? Listen, we need to hold up our ambitions, our dreams, even our want for this church to grow with an open palm. It’s up to him. We’re going to be faithful. But we’re going to leave the fruit to him. The classic model of “church growth” while having some helpful wisdom, can quickly become a poison and an idol for the church. It can quickly tempt us to compromise and compromise and compromise until the truth is diminished, until the gospel is watered down, until the sacraments are meaningless. It can easily lead us to stop challenging people to try to start appealing to people with all the nuance of a Subway television ad.
God is not holiness without love. It is unfortunate how true the stereotype of church is that is filled with self-righteous Pharisees. And how easy it is to come to church and look around and think, “I’m glad I’m not sitting in that pew with those people. Do you know how messed up they are? I saw them bring coffee into church. DO you believe that? Can’t they listen, someone’s talking up front.” And how often we think that we need to get ourselves cleaned up before we come to church. ANd how uncomfortable we get with being broken. And how quickly we spot errors in others. But Christians, God does not help those who help themselves. God helps those who can’t help themselves. At Southern Heights, we need to act like we actually believe the gospel. We need to act like God really is loving and gracious and kind and merciful and good. At Southern Heights we need to stop thinking that God is impressed with us because we have it all together, because we know better than everyone else, because other people’s lives are a mess. Yes, we do need to take sin seriously. But we also need to take seriously the forgiveness of sins. It’s when we recognize that God loves me, even me, that our hearts begin to melt and we begin to see and to worship the God who is a God of Holy-Love.
These are the idols we need to leave in teh dust, the God who looks just like the pastor, who is tied to a golden age, who is a divine butler, who is weak, who is after my glory rather than his, and the god who is only about wrong and right and not about grace. We need to cherish teh GOd who is a better pastor than me, the GOd who is alpha and omega, beginning and end, who calls me out of my comfort, the God who is strong, the God who seeks his own glory, and the God who is quick to forgive, quick to love, and quick to welcome home the prodigal. That’s the kind of God who is deserving of our glory, and that’s the kind of God who we want to preach and proclaim and sing and cherish and hold onto and grasp. That’s the kind of God who is worthy and deserving of all our praises. And that’s the kind of God who deserves all the glory, all teh honor, and all the praise, amen.