TO GOD BE THE GLORY
As you know, I love to preach. It’s not some ego trip to be in the limelight that drives me to speak. I was called to be a preacher at the age of fifteen. The call was so vivid and tugged on my heart so earnestly that I know I did not make it up. God called me. I know this because there are times when I just want to quit, or there are circumstances that make me think I shouldn’t do this anymore, or I make myself so vulnerable up here that I feel quite bare and want to hide. But I can’t quit; God won’t let me quit; and I don’t want to quit preaching.
I love to proclaim the glory of God. This is one of those times when I cannot keep quiet about the wonders of God and his Son, Jesus Christ.
We have come to the very end of Romans. Unfortunately we are missing a very personal piece of the letter addressed to key individuals in the church at Rome. On the other hand, we end on a very high note, an exclamation point to the letter. We have come to Paul’s doxology…
1. Praise God for His Power
What do you thank God for as you reflect on the letter to the Romans?
If you were Paul you would thank and praise him for his power. Paul wrote, “Now to him who is able to establish you…” (25a).
John Stott said that the Greek construction of this sentence is best represented by the Jerusalem Bible which says, “Glory be to him who is able to establish you…” The sense that this gives is praise for God’s glory and power in establishing us.
John Piper gives us a great definition of “glory.” Piper said, “What might help get at a definition of the glory of God is to contrast it with the holiness of God. God is holy means that God is in a class of perfection and greatness and value by himself. He is incomparable. His holiness is utterly unique and perfect divine essence….” The angels cry out “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory” (Isaiah 6:3). So God’s holiness is his incomparable perfection and his glory is the display of that holiness. Piper then said, “When God shows himself to be holy, what we see is his glory – the beauty of holiness. The holiness of God is his concealed glory. The glory of God is his revealed holiness.”
Piper’s definition then is this: “The glory of God is the infinite beauty and greatness of his manifold perfections.”[i]
Now you have seen this glory. And you’re thinking, “When did I see the glory of God?” You saw it partially in this last year’s exposition of Romans. You saw how he established you for salvation for his own glory and praise. He set us up when we were broken down fences, smoldering wicks, and bruised reeds – spiritual messes – to receive his salvation.
Paul began this letter stating, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile,” (1:16). It is the power of God for your salvation. We were weak, but his power makes us firm, stable and able to believe in Jesus.
2. Praise God for His Gospel
This is the good news, the gospel, that establishes you to believe. “Now to him who is able to establish you by my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past, but now revealed…” (25b-26a).
The establishment of our faith, the grounding of our salvation is expressed in three clauses:
- (according to) my gospel
- (according to) the proclamation of Jesus Christ
- according to the revelation of the mystery
The first two are almost identical in identifying since the proclamation of Jesus is the gospel. Jesus is the heart of the gospel. He is the message that God wants us to hear.
Churches today are in danger of watering this down or substituting Jesus with some cause or some related theology. Peace is a unique feature of the Mennonite Church but it must never be given the starring role of our faith. That belongs to Jesus alone. Peace does not save you; Jesus saves you. But peace is a true and desirable fruit of our salvation.
His gospel is a mystery revealed. It is a truth that was hidden for long ages past. It was always there but men and women could not see it because of wickedness and sin. And when the gospel was revealed, Jesus hanging on a cross, they still did not see it. Only through the work of the Holy Spirit then and now today are we able to see this gospel. There remains a blindness in our world but praise God we can see.
3. Praise God for Calling us to Faith
God was not trying to keep this gospel hidden so much as we were unable to see the gospel for what it is. Now it is revealed “and made known through the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God so that all nations might believe and obey him,” (26b,c).
The OT has been around for centuries, for 1500 years before Christ was born. Now it is making him known. That seems backwards. But it’s not, it’s prophecy. Following the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God gave his people a new Christ-centered understanding of the OT as it bears witness to Jesus Christ.
Too many people think “Old” when they think of the OT. And in our culture old is bad and new is good. One scholar has rejected the OT label and started calling those scriptures the Hebrew Scriptures. If the “Old” covenant is out of date or irrelevant, then why did Paul quote from it so much in his letter to the Romans?
Do a quick check of your Bible some time. If you have the footnotes or references handy you can see that Paul quotes repeatedly from sixteen OT books. Habakkuk, Psalms, Proverbs, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Ecclesiastes, Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy, Malachi, Hosea, Leviticus, Joel, 1 Kings, Job and 2 Samuel are all quoted in this great letter.
Paul was an excellent student of the Hebrew Scriptures before his conversion. When Jesus met him on the road to Damascus and the Holy Spirit got a hold of him, suddenly all those scriptures he thought he knew burst forth with Jesus. He saw Jesus all over the OT.
What this tells us is that God has been aching for millennia to tell us about his salvation. His gospel has been busting to be told. He has yearned for humans to know Jesus and the forgiveness of sins that Jesus brought on the cross for ages. Why? So that all nations might believe and obey. Not just North Americans either – he wants Asians and Africans and Muslims and Hindus to see his glory in Jesus Christ.
4. Praise God for Jesus!
No other letter, in my opinion, lays out God’s plan for salvation like Romans. This letter reveals his wisdom and glory in such a way that you have to believe or not believe – there is no middle ground. “ – to the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ! Amen,” (27).
We have to give him glory. God deserves glory and honor. Look at Romans and try to withhold your praise of God:
1:5 “Through him and for his name’s sake (glory), we have received grace and apostleship to call people from among all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith.”
1:21 but men neither glorified God nor gave thanks to him
2:24 God’s name was blasphemed (opposite of glorify)
3:23 as a result “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
4:20 but Abraham believed, “he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God.”
5:1-2 “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.”
8:18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.
8:30 “And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.”
In short, all of this tells us that God wanted to show us his beautiful self, to share himself with us, to give us his beautiful life.
As Paul broke out in song, he sang, “Oh the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!” Paul saw this beautiful salvation story and sang and cried. When it was revealed to John the Evangelist, he too witnessed the future chorus we practice now: “Amen! Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God forever and ever. Amen!” (Rev 7:12).
You may not realize it, having been a Christian for many years, but this is what has made you so different – the hope of the glory of God. You are being changed, transformed and renewed by this gospel.
A man was walking through an art gallery when he came upon a picture of the Lord Jesus dying upon the cross. He stopped and looked at the beautiful portrait of Calvary's love. As he stared into the face of Christ, so full of agony the gallery guard tapped him on the shoulder. "Lower," the guard said. "The artist painted this picture to be appreciated from a lower position."
So the man bent down. And from this lower position he observed new beauties in the picture not previously shown. "Lower," said the guard. "Lower still." The man knelt down on one knee and looked up into the face of Christ. The new vantage point yielded new beauties to behold and appreciate.
But motioning with his flashlight toward the ground, the guard said, "Lower. You've got to go lower." The man now dropped down to two knees and looked up. Only then as he looked up at the painting from such a low posture could he realize the artist's intended perspective. Only then could he see the full beauty of the cross.
Is the same not true in worship? Only as we position ourselves lower and lower in humble submission can we behold more fully the glories of our wonderful Lord.[ii]
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