Glorify God 130303

Romans 15:1-7, We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, “The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me.” For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.

The Apostle pauses now to summarize what he has gone into detail with in the previous chapter. The strong are under obligation to bear with the failings of the weak. While it is quite natural to desire to please ourselves that is not what the Christian life is all about. We are to follow the example of the Lord Jesus Christ and to emphasize that point Paul quotes from Psalm 69. "The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me". He then reminds us that the Old Testament was written for our instruction. It is not always easy to understand parts of the Old Testament but through endurance and encouragement of the Scriptures we have hope.

You see, our God is a God of endurance and encouragement and he will enable us to live at peace with each other. He does that not for our good only but also for the primary purpose of everything in God's creation — the glory of God! That we may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, we are obligated to be patient while encouraging and to live in harmony to the glory of God.

We are obligated.

To be patient while encouraging. Look at what Paul said to the Thessalonians in 1 Thessalonians 5:14, And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all.

We do have a responsibility to admonish the idle. In fact, in the Apostle's second letter to the Thessalonians his "admonish the idle" becomes, "If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat." Now there is a powerful encouragement to not be idle but instead to be willing to work for your own benefit and that of society. Admonish, encourage, help, but most of all be patient! The key to patience is not just, "toughing it out", or ignoring the way other people are acting. It is knowing who is in charge and trusting him to make the difference in our lives and those we're helping. Patience is a powerful tool given to us by God to be used for his glory. We will be patient when we act in love. We are commanded by Jesus…

To love one another. And John expanded on it. Listen while I read, 1 John 3:11-14, For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother's righteous. Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you. We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death.

John tells us that this love command, which was heard from the beginning, is evidence that we have passed from death to life. Remember, love is not a feeling it is an act of the will. Love is how you act not how you feel. If we are going to have patience with others we are going to have to love them with God's kind of love and trust God to work in their life and in ours! If we trust God we are going to be able to patiently love one another. In fact, patience is worked out in love. We are taught that…

Love is patient. In Paul's great description of love he tells us, 1 Corinthians 13:1-7, If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Nothing in the way of sacrifice or giftedness has any meaning apart from love. There is nothing we can do that is more important than loving one another with patience and kindness. Love is not envious or arrogant. It is certainly not rude or self-centered. Love rejoices in the truth, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things and endures all things. Yes we are to be patient with each other and as a result we are obligated to…

Live in harmony. And…

Rejoice in peace. Back to Romans 15, Paul says that we are to live in such harmony with each other that we will glorify God by the lives we live. In 2 Corinthians 13:11, we find these words Finally, brothers, rejoice. Aim for restoration, comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you.

Restoration, comfort, agreement and peace. The consequence of such a life will be a manifestation of the God of love and peace within us. Restoration implies the healing of broken relationships. This is a great need in the world as well is in the church. At one time or another, everyone has the need of comfort even when they don't outwardly show evidence of the need. Agree with one another does not mean that we give up our own personal beliefs it means that we find a way to reconcile differences without degrading or devaluing another person. Sometimes we just have to let God work out the differences while continuing to love one another. If we do that we can rejoice. Now, how do we rejoice? By aiming for those conditions that result in peace. Remember in 1st Corinthians 13, we see that love is not self-centered. Therefore we are to…

Avoid self-centeredness. Listen while I read from Philippians 2:1-4, So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

The Christian church is to be represented by people who are not self-centered. One of the tragedies of the modern church is the self-centeredness of leaders from the local pastor to the denominational worker. We learn over the years, or should, that it is really "not about us"! The whole business of Christianity is to glorify God. We can do this if we will simply…

Follow good examples. Listen while I read from Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians, 1 Thessalonians 1:6-7, And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia.

Throughout the Bible men and women are held up as examples for us to follow. We need very much to pattern our lives after them. Hebrews Chapter 11 lists many of those names whose lives we should pattern ourselves after. We are obligated to live in harmony…

To the glory of God. You see…

Everything is to glorify God. Listen to what Peter had to say about it. 1 Peter 4:10-11, As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

Every gift given by God is for the purpose of service to the body of Christ. A lot of Christians believe they have gifts that build them up individually. I find no evidence in Scripture for such a thing. Every good gift and every perfect gift comes from the God of heaven and are designed to give glory to him. Look at what Peter says and how he says it. First, each one has received a gift. No one can say that they are not gifted by God. Second, each one's gift is designed to be used in the service of other people. We do not receive gifts to glorify us. We receive gifts as a stewardship. And when we use them, third, we are to use them as though they come from God himself — because they do! If your gifts involve speaking you are speaking from God. If your gifts involve serving they are to be done in God's strength. All of this is true because in everything God is to be glorified because to him belong glory and dominion forever and ever, AMEN!

Whatever we do should glorify God. Listen while I read, 1 Corinthians 10:31-33, So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God, just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved.

I think, for most of us, we have no trouble glorifying God when everything is going our way. Paul is saying here that "whatever we do" is to be for the glory of God. But what if everything isn't going our way? What if we were born healthy and whole only to have the incompetence of a doctor cause the loss of eyesight at the age of six weeks? Would we live out our life in bitter rejection? Or, would we see blindness as a gift from God and determine to bring glory to him even in that? Well, that's what happened to a little girl by the name of Fannie Crosby. She was born in Putnam County, NY, in 1820 and was blind soon afterwards. It may well be that she was the most prolific hymn writer in history. During her lifetime she wrote over 8000 hymns to the glory of God. About her blindness, she said: "It seemed intended by the blessed providence of God that I should be blind all my life, and I thank him for the dispensation. If perfect earthly sight were offered me tomorrow I would not accept it. I might not have sung hymns to the praise of God if I had been distracted by the beautiful and interesting things about me." At another point she said that she was glad to have been blind all her life because the first face she would see would be that of her Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

In 1875 she penned these words: This is hymn number 31 in our hymn book.

To God be the glory, great things He hath done; so loved He the world that He gave us His Son, who yielded His life an atonement for sin, and opened the lifegate that all may go in.

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, let the earth hear His voice! Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, let the people rejoice! O come to the Father through Jesus the Son, and give Him the glory, great things He hath done.

O perfect redemption, the purchase of blood, to every believer the promise of God; the vilest offender who truly believes, that moment from Jesus a pardon receives.

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, let the earth hear His voice! Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, let the people rejoice! O come to the Father through Jesus the Son, and give Him the glory, great things He hath done.

Everything is to glorify God! Whatever we do, in word or action, is to glorify God in order that…

That others may know him. Listen to Paul's words a little earlier in 1st Corinthians as he talked about his desire for others to be saved. 1 Corinthians 9:22-23, To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.

Jesus said he came into the world to seek and to save that which is lost! John 3:16 tells us that, For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

We are obligated to live in harmony to the glory of God that the world we live in may have hope of eternal life. Jesus loved the lost enough to come to earth, live among men, be despised and rejected and die on a cross that the world through him might be saved! Paul said that he had such a desire that his people be saved that he would give up his own salvation, if he could, to achieve their salvation. He was willing to become all things to all men that by all means he might win some.

We must remember that God called us out of darkness into light. He did not choose us because we were good in fact the Bible says that Christ died for the ungodly. Before we came to know Christ that's who we were. None were better than the other and none were worse than the other we all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. We all faced the penalty of sin — death and hell! So having been delivered from our sins and brought into the kingdom of God we have an obligation to live in harmony with one another for the glory of God. John Piper's take on the old confession says, "The chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying him forever." We don't have the choice of glorifying God or enjoying him forever. We are to enjoy God and thereby bring glory to him. As we do this we will see others desire to come to know him.

All scripture quotes from:The Holy Bible : English standard version. 2001. Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.