111318: For God's Glory

For the choir director; with stringed instruments. A Psalm. A Song.
God be gracious to us and bless us,
[And] cause His face to shine upon us-- Selah.
That Your way may be known on the earth,
Your salvation among all nations.
Let the peoples praise You, O God;
Let all the peoples praise You.
Let the nations be glad and sing for joy;
For You will judge the peoples with uprightness
And guide the nations on the earth. Selah.
Let the peoples praise You, O God;
Let all the peoples praise You.
The earth has yielded its produce;
God, our God, blesses us.
God blesses us,
That all the ends of the earth may fear Him.
Psalm 67 (NASB)

Hymn: "Children of the Heavenly Father" Carolina Sandell Berg, translated by Ernest W. Olson

The gospel we proclaim is sometimes too shallow.

It is true that Christ died to make atonement for our sins, to set us right before God, to redeem us from our fallen state and make us new. It is true that this salvation makes us a family, part of the family of God Himself, united to Him and each other in a deeply powerful way that I do not believe can ever be broken if it is truly established. And these are big concepts, so big we can get lost in thinking of them as the point. In thinking about the details of salvation and atonement theories and propitiation and all of these very large and important ideas that we do need to wrestle with, but it can be easy to forget that none of that was the point. God didn't save us just for us. He didn't go through the whole process of creating us and revealing Himself to us and eventually saving us through great effort and pain just so that we can be with Him. That is more than enough for us, far more good than we could ever deserve. But it pales in comparison to what God deserves.

The core of all of this is the glory of God--the revelation of the glory of God, the act of us glorifying God, and the invitation for us to enjoy being in the presence of the glory of God. The core of the gospel is God's glory, which is served by our salvation. Let us never forget that none of this, not our salvation, not our ministry, not even our lives here or in the world to come, are ultimately for us. We receive a great gift in it all, and we will enjoy Him forever, and it is the best thing that we could ever know or have. But the root, the point, the objective of all of it is His glory. We must always be submitting to that greater purpose.