(Sermon by Pastor Michael D. Schultz 04/02/06) 

INTRODUCTION:

Go back in time (most of you) to the days when you were memorizing the parts of the catechism.  Go back to the First Petition – Hallowed be thy name.  What does this mean?  God’s name is holy all by itself.  And we immediately thought, “Well, then what are we praying for?”  We’re praying that, by how we talk about God and how we live, God’s name will be regarded as holy among us.  We’re praying that God would keep us from saying or doing anything that would lead anyone to think that he’s anything less than holy.  Ultimately, we can’t make God’s name any more holy or any less holy than it is.  It is perfectly holy.

Same thing holds true for how good or glorious God is.  When we talk about glorifying the name of God, we don’t make God more glorious by singing to him or less glorious by sinning against him.  For us, to glorify God is to express something about him that is timelessly true.  God is good.  God is glorious.  I don’t ever want to be responsible for obscuring that fact. By what I say about him and by how I behave, I want it to be known.  God is glorious.  God is good.

When you get right down to it, though, God is his own best PR person.  Better by far than any human being ever can or ever will…

God Makes Himself Look Good

Yes, we can talk about glorifying God, but God does that best himself.  He hits the switch and the blinding lights of his goodness and glory come on and he invites you and me, “Take a look at this!”  

Take a look at a Tuesday, would you please? – the Tuesday before the Friday on which Jesus died.  Some non-Jewish people were asking to see Jesus and Jesus could see that it was happening.  People from all nations were being directed to him for deliverance from hell. So he said it.  “It’s time to deliver them.  It’s time for the Son of Man to be glorified.”

The next words out of his mouth?  Truly, truly, here’s how the Son of Man will be glorified.  He’ll die.  Like a seed planted in the ground dies and germinates and reproduces itself a hundred or a thousand times over, Jesus would die and bring countless people to life.  God makes himself look good in a way we never could.  Jesus was glorified by dying.  Gesturing toward all humanity, he said, Put their debt on my tab.  Take my life.  That should more than cover it.  And let them live.

Jesus looks awfully good when he does that!

As we see him doing that for us, he calls on each of us to do the same.  “Stop bear-hugging yourself.  Stop clinging to the life that you want to have for yourself.”  But it’s hard to let go.  “I want to have this.  I want my life to include that.  When I’m this old I want this to be the case.  When I’m that old I want that to be the case.  And wherever things aren’t how I want them to be, I’m going to work my tail off to get them to be that way.  There’s so much that I want for my life.”  But would you be willing to let it go today?  Or have you become so wrapped up in it that everlasting life with the Lord today is the last of a hundred options you would choose?

The wickedest idol that I worship is whatever there is about my life here that I wouldn’t want to trade for being with God in heaven.  How many of those idols do I have?

For all of them, whatever they’ve been, Jesus was the seed that was planted in the ground and died.  He loved idolaters like us.  He let go of his life for idolaters like us.  He has forgiven your every sin.  He lives to love you today, to tell you that what you have with him in heaven is worth worlds more than anything your life could ever be in this world.  And he’s talking to you now.  “You can stop digging your fingernails into this worldly life that you have right now.  Let it go and follow me.  Serving me instead of your own dreams and your own desires is a winning situation.  The life that I died to give you does not end at the cemetery.  It doesn’t end at all.  God is going to honor you in heaven as if he couldn’t tell the difference between you and me.”  Jesus was glorified by dying in our place and God made himself look very good.

Can we give glory to God the Father for that?  Never any more than Jesus did!  Take another look at this Tuesday, would you please? – the Tuesday before the Friday on which Jesus died.  Things were starting to hit home for the fully human Jesus.  In 72 hours, he would be hanging on a cross.  It was troubling to contemplate the weight that would be pressing down on him – the weight of the curse of the sinfulness of all of human history.  There was one desire in Jesus’ heart that soared much higher than any thoughts of self-preservation.  It was his flawless observance of the First Commandment for us.  “Save me from this, Father”?  No.  “Father, Glorify your name!”

Son, through your sin-free life of preaching and teaching and miracles and testifying about me, I already have.  Through your sufferings and death, I will even more.  God makes himself look good.  God the Father glorifies himself through Jesus.  By speaking out loud from heaven, God said so, not so that Jesus would know so, but so that you would know so.

When Jesus dies for sin and returns to life, the world is pronounced innocent, declared not guilty.  When Jesus dies and returns to life, Satan’s accusations fall to the floor, every one of them.  When Jesus is lifted up from the earth attached to a tree, physically suspended between the earth and the sky, he draws you to himself like a magnet.  He says, “Look at me.”  He motions with his finger, “Let go of the earthly life that you want for yourself because it will never go any farther than this earth.  Take hold of the life that I’ve won for you because it will take you off this earth and gently set you down in the loving lap of the Lord God Almighty.”  How glorious is God when he says things like that!

More than anything else, God is glorified not by you and me but by what he did for you and me, by his own actions, not ours.  If we’re going to talk about glorifying him, we can do no better than to repeat what he has done, in the creeds we say and the hymns we sing.  To glorify him, we can do no better than to live the life of quiet service to Jesus that he has called us to live and that he enables us to live.  Glorious Lord Jesus, don’t stop drawing me to you!

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