To Glorify God is to Enjoy God
This past Wednesday I preached through Romans 15:8-11:
8 For I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God's truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, 9 and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written, "Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles, and sing to your name." 10 And again it is said, "Rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people." 11 And again, "Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles, and let all the peoples extol him."
My main point in the message was that God's glory and our joy are one. In verse 9 Paul speaks of the Gentiles glorifying God and then in verse 10 he explains that the Gentiles glorify God by rejoicing or taking joy in God. So C. S. Lewis was right on when he said, "Fully to enjoy is to glorify. In commanding us to glorify Him, God is inviting us to enjoy him." So we glorify God for his mercy that He has shown us and is showing us in the Person and Work of Jesus Christ by rejoicing or being joyful in Him and living in glad submission to His Word.
From here our text takes us a step further though. In verse 11 Paul says, "Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles." When we delight in or take joy in something or someone we can't help but praise the thing or person. Think about it, why do we tell our family that we love them? Is it because we think they forgot? No! It's because it brings us joy to tell them such things. Or why do we tell people about our spouse, or children, or grandchildren, or the latest book we read, or the latest movie we've seen, or the new restaurant we ate at? It's because we delight in talking about and telling others about the people and things we enjoy. C. S. Lewis said it this way, "I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment."
Gospel-Praise
With that in mind, God's command in verse 11 for the Gentiles to praise the Lord makes perfect sense. In verse 8 Paul refers to Christ being a servant, we know that Christ was in fact the Suffering Servant (Isaiah 52-53), and Paul tells us that He suffered so that the Gentiles or nations (same word in the Greek) would glorify, enjoy, and praise Him, so that all the peoples would extol (praise and worship) Him.
Christ lived a perfect life, died a wrath absorbing death, and rose from the dead on the third day so that His people would glorify Him by enjoying Him, and He knew this enjoyment would lead to praise, and as His people praise Him to the nations people from every tribe, tongue, and nation will repent and believe and join in on glorifying God by enjoying Him forever. This is what I call gospel-praise. When God's people are amazed at and centered and saturated with His gospel we can't help but tell others (praise Him), because our joy in Him isn't complete until we do.
Free to Live for Glory and Joy
When we truly understand this it frees us up to live lives that are radically committed to the glory of God and the joy of His people. When we understand that our joy is in God who never changes we can truthfully say it is well with our souls no matter what suffering and loss we may endure here and now. We experience joy here and now in Christ but we have even greater joy still to come.
For now we live by faith and not by sight but there will come a day that our faith will be sight and we will see Christ and we will be made like Him. If we can enjoy and glorify God now in our sinful broken bodies, how much more so in sinless glorified bodies? The joy we have in store for us is greater than anything we can imagine. As Christians we are co-heirs with Christ; we will inherit the earth, we will live in paradise for eternity with God, and most importantly we will experience ever increasing eternal joy in God by glorifying God forever. Free from sin, free from pain, free from death. In perfect peace with our Lord and Savior. What an inheritance we have coming to us!
Remember Your Inheritance
If we live in light of all this it will change our outlook on everything. No doubt, we live in a Genesis 3, fallen, sinful world. We will experience pain, loss, and suffering; the Bible guarantees us that suffering is coming for everyone, especially Christians. But in light of our inheritance it is all light and momentary affliction. So in the here and now we are called to rely on God's grace to carry us through these times of suffering because His grace is sufficient, our lives are but a vapor (short in view of eternity), and our inheritance is great.
So whether we are dealing with loneliness, disease, famine, injustice, infertility, persecution, or even death we have cause to be joyful because our present problems do not compare with what is to come. Paul says, "So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal" (2 Corinthians 4:16-18). There are so many hardships and disappointments we will have to endure here but we must remember our inheritance of glory and eternal ever increasing joy.
English pastor John Newton (well known for writing the hymn amazing grace) once gave this illustration on the subject at hand.
"Suppose a man was going to New York to take possession of a large estate, and his [carriage] should break down a mile before he got to the city, which obliged him to walk the rest of the way; what a fool we should think him, if we saw him ringing his hands, and blubbering out all the remaining mile, "My [carriage] is broken! My [carriage] is broken!""
The man in Newton's story had a much greater inheritance than his problem of a broken carriage. He should have been caught up in the amazement of his inheritance, not the frustration of a broken carriage. He should have ran with joy to collect his inheritance instead of walked with grumbling. We too should fight to be caught up in the amazement and joy of our inheritance, not the frustrations of this broken world. This is why C. S. Lewis said, "It is a Christian duty, as you know, for everyone to be as happy as he can." Yes we have hurts and sorrows and reasons to grieve, but we have so much more to be joyful about.
So, let's be a people who live lives that are radically committed to God's glory and the joy of His people (that includes you!) so that the glory of God might be proclaimed, worshipped, and enjoyed among every tribe, tongue, and nation. Be joyful Christian!!! For in doing so you will glorify the Triune God of the universe.
