All right friends . Enough of that . Today we are talking about how to practically glorify God in your life . It's important for us to remember that , that our greatest good is glorifying the Lord , magnifying Him , and that should be the end result of every good thing that we ever do . Right . Let your light so shine among men that they may see your good works and glorify your .
Speaker 1Father light so shine among men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father , who is in heaven . And I can't think of anything more insane , more futile , more in a sense like spiritually suicidal , than man trying to rob God of his glory , trying to take what he's not designed to like . Hold . You know , I've said it before , but it's like a fish trying to live naturally outside of water , a man trying to live underwater naturally . You weren't designed for that . And the end result is going to be like radical , tragic demise . And when we try to take from God what only belongs to him , what rightly belongs to him , we're doing something radically unnatural .
Speaker 3Piper put it this way , every man that visits a brothel is secretly seeking after God , but he doesn't know it . So good ? Right , because he has been birthed inside of his DNA , that deoxyribonucleic acid acid , within their very being , to seek after God , something greater , someone greater than themselves . Right ? Nobody goes to the Grand Canyon to feel better about themselves . Right ? We go to the Grand Canyon because we know that there is something greater than ourselves . And I remember I was at Lake Shasta on a houseboat with some friends and my family at one time and I was looking at these trees .
Speaker 2The helicopter dropped you off .
Speaker 3The helicopter dropped me off and , as I was on this houseboat , I was just in this place of worship and my brother's friend , who was an atheist his name was Steve he came alongside and he goes what are you smiling at ? And I said what do you see when you look out into the horizon ? He said I see trees . And I said , yeah , I see trees clapping their hands at the God who made them . There's the difference , there's this chasm between us and the rest of the world , because everything we see reflects back to God and it puts us in a place of worship . Live every moment as a worshipful moment . Wow .
Speaker 2The glory of God is reflected from him to us and then off of us into the world around us . People experience the glory of God through us glorifying God and yet in another way , also like mirrors , when we experience the world around us eating great food , raising children , wild flowers . What we're doing is we are experiencing his creation and we are thankfully , we are in thanks , taking that reflection and reflecting his creation back to him . And so to glorify God is to be like a mirror , reflecting his holiness and goodness . And then , just real quick , to add to that , if you think about the fall , we are like mirrors that have broken and now we are shattered pieces of glass that reflect the lowercase g glory of whatever earthly thing passes us by and , through the gospel , god puts us back together to reflect his glory .
Speaker 1Amen , that's beautiful , that's amazing .
Speaker 4Mark stole my thunder because just the other day I said to a guy I just witnessed to him and he's very open to the gospel I said do you ever think about your eyelash ? What are you talking about ? Have you ever thought about an eyelash ? He said no . I said do you ever think about it ? The moment you were conceived , the DNA in you programmed you to grow an eyelash at a certain direction and stop at a certain length with a certain function , because it's got a sensitivity to it . So if anything gets near your eye you automatically blink because your eyelash is doing its duty . And that eyelash that you don't even think about flashes before your eyes probably 10,000 times a day , millions of times each year . You don't even think about the one that made it and it brings glory to God , wow .
Speaker 3Yeah , repentance . As Thomas Watson said , it flows like a river right . Repentance is an overflowed heart , of a forgiven heart . Macarthur said that repentance should be as loud as our sin once was . That repentance is a beautiful word . It means that God sees you just the way you are and he loves you too much to keep you in that state . And repentance is merely a reflection and a response to what God has already done and is doing inside of our lives . People say , well , I don't know how to do that , I don't know where to begin , I don't—listen . Repentance is simply turning to God . That's really what it is . Repentance is a turning to God , and as you turn to God , you're leaving behind everything else we within our society , we focus in on . Well , I've got to stop this , I've got to stop this , I got to stop that . No , turn to God and live . As you turn to God , you are leaving behind anything and everything . It just doesn't matter what it is . But you can only do that by turning towards God .
Speaker 1Ray , you know Moses had a little run in with the glory of God and he wanted God to show him all his glory . One of my favorite portions of scripture God says show me your glory .
Speaker 4And God said you cannot see my glory and live . You cannot stand in my presence and live . No man has seen God at any time . We have people say , oh , I went into God's presence and we talked as buddies , but you can't live in God's presence . And the reason we can't live in God's presence and the reason we can't live in God's presence is because he's holy and like a judge who is angry at some wicked man who has murdered a young child , the judge's anger will be in direct proportion to his goodness . If he's good , he'll be angry . If he's very good , he'll be extremely angry .
Speaker 4If he's not at all angry . He's not a good judge . He should be removed from the bench . And the Bible says God is angry at the wicked every day and if we stood in his presence he would kill us , justly because of his glory . So when Moses wanted to see God's glory , the interesting thing is that God says I'll hide you in the cleft of a rock and I'll let my goodness pass you by . He didn't say glory , he said goodness . And it's because the goodness of God would have killed Moses instantly had he been in the presence . And it's just , it's a wonder of wonderful picture of us sheltering in the Rock of Ages , rock of Ages cleft . For me , let me hide myself in thee . So when we stand in the presence of God on that day , we can stand pure of heart because of what Jesus did on the cross . He said blessed are the pure in heart , for they shall see God amen Wow .
Speaker 2Another area where we can glorify God is in our weakness , because the paradox of the gospel is that we are made that strength and his strength comes through our weakness . And so to glorify God is to recognize where we are weak . He is made strong . 2 Corinthians 12 , 9, . My grace is sufficient for you , for my power is made perfect in weakness , and I think , uh , first off , in our weakness , in our failures , in the times where we don't glorify God . He is made strong through his grace .
Speaker 2Uh , I think , in our weakness , when we recognize that we don't have to go out about the world pridefully , pridefully or arrogantly . We have the humility to repent and to ask for , to say I'm sorry , why . Why are so many people afraid of repentance , afraid to apologize , afraid to sit down and get on one knee and look at their kids and say I'm sorry , I shouldn't have got it , that was my fault , that wasn't your fault ? Why ? It's because they think that they need to be strong in their strength , but actually , the greatest strength you can experience is God's strength in the midst of your weakness .
Speaker 1Oh , that's so good , Oscar .
Speaker 1So , guys , we need to be mindful that we have a function , that we have a purpose as God's people , and that is to , yeah , make much of him To even recognize that glorifying God doesn't always look the way we think it's going to look Like . When I think of glorifying God , let's say in my preaching ministry that my sermon is going to be just blazing and everyone's going to be in awe of what I just said and I'm going to feel good and that's probably glorifying myself . You know , maybe God wants to be glorified through me , fumbling and stumbling and not making all the sense that I had hoped to make , but he wants people to see me up there and as they see me , they see a sincerity and they see a delivery that is somehow pointing them toward truth while not giving any focus to me . And then they walk away and I walk away feeling horrible , and then God is now doing something in me as he's sanctifying me . To look to him and not myself , Right , Mark ? A thousand things at one time that we can't see .
Speaker 3Yeah you fumbling and making a mess up in the pulpit will make you usable and pliable next time .
Thank you for tuning in to this week's highlights from the Living Waters podcast . Friends , we value your time , so we've created a bite-sized version of our podcast for listeners who want to get equipped . Without the jokes and fellowship . Be sure to check out the full episode every Thursday where we dive deeper into the topic . Until then , you can watch the full podcast episode available now on livingwaterstv .