Dive deep into the heart of Christian faith as we explore what it truly means to glorify God in our lives. This episode unveils common misconceptions about worship and highlights the profound impact of understanding the glory of God. You’ll learn how your daily attitudes and actions reflect your spirituality and commitment to your faith.
Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Wednesday, November 12th. If you’re like most people, the word worship probably brings to mind a church service. But worship is more than just singing songs. Today, you’ll discover how your attitude shapes your ability to give glory to God.
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If I should ask you, how would you describe what it means to give glory to God, what would you say? You and I might ask the question, what difference does it make whether I understand what it means to praise God or not? What difference does it make if I understand what it means to give glory to God? I’ve made it thus far in my Christian life. Why do I need to know that? Well, that’s a good question. And you and I might ask the question, what difference does it make on Monday morning whether I know what it means to glorify or to give glory to God. So what I would like to do is to attempt what is humanly impossible, because I know that no man alive can describe adequately the real meaning of the glory of God. But I’d like to at least ask the Lord to help you to understand a few things he’s in the process of teaching me. And that is something about the glory of God, what it means, what ought to motivate us to glorify God, how we ought to do it, and the real problem we have of really glorifying God. How would you and I describe the glory of God? Now what do we mean by glory? Now listen carefully. And I want to tell you that no words humanly I don’t believe to express or to explain adequately, but you ask the Holy Spirit to help you to get just a little bit of glimpse of this. The glory of God is the manifestations. the manifestations of his attributes and his perfections. And let me explain what I mean by that. The attributes of God would be God’s holiness, God’s righteousness, God’s perfection, his faithfulness, his love, God’s goodness, his justice, his mercy, his judgment. His omniscience, His omnipotence, His omnipresence, His faithfulness. We could go on and on and on of the attributes of God. This is the spiritual part of the glory of God. But the Bible speaks of His effulgence, His radiance, that which radiates from God. What heat and light are to the sun, the glory is to God. It is not the same as God, but it is a part of God. It is the radiance. It is the brilliance. It is the reflection of God Himself. So when he says that you and I are to give glory to God, that doesn’t mean that we are to contribute to who he is and what he is, but rather that our life is to reflect something of that glory. When we glorify God, we honor him in his highest state of the sovereign of the universe. When we honor him and we praise him and we talk to him and we extol him and we sing to him, what are we doing? But we are glorifying God. That is, we are reflecting, we are pointing other people to him. To glorify God is to extol his attributes. It is to be in recognition of and to bow down before in subjection to the God who is our creator. So when we talk about glorifying God, we talk about glorifying him in song, glorifying him in the praise of our lips, many ways to glorify him. But giving glory to God, my friend, is man’s responsibility and one of the reasons God created you and me. Now I want us to think for just a moment, what ought to motivate you and me to praise the Lord God and to glorify him? Number one, because of who he is. Think about it for a moment. Here is the creator of everything that is in existence. the creator of everything that is in existence. Not only that, he is the sovereign God who controls every single action of life. There’s not a cubic inch he does not know about, he’s omniscient. There’s not one source of power that has not come from him, he’s omnipotent. Everything that exists, exists within the presence of God, he is omnipresent. Nothing can be done outside of his knowledge or outside of his presence. That God is a God of love. Look what He’s done in your life. Because of who He is, we ought to glorify Him and to give Him glory. That is to give Him praise, give Him the credit, give Him the honor, extol Him, sing to Him, point men to Him. Why? Because of who He is. But the second motivation, I think, here is what he’s done for you and me. My friend, have you ever thought about where you’d be if Jesus Christ had not reached down and forgiven you of your sin? I’ll tell you where you’d be. You’d be on your way to hell, separated from God. You couldn’t pray. You wouldn’t be trusting him. You wouldn’t be in the center of God’s will. You’d miss his mark in your life. If you and I had not been saved by the grace of God, none of us would be fit to live with very long. There is absolutely no room for human boasting in life. Let me ask you a question. What is it in your life that you have the right or the privilege or the basis for boasting that you’ve accomplished? Name one. Anything. And sometimes a businessman says, well, I’ll tell you what I’ve done. Then I want to ask him several questions. Who gave you the strength? Who gave you the wisdom? Who gave you the opportunity? Who gave you the knowledge? Who gave you the health? And you could just ask him a hundred questions and there is only one answer to every single one of them. And that is almighty God. And here is man patting himself on the shoulders, trumping up his own pride and egotism when there is only one person who deserves glory and that’s God. Only God deserves honor and praise and glory and to be exalted and to be extolled. God and God only. Look what he’s done for you and for me. And I’ll tell you a third reason. You and I ought to be motivated to glorify God. And I think this is more important than the other two. And that’s why he did it. Can you tell me, look in Ephesians chapter 1. Why is it that God reached down and saved you? And why is it that God has taught you his word? And why is it that God is working in your life? You say, well, I could come up with a few answers. Not any of them will be right unless they come out of Ephesians chapter 1. Ephesians chapter 1 verse 4 according as he hath chosen that listen he chose us in Christ Before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blame not that we were and therefore he chose us But that he chose us that we should be holding without blame before him in love having predestinated us under the adoption of children by Jesus Christ unto himself according to what The good pleasure of whose will? His will. You know why God’s been so good to you? Because He chose to do so. It pleased Him to save you. It pleased Him to bless you. You say, well, I thought that was because I’ve been so good. Oh, no. His goodness and love and mercy heaped out upon us, flooded upon us, why? Because out of His good pleasure He chose to do so. Look in verse 9. Having made known unto us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure. Then look, if you will, in verse 11, in whom also we have obtained an inheritance being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will. He is the sovereign of this universe. Look in verse 12. That is that we should be to the praise of his glory who first trusted in Christ. My friend, it’s all to the glory of God. You see, most people think that their purpose is Pleasure, prosperity, peace, prominence, power, you name it. There’s a whole bunch of reasons that most people think they’re alive. But I want to tell you something. The Bible says, God says, the sovereign of the universe, the creator says, the only reason that you and I, that is the ultimate reason you and I were created, was not for each other, but for God. To glorify God. Think about our life. Some of you have lived 40, 50, 60 years. Some of you are just beginning. Let me ask you something. What in this world are you living for? Let me ask you. If you’ll answer this honestly, you’ll know whether you’re on target or not. What is the driving motivation of your life? What is the thing that gets you up? What is the thing that turns you on? What is the thing that excites you? What is the thing you’re after, the thing you want to accomplish in life? You say, well, I don’t have any of those things. Then you really are in trouble if you’re not motivated by life. But let’s say that you are. Let me ask you this. What is it that drives you? What is it that motivates you? What is it that you’re living for? And you see, the Bible says that God created all of mankind in order to glorify him. I don’t know about you, but the more I began to read that and search that, I’d look back into my life and say, now, wait a minute. How many times have I preached sermons or served the Lord in some way that I didn’t really have his glory in mind? I didn’t necessarily have myself in mind, but I didn’t necessarily have his glory in mind. But he says our whole life is to be an expression of praise and honor and extolling the Lord God Almighty. And to live for any other reason. is to miss God’s ultimate purpose for putting you in your mother’s womb and giving you life. And that may foul up some of your plans. But I’m just telling you the truth. That is the reason you are alive today, to glorify God. He says it in Romans. He says it in Isaiah. He says it in the book of Revelation. He says it all through the Scripture. Now, what we have to ask is, How do we glorify God? Let me tell you two ways. First of all, by attitude. We glorify God by attitude. When you come in the Lord’s house on the Lord’s day, you ought to come asking him to give you a spirit of worship. Lord, I want to focus on you. I don’t want to focus on the preacher. I want to focus on you. I want to enjoy the music. I want to become involved in that. I want to enjoy the message. I want to be inspired. I want to be challenged. I want to be reproved if I need to be reproved. I want to be comforted if I need to be comforted. I want to be assured if I need assurance. But I really want to meet you. We really ought to meet with each other in order to meet him. But you see, if you live for yourself six days a week and only come to meet him on Sunday, that won’t work. Because, you see, we’re to glorify God 24 hours of every day. Our life is to extol and to praise Him. Now, our attitude must be right. And our attitude must be one of worship. Our attitude must be one of praise. Our attitude must be one of humility. You will not honor and glorify God with a spirit of pride. And the spirit of humility means that I recognize his rightful lordship in my life. I am to subject my life to his will. I am to live according to his plan and his purpose, whether I like it or not. But then my actions, and there are two facets of it. First of all, my lips, and secondly, my life. If you’re not a glorified God, we’re to glorify him in our attitude. That’s the way we give glory to him. And secondly, in our actions. And in our actions, I think we can divide that into two categories. First of all, our lips. And secondly, our life. Let’s look at our lips for a moment. Now, I know that people can manipulate folks. And I’ll tell you, giving God glory is not manipulating. And if a preacher gets people all worked up and everybody gets all fired up and excited and the music gets fast and it gets higher, he says, let’s everybody say praise the Lord. Well, you just get caught up in something. Now, I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about your heart being so full and overflowing with what God has done for you and praise God what you know he’s going to do. You can’t keep it to yourself. You’ve got to praise him. And you see, if you feel those things and you say, oh, I must not express that. You know what you say? It’s like throwing cold water in the face of God. He created you to praise Him. He created you to extol Him. He created you to love Him and admire Him and to honor Him. He created us for that. And that is the more I know who God is and the more I understand what He’s like and the more I’m conscious of what He’s done in my life and what He’s in the process of doing, I’ll tell you, I can hardly sit still. I want to just praise Him and just glory to God. Because, you see, God doesn’t want us hung up. He wants us free. Now, I don’t mean acting foolish, but I mean, listen, when my praise is out of my spirit, it’s going to be. It may not be like somebody else’s, but it’s going to be in order. It’s going to glorify the Lord. And when somebody jumps up and starts shouting out, praise the Lord, hallelujah, praise God, and it’s in the flesh, it doesn’t take you long to figure that out. You see, you can’t praise God in the flesh. You can mouth some words, but you can’t praise God. Praise comes from what? Praise comes, listen, not from my soul, not from my flesh. Praise comes from the Spirit because who is it doing the praising? The Spirit of the living God is released by our will to praise the Lord God Almighty. When you and I really begin to understand what God’s like, nobody will be able to keep us quiet. We’re going to have to tell it. I mean, tell it to everybody we see and everybody we know. But you see, out of our lips, he says, ought to come praise. But secondly, out of our life. Turn to Matthew chapter 5, because he very, very clearly tells us in the fifth chapter of Matthew. How are we to praise the Lord? In what he says in the 16th verse, he says, let your light so shine before men that they may see, listen, let your light shine before men so that they may see your good works and glorify your whom? God or Father who is in heaven. Listen, the works that we do, you say, well, do you mean in church? No, I’m talking about in your office. That your works in your office ought to glorify God. Your work in your home ought to glorify God. You say, well, now, wait a minute. Dirty dishes on Monday morning glorifying God? Absolutely. That is, it glorifies Him when you clean them up. Whether you are an executive in a corporation, a mother at home, a waitress in a restaurant, a clerk in the store… Whether you are a plumber, a preacher, a doctor, it doesn’t make any difference what you are. Everything we ought to do, everything we do ought to give glory and praise and honor to God. He says, let your… Notice what he said. He didn’t say let your works, but let your good works. You see, listen. Doesn’t that the Bible say, let everything we do be done as unto the Lord? Our good works. Remember what he says in John chapter 15, verse 8? He says… My father is glorified by the fruit that you bear. Listen, look at that for a moment. John chapter 15, verse 8. Let me define the fruit. Listen to what he says in the beautiful chapter. He comes down to say in verse 7, If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein, that is, in this way my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, so shall ye be my disciples. What is the fruit of the Spirit? Listen, would you agree this glorifies the Father when out of our life there is love and peace and joy, goodness, gentleness, meekness, faithfulness, self-control? The fruit of the Spirit does what? Glorifies the Father. Because is it not true that all those attributes, all those characteristics were found in the life of Jesus Christ? And anyone in whose life those characteristics are to some degree being cultivated is going to reflect our Lord. He says, by our good works, we glorify the Father. By the fruit of our life, we glorify the Father. And then, now watch this one, 1 Corinthians chapter 6. Some of you are not going to like this one. 1 Corinthians chapter 6, verse 19 and 20. He says, Know you not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, which you have of God and you’re not your own? For you are bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your what? Let’s say it a little bit louder. In your what? In your body. Now, how do you glorify God in your body? Well, let me just tell you what I believe God would have us to say about that. Number one, we glorify God in our body by the way we dress it. We shouldn’t dress to be pretentious or to make everybody look at us, but we ought to dress in keeping with what God wants to accomplish in our life, whatever that may be. And you see, there’s no way to dress the way some people dress to the glory of God. No way. Now, I’m not talking about how fine the clothes are. Because you see, if you dress in finery to show off, it’s not to the glory of God. If you dress in rags out of rebellion, it’s not to the glory of God. But if you dress in either one because God has blessed you, or that’s the way, the best you have, you can glorify God. It isn’t how fine or how little, it’s the motivation behind it. And secondly, I don’t believe there’s some things you can put in your body and glorify God. And I wouldn’t tell anybody else how to eat or whatever else they put in the body, how to drink, whatever it might be. That’s none of my business, but I can tell you this. The Bible says we’re to glorify God in our body. And there’s some things you won’t put in it if your life is glorifying God. And the third thing he says, there’s some things you won’t do with it. He said, the body’s got to be pure. The spirit’s got to be pure. It ought to be dressed right. He says we glorify God in our body. With our lips we praise him and glorify him or you can blaspheme God with your lips. In our actions we praise God or our actions can be absolutely a disaster before God. Or we can praise him with our body or our body can reflect everything else but the glory of God. When I think about what he says in this passage, that the only reason you and I exist ultimately before Almighty God is to glorify and to praise him. I’ll tell you what, friend, all of the plans and selfish motives and desires and ambitions pale into insignificance when we realize that one of these days you and I will stand before him and the only ultimate question is, did you glorify me? With our lips closed, With our actions, with our body, are we glorifying the Lord God Almighty? I want to simply leave you with one question. Is your life, as it is now being lived, glorifying God, your Father, your Creator, your Sovereign, your Sustainer, your Health, and one day, your Judge?
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Thank you for listening to Giving Glory to God. For more inspirational messages like this one, visit our 24-7 online station. And if you’d like to know more about Charles Stanley or InTouch Ministries, stop by intouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of InTouch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.
