God's Power and Glory

Fear God, keep his commandments. This is the whole duty of man.

Jesus says,

love God with all your heart, with all your strength, with all that you are.

1 Corinthians 10 31,

whatever you do, do for the glory of God.

There's simple declarations that really draw us into the clarity of who God has designed us to be and what he has set before us. Well, this morning we're looking at one of those texts that I believe helps inform that chief end of man, that ultimate purpose, the end purpose, the final purpose, the primary most important goal. As we say, glorify God and enjoy him forever, we see in our text.

Not to him, that is God, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority.

This morning we're looking at a doxology. Word's pretty simple, doxos, the word for glory, it's the same word you see there for glory in verse 25. Logos, that's the word for word. Doxology is a word of praise, a declaration of God's glory. Someone asked earlier this week, what's the difference between a doxology and a benediction? Well, doxology is Greek and benediction is from Latin. Bene, good, diction, word, very similar. We order our service with a call to worship and an invitation from God himself to come into his presence. And we enter service often with a benediction, a final word from God to send you out, a good word to remind you of who you are and to send you out on that commission to not just come here and receive something, but to come here, be transformed by the word of God and go out and take that good news into all the world and to the sphere of your life and to your home and to your work. The kind of conversation we hope to have in the front yard cookies down in the fellowship hall. The benediction can be a doxology. The doxology here is specifically focused, it's drawing us up to God. There's a number of doxologies in scripture, and they're all seeking to help us see what we should be attributing to God. It's not that God's lacking glory or majesty or dominion or authority. It's very much like the Psalms helping us draw toward Him who is worthy of all our praise and glory, allowing us to come into His presence to know Him more as the one who has all authority and dominion. It's important that we properly come to Him in praise. I want you to see that this doxology follows a very typical pattern in Scripture. There's a who. Who is worthy? What is he worthy of? And when? There's your three points. Who, what, when? How wonderfully simple. Who is God? Who is him? He keeps you. He will present you. He is the only God our Savior. Who? What? Glory and majesty are due to him. Dominion and authority are submitted to him. And then when? Before all time, now and forever. Really the pattern is who would win? Amen. So we'll look at that. First, who is praiseworthy? Now to him. It's important we don't worship some generic God, some God of our own imagination, a God that we really desire or understand from our own feelings or research. It's the God who is. And notice the descriptions here first focus on what he does. God is worthy of all glory and praise for who he is. Praise be to God and thanks be to God that he actually invites us into worship. And the invitation is because of all the things he's already done for us. I wanna first just focus on that first words here. Who is able? He has an ability. This is speaking of what he can do. There's an ability and that's based upon power. A big word we use here in Christianity is omnipotence. He has all power. I believe the best definition of that is God can do whatever he desires to do. The persnickety question is, well, if God can do anything, can he make a square circle? Well, no, God wouldn't want to do something that stupid. Sorry, I'm not supposed to use that word. God doesn't want to do something that illogical. God created a square and God created a circle. What's amazing is God is righteous and wise and perfect with his power. His power is committed to doing all that is right and good from his own will. He can do whatever he wants to do. And as we look through scripture and we really see these two declarations about what he can do, they're the end of what he's already promised from ages ago. God is able to keep his promises. God is able to keep his promises. And that's really what separates God as holy and more powerful than us. He is able to do all that he is committed to do. Against all odds, God told Israel, who cried out to him, I will deliver you from this slavery. I will deliver you from this incredibly powerful nation. Israel had no hope against Israel in their own strength. And God did it in such a way that he devastated the Egyptians. He proved himself to be the one true God over against all the other gods. He spread it out. He made it long. He made it difficult. And his whole goal there would be that Egypt would know he's a true God. He's saving Israel to have his people worshiping him and his land and his way, but he actually declares the most interesting declaration in, I believe it's Exodus 14. He wants Egypt to know he's the one true God. He wants all people to know he is the one who is able. If we actually look at his work of creation, we see his ability even more clear. He speaks, and things come into existence. He declares something to be, and it is, and it is good. How helpful and informative that is as we who have believed in Jesus and have received the Word of God declare you're justified, you're forgiven? The power to speak that into existence, the power to free us from all guilt because Jesus died on the cross for our sin, what power? So thinking about that ability, he is able to do all that he desires to do. That helps us cut off all the things that he would not do, nor desire to do, but helps us see that he's made promises, he's made his will clear. This is the will of God, that we're saved, that we walk in his ways, obey his commandments, and that we finish the race. The two things that he is able to do here keep you from stumbling. That's the present tense walking. That's the ongoing, regular, faithful walking and obedience that we're supposed to be doing right now. The other thing that he declares he's able to do is future,

and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy.

Now there's actually three things, but he only mentions two because there's a big assumption the first one's already kind of understood, because he's writing to the church. God is able to save you. He's writing to the church that he calls the chosen, the beloved, the kept. They have already been declared righteous. They've already been saved by God. but those he saves, he keeps. They can continue now in being kept, and God will finish the work he began with them that he will present them. I believe as we look at those three stages, it's very important for us to understand as Christians, because we too often just think, well, I'm going to look back to some prayer way back when. No, it's a saving faith that has present practice. and has persevering hope. And it really aligns with the work of Jesus. Yes, he died and he rose again. We believed in him to be saved, and he is ascended right now, the reign of the Father, and so we walk. trusting that he who is with us with all power actually keeps us from stumbling. And he will return, which is how he will present us when we will be finally presented and be in the presence of his glory without blame. Here for the church, we focus on the last two. So God is able to keep you, y'all, the church, The word keep here has a notion of protection, guarding, a safe house, a fortress. It's meant to give you the courage to keep making the steps forward you're supposed to make. It's meant to give you the courage you need to contend for the faith because there's wreaths and a love feast. There's folks who have come in, they've corrupted the gospel, they've led some astray, there's some that need to be snatched out of the fire, there's a protection here. I know my own simple tendencies, I know I can easily stumble, but here the courage is God is able to keep you. That faithful life is fully dependent upon God's grace. There's this notion out there that God will never give you any more than you can handle. That can't be true. All of life is more than you can handle. Every bit of sin is more than we can handle. Jesus himself says when you choose sin, you're choosing a master. We need help to know how to be freed from that master. We need help to be out of that entangling sin. God is able to give you all the grace you need to not stumble, to get out of sin, His grace is sufficient, but we must depend upon him to be changed, to resist sin, to flee temptation, to stand firm. The good news for you this morning, Christian, this declaration, chosen, beloved, kept, God is able to keep you from stumbling. That's a promise. It's gonna lead us to praise. It should be leading us to praise. It should be our fuel for praise. It should be the truth we hold on to. He is able to keep you. And again, the whole focus here is we're supposed to be running a race. We're supposed to be walking in accord with the gospel of Jesus Christ. We're supposed to be walking worthy of the calling of Jesus Christ. We're supposed to be practicing faith. It's scary, though, to think about the things that could cause us to stumble in light of the power of God that promises to keep us. What could cause you to stumble? Well, first, Satan. In Satan, we are aware of his schemes. He tempts us, he accuses us, he deceives us. All of which the desire is to destroy you, to kill you, to draw you farther and farther away from God. The particular work of Satan in this church he's writing to seems to be the deception and temptation. Oh, just take the grace of God and know that you can sin, right? The folks who he's concerned about are taking the grace of God and they're perverting it into an excuse to sin. Satan is a good student. He studies us. He knows our sinful temptations. He knows the lies that we're most likely to believe. He knows the sins we've committed and where our consciences are still burdened. So he knows where to accuse. We need to remember Christ has conquered Satan. We have the word of God in the Holy Spirit.

He who is in us is greater than he who's in the world.

There is a great foe that we need to be concerned about and aware of, but not afraid of. He can cause you to stumble, but God is able to keep you from stumbling. The second thing that can cause us to stumble, outside temptations. Our culture has sins that we get wrapped into. There's movements that entice us That could be related to bigotry, sexism, racism, drunkenness, casual sex, a need to be sexy, resisting authority, could go on and on. There's some ways in which outside temptation has pulled many from the church to think these things are okay because, well, everybody else is doing it. These temptations are gonna constantly try to creep into the church and pull us away from the narrow path of righteousness, of God and his holiness? There's outside temptations that can cause us to stumble. But the one we need to be most concerned about are the internal desires. That little producer of idols that resides in the chest. That most deceptive member of our own being, our sinful desires. Every sin that disgusts us, it's inside of us already. Some lie dormant, some are more powerful in some believers than others, but our hearts can just tend to want to be bent back in ourselves rather than what this text is teaching, to be turned up towards God to glorify Him. You be aware of these stumbling blocks. Satan, outside temptation, internal desires. It's important to think God is able to keep us. He gives us his Holy Spirit. We have the very power of God, the power of the resurrected God to keep us near him. We have his word so that we know how to identify lies and know the truth. We have one another. There's no way to keep yourself without other believers in the love of God. The whole idea is that we're walking together under Christ according to his word. One thing we need to be concerned about is a stumbling block we've already looked at in our worship service, and that's from Psalm 118. Christ, the most significant stumbling block. And this is where Christ is either the cornerstone, the rock in which we believe and build our lives upon, or we reject him. If not a believer this morning, the most significant stumbling block, God has not promised you not to stumble. God has promised he is a righteous God who will execute perfect righteousness and justice on every sin. And if you don't know him, you will stand before God and you will be judged. And if you hear the gospel of Jesus Christ, that he came to die for your sins so that you could be blameless before God, he came to rise again so that you could live a new life before God, that he himself is coming back and he will bring all things under his authority with perfect righteousness, you must believe he died for you and rose again or else you will stand before God and face that judgment. That is the choice laid before you. Christian, if we confess that to be true, but don't actually try to build our lives on that rock, we're making ourselves all the more susceptible to stumbling. Christ is the rock that we build our lives on. It's not a simple prayer we may have prayed at some point. It's him who lays forth for us all the ways we now trust him. So he's able to keep us from stumbling. Next, we see he's able to present us blameless before the presence of his own glory with great joy. I believe the word blameless here is supposed to take us back to that spotless, blameless lamb that was used in worship. We're not blameless. We're very blameworthy. Easy to pin any and all kinds of accusations on everyone who's ever lived because of how sinful we are. All the ways in which we're unfit to be in the very presence of God. Last week we looked at the declaration,

keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting on his mercy that leads to eternal life.

The Christian life is looking forward to this, that moment where we will be in the presence of his glory. As we seek to be faithful, waiting, we actually become more and more frustrated with sin. As we really long to be in His presence with great joy, we become more and more aware of how sin is constantly a hindrance and boundary. The more we get into what Christ commands of us, the call to repent and the life of repentance, we realize there's no way we can ever repent enough of all the sin we have. We can never wash ourselves enough of all the sin we have. This is why we cry out, come Lord Jesus, come quickly. Longing for the day that we would actually be fully blameless. Your guilt has been nailed to the cross. It is separated from you as far as the east and the west. But the presence of sin is still corrupting us. Keeping us from the great joy we're supposed to have in the presence of the glorious God. Now here's the good news. God is able to finish the work he began. God is able to take you whom he's declared forgiven, you who are seeking to walk according to his ways and feel the constant frustration and the tripping, he's gonna finish it. He is able to wipe away every sin, to wash us perfectly and completely. It is impossible for us to remove all sin from our own lives, but what is impossible for man is possible for God. He'll finish the work, blameless. That is such a high bar. We cannot do it, but praise God, He is able. It should be terrifying for us to be in the true presence of God, to actually be in the presence of His glory. When Adam and Eve sinned, they were removed from the garden because they could not still be in the presence of God face to face. This is why Israel was kept far distant from God on Mount Sinai, marked with fear, distance. To be a sinner in the presence of God would be just a feeling of undone wrath. What's amazing is our sin keeps us from God and God saves us from our sins so we can be near him again. It should be terrifying to be in the presence of God, but notice how we go into that presence in verse 24. With great joy. And that's only because Jesus, the true name of God, who is blameless, he came to die so that not only would he forgive us, but he would make us blameless. The crown we should be longing for, the reward we should be pursuing with great anticipation to rejoice in is God. To be with him and see him with eyes now not marred and tainted by sin. One day, we'll get to stand in His presence with a new heart, with new eyes that can behold Him in all the fullness of His glory, to sing praises to Him without distraction from whatever's happening around us, and especially from all the things that are happening within us. Now, I love singing with this church. I love the way we get to come and join our voices and to hear you and we're singing, as scripture says, to one another in praise to God. How incredible that is as a joy and that is merely a taste of what we get to do together when sin's removed. This is meant to be rehearsing for the glorious day. This is why we're really worn against our culture that says worship is something to be done at your convenience or casually. We need to make sure we're setting aside all other hobbies, all other distractions. If worship isn't in pen on your calendar, repent. Too often we put it in pencil and it's easily erased. Now, worshiping with God's people needs to be a commitment because it's a rehearsal. It's teaching us how to grow up greatly in the joy that we'll enjoy. Believers, see the basic principle? What keeps you from more joy in the glory of God is sin. What allows you to go into the presence of God and His glory is even made blameless. What keeps you today from enjoying more of His glory with great joy is sin. That's why we constantly are called to put off sin and to put on Christ. We long to see Him as He is so that we'll worship Him this way and those with us hope purify themselves. Or as Jesus says,

bless her the pure in heart for they shall see God.

While this promise is sure, you must practice the walk. You must keep yourself from idols. You must seek to be faithful. All along, knowing we will walk, knowing he keeps us from stumbling, we will walk, knowing he will finish the work he began. The first two of who he is relates to what he's done. Notice verse 25 transitions to more of who he is. He's the only God. There is only one God. Deuteronomy 6.4 is very clear.

Here, O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one.

There is no other God. There is no one else worthy of this worship. There's no one else worthy of this glory. But again, our hearts are idol factories that tend to want to worship everything and anything but God. There's only one God. He is in heaven, we're on earth. We're called to fear him, keep his commandments. He is God the creator and the standard of the world. He is the God who makes promises to save us from our own sin. He is the God one and only, holy and righteous, worthy to be worshiped. How kind and good it is that God gives us promises that he saves us, and he has, well, he has saved us. He's not a passive or distant God. He's a God who's acted and come to give us all we need. Now, as I think about this word and who we're talking about, it's

to him, the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

We looked at the Holy Spirit last week, and those who crept in, they are void of the Holy Spirit. The church is supposed to be praying the Holy Spirit. We really see all three persons of the Trinity. God there is, I believe, another shorthand for just Father, because it's the Father who is the only God, our Savior, the Father. He's not distant in salvation. The Father saves us through Jesus Christ, our Lord, a full attribution of His own deity. It's somewhat complicated. There's two ways we think about our God. Well, there's the blessings, the God in action, because all blessings come from the Father and the Son by the Holy Spirit. That's how God comes down to us. And then there's the glory.

All praise be to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.

That's the doxology we normally sing. Both of those are true. But those are important for us to understand. There is one God. He is worthy of all praise to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. All three equally, fully one God. If you have a hard time understanding that, you're starting to get it. Oh, if you think you've ever wrapped your head around God, you're worshiping something else. The greatness of God, we receive him by faith. If there's a confession of His glory, all worship be, all glory be to the Father, to the Son, to the Holy Spirit. But praise God that salvation comes from the Father, through the Son, by the Spirit. And the only Savior is God the Father, who has only saved anyone through His Son. There is no salvation outside of God. There is no salvation outside of Jesus Christ. God has a son. He died, he rose again to save you. This is the faith once for all handed down to the church, the saints, this is the faith we contend for. That's who it is. There's so many other doxologies that tell us other things God has done that make him praiseworthy. He is able to keep you church. He's able to present you blameless church. He is the only God and Savior. That's who He is, and this is what's so good. He tells us who He is and tells us what He's done for us so that we would praise Him. Let's look at what the praise is, what He is worthy of. Now to Him, that is the only God,

To Him be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority.

We're not saying God needs these things and we need to give them to Him. No, He is all glorious. He is and has all majesty. He has all dominion. He has all authority. It's us being invited to come into worshiping Him as He's designed us to do. We get to acknowledge who He is, what He has, and how worthy He is. He is glorious. This refers to His beauty and perfection. He is majestic. He's great and preeminent. I believe as we think about these four words, these two should be put together in a pair. Glory and majesty are in a pair of preeminence and holiness. He's gloriously majestic and majestically glorious. Those two words complement one another. There's an overlap. And the next two words overlap and come at one another. Dominion and authority, there's a power to govern, there's a sovereignty, there's a rule. Let's consider glory and majesty. God is the greatest being. It's a simple, needed statement, but completely too bland and inadequate. He's the only God. He himself is glorious and majestic. He is the glorious God. Anything else that has any glory at all is mere reflection of how he designed it to be good and glorious. It's a burdensome passage to preach because there's no amount of words that can help capture what it really means to see him and to capture his glory. If we consider the word from Hebrew, it means weighty. There's a way in which we come to the presence of God and there's a wonderful weightiness to it. There's a wonderful, not burden, but a joy of feeling how overwhelmingly great and awesome he is. He is a God who speaks. And he gives us words so we can have an understanding of his greatness and preeminence and worth. He's given us a few things as creation that still continue to hold some of his own glory as he put his fingerprints upon this earth. It's interesting, I believe we all have an innate desire for awe and wonder. This is why we hike mountains to the peak, to be overwhelmed with a view of God's creation. This is why we like to see the stars and the depths of the universe, to feel overwhelmed, to feel that smallness. Nobody goes to the Grand Canyon to stand over it and think, wow, how great I am. I hope not. No, you go to these things that God has given to us. Even something made by humans. When I'm underneath a true skyscraper, the sense of how large and how small I am, It's kind of terrifying, but there's a wonderful comfort in it. I believe that's because God has created us to regularly be in His great presence and to enjoy how small we are in His presence that's glorious. We're always looking for some kind of greatness that we can find, And by doing so, we reject the greatness that He gives us and be able to come into His presence and know Him in His glory without fear, to have great joy. I have a few non-Christians that I like reading because they seem to be very observant and they seem to make right Diagnosis, they always have the wrong prescription, but they make incredible diagnoses. And one of those, just hold on to your horses, is Friedrich Nietzsche. His diagnosis of what's wrong was quite amazing at times. He says,

when cultures lose the decisive influence of God, God dies. When God dies for a culture, they become weightless. There is a hollowing out.

I think he's right. When we lose the influence of God, we set aside a God, we decide that God isn't important anymore, that's what it means that God is dead, we no longer need him. We lose the weight. We lose the sense of how good it is to be alive. We lose the sense of anything that's really good and right. We become hollowed out. And when we hollow out what God is supposed to have given us with his weightiness and his glory, man, do we fill that with just garbage. And you might be thinking, yeah, that's our culture. My fear is that happens to the church way too often. That's the diagnosis we've got to worry about first. When we refuse to let God have his proper place as the one who's truly worthy of all praise, when we decide God isn't going to have full and absolute authority, we lose our sense of weight. We become hollowed out. My one desire as a pastor, To help you see God. To help you go into the presence of God with clarity, surety, Christ has died, you have the Holy Spirit, he's invited you and you're boldly, the Father is welcoming you in the name of his Son who's at his right hand, the Holy Spirit is inside of you, go into his presence to know him, to see him, to grow closer to Him, to know more of His love and to love Him more? That's it. If only I could drag you into that process, as simple as it feels like that, if only I could drag you, my burden is I cannot show you God. I can only tell you how to get there. It's believing in Jesus Christ, your Savior, and walking in His ways. It's coming together, submitting to God who has given us these promises, submitting to God who has said, enter boldly, with a full faith in all that God has promised, and a full heart of assurance that we're walking in His ways, not entangled by sin, not burdened by sin. You can only get there. by faith in Jesus and being faithful to Jesus. He is our only God. The next two words of what is worthy of God is dominion and authority. These are a little bit more familiar. The glory and majesty, that's a bit harder, but dominion and authority, we know these because we all live under and with authority. We all know what it means to have bad authority. We all live under some governing authorities. Some of us have authority. God is perfect and good. He who has all authority, he is able to do all the things he says to do because of all the authority and power he has, and what his desire is is that we will see him in his glory. If you think about whatever authority we think we have, God our Father is our model, dads, that we would use whatever authority we think we have to be good, to show others what good authority is, to show our children what good authority is, to show our children the glory and might and love of God in the way we live. As we think about these words, authority and dominion, Jesus has told us he has all authority and he is with us. He has all power. Whenever we're afraid of some authority, especially our governing authorities that rage against the king who's died for us, oh, let us always remember God has all authority. So we pray for our governing authorities. We pray for the church to persevere. He is able to keep you from stumbling with this dominion and authority. He is able to present you blameless with this dominion and authority. Our desire to glorify Him is to come underneath His authority. The final thing, who, what, when? He is who He is able, who He is able, He is able to present you who He is, the only God or Savior. To Him be glory, when?

Before all time, now, and forever.

It's a universal declaration. There has never been a time that God was not worthy of worship. Other universal declarations are the heavens and the earth, or all the nations and all the peoples. All of what God has created, at all times, are designed to worship him. It's interesting, we've seen the omnipotence of God, he has all power to do whatever it is he wants to do, and here there's an infinite nature of God. He has no beginning, he has no end, he is at all times, Most doxologies end this way. He always has been God. He always will be God. He doesn't change. It's helpful, he's keeping us now, so he's worthy of all glory now. He will present us then, he will be worthy of all glory then. Most important question, Christian, is are we walking in his power, by his grace, to know more of Him who's glorious. He's always praiseworthy. He's always trustworthy. We too often want immediate gratification and delayed obedience. You're only delaying joy in His presence. Don't pretend one day he'll be more worthy of worship or you'll figure out how to have your life to be in a place where he is, where you're able to prioritize his worship. He's worthy today. We too often think we can delay this. He does not change. What a weighty high calling to know him who's glorious, to trust him who has all power. And the last word, amen, simply means it's true. Do we believe it's true? These are the words which we encourage each other with that are true. Encourage each other, God is able to keep you blameless. God is able to keep you from stumbling. God is able to present you blameless. Amen, he is our savior. Amen, he is able. Amen, he is worthy. That's the declaration. God has given us knowledge of himself. so we can praise him. Will you pray with me? Father, we come before you in the name of your Son. Lord, many burdened with guilt of past sin, Lord, I pray they would know and be helped and led to the cross where they would see you have died once for all. Christ has died once for all to forgive. Lord, we pray for those who are burdened with complacency. Lord, a pattern of prioritizing everything but you. of procrastination. Will we thank you that you are the God of all time? You are God at all times. I pray we would know how to properly prioritize our lives, our energy, the time that is fleeting that you've given to us to worship you. I pray for other burdens that so easily cause us to stumble and trip. I pray for those who have a hard time holding out hope that they can walk faithfully because of such long patterns of sin, that you will finish the work. Lord, I pray we would know how to build one another up in your most holy love, contending for this faith together. We thank you that we can know you, the glorious God, May we know how to follow you into your glorious presence. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Let us stand and sing together, he leadeth me.

♪ In comfort brought, what dare I do? ♪ ♪ Where'er I be, still tis God's help. ♪