Taking a stand...

We have done a five week series on this at church.
- Scripture Alone
- Grace Alone
- Christ Alone
- Faith Alone
- To the glory of God alone

The last talk has been the hardest to prepare. After much erring I decided to tackle it by looking at God's glory in creation (Ps 19), Jesus (the incarnation) (Jn 1:14), salvation (John 17; Eph 1), judgment (Exodus 13:7-4:31).

It has been humbling to see God working for his glory even in our salvation.... an exert from my talk...

At the cross, what is on the mind of Jesus? His Father’s glory! His glory! We sing a song here at church occasionally called “Above all” This is how the chorus goes…

Crucified, laid behind the stone;
you lived to die, rejected and alone;
like a rose, trampled on the ground,
you took the fall,
and thought of me, above all.

That’s what we like to believe isn’t it. That the cross was primarily about me. But it’s not! Which goes against the grain of popular Christianity. There’s something kind of offensive about Jesus’ prayer (Jn 17) here isn’t there. Jesus’ prayer as he approaches the cross is God centred, and not real people centred.

Which we don’t like. We like to domesticate God. It’s kinda of scary to think of God who creates this world and this universe, and goes to the extent of sending his Son to the cross so that his name might be made known, so that he will be glorified and magnified as God – and has the right to that!

We like to think of a God who’s much more preoccupied with pleasing us. And we particularly like to think that about the cross. The one thing we thought would be about us is about Jesus. It’s about God. It was about God bringing glory to himself through his Son.

Not even our salvation is primarily about us… but it’s about God!