“To Glorify God and Enjoy Him Forever”
Rev Dr Timothy Tow
This is an appropriate theme chosen for our meditation, “to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” For the Son of God has conquered sin and death for us by His death and our sins are now forgiven because He has risen from the dead. What more endearing relationship can there be, we who were God’s enemies but are become His adopted children. Shall not our life be bound to Him, and He become our delight, the motivation of our Christian life?
Thus the Apostle Paul instructs the Colossians, “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory” (Col 3:1-4). Such exhortation is it not to induce us to glorify God and enjoy Him forever?
In practice, however, we have many dropouts in the Church. These have left off coming to worship on the Lord’s Day. There are the backsliders who come on and off. They are living a defeated Christian life.
The troubles that hinder them may arise between husband and wife, of infidelity, leading them to separation and divorce. They may come from their disobedient children. The matter of money is a very common cause. Quarrels ensue. They may have been overspending which results in heavy debts.
Life may become so miserable that the thought of suicide comes in. The older we grow the less we have the will to live. Life, detached from the Lord who saved us, becomes more and more burdensome. Familiarity breeds contempt. Couples may sleep on the same bed, but, as the Chinese saying goes, they dream different dreams.
Seeing through the misery that encompasses dropouts and backsliding Christians, Paul beams the healing word on them, “Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry: For which things’ sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience: In the which ye also walked some time, when ye lived in them. But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth. Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds” (Col 3:5-9).
You who are here I hope are all living a victorious Christian life. You who attend Church regularly without missing once in the year except for illness, I am sure you are glorifying God and enjoying Him forever. It is your duty to visit the dropouts and absentees and find out what are the troubles holding them back.
Once we had a middle-aged Christian who had a loving wife and two children. He became so zealous in the service of the church that he became elected Treasurer of the Sunday School. After one or two years he resigned. From resignation of his job, he resigned from attending Church. This affected also his wife and two children. No matter what the Church did to bring him back, he refused. Later it was found out that he had succumbed to gambling.
Paul exhorts us to glorify God and enjoy Him forever explicitly in his Epistle to Titus. “Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works” (Tit 2:13,14). “To glorify Him” we must be a people zealous of good works and to “enjoy him forever”, we must be looking for the glorious appearing of the Saviour.
Now that we have found Jesus our Saviour, is He not become the centre of our life? Our life is hid in Him. We pray to Him day and night. We worship Him. In trouble we come to Him. He is a loving father to all. He is a husband to the widow. A lady who was abandoned by her husband found the Saviour through my counselling. She was no more sad. She said Jesus had become a husband to her. Does she not now enjoy Him forever?
To glorify God, Paul exhorts Titus to nurture a congregation zealous of good works. We are saved for a purpose. We are saved to glorify God. We are to translate glorifying God into practical terms, to be zealous of good works.
In the short epistle to Titus, Paul mentions “good works” six times. This he also says to us. While Protestants are saved by grace through faith, we are often delinquent in producing the good works that are a fruit of faith.
Let me cull from the general teaching of Scripture some of the duties we owe to God that will bring Him glory.
(1)
Since the Great Commission is to the whole Church, which I would call the First Command to the Church, let us support it with all we can, giving particularly to missions. The better part is to offer ourselves to become missionaries. When William Chalmers Burns gave up law to become a missionary to China, he said this was the greatest decision in all the world he made for his life. Has God been speaking to you, young man or young woman? What will you do with your life? Man’s chief end, is it not to “glorify Him and enjoy Him forever”?
(2)
Let us take care of the sick and poor amongst us. In so doing, do you realise you have done it on the Lord Himself? We are called sheep against the goats which did nothing and are totally rejected. A Christian if he says he loves the Lord must have sympathy to the down and out. “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also” (1 John 4:20, 21).
(3)
In these last days when more and more false Christs and prophets invade the Church, let us “earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints” (Jude 3). Like David waxing strong for his God who was blasphemed against by Goliath, “Is there not a cause?” The founding of the B-P Church is God’s blessing to its leaders for the firm stand they take against Ecumenism and Roman Catholicism. Now the battle wages around the Bible whether we are for the good KJV, or NIV which is based on the corrupt text of Westcott and Hort.
(4)
As it is our need to pray, let us come to the Church prayer meeting, which is the least attended. God promises to bless where two or three are gathered in His Name. One reason why God has blessed our prayer meeting in Singapore is we give an half-hour to members to testify of God’s mercies which bring glory to His Name.
(5)
Tithing is the law of financial support of the Church (Mal 3:8-10). Be a regular tither. Are you among those who neglect God with your over-commitments to your own programme? Is God glorified with your leftovers?
(6)
“Do something good for Jesus everyday. Do something good wherever you go.” When put to practice the good that you do comes back to you. “But this I say, He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully. Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work” (2 Cor 9:6-8).
(7)
“Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matt 6:33).
These seven points I have listed above in my exhortation to good works will surely glorify God. If we do these things we are in the centre of God’s will and we will enjoy Him forever. For our Lord is a living Lord who is risen from the dead. May we walk and talk with Him and serve Him with utmost devotion, for this is the chief end of man. Amen.
(Adapted from his message preached at New Life Bible-Presbyterian Church, London, Easter Lord’s Day, 15 April 2001.)
Are You a Big-Godder or a Little-Godder?
About twelve years after Donald Grey Barnhouse had graduated from Princeton, he was invited back to preach in the chapel, and when he arrived, he noted that Wilson had taken a place near the front to hear him.
When the service was over, his old Hebrew Professor came up to Donald Barnhouse and said, “If you come back again, I will not come to hear you preach. I only come once. I am glad that you are a big- godder. When my boys come back, I come to see if they are big-godders or little-godders, and then I know what their ministry will be.” Barnhouse asked Wilson to explain. “Well, some men have a little god, and they are always in trouble with him. He can’t do any miracles. He can’t take care of the inspiration of the Scriptures and their preservation and transmission to us. They have a little god, and I call them little- godders. Then there are those who have a great God. He speaks, and it is done. He commands, and it stands fast. He knows how to show himself strong on behalf of those who fear Him. You have a great God, and He will bless your ministry.”
Source: James Montgomery Boice, Joshua (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2006), 83 cited from Donald Grey Barnhouse, Let Me Illustrate: More Than 400 Stories, Anecdotes & Illustrations (Westwood: Fleming Revell, 1967), 132-133.
