back to indexWhy I Chose ‘God Is Most Glorified’ Not ‘Christ Is Most Glorified’
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A podcast listener named Kent writes in to ask this, "Pastor John, I have a question 00:00:09.400 |
about word choice in your motto, 'God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied 00:00:15.340 |
I know you've thought and prayed extensively about each word to convey the proper message, 00:00:20.080 |
but I'm wondering why you didn't choose the word 'Christ' in place of 'God' 00:00:25.440 |
What I like most about your ministry is that Christ is central to everything you preach 00:00:29.440 |
and there's no confusing the God you glorify with any other God of this world. 00:00:33.900 |
But without using 'Christ,' the above phrase loses specificity and could be referring to 00:00:44.000 |
Well, I am always happy and eager to clarify the meaning of my favorite slogan, "God 00:00:51.680 |
is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him." 00:00:54.720 |
So let me make four very brief comments and congratulate Kent. 00:00:59.360 |
I mean, I just totally agree with what he's saying and maybe this will give him perspective 00:01:06.680 |
Number one, I very often in speaking do use the name Christ and I often say, "Christ 00:01:14.880 |
is most magnified in us when we are most satisfied in Him." 00:01:19.280 |
And I do this because of Philippians 1, 20 and 21, where Paul says his eager expectation 00:01:25.440 |
and hope is that Christ would be magnified in his body, whether by life or death, for 00:01:33.000 |
And I argue from the very structure of that text that fundamental to my Christian hedonism 00:01:39.080 |
is that Christ and His magnificence is shown by Paul's counting Him an all-satisfying 00:01:52.400 |
So yes, yes, yes, at the very root of my slogan is a text that makes Christ the center of 00:02:01.120 |
Number two, when I say God, I have in mind the Trinitarian God usually when I say that. 00:02:08.680 |
So I don't mean to say God instead of Christ when I say God is most glorified in us. 00:02:15.680 |
Number three, often, this is maybe the most unusual point, often in the New Testament 00:02:22.720 |
the word God is used as shorthand for God the Father, and there is a certain priority 00:02:30.800 |
given to the Father in relation to the Son which might warrant the prominence of the 00:02:40.120 |
And here's what I'm thinking about, Philippians 2, 9. 00:02:44.200 |
"Therefore God has highly exalted Christ and bestowed on Him the name that is above 00:02:49.280 |
every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and 00:02:54.200 |
under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of 00:03:03.920 |
So the exaltation of Jesus over every name is for the glory of God. 00:03:10.160 |
You see the kind of ultimacy or priority given to God the Father in that text. 00:03:17.800 |
"When all things are subjected to Christ, then the Son Himself will be subjected to 00:03:23.800 |
Him the Father who put all things in subjection under Him that God may be all in all." 00:03:30.520 |
And it's another kind of prioritization or ultimazize, whatever that word would be, making 00:03:39.960 |
And one last text on this, Philippians 1, 9-11, this prayer. 00:03:44.120 |
"It is my prayer that your love may abound more and more with knowledge and all discernment, 00:03:52.360 |
so that you may approve what is excellent and so be pure and blameless for the day of 00:03:58.760 |
Christ, filled with the fruits of righteousness that come through Jesus Christ to the glory 00:04:06.880 |
So you see the structure again from chapter 2. 00:04:10.640 |
So it is in a profound sense right for us to think of God the Father as the one for 00:04:22.920 |
Not at all minimizing the ultimacy of Christ's glory as the perfect image of the Father's 00:04:30.680 |
And number four, in common parlance, and this may be the reason why years and years 00:04:41.520 |
In common parlance in the world and in the broad church, not necessarily just evangelical, 00:04:49.280 |
the word God sounds more all-encompassing and ultimate than Christ. 00:05:02.440 |
But in ordinary public language, if you want to say something that sounds global or universal 00:05:09.040 |
or cutting across all groupings and all religious enclaves, God's statements have that effect 00:05:16.840 |
more than Christ's statements or Jesus' statements. 00:05:19.840 |
And so it just depends on what's the context, who's your audience, what kind of impact 00:05:24.440 |
or connotation do you want the statement to have. 00:05:31.280 |
He's right that in our day of religious pluralism, especially the prominence of Islam, the prominence 00:05:39.480 |
of Christ needs to be highlighted more often than it used to be. 00:05:45.740 |
So I think in recent years I have felt exactly what Kent has felt, and I have tried, and 00:05:54.020 |
perhaps now his question will help me try more, try to be explicit and clear that the 00:05:59.920 |
glory I'm talking about is the glory of Christ as the great expression of the glory of God. 00:06:09.280 |
So let's be alert to our audiences, let's give Christ the honor, do his name, and sometimes 00:06:18.640 |
say God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him, and sometimes clarify 00:06:24.560 |
explicitly that Christ is most magnified or glorified in us when we are most satisfied 00:06:31.840 |
in him, just as Paul teaches in Philippians 1. 00:06:38.640 |
And we love talking about this because we love proclaiming Christ as we repeat over 00:06:43.460 |
and over again, God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him, and we 00:06:51.320 |
Visit the site to find decades of our work and thousands of books, articles, sermons, 00:06:55.400 |
and other resources to flesh out this theme, and it's all free of charge to you. 00:07:01.000 |
Well all of us need to change something in life, and many of us want to change something 00:07:06.980 |
So what is the single key to breaking free from life's ruts? 00:07:11.720 |
The answer is simple, it's profound, and John Piper will explain tomorrow right here on 00:07:17.920 |
I'm your host Tony Reinke, thanks for listening.