Would God Be Just as Glorified If We Were His Slaves?

00:00:00.000 | (music)

00:00:04.000 | God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.

00:00:09.000 | Yes and amen.

00:00:11.000 | But wouldn't God also be glorified in us if we were just minions, his slavish laborers?

00:00:18.000 | It's a question from a listener named Gage.

00:00:20.000 | "Pastor John, hello. I just finished reading the first chapter of your book Desiring God.

00:00:25.000 | After the introduction, I was fired up to read more about Christian hedonism

00:00:28.000 | and already felt as if I could call your book a paradigm-shifting book for me.

00:00:33.000 | My confusion hit when I began reading about the happiness of God.

00:00:37.000 | As you described the chief end of God, I didn't find myself in disbelief.

00:00:42.000 | If God's chief end is to glorify himself, that is absolutely believable.

00:00:46.000 | Where I am awestruck is the fact that his glorification is his chief end

00:00:51.000 | and yet he still doesn't require us to live by works to satisfy him.

00:00:57.000 | My question is this.

00:00:59.000 | Why is it that with God, his chief end being to glorify himself,

00:01:04.000 | doesn't require us to slave away in works?

00:01:07.000 | Couldn't he be just as glorified in us if we were tireless slaves for him?"

00:01:13.000 | Pastor John, what would you say?

00:01:16.000 | Couldn't he be just as glorified in us if we were tireless slaves for him?

00:01:24.000 | And the answer to that question is easy and clear. No.

00:01:28.000 | He could not be just as glorified.

00:01:32.000 | But the best way to come at a question like this is not first to dig into the nature of God

00:01:42.000 | to explain why this is so.

00:01:45.000 | That's what I was frankly tempted to do because it's not hard to do and it's glorious to do it.

00:01:50.000 | But I think first is to dig into Scripture to show that this is so, not just why it is so.

00:02:01.000 | That he does not seek tireless slaves for him.

00:02:06.000 | Because that will yield, I think, a more biblically sound and solid answer

00:02:12.000 | than if we try to jump over concrete texts and just jump to the nature of an all-sufficient God

00:02:18.000 | to argue why he doesn't need slave labor.

00:02:21.000 | So let's do that.

00:02:22.000 | There will be clear answers to the question why God is more glorified

00:02:28.000 | when we receive power and blessing from him rather than receiving slave labor from him.

00:02:34.000 | Those answers are coming.

00:02:36.000 | But even if we couldn't answer the question why, the why question,

00:02:42.000 | it's crucial that we submit to the teaching of Scripture that it is so.

00:02:47.000 | He doesn't need and doesn't use slave labor.

00:02:50.000 | He abhors the idea of being served as a slave who provides the poor needy plantation owner

00:02:59.000 | with the labor that he's lacking.

00:03:02.000 | God does get more glory from our serving freely, by faith, in his enabling power

00:03:11.000 | than providing needed slave labor.

00:03:14.000 | So let's look at a few passages and then circle back to the why question,

00:03:20.000 | why he would be more glorified this way than by tireless slave labor.

00:03:25.000 | 1 Peter 4:11, "Whoever serves, let him serve as one who serves by the strength that God supplies,

00:03:37.000 | in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus.

00:03:44.000 | To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever."

00:03:46.000 | So God gets the glory because God gave the strength.

00:03:53.000 | So the giver gets the glory.

00:03:56.000 | If we were the giver of slave labor and God were the needy plantation owner dependent on us,

00:04:06.000 | then we would get the glory, our power, and our wisdom, and our resourcefulness providing his need.

00:04:16.000 | That's the gist of the argument in 1 Peter 4:11.

00:04:19.000 | Here's 2 Thessalonians 1, 11, and 12.

00:04:23.000 | "We always pray for you that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill," get this,

00:04:32.000 | "fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power."

00:04:39.000 | So God fulfills our good resolves to serve God.

00:04:43.000 | "So that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you."

00:04:49.000 | So God is glorified because he fulfills every good resolve and work of faith.

00:04:58.000 | We don't provide his slave labor.

00:05:01.000 | He provides our strength to give any labor.

00:05:05.000 | That's why he gets the glory according to 2 Thessalonians 1, 12.

00:05:12.000 | Here's Acts 17, 24, and 25.

00:05:15.000 | "The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth,

00:05:23.000 | is not served by human hands as though he needed anything,

00:05:30.000 | since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything."

00:05:35.000 | So God's glory is such that he is not and cannot be served as though he needed anything,

00:05:45.000 | especially slave labor.

00:05:47.000 | He's the giver of all, not the receiver.

00:05:51.000 | And then Romans 11, 34, and 35.

00:05:53.000 | "Who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?"

00:05:59.000 | Answer, nobody.

00:06:01.000 | Nobody counsels God.

00:06:02.000 | Nobody gives God advice that he doesn't already know.

00:06:05.000 | Verse 35, "Or who has given a gift to God that he might be repaid?"

00:06:12.000 | Answer, nobody.

00:06:14.000 | You can't negotiate or barter with God.

00:06:16.000 | You can't ever put him in your debt.

00:06:17.000 | He already has everything.

00:06:18.000 | If you give him anything, you're giving him what he already owns.

00:06:21.000 | So, verse 36, "From him and through him and to him are all things.

00:06:27.000 | To him be glory forever and ever."

00:06:29.000 | So he gets glory because nobody can give him anything that he doesn't first give to us.

00:06:39.000 | For all is from him and through him and to him.

00:06:42.000 | The giver gets the glory.

00:06:45.000 | So, God's way of saving us is by faith in his initiative and his gift and his empowerment.

00:06:57.000 | It is decisively from him, through him, to him, beginning to end.

00:07:04.000 | And so Paul says of Abraham in Romans 4, 20,

00:07:08.000 | "Abraham grew strong in his faith, giving glory to God,

00:07:15.000 | fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised."

00:07:20.000 | Faith in God's promises of provision is how we glorify God,

00:07:25.000 | not by showing that we have resources for slave labor in ourselves

00:07:31.000 | to contribute to God's faltering labor force.

00:07:35.000 | So Jesus says to his disciples, "No longer do I call you slaves."

00:07:40.000 | Not going to call you that.

00:07:42.000 | "For the slave does not know what his master is doing, but I have called you friends.

00:07:47.000 | For all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you."

00:07:52.000 | And he makes clear that his glory consists in his being the giver, not the taker.

00:08:01.000 | John 14, 13, "Whatever you ask, ask, ask," not give,

00:08:06.000 | "Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it, that the Father may be glorified in the Son."

00:08:14.000 | So God is glorified by being rich, resourceful, all providing as our giver Father.

00:08:23.000 | So here's the answer to the question.

00:08:25.000 | Couldn't God be just as glorified in us if we were tireless slaves for him?

00:08:31.000 | No, because having slaves shows a few glories.

00:08:39.000 | Some wealth to purchase the slaves, some power to coerce the service,

00:08:45.000 | some wisdom to secure the investment.

00:08:48.000 | So there's a kind of glory for the slave master,

00:08:52.000 | but the fullness of God's glory would never be shown this way.

00:08:59.000 | His grace, his mercy, his patience, his kindness would not shine that way.

00:09:06.000 | God knows that he is seen to be more glorious

00:09:12.000 | when the beauty of all of his perfections bind us to him,

00:09:18.000 | not with chains, but with cherishing, not with coercion, but with contentment,

00:09:28.000 | not because he's a tyrant, but because he's a treasure that we won't leave.

00:09:35.000 | He's not a tyrant that we can't leave.

00:09:40.000 | He's a treasure that we won't leave, and therefore he gets way more glory that way.

00:09:47.000 | than if he operated by coercion that we had to fulfill against our delights.

00:09:54.000 | No, God would not get more glory from a tireless slave labor force.

00:10:01.000 | He gets more glory.

00:10:03.000 | He gets glory by being so beautiful in his character and in his ways

00:10:09.000 | that we are bound to him not because we are held in jail,

00:10:14.000 | but because we are held by joy.

00:10:18.000 | Amen. That is a beautiful word. Thank you, Pastor John.

00:10:22.000 | And thank you for joining us today.

00:10:24.000 | If you have not subscribed to Ask Pastor John,

00:10:27.000 | consider doing so in your favorite podcast app in YouTube or in Spotify.

00:10:30.000 | And for our episode archive or to submit a question of your own,

00:10:33.000 | go to DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.

00:10:38.000 | Well, how do we put off vengeance and retribution

00:10:42.000 | and getting even with those who have sinned against us?

00:10:45.000 | In other words, how do we keep our sanity in a world that will hurt us deeply?

00:10:50.000 | Pastor John has an important word for us next time to answer this very question.

00:10:54.000 | That's up next. I'm your host, Tony Reinke.

00:10:56.000 | We'll see you back here on Wednesday.

00:10:58.000 | [no audio]

00:11:02.000 | [no audio]

00:11:05.000 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Would God Be Just as Glorified If We Were His Slaves?

Chapters