Will God Really Praise Us?

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00:00:04.000 | Well, of course, it is right and fitting for us to talk about praising and glorifying God.

00:00:09.000 | That's our calling and our great delight.

00:00:12.000 | Our greatest joy is found in magnifying God, so that those two things, our joy and God's glory,

00:00:19.000 | are not two things, but one mutual aim.

00:00:23.000 | They're wed together.

00:00:24.000 | God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.

00:00:31.000 | That's what we call Christian hedonism around here.

00:00:34.000 | So then, is it possible for us to talk about God praising and glorifying us?

00:00:39.000 | This seems very awkward, but is it even biblical to go here, to say that God will praise and glorify us?

00:00:47.000 | It's a question because you caught off guard one watcher of your "Look at the Book" videos, Pastor John.

00:00:53.000 | Here's the email we got. No name was given.

00:00:56.000 | "Hello, Pastor John. I was watching one of your 2017 lab videos, the one titled 'To the Glory of God Alone.'

00:01:03.000 | I was really confused with something you said near the end of the session at the 15 minute and 47 second mark.

00:01:09.000 | There you said that 'we' will be praised and glorified.

00:01:13.000 | I was stunned. I had never heard that before.

00:01:16.000 | What did you mean that 'we' will be praised and glorified?

00:01:19.000 | Isn't this for God alone? If not, what Bible verses would help this make sense to me?"

00:01:26.000 | Let's begin with this biblical principle. It's very important. Listen carefully.

00:01:31.000 | This biblical principle.

00:01:33.000 | Just as God, in His mysterious providence, governs all the actions of non-Christians

00:01:43.000 | in such a way that their bad deeds are still blameworthy, so also He governs all the actions of Christians

00:01:54.000 | in such a way that their good deeds are still praiseworthy.

00:02:00.000 | That's not a presupposition that I bring to the Bible.

00:02:05.000 | That is a conclusion from thousands of hours of pondering what the Bible actually teaches.

00:02:13.000 | So we should get out of our minds the thought that any praise that Christians will receive from God

00:02:22.000 | is because their good deeds were done without God's decisive enabling power.

00:02:28.000 | Get that out of your mind.

00:02:30.000 | That good deeds done by Christians were done without God's decisive enabling power.

00:02:37.000 | All our good deeds are done by His power. That is part of what makes them good.

00:02:44.000 | And they are praiseworthy.

00:02:47.000 | There are numerous texts which teach that everything a Christian does that is pleasing to God

00:02:55.000 | was done by the power of God.

00:02:59.000 | For example, Hebrews 13.21, the writer says that God equips us with everything good

00:03:06.000 | that we may do His will, working in us—this is the key part—working in us that which is pleasing in His sight

00:03:15.000 | through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever.

00:03:19.000 | Another example is what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15.10, "By the grace of God I am what I am."

00:03:28.000 | And His grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked.

00:03:33.000 | I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that was with me.

00:03:40.000 | Paul did the work, but the decisive cause was the grace of God.

00:03:45.000 | One more example, Philippians 2.12, where Paul tells Christians to work out their salvation

00:03:52.000 | because it is God who works in them, both the willing and the working of His good pleasure.

00:04:01.000 | God causes the miraculous willing and working of our good deeds, but we act the miracle.

00:04:07.000 | He causes it, we act it.

00:04:10.000 | Now, all of that tends to make us think that only God is to be praised for the good that any Christian does.

00:04:24.000 | It tends to make us think that it would be unfitting for God himself to commend His people,

00:04:33.000 | to praise His people for their good deeds when He Himself is the decisive cause of those very good deeds.

00:04:40.000 | But that would be a profoundly unbiblical thing to say.

00:04:46.000 | This is where human reasoning can so easily go off the rails if it's not magnetized to the iron tracks of all of God's Word.

00:05:01.000 | And God's Word says plainly and repeatedly that God's imperfect, ever in need of forgiveness people,

00:05:10.000 | are going to be glorified and commended and praised by God in proportion to the way they lived.

00:05:20.000 | So let's start with the glorified texts and then look at the praised texts.

00:05:27.000 | Romans 8.30, "Those whom God predestined, He called, and those whom He called, He justified, and those whom He justified, He glorified."

00:05:36.000 | That means He's going to make us beautiful, glorious.

00:05:41.000 | 2 Thessalonians 1.11, "We always pray for you that our God may make you worthy of His calling

00:05:48.000 | and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by His power,

00:05:53.000 | so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you."

00:05:58.000 | Yes, yes, we all know that. Yes, amen.

00:06:00.000 | "And you might be glorified in Him."

00:06:05.000 | That's His glory gets magnified and our glory shines in that process

00:06:12.000 | according to the grace, to all of grace, of our God, the Lord Jesus Christ.

00:06:18.000 | 1 Corinthians 15.43, "So it is with the resurrection of the dead.

00:06:24.000 | What is sown," thinking of our bodies now, the bodies of unbelievers, I mean believers,

00:06:30.000 | "What is sown in is perishable. What is raised is imperishable.

00:06:35.000 | What is sown is sown in dishonor. It is raised in glory."

00:06:42.000 | You look in the mirror now, it is not glorious.

00:06:46.000 | You look in the mirror at the resurrection, you will be tempted to worship,

00:06:51.000 | but you won't because you'll be perfected.

00:06:55.000 | So 2 Corinthians 3.18 got it all started, "We all, with unveiled face,

00:07:01.000 | beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image

00:07:07.000 | from one degree of glory to another."

00:07:10.000 | This comes from the Lord. Yes, of course it does, who is the Spirit,

00:07:15.000 | but it's glorious. One more.

00:07:18.000 | The process of 2 Corinthians 3.18 comes to completion in the twinkling of an eye

00:07:24.000 | when we see him face to face. 1 John 3.2, "Beloved, we are God's children now,

00:07:32.000 | and what we will be has not yet appeared, but we know that when he appears,

00:07:39.000 | we shall be like him because we shall see him as he is."

00:07:47.000 | All of those passages unpack what Jesus meant when he said in Matthew 13.43,

00:07:54.000 | "The righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their father."

00:08:01.000 | I'm smiling. Ace of the day.

00:08:07.000 | So the upshot is that the Holy Spirit is gradually bringing Christians

00:08:13.000 | into conformity to the glory of Christ and that when we see Christ face to face,

00:08:20.000 | this will be completed spiritually at death and physically at the resurrection.

00:08:26.000 | God not only takes away the guilt of sin, he will take away the ugliness of sin

00:08:33.000 | and what will be left will be glory, glory, beauty, glory.

00:08:40.000 | Christ will not be married to a homely bride.

00:08:46.000 | He died for a homely bride. He's faithful to a homely bride,

00:08:53.000 | but he is making her glorious. It says that explicitly in Ephesians 5.27,

00:09:00.000 | "He gave himself for her that he might present the church to himself in splendor."

00:09:08.000 | So the final question is, will we, because of our progressive and climactic glorification,

00:09:19.000 | receive praise from the Lord?

00:09:24.000 | And the biblical answer, which our friend is stumbling over, is yes.

00:09:31.000 | Matthew 25.21, "His master said to him, 'Well done, good and faithful servant.

00:09:40.000 | You have been faithful over a little. I will set you over much.

00:09:46.000 | Enter into the joy of your master.'

00:09:49.000 | Faithfulness in this life is acknowledged by the Lord of heaven and commended."

00:09:56.000 | 1 Corinthians 4.5, "Do not pronounce judgment before the time before the Lord comes,

00:10:05.000 | who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart.

00:10:12.000 | Then each one will receive his praise from God."

00:10:18.000 | Now, that's translated "commendation," and that's fine.

00:10:23.000 | Commendation is praise. But the word is "epinos" in Greek.

00:10:29.000 | That word is used in Ephesians 1, "to the praise of the glory of God's grace."

00:10:35.000 | Ephesians 1.12, "to the praise of his glory." Ephesians 1.14, "to the praise of his glory."

00:10:42.000 | It's the same word that we use to describe what we will say to God, he says to us.

00:10:52.000 | In other words, it is a fitting, this is what "epinos" is,

00:10:56.000 | a fitting response of strong approval for something glorious or beautiful.

00:11:04.000 | There are numerous other places that teach this.

00:11:07.000 | John 5.44, Romans 2.7, 1 Peter 1.7, but let me just quote one more.

00:11:14.000 | Romans 2.29, "A Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart,

00:11:21.000 | by the Spirit, not the letter. His praise," so a true Christian, a true Jew in the Messiah Jesus,

00:11:30.000 | "His praise is not from man, but from God."

00:11:35.000 | So my conclusion from all these passages is that genuine Christians will be glorified

00:11:41.000 | both progressively in this life and then finally at the second coming,

00:11:46.000 | and the faithfulness shown to Christ in this life and the beauty completed at the end of this age

00:11:53.000 | will receive commendation and admiration from the Lord Jesus himself.

00:12:01.000 | And this will not contradict the biblical teaching that everything we do by the power of Christ

00:12:10.000 | will result in him, not us, getting the ultimate glory and praise and commendation,

00:12:20.000 | because what Christ will be commending and admiring in us will be the essence of true virtue,

00:12:31.000 | which is what? What's the essence of true Christian virtue?

00:12:37.000 | The essence of Christian virtue is our joyful treasuring of God himself in all we do,

00:12:45.000 | so that God's admiration of our sanctification and glorification is in fact ultimately

00:12:52.000 | the admiration of his own merciful workmanship.

00:12:57.000 | Amazing. Thank you for putting all of that together for us, Pastor John.

00:13:01.000 | And thank you for joining us today. You can ask a question of your own,

00:13:04.000 | search our growing archive, or subscribe to the podcast.

00:13:06.000 | You can do all of that at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.

00:13:11.000 | A friend of mine in high school drove an old rusty car, and on that old rusty car

00:13:18.000 | was a rather snarky bumper sticker on the back. It read, "You're unique."

00:13:22.000 | And then in smaller font underneath it said, "Just like everybody else."

00:13:27.000 | "You're unique, just like everybody else." It's a witty line, but there's an important question

00:13:32.000 | to be asked about human uniqueness. Is human uniqueness defensible from the Bible?

00:13:38.000 | According to the Bible, are we each unique? I'll ask Pastor John that next time on Monday.

00:13:43.000 | I'm your host Tony Reinke. Thanks for joining us, and have a great weekend.

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Will God Really Praise Us?

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