Is God's God-centeredness precious to you? This question is one of those continental divides of all theological systems. How you answer it determines how your entire theology develops. Is God's God-centeredness precious to you? I pick up the conversation in Pastor John's trip this year to Northern Ireland. What makes it interesting here is the biographical context that gets pulled into the topic, something I have not heard about before.

Here now is Pastor John talking about God's holiness in His glory. Here's where we pick up the conversation. I think in biblical terms generally, I can't make this work in every text, I would just say generally, the holiness of God, not to talk about the holiness of temple utensils or people, the holiness of God is generally His intrinsic beauty and greatness and worth.

And when that goes on display, the Bible calls it His glory. They're not radically different realities. God is who He is, right? He's great. He's beautiful. He's infinitely valuable in Himself without any creation in existence. But when the heavens were created, they were telling the glory of the Lord.

When the Son of God came, we saw His glory. God is the only Son from the Father. The glory of God is the intrinsic worth, the intrinsic beauty, the intrinsic greatness gone public for you to admire and worship and enjoy. Hebrews 1, 3 speaks of a radiance of the glory of God.

Psalm 19 speaks of the heavens telling the glory of God as you see what God has put out there to communicate what cannot be seen. You're supposed to see the planets and the stars and the blue sky and the cloud formations and the entire natural world and know this is a great God.

This is a glorious God. This is a beautiful God. This is a true, valuable, infinitely glorious, beautiful being. Why do I choose these three words? Greatness and beauty and value. I'm not just throwing those words out there. Are those the three words that I should use? By greatness I am referring to His scope, His extent, His grandeur.

I mean, there's no geography, no dimensions in God, but we use language, the Bible uses language of greatness. So that's what that is. Scope, extent, grandeur. Beauty, the perfections of all His attributes and the infinite harmony of their interrelationships. View to list all the attributes of God that are revealed in the Bible.

They would all be beautiful, but the totality of the beauty of the glory would be not only each one's individual beauty, but the harmony of them all as they get shown in history and in salvation and judgment. And third, His worth, because the Bible reveals Him as a treasure, more precious, more valuable, more to be desired than anything or anyone in the universe.

And that may be the one that you need to hear most. I certainly need to hear it most, because your heart is going after treasures every day. Every day your heart is latching onto something satisfying, something precious, something you want. And the Bible's message is He's the most wantable reality in the world.

If you don't feel it, you're wrong. You're broken. So those three things, greatness, beauty, and worth, this is the glory of God on display. Now my experience is, I'm 73 years old, I've been talking about my love for the glory of God for about 50 years. My experience is that the greatness and beauty and worth of God, the glory of God, they don't become dominant in a heart, in a mind.

They don't become a dominant reality. They didn't in my life, until I saw how dominant the glory of God was to God. I grew up in a home, my dad probably mentioned the term glory of God in almost every prayer he prayed in my presence, and that was every night that he was home from his evangelistic work.

He pronounced it glory, glory. He divided the syllables after O, glory, not glory. I love it, because it's just stuck there. Do everything for the glory of God. And my mother would sign off on letters to me in college and graduate school, whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything to the glory of God.

But they never, to my, I'm sure this is not true, but you know, the memories of kids are distorted. I don't remember them ever saying, "God lives for the glory of God. God exists for the glory of God. God does everything he does for his glory." And when that began to come home to me, and I had to wrestle with whether I liked a God like that, my life shifted.

I was newly married. We were just in seminary, and I remember saying, "Noel, you know, one of the biggest evidences that your world is being turned upside down by the centrality of God in the mind of God is your prayers." I mean, why is the first petition of the Lord's Prayer, "Hallowed be your name." Like, take yourself seriously.

That's not for him. That's for us. We got to get in sync with that because Jesus said, "That's one. That's number one. Kingdom next. Will next." Or do I get backwards? "Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done." First three petitions, "God, God, God, do it for yourself." Powerful.

God's God-centeredness is so important. That was a clip from John Piper's trip in July to Belfast, Northern Ireland. If you want a more developed theology of the God-centeredness of God, be sure to check out, well, really just about any book by John Piper, to be honest, but especially you'll find this theme concentrated in his book on missions, "Let the Nations Be Glad." That book title, "Let the Nations Be Glad." You'll find the God-centeredness of God to be especially thick in that book.

Thank you for listening along. Be sure to subscribe to Ask Pastor John in your favorite podcast app or even in YouTube. For our archive of episodes or to send in a question of your own, go to DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn. Speaking of God's God-centeredness, how should that reality shape what TV shows and movies we bench?

That's the question on the table Friday. I'm your host, Tony Reinke. We'll see you then. 1 Ask a Pastor John or any other podcast app. Ask a Pastor John or any other podcast app. Ask a Pastor John or any other podcast app. Ask a Pastor John or any other podcast app.

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