56. Glorify God

Glorify God

Now let me turn to the second imperative, which is the imperative claim of the cross, 1 Corinthians 6:20, “For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.” The reason for this claim is that we are bought. Now on everything that is yours you have a claim. If you go into a store and buy something, three things at least you expect to get; first, value for your money; second, some service out of what you purchase, and third, some pleasure out of what you get. If you do not get those three things you have made a very poor buy, haven’t you? Oh, I wonder if any of us are poor bargains to the Lord Jesus Christ. I wonder if any of us have been proving that for all practical purposes Christ has died in vain for us, that we are poor bargains for the Son of God.

What is the price that He has paid for us? Calvary and all that that means in laying down His life, in yielding Himself into the hands of wicked men, in surrendering Himself to do the will of God. That is the price He has paid for us. What is the purpose for which that price has been paid? That we might glorify God. That we might glorify God in our bodies and in our spirits, which are His: that is to say, in the outer life and the inner life; in the activities of mind and body as well as in the attitude of heart and spirit; in the public life and in the private life; in the place where the eyes of others are upon us and in the place where no eye is on us except the eye of God. And in yielding to God for this end we do want to remember that it is only honest and honorable to do so, because, body and spirit, we are His.

Calvary claims the whole man, because Calvary proclaims that the whole man has been purchased. You remember in Titus 2:14 how Paul says that we have been redeemed from all iniquity that we might be His peculiar people, that is to say, His possession. He has paid out a tremendous price for that possession, and He is looking for interest from His investment. The word “peculiar people” means something over and above abundant wealth. You get the contrast in the cognate word in Matthew 6:11, “Give us this day our daily bread,” bread for the day, bread that is just sufficient, just sufficient and no more. That is the contrast, but that is not what God is looking for in you and in me. He is looking for abundance, not merely just what is sufficient, but for something over and above that which is actually required for carrying on His work. We are His peculiar people, His own personal possession, that we might be an abundance of wealth for Him in the work that He has to do.

One of the ways in which we can give God some wealth is by glorifying Him. In Scotland for many a long generation we have had in our schools and churches a catechism called, “The Shorter Catechism,” one of the finest ground-works of theology ever penned by man. The first question in that catechism is, “What is man’s chief end?” And the answer is: “To glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.” Our great Scottish philosopher, Carlyle, once said, “The older I grow the fuller and deeper the meaning of that answer becomes.”

How am I to glorify God? Let me put before you one or two passages of Scripture: Galatians 1:24 : “And they glorified God in me.” That is what the apostle Paul had to say, and it was a new Paul who was saying it to the Christians of Galatia. They had found a new Paul and therefore they glorified God. The old Paul (or Saul) was one of whose militant spirit they had had the most bitter experience, but they found one day in the midst of them a new Saul. The reason for the transformed life of Saul of Tarsus was simply that the risen Christ had met him and conquered him and possessed him. Is that not the secret of every transformed life? That is the proof that the work of Christ is not vain, when that transformation takes place. That is God’s starting-point. To reach the goal of the real life and the death message of the cross is always this: You are the sinner Christ can save, and you are the one whom Christ can make new. And when you are a new creature your old friends begin to see God in you and they glorify God.

Take 1 Peter 2:12, where Peter tells us that we glorify God by our good works. The question is: what are good works? Not necessarily works you and I think are good and not necessarily works that the world calls good, because there are many works, good works, that may yet have at the back of them a selfish motive. They may be done for self-interest or for sectarian advantage. Good works are accomplished when the Holy Spirit finds a life so free that it can become the channel by which He can pour His life and power through it, and so make men see something of Christ and something of God; and when works are done in the power of the Spirit they are stamped as God glorifying.

John 21:19 says, “This spake He, signifying by what death He should glorify God.” The Lord had been telling Peter what was before him, and it was not a smooth path that He was opening out before Peter. Then the evangelist adds, “This spake He, signifying by what death he should glorify God ….” In death God is to be glorified. Someone has said that the last act of a man’s life is the test of it; that is to say, the end can prove what the life has been. Death so often brings out the dominant note in a person’s life. For instance, Paul could say as he stood before eternity with the glow of it entering into his soul, “I have fought a good fight; I have completed the glorious contest” (2 Timothy 4:7 interpretation). And the infidel philosopher on his deathbed had to say, “I take a leap into the dark.”

Isaiah 24:15 reads, “Glorify ye the Lord in the fires ….” Oh, the testing times of life prove whether our faith is vital or only nominal, and such times as these are just like battlefields on which we carry the colors of our Captain to glory or dishonor. Without the trials of faith we should all be ruined. These trials give us opportunities of linking ourselves on to the mighty power of God and bringing through the trials some blessing that wonderfully glorifies God, or else, missing God, turns the blessing into a burden that fills the heart with weariness and pain.

Psalms 50:23reads, “Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me ….” Now I come to something that is within the reach of everybody, praise. An old writer has said, “Praise is the rent we owe to God. Yes, and the larger the farm the greater the rent.” Then he adds, “The Lord has many fine farms from which He receives but little rent.” Do not let us forget Psalms 103, to be sung every day, the daily Psalm of Praise. And lastly,John 15:8tells us what the Lord says, “And herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit ….” Now what is fruit? It is not something put on, it is something that grows out. Fruit is a product of the life of the tree through the branches, and in a Christian sense it is the life of Christ through character and through conduct. It is likeness to Christ, and when these marks of Christ are seen in us then God the Father is glorified. So the imperative claim of the cross is that we shall glorify God in our bodies and in our spirits, which are His.