Glory To God

The Gift of God

This is my final sermon here

• What do you speak about when it is your last sermon?

• Ephesians 3:20-21 (NLT)Now glory be to God! By his mighty power at work within us, he is able to accomplish infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope. 21 May he be given glory in the church and in Christ Jesus forever and ever through endless ages. Amen.

• This is the purpose for which we were created – to give glory to God

• So this is how I want to finish up. I want to finish my time here by giving glory to God in the church

• And I want to this by speaking about God in terms of what He is doing to restore His relationship with mankind

• Because once we understand what He has done and is doing with us we can’t respond in any other way but to give Him glory

To understand this we have to begin with God Himself, but more precisely the Godhead, the Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit

• There is a tendency on the part of Christianity to regard God as this awesome all-powerful being, the great God omnipotent, omniscience, omnipresent, a Holy God somewhat detached from humanity because of our sin

• In fact in some traditions it’s taught that God the Father is off somewhere in heaven busy running the universe while Jesus fixes up the mess on earth

• And you end up with this dual concept of God yet scripture plainly teaches God is One

But is this an accurate concept of God? Is this how He would like to be regarded?

• Well I don’t think so. In fact it was part of Jesus’ mission to reveal an accurate perception of the Father to us

• John 1:18 (NLT) No one has ever seen God. But his only Son, who is himself God, is near to the Father’s heart; he has told us about him.

• So there were some misconceptions floating around amongst the Jews about God and part of Jesus mission as one who was close to the Father’s heart (He knew Him intimately) was to correct these misconceptions

• And its interesting that as Jesus talks about God He keeps addressing Him by using the title of “Father” as though there was a shift of emphasis from “God” to “Father”

• “Yes, God is awesome, He is omnipotent, He is Holy, He is running the universe, but first and foremost He would like to be represented to mankind as a “Father”

• And why would He choose this title to describe Himself unless He planned to do something with it?

• What does the title “Father” imply? Sons

• And that changes everything is the way we are to regard God because it changes our emphasis from this detached GOD off somewhere, to a personal, relational FATHER who is very much involved in what is going on on this earth

• And this it starts to get a little mind boggling

• If we go back to the verse we read at the beginning we begin to get a sense of awe of that God is really up to in his dealing with mankind

• Ephesians 3:20-21 (NLT)Now glory be to God! By his mighty power at work within us, he is able to accomplish infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope.

• Eph 3:20 (LB)God is able to do far more than we would ever dare to ask for, or dream of - infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, or hopes

• In those quiet moments of your life when you sit out under the stars, or watch a beautiful sunset, what is it that you would dare to ask or dream about?

• What is your heart’s desire? Well whatever it is this Father of ours has something infinitely more planned for us than we can ever imagine.

• 9 “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man, The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” 1 Corinthians 2:9 (NKJV)

• We may dream about having a lot of material things (recent visit to Q-1 in Surfers Paradise) but ultimately we are relational beings and if we indeed want real happiness it will only come through relationships; marriage relationships, family relationships, church relationships, friendship relationships and spiritual relationships

• And this is why God would prefer we regarded Him as a FATHER rather that just GOD

• Because what this Father of ours is up to is that He wants to share the very “life” and “love” that exists in the Godhead itself with His creation