Well, as already has been alluded to this morning, this is Reformation Sunday. And most of you know what that means. What it means is that most of you are aware that back in October 31st, 1517 Martin Luther, the German reformer, nailed his 95 thesis on the church door at Vittenberg. And he was at that time inviting scholastic debate over 95 different theses. And that, as they say, the rest is history. And Martin Luther started a reform of the church that spread across Europe and actually all the way into America and the rest of the world. And so this is something that now we take the time on the last Sunday of every October to celebrate Reformation Sunday. And during that time, it's usually our custom to preach sermons on one of the doctrines of grace, either faith alone or grace alone or Christ alone, scripture alone or the glory of God alone. And this morning, I'm going to be talking about that last tenet, that last pillar, if you will, of the reform faith. And that is the glory of God alone. Another man in our history, an American history, who was in the stream of reform thought and reform theology, was Jonathan Edwards. And Jonathan Edwards was known for a series of resolutions that he made to live his life by. Two of those have particular interest in connection to what we're saying this morning about the glory of God. Jonathan Edwards said, resolved that all men should live for the glory of God, resolved secondly that even if no one else does, I will. And this morning, beloved, I want to speak to us about the glory of God, about living for the glory of God. My prayer for us, for you, for me, for all of us at Covenant Presbyterian Church, is that we would live to the glory of God. And in the book of Romans, Paul has this wonderful, glorious, marvelous, beautiful doxology in chapter 11, beginning with verse 33 through 36, where he praises the glory of God. It's a wonderful passage of Scripture, one of the most beautiful and artful passage of Scripture in all of the New Testament. And what I want us to see first is that living for the glory of God requires that we live life as an exclamation point. We live life as an interjection. Look at what Paul says. Oh, the depth and the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments and his path beyond tracing out. Paul begins this sentence. He begins this doxology. He begins this praise of all of God's work in Christ, all his redeeming work with an interjection. Now you remember from your grammar school days, that an interjection is an exclamation. It's a call to express and show and demonstrate emotion. And so what Paul is doing here is he is interjecting emotion into the understanding that all of our life is to be lived for the glory of God. And that's why I say, when Paul begins with this, oh, and then he says, oh, the depth of the riches and the wisdom and the knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments and his path, tracing out exclamation point. And that's why I say that our lives are to be lived, if we're going to live for the glory of God, our lives are to be lived with an exclamation point. You know, a lot of people live their lives with a question mark. For them, life is all about one question and one question only. Why? Why is life this way? Why is this happening to me? Why am I going through this? Why is life so hard and so difficult? Why is God doing this or that or the other thing and why isn't God doing something else? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? And why? Their lives are punctuated by nothing else other than a question mark and no matter how many answers you provide for them at the end of the day, they still have a question mark. That's how some people live all their lives punctuated by a question mark. Other people live their lives punctuated by an ellipsis. You remember what an ellipsis is, right? That's the three little dots at the end of the sentence or between two partial sentences. You know, for them, life is all about what's missing or all about what's omitted or all about what's left out for them. There's never enough information, no matter how much we know, no matter how much knowledge and wisdom we are provided with, they're still in their minds, not enough. They want something, they want a categorical, exhaustive, complete and total knowledge or they feel like they're missing something too important. You see, to believe or to have faith or to give God glory. Their life is punctuated by an ellipsis. There is always something missing. Other people live their lives punctuated by a period. In fact, they live their lives between two periods. They live their lives between the period which states all that God has done in Christ for our redemption, in other words, the fact of all of what God has done in Christ for our redemption and the period that expresses all that Christ requires of us and his commands to live for him, which is based on the former sentence punctuated by a period. In other words, we live our lives, if you remember your grammar school lessons, between the indicative and the imperative moods. We live our lives. The imperative sentence is one that states is a statement of fact, the indicative sentence is a statement of fact. The imperative is a statement of command, it's what we God requires and what a lot of people see in the letters of Paul and the way that Paul writes and the logic of Paul is that he first gives us the indicative, he first states the fact of all that God did in Christ for our redemption and then and only then does he move to the commands, do he move to what is required of us, but those commands are always based on and flow from the indicative, from the fact. And that's pretty good theology and you can see that in all of Paul's letters and that's really not a bad way to live, but what I'm suggesting this morning is that it's simply not enough. It is insufficient to live between two periods to live between the indicative and the imperative. We must live our lives if we're going to glorify God with an interjection, with an exclamation and that's exactly what Paul did as he's just enchapped his one through eleven, he's just given us the indicative, he's given us the statement of fact of all that God has done in Christ for our redemption, but before he moves from in chapter 12 and on to talk about what then God requires of us to live a life that is glorifying to him, he breaks out into this interjection and he says, oh, the depths of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments and his path finding out. And you see, beloved, I want to reclaim the interjection for reformed theology. I want to reclaim the exclamation for reformed theology. I want to reclaim the doxology for reformed theology. I want to reclaim the fact that we are to interject emotion, that we are not to simply live between two periods, we are to live between two periods with an exclamation point. To live to the glory of God requires living with an exclamation point in our lives, you get it? Somebody can say, hey man, if we're going to live a life that is glorifying to God, beloved, we need to live life with an exclamation point. You know what they call Presbyterians, don't you? Why do you know that? Why does everybody know that? Normally when I ask a question, you sit there with blank faces, I ask that question, everybody responds with the same answer. What is it? Say it loud. The frozen chosen. Now, why do you think that is? Why do you think people think we're the frozen chosen? No passion. There's no exclamation point in our lives. See, beloved, if we're going to live lives that glorify God, then we have to have an exclamation point in our lives. It's not enough to live with a question mark, it's not enough to live with an ellipsis, it's not enough to live between two periods, there must because there is an exclamation point in a life that glorifies the living God. And so the first thing I want you to see this morning is that our lives, if they're going to glorify God, they must have an exclamation point. The second thing I want you to see that if our lives are going to glorify God, they must be lives that embrace and celebrate and love and mystery. Look at what Paul says, oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable his judgments and his past beyond tracing out. What Paul is saying is that the depth of God's riches of both his wisdom and knowledge and his judgments, they are unfathomable, they are unsearchable, they are untraceable, they're past finding out, beloved, what that is saying to us is that with respect to all that God has done in Christ, for our redemption, it is full of mystery, it's unfathomable, it's unsearchable, it's untraceable, it's past finding out. That is to say that it's past knowledge, it's past understanding, it is past grasping. You know, when I became a Christian, I was looking for answers, looking for answers, desperately trying to find answers. When I began my spiritual pilgrimage, I looked into every religion and spiritual practice that I could find. It took me all the way from Eastern mysticism to reform theology, and I was looking for answers. And I thank God that in historic Christianity, I found the answers I was looking for. And more particularly when I discovered the reformed faith, when I discovered Presbyterianism, I found those answers articulated and expressed in a way that I had never seen before. And I thought, this is the best system of thought that I had ever seen. And I have told my students many times, I have said, you know what? If I could find a better system of thought than historic Christianity, especially as it is expressed in reformed and Presbyterian theology, if I could find a better system of thought, a better articulation of the answers than I would leave this and I would embrace that. I have embraced Christianity and I have embraced reformed and Presbyterian expression of Christianity, because I believe it provides the best system of thought and the best answers to the questions that I had as a young man growing up than any other system known to humankind. I believe it's the best. I believe it provides the best answers. When I realized something, I realized that answers aren't. I realized that answers still leave me empty. I realized that I wasn't really looking for answers. I thought I needed answers, but what I needed was Christ. What I needed is what God has provided in Christ for my redemption, and what I needed then is to understand that I don't understand, that I don't know, that it's beyond my comprehension. Yes, there is true and accurate knowledge that is revealed from God to us in His sacred scriptures and writings and special revelation, knowledge that is both true and accurate, knowledge that I can apprehend, but that isn't enough. God is bigger than that. God is more than that in His, what God has provided in Christ for my redemption is a mystery. And that's what Paul says here, when he says, all the depths of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are His judgments and His past beyond finding out. Paul is saying, it's not answers you need, it's that you need to learn to celebrate and embrace and love and cherish the mystery of your salvation, the mystery of what God has done in Christ. It's unfathomable, it's unsearchable, it's untraceable. You know, I get sad when I see these bulletin boards and these bumper stickers, they say, Jesus is the answer, God is the answer. I know what they mean. I know what they're saying. I've been there. Beloved, what I'm saying this morning, those answers are still going to leave you empty. You need to embrace the mystery of what God has done in Christ for your redemption. You know, this is what the book of Job was really all about. Job was a man who lost everything. He suffered beyond our imagination and beyond our ability to comprehend. And for 37 chapters in the book of Job, Job and his counselor friends are doing nothing but asking questions for 37 chapters, they are asking for questions. But the amazing thing is that for 37 chapters, there aren't any real answers. There aren't any answers that help in the 38 chapter. God breaks in and God begins to ask the questions, questions, by the way, if you read the book of Job, for which there are no answers provided. Job and his friends ask questions for 37 chapters and you get no answers. God asks questions for four chapters and you still get no answers. What you get at the end of the day, at the end of the book of Job is Job in awe and wonder saying, this is too wonderful for me. And then he embraces the mystery, beloved answers aren't enough. We have answers and there are good answers and the reformed faith is the best system of thought and providing the answers that plague humankind. But what we need to understand is that as good as those answers are and as accurate as they are, it's not enough. We need to celebrate, embrace and love the mystery, the unfathomable, unsearchable, unscrupable mystery of all that God has done in Christ for our redemption. Oh, the depths of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable His judgments and His ways, His past beyond tracing out. And then look at here, here's where Paul goes. And he goes right to the question, see, who has known the mind and the Lord or who has been his counselor, who has ever given to God that God should repay him. And you know, most Bible expositors, most scholars, most theologians will say that what Paul is doing here is he's asking a rhetorical question for which there is only one answer, no one. No one has ever known the mind of the Lord. No one has ever been his counselor, no one has ever given to God that he should repay him. But I want to suggest something else. I want to suggest that Paul isn't posing a rhetorical question for one answer. I want to suggest that Paul is posing the question for which there is not an answer. He's not looking for you to answer the question. He's looking for you to embrace the mystery. The mystery of all that God has done in Christ for our redemption. So if you're going to live a life that glorifies God, you must live life with an exclamation point, with an interjection. If you're going to live a life that glorifies God, you must live a life that embraces the mystery of all that God has done in Christ for our redemption. And if you're going to live a life that glorifies God, then you have to live a life that is a doxology, that is a praise and offering a praise to him. And this is what Paul says for from him and through him and to him are all things, to him be the glory forever. Paul is calling for us to live doxological lives, lives of praise. We sung the doxology this morning, right, when we were singing our praise to the triumphant God is saying that our lives, our whole lives need to be lived in that same attitude of doxology. And we do that when we recognize that all things are from him. He is a source of all things and all things are through him. He is the means of all things and all things are to him. He is the end of all things. That's why in our catechism, in the short of catechism, question number one, which implies its importance is what is the chief end of man, the chief end of man is to glorify and enjoy God forever. That's why Augustine said, he described the Christian as one big giant hallelujah from head to toe. That's why Jonathan Edwards said, resolve that all men should live for the glory of God. Resolve secondly that if nobody else does, I will. That's why the purpose of covenant, Presbyterian Church here in Ovedo is to prepare followers of Christ to glorify and enjoy God now and forever. That's our reason for being. That's our reason for existence. That's our reason for planning this church here in Ovedo so that we would prepare followers of Christ to glorify and enjoy God now. That is our purpose, beloved, a purpose that requires preparation. We are called to prepare followers of Christ, a purpose that requires that we understand who we are, who is it that we are preparing? It defines us, it gives us our identity as followers of Christ, a follower of Christ's intentional language that is used in place of language such as calling ourselves a referring to ourselves as Christians. The word Christian has come to mean everything and nothing in our day. You have people who no longer believe in the historic tenets of the Christian faith who call themselves to be Christians. It's meaningless to call ourselves and to refer to ourselves to get our identity from that word. That's why we intentionally use the word followers of Christ. Jesus called us to come after him to take up our cross and follow him. That's what we're called to do to prepare followers of him who come after him, who take up the cross. That means we die to ourselves and we live to him and we live to one another and we live for our neighbors. Take up your cross, follow him, prepare followers of Christ to do what? To glorify and enjoy him and those are one of the same thing. To glorify God is to enjoy him and to enjoy him is to glorify him. To teach us that that is the highest purpose, the highest goal, the chief end of man is to delight, to enjoy the glory of God, God himself, and love it if we're going to do that. We're going to do his Edward says said that all men should live for the glory of God and that even if no one else does, I will and Paul has told us what to do. Live your lives with an exclamation point, an interjection between the two great periods of the fact of all that God has done in Christ for our redemption and then between all that God requires, live that exclamation point, embrace the mystery. The God is deeper than you could ever possibly imagine, that God is a big God, that God is immense. Paul is talking about the immensity of God here and do you understand that the word immense comes from two words, one of which means to measure and the other which means not. It means not measurable and that's the nature of theological language, isn't it? That God is so big, so immense, that positive language is not helpful. The only way you can say what God is is by saying what he's not. That means that God is unfathomable, that God is unsearchable and that God is untraceable. Embrace that mystery. Celebrate that mystery. Love and cherish that mystery. As John Piper says, beloved, that you cannot commend what you do not cherish. You must commend this. You must commend living for the glory of God and nothing else, even if nobody else does. Commend it. But to commend it, you must cherish it. You must celebrate it. You must embrace it. You must love it. You must live for it and you must be willing to die for it. And then let your life, as Augustine said, be one big hallelujah from head to toe. Let your entire life be a living, breathing, doxology so that we can all say with Paul to him be the glory. Heavenly Father, we do pray that it would be a heart's desire, that it would be our longing and our yearning, that it would be our one single passion that all men would live to the glory of God. But Lord, we ask that you would instill in us the desire that even if no one else does, that we ourselves would live for the glory of God. Lord, this will require reformation. It will require the reformation of the pastor and the pastors of this church. It will require the reformation of the elders and the deacons of this church. It will require the reformation of all of the staff of this church. It will require the reformation of all the people in the church and each person in the church. It will require the reformation of our vision of what this church is called to be. I pray, O God, that we would indeed continue to reform and that we would always be reforming, that we might today, this day, in this time, to our age and to the culture in which we live, live in such a way that gives you glory, that gives you praise, that exalts, and magnifies your name. To you, O Lord, be the glory.