Please turn with me to Romans 11, we're reading Romans 11, verses 33 through 36, where Paul has bursting into praise is what he's doing here in the middle of this letter. Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsurchable his judgments and his past beyond tracing out, who has known the mind of the Lord, who has been his counselor, who has ever given to God that God should repay him, or from him and through him and to him are all things, to him be the glory forever. Amen, let's pray. Lord, you love these people I'm about to preach to. And I know that you love them because you love me. You love these people far more than I could ever imagine and you love them far more than they could ever imagine. And that's why you bring them here each week. You bring them here to be reminded of the hope of heaven, of your glory. Lord, we ask that you would this morning, would you give us a taste of your glory in a way that we've never experienced? You know how easily we can become distracted from your kingdom and your purposes, from eternity itself and become consumed with the things of this world. Would you now, in these few moments, use your word Holy Spirit to lift our eyes to something so glorious and so wonderful that we would be changed forever, the glory of Christ himself, or Jesus, we love you and we desire to honor you. It's in your name that we bring these things and pray. It was 1992. I was 16 years old. You can start doing the math now in your head, how old I am. Dallas, Texas, Reunion Arena, U2, Concert. Now, if you don't know who U2 is, that is okay. We are surrounded by multiple generations. Just imagine the biggest ban in your day, the biggest celebrity in your day, the biggest artist in your day, and that is what I'm witnessing in the spring of 1992 in Dallas, Texas. Bono, Edge, cool names, huh? Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen, Jr. And they had gone off stage, and if you've never been to a large concert, let me tell you what going off stage means, they're waiting for you to call for an encore. So imagine this arena, dark, and people begin chaining, they want more, they want more and the lights are off, and there's this buzz in the air, and the enormous screens on the stage turn blood red, and the four short I may say Irishmen walk back onto the stage, and there is an eruption that you could not imagine, because now everyone knows they're about to play their old songs that everyone likes and knows, and they do. I begin to hear the echo, the delay, the guitar sound of one of my favorite songs, where the streets have no name. Now, you may have never heard this song, but just imagine your favorite song being played live in front of you by the artist that wrote it, and I'm about to tell you something that will disappoint you, but my 16-year-old eyes filled up with tears. And I had to hide myself, I had to hide myself from the other guy who drove me down there, an echo like the something had gotten in my eye. I experienced an aching joy that is too wonderful to put into words, an overload of a thrill, an excitement, and all. Same thing happened when I was a little boy in Little Rock Arkansas at War Memorial Stadium, when I hear the song, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, so you don't know, that's the Arkansas Razorback fight song. And there's shiny red helmets running out of the tunnel, and I wanted to be a Razorback, and I felt that same feeling, an overload of excitement, an amazement, a thrill, an aching joy, and in no particular order that these are in, it was the year 2000, and this beautiful woman walks down the aisle, and we are going to be married, a thrill, an overload of excitement, an amazement, an aching joy that I experienced. And as I came to this passage this week, I want to preach a sermon on the glory of God, I was disappointed with myself, because the way I felt in 1992, I did not feel when I came to this passage, and Paul did much more so. And I started thinking to myself, maybe I've only scratched the surface on this thing called glory. Maybe I've only encountered imitation glory, or reflected glory at best, and what is your glory experience that aching joy? Where has it happened to you? Maybe it's a UT game. Maybe you're wedding day. I think it happened to us when we began to meditate upon the gospel of Jesus Christ, upon the character of God. Maybe all we've seen are little hills of glory, and we call them mountains, it's like calling the Ozarks mountains when you've seen the mountains, those are mountains, those are hills, and maybe we've just seen hills of glory. But folks, we were made for the mountains, and Paul has been meditating upon the mountains of God's glory, and he can't contain himself. How can you and I become truly overwhelmed, overloaded with enlightenment, and awe, and joy that we could be thrilled at the very character of God? Because if we are not overwhelmed by the glory of God, why should we expect our children to be? Because the Christianity that is not that glorious is not worth dying for. And if it's not for, I can promise you it's not worth living for. Let's meditate. Let's go see what Paul is talking about, that we might taste a little of real glory, and be transformed by it. Two points this morning, verses 33 through 35, we're going to look at God's independent glory. Verses 33 through 35, God's independent glory that Paul is describing here, and then in verse 36, our dependent worship. Verses 33 through 35, 35, God's independent glory, 36, our dependent worship. Let's look at the first point, God's independent glory. You know when someone worships like Paul is worshiping, when someone has seen something and reacts like I did when I was 16 or on my wedding day, by the way I mean that, the day of 1992 was not greater than my wedding day, my wife's in here, that they've seen something, something they can't even describe. And I want you to understand that when Paul's writing the letter to a group of Christians in Rome, he's not writing a systematic theology textbook, he's writing a letter to a group of Christians in Rome made up of Jews and Gentiles, and they're not getting along, which is often the case as we see in the New Testament. They're not getting along with each other, and so he writes these Romans a letter to describe how God has worked from day one. And as he's writing this letter, the spirit is guiding him, and he begins to paint the most beautiful, breath-taking landscape of God's gospel that anyone has ever painted. And as he's writing it, he's making his way through what we call chapters, but they weren't chapters, then it was a letter. As he's making his way through each part of God's character. Each part of God's character in what God's doing, he just stops, and he steps back, and he says, I have to praise the Lord for who he is. What would make him overcome like that? What would make him so overwhelmed? I'll just read you a few verses from, some are from chapter three, some are from chapter five, and ones from chapter eight. Jesus says, Jews and Gentiles, are we any better? Not at all. We've already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all understand that is everyone, understand everyone is without a case, everybody. So he says in chapter three, there is not one righteous, no not even one. But then the best, the best verse in the Bible. Can you say that in the best verse in the Bible? Chapter three verse 21. But now a righteousness, part from the law, has been made known to which the law and the prophets testify, the righteousness that comes from God through faith in Jesus Christ, to all who believe there is no difference. Now that's the best news in the world. What do we need before a righteous God? Jews don't have it, the Gentiles don't have it, all are like understand, but then there's this beautiful music. There is a righteousness that's apart from anything that you could ever do, and it comes from God, and he gives it to you. Apart from the law, apart from works. And so he says in chapter eight, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And folks, if that verse does not light your fire, then as they say in the Delta, your wood is wet. If you hear that there is no more condemnation for you, and you can yawn, I know I do, and it troubles me. Paul pours that his heart in chapter 9 through 11 for the people of Israel, and then he stops at the end of 11 and he steps back and begins to worship. And I want to look at two ways that he worships God, two reasons that he worships God. The first reason he's overcome is by God's independent wisdom. He begins to worship God because of God's wisdom, his mind, his independent wisdom, but then he worships him for his independent wealth. His independent wisdom and his independent wealth, that's why he breaks into praise. Look at verse 33 with me. Oh, the depths of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable his judgments and his paths beyond tracing out, who has known the mind of the Lord, who has been his counselor, he asks. You know Paul, saying here in the context that we have, who makes up the gospel? Who would invent the gospel? What human being would come up with the gospel? Is literally what he's saying as he's stepping back. Do you know why he makes such a big deal about it? Because you know what kind of religion we invent? Every single religion is this way. Official and unofficial, the religious and the irreligious, every single religion is about what you do to get to heaven, single one. And don't think that you wouldn't invent the exact same kind of religion. You know why? Because it makes sense. There's no free lunch, free? I'm just going to give you righteousness to come on. That's absurd to us. You have to be a better person. You need to be a good person to be saved. Come on, don't you think deep down? Deep down that the reason you're going to go to heaven is because you're a good person, you're a good Republican. Come on, deep down is a part of you that thinks that the reason you're going to go to heaven, because it makes sense, because you're a moral person. And it makes sense that every single religion that mankind has ever come up with in some way, shape or forms, is about how you work your way to get there. Because it makes sense. That's why every offer that you're given, free trip to Costa Rica. You're looking for the fine print and there is no fine print on the gospel. And so Paul has overcome who invents the gospel of grace. Paul's looking at what God has been doing since day one. And he's talking about God's mercy and God's sovereignty, that he'll have mercy on whom he will have mercy. He will pardon whom he will pardon. And it's not based on anything that you could do, that the way God bridges the gap is with his own son. Now folks, would we make up a gospel like that? No, it comes from God's independent wisdom. Who has known the mind of the Lord? Who has been his counselor? Who comes up with a gospel like this? Look at the difference between all the man-made religions and the gospel of grace. And it will tell you, only God can come up with this and Paul can't get over it. He said, I'm not even going to try. I'm just going to start worshipping. He stops teaching and he begins to worship. If our theology does not lead us to worship, there's something wrong with the picture. It must lead us to worship God. It must lead us to a thrill and ache of joy. And don't think just because we're good Presbyterians that we don't need to see and feel and know a thrill and ache of joy. We need to have it. Paul had it. And it's good for us to hear that God's wisdom and knowledge is independent of us. Because we're some of the most educated people on the face of the planet. Some people in this room have rows of letters behind their names. And it's awesome. We're a very educated group of people. But all our wisdom and all our knowledge is all dependent knowledge. God's wisdom, his knowledge, his mind is independent from us. It's like your parents asking us questions. We were kids. If we don't like something they did, we would kind of whine about it. And my parents would say things like, you know, we didn't ask your opinion about this. We know something that you don't know. And in the same way, God invented the gospel. He came up with the gospel and it's so far from anything we would ever come up with. And what it should lead us to do is to worship him and bring honor to him and realize that all our knowledge is dependent knowledge to fall on our knees in front of him because of it. God gave Job a taste of that dependent knowledge. And Job 40 always makes me shiver when I think about God doing this to me. God said to Job, brace yourself like a man. I'm going to ask you some questions. He said, where were you when I laid the earth's foundations, Job? Tell me if you know. And the message to us at IPC, IPC, educated, intelligent, wise people, where were you when I made the world, where were you when I talked to Abraham and Sarah, where were you when I decided to create the flower or a hummingbird? Before I knit you together in your mother's womb, where were you? Where were you when I came up with grace and mercy? Where were you that I asked your great thinkers about what I should do that I consult with anyone? No. His wisdom is independent of his creation. Which forces me to ask myself the question and ask you the question, why does the gospel not excite us anymore? Why does the gospel not excite us anymore? Have we moved beyond God's masterpiece? Do we need to go on to things that are more practical? Folks, there's nothing more than the gospel that you need. The gospel explains it all. We don't ever move past the gospel of God's grace because his wisdom is independent from ours. He's someone that we will never get to the bottom of, will never fully understand. As C.S. Lewis says, it will be like opening new doors into a house and you'll never stop opening doors. He's independently wise, but he's also independently wealthy. Paul says in verse 35, who has ever given to God that God should repay him. That's real wealth. It's glory in our day that people have real wealth, independent wealth. That's some real glory. Those are the kind of people that can stop traffic. I saw a cavalcade recently a couple months ago. I was just driving back. I got doughnuts on a Saturday morning and I hear sirens, woo! Disflash in people going down the road, unmarked SUVs. I was like, oh, this is somebody. Normally on cavalcade, you can just pull over, but they wanted you to pull all the way over and not even make eye contact with the policeman. Don't even think about looking at this person. Because that person has wealth. That person is somebody. They stop traffic for crying out loud. And here in this passage, what Paul is saying is, God doesn't need your money. He's not impressed by your cavalcade. But what undoes Paul in this passage is not just his wealth. But as he looks at the entire letter to the Romans, it's how God spends his wealth. Because you learn a lot about someone when you see how they spend their wealth. We read an article this week about a man. I'm not judging him. I think he's kind of cool. But he's spending like $60 million to go to space. You read this? But it's funny because his wife is shutting down that hobby. You're not going to spend $60 million to go to space anymore. I thought that was kind of funny. The reason the man wanted to spend $60 million to go to space because his dream, his joy, his hope is not going to space. And you learn a lot about what this man's joy and hope and dream is. Because he spends his money there. You know what's so amazing about the God of our creation? Do you know what he spends his independent wealth on? Jesus Christ, who had all the wealth of heaven, all the glory of heaven. He laid it aside to become one of us. He was one of the people that was shoved over when the cavalcade came by. He became one of us. And how precious do you think the blood of the Son of God is as it spilled all to the ground outside of Jerusalem, of the depths of the wisdom and the knowledge of God, how unsearchable his judgments and his ways, his paths beyond tracing out, who has ever given to God that God should repay him. And the message for us is that we should ask ourselves the question, why has Christianity become so mundane to so many of us? Have we forgotten how independently wise he is? Have we forgotten how independently wealthy he is? Have we forgotten how independently glorious he is? Well, the only response is for our dependent worship, which is our second point. Look with me at verse 36, who are from him and through him and to him are all things, to him be the glory forever, Amen. Paul is saying that the triune God is the agent and source of everything. Let me say that again. The triune God of the universe is the source of everything, and he's the sustainer of everything. The reason you have a pulse right this very second is because he is sustaining your life. The food that you will eat today, he has given to you. The car that you drive home in is his car. The children that you love are his children that he made. The oxygen that you breathe is from him and the lungs which you breathe that oxygen in with are his lungs because he made them. Everything is from him, and through him he sustains it, and of course it's to him that everything exists. And so it makes sense that Paul says to whom be the glory? To him be the glory forever, Amen. That's why I saved us. You know that God didn't save us to make us feel good about ourselves? That's a byproduct of salvation. The God saves sinners because it brings him more glory. It brings him glory to save you. It brings him glory to have his enemy in his kingdom. It brings him glory, eternal glory, and he's most interested in bringing himself glory. The Triune God didn't need us to be complete. The Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit have always drilled, dwelled in perfect unity and fellowship. And the creation of all things was an overflow of their love and of their glory. Let us make man in our image. Kind of like the first time I saw a picture of my parents, a black and white picture before they had us, you know those wedding photos. I started thinking to myself, I mean they had a life before they had us. You mean they were smiling in these pictures. They were smiling before me. How could you possibly smile before me? I wasn't a self-centered child at all. God didn't need us. He made us because he's that kind of God. Out of an overflow of his glory and his love, out of his independent wisdom and his independent wealth and those very creatures he created, he also saved. When I say dependent worship, I say that because you know that's the way the story ends, don't you? The story of time, the entrance into all eternity, eternity by the way, there's no end in Revelation 22, there's a city. And in that city there's no need for a Son or a moon because God is its light and the Lamb is its lamp and the nations get their light by it and get this. The kings of the nations bring their splendor into it. It's good for us to be reminded that we're so dependent. We're creatures. We're dependent creatures and we must bring glory to the one who created us. It's the only response that makes sense, right? The only response that makes sense of all that's true. The only response is to say to you be glory forever and ever, not to us, to you. We have no glory on our own. We have no independent wisdom. We have no independent wealth. He has it all. So when God turns the sun shine out, he is so glorious that we'll never need another light to light the city of God forever and ever. Okay, Richie, what's the application? What's the point? The point is we need to stop pursuing our own glory because you know that's what we're obsessed with, don't you? And our own glory is anything that we are most defensive about. It's our children or it's our money, it's our status, it's our reputation, it's the way we're going to be seen, it's the way we're going to look, it's our own glory. We want our own little kingdoms and our own little glory. The things that you're most afraid of when they're threatened, those are the things that you find glory in and it's personal glory. And if the end of the story is the lamb is its lamp, then it's time for us to turn our lights out now and trade our glory in. Because you think a 1992, you two concert is just a taste of glory? Where is your imitation glory that we should give away our glory? It reminds me of being a child. By the way, I give a lot of illustrations on being a child because to many of you, I still am a child. I haven't lived that long. But when the lights would go out, I loved it at night. It's kind of scary but we'd all make our way to that closet with the flashlights. And we turn those flashlights on and there would be lifesavers and things like that. But then the lights would come back on and we want to keep our flashlights on steel. We want to hold our flashlights but I remember my parents would always say, hey, don't turn the flashlights off, you're going to run out the batteries. And I remember thinking how little that bulb looked in light of the house lights. It's time we turn our flashlights off. And what that means is those of you who have the most glory in the eyes of this world, those of you who have the most letters behind your name, who have the most wisdom and have the most wealth in the eyes of this world. Do you want to shock Memphis? Start giving your glory away to the least of these. And people will say, why on the world are you doing that? Because I don't have any glory. My glory will outshine the sun. My glory is Jesus Christ Himself. And something will happen to us if we begin to do that. If we begin to live for the eternal kingdom, you will see us be freed from so many of the worries and anxieties that we're obsessed with right now. Because our worries and our anxieties come when we're trying to protect our glory, worried about our reputations, worried about what that person thinks of us. Look, if Christ gets all the glory and we don't have any glory of our own, who cares what people think about us? Because you know how the story ends. Independent glory should make us dependent worshipers. Ask yourself that question today. If God is independently glorious, then why am I not dependent a dependent worshiper?
Lord, we can do none of this, apart from you, but we really believe you want to do this in our lives because your word tells us, your word says, Jesus Christ Himself said that whoever exalts Himself will be humbled. But whoever humbles Himself will be exalted. And that means we turn our glory out, that we trade it for real glory. The glory from knowing you, that we will be like the kings that bring our splendor into the city. Do not let us live another day where we live for our own glory. Please, we ask. Forgive us when we do.