This is the third in my series of posts from Piper's "Let the Nations Be Glad". If you missed it, read the first and second posts before continuing on with this post.
Another way to say it is simply, God is righteous. The opposite of righteousness is to value and enjoy what is not truly valuable or rewarding. This is why people are called unrighteous in Romans 1:18. They suppress the truth of God's value and exchange God for created things. So they belittle God and discredit his worth. Righteousness is the opposite. It means recognizing true value for what it is and esteeming it and enjoying it in proportion to its true worth. The unrighteous in 2 Thessalonians 2:10 perish because they refuse to love the truth. The righteous, then, are those who welcome a love for the truth. Righteousness is recognizing and welcoming and loving and upholding what is truly valuable. God is righteous. This means that he recognizes, welcomes, loves and upholds with infinite jealousy and energy what is infinitely valuable, namely, the worth of God. God's righteousness passion and delight is to display and uphold his infinitely valuable glory. This is not a vague theological conjecture. It flows inevitably from dozens of Biblical texts that show God in the relentless pursuit of praise and honor from creation to consummation.
Probably no text in the Bible reveals the passion of God for his own glory more clearly and bluntly than Isaiah 48:9-11 where God says,
The apostle John described the motive of early Christian missionaries in the same way. He wrote to tell one of his churches that they should send out Christian brothers in a manner "worthy of God." And the reason he gives is that "they have gone out for the sake of his name, taking nothing from the Gentiles." ( 3 John 6-7).
John Stott comments on these two texts (Romans 1:5; 3 John 7): "They knew that God had superexalted Jesus, enthroning him at his right hand and bestowing upon him the highest rank, in order that every tongue should confess his lordship. They longed that Jesus should receive the honor due his name." This longing is not a dream but a certainty. at the bottom of all our hope, when everything else has given way, we stand on this great reality: the everlasting, all- sufficient God is infinitely, unwaveringly, and eternally committed to the glory of his great and holy name. For the sake of his fame among the nations he will act. His name will not be profaned forever. The mission of the church will be victorious. He will vindicate his people and his cause in all the earth.
The absence of Brainerd's passion for God is the great cause of missionary weakness in the churches. This was Andrew Murray's judgement a hundred years ago:
God is pursuing with omnipotent passion a worldwide purpose of gathering joyful worshipers for himself from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. He has an inexhaustible enthusiasm for the supremacy of his name among the nations. Therefore let us bring our affections into line with his, and, for the sake of his name, let us renounce the quest for worldly comforts, and join his global purpose. If we do this, God's omnipotent commitment to his name will be over us like a banner, and we will not lose, in spite of many tribulations (Acts 9:16; Romans 8:35-39). Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn't. The Great Commission is first to delight yourself in the Lord (Psalm 37:4) . And then to declare, "Let the nations be glad and sing for joy!" (Psalm 67:4). In this way God will be glorified from beginning to end and worship will empower the missionary enterprise till the coming of the Lord.
The Chief End of God Is to Glorify God and Enjoy Himself For Ever
All my years of preaching and teaching on the supremacy of God in the heart of God have proved that this truth hits most people like a truck laden with unknown fruit. If they survive the impact, they discover that it is the most luscious fruit on the planet. I have unpacked this truth with lengthy arguments in other places. So here I will just give a brief overview of the Biblical basis. What I am claiming is that the answer to the first question of the Westminster Catechism is the same when asked concerning God as it is when asked concerning man. Question: "What is the chief end of man?" Answer: "The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him for ever." Question: "What is the chief end of God?" Answer: "The chief end of God is to glorify God and enjoy himself for ever."Another way to say it is simply, God is righteous. The opposite of righteousness is to value and enjoy what is not truly valuable or rewarding. This is why people are called unrighteous in Romans 1:18. They suppress the truth of God's value and exchange God for created things. So they belittle God and discredit his worth. Righteousness is the opposite. It means recognizing true value for what it is and esteeming it and enjoying it in proportion to its true worth. The unrighteous in 2 Thessalonians 2:10 perish because they refuse to love the truth. The righteous, then, are those who welcome a love for the truth. Righteousness is recognizing and welcoming and loving and upholding what is truly valuable. God is righteous. This means that he recognizes, welcomes, loves and upholds with infinite jealousy and energy what is infinitely valuable, namely, the worth of God. God's righteousness passion and delight is to display and uphold his infinitely valuable glory. This is not a vague theological conjecture. It flows inevitably from dozens of Biblical texts that show God in the relentless pursuit of praise and honor from creation to consummation.
Probably no text in the Bible reveals the passion of God for his own glory more clearly and bluntly than Isaiah 48:9-11 where God says,
"For my name's sake I defer my anger, for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you, that I may not cut you off. Behold, I have refined you, but not like silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction. For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another."I have found that for many people these words come like six hammer blows to a man-centered way of looking at the world:
For my name's sake! For the sake of my praise! For my own sake! For my own sake! How should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another!What this text hammers home to us is the centrality of God in his own affections. The most passionate heart for the glorification of God is God's heart. God's ultimate goal is to uphold and display the glory of his name.
For the Sake of His Name among All the Nations
Paul makes crystal clear in Romans 1:5 that his mission and calling are for the name of Christ among all the nations: "We have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all nations."The apostle John described the motive of early Christian missionaries in the same way. He wrote to tell one of his churches that they should send out Christian brothers in a manner "worthy of God." And the reason he gives is that "they have gone out for the sake of his name, taking nothing from the Gentiles." ( 3 John 6-7).
John Stott comments on these two texts (Romans 1:5; 3 John 7): "They knew that God had superexalted Jesus, enthroning him at his right hand and bestowing upon him the highest rank, in order that every tongue should confess his lordship. They longed that Jesus should receive the honor due his name." This longing is not a dream but a certainty. at the bottom of all our hope, when everything else has given way, we stand on this great reality: the everlasting, all- sufficient God is infinitely, unwaveringly, and eternally committed to the glory of his great and holy name. For the sake of his fame among the nations he will act. His name will not be profaned forever. The mission of the church will be victorious. He will vindicate his people and his cause in all the earth.
The absence of Brainerd's passion for God is the great cause of missionary weakness in the churches. This was Andrew Murray's judgement a hundred years ago:
"As we seek to find out why, with such millions of Christians, the real army of God that is fighting the hosts of darkness is so small, the only answer is--lack of heart. The enthusiasm of the kingdom is missing. And that is because there is so little enthusiasm for the King."The zeal of the church for the glory of her King will not rise until pastors and mission leaders and seminary teachers make much more of the King. When the glory of God himself saturates our preaching and teaching and conversation and writings, and when he predominates above our talk of methods and strategies and psychological buzz words and cultural trends, then the people might begin to feel that he is the central reality of their lives and that the spread of his glory is more important than all their possessions and all their plans.
The Call of God
God is calling us above all else to be the kind of people whose theme and passion is the supremacy of God in all of life. No one will be able to rise to the magnificence of the missionary cause who does not feel the magnificence of Christ. There will be no big world vision without a big God. There will be no passion to draw others into our worship where there is no passion for worship.God is pursuing with omnipotent passion a worldwide purpose of gathering joyful worshipers for himself from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. He has an inexhaustible enthusiasm for the supremacy of his name among the nations. Therefore let us bring our affections into line with his, and, for the sake of his name, let us renounce the quest for worldly comforts, and join his global purpose. If we do this, God's omnipotent commitment to his name will be over us like a banner, and we will not lose, in spite of many tribulations (Acts 9:16; Romans 8:35-39). Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn't. The Great Commission is first to delight yourself in the Lord (Psalm 37:4) . And then to declare, "Let the nations be glad and sing for joy!" (Psalm 67:4). In this way God will be glorified from beginning to end and worship will empower the missionary enterprise till the coming of the Lord.
Great and wonderful are your deeds, O Lord God the Almighty! Just and true are your ways, O King of the ages! Who shall not fear and glorify your name, O Lord? For you alone are holy. All nations shall come and worship you, for your judgements have been revealed. Revelation 15:3-4
Excerpted from Let the Nations Be Glad: The Supremacy of God in Missions, by John Piper
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