The Present of God’s God-Centeredness

Audio Transcript

God is all-sovereign, omnipotent. And he’s all-happy in himself. He lacks nothing. And he desires issues from us. So, does he want us or want what we can provide him? Matthew is attempting to place these items collectively in his e mail to us right this moment. “Pastor John, hi there and thanks in your ministry,” Matthew writes. “Early in your great ebook Windfall, on web page 43, you discuss how God has full glory. We don’t give him any glory he doesn’t inherently possess already. What God creates isn’t important to God. That appears to be the purpose of Acts 17:25. So, we ascribe glory to God, ‘the one God,’ and we ascribe that glory to him ‘earlier than all time’ — earlier than creation even existed (Jude 25).

Contemplating this, does this imply if we glorify God by having fun with him, we will say that he created us not as a result of he wanted something from us, however that he created us solely to share in his delight of delighting in himself? In different phrases, God’s self-delight in himself appears to don’t have anything to do together with his neediness, however it’s the biggest reward conceivable to the creation! That God is self-sufficiently comfortable, in himself, is the most effective information on the planet for us to listen to. Am I following your line of thought right here? In that case . . . wow!”

Wow, certainly. And Matthew is following me.

1. God is self-sufficiently comfortable in himself.
2. God created us not as a result of he wanted something from us. He has no wants, no deficiencies.
3. He created us in order that we might share within the delight that he has in himself.

On these three factors, he’s monitoring completely with what I believe and what I imagine the Bible teaches. As Jonathan Edwards put it, “It’s no deficiency in a fountain that it’s vulnerable to overflow.” However what Matthew is basically following right here is just not a lot me because the Bible. So, let me attempt to sum that up.

Self-Adequate God

We learn within the Bible that God the Father says he loves the Son with pleasure. “That is my beloved Son, with whom I’m effectively happy” (Matthew 3:17). God the Father takes pleasure in God the Son. And in John 14:31, the Son says, “I really like the Father.” So, within the fellowship of the Trinity, there may be an everlasting mutual love — not the type of love (that is so vital to get) that loves regardless of defects, the way in which God loves us, however the type of love that’s solely delight. The Father and the Son discover in one another the completely satisfying actuality of an ideal, all-glorious God.

“The everlasting happiness of God in God is the inspiration of our everlasting happiness in him.”

In 1 Timothy 1:11, Paul refers back to the glory of our comfortable God: makariou theou, “blessed God.” It’s not the type of blessedness that’s translated “reward” or “honor,” however relatively “comfortable,” the identical as within the Beatitudes — the “comfortable God.” It belongs to God’s nature from eternity to be completely comfortable within the fellowship of the Trinity. That’s the inspiration of claiming he has no wants. He didn’t create us to fulfill any wants or to make up for any deficiencies.

Act 17:25 says, “[God] is [not] served by human arms, as if he wanted something [How clear can that be? He doesn’t need anything], since he himself provides to all mankind life and breath and every little thing.” Mark 10:45 says that the Son of Man didn’t come into the world to recruit servants to fulfill his wants. “The Son of Man got here to not be served however to serve, and to offer his life as a ransom for a lot of.”

And Psalm 50:12–15 says,

If I had been hungry [God says], I might not inform you,
     for the world and its fullness are mine.
Do I eat the flesh of bulls
     or drink the blood of goats?
Provide to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving,
     and carry out your vows to the Most Excessive,
and name upon me within the day of bother;
     I’ll ship you, and also you shall glorify me.

That’s the wonderful dynamic of God’s self-sufficiency. Did we discover, as we heard Psalm 50, that in that textual content (and in Acts 17:25 and in Mark 10:45) the impact is such excellent news? The impact of God having no wants — that’s, being self-sufficient — is the premise of his assembly our wants. That’s the glory of speaking about this.

In different phrases, God’s self-sufficiency is the premise of grace, the overflow of grace, which is why Paul says in Ephesians 1 that every little thing is completed to the reward of the glory of his grace (Ephesians 1:6, 12, 14). As a result of grace is the apex. It’s the best level of God’s God-ness. He spills over. His self-sufficiency is the premise of his grace, his love.

Glorifying by Having fun with

Now, I believe we have to simply pause and let that sink in, Tony, as a result of I believe lots of people hear us — you, me, Wanting God — discuss God’s self-sufficiency, and so they really feel like we’re dealing in some high-level, obscure, irrelevant, theological hypothesis concerning the nature of God that has no bearing on our every day lives. Good night time! How completely improper is that?

When the Bible speaks of God’s infinite, final self-sufficiency, it ties it along with God’s being a beneficiant, gracious, overflowing, need-meeting God. So, in Acts 17:25, the truth that God is just not “served by human arms, as if he wanted something” results in this: “He himself provides to all mankind life and breath and every little thing.” And in Mark 10:45, the truth that “the Son of Man got here to not be served” results in this: “[Instead, he came] to serve, and to offer his life as a ransom for a lot of.” And in Psalm 50:15, the truth that God doesn’t should be fed by anyone else results in this: “Name upon me within the day of bother; I’ll ship you.” And that subsequent phrase in Psalm 50:15 ties it along with the glory of God. It says, “Name upon me within the day of bother; I’ll ship you, and also you shall glorify me.”

In different phrases, the giver will get the glory. The one who meets the wants of others will get the glory as a result of it reveals his overflowing fullness. When Isaiah 43:7 says that God created us for his glory, it means God created because the overflow of his fullness, the overflow of his greatness, his magnificence, his price (we name it his glory), in order that his glory can be our all-satisfying treasure. That’s the way you glorify an infinitely precious treasure: by treasuring it, by treasuring it above every little thing else, by being glad in his self-giving revelation above every little thing else.

God didn’t create to change into superb. He created to share his glory for the enjoyment of his creatures. And surprise of wonders, our enjoyment of the all-glorious God is the very means by which his glory shines most brightly within the creation. The everlasting happiness of God in God is the inspiration of our everlasting happiness in him. And our supreme happiness in God is the seal that we placed on the supreme price of God’s glory, which is why we by no means tire of claiming that God is most glorified in us once we are most glad in him.