Q: How can we glorify God?
A: We glorify God by enjoying him, loving him, trusting him, and by obeying his will, commands, and law.
Deuteronomy 11:1 “You shall therefore love the Lord your God and keep his charge, his statutes, his rules, and his commandments always.”
When Moses said in Exodus 33:18 “Please show me your glory.”, what do you think he expected as a response? When you hear the question “What is God’s glory?”, what is your response? When we strive to do things to the glory of God, what does that mean? When we desire to glorify God, what do we mean? For an idea that we as Christians interact with as much as we do, God’s glory is a notion that is nearly impossible to define, let alone fully comprehend.
God’s answer to Moses in Exodus 33:19 was this “(God) said, ‘I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The Lord.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But,’ he said, ‘you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.” When God responds to Moses he references his goodness, his name, his grace, his mercy, his sovereignty, he also says Moses cannot bear to see his face, lest he perish, Moses can handle only a passing by of his glory. Similarly, in Isaiah 6:3, the Seraphim, who cannot bear to uncover their faces or their feet in the presence of God, declare “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” Isaiah himself fares no better and immediately recognizes his impending doom in sharing the presence of a Holy God, “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” This same sentiment is echoed by Peter when their nets are filled following Jesus’ command in Luke 5 “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.”
Glory may be described as the revelation of the beauty of God’s holiness to his creation. The reflection of his infinite unapproachable holiness through his infinite glory.
We already know that God’s glory is infinite, we also know that God is complete unto himself, needing nothing or no one. All of his creation neither adds to his glory, nor would the lack of it detract from his glory. This also means that he will be glorified through his creation, regardless of their desire to glorify him. Romans 9:22-23 says “What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory”
Knowing that we can neither add to or detract from God’s glory, yet being commanded expressly to glorify him, as in 1 Corinthians 10:31 “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”, the question facing us is further clarified “How can we actively and willfully glorify God?”
The first and second questions of the Westminster Shorter Catechism questions are these:
Q1: What is the chief end of man?
A1: Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and enjoy him forever.
Q2: What rule hath God given us to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy him?
A2: The Word of God, which is contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, is the only rule to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy him.
We glorify God by enjoying him, our glorifying of God is inextricably tied to our enjoyment of him. Enjoying him, expressly as he has revealed himself to us through his word. We cannot love a God that we do not know, and we can only know him through his word, and we cannot glorify a God we do not love. If we do not love him we only follow his commands out of a sense of duty, we serve out of duty, out of submission, but that submission must be driven by our love for him. The reprobate are submissive to him as well, but they do not willfully glorify him in their submission, they are submissive only because they were created in submission, though in their hearts they choose to rebel.
That is not to imply that our obedience is enjoyable in its experience, or brings us pleasure, but we obey, trusting that in him we have greater pleasure, greater enjoyment of him through our obedience. As Jesus said of his mission in John 12:27-28 ““Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.”
So, how do we glorify a God that is already infinitely glorious? When we discuss glorifying God, we are not adding to his glory, rather we are drawing attention to his already existing, infinite glory. John Piper uses an analogy like this: “There are two kinds of magnifying: microscope magnifying and telescope magnifying. The one makes a small thing look bigger than it is. The other makes a big thing begin to look as big as it really is. When David says, “I will magnify God with thanksgiving,” he does not mean, “I will make a small God look bigger than he is.” He means, “I will make a big God begin to look as big as he really is.”
Our enjoyment in God, through all circumstances, shines a light on his sufficiency - his all encompassing sufficiency. Not only on his present sufficiency, but his future sufficiency as well. And not just his sufficiency, just as our worship of him stems from the overflow of our enjoyment in him, also, it alludes to his overabundant sufficiency.
2 Corinthians 4:15-18 “For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God. So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”