I have mentioned before the message John Piper gave at Passion 2010.
I was reading it again this morning to finish a lesson and it struck me again how wonderful it is. Go take a look.
God’s Radical Devotion to Himself
Reading the Bible with these eyes, I began to see what Erik Reece and C.S. Lewis and Michael Prowse and Oprah were seeing. God really is radically devoted to seeing himself exalted. God is radically committed to seeing that his glory is esteemed as the supreme value of the universe.
Here is a sampling of what I saw.
God creates for his glory.
Isaiah 43:6-7: Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, every one who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory.
God elects Israel for his glory.
Jeremiah 13:11: I made the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah cling to me, says the LORD, that they might be for me a people, a name, a praise, and a glory.
God saves them from Egypt for his glory.
Psalm 106:7-8: Our fathers rebelled against the Most High at the Red Sea. Yet he saved them for his name’s sake that he might make known his power.
God restrains his anger in exile for his glory.
Isaiah 48:9-11: For my names sake I defer my anger, for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you . . . . For my own sake, for my own sake I do it, forhow should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another.
God sends his Son at the end of the age for his glory.
2 Thessalonians 1:9-10: He comes on that day to be glorified in his saints and to be marveled at in all who have believed.
In all of redemptive history, from beginning to ending, God has this one ultimate goal: that his name be glorified. The aim of God in all that he does is most ultimately the praise of his glory.
All of redemptive history is bookended by this amazing purpose in God the Father and God the Son. And in the middle of that redemptive history stands the greatest event in the history of the world, the death of Jesus Christ.
And just at these points—the beginning and the ending and the middle (predestining of our salvation at the beginning, and the consummation of our salvation at the end, and the purchase of our salvation at the middle)—just at these points the problem of God’s apparent egomania finds its amazing solution.