This post was written in February 2007 after the Colts won the Superbowl.

“To the Glory of God Alone!”- this is a Latin phrase that became one of the cries of the church through the ages.  It is often seen engraved in churches and seen in writings of the church fathers.  This is something that we, however, easily forget.  We seem to cry out to God when our lives are not going well, and we want his help.  We so often forget to praise Him and give Him thanks for the awesome things that He has done in our lives.  This picture (above) amazes me every time I look at it.  Tony Dungy, the Colts Head Coach, has a reputation of being a man of character and a follower of Jesus Christ both on and off the football field that is encouraging to all believers in Christ.  He maintained that character through both the good times and bad with a grace and Christ-likeness about him that has had a great impact on anyone who knows his story.  He lost his son to suicide a few years back and through that time of tremendous sorrow and trail remained strong and a strong influence for Christ.  He trusted in God amidst the struggle.  That is when people look at us as Christians the most.  It is easy to believe in Christ when you are being blessed and everything is right in the world.  It is hard, however, to trust God when you feel like your world is being ripped apart around you.  Tony was being watched by an entire world of sports fans, and he handled his pain and grief holding His Savior’s hand.  This was encouraging and made a huge impact on people who were watching.  Now that everything is grand in Tony’s world, being the first African American coach to lead a team to a Super Bowl victory, he does not forget to praise the God who not only held his hand in the hard times but raises his hand to celebrate the victory that He has provided.  And so as Tony and his players bow a knee in the locker room, they remember “Soli deo gloria!” 

I have had the privilege of spending the last two days in Panama City.  It has been an interesting trip in that I have been surrounded by God’s beautiful creation.  There is something about spending time watching the sunset over the horizon and then sitting on the beach with your feet in the water being lapped over by waves.  I look at the beauty and design of the world especially the beach, and the only way that I can respond is in worship.  It is so neat to me that the closer I get to God’s beautiful creation, the closer I feel to God.  The interesting part of this whole experience is that in my breaks from the beauty of God’s creation I am reading a book by one of the world most well-known atheists, that proposes that God clearly does not exist but rather the world functions by the evolutionary process of natural selection.  As I was walking on the beach tonight and looking at the sunset, I could not help but think of the author of the book I am reading and other educated scientists who propose evolution and natural selection as the controllers of the universe and how they would respond to this glorious picture of beauty.  Let me paint you two pictures of this picture and let you see which picture is more beautiful:

Picture 1 (The Perspective of an Evolutionary Scientist): “There is the sun.  It is a collection of chemical gasses that are operating at a specific temperature that is the necessary temperature to allow the process of evolution to have functioned on the planet earth.  The earth is set in a rotation around the sun that is fundamentally necessary for the earth to have sustained life.  It is just a hot ball of gasses fulfilling its function in the overarching cycle of evolutionary natural selection.”

Picture 2 (My Perspective as a Worshipper): “There is the sun in all of its beauty.  I see the sun setting over the horizon in a beautiful way which the Author of Beauty created it to be.  It is their performing its lone purpose which is to display the beauty and give the world a glimpse of the glory of God.  The Psalmist had it right when he said that ‘the heavens declare the glory of God.’ I will join with all of creation in praising the name of my glorious God!”

I think that we can get to a place that we become so educated that we miss the beauty of God’s creation.  Worship thrives on wonder.  I do not want to become so educated that I miss the wonder and beauty of God’s creation.  As the Psalmist said “the heavens are declaring,” the question is are we listening!

We each come to everything that we face in life with strengths, gifts, and some amount of knowledge.  In most circumstances, we use the skills, gifts, and knowledge that we have in order to do our best and to succeed in what we are trying to accomplish.  Serving Christ, however, does not operate on these principles.  Like many things presented in the Bible, serving God is done in a way that is truly upside down compared to what we are used to seeing in the world around us.  2 Corintians 3:4-5 NKJV reads this way “And such trust through Christ toward God.  Not that we are sufficient of ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God”  This verse flies in the face of each one of us being capable to serve God and do ministry.  So we face this battle daily of whether we are going to try to run things in our own strength and wisdom or whether we are going to allow the Holy Spirit to provide the knowledge by working through us.  Martin Luther makes some comments on this struggle in a sermon that he gave on this text.  In that sermon he says with regards to his role as a minister of the gospel:

“Of ourselves - in our own wisdom and strength - we cannot effect, discover nor teach any counsel or help for man, whether for ourselves or others.  Any good work we perform among you, any doctrine we write upon your heart - that is God’s own work.  He puts it into our heart and mouth what we should say and impresses it upon your heart through the work of the Holy Spirit.  Therefore, we cannot ascribe to ourselves any honor therein, cannot seek our own glory as the self-instructed proud spirits do; we must give to God alone the honor…”

Luther goes on to say that “Man’s achievements, Man’s reasoning and power are of no avail save in so far as they come from God.”  I want to be a person who lives and serves others in a way that it is not my suffieciency and knowledge that is coming through, but it is the work of the Holy Spirit that is done in such a way that only He can get the glory.  I want to not be driven by my “wisdom” and “strength”  I would much rather tap into the source of all true wisdom and strength.

I was listening to a preaching podcast the other day, and there was this question that the speaker raised that has been on my mind and heart ever since I heard it.  He was talking about the person that God will use.  He said that God uses people that He can trust with His glory.  So the question is “Am I a person that God could trust with His glory?” This question hinges on several things.  First off, the issue of giving God the glory for everything that He does in and through you.  It is a temptation for anyone in ministry to take the credit for God’s work.  This comes under the aspect of humility where my self-worth is based.  Is my self-worth based in my relationship with Jesus and the fact that I am loved by Him or do I have to perform to prove my worth by making myself look good by what God has done through me?  If my self-worth is based in my relationship with Jesus, I will not be interested in stealing glory from God.  Secondly, I think that part of this is will we use the opportunities that He has given us to do every part of it with excellence as an offering of worship to Him.  I think that it is really easy to half-way do ministry to get by and not doing the best you can and seeking to persue excellence.  This is the problem with many things that are considered Christian.  It is done in a manner that does not include the investment of time, energy, and prayer that an offering of worship to God should.  Thirdly, I think that someone must be a vessel that can most clearly reflect God’s glory.  This gets back to personal purity and holiness.  Everyone who has attempted to do this knows that this is something that only the Holy Spirit can do.  We cannot perform “good” without the Holy Spirit working in us.  Even the “good” deeds that we do will be wrongly motivated when we attempt to perform on our own.  My prayer is that God would make me into a person that He can trust with His glory.

I am reading through a book called Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith by Rob Bell. This has really been causing me to stop and think about many different issues that Rob raises in the book. One thing that he said in regard to missions really struck me:

“So the issue (of missions) isn’t so much taking Jesus to people who don’t have Him, but going to a place and pointing out to the people there the creative, life-giving God who is already present in our midst.” - Rob Bell in Velvit Elvis

This statement was almost shocking. So often growing up in church, you would hear the classic missionary story of these people called by God to bring Him to a heathen land that had never heard His name. This statement flies in the face of that mindset, but after reflecting on it, I think that Rob is onto something. When we have the standard missions mindset of the gospel being ours to bring, we put the focus entirely on us and put us in a place where we are almost above those to whom we are seeking to impact. The midset pictured in this statement totally refocuses missions. It brings it to our job as a missionary sharing the gospel to people becomes pointing out God as the source of all beauty and order that the psalmist said that the heavens were declaring the greatness of. God is the source of all order and beauty and the reason the universe fits together. We are simply to be willing to point to the order and beauty in order to show people how to have a realationship with the Creator of all that beauty and order. When we are just pointing out the God that is there, it takes so much of the pressure off of us to explain this incomprehensible God to others. What a great privelege we have to look for opportunities to introduce people to our awesome and loving God!