May his name endure forever,

        his fame continue as long as the sun!
    May people be blessed in him,
        all nations call him blessed!
    Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel,
        who alone does wondrous things.
    Blessed be his glorious name forever;
        may the whole earth be filled with his glory!
    Amen and Amen!
    The prayers of David, the son of Jesse, are ended.—Psalm 72:17–20

 

Introduction

Last Week’s Application

Let me start this message by making two clarifications about my application from last week.

First, in my application, I talked about ramping up our commitment to church planting. That raises the question about the relationship between being a multi-campus church and a church-planting church. Can we be both multi-campus and passionate about church planting? Or must we be one or the other? I think of the relationship like this: I think that being multi-campus should empower church planting. We are not talking about splitting up our campuses. That isn’t even on the radar because we believe that having multiple campuses and planting churches are not at odds. Far from it! Our campuses are three launching pads for church planting. I remember driving to South Dakota, and I had never noticed the missile silos before along the interstate. We see our campuses as three missile silos along the I-35W interstate. We have a north missile silo, a downtown missile silo, and a south missile silo, from which we plan to launch new church plants all throughout these cities to fill them with the name of Jesus.

The second clarification I want to discuss briefly was provoked by the number one question I got after last week’s sermon. It was exactly the question I hoped would be raised because I wanted to address it. The question was, “What does it mean to seek the Spirit indirectly?” Along the same lines, I was asked, “Should we even mention the Spirit in our praying?” Let me answer the question behind those questions, “How do we think about the Spirit?” In thinking about the Spirit, I don’t want to lessen the emphasis on the Spirit. I encourage you to invite the Spirit into your life more fully. I want our lives to be more fully marked by the Spirit’s power and leading. Each member of the Trinity is distinct. Each member of the Trinity does a distinct work and each should get a distinct praise. Did you hear how I said that? A distinct work, but not a disconnected work. The works are always connected and moving toward the same end. So don’t pray for the Spirit to work in a way that is disconnected from the Father and Son. 

Let’s say that you want to see the fruits of the Spirit abound in your life (Galatians 5:22–23). Yes, pray that—but pray with the knowledge of why God wants you to have those fruits; don’t let it be disconnected. It helps to ask, “To what end am I wanting the fruits of the Spirit?” We want the fruits of the Spirit so that we can be more Christ-like because God has ordained that we would be conformed to the image of his Son (Romans 8:29). The fruits are distinctly of the Spirit, yet they are ordained by the Father, and they image Jesus’s own perfect attributes. Distinct but not disconnected.

Let me give you another example. In Ephesians 4:3, Paul says that we should guard the unity created by the Spirit. But why should we desire unity? To what end? Jesus answers that question in John 17:21 when he says we should be one so that the world may know that the Father sent Jesus. What is the Father’s plan? The Father’s plan is to bring everything under one head: Jesus (not under the Holy Spirit). The Spirit loves the Father’s plan and works to that end, as Jesus also carries out his role. Don’t see the Spirit’s work as a disconnected work. His work is not an end in itself but functions within the Father’s plan to redeem people and the whole earth through Jesus, which brings me to our passage for today.

The Glory Story

Psalm 72 celebrates the coming of a King who will bring worldwide blessing and will be blessed by worldwide worship. The psalm speaks about the whole earth being filled with the glory of God and this King.

I want to start by asking a question that is hard to answer. It is so hard that many don’t even ask. What does “glory” mean? What is it? Let me try to describe it. It is the external blazing, radiant glow that shines forth from God’s internal perfection. It is like the glow of treasure when you open a treasure chest. The treasure in the chest has such worth that you see a shining, magnificent glow when you open the chest. It is the same with God. When you look at him, you will see a glowing, shining radiance that emanates from his holy goodness. That is his glory.

There are many texts about God’s glory, but this text has so many links with other texts that it is breathtaking. Psalm 72 says that this King will bring about world justice, flourishing, abundance, and rescue. Themes of flourishing are tied back to the creation of the Garden of Eden, the original safe paradise. In Psalm 72:9–11, it says that the King will defeat his enemies and establish the borders of his kingdom around the entire earth (sea to sea; Euphrates to the end of the earth).

Verse 17 alludes to both Genesis 12:2–3 and Genesis 28:14. The original language ties Psalm 72 to these two texts even more tightly than it seems upon first reading. All three passages have the exact phrase for “all the tribes of the earth.” I want to look at these two Genesis passages, but I know that they won’t make sense unless we see how the story began. Let’s go back to the beginning.

Genesis 1:26 says that humanity was created in the image of God. What is an “image”? What does it mean to be made “in the image of God”? If I make something in my image, I am making something to reflect me. What does a mirror do? A mirror helps us see what we look like. Its sole purpose is to reflect an image. God does not make things in his image because he needs help seeing what he looks like. No, he intends for the world to be filled with his reflection. He wants others to see him and enjoy the “pleasures forevermore” that are found in him. Reflecting God and glorifying God share the same root idea. We glorify or magnify something when we attempt to make it look as glorious as it really is. When God made us in his image, it meant that he wanted to put his glory on display by making creatures that would reflect him and show him to be glorious. So, we were created in the image of God because we were created to glorify him. 

How did he plan to fill the earth with his glory? He instructed Adam and Eve and countless others to “be fruitful and multiply.” He would fill the earth with his glory by the physical birth of the image bearers he created. The display of God’s glory would increase with more and more people made in his image. As humanity filled the earth, the image of God would fill the earth—that is, the displaying and reflecting of his glory would fill the earth.

Sadly, the fall into sin changed all of this. Sinless humanity imaged God in two distinct dimensions: a natural image and a moral image of God. The fall into sin was a fall away from the moral image of God. Mankind kept the natural image of God, but lost the moral image. In doing so, the sin of man rather than glory of God began to cover the earth.

But the promise came that a child of a woman would come and crush the serpent and his rebellion— as far as the curse of sin was found. The curse of sin had spread throughout the whole earth. The blessing of salvation from this curse would need to be worldwide as well. Genesis 12 brings a worldwide promise. In contrast to the five uses of the word “curse” in Genesis 1–11, Genesis 12:2–3 uses the word “bless” five times in reference to the reversal of the curse of sin. Through Abram, all the families of the earth shall be blessed (Genesis 12:3). Genesis 28 repeats the worldwide scope and blessing of the promise.

Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south, and in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.—Genesis 28:14

The apostle Paul makes a direct connection here with Christ in Galatians 3:16.

Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your offspring,” who is Christ.—Galatians 3:16 

As the story continues, the outline of this “offspring, who is Christ” begins to take shape. For example, we learn later in Genesis that this child would be like a lion coming in the line of Judah (Genesis 49). We learn later that this child will be in the line of King David. This son of King David would gain worldwide rule.

When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. . . . And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever.’”—2 Samuel 7:12, 16

Let’s also take a look at Psalm 2, which orients the reader to keep watch for this worldwide ruler everywhere since he is the only hope for salvation. Psalm 2 says that other rulers will try to stop him, but they will be woefully unsuccessful. In fact, their efforts are so ridiculous that it is funny to God. The Lord laughs at them.

He who sits in the heavens laughs;
the Lord holds them in derision.
Then he will speak to them in his wrath,
and terrify them in his fury.—Psalm 2:4–5

Psalm 2 says that this King will receive “the nations” as his heritage and “the ends of the earth” as his possession (2:8). In Psalm 2:12, it says that they must kiss “the Son” (which is a rare vocabulary form in the original language, used also in Daniel 7, meaning “son of man”) or they will be destroyed by his wrath. 

Kiss the Son,
lest he be angry, and you perish in the way,
for his wrath is quickly kindled.
Blessed are all who take refuge in him.—Psalm 2:12

Psalm 72 emphasizes this same worldwide spread, the establishing of the borders of a kingdom around the entire earth (“from sea to sea, and from the River [Euphrates] to the ends of the earth”).

Psalm 86:9 emphasizes the same thing saying, “All the nations you have made shall come and worship before you, O Lord, and shall glorify your name.” 

The glory of this King’s name will spread like worldwide wildfire. The spreading of God’s global glory was an oath that God took back in Numbers 14:21.

But truly, as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD, none of the men who have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have put me to the test these ten times and have not obeyed my voice, shall see the land that I swore to give to their fathers.—Numbers 14:21 

The same promise is also found in Habakkuk 2:14—“For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.”

We can keep going. Isaiah 11 pictures the Messiah coming (“There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse.”—Isaiah 11:1) who is anointed with the Spirit (11:2) as the one who will bring the promise of God’s global glory and peace (11:6). It ends with this climactic description in verse 9, “They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.”

But there are also many verses about just how much is standing in the way of the spreading of God’s glory and thus also of peace and joy. And God cannot overlook all the times we have thumbed our nose at his glory. If he did not judge it, he would be agreeing with us, “You are right. I am not worth as much as a cup of coffee or a video game.” Humanity did not just slip up; we have made a terrible trade when we exchanged his glory for a lie. We have worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator who is blessed forever (Romans 1:25).

Christ came to avenge the worth of God’s great name in the most surprising way possible. He did not avenge it by shedding the blood of all the glory despisers but by shedding his own blood. God’s wrath was avenged and satisfied completely by his Son. He came to say that it has infinite worth. He swallowed up the wrath that threatened to consume us. He paid the debt we could not afford. Our sins are now nailed to the cross and we bear them no more because He bore our sins in his body. By his wounds, we are healed.

It is this combination that gives the greatest glow of all of God’s glory: the combination of self-exalting and self-giving. He himself is the highest good and shows that to us, not to show us what we can’t have but in order to give us himself. This is the key to understanding why God’s passion for his glory is good news for you. God is passionate about his glory because it means that he is giving the highest good, himself, to you. This is the good news of the gospel. 

But there is a question. Yes, he says that if anyone comes to him, he will not cast him away. But if the darkness hates the light, why would we ever come to the light? The answer is the power of light defeats our spiritual darkness and deadness.

How does that happen? It is the same answer to this question: How will the earth be filled with his glory? Answer: Spiritual birth by faith in Jesus. This is not the old creation anymore, where physical birth is what spreads; this is a new creation, where you are given a new heart.

And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case, the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.—2 Corinthians 4:3–6

The earth is filled with the glory of God’s image as people experience new birth through faith in Christ. Christ is the perfect image of God (Hebrews 1:3). God through the power of the Spirit sets the word of Christ on fire so that it penetrates a dark and dead heart. Suddenly it is bursting with the light of Christ’s glory, alive to the him who is the highest good.

This gospel must be preached to the ends of the earth if the earth is going to be filled with the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. The glory of God covers the earth as more and more people are converted from every tribe and tongue and language and nation.

Application

A Culture of Outreach

Let me quickly define what I mean by a culture of outreach. A culture of outreach happens when the whole church gets caught up in God’s “glory story” like tiny streams that all flow into the rushing river of God’s global purposes. So how can we speak more and more about this “glory story”? What motivates us? 

First, the invincibility of God’s plan is a motivation to speak the name of Jesus. We all know that feeling of trying something that you just know is going to fail. This is the opposite. The feeling that this cause cannot fail is wind in the sails of our evangelism and missions.

Look at Acts 4 for a great example of this invincible plan. Note the words “plot” and “plan.”

And when they heard it, they lifted their voices together to God and said, “Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them, who through the mouth of our father David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit,

                        “'Why did the Gentiles rage,
and the peoples plot in vain?
     The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers were gathered together,
     against the Lord and against his Anointed’—

        for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.—Acts 4:24–28

What is a vain plot? When all your attempts to foil a plan only end up fulfilling the plan, that’s how you know it is a vain plot. A plot is vain when it unwittingly and unwillingly fulfills the predestined plan or purpose of your opponent. Why waste your time? It is a mission impossible. How discouraging for your enemy if, in the final analysis, their biggest punch was turned against them because it was in your plan. “You did exactly what I wanted you to do, to your defeat.”

Imagine playing chess and plotting for the win, but every time you make a move it was already anticipated, and every time you just played into your opponent's hand. It would feel so vain to play that guy.

God is the only Sovereign. Yes, he has opponents, but he has no rivals. No one can stay his hand. No one can thwart his plan or say to him, “what are you doing?” Our God is in the heavens, and he does whatever he pleases. He works all things after the counsel of his will.

Second, when you are motivated to spread the fame of his name, you are also motivated to address the de-faming of his name. Acts 17 has a word for this. Provoked. Paul’s spirit was being provoked like a sharp pinprick. It hurts to see the thing you cherish most being treated as worthless. A missionary to India, Henry Martyn (1781–1812) said the same thing, “I could not endure existence if Jesus was not glorified; it would be hell to me, if he were to be always thus dishonored.”

Let me give you an example. Think about a Snickers commercial. Snickers really satisfy. Wrong, Jesus satisfies forever. You eat a snickers and you get hungry again (and it is not really good for you—even though it tastes good). Jesus is eternally good for you, and he is sweeter than anything else.

What is a third motivation for speaking? God sovereignly accomplishes his purposes by ordaining both the means and the end. God sovereignly uses means or vehicles for moving his purposes forward. There is a reason why William Carey wrote what he wrote titled his paper, a passionate call for missions, this way: “An enquiry into the obligations of Christians to use means for the conversion of the heathens.”

A chapter in the book The Gospel at Work gives some excellent advice on how to share the gospel at work. First, just work excellently as a Christian. It is a book after my own heart because it talks about the two ditches of work, namely how work can be an idol if taken too seriously or how you can be idle at work because you don’t care enough. The truth in the gospel is to see that you work for King Jesus. Second, learn to put God—I would say Christ—on the table. Bring him up early in your first conversations with co-workers and new friends at the workplace. Third, build relationships beyond the office. Grab coffee after work. I think that if you buy a man a meal, you can share the gospel with him anytime. Fourth, use the witness of the church and involvement. Don’t just say that you are busy Wednesday night; tell them you are going to Wednesday night prayer group at church. Fifth, have a mission field mindset at work. You speak the same jargon, struggle with the same questions and issues, which makes it easier for you to break into that subculture with the gospel. I would love to see gospel architects, gospel interpreters, and gospel electricians. It means something to be a means. 

Last, we have motivation to speak because we qualify as the kind of people God likes to use to spread his glory. God sovereignly chooses to use a certain kind of means, and we qualify. He likes to use people like us: weak and unimpressive so that his strength will shine more clearly. God chose weak things so that people would not confuse the treasure with the treasure carrier. Paul describes it this way in 2 Corinthians 4:7, “But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.”

Let me give you a few illustrations. I think they will better describe just how humbling and empowering it is that, though we are weak, God chooses to use us in his plan.

I read the story once of a grand piano master. There was a packed house waiting for the concert pianist to come and dazzle them. A little boy was in the crowd and saw the shiny grand piano. He snuck away while his mom was talking to her friends, and to everyone’s horror he started doing what he could do: plunk, plunk, plunk, plunk, plunk. As people were embarrassed and racing to grab the boy and get him out of there, the grand piano master came out and motioned everyone away. He said, “Little boy, keep playing that. I like that song.” So the boy kept playing. The piano master came up behind him and moved his fingers all over the keyboard in perfect rhythm and harmony with the boy so that it sounded like a symphony.

Who are we in this story? We are the little boy. We are just plunkers. We just plunk, plunk, plunk. But do you see how freeing this is? We don’t have to try to be the grand piano master. God is that and he makes our plunking into a symphony. 

This is what God does with our weakness. He does not remove it. He just uses it to show off his manifest strength and power. He gets the credit, and we get to be part of something beautiful.

Here is another illustration. Recently I read about a sixteen-year-old artist who won an art competition for a drawing she did with just a No. 2 pencil. She drew a fisherman named “Coleman.” It is crazy impressive. It can be mistaken for a photograph. And the amazing thing is she used a pencil. No paintbrush or elaborate color palette; just a normal pencil. Now nobody would look at that picture give the credit to the pencil. No one would say, “Wow, look at that picture. What a pencil she must’ve used!” The awe-inspiring part of that piece is that it shows how great the artist is. It displays the artist’s talent by using the most ordinary No. 2 pencil. That is what God does. He uses weak, ordinary people so that everyone can see that the strength is his, not ours.

How are plunkers and pencils supposed to carry out Bethlehem’s mission statement? It is easy to read it as though we are going to do it in our strength. We will spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ. But humble people, who know that they are just plunkers and pencils, read it knowing that it can only be done in the power of the Spirit and God’s grace.

Conclusion

The whole earth will be filled with God’s glory. That has been the point of this message. But let me point to a time when an even greater filling will come, at the second coming of Christ. Read in Revelation with me.

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.—Revelation 22:1–5

The whole world is in the throes of a worship war. I am not talking about what Christians do when they fight over which style of music we should sing in church. I am talking about a war of worth, asking questions like, “What has worth? What has value? What is truly priceless? What should we prize?” The world is asking these questions, and the world puts forward so many ideas as the answers.

The world is full of beauty, but only one thing can be held up as having ultimate worth. Whatever you take the most pleasure in, whatever you prize most, is your god. A Christian is a person who has become joyfully convinced that Jesus has ultimate worth. We seek to supremely value the supremely valuable One.

In the end, there will be a crystal clear reckoning concerning what has true value and what does not. A day is coming when everyone will be confronted with how wrong other ideas have been. On that day, people will see the true eternal emptiness of their idols. They will dump them down a bat hole. My call is this: if that is what you will do on that day, then just go ahead and do it today. Do it now, while there is still time. 

     And the haughtiness of man shall be humbled,
and the lofty pride of men shall be brought low,
and the LORD alone will be exalted in that day.
     And the idols shall utterly pass away.
     And people shall enter the caves of the rocks
and the holes of the ground,
     from before the terror of the LORD,
and from the splendor of his majesty,
when he rises to terrify the earth.
     In that day mankind will cast away
their idols of silver and their idols of gold,
     which they made for themselves to worship,
to the moles and to the bats,
     to enter the caverns of the rocks
and the clefts of the cliffs,
     from before the terror of the LORD,
and from the splendor of his majesty,
     when he rises to terrify the earth.—Isaiah 2:17–21 

The sky vanished like a scroll that is being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place. Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?”—Revelation 6:14–17

Wrong answers are bringing wrath. No one will be able to stand against it. One day, unbelievers will say that they would rather be crushed to death by a mountain than to have to face the full force of God’s wrath.

But the Christian does not fear that day. Christ has already absorbed the wrath of God. It was swallowed up at the cross. Our salvation was purchased at an infinite cost. How do we respond to such a great salvation? Psalm 70 gives the answer:

          May all who seek you
rejoice and be glad in you!
          May those who love your salvation
say evermore, “God is great!”—Psalm 70:4 

I continue to hear people say that Bethlehem Baptist Church is known for its theology. This thrills me, but only partially. It is not enough. I want Bethlehem to be known for its worship. You can tell people’s true theology by their worship.

Al Mohler quoted Roger Scruton, a British philosopher who has suggested that worship is the most important indicator of what persons or groups really believe about God. Scruton says that “God is defined in the act of worship far more precisely than he is defined by any theology.” Mohler’s commented on that quote saying, “What Scruton is saying is, in essence, ‘If you want to know what a people really believe about God, don’t spend time reading their theologians. Watch them worship. Listen to what they sing. Listen to what they say. Listen to how they pray. Then you will know what they believe about the God whom they worship.’”

We need fresh glimpses of his glory. Spirit, make our praise ever new! As theology catches fire in worship, our evangelism will catch fire as well. When we are be so consumed with the fact that the earth will be filled with Christ’s glory, we will speak boldly of that glory until Jesus returns. Come quickly, Lord Jesus!