This time of year is a good time to evaluate and look back and look forward. I always enjoy looking back and seeing how the last year went. It's kind of funny how a lot of people think that you need to summarize the past year. It was either a good year or a bad year or a hard year. Really, it's almost always true that there's ups and downs, and there's good parts and there's bad parts. And a lot of the times, what is good about the year is actually what was tough about the year. And so, if I look back, it's kind of a mixed bag. And then you look forward. But then, as I was studying this sermon, and the sermon topic really being about God's glory and His purpose and His plan, I was kind of convicted about how I so easily make this a season of just looking at myself and what's going on in my life, and well, how was the year for me? How were my relationships? What's my plan for the next year? What do I want to happen in my life? And all those are not necessarily bad things, but I just came to realize that, man, I'm really just focused on myself, and that seems to be just the predominant, even when I think about God's plan, a lot of times when I think about God's plan, He has a plan, He has a purpose. Well, I'm thinking He has a plan for me, He has a purpose for me, and that's true. But I don't stop to think as often as I should, what is God's plan for Himself? What is His goal, His desire? What is His purpose? And what does He want? And that's one of the interesting verses in our passage today that it actually talks about God rejoicing. May the Lord rejoice in His works. May His works make Him happy. May He be pleased with what He has done. So we're going to look at three things all pertaining to the glory of God. The first one is God's glory is the goal. And then the second one, God's glory is on display. And finally, God's glory demands praise. God's glory is the goal. Verse 31a. The psalmist says, may the glory of the Lord endure forever. So he expresses the desire that God's glory would continue. He doesn't want that to stop. He doesn't want God's glory to cease. He wants God's glory to continue. And as I studied this passage and you think about God's glory, It's got a lot of nuances, it's not just a straightforward... it's hard to sometimes pin it down to a specific definition. Is God's glory talking about God's praise and what we bring to Him? Is it talking about His character and what He has in Himself? Is He talking about His works? It has several different aspects to it and I want to look at some verses because really it has to do with several things. It does have to do with His being, who He is in and of Himself. It does have to do with His works and what He does in the world. And it also has to do with His praise. So I want to look at each of those, beginning with His being. My first verse for that is the first verse of this chapter, Psalm 104, verse 1. Bless the Lord, O my soul. O Lord my God, You are very great. You are clothed with splendor and majesty, covering yourself with light as with a garment. We see that God is glorious. He is splendor. He reigns in majesty. And that is who he is. That's his character. We also have Psalm 24, verses 7 through 10. Psalm 24, verses 7 through 10. Lift up your heads, O gate. and be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of Glory may come in. Who is this King of Glory? The Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord, mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, O gates, and lift them up, O ancient doors, that the King of Glory may come in. Who is this King of Glory? The Lord of hosts. He is the King of Glory. So we see that It's a title. He is the King of Glory. It's something about who He is as He reigns in heaven. And then finally, I want to look at Psalm 96 verses 6 through 9. I saw 92 and it says, the stupid man cannot know. And I'm like, I don't know if that's right. All right, 96, six through nine. Splendor and majesty are before him. The strength and beauty are in his sanctuary. Ascribe to the Lord O families of the peoples ascribe to the Lord glory and strength Ascribe to the Lord the glory do his name Bring an offering and come to his courts worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness Tremble before him all the earth so these all kind of emphasize the fact that he's just glorious in who he is he is just reigning in splendor and majesty and So his glory has to do with his being, but it also has to do with his works. My first passage for this is back to Psalm 96, verse 3. Psalm 96, verse 3. Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among the peoples. So you see the parallel there. Declare His glory. You're declaring two things. Declare His glory among the peoples. And parallel to that, His marvelous works. So His glory has to do with His works. To proclaim His glory means you're saying what He's done. And what He's done demonstrates His glory and His power. Also, Psalm 19.1 is a familiar one. The heavens declare the glory of God. The sky above proclaims His handiwork. So the heavens, when we see the creation, the universe, the stars, we see the glory of God. And those stars in the sky above is proclaiming His handiwork. So what He's done, His creation, we again see the glory and the handiwork parallel. And then Isaiah 6, we have a common, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. The whole earth is full of His glory. Well, if you start to think about what that means, it means that what He has done, you can see His glory in the whole earth. When you look at the creation, you see His glory. So those are very connected, that His being is glorious, but also what He does demonstrates that. But there's another aspect, one more aspect that I want to look at, and it has to do with God's praise. The verse I'd like to look at for this is Isaiah 42 verse 8. I am the Lord, that is my name. My glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved images. He's not going to give his glory. And I could look at a lot of different passages, but in these passages, it emphasizes more that it has to do with his praise. He's not going to share his honor. He's not going to share the adoration that he deserves because of his being and flowing out of what he does. So it has to do with a lot of different elements to God's glory. The psalmist, I don't think he's just focusing on one aspect of God's glory. He's looking at God's glory. He doesn't want God to stop being glorious. He doesn't want God to stop acting glorious. And he doesn't want God to not receive glory from either himself or other people. He wants God's glory to endure forever. Now, why is kind of an obvious question. And as we look at God's glory, it becomes kind of easy to see why he would want God's glory to continue, because look at what it means. And we just traveled through Psalm 103 and 104. And when we look at all the benefits of who God is, when you come out of that, all you can think is, may the glory of God continue. When you've looked at his works of redemption and forgiveness in Psalm 103 and then you look at his works of creation and that everything is good and he's provided and cared for and orchestrated everything, of course, the psalmist wants God's glory to continue. When someone enjoys something and they just want it to continue, they want to share it, makes me think of my twin brother. I told him one time that I think if he didn't go in the Air Force as an officer, he could have gone into advertisement. Because when we were growing up, Ben, he would just get excited about every little thing. And when he got excited about something, man, he shared it. I think he could have sold a Jack in the Box taco to a vegan. I mean, he got excited about little things, and he would go on about how good they were. It's so crunchy here, and the cheese just melts on like this, and the hot sauce. We really like Jack in the Box, and we love the hot sauce. My mom, when we were kids, she went to Jack in the Box, and she actually offered to buy some hot sauce from them for our birthday. They just handed her a pack that they pump it out of, though. So we had that set for a while. I don't know if they do that anymore. I doubt they have people asking for that very often. But it's free advertising. That's the best kind of advertisement for a business, is when someone is just so excited about their product. I get this when I watch YouTube videos on the house and stuff, and someone's using a tool. A lot of times they get paid advertising, but sometimes they're using a tool, and they're like, I'm not getting paid to say this. This is just such a great tool. I love this. And those are really the most impactful. You can kind of tell that they just love that tool. They just love that item. And that's kind of the flavor that I get here from the psalmist. He's looked at all these details about who God is, what he's done. And he just wants that to continue. He just wants to share that. He just wants God to be praised and proclaimed for that. Now we see that God's glory is not only the goal for the psalmist, but it's also the goal for God himself. Verse 31b kind of starts to hint at this. May the Lord rejoice in his works. May the Lord find enjoyment and delight out of his works. Now if I was just pulling that God's glory is his goal from, well, it's not just coming from that line. I think that's reading a little too much into it, but when we consider the entire two chapters, think about what the results of God's actions are. We've already seen that he works everything in wisdom. He creates everything in wisdom. We've seen that His works result in praise from all of creation. They worship him. They look to him to provide and they praise We've seen that he's redeemed mankind or His people from their sin and that results from praise and blessing him. We've seen that even aspects of his judgment and punishment result in his praise and so if you Take a logical step and say well if every single thing that God does in wisdom results in his praise and adoration I Think it's safe to say that that's a big part of his goal and what he wants. It's not just an accident Oh everything I do just incidentally results in my praise He knows what's going on and and and and the point is that he deserves that praise it's because of who he is for most people and You could say, oh, he's just full of himself. But for God, he can't be too about himself. He can't care about himself too much, because he is the most glorious thing in the world. He has no imperfection. He has no problem. He has no reason not to be praised in all that he is and all that he does. So this package has been a good reminder to me. It's not all about me, and I make that about me so quickly. It's not about me. So God's glory is the goal, and now God's glory is on display. I want to look at how it's on display in creation, in redemption, and in Christ. So first of all God's glory is on display in creation, and I feel like we've had like six sermons on this So I don't want to beat it to death because I'll probably lose you guys But in verse 32 he has an interesting wording here He talks about the glory of the Lord in verse 31 and then verse 32 He says that God looks on the earth and it trembles Who touches the mountains and they smoke? to me This really gets that God does like the smallest thing He just kind of glances at the earth and it and all of a sudden an earthquake he just touches the mountains and all of a sudden there's a volcanic eruption I mean, this is just a I think this verse is contrasting some of the greatest aspects of creation and what we can see and experience, and it's contrasting that to God in some way, and saying the greatest thing that we experience on earth, that's just caused by God just looking over. That's just caused by God giving a little touch. What John Piper said, I don't think it was about this passage, but he said that creation declares God's glory when you see everything that's going on and you see who God is in that. But he said that's an understatement. Creation does demonstrate God's glory, but it's an understatement. We don't see the full picture. It's just a small part. We really have no grasp of what he really is like, but it does begin to give us a picture. And God's glory is on display in redemption. And this is interesting because creation does display God's glory, but creation alone can't demonstrate everything that there is about God. There are certain characteristics that God has. His mercy, Even his judgment aspects about his character that creation alone without the fall and without redemption Wouldn't portray and he has more about himself that he wants to display than just in the acts of creation We think about Psalm 103 I'm gonna flip over there, I don't think I'm gonna read, but I'm just kind of kind of refer to some of the things that He calls his soul to bless the Lord because the Lord forgives. He heals. He redeems from the pit. Well, he can't forgive without sin. He can't heal without brokenness. He can't redeem from a pit without there being an actual pit. So God has a purpose to receive praise through redeeming people, through healing people, through forgiveness of sins. Redemption is a part of what he is going to be praised and glorified for. And we can see that at the end of the book in Revelation chapters 4 and 5. Revelation chapter 4 verse 11 draws attention that there's worship going on in heaven because of God's works of creation. Worthy are you, O Lord our God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created. And then in chapter 5, We see that the worship that's going on in heaven also includes God's acts of redemption in verse 9 of chapter 5. And they sang a new song, saying, worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain. And by your blood, you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. And you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth. And then again in verse 12, worthy is the lamb who was slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing. And so do we experience blessing from Christ coming and dying and redeeming a people? Of course we do. That's the best thing that's ever happened for us. And is it bringing praise and glory and more adoration to God because of what He's done? And the answer for that is yes as well. That God is going to be praised throughout eternity for His work on the cross, the Lamb who was slain. And we see that that wasn't a last minute effort. It wasn't a last ditch effort. Revelation chapter 13 verse 8 makes that pretty clear that all who dwell on the earth will worship it, the beast, and everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the lamb who was slain. So there's before the beginning of the world there was a book of life and the book was the book of the lamb who was slain. And so that means that that was part of the plan, that the book was written before the foundation of the world. The book was the book of the lamb who was slain. The plan, even before the world was created, was for a lamb to be slain to purchase a people for himself. And we get to participate that. We get to enjoy that. Again, it's not all about us. Part of God's plan is for His own glory to be praised so that He can demonstrate His love and His mercy and His faithfulness. I want to look at a couple verses because sometimes it can be easy to question, well, is God's love for his own glory really a good thing? And we've started to talk about, yes, of course it's a good thing. It's why we can be saved. It's why we're not destroyed alongside the demons with no hope for eternal life. But there's another couple verses that I'd like to look at in relation to this theme as well from Isaiah chapter 48. verses 9 through 11. Isaiah 48, 9 through 11. For my name's sake, I defer my anger. For the sake of my praise, I restrain it for you, that I may not cut you off. Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver. I have tried you in the furnace of affliction. For my own sake, and for my own sake, I do it. For how shall my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another. There would be no hope for us continuing in salvation by our own strength. And just like God did for Israel, He keeps us and He not only originally saves us, but He keeps us for His own sake. The fact that He purchased you for His glory means that He's going to keep you purchased for His glory, because if there's anything God won't separate from, it's His glory. And He says it twice, for my own sake, for my own sake I do it. I mean, you can't miss it. Man, I have a lot more passages that I could go over. It is everywhere. And finally, we see God's glory in Christ. 2 Corinthians 3, 12-18. 2 Corinthians 3, 12-18. Since we have such a hope We are very bold. Not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face so that the Israelites might not gaze at the outcome of what had been brought to an end. But their minds were hardened, for to this day, when they read the Old Covenant, the same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away. Yes, to this day, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their hearts. But when one turns to the Lord, The veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit." And this is one of the beauties of Christmas, is that when Christ came, he was the glory of God a human man he dwelt among us he set up a tabernacle among us and he was the glory of God and when we put our trust in him he removes the veil from our face and we can see not in fullness but we can see the glory of God in the person of Christ and he's the hope of glory within us God's glory is on Display you can't miss it. So then that leads to the final point. Well How do you respond to that? How do you respond to the fact that God's glory is so clear and that it's so clearly his purpose and his goal Well, the proper response is the psalmist response We turn I keep on breathing into that mic. I don't know if you can hear that. I He turns turn back to me with to Psalm 104 verses 31 Verse 33 actually I will sing to the Lord as long as I live I will sing praise to my God While I have my being May my meditation be pleasing to him for I rejoice in the Lord. I The psalmist sees God's glory so clearly, and his response is, I'm going to sing to the Lord as long as I live. I'm going to sing praise to my God while I have my being. May my meditation be pleasing to Him, for I rejoice in the Lord. I want to look at three aspects of his praise in those verses. And the first is that his praise has emotion. It's an emotional praise. He's going to sing praise to God. May my meditation be pleasing to him, for I rejoice in the Lord. And even just the fact that he's singing. I mean, singing has a very emotional, or it should. Sometimes you can sing very stoically. But it has an emotional impulse to it. There's different emotions to different song styles. And it has a way of expressing those emotions that's different than other things. But this emotional aspect, we've seen last time I preached, we saw it in the angels, in Job. I'd actually like to re-read those because that's a good passage to remember. The angels had an emotional reaction to when they first saw creation in Job chapter 38, begin in verse 4 Where were you God God questioning Job? Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me if you have understanding Who determined its measurements surely, you know or who stretched out the line upon it on? What were its bases sunk or who laid its cornerstone? when when the morning stars Sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy and that's referring to the angels that when he laid the foundation of the earth and First made this creation that we've looked at in Psalm 104 the angels shouted for joy And I don't know what that shout sounded like I mean a shout is a shout and they were happy they were excited about what God had done and And not only do the angels have an emotional, joy-filled response to what God has done, but we've already looked at it a little bit, God Himself. May the Lord rejoice in His works. May His works make Him happy. May He be pleased with what He has done. And He is. Because what He has done is perfect, and it brings Him honor and praise. And so we should also have an emotional response. There's some danger and some people are really driven by their emotions. But we don't want to stiff arm that at the expense of getting rid of emotions altogether and being the frozen chosen and all that. Secondly, there should be a personal. I will sing to the Lord. I will sing praise to my God. And we talked about that with verse one, that you are Lord my God you are very great and I didn't notice this until I was studying this sermon that in the in Psalm 103 he he's all third person about God so in other words he's talking to his soul and he's telling his soul God has done this God has forgiven you God has redeemed you and God is all he's talking about God but he's talking to his soul and And then in Psalm 104, he actually flips back and forth a lot. He's talking to his soul, and then he's talking to God. And he's saying, God, you have done this. And then in the next breath, he says, God has done this. I don't know why it flows easily when you're reading scripture. I guess it's just something that you get used to, but if you think about it, it's not really that normal. I don't talk to my wife and say something and then all of a sudden switch to, instead of saying, you're such a good person, she went and helped the kids at the store. I mean, am I talking to her or am I talking to someone else about her? I'm not going to read all the examples, He flips back and forth and I couldn't see a pattern to it. But it's interesting that in Psalm 104, it does have that personal, it's almost like you can't help but to talk to God specifically, directly, even though he's still having this bless the Lord oh my soul theme. And then, so an emotional praise, it's a personal praise. And then finally, it's a thoughtful praise. May my meditation be pleasing to him, for I rejoice in the Lord. Now, some people don't think that they're much of a thinker. And certainly, there's different variations in terms of how deeply people think about things, what types of things they think about. But one thing I've been reminded of is that the human brain just does not stop. You're always thinking about something even when you're sleeping, but when you're awake You're always thinking about something. There's always something rolling around Sometimes I wish that I could just turn my mind off and say I just wish that I I could turn it off for just like a minute or something. But it's like you're in a car that's stuck in drive, and the brake is broken, and you can't do the e-brake. Well, what are you going to do? You've got to think about something. You have to. Everybody meditates. Everybody has something that their minds dwell on in the blank spaces of life. And the psalmist says, I want my meditation to be pleasing. to be pleasing to Him, for I rejoice in the Lord." Now, he's thought about a lot of different things. He's thought about creation. He's thought about animals. He's talked about rock badgers and pigeons and all these specific things. So he's not just thinking about God. He's not just thinking about one thing. But he wants every thought and meditation that he has to be somehow connected to praising God, he wants God to be happy with what he's thinking about and what he's really digging into in his meditation. May my meditation be pleasing to him. That's been one of the valuable convicting things for me this week is studying this. I see a tendency for myself to meditate on not necessarily bad things. Watching YouTube videos on how to build a house or how to fix a house is not necessarily a bad thing. But I haven't been as good as I should be to connect that to Am I praising God in this am I worshiping God or is this becoming? Some some sort of a distraction keeping me from serving him in the way that I'm supposed to So we see the positive response how we're supposed to respond in the in the psalmist but there's also a sinner's response and and He has some very difficult words and for us to understand comprehend in verse 35 he says Let sinners be consumed from the earth and let the wicked be no more. I want to look at what it means to respond As a sinner and hopefully get a better idea of where this strong response towards and and attitude towards the sinners come from So what is the nature of the sinner's response? Well, it's fairly simple. It's that they see the glory of God, and it's on display, and we already saw how it's on display, it's clearly seen, and they don't respond in praise. I mean, that's pretty simple. But it's more serious than we would like to admit as human beings. I want to look at Romans chapter 1. This is kind of the obvious go-to on this topic. It puts it as clearly as you would like it to be. Romans chapter 1 verse 20. For God's invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world, and the things that have been made, so they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. See, the scripture teaches that we were made for this glory. We see this glory. And the fact that we're sinful from birth means that we reject that glory. We don't praise God for that glory. We turn to something else to be our satisfaction and our enjoyment. And this should be one of the most shocking Because we have that blindness of sin, we don't realize how shocking it is. But I think passages like Jeremiah 2, which is what I'm turning to now, they kind of help us to see a little bit about how shocking this exchange. We've exchanged the glory of God and we've exchanged that for something else. I mean, that's a bad deal. Jeremiah 2 he talks about this in in verses 12 and 13 to the to the people of Israel He says be appalled Oh heavens at this be shocked Be utterly desolate declares the Lord for my people have committed two evils they have forsaken me and the fountain of living waters, and they've hewn out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water." So we see again, they were created for God. He is the fountain of living water and the heavens should be shocked because they've turned from that. They've turned from His glory. And some of you might know that some of the connotations of glory has to do with weight and heaviness and almost like a tangible meaning and purpose behind it. And it's in contrast to what doesn't have profit, what is vain, what is futile. He talks about that in Jeremiah chapter 2 as well. He says in verse 7, I brought you into a plentiful land to enjoy its fruits and its good things. But when you came in, you defiled my land and my heritage as an abomination. The priest did not say, where is the Lord? Or who handled the law did not know me. The shepherds transgressed against me, the prophets prophesied by Baal, and they went after things that do not profit." They went after things that do not profit. And that's the nature of sin. We've exchanged and traded the glory of God, which is going to satisfy us, it's going to please us, it's going to be our purpose, and we've traded that for things that don't profit. We've traded the immortal for things that are mortal and they don't last. So Donald Trump might think that NAFTA is the worst trade deal in the history of trade deals, but this is the worst trade deal in the history of trade deals. You have traded the glory of God for the unprofitableness of sin. And that's the worst trade deal. And then the best trade deal is still up for offer. That Christ has given His life and He has offered to trade back. He'll take your sin and He'll give you His righteousness. He'll take the things that you thought that you wanted in exchange for God's glory and He'll return you to your state of what you've lost. There are two resolutions to the problem of the situation of sinners. They've seen God's glory, they've rejected it, and the two possible solutions, well the first is that they can be judged and destroyed. And that's where the psalmist can say, let the sinners be consumed from the earth and let the wicked be no more. Because the desire for the psalmist is the same desire that God has, and that's a creation where every creature praises God, where every creature responds appropriately to His glory. That's the ideal. That's what we want. But fortunately, that's not the only option for a sinner To be destroyed and wiped out so that we can have all the creatures praise God. There is another option Possibility that God has made and that's for the sinner to be redeemed and part of that praising world And he's made that possible in the person of Christ and so we can't say God doesn't really care he cares more than much more than we deserve and he's made that that way possible and So I would encourage you that if you're looking at yourself and you're saying, man, I have exchanged God's glory. I don't give him praise in the way that I should. I don't thank him for the good things that he's given me. an option to put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ, and He will restore you and reconcile you. Obviously, if you have questions about that, feel free to talk to Pastor Bob. If he's not around, you can talk to me or one of the deacons, and we'd love to talk to you about what it means to believe in Christ. So as my conclusion, we look at What is the chief end of man? And this comes from the catechisms. It comes from scripture so clearly, but what is the chief end of man? To glorify God and to enjoy him forever. And so as we look to the new year, and as we look to what we're going to be putting our time and attention in, it's good to make New Year's resolutions. And I enjoy making New Year's resolutions. I don't enjoy going to the gym and January and February and realizing that there's all these people who aren't going to be there in March and April But I do enjoy New Year's resolutions, and I want those To be connected to an ultimate goal that your chief end is to bring glory to God and to enjoy him forever So when you have a side goal for the year whether it be to get healthy or to accomplish something or to spend more time on something get more sleep, whatever and that that would be connected to your ultimate goal and purpose to bring God glory and that we wouldn't be forgetful of what God's plan is and what God's desire is for us. So I would encourage you in that direction. I've really enjoyed the sermons, this passage, Psalm 103, 104. I know that I can never do passages like this justice, but it's been convenient that every sermon main point has been, bless the Lord, oh my soul. I mean, I don't have to come with a different main point every sermon. So I'm going to miss that. But I look forward to the new year and what God has for us as a church Father God we thank you for your word. We thank you for your creation And we pray God that you would give us wisdom We know that your purposes your wisdom your plan a lot of it is just way beyond what we can understand and comprehend and Father we're we need to be okay with that and It's it's it's not all about us and We were a part of your creation and we we desire for our lives to be really about you because they are and Because you are the most glorious thing and so father. I pray that you would help us to return to you I pray that you would help us to be reconciled to you and to enjoy What we were made to enjoy It's in your name we pray Amen