1 Corinthians 6:20

ON GLORIFYING GOD

‘Ye are bought with a price; therefore glorify God.’

1 Corinthians 6:20

Notice some of the ways in which the Christian is called upon to promote the glory of His God.

I. The primary meaning of the word ‘glory’ is opinion: the estimate formed of a person by others. The verb ‘to glorify’ will then signify, to exalt a person in the opinion and estimation of others, to enhance his favourable report with others. It will be seen at once that it is only in this modified sense that it is possible for mortals to glorify the great God. When we speak of glorifying God, we mean that we can in some humble fashion reflect some portion of His light, that others, seeing that reflected light, ‘may glorify our Father Which is in heaven.’

II. This is a high calling indeed: a higher we could not have.—Let us by the grace of the enabling Spirit rise to its responsibilities. The ‘good name’—we say it with deep reverence—of Him ‘Whose name is above every name’ has been placed in the Christian’s keeping. On him, on his walk and conversation, on his daily practice, it depends whether it shall gain or lose by the committal. What the world thinks of Christ and His cause will depend largely upon the testimony accorded to Him by those ‘who profess and call themselves Christians.’ It is very well to say that men ought to estimate Christ’s cause apart from the practice of its adherents; but men will judge of it according to what they observe that practice to be. From without, so long as she is true to herself, the Church of the living God has nothing to fear. From false friends, from the errors, the inconsistencies, the hollownesses of the unworthy amongst her children are her chief dangers to be looked for. It is ‘her own familiar friends, in whom she trusted,’ which did eat of the bread of her communion, who, when they ‘lift up their heel’ against her, wound her worst.

III. Now that you belong by your own act of self-surrender to your Lord; now that you are personally identified with His controversy in the earth, every time you thus trip you do Him hurt; each time you soil your hands in the business transaction with compromise of strict integrity you are driving home the nails into your recrucified Redeemer’s hands; each time your feet turn aside from the straight path of the saints you are repiercing His feet; each time your traitor thoughts are yielded to impurity or malice you are replaiting the wreath of thorn for His torn temples; each time your heart hides the sin on which daylight may not look you are thrusting the spear into His side. Beware how you walk, for the keen-eyed world is looking on.

IV. It needs no grand and imposing career to reflect the Divine glory.—Every falling raindrop contains a perfect picture of the landscape surrounding the line of its fall. There is no need for us to seek for exceptional opportunities, to be ambitious of pretentious achievements. In the economy of grace life has no commonplaces. If by the providence of our Father our feet have been set in the quiet byways of the world, in those ways we shall probably best glorify Him; nor add to our appliances by forsaking them for the broad highways of publicity and display. There is some danger even in the very use of such phrases as ‘Church-work,’ ‘Christian-work,’ in the implied fallacy that such work is confined to the more ostentatious efforts for others’ good. To the Christian all work ought to be Christian work; and the least solid and lasting ought not to be that which secures recognition in no parish statistics, and which is so unobtrusively done that the doer’s left hand knows not what the right is about, whom it is guiding, whom it is helping, whom it is blessing. The Saviour chose a lowly walk in life that He might understand life at its lowliest. And if his public walk occupied three years, His private spread itself over thirty. See to it, then, that you be not misled into thinking that you can best do God’s work in the Church by neglecting to do it at home. Whatsoever your hands find to do, do it with your might. Take Christ with you into every employment and into every company. Confess Him before men with firmness, but with humility. Be loyal to your Lord, and consider that everything laid against your good name is a reflection upon His.

—Bishop A. Pearson.

Illustration

‘There are phases of Christianity out of which the principle of pure loyalty has been dropped. Religion itself is a systematised selfishness—a compact by which the interests of my own soul are to be ensured, and these being ensured, its work is done. I am to serve God in order primarily to get to heaven. I attend church in order primarily to get good to my soul. “Lo, we have left all, and followed Thee: what shall we have therefore?” This mercenary spirit still lurks in the churches: a spirit which the best of us would scorn to recognise in such lower sphere as, say, patriotism. What true soldier would permit himself to think of decorations and promotion while engaged in thrusting an enemy from the shores of his country? The honour of his King and his flag is at stake: that is enough for him. Recognition comes, but it comes unsought and unthought of.’