What Does a Christian Life Look Like?–A Life that Gives God Glory

Football season is now upon us.  That might be good news or bad news for you, depending on how much you like football.

But whether you like football or not, I’m sure we can all agree on one aspect of the game that we don’t like—showboating.  When a player makes a touchdown, how many times haven’t you seen him dancing around the end zone, showing off, showing that he thinks he was the only one responsible for making that play happen.  How quickly he forgot everyone else that was involved—linemen, blockers, decoys, the quarterback.  But, on a good note, others have done something else—after scoring a touchdown, they will get down on 1 knee and point up to heaven, showing that God alone allowed them to get where they were, and all glory should go to God alone for what they did.  At least, that’s what I assume they’re saying.

Often Christian authors do something similar—many end their book with the words, “Soli Deo Gloria,” which is Latin for: “To God Alone Be the Glory.”  That is exactly what the Apostle Paul is doing in the word before us.  As we ask, “What does a Christian life look like?” Paul tells us one thing that ought to top the list:  It should be A Life that Gives God Glory.  Let’s read Romans 11:33-36:

Text:      ³³ Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! ³⁴ “Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?” ³⁵ “Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him?” ³⁶ For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.

Do we have any refs in the congregation this morning?  Have you always made the right call, or were there one or two that you think you called right, but you have your doubts?  Any parent has been there:  “Did I say the right thing the right way to my child, or did I just blow a good teachable moment?”  “Did I discipline him the right way?”  “Should I have disciplined him more?”  Whether you’re reffing a game, raising a child, or trying to figure out what way is the fastest to get to work, a lot of the decisions we make are judgment calls.  They may have been good.  But we may have blown it also.

When we look at the judgments, the decisions, God has made, he always makes the right call.  That’s because the wisdom he uses is not the wisdom of this world.  If you think of the wisest men this world has ever seen, those who ought to make some of the best decisions, besides Solomon, you might think of Plato or Aristotle.  But for all their wisdom, they couldn’t fathom God—not only who he is, but also what he has done.  Plato said, “It is hard to investigate and to find the framer and the father of the universe.  And, if one did find him, it would be impossible to express him in terms which all could understand.”  Aristotle referred to God as the “Supreme Cause,” or the “Unmoved Mover,” dreamed about by all men but known by no man.  There was an element of truth in both these wise men’s ideas of God—they both believed in a creator-god, but neither of them came to the full realization of who the true God was.  If they had, they would have really been speechless.

Paul expresses that kind of speechless awe when speaking about God.  He says: ³³ Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!  In an exclamation, he is showing that his joy and awe is too great for words to express.  But he tries.  He could have said, “Oh, the wisdom and knowledge of God,” but he doesn’t.  He could have said, “Oh, the depth of the wisdom and knowledge of God,” but he doesn’t.  Instead he says, “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! “  How do you picture the vast riches of God’s wisdom and knowledge?   Think of a huge gold deposit waiting to me mined.  That’s why so many people rushed out west 160 years ago—maybe some even imagined that they were limitless deposits of gold.  But most of the ’49ers that went in search of gold found little or none at all.  In Colorado and elsewhere, you can still see on the mountainsides the remains of the old, abandoned gold mines.  The only thing that remains is a yellowish-colored dirt that the miners dumped down the side of the mountain and which fans out from the entrance to the mines—a sign that all the gold that was found—if any—is now gone.  The mine is worthless.  (But you wonder, now that gold is almost $2,000 an ounce, if we’ll have another gold rush and they’ll re-open some of those mines.)

But imagine a gold mine that has no limit to the amount of gold you could find!  It’s everywhere!  One strike of your pickaxe, and another huge chunk of gold lies at your feet!  Such is the depth of God’s wisdom and knowledge—it is limitless.  He knows when a bird falls from a tree as it’s learning to fly.  He knows the exact number of gallons in all the oceans and seas and lakes and rivers.  He knows why things seem to disappear in the Bermuda Triangle.  He knows what’s going to happen in your family difficulty that he’s allowing you to go through.  He knows the number of hairs on each of our heads, and he uses his absolute knowledge of us and of all things, along with his wisdom, his perfect wisdom, to bring about our good in all situations.  Suppose a Christian family gets in a car accident and two of the four in the family die.  He’s making everything work for their good—the ones who died are now in heaven; those who survive are comforted with that knowledge, and also with the knowledge that they will see them there one day.  And he makes all of those things work for our good—at the same time!

Paul describes God’s wisdom and knowledge in two beautiful ways: ^33”…How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!”  “His judgments” are the decisions he makes, and “his paths” are the ways that he carries those decisions out.  Those decisions and ways are, quite simply, beyond us.  Have you ever stopped to think about why God would save you and me?  I hope you have, but if you haven’t, you should start today.  Why would he save you and me, who, Paul says, are his enemies by nature?  Suppose there is a bully at school who punches you and takes your lunch and gives you a black eye and says terrible things about your mother—everyday!  If somebody picked on him, would you help him out?  Would you jump in front of a bus to save him if he were about to get run over?  Would you shove your mother in front of a bus to save him?  So why would God save you and me, who sin everyday against him by the nasty things we do to each other or say to each other, the secret things we do that only he knows about?  Why would God humble himself to be ridiculed and beaten?  Why would he be falsely accused and tortured?  Why would he shed his blood on an instrument of torture devised for its cruelty?  Why would he abandon his own Son and pour out his wrath on him, and not us who deserve it because we were the ones who sinned, not him?  Why would he decide to do such a thing?  It makes no sense!  His judgments are unsearchable!  We wouldn’t even know where to start searching for the answer to that one.  All we can say is—he simply loved us, the unlovable.  Earlier in Romans Paul says:  (Romans 5:8) “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

His paths beyond tracing out! Paul says.  The picture is of a tracker following the footprints and signs made by the one he’s tracking.  And we’re trying to follow God’s footprints to find God.  But God isn’t just difficult to find, as Plato said—he’s impossible to find by our means.  And even when we see things he does, we still have trouble following it.  Why would he allow evil in this world like the Twin Towers collapsing, thousands dead, many left as orphans?  We can only guess at his complete intentions and trust his perfect knowledge and wisdom.  But we know that for every single Christian who was affected by that tragedy, it has or will turn out for their good.  Your classmate can do everything he sets his mind to, but for you everything is a struggle.  Why, God?  We can’t figure it out.  But we trust his wise decisions.

But people still try.  God says:   “If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer” (Mt. 21:22). But we, in our wisdom, say: Do all you can, and when you get in a jam, then it’s time to call on God for help.  God says:  (Mark 16:15) “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation” and (Is. 55:10) “My word will not return to me empty but will accomplish what I desire.” But we, in our wisdom, say: “People looked at me like I was a weirdo when I told someone about Jesus, so I’ll let someone else tell people about Jesus.  Besides, the gospel doesn’t work anyway.”  In our suffering, God says:  All things work for our good and his glory. But we, in our wisdom, say: “How will I make it through?   Does God love me? ”

But after we have these doubts about how things are and how to deal with life, we simply look to what God’s wise decisions in the past have been and then we can trust that his ways are right.  And no where is that more plain than in his boundless grace to sinners.  We always go back to the cross and say, “Why would God sacrifice himself for me?”

The third question Paul asks is a quote from the book of Job: ³⁵ “Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him?”  Again, the only answer that can be given is: No one.  The only thing we have given to God by nature is rebellion, hatred, mockery, lack of trust in him.  So the only thing God owes us in return is his anger against our many sins, his wrath for all eternity.  Yet in his mercy alone, he instead chose to give us food, clothing, shelter—not just enough to survive, but in many cases beautiful homes, good jobs, good friends and neighbors, children, God-fearing parents, a nation through which he gives us freedom, justice, security.  We can’t exhaust the list.  What did Luther say about all these blessings:  “All this he does because we deserve it”?  No! “All this he does simply because he is my good and merciful Father in heaven, and not because I have earned or deserve it.  For all this I ought to thank and praise, to serve and obey him.”  And that brings us right into the next verse.