Soli Deo Gloria: The Freedom of a New Purpose

REFLECTION QUOTES

“If you live today, you breath in nihilism… it’s the gas you breathe.”

~Flannery O’Connor (1925-1964), American writer

“…praise almost seems to be inner health made audible.… I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise…completes the enjoyment.”

~C.S. Lewis (1898-1963), British writer and academic

“The happiness of the creature consists in rejoicing in God, by which also God is magnified and exalted.”

~Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), American preacher and philosopher

“We are perishing for lack of wonder, not for lack of wonders.”

“How much larger your life would be if your self could become smaller in it.”

~G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936), English writer and journalist

“I can safely say, on the authority of all that is revealed in the Word of God, that any man or woman on this earth who is bored and turned off by worship is not ready for heaven.”

“Has it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other? They are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard to which each one must individually bow. So one hundred worshipers meeting together—each one looking away to Christ—are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be, were they to become ‘unity’ conscious and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship.”

~A.W. Tozer (1897-1963), American author and pastor

“No matter who is President, or who holds the House or the Senate, Christ holds the whole world in His hands.”

~R.C. Sproul, American theologian

SERMON PASSAGE

Ephesians 1:3-14 & Romans 11:33-36 (NASB)

Ephesians 1

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love 5He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. 7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace 8 which He lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight 9 He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him 10 with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth. In Him 11 also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will, 12 to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory. 13 In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, 14 who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.

Romans 11

33 Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! 34 For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who became His counselor? 35 Or who has first given to Him that it might be paid back to him again? 36 For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.