EMMAUS CITY CULTURE Q&AS | PART 1: GOD, CREATION AND FALL, LAW CONTINUED
Each week, we are adapting Redeemer's New City Catechism with modern language, including the questions and answers, along with the commentary and prayer. Our goal is to make these easily accessible for all ages, as well as those with various levels of education in Worcester.
Since we don't want this to be just information transfer, but life transformation by God's Word and Spirit, we purposely changed the word catechism to culture as we pray for God to help us creatively display and declare the good news of Jesus in our communities.
Here are the previous weeks' Q&As:
Cheers to 2014 and many becoming more like Jesus together. For other updates, like and follow Emmaus City on
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Emmaus City Culture | Part 1, Q&A 6
Question 6
How can we glorify God?
Answer 6
We glorify God by loving Him and by obeying His commands.
Deuteronomy 11:1
Commentary
Our whole life should
be full of thanks to God. As we eat before God, and sleep before God, and work before
God, and talk before God, do all for His glory and praise. As we receive all
from God, so we should lay all at His feet, and say, ‘I will not live in a way
that does not honor God’. We glorify God when we exalt Him above all creatures
in the world when we give Him the highest place in our love and in our joy,
when all our thoughts and hopes are set upon Him as the greatest good. This is also
seen when we will not offend God for anyone, when we can ask, "Whom have I
in heaven but You?". God is our God by His promise, because He has given Himself
to us. Every believing Christian has God as his or her inheritance. There is
more comfort in this, that God is our God, than anyone’s heart can conceive. Though
we cannot say that riches, or honors, or friends are ours; if we are able to
say by the Spirit of faith that God is ours, then we have everything we need in
Him. His wisdom is ours to do us good; under the guilt of sin, His mercy is ours
to forgive us; if we need anything, we are given everything in Jesus for our
good. If God is ours, then whatever God can do is ours, and whatever God has is
ours. God will have us make His glory our aim so that He will give Himself to
us.
Adapted from
“Divine Meditations” in The
Complete Works of Richard Sibbes, Volume VII (Edinburgh: James Nichol, 1864), 185–186, 216, 221. Richard Sibbes
(1577–1635). An English Puritan theologian, Sibbes was known in London in the
early 17th century as "the Heavenly Doctor Sibbes." Preacher at
Gray's Inn, London and Master of Catherine Hall, Cambridge, his most famous
work is The Bruised Reed and
Smoking Flax.
Prayer
If we can call God
our God, we will strive, by the Holy Spirit, to be like God and have His divine
image stamped upon our souls, and strive to be followers of the God who is our
Father. You that can call God yours, God help you from this moment on to glorify
Him more and more: and if God be your God, if the love of God abounds in your
hearts, you will be willing, on every occasion, to do everything to promote His
honor and glory. God, be our God and grant that You may be our glory. Amen.
Adapted from
“Sermon LXXIII: God a Believer’s Glory” in Sermons on Important Subjects by the Rev. George Whitfield (London: Fisher, Son & Jackson,
1832), 764–768. George Whitefield (1714 –1770). An English Anglican minister,
Whitefield crossed the Atlantic 13 times and for 34 years preached throughout
England and America (as part of what is known as the Great Awakening).
Whitefield’s voice could be heard over vast distances and was reported at one
point to be heard by over thirty thousand people in the open air. Whitefield
preached more than 18,000 sermons in his lifetime, fewer than 90 have survived
in any form.
Coming next week: Q&A 6: What does the law of God require?
– Sully
Curiosity piqued? Something inside you being stirred? Let's connect.
Curiosity piqued? Something inside you being stirred? Let's connect.
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