Summary
Freed from Bringing Glory to Ourselves
Why do some refuse to believe in Jesus? Not because they have lost an argument. Faith and unbelief are matters of the heart—the mind, the will, and the emotions together—and Scripture diagnoses the human heart as diseased from conception, turned away from God by nature. As Paul writes, "None is righteous, no, not one… no one seeks for God" Romans 3:10-11. At the same time, when anyone does believe, it is purely God's gift: "By grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God" Ephesians 2:8. These two truths run in parallel: if we believe, it is wholly God's work; if we do not believe, it is wholly our own fault.
In John 5, Jesus performs a kind of CAT scan of the unbelieving heart. After healing the man at the pool of Bethesda who had been ill thirty-eight years John 5:1-9, the religious leaders persecute him for working on the Sabbath and for calling God his own Father. They search the Scriptures hoping to find eternal life, yet refuse to come to the very One the Scriptures testify about John 5:39-40. The key to eternal life was standing right in front of them, and they would not recognize him.
Jesus then exposes the deeper cause: "How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?" John 5:44. Their craving for human praise was crowding out the glory of God. Had Jesus been willing to be a political Messiah, or simply to keep their bellies full, they would have heaped praise upon him—which is precisely why, after the feeding of the five thousand, he withdrew when the crowd tried to make him king John 6:15. He does not accept that kind of glory.
This same disorder is one believers continue to wrestle with. Jesus warns against practicing righteousness, prayer, and fasting "to be seen by others" (Matthew 6:1, Matthew 6:5, Matthew 6:16). Paul confesses that if he were still trying to please people, he would not be a servant of Christ Galatians 1:10. The hunger for approval can keep us silent when we should speak, sitting on our hands when we should act, laughing at what we should never laugh at, and shaking our heads only when the blinds are drawn—all to protect the applause of others.
The cure is not more effort, but the glory of God shining where God himself has placed it. "God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" 2 Corinthians 4:6. The glory that comes from the only God is Jesus himself—Christ crucified, bearing the sin of the world, reconciling us to the Father by his blood, and pronouncing forgiveness over us. Each day, by grace, God leads us back to our baptism in repentance, where we hear again the word of absolution and are raised anew.
This is genuine freedom. Through Word and Sacrament, God transforms hearts that once schemed for human praise into hearts that give glory to Christ. Paul can therefore say, "Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God… just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved" 1 Corinthians 10:31-33. Pleasing others becomes service rather than self-promotion. As Freed from Bringing Glory to Ourselves "Regarding Glory" 10-15-23 puts it, God's grace frees us from using people as a means to bring praise to ourselves, and frees us instead to bring glory to the One who is the glory from God—Jesus.
Video citations
- Freed from Bringing Glory to Ourselves "Regarding Glory" 10-15-23 — Would you open your Bible's please for our time of study this morning to the fifth chapter of the Gospel of John, if you're using a few edition of Holy Scripture, you're going to find that on page…