Soli Deo Gloria - To God Be The Glory Series

Soli Deo Gloria - To God be the Glory!

I Corinthians 1:30-31

Pastor Jefferson M. Williams

Chenoa Baptist Church

11-03-19

Jesus is King

This past week, rapper, producer, designer Kanye West released his new album entitled, “Jesus is King.” Now remember, Kanye used to call himself, “Yesus,” but in the last year he has gone through what he describes as a Christian conversion. He’s been meeting with a pastor weekly and holding church services in different cities attended by thousands.

He was asked by Jimmy Kimmel if he know considered himself a Christian artist. Kanye responded, “I consider myself a Christian everything.”

He said, “I’ve told you what fame did for me. I’ve told you what alcohol did for me. I’ve told you a lot of things. But now, I want to live to tell what Jesus did for me!”

This week, as an advertisement for the new project, an entire building front in Time Square displayed the title, “Jesus is King!”

I saw a picture on Twitter of a comment card from a church in which a mom wrote, “My teenage son was with me in church today because of the new Kanye album. I am one happy mom.”

Regardless of whether you believe his salvation is authentic, I know one thing for sure. God is going to get the glory for all of this.

And that brings us to our fifth and final Sola for this series, Foundations of our Faith, Soli Deo Gloria - to God be the Glory Alone.

A Short Review

502 years ago this week, Martin nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Wittenberg Church and sparked what we now call the Protestant Reformation. Over the past five weeks, we’ve been studying the five Solas of the Protestant Reformation. What is it that we believe that makes us distinctly Protestants?

We discovered that all three major branches of Christianity, Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant all would affirm that grace and faith and Christ are important to our salvation. But what separates is that little Latin word, “Sola.”

We believe that the equation for salvation is Jesus + Nothing = Everything!

As Protestants, we believe that the inspired, sufficient, inerrant, infallible, immutable, invincible Bible alone (Sola Scriptura) is our foundation and norm for Christian faith and practice, not councils or popes.

It is in the Bible we learned that we are justified before God, saved by grace alone (sola gratis) - the unmerited favor of God alone. Why did He save us? Simply because He chose to out of love.

We are saved through faith alone (sola fide), not by any good works we have done. Even our faith is a gift. We don’t have faith in faith but in a Person - Jesus Christ.

We are saved by Christ alone. Christ is our only hope, our only Savior, (not Mary or the saints), our only mediator between God and man. From Ephesians we learned that we were dead in our sins, defiant in our souls, and were doomed to hell. His death on the cross, in my place, to pay the penalty for me sins, opens the way back to a relationship with God. His perfect life allowed him to make the great exchange - our sins for His righteousness.

“God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 For 5:21)

He was the last prophet, the last high priest, and and the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

But why? Why did He do this? Why did He save us by grace, through faith, in Christ alone?

So He would get the glory alone!

See, if we believe that somehow we can contribute to our salvation, it robs God of His glory.

Jonathan Edwards said it bluntly: “The only thing we contribute to our salvation is the sin that made it necessary.”

Think of these five as a structure. Sola Scriptura is the foundation. Sola Gratia, Sola Fide, and Solus Christus are the pillars. And Soli Deo Gloria is what covers the whole building.

David Vandrunen has written that Soli Deo Gloria is the glue that holds the other four together.

We are going to spend our time together today in I Corinthians 1:30-31.

Prayer

That’s Heavy, Man

Before we turn there, let me try to define God’s glory. The Greek word is “doxa,” and that’s where we get our term doxology that we sang just a few minutes ago.

It carries the idea of being weighty or heavy, having importance, significance, and dignity.

I love the line in Back to The Future when Marty says, “Whoa, that’s heavy doc,” and Doc Brown responds, “There’s that word heavy again. Why are things so heavy in the future. Is there a problem with earth’s gravitational pull?”