"glory" Series

“GLORY” Matthew 6:13

FBCF – 3/28/21

Jon Daniels

INTRO – Lot of people wanting glory these days.

- Politicians are wanting glory for their accomplishments. Unfortunately, many of the things they are doing & decisions they are making are leading our nation down a dark & dangerous road.

- Athletes are wanting glory for their accomplishments. Sadly, b/c of our sinful distortion of God’s design for genders, male athletes who say they are females are now competing against female athletes & winning in a completely unfair way.

- Musicians are wanting glory for their accomplishments. But the perversion & immorality that is celebrated in much of the secular music industry now is at a level now like we’ve never seen before. It’s showing us just how far away from God our nation is - & how rapidly we continue to decline as move away from Him.

One of the main reasons that our nation is turning farther & farther away from God is b/c we are trying to take the glory away from Him, & He will have nothing of that.

- Isaiah 42:8 - “I am the LORD, that is My name! I will not yield My glory to another, or give My praise to idols” (NIV)

An idol is anything we love more than God, fear more than God, & serve more than God. So many in our nation today are loving, fearing, & serving money, sex, power, & themselves more than God. We’ve placed ourselves higher than God & we are giving glory to ourselves more than God. And God simply will not let that happen. There will be consequences for that. There will be repercussions for that. There will be serious backlash for that.

“Stolen valor” – where someone tries to impersonate a military serviceperson & receive recognition & honor that is not rightly theirs to receive.

- We are guilty of “stolen valor” when it comes to the glory of God. We are striving to receive honor & glory that does not rightly belong to us but belongs ONLY to God. And He will not stand idly by & allow that to happen.

- In Acts 12, King Herod made the mistake of trying to appropriate God’s glory: “Herod, wearing his royal robes, sat on his throne and delivered a public address to the people. They shouted, ‘This is the voice of a god, not of a man.’ Immediately, because Herod did not give praise to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, & he was eaten by worms and died” (Acts 12:21-23). In grasping for glory that belongs only to God, Herod was much like Lucifer, who said, just before his fall, “I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High” (Isaiah 14:14)

Kid’s song we used to sing: “Rise & shine & give God the glory…” – Whether we sing that song or not, it’s exactly what we are called to do as we live out our lives as Christ-followers. And it’s what the final words of the Lord’s Prayer direct us to do.

EXPLANATION – Matthew 6:13

Explanation of ending of Lord’s Prayer: The concluding words in Matthew 6:13 are not found in some translations of the Bible. So, does that mean that they shouldn’t be in the Bible & that we shouldn’t pray these words? Of course not.

The reason that it’s in the KJV & the NKJV & either not included or in brackets in other translations such as the NIV, NASB, & the ESV (which I use) is b/c it was not in some older Greek manuscripts that were found after the KJV was written in 1611. Many scholars believe that this doxology was added later to be used in public worship.

But when you read 1 Chronicles 29:11, you see that these words are certainly Biblically true, Scripturally supported, & doctrinally sound. “Thine, O Lord is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine; thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and thou art exalted as head above all.” What a great way to point to the Lord as we end this prayer! We begin by acknowledging who He is, where He is, how holy He is, & how sovereign He is. And we end by stressing & proclaiming that everything belongs to Him. Love what Tim Keller says about this ending:

- “After descending into our needs, troubles, & limitations, we return to the truth of God’s complete sufficiency. Here our hearts can end w/ ‘tranquil repose’ in the remembrance that nothing can ever snatch away the Kingdom, power, & glory, from our heavenly, loving Father.” (Tim Keller, Prayer, p. 117-118)