For His Glory, Together

Well, good morning everybody. So, we had a minute and a half timer and then what was that? Two minutes of a little little tickle in the I don’t know. So, there you go. Yep. Awesome. Grant, I love to hear all the chatter, all the meeting and greeting, everything that’s that goes on during that time. I think it’s so special and it’s part of what makes Sauldam who we are as you know every time we have somebody new come to the church and kind of test the waters a little bit. The the common remark that we hear is that man this is just such a warm and welcoming family where folks like really want you to be here. I just I love all that all the all the warm chatter that’s that’s just a great testament to that.

Well, obviously today is a special day not just because it is Sunday not just because of the date on the calendar but also because today is Memorial Day. This is an opportunity and a sobering reminder for us. It’s an opportunity to recognize those who have given the ultimate price. They’ve given their lives in honor and defense of this country. And it’s also a sobering reminder that freedom is never free. It’s with deep gratitude that I want to just How many US service persons have paid the ultimate price for us? This is according to US News World and Report. In World War I, you had 116,516 folks. World War II, 405,39. The Korean War, 36,574. Vietnam War, 58,220. The Gulf War 382 and the Iraq war 4,605 and the Afghanistan war 2,459. Approximately in total that is 624,155 people just from America have given their lives not just to try to expand our borders but to defend some things that we would all hold extremely dear.

Jesus said in John 15:12 and 13, “This is my command. Love one another as I have loved you.” No one has greater love than this to lay his life down for his friends. Many have given their lives for us in combat and we love America and what it stands for obviously. But I also pray that as we are here in church that we would not worship America and we would not worship those who gave their lives for us. I highly doubt anybody who’s ever given their life on the battlefield would want us to worship them the same way that we worship Jesus Christ. This country, while it is beautiful and distinctly wonderful, praise to the Lord, it’s not our ultimate home. We have a home being prepared for us that must never that needs never be defended. It will never be taken away. And the glamour and the splendor of it will never waver because we will be with Christ there.

The deaths of those 624,155 US military personnel are so admirable and it is so right for us to celebrate them. But the freedoms their sacrifices secured praise to the Lord once again pale in comparison to the freedom Christ accomplished for us. In Romans 5, Paul says this, “While we were still helpless at the right at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. For rarely will someone die for a just person, though for a good person, perhaps someone might even dare to die. 624,155 dared to die. God proves His love for us in this, that while we are still sinners, Christ died for us. How much more then, since we have now been justified by His blood, will we be saved through Him from wrath? For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, then how much more, having been reconciled, will we live by His life, not only that, but we boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received this reconciliation.

Because of the US military personnel, we enjoy the civic freedoms that we have all come to take and hold dear. And because of Christ, we can enjoy a deeper freedom that transcends circumstances. A freedom from the penalty of sin and the power of shame over us as we approach a final day where we will be ultimately delivered from the presence of darkness and pain, the things that necessitate military. While US soldiers were giving their lives on the battlefields to secure our civic freedoms, others were giving their lives under religious persecution to offer true spiritual freedom that trans borders. In the 20th century alone, approximately 45 million brothers and sisters in Christ gave their lives as a result of their testimony for Jesus. In the 21st century, across the last 25 years, already 1.2 Million Christians around the world have given their lives. Approximately 46.2 million Christian martyrs have given their lives for the sake of the kingdom of God over the last hundred years. So today, as we honor those who died in the name of America and democratic freedom, let’s also honor the Christ who paid the ultimate sacrifice for people of every nationality, ethnicity, and ethnicity to secure an eternal home in heaven that can never be taken away.

As we come into this prayer time on Memorial Day, it is so fitting for us to pray for the families of soldiers who have died in action or are missing in action, and for us to pray obviously for America to turn to Christ for salvation. So, if you will please grab a neighbor, pray for the families that have lost a loved one because of war, and pray for our country that it would be once again a hotbed of love for Christ. Y’all take it away, and I’ll put a bow on it here in a second. Thank you.

Father, thank You so much for today. God, in Your sovereignty, You have placed all of us here in America in 2025 where we get to gather in a church building on a main thoroughfare and have zero fear whatsoever of anybody coming in and shutting this down. God, there’s so many around the world that don’t get to enjoy that. God, this Memorial Day, I just want to pray as well for our brothers and sisters in Christ, whether they be in Iraq or in Kenya or in London, God, that You would give them a good day together and with You, God, whether they are gathering under a steeple like we are or if they are gathering in a basement under a shroud of silence and secrecy, I pray that You would give them a good day.

Lord, I want to pray for all the families of those who have lost a loved one because of war. God, specifically for our US service personnel. God, I’m begging that You would comfort them and You would help them. Lord, I’m praying too that their sacrifices will not return void. God, finally, I pray for our country. God, this was a home of the First Great Awakening and the Second Great Awakening. This is a home of so many seminaries, hundreds of thousands of local churches, yet millions of people who don’t know You. God, I beg that You would help us to live for Your kingdom and share the gospel and make disciples so that we would do our part in helping America turn to Christ. Please, God, please do something supernatural here this morning as I share and open Your Word with our church. God, I beg that You would please get a hold of this and that You would use this to push Your kingdom forward. Thank You, Lord. We love You. Amen. Amen.

Well, before America was ever a twinkle in the founders’ eyes, there was another group of leaders that came and rose in their influence in the 16th century. They introduced some incredible change into the world and into the church, not because they were inventing new ideas or new practices, but because they were recovering forgotten truths as the church had drifted into man-made traditions. The reformers, such as John Calvin, Martin Luther, and others, they declared five bold cries: sola scriptura, sola gratia, sola fide, solus Christus, and sola gloria—Scripture alone, grace alone, faith alone, Christ alone, and at the crown of it all, to the glory of God alone.

Why would a couple of very strong-willed, passionate men disrupt so much of what they knew by reclaiming these five pillar truths of Christianity? It’s because as they read their Bibles, they recognized that if salvation is entirely God’s work, then God alone gets the credit. Everything in the Bible points upward to God’s power, His mercy, and His glory. These five solas, they point upward. And that’s exactly what Paul does at the end of Ephesians chapter 3. He points upward in a doxology of praise, much like the one that we began our service with this morning.

If you’ve got your Bibles, please go ahead and open them up to Ephesians chapter 3. You see, we are coming to the end of the first half of the book of Ephesians. I laid this out for us back in that first week where we began this series, where we began this study. Chapters 1 through 3 is a deep dive of theology. What Paul has been doing is showing us our new identity in Christ. He’s been explaining some of the nuances of the gospel. He has been helping us see how because of what Jesus has done, we can be united with the heavenly Father and we can be united with one another. And at the very end of all that, He starts praying for the Ephesians and therefore praying for us. And we looked at that prayer last week. Today’s passage will come at the end of that prayer. And after praying that we would be filled with all the fullness of God, Paul doesn’t start instructing us. But what he does is exalt our Savior. Because this is not just him saying amen and turning to something to teach. It is Paul describing the aim of our life, soli Deo gloria—glory to God alone.

So today as we are opening God’s Word, we will not just learn how to live better lives. No, my prayer is that we would learn how to live for something bigger than our lives. My goal this morning is to connect you with the ultimate purpose you were made for. And I’ve got 20 minutes. My goal is to help us see that there is something bigger than anything we can accomplish at work. There is something better than raising the perfect family. There is something far greater than anything this world can offer that you have been made for. You have been made for one big, life-transforming reason. You exist for the glory of God alone.

If you’re a notetaker this morning, this is what I want you to write down as kind of our main truth, the thing that everything else is going to sit up under: Christians live in God’s possibilities by God’s power for God’s purpose. Christians, if you are a professing believer in Jesus Christ, if you have been born again—not just baptized, not just read your Bible—but if you have a relationship with Jesus Christ, you are supposed to live in God’s possibilities by God’s power for God’s purpose. This isn’t my idea. This comes straight from the Apostle Paul in Ephesians chapter 3.

If you’ve got your Bibles at this point, go ahead and open them up with me and read them. This is verses 20 and 21. Paul erupts with this: “Now to Him who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus for all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” Incredible. So easy for me to just read and us say, “My, doesn’t that sound nice?” and just kind of progress on to chapter 4. But we’re going to park here for the next few moments and we’re going to see a few things.

Man, right off the bat, we see that we can live in God’s possibilities. Paul says, “Now to Him who is able to do what? Above beyond anything you ask or you think.” Last week when Paul described God’s love, he said it is wider than wide, longer than long, deeper than deep, higher than high. Now when he’s describing God’s power, he does the same thing. It’s above anything you could imagine. It’s higher than anything you could ever ask for. It is deeper than anything you could ever fathom or create on your own. God’s power is unrivaled. It is unlimited. God’s love, God’s power for you and alive in you are greater than your wildest dreams.

Do you think—do you think that God’s power at work in your life can accomplish more than what you can do without Him? If God can do more than you can ever ask or imagine, then we’ve got to stop living lives that limit His power. It’s like God is this souped-up car that we put these governors on and we only allow God to get up to a certain RPM, a certain speed, a certain power mark. And this morning, it’s like Paul is saying, “Take the governor off and let that baby run.” God’s got power for you that’s beyond anything you could ever ask or imagine.

But man, oftentimes our view of God is that He is just big enough to forgive us of our sin. But honestly, not a whole lot more. We live like God is too small to heal our bodies and our minds. We live like God is too small to break our bad habits. We live like God is too small to change that spouse or to rescue that wayward child. If you’re just being honest with yourself this morning, do you live like God can do anything? Do you live as if God’s power is greater than what you could ever ask or imagine? Do you live like God is big enough to handle all the stuff of your life and not be scared away by it? Not be daunted by the challenge of what you are facing this week? Is that how you live with God? The Apostle Paul this morning is saying God can do above and beyond anything you ask or imagine. Trial. What is it in your life that is too big for you? What is it in your life that you need you desperately need God’s power to work in? What’s the thing in your life that you are trying to navigate that if you failed, everything would fail? Everything would be over. That’s the place where God wants to meet with you. That’s the place where God wants to say, “Hey, stop living by your strength. I’ve got you there.”

Right off the bat, we see that Christians are supposed to live in God’s possibilities. And for God, possibilities become realities because they are fueled by God’s power. We see verse 20, Him who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us. God’s power is what fuels God’s possibilities.

Let’s take a moment and consider what kind of power we’re talking about. Way before anything ever existed, God just through the sound of His own voice and the desire of His own heart said, “Let there be stars.” And there were stars. God then said, “Hey, I’m going to take and make planets and moons and galaxies and solar systems.” Just like that. God didn’t have to work. He didn’t even break a sweat. In fact, He was just getting started. I like to imagine that God hadn’t even changed out of His sweatpants yet. He’s still in the lazy boy and He’s just dreaming up stuff. You know what I mean? The type of work that you do without breaking a sweat. Yeah. Am I just lost on you guys at this point? All right. I’m talking about God in sweatpants, but you you track with what I’m saying. God is doing work that’s not really work for Him. God is just saying things and they’re coming into existence. He looks at this earth and He says, “Hey, I’m going to form that place.” So mountains come up, oceans happen, and then He says, “I’m going to fill that place. Animals, birds, trees, and then the crown of it all, you and me in Adam and Eve.” God is strong enough. He’s got the type of power to create things out of nothing. That’s never done. That’s never been done since. It was never done beforehand. And if you and I are being honest, we don’t have a whole lot of power in and of ourselves. We cannot actually create anything out of nothing. No one has been science will never ever reach that. We are only using created materials. God does not need created material to create things.

The power of God is able to create. But also you see the power of God in the gospels and in the Old Testament and in the book of Acts where God is doing miracles. I’m reading the book of Luke right now for my own personal quiet time. And I’m struck this week as I’m reading about how God takes Zachariah and Elizabeth, an elderly couple that had never had children because she was barren, and by God’s own prerogative, He wants to give them John the Baptist as a child. And He just makes it happen. And then you look at Joseph and Mary. They’re on the other end of the spectrum. Not married yet, young, full of vitality, but they have not come together as husband and wife yet. God’s not limited by that. God can go ahead and give a baby to Mary in the form of Jesus Christ. Holy Spirit overshadows her. God can do that. God can just create life wherever He wants to. is that Jesus when He grows up, He starts ministering and teaching and people who are sick, who are demon-possessed, who have all sorts of issues are being brought to Him, and Jesus is touching them. He’s healing them. Sometimes He just speaks the word and they’re in another town. Booyah, baby, healed. The power of God that’s at work in you is also the power to do miracles. It’s like the time where Jesus takes a little boy’s snack of a couple of fish and a few loaves of bread and He feeds 5,000 men and their families and they take up 12 baskets of leftovers. That’s the power of God that’s at work in you. But it doesn’t stop there. You think about the ultimate expression of God’s power, the good news of Jesus Christ who came and lived a perfect life for you. A life you were supposed to live but can’t because we all sin. And Jesus, after living the perfect life in your place, died a sacrificial death for you that you deserved. We all deserve to die for our sin. We’ve all broken God’s rules. We’ve all done the disobedient bad stuff. But Jesus takes that punishment on Himself and He really does die. But He doesn’t stay dead because the power of God is at work in Jesus Christ to bring Him back to life.

That’s the power that’s at work in you. The power to bring dead things back to life. The power to bring your soul though your body is awake. You are living. You are walking. You are talking. You are making families. But God takes dead souls and He makes them come to life. That’s the power of God at work in you.

The possibilities of God’s power at work in your life are fueled. Sorry. The possibilities of what God could do are fueled by His power. The same power that rose Jesus from the dead lives inside of you. And man, when you hear that, you ought to feel like a 10-foot tall Superman. The power of God to raise Jesus Christ, to transform your heart from death to life is at work in you today.

So, what could God do through you if you stopped relying on your own strength? What does God want to do through you, but you’re telling Him no? Maybe there’s a person that you know you’re supposed to forgive. And you think about it and you’re like, “Lord, it’s just not in me. I can’t do it.” And God’s saddled up right next to you. He’s like, “I know. That’s the point. That’s why you’re supposed to let Me help you.”

Or maybe you hear about the AV booth and you’re thinking about VBS and you hear about Sunday school with the kids and you’re like, I think I’m supposed to serve in this church in some capacity, but I don’t think I can. I don’t think it’s in me. And the Lord is sitting on that pew beside you right now at this point. Maybe your spouse or your friend, they’re nudging you and the Lord’s kind of like, I know. Let Me help you.

Maybe it’s sharing your faith with somebody. You’ve got a co-worker or a family member, a neighbor, someone in the community that you know and you know or at least you’re not confident that they are walking with the Lord. They have any sort of relationship and you want to be able to offer them hope. You want to be able to give them the message of life. And you’re like, “God, I don’t know how to do that. I’m scared to do that. I don’t want to make this weird, tense moment with them. I can’t do it.” And the Lord’s like, “I know. That’s why you’re supposed to let Me do it.”

I think you guys might look at me and you say because Jeremy is the professional pastor guy, it’s really easy for Him to talk about Jesus with people. I was reflect—Did you say yes, Lori? Yeah, there you go. I was reflecting on something yesterday with Becca. Every Saturday we do the same thing. It just changes location. We go to a playground or a park so that we could walk. The kids can do their thing on a bike or on a play set or whatever it is. And we look for some other families for us to talk to and try to bring up Jesus with them. And Becca and I had both had the opportunity to have some spiritual conversations yesterday and talk about Jesus with people. We were just kind of marveling at that because guys, when I tell you how hard that has been for the majority of my Christian life, I’m an extrovert by nature, but I am also an approval junkie. I like to do whatever it takes for you to like me. So, bringing up a highly contentious topic like religion with complete strangers, that’s not exactly the path of influencing people and making friends, right? But God has done a work in me to help me live in His power, not my own.

So every time I see the guy at the playground, like yesterday morning, and he’s walking up with his kids, I say, “Lord, please help me.” And then I just start the best I know how and I just kind of watch what God does with that conversation. God can do things through you.

that you cannot do on your own. That’s how this is supposed to work. Christianity is about the Holy Spirit filling and using you to accomplish more through you than you could ever ask or imagine on your own. If Christianity was all about our strength, our resolve, our discipline, our abilities, that would be a pretty boring faith and it would be no different than any other world faith. But the beauty of the gospel and of the Bible is that it describes a life with God that is bigger and stronger and more vibrant than anything you could ever have without Him. What we offer people is not rules. We don’t offer people commandments. We don’t offer people stifling morals. What we offer them is the ability to live in freedom because Christ has done everything to set us free. That’s what we have to offer and that’s what we have to live in.

So why would God fuel us with His power for His possibilities? It’s for us to live for God’s purpose. We see that in this doxology. Let me just read it all for you. Now to Him, now because of Jesus, for Jesus, on behalf of Jesus, to the glory of God, now to Him who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us. To Him be glory. To Him be glory in the church, in Sauldam Baptist Church. To Him be glory in Jesus Christ. To Him be glory for all generations. To Him be glory forever and ever. Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria, glory to God alone. The purpose of your life is God’s glory. I’ll say it this way: the Christian life, church activity, and Christ’s mission is summed up in one great purpose—to glorify God alone. Glory is a great church word, right? Because we don’t use it outside of church, so I can say it up here and you can nod your head and say amen. I like it when you do that, by the way. When you say amen, that makes me feel good about myself. There we go. Y’all get a gold star. But glory, because we only use it in church, I think it’s easy for us to receive but not actually care about.

The word glory means splendor, majesty, honor, greatness. When I was in middle and high school, to be glorious meant you were the big guy on campus. You were like the big shark that all the other little fish like me would get. We would vacate the middle of the hallways for the big sharks, the big man on campus to walk through. That was glory. We gave that person honor for who they were. Or when you go down to the beach and you see the sunrise or the sunset and something swells in your heart and you don’t know how to really describe it. That’s glory. Or when you see a bride and a groom on their wedding day and there’s this joy that wells up and you say, “This is so right.” You say, “That is glory.”

Glorifying God, man. It’s not just singing to Him. Although I should say when we sing songs on Sundays, let us do it like people who have been pardoned of a death sentence and invited to live with the judge. Glorifying God is not only singing songs. Glorifying God is giving God credit. It is celebrating His greatness. It is recognizing your need for Him. It is encircling your life around the center of God so that He is ultimate in everything.

We have a trampoline in our backyard. And the funny thing about a trampoline is that something heavy could be on any part of it and you create your own little gravitational field. And if I’m sitting in the very middle of the trampoline, the kids can still run around the edges and it be okay. But if you take a ball and you swing it on the trampoline when I’m sitting on it, eventually the ball is going to come to me because I’m the heaviest thing on the trampoline. Think about it this way. Is God the heaviest thing on the trampoline of your life? When you make decisions, do you roll that ball out? Does the ball go to God or does it go to your 401k or your savings account? When you make a life choice, does that ball roll to your spouse at the end of the day or does it also roll to God? When you are getting frustrated about something and you want to have vengeance on somebody and you Roll that ball out. Does it end up at the words and the thoughts you think against them, or does it land ultimately at the feet of God for Him to massage those and to change your motivations? God ought to be the center of everything. That’s the type of life that glorifies Him. You say we glorify God not just by singing to Him, but by our day-to-day living. And I would argue how you live tomorrow says more about whether you glorify God than what you do in here on Sunday mornings. We glorify God by how we speak, how we serve, how we forgive, and how we love others despite the discomfort it brings. You see the great purpose of glorifying God that will continue for all generations. The apostle Paul says, “To Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever, into and through eternity.” God will be the middle. He will be the center. Soli Deo Gloria is a phrase we need to get right, and it’s a phrase we need to get comfortable with because that will be on our lips for years on end. Nations rise and fall. Companies start today and go bankrupt tomorrow. Family legacies fade in their relevance. But God is eternal. God deserves glory, and the glorious mission to bring as many glory-offerers into God’s kingdom. That mission will never end because God will never end. God will never stop deserving glory. So I ask, is there a part of your life that you are not living for God’s purpose? Or is there a part of your life where you need God’s power? In fact, I just want to offer you a moment just to bow your heads with me. Pray that prayer to the Lord. God, where do I need Your power? Where am I not living for Your glory? This morning we are going to close our service with one of the greatest ways for us to commission ourselves to the glory of God. We’re going to celebrate the Lord’s Supper.