Ezekiel 36:32
Not for your sakes do I this, saith the Lord GOD, be it known unto you: be ashamed and confounded for your own ways, O house of Israel.
"LORD, I remember verses 21 and 22 of Ezekiel 36, too:"
But I had pity for mine holy name...Therefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord GOD; I do not this for your sakes, O house of Israel, but for mine holy name's sake,..."
"You say You will sanctify me not for my sake, but for YOUR SAKE. This sounds so selfish, LORD, but You are not a selfish God. Piper sheds light on this." He says:
But if God is a God of love He must be for us – Is then God for Himself or is He for us?…
He must be for Himself in order to be for us. If He were to abandon the goal of His own self-exaltation, we would be the losers. His aim to bring praise to Himself and his aim to bring pleasure to His people are one aim and stand or fall together…
What could God give us to enjoy that would show Him most loving? There is only on possible answer, isn't there? HIMSELF!…
But what do we do when we are given or shown something excellent, something we enjoy? We praise it…We praise new little babies…We praise a lover's face after a long absence: "You're eyes are like the sky; your hair is like silk; O, you are beautiful to me"…
"…great discovery I made with the help of C.S. Lewis, was not only that we praise what we enjoy but that the praise is the climax of the Joy itself. It is not tacked on later, it is part of the pleasure. Listen to the way Lewis describes this insight from his book on the Psalms.
"The world rings with praise – lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favorite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favorite game…I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep telling one another how beautiful they are, the delight is incomplete till it is expressed. (Reflections on the Psalms, pp. 93-95)
There's the key: we praise what we enjoy because the delight is incomplete until it is expressed in praise. If we were not allowed to speak of what we value and celebrate what we love and praise what we admire, our joy would not be full. Therefore, if God is truly for us, if He would give us the best and make our joy full, He must make it His aim to win our praise for Himself. Not because He needs to shore up some weakness in Himself or compensate for some deficiency,
but because He loves us and seeks the fullness of our joy that can be found in knowing and praising Him, the most beautiful of all Beings.
God is the Being in all the universe for whom seeking His own praise is the ultimately loving act. For Him self-exaltation is the highest virtue. When He does all things "for the praise of His glory" as Ephesians 1 says, He preserves for us and offers to us the only thing in all the world which can satisfy our longing. God is for us, and therefore has been, is now and always will be for Himself Praise the lord! Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. (From a sermon by Piper – "Is God For Us or For Himself" – Aug. 10, 1980)
www.desiringGod.org for Piper's messages....
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