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‘Ye are bought with a price; therefore glorify God.’
1Co_6:20
I. The primary meaning of the word ‘glory’ is opinion: the estimate formed of a person by others. The verb ‘to glorify’ will then signify, to exalt a person in the opinion and estimation of others, to enhance his favourable report with others. It will be seen at once that it is only in this modified sense that it is possible for mortals to glorify the great God. When we speak of glorifying God, we mean that we can in some humble fashion reflect some portion of His light, that others, seeing that reflected light, ‘may glorify our Father Which is in heaven.’
II. This is a high calling indeed: a higher we could not have.—Let us by the grace of the enabling Spirit rise to its responsibilities. The ‘good name’—we say it with deep reverence—of Him ‘Whose name is above every name’ has been placed in the Christian’s keeping. On him, on his walk and conversation, on his daily practice, it depends whether it shall gain or lose by the committal. What the world thinks of Christ and His cause will depend largely upon the testimony accorded to Him by those ‘who profess and call themselves Christians.’ It is very well to say that men ought to estimate Christ’s cause apart from the practice of its adherents; but men will judge of it according to what they observe that practice to be. From without, so long as she is true to herself, the Church of the living God has nothing to fear. From false friends, from the errors, the inconsistencies, the hollownesses of the unworthy amongst her children are her chief dangers to be looked for. It is ‘her own familiar friends, in whom she trusted,’ which did eat of the bread of her communion, who, when they ‘lift up their heel’ against her, wound her worst.
III. Now that you belong by your own act of self-surrender to your Lord; now that you are personally identified with His controversy in the earth, every time you thus trip you do Him hurt; each time you soil your hands in the business transaction with compromise of strict integrity you are driving home the nails into your recrucified Redeemer’s hands; each time your feet turn aside from the straight path of the saints you are repiercing His feet; each time your traitor thoughts are yielded to impurity or malice you are replaiting the wreath of thorn for His torn temples; each time your heart hides the sin on which daylight may not look you are thrusting the spear into His side. Beware how you walk, for the keen-eyed world is looking on.
IV. It needs no grand and imposing career to reflect the Divine glory.—Every falling raindrop contains a perfect picture of the landscape surrounding the line of its fall. There is no need for us to seek for exceptional opportunities, to be ambitious of pretentious achievements. In the economy of grace life has no commonplaces. If by the providence of our Father our feet have been set in the quiet byways of the world, in those ways we shall probably best glorify Him; nor add to our appliances by forsaking them for the broad highways of publicity and display. There is some danger even in the very use of such phrases as ‘Church-work,’ ‘Christian-work,’ in the implied fallacy that such work is confined to the more ostentatious efforts for others’ good. To the Christian all work ought to be Christian work; and the least solid and lasting ought not to be that which secures recognition in no parish statistics, and which is so unobtrusively done that the doer’s left hand knows not what the right is about, whom it is guiding, whom it is helping, whom it is blessing. The Saviour chose a lowly walk in life that He might understand life at its lowliest. And if his public walk occupied three years, His private spread itself over thirty. See to it, then, that you be not misled into thinking that you can best do God’s work in the Church by neglecting to do it at home. Whatsoever your hands find to do, do it with your might. Take Christ with you into every employment and into every company. Confess Him before men with firmness, but with humility. Be loyal to your Lord, and consider that everything laid against your good name is a reflection upon His.
—
Bishop A. Pearson.
Illustration‘There are phases of Christianity out of which the principle of pure loyalty has been dropped. Religion itself is a systematised selfishness—a compact by which the interests of my own soul are to be ensured, and these being ensured, its work is done. I am to serve God in order primarily to get to heaven. I attend church in order primarily to get good to my soul. “Lo, we have left all, and followed Thee: what shall we have therefore?” This mercenary spirit still lurks in the churches: a spirit which the best of us would scorn to recognise in such lower sphere as, say, patriotism. What true soldier would permit himself to think of decorations and promotion while engaged in thrusting an enemy from the shores of his country? The honour of his King and his flag is at stake: that is enough for him. Recognition comes, but it comes unsought and unthought of.’
‘Glorify God in your body.’
1Co_6:20
I. The very hairs remind me of the tender care of my God for me, for are not all those hairs ‘numbered’?
II. The eyes, are they not inlets wherewith I may first take into my very heart and soul all the wonderful and beautiful works of God in nature and providence, and the written Word of His grace? And then by bright and loving looks spread peace and happiness? How much of Satan, how much of Christ, there may be in the look of the eye! The eyes are very eloquent. Remember the use and the power given to them, and ‘glorify God’ with your eyes.
III. And the mouth!—What action the mouth has for sin and self-indulgence, or self-denial and careful moderation for Christ’s sake! Be careful, when you bring your religion to your mouth, that you ‘glorify God’ with your appetites or your government of the appetites. Those are very strong words of Solomon. Are they too strong? They are the words of a man of great experience: ‘Put a knife to thy throat, if thou be a man given to appetite. Be not desirous of his dainties, for they are deceitful meat.’ And perhaps more than you are aware the mouth is the index of temper or of sweetness. Take care of your mouth. ‘Glorify God’ with your mouth.
IV. And the tongue!—That ‘fire,’ that ‘world of iniquity,’ which St. James calls it; but as Solomon calls it, that ‘tree of life.’ Your tongue! That thing of paradoxes. Are you thinking about it, are you really in your daily life consecrating your tongue; in your public worship as in your private; when you are alone in your own room, and when in society? Do you speak with that tongue what you ought, and when you ought, and where you ought about Jesus Christ? Who can calculate either what shame or what glory he can bring upon religion? What a curse or what a blessing that tongue may be; what a comforter, what a minister, what an instrument of salvation to men—that tongue! In all you have to do in daily life, it is not your inward feelings, it is not your secret appetites, that do it, your tongue must do it, your tongue must ‘glorify God.’ Does it? Does your tongue ‘glorify God’?
V. And your ear.—Take great care what you hear. Learn when to shut it and when to open it. A word may come in at that ear which may cling unto you, and be your millstone all your life long. It is an avenue of fearful power. Often ask Him ‘Who shutteth and none can open, and Who openeth and none can shut,’ to do with your ear what He did to Lydia’s heart.
VI. And your nerves.—You speak of your nerves. They are very good servants, but very bad masters. Take care of your nerves. Pray constantly for more calmness. ‘Glorify’ God with your nerves.
And all the senses—sweet handmaids of truth, and beauty, and pure enjoyment!—consecrate them. They are the Lord’s. Let all your senses ‘glorify God.’ And all your members!—hands, knees, and feet—keep every part of the body for God.
Illustration
‘We should look upon our body, and treat our body, as something given us to use and enjoy for God. A part of our likeness to Christ; a part of our present being which we are to meet again in another world; and therefore given us, here, to train and educate for the work and the services which that body is to render in heaven. For that is the body—a thing capable of being turned into the highest or the lowest uses; a marvellous structure to be dedicated; the temple walls of the inner sanctuary of the soul. Such being, then, the body, we should pray every morning of our lives about our bodies as much as about our souls. We should consecrate it in the morning to God, and we should deal with it all day long religiously, and watch and keep it diligently, and every part of it, as a very sacred thing.’