GLORIFYING GOD NOT BY SERVING HIM, BUT

BY BEING SERVED BY HIM

The discovery was that we do not glorify God by providing His needs, but by praying that He would provide ours—and trusting Him to answer. Here we are at the heart of the good news of Christian Hedonism.

God’s insistence that we ask Him to give us help so that He gets glory (Psalm 50:15) forces on us the startling fact that we must beware of serving God and take special care to let Him serve us, lest we rob Him of His glory. This sounds very strange. Most of us think serving God is a totally positive thing; we have not considered that serving God may be an insult to Him. But meditation on the meaning of prayer demands this consideration. Acts 17:24–25 makes this plain:

The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.

This is the same reasoning as in Robinson Crusoe’s text on prayer:

“If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine.… Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.” (Psalm 50:12, 15)

Evidently, there is a way to serve God that would belittle Him as needy of our service. “The Son of Man came not to be served” (Mark 10:45). He aims to be the servant. He aims to get the glory as Giver.

STILL SERVANT AT THE SECOND COMING!

This is true, not just in the days of His earthly humiliation, but even in His glory at the close of the age. To me, the Bible’s most astonishing image of Christ’s second coming is in Luke 12:35–37, which pictures the return of a master from a marriage feast: “Stay dressed for action and keep your lamps burning, and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast, so that they may open the door to him at once when he comes and knocks. Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will dress himself for service and have them recline at table, and he will come and serve them.”

HOW IS GOD DIFFERENT FROM ALL THE OTHER GODS?

To be sure, we are called servants—and that no doubt means we are to do exactly as we are told. But the wonder of this picture is that the “master” insists on “serving” even in the age to come when He appears in all His glory “with his mighty angels in flaming fire” (2 Thessalonians 1:7–8). Why? Because the very

heart of His glory is the fullness of grace that overflows in kindness to needy people. Therefore, He aims “in the coming ages [to] show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:7). What is the greatness of our God? What is His uniqueness in the world?

Isaiah answers:

From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides thee, who works for those who wait for him. (Isaiah 64:4, RSV)

All the other so-called gods try to exalt themselves by making man work for them. In doing so, they only show their weakness. Isaiah derides the gods who need the service of their people:

Bel bows down; Nebo stoops; their idols are on beasts and livestock; these things you carry are borne as burdens on weary beasts. (46:1) Jeremiah joins the derision: Their idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field, and they cannot speak; they have to be carried, for they cannot walk. (10:5) God is unique: “For of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear...” And His uniqueness is that He aims to be the Workman for us, not vice versa. Our job is to “wait for Him.”

GOD WORKS FOR THOSE WHO WAIT FOR HIM

To wait! That means to pause and soberly consider our own inadequacy and the Lord’s all-sufficiency and to seek counsel and help from the Lord and to hope in Him (Psalm 33:20–22; Isaiah 8:17). Israel is rebuked that “they did not wait for his counsel” (Psalm 106:13). Why? Because in not seeking and waiting for God’s help, they robbed God of an occasion to glorify Himself. For example, in Isaiah 30:15, 16 the Lord says to Israel, “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” But Israel refused to wait for the Lord and said, “No! We will flee upon horses.” Then in verse 18 the folly and evil of this self-initiated frenzy is revealed: “The  LORD waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show

mercy to you. For the  LORD is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.” The folly of not waiting for God is that we forfeit the blessing of having God work for us. The evil of not waiting for God is that we oppose God’s will to exalt Himself in mercy.

God aims to exalt Himself by working for those who wait for Him. Prayer is the essential activity of waiting for God—acknowledging our helplessness and His power, calling upon Him for help, seeking His counsel. Since His purpose in the world is to be exalted for His mercy, it is evident why prayer is so often commanded by God. Prayer is the antidote for the disease of self-confidence, which opposes God’s goal of getting glory by working for those who wait for Him.

“The eyes of the  LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him” (2 Chronicles 16:9). God is not looking for people to work for Him, so much as He is looking for people who will let Him work for them. The gospel is not a help-wanted ad. Neither is the call to Christian service. On the contrary, the gospel commands us to give up and hang out a help-wanted sign (this is the basic meaning of prayer). Then the gospel promises that God will work for us if we do. He will not surrender the glory of being the Giver. But is there not anything we can give Him that won’t belittle Him to the

status of beneficiary? Yes—our anxieties. It’s a command: “[Cast] all your anxieties on him” (1 Peter 5:7). God will gladly receive anything from us that shows our dependence and His all-sufficiency.

Excerpt from John Piper's book Desiring God.  Chapter on prayer.