The Glory of Big-God Preaching

0:00 Above the heavens, below the earth, on the earth, there is no one like our God, no one like Jesus Christ, no one like you, Holy Spirit, no one like you, Father. We turn away from every alternative treasure to you, and in this conference now together, we embrace all that you are for us in Christ. You show us the path of life. In your presence is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore. There is nobody can make such an offer but you. We receive it, deepen it. Now we pray in Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated. I really would like the house lights up if that's permitted, please. Let me begin by putting this theme in a context, a historical and cultural context, so that you'll know where does big God preaching come from.

1:17 It may, the context may be surprising, but I think it's going to be helpful because it will protect you, to know the context, will protect you from a fear or a hesitancy or an accusation that might come to you if you saturate your preaching with big God theology. Namely, the accusation that if you get into that stuff, you are simply Eurocentric, Western, provincial, white, out of touch with the vastness and diversity and complexity of human culture around the world.

2:12 Big God theology, of which big God preaching is an offshoot, has probably been used for hundreds of years. I asked HB where he first heard it, and he gave me an answer, which was prior to what I'm going to tell you is when I heard it. It came into my vocabulary in 2012 and happened like this. to everybody's surprise especially the culture watchers in 2009 Calvinism made it on to Time Magazine's top 10 what is influencing the world right now number 3 nobody saw that coming Calvinism a vision of God's sovereignty in salvation and providence suddenly registered as a force to be reckoned with in contemporary evangelicalism that was 16 years ago the prior year Colin Hansen wrote the book Young Restless and reformed.

3:45 Now, one of the striking things about young, restless, reformed, newer Calvinism that was amazing to me and totally unexpected and glorious was that it was cutting across racial, ethnic, national lines. like no theology in my lifetime had ever done. I was hanging out and ministering with African American brothers in St. Louis, Chicago, Los Angeles, Lexington, Kentucky.

4:32 I was hanging out with Latino brothers in conferences in the Dominican Republic and in Brazil. And all of these people were embracing and loving Reformed theology, especially the doctrines of grace, five points of Calvinism, tulip. These conferences were unashamedly tulip people. Right across ethnicities. in 2002, this conference was titled the sovereignty of God and the soul dynamic. The purpose was quote, to light a fire that would forge a link between the sovereignty of God and the God centered theology on the one hand and the soul dynamic and black experience in America, on the other hand, forge a link.

5:38 so I invited Carl Ellis to speak he had written a book which is now titled Free and Last and I read it in the summer of 2001 and was blown away by his narration of the theological dynamics at work in white and black culture he was willing to come and he spoke at that conference. Now comes the link to the title of this conference. Ten years after that conference, 2012, Pastor Michael Campbell, African-American brother, who is now ministering in Miami, preached a sermon in Jacksonville, Tennessee.

6:36 Jackson, not Jacksonville. Jackson. Not Tennessee, is it? Where's RTS? Thank you. Jackson, Mississippi. There we go. So he's a pastor there, and he preached a sermon and told his story. Namely, African American, went to college, and was devastated when he ran into Calvinism. And then he was persuaded. And then he went to RTS. And in RTS, as he tells it, he was disillusioned that this theology could ever be at home in his culture, his life experience. So he wrote to the one other person he knew, Michael Campbell wrote to Carl Ellis for help.

7:32 Because the one other black brother who held Reformed theology as far as he knew was Carl Ellis. and Carl Ellis wrote back and said two things. He said that all theology is embedded in a culture, get over it, kind of. And then he said this, and I want to show you the next 90 seconds of the message.

8:00 And the second thing that Carl said to me, and this was the thing that really kept me going, is this. He said, Mike, within the history of the African-American experience in America, the African-American Christian experience, the African-American church experience, one of the things that you need to realize is that there is this thread. It may not use the same language. It may not use the theological terminology that we've come to get used to within Reformed circles. But there is this thread that is expressed in the song, it's expressed in the testimony, it's expressed in the prayer, it's expressed in the history of the rhythms of black preaching that is about big God theology.

8:52 Big God theology. now some of you are here today and this whole reform thing I mean it may be new to you and different to you but I tell you this is it reform theology is about big God theology reform theology is about a God who is big and awesome and wonderful and to be honest with you that is not only reform theology let's push it further that's Christian faith is it not? that's biblical theology right big God theology so there was a cultural translation of Calvinism into big God theology from Carl Ellis to Mike Campbell to me and then the next year Jamar Tisby picked it up and wrote an article in TGC called Why African Americans Need Big God Theology.

9:57 Then Trillian Neubel picked it up and wrote another article at the TGC, African Americans and Big God Theology. I jumped in in 2013 and wrote an article called The Seedbed of Big God Preaching. And then another article in 2014, Some Historical Roots of African American Big God Theology. And I tried to show that big God theology in African-American experience was not a discovery, but a rediscovery. Jupiter Hammond, for example, one of the earliest published black preachers in America, lived in Lloyd Harbor, New York. He deplored the condition of his brothers in slavery. Poor, despised, miserable state. State wrote in 1786, that's 100 years before the Civil War, I am pained to the heart.

10:53 It is at times almost too much for human nature to bear and I am obliged to turn my thoughts from the subject or endeavor to steal my mind by considering that it was permitted thus to be by that God who governs all things, who setteth up one and pulleth down another. And then he pleads with his black brothers to learn and take every offer to learn how to read. Because then you can read the Bible, quote, therein we may learn what God is. That he made all things by the power of his word. That he made all things for his own glory. And not for our glory. That he is over all, above all his creatures and more above than we can think or imagine. And they can do nothing without him. That he opposes them all and will overrule all things for his own glory.

11:57 That's Jupiter Haman 1786. 41 years later African American Nathaniel Paul priesthood message 1827 in Albany the day after New York declared it illegal to hold slaves in that state and he referred to with lament that pernicious abominable of all enterprises the slavery as he knew it and then he soared with his big God theology in his big God preaching like this. Oh, thou immaculate God, be not angry with us while we come into the sanctuary and make the bold inquiry why it was thou didst look on with the calm indifference of any unconcerned spectator when thy holy law was violated, thy divine authority despised and a portion of thine own creatures reduced to a state of mere vassalage and misery. And then he hears God answer. Hark!

13:08 While he answers from on high, hear him proclaiming from the skies, be still and know that I am God. Clouds and darkness are around about me, yet righteousness and judgment are the habitation of my throne. I do my will and my pleasure in the heaven above and on the earth beneath, and it is my sovereign prerogative to bring good out of evil and to cause the wrath of man to praise me. That's Nathaniel Paul, African-American preaching in 1827. If you go home, brothers, and you preach like that,

13:50 humbled under the mighty hand of God, exulting in the all-governing providence of God and his sovereign work in salvation, you do not need to fear anyone who says to you that Calvinism stuff is just white,

14:14 Eurocentric, Western, parochial, culturally created human opinion. It's not, brothers. So two weeks ago, I'm in Dubai, UAE, with Kevin DeYoung and Sinclair Ferguson and Joel Beeky. preaching at a Puritan conference in the Arabian Peninsula surrounded by millions of Muslims. Amazing.

14:42 There were 1,300 people at this conference from Turkey, Ethiopia, Indonesia, India, Jordan, Philippines, Sweden, Egypt, and dozens of other peoples from all over the world, all of them exulting and glorying in the sovereignty of God and salvation and providence. This reality of big God theology is not provincial. It's not provincial chronologically. It's not provincial geographically. It's not provincial culturally because big God theology is biblical. It takes hold of you. And when it takes hold of you, it creates big God preaching, which the world and your people need more than they know. my assignment now in this conference is big God preaching, the goal.

15:42 What's the goal of big God preaching, namely the glory of God? Here's my plan. I'm going to describe very briefly three ways, these steps you should take to be a faithful big God preacher and bring your people to love and exult in and depend on and look forward to the glory of God as the supreme treasure in their lives. And then we're going to go back and put Bible under each of those three steps. So here's the summary of each three step.

16:24 Number one, We, you and your people, we must be done and help our people be done with all resistance to God's God-centeredness. Or to put it positively, all resistance to God's God-centeredness must be replaced with rejoicing in God's zeal for his own glory.

17:00 We must see this truth as preeminent and pervasive in the Bible, not marginal, not secondary. and we must believe that this is reality. That God is infinitely and joyfully committed and exalting his glory. Committed to, exalting his own glory in the everlasting happiness of his people in him. We must renounce every temptation To the thought, that's megalomania. and we must instead see his passion for his praise, the praise of his glorious grace as the wellspring of all our happiness.

18:00 Say it briefly. Restate point one. Our people must be shown in our big God preaching not just their duty to be God-centered, but God's passion to be God-centered.

18:23 We have a duty to be God-centered. God has a commitment to be God-centered. That's point one. We'll be back. Number two, in big God preaching, we must help our people love the centrality of the glory of God in their lives, bringing every reality that they are concerned with or should be concerned with into connection with the glory of God. Big God preaching takes up all of reality. The little teeny things your people are concerned about, the big things they're concerned about, Takes them all up and takes them all the way up and brings them into connection with the glory of God. And in that way, big God preaching gives massive significance to all of human life. From the making of a meal to martyrdom.

19:26 Everything is amazing to the big God preacher. Everything is amazing. because everything relates to the glory of God because God is amazing, therefore everything's amazing. If you had eyes of the big God preacher, you'd walk through life and everything would be amazing. It really is amazing.

19:53 And if you don't think everything is amazing just because it exists in relationship to the glory of God, wake up, brothers. Wake up, you're sleeping. that's number two relate everything in your people's experience to the glory of God number three big God preaching treasures the glory of God over all things and preaches in a way as to show your people the effect of the glory of God on your mind and your heart as a preacher.

20:38 You preach in such a way that you show them the effect that the glory of God is having on your mind and your heart. Or you're not preaching. my definition of preaching is expository exaltation we communicate what God intends to communicate by his word, exposition. And we do it in a way that our people can see the effect that it's having in our lives.

21:24 Exaltation. Or it's not preaching. Preaching communicates the meaning and the value of the word. Meaning and value. Preaching embodies the truth and the worth of the word of God. Or it's not preaching, it's something else. So, to sum up number three,

21:54 let the people see with all authenticity the effect that God's glory is having on your mind and your emotions. Let them see what it looks like to treasure the glory of God above all things. treasuring the glory of God is caught, not just taught. That's your job. okay one at a time we go through them again only this time we look at the Bible because what I think as you know does not matter at all what God says matters infinitely and now let's see whether those first eight pages are God's ideas step one our people must be shown not just the duty of their God-centeredness, but the glory of God's God-centeredness.

23:01 A word about my own pilgrimage here. We're all influenced by what God did in our lives to bring us to where we are, so here's mine. few things were clearer to me from age zero to 22 that 1 Corinthians 10 31 is true and should govern our lives. So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. I've never met any Christian who gets their back up about that. I've never met any Christian who says no you shouldn't talk like that Paul humans doing everything for the glory of God don't talk like that I've never heard that nobody in my experience has ever raised an objection to 1 Corinthians 10 31 evidently it's relatively easy for Christians to accept the truth that their duty is to live for the glory of God.

24:11 Whether they do it or not, it's relatively easy to say that. But something fundamental and profound happened in my life between the ages of 22 and 25 when I was confronted by Dan Fuller and Jonathan Edwards, one living, one dead, with God's God-centeredness. Not my God-centeredness. That duty is plain to everybody. God's God-centeredness. That not only should I do everything for God's glory, God does everything for his own glory. I've never heard that. Maybe I had. I don't know that I had ever heard that. Nobody had said to me, God lives for God.

25:06 God lives to glorify God. God is the most God-centered person in the universe. Nobody had ever said those things to me. For 22 years in church, I never missed a Sunday. Wednesday night, Sunday night, nobody ever said that to me. What happens when you say that? Or when you suddenly have eyes to see that it's everywhere in the Bible? What happens? you realize you're a sinner because he gets your back up. I've seen it everywhere. I knew the people who didn't come to my church because of that. You don't touch that Bethlehem Baptist Church stuff. That's weird. The tidal wave of God's God-centeredness in the Bible broke over me. gloriously, painfully.

26:11 And I discovered, and your people will discover, that this doctrine, this pervasive biblical truth is not easily embraced. And many, many professing Christians, I dare say real Christians, real Christians, hear this and feel resistant to God's God-centeredness. God has to do in your people, in me, a deep heart work. That's why this is so crucial to preach. It uncovers remnants of corruption and pride and self-exaltation and sin in our people's lives. It still does in my life.

27:07 Until your people are happy with God's God-centeredness, God will not have His rightful place in your church. Happy. so here's the salty taste of the tidal wave as it broke over me God chose us for his glory Ephesians 1 4 he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world according to the purpose of his will to the praise of the glory of his grace or verse 12 to the praise of his glory Or verse 14, to the praise of his glory. God's purpose in election was that he would be praised for the glory of his grace. The showing of grace is penultimate.

28:08 You are penultimate. God's receiving praise for that is ultimate. Then God created us for his own glory. created. First election, creation, Isaiah 43, bring my sons from afar, my daughters from the ends of the earth, everyone who is created for my glory. And then he called Israel. He called Israel for his glory. Jeremiah 13, 11, I made the whole house of Israel claim to me, declares the Lord, that they might be for me a people, a name, a praise, and a glory. then he rescued them from Egypt why? Psalm 106 they rebelled at the Red Sea yet he saved them for his namesake that he might make known his mighty power they got saved he got glory why did he spare them again and again in the wilderness Ezekiel 20 I acted for the sake of my name that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations Why did he not cast them out when they so rebelled and said, we want the king to be like the other nations.

29:20 When I was their king, God says, why didn't he just be done with them? Treason. Here's why. 1 Samuel 12, because the Lord will not forsake his people for his great namesake. Your salvation totally hangs on God's commitment to God. Why did he rescue his people and bring them back from exile? I remember sitting in a rocking chair, reading Ezekiel 36, 22, and week after week, the chapter in the religious affections on evangelical humiliation based on this text was undoing me. age 25 is not for your sake O house of Israel that I am about to act but for the sake of my holy name and I will vindicate the holiness of my name and all the nations shall know I am Yahweh page after page Edwards was screwing this down on my heart not for your sake Piper.

30:48 Why did God send Jesus into the world and to his final hour of suffering? John 12. Father, for this purpose, I have come to this hour. Glorify your name.

31:10 You glorify your name. and a voice came from heaven. I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again. In the life and death and resurrection of Jesus, God is making much of God first, and we get the spillover of salvation.

31:40 Why the cross? Why the cross? Romans 3, God put Christ forward as a propitiation by his blood to show God's righteousness. It was to show his righteousness at the present time.

32:00 God's first purpose at the cross was to vindicate God and then save you. Why does he forgive our sins? Isaiah 43, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake. For my own sake, O Lord, pardon my guilt, for it is great. I didn't read that right. For your own sake, O Lord, pardon my guilt, for it is great. Psalm 25, 11. Why does God give you strength to serve him? Serve by the strength which God supplies, so that in everything God may get the glory. that text was prayed over me for 33 years more than any other text on Sunday morning give him strength for your glory woe to those who do not give glory to God oh Herod had you not seen this immediately the angel of the Lord struck Herod down because he did not give God glory oh how we should pray for our president Donald Trump and the thousands of legislators who are boastfully saying they don't need forgiveness they don't need repentance They don't need God walking on the precipice of eternity the way they all do.

33:43 Scary. Why is Jesus coming again? 2 Thessalonians 1, he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints and to be marveled at among all who have believed. Jesus is coming back to be marveled at, which will be the satisfaction of our souls if we love the God-centeredness of Jesus and God.

34:16 What's the aim of it all? Habakkuk 2.14, The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. He will make it plain in that day that from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever and ever. Amen.

34:39 So I ask you, why are there hundreds of such statements in the Bible? Why are they there? I never heard them from any preacher for 22 years. Why are they there? They are there to communicate and exalt the greatness and the beauty and the worth of God's God-centeredness. why because few things reveal the remnants of man-centered pride like the biblical tidal wave of God's God-centeredness you want to get your people's back up you want to find out if there's any remnant any small remnant of self-exaltation pride and self-centeredness in their lives preach this weave it in week after week your church will get a reputation You'll lose a lot of people, and you'll gain real people.

35:38 If you preach like that, God will lead your people to repent, humble themselves under the mighty hand of God, and with the help of your big God preaching, they will awaken to some of the best news in all the world. Namely, God is most glorified in them when they are most satisfied in Him. In other words, Christian hedonism, call it what you will, is the answer to why God's God-centeredness is not megalomania. It's the only answer. That's a challenging statement to you. You come up to me and tell me any other theological reality besides Christian hedonism that answers why is God's God-centeredness not selfish megalomania?

36:36 My answer is Christian hedonism. God's ultimate design is that his glory shine most brightly in the gladness of his people in God. That's the answer.

36:57 God's God-centeredness is not megalomania. It's not egomania. It is love. What is love? Love is the intention of God's heart to enthrall his people with the greatest, longest happiness, even at the cost of his son's life, namely happiness in God. In your presence is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore. one of those in attendance in Dubai two weeks ago at the conference where I was wrote me a letter which I received this week, this past week and I rewrote this part of the message to include it here because he narrated he's in mid-40s this is happening in his 20s, early 20s and he said Christian hedonism saved his life.

38:00 But here's the way he put it. All this time, he had just come to Christ and he had discovered God's God-centeredness reading the Bible. And it deeply shook him. All this time, Jesus didn't really care about me and was only using me to elevate himself in the eyes of everyone else. It was just devastating to me. I became passively suicidal. I no longer wanted to live. When his worship pastor saw his struggle, he said, there's this book I've been meaning to read called Desiring God. Would you read it with me? He agreed. He continues in his email to me.

38:55 First sentence, the saving designs of God are penultimate, not ultimate. Great. As I slowly worked my way through page after page of chapter 1, I felt myself becoming more and more angry. Like Martin Luther hating the word righteousness in Romans 1 17. God was exposing my misdirected offense on account of not realizing what the words glory and righteousness really mean with regards to God. even now I tear up remembering how that felt and thinking about where that path could have taken me. And I have tears of deep gratitude toward God for how He used you through that text.

39:52 I got to the end of the chapter where you bring everything together, that God, because He loves us, gave himself without holding anything back for our full and eternal pleasure and then commanded us to complete our joy in him by praising him.

40:16 And how in doing so he gets the glory and we, the glad recipients of his love, get the joy. You would have loved, Pastor John, to be a fly on the wall, I jumped up and I spiked your book to the floor. And I started jumping up and down. You love me. You love me. You love me.

40:47 That has been, and I believe, will always be the greatest revelation of God's love I will ever receive because it is anchored in the bedrock foundation of God's commitment to his own glory. End of email. Actually, it was the end of the first of three parts in the email. It got even better.

41:15 Summarizing number one, step one. Our people must be shown not just their duty of God-centeredness, but rather also the glory of God's God-centeredness. And that Christian hedonism is what keeps it from being megalomania and turns it into love. Step two, help your people rejoice in the centrality of the glory of God in their lives by bringing every reality that they are concerned with or should be concerned with into relationship with the glory of God. Bring everything in your preaching. Big God preaching is constantly eager to bring little things in our lives into connection with the bigness of God.

42:15 Don't miss this. People hear the term Big God preaching. He's going to preach on the doctrine of the priesthood every Sunday. He's going to preach on the creation every Sunday. He's going to always be flying up here. and I'm saying, this is helicopter work and you're down there picking people up and all their concerns, every one of them.

42:39 Little things. The meal preparation. Huge things. Martyrdom. Bringing everything, everything in relation to the glory of God. Are your people concerned with conversion? What did it mean? Am I saved? You take them to 1 Timothy 1, 11. The gospel of the glory of the blessed God. You take them to 2 Corinthians 4, 6. And show how God does it. Like he did it on the day of creation. He has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God. In the face of Jesus Christ. To be converted is to see the glory as the great treasure. That's conversion. Many of you people don't know what it means to be saved. They don't know what happened to them, and maybe they aren't.

43:28 This is one way to find out. Are you people concerned about sanctification and growth in holiness and becoming more like Jesus? Take them to 2 Corinthians 3, 18. Beholding the glory of the Lord, we are being changed from one degree of glory to the next. Are you people wondering about the precious promises of God? Are they true? Can we bank on the promises? and you take them to 2 Corinthians 1.20, all the promises of God find their yes in him. That is why we, through him, utter the amen to God's glory. Are they anxious and concerned about a multitude of practical needs, finances, health, relationships, and you take them to Philippians 4.9, right?

44:17 My God will supply every need of yours according to his, say it, Brothers, that is big. He meets every need according to the riches of his glory. Finance, glory. Marital problems, glory. Kids going haywire, glory. Tumor, glory. are they wondering which pizza to order and whether to get Diet Coke or Diet Pepsi?

45:02 And you tell them, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. And you smile, and when they stop laughing, you get one of those joyfully serious looks on your face and say, I mean it. and I do choose the pizza for God's glory that's what the Bible says order Diet Coke to God's glory or maybe Diet Pepsi And then in your newsletter that week, you write an article. Or at your blog, you write an article, How to Drink Diet Coke to the Glory of God, which is what I did on September 15, 1986, only I said orange juice.

46:02 How to drink orange juice to the glory of God. And then your people will say, he loves us because he's trying to help us do this. He's not just saying do it, which is what so many of us do. Live, eat, drink to the glory of God. End of sermon. What? How in the world do you eat pizza to the glory of God? How in the world do you drink Diet Coke? Tell us, pastor. Help us. If you can't, you really shouldn't be a pastor. Really. You shouldn't. If you can't, help him obey by unpacking some of what it would mean to drink Diet Coke to the glory of God. What's your job for anyway? Are they concerned about whether they're going to persevere to the end? You take them to 2 Timothy 4.18.

46:55 The Lord will bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom. To him be glory forever and ever. Or to that great benediction in Jude 24. Now unto him who is able to keep you from stumbling. Be glory before all time now and forever. Are they concerned about death? You take them to Romans 14, 7. None of us lives to himself. None of us dies to himself. If we live, we live to the Lord. If we die, we die to the Lord. And if they must be martyred, you take them to John 21 19 and listen as Jesus shows Peter, by what death he will glorify God. Do they respond to your big God theology, which seems to be seeping out every week?

47:56 Pastor, what about man? Doesn't man count? Doesn't man have great dignity? and then you take them to Psalm 8.

48:50 And you ask them, you read that to them, you point out one, nine, four. You read that to them. And then you ask them, why do you think it is, church, my precious people, that man's massive and glorious dignity is sandwiched between your name is great, Beginning and end. And then you don't tell them. You let them do the homework. Maybe you'll tell them next time. They need to do some of this work by themselves. You need to do that. You need to ask why it is that Psalm 8, which has the most amazing statement about man's dignity, is sandwiched by, O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth, beginning and end. And finally, are your people concerned with Christ?

49:45 Who is he? pastor, and you take him to Hebrews 1, he is the radiance of the glory of God. We beheld his glory, glory as of the only son from the father. Big God preaching takes up big and little life issues and brings them all into connection with the glory of God. and in that way gives massive significance to everything.

50:18 Everything is amazing because everything relates to God, who is amazing. Brothers, it is thrilling to have a theology that enables you to walk through this earth as in wonderland and not bored. You can't be bored. He says, look around.

50:42 It's amazing. Number three, that was step two. Now this is step three. So step two is relate everything to the glory of God. And finally, much shorter, in your big God preaching, let the people see with all authenticity the effect that the glory of God is having on your mind and your emotions. Let them see what it looks like to treasure the glory of God above all things. Treasuring the glory of God is caught from big God preaching, not just taught. when Hebrews 13, 17 says to leaders, pastors, the big God preachers, I think that's who he's talking to, among others, should watch over the souls of their saints with joy, not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you, the people.

51:54 It is saying we pastors cannot be a blessing to our people if our heart is not glad in the glory of God. The greatest warfare in the preacher's life is to treasure the glory of God above all things, to feel its worth. Without this, any effort to manufacture emotion in the pulpit will ring hollow. The people will know he's not preaching. He's not living. He's acting. I've seen it, brothers. One of the effects of my ministry is to make hypocrites out of preachers. Okay, I get it, Piper.

52:48 Got to be, got to show, got to show that I treasure God. And it's so artificial. The great warfare of life and the great warfare of the ministry is staying in love with the glory of God above all things. That's what you fight for every day.

53:22 This is serious joy in the glory of God, unshakable joy, so that Paul can say, I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls. In all our affliction, I am overflowing with joy, 2 Corinthians 7, 4, because I am standing in the glory of God's grace now, and I hope in the glory of God to come. We teach our people and we show our people the worth of the glory of God. Expository exaltation.

54:04 Summarizing one, the big God preacher leads his people into and beyond the duty of their own duty of God's God-centeredness, of God-centeredness, and then he takes them beyond that to the glory of God's God-centeredness, and he shows them to defend against megalomania, egomania. He shows them the precious reality of Christian hedonism, call it what you will, that God is most glorified in them when they are most satisfied in him. Second step, big God preaching helps the people connect everything to the glory of God. From the making of a meal to martyrdom, from Diet Coke to terminal disease, from cinema to second coming, everything becomes amazing because everything relates to God, who is amazing. And finally, big God preaching treasures the glory of God over all things in front of the people with all authenticity.

55:24 Big God preaching lets the people see the effect that God's glory is having on your mind and on your emotions. Big God preaching is expository exaltation. And in that way, big God preaching obeys 1 Corinthians 10, 31, do everything, including preaching, to the glory of God. So Father, as we sing and lift our voices and wish that every one of us in this room had 10,000 tongues, And as we call down in prayer, assist us to proclaim, assist us in our big God preaching. Would you work this deeply into our hearts and minds so that we can serve our people well? We can stir them up even unto resistance and then rescue them from suicidal thought.