Weekly Bible Study – May 12, 2014

The Glorification of God related to the will of God.

PLEASE READ FIRST

Scripture References, Word & Phrase descriptions: If available on the website you're viewing this on, a few links (i.e., those without an already written scripture quote or brief explanation) are hover pop-up active, meaning the scripture reference will just pop-up if you hover your cursor over it (don’t click on the link, just hover your cursor over it), they work best using the Firefox browser – pop-ups in Internet Explorer, Chrome & other browsers only appear for a few seconds at best. If you don’t have Firefox (or hover pop-ups aren’t available on the website you’re viewing this on), that’s OK, move your cursor off and on the link until it is read; or left click the link which will open the verse at the online bible; or you can always use your Bible to look up the verses.

Prepare yourself for learning the Word of God!

Before we begin, if you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ (that is; you have believed [trusted] in Him for His promised gift of eternal life), it is important to prepare yourself to learn God's Word so take a moment to name, cite or acknowledge (confess) your sins privately to God (i.e.; with your thoughts directed only to God the Father).

1 John 1:9 says: "If we confess our sins, He (God) is faithful and just to forgive us our sins (known sins) and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness [unknown or forgotten sins]." NKJV (New King James Version) [italics added]

If you have never personally believed in the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior (that is, believed in Him for eternal life), the issue for you is not to name your sins; the issue for you is to have faith alone in Jesus Christ alone for eternal life:

John 6:47 says: "Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me (Jesus Christ) has everlasting life." NKJV [italics added]

Notice again what Jesus said in John 6:47: "…he who believes in Me (Jesus Christ) has everlasting life." It doesn't say, "will have"; it says, "has." Therefore, the very moment you believe in Jesus Christ for His promise of everlasting life, you have it (it's really just that simple; nothing more and nothing less), and it can never be taken away from you (John 10:28-29). Furthermore, the gift (Ephesians 2:8c) of everlasting life (also called eternal life in scripture) is available to every human being; there are absolutely no exceptions.

John 3:14-18 says: "¹⁴ And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, ¹⁵ that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁶ For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. ¹⁷ For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. ¹⁸ He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." NKJV

Let us now bow our hearts and take a moment to prepare for worship and learning God's Word. If there is any known sin in your life, this is the time to just cite it privately to God the Father with your thoughts directed towards Him. With your head bowed and your eyes closed, you have total privacy in your mind and soul:

Study to show yourself approved to God!

Grace Bible Church
Robert R. McLaughlin Bible Ministries

The Tree of Life is a weekly teaching summary:
God’s Word is Wednesday, Friday and Sunday mornings

STUDY TITLE:

The Glorification of God related to the will of God.



OPTION: If you would prefer to go directly to the Grace Bible Church website to read this study message, all verse reference links are active there (but not hover active) and Enlarged Text is also an available option – right click the above link then left click “Open Link in New Window” or “New Tab”

Terms & Abbreviations used:

PPOG = Predesigned Plan of God
Human Good = Evil + Good Deeds while not in fellowship with God
OSN = Old Sin Nature
TLJC = The Lord Jesus Christ
SSE = Spiritual Self Esteem
PVTD = Positive Volition Towards Doctrine
+H - The Happiness of God
NVTD = Negative Volition Towards Doctrine
Doctrine = Bible Truth

To look up other “terms”, go to:

Alphabetical Listing

BEGIN BIBLE STUDY
Unless otherwise noted, all scripture quotes and references
are from the NASB – New American Standard Bible

The Glorification of God related to the will of God.


The Doctrine of Glorifying God.

We are now on Point 4 in our current study: The Glorification of God is related to the distribution of your escrow blessings for time and eternity.

This is when your life really takes on meaning and purpose.

Worthy of praise and glorification be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He (God the Father) elected us in Him before the foundation of the world, (EPH 1:3-4)

Eph Ch. 1 teaches that the first thing God ever did for us is the means of glorifying Him, which is to receive the blessings He provided for us in eternity past. The relationships between God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Church-age believer in this verse suggest the functions of a grantor, a depositary, and a grantee in an escrow contract. The grantor is the one who makes the grant (God the Father). The depositary is the One entrusted with something for preservation or safekeeping. (Lord Jesus Christ). The grantee is the one to whom a grant is made (C.A. believer).

Next, you need to understand the principle of an escrow account. An escrow contract is a binding agreement in which one party gives another party something valuable. However, instead of giving it directly, the grantor places the item in the custody of a third party, called the depositary or the escrow officer. The escrow officer keeps the item secure and distributes it to the grantee only after certain conditions are met, which have been set forth in the escrow agreement. The very definition of escrow means there are conditions to be fulfilled by the grantee before the item will be conveyed to him. So, an escrow agreement gives us a clear picture of our situation before God and our purpose in life. In eternity past, God the Father prepared special blessings for each Church-age believer. He deposited those blessings with Christ before the foundation of the world, (EPH 1:4). Just as an escrow contract is irrevocable from the date of the contract, so also the believer’s blessings belong to him irrevocably from eternity past.

For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. (ROM 11:29)

As a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ you glorify God by receiving His highest and best. This means that God has given every Church-age believer a private account in heaven that even God cannot cancel or close. God cannot take back His blessings, however they can remain on deposit. This account is filled with exceptional blessings-some for time, some for eternity.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. (1PE 1:3-5)

Escrow blessings far exceed everyday logistical blessings like food, shelter, clothing, protection, transportation, and a source of Bible teaching. God supplies logistical grace constantly and unconditionally to every believer-positive or negative, winner or loser.

For He causes His sun to rise on {the} evil and {the} good, and sends rain on {the} righteous and {the} unrighteous. (MAT 5:45)

“The Lord is good to all, And His mercies are over all His works.” (PSA 145:9)

“Is there any number to His troops? And upon whom does His light not rise?” (JOB 25:3)

God supplies logistical grace unconditionally to every believer-positive or negative. Escrow blessings, however, are reserved for spiritual adulthood or spiritual growth consummating with spiritual maturity and the believers glorification of God. So extraordinary are these greater grace blessings (JAM 4:6) that every recipient must possess a mature capacity to appreciate them and benefit from them. Without sufficient capacity of soul, a believer would not know what to do with these divine blessings and rewards. If he received delivery of his escrow blessings while still spiritually immature, he would distort them, misuse them, and make himself miserable.

Here we find the condition set forth in the escrow contract: Before Jesus Christ distributes the escrow blessings, the believer must have spiritual momentum leading to spiritual maturity. Again, spiritual growth and spiritual maturity comes through perception and application of Bible doctrine as part of living consistently inside PPOG. A mature relationship with God is by far the most valuable escrow blessing for the Christian’s life on earth. Awe and gratitude toward God energizes and activates the mature believer’s attitude in everything in life (DEU 10:21; PSA 22:23). In his soul, the adult spiritual believer has capacity to be happy, capacity to understand and benefit from divine blessings, capacity to endure suffering, capacity to maintain the initiative in his own life. He has a personal sense of destiny. Worship becomes a profound responsiveness in a soul inculcated with truth and filled with the Spirit (JOH 7:37-39).

Now on the last day, the great {day} of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If any man is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.’” But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet {given,} because Jesus was not yet glorified. (JOH 7:37-39)

Personal love for God becomes occupation with the person of Christ (GAL 2:20; PHI 1:21). But every spiritual blessing in EPH 1:3, involves more than even these marvelous, intangible benefits. Spiritual in EPH 1:3 points to God as the source of escrow blessings, which also includes many tangible and material blessings, all tailor-made for the individual. Every believer has escrow blessings for time and escrow blessings for eternity. As the escrow officer, Jesus Christ will begin to distribute escrow blessings for time when the believer reaches the different stages of spiritual growth. Our Lord will award escrow blessings for eternity at the Judgment Seat of Christ, which will occur immediately after the Rapture of the Church (1CO 4:5; 2CO 5:10).

Don't get ahead of the Lord Jesus Christ and jump to conclusions with your judgments before all the evidence is in. When He comes, He will bring out in the open and place in evidence all kinds of things we never even dreamed of. Then we will any one of us get to hear the "Well done" of God.

“Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things, enter into the joy of your master.” (MAT 25:21)

Believers who fail to reach spiritual maturity and do not receive their escrow blessings for time also will not receive their escrow blessings for eternity (1CO 3:12-15). One of the most simplistic and yet profound questions is: After salvation, what? This great question has eternal repercussions. In the escrow contract, the precondition for receiving escrow blessings for eternity is that the believer must have received escrow blessings in time. The apostle Paul shows us how to glorify God and the means of doing so in 2TI 2:5, And also if anyone competes as an athlete, [or in the athletic games, an analogy to the Christian way of life], he does not win the prize [he does not receive a winners wreath, escrow blessings for eternity], unless he competes according to the rules [adheres to the PPOG].

Because the apostle Paul did so and did not quit, he was able to say, For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight [advanced through the different stages of spiritual growth], I have finished the course, [I have guarded the doctrine as my first priority of the soul]. I have kept the faith; in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing. (2TI 4:6-8)

Blessed [happy] is the man who perseveres under testing [successfully passes the tests that accelerate spiritual growth]; he will receive the wreath of life [escrow blessings for eternity] which God has promised to those constantly loving Him [mature believers]. (JAM 1:12)

These passages describe a desire for truth, a love for God, strength of character, remarkable stability, perseverance, motivation, momentum, and happiness. Such qualities of the inner person are part of the escrow blessings for time. They are escrow blessings supported by the basic capacities of soul developed on the way to maturity. Invariably these escrow blessings for time-belong to the believers whom Scripture identifies as recipients of eternal rewards or crowns, their escrow blessings for eternity, (1CO 9:24-27; 1PH 4:1; 1TH 2:19-20; 1PE 5:1-4; REV 2:10).

Distribution of both categories of escrow blessings—for time and for eternity-depends on the believer’s execution of the PPOG in time. The pre-condition for receiving escrow blessings dramatizes God’s objective for the Church-age believer on earth: Learn Bible doctrine, gain spiritual momentum, grow up, attain maturity! In other words, come to love and glorify the Lord Jesus Christ. At this moment each believer, including you, has an escrow account in heaven with his name on it. But not every believer takes distribution of those blessings.

Ignorance of Bible doctrine means ignorance of divine assets, which guarantees failure to use those assets. Failure to consistently utilize divine assets constitutes failure to execute the PPOG, which means the believer cannot reach spiritual maturity. No maturity = No capacity for blessings.

No escrow blessings for time = no escrow blessings for eternity. This does not affect the believers salvation, but his neglect, or rejection of Bible doctrine makes him a spiritual loser. So there is no excuse for failure to execute the PPOG. God faithfully supplies logistical grace to winner and loser alike, providing more than ample opportunity for the loser to recover his momentum and renew his advance.

Equal privilege and equal opportunity are facts of the Christian way of life, and the escrow blessings themselves are irrevocable and imperishable realities. If a believer is a spiritual loser, he is so by his own volition.

Many escrow blessings will remain on deposit forever as a monument to lost opportunity, and as undeniable evidence of God’s grace in spite of man’s negative volition. God was glorified by irrevocably giving escrow blessings to each believer before the foundation of the world (EPH 1:4; COL 3:24; 1PE 1:4). God is glorified to the maximum by the distribution of these escrow blessings to the spiritual winner in both time and eternity.

What do we conclude? The Church-age believer has a destiny. He glorifies God by utilizing divine assets so that he grows spiritually and acquires capacity to enjoy his escrow blessings. God created escrow blessings for every believer of every dispensation, but the greater extent of the Church-age believer’s portfolio makes his escrow blessings unique.

People often ask what is God's will for my life? The answer is very simple: God's will is for you to glorify Him. How? God’s will is for you to withdraw from your escrow account as much as you can. God has the highest and the best for you. He has the greatest blessings, blessings that stagger the imagination. God’s will for your life is for you to have the most phenomenal blessings. The very fact that some of you don’t believe that, and in reality you think God is fighting against you because of some area in your life, reveals that you have bought a lie from Satan. The fact that you do not have the most phenomenal blessings in time and eternity simply means that you're choosing to be a loser. It is making choices that makes us either losers or winners, of course we must make the right choices.

So in our study we have seen:

Point 1. How the Believer Glorifies God.

Point 2. What Does Not Glorify God.

Point 3. The Pattern for Glorifying God in the Church-age.

Point 4. The Glorification of God is Related to the Distribution of Your Escrow Blessings for Time and Eternity.

Point 5. The Glorification of God related to the will of God.

By now you should understand God's will for your life as a member of the royal family of God is to bless you. By blessing you I mean to give you prosperity especially in the midst of all adverse situations. Therefore, in eternity past, God provided a fantastic plan which included His highest and best just for you and you glorify Him when you live in that plan and receive all the blessings he has designed for you.

Notice once again, everything is for His glory! God had a reason for all He has done for you and this reason gives purpose to your life. Remember that anything God does ultimately results in His glorification. This means that God does not depend on us for His pleasure or His glory. He enjoyed these things in eternity past when no one else existed. God doesn’t depend on us for His pleasure and glory, but instead He expresses His pleasure and glory toward us. What is it that truly gives God pleasure?

Thou hast increased the nation, O Lord, Thou hast increased the nation, Thou art glorified; (ISA 26:15)

God derives pleasure and is glorified when He is able to increase the believer’s life. The more life and blessings He gives to us, the more of His glory is displayed. “Then all your people will be righteous; They will possess the land forever, The branch of My planting, The work of My hands, That I may be glorified.” (ISA 60:21)

“Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, And pay your vows to the Most High;” (PSA 50:14)

What is a sacrifice of thanksgiving and paying your vows to the Most High? It is being in a jam calling upon the Lord the day of trouble; He shall rescue you, and you will honor Me or glorify Him. (PSA 50:15)

Who would ever think that the way God is glorified is through delivering us in times of trouble? Because God is to be glorified you and I are the beneficiaries of His blessings and divine provisions. God is not glorified by our system of human works but is glorified by meeting our every need. God is glorified when He rescues us! Moses found out what God's glory was all about in EXO 33:18-19.

Then Moses said, “I pray Thee, show me Thy glory!” And He said, “I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you, and will proclaim the name of the Lord before you; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion.” (EXO 33:18-19)

God’s pleasure is to bless His creatures. God's pleasure is to give to His creatures! In other words, come to love and glorify the Lord Jesus Christ. God's will is for you to glorify Him.

The following link is to a good news message describing how one can receive eternal life:
Ticket to Heaven, it was written for anyone not absolutely certain about their eternal future.