 I can see to be in leadership at this church you have to have a set of lamb chops. Everybody up here got a good set of lamb chops. Nice to be back with you. I invite you to take your Bibles and turn to the book of Ezekiel. And I'll give you a few minutes because I know that's not a common place for us to be. And the 36th chapter. Ezekiel chapter 36 and I invite you to stand for the reading of God's Holy Word. Beginning in verse 20. And we will read through verse 32. When they came to the nations wherever they went they profaned my holy name. When they said of them, these are the people of the Lord, and yet they've gone out of his land. I'm getting feedback up here. Can I lower this or can you do something up there? I hate my voice and when it echoes I hate it twice. We all said? Verse 21. But I had concern for my holy name, which the house of Israel had profaned among the nations wherever they went. Therefore say to the house of Israel, thus says the Lord God. I do not do this for your sake, O house of Israel, but for my holy name's sake, which you have profaned among the nations wherever you went. And I will sanctify my great name. I want you to watch as we read this, all the eye-wills, he says here. I will sanctify my great name which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst. And the nations shall know that I am the Lord, says the Lord God, when I am hallowed in you before their eyes. For I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries and bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you and you shall be clean. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and you will keep my judgments and do them. I love that verse. I will cause you to walk in my statutes. You don't leave it up to us. I'm so glad. Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers. You shall be my people and I will be your God. I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses. I will call for the grain and multiply it and bring no famine upon you. And I will multiply the fruit of your trees and the increase of your fields so that you need never again bear the reproach of famine among the nations. Then you will remember your evil deeds, ways and your deeds that were not good and you will load yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and your abominations. Not for your sake do I do this, says the Lord God. Let it be known to you. Be ashamed and confounded for your own ways, O house of Israel. This is the word of God. You may be seated. In this passage, God is speaking about the restoration of the Jews from their Babylonian captivity. He had afflicted them for their sin and they still had not turned away from their wickedness. So their sin caused God to scatter them and according to verse 20, wherever they went, they profaned His holy name. And notice what effect that had on the pagan peoples. Look at verse 20. These are the people of the Lord and yet they've gone out of His land. In other words, there's no difference between them and us at all. They call themselves the people of the Lord and they live like everybody else does. But in verse 21, God declares His intention to act and His motivation for that action. It is His concern for His holy name and that is simply a synonym for Himself. In the 1600s, John Owen's assistant pastor was named Stephen Charnock and he wrote, it actually began as a journal. He began to write his thoughts as he meditated on Scripture and upon God. And so that night, before he would go to bed, he would take out a blank sheets of paper and what he was thinking, he read the Scripture and he meditated on it or he'd been ruminating on it and he would write down his thoughts. And this began to be very expansive and what he noticed was he had to categorize them. Well, these thoughts were all about God's sovereignty. These thoughts were all about God's goodness and he did that for several years and when he was done, he had 2,500 pages which was published under the title The Existence and Attributes of God. It's a masterpiece. You should read it once a year because it'll take you all year. But he listed 10 things as attributes of God. His holiness, His power, His wisdom, His patience, His goodness, His justice, His self-existence, His omnipresence, and His dominion. Now down through the centuries, theologians have listed others and then they've divided them into two kinds of attributes. Those that God keeps for Himself alone, for example, self-existence. That only applies to God and nobody else. But then there are those that we call the communicable attributes. Those that God shares with man. But I want to discuss with you tonight one that I've not heard anybody else do at great length and that comes from our text and I call it the self-centeredness of God. Note again that God declares without reservation it is not for your sake, oh house of Israel that I am about to do this. I'm not doing this for you. I'm doing this for my holy namesake. Sometimes when I preach a particularly difficult subject I find it necessary to explain things further than I might otherwise do. Because it's not the things I say that get me in trouble it's the things people are sure they heard me say that get me in trouble which I never would say even under threat of death or a drug-induced state. But they're sure they heard me say it. And so sometimes I have to take the time to say here's what I mean and I don't mean this and I don't mean this and I don't mean this and I don't mean this so don't come up afterwards and say, but you said. I just told you that's not what I mean. And God does the same thing here. He says why He doesn't do things and then He says why He does do things. God does not do anything for our sake. We just went through the Christmas season and you probably saw as I did or heard on the Safer Little Ears radio station. Jesus is the reason for the season. No, He's not. Sin is the reason for the season. There'd never been sin and never would have been a Christmas. One thing we do know, you're not the reason for the season. What God does, He does for His sake, for the sake of His holy name. Now that's such a radical concept for so many people but what's saddest of all is it's a radical concept for so many professing Christians. They think it's all about them. So I think we need to see the overwhelming evidence of it from Holy Scripture. You already know the familiar passage from Psalm 23. He leads me in paths of righteousness. Why does He do that? For His name's sake. In Isaiah 48.9, God declares that He withholds His anger for His own sake. And He repeats that in verse 11 of that chapter. So what I'm saying is this, the focus of God is God. God is completely and totally self-focused, self-centered. He has no one and no thing in His mind in anything that He does. Or if I could say it even more emphatically, God is the reason for everything that God does. God is completely for Himself. Everything He does is for His sake. You and I are never the reason God does anything. One proof that God did a lot before you were here. Now you've probably heard well-meaning, but completely wrong people say nonsensical things like this. And I heard a well-known, quote, Christian psychologist, reformed guy say this in a sermon. God created man because He was lonely. Are you kidding me? You should know better than that. You wonder why God gives people air if that's the best they can do with it. First of all, never has been, never will be, one because He's so completely satisfied with Himself as company. I heard a man say one time, the reason single people want to get married is they can't stand the company. So you get married and you've got two people who can't stand your company. Plus, there is God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. And to suggest that He was lonely would be a slap in the face to those two members of the deity. Then there are all the cherubim and seraphim who fly around Him 24-7 telling Him how great He is. But apart from that, ask yourself this question. If you were God and you were lonely, is this what you'd create to fix it? Seriously? I mean, you try to think like that and the question goes, can man somehow complete God? I mean, think of it. Try to imagine God saying this to Himself. You know, I'm lonely up here. So boring. All I've got is my Son and the Holy Spirit and then all these angels flying around me all the time telling me how great I am. I'm kind of tired of that. I know what I'll do. I'm going to create people and these people will never think I know what I'm doing and they'll complain no matter how much I do it won't be enough and they'll think that I'm in it for them and they'll get upset with me when I don't do exactly what they want. That'll fix the problem that also suggests some kind of emotional deficiency in the Godhead which is impossible to even be the case. You mothers who have school-aged children you've got them all summer and the day they go back to school you're alone but you are not lonely. There's a difference between being alone and being lonely. Now God created everything to manifest His character so that He would be completely enjoyed by His creation. In fact, if you'll turn to Colossians 1.16 and I will give you a moment to get there it's a New Testament book. If it does you've got that other inspired book in the beginning contents. Colossians 1.16 we read this all things were created through Him and what? For Him. God created all things for Himself. In the old King James Version in Revelation 4.24 we read this Thy pleasure they are created. God created everything to give Him pleasure. Sometimes college students want to know this why am I here to give God pleasure? That's why you're here. That's why I'm here. So the penetrating question becomes how are we doing? How much pleasure are we giving God? Even in the Westminster Confession which was the original Confession 46 years later and I'm knocked off. But the first question what is the chief end of man? And the answer that everyone has learned is the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. But you see when the Puritan divines wrote that they had a little bit different interpretation in mind that word to enjoy Him forever really had more of a passive and it should go like this. This is what they intended. The chief end of man is to glorify God and to be enjoyed by Him forever. Doesn't that make more sense? The other way it's about us. This way it's about Him. Pleasing God is God's motive in everything God is pleased to do. If you're still in Colossians 1 look at verse 18. Christ created all things so that in all things He might have the preeminence. Paul has already given us the same idea in Romans 11.36 for of Him and through Him and to Him are all things. All that God in Christ created comes from Him. It comes through Him and the ultimate end is back to Him or I could put it in the vernacular it's all about God friends it's not about you and you will notice if you're honest with yourself when you get upset with God it's because He didn't quite see the situation the way you did. We could say it this way God is the root R-O-O-T God is the root R-O-U-T-E and God is the fruit So when the Westminster Shorter Catechism states as did all catechisms of note before it that the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever it's because that's the chief end of God the happiness of God consists in enjoying Himself that is also where our happiness is to be found and nowhere else God is happy because He's exactly what He wants to be the major thing about Himself Solomon Stoddard was the grandfather of Jonathan Edwards and himself one of the greatest preachers in evangelist this country has ever had in a sermon on Psalm 4-6 this was his doctrine the happiness of man consists in the enjoyment of God now if you just think logically you see God must always do everything for Himself for to do it for any lesser the reason would be to sin against Himself because it would be denying Himself which He cannot do if you ever have people ask you and we'll do this when we get to the power of God it's some undetermined date in the future is there anything God can't do you as a defender of the faithful and no God can do anything no He can't all kinds of things God can't do God can't sin that's not a weakness I wish I had that weakness God can't lie God can't die God can't deny Himself if He did anything for any lesser reason than Himself He would be denying Himself when you think about virtue philosophically the essence of true virtue is to do the highest possible good for the highest possible reason or motive if anyone does something good and they could have done it for a greater reason than the one for which they did it it's not the most virtuous thing they could have done for example if you were walking on the street and you found a wallet and you looked inside and it's packed with $100 bills you look there and you see there's the man's license you've got his name and address you have several options one is I can return the wallet without anything else in it I can return the wallet with all the money in it because I'll bet there's a reward or I can return the wallet because it's not mine I should return this wallet because it's the right thing to do unfortunately far too many professing Christians have become people of consequence not people of conviction the right thing to do is to go back because it's not yours neither is the money in it and if there's no reward you did the right thing if he didn't do anything what you think was right that's his sin not yours we non-thinking human beings with our sin-stained reasoning think that God has a good a better and a best have you heard that nonsense that was driven home to me when I was a young college student finally by my junior year I saved up enough money to buy a car and my dad says I'll pick it out okay so I spent $100 for a 1960 Chevrolet Corvair four-door sedan next to the Edsel the ugliest car ever made but that didn't matter it was my car and I said dad can you need to get a paint job you reached in his pocket and pulled out $3 bills he says there there's your paint job I said nobody paints a car for $3 he says no this is for you to go down to the auto parts store and buy a can of rubbing compound which is liquid sandpaper he says and then you rub some of that on and then you rub it off and it takes the old dead paint off and brings up the clear paint underneath and it still shines so I spent a whole summer doing that I had Popeye arms by the time I was done to that thing well I couldn't have the holes in the seat like the car came with so I bought some seat covers you can't have a car that's only got an AM radio not in LA so I took $29.95 and went down to months stereo in Palomante California which is a suburb of LA and I had a four track tape deck put in my car that's before eight tracks that's before cassettes that's before CDs this was the first thing after reel to reel which you can't put in your car two speakers a tape deck seat covers shiny paint car still needs one more thing that had needed a girl in that car what good is it to have a car if there's no girl in your car so there was the right across the street from the dorm I lived in was the girls dorm and I invited a girl named Denise to go to church with me on a Sunday night which she accepted and so we went to church we sat next to each other I mean in the same pew we sat next to each other but she didn't get up and moved to another pew at least and then I took her home and I said would you like to go back to church again next Sunday night and she said this thank you but I'm waiting for God's best what am I a kitty litter and we think that way about God God does not have a good a better and a best that's bad theology God must always because of God could do better and didn't he said against himself and us I mentioned this last week but this is why to the Puritans the sin of complaining was the greatest sin a Christian could commit because you're in essence saying to God you could have done more or you could have done better and God is incapable of doing either one of those atrocities against himself because God's character is the only state that God puts on himself and because of that he must always do that which is best for the best reason God will take no other factors into consideration he seeks his glory and again to use the King James English from Ephesians his mere good pleasure in everything that he does and nothing else in this situation he asks two questions what will glorify me the most what will please me the most and we're what about me and you can almost hear God saying kindly what about you and while we're on the subject of the pleasure of God let me remind you that Isaiah 5310 says regarding Christ it pleased the Lord to crush him well it can't possibly have done that unfortunately it does the word means God took delight in doing it God will do whatever pleases him and glorifies him the most no matter what it costs him and if he's willing to do that no matter what it costs him can you see the conclusion coming next relating to us God will do whatever he wants to do the most and glorifies him the most no matter what it costs us if he'll do that to himself he'll do it to us because how comfortable and convenient you find this life to be is not God's overwhelming obsession it's what will glorify me the most I've often pondered what it must have been like for Jesus on the cross and you know the physical pain of the cross was not the worst part I remember when Mel Gibson made his movie The Passion of the Christ which is basically an infomercial for Roman Catholicism the stations of the cross the disciples calling Mary mother of God and things like that but on the cross Jesus didn't say gosh these nails hurt he said this why have you forsaken me in the Apostles Creed it talks about Jesus and said he descended into hell people wonder well how can he do that and say this day you'll be with me in paradise at least according to John Calvin that meant that Christ suffered the torments of the damned on the cross I've always found it interesting that if a person goes to hell they have infinity to suffer Christ suffered an infinity of suffering in three hours compacted and not for one person for you and you and you your sins deserved an infinite punishment your sins deserved an infinite punishment your sins deserved an infinite punishment would have been enough to suffer infinitely for one person he suffered for everyone he called it once so when he cried out it was why have you forsaken me and do you notice there's no answer God never says son it's because we had to do I think when God doesn't answer it's because we're supposed to know the answer there was no other way do you think he would really have put his son through all that if there was an easier way God will do whatever glorifies him and pleases him the most no matter what it costs him or us God does whatever God pleases and God is pleased with whatever God does you see the both sides of that God does what he pleases and he's pleased with what he does sometimes you have people thinking that the God of the Old Testament is harsh and the God of the New Testament is nice then you've got God at odds with God and what they say is and I've heard people use this kind of familiar language Jesus went to his father and says dad chill out will ya one thing we need to be remembered of with our salvation and redemption that was all God's idea that wasn't the son's idea and it wasn't the spirit's idea that was God's idea that he would come up with in the Old Testament don't ever have a theology that puts God against God this is why the Puritans believed in the doctrine of the impassability of God that God is always infinitely happy because everything he has ordained comes to pass and God can never be unhappy with what he has ordained Peter calls him the ever blessed God you think of this as unhappy is because you don't get your way or because something happened contrary to your design which again is the same as you didn't get your way but neither one of those things could ever happen to God you can never be unhappy because as Lamentations 3 tells us in the form of a rhetorical question what is there that comes to pass that I didn't ordain in other words if it comes to pass God ordained it to be so and since God ordained it to be so it must be what he wants so he's happy so again God is always the reason for everything that God does second God is always the reason for everything God asks or commands of us before God gives the 10 commandments in Deuteronomy 5 he makes this declaration I am the Lord your God and then there's an implied therefore you shall have no other gods besides me turn back a few books to the book of Leviticus in the 18th chapter it is so nice to hear your pages turning in this chapter God is laying down his laws related to sexual behavior in the first six verses four times he uses this phrase for I am the Lord your God beginning in verse 2 follow along speak to the children of Israel and say to them I am the Lord your God according to the doings of the land of Egypt where you dwelt you shall not do and according to the doings of the land of Canaan where I'm bringing you shall not do nor shall you walk in their ordinances you shall observe my judgments and keep my ordinances to walk in them how come I'm the Lord your God none of you shall approach anyone who is near of kin to him to uncover his nakedness why not I'm the Lord the nakedness of your father or the nakedness of your mother you shall not uncover she's your mother you shall not uncover her nakedness anyway you go through this whole chapter and that's always the same reason don't do this how come because I'm the Lord in chapter 18 beginning in verse 19 beginning in verse 20 you shall not lie currently with your neighbor's wife you shall not profile yourself with her and you shall not let any of your descendants pass through the fire to Malik nor shall you profane the name of the Lord your God I'm the Lord how come we don't get to say oh my God because he's the Lord nor shall you you shall not lie where the male is with a woman it's an abomination to whom to whom is it an abomination to God and that's all the reasoning we need or get because it is an abomination to God it is not to be done now let me add this these behaviors and he goes on to talk about bestiality and various other perversions the reason such behaviors are not wrong is not because they violate your personal preferences those mean absolutely nothing well I don't think that we should have this in our society why not oh well it's just the way I was raised so what that's irrelevant unless they are determined based upon sound exegesis of scripture we just had this thing where one of the duck dynasty guys was kicked off the show because a magazine asked him what do you think is wrong with our country he says well we've gotten away from God and we've got all kinds of perversions going on and then he quoted the scripture he didn't even say this is just my opinion he quoted the scripture almost verbatim and the network kicked him off the show and then A&E realized that they had made a big mistake because that show was watched by 14 million people every week and the next week it was 2 million you think that doesn't get to the advertisers and all of a sudden they put him back on it doesn't matter what Phil Robertson thinks about homosexuality it doesn't matter much what you think about it what matters is God doesn't like it that's why it's wrong what you find personally repugnant is of no consequence in the eternal scheme of things what makes something wrong is not because you don't like it you remember Joseph Joseph had a situation that many men would find irresistible Potiphar's wife comes and offers herself to him in a sexual way he says I can't do it why can't you do it I can't do it in sin against God the 15, 30 minutes hour of pleasure that we would have for an eternity of God's disfair or a second of God's disfair it's just not worth it in Leviticus 19 repeatedly God gives a law and then justifies it with nothing more than these words I'm the Lord that's all the reason he gives which means it's all the reason we need in Leviticus 20 verse 7 consecrate yourselves therefore and be holy for I am the Lord your God Leviticus 22 verses 1 to 3 because I am the Lord Leviticus 22, 31 therefore you shall keep my commandments and perform them I am the Lord see God is the reason and rationale for all that he commands when we were younger our fathers would do this we didn't know how much like God they really were they would tell us to do things there was about a year in my childhood where my mother spent a year in the hospital with hepatitis and yellow jaundice and there were five of us boys my older brother Dan was four years older than I am and so my dad said to him alright Dan you're in charge of the outside now we had a small dairy farm you get the cows milked you get the cows fed you change the irrigation pipes you get the milk out on the street for the dairy to pick up you mow the lawn you keep everything on the outside going okay Dan and then he looked at me now the three other ones they were useless they were so young they couldn't do anything so my dad says to me okay you're responsible for the inside of the house what does that mean you do all the cooking you do all the cleaning you vacuum, you mop you get your three brothers ready for school in the morning make sure they have a lunch make sure that I have a chocolate cake Friday when I get home from work you went through this whole thing all that now my dad was a cop and he was a big strapping cop he was about six foot two at the time and I was about two foot two at the time and he walked over to me this was before Clint Eastwood invented the character dirty Harry okay he walked over to me and he leaned over and he said because I said so it's all the reason I need Pop I'll get it done I have to tell you this part of the story that he wanted a chocolate cake every Friday night at the end of his work week and back then there were no cake mixes you did everything from scratch so you had to take Ghirardelli's semi sweet chocolate and you had to shave it and you had to sift flour and add sugar and do the whole thing and we had layer pans two of those each one was about four inches thick and there was a thing underneath that you did underneath to make the cake pop out so the first week my dad comes home from work and there's the cake and it's about an inch thick with both layers and he says what did you do wrong didn't do anything wrong did you follow the directions I followed the directions yeah there was one thing wrong Pop I went to and checked off every single one of those things well a shirt doesn't look like your mother's cake and I said I can't help that he says well get it right the next week he came back and maybe two inches both layers together and he says there's something going on here I said I'm following the cookbook I'm following the directions I don't know what's the matter well the third week he came back but he came home early and he walked in and I'm eating all the batter and he started to understand the problem I followed the directions all of that nonsense to talk about when we ask God why do we have to do that he says because I'm God I mean the whole of Scripture is laid out in such a way that we should see immediately that what concerns God is God if I were to take a poll here and ask you what's the most important verse in the Bible many of you would say John 3 16 and it is important but for the Puritans it was Genesis 1 1 in the beginning God that's where it starts the Bible begins with God and in Revelation 22 the Bible ends with the grace of God in Christ and I just think the Bible begins with God and it ends with God what do you think everything in between is about in fact in Revelation 22 he tells us he is the Alpha what is that the beginning and then it says he's the Omega what's that the end he's the first and the last and he's everything in between those two points in fact according to Colossians 3 11 he is all he is all in all God is not here for us we are here for him he does not exist for us we exist for him it's all about him God is the reason for all that exists God is the reason for all that he does God is the reason for all that he asks and one more thing in chapter 15 please this is the story of Sarah and Abram they had no children and God comes to Abram and he says you're going to be blessed more than you could possibly imagine what did I say that was oh Genesis 15 yeah he says the number of your descendants is going to be greater than the stars if you could count the stars you'll know how many descendants you're going to have I can just see Abram going 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 he gets up to 4 million and 9 he loses his place he has to start all over again and he says to God how can I be blessed how can I have descendants I don't have a son don't talk to me about blessings you want to bless me give me a son that's what we do we tell God how he can bless us and not bless us I've given you a good church to go yeah well you haven't let me win the lottery God says you're going to have more descendants than the stars he says you're going to have a son and Sarah starts laughing now we know from Scripture that at this point Abram is over 100 years old Sarah is over 90 do you do the math well God that's cute we don't really do that much anymore you're going to have a son how did that one turn out first of all God said I am your great reward you think about that when you want to reward for something God says no I'm your reward it's not stuff it's him God is the real oh by the way they had a son surprise God said they were going to have a son and they had one how unusual is that thousands of years later he did it with nobody doing anything I love how it says that and Sarah bore Abram a son at the right time that's always when God does what he does just the right time how come this hasn't happened yet not the right time how come my dad is laying in bed somewhere he's got no earthly purpose why doesn't God just take him it's not time his room is not ready in the mansion yet as soon as the room is ready he'll go so God is the reason God is the root R-O-T God is the root R-U-T-E God is the reward God is the beginning God is the end it's all for him and it's all to him and my friends you and I will never understand God and we'll never have any lasting enjoyment or happiness until we understand that God acts this way he is totally self-centered now why should we do what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10 31 whatever you do do all for the glory of God because that's exactly why God does everything that he does and in doing so we imitate him to the fullest now if you and I were to be that self-centered it would be absolutely sinful and if God were to ever be anything other than that self-centered it would be absolutely sinful now some object that this makes God to be selfish but selfishness is only wrong when it comes at the expense of the good of others we're selfish when we don't care what happens to anybody else and we'll do what prospers us no matter how it wrongs the rest of the world but God can't be selfish because when he seeks his own glory above all other considerations he's also seeking the good of his people who will only find their ultimate fulfillment in his happiness it's all for him you know that's also true of worship worship is for God it's not for you and me that should be the consideration is this the most pleasing thing to God we could do not will the congregation like it I have a friend who wrote a song years ago hoping I can remember the words it's called all that matters is him he goes like this I'm not going to sing it that would not be pleasing to God for anybody else I don't understand the wonder of his ways and I don't understand everything that he says and though my dreams have all died like flames in the wind I come back to him time and again now there have been times when my prayers were just sobbing and tears when it seemed like my cries never once reached his ears and the hurt goes on forever the same with nothing to lean on but the power of his name so if you're lonely tonight and your dreams have passed you by and you find your spirit cold and all you ask is why just remember who he is when your nights are cold and dim it doesn't matter how you feel all that matters is him I can't say I know where he's leading me now and I don't often see the why or the how but my life's in his hands no matter the cost because he found me when I was one of the lost so if you're lonely tonight and sorrow's all you've known if you find your spirit cold from being all alone just remember who he is when your nights are cold and dim it doesn't matter how you feel all that matters is him shall we pray Father may you drive this truth home to our hearts that you are the only thing that matters no matter what it costs us as long as you are pleased and glorified may we be satisfied we ask it in Christ's name Amen