From Him For His Glory

I have two very distinct memories from my middle school years. There were a variety of things that defined my middle school years, but two of those things were the mountains and dirt-bikes. I lived in a valley with my house right in the foothills—most of our Minnesota family called them mountains. Between what my dad leased and my relatives and neighbors, I had ten thousand acres of land in the foothills to ride my dirt-bike. That’s basically what I did.

I also had a spot that I loved in the foothills behind my place. If I was ever having a bad day—angry about something, stressed about something, disappointed about something—I would ride my dirt-bike to the top of the hill behind my place and park it at the biggest cliff—probably about 50 or 60 feet high, then sit with my feet hanging of the cliff looking over the valley. From there, I could see everything. And it seemed like the longer I sat there, the smaller I felt, and the more my problems slowly faded away.

I also did a lot of hunting in the mountains. We would pack seven miles back into the mountains on horses and mules, set up camp, and then do day hikes further into the mountains looking for elk and mule deer. There were times when we would hike so high into the mountains when we would break the timberline. The timberline is where you get to such a high elevation that trees can no longer grow there. In the rocky mountains it’s about 2 miles above sea level. Every time we broke the timberline—without fail—my dad would stop everything we were doing, sit down, and say, “Just look at that. God spoke that all into existence” and we would just sit there and stare at it for a while.

The verse we’re looking at today is from Romans 11: ”For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen." (Romans 11:36). This is a reminder that everything you see—and a bunch of things you can’t see—have come from God. Notice that it didn’t say that some things have come from God, but ALL things have come from him. That’s why the Bible begins by saying, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1, NIV). There was nothing—besides God—before the beginning.

I also think it’s important to understand that when God does something he always acts in line with his character—who he is. So, when he does something it shows us who he is. That means that when God creates everything from nothing we can learn that God is creative. That’s who he is. That also means we can learn a lot about God from studying the world he created. That’s a massive part of what we do in this school. We’re not just studying history and math and welding, but we’re coming to a better understanding of the world God created. When we study history, in a simplistic way, we’re learning how God writes a story. When we study welding, we’re actually learning about the way certain metals melt and how to control that, which teaches us about how God has created metal and the various ways we can use the metals he has created. The better we understand the world God created, the better we understand the one who created it.

There are some specific things we can learn about God’s character and attributes by looking at creation. One of the things we clearly see when we look at creation is that he is a God of order not chaos. Things are designed to work together and to work in patterns and rhythms. There’s this clear order to creation which shows us that God is a God of order. We also see that God is faithful by looking at creation. Repeatedly throughout the Bible we’re told that we’re reminded of God’s faithfulness by the repeated coming and going of the seasons. God is faithful to bring rain in the spring, heat in the summer, and cold in winter. He’s faithful. We can also learn a lot about God by zooming WAY out. I’ve had both the freshman and the seniors watch this video that keeps zooming out all the way to 86 billion light-years. The universe is MASSIVE—bigger than we can even comprehend. The first question that both classes asked was, “Why did God create it so big?” There are a bunch of ways to answer that question, but one way to answer that question is that God created it so big because God is so big. He wanted us to get a glimpse of his power and might and vastness.

Ultimately, though, the answer to all of these questions is that God created it for his glory. The verse we looked at in the last chapel I spoke at said, "Everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made." (Isaiah 43:7). We talked about how you were formed and made for God’s glory, but that’s also true of everything that God has formed and made. He made it all for his glory. Probably my favorite verse that talks about this is Psalm 19: “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.” (Psalm 19:1–4, NIV). Not only did God create everything for his glory, but every aspect of creation is worshiping God and bringing him glory.

All of those things are there for God’s glory but they’re also there to lead us to join with creation in worshiping God and bring him glory. God didn’t just create the mountains so that we would see their beauty and power and majesty and be in awe of them. That should happen. BUT, the awe we experience when we see the mountains should cause us to look beyond the mountains to the God who made them. When you see the sun setting beautifully over the lake, with all of the reds and oranges and purples, we shouldn’t just stop and be amazed by its beauty, but we should thank God for it and praise him for his beautiful creation. When you see a massive, powerful thunderstorm rolling in, with thunder so loud that it shakes the windows of your house, know that it’s there for God’s glory. It’s there to draw our eyes to the God who created the thunderstorm in worship and praise for his glory. When you use a microscope in class, and zoom way in and see the intricacy of the cell and the beautiful design of it all, that too is there to cause us to look to God and praise him and glorify Him.