If I start focusing on whether or not our numbers are growing, if people are happy with my preaching, if we are developing a good reputation in the community—all of that jazz—then, I’m going to cut corners that shouldn’t be cut. I’m going to put my eyes on the wrong prize and we’ll blow this whole thing up. We might even become successful by some God-forsaken standard but when we stand before Almighty God it won’t be pleasing. I want to focus on His glory and His honor and not my own.
Friends, I’m not sharing these words today because I’m a super humble man. I’m sharing them because I’m a glory monger and I don’t want to be. Those words terrify me because I know my own heart, my own propensity to self-glorification, and I know how easily I could make shipwreck of this whole thing.
I’m feeling these words of Robert Murray McCheyne after preaching his last sermon at Carron-shore:
My last. Some tears; yet I fear some like the messenger, not the message; and I fear I am so vain as to love that love. Lord, let it not be so. Perish my honor, but let thine be exalted forever. (53)
So I’m praying with McCheyne this morning…perish my honor. Don’t let this jar of clay try to rob You from one ounce of glory. Let’s tremble at God’s Word alone.
This article originally appeared here and is used by permission.
