How do we glorify and enjoy God in the local church? In this message, Jeffrey Johnson will put the matter in proper context: Though the church is not perfected, and her members have many weaknesses and failures, the beauty and aroma of her Husband are most clearly seen and enjoyed within her local gatherings. The truth is, we glorify God by loving Christ, and we love Christ by longing to enter into His presence. And it is the One who dwells within that house who compels us to enter and remain faithful to love and serve and pray for the precious people of God.   

How do you, how does anyone say anything about the glory of God and it come close to describing the glory of God? How do you make God big when he's bigger than you can even imagine? When you think about glorifying God we're not talking about trying to prescribe glory to God that he doesn't have and worshiping him and saying he's great and he's wonderful and we love him and he's kind of downcast he's kind of depressed and we're trying to build him up and encourage him we do that sometimes to people that really are pretty pitiful I mean to be honest I you know I don't have any gifts and I'm not very good. And you're thinking, well, that's kind of true. But keep it up.

You can do it. You know, this is not God. This is not God. He's not like us. If we're going to glorify him, It's get away from him and just look.

Just look at him. You got to see him. You got to see his glory. And seeing him, if you see him properly with illuminated eyes by faith, with a new heart, If you see him, you cannot help but love him. You can't help but praise him and to glorify him.

You want to love Jesus Christ? Look at him. Behold him. Study him. Think of his humility and his kindness and his grace and his mercy and his love think of him How can you not bow down and go, this man is worthy.

He's worthy of worship. He's worthy of glory. I'll give my life to serve him. If you see the glory of God, you want to get out of the way. You want to say, don't look at me, let me decrease, let me become small so that we can behold.

We can turn around and behold him and become small in our own eyes and see the beauty, the majesty of the almighty. The majesty of the almighty. How do we glorify god? We love him. We love him.

We serve them. We give our lives to them. We get out of the way so other people can see him. How do we glorify God in the church? While we live on this earth, there's no way we can glorify God outside of the church.

Because the church is the reflective glory of God. If you want to see the glory of God on earth, he's in heaven. He's in heaven. And none of you or I have been to heaven. So how do we see the glory of God?

You have to see it through the reflective mirror of the church. At nighttime you don't see the sun, but you can see the glory of the Sun by looking at the moon And if you want to glorify God in the church you've got to see God in the church And you'll see that the glory of the church is actually the glory of God. You cannot glorify God outside the church and you can't glorify God without seeing the glory of God reflected in the church. And when we see the glory of God in the church, it will cause us to serve the church, love the church, dedicate ourselves to the church. Now I have five things I want to explain about the glory of god in the church.

Ephesians three twenty-one. Our text says, to him be glory. Talking about god. To him be glory in the church. God has established the church to be the mirror in which his glory is reflected on earth.

God has established the church in which to bring him glory and if we want to glorify God we need to be in the church glorifying God in the church as God receives glory in the church but There's five things that we see the reflective glory in the church we see God's presence. If you want to glorify God, you want to be in the presence of God, you got to see God, you got to experience God. And you do that in the church. You see God's power in the church. Secondly, thirdly, you see God's promises in the church.

Fourth, you see God's people. And fifth, you see God's praise. Presence power promises people praise. All these things reflect the glory of God. Let's look at these things.

Let's study God as God is reflected in the church that we may love the church. You say, well, I don't want to have an, I don't want to love the church more than God. No, you're loving God. And wherever you see God, wherever you experience God, you can't help but love. Wherever there's a taste of God, a reflection of God, the presence of God, the power of God, even the people of God, praise of God.

It's not idolatry because you're loving God in these things. Whatever brings you closer to God, that is what you need to love. And there is nothing, there's no institution on earth that will bring you closer to God than the church? Nothing. First, we see that the church is where the presence of God is on this earth.

The glory of The church is God's presence. That is God's temple is God's dwelling place on earth. What is a temple or tabernacle? It's a place where God dwells with man in earth. We know he dwells in heaven, but where does he dwell among us?

He dwells in his temple. Temple is God's house and the church is indeed the household of God. Paul told Timothy in 1 Timothy 3 I write these things to you So that you may know how to behave in the church, the household of God, which is the pillar and ground of truth. You see the church is indeed the new covenant temple. Now we know the old covenant had a tabernacle, then Solomon built a temple, then that temple got destroyed, then it was rebuilt, and then 70 AD that temple again was destroyed.

But we don't often think that the church is the new temple. In fact, it is the greater temple. It's a more important temple than Solomon's temple. Remember David, he desired to build a house for God. He built himself a palace and a house to dwell in.

He says, now I need to build God a house. He attempted to do so and God says, you can't, you've got too much blood on your hands. Though I commend you for the desire to build me a house, you can't. However, your son will build you a house. Now we may think Solomon is that son who built a house for David and this house that was the son was going to build for David would be an eternal house, eternal dwelling place for God with man.

But Solomon's temple was not that house because that house was destroyed. It's no longer around. But we learn in the New Testament that the very house that the son of David was going to build would not be Solomon, but it'd be Jesus Christ. And you understand that Jesus Christ is building a temple, a house for God's dwelling. And this house that Christ is building is the church.

It is not made out of stones. That would be amazing. It's made more importantly and more amazingly out of human souls as living stones. As first Peter two five tells us, Peter went on to say that the new Testament temple, the church is actually the fulfillment of the old Testament prophecy and Ezekiel 37 verse 27, I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them and I'll be their God and they shall be my people. I'm going to live with them.

I'm going to walk with them just as In the days of the Garden of Eden where God would walk with man in the cool of the day, I'm going to go back and build a house and dwell among my people and live with them. I'm going to one day bring them where I am, but Until I get them to heaven, I'm going to come and dwell with them. But where does God dwell on earth? Where does God live? This temple is built on with living stones, according to Paul and Ephesians 2, it's built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone and whom the whole structure being joined together grows into a holy temple to the Lord In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God By the Spirit now, I know and you know that Individually our bodies are the temple of the Living God and we house the Holy Spirit individually But in a greater way in a more important way all the people of God are being built on top of one another and interconnected and joined together and collectively we are being built together to be the dwelling place of God.

And this is why Haggai prophesied that the glory of the latter house will be greater than the former. We The people of God are a more impressive temple than any earthly building Solomon or any other person could have built because it's Jesus Christ who's building this house. Thus The church is where God's presence dwells on Earth. This is why Jesus says we're two or three are gathered together. You may have a little house church and you feel weak.

You may feel like our churches despised by the world. No one notices us. Our singing is off key. People come and they visit once and they don't return. You're discouraged.

What you have is more glorious than any major corporation of this world. What you attend is more glorious than any major business institution that you could imagine. We may be impressed with what Elon Musk is building. We may be impressed with that. The world is impressed with that, but I'm telling you what you have in that little gathering is more impressive to God than all the world's businesses because God has not chosen to dwell in corporations of this world.

He doesn't dwell in the arenas of this world. He's not where the sports activities are going. That's not his special dwelling place. Yes, god is everywhere. He's you can't run from his presence.

That's true. But his presence, His special presence is promised to be with his people. Thus when we go to church, we should expect to see God. We should expect to enter into the presence of God. The greatest degree of God's presence is to be found in his temple.

Imagine that. So how are you going to glorify God? Well, you're going to glorify God by seeking to see him and to enter into his presence, to get near him, to draw near him. He says, seek my face and you're to respond. Your face I will seek.

Well, how do you seek the face of God? You go where God's located. You find where he's at and run to him. And Where does he dwell? Where is he to be found?

The church, his house. The Psalmist said, how lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts. My soul longs. Yes, it faints for the courts of the Lord. My heart and flesh sings for joy to the living God.

Blessed are those who dwell in your house ever singing your praise. Verse two, verse 10 says For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere I'd read rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God then dwell in the tents of the wicked I'd rather just be the least person in the church I'd rather be the janitor in the church If I could just be at church, I'd rather be there than any other place in the world. Is that how you feel about God's presence and God's temple and God's house, God's church? If you love God, if you love to be in his presence, then you're going to love the church. Psalm 27 for one thing I have asked of the Lord that I should seek after that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.

We can't wait to get to heaven. Don't you and can you not feel this in your heart? One of the greatest longings you have, one of The greatest desires you want is for the Lord to return so you can get out of this wicked corrupt world, the world full of just such disgust and shame that you almost can't stand it. It's like this can't wait to get to heaven. But what we see here, you can get the taste of heaven, you can get out of the corruption of the world by simply just going into the house of God on earth.

He hasn't left us. He hasn't abandoned us. But where do I find this God? You find him in his house. I want to dwell in his house all the days of my life so I can gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple.

How do you glorify God? Go to church. Seek his presence there. Expect to see him, to learn of him. Expect it.

Get up in the morning And reflect to your children, we're going to the house of God. We're going to go meet with the Lord. We see the glory of God in the church. We see his presence in the church, but you also see the glory of God in the church because that's where we see his power. Show me your power.

I want to see God work. I want to see God do something. He is working, but where's he working at? And I know there's this temptation and we should go outside the church and evangelize. We should go out on the market streets.

We should the public squares. I'm all for going out. I'm all for witnessing and evangelizing and, and God can and does work all over the world where to go. In fact, we're to go through the gates of hell. There's no place off limits for us, but there's a special place where God works in this world.

And it's the church. You see, the church is the actual supernatural work of God. It's a temple being built by Christ Jesus. He told his disciples, I will build my church. This is not something you do.

It's not something men will do. It's a supernatural worker of God. You have to be born again. Only those who the Holy Spirit adds to the church are truly born again. You see, it's not something you can do.

I know some of us who have been pastoring for a while and we get discouraged because the church is not growing. We think, well, maybe I need to think to do this or to do that, but you can't grow the church. You can't manipulate this thing. It's a supernatural work of God. It's the word of God that brings about regeneration and that has to happen by the power of the Holy Spirit.

And so in the end, when we see the church growing, expanding, we're seeing the actual supernatural worker of God miraculously working on this earth. It's the church that Christ is building. It's the church that Christ is purifying. He's redeemed the church. He's sanctifying the church and there's no other institution that he's doing this to.

God has not promised to redeem the nations, at least the civil authorities. Nations will come and they will fall. The church will prevail. It's the only thing that will prevail in this world. If you want to see where God is working, Go to church.

You see the church is where God's power is most evidently manifested in this world. Power, the power of God is called grace. Grace is supernatural power. You could define grace as unlimited, unmerited power. It's not something we deserve or earn, but it's, it's a divine power.

The Bible says it's by the grace of God that we are what we are pulses I've worked harder or done more than all the other apostles yet it wasn't me actually it was the power of God working in me it was the grace of God working in me Titus tells us that the grace of God has appeared to all men and is that grace that has taught us to deny ungodliness and worldly lust. It's the grace that transforms us. It's grace that empowers us to live holy lives and to mortify the lust of the flesh. It's grace. We live by grace.

Grace is what we need. It's the power of God. It's the miraculous work of God in the lives of humans. We need grace. And where do we find grace?

We find it in the church. We don't find grace at Walmart. You can't go buy it at the grocery store. You can't purchase it off of Amazon. Where do you get grace?

You go to church to find grace because the church is where the means of grace has been deposited. God works through grace and he's given the means of grace to the church for the sanctification of the body of Christ. Grace comes through all the ordinary means of grace, the preaching and the singing and the prayers, the ordinances. This is how we're strengthened. This is how we're maintained.

This is how we fight the evil one. We need grace. Where do we obtain grace? We go to church. So how do I glorify God in the church?

You go to church and you seek grace there. That's where the power of God is operating Psalm 63 to have seen you in your sanctuary and I beheld your power. I want to see the power of God. Let me tell you Christianity is the only religion that is supernatural. Where God actively works.

It's not just a mere intellectual consent. It's not just learning data and information. Now it's being transformed from within. God says this is where I'm going to dwell this is where I'm going to sanctify my people. It's going to be in the church.

Thirdly, we see the glory of the church The glory of God in the church by seeing God's promises in the church. You see God's grace comes through his word or his promises. How does grace get from heaven into your heart? You know sometimes we have this naive conception that Lord give me grace. We pray this prayer give me grace and it just zaps into us from heaven and there's no medium or channel or mechanism for grace to flow to us from heaven.

It just kind of bypasses everything. It just shows up in our heart, but that doesn't work that way. No one's ever received grace without the means of grace. The channels of grace. How does grace float into us?

How does water get from the water tower into your sink? Well, there's a system of pipes. What is the network of pipes in which grace flows from heaven into your heart? Well, there's only one main pipe. It's the word of God.

All the means of grace are connected to his word. God works by his word. It's the word of God that is the power of God. It's sharper than any two-edged sword. It's something that does not come back to God void.

It is the power of God. The gospel itself is the power of God into salvation. It's the word of God that sanctifies. It's the word of God that transforms. Without the word, there's no grace.

Without the word, there's no faith. Without the word, there's no transformation. And God has given the church the word. It's the pillar and ground to truth. And he's given the church the five ordinary means of grace in which grace is to flow from heaven into our hearts it's through the preached word it's through the song word it's through the prayed word it's through the ordinance that that we see the word it's through the fellowship around the word in these means where the word is being communicated into our mind and then penetrating down into our heart that we are conformed into the image of God's dear son.

And if you want more transformation and more power in your life, go and set under the word of God. You see the most important mark of any church is truth. Now I can say there's three marks of the church, truth, verity, which means truth, unity, and purity. Those are the three main characteristics of the church, the main attributes of a church. But we could make a case that unity and purity comes through truth, through verity.

So you want to find a church if you're not in one you want to find the church where they're preaching the whole Council of God where the church is centered around the Word of God because that's where the glory of God is located. The glory of the church is not in pizza parties. It's not in all the activities the church may have. It's in the purity and the clarity and the authority of the God's word being proclaimed. This is where God works.

Not in community services. Not in age segregated activities. But being under the word of God. Being fed, faithfully fed and taught the truth. And I know what Christians want.

I know what Christians want. I know what sheep want. Sheep want food. Christians want food. They want to see the glory of God.

And how do you see the glory of God? How do you know God? You know him through his word. You want to see God, you want to see him in all of his glory, in all of his majesty. And thus, we have him given to us, communicated to us.

He comes through this means, the word of God. This is why the church is so beautiful. God particularly gave the church the means of grace. Fourth the glory of God is seen in the church because that's where God's people are. What is the church?

It's the fellowship of the saints. It's the called out assembly of God's people. Without people, there's no church, But it's not just people. It's not just a simile of a congregation of lost and unconverted and just people who come. That's entertainment centers called churches.

True church is those who have a purity of membership of believers. The church is God's people and God's people are called together together because they're united together. They're connected and when they come together, the temple of God is there and that's where God dwells and walks among his people. We're living stones being built up as a spiritual house, as a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. This is where we worship God.

Now you worship God and we've learned that we learn we worship God in our workplace we worship God in our families we can worship God in our private life you can worship God on the deer stand that's true right Worship God everywhere all times. That's what we've learned to glorify God and enjoy him in every aspect of life. But I can tell you if you really want to have a special presence of God. Get off that deer stand and come to church. You see God's presence, God's power, God's promises are united to God's people.

Now think about this. We can see the means of grace, the power of God, the presence of God comes to us through a channel. It's through the word of God and the word of God comes to us through the ordinary means of grace, the preaching and the singing and then the prayers and the ordinances and the fellowship. But do you see all those ordinary means of grace are communicated through his people I want you to see this because it's so important and it's so beautiful and I'm not saying that a man on an island with no one else with just the Bible alone is not going to be regenerated by the power of the Holy Spirit and have communion with God and walk with God and grow as a Christian that has happened can happen but that's not the ordinary means which God has designed it to happen. Yes you just need your Bible and you can grow.

But that's not the ordinary means in which God has designed for you to grow. He's designed for you to grow interconnected to his people. He's designed for the hand to not be able to say, I don't need the foot or the odd to say, I don't need the leg. He's made us weak and interdependent and gifted us differently. So you have some gifts that I don't have and I have some gifts that you don't have.

I'm strong here, but I'm weak here and we're not complete unless we're interconnected and joined together and then joined together. We become a complete person and we're interdependent on purpose and God's designed us to need one another and to function together and we grow together and my own spiritual growth and walk with God is going to be related to your walk with God. And as you walk with God and grow, I will grow with you. And if you are going backwards, that's going to cause me to go backwards so slightly. You see, you don't live just for yourself.

Your Christian life is not just dependent upon yourself. You're so interconnected with the body of Christ that you need the body of Christ to grow so that you can grow and the body of Christ needs you to grow so that they can grow. And that means that what you do on Monday and Tuesday is affecting the church on Sunday. You're responsible for your own sanctification for the betterment the sanctification of the whole and see God is going to work and he's going to come and give you grace But he's tied his grace to the word and the word being communicated through his people. And thus you become an instrument of grace.

And the people around you, the saints around you are instruments of grace to you and that's why you need them. You need the preacher. You need the preacher to walk with God and be in a study. You need the preacher to be living in the presence of God and staring at the face of God so when he comes behind the pulpit his face is glowing with the presence of God you need that and you need to have the presence of God glowing on your face so when you're sitting in the pew There were people around you are affected and moved and stirred You see God has chosen to work through his people How many times have you got the word you needed because you called someone or you were setting this on next to someone and they said? It's just something so slightly and it was a bomb to your soul.

It truly was something that encouraged your heart. It's something you needed to hear and sometimes we're rebuked and we don't even know we're being rebuked. We're being corrected. It's the one who isolates himself that goes astray. The fool goes away and thinks only of his own thoughts, but we're constantly being corrected and adjusted by the wisdom of the collective whole because in the multitude of counselors, there is safety.

You see, God has chosen us to be ambassadors and messengers He chose us to be broken clay jars To communicate the glory of God through us This is why in Ephesians 4 he gave to the church apostles prophets evangelists and teachers to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. He works through humans. He works through his people. He's not just working by just zapping grace automatically into people. He's working through evangelists.

Faith comes by hearing, right? And hearing comes by the word of God, but how does the word of God come? It comes to us by people with dirty feet, and dirty feet come to us with the preaching of the gospel, and these dirty feet become altogether glorious and beautiful, and even dirty feet are glorious because the feet bring the glory of God near. That's why you need the church. That's why You need the weakest Christian.

You need the whole body and you can't say, well, we just don't need that little family. We just don't need that weak Christian. You know that aggravating Christian that count always causing problems, but you deeply know that he knows or she knows the Lord. Well, You need that person too because they have God. You need the church.

We need the church. Why do I need the church? Because I need God and God's arranged it. I don't get God outside the church or with outside his body without side the means of grace. Does we have responsibility?

Don't look at church as just attendance. I'm just going to go and be fed. No, you have a responsibility. You're a part of this work. Hebrews 10 24 let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works Not neglecting to meet together as the habit of Psalm Make church a priority.

I really believe this With all my heart for Christians Church should be your your life on earth There's nothing greater on earth to do than go to church Rotate your schedule around church And if you don't have a good church, do all you can. Quit your job, move across the country, find a good church. That's life. That's God. There's where the glory of God is.

And if you're thinking And you're saying, well, I don't like my church. You know, there's some people that are so hurt by church, so hurt by it, they've been hurt. And so they quit going to church. Well, they'll go to conferences. Conferences are great because you know what's great about conferences?

We're not together long enough not like each other. Right? There's a lot of truth to that. So you go to conferences and rub shoulders with people, but you don't really need to know them. It's easy to like the celebrity pastor.

It's easy to like people you don't know. We're called to like God's people and God says, you're going to need the fruits of the spirit. You know, you don't need the fruits of spirit when you get to heaven. You need them now. Humility and kindness, long suffering, patience, that's for the saints.

But we're not to neglect the gathering of ourselves, but rather we're told all the more as you see the day drawing near, we're to go encourage one another. We're called to go and minister grace to the saints. And you have grace in your heart given to you by your mother, your father, or by a preacher or evangelist or a friend or neighbor. God has used others to minister to you and that grace that resides in you is necessary to minister to others and sufficient to minister to others. And my last point, we see the glory of God in the church because that's where God's glory or God's praise is located.

Psalm 26 eight, Oh Lord, I love the house where you dwell the place of your glory, a place where your glory resides. You see the glory of the church is really is the reflective glory of God. The churches where God is is glorified glorify. He's to be glorified in his church Ephesians 3 21 says. Psalm says I've seen you in your sanctuary and I beheld your power and your glory.

I really believe the closest place on heaven, the closest place to heaven on earth is where the love of God the word of God the presence of God the work of God the power of God the presence of God the glory of God is residing and that is in the local church and you may have the worst local church that you tend you say this church is weak it's feeble It's it's got this flaw that flaw. It needs to be ordered and structured better I just don't like that church Well, if it's a true church and there's the true Word of God being proclaimed and there are true Christians there I'm telling you that little church You should love and you should treasure because that little church and that little weak church is more glorious than any other thing in this world And you just don't see it you don't appreciate it But I'm telling you as the days grow darker and darker in the world becomes more and more wicked, you're going to cling to that little weak Christian that loves the Lord imperfectly. You're going to cling to the little bit of grace that is shining through that hard and difficult person that knows the Lord.

We got one person, I'm not going to use his name, but there's one person I'm telling you that I know unbelievers that act better than him, but he's got grace. And I'm not saying Christians can live wicked sinful lives. They're transformed or renewed, but this guy's got humility and he is working hard. There has been converted out of a hard, hard life and that's something I need to see. I need him.

We need each other because we need God. We need his presence. We need his grace. We need his power. And this is where that God is designed to be worshiped.

The church is the place where we go and see the glory of God, experience the grace of God, the power of God, the presence of God and in seeing and receiving. You can't worship until you've received. You can't give until you've been given to. We have nothing to give to God until God says, here I am. And what he gives, we turn back and give back to him that's worship and that happens in the church we're told that the church is a spiritual house A holy priesthood being built together to offer up spiritual sacrifices.

We come to worship the living God. So drawing this to a conclusion, how do we glorify God in the church? Love it. See the glory of God in the church. Look for the glory of God in the church.

Quit being critical and see the good. Appreciate Here's a word. Appreciate your local pastor. Your local pastor that loves you and prays for you by name more than you appreciate the celebrity pastor that doesn't celebrity pastor that doesn't know your name. Appreciate those weak Christians that you live with More than conference Christians that you don't know and don't know you Love your local church Give yourself to your local church serve your church II God doesn't need anything but as much as you've done to the least of his people, you've done it to the Lord.

How do you glorify God in the church? You serve the church. Let us not pick each other apart, but with grace and humility, let us see the glory of God in each other. We all reflect a little bit of God in us. That's the glory of the church and that's how we glorify God in the church.

Amen.