The Thread of Glory

Have you ever wondered why you exist and what all of this is for? Louie Giglio leads us on a journey through scripture and space to answer those very questions.

What is God worth? Have you ever considered such a question? Surely, there is no monetary value that we could place on an almighty, ever-lasting being. And yet, for something to have importance or value, it must also have worth. Over the last few messages in this collection (if you haven't watched them, you should go back and do so), we've spent some time studying the Grace of God, which we defined as "God at work," and today we're going to look at the Glory of God, which we'll define as God's weight and worth.

Why weight and worth? Well, to answer that, we need to do a bit of word study. The Old Testament word for glory is kāḇôḏ (pronounced kaw-bode' if you want to practice saying it out loud.) kāḇôḏ means (or translates to) weight or heaviness. So, when we see the word glory in the Old Testament, we should understand that what we are talking about is a God whose unique and matchless nature isn't flimsy or light but substantial and heavy. Flip to the New Testament, and the word for glory (dóksa) translates into opinion or good opinion. Pair these two together, and what we find is that when the writers of Scripture wanted to communicate to us what the very nature of God is like, they wanted to be sure that we understood the immensity of His worth.

What is God worth? You'd have to ask Him. After all, the central believer in and the most ardent proponent and promoter of God's Glory is God. No matter what platform you've been given, no matter how many messages you watch a week, or coffees you have with people to tell them about God, you will never out-promote God when it comes to talking about God. But isn't this prideful? Not at all; humility is for those of us who just think that we are god; in fact, thank God that He knows His worth and yet was still willing to interrupt our lives with it. (there's that grace again.)

*editor's note: when people tell you that believing in God means losing out on the best parts of life, remind yourself that the only being who can define "best" by looking at themselves is freely giving it to you. There is no "best" without God. 

Can you imagine for a second arriving at the scene of a terrible accident, and as the crowd gathers, a voice calls out from among the murmuring people, "Please let me through, I'm a doctor!" and the people barely turn their heads and shout back, "We're good, it'll all work itself out!"

God knows His ability, His character, and His power, and His grace and patience are on display when He inserts Himself into the equation of our lives because, at the end of the day, we exist FOR God. Did you catch that? We just answered one of those questions that human beings have sat under the stars and pondered for eons. Why do we, why do you exist? For God's Glory. "Wait a minute," you may be saying, "I actually already know why I exist. I was made to be a lawyer," or maybe, "I was created to be a parent," or even, "I was created to teach people about God!"

Without question, you have been given gifts, and you have cultivated talents, but at the end of the day, you were created atom by atom in order to reflect the Glory of the God who made you.

Would you like some supporting Scripture? (Always a great thing to ask for when someone is making such sweeping claims.)

Genesis 1:1

Psalm 90:2

Psalm 19:1

Psalm 148:1-13

Genesis 1:26

Acts 7:2-3

Psalm 106:7-8

Exodus 33:22

Isaiah 42:8

Exodus 20:3

Isaiah 43:7

Habakkuk 2:14

Isaiah 48:9-11

Luke 2:14

(You can read all of these at the bottom of this page, by the way.)

2 Corinthians 4:6

Mark 2:12

2 Peter 1:16-18

John 12:27-28

Phil 2:9-11

Revelation 4:11

Romans 3:23

Romans 1:18-23

Psalm 106:20

Colossians 1:27

Ephesians 1:3-14

1 Timothy 1:15-17

Galatians 1:3-5

Luke 17:18

Psalm 63:3

2 Corinthians 4:7-15

1 Corinthians 10:31

Colossians 3:17

Matthew 5:16

(You're doing great.)

Isaiah 26:8

John 21:19

Phil 4:19

Colossians 3:4

1 Peter 5:10

Ephesians 3:20-21

Revelation 21:22-23

Phil 4:20

Romans 16:27

Romans 11:36

Jude 1:24-25

The Westminster Shorter Catechism of 1646 encapsulated it beautifully when the writers penned:

Q. What is the chief end of man?

A. Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.

We exist, and the Church exists to glorify God. This truth can be the most freeing revelation of your life and the most defining. Wrap your heart and mind around it, and all of a sudden, the trajectory of your life may clarify with passion and purpose. But moving yourself out of the center seat of your life can be difficult, and it involves daily, even hourly, sometimes minute-to-minute awareness to remember that it's not all about you, and it is all about Him. This is good news. In fact, this is the best news because it means that the significance of your life does not have to end when your last breath leaves your body or when your face fades from the memory of your children's children's children. You are a part of the eternal story of God's Glory by His Grace.

On September 5, 1977, NASA launched a 1,592-pound spacecraft named Voyager on a mission to travel further than any object made by human hands with a mission to observe, record, and transmit images and data about the Solar System we call home. 13 years later, on Valentines Day, the Jet Propulsion Lab (or JPL) sent a simple command to Voyager, turn around and take a series of photos of where you came from. Those photos were woven together, and the result is still nothing short of breathtaking.

This image (known as the Pale Blue Dot) floored scientists. The Astronomer Carl Sagan remarked,

Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

How does the Pale Blue Dot make you feel? Small? That's understandable; after all, if all of Human History can be captured in such a tiny image, then shouldn't we feel insignificant? Not at all, because the God of gods, the One who has worth, the One with the weight, the One with the kāḇôḏ deemed you worth His Grace. He left Heaven and stepped onto the Pale Blue Dot (which He created) in order to bestow that Grace upon you at the cost of Jesus. Divinity was nailed to wood, and His bled mingled with dirt because He deemed it to be so on your behalf.

What is God worth? Our lives. What are we worth to God? His.