My Library

Monday, September 14, 2026

God Without Religion

"God Without Religion" explores the idea of having a personal relationship with the divine outside of traditional religious structures. It encourages individuals to seek spirituality through personal experiences and self-discovery rather than adhering strictly to organized religion.

Understanding God Without Religion

The concept of connecting with God outside traditional religious frameworks emphasizes personal spirituality and self-discovery. This approach allows individuals to explore their beliefs and experiences without the constraints of organized religion.

Key Concepts

Personal Relationship: Individuals can develop a personal connection with the divine that is not tied to specific religious practices or institutions.

Spiritual Exploration: This journey encourages exploring spirituality through personal experiences, meditation, and self-reflection.

Value of Individual Experience: Emphasizes the importance of personal insights and feelings over dogmatic teachings.

Ways to Connect with God

Here are some methods to foster a spiritual connection without organized religion:

Method Description

Self-Love Recognizing your inherent value and worth as a person.

Meditation Practicing mindfulness to quiet the mind and listen to inner thoughts.

Nature Appreciation Finding awe and beauty in the natural world as a reflection of the divine.

Gratitude Cultivating thankfulness for life's blessings to enhance spiritual awareness.

Community Engaging with like-minded individuals for support and shared experiences.

Conclusion

The idea of "God Without Religion" invites individuals to seek a deeper understanding of spirituality that transcends traditional religious boundaries. This approach fosters a more personal and meaningful connection with the divine, allowing for a unique exploration of faith and existence.

Understanding God Without Religion

Key Concepts

Personal Relationship: Individuals can develop a personal connection with the divine that is not tied to specific religious practices or institutions.

Spiritual Exploration: This journey encourages exploring spirituality through personal experiences, meditation, and self-reflection.

Value of Individual Experience: Emphasizes the importance of personal insights and feelings over dogmatic teachings.

Ways to Connect with God

Here are some methods to foster a spiritual connection without organized religion:

Method Description

Self-Love Recognizing your inherent value and worth as a person.

Meditation nd and listen to inner thoughts.

Nature Appreciation Finding awe and beauty in the natural world as a reflection of the divine.

Gratitude Cultivating thankfulness for life's blessings to enhance spiritual awareness.

Community Engaging with like-minded individuals for support and shared experiences.

Conclusion

Religion Without God

Ronald Dworkin, Religion Without God, Harvard University Press, 2013, 180pp., $17.95 (hbk), ISBN 9780674726826.

Reviewed by Howard Wettstein, University of California, Riverside

2014.12.14

Ronald Dworkin has left us a stimulating set of posthumously published reflections about religion. Such variations on religious themes have a long history. Something in Jewish-Christian-Islamic religiosity inspires generalization, or transplantation, or relocation to various metaphysical and even non-metaphysical locales. Dwelling in Psalms, one might experience a sense of depth, of contact with a profound human reality, one that need not be situated in the context of a god. God is -- the gods are -- powerful; metaphorically as well as, for the believer, in a more plain sense.

Dworkin speaks of religion without God. Spinoza, a somewhat kindred spirit, did it the other way around: God without religion. Religions are, after all, institutional arrangements; God might be appreciated, loved, or worshiped without such conformity. "God," though, suggests to Dworkin and many others (although not Spinoza) metaphysical commitment to a being, a supernatural person. Dworkin seeks not a god but spiritual seriousness, a commitment to core religious values including that of the moral life; and the appreciation for, gratefulness concerning, the awe-inspiring aspects of life. Dewey puts his similar project a bit differently: it is not religion we are after but rather the religious attitude.

"Religion," writes Dworkin, "holds that inherent, objective value permeates everything, that the universe and its creatures are awe-inspiring, that human life has purpose and the universe order." (p. 1) His emphasis on religious values seems right on point. If the religious attitude is to be transplanted to secular culture, the heart of it would seem to be attitudes/commitments to values: to love, to awe, to the ethical life. In a discussion of the problem of evil, Robert M. Adams once commented that evil presents an existential problem for any religious view. Adams, a committed theist, explained that by "religious view" he meant any view that makes awe and love central pillars of value.

Dworkin, however, goes further. It seems not enough to maintain such values, even as one's central commitments. The religious person takes such values to be "objective," "as real as trees or pain." (p. 10)

The religious attitude accepts the full, independent reality of value. It accepts the objective truth of two central judgments about value. The first holds that human life has objective meaning or importance. Each person has an innate and inescapable responsibility to try to make his life a successful one: that means living well, accepting ethical responsibilities to oneself as well as moral responsibilities to others . . . .The second holds that what we call 'nature' . . . is not just a matter of fact but is itself sublime: something of intrinsic value and wonder. (p. 10)

life's intrinsic meaning and nature's intrinsic beauty [are] paradigms of a fully religious attitude to life. (p. 11)

The enchantment [that William James attributes to religion] is the discovery of transcendental value in what otherwise seems transient and dead. (p. 12)

Trying to understand Dworkin's objectivity thesis makes the book intriguing and, for me, difficult. What is it to accept "the full independent reality of value"? Dworkin distinguishes two aspects of objective value: first, "to accept the objective truth . . . . that human life has objective meaning or importance." (p. 10) (forget/forgive the double "objective; the last one is enough for his purposes.) Another aspect of the reality of value for him is that nature is "not just a matter of fact but is itself sublime: . . . of intrinsic value and wonder." (p. 10) I will return to the two aspects of the objectivity of value.

Working through Dworkin's book has been a challenge, one that's not easy to explain. The book has the feel of a series of arguments that are only partly developed. Perhaps this is a matter of its being posthumous, based on his 2011 Einstein Lectures at the University of Bern.[1] Or perhaps these lectures were somewhat popular.

Here's an example of what I found so difficult. In a discussion of the autonomy of various disciplines Dworkin makes the point that "there is no finally noncircular way to certify our capacity to find truth of any kind in any intellectual domain." (p. 16) This is reasonable enough, but notice what he takes it to imply:

We find it impossible not to believe the elementary truths of mathematics and, when we understand them, the astonishingly complex truths that mathematicians have proved. But we cannot demonstrate either the elementary truths or the methods of mathematical demonstration from outside mathematics. We feel that we do not need any independent certification: we know we have an innate capacity for logic and mathematical truth. But how do we know we have that capacity? Only because we form beliefs in these domains that we simply cannot, however we try, disown. So we must have such a capacity. (pp. 16-17; italics added)

Dworkin is certainly right: we feel that we do not need independent certification of the methods of logic and mathematics. But once we ask how we know that we have the innate capacities in question, we raise the sort of fundamental question that requires real work. It's related to the work Wittgenstein displays in On Certainty. One cannot then simply say, as Dworkin does (or appears to), that we have such innate capacities follows from our inability to disown certain mathematical and logical beliefs. Perhaps I don't have Dworkin right here, but surely more needs to be said.

Understanding Dworkin's thought about religion is made difficult by his caricatured characterization of various opponent views. Here's what he says about naturalism:

The religious attitude rejects all forms of naturalism. . . . Some naturalists are nihilists: they say that values are only illusions. Other naturalists accept that in some sense values exist, but they define them so as to deny them any independent existence: they make them depend entirely on people's thoughts or reactions. (pp. 12-13)[2]

In "Chapter 2: The Universe,"[3] Dworkin turns from the religious values that "fill the lives of ordinary people" to "the religious value of celestial beauty that intoxicated Einstein" (p. 47). He makes the point that evolution and the

grand universe it has created is itself a source of beauty. This thought is not available to a naturalist. Only those parts of the universe that produce pleasure in our sight can be, for him, beautiful. He finds the universe as a whole an incalculably vast accident of gas and energy. Religion finds it, on the contrary, a deep complex order shining with beauty . . . . Theists find it obvious why the universe is sublime: it was created to be sublime. (p. 48)

Dworkin's naturalist denies -- why need she deny this? -- the existence of "a complex order shining with beauty," and his theist seems strangely logically inept.

In what follows I explore what I take to be at the heart of Dworkin's view of religion ( traditional and his own preferred religion without God):the objectivity thesis. Dworkin takes the objectivity of morality to be uncontroversially the view of the religious traditionalist. Is that so? I'll return below to the objective sublime, perhaps a more confusing business.

Once one has God as lawgiver, or so it might be thought, the objectivity of morality is guaranteed. I'm not sure this is so, nor sure that the objective-subjective distinction is the right tool, so to speak, for the job of getting at the heart of a religious position.

Consider the naturalistically-spirited idea that morality has evolved, developed over the course of pre-human and human history; and further that it is neither true nor false but rather more effective or less at securing human dignity, social coherence and perhaps other ends. Such a view might be accepted by a religious traditionalist; God's commands sanction and perhaps improve upon the evolved moral standards.

The evolved morality view seems a far cry from Dworkin's objective morality. At the same time, it's not an approach that renders morality subjective. Nor does the fact that it's evolved suggest that somehow the felt imperatives are less than categorical. The teleology of evolution aside, the agent's moral commitments are not conditional. One is committed.

Surely there is something objective about moral norms, even evolved ones. Their virtually universal intersubjectivity is more than impressive. And the old examples of Nazis and the like hardly show much of importance, other than human ugliness, frailty, and the inability to see ourselves, as it were, from the outside. And somewhat similarly -- to return briefly to the sublime -- there is enormous intersubjectivity about say, artistic excellence/beauty. I don't of course mean that everyone agrees about music. But we do give a great deal of weight to expert evaluation of music or visual art. This alone should give pause to any extreme subjectivity thesis. Which is not to say that experts, as all of us, don't vary in their tastes.

Still intersubjectivity is not, or not quite, objectivity. The undergraduate who still lurks somewhere in me wants to ask: Granted that we all agree (or even if we all agree), how does that make it objectively right?

The problem remains: how are we to understand Dworkin's objectivity, to be clear about what sort of out-there rightness is in question? One way, compatible with a great deal of what Dworkin says, is Moore's: in terms of non-natural moral properties. Moral judgments, then, become matters of (exotic) fact. But that seems a caricature of the real way in which morality is objective. And, such moves have well explored problems of their own.

If one reads Dworkin's book in isolation from the rest of his works, one will likely suppose, as I did early on, that he is endorsing some perhaps Moore-like metaphysical realism about morality and even aesthetics. However, this sort of metaphysical realism would represent a radical departure from his explicit positions elsewhere.[4]

Dworkin argues that ethics, along with domains like mathematics and physics, are autonomous; that one cannot ground our knowledge of such domains from outside the respective domains. Such disciplines, he sometimes says, rest on a kind of faith in our innate capacity to attain truth. (As we have seen, sometimes he relies on an argument for our innate capacity.) Beyond this, Dworkin does not pursue the nature of the truths affirmed, the nature of the objectivity that characterizes the truths of the domain.

Dworkin is surely right to see a religious person's commitment to ethics/morality as binding, and as central to religious life. I've often thought that part of the meaning of belief in God (the preposition matters, the topic is belief in and not belief that) is the idea that it really matters how I pursue my life. But why tie this to objectivity, to some sort of analogy with factual truths?

There is also the question of why make religious commitment -- traditional or Dworkin's -- dependent on the acceptance of a philosophical thesis, the objectivity of ethics/morality, the sense that our ethical values are as real as trees. Perhaps, despite the way he puts the matter again and again, he means to advance a more modest thesis, that "objectivity" best makes sense of the religious person's conviction that it really matters how one runs one's life. But for the reasons just given, it's hard to see why "objectivity" is the master key to such a philosophical explication.

Let's turn to the objective sublime. Awe and wonder are pillars of traditional religious life. When the Bible speaks of "fear of the Lord" as in the remark that it is "the beginning of wisdom," it's not mere fright that is envisaged. Indeed it's difficult to see how fright can be a central religious virtue. The Hebrew word, yirah, means both fear and awe and in many biblical contexts it's awe that's in question. (Of course, awe, in its more intense incarnations, can involve an admixture of fright.)

Turning from the Bible to religious life, awe is indeed near the heart of it. In my own Jewish religious tradition, one central practice is the making of blessings. Many occasions, many times a day, are occasions for blessings. There are different blessings for different foods, blessings upon seeing the ocean or a rainbow, upon study of the Torah, upon seeing a beautiful human being, or a scholar, even upon emerging from the bathroom. A. J. Heschel, a 20th century Jewish religious thinker, sees the blessing as both training in and expressions of awe. Before one sips water, or looks to the ocean or mountains, one takes a moment to reflect on the wonder. "The heavens declare the majesty of God," as the 19th Psalm has it. In the spirit of Heschel, one might see the saintly person as one who has internalized the habits of awe-appreciation, a person for whom the wonder constitutes a background condition for life, one that is often brought into the foreground.

If one envisages the possibility of religion without God, awe would naturally be central. But as with ethics, Dworkin insists on more than centrality.

To a naturalist [the beauty that we find in nature] is just a matter of our reactions to these sights: the pleasure we take in them. To the religious attitude they are discoveries of innate beauty: they are wonderful in themselves, not in virtue of how they strike us. (p. 45)

Wonder, like morality, surely has an objective aspect. There is, as mentioned above, the impressive intersubjectivity. There is also a worldly correlate to our judgments of beauty and awesomeness. Consider all the paintings a particular art connoisseur considers beautiful. It would no doubt be very interesting to see what objective features of things elicit from her such judgments of beauty. It is not a matter of what all these things have in common; no doubt the relations between the things have something more like a family resemblance. But still, there are objective features of things to which she is responding.

We could go further in the direction that I just set out, tracing the connoisseur's other judgments of beauty across the various art forms and eventually including natural objects. But however one does this and whatever the results, it's difficult to get a grip on Dworkin's idea that we are discussing things that are "wonderful in themselves, not in virtue of how they strike us." And again, Dworkin does not help with this question.

Dworkin is worried about subjectivism about morality, beauty, and the wondrous; he rejects various kinds of reductionism, for example one that sees moral and aesthetic judgments as reports of, or mere expressions of, our reactions. He insists that we are not thinking or talking about how things strike us, but about the ways that they are. And surely that's right. But there is still a difference between saying that something is, say, metallic and saying that it's wondrous, or for that matter, tasty. These concepts allude, so to speak, to human sensibility.

Stephen Mitchell, in his Introduction to his translation of the Book of Job (HarperCollins, 1987), writes, "When I was a very young Zen student, caught up in the problem of evil, I once asked my teacher, 'Why does shit smell so bad?' He said, 'If you were a fly, it would taste like candy.'" When we imagine, perhaps fantastically, other creatures' aesthetic judgments, is our view that they either agree with us or are just wrong about it? And when there is disagreement among art connoisseurs, is it the case that one and only one can be correct?

In this review I have focused upon what I take to be most striking and controversial in Dworkin's thought about religion. The questions raised do not suggest a problem with the idea of religion without God, an idea that I find of great interest. Considering religion without God may also direct attention to the roles that God plays in religious thought and religious life, roles that deserve more attention than they often get.

[1] A "Publisher’s Note" includes this remark: "[Dworkin] planned to greatly extend his treatment of the subject . . . but he became ill . . . and had time only to complete some revisions."

[2] Dworkin takes naturalism to be the view that "nothing is real except what can be studied by the natural sciences, including psychology." (p. 12)

[3] There are two additional chapters. Chapter 3 is concerned with the special rights people have to religious freedom. And the fourth and concluding chapter is a ten-page reflection on death and immortality.

[4] See, for example, Justice for Hedgehogs. This point was forcefully made to me by several friends much more familiar with Dworkin’s work than I am. Thanks especially to Melis Erdur and Jeff Helmreich, not only for this, but more generally for discussion of Dworkin’s views and remarks on an earlier draft.

Sunday, September 13, 2026

To the Praise of His Glory ( Ephesians 1:14 )

A Sermon on Ephesians 1.14

"We tend to think of sin in terms of "sins" - actions, things we do, and things from which we suffer consequences.

In other words, our tendency is to think of sin entirely in terms of ourselves, our own actions, and our own reactions.

But that's not the biblical view of sin.

What is sin?

Well, sin is this. The essence of sin is not to give unto God the glory that is due unto His holy name." - (Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones )

What should be the starting point of all a Christian's thought?

How ought their thinking about any particular doctrine be finally assessed?

The answer is simple: the glory of God.

In this sermon on Ephesians 1:14 titled "To the Praise of His Glory," Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones points out that the apostle Paul in Ephesians is primarily concerned with the praise of His glory.

Many religious people miss this crucial point.

Their thinking upon any particular religious topic - whether sin or salvation - begins first with themselves.

Dr. Lloyd-Jones warns this is a grave mistake.

Any Christian doctrine that begins with something other than the glory of God wil negatively be affected.

If one's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, how often do they ask God to forgive them for not glorifying Him?

How often do they consider salvation as what only benefits or brings happiness to themselves and not as a right relationship to God?

These are all hard questions which Dr. Lloyd-Jones provokes in this sermon on one of the highest thoughts human beings can ever contemplate.

Sermon Breakdown

¶ The glory of God must be the starting point of all our thought and the test of all our thinking.

¶ Our view of sin is inadequate if it does not recognize that the essence of sin is not giving God the glory due to His name.

¶ Our view of salvation is inadequate if it does not recognize that the supreme object of salvation is to glorify God.

¶ A true view of salvation ascribes the entirety of salvation to God. It recognizes salvation is something huge, not small or easy.

¶ We glorify God by seeing how His plan of salvation perfectly meets our every need.

¶ We glorify God by recognizing the certainty of salvation - that God will complete the work He began.

¶ We are meant to glorify God not just in our thinking but in everything we do and say. Our lives should point others to God.

¶ Our experiences as Christians should glorify God - we should have joy, assurance and delight in God.

¶ We glorify God by living lives that match and adorn the gospel. Our conduct should fit with the doctrine.

¶ Everything in the Christian life is meant to glorify One Almighty God , through the name of LORD JESUS CHRIST.

I should like to call your attention this morning to the last phrase in the 14th verse of the first chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians.

The Epistle to the Ephesians, chapter 1, and the last phrase in the 14th verse.

Unto the praise of His glory.

Now, obviously, that connects with what has been going before.

So, I will start reading at the beginning of verse 13.

¹³ In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, ¹⁴ Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of His glory.

(NIV; ¹³ And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, ¹⁴ who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of His glory.)

Now, we consider this morning that final phrase.

We must stop at this and consider it.

I'm almost tempted to ask a question.

There are many present, most indeed present probably, have been attending regularly as we have thus been working our way through this tremendous introduction to this Epistle to the Ephesians.

And many were present last Sunday morning when we looked at that statement about the Holy Spirit being the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession.

The question I'm tempted to ask is, how many expected that this morning we would be going on to verse 15?

And that we'd finished with verse 14. That we had indeed finished with this entire great introductory statement. But, we haven't.

The apostle Paul doesn't stop at the words purchased possession. He adds this, "unto the praise of His glory."

And this is no mere addition.

This is no mere idle addition. Apostle Paul does not throw in these words, as it were, just to make a statement appear to be complete from the literary standpoint.

This phrase is an essential part of the apostle's teaching.

It is as much a part of his teaching as all that we've been considering about the sealing of the Spirit and about earnest of the Spirit.

Indeed, you notice that the apostle Paul has already used this selfsame phase. He has used this phrase before in verse six, where he says, "to the praise of the glory of His grace."

He's done it again in verse 12, "that we should be to the praise of His glory, who first trusted in Christ." And here it is once more, in verse 14.

You can, if you like, divide up this great statement into three sections.

The section ending at verse six, the section ending at verse 12, and the ends here at verse 14. And the important thing for us to observe is that the apostle Paul ends each one of the sections on precisely the same note.

He is not content merely with making his statements. He must add this to it. It is all to the praise of the glory of God's grace.

And therefore, we cannot pass on verse 15. Indeed, it would be very wrong of us to do so without giving the due weight and importance to this statement which the apostle obviously intended.

Because here in this last phrase, he reaches again one of his climaxes. He brings us up to the point which he regards as being most important.

Now, who first trusted in Christ." And here it is once more. it wouldn't be a bad thing therefore for us this morning just to look in general once more at this tremendous statement which we've been considering after our lecture beginning at verse three and going on to the end of this verse 14.

Those who are interested in statistics, this is incidentally the 27th Sunday morning that we've been looking at these first 14 verses of this epistle.

Now, you notice that certain things stand out very prominently.

One of them is the way in which the Apostle Paul ends each section with this phrase about the praise of His glory or the glory of His grace.

And the other striking thing is, of course, the constant reference to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

In these 14 verses, the apostle Paul makes 15 references to the Lord.

Or if you like to consider it in terms of the 12 verses from verse three to end of verse 14, he refers to to the Lord, 12 times.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.

And on he goes, repeating the the name, bringing us back to it.

You remember how in the 10th verse we emphasized that.

That in the dispensation of the fullness of times, He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which in us even in him.

both which are in heaven and which are in Earth even in him it's all always everywhere in him in other words the apostle Paul can't deal with these matters without always being conscious of two things one is the Lord Jesus Christ and the the other is the glory of God the Father. Now it may be an idle thing to do to compare these things and to ask which of these two should come first. Which of them should have priority, there is a sense in which that is a foolish question, there is another sense in which it's a very important question. And if one is to come before the other, the one that comes first is this the praise of His glory, the glory of God, the glory of the Father. Now we read together just now that great 17th chapter of The Gospel. According to St John in order that we might remind ourselves of that fact and how that was the Supreme thing in the mind and the consciousness and all the life and ministry of our blessed Lord and Savior Himself. It was the thing about which he was always concerned. It was the dominating motive of his life. He had come to glorify God, to glorify his Father and nothing he desired more than to be glorified himself in turn by the Father and that he might go back to share the glory which he had shared and enjoyed with HIM before the foundation of the world. Very well then I say all this by way of introduction, a kind of apologia if you like, not apology. But for asking you to pause with me for a moment and not to rush on to verse 15. Every single statement in this tremendous assertion of the apostle Paul is of supreme significance and indeed we cannot have enjoyed truly all that he's been stating in this massive asseveration (Asseveration is a formal noun that means a solemn, earnest, or emphatic declaration or affirmation. ) unless we see it all in the light of this final phrase, to the praise of His glory. Very well then, let us pause and look at this, and let me try to help our thinking by putting it in the form of some two or three propositions. The first is this, the glory of God, must be the starting point of all our thought and it must always be the test of all our thinking. Here, I say, is the place that we must begin the entire realm of our thought, must always start from this and our particular thinking about any particular doctrine must always be estimated and assessed finally in terms of its relationship to this controlling, covering, conception of the glory of God. Now, I don't know what you feel, my good friends, but more and more I have a feeling that this is perhaps the point of all points, at which we tend to fail most lamentably at this present hour. And here obviously I'm not speaking of the world. I'm speaking of the church. I'm speaking of Christian people. There is nothing perhaps of which we are more guilty than this. I think I've told you before of the shock I received some 25 years ago when I picked up a book which had rather a striking and a resting title. The title was Religion Without God. And I said to myself what does this mean. You can't have religion without God but of course the man was able to prove very easily and very clearly in his book not only that you can have religion without God but that indeed much religion if not most, most religion is often entirely without God. In other words, people tend to assume God, they take God for granted. They're so busy with their religion often that God is quite forgotten and really doesn't enter into their thought and into their conceptions. And I think we, many of us would be rather amazed and surprised if we stop to analyze ourselves in the light of this. And if we asked ourselves strange and alarming though it may sound where does God come into our life and into our thinking, obviously if we're wrong at this point, we're going to be wrong everywhere else. Now let me give you some illustrations to show you this terrible danger, the point I'm trying to make is that all our thinking must be governed by our conception of the glory of of God and that if the glory of God does not enter into our every particular doctrine, every idea and every thought that we have, well then, that thought and that doctrine is quite defective. Now let me take an illustration at random. Let's imagine for instance that we began to have a discussion about the doctrine of sin. Let's imagine that somebody prepared this question for discussion. What is sin? There's a lot of talk about Sin but what do we mean exactly by sin? Now I imagine that large numbers of people who are Christians would say and would confine themselves entirely to this: they would say that um well, sin , of course uh, means certain actions, certain sins of which we are guilty, certain things which we do which are wrong, certain things which we feel condemned for after we have done them. There certain things which get us down and certain things which make us miserable afterwards and about which we feel that we wished we hadn't done them. Now am I being unfair when I suggest that speaking generally? That would probably be the answer that we should get, if we asked what you mean by sin. We tend to think of sin in terms of sins actions, things we and things from which we suffer consequences. In other words, our tendency is to think of sin entirely in terms of ourselves, our own actions and our own reactions. But that's not the biblical view of sin. What is sin? Well, sin is this, the essence of sin is not to give unto God the glory that is due unto His holy name. That's sin. And if that does not come into our conception and our definition of sin, well, then I suggest our whole view of sin is entirely inadequate, is indeed even dangerous. Because you see there are men and women, out in the world who don't believe in God at all. Who in a sense can have said everything that we tend to say. They know that they do things they shouldn't do. They've got their moral course and their moral standards. They know what it is to suffer from remorse and to suffer the consequences of certain actions, the world in a sense, is of that kind of thing. So that is not what makes sin, sin. The essence of sin is a wrong relationship to God. Now we are reminded of that in that first question of the Shorter Catechism drawn up by the Westminster assembly 300 years ago. It tells us that the chief end of men is to glorify God and to enjoy HIM , forever. So you see sin essentially is not to glorify God. Now, I'm simply asking an obvious question and yet I think you'll agree with me that it needs to be asked. How often do we remind ourselves that that is the meaning of sin and how often when we're on our knees even in the presence of God do we remind ourselves that the real trouble about our lives is not so that we haven't lived the life we should have lived or kept up to the standard or that we've broken our pledges and vows. But that we've been failing to glorify HIM. How often do we ask HIM in words to forgive us for that? No. I think we must all plead guilty. We forget the glory of God, we are so self-centered and self-concerned that the most vital thing of all is entirely left out. So our thinking at that point is not controlled by this fundamental conception. And that is why you see so many of us perhaps thought that we finished with verse 14. We need to stop with , to the praise of His glory. The great thing is the redemption of the purchased possession and so on. No . No. We must never stop without arriving back at that point. You start with God, you come down into the world and all its problems and you go back into God, and you're not complete until you've arrived there. Well, now, there's one illustration but take another. What is our idea of Salvation? How do we define Christian salvation? How do we give an account of it? How do we give our testimony? I think again, you will find that very generally people talk of Salvation once more in terms of themselves and of certain benefits that they've derived certain experiences, they've had certain happiness that has come into their life, how everything is now different with them and they stop at that. Thank God that all those things are perfectly true and our essential parts of salvation. But surely if we stop at that, we are missing the greatest and the most wonderful thing of all in Salvation itself. The great thing about salvation is that it restores men to a right relationship to God. You go back and read even in the gospels, the preaching, the early preaching. John the Baptist calls people to repentance. Why? Well, because they're in a wrong relationship to God. Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ does exactly the same thing. The thing they urge people to do is to escape from the wrath to come. It isn't to get put right in this respect or that or to feel happier or better. The wrath of God is upon them. Escape! they say. In other words, you see the whole preaching here is in terms of the glory of God. And the apostle Paul in bidding farewell to the elders of the church at Ephesus, you remember he sums up his whole ministry to them he says, let me remind you that I was with you, he is, preaching to you day and night and going about from house to house with weeping and tears. And he says, you remember my message, it was this repentance toward God and Faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ. What is the message of Salvation? It is this: that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. You see, it is always in terms of God and so I could take you through every single Christian

Unto the praise of His glory.

What should be the starting point of all a Christian’s thought? How ought their thinking about any particular doctrine be finally assessed? The answer is simple: the glory of God. In this sermon on Ephesians 1:14 titled “To the Praise of His Glory,” Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones points out that the apostle Paul in Ephesians is primarily concerned with the praise of His glory. Many religious people miss this crucial point. Their thinking upon any particular religious topic – whether sin or salvation – begins first with themselves. Dr. Lloyd-Jones warns this is a grave mistake. Any Christian doctrine that begins with something other than the glory of God will negatively be affected. If one’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, how often do they ask God to forgive them for not glorifying Him? How often do they consider salvation as what only benefits or brings happiness to themselves and not as a right relationship to God? These are all hard questions which Dr. Lloyd-Jones provokes in this sermon on one of the highest thoughts human beings can ever contemplate.

Ephesians 1:14

who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

Sermon Breakdown

The glory of God must be the starting point of all our thought and the test of all our thinking.
Our view of sin is inadequate if it does not recognize that the essence of sin is not giving God the glory due to His name.
Our view of salvation is inadequate if it does not recognize that the supreme object of salvation is to glorify God.
A true view of salvation ascribes the entirety of salvation to God. It recognizes salvation is something huge, not small or easy.
We glorify God by seeing how His plan of salvation perfectly meets our every need.
We glorify God by recognizing the certainty of salvation - that God will complete the work He began.
We are meant to glorify God not just in our thinking but in everything we do and say. Our lives should point others to God.
Our experiences as Christians should glorify God - we should have joy, assurance and delight in God.
We glorify God by living lives that match and adorn the gospel. Our conduct should fit with the doctrine.
Everything in the Christian life is meant to glorify God - the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Sermon Q&A

What Does "Unto the Praise of His Glory" Mean According to Martyn Lloyd-Jones?

What is the significance of the phrase "unto the praise of his glory" in Ephesians 1:14?

According to Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, this phrase is not a mere addition but an essential part of Paul's teaching. He points out that Paul repeats this phrase three times in the introduction to Ephesians, concluding each of the three sections (verses 3-6, 7-12, and 13-14) with this same emphasis. This repetition shows that the glory of God is the ultimate goal of salvation and the culmination of all Christian doctrine. As Lloyd-Jones states, "He brings us up to the point which he regards as being most important."

How should the glory of God affect our understanding of Christian doctrine?

Dr. Lloyd-Jones teaches that "the glory of God must be the starting point of all our thought, and it must always be the test of all our thinking." He warns that Christians often fail at this point by taking God for granted. He illustrates this by explaining how we can misunderstand doctrines like sin and salvation when we don't view them in relation to God's glory. For example, sin is not merely doing wrong things, but failing "to give unto God the glory that is due unto his holy name." Any doctrine that doesn't ultimately lead back to God's glory is defective and will "eventually lead to confusion and to error."

How does Lloyd-Jones define true salvation in relation to God's glory?

According to Lloyd-Jones, a true view of salvation is one that gives all glory to God. He asks, "How much of it you claim is due to yourself? How much of it do you think you are responsible for?" He insists that "to give God the glory, you must give him all the glory. His is the glory alone and there is none in men." This means recognizing that salvation is "solely and entirely and exclusively because of the grace of God" and not a partnership between God and man.

What makes salvation such a glorious concept according to the sermon?

Lloyd-Jones describes salvation as "the biggest and the greatest thing that the world has ever known." Its glory is seen in:

Its conception - "formed, fashioned, thought out, planned in that eternal council between Father, Son and Holy Spirit"
Its execution - involving the entire Trinity in addressing the problem of sin
Its perfection - meeting our "exact condition and our every need"
Its certainty - being absolutely secure because "nothing and no one can ever upset it or frustrate it"

He urges Christians to "get out from the nicer" perspective and "go up onto the hills of God and view the landscape or this mighty plan."

How should Christians live "unto the praise of his glory"?

Dr. Lloyd-Jones teaches that Christians should live in a way that makes people think of God when they encounter us. He says, "You and I are meant to be such people that the only explanation of us is God." This happens when:

We are assured of our salvation and rejoice in Christ
We enjoy the Christian life, holiness, Scripture reading, and prayer
We live independently of circumstances like Paul who could say, "I can do all things through Christ"
Our conduct "adorns the doctrine" and is "becoming of the gospel"

Lloyd-Jones quotes Jesus' words: "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works but glorify your father, which is in heaven," explaining that people should look at Christians and say, "That's extraordinary... What is it? It isn't man... that's God."

God is in our midst; therefore, let us obey Jesus’s command to Listen! And watch!

Cultivating Attentiveness to God’s Presence

I Am Cultivating Attentiveness to God's Presence

“Growing in Intimacy with God.”

“Biblical Foundations for Growing in Intimacy with God”

God is in our midst, and we are often unaware of His presence. I presented a biblical foundation for growing in intimacy with God.

Scripture reveals God’s deep desire to be in fellowship with us and the hunger of the human soul for a relationship with Him.

God always takes the initiative by His grace and seeks to draw us back into a personal friendship and sweet fellowship.

Central to this relationship is understanding the dynamics of knowing God.

Since God has already revealed Himself to us, we need to be alert to recognize that God is indeed present and active in our world today.

And yet our language can distort the process of perceiving Him.

Sometimes people make statements such as “God really showed up in worship today.”

Or, when God appears to be absent, “If we pray harder, maybe the Holy Spirit will show up.”

I think I know what they mean, but I am concerned that this communicates an unhealthy theology.

This language fails to grasp the central truth of God’s omnipresence.

It more resembles Elijah’s experience on Mount Carmel with showdown against the prophets of Baal. After their initial failed efforts, including shouting to Baal, “Elijah began to taunt them. ‘Shout louder!’ he said. ‘Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened’” (1 Kings 18:27). (New International Version: ²⁷ At noon Elijah began to taunt them. “Shout louder!” he said. “Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened.”)

This unbiblical view is too common among many believers today.

God’s presence is not something we create by our efforts. It is always God’s gift to us totally independent of what we do.

For, in reality, God is already present; it is we who need to be awakened to God’s presence.

The biblical truth and resulting comfort that we must remember is that God is always with us.

Biblical Experiences

King David, who often found himself attacked from various sides, acknowledged that God knew everything about him (Psalm 139:1–5). For the person who attempts to run from God, this is convicting. But for David, who sought God’s presence, it produced refreshing peace. He confessed:

Where can I go from your Spirit?

Where can I flee from your presence?

If I go up to the heavens, you are there;

if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn,

if I settle on the far side of the sea,

even there your hand will guide me,

your right hand will hold me fast. (Psalm 139:7–10)

David was renewed by this liberating truth that God would guide and provide for him.

Imagine also how Joshua must have felt as Moses informed him that Joshua would lead the Israelites into the Promised Land, not Moses who had freed them from their Egyptian bondage.

Moses left large sandals to fill, but God’s empowering Word enabled Joshua to step out in confidence with God:

Then Moses summoned Joshua and said to him in the presence of all Israel, “Be strong and courageous, for you must go with this people into the land that the Lord swore to their ancestors to give them, and you must divide it among them as their inheritance. The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.” (Deuteronomy 31:7–8) ( NIV: ⁷ Then Moses summoned Joshua and said to him in the presence of all Israel, “Be strong and courageous, for you must go with this people into the land that the Lord swore to their ancestors to give them, and you must divide it among them as their inheritance. ⁸ The Lord Himself goes before you and will be with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.”)

Joshua had previously learned this message, because God had guided the people of Israel during the day by the pillar of cloud and at night by the pillar of fire (Exodus 13:21).

No doubt he drew much assurance not from his own strength but in God’s abiding presence and promises.

These are experiences of some of God’s most significant leaders in the Old Testament.

But what about normal people?

As Jesus Christ is prepared to ascend to heaven, He delivered His Great Commission to His disciples, and then he declared, “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).

The writer of Hebrews communicates much the same message to the recipients of his letter.

In fact, he reproduces Moses’s declaration to Joshua from Deuteronomy 31:6, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5).

In both verses, Jesus’s abiding presence is addressed to the everyday people.

These are only a few of the passages that communicate the reality of God’s presence amidst His people.

Jesus’s Instruction: Listen, Watch

Jesus Christ builds upon this basic principle when He instructs His followers to cultivate an awareness of God’s presence.

The parable of the sower begins with the participatory invitation: “Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed” (Mark 4:3).

Significantly, this is Jesus’s first parable in Mark, and it begins with the command “Listen!”

Listening is so critical to the life of Jesus’s disciples that He repeats the same message.

When challenged by the Pharisees regarding His disciples who had failed to wash their hands properly, Jesus declared: “Listen to me, everyone, and understand this.

Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them” (Mark 7:14–16).

Both of these examples employ the imperative verb in Greek that carries the force of a command.

When Jesus Christ took Peter, James, and John with Him to pray on the Mount of Transfiguration, God overshadowed them in a cloud and said: “This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him” (Luke 9:35).

Once again, the word listen is a command.

The seven letters to the churches in Revelation communicate the same essential requirement; Jesus’s followers need to be alert to His Spirit and obey Him.

This critical wording concludes the letters to each church: “Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches” (Revelation 2:7, 11, 17, 29; 3:6, 13, 22).

Seven times.

It is critical that we grasp Jesus’s commanding message.

Jesus Christ is not suggesting that if we have free time, or nothing better to do, we might want to listen to Him.

Instead, there is an urgency: we must listen if we are to follow Him in obedience and grow into greater spiritual maturity.

Jesus Christ also stressed that His friends needed to watch and stay awake.

As He and His disciples transitioned from the Upper Room to Gethsemane, He took Peter, James, and John deeper into the garden and instructed them to pray.

Jesus withdrew farther to pray, but as He returned He found His three friends sleeping.

He shook them from their weariness and warned them, “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matthew 26:41, see also 24:42).

Again, this statement is a command to be and stay alert.

What Does Attentiveness Look Like?

Given this biblical reality of God’s presence in our midst, what does attentiveness look like?

Moses provides one illustration, recorded in Exodus 3:1–3:

Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law , the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight — why the bush does not burn up.”

Moses offers a few principles to guide our own noticing of God.

First, he recognized the unusual nature of this bush. It was burning, but it was not consumed.

In other words, he didn’t glance just once or twice and say to himself, “Oh, that bush is burning.” He would have had to observe it over the course of hours to realize it was still aflame but had not consumed any of the branches.

Second, this experience happened at work. Moses wasn’t engaged in worship or in a Bible study or doing something spiritual.

He was out in the fields doing his regular daily labour. This reminds us that, unlike our human tendency to designate certain times as spiritual and others as secular, God considers all of our time holy and spiritual.

Because God is omnipresent, we are as likely to experience God while doing the laundry or mowing the lawn as when we’re reading Scripture — if we are conscious that our Living God always dwells in our midst.

Third, Moses’s experience demonstrates that he didn’t ignore what he saw or assume his eyes were playing tricks on him. Instead, he walked toward the burning bush to see more clearly what had caught his attention.

It is not enough to become aware of God’s presence; we must act upon it, to gain the benefit of being observant to what God wants us to notice.

In Luke 10:38–42, Mary provides another helpful example of noticing Jesus. Martha had invited Jesus and His disciples to dinner. Although Martha’s intentions of hospitality were good, she became distracted and focused on her preparations rather than on Jesus. Mary’s response was different, as she “sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said” (v. 39). Mary’s posture of receptivity displays the proper attitude of a disciple to the disciple’s teacher.

When Martha requested Jesus to scold her idle sister and join her in the preparations, He gently rebuked her. This passage does not teach that Jesus values silence over service or that contemplation is in any way superior to action. But Martha’s anxiety about all of these preparations prevented her from enjoying Jesus’s presence as Mary did. Christ clarified this, saying, “Few things are needed— or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her” (v. 42). Martha was inattentive to Jesus’s true needs and desire for His visit. This cautions us that our frenetic pace can radically reduce our awareness of Jesus even though He is plainly among us. Through a broad range of activities, even helpful Christian activities, we can consciously or unconsciously diminish our awareness of God’s presence.

Insights from Theologians

Many Christians over the centuries have recognized both the importance and challenges of cultivating awareness to God’s presence.

John Calvin, the great sixteenth-century Reformer, articulates how God’s beauty and glory is revealed in creation: “Yet, in the first place, wherever you cast your eyes, there is no spot in the universe wherein you cannot discern at least some sparks of His glory… this skillful ordering of the universe is for us a sort of mirror in which we can contemplate God, who is otherwise invisible.”

Many people notice God amidst His creation. Although this natural revelation is not as precise as the inspired revelation of Scripture, it is significant and can awaken people to God’s presence (see, e.g., Romans 1:19–20). (NIV: ¹⁹ since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. ²⁰ For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities — His eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.)

Recognizing the potential ambiguity of God’s presence in creation Hans Urs von Balthasar, a prominent twentieth-century Roman Catholic theologian, offers this perceptive reminder of perceiving God in His inspired word:

If we would live in His light, we have to be attentive to His Word that is ever personal and new… The Word of God may require of me to-day something it had not demanded yesterday; consequently, in order to perceive this demand, I must, in the depths of my being, be open and attentive to the Word.

This reminds us that being familiar with a passage, even memorizing it, does not mean we have exhausted its meaning.

God through His Holy Spirit might wish to communicate a new truth to us from well-known inspired pages of Scripture.

Even more convicting are the words of C.S. Lewis: “We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade, the presence of God. The world is crowded with Him. He walks everywhere incognito. And the incognito is not always hard to penetrate. The real labour is to attend. In fact, to come awake. Still more, to remain awake.” Lewis captures the reality of the human ability to stifle God.

But why is it so difficult to stay awake when we desire to love and serve God and our neighbour?

Diogenes Allen, a respected author of spiritual theology, offers this perspective: “The task of paying attention is demanding. It can be performed only as one gains some freedom from self-importance and self-concern.”

How to Become More Aware of God’s Presence

Periodic awareness of God is not God’s design.

Instead, our One Living God desires for us to cultivate a practice that is the habitual pattern of our lives.

Closely connected to this is a realistic understanding of what it means to experience God’s presence.

We should not expect or seek only the spectacular encounters with God.

That minimizes the normal way in which Christians have experienced God over the centuries.

Like Elijah, we need to realize that God’s presence is typically not in the mountain-shattering wind or in the convulsions of the earthquake or in the consuming fires, but rather in God’s gentle “quiet whisper” (1 Kings 19:11–12). (The LORD Speaks to Elijah at Horeb:…¹⁰“I have been very zealous for the LORD, the God of Hosts,” he replied, “but the Israelites have forsaken Your covenant, torn down Your altars, and killed Your prophets with the sword. I am the only one left, and they are seeking my life as well.” ¹¹Then the LORD said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the LORD. Behold, the LORD is about to pass by.” And a great and mighty wind tore into the mountains and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. ¹²After the earthquake there was a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a still, small voice.)

This raises the practical question, how can we become more aware of God’s presence in our lives?

This was the burning question that motivated Frank Laubach, (1884–1970) who is often known as the “apostle of literacy.” An American evangelical missionary to the Philippines, his early ministry was marked by numerous failures and heartache, including the malarial deaths of three of his children. Exhausted and discouraged, he powerfully experienced God and was challenged to accept and love the Muslim people with whom he lived. Laubach realized that his own soul was as barren as that of the Moros people. His reading of Christian mystical writers inspired him intentionally to seek God’s presence and guidance. He was indebted especially to Brother Lawrence’s (1614–1691) classic The Practice of the Presence of God, which taught that God was just as present when people are doing menial tasks as when gathered with community in prayer.

This challenged Laubach to the lofty goal of seeking to cultivate a minute-by-minute sensitivity to God’s nearness. He knew that his new awareness of God was dependent more on God’s kindness than his ability, writing, “I have done nothing but open the windows — God has done all the rest.” This began a pilgrimage — surrendering his heart and mind continuously to the Lord’s will. He would intentionally challenge himself consciously to focus on God throughout the day regardless of what he was doing.

Practical Spiritual Practice

To make this more concrete and practical, I suggest a spiritual exercise that can encourage your ability to notice God.

Laubach and Brother Lawrence reminded themselves and others that God is always present.

I encourage you to seek to experience that presence of God.

Although this is similar to Laubach’s desire, cultivating an attentiveness to God closes the gap between recognizing that God is present and experiencing God in that moment.

This exercise is based on two questions:

(1) Where have I met Jesus (or God or the Holy Spirit) today?

(2) Where have I missed Jesus (or God or the Holy Spirit) today?

Ask these questions throughout each day and week, and you’ll be surprised how much more you recognize God’s presence with you.

A variation to this exercise will increase your ability to perceive God.

I find it valuable to ask: What helps me pay attention to God?

What hinders me from paying attention to God?

After you finish reading , I encourage you to set aside a few minutes and return to these questions.

Begin by asking, what helps me pay attention to God?

Then consider, what hinders me from paying attention to God?

After making two lists, carefully and prayerfully review them.

Next, ask yourself: If I know what helps me to pay attention to God, how often do I actually seek to engage those activities or practices?

And, if I recognize what hinders my awareness of God, what can I do to reduce or remove those hindrances?

Be realistic and select and focus on just one help and one hindrance, so as not to become frustrated.

For example, by way of illustration: some activities that help me notice God are reading and meditating on Scripture, spending time in creation, singing hymns and songs, and reading the spiritual memoirs and letters of earlier Christians.

If I know that these practices deepen my awareness of God, how often do I seek to engage one of them?

To illustrate further: one of my Sunday spiritual practices is to sing hymns and songs with Grace, my wife.

Although our singing includes all aspects of the Christian faith, hymns and songs of adoration most refresh my soul and assist me in noticing God.

Likewise, fear and anxiety, impatience, and difficulty waiting for God’s answers can be hindrances for me in noticing God’s presence.

In relation to these barriers, I try to counter my anxiety by reading and reflecting on these words of the psalmist:

Cast your cares on the Lord

and He will sustain you;

he will never let

the righteous be shaken. (Psalm 55:22)

Again, these personal examples are meant to be descriptive and not prescriptive for others.

God is in our midst; therefore, let us obey Jesus’s command to Listen! And watch!

So that we might follow Him more fully and faithfully.

Notes:

1 Scripture quotations are from the New International Version.

2 See, e.g., Josh. 1:9; Ps. 73:23; Isa. 41:10; 43:1–2; Jer. 23:24; Luke 17:21.

3 John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960), 1.5.1; see also 1.5.2.

4 Hans Urs von Balthasar, Prayer, trans. A.V. Littledale (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1961), 18.

5 C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1963, 1964), 75. Italics in the original.

6 Diogenes Allen, Spiritual Theology (Boston: Cowley, 1997), 102.

7 Brother Lawrence and Frank Laubach, Practicing His Presence, ed. Gene Edwards (Jacksonville, FL: SeedSowers, 1973), 1.