The Highest Good in the World: The Glory of God

May the LORD be a true and faithful witness against us if we do not act according to all the word with which the LORD your God sends to us. Whether it is good or bad, we will obey the voice of the LORD our God to whom we are sending you, that it may be well with us when we obey the voice of the LORD our God.
Jeremiah 42:5,6

Verse 6 is a peculiar statement: Whether it is good or bad, we will obey the voice of the LORD our God to whom we are sending you, that it may be well with us when we obey the voice of the LORD our God. This is the people of Judah speaking to the prophet Jeremiah telling him to go and pray to the LORD on their behalf.

Now there are particular things that a person who says this has to believe in order for it to be more than contradictory babble. One thing that I must believe if I were to say this is that not only is good good but bad is good. Or more precisely, I must believe that what seems to me to be bad is actually good. This means that there is another perspective I don't see, one from which the same thing that I perceive to be bad is actually good -- namely, the perspective of the LORD who is making His voice known to me.

The second thing that I must believe if I were to say this (and this is directly connected to the first) is that my conception of good and bad is faulty at best. I don't have the ability to determine what is good or bad. I must be told. I am not wise and I must seek wisdom. I have no understanding and must seek understanding. I must believe this to be true otherwise I will simply subject whatever I hear to my own wisdom and understanding and then approve or reject it based on the results of my evaluation.

This is exactly what the people of Judah did in Jeremiah 42 and 43. They subjected the words of the LORD that they heard to their own wisdom and understanding and consequently rejected them because they did not approve. What the LORD deemed as good, the people of Judah determined to be bad and trusted themselves more than they trusted God.

God had decreed that the Babylonians would come and rule over the people of Judah. So when this came to be the king of Babylon set an Israelite, who would report to him, to be governor of the land. When a rebellious Israelite kills this man whom the Babylonian king had chosen to be governor, the rest of the people remaining in Judah fear that the king of Babylon will punish them for taking down his man. And in that fear, they determine that the good thing to do, the best thing to do, is to flee Judah and go to Egypt before the king finds out and inflicts his wrath on them (Jeremiah 41:17,18).

But it just so happens that they then decide to ask Jeremiah to pray to God for them in order that He "may show the way we should go, and the thing that we should do (Jeremiah 42:3)." In other words, they want God to show them the good thing to do, the best thing to do in this situation. The only problem is that they weren't coming empty-handed. They were coming already holding their own understanding of what was good. So when the voice of the LORD says through Jeremiah that they should remain in the land of Judah, they reason that this must be a lie. They do this because what the LORD has said to them is contrary to their understanding that staying will cause them to be killed or taken into exile (Jeremiah 43:3), which to them is bad. So the result is that they go to Egypt (Jeremiah 43:7).

What God had in mind as good was that He be with them, that He save them, that He deliver them from the hand of the Babylonian king, and that He be the One to have mercy on them (Jeremiah 42:11,12). In other words, what God had in mind as the highest good was His glory shining forth in showing His infinite wisdom, infinite trustworthiness, infinite strength, infinite mercy, and infinite goodness on behalf of His people. But what the people of Judah had in mind as the highest good was their survival and freedom apart from God's glory. And so they bypassed God's glory, choosing indifference to it in order to attain what they desired most. For them, survival was the goal (read this previous post) instead of the glory of God being the goal.

Are we not the same as them? We push aside the glory of God and take that job or date that person or buy that unneeded item or you name it because we reason in our minds and with our own understanding that it is good, that it will give us the joy we seek.

Let us not be mistaken. The Bible is clear about what God deems as the highest good in the world: His glory. But what the Bible also makes so abundantly clear if we wouldn't be so quick to dismiss it is that this is not at odds with our joy. In reality, the two pursuits (of God's glory and our joy) coincide. When we seek God's glory, we are seeking our highest joy. When we seek to magnify God's infinite wisdom, infinite trustworthiness, infinite strength, infinite mercy, and infinite goodness instead of to look after ourselves, we are the biggest winners because God pours these things out on our behalf! He works for us! He shows Himself to be great. We get the benefits of that greatness. He gets the glory! We get the joy! This is why God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him. Oh that sinners such as us would quickly acknowledge our bankruptcy and our lack of any wisdom or understanding whatsoever so that we might know and experience this to be the greatest news in the world.

Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and he will make straight your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD, and turn away from evil.
Proverbs 3:5-7

Father, this is the hardest thing in the world: to trust in You with all my heart so that I might do nothing other than to magnify Your glory. It is impossible because I am naturally inclined to lean on my own understanding: my own feelings, my own fears, and my own desires. These things dictate to me what my highest good is. But Your Word says something else about what my highest good is: that I seek Your glory. To do this is to be wise. To do this is to turn away from evil because doing anything other than bringing the most glory to Your name is evil. Father, I don't want to be wise in my own eyes, which is what I will be if I lean on my own understanding rather than Your voice as revealed through Your Word. I want to be wise by fearing You and the infinite horror of bringing disrepute on Your infinitely precious name. And so I pray for sovereign grace that makes the impossible possible. Please give me this grace today. Please give me this grace tomorrow. Please never leave me without Your sovereign grace for even a moment of my existence. I ask this for Your sake, that You would be shown to be the great grace-Giver in doing for me what I cannot do for myself. To You be all the glory forever and ever. In Jesus' name, Amen.