1. Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The message from God’s Word on this 4th Sunday in Advent is taken from Romans 16:25-27, it’s entitled, “To God Alone Be Glory,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2. Soli Deo Gloria. That’s Latin for “To God alone be glory.” That was a powerful message during the Reformation. The reformers wanted to make sure that God received all the glory for the work of his Gospel. We see a similar emphasis in Paul’s concluding doxology in his Letter to the Romans. A fitting response to the revelation of the mystery of God’s plan of salvation. And a fitting word for the final Sunday of Advent as we look ahead to the mystery of centuries being revealed in the event of Christ’s birth we’ll celebrate so soon, in fact this evening and tomorrow morning! To God Alone Be Glory—both for His mystery and for revealing It.
3. To God alone be glory—because his kind of glory is so great it would always be a mystery to us (Romans 16:25, 27). There’s a reason God’s glory was a mystery for long ages. Human beings trying to understand God’s glory would always envision something very different from what it really is. We think of glory as might, power, honor that serves the glorious one. Glory is all about the one who has it and always makes others look weak, humble, inferior. It’s an athlete’s glory to win—which means he beats someone else. It’s an entrepreneur’s glory to make the cover of Fortune magazine—which calls further attention to himself. An actor glories when he goes onstage at the Oscars and thanks all the “little people.” Thank you very much.
4. Left to our own to understand God’s glory, we wouldn’t understand it any other way. And then we’d give him glory grudgingly, gritting our teeth to honor him because it would humiliate us. But if that were the way we understood God’s glory, it would still be a mystery to us. We would not yet understand God’s glory at all, because God’s glory is of an entirely different kind.
5. God’s glory is an attitude toward us that we could never fathom on our own. Figure this out: Our natural attitude toward God is rebellion, resentment, revulsion. And yet God delights to favor us. He glories to honor his rebellious creatures!
6. God’s glory is gracious action for us. Who could guess?: We break God’s Commandments, go our own sinful ways. And he takes the punishment for us—death and the pains of hell. Really?!
7. God’s glory is to declare us righteous. Does that make sense? We shame him by ignoring him, cheating on him, having other gods before him, acting as though he doesn’t matter. And he declares us innocent because Jesus was declared guilty in our place. Go figure!
8. God considers it his glory to give us a gift. We are credited with a righteousness from outside ourselves—namely, Christ’s righteousness. And we receive this gift simply by believing it’s already been given to us—“the obedience of faith” (Romans 16:26). Who would ever know all this was God’s idea of glory? Psalm 113:4-7 says, "The Lord is high above all nations, and his glory above the heavens! Who is like the Lord our God, who is seated on high, who looks far down on the heavens and the earth? He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap." No one would know, except that God has revealed it.
9. To God alone be glory—because he did not keep it a secret from us (Romans 16:25–27). God’s kind of glory became clear when he sent his Son. The mystery of God’s glory was revealed in the “preaching of Jesus”—both the preaching by Jesus and the preaching about Jesus (Romans 16:25). This is what we’re about to celebrate, what this Advent season has been looking forward to all along! Now in these last days, the author of Hebrews says, God “has spoken to us by his Son” (Heb 1:2).
10. Jesus is the full and final revelation of the mystery because he is the mystery made flesh. Some translations of Romans 16:26 say the mystery is now made “manifest.” This is precisely what Jesus himself is, “God in man made manifest” (LSB 394). Jesus is the incarnate Word.
11. To us 2000 years later, God has also revealed the mystery of his glory in Christ through the written Word. The “prophetic writings’’ (Romans 16:26), the Old Testament, actually always spoke of Christ, even long before he came. “God spoke to our fathers by the prophets” (Heb 1:1). The prophetic writings, though preparatory, are not disconnected from Jesus’ teachings and those of the apostles. In fact, they were the texts the apostles and even Jesus himself used for their preaching.
12. Now those prophetic writings, along with the word of their fulfillment in the New Testament Scriptures, make the mystery of God’s glory known to all nations. The apostles carried and wrote the message of the Scriptures to distant lands. And the same message has come down to us. We ourselves have heard and read the solution to the mystery of God’s glory: his glory is to save us through Christ Jesus! It’s no secret anymore!
13. To God alone be glory—in the praise we bring. We say, “Thank you!” Here is where Paul concludes his entire magnificent Letter to the Romans: with thanksgiving “to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages” (Romans 16:25). The whole letter has unveiled God’s plan of the Gospel. Paul has taken us from a clear declaration of what we were—helpless, hopeless sinners, enemies of God—to what God has declared us to be—forgiven, justified saints, who live with him and live for him. A plan so gracious, so loving, it would always have been a mystery to us. But now that Paul has revealed the mystery, what can he and the Romans do but say thanks?
14. Now that we know it, now that we have been brought to that faith, now that God’s gracious glory is no longer a mystery to us, how can we not pour out thanks? The all-glorious God has made it his glory to save us sinners. We have eternal life, infinite glory ourselves. Thank God!
15. Say “Soli Deo Gloria.” Yes, say it with me: “Soli Deo Gloria.” To God alone be glory. And then let us say it in everything we say and do. God considers it his glory to save us. When that’s the way he sees things, there’s no reason to claim any glory for ourselves! “To the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ!” Because of Jesus, his glorious death, his glorious resurrection, this is what we’ll say forevermore. Glory to God!
16. For long ages, it was a secret. God’s people waited. Now our much shorter wait is nearly over. God has revealed the mystery of the Gospel in the incarnation of his Son, and very soon, we celebrate. The mystery has been revealed so that we might be saved and so that we might give him glory. “Praise God, from whom all blessings flow; Praise him, all creatures here below; Praise him above, ye heav’nly host: Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen” (LSB 805). Now the peace of God that passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life everlasting. Amen.
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