Soli Deo Gloria

WELCOME

Pastor Chris Paavola:

Thank you band. Thank you guys so much for leading us today. Good morning everybody. Good morning. So good to see you guys. I am facing that way during worship and I don’t realize how many of you guys come in after 11 o’clock and I turn around, I’m like, oh, look at all these people here. This is great, but we’re glad you’re here. It doesn’t matter when you get here. My name’s Chris Pablo. I’m the senior pastor here at St. Mark and actually today we are wrapping up. We’re finishing this series that we’re in called Certain, where we’ve been going through these historical ideas of this period in history known as the Reformation and just kind of going through them because the reason it changed the world and the reason it reformed the church is because it reformed the hearts of millions of people. And that’s what we want for you today, that your heart would be shaped and molded by these ideas.

INFLUENCE OF THE REFORMATION

And the ideas of the reformation are captured in these words that are in Latin sola and the words in the language that they used as they were formulating these ideas and trying to have a faithful exposition of scripture. And these solas, sola is the word for alone or only. And so we’ve talked about how we are saved by so gratia sola, so Christus Sola scriptura. We are saved by God’s grace, the father’s grace alone, and through our faith alone, we don’t do anything to add it to it. We don’t work or impress God. He just gives it to us because we have faith. Not in faith, not in faith in that heaven is real or even that God is real, but faith in the redemptive work of Jesus in our place. So Christ alone, according to scripture alone, we don’t find ideas of how to be saved outside of scripture.

And that’s what we’ve talked about this week or in the series today. We’re going to add the fifth and final phrase to that. But before we do that, I do want to kind of explain, I’ve just kind of flippantly thrown out there over and over that these ideas and that the reformation shaped and changed human history, and I don’t say that lightheartedly and then just kind of move on. You can make a bold claim, but I’d kind of like to back it up for just a minute and explain exactly how the reformation outside the church, like just in society, truly changed the world. If you guys remember when the Reformation happens, Martin Luther, one of the key parts of this is that he translated the Bible from Latin, Greek and Hebrew into German, and then with the Gutenberg printing press that circulated all throughout Europe, you guys, we’ve talked about this for a few weeks if you were here, but then that gave set precedent for other countries to do the same.

So soon after we see English Bibles and French Bibles and Spanish Bibles because of this groundwork that Luther had done by making the German Bible. But what interestingly, like an ancillary side effect of this is that now that the Bible was available to people and the common person, what happened in Europe is that the literacy rate exploded because not only could they just, literacy was reserved for the educated elites. Suddenly all people had access to the Bible and other printed works and literacy rate just skyrocketed. And when they got the Bible in their hands, they started reading about these ideas. For instance, that all of us are made in the image of God, that we all have equal value. So then they started this in turn started to play out in other parts of society like the education system. Well, why would education be reserved for only the lead?

If everyone’s made in the image of God, then everyone should have access to, I dunno, public education. It’s this beautiful thing. And then also that idea of everyone’s made in the image of God. You can’t tell the story of women’s suffrage and women’s rights or the end of child labor or even the abolition of slavery without tracing it back to people who read in the word of God that were all made in the image of God and the reformation and then the Reformation ideas. If you remember, Martin Luther was called to be on trial before Emperor Charles and the Catholic Church, and he was granted safe passage by Prince Frederick. Remember this history lesson from last week? Well, that wasn’t necessarily a given. Not everyone had access to being buddy-buddy with royalty, and there were quite literally witch hunts and trials that were kind of rigged trials.

But because of the reformation and everyone’s made in the image of God and justice is this thing that scripture speaks about overwhelmingly well, now we have this thing called due process and the presumption of innocence and blind justice ideas that we just take for granted but can be traced back to the work of the reformation. Then also the idea of, if you remember, there was this abusive power in the Catholic church and there was this incredible hierarchy of popes and then cardinals and bishops and priests, and these people elevated themselves above the word of God. They could give edicts and proclamations to people that were not in scripture. It was this abuse of power. Remember this because of the reformation and the way the reformation decentralized leadership and became very egalitarian. And sure there was still authority in the church and submitting to that authority, but also that authority was held accountable to something over it, the word of God. And there was this understanding of checks and balances, and this gave rise to democracy.

Every state in the United States of America, every state has a constitution. And in every single one of them, they all mention accountability to God. Every one of them mention God in the founding documents of each states, our founding fathers and the Declaration of Independence, nearly every one of them except for a couple, nearly every one of them were Protestants who understood the abuse of power. That’s why they fled. They came to America for the freedom to worship as God wanted them to. And they all designed in the democratic process. Checks and balances is why we have a judicial, legislative and executive branch today. You can’t tell the story of the American revolution and democracy without mentioning the source of the reformation. It’s fascinating. Reformation also changed art. It used to be like art was commissions and you would paint on the Sistine Chapel, these great biblical scenes like comic strips up on the ceiling, right?

And because people couldn’t read, but they could look at the pictures and almost all art was this religious art, but suddenly because of the reformation, they opened it. And they realize when you’re reading the Bible, oh, all of creation bears witness to the wisdom and strength of God. And so suddenly because of the reformation, you start to see the emergence of landscape paintings, Monet, not just painting the heads of kings and not just painting biblical works, but painting garden scenes and mountain scenes bowls of fruit because of the reformation and the reformation for changed music as we know it.

BACH’S STORY

But I can’t explain it quickly. I got to kind of, if you’ll allow me go into a little bit more of the story of a man who is profoundly impacted by the reformation, a man named Johann Sebastian Bach. He is wearing his powdered wig and everything like that. They all did that back in the day in the 16th century, right after the death of Luther. There’s a guy named Vitas who fled hungry because of religious persecution and came to Germany because he was a Lutheran, a follower of Luther’s teachings and this idea that we are saved by grace alone, faith and alone in Christ alone, according alone. And when Vitas got to Germany, he settled in central Germany, quite literally in the shadow of the castle of Wartburg, Germany, where Luther translated the Bible into German. And so he raised his family right there in central Germany, just outside of the castle in Wartburg, Germany.

Well, his great, great grandson was this young man named Johan, and Vitas was a baker actually. And one day he was grinding wheat at the mill to make bread. And Johann was following him with a little ukulele, mandolin kind of loot thing. And he noticed this little kid, tiny kid playing scales and nobody taught him how to play the skills. And they realized maybe he’s got an knack for music. Actually, the entire Bach family was like a group of musicians. They traveled from church to church to church performing music and leading worship. They were kind of like our idea of the Jackson five or the Osmonds. You guys look like an Osmonds crowd. Okay, so the Osmonds, right? So they’re traveling around and performing at all these places at all these churches. And young Johann was a part of this traveling family, but as Johann got older, everyone in the family was a good musician, but Johan was exceptional.

He was extraordinary at music, and he just had this ability and he started, so they started enrolling him in more music classes. And actually his uncle played organ at a lot of churches. And Johan would sit on the bench next to him and just watch his uncle play. And then very quickly, Johan started playing and pushing the limits of what an organ could do. And it was just obvious right from the onset that Johan was prodigious. This was a child pro, but it wasn’t just his musical upbringing that matters to this story. It’s also his religious upbringing. His family was a very, very devout family. They loved Jesus with their whole heart and they were devout Lutherans. And so Lutherans have this thing called the small catechism. If you want one, we’ve got copies all over, we’d be happy to give you one. It’s Luther Small Catechism.

It’s this basic teaching. And we actually use the catechism for our confirmation class that we do for kids 14 years and older because kind of at an age where they can understand it. And we have this whole confirmation process where they’re confirming their faith and we confirm them in the church. And it’s a wonderful thing. I’ve been confirmed a lot of you in this room and confirmed something that the church has been doing for centuries. But in the beginning of Luther’s small catechism, it says, as the head of the house should teach it to his children. And then it’s just like these basic truths to make sure you teach to your kids, to raise them in the faith as the head of the house should teach it to his children. And Johann’s family took this very seriously every day when they woke up, and I mean every day they would read a section of the small catechism together and it’s small, but they would read a section together and recite it and talk about it every Sunday.

They worshiped obviously because they played music, but when they worshiped, they would obviously play music. But they were also, these were Lutheran churches and they would sing Lutheran hymns written by Luther and corrals, written by Luther. And this had a profound impact on Bach. Bach deeply loved Jesus, surrendered his whole life to him and understood just how it was deeply important to him, informed everything he did. Actually later on in life when Luther was, I’m sorry, when Bach was very wealthy, he purchased his library, was comprised mainly of writings from Martin Luther. He spent his own money on these expensive books. And because he wanted to understand this better, Bach believed he was gifted by God. For God deeply, deeply believe this, that he was gifted by God for God. And so when Bach became old enough to hold a job and everything, he was given an opportunity to perform for emperors and kings. He was given an opportunity to perform operas, but he never wrote one single opera because he wanted to serve in the church.

And so Bach started playing at a church there in Wartburg, very close to Wartburg, Germany. And while he was there, he very quickly got bored with just performing the hymns and corrals that churches all over were doing. He wanted, he wanted to do more. He believed he was gifted by God for God and he wanted to compose. And so, he started writing, you know just cantatas, like 30 minutes of music, and they would have a worship service. They would have a sermon, and then they would sit and listen to a cantata for 30 minutes. Imagine if we all got done with my message. And then we sat and listened to music for 30 minutes and choir sing for 30 minutes. That’s what was going on at the time. And to just give you an idea of how industrious Bach was, he wasn’t doing this for the praise of men.

He was doing this as an act of worship. So it made him just perform and produce music with intense fervor. And so he wrote hundreds of them, only about 300 of them survive. But he wrote a cantata every week. Every week. So on Monday, he would read the text, that would be the scripture that was going to be preached on that Sunday, and he would read the scripture and he would pray about it and meditate on it every Monday. Then on Tuesday, he would write the lyrics and the entire score from a blank page, write the entire lyrics and score of the cantata. And then on Wednesday, he would transpose and transcribe it into the different instruments and the different singers. Then on Thursday, all the musicians would come together and he was hard to work for because he was very demanding, and they would practice the music. Then on Friday, they would rehearse the music. Then on Saturday, they would join all the other Lutherans of the local tavern and drink to the music.

And then on Sunday, they would wake up with headaches and perform the cantata. And then the next week they would do it all over again. And these cantatas were amazing, full of just unparalleled musical mastery. And actually at the church, they started feeling like Bach was being too showy. It was too difficult, too showy. Tone it down, keep it simple. Put the singers in the back. We don’t want the singers in front. And fortunately, Bach didn’t listen to the critics. He moved to another church in Leipzig and kept on producing there. And what happened in Leipzig is he produced the greatest pieces of music the world has ever heard. And I don’t mean one of the greatest or some of the greatest, I mean the greatest. And that’s not even according to me.

BACH’S INFLUENCE

You can Google it. Google greatest composers of all time. A, it goes Bach, a chasm. And then everyone else, NPR, New York Times, classical FM, classical music making doesn’t matter. Conductors, composers and musicians all around the world recognized his superiority. Bach was a master. Mozart adored Bach. Beethoven paid homage to Bach by writing pieces, reflecting and echoing some of Bach’s music. Chopin adored Bach. Brahms adored Bach. Felix Mendelssohn, amazing composer himself said this about him.

“Bach made the greatest music in the world. If life had taken hope and faith from me, a single chorus from Bach would restore it all.” And what Mendelssohn is getting to that I think a lot of people miss, if you watch documentaries or you read stuff on Bach that I think the only people in the world who fully appreciates and understand Bach are followers of Jesus. Because what Bach did was worship. It was worship. And you look at everything that he did, and it is astounding. The melodies, the harmonies, the counter melodies, the way the structure works together. He would write music and spell words with the notes. He would draw pictures with the notes just to have fun. He would do math basically in the middle of music. And the harmonies that he created were like 300 years ahead of time. He did things with music that we don’t hear again until the 1930s jazz movement. It’s astounding. And to give you, and this is like giving you a drive by of the Himalayas, but to just give you an idea, here’s some of box stuff. This is Psalm one 30. This is a cantata Psalm one 30, and the singers are singing about how they rest in and hope in the word of the Lord. Take a listen, remove one note and it falls apart. Each part is individually beautiful, but together it’s mastery. And maybe you don’t know that cantata, but you’ve probably heard this. If you’ve ever been to a wedding,

Most people know Jesus, Joy of Man’s Desiring. Actually that chord progression is copied by Paul McCartney, green Day Coldplay. They all use this chord progression. He wrote for individual instruments like violins and cellos. And it’s like the standard. Can you, if you’re a violinist, can you play Bach this Christmas between listening to Bing Crosby and Mariah Carey, I encourage you to put on the Christmas Oratorial and listen to the angels announce the birth of Jesus. When I was in seminary, I had to sit in a two and a half hour production of St. Matthew’s Passion, two and a half hours of music as they sang about the crucifixion of Jesus.

His Well Tempered Clavier is actually the bestselling piano book of all time to get into Julliard. It’s basically, this is on the entrance exam. Can you play the Well-Tempered? And what’s amazing is Bach is the standard for piano, for violin, for cello, for orchestral pieces. But his primary instrument was the organ, which is why most Lutheran churches today still have an organ because of box influence. And he wrote fugues that the complication, the idea that a man was able to create this stuff is astounding. We play the organ at our early service, our traditional service at eight o’clock. And I asked the organist today, Brooks Grant here to stick around and play for all the other services. So Brooks, the floor is yours, would you please play one of box fugues for us?

I don’t think it’s too showy. Brother, thank you for sticking around today. You blessed us, you blessed Jeff at every one of our services. What’s crazy about playing organ is you got your left hand and your right hand doing two different things, and then your feet are also playing pedals. It’s unbelievable. Unbelievable. Bach was a master.

SOLI DEO GLORIA

And what makes Bach so special, and the reason it’s just so unparalleled is because he was worshiping God with his gifts every time. And I mean every time he sat down to write a piece at the top of the blank page, he would write, Jesus help me.

And at the end of every single piece, he would write three letters. We got a little bit, we can zoom in on it, SDG, and then sign his name, SDG. Sometimes he would write it out solely Deo Gloria, for the glory of God alone. He’s the world’s greatest musician. And it wasn’t about him. It was for the glory of God alone. Later on, he would actually give a description of why he did this. And he said, the final aim and reason of all music is nothing other than the glorification of God. That’s it. It’s for the glory of God. Now, he wrote songs that were sung and played in taverns. He played in coffeehouses, but that wasn’t the summation of music. The summation of music and all art is to glorify God, to bring him glory.

That’s why he was so prodigious is because God is that great. And I think when we hear that, we go, okay, glory. That’s nice. But Bach understood the power of the Solas and this idea of the reformation that we are saved. And he is saved by the grace of God alone through faith alone and Christ alone according to scripture alone for the glory of God alone. And that’s her fifth and final solo solo de Gloria. All of this is for the glory of God alone. And it’s not just like you are saved and then you wait your time and you hope that you can just hold on and make it and abide your time for the sweet bye and bye so you can go to heaven someday. Know your life. All of creation is redeemed by God for the glory of God. And now Bach realized his entire life was to bring people and to point people to God with his music.

And when we think about glory, I think we missed the weight of this phrase because we don’t quite understand what this glory thing is. Because when we think about glory, we use phrases like faded glory, old glory down in a blaze of glory. Back in my glory days, we use glory as this good thing, this great thing the best. And there’s a portion of that that’s true. And I think also if we think of glory, we think of brilliance and glowing and lights and blinding lights and something glorious like the angels appear and it’s glorious. We hide, right? And actually that is a definition of glory that we see in scripture. So in Revelation, when John is seeing the city of God, he writes that “the city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it for the glory of God gives its light.”

23 The City does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light.

            Revelation 21

And so yes, there’s this idea of glory is great things and there’s this idea of glory that it’s brilliant and blinding and shimmering and shining, but it’s more than that. The Hebrew word glory is this word cavo. It shares a root word and it’s etymology. It shares a root word with heavy as in weightiness, and it’s like the sense of weight that’s pulling everything down. Kind of like our idea of a black hole, like everything, it’s like a magnet. And it’s this idea of everything being pulled down and towards the glory of God. That’s what glory does. Things point to it. Actually. You can see Paul, the Apostle Paul play on this definition of glory in his letter to the Corinthians because look what he says. “Our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory.” And then he plays on the word heavy in contrast with light, a glory that far outweighs them all.

17 For the light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.

2 Corinthians 4

GLORIFY

I think that’s so interesting. And so there’s a sense that everything is pointing to the glory of God. So for instance, the leaves changing color, standing in front of the ocean, standing in front of the Grand Canyon, all of those things testify and declare God is wise, God is powerful, and he receives glory from those things doing what they were designed to do. But that means also that you, and this is what’s so fascinating about glory. Glory is just not the static concept we can add to the glory of God. It’s amazing. God’s glory is perfect and it’s holy, and yet we can ascribe to the Lord the glory to his name, whereas the psalmist would also say the heavens, next one, please. “I give thanks to you, oh Lord, my God with my whole heart, and I will glorify your name forever.” That’s glorification glorifying something is adding to what is already glorious and we can add to the glory of God.

12 I give thanks Scripture to you O Lord my God, with my whole heart, and I will glorify your name forever.

Psalm 86

That’s called glorifying him. It’s like a magnifying glass, blocks out other things and points our attention to that thing. A highlighter draws our attention spotlight this morning you glorified God with your voices. You added to his already existing glory by giving him even more glory. And this idea of glorifying God is what drove Bach and what drove the other reformers that our entire life can be for the glory of God that everything we can do can glorify him.

DISPLAYING GLORY

As the Apostle Paul would later say in another letter to the Corinthians, “whatever you do, whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God, to him and for him and from him and in him are all things for his glory.” The reformers would later write, the chief end of man is to enjoy God and glorify him forever. So whatever you do, glorify God with it, whatever you do. And so it’s not, listen, listen. It’s not a question of what can I do to glorify God.

……whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God

            1 Corinthians 10:31

It’s a question of what do you do? Everything, everything. This means if you’re a composer, compose great music for the glory of God. Absolutely. But if you’re an electrician, do it to the glory of the Lord. If you are a teacher, do it to the glory of the Lord. If you’re an accountant, if you’re a coder, if you’re a mechanic, do it to the glory of the Lord. Do it as an act of worship. Whatever you do, as scripture would later say, work it out with you all your heart for the Lord, not for others, and not for yourself, for the Lord, do it for him as an act of worship. He has called you to do this thing. So do it for the glory of the Lord and keep doing it with such fervor, such excellence because it’s your act of worship that one of two things happens. Either people see you doing what you do and they praise God and thank God for it, or they praise you for it. And when they praise you for it, your job is to be like Bach. Redirect it. No, no, no, not for me. Solo day glory. For God’s glory. God be praised.

Actually, that’s my challenge. And I dare to you this week as you work, you teach, as you take a test, as you play volleyball, whatever, it’s do it all for the glory, Lord, with such excellence that people praise you. And when they praise you, I dare you. I challenge you to say, thanks. I’m just trying to honor God with my gifts. I dare you to say God be praised. That kind of the common example that we think of is football players score gaming. And he touchdown CJ Stroud right now, right? They asked CJ Stroud, tell us about that game winning drive. And he stops the conversation. He goes, first of all, I just want to thank my Lord and savior Jesus Christ for giving me this gift. Without him, none of this would be possible. And then he moves on to the interview. When I was a kid, I used to write GG on my hockey stick, so I didn’t get a big head, give God the glory.

And so same for you. Whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. Whatever you do, do it in such a way like Jesus said, they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven, and they praise God for you or they praise you. Redirect it and say, thanks. I’m just trying to honor God with my life. God be praised to God be the glory. I dare you. But when you do, you glorify God. Now I know. I know what some of you are thinking. Some of you are thinking, I can’t throw a touchdown.

Some of you were thinking, I can’t write a cantata. What I do isn’t that important? How can I glorify God changing diapers? How can I glorify God vacuuming and doing the dishes? How can I glorify God mowing the lawn? Am I supposed to sing praise songs while I do it? What I do isn’t that important? What I do is mundane. What I do is simple. Doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things to you, if that’s what you’re thinking, that you’re not that important or what you do doesn’t matter. I would remind you that your Savior glorify God by washing the feet of his disciples, the towel and your savior glorified God by going to a Roman cross and dying a criminal’s death.

And if the one you follow did it, so can you. In fact, right before he went to the cross, we just heard in our reading, his prayer was, father, the hour has come glorify your name. Nothing is beneath God’s redemption. Everything can be done to the glory of God, everything. And so this week, whatever you do, do it all to the glory of the Lord. You are gifted by God. For God. You are called to whatever position that you’re called to for his glory. And when you do that, you are living out these principles of the reformation. You are living out what it means to be saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ, alone according to scripture alone for the glory of God alone. And your entire life is redeemed and points to God. Wow. Amen and amen.

PRAYER

Now, every sermon we end with a prayer. What I would like to do is go back to that prayer, that Psalm we read together and to pray it a few times together. So I invite you to say these words with me from Psalm one 15,” not to us Lord, not to us, but to your name, be the glory and heavenly Father, we confess to you that we have made it about us. We have robbed you of glory. Do your name either because we made it about us, or we received the praise of others, or we did it for ourselves, or we did it for others. And we should have done it for you and honored you with it.”

And so, God, we confess to you now that we want to take our gifts and praise you, and whatever we do that you may be honored. And so we join our voices together and say, not to us, Lord, not to us, but to your name, be the glory. And God, I pray for every person who can hear the sound of my voice right now, that you would show them what it is you’ve called them to do. You would show them that no task is too menial. Doing the dishes or making a jump shot or balancing a checkbook can all be done to the praise, honor, and glory of your name. So God, would you show them how they can reform to redeem whatever it is they do that you may receive even more? Glory do your name. So speak to each one of us by your Holy Spirit. Now come, Lord speak, and we join our voices again and say, not to us, Lord, not to us, but to your name, be the glory.