Glad in God's Pursuit of His Own Glory
How David Reveals God's Purpose in What He Does on Our Behalf
One of the most humbling, yet also joy-inspiring, truths we can know about God is why God does what God does.
Why did he create the world? Why does God love us? Why does he long for us to be with him? Why does he forgive those who neglect him and betray him? Why does he hear their cries and guide their steps? The world will come to its own conclusions. So will many dry, joyless Christians who do not delight in the truth of God’s Word. But the satisfied who “is like a tree planted by streams of water” whose “leaf does not wither” (Psalm 1:3); he will find joy in who God reveals himself to be.
The answer to these questions ultimately determines something about God. Is there something special about us that God can’t live without? Or, is there a purpose God aims to accomplish outside of us? If the former, God is reliant on us. But if the latter, then therein lies something powerful and lovely to be understood about who God is. One text of scripture that answers this is Psalm 25. Through David’s lens, our eyes are opened to a glorious vision of God’s purpose for turning to us and heeding our cries.
First, Our Need
David begins his appeal in verse one: “To You, O Lord, I lift up my soul.” Throughout the chapter, he makes several pleas to God. He calls on God to forgive his sins and deal kindly with him, saying, “Do not let me be ashamed”, “Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions; According to Your lovingkindness, remember me,” and “Turn to me and be gracious to me, For I am alone and afflicted.” He also asks God for transformation, saying, “Make me know Your ways…teach me Your paths,” and “Lead me in Your truth” (vs. 4-5). Additionally, he does not go without asking the Lord to bless him, saying: “Keep my soul and deliver me” (vs. 20), “Let integrity and uprightness guard me” (vs. 21). David is so confident in his plea before God that he even declares, “My eyes are continually toward Yahweh, For He will bring my feet out of the net” (vs. 15).
Now, it goes without saying that David had some serious guilt on his record. Hopefully, when we look at ourselves, we are self-aware enough to find ourselves in the same position: hopeless and in need of lovingkindness. We will perish without it (Psalm 73:27, Rom 6:23, Luke 13:3). So then, we ask: How does a sinner, fully aware of his own failure, come into the presence of an infinitely perfect God? What knowledge does David lean on that God will heed his cry and bless him?
Our Hope
He tells us the answer in verse 2: “O my God, in You I trust.” David does not implore God without hope. Instead, he comes cowering into God’s presence, trusting the mercy God has promised to the righteous.
If we truly know the depth of our own sin, and if we grasp the God of scripture, how could we ever enter his presence if we could not trust him to forgive us or to even hear our prayer? This would surely make our souls decay from the inside out. We would spiral into constant anxiety and instability, fueled by the uncertainty of our souls’ security (Jas 1:6-8). In other words, we cannot be happy if our souls are not at peace with God. And we cannot be at peace unless we trust God’s promise to hear, forgive, and bless us. Oh, how pleasant to trust the promises of God!
The Need for Why
Now, I could end this article here and simply tell you how glad it should make us to know that we can trust God’s promises. However, that would only tell you that we should and not why. The absence of the why behind God’s promise-keeping removes the ground to plant our trust in. Without it, our trust in God will turn to self-reliance, and we will end up doubting our worthiness to be heard, forgiven, and blessed.
How we need the unchanging knowledge of God to plant our trust in! Without it, we will surely lose trust in the storms of this life, and therefore, lose the joy that our confidence gives us to go before God. So, to preserve our gladness in trusting God to grant us mercy and grace to the humble, we must understand why God does so.
What His Purpose is Not
Now, we often halt our focus at the overwhelmingly marvelous sacrifice of Christ. It is certainly right for us to do so, as his sacrifice is what preserves our standing before God. However, David digs deeper to reveal the motivation behind such a mercy as the one Christ died to give.
First, it must be recognized what his purpose is not. We must not be so prideful as to have a view of God that, because he has saved us, he is required to incline his ear to us. May we eliminate the thought that turns God’s mercy into a transaction where God owes us his due. God’s purpose for his promise of welcoming sinners into his presence is not to appease a duty. He reminded Job in his plea for reason, “Who has a claim against me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to me” (Job 41:11). Who are we to hold a receipt over the head of the maker of our very minds (Job 38:36)?
Now, certainly, God will keep his promises and do what he has determined: “I will not violate my covenant or alter the word that went forth from my lips,” says the Lord (Psalm 89:34). But rest assured, God’s upholding of his promise to grant his presence will not be motivated by obligation. So, rather than being motivated by us, he is motivated by something about himself.
For His Own Glory
In verses 7 and 11, David reveals and exalts this purpose for God’s hearing, forgiving, and blessing of his people.
7 Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions;
According to Your lovingkindness remember me,
For the sake of Your goodness, O Yahweh.
11 For Your name’s sake, O Yahweh,
Pardon my iniquity, for it is great.
David trusts that God will meet his request on the basis that God is always in pursuit of displaying his glory. John Piper supports this principle in his book, Desiring God, by stating, “In everything he does, his purpose is to preserve and display that glory…God’s glory is the greatness and worth and beauty of his manifold perfections…[which] signifies a reality of infinite greatness and worth.” So then, when God hears, forgives, and blesses us, he does so to make himself look great (glorious). From this, we are made happy to know that we can always trust God to answer our call. Why? Because it displays his glory!
Now, for God, making himself look great means making himself look as he really is. David affirms this in verse 8, saying, “Good and Upright is the Lord; therefore he instructs sinners in the way.” Paul displays this principle in 1 Timothy 1:16, stating, “But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.” So, God’s purpose in all that he does is to bring about his glory. If you are still not convinced, I have left a list of scriptures that support this theological principle at the bottom of this article.
Now, does this make God unrighteous for being so self-interested? After all, does he not condemn our self-centeredness repeatedly throughout scripture? “[Love] does not seek its own…” (1 Cor 13:5). The difference between God and us is that there is nothing more valuable or supreme than God himself. God would not be supremely valuable if he esteemed something as more worthy than the pursuit of his own glory. “God would be unrighteous if he valued anything more than what is supremely valuable. But he himself is supremely valuable…It is right to take delight in a person in proportion to the excellence of that person’s glory.”1 This is why it is right for God to seek his own glory.
How God’s Pursuit of His Glory Makes Us Glad
So then, how can our hearts find joy in this knowledge of the one true God? To me, the knowledge that “God’s ultimate goal is to preserve and display his infinite and awesome greatness and worth and beauty”2 is what allows me to gladly call on God, without fear that I will be turned away or left unforgiven. How can I be sure he will show me mercy? Because he seeks to show his glory! Without this knowledge, there is nothing stable for me to hold onto. God will never look at our spiritual performance and find so much favor in us that it will motivate him to answer our call. Rather, God will, “Remember [his] compassion and [his] lovingkindness” and “remember me, for the sake of [his] goodness” (Ps 25:6-7).
Oh, how happy it should make us to know that God will always do what brings him glory! How soothing to know that he will unfailingly do what displays his lovingkindness and mercy! How glad to know that God will never break his promise to hear and forgive and bless us because by keeping it, he will show his unfailing power of perfection! This is the ground that God gives us to plant our trust in: the knowledge that he will always do what brings him glory.
May the knowledge of God’s pursuit of his own glory make your heart glad!
Scripture to support God’s glory as his ultimate pursuit:
Ex 7:5; 14:4, 17-18; 1 Sam 12:22; Ps 23:3; Ps 106:7-8; Isa 42:8; Isa 43:6-7; Isa 48:9-11; John 12:27-28; Romans 9:17; Romans 11:36; Phil 2:9-11; Colossians 1:16; 1 Pet 4:11; Rev 4:11.
Piper, John. Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist. Rev. ed., Multnomah, 2011.
Piper, John. Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist. Rev. ed., Multnomah, 2011.