What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his
power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for
destruction, 23 in order to make known the riches of his glory for
vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory- 24
even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from
the Gentiles? 25 As indeed he says in Hosea, "Those who were not my
people I will call 'my people,' and her who was not beloved I will
call 'beloved.'" 26 "And in the very place where it was said to
them, 'You are not my people,' there they will be called 'sons of
the living God.'" 27 And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel:
"Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea,
only a remnant of them will be saved, 28 for the Lord will carry
out his sentence upon the earth fully and without delay." 29 And as
Isaiah predicted,, "If the Lord of hosts had not left us offspring,
we would have been like Sodom and become like Gomorrah."

Let’s begin and let’s end today with the wonder of
being vessels of mercy prepared beforehand for glory. Whatever we
may not fully understand about the way God works in this world, one
thing is clear and wonderful in verse 23: His ultimate purpose
– in all his wrath and all his power and all his mercy
– is this: "to make known the riches of his glory for vessels
of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory."

If you are a Christian today – if you confess with your
lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised
him from the dead – this is what you are: a vessel of mercy
prepared before the creation of the world for glory – that
is, to know the riches of the glory of God.

Open your heart to the wonder of this in your own case as you
ponder with me three aspects of it. Let’s look at 1) "vessels
of mercy," and then 2) "prepared beforehand for glory," and then 3)
"knowing the riches of glory."

Vessels of Mercy

God’s purpose in verse 23 is "to make known the riches of
his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand
for glory."

As a Christian you are a vessel of mercy. You
were called out of spiritual deadness and sinful darkness by mercy,
through mercy, and for mercy. By mercy, because in our rebellion we
didn’t deserve to be awakened and opened and subdued to God.
Through mercy, because every influence that worked on us to bring
us to Christ was a mercy from God. For mercy, because every
enjoyment that we will ever have, forever and ever, will be a
merciful enjoyment. And mercy itself will be supremely pleasant to
taste and know.

We are vessels of mercy. Which means that in all our thinking
about election, and why we are saved and another not, we must
continually focus on this: We do not deserve to be Christians. We
do not deserve to be chosen or called or saved or transformed or
heaven-bound. It is all mercy. Undeserved. Oh, may believers hear
this as humbling, and unbelievers hear it as hopeful! Nothing in us
was the decisive influence on God to make it happen. That we have
received anything good – any forgiveness, any acceptance with
God, any glimpse of his glory, any hope of everlasting joy –
this is all mercy.

And here the words of the Lord Jesus fly over our lives like a
great banner, and ring in our ears like a great trumpet-call to
sacrifice: "Freely you received, freely give" (Matthew 10:8). Oh,
may the glorious doctrine of unconditional election –
election unto mercy! – never, never, NEVER lead to pride, or
cliquishness, or bigotry, or provincialism, or smug indifference to
the perishing. Test yourself to see if you are in Christ: Mercy
produces mercy and receives mercy again. We become merciful by
being shown mercy. And we show mercy to obtain more mercy again.
"Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy" (Matthew
5:7). Freely you received mercy, freely give – and you will
receive more and more, "pressed down, shaken together, running
over" (Luke 6:38). Mercy upon mercy.

That is what it means to be a vessel of mercy. It means being
able to say, "Surely goodness and mercy will follow me –
pursue me – all the days of my life." There will not be one
day – neither the day of my delight nor the day of my death
– when mercy does not track me down and make me a vessel for
his blessing.

Prepared Beforehand for Glory

We are still in verse 23, God’s ultimate purpose for your
life: "to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy,
which he has prepared beforehand for glory."

I think the focus here is on being prepared for God’s
glory, not our glory (though that too is part of our hope –
Romans 8:30). I say this because verse 23 says the purpose of God
is "to make known the riches of his glory." That is what we are
prepared for.

The word "prepared" underlines that this is all of mercy. We did
not make ourselves fit to know God’s glory. God did. And he
did it out of "the same lump" of clay that others came from who do
not see or love the glory of God (Romans 9:21). If you see and
savor the glory of God today, you didn’t get to be that way
on your own. You were shaped and molded and sometimes pounded into
a vessel able to know the glory of God. This word "prepared
beforehand" simply underlines and emphasizes that our ability to
see and savor God’s glory is all because of his mercy.

If you are a Christian – or willing to become one by faith
in Jesus Christ – you were prepared beforehand for glory
– that is to know the glory of God. This is the ultimate
purpose of God for your existence: Verse 23: "to make known the
riches of his glory for vessels of mercy." Oh, how I plead with
you, let this sink into your heart. Because once it penetrates to
the deep part of your heart – once it takes hold of you
– you will never be the same again. You were made to know the
glory of God.

Now be careful here lest you intellectualize the word "know."
"Know" here cannot mean "be aware of intellectually while feeling
indifferent." That would not mark you as a vessel of mercy. It
would mark you as a vessel of wrath. What does chapter one say?
"The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness
and unrighteousness of men, who . . . exchanged the glory of the
immortal God for images resembling mortal man . . ." (Romans 1:18,
23). That is, they know the glory of God but did not treasure it.
They exchanged it.

God’s purpose is not to be known as glorious and then
exchanged for images. His purpose is to be known as glorious and
treasured as glorious. When Paul says God’s purpose is to
make known God’s glory he means make known as infinitely
precious and infinitely pleasing. You were made to know the glory
of God, to taste and see the glory of God, to treasure the glory of
God, to enjoy the glory of God.

Do you live for this? Do you hear this design for your life and
feel a passion to pursue it?

If not, I wonder why.

"This is Impossible for Me"

Perhaps you feel it’s impossible for you. If that’s
how you feel, please remember it is all mercy. Impossible to you,
yes, but not to God. "With man it is impossible, but not with God.
For all things are possible with God" (Mark 10:27).

"I Don’t Want to See Glory, I Want to Be Glory"

Or perhaps you don’t pursue this purpose for your life
because you don’t want to see glory, you want to be glory. I
could say some very scary things to you about that. But perhaps I
should just say, "If you seek your own glory rather than seeing and
savoring God’s glory, you will be bitterly disappointed in
the end. Because in the end you will not be glorious, and everyone
will see that and turn their face away." For your own souls,
don’t make that mistake.

"I’d Rather Accomplish Something Great Than Behold
Something Great"

Or perhaps you turn away form God’s design by saying: I
don’t want to be lost in the crowd of ogling spectators
standing in front of a work of art, saying, "Oh, look at the glory,
look at the glory. I want to do something and accomplish something
great." To you I would say two simple things: first, beware how you
speak about those who praise the glory of God; and second, in all
of history the people who have seen the glory of God most,
accomplish most for this world. Remember the words of Paul,
"Beholding the glory of the Lord, [we] are being transformed into
the same image from one degree of glory to another" (2 Corinthians
3:18), and glory-reflecting people are not fruitless.

"I Have Never Tasted the Glory of God"

Or perhaps you don’t pursue with passion to know the glory
of God because you simply have no taste for it and don’t know
what it is and therefore cannot feel drawn to it. To you I would
say: The glory of God is shining everywhere. You live and move and
have your being in
God. When the psalmist says, "The heavens are
telling the glory of God" (Psalm 19:1), it does not mean that
sunrises and sunsets are the glory of God. It means, their
magnificence across the bow of the earth, and their spectacular
array of colors, and their evocative power to awaken deep emotions
are tiny reflections and mere shadows of the glory to which they
point. God is reaching out to us to say: it’s like this, only
better – lots better!

C. S. Lewis once said:

Nature never taught me that there exists a God of glory and of
infinite majesty. I had to learn that in other ways. But nature
gave the word glory a meaning for me. I do not see how the "fear"
of God could have ever meant to me anything but the lowest
prudential efforts to be safe, if I had never seen certain ominous
ravines and unapproachable crags. And if nature had never awakened
certain longings in me, huge areas of what I can now mean by the
"love" of God would never, so far as I can see, have existed. (The
Four Loves [London: Fontana Books, 1960], pp. 23-24)

In other words, to you who say, you have never tasted the glory
of God, I say, you have tasted many of its appetizers. Have you
ever looked up? Have you ever been hugged? Have you ever admired
anything? Have you ever sat in front of a warm fire? Have you ever
tasted sexual desire? Have you ever walked in the woods, sat by a
lake, lain in a summer hammock? Have you ever drunk your favorite
drink on a hot day or eaten anything good? Every desire is either a
devout or a distorted enticement to the glory of heaven.

You say you haven’t tasted God’s glory. I say. You
have tasted the appetizers. Go on to the meal. You have seen the
shadows; look at the substance. You have walked in the warm rays of
the day; turn and look at the sun itself. You have heard echoes of
God’s glory everywhere; tune your heart to the original
music.

And the best place to get your heart tuned is at the cross of
Jesus Christ. "We have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son
from the Father, full of grace and truth" (John 1:14). If you want
the most concentrated display of the glory of God, look at Jesus in
the Gospels, and look especially at the cross. This will focus your
eyes and tune your heart and waken your taste buds so that you will
see and hear and taste the glory of the true God everywhere.

That is what you were made for. I plead with you: don’t
throw your life away. God made you to know his glory. Pursue that
with all your heart and above all else.

Knowing the Riches of His Glory

Now thirdly focus for a moment on the word "riches." Verse 23:
God’s final goal is "to make known the riches of his glory
for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for
glory."

Why does he use that word? The point of using that word –
the word for wealth and riches – is to waken in us a sense
that our inheritance in God is infinitely greater than the greatest
riches on earth. Oh, how foolish we are to labor for the bread that
perishes. Oh, how foolish we are to lay up treasures on earth when
the glory of God is our portion. If we had all the money in the
world we would be paupers compared to those who have only the glory
of God.

Paul said these riches are unimaginable: "What no eye has seen,
nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined . . . God has prepared
for those who love him" (1 Corinthians 2:9). He said these riches
are immeasurable: "In the coming ages he [will] show the
immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ
Jesus" (Ephesians 2:7). In other words, because the riches of glory
are infinite it will take ages for us to know it fully –
eternal ages! In other words, we will never know it fully, but will
know it more fully every day forever and ever. Our knowledge of the
riches of the glory of God will increase forever and ever, world
without end. And therefore, so will our joy. His mercies will be
new every morning. And there will be not one boring day in heaven.
Nor one day without fresh awe-inspiring discovery. Not one day
without the accumulated weight of old glories ripening in memory,
and the thrill of new glories breaking on our sight every day.

Therefore, Christ commands us, mercifully, in view of these
infinite riches of glory, not to seek earthly riches but to seek
the kingdom; and he promised us this: "My God will supply every
need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus"
(Philippians 4:19).

You were made to know the riches of the glory of God.

Jew and Gentile! The people of this inheritance are not defined
by ethnic relations. They are defined by God’s call. Do you
see that in the way verse 23 flows into verse 24? God’s great
purpose is "to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of
mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory – 24 even
us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the
Gentiles."

The issue for you this morning is not your background or race or
your ethnic connections or your denomination or your parents’
faith. This issue is: do you hear in this message the call of God?
If you do, obey it and believe in the Son of God, Jesus Christ. All
the riches of God’s glory are in him. They can be had nowhere
else.