“Therefore, say to the house of Israel, thus says the Lord God. It is not for your sake, oh House of Israel, that I’m about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came, and I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when through you, I vindicate my holiness before their eyes.”
– Ezekiel 36:22–23
Wow. I remember reading these verses and for the first time it clicking for me in a whole new way. God just said to his people, “When I act among you, it’s not for your sake, ultimately, that I’m doing this.” It’s what he says, God to His people, “It is not for your sake that I’m about to act.” Well, if it’s not for their sake, for whose sake is it? He says, “I’m about to act for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. I’m going to vindicate the holiness of my, not just name, my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and the nations are going to know I am the Lord.”
Do you hear this? This is God’s saying to His people, “When I work in your midst, when I act, I do so ultimately for the sake of my holy name among all the nations.” This changes the way we understand our lives and God’s work in our lives and God’s work in the world to realize that what God does, everything God does, ultimately is for the sake, for the glory, for the exaltation of His own name, His own great name. God is God centered. God does what he does to exalt Himself. And if that rubs us wrong, well, just ask the follow up question. Who else would you rather Him exalt?
You? Me? This one. That thing. No. At whatever point God were to exalt someone or something else, He’d no longer be the God who’s worthy of all exaltation. There’s nobody else to exalt. He’s God. Of course He exalts God. The beauty is, and this is what we see if you keep reading in Ezekial 36, How does God exalt Himself? God exalts Himself by sending His son as a substitute sacrifice for sinners so that we can be forgiven of our sin, have clean water sprinkled on our hearts, be cleansed from our uncleanness and be given a new heart and a new spirit, and restored to relationship with God. This is the gospel. You and I can be saved from our sins. You and I can be reconciled to relationship with God to give Him glory for all of eternity.
Yes. Sign me up. This is Christianity. This is the gospel. God acts for our salvation for His own names sake among the nations. So live like that. Live like the purpose of your life is to make the glory of the great name of your God known among all the nations. This is what we’re made for.
So we pray, God, help us to live the Christian life that You’ve designed us to live the life in Christ saved from our sins, cleansed from all our uncleanness. Your spirit in us, a new heart, in relationship with You, God. God help us to love You with all our heart and all our soul and all our mind and all our strength, and to live for the glory of Your great name, among all the nations. Just like You taught us to pray, Jesus, our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name and all the earth cause Your name, Lord God, cause your name, Jesus, to be made known as holy. Your great name to be exalted as holy among all the nations.
God we pray for the Magindanao people of the Philippines, 1.4 million of them, most of them Muslim, most of them unreached by the gospel. God, we pray for the glory of Your great name among the Magindanao of the Philippines. Glorify Your great name among them, cause the gospel to go to them, cause disciples to be made and churches to be planted and multiplied among the Magindanao so that You might be praised and exalted as the great God you are, among the Magindanao and all the people groups of the world, all the nations, all the tribes. God, bring it about, use our lives to bring about that act in our lives, in our families, in our churches and for the sake of Your great name among the nations. We pray that our lives would be spent living for the hallowing of Your name among all the peoples of the earth. God, help us not to settle for anything less than living our lives for this purpose with total abandonment. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
David Platt serves as a Lead Pastor for McLean Bible Church. He is also the Founder of Radical, an organization that makes Jesus known among the nations.
David received his B.A. from the University of Georgia and M.Div., Th.M., and Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Some of his published works include Radical, Radical Together, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Don’t Hold Back, and How to Read the Bible.
He lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area with his wife and children.
