John Piper, a famous pastor and theologian, wrote a book titled Let the Nations Be Glad. He grounded his premise in the doxology of God, declaring, “Missions exists because worship doesn’t” (Piper 2010, 35). But his message spreads across mediums, infiltrating work, art, and all facets of living. His perspective starts with the purpose of God. Taking a cue from the Westminster Catechism, Piper says, “The chief end of God is to glorify God and enjoy himself forever” (Piper 2010, 40). If righteousness means properly valuing what is valuable and not what is not valuable, then God’s perfect righteousness is to perfectly value himself. To do otherwise would be unrighteous. For any persons to glorify themselves as supremely valuable would be transgression, but for God to glorify anything but himself would essentially be idolatry, a worshiping of the created rather than the Creator.
According to Piper, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him” (Piper 2010, 50). The inherent question, then, is “Are you satisfied in God?” The satisfaction Piper speaks of is not an emotion, but a reflection of the contentment Paul calls us to in Philippians 4. It is a choice, not a feeling. Piper prods us to ask, “Do I choose satisfaction in God?” To delight in the presence of someone is to honor them, thus, humanity’s satisfaction in God is an act of worship declaring his sufficiency. This satisfaction can be found only through a knowledge of God.
What does this truth mean for us as artists? If God’s ultimate goal is his glory, then it is natural to presume that all of his deeds would be enacted toward that purpose. Not just the Great Commission, but all our endeavors should be evaluated with this ambition in mind. Art is widely accepted as one of the most powerful mediums for impact. And our songs, our poetry, our books, our sculptures—all serve a doxological purpose.
Piper says, “The great sin of the world is not that the human race has failed to work for God so as to increase his glory, but that we have failed to delight in God so as to reflect his glory” (Piper 2010, 56–57). For the artist, to create is an action of delight and reflection. Art, then, carries great importance in God’s plan to increase his glory, his stratagem to “Let the nations be glad” (Ps 67:4).
All through history, we see God using acts of creation to create a space for his glory; the calling of Bezalel and Oholiab in Exodus 31 to craft the tabernacle and Christ writing in the sand in John 8 are just two such examples. If, as Piper indicates, the drive of our lives is fueled towards God’s glory, then our calling is ultimately, doxologically, to beauty and truth. Look at your last painting, your last poem, your last essay. Do they point to God’s beauty and truth? Do they create a space for the glory of God? Creating to God’s glory does not mean we can only paint flowers, or only write happy endings, or only compose in major keys. God is a God of beauty and truth, and we dare not emphasize one to the exclusion of the other.
We live in brokenness. If we want to speak into our culture and reach people where they are, we have to interact with what culture experiences—good and bad. In a talk on how art changes us, painter Makoto Fujimura referenced John 11’s declaration that “Jesus wept” at the death of Lazarus. Fujimura asked, Jesus could have raised him immediately, so why “waste time” with tears? His point was that we see a holy God reaching down into Mary’s suffering and pain, saying, “You need my presence more than you need my miracles.”
Today’s culture cries out for the same thing. We need presence, a place for God’s glory to shine, whether in harmonious rhapsody, or in the honest articulation of evil. And with Piper’s premise in mind, we create doxologically, all the while singing, “To God be the glory, great things he has done.”