Living for the Glory of God
David Platt’s Sermon: Living for the Global Glory of God, January 2026
In David Platt’s sermon given on January 2nd of this year, 2026, titled “Living for the Global Glory of God,” Platt took his audience on a journey through the Old Testament and the New to reveal how the Creator not only reclaimed creation, but invited his people back into his holy presence. In Genesis 3:24, after the Fall of Adam and Eve into sin, they were cast out of God’s presence (out of the Garden of Eden), and in Genesis 3:24, the Hebrew word וַיַּשְׁכֵּן֩ (Sha-kAHN) was used to describe how the cherubim (the angelic creatures who are seen in Scripture guarding the throne of the Lord were stationed or placed (or made to dwell) at the entrance to the Garden of Eden, guarding it against wickedness, evil and sin.
We don’t see the cherubim again until God calls his chosen people, “Israel,” to build a sanctuary for meeting with the Living God. In Exodus 25:8-9, God declares, “Let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell (וַיַּשְׁכֵּן֩ (Sha-kAHN) in their midst” (Exodus 25:8-9). The construction of the most holy place, this tabernacle (later it will be a temple) is then the place where God meets again with mankind, but the cherubim are once again represented: “There I will meet with you, and from above the mercy seat, between the two cherubim that are on the ark of the testimony” (Exodus 25:22). Indeed, the very place where God’s people could meet with him was a place that was designed to remind them of their desperate need for mercy from the days when mankind was cast out from the garden and guarded against reentry by the cherubim!
Platt, at last, reminds us that God in his mercy chooses to dwell again among a sinful people, making claim to them as His people, in spite of their continued rebellion. God’s steadfast love for the unrighteous is the will of God and his righteous cause, which should cause all people to be astounded and worshipful. In Leviticus, God explains himself, “I will make my dwelling among you, and my soul shall not abhor you. And I will walk among you and be your God, and you shall be my people.” God, in his abounding, steadfast love chooses to go and dwell among his people once again, and whereas, the cherubim guarded the entry back into God’s presence in Genesis, now the cherubim stand inviting the holy priest into the Lord’s presence on the Day of Atonement as a holy representative of God’s chosen people.
The presence of the cherubim may seem inconsequential, but as Platt emphatically points out in his sermon, the cherubim are just the beginning of the thematic Garden of Eden imagery that appears again and again throughout Scripture, eventually getting to an ending that leads us back to the beginning—that is, when we get to the end of the Bible in Revelation, we find ourselves back at the beginning, in the new Garden, the new heavens and the new earth.
At the end of the day, seeing the cherubim in the Word of God is a good thing.
