Psalm 16:11

Psalm 16:11

B.

“You make known to me the paths of life; in your presence is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

Joy is a mysterious and elusive thing.  I cannot say that I be able to define accurately.  One thing I can say with authority is that joy has much more to do with harmony and satisfaction than with pleasure.  Though satisfaction implies pleasure, pleasure does not produce satisfaction.  We spend our lives seeking to prosper, and when circumstances work out in our favor, or when we get what we desire, we experience happiness, but happiness is only the child of joy.  It is fleeting, like a spike in our adrenaline, which, after it has overwhelmed us with excitement, slowly descends to normal and safer levels of operation.  Similarly, the periods in our lives when there is general harmony but not an acute thrill never produce satisfaction, but limbo, and at long intervals, we struggle with losing our identity in the rushing wave of time or other nameless anxieties.  To be satisfied with whom we are and what we have is to no more allow the desire for more to rule us.  When we do this, we admit, in a certain sense, that what we have and who we have become, is ‘all there is’.  From a worldly standpoint, this seems more like defeat then contentment, and if we acquiesce to it, we have nothing left to expect then the slow advance of death.  This kind of contentment produces pain and not joy.  To be content is to want no more of life then what live gives you.  The last thing life gives us is death.  Therefore, to be content is like suffering a kind of death before death happens, and satisfaction is only available to those who are willing to do this.  If there is no life after life, however, then the last thing life gives us—death—is not a gift but an insult, rendering everything in which we were satisfied…unsatisfactory.  So, as I do not understand joy with the authority of an aged and mature believer, by knowing Christ, I do have the ability to apprehend the joy He has produced in me so far.  I am sure I will write about joy at many times and in many ways, but for the time being, this is my simple description of one of the greatest promises—life to the full:

The marks of Christianity are the marks of one who suffers.  In all the religions of the world and their false candy-coated messages, they are all claiming one thing: “We can give you what you need to enjoy life.”  They agree that something is missing with respect to the coherence of life to offer the good that we seek, but what they offer is a loose patch to cover they pain so that people may enjoy this life.  What Christ offers us is not a joy that attends itself to this life, though we do begin to strands of it here in our lives on fallen earth.  What Christ provides is what we need to endure the pain of this life, so that we may last this one and partake in the real goodness that consists of the next life.  The joy we experience in this life is much more associated with expectation and not fulfillment—like a child waiting for Christmas morning. When we find that true joy and goodness have not been reserved for this life, but for the next, our life becomes expendable.  Expendable, in this sense, does not mean wasteful or worthless.  It means our present lives only receive value as we use them to serve the value inherent in the next life.  We are able to give our lives freely to the command of God to use our lives to reach and serve others in regard to the most precious truth—our most precious Savior—and when we do this, God certainly ‘expends’ our lives.  He uses us, but not in a way that preserves this life, but causes the outer man to waste away as the inner man—the one that endures to the next life—is built day by day.  On the outside it looks like we are living lives of poverty and sorrow, when it is actually for this very reason—suffering—that joy grows nearer to our hearts.  God confounds men and their temporal value by creating what they truly desire in those who acquire it by means of what all other men seek to avoid—suffering.  We must understand, though, that suffering is not just beatings, revilement, or imprisonment.  Sometimes it merely means parting with a valued object when we give it to someone else to enjoy or abstaining from an cherished activity when we find it drawing us away from Christ.  Suffering, whether great or small, is merely the process of being torn from the passing world that our bodies crave, and so, we call this ‘dying to self’. 

Pain is the one thing in this life we cannot avoid.  Death is the curse, and all men are cursed.  So, in my opinion, men who live lives trying to establish and preserve this life are the ones who truly suffer, since they know that no matter how much they build or how fiercely they defend their own lives, they cannot protect from death.  Reconciling the inevitability of death as harmonious with the natural order of life is to devalue life in one’s heart and to become blind to even the most obvious truth—that there is lasting value that produces enduring joy.  When I say that satisfaction and contentment comes only with the death of the desire for more, I am describing the very nature of what the bible calls crucifying the old man.   Joy is produced in Christians by a certain kind of death that is experienced before death actually happens.  When we give up our temporal desires for God’s eternal desire, we become free to sacrifice our lives for Him who saves. When we do so, we become closer with the One whom we desire, and in His presence is fullness of joy.

Repentance revisited

The following quotes are from a sermon I did in 2009 about repentance. It sparked a flurry of study and teaching to my own heart and those around me about what repentance actually is and deep and continual need for it.

The message began with my teaching from Mark 6 when Jesus sends out his disciples with one message…telling people to repent.

“Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.”

                        

                       Martin Luther

These are the first words of the infamous 95 theses that the entire protestant reformation is built around.  That is to say that deep sorrow that leads to life and worship will paint the life of the follower of Christ. 

“But in the gospel the point of repentance is to repeatedly tap into the joy of our union with Christ in order to weaken our need to do anything contrary to God’s heart.”

                       

Tim Keller

Keller’s point is that sorrow and guilt are not the point of repentance, but life is.  Repentance is the vehicle that gets us to the destination of life and joy.  Live it in all the time.

“Repentance is the act of salvation of the soul, the germ which contains all the essentials of salvation, which secures them to us, and prepares us for them.”

“Repentance is a grace”

                        Charles Spurgeon  

Spurgeon continues in this sermon that is from 1855 to say that dwelling upon the ultimate grace, the sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross and dwelling and thinking all the way through that, meditating on it and hearing the shrieks of Jesus, “My God why have you forsaken me?”  The sorrow and the life that is found in that man on that cross is the grace that leads to repentance which leads to life.
If Spurgeon is right and repentance is a grace, that means that repentance and all that is necessary to repent is NOT born in us. Jesus provides it.


“Repentance is the heart's acknowledgment of the justice of God's sentence of condemnation; faith is the heart's glad acceptance of the grace and mercy which are extended to us through Christ. Repentance is not simply the turning over of a new leaf and a vowing that I will mend my ways: rather is it a setting to my seal that God is true when He declares I am “without strength”: that in myself, my case is hopeless, that I am no more capable of “doing better” than I am of creating a world. Not until this is believed on the authority of God's Word shall 1 really turn to Christ and welcome Him—not as a Helper, but as Saviour!”

                        A W Pink  

I love his thought that he is no more capable of doing better than he is of creating a new world. Our culture presses on us so much, even our gospel centered churches, to measure ourselves by how well we are behaving and good we are doing at repenting.

But how can we do this?  What does it look like?  The most practical definition I have found is from Keller.

“Consider the free grace of Jesus until there is no cowardly avoidance of hard things, since Jesus faced evil for me.  Until there is no anxious or rash behavior, since Jesus death proves God cares and will watch over me.  It takes pride to be anxious – I am not wise enough to know how my life should go.  Consider free grace until I experience calm thoughtfulness and strategic boldness.”

                        Tim Keller

Psalm 1:1-3

Psalm 1:1-3

B.

“Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on His law he meditates day and night.  He is like a tree planted by streams of water and yields its fruit in season, and its leaf does not whither.  In all that he does, he prospers.”

When we are born, we are born into a world of conflict.  The word of God states that all men are born with poison in their hearts, unable to be tamed or instructed, and fill the world with violence proportionate to the incongruent nature of their own heart to virtue.  Sin is destruction, and wherever sin is, destruction is occurring.  That is why Solomon describes sin as ‘lying in wait for blood’.  Where there is sin, there is war—an unrighteous war of arrogant despotism, the continuous subversion of authority, and the oppression of all men by moral poverty.   Had it not been for God, in His infinite mercy, intervening on our account, the world would have consumed itself much like the multitude the came against Jehoshophat (2 Chronicles 20).  But, as God remains for a time to strive with men, good remains, for a time, to abide in it as well.  Therefore, the world remains not yet destroyed by sin, but as sin still abounds, the world still abounds with the conflict produced from the unrighteousness of men’s hearts.  And though good remains, by virtue of itself, it is not an expression of peace as we would expect peace to be.  Righteousness will defend righteousness, and by doing so, war against what is unrighteous. 

As moral creatures in the world, we are bound to fight this war despite our disposition or resolve to the contrary.  An intention to abstain from the moral conflict inherent in this world is a choice to serve what is evil through omission, and we will justly be consumed by evil through an unwillingness to stand for what is good.  In a world full of both good and evil, we cannot expect that the absence of conflict is possible.  Where evil exists good men must stand, and when evil persists, good men must fight.  This is why God, who Himself is the giver of peace and the source of it, is also judge and destroyer of the unrighteous.  Peace is a fruit of righteousness, and therefore, will only prevail when righteousness prevails.  To seek peace apart from upholding righteousness will always compromise what is good, and with that act, enable the destructive force of sin, thus, undermining the peace that is made.  How, then, are we expected to experience peace when God promises us peace as unavoidable participants in a violent world?

            The river of peace that flows from the Savior and is born of His Spirit translates into our lives in two ways:  the first expressing the absence of conflict and the second expressing the presence of conflict, but both being described by the presence of ‘resolve’.  The conflict that has ended exists in the surrender of our sinful hearts to the will of Almighty God, who, by the blood of Jesus Christ, grants us mercy and pardon for our crimes against His authority.  As such, we are made to be at peace, not with the world, but with our Maker.  Our discordant souls have been ‘resolved’ to express the harmony written into the motif of God’s symphony, and as He is the great Maestro, He is not only our conductor, but the very breath that flows in us to produce His music through us.  We can truly be said to have nothing to fear, and so, be at peace in a world of conflict by being in accord with the One who has determined its outcome. 

            The presence of conflict that is aroused by the peace of Jesus Christ is not found in a war against evil, but in being ‘resolved’ to defend righteousness as evil wars against us.  If righteousness is not defended then evil would prevail and peace would be not be present.  Peace is a product of righteousness, a fruit, and as such, like the fruit of the ground, must be maintained by the sweat of our brows.  This, of course, does not mean that we earn our peace with the Father through works.  It means if we value righteousness, then we will serve righteousness, and we are blessed if we are found to be servants of righteousness.  There is no form of righteousness that will not call an individual to act on its behalf.  Righteousness is not something that sits in us.  It is something that flows through us.  Therefore, if there were no action upon which righteousness may take its form (for righteousness is not a noun but an adjective) then we cannot think that any righteousness is possible, and thus, no peace.  When we act according to righteousness, we can expect what is evil to take up arms against our purpose.

The most primary battlefield that this conflict occurs is in our hearts.  We must defend our hearts from unrighteousness, for out of them flow the issues of life.  We can expect that the way we attend to righteousness publicly will reflect that way we attend to righteousness personally and privately.  If we do not defend righteousness in our hearts then we will not express righteousness in our lives.  We must rise with the Lord in the morning and go to sleep with Him at night.  He is our righteousness, and only because of this, is He also our peace.  We must eat and breathe righteousness, attending to the Lord and His righteousness day and night.  This is the man who prospers.  This is the man of peace.  One who makes no provision for the flesh, but planting His roots by streams of water, he will not whither.  

Psalm 106:7-12

Psalm 106:7-12

B.

“Our fathers, when they were in Egypt, did not consider you wondrous works; they did not remember the abundance of your steadfast love, but rebelled by the sea, at the Red Sea.  Yet He saved them for His name’s sake, that He might make known His mighty power.  He rebuked the Red Sea, and it became dry, and He led them through the deep as through a desert.  So He saved them from the hand of the foe and redeemed them from the power of the enemy.  And the waters covered their adversaries; not one of them was left.  Then they believed His words; they sang His praise.”

The sacred and fantastic stories of the Old Testament—the history of an ancient nation, through whom, when the earth was young in sin, God demonstrated His presence and goodwill, with overt manifestations of power, to guide them through the tumultuous economy of warring nations, that they may endure to birth a Savior, begotten of God—gives comfort to my heart to believe that these things happened neither according to human reason nor standard practice of nature.   And if we rightly consider it, the existence of the entire universe is of the same miraculous nature as the parting of the Red Sea.  To think all things appeared as ‘something’ out of what can only be described as ‘absolute nothing’ is just as unnatural and unreasonable as to think a sea can stand up on its hind legs to provide safe passage through an, otherwise, impassable road.  Either way, it is as if the universe is filled with the command of some personal whim to which we see it quicken, unquestionably, like a dog to the side of his master, when we see circumstances arise from conditions that are unsuited to produce them.  When we are told of, or witness a miracle, we call this ‘unnatural’, but in all actuality, in context of nature as we can perceive it, we are not communicating what is unnatural, but only recognizing that nature is behaving in a way that is ‘unfamiliar’.  If we disbelieved miracles for being unnatural, we would have to disbelieve in our own existence for the same reason since there is nothing more ‘unnatural’ than the existence of nature itself.  Therefore, when we witness, or hear testimony of nature behaving in a way that we are unfamiliar, we have no more reason to question the possibility of such occasions than we have to question the existence of all things natural.  The only reasonable conclusion, when we consider the ‘unnatural’ state of existence, and the contradictory notion of the autonomy of nature, is to believe that the state of the universe is not fundamentally unnatural, but profoundly supernatural— the consequence of the personal whim of a being from whom all things flow, and to whose will and word all things conform.  When seen in this light—for it is His light that reveals such things to our hearts—it becomes reasonable to the point of assurance that such things as miracles readily occur, and they become reminders of our God’s constant and patient attention to the quality and direction of a world that is established for our good and His glory. 

The only actual ‘unnatural’ event that occurs in the universe is when nature acts contrary to the will of the One to whom it is dependent.  There is only one creature that has the freedom to behave in such a truly irrational manner—man—and his blasphemy destroys the world with the same power he was given to enjoy it.  But God, who is rich in mercy, has once again disrupted the flow of nature, the waters of the sea, to give rebirth to a dying world with the power of the Word through which it was first created, and it is this act of immense benevolence—this grace that is deeper and wider than the comprehension of our natural experience—that men are tragically unfamiliar.  For what is more ‘unnatural’ than to justify the wicked?  What is more ‘unnatural’ than a glorious king to put on peasant’s clothing, or the righteous to fall by the hand of the wicked, or a dead man raised to life?  Though it may seem unnatural, we must not consider it so.  For, just as God has parted the waters and flooded the earth, just as He has delivered Israel from amassing armies by the hands of angels and retrieved Elijah from the ground with a chariot of fire from heaven, so will He produce a harvest of righteousness in an unworthy, ‘unnatural’ sinner if we are found to have believed His words, having known His deeds.  And when He does, not by means of our natural existence, but by His supernatural power, being redeemed from the power of the enemy, we will sing His praise. 

For this ‘reason’, I receive great comfort from the stories of old that defy my natural reason to comprehend.  For it could only be by such power that my heart will depart from the sin that it cherishes, and when all evidence proves contrary to His promise to sanctify and redeem, we must remember that it is not by our experience or our reason that we are assured of such things, but by His purpose and His power.  It is only through trusting Him amidst the unexpected and unfamiliar conditions of our lives that we become intimate and familiar, not with the natural universe, but with a supernatural God who turns it any way He will.  And it is only when we become familiar with a supernatural God that our unnatural existence returns to its appropriate place in the natural world, conformed to His word, magnifying His name.

Pillars:: Hope (A Real Story of Hope)

We just finished the first week of our new series called Pillars::Foundations of the Christian Faith. Our first Pillar is Hope. You can find the sermon here. With most of these Pillars, we will post a blog mid week following the sermon.

Brian Key is a friend of mine who lives in Kansas City and serves on staff at Redeemer Fellowship Church in Kansas City. I have spoken about Brian and his wife Kelly and the life and death of their daughter Olivia. Olivia passed away last year at the age of 3.

It was an honor to watch the Keys walk and wrestle with suffering. I asked Brian to write something about how God used the life of Olivia to give and reinforce hope. The following is Brian's response"

All of us live life hoping in something to give us joy, satisfaction, identity. Suffering reveals the trustworthiness of the object of your faith. Does it lead you to despair or hope? Throughout our time with Livi, all of the things we hoped in were stripped away. We wanted a diagnosis. We got none. We wanted medicine and therapy to work. They had some effect but didn't heal Olivia. None of the countless procedures, consultations or anything delivered what we hoped for - our daughter's wholeness.

Over time, we realized that we were hoping in the wrong thing. Our hopes were refined in the process; the dross was burned away and that which was trustworthy remained. Our faith was strengthened in the living God who is the sovereign God in the heavens who does what he pleases (Psalm 115), but he is also the loving Father who works all things together for our good (Romans 8). He promises that one day everything sad will become untrue and has made that pledge to us in the blood of his Son and sealed our hope through his resurrection. Over time, we quit hoping in things being made right now, but looked forward to the day Rev 21 will be realized, the day when all things - even Livi's broken body - will be made new. In the crucible of suffering hope was forged.

Don't get me wrong: the valley was still dark, but it was bearable because the Good Shepherd of our soul was with us in it, comforting us, giving us a hope that doesn't disappoint. Be honest, can you say that about anything else you are hoping in? Can that thing ultimately deliver what it promises? Does it have the strength to help you endure, or does it ultimately lead you to despair?

Thanks for reading.

Psalm 112:9

Psalm 112:9

B.

“He has distributed freely; He has given to the poor; His righteousness endures forever; His horn is exalted in honor.”

Giving is at the heart of the Christian soul.  It is the very thing that God has done for us.  ‘He who did not spare His own Son, but freely gave Him for us all, how will He not also freely give us all things.’  We are derivative beings who have a three-fold existence: physical, mental, and spiritual.  We are dependent upon certain conditions and resources to sustain our existence according to the way we are designed.  These are what we call ‘needs’.  They are what we must have if we are to benefit from what is called, ‘life’.  The trouble is, by taking control of our own lives, we undertook God’s responsibility to fill our needs for ourselves—a task we are existentially inadequate to do—and because of this inadequacy, we spend our lives taking from each other, and yet never seem to have enough to satisfy, thus, making us slaves to selfishness.  We rob each other of the dignity life was meant to have, and more importantly, we rob God of the praises due to Him as our Father when we compel Him to be our judge. 

To battle this inclination is to surrender our lives to God’s provision—for better or for worse.  We must learn, in all things, to full and to be hungry, to abound and to suffer need.  The notion of surrender to God is not to conform to His ‘rules’, but to allow Him to dictate how our needs are to be filled—physically, mentally, and spiritually—which begins first with Christ, the greatest gift of all, and flows through Him as we trust God to do for us all the things that we cannot do for ourselves.  Pride is the determination to fill in ourselves with what only God can give, and because we seek to take what was meant for God to give, our only means to accomplish this is to take these things from others.  We have no ability to create resources for ourselves, but only to hoard them so that we might protect ourselves—even when we do so for the sake of those we love—it is still a form of robbery.  If we are determined to depend upon our own ability to provide for ourselves, we are participating in robbery, no matter if it is only on our own account or for our own ‘herd’. 

            Though generosity is an expression of a giving heart according to physical means, a giving heart is only one that is surrendered to God—the giver of all things—and when we surrender to the manner that He has designed us to be filled, we never again have any lack.  Therefore, as we begin to trust God as giver and sustainer, we become freer with our own resources—physically, mentally, and spiritually—to give to others freely as God gives freely to us.  This is what it means to be a cheerful giver.  It means to give ‘with great amusement’, knowing the privilege of living according to the One who gives all sufficiency to us is our joy, and that what we give will be given to us—sparingly if our faith is sparing, and bountifully if our faith is bountiful.  In any case, it is only by faith that we may truly give, since it is only by faith that we live according to the One who gives all things, and through Christ, invalidates the need for us to protect ourselves.

            We must become a giving body.  Charity, in this way, is a vital ingredient in what provides for our freedom.  To believe that the provision and resource of one’s own life is the work of one’s own hand makes that one a slave to his own existence.  There are people in need everywhere, and the physical and moral poverty of men increases when the interest of the church to serve them decreases.   But, if Christ is to increase, then we must decrease, and so, our concern for our own well being.  For, all virtue comes from a giving heart since virtue is defined by the sacrifice of one’s self for others.  This is why Jesus says, “It is better to give than to receive.”  A sinful heart is bent on taking because it lacks the certainty of each moment.  A righteous heart is content to give—desiring to do so with much amusement—because he knows that God is the certainty of every moment, and to make Him known as the One who gives, we must relinquish all attachment and rights to our time, wealth, and ability for His service.