Conclusion: Light and Heat, Spirit and Truth

All of Life is about Theology

In this series, we've considered what exactly it means to do theology, and what theology is all about. We learned that, when we're honest with ourselves, we discover that all of life is about theology. That is, any part of life that is worth knowing about and understanding leads us to ask questions, and those questions are always, invariably, ultimately questions about God. And answers to those questions come from learning who God is and what He is like.

We've also considered that there are quite a few people with quite a few differing ideas on how to go about answering those kinds of questions. Some people think we should follow our heart and do what our feelings tell us. Others think we should hang out with our friends and discover what is "true" relative to our particular community. And yet we've seen that God Himself speaks into His creation and to His creatures through His Word -- the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments in which He has revealed Himself.

All of Life is about Worship

We learned that the world is fundamentally about the worship of God, because that's precisely how God designed it. And so the answers to our questions are all relative to that chief purpose for which the entire world was created, for which we all exist to this day: for the worship, honor, glory, and praise of our Creator who is worthy of the highest of worship, the most exalted honor, the most magnificent glory, and the most passionate praise.

We Worship What We Know

And Jesus, the object of all this worship, told us how true worshipers worship. True worshipers of the true God worship what they know. They don't have some vague, ethereal, esoteric fabrication of a god that they would like to exist. They don't make up whatever feels right to them. They don't take pieces from this religion, and aspects of that philosophy, until they come up with a perfect mosaic of a god made in their own image. And most of all, true worshipers don't simply abandon the pursuit of a true knowledge of God because they think doctrine is overrated and we should all just "love Jesus" and have "no creed but the Bible." No, life is about worshiping God, and true worshipers worship what they know. So true worshipers don't mind giving their life to diligent and disciplined study if it means that they will rightly know and thus rightly worship the God they were made to know and enjoy.

We Worship What We Know

And yet, in response to that anti-intellectual emotionalism there has emerged an anti-emotional intellectualism that seeks to squelch all true expression of affections. We see some of the nonsense that goes on in the name of being "Spirit-filled" or "passionate," and we don't want any part of that. So we do our best to turn life, to turn theology, to turn the pursuit of knowing God into a merely academic exercise by which we assimilate and formulate propositional content. We actually abort the actual doing of any real theology by forgetting that theology -- just like everything else in the universe -- exists for the purpose of worship. Yes, we worship what we know, but we also worship what we know.

And you don't honor what you don't enjoy. I don't know any artist in the world that is honored by someone who comes into a museum and analyzes their painting with a cool, wholly dispassionate disposition. Even if that person is an art connoisseur, and can identify the particular technique, the light/dark contrast, the method of the brush strokes, and the use of perspective, but recognizes all those things only with a furled brow and an occasional raised eyebrow. The artist desires to affect those who behold his work, and he is more honored by the one who sees all those things for what they were meant to communicate, actually receives that communication, and revels in the genius of the artist who could produce something so magnificent.

Just the same, to gaze into the most glorious exhibition of beauty and genius revealed in the face of Christ, who is the image of God, and to be intellectually stimulated without being affected, and moved in the depth of your soul, is to dishonor God, and treat as common that which is holy.

Theology exists for worship. Thinking deeply is necessary in order to enjoy fully.

Light and Heat, Spirit and Truth

Therefore, our commitment to doing theology must have worship as its end, and our theological method must be entirely shaped by that aim. “Truth without emotion produces dead orthodoxy and a church full (or half-full) of artificial admirers….On the other hand, emotion without truth produces empty frenzy and cultivates shallow people who refuse the discipline of rigorous thought” (Piper, Desiring God, 82).

But as a Christian—as a true worshiper—I must worship in spirit and truth. I must engage in theology and arrive at the formulation of doctrine because I desire to know and enjoy my God as He is. This is impossible without both accurate knowledge and a heart exhilarated by beauty.

As a pastor, I need to do the same, because God has entrusted me with the care and oversight of a flock of His people, and I must shepherd them in the knowledge of Him. I must indeed be the lead worshiper, because if I myself am not thrilled by the clear, contoured, unadulterated vision of an all-glorious, all-satisfying, exalted God as is revealed in His Word, I will never be able to lead people there. And without such a vision, the church is left unfilled by the Spirit, powerless in our fight for holiness, because apart from that vision of the glory of God in the face of Christ we have no resources to battle the desires of our flesh with superior desires for Christ (2 Cor 3:18; Gal 5:16-18).

It's fitting for me to close this series with the thoughts of Jonathan Edwards, a pastor, theologian, and worshiper of the first order, who embodied the Christlike example of a mind enlightened by the knowledge of God as He is and a heart warmed by the passion to enjoy the glory he was created to behold:

If a minister has light without heat, and entertains his auditory with learned discourses, without a savour of the power of godliness, or any appearance of fervency of spirit, and zeal for God and the good of souls, he may gratify itching ears, and fill the heads of his people with empty notions; but it will not be very likely to reach their hearts, or save their souls.

And if, on the other hand, he be driven on with a fierce and intemperate zeal, and vehement heat, without light, he will be likely to kindle the like unhallowed flame in his people, and to fire their corrupt passions and affections; but will make them never the better, nor lead them a step towards heaven, but drive them apace the other way.

But if he approves himself in his ministry, as both a burning and a shining light, this will be the way to promote true Christianity amongst his people, and to make them both wise [and] good, and cause religion to flourish among them in the purity and beauty of it. (The True Excellency of a Gospel Minister, Works, 2:958)

Series Outline

Light and Heat: Introduction

1.1 - In Pursuit of Light: We Worship What We Know
1.2 - Systematics and Doctrine Matter
1.3 - Loving God with All Your Mind

2. In Pursuit of Heat: We Worship What We Know

3. Conclusion: Light and Heat, Spirit and Truth

The Gospel of the Glory: What Makes the Good News Good News

Last time we delved into God's prescription for the blindness in which the world finds itself. We observed that in 2Cor 4:4 and 4:6 that three levels of God's redemptive work are outlined. And as we progress through each level, we come to greater depth and greater ultimacy in God's work of salvation. We already looked at levels one and two. Now we come to the third.

Notice again the way the Apostle Paul speaks of spiritual life. Above he spoke of spiritual death as blindness to glory. Here he speaks of spiritual life and faith in the Gospel as seeing glory. And that is level three: God has shone in our hearts to give the Light (that’s level 1) of the knowledge, or of the gospel (that’s level 2), of the glory of God in the face of Christ (that’s level 3). This is the deepest level of the redemptive work of God. This is what salvation is about!

In A God-Entranced Vision of All Things, John Piper writes, “The way anybody gets converted…is that God sovereignly causes the darkened soul to see the beauty of Christ in the gospel. Just as He once said, ‘Let there be light’ and there was light, so now he says, ‘Let the glory of Christ shine as an irresistible beauty,’ and it does” (263).

The nature of our spiritual death was that were blind to Christ’s glory. But in the miracle of regeneration, you were spiritually awakened so that you could finally see. And because you finally see Him, He is so sweet to you. You love Him! You can’t resist Him! And you forsake the rotting garbage of sin and you embrace Him with the glad, open arms of faith, and you are saved.

Do you see it? Paul calls the Gospel “the gospel of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” What the Good News consists in—what the Gospel is about—is the glory of God in Christ. Seeing and enjoying the glory of God in the face of Christ is what makes the Good News good news!

This is the way the whole of Scripture speaks of salvation. Consider these passages

• Hebrews 2:10 describes Jesus’ ministry of salvation as “bringing many sons to glory.”
• 1 Peter 3:18 says that Christ suffered once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, so that He might bring us to God. To God! Not to a hall of mirrors where we can admire how valuable we are, but to an eternal worship service, where we can admire how valuable He is!
• 2 Thessalonians 2:13-14 is just wonderful. The way Paul speaks about salvation here is amazing. He says, starting in the middle of verse 13: “God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth. It was for this He called you through our gospel, that you may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Do you see this? The Gospel is the means by which you will gain the glory of Christ! It is the gospel of the glory! So when we preach the Gospel, we must do it in such a way that acknowledges that what makes the Good News good news is that we can finally see and enjoy the glory of God revealed in the face of Christ.

And I’ve gotta tell you, so many people stop at level two! So many Christians preach the Gospel as if we were the ultimate goal in salvation. But we’re not! Ultimately, the ultimate reason for why God saves any sinner is to manifest His own glory! Listen to what Scripture says about God’s motivation, His goal, in saving sinners:

• Isaiah 43:25 says it as plain as day (God is speaking): “I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions for My own sake.”
• Ezekiel 36:22 says the same thing more emphatically, “It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for My holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you went.”
• In the New Testament, Paul tells us in Titus 2:14 that Christ “gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession.”
• And in the opening section in Ephesians 1, Paul says three times that salvation is designed for the praise of God’s glory (Eph 1:6, 12, 14).

This is why the Gospel is not “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life”! So many people preach the Gospel by telling people that Jesus died for them, and then they stop there. As if the Good News is that God just loved [wuvved?] us so much that He couldn’t live without us and so He died to be with us. But for crying out loud, do you hear how me-centered that is? Do you hear how much of us that makes? But that is not what God’s love does. God’s love does not give us a reason to look at the Cross and see our worth!

See, a lot of people are happy to confess that we should be God-centered, but that may be because they secretly think that God is man-centered. Then their God-centeredness is really man-centeredness. They say their joy is in God, but really their joy is in themselves. They're happy to worship God, just as long as God worships them.

But listen: if what you want out of the Gospel, or out of Christianity, is a god who makes you feel good about yourself, you need to repent of your idolatry and come to the God of the Bible through Christ. And if what you offer people in the name of Christ’s Gospel and in the name of Christianity, is a god who will make them feel good about themselves, and will work for their self-esteem, you’re not preaching the Gospel.

The love of God displayed in the Gospel is not that He makes much of us! The love of God displayed in the Gospel is He shines Light that cures our blindness to glory, and thus frees us from our love affair with sin so that—rather than only being able to be satisfied by being made much of—we can be entirely satisfied in the depths of our souls by making much of Him forever!

Yes, God so loved the world that He gave His only Son. But finish the sentence! He did that for a purpose! So that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life! And what is eternal life? John 17:3: Jesus says, “This is eternal life, that they may know You, Father, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” God’s goal in sending Christ was not to show humanity how valuable we were; His goal was to give us the eyes to see how valuable He is! He shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

But because so many people have imbibed our culture’s distorted definition of love as being made much of, many people—maybe some of you reading this—have a hard time feeling loved when they hear that God loves them for His own sake. But loving someone is not making them feel good about themselves—especially, like in our case, when there’s so little to feel good about! Loving someone is doing what is best for them. And what is best for me, and best for you—what will most satisfy our souls and give us true and abiding joy—is to see the glory of God for which we were made.

And there is a wealth of satisfaction in feeling loved that way. I feel so safe, so protected, so loved by the fact that I am not uppermost in God’s affections, but that He is. In fact, we will never understand the sweet fullness of what it means to be loved by God—we will never know the breadth and length and height and depth of this love that surpasses knowledge (Eph 3:18-19)—until we understand that God’s love to us is not first to us, but to Himself.

And so John Piper writes, “God loves His glory more than He loves us and...this is the foundation of His love for us” (Brothers, We Are Not Professionals, 7). Because it is in loving Himself, in magnifying Himself, in displaying Himself, that you and I are able to see and enjoy the only thing that can truly satisfy our heart: the glory of God in the face of Christ.

In summary, then, the Good News is not merely that Jesus died for us! The Good News is that Jesus died for us in order to bring us to God (1Pet 3:18)! The Good News is not merely that God gave His Son for us. The Good News is that God gave His Son for us to bring us to an eternity of seeing and knowing and loving and worshiping Him. The loving, atoning work of Christ in the Gospel is a means to a greater end: that the people God has created would finally glorify Him by enjoying and being satisfied by His glory, for which they were created (Isa 43:7).

As we proclaim this Gospel, let us never forget that it is the gospel of Christ’s glory.


Series Outline

1. Principles for Faithfulness in Gospel Ministry: Introduction
2. We Are Not to Amuse the Goats but to Call the Sheep
3. The World's Problem is that They Are Blind to Glory
4. We Do Not Preach Ourselves
5. God's Remedy: The Shining of the Light of Life
6. The Gospel of the Glory: What Makes the Good News Good News
7. Postscript

Jesus Came Not to be Useful, but to be Precious

"No amount of working will make Me precious to you."

Amen.

Be benefited by this.

What Love for God Is and Isn't

I was listening to a sermon by John Piper on Romans 8:28 this week (as I've been listening through his Romans series, chapters 6 through 8) called "All Things for Good." And I was just overwhelmed with delight to come to this point in his sermon. He was discussing the "those who love God" part of Romans 8:28, and thus discussing what it means for us to love God. In order to do that, he also spent some time discussing what love for God is not.

I've spent some time (with Piper's help) trying to unfold this doctrine of love for God in my own thinking here and here, along with the posts under the "Love of God" tag that can be found on the sidebar. Yet what Piper said in this sermon is exactly what I want to say, and exactly what my soul resonates with.

This topic -- what it means to love God -- is what the universe is about. And so when I hear these things, everything I experience of reality is that much more real. When I'm contemplating the purpose for which I was created, I am more alive than at any other time. I am made to worship more greatly and more purely, which is to say, I enjoy God more at this time than at any other time. I pray that the same be true for you.

If you'd like, you can listen to the sermon as well here. The stream loads pretty quickly, and the section that the below edited transcript is taken from starts at either "-27:00" or "-22:10." For whatever reason it seems like two different versions might load. So you can just let it load for a minute and then click over to -27:00 or -22:10 and listen along. (I always recommend listening to Piper along with reading him when possible.)

Anyway, he says:

What the Love of God Is Not

So what does it mean to love God? How can you know if you are in this number? The best way I can think to make the answer clear is to say three things that love for God is not. At least the essence of love for God is not these three things.

Loving God is not meeting his needs. The way we love man is different from the way we love God. In Acts 17:25 Paul said, "He [is not] served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things." God is radically different from us. He is the source of all things and has no needs. He cannot be helped or improved. There are no defects to reverse or deficiencies to supply. We cannot love him by supplying his needs. He has none. Therefore the essence of our love for him must be an experience of receiving. (And I do regard joy as essentially receiving pleasure from the object of our delight.)

That leads to the second thing that love for God is not. Loving God is not, in its essence, love for his gifts – gifts like forgiveness, justification, escape from hell, resurrection to a pain-free life, etc. Indeed if we love God, we will cherish these gifts and be thankful for them, because we would not have God without them. But loving God is treasuring God himself revealed in his gifts and treasuring God himself beyond his gifts. His gifts are precious to the degree that they bring us to God and show us more of God. When you love God, God is central in your affections, not his gifts.

This word "affections" leads us to the third thing that love for God is not. The essence of loving God is not the things that love for God prompts you to do. Love for God may prompt you to leave mother and father and forsake all that to declare his glory among the nations. But leaving mother and father and forsaking all are not the essence of love – they are the fruit of love. Jesus said, "If you love Me, you will keep My commandments." This does not mean keeping his commandments is love. It means love is the kind of heart that prompts you to keep commandments.

In John 21:15-17 Jesus illustrates this connection when he asks Simon Peter three times, "Do you love me?" When Peter says, "Yes," Jesus does not say, "Good, that must mean you are obeying my commandments, because obeying my commandments is love." No, he said, "Feed my sheep." In other words, if you love me, act like it. Love my flock and feed them. Feeding sheep is the fruit of loving Jesus.

In other words, what I am saying is that love for God is a matter of the heart’s esteem for God before it produces anything else. It is something internal and involves spiritual emotions. It is not, in essence, a deliberated choice or a deed. It is more like a reflex of the heart to the perfections of God revealed especially in Christ. If you equate the deeds of love with the essence of love you will produce hypocrites – people who imitate the deeds and claim to love God when their hearts are far from him. If you equate love for God with love for his gifts, you produce hypocrites – people who are very glad to feel forgiven and declared righteous and delivered from hell and heaven-bound, but have no pleasure in God himself. They don’t love God. They just don’t want to have bad guilt feelings or go to hell.

What the Love of God Is

Therefore I think it is absolutely crucial that we clarify what the essence of love for God is. Let me grasp for the kinds of words that I think will help us know if we love God. Loving God is desiring God himself beyond his gifts. Loving God is treasuring God himself beyond his gifts. Love for God is delighting in God himself beyond his gifts. Love for God is being satisfied in God himself beyond his gifts. Love for God is cherishing God himself beyond his gifts. Love for God is savoring God himself beyond his gifts. Love for God is valuing God and prizing God and revering God and admiring God beyond his gifts. All these words are grasping for that essential response of the heart to the revelation of the glory of God, especially in Christ through the gospel. It is a glad reflex of the heart to all that God is for us in Christ.

That We Might Share in His Holiness, and Thus Be Fit to See Him

I've spent the last two posts opening up what the Bible says about the believer's responsibility to give and receive rebuke in their relationships with fellow Christians. I mentioned that if we believe that we have fellowship with each other, but fail to serve each other by lovingly and gently confronting each other when we see sin in our lives, we do little more than "play church" under the banner of the name of Jesus Christ, which is blasphemous.

We took a look at how important this ministry of confrontation, of rebuke, was to the Apostle Paul in his own ministry. He was no stranger to this, because he knew of the benefit it would be to his brothers and sisters. We also spent some time last time looking at three aspects of the ministry of rebuke among Christians: we saw (1) the need to responsibly and lovingly give rebuke when it will benefit our brothers and sisters; (2) the need to humbly and wisely receive rebuke ourselves; and (3) the need to even pursue correction and rebuke from our brothers and sisters, as they may see sin in our lives that we don’t clearly see.

Then I asked, "Why?" What's the point for all of this rebuke? What's the purpose, the end goal, the result, the motivation to admonish each other?

The answer is: We get to see God.

That We Might Share in His Holiness

In Hebrews 12, the author is picking up on some Old Testament Proverbs in order to show the Jewish Christians, who were under the chastening of God at the time, that the Lord's discipline is a mark of grace, because He disciplines those whom He loves. Sons get discipline. The author of Hebrews writes: "But [God] disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness" (Heb 12:10b).

Does that hit you? God disciplines His children for our benefit, for our good. And what is our good according to this verse? It is that we might share in God's holiness. The discipline that comes from God, which admittedly is not always pleasant at the time (Heb 12:11), comes to refine us, to purify us, so that we might become increasingly holy, increasingly like Him, conformed more to the image of His Son (Rom 8:29; 2Cor 3:18). Our good is to share His holiness, and so He disciplines us to make us holy.

This must be the motive of Christians' rebuke of each other. We also must be motivated by the desire to benefit our brothers and sisters by causing them to share in God's holiness. And how do we do that? Well, when we see sin in each other's lives, which causes us to be cut off from God's holiness, we should point it out to each other. That is the admonishing that Paul talks about throughout his ministry. That is why the Sage and the Psalmist are so intent on receiving rebuke. They want to be rid of sin! They want to share in God's holiness!

That We Might Be Fit to See the Lord

But it's important to recognize that holiness is not an end in itself. We don't want to be holy just for the sake of being holy. If that's all that this ministry of admonition got us, it wouldn't be a worthy task. Holiness for the sake of holiness is Pharisaism. The writer of Hebrews tells us why we should be concerned about sharing in God's holiness when he tells us to "pursue…the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord (Heb 12:14).

Does that land on you?

We are commanded to pursue sanctification -- to pursue holiness -- precisely because if we don't have it, we won't see God! That is what all this striving after holiness is about: seeing God! Beholding the most beautiful and satisfying thing there is to see: the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Paul says this himself in Colossians 1:28-2:3: "We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ. ... attaining to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding, resulting in a true knowledge of God’s mystery, that is, Christ Himself, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge."

The tireless discipline of admonishing every man is for the result of a true knowledge of all the treasures laid up in Christ Himself! Discipline, rebuke, reproof, correction, admonition… as they are founded upon the Word of God, they participate in our sanctification, without which we will not see God!

And so if it is eternity that’s at stake – if it’s seeing Christ that’s at stake here, Paul is going to celebrate the Romans' competence to admonish each other (cf. Rom 15:14, here), and he’s not going to hesitate to boldly admonish believers to remind them of these things.

Application

And neither should we. If we learn that one of our brothers and sisters is involved in something that is spiritually harmful – whether that be engaging in sinful actions, harboring sinful thoughts, or even believing false things about Scripture, false doctrine – we need to let them know. And we need to do so because we know that seeing Christ rightly – and therefore worshiping Christ rightly – is what is at stake.

But as I say that, let me quickly return to Romans 15:14 to show you that there are qualifications, of sort, for this kind of ministry to one another. Paul says, "And concerning you, my brethren, I myself also am convinced that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge and able also to admonish one another."

"Full of goodness," means that you are going to admonish that person for their benefit, and not for your own sinful, prideful desire to look superior or super-spiritual. This means that before you go to them you have thought about it, you have prayed about it, you have reminded yourself of the objective reality of fellowship that you have with this person, that they are a child of God. And you go to them out of a desire to see them benefited by Christ. And you believe what you have to say will serve that end.

And "filled with all knowledge," means that the correction you will be giving will be Biblical, both content and form. By content I mean, obviously, that before you go and tell somebody they're doing something wrong, you better be sure it's actually wrong according to the Scriptures. Be prepared to share passages from Scripture that shed light on the issue. After all, you're not the authority. God’s Word is. And you wouldn't want to give any other impression.

And by form I mean that you’re following the principles laid out for us in Matthew 18:15-17. Matthew 18:15: "If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private."

1. First, if your brother sins, go. Don’t talk. Don’t gossip about it with other people. Go.
2. Second, if your brother sins, go and show him his fault. This hits on the previous point: show him from Scripture where he’s wrong. Don’t simply assert that he’s wrong; show him he’s wrong from the Bible, which is our sole authority.
3. And finally, if your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private. At this stage, this is a one-on-one encounter. It's not a public matter. If the sin is public, go to him in private, and if he agrees that he was wrong, urge him to repent of the sin publicly. But go to him in private first. Remember, love covers sin (1Cor 13:7; 1Pet 4:8), it does not flaunt sin. You are to do everything you can to honor your brothers and sisters, not shame them.
   

So: when you admonish one another, be (1) full of goodness, and be (2) filled with all knowledge.

Conclusion

So the take-away from all these posts is: don't shy away from admonishing your brothers and sisters according to the Truth. Don't hate them by hiding instruction from them. Don't sabotage the health of the Church by letting sin go unchecked.

And if someone has the courage to admonish you, receive it graciously and gratefully. Don't hate discipline and instruction and earn the name of a Fool. Instead, seek it out. Desire it. Invite rebuke and reproof and correction, for they are oil upon the head that refreshes and sweetens (Ps 141:5).

Hate sin enough – and love Christ enough – to expose sin (Eph 5:11).

And hate sin enough – and love Christ enough –to seek out ways of having it exposed in your own life.

Don't hate discipline. Pursue holiness. The holiness without which no one will see the Lord. Because that's what all of the Christian life is about: seeing the Lord Jesus clearly and rightly.

But He disciplines us for our good,
so that we may share His holiness. ...
Pursue...the sanctification without which
no one will see the Lord.
- Hebrews 12:10, 14 -

Paul, Confrontation of Sin, and Fellowship

In last Tuesday’s post, the take-away application point was that we ought to improve our everyday, relaxed, natural conversation, especially with other believers. And this was in the service of grounding our subjective experience of fellowship in the objective reality of fellowship (the Gospel) first by speaking to one another about the things of Christ.

A second way that we can work towards having true fellowship with one another that is honoring before God is the subject of today’s post (which was originally going to be one long post but will now be two shorter ones). I really believe this to be an important, essential, and even foundational element to our relationships with each other as we live the Christian life together. If Christians don’t have this element, we do little more than play church, and have a social club under the banner of the Word of God and the name of Jesus Christ – which is blasphemous.

Here's a little fill-in-the-blank test to get us started:

“And concerning you, my brethren, I myself also am convinced that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge and able also to ________ one another.” – The Apostle Paul

What do you think goes in the blank? What do you think many professing Christians think goes in the blank? Would you guess things like: “love,” “encourage,” “affirm,” “serve,” “teach,” and “agree with”?

The text is Romans 15:14, and the word that fills in the blank correctly is admonish.

This is that second component that is absolutely foundational to living the Christian life together. We could call the first component that we talked about last Tuesday conversation. And we can call this second component confrontation. (We could also call it admonition, rebuke, or reproof, but they don’t start with con- like conversation and confrontation. :-) )

And so Paul praises the Roman church for being competent to admonish one another. And Paul himself exemplified this nouthetéō in his own ministry. Indeed, even in this text we see his positive evaluation of the believer who, in goodness and according to knowledge, confronts his brother regarding sin.

• Romans 15:15-16 – But I have written very boldly to you on some points so as to remind you again, because of the grace that was given me from God, to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, ministering as a priest the gospel of God, so that my offering of the Gentiles may become acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.

Taking that piece by piece, we see that Paul regards confrontation, admonition, or rebuke ("I have written very boldly") as a mark of grace ("because of the grace that was given me from God"). The grace he speaks of includes his Apostleship ("to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles"), and so considers this to be a mark of maturity. By using the language of the Old Testament priesthood ("ministering as a priest the gospel of God"), he also shows that he considers it to be a mark of service. And he sees this ministry of confrontation, admonition, and rebuke as serving the purpose of advancing believers in holiness ("so that my offering of the Gentiles may become acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit").

And we know that Paul didn’t just talk about it. He lived it out in His own ministry. In Acts chapter 20, Paul is giving his farewell address to the Ephesian elders, among whom he labored for three years, and whom he loved very dearly. In it, he says:

• v. 20 - You yourselves know...how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you publicly and from house to house.
• vv. 26-27 - Therefore, I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all men. For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God.
• v. 31 - ...remembering that night and day for a period of three years I did not cease to admonish each one with tears.

This is pretty striking. Paul continues to lump in the same category the idea of speaking boldly, admonishing, and declaring even hard things to his fellow believers, with the idea of being innocent of men's blood, and with profiting them in love. When the situation called for Paul to talk straight, even in what would seem to be a severe manner, he didn't let some man-made, man-centered, vague, ambiguous fabrication that people call "love" hinder him from actually benefiting his brethren by admonishing them.

And by today's standards, you'd think that Paul wouldn't be very liked among this group. I mean, night and day for three years? I can hear the Tone Police™ of contemporary evangelicalism now: "Come on, Paul? Isn't that overkill? It's quite arrogant of you to do so much admonishing! Nobody's perfect! Have you taken the plank out of your eye?"

But we don't see that arrogant, ungrateful attitude among these brothers. The result of Paul's tireless ministry among them – in which he wasn’t afraid to say hard things to them and admonish them for their unbiblical actions and beliefs – was true, loving fellowship. We read in Acts 20:36-38:

When he had said these things, he knelt down and prayed with them all. And they began to weep aloud and embraced Paul, and repeatedly kissed him, grieving especially over the word which he had spoken, that they would not see his face again And they were accompanying him to the ship.

Such affection is heartwarming. These brothers knew that Paul was benefiting them by presenting Christ to them, even and especially in his admonitions, rebukes, confrontations, and warnings. And his love, plainly manifested in his ministry of night-and-day admonition, produced in them great and overwhelming love for him.

Next time, we'll look into how we can apply these lessons in our own lives as we live the Christian life with our brothers and sisters.

We proclaim Him,
admonishing every man
and teaching every man with all wisdom,
so that we may present every man complete in Christ.
For this purpose also I labor,
striving according to His power,
which mightily works within me.
- Colossians 1:28-29 -

Another Response to the Overturning of Proposition 8

I say another response, of course, because the blogosphere has been brimming with reactions and sound analysis of the Wednesday ruling. Proposition 8 was ruled unconstitutional, which decision effectively legalized homosexuals' rights to "marry," at least in the eyes of the state.

Preeminent among those responses is Dr. Albert Mohler's, who is always amazingly adept to comment on the downward-spiraling of American culture from the Biblical perspective. Over at PyroManiacs, Frank Turk also offered a thoughtful, helpful response, linking to a couple other posts he's done on the subject in the past, one of which I found to be excellent. James White offers the exasperated response, and I stand right there with him on that. Dan Phillips comments briefly, but effectively. Fred Butler is as sharp as always. And let's face it: the Christian blogosphere wouldn't be the Christian blogosphere without a post up at Between Two Worlds, even if Justin is on vacation.

So, with all of those giants, why would I bother giving my two cents? Better yet, why should you bother reading it?

Well, my point isn't to try and comment on something that these others have missed. Not at all. Yet at the same time I do indeed want to remind us of what's important in this whole discussion and call us to keep first things first.

It's likely that as you Christians seek to be a good steward of the Truth of God that has been entrusted to you, and a witness of it amongst your unbelieving friends, that you'll enter into the discussion of why the issue even matters to Christians anyway. Why do we care? What's all the fuss about? I mean, why can't we grant the same rights to two consenting adults who want to make a commitment to each other for life?

Not Just Because Homosexuality is a Sin

One answer that you might be ready to give is that we Christians care about preventing the legalization of gay "marriage" because the Bible clearly states that homosexuality is sinful. As the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, and infallible Word of God, and our sole authority for all matters of life and godliness (2Pet 1:3), we must accept its word as binding. Here are some examples:

• Leviticus 18:22 - You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination.
• Romans 1:25-27 - For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.
• 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 - Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.

So it's clear. Those who say the Bible doesn't forbid homosexuality don't have leg to stand on. It's clear that Scripture condemns homosexuality as sinful, and thus just as all other sins it is worthy of death. It is a mark of rebellion, and those who practice it will not inherit the kingdom of God, but along with the rest of those who persist in their sin "their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death" (Rev 21:8).

And so, as the purpose of the civil government is to promote the general good and well-being of the society and to restrain the evil therein to the best of its ability (Gen 9:6-7), we believe the government should not sanction that which the Lord of the Universe expressly forbids. Violating God's Word is never the best thing for any society, as long as Jesus is Lord.

But having said all that, I'm saying don't give that answer. At least, don't give just that answer.

Not Just Because God Himself Defines Marriage as Heterosexual

Another answer you might be ready to give is that we Christians care about preventing the legalization of gay "marriage" because God Himself is the One who created marriage, who performed the first marriage (Gen 2:18, 21-22), and He Himself defines marriage as being between only one man and one woman. And as God is the Lord of the Universe, we must accept His Word. Here's what He says:

• Genesis 2:18, 21-22 - Then Yahweh God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him." ... So Yahweh God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place.God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man.

God purposed to make a companion suitable to Adam when it became apparent that there was no fitting match among the creatures of the earth. And He sovereignly caused Adam to sleep deeply, Himself took one of Adam's ribs and fashioned it into a woman, and then presented the man with his bride. God did not make another man from Adam's rib, but made a woman. In God's mind, only a woman was a "helper suitable for him."

• Matthew 19:3-6 - Some Pharisees came to Jesus, testing Him and asking, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all?" And He answered and said, "Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE, and said, 'FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH'? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate."
  

So when a Pharisee asks Jesus about divorce, Jesus, the Lord of all (Ac 10:36), talks about marriage. He declares that God's purpose was to create human beings "male and female." Now, it is not an accident that He said this. In the context of a discussion about marriage, Jesus prefaces His comment on divorce by underscoring that God made humanity as male and female. God did not make us only male, or only female. He intentionally designed that a man shall leave his family and be joined to his wife, and that these two -- this man and wife -- should become one flesh. He does not speak of a man leaving his parents to be joined to his husband, but his wife.

And so the very definition of marriage from the Creator -- and thus, the authority -- on marriage is that it be between one man and one woman. To sit quietly by, then, while our government -- which we have been blessed with the right to participate in as (at least what used to be) a democratic republic -- in rebellious, treasonous fashion seeks to redefine that given definition would itself be an act of treason against our King.

And yet having said all that, I'm saying don't give that answer. At least, don't give just that answer.

Because It's a Matter of the Clarity of the Gospel

If we're going to speak into this situation with any sort of prophetic voice (read: having a Biblical impact), we need to give the reasons why homosexuality is a sin, and why God has defined marriage between one man and one woman.

Marriage is a wonderful, beautiful, and glorious institution. But the truth is that marriage is not those things in and of itself. God has designed marriage to be a symbol, or a picture, that points to something greater than itself. And it is only so wonderful, beautiful, and glorious because of that something greater that it points to. And that is the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. That is, that after man rebelled against God in the Garden by sinning against Him, their sin separated them from their God and subjected them to spiritual death absent a redeemer. Because no human being could ever atone for his sin, the Father lovingly sent His Son Jesus to live the life we should have lived, to die the death we should have died, so that everyone who trusts in Him alone for their righteousness before God should not suffer eternal punishment, but should be saved. And of all those whom the Father has given to the Son, He will lose none. He will never forsake His bride, but will always live to make intercession for them (Heb 7:25).

Marriage is an institution set up by God with a specific purpose: to glorify Him (to make much of Him) by magnifying the relationship of covenant-keeping grace that exists between Christ and His Bride, the Church.

In Ephesians 5, the Apostle Paul gives us the most amazing, breathtaking instruction on marriage in all of Scripture. There, he quotes Genesis 2:24, just like Jesus did in Matthew 19:5 and Mark 10:7-8: "For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." Then, the very next thing he says is, "This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church."

Ponder that. Let that sink in. He is speaking about marriage with reference to Christ and the church. Keep that in mind as we consider other things he's said in the passage.

Earlier, Paul is giving the Ephesian church instruction on how to conduct themselves in their marriages. He basically lays out a plan of loving headship on the husband's part (Eph 5:25-30) and respectful submission on the wife's part (Eph 5:22-24). Now, what is absolutely astounding is the reasons he gives for why a husband must lovingly serve his wife and why a wife must respectfully submit to her husband.

• Ephesians 5:22-23 - Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body.
• Ephesians 5:24 - But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything.
• Ephesians 5:25-27 - Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies.
• Ephesians 5:28-30 - He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of His body.

This is absolutely staggering. Throughout the entirety of Paul's instruction on marriage, the reasoning, the foundation, the basis for his commands is the work of Christ in His relationship with the Church. The Gospel is why husbands must love their wives and wives must submit to their husbands!

What is this all telling us? It's substantiating the claim I made above: that marriage is a picture, or a parable, of Christ and the Church -- of the Gospel of Christ's covenant-keeping grace with a people to whom He has committed Himself, and who have committed themselves to Him. When Paul says that "This mystery is great," and then tells us that he's speaking about Christ and the Church, he's establishing that marriage is designed to point us to the Gospel: that precious Good News that has saved us from sin, wrath, just punishment, fruitlessness, and a wasted life; that precious Good News that has gotten our sin out of the way so that we can enjoy fellowship with our Creator and Redeemer! So that we can spend eternity gazing into the beautifully glorious face of our God, who will dwell among His people in love in the Paradise of the New Creation.

Now this is why Christians should be opposed to the legalizing of gay "marriage": because it mars the picture of that precious Gospel that marriage is designed to be. If marriage is given to us in order to point us to the reality of Christ's covenant-keeping grace with His people, and if the husband pictures Christ and the wife pictures the Church, then any tampering with those participants confuses and obfuscates the Gospel.

And that's what should get our dander up. Not tax breaks. Not nomenclature. Not social agendas. The Gospel. Make sure the people you're having these conversations with leave knowing the difference. And if they don't know why the Gospel is so precious to us, why it's such a treasure, why it's to be so rigorously defended and protected...

Tell them.

Guard,
through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us,
the treasure
which has been entrusted to you.
- 2 Timothy 1:14 -

But we have this treasure
in earthen vessels,
so that the surpassing greatness of the power
will be of God and not from ourselves.
- 2 Corinthians 4:7 -

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
- Matthew 6:21 -

A Meditation on My Father

This semester I'm taking a class called "The Biblical Exposition of Prayer," or just "Prayer," for short, as we call it. I've really enjoyed the opening two classes so far and look forward to the rest of the semester. As with all classes here, there is much work to be done for prayer week-to-week, and even day-to-day.

One of our assignments is to pray for an hour a day. That's really been beneficial over the last eight days. I pray that through this God would transform my life into a praying life, that He would transform me into a praying man of God.

In class Tuesday, Dr. Harris mentioned a couple of times in passing (as if he wanted to stop and comment further but recognized he didn't have the time) that the "Our Father" in the disciples' prayer (Mt 6:9-13; Lk 11:2-4) is a great way to start our prayer and a great thing to ponder as we pray. "Our Father," he said, right away denotes a relationship. And even as he said the word "relationship" he seemed blown away. And then he hurried back to what he'd been saying, sticking to the point and to the flow of his lecture.

So Wednesday morning as I spent some time praying to My Father, who is in heaven, I started there. I started, as I often do, by saying the word, "Father." But I kind of just stayed there. And I said to my Father that He was my Father, and that I was thankful for that, and I asked Him to show me what it means -- the true significance -- that He is my Father. And after a brief second or two, my mind was taken to Ephesians 1.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.

I thought about that for a minute. Our Father has blessed us with every spiritual blessing of heaven, all of which are wrapped up in the chief blessing Jesus Christ, whom He delivered over for us all (Rom 8:32). That took my breath away. So I kept reading.

He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him.

There's the Gospel! The Father chose us in Christ before the world began in order that we would be holy and blameless before Him, a purified people, worthy for His own possession (Tit 2:14). And so, to that end, our Father "predestined us to adoption as sons." Here the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ becomes our Father by adopting us as His own sons!

And my mind leaped to Romans 8: We have not been given a Spirit of slavery leading again to fear, but we have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by which we cry out Abba, Father (Rom 8:15)! We can call the God of all creation, who holds the universe in His hands (Ps 95:4-5), "Daddy." This kindness of adoption happened through Jesus Christ and to the Father Himself (Eph 1:5). Through this adoption we have been redeemed and have had our sins forgiven (Eph 1:7). Because of this adoption we have been sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God's own possession (Eph 1:13-14). We are God's own possession.

I kept reading in Ephesians 1. I got to verse 17 where it calls my Father the Father of glory. He is the Fountain of everything glorious! Everything that is desirable, everything that is attractive, everything that is delightful, everything that is pleasant has its origin in my Father, the Father of glory. The pleasantness of a light summer rain, the beauty of a sunrise or sunset over the ocean, the magnificent patterns of fluffy white clouds in a blue sky, the delightful smile on the face of your wife, the sweet laughter of your children -- all of these things derive their glory from my Father. And He does not simply lend glory to those things. The glory we see in those things is God Himself. He is the glory of all things! My Father!

I kept reading, and came to Paul's magnificent prayer in verses 18 to 23. He prays that the eyes of our hearts may be enlightened. He prays that our spiritual sight would be opened up and increased. He wants us to be able to perceive something that we need spiritual eyes to perceive. Something that we miss all the time because we only see with our eyes and can't see with our hearts.

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling.

My mind focused on "the hope of His calling." He wants me to know that. He prays that I have spiritual eyes to know the hope of my Father's calling. I wondered what that calling was. My mind skipped to Ephesians 4:1, where Paul implores us to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which we have been called. My mind jumped to 1 Thessalonians 2:12: "...so that you would walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory." So here He started to give me a glimpse. The calling with which I've been called is a calling into my Father's kingdom and into His glory. My Father, the King of all creation, has called me into His own kingdom! My Father, the Father of glory, has called me into His own glory! The hope of His calling is the hope of glory!

When I thought "hope of glory," I jumped immediately to Colossians 1:27, where I learn that "the hope of glory" is Christ in me. The reason that I can hope for glory is because the Father has predestined me to adoption as His son through Jesus Christ (Eph 1:5), whom He was pleased to crush (Is 53:10) on my behalf (2Cor 5:21)! I kept reading Paul's prayer.

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.

So all my mind's jumping around was confirmed! The hope of His calling is related to riches of glory. And I love that! Riches of glory! Treasures of glory! Magnificence and superabundance of glory! And not just glory, but the glory of His inheritance!

I stopped there. What's the glory of His inheritance? Who's inheriting who here (cf. Eph 1:11)? I think "of His inheritance" is just a way of expressing: "of the inheritance of Him." I am called to the hope of glory, which is the riches of inheriting Him!

Immediately my mind skipped to all sorts of passages about treasure. He is my treasure!

• Matthew 13:44-46 - He is the treasure hidden in a field, which, when I found Him, I sold all that I have and all that I was to gain Him!
• Luke 12:33 - He is my treasure in heaven which I should lay up for myself!
• Matthew 6:21 - He is the treasure where my heart is!
• 1 Peter 1:3-4 - He is my inheritance which will not spoil or fade away!
• John 17:3 - Knowing Him is eternal life!
  
• Psalm 73:25-26 - Whom have I in heaven but Him? And besides Him I desire nothing on earth! My flesh and my heart my fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever!
• Psalm 16:2 - He is my Lord; I have no good besides Him!
• Psalm 16:5-6 - The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and my cup; He supports my lot. The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places; Indeed, my heritage is beautiful to me!

Indeed, my heritage (=inheritance) is beautiful to me!

And, praise God, as if that wasn't enough, I kept reading.

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what the surpassing greatness of His power toward those who believe.

Paul wants me to have spiritual eyes so that I can see the surpassing greatness of His power. And as I read this I immediately thought of Philippians 3, where Paul comforts the believers by presenting to them their hope of glory: "For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself." The power that He has in Himself to subject all things to His rule, that same power guarantees my resurrection and my ultimate freedom from sin! Oh how I long for this!

Then I went back to Ephesians 1 and let Paul finish his sentence. That power is in accordance with the working of the strength of His might, which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also the one to come.

There it is again! The surpassing greatness of His power toward me, which will transform my humble, wretched flesh (Phil 3:21; Rom 7:24) into perfect conformity to His glory (Rom 8:29-30; 1Jn 3:2), is the very same power by which my Father raised Christ Himself from the dead, and by which He set Him as authority over all things!

I understand why Paul would pray this for us. I'm thankful that he did.

I understand why Dr. Harris was blown away by just saying the words, "Our Father." I'm thankful that he was.

Brothers and sisters, love the sweet reality that God is our Father!

Don't Waste Your Christmas Presents

With Christmas comes presents. And presents can be both precious and precarious, both delightful and dangerous. It reminded me of this post that I wrote a while back, as I responded to some of John Piper's thoughts in God Is the Gospel.

God is the Giver of all good things (James 1:17). And yet those good things often times entice us to love them over and above the God who gives them. And that is idolatry. So at Christmas time, how are we to glorify God and enjoy the good gifts that come from Him? In other words:

All the enticements to God that are not God are precious and precarious. They can lead us to God or lure us to themselves. They may be food or marriage or church or miracles. All of these blessings bring love letters from God. But unless we stress continually that God Himself is the gospel, people will fall in love with the mailman -- whether his name is forgiveness of sins or eternal life or heaven or ministry or miracles or family or food. (p. 143)

Or laptops, or cameras, or external hard drives, or books... even theological books!

All the gifts of God are given for the sake of revealing more of God's glory, so that the proper use of them is to rest our affections not on them but through them on God alone. (p. 116)

I think I read that sentence about 10 times as I was reading through the book. The way we glorify God in His gracious gifts and at the same time not make idols out of them is, in the moment we receive them, to recognize why God is giving them to us. He is giving us gifts and mercies to reveal His glory, so that we might see Him in them and enjoy and worship and magnify His sweetness. Our affections must not terminate on the gifts. We have to push through the gifts and rest our affections on God alone.

So when I unwrap a Christmas present, I have to push through my affections of, "Wow, this is so cool! I really wanted this!" to "From the bottom of my heart, thank You, Father, for having compassion on me, and giving me the grace to enjoy this good gift. May it be that it only points to the gift of eternal life that You give in Christ. Grant that having this gift causes me to see You, in the beauty of Your fullness and beneficence. Cause me to worship."

Here's another quote:

"Everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving" (1Tim 4:4). Yes, if the thanksgiving is rooted in the sight of the glory of the Giver who is more to be admired than all His gifts, and supremely to be enjoyed in all His gifts. (p. 138)

That was another ~10-timer. We must root our thanksgiving in the sight of the glory of the Giver. We are to admire Him more than His gifts, but also we are to enjoy Him in all His gifts.

Love your Christmas gifts. And more importantly, love the people who gave them to you. But most importantly, love your Christmas presents as gifts from God that were designed for you to receive them and see the glory of God in the face of Christ that they're pointing to.

I want to worship God in the good gifts that He gives. Here's more of Piper explaining how that happens:

When the gospel of Jesus Christ frees us to see and savor the glory of God above all things, the way is opened for us to experience seamless joy in God and His gifts. We are able to see every gift as a beam from the sun of God's glory. Every joy in the beam runs up to the fountain of light and ends there. No created thing becomes a rival but only a revelation of God. Therefore we can say that, for the gospel-liberated mind, all joy in created things is seamless with joy in God. (p. 141)

Man I want that! I want a gospel-liberated mind! I want to be so freed from my idolatry and my sin that I can enjoy everything as a gift from my Father, and have none of it be a competition for my worship, but a catalyst for my worship of the Giver.

He goes on, paraphrasing Psalm 73:24-26:

There is nothing in heaven or on earth that I desire besides you, O God. That must mean ... that in and through all the other good things on earth and in heaven, Asaph sees God and loves Him. Everything is desired for what it shows of God. Augustine put it like this: "He loves Thee too little who loves anything together with Thee which he loves not for Thy sake." (p. 144)

Everything is desired for what it shows of God. I want everything that God gives me because it shows me more of Him. Even in gifts that are not God, I want to cherish the Giver as His Greatest Gift.

If I don't, I will waste my Christmas presents.

Don't you do that. Don't waste your Christmas presents.

The Means of Justification is the Means of Sanctification

I've been making this point throughout the last few posts (in this one, this one, and this one), but I wanted to highlight it in its own post.

The key to much of what I've been talking about is seeing the continuity between how we get born again and how we become more like Christ. The Gospel is absolutely central in both our justification and in our sanctification. A lot of people treat the Gospel as if it's the message that we hear to get justified, but once we're saved we go on to something else for our sanctification. But the means of both are the same! The way we get justified is the same way we progress in sanctification.

This is what I mean: Having been awakened to life by the effectual grace called the new birth, and having been given eyes to see, in the moment of conversion we saw Jesus as infinitely more precious and infinitely more desirable than our sin. And we received Him as the treasure of our lives, putting our trust in Him to cleanse us from all our unrighteousness and to commend us to God on the basis of His righteousness alone. Nothing other than seeing Jesus caused that to happen. That's why Paul talks about our conversion as coming by the "light of the gospel of the glory of Christ" (2Cor 4:4).

What I’m saying to you is that just a few verses earlier, 2 Corinthians 3:18 teaches that we are sanctified – matured, grown, made more holy, transformed into the image of Christ – by the very same thing: by "beholding the glory of the Lord" (2Cor 3:18). As Christians, when sin presents itself to us and tempts us to believe its lies, we simply look to Jesus and see Him for who He is! And because the glory and the satisfaction of sin doesn’t hold a candle, we prefer Jesus, and so delight in obeying Him! This is God-glorifying obedience: when the worth of Christ is magnified by His people preferring Him over anything else in the world!

So the point is: As it is the seeing and savoring of the glory of God in Christ alone that saves us, it is the seeing and savoring of the glory of God in Christ alone that sanctifies us. So fight the fight of holiness in the Christian life on the level of spiritual sight. When you're tempted, fight with all your might to see your Savior in all His glory. It is the glory of the Lord that will transform you.

But we all, with unveiled face,
beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord,
are being transformed into the same image
from glory to glory.

- 2 Corinthians 3:18 -

1. The Theology of the New Birth
1.1. Man's Spiritual Death (Total Depravity)
1.2. The Dead Cannot See
1.3. The Wind Blows Where it Wishes: The Freedom of God and Irresistible Grace
1.4. Regeneration and Faith: Temporally Simultaneous but Logically Distinct

2. Implications for the Christian Life
2.1. God Grants What He Requires
2.2. The Impossible is No Longer Burdensome
2.3. The Means of Justification is the Means of Sanctification

3. Implications for Gospel Ministry
3.1. Introduction
3.2. Evangelism
3.3. Apologetics