You Can't Staple Fruit to the Tree

Christ is not merely after people who aren't anxious. He's after people who aren't anxious because of how they trust so surely in Him as their Rock.

He is not after merely humble or devout people. He's after people who are humble and devout because they know the sweetness of knowing Him.

He is not after merely pure and holy people. He's after people who are pure and holy because they know the pleasure to be had from sin doesn't hold a candle to the pleasure to be had in seeing and knowing and following Him.

There are no shortcuts in the Christian life. Jesus gets no glory when we try to staple fruit to the tree. He gets glory when obedience is compelled by His own delightfulness, beauty, and pleasantness. When that happens, then the Holy Spirit -- and not we ourselves in our flesh -- is producing His fruit in us.

What the Lord of the Universe is Comforted By: Reposted

As I've been meditating on the truths of Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday -- the events surrounding and the Scripture passages commenting on the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, I was reminded of a post I wrote a while ago, entitled, "What the Lord of the Universe is Comforted By." I thought that it fit well with the death and resurrection themes, and so I decided to re-post it. I pray it's a benefit.

And Jesus answered them, saying, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal. If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also; if anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him.

Jesus is acknowledging that the time for His crucifixion is near. We learn from the next verse (which we'll look at in a minute) that He was troubled. And that's not terribly surprising. It's not that He's just going to die an agonizing and ignominious death at the hands of those who have perverted His Father's holy Law, and have subjugated His people under a yoke of slavery that no one in history has been able to bear (Ac 15:10). That would be enough to trouble any of us, certainly.

But Jesus' trouble went deeper than that. He was troubled at the fact that soon He would lose the delightful and exuberant fellowship that He had always enjoyed with the Father. There would, for the first time in eternity, be a horrible change in their relationship; it would go from one of perfect communion, love, blessing, joy, and delight in each other, to abandonment, hatred, cursing, wrath, and shame. On the cross, Jesus would experience the full exercise of the righteous wrath of His Father -- wrath He had known objectively but never experientially. The bitter cup that He never deserved to drink would soon be pressed to His lips, and the delightful, well-pleased smile of His Father -- the apple of His eye from all eternity -- would be hidden from Him.

Very literally, Jesus is about to go through hell.

And so He's troubled. But even at that point (in verses 23-26), He is comforting Himself with the promises of His Father. He speaks of His impending death -- both physical and spiritual -- as being "glorified." Rather than focus on the condemnation He will suffer for His people, He remembers that His Father will not let His Holy One undergo decay (Ps 16:10), and that as a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied (Is 53:11), He will be allotted a portion with the great (Is 53:12). And so He reminds Himself that His death will eventually mean His glorification. He reminds Himself and His disciples that it is through this kind of self-sacrifice that one doesn't waste his life, but bears much fruit... that eternal life knowing the Father and knowing Christ (Jn 17:3) is better than a comfortable life on earth for 80 years.

And yet in the moment, He still says, "Now My soul has become troubled."

And then he asks, "...and what shall I say, 'Father, save Me from this hour'? But for this purpose I came to this hour."

That's so beautiful. "Father, I am troubled. My soul is deeply grieved, to the point of death (Mt 26:38). I don't want to leave You. I don't want to be abandoned by You. I don't want to lay down the privilege of the consummate joy and love and delight that We've had for all eternity. I want to continue to know Your blessing and Your smile. I want to continue to be well-pleasing to You. Father, I am troubled.

"But Father I trust You. I entrust Myself wholly to You (1Pet 2:23). For I know You are in control of all things. And I know that You are most wise. And I know that at the heart of Your very Being that You are good, for I have witnessed firsthand the overflow of Your beneficence in all creation and providence. So I will not ask that you deliver me out of this trial. No, this is precisely why I have come."

And so He doesn't ask that His suffering be removed. But what is amazing, what is staggering, what is so refreshing, is what He does ask for.

"Father, glorify Your name."

That's what He wants! That's what comforts the Savior's soul! He wants to see His Father's name be magnified and honored and made to look as big and as sweet and as desirable as it actually is! He wants to see His Father's glory! The glory of the Father is so pleasing, so delightful, so enjoyable to the Son that it is what He asks for to comfort Him before the greatest trial, the greatest suffering, that anyone has endured in history.

Oh, we've got to see this! This is not just amazing self-sacrifice on Jesus' part. Jesus is not merely saying, "I'll give it all up as long as God is glorified." He's saying that, but that's not nearly the whole story! He's actually saying that what He wants to calm His troubled, deeply grieved soul is the sight of His Father's glory! This is what reassures Him of His Father's sovereignty, wisdom, and goodness. It is knowing that He Himself will be glorified with this glory that He so enjoys, as He enjoyed before the world was (Jn 17:5), that comforts Him and gives Him strength to do this terrible, awesome work. The Father's glory is the joy that was set before Him for which He endured that shameful cross (Heb 12:2)!

And the Father grants His Son's request: "Then a voice came out of heaven: 'I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.'"

Oh I pray that you feel the weight of that, Christian! I pray that this awesome interaction between Father and Son lands on you!

And how instructive it is for us in our Christian life, especially through the trials and sufferings that God has granted to us (Phil 1:29). In every aspect of our lives, what should be our comfort? What should be our request to God for strength to do the work He's given us? Our request should be, "Father, glorify Your name." Our comfort should be the seeing and savoring of the glory of God in the face of Christ (2Cor 4:6; 2Cor 3:18; Ex 33:18).

I can bear the scoffing and mocking of an unbelieving generation. I can gladly sacrifice popularity among my friends. I can endure the disowning and snubbing of my own family. I can face cancer, disease, and arduous medical procedures with joy. I can live my life with next to no money and worldly comforts for these 80 short years. I can lay down my life... if... if my Father will glorify His name! If the name of my God would be lifted up and exalted and magnified, if I can see Him and enjoy Him in all His majesty, well then for me to live is Christ! And to die is gain!

Be instructed, dear friends, and be comforted by what the Lord of the universe is comforted by.

...for I know that this will turn out for my deliverance
through your prayers and the provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ,
according to my earnest expectation and hope,
that I will not be put to shame in anything,
but that with all boldness, Christ will even now,
as always, be exalted in my body,
whether by life or by death.
For to me,
to live is Christ
and to die is gain.
- Philippians 1:19-21 -

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

In Pursuit of Heat: We Worship What We Know

Thus far in our series we have battled against an understanding that is critical of theology in general, an ideology that is an ignorant, anti-intellectual emotionalism. However, there is another contemporary enemy of the opposite extreme. More popular in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, yet prevalent today especially as a reaction against feelings-driven theology, this ideology stops theology short of its goal by conceiving of it as a merely intellectual exercise.

We must return to our previously stated, working definition of theology, especially the second half: it is “the comprehensive, holistic interpretation of Scripture for the purpose of intimately knowing and rightly worshiping God.” To stop short of this purpose clause is to abort the God-given purpose for engaging in theology: to become worshipers of God in spirit and truth. If our theologizing does not affect us—if it does not change the way we think, feel, and act—we fail the task of doing theology.

No one has been a greater help to me in assimilating this truth into the depth of my soul than Jonathan Edwards. In his Miscellanies, he writes with staggering insight:

God is glorified not only by His glory’s being seen, but by its being rejoiced in. When those that see it delight in it, God is more glorified than if they only see it. His glory is then received by the whole soul, both by the understanding and by the heart. God made the world that He might communicate, and the creature receive, His glory; and that it might be received both by the mind and the heart. He that testifies his idea of God’s glory [does not] glorify God so much as he that testifies also his approbation of it and his delight in it. (Miscellanies, No. 448)

That is a life-shaping, worldview-shattering paragraph.

If nothing else, it certainly provides the vision of the proper goal of the theological process. We must not only endeavor to know about God, studying to tantalize our intellect and amass theoretical knowledge. Rather, our labors in theology are a means to the end of knowing God Himself—in relationship. And then, knowing such a magnificently glorious God, necessarily loving and enjoying Him for the fullness of His goodness.

And it is impossible to have one without the other. What I mean is, God is not the kind of Being who can be known to a greater degree without being enjoyed to that same degree. To know God is to enjoy Him. Biographer George Marsden summarizes Edwards’s thinking in this regard:

“Beauty”…is not just an object of passive contemplation, but rather a transforming power. If one sees a beautiful person, said Edwards, one cannot help but be drawn to that person. One’s heart is drawn to that beauty, and one’s actions will follow one’s heart. So it is with the surpassing beauty of God as revealed in Christ.…If one glimpses the perfect beauty of such love, one cannot help but be drawn to it. (A Short Life of Jonathan Edwards, 141)

There is no room -- not even in a theology classroom, and especially not a Sunday school classroom -- for a passive contemplation of the glories of God in Christ. To study Him dispassionately, entirely unmoved by the stunning beauty that we behold in the face of Christ would be woefully dishonoring to God.

If we are to glorify God, we must not only see His glory (light), but rejoice in it (heat). We must cultivate that vision of who He is and what He has done so well that, as Vanhoozer says, "when we perceive it, it stops us in our tracks and elicits our praise."

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

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.

Our Wills Not Violated, But Transformed

In chapter three of The Mortification of Sin in Believers, John Owen writes,

[1.] It is no otherwise the work of the Spirit but as all graces and good works which are in us are His. He “works in us to will and to do of his own good pleasure” (Phil 2:13); He works “all our works in us” (Is 26:12), — “the work of faith with power” (2Thess 1:11; Col 2:12); He causes us to pray, and is a “Spirit of supplication” (Rom 8:26; Zech 12:10); and yet we are exhorted, and are to be exhorted, to all these.

See the contrast Owen is driving at here, even if it's veiled in 17th century English. Every bit of progress in grace that we make -- every single good work which we perform -- are most properly said to be the works of the Spirit. They "are His," as Owen says, and then supports his point by quoting passages that assign very active and causative terms to the Spirit's work in the believers' lives.

Yet having said all that, we, the believers, are rightly exhorted to do all the things that the Scriptures say the Spirit does. We are to want things and do things (i.e., to will and to do) according as it pleases God. We are to perform good works. We are to pray. But it's His work. How does this work?

[2.] The Spirit doth not so work our mortification in us as not to keep it still an act of our obedience.

Read that again. The sovereignty of the Holy Spirit in our lives, even in our progressive, step-by-step, process of sanctification, is not such a sovereignty that it absolves us of responsibility. He is sovereign. He works in us. Yet if we fail to will and to work to God's good pleasure, we have disobeyed. He continues:

The Holy Ghost works in us and upon us, as we are fit to be wrought in and upon; that is, so as to preserve our own liberty and free obedience. He works upon our understandings, wills, consciences, and affections, agreeably to their own natures; he works in us and with us, not against us or without us; so that his assistance is an encouragement as to the facilitating of the work, and no occasion of neglect as to the work itself.

In other words, someone who sits passively by, never lifting a finger -- let alone a sword -- in the faithful fight for holiness in the war against indwelling sin, all in the name of God's grace and sovereignty, is sorely mistaken. The Christian who sits and waits to be zapped with holiness, but never engages in the work of mortification (Rom 8:13), of putting off and putting on (Eph 4:17ff; Col 3:5ff), of making no provision for the flesh in regards to its lusts (Rom 13:14), has prostituted the glorious doctrine of God's absolute sovereignty in the service of his fleshly desires.

But at the same time, see in Owen's words the absolutely gracious ministry of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit, in all the beautiful luster of His sovereignty, doesn't turn us into unfeeling, mindless robots as He works in us to will and to work according to the good pleasure of the Father (no matter how much mileage that caricature has gotten). He doesn't simply force us against our will to obey God. Rather, in unspeakably miraculous sovereignty, He changes our hearts, our affections, our desires, bit by bit, so that when we obey we obey because we want to, because we delight to, because we love to!

Do you see why that's so awesome? It would be easy for God, entirely unfettered by anything in the universe (least of all the will of a mere man), to simply show up and force us to do whatever He wanted. Our hearts and minds would still be corrupt, but we would be "obeying." But that's not how He works. Instead, Christ pours out the Holy Spirit in our hearts, who then opens the eyes of our hearts to see the light of the knowledge of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God (2Cor 4:4). And when our hearts behold that beauty, it is won over, wooed out of its corruption, such that it freely and eagerly follows after that beauty, seeking to get more and more and more it, knowing that more of it comes in the path of obedience. The Spirit is so sovereign, and Christ is so glorious, that our hearts are changed agreeably. Our wills are not violated; they are transformed!

The Spirit works in our hearts and affections, not to present us as unwilling slaves to His wonderful Word, but to begin to see the Word as wonderful, Christ as beautiful, God as glorious, and obedience as satisfying. The Spirit illuminates our lives to have us see things as they are. Sin is devalued and Christ is exalted, and so we follow Him with all our hearts!

And so let us fall on our faces before the Lord God and pray that He would daily pour out His Spirit on us so generously that our affections would be changed, that our eyes would be opened, and that we would love the glory of the preeminent Christ more than the temporal gratification of our own sinful flesh.

How to Be An Effective Preacher: Be Passionately Thrilled by the Bible

I think everyone who is currently in a regular preaching ministry and everyone who aspires to serve God's people by preaching His Word should listen to this clip repeatedly. A transcript of a relevant portion (1:54 to 3:03) is below.

"I think the way I became a preacher was by being passionately thrilled by what I was seeing in the Bible in seminary. Passionately thrilled! When Philippians began to open to me, Galatians opened to me, Romans opened to me, the Sermon on the Mount opened to me in classes on exegesis -- not homiletics but exegesis -- everything in me was feeling, 'I want to say this to somebody! I want to find a way to say this! Because this is awesome! This is incredible!'

"So preachers today that go everywhere but the Bible to find something interesting or something scintillating and passionate -- I don't get it! I don't get that at all! Because I have to work hard to leave the Bible and go somewhere to find an illustration because everything here is just blowing me away. And it's that sense of being blown away by what's here -- by the God that's here and the Christ's that's here and the Gospel that's here and the Spirit that's here and the life that's here -- being blown away by this, you just kinda say, 'That's gotta get out. That's gotta get out.' ...

"I don't think there's much you can do to become a preacher except: (1) know your Bible and (2) be unbelievably excited about what's there, and (3) love people a lot."


As I listen to this, everything in me says, "YES!!! YES!!!" This is how a preacher that honors God is made, because God is honored when He is beheld and marveled at! And marveled at to such a degree that His glory compels praise.

I will not be an effective preacher -- one that plumbs and mines the depths of God's Word to feed the people on the meaty delicacies of the voice of their Shepherd -- if I am not blown away by the vision of an all-glorious, all-satisfying, high and lofty and exalted and lifted up God as is revealed in His Word. I must be affected -- thrilled! -- by God's own magnificent presentation of Himself, and worship over that in my study so that I can worship over that as I'm preaching. Because it is only as the preacher worships over the Word as he proclaims it that the people will worship over the Word as they hear it proclaimed.

This is just so huge! I love what Piper says about being thrilled in his exegesis classes and not his homiletics classes. You know what that shouts out to me? You can't fabricate a preacher. Preachers are not man-made. You can't study really hard to become a preacher. No matter how good a communicator you are, how clever you can turn a phrase, how good your outline is, or how white your teeth are, God and God alone makes preachers. When Christ ascended on high, He led captive a host of captives and He gave gifts to men. And He gave some as pastors and teachers (Eph 4:8, 11). Pastors and teachers are Christ's divinely-made gifts to His Church. They are not men who thought they could turn a phrase well and didn't mind the idea of talking for a living and so decided to take up preaching.

And the implications of that are wildly significant! It means that the Church must depend on Christ for the provision of these men. Do you want to be a preacher? I do. But all I can do is prayerfully, with fear and trembling, get on my face before the Lord Jesus and beg Him to open my eyes to behold wondrous things from the truth of His Word, and to affect me rightly with them, that I might be able to properly proclaim the excellencies of Him that called me out of darkness into His marvelous light (1Pet 2:9). You see? I am at His mercy to make me a preacher. And if He doesn't, I am not called to the ministry -- no matter how much I really think I am called, no matter how much I really want to preach and teach and shepherd and counsel and lead, and no matter how much passion I can muster up for those tasks.

"Preacher" is not merely a title. It is an identity. A God-given identity.

And if God hasn't granted that identity to you -- if He hasn't given you the vision to be blown away, to be passionately thrilled by what He's revealed of Himself in the Bible (and not the television, the newspaper, and the depraved human culture!) -- then for Christ's sake stay out of the pulpit! Don't torture the people of God by trying to give to them out of your own resources that which only Christ can give out of His.

Know your Bible, be unbelievably excited about what's there, and love people a lot. And trust Christ to provide all three by grace.

God Has Designed Us Such That Only He Can Satisfy

C. S. Lewis, from Mere Christianity, pp. 49-50:

The moment you have a self at all, there is a possibility of putting yourself first -- wanting to be the centre -- wanting to be God, in fact. That was the sin of Satan: and that was the sin he taught the human race. ... What Satan put into the heads of our remote ancestors was the idea that they could 'be like gods' -- could set up on their own as if they had created themselves -- be their own masters -- invent some sort of happiness for themselves outside God, apart from God. And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history -- money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery -- the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.

The reason why it can never succeed is this. God made us: invented us as a man invents an engine. A car is made to run on petrol [gasoline], and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion. God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.

"How sweet all at once it was for me
to be rid of those fruitless joys which I had once feared to lose! …
You drove them from me, You who are the true, sovereign joy.
You drove them from me and took their place,
You who are sweeter than all pleasure,
though not to flesh and blood,
You who outshine all light,
yet are hidden deeper than any secret in our hearts,
You who surpass all honor,
though not in the eyes of men who see all honor in themselves. …
O Lord my God, my Light, my Wealth, and my Salvation."
- Augustine of Hippo -

Biblical Repentance Involves the Emotions

Last Tuesday, I introduced a series on Biblical repentance in which I mentioned that I'd be studying the doctrine of repentance from Scripture, first by studying the words Scripture uses to speak about repentance. It's important, when trying to discover a Scriptural theology of a particular doctrine, to get that theology "from the ground up," so to speak. Contemporary Christians have a way about speaking in Scriptural terms, but using those words without their paired Scriptural meaning. And so we often wind up using the same terminology while meaning totally different things by it. Because of that, we need to go directly to Scripture and start at the most basic level: the inspired, infallible, inerrant words that God gave. This way, we can understand repentance, not the way we've always heard it or thought about it, but in the way that the writers of Scripture intend it to be understood.

One word that the Old Testament uses for repentance is the word נחם. One way to transliterate it into English is nacham. It sort of sounds like nah-CHAM, with the ch pronounced as a guttural like the ch in chanukkah. Lexical sources posit that nacham was originally an onomatopoetic word, carrying the sense of breathing deeply. This is certainly supported by Hebrew phonology, as nacham almost sounds like one is sighing. This is also consistent with the semantic range of nacham in the Old Testament, whose meanings include to have compassion, to comfort, to be sorry or sorrowful, and to repent. One can imagine someone sighing in compassion and in order to comfort someone, or because he is sorrowful about something.

Put most simply, nacham shows us the place of the emotions in repentance. It teaches that those who repent will be genuinely sorry and remorseful over their deeds. For example, it describes the mourning one does at the funeral of a family member: Now after a considerable time Shua's daughter, the wife of Judah, died; and when the time of mourning [nacham] was ended…” (Gen 38:12). This is not hard to understand when we consider that our Lord has told us that mourning is an appropriate response to recognizing our own sin (Mt 5:4). Nacham is also used to describe the sorrow the people of Israel experience when the tribe of their brother Benjamin suffered the judgment of Yahweh because of the wickedness done to the Levite’s concubine (Jdg 19). “And the sons of Israel were sorry [nacham] for their brother Benjamin and said, ‘One tribe is cut off from Israel today’” (Jdg 21:6, cf. 21:15).

Further, after being severely rebuked by Yahweh for his complaining and arrogant words, Job expresses his deep sorrow by declaring his repentance as he sits on the ash heap in a landfill: “Therefore I retract, and I repent [nacham] in dust and ashes” (Job 42:6). This godly sorrow is also said to be accompanied by shame and humiliation. In Jeremiah 31:19, this is evidenced by Ephraim (a name representing the people Israel) smiting his thigh: “For after I turned back, I repented [nacham]; And after I was instructed, I smote on my thigh; I was ashamed and also humiliated because I bore the reproach of my youth.’” Thus, these deep emotions of remorse signaled by nacham will lead to action, such as repudiating wickedness, which God required of Jerusalem (Jer 8:6); renouncing sinful thoughts and words, as Job did when he was confronted by Yahweh (Job 42:3-6); and even changing one’s physical course of direction, which God prevented Israel from doing while fleeing the Egyptians in the exodus (Ex 13:17).

Nacham, then, underscores the emotional component of repentance. It includes remorse and sorrow, and in some cases shame and humiliation. And at times it experiences these emotions to such a degree that it moves one to demonstrate his sorrow in action.

However, as insightful as nacham is into the nature of Biblical repentance, it's not the whole story. In order to discover that true repentance from sin goes beyond the emotional response of sorrow and regret and into the realm of affections and actions as well, we must look to another Hebrew word, which we'll get to next time.

Biblical Repentance: Introduction

1. Exegesis
1.1. Nacham: Biblical Repentance Involves the Emotions
1.2. Shuv: The Heart's Obedient Turn from Sin to God
1.3. Metanoeo: A Fundamental Change of the Whole Man

2. Discussion
2.1. Summary and Discussion: Intellectual, Emotional, Volitional
2.2. Repentance for the Christian

3. Application
3.1. Repentance vs. Penance
3.2. Counsel to a Sinning Brother
3.3. Homework for Sinning Brother
3.4. The Effect on My Personal Walk with Christ

In Pursuit of Becoming a Technical-Devotional Reader of Scripture

Daniel Doriani, in his commentary on the book of James, comments on the propensity for ministers of the Word to "professionalize their use of Scripture." That is, it's their job to affect people with the Word of God, and so they study Scripture and prepare to teach and preach it for other people. It's far easier to love preaching the glory of God than to love the glory of God.

Yet Doriani reminds us that we can do the people of God no good if we ourselves do not seek the benefit of Scripture's effect on our hearts and lives. We affect no one with the truth of God if we ourselves are not affected. That's why Ezra set his heart to study the law of Yahweh: first to practice it himself, and only then to teach God's statutes and ordinances in Israel (Ezra 7:10).

With a striking degree of insight and wisdom, Doriani offers a taxonomy of the ways one grows in reading Scripture. In short, we need both light and heat. We need to know our stuff, and we need to pursue our greatest pleasure in benefiting from what the Scripture says to us first.

Teachers and preachers of the Word must continue to seek the solution to their own struggles in the Word of God. This seems obvious, but pastors and seminarians are prone to professionalize their use of Scripture, to read it to help every soul but their own. Let me offer a typology of the ways pastors can read Scripture.

When he is a new Christian, the future pastor's reading is naive and devotional. He devours Scripture, underlining virtually every word in his new Bible, feeling that God speaks directly to him with every word.

After a few years, the budding leader's reading becomes sophisticated and devotional. He still feels that God is speaking to him in the text but he has learned to read texts in their contexts. He reads Bible dictionaries and commentaries. He knows the translation strategies of various Bible versions and begins to use that knowledge to get at the original text.

The future pastor decides to go to seminary, where he becomes a technical reader. He reads Greek and Hebrew; he consults scholarly sources. He respects the distance between his world and that of biblical thought. His zeal to describe biblical history, culture, and language grows. He pursues what the word originally meant and perhaps neglects what it means today.

As ordination comes, our friend remembers that his study has, as its goal, the edification of the church. He continues to read technically, but now he shares his findings with the church. He becomes a technical-functional reader. His reading may be detached, personally speaking, but he stores and organizes his discoveries so he can offer them to others. While this phase may mark a partial improvement, he does not directly profit from his reading of Scripture.

He needs therefore to become a technical, devotional reader. Every technical skill remains, but he reads like a child, letting the Word speak directly to his heart again. He gains what Paul Ricoeur calls a "second naivete." He is both technically astute and meek. He both receives God's Word and expounds it. In this way he finds strength to endure trials and to check the growth of sin.

From Daniel M. Doriani, James, Reformed Expository Commentary (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing), 50-51.

The precepts of Yahweh are right, rejoicing the heart.
- Psalm 19:8 -

I have rejoiced in the way of Your testimonies,
As much as in all riches.
I will meditate on Your precepts
And regard Your ways.
I shall delight in Your statutes;
I shall not forget Your word.
- Psalm 119:14-16 -

I have inherited Your testimonies forever,
For they are the joy of my heart.
- Psalm 119:111

An Inward, Sweet Sense

As I've been working on a biographical research project on Jonathan Edwards, I've had the privilege of reading much about him as well as much of what he himself has written on various subjects. Perhaps most interesting for me is to read from his diary and his personal letters to various friends, family members, and acquaintances.

Among those are his reflections on his own conversion. I reproduce some of those thoughts here and pray that they would benefit your soul as they have my own.

The first instance that I remember of that sort of inward, sweet delight in God and divine things that I have lived much in since, was on reading those words, 1 Tim. 1:17: “Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.” As I read the words, there came into my soul, and was as it were diffused through it, a sense of the glory of the Divine Being; a new sense, quite different from any thing I ever experienced before. Never any words of Scripture seemed to me as these words did. I thought with myself, how excellent a Being that was, and how happy I should be, if I might enjoy that God, and be rapt up in him in heaven, and be as it were swallowed up in him for ever! I kept saying, and as it were singing over these words of scripture to myself; and went to pray to God that I might enjoy him, and prayed in a manner quite different from what I used to do; with a new sort of affection. …

From about that time, I began to have a new kind of apprehensions and ideas of Christ, and the work of redemption, and the glorious way of salvation by him. An inward, sweet sense of these things, at times, came into my heart; and my soul was led away in pleasant views and contemplations of them. …

The sense I had of divine things, would often of a sudden kindle up, as it were, a sweet burning in my heart; an ardor of soul, that I know not how to express.

After [my conversion] my sense of divine things gradually increased, and became more and more lively, and had more of that inward sweetness. The appearance of everything was altered: there seemed to be as it were a calm, sweet cast, or appearance of divine glory, in almost everything.

God’s excellency, his wisdom, his purity and love, seemed to appear in everything; in the sun, moon and stars; in the clouds and blue sky; in the grass, flowers, trees; in the water, and all nature; which used greatly to fix my mind. I often used to sit and view the moon, for a long time; and so in the day time, spend much time in viewing the clouds and sky, to behold the sweet glory of God in these things: in the meantime, singing forth with a low voice, my contemplations of the Creator and Redeemer. …

The delights which I now felt in those things of religion, were of an exceeding different kind from those before mentioned, that I had when a boy; and what I then had no more notion of than one born blind has of pleasant and beautiful colours. They were of a more inward, pure, soul-animating and refreshing nature. Those former delights never reached the heart; and did not arise from any sight of the divine excellency of the things of God; or any taste of the soul-satisfying and life-giving good there is in them.

I will bless Yahweh at all times;
His praise shall continually be in my mouth.
My soul will make its boast in Yahweh;
The humble will hear it and rejoice.
O magnify Yahweh with me,
And let us exalt His name together.
- Psalm 34:1-3 -

What is the Bottom of Your Joy?

On Sunday, John Piper preached a sermon to his congregation to clarify a statement he's made (or actually, a question he's asked) for years to try to locate the believer's joy in God and not in himself. He was speaking to them specifically with a view to his upcoming 8-month sabbatical, and wanted to leave this message with them in his absence.

I read the notes of the sermon, though I haven't listened to it, and I found it to be a very refreshing read. It articulates some of the things that I was trying to express in this post last week, especially in the last paragraph. I re-post it here and leave it with you, confident that it will benefit you as it has me.

Before I get to his actual notes, here's a video excerpt of something I think everybody who can understand English needs to hear. It has to do with what a Christian, most foundationally, is; that is, at the most foundational level, what makes a Christian different from a non-Christian.

The Bottom of Our Joy: God, Not Self

I have been asking audiences for years: “Do you feel more loved by God because God makes much of you, or because God, at great cost to his Son, frees you to enjoy making much of him forever?” The aim of that question has never been to deny that God makes much of us. He does. (Which we will see shortly.) The aim has been to help people relocate the bottom of their joy—the decisive foundation of their joy—from self to God.

More Concerned About the Hell-Bound

Let me try to help you understand what shapes so much of what I say. A people ought to understand their pastor. I am more concerned about nominal hell-bound Christians who feel loved by God, than I am about genuine heaven-bound Christians who don’t feel loved by God.

Please don’t hear me as uncaring or indifferent to genuine Christians who don’t feel loved by God. I do care, and this sermon is especially for you. At this point, I’m simply trying to give you a perspective on why I emphasize what I do. There are millions of nominal Christians who are not born again who believe God loves them and yet are on their way to hell. And the difference between them and a born again believer is this: What’s the bottom, the decisive foundation, of their happiness? As you penetrate down deeper and deeper to the core, or the bottom, of what makes you happy, what is it?

Jesus Is Not a New Butler

Millions of nominal Christians have never experienced a fundamental alteration of that foundation of happiness. Instead they have absorbed the notion that becoming Christian means turning to Jesus get what you always wanted before you were born again. So, if you wanted wealth, you stop depending on yourself for it, and by prayer and faith and obedience you depend on Jesus for wealth. If you wanted to be healthy, you turn from mere human cures to Jesus as the source of your health. If wanted to escape the pain of hell, you turn to Jesus for the escape. If you wanted to have a happy marriage, you come to Jesus for help. If you wanted peace of conscience and freedom from guilt feelings, you turn to Jesus for these things.

In other words, to become a Christian, in this way of seeing things, is to have all the same desires you had as an unregenerate person—only you get them from a new source, Jesus. And he feels so loving when you do. But there’s no change at the bottom of your heart and your cravings. No change in what makes you happy. There’s no change in the decisive foundation of your joy. You just shop at a new store. The dinner is still the same; you just have a new butler. The bags in the hotel room are still the same; you just have a new bellhop.

A New Bottom for Our Joy in the New Birth

That’s not what the new birth is. It’s not having all the same desires that you had as an unregenerate person, and just getting them from a new source. The new birth changes the bottom, the root, the foundation of what makes us happy. Self at the bottom is replaced by Jesus. God, himself.

What makes the born-again person glad is not at bottom that they have God’s gifts, but that they have God. This is what I am more concerned about than genuine Christians who are truly on their way to heaven, and don’t feel loved by God. And my shorthand way of trying to awaken people to the dangers of feeling loved by God while being unregenerate is to ask: Do you feel more loved by God because he makes much of you, or because, as great cost to his Son, he frees you to enjoy knowing him and treasuring him and making much of him?

Why God Makes Much of Us for His Own Glory

But today I am jealous that this concern of mine not undermine the immeasurable way God loves you who are born again, including by making much of you—indeed, making much more of you than you ever dreamed.

So here is my new way of coming at this issue. I ask: Why does God perform all his acts of love toward us in a way that reveals he is loving us for his own glory? Why does God relentlessly reveal his love to us by telling us in the Bible that he is loving us for his own name’s sake? It is an urgent question because there are so many who say or feel that it isn’t love if God’s aim is to magnify his own glory. Or they feel: You say he is making much of me, but in fact he isn’t making much of me if his design is that he be made much of in making much of me.

I tremble just to say those words. It isn’t so. I want to show you—I want to help you see and feel—that you are more loved by God when he loves this way. He makes much more of you when he makes much of you this way. Please don’t turn this off. Ask God to help you see what we are about to see in the Bible.

Examples of God Loving Us for His Own Glory

Just a few examples of what I mean by God performing all his acts of love toward us in a way that reveals he is loving us for his own glory.

1. God shows his love for us by predestining us for adoption into his family.

He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace. (Ephesians 1:5-6)

God loved us in eternity before we were created, and he planned to make us his children by adoption. And the aim of this love was “to the praise of the glory of his grace.” He loved us this way that we might praise his grace. A regenerate person loves to praise God’s grace in our adoption. A nominal Christian simply loves the natural benefits of adoption.

2. God shows his love for us by creating us.

Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory. (Isaiah 43:6-7)

God loved us in bringing us into being that we might enjoy forever all the good he plans for us. And he did it, he says, for his glory.

3. God shows his love for us by sending us a Savior.

“Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest.’” (Luke 2:10-14)

We get the Savior; he gets the glory. We get the “great joy”; God gets the praise. That is God’s design in sending his Son.

4. God shows his love for us when Christ died for us.

For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.” (2 Corinthians 5:14-15)

Christ loved us, died for us; and the aim was that we might live for him. He pursues his glory through our salvation. And if you wonder why we read Psalm 79 at the beginning, it was because of one verse, verse 9:

Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of your name; deliver us, and atone for our sins, for your name’s sake! (Psalms 79:9)

Born-again people pray like this. They see their salvation primarily as a gift of the ability to see and savor and show the glory of God.

5. God shows his love for us in the way Jesus prays for us.

“Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.” (John 17:24)

“With” him. He prays that we be with him. And why does that make us happy? O he will give us many things. But the bottom of our joy, the decisive foundation of our happiness will be this: We will see his glory. Our Savior, not our self, will be the bottom of our joy.

The point of those five texts is to show that throughout the Bible, God performs all his acts of love toward us in a way that reveals he is loving us for his own glory.

Why does he do it this way?

How Much God Does Make of Us

Before I answer, it’s crucial in this message to emphasize that God’s love for us includes making much of us in ways that take our breath away. They are so over-the-top that we are scarcely able to believe how much he makes of us. A few examples of what I mean:

1. God makes much of us by being pleased with us and commending our lives.

Alan Jacobs said that C. S. Lewis’ greatest sermon was “The Weight of Glory.” And in that sermon, what is the weight of glory that every true Christian will bear? To the hear the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

To please God . . . to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness . . . to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son—it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is. (“Weight of Glory,” 1965, p. 10)

2. God makes much of us by making us fellow heirs with his Son, who owns everything.

• “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” (Matthew 5:5)
• “The promise to Abraham and his offspring [is] that he would be heir of the world.” (Romans 4:13)
• “Let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.” (1 Corinthians 3:21-23)

3. God makes much of us by having us sit at table when he returns and serving us as though he were the slave and we the masters.

“Truly, I say to you, he will dress himself for service and have them recline at table, and he will come and serve them.” (Luke 12:37)

4. God makes much of us by appointing us to carry out the judgment of angels.

“Do you not know that we are to judge angels?” (1 Corinthians 6:3)

5. God makes much of us by ascribing value to us and rejoicing over us as his treasured possession.

• “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. . . . Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.” (Matthew 10:29-31)
• “The Lord your God . . . will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.” (Zephaniah 3:17)

6. God makes much of us by giving us a glorious body like Jesus resurrection body.

• “He will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.” (Philippians 3:21)
• “The righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.” (Matthew 13:43; cf. Romans 8:30)

7. Most amazingly God makes much of us by granting us to sit with Christ on his throne.

• “The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne.” (Revelation 3:21)
• Or as Paul says, “The church . . . is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.” (Ephesians 1:22-23)

We are destined to share in the governing of the universe with divine-like authority.

Let it be known loud and clear, God makes much of his Son’s bride, the church. God loves the church with a kind of love that will make more of her than she can ever imagine. All this is yours, if you are belong to Christ (Romans 8:9).

Why God Reminds Us That He Loves Us for His Glory

The final decisive question is: Why does God, who loves so much, and who makes much of us so extremely, remind us again and again that he does all this for his own glory? Why does God remind us over and over that he makes much of us in a way that is designed ultimately to make much of him?

The answer is this: Loving us this way is a greater love. God’s love for us, that makes much of us for his glory is a greater love than if he ended by making us our greatest treasure, rather than himself. Making himself our end is a greater love than making us his end.

Self Will Never Satisfy

The reason this is greater love is that self, no matter how glorified by God (Romans 8:30), will never satisfy a heart that is made for God. God loves you infinitely. He sent his Son to die that he might have you, and that you might have him (1 Peter 3:18). He will not let you settle for wonderful and happy thoughts of self. Not even a glorified self. He will not let your glory, which he himself creates and delights in, replace his glory as your supreme treasure.

God’s Greatest Gift

Bethlehem, I leave this truth with you while I am away for these months. Glory in this. Take heart from this. Rejoice in this. Be strengthened by this. You are precious to God, and the greatest gift he has for you is not to let your preciousness become your god. God will be your God. God alone forever. And this is infinite love.

A Glorious Morning Meditation

I'm very thankful for the requirement to pray for an hour a day for my prayer class. I pray that it's building in me a taste for the discipline of prayer for the rest of my life. I really enjoy the time of meditating on God's Word and on the glory of Christ. It truly does become a devotional time; that is, it is a time of sincere worship of God my Savior.

I wanted to share with you one such meditation from a recent morning. The night before I was reading a (I guess you could call it a) biography on Jonathan Edwards called A God Entranced Vision of All Things. So when I woke up the next morning, my mind was still considering the God-centeredness of God. I wasn't particularly captivated by the rightness of our God-centeredness, but what particularly thrilled me that morning was God's own God-centeredness, His "self-centeredness."

I considered how glorious it is that for my God, it is loving for Him to be self-seeking, for Him to be selfish, for Him to magnify and make much of Himself… and how opposite of loving it would be for anyone else to do that. When I pursue my own glory and my own desires, I am functionally hating those around me, because I’m making much of myself, and I am not worthy to be made much of. The exaltation of me in the hearts and minds of those around me will not do them good. There is no benefit there. But for my God, when He exalts Himself in the minds of those in His presence, He Himself is so delightful and pleasant and worthy and beautiful that His self-exaltation is love to those people. When He magnifies Himself, He is infinitely benefiting those in whose sight He is magnified.

Dear friends, I love this God!

...and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.

- John 14:21 -

But as for me, the nearness of God is my good.
- Psalm 73:28 -

One thing I have asked from Yahweh, that I shall seek:
That I may dwell in the house of Yahweh all the days of my life,
To behold the beauty of Yahweh
And to meditate in His temple.
- Psalm 27:4 -

A Biblical View of the Affections

In my Pastoral Counseling class, we answered the questions in the exam for the National Association of Nouthetic Counselors as a class assignment. The following is an adapted answer from that assignment, which asked us to define affections Biblically and how they are changed Biblically. Please do mouse over and read the Scripture references as they come up.

In the Scriptures, the God of the universe has revealed that His ultimate purpose in all that He does is to bring glory to Himself (Is 42:8; 43:7, 25; 48:11; Ezek 36:22-23; Eph 1:11-12). That is, God’s will is to be worshiped by all of His creation. To that end, He created human beings to be worshiping creatures so that they might “honor Him as God [and] give thanks” (Rom 1:21). Therefore, all of life – especially the Christian life – is about worship. Progress in sanctification comes when our worship of God increases and matures. Sin is made manifest when we worship anything other than God (cf. Rom 1:20-25).

Having understood that life is about worship, we begin to see the importance of affections in living the Christian life. As worship is at the heart of life, so the affections are at the heart of worship. We worship what we desire, what we love, what we delight in. And that worship shapes our actions. “Our words and actions are shaped by our pursuit of the things our hearts crave. … What we worship determines our responses to all our experiences” (Tripp, Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands, p. 67). Jesus testifies to this reality when He simply says, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Mt 6:21; Lk 12:34). You will serve with all your being that which you treasure. When your treasure is not God, you commit idolatry (cf. Ezek 14:1-5), and it is idolatry of the heart – the worship of the creature rather than the Creator – that is the core of all sin (Rom 1:25; cf. Deut 29:2-4; 30:6; Jer 31:33; Ezek 6:9; 36:26).

Therefore, when a Biblical counselor (or any Christian) seeks to aid in another’s sanctification and mortification of sin, the battle must be fought at the level of the affections, or the desires. For example, if a counselee’s sin problem is greed, it is because his desire for money rules his heart rather than the desire to know Christ. Or if his sin problem is lust or sexual immorality, it is because he believes that mental or physical sexual stimulation will satisfy his desires more than will the glory of God in Christ.

The counselor must seek, then, to transform the counselee’s heart, his affections. He must be shown that the desires and the affections that he seeks to satisfy with sin are actually most fully satisfied by knowing Jesus Christ. This is how Jesus Himself instructs us to battle covetousness. He commands that we “make [ourselves] money belts which do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven” (Lk 12:33). He does not simply command us to stop desiring possessions; He redirects our desire to something greater, to something that will fully satisfy us, to treasure in heaven, to Himself. The Apostle Paul is strengthened to press on in the Christian life in this very same way. He counts all idols – all substitute pleasures – as loss that He may gain Christ and know Him (Phil 3:7-11). David’s righteousness came from his singularity of focus; that is, he desired and sought one thing: to behold the beauty of Yahweh and to meditate in His temple (Ps 27:4). Moses fled from the idolatry of Egypt because he considered “the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he was looking to the reward” (Heb 11:26). And so it is throughout Scripture.

Therefore, emotions and affections (and thus actions) are changed Biblically when the worthiness and delightfulness of the beauty of Christ is exalted in the heart of the Christian. Affections are changed when the eyes of our hearts are enlightened to know the riches of the glory of the inheritance of God (Eph 1:18). When that happens, the promise of pleasure from sin looks so paltry in comparison to the treasure chest of holy joy found in Christ. Affections are set right, God is worshiped in Christ, and that life of worship controls all we do (Mk 7:18-23) and say (Lk 6:44-45).