We, Not Me

Commenting on Ecclesiastes 4, David Gibson says:

If you can live in this world in such a way that the person or people beside you—your friend, your spouse, your children, your brother, your sister, the people God has put in your path—are your waking concern and your dominant focus, then you will find happiness. If your head hits the pillow at night full of questions about how you might help and serve someone else, and how you can be a certain kind of person for them, then you will find a gladness and contentment that nothing else can match.

. . . I want you to know what the Preacher is not saying. You might expect him to say that if you live for others, then you'll be more spiritual. Or more godly. You'll be a growing Christian. It is certainly true that you will be all those things, but that is not the aspect of life that the Preacher is painting in this part of his book. You will be happier. The word he uses is "quietness" (v. 6). It simply means rest—peace of mind and calmness of soul. It's a word to capture the deep well-being of those who know their place in the world, content with the boundary lines of their life and able to enjoy the fruits of their labors with a cheerful heart. The way to arrive in that place of rest is to live for we, not me.

—David Gibson, Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in the Light of the End (Wheaton: Crossway, 2017), 65–66.

The Gospel of John and Resurrection Joy

I recently finished reading through yet again the Gospel according to John, for something like the thirtieth time since I came first to know the Lord. And what strikes me most this time is how the passion and resurrection narrative of John—if you enter into it and feel what the disciples must have first felt—obviously intends to produce gladness and freedom and relief and amazement.

The Gospel at its heart is full of joy and peace and liberty and wonder! So come on in. Take up and read. And enjoy the joy of the Lord! Freedom—at last! Peace—like no other! Happiness—guaranteed! Life indeed—forevermore! The Lord is risen! He is risen indeed!

Joy Held in Common

"When large numbers of people share their joy in common the happiness of each is greater, because each adds fuel to the other's flame."

—Saint Augustine, Confessions, trans. R. S. Pine-Coffin (New York: Penguin, 1961), 163.

Hypocrisy Defined

"If you try to do deeds 'for the glory of God' without treasuring the glory of God in your heart, it is a sham. The word hypocrisy was created precisely for the effort to say with deeds what we do not feel in our hearts."

—John Piper & D. A. Carson, The Pastor as Scholar & the Scholar as Pastor: Reflections on Life and Ministry (Wheaton: Crossway, 2011), 47.

Speak, O Lord, Our Delight and Our Reward

The prayer that follows is the congregational prayer from this last Lord's Day at New Covenant Church:

O God—Father, Son, and Spirit—you are our God. Earnestly we seek you; our souls thirst for you; our flesh faints for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

You, the Fountain of Living Waters, the Fountain of Life, you have said to us: “Seek my face.” Our hearts say to you, "Your face, O Lord, do we seek!" To whom else shall we go? You have words of eternal life. You give us drink from the river of your pleasures. You hold pleasures at your right hand forevermore. So hide not your face from us, O God, our God. Turn us not away in our longings and thirstings and pantings of soul. None can slake our souls’ thirst but you alone.

We have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory, and we confess that your steadfast love is better than this life. And so our lips will praise you, God, our Exceeding Joy, you who have put more joy in our hearts than the world has when their grain and new wine abound.

As we pass, then, through this fleeting, vapor’s breath of a life, this wilderness of the world, we long to be where you are, O Lord; we would be at Jerusalem, in the new heavens and new earth. But in your infinite wisdom, you have seen fit, for now, for us to press on in pilgrimage to that great city where your glory is the sun, where the river of your pleasures runs through, where all things are made new, where our souls will fully and finally find rest in God alone.

So as we linger in this world, this desert, as we press, then, toward our heavenly home, the new Jerusalem, help us, Father, to fix our eyes on the Lord of glory, our Lord Jesus, high and lifted up, merciful and mighty, ready to help us in time of need. You have called us to walk worthy of the Gospel, worthy of our calling, worthy of our Lord. But we cannot walk a worthy walk without your speaking to us a sustaining and satisfying word. So help us to grasp firmly in faith your very great and precious promises purchased by his blood. You have told us, Father, that all your promises—old and new—are “Yes!” in your Son.

So speak, O Lord, to our leaders as they bear the load of their pastoral labors: “I am your salvation and your very great reward. I will be with you, even as I was with Moses.”

Speak, O Lord, to the aging among us, bodies fading and failing, say to them: “When you go through deep waters, even the valley of the shadow of death, I will be with you. You shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

Speak, O God, to those who have lost loved ones: “I will be with you; I am the Resurrection and the Life. Whoever believes in me will live and never die.”

O God our Father, speak to your children battling all manner of struggles inward and outward: “I will be with you; I will never leave you or forsake you. I will not let your foot be moved; I who keep you will not slumber.”

O God our Father, from whom every fatherhood is named, speak to our families and the heads of homes: “I will be with you; I will keep you from all evil, I will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.”

Speak, O Lord, to our womens ministry: “I will be with you; I will supply all your needs according to my riches in glory in Christ Jesus; my grace is sufficient for you, my power is perfected in weakness.”

Speak, O Lord, to all of us in our individual and particular callings in this world: “I will be with you; no good thing will I withhold from you if you walk uprightly.”

Speak, O Lord, our Delight and our Reward, for your servants are listening; say to our souls, again and again, “I am your salvation.”

For we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Come, Let Us Spite the Devil

The apostle Paul commands the redeemed of the Lord to "rejoice always" (1 Thess. 5:16). And seeing the importance of this, he urges this upon believers regularly (e.g., Phil. 3:1; 4:4). Now for the religiously minded person, this is troublesome. That person says, "Just tell me what program or ritual to perform. Tell me where to show up, what motions to push through. Don't give me any of this feelings or emotions business. I can't generate that. And certainly not 'always.'" Exactly. You must be born again to obey such commands. You must be born again to be a Christian!

But if you are born again, rejoicing always should be at the top of your scale of priorities. And obeying the command to rejoice in the Lord always really ought not to be so hard for the regenerate. There are innumerable inducements to be joyful. But we miss them. We look right beyond them. So often we prefer to groan over some trifle that, in eternity, will prove to be like an irksome gnat that bothered you for two minutes on a bright, cool summer day off in the distance.

So C. H. Spurgeon says a good word about this privilege of every believer. It is one of our most potent weapons against Satan's stratagems. Let's hear it, and take it to heart:

It is the privilege of the true believer to be "singing all the time." Joy in God is suitable to our condition. Joy in the Lord is more injurious to Satan's empire than anything. I am of the same mind as Luther, who, when he heard any bad news, used to say, "Come, let us sing a psalm, and spite the devil."

—C. H. Spurgeon, Pictures from Pilgrim's Progress (Pasadena: Pilgrim Publications, 1992), 86-87.

Through the Precious Blood

Following the same vein as the last post, here's another song, this time from Sovereign Grace Praise, that Em and I have been enjoying and laying up: Through the Precious Blood.  The lyrics are by Mark Altrogge with Sovereign Grace Praise.  It's from the Come Weary Saints CD.

You have ordained every breath we take
In pleasure or pain, there is no mistake
Gladness and grief, both are in Your hand
And sufferings brief carry out Your plan
And our fleeting sorrows
Will yield an endless prize
When some bright tomorrow
We’ll see You with our eyes, and

Grace upon grace flows down, flows down
Grace upon grace flows down, flows down
Through the precious blood of Christ

Father of lights, Giver of all grace
Your mercies crown our lives all our days
River of Life, quench our thirsty souls
For no true delight does Your love withhold
And in every season
We are satisfied
For just one reason
Christ was crucified, and

All good gifts, every good thing
Comes to us freely, so freely
All good gifts, every good thing
Comes to us freely, so freely
Through the precious blood
Through the precious blood

© 2008 Sovereign Grace Praise (BMI)

When Trials Come

One of the routines my wife and I have developed is one of routinely considering the pain and suffering coming our way at God's sovereign appointment.  Doesn't sound fun, does it?  Sound morbid?  Perhaps.  It could be.  Or perhaps, and more likely, it's a sober practice to help prevent inebriation with the silliness and banality and superficiality of our world—this world that numbs us so thoroughly with television and entertainment and vacations and so on, all the way up to the day of meeting the Judge of all the earth, who will consign each to everlasting heaven or everlasting hell.  Perhaps this routine then is part of what God is using to steel us and give us backbone to prepare for our terminal cancer or brain injury or heart attack or lost baby or fierce persecution or whatever (our fill-in-the-blank day of dark news).  And I highly recommend it.

This routine includes regularly laying up Scripture, not least the promises of God; praying for God to make us ready for the day when death beckons, not least if it comes early; and also laying up Gospel-soaked lyrics from psalms, hymns, and Spirit-songs.  What follows is one such Gospel song which we've enjoyed and pondered of late.  It's called When Trials Come, written by the Gettys. 

When trials come, no longer fear
For in the pain our God draws near
To fire a faith worth more than gold
And there his faithfulness is told
And there his faithfulness is told

Within the night I know your peace
The breath of God brings strength to me
And new each morning mercy flows
As treasures of the darkness grow
As treasures of the darkness grow

I turn to wisdom not my own
For every battle You have known
My confidence will rest in You
Your love endures; Your ways are good
Your love endures; Your ways are good

When I am weary of the cost
I see the triumph of the cross
So in its shadow I shall run
Till You complete the work begun
Till You complete the work begun

One day all things will be made new
I'll see the hope You called me to
And in Your kingdom, paved with gold
I'll praise Your faithfulness of old
I'll praise Your faithfullness of old

—Keith and Kristin Getty, 2005 Thankyou Music

The Most Necessary Part of Our Wisdom

Yesterday I said another word from Owen was forthcoming.  And I said it would address the charge that maintaining the soul in a frame a "self-abasement, condemnation, and abhorrency" (Owen's wording) does not tend toward morbid introspection.  Well, here is Owen's take on this issue:

To keep our souls in a constant frame of mourning and self-abasement is the most necessary part of our wisdom with reference unto all the ends of the life of God; and it is so far from having any inconsistency with those consolations and joys which the gospel tenders unto us in believing, as that it is the only way to let them into the soul in a due manner.  It is such mourners, and those alone, unto whom evangelical comforts are administered (Isa. 57:18).

Can anyone tell me that their deepest Christian experience in walking with God does not bear this out?  I cannot for the life of me see how this is out of step with Scripture and the Spirit.  It certainly fits my own experience walking with God.  Like hand in glove.

"Blessed/Happy are the poor in spirit. . . . Blessed/Happy are those who mourn. . . ." (Mt. 5:3-4).  And blessed are those who are "sorrowful, yet always rejoicing" (2 Cor. 6:10).

How's Your Posture?

Among the stances and strategies the disciple must take against sin in the soul is this posture described by John Owen in a little work called On the Dominion of Sin and Grace (Works, vol. 7, 532):

No frame of mind is a better antidote against the poisin of sin. . . . God hath a continual regard unto mourners, those that are of a 'broken heart and a contrite spirit.' It is the soil where all grace will thrive and flourish. A constant due sense of sin as sin, of our interest therein by nature and in the course of our lives, with a continual afflictive rememberance of some such instances of it as have had peculiar aggravations, issuing in a gracious self-abasement, is the soul's best posture in watching against all the deceits and incursions of sin. And this is a duty which we ought with all diligence to attend unto.

Does this sound like morbid introspection to you?  Well, in a tomorrow's post I'll give Owen's take on the charge that this produces morbid introspection.

The Portion of the Ransomed of the LORD

Isaiah 35 contains many images and themes that are developed more fully in chapters 40-55.  By one reckoning, even about ninety percent of the words in Isaiah 35 recur in chapters 40-55.  So already in Isaiah 35 we're looking ahead to the salvation and restoration that breaks forth in Isaiah 40.  And one little word at the end of chapter 35 fells and dispels all enemies of sin and sadness, driving away clouds of gloom and despair:

"And the ransomed of the LORD shall return
and come to Zion with singing;
everylasting joy shall be upon their heads;
they shall obtain gladness and joy,
and sorrow and sighing shall flee away."

So "break forth into singing and cry aloud," O redeemed of the LORD!

When Grace Dances

Isaiah 54:1, following the suffering and anguish of Isaiah 53, comes with an explosive change of tone and mood.  It shouts!  It sings!  It glories!  And Pastor Ray Ortulund says this of it and of us: 

Isaiah looks at the sin-bearing servant of the Lord and has one thing to say to us: 'Break forth into singing and cry aloud' (54:1).  In other words, 'Let joyful song explode out of you!'  We resist that.  Isaiah 54:1 may be one of the most disobeyed commands in the Bible.  Our exaggerated sense of decorum is the last bastion of pride holding out against the gospel.  Some churches make it a virtue.  But God doesn't.  In his exuberance he's creating a new world of boisterous happiness through Christ.  We must rejoice with him, or we risk making our hearts impervious to salvation, because that holy but raucous joy is salvation.

How are we doing?  Are we full of "that holy but raucous joy" that "is salvation"?  Are we marked by "boisterous happiness through Christ"?  Is this the feel of our corporate gatherings?  Or is there more of a cool and calm detachment about it all, perhaps on account of "our exaggerated sense of decorum"?  This may be "the last bastion of pride holding out against the gospel."  And it may betray more concern about what we think others would think of us (which is man-centeredness) if unrestrained praise and worship broke forth from full hearts moved by grace to dance and sing, to shout and leap for joy!

May God be pleased to overwhelm us with gladness in the glories of the Gospel of the grace of God!

Unholy Diversion

Section VIII of Pascal's Pensees, entitled "Diversion," includes these two profound sentences:

"Being unable to cure death, wretchedness and ignorance, men have decided, in order to be happy, not to think about such things" (#133).

"I have often said that the sole cause of man's unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room" (#136).

I poked around in this portion of the Pensees today, having recieved some stimulus over at Between Two Worlds to do so.  There is much in the Pensees to think about and heed for the modern American.  And I confess feeling much more at home with Pascal than with most Americans who are constantly worked into a dither about this and about that inconsequential distraction.  Perhaps you'll consider staying home in the quiet of your room to take up and meditate upon the Pensees by Pascal, especially the section on diversion.  But be prepared: to face your awful self, this awful world, and that awful world to come.

Serious Joy

The following Lewis quotation is one of my favorites, since it holds together precious realities (much like "sorrowful, yet always rejoicing" in 2 Cor. 6) that so many so readily separate:

"There is a kind of happiness and wonder that makes you serious" (C. S. Lewis, The Last Battle).

Incidentally, when I first began dating my wife, and she wondered if I was too serious for her (on account of something a friend had said), I quoted this text to her.

Be Happy or Else . . .

In my regular reading through the Scriptures with my wife, we've come to Deutoronomy.  This is one of my favorite OT books on account of the robust monotheism and grandeur of God set forth there (not to mention the devotional quality of instruction inculcated by Moses, which typically stirs my heart, or the gospel of grace held forth, which comforts my sin-sick soul).  And at Deut. 28:47-48, in a section that recounts the blessings and the curses for covenant fidelity or infidelity, respectively, I was reminded of an important word from Jeremy Taylor that John Piper records in Desiring God. 


But first, the text of Deut. 28:47-48:  "Because you did not serve YHWH your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart, because of the abundance of all things, therefore you shall serve your enemies whom YHWH will send against you, in hunger and thirst, in nakedness, and lacking everything. . . ."


Now, Taylor's word of warning that throws some of the shock of Deut. 28:47-48 into bold relief:  "God threatens terrible things, if we will not be happy!"


Yes, God commands that we be happy in him.  And no, of course it is not a chipper or light-hearted happiness in view.  Weighty joy, joy with gravity, rooted in the everlasting goodness and grace of God, bought by Jesus' blood and freely offered from his exalted throne, is commanded. 


Paul put it like this:  "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!"  A command to be happy in God.  So familiar we miss it.  So for all those who love to make a big song and dance about the ten commandments in schools and the like, add this one: "Rejoice in the Lord always!"

Stunning, Staggering, Mind-blowing, Breathtaking--Almost Unbelievable . . .

. . . but it's actually true.  Christians, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters of the living God, receive in faith these words from your transcendently holy God who abhors iniquity and cannot abide sin:

"For as a young man marries a young woman,
   so shall your sons marry you,
 and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride,
   so shall your God rejoice over you" (Isa. 62:5). 

"The LORD your God is in your midst,
    a mighty one who will save;
 he will rejoice over you with gladness;
   he will quiet you by his love;
 he will exult over you with loud singing" (Zeph. 3:17).

These words are yours, believer, as joined to the true Israel in Christ--in whom all of God's promises are "Yes!"  And so through him also is our "Amen!" to the glory of God (2 Cor. 1:20).

(Incidentally, do these passages sound familiar?  Remind you of any parable in the Gospels?)