I’m Not So Bad!
Martin Luther shows how probing the problem of presumption is and reveals that our so-called progress may not be as impressive as we think it is:
Presumption follows when a man sets himself to fulfill the Law with works and diligently sees to it that he does what the letter of the Law asks him to do. He serves God, does not swear, honors father and mother, does not kill, does not commit adultery, and the like. Meanwhile, however, he does not observe his heart, does not note the reason why he is leading such a good life. He does not see that he is merely covering the old hypocrite in his heart with such a beautiful life. For, if he looked at himself aright–at his own heart–he would discover that he is doing all these things with dislike and out of compulsion; that he fears hell or seeks heaven, if not also for more insignificant matters: honor, goods, health; and that he is motivated by the fear of shame or harm or diseases. In short, he would have to confess that he would rather lead a different life if the consequence of such a life did not deter him; for he would not do it merely for the sake of the Law. But because he does not see this bad reason, he lives on in security, looks only at the works, not into the heart, and so assumes that he is keeping the Law of God well. (Luther’s Works, St. Louis edition, 11:81 ff)
My Soul Rejoiced With Joy Unspeakable
The following comes from The Life and Diary of David Brainerd by Jonathan Edwards (p. 69-70):
I had been thus endeavoring to pray, though as I thought, very stupid and senseless, for near half an hour; then, as I was walking in a dark thick grove, unspeakable glory seemed to open to the view and apprehension of my soul. I do not mean any external brightness, for I saw no such thing. Nor do I intend any imagination of a body of light somewhere in the third heavens, or anything of that nature; but it was a new inward apprehension or view that I had of God, such as I never had before nor anything which had the least resemblance of it.
I stood still, wondered, and admired! I knew that I never had seen before anything comparable to it for excellency and beauty; it was widely different from all the conceptions that ever I had of God, or things divine. I had no particular apprehension of any one Person in the Trinity, either the Father, the Son, or the Holy Ghost; but it appeared to be divine glory. My soul rejoiced with joy unspeakable to see such a God, such a glorious Divine Being; and I was inwardly pleased and satisfied that He should be God over all for ever and ever. My soul was so captivated and delighted with the excellency, loveliness, greatness, and other perfections of God, that I was even swallowed up in Him. At least to that degree that I had no thought (as I remember) at first, about my own salvation, and scarce reflected there was such a creature as I. Thus God, I trust, brought me to a hearty disposition to exalt Him and set Him on the throne, and principally and ultimately to aim at His honor and glory, as King of the universe. I continued in this state of inward joy, peace, and astonishment, till near dark, without any sensible abatement; and then began to think and examine what I had seen; and felt sweetly composed in my mind all the evening following. I felt myself in a new world, and everything about me appeared with a different aspect from what it was wont to do.
At this time, the way of salvation opened to me with such infinite wisdom, suitableness, and excellency, that I wondered I should ever think of any other way of salvation; was amazed that I had not dropped my own contrivances, and complied with this lovely, blessed, and excellent way before. If I could have been saved by my own duties, or any other way that I had formerly contrived, my whole soul would now have refused it. I wondered that all the world did not see and comply with this way of salvation, entirely by the righteousness of Christ.
The Garden of Gethsemane
(This picture and many more can be found here)
Matthew 26:36-46
Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, “Sit here, while I go over there and pray.” And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.” And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping. And he said to Peter, “So, could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Again, for the second time, he went away and prayed, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.” And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. So, leaving them again, he went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words again. Then he came to the disciples and said to them, “Sleep and take your rest later on. See, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand.”
In this garden, Jesus prayed. In this garden, Jesus was suffered alone. In this garden, Jesus saw the infinite suffering that was in front of him, and he said, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.”
He said yes to the suffering so that the Father could say yes to you.
A More Satisfying Experience
The following comes from Jonathan Edwards’ A Narrative of Surprising Conversions (p. 14-15). In this paragraph, Edwards gives us a picture of what God was doing in the hearts of men during the Great Awakening. I hope that we too will have our doubts removed by a more satisfying experience, and have more clear discoveries of God’s love.
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In all companies, on other days, on whatever occasions persons met together, Christ was to be heard of, and seen in the midst of them. Our young people, when they met, were want to spend the time in talking of the excellency and dying love of Jesus Christ, the glory of the way of salvation, the wonderful, free and sovereign grace of God, his glorious work in the conversion of a soul, the truth and certainty of the great things of God’s word, the sweetness of the views of his perfections, etc. And even at weddings, which formerly were mere occasions of mirth and jollity, there was now no discourse of any thing but religion, and no appearance of any but spiritual birth. Those amongst us who had been formerly converted, were greatly enlivened, and renewed with fresh and extraordinary incomes of the Spirit of God; though some much more than others, according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Many who before had laboured under difficulties about their own state, had now their doubts removed by more satisfying experience, and more clear discoveries of God’s love.
You Are Not My God
The following post comes from Meghan, my beautiful wife. God has given her eyes that see and ears that hear. I hope that you will see more clearly as a result of this post.
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I recently woke up to the disturbing reality of my heart. My “waking up” has come about in a few different ways, but one of them was startlingly clear. I was sitting with Isaac (3) and Lily (2), reading stories to them, the way that we do every night. Around christmas this last year, we found a book called, Winter on the Farm. It’s a cozy little story about a family that lives on a farm in the New York countryside circa 1800. Even though it’s not winter anymore, I still always love reading that little book. I think that there is something about the simplicity of life in that era that draws me in. So, whenever I get to choose the book for the night, I often choose Winter on the Farm.
This is the story that I was reading to the kids the other night. The story centers on the youngest child in the family named Almanzo. We watch as Almanzo goes out to the barn with his father and older brother to milk the cows and clean up the barn. When he comes inside, he is the last to wash his face in the wash basin. When it is time for dinner, he is the last to be served. When it is time to sit around the fire at night, he follows and does what the rest of the family wants to do. Sounds like a nice simple story. And for the first 20 times that I read it, nothing stood out to me. But then the other night, this story spoke to me. It spoke to the unbalance that has started to exist in our home and in my heart.
I have heard the sentiment that you should never worship your children or make them your God. I guess that I just thought I was immune. It is something that I have prayed since I was pregnant, “God, please help me never to love these children more than I love you.” And, because “super-mom” isn’t really part of my identity, I just didn’t think that worshipping or fearing my kids was “my” struggle. But, I was wrong. As I sat there a few weeks ago reading the story of Almanzo, something became immediately clear to me: my heart, my daily rhythm, my marriage, my peace, my worth, my identity, my home, my emotions, were all essentially bowing down before my 2 and 3 year old children. And in that moment of clarity I felt both release/freedom, and confusion of how it ever could have gotten this way.
Let me shed some light on what I am trying to explain here. It wasn’t that I was knowingly worshipping my children. It wasn’t that I didn’t try to discipline them. It wasn’t that just gave them everything that they wanted. It was something much deeper than that, much harder to identify, and much more secretly destructive. Somewhere along the way I had started believing that I was OK if I knew that my children were OK. When they were upset, disobedient, disrespectful, chaotic, needy, whiny, rude, etc, then I could not be OK. I could not be at peace. I could not be free. I could not rejoice. And so without realizing it, I was doing absolutely everything in my power to avoid a situation where they would be upset, disobedient, disrespectful, chaotic, needy, whiny, rude, etc.
Of course it is impossible to live with two small children for any length of time without them being at least one or more of those things. And so it felt that I was at war with my own life. The more that I tried to avoid those emotionally draining encounters with my children, the more I was giving into them, and then the more they were acting out. It was a vicious cycle and we were all losing. I was spending way too much time feeling angry, confused, and crying out to God, WHERE ARE YOU??? I knew that something was wrong, I just didn’t know what it was, or how to fix it.
As I have been thinking through this for the last few weeks a few things have become clear to me.
- We live in a culture that condones, promotes, and inundates us with the idea that it is right, good, and appropriate to worship our children. We are so indoctrinated by our culture that it is often hard to see how out of balance our child rearing can be. It literally took me reading a book about a farm family in the 1800s to see that something was wrong in our house. The world around me says, sacrifice anything and everything for your children. They should always come first. They should be the first to get their food at the table. What they have to say or what game they want to play should dictate what happens around the table. If they have a need, no matter how trial, it should be met, not matter the cost. Often times that cost can be as great as the marriage. In our country it is not uncommon for both husband and wife to turn so intently toward their children that by the time the children move out of the house there is no relationship left between husband and wife. It is not easy, or comfortable, to move against the grain of our culture in childrearing, but it is necessary and crucial for healthy functioning marriages, families, and children.
- It is ultimately to the demise of my children that I allow my worshipping of them to continue. For my children to grow up in an environment where they always come first, where their opinion matters the most, where every need is met, and where their successes and failures are the source of my emotional stability, is to severely handicap them for the rest of their lives. I think that we are starting to see some of the results of this cultural model play out in today’s youth. They are the most discontent, bored, self-focused, entitled, and isolated generation we have ever seen.
- It makes sense to me why this happens. As I think about what my life looks like day to day, hour to hour, I understand how it got this way. When I started having kids, I no longer went outside the house to work, my time with other adults was intensely diminished, my time for pretty much anything other than child-care was intensely diminished. If you functionally look at what my life is focused on, it is clearly my children. Not to mention the feeling that goes through my body every time I look at their precious faces or each time that I hear them speak to a new thought or emotion or when I hear their infections laughter coming from the next room. They are extremely lovely little beings, and I spend just about all my time caring for them. It is a natural conclusion that I would end up wrapping my heart, my life, and identity around them.
- In order to be freed, it is not enough just to know that there is a problem. I can look at this issue in my life, and I admit that it is wrong, and I can even really really want to change, but that is not enough to move me out of the pattern of child worshipping that I have created. The only way that I can be freed is to be freed to a greater love, a greater worth, a greater identity. The only way that I can live in balance and in harmony worshipping only what deserves to be worshipped, is for my eyes to be opened to the beauty that is so much more beautiful than my children. It is for my senses to be awakened to the only real, true, lasting, living, dynamic, creative, and holy God. This is the beauty of the gospel.
“For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” Galatians 5:1
“Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more?” Galatians 4:8-9
“For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.” 2 Corinthians 4:6-10
“But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: ‘Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the river, they shall no overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Hold One of Israel, your Savior…’I, I am the Lord, and besides me there is no savior. I declared and saved and proclaimed, when there was no strange god among you; and you are my witnesses,’ declares the Lord, ‘and I am God.’” Isaiah 43:1-3, 10-12
Justification Vs. Self-Justification
Ray Ortlund did a phenomenal job in his breakout session on justification vs. self-justification at The Gospel Coalition Conference last week in Chicago. The following quote is an excerpt from what he shared. I highly recommend that you read the manuscript from this talk. It can be accessed here.
Self-justification is the deepest impulse in the fallen human heart. We might sincerely agree with the biblical doctrine of justification by faith alone. But deep in our hearts, it isn’t that simple, is it? Gerhard Forde helps us see ourselves:
The problem lies in the fact that the Old Being will not and cannot hear gospel no matter what one says. The Old Being will only use whatever is said as part of the protection, solidification in the causa sui project [the self-justifications we build], and translate it into or see it as a ratification of the legal system. That is, the Old Being will turn whatever one says into law.
We deeply desire to save ourselves. At the same time, our sin includes a hidden filter blocking out clarity about our sin. Martyn Lloyd-Jones describes our lack of self- awareness:
You will never make yourself feel that you are a sinner, because there is a mechanism in you as a result of sin that will always be defending you against every accusation. We are all on very good terms with ourselves, and we can always put up a good case for ourselves. Even if we try to make ourselves feel that we are sinners, we will never do it. There is only one way to know that we are sinners, and that is to have some dim, glimmering conception of God.
Our mentality of blind self-justification makes Paul’s letter to the Galatians endlessly relevant to us believers. We don’t get rid of Galatianism by embracing grace-justification. But, by embracing grace-justification, we do gain a remedy for our compulsive self-justifications. The Puritan William Fenner taught us to see justification by faith alone as a constant resource:
As we sin daily, so he justifies daily, and we must daily go to him for it. Justification is an ever-running fountain, and therefore we cannot look to have all the water at once.
Intervention
Per Redeemer Presbyterian’s Bible Study on Romans:
Remember that God can use suffering to ‘awaken’ a person to some sin – as a kind of ‘intervention.’ But interventions are only done by people out of love. God can and will treat you roughly if you need it, like a loving parent will do with a wayward child – but all out of deep concern. If you are a Christian, God has sent all your punishment on to Christ. All his wrath for you fell into the heart of Jesus and was swallowed up and absorbed there – it disappeared forever. He has no wrath left for you.
Our New and Exalted Identity
When most of us stop long enough to consider what establishes our identity, what really makes us who we are, many of us act as if the answer to this consideration is “our performance.” In Who Will Deliver Us, Paul Zahl expands on this:
If I can do enough of the right things, I will have established my worth. Identity is the sum of my achievements. Hence, if I can satisfy the boss, meet the needs of my spouse and children, and still do justice to my inner aspirations, then I will have proven my worth. There are infinite ways to prove our worth along these lines. The basic equation is this: I am what I do. It is a religious position in life because it tries to answer in practical terms the question, Who am I and what is my niche in the universe? On this reading, my niche is in proportion to my deeds. In Christian theology, such a position is called justification by works. It assumes that my worth is measured by my performance. Conversely, it conceals, thinly, a dark and ghastly fear: If I do not perform, I will be judged unworthy. To myself I will cease to exist.
The gospel frees us from this obsessive pressure to perform, this slavish demand to “become.” The gospel liberatingly declares that in Christ “we already are.” While the world constantly tempts us to locate our identity in something or someone smaller than Jesus, the gospel liberates us by revealing that our true identity is locked in Christ. Our connection in and with Christ is the truest definition of who we are. If you’re a Christian, here’s the good news: Who you really are has nothing to do with you—how much you can accomplish, who you can become, your behavior (good or bad), your strengths, your weaknesses, your sordid past, your family background, your education, your looks, and so on.
Your identity is firmly anchored in Christ’s accomplishment, not yours; his strength, not yours; his performance, not yours; his victory, not yours. Your identity is steadfastly established in his substitution, not your sin. As my friend Justin Buzzard recently wrote, “The gospel doesn’t just free you from what other people think about you, it frees you from what you think about yourself.”
You’re free!
Now you can spend your life giving up your place for others instead of guarding it from others—because your identity is in Christ, not your place.
Now you can spend your life going to the back instead of getting to the front—because your identity is in Christ, not your position.
Now you can spend your life giving, not taking—because your identity is in Christ, not your possessions.
Paul speaks of our “having been buried with him [with Christ] in baptism,” in which we “were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead” (2:12). Our old identity—the things that previously “made us”—has been put to death. Our new identity is “in Christ.” We’ve been raised with Christ to walk “in newness of life”—no longer needing to depend on the “old things” to make us who we are.
All this is our new identity—all because of Christ’s finished work declared to us in the gospel.
When we truly see and understand all these aspects of what we’ve become in Jesus Christ, what more could we possibly ever want or need when it comes to our self-identity? Here in Christ we have worth and purpose and security and significance that makes utterly laughable all the transient things of this world that we’re so frequently tempted to identify ourselves by.
No Mercy, Comfort, Or Privilege Withheld In Christ!
HT: Joseph Randall (I love this guy’s blog… he doesn’t write too often, but when he does it is always helpful.)
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