The Subtle Sin
I was reminded of ‘the subtle sin’ as I listened to Tim Keller’s sermon on the prodigal sons (if you have never listened to it, please do! you can access it here). In Luke 15, both the younger brother (guy who likes to party) and the elder brother (guy who looks down on the guy who likes to party) are both using their father. Neither of them want their father. Instead, they want the father’s things.
So often, I think that I’m living for God, but instead I’m actually trying to use him for other things. For example, I think that I’m living for God when I seek his help in loving my wife and kids, but in reality my strength is dependent on what my wife and kids think of me. The examples could continue on and if you want me to share some more, I’d be happy to.
I’m writing this quick post to say that we use God all the time to try and get the gifts, and… I don’t think we even realize we’re doing that most of the time. God is the gift that we truly need, have, and must pursue.
Surface Needs vs. Ultimate Need
The following comes from Michael Card’s A Sacred Sorrow (p. 127-29):
“And they will call him Immanuel” – which means, “God with us” (Matt. 1:23, NIV). We saw earlier that the ultimate answer to all laments is not to be found in the specifics of what is lamented for. The true answer for a lament of disease is not ultimately a cure. The real solution for a lament of financial distress is never simply money. The answer is always found in the Presence of God. It is rarely what we ask for, but it is always what we ultimately need.
The coming of Immanuel, “God with us,” must be understood as the Father’s answer to ages of expectant laments. But God did not send the Messiah as the sort of solution everyone expected. They wanted someone who would kill the Romans. Jesus, instead died for the Romans. They wanted someone who would give them answers. Jesus gave them Himself. What else but His Presence could have perfectly answered all our deepest needs? For though we could have never imagined it, what we thought we needed, solutions for the problems that caused our pain, would have never fixed the problem.
Lament is the path that takes us to the place where we discover that there is no complete answer to pain and suffering, only Presence. The language of lament gives a meaningful form to our grief by providing a vocabulary for our suffering and then offering it to God as worship. Our questions and complaints will never find individual answers (even as Job’s questions were never fully answered). The only Answer is the dangerous, disturbing, comforting Presence, which is the true answer to all our questions and hopes.
The Gospel is Distinct from Our Response to It
The following comes from Graeme Goldsworthy’s According to Plan (p. 81-83). I found these quotes to be particularly helpful as it reminds us that the gospel is not our response to the gospel. I think that we often confuse the gospel (what Christ did for us and who he is for us) with a proper response to the gospel (belief, faith, confession, etc.). May we lift up Christ repeatedly, showing to one another and the world his beauty. As we increasingly see him, we will fall more and more in love with him and act accordingly.
…..
The main message of the Bible about Jesus Christ can easily become mixed with all sorts of things that are related to it. We see this in the way people define the gospel or preach it. But it is important to keep the gospel itself clearly distinct from our response to it or from the results of it in our lives and in the world. If our proper response to the gospel message is faith, then we should not make faith part of the gospel itself. It would be absurd to call people to have faith in faith! While the new birth bears a close relationship to faith in Christ, it is a mistake to speak of the new birth as if it were itself the gospel. Faith in the new birth as such will not save us…
Related to the gospel event are other important aspects of God’s work which are not themselves the gospel. If we believe the gospel we will probably also believe these, but they are not the focus of our trust the way that the saving work of Jesus is. We do not preach them as the heart of our message to unbelievers….
We note that what you or I do in response to the gospel is not itself the gospel. You cannot say that repentance and faith are the gospel. They are what the Holy Spirit enables us to do about the gospel. If you tell unbelievers that they should trust Christ, believe the good news, or confess their sin, these things are undoubtedly true, but they are not the gospel. We must tell them what it is about Christ that they should trust, what the good news is so that they can believe it and why sins should be confessed.
Grace Comes First
HT: Tim Wilcoxsen
“…if anyone makes the assistance of grace depend on the humility or obedience of man and does not agree that it is a gift of grace itself that we are obedient and humble, he contradicts the Apostle who says, “What have you that you did not receive?” (1 Cor. 4:7), and, “But by the grace of God I am what I am” (1 Cor. 15:10). (Council of Orange: Canon 6)
On Mine Arm They Shall Trust
The following comes from Spurgeon’s Morning by Morning (per Aug. 31st):
“On mine arm shall they trust.” – Isaiah 49:5…..In seasons of severe trial, the Christian has nothing on earth that he can trust to, and is therefore compelled to cast himself on his God alone. When his vessel is on its beam-ends, and no human deliverance can avail, he must simply and entirely trust himself to the providence and care of God. Happy storm that wrecks a man on such a rock as this! O blessed hurricane that drives the soul to God, and God alone! There is no getting at our God sometimes because of the multitude of our friends; but when a man is so poor, so friendless, so helpless, that he has nowhere else to turn, he flies into his Father’s arms, and is blessedly clasped therein! When he is burdened with troubles, so pressing and so peculiar that he cannot tell them to any but his God, he may be thankful for them; for he will learn more of his Lord then than at any other time. Oh, tempest-tossed believer, it is a happy trouble that drives thee to thy Father! Now that thou hast only thy God to trust to, see that thou puttest thy full confidence in Him. Dishonor not thy Lord and Master by unworthy doubts and fears; But be strong in faith, giving glory to God. Show the world that thy God is worth ten thousand worlds to thee. Show rich men how rich thou art in thy poverty when the Lord God is thy helper. Show the strong man how strong thou art in thy weakness and when underneath thee are the everlasting arms. Now is the time for feats of faith and valiant exploits. Be strong and very courageous, and the Lord thy God shall certainly, as surely as he built the heavens and the earth, glorify Himself in thy weakness, and magnify His might in the midst of thy distress. The grandeur of the arch of heaven would be spoiled if the sky were supported by a single visible column, and your faith would lose its glory if it rested on anything discernible by the carnal eye. May the Holy Spirit give you rest in Jesus this day.
Do You Really Care?
The following comes from A Sacred Sorrow by Michael Card (p. 29):
The degree to which I am willing to enter into the suffering of another person reveals the level of my commitment and love for them. If I am not interested in your hurts, I am not really interested in you. Neither am I willing to suffer to know you nor to be known by you. Jesus’ example makes these truths come alive in our hearts. He is the One who suffered to know us, who then suffered for us on the cross. In all this, He revealed the hesed of His Father.
Stay on the Anvil
The following post by Ray Ortlund was very encouraging to me. If you are experiencing suffering or are trying to make sense of past suffering, I hope that you will find this encouraging as well.
…..
When God wants to drill a man
And thrill a man
And skill a man
When God wants to mold a man
To play the noblest part
When He yearns with all His heart
To create so great and bold a man
That all the world shall be amazed,
Watch His methods, watch His ways!
How He ruthlessly perfects
Whom He royally elects!
How He hammers him and hurts him
And with mighty blows converts him
Into shapes and forms of clay
Which only God can understand.
How He bends but never breaks
When his good He undertakes
How He uses whom He chooses
And with mighty power infuses him
With every act induces him
To try His splendor out –
God knows what He’s about.
Author unknown.
He Will Certainly Satisfy Those Longings
The following comes from Charles Spurgeon’s Morning by Morning (Per August 22nd). I read this last night per the prompting of my wife, and the Spirit accompanied these words as I read. I hunger for Christ, I long for Him, and upon reading these words last night I was filled with joy that this hunger and longing will certainly be satisfied. I hope that you will experience this as well.
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“I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my beloved, that ye tell him, that I am sick of love.”
Song of Solomon 5:8
Such is the language of the believer panting after present fellowship with Jesus, he is sick for his Lord. Gracious souls are never perfectly at ease except they are in a state of nearness to Christ; for when they are away from him they lose their peace. The nearer to him, the nearer to the perfect calm of heaven; the nearer to him, the fuller the heart is, not only of peace, but of life, and vigour, and joy, for these all depend on constant intercourse with Jesus. What the sun is to the day, what the moon is to the night, what the dew is to the flower, such is Jesus Christ to us. What bread is to the hungry, clothing to the naked, the shadow of a great rock to the traveller in a weary land, such is Jesus Christ to us; and, therefore, if we are not consciously one with him, little marvel if our spirit cries in the words of the Song, “I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my beloved, tell him that I am sick of love.” This earnest longing after Jesus has a blessing attending it: “Blessed are they that do hunger and thirst after righteousness”; and therefore, supremely blessed are they who thirst after the Righteous One. Blessed is that hunger, since it comes from God: if I may not have the full-blown blessedness of being filled, I would seek the same blessedness in its sweet bud-pining in emptiness and eagerness till I am filled with Christ. If I may not feed on Jesus, it shall be next door to heaven to hunger and thirst after him. There is a hallowedness about that hunger, since it sparkles among the beatitudes of our Lord. But the blessing involves a promise. Such hungry ones “shall be filled” with what they are desiring. If Christ thus causes us to long after himself, he will certainly satisfy those longings; and when he does come to us, as come he will, oh, how sweet it will be!
The Gospel of Jesus Christ Leads to a Perfect Delirium of Joy!
HT: Joseph Randall
Charles Spurgeon wrote:
Some years ago, I was deeply depressed. I knew whom I had believed, but I could not get comfort from the truth I preached. I even began to wonder if I was really saved.
While on vacation, I went to a Wesleyan chapel. The sermon was full of the gospel and tears flowed from my eyes. I was in a perfect delirium of joy. I said, “Oh yes, there is spiritual life within me; the gospel can still touch my heart and stir my soul.”
When I thanked the good man for his sermon, he looked at me and could hardly believe his eyes. He said, “Are you not Mr. Spurgeon?”
I replied, “Yes.”
“Dear, dear,” said he, “that was your sermon I preached this morning.”
I knew it was, and that was one reason why I was so comforted. I realized that I could take my own medicine. I asked the preacher to my inn for dinner. We rejoiced that he was led to give the people one of my sermons that day, that I could be fed from my own kitchen.
I do know this. Whatever I may be, there is nothing that moves me like the gospel of Christ.
“For this reason I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day.” (2 Tim. 1:12).
Do you feel this way?
Charles Spurgeon, Beside Still Waters, Ed. Roy H. Clarke (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1999), 299.
