When You Do Not Know What to Do

Article by Dave Zuleger

When was the last time a trial came so swiftly and forcefully that you did not know what to do?

My wife has lived in chronic pain for eight years. Recently, however, she woke up one morning with new health concerns that brought another hard, confusing, and frightening reality — a heavy one laid on top of the one we’re already living with day to day. We had just moved to a new home, and were going to a new church. I was the new pastor of that church. Our newborn was only six weeks old.

We felt like the armies of our circumstances were closing in around us with nowhere to go. As a husband and father, I felt completely off-balance. No one could encourage me. I felt helpless to help my wife, overwhelmed by the weight of her suffering. Why, God? Even after years of her chronic pain — and seeing the good God does through it — I felt like I was back to square one of faith, just clinging by a thread. I was supposed to be pastoring others, but I felt like I could speak but one word to God: “Help.”

Pretending Self-Sufficiency

Around that time, I found a story of a king who felt helpless to protect and care for the people he was responsible for. A king also overwhelmed with fear. King Jehoshaphat finds out that there is a “great multitude” coming soon to attack his people (2 Chronicles 20:1–2) — an army they know they cannot compete with on their own.

Most of us will never feel what he felt; we will never literally be under the attack of a great army marching up to our door. But we can all relate to overwhelming circumstances in our life that make us feel trapped, helpless, and certain we won’t make it much longer. The Bible is honest about how King Jehoshaphat felt when he got the news about the army of certain doom heading his way — he was afraid (2 Chronicles 20:3). His response to that fear is remarkable. He calls a fast in all of Judah and gathers the people to seek the Lord and his help (2 Chronicles 20:4).

This is not a natural human response. If someone asks us how we are doing at church, the answer almost automatically spills out, “I’m good.” Our profiles put our best, most carefully portrayed images of strength and sufficiency forward. We don’t readily admit that we’re often afraid, broken, lonely, despairing, failing in sin, and struggling to see or trust God.

Jehoshaphat could have pretended he wasn’t afraid. He could have acted like he had it all together. He could have gathered the generals and made the best plan possible. Instead, he gathered the people, admitted his weakness, and sought the help of the Lord together — instead, he prayed. He prays, “We are powerless against this great horde that is coming against us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you” (2 Chronicles 20:12). He not only runs to God in prayer himself, but he also calls others to pray with him.

Did You Not, Our God?

While Jehoshaphat is admittedly afraid and without a good plan himself, he is not despairing. In fact, his prayer rings with boldness and steady hope in the God of his people. Where does his courage come from?

Did you not, our God, drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel, and give it forever to the descendants of Abraham your friend? And they have lived in it and have built for you in it a sanctuary for your name, saying, “If disaster comes upon us, the sword, judgment, or pestilence, or famine, we will stand before this house and before you — for your name is in this house — and cry out to you in our affliction, and you will hear and save.” (2 Chronicles 20:7–9)

Jehoshaphat’s hope is built on the promises and presence of God. It is God’s name that dwells in Judah, and therefore his glory is at stake in this great horde marching against them. Jehoshaphat knows that God is passionate about his glory and faithful to keep all his promises, so he appeals to him with great confidence and directness knowing he’ll find well-timed help because of the covenant love of God (Hebrews 4:14–16).

In the same way, even when we feel overwhelmed by our circumstances, steady hope lives and endures in the promises of God to us in Christ. Jesus is the Good Shepherd who will lead us even in the valley of the shadow of death, pursuing us with his goodness and mercy all the days of our lives (Psalm 23:4, 6). Jesus will not break a bruised reed or put out a smoldering wick (Isaiah 42:3). Jesus will pour out his all-sufficient grace as we boast in our weaknesses (2 Corinthians 12:7–10). Nothing will separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord as he works all things for our good (Romans 8:28–39).

When we are afraid, we pray with confidence because of these sure and steady promises — promises that are ours because Jesus bled and died to make us sons and daughters of God.

God Spoke Through Whom?

As Jehoshaphat draws the people together to pray, God sends strength and encouragement in an unexpected way. The Spirit of God fills, not Jehoshaphat, but a man named Jahaziel (2 Chronicles 20:14). Jahaziel rises and declares, “Thus says the Lord to you, ‘Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed at this great horde, for the battle is not yours but God’s’” (2 Chronicles 20:15). Do not fear; God will fight for us. And despite everything we can see, we will win(2 Chronicles 20:17).

The particular word of hope that needs to be spoken does not always come to the king — or, in our day, to the pastor or small-group leader. As we suffer, share our burdens with one another, and seek the Lord together through prayer, God very often will speak through someone else.

Our individualized society, at least in the West, has often invaded our churches. We gather together once a week to sing, pray, take the Lord’s Table, and hear God’s word preached (still a beautiful thing!), but often don’t actually live like a blood-bought family — at least not like the one we see in the New Testament (Acts 2:42–47; 20:28).

Members of the early church were so close, and the self-giving love of Christ was so prevalent among them, that none of them counted any of their possessions as their own. They gladly met the needs of one another. The apostle Paul calls Christians to join him in prayer, so that as many pray and God answers, God gets more glory (2 Corinthians 1:11). It feels simpler and easier and more comfortable to keep our struggles to ourselves and search for our own answers. But God has placed believers in a body — in a family where he manifests his love through mutual care and prayer.

In other words, if we don’t let other people into our trials and crises, we miss out on the blessing we might have received from God.

What Is Our Victory?

The people of Judah received Jahaziel’s word with joy. The next morning, Jehoshaphat calls them to believe the word of the Lord, and they march out to face the army. Oh, that we would pause when the circumstances are hard and ask ourselves if we believe the word of the Lord, receiving the Spirit’s witness of the Father’s care for us in our hearts (Romans 8:15–16).

Again, they do a surprising thing. They send the band out first (2 Chronicles 20:21–22). This is not sound practice for winning a battle. It is sound practice for worship, when you trust the God who has given you a promise. As they begin to sing, the Lord routes the greater, stronger army. Israel praises his name for the great victory.

You might be thinking, How can I worship when it seems like the Lord is not winning the battle that way for me? How can we worship as we march into what seems like overwhelming odds, without a specific word from God about our situation?

The answer is that our victory in Christ is as sure as the victory promised to Judah, if we believe what God has said in Christ. The Bible promises us that, whatever we may face or suffer or lose in this life, those whom God predestined are called, those called are justified, and those justified are glorified. It is certain. Our future is secure. For us “to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21).

Welcome God (and Others)

We can lay down our self-sufficiency, invite others into our fears, and then pray and worship expectantly, knowing that one way or another, our victory is sure. As sure as Judah’s victory over the Moabites and Ammonites.

As my bride and I have walked through our current trial, we’ve felt God lead us to let people into the war with us. And we have been overwhelmed by the prayers and encouragement we have received. Under God, they have sustained us and held up our eyes to Jesus in the midst of what feels, at times, like overwhelming pain and fear.

God will work in and among his people to save and sustain us as we boldly approach him together. He has designed his universe to work this way, so that we are weaned off of self-sufficiency, into fuller dependence on him for everything we need, so that, over and over again, he gets the glory.

Dave Zuleger (@DaveZuleger) serves as lead pastor for Bethlehem Baptist Church, South Campus, in Lakeville, Minnesota, and graduated from Bethlehem College & Seminary. He and his wife, Kelly, have four children.

Posted at: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/when-you-do-not-know-what-to-do

15 Prayers for God's Power

Article by John Piper

I love strength. I love the word “mighty,” as in “mighty woman of God” and “mighty man of God.” I love to hear that Moses “was mighty in his words and deeds” (Acts 7:22), and that Apollos was “mighty in the Scriptures” (Acts 18:24 NASB).

I love it when Paul says, “Act like men, be strong” (1 Corinthians 16:13), or, “Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might” (Ephesians 6:10), or, “Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 2:1 NASB).

But make no mistake, the pursuit of this might is not the path to human power and pride. It is the path of ceaseless warfare with your own self. The greatest power in the world among human beings is the power not to sin. The power of holiness and love.

So, if you are up for it, would you join me in these fifteen prayers that you would be a mighty man of God or a mighty woman of God?

1. Lord, make me so mighty in wisdom that I know and taste that the height of might is childlikeness (Matthew 18:4).

2. Lord, make me so mighty in war that I defeat every impulse in my soul that destroys peace (Hebrews 12:14; Romans 14:19; Matthew 5:9).

3. Lord, make me so mighty in my hardness against bitterness that tenderness of heart is not destroyed by wounds (Hosea 11:8; Ephesians 4:32; 1 Peter 3:8).

4. Lord, make me mightily unbending and inflexible in my Christ-exalting resolve to bend and become all things to all people that I might save some (1 Corinthians 9:22).

5. Lord, make my trunk and branches so mightily tough and impervious to wind and drought that I never cease to bear the fruit of gentleness (Galatians 5:23; James 3:17; 1 Peter 3:4).

6. Lord, make me so mighty in serpentine discernment that I see every opening for dove-like love (Matthew 10:16).

7. Lord, make me so mightily unmoved by the sting and deceits of injustice against me that I may feel and show the miracle of undeserved compassion (Luke 10:33; 15:20; Hebrews 10:34; 1 Peter 3:8).

8. Lord, make me so mightily unyielding to the enticements of selfishness that from my heart kindness forever flows (2 Corinthians 6:6; Galatians 5:22; Ephesians 4:32; Colossians 3:12).

9. Lord, make me so mightily unresponsive to the honeyed lure of self-pity that I may have ever-replenished resources to return good for evil (Romans 12:17; 1 Thessalonians 5:15; 1 Peter 3:9).

10. Lord, make me mighty with ruthless courage to cut off my hand at every trace of greed that I may be content with what I have (Philippians 4:11; 1 Timothy 6:8; Hebrews 13:5).

11. Lord, make me mighty with happy thoughts of child and wife and King to tear out my eye lest I betray their trust and lose the purity that sees my God (Matthew 5:8, 29).

12. Lord, make me so mighty against the powers of self-justification that I never lose the humility to repent and weep for my sin (James 4:9; 5:16).

13. Lord, make me so mighty in resisting the bait of frenzied productivity that I never cease to enjoy the still waters of prayer and your sweet presence (Psalm 23:2; Isaiah 46:10; Luke 10:42).

14. Lord, make me so mighty against the deadly undertow of self-reliance that I am never ashamed to trust your arm, like a child with his father, in every breaking wave (Psalm 37:3, 5; Proverbs 3:5; Galatians 2:20).

15. Lord, make me so mighty in seeing and mighty in savoring the promises of your sovereign grace that in all my sorrows I might never cease to sing your praise (Matthew 5:11–12; Acts 16:25; 2 Corinthians 6:10; 1 Peter 4:13).

What I Misunderstood About Grief

By Cameron Cole

Eighteen months after my son died, I had a conversation with a pastor friend that enraged me.

His first child was going to college, and he expressed the sadness and difficulty accompanying the milestone. In describing his sorrow, he repeatedly used a certain word. “We’re grieving her leaving us. We’re grieving her being so far away. We’re grieving her absence in our house.”

With each enunciation of “grief,” I grew angrier. Having buried my son in the previous calendar year, I wanted to say, “No, no, no. Grief is reserved for really bad things. Grief is reserved for death. Grief is reserved for people like me, not your healthy, living child going to college!”

What Changed My Mind

Fast forward two years. I noticed the new strength required to lift my now-4-year-old daughter for a hug. Her increased self-sufficiency and growing vocabulary contrasted starkly with memories of that chubby baby girl who used to crawl around the house.

As I pulled up videos from the toddler and baby phases, a funny thing happened. My heart ached with sorrow, and tears filled my eyes. I realized I was experiencing what my pastor friend felt as his daughter went to college: grief.

A sense of loss lingered as I knew that a treasured season had passed, never to be recovered. Daddy’s sweet girl no longer got excited about watching Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood. Good Night Moon was done. She was figuring out that an “r” belonged on the front of “remember;” she was correcting the cute mispronunciation—“amember”—that previously melted my heart. On the next trip to Disney, she would realize the real Cinderella doesn’t reside in the Magic Kingdom.

All grief involves loss. A joyful hope for the future dies, or a cherished aspect of the present slips into the past. And we grieve.

Grief and the Fall

All grief originates from the fall, when Adam and Eve tarnished a rich paradise of joy, squandering endless possibilities of pleasure, hope, and life. Regardless of what we grieve, there is a keen sense that life wasn’t meant to be this way. We taste moments of glory where we receive a glimpse of Eden—and we feel sadness and pain as those transcendent moments pass. Whether we’re lamenting the death of friends and family or sorrowing over dashed dreams, our hearts mourn that this life falls drastically short of God’s original intent.

We are born with an innate sense that life was meant to be so much more. The toddler who throws a tantrum when the playdate ends demonstrates (even if sinfully) that moments of joy, vitality, and friendship were never meant to cease. Along with the rest of our sin-marred creation, the child subconsciously grieves what was lost in the fall.

For people who have lost small children, so much of their grief involves losing the joys and journeys of the different phases of childhood. They grieve missed birthdays, a nonexistent first day of kindergarten, a graduation ceremony that never comes. They painfully wonder how their child’s personality and appearance may have evolved over time. The seasons of enjoying that child are lost.

Regardless of the severity, all sadness, frustration, and anger are expressions of grief. We all mourn the loss of Eden and the life for which we were meant.

Recovery Is Coming

Romans 8 points to the ultimate solace for humanity, trapped under this excruciating curse:

The whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. (Rom. 8:22–23)

This groaning carries connotations of grieving. There is a deep, guttural pain lurking within the fallen state of the world. There is a grinding frustration with how life falls miserably short of our desires and longings.

But Paul doesn’t leave us with hopeless grief. He points to Christ’s second coming, where believers receive and experience their full “adoption as sons” and “the redemption of [their] bodies” (Rom. 8:23).

Our son died at age 3, but I cling to this hope: The times and experiences lost with Cameron in this life will be regained and renewed a thousandfold in the world to come. As I wrote in Therefore I Have Hope:

Remembering that Cameron is still my son and that he is still alive in heaven reminds me that nothing truly will be lost and that everything will be recovered. I will see my little boy again. We will have a beautiful, fun, intimate, joyful life together for eternity in heaven. We will have adventures and lessons and laughter and meals and celebrations. We will hug and snuggle and kiss and laugh and play in heaven.

Wait with Joy

The real sense of loss that undergirds all the pain, disappointment, and grief in this life has been reversed through the gospel and will be enjoyed—fully and forever—in the age to come. Jesus will recover all of the fallout from Adam and Eve’s demise.

The gospel is a hope that God will never leave us empty-handed. Never. Knowing this hope, I, along with all other believers, can wait, endure, and persevere. And not just wait, but wait with joyful expectation.

Posted at: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/misunderstood-grief/

How To Forge a Faithful Friendship

By David McLemore

What kind of friend are you?

Are you the kind of friend who sticks closer than a brother, or the kind that always texts last minute that you can’t make it?

Are you the kind of friend that breathes life into others, or a vampire friend that sucks the life out of the people around you?

Before you can answer what kind of a friend you are, it helps to know what makes for a good friend. Proverbs has more to say on friendship than perhaps any other book in the Bible. In his commentary on Proverbs, Derek Kidner highlights four qualities of a good friend: constancy, candor, counsel, and carefulness.

Friendships don’t just spring from nothing. Friendships require effort. They require forging. Without those four qualities, you won’t be capable of forging the kind of friendships you’re looking for—and the kinds of friendships the Bible calls for.

CONSTANCY

A friend is always with you. A friend is committed. He sticks closer than a brother.

Maybe you think you don’t have any close friends—no one who really sticks close to you. Well, maybe you don’t. But it’s very easy to pass the blame onto others without admitting maybe there’s something wrong with you. Good friendship begins with you.

“Many a man proclaims his own steadfast love, but a faithful man who can find?” says Proverbs 20:6. Is there a difference between the kind of friend you say you are and the kind of friend you truly are?

Superficial friends don’t stick around when times are bad: “Wealth brings many new friends, but a poor man is deserted by his friend” (Prov. 19:4; see also Prov. 19:7). Real friends are constant. Proverbs 17:17 says, “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.”

Do you long for friends like this? The best way to find a faithful friend is to be a faithful friend. Are you available for friendship? Do others even know you’re available? And when you find a friend, are you there for them?

British pastor Vaughan Roberts writes in True Friendship,

Perhaps we are confident that if a friend was truly in need, we would be there for them. But would anyone think of turning to us in such circumstances? Have we kept our friendships in good shape in better times so that they are prepared for the moment when a crisis occurs?

Maybe the reason you don’t have the friends you need is that you haven’t yet learned to be the friend you need. Be a constant friend, a friend others can count on. And if you really want others to count on you, you have to be honest.

CANDOR

We are sinners in need of help. We have blind spots. Friends are God’s gift to help us repent and change and move forward.

Proverbs 29:5 cautions, “A man who flatters his neighbor spreads a net for his feet.” Friends don’t butter one another up. They shoot straight because they don’t want to see their friend ensnared later. They want their friend free from sin, free from pain.

Why? Because in a way, your happiness is tied to theirs. If your friend hurts, you hurt. That’s one way know you have a real friendship—how much you feel what happens to them. You know you have a friend when you can say to them—and they can say to you—what no one else could get away with. “Better is open rebuke than hidden love. Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy,” (Prov. 27:5-6). Friends wound with love. They don’t kiss with flattery.

Oscar Wilde said, “A true friend stabs you in the front.” That’s a harsh way of putting it, but there’s some truth to it. Friends see what we can’t see about ourselves, and their blunt honesty can save us. Do you have a friend in your life who can sharpen you, who can tell you the cold, hard truth when necessary? Are you that kind of friend?

COUNSEL

Candidness opens the door for counsel. Real friends deal honestly. They give meaningful input. They sharpen. They make us wise.

Proverbs 27:9, “The sweetness of a friend comes from his earnest counsel.” Earnest counsel isn’t just “do this, don’t do that.” It’s not detached. As commentator Charles Bridges says, earnest counsel is “the counsel of his soul.”

A friend puts themselves in our shoes and counsels as he would wish to be counseled. A friend isn’t just a prophet speaking the truth in the face of sin but also a priest bringing you to Jesus for help. If you have a friend who is candid with counsel, you will grow in wisdom.

Real friends are candid and give counsel, but their love keeps it from being reckless.

CAREFULNESS

Real friends are careful with one another. They don’t want to push you away; they want to bring you nearer to themselves and to Jesus. This is why friendship requires so much wisdom. God wants us to be careful with what we say and how we say it. As Proverbs 18:21 tells us, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue.”

Proverbs teaches us to avoid three friendship killers: gossip, aloofness, and grudges. First, we must not be gossips, and we must not make friends with gossips. Gossip is to friendship what adultery is to marriage. It destroys trust and fractures the relationship. Proverbs 16:28 says, “A dishonest man spreads strife, and a whisperer [gossip] separates close friends.” Gossip is poison. Avoid it at all costs.

Second, we must not be aloof to our friends. A friend isn’t detached or unsympathetic. Proverbs 25:20 says, “Whoever sings songs to a heavy heart is like one who takes off a garment on a cold day, and like vinegar on soda.” Singing happy songs to a heavy heart isn’t just wrong, it’s mean. Real friends know when to weep and when to rejoice. Real friends can read the mood and apply the right balm. They know how to be with present in the circumstance.

Third, we mustn’t hold grudges. True friends are forgiving. Proverbs 17:9 says, “Whoever covers an offense seeks love, but he who repeats a matter separates close friends.” Every friend will disappoint us, and we will disappoint every friend. But wisdom says, “Okay, you’ve been disappointed. Now what? Now, cover that offense. Seek love. Don’t bring it up again.”

Jesus doesn’t hold a grudge against you. He’s forgiven you completely. He’s paid for all your sins. He won’t bring them up again. Why would he? When he said, “It is finished,” he meant it.

THE MODEL FRIEND

Tim Keller summarizes a friend as one who always lets you in and never lets you down. That’s what Jesus does. He lets us in and never lets us down.

We’re miserable failures as friends to God, and in response to our failure, God gave us the cross—not to unfriend us, but to befriend us forever.

On the cross, Jesus proved he’s the friend who sticks closer than a brother. He didn’t stop loving us in our failures. He loved us to death. He loves at all times. He’s a brother born for adversity. He’s a true friend who totally accepts you, totally forgives you, totally knows you, and doesn’t walk away from you. He laid his life down for you at the cross. He’s faithful even when you aren’t. He’s loyal even though you’re disloyal. He took your offense and buried it in the tomb. And on that resurrection day, he walked out with all the power of love we will ever need.

Jesus has made you his friend, and no matter how often we show up in his house, no matter how many times we offend him, no matter how often we fail him, he will never cast us out. He will always forgive us. He will never fail us.

GLORIOUS FRIEND

John Newton’s great hymn “One There is, Above All Others,” captures the wonder of this love:

Could we bear from one another what He daily bears from us?
Yet this glorious Friend and Brother loves us, though we treat Him thus.
Though for good we render ill, He accounts us brethren still.

No, we can’t be one another’s savior. Jesus is all the Savior we’ll ever need.

But we can, and should, be friends to one another. And the model of friendship is the friend of sinners, Jesus himself, who is constant, candid, careful, and full of counsel.

David McLemore is an elder at Refuge Church in Franklin, Tennessee. He also works for a large healthcare corporation where he manages an application development department. He is married to Sarah, and they have three sons. Read more of David’s writing on his blog, Things of the Sort.

Posted at: https://gcdiscipleship.com/article-feed/2019/2/14/how-to-forge-a-faithful-friendship

Why Did Christ Die?

Excerpt from John Stott book “The Cross of Christ”

Herod and Pilate, Gentiles and Jews … had together “conspired” against Jesus (Acts 4:27). More important still, we ourselves are also guilty. If we were in their place, we would have done what they did. Indeed we have done it. For whenever we turn away from Christ, we “are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace” (Heb 6:6). We too sacrifice Jesus to our greed like Judas, to our envy like the priests, to our ambition like Pilate. “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” the old negro spiritual asks. And we must answer, “Yes, we were there.” Not as spectators only, but as participants, guilty participants, plotting, scheming, betraying, bargaining and handing him over to be crucified. We may try to wash our hands of responsibility like Pilate. But our attempt will be as futile as his. For there is blood on our hands . . .

Before we can begin to see the cross as something done for us (leading to faith and worship), we have to see it as something done by us (leading us to repentance). Indeed, “only the man who is prepared to own his share in the guilt of the cross,” wrote Canon Peter Green, “may claim his share in its grace.”

On the human level, Judas gave him up to the priests, who gave him up to Pilate, who gave him up to the soldiers, who crucified him. But on the divine level, the Father gave him up, and he gave himself up, to die for us. As we face the cross, then, we can say to ourselves both, “I did it, my sins sent him there,” and “He did it, his love took him there.” The apostle Peter brought the two truths together in his remarkable statement on the Day of Pentecost, both that “this man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge” and that “you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.” Peter thus attributes Jesus’ death simultaneously to the plan of God and to the wickedness of men. For the cross which . . . is an exposure of human evil is at the same time a revelation of the divine purpose to overcome the human evil thus exposed.

Posted at: https://ftc.co/resource-library/blog-entries/why-did-christ-die

Delighting in Authority

Delighting in Authority: How to Create a Culture of Happy Complementarians

Article09.30.2016

If I were a man, I would be a church planter.

I’m a strong leader with the gifts and wiring essential to the call. I thrive when casting vision, making disciples, training leaders, preaching the Word, and evangelizing the lost. I’ve been “thinking in sermons” since I was fifteen. I can’t help but target potential leaders. I constantly wonder how to reach my community. It’s instinctive. When I hear a powerful sermon, I feel a compulsion to preach. When someone leaves the church, I can’t sleep at night. When I study a text, I obsess over theological clarity.

But I’m a woman—a woman who believes God has spoken authoritatively in his Word on all matters pertaining to life and godliness. A woman whose conscience is bound by the conviction that the authoritative teaching office of God’s covenant community is reserved for men. I’ll never plant a church as the lead pastor/elder[1] not because I’m incompetent or lack the desire but because I believe the Word speaks with authority on this issue, and I trust the God who authored it. In fact, I delight in the authority of the Word, my husband, and the local church. I’m convinced everything God ordains, including various spheres of authority, is the best possible plan for his glory and my good. I’m what you would call a happy complementarian.[2]

“COMING OUT” AS A HAPPY COMPLEMENTARIAN

Unfortunately, not everyone delights in God-ordained authority. On the one hand, pop-culture has done a fine job of convincing women that femininity and freedom can only be found in throwing off the patriarchal shackles of previous generations to discover our “true, empowered selves.” I’m told my feelings and desires are the ultimate source of authority. Even an unbeliever would encourage me to plant a church if that meant “following my heart.” Today in Portland, Oregon—where I live—to be a strong woman is to reject any limitations on what I can or should do.

On the other hand, some Christian sub-cultures (particularly strands of fundamentalism that uphold a view of complementarianism suspiciously close to subordination) have created miserable women who outwardly affirm complementarian convictions while inwardly despising authority. Some have tragically suffered spiritual abuse from leaders and no longer know how to distinguish godly authority from an ungodly authoritarian. Others feel so trapped by manmade traditions and superficial limitations that they become like caged animals provoked even by innocent bystanders. They’re the bristly ones who affirm male headship but are bitterly offended at the slightest talk of authority.

I want to reject both extremes, even if it invites disapproval. I’m tired of apologizing for being a strong female anda conservative complementarian. In one circle, I’m too educated, too theological, too opinionated, and ask too many questions. In another circle, I’m too conservative, too prudish, too restricted, and don’t speak enough.

It’s time for the church to create space in its local assemblies for strong females who happily affirm authority (e.g., male headship and eldership) while advocating for more opportunities for women to flourish according to their gifts and qualification. Imagine how the gospel could be displayed to the watching world if churches were filled with biblically-minded women who embraced God-ordained authority as a blessing rather than a burden? This counter-cultural impulse would offer continual opportunities to share the gospel with a world that’s desperate for truth.

HOW CAN PASTORS HELP FEMALE LEADERS DELIGHT IN AUTHORITY?

But how can you do this when the overwhelming voice of culture smacks of anti-authority sentiments? The ideas below are neither novel nor exhaustive, but they do come from someone whose entire life is and has been directly affected by her views on authority.

1. Cultivate A High View of God’s Word.

Any discussion on authority must begin and end with the Bible. To start anywhere else is to build your “theological house” on the sand. Too often, people will start with a John Piper sermon or a CBMW article without pushing women to grapple with the biblical texts themselves. But only the Word of God has the power to penetrate to our innermost being and shed light on areas we desperately try to hide—like our anti-authority predispositions.

It was a high view of God’s Word that brought me to my current convictions. Early in my Christian walk, I realized I had a dog in the “egalitarian versus complementarian” fight. I applied myself to the Scriptures, earnestly desiring to know what God said about leadership roles in the local church. I came to the conclusion that the authoritative teaching office of God’s covenant community throughout redemptive history has always been and should continue to be restricted to men (e.g., priests in the Old Testament, apostles during the Apostolic age, and elders in the New Covenant). And after coming to this conclusion, I felt joy! God gave me a clear conviction on this matter, and the issue has been settled ever since. My conscience is held captive to the Word of God. And to echo Luther, I believe to act against conscience is neither safe for me, nor open to me.

By constantly pointing to the Word, pastors can help women become the kind of people who are controlled by biblical conviction rather than personal preferences or pragmatism. Encourage them to search the Scriptures and see what God says about women in leadership. Discuss the central, debated texts and facilitate open dialogue. Create environments where women can ask questions as they wrestle with the issues. Help them think well about the Scriptures and be willing to graciously challenge any preconceived notions that may not be rooted in the Word. Ultimately, equip them to make informed decisions based on good exegesis that leads to God-glorifying convictions.

2. Cultivate A High View of Women.

From Genesis to Revelation, the testimony of Scripture is that both male and female are created beings invested with great dignity, value, and worth. And both are tasked with the awesome responsibility of making visible the invisible God through their work and service. The church should be the primary place where the glorious image of God is showcased through men and women carrying out the Great Commission together with mutual love and respect.

All too often, however, the church has devalued women by not providing provision for them to serve and flourish within their respective gifts. I see this regularly with women who have leadership and teaching ability. The church may have a strong position articulated on paper, but functionally they don’t know what to do with these women . . . so all to often they don’t do anything. This isn’t necessarily malicious or calculated; I think it’s just the state of affairs in conservative churches today—but it’s one in need of continual reformation. As a female gifted to lead, I can tell you it’s not helpful (in fact, it’s confusing) to form a theology of women in leadership that never gets implemented.

I have been in churches (large “progressive” churches) where my husband and I agreed with everything on paper, but I wasn’t actually allowed to do anything within my gift set. It turned out a young woman without kids could never teach women. This reveals a low view of women that’s too pervasive in many conservative complementarian churches. Women are an essential part of the body, gifted by the Spirit to serve the church, and they should be encouraged to minister in all the ways the Bible permits.

Part of good, God-ordained male leadership is creating environments in which women feel valued, protected, and encouraged to serve in the ways God has wired them. Show women you value them by forming a robust, biblical theology of women in leadership and then actually implementing it. Here are a few suggestions:

• Provide opportunities for aspiring female teachers to get proper training so they can teach and preach the Scriptures to other women well. Perhaps consider one of these Simeon Trust workshops for women.

• Offer seminary-like classes on basic Bible, theology, and spiritual formation for your women.

• Give the women’s Bible study team time each semester to go over the curriculum and help them teach it well.

• Invite feedback from women on your sermons, on the worship, on the formation of small groups, and on the Sunday School classes.

• Ask women how you could better serve them in the way you preach, pray, and lead. After all, on average half of your congregation are women so wouldn’t it be helpful to get insight into the spiritual needs of your women . . . from a woman?

• Have women do things like serve communion, pray, read Scripture, or share their testimonies from the front. I cannot tell you how encouraging it is when I visit a church and hear a woman pray or read Scripture. It communicates volumes to the women sitting in your pews.

• Periodically ask yourself, “Are the women in my congregation flourishing? Are they being provided various opportunities to serve? Are they being treated as co-heirs of eternal life and partners in ministry?”

Every one of these points comes from the practice of my local church, a conservative, Bible-teaching, gospel-centered, Baptist church. I recently told my pastor I would be complementarian wherever I go because my conscience is bound to biblical convictions, but he sure does make it easier for me to be a happy complementarian!

I’ve been a Christian for fifteen years, and this is one of the first churches where the lead pastor has made me feel like a blessing rather than a burden for being a theologically-minded woman. That’s fifteen years of struggling to find my place in the local church because I was made to feel like a burden for the way God wired me. I’m not entertaining self-pity here, but I do think that’s sad.

I believe many women would be more willing to graciously embrace male authority in the church if they felt valued by the male leadership and given opportunities to serve Jesus in meaningful ways. Pastors, I urge you to use your God-ordained authority to help female leaders to flourish in your church. Make authority a pleasant experience for them.

HOW CAN FEMALE LEADERS HELP PASTORS DELIGHT IN AUTHORITY?

Part of being a “happy” complementarian is helping facilitate a culture in which male leaders find joy in leading us. We should (along with all believers) submit to authority in a way that helps leaders care for our souls “with joy and not groaning” (Heb. 13:17).

I’ll be the first to confess I haven’t always done this well. I can’t imagine how much “groaning” I’ve caused my pastors in the past. But, through much repentance and grace, I’m growing. Here are helpful suggestions I’ve learned along the way, primarily through my own sin and short-comings:

• Give others a “category” for you. Oftentimes, people just aren’t sure what to do with strong, theologically-minded women. Graciously help them see that you’re a woman who loves Jesus, delights in male authority, and desires to teach the Bible to other women.

• Speak highly of the male leadership in your church and home (if married). One of the most harmful things a woman can do is publicly criticize her pastor or husband. If we truly delight in male headship, our words should reflect it.

• Look for ways to encourage your pastors and elders. For example, tell them when a sermon was especially helpful or mention specific ways you’re praying for them.

• Thank your leadership for the current opportunities women are given to serve the church. Let them know it doesn’t go unnoticed.

• Be quick to communicate and slow to assume. Communicate that you have a passion for teaching women the Bible rather than assuming leadership knows and is intentionally withholding the role from you. A lot of hurt feelings are built upon false assumptions.

• Ask if there is or will ever be provision to serve within your gifts. Display a willingness to be trained and equipped accordingly. Show your pastor(s) that you’re also willing to serve outside of your gifts in order to help the church.

Ladies, let’s make authority a pleasant experience for the men in leadership over us by being a blessing to the body. May our words, actions, and attitudes help them view their God-ordained role as a delight.

FINDING FREEDOM WITHIN LIMITATIONS

The Psalmist declares, “I run in the path of your commands for you have set my heart free” (Ps. 119:32).

This reflects my heart on the issue of authority. Years ago, I bowed before God’s infinite wisdom on the matter of women in leadership and discovered the path beneath my feet was broadened. There’s a delightful freedom to be experienced when one accepts God-given boundaries. My conscience is clear, my convictions are firm, and my ministry is meaningful.

I’m not sad that I’m not and couldn’t be a church planter or lead pastor. I don’t feel restricted or resentful. Instead, I feel full. Submitting to the authority of God’s Word, specifically as it plays out in the local church, has freed me to run in the path of God’s commands. I have found great freedom within authority.

What about you?

FOOTNOTES:

[1] This truth doesn’t mean women cannot be involved in church plants. Of course they can. They should be! A well-rounded planting team would include trained, equipped women in the core group. I’m speaking to the lead, authoritative role as the church planter.

[2] A complementarian holds the theological view that men and women are created equal in dignity, value, and worth but hold differing, complimentary roles in marriage, family, and the local church.

By Whitney Woollard

Posted at: https://www.9marks.org/article/delighting-in-authority-how-to-create-a-culture-of-happy-complementarians/

Why is it So Hard to Pray

By Burk Parsons

It’s hard to pray because humbling ourselves, getting over ourselves, and coming to the end of our stubborn and sinful selves is hard. When we pray, we die to self, and death hurts. That’s why our flesh fights so hard against prayer. When we pray, we are entering into real warfare against our flesh and against the flaming arrows of our accuser and his host. Although they are not afraid of us, they are terrified of the One within us and who is for us, and they despise that we are praying to the One who has crushed them and will destroy them.

Moreover, it’s hard to pray because our focus is too often on praying itself and not on God. We learn about prayer not so that we might know a lot of facts about prayer, but so that we might pray with our focus on God. By His sovereign grace, we know Him, and we know He is there and that He not only hears but listens—that He is not silent but that He always answers our prayers and always acts in accord with His perfect will for our ultimate good and for His glory. When we recognize God’s sovereignty in prayer, we are also reminded of His love, grace, holiness, and righteousness, and we are thereby confronted with the harsh reality of our own wretched sin in the light of His glory and grace.

We will always to some degree in our lives find it difficult to pray, but, nevertheless, we must always pray.  SHARE

Thus, Christians don’t actually believe in the power of prayer—we believe in the power of God, and that is why we pray. So, when we pray, we are reminded of who we’re not—we’re reminded that we’re not God and that we’re not in control. We’re reminded that God is sovereign and in control, and so we must recognize that prayer is our daily and continual surrender of our perceived control over our lives to the One who has control of them and cares about them more than we do.

If I thought for a second that my feeble prayers changed God’s mind and His perfect will, I would stop praying altogether. I’m sinful. I don’t know everything, and I can’t control everything. Yet because God is omniscient and omnipotent, and because He has our ultimate good and His glory in mind, we can trust Him. Sometimes, God’s answer to our prayer is “no,” sometimes “wait,” sometimes “yes,” and sometimes “yes, and beyond what you could even imagine.” We will always to some degree in our lives find it difficult to pray, but, nevertheless, we must always pray. We must also pray for God to help us pray, treating prayer less like a grocery list and more like a letter of love, not simply talking to God but communing with our closest and most loving companion.

Dr. Burk Parsons (@BurkParsons) is editor of Tabletalkmagazine, senior pastor of Saint Andrew’s Chapel in Sanford, Fla., and a Ligonier Ministries teaching fellow. He is cotranslator and coeditor of A Little Book on the Christian Lifeby John Calvin. 

Posted at: https://tabletalkmagazine.com/article/2019/03/why-is-it-so-hard-to-pray/

Don't Follow Your Heart

By Jon Bloom

“Follow your heart” is a creed embraced by billions of people. It’s a statement of faith in one of the great pop cultural myths of the Western world, a gospel proclaimed in many of our stories, movies, and songs.

Essentially, it’s a belief that your heart is a compass inside of you that will direct you to your own true north if you just have the courage to follow it. It says that your heart is a true guide that will lead you to true happiness if you just have the courage to listen to it. The creed says that you are lost and your heart will save you.

This creed can sound so simple and beautiful and liberating. For lost people it’s a tempting gospel to believe.

Is This the Leader You Want to Follow?

Until you consider that your heart has sociopathic tendencies. Think about it for a moment. What does your heart tell you?

Please don’t answer. Your heart has likely said things today that you would not wish to repeat. I know mine has. My heart tells me that all of reality ought to serve my desires. My heart likes to think the best of me and worst of others — unless those others happen to think well of me; then they are wonderful people. But if they don’t think well of me, or even if they just disagree with me, well then, something is wrong with them. And while my heart is pondering my virtues and others’ errors, it can suddenly find some immoral or horribly angry thought very attractive.

“No, our hearts will not save us. We need to be saved from our hearts.”TweetShare on Facebook

The “follow your heart” creed certainly isn’t found in the Bible. The Bible actually thinks our hearts have a disease: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). Jesus, the Great Physician, lists the grim symptoms of this disease: “out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander” (Matthew 15:19). This is not leadership material.

The truth is, no one lies to us more than our own hearts. No one. If our hearts are compasses, they are Jack Sparrow compasses. They don’t tell us the truth; they just tell us what we want. If our hearts are guides, they are Gothels. They are not benevolent; they are pathologically selfish. In fact, if we do what our hearts tell us to do, we will pervert and impoverish every desire, every beauty, every person, every wonder, and every joy. Our hearts want to consume these things for our own self-glory and self-indulgence.

No, our hearts will not save us. We need to be saved from our hearts.

This Is the Leader You Want to Follow

Our hearts were never designed to be followed, but to be led. Our hearts were never designed to be gods in whom we believe; they were designed to believe in God.

If we make our hearts gods and ask them to lead us, they will lead us to narcissistic misery and ultimately damnation. They cannot save us, because what’s wrong with our hearts is the heart of our problem. But if our hearts believe in God, as they are designed to, then God saves us (Hebrews 7:25) and leads our hearts to exceeding joy (Psalm 43:4).

Therefore, don’t believe in your heart; direct your heart to believe in God. Don’t follow your heart; follow Jesus. Note that Jesus did not say to his disciples, “Let not your hearts be troubled, just believe in your hearts.” He said, “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me” (John 14:1).

“Don’t follow your heart; follow Jesus.”TweetShare on Facebook

So, though your heart will try to shepherd you today, do not follow it. It is not a shepherd. It is a pompous sheep that, due to remaining sin, has some wolf-like qualities. Don’t follow it, and be careful even listening to it. Remember, your heart only tells you what you want, not where you should go. So, only listen to it to note what it’s telling you about what you want, and then take your wants, both good and evil, to Jesus as requests and confessions.

Jesus is your shepherd (Psalm 23:1; John 10:11). Listen to his voice in his word and follow him (John 10:27). Let him be, in the words of a great hymn, the “heart of [your] own heart whatever befall.” He is the truth, he is the way, and he will lead you to life (John 14:6).

Posted at: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/dont-follow-your-heart?fbclid=IwAR0Wrn0tGeV0OdlSOU3xbhk7turY7y2j2R5IPRaVVqWnKU3GN4Qm2t6FsvQ

A Meditation on Strength and Weakness

by Kevin DeYoung

The two churches in Revelation that have no positive qualities mentioned are the two churches that look the most outwardly impressive—Sardis and Laodicea. And the two churches with no negative qualities are the two that appear the most harassed and helpless—Smyrna and Philadelphia. The strongest churches have the most weaknesses, and the weakest churches have the most strengths.

Or at least, in a way.

As Christians we know that weakness is good. But then, the Bible isn’t always down on strength either. So which is it? Should we try to grow, to mature, and to fan into flame the gifts we’ve been given? Or should we boast in all our limitations and failures?

If we’re honest, we all want to be strong—not all of us in the same areas, but all of us in some areas. We wish we were thinner and more attractive or beefed up and more muscular. We’d like to be smarter, more athletic, more musical, more successful at work, have better kids, get better grades, make more money, have a bigger house and newer car, or simply a better church parking lot. We’d like to have more influence, more sway, and more followers. In some or all of these areas, each of us desires to be strong, or at least stronger than we are.

But, as we know, the Bible speaks more highly of weakness than strength.

Matthew 5:3 Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

2 Corinthians 11:30 If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness.

2 Corinthians 12:9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

So it seems that we are to prefer weakness to strength. And this is surely true, but also potentially misleading. While God’s power is made perfect in our weakness, it is not always true that being ugly is better than being beautiful, that poor is better than rich, that unintelligent is better than smart, that shabby is better than solid, that feeble is better than powerful, that being oppressed is better than being in authority, that having few gifts is better than having great gifts.

Because the Bible prefers weakness over strength, we are tempted to think that the first half of these pairs is inherently more spiritual than the second half. But this would be to ignore the heroes and heroines of the Bible. Abraham was rich. David was a king. Moses was mighty in power. Solomon was wise. Esther was beautiful. Samson was strong. Paul was supremely intelligent. And even Jesus himself demonstrated great power and authority. So I don’t think you can make the case from the Bible that if we were all just dumber, uglier, and less successful then the church would reach its full glory.

So the question I ask myself is, “Why does the Bible prefer weakness to strength, and in what way?”

For starters, the weakness applauded in the Bible is primarily a spiritual weakness. By spiritual weakness I don’t mean that we are spiritually weak. I mean that we are humble in mind, broken in heart, and poor in spirit. This is the intrinsically good kind of weakness—to be empty of self, lowly, meek, and despising of our own sinfulness.

Moreover, weakness is better than strength because the temptation to forsake the Lord is greater when we are strong, and the opportunity to rely on God is more obvious when we are weak. For example, I don’t think that being rich is evil. It is possible to be rich and generous. The Bible doesn’t teach that being rich is the same as being wicked. But the Bible does teach, and Jesus more than anyone else, that riches are a great danger. I dare say that more people have been gone hell by getting rich than by getting poor, not because riches are bad, but because being in a position of strength is spiritually dangerous.

The danger of money is the danger of strength. The temptation for someone who is strong—be it financially, academically, musically, athletically, or artistically—is to rely on self and not on God. So as much as we want strength, we are usually opened up for more spiritual good when we are weak.

Strength is not the problem. Looking for strength in the wrong places is the problem.

Jesus and the whole New Testament are constantly appealing to our desire for victory and vindication, for rule and authority, for success and endurance. We are not Buddhists; having desires is not intrinsically flawed. The problem is that we look for these things—victory, authority, success—in the wrong places.  We want strength and we think money, position, and size, when God wants us to think faith, hope, and love.

Strength is good, but for the Christian, strength is found in weakness, in despairing of ourselves instead of applauding ourselves. Suffering, therefore, is one of God’s chief ways of leading us to spiritual success. Likewise, God uses failure to bring us to hope, and death to give us life. A perfect example of all of this is Hebrews 11:32-34:

And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight.

These men are not heroes because they were mealy mouthed, passive, and incompetent. They conquered kingdoms and shut the mouths of lions and routed foreign armies. But it was God’s work. He turned their weakness into strength. That’s what we want, both weakness and strength, at the same time, in the right order.

Posted at: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevin-deyoung/meditation-strength-weakness/

How Jonathan Edwards Helped Save My Ministry

By Jason Meyer

The burden of pastoral ministry was eating away at the edges of my joy. I felt more fatigued by the demands of leadership than ever before. I needed to fight for joy in ministry more than ever before. Here I was researching the life of Jonathan Edwards and his theology of joy—all while embroiled in a battle to guard my own joy from what felt like a slow fade.

I saw once again how the command to be joyful isn’t just a general call but also a vocationalcall for those in pastoral ministry. I’m supposed to shepherd the flock with joy, or I won’t benefit them (Heb. 13:17). In fact, if I don’t have joy, my ministry will be unbiblical—and unsustainable—because the “joy of the LORD is your strength” (Neh. 8:10).

I won’t last in this marathon of ministry without the strength that comes from joy in Jesus.

The Quote

As I was doing some study on how Jonathan Edwards’s theology of joy enabled him to minister joyfully, even in trials, I encountered a quote that changed my life. Let us go to perhaps the lowest moment of Edwards’s pastoral life: when his church fired him as a pastor. David Hall was a member of the council that met to determine Edwards’s fate in the communion controversy. This was Hall’s testimony:

[Edwards] received the shock, unshaken. I never saw the least symptoms of displeasure in his countenance the whole week but he appeared like a man of God, whose happiness was out of the reach of his enemies and whose treasure was not only a future but a present good, overbalancing all imaginable ills of life, even to the astonishment of many who could not be at rest without his dismission. (Jonathan Edwards: A New Biography, 327)

When I read that phrase, “whose happiness was out of the reach of his enemies,” I literally had to sit down and turn my palms facing up into a posture of asking to receive from God. Everything in me collectively said: “I want that, Lord. Please teach me that, Lord!” That quote became a quest.

The Quest

Edwards’s theology of joy sustained him in ministry because he put joy at the center of his ministry. It’s the thread that’s woven through all of his theology.

The first two essential elements of his theology of joy are the most far-reaching, but they were also the most familiar to me because of John Piper’s influence. Edwards stressed that God can’t be God without delighting in himself, and that redeemed sinners can’t glorify God without delighting in him. These twin truths are summarized well in Piper’s essay on the legacy of Edwards, “A God Entranced Vision of All Things: Why We Need Jonathan Edwards 300 Years Later” in his book, A God Entranced Vision of All Things. I will quote from Edwards and share Piper’s reflections on the effect of these truths.

1. The Godness of God

Joy is part of the Godness of God. In other words, God would not be God without the infinite joy he has in his infinite perfections. God must take infinite delight in what is infinitely delightful. He must supremely value the supremely valuable. God wouldn’t be wise if he failed to delight in himself in this way. He wouldn’t be holy and righteous. He would be unrighteous and become a fallen, idolatrous fool who effectively exchanged the glory of God for created things (Rom. 1:22–23).

But Edwards went even further and deeper in his essay on the Trinity:

The Father is the deity subsisting in the prime, unoriginated and most absolute manner, or the deity in its direct existence. The Son is the deity [eternally] generated by God’s understanding, or having an idea of Himself and subsisting in that idea. The Holy Ghost is the deity subsisting in act, or the divine essence flowing out and breathed forth in God’s infinite love to and delight in Himself. And . . . the whole Divine essence does truly and distinctly subsist both in the Divine idea and Divine love, and that each of them are properly distinct persons. (A Treatise on Grace, 118)

I love what Piper says about this aspect of Edwards’s theology of joy:

You cannot elevate joy higher in the universe than this. Nothing greater can be said about joy than to say that one of the Persons of the Godhead subsists in the act of God’s delight in God—that ultimate and infinite joy is the Person of the Holy Spirit. (A God Entranced Vision of All Things, 25)

Therefore, Edwards made joy a nonnegotiable aspect of the nature of God. Fully fleshing out this truth leads to further reflection on what is at the heart of glorifying God

2. How We Glorify God

Piper claims that the following paragraph is personally “the most influential paragraph in all the writings of Edwards” (A God Entranced Vision of All Things, 25):

God is glorified within Himself these two ways: 1. By appearing . . . to Himself in His own perfect idea [of Himself], or in His Son, who is the brightness of His glory. 2. By enjoying and delighting in Himself, by flowing forth in infinite . . . delight towards Himself, or in his Holy Spirit . . . . So God glorifies Himself toward the creatures also in two ways: 1. By appearing to . . . their understanding. 2. In communicating Himself to their hearts, and in their rejoicing and delighting in, and enjoying, the manifestations which He makes of Himself . . . . 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 heart. He that testifies his idea of God’s glory [doesn’t] glorify God so much as he that testifies also his approbation of it and his delight in it. (A God Entranced Vision of All Things, 26)

The effect of this paragraph was life-changing in that joy went from peripheral to central in Piper’s thought:

Joy always seemed to me peripheral until I read Jonathan Edwards. He simply transformed my universe by putting joy at the center of what it means for God to be God and what it means for us to be God-glorifying (A God Entranced Vision of All Things, 24).

3. The Web of Edwards’s Theology of Joy

These two ideas affected me greatly, but they were only the beginning. In reading more Edwards, I often stared in utter astonishment at how intricate, interconnected, and interrelated this theology of joy really was. Virtually every doctrine Edwards touched took on the bright burning glow of joy in God.

Edwards couldn’t conceive of a doctrine of salvation apart from joy. A joyless salvation is a contradiction in terms. He stressed that joy in Christ by the power of the Spirit marks every part of salvation from conversion to sanctification and glorification.

Edwards could scarcely expound on the doctrine of revelation without exulting in the feast of seeing God in his Word and in his world. Edwards insisted that meditating on the excellencies of God’s self-revelation has an expansive effect on our souls. We shouldn’t set any bounds on our spiritual appetites. As we see the divine beauty and taste the divine sweetness, our affections should rise in accord with the infinite value of these things.

Edwards couldn’t conceive of a philosophy of preaching and pastoral ministry that could somehow be separated from the joyful affections of his hearers. Listen to how he thought about his pastoral duty in ministry:

I should think myself in the way of my duty to raise the affections of my hearers as high as possibly I can, provided that they are affected with nothing but truth, and with affections that are not disagreeable to the nature of what they are affected with. (The Works of Jonathan Edwards, 4:387)

This helped me hone my own preparation to preach. Our goal in sermon preparation must be to raise our own affections as high as possible with affections that fit with the nature of the truth we proclaim—or we hypocritically have an aim for our hearers that we don’t have for ourselves.

Edwards couldn’t dream of a doctrine of heaven apart from joy. Indeed, heaven is the invitation to “enter into the joy of your master” (Matt. 25:21). Heaven is a world of joy—not just a world where you enter and have joy for God, but where you enter into the very joy ofGod.

But here is the question I kept asking: Are these threads strong enough when they are woven together in these ways? Or does this joy come apart at the seams when one feels tattered by trials?

Joy Even in the Darkest Days

Edwards had a lot to say about how to process trials. One of the most moving to me was a letter Edwards wrote to the Rev. Benjamin Coleman. Coleman was a pastor in Boston who had just suffered the loss of his daughter, the protracted sickness of his wife that resulted in her being incapacitated, and the recent death of his associate pastor. Do not read these facts with a lifeless imagination. I tried to comprehend what I would do if my sweet daughter died, my beautiful wife became completely unresponsive, or my beloved associate pastor suddenly passed away. How would I respond? What would become of my joy? Here is what Edwards would say to us:

When you are thus deprived of the company of your temporal friends, you may have sweet communion with the Lord Jesus Christ more abundantly, and that as God has gradually been darkening the world to you, putting out one of its lights after another, so he would cause the light of his eternal glory more and more to dawn within you. (Edwards on the Christian Life, 118)

Something clicked at that point when I connected Edwards’s theology of suffering to another quote I’d read many times before:

The enjoyment of God is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here. Fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, or children, or the company of earthly friends, are but shadows; but God is the substance. These are but scattered beams, but God is the sun. These are but streams, but God is the ocean. (The Works of Jonathan Edwards, 17:437–438)

Why can our joy be truly untouchable and out of the reach of trials? We can lose the streams of joy, but never the source. The scattered beams of joy may stop shining, but never the sun of joy itself. When the scattered beams are gone we will grieve, but not like those who have lost the sun. When the lovely streams dry up, we will grieve, but not like those who have lost the ocean. Joy is untouchable because its source is inseparable. Nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom. 8:39).