Legacies are multigenerational. For good or evil, your influence has the potential to span generations, even eternity, impacting individuals you may or may not meet in your lifetime.

As we’ve learned again and again, it only takes one scandal, one Judas-like betrayal, one failure or gross inconsistency to damage the legacy we leave. And it takes a lifetime of God-enabled faithfulness — a grace he loves to give — to create a beautiful legacy worthy of emulation. Oh, how I thank God for the men and women I’ve known who have lived such lives and left such legacies, which brings me to Ron Wickard.

Ron Wickard humbly pastored the same church out on the remote South Dakota prairie for 42 years, providing one beautiful model of what it means to “dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness” (Psalm 37:3). He led his growing congregation longer than Moses led the children of Israel in the wilderness. By grace, he preached to, taught, dedicated, married, and buried a couple of generations, diligently trained his elders in biblical doctrine, and successfully oversaw five building campaigns (funding a fleet of church vehicles for good measure).

Ron was a tenaciously patient leader, both with individual sinners and with the sometimes slow movement of church “politics.” He took the long view. That’s what wisdom does. So, what sustained Pastor Ron on his long road of faithful ministry? His love for the sovereignty and the supremacy of Jesus.

Supremacy Unleashes Love

Ron’s spiritual taste buds savored the Christ-exalting Scriptures. One night, after a meeting between Ron and me, his deep, enthusiastic belief in the God-centeredness of God kept us sitting in his car discussing and reveling in God’s glorious supremacy, considering text after text, until the sun came up the next morning. Over decades, Ron plunged his soul in the river of rich books extolling the absolute preeminence of Jesus. Beholding the character of Jesus in the Bible, he increasingly became what he beheld, and he invited his people to come and see what he saw in the Bible.

This pastor really loved the people of his church. On multiple occasions, I witnessed him drive over three hundred miles to arrive at a board meeting, only to receive a phone call that one tragedy or another had happened back at his home church (a house fire, the death of a baby, some other crisis). He would get right back in his car and drive three hundred miles home to minister to those in need. His endurance and love went hand in hand, always doing what he believed was best for his people, which was often a significant inconvenience to himself.

Over time, I saw that he did all of this for joy. He took pleasure in knowing that he was representing a big God who orchestrates all things for his own glory and that he was pursuing a profound, eternal good for the people he loved. When you do such things at a church for 42 years, you not only minister to one generation, but you minister to their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Tenacious Patience

It takes time for trees to produce fruit. The same is true of any healthy church. Some trees, such as plum trees, take just three to five years to produce, while other trees, like almond trees, can take up to twelve years. Growing a healthy church in the middle of the South Dakota pheasant range is sort of like tending an almond tree. It might grow fruit slowly, but the growth does come. And the result is a crop of glad-hearted worshipers who devour the Bible and embrace a big God.

Albert Mohler notes how commonly we “overestimate what can be accomplished in a single year, but underestimate what can be accomplished in a decade” (The Conviction to Lead, 194). Or four decades. Kids I once saw as teenagers in Ron’s church are now elders teaching adult classes. Ron, of course, won’t take any credit for that, but chalks it up to God’s grace. I would add that such grace often flows through the conduit of long-term pastoral faithfulness.

Leadership includes times of leaning into the wind, trudging uphill, and going against the grain of the world, the flesh, and the devil. Hence, leadership is an endurance test. It requires tenacious patience.

Fatigue of Various Kinds

Leader or not, every day requires grace. Some days seem to require more grace than others. During some particularly intense seasons, it can seem like you’re burning through grace at a whirlwind pace. Though there is never(!) a shortage of grace to do what’s right, you can experience various kinds of fatigue.

Perhaps there’s a lengthy controversy still brewing, and you face issue fatigue. Perhaps there’s a gadfly who keeps demanding a disproportionate amount of your time and attention, leading to that-guy fatigue. Or perhaps you’re simply aging, and you feel body fatigue. Maybe you’re at the tail end of a long building campaign, and you have project fatigue. In any case, no matter the variety of fatigue, there is an enabling grace from God to endure in the strength he supplies and to do what ought to be done. Call it leadership for the long haul. And since great leadership serves the people, great leadership is servanthood, so we could also call it servanthood for the long haul.

Meanwhile, merely enduring falls short. There’s something better. Great servants don’t endure merely. They endure by “being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy” (Colossians 1:11). Patience with joy — that’s what I’ve seen in Ron. When it came to difficulties, Ron wouldn’t merely bear it, but would grin and bear it in the strength God supplies. Because he knew that behind the dark providences was always a smiling divine face.

Steadfast Love

As Ron observed the beauty of Jesus’s fidelity to his bride, the church, Ron inhaled that beauty and reproduced it. I experienced this firsthand. When Vicki and I endured a miscarriage, Ron traveled over 150 miles one way to attend the burial of a child he never met. Sorrowful, yet rejoicing, we together worshiped the God who makes no mistakes and works all things together for the good of those who love him.

Having genuinely and steadfastly loved his people for over four decades, Ron, like Jesus, “loved them to the end” (John 13:1). When he stepped down from his senior pastor role, the wife of his successor told me, “He loves the people. He does what’s best for them.” And by loving that way, Ron was (and still is) an example to his flock (1 Peter 5:3). And to me.

Hebrews 13:7 says, “Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.” Ron Wickard is a humble pastoral leader who factors prominently in my memory, leaving me to consider the outcome of his way of life and longing to imitate his faith — as he imitates Jesus.

Audio Transcript

Welcome to October. This month we’re celebrating the Reformation together — Martin Luther’s great stand against the pope and against Rome’s spiritual abuses and theological errors. Luther did not stand alone, of course. Other men stood for this same cause, before and after him — people like John Wycliffe, William Tyndale, Thomas Cranmer, John Knox, and John Calvin. And many other lesser-known names paid the ultimate price in the Reformation — men and women, even teenagers, who stood against Rome, and who bled and were burned and drowned for it. These stories of sacrifice are our focus in the month ahead, in a 31-day tour you can complete in just 5–7 minutes each day. It’s called Here We Stand. If you haven’t yet, subscribe to the email journey today, online at desiringGod.org/stand. Or just go to desiringGod.org and click on the link on the top of the website. I hope you’ll join us in remembering the price paid for the spiritual blessings and religious liberties we enjoy today.

Speaking of church history, again, the birthday of Jonathan Edwards falls on Saturday, October 5. Pastor John, on Monday we talked about Christian zeal — an old-fashioned word, but an important one. You called zeal an “essential virtue” to Christian obedience. To make the case, you quoted Paul’s biblical exhortations, like in Romans 12:11: “Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord.” And in Titus 2:14: “[Christ] gave himself for us . . . to purify for himself a people . . . who are zealous for good works.” Then you brought up Jonathan Edwards and his seventy resolutions that he made as a young man, especially the one you can recite from memory after almost fifty years since you first read them — namely, number 6: “Resolved, to live with all my might, while I do live.”

But here’s today’s question. Both you and Edwards are Christian Hedonists. And he is a major source of your own understanding of Christian Hedonism. A point that was not made clear last time, as you were talking about zeal: Does Edwards see a connection between zeal and delight in God? Do you? Do you see a connection between zeal to live with all our might for the glory of God and the Christian Hedonist’s passion to maximize his joy in God?

Yes, and the best way I think to see it is to follow a certain sequence of thought in Edwards’s mind and my mind that moves from (1) zeal for the glory of God to (2) zeal for good deeds to (3) the inner motivation of those deeds in love for God or delight in God or treasuring God (different ways to say the same thing) to (4) the Christian Hedonist principle that we should seek to maximize — zealously seek to maximize in every way we can — our joy in God now and forever.

Christian Hedonist Zeal

Let’s try to follow that sequence of thought. And we’re going to bump into another amazing resolution of Edwards that really brings clarity to his Christian Hedonism.

1. Zeal for God’s Glory

Remember, in Romans 12:11, Paul said, “Never flag in zeal, serve the Lord.” So, clearly, Christian zeal is directed toward serving the Lord. And since the Lord is not needy — he doesn’t need any servants to make up for any lack in himself — what that means is that we should avail ourselves of his power to do his bidding to make him look great. I think that’s what “serve the Lord” means.

“We must pursue joy with zeal, with passion, with all our might.”

The apostle Paul said, “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). Everything in our lives should be calculated to make God look more glorious than people think he is. Edwards defines Christian zeal as “a fervent disposition or affection of mind in pursuing the glory of God.” That’s step one.

2. Zeal for Good Deeds

This zeal for God’s glory implies being zealous for good deeds — good deeds to people — because this is one crucial way God is glorified. Titus 2:14 says that Christ died to create a people “who are zealous for good [deeds].” Jesus said in Matthew 5:16, “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” So, that’s step two. Zeal for God’s glory implies zeal for good deeds since that’s how Jesus said we will glorify the Father. Or as Edwards says, Christian zeal is a “fervency of spirit that good may be done for God’s and Christ’s sake.”

3. Zeal from New Hearts

Step three is to realize that good deeds toward man and outward acts of worship toward God are of no spiritual value without a new heart that loves God, values God, delights in God, treasures God above all else. Jesus said, “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain [emptiness] do they worship me” (Matthew 15:8–9). Outward acts of worship without inward affections of love are worthless. Jesus speaks of moral acts of good deeds in the same way: “You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean” (Matthew 23:26). They did all kinds of good deeds, the Pharisees did, but were hypocrites, because those deeds were not coming from the right kind of heart. They just wanted to be seen by men.

So, if we want our zeal for the glory of God to be real, and we want our zeal for good deeds to be morally significant in God’s sight, we must be changed on the inside, so that we value and treasure God above all things. Or to say it another way, we must delight in God, be glad in God, find God to be our superior satisfaction so that our outward acts of worship are authentic and our good deeds toward people serve to glorify the value of God and not ourselves. Psalm 16:11: “In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” Tasting that right now — tasting that in the heart — is the heart of worship.

And at the horizontal level of good deeds, Jesus said, “It is more blessed” — more glad, more happy, more satisfying — “to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). We should find more gladness in good deeds than in having security and comfort and riches. That’s true now, in measure, and he says it’s true lavishly in the future. “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for great” — that’s an understatement! — “great is your reward in heaven” (Matthew 5:11–12). Which leads to step four.

4. Zeal to Maximize Joy in God

If this is true, if worship is authentic because our hearts are treasuring and delighting in and being satisfied with God above all things, and if good deeds are morally significant because of the present experience of gladness and blessedness and because of a future hope or reward in God, then we simply cannot be indifferent to the pursuit of joy in God himself and the joy that comes from the overflow of that Godward joy into the lives of other people through good deeds. We can’t be indifferent to that joy. We must pursue it with zeal, with passion, with all our might — which is what makes us Christian Hedonists.

Edwards on Zeal and Joy

Now, that was a long argument to get to the point that, yes, there’s a connection between zeal for God’s glory and being a Christian Hedonist. Here’s the amazing way Edwards connected zeal with the pursuit of this joy in God. This just boggled my mind when I first read it. Number 22: “Resolved, to endeavor to obtain for myself as much happiness, in the other world” — that is, in God, in heaven, or in the age to come, not in earthly ease — “as I possibly can, with all the power, might, vigor, vehemence, yea violence, I am capable of, or can bring myself to exert, in any way that can be thought of.” That’s just off the charts. Zealous for joy. Zealous for happiness with God in heaven forever. That’s like saying, “Resolved, to live with all my might while I do live.”

There’s the connection between Christian Hedonism and zeal in his own resolution language. “To live with all my might while I do live” — namely, in the pursuit of maximum joy in God, with him, forever, by whatever means on earth I can. Of course, that means by doing as many good deeds as I can, even if it costs me my violent death. That’s the point of referring to violence. It’s not violence against others he’s talking about, but the kind of violence that cuts off your hand or tears out your own eye if it would diminish your doing of good and your avoidance of sin and your experience of joy in God through loving other people.

So, my conclusion, Tony, is yes, there is a powerful connection in Edwards’s mind — there certainly is in my mind — between zeal to live with all our might for the glory of God and the Christian Hedonist passion to maximize our joy in God. They come together as our joy in God extends itself to make God look great through deeds of love. We pursue our joy in the joy of others in God because zeal for his glory and for their good impels us in the Christian Hedonist pursuit of maximum joy in God forever.

Audio Transcript

Welcome back to the podcast. Last Wednesday, we looked at the fact that God makes much of us, his children. He really does make much of us. Why does he make much of us? He makes much of us because he is glorifying himself by redeeming us. In APJ 1772, we looked at that point in detail.

But in that same sermon, we get another point added, a follow up, and one essential to the overall argument Pastor John is making. It’s worth reflecting on here on the podcast, because Pastor John knows that, for many people, to hear that they were saved so that God would glorify himself in us seems to take away some of the luster of that love. Pastor John will directly push back against that point a little later. He’ll answer that question and concern, and show clearly why it’s not less loving for God to love us for himself.

But before we get there, Pastor John wants to simply dwell on this previously stated fact: if you are God’s blood-bought child, God makes much of you. He does. He really does. In fact, he makes more of you and more of me than we could ever dare imagine. Here’s the biblical proof he was eager to share with his church, and this is what he told them.

So that’s what I meant when I said, “Why does the Bible relentlessly reveal the love of God for us in a way that constantly calls attention to the fact that it is done for his glory?” Because so many people, when they hear that, feel it as not loving. The point of those texts throughout the Bible, where God performs his love for us for his glory, is to show that he loves us in the greatest possible way.

Dwelling on God’s Love

Why? How does that show that it’s a greater love? How is it a greater love when he loves me for his glory than if he just loved me and it all terminated on me? Well, before I answer that question — and I will answer it — let me dwell with you on the truth that evidently some have assumed I denied in asking, “Do you feel more loved by God when he makes much of you, or do you feel more loved by God when he frees you at the cost of his Son to enjoy making much of him forever?”

It’s been assumed by some, “Oh, you don’t think he makes much of us.” Well, that’s a non sequitur; it doesn’t follow from what I said. But I don’t want to defend myself. Some have gotten that idea, and I would like to now fix it and keep fixing it. If I get things imbalanced, I’d like to get them back into balance.

Seven Ways God Makes Much of Us

So here we are trying to help those who heard it that way. The answer is yes, God makes more of you than you could ever imagine. And I will blow you away for the next five minutes. Put your seatbelt on if you have trouble with being made much of by God, because you might leave otherwise. I think I have seven of these, and they will go by quickly.

1. God is pleased with us.

God makes much of us by being pleased with us and commending our lives. Alan Jacobs wrote a great biography of C.S. Lewis, and he says in C.S. Lewis’s biography that the greatest sermon that C.S. Lewis ever preached was called “The Weight of Glory.” That is, believers will one day have a weight of glory that will be so heavy they will imagine, “I don’t know if I can bear this. It’s so good.”

What do you think the weight of glory was in that sermon? It was the words “Well done, good and faithful servant.” And here’s what Lewis said:

To please God . . . to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness . . . to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in his son — it seems impossible, a weight or a burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is. (39)

And he’s right. That’s number one. God makes much of us by being pleased with us, making us an ingredient in the divine happiness, like an artist with something he painted or like a father with a son.

2. God makes us fellow heirs with Christ.

God makes much of us by making us fellow heirs with his Son, who owns everything. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5). I wonder if you believe that. I do. Mine! I don’t need it now, therefore. I don’t need it now. I don’t need to scrounge to get a piece of earth for about fifty years and then maybe lose everything.

I am very happy to belong to King Jesus — to be a fellow heir of Jesus Christ, who owns the universe, and get my globe at death (or maybe at the resurrection). And I won’t mind sharing it with you. And if that’s a problem, he’ll make another globe. In fact, he won’t have to make another globe. They’re out there. So you get Quasar 10, which is probably greener. “The promise to Abraham and his offspring [is] that he would be heir of the world” (Romans 4:13). Are you an heir of Abraham? You indeed are an heir. In Christ, we are Abraham’s offspring, and Abraham was promised the world.

“In Christ, we are Abraham’s offspring, and Abraham was promised the world.”

One more, 1 Corinthians 3:21–22 (this is the best of all, probably): “So let no one boast in men.” He’s trying to help Bethlehem not boast — boast in pastors, boast in elders, boast in buildings, boast in anything. “Let no one boast in men. For [here’s the argument] all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future — all are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.” What an argument. These ragtag Corinthians are being told, “Would you stop saying, ‘I’m of Paul,’ ‘I’m of Cephas,’ and realize you own everything?” It’s just a matter of time. A very short time.

3. God promises to serve us.

God makes much of us by having us sit at table when he returns, and serving us as though he were the slave and we are the masters. This is the parable of the second coming that is the most unbelievable. It’s Luke 12. I’ll just read you Luke 12:37. He’s describing the second coming, and he says, “Truly, I say to you, he will dress himself for service and have [us] recline at table, and he will come and serve [us].” What will it take to make you feel made much of? I used to think until I saw that parable that he did that on the earth: Last Supper, bound a towel, washed their feet — that’s an incarnation action. But now, name above every name, he’s coming on a white horse, sword out of his mouth, slaying his enemies, making everybody serve him at table.

And that’s not what it says. He will never cease to be our servant. We will tremble. We will say what Peter said: “You can’t wash my feet! Get your towel off. Sit down.” And he will say — no, he won’t. I want to say that he’ll say, “Get behind me, Satan.” But I think probably at that point, we will be sanctified enough that we won’t be satanic like Peter was. So there we are, sitting at table shortly, with Jesus serving us.

4. God appoints us to judge angels.

God makes much of us by appointing us to carry out judgment of angels. “Do you not know that we are to judge angels?” (1 Corinthians 6:3). You can take a deep breath and say, “Well, I don’t think I could do that.” You will. You will.

5. God rejoices over us.

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

Matthew 10:29–30: “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father? Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.” “I attend to the minutest detail of a sparrow’s life. You don’t compare. You are, I would say, infinitely more valuable than a bird. So don’t worry. I’ve got your back. I won’t let anything happen that’s not for your good. I love you. I value you. You’re coming home. I decided this before the foundation of the world.”

I said there were two verses there. I said, “values you and sings over you, rejoices over you.” This is Zephaniah 3:17: “The Lord your God . . . will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.” You ever heard God sing? I haven’t. I suppose Jesus sang a hymn when he went out into the garden. When everybody else sang, he didn’t sit there quiet. But when God sings, universes come into being. God’s going to sing, and it’s going to be a sound like you’ve never heard over you, over the blood-bought bride of his Son. He will lead the song at the wedding feast.

6. God will make us shine like the sun.

God makes much of us by giving us a glorious body like Jesus’s resurrection body. “[He] will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself” (Philippians 3:21). But here’s the one that has captured me for all the years since I saw it — in the parable in Matthew 13:43: “The righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.” Remember seeing Jesus in Revelation 1? Hair white like snow, girded with a brass belt of truth, just pillars for legs. And his face, it says, “was like the sun shining” (Revelation 1:16). And John was on his face. So will you.

We would not be able to look at each other in the resurrection unless God had given us new spiritual resurrection eyes. We will be so bright. No more wheelchairs, no more depression, no more fallen countenances, no more discouragement, no more disease, no more alienation — everything new, and your face shining like the sun. So, as C.S. Lewis said, we would be tempted to bow down and worship each other if God hadn’t given us eyes and a heart to know better.

7. God will rule the world through us.

Most amazingly, I think (maybe not), God makes much of us by granting us to sit with Christ on his throne. Revelation 3:21: “The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne.” I don’t know what to do with that.

“Everywhere the Father extends his rule in the universe, he will do it through you.”

So, I’ll try. Maybe Ephesians 1:23 helps: “[The church] is [Christ’s] body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.” We’re going to sit on the throne of God with Jesus, because the thrones merge. We’re on Jesus’s throne; he sits on the Father’s throne; now we’re all on the same throne. God, the Son, and us sitting on the throne of the universe. If I put those two texts together, I think it means something like this: everywhere the Father extends his rule in the universe, he will do it through you.

God created the world, you, for a reason, and it isn’t to throw you away at the end. It’s so that you would fulfill what he gave you to do in the beginning — namely, to be a governor of the universe: subdue it, multiply, fill it, enjoy it, make something of it. “Now I’ve made you new, I’ll make the world new. Now get about it, and any place I stick my hand to rule, I’m ruling through people.” He’s going through people.

So, let it be known loud and clear: God makes much of us. God makes much of his Son’s bride. God loves his church with a kind of love that will make more of her because he makes much of her for his glory.