http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/16012825/stand-the-command-the-prayer-the-promise
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‘The Joy of the Lord Is Your Stronghold’
Let’s begin with some comments about the theme of this conference: “Serious Joy: Gladness and Gravity in a Groaning World.” This is a conference about joy — the kind of joy that can be experienced simultaneously with a weighty sense of reverence and respect, and simultaneously with a painful groaning under the sinfulness and futility of this world. We call it serious joy. In fact, we define what we do at Bethlehem College and Seminary as “an education in serious joy.”
We call it serious joy not only because it coexists in the same heart, at the same time, with the gravity of reverence and the groaning of sin, but also because it is not peripheral but central — serious in the sense of centrally important. It is not the negligible caboose at the end of the train, but belongs to the very fuel that runs the engine. And when I say centrally important, I mean central to God’s very being — central to God’s ultimate purpose in creating the world — and therefore also central to God-glorifying Christian living.
Central to God Himself
Serious joy is central to God’s very being. God has always existed. He never came into being. He is never becoming. He said, “I am who I am” (Exodus 3:14). He is absolute reality. All other reality comes from him, and its meaning is derived through him. His eternal, absolute existence has always has been Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. . . . And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father” (John 1:1, 14). So the Word is the Son. And therefore, the Son has always existed as God, coeternal with the Father, eternally begotten, not made.
And when the Son came into the world, the Father openly declared how he relates to the Son. The Father said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17). The Father is very pleased with his Son. He takes pleasure in him. He delights in him. “Behold . . . my chosen, in whom my soul delights” (Isaiah 42:1).
“Joy is serious because it is central to the very being of God.”
This delight did not come into being at the incarnation. God’s joy in the Son did not originate — ever. It never had a beginning, as if there were a time when the Son of God was not his Father’s delight. Therefore, joy belongs to the being of God, eternally in the fellowship of the Trinity. I don’t have the philosophical horsepower to make fine distinctions between nature and essence and simple and complex in the divine being. All I mean is this: If God the Father has not always delighted in God the Son — if God has not always been a joyful God — then there is no Christian God. Joy in the fellowship of the Trinity is part of what it means to be God. Therefore, we say, joy is serious because it is central to the very being of God.
Central to God’s Purpose in Creation
Serious joy is central not only to the being of God, but also to the ultimate purpose of God in creating the world. Here is one of the many climactic glimpses of the final world where God is taking his church and his new creation,
And the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. (Isaiah 35:10)
. . . . For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall make a name for the Lord, an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off. (Isaiah 55:12–13)
This is where everything is heading. This is the ultimate purpose of God in creation — a Christ-ransomed people with everlasting joy on their heads, sorrow and sighing gone, all creation transformed and applauding the work of God. Joy is the ultimate goal of God in creation.
This is serious. So serious we need to be careful. That last verse (Isaiah 55:13) shows us the care that we need to take: “And it shall make a name for the Lord, an everlasting sign.” What does “it” refer to? “It shall make a name for the Lord.” “It shall be an everlasting sign.”
It refers to what went just before: everlasting joy will be on the heads of the ransomed, mountains singing, trees clapping their hands. This is the name of the Lord. This is the everlasting sign of his purpose and his nature. His name, his chosen reputation, his glory is, “I make my ransomed people glad forever in my grace. My glory is their great gladness in me.”
And from this derives the foundation stone of what we call Christian Hedonism — namely, God is most glorified in his Christ-ransomed people when his Christ-ransomed people are most satisfied in him. If you remove satisfaction in God from the hearts of God’s people, they cannot magnify his worth the way they ought to.
Essential to God’s name — essential to the final manifestation of God’s glory — is the crown of everlasting joy resting on the heads of the redeemed, followed by the singing mountains and the clapping trees. If you remove the crown of joy from the heads of God’s people, God’s purpose to glorify himself in the new creation aborts. It will only shine the way it ought to shine — the way it is destined to shine — when its greatness and beauty and worth are reflected in the God-centered gladness of the redeemed.
Central to Christian Living
It follows, therefore, that the joy we are talking about is serious, not only because it is central to God’s very being, and not only because it is central to his ultimate purpose in creation, but also because it is central to God-glorifying Christian living now.
One of the most comprehensive descriptions of the Christian life is 1 Corinthians 10:31, “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” If it is true, then, as we have seen, that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him, then eating and drinking and everything we do in the Christian life should flow from a heart that has found its ultimate satisfaction in God.
“Everything we do in the Christian life should flow from a heart that has found its ultimate satisfaction in God.”
This is why the commands and promises of Scripture concerning joy in God are so relentless: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice” (Philippians 4:4). “Delight yourself in the Lord” (Psalm 37:4). “Be glad in the Lord and rejoice” (Psalm 32:11). “Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love” (Psalm 90:14). “In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11). “Whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst” (John 6:35).
A Christian is a person who, by the sovereign grace of God, has found this treasure hidden in the field, and with life-controlling joy has sold everything he has to buy that field (Matthew 13:44). Meaning, “Any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:33). “Whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:37). Jesus has become the supreme treasure of our life. Our quest for the greatest and the longest satisfaction of our souls is over.
And this affects everything we do. It humbles us, breaks us, satisfies us, frees us, overflows from us. It is a restless joy that grows by including others in it. This expansive restlessness is called love. “In a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part” (2 Corinthians 8:2). Love is the restless overflow of joy in God that meets the needs of others.
This is what we mean by “serious joy” — central to God’s being, central to God’s purpose, and central to the God-glorifying Christian life of love.
What Is ‘Joy’?
Still one more clarification of our conference theme before we turn to Nehemiah. Namely, the biblical reality referred to with the word “joy.” Here’s my definition of what I mean by the word “joy” in this message and in this conference: Joy is a good feeling in the soul produced by the Holy Spirit as he makes us see and savor the glory of Christ in the word and the world.
It is rooted in Christ and all that God is for us in him. It is the miraculous work of the Holy Spirit. Its organ, so to speak, is the soul, not the body, not the reason, though the body and the reason are affected by it. And it is a feeling — a good feeling. I admit that trying to find adequate words for heart-realities is difficult. I invite your help. If you don’t like the word feeling for such a serious and central reality, you might try the word sense or emotion or affection or sentiment or taste or passion or liking or mood. And if you don’t think the word good (in “good feeling”) is adequate, then you might try pleasant or congenial or delightful or agreeable or comforting or satisfying or amiable or sweet or happy or likable or glad or positive.
All language is, in the end, inadequate to carry the fullness of experienced reality. That’s why poetry exists — music, hugs, kisses, tears, tones of voice, sacrifice. We long to receive from others and to communicate from ourselves what the soul feels. The way the Bible goes about communicating through the inadequacy of language is by piling up diverse expressions that refer to the same inner reality.
Listen to this array of feeling language for how Christians relate to God:
Joy in the Lord (Isaiah 29:19).
Delight in the fear of the Lord (Isaiah 11:3).
Pleasures in the presence of the Lord. (Psalm 16:11).
Gladness in the Lord (Psalm 32:11).
Exultation in the Lord (Psalm 61:10).
Desire for the Lord (Isaiah 26:8).
Tasting the goodness of the Lord (1 Peter 2:3).
Longing for the word of the Lord (Psalm 119:20).
Happiness in keeping the instruction of the Lord (Proverbs 29:18)
Contentment in the Lord (Philippians 4:11)
Treasuring the words of the Lord (Job 23:12)
Being satisfied in the love of the Lord (Psalm 90:14).One article I consulted mentions 27 different Hebrew words for joy or joyful expression in worship. So, our focus is not mainly on a word. It’s on a reality — a central reality. And for now, “serious joy” is our best effort to point to that reality.
‘The Joy of the Lord’
As we turn to Nehemiah 8:10 the seriousness of joy is underlined in a way that I did not expect. Let’s get the context before us. The people of Israel have returned from captivity. Ezra the priest and Nehemiah the governor have seen the temple rebuilt and the walls repaired. As Nehemiah 8 begins, it is the first day of the seventh month (v. 2b), which according to Leviticus 23:24 is appointed for the feast of trumpets.
According to verse 1, the people ask Ezra the priest to read to them from the book of Moses. Nehemiah 8:3 says, “He read from [the book] facing the square before the Water Gate from early morning until midday.” According to Nehemiah 8:6, the response was that “the people answered, “Amen, Amen,” lifting up their hands. And they bowed their heads and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground.” Nehemiah 8:8 says that the Levites joined Ezra, and “They read from the book, from the Law of God, clearly, and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.” But perhaps not entirely, as we will see.
Now, as I read verses 9–12 watch for three things: the weeping of the people, the holiness of the day, and the joy of the Lord.
And Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, “This day is holy to the Lord your God; do not mourn or weep.” For all the people wept as they heard the words of the Law. Then he said to them, “Go your way. Eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready, for this day is holy to our Lord. And do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your [stronghold]. So the Levites calmed all the people, saying, “Be quiet, for this day is holy; do not be grieved.” And all the people went their way to eat and drink and to send portions and to make great rejoicing, because they had understood the words that were declared to them. (Nehemiah 8:9–12)
Weeping — But Not Only Weeping
Three times Nehemiah and Ezra and the Levites said, “This day is holy to the Lord” (Nehemiah 8:9). Then, “This day is holy to our Lord” (Nehemiah 8:10). Again, “This day is holy” (Nehemiah 8:11). And each time they say that, they make it the reason why the people should stop weeping:
Verse 9, This day is holy; “do not mourn or weep.”
Verse 10, This day is holy; “do not be grieved.”
Verse 11, “This day is holy; “do not be grieved.”They had understood something correctly back in verse 8, but evidently not everything. They were weeping in response to this understanding. But in verse 12 they stopped weeping and rejoiced “because they understood what was declared to them.”
Notice that the kind of weeping they experienced is called “grieving” two times. This is not a weeping for joy. This is a weeping for failure. They were grieved over having disobeyed God for so long. That is a proper response to the holiness of God. But it is not, if the weeping lingers too long. A holy response to the holiness of the merciful God of Israel is not simply weeping. So, three times they tell the people, “Stop this!”
Moving to Joy in God
What do they propose as an alternative to this weeping and grieving? We read it three times, “Go your way. Eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready” (Nehemiah 8:10). Or again, in Nehemiah 8:12, “And all the people went their way to eat and drink and to send portions and to make great rejoicing, because they had understood the words that were declared to them.” Now their understanding is better, it seems.
The third way of describing the alternative to grieving is in Nehemiah 8:10, “Do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your stronghold.” So, I don’t think the joy of the Lord is the joy that the Lord had, but the joy that the Lord gives — the joy that he is for his people. Notice the three parallel thoughts:
Don’t weep, go rejoice with feasting and with generosity for the poor (Nehemiah 8:9–10)
Don’t be grieved, and they went and rejoiced with feasting and generosity for the poor (Nehemiah 8:11–12).
Don’t be grieved; the joy of the Lord is your stronghold (Nehemiah 8:10).The natural interpretation of “joy of the Lord” here is the rejoicing that replaces the grieving, just like the other two parallel statements.
I would love to preach a message on the Lord’s joy over his people! Oh, my goodness what glorious truth! Zephaniah 3:17, “The Lord will rejoice over you with gladness.” Isaiah 62:5, “As the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.” Jeremiah 32:41, “I will rejoice in doing them good . . . with all my heart and all my soul.” Deuteronomy 30:9, “The Lord will take delight in prospering you.” Psalm 147:11, “The Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him.”
That would be a great focus for a message on serious joy. But not from Nehemiah 8:10. Maybe next year. It’s not good to preach true sermons from wrong texts.
Strength or Stronghold?
That was no surprise. I always assumed that the “joy of the Lord” in Nehemiah 8:10 was probably our joy in God, not his joy in us. But what was a surprise was the word behind the translation “strength.” Virtually all modern English translations translate Nehemiah 8:10, “The joy of the Lord is your strength.” But virtually every commentary I consulted treats the word as “stronghold” or “fortress” or “refuge” or “protection” — not strength.
The Hebrew word is ma’ōz. It is used 37 times in the Hebrew Old Testament. It’s translated in the ESV 14 times as stronghold, 7 times as refuge, 7 times as fortress, 3 times as protection. And only one time is it translated “strength” — namely, here in Nehemiah 8:10. I am totally baffled as to why that is. (The LXX omits “joy of the Lord” and translates, “because he is your strength [ischus].”)
Does the context perhaps constrain that translation as strength? No. Just the opposite. The people are weeping with grief. Grief over what? It all comes out in Nehemiah 9. The long confession of generations’ unfaithfulness to Yahweh who is perfectly holy and righteous. Here’s Nehemiah 9:33, “Yet you [O Lord] have been righteous in all that has come upon us [in our captivity], for you have dealt faithfully and we have acted wickedly.”
This was their grief. Their guilt. Their fear. And the answer of Nehemiah 8:10 is this: There’s a refuge! There’s a stronghold. There’s a fortress. There’s a protection against what grieves you — your sin and God’s holy judgment. And what is that protection, that stronghold? It is your joy in the Lord. So, replace your grieving with that joy. Come into the refuge from sin and guilt and holy wrath. Leave your grieving and come into joy. Come into the stronghold, the refuge. “For the joy of the Lord is your stronghold.” Joy in God your Savior is your refuge.
This is what the people, at first (in Nehemiah 8:8), did not understand, and then, at least partially did understand. It says in Nehemiah 8:12, “The people went their way to eat and drink and to send portions and to make great rejoicing, because they had understood the words that were declared to them.” The light was dawning that you can’t honor Yahweh as holy if you only grieve in his presence. Grief is good. Fear is good. Penitence is good. Tears are good. But not if that’s all you feel. God’s holiness is the purity and perfection not only of his justice but also of his mercy and grace. And cowering people do not magnify the glory of grace.
“The fear of God, without joy in God, is no refuge from the wrath of God.”
The fear of God, without joy in God, is no refuge from the wrath of God. Nehemiah had made this plain in the first chapter of this book. He was praying about approaching the king. And as he prayed he said (in Nehemiah 1:11), “O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant, and to the prayer of your servants who delight to fear your name, and grant him mercy in the sight of [the king].” In other words, the mercy of God is found in the stronghold of reverential delight. The joy of the Lord is your stronghold, your refuge.
Shepherd Your People into the Stronghold
Picture it this way, on this side of the cross of Christ. The righteous judgment of God looms over the world (John 3:36). We can picture a refuge from that judgment in two ways: objectively, what God has built, and subjectively, how we enjoy the safety of it. God has built a refuge, a stronghold of safety; namely, forgiveness, love, acceptance, personal friendship, and pleasures at his right hand forever. All of it purchased by Christ once-for-all. That’s the refuge prepared by God. He built it. Objective. Purchased. Secure. Complete. Everlasting.
That refuge is of infinite value. And God offers it freely, without payment. Not to joyless grieving. Not to joyless weeping. Not to joyless fearing. But to glad receiving. God gives his blood-bought refuge to those who see Christ as their treasure, and find him to be more precious than anything. In this way, the stronghold of mercy that God built becomes ours. Or as Nehemiah 8:10 says, “The joy of the Lord is your stronghold.” The stronghold built by God, and full of God, becomes our stronghold when we find him to be the treasure hidden in the field and take him as the treasure of our lives — when we are wakened to see and savor God as our joy. The joy of the Lord is your stronghold.
Pastors, we have a glorious calling. This is what we offer our people every week, and in every meeting. As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 1:24, “We are workers with you for your joy.” Or as he says in Philippians 1:25, “I will remain with you for the joy of your faith.” This is a magnificent calling — to take the word of God, and preach and teach and lead and live by it, so that our people come to see all that God is for them in Christ as their greatest joy — a place of perfect refuge both in life and in death. Give yourself to this: the glory of God in the gladness of your people in God. This is their stronghold.
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Where’s the Lion Now? Making Hard Decisions with Aslan
As I get older, decisions in life don’t seem to get smaller and easier, but bigger, harder, and more frequent.
In the moment, we often think the hardest decision we’ll ever face is whichever one we have to make right now. If we look back in ten years, though, this whale of a decision may begin to look a little more like a dolphin or a penguin.
When I was in my early twenties, the most difficult decision I had made was whether to stay near home for college (with my friends) or wander outside the safety of southern Ohio. Tears were shed. By my mid-thirties, however, I had made a dozen decisions bigger than that one. Where will I live? Where will I go to church? What will I do for a living, and who will pay me to do that? Whom will I marry? When will we try to have kids? Will I stay in this job? What school will we send our kids to? How will we pay for that? And those are just the big decisions most people have to make at some point. You have question marks of your own.
This year brought some new whales into our family’s harbor, and so we’ve been in need of fresh wisdom and clarity. As we wrestled through these weighty decisions, I was reading The Chronicles of Narnia with my six-year-old. On one of our hikes through its forests, my son and I came to a crossroads (as one often does in Narnia). And it was one of those crossroads that unveils the magic of Lewis’s world.
While standing there beside a dwarf (Trumpkin) and looking out over a gorge separating the four Pevensie children from Prince Caspian’s army, I suddenly wasn’t looking at a dwarf anymore, or a gorge, or even a book. I was looking at my life, at the hard decisions I needed to make. I was looking at myself. It was as if Lewis himself had decided to stop over from mid-twentieth-century Oxford to help me choose between the paths before me.
A Godless Calculus
Where we were reading, King Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy are hiking with Trumpkin, trying to find the Great River. After arduous days, they’re questioning whether they’ve gone the wrong way when they suddenly come to a gorge. The chasm is too wide to cross, so they must either follow the gorge downstream, hoping it meets the river, or climb upstream, looking for a place to cross. Trumpkin’s convinced that the gorge must fall into the river somewhere below, and Peter quickly approves. “Come on, then. Down this side of the gorge” (Prince Caspian, 131). At that moment, though, young Lucy sees an old, majestic friend.
“Look! Look! Look!” cried Lucy.
“Where? What?” asked everyone.
“The Lion,” said Lucy. “Aslan himself. Didn’t you see?” Her face had changed completely and her eyes shone.
The other children, not able to see Aslan themselves, immediately suspect she’s seeing things. Lucy won’t back down, though. As they search and search and see nothing, they ask where exactly she saw the lion.
Right up there between those mountain ashes. No, this side of the gorge. And up, not down. Just the opposite of the way you want to go. And he wanted us to go where he was — up there. (132)
“Anyone who regularly reads the Bible, by the Spirit, sees the lion every day.”
As Lucy insists, the dwarf resists. “I know nothing about Aslan. But I do know that if we turn left and follow the gorge up, it might lead us all day before we found a place where we could cross it. Whereas if we turn right and go down, we’re bound to reach the Great River in about a couple of hours. And if there are any real lions about, we want to go away from them, not towards them” (133). He’s the voice of conventional wisdom. He can calculate only what he can see.
In this case, his small, narrow eyes win the day, so the company turns right and goes down.
Unconventional Wisdom
First, the way turns out to be not as “conventional” as it had seemed: “To keep along the edge of the gorge was not so easy as it had looked” (135). They fight through dense woods until they can’t anymore and have to back out and go around the trees. When they find the gorge again, the hike down is slower and more treacherous than they expected.
As they finally near the bottom, they take another turn like so many before, and suddenly the Great River stretches out before them. Their spirits surge, lifting their sore feet and tired legs. The children are busy talking again — and then the arrows come. The evil King Miraz had posted soldiers near the river, who chase the children, sending them back to where they started.
“I suppose we’ll have to go right up the gorge again now,” says Lucy (142).
When they get all the way back to the top, they stop and make camp for the night. The dwarf prepares a great meal for the crew, and they all fall into a deep sleep. In the middle of the night, Aslan wakes Lucy and tells her to wake the others. The older kids still don’t believe her, but with the hissing sound of arrows still ringing in their ears, they decide to follow anyway. As they walk together through the dark, the lion shows them a path down into the gorge they never would have noticed. And before morning comes, they have found King Caspian and the others.
Meeting God in the Forest
Now, what might Lucy’s childlike wisdom mean for our crossroads? When it comes to complicated and heavy decisions, do we just follow whatever inner impulse we have? No, that’s not how God — or Aslan — leads. Lucy wasn’t following some inner impulse. She really saw a lion, with fur and paws and teeth. She wasn’t following a hunch or intuition; this was reverence and obedience. He showed her the way to go, and expected her to go, even if the others couldn’t see what she saw yet.
What do we do, though, when we wrestle and pray and labor over a decision, and a lion hasn’t come yet? How might God come and stand on a path for us?
The most important thing to say is that anyone who regularly reads the Bible, by the Spirit, sees the lion every day. The word of God is the one inspired, infallible path he has given us for life. “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises” (2 Peter 1:3–4). Google can’t provide answers like these. Artificial intelligence is a shadow of such wisdom. A hundred PhDs would only scratch the surface. We have no idea what we hold in the pages of this Book.
The Bible is not peripheral to your marriage and family decisions, your work decisions, your schedule decisions, your church and ministry decisions, your giving and saving decisions, your medical decisions. In his word, his Spirit, and his church, God really has given you everything you could conceivably need to make the daunting decision standing before you.
The Lion in Their Eyes
When it comes to your crossroads, don’t forget the church. Along with the word and his Spirit, God gives us other word-saturated, Spirit-filled, flesh-and-blood fountains of wisdom.
Lucy found the right path by listening to Aslan. Peter, Susan, and Edmund found the right path by listening to Lucy. She saw what they could not see yet, because Aslan had decided to reveal it to her first. How often does this happen with us? Our perspective and judgment are clouded by the weight of a decision, until the right friend comes. They’re not blinded by our fog, and so they’re able to see through it and guide us out. “Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisers they succeed” (Proverbs 15:22).
“God really has given you everything you could conceivably need to make the daunting decision standing before you.”
When we join a local church, as ordinary or simple as it may seem on the surface, we are being surgically woven into a whole new nervous system of wisdom. God has specifically gifted the people in our church — through his word, through their resources and experiences, through gifts of his Spirit — to meet real needs in our lives, including helping us make wise plans and life decisions. If you’re wrestling between two paths right now, who in your church might already know something about those paths? What might God show them to help guide you?
And what might he show you to help guide someone else? At times, you’ll need a Lucy. At other times, you’ll be a Lucy. God will give you unique, supernatural perspectives on decisions that your friends and family won’t be able to see at first. They’ll need the lion in your eyes.
Following After Trees
Lucy has one more lesson for us. When Aslan appears to her that second time (while the others are still sleeping), he leads her on a walk through the forest glade. As she follows the voice of the lion, she sees something unsettling among the trees. The trees themselves — those dark, towering, leafy pillars — seem to be moving. And not just moving, but dancing.
Why were they dancing, and why now? Not because Lucy and the others had finally chosen the right path, but because of the one roaming that path.
She went fearlessly in among the trees, dancing herself as she leaped this way and that to avoid being run into by these huge partners. But she was only half-interested in them. She wanted to get beyond them to something else; it was from beyond them that the dear voice had called. (146)
Moments later, she is face-to-face with him again. “Lucy rushed to him. She felt her heart would burst if she lost a moment. And the next thing she knew was that she was kissing him and putting her arms as far round his neck as she could and burying her face in the beautiful rich silkiness of his mane” (148).
I found this scene — a frail girl’s heart wrapped tight around the ferocious lion — to be as illuminating and stirring as any. Yes, the lion knew which way to go, but the trees say much more than that. He didn’t just know the way; he was the way. And he was the destination. The wise path, whether up the gorge, down the gorge, around the gorge, or over the gorge, was always going to be wherever his big paws were.
And so, perhaps the best question to ask when faced with another big life decision would be this: Where’s the lion now? He could show up on any number of paths, and it won’t always be easy to see him (and you might not be the first to see him). But in any given decision, we want to be able to wrap our arms around his neck and bury our faces in his fur.
At any given crossroads, we want the path with more of him.
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If Your Brother Sins Against You: How to Forgive and Let Go
Have you also found that it can be much easier to pray for your own sins than to deal with others’ sins against you?
With the first, we can confess to our Lord, take up one of his many promises of pardon, and have our souls restored. With the second, the process can be more inconvenient, messier.
With sinners who betray us, who embarrass us, who hurt us in that place we are most vulnerable, it can feel like climbing a mountain to even tell them we forgive them, let alone to forgive them “from [the] heart” (Matthew 18:35).
The fallen mind has a propensity to involuntarily replay others’ offenses. You see the scene, hear the words, feel the same stab repeatedly. Like a worm, the breach threatens to burrow deeper and deeper within us. The initial shock becomes a growing How could they? And the closer the relationship, the greater the chance of infection, as David knew well:
It is not an enemy who taunts me — then I could bear it;it is not an adversary who deals insolently with me — then I could hide from him.But it is you, a man, my equal, my companion, my familiar friend.
(Psalm 55:12–13)Perhaps you have been well taught on what to do with your sins against God, but is your heart also well instructed in what to do — and not to do — when others, especially fellow Christians, sin against you?
Ancient Help for Lingering Hurt
Love was expected from the start. From the beginning of Israel’s history under the Mosaic covenant, it was enshrined in law, passed down to subsequent generations:
You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord. (Leviticus 19:17–18)
I find this text supremely helpful in bearing the affliction of others’ sins against me.
First, it tells me that I shall not hate my brother in my heart. I can think that if I don’t lash out in the moment, if I don’t react unkindly or coldly, that this is the same as doing so in my heart. Self-control is not the same as love. You can practice self-control and harbor a cool contempt. This command forbids me from taking their sins as a squirrel does an acorn, storing them up in my heart and mind.
Second, it tells me I can sin against others in how I respond to their sin. “You shall not hate your brother in your heart . . . lest you incur sin because of him.” God is more concerned here with addressing my present or future sin than the past sin of the person who wronged me. This is challenging. I can be — and many times have been — simultaneously a victim and a culprit in the same situation because of how I responded.
And when I ruminate on sins, inwardly score-keep and note-take their crimes, this practice leads to the two other diseased fruits of hatred described: vengeance and grudges. I feel the need to either settle scores (vengeance) or refuse to move on (hold a grudge). And notice, in passing, the people against whom you and I are tempted to bear a grudge or seek vengeance: the people of your God. His children. His saints. Your own family.
How to Let It Go
What strikes me most in this text, however, are not the sinful ways I can respond to others’ sins — caressing the offense in my heart, holding a grudge, seeking to pay them back. Sadly, I know each too well. What strikes me most are God’s alternatives.
1. Do not hate him — go to him.
You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him.
You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but. Here lies the narrow path: you shall speak with the person who sinned against you. (I’m assuming here normal circumstances in which there is no reasonable threat of physical harm that might preclude going alone).
Go to him — not away from him, treasuring his sins in your heart. Go to him, not away from him, to publish it on Twitter or to gossip it to others. Go to him. “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother” (Matthew 18:15).
Do not go to him to injure him, to take vengeance upon him, to accumulate more strength for your grudge. And while it may not be wise to speak with him that same day, do the heart-work necessary on that received sin before the sun falls: “Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil” (Ephesians 4:26–27).
“If you want to let the devil into your life, procrastinate and neglect to resolve your anger toward others.”
If you want to let the devil into your life, procrastinate and neglect to resolve your anger toward others. Don’t ever talk with them. Let the sun sleep before you have quieted and calmed your heart in prayer and confession before Christ.
2. Do not hate him — reason plainly with him.
“You shall reason frankly with your neighbor.” Isn’t it amazing that the alternative to hating your bother in your heart is talking to him? I am not to keep the offense in my mouth and savor it as candy; rather, I am to let it out through speaking the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15).
I have made the mistake of understanding “reason frankly” as “assume you’ve interpreted things rightly and tell that person.” I’ve learned to say instead, “I perceive you have done this,” or, “I believe you to have sinned against me and against God.” These have proved more fruitful beginnings. But be honest, for all of that. Don’t downplay their sin, but speak plainly in love for them.
To some, this will be very difficult. You despise conflict. You despise people disliking you. You would rather your brother or sister remain in patterns of sin against God, you would rather harbor the seeds of resentment inside, you would rather cover their sins in unrighteousness, than have an uncomfortable conversation. Your self-protection, in the end, is hate to your brother.
Half the time, while you might expectantly wait for an apology, your brother has no idea he sinned against you. Your noiseless bitterness robs him of repentance, and robs you of the opportunity to grow in courage, in obedience, in death to self, in self-awareness and repentance if you are wrong. I wager that silent resentment has done even more harm among us than contention following plain speech.
3. Do not hate him — love him as yourself.
You shall not hate your brother in your heart, . . . but you shall love your neighbor as yourself.
Is all of this not how we typically deal with ourselves?
No one has done more ill to you than you. No one has given more offense, no one has caused more problems, no one has made your life harder for yourself than yourself. Our sin — not others’ sins against us — is always our biggest problem. Not “him over here” or “that person there,” but me. Others’ sins can’t damn me. Others’ sins can’t ruin my soul (without my permission).
“Our sin — not others’ sins against us — is always our biggest problem.”
But though our biggest problem is us, we still love ourselves, don’t we? Few go around begrudging themselves, plotting vengeance against themselves, refusing to lend compassion to their own sins against others. Millions have passed without replay.
So how do you love your Christian neighbor? Like that. As Matthew Henry comments, “We often wrong ourselves, but we soon forgive ourselves those wrongs, and they do not at all lessen our love to ourselves; and in like manner we should love our neighbor.”
Don’t Hide Their Sins in Your Heart
Dealing plainly, honestly, speedily with our brothers and sisters in Christ loves them as we love ourselves, and as we have been loved ourselves. And are not even Christian communities that willingly bring faults to one another in love altogether rare? Is it not rather terrible and uncommon to be taken aside by a believer and told of your perceived wrongdoings? And here is the question: Should it be?
This is not a word to embolden faultfinders to voice all sins they see — unleashing Egypt’s plagues of flies, gnats, and frogs upon small groups everywhere. Nor does it remove the very real and beautiful call to silently cover others’ sins in love (Proverbs 10:12; 1 Peter 4:8). It is, rather, a word to encourage speech where there has been bitter silence, courage where there has been cowardice, and love where there has been hate.