http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/16215156/first-in-last-out-laughing-loudest
C.S. Lewis was fond of quoting English writer Samuel Johnson (1709–1784), who once said, “People need to be reminded more than they need to be instructed.” Both Lewis and Johnson believed that people often possess the knowledge they need; it simply needs to be brought to mind at the appropriate time.
I’ve found this to be especially true when it comes to godly masculinity. I need timely reminders to help me fulfill my calling as a husband and a father, as a friend and a brother. And thankfully, God’s word directs us to a daily and unavoidable reminder of what it means to be a godly man. We find it in Psalm 19:4–5.
In them [the heavens] he has set a tent for the sun,
which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber,
and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy.
With these words, David invites us to sanctify our imaginations by seeing the sun with godly eyes.
Bridegroom and Warrior
The sun, as it moves across the sky, reminds David of something. He’s seen that brightness before. Then he recalls the wedding day of a close friend, and the link is made — the sun is like the bridegroom.
Those of us who attend modern weddings know that, when the wedding march begins, all eyes turn to the back of the room to see the bride, clothed in white and beautiful in her glory. But a wise attendee will also steal a glance toward the altar, where the groom waits with eager anticipation and expectant joy. The beauty of his bride is reflected in the brightness of his face. It’s that look that David remembers when he sees the sun as it rises in the morning.
But David doesn’t stop looking. David considers the sun again and is reminded of Josheb-basshebeth, one of his mighty men, running into battle with spear raised and eyes blazing because he is doing what he was built to do (2 Samuel 23:8). The warrior is intense and joyful because he is protecting his people with the strength and skill he’s developed.
So then, the sun is like the groom, and the sun is like the mighty man. Both are images of godly masculinity — the bridegroom and the warrior, the lover and the man of war. Both images direct us to a man’s calling in relation to his people. One points us inward, as a man delights in his wife (and by extension his children and the rest of his people). The other points us outward, as a man protects his people from external threats. Which means the sun is an ever-present reminder of what it means to be a godly man: bright, triumphant, blazing with joy and purpose, ready to fight and bleed and die for the ones he loves.
Manly Weight
When we press into this image, we see the gravity that lies at the heart of mature masculinity. A number of recent Christian books on manhood have underlined the importance of gravitas for godly men. Michael Foster and Dominic Bnonn Tennant define gravitas as the weight of a man’s presence (It’s Good to Be a Man, 141). It’s the dignity and honor that pull people into his orbit (much like the sun orients the planets by its mass).
“The fear of the Lord gives weight to a man’s soul, making him firm and stable and steadfast.”
Gravitas comes partly from a man’s skill and competence, and partly from his sober-mindedness and confidence. A competent and confident man catches the eye, much like the sun as it blazes a trail through the heavens. But ultimately, true gravitas comes from fearing the Lord. The fear of the Lord gives weight to a man’s soul, making him firm and stable and steadfast, not tossed to and fro by winds of doctrine or the passions of the flesh.
But as Psalm 19 shows, gravitas is only one half of the equation. Gladness completes the picture. It’s not enough to take initiative and responsibility for oneself and for others. A godly man runs his course with joy.
Manly Mirth
One of my favorite pictures of masculinity comes from Lewis’s The Horse and His Boy. King Lune tells his son Cor what kingship is all about.
This is what it means to be a king: to be first in every desperate attack and last in every desperate retreat, and when there’s hunger in the land (as must be now and then in bad years) to wear finer clothes and laugh louder over a scantier meal than any man in your land. (310)
“Biblical manhood bleeds and sacrifices with unconquerable joy.”
First in, last out, laughing loudest. Here is competence and confidence — initiating, taking risks, and bearing burdens for others. Here is a king who cultivates his strength for God’s mission and the good of others. And he does it all with courage in the heart and manifest laughter in the soul. Biblical manhood bleeds and sacrifices with unconquerable joy.
Gravity and gladness are both essential. Without gravity, gladness declines into triviality. Without gladness, gravity degenerates into gloom. Together, they are a potent combination that inspires others, forms communities, and extends a man’s influence in the world.
Where the Images Land
Psalm 19 depicts the sun as a wonderful picture of true masculinity. But for David, the sun doesn’t merely draw our minds to the bridegroom and the strong man, to the lover and the man of war. More than that, the sun draws our minds upward to the splendor and majesty of the Maker. “The heavens declare the glory of God” (Psalm 19:1). The sun both reminds us of the glory of manhood and displays the glory of God.
More than that, these reminders point us to Jesus. He is the ground and goal of manhood. All true gravity and gladness come from him. He is the one who reconciles us to God so that, despite our sin and shame, we live beneath the smile of a happy Father who says to us, “This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17).
Jesus is our older brother, the firstborn from the dead, our model and example who ran his race for the joy set before him. He is the ultimate strong man — a man of war who killed the dragon to get the girl. He is the bridegroom who greatly rejoices over his bride and whose face is like the sun shining in full strength. And every day, he causes the sun to rise, reminding us of who he is and who we are to be.
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Press Afresh into Jesus: Four Truths About Genuine Faith
Just a small-town girl, livin’ in a lonely world . . .
I suspect most of us have heard the 1981 song, by the band Journey, called “Don’t Stop Believin’.” It came into a second life around 2007, and for the last fifteen years it has reached a level of popularity it didn’t first have.
The song has a memorable tune, which makes the main line, “Don’t stop believin’” (which doesn’t come till the last minute), seem so powerful. Yet if you analyze the words — as a pastor who likes classic rock might be prone to do — you find out how disappointing and thin the lyrics are. For one, “Don’t stop believing” in what? What’s the object of belief?
The story behind the song is that one band member “went to the band with the iconic line ‘Don’t stop believin’; hold on to that feeling’ with the vague idea that Steve Perry [the voice] would want to sing it. Perry loved it,” reports one site, “and the band went on to improvise and jam until they had dialed in a workable version of the song.”
A sidenote about the line “Just a city boy, born and raised in South Detroit”: If you look at a map, you can see that “South Detroit” is what the Canadians call Ontario. Perry thought “South Detroit” sounded good, and he didn’t realize until years later that it didn’t exist.
Four Truths about True Faith
I mention “Don’t Stop Believin’” because that would be a fair summary of the exhortation sections of Hebrews — except that Hebrews makes the object of faith very clear. We’ve talked about how Hebrews alternates between exposition and exhortation. A summary of the expositions, we’ve said, would be “Jesus is better.” A summary of the exhortations, cast negatively, might be “Don’t stop believing in Jesus.” Or to put it positively (as in 3:1 and 12:1–3): “Look to Jesus; fix your attention on him; hold fast to him.”
“You aren’t guaranteed tomorrow, but you have today. Turn to Jesus today.”
Hebrews likes to quote from the end of Psalm 95. First, he immediately applies it to his Christian audience (3:12–19), admonishing them to this effect: “Today if you still hear God’s voice, don’t harden your hearts, but renew your faith in Jesus.” Some are drifting and in spiritual danger. You aren’t guaranteed tomorrow, but you have today. Turn to Jesus today. And as a church, be God’s means of grace in the lives of each other.
But Hebrews sees more in Psalm 95 than just the immediate exhortation. This morning we’ll see that Psalm 95 opens up a whole panorama of God’s heart and plan for his people, giving new reasons from across the Old Testament as to why it is so critical that God’s people today press afresh into Jesus.
The focus in Hebrews 4:1–11 is faith: what it is and is not, what it does, and what its object is. So we’ll look at this passage through the lens of four truths about genuine faith.
1. Faith welcomes the goodness of God, through his word.
Faith is the instrument of receiving God’s promises and benefits and entering his rest. Look at verses 2–3:
Good news came to us [Christians] just as to them [the wilderness generation that came out of Egypt], but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened. For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said,
“As I swore in my wrath,‘They shall not enter my rest.’”
We saw in 3:19 last week that “they were unable to enter because of unbelief.” That is, they did not welcome God’s promise.
Hebrews 4:2 says that “good news came to us just as to them,” which does not mean that the good news, the gospel of Jesus Christ, came to them a millennium and a half before Jesus came. It means that good news came to them in the form of God’s promise to rescue them from Egypt and to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, and they believed (Exodus 3:17; 4:31). And God brought them out of Egypt.
But when they came to the edge of the promised land, and ten spies came back with fear about the strength of the inhabitants of the land, God’s people, by and large, did not believe his promise.
Hebrews sees a parallel with us: God’s people once heard his promise (or good news), believed, and were brought out of Egypt, but later they lost faith and did not enter into his rest. So we too have heard good news — the good news about God’s divine Son coming to live among us, die for us, and rise in triumph, sitting down in the seat of honor at God’s right hand. We have heard good news and believed, but we too have not yet entered into God’s promised rest. And if we lose faith, we will not, just like them.
Which raises two questions about the nature of saving faith. First, how does faith receive God’s goodness, his good promises, his good news? Does faith receive his goodness with disgust — as in, “I think that’s true, but I don’t like it”? Of course not. Or, more telling, does faith receive his goodness with apathy? With indifference? No.
Rather, true faith, saving faith, welcomes God’s goodness as communicated in the good news. Faith receives with joy the promises of God for our good. Faith is not mere intellectual assent. It is not emotionally neutral. Faith is a function of the whole soul, including the heart.
A second question then about the nature of saving faith is the particular emphasis of this passage. What does Hebrews 4 emphasize about saving faith? Answer: genuine faith perseveres. Which leads to our second truth about genuine faith.
2. The world and the devil oppose and threaten our faith.
First, look at verse 1:
Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it.
The most common command in all the Bible might be “do not fear.” So we might think that fear, all fear, is bad. But Hebrews 4:1 says, “Let us fear,” which literally means, “May we be made to fear.” There is an important place for fear in the Christian life: the fear of facing omnipotence in our sin, without the covering of Christ through faith. We indeed should have a holy fear of God and of what it would be like if we were to give ourselves over to unbelief.
“Once saved, always saved” is easily distorted. Genuine faith does indeed persevere, and we come to know our faith to be genuine as it perseveres. Faith that fades and dies shows itself to have been false faith, and those who once seemed to have faith, but in the end no longer believe, will not enter God’s rest. Genuine faith perseveres.
“Faith that fades and dies shows itself to have been false faith.”
Which means that “losing faith” is a real threat. But it’s not a threat that happens all at once. Typically, it comes at the end of a process, often a long one. And the reason I say that “the world and the devil oppose and threaten our faith” is because of Jesus’s parable of the sower in Luke 8, where he warns of Satan, times of trial, and the cares of this life.
We’ve talked before about the general background noise in Hebrews, pushing the church to return to Judaism and just abandon the Jesus piece, which was producing trials. And chapter 4 adds an important detail about how the listeners came into this dangerous position: they had become spiritually sluggish. Their hearts had cooled and begun to harden. Their faith in Jesus was fading, not just from trials, but from the cares and riches and pleasures of life.
And when your heart is hardening and your faith is dull, threats multiply. Hebrews 13 shows us his concern for them: for failures of love, whether for the brothers, strangers, or others in need; for sexual immorality and adultery; for love for money; for their forgetting once-beloved leaders and entertaining strange and diverse teachings, different from what they had known and once firmly believed; for their beginning to see the here and now as the lasting city. The main threat in Hebrews 13 is not Jewishness but worldliness.
What makes the background noise and other temptations of Hebrew 13 live threats is waning faith, an increasingly casual attitude about Jesus, and a lack of striving to persevere. The main problem for Hebrews’s audience is not persecution from the outside but their own sin and unbelief within. Same for us today. Persecution, whether physical or just verbal, is not the greatest threat. Unbelief is the great threat. Do not fear those who only can kill the body, but let us fear lest any of us should have our hearts hardened and our faith fail.
So, how is your faith in Jesus? Is it strong, steady, thriving? Stronger today than, say, three years ago? Or is your faith embattled? Is it thin and weak? Are you just surviving and spiritually sluggish? You are not promised tomorrow, but you have today. And as verse 1 says, “The promise of entering his rest still stands.” But how is that? How does Hebrews say that the promise of rest, offered a thousand years before Jesus in Psalm 95, still stands? That leads to number 3.
3. Genuine faith strives to persevere.
First let’s look at verse 11, then we’ll come back to verses 4–8. Verse 11 says,
Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.
“That rest” that Hebrews focuses on in this chapter is, in some sense, already present for those with genuine faith, but the main referent here is future and “not yet.” Initial faith coordinates with leaving Egypt, and the rest, with entering the promised land. So then, for Christians today, the rest is “the world to come,” which we’ve already seen in Hebrews 2:5, and “the promised eternal inheritance” (9:15), and the heavenly country (11:16), and “the city that is to come” (13:14; 11:10), and the “kingdom that cannot be shaken” (12:28).
And Hebrews says, “Let us . . . strive to enter” this coming rest. “Strive” — that is, “work hard,” make every effort, apply yourself diligently. George Guthrie comments, “It speaks of focused attention toward the accomplishment of a given task” (NIV Application Commentary: Hebrews, 155). Saving faith perseveres.
But how? Very practically, if I want to keep on believing, how do I strive? How do I make every effort to persevere? Hebrews may be as clear as any single book in the Bible about three particular means of God’s ongoing grace in the Christian life for our faith surviving and thriving: God’s word, prayer, and fellowship. In other words: hearing God’s voice in his word, having his ear in prayer, and belonging to his body in the fellowship of the local church — three glorious channels of his ongoing grace around which to build habits for our striving to enter God’s rest.
But what’s in 4:1–11, leading to verses 12–16, is the particular, central place of God’s word. Look at verse 2. The phrase “the message they heard” in the ESV is literally “the word of hearing” or “the heard word.” Faith comes by hearing (Romans 10:17).
So one very practical reality for cultivating habits for striving to feed faith and enter God’s rest is, Are you hearing God’s word? Reading his word, studying his word, meditating on his word, conversing with others about his word, hearing it read and preached and discussed? Are your ears hearing, and eyes reading, enough of God’s word to feed the flame of faith in your heart?
Big Story of God’s Rest
Now, what about verses 4–8? The author makes a stunning move at the end of verse 3. After saying, “We who have believed enter that rest,” he quotes the end of Psalm 95 again: “As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest.’” And then, almost as if out of left field, he adds this phrase: “although his works were finished from the foundation of the world.” And on a first reading, or twentieth perhaps, we say, “What?” Where did that come from?
Immediately following, Hebrews goes on to say “for” or “because,” which is like saying, “Let me explain.” Look at verses 4–5:
For he [God] has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.” And again in this passage [that’s Psalm 95] he said, “They shall not enter my rest.”
Now, when Hebrews says God has spoken of the seventh day somewhere, he’s not saying he doesn’t remember where. He’s communicating, in an endearing way, that he and his readers know full well where God rests. We already saw Hebrews do this in 2:6, when he introduced Psalm 8. He said, “It has been testified somewhere” — not because he didn’t know where but because he knew his audience knew. There’s some holy confidence here in how strong the argument is. These are not stretches. These are well-traveled texts of Scripture.
Famously, Genesis 2:2 tells us God “rested on the seventh day from all his work.” But how does Hebrews get there? Answer: the last two words in Psalm 95, “my rest.” Which is a pretty ominous way to end a psalm: “They shall not enter my rest.” And Hebrews asks, Wait a minute, did you say God has a rest? God says, “My rest.” Where does God have a rest? Of course. So a pillar goes in place: God’s rest, day seven, at the creation of the world.
And then there’s a second pillar. This whole time, we’ve been talking about the wilderness generation that came out of Egypt with faith, and then they disobeyed on the brink of the promised land and wandered in the wilderness for forty years until that whole unbelieving generation died out. Then, after the death of Moses, Joshua led the next generation into the promised rest. That’s pillar two. These are chronological.
But then what Hebrews sees, because he’s reading his Bible very carefully, is a third pillar. Psalm 95 is the third pillar in the story, with its mention of God’s rest. And what tips him off is the word today. Four centuries after Joshua, David says in Psalm 95, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” Look at verse 7:
Again [God] appoints a certain day, “Today,” saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted [Psalm 95], “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on.
Note the time words. These are very important in Hebrews: verse 7 with “so long afterward” and verse 8 with “another day later on.” So, pillar one: God rested on the seventh day from his works. He entered into his rest. Pillar two: after the unbelieving generation died, the next generation, under Joshua, entered into the promised land. However, that’s not the end. Pillar three: Psalm 95, which is “later on” and “so long afterward,” still offers entrance into God’s rest during the time of David. And so we ask, What is that rest?
Reading Big and Small
But first, let’s just pause for a minute and consider how Hebrews reads his Bible. Learn from this. Imitate this. We might call it “reading big and small.”
Reading small: The words my rest at the end of Psalm 95 open up this whole panorama, across time, of God’s rest from creation to Joshua to David in Psalm 95, to bring his people with him into his rest. Brothers and sisters, learn to read small like this. Slow down. Linger over particular words and phrases. Read without hurry, even leisurely. Read at a pace that is conducive to understanding and meditating and enjoying — not at the pace you’ve learned to read a screen. Read slow enough to ask questions like, Where does God have a rest?
And in doing so, you’ll give your brain the precious milliseconds it takes to make connections across the sweep of Scripture. That’s reading big. Consider how concepts, captured in particular words and phrases in one place, as well as sequences and structures of thought, connect and relate to other times and places in God’s word. Reading big is seen in Hebrews’s use of chronological terms like so long afterward and another day later on.
Let’s learn to read Scripture like Hebrews does: big and small — slowly, unhurriedly, meditatively, and all the while, over time, putting together the pieces, in order, in God’s big story from beginning to end.
Now, back to the question, What is that rest for us? God’s seventh day rest, then rest in the promised land, then “the promise of entering his rest still stands” four centuries later in Psalm 95. Now what? What’s the fourth pillar for us?
A thousand years after David, one of his own descendants, and the forgotten heir to his throne, would say in the backwater streets of Galilee,
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. (Matthew 11:28–29)
4. Saving faith rests in the person and work of Jesus.
This gives us a peek of what’s coming in Hebrews: Jesus, who is our great high priest (as we’ll see in chapters 5–7), who offers himself as the better sacrifice (chapters 9–10), is the one who gives us entrance, by faith, into God’s final rest. So, after verses 3–8 piece together the sequence from God’s rest at creation, to Moses and Joshua, to the invitation still remaining under David, he concludes in verses 9–10:
So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.
Why does he call it a “Sabbath rest”?
This is not a reference to Jews or Christians observing a weekly Sabbath. This is upstream from that. The Jewish Sabbath was grounded in God’s creation rest and, from the beginning, anticipated the ultimate and final rest to come in Christ.
In fact, Jesus himself, seated on heaven’s throne, has finished his work and entered into God’s rest. Verse 10 might be specifically about Jesus, or perhaps carefully worded to be true of both him and us. The ESV says, “Whoever has entered God’s rest,” but a literal translation would be, “The one who has entered into his rest — even he himself rested from his works.” I can’t help but wonder.
But either way, verse 10 surely is true, at present, of Jesus and will be true, in the future, of us who persevere in faith to the end. “Sabbath rest” is Hebrews’s way of saying the true Rest, or the final Rest, or the better Rest.
“The object of our faith is not our faith. The object of our faith is Jesus.”
Finally, what does this mean for assurance? If genuine faith perseveres, and we come to know our faith to be genuine as it perseveres, and we have not yet finished our course and “rested from our works” in this life, can we have real assurance? Can we enjoy some solid measure of confidence that our faith is real, and that Jesus will hold us fast and be at work in us to endure and keep us? The answer is yes. And it relates very much to this Table, which is, among other things, a weekly corporate means of grace and assurance.
He Will Hold You Fast
How would Hebrews give us assurance? He would say, “Look to Jesus. Consider Jesus. Have faith in Jesus. Hold fast to Jesus.” In other words, what do you do with Jesus? Do you believe in him, trust him, treasure him, cling to him? Do you have faith in Jesus?
To the degree your soul leans on him, rests in him — and that your life confirms it, rather than calls it into question — you can have real, meaningful, substantial assurance. He’s working in and through you, and you can believe, “He will hold me fast, as I strive, enabled by his grace, to persevere in faith.”
The object of our faith is not our faith. The object of our faith is Jesus. And this meal keeps feeding faith, which is why we share it each Sunday. We want to persevere, and this Table gives us, again and again, the one to believe in: his body and blood given for us.
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Why Do They Get What I Want? Envy and the Eyes That Matter
When I was about five, my dad invited me and my older sister into his home studio for fun. Like most of the musicians and producers in Nashville, he had a basement room outfitted with everything you need to make a decent demo: a dark soundproofed booth with a mic and stool, another room with a soundboard, and a thick glass window in between — for giving the “thumbs up” sign between takes.
He let me try first. I stood in the tiny room and sang along to the track playing through an enormous pair of headphones. In about three minutes, I was losing interest. I began to complain that the headphones were squeezing my ears, and my dad let me go back to playing.
Then it was my sister Sophie’s turn. And apparently, this was the day my dad discovered Sophie’s voice.
What did they work on? I didn’t hear it until a few weeks later when my parents had friends over for supper. My dad mentioned the session they’d done, and our guests wanted to hear it. Everybody sat down in the living room, but for some reason, I didn’t go in.
I stood in the hallway outside as the track began and Sophie’s voice burst into the air.
Even at seven years old, her voice was clear, powerful, and controlled. My little stomach flipped. I cringed outside the door as the guests reacted. My dad modestly turned the volume down after the first minute. Why had I left the studio? Why did I quit so quickly? Why didn’t I see that it would lead to Sophie being shown off while I was left standing out in the hallway?
Wishing Against Others
The smell of foam insulation in a recording booth would become very familiar to me in years to come. My dad did a great job of including all his kids in the music of his life. He invited his daughters onstage with him regularly during church concerts.
Later, he used connections to get us all jobs working as session singers for children’s projects — allowing us to save for future cars or colleges. He produced and paid for me to record a CD of jazz cover tunes when I was fifteen, and was always uniquely supportive of my voice — even if I knew it was more idiosyncratic and less powerful than Sophie’s. She was compared to Mariah Carey, I was compared to Billie Holiday, my younger sisters were later compared to The Wailin’ Jennys — and my dad managed to be a fan of all of it.
But when I look back, I’m shocked to recognize this moment as the earliest flowering of envy in my life. Peering back through the decades, I can see my five-year-old self standing in the hallway. The impulse of her heart is unmistakable.
I wished my dad would not play the CD. I wished the CD had been scratched or mislaid. I wished her voice didn’t sound like that. I wished the guests weren’t around to hear it.
In fact, I wished the glory of her voice was banished out of existence.
Inequality and the Eyes That Matter
The glory of a voice like Sophie’s is a deliberate gift from the God of glory. He stamps all of his creation with this glory — though mankind has a double portion.
Man, who is made in the image of God, has been “crowned with glory and honor” (Psalm 8:5). His glory is borrowed, reflective, derivative. But it’s real. And because it’s real, his fellow human beings — all of whom have “exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images” (Romans 1:23) — are moved to respond to it. Even in small amounts. Even in the temporary forms we find in our fellow creatures.
The glory of charisma, of competence, of intelligence, of beauty, of artistic talent, of wealth, of relational security — these all give us a sensation of brushing our fingers against the locked door of heaven itself. And we must respond, whether in admiration, in enjoyment, in worship, or (like the five-year-old Tilly) in horror and hatred.
There’s a name for that horror and hatred: envy.
Humblest of Pleasures
The strength of our horror over the glory of others corresponds to the strength of our appetite. We not only want to enjoy glory — we want to be enveloped in glory, to assume some part of it into ourselves.
This desire can be good and creaturely. In a discussion of heaven’s glories, C.S. Lewis shared that he’d always been uncomfortable with the idea of “an eternal weight of glory” (2 Corinthians 4:17) waiting for us in heaven. What kind of glory could this be? he wondered. Fame, like the vain kind you seek among your peers? He felt it was impossible to desire glory and also be properly humble, until something clicked for him:
Apparently what I had mistaken for humility had, all these years, prevented me from understanding what is in fact the humblest, the most childlike, the most creaturely of pleasures — nay, the specific pleasure of the inferior: the pleasure of a beast before men, a child before its father, a pupil before his teacher, a creature before its Creator. (The Weight of Glory, 37)
Mankind was made “to glorify God and enjoy him forever” (in the words of the Westminster Catechism). But this process could never leave man unchanged. He was also made to be glorified himself — crowned with the glory of his Father’s eternal pleasure in him.
Small Heart of Envy
One of our most basic needs is to be looked upon by the Eyes That Matter, and told, in the Voice That Matters, “Well done, good and faithful servant. . . . Enter into the joy of your master” (Matthew 25:21). It’s not enough to look on his glory; we want to be let inside. We want to be transformed, to be resplendent, to be strong enough to revel in his glory without shame. We were designed to see pleasure in the eyes of our heavenly Father.
Here’s the connection to my five-year-old self. Like a second Cain, I reacted in sinful displeasure when my sister got a “Well done” from my earthly father. I couldn’t handle hearing another praised by our father, because envy operates in a zero-sum world. Envy believes the lie that God’s universe is one of essential scarcity.
“Envy believes the lie that God’s universe is one of essential scarcity.”
The envious heart is too small. It can’t fathom a God who is limitless in his expressions of pleasure and overflowing love. Our fallen minds truly believe there’s not enough of his plenty to go around. This means that if someone else was given a portion of borrowed glory (a glorious talent, beauty, skill, job, or intimate relationship), then there must be less left for me.
What Can Quench Envy?
It’s not just little girls in headphones who hunger for glory. All of us seek beauty and light and fame in our free moments — watching our shows, listening to our songs, shopping for wedding photographers, hiking the lake trail, entwining our souls-in-bodies with other souls-in-bodies, posting our updates, kissing our children, and tucking ourselves into a booth at the local craft beer place for deep conversation. We are glory-seekers, sniffing the wind and watching the horizon. Let a thing whisper, however falsely, however faintly, of our God and Father, and we will run after it.
After all this seeking, how can we believe the good news when it comes? It’s too good to be true; it’s too much to bear:
The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. (John 1:9–13)
“The envious heart can’t fathom a God who is limitless in his expressions of pleasure and overflowing love.”
We’re in the hallway outside, fuming that another child of God was given glories we weren’t. We’re wondering if the love of the Father will run out before we walk into the room, if he’ll look at us like Isaac looked at Esau and say, “He has taken away your blessing” (Genesis 27:35). We can’t imagine what kind of glory would make it okay.
What glory could take away the sting of being poor while another is rich, of being single while another is married with children, of giving our best to make mediocre paintings while someone else’s effortless eye creates a masterpiece?
Envy Will Drown in Glory
There is, however, a glory that will swallow up the sting of inequality (though it has not promised to take away inequality itself): this light has given us the right to become children of God. And this is the glory that can work such wonders:
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)
The pleasure of the Father will overtake us and swallow up all else — pleasure because of what Christ did on our behalf, pleasure because we’ve been reworked into his glorious image from the inside out. We now look like Christ — his glory will one day envelop us and transform us. It has begun even now:
We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:18).
Envy doesn’t stand a chance. In the final day, it will be swallowed up in glory. Even so, come Lord Jesus.
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Why Do Christians Struggle to Love?
Why do Christians find it so hard to love one another? I don’t ask the question as just one more critic of the church’s failures — I have trouble enough addressing the log of lovelessness protruding from my own eye. And of course, the question has as many different answers as there are Christians — many times more, actually, since we each have multiple reasons for why we find it hard to love God and others the ways we should.
We’re not surprised that humanity as a whole finds the kind of love described in 1 Corinthians 13 so difficult. Humans are fallen; it’s impossibly hard for sinful people who are separated from Christ to “bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, and endure all things” as love does.
But what can surprise us is that Christians have such a hard time with love. How is it that we who have been born again, have received a new heart, and have the Holy Spirit empowering us still find loving God with our whole being, loving our neighbors as ourselves, and loving our fellow Christians as Jesus loved us so difficult? Shouldn’t it be easier than we experience it to be?
“The Holy Spirit makes it possible for us to love like Jesus loved, which is impossible without him.”
Both the New Testament and two thousand years of church history say no. One reason for this is that the Holy Spirit isn’t given to us to magically turn us into people who love like Jesus. He is given to us as a Helper (John 14:26) to teach us how to follow our Great Shepherd along the hard, laborious path of transformation into people who love like Jesus. The Holy Spirit makes it possible for us to love like Jesus loved, which is impossible without him. But he provides us no easy shortcuts to God-like love.
Easy Yoke, Hard Way
What’s all this talk about a “hard, laborious path of transformation”? Didn’t Jesus say, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,” and “my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28–30)? Yes, he did. But he also said, “The gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Matthew 7:14). These two statements aren’t contradictions; they are two different dimensions of what it means to repent and believe in the gospel.
When it comes to the dimension of reconciling us to God, Jesus does all the impossibly heavy work required to “[cancel] the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands” (Colossians 2:14). In this sense, Jesus’s yoke is easy: he pays the debt in full for us. The only light burden required of us is to repent and believe in the gospel.
But when it comes to the dimension of God’s conforming us to the image of his Son (Romans 8:29), of “being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18), the way is hard that leads to life. In this context, for us to repent and believe in the gospel means learning to walk in “the obedience of faith” (Romans 1:5) — learning to “walk by the Spirit, and . . . not gratify the desires of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16), learning to “walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him” (Colossians 1:10).
Our learning to walk in the way of Christ is no less a work of God’s grace in us than our learning to believe in Jesus for the forgiveness of our sins. But it requires us to exercise our faith in Christ through actively obeying Christ contrary to the sinful desires that still dwell in our members (Romans 7:23).
It’s Supposed to Be Hard
According to the New Testament, learning to walk in the obedience of faith looks like the following:
Denying ourselves, taking up our cross, and following where Jesus leads (Matthew 16:24)
Putting to death what is earthly in us (Colossians 3:5), and not letting sin reign in our mortal bodies, to make us obey its passions (Romans 6:12)
Dying every day to sin, personal preferences, and even our Christian freedoms out of love for Jesus, our brothers and sisters in the faith, and unbelievers (1 Corinthians 15:31)
Doing nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility counting others more significant than ourselves (Philippians 2:3)
Putting on compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other as the Lord has forgiven us (Colossians 3:12–13)
Repaying no one evil for evil, but always seeking to do good to one another and to everyone (1 Thessalonians 5:15)
Rejoicing always, praying without ceasing, and giving thanks in all circumstances (1 Thessalonians 5:16–18)
Loving our enemies and praying for those who persecute us (Matthew 5:44)
Wrestling against spiritual rulers, authorities, cosmic powers over this present darkness — the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places (Ephesians 6:12)“The transformational way of love that leads to life is hard. It’s supposed to be hard.”
And these are just a sampling. But it’s a hefty enough sample to give us a sense of how humanly impossible it is for us to obey the greatest commandments — for these are all expressions of love for God, our neighbors, and other Christians. Everyone who takes these imperatives seriously realizes that the transformational way of love that leads to life is hard. It’s supposed to be hard.
But why does the way need to be as hard as it is? Here’s one way Jesus answered that question.
Only Possible with God
Do you remember the story of the rich young man in Matthew 19? When forced to choose, he couldn’t let go of his wealth in order to have God, which revealed that he loved his wealth more than God, that his wealth was his god. As Jesus watched the man walk away, he said, “I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” And do you remember the disciples’ response? They asked, “Who then can be saved?” When they saw where Jesus placed the bar, it hit them: no one can possibly jump that high. Which was precisely Jesus’s point: “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26).
All we disciples must come to this realization. However morally beautiful and admirable we find Jesus’s love commands in the abstract, we cannot and will not obey them in our own strength. It’s impossible. Our flesh is simply too weak and our remaining sin too strong.
That bears repeating. It’s impossible to love like Jesus without being empowered by the Holy Spirit. Because striving to love God and others like Jesus exposes and confronts every unholy, sinful, selfish impulse of remaining sin in us, requiring us to daily put to death what is earthly in us and regularly deny ourselves for Jesus’s sake and the good of others.
None of us will consistently, continually walk in this hard way unless, by the Spirit, we truly “[behold] the glory of the Lord,” and see all the hardship as “light momentary affliction” that is transforming us from one degree of glory to another and “preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Corinthians 3:18; 4:17). We will not walk this hard way unless we see that living according to the flesh leads to death, but putting to death the deeds of the body by the power of the Spirit leads to life (Romans 8:13) — that choosing the hard way is choosing the abundant life (John 10:10).
‘You Follow Me’
This doesn’t answer a host of questions that puzzle us along the path of love. Many of them, when viewed from our very limited perspective, may not seem to make sense. I know. I’ve pondered questions like these for a long time.
But when I get overly discouraged and critical of the church’s failures to love, something Jesus once said to Peter often helps me refocus on my own log of lovelessness — the failures to love that I’m primarily responsible for and can, by the power of the Spirit, do something about. When Jesus revealed to Peter the unpleasant way he was going to die, Peter essentially asked, “Well, does John have to die an unpleasant death too?” Jesus essentially answered him, “How I choose to deal with John is not your concern. You follow me!” (John 21:21–22).
God has woven so many mysterious purposes into the way he’s ordered reality, and I continue to learn just how unreliable my perceptions are when it comes to deciphering them. I am wise to heed Paul’s words: “[Do not] pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart” (1 Corinthians 4:5); I am wise to heed Jesus’s words, “You follow me!”
As Christians, our primary calling today is to follow Jesus, in the power of the Spirit of Jesus, on the hard way of self-sacrificial, God-glorifying love that leads to an incomparably glorious, abundant, and eternal life. We are not responsible for the loving witness of the whole church, or even of our whole local church.
But if we are willing to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Jesus — as imperfectly as we all love this side of glory — then we will increasingly experience the result of the Spirit-born fruit of love: “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).