Early morning hours are precious. The house is still, quiet. The aroma of coffee wafts from the steaming mug. A single lamp illuminates the chair and table. Here is a sanctuary, a peaceful place of communion between a man and his God.

And yet on many days, it is anything but peaceful. Rather than quiet contemplation, I find myself battling on my knees against a persistent and pernicious straying of the heart. The prayer is not that of the demonized boy’s father: Lord, “I believe; help my unbelief” (though I too have prayed such words). Instead, I pray, “Lord, I desire; help my erring desires.”

While striving to meditate on the steadfast love and faithfulness and eternal goodness of God, I find that other concerns arrest my attention: anxious thoughts about how my work will be received, a nagging fear that somehow I’m just not doing enough, questions about what my coworkers think of me, jealousy over the success of others. A long list of anxious thoughts grip my mind and lead me away from the one offering rest and peace, satisfaction and joy. Here lies the battle. The straying thoughts reveal what’s driving my heart this morning: desire for the fleeting approval of man, not the eternal good.

One misaligned desire would be a significant battle by itself; this is a wide and diverse war. Fears about parenting failures reveal desires to be self-sufficient. Worry about a medical condition (whether minor or life-threatening) may indicate a greater love for this present life than the never-ending one to come. Pride fails to acknowledge that our plans are in the hand of the Lord, and reveals an arrogant boasting rooted in the desire to order life according to our own design. My sanctuary, it turns out, is also a battlefield.

Disordered Hearts

The struggle to rightly order our desires lies at the heart of each Christian’s daily walk. Our redeemed hearts, still twisted by sin, simply do not function as they ought. In general, we have no problem desiring. We do have serious problems desiring rightly. Our hearts are disordered, and so we frequently spin out days chasing small and fleeting ends that fail to satisfy. We grow weary and despondent in our Sisyphean pursuits, and we wonder where our first love has gone.

In a meditation on Psalm 119:97–104, the late John Webster (1955–2016) describes the reordering of affections as “one of the most weighty claims [of] the Christian gospel” (Christ Our Salvation, 6). He argues that the affections are “the fundamental loves which govern us and determine the shape of our lives . . . [the] part of us through which we attach ourselves to things outside of ourselves. . . . [They are] the engines of our attitudes and actions” (7). In other words, each and every day, what we love and desire determines what we set ourselves to pursue.

‘Nature Abhors a Vacuum’

God made us, each and every one of us, to pursue. He gave us hearts that desire. Our pursuits — what we desire and strive toward — reveal our hearts because behind our pursuits lie affections. Imagine a string tied between the desire in your heart and each object you run after. If you pause long enough to tug on the strings, you will unearth what lies (and pulls) in the hidden recesses of your heart. And far too often, those hidden recesses are not filled with pure love for God; they contain the kind of covetousness that leads to strife (see James 4:1–4).

Sometimes, in the battle with such wayward affections, the temptation to quell desire rises to the forefront. “If only I could put the desire for X to death, then I would walk in freedom.” Erasing that disorderly affection seems like the key to holiness. And so we aim (rightfully, I should say) to put sin to death (Romans 8:13). We fight the battle with X and, by God’s grace, win. Then we stop.

Consider a knight on the warpath. He has heard of a dragon who reigns over a castle and keeps a king’s daughter locked up as a prisoner in the tallest tower. With great courage, he risks life and limb to face the dragon in open combat. Eventually he emerges from the battle victorious (though certainly wounded and a bit more well-done). What does he do next? He mounts his warhorse and returns home. No, good stories don’t end that way — and for good reason.

Everyone recognizes that the knight has won only half the battle. The princess still needs rescuing. If he leaves her locked up and the castle vacant, another winged, fire-breathing worm will soon take the place of the first. So too, the man who cleaned the house after the unclean spirit left suddenly finds himself fighting the original spirit again, plus seven more (Matthew 12:44–45). The man needs to fill up the house, not leave it empty; the knight needs to actually rescue the princess.

Scottish minister Thomas Chalmers (1780–1847) wrote, “Nature abhors a vacuum” (The Expulsive Power of a New Affection, 41). What did he mean? It does no good to merely take away a man’s sinful affection. By God’s design, man cannot be affectionless. To attempt to remove all that stirs his heart, in the name of pure and holy living, would be an “unnatural violence” to his soul (44).

Let’s apply Chalmers’s insight to my early-morning battle. As I analyze the internal struggle, I see how my worry over how I might be received reveals a desire to please men. Behind my desire is an unhealthy craving for the kind of recognition, applause, and affirmation I might receive from my coworkers. I might pray in that moment for God to remove that desire from my heart — but the struggle doesn’t stop there. Affection cannot merely be put to death; it must be remade.

‘Seek the Things Above’

Paul wrote to the Colossian believers about the emptiness of merely negative commands. Seemingly powerful and wise in the fight against sin (at least initially), “they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh” (Colossians 2:23). We cannot stop at mere negation. For this reason, Paul gives the Colossians a positive command: “Seek the things that are above. . . . Set your minds on things that are above” (Colossians 3:1–2). Do not expect denial, by itself, to lead to holiness. We need redirection.

God created us with the capacity for affections, and it’s a good design. To attempt to merely get rid of sinful desires (and not redirect the heart) is to deny our very nature. Chalmers understood this, which is why his little sermon continues to resonate with readers. “We have already affirmed,” he wrote, “how impossible it were for the heart . . . to cast the world away from it and thus reduce it to a wilderness. The heart is not so constituted, and the only way to dispossess it of an old affection is by the expulsive power of a new one” (49).

The pursuit of holiness has to be just that: a pursuit. And to pursue something means that we desire it, we want it, we set our minds and order our days to have it. Left to ourselves, such a task is hopeless. Twisted and corrupt trees do not produce good fruit. But we haven’t been left to ourselves. The Lord has raised us up to new life (Colossians 3:1). He has given us his Spirit. And he is at work to detach our affections from their empty, death-producing objects and reattach them to their proper treasures. We do not enter the fray alone or without hope.

Test, Seek, Pray, Fight

What might this good battle look like each day? We can sketch the fight in four steps: test, seek, pray, fight.

TEST

What captures your heart today? What do you find yourself aiming for? What do your recent actions and decisions reveal about what you love? Start pulling on those strings. Try to unearth the loves behind and beneath those strings. Before you engage the enemy, you have to know who the enemy is. What do you find yourself repeatedly struggling against? Unfortunately, the desire for others’ approval didn’t simply go away that morning. I still find myself seeking to put it to death (and quite frequently).

Honest self-reflection, while important, can’t be the only means to putting twisted desires to death. We need communities of brothers and sisters around us who know us well. Because we’ve cultivated strong relationships of trust, these fellow soldiers have the freedom to tell us when a path we’re pursuing leads to death.

SEEK

“If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above” (Colossians 3:1). The apostle’s command requires us to actively set our hearts on other, heavenly objects. We must come to see them as more worthy of pursuit than the ones that tempt us.

Early-morning meditation has been the single best practice I have learned over the years (and one that countless believers have practiced throughout history). Psalm 90:14 sets the agenda: “Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.” Finding our delight in the Lord orients and redirects our hearts. When we have tasted and seen the goodness of God, the fool’s gold of worldly pursuits grows tarnished in our eyes (1 Peter 2:1–3). Where do we see his goodness displayed? In the word as we open it with fresh eyes of faith.

PRAY

While prayer accompanies every step in this battle, concerted effort comes during and after time in the word. “Lord, you’ve shown me your goodness and character this morning; grant belief and desire for more. By your Spirit, mold my desires to conform to your goodness, your holiness, your majestic worth.” These steps of prayer and seeking, like testing, can (and arguably should) also take place with our local church. The Lord uses fellow saints to help us see more of him in the word. And God will use the prayers of other saints to strengthen and encourage right thinking and feeling in our hearts and minds.

FIGHT

“Put to death,” writes Paul. Them’s fightin’ words. Just because we taste and see the goodness of God doesn’t mean our battle is over. Sinful desires remain, and they reveal themselves throughout the day in our attitudes, actions, and words. Paul calls us to the strenuous life, actively working to kill corrupt desires in the hope that God himself works within us to cause conformity to the image of Christ (Philippians 2:12–13).

So, test and seek, praying at all times, and then fight. And fight alongside friends, because wars like these are lost alone.

Church planting is one-half asking people for favors and one-half asking for money. I exaggerate, but not by much. Church planters are needy.

By God’s grace, Trinity Baptist Church of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, recently covenanted as a church. We’re up and running but still in startup mode. Ultimately, of course, we look to God to meet our needs. That’s one reason we have a weekly prayer meeting. And in his generosity, God has provided dozens of founding members who are eager to give and serve and sacrifice for the good of this new body.

But founding members are not the only ones who have played a vital role. In this article, I want to glorify God, and encourage and counsel church planters, by reflecting on ways we’ve benefited from partnerships with, and the generosity of, other local churches. I also hope to encourage pastors of established churches to consider ways they might support new gospel work in their area.

Here are seven ways we’ve benefited from the help of other churches in our town and region, along with some biblical principles that account for why these other churches have been so helpful to us.

1. Partner with Counsel

Kingdom-minded pastors don’t just care how their own churches are doing. They care about the progress of the gospel and the state of God’s churches throughout their region. Consider, for instance, how Paul and Barnabas set out on their second missionary journey not to evangelize an unreached area but to check on the state and soundness of the churches: “Let us return and visit the brothers in every city where we proclaimed the word of the Lord, and see how they are” (Acts 15:36). I benefited from pastors who modeled this kind of kingdom-minded concern for their whole region from the very beginning of my planting efforts.

When I first started thinking about planting a church in Chapel Hill, I called a handful of pastors I knew in the area. I asked them whether they thought Chapel Hill could use another faithful church and whether they thought I’d be a good person to lead it. Their responses were encouraging and affirming. If they hadn’t been, I would’ve taken that seriously. They also gave me their read on the area’s culture, spiritual needs, and other churches. If you’re a pastor who’s been ministering in a region for a decade or more, a little counsel from you can go a long way in helping a potential planter get his bearings.

2. Partner with Encouragement

There’s no need for church plants in the same area to develop a sibling rivalry. Instead, even young churches can be a model for and help to other churches. Consider how Paul commended the Thessalonians, who were barely out of their “planting” phase when he wrote to them: “You became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia” (1 Thessalonians 1:6–7). Church planters working to establish new works near each other can generously share with each other what the Lord has done in and through them, along with what they’ve learned even in a short journey so far.

When planting in Chapel Hill was an idea still in the “maybe” phase, I got a call from Shane Shaddix, then one of the pastors of Imago Dei Church in Raleigh. He was also in the beginning stages of planting a church there, just a few steps ahead of us. Shane wanted to encourage me and help our efforts. Shortly after, on one of my first trips to the area, he and his fellow planter, Manny Prieto, bought me lunch and asked how they could help and encourage our work. They have consistently supported me and my fellow pastor, Michael Abraham, by texting us, praying for us privately and publicly, warmly welcoming founding members of ours for a season of attendance at their church, and in many other ways. Their church, Risen Christ Church, is a new faithful gospel witness in Chapel Hill. If you’re in the area, I would gladly encourage you to check them out.

Another local-church planter who’s been a huge help to us is Chase Jenkins. First Baptist Church of Durham recently sent out Chase and another FBC pastor, Wes Treadway, with about 72 (!) of their members to plant Parkside Baptist Church in South Durham. Chase has encouraged us relentlessly. He has been so affectionately invested in our work that I sometimes wonder if he cares more about our church’s success than his own!

3. Partner with Local Knowledge

Paul commended the Philippians for partnering with him from the very beginning of his gospel ministry: “You Philippians yourselves know that in the beginning of the gospel, when I left Macedonia, no church entered into partnership with me in giving and receiving, except you only” (Philippians 4:15). Many churches in our area have been eager and generous to partner with us in seemingly small but practically crucial ways — for instance, by sharing local knowledge, connections, and church-planting hacks.

Eric Gravelle, campus pastor of the Summit Church’s Chapel Hill campus, generously shared contacts in the school system and advice about meeting in a school. Travis Bodine, the pastor of Mount Olive Baptist Church west of downtown Chapel Hill, pooled local knowledge from his church members to generate all kinds of leads for us to chase down. And Manny and Shane of Risen Christ shared a detailed spreadsheet of possible meeting spaces. After Michael and I made dozens of inquiries, with a perfect fail rate of 100 percent, the venue that agreed to host us was from the list Risen Christ had given us. I was recently able to return the favor by sharing about a location we checked out that might prove to be a good fit for their next home. And both sets of these planting-pastor peers, from Risen Christ and Parkside, have given us advice about incorporation, nonprofit status, banking processes, and many more of the interminable logistics of planting a church.

“There’s no better way to encourage a church planter than by praying for him and his church, publicly, by name.”

On the last Sunday morning before we covenanted, I had the joy of worshiping with the saints at Parkside. Like we would soon, they baptized someone in a horse trough. (They at least got to bring the trough inside their building — our baptisms take place in a large outdoor patio next to our meeting space.) Long story short, Parkside offered us not only helpful equipment for pulling off a horse-trough baptism, but one of their deacons even assisted us with our first one the following Sunday. That’s more help than I even would have thought to ask for.

4. Partner with Local Connections

One of the ways Paul used his pastoral (or I should say, apostolic) capital to help churches take root and grow was by connecting them with, and commending to them, other leaders. For instance, Paul commends Timothy to the Philippians and urges them to trust him because of his proven character (Philippians 2:19–24).

Similarly, another way that local pastors have helped us is by connecting us to other local pastors in their relational networks. On another of my early trips down, Lawrence Yoo and Danny Castiglione of Waypoint Church generously bought me lunch and gave me their take on spiritual dynamics throughout the Triangle region. Lawrence then connected me with David Kwon, pastor of Journey Community Church, because he thought they might have space for us to rent. When Michael and I met with David, he emptied out his mental Rolodex of places we might consider for a meeting space and pastors we might consider connecting with. We wound up renting space from Journey for our Wednesday-night Bible studies.

5. Partner with Space

We know from Scripture that the church is a people, not a building (1 Corinthians 1:1–2). Some churches in the New Testament likely met in homes (Romans 16:5). Paul carried out evangelistic ministry in a rented hall (Acts 19:9). So we know that churches can gather wherever they have permission and room. But many of us (like me!) are so used to doing ministry in a well-appointed church building that planting can be a shock to the system.

I’m used to doing ministry in a 150-year-old city-center church with a large and well-maintained workhorse of a building. Having no building to take for granted is like learning to throw a baseball with my weak arm. Once a church plant hits a certain size, it will gather more people than can comfortably fit in someone’s home. Which means that for every meeting you’re either renting or asking for space.

On this front, the Lord has been generous to us through many different churches. Parkside is not the only local church to offer space for occasional meetings. Chapel Hill Bible Church graciously allowed us to host an early interest meeting in their chapel. And First Baptist Durham let us meet first in their fellowship hall and then in their sanctuary every Sunday night for the whole summer before we covenanted, for free. In addition to some key members’ homes and garages, our church essentially incubated in First Baptist. Your church might not have a large building or budget margin to give to a new church plant, but do you have enough spare space to incubate one for a season?

6. Partner with Prayer

Because the gospel advances through God’s gracious, sovereign work of saving sinners, the gospel advances through prayer. And because the gospel advances through prayer, church planting advances through prayer. So, not only should planters pray, but other churches can have an Epaphras-like ministry of wrestling in prayer on behalf of new plants: “Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus, greets you, always struggling on your behalf in his prayers, that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God” (Colossians 4:12).

Over a couple months’ worth of Sunday mornings leading up to our covenanting, my family and I visited just about every church we had founding members coming from, and a couple of others that wanted to partner with us. During at least three of those visits, the pastor or elder leading the pastoral prayer prayed for our work.

There’s no better way to demonstrate a spirit of catholicity than by leading your church to publicly pray for other churches. There’s no better way to say and show that we’re all on Jesus’s team. And there’s no better way to encourage a church planter than by praying for him and his church, publicly, by name.

7. Partner with Members

For the Great Commission to be fulfilled, some gatherings of Christians must support and encourage some of their members to scatter. It’s painful. It’s costly. It’s hard to part. But it comes with the territory of trying to establish new kingdom outposts. Sometimes God uses persecution to do it: “Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word” (Acts 8:4). But a more proactive way to scatter for the sake of the Great Commission is for pastors to encourage members to consider uprooting their membership and perhaps even their livelihoods for the sake of advancing new gospel works — and for churches to joyfully bear that cost.

Our main sending church, Capitol Hill Baptist Church, where I served as a pastor for seven years, was exemplary in this. Amid a difficult season of transition in which another long-term associate pastor was leaving to pastor elsewhere, along with several other elders doing the same, Mark Dever graciously gave public airtime to discussing our planting efforts in the church’s evening services and encouraged members to consider moving to join the work.

In similar fashion, First Baptist Church of Durham has demonstrated exemplary partnership with us in their willingness to joyfully give members away. Even amid planting their own sizeable, full-grown church, they have encouraged and supported their members who have considered joining our work. And in their service the Sunday before we covenanted, they commissioned those who were leaving FBC to join Trinity by bringing them onto the platform and praying for them. And Grace Reformed Baptist Church in Mebane did the same with the members they sent, a tremendously encouraging sign of their support and commitment to the work at cost to their own body.

Partners in the Greatest Cause

The apostle Paul knew what it was to be needy. Through Christ he learned the secret not only of abounding but of lacking (Philippians 4:11–13). And when Paul wrote those words to the Philippians, he lacked much more than a church building or office or staff. Yet Paul thanked God for the Philippians’ contribution to his needs, and he called their relationship a partnership (Philippians 1:5; 4:15). Partnership includes financial support, but as I can gratefully testify from experience, it goes well beyond money.

Church planter, your neediness is an opportunity for other Christians, pastors, and especially churches to forge new gospel partnerships. Pastor, a new church plant coming to town is not a competitor or an opponent, but a partner in the gospel. How can you lead your church to partner with them?

Do you want to know an inside secret about sermons? You may have noticed it already. If you haven’t, you probably will from now on. Here’s the secret: Preachers often like to begin with an image, story, word, phrase, or Bible passage, and then return to it at the end of the sermon. Those bookends emphasize the preacher’s point, pushing it deeper into the hearts and minds of a congregation.

The biblical authors understood this. King David begins Psalm 103 with an exhortation to himself: “Bless the Lord, O my soul” (Psalm 103:1). He ends the psalm in exactly the same way: “Bless the Lord, O my soul!” (Psalm 103:22). This bracketing (the technical term is inclusion) underscores the point of the whole psalm. David urges his own soul to praise the Lord. Everything in between provides reasons for praising the Lord, as well as exhortations for all of heaven and earth to join in praise.

If the borders of a psalm may point toward its main emphasis, what about the beginning and end of the Bible as a whole? When we examine the bookends of Scripture, what do we find?

The End from the Beginning

Genesis 1:1 says, “In the beginning, God . . .” Before anything else existed — sunsets, seaweed, giraffes, algebra, lightning, tomatoes, laughter, supernovas, bubblegum, coffee — there was only the triune God, eternally happy within his triune self. Everything and everyone else came later.

At the other end of the canon, the close of Revelation describes an eternal future in which “the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God” (Revelation 21:3). Notice three truths about these bookends. First, God bestrides the Bible, vibrantly present at both the beginning and end. He’s the Alpha and Omega of the Scriptures, the first and the last. He never began to exist, nor will he ever cease to do so. He is absolute, unchanging reality. Of no one and nothing else is this true. Only God is present at both the beginning and end of the Bible.

Second, something important has changed from Genesis 1 to Revelation 21. At the very beginning of the Bible, God exists within the happy community of himself. At the very end of the Bible, he dwells with his people in a new creation. Where did those people and that place come from? God himself created and redeemed both the people and the place.

“The cry of God’s people is always for more of God.”

Third, it turns out that the story doesn’t end when the Bible does. It goes on and on and on, for eternity. The Bible’s penultimate verse is a cry from the heart: “Come, Lord Jesus!” (Revelation 22:20), which means that the Scriptures conclude on tiptoe, yearning toward a deeper, fuller, richer experience of the presence of Christ. God’s story is an eternal one. The cry of God’s people is always for more of God.

Story Beneath Every Story

The implication of all this is that the Bible is not ultimately our story but God’s. God himself is the main character — and also the author who dictates the action. The Bible tells primarily of God’s works, ways, and words.

Yes, there are lots of secondary characters and interesting subplots. We learn about the material creation, including the abundance and variety of plant and animal life that fills the world. We read fascinating accounts of Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Nehemiah, Peter, Paul, and hundreds of others, who make big mistakes and accomplish great things. The Bible bursts with stories of human frailty, rebellion, intrigue, love, courage, and tragedy. But none of those stories is the main one. None of those characters is the hero.

The overarching story line of the Bible is the story of God — the only one present at both the beginning and the end. Everyone (and everything) else is there in the story as an invited guest, beyond their deserving. All the complexities of human existence, and the vast lifespans of galaxies, exist within the eternal story of God.

Overlooking the Lead Role

It may seem blindingly obvious to claim that the Bible is mainly the story of God, but how easy it is to miss. Years ago, a famous Bible scholar wrote an article called “The Neglected Factor in New Testament Theology.” In it, he argued that God himself was the neglected factor! God’s presence was so often assumed by those committed to studying the Scriptures with care and rigor that it was largely overlooked. Yes, this actually happens.

On a more everyday level, many of us could honestly admit that we commonly place ourselves at the center of the stories we inhabit. When we grant God a place (all too often we forget him entirely), it’s to notice how he fits in around our own story. We may be mystified or angry or sad that he hasn’t intervened more frequently. Or we may be genuinely grateful for what he’s done. But at the deepest level, we’ve flipped the script: God inhabits our stories, rather than the other way around. Maybe God-centeredness isn’t so obvious as we thought.

Our tendency to minimize and marginalize God is sometimes evident in our approach to the great Bible bookends of Genesis and Revelation. Both are battlegrounds for fights about how and when exactly God created, as well as the timetable of events for his return. These questions are not unimportant. But sadly, they’ve sometimes overshadowed God himself. Our fascination with how God has acted (or will act) has too often led to gross neglect of the central truth that he has acted at all — and what that says about him.

Even a brief look at Genesis and Revelation (which is all we have space for here) shows that these two great books tell the story of God.

At the Center of the Beginning

In Genesis, all things are from and for God. He’s the originator of all, and he’s the first enjoyer of all. He creates by speaking everything into existence. That means all else is derivative and has its source in him. Even as he creates, he observes and appreciates what he makes. Over and over, he sees that his creation is good (Genesis 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25), even “very good” (1:31). We get the sense that he’s really enjoying this. All things are from him and for him.

Moreover, humankind, the pinnacle of this “very good” creation, exists to display his worth. God’s creation of men and women in his image, after his likeness (Genesis 1:26), suggests that their vocation is to image him forth to the rest of the world, serving as agents of his rule. His command to be “fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:28) demonstrates that their display of his worth isn’t meant to be merely local but rather global. And God is doggedly persistent in his project of blessing all mankind and displaying his worth everywhere. He doesn’t allow the rebellion of Adam and Eve to derail his project but persists in working with humanity. After the catastrophic judgment of the flood, he starts over with Noah’s family. Following the proud self-assertion of the nations (Genesis 11), he calls Abram to serve as a conduit of divine blessing for “all the families of the earth” (Genesis 12:3).

Throughout Genesis, God is the sovereign planner, the persistent initiator, and the main actor. He’s the one who sends the flood, calls Abram, blesses Abram, renews his covenant promises to Isaac and Jacob, and sends Joseph ahead into Egypt to preserve his people (Genesis 45:7; 50:20). He writes the story and moves it forward at every step.

God is also the sweetest blessing, the ultimate treasure, of his people. After Adam and Eve’s rebellion, their greatest punishment is exile from God’s presence (Genesis 3:22–24). More precious even than the blessing of land and offspring is God’s promise to Abram “to be God to you and to your offspring after you” and his promise regarding Abram’s descendants that “I will be their God” (Genesis 17:7–8).

Genesis is a profoundly God-centered book. In it, all things are from, through, and to God.

At the Center of the End

The seven blessings scattered throughout Revelation (the first in 1:3 and the last in 22:14) show that the main purpose of this book is not to satisfy end-time curiosity or to solve apocalyptic puzzles, but to bring divine blessing to God’s suffering people. God means to give grace, as is evident in 1:4 (“Grace to you”) and 22:21 (“The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you all”).

“God’s blessing is not a gift that is separable from himself. Rather, the blessing of God is God.”

Importantly, God’s blessing is not a gift that is separable from himself. Rather, the blessing of God is God. In the new creation, he will “dwell” with his people (Revelation 21:3), a promise that recalls his presence among Israel in the tabernacle. In fact, the description of the new Jerusalem as a perfect golden cube (Revelation 21:15–21) nods to the Most Holy Place in the temple, suggesting that in the new creation God’s people will enjoy his immediate presence, as only the high priest was permitted to do (and that only once a year).

In the new world, his people will see his face (Revelation 22:4), a staggering privilege not even Moses was permitted. The long and painful story of exile from God’s presence that began after Adam and Eve’s sin and banishment from the garden, and continued through Israel’s exile from the promised land, will finally end. God’s people will enjoy his perfect presence in the new creation and will never again be sent away.

Meanwhile, as God’s people await this promised future, Revelation steadies them by insisting that nothing happens by chance, but rather all things occur by God’s sovereign plan. The book is “The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place” (Revelation 1:1). That key word must expresses divine necessity. The book ends with the reminder that “the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, has sent his angel to show his servants what must soon take place” (Revelation 22:6). It must take place because God has willed it. His sovereign control brings steady comfort and strength in the present.

Revelation is radically God-centered. The sovereign God ordains the ways of the world. The glorious, triune God is the aim and treasure of his people. His throne is set in the midst of worshiping angels and humans (Revelation 4–5).

Joys of a God-Centered World

The God-centeredness of the Bible’s bookends suggests that the whole Bible is, in fact, focused on God and meant to tell his story. And this is very good news for us. When we live for ourselves, life doesn’t go well. But when we live for him, we’re living along the grain of the universe, as he designed things to function. We therefore experience true, deep, lasting joy. When John the Baptist heard that Jesus was growing in prominence, he said, “This joy of mine is now complete” (John 3:29). John was happiest serving as the spotlight operator, shining his light on the one true star of the show.

The biographer Arnold Dallimore records a story about Charles Spurgeon, in whose day streetlights were gas-lit. Each had to be lit individually. One night, Spurgeon observed a line of streetlights being lit that went right up a hill, from its foot to the summit. He later described that moment:

I did not see the lamplighter. I do not know his name, nor his age, nor his residence; but I saw the lights which he had kindled, and these remained when he himself had gone his way. As I rode along I thought to myself, “How earnestly do I wish that my life may be spent in lighting one soul after another with the sacred flame of eternal life! I would myself be as much as possible unseen while at my work, and would vanish into eternal brilliance above when my work is done.” (Spurgeon, 162)

Let’s allow our joy to swell as we live within the one great story of the one true God.