I grew up in a revivalist church in the South. Every few years, we had a “crusade” with special weeknight services and a dynamic, out-of-town speaker. I remember singing “Revive Us Again” as our theme during one of those rallies. I didn’t realize at the time that we were singing Scripture, from Psalm 85:

Will you not revive us again,that your people may rejoice in you? (verse 6)

The history of God’s people, from the first covenant into the new, is a record of various seasons and undulations, corporate backslidings and surprising renewals. Easy as it might be to criticize aspects of the revivalist tradition, something is profoundly right and healthy in the Christian heart that longs for, and prays for, revival — that God’s people would freshly rejoice in him.

In every generation, our sense of the spiritual climate of our times is subjective, yet real. We find ourselves living in days either where true religion seems to be on the rise, or declining. When the tides are rising, we might pray that it become more than it already has. In times of apparent decline, we pray for the tide to turn. Either way, we pray for revival, broadly defined.

But then what do we do next? When our hearts swell with the longing, and with prayers, for God to send corporate renewal to his church, what might we devote our lives to, as we pray and wait?

Revival’s End and Means

An insight right there in Psalm 85, borne out across the Scriptures, gives us a critical and central component of every true revival of genuine religion. Verse 6 asks God for spiritual renewal (“Will you not revive us again . . .”) and clarifies what the heart of that renewal is (“. . . that your people may rejoice in you”). The end, or goal, of biblical revival is God’s people enjoying God, rejoicing in him, having him as our joy of joys.

Then verse 8 gives us a striking glimpse of God’s vital means in bringing about that end of his people rejoicing in him:

Let me hear what God the Lord will speak,for he will speak peace to his people, to his saints. (Psalm 85:8)

So, revival begins with God — through his speaking, his voice, his word. Man does not produce true spiritual revival; God does. And the way in which he does so is through his word. When God sends the fire of his Spirit to fall on the hearts of his people in some blessed local or regional renewal, the fire falls on the wood of his word.

Lay the Kindling

Psalm 85 is a precious testimony, but only one — and we have far more evidence across Scripture that God makes himself central in revival through his word. In every lasting renewal of true religion, God makes his own speaking, his own word, to be fundamental and prominent. Psalm 19:7 celebrates that the law of the Lord — his teaching, his word — revives the soul. The Spirit’s flame does not land without the kindling of his word, and so rallying to God’s word is a plain next step for those who long and pray for revival.

The central place of God’s word is pronounced in the revivals of true worship under the prophet Samuel and later under King Josiah. Samuel’s ministry begins with the acknowledgment that “the word of the Lord was rare in those days” (1 Samuel 3:1). So enter the young prophet, with God’s revealing himself “by the word,” and God’s word coming to all Israel through Samuel’s ministry (1 Samuel 3:19–4:1).

“Something is profoundly right and healthy in the Christian heart that longs for, and prays for, revival.”

So too with Josiah, who became king in his youth, and walked in the ways of righteousness, but for years his efforts at reform only went so far, until “Hilkiah the priest found the Book of the Law of the Lord given through Moses” (2 Chronicles 34:14). As stunning as it is to us, somehow they had misplaced the Book! Apparently, spiritual dullness had led to neglect, and neglect led to misplacing God’s word. But when the priest and king discovered the Book and read aloud to the people “all the words of the Book of the Covenant that had been found in the house of the Lord” (verse 30), then the fire of national renewal fell.

Grant Us Some Reviving

We see the centrality of God’s word in the spiritual renewal of his people yet again (and with special emphasis) in the after-exile revivals under Ezra and Nehemiah. In Ezra, fire falls in chapter 9, but not without decades of preparation recounted in chapters 1–8. Some eighty years prior, the first wave of Jewish exiles had come back to Jerusalem after Cyrus’s decree in 539 BC. Ezra chapters 1–6 recount this first return and the quarter century that follows (until 515 BC), with the beginning and (later) finishing of the foundation and temple, and the restoring of worship and the feasts.

Ezra doesn’t arrive until chapter 7, almost 60 years after chapter 6, and when he enters the scene, he’s introduced as “skilled in the Law of Moses that the Lord, the God of Israel, had given” (Ezra 7:6). Accent on the word given. Ezra received God’s word as given, and so studies it and obeys it and teaches it, not to amend or edit it, but as God’s given. “Ezra had set his heart to study the Law of the Lord, and to do it and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel” (Ezra 7:10).

Chapter 7’s description of Ezra as a man of God’s word sets the table for the revival to come. Ezra is “learned in matters of the commandments of the Lord” (verse 11), and even the Persian king, Artaxerxes, twice writes of Ezra as a “scribe of the Law of the God of heaven” (verses 12 and 21). Ezra, then, is expressly commissioned by the king to teach the word of God to the people.

Apparently, Ezra manifests such skill and familiarity with Scripture that even the pagan king recognizes that “the Law of your God . . . is in your hand” (verse 14), and so “the wisdom of your God . . . is in your hand” (verse 25). With the king’s blessing, Ezra gathers “leading men” (7:28), and they humble themselves with prayer and fasting, imploring God for safe travel (8:21), and come safely to Jerusalem (8:31).

In chapter 9, Ezra learns of the moral (and marital) compromise of God’s people with the surrounding nations (9:1–2). He is appalled and grieves, and “all who trembled at the words of the God of Israel” gather around him (9:4). Here the kindling is in place: a man of the word, now surrounded with those who tremble at God’s word. That evening, Ezra leads them in a prayer of repentance which has, at its heart, the nation’s infidelity to God’s word: “we have forsaken your commandments” (9:10).

As Ezra prays and makes confession, revival begins: “a very great assembly of men, women, and children, gathered to him out of Israel, for the people wept bitterly” (10:1). They plead with Ezra to teach them God’s word. The officials and elders issue a proclamation for all returned exiles, without exception, to gather in Jerusalem in three days — and so begins the work of renewal (10:11).

Awakening of Tears and Joy

This first renewal preserves the nation another thirteen years until the arrival of Nehemiah in 445 BC, with a new wave of exiles and a mission to rebuild the walls.

Nehemiah 1–7 tells the story of his authorization from Artaxerxes, coming to Jerusalem, overcoming opposition, and finishing the walls. Chapter 8 then bursts with the light of covenant renewal and spiritual revival under Ezra and Nehemiah working hand in hand — and now the centrality of Scripture is even more pronounced.

Ezra, the trained, skilled handler of God’s word, appears again among the gathered people “to bring the Book” (Nehemiah 8:1), physically and homiletically. He stands on a wooden platform and opens Scripture in the sight of all the people (and they stand in reverence of God). He reads from the Book and gives the sense (8:8) — that is, he and thirteen other priests, skilled in God’s word, explain and teach the Scriptures from early morning to midday. Strikingly, Nehemiah 8 characterizes the people, again and again, as attentive to, hearing, understanding, and responding to God’s word, first with mourning over their own sin and then, once further instructed, with joy — the very “[rejoicing] in you” of Psalm 85:6.

Ezra, Nehemiah, and the priests remind the people that this day is holy (not a fast day but the Feast of Tabernacles) and seek to replace the people’s grief with rejoicing in the mercy of God:

This day is holy to our Lord. And do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength. (Nehemiah 8:10)

Here we catch an amazing glimpse into the heart of revival as rejoicing in God. Strength (Hebrew maoz) is literally “refuge” or “stronghold” or “fortress,” a place of God’s protection. Mourning over sin is necessary, but in view of the stunning mercy of God, grief must soon give way to rejoicing. And this joy in the Lord is a stronghold, a refuge, for his people. Rejoicing in God, they are finally safe and protected, even from their own sin and its consequences. As John Piper explains,

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 Joy of the Lord Is Your Stronghold”)

A day later, the people return “to study the words of the Law” (Nehemiah 8:13), and the revival continues in the fuel and guidance of God’s word, day by day, as they read from the Book (verse 18). In the next chapter, they read from the Book “for a quarter of the day” (Nehemiah 9:3). When revival came, God’s word was at the center, God himself working in power through his Spirit by the word.

Heart of True Revival

For those of us longing and praying for awakening today, on this side of the greatest renewal in history — the coming of God’s Word incarnate and the pouring out of his Spirit at Pentecost — what might we take away from these remarkable renewals in Scripture?

First, God will see to it that his people, in the ups and downs of their spiritual journeys in this sin-sick world, are renewed and revived. Even in our longing and praying for revival is already a great glimmer of God’s sovereign work. Then, second, when the Spirit’s fire comes in power, it falls on the wood of God’s word. In our holy longings and fervent prayers, we open the Book. We read it, reread it, meditate on it, memorize it, study it, teach it, preach it, live it, spread it. It will be the word of God that fans the flicker of our burning hearts into a flame.

And in and through his word, God himself will be the great prize. God in Christ will be the greatest gain in any true revival. The end will be his people’s fresh rejoicing in him.

The word priority refers to “precedence in time or rank.” A priority is the “thing regarded as more important than another or others.”

Interestingly, according to the Google Books Ngram, the use of the word priority in English spiked in use around 1940 (leading up to and during WWII), then plateaued in the fifties. Then usage rose again sharply in the sixties and seventies, and priority enjoyed its heyday in the eighties and nineties. Since around 2000, usage has declined precipitously and returned about to where it was in the 1960s. And I can’t help but wonder if our ability to prioritize well, or the energy and attention we give to prioritizing well, may have declined with the use of the word. (And how it relates to the advent of the Internet in the same twenty-five-year period!)

Priority can be a tricky concept. To prioritize one entity over another clearly means something, but it services a range of applications. And in this session of talking about the priority of the church, however theological we take it, this inevitably relates to our priorities, both as Christians, and in particular as pastors — since this is a pastors conference. It would be one thing to speak to the priority of the church in a local-church congregation — or imagine this, to a gathering of Christian lawyers or athletes. And we could. I hope we will.

But brothers, this is a pastors conference. This is a message for lead officers in local churches (variously called pastors, elders, overseers — three names for one lead office in the New Testament). And the applications here of “the priority of the church” are especially significant for those whose breadwinning vocation is leading and teaching the local church. I know there are nonvocational pastors in the room with other breadwinning jobs. But for the vocational guys, the full-time pastors, there is no vocational disconnect between Christ’s priority of his church and ours. If Christ’s priority is echoed practically and substantiated anywhere, where will that be if not first and foremost in the lead officers who are the church’s preachers and teachers?

Paul’s Pastoral Priority

And so, we come to Ephesians 3, and especially verse 10, which is not a complete sentence:

. . . so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.

In chapter 2, the first half (verses 1–10) has celebrated our salvation in Christ by grace through faith, and then the second half has marveled at the stunning (horizontal) development of Gentile inclusion. For centuries, God focused publicly on the Jews. He prioritized Israel. By and large, Gentiles were separated from the true God, “alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world” (2:12). They were “far off” (2:13, 17).

But now, amazingly, in Christ, even Gentiles “have been brought near by the blood of Christ” (2:13). Jesus “has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility [between Jews and Gentiles] by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two” (2:14–15).

This reality, this “one new man,” made up of believing Jews and Gentiles, Paul has already called “the church” in 1:22, and that’s the term he uses again in 3:10 (and then 3:21 and then six times in 5:23–32).

In 3:1, Paul starts moving toward a prayer. He writes, “For this reason I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles . . .” Then he breaks off and gives us the glorious aside of verses 2–13. He’ll come back to his prayer in verse 14, but first he wants to make sure we understand his special calling, and then the church’s. Paul’s is “the stewardship of God’s grace that was given to me for you” (3:2). He then speaks about “the mystery of Christ” — which is not an unsolved mystery but one that now has been made known. Previously it was hidden, until Jesus came. Now, it’s revealed. What is this mystery, once unsolved, now made known? Verses 6–11:

This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.

Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God’s grace, which was given me by the working of his power. To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord.

I take it that our focus in this session is this: What is the priority of the church for Christians? And in particular, for pastors: What’s the priority of the church for us? That’s where we’re headed: “The Church Prioritized” in the hearts and habits of her members and her ministers.

But might we first get our bearings, and spend our best focus, on a far more important prioritizer? Ephesians 3 is not concerned with our prioritizing. Not yet. Rather, here we marvel at God’s prioritizing of the church. And not just God as one, but also God as three.

So, before we get to us, as Christians and as pastors, let’s look at the priority of the church for God the Father, for God the Son, and for God the Spirit. (And hopefully this will be an exercise in proper prioritizing!) So, four truths about the priority of the church, with our hearts and habits coming last.

1. The Father prioritizes the church in his plan and purpose.

Verse 9 mentions his “plan”; verse 11, his “eternal purpose.” Let’s pick it up at verse 9:

[Paul’s calling is] to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things. . . . This was according to the eternal purpose that [the Father] has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord. (verses 9, 11)

Verse 11 mentions God’s “eternal purpose” (prothesin), and verse 9, “the plan [oikonomia] of the mystery hidden for ages [and now revealed] in God, who created all things.” It’s the same language Paul has already used in Ephesians 1:9–11. In the gospel, he says,

[God has made] known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan [oikonomian] for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose [prothesin] of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will.

God the Father has an eternal purpose, before creation, and he has a plan that he works out, in his perfect timing, in history — as Lord of creation and Lord of history.

What is this eternal purpose and plan? Now we need chapter 3, verse 10. Paul says he preaches to bright to light God’s plan,

that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.

We have three parts here to verse 10 (working backward): (1) the rulers and authorities, (2) the manifold wisdom of God, and (3) how all that relates to the church.

Rulers and Authorities

In Ephesians 6:12, Paul will write — and this might be a helpful reminder in times when algorithms condition us for digital “culture war” — “We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” And we have “in the heavenly places” here in Ephesians 3:10 as well.

“The rulers and authorities” are minimally, or mainly, “spiritual forces of evil,” the devil and demons, “the cosmic powers over this present darkness.” They are not earthly creatures, but heavenly ones, in the upper register or another dimension (however it works). And we might assume that good angels are looking on as well, as Peter says of the good news of Jesus — of his sufferings and subsequent glories, of his grace and our salvation — these are “things into which angels long to look” (1 Peter 1:12).

So, Ephesians 3:10 expands the audience. Previously, Paul has talked of (potentially) preaching “for everyone” (3:9) on earth, Jews and Gentiles, but now he says that also in view (presently) are “the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.”

Manifold Wisdom of God

God’s wisdom is what lies behind and is revealed alongside this mystery long hidden and now revealed in Christ. Remember what we saw in verse 6: “This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.”

God’s wisdom becomes evident in the great unveiling that is the preaching of Christ. And God’s wisdom is said to be manifold, many-sided, varied. The gospel may be a simple message, and yet the divine wisdom it reveals is no simple, basic, one-dimensional wisdom.

The gospel of Christ overturns and surpasses and puts to shame the wisdom of man, and does so over and over again. That God would become man, with an ignoble birth and childhood in a backwater; that he would live in obscurity for three decades, and be despised and rejected by his own people at the height of his influence, and be crucified (of all deaths!) as a slave; then, after rising from the dead, that he would ascend and be enthroned in heaven (not in Rome), and pour out his Spirit, and bring the far-off Gentiles near with believing Jews into his new-covenant church — this is stunning, multifaceted, many-sided wisdom!

In the simple gospel of Christ, the manifold wisdom of God is on display in turning upside down the world’s wisdom and strength and nobility. Christ crucified is “a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:23–24).

“There is no more important gathering in the world than the church.”

And that phrase “both Jews and Greeks” — in one body, one new man from the two — is at the heart of what makes the wisdom of God so horrifying to “the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” (As Paul preached in Athens, “The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent,” Acts 17:30.)

Which leads us to the last key phrase in verse 10: “through the church.”

Through the Church

How does God’s making known his manifold wisdom, to the hosts of angels and demons, relate to the church?

My prayer here, for us as pastors, is that God might be pleased to lift our eyes up from the ordinariness and the smallness and the annoyances and the frustrations of everyday practical church life — that we might see the church more like our God sees his church. In the immeasurable riches of his divine and Trinitarian fullness — infinitely happy, and overflowing in joy and creative energy and redeeming grace — our God, in the gospel of his Son, is making known his manifold wisdom to the spiritual forces of evil.

And how does he do it? Verse 10 says “through the church” — not armies, not technology, not sports, not entertainment, not political maneuvering — but “through the church the manifold wisdom of God [is] now be[ing] made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.”

The church is his chosen instrument for showing the cosmic powers, good and evil, “the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” (Romans 11:33). The reality and existence of the church — this seemingly unimpressive, lowly, ignoble, unwise, unwealthy, unaccomplished body of local Christians, covenanted to each other — his ragtag church, this otherwise unremarkable church shows Satan and his minions that their time is short. In effect: “You see the church, believing Gentiles joining with the Jews as one body? Checkmate.”

How does that work? God the Son takes human flesh and lives a lowly life in obscurity for thirty years. Then, just when he really begins to turn heads, Jews and Gentiles conspire to cut him down and end the story. The crucifixion looks like utter folly, not manifold wisdom. Then he rises again! But forty days later, he ascends to heaven and is gone. Now what? From heaven’s throne, the risen Christ pours out his Spirit, his gospel spreads through faith and repentance, and the church begins to grow and increase and multiply, and not only among Jews, but also Gentiles.

And as the church spreads from city to city and nation to nation, the seeming folly of the incarnation and the cross and the ascension is shown visibly to be manifold wisdom. Not all the earth sees it yet, but all the heavens do. And as this gospel advances, and the church grows, and Gentiles stream into the church, the manifold wisdom shines ever brighter.

So, the church — normal, local, ragtag, seemingly unimpressive, including Gentiles — bursts with spectacular cosmic significance, demonstrates the manifold wisdom of God, and shows the evil powers the surety of their doom.

God channels his global glory specially through his church. He is making known his manifold wisdom, not just in the physical realm but also in the spiritual — for all the universe to see. And how? Through the church.

Brothers, the main thing happening in the world right now, and at all times, is what Jesus Christ is doing in and through his church. And you are pastors! Is this still your priority?

In reflecting on the Father prioritizing the church in his purpose and plan, I couldn’t help but think about how Jonathan Edwards, on several occasions, writes of how God made the world to prepare a bride for his Son:

The spouse of the Son of God, the Lamb’s wife . . . is that for which all of the universe was made. Heaven and earth were created that the Son of God might be complete in a spouse. (Works of Jonathan Edwards, 13:271)

God created the world for His Son, that He might prepare a spouse or bride for Him to bestow His love upon; so that the mutual joys between this bride and bridegroom are the end of the creation. (Works, 13:374)

The creation of the world seems to have been especially for this end, that the eternal Son of God might obtain a spouse, toward whom he might fully exercise the infinite benevolence of his nature, and to whom he might, as it were, open and pour forth all that immense fountain of condescension, love, and grace that was in his heart, and that in this way God might be glorified. (Works, 25:187)

Let’s say more, then, about the Son.

2. The Son prioritizes the church in his purchase and his presiding.

Enthroned in heaven, Christ now presides over the universe. He reigns over all. He rules over the nations and the angelic realm with sovereign power, all authority in heaven and on earth given to him. And as he presides, he prioritizes his church.

We could turn to John 17 to see his priority, but let’s stay here in Ephesians: first, chapter 5, verses 23–30.

Chapter 5 makes the connection between human marriage and Christ and his church. Now, Paul’s “mystery” language relates to marriage. What was hidden for ages, and now revealed, is that all along, from the garden until now, human marriage has been patterned on the Son’s love for his church. And in our considering how the Son prioritizes his church, we have here both the decisive act, at the cross, in the past (the purchase), and his present attention to the church, as he reigns in heaven (presiding), for the good of his church.

In the past, says verse 25, referring to the cross, “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” Jesus prioritized the church in his sacrificial death — to say the very least. He did not simply love humanity in general and so go to the cross to make salvation possible to any who might later decide to take him up on it. Rather, he loved the church, Paul says. He gave himself up for her. He had his bride in view, his people, his flock, his church. It was a particular redemption, a specific purchase, a definite atonement. Sufficient as his cross is for the sins of all, it is effective for his church. As Paul says in Acts 20:28, the Son obtained the church with his own blood.

But that’s not all. There are also present dimensions in verses 26–27:

[Jesus died] that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.

Then, verses 29–30:

No one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body.

The Son bought the church with his own blood. And the Son rules the universe to sanctify her, cleanse her, wash her, prepare her to be presented to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any smear or smudge. From heaven’s throne, he nourishes and cherishes his church as his own body. He builds her and protects her and upholds her. He pays special attention to his church and her progress and health and joy.

The old confessions refer to this priority of the church as his “most special manner.” Westminster and 1689 say, “As the Providence of God doth in general reach to all Creatures, so after a most special manner it taketh care of his Church, and disposeth of all things to the good thereof” (5.7).

But there is one more thing we might say from Ephesians about the priority of the church in the eyes of the Son — which Michael Reeves celebrated for us so well last night as the climax of Ephesians 1: the church is “the fullness of him who fills all in all” (1:23).

The church, as his body, not only receives his care; the body also acts for him and from him. The head acts through his body. The body extends the will and heart and grace and designs of the head out into the world. Christ fulfills Adam’s mandate to fill the earth as the church grows and increases and multiplies — as his fullness, the church, fills all in all.

What priority, what privilege, what an unimaginably elevated role for the church — not only as beneficiaries but as agents, actors, arms, legs, hands, feet.

“Pastoral work is ‘get to’ work, not ‘have to’ work.”

So, what is Jesus doing in the world today? He is building his church, purifying his church, nourishing his church, cherishing his church — prioritizing his church. Yes, he rules over wars and natural disasters, over human sin, and over Satan, over rulers and authorities — and in it all, and through it all, his priority is building his church, and through his church extending the fullness of his reign to every tongue and tribe and people.

We have observed Christ’s “most special manner,” his priority of the church. What about the Spirit?

3. The Spirit prioritizes the church in his power.

Talk as we might about how the Spirit is active in the world outside the church — upholding the natural order, extending God’s common kindness, inspiring and assisting works of justice and mercy, and even industry and art and literature — when we look at what the Spirit does in Ephesians, and throughout the New Testament, it’s fair to say at minimum that he prioritizes the church. (The language of priority feels grossly inadequate.)

Just in Ephesians:

Those who believe the gospel, he seals “for the day of redemption” (1:13; 4:30).
He is given to us, as “the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of [God]” (1:17).
He gives us access to the Father (2:18).
By him, we “are being built together into a dwelling place for God” (2:22).
By him, the gospel has been revealed to the prophets and apostles (3:5).
By him, we are strengthened with divine power (3:16).
He is “the power at work within us” (3:20).
He unifies the church (4:3).
He fills us, leading us to address “one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart” and to give “thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” and to submit “to one another out of reverence for Christ” (5:18–21).
“The sword of the Spirit . . . is the word of God” and our offensive weapon (6:17).
He even helps us pray (6:18).

And when Paul finishes his glorious aside in chapter 3 (verses 2–13) and begins his prayer in 3:14, he prays in essence for the Spirit’s work in the church. And just to round out chapter 3, this prayer for the Spirit’s work in the church, which comes with the confidence that he will indeed answer this prayer, spills over into the doxology celebrating God’s ability “to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think.” And again the priority of the church is striking:

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. (3:20–21)

How is God being glorified in our world today, and at this time? Stand in awe: in the church and in Christ Jesus. Through Christ, seated in heaven, and through his church, displaying him around the world in every major city and advancing on every tongue, tribe, people, and nation.

So, the Spirit seals, builds, reveals, strengthens, and fills the church. The bride of Christ is his priority (to say the least). However much he works (unsavingly) outside the church, his work is decidedly, emphatically, pronouncedly asymmetrical. He prioritizes the church.

4. We prioritize the church in our hearts and our habits.

Finally, then, what about the priority of the church in our lives?

Our Christian Priorities

1. We adopt the priorities of the Father, Son, and Spirit and resolve to rehearse the glories that our world conditions us to forget. Jesus Christ has triumphed and sat down at his Father’s right hand. He, our head, rules over the universe, and does so, amazingly, for and through the church. Don’t be snookered by the unbelieving world that what matters most is politics and sports, or whatever else seems for the moment so electric with importance. There is no more important gathering in the world than the church.

2. We prioritize the church over all other groups and associations in our lives, whether Christian or otherwise: institutions, workplaces, neighborhoods, teams, even ministries. In time, they all will perish. God will roll them up like a garment, but not the church. The church will remain. She will go through the final fire and endure. In time, the gates of Hades will prevail against all other societies, but not against the church.

3. We prioritize the church in the good we seek to do in the world. Among other good we might seek to do in our cities and towns, most important is our involvement in the body of Christ, in which eternal human souls find rescue from eternal suffering. As pastors, we help our people realize, whatever their vocation, that their single most important involvement for the good of others, among other noble causes, is engaging with and investing in the life, health, and mission of the local church.

4. We prioritize the church in our affection for individual believers. We learn to love with the eyes of Jesus: the weak, ignoble, and foolish (in the world’s eyes!) to whom we are joined, in Christ, in his church.

5. We take care to leverage what a resource we have in the church: for counseling and advice, for arbitration in disputes among Christians:

When one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints? Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life! So if you have such cases, why do you lay them before those who have no standing in the church? (1 Corinthians 6:1–4)

6. We prioritize the church through covenant membership. Committing to a particular local church, and actively fulfilling our covenant, is the first concrete way the priority of the church takes root in our lives. We voice such a priority implicitly in our church covenants, as we make promises to each other to be the church for each other, not just in the good and easy times, but the bad. That’s what covenants are especially for: the hard times. It’s easy to stay with a church when it’s easy. It’s hard to stay when it’s hard. The priority of the church in our hearts finds expression in covenant membership in a particular local church. Christians will not adequately prioritize the church without committing to the fellowship and being held accountable.

Our Pastoral Priorities

Last, what about us as pastors?

1. Marvel at this calling. Brother pastors, without minimizing the righteous vocations of any non-pastors in our congregations, can you believe that we get to do this work? Pastoral work is “get to” work, not “have to” work. You don’t have to do this. You can get out of it if you’ve been stuck on “have to” for too long. I know there are hard days and hard seasons; there are stresses and strains that make our “get to” work feel like “have to” work. But brothers, in light of the Godhead’s priority of the church, is there any greater privilege and blessing in vocational life than getting to work on the one institution that has the special attention of God and over which the gates of Hades will not prevail?

If the rough and tumble of ministry has caused your vision of the church and its priority to get small and dull and boring, ask God to raise your head. Linger in Ephesians 1–3. Ask God to put his church back where it belongs on the map of your heart.

2. Seek to win your people to prioritize the church in their schedules. Some want “family-friendly churches” — to cater to their family idolatry. What if we cast a vision for “church-friendly families”? Instead of presuming the church adjust to dozens or hundreds of families, what if godly dads and moms adjusted their family rhythms to prioritize the church? What if we built our family lives around the few but important weekly flashpoints of church life?

3. Hold your people accountable to their membership covenant. The pastors set the tone for how seriously the congregation takes church membership. If the pastors aren’t diligent to oversee the flock, give regular upkeep to the roster, and pursue drifting members, your people will treat their church membership as a small, empty reality, and they will not prioritize the church.

4. In light of the priority of the church in the Godhead, we pastors might resist the temptation to ask less and less of people. When overly busy congregants complain that the church is doing too much or offering too much or gathering too often or for too long, we might patiently, graciously resist the impulse. We might say, “No, we’re not going to keep cutting and shortening and abbreviating and rushing. This is a priority in our lives as Christians — over work demands, over hobbies, over personal and family conveniences and comforts. We’re not going to apologize for opening the church doors. We’re not going to apologize for gathering Christ’s people for worship, for teaching, for prayer, for meals together. Church is priority enough to arrive early and stay late.”

5. In our own lives, exercise wisdom with news, social media, hobbies, and entertainment (including ESPN). Brothers, if you take out your phones and go to Settings, then Screen Time, you can see how many minutes per day are you on ESPN, or X (which is now largely overrun with politics), or some other social media, or YouTube TV, or Netflix. Do you know what you’re likely not doing well while you’re there in the digital world? Just a sampling: Communing with the risen Christ. Husbanding. Fathering. Pastoring a flock of eternal souls for whom you will give an account. That doesn’t mean there’s no space for rhythms of life and rest and pastimes and news. But that is a precious list to let slide.

Brothers, how much news? There was no telegraph until the mid-1800s. No radio until the 1920s. No television until the 1950s. No cable until the 1980s. No round-the-clock, nonstop news until 9/11, and until news (and commentary on it) essentially took over what was formerly social media, which continued the takeover of news by content that is more or less political. Today, without even trying at all (but just living in society), you will be far more informed and aware of national and world events than even the most diligent news-lovers could have been just two hundred years ago. Without even trying.

Would you fancy yourself a man “of Issachar” with “understanding of the times” to know what Christians ought to do and tweet about it (1 Chronicles 12:32)? Perhaps consider a serious audit and on your social media and news consumption. No wise, healthy pastor can just go with the world’s flow and saunter through the digital world without great vigilance.

6. If your priorities have drifted — over years, or through coasting, or through getting interested in other things, or through the disorientation of the pandemic and recent years — return to your former love and priorities. Perhaps as the years have passed, with complex influences and pressures, have you become “entangled in civilian pursuits,” to use the image of 2 Timothy 2:4?

What started as being where your people are, to provide spiritual leadership for them, has slowly become, over time, entanglement in secular affairs and undue distraction from your calling. I pray this conference is an opportunity to freshly see the glory of your work and make midcourse corrections, if needed.

7. Enjoy being a man of the Book. This last point is another “get to” point. Start your day in the Book. Linger over God’s word, without hurry, steeping your soul in it, meditating on it. And if you daily set your mind on the things above, you will become and remain the kind of man who prioritizes the church and whose instincts and heartbeat prioritize the church. You won’t first and foremost think of human solutions to the deepest, most intractable problems in our world, but you’ll think of conversion to Christ and life in his church — and perhaps God would be pleased to use that to restore to you the deep, durable joys of the pastoral calling.

Have you ever considered how Jesus came to know Scripture?

Anyone who reads the Gospels can see that Jesus clearly knew the Hebrew Bible well. He quotes Scripture over and over, and does so with the authority and freshness of someone who hasn’t only memorized God’s words but truly knows God’s heart. Jesus has profound insight into what the words of God mean, and so he is able to put Scripture to use in everyday life. He does not simply recite sentences he put to memory, but he is able to apply Scripture in various situations as he encounters them.

You might think, Well, of course Jesus knew Scripture! Jesus is God! He didn’t need to learn it, or work at it, like we do. But that suspicion betrays a significant misunderstanding in what it means for Jesus to be fully God and fully man in one person.

So, we have a little Christology to do here first. Jesus, as we encounter him in the Gospels — in human flesh and blood, walking this earth with human feet, speaking with a human tongue and mouth — this Jesus quotes and makes use of what Scriptures he has come to know with his human mind. The human Christ didn’t know Scripture simply because he was God. As genuinely human, he had to learn it. What he knew, and quoted, is what he had come to learn. Luke 2 tells us that “the [Christ] child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom,” and then a few verses later: “Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature” (Luke 2:40, 52). Born to us as human, Jesus grew not only in his human body but in his human mind.

Jesus is the universe’s unique two-natured person. He is fully God and fully man. Which means he has not only a human body but also a “reasoning soul,” that is, human emotions and a human will, and a human mind.

So, that’s our little Christology lesson. Now, in these few minutes together, let’s look at how Jesus knew Scripture so well.

Jesus’s Relationship with Scripture

In an earlier session this afternoon, we looked at Jesus’s habits of retreating and reentering, of withdrawing from society to commune with his Father and then returning to bless and teach and show compassion to others.

And the major piece we left out there, and now turn to in this session, is Jesus’s relationship with Scripture. It’s a remarkable theme to track in the Gospels. You might think, “Well, he’s God, so he just speaks, and whatever he says is God’s word” — which is true — “so he doesn’t really need to quote previous Scripture.” And then you observe how often, how strikingly often, Jesus says, over and over again, “It is written . . . It is written . . . It is written . . .” Scripture is central and pervasive in his ministry and teaching.

So, I’d like to do two things. First, let’s briefly see it in action and get a taste of the place of Scripture “in the days of his flesh” while among us (Hebrews 5:7). Then let’s address how Jesus knew the word so well. Very practically, how did Scripture come to have such a place in his life and ministry? And I hope that here, as we look at Jesus, you might catch a vision and find encouragement for how Scripture could come to have such a place in your own soul and ministry.

‘It Is Written’

First, then, the taste. Throughout the Gospels, we see in Jesus the evidence of a man utterly captivated by what is written in the text of Scripture.

At the outset of his public ministry, Jesus, led by the Spirit, retreats to the wilderness, and there, in the culminating temptations before the devil himself, he leans, not just once, but three times, on what is written (Matthew 4:4, 6–7, 10; Luke 4:4, 8, 10).

Then, returning from the wilderness to his hometown of Nazareth, Jesus stands up to read, takes the scroll of Isaiah, reads from 61:1–2, and announces, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21). He identifies John the Baptist as “he of whom it is written” (Matthew 11:10; Luke 7:27). He rebukes the proud by quoting Scripture (Mark 7:6; Luke 20:17). And when he clears the temple of money-changers, he does so on the grounds of what is written in Isaiah 56:7 (Matthew 21:13; Mark 11:17; Luke 19:46).

At every step on the way to Calvary, he knows that everything will happen, he says, “as it is written” (see especially the Gospel of John, 6:31, 45; 8:17; 10:34; 12:14, 16; 15:25). In Mark 14:21, he says, “The Son of Man goes as it is written of him.” Luke 18:31: “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished.”

His life and ministry turn on the word of God written in Scripture.

How Did Jesus Know the Word?

So, then, how does Jesus know the word so well? If Jesus isn’t simply drawing upon his divinity to quote texts and put to use concepts his human mind had never learned and considered, then how is it that Jesus knows Scripture so well?

The inspiration for this session came from reading Sinclair Ferguson’s chapter on “The Spirit of Christ” (in his book The Holy Spirit). There he addresses our question:

Jesus’s intimate acquaintance with Scripture did not come [magically from heaven] during the period of his public ministry; it was grounded no doubt on his early education, but nourished by long years of personal meditation. Later, in his public ministry, it becomes evident that he was intimately familiar with its contents . . . and also possessed in his human nature a knowledge of God by the Spirit which lent freshness, authority, and a sense of reality to his teaching. (44)

That’s what I want for you wherever God leads you: freshness, authority, and a sense of reality to your teaching.

Now, when Ferguson speaks here about Jesus’s “public ministry,” he implies an important relationship between public and private life: what Jesus says publicly in his three years of ministry reveals what he has learned and come to know in his three decades in private — and what he continues to feed and nurture in secret communion with his Father.

So, there are two parts here to Jesus’s private life, outside his public ministry. First, “his early education.” Before he could even speak, his mother and Joseph and others in Bethlehem, Egypt, and Nazareth would speak to him. Surely Mary quoted Scripture and sang Scripture to her son as he grew. This foundation, this “grounding,” of his early education, was important. Yet Ferguson rightly puts emphasis on the second and longer phase of Jesus’s private life.

He says that “Jesus’s intimate acquaintance with Scripture . . . [was] nourished by long years of personal meditation.” This is the secret to how Jesus knew Scripture so well: long years of personal meditation. Which is what I want to challenge you to this afternoon.

Lost Art of Meditation

What is meditation? It’s important to ask because we don’t do this very well today. This is countercultural. Biblical meditation is a lost art today. We’re not talking Eastern meditation, where you try to empty your mind and repeat a mantra, but biblical meditation, where you fill your mind with God’s words, and his truth, and slow down and seek to more fully understand the meaning of God’s words and feel their significance in your soul.

Biblical meditation pauses and ponders God’s words without hurry. It chews on the truth communicated by the words of God. It doesn’t just keep on reading at the breakneck speed at which our pixelated screens are teaching us to read (or better, skim). Meditation pauses and slows down and seeks to deeply ponder the truth of God’s word, and sense its weight upon the heart. That’s the kind of meditation that nourished “Jesus’s intimate acquaintance with Scripture.”

In other words, Jesus, like us, learned Scripture. He worked at it. Jesus knew Scripture so well, and quoted it so frequently, and spoke with such freshness and authority and a sense of reality because of his “long years of personal meditation.” His public ministry and teaching, with his seemingly effortless familiarity with God’s word, revealed years of personal, private enjoyment of God’s word.

Jesus knew Scripture so well not just because he was God, but because he dedicated his human mind and heart to daily, personal meditation on the word of God — and this even without having his own personal material copy of the Bible, like we do today. He had to remember and rehearse what he had been read and sung and taught. And so he did, to great effect.

Following Jesus into Scripture

I close with a threefold exhortation.

One, become the kind of person now, in God’s word, in private, that you hope to be someday in public ministry. Over time, who you have become in secret over your Bible will be revealed in public ministry.

Two, learn the power of memorizing God’s words. When you come across particular verses, or even phrases, or longer sections that feed and focus your soul in Christ-honoring ways, put them to memory. Try to build them into the folds of your brain, to put to use in sustaining your own soul and the souls of others.

And finally, three, go deeper still — deeper than mere reading, deeper even than mere memory. Make memory serve meditation. Memorize to meditate, and slow down to meditate as you memorize. And memorize, as a side effect, because you meditated. Set a course now for nourishing your “intimate acquaintance with Scripture” with long years of personal meditation, like Jesus, and with the help he purchased for you in the power of his Spirit.

One of the more controversial issues in missions today is speed. How quickly do we expect the lost to be saved? How soon will new churches plant new churches? How fast should a new believer move into a leadership role? How long should cross-cultural missionaries work on learning a language?

In our times, we will do well to carefully interrogate our assumptions about speed and pace. Our internal speedometers are being conditioned to the quickening pace of modern life with its rapid flow of technological innovations. So, in our “age of accelerations,” pressing questions relate to speed — not only for effective Christian mission but simply for healthy Christian lives. Will we be driven by the hurried pace of our world? Or, with the help of God’s word and his Spirit and his church, will we find a more timeless (and human) pace for life and mission — a pace that has produced health and fruit across the ages?

In his book Missions: How the Local Church Goes Global, Andy Johnson says this: “The work of missions is urgent, but it’s not frantic” (67). That’s good, and the same is true of the Christian life and of the health and growth of our own souls.

Unhurried Habits of Jesus

So, let’s sit together at the feet of Jesus, and consider the pace and patterns of his life and ministry. He was not idle. Nor was he frenzied. From all we can tell from the Gospels, Jesus’s days were full. I think it would be fair to say he was busy, but he was not frantic. He lived to the full, and yet he did not seem to be in a hurry.

In Jesus, we observe a human life with holy habits and patterns: rhythms of retreating from society and then reentering to do the work of ministry. Even as God himself in human flesh, Jesus prioritized time away with his Father. He chose again and again, in his perfect wisdom and love, to give his first and best moments to seeking his Father’s face. And if Jesus, even Jesus, carved out such space in the demands and pressures of his human life, what might we learn from him, and how might we do likewise?

Now, we have only glimpses of Jesus’s habits and personal spiritual practices, but what we do have is by no accident, and it is not scant. We know exactly what God means for us to know, in just the right detail — and we have far more about Jesus’s personal spiritual rhythms than we do about anyone else’s in Scripture.

And the picture we have of Christ’s habits is not one that is foreign to our world and lives and experience. Rather, we find timeless and transcultural postures that can be imitated and applied by any follower of Jesus, anywhere in the world, at any time in history.

So, what might those be? Let’s look at three.

1. Jesus retreated and reentered.

Jesus made a habit of withdrawing from the world (and the engagements of fruitful ministry), and then reentering later to do more good.

So too, the healthy Christian life is neither solely solitary nor constantly communal. We learn to withdraw, like Jesus, “to a desolate place” to commune with God (Mark 1:35), and then we return to the bustle of daily tasks and seek to meet the needs of others. We carve out a season for spiritual respite — in some momentarily sacred space — to feed our souls, enjoying God there in the stillness. Then refilled, we enter back in to be light and bread to a hungry, harassed, and helpless world (Matthew 9:36).

For Christ, “the wilderness” or “desolate place” often became his momentarily sacred space. He got away from people. He regularly escaped the noise and frenzy of society to be alone with his Father, where he could give him his full attention and undivided heart.

There is, of course, that especially memorable instance in Mark 1. After “his fame spread everywhere” (Mark 1:28) the day before, and “the whole city was gathered together at the door” (Mark 1:33), Jesus took a remarkable step the next morning. He was up before the sun and slipped away from town to restore his soul in secret communion with his Father. “Rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed” (Mark 1:35).

Given the fruitfulness of the previous day, some of us might scratch our heads. What a ministry opportunity Jesus seemed to leave behind when he left town! Surely some of us would have skipped or shortened our private spiritual habits to rush to the demands of the swelling masses. How many of us, in such a situation, would have the presence of mind and heart to discern and prioritize prayer as Jesus did?

The Gospel of Luke also makes it unmistakable that this pattern of retreat and reentry was part of the ongoing dynamic of Christ’s human life. Luke 4:42 tells us that Jesus “departed and went into a desolate place” — not just once but regularly. Luke 5:16: “He would withdraw [as a pattern] to desolate places and pray.”

So also Matthew 14:13. After the death of John the Baptist, Jesus “withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place by himself.” But even then, the crowds pursued him. And he didn’t despise them, but here he puts his desire to retreat on hold and has compassion on them and heals their sick (Matthew 14:14). Then after feeding them, five thousand strong, he withdraws again to a quiet place. “After he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray” (Matthew 14:23).

This leads to a second principle — and not just that he withdrew but why. What did Jesus do when he withdrew?

2. Jesus withdrew to commune with his Father.

He got away from the distractions and demands of daily life to focus on, and hear from, and pray to his Father. At times, he went away by himself to be alone (Matthew 14:23; Mark 6:46–47; John 6:15). His disciples would see him leave to pray and later return. He went by himself.

But he also drew others into his life of prayer. The disciples had seen him model prayer at his baptism (Luke 3:21), as he laid his hands on the children (Matthew 19:13), and when he drove out demons (Mark 9:29). And Jesus brought his men into his communion with his Father. Even when he prayed alone, his men might be nearby. “Now it happened that as he was praying alone, the disciples were with him” (Luke 9:18; also Luke 11:1).

3. Jesus taught his disciples to do the same.

Jesus didn’t only retreat to be alone with God. He also taught his disciples to bring this dynamic of retreat and return, communion and compassion, into their own lives (Mark 3:7; Luke 9:10).

In Mark 6:31–32, Jesus invites his men to join him, saying, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.” Mark explains, “For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a desolate place by themselves.”

So too, in the Gospel of John, as his fame spreads, Jesus retreats from more populated settings to invest in his men in more desolate, less distracting places (John 11:54). And in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus teaches all his hearers, including us today, not only to give without show (Matthew 6:3–4) and fast without publicity (Matthew 6:17–18), but also to find our private place to seek our Father’s face: “When you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (Matthew 6:6). The reward is not material stuff later but the joy of communion with God there, in that moment, in the secret place.

Your Pace and Patterns

Jesus made a habit of retreating from the demands and pressures of everyday life and ministry, and he did so to commune with his Father, to hear his voice, and respond in prayer. And then Jesus reentered society to bless and teach and show compassion and love and do good. And he also invited his disciples into this pattern and taught them to do the same.

So, let’s close by asking about your pace and your patterns. First about pace, ask yourself, How deeply do the world’s assumptions and expectations about speed and productivity affect my life and ministry? How hurried is my life?

And your patterns. How about rhythms of retreat and reentry? Do you get away daily to commune with God in his word and prayer, in an unhurried, even leisurely way — resting, restoring your joy, feeding your soul in the grace of his presence? And what are your patterns or rhythms of life for retreating from the noise of the world to focus on and hear from the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom he has sent, and then come back to meet the needs of others?

Last August, as our family visited Manhattan, we had the joy of seeing The Lion King on Broadway. And in that urban, sophisticated, and apparently progressive setting, the play’s climactic moment struck me as especially memorable, and poignant. The crowd went wild at the destruction of Scar.

Among all the educated and psychologically informed members of the audience, I didn’t observe any who expressed concern about the villain’s feelings. No one objected or stood in protest as a self-proclaimed advocate for Scar. None demanded our empathy for the misunderstood scapegoat.

Deep down, we all want the wicked to receive their due. We all have our cries for justice. Even Broadway audiences cheer the destruction of the manifest monster. Without controversy, we consign Hitler to damnation. We know great evil demands cosmic justice.

Yet we have a harder time imagining ourselves, or our beloved friends and family, as the wicked, as those justly deserving what Jesus called hell.

These Overwhelming Doctrines

There, I said it — “the crude monosyllable,” as C.S. Lewis calls it in his essay on “Learning in War-Time.”

To a Christian the true tragedy of Nero must be not that he fiddled while the city was on fire but that he fiddled on the brink of hell. You must forgive me for the crude monosyllable. I know that many wiser and better Christians than I in these days do not like to mention Heaven and hell even in a pulpit. (48)

Now, Lewis’s “these days” were nearly ninety years ago, at the start of World War II. Perhaps hell was permitted to make a brief comeback in polite conversation after such a war, but surely it’s no more socially accepted today than it was in 1939. Lewis continues,

I know, too, that nearly all the references to this subject in the New Testament come from a single source. But then that source is Our Lord Himself. People will tell you it is St. Paul, but that is untrue. These overwhelming doctrines are dominical. They are not really removable from the teaching of Christ or of His Church. If we do not believe them, our presence in this church is great tom-foolery. If we do, we must sometime overcome our spiritual prudery and mention them. (48)

Note two unnerving claims here, well-spoken in 1939, and still strikingly relevant. First, Jesus indeed did teach on hell more than anyone else: “These overwhelming doctrines are dominical.” For instance, the Greek gehenna, which we translate hell, occurs twelve times in the New Testament, with eleven on the lips of Jesus. Hell comes from the mouth of our Lord himself — the one man who is also divine, preeminently holy enough to speak to such a subject, and for none who genuinely claim his name to second-guess him. It really would be profound folly to think you could have Jesus and not have, with him, his clear and pronounced teaching on hell.

Second, the paths diverge in Lewis’s double “if” statements: “If we do not believe them [the dominical doctrines], our presence in this church is great tom-foolery. If we do, we must sometime overcome our spiritual prudery and mention them.” In other words, Lewis puts the question to us, as Elijah put the question to those limping between Baal and the true God: Will you be faithful to the clear teaching of the one you call Lord, or will you be the liar or lunatic?

Hell Is Supposed to Horrify

However much we might wrestle theologically with “the problem of evil” — and with it, “the problem of hell” — it really is the existential problems of evil and hell that unsettle us the most. College students might express (and even enjoy) theoretical questions in safe, scholastic settings, but these challenges pale in comparison to losing a loved one to cancer, or murder or a freak accident, and pondering whether your beloved might spend eternity apart from Jesus and under the penalties of divine justice.

This existential weight creates crises of faith for some. And the crisis can be exacerbated by assuming that you’re suffering under this weight alone, or that few others are, and that maybe you really shouldn’t feel this angst.

For those in the throes of such existential discomfort, it may genuinely help to learn that you’re not alone, and, to some extent, you actually should feel this way. Hell is supposed to make us uncomfortable. This side of heaven, it is not a sign of spiritual health to be untroubled by the horrors of hell — that humans like us, made in God’s image for fullness of joy, will spend eternity under the righteous frown of his omnipotent justice.

As theologian Wayne Grudem writes, not only is “the doctrine of eternal conscious punishment . . . so foreign to the thought patterns of our culture,” but it also offends “on a deeper level . . . our instinctive and God-given sense of love and desire for redemption for every human being created in God’s image.” So, he acknowledges, “This doctrine is emotionally one of the most difficult doctrines for Christians to affirm today.” And this is fitting in significant measure: “If our hearts are never moved with deep sorrow when we contemplate this doctrine, then there is a serious deficiency in our spiritual and emotional sensibilities” (Systematic Theology, 1152, note 16).

Go Where the Bible Goes

For all of us, and especially those who feel the most discomfort, we do well to turn forward to the book of Revelation — to go where the Bible goes. Two texts in the later part of the book can be especially helpful in addressing our (proper) existential trouble with hell.

First is Revelation 15:1–4, where John sees “another sign in heaven,” which he calls “great and amazing”: seven angels with seven plagues, and “with them the wrath of God is finished” (verse 1). There John also sees “those who had conquered the beast . . . with harps of God in their hands” (verse 2). And how do these saints in heaven respond to God’s poured-out wrath? They sing. Without any stated reservations, they praise their Lord not despite his “righteous acts” and “just ways,” but precisely because of them. With his perfect, divine justice squarely in view, they sing, “Great and amazing are your deeds, O Lord God the Almighty!” (verse 3).

Then in Revelation 19:1–4, following the fall of Babylon, with the wicked justly laid waste in a single hour (18:10, 17, 19), John hears the response of “a great multitude in heaven” (19:1). Again, they are not wailing; nor are they silent. Rather, with loud praise, they cry, four times, “Hallelujah!” (verses 1, 3, 4, and 6). God’s people declare, in worship, that his “judgments are true and just” (verse 2). He “has avenged on [the great prostitute] the blood of his servants” (verse 2). And this, not just as a momentary act of judgment but eternally:

Hallelujah! The smoke from her goes up forever and ever. (verse 3)

Songs of Final Justice

On this stunning future vision, which we find so hard to fathom in the present, theologian John Frame comments, “When we are gathered around the throne, singing God’s praises in the eternal state, we will not be raising objections to God’s justice, but we will be praising it without reservation” (Salvation Belongs to the Lord, 299).

God’s justice, in principle and power, exercised against his enemies — who also are the enemies of his people — elicits the praises of heaven. This is what the saints had cried out for as early as Revelation 6:10: that God would “judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth.” And this is the summons to the saints from those who observed Babylon’s destruction from afar:

Rejoice over her, O heaven,and you saints and apostles and prophets,for God has given judgment for you against her! (Revelation 18:20)

God vindicates his people, not only himself, in the fires of hell. When final justice has come for the martyrs, and all the worshipers of heaven, the redeemed people of the Lamb will sing that his acts of justice are “great and amazing” (Revelation 15:1, 3). And for us today, with our discomforts, we observe that these prophetic glimpses are (at least in significant measure) future and have not yet come to their fullness in our lives in the present.

Resolution Will Come

The songs of Revelation offer a balm for our existential trouble now, even if almost paradoxically. We do not yet have full relief from this emotional dilemma, but we do have, at the end of Scripture, a prophetic promise: God will one day bring history to its culmination in such a way as to give us such relief. For now, we do not have full resolution, but we have the promise that, as surely as God is God, we will have such peace when his justice comes in full, and forever.

For now, the thought of hell is supposed to make us uncomfortable. But one day soon, all the masks will be off. We will see all evil for what it is, and the wicked for who they are as enemies of God, and foes of his people. And with the saints in the heaven, we will exult and thrill in praise and unspeakable joy, and even our most earthly beloved in hell will not ruin the glory of heaven.

Now we see through a glass dimly, but then we will see the Lamb face to face and glory in the exercise of his perfect justice and power, even as we marvel at his mercy to us. Then both God’s kindness and his severity will be seen to extend far beyond our previous comprehension. And the justice of hell, in the end, will be a component of our everlasting joy, not a detriment to it. We will see, without question, that the Judge of all the earth has done right (Genesis 18:25). He will wipe away every tear — and there will be no “mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore” (Revelation 21:4).

“I’m just not feeling it today.”

How often have you reached for that excuse? Many of us can be quick to cast ourselves as the victim of a sluggish heart.

Now, making peace with a pokey heart is a very strange phenomenon, even as it now is a widespread assumption and typically goes unquestioned. It may be no big deal if we’re talking about whether you want peanut butter on your breakfast toast. But far more is at stake when this becomes an excuse for neglecting God, whether in his word, prayer, or Christian fellowship.

Specifically, this excuse has served to undermine habits of spiritual health related to beginning each day with the voice of God in Scripture. Some of us are gaunt, frail Christians because we’ve learned, like our world, to cater to the whims of our own fickle hearts rather than direct them and determine to reshape them.

Your Pliable Affections

In what may be his most insightful and deeply spiritual book, Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God (2014), the late Tim Keller introduces us to a side of the great English theologian John Owen (1616–1683) that is especially out of step with modern assumptions. Owen, according to Keller, would not be so quick to grant the excuse, “I’m just not feeling it today.” In fact, he likely would respond forcefully — and many of us might be better for it.

Owen would at least challenge whether our initial feelings determined anything significant at all. He surely wouldn’t say to skip God’s word (or prayer or church) to cater to whatever unspiritual inclination you woke up feeling. Rather, he might say, as Keller summarizes, “Meditate to the point of delight.” Don’t give in to your heart’s first inclinations. Rather, take hold of them, and direct them. Open the Bible, and turn your attention to the one who is supremely worthy, and keep your nose in the Book, and your mind on Jesus, until your sluggish heart begins to respond like it should.

That’s striking counsel for a generation conditioned to “follow your heart” and, in time, presume to reshape our external, objective world based on the subjectivity and flightiness of our own desires.

How often do we hear even Christians concede, as a veiled excuse, to be “wired” a certain way? Indeed, God has wired us in certain ways. But how often do we resign ourselves to being hardwired in ways we’re actually far more pliable? And the world’s not helping us with this. Our society has come to feign plasticity in precisely the places we’re hardwired (like biological sex) and to pretend hard-wiring in the places we’re actually plastic (desires and delights).

Long before anyone talked about neuroplasticity, Owen believed in what we might call “affectional plasticity” — that is, your desires and delights are not hardwired. They are pliable. You can reshape and recondition them. You can retrain them. You may be unable to simply turn them with full effect in the moment to make yourself feel something, but you can reshape your heart over time. Oh, can you. Your desires, good and bad, are not simple givens. Stretched out over time, as the composite of countless decisions, they are wonderfully (and hauntingly) chosens.

Recondition Your Heart

In chapter 10 of Prayer, Keller adds his commentary to Owen’s premodern insights for a much-needed perspective on the wedding of God’s word with our prayers through meditation. It’s a perspective on forming and reforming our pliant hearts that will challenge readers today. It will frustrate many, but certainly inspire a few.

In general, we are far too easy on our minds and hearts. We grant we can train the body. In fact, you’re always training the body, whether for the better or the worse. And most will agree that you can train the mind — “the mind is a muscle,” so to speak. You can set it on a particular object and learn to keep it there. It will take practice. Such training is vital for engaging with God’s word as we ought, and few skills are more difficult or important to cultivate.

And far more controversial, you can train your heart— not just in sinful emotions to avoid but also in righteous emotions to entertain. With a Bible open in front of you, you can learn, as Keller summarizes Owen, to “meditate to the point of delight.”

Three Stages of Meditation

Some well-meaning Christians set out to read their Bibles, don’t feel much (if anything), move on swiftly to pray a few quick, shallow petitions, and then embark on their day. Owen would say, with C.S. Lewis, you are far too easily pleased — that is, if you’re even pleased at all. Rather, Owen would have us wrestle like Jacob across the Jabbok, until light dawns. Wrestle with your own sluggish soul. Direct it. Turn it. Grapple with it until it does what it’s supposed to do, and feels more like it’s supposed to feel about the wonders and horrors of the word of God. Say, in effect, to the God of the word, “I will not let you go unless you bless me,” and discipline your heart to receive the joy for which God made it.

Now, a few clarifications are in order to recover this lost art of meditation. Owen distinguished between study, meditation, and prayer. Meditation is the bridge between receiving God’s word (in reading and study) and responding back to him (in prayer). Meditation, says Owen,

is distinguished from the study of the word, wherein our principal aim is to learn the truth, or to declare it unto others; and so also from prayer, whereof God himself is the immediate object. But . . . meditation . . . is the affecting of our own hearts and minds with love, delight, and [humility]. (quoted in Keller, Prayer, 152)

Meditation, then — distinct from study and prayer, though overlapping with them — might be parsed into three sequential stages.

1) Fix Your Mind

Begin with Bible intake, through reading, and rereading — the slower the better. And as we encounter various knowledge gaps in what the passage says and means, we might turn briefly to some “study” to “learn the truth” or rightly understand the text. Beginners will have more questions and need to navigate how frequently to stop and study or just keep reading and pick up clues as they go. But the main point is that meditation begins with immersion in the words of God.

Unlike Eastern “meditation,” which seeks to empty the mind, biblical meditation requires the filling of the mind with the truth of God’s self-revelation in his Son and Scripture. We don’t just up and meditate — not in the deliberate sense. We begin with Bible, fixing our thoughts on God and his Son through the content of his word.

2) Incline Your Heart

Fixing our thoughts can be difficult enough, but inclining the heart is imponderable for many. Not because it can’t be done, but because we have been socialized to assume it can’t. So, this is where Owen (and Keller) seems forceful, and surprising. But Owen counsels us, having fixed our minds on God’s word, to “persist in spiritual thoughts unto your refreshment” (Works of John Owen, volume 7, 393). That is, meditate until you begin to feel the word. Preach to yourself until you begin to feel more like you ought. Does the word declare God’s majesty? Feel awe. Does it warn sinners? Feel fear. Does it announce good news? Feel joy.

The goal is not to meditate for a particular duration of time, but to meditate until the point of delight, to persist “unto your refreshment.” The apostle Peter speaks of the present, not merely the future — of joy the Christian experiences now, in this age, not only in the one to come — when he says, “Though you do not now see [Jesus with your physical eyes], you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory” (1 Peter 1:8). Inexpressible, glorified joy is offered even now, and by no better means than fixing our minds on the word of God himself and meditating until he smiles on us, and warms our souls, with some real measure of delight.

Owen offers hope for those who think this is impossible: “Constancy in [this] duty will give ability for it. Those who conscientiously abide in its performance shall increase in light, wisdom, and experience until they are able to manage it with great success.” Keller then comments, leaning on Psalm 1, “Trees don’t grow overnight. Meditation is a sustained process like a tree growing its roots down toward the water source. The effects are cumulative. You must stick with it. We must meditate ‘day and night’ — regularly, steadily” (161–162).

Questions arise not only because of our sin but our humanity. Owen knew this every bit as much as we do, if not far better. Anticipating our objection, Keller writes,

Owen is quite realistic. He admits that sometimes, no matter what we do, we simply cannot concentrate, or we find our thoughts do not become big and affecting, but rather we feel bored, hard, and distracted. Then, Owen says, simply turn to God and make brief, intense appeals for help. Sometimes that is all you will do the rest of your scheduled time, and sometimes the very cries for help serve to concentrate the mind and soften the heart. (Prayer, 161)

A huge difference lies between occasional realism and a daily pattern of resignation. There’s a world of difference between a lazy beginner and the wise veteran, who has learned the lost art and come to experience the third stage with regularity, despite the “sometimes” of dryness and distraction.

3) Enjoy Your God

In the final stage, we give vent, or give space, to the enjoyment (or crying out) begun in the second. We fan the flame of fitting affection for the truth in view. This is the high point of meditation — enjoying God in Christ — which fills our souls with “an answering response.” As Keller comments, we “listen, study, think, reflect, and ponder the Scriptures until there is an answering response in our hearts and minds” (55, emphasis added) — which leads us to prayer. According to Keller,

meditation before prayer consists of thinking, then inclining, and, finally, either enjoying the presence or admitting the absence and asking for his mercy and help. Meditation is thinking a truth out and then thinking a truth in until its ideas become “big” and “sweet,” moving and affecting, and until the reality of God is sensed upon the heart. (162)

And this “sensing of God on the heart,” through meditating on his word, issues in our response of prayer.

Without immersion in God’s words, our prayers may not be merely limited and shallow but also untethered from reality. We may be responding not to the real God but to what we wish God and life to be like. Indeed, if left to themselves our hearts will tend to create a God who doesn’t exist. . . . Without prayer that answers the God of the Bible, we will only be talking to ourselves. (62)

So, we want our prayers to be prompted by and tethered to the intake of God’s word. “We would never produce the full range of biblical prayer if we were initiating prayer according to our own inner needs and psychology. It can only be produced if we are responding in prayer according to who God is as revealed in the Scripture” (60).

Not Just Truth but Jesus

Keller ends this blessed tenth chapter with Jesus himself as the chief focus of our meditation. Not only did the God-man delight in the word of God like the happy man of Psalm 1, but he himself is “the one to whom all the Scripture points” (163). As Christians, we learn to meditate both with him and on him.

In our reading and rereading and study and lingering over Scripture, we persist to know and enjoy not just truth but the Truth himself. For Christians, the final focus of our meditation is personal, and both perfectly human and fully divine in the person of Jesus Christ.

All Scripture is God-breathed . . .

This often-quoted Scripture about Scripture in 2 Timothy 3:16 gets a lot of attention today (and it should). Many fine defenses of the classical understanding of these three Greek words (pasa graphē theopneustos) have been published in recent decades. The God-inspired, or God-exhaled, nature of holy Scripture is worth receiving and defending and — as the rest of the verse reads — putting to use. Theorize and argue about it as we might, a second foot lands that makes this a strikingly practical text:

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness . . .

Take up Scripture, and use it, Paul writes. It is profitable, that is, valuable, beneficial, useful (Greek ōphelimos). We might even say it’s doubly useful — not only for those who are taught, reproved, corrected, and trained, but also for the teacher himself. That’s the purpose Paul gives: “. . . that the man of God (the teacher himself!) may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:17). Scripture not only profits the people; it equips the teachers. Christian pastors dare not feign to teach and preach to God’s people apart from using Scripture — with the kind of use (and not abuse) that God intends.

Are the Four in Order?

Now, ancient letter-writing was an expensive and time-consuming endeavor (we shouldn’t assume the kind of speed and carelessness with which we dash off emails today). Skilled craftsmen like Paul would thoughtfully plan and draft and rewrite and edit and proof their epistles before those words hit the Roman roads.

So, when an apostle lists a sequence like the last part of 2 Timothy 3:16 — “for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” — he means it. He thought of this list, ordered it, drafted it, reviewed it, and finalized it. The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament goes as far as to say that this is “obviously a planned sequence in this list of nouns.”
While guarding against over-reading the order, we can look for reasons why Paul chooses these particular words and arranges them like he does.

Let’s consider, then, this planned sequence for the pastoral use of Scripture in the local church. How might these specific activities clarify our calling and practice as pastor-teachers?

First and Foremost: Teach

It’s no surprise that Paul would begin with “teaching.”

Teaching is the distinctive, central labor of the pastor-elders in the life of the local church. The risen Christ gives his church its pastors and teachers (Ephesians 4:11), leaders who speak the word of God (Hebrews 13:7), overseers who not only exercise authority but do so mainly through teaching the gathered church (1 Timothy 2:12). Good pastor-elders “labor in preaching and teaching” (1 Timothy 5:17). The heart of their calling is not their own wisdom or life hacks or executive savvy, but feeding souls through teaching and preaching God’s word.

So, Paul takes a deep breath after verse 17 and then says, after a long, loaded preamble, “preach the word” (2 Timothy 4:2). And such pastoral preaching in the life of the local church is clearly bound up with teaching:

preach the word . . . reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching . . . (2 Timothy 4:2–3)

Let’s not miss the prevenient nature of Christian preaching and teaching: ideally, instruction in sound doctrine begins before the church encounters error. Preaching the word and teaching the Scriptures is steady-state, everyday Christian pastoral ministry. We feed the souls of the sheep on God’s words. His Scriptures are the green pastures and still waters to which good shepherds lead their flock. First comes faithful, heartful preaching and teaching, as daily bread and water; then comes the defense of the flock as various threats arise.

If the sequence of nouns in 2 Timothy 3:16 represents four distinct aspects of the pastoral use of Scripture, then it is hard to imagine another activity appearing first. Teaching is the pastors’ first and foremost call, and its coming first helps us to recognize what we might call a “didactic order” — a logical sequence here that lists teaching first, then rebuke, then correction, then training.

Next: Expose Error to Light

Appropriately, “reproof” comes next. Now the term is negative and responsive, complementing the positive and pro-active endeavor of teaching. However well the pastors teach their people, errors and deceptions inevitably emerge, often related to prevailing errors in the world (or overreactions to those errors) that find sympathy in the church. We Christians also have plenty of indwelling sin to originate our own errors as well. Every church and all Christians are susceptible to both innocent and culpable mistakes, in belief and practice, that need to be exposed to the light.

Pared with teaching, this reproof, says Gordon Fee, is “the other side of the task; [the pastor] must use Scripture to expose the errors of the false teachers and their teachings” (1 & 2 Timothy, Titus, 13). Exposing error to light, through words, is the heart of this second activity (John 3:20; Ephesians 5:11, 13). Good preaching and teaching exposes errors, yet without letting error set the agenda. Teaching is the tip of the spear — and the advancing spear divides truth from lies (and half-truths), and sheds fresh light on unlit nooks and crannies, enlightening darkened minds and convicting compromised hearts.

Pastoral exposition, then, not only exposes our people to the light by faithfully teaching Scripture; it also exposes remaining pockets of darkness in us and in our habits of life. And such exposure of error need not be combative or heavy-handed. Rather, like pastoral admonition (an even stronger term in the New Testament), reproof is familial. The apostle Paul says he wrote to the Corinthians not to shame them, but as a father to beloved children (1 Corinthians 4:14).

If even admonition is to be brotherly (2 Thessalonians 3:15), rather than adversarial (and works hand in hand with teaching, Colossians 1:28; 3:16), then wise shepherds, as fathers and brothers to the flock, will expose errors with the same hope, patience, and Christian grace they exercise in their teaching. The call to reprove is no license to sin, abandon self-control, or to draw attention to the teacher’s own smarts as the one who knows better.

Good pastors lovingly expose error — however gently or severely the situation requires (Titus 1:13; 2:14) — because we have a clear, objective, fixed standard of truth, outside ourselves. In a world of endless shades of gray, how could we presume to claim to say what’s in error and what’s not? Because we have and teach the Scriptures. Not our own abilities, but God’s written word. As Robert Yarbrough comments, “On what basis does any pastor stand in undertaking such a daunting responsibility? It is the Scriptures that furnish guidance and divine authority for servants of that word to perform this necessary function” (The Letters to Timothy and Titus, 687).

Then: Envision the Path Forward

So, back to the sequence. Let’s say God’s word is being taught, and along the way error is exposed — now what? Then follows “correction.”

Correction (Greek epanorthōsis) moves from ideas to actions, from exposing false teaching to envisioning godly living and tactical hope. Correction charts a course for healing, for restoration, for reformation, shining light on the path that is an escape from the dark. According to Yarbrough, “Pastors do not merely rebuke: they restore and point in corrective directions.” Correction, says Philip Towner, is “the activity that follows” rebuke.

Hebrews 12:13 captures it, using the same root word (orth-, meaning straight): “make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed.” Correction re-sets the broken bone, that it might properly heal. It’s a companion to reproof that “emphasizes the behavioral, ethical side” (Fee). While reproof brings error to light, correction directs sinners toward recovery. When errors come to light — when you realize, Oh no, I’ve been wrong! — correction is the next step.

Tactical as it is, such correction is no less than the full application of God’s grace in Christ — both outside of us in Christ and his work, and in us through his indwelling Spirit. God’s word both announces his forgiveness of our exposed sins, and summons us to practical holiness, empowered by the Spirit. Christian teaching of God’s full word prompts sinners to cast themselves on mercy, and learn to stand and walk in grace as well.

Finally: Train Them to Live Well

Last of the four, and a fitting conclusion to the didactic sequence, is training — a freighted concept in the ancient world and New Testament (Greek paideia). Not merely verbal, but tactical, this “corresponds to correcting, as its positive side” (Fee). Training involves conditioning the inner person through “inculcating the acts and habits that will reflect God’s own character (his ‘righteousness’) in relationship with his people” (Yarbrough, 688).

As Jesus spoke about his disciples being trained during their time with him (Matthew 13:52; Luke 6:40), so we mean to disciple our people toward Christian maturity. And maturity, in any sphere of human life, does not come automatically, but through intentional conditioning (Hebrews 5:14). Discipling actually does something; it changes the disciple, it reshapes the soul and its patterns of thought and delights — and greatly so over time. And such training is typically not easy but requires persisting in moments of discomfort, even pain, to endure on the path toward the reward set before us (Hebrews 12:11).

Training doubtless includes what we might more narrowly call discipline (Hebrews 12:3–11), even as we note well the difference between discipline as a means and punishment as an end (1 Corinthians 11:32). The whole process of pastoral training is comprehensive and constructive, not just responsive. It’s holistic, not just intellectual.

This training in righteousness — in righteous living, Christian behavior — begins in our teaching, but doesn’t end with our words. To train our people, we pastors must be among them, and have our people among us (1 Peter 5:1–2). Together as pastoral teams, we teach the church how to live from Scripture and then model Christian conduct in everyday life (1 Peter 5:3; Titus 2:7).

In the midst of caring for the whole flock — through teaching, counseling, and example — we also “entrust [the central truths] to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also” (2 Timothy 2:2). That is, we disciple and seek to invest in future leaders, vocational and nonvocational, who we hope will join us in the work and do the same. We labor to raise up men who will use God’s word well to teach, reprove, correct, and train in righteousness even long after we’re gone.

In the summer of 1962, a famous Swiss theologian named Karl Barth (1886–1968) made a celebrated seven-week trip to the United States. While here, he came in contact at a Chicago Q&A session with another Carl — Carl Henry (1913–2003), who was editor of Christianity Today.

Henry stood up, introduced himself, and asked Barth about “the historical factuality of the resurrection of Jesus.” Barth didn’t appreciate the question. He seemed to become angry, remembers Henry, and pointed at the editor and said, “Did you say Christianity Today or Christianity Yesterday?” “The audience — largely nonevangelical professors and clergy — roared with delight.” Then, once the room was quiet, Henry answered, in the words of Hebrews 13:8, “Yesterday, today, and forever.”

Verse 8 on the sameness of Jesus — his constancy, his immutability — is such a precious truth, and right at the heart of this final chapter of Hebrews.

Last week, we saw that chapter 12 culminated with verse 28:

Let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe.

Chapter 13 then follows under this banner of “acceptable worship.” And that word “acceptable” appears again in 13:15–16 as “pleasing” (same root in the Greek, euarest-):

Let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.

This section, from the end of chapter 12 through 13:16, is knit together as a vision for practical life that is pleasing to God. We might think of this sketch in chapter 13 as glimpses of how to please him.

Divine Pleasantness

But before we spend the rest of the message under this banner of pleasing God, let’s first put chapter 13 in the context of chapters 1–12. What has been the repeated refrain from the beginning of Hebrews? Jesus is better. Better than the angels. Better than Moses. Better than Joshua. Better than Aaron. And better than the first covenant and its place and priests and sacrifices. Jesus makes better promises and gives us better hope and a better country, and he is the better possession over all worldly possessions.

So, in saying, again and again, that Jesus is better, the message of the first 12 chapters has been: Jesus is pleasing. He is gain; he is better; he makes our souls happy with the very joy of the eternal God.

Jesus, as the second person of the triune God, shares in the infinite happiness and unshakable bliss of the Godhead. As we say in the Cities Church leadership affirmation:

God is supremely joyful in the fellowship of the Trinity, each Person beholding and expressing His eternal and unsurpassed delight in the all-satisfying perfections of the triune God.

This God is so blessed, so infinitely happy, so satisfied in himself, so full in his joy that he overflows in pleasure to create the world, and then, even more wondrously, to redeem his people from sin and death, by coming himself in the person of Christ as the true High Priest (chapters 5–7) and as the true sacrifice (chapters 8–10).

So, to this point, for 12 chapters, the refrain, in one sense, has been the pleasantness of Jesus — the very joy and blessedness of God himself, in himself, shared with us in and through Jesus and by his Spirit. And when our souls come to taste and enjoy the pleasantness and joy of God, and that Jesus is better than any standard of comparison, what do we want to do?

Well, for one, we want our lives to be pleasing to God. It pleases us to please him. Which does not mean that he’s a sad God whom we make happy. There is no sad God. To be God is to be infinitely happy, infinitely pleased, quite apart from us or anything else outside of him. But amazingly, he gives us the dignity of pleasing him, in some modest measures, as echoes of his own pleasantness. As C.S. Lewis says at the end of his sermon “The Weight of Glory,”

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

Hebrews 13 gives us a vision for this pleasing life — the Christian life, a life that is first pleased with God and then, in a real way, pleases God. So then, what does it look like to live such a life, pleased in God, believing that and enjoying that Jesus is better?

It’s captured here in six glimpses.

1. We express our joy out loud.

That is, we praise him. Lips of praise are an aspect of lives of worship. God is pleased by heartfelt words of praise. Verse 15:

Through him [that is, through Jesus] let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.

So, the God-pleasing life includes praise. We “acknowledge his name” with our mouths. We say out loud, “I’m a Christian. I love Jesus. I worship him. He is my Lord. He saved me. He is my Treasure. Jesus is better.” And we gather here weekly to “acknowledge his name” together.

We express our joy in Jesus both in professing our faith and in corporate praise. We clearly, publicly, unashamedly identify with and commend Jesus, and we make a habit of corporate worship, beginning each new week together, setting the tone, and re-consecrating ourselves to him with joyful praise. And lips that praise him lead to lives that please him.

2. We fight to free our hearts from money.

Even twenty centuries ago, Christians could not free their hands from money. Even Jesus was asked about the temple tax and miraculously produced a coin for himself and Peter.

We live in a physical world, with physical needs, served by coins and bills and credit cards that represent and transact value for the betterment of our lives and society. In this age, there’s no going without money. But what Hebrews warns about here is not money itself but “love of money.” Verses 5–6:

Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” So we can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?”

How do we use money without loving money? Through being content with what you have. Do you have modest food and clothing? Then, in an important sense, you can be content, as Paul says in 1 Timothy 6:8: “If we have food and clothing, with these we will be content.” That’s enough; it’s sufficient.

But then Hebrews gives us this remarkable personal reason to be content in the last part of verse 5: “For he has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’” In other words, don’t just be content with what you have, but with whom you have! Have another Love — a bigger one, a deeper one, a love that relativizes the pull of money on your heart. In Jesus Christ, we have God. If you have Jesus, you have God himself as your great possession. And he says he will never leave nor forsake you. If you have God, what more could you need? To have God is to have everything you ultimately need. The clock is ticking on every material possession and dollar.

Verse 5 gets right to the bottom of this chapter, to the joy and pleasantness and blessedness that upholds and energizes this whole practical vision: in Jesus, God will never leave us nor forsake us. As long as you don’t abandon Jesus, God will not abandon you (and he works in us so that we won’t abandon Jesus, Hebrews 13:21). “So we can confidently say, ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?’” Which relates not only to verse 5 but also to verses 1–3.

3. We love and serve others.

We could say so much under this heading about these verses. For now, let me just address this in sum.

Joy in Jesus does not lead to turning in on ourselves, to isolating ourselves and neglecting the needs of others, or to just sitting around endlessly by ourselves enjoying the glory of Christ. Rather, being pleased with his pleasantness leads to our wanting to please others with his pleasantness. Or, we might say, from our fullness of joy in Jesus, we do good for others; we share; we love. Verses 1–3 and 16:

Let brotherly love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body. . . . Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.

4. We prize marriage.

So, there are four kinds of love in verses 1–4: brother-love, stranger-love, sympathy (or compassion), and marital love. And let me just say, verse 4 is for all of us. It says, “among all.” This is relevant for all, married and single, old and young. And so, ask yourself, What does this mean for me? How do I hold marriage in honor? Are there ways in which I’m tempted to not hold marriage in honor? What’s your heart’s default perspective on marriage? Salvation? Fear of commitment? Pain? Annoyance? Verse 4:

Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.

First, let’s be clear about the second half of verse 4 — in case what was once obvious for all Christians may no longer be so among some. Earlier this year, a congresswoman from South Carolina, who professes to be a Christian, made a few comments from the podium, at a Christian prayer breakfast, about her live-in fiancé that made it clear they were sexually immoral. She was joking about it, totally clueless about verse 4.

So, let there be no confusion here about verse 4. If there was any confusion about it, be confused no more. We have come to verse 4. And it’s not the first time we’ve seen this Hebrews. In 12:15–16, we are given several “see to its.” The third one is, “See to it . . . that no one is sexually immoral” (same word, pornos).

But I want to linger over the first part of verse 4, which is an even higher bar of application for each of us. The first part includes the second part and more: “Let marriage be held in honor among all.” So, ask yourself, What would it mean for me to hold marriage in honor?

And to get even more specific, the word translated honor here is typically understood in a more affectionate way: highly valued, or prized, or precious. Like 1 Peter 1:19: “the precious blood of Christ.” Or 2 Peter 1:4: “He has granted to us his precious and very great promises.”

So, hear verse 4 like this: “Let marriage be precious among all.” Let it be highly valued. Let it be prized. Among husbands and wives. Among unmarried and widows. Among children and teens. And this doesn’t entail any devaluing of singles or widows or children. So, consider how you talk about marriage. Is it the butt of jokes? The old ball and chain? Most comedy routines have a section on marriage, and men and women. I get it. Some of it can be funny, and a way of enjoying God’s plainly different design in men and women. And some of it reveals a heart that does not highly value marriage and does not shape us, as we laugh, to highly value marriage.

We honor marriage and God’s idea and design by prizing it in our minds and hearts and words and obedience.

5. We seek the better city.

This may be the most countercultural of all, especially in a day when our world is so focused on “the immanent frame” — that is, what we can see and hear and touch and smell and taste.

Verse 14 is not the first mention of city in chapters 11 and 12. We have already heard about looking to the city to come:

11:10: Abraham “was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.”
11:14–16: “People who speak thus [acknowledging they are strangers and exiles] make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. . . . They desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one.”
Then the seven glories of Mount Zion that are not only to come but also already ours, in some sense, by faith — 12:22: “You have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.”
Then 13:14: “Here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.”

There is, in Christianity, a principled liberation from the immanent frame, from this world. Clearly that doesn’t mean we don’t love each other and love strangers and show sympathy to the mistreated and prize marriage. We don’t neglect to do good or share what we have — such sacrifices are pleasing to God. But in it all, above it all, beneath it all, we are not finally at home here — which frees us to love and serve our earthly city and neighbors. We seek the city that is to come. “Our citizenship is in heaven,” Paul says in Philippians 3:20.

This is such an important reminder as 2023 draws to a close, because next year is 2024. And 2024 is an election year in this country. And in an election year, some otherwise seemingly sober-minded people lose their heads. But as we orient on our here-and-now city (the polis, and its politics), Christians, in principle, are those who say, “Here we have no lasting city. We seek the better city, the heavenly city that is to come” — which frees us to love and serve here, and not “get ours” here and now.

Which leaves verses 7 and 17.

6. We thank God and pray for our leaders.

Again, we find a very different approach than what’s on offer and assumed in the world regarding leaders. First, verse 17:

Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.

So, we might say, the pursuit of joy is critical in a healthy dynamic between church leaders and their people.

Here’s how it works: first, Christian leaders aspire to the office and desire good work (1 Timothy 3:1). They want to do it. From joy, they set out in joy, to work for the people’s joy in Jesus. So, they seek to persuade the people, convince them, and win their hearts with the word of God. They do not demand raw obedience.

“Obey” here comes from a word (Greek pethō) that typically means to convince, or persuade, or make confident, or win trust. This is essentially what it means in its three other uses in Hebrews, including the next verse: “Pray for us, for we are sure [convinced, confident, persuaded] that we have a clear conscience” (Hebrews 13:18; also 2:13 and 6:9).

Second, then, the people, if they are spiritually healthy, want to be led by worthy leaders. They’re eager to be taught, eager to be persuaded from the word, eager to be convinced. They have a disposition to yield to and receive worthy leadership, and being so won, they gladly submit — that is, congregants to the leaders (plural, together; we are not here talking about the gathered body in a congregational meeting, or congregants to individual elders in informal contexts). And in this disposition, wise Christians know that it will be to their own advantage and gain if their leaders labor with joy and not with groaning. This doesn’t mean that it’s the church’s job to make the pastors happy. And it also means it’s not the church’s job to make the pastors miserable.

The healthiest dynamic in the church is leaders that don’t presume submission but seek to persuade and win the congregation from the heart, and a congregation that isn’t just willing, but eager, to be led and persuaded by the leadership.

Yesterday and Today

Verse 17 relates to present leaders; verse 7 to past leaders. We finish with verse 7:

Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.

He says “your leaders” spoke to you God’s word. In Christianity, good leaders teach, and good teachers, in time, come to lead. The authority for Christian leadership comes from the Word — from Jesus, his gospel, the Scriptures — not ourselves or elsewhere. We are people of the Book; our leaders are to be men of the Book, who teach and lead from the Book.

And their words and their way of life go together: they not only speak the word but model a way of life, and a way of finishing their course, that validates their words. Words and way belong together. Words give meaning to way of life. And way of life models and confirms words.

But Hebrews doesn’t say to imitate their “way of life.” Rather, “imitate their faith.” Remember that these are past leaders, not present. A new generation has come, with its own challenges. The new generation encounters (slightly) different circumstances and contexts than those before them (times do change, though it’s easy to over-anticipate this and overstate it). Situations change, and the particular expressions of love required may vary, but imitate their faith. Why? Because faith focuses on its object — who is the same yesterday and today.

So above all, imitate this about your leaders: they followed Jesus. They leaned on him, trusted him, looked to him, and staked everything on him. And Jesus proved himself reliable and steady and trustworthy to them. And so he will be to us. From one generation to the next to the next. He is the same yesterday (for those who came before us) and today (for us).

On its own, sameness is not glorious. Satan is the father of lies and has always been the father of lies. That sameness is a disgrace, not glorious. But if someone tells the truth, and is the Truth, then his enduring “sameness” accentuates and sweetens the glory of truth-telling.

And when someone — namely, Jesus — is better than any standard of comparison, the question remains, Will that change? He may have proven himself to be enough for the generation before us. But will he be enough for us? To that, Hebrews says he is the same yesterday and today — gloriously the same, constant, steady, immutable, unchangeable. And then he adds, and forever. To the ages. In every generation to come.

What’s underneath this whole chapter is that Jesus is better (as Hebrews has argued) and that will not change. He is not only better right now. He will always be better. He will not lose his better-ness, and so we will not lose our grounds for joy, for being pleased in God, and living to please him.

And so we come to the Table.

Feed at the Altar

Verse 10 mentions an altar: “We have an altar from which those who serve the tent [the priests of the old covenant] have no right to eat.” This altar is not first and foremost the Lord’s Table, as if Hebrews is saying, the Jews have their food, and we have ours.

When verse 10 says, “We have an altar,” it means the sacrifice and blood of Jesus. He is our altar. He died to make us holy and happy. We are not strengthened by ritual foods, but our hearts are strengthened by grace (Hebrews 13:9). And this Table is an expression and application of the true altar that is the cross of Christ and his body and blood.

We live in a world awash in words. The competition for your attention, your eyes, and your headspace — and that through your earspace — has never been more aggressive and ruthless. Our modern lives teem with digital and analog voices vying for our limited focus. They clamor for our money, our time, our energy, our love, our worship.

Oh, the countless, incessant voices of modern life, and with them, the unnerving lack of silence! Voices in the air, voices in print, the cacophony of voices that accompany and empower the endless scrolls and reels of images on our screens, moving and stationary. Yes, we are flooded in visuals as well, but our pixels do not thrive in silence. Even as loneliness becomes epidemic, few of the lonely know true silence and solitude.

In such times and spaces as ours, and at such an occasion as a new year, how might we learn to better drown out the remote, digital voices that have so few messages of importance for us, and better hear the near, precious, embodied voices? And in particular, what if the voice of Jesus carried the most weight of all?

Hear His Voice

Jesus says that his sheep will hear his voice (John 10:3), know his voice (John 10:4), and listen to his voice (John 10:16). As they read and reread and meditate on his word in Scripture, his people, illumined by his living and active Spirit, hear the voice of their living and active King, seated in power on the throne of the universe.

In his living and active word, they hear — we hear — his voice roar like many waters (Revelation 1:15) and console like the chords of many harps (Revelation 14:2). We hear his majestic voice thunder like a trumpet (Revelation 1:10), slicing through foes like a two-edged sword from his mouth (Revelation 1:16), and we hear him patiently, gently stand at the door and knock (Revelation 3:20), ready to perform the most exacting of life-saving surgeries with his verbal scalpel.

The very voice that said, “Lazarus, come out” (John 11:43), and cried aloud from the cross (Matthew 27:46, 50) — and one day will announce, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man” (Revelation 21:3) — this very voice continues to speak, even in 2024, through his written word and by the Spirit.

What might it mean for the voice of Jesus to genuinely be first in our lives? More than podcasts and radio and Spotify. More than television and movies. More than the voices on ESPN and Saturday Night Live and cable news and YouTube. More than the talking heads and hot takes of online influencers and endless political drivel.

What might it mean to really put his voice first?

First in Delight

Start with the heart. Our goal and deepest prayer is that we, like John the Baptist, would be among the friends who rejoice greatly at our bridegroom’s voice (John 3:29). This joy is what we aim at, long-term, with the fresh resolves and prayers of a new year: a better-conditioned heart, the slowly and stubbornly re-formed frame of our soul’s plasticity.

How often do we hear Christians concede (sometimes as a veiled excuse) to be “wired” a certain way? Indeed, there are some ways you’re wired. But often we talk about being hardwired in ways we’re actually far more plastic. And society’s not helping us with this. Our world has come to feign plasticity in precisely the places we’re hardwired (like biological sex) and to pretend hard-wiring in the places we’re plastic (desires and delights).

Mark this well for a new year: your desires, good and bad, are not givens. Now, you may not, in the moment, simply be able to will yourself into some specific delight, or disgust, but you can retrain your palate over time. In fact, with each passing day, you’re either solidifying and deepening your heart in its present desires and delights, or retraining it for different ones (Romans 6:19; 12:2).

So, this, among other designs, is what we aim at with new-year resolves and prayers: reshaping, reconditioning, retraining our hearts, to delight in what’s truly delightful (and so find appropriate disgust in what is truly disgusting). We seek to acquire new tastes, holy ones. And there is no person, and no voice, more worthy of our supreme delight than the voice of Jesus.

First in Deference

Next, as Jesus’s voice becomes the one we delight in most, so his voice comes to have greater functional authority and power in our lives. We grow in applying, and complying with, his word. Despite our old instincts as sinners, “in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation” (Philippians 2:15), we learn to defer to Jesus’s voice in Scripture over the chorus of other voices, including our own.

In times when many play fast and loose with truth in public, we might well rally afresh to truth even without bending our eyes and ears more attentively to the word of Christ. But as Jesus said to Pilate, “Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice” (John 18:37).

Are you really “of the truth”? Do you truly, practically, habitually listen to the voice of Jesus, and defer to his word, over your own preferences and partisan peers, when he says, on the one hand, “God made them male and female” (Mark 10:6), or on the other, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you” (Luke 6:27)?

Do you hear him speak, and obey accordingly, when he says through his apostles that those who practice homosexuality will not inherit the kingdom (1 Corinthians 6:9; 1 Timothy 1:10), nor those who revile (1 Corinthians 6:10)? “Let marriage be held in honor” (Hebrews 13:4). Amen. And, next verse, “keep your life free from love of money” (Hebrews 13:5). Amen. On the one hand, “No longer walk as the Gentiles do” (Ephesians 4:17); on the other, walk “with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit” (Ephesians 4:2–3).

Deferring to the voice of Jesus will scarcely make us fit nicely into the secular parties of this generation. It will keep us on holy footing, rather than careening right or left with the swell of preferred voices. It will keep us from really finding a homeland here with the many faces of unbelief. The words of Jesus will be goads, on every side, to keep us from subtle worldly traps that would domesticate us to cities here (or prairies here), rather than to the city that is to come.

First Each Day

Finally, such delight and deference to Jesus’s voice will lead to a growing sense of need, and joy, to make his word a clear, objective, demonstrable priority in our lives — and that at the daily level.

I’m not interested here in suggesting any new laws about all true Christians doing morning devotions. Far and away, the testimony of saints throughout the centuries has celebrated the priority of starting the day, and setting the day’s mood and trajectory, with the voice of Jesus, but I can grant a few exceptions in some seasons of life.

Whatever we may claim about our bent or wiring, what we do first in the morning is telling. In some good measure, it reveals the priorities of our souls.

Strangely, most of us do go looking for words when we wake up, however consciously. This might be one of the things God has wired deeply in our human souls, to wake up looking for direction and nourishment, not just physical but spiritual. Tragically, many turn their morning hunger to notifications and news, to social media and news, to video clips and news. Some also turn to news.

But this hunger of soul you awake with every morning is not designed to feed on today’s news but on timeless good news. And that not just through our own rehearsals of gospel truths remembered from previous encounters, but through fresh communion with the God of the gospel, in his Son, by his Spirit, through his written word.

Now, “first each day” doesn’t mean “first only,” as if we might start with giving our attention to Jesus, then move on and scarcely ever have his person and voice return to our consciousness. We want his voice to abide, that is, remain, in us all day, not just in the morning (John 5:38; 8:31; 15:7; 1 John 2:14). So, we might ask about last each day as well. And in the middle. After all, that happy man of Psalm 1, whose “delight is in the law of the Lord,” not only seizes the mornings but “meditates day and night” (Psalm 1:2).

Resolved

Perhaps you’d resolve this with me for the new year: to put the voice of Jesus first. First in delight, first in deference, first each day. First in preference, in power, in priority.

Let’s resolve to have the very voice of God almighty, through his eternal Son, by the Spirit, in Scripture, dominate and liberate this new year. Through Bible reading, rereading, and meditation. Through sitting attentively under faithful preaching. Through committed engagement in the life of the church, with the people of the Book.

Resolved: to put the voice of Jesus first in 2024.