When Jesus went to the cross for you, you were not worth dying for. It wasn’t something in you that convinced him to bear the nails, the thorns, the wrath.

We’ve heard so much about his real and wondrous love for us that we might forget his love is wondrous precisely because we were not. Because, when he set his loving eyes on us, we were corrupt, defiant, repulsive. We were the treacherous wife prostituting herself out and then spending the husband’s money on other lovers. We should have been swallowed by holy rage, not by his mercy.

And yet he died for us, even us. “While we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. . . . God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:6, 8). Do you know that God loved you before there was anything in you to love? Do you know that Christ died for you when you were still at your worst, when your black heart had wandered its furthest and hardened near to cracking?

Good Friday bids us to stop and remember just how sinful we were — just how bleak it was for us before that darkest day in history — and to remember the wild and tenacious love with which we’ve been loved.

While You Were Weak

While we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. (Romans 5:6)

When Jesus went to the cross for you, you were weak — and not a little tired or flawed, but lame and helpless. Incapacitated. This word for weak is the same word used for the crippled man whom Peter and John met on their way to the temple in Acts 3. He was lame from birth, and had to be carried to the temple gate every day so that he could beg for enough to survive another day. That’s the kind of weak you were when Jesus found you.

In fact, Jesus died only for weak people. “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick,” he warned those who thought themselves strong. “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance” (Luke 5:31–32). “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong” (1 Corinthians 1:27). He loves whom he loves to show us just how shortsighted all our “wisdom” really is and to expose the sickly frailty of our so-called “strength.”

While You Were Wicked

God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)

You were not only weak and helpless, however, but also thoroughly wicked. Your heart was deceitful and desperately sick (Jeremiah 17:9). Can you see that kind of darkness in your former self? Even your very best deeds were as filthy rags, because they were polluted with selfishness and pride. “Whatever does not proceed from faith is sin” (Romans 14:23). Everything you thought or said or did was an act of defiance. “Terribly black must that guilt be,” J.C. Ryle observes, “for which nothing but the blood of the Son of God could make satisfaction” (Holiness, 8–9).

“When Jesus went to the cross for you, you were not worth dying for.”

“Do not be deceived,” the apostle warns us. “Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 6:9–10). And lest we think he has other, especially wicked people in mind, he says in the next verse, “And such were some of you” (1 Corinthians 6:11). All of that nasty, ugly evil was who you were, at least some of you.

And who you were was who Christ came to save. “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15).

While You Were Hostile

If while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. (Romans 5:10)

In our wickedness, we sinned not just against the laws of God, but against God himself. All of our sinfulness was (and is) intensely personal. Your life apart from Christ was one prolonged act of divine hostility.

When King David slept with another man’s wife, impregnated her, and then had her husband murdered, notice how he confesses his sin to God: “I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight” (Psalm 51:3–4). How could he say that? What about Bathsheba? What about righteous Uriah? What about the precious infant son who died because of his sin?

His prayer doesn’t diminish the awful sins he committed against the husband, the wife, the child — he sinned grievously against each — but it reminds us that the greatest offense in any sin is the offense against God. As awful as adultery and murder are at a human level, they’re a thousand times worse at a heavenly one. To be an unforgiven sinner, even a polite, socially acceptable sinner, is to be “alienated and hostile in mind” (Colossians 1:21).

And yet, while you were hostile, Christ died for you. In love, he walked directly into the arms of your animosity and bore its curse for you on the cross. He made his perverse and ruthless enemies his friends, his own brothers.

While You Were Dead

You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked. (Ephesians 2:1–2)

You were not merely weak and wicked and hostile, though. You were dead. Sure, you may have been moving and breathing and eating and talking, but in all the ways that matter most, you were empty, barren, cold. You weren’t gasping for air or hanging on in a coma. The doctor had called it. And while you were lying in your lifeless blood, Jesus stopped beside you. And he not only stopped, but he chose to bleed and die so that you might stand up and live. Christ took the awful thing that killed you — your sin — and then breathed his own life and joy into your unmoving heart.

“Do you know that God loved you before there was anything in you to love?”

Who would die for a dead man? The one who died for you. Who would die for his enemy? The one who died for you. Who would die for a sinner? The one who died for you. He found you at your very worst, saw all of you at your very worst, and then he made himself your worst, so that in him you might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21).

There Is a Remedy

One reason we lack the depth, faith, and joy we long to experience is that we fail to confront the sinfulness of sin — specifically, the sinfulness of our own sin. When Ryle wrote his classic book on holiness, he believed he had to begin here, with our weakness, wickedness, hostility, and ruin:

Dim or indistinct views of sin are the origin of most of the errors, heresies, and false doctrines of the present day. If a man does not realize the dangerous nature of his soul’s disease, you cannot wonder if he is content with false or imperfect remedies. (Holiness, 1)

Why do people wander after false gods and false gospels? Because they don’t take sin seriously enough. If they saw sin for what it is — crippling our souls, corrupting and twisting our minds, seeding hostility, and breeding death — then they would see that the cross is the only cure. Then they would find in Jesus a God more lovely than they are wicked, more alive than they are dead, more forgiving than they are guilty.

There is a remedy revealed for man’s need, as wide and broad and deep as man’s disease. We need not be afraid to look at sin, and study its nature, origin, power, extent, and vileness, if we only look at the same time at the Almighty medicine provided for us in the salvation that is in Christ Jesus. (Holiness, 12)

So, this Good Friday, look deeply again into the awful weight of sin — and then look even more deeply into the loving eyes of the sinless Man of Sorrows, crucified and crushed for you.

A few weeks ago, my seven-year-old informed me that he wanted to be eight — but not any older than that. “Buddy, why don’t you want to be any older than that?” I asked. “Well, because when you get old, you die.” Fair enough. Eight seemed safe and exciting enough, I guess (he has some eight-year-olds in his class), but nine — now nine was a different story. Who knows what might happen then? Better stick with eight.

It’s a sobering thing, isn’t it, to watch your children begin to wrestle with a reality like death (and then to force you, as a dad or mom, to try and explain something like death). I think our verses this morning are a great help to dads and moms (and teenagers and twenty-somethings and sixty-somethings) in answering the biggest questions we ever ask. What’s going to happen when we die? What does it mean to really live?

A couple of years ago, on June 28, 2021, my (then) 64-year-old dad had a heart attack. I’ll never forget the moments I spent beside his hospital bed that week, as he waited for quadruple-bypass surgery. I felt my own mortality, watching the strongest man I’d ever known now fighting for his life. I know some of you have experienced this. When you’re growing up, Dad is the embodiment of strength, almost immortal. I mean what can’t Dad do? A toy breaks? Oh, Dad will fix it. Want to know what makes an airplane fly? Dad will know that. My three-year-old’s been worried that skunks are going to get into her room at night (longer story there), but I’ve said to her, “Honey, I promise, Daddy won’t let any skunks in your room.” And she believes me! Because I’m Daddy.

And then dads grow older, and their arteries fail — or they get really sick, or their minds begin to go. Slowly, they’re a little less superhero, and a little more human. And in the process, we realize just how human we are.

By God’s grace, my dad’s doing really well, but I thought of him leading up to this message because our conversations over these last couple of years (one in particular) remind me of these verses. He told me that he’s more aware than ever that every day he has is a day he’s been given for Christ, that however many days he has left — whether hundreds or thousands or just one — he wants them to honor Jesus. My dad came close enough to death to be able to remind his son how to live.

And that’s what we have in Philippians 1:19–26: we have a man, a spiritual father, who has come close enough to death that he’s able to tell us (whether we’re 8 or 38 or 68) how to live and die well.

The Happy, Driving Passion

As we’ve learned over the last several weeks, Paul wrote this letter from prison in Rome. The situation’s serious enough that his friends in Philippi are worried if they’ll ever see him again. And on top of the dangers and hardships of his imprisonment, he had enemies (even in the church) trying to make things even worse for him.

“Death, for believers, is better than life because death finally gives us Christ.”

I don’t want it to be lost on us over these next few months in Philippians that the most joy-filled letter in the New Testament was written in horrible circumstances. That tells us something, doesn’t it, about how much joy we can expect to experience even on our hardest days. Look how joyful he is even now, even in prison! And they tell us about how much we can still help others enjoy Jesus — even on our hardest days.

As Pastor Jonathan showed us last week, Paul responds to all of this — imprisonment, mistreatment, betrayal — in an otherworldly way, because he had a different passion than the world. And what was that passion? The glory of God magnified through the advance of the gospel. That passion is why he can rejoice while his enemies preach Christ (verses 15–18). That’s why he can rejoice even while he sits in prison (verses 12–14). That’s why he prays like he does (verses 9–11). That passion is why his love for these people runs deeper and richer than many of our relationships (verses 3–8). And now, in our verses this morning, he’s going to tell us about that passion. He leans in, after all of that, as if to say, Do you want the secret? “To live is Christ, and to die is gain.”

What Kind of Deliverance?

Our passage begins in verses 18–19:

Yes, and I will rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance.

Now, right away, what kind of deliverance do you think he’s talking about? What’s he going to be delivered from? Is he talking about deliverance from prison (which is what we probably assume) — or is he talking about some other kind of deliverance?

Let’s keep reading: “I know that . . . this will turn out for my deliverance, as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death” (verses 19–20). Why do I expect that all of this will turn out for my deliverance? He doesn’t go on to talk about judges changing their minds, or about him developing some goodwill with the jailers, or about a large group of Christians putting together a petition.

“No,” he says, “I’m confident this will turn out for my deliverance because I’m confident that, whether I live or die, Christ will be honored in me.” That phrase — “whether by life or by death” — is the biggest reason I don’t think he’s talking mainly about being delivered from prison. He can’t die in prison and be delivered from prison. “I might die here in prison,” he’s saying, “but I’ll still be delivered. Even if I’m never released from these chains, I’ll still be set free.” How could that be? How could he be delivered without being delivered?

I think that question is massively relevant for us, because some of you are praying for deliverance right now. Not from prison (because you’re here) — but what you’re suffering might feel worse than prison some days. Intense, prolonged conflict with someone you love. Hostility where you work. Cancer. A child who’s walked away from the faith — and maybe from you. By the end of this sermon, I’m praying that you’ll be able to say, to anyone who cares about you, “Yes, and I will rejoice, for I know that this pain, this conflict, this cancer will turn out for my deliverance” — not mainly because the pain might finally let up in this life, or because the relationship will necessarily get better, or because the cancer will go into remission, but because I believe my life, and my suffering, and even my death will say something true and beautiful and loud about how much Jesus means to me. About how much he’s done for me. About how much I’m dying to go and spend the rest of my life with him.

What kind of deliverance is Paul expecting? Not mainly deliverance from prison (although, as we’ll see, he clearly expects that too). No, deliverance from spiritual ruin, from the intense temptations that come with suffering, from walking away from Christ. “I’m confident I will be delivered,” he says, “because I’m confident that, whether I live or die, Christ will look great — and that’s all I really want.”

“I count everything as loss,” he’ll say in chapter 3, “because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him” (3:8–9). That’s what deliverance looks like, the most important kind of deliverance, the kind we all need, especially when suffering comes.

These next verses, then, are a mural of the delivered life — the life freed from self and sin and death, and filled with Jesus. Again, they teach us how to live and die well: “I know that . . . Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death.” Verse 21: “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” We know that verse, and we think we get it — but do we really get it? Could you explain it to a seven-year-old? These next verses help us see both sides of this precious, life-altering (and death-altering) verse.

To Die Is Gain

Let’s start with death, though, with the second half of the verse: “I know that . . . Christ will be honored in my body . . . by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” How is Christ honored in a dying person’s body? Our death honors Christ, he says, when we begin to see our death not as loss — not as the end, not as defeat, not ultimately as a tragedy — but as gain.

So how could Paul look at death, even a death alone in horrible circumstances, and see victory, see reward? The next verses take us deeper. Beginning now in verse 22: “If I am to live in the flesh” — to live is Christ — “that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.”

“Jesus is not just the only way to heaven; he is what makes heaven worth wanting.”

Now, of course, Paul doesn’t really get to choose. “Which of you by being anxious,” Jesus asks, “can add a single hour to his span of life?” (Luke 12:25). Paul’s not actually choosing life or death here; he’s just letting us see what he wants. “I am hard pressed between the two,” he says. “A big part of me wants to stay and live a little longer here with you” — and we’ll see why in a minute — “but if I’m honest, I’d rather go home. I’m so ready to feel my last aches and pains, to have my last hard conversations, to wipe away my last tears. More than anything, though, I’m so ready to finally, at last, see him, to set aside this old, foggy mirror and look at him face-to-face: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace in the flesh — the seeable, huggable, high-five-able God. To get to know him, to know Jesus, as well as he’s known me all these years (1 Corinthians 13:12).

“Oh, how badly I want to stay,” Paul’s saying, “and help you see more clearly, and understand more deeply, and love more fully, and obey more joyfully, but it will be so much better for me if this apostle left you (for now) and went on to be a kindergartner, a beginner, in glory.”

Better Than This World’s Best

Notice, he doesn’t diminish the goodness of this earthly life. From an earthly perspective, Paul’s life wasn’t all that great (it was horrible) when he wrote these verses — and he still wanted to stay. God has filled this broken, sinful world with people and pleasures and experiences — with really good gifts — that hint at heaven and help us long for heaven. I have three small kids, and there are moments every week when I stop and think, I just want this to last forever. (There are plenty of other moments when I think, When will this ever end? But there are so many moments I want to hold onto.) When we tickle them and they giggle until they cry. When they say certain words really wrong. When they learn how to do something for the first time, and then do that same thing a thousand times every day for a week. When they come, snuggle up next to you, and tell you they love you for no reason at all.

Having a Philippians 1:21 heart doesn’t mean you despise the God-given joys and giggles of life on earth — it means you realize that another life’s coming, another world, one that’s better than this one, even at its best. And not better by a little, but better by far. “My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better” (verse 23).

And what’s the better? It’s not weeks without work or years without taxes. It’s not endless tee times on the golf course or more girls nights with your best friends. It’s not your favorite foods at your favorite restaurants (and you never have to wait or pay). (I, for one, by the way, believe all of that will happen in heaven, and that it’s all going to be better than we can even begin to think or imagine. Believe me, nothing you enjoy here is going to get worse in heaven.) He tells us what the best better will be, though, in the same verse: “My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.” He puts a face to the gain. Death, for believers, is better than life because it’s death that finally gives us Christ — all of Christ, with all our senses, meeting all our needs and satisfying all our lingering, gnawing desires. He is our gain.

In college, I read a paragraph that I’ll never forget. It still haunts me, in the very best way. It goes like this:

Christ did not die to forgive sinners who go on treasuring anything above seeing and savoring God. And people who would be happy in heaven if Christ were not there, will not be there. The gospel is not a way to get people to heaven; it is a way to get people to God. (God Is the Gospel, 47)

I still remember where I was on campus when I read that chapter. It felt like I had stumbled into a land I had never seen before, an ocean I’d never sailed before, a favorite meal I’d never tasted before. I really believe those were the moments when God became heaven for me. When he was no longer the God who makes heaven, or who lets sinners like me into heaven, but the God who himself is what makes heaven heaven — that he would always be (even after thousands and thousands of years) the best part of living there. This Jesus is not just the only way to heaven; he really is what makes heaven worth wanting. He is the great meal. He’s the ocean. He is the treasure hidden in the field and the pearl of great price.

Doorway to Deepest Gain

And if that’s true — if we really think that way — how awesome will he look when we die? While everyone around us in the hospital clings to the last days they have here — while they scramble to try and make it to a couple more things on their bucket lists — we’re going to be the really strange people who have this deep and abiding peace, who talk about how much better life’s about to get, who feel free to spend the last days and hours we have on other people and their needs, who still smile even through horrible pain. We’re going to be the strange and beautiful people who use our last breaths — on the hospital bed, in hospice care, covered in wires and monitors — to sing. When we die like that, what will that say about Jesus? You know if you’ve ever seen a saint die well. In those moments, Jesus looks more valuable than anything life could ever give — or that death could ever take. Don’t you want to die like that?

As we turn to the first half of verse 21, then, I want us to see the relationship between these two phrases: “to live is Christ” and “to die is gain.” We’re about to see what “to live is Christ” means as a way of life — what strange people like this does with the weeks and months and years they have. But before we even get to that, to the kinds of things they do, we’re already seeing who they are — we’re seeing their heart, their passion. You see, the kind of people who honor Christ with their life will always be the kind of person who sees death as better than this life. They glorify God with their life because they want Jesus more than life. I first learned this, like many of you, from John Piper: “God is most glorified in us — in life and death, in joys and sorrows, in marriage and parenting and singleness — when we are most satisfied in him.” God will be most glorified in our lives when death is gain, when we know that the day we die will be the greatest day we’ve ever lived — yet.

To Live Is Christ

Now, in the next couple verses, he turns to explain “to live is Christ.” How does he explain that? He’s already said, in verse 22, “If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me.” Fruitful labor — that’s the first part of our answer. But what does “fruitful labor” actually mean?

He goes on to tell us: “My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account” (verses 23–24). It would be better, far better, to go and be with Jesus, but I’m convinced it’s more necessary, for now, that I stay and keep laboring among you. And what is the labor? What does he need to stay and do for them?

Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all, for your progress and joy in the faith. (verse 25)

The fruitful labor Paul stays to do is to work for others’ progress and joy in the faith. He stays to help them grow in their faith in Jesus (progress), and to help them find greater joy in that faith. If we live for another day or month or year, it’s because someone needs help believing in and enjoying Jesus. That’s how Paul thinks about his life — and yours. This is why you’re alive: to help someone else keep believing in Jesus. Do you think about your life that way? Do you look at your days, or weeks, or decades of life as a gift God has given you to give other people God? To live is Christ — to hold up Christ for one another.

But what does it really mean, practically, to live for someone else’s “progress and joy in the faith”? Does Paul give us any hints about what we’re supposed to actually do? He gives us lots of hints. His letters are filled with this kind of life. But we’ll limit ourselves to just Philippians for now. What does it look like to live for one another’s “progress and joy in the faith”?

It looks like praying for one another, and especially for each other’s souls (1:9–11).
It looks like calling one another to obey Christ, to live a life worthy of the gospel (1:27).
It looks like meeting practical needs for one another, as this church did for Paul (4:14).
It looks like honoring one another, as Paul honors Epaphroditus (2:29).
Sometimes it looks like warning one another: “Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh” (3:2).
It looks like reconciling believers with one another when there’s conflict or division, as Paul does in 4:2: “I entreat Euodia and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord.”
It looks like reminding one another of heaven: “Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body” (3:20–21).
It looks like, get this, just having more conversations about Jesus.

Any of you can do all those things. These aren’t things only apostles do, or even things only pastors do; these are things Christians get to do for one another. We live, for however long we live, for one another’s progress and joy in the faith — to live is Christ.

Paul strikes one more note here, in verses 25–26: “I know that I will remain and continue with you all, for your progress and joy in the faith, so that in me you may have ample cause to glory in Christ Jesus, because of my coming to you again.” “If I live,” he’s saying, “I want to give more reasons to worship Jesus — and not just a few reasons, but plenty of reasons” — “so that in me you may have ample cause to glory in Christ Jesus.” Paul’s not living for a bare-minimum Christianity, a bare-minimum spiritual influence on others. No, day by day, he wants to pile on the reasons, as many as he possibly can, for those he knows and loves to trust and enjoy Jesus.

So, when God brings others into your life, are they better off spiritually for being there? Are they a lot better off spiritually for being there? What if you started looking at your relationships — family, community group and life group, neighbors, coworkers, friends — and tried to give them ample cause to love and glorify Jesus? How much more spiritual good could you do? How might the good you do then multiply through them into all of their relationships?

“If we live for another day or month or year, it’s because someone needs help believing in and enjoying Jesus.”

Again, notice he says, “I am hard pressed between the two.” So even though to depart and be with Christ is far better, Paul really does want both. It’s gain to die, no question, but it’s not loss to stay and live for Christ. To live for Jesus — despite how much it cost him, despite how little fruit he saw at times, despite the fact that he might live the rest of his life in prison — to live for Jesus was its own reward. Therefore, he could gladly say, To die is gain for me, and to live is Christ for you, my joy and my crown (4:1).

Because You Pray for Me

Before we close, then, I want to go back briefly to the beginning of our passage and look at how this kind of Christ-honoring life and this kind of Christ-honoring death happen. If God delivers us from walking away from Christ, from giving into temptation, from slowly drifting into worldliness, if he helps us honor Christ until the very end, how does that happen? Where do we get the strength and focus we need to keep going? Paul gives us two quick glimpses (so quick we might completely miss them), but I think they’re too good to pass over as a church. You’ve already heard these verses, but we need to hear them one more time:

Yes, and I will rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance. (verses 18–19)

Why is Paul so confident that he’s going to make it to the end, that he’ll keep honoring Christ, even in prison, even under persecution, even if it costs him his life? What does he say? Because you’re praying for me.

Do you ever pray like this church prayed for Paul? Does anyone pray like this for you? If we commit to praying like this for one another, Cities Church, we’ll be able to say things like we heard Paul say in verse 6: “I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” — because we’ve prayed for you. I know you’ll honor Christ, whatever happens to you, because we’ve prayed for you. Or, as in verse 19, “I know this horrible circumstance will turn out for my deliverance” — because you prayed for me. Prison can’t overcome these kinds of prayers. Cancer can’t overcome these kinds of prayers. All the armies in the world couldn’t overcome prayers like these.

Why? Because God answers prayers like these — and he doesn’t answer from afar. No, he comes and helps us from inside of us, by his Spirit (“through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ”). His Spirit lives within us. And as he does, his strength becomes our strength, his peace becomes our peace, his love becomes our love.

By the Spirit, right now, in whatever callings you have been given, you have everything you could possibly need to honor Christ — whether by life or by death — because that Christ lives in you. He’s going to help you.

Five years ago, I was diagnosed with a severe sensitivity to gluten. As my poor wife can testify, I fought the diagnosis for months, but I eventually cut it out of my diet. And I felt better.

A year or so ago, I started experiencing similar pain, sometimes over multiple hours, so my doctor referred me to a specialist. We ran some tests and he asked me a bunch of questions. At one point, he asked me about the kinds of things I drink. I told him I had cut back on coffee and cut out soda completely, but that I still drank a fair amount of sparkling water. “Yeah, you should probably cut that out too,” he said. He went on to explain what should have been obvious, that pouring carbonation on a sensitive GI tract is likely to enflame your system, causing even more irritation and discomfort.

Unfortunately, I (like many of you) had always heard that if I had an upset stomach or tummy ache, I should drink a little Sprite or Ginger Ale to “settle my stomach.” So, for that whole year, whenever I would start to feel some kind of discomfort, I would go to the fridge and grab (you guessed it) a sparkling water, expecting it to make me feel better — and then wondering, completely confused, why I felt even worse.

Well, I cut out sparkling water, and my issues immediately stopped. Within days, my whole body felt lighter and healthier. And six months later, I’m still not having the same issues. So why am I telling you all of this? Because the more I look back and watch myself pouring sparkling water on my pain over all those months, the more I see how often we do the same with sin. Amid some pain or frustration or discouragement or exhaustion, we reach for some besetting sin, expecting it to make us feel better — and then wonder, completely confused, why we feel even worse.

Satan Hunts the Hurting

Satan knows how prone we can be to turn to sin in our suffering — and he preys on that weakness. The apostle Peter writes his first letter to believers in intense affliction. They were suffering fiery trials of various kinds (1 Peter 1:6; 4:12). In particular, many of them were being slandered and maligned for following Jesus (1 Peter 3:16; 4:4). People were saying awful things about them. Listen how he counsels them to suffer well:

Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. (1 Peter 5:8–10)

“How often do we live as if the devil isn’t real, as if there isn’t a real spiritual war being waged against our faith?”

Now, the devil prowls around all the time, and would love to devour any of us at any time, but the apostle sees a particular vulnerability in suffering. He knows, from personal experience and from ministering to others, that Satan hunts among the hurting.

Peter has seen how seductive sin can be when life gets difficult and painful, and he’s heard the bad excuses we make for ourselves, so he presses three realities on the fragile hearts of sufferers.

1. You have a disturbing and hidden enemy.

One way Satan distracts us from his malicious power and influence in our lives is by introducing the turbulence of suffering. If he can shake our plane enough to bring the seatbelt lights on, he knows we might focus on our trials and forget he’s even there.

Peter warns us, however: “Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” You have an adversary, and he’s not some stray cat chasing mice; he’s a 500-pound lion, the king of the pride, and he’s stalking souls like yours and mine. And yet how often do we live as if the devil isn’t real, as if there isn’t a real spiritual war being waged against our faith?

The apostle Paul pulls back the curtain:

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. (Ephesians 6:12)

When trials come, of various kinds, we need to be reminded that we have a serious enemy, that malice waits in our shadows to attack us at our most vulnerable.

2. You are not as alone as you feel.

When suffering comes, we need to be reminded that we have an enemy. We also need to be reminded that we’re not as alone as we tend to feel. Listen again to what Peter says: “Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world” (1 Peter 5:8–9).

How do we resist our awful enemy? One way is to remember that many brothers and sisters in Christ are suffering in the same kinds of ways — and not just suffering, but suffering well. By God’s conquering grace, they’re enduring suffering and overcoming suffering (and some of them are surely suffering more than you are right now). Seeing the armies of God’s people braving intense trials should strengthen our souls to keep fighting for another day, another month, another year, if necessary.

Peter knows how isolating suffering can be. Many sufferers feel like no one else is going through what they’re going through, that no one knows their pain. He also knows that what we feel in suffering is not always reality. We need to be reminded to look up and see God comforting, strengthening, and satisfying his embattled church all over the world.

3. Whatever your pain is, it will end soon.

Before you shrug this off as trite, remember that the man writing this letter was persecuted, threatened, imprisoned, and eventually crucified upside down. His suffering was not short or infrequent or minor, by any measure. And yet he can say, next verse:

And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. (1 Peter 5:10)

After you have suffered a little while. . . . Some of you are tempted to scoff. You’ve had the pain you bear for years, maybe even decades (and it’s not letting up). I won’t pretend to know what it’s like to suffer like you have. But I will promise you, the apostle did not misspeak, even in your case.

Compared with the countless years of painless bliss coming to all who follow Christ, any suffering for any amount of time is only a little while. These years will one day seem as minutes. God will soon restore you, and you’ll never be broken again. God will soon confirm you, and you’ll never feel unsure or insecure again. God will soon strengthen you, and you’ll never again stumble or faint for weakness. God will soon establish you in his presence, and you will stand — radiant, with no discomfort, no illness, no heartache — in the eternal glory of Christ forever, no turbulence, no interruption, no bad news ever again.

So, knowing what God’s about to do for you, can you suffer just a little longer?

What Secret Sin Tempts You?

This dangerous tendency in us, to turn to sin in our suffering for satisfaction and relief, reminds me of Jeremiah 2:13. God says through the prophet,

My people have committed two evils:they have forsaken me,     the fountain of living waters,and hewed out cisterns for themselves,     broken cisterns that can hold no water.

In their thirst, they’ve forsaken the fountain of living waters — “Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again” (John 4:14) — and they’ve sucked down the sparkling water of sin instead.

Sin’s worse than that, though. The prophet describes sin as “broken cisterns” — as cups with cracks and holes. Nothing’s staying in, and so nothing’s pouring out. So, what’s that cup for you? What secret sin are you tempted to turn to when you’re feeling down, or lonely, or frustrated, or stressed out and overwhelmed? I’m not a doctor, but you need to cut that out. I promise you, the comforts of sin — the comforts of impatience, of overeating, of anger, of binging shows or movies, of anxiety, of bitterness, of lust — will only make your pain worse in the end.

And I promise you, only the comforts of Christ hold what your soul craves in the valley. We won’t find healing for our suffering or power to overcome temptation simply by refusing our besetting sin. We need to drink from a better, deeper, more satisfying well. We need to see and savor Jesus — through his word, through prayer, through one another — and all the more when suffering comes.

I gave my first sermon eight thousand miles from my home, through a translator, to a room full of pastors twenty or thirty years older than me in Vijayawada, India. The text, I’ll never forget, was 1 Thessalonians 1:4–6. I was the rookie, the intern, on a team of more veteran teachers — and I was sweaty nervous.

The message got off to a rocky start. I was going too long without a break for translation, and I was clearly using words the translator either didn’t know or couldn’t translate. After a few long minutes (which felt something like a benevolent wrestling match), the poor guy had to quit and ask an older, more experienced brother to step in. The tap out certainly didn’t help my young nerves. Fortunately, I had run out of sweat by that point.

The second translator and I slowly found a rhythm together. His confidence and patience gave me greater peace and courage, and, by God’s grace, I survived the message. And the brothers, I believe, were encouraged in their faith and ministries. (As yet another mercy, preaching a sermon back home in English suddenly felt far less intimidating.)

I’ll remember that day for many reasons, but as much as anything, I’ll remember their eyes. We had been told for months leading up to the trip about all the obstacles these men were facing where they served — intense opposition, even malice; little training or support; false teaching even among Christians; grave poverty. Then we got to witness, firsthand, just how hard it was for some. And yet their eyes told a different story.

Smile of Genuine Revival

Standing in that pulpit so far from home, I began to read the sermon text: “For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you.” How could the apostle Paul possibly know that these people had been chosen by God? He doesn’t leave us in the dark:

We know . . . that [God] has chosen you, because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. (1 Thessalonians 1:4–5)

He feels confident in their election because he’s seeing the signs of true revival — of God coming with supernatural power by his Spirit, through his word, to inspire sincere conviction and heartfelt worship. But how could he see the Holy Spirit? How could he know that God himself was actually moving in this church?

Paul says more in the next verse: “You became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit” (1 Thessalonians 1:6). He sounds the same warm note in Romans 14:17: “The kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” What gave Paul such confidence that the God over heaven and earth, without beginning or end, who created all things and will judge the whole world, had reached down and actually chosen this little group to be his children, his ambassadors, his future kings and queens of glory? Their extraordinary joy, especially through hardship. This joy was like a sun rising over all the dark horizons around them, declaring that they now belonged — body, soul, mind, and delight — to Jesus.

This joy wasn’t just any joy, though. The apostle goes on to sketch something of a portrait of Spirit-filled joy for us — a joy that gladly submits, that stubbornly endures, that steadily spreads, and that eagerly waits.

1. This Joy Submits

First we learn that this miraculous joy is under authority. “You received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit” (1 Thessalonians 1:6). This joy wasn’t a follow-your-heart joy, but a kneel-and-obey joy.

We actually get to watch the Thessalonian church receive the word in Acts 17:1–5. When Paul came to Thessalonica, he went with Silas into the synagogues and “reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, ‘This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ’” (Acts 17:2–3). In other words, he preached the Bible. And how did the people respond? “Some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas” (verse 4). They didn’t reject the word of God, or give lip service to it, but they received it. They were persuaded by Scripture in their minds and hearts, and so they submitted themselves to whatever they found there.

2. This Joy Endures

Their glad obedience to the word of God was all the more beautiful because they suffered for their faith. “You received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit” (1 Thessalonians 1:6).

“The fullest joy in the universe is, for now, an incomplete joy — an anticipation of what will be.”

Again, we get to see how they suffered in Acts 17. As the word began to take hold, as they were persuaded by what Paul taught them about Jesus, “the Jews were jealous, and taking some wicked men of the rabble, they formed a mob, set the city in an uproar, and attacked the house of Jason, seeking to bring [Paul and Silas] out to the crowd” (Acts 17:5). The mob was so violent that the church rushed Paul and Silas out of town (verse 10). But many Christians stayed behind and withstood the mob.

And they didn’t merely stay and keep gathering, keep preaching, keep praying, keep making disciples, but they endured much affliction with joy.

3. This Joy Spreads

When God does this kind of work, when he brings spiritual revival and exalts his Son in the hearts of a people in such a dramatic and countercultural way, news of that work inevitably spreads. Again and again, this is how God presses his fame into the hard-to-reach, often hostile corners of the world: through forgiven people rejoicing through suffering.

You received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. For not only has the word of the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia and Achaia, but your faith in God has gone forth everywhere, so that we need not say anything. (1 Thessalonians 1:6–8)

Words didn’t travel easily in those days. Wherever they went, they went slowly and at some significant cost. But even then, the story of this church’s joy spread far and wide beyond their region.

This means, at one level, that widespread revival is all the more possible when our circumstances turn bleak, when opposition heats up and the costs climb, because of the testimonies that spring up from such battlefields. The book of Acts is a testimony to how the word runs through suffering (see Acts 5:41–42; 6:7), bearing the fruit of joy wherever it’s planted.

4. This Joy Waits

What specific report was sent out everywhere, though? “They themselves report . . . how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come” (1 Thessalonians 1:9–10). So, they’ve already found their treasure hidden in the field — they’ve found God their exceeding Joy, a joy strong enough to brave the mob — and yet they’re still waiting for their full reward. The fullest joy in the universe is, for now, an incomplete joy — an anticipation of what will be.

Waiting is all over this letter (see 1 Thessalonians 2:19; 3:13; 5:23). And what are they waiting for? Paul paints a picture of that coming day:

The Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. (1 Thessalonians 4:16–17)

The happiest people on earth are those who have their eyes set beyond this earth to the one who will one day bring heaven down to earth.

Beaten, Bruised, and Happy

I have many memories from that trip to India. Taking a plane, train, and automobile (literally) to get to the city where we were serving. The unbelievably warm hospitality everywhere we went, with amazing dishes I’d never tried (and still love). Almost all of our team getting seriously ill at some point during the two weeks. What I remember most, though, was how happy those embattled pastors were. I remember the brightness and warmth in their eyes.

I met men who had been beaten for sharing Jesus, and still bore the cuts and bruises. They had experienced hostility from every direction — from Muslim zealots, from neighbors on their street, even from within their own homes. Jesus warned us, “I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother. . . . And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household” (Matthew 10:35–36) — and he wasn’t lying. I saw the scars.

Yet as these battered men told their harrowing stories, their eyes sang with joy. It really was the closest I’ve been to a 1 Thessalonians 1 church. They received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit, relishing the chance to suffer for Jesus and eagerly waiting for his return.

I have one, and only one, experience with sailing.

In my senior of college, one of my friends invited a number of us to his family’s lake house near the coast of North Carolina for one last weekend together before graduation. The house sat on a cove tucked just off the ocean shore. Down by the water sat the family’s beautiful (and expensive) two-person sailboat, tied firmly to a post.

The more experienced went out first. Several of my classmates had grown up close to the ocean, and knew how to handle a sail. They raced up and down the cove, making it look easy. When they were done, another first-timer and I stepped up to take the ropes. Once we pushed ourselves away from shore, we swung and tugged, leaned and lunged, stood and sat — and barely moved. The others, of course, took even more joy in our floundering than they had in their sailing. After a while, our titanic struggle left us tired and hungry, so we pulled the boat ashore and went in for dinner.

Early the next morning, a couple of aspiring sailors woke us, asking where we left the boat. “Down by the shore, of course. Where else would we leave it?” “Did you pull it into the grass?” “Umm, no.” “Did you tie it up?” “Umm, no.” “Well, the boat is gone.” Any experienced sailor (or just a man of common sense) knows what I learned that day: the tide rises at night, so you have to anchor your boat or it will drift away. I immediately started counting every dollar I owned. (It didn’t take long.)

A couple of us went out in the motorboat, driving up and down the shore, desperately looking for any sign of the sailboat. Surely it had been damaged, maybe even destroyed, after all these hours. After another hour or two, we’d come up empty. We saw nothing. And no one we saw had seen anything. I still remember the long ride back. I was sick to my stomach.

That boat came to mind again recently when I read Tim Keller describe a tool he used over the years to help him discern the health of a soul (and particularly the health of a person’s prayer life).

Which Boat Describes You?

Keller paints the nautical picture this way: “Imagine that your soul is a boat, a boat with both oars and a sail” (Prayer, 258). Into that scene, he asks four pointed questions: Are you sailing? Are you rowing? Are you drifting? Or are you sinking? In terms of my story, does your spiritual life resemble my master-sailor friends gliding up and down the cove, or the two first-timers working hard and going nowhere, or the empty sailboat drifting aimlessly away?

The tool’s helpful in two directions. First, it helps us assess and maintain our own boats. How often have we assumed that we’re rowing when we’re actually drifting, or that we’re drifting when we’re actually sinking? Second, the tool gives us a window into the boats of others. It’s a simple, vivid question that cuts through shallow places (where we often prefer to swim in our relationships) to the heart of a person, to how he is really doing.

Keller doesn’t attach particular texts to the four different boats, but the Psalms came to mind as potential examples because they model, with unusual vulnerability and emotion, the highs and lows of the human soul. So I’ve attempted to identify at least a few lines that give voice to each of these four spiritual conditions.

1. Are You Sailing?

When you think about your spiritual life right now, do you feel the wind at your back? Does prayer feel easier and more enjoyable than normal? Does daily Bible reading sparkle like a treasure in the field? Do you find yourself on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday actually looking forward to Sunday morning and the opportunity to sing and serve with your local church? Do you find spiritual conversation natural and gratifying?

If you’re currently in the sweet thrill of sailing, you might pray like King David does in Psalm 16:6–9:

The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;     indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.I bless the Lord who gives me counsel;     in the night also my heart instructs me.I have set the Lord always before me;     because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices;     my flesh also dwells secure.

As we’ll see, David didn’t always feel this kind of spiritual high. He often struggled and had to fight hard for faith. At times, he fell into valleys of despair. In these verses, however, we can almost feel the wind lifting and driving his sails. Anyone who’s riding a spiritual breeze can identify with what he’s describing, and anyone who isn’t would want what he’s experiencing.

2. Are You Rowing?

If you’re rowing, you’re still making progress, but it’s a slower, hard-fought progress. You’re moving forward, but you’re really earning each passing wave. “Rowing,” Keller writes, “means you are finding prayer and Bible reading to be more a duty than a delight” (259). They’re chores you keep doing, but they honestly feel like chores. You keep attending worship, and discipline yourself to listen, engage, and even sing, but you often walk out distracted and tired. You want your heart to be in a different place, and you put effort into feeling differently, but you haven’t felt a strong wind in a while.

If you’re currently in the wearying work of rowing, you might pray like David does in Psalm 63:1:

O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you;     my soul thirsts for you;my flesh faints for you,     as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

“The vast majority of drifters and sinkers drift and sink alone.”

In these verses, he’s not praying from the pleasant places of Psalm 16. Now he’s kneeling in the wilderness — “in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” But as the spiritual winds died down and the ground under him dried up, he didn’t give up and lie down in the boat. No, he kept his eyes on God and started rowing: “Earnestly I seek you.”

3. Are You Drifting?

From a distance, drifting may look and feel like rowing, but swim up closer to the two boats and you’ll notice one massive difference: effort. The drifter stops trying. You stop praying earnestly. You stop reading the Bible regularly. You stop paying attention during church gatherings (or stop attending altogether). Tired and discouraged and maybe even disillusioned, you set your oar aside and passively wait for some gust of wind to come along to save you.

This condition is probably the hardest to pair with a psalm, mostly because the psalms themselves are prayers. So even at their darkest, they model what it looks like to row in the dark — to keep praying, keep gathering, keep seeking. But in Psalm 42, dangerous circumstances have prevented the psalmist from attending the temple (“When shall I come and appear before God?” verse 2), so though he’s still able to pray, he’s cut off from other vital means of grace.

When shall I come and appear before God? . . .These things I remember,     as I pour out my soul:how I would go with the throng     and lead them in procession to the house of Godwith glad shouts and songs of praise,     a multitude keeping festival.Why are you cast down, O my soul,     and why are you in turmoil within me? (Psalm 42:2, 4–5)

The drifter has desires for more, and he can remember times when he experienced spiritual health and community, but he’s lost the will to keep fighting. His soul is cast down, and so his boat wanders aimlessly, from app to app, from show to show, from task to task, from meal to meal, from week to week. He wakes up farther and farther from where he wants to be spiritually, and yet with less and less resolve to change course.

4. Are You Sinking?

Is the boat within you quietly taking on water? You drifted for a time, but then you hit something hard — a job loss, a breakup, an illness, a death — and water started trickling in. Now, weeks or months later, your faith is gasping for air. You’re not longing for former days of stronger, more satisfying faith. You’re questioning whether it was ever real. You’re not thinking about restarting your prayer life, or looking for a Bible-reading plan, or joining a small group. You’re looking elsewhere for answers (or you’re avoiding the questions altogether).

Again, even psalmists dealt with sinking moments in the soul. Listen to the heartache and despair in Asaph’s voice when he thinks back on a dark night in his own soul:

All in vain have I kept my heart clean     and washed my hands in innocence. . . .But when I thought how to understand this,     it seemed to me a wearisome task. . . .When my soul was embittered,     when I was pricked in heart,I was brutish and ignorant;     I was like a beast toward you. (Psalm 73:13, 16, 21–22)

He remembers a time when he was living in spiritual peril. Do you feel your heart slowly growing embittered to God? Has your pain crystallized into self-pity? Has confusion mutated into bitterness and resentment? Have your doubts ripened into apathy? Is your boat filling with water?

Obviously, any boat that’s sinking needs some serious attention. One of the blessings of a tool like this is simply putting a sinking boat on someone else’s radar. How many souls sink without anyone ever knowing, at least until it’s too late?

Drifting and Sinking Alone

Later that long day, when we had nearly given up hope finding my friend’s sailboat, a neighbor from down the cove phoned. It had landed on their shore. Amazingly, no damage. The boat had drifted more than a mile.

For all our failures aboard that extraordinarily expensive piece of fiberglass, my first-timer friend and I did one thing right that day: we went out together. When it comes to our spiritual health and joy, the vast majority of drifters and sinkers drift and sink alone. And the vast majority of rowers and sailors row and sail with others.

Keller ends his book on this note:

Those who enjoy sailing might find these nautical images helpful. However, a metaphor used more often in the Bible to describe fellowship with God is that of a feast. . . . Eating together is one of the most common metaphors for friendship and fellowship in the Bible, and so this vision is a powerful prediction of unimaginably close and intimate fellowship with the living God. It evokes the sensory joys of exquisite food in the presence of loving friends. The “wine” of full communion with God and our loved ones will be endless and infinite delight. (260–61)

The image of the feast gets at the satisfying fullness of sailing. It also gets at the togetherness, though. Somebody might eat alone, but nobody ever feasts alone. And, spiritually speaking, nobody sails alone either. Richer communion with God requires richer communion with other souls, in the church.

So, if we feel ourselves drifting or worse in our walk with God, our first step to righting the ship will be to steer our boat into more crowded waters, where the sailors and rowers live.

I used to think of myself as a patient man. Then I got married. Then I had a child. Then another one. And another one. Through those precious gifts, God has exposed me to me. I’ve seen just how thin my “vast patience” can run.

Recently, I lost it with my eldest son. He needed discipline, and received wrath instead. I felt the red-hot fringes of my patience. I yelled a sinful yell. Afterward, I needed to kneel down eye to eye, humble myself, and ask my son for forgiveness — and I did. And he forgave me.

As I felt my bloodstream cool, I considered my anger — offended by his lack of respect, inconvenienced by his disobedience, hurt by his defiance, and then seeking some form of vengeance. My raised voice tried to avenge my bruised ego. Even though I love my two sons more than any other boy on earth, and would gladly die for their sake, I was still somehow tempted to fight back, to take up arms and go to war.

As I explored that impulse, I wondered how much more intense it must be for those who’ve actually been injured — the betrayed spouse, the abandoned friend, the slandered church member, the persecuted coworker, the abused child. What flames must course through their veins? How easy must it feel to want to hurt like they’ve been hurt, to make the other person pay for what they’ve done? Have you ever tasted a warm and bitter thirst for vengeance?

Vengeance Is Not Mine

As the apostle Paul unfolds what an authentically Christian community will look like for the church in Rome, he weaves in several vital one-another realities: “Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor” (Romans 12:10). Contribute to one another’s needs and welcome one another (verse 13). “Live in harmony with one another” (verse 16). Then he says,

Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. (Romans 12:17)

Followers of Jesus don’t retaliate. When we receive evil — real, shameful, painful evil — we don’t compensate the offender with another offense, but instead with surprising grace and mercy, with a warm meal and a cold drink (Romans 12:20). We respond to our wounds in ways that even the God-hating world can admire (“what is honorable in the sight of all”).

“Believing in hell breeds healthier, more Christian relationships.”

How could a betrayed spouse, an abandoned friend, an abused child possibly respond like that? Paul goes on to tell us two verses later: “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord’” (Romans 12:19). Cravings for personal vengeance dry up and wither when held up before the fires of final judgment, when we remember that God will repay every evil against us.

The Relationally Practical Doctrine of Hell

When Paul writes of God, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay,” he’s reading from Deuteronomy 32, from the great song Moses sang to the people before he died. Why would Paul turn here when speaking to believers who’ve been sinned against? Because the new people of God, the church, still finds refuge, justice, and hope in the holy and unyielding wrath of God. Moses sings first of God’s righteous fury against the sins of Israel:

A fire is kindled by my anger,     and it burns to the depths of Sheol,devours the earth and its increase,     and sets on fire the foundations of the mountains.And I will heap disasters upon them;     I will spend my arrows on them;they shall be wasted with hunger,     and devoured by plague     and poisonous pestilence. (Deuteronomy 32:22–24)

But just before he might wipe out his chosen people for their defiance, he turns his wrath instead against the enemies of Israel, “lest their adversaries should misunderstand, lest they should say, ‘Our hand is triumphant, it was not the Lord who did all this’” (Deuteronomy 32:27). So, he says of those enemies,

“Vengeance is mine, and recompense,     for the time when their foot shall slip;for the day of their calamity is at hand,     and their doom comes swiftly.”For the Lord will vindicate his people     and have compassion on his servants. (Deuteronomy 32:35–36)

And why will God pour out such wrath against Israel’s enemies? Because the enemies of God’s people have made themselves enemies of God himself. Notice how their adversaries have now become my adversaries by the end of the song.

I kill and I make alive;     I wound and I heal;     and there is none that can deliver out of my hand. . . .I will take vengeance on my adversaries     and will repay those who hate me.I will make my arrows drunk with blood,     and my sword shall devour flesh. (Deuteronomy 32:39–42)

This isn’t only the God of the Old Testament. This is the God of the Old and New Testaments. The God who wrote the law and the God who wrote the gospel. The Beginning and the End. The God who shows us wondrous mercy in Christ will rain horrible wrath on all who reject and oppose him — a fire devouring the earth, a devastating famine, a poisonous plague, a sword soaked in blood.

Every unforgiven sinner will suffer that awful storm. And every unforgiven sin against you will face the same fate. This is how a betrayed spouse, an abandoned friend, an abused child can suffer harm and not retaliate. They know they will be vindicated and made whole again. Believing in hell, then, really does breed healthier, more Christian relationships.

The Cross as Vengeance

Not all sins against us will be repaid with hell, though. Because our own sins, in Christ, won’t be repaid with hell. God will punish every sin against you, either in conscious, eternal torment or in the crushing of his precious Son. John Piper says,

God will lift from you the suicidal load of vengeance and carry it to one of two places. He will carry it to the cross if the person repents, or he will carry it to hell where they will be forever. And you can’t improve upon either of those. If they’re in hell, you don’t need to add to their punishment. If their load was borne and forgiven and paid at the cross, you would dishonor the Lord if you didn’t share in the forgiveness. (“How to Battle Bitterness”)

Christ bore the horrors of Deuteronomy 32 — a fire devouring the earth, a sword soaked in blood, a crown of piercing thorns, a back ravaged by scourging, a cross of shame and agony — for all who would believe in him, even those who have hurt you. Would you try and improve on the vengeance of the cross? Do the sufferings of the sinless Christ seem somehow insufficient when it’s you who have been wronged? Christian, remember that God’s wrath once burned against you, his plague crept toward you, his sword stood high above you — and then Jesus bore that hell for you.

This resistance in us to entrust our injustices to God is why Paul goes after pride in the same verses: “Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil” (Romans 12:16–17). Why are we reluctant to relinquish justice over the sins against us? Why do we assume we’d be a better judge than God? Because of a coddling and corrupting pride. Because we gladly overestimate our own sense of wisdom and righteousness in these painful situations, and because we grossly underestimate our need for God’s forgiveness, understanding, and justice.

If the sins against us were left in our courtrooms, before our broken and impartial benches, they’d be woefully mishandled. But thanks be to God that he himself judges every last case, that each and every wrong will be repaid with flawless justice. He doesn’t overlook a single offense or lighten a single sentence. He will either nail the sin to the cross, or he will consume it in hell. Can you bear to believe that? Can you surrender your secret cravings to retaliate, the bitternesses you quietly sip and refill?

So Far as It Depends on You

One last thread deserves attention in Romans 12. When it comes to the sins people commit against us, Paul isn’t content with a merely defensive strategy (“leave it to the wrath of God”), but encourages the forgiven and soon-to-be vindicated to actively and persistently pursue peace — if possible, even with their offenders.

Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God. (Romans 12:16–19)

You can see how the two thick and colorful threads weave themselves together in this distinctly Christian love: let God enact your vengeance and do all you can to make peace. Don’t settle for a cold, distant truce when it comes to these offenses, but fight for the warmth of harmony.

And not only within the church, but strive to “live peaceably with all,” the apostle says. That means even the unbelievers — the neighbors, the coworkers, the friends, the parents, the children — who sin against you. The perfect justice of God — in hell and on the cross — makes this kind of miraculous peace relationally possible. We can hold out meaningful, heartfelt peace even to those who despise, harass, persecute, and harm us.

Very often, our enemies will not receive it (that’s why Paul says “so far as it depends on you”), but if they do, it just might be the day they, like you, are rescued from wrath and step into joy-filled peace with God.

Drunkenness is an unusually seeable sin. People can drink in secret, of course, but if they’re drunk around others (especially those who know them well), it’s generally not hard to tell. The bloodshot eyes, the flushed face, the inability to focus, the slurred speech, the slowed processing speed, the loud talking, the difficulty walking in a straight line, the erratic laughter. Unlike many others, drunk people wear their sin on their sleeve. And pants. And sometimes on the person next to them.

My freshman year at college was my jarring introduction to drunkenness. One night an especially inebriated rugby player ripped the drinking fountain off the dorm wall. Another night, a different guy (unknowingly) relieved himself in a friend’s dresser drawer. Drunkenness is a loud and ugly sin. We can probably all remember (unwanted) encounters we’ve had with it.

The more I’ve considered what excessive alcohol does to a person, though, the more I wonder if drunkenness isn’t something of a parable for a whole host of subtler abuses. What if God allowed rugby players to make a fool of themselves to warn us about more respectable and prevalent forms of drunkenness, all the socially acceptable ways we try to distract and numb ourselves?

Five Dangers of Abusing Anything

Alcohol, remember, was invented by God, not man, as a gift, not a curse — “to gladden the heart of man” (Psalm 104:15). Like so many gifts, however, it can (quickly) become a curse when it’s enjoyed carelessly or indulgently. In a previous article, I reflected on a wise father’s warnings to his son about drunkenness in Proverbs 23:29–35 (which I’ll rehearse below). Meditating on these dangers over months now, though, had me wondering if we might experience the same kinds of symptoms or consequences in other, more subtle patterns of sin. I think we do.

The first danger is confusion, or blurry eyes. “Your eyes will see strange things” (Proverbs 23:33). Abusing alcohol will rob you of the ability to perceive actual reality. You will see things that are not there, or you’ll see things that are there but not as they are.

The second danger is perversion, or a dull conscience. “Your heart [will] utter perverse things” (Proverbs 23:33). Under the influence of excessive alcohol, you’ll be more likely to sin, more vulnerable to temptation. Drunkenness makes a deadly pit look like a well (verse 27).

The third danger is instability, or unreliable hands. “[The drunk man] will be like one who lies down in the midst of the sea, like one who lies on the top of a mast” (Proverbs 23:34). Alcohol leaves a man asleep in grave peril, in situations where his alertness really matters (like while sailing or driving). When he’s needed most, he’s unavailable.

The fourth danger is a kind of paralysis, or a numb soul: “‘They struck me,’ you will say, ‘but I was not hurt; they beat me, but I did not feel it’” (Proverbs 23:35). The drunk man’s senses have been so dulled that he cannot even feel when someone beats him. Spiritually speaking, he becomes numb to temptation and sin, to worship and holiness. Alcohol slowly paralyzes his most important abilities.

The final danger is futility, or an empty, restless heart. “When shall I awake?” the drunk man asks. “I must have another drink” (Proverbs 23:35). The drunk person desperately looks for satisfaction, searching and searching, drinking and drinking, but he never finds the bottom. Drunkenness is a well without water, a marathon without a finish line.

It’s not hard to see that excessive alcohol does these kinds of things to a person. The symptoms are loud and disruptive. It may not be much harder, though, to see how other, subtler indulgences can do the same.

Drunk Without Drinking

Can you think of anything you like to do that sometimes causes one of these symptoms? An inability to discern or feel spiritual reality. A greater vulnerability to temptation. A laziness or distractedness that makes you unavailable when needed. A numbness to spiritual things. A restless sense of dissatisfaction or frustration.

Doesn’t overeating do this to us? Doesn’t laziness do this to us? Doesn’t obsession with sports, or news, or social media? What about shopping, always hunting for the next deal? What about binge-watching that series for hours at a time? Don’t our phones hold this kind of numbing, distracting power?

Of course, in the right time and measure, the pleasures we experience in these moments are not bad. All of them can be blessings from God, like alcohol, given to help us enjoy him. And yet all become dangerous when they gain a measure of control over us.

Why might God allow alcohol to undo people like it so often does? That’s a weighty, sensitive question, and I don’t pretend to have all the answers to it. But might God ordain drunkenness, at least in part, as a kind of drama to awaken us to the consequences of abusing any of his gifts? These other abuses don’t often manifest themselves like drunkenness — they’re not as loud and ugly — but they can be every bit as dangerous to our souls.

The apostle Paul sounds a broader warning for us: “‘All things are lawful for me,’ but not all things are helpful. ‘All things are lawful for me,’ but I will not be dominated by anything” (1 Corinthians 6:12). Not just alcohol, but anything. So, what in your life has the potential to dominate you? Another way to ask that question would be to ask questions like these:

What erodes your ability to discern truth from lies and good from evil, your ability to see the world, yourself, and God accurately?
What makes it easier for you to fall into temptation? What makes sin more appealing to you?
What compromises your ability to meet the needs of those around you, especially those who depend on you?
What numbs you to reality, especially spiritual reality — to God, to his word, to his will for your life?
What consistently leaves you feeling empty and restless?

Under a Better Influence

Then, having discerned your specific areas of weakness or temptation (and shared them with a brother or sister in Christ), you might also ask what does the opposite in you.

What in your life brings spiritual reality into clarity and focus? What makes Christ seem more real, trustworthy, and satisfying?
What makes temptation seem pathetic and unappealing and dangerous?
What stabilizes your soul through conflict and hardship?
What heightens your awareness and sensitivity to the needs around you?
What quenches your deepest thirsts and satisfies your deepest longings?

You could summarize questions like these by saying,

Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit. (Ephesians 5:18)

This was another light-bulb moment for me. What if God allows the pitiful misery and destructiveness of drunkenness, at least in part, so that he can turn to his children and say, “Do not get drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit”? Do you see how captive that man is to alcohol? Be that captive to God. Live so that someone might look at your life and say, “He’s been captured by something — by someone. He’s not his own anymore.”

Habits of Clarity and Joy

If you want to begin drinking at those wells, to be slowly arrested and transformed by the Spirit, I encourage you to read a book like Habits of Grace. The three core habits — the word of God, prayer, and fellowship — have liberated countless hearts from darkness (including mine) and filled them with light and life and joy. And they’re all the more effective when we intentionally enjoy them together, with other believers.

“Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). Avoid whatever, like drunkenness, undermines the work of the Spirit inside of you, whatever dulls and distracts your heart. Periodically audit the habits you’ve developed, the ones you’ve chosen and the ones you’ve fallen into, and consider how you might cut back (or out) whatever tends to weaken your soul. And then pursue, with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, whatever increases and refines your love for Christ — whatever helps you run hard after him.

As a child, I had an unhealthy fear of voicemails.

Since voicemails now are something of an endangered species, this may require some explanation. When I was in school, most phones were still attached to walls and didn’t have caller ID. So, if you called and no one picked up, no one would know that it was you who called — unless you left a voicemail. Seems easy (and safe) enough, right?

One day (I was probably ten), I called to see if a friend across the street wanted to play, but no one picked up. I hung up. A few minutes later, I called again. No answer, I hung up. I did this a few more times over the next hour. My mom noticed my strange behavior and asked what I was doing.

“I was just calling to see if my friend wanted to play, but no one’s home.”

“Well, why don’t you just leave a message?”

I tensed up. “Oh no, no. . . . I’ll just try again in a few minutes.”

“No, Marshall, that’s rude to keep calling like that. You really should leave a voicemail.”

“No, really, Mom, it’s not a big deal. They don’t mind.”

“No,” she said firmly, “you’re going to pick up that phone right now and leave a voicemail.”

I waited to see if she was serious, then slowly lifted the instrument of terror from the wall. There was something about being recorded — with no opportunity to delete, or try again, or call timeout — that made me feel exposed. It certainly didn’t help that my (female) friend could be a bit of a bully and relished just about any opportunity to laugh at my expense.

Again, no one answered. The dreaded beep came. My mom stared at me intently. “Hi, uhhh, Jenna. . . . This is Marshall. Umm . . . just wanted to see if you were home and wanted to play. So . . . give me a call when you get back. . . . Umm . . . in Jesus’s name, Amen.”

My mom’s eyes widened, and she covered her mouth. Her cheeks strained to fight back laughter. My young, insecure blood boiled. She made me do that. How could she!

It’s funny, but my (tiny) humiliation plays out a common paradox in prayer: Those three words — in Jesus’s name — were already so deeply ingrained in my mind through countless prayers in our home that they instinctively poured out. At the same time, they had become so familiar that they had begun to lose their weight and meaning (so that I blurted them to the 10-year-old girl across the street). Many of us have forgotten, through lots of meals and bedtimes, services and Bible studies, what we hold in these three staggering words: in Jesus’s name.

Six Facets in the Name

Where do we learn to pray in Jesus’s name, anyway? The Lord’s Prayer doesn’t end that way. In fact, when you go looking, you realize that we don’t have any actual prayers in Scripture that end with those words.

We hear people baptize in the name of Jesus (Acts 2:38), heal in the name of Jesus (Acts 3:6), teach in the name of Jesus (Acts 4:18), exorcise demons in the name of Jesus (Acts 16:18), and perform wonders in the name of Jesus (Acts 4:30). The apostle Paul goes as far to tell us to do everything we do, in word or deed, “in the name of the Lord Jesus” (Colossians 3:17). The clearest teaching on praying in Jesus’s name, though, comes from Jesus himself, on the night he was betrayed.

In John 14–16, we have Jesus’s last words to his disciples before he goes to the cross, and in all three chapters he mentions the power of praying in his name: “Whatever you ask in my name” (John 14:13) . . . “Whatever you ask the Father in my name” (John 15:16) . . . . “Whatever you ask of the Father in my name” (John 16:23). In the repetition, we see how critical this kind of prayer will be for followers of Jesus, and we learn at least six reasons for Christians to pray in his name.

1. Access: God listens to you.

When we pray in Jesus’s name, we rehearse our only reason for believing God will actually hear our prayers. We dare to bow before the Father only because the Son chose to bow upon the cross. Before he encourages his disciples to pray this way, Jesus says to them, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). No one comes except in me — but everyone who comes in my name will be received, heard, and loved. His life, cross, and resurrection lift our prayers into heaven.

Jesus goes as far as to say (really listen to what he says here), “I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf; for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God” (John 16:26–27). In other words, I don’t have to ask him anything for you anymore. No, in me, you can ask the Almighty yourself.

2. Love: God chose you.

God doesn’t only listen to our prayers because Christ died for us, but because, long before his Son was born and took the cross, he had already chosen us as his own. He decided, based on nothing in or about us, to love us and save us in Christ.

“You did not choose me,” Jesus says, “but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.” (John 15:16)

I chose you, so that your prayers would have power. That means every prayer we pray in his name is an opportunity to remember the undeserved wonder of our election. The God of heaven and earth, the one who made all that is, the one whom you rejected and assaulted in your sin, chose to love you.

And if he had not chosen you, you would not believe, much less pray. Jesus says, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him” (John 6:44; also 6:65).

3. Power: God can do anything.

When Jesus ascended into heaven, he left his disciples, but he didn’t really leave them. Before he rose into the clouds, he said, “Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). How could he say that as he was literally leaving them? Because he had told them, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth” (John 14:16–17, see also 14:25–26).

By the Spirit, Jesus still lives with us, even within us. Therefore, his name is a constant reminder of his abiding, satisfying, empowering presence.

Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. (John 15:4–5)

In his name, anything is possible through prayer. Apart from his name, we can do nothing.

4. Safety: God keeps your faith.

As he comes to the end of his final words, he says to his disciples, “I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away” (John 16:1). I’ve repeatedly told you (among other things) to pray in my name, so that you will not fall away from me, so that you won’t fall into temptation and make shipwreck of your faith. Fearful days were coming, days that would strain their faith (if possible) to the point of breaking. “In the world you will have tribulation,” he warns them a few verses later. “But take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). And in my name, you will too.

So, our prayers in Jesus’s name are not only accomplishing great things out in the world and among those we love, but they’re doing something supernatural inside of us. Through them, God is fortifying our faith in God. He’s exerting his infinite power to guard our love for him (1 Peter 1:5). Prayer is perhaps the single greatest way that God works in us the kind of heart and life that please him and persevere to the end (Philippians 2:12–13).

5. Confidence: God won’t dismiss his Son.

Why won’t the Father ignore prayers in the name of his Son? Jesus tells us, “Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it” (John 14:13–14). The glory of God himself is at stake in our prayers (even our seemingly small or insignificant prayers), and God will not surrender or violate his glory. That means no prayer is insignificant to God. He will answer your prayers in Jesus’s name because he’s fiercely devoted, with all his sovereign might, to the exalting of that name. For God to disregard requests made in the name of Jesus would be to abandon his reason for creating the universe: his glory.

Our prayers, then, aren’t just in the name of Jesus, but for the name of Jesus. And that means, when we pray in this name, we join Jesus in doing what he most loves to do, what he’s utterly and eternally resolved to do, and that is to glorify God.

6. Reward: Your joy will be full.

Jesus gives us at least one more great incentive to pray in his name always and with boldness:

Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. . . . Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full. (John 16:23–24)

Just a chapter earlier, he says, “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full” (John 15:11). So, God answers our prayers in Jesus’s name for the sake of his glory — “that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” And God answers our prayers in that name because he wants us to be as happy as possible — “that your joy may be full.” Those are the two great ambitions of a healthy prayer life: the glory of God and our fullest possible joy in him.

And because God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him, those two ambitions are not really two but one. They’re two sides of the same prayer. John Piper writes,

The unity of these two goals — the glory of God and the joy of his children — is clearly preserved in the act of prayer. Therefore, Christian Hedonists will, above all, be people devoted to earnest prayer. Just as the thirsty deer kneels down to drink at the brook, so the characteristic posture of the Christian Hedonist is on his knees. (Desiring God, 160)

How to End a Prayer

A couple decades after my harrowing voicemail experience, I had another encounter that has shaped how I say these three words. At the time, I was studying in seminary and serving in ministry, regularly leading up front in my local church. During one of the services, I gave the prayer of praise, which strives to give voice to our congregation’s collective gratitude to God for his kindness, his provision, his sovereign and saving love. I had given some serious time preparing to lead our congregation.

After the service, an older man in the faith came up to me and thanked me for the prayer. “I’ve noticed something, though, about your prayers,” he said. I was surprised and a little nervous. Am I doing it wrong? Did I say something heretical? You can still hear the little boy with the corded phone and all those fears. “It’s how you end your prayers,” he said. “You rush through the words — ‘in Jesus’s name.’ They sound like an afterthought. They’re not an afterthought. Slow down on those words. Savor them.”

I’ve never prayed the same since. And so I turn to you, as a good father might with his son. The three most important words in prayer are not words to be rushed or mumbled, but relished and declared. They frame the doorway to fellowship with God — access, love, presence, safety, confidence, joy. Slow down on those words. Savor them.