ABSTRACT: The beatific vision is not only a thoroughly biblical doctrine; it has also been the premier concern for Christians throughout the ages. In the beatific vision, all human desire for happiness finds its ultimate satiation. Therefore, the beatific vision is the chief and final desire of the Christian Hedonist, who has become convinced that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. God’s glory in us, and our satisfaction in him, will reach their ultimate fulfillment when we see him face to face.

For our ongoing series of feature articles for pastors and Christian leaders, we asked Samuel Parkison (PhD, Midwestern Seminary), associate professor of theological studies and director of the Abu Dhabi Extension Site at Gulf Theological Seminary, to trace the classical roots of Christian Hedonism in the doctrine and hope of the beatific vision.

At the heart of Christianity is a deep interest in happiness. God Most High created mankind in his image and likeness to be happy in him. Crucial for grasping this point is understanding the centrality of God’s independent aseity. He who is the eternal plentitude of life and light and love is therefore the sum and substance of all true happiness. Creaturely happiness, in the fullest sense, is therefore a begraced participation in the ceaseless self-happiness of Father, Son, and Spirit. This means that the earnest prayer of Augustine is true:

Man is one of your creatures, Lord, and his instinct is to praise you. He bears about him the mark of death, the sign of his own sin, to remind him that you thwart the proud. But still, since he is part of your creation, he wishes to praise you. The thought of you stirs him so deeply that he cannot be content unless he praises you, because you made us for yourself and our hearts find no peace until they rest in you.1

Throughout his Confessions, Augustine continues to pull on this thread of desire, which ties all his restless longings ultimately to God the Trinity. Even the perverse and damaging consequences of sin cannot erase the sheer force of desire. For Augustine, every desire is a road that rightly (when it is not obscured or redirected by sin) leads to rest in God. The hope of one day satiating one’s insatiable desire for happiness in the infinitely self-happy God is what we mean by the beatific vision: the blessed sight of God in heaven. This, in fact, is what makes heaven heaven.

Beholding God in Scripture

The biblical warrant for this doctrine of the beatific vision is overwhelming. Throughout the pages of holy Scripture, the hope of seeing God is held forth as the premier ambition for man. This hope is hinted at through the various theophanic encounters Old Testament characters experience,2 perhaps the chief example being Moses’s encounter with Yahweh on Horeb in Exodus 33–34. There, on the mountain of God, Moses requests the incomprehensible: “Please show me your glory” (Exodus 33:18). This hope — and the promise of its eventual fulfillment — is positively named by various prophetic utterances throughout the Old Testament.3

What all these passages make clear is that the longing to see God in his glory is simultaneously good and treacherous. It is a fearful thing to lay eyes on God, especially for the fallen sinner. And yet, to do so remains humanity’s deepest God-engraved longing — a longing expressed in all sorts of metaphorical and picturesque illustrations. Old Testament motifs such as the temple, the tabernacle, the new Jerusalem, the holy mountain, Sabbath, and God’s oft-repeated promise to one day dwell among his people all serve as kindling to keep the fire of longing for the beatific vision ablaze. Apparently, God wanted his people to want to see him, even while warning them of the incommensurability between such a vision and their sinful condition.

The biblical hope of seeing God flowers to a new degree with the coming of the Word made flesh (John 1:14). As the “image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15), Christ is the climactic theophanic encounter wherein God reveals — and exegetes — himself in the person of the incarnate Son (John 1:1–18; 14:9; Hebrews 1:1–3). This fact was made apparent in stark fashion when Christ brought his three disciples up on the “holy mountain” (2 Peter 1:18) and was transfigured before their eyes (Matthew 17:1–13; Mark 9:2–13; Luke 9:28–36). According to Peter (and Paul), we who behold the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ through holy Scripture are — like Peter and James and John — able to see what Moses longed for on Mount Horeb and did not truly see until, to some degree, Mount Tabor (2 Corinthians 3:12–4:6; 2 Peter 1:16–21).4

Even still, while what we see by faith is the vision of God in the face of Jesus Christ, we see merely “in part.” The beatific vision is the great hope that we will one day see and know fully, even as we are seen and known by God (1 Corinthians 13:12; Revelation 22:5).

Desire, Christian Hedonism, and the Great Tradition

While the language of the beatific vision may be new for many, anyone familiar with Desiring God should hear something familiar in these reflections. For decades, Desiring God has championed what John Piper calls “Christian Hedonism,” a designation well-captured by its slogan: “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.” Many a Christian (myself included) has been liberated with the soul-soaring discovery that Christians need not choose between glorifying God and seeking joy. In his marvelous wisdom, God has created the world and his creatures such that man finds his deepest joy in glorifying God — and man glorifies God most precisely through enjoying him. But while Piper may be responsible for the term Christian Hedonism, its material content and teaching is far older. Not only do its roots run deep in holy Scripture; its branches break forth throughout the ages of Christian history.

Recent studies on the beatific vision reinforce the conclusion that this doctrine — the chief and final longing of the Christian Hedonist — is not the obscure hope of a few select theologians but has rather been the central hope of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church throughout the ages.5 Christ’s beloved cloud of witnesses has ever said, with Moses, “Please show me your glory” (Exodus 33:18). The bride of Christ has agreed with Gregory of Nyssa that “the person who looks toward that divine and infinite Beauty glimpses something that is always being discovered as more novel and more surprising than what has already been grasped,”6 and therefore that “this truly is the vision of God: never to be satisfied in the desire to see him. But one must always, by looking at what he can see, rekindle his desire to see more.”7

With Augustine, the church has ever consoled herself with the hope that “we are to see a certain vision . . . a vision surpassing all earthly beautifulness, of gold, of silver, of groves and fields; the beautifulness of sea and air, the beautifulness of sun and moon, the beautifulness of the stars, the beautifulness of the angels: surpassing all things: because from it all things are beautiful.”8 She has ever prayed, with Anselm, “God of truth, I ask that I may receive so that my joy may be complete. Until then let my mind meditate on it, let my tongue speak of it, let my heart love it, let my mouth preach it. Let my soul hunger for it, let my flesh thirst for it, my whole being desire it, until I enter into the ‘joy of the Lord’ [Matthew 25:21] who is God, Three in One, blessed forever. Amen.”9 She has found the words of Aquinas to be true — namely, that the eschatological sight of God is “ultimate beatitude,” for “there resides in every man a natural desire to know the cause of any effect which he sees; and thence arises wonder in men. But if the intellect of the rational creature could not reach so far as to the first cause of things, the natural desire would remain void.”10

This is not to say that the church’s expressed desire for the beatific vision has been monolithic and uniform. Throughout the Great Tradition, tensions arise between various parties regarding how to understand the beatific vision.11 But we must emphatically insist that the beatific vision is a mere Christian eschatological hope — central to the theological concerns of Protestantism no less than that of Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy. Huldrych Zwingli, for example, described the beatific vision as the hope of seeing

God Himself in His very substance, in His nature and with all His endowments and powers and to enjoy all these not sparingly but in full measure, not with the cloying effect that generally accompanies satiety, but with that agreeable completeness which involves no surfeiting. . . . The good which we shall enjoy is infinite and the infinite cannot be exhausted; therefore no one can become surfeited with it, for it is ever new and yet the same.12

Likewise, Francis Turretin writes that “in this life, we see God by the light of grace and by the specular knowledge of faith; in the other life, however, by an intuitive and far more perfect beatific vision by the light of glory.”13 And Jonathan Edwards emphasized that, in the eschaton, the beatific vision “will be the most glorious sight that the saints will ever see with their bodily eyes. . . . There will be far more happiness and pleasure redounding to the beholders from this sight than any other. Yea the eyes of the resurrection body will be given chiefly to behold this sight.”14 If all of these theologians are correct, and the beatific vision is so central a hope for the eschaton, it must not merely be rightly situated within our reflections on the last things but should appropriately orient and animate all theological contemplation. “Blessed are the pure in heart,” our Lord said, “for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). No prospect could be more inviting for the Christian Hedonist whose loves have been properly ordered. All he does must be oriented toward this end.

All good roads of desire come to their consummate and intended destination in the sight of God. This is, of course, because in the beatific vision the creature’s deepest longing on the one hand, and God’s ultimate purpose to glorify himself on the other, are perfectly one in a single experience of beatitude. While God is not in any way enriched by the beatific vision (how could the infinitely perfect and self-happy one stand to be enriched by anyone or anything else?), he has ordained for the highest expression of his glory to be, simply, our highest enjoyment of him. God’s supreme glorification in us is found in our deepest enjoyment of him: when we come to have a share in the gratuitous and profuse love of the triune life. Where but in the beatific vision could such a singular intention be more emphatically realized? Amazingly, God’s purpose to glorify himself in us and our purpose to find our happiness in him reach their ultimate union in the beatific vision.

Becoming What We Behold

Nevertheless, we cannot experience this vision without radical transformation. In his first epistle, John tells us the transformation we will undergo into our glorified bodies — the result of which we cannot now comprehend — will occur as a direct result of our experience of the beatific vision (1 John 3:2). In other words, when the believer receives that which he most longs after — namely, the sight of God in the beatific vision — he will undergo the transformative experience of glorification he was destined for at creation: deification. At last, when the saints see and know even as they are seen and known, they will enter that everlasting Sabbath rest of saturated communion with God. They will have him for whom their soul most thirsts in undiminished and undiminishable plentitude. In that ceaseless day, the saints will be full to the brim and spilling over with God. God will be all in all (1 Corinthians 15:28).

“The beatific vision is that great hope that we will one day see and know fully, even as we are seen and known by God.”

Many Protestants have a problem with the language of deification. But this need not be the case. After all, as Carl Mosser notes, “Deification or divinization is one of the earliest entries in the Christian theological lexicon,” and “patristic writers were careful to employ a variety of formulations and analogies to safeguard the Creator-creature distinction. In an orthodox context, deification refers to the transformation believers will undergo in the resurrection when they are saturated with divine life by virtue of union with Christ, the full indwelling of the Spirit, and vision of God.”15 Mosser convincingly demonstrates that deification has consistently been a staple not only for patristic and medieval theology, but also in Reformed articulations of salvation.16 Without ever ceasing to be a creature, the saint becomes by grace what the triune God is by nature: infinitely happy.

Sons in the Son

As mentioned briefly at the start of this essay, the theological foundation for these propositions is God’s own beatitude. The God who is happiness par excellence graciously incorporates his people into his own self-happiness via adoption. The Trinitarian shape of this salvation — this gracious incorporation — is almost scandalous. Consider the logic here: God Most High, who is paternity (Father), filiation (Son), and love (Spirit), adopts us into the happy life of divine sonship by pouring his Spirit into our hearts (Galatians 4:4–7; Romans 5:5). In God the Son incarnate, we become sons who can likewise cry, in the love of the Spirit, “Abba, Father!” Christ, the God-man, feeds us with the eternal life of God by offering to us himself (John 6:25–59), and as we receive (consume!) him by faith, we are receiving by gracious and adopted sonship what is his by natural and eternal sonship: life (John 5:26).

This, then, is how we come to experience deification. United to Christ and beholding Christ, we become like what we behold (2 Corinthians 3:18) — we become sons in the Son.17 Calvin puts this matter memorably when he writes that Christ “makes us, ingrafted into his body, participants not only in all his benefits but also in himself,” so that “he grows more and more into one body with us, until he becomes completely one with us.”18 Robert Lethem is correct to note about this transformation that “this is not a union of essence — we do not cease to be human and become God or get merged into God-like ingredients in an ontological soup. This is not apotheosis.”19 Letham goes on to emphasize that we do not “lose our personal individual identities in some universal generic humanity,” nor are we “hypostatically united to the Son.” Rather, we are “united with Christ’s person,” and “since the assumed humanity of Christ participates in the eternal Son, is sanctified and glorified in him, and since we feed on the flesh and blood of Christ [by faith], we, too, in Christ are being transformed into his glorious likeness.”20

Such a way of thinking should not be an utter shock. We have already noted the crucial relationship between seeing the glory of God and being transformed by what we behold (2 Corinthians 3:12–4:6; 1 John 3:2).21 G.K. Beale has elucidated this point well in his book We Become What We Worship. According to holy Scripture, we are transformed progressively into what we behold, either for good (when we set our doxological gaze upon God) or for ill (when we do the same for idols).22 Thus, the principle of transformation-by-gazing is inescapable. But because we are blinded by the satanic veil of sin until the Spirit gives us eyes to see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 4:1–6), deification is not a matter of adjusting our perspective by sheer will. What is required is a miraculous work of the Spirit.

What we need, in other words, is a series of transformations that progressively move us from death to everlasting life. It is not enough to be made as creatures who are designed to find their ultimate satisfaction in God. This is already true for all image-bearers. Rather, we must first come to experience a transformation whereby we become the kind of image-bearers who want to see God and who do see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ by faith (2 Corinthians 4:6) — and who thereby receive eternal life by grace in this life. Then we need to be graciously brought into the ongoing experience of beholding Christ by faith so as to be progressively transformed into his likeness “from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18). Finally, we need the transformation that marks the culmination of all prior transformative experiences. On that day, “We shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).

God’s Indwelling Love

In all these transformative experiences, we must realize we are recipients of divine grace and not laborers receiving an earned wage. We cannot animate our hearts and souls to long after — and cling to — God, either in this life or in the life to come. No; always, God must impart within us the love that is himself from everlasting to everlasting. Such is the deep, glorious rationale behind a passage like 1 John 4:7–21.

For John, there is a direct correlation between the love that saints have for one another and the love they have received through the gospel. This much has been noted by many a preacher and Bible teacher: truly forgiven people forgive; loved people love; those who have experienced the grace of God in their hearts extend that grace toward one another. Too seldom, however, do readers attend to the deep theological logic of this passage. Here, in John’s first epistle, the apostle makes clear the relationship between theologia and oikonomia — between God’s ad intra life and his ad extra work; between who God is in se and how the inseparable operations of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are executed and appropriated to distinct persons of the Trinity in time.

The fount of every other example of “love” in this passage is found in verse 8: “God is love.” This is a statement of theologia — God in relation to God; the inner life of the a se one revealed in holy Scripture. All our love is from the God who is love (verses 7–8). And John tells us that the God who is love manifests his love to us in the mission of the Son in the incarnation (verses 9–12) and in the mission of the Spirit to indwell believers (verses 13–14), first signified at Pentecost. In other words, we come to gain an interest in the love of God through the love of God manifested in the divine missions. We are brought within God’s love when we are swept up into the meritorious life, penal substitutionary death, and victorious resurrection of Christ Jesus by the Spirit. In the Holy Spirit — he who is the divine Love of Father and Son — we are united to Christ, and as a result, God the Trinity abides in us (verse 16). From the inside out, the God of love transforms us by vivifying us with his own loving self.

All this is gloriously true for the transformed Christian now, but it will be finally consummated in its climactic form in the beatific vision (and the experience of deification that accompanies this vision). A strong continuity exists between what we are and what we will be. The bind that ties the two is the transformative experience of communion with God the Trinity in Christ: the one whom we behold by faith now is the very same one we will behold by glorified vision in the eschaton. The former vision means salvation in this age — the double grace of justification and sanctification. But the latter vision will mean glorification in the age to come — deification (1 John 3:2). This process of sanctifying communion begins in this life at conversion, but its consummation awaits the glorified experience of the beatific vision.

Heaven’s Burning Hearth

In the experience of the beatific vision, the Christian Hedonist will satisfy his deepest longing for happiness in God. In the courts of the new heavens and the new earth, when all creation will have been renewed and perfected to be the heavenly cosmic temple God always intended it to be, man will dwell with God in happy, holy, perfect beatific delight forever. There, God will receive the highest glory he intends for himself in his creatures’ highest enjoyment of him. No account of Christian eschatology is complete without this blessed hope as the end of all things. Heaven’s burning hearth, enlightening and enlivening and warming the entire frame, is this delightful union with God. No amount of earthly restoration is worth anything without this central hope: all else leaves the desiring saint cold and empty. Apart from the deifying grace of the beatific vision, the new heavens and the new earth are a stale prospect. But thanks be to God, no such prospect need be entertained for long. We see, though now only as a distant promise, what Dante saw at the top of Purgatorio’s mount:

I saw that far within its depths there lies,by Love together in one volume bound,that which in leaves lies scattered through the world;substance and accident, and modes thereof,fused, as it were, in such a way, that that,whereof I speak, is but One Simple Light.23

All that goodness and love and light and life that lies scattered, disintegrated, and partial in this life will one day be gathered and swept up into the one simple glory of God, which we will behold forever. We can therefore say, with David,

One thing have I asked of the Lord,     that will I seek after:that I may dwell in the house of the Lord     all the days of my life,to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord     and to inquire in his temple. (Psalm 27:4)

And with our ear tilted toward heaven, we can hear this request met with a startling invitation: “The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who hears say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price” (Revelation 22:17). We are emboldened, therefore, by our Lord who says, “Surely I am coming soon” (Revelation 22:20). And so, with John — and the communion of the saints past and present — we say, “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!”

Audio Transcript

Welcome back to the Ask Pastor John podcast. About a month ago, we looked at how to apply Old Testament stories to our lives — some helpful Bible reading tools there for how to move from ancient Old Testament narratives to our own lives now. That was APJ 2118.

Today, we look at sermon application more specifically. How important is life application to a sermon? Can you even have a sermon without application? Or is application optional and unnecessary? It’s a great question from a young woman from Washington state: “Hello, Pastor John, and thank you for the Ask Pastor John podcast. I’m writing to say that my pastor does a great job teaching us the details of the Bible. But Sundays are also very much academic lectures. While I leave church with a head full of knowledge and history and facts, I don’t often come away with a message I can apply to my life that helps me grow as a Christian. I’ve asked him to consider adding some application to his sermons, but the suggestion has led to no changes that I can perceive.

“You’ve heard this exact same criticism yourself. I remember you saying in APJ episode 1968, titled ‘Ten Criticisms of John Piper’s Preaching,’ that the number nine criticism was ‘You don’t give enough application, Piper. You focus mainly on exposition, and not enough on application to real-life situations.’ And then you suggested that a decade of ten-minute applications in Ask Pastor John episodes is your way of ‘doing penance for all those years without ten minutes of application at the end of the sermon.’ Quite funny. But seriously, how much life application should a preacher seek to offer in a Sunday sermon?”

I doubt that it is possible to give a quantitative answer to the question “How much life application should a preacher give in a sermon?” But I think we will get at it by analyzing what application is in preaching. It’s not a simple thing. How does application relate to exposition (or another word for exposition would be explanation)?

Expositing by Applying

I want to make the case that all good application is further exposition. That is, it’s part of the explanation of the meaning of the text. It’s not something merely added on to the exposition or explanation. Good application more deeply explains — makes the original meaning clearer, sharper, more compelling. And I want to make the case that the other way around is also true — namely, no exposition or explanation of the text is complete as exposition without application to real contemporary living.

Now, that may sound like I’m just contradicting my pattern in life, but hear me out. God’s communication to us is never without implications for the living of our lives. Those implications are part of what he is trying to communicate in the Bible. They’re not a separate thing. It’s part of what he’s trying to communicate — the implications for our lives of what he teaches. Therefore, the exposition of that communication is not complete if those implications do not touch the lives of the people in the pew. And that touching we often call application.

So, you can see I’m not happy with the hard dividing line between explanation and application. Good and full explanation includes application, and good and helpful application deepens explanation. There is no hard-and-fast line between them.

Example of Simple Exposition

I think I can show this by taking a sample text and describing three stages or kinds of exposition merging with application. So, let’s take Romans 8:13. Paul says, “If you live according to the flesh you will die.” Let’s just take that phrase. The rest of it says, “but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live,” but I don’t have time to deal with both halves.

“Good and full explanation includes application, and good and helpful application deepens explanation.”

“If you live according to the flesh you will die.” Now, the preacher’s first job is to explain what that means. What is God trying to communicate to his people? To do that, we need to explain what “flesh” is, we need to explain what “dying” is, and we need to explain what “live according to the flesh” is. So, flesh, dying, living — that has to be explained. At least those three things have to be exposited or opened or explained — not with ideas coming out of our own head, but with Paul’s ideas, so that we’re thinking his thoughts after him, not just making up our own thoughts and putting them in his mouth.

So, to explain the meaning of “flesh,” the preacher might back up a few verses and see how the word “flesh” was used in verses 7 and 8. Or he might go to Galatians 5:19 and show from “the works of the flesh” what the flesh is. With regard to the meaning of “death,” he might observe that everybody dies of physical death, whether they live according to the flesh or not. And so, death in this verse must be more than physical death, because only those who live according to the flesh will die this death. He might argue that way and go to Romans 6:23 to flesh it out. Thirdly, he might observe that “living according to the flesh” would mean that the impulses of the flesh that he has now defined get the upper hand and control the life.

Now, the pastor may take five or ten or fifteen minutes to do that. I just took two. And he unpacks the three explanatory ideas of flesh, death, living, and he may do so with zero reference to the people sitting in front of him. That, I think, is what gives preaching a lecture feel and makes a person think that his mind is being taught, but his life is not being shaped.

Applicatory Exposition

So, what I think is better than that is for the preacher, at every point in the exposition, the explanation, to look the people in the eye over and over again in the exposition using the pronoun you — they’re in the third pew — and asking them, “Do you see these realities? Do you see them right now in your own life? Do you know what your flesh is? Do you know what living is and what dying and heaven and hell are? I’m talking to you.” And he’s doing that as he does exposition. He’s not abstracted, like he’s outside the room during exposition and inside the room during application.

No. Every explanation is not an explanation in the abstract, but an explanation, as it were, of some dynamic in our lives. I would call this “applicatory exposition” or “applicatory explanation.” The preacher’s not waiting until the explanation is done to press these realities on the hearers. You look at them in the eye and you say, “Do you know what your flesh is?” And he’s saying that during his exposition on what is the flesh. If you don’t know what your flesh is, how will you obey this text?

In other words, you’re creating an existential problem for these people as you’re doing the exposition to show them how the exposition itself is very relevant for their lives right now in this moment. “Do you want to know what your flesh is? Or are you just sitting there indifferent to whether you live or die, according to this text?” Those kinds of questions are eyeball-to-eyeball connections. They don’t have to wait for application.

That’s the way you talk as you do explanation. If “living according to the flesh” means daily life without reference to God, say, you call attention to the fact that this is your life we’re dealing with right now. “As I do this explanation, I’m dealing with your life. You’re going to die if you live according to the flesh. Pay attention to what I’m doing here. This is for you. This exposition has enormous immediate applicatory significance for your life. Is your life lived without reference to God most of the time?” If “dying” means permanently and in hell, ask them, “When was the last time you pondered the possibility of hell? Does it have a functioning place in your life? This verse sure calls you to have that place in your life.”

Another name you might give to this kind of exposition or explanation is “urgency of exposition.” Exposition itself can be done academically or existentially with a sense of urgency, because everything in this text matters ultimately. You don’t have to wait until the last ten minutes of the sermon to urgently press these realities that you’re expositing onto the hearts of the hearers.

Illustrative Exposition

Now, here’s the second stage of exposition after this kind of urgent applicatory exposition. I might call it “illustrative exposition,” and I think this is what many people think of when they think of application. You look at your people and you ask, “What would be an example this afternoon at three o’clock of living according to the flesh?” And you pause and you wait. Let them think.

And he might say, “You will be living according to the flesh this afternoon at three o’clock, husband, if your wife says something that feels demeaning or dismissive, and you sink into a sequence of emotions like self-pity, anger, sullenness, pouting, withdrawal. That is not the way of Christ. That is not the way of the Spirit, men. That is the way of the flesh. And if you live in that way without repentance, you will go to hell. It’s that practical, guys.” That’s what I’d call “illustrative exposition.” And I say it’s exposition. Yes, I say it’s exposition, not just illustration. Because at that moment, this text just might open up with its proper meaning to those husbands who have been daydreaming until I nailed them.

Soul-Penetrating Exposition

Let me mention one more stage of the exposition, which we might call “soul-penetrating exposition.” At this point, the preacher might pose the question, “How does this verse motivate you, congregation, not to live according to the flesh? How does it motivate you?” Pause. Wait. Let them look down at their text. The answer is, “It threatens you with death and hell if you do live according to the flesh. That’s how it motivates you.”

Now, that’s going to make people really uncomfortable, right? You’ve just created a big problem, because everybody knows that’s not a good enough motivation. But then you ask the more penetrating question, “Is the fear of hell, which this verse creates — it ought to — an adequate motivation for putting the flesh to death?” And you pause and you wait. See what they would answer in their head. All of this is application with urgency. And then you take another ten minutes in your sermon to unpack how it is that you put to death the deeds of the body by the Spirit — and not just by fear — and what that means.

So, what I’m saying is that there is a way to do exposition that is applicatory and illustrative and penetrating. And we’re not to insist that pastors carve up their sermons between exposition and application. I want to encourage pastors to have a flavor and a spirit of penetrating, urgent, applicatory exposition at every moment in the sermon.

Sometimes, the solution to our spiritual struggles is less spiritual than we imagined.

Maybe you walk in a spiritual wilderness, afflicted by distressing doubts. Maybe a dull apathy settled upon you some time ago. Maybe you live in a land where joy feels far away.

You might imagine that the main solution to these spiritual struggles is, well, spiritual: hold more firmly to God’s promises; draw near to him more regularly; search out hidden sins. And you might be right. But maybe, just maybe, you need to hear counsel like John Newton’s (1725–1807):

Sometimes when nervous people come to me, distressed about their souls, and think that is their only complaint, I surprise them by asking if they have no friend in Cornwall, or in the north of Scotland, whom they could visit; for I thought a ride to the Land’s End, or John o’ Groat’s House, might do them more good than all the counsel I could give them. (Letters, 389)

Sometimes, our spiritual struggles come not because we have neglected God’s word but because we have neglected his world. We have walked through life wearing sunglasses and wondered at the darkness. We have lived with headphones on and questioned why we can’t hear.

We may indeed have spiritual issues to address. But our first solution may simply be this: open your eyes and ears and wonder at the world God made.

Where Wonder Dies

By wonder, I mean a wide-eyed awareness of God’s creation that leaves us hushed, self-forgetful, and brimming with joy. Such wonder quiets cares and awakens worship. It gilds ordinary moments and dignifies daily labors. It composes and calms, reminds and recalibrates, adds poetry to prose. Even a little wonder can do wonders for the soul.

But some of us rarely look through the window of wonder. We are too distracted by other attractions, even though they lend far less cheer to heart and mind. Perhaps two allure your attention.

The first is probably not surprising. On average, we Americans check our phones some two hundred times a day, or about once every five waking minutes. “With the smartphone,” Nicholas Carr writes, “the human race has succeeded in creating the most interesting thing in the world” (The Shallows, 233). But this “most interesting thing” has a way of rendering the real world uninteresting. Life looks drab in the smartphone’s glow.

You don’t need to be addicted to your phone, however, to lose your wonder. Another more surprising attraction draws and keeps many for far too long. Some have called it “the devilish onrush” of the modern world; others, “the cult of productivity and efficiency” (The Art of Noticing, xv). Many of us really like getting things done — and fast.

People made in the image of a creative God ought to value productivity. But “the cult of productivity” is something different. Those shaped by this cult don’t simply like getting things done; they dislike not getting things done. And so they have little patience for stillness and silence, meditation and marveling. Unproductive feels unbearable.

So then, the phone and the to-do list, entertainment and efficiency, digital bombardments and hustle-bustle busyness — often, these are the enemies that steal our wonder.

How Then Shall We See?

These enemies are also difficult to resist, even when you know what they take from you. The sight of a real mountain may seem dull compared to a digital mountain — or the mountain of work we’d like to get done. Reclaiming wonder takes effort. It takes a willingness to pin down our twitchy thumbs and endure the sight of unchecked boxes as we reorient our vision to “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely” (Philippians 4:8).

I find help from two habits that draw from God’s creative pattern in Genesis 1:1–2:3: Daily look upon God’s world and call it good. Weekly rest in God’s world and be refreshed.

DAILY ATTENTIVENESS

Habit 1: At least once daily, attend — truly attend — to one of the wonders God has made.

This first habit borrows from Clyde Kilby’s “means to mental health,” where he gets more specific: “I shall open my eyes and ears. Once every day I shall simply stare at a tree, a flower, a cloud, or a person. I shall not then be concerned at all to ask what they are but simply be glad that they are.”

At least once a day, in other words, find something unentertaining and unproductive, some flower that unfolds its beauty only under the sun of patient attention. Press through the discomfort of undistracted inefficiency and slow down. Look. Listen. Notice. Consider something God created and “be glad” that he spoke it into being.

“Sometimes, the solution to our spiritual struggles is less spiritual than we imagined.”

As the biblical writers show, we do not lack wonders to choose from. The sun gives one reason for gladness (Psalm 19:1–6); insects give another (Proverbs 30:28). Gentle rains show one kind of beauty (Psalm 104:13); stormy winds show another (Psalm 148:8). We find unspeakable variety in God’s world — from sheep to sharks, earlobes to earthworms, tree rings to the rings around Jupiter — but they all share the glory of God’s original “good” (Genesis 1:10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31).

And if the objects of our wonder are many, so too are the means for observing them. The creativity of God invites creative exploration. Maybe journal daily just a line or two about something you observe. Or try your hand at some modest poetry. Or reclaim lull moments (like waiting or walking) for noticing. Or build a five-minute sanctuary in your afternoon where you simply sit, pray, and see.

Throughout Genesis 1, our God took daily pleasure in the world his words had made. So, why not adorn your own days with an answering “good”?

WEEKLY REFRESHMENT

Habit 2: Weekly, set apart extended time to get lost in the wonders of God’s world.

Daily attentiveness has a way of delighting us in the midst of our labors, sending us back to our screens and our tasks a little more free. But our souls cry out for something more than snatches of wonder. We want to hear more than a passing melody, want to see more than a corner of the canvas. We want to give our attention to the wonders of God’s world long enough to get lost in them.

Scripture’s celebrations of creation bear the marks not simply of attention but of extended attention. In Proverbs 30:24–28, the wise man’s appreciation of small creatures is exceedingly big. Our Lord Jesus showed a similarly patient pleasure in creation. He knew the ways of the wind and the signs of the skies (John 3:8; Matthew 16:2–3); he sat before wildflowers with enough awareness to see splendor greater than Solomon’s (Matthew 6:28–29). The wise care about wonder; they also know that wonder can take time.

Some of us feel wonder so rarely because we rarely (or never) walk through a whole day or even afternoon with the phone silent, calendar clear, and to-do list empty. We rarely let creation or those around us set the day’s agenda. And so the trails near home go unwalked, the best of books lie unread, quiet birdsong goes unheard, deliciously complex meals go unmade, and the images of God within our own home go unobserved, unmarveled.

Both in creation and among his old-covenant people, God set apart one day in seven for the rest that leaves room for wonder. Though Christians are not bound to keep the old-covenant Sabbath, God’s original six-and-one pattern still holds wisdom. But even if we choose a different interval, we need some kind of rhythm that refreshes the deepest parts of us.

Wonderers and Worshipers

Creation holds “untold resources for mental health and spiritual joy,” writes John Piper (When I Don’t Desire God, 197). But as he emphasizes, these “untold resources” do not belong to creation itself. They belong to the Creator. And so, we look to creation to see the Artist, not simply the art; we listen for the Author in every line we read.

In Psalm 148, the psalmist’s reflections follow a wonderful pattern: in meditating on sky, earth, sea, and man, he follows God’s creative work from day 4 to day 6 (Genesis 1:14–31). He puts his finger to paper and traces his Father’s lines, seeking to add his creaturely “good” and “very good” to God’s primal pleasure.

He is, in other words, not first a wonderer but a worshiper. Breathless, he beholds trees, clouds, cows, grass, storms, ships, laughs, stars, streams, and comes away saying, “His name alone is exalted” (Psalm 148:13). The countless wonders of the world bear one signature. God has written his name in everything good.

Maybe, then, the solution to your spiritual struggle is less spiritual than you thought. And maybe the God of Genesis 1 calls you to seek him not just through his word but through his world, daily and weekly rejoicing in him.

The title of this message is Everyone Is Everlasting — But Where? Where will everyone be beyond death, forever? I would like us to think together for a few minutes about your everlasting future — your future beyond this earthly life — including how your life now relates to the everlasting future of other people, especially those groups of people who, as we speak, have no access to the knowledge of Jesus Christ and the good news of everlasting life through him.

Everlasting God

God is everlasting in both directions, past and future.

Before the mountains were brought forth,     or ever you had formed the earth and the world,     from everlasting to everlasting you are God. (Psalm 90:2)

That’s where we start. We start with God. Because everything starts with God. Little children will always ask, “Daddy, who made God?” And their eyes get wide when you say, “Johnny, nobody made God. He was there before everything. He was always there. He never had a beginning.” Glen Scrivener recently said, “Christians believe in the virgin birth of Jesus. Materialists believe in the virgin birth of the cosmos. Choose your miracle.”

I remember at a critical point in my life pondering the mystery of the existence of absolute reality and thinking, Something has existed forever in eternity past; otherwise, we wouldn’t be here, because nothingness produces nothing. So is the eternal reality some kind of gas, or is it a Person? It struck me with tremendous force that there is nothing before that reality to make it more or less likely that it is a person or a gas. In other words, there’s no reason to think that it’s unlikely that ultimate reality is a person.

Since we can’t think forward from causes to the nature of ultimate reality, because there are no causes of ultimate reality (nothing existed before ultimate reality), therefore we must think backward to the nature of ultimate reality from what we see now. And what do we see? We see the order and design and beauty of the creation declaring the glory of God (Psalm 19:1). And our own human personhood bears witness that the image of God is stamped on the human soul. And we look at the witness of Scripture as Jesus Christ stands forth compellingly from its pages and wins our confidence, and we know that he, and his Father, and the Holy Spirit are one God — ultimate reality. That’s what is everlasting — in both directions.

Before the mountains were brought forth . . .     from everlasting to everlasting you are God. (Psalm 90:2)

Everlasting People

But we are not everlasting the way God is everlasting. We are everlasting only in one direction — namely, toward the future. We came into existence; God didn’t. But like God, you will never go out of existence. That’s breathtaking. In Acts 24:15, Paul said, “There will be a resurrection of both the just and the unjust.” That’s everybody, the good and the evil. And Jesus said,

An hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment. (John 5:28–29)

Nobody stays in the grave — nobody. Everyone is everlasting. But where? In the resurrection of life or in the resurrection of judgment? Cut off from God in everlasting misery or with God in everlasting ecstasy? Will you be in the new world of everlasting happiness or in the hell of everlasting torment?

Path of Eternal Misery

Why do people use the word hell the way they do? “Hell no, I won’t go.” “What the hell is going on?” Hell has become a linguistic intensifier. Why? It’s not because modern people don’t believe in it, but because we once did.

Jesus uses the word hell more than anyone else in the Bible. It wasn’t made up by the church to scare people. It was given to the church by Jesus. And he uses it to refer to everlasting misery. He refers to it as fire, outer darkness, wrath, and eternal punishment.

Jesus says, “If your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire” (Matthew 18:9).
In the parable of the wedding feast, Jesus said about the man without the proper garment, “Cast him into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 22:13).
In John 3, he shows that this fire and darkness is God’s wrath: “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him” (John 3:36).
And in describing the final judgment, Jesus says of the disobedient, “These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life” (Matthew 25:46).

He speaks of the hell of fire, outer darkness, weeping and gnashing of teeth, divine wrath, and eternal punishment.

And the apostle John adds in Revelation 14:9–10 that this everlasting punishment is conscious torment. It’s not the punishment of annihilation. Annihilation wouldn’t be punishment; it would be relief.

If anyone worships the beast . . . he also will drink the wine of God’s wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. (Revelation 14:9–10)

That’s one path of everlasting existence, the path of misery. That’s one answer to the question “Where?” The other path is everlasting ecstasy.

Path of Eternal Ecstasy

The ultimate purpose of God for his people is the exaltation of his glory in the everlasting happiness of his people. God’s glory and our happiness climax together, because God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. God created the universe for the happiness of his people in him, because nothing shows the greatness and the beauty and the worth of God more than a people who are completely satisfied forever in him.

Jesus said in the middle of his ministry, “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full” (John 15:11). And at the last day, when we stand before him, he will say to all his faithful followers, “Well done, good and faithful servant. . . . Enter into the joy of your master” (Matthew 25:21).

Jesus Christ, our Savior, died for this — for your joy in the presence of your Creator. The apostle Peter said, “Christ suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18). And what do we find when we enter the presence of God clothed in the righteousness of Christ? We find this: “In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11). There is no greater joy than full joy. And there is no longer pleasure than forevermore. The presence of God, with Jesus Christ, is the place and the source of happiness beyond imagination. It cannot be otherwise for the children of God, if God is infinitely glorious.

The Bible itself reaches for the best possible language to help us to feel that our everlasting life with God is the greatest and everlasting happiness. Psalm 36:7–8 says, “How precious is your steadfast love, O God! . . . You give us drink from the river of your delights.” Why a river? Because great rivers have been flowing for thousands of years, and they never stop. I live within walking distance of the Mississippi River. I stand there and watch this mighty river flow. There are ninety thousand gallons per second flowing at St. Anthony Falls near my house. And I ask, How can this be? Century after century, and it never runs dry. That’s amazing. That’s what we are to feel when we read, “You give us drink from the river of your delights.” God’s resources of happiness are inexhaustible. And the result?

The ransomed of the Lord shall return     and come to Zion with singing;everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;     they shall obtain gladness and joy,     and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. (Isaiah 35:10)

Everyone is everlasting. But where? It’s either everlasting misery apart from God or everlasting ecstasy with God.

Life in the Son

You have heard in all these messages what makes the difference between those two outcomes of your life.

The Creator of the universe — no beginning, no ending — sent his eternal Son into the world so that “whoever believes in him should not perish [not experience everlasting misery] but have eternal life [experience everlasting ecstasy]” (John 3:16). How did he do that? “He bore our sins in his body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24). “All of us like sheep have gone astray; we have turned — every one — to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6). “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13).

“The ultimate purpose of God for his people is the exaltation of his glory in the everlasting happiness of his people.”

So, he will deliver us from the wrath to come (1 Thessalonians 1:10). You do not have to perish. I offer you, in the name of Jesus, everlasting happiness in God. Jesus said (and I say to you), “Whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life” (John 5:24). “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst” (John 6:35). “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life” (John 3:36). Everlasting happiness.

And the connection with world missions, world evangelization, is Romans 10:13–15:

“Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”

You have the best news in all the world. Virtually all of you have it in your heads because you’ve heard it. And many of you have it in your hearts and are saved by it from everlasting misery. You are destined for everlasting happiness no matter how much you suffer in this world. You have the news that saves from eternal destruction. And there are thousands of peoples, tribes, and languages where the church has not yet been planted and the news has not been spread.

And the Bible says, “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). “There is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5). There is one God over all, one mediator for the world, one message for salvation, and one plan for the nations: You. Us. Missions.

Here’s what Jesus said to Paul, the Christian killer. Perhaps you will hear it as a call to you:

I am sending you to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me. (Acts 26:17–18)

Implications of Existing Forever

As we move toward a close of this message and this conference, let me draw out five implications of this truth that everyone is everlasting, in misery or in ecstasy.

1. No Ordinary People

Everyone you know and everyone you will ever meet will one day either shine so brightly that, if you saw them now with your natural eyes, you would be blinded, or they will be so deformed that, if you saw them now, you would shrink back with loathing. Jesus said, “The righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Matthew 13:43). And he said of those who are thrown into hell, “Their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched” (Mark 9:48). That’s a picture of maggots feeding on flesh.

Someone will surely say, “You don’t take that literally, do you?” To which I respond, “What difference do you think that makes?” If it’s literal, it’s horrible. And if it’s metaphorical, it’s horrible. Because that’s why you use horrible metaphors. You grope for words to describe a horrible reality. Jesus chose the words. We didn’t. You are sitting right now beside future kings and queens or future devils. C.S. Lewis put it like this:

It is a serious thing . . . to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. . . . There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization —these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit — immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. (The Weight of Glory, 46–47)

If you believe that, it changes everything.

2. Life as a Vapor

This life is very short, a vapor. James 4:14 says, “You do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.” Psalm 103:15–16 says,

As for man, his days are like grass;     he flourishes like a flower of the field;for the wind passes over it, and it is gone,     and its place knows it no more.

If you devote your entire life to making your life on earth more comfortable and more secure, and to helping others do the same, without any vision for how your life counts for eternity and how your life helps other lives count for eternity, you’re not only a fool — you’re a loveless fool. Love seeks its happiness in what is the greatest and longest happiness of others, and God has shown where that is: “In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11).

3. Future Dominion

Your life after this earthly life is infinitely long and, therefore, infinitely significant. You may feel very insignificant now. You may think presidents of countries and CEOs of big corporations are significant — that people with power and influence, like kings and rulers, are significant. Here’s what John said about ordinary Christians in the everlasting age to come:

They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever. (Revelation 22:4–5)

You think ruling now on earth, like a vapor, is significant? Actually, reigning with God forever is significant. And as if we could add anything to that, Jesus promises to those who conquer the evil one and keep the faith in this life, “I will make [you] a pillar in the temple of my God” (Revelation 3:11). I don’t know all that that means. But this I know: if you remove a pillar, the temple collapses. That’s not going to happen. And that is significant.

4. Eternal Significance

This short life on earth determines how we spend our everlasting future. Therefore, this life is infinitely significant. You can waste it by following blind, famous people who make millions of dollars and don’t know their right hand from their left. Or you can lay up treasures in heaven by pouring out your life for the temporal and eternal good of others. The apostle Paul said,

We do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. (2 Corinthians 4:16–17)

How you spend this life, with all its possibilities for love and afflictions, prepares an eternal weight of glory. Your life now really matters. It’s a gift. Don’t waste it.

5. Sending and Going

One of the most significant ways not to waste your vapor-like life is for the next sixty years to seek your happiness in helping others be eternally happy in God, even if it costs you your life. You enlarge your own happiness in God by drawing others into it. The apostle Peter said to the early Christians, “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9). This is our life. We say to everyone who will listen, “Here are the excellencies of my Savior, my God, and my Friend. There is no happier place than to be in his forgiveness, his fellowship, and his everlasting joy.”

Don’t misunderstand. This is a missions conference, but none of us who speak here believe that all of you should be missionaries. You shouldn’t. You are not walking in disobedience if you become a God-centered, Christ-exalting, people-loving sender. There are three kinds of Christians: goers, senders, and the disobedient. The vast majority of you are not called to cross a culture, learn a language, and plant the church where it doesn’t exist. You are called, rather, to display the excellencies of Christ in all you do — to magnify his worth in the way you study, marry, raise a family, run a business, do your job, build relationships, enjoy your food and God’s other good gifts, love your neighbors, and serve your church.

The Bible says, “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). “And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus” (Colossians 3:17). “Let all that you do be done in love” (1 Corinthians 16:14). Every Christian centers on the glory of God, exalts Jesus Christ, and loves people. That is our pathway to everlasting happiness with God.

But this is a missions conference, and God has been at work in hundreds of you to loosen the roots of your tree so that it could be pulled up and planted in a place, and among a people, where there’s no gospel. That’s the main reason why this conference exists. That’s why many of you are here. He brought you here. These messages have been awakening in you, or solidifying for you, a sense that God’s call on your life is to be a missionary. When you hear the Bible describe a missionary by saying, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” (Romans 10:15), your heart says, “God, I want feet like that.”

Discerning God’s Leading

Here’s how we are going to close. We’re going to pray for a couple of minutes in quietness so that you can deal with the Lord about these things. And then I’m going to have some of you stand up so that we can focus our prayers on you and so that you can drive a stake in the ground, saying, “Lord, I mean this.” What you would be saying by standing is this:

I am not infallible, but to the best of my knowledge, I believe God is leading me toward a life devoted to him in cross-cultural missions. And by my standing, I simply indicate that when I go home or back to my campus, one of my next steps will be to seek out the leadership of my church and ask them to help me discern God’s leading and, if they see God’s hand on my life, to help me forward in my sense of God calling to be a missionary.

Simply put, it’s two parts: I believe God is at work in my life to lead me toward vocational missions, and I will seek the counsel and help of my church.

Some of you find yourself in the situation where you are not tied into a healthy church where you could do that. We don’t think that’s a healthy situation for you. But if you sense God leading to vocational missions, and you commit to finding a church where that kind of counsel and help can be given, I want you to stand also after we pray.

All of us have serious things to talk to God about at the end of a conference like this: your own salvation, your own holiness, your own compassion for lost people, and the glory of God.

Few chapters in Scripture have impacted me as much as 2 Chronicles 20. God has met me, often through tears, in this passage — a passage that continues to show me how to respond in crisis. I’ve learned to throw myself on the Lord in trial, to trust him when I can’t see results, and to worship in the midst of seemingly impossible situations. It also contains one of my go-to verses, words I whisper throughout the day when I feel helpless and unsure, in need of wisdom and help.

This passage first came alive to me after my husband left our family and I didn’t know where to turn. A multitude of issues were at my doorstep, and I had no idea how I would survive the onslaught. And years later, with mounting health issues, I repeatedly turned to this passage when I felt desperate. Even now, each time I reread it, I remember God’s faithfulness in trials, which anchors me again on solid rock.

Embattled and Blessed

The account in 2 Chronicles 20 takes place around 850 BC, after the kingdom of Israel is divided. Jehoshaphat is king of Judah, a faithful king who fears the Lord. Without warning, the king is told that a massive coalition of his enemies is marching toward him. They are already close, leaving little time to prepare.

When Jehoshaphat hears the chilling news, he is afraid and immediately seeks the Lord. Then he assembles a group to pray and fast. He begins his public prayer by proclaiming God’s power and reminding the people of how God had delivered their ancestors. Next, Jehoshaphat reminds God of his promises to Israel — that if disaster should come upon them and they cry out to God in their affliction, he would hear and save them. Jehoshaphat ends his prayer by humbly admitting their utter helplessness, looking to God alone for deliverance.

While they are praying, the Spirit of God falls upon a Levite in the crowd, who says, “Thus says the Lord to you, ‘Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed at this great horde, for the battle is not yours but God’s’” (2 Chronicles 20:15). Then he tells them exactly where the enemy would be and that the Lord would be with them. After the people hear the Lord’s reassurance, they worship.

Early the next morning, after exhorting the people to believe in the Lord, Jehoshaphat appoints a group to sing praises to God, saying, “Give thanks to the Lord, for his steadfast love endures forever” (verse 21). These people, who have no weapon but praise, march ahead of the army to the battle.

As they are singing, their enemies annihilate each other. When they see what happened, Jehoshaphat and all the people take their enemies’ valuables and name that place the “Valley of Beracah” — the Valley of Blessing.

What begins with great fear from an unexpected threat ends with greater joy from an unexpected blessing. Drawing from this story, here are five ways we can seek blessing in our own battles when we feel like a multitude of troubles is pressing in.

1. Seek God first when you are afraid.

In crisis, our minds are flooded with fear, and we must deliberately disrupt our anxious thoughts. Jehoshaphat’s first reaction was fear, after which he immediately sought the Lord. We don’t need to be afraid of the battles that are in front of us, even those that seem insurmountable, because God will be with us and fight for us.

Don’t turn to Google over God or endlessly play out “What if . . . ?” scenarios in your head. Before anything else, ask God for wisdom, resources, and strength — and then look around to see how he’s providing.

2. Remind yourself of God and his promises.

It’s so easy to forget that we worship the God of the universe — the God who simply speaks a word, and worlds come into existence, creating what is seen out of what was unseen (Hebrews 11:3). Everything is at his disposal. Paging through Scripture, we can see how God has worked in the lives of his people throughout the ages. We can also look back and see how God has worked in our own lives — answering our cries, rushing to our aid, and comforting us in sorrow.

“I have no resources, no wisdom, and no hope without God. All I can do is keep my eyes on him.”

God has given us extraordinary promises in Scripture that we can plead back to him, reminding him of what he has pledged. He will never leave or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5). He will take care of all our needs (Philippians 4:19). Nothing can separate us from his love (Romans 8:38–39). All things will work together for our good (Romans 8:28). And he has good plans for our future (Jeremiah 29:11).

Jehoshaphat didn’t presume God would save him from disaster, but rather that God would save him in the midst of disaster. He said, “If disaster comes upon us . . .” (2 Chronicles 20:9), implying that they would trust God in their affliction even if the worst happened. They would keep crying out to him, keep trusting him, confident that he would heal and deliver.

3. Keep your eyes on God, not circumstances.

When Jehoshaphat first cried out to God, he ended by saying, “We are powerless against this great horde that is coming against us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you” (2 Chronicles 20:12). This is my go-to prayer in suffering. I recognize my powerlessness over the situation, acknowledging that I have no resources, no wisdom, and no hope without God. All I can do is keep my eyes on him.

Our part is to tell God our need and to lay our struggle before him. His ways are so much higher than our ways, and he knows what is best. We don’t need to know where help will come from besides that it will come from him. If we keep looking at our problems rather than the presence of God in our problems, we will succumb to fear. So don’t focus on the circumstances around you, the wind and the waves bombarding you, because they are not stronger than our God. Nothing is too hard for him.

4. Worship where you are.

Don’t wait till you are delivered to worship. Jehoshaphat worshiped God before the battle. There was no deliverance, just the promise of God’s presence and his commitment to fight for them. We who know Christ have the same reassurance — if God is for us, no one can stand against us (Romans 8:31).

Jehoshaphat’s battle plan involved a choir going before the army, singers thanking God for his everlasting love. And they thanked him not for what he had done or what he would do, but rather for who he is. God inhabits the praises of his people; we can often feel his presence in a unique way when we worship. Even in the midst of trials, we can worship through simple acts like singing hymns, reading psalms aloud, or thanking God for his love. For Jehoshaphat, praise preceded the miracle, and the same is often true for us.

5. Remember that trials carry us to Christ.

Trials end in blessing as we seek God in them. For the people of Judah, the blessing was complete defeat of their enemies and treasure to carry home. For us in Christ, it will also be the defeat of our enemies. Our real enemy is Satan, who wants to destroy us by tempting us to doubt God in our struggle and to believe that he doesn’t care. Nothing could be further from the truth. God is with you in this trial, and as you cling to him, you will receive more blessings than you can carry. Just as the people of Judah named their place of victory the Valley of Blessing, we too can look for ways God is transforming our valleys of trouble into places of unexpected goodness, especially in giving us deeper intimacy with him.

I once thought that the greatest blessing in trial was deliverance, having my problems disappear and leaving me unscathed. But I have learned that the greater blessing in trial is deeper fellowship with Jesus, knowing his peace that surpasses understanding and his love that surpasses knowledge.

I don’t know where you are today, but if you feel overwhelmed by what you face, my prayer is that God will meet you as he met Jehoshaphat and has met me. Second Chronicles 20 has become a metaphor for my life, and when I look back over my trials, I see God’s mercy and grace written over every moment.

Audio Transcript

What makes someone spiritually dirty? This is an important question, and one born out of our Bible reading together, specifically in three Bible texts that a female listener to the podcast named Ivy is trying to put together and understand, texts coming up for us in the reading. Ivy writes this: “Pastor John, I never saw this connection until it was put together in the span of one week in the Navigators Bible Reading Plan. In Leviticus 5:2 and Leviticus 7:19–21, we read that touching unclean things makes one unclean. But Jesus completely changes this. He later says it is what comes out of us that makes us unclean. He says this in Matthew 15:18–20.

“I’m trying to put myself in a first-century Jewish mindset that was conditioned to think about clean and unclean things, what to touch and what not to touch. This seems like a radical change. Uncleanness is born inside of us! What caused such a major turnaround here, in what seems to me to be a fundamental redefinition of evil?”

I think this question is an example of making right observations from the Bible but drawing from them a wrong conclusion. Sorry about that. Let me see if I could gently nudge a correction.

It is right to observe that in the Old Testament there are laws against touching or eating certain things because they are ceremonially unclean. For example, if you touch a carcass, then you become unclean until the evening (Leviticus 11:24–25). Or, “Every animal that parts the hoof but is not cloven-footed or does not chew the cud is unclean to you. Everyone who touches them shall be unclean” (Leviticus 11:26).

So, there is such a thing in the Old Testament as external ceremonial contamination through the touching of something that is declared in the law to be unclean. That’s a true observation. These laws were one of God’s ways at that time of separating his people from the nations around them and emphasizing his distinctness, his holiness.

It is also true that Jesus spoke about becoming impure because of what the heart produces from within — for example, Matthew 15:18: “What comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person [makes them unclean].” So, that too is a true observation. So far, so good.

Purity Across the Covenants

But the mistake is in drawing the conclusion that in the Old Testament impurity was only external, while in the New Testament impurity is internal. That’s a mistake for two reasons.

In the first place, it contrasts the wrong things. Instead of contrasting Old Testament ceremonial uncleanness with New Testament moral uncleanness, the contrast is between Old Testament ceremonial uncleanness and the declaration by Jesus that there is no ceremonial uncleanness anymore: “He declared all foods clean” (Mark 7:19). In other words, Jesus does away with the Old Testament ceremonial cleanness and uncleanness. It’s not replaced by internal moral cleanness and uncleanness, but rather by the removal of ceremonial defilement entirely. It doesn’t exist in the church anymore.

“There was a real faith, a real obedience of faith, a real holiness in the saints of the Old Testament.”

The other reason it’s a mistake to say that the Old Testament impurity was external while the New Testament impurity is internal is that already in the Old Testament there was internal purity and impurity. It was already there. In both the New and the Old Testaments, there is internal moral purity or impurity. That’s not a contrast between the Old and New Testaments. So, in the Old Testament, there was both ceremonial external uncleanness and moral internal uncleanness, whereas in the New Testament, the ceremonial aspect of uncleanness is done away with, and the moral dimension is what’s left.

Now, that may seem like not a big deal, but it is a big deal because of the implications of it. Let me try to draw them out.

Spirit of Old Testament Saints

This is a bigger deal than we might think, because what it implies is that, already in the Old Testament, before Christ had died for our sins and before the unique outpouring of the power of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the forgiving work of the cross and the transforming work of the Spirit were already active in the saints of the Old Testament.

That’s huge for the way we read our Bibles, the way we appropriate patterns and commands and illustrations and so on. Let me say it again: the forgiving effect of Christ’s death and the transforming effect of God’s Spirit were already at work in the saints of the Old Testament. In other words, the reality of internal purity or impurity was known, and the purity was required in the Old Testament — internal purity, not just external ceremonial purity.

The Old Testament knew about the deep internal reality of original sin, for example. David says, “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Psalm 51:5). In other words, the saints of the Old Testament knew that their bad behavior came from inside, not outside. So, Proverbs 4:23 says, “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.” That’s just like what Jesus said.

And David prayed, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10). He expected that to happen. It did happen. And Psalm 24:3–4 says, “Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart.” Now, that did not mean nobody. It was possible through prayer, through repentance, through forgiveness, through sacrifice to get a pure heart before God.

Born Again Then and Now

God was at work in the Old Testament among the faithful remnant of Israel, transforming their hearts and leading them in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake (Psalm 23:3). For example, in 1 Chronicles 29:17–18, David says, “Now I have seen your people, who are present here, offering freely and joyously to you. O Lord . . . keep forever such purposes and thoughts in the hearts of your people, and direct their hearts toward you.” That’s amazing. That’s exactly what he does today for the saints and what he did then for the saints.

So, here it is again in 2 Chronicles 30:12. It says, “The hand of God was also on Judah to give them one heart to do what the king and the princes commanded by the word of the Lord.” In other words, God was at work in the hearts of his people to give them the kind of disposition and heart to be trusting and obedient toward him.

This is why Jesus — at least, this is my interpretation of Jesus in John 3 — was amazed in speaking to Nicodemus that he didn’t understand that you must be born again to see the kingdom of God. Well, people saw the kingdom of God in the Old Testament. They saw God; they knew the reign of God; they walked in holiness before God — the saints did. That was true in the Old Testament (“You must be born again”) and in the New Testament.

Nobody can overcome their unbelief, hardness of heart without the sovereign work of the Spirit, whenever they live — four thousand years ago or twenty minutes ago. So, Jesus said, “Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again’” (John 3:7). Nicodemus says to him, “How can these things be?” (John 3:9). And Jesus — I can see him rolling his eyes or throwing up his hands and saying, “Are you a teacher in Israel, and you don’t understand what I’m talking about when I talk about the new birth? What have you been reading?” (see John 3:10).

That’s my paraphrase of Jesus. In other words, “Surely you see that this is how spiritual deadness was overcome among the saints in Israel.” They can’t do it themselves. It had to be done for them, just like today.

Old Patterns for Today

We can see, then, that there’s more riding on this question than it seemed at first. There was a real faith, a real obedience of faith, a real holiness in the saints of the Old Testament. And that is not possible (Romans 8:7) except that Jesus died for their sins in the future, counted backward, and the Holy Spirit was at work overcoming their sinful bent.

So, when we read the beautiful statements — for example, in the Psalms — of genuine love for God, obedience to God, delight in God’s word, we don’t have to deny any of that, as though such things were not possible in the Old Testament. We can take these saints as wonderful patterns for our lives and be stirred up by them to love God the way they did.

Has your desire for God withered? Is your affection for Jesus a fading flame? In the fight of faith, have you been mostly in retreat? Let me tell you a story.

In a house with three kids under three, few things happen the same way every day. Scheduled flexibility is the name of the game. Yet a few things happen so consistently they might as well be natural law — meltdowns moments before getting in the car, blowouts in brand-new clothes, senseless and ceaseless crying at the witching hour. And this.

My three-year-old son enjoys playing with blocks. He builds with the razor attention of an architect — for about ten minutes. Then interest wanes, and he wanders in search of new adventures.

However, without fail, the more fiery of my ten-month-olds finds her way to those lovely white pine blocks, picks a random one, and begins trying to gum the thing to sawdust. When Strider sees his sister holding that block — a block that failed to hold his attention moments earlier — well, I’m sure you can guess what happens next. The rivalry is real. And for a time, that pine square becomes more valuable than a hoard of gold beneath a dragon, and the war that ensues only slightly less intense than those in Middle-earth.

Now, how does this dynamic work? And more immediately important to you, what do toy blocks and tyke battles have to do with your dimmed desire for God?

You Imitate Someone

To answer the first question, Aurora’s desire for the block inflames Strider’s desire because we inevitably imitate those around us. Man is a mimetic creature.

Man is made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). We reflect God in his world, in part, by mimicking him. Paul makes the connection explicit: “Be imitators [mimētai] of God” (Ephesians 5:1). Man is an imitative creature all the way down. It’s what we were made for.

But God designed imitating others to be a means of imitating him. Holy imitation is a community project. Paul in particular loves godly copycats: “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Corinthians 1:11; 4:16). Because Paul shows us what it looks like to mimic Christ, we should mimic Paul. But he doesn’t stop with apostles. In Philippians, he exhorts his readers to imitate him and all who imitate him (Philippians 3:17). The writer of Hebrews doubles down on this mimetic chain, calling us to imitate godly leaders and all who walk by faith (Hebrews 6:12; 13:7).

A biblical principle serves as the concrete beneath these exhortations: when it comes to imitation, the question is not whether but what. John warns, “Do not imitate evil but imitate good” (3 John 11), implying that imitation is inevitable. Again, the question is not whether you will imitate — you will. But what will you imitate? Evil or good? Or better yet, whom will you imitate?

Mimetic Desire

We need to add one more piece to this puzzle before we return to our desire for God. From what I’ve said, you might imagine that imitation is always intentional and mainly pertains to actions. But we are far more imitative than that.

Proverbs especially emphasizes that we imitate others unconsciously. Thus, virtues and vices are contagious. To paraphrase Proverbs 13:20, wise he ends who wise befriends, and Proverbs 14:7, from a fool flee or like a fool be. Why? Because you cannot avoid imitating. “Bad company . . .,” as they say (1 Corinthians 15:33).

But the mimicry goes even deeper. We imitate the desires of others. Catholic philosopher René Girard calls this mimetic desire. After assiduously observing Scripture, society, and literature, Girard noticed that almost all our desires are suggested, given, mediated by others. We look at what others desire to learn what we should desire. So, we want most things because others want them first. In short, Girard concludes that desires require someone to model them.

Modern advertising exploits that insight. By showing an appealing person valuing some product, they model a desire for you. But this tactic is as old as the garden. Satan — the first advertiser — leveraged contagious desire to get Eve to ape his own serpentine lust for divinity. Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery because he made Daddy’s favor irresistibly attractive. And, of course, Strider, like a moth to flame, was drawn to Aurora’s block because her desire transformed it into the world’s most desirable block.

These examples show that when the object of mimetic desire cannot be shared (or is perceived to be withheld), envy and rivalry result. However, if it can be shared, mimetic desire forges deep friendships and reinforces our loves.

Company You Keep

Now, I hope you see how our irrepressible impulse to imitate — especially to mimic desires — connects with desire for God. If mimetic desire shapes our lesser longings — what we wear, what we drink, what we drive, where we eat, where we go to school — why would it not affect our longing for God?

“Perhaps you don’t desire God because you rarely see anyone else who desires God.”

Perhaps you don’t desire God because you rarely see anyone else who desires God. Just maybe, the pine block has lost its luster in your eyes because no one is trying to chew on it. To put it another way, the company you keep will significantly shape what you long for. You will look like whom you hang with. What you want is a function of whom you observe.

C.S. Lewis identified this principle as the very heartbeat of friendship.

Friendship arises out of mere Companionship when two or more of the companions discover that they have in common some insight or interest or even taste which the others do not share and which, till that moment, each believed to be his own unique treasure (or burden). The typical expression of opening Friendship would be something like, “What? You too?” (The Four Loves, 83)

For Lewis, friendship flowers from a shared love — like soccer or storytelling or theology. When that love is recognized and expressed — “What? You too?” — the shared desire is mutually reinforcing, multiplied and galvanized. Yet Lewis warns that this mimetic effect has a double edge because “the common taste or vision or point of view which is discovered need not always be a nice one” (100). The N.I.C.E. shared an urge that would loose the very gates of hell.

Yet the danger arises precisely because of the staggering goodness of friendship — a goodness that can give us more of God. When you surround yourself with those whose love for God burns bright, the desire for him is contagious. Stand near fire, and your clothes will catch. And with each friend added, the conflagration grows into white-hot worship because every person has unique kindling to contribute. Christian community is a mutual adoration society. You need other toddlers to cherish the block.

Show me the company you keep, and I’ll tell you what you soon will want.

Spotlight Your Models

So, saint, whom do you surround yourself with? Who shows you desiring God? Who are your models?

Luke Burgis (another philosopher) warns, “There are always models of desire. If you don’t know yours, they are probably wreaking havoc in your life. . . . Models are most powerful when they are hidden” (Wanting, 21). For the sake of your joy in God, put a spotlight on your models. Interrogate the source of your desires (or lack thereof).

To help you name your models of desire — both good and bad — consider these four categories.

1. Digital Company

Where do you hang out in Internet land? Who are your digital models? Who’s in your ear, and what gets your eye?

The Net acts as a mimetic amplifier. Instead of two toddlers desiring the same block, digital media enables thousands, even millions, to fight over the same status. The only difference is adults try to mask the mimesis my children do not.

Social media, especially, is an engine of desire. Perhaps your joy in God feels diseased because digital envy is rotting your bones away (Proverbs 14:30). Perhaps you don’t desire God because the podcaster you spend hours with each week doesn’t either.

2. Dominant Company

Who gets the lion’s share of your time? What friends are you around most often, and what is your common bond — your “You too?” Lewis not only knew but demonstrated how soul-shaping a pervasive coterie of friends can be. His group, called “The Inklings,” shared two loves — Christianity and imaginative writing — and the world still rocks in the wake.

Who are the most present models of desire in your life? Family, coworkers, classmates? Do they sharpen your ache for God or dull it? Is the dominant company in your life co-laborers for your joy, “exhorting one another every day” to treasure the triune God (Hebrews 3:12–14)? Mature men and women are models who show us not only how to live but, more importantly, what to love. And these models are not limited to the living.

3. Dead Company

Do you keep company with the dead? And if so, who and what desires do they model? If you are a reader, dead company matters immensely. Books put us into conversation with their authors, and many of the most important books put us into conversation with authors no longer living. They teach us — often explicitly — what to yearn for.

The great benefit of the dead is they often desire differently than modernity. And their deep longings can expose our own as tumbleweeds. Here’s Lewis again: “The real way of mending a man’s taste is not to degenerate his present favorites but to teach him how to enjoy something better” (Experiment in Criticism, 112). The likes of Augustine and Austen, Bunyan and Bavinck, Dante and Donne, Calvin and Coleridge tutor our tastes — and preeminently, that inspired cohort of the dead who penned the Scriptures.

4. Divine Company

Speaking of taste, if you want to develop a hunger for God, nothing will stoke that desire more than keeping company with God himself. The triune God is the ultimate model of our desires, and no one can love God more than God loves God. Unlike all other forms of mediation that work on us externally, God mediates his own desires to us from within. He gives us “the desires of the Spirit” (Galatians 5:17).

But the process is not automatic. We become like God as we see God, and we see God most fully in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 3:18–4:6). We are made and remade to imitate him (Romans 8:29). His desires for God and good are perfect, clear, fiery — and contagious. Jesus is our great mimetic model. As we learn to fix our eyes on him, his joy will kindle ours (Hebrews 12:1–2) and start a wildfire of holy desire.

For weeks, our two kids practiced reciting verses for the National Bible Bee’s Proclaim Day. When they finally took the stage, their hands trembling and the high ceiling dwarfing them, the sound of Scripture on their voices moved us to applause and thanksgiving. As the clapping died down, however, our 11-year-old son, Jack, surprised us by climbing onto the stage a second time.

“I want to share a verse that I find very comforting,” he said. “We read this a lot when we had a friend who was passing away.” He then recited 2 Corinthians 4:16–18 from memory:

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

My husband and I stared at one another in awe. We hadn’t practiced these verses with Jack. Rather, we’d read them during family worship as a dear friend of ours was dying in hospice, and by God’s kindness, Jack had harbored them in his heart. God had worked through a moment of heartache in our family to strengthen our son’s faith, and in doing so, he reminded all of us of his grace amid loss.

Guiding Children Through the Valley

When a loved one dies and grief swallows us up, we may struggle to discern how to guide our children. Their hearts are so tender, we think. Won’t the harsh realities of death bruise them? We wonder if we should suppress our own sorrow to avoid upsetting them. How much should we say? How much should we conceal?

As a retired trauma surgeon, I have sat beside dying friends and loved ones with unusual frequency. Walking through those experiences while raising children has highlighted the need for discernment and sensitivity in such delicate matters. Kids’ hearts are vulnerable to breaking, and we need to handle them gently. We must follow our Lord’s leading not to break a bruised reed or quench a smoldering wick (Isaiah 42:3; Matthew 12:20).

And yet, while our natural instinct as parents is to shelter our kids from pain, shepherding rarely means sequestering. Our kids will experience death at some point in their lives. Their time with us in the home provides a precious opportunity to give them a Christian framework for death and to model a response that emphasizes our hope in Christ. God can work through death and grief to draw his beloved closer to himself (Psalm 34:18; Romans 8:28) — even the littlest souls entrusted to our care.

How do we navigate the shadowy valley with our kids? How do we raise their eyes to the things that are unseen and eternal? Time and again, I’ve seen God’s grace and mercy at work in my kids’ lives during times of loss. Drawing from those experiences, I humbly offer the following five suggestions to help guide you as you shepherd children through loss.

1. Create space for discussion.

Jack was four when our friend David entered hospice, and before bed one night, I could tell his thoughts troubled him. When I inquired, he asked how David had developed emphysema and why death happens. Then he requested we see David every day until his passing — which we did.

Meanwhile, after the funeral of our friend Carolyn, our nine-year-old daughter, Christie, seemed uncharacteristically quiet. With some gentle prodding, she admitted that standing in the cemetery during the interment scared her. We had a long discussion afterward about how popular culture falsely portrays graveyards as places of horror, and we emphasized the truth: Carolyn was with Jesus, and only her body remained on the earth.

“The problem of sin has a solution. For now we groan, but Christ has swallowed up death in victory.”

As these anecdotes reveal, children wrestle with big questions and bigger feelings. After a loved one’s death, they may not voice troubling thoughts right away, but their silence doesn’t mean they aren’t wrestling. To best love your children during moments of loss, create space for them to talk with you and to share their fears, sorrows, and concerns. Check in with them before bed. Pause during family worship. Above all, invite them to talk with you and to ask questions. Give them permission to explore their complex thoughts and feelings with you. Assure them no questions are shameful and that their concerns won’t worsen your grief. Create opportunities for open dialogue in a loving context.

2. Normalize grief as a time to weep.

As parents, we rush to comfort our children the moment waterworks start. Given such a tendency, when kids see us crying, they may feel the same impulse and experience distress when our tears don’t stop.

Rather than suppress your tears or abandon your kids to process their emotions alone, walk them through the process of grief. Help them understand that sorrow and crying are normal God-given responses to the death of a loved one. To help cement your words into their minds, tie them to God’s words. Discuss how there is “a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance” (Ecclesiastes 3:4). Review how Job tore his robes and fell to the ground in mourning when his children died (Job 1:20), how David wept over Absalom (2 Samuel 19:4), and how even Jesus wept when Lazarus died (John 11:35).

Validate your children’s feelings as they grieve. Especially when they’re young, children may not feel sorrow at the loss of a loved one and worry their response is somehow wrong when everyone else is sad. Come alongside your kids and help them understand that grief is complex. It ebbs and flows, affects everyone differently, and stirs up emotions that may vary dramatically. Normalize confusion, sorrow, and tangled feelings — all of which we see in the psalms of lament (such as Psalms 22, 77, 130) as believers struggle with their grief.

3. Frame death as a consequence of the fall.

No matter the age of the person pondering them, questions about death cut to the heart of our fallenness. Illness afflicts us because sin stains all of God’s creation (Genesis 3:17–19). Death is the wages of our sin and comes to all (Romans 5:12; 6:23). It is grim, dark, and painful because it reflects a corruption of God’s original design (Genesis 2:9).

Speaking openly about death as a necessary consequence of the fall helps kids to cope when it strikes their own circles. They learn that death is a part of life in this fallen world, something to accept rather than to fear. Most importantly, when we explain death to our kids in the context of the fall, we can point them to Christ. The problem of sin has a solution. For now we groan, but Christ has swallowed up death in victory (1 Corinthians 15:55–57).

4. Model trust in God.

When possible, reflect with your kids on God’s sovereignty and provision in the face of death. Model trust in him even when understanding fails. Lean into the truth that his ways are higher than our ways (Isaiah 55:9).

Psalm 23 is an excellent passage to read together. Although we all will walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we need not fear because God will be with us (Psalm 23:4). Elsewhere, he has promised never to leave us or forsake us (Deuteronomy 31:8). Our times are in his hands (Psalm 31:15). His word assures us that nothing — not even death! — can separate us from his love for us in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:38–39).

5. Point to our hope in Christ.

For the believer, Jesus’s sacrifice and resurrection have transformed death from the last enemy (1 Corinthians 15:26) to the path to our heavenly home. “I am the resurrection and the life,” Jesus told Martha. “Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die” (John 11:25–26). Although we are all wasting away, our sufferings and death are but a light momentary affliction preparing us for our eternal dwelling with God (2 Corinthians 4:16–18; Revelation 21:3).

Point your kids to this truth early and often. As you wipe the tears from their cheeks, remind them that although it’s right to cry after loss, we also cleave to joy. We cling to the truth that a loved one with faith in Christ has quit the travails of this sinful world and now rejoices before God’s throne, where death, pain, and crying are no more (Revelation 21:3).

Some children worry that loved ones who didn’t attend church or profess faith in Jesus will not be in heaven. In such moments, point them to God’s faithfulness, mercy, and sovereignty. Teach them about the thief on the cross, to whom God granted salvation even in his dying moments (Luke 23:43). Remind them that while we may be uncertain about a loved one’s faith, God is faithful, just, and forgiving (1 John 1:9), and we can trust his good and perfect will wholeheartedly, no matter what questions trouble us.

After our Bible Bee experience, Jack elaborated on his fondness for 2 Corinthians 4:16–18. “It helps me to remember we have hope because of Jesus,” he said. His words capture the answer for all of us — from age 0 to 99 — when death strikes: faith in Christ. Solace, peace, and rest reside in him (Matthew 11:28). Even as we weep in the face of death, by Christ’s wounds we are healed (Isaiah 53:5).

Paul’s last letter brought the manly business of Christian pastoring uncomfortably close to young Timothy. Uncomfortably close, as the front line to the soldier.

The heat of “fanning his gift into flame” made his palms sweat; was he willing to pastor at Ephesus after all that has happened . . . would soon happen? Timothy didn’t need a reminder about the cost of ministry; his tears were memorial enough (2 Timothy 1:4). Paul, his father in the faith, wrote him once more before his execution: “The time of my departure has come” (2 Timothy 4:6). Finally, they were putting down the lion.

Paul welcomed the cost of leadership. He lived ready to suffer for Christ in whatever city the Spirit directed (Acts 20:22–23). “I am ready not only to be imprisoned but even to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 21:13). As Jesus made good on his promise — “I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name” (Acts 9:16) — Paul received his orders manfully. Here at the end, he writes to Timothy, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7). Triumph.

But what of Timothy? With shackles around Paul’s wrists, a blade above his neck, would he point his dear son away from the conflict? Just as Timothy seems to flinch and takes steps back, Paul stops him: “Do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God” (2 Timothy 1:8). Mount the horse, Timothy. Lead God’s people forward — come what may.

Pastoring, my son, is a manly business.

Fraught with Danger

The context of Timothy’s ministry — the context of ours — was (and is) a crucified Messiah. Jesus promised his first preachers, “If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you” (John 15:20). As Timothy enters his ministry, he associates the pastorate not so much with microphones as with martyrdom; not merely with preaching but with persecution for that preaching. He hesitates to exercise his gifts among a public who crucified his Lord, stoned the prophets, and hunted the apostles, as we might hesitate to minister in the heart of a Muslim country.

Fellow shepherds, have you considered the physical threat of our calling? I, for one, never had until a potential danger lingered around the flock. The gravity of what-ifs fell upon me. But what startled me most was not wondering whether I — father to four young children — should rush in if the worst came, but realizing that I had already chosen to by becoming a pastor. I enlisted to teach, preach, shepherd, and guide — but also to suffer, defend, and die, if the Lord should choose. As a son with his mother, a husband with his wife, a father with his children, so a pastor with his sheep. I am to defend them against all enemies foreign and domestic — spiritual and physical.

Brothers, receive it now: “Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 2:3). Yet like young Timothy, we ask Paul, How? Consider his counsel:

I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands, for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control. (2 Timothy 1:6–7)

Yes, Nero. Yes, false teachers. Yes, a church slow to support you. Yes, youth and inexperience. Yes, persecution and possibly martyrdom (2 Timothy 3:12). But I call heaven to witness my charge to you: preach the word, Timothy (2 Timothy 4:1–2). Or have you forgotten your God-given Spirit?

Spirit of the Pastor

Pastors, consider your Spirit. Interpreters debate whether the given “spirit” is only new nobility in our own spirits or includes the Holy Spirit himself. I take it to be the latter, which forges the former (see 2 Timothy 1:8, 14). Regardless, we know this: the new spirit of a man in Christ relies utterly on the Spirit of Christ in that man. Both must be in view.

Here is the point: Shepherds, remember that the Spirit of God empowers you for your life’s work. Your Spirit is one of courage, power, love, and self-control. Brothers, consider your Spirit.

Spirit of Courage and Power

God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power . . .

Paul first reminds Timothy what Spirit he does not have: one of fear, or more exactly, cowardice. In extrabiblical literature, the Greek word (deilia) “refers to one who flees from battle, and has a strong pejorative sense referring to cowardice” (The ESV Study Bible). God’s Spirit does not send him fleeing as a coward but makes the man the very sculpture of courage. And he bestows power and makes the man more than a man — even if, like Paul, he goes forth to die like a man.

To illustrate, consider the effect of God’s Spirit upon three men in the Old Testament — Samson, Saul, and David — and the apostles in the New.

SAMSON

Notice the Spirit’s influence on Samson. First, “the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, and although he had nothing in his hand, he tore the lion in pieces as one tears a young goat” (Judges 14:6). Next, “the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon and struck down thirty men of the town and took their spoil” (Judges 14:19). And greater still,

the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, and the ropes that were on his arms became as flax that has caught fire, and his bonds melted off his hands. And he found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, and put out his hand and took it, and with it he struck 1,000 men. (Judges 15:14–15)

The Spirit of God rushes upon him, and he rushes upon the enemy — lions, towns, legions.

SAUL AND DAVID

Or consider the Spirit’s influence on goatish Saul. While the Spirit was with him, he was “turned into another man” (1 Samuel 10:6–7). The Spirit straightened his back and rushed upon him, and he bellowed a war cry to rally the twelve tribes together (1 Samuel 11:5–7). Saul was mighty, for a time, but that might came from the Holy Spirit, and when Saul rejected the Lord and his word for fear of the people, the Spirit flew, as it were, to David.

I have underappreciated the Spirit in the David story. Just before the legend of his giant-slaying is born, we read, “Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers. And the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon David from that day forward” (1 Samuel 16:13). David is admirable in many ways, but what is David apart from God’s Spirit? Without the Spirit, his courage is folly, his story unremembered, his songs unsung. But the Lord’s Spirit was with David: writing, worshiping, warring. And David knew what made him great. When he too sins horribly, he pleads mercy from Saul’s fate: “Take not your Holy Spirit from me” (Psalm 51:11).

APOSTLES

On to the New Testament. What are the apostles apart from God’s Spirit? Sheep, who in their own spirits flee from their Master in the garden and then bleat timidly behind locked doors. But these sheep became lions at Pentecost. They obeyed their Lord: “Stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high” (Luke 24:49). When Christ baptizes with his Spirit, tongues of fire fill their mouths, Peter stands to preach, and thousands are saved. Here, a mighty Samson slays the enemies of God with the sword of the word — not one thousand, but three.

Spirit of Love

God gave us a spirit . . . [of] love.

When the Spirit of power leads men, they leave behind a holy legacy. One unsought expression of this is the power to suffer. It takes one kind of courage to ride forth to slay; it takes another to ride forth to be slain. The power of a lion to lie down as a lamb.

“Stephen, full of grace and power, was doing great wonders and signs among the people” (Acts 6:8). Full of grace, full of power, he preached mightily: “They could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he was speaking” (Acts 6:10). And when that speech turns on them, they grind their teeth and rush upon him. So he dies the first Christian martyr. Note his final prayer: “Falling to his knees he cried out with a loud voice, ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them’” (Acts 7:60). The Spirit, not just of power to preach, but of love to pray for the hearers murdering you.

This Spirit must empower the mission: “The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith” (1 Timothy 1:5). A love that preaches, a love that serves, a love that is willing to be “poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith” and “rejoices” to be so slain if it means others’ good (Philippians 2:17–18). Timothy, writes Paul, “I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory” (2 Timothy 2:10). His wounds are not for his salvation but theirs.

Remember, brothers, we have Christ’s Spirit to love his people with Christ’s love (Philippians 1:8). When faced with imprisonment or execution, the man of God is divinely resourced to respond as John Buyan did while he sat in prison for preaching: “I did often say before the Lord, that if to be hanged up presently before their eyes [his church’s] would be means to awake in them and confirm them in the truth, I gladly should consent to it” (The Pilgrim’s Progress, xxvii). No greater love exists than this: that someone lay down his life for his friends or his sheep. That is the love of Jesus wrought by God’s Spirit.

Spirit of Self-Control

God gave us a spirit . . . [of] self-control.

The Spirit of God and the spirit of evil is contrasted in the story of Saul. The Spirit of God rushes away at Saul’s sin, replaced by a tormenting spirit from God. It makes him rabid.

The next day a harmful spirit from God rushed upon Saul, and he raved within his house while David was playing the lyre, as he did day by day. Saul had his spear in his hand. And Saul hurled the spear, for he thought, “I will pin David to the wall.” But David evaded him twice. (1 Samuel 18:10–11)

He goes on to throw a spear at his own son.

The Spirit of God works self-mastery in those he masters. God’s power is aimed at a man’s dearest lusts. And the flesh dies hard. He bears his fruit in our lives — fruit lethal to the deeds of the body. Young Timothy ought to justify his ministry by the Spirit’s influence in his life: “Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity” (1 Timothy 4:12). Samson slayed a thousand with a jawbone, David killed his ten thousand on the field, yet even both of these men fell at home to lusts of the flesh.

The minister of Christ, the conqueror in Christ, the sufferer for him, will be a self-controlled man. When he hears threats nearby, he will not panic or renounce Christ or flee from his people. He will be collected, calm, a presence that has his wits about him when the wolves come around. Our people need our self-control: “Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers” (1 Timothy 4:16).

Good Shepherds

Pastoring is a manly business. Maybe soft men slipped in during the twentieth century. It will not be so in the decades to come. Pastors put the target on their backs. Men, manly men, must preach because they assume the violent responses to their preaching that can come. Egalitarian fantasies and feminist fictions would return to the dark chasm whence they came if more pastors were dragged mid-sermon into the town square and flogged with 39 lashes for their testimony (2 Corinthians 11:24), or if we held in our hands final letters from now martyred pastors. Women “pastors” are a luxury of peacetime.

Pastor, it is a hard word, but if the Lord Jesus wants to make you his paper and write his sermon in your flesh, shall we not bless his holy name? If, like Paul, you bear on your body some marks of the Lord (Galatians 6:17), then “share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God” — yes, and go away “rejoicing that [you] were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name,” if you still can go away (Acts 5:41).

Flesh and blood cannot abide this word. We shouldn’t expect it to. Pastoring is not merely a manly business but a spiritual business.

Brothers, we need to remember our Spirit — the Holy Spirit of courage, of power, of love, and of self-control. Follow Christ into suffering, if it comes to that. Remember: a good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. By the Spirit he has given, we will be good shepherds until the Great Shepherd returns.

Audio Transcript

Welcome back to the Ask Pastor John podcast. We’re reading the Navigators Bible Reading Plan together. And tomorrow we read Acts 22, a chapter where Paul recounts for us his dramatic conversion experience — his blindingly dramatic conversion experience. In the story, we’re introduced to a devout and godly Christian man named Ananias, who approached the recently blinded Saul (now named Paul) and restored his sight to him, or told him it would be restored soon. Then Ananias told Paul in verse 16, “And now why do you wait? Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name.” Water baptism and sin-washing are connected.

Likewise, we have forty questions in the inbox about Acts 2:38. There in the text, a bunch of seekers have gathered to hear Peter say to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” And three thousand people repent and are baptized. An amazing sight — and yet another text that appears to put water baptism in the moment of forgiveness or conversion. So, dozens of listeners have written in to basically ask, based on Acts 2:38 and Acts 22:12–16, this same essential question: Pastor John, are we saved after water baptism, before water baptism, or in water baptism?

I would first answer by making the question more precise. Are we justified before, in, or after baptism? Are we united to Christ, do we become one with Christ and God becomes 100 percent for us, before, in, or after baptism? Because in the New Testament, the word saved is used for what happens before, in, and after baptism:

Ephesians 2:8: “[We] have been saved.”
1 Corinthians 1:18: “[We] are being saved.”
Romans 13:11: “Salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.”

So, being saved happened before, is happening now, and will happen finally in the future.

The word salvation in the New Testament is broad and includes pieces of salvation. And what’s really being asked is, “When did it all start — the first moment of union with Christ, the moment of justification (which is not a process like sanctification is but decisive)?” “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31). When did that start? At what point does God count us a child — not a child of wrath, which we all are by nature (Ephesians 2:3), but a child of God, so that from that point on, he is 100 percent for us with no wrath? When did that happen? What was the decisive means that brought it about, that united us to Christ, that justified us?

By Faith Apart from Water

Let me give my answer from texts and then show how that point relates to baptism.

Romans 3:28: “We hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.”
Romans 5:1: “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God.”
Romans 4:5: “To the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.”
John 3:16: “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
Acts 13:38–39: “Through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and by him everyone who believes is freed [or justified] from everything from which you could not be [justified] by the law of Moses.”

And on and on and on I could go. I had a bunch of others, and I thought for time’s sake I’d just leave them out.

“Baptism is the outward expression of calling on the name of the Lord in faith.”

So, here’s my inference from those texts (and many others like them): justification — being put right with God by union with Christ in the divine miracle of conversion and new birth — that point is by faith, and faith alone, on our part. God uses faith as the sole instrument of union with Christ and thus counts us righteous and becomes 100 percent for us in the instant that we have faith in Jesus.

That’s my answer. And now the question is, “Okay, how do you talk about baptism? And how do you understand those texts that were quoted that seemed to connect baptism to that act, that beginning?” So, let me give some answers to that.

Sign of Righteousness

The first thing I would say is that the thief on the cross was told by Jesus that that very day he would be with him in paradise. He was not baptized. I know he’s a special case — I don’t think you build a theology of baptism on the thief on the cross. But one thing it says is that baptism is not an absolute necessity, because it wasn’t in his case.

Here’s the second thing I would say. Paul treats baptism as an expression of faith so that the decisive act that unites us to Christ is the faith, and it is expressed outwardly in baptism. Here’s a very key text for me. When I went to Germany, I was a lone Baptist in a den of Lutheran lions. They were loving lions — they just licked me; they didn’t eat me. But they did not approve of what I believed. And I remember taking a retreat with twelve little cubs and one big doctor father named Leonhard Goppelt. And we were talking about baptism the whole weekend. And this was my text; this was my text that I put up. This is Colossians 2:11–12:

In him [in Christ] also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.

So, the burial with Christ in the water and the rising with Christ out of the water, it seems to me (from that text), are not what unites you to Christ. That is, the going under the water, the coming up out of the water — that’s not what unites you to Christ. It is “through faith” that you are decisively united to Christ.

And here’s an interesting analogy, since circumcision was brought into the picture there, and there’s kind of an image of circumcision in Colossians 2. If you go to Romans 4:11, Paul says,

[Abraham] received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well.

So, if you just take the analogy — and that’s all it is; it’s just an analogy between baptism and circumcision — then this text would say that baptism is a sign of a righteousness that we have before we are baptized, because we have it through faith and through union with Christ.

Calling and Washing

Then we go to the relevant texts in Acts that the questioner raised, like Acts 22:16: “Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins.” Now, if you stopped right there, you’d say, “Well, there it is: the water is the forgiving agent.” But that’s not where you stop. It says, “Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name.” So, the sense (I think) is the same: baptism is the outward expression of calling on the name of the Lord in faith. It’s not the water that effects our justification or union with Christ. The water is a picture of the cleansing, but the faith in the heart, the call on the Lord from faith, is what unites us and forgives us.

And now, that’s the meaning that 1 Peter 3:21 actually picks up on when it says, in relationship to the flood and Noah’s rescue through the ark, through the water, “Baptism, which corresponds to this” — that is, the salvation of Noah’s family in the ark and the flood — “now saves you.” That’s probably the clearest text for those who want to say that baptism is salvific, that it actually does the saving. It says, “Baptism . . . saves you.”

And then immediately, as though he knows he said something almost heretical, because it would so compromise justification by faith, he says, “. . . not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal” — so now we’re back to this call issue: “Wash away your sins, calling on his name” — “as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” In other words, it’s the call of faith from the heart, not the water. And he explicitly says, “not [the] removal of dirt from the body.” In other words, “It’s not the actual functioning of the water that does the saving, even though I just said, ‘Baptism saves you.’ What I mean is that this outward act signifies an appeal to God that’s coming from the heart, and it’s that faith that saves.”

“God uses faith as the sole instrument of union with Christ.”

So, when John the Baptist (or Mark) calls his baptism “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (Mark 1:4), it probably means “a baptism signifying repentance, which brings forgiveness.” Because repentance is simply the way of describing the change of mind that gives rise to faith.

‘Repent and Be Baptized’

Now, here’s one last important text they’re raising. In fact, this is where you begin. Acts 2:38: “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” So, it looks like this: repent (condition number one), be baptized (condition number two), and forgiveness will be given to you. And I’ve been arguing (because I think so many texts teach it) that, no, repentance and faith as one piece are what obtains forgiveness, not the baptism.

So, what, you disagree with this text, Piper? Who do you think you are? And I think that text should be read something like this (and I remember seeing this years ago and then finding it other places). Suppose, Tony, you want to go from Phoenix to LA on the train, and it’s about to leave, and I say, “Grab your hat and run or you’ll miss the train.” Now, I just gave you two commands like Peter gave two commands: “Repent and be baptized.” But only one of them is a cause of getting to the train on time — namely, running. But I said, “Grab your hat.” Grabbing your hat is an accompanying act, not a causative one. It may be very important. There may be all kinds of reasons why you should have a hat. Why did you tell him to grab a hat? Well, I’ve got my reasons. But grabbing the hat does not help you in the least to get on the train on time.

Now, that’s the way I think we should hear Peter when he says, “Repent and be baptized every one of you, and make the train of forgiveness.” You get on the train of forgiveness if you repent and are baptized. And the repentance, the change of mind that includes faith, gets you to the train. And baptism is important — important for all kinds of reasons — but it’s not causative in the same way that repentance is.

So, here’s my bottom-line answer to the question: Faith precedes baptism (that’s why I’m a Baptist) and is operative in baptism. So, we are justified at the very first act of genuine saving faith in Christ, and then baptism follows (and preferably would follow soon) as an outward expression of that inward reality.