We live in a perilous age. What Christian parents haven’t worried about the world they are sending their children into?

Depravity is widely praised and promoted. Moral order has been turned on its head. Many good customs and institutions, once taken for granted in our society, have crumbled into dust. We have to fight many times harder than our parents and grandparents to defend even the most basic of moral truths. Our increasingly secular society, however, should lead us not to despair, but to greater vigilance in how we raise our children.

Ephesians 6:4 gives us a command to shape all our attempts to form our children into those who love the Lord and desire to serve him all their days. Although I normally use the ESV, I think the King James Version is better here: “Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” Consider how this brief charge shapes Christian parenting in an unchristian world.

Every Father’s Calling

First, note that the command is given to fathers. In Ephesians 6:4, Paul deliberately shifts from using the word parents (in Ephesians 6:1), or speaking of fathers and mothers together (in Ephesians 6:2). Fathers are the divinely appointed leaders of the household (1 Corinthians 11:3; Ephesians 5:23; 1 Thessalonians 2:11–12; Hebrews 12:7–11) — which is not to downplay the vital role of mothers in the household, but simply to note that fathers are given the chief responsibility for the nurture and admonition of their children. And so, Paul calls fathers to rise to the challenge for the sake of their children’s spiritual well-being, even as mothers play their own indispensable role, both as a complement to the father, and as a support.

“Fathers are given the chief responsibility for the nurture and admonition of their children.”

Second, remember the first half of the verse. Fathers are commanded to bring their children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord rather than provoking them to wrath (sinful anger). There is a way of disciplining our children, in other words, that will actually lead to more rebellion and alienation. Such discipline is hard and unloving, driven by sinful anger and resentment: anger because our commands are not heeded; resentment because of the resulting unpleasantness; all of it driven by love for self rather than love for our children.

In contrast, godly discipline is driven by love for our children (Hebrews 12:7–11), by the recognition that the pathway of uncorrected error and rebellion is the pathway to death and hell (Proverbs 5:1–6). The world may tell us that we will alienate and embitter our children if we firmly and consistently discipline them, but we live by faith in God’s promise that “folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him” (Proverbs 22:15; see also Proverbs 3:11–12; 13:24; 19:18; 23:13). Paul, therefore, calls us to raise our children in the “nurture and admonition” of the Lord.

Nurture and Admonition

Nurture is a word sometimes used positively, sometimes negatively in the New Testament. It has the positive sense of instruction and training in Paul’s words about the purpose of preaching in 2 Timothy 3:16, and the negative sense of chastisement or corrective discipline in Hebrews 12:5–11.

Admonition, on the other hand, has the sense of warning in both of its instances in the New Testament: in 1 Corinthians 10:11, the Old Testament’s “instruction” functions as a warning to the Corinthian church not to follow the example of Israel’s wilderness rebellion; in Titus 3:10, Paul commands the church’s leaders to “have nothing more to do” with the man “who stirs up division” after “warning him” twice. These uses make it more likely that nurture in Ephesians 6:4 should be taken positively: it is the positive counterpart to the admonitory warning.

To nurture, then, is to teach and show our children positively what the Lord requires of them: repentance, faith, and a humble life of obedient service. To admonish is to warn them of the spiritual peril that will necessarily result if they turn away from the Lord in unbelief and disobedience. In his book Parenting by God’s Promises, Joel Beeke captures both the overlapping and distinct qualities of these two words:

“Nurture” (paideia) is the general training of all parts of the child: instructing his mind, shaping his character, bending his will, awakening his conscience, enriching his soul, and building his body. “Admonition” (nouthesia) has to do with conduct: encouraging children to do what is right, rewarding good conduct, confronting them when they do what is wrong, and punishing their misconduct in an appropriate way. (80)

Our Twofold Responsibility

Both sides of the equation are indispensable. Our children must be taught to embrace Christ by faith, to love what is good and true, and they must also be shown the positive and negative consequences of unbelief and disobedience (see the similar positive-negative dynamic in Paul’s comment on preaching in 2 Timothy 3:16).

The twofold call is much like the old adage about the training of inspectors of counterfeit dollar bills: they spend as much time studying real bills as they do counterfeit ones so that they will be able to tell the difference. In much the same way, our children cannot pursue faithfulness merely by being told what they have done wrong. They must also positively be shown the pathway of faith and obedience.

Nurturing our children also includes showing how pleased we are when they do well, and praising and encouraging them in their obedience, as our heavenly Father does with us: “The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing” (Zephaniah 3:17; see also Matthew 25:23; 1 Corinthians 7:32; 2 Corinthians 5:9; Colossians 3:20; 1 Thessalonians 2:4; 4:1; 1 John 3:22).

Ephesians 6:4 in Practice

What might obeying Ephesians 6:4 look like in practice? We can begin by reading the Scriptures with our children and encouraging them to do the same.

“Nurturing and admonishing our children for their eternal spiritual well-being is hard, slow work.”

We can also teach them what the Scriptures mean. Many parents will feel daunted by this calling, but there are many helps to be found. Chief among these are the great catechisms of historic Protestantism. Why reinvent the wheel when we have such wonderful teaching aids already at our fingertips? Family worship is also vital, which need not be complex or overlong. In addition, calling our children to faithfulness requires modeling faithfulness ourselves. What greater hindrance to a love for Christ could there be than for our children to hear it from our lips, but not see it in our lives?

Perhaps an example will be useful. Consider a command to an 8-year-old son to take out the trash, which he ignores. Nurture requires that we explain to him what he should have done, but also how he should have done it: the obedience God requires is immediate, complete, and without complaint. We explain to him that a truly obedient heart responds with respectful acknowledgment (“yes, sir,” or “yes, daddy,” for example), begins to obey immediately, and obeys without complaining.

Along the way, we exercise care not to “provoke our children” to anger (Colossians 3:21) with undue harshness and condemnation, or with unreasonable expectations that do not fit our children’s capacities, even as we train them toward complete obedience. To that end, as the New Testament commentator Andrew Lincoln puts it, we also treat all of our children with fairness, we do not seek to humiliate them, and we do not arbitrarily command them to do something just to show that we have power over them (Ephesians, 406). At the same time, however, we insist upon obedience, just as the Lord does with us.

Hard, Slow, Wonderful Work

All parents fall short of what God requires of us, and there is abundant grace in Christ for the forgiveness of our failures. And yet, grace does not teach us to lessen what God requires of us in any way, even though this is our natural tendency, a way of trying to cope with our parenting failures. God’s grace is sufficient to forgive us, and then strengthen us to strive after obedience to what he requires, not to find our hope by lowering the standard and congratulating ourselves in how we have met it.

Nurturing and admonishing our children for their eternal spiritual well-being is hard, slow work. As a vital aspect of our own holiness, it is an endurance race set before us (Hebrews 12:1). Our children’s spiritual growth will not occur overnight, but don’t be discouraged: we look for spiritual fruit, the fruit God promises, to develop over time as we patiently and prayerfully nurture and admonish our children to take hold of Christ and to follow him wherever he leads (John 10:27).

Audio Transcript

How do we parent through family crisis? In today’s scenario, a husband and wife are at odds. Son is pitted against father. Daughter is pitted against her mother. Even the daughter-in-law sides with the daughter against mom. And all the compounded animosity toward the mother weighs heavy on the father, until it all appears that a man’s worst enemies are inside his own home. So when a family breaks apart like this, what is a man to do?

This scenario is what makes the seventh chapter of Micah so bleak. It’s the worst of times. The culture is fracturing apart due to sin. No one can trust anyone. Closer to home, families are falling into crisis. It is a time, warns Micah, to “put no trust in a neighbor; have no confidence in a friend; guard the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your arms [from a wife, that is]; for the son treats the father with contempt, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a man’s enemies are the men of his own house” (Micah 7:5–6).

Considering the pain of such chaos in society and in the home, Micah models two things in verse 9. He honestly reckons with himself, and he lays hold of his hope in God. “I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against him, until he pleads my cause and executes judgment for me. He will bring me out to the light; I shall look upon his vindication” (Micah 7:9).

Here’s Pastor John, in a 2010 sermon, explaining this text’s relevance for the broken family today.

What makes verse 9 at the beginning so stunning — “I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned” — is because he says it in the vortex of being sinned against. You know that this is one of the hardest things in the world, don’t you — being sinned against by friends, family, coworkers? It is impossible without the Holy Spirit.

Own Your Offenses

So Micah knows he’s being sinned against. He knows some of the accusations against him are wrong. He is going to be vindicated in something, and he knows that God is for him and not against him. God will bring him out into the light, out of darkness. He will vindicate him. So Micah is bold in his confidence in his assertion — amazingly bold. Nevertheless, what he draws attention to, to explain the Lord’s indignation, is his own sin: “I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against him.”

“The posture of parenting with hope in the worst of times is the posture of brokenhearted boldness.”

I’m arguing that the posture for parenting with hope in the worst of times is a brokenhearted boldness, and I’m asking first, Why is Micah brokenhearted? And the center of the answer, the core of the answer, is not their sin against him, but his sin against God. That’s the core of his answer. And that’s the core of parenting. If it doesn’t happen, nothing else is going to go right — nothing. Wives and husbands, here is where it begins, or here it starts over. The posture of parenting with hope in the worst of times is the posture of brokenhearted boldness. And the brokenheartedness is first, centrally, because of his own sin.

That is a great battle that we face, and we can only find it by God’s grace. I pray for you. God grant that all of us would be given the miracle, by the Holy Spirit, of the kind of humility that, in the midst of being sinned against, we own our sin against God. That’s a healing miracle, the kind of thing that could give hope where you thought there was none.

When you stand before God on the judgment day to give an account, guess what? He will not give you one minute to itemize the sins against you — not one. For several reasons:

He has a book; he doesn’t need your help.
You’d get it wrong; your memory is not good enough.
You’d use it for self-justification.

You don’t get one minute at the last day to talk about anybody else’s sin — none. It’s just your own.

Brokenhearted Boldness

So how do you parent in the worst of times with hope? How do you parent with hope when the family is divided two to three? You look to the Lord, you cry to the Lord (Micah 7:7), and then you cry to him with two deep, Spirit-wrought, word-informed convictions. Are you getting there? Only God can get you there. Preaching helps, but only God can get you there.

I’m trying to build into your life right now, as parents or parents to-be or single people, two deep convictions, governing convictions, emotionally effective convictions — two of them: brokenhearted boldness.

First conviction: my sin is my biggest problem. My sin is our marriage problem. My sin is my parenting problem. My sin is my work problem. My sin is the church’s problem. And I don’t deserve anything from God. We are not and never will be perfect parents. We have sinned. Call it anything you want to soften it.

We’re not foolish. We’re not naive. We know we’ve been sinned against. Wives have sinned against us. Children sin against us. Pastors sin against us. We know that. That’s just not the core of our issue. God will not call me to account for anybody’s sin against me — none. He will call me to account for one thing: How have I responded? Have I been a sinner? And I have. Only the Holy Spirit can make us feel this guilt as we should deep down. So that’s the first conviction I’m praying to God would work in our hearts.

Second conviction: there is no God like our God. I want you to be so deeply convinced that he pardons iniquity. He passes over transgression. He relents from anger. He delights in steadfast love. I want you to be just as deeply convinced of that as that you are a sinner.

Great Sinner, Glad Savior

Do you see how these work together? This is so important. You need to get the next sixty seconds. I have a deep, deep sense of conviction from my own sin in the midst of being sinned against. I’m emotionally governed here by my own failures, and I’m being humbled by that. That’s a miracle. And over here is a massive, strong, unshakable conviction: this God that rules the world pardons iniquity.

Do you see how they work together? The first one causes me to be more amazed at the pardon, but unless I’m confident in the pardon, I’m going to lie to myself. I’m going to short-circuit this conviction. I will not let it go to the bottom — I can’t because it’s devastating. It’s just too devastating, unless I got this fixed. Do you get how they work together? It won’t work. You can’t have a God that you’re super excited about because of his pardon if you don’t consider your own sinfulness. And you can’t go here unless you’ve got a God who’s super excited in his pardon.

And you might say that won’t work, but I’m saying it’s a miracle. It’s a miracle. I can’t explain the Christian life. I can’t explain the new birth. I can’t explain conviction of sin. I can’t explain how God shows up and does two things that depend on each other at the same time. But he does. Most of you have tasted it. You have. You need to go deeper. But almost all of you in this room, I would guess, have tasted what I’m talking about.

So those two deep convictions, brokenhearted boldness, are what I mean by parenting with hope in the worst of times. Usually, we don’t even know: “Was it mainly me, or mainly them? I can’t even figure this out.” We don’t even know. In that vortex, we own what we know: “I’m a sinner, and he’s a great Savior.”

Shaped by the Cross

So how do you close? You close by saying, “Okay, we’re Christians, and we know now that from this side of the cross, if I look at where God bought my pardon, both of these are intensified.” Aren’t they intensified, not lessened? You don’t really know how grievous your sin is until you watch Jesus die for it. You don’t. You can’t. You just can’t know how bad it is. You can’t feel how bad it is. The whole point of how gory the cross is is how gory my sin is. That’s the whole point. You just can’t know.

“You don’t really know how grievous your sin is until you watch Jesus die for it. You don’t. You can’t.”

Therefore, Christians have an edge on guilt. We’re better at it, hopefully. We should be the guiltiest people on the planet. We should be more devastated than anybody. We’ve seen the glory of the cross. And the confidence level in our hearts that he passes over this horror should rise with every scream from his mouth on the cross. So on this side of the cross, what changes is this: Now we see the price that was paid. It intensifies how wretched I am, and it intensifies how utterly committed our covenant God is to pay for it and draw us into his family in spite of it. It’s just incredible.

And for Micah, Jesus was just a prophecy. Do you remember it? I’ll read it to you.

But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah,     who are too little to be among the clans of Judah,from you shall come forth for me     one who is to be ruler in Israel,whose coming forth is from of old,     from ancient days. . . .And he shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord,     in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. (Micah 5:2, 4)

That shepherd laid down his life for the sheep, and now we see in that the greatest clarity of our sin and God’s commitment to rescue us from it. Christ took our judgment.

http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/14791491/how-not-to-be-childlike

Does our right standing before God depend on our becoming more like Jesus, or does our becoming more like Jesus flow from our right standing before God? I first began wrestling with that question twenty years ago as a college student.

The Bible uses a variety of terms for what God has done for us in Christ — salvation, regeneration, justification, sanctification, adoption, election, redemption, glorification. The question I struggled to answer was, How do all of these terms relate to one another? More specifically and personally, when and how and in what sequence will they happen for me?

Historically, my question was about the relationship between justification (being declared righteous before God) and sanctification (the ongoing progressive work by which we are conformed to the image of Jesus). Did justification precede and give rise to sanctification? Or was justification in some way based upon my sanctification?

Resurrection and Redemption

Romans 8:29–30 often sets the tone for the debate:

For those whom [God] foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

Here we have a basic order: foreknown, predestined, called, justified, glorified. The question was how the rest of the saving realities — saved, redeemed, adopted, and sanctified — fit into the picture.

As I wrestled, I came across a book that proved to be a watershed for me: Resurrection and Redemption by Richard Gaffin, a longtime professor at Westminster Theological Seminary. The book is small — around 150 pages — but packs a theological punch. The basic thesis of the book has been profoundly helpful to me in thinking through how to bring the various biblical threads together on all that God has done for us in Christ.

We Will Be Raised

The book begins with the claim that the unity of the resurrection of Christ and the resurrection of believers runs through the New Testament, citing texts like these:

1 Corinthians 15:20: “Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.”

Colossians 1:18: “[Christ] is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.”

1 Corinthians 15:16–18: “If the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.”

2 Corinthians 4:14: “[We know] that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus.”

Each of these passages expresses the reality that the resurrection of Christ is both unique and necessarily connected to our future resurrection. He is the firstfruits, the firstborn from the dead. He is the pioneer, the inaugurator, the forerunner who leads the way.

We Have Been Raised

This unity, however, is not merely a connection between Christ’s past resurrection and our future resurrection. The New Testament also stresses that we have already been, in some sense, raised with Christ.

Ephesians 2:5–6: “Even when we were dead in our trespasses, [God] made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved — and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”

Colossians 2:12–13: “. . . 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. And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses.”

Romans 6:3–4: “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”

These passages teach that we are united to Christ not only in his resurrection, but in the whole of his life and death as well. We have died with Christ. We have been crucified with Christ. We have been raised with Christ. We have been seated with Christ.

From passages like these, Gaffin draws the conclusion that this existential union with Christ is the most basic element of Paul’s teaching on salvation.

Inner Man and Outer Man

The personal and existential union between us and Christ is intertwined with being chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world as well as being in some sense “in Christ” when he was crucified, buried, and raised in the first century. In other words, while we can distinguish between redemption planned (in eternity past), redemption accomplished (in history two thousand years ago), and redemption applied (in our own individual lives), we can never separate them, since all of them take place “in Christ.”

Gaffin draws attention to the already-not-yet dimension of redemption applied. In particular, the resurrection of Jesus has been refracted in the experience of the believer. We have already been raised with Christ (Ephesians 2:5), but we have not yet been raised with Christ (1 Corinthians 15:12–20).

Gaffin uses Paul’s distinction between the inner man and the outer man to make this point. We have been raised in the inner man, while we await the resurrection of the outer man — that is, the resurrection of the body at Christ’s second coming. Paul makes this point explicitly in 2 Corinthians 4:16: “Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.”

What then does this have to do with the order of salvation and the various terms used to describe what God has done for us in Christ? Let me attempt to express the lessons in my own words.

Five Glimpses of One Reality

When God saves us, the fundamental thing he does is unite us to Christ by faith.

“When God saves us, the fundamental thing he does is unite us to Christ by faith.”

Union with the crucified and risen Lord Jesus is what salvation fundamentally is. But in order to help us understand the wonder and glory of our union with Christ, God gives us multiple word pictures or metaphors to reveal the significance of what Christ has done for us. Each of these word pictures or images enables us to comprehend the incomprehensible fact of our union with the Lord Jesus.

We can unpack union with Christ in terms of a law court, in which words like guilt and condemnation, righteousness and justification figure prominently.
We can unpack union with Christ using imagery from the temple, in which holiness and impurity, sanctification and cleansing are used.
We can unpack union with Christ using familial imagery, with the language of new birth and adoption taking center stage.
We can unpack union with Christ using the image of slavery and redemption, with mentions of bondage and captivity, of purchasing and freedom.
We can unpack union with Christ with the language of salvation and deliverance, of danger and rescue by a Savior.

Rather than trying to put the different terms into the exact sequence, we can instead see them as multiple ways that God has chosen to reveal the greatness and glory of what he has done for us.

Five Already-Not-Yet Pictures

More than that, because of the already-not-yet dimension of our salvation, we can see that each of these word pictures contains three distinct phases: a definitive positional phase, an ongoing progressive phase, and a climactic final phase. If we run through the images again, we might say the following:

In terms of the law court, we are guilty and stand condemned, but Christ lives, dies, and is raised on our behalf, and therefore God declares us righteous in him. This is definitive and has to do with a new position and legal status based on the finished work of Christ. As a result, we leave the courtroom and seek to live upright and godly lives, walking in righteousness before God, as we wait for the day when we are publicly vindicated as his people when he bodily raises us from the dead.

In terms of the temple, God is holy and therefore cleanses the impure and sets apart the common for holy use. There is a decisive cleansing and sanctifying work when we trust in Christ (positional), and then the rest of our lives is an attempt to live holy lives, increasingly and progressively set apart from sin and evil, while we await our full and final cleansing in the new heavens and new earth.

In terms of the family, God decisively causes us to be born again, and then we seek to walk faithfully as his children. Or alternatively, he adopts us into his family (that’s conversion), and we now walk as obedient sons, as we wait for the final declaration of our sonship and conformity to the image of his Son when we are glorified.

In terms of slavery and redemption, we were enslaved to sin and death, and God decisively liberates us when he unites us to his Son. From then on, we seek to increasingly and progressively live as free men, since it is for freedom that Christ has set us free, as we wait for the redemption of our bodies on the last day.

In terms of danger and rescue, God delivers us from the penalty of sin (death), and then throughout our lives increasingly rescues us from the power of sin, all in anticipation of the day when we’ll be completely delivered from the presence of sin in his eternal kingdom.

For Me and Conforming Me

Resurrection and Redemption proved to be a watershed for me because the book resolved the tension over whether my right standing with God (justification) depended on my increasing conformity to Jesus (progressive sanctification).

“Justification is by faith alone, because faith unites me to Christ, who is my righteousness.”

Gaffin assured me, with Scripture, that my position before God — whether we’re talking about the courtroom, the temple, or the family — was decisively and definitively settled, simply by trusting in Jesus. Justification is by faith alone, because faith unites me to Christ, who is my righteousness. The righteousness beneath my justification is not something worked in me by God, but something accomplished for me — outside of me — by Christ. Union with him — his life, death, and resurrection — puts me right with God, so that God is completely for me.

Then, flowing from this new standing and position before God, God begins to progressively and increasingly conform me to the image of Jesus. The work is often slow, frequently painful. Sin remains, even if the wages of sin no longer hang over me. But my pursuit of holiness and obedience to God is rooted in the finished work of Jesus, both in history and in my life, and I hope for the coming day when God raises me from the dead and publicly displays what he has done for me and in me.

Audio Transcript

Happy Monday! We launch a new week and close in on 1,700 episodes in the podcast. Thank you for all the support and prayers and encouragements over the years. And as we march forward, I’m also investing some time curating the archives to notice where some of our content gaps remain. And while doing so, Pastor John, I found one of those gaps. We have several episodes on fasting. What is fasting? What does it mean? What does it accomplish? How do we do it? And so on. But by contrast, we have relatively little on feasting. And yet feasting is a major category in Scripture — far more prevalent in the Bible than fasting is, actually. So on this Monday, Pastor John, can you give us a little theology of feasting in ten minutes, as you understand it?

A little theology of feasting in ten minutes? Maybe the way to think about this episode on feasting is that the biblical points that I will make are the raw materials of a theology of feasting. That would make me feel a little bit better.

Commemorate God’s Mercy

First, we need a definition. I’m going to start with a popular definition — namely, feasting is the enjoyment of abundance. That’s my short-term definition. I’m not even going to say that it is limited to the enjoyment of food, because you could feast your eyes on scenery, you could feast your ears on music, you could feast your nose on sweet aromas, you could feast your taste buds on honey, feast your skin and body on sexual pleasures.

So when you turn to the Bible, you find that the word feast does not always have this connotation even of abundance in view. If you do a word search on the word feast in the Old Testament, it’s just full of “prescribed feasts,” as they’re called in English. And they include Passover, Feast of Firstfruits, Feast of Weeks, Feast of Pentecost, Feast of Trumpets, Feast of Booths.

And you can see these spelled out. They take their beginning in Leviticus 23, and then they’re unpacked all over the place. They don’t all imply abundance, but rather — and here would be a modification of the definition biblically — a communal sharing of a celebrated meal with a focus on some remembrance and thankfulness of some event of God’s mercy (something like that). And it might be very simple. I mean, unleavened bread is not what you think about when you think about a big Thanksgiving dinner.

So, we need to be careful and be sure that when we see the word feast in the Bible, we determine from the context whether it implies the enjoyment of abundance, or something more simple — some celebration of some remembered event in a focused and communal and simple way.

Four Biblical Truths About Feasting

But I’m going to focus on what we ordinarily mean by feasting. That’s what I think you’re really asking, over against fasting — namely, a joyful shared experience of some abundance, usually food and drink. And so I have four observations as I look at the Bible about such feasting — the raw material, maybe, of a little theology of feasting.

1. Feasting can be good — and bad.

First, the Bible is clear that feasting in and of itself may be a very good thing or a bad thing, depending on other factors.

“Mere abundance of food and drink does not make for a happy family or happy community. There must be more to it.”

For example, Proverbs 17:1 says, “Better is a dry morsel with quiet than a house full of feasting with strife.” In other words, mere abundance of food and drink does not make for a happy family or happy community. There must be more to it.

Another example would be Ecclesiastes 10:16–17: “Woe to you, O land, when your . . . princes feast in the morning! Happy are you, O land, when your . . . princes feast at the proper time, for strength, and not for drunkenness!” In other words, there’s a time for work and a time for feasting, and there are good purposes for feasting, and there are fleshly, worldly, sinful reasons for feasting. Feasting in and of itself may or may not be good.

Another example: Ecclesiastes 7:2 says, “It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart.” In other words, the good and rightful pleasures of feasting cannot teach you the deepest things about life and death. I have never heard anybody say they went deepest with God, learned most of God, on easy days or at feasting.

One more example: God says to Israel in Amos 5:21, 24, “I hate, I despise your feasts. . . . Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” In other words, if our feasting is a cloak of pleasure covering lives of lovelessness and injustice, the feast has become a stench in God’s nose.

So, those are examples of what I mean when I say feasting in and of itself may be a very good thing or a bad thing, depending on other factors.

2. Feasting rejoices in God’s kindness.

God intends that the abundance he provides for our physical enjoyment, the enjoyment of our senses, should echo in our hearts with thanksgiving to God and be made holy by the word and prayer. I’m simply echoing 1 Timothy 6:17, where Paul says we should set our hope on God, “who richly provides us with everything to enjoy.” In other words, the sights and sounds and smells and tastes and touch of good things that God has made are not mainly tests to see if we will make them our god and become idolaters, but rather, they are mainly pleasures to send our hearts joyful and thankful back to God. That’s their main purpose for existence.

“The difference between unholy and holy feasting is not what’s on the table, but what’s in the mind and in the heart.”

Paul puts it like this in 1 Timothy 4:4–5: “Everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.” So, the difference between unholy feasting and holy feasting is not what’s on the table, but what’s in the mind and in the heart. Is the mind grasping the God-centered meaning of these things from the word of God, and is the heart sending up joyful prayers of thanksgiving as we taste more of the goodness of God in the very things we’re eating?

3. Feasting is our destiny.

One of the beautiful ways God describes the destiny of those who will accept salvation, his invitation, is a final feast with him in the age to come. Isaiah 25:6: “On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine. . . . He will swallow up death forever.” That’s a magnificent picture of our hope beyond this age, beyond the grave.

Jesus says in Matthew 22:2–10, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son.” The king sent out the invitation to the world: “Come to the wedding feast!” That’s what world missions is. I mean, my book is called Let The Nations Be Glad. It could be called Let The Nations Come to a Feast.

And to his disciples at the Last Supper, just before he gave his life for our sins, Jesus said in Luke 22:29–30, “I assign to you, as my Father assigned to me, a kingdom, that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom.”

And the book of Revelation tops it off with the angel crying, “Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb” (Revelation 19:9). To which I respond, “Blessed indeed to be a part of the bride of Christ on that day.”

4. Feasting shows off Christ’s supreme value.

In some measure now, and then perfectly at the last day, God himself will be our feast. Psalm 36:7–8: “How precious is your steadfast love, O God! The children of mankind . . . feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights.”

I think if we meditate on those four observations about feasting from Scripture, in the context of the whole Bible, we will be able to move wisely between fasting and feasting, between the joy of self-denial and the joy of abundance, in a way that shows the supreme value of Christ in our lives.

Come, follow closely, and gaze for a moment upon a rare creature in his native habitat.

There he is, drooling upon his pillow an hour before lunchtime, creaking over the bedsprings like a door on its hinges. “How long will you lie there? When will you arise from your sleep?” his mother shouts from the kitchen. Quiet, now: she has roused him. Here he comes, stumbling into his chair, and begins to feed. “What’s wrong with a little sleep, a little slumber?” he mumbles between mouthfuls. A dozen handfuls later, however, he stops, his hand submerged in his cereal like a sunk boat. He breathes heavily, chin against his chest, and begins to snore again.

Meet the sluggard (Proverbs 26:14; 6:9–10; 19:24). He is a figure of “tragi-comedy,” Derek Kidner writes (Proverbs, 39): comedy, because the sluggard’s laziness makes him ludicrous; tragedy, because only sin could so debase a man. The image of God was never meant to yawn through life.

Yet those who are paying attention will also see something more in this tragi-comic sloth: themselves. We all have an inner sluggard, counseling us to sleep when we should rise, rest when we should work, eat when we should move. “The wise man,” Kidner goes on to write,

knows that the sluggard is no freak, but, as often as not, an ordinary man who has made too many excuses, too many refusals, and too many postponements. It has all been as imperceptible, and as pleasant, as falling asleep. (40)

We don’t need to look far, then, to see the sluggard in his native habitat. We only need to hear his “excuses,” “refusals,” and “postponements,” and then listen for their inner echo.

‘I need just a little more.’

A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest. (Proverbs 6:10; 24:33)

The words sit in the mouth of the sluggard more than once in Proverbs. They are, perhaps, his motto, his favorite response to the wisdom of the diligent. “Early to rest, early to rise . . .” they tell him; “A little sleep, a little slumber . . .” he answers.

“An ordinary man becomes a sluggard one small surrender at a time.”

Sluggishness often hides beneath that eminently reasonable phrase “just a little more.” What harm could a little do? What’s one more snooze cycle? What’s one more show? What’s one more refreshing of the timeline? Not much, in itself: but much indeed when piled atop ten thousand other littles and one mores. They may seem like “small surrenders” (to use a phrase from Bruce Waltke, Proverbs, 131) — and they are. But an ordinary man becomes a sluggard one small surrender at a time.

How do the wise respond? They know that diligent Christians are not a special species of saint. Like the sluggard, the diligent daily face unpleasant tasks. Unlike the sluggard, the diligent speak a different motto: “A little labor, a little energy, a little moving of the hands to work.” Instead of building a stack of small surrenders, they build a stack of small successes — taking little step by little step in the strength that God supplies.

Over time, how we handle little is no little matter. Little drudgeries, little tasks, little opportunities: these are the moments when the sluggard gains ground in our souls, or loses it.

‘There’s always tomorrow.’

The sluggard does not plow in the autumn; he will seek at harvest and have nothing. (Proverbs 20:4)

Often enough, “just a little more” achieves the sluggard’s purpose. But if, for some reason, his conscience should protest, he has another word at his disposal that rarely fails: tomorrow.

Autumn was the season for plowing and planting in ancient Israel, and summer the season for harvest. We don’t know exactly why the sluggard took it easy while his neighbors plowed their fields. Maybe the difficulty of the task daunted him, or maybe, as the King James Version suggests, the season’s chill deterred him: “The sluggard will not plow by reason of the cold.” Either way, he no doubt fell asleep on many autumn nights warmed by the thought, “There’s always tomorrow” — until one day he woke up in winter.

When the sluggard finally arrived at his chosen tomorrow, the time for plowing and planting had escaped his grasp. How often have we too discovered that tomorrow is too late? The conversation we should have initiated yesterday proves more awkward today. The essay we should have begun last week overwhelms us this week. The forgiveness we should have sought last month feels harder to seek this month. Autumn has passed, winter has come, and opportunity has slipped through our fingers.

The wise learn to take the farmer’s view of life: when the time comes to plow, a farmer pays more attention to the season than to his feelings. And when the time comes to tackle our own difficult tasks, the wise do the same.

‘I would be putting myself at risk.’

There is a lion outside! I shall be killed in the streets! (Proverbs 22:13; see also 26:13)

Indulging a bad excuse is a little like feeding a pigeon: give bread to one, and twenty more will soon coo at your feet. Bad excuses breed bad excuses — and even worse excuses over time. And so, when a friend, family member, or boss refuses to entertain the sluggard’s littles and tomorrows, he takes more radical measures: “Haven’t you seen the lion roaming the streets? I’ll die!”

Did any sluggard ever attempt such an excuse? Maybe. “Laziness is a great lion-maker,” says Charles Spurgeon. “He who does little dreams much. His imagination could create not only a lion but a whole menagerie of wild beasts” (“One Lion: Two Lions: No Lion at All”). For our own purposes, however, we can consider a tamer version of the sluggard’s beast: “I would be putting myself at risk.”

To our inner sluggard, a scratch in the throat is cause for a sick day, a little tiredness is reason to nap instead of mow, and a long day at work is justification for skipping small group. After all, our bodies and minds need the rest, don’t they?

Care is required here, of course. Some people really do work their bodies into the dust, forsaking the rest God gives and “eating the bread of anxious toil” (Psalm 127:2). The sluggard, however, is prone to label as “anxious toil” any work that meets with inner resistance. He forgets that overcoming such resistance is part of what makes diligence diligence.

God made our bodies to bend and strain, our minds to crank and labor, our souls to strive and press. The lion called “Lazy” will counsel us to avoid the strain, but diligence will slay the lion.

‘What do you know about the pressures I’m under?’

The sluggard is wiser in his own eyes than seven men who can answer sensibly. (Proverbs 26:16)

Confront a sluggard in his sluggishness, and you may find that he has a penchant for euphemisms. “He has no idea that he is lazy,” writes Kidner on Proverbs 26:13–16.

He is not a shirker but a “realist” (13); not self-indulgent but “below his best in the morning” (14); his inertia is “an objection to being hustled” (15); his mental indolence a fine “sticking to his guns” (16). (Proverbs, 156)

Our own sluggishness, then, often appears in our defenses against the charge. Once, as a single man, I told a mentor, “I need more time to myself.” “You don’t need it,” he responded. Immediately, I raised the drawbridge, manned the ramparts, and launched inward mortars against the attack. What could he, a husband and father of three, possibly know about the pressures I was under? The self-defense is laughable now, but back then, wise in my own eyes, I couldn’t accept that much of what I called “alone time” was better labeled “sluggishness.”

The sluggard sees his own work as the hardest work, his own excuses as the best excuses, his own diversions as the most reasonable diversions — no matter what his friends, wife, or pastor may say. But the wise learn to develop a self-distrustful posture. Rather than responding to requests or challenges with an inward Don’t you see my burdens? they remember their proneness to folly, and learn to call the sluggard by his real name.

The Christian and the Sluggard

Between the Christian and the sluggard, Spurgeon says, “there should be as wide a division as between the poles.” He’s right. “Christian” and “sluggard” go together like “husband” and “playboy,” like “judge” and “thief”: the latter destroys the integrity of the former.

“In Christ we find our pattern for work. In Christ we find our power for work. And in Christ the sluggard dies.”

And why? Because Christians belong to Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ was not sluggish. He was no workaholic, of course: he could feast, rest, sleep, and develop deep relationships. But oh did he work. In the Gospels we find not the sluggishness but “the steadfastness of Christ” (2 Thessalonians 3:5): the diligence of one who never entertained “just a little more” or “tomorrow,” but worked while it was day (John 9:4). He plowed in the autumn cold of life, forsaking every excuse not to save us. And he never cried “lion!” though he walked into the den (Psalm 22:21).

Therefore, the apostle Paul can say to the sluggish, “Such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work” (2 Thessalonians 3:12). In Christ we find our pattern for work. In Christ we find our power for work. And in Christ the sluggard dies.

I often need to check myself as to whether I am placing the emphasis on “the Lord’s ministry through me” or “the Lord’s ministry through me.” I suspect most pastors and leaders know what I mean.

The weed grows quietly. How are my articles doing? How is my small group maturing? How is my book selling, my podcast rating? Are my Sunday-morning prayers especially encouraging? Is my preaching, my marriage counseling, my evangelistic effort particularly effective?

I am not talking about the holy ambition proper to a minister who loves souls and the glory of Christ (Romans 15:20). I am talking about a self-congratulatory spirit that pats oneself on the back and thinks better of the work simply because it is his. I am talking about tangled motives. The silent smirk or sunken shoulders. The slipping of some glory into one’s pocket. The temptation captured in John Bunyan’s response when someone told him he had preached a delightful sermon: “You are too late; the devil told me that before I left the pulpit.”

The success of others, even close friends, can reveal the drift. The warm sensation that washes over when they excel in the area where your strengths also lie. The gnawing suspicion, the feeling of threat, the envy, the bitterness, the embarrassment, the self-pity. Instead of rejoicing that God has advanced his own name and benefited souls, all is not well simply because the eternal God chose to use them instead of me.

The temptation stands to full height, however, when others succeed in the very place that we have failed. Someone else takes the people higher than we could climb, leads them farther than we could walk. We, like Saul, have conquered our thousands, yet the people sing of another who has conquered his ten thousands. We are the lesser light. The comparison drove Saul mad. He hurled a spear at David to kill him (1 Samuel 18:10–11). What is our response?

We might pray, however much ministry still lies ahead of us, that we have the shepherd’s heart that Moses did in his final days.

Looking at the Promise

Let’s appreciate the difficulty facing Moses at the end of his ministry. After Moses had “refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter”; after he had chosen rather to be “mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin” (Hebrews 11:24–25); after bringing Egypt to its knees, leading Israel through the Red Sea, climbing Mount Sinai, and wandering for decades in the wilderness, his journey ends overlooking — but not overstepping — the boundary to the Promised Land.

Old age, you may remember, did not bar the prophet from the land of milk and honey. “Moses was 120 years old when he died. His eye was undimmed, and his vigor unabated” (Deuteronomy 34:7). The Delilah of old age did not cut the lock of his strength; God did.

God kept Moses from the Promised Land because of sin. Frustrated with the people (who were yet again complaining and grumbling), Moses struck with his staff the water-giving Rock, a type of Christ (1 Corinthians 10:4; Numbers 20:11). God told him to speak to the rock, but Moses went with a more aggressive approach (Numbers 20:8). Afterward, God said,

Because you did not believe in me, to uphold me as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them. (Numbers 20:12)

And he did not.

“God allowed Moses to lead them out of Egypt, but not into the land of promise.”

In his final days, God led Moses up a mountain and showed him the full breadth and length of the Promised Land (Deuteronomy 34:1–4). And there — overlooking the land he led the people toward for decades — Moses died. The privilege to lead the people across the Jordan fell to his assistant, Joshua. God himself buried his servant on that mountain, on the wrong side of the Jordan (Deuteronomy 34:5–6). He allowed Moses to lead them out of Egypt, but not into the land of promise.

Heart of a Shepherd

Disciplined and disappointed, how does Moses respond?

After the Lord calls him to go up the mountain and reminds him why he won’t enter (Numbers 27:12–14), Moses, the meekest man on earth (Numbers 12:3), answers,

Let the Lord, the God of the spirits of all flesh, appoint a man over the congregation who shall go out before them and come in before them, who shall lead them out and bring them in, that the congregation of the Lord may not be as sheep that have no shepherd. (Numbers 27:15–17)

Here is the heart of a faithful shepherd. Here is an example for pastors and leaders to follow. Moses does not grumble. He does not accuse God of unfairness. He does not mope that God would not listen to his requests to enter the land (Deuteronomy 3:25–26). He does not sabotage Joshua or hurl spears at him. He does not consider his reputation, or his ministry, above the God he ministered for and the people he ministered to. He asks his God, in full submission to his will, not to leave the people shepherdless.

Then Feed My Sheep

This is not the last time we see Moses alive in Scripture. Do you remember where else he appears?

Many hundreds of years later, Moses would meet the great Shepherd of God’s people face to face. On a different mountain, the Mount of Transfiguration, Moses would speak with Jesus. What did they discuss? Jesus’s “departure” (literally, his “exodus,” Luke 9:31). Moses stands with Elijah, speaking to Jesus, the Good Shepherd, about how he would not abandon his sheep to the wolves as a hireling might, but would lay down his life for them. And about how he would rise, for he would not leave the sheep shepherdless.

This is the love that disentangles the nagging sense of self from our service.

“Love for Christ’s bride shakes us free from posturing for her attention and admiration.”

We find due north again in our labors when we, like Paul, begin to yearn for the church with the affections of Christ Jesus (Philippians 1:8), to be in labor pains until Christ is formed in her (Galatians 4:19). When we see her — in the small measure we get to labor in her service — as our hope and our joy and our crown of boasting before the Lord at his return (1 Thessalonians 2:19).

This love purifies our ambition for lasting influence while restoring the humble delight when greater success falls to another. We seek to do the church good while hoping others do more good than we ever could. Threats become brothers to us again when we learn to long for others’ success where we have failed, when we long for others to take God’s people across the Jordans we never could. When we begin to pray, “Feed the sheep by any hand.”

This love for Christ’s bride shakes us free from posturing for her attention and admiration. We play our parts, knowing that loving her is loving him, as Jesus himself reminds us: “Pastor, leader, minister, do you love me? Then shepherd my lambs” (John 21:15–17).

John Piper is founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is author of more than 50 books, including Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist and most recently Providence.

And Bree now discovered that he had not really been going as fast — not quite as fast — as he could. Shasta felt the change at once. Now they were really going all-out.

The old cliché “God will never give you more than you can handle” has taunted me over the years. I can remember several times in life when it has seemed evident that God was giving more than I could handle.

Would anyone claim the ability to handle the sudden, near-death experience of their son due to life-threatening seizures? What about loved ones walking away from God? Disability? Chronic pain? You likely have much worse trials to add to my list. We endure these circumstances because we have no choice, even as we endeavor to walk through them trusting that God is for us in Christ.

Still, as I was lying facedown on the bathroom floor, drenched in a sweaty fainting spell while paramedics worked on my seizing son in the next room, I certainly didn’t feel like I had been given a situation that was within my ability to handle.

A Lion and Our Limits

“Gallop, Bree, gallop. Remember you’re a war-horse” (The Horse and His Boy, 270). Aravis, a young princess escaping the evils of her country, Calormen, urged the talking horse named Bree to run as fast as he could away from the enemies that pursued them. C.S. Lewis tells us this story in A Horse and His Boy, one of the seven Chronicles of Narnia. Bree and his friend Hwin appear, by their own reckoning, to be running all-out. “And certainly both Horses were doing, if not all they could, all they thought they could; which,” as Lewis tells us, “is not quite the same thing.”

This desperate sprint across the countryside by two talking horses — and the unlikely boy and girl on their backs — would quickly reach a peak of terror none of them could have anticipated. For not only were they chased by a terrible army of Calormene soldiers, but a much nearer and more dangerous enemy roared at their backs: a great lion.

“And Bree now discovered that he had not really been going as fast — not quite as fast — as he could. Shasta felt the change at once. Now they were really going all-out” (271). This simple scene in the midst of a children’s story profoundly changed my perspective in three ways over the past decade and beyond: (1) it has changed how I understand my “limits” in the midst of difficulty, (2) it has reminded me of Who it is that bears down on me in those difficult times, and (3) it has helped me glimpse the goodness of God in how much he chooses to bear down on us.

Applying on the Bathroom Floor

I suppose there is some irony that while Bree found new speed with the Great Lion Aslan at his back, my story involves barely moving at all, having blacked out during a moment when I desperately wanted to be present for my son’s crisis. How is the horrible physiological response to stress (blacking out) in any way parallel to Bree finding a new gear with the Lion at his back?

“When you’re under the pressure of the Great Lion, never, ever let yourself forget: all his paths are steadfast love.”

Well, as unlikely as it sounds, I found my own new gear, facedown on the floor. As I lay there, I cried out to God, asking him to save my son, while I was forced to find a new gear of trust in my Lord. I wasn’t there to watch over my son every second, but God was. I couldn’t make the seizure stop, but God could. I wouldn’t go with him if he died, but God would be there. I, like Bree, found that I had not been trusting as much — not quite as much — as I could. I had not been enduring as much — not quite as much — as I could. There was new speed to discover with the Great Lion in pursuit.

Have you learned this yet? That what you consider your limits aren’t your limits? That you don’t actually know what your limits are because you aren’t the Maker and Sustainer?

Beyond My Limits

We think we’ve given our all, we think the reserves are gone, but actually, we have never had our limits truly tested. When my mind says, I can’t do that; it’s beyond my limits — I can’t endure that loss, I can’t live with that trial, I can’t face that outcome — God is perfectly capable of applying the kind of pressure that will prove me wrong.

Paul tells the Corinthians,

We do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. (2 Corinthians 1:8–9)

You see, the new gear that we find in the midst of hardship is not a testament to our strong constitution. It is a Spirit-empowered gear that blows faith and hope into the hearts of those who are burdened beyond their own strength. It is a testament to his strength at work in us, even when we are weak and sweaty on the bathroom floor.

Paths of Steadfast Love

God often shows us, then, that we most certainly can do what we think we can’t (by relying on him). And as counterintuitive as it sounds, he doesn’t get us there merely by encouragement or through positive thinking or by pouring on the affirmation, but, as with Bree, by bearing down and increasing the trial that drives us to him.

“When God pushes us past our limits, it is his grace to us. He’s driving us toward his goodness.”

You see, as Bree quickened his pace beyond what he thought he could, the Great Lion was increasing the distance between them and the true enemies that were coming after them. Aslan did terrify them, but for the sake of their own safety and well-being in the end. We can trust that even if we, like Paul, feel we have received the sentence of death, God is subjecting us only to what is right and good in the end, and not a drop more or less. He really does work all things together for the good of those who love him — and in so doing, conforms us to the likeness of his Son (Romans 8:28–29).

When God pushes us past our limits with circumstances that have us sprinting and gasping, it is his grace to us. He’s driving us toward his goodness. He’s pressing us beyond ourselves to new vistas of himself. He’s moving us away from the things that would really harm us by putting distance between us and our old enemies — the world, our flesh, and the devil.

And when you’re under the pressure of the Great Lion, never, ever let yourself forget: all his paths are steadfast love (Psalm 25:10). You can trust him, even facedown on the bathroom floor.

Audio Transcript

How do we prepare for the second coming of Christ? The question is a great one and always relevant. And it comes to us today from a listener to the podcast named Sarah. “Thank you for this podcast, Pastor John,” she writes. “How do I prepare for the second coming of Christ properly? What can I expect? What is to come? What should I be doing now as I eagerly await his return?”

One way to summarize our preparation for the second coming is to say that there are three impulses that help us be ready:

The impulse that comes from the glorious prospect of seeing the Lord
The impulse that comes from the necessity of suffering before he comes
The impulse to be found faithful and vigilant in our particular callings when he comes

So let me illustrate each of those three impulses, because that’s the answer to the question “How do you prepare?” You prepare by responding biblically to those three impulses first.

1. Pursue Christlikeness now.

First, the impulse that comes from the glorious prospect of seeing the Lord. First John 3:2–3:

Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears [the second coming] we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.

“If you really want to be like Jesus by seeing him when he comes, you’ll pursue being like him now.”

So think about the psychological dynamics of those verses. When he says, “everyone who thus hopes in him,” he’s referring to hoping to be like him. “When he appears we shall be like him. . . . [Whoever] thus hopes in him” — hoping to be like him — will purify himself now. So the point is, if you really want to be like him by seeing him when he comes, you’ll pursue being like him now. You will.

So, the impulse of becoming a radically pure, holy, loving, sacrificial, Christlike person now is the intense hope and desire for that to happen when he comes and we see him. That’s the first impulse.

2. Ready yourself for suffering.

Second, the impulse that comes from the necessity of suffering before Jesus comes. Now I have in mind here all Christian suffering, because Paul said that “through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). And I have in mind the suffering that will become more intense near the end, when Paul says in 2 Thessalonians 2:8, “The lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming.”

Now Jesus speaks of that season of lawlessness in Matthew 24:11–13: “Many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved”

So, the implication is that (1) we should get ready for the Lord’s coming by being spiritually and mentally alert to satanic deception and false teaching; (2) we should be completely submitted to the word of God rather than being lawless or self-willed; and (3) we should be cultivating strong faith in the sovereign goodness of God, so that we can endure to the end through whatever suffering comes our way.

And just a word about how this applies today, perhaps more than any other time in history. (I could be wrong about that, but that’s my guess.) Human beings have developed popular as well as intellectual and sophisticated ways of denying the existence of any divine law or standard. We have found a way to claim plausibility for creating our own truth, creating our own right and wrong, creating our own identity.

If you were born a man and you want to be a woman, then there is no law in God, no law in nature, no law in culture to hinder you. You do whatever you think you want to do. You are a law to yourself. That’s what Jesus means by lawlessness. And it is multiplied and increased. And Jesus says such lawlessness will be multiplied, will be increased, and that the effect is a tragic coldness of love among Christians.

So, one way to prepare for the second coming and its antecedent sufferings is to submit ourselves with intelligence and wisdom and joy to the absolute standards of God’s law for the sake of warm love, not cold love.

3. Work faithfully for Christ.

The third impulse to be ready for the second coming is the impulse to be found faithful and vigilant in our particular callings. Over and over and over in the New Testament, we are told to be watchful, to be awake, to be ready. What does that mean? I think the parable of the ten virgins is a good illustration of what it means.

The kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. [So this is a picture of being ready for the second coming, the return of the bridegroom.] Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them, but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed [that’s Jesus’s hint that there will be some distance of time], they all became drowsy and slept [all ten]. But at midnight there was a cry, “Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.” Then all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise, “Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.” But the wise answered, saying, “Since there will not be enough for us and for you, go rather to the dealers and buy for yourselves.” And while they were going to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut. Afterward the other virgins came also, saying, “Lord, lord, open to us.” But he answered, “Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.” [And here’s Jesus’s conclusion:] Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour. (Matthew 25:1–13)

So, the conclusion of the whole parable is answering this question: How do you get ready? “Watch therefore, for you know neither the day or the hour.” Now, what does that mean? Both the wise and the foolish virgins were asleep, and there was no criticism. That’s not a problem. To watch, therefore, doesn’t mean any kind of artificial getting up at night, looking out the window, paying a lot of attention to end-times conspiracy theories.

“The Master has given all of us assignments for while he’s gone — gifts, resources, abilities, money, relationships.”

To watch means to do your job really well for Christ’s sake. They had an assignment: Have your lamps. Have your oil. Respond to the announcement when it’s given. Light the way of the bridegroom in. And they did their job just the way they should, and they entered in. They were morally, spiritually, and, you might say, professionally awake. They did their job the way God meant for them to do it.

So that’s what you find all over the New Testament. The Master has given all of us assignments for while he’s gone — gifts, resources, abilities, money, opportunities, relationships, spiritual disciplines. All of those are spheres where we do our job with faithfulness and diligence.

Blessed Servants

One of the most important texts for me over the years as a pastor, and even still, is Luke 12:42–44, where he says (I’m hearing this spoken right to me, John Piper),

Who then [John Piper], is the faithful and wise manager, whom his master will set over his household, to give them their portion of food at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions.

Do you know what that means for me? That means: “Piper, work your faithful fanny off to speak truth on Ask Pastor John. And if the Lord comes and finds you getting ready the day before you record, you’ll be glad you were at work.” Yes, I will.

So, let your life be guided by (1) the impulse that comes from the prospect of seeing the Lord, (2) the impulse that comes from the necessity of suffering, and (3) the impulse to be found faithful, vigilant, full of love to Christ in our particular callings. And then we will hear him say, “Enter into the joy of your master” (Matthew 25:21, 23).