A persistent critique of Reformation theology is that a high view of God’s sovereignty reduces evangelistic zeal. While the criticism is often misguided, the danger is not historically unprecedented. Church history bears witness to unbiblical understandings of God’s sovereignty and human responsibility. In the eighteenth century, one such view choked the life out of many Reformed Baptist and Congregational churches in England.

One courageous book, however, not only reversed the decline, but it also provided the foundation for the most consequential Protestant missions movement in history. And it has an important word for the church today.

Doctrinal Distortion

As heirs of the Reformed tradition, English Baptists and Congregationalists affirmed God’s sovereign power in salvation — that, in accordance with his great love, God irresistibly draws those whom he unconditionally chooses into persevering faith. Apart from any human initiative, God works an unmerited, merciful, transformative act of regeneration that brings about faith. The Reformers underscored what the Scriptures taught: salvation is all of God, “for by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8–9).

By the late eighteenth century, however, some Calvinistic ministers, in their zeal to protect this doctrine, had disfigured it.

“Fuller never forgot the fear and hopelessness he felt in the pew when Jesus was right there to be offered.”

Since unbelievers are incapable of turning to Christ without divine action, they reasoned, it would be unbiblical to urge them through preaching to do so. Preaching the gospel to a mixed audience of believers and nonbelievers would effectively give assurance of God’s promises to both the elect and the non-elect. Those who did so would also be claiming divine authority and usurping the role of the Spirit of Christ. Therefore, they argued, pastors must only declare the work of Christ as simple fact in preaching — to call men to repentance and faith was theologically erroneous and pastorally dangerous.

This hardened position, known as High Calvinism, almost ensured that nonbelievers were never invited to put their faith in Jesus. Under this gospel-less preaching, pastors made no urgent appeal to trust in Christ. High Calvinist churches withered. Personal evangelism ceased. Sinners were left with conviction of sin but no clear remedy.

Any Poor Sinner

Andrew Fuller (1754–1815) was one of those hopeless sinners. Fuller grew up on a farm in the rugged marshlands northeast of Cambridge and attended a small Baptist congregation in Soham. As the evangelical awakening transformed churches across the English countryside, Fuller’s church and its High Calvinist pastor John Eve seemed immune to its effect. Pastor Eve, Fuller wrote, “had little or nothing to say to the unconverted.” While George Whitefield and John Wesley were pleading with sinners to repent and trust in Jesus, Eve made no gospel call. “I never considered myself as any way concerned in what I heard from the pulpit,” Fuller later wrote.1 Aware of his own sinful condition, teenaged Fuller was caught in anguished speculation, desperately looking for a sign of his election rather than looking away from himself to Christ.

This lasted for years. “I was not then aware that any poor sinner had a warrant to believe in Christ for the salvation of his soul,” Fuller later reflected, “but supposed that there must be some kind of qualification to entitle him [to be saved]. Yet, I was aware that I had no qualifications.”2 The breakthrough finally came when Fuller recognized that salvation was to be found in trusting in Christ, not in a subjective perception of his own fitness.

I must — I will — yes, I will trust my soul, my sinful soul in his hands. . . . I was determined to cast myself upon Christ . . . and as the eye of my mind was more and more fixed upon him, my guilt and fears were gradually and insensibly removed.3

Fuller later reflected that, though he had finally found peace in Christ, “I reckon I should have found it sooner” had not the High Calvinist’s bar blocked the way. He never forgot the fear and hopelessness he felt in the pew when Jesus was right there to be offered. And as Fuller grew in his understanding of the Scriptures, he saw the deadly flaws of High Calvinism with even greater clarity.

The Gospel Worthy

Fuller became pastor of the church in Soham in 1775 and three years later began openly calling his hearers to faith in Christ. Many in the Soham congregation were unhappy, but Fuller pressed on — even turning down an opportunity to pastor a larger congregation in another community. The opposition in Soham, however, was not fruitless. Fuller mined the Scriptures and, stirred by conversation with new friends in the local pastoral association, began writing an extended response to the High Calvinist scheme.

In 1781, he was called as pastor of the Baptist congregation in Kettering. The personal confession of faith he presented to his new congregation reflects the thinking that would soon upend High Calvinism:

I believe it is the duty of every minister of Christ plainly and faithfully to preach the gospel to all who will hear it; and, as I believe the inability of men to spiritual things to be wholly of the moral and, therefore, of the criminal kind (and that it is their duty to love the Lord Jesus Christ, and trust in him for salvation, though they do not); I, therefore, believe free and solemn addresses, invitations, calls, and warnings to them to be not only consistent but directly adapted as means in the hand of the Spirit of God to bring them to Christ. I consider it as a part of my duty which I could not omit without being guilty of the blood of souls.4

With the encouragement of friends, in 1785 Fuller published the argument behind his conclusions. The Gospel Worthy of All Acceptation, or the Duty of Sinners to Believe in Jesus Christ hammers home a central point: because God’s nature and purposes have been revealed ultimately in Jesus Christ, every human being is obligated to respond in repentance and faith.5

Six Reasons to Plead

Fuller’s argument rests on six propositions. First, unconverted sinners are clearly and repeatedly invited, exhorted, and commanded to trust in Christ for salvation. This is the teaching of both the New Testament (John 5:23; 6:39; 12:36) and the Old (Psalm 2:11–12; Isaiah 55:1–7). “Faith in Jesus Christ,” Fuller writes, “is constantly held up as the duty of all to whom the gospel is preached.”6

Second, every human being is obligated to receive what God reveals. “It is allowed by all except the grossest Antinomians [High Calvinists],” Fuller argues, “that every man is obliged to love God with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength — and this notwithstanding the depravity of his nature.” This is the witness of God’s self-revelation in creation, in the law, and “in the highest and most glorious display of himself” in the incarnation.7

Third, the gospel, though a message of pure grace, requires the obedient response of faith. Fuller illustrates this proposition by observing that the goodness of God “virtually [effectively] requires a return of gratitude. It deserves it and the law of God formally requires it on his behalf. Thus, it is with the gospel, which is the greatest overflew of Divine goodness that was ever witnessed.”8

Fourth, lack of faith is an odious sin that the Scriptures ascribe to human depravity. In light of God’s self-revelation, sinners’ willful ignorance, pride, dishonesty, or aversion of heart are evidences of unbelief, not excuses for it. The Spirit of Christ has been sent into the world for the very purpose of convicting the world of unbelief, which would be unnecessary “if faith were not a duty” (John 16:8–9).9

“‘The Gospel Worthy’ unleashed a tsunami of evangelical Calvinism.”

Fifth, God has threatened and inflicted the most awful punishments on sinners for their not believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. “It is here taken for granted that nothing but sin can be the cause of God’s inflicting punishment,” Fuller writes, “and nothing can be sin which is not a breach of duty.”10 Unbelief is, itself, a sin “which greatly aggravates our guilt and which, if persisted in, gives the finishing stroke to our destruction.”11

Sixth, the Bible requires certain spiritual exercises of all mankind, which are represented as their duty. If persons are required to love, fear, and glorify God, then repentance and faith are also required. Even though these exercises are brought about by the Spirit of Christ, the obligation remains. Man’s obedience to the truth and God’s gift of faith by grace are the same thing seen from different perspectives.12

If these propositions are valid, Fuller concludes, “love to Christ is the duty of everyone to whom the gospel is preached.”13 The work of Christian ministry, then, is to “hold up the free grace of God through Jesus Christ as the only way of a sinner’s salvation.” “If this not be the leading theme of our ministrations,” Fuller warns, “we had better be anything than preachers. ‘Woe unto us if we preach not the gospel!’”14

Duty to Make It Known

The repercussions of his argument are incalculable. From a historical perspective, Fuller so dismantled High Calvinism that no serious case for it has since arisen. Even more importantly, The Gospel Worthy unleashed a tsunami of evangelical Calvinism. If it is the duty of sinners to repent and believe in Christ, as the Scriptures teach, then it is also the urgent duty of Christians to present the claims of Christ to their neighbors and the nations. Pastors reengaged their calling as evangelists. New organizations were launched to multiply itinerant preaching.15 Ordinary Christians, grasping the implications of the gospel more fully, lifted their eyes to the horizon and saw fields white for harvest.

For William Carey (1761–1834), Fuller’s argument was foundational. “If it be the duty of all men where the gospel comes to believe unto salvation,” Carey told a friend after reading Fuller’s book, “then it is the duty of those who are entrusted with the gospel to make it known among all nations for the obedience of faith.”16 Several years later, in his famous Enquiry, Carey wrote that deficient understandings of the gospel were the reason “multitudes sit at ease and give themselves no concern about the far greater part of their fellow sinners who, to this day, are lost in ignorance and idolatry.”17 Since Christians are those “whose truest interest lies in the exaltation of the Messiah’s kingdom,” Carey concluded, “let every one, then, in his station consider himself as bound to act with all his might and in every possible way for God.”18

Such were not mere words. Four months after publishing them, Carey, Fuller, their friend John Ryland (1753–1826), and several others joined to form the Baptist Missionary Society. Carey became their first missionary, departing for India in 1793. Ryland supported London Congregationalists in starting the London Missionary Society (1795) and the Anglicans in launching the Church Missionary Society (1799). Reaching the shores of America, this wave of evangelical Calvinism then spawned the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (1810) and the General Missionary Convention of the Baptist Denomination (1814), the precursor to the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest missionary-sending organization in the world.

Jesus Is Worthy

Fuller’s The Gospel Worthy also holds a word for us. A high view of God’s sovereignty does not diminish evangelism and missions. Rather, it produces the opposite effect. Because the gospel is worthy of all acceptation, because all who hear it are duty bound to respond in faith, and because the Spirit ultimately brings about obedience to the truth, we can have the confidence and the courage to proclaim the gospel to our neighbors and among the nations. Jesus is worthy of all worship. His glory, our joy, and the good of all peoples “call loudly for every possible exertion to introduce the gospel among them.”19

Audio Transcript

Chapel is designed to be a meeting on your part with the King of kings and the Lord of lords himself. Over the years, there has been the same, basic objective: that chapel is to be a time of worship. Not a lecture, not an entertainment, but a time of meeting the King.

Those were some of the closing words from a man’s final minutes on earth. The preacher is V. Raymond Edman. He’s 67 years old. It’s a Friday-morning chapel at Wheaton College, on September 22, 1967, five and a half decades ago. His sermon is titled “In the Presence of the King.” Edman preached for about eleven minutes, paused, collapsed, and died — and entered into the presence of the King of kings. A stunning event.

In chapel that morning, along with about two thousand other Wheaton students, was 21-year-old John Piper. And Pastor John, you rarely ever mention this event: once late in an article you wrote in 1995, but nowhere in a book or sermon, and never here on APJ. So, take us back to Wheaton in 1967. Who was V. Raymond Edman? What do you remember about that fateful Friday morning? What impact did the chapel have on your ministry? And as you listen to the audio recording over 55 years later, what strikes you now?

The room we were meeting in when “Prexy” (as those who knew him well called him), V. Raymond Edman, died was called Edman Chapel, named after Dr. Edman in 1960 when it was built. So, the building in which he died bore his name already. It’s a large, concert-like venue, beautifully white and blue, with huge chandeliers. It holds about 2,400 people, with a main floor where the students sat during chapel and then a balcony behind.

Chapel was required of all students in those days, so the main floor was almost always mostly full. I was sitting near the back on the main floor on the right-hand side as you face the platform (I think my row was about three or four from the back). We sat in alphabetical order. So, nobody chose whom they sat with.

Discipline of Stillness

So, what do I make, then, as I listen to these last minutes of Dr. Edman’s life (which I did in getting ready for this)? What an amazing experience to listen. Frankly, if you listen to the whole thing, I think you can hear Dr. Edman — in his voice and in the content of his message — that he was displeased with the casual way students were treating chapel.

His entire narrative of his meeting with Haile Selassie, the Ethiopian king, with its elaborate protocol of bowing and silence as one approached the earthly king, was designed by Dr. Edman to encourage students to come to chapel and meet the King of kings in that spirit. That’s the whole point of his message. “Stop talking as you enter the foyer,” he pleaded with them. He pleaded that, when they walk into chapel, they wouldn’t talk with each other, but cultivate what he called the discipline of “be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10).

He had written a book of devotions called The Disciplines of Life. I had the book. I can’t find it right now, but I remember reading it while I was still at Wheaton. His burden in the book — and in the chapel message and elsewhere — was paradoxical, like the Christian life. He knew on the one hand that the deeper life — “the exchanged life,” as he called it (he was very influenced by Hudson Taylor, by the way, in that regard). He knew that the deeper, exchanged life — Christ for mine, mine for Christ — was a profoundly free and Spirit-inspired life.

“Speak in a way that you would be okay with if a recording of your last minutes were played over and over again.”

Yet on the other hand, this life was marked by rigorous disciplines that flowed from the Spirit. And he saw those disciplines being eroded in the 1960s in the church and in the students at Wheaton. And that book and this chapel message were his way of earnestly calling students to discipline themselves to be still and know that God is God. And so, he lamented the roar of student conversation in chapel. He even asked — with, I think, only partial humor — “Is it louder than the lions at Brookfield Zoo?” I didn’t hear any laughter when he said that.

Final Moments

So, we were all sitting there when, suddenly, he stopped for no apparent reason. There were a few seconds of silence. He turned to his left and just collapsed. It was not a gentle collapse, as I recall. He hit the floor like a log, and the sound was frightening. He didn’t crumple. You thought it was quiet before? Good night. Now it was breath-holding quiet as two thousand students trembled inside. “Oh no. What has just happened?”

Dr. Armerding, the new president, who was sitting right behind him in the main chair behind the pulpit, immediately knelt down over Dr. Edman. Then he stood as medical people were coming to the platform, and he said with beautiful, perfect equanimity and the dignity he was known for, “Let us pray.” And he prayed briefly for Dr. Edman and dismissed us in silence.

So, I went to my classical Greek class with Gerald Hawthorne in Blanchard Hall, and after we prayed, we tried to go on with our lessons. But soon the chapel bell tolled a long series of solemn bells. And we assumed that meant the chancellor had died. And he dismissed class, and that’s basically where my memories stopped.

Verge of Eternity

As I listened to those last minutes of the chapel message, about eleven minutes before he collapsed, several things struck me.

As I listened yesterday, I was trembling inside. I had this awareness, “This man is going to meet Jesus in eleven minutes.” It was as though I were there, and I knew something he didn’t know. “You’re going to die in eleven minutes. 10, 9, 8, 7 . . . You’re going to meet the King of the universe face to face in eleven minutes. You will not finish this message, Dr. Edman. You will not finish anything that is not finished now. Your life will be over in eleven minutes.”

I actually looked over to my computer screen at the numbers ticking off the seconds. And they felt like heartbeats to me. And then he stopped. Now, I’m ten years older than Dr. Edman was when he died. This was a good rehearsal for me. That’s what this is for. This is a rehearsal.

I think the final minutes of Dr. Edman’s life and message have been a bit romanticized. It’s more realistic to say that in those last minutes, not only did he speak of entering the presence of the King — that’s what’s been remembered, and rightly so — but he was also dealing with student misbehavior, just real down-to-earth, inglorious, practical, disappointing behavior. And he talked about speakers who come to chapel and are bad speakers. “They tilt like windmills,” he said, and say things unhelpful. That’s not glorious.

Ordinary Deaths

This is the way it struck me: that’s the way most of us are going to die. We won’t be on some mountaintop of sinless spiritual fervor. We won’t. We’ll be dealing with some mundane, frustrating, ordinary issue like students making a ruckus coming into chapel, speakers that are embarrassing to listen to — trying to say something helpful about this frustrating reality. And here’s the beautiful thing: in the midst of dealing with ordinary, mundane, frustrating disappointments, Christ will shine through. And he did.

The very last things, the very last words out of Dr. Edman’s mouth, were an exhortation not to return evil for evil, or (to say it positively) to treat disappointing chapel speakers better than they deserve — that is, courteously. Here’s what he said in his last words, words of counsel about how to treat unhelpful speakers. He said, “Our part as Christians is to be courteous. Any indication of disinterest or displeasure on our part would be an unnecessary discourtesy to him, and so I would ask you to desist.” And he fell over. So, the last word, the very last word, was, “Treat them better than they deserve.” Just like Stephen, right?

That’s the way the Christian life is going to be at the very end. I think it’s going to be a mixture of mundane, frustrating, disappointing reality and shafts of light — shafts of light from the word of Christ breaking in, and yes, the glory of the King just over the horizon, a moment away.

Live with the End in View

As I listened and counted down, I thought, “These could be my last eleven minutes right now.” Even as we talk, right? I could drop over here at my desk. I’m standing. I could fall to my left, fall to my right. So, Piper — here’s the admonition that’s landing on me — speak in a way that you would be okay with if a recording of your last minutes were played over and over again on earth and in heaven.

My prayer after listening to this message again after 55 years is that when I die, I would be found like Dr. Edman, commending the love of Christ — and that while I live, I would be found like Dr. Armerding, beautifully discerning what love calls for in every unexpected moment.

Our tired, sinful world has never seen a surprise so momentous as the one that spread from the tomb on Easter Sunday. “The dead stayed dead in the first century with the same monotonous regularity as they do [today],” Donald Macleod writes (The Person of Christ, 111). No one, in any age, has been accustomed to resurrection.

To the disciples, it mattered little that their Lord had already given away the ending (Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:34). The resurrection of Jesus Christ — heart beating, lungs pumping, brain firing, legs walking — could be nothing less than a surprise. The greatest surprise our world has ever seen.

Pay attention to the resurrection narratives, however, and you may find yourself surprised at how Jesus surprises his people. He does not run from the tomb shouting, “I’m risen!” (as we may have expected). In three separate stories, in fact — with Mary, with Peter, and with the two disciples on the Emmaus road — he does not reveal himself immediately. He waits. He lingers. He hides, even. And then, in profoundly personal ways, he surprises.

Some of us woke up this Easter in desperate need of this same Jesus to offer a similar surprise. We declare today that he is risen, that he is risen indeed. But for one reason or another, we may find ourselves stuck in the shadows of Saturday. Perhaps some sorrow runs deep. Or some old guilt gnaws. Or some confusion has invaded the soul. Perhaps our Lord, though risen, seems hidden.

Sit for a moment in these three stories, and consider how the Lord of the empty tomb still loves to surprise his people. As on the first Easter, he still delights to trade our sorrow for joy, our guilt for forgiveness, our confusion for clarity.

Sorrow Surprised by Joy

Maybe, this Sunday, some long sadness seems unmoved by the empty tomb. Maybe the Easter sun seems to have stopped just below the horizon of some darkened part of life — some love lost, some long and aching wait. Maybe you remember Jesus’s words, “Your sorrow will turn into joy” (John 16:20), but you still feel the sorrow, still look for the joy.

Stand at the tomb with Mary Magdalene. Others have come and gone, but she waits, weeping (John 20:11). She has seen the stone rolled away, the absent grave, and the angelic entourage of her risen Lord — and now, Jesus himself stands near her. But though she sees him, she doesn’t see him. “She did not know that it was Jesus” (John 20:14). She mourns before the Lord of holy joy, not knowing how soon her sorrow will flee. And for a few moments more, Jesus waits.

He draws her out with a question: “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” (John 20:15). She offers her reply, supposing she speaks to a gardener. And then, in a moment, with a word, the mask comes off. Shadows break, sun rises, sorrow makes its sudden happy turn. How? “Jesus said to her, ‘Mary’” (John 20:16). One word, one name, and this Gardener blooms flowers from her fallen tears. “Rabboni!” she cries — and cries no more (John 20:16).

Unlike Mary, you know your Lord is risen. Even still, for now, you may feel bent and broken. Seeing Jesus, but not seeing him. Knowing he lives, but not knowing where he is. Maybe even hearing his voice, but supposing you hear another’s. Dear saint, the risen Christ does not stand idly by while his loved ones grieve. He may linger for the moment, but he lingers near enough to see your tears and hear your cries — near enough to speak your name and surprise your sorrow with joy.

Keep waiting, and he will speak — sooner or later, here or in heaven. And until then, he is not far. Even if hidden, he is risen, and the deepest sorrow waits to hear his word.

Guilt Surprised by Forgiveness

Or maybe, for you, sorrow is only a note in a different, darker song. You have sinned — and not in a small way. The words of your mouth have shocked you; the work of your hands has undone you. You feel as if you had carried the soldiers’ nails. And now it seems that not even Easter can heal you.

Sit in the boat with Peter. He knows his Lord is risen — and indeed, he has even heard hope from Jesus himself. “Peace be with you,” the Master had told his disciples (John 20:19). But that “you” was plural. Peter needed something more, something personal, to wash away Good Friday’s stains.

“Jesus still delights to trade our sorrow for joy, our guilt for forgiveness, our confusion for clarity.”

And so Jesus stands on the shore — risen, hidden, and again with a question: “Children, do you have any fish?” (John 21:5). These are words to awaken memory (Luke 5:1–4), “yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus” (John 21:4). No, not yet. He will allow Peter to feel the night’s empty nets a few moments longer, and then the surprise will come. And so he reveals himself, this time not with a name but with fish — many fish, actually (John 21:6). Then, after feeding his men, he leads Peter in personal repentance and, as if all is forgotten, calls him afresh: “Follow me” (John 21:19).

That Jesus should turn our sorrow into joy is one of Easter’s greatest wonders. But perhaps greater still is that he should turn our guilt into innocence — that he should address our most sinful, shameful moments so personally, that he should wash our souls as humbly and tenderly as he washed his disciples’ feet. Yet so he does.

The process can take some time, however. We may not feel his forgiveness immediately, and he does not always mean us to. He sometimes hides for some moments or some days. Yet as he does, he prepares the scene for a surprise so good we too may feel like leaping into the sea (John 21:7). Our Lord is here, bringing grace and mercy; we must go to him.

Confusion Surprised by Clarity

Or maybe you find neither sorrow nor sin afflicting you this Easter, but rather another kind of thorn, a pain that can pierce deep enough to drive you mad: confusion. Life doesn’t make sense. Logic fails. God’s ways seem not just mysterious but labyrinth-like. Who can untangle these knots or find a way through this maze?

Walk with the two disciples toward Emmaus. “We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel,” you hear them say (Luke 24:21). Yes, had hoped. No more. Three nails and a spear stole the breath from that dream. Now all that’s left is confusion, a body and blood and a burial of all that seemed good and right and true. If not Jesus, then who? Then how? We had thought he was the one.

But then “the one” himself “drew near and went with them” (Luke 24:15). Again he asks a question: “What is this conversation that you are holding?” (Luke 24:17). And again he conceals himself: “Their eyes were kept from recognizing him” (Luke 24:16). So they walk; so they talk; so they spill their confusion all along the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus. Yes, they have heard his body was gone, have heard even a report of his rising (Luke 24:23–24). But still, they just can’t make sense of it all.

But oh, how Jesus can. So, with a swift and tender rebuke, a lesson in the Scriptures, and a face revealed over broken bread, he picks up their shattered thoughts and arranges them in a vision of startling, stunning clarity. Then “he vanished” (Luke 24:31), taking all their confusion with him. “Did not our hearts burn within us?” they ask each other (Luke 24:32). Christ had risen, and the clarity they could not imagine had walked with them, talked with them, and loved them into the light.

Our hearts today may brim with questions, some that seem unanswerable. But the resurrected Jesus knows no unanswerable questions. He can solve every riddle in every corner of every human heart — even if, for the moment, he walks beside us incognito.

Our Final Surprise

We live today in an in-between land. Jesus is risen, but we don’t yet see him. Jesus lives, but we haven’t yet touched the mark of the nails in his hands. If we are his, however, then one day we will. And these stories give us reason to expect on that day a final, climactic surprise.

If hearing Jesus’s word by faith can lift the heaviest heart, what sorrow can withstand his audible voice and the new name he will give to us (Revelation 2:17)? If even now we taste the relief of sins forgiven and condemnation gone, what will happen when he puts a white robe around our shoulders and renders sin impossible? And if we have moments here of bright clarity, then what will come when the mists lift altogether, when Truth himself stands before us, and when all deception disappears like a bad dream?

Then we will see what a risen Christ can do. His dealings with Mary, with Peter, with the Emmaus disciples — these are but the fringes of his power, the outskirts of his ways. So keep waiting, dear Christian. At the right time, he will speak your name. He will appear on the shoreline of your long-repeated prayers. He will walk with you on the road of confusion and loss until you reach a better table, and in the breaking of the bread you will see his face.

There you sit at the elder meeting. Some disagreement again surfaces.

Maybe you disagree about a potential elder candidate. He’s a good friend of one brother. But to you, he doesn’t seem sober-minded. You don’t think he’ll add to the team, but detract. He seems more like a liability than a blessing.

Perhaps you disagree about a troubled marriage. One pastor thinks the wife is mature and has been long-suffering with the husband, who is largely to blame; another pastor thinks the wife has come to imbibe an unbelieving perspective and is angling to be free from her marriage vows.

Perhaps it’s a doctrinal or exegetical disagreement. Let’s say female deacons. You’re on a counsel of eight. The other seven brothers have expressed openness to female deacons, and you’re the one that doesn’t see it in 1 Timothy 3. You think gunaikas there is deacon wives, not women deacons.

Or you disagree about priorities. How often should we inform the church about the latest pro-abortion legislative disaster in our state? How often do we call our people to prayer and some kind of action?

Or maybe it just seems to be the same brother all the time. Clearly the algorithms have the two of you on different feeds. Whatever the causes, you’ve been pulled into different ecosystems of digital influence. You wonder how much of this has been conditioned through these devices.

Our focus in this session is on seeking unity among pastor-elders. That is, unity in the lead or teaching office of the church, variously called pastor, elder, and overseer in the New Testament — three names for one office, the lead office (with deacon being the name of the assisting office). Our task in this session is handling disagreements among pastor-elders.

First, I’d like to make some preliminary assumptions explicit, and then give some practical counsel and reasons for hope.

Preliminary Assumptions

Now, a preliminary word about these “preliminary assumptions.” These actually may be the most important part. Many of the most important factors related to disagreements among pastors begin long before the specific disagreements emerge. I will try to speak to working for unity amidst disagreement, but I suspect the best working for unity happens before disagreement.

1. Church leadership is teamwork.

Even in rural settings, where the idea of a team of pastors may seem unrealistic, we still have the New Testament’s stubborn ideal of plurality. Twice Peter addresses the plural elders in 1 Peter 5:1–5; local church elders are plural in Acts (Acts 14:23; 20:17); so too in the Pastoral Epistles (1 Timothy 4:14; 5:17; Titus 1:5), and in James 5:14. In fact, every instance of local-church leadership in the New Testament implies plurality.

If I could give you a four-part summary of the New Testament vision for church leadership, it would have team at the heart of it: “local teams of sober-minded teachers.” Four parts: locality, acuity, didacity, and plurality.

“Our churches not only need good men as pastors; they need good men who are good friends.”

But not only plurality. The hope is not just that pastor-elder teams would be plural, but that pastor-elders would like each other, enjoy each other — that they would be friends, not rivals. Maybe “team of rivals” worked in Lincoln’s cabinet. But none of us is Lincoln, and besides, the local church is not the Lincoln administration. My experience has been that friendship, love, genuine affection among elders is not icing on the cake for good eldering. This is part of the cake. Our churches not only need good men as pastors; they need good men who are good friends.

Oh, “how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity!” (Psalm 133:1). That is, not just put up with each other, but actually enjoy each other, and look forward to being together, rather than dread it. Whether the pastor-elders enjoy their fellowship will soon affect the church. And it will profoundly affect how we work for unity in the midst of the disagreements that will inevitably come.

If fact, related to working for unity, my counsel would be to always be working for unity through friendship, through investing in team dynamics, long before disagreements arise. Work for unity ahead of time, and seek to have such settled, stable unity, that when disagreements do arise, your unity isn’t soon called into question. Then you can give your focus to actually working through the issue, rather than working for unity prematurely.

And get this: when the relationships are strong and enjoyable among elders, you’re not so nervous about conflict and avoiding certain issues. Rather, you’re free to mine for conflict — to ask about it and talk about it long before it becomes an elephant in the room. You read a frustrated look on a brother’s face and ask him to say more, rather than barreling forward to get your preference in the moment. Your relationship is stable enough to try to surface potential disagreements early, rather than avoiding them and letting them fester.

So, church leadership is teamwork — and best done by friends, not rivals.

2. Good teams guard the gate.

That is, they are careful whom they add to the team. They don’t rush the process. They aren’t “hasty in the laying on of hands” (1 Timothy 5:22). So, we ask all sorts of questions up front. Ask about theology and theological hobbyhorses. Work carefully through the elder qualifications (take them seriously!). And ask each other, Do we think this man fits with the shared instincts of our team? Will he be a good teammate? Does he seem to have our chemistry? Or, how will he affect our team’s chemistry?

Remember, this is not “team of rivals.” There are plenty of issues in life and ministry to disagree about, in big and small degrees. Inevitably, some differing instincts reside in your team. They are there, and they will come. After a while together, you’ll be able to plot on a line who’s the most knee-jerk conservative, who’s most compassionate, who’s most hopeful about the world and culture. Those differences of instinct that make a team healthy and effective will emerge soon enough. But don’t try to staff for difference. Difference will be there and arise. Staff for chemistry. Try to build a team of friends who like each other and have significant shared instincts and genuinely want to spend time together, and so come to enjoy the often burdensome work of teaching and caring well for the church together.

At the gate, be clear about what you have in writing. What, if anything, beyond Scripture does your elder team commit to? Do the leaders subscribe to any confession beyond the membership covenant? Is there a pastors’ covenant? Any agreed-upon documents on ministry philosophy? I’d encourage you to have some things in writing (though not too much). Know what it is, and use it.

3. Unity does not require unanimity.

I’ve heard of elder boards who insist on unanimity in their decisions. I don’t think that’s necessary (or good). We need to be wise and patient regarding particular situations. If it’s a huge initiative in the church — say, a capital campaign — you might want to press for unanimity, or very close to it, not mere consensus. And in major decisions like that, don’t rush the process. And for lead pastors, I say don’t bring a fully formulated proposal to the team. Take the initiative. Point in a direction. Give time to think it over carefully. Ask all the brothers to speak in and develop ownership in the process. Give space for that. Mine for hesitations and conflict. Seek to refine the proposal. On major initiatives, do your best to rally the whole team together.

But on other items, it’s simply not worth all the work to get to unanimity, and not necessary. One or two guys have a different opinion, but you have a clear consensus in the team. The decision needs to be made tonight, and so you move forward.

So, that’s one disclaimer on the idea of working for unity. Most things do not need unanimity.

Another disclaimer on working for unity is that true Christian unity is not something we first produce, and definitely not in a moment, but a grace we receive and then maintain and protect, even as we grow and deepen it. Consider Ephesians 4:1–3:

Walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

In Christ, we don’t produce our unity. The Spirit gives it. Once we are in Christ, we have in common with others who are in Christ the most important realities in the universe. Unity, then, is what we seek to maintain.

Yet also there is a sense in which it is attained. Ephesians 4:12–13: Pastors “equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood.” The Spirit gives it; we maintain it, even as we pastors lead the church in attaining the unity of full maturity.

“We are prone to move too fast or not at all. Moving forward with patience is most difficult, and most rewarding.”

In Philippians, Paul is writing to a church with some newly emerging unity issues. He wants them to “[be] of the same mind, [have] the same love, [be] in full accord and of one mind” (Philippians 2:2). He hopes to hear of them that they “are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel” (Philippians 1:27). How, then, might that happen? How might they practically seek to maintain their unity in Christ and together attain the unity of maturity? Philippians 2:3–4 (this text might be the single most important one on pursuing unity):

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

(First Peter 3:8 mentions a similar cluster of virtues with “unity of mind”: “All of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind.”)

4. Different kinds of disagreement lead to different courses of action.

First, some disagreements on small or silly matters are overlooked by wise, peaceable, magnanimous men.

In 2 Timothy 2, before Paul gives Timothy some of the most pointed words in Scripture on how to deal with conflict, first he says in 2 Timothy 2:23, “Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels.” And 1 Timothy 6:4–5 warns us about

an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth.

Brothers, “not quarrelsome” is an elder qualification (1 Timothy 3:3).

It’s long been a live issue, but in recent years, online life has thrown gas on the fire. Brothers, you don’t always have to have an opinion. And you don’t have to express your opinion. (This is a particular temptation for word guys like us; words come so easy for some of us pastors.) Don’t let foolish, distant, impractical quarrels divide your pastoral team and ruin your trust with your own people.

Second, some disagreements are on clearly defined matters, like doctrine.

In Acts 20:29–30, Paul warns the Ephesian elders that wolves will rise up from within their own team:

I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them.

God made the souls of men in particular to rise to the unpleasant and essential work of protecting the flock from wolves, with its emotional and physical costs. (As an aside, the threat of false teaching, and the necessity of pastors protecting the sheep from wolves, may show plainest of all God’s building of men for the pastorate. God made men to be conditioned for this calling.) And of course, the worst of this is when such errors, doctrinally or ethically, arise “from among your own selves,” from within the team.

Brian Tabb recently wrote in Themelios under the title “On Disagreements in Ministry.” I’d recommend it. He says there,

Christian workers are sometimes morally obligated to separate when matters of essential biblical doctrine and practice are at stake. Some separations and divisions between professing believers are necessary to distinguish true faith and morality from counterfeit Christianity. For example, Paul exhorts, “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers” (2 Cor 6:14), and he explains that “there must . . . be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized” (1 Cor 11:19). Likewise, John asserts, “They went out from us, but they were not of us” (1 John 2:19), and he warns against partnering with or receiving any teacher who “does not abide in the teaching of Christ . . . for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works” (2 John 9–11). It takes biblical wisdom, humility, and courage to practice “theological triage” and discern between those hills that are worth dying on, on the one hand, and matters where fellow believers may agree to disagree, on the other.

And even when you find yourself in such a conflict, remember the rest of Paul’s counsel in 2 Timothy 2:24–25:

The Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness.

Third, some of the most difficult are gray-area disagreements.

These are issues that matter but are not easily settled by texts of Scripture or shared statements of faith. One classic example is Paul and Barnabas disagreeing about John Mark and separating over their difference in assessment. This is Acts 15:36–41:

After some days Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us return and visit the brothers in every city where we proclaimed the word of the Lord, and see how they are.” [So they’re agreed!] Now Barnabas wanted to take with them John called Mark. But Paul thought best not to take with them one who had withdrawn from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work. And there arose a sharp disagreement, so that they separated from each other. Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus, but Paul chose Silas and departed, having been commended by the brothers to the grace of the Lord. And he went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches.

In another Themelios essay, Don Carson refers to “differences in vision and priorities. . . . Is it a case of a Barnabas and a Paul unable to reach an amicable agreement on a pastoral issue where both sides feel strongly and can marshal compelling arguments?”

Again, pastor-elders are to be men who are not quarrelsome, but peaceable. And peacemaking is very different from conflict-aversion. To be a peacemaker, one must be willing to engage in and endure conflict, and do so with Christian speech and conduct, but not as an end — rather, aiming for the restoration of peace on the far side.

Which leads us to the practical counsel (after all those preliminary assumptions!).

Practical Counsel

What more might we say about the Paul-and-Barnabas type of disagreement? I’m not here dealing with disagreements on clearly defined matters, or disagreements on trivia, or foolish quarrels insighted by the Internet, but real-life gray-area disagreements between brothers on the same pastor-elder team — and that from my limited perspective (fifteen years as an elder).

When the situation arises, when disagreement emerges that feels significant enough that it draws your attention as a disagreement, here are six counsels (among many others, I’m sure).

1. Rehearse what you share in common.

Hopefully you’ve been working for unity ahead of time: fostering relationships with each other; cultivating affection for each other; keeping short accounts; mining for conflict, rather than letting it fester underground until it erupts through the surface. Remember what you share in common as redeemed sinners, indwelt by the Spirit, caring for the good of this church. Consider how much doctrine and philosophy of ministry you share. And pause to cherish it afresh.

2. Query the disagreement in three dimensions.

In abiding disagreements, query (1) your own soul, (2) God’s word, and (3) the counsel of others.

When trying to discern between controversies to avoid and conflicts to engage with courage, you might query your own soul like this:

Is this about me — my ego, my preference, my threatened illusion of control — or is this relevant to Jesus, his gospel, his church? Am I remembering that my greatest potential enemy here is not others, and not even Satan, but my own indwelling sin?
What is the tenor of my ministry? Is it one fight after another? Are there seasons of peace? Am I engaging in conflict as an end in itself, or is preserving and securing Christian peace clearly the goal?
Am I going with or against my flesh, which inclines me to fight when I shouldn’t, and to back down when I should kindly, patiently, gently fight? As the “servant” of the Lord, not self, am I avoiding petty causes that an unholy part of me wants to pursue, while taking on the difficult, painful, and righteous causes that an unholy part of me wants to flee?
Am I simply angry at my opponents, desiring to show them up or expose them, or am I sad for them — better yet, compassionate for them — genuinely praying that God would free them from deception and grant them repentance? Am I more inclined to anger against them or tears for them?

Also, you might want to revisit the elder qualifications afresh related to how you are engaging the disagreement. Which of the essential pastoral virtues are live challenges or come into fresh light in the conflict? Ask, Which single attribute do I need the most help with in this brewing conflict?

3. Carefully ask others for perspective and counsel.

I say “carefully” meaning (1) not to violate confidentiality and (2) not to rally support. You are asking for counsel for you — what you might do, how you might grow and change — not simply for a verdict from a buddy that you’re in the right. You could ask others in the room, fellow elders. Or carefully ask for outside perspective — again with the goal of receiving counsel for how you can be a means of grace, how you might wisely humble yourself and faithfully navigate the situation.

4. Look for objective cues and clarity to go on.

Good decisions are not ex nihilo but “sub-creation” with various givens. You need some objective grist to work with. Perhaps the confusion and disagreement stems from awareness, or lack thereof, of objective givens related to the situation. Rehearse what you know for sure and is not speculation. One way to move toward agreement is to get more of simply a clear given on the table.

5 Give it more time (without negligence).

Related to looking for objectives, you may be stuck because you need more data, another given, another data point, to lead and guide — which might mean you are not yet to a wise point to make the decision. Resist the pressure to make decisions prematurely. Giving it more time means patience, not neglect. This is like untying knots on our kid’s ice skates or untangling a necklace: we are prone to move too fast or not at all. Moving forward with patience is most difficult, and most rewarding.

Also, related to time, if you do begin to discern you’re at an impasse, be careful not to part too quickly. But also don’t stay stuck in an impasse when both sides are really entrenched. From here, there likely is one party that, given the situation, and in hopes of the health of the church, should stand down. Humbly assess if you’re the one who should stand down.

6. Ask afresh how Scripture speaks to the issue.

You might be able to get to this right away, but with a gray-area or jagged-line disagreement, you may simply come across surprising insights as you continue reading, meditating on, and sitting under God’s word. So, the deliberate passage of time may shed new light on the issue, which is why I’ve put revisiting Scripture here at the end, rather than first in the list.

As time passes, you have the opportunity to keep meditating on Scripture every day. It’s amazing what clarity you might get on an issue and what discoveries of biblical wisdom you might gain over the course of a year, say, if it remains with you while you read the whole Bible through. You might start seeing connections you had not previously seen as new issues are raised and become personal through the presenting disagreement. There can be wisdom in letting disagreements pass through a few seasons of the year (especially through winter and seasonally affected places like Minnesota). And other than 1 Timothy 3, Titus 1, and 2 Timothy 2:23–26, another particular passage to meditate on for disagreement is James 3:13–18:

Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.

Every Conflict an Opportunity

Many disagreements will lessen, if not resolve, as you proceed patiently, query the Scriptures, query the situation, audit your own soul, and solicit perspective (and exhortation) from wise counselors. But some disagreements prove intractable. As you discuss and keep revisiting the issue, you seem to be getting further and further apart, not coming together. Some disagreements you may be able to live with. For others, it may be a matter of time before some parting will happen, like Paul and Barnabas.

“Disagreement is a chance for deeper harmony, greater friendship, wiser elder actions, and healthier churches.”

And when that happens, my counsel would be walk humbly and carefully as to who leaves and who stays. If the elder board is split ten to one, and deeply entrenched, it’s the one who needs to leave. Navigating a righteous departure demands great wisdom and perhaps even more energy in working for unity.

Let’s close with this hope: in Scripture, conflict is an amazing opportunity for God’s grace. Disagreement is a chance for deeper harmony in the end, greater friendship, wiser elder actions, and healthier churches.

We don’t know any more about Paul and John Mark from Acts. But we do see in Paul’s letters that they ministered together later on. And even this, from the last chapter of Paul’s last letter:

Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me for ministry. (2 Timothy 4:11)

May God give us such hope, and such reunions, even in this life — and even more, even better, together in the one to come.

“Youth,” an old writer complained, “is wasted on the young.” Why hand the strongest draught of life to those who least know what to do with it? Why entrust bright eyes and boundless energy to those blowing bubbles and scrolling phones and living best friends with frivolity? With too few scars to instruct them, youth, you may know too well, is often wasted on the young.

Oh, if you could bring an old head to young shoulders — how differently life would have gone. To think, really think, about what decisions you were making, what paths you were taking, what hearts you were breaking — if only you knew then what you know now. But you cannot read through and edit life. The past is well-defended and heartless to your pleas.

Life — to be placed on a bicycle before you can balance. You crashed so many times, and others suffered in your falls. You knew not where to go. And yet now, just as you get riding in the right direction, how cruel, it seems to you, to reach the sidewalk’s end. Why do we finally learn to make the most of summer days in breezy autumn?

Where was the Preacher then to instruct you, “Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near of which you will say, ‘I have no pleasure in them’” (Ecclesiastes 12:1)? His prophetic voice spoke too softly, and it all passed by so quickly. If only you could go back and live again; this time things would go differently.

Teach Us to Measure Our Days

How vital is it for us to pray with the psalmist?

O Yahweh, make me know my end     and what is the measure of my days;     let me know how fleeting I am! (Psalm 39:4)

How needful is it to “know our end” before we get there? How precious to “measure our days” before we spend them? How priceless to feel our fleetness before our ship sails?

Who shall teach us to measure our days? Man flatters us and hides our end from sight. We conspire, deceiving ourselves, we gods amidst mortals. Satan slithers still, “You will not surely die” (Genesis 3:4). The world catechizes of nothing beyond its walls. Who shall teach us of the ill-favored end we wish forgotten? Who shall speak the truth to make us wise?

O Lord, teach me my end! Make me know the finish of all flesh for the good of my soul. Bring near my casket; let me read my tombstone. Let the clouds of that day surround me, show me how dark is that silence six feet below. There, let me think. There, let me learn. For “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” (Ecclesiastes 7:2).

Bury me, my Lord — throw dirt upon my aspirations, my dreams, my life — and then exhume what is worthy, what is true, what is good, what is beautiful, that which is pleasing in your sight. I am but a dream, a shadow, a blade of grass blowing in the wind. Show me death to teach me life!

Prayer of the Living

O Lord, in your school, I learn to measure my existence — not by others, but by you.

Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths,and my lifetime is as nothing before you.Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath! (Psalm 39:5)

In your school, I learn to weigh this life and the vanity of its riches.

Surely a man goes about as a shadow!Surely for nothing they are in turmoil;man heaps up wealth and does not know who will gather! (Psalm 39:6)

In your school, I learn to chasten all other hopes.

And now, O Lord, for what do I wait?[My hope is in . . . these relationships, things, achievements? No.]My hope is in you. (Psalm 39:7)

You discipline me, you correct me, you blight the mirages I misjudge as Joy, and lead me to life in you. Oh, teach me the small dimensions of my days! Send forth your cloud by day; shine forth your fire by night. Lead me safely through this dark and dreary land, this cemetery. Teach me to live while I live. Take me to the end of life that I might learn to live this life as I wait for life with you.

Spend Time with Death

We pray this to our Lord because he must teach us how to measure the days he gives. But we must measure our lives through prayerful meditation. Practically, John Bunyan, that tour guide of the faith, advises us to dwell nearer our death.

It is convenient that thou conclude the grave is thy house, and that thou make thy bed once a day in the grave. . . . The fool puts the evil day far away, but the wise man brings it nigh. Better be ready to die seven years before death comes, than want one day, one hour, one moment, one tear, one sorrowful sigh at the remembrance of the ill-spent life that I have lived. (Christ a Complete Saviour, 221)

“Get an eyeful of Christ, a soulful of Christ, and all your wasted days will be redeemed.”

Our problem is not that death comes too swiftly, but that we visit death too seldomly. Reader, are you ready to die? Conclude now, young person, old person, middle-aged person: The grave is thy house. The wages of your sin is death; to dust you must return. But do not stop there, for your soul does not stop there. We must all read past death’s cold chapter. What lies beyond for you? What final destination is death but the turbulent flight? Eternal life or unending death? Is death gain or utter ruin?

Span of Today

Let that thought be a spur to change. Consider how many days have already escaped unfelt, untasted, unvalued. Life has happened to us more than it has been lived thoughtfully, fearfully by us — how much remains? Perhaps not much. The one life we had to live in this world — how unkindly we passed it before our Creator. Youth is wasted on the young perhaps because death is wasted on the young. Life, how valuable; we, how foolish.

Yet consider more. With all the wasted and mishandled days, realize the potential of time remaining. If you are young enough to read these words, you are young enough to hope.

Much can happen in a day. This day, you can place a phone call to a loved one you’ve not spoken with for years. This day, you can extend forgiveness, repair old bridges, heal scarred marriages. This day, we can choose what is right over what is easy. This day, we can confess sin we’ve kept secret for so long. This day, wars can cease, great enterprises begin, revivals ignite, reformation commence, lives change.

This day, Jesus Christ can place scarred hands upon an irretrievable past and amend it, reclaim it. He decisively saves souls within the bounds of today: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion” (Hebrews 3:7–8). He will take your wasted and ruined life. He can make something beautiful from it still. From the barren land, flowers may yet grow.

Within the final breaths of this day, you can hear by faith, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). This day, you can discover the purpose of all days: Jesus Christ. Get an eyeful of Christ, a soulful of Christ, and all your wasted days will be returned to his keeping, and your future days will be sceptered by his care.

Redeemer of Days

One has gone before you to your end, into death, tasting death for his people. He changes the calculus of our days. Even a spoiled life plus Christ equals eternal life. Live 969 years as Methuselah (Genesis 5:27) or 16 like Lady Jane Grey (or younger, as some of our beloved children who died trusting Jesus), if Christ is yours, death is gain. He stands beyond our end; distance from him marks the measure of our days. Our life is fleeting, yes, but we fleet to him.

Hear how Christ can beautifully map upon our brief existence:

Lord, it belongs not to my careWhether I die or live;To love and serve Thee is my share,And this Thy grace must give.

If life be long, I will be glad,That I may long obey;If short, yet why should I be sadTo welcome endless day?

Christ leads me through no darker roomsThan he went through before;He that unto God’s kingdom comesMust enter by this door.

Come, Lord, when grace hath made me meetThy blessed face to see;For if Thy work on earth be sweet,What will Thy glory be!

My knowledge of that life is small,The eye of faith is dim;But ‘tis enough that Christ knows all,And I shall be with Him. (Richard Baxter, “The Covenant and Confidence of Faith”)

Life, how fleeting. Life with Christ, how eternal. Life, how shadowed. Life with Christ, how bright. Life, how regrettable. Life with Christ, how redeemed.

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

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

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

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

While You Were Weak

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

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

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

While You Were Wicked

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

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

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

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

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

While You Were Hostile

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

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

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

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

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

While You Were Dead

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

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

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

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

There Is a Remedy

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

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

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

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

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

What is Look at the Book?

You look at a Bible text on the screen. You listen to John Piper. You watch his pen “draw out” meaning. You see for yourself whether the meaning is really there. And (we pray!) all that God is for you in Christ explodes with faith, and joy, and love.

Perhaps you bring no specific sorrows or griefs into this Maundy Thursday. Count it as God’s grace in a world as broken as ours — with the sober recognition that it will not always be so.

The rest of us find ourselves carrying some identifiable grief or pain this Holy Week. To you, I extend the invitation to join me in bringing your griefs to Gethsemane. They are welcome here on this holy Thursday. There is room for them in the garden. There is healing for them here, and at Golgotha, like nowhere else.

Not that our griefs are the focus. Which is why Maundy Thursday is so precious, and offers the real help and healing we need.

Loud Cries and Tears

Outside of the Gospels, Hebrews 5:7 is the most specific reference to Jesus’s evening of agony in the garden of Gethsemane:

In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence.

The mention of “loud cries” might flash our minds forward to the cross and his cry from Psalm 22:1: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And the mention of his tears might send us back to his weeping at the grave of Lazarus in John 11. But his offering up “prayers and supplications,” with the mention of “him who was able to save him from death,” brings us unavoidably to Gethsemane.

Hebrews says that Jesus “was heard because of his reverence.” Which raises the question, “Wait, didn’t Jesus die the next day? Was he really heard? Was he saved from death?” It doesn’t seem like he was saved from death. Or was he?

Three Times He Prays

In the garden, Jesus first prays for the cup to pass — that, if possible, he would not have to go to the cross:

He fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” (Matthew 26:39)

On his knees in Gethsemane, he pleads, “If possible, let this cup pass.” That’s his first prayer. Still, he concedes, “Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”

Then, Matthew 26:42 tells us that Jesus prays a “second time”: “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.” This second prayer is different, subtle as it may seem. Now the accent is not on the cup passing, but on doing his Father’s will.

Finally, according to Matthew 26:44, Jesus goes away again to pray for a third time: “He went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words again.” So, Matthew reports no developments from the second to the third prayer; they are essentially the same. But the first and second are not the same. They are not contradictory; nor are they “the same words.” But there is a shift in emphasis between Jesus’s first prayer and his second. What happened?

Jesus Strengthened

The Gospel of Luke provides a further detail:

[Jesus] knelt down and prayed, saying, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” [This matches the first prayer in Matthew.] And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him. And being in agony he prayed more earnestly [another distinct time of prayer]; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. (Luke 22:41–44)

“The one who once prayed with loud cries and tears in Gethsemane, now prays for us with glorified sympathy.”

Let’s put the pieces together. We have a first prayer in Luke, which matches the first prayer in Matthew, with the accent on let this cup pass; remove it from me — and with the added concession, “Nevertheless, not my will be done but yours.” Then we have a second prayer (with the third being essentially the same). And in this second prayer, Jesus shifts his emphasis to what he conceded in the first: “Your will be done.”

So, first prayer: Let this cup pass. Second: Your will be done. And between them, Luke says, Jesus is strengthened by an angel from heaven.

Strengthened for What?

Let’s ask, “Strengthened for what?” and see how that brings us back to Hebrews 5:7. What is the strength Jesus needs here in Gethsemane? He needs strength for the task that now lies ahead. There is no other way to honor his Father and rescue his people and finish his course. He must go to the cross. This cup cannot pass or be removed. Now he is sure of it.

Perhaps the angel confirms this unavoidable path, or maybe Jesus himself freshly realizes it or comes to grips with it in some new way. Either way, the Father sends one of heaven’s finest to strengthen his Son’s human heart and steady his human will for the literally excruciating work ahead of him.

At one level, Jesus is strengthened simply not to run from the garden but to remain and give himself into custody. But at a deeper level, he is strengthened in his inner man to close with resolve on the work before him, to voluntarily choose, even embrace, his Father’s will — and in so doing, make the divine will to be his own as man.

The temptation of the moment is not just to flee with his feet, but to fail in his heart and soul. The peril in the hours ahead will be to abandon faith in the face of such terrible obstacles. Will his heart prove stronger than the horrors of his circumstances? Or will the sharp edges of these sorrows shatter into pieces his tender trust for his Father and his self-sacrificing love for their people?

In his second prayer in the garden, Jesus says, in effect, “Father, given that this cup cannot pass, help me to persevere through suffering and death.” Help my soul to endure in faith and not give out. Help me hold my original confidence in you firm to the end.

So, the angel visits. Jesus is strengthened — and, freshly resolved, he does not continue to pray for the removal of the cup. Now he prays for victory in drinking it.

Our Sorrows and Griefs

Now back to Hebrews 5:7. Jesus’s being heard by his Father, who was able to save him from death, doesn’t mean that God removed the cup of suffering and death, but that he saved his Son through it. The Father preserved his faith through the faith-assaulting cross. He kept his soul. He upheld him. He did not let Jesus’s heart or obedience fail. The Father saved his divine-human Son through the trial of death, and then saved him from death by raising him on Sunday morning.

This brings us back to our own sorrows and griefs this Maundy Thursday. I mean not only the regular pains of human life in a fallen world, but the specific pains and sorrows you are carrying, and the griefs you are bearing, even this week, even right now.

Our Father does spare us many sorrows. Oh, how many he does remove and let pass. But typically, he manifests his greatest power not in saving us from them on the front end, but first through them, and then from them on the back end. And as he brings us through them, he does not leave us alone in them without someone to strengthen us — both human fellows also rescued, and the one who is far better even than an angel from heaven.

Hebrews 5:7 is on the very cusp of this letter’s heart. The author will make the case in chapter 7 for Jesus as our Great High Priest, who sympathizes with us, and draws near to us, and graciously helps us in our time of need. And Hebrews doesn’t stop with Jesus as a sympathizing high priest. Chapters 9 and 10 show us that our Great High Priest is himself the great once-for-all sacrifice for our sins.

Jesus not only draws near, as priest, to have compassion on us in our sorrows, but he also goes to the cross on Good Friday, as our sacrifice, to solve the greatest problem we have, by far — which not only puts all our sorrows into perspective but guarantees they will not have the last word.

Grace for Every Grief and Sin

The gravest problem in my life, and in yours, isn’t our sorrows, great as they may be. Our greatest peril is our own sin. However terrible your griefs, the gravest danger to your soul is not how anyone else has treated you, or how unfortunate are your circumstances, or how weary and tired you’ve become. Your gravest problem, like mine, is how you have treated God, and that his righteous, omnipotent wrath stands against us in our sin.

Which is why, even in the descending darkness of Maundy Thursday, a bright ray of hope shines out. Jesus not only grieves in the garden as our priest, but he dies tomorrow as our propitiation. He sympathizes with our many sorrows, and he saves us utterly from our own sins through his atoning sacrifice. He draws near, and with his own wounds he heals ours (Isaiah 53:5), some of them in this life, and all of them in the life to come.

The one who once prayed with loud cries and tears in Gethsemane, now prays for us with glorified sympathy, on the very throne of heaven.

So, bring your griefs to Gethsemane. Bring your own loud cries and tears. Bring your sorrows. And bring your sins — and a prayer of childlike faith for his rescue. Draw near to this throne, where now sits your Great High Priest, ready to show mercy and give grace to help in your time of need.

Audio Transcript

The question today is from an anonymous woman, a young woman, who listens to the podcast regularly. She struggles with the painful memories of her sinful past life. “Dear Pastor John, I’ve been a follower of Christ for a while now,” she writes. “But my conscience still haunts me for all the really bad and dumb things I did when I was younger. Does that mean I am not saved? I’ve prayed for forgiveness many times, talked to pastors and even Christian therapists, but I don’t feel forgiven because the guilt is always there, no matter how much I pray and seek God. I feel far from God and not sure what else to do.”

Oh, how I would like to be used by God to give some measure of relief, freedom, and boldness to our friend.

So, let me start by saying that there’s one thing you said that I don’t believe is true. You said, “I don’t feel forgiven.” That’s true. She said, “I don’t feel forgiven because the guilt is always there.” That’s not true. I’m just going to say, “That’s not true.” The guilt is not always there. The feelings of guilt are always there; the guilt is not there. And if you think that’s quibbling over words, that may be your biggest problem. It’s not quibbling. It’s absolutely essential to distinguish the presence of real guilt and the presence of feeling guilty. Now, I’m not going to say that if you realize this distinction, your problem will go away. It’s not that simple. I know that.

Before the Judge

Let’s try a thought experiment. Suppose you committed many horrible crimes — stealing, adultery, killing, murder, lying to cover it all up. Then you were caught and went to trial, and everybody knew you were guilty — everybody. There was no doubt about it. You deserved to die. And when you came to trial, the judge said, “Not guilty. And you can go free.”

Here’s my question: What would that do for your feelings of guilt? And my answer is nothing. Nothing at all. You would still be guilty. You would know it. Everybody would know it. And you would be miserable for the rest of your life and may well commit suicide.

But wait — wait a minute. Somebody’s going to say, “Isn’t that what Christianity offers, Piper? The judge says, ‘Not guilty. Go free.’ Isn’t that the very heart of Christianity?” And my answer is that it’s not the same. And the reason it’s not the same is that, in our little thought experiment, there’s no substitute. In fact, in ordinary human jurisprudence, there can be no substitute. A mother cannot step in and go to jail for her criminal son, the murderer. As much as she may want to, we won’t allow it.

“It’s absolutely essential to distinguish the presence of real guilt and the presence of feeling guilty.”

But in the way God devised to handle our guilt, our sin, a substitute does in fact work. The defaming of God’s honor through our sin really is repaired when Christ bears our guilt for God’s glory. And the Holy Spirit that is unleashed through the blood of Christ into the lives of sinners really does create new people who now live for the glory of God. So, dear friend, your condition is not like a human judge arbitrarily letting a guilty person off the hook. It’s not like that. God did more, and your guilt is really gone.

Guilt Gone

Listen to these six statements from the Bible that God pronounces over you, and say as I read each one, “I believe that; I believe that,” because these are just straight Bible. Here we go.

He canceled your record of debt, nailing it to the cross (Colossians 2:14).
He sent his Son to be the propitiation (the wrath-removing agent) for your sins (1 John 4:10).
He bore your sins in his body on the tree (1 Peter 2:24).
He was pierced for your transgressions (Isaiah 53:5).
The Lord has laid on him your iniquity (Isaiah 53:6).
He became a curse for you (Galatians 3:13).

Your real guilt — that is, the just liability that you had to be punished for your sins; that’s guilt — is gone. It is no more. Nowhere in the universe does it exist. It’s gone, never to return. “There is . . . now no condemnation for those who are in Christ” because there’s no guilt for those who are in Christ (Romans 8:1).

And you know — and you may be just sitting there rolling your eyes — I haven’t said a word yet about the feelings of guilt, because that’s another issue. They’re not the same. And you need deeply to dwell on the reality of guilt removal.

Five Prayers for Guilt Feelings

So now, what do you do with guilt feelings? Well, I’m going to suggest what maybe nobody has suggested to you, and you can test by the Scriptures whether this is wise. I’m not going to suggest that you focus on getting rid of guilt feelings per se. Can you hear that? That may be surprising. I’m not going to suggest that you focus on getting rid of those guilt feelings per se. I’m going to suggest that you purge or purify or deliver your guilt feelings of every impulse that shouldn’t be there.

And yes, you’re right — that implies that something will be left over of guilt feelings. When I’ve purged them from everything that shouldn’t be there, something’s going to be left over that’s good. It’s good. It’s needed — forever. Now, you may have never heard that from anybody (I don’t know), but I’m saying that guilt feelings are not entirely bad.

You may be saying, “Good grief, you have no idea what they do to me.” Well, I do have some idea, but here’s my suggestion. You should ask God to purge your guilt feelings of five realities that can be taken out of your guilt feelings and see what’s left.

First, pray like this: “Father, take out of my guilt feelings every impulse that makes me feel hopeless, because I know hope is commanded, and you have given us precious and very great promises to feed our hope on, like ‘I will work everything together for your good’ (Romans 8:28). So, take out of my guilt feelings everything that makes me feel hopeless.”

Second, “Take out of my guilt feelings, Father, every impulse that makes me feel useless and without purpose, because I know you promise that none of our work is in vain in the Lord (1 Corinthians 15:58).”

Third, “Take out of my guilt feelings, Father, every impulse that makes me feel fearful and timid, because I know you said, ‘Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God’ (Isaiah 41:10).”

Fourth, “Take out of my guilt feelings all anxiety about being found out,” because God already knows everything about my sin and how ugly it was, and he doesn’t flinch at loving me. And I know that only his kind of people will get into heaven. That’s where I’ll spend eternity with people who don’t flinch at loving me.

“There’s no such thing as being worthy of grace. Deserved grace is not grace.”

Fifth, “Take out of my guilt feelings, Father, the impulse that I need to feel worthy of grace, since you have taught me there’s no such thing as being worthy of grace. There’s no such thing. Deserved grace is not grace. Help me realize that feeling unworthy of grace is the only proper way to receive grace. So, purge my guilt feelings of this craziness of thinking I need to be worthy of grace.”

Slaughtered Lamb

Now, what’s left? What’s left of your guilt feelings — our guilt feelings? (Yes, our guilt feelings.)

Think of it this way. According to Revelation 5:9–10, there will be a song in heaven about the slaughter of the Lamb of God. I use the word “slaughter” because that’s what sphazo means. When it says “slain” (Revelation 5:9), it means slaughter. You slaughter sheep when you’re going to eat them or do something else with them. He was slaughtered. We’re going to sing about that. It says so:

And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were [slaughtered], and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.”

We’re going to sing that in heaven forever, which means we’re going to remember our sin. We’re going to remember our guilt and what it cost — namely, the death of the Lamb of God. We will not sing that song and scratch our head, saying, “I don’t have any idea what that’s about. I don’t have any idea what that blood was about. I don’t know why he had to die. We just keep singing that song.” We will know why he died. He died because of our guilt. And we will know that forever.

But everything debilitating, everything hopeless, everything that destroys a sense of purpose and courage, everything fearful, everything that diminishes our glorying in grace will be taken out of our feelings of guilt. And all that will be left will be a miraculous new heart of humble, happy, thankful praise to the glory of the grace of God. Which means this: don’t despair that you have guilt feelings. They are necessary. Instead, spend your life purifying them of everything that keeps you from happy, thankful worship and obedience.

When a teenager (say, 14 or 15 years old) is surrounded by his best friends, living in a safe neighborhood, among happy families, rooted together in a faithful church, the last thing on his mind is that, in sixty years, one of those teenagers would be speaking at the other’s funeral.

We didn’t know it at the time because we just took it for granted that, from about 1956 to 1964, Bradley Boulevard was a kind of paradise in Greenville, South Carolina. Nobody locked the doors at night. We played games after dark, running through the backyards, with no one sounding an alarm. We actually drove go-karts on the neighborhood streets.

World of Friendship

Four blocks northeast was White Oak Baptist Church, the worshiping, relational hub of my life and my friendships. And at the center of that little group was Sidney Boyd — along with Billy Watson and Joel and Carol Reed and Nancy Ponder. Sidney lived four doors down the hill. We virtually never went to a park to play. Our yards were our kingdom, our battlefield, our Wild West canyons and prairies, our strategic rendezvous.

One of the reasons I am here this afternoon is that this little world of friendships meant more to me than most people realized. I felt very much an outlier at Wade Hampton High School. But with my circle of friends in the neighborhood and at White Oak, I was loved. We probably would not have called it love. But it was. We were at home with each other. The thought never entered our minds that one of us might need to pretend anything. Being real and relaxed was not something you did. It was just who we were.

Whether it was a ping-pong game in the garage; or swimming in the backyard pool; or wearing our green uniforms to play church softball; or eating pizza on the picnic table; or sitting in a circle on Sunday night, studying the Bible; that band of friends was a profoundly stabilizing force for me.

Kept by God’s Word

Jesus was always the greatest. We never doubted it. The Bible was always sure. Things weren’t up for grabs. In our own immature way, we saw what we could not name. Jesus and his word and his people were self-authenticating. We didn’t know that word. We couldn’t explain it, any more than we could have explained electricity or the workings of the internal combustion engine or the process of photosynthesis. But we knew that light and motors and plants were real and they worked. Jesus was real. His people were real. And his book worked.

Why did Sidney wake up a believer in Jesus for twenty-five thousand days — including days of deep sorrow and relentless disease? Why did you wake up a believer this morning? The word of God had taken root. And it did its work. “I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away” (John 16:1). This is what held us: the word of God. And this is what held us together, even when we did not see each other for years.

The word of God made Sidney and kept Sidney. To the end.

Unafraid to the End

So, I am deeply thankful to God and to his Son Jesus and to his word for the life and the friendship of Sidney Boyd. And I think he would be pleased if I left you with two Scriptures, one for him and one for us who still live.

God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him. (1 Thessalonians 5:9–10)

Let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future — all are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s. (1 Corinthians 3:21–23)

We do not need to fear death. It is our servant. Trust Jesus who died for us. Walk in fearless joy, and love the people around you.