Audio Transcript

It’s the polar opposite of Christ. It’s the polar opposite of the holy life. Selfishness. “Selfishness,” Spurgeon once said, “is as foreign to Christianity as darkness to light.” The darkness of self-centeredness is the opposite of Christ and his gospel, and it undermines every aim in the Christian life. Self-defeating selfishness is still in us. We want to shed it. We must fight it. And that leads to today’s email. “Pastor John, I need your help in overcoming my selfishness. I’m a seventeen-year-old male. People around me, people I love and people who love me — especially my girlfriend — keep saying that I am selfish. I want to become selfless. The problem keeps coming back when I think I’m doing a good job being selfless. I’m sure I am unwilling and just don’t want to admit it. How can I learn to become a selfless young man?”

Well, not knowing you personally makes it a little bit awkward to give specific counsel. So I think the first thing I really should say is that it would probably be wise for you to seek out a mature Christian outside that circle that you’re talking about — perhaps your pastor or youth leader — and share with them some of the specifics of what people are saying that puzzle you, and get their insight into your heart as they know you personally.

Keep in mind that the apostle Paul said, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom” (Colossians 3:16). That’s what you want. You want someone who’s rich in biblical wisdom, who is full of the word of Christ, who can admonish you close at hand. That’s what I can’t do. I have to speak from a distance in generalities. You need somebody who knows you — full of biblical wisdom, full of courage to speak the truth. So, that’s my first counsel. But let me try to say some general things that I hope might help.

Many-Headed Monster

Selfishness is a many-headed monster. It is, in a sense, the most destructive disease of the human soul. Absolutely nobody on this planet except for Jesus escapes the disease of selfishness. The heads of this monster are infinitely diverse — and I know that the word infinitely is an overstatement. I know that. But the point is the variety of manifestations of selfishness are endless in this life. You cut off one head and another grows up.

You might be a couch potato that is always expecting others to serve you your pizza, or you might be endlessly serving couch potatoes, deeply desiring that they make much of you for your service.

“Selfishness is a many-headed monster. It is, in a sense, the most destructive disease of the human soul.”

You might be the most prayerful person in your group, and you may have never confessed personal sin in your public prayers in that group and asked for forgiveness because you don’t want to reveal that part of yourself.

You may call continual attention to the injustices of the world and how others are being mistreated, but others can tell by looking at you that there’s a good deal of virtue signaling going on there as you show how discerning you are and how morally upright you are that you can spot such injustices.

There’s just no end to the subtleties of selfishness in all of us, not just a seventeen-year-old struggling with his own heart.

Face the Monster

We must fight this monster on two fronts. Both are biblical, and the second is dominant — should be dominant, let’s say. But they’re both right, good, necessary.

The first is to face the monster. Stare it down, own it, be brokenhearted by it. Hate it. Declare war on it. Kill it. That’s what Paul meant in Colossians 3:5 when he said, “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you” — and one of the things he mentions is “evil desire,” like selfishness.

That would include praying against it, spotting its first signs and resisting them, claiming your new position of acceptance and justification in Christ and saying, “I am a new creation. This ugly monster is not who I am. That’s not my true identity,” and then renouncing the temptation as alien to your soul, which it is. It is alien to your soul in Christ Jesus.

Now, that’s the first front — that direct, assailing, negative, killing fight that we must take up every day because that’s what the Bible says we should do.

Be Full of Christ

The second front that we fight on is filling our minds and hearts with so much of Christ that the selfish impulses are defeated by being suffocated. They don’t have room in your heart. They can’t breathe there. There’s too much Christ. They die, not mainly because of a direct attack, but because something has taken their place — namely, humble, thankful love for Christ.

So, the analogy is a jar full of toxic fumes. Now, what would be the best way to get those fumes out of the jar? You could attack them directly by attaching a vacuum and sucking them out — or more simply, more effectively, you could pour fresh, clean water into the jar and force all the toxic fumes out by replacing them.

This is how sins are overcome most effectively. Our soul is the jar, selfishness is the toxic fumes, and Christ is the water that pushes it out — specifically, Christ experienced in our knowledge of Christ, in our love for Christ, in our trust in Christ. The experienced Christ — present, reigning, ruling, taking up residence in our lives, fully in fellowship — pushes it out. In other words, the best way to fight selfishness is not to think about selfishness, but to think about Christ, and specifically to think about what a great Savior he is, what a great counselor he is, a great friend, a great Lord, sustainer, champion.

“The best way to fight selfishness is not to think about selfishness, but to think about Christ.”

If our lives, our minds, our hearts are overflowing with wonder at the greatness and the beauty and the worth of Christ, and the immeasurable value of what he’s done for us, it is not likely that we will be perceived as selfish. Selfish people are preoccupied with themselves and not with Christ. They have a longing that they be recognized, made much of, focused on, instead of Christ being recognized, made much of, focused on.

Consider Him

This is a matter of authentic, heartfelt emotion. You can’t produce this like a show. The goal is to feel — truly feel — the preciousness of Christ. That’s the goal. It has to be real. This is what Paul meant when he said, “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Philippians 3:8). That’s the key. That was not a show for Paul. He wasn’t putting on airs. He was expressing the deepest affections of his heart. “I love Jesus Christ more than anything.”

So, the strategy for overcoming selfishness is Hebrews 3:1, “Consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession.” Or Hebrews 12:3, “Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself.” This is the work of a lifetime, not the work of a moment — every day, focusing our mind’s attention and our heart’s affection on Christ and the kind of person he is and the greatness of the work that he has done.

I think Jesus had the danger of selfishness in mind when he told his disciples, who had just experienced great victories over Satan, that they should not rejoice in this, but that their “names are written in heaven” (Luke 10:20). In other words, it’s more effective in overcoming sin that we’d be amazed that we’re saved than that we’re successful — even successful by God’s power. You would think ministry success is a good thing to rejoice in, but Jesus says it’s even more important to rejoice that you know Christ, rejoice that you have a relationship with Jesus — that you spend time with him now, and you will spend eternity with him later.

Happiness with Open Arms

Let me say one more thing quickly before we stop. Since Jesus said to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, it’s clear that Jesus acknowledges there is a proper self-love. This is not self-esteem. This is doing what will bring infinite and eternal joy to your own soul. That’s self-love — doing what will bring infinite and eternal joy to your own soul.

And that’s what Jesus offers us. And then Jesus makes our desire for our own eternal happiness the measure of our desire for other people’s happiness, which is very radical. “Love your neighbor as [you love] yourself” (Matthew 22:39). Are you pursuing your own happiness? Yes you are. You are. Then make that the measure of your pursuit of other people’s happiness — other people’s good.

So, I would simply add this to your strategy against selfishness. Whenever you pursue something for yourself, which you will, you must — you eat, you sleep, you get exercise — ask this: “Do I have an effective desire in my heart that others would share with me in this temporal or eternal good and happiness?” It’s not selfish to seek your own happiness if part of — essential to — your own happiness is the sincere desire to include others in it.

Sometime soon, consider conducting a little experiment. Grab a jacket, go outside, find a nice patch of grass to sit or lie upon, and then, for fifteen minutes, simply stare at the sky. Having conducted such an experiment myself, perhaps I can give you a sense of what to expect.

Expect, first of all, to feel strange. Unless you find a private patch of grass, you may be the object of spectacle and whispered concern. Thrust such discomfort behind you and stare on.

Expect also a small reacquaintance with natural elements often avoided: some dew upon the back, some aphid upon the wrist. Embrace them. For these fifteen minutes at least, you are an outdoorsman.

Then perhaps, with eyes upward, you may wonder what in the sky could keep you occupied for a full quarter of an hour. Bored, you may feel an urge for your phone; you may look at your watch and find that, no, ten minutes have not yet passed — only four.

But then, at last, you may begin to notice. You discern some variety among the billows above, and words from sixth-grade science class begin to drift beside them. Are those cirrus clouds? you wonder. And that — a cumulonimbus? You allow yourself to see again through a child’s eyes and observe now not clouds but the shapes of seals and bears, dogs and dragons. Between white wisps, you spy a faded half-moon, hastening late to its rest.

And then, maybe, you will begin to feel small, as the few square feet beneath you fit like a tiny photo in a large frame. A question may trail to your lips with new feeling: “What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?” (Psalm 8:4).

Finally, if the Spirit opens your eyes and ears, you may hear a hint of that silent song always sounding: “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork” (Psalm 19:1). You may suddenly feel not alone, but enfolded within the vast and personal presence of God — glorious as the sun, inescapable as the sky, near as the next breath of air. And you may go back to your day different, carrying with you the song of the sky.

The Heavens Declare

The word heaven — usually referring to the sky — appears some seven hundred times in Scripture, from the very first verse (“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,” Genesis 1:1) to one of the last (“I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God,” Revelation 21:2). Saints of old found something worth seeing in the sky. They looked up a lot.

To them, the sky was wonderful. It was a castle for King Sun and Queen Moon (Genesis 1:16). A celestial clock chiming the days and seasons (Genesis 1:14). A spacious tent for the children of man (Isaiah 40:22). A stage for the players of cloud and wind, rain and lightning (Job 37:2–4). A canvas colored daily. A ceiling more beautiful than the Sistine Chapel’s. A friend ever familiar, ever new.

“To our fathers in the faith, the shapes of the clouds always found a way to spell one word: G-L-O-R-Y.”

And yet, the sky was wonderful only because it was something else first: personal. From clouds to constellations, from eastern rise to western set, the sky was God’s work. He names the stars and nightly bids them shine (Psalm 33:6; Isaiah 40:26). He raises the morning sun and scatters midnight shadows (Matthew 5:45). He throws thunderheads across the horizon and aims their every drop (Psalm 29:3–4; 147:15–18). And therefore, to our fathers in the faith, the shapes of the clouds always found a way to spell one word: G-L-O-R-Y (Psalm 19:1; 29:9).

Something deep within us answers back. Days of gray oppress the soul. Smog has a way of clogging not only the atmosphere but our hearts. When, some months ago, the smoke from Canadian wildfires coated Minnesota skies with ash, the loss was palpable. We may feel as dour as Puddleglum by disposition; even still, we can’t bear to live in Underland.

And yet, apparently, on ordinary days of blue and white, we can bear to give the sky barely a passing glance. While our forefathers traced the shape of God’s goodness in the clouds, and heard the shout of his glory from the sun, we often run through the world with heads covered, like men holding umbrellas on clear days. Fifteen minutes, even under a sky of wonders, can feel like a stretch.

Mobile Roofs

Several forces conspire to keep our heads down — some new, some old. We might group them under two main heads: we are disenchanted and distracted.

The biblical writers bear the marks of a holy enchantment with the heavens, an enchantment many find difficult to kindle today. Part of the problem lies in our large electrified cities, where streetlights substitute for stars. God’s word to Abram to count the celestial lights holds less force for urbanites like us, who often can count them quite easily. The moon has lost its army, and we have lost our awe.

Many also feel too enlightened, too scientific, to be much impressed with blue-sky magic and starry spells. The ancients may have heard the sky-clock chime; we have cracked it open and seen the gears. And so, we have heard many intelligent people say something along the lines of Stephen Hawking’s quip: “The human race is just a chemical scum on a moderate-sized planet, orbiting around a very average star in the outer suburb of one among a hundred billion galaxies.” Such words corrode wonder.

Perhaps most of us, however, face a larger foe: distraction. We are, in the main, a hurrying and scurrying people, a buying and selling people, a screened and headphoned people, and we have neither time nor interest to consider the sky. We may catch a billow of cloud reflected on the screen, but such heavenly reminders rarely raise us in self-forgetful, still-thumbed worship. I, for one, often spend more time looking at the weather app than the weather.

“I, for one, often spend more time looking at the weather app than the weather.”

But even if we were untethered from our pocket portals, who has the time to walk at the pace of clouds? As children, we could spare a few moments to lie upon the grass and spot animals above, but no longer. Now we have places to go, people to see. Now we run through our days, and you can run faster with your head down.

Punching Skylights

In a world like ours, and with roofs like ours, we need to find a way of getting out and looking up. We need to punch some skylights through this plaster. And not simply because a little wonder does wonders for the soul, but also because, for those who know Scripture, the sky reinforces lessons we can hardly live without. What might happen, then, if we made a habit of staring at the blue with Bible in hand?

We might feel, first, a deeper sense of God’s greatness. The biblical writers didn’t need a telescope to know the heavens were huge, nor did they need knowledge of galaxies to feel themselves small — too small for significance, even (Psalm 8:4). The sky, to them, was enormous.

Still, vast as it may be, it was only the finger-work of God (Psalm 8:3), a house far too small to hold him (1 Kings 8:27). The heavens have always been God’s giant throne (Isaiah 66:1); modern astronomy, in telling us the throne is even larger than we thought, simply underlines the greatness of the one who sits upon it. He is “Lord of heaven and earth” (Acts 17:24), outstripping the skies by infinity.

Yet as we start to feel small beneath such greatness, we might also feel a fresh sense of God’s goodness. If he “determines the number of the stars” and “gives to all of them their names,” then no broken heart lies hidden from his sight (Psalm 147:3–4). If the sky rises to unthinkable heights, then God’s steadfast love in Christ must outstretch our small assumptions (Psalm 103:11). And if God upholds the “fixed order” of the heavens without fail, then his faithfulness to his loved ones will never cease, no matter how dark the night or late the dawn (Jeremiah 31:35–36).

For those in Christ, the sky everywhere proclaims that curious mixture of our smallness and our significance. And small but significant people have a wonderful way of walking through this world: humble and happy, self-forgetful and satisfied, lowly and yet, remarkably, loved by the Lord of heaven.

Light of Lights

Most of all, however, the sky offers a big, ever-present reminder of a big, ever-present truth: we are made for God. The sky’s bigness is a sign that we are not the center; its song is a soundtrack of a story not our own. Like small planets to the sun, we orbit God, not he us. And our joy and glory lie in living before him as pervasively as we live beneath the sky.

For one day, this celestial parable will give way to the Person; the sky will not simply sing his glory, but show the Glorious One. The sky, so steady and familiar, will “roll up like a scroll” (Isaiah 34:4), and the lyrics of love written there will give way to the Lord of love.

God sowed this tapestry to be torn. He built this firmament to be broken. He laid the beams of the heavens so that one day they might become the stage for his Son’s return.

One day our Lord will split the sky,The joy or dread of every eye.The sun will fall before his face,The moon will hurry to its place,And every star will see the sightOf heaven’s Glory burning bright.The Morning Star will take his throneAnd, Light of lights, will shine alone.

Look up, then, as one in darkness aching for dawn. Wait at this window like a wife who hears that the war is ended, her husband comes. Befriend this path on which our Lord will soon return. Consider it worthwhile, even every now and then, to stop and hear again the song of the sky.

In the time it takes to read the Bible cover to cover, you could read the Westminster Confession almost seventy times.

Just think of it. Westminster, seventy times through. Almost four centuries ago, 120 of the best English-speaking pastors and theologians in the world labored for three years to hammer out the key theological and ethical teachings of Scripture. What good might it do you for a lifetime if you worked diligently through those learned 12,000 words some five or six dozen times?

Cast in such terms, normal Bible reading can begin to seem inefficient. Might your time be better spent in seventy readings of Westminster than one long journey through the whole terrain of Scripture with its genealogies, cultic regulations, esoteric aphorisms, and minor prophets?

Hopefully, you would answer “no,” but in responding to a question put that way, you might intuit both the profit and peril of our creeds and confessions.

Wonder and Danger of Creeds

The usefulness of such creeds is bound up with their brevity — whether it’s the longer 12,000 words of Westminster or the tight 200 of Nicea. What wonderful, helpful, instructive summaries faithful creeds and confessions can be! The full text of Westminster can be read, at a reasonable pace, in about an hour. It’s just a little more than 1% of the Bible’s length, and it is, by and large, a very good synthesis of Scripture’s teaching.

It is remarkable to rehearse the enduring Reformed formulations that emerged in that ninety-year period, beginning a generation after the Reformation (from the 1560s to 1640s):

1561: Belgic Confession1563: Heidelberg Catechism1619: Canons of Dort1648: Westminster Standards

Some adherents to Westminster today will tell you that the task of reformation was great but finite — and by 1648 it was essentially done. With the advent of Westminster, they say, the church’s doctrine, worship, and government were, at last, reformed. The project was complete; the last four centuries have brought plenty risk of erosion but no real exercises in improvement.

Others in the Reformed camp think differently — and these varying instincts have often clashed over what might be the most controversial of Reformed theology’s handful of Latin maxims: semper reformanda, “always reforming.”

Origin and Context

The oldest record of something like the phrase is in a 1674 devotional book by Dutch Reformed pastor Jodocus van Lodenstein (1620–1677). He juxtaposed “Reformed” and “reforming” not to plead for formal doctrinal improvements but for the reforming of the human hearts of professedly Reformed readers. His concerns were pietistic and devotional, and as Robert Godfrey writes, these “concerns were very similar to those of the English Puritans.”

Kevin DeYoung emphasizes the need to consider the context: “It is important to see the entirety of van Lodenstein’s phrase: ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda secundum verbi Dei (‘the church is Reformed and always [in need of] being reformed according to the Word of God’).” Observe here the twin assertions — the church is both (1) “Reformed” as well as (2) “being reformed” — with two passive verbs, ending with the standard of that action: the word of God. As DeYoung, Godfrey, and others rightly stress, it’s not that the church is “being reformed” by the winds of the times but “according to Scripture,” by the ancient rule of God’s written word.

Semper reformanda, then, as a corollary of sola Scriptura, is not a call to revise for the sake of revising, or to assimilate with contemporary patterns of unbelief. Rather, it’s a reminder of our personal and ecclesial entropy, our gradual decline into the disorder of sin, our tendency to wander from Scripture’s doctrines and ethics. Without fresh effort and energies, and drinking ourselves from the headwaters of Scripture, the church’s life and doctrine will soon decline and erode.

Yet even in context, and with such disclaimers, the maxim unnerves some Reformed bents and inclinations.

What We Don’t Reform

Here on Reformation Day, as we remember the impulse of “always being reformed,” we clarify anew what we do not seek to reform: the substance of true doctrine.

For two millennia, Christ’s final word that is Scripture has been complete, objective, and fixed. The external word of the Scriptures has not changed or been added to since Patmos. For sure, not only individuals, but Christian communities, and the church at large, have grown and made improvements in these many centuries in understanding and articulating and applying God’s word. With the written word complete, the Holy Spirit has not been inactive, distant, or ineffective in working in his people to better know and appropriate the ancient word. But Scripture itself, what it teaches, and thus the substance of true doctrine has not changed and is in no need of reform or update.

To be clear, semper reformanda is not a blank check to rethink our doctrine from scratch in this generation.

What We Keep Reforming

What, then, do we seek to reform in an ongoing manner? Or, in what ways are we the church “always being reformed”?

In sum, we seek to reform any large or small ways in which we have received, expressed, or applied the substance wrong. Our assumption should not be that our own tradition, however generally faithful, contains no errors or imbalances. Rather, the question is whether we might, in time, truly identify them and improve upon them.

In his memorable essay called “In Defense of Something Close to Biblicism,” Reformed theologian John Frame quotes his own professor of theology, the great John Murray, to this effect (emphasis added):

However epochal have been the advances made at certain periods and however great the contributions of particular men we may not suppose that theological construction ever reaches definitive finality. There is the danger of a stagnant traditionalism and we must be alert to this danger, on the one hand, and to that of discarding our historical moorings, on the other.

Murray issues this warning to Reformed types — like himself and Frame and me — who admire and cherish our theological tradition:

When any generation is content to rely upon its theological heritage and refuses to explore for itself the riches of divine revelation, then declension is already under way and heterodoxy will be the lot of the succeeding generation.

This taps on a long-standing fault line in the Reformed tradition. Some, like Murray, thrill to explore for themselves the riches of divine revelation; to others, this thought is more unsettling. Deep down, might they rather read Westminster seventy times than Scripture once? A right conception of semper reformanda presses on the tension.

In the essay, Frame provides various insights into how a true view of sola Scriptura (and with it, semper reformanda) will not only draw us “to explore [for ourselves] the riches of divine revelation” but lead, in time, to a kind of “creativity motivated by Scripture itself” — that is, not to “a stagnant traditionalism, but to a flourishing of original and impressive theological thought.” Now the stricter sect really begins to sweat.

Scripture, taken in practice as the final word (that both Scripture itself and our confessions claim it to be), “provides us with a powerful tool for the critical analysis of culture,” Frame continues, both our own and those of the past, and “guards us against both secularism and traditionalism.” That is, we will be shielded from making new mistakes as the society around us shifts, and we will see afresh what outright errors and lesser forms of expression we might improve upon with the ongoing work of “being reformed.”

We Reform Us

While our “always being reformed” will not include the substance of true doctrine, it may involve how we teach and express the doctrines in our generation. And putting in the energy to say the timeless substance in fresh contemporary ways will both deepen our own understanding (and our hearers) as well as open up our doctrine to some hearers who found the old articulations obscure or inaccessible. The times, into which we speak timeless truths, do change, and so, if we are faithful, our own preferred expressions and formulations will iterate over time. Even then, we observe a kind of conservatizing force in doctrinal formulation. For one, change risks new error. So, we do not recklessly reach for “fresh” language, or do so before it is time.

In the end, the heart of what we keep reforming centers on ourselves — and in particular, as was van Lodenstein’s original concern, our own hearts. “The part of religion that always needs reforming,” says Godfrey, “is the human heart.” We seek to search and address our own personal and communal and generational sins and shortcomings. We reform us, according to God’s word. At the heart of “always reforming” is “we,” “us,” and “ourselves.” And especially our hearts.

The question semper reformanda presses home today, as it did 350 years ago, is this: How is your heart? Are you content with formal religion, with historically accurate doctrines and external observance? Have you made peace with the appearance of godliness while denying its power in the inner man (2 Timothy 3:5)? Is your Christianity a religion of the heart? Have you been born again, or just baptized? Do you love and delight in Jesus and all God reveals himself to be for us in him?

Search the Scriptures

You will search in vain for a magic date, or magic year, when the Reformation was completed. The work continues, and most of all in us. Might we, then, just as well claim “no creed but the Bible”?

If “no creed” means subscribing to some other “Creed” as our final say, our last authority, our norming norm, some other human document over Scripture, then yes, no Creed, in that way. We have no final say but Scripture alone.

But if “no creed” means taking up no careful, expressed summary of key Christian doctrines and beliefs, then no, that is naïve. We have and love and benefit greatly from faithful formulations. And, as the Desiring God affirmation confesses,

We do not claim infallibility for this affirmation and are open to refinement and correction from Scripture. Yet we do hold firmly to these truths as we see them and call on others to search the Scriptures to see if these things are so. As conversation and debate take place, it may be that we will learn from each other, and the boundaries will be adjusted, even possibly folding formerly disagreeing groups into closer fellowship. (15.4)

With love for our confessions, we gladly default to Scripture itself, citing its chapters and verses, and counting the tradition of noble Bereans to be that, in essence, of the Westminster divines: “they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so” (Acts 17:11).

What better course might Reformation Day inspire than a lifetime of diligent studies in our confessions, all within the context of an eager daily exploration of Scripture?

Real Protestants Keep Reforming
The Reformation began in 1517, but you will search in vain for an end date. The work continues as each generation, standing upon the shoulders of others, comes to drink for themselves at the headwaters of God’s own word.

Audio Transcript

Welcome back to the podcast. Tomorrow marks the 506th celebration of Reformation Day, commemorating the October 31st when Martin Luther fearlessly published his Ninety-Five Theses, mailing one copy to the archbishop and posting another copy on a prominent church door. Whether it was dramatically nailed to that door with a hammer, or more likely glued to the door with a paste brush, Luther’s document set in motion a wave of reformation that we honor half a millennium later.

But given how much time has elapsed since this event, we can find ourselves questioning what exactly we’re celebrating. Is it the profound recovery of the truth of justification by faith alone in Christ alone? Is it the liberation of the Bible into the language of the people? Is it the end of indulgences? The rejection of papal authority? The dismantling of the priest class as mediators between God and man? Or perhaps is it all of these things, all combined? Pastor John, as you honor the enduring legacy of the Reformation, what’s your primary cause for celebration?

Let me fudge on the word primarily. I’d like to replace it with five other words, but I couldn’t think of five other words. I did think of five other questions; I just couldn’t think of words to go with them. I thought of two, but I gave up on five words. So I’m going to replace your question with five, but I will — at the end I think — answer exactly what you’re asking. So here we go.

1. Ultimate Celebration

First, what am I celebrating ultimately? That is, what’s at the top as the goal of all things when I celebrate the Reformation?

“What am I celebrating ultimately? The answer is the glory of Jesus Christ.”

The answer is the glory of Jesus Christ. In Calvin’s response to the Roman Catholic Sadoleto, he said, “You . . . touch upon justification by faith, the first and keenest subject of controversy between us. . . . Wherever the knowledge of it is taken away, the glory of Christ is extinguished” (John Calvin: Selections from His Writings, 95). I think the same point could be made on issue after issue in the disputes of the Reformation. So ultimately, we celebrate the exaltation of the glory of Christ.

2. Foundational Celebration

Second, what am I celebrating most foundationally? So the first one was most ultimately; the second one is most foundationally. That is, what’s at the bottom, as the ground of all things, when I celebrate the Reformation?

The answer is the free and sovereign grace of God. When Martin Luther came to the end of his life, he regarded his book The Bondage of the Will as his most important work. And the reason is that he regarded the issue of human autonomy versus sovereign grace as the key underlying issue of the Reformation. He said,

I condemn and reject as nothing but error all doctrines which exalt our “free will” as being directly opposed to this mediation and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. For since, apart from Christ, sin and death are our masters and the devil is our god and prince, there can be no strength or power, no wit or wisdom, by which we can fit or fashion ourselves for righteousness and life. (What Luther Says, 3:1376–77)

Which means that as long as someone insists on ultimate human self-determination, they fail to grasp the depth of our need, and they obscure the greatness of the free and sovereign grace of God, which alone can give life and faith. So I’m going to celebrate that as bottom. That’s the bottom.

3. Celebrated Achievement

Third, between the glory of Christ at the top and the free and sovereign grace of God at the bottom, what am I celebrating in between as the greatest achievement of God — flowing from grace, leading to glory?

The answer is the decisive achievement of the cross of Christ in providing peace with God for guilty sinners. Four times in the book of Hebrews, the author underlines and emphasizes the work of Christ in the forgiveness of sins as “once for all.” I love this phrase and the way he uses it in Hebrews 7:27; 9:12, 26; 10:10.

This is the first one: “[Christ] has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself” (Hebrews 7:27). So I will be celebrating that the finished and complete work of Christ — in providing imputed punishment for our sins and imputed perfection for our righteousness — was once for all and cannot be reenacted in the Roman Catholic mass so as to become a necessary point of transfer of that decisive grace. It was purchased once for all for us and given to us through faith in Christ alone.

4. Celebrated Scripture

Fourth, between the glory of Christ at the top and the free and sovereign grace of God at the bottom, what am I celebrating in between as the decisive means of my enjoyment of peace with God that Christ achieved?

Answer: the inspired word of God in Scripture — read and known by every Christian. The church of the Middle Ages cut people off from the word of God. They had done so intentionally. It was a capital crime in the 1400s in Britain to translate the Scriptures into English so people could read them. They burned people alive for reading fragments of the English Bible — even children.

They believed that God did not offer his fellowship to be enjoyed through a personal encounter with him in his word, but rather through the ministry of priests and sacraments. This was evil, and the chasm created between Scripture and the people of God has not been closed to this very day.

I’ve mentioned before my experience in Europe where a nun was converted at eighty years old and had never read the Gospel of John. A Roman Catholic professional religious woman never had read the Gospel of John. That is symptomatic of a deep evil in cutting people off, historically and today, doing things that subtly discourage the personal encounter with God through Christ in his word. So, I will be celebrating the personal preciousness and access to the word of God for my daily means of enjoying personal fellowship with my Father in heaven.

5. Celebrated Truth and Experience

And the last question: What great Reformation truth will I be celebrating concerning how I experience the living Christ through his word?

“Faith is the decisive, primary way I enjoy what Christ purchased and what the word makes possible.”

Answer: I will be celebrating the truth that faith — acted directly on Christ through his word, not mediated by priestly sacraments — is the decisive, primary way I enjoy what Christ purchased and what the word makes possible. Here’s what I read this morning in my devotions that made my heart sing. I was reading in Ephesians 3 that unspeakably great prayer, where Paul says, “[I pray] that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith” (Ephesians 3:16–17). That’s amazing. Christ dwells.

Now, this is a prayer for Christians. This is not a prayer for conversion. We think, “Oh, that means Christ knocks on the door and then comes in.” That’s not it. He’s in; we are Christians. He’s praying for saints in Ephesus, that Christ would dwell — that is, consciously, alive, present, at home, experienced. How? Through faith: “so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.” He’s praying for Christians who already have Christ. This is a prayer for real, authentic experience of the living Christ.

So, when I embrace the crucified and risen Christ as my supreme treasure — alive, present, at home in me — that very faith, that embrace, is the sufficient instrument for the enjoyment of his fellowship. That will be my primary, daily celebration.

In a recent geeking-out-on-baseball moment, I watched a video explaining why Shohei Ohtani, one of baseball’s biggest stars, is able to generate the extraordinary power with which he routinely crushes home runs. I won’t bore you with all the details, but the answer involves the placement and timing of planting his front foot, which in turn allows his hips to whip around, generating the enormous force that launches the ball over the fence.

It’s interesting to consider that a small fraction of Ohtani’s time as a baseball player is spent doing the activity for which he is so well-known (actually hitting the baseball). A much larger part involves his preparation before (and at) the plate and then his follow-through, including both the motion of his bat after it hits the ball and his postgame mental and physical cooldown. That full package of activity — preparation, execution, follow-through — requires skill, concentration, and hard work.

As a pastor who preaches most Sundays, I can’t help but feel somewhat similar: most of my work happens before (and after) I step into the box.

Pastors at the Plate

Early in my ministry, a parishioner told me, in all seriousness, that it must be nice to be a pastor since I had to work for only about half an hour a week. Of course, that understanding of preaching is similar to thinking that Shohei Ohtani simply strolls to the plate a few times a day, swings his hardest, and pockets millions of dollars for his trouble. Like good hitting, good preaching requires lots of hard work, including preparation and follow-through. Unlike professional baseball players, of course, preachers aren’t compensated with multimillion-dollar contracts! But the reward is far greater: not a baseball pounded over the outfield fence, but God’s word pushed deeply into human hearts, transforming lives for eternity.

The hard work of preaching occurs under and within the sovereign power of God. In preaching, as in many other activities of life, we do something and God does everything. “The horse is made ready for the day of battle, but the victory belongs to the Lord” (Proverbs 21:31). One of my preaching heroes used to pray before his sermons that the congregation would hear a better message than the one he preached; he brought into the pulpit the fruit of his diligent preparation (he prepared the horse for battle), and he relied on God to vastly improve what he offered (the credit for victory went to his Lord). A call to the hard work of preaching flows not from a lack of faith in God, but from a full sense of the awesome responsibility that God gives preachers: to declare his word.

So, what exactly does the hard work of preaching entail?

Hard Work of Preparing

In 2 Timothy 2:15, Paul urges Timothy, “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.” Significantly, Paul considers Timothy ultimately accountable not to another human, but to God himself (“present yourself to God”) for his right handling of the apostolic gospel (“the word of truth”). Because Timothy answers to none less than God, he’s to “do [his] best,” a word that expresses zealous eagerness and intense effort.

Week by week, as we pastors begin preparing for yet another sermon, many factors may diminish our zeal, eagerness, and intensity of effort. We may be physically exhausted, emotionally weary, or personally hurting. We may be lured by temptations, distracted by hobbies, or overwhelmed by other important tasks. Sometimes we’ll be tempted to cut corners, to skate by, to work at fifty-percent effort. So, it’s good for us to hear Paul say, “Do your best.” “Be zealous.” “Work with intense effort.” We stand before God himself as we prepare to preach his word.

If we’re not already working eagerly and energetically, how might we begin to do so? Perhaps we should start by finally using that unspent vacation time to properly rest. Maybe we’d benefit from rearranging our weekly rhythms in order to do the creative work of sermon preparation during times when we’re physically freshest and most alert. We may need to confess our half-hearted, distracted efforts to some Christian brothers who can encourage us spiritually. What about finding two or three like-minded pastors with whom we can collaborate in studying the text and shaping a weekly sermon?

On some weeks, our hard work of preparation yields immediate and obvious results — our sermon outline falls into place like the tumblers of a safe, fresh insights spring out of the text, and the sermon seems almost to write itself. And then on other weeks, our best efforts feel like pushing a stalled car up a driveway — three hours of arduous labor produces one measly paragraph. In my experience, it’s never clear beforehand which texts will open like a flower and which will stubbornly resist. Both the painful and the pleasant weeks of sermon preparation are gifts from God. We need both. The weakness we experience in the grind keeps us reliant upon God. The relief we feel in those blessed weeks refreshes us with the kindness of God.

The hard work of sermon preparation certainly won’t be limited to understanding and explaining the text of Scripture. It will include feeling the glory of the texts we preach. The poet-pastor George Herbert advised preachers to dip and season “all our words and sentences in our hearts, before they come into our mouths,” so that their hearers could plainly perceive that every one of their words was “heart-deep” (The Complete English Works, 205). Heart-deep words require lots of prayerful dipping and seasoning. Preachers who do their best will engage the Bible with both mind and heart.

Hard Work of Preaching

As we stand to declare God’s word to God’s people, we’ll spend ourselves physically, perhaps even experiencing what George Whitefield called “a good pulpit sweat” (George Whitefield, 505). We’ll spend ourselves spiritually, aware that Satan doesn’t like preachers to declare God’s word and therefore often attacks us with doubts, fears, anxieties, and insecurities. We’ll spend ourselves emotionally, warning with earnestness, comforting with gentleness and affection, preaching our hearts out to some who may be straying, some who may critique us, some who will ignore us. We’ll spend ourselves intellectually, pushing through generalities to particulars — applying the text in ways that sing and sting, that wound and heal. We’ll push through abstraction to application — earthing and embedding the text in everyday life, thinking creatively and constructively, engaging externally with the broader culture and internally with the yearnings, confusions, and foibles of human hearts.

We’ll preach through hacking coughs, baby cries, stifled yawns, closed eyes, whispered conversations, passing sirens, puzzled looks, ringing phones, bored expressions. When a latecomer walks to an empty seat in the front of the sanctuary and every eye turns to him, we’ll keep preaching. When we see people glancing at the clock, we’ll keep preaching. Sometimes the power and presence of the Spirit will be manifest. At other times, our words will seem weak and faltering. Sometimes our own thoughts will wander. Sometimes our own hearts will be anxious. We’ll keep on preaching, earnestly and energetically presenting ourselves to God as we rightly handle the word of truth.

Hard Work of Following Through

We preachers are tempted to believe that, after the sermon has been preached, it’s over and done. After all, next Sunday is on the way, and we have another sermon to prepare! But in reality, much of the hard work of successful preaching may happen after the sermon has been preached. God calls us to several types of post-sermon work.

First, we have immediate heart work. Depending on our temperament and confidence levels, together with how we feel about the sermon we just preached, we may be tempted toward either pride or despair as soon as we step out of the pulpit. The initial moments following the sermon are an opportunity to surrender our work to God — to thank him for enabling us to prepare and preach the sermon, to receive his grace for our verbal stumbles and fumbles, to ask him to erase from the minds and memories of hearers anything that was unhelpful or untrue, and to give him credit for everything that went well.

Second, we have ongoing pastoral work. This labor begins immediately after the sermon and continues all week long, as we listen to those who listened to us. This ongoing pastoral work may require gently interrogating bland post-service compliments such as “Nice sermon, pastor!” (What exactly was helpful? Was anything unclear? Did the sermon raise unanswered questions?) It will require humbly sifting criticism to discern how we can serve the congregation more effectively. And it will certainly require remaining alert to every opportunity for follow-up. Can we speak with our family over Sunday lunch? Can we provide application questions for small groups in the church? How can we best pray the truth of our sermon into the hearts of our hearers, asking God to send it deep?

Third, we have long-term heart work. This work is vital both for the sake of personal sanctification and for preaching integrity. We stand before God’s people to proclaim his word, even though we ourselves are not fully obeying that word. But we’re not hypocrites if we’re constantly seeking to repent and grow — if we’re preaching every sermon to ourselves as well.

Preaching — preparation, execution, and follow-through — is hard work. Much of that work is unseen by our congregations. But it’s all vital, and the amazing promise of God is that he will use our humble efforts to make much of himself.

Early morning hours are precious. The house is still, quiet. The aroma of coffee wafts from the steaming mug. A single lamp illuminates the chair and table. Here is a sanctuary, a peaceful place of communion between a man and his God.

And yet on many days, it is anything but peaceful. Rather than quiet contemplation, I find myself battling on my knees against a persistent and pernicious straying of the heart. The prayer is not that of the demonized boy’s father: Lord, “I believe; help my unbelief” (though I too have prayed such words). Instead, I pray, “Lord, I desire; help my erring desires.”

While striving to meditate on the steadfast love and faithfulness and eternal goodness of God, I find that other concerns arrest my attention: anxious thoughts about how my work will be received, a nagging fear that somehow I’m just not doing enough, questions about what my coworkers think of me, jealousy over the success of others. A long list of anxious thoughts grip my mind and lead me away from the one offering rest and peace, satisfaction and joy. Here lies the battle. The straying thoughts reveal what’s driving my heart this morning: desire for the fleeting approval of man, not the eternal good.

One misaligned desire would be a significant battle by itself; this is a wide and diverse war. Fears about parenting failures reveal desires to be self-sufficient. Worry about a medical condition (whether minor or life-threatening) may indicate a greater love for this present life than the never-ending one to come. Pride fails to acknowledge that our plans are in the hand of the Lord, and reveals an arrogant boasting rooted in the desire to order life according to our own design. My sanctuary, it turns out, is also a battlefield.

Disordered Hearts

The struggle to rightly order our desires lies at the heart of each Christian’s daily walk. Our redeemed hearts, still twisted by sin, simply do not function as they ought. In general, we have no problem desiring. We do have serious problems desiring rightly. Our hearts are disordered, and so we frequently spin out days chasing small and fleeting ends that fail to satisfy. We grow weary and despondent in our Sisyphean pursuits, and we wonder where our first love has gone.

In a meditation on Psalm 119:97–104, the late John Webster (1955–2016) describes the reordering of affections as “one of the most weighty claims [of] the Christian gospel” (Christ Our Salvation, 6). He argues that the affections are “the fundamental loves which govern us and determine the shape of our lives . . . [the] part of us through which we attach ourselves to things outside of ourselves. . . . [They are] the engines of our attitudes and actions” (7). In other words, each and every day, what we love and desire determines what we set ourselves to pursue.

‘Nature Abhors a Vacuum’

God made us, each and every one of us, to pursue. He gave us hearts that desire. Our pursuits — what we desire and strive toward — reveal our hearts because behind our pursuits lie affections. Imagine a string tied between the desire in your heart and each object you run after. If you pause long enough to tug on the strings, you will unearth what lies (and pulls) in the hidden recesses of your heart. And far too often, those hidden recesses are not filled with pure love for God; they contain the kind of covetousness that leads to strife (see James 4:1–4).

Sometimes, in the battle with such wayward affections, the temptation to quell desire rises to the forefront. “If only I could put the desire for X to death, then I would walk in freedom.” Erasing that disorderly affection seems like the key to holiness. And so we aim (rightfully, I should say) to put sin to death (Romans 8:13). We fight the battle with X and, by God’s grace, win. Then we stop.

Consider a knight on the warpath. He has heard of a dragon who reigns over a castle and keeps a king’s daughter locked up as a prisoner in the tallest tower. With great courage, he risks life and limb to face the dragon in open combat. Eventually he emerges from the battle victorious (though certainly wounded and a bit more well-done). What does he do next? He mounts his warhorse and returns home. No, good stories don’t end that way — and for good reason.

Everyone recognizes that the knight has won only half the battle. The princess still needs rescuing. If he leaves her locked up and the castle vacant, another winged, fire-breathing worm will soon take the place of the first. So too, the man who cleaned the house after the unclean spirit left suddenly finds himself fighting the original spirit again, plus seven more (Matthew 12:44–45). The man needs to fill up the house, not leave it empty; the knight needs to actually rescue the princess.

Scottish minister Thomas Chalmers (1780–1847) wrote, “Nature abhors a vacuum” (The Expulsive Power of a New Affection, 41). What did he mean? It does no good to merely take away a man’s sinful affection. By God’s design, man cannot be affectionless. To attempt to remove all that stirs his heart, in the name of pure and holy living, would be an “unnatural violence” to his soul (44).

Let’s apply Chalmers’s insight to my early-morning battle. As I analyze the internal struggle, I see how my worry over how I might be received reveals a desire to please men. Behind my desire is an unhealthy craving for the kind of recognition, applause, and affirmation I might receive from my coworkers. I might pray in that moment for God to remove that desire from my heart — but the struggle doesn’t stop there. Affection cannot merely be put to death; it must be remade.

‘Seek the Things Above’

Paul wrote to the Colossian believers about the emptiness of merely negative commands. Seemingly powerful and wise in the fight against sin (at least initially), “they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh” (Colossians 2:23). We cannot stop at mere negation. For this reason, Paul gives the Colossians a positive command: “Seek the things that are above. . . . Set your minds on things that are above” (Colossians 3:1–2). Do not expect denial, by itself, to lead to holiness. We need redirection.

God created us with the capacity for affections, and it’s a good design. To attempt to merely get rid of sinful desires (and not redirect the heart) is to deny our very nature. Chalmers understood this, which is why his little sermon continues to resonate with readers. “We have already affirmed,” he wrote, “how impossible it were for the heart . . . to cast the world away from it and thus reduce it to a wilderness. The heart is not so constituted, and the only way to dispossess it of an old affection is by the expulsive power of a new one” (49).

The pursuit of holiness has to be just that: a pursuit. And to pursue something means that we desire it, we want it, we set our minds and order our days to have it. Left to ourselves, such a task is hopeless. Twisted and corrupt trees do not produce good fruit. But we haven’t been left to ourselves. The Lord has raised us up to new life (Colossians 3:1). He has given us his Spirit. And he is at work to detach our affections from their empty, death-producing objects and reattach them to their proper treasures. We do not enter the fray alone or without hope.

Test, Seek, Pray, Fight

What might this good battle look like each day? We can sketch the fight in four steps: test, seek, pray, fight.

TEST

What captures your heart today? What do you find yourself aiming for? What do your recent actions and decisions reveal about what you love? Start pulling on those strings. Try to unearth the loves behind and beneath those strings. Before you engage the enemy, you have to know who the enemy is. What do you find yourself repeatedly struggling against? Unfortunately, the desire for others’ approval didn’t simply go away that morning. I still find myself seeking to put it to death (and quite frequently).

Honest self-reflection, while important, can’t be the only means to putting twisted desires to death. We need communities of brothers and sisters around us who know us well. Because we’ve cultivated strong relationships of trust, these fellow soldiers have the freedom to tell us when a path we’re pursuing leads to death.

SEEK

“If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above” (Colossians 3:1). The apostle’s command requires us to actively set our hearts on other, heavenly objects. We must come to see them as more worthy of pursuit than the ones that tempt us.

Early-morning meditation has been the single best practice I have learned over the years (and one that countless believers have practiced throughout history). Psalm 90:14 sets the agenda: “Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.” Finding our delight in the Lord orients and redirects our hearts. When we have tasted and seen the goodness of God, the fool’s gold of worldly pursuits grows tarnished in our eyes (1 Peter 2:1–3). Where do we see his goodness displayed? In the word as we open it with fresh eyes of faith.

PRAY

While prayer accompanies every step in this battle, concerted effort comes during and after time in the word. “Lord, you’ve shown me your goodness and character this morning; grant belief and desire for more. By your Spirit, mold my desires to conform to your goodness, your holiness, your majestic worth.” These steps of prayer and seeking, like testing, can (and arguably should) also take place with our local church. The Lord uses fellow saints to help us see more of him in the word. And God will use the prayers of other saints to strengthen and encourage right thinking and feeling in our hearts and minds.

FIGHT

“Put to death,” writes Paul. Them’s fightin’ words. Just because we taste and see the goodness of God doesn’t mean our battle is over. Sinful desires remain, and they reveal themselves throughout the day in our attitudes, actions, and words. Paul calls us to the strenuous life, actively working to kill corrupt desires in the hope that God himself works within us to cause conformity to the image of Christ (Philippians 2:12–13).

So, test and seek, praying at all times, and then fight. And fight alongside friends, because wars like these are lost alone.

Real Protestants Keep Reforming
The Reformation began in 1517, but you will search in vain for an end date. The work continues as each generation, standing upon the shoulders of others, comes to drink for themselves at the headwaters of God’s own word.

A number of years ago, I was having dinner with a dear friend who was experiencing a season of significant spiritual darkness. He was struggling with doubt. He hadn’t given up his faith, but he felt the pull. Internally, he was wrestling over what appeared to him like dissonant truth claims. Externally, he was wrestling over the profound brokenness and suffering of the world, some of which had suddenly emerged in his family.

We’re a lot alike, my friend and me. We both take life very seriously and process information, observations, and experiences through a similar inner reality detector, overseen by our skeptical inner inspector. We both have a melancholic streak, and since we’re both amateur musicians, we’re both drawn to songwriters whose compositions reflect and articulate our complicated perceptions of reality.

So, as my friend described his wrestlings, he read me some quotes from a songwriter who had once been a Christian but had since lost his faith. The lyrics were raw, honest descriptions of life in the world as the songwriter now saw it — like Ecclesiastes, but without any hope that God exists and will bring any ultimate justice or redemption. My friend admitted the lyrics were dark, but at the time they seemed to him to describe reality more accurately than the gospel-laced songs we sang together at church.

He knew that, years earlier, I had wrestled with similar questions during a spiritually dark season, so he wanted to know what I thought. The first thing that came to my mind was the title phrase from an older song by Switchfoot: “The Shadow Proves the Sunshine.” Those five words launched us into a fruitful discussion about the nature of spiritual light and darkness.

What Are Light and Darkness?

Imagine you and I are sitting in a booth at a restaurant, and I asked you the following questions. If you can, pause for a moment after each question and try to answer it before reading on.

In the physical world, what is light — that thing emitted by the sun, or a fire, or a light bulb?

If you attempted an answer, my guess is that, even if you found it harder than you expected, you came up with one or more fairly accurate descriptions of what light is.

If you referred at all to darkness in your previous answer, try now to explain what light is without any reference to darkness.

If you made an attempt, my guess is that, perhaps after finding it a little more challenging, your answer likely was essentially the same.

Now, describe to me what darkness is without making any reference at all to light. But you have to say more than “darkness is dark”; you have to describe what darkness is without contrasting it at all with light.

Could you do it? Can you meaningfully define what darkness is with no reference or inference to light at all? If you can, please share your definition with me, because I think it’s impossible. And here’s why.

Why We Have Eyes

Light, as we experience it in the world, is electromagnetic radiation. In other words, light is actually a thing. But darkness is the absence of light. In other words, darkness isn’t a thing, it’s the absence of a thing. Trying to describe darkness without any reference to light is like trying to describe nothing without any reference to things. Nothing is the negation of things (no thing). Without things, the term nothing would be completely meaningless. And I think the same is true of darkness; it’s the negation of light. Without light, the term darkness would be completely meaningless.

The fact that light exists is the reason we have eyes. We wouldn’t have them if we lived in a universe in which light didn’t exist. And though millions of people can survive and thrive in our world even if their ability to see is for some reason disabled, they’re only able to do so with help from others who can see.

What’s true about eyes is true of all our physical perceptional abilities. The reason we, as a species, have them is because the reality we live in requires them.

Now, if we live too much in our heads and philosophically ponder how we know what’s really real, it’s possible to get stuck in a skeptical solipsism and like Descartes doubt just about everything, which leads to some very dark places. Because reality is more complex and multidimensional than our individual reasoning power alone can detect. And here is one way our physical senses can ground us: the very existence of our perceptional abilities bear witness to the nature of physical reality. The reason we have eyes is because light exists.

Why We Have Spiritual Eyes

All of this leads me to that line from the Switchfoot song: “The shadow proves the sunshine.” In addition to physical perceptions, we also have spiritual perceptions. And we have these spiritual perceptions for the same reason we have our physical perceptions: because the reality we live in requires them. We wouldn’t have them if we didn’t need them.

How is it that we even know to call spiritual darkness dark? And when we perceive reality and our own existence to be dark and foreboding, why do we describe it as dark and why does it feel foreboding? Why does it depress us and make us anxious and fearful? I think it’s because, even if our reasoning powers alone can’t make sense of everything, our spiritual perceptions — what Paul calls “the eyes of [our] hearts” (Ephesians 1:18) — tell us that spiritual light exists.

Darkness is not a thing; it’s the absence of a thing. We know what darkness is because we know what light is. Light, on the other hand, is not dependent on darkness to exist. That’s why the apostle John said, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5). Something can obstruct the sun’s light and produce a shadow that makes our surroundings dim, but the obstruction does not extinguish (overcome) the sun.

What the Shadow Proves

As I told my friend that evening, this reality doesn’t answer all the hard questions or address every doubt. As an apologetic, it’s not even specifically Christian. But I do believe it is a pointer to the nature of ultimate reality, and a precious one to those who find themselves walking through darkness.

We have eyes because there is a sun. So why do we have spiritual “eyes” that long for spiritual light? When we’re walking through the valley of shadows, how is it that we discern the shadows? If we say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night” (Psalm 139:11), how is it that we can still distinguish day from night?

It is, I believe, because our very experience of spiritual darkness bears witness to the existence of spiritual light. The shadow itself proves the sunshine. And if that’s true, if we seek the sun rather than the shadows and all the questions they raise, what we’ll find is the light of the world, which is the light of life (John 8:12).

This has helped me in my seasons of darkness, and it helped my friend in his. Perhaps it will shed some needed light into your life or the life of someone you love.

To say that some sermons reach the pulpit half-baked would be unfair to bread. Some sermons are barely dough; some little more than a collection of dry ingredients. The sermon, as a sermon, is barely begun, largely unappetizing, not particularly nourishing, lacking the enticing taste and texture of a fresh-baked loaf.

What is the problem? Perhaps the preacher is a recent seminary graduate rehearsing his lectures on a certain book of the Bible. Perhaps he has lacked teaching or had poor teaching and example. Perhaps the preacher has not thought about what preaching is and what it involves. As a result, he is not actually preaching, even if sincerely persuaded that he is.

He may be delivering a lecture rather than a sermon, even if warmer rather than cooler in tone. He may offer “hot systematics” — an accurate treatment of a theological topic delivered with deep conviction. He may provide a biblical-theological survey, tracing the sweep of revelation along a particular line, but not anchored to any one part of it. Perhaps he is offering, in fact, a single technical treatment of a portion of Scripture or a biblical topic that actually lasts about forty hours, delivered in chunks between thirty and sixty minutes.

Sometimes fire in the pulpit masks a lack of warmth in the material, like delivering a frozen pizza in a heated bag. Often the context is provided, all the words are explained, the strict sense is given. By the end of such a sermon, the congregation might know much of what a text says. At the same time, they may know nothing of what it actually means for them.

Better to Taste the Orange

The eminent Baptist theologian and minister Andrew Fuller criticized some sermons this way:

The great thing necessary for expounding the Scriptures is to enter into their true meaning. We may read them, and talk about them, again and again, without imparting any light concerning them. If the hearer, when you have done, understand no more of that part of Scripture than he did before, your labor is lost. Yet this is commonly the case with those attempts at expounding which consist of little else than comparing parallel passages, or, by the help of a Concordance, tracing the use of the same word in other places, going from text to text till both the preacher and the people are wearied and lost. This is troubling the Scriptures rather than expounding them.

If I were to open a chest of oranges among my friends, and, in order to ascertain their quality, were to hold up one, and lay it down; then hold up another, and say, This is like the last; then a third, a fourth, a fifth, and so on, till I came to the bottom of the chest, saying of each, It is like the other; of what account would it be? The company would doubtless be weary, and had much rather have tasted two or three of them. (Complete Works of Andrew Fuller, 1:712–13)

It may be that the preacher has exhausted his technical commentaries and himself and is now ready to exhaust his congregation (often allied to the assertion that it takes a good forty hours to prepare a single decent sermon). It may be that he is a slave to the historical-critical approach. Whatever the reason, he thinks he has finished his preparation when in fact he has only just begun.

Preaching Like a Puritan

So, how might the preacher correct himself? The Puritans provide help. The simplest point of departure might be the outline of the typical Puritan sermon. The three main divisions of such a sermon consist in the doctrine, the reasons, and the uses of the text.

DOCTRINE

Bear in mind that, separate from the sermon, the Puritan minister might already have given himself to “exposition” of a longer portion of Scripture (Matthew Henry’s commentary, for example, reflects his morning and evening expositions of the Bible, whereas his sermons were of a different order altogether). In other words, if a Puritan could hear you speak, he might commend you for your exposition, and then politely ask when you intend to preach!

This may be a slight exaggeration, but all our exegetical labor really only gets us to the point at which we can accurately explain the text and state its doctrine or doctrines. It is the first and most basic building block of the text. The typical modern preacher may invest ninety percent of his sermonic time and matter in providing what the typical Puritan may offer in ten percent of his sermonic time and matter, or less.

REASONS

Once the text has been explained in context and the doctrine stated (perhaps with some additional scriptural evidence for its substance), the Puritan proceeds to reasons and uses. We might call this approach “pastoral preaching.” The aim is not merely to instruct a gathering of students, but to feed the souls of the flock of Christ.

The reasons develop the doctrine that the text of Scripture has supplied, bringing it to bear upon the particular congregation to which the preacher is speaking. While the doctrine itself might be universal, it is not just the context of the text that is important, but the context into which the text is preached. The doctrine means something to the people in front of the preacher. They need to understand how and why it is true, and what it means for their thinking and feeling and willing. Men and women, boys and girls, need to be convinced of this doctrine; it needs to be brought close, brought home. This truth is not abstract, but concrete. It intrudes into their lives; it fashions their thought processes; it forms and informs their responses. God is speaking to them in his word.

USES

Often, when a Puritan moves into the phase of uses, or application, the modern preacher is stunned: What did these men think they were doing up to that point? A faithful Puritan would get closer to the heart in his reasons than many preachers today do in their most pressing applications. This is where the Puritans excelled as physicians of souls. William Perkins, for example, suggested an application grid that extended across seven possible groups in the congregation, to whom the truth could be applied in various ways.

The truth makes a difference to those who hear it, individually and congregationally, in relation to God, to themselves, to one another (in their several different relations), and to the world at large. It speaks to them as believing or unbelieving, as needing doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16–17). The Puritan knows that he cannot make someone think or feel or will or act in a certain way simply by his eloquence, but he lays his spiritual charges carefully and closely, dependent on the Holy Spirit to operate in his own convincing and convicting and converting divine power.

The whole sermon would be bound up with reiterations of the truth and appeals to the conscience, rising to a crescendo of pastoral intensity and affection. No hearer need doubt that a living man speaks the living word to living men in the presence of the living God. No hearer need doubt that this man speaks God’s truth to me, because he loves me, and that he expects and desires this truth to change me.

Bake the Bread

Preachers beyond the Puritans have excelled in such an approach. If you read Spurgeon’s sermons, you will often see just this kind of structure lying in the background (not surprising, given his affection for the Puritans). The comical old “three-pointer,” so easily mocked and dismissed, is not just a casual or clever division of the text, but is often a simpler presentation of the same basic mode. The same could be said of the sermonic method of other gifted and effective preachers of the past and the present. They do more than simply state the text. Having grasped its truth, and considered and felt it for themselves, they bring it to bear upon the congregation with the desire and expectation that it will have its God-intended impact upon them (Isaiah 55:11).

So, how can we improve? Don’t just hold up the oranges; let the people taste the fruit. Don’t merely trouble the text. Commit to understanding not only God’s word but also people’s hearts, and knowing their lives. Love your people enough to preach like a pastor, not just teach like a lecturer. If need be, spend less time analyzing and more time meditating and praying. Study to preach heartfelt sermons rather than to deliver tame and toothless homilies. Read good preachers (including various Puritans) and commentaries that suggest lines of lively application. Physically sit in the seats of particular people in the building where you meet, and pray for wisdom to speak to them in their situation. Look people in the eye as you speak to the congregation. Be willingly subject to the Spirit’s influence in the act of preaching.

To return to the bakery, mix the ingredients of your sermon, let it rise in contemplation, knead it thoroughly in prayer, let it prove in meditation, bake it well in your own heart, and serve it warm from the pulpit. In dependence on the Spirit, nourish the very souls of the hearers.