Several months ago, the main drainage line from our house backed up — an unpleasant experience for any homeowner. One of the worst, really. The root of our unpleasant problem was, it turns out, a root — a tree root (likely many of them). So, we called someone with extensive experience with such unpleasantries: Larry.

Larry is everything you might expect from a man who’s spent thirty-plus years dealing with homeowners’ nightmares. He clears drains with an extraordinarily heavy machine that he built himself using spare parts. It looked like something out of a Ghostbusters movie and weighed about as much as our Honda Odyssey. As I helped him carry the minivan down our front stairs, he told me about his farm outside of town. He was especially excited about the poultry barn. “Oh, you have chickens?” I asked. “No, pheasants. I raise pheasants.” Every year, he went on to explain, Larry buys three hundred pheasant eggs and incubates them until they hatch. Once the birds hatch, he cares for the birds for six to eight weeks (with as much watermelon as he can afford). “Oh they love watermelon. That’s a special treat on Sundays. . . . They go crazy for watermelon.”

Larry goes on to tell me that on average half — half — of the three hundred pheasants die by the end of eight weeks. “So, what do you do with the rest? Do you sell them?” “No, no, I let them go in the wild.” “Oh, so do you hunt?” “No, no, I don’t hunt ’em.” “So why do you do it?” [Long pause. . . . He looks like he’s never had to answer that question before, like he’d never really had to have a good reason to incubate hundreds of pheasant eggs each year.] Unsure, he finally mumbled, “I guess it’s just my way of giving back . . .” Then he smiled, “Man, you should see ’em fight over that watermelon.”

As I helped Larry load his machine back into his truck and watched him drive off down our street, I was left with something of a haunting question: Does anything God has made make me feel like he feels about those birds?

Of all the people in the world, lovers of God ought to be the most captivated by what he’s made — shouldn’t we? And yet, too often, simple guys like Larry see and feel far more than we do (more than I do, anyway). And his fresh watermelon and warm smile are just a faint whisper of how God feels about pheasants. The real question before us this morning is, Does anything God has made make us feel like God feels about it all? That’s where I want to go and what I want to try to awaken in our time together in Psalm 104.

Do You Still Marvel?

Do your prayers ever sound like the 35 verses of Psalm 104? I don’t mean the length, or the poetry, or even the mountains, the streams, and the rock badgers, but do you ever stop, slow down, and marvel at something God has made and bless him for it? Does creation still arrest your attention and lead you to worship?

I say still because I have three kids under seven, and you don’t have to convince people under seven to marvel at what God’s made. Every rock is a precious rock, a rock worth keeping, protecting, and displaying. Every animal — bunnies, deer, racoons, turtles — may as well be a unicorn. Every bug is an all-hands-on-deck crisis. Children’s eyes are smaller than our eyes, but almost always wider too. They see things we’ve forgotten how to see.

Well, I want to see more of what they see, more of what God sees, and for that, I think Psalm 104 is a great park to walk through. As we do, I want to stop briefly at four great views along the way: First, God creates. Second, God delights. Third, we delight. And finally, we create. God creates. God delights. We delight. And we create.

God Creates

So, first, God creates. It’s interesting to compare Psalm 104 with the psalms that come immediately before it and after it. All three psalms set out to do essentially the same thing: awaken Godward awe and joy and worship.

Bless the Lord, O my soul. (Psalm 103:1)

Bless the Lord, O my soul. (Psalm 104:1)

Oh give thanks to the Lord. (Psalm 105:1)

We see the same goal in all three, but they pursue that awe and joy and worship in three noticeably different ways. Psalm 103 focuses on the glories of salvation: He forgives your iniquity. He heals your diseases. He redeems your life from the pit. Forget not all his benefits.

He does not deal with us according to our sins,     nor repay us according to our iniquities.For as high as the heavens are above the earth,     so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;as far as the east is from the west,     so far does he remove our transgressions from us. (Psalm 103:10–12)

Psalm 103 revels in the rescue, in the pardon, in the “the steadfast love of the Lord . . . from everlasting to everlasting” (Psalm 103:17).

Psalm 105 pursues that same soul-awakening awe and joy and worship from a different angle. Again, same goal: “Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice!” (Psalm 105:3). But where’s the focus this time? “Remember the wondrous works that he has done. his miracles, and the judgments he uttered” (Psalm 105:5). The choosing of Abraham. The land he gave to Jacob. The freeing of Joseph from prison. The sending of Moses. The humbling of Egypt. The psalmist wants our hearts to seek and rejoice in God, and so he does a history lesson; he relives moments when God’s hand broke in to save and prosper his people. He traces God’s providence.

Psalm 104 pursues the same awe and joy and worship — “Bless the Lord, O my soul!” — but it sits beside yet another window (of the three, maybe a more neglected window in our circles). When the psalmist sees the disconnect between what he believes about God and how he feels about God, when he wants to stir the coals of his love for God into flame, he doesn’t rehearse God’s mercy and forgiveness again, and he doesn’t run back to all the many times God had rescued them. No, this time he lets his mind wander over hills and through valleys. He climbs mountains and wades into oceans. Creation was his chosen weapon against temptation. Creation was his rallying point back to reality.

Nature or Creation?

I say creation with deep conviction and purpose, because it is, all of it everywhere, conceived and performed by a real, divine imagination. As T.M. Moore writes in Consider the Lilies,

One of the central teachings of Scripture is that the natural world is not at all natural. It is the creation of a supernatural God. What we routinely call “nature” is in fact “creation.” (100)

Nothing we encounter is purposeless, or gloryless, or truly “natural.” We may notice the purpose and glory more in the grander aspects of creation, like oceans, lions, or mountains, but as Scripture teaches, even birds and lilies are saying something profound about God. Psalm 104 wants us to see and feel this throughout:

He stretched out the heavens.
He stacked the mountains and carved out the valleys.
He drew the shores of the oceans.
He taught the moon where to stand in spring and winter.
He cooks for the birds, badgers, goats, and lions.

The psalmist is pointing in every direction, highlighting as much as he can bring to mind — “Look at that! Look at that! And that and that and that!” — but really he’s saying again and again, “Look at him.” He did that. He did that. Oh and he did that too. Isn’t he stunning? Isn’t he terrifying? Isn’t he lovely? “O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom have you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures” (Psalm 104:24).

This God-centeredness, the glory of this Creator, crescendos in verses 27–29:

These all look to you,     to give them their food in due season.When you give it to them, they gather it up;     when you open your hand, they are filled with good things.When you hide your face, they are dismayed;     when you take away their breath, they die     and return to their dust.

When you. . . . When you. . . . When you. . . . And never otherwise. He upholds the universe by the word of his power. They all, great and small, land and sea, sit and wait for him. They exist when and how and where he chooses. No creature is below him; no detail escapes him.
Every mouth bows before his cosmic farmers market.

Your Corners of Creation

All things are truly from him, through him, and for him (Romans 11:36). Creation is preaching the meticulous attention, power, creativity, and generosity of God. So do we hear it anymore? Do we regularly stop and look long enough to listen — or are we slumped in the back rows, barely paying attention, slowly nodding off?

And remember, the psalmist didn’t have Netflix or National Geographic. He didn’t have Google or YouTube. He couldn’t plan a trip to the Pacific Ocean or the Rocky Mountains or even the local zoo. No, he could see as far as he could walk (and then only through the stories of others). He had to make the most of whatever was outside his front door. So don’t hear “creation” and first think of some grand adventure somewhere far away or through a screen; think of whatever’s growing in your front yard (the things you want to grow and the things you don’t). Don’t first think of rare and exotic animals; think of the moles or squirrels that are ruining whatever you want to grow in your front yard. Yes, he mentions lions and Leviathan, but he also mentions birds and grass and night skies. By all means, take advantage of all of the ways we can see more today, but don’t miss the ordinary, breathtaking glimpses in your own little corners of creation.

The God we worship is a creative and creating God. We’re literally surrounded with the work of his hands. Nothing anywhere is untouched by his wisdom and creativity, by his brush. Because he wants us to see and savor him, he not only speaks; he also creates — and he speaks through his creating. So, first, God creates. The second stop, now, is God delights.

God Delights

As we keep walking through the park of Psalm 104, we see the hand of God again and again — building, intervening, producing, feeding, sustaining — creating. Everything there is, everything we see, everything we know, our God has made. Bless the Lord, O my soul.

This isn’t a conference, however, about the power and creativity and wisdom of God. We want to know what makes the happy God happy. And in Psalm 104, we not only see the strong hands of God; we also get a glimpse of his smile.

May the glory of the Lord endure forever; may the Lord rejoice in his works. (Psalm 104:31)

Not, “May the glory of the Lord endure forever; may we rejoice in his works.” No, “May he rejoice in his works.” He’s not just putting on a show that a few nature-loving people might enjoy. No, he loves high mountains and winding valleys; he loves full moons and brilliant sunsets; he loves badgers, storks, and wild donkeys. The God of the universe genuinely enjoys the universe he’s made — the one we get to live in every day.

This shouldn’t surprise us. It should be a familiar melody from the very first chapter in the Bible. Genesis 1:3–4: “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. And God saw that the light was . . . good.” We’re so used to hearing that word, we might pass right over it. Right there, though, in the very first verses of the Bible is the first hint — no, the loud, repeated chorus (“good . . . good . . . good . . . good”) — that this world was not made to be a functional place to live and raise a family. No, God meant for the place he made to be beautiful, awe-inspiring, worshipful — in a word, good.

“God made a world that even God could admire.”

Night and day were not just needed, but good. Mountains and oceans were not just enormous, but good. The bushes, flowers, and trees were not just fertile and productive, but good. The birds and fish and beasts of the field were all intentional, unique, and captivating in their own ways. They were good. In other words, God made a world that even God could admire. How strange and tragic, then, that our eyes so often grow dim with it all.

God’s Pleasure in God

God not only makes; he delights in what he makes. He admires his creation. He steps off the stage, as it were, to take in and savor what he’s done — the stories he’s conceived, the lighting he’s staged, the flooring he’s laid, the scenery he’s built, the characters he’s developed, the colors and textures he’s woven together, the melodies he’s written under it all. And why is it all so good in his eyes? Because everywhere he looks, he sees something of himself, his glory. The pleasure of God in creation is the pleasure of God in God.

Derek Kidner sees this in the first verses of the psalm — “covering himself with light, stretching out the heavens, laying his chambers on the waters, making the clouds his chariot.” Kidner writes,

The metaphor of his taking up its parts and powers as his robe, tent, palace, and chariot invites us to see the world as something he delights in, which is charged with his energy and alive with his presence. (Psalms 73–150, 402)

He delights in what he’s made because it’s charged with his energy and alive with his presence. He is creation’s splendor and majesty.

Good and Very Good

And in the midst of everything good — the light was good, the land was good, the lions were good, the honey was really good — in the midst of everything else, God outdid himself. He made creatures in his own image — man and woman, you and me. And only then did he say, “very good.” You can almost taste his pleasure in the words. “Very good.”

Why very good? Why especially delightful? We don’t have time here to explore all the goodness of the image of God in mankind, but one vital difference between humanity and everything else he had made is that, of all the wonders he had conceived and created, only this creature could share in his pleasure over what he made. Only the man and woman had the capacity to experience fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore. Only to them could he one day say, “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full” (John 15:11). And only this creature, among all the creatures on earth, would be a creating creature, taking what he had made and making something new. And those are our next two stops in the park: We delight, and we create.

We Delight

At our third stop, we finally arrive where the psalm begins. Verse 1: “Bless the Lord, O my soul! O Lord my God, you are very great!” Notice, the first words of the psalm are not cast into the heavens, but directed inward, at the heart. Bless the Lord, O my soul! Wake up! Stop nodding off before the splendor and majesty all around you.

I mentioned earlier that, in our circles, we do Psalm 103 reflection pretty well (rehearsing the glories of redemption) and Psalm 105 pretty well (recounting the stories of what God has done in Scripture and history). How often, though, when our hearts grow cool or dull or distracted, do we think to immerse ourselves not in more books, but in trees and fields and birds and streams — in fall leaves and maybe even in some snow? How often have you thought of the outdoors as a means of grace?

Prescription for an Anxious Age

As I watch, over and over again in Scripture, how creation deepens faith, and quiets fears, and instills confidence, and inspires courage, and awakens joy, I can’t help but wonder if creation isn’t one of the great prescriptions we’re missing in our modern and anxious age. So much of our technological lives today carry the illusion of control — deciding what we eat, where we eat, when we eat; deciding what we watch, where we watch, when we watch. Our phones tell us we’re in control. Our cars tell us we’re in control. Our heating and air-conditioning tell us we’re in control. Creation disagrees. Creation dispels the mirage of my sovereignty. Creation shouts, “You’re not in control! And this world isn’t about you.”

That’s a sermon we need to hear and rehear and rehear, especially today. You can’t decide the weather. You can’t grow grass in that corner of the yard. You can’t control the squirrels or moles. You can’t tame a thunderstorm. You can’t survive the bitter cold. You can’t outlive an oak tree. But God can, and does, and will.

In the introduction to Pleasures of God, Pastor John says,

Unless we begin with God in this way, when the gospel comes to us, we will inevitably put ourselves at the center of it. We will feel that our value rather than God’s value is the driving force in the gospel. We will trace the gospel back to God’s need for us instead of tracing it back to the sovereign grace that rescues sinners who need God. (22)

Souls centered on self are homes built on sand. If we subtly believe that we’re in control, that our value is driving history, that God really needs us, it’s no wonder we’re so anxious. Watch where our wild safari ends. Verse 34: “May my meditation be pleasing to him, for I rejoice” — not in mountains or moons or donkeys, no: “for I rejoice in the Lord.” Those who see the most in creation are never left with just creation; no, they’re drawn into a higher, more intense love — a higher, more intense good: God himself.

Wild Glimpses of God

Everything God has made is preaching, with loudspeakers cranked high and embedded everywhere we turn — and yet we often have our heads down, scrolling on our phones. So put the phone down for a moment (turn it off if you have to) and lift up your eyes.

When the sun rises each morning, God means for that flaming ball of ferocity, a star the size of a hundred earths and heated to ten thousand degrees, to remind us that he is strong, massive, reliable, and radiating with joy. Psalm 19:4–5: “He has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy.”

When we see the stars scattered in a clear night sky, an estimated one hundred billion in our galaxy alone, God wants us to see how detailed and personal he is. “He determines the number of the stars; he gives to all of them their names” (Psalm 147:4). Why would he name stars? Not for their sake (they’re stars!), but for ours — so that we would know that he knows and cares for each and every one of us.

When clouds crawl across the sky and over our heads, they are not meant to be massive, miraculous afterthoughts (or depressing inconveniences, for that matter). No, they should draw our attention into heaven and stretch our imaginations, far beyond them, into the faithfulness of God. “Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds” (Psalm 36:5).

When we make out a mountain in the distance (or drive through them as my family did on vacation earlier this year), we’re meant to see enormous shadows of the majesty of God. “Glorious are you,” we sing, “more majestic than the mountains full of prey” (Psalm 76:4).

When we hear the rush of a river or stream, it can inspire us to drink more deeply from all that God is for us in Christ, the well who quenches every thirst forever. “They feast on the abundance of your house,” David writes, “and you give them drink from the river of your delights” (Psalm 36:8).

And that’s to say nothing of all we see and experience of God in the boom of thunder (Psalm 29:3), the ruthlessness of lions (Psalm 7:2), the fragility of sheep (Psalm 78:52), the sweetness of honey (Psalm 19:10), the strength of horses (Psalm 20:7), even the defenselessness of snails (Psalm 58:8). The heavens, the earth, and the seas (and all that fills them) are declaring the glory of God to us. How much richer, sweeter, and more tangible might our theology be if we were willing to stop and look and delight more than we do?

What About Sin?

Before we move away from stop three — our delight in who God is and what he’s made — the psalm ends in a strange but fitting place:

May my meditation be pleasing to him,     for I rejoice in the Lord.

We delight. Next verse:

Let sinners be consumed from the earth,     and let the wicked be no more! (Psalm 104:34–35)

When I first read that, I thought, Now that’s a strange way to respond to all he’s seen. “Look at the heavens! Look at the mountains! Look at the lions! Let sinners be consumed from the earth, and let the wicked be no more.” Seems strange, right? It’s not how many of us would think to pray after seeing so much of God in what he’s made.

It’s not strange. The psalmist lets his mind wander over wonder after wonder until his heart is set on fire again for God, and then he opens his eyes, and he realizes just how broken this world is, how far it’s strayed from its Creator. He feels, again, that the wondrous creation is enslaved to futility, in bondage to corruption. It’s magnificent as it is, but it’s nowhere near what it could be. Nowhere near what it once was. Because of sin, we live in the ruins of paradise. And the awful, tragic disparity between what was and what is exposes the seriousness of sin — the seriousness of my sin.

Sin vandalized the satisfying glory of God in creation. Sin introduced disease and hostility and death. Enjoying what remains of the beauty of creation should make us hate sin all the more, especially our own sin. And it should make us long for God to make it all new again. Verse 29 again: “When you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust” — sin did that. Next verse: “When you send forth your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground.”

Death doesn’t get the last word here. The light will invade the darkness. God will make all these things, including us, new. All who oppose him will be consumed. The wicked will be evicted. We’re destined to live on a real earth like ours, with real bodies like ours, surrounded by wonders and blessings and experiences like ours, but without the weakness, mortality, and sin that plague all we know and enjoy now. That world will be like ours, but glorious. We will be ourselves, but glorious. The psalmist knows how this will all end, and so he ends not with despair, but hope: “Bless the Lord, O my soul! Praise the Lord!” (Psalm 104:35).

God creates. God delights. We delight. And now, finally, we create.

We Create

The pleasure of God in creation and human culture: that was my assignment. When I say culture, I mean all the good that humans do and make. I’m thinking of the cultural mandate in Genesis 1:28: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” We won’t get to spend nearly as much time here, but we don’t have to travel far in our park to see what we need to see.

The young lions roar for their prey,     seeking their food from God.When the sun rises, they steal away     and lie down in their dens.Man goes out to his work     and to his labor until the evening. (Psalm 104:21–23)

Man goes out to his work, and works a full day. It feels a little anticlimactic, right? The trees climb into the heavens, the mountains shake with wildlife, the lions roar their hunger for all to hear, the moon ushers in fall and winter and spring, the sun chooses when the sky goes from blue to red to purple to dark — and Larry heads over to Pike Lake Drive to clear another drain (or whatever ordinary work God has given you to do).

“The ordinary work of man is one of the manifold works of God.”

“Man goes out to his work and to his labor until the evening.” Now listen to this in the very next verse: “O Lord, how manifold are your works!” — trees and mountains and lions and the work that man can do. “In wisdom have you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures” (Psalm 104:24). The ordinary work of man is one of the manifold works of God. No other creature can do what you do. What you can do in eight or ten or twelve hours with your mind and hands and gifts says as much or more about God as a sunset or a canyon or a thunderstorm.

Only God could conceive of a creature capable of doing the work you do. Every working human you meet (white collar or blue collar; paid or unpaid; student, employee, manager, or stay-at-home mother) is a living canvas covered in the creativity of God — whether they believe in him or not, whether they see the glory in their work or not. That they can do what they do, whatever they do and however well they do it, reminds us of just how much more God can do.

Human Hands at the Table

We get one more small glimpse in Psalm 104 into the pleasure of God in human culture, in verses 14–15:

You cause the grass to grow for the livestock     and plants for man to cultivate,that he may bring forth food from the earth     and wine to gladden the heart of man,oil to make his face shine     and bread to strengthen man’s heart.

Wine to gladden the heart of man. Bread to strengthen man’s heart. Grapes transformed through crushing and waiting. Wheat transformed by mixing and baking. Wine and bread. I wanted to end here because tomorrow (or in the next couple of weeks) we’ll each gather in our churches and we’ll hold and enjoy bread and wine together, the Lord’s Supper. This isn’t the point of verses 14 and 15; bread and wine were ordinary fare for Israel in those days. But they’re not ordinary fare any longer, not on the other side of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday.

Is there a more subtle and yet stunning marriage of God’s pleasure in creation and culture than in the feast we eat over and over to remember all he is for us in Jesus? I want this to be a tangible, holdable, edible reminder for you of what we’ve seen here. Jesus chose to serve bread, not wheat. And he chose to serve wine, not water. Both are products of human creativity and effort — of culture. Both quietly dignify all that mankind can do and make.

And then, through Psalm 104, we taste even more meaning in the wine. Bread strengthens man’s heart. Wine gladdens the hearts of men. Peter Leithart writes,

Jesus did not give his disciples grapes, but the blood of the grape, which is the creation transformed by human creativity and labor. Like bread, wine assumes a degree of technological sophistication, as well as a measure of social and political formation. Wine, however, is a drink of celebration and not mere nutrition. If Jesus had wanted to depict man’s relation to creation and to God in purely utilitarian terms, bread and water would have sufficed. This Bridegroom, however, changes water to wine, and in doing so, clarifies man’s purpose in the world. (Blessed Are the Hungry, 169)

And what’s that purpose? In both work and rest, to enjoy what God has made and done. Ultimately, to enjoy God himself. “Then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy” (Psalm 43:4). Cup after cup, the wine reminds us that the Lord’s Supper is not a eulogy, but a toast. It plays an old, beloved chorus: “In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11).

The Beauty in Every Beauty

We don’t, however, need the bread and wine in Psalm 104 to get to the carpenter from Nazareth. We’d be just fine with birds and grass and badgers. Hebrews 1:1–2:

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.

And then, quoting Psalm 104 of all places, he writes, “Of the angels God says, ‘He makes his angels winds, and his ministers a flame of fire.’ But of the Son he says, . . .

You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning,     and the heavens are the work of your hands;they will perish, but you remain;     they will all wear out like a garment,like a robe you will roll them up,     like a garment they will be changed.But you are the same,     and your years will have no end.” (Hebrews 1:7–12)

“When the Father looks out over the goodness of creation, at the center of it all, he sees his Son.”

When the Father looks out over the goodness of creation, at the center of it all, he sees his Son. And he loves what he sees. “All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:3). Steve Dewitt writes, “Until we see the beauty of Christ, we will never see the true beauty in anything else” (Eyes Wide Open, 116). That means if we really want to hear what God is saying in the blues of bluebirds and waddle of penguins, in the raging of rivers and stillness of lakes, in the opening of lilies and landslides along cliffs, we first and forever fix our eyes on Jesus. All the Scriptures, beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, are about him (Luke 24:27). And all of creation is preaching in that same series.

Who’s the star of the Psalm 104 galaxy — sun and moon, birds and lions, oceans and forests? The one who became flesh and dwelt and worked among us. “He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him” (Isaiah 53:2) — and yet he’s the beauty in every beauty, the paradise hiding in our fallen world, the Creator born in the likeness of the creature, the sun dawning on the darkness around us, the crucified, risen, reigning — creating and sustaining — Jesus. And so whenever we enjoy and use creation rightly, it will surely lead us to him.

The King returns to his kingdom after a long journey. His castle stands tall. The banners flap above the fortress. The soldiers still wear his colors and speak his language. All is as it was, externally.

He first notices something amiss as he walks among the people. They still consult his precious book he left them — but not with one eye anxious for his return. The people keep many of his wise precepts, it is true, yet he himself is little sought after, little missed. He overhears prayer in his name, yet few gaze over the walls, pleading at the heavens for him to come again.

How many have made his return their lifelong psalm?

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,     and in his word I hope;my soul waits for the Lord     more than watchmen for the morning,     more than watchmen for the morning. (Psalm 130:5–6)

We have his laws, his book, his name, his people, his songs, his ordinances — but not him as he intended it to be. Have we really noticed? Have his good gifts become enough for us? Are you and I really waiting for him to return?

Behold, He Comes

The final picture of the church recorded in Scripture shows her in a posture of yearning. Her best hopes and expectations find summary in one word: Come!

The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” (Revelation 22:17)

Come, Lord Jesus! (Revelation 22:20)

When the deep enchantments of worldliness wears off, we better hear this groaning of the Spirit within, crying out for Jesus to return to us. This alone is the consummation of heaven for God’s people:

Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. (Revelation 21:3)

Immanuel, God with us, is not just his Christmas name. This must be his everlasting name, lest our heaven live elsewhere.

“The church’s best hopes and expectations find summary in one word: ‘Come!’”

A tearless eternity? Pointless, if the King of glory is not there to wipe sorrows away. Reigning on the throne of the cosmos? Child’s play, if we reign not with him. The death of death, the abolition of sin, perfection of life with angels and endless comforts? A cage and a prison, if Christ be not with us. The insistence at the bottom of every born-again heart, the one desire it will not be refused: Come, Lord Jesus!

Come Quickly

It is not enough for our faith to know simply that Jesus is coming back. Eventually works drowsiness and mischief in our hearts. Unintentionally, we banish him to the ever-Tomorrow, the distant Never. We no longer expect him anytime soon, so we drop anchor and make do without him. “Your kingdom come,” we begin to pray from memory, but not from the heart.

Thus, in the final chapter of Scripture, Jesus tells us more.

Behold, I am coming soon. (Revelation 22:7)

Behold, I am coming soon. (Revelation 22:12)

Surely I am coming soon. (Revelation 22:20)

He exclaims that he is not just coming, but coming quickly. This little adverb moves his return from inevitable to imminent, from someday to any day.

Jesus would have us waiting, expectant, peeking again and again at the clouds with childlike anticipation. Quickly sends us to live atop the watchtower, squints for his appearance upon the horizon. Jesus would not have his people take naps at the news of his return.

Stay awake — for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in the morning — lest he come suddenly and find you asleep. And what I say to you I say to all: Stay awake. (Mark 13:35–37)

He wants us talking about his return, hoping in his return, praying for his return. He expects us to trim our lamps, prepare the house, and ready the Master’s favorite meal. He is coming back, soon.

Counting Time

How do we appropriate this revelation two thousand years later? Quickly, the scoffer thinks. Two thousand years stretches the word beyond credibility. How can we truly believe such a promise?

What is this but the insect speaking back to the mountains about time? The God spanning everlasting to everlasting — not the gnat of a few seconds — says quickly. The forest of Lebanon — not the housefly — bellows, “I come soon.” We sprout in the morning and die in the afternoon; his roots go deep. The Ancient of Days is his name.

The humble psalmist teaches Israel to sing to her Maker, “A thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night” (Psalm 90:4). The apostle tells us not to overlook this fact, “that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Peter 3:8). Generations of men have come and passed; his moon has only seen two nights. He “is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness” (2 Peter 3:9).

And he waits purposefully. He waits for the last sheep to come into the fold, and then he shall return. Yet his return will be swift and when most do not expect. As with the final days of Sodom and Gomorrah, or the last morning before the Flood, when he comes, all wedding planning, football games, and vacations will be rendered obsolete.

Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. (Revelation 22:12–13)

Men will reap what they have sown. Repent and believe.

For Love and War

Christian, your Lord comes quickly. Does this not speak of your Savior’s love?

As the Bride cries, “Come! Come! Come!” he does not respond, “Fear not; I will come back when I get around to it.” He doesn’t say he’ll add it to his list. He assures, “Behold, I will come with haste, with intention, in earnest.” Quickly lays this promise upon our hearts: “I will not tarry a moment beyond what is best.”

Once the last recipient of my crimson blood is washed, once the final sheep makes it into the fold, I will be there and bring you where I am. In a moment shorter than a lightning flash, I will be there. I will not walk. I will not delay.

“In a moment, the trumpet shall blast, the wall between this world and the next shall fall, and the Lord will be before us.”

Will he find us looking over the walls for his coming?

This world is not our home. We are not yet in our element. We open the window and send our dove to and fro about this earth, finding that it returns to us having found no solid homeland. But in a moment, the trumpet shall blast, the wall between this world and the next shall fall, and he will be before us, with us. The Lord of lords and King of kings, dazzling as the sun in all its strength. This present world will pass as a dream. We will look and shout and point,

Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him,     that he might save us.This is the Lord; we have waited for him;     let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation. (Isaiah 25:9)

Let’s be honest: Revelation can be an intimidating book. Because of that, some of us have avoided Revelation, deeming it to be too difficult to interpret and understand, too controversial, or too scary. Perhaps we’ve ignored it because we have assumed the book is only about the future, with nothing “practical” for us today.

The truth is, while the apocalyptic prophecy of Revelation presents some challenges to us as modern readers, it also provides gifts of insight and understanding to those who are willing to engage with it. Revelation is a letter written to gird us for faithful allegiance to Christ as we wait for his return. And that is encouragement we all need!

“I want to invite you to study Revelation for the joy of it.”

I want to invite you to study Revelation for the joy of it. And since Revelation is full of sevens (seven churches, seven seals, seven trumpets, seven bowls, and many more sevens), it seems appropriate to provide seven reasons Revelation is a joy to study.

1. Revelation is a message from God sent to us.

It is amazing that the God who made the world has condescended to speak to us in human language. In the Bible, the God of the universe tells us what we most need to know. And there is something special about the way his message in the book of Revelation is delivered to us. At the outset, we’re given its specific chain of delivery:

The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. (Revelation 1:1–2)

What John wrote down in the book of Revelation came from God the Father, to Jesus Christ, to his angel, to John, who then wrote it down — first for the seven churches who originally received it, and also for all who were then or would become partners in the “the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus” (Revelation 1:9). God has a message for you in the book of Revelation that you don’t want to miss!

2. Revelation opens our eyes to see the risen and glorified Christ.

Most of our mental pictures of Jesus have been shaped by the Gospels. In our mind’s eye, we see him as a baby in a manger, standing on the hillside teaching, hanging on the cross. But in the book of Revelation, John is given a vision of Jesus as he is, right now, today. As John was suffering imprisonment on the island called Patmos, he heard the voice of Jesus speaking to him, felt Jesus reach out and touch him, and saw Jesus in all his resurrected, ascended glory (Revelation 1:9–20).

We don’t want our understanding of Jesus to be confined to the years of his earthly humanity — glorious as those Gospel pictures are. The Jesus we call out to and commune with day by day is the risen and glorified Jesus. Seeing him as he is now, through John’s vivid record of his vision, builds our trust in him, heightens our attention to him, and expands our joy in him.

3. Revelation provides a picture of Jesus’s presence with us.

In Revelation 1, John sees Jesus “in the midst of the lampstands” (verse 13). We’re told that the lampstands represent the churches (verse 20). When those who first received this letter gathered to hear it read to them, it must have deeply encouraged them that Jesus was not standing off at a distance while his followers suffered for him. He was right there with them, walking in the midst of them, keeping their fire for the gospel burning, correcting them, watching over them, strengthening them.

We need these same reminders, don’t we? What a joy to have this picture Revelation provides of Jesus standing in the midst of his people. In the midst of suffering for our allegiance to him, as we face temptation to be unfaithful to him, we can be assured that he is with us, providing what we need for patient endurance.

4. Revelation enables us to see this world from heaven’s perspective.

In Revelation 4:1, John records being invited to “come up” into heaven and to come into an open door to see something. In a visionary state, John peers into the heavenly throne room of God and sees the thunderous worship taking place around the throne. But from this vantage point, he is also enabled to see what is taking place on earth from heaven’s perspective.

We sometimes foolishly assume we have all the data we need to evaluate what is happening in our world. But we don’t. Our perspectives are limited by our humanity and our earthly vantage point. But as we take in what John recorded about what he saw, we find that we are better able to see the true nature of our present reality. This is perspective we need. Rather than seeing this world’s offerings as attractive, from heaven’s perspective we can see how ugly and unsatisfying they are. Rather than seeing the persecution of faithful believers as tragic defeat, we’re able to see it as glorious victory.

5. Revelation assures us that God will deal with the evil in this world.

Jesus taught us to pray, “Deliver us from evil” (Matthew 6:13). He delivers us day by day, and Revelation shows us that one day he will deliver us in an ultimate and final way. His pouring out of wrath will be the answer to our prayers. You and I don’t want to live forever in a world tainted by evil, rebellion, idolatry, and immorality. And we won’t have to. The day is coming when God will cleanse away all the ugliness and evil from his creation, making it fit for us to live in as our forever home.

6. Revelation shows us what our eternal future will be like.

Sometimes the notion of “heaven” or “eternity” can seem so vague. We want details. And while the Bible might not give us all the details we’d like, the final chapters of Revelation uniquely provide us with beautiful images that give us a sense of our eternal future.

As we take in the book’s imagery of marriage, we can smile, sensing the intimacy we’re going to enjoy in face-to-face communion with God. As we read through its imagery of a city, we find ourselves anticipating the richness of being part of a people from every tribe, tongue, and nation. Its imagery of a temple causes us to imagine what it will be like to bask forever in the radiant glory of God. And as we take in the imagery of a garden, we exhale as we anticipate what it will be like to live in an atmosphere of healing, wholeness, and complete satisfaction for all eternity. Can you almost feel the joy of this marriage, this city, this temple, this garden?

7. Revelation promises blessedness.

When we think of beatitudes, most of us likely think of the “Blessed are . . .” statements from the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:3–12). But did you know that Revelation has its own beatitudes? Within its pages are seven statements about the person who is blessed. As we survey Revelation’s seven beatitudes, it becomes immediately obvious that the blessedness God promises is nothing like the modern social-media version of #blessed.

Who will be blessed, according to Revelation? Those who hear and keep what is written in the book of Revelation (Revelation 1:3; 22:7). Those who refuse to compromise with the world (Revelation 19:9). Those who die in the Lord (Revelation 14:13). Those who stay awake, watching for the return of Christ (Revelation 16:15). Those who reign with Christ (Revelation 20:6). Those who have had their robes washed in the blood of the Lamb and have the right to eat from the tree of life (Revelation 22:14).

“Revelation sets before us true and lasting rather than false and fleeting blessedness.”

Revelation sets before us true and lasting rather than false and fleeting blessedness. This is the blessedness around which we want to orient our lives. This is the blessedness of eternal Sabbath rest that Adam failed to lead humanity into. We can be sure that Jesus, the last Adam, will not fail to lead us into it. Revelation shows us how he will do it. Anticipation of this blessedness is what fills us with genuine joy now.

My friend, don’t be intimidated by the book of Revelation. Don’t ignore it. Dive into it. Explore it. Have your perspective changed by it. Find joy in it. Experience the blessedness promised in it.

He lies motionless in the living room, his body gaunt and his breathing labored. His wife of over three decades stands close by. These are sober and holy moments.

I visited him at the care facility a week earlier. A month before that, we talked at the hospital. There he gushed over his wife and how she loved him. When I walked in, he was sharing the gospel with the interfaith chaplain. But now this dear saint is unconscious, days before his death. The psalm I read may be the last words he hears before he is face to face with the incarnate Word. The hymn we sing may be the soundtrack that ushers him into heaven. I cherish this moment.

I’m reminded of a quote from Richard Baxter: “I preached, as never sure to preach again, and as a dying man to dying men!” (The Poetical Fragments of Richard Baxter, 35). Our lives, and the lives of those we minister to, will come to an end. We serve and labor to prepare our people to meet Jesus. This is our primary task. All pastoral ministry labors in light of the end.

Imminent End

We all will die. We all will stand before Jesus. The apostle John describes the great white throne of judgment, where all the books are opened (Revelation 20:11–15). All will be judged for what they have done. No one will escape accountability. The apostle Peter charges the church, “The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers” (1 Peter 4:7). In other words, live wisely in light of the end. Moses, likewise, prays for insight as he draws near to imminent death: “Teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12).

“We serve and labor to prepare our people to meet Jesus. This is our primary task.”

We are dying, and so are our people. God has numbered our days. We are not guaranteed sixty, seventy, or eighty years of life. Eternity informs our labors in the present. We serve as men aware of judgment day, ready to stand before Jesus. We are dying ministers who minister to dying people.

The inescapable end keeps us sober — or it should. God will pronounce our labors as straw or gold (1 Corinthians 3:12). Will earthly ministry result in shame or commendation? Leaders watch over souls as those who will have to give an account to God (Hebrews 13:17). These are hard words with profound implications. Who is sufficient for such a task? The stakes could not be greater, nor the difficulty of the task more pronounced.

Within this sobering reality are embedded two beautiful and complementary truths: Jesus will judge, and God gives grace.

Jesus Will Judge

The chief Shepherd will judge his under-shepherds. The sheep don’t give out the grades. Judgment will not be on a sliding scale. Self-assessments will be irrelevant. Christ himself will judge according to his infinite wisdom.

While every shepherd longs for commendation — “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:21) — the reality is that not all will receive such words. We are all independent contractors that build upon the foundation of Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 3:11). Did we cut corners? Did we use quality materials? The final judgment will lay bare the quality of the work. In fact, one can labor, have their work burn up in the judgment, and yet still be saved by God’s grace. One can labor and yet still miss the mark.

Deceived, slothful, wicked, and unfaithful servants will perish. Jesus will render judgment and lay everything bare. James instructs us, “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness” (James 3:1). The standard for those entrusted with teaching Christ’s church is great. One can labor and still miss the mark. Eldership is a dangerous calling.

God Gives Grace

But that is not all. Eldership is likewise a sublime privilege. Peter promises elders that “when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory” (1 Peter 5:4). A great reward awaits those who labor in the Lord. God uses weak and frail vessels for his glorious purposes. Our clay-jar appearance is designed to display God’s surpassing power (2 Corinthians 4:7). How then can church leaders not be paralyzed by the task but enter into it with clearheaded confidence in Christ?

We strive to minister with a clear conscience and clean hands. The apostle Paul writes to the Ephesian elders, “I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to house” (Acts 20:20). He goes on to say, “I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:26–27). Paul is innocent because he taught the whole counsel of God. He didn’t hold back or hide any aspect of God’s word. He taught them everything he knew. He did not intentionally avoid or distort anything that was profitable for the Ephesians’ faith.

“Strive to never mislead your people. Make every effort to never distort, undermine, or contradict God’s word.”

Pastor-elders, strive to never mislead your people, making every effort to not distort, undermine, or contradict God’s word. If a pastor flies the rainbow flag of the sexual revolution over his church in the name of so-called love, he condemns himself and his parishioners. Faithful pastors submit to God’s word and herald it boldly. And they don’t pit the Jesus-breathed red letters against the God-breathed whole (2 Timothy 3:16). They don’t pervert biblical justice or condone immorality. Brothers, labor to teach God’s word to God’s people for the good of God’s church.

And as you labor to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12), serve as an example to the flock. Shepherd willingly and with joy, not in a domineering way and not under compulsion (1 Peter 5:2–3). God’s grace enables ministry marked by grace. Serve his bride with “the strength that God supplies” (1 Peter 4:11). We can’t be perfect, but we can be faithful. “Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching” (2 Timothy 4:2).

Enter into the Joy

Fellow pastor, ask yourself: Am I helping my people get ready to stand before Jesus? When I stand before Jesus, are my hands and conscience clean? Was I faithful? Did I contend for the faith? Did I struggle in God’s strength and by his grace for the good of his people? Did I promote godliness and love? Did I help my people live faithfully, stand firm, suffer steadfastly, and die well?

By God’s grace, those who have been faithful over little will be entrusted with much, and hear the sweet words, “Well done, good and faithful servant. . . . Enter into the joy of your master” (Matthew 25:21, 23).

Audio Transcript

On Monday, we looked at how our heart’s desires precede — they come before — what overflows in our lives. Even our mouth simply voices what our hearts have already conceived. It’s a pretty haunting truth that opens up a lot of implications to carefully consider. But that’s a non-issue with God. Because before we do or speak anything, he already knows our thoughts. Or, that’s what one listener wants to find out, at least. Today’s question is brief, and it comes from a listener named Joan: “Pastor John, can God read our thoughts?”

The short answer is yes, but what’s really important, as I have thought about this, are the implications of that answer, and they are many and really significant. I doubt that Joan, in sending us this question, wanted me to give a one-word answer and move on to the next question. She probably would like to know, Why do you say that? What’s the basis of saying that he knows our thoughts? And what difference would it make in our lives if he does? So that’s what I want to do. Let’s do that: first the foundation, and then maybe half a dozen or so amazing (I think) implications of that truth.

Every Thought Laid Bare

Psalm 139:2, 4, 23: “You know [the psalmist is talking to God] when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. . . . Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether. . . . Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts.” Or Psalm 19:14: “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart” — that’s the phrase: “the meditation of my heart” — “be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.”

And then there are numerous texts about God testing and seeing the heart and the mind, like Psalm 7:9: “Oh, let the evil of the wicked come to an end, and may you establish the righteous — you who test the minds and hearts, O righteous God!” Or Psalm 26:2: “Prove me, O Lord, and try me; test my heart and my mind.” Or Jeremiah 17:10: “I the Lord search the heart and test the mind.” Or Jeremiah 20:12: “O Lord of hosts, who tests the righteous, who sees the heart and the mind . . .”

Then there’s the same thing in the New Testament. It speaks of God searching the heart. Revelation 2:23: “All the churches will know that I am he who searches mind and heart.” Then the idea of God’s discerning the intentions of the heart is picked up in Hebrews 4:12: “The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and the intentions of the heart.”

In the final judgment, God will take into account the secrets of the heart, Paul says in Romans 2:16: “. . . on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Jesus Christ.” Repeatedly, we read that God knows the heart and its thoughts. First Corinthians 3:20: “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.” He knows the hearts of all men. Acts 1:24–25: “The apostles prayed and said, ‘You, Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which one of these two you have chosen to [be Judas’s replacement].’” God is the great heart-knower, the great mind-knower.

“God is the great heart-knower, the great mind-knower.”

Jesus, in his ministry, had a huge quarrel with the Pharisees and the scribes precisely because they pretended to be something on the outside that they were not on the inside. And Jesus knew that; he knew what was inside of them. Matthew 23:25–26: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.” Or the way John summed it up in John 2:25: “[Jesus] needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.”

Six Vast Implications

So, from numerous angles, the Bible teaches that God knows our thoughts. He knows our feelings. He knows our attitudes, our inclinations and decisions before they show themselves in outward action. Now for the really interesting part. Some of us may think, “Well, this is just so obvious. Good grief, he’s God. Yes, of course.” And then we just move on to the next question or issue instead of pondering the implications of what many of us just assume is a given because that’s what God does; he knows all things. But let me spell out a few of the implications so that this can rest on us with some sense of glory and significance.

1. God sanctifies us from the inside out.

God’s great work of sanctification — that is, making us holy — works mainly from the inside out. That’s the way God does it. It’s the work of the Spirit in our hearts. Paul prays, “Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thessalonians 5:23).

“The Great Physician does not do his heart surgery blindfolded; he sees what he’s working on.”

Now, if he’s going to change John Piper’s attitudes and inclinations so that they conform more closely to Christ, he needs to see what needs to be changed. He must know my heart if he’s going to do work on my heart. The Great Physician does not do his heart surgery blindfolded; he sees what he’s working on. He sees my pride, my greed, my fear, my lust, my anger, and all the inclinations and potential decisions that are welling up from them. He does his sanctifying surgery from the inside out. He would be a bad surgeon if he could not see the cancer he was working on.

2. God can set a guard over our mouths.

There’s another way that God limits the evil of our lives besides that internal transforming surgery. The psalmist prays in Psalm 141:3, “Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth; keep watch over the door of my lips!” Besides working on the heart directly to sanctify us, God also can put a guard at our lips, so that an internal thought or emotion does not get expressed and hurt more people. But God could not do this if he could not see the thought that was about to come out of my mouth and stop it. “I see that coming. I’m not going to let him say that. He’s my child.”

He could have changed that deep down in my heart, but for reasons of his own, he sanctifies me in various ways, and one of the ways is this: “I see that thought coming. No way. I’m going to save him a lot of trouble at this elder meeting or in this sermon to keep that from coming out of his mouth.”

3. God discerns good and evil motives.

If God could not see hidden motives, he could not distinguish good and evil. Many outwardly good acts are hypocrisy because there is so much evil intent on the inside. God would be no better off than we are in knowing people if he could not see the heart. He would be liable to call a Pharisee godly, when in fact the Pharisee is a whitewashed tomb. All behavior gets its true virtue from its motive. God could not know virtue. He couldn’t know right from wrong, good from bad, if he could not know the heart.

4. God receives silent worship.

God could not receive worship from the paralyzed — the totally paralyzed — if he could not see their hearts. I’m thinking of a person who has lost all outward capacities to communicate, but whose mind and heart are conscious and alert and full of faith and worship. If God does not know the thoughts, he could not receive the worship of such a saint, a paralyzed saint. But God will not be denied such worship. He sees the heart and rejoices over that amazing faith.

5. God hears silent prayer.

The same is true of prayer. If God cannot see thoughts and feelings of the mind and heart, then for those who cannot make a sound with their lips for whatever reason — chosen or unchosen — he wouldn’t be able to hear their prayers. When David prayed, “Let the . . . meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord” (Psalm 19:14), he was saying, “Let my prayers be acceptable.” The same thing would be true. “Let the prayers of my heart be acceptable, O Lord.”

6. God’s plans always stand.

This may be the most amazing. God could not rule the world if he did not know the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Picture it. If eight billion people surprised God every minute of every day by turning their unknown thoughts suddenly into action, and God says, “Whoa! I didn’t see that coming,” taking God off guard because he could not see the thought or the emotion that was ready to come out of their mouths — because it was only in their heart, and he can’t know their heart — then God could not govern the world with any semblance of certainty. He would be endlessly — billions of times every day — playing catch-up ball, rearranging his plans.

If God were ignorant of what was about to happen from the mouths and hands and feet of eight billion people, he could not know what would be happening everywhere all the time, all over the world. But Proverbs 19:21 says, “Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.” God knows the plans of the mind, and in his sovereign wisdom, he sees to it that all goes according to his perfectly wise plan.

So, yes, Joan, God reads and knows our thoughts, and the implications are vast.

He’s still on the throne.

In moments when rough waves rock the boat of our Christian lives, an otherwise near-platitude can be a welcomed reminder. Our God is sovereign. Whatever befalls his people has been lovingly sifted through his fingers. Our trials and troubles are no evidence of his abdication or defeat, but of his astounding patience and mysterious timing.

What it means that he’s still on the throne may remain vague and distant. Yet we might take some real solace in the general reminder of his reign.

However, the common saying may also signal something more particular, concrete, and specifically Christian. That is, the God-man, the eternal divine Son — who came to earth as man to live and die for us and rise — ascended to his Father in heaven and sat down, as mediatorial king on the throne of the universe, and he’s still on the throne. Jesus reigns, right now. More than a timeless attribution of universal divine sovereignty, we might hear a Christian ascription of the Messianic rule of Jesus — a rehearsing of Christ’s session, as Christian theology has called it, his sitting in power, as Lord, and human, at the right hand of the Majesty on high (Hebrews 1:3).

What Is Jesus Doing?

Along with his ascension and intercession, the “doctrine of Christ’s session” may go underappreciated, and where that is the case, we might find fresh joy, and solid ground for our feet, in rediscovering it. While many do well in confessing the glorious past-tense verbs of Christ (like came, lived, died, and rose), and even his future verbs (like will come again and will judge), they might find themselves in the strange predicament of professing Jesus as Lord while not really knowing what to say he’s doing at present.

The doctrine of Christ’s session teaches us where Jesus is, and what he is doing — right now. Right now, as you read these words, and all day today, as you go about the rest of the day. And as you have lived till now, and as you will live your whole earthly life going forward, unless Jesus returns first, his session is what he has been, and is, and will be doing. It is what Jesus has been doing, beginning with his ascension and then coronation in heaven as King of kings, and what he will continue doing until he comes again. He is sitting right now on heaven’s throne as Lord of all. But what is he doing while he sits?

While He Sits

The Westminster Larger Catechism serves us with this brief but masterful answer to Question 54 about “his sitting at the right hand of God”:

Christ is exalted in his sitting at the right hand of God, in that as God-man he is advanced to the highest favor with God the Father, with all fulness of joy, glory, and power over all things in heaven and earth; and doth gather and defend his church, and subdue their enemies; furnisheth his ministers and people with gifts and graces, and maketh intercession for them.

Following the catechism’s lead, let’s consider, in three parts, what Jesus is doing right now as he sits, through the lens of what his sitting makes that seat.

1. Heaven’s Seat of Honor

First and foremost, Jesus sits in the universe’s highest seat of honor. That is, “as God-man he is advanced to the highest favor with God the Father, with all fulness of joy, glory, and power over all things in heaven and earth.” During his “state of humiliation” while on earth, leading up to his suffering and death, he looked forward to the reward of “highest favor” and “fullness of joy, glory, and power” that were to come. Even to the sitting high priest at the time, Jesus declared, “You will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven” (Matthew 26:64; Mark 14:62; Luke 22:69).

“What Jesus is doing right now, as he sits, is he’s receiving our praise and worship.”

As anticipated by Psalm 45:7 (quoted in Hebrews 1:9), Jesus now has been anointed with the oil of (literally) extreme joy, having been super-exalted (Philippians 2:9) to the universe’s seat of honor, there to be served, praised, and worshiped, by men and angels. So, the first answer to what Jesus is doing right now, as he sits, is he’s receiving our praise and worship. Seated above, at God’s right hand, he is the one on whom we “set our minds” in weekly corporate worship, and in our daily habits of devotion:

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. (Colossians 3:1–2)

Far from ignoring, neglecting, or disdaining the things of earth, we set our minds above, on the seated Christ, who then enables us to attend to and enjoy the things of earth, for his sake, in their proper times and ways.

2. History’s Seat of Judgment

Second, Jesus now sits, in heaven, on what will be the judgment seat of all the world and its history. When he sat down at his coronation, he did so to rule over all, as sovereign and judge, with all authority already his (Matthew 28:18). From this throne, he speaks, sitting to teach his church, through his apostles and pastor-teachers, even as he sat to teach while on earth (Matthew 5:1; 13:2; 15:29; Luke 5:3; John 6:3; 8:2). And from his throne, he rules the nations as the great mediatorial king, with all divine sovereignty mediated through him (1 Corinthians 15:24–25), and with special interest and attention to his church.

Not only is Christ seated far above all others, with his name above every name, but he reigns with a particular view to the building and protecting of his church (Ephesians 1:20–23). The advance and defense of his church is the centerpiece of his work in the world, even as he rules exhaustively over all. It is “through the church,” Paul writes, that “the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 3:10) — and that with the reigning, seated, sovereign Christ as her head (Ephesians 1:22; 4:15; 5:23)

And from this throne, one day soon, he will sit to deliberate and judge (Luke 14:28, 31), making heaven’s throne the judgment seat on which he will right every wrong and reward every cup of cold water given in his name.

3. Repentant Sinners’ Seat of Mercy

Finally, and perhaps most amazingly, sitting in heaven, he “maketh intercession” for his people. Having finished his atoning work and made purification for sins, he made the very throne of God into a mercy seat.

“Having finished his atoning work, Jesus made the very throne of God into a mercy seat.”

Under the terms of the old covenant, the “mercy seat” was the top of the ark of the covenant, representing the place where the invisible God sat, to dispense mercy to his sinful people. Only the high priest could enter the Most Holy Place and approach the mercy seat, and only once a year, to make atonement, by God’s decree, for himself and for the sins of the people. Now, under the terms of Christ’s new covenant, our mercy seat is heaven’s “throne of God” to which we can draw near with confidence, in any time of need, to receive mercy and find grace (Hebrews 4:16) — because Jesus, sitting there, intercedes for us.

When we ourselves undertake to intercede on another’s behalf in prayer, we do so in Jesus’s name, not our own. But the specific kind of interceding Jesus does for his people, with the Father, is unique. Jesus intercedes in his own name. He himself is the one mediator between God and man (1 Timothy 2:5), and his intercession for us is not an asking on our behalf based on the mediatorial work and merits of another. Jesus himself is the intercession. And so Hebrews 7:25 says, “He always lives to make intercession [for us].”

How He Intercedes

With his every breath, with every beat of his indestructible new-creation heart, Jesus is our living, indissoluble link to God. We are not to picture Christ in heaven as our intercessor, on his knees, begging the Father, “Please, don’t destroy them, I beg of you.” No, he ever lives to make intercession for his people. How does he do it? He lives. If we are his, and he is alive, then his very life, his very breath, the very beating of his glorified human heart, intercedes for all those joined to him by faith, giving them access to his mercy seat in heaven. As Charles Wesley wrote in the hymn “Arise, My Soul, Arise,”

Five bleeding wounds he bears, received on Calvary;They pour effectual prayers, they strongly plead for me:“Forgive him, oh, forgive!” they cry,“Nor let that ransomed sinner die.”

Seated in heaven, Jesus is not anxious or uncertain. He is not scurrying feverishly around heaven’s throne room, making last-minute rescues. He lives. He sits on heaven’s throne, secure and utterly stable, in perfect heavenly equanimity and composure, interceding for his people with, and as, God almighty by his very life and breath.

However familiar we have been with the term, his present session teems with glory and good news. Indeed, Jesus is still on the throne, seated in honor to receive our praises, seated with authority and power to rule the nations and build his church, and seated with mercy to welcome repentant sinners, cover their failures, and make intercession for them by his very ongoing life and breath as the God-man. Will you not approach his throne today?

Audio Transcript

Well, John Piper is a Christian. That’s not a secret. But how was he converted? When was he converted? Where was he converted? All questions you want to know. I see them in the inbox with frequency. And they are questions I think I can help answer today in a clip from a 1998 sermon on the book of Romans. Here, Pastor John is sharing the story of his life as it has been woven into the book of Romans, and as the book of Romans has been woven into his life. It’s a very close relationship, obviously. Here’s what Pastor John said.

I don’t remember my conversion. I was 6, my daddy tells me, at my mother’s knee in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, at a motel on vacation in 1952. All I remember is believing. I’ve always believed, as far as I can remember. I’m sure that’s not true since we come into the world bent out of shape by sin, but whatever God did in my life to make me a believer, he did so early that I don’t remember it happening.

Gospel in Four Steps

A lot of you in this room are in that position, and you sort of regret it because you don’t have any stunning testimonies to tell about how you were saved. However, I learned what happened to me from Romans. I’m going to tell you what happened to me. I don’t need to remember; I know from the Bible what happened to me. And as I say what happened to me, would those of you in this room right now who wonder if it’s happened to you listen carefully?

We prayed downstairs that at this point in the service — not just at the end, but at this moment right now, in the next sixty seconds — God would save people. That’s how it happens. God breaks through with the word; he makes plain the gospel and the need and the glory and the sufficiency, and he does it.

“Even though I don’t remember what happened to me, I know what happened to me from the book of Romans.”

There are four things. First, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). Second, the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). Third, God demonstrates his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). Therefore, if you will confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and in your heart believe that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Where’s that found? Romans 10:9. So even though I don’t remember what happened to me, I know what happened to me from the book of Romans. The book of Romans interprets life. Life that you don’t even know about, you read about in the book of Romans.

Calling and Confirmation

I went to college in 1964 thinking I’d be a doctor, maybe a veterinarian if my hand shook too much. (Doesn’t matter if you make a mistake on a dog. That’s really the way I thought.) In September of 1966, in a painful and precious providence, I was in the hospital for three weeks, and God changed my life’s direction — powerfully, irreversibly — I testify now these 32 years later. He moved me from that trajectory to the trajectory of the ministry of the word. I won’t go into detail about it, but you can read about it in Future Grace.

The point I want to make is this. That fall, I had planned to move into a dormitory suite with three other guys, and I did. But in January 1967, it was very plain to me, This is not the best circumstance for what God’s doing in my life. I want to study. I want to pray. I want to think. And this dynamic here is not ideal. So I made a special mid-year plea and was allowed to move to Elliot Hall, alone in a single room. And I lived in a single room for the next year and a half so that I could pursue God and read and pray.

“Romans became not only the interpretation of my conversion; it became the confirmation of my calling to the ministry.”

And I can almost smell it, and I can sure see it. It’s yellow, with big black print on the front — nothing very fancy in those days on paperbacks — written by John Stott called Men Made New: An Exposition of Romans 5–8. And I can remember reading those pages at my desk in that room like it was yesterday because of the powerful work that was going on in my life, confirming what happened in September of 1966, that this is my life. This is my life. This handling of the word of God is what I want to do more than anything. I want to know this book the way John Stott knows Romans 5–8. So Romans became not only the interpretation of my conversion; it became the confirmation of my calling to the ministry.

Worthy of Heralding

Then came seminary, 1968–1971 in Pasadena, and the cataclysmic effect of two great classes. There were more than two, but two great ones: Romans 1–8 with Daniel Fuller, where phrase by phrase for fourteen weeks my mind was blown. And then the climactic class called “Unity of the Bible,” in which Romans 9–11 became the substructure of reality, and all the pieces were put in place that have never changed to this day. The great discoveries of the sovereignty of God over all things, and the magnifying of his name, and the enjoying him and thus magnifying him — because that’s the end for which God created the world — everything fell into place, with Romans being the foundation on which it all stood.

Three years in Germany to study, six years at Bethel College, over and over again returning to this theme of the sovereignty of God, and over and over again watching Romans 9 move into center stage, with controversy back and forth about what this chapter is all about — these awesome, awesome pictures of the sovereign freedom of God as a Creator. In the fall of 1979, I was given a sabbatical, and I knew what I had to do with this sabbatical. I had to settle it. What is Romans 9 saying about this God? Because if it’s saying what it looks like it’s saying, then many people don’t know the true God.

So, for four months I labored, and out of that laboring came something totally unexpected — namely, the call to the pastorate. What God said in a sentence, over and over again, along about October or November, is this: “I, the God of Romans 9, will be heralded, and not just analyzed or explained. I, the God of Romans 9, John Piper, will be proclaimed and heralded, not just analyzed and explained.”

Midnight Fire

October 14, 1979. It was late at night, and God came. And it was one of those times — it was like the time that Blaise Pascal had. He wrote it down after it had happened, and he sewed it into his coat, and he wore it the rest of his life next to his heart. “Midnight fire” is the way Pascal said it. And I just went back yesterday and read my seven pages that I wrote for those several hours that night, and they begin like this: “I am closer tonight to actually deciding to resign at Bethel and take a pastorate than I have ever been. The urge is almost overwhelming.” And by 1:00 o’clock in the morning, it was overwhelming. “It takes this form: I am enthralled by the reality of God and the power of his word to create authentic people.” That was my call away from Bethel to the pastorate.

And then, in the providence of God, this church called — Marvin Anderson — and I answered the phone, and I didn’t know where this church was. And he explained they were in a search process, and I began to talk, and by February it was done. And in June 1980, I came.

So I date my conversion — or I understand my conversion, my theological foundations in seminary, my call to the ministry and its confirmation, and my turn from being a teacher to a preacher and a pastor all out of the milieu created by the book of Romans.

The Irish poet Seamus Heaney once likened certain poets and poetry to fresh produce in a market stall — delightful, beautiful stuff that you enjoy looking at before moving on to the next display. Some poets and poetry, on the other hand, are like plants that grow inside you. “It’s not so much a case of inspecting the produce as of feeling a life coming into you and through you” (Stepping Stones, 50).

For many readers, George Herbert has been that second, transformative kind of poet: one who alters your perspective on the world and whose work remains inside you for a long time. The anguished William Cowper found solace in Herbert’s poems. C.S. Lewis included The Temple among the ten books that most influenced him. The philosopher Simone Weil said that during a recitation of Herbert’s poem “Love (III),” Christ himself came down and took possession of her. Other Herbert admirers include Richard Baxter, Charles Spurgeon, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, W.H. Auden, and T.S. Eliot.

Though Herbert wrote almost exclusively religious poems, his appeal extends well beyond the faithful. T.S. Eliot argued that Herbert’s poetry is valuable for those with no religious belief. And several years ago, when asked to choose a poem he wanted to discuss on a podcast, the British actor and self-professed lapsed Catholic Andrew Scott chose a Herbert poem.

Orator, Pastor, Poet

Who was George Herbert, and what did he write? He was born in 1593 into a wealthy aristocratic family. Throughout the early part of his life, he achieved significant academic and professional success, distinguishing himself as a scholar, becoming a fellow at the University of Cambridge, and finally being elected to the prestigious post of Orator of the University in 1620. Then, in the years following, his life took some unexpected turns. The court career it seemed he might enjoy didn’t materialize. Following some years of uncertain vocational direction, living with wealthy relatives and friends, he became an Anglican vicar in the village of Bemerton, near Salisbury. After serving there in relative obscurity for three years, he died of sickness in 1633, shortly before his fortieth birthday.

In his own day, Herbert was respected for his polished Latin orations. His only prose work, The Country Parson, a short manual for rural pastors, was published posthumously, became widely influential for hundreds of years, and is well worth reading today. But neither the orations, nor The Country Parson, nor his collection of proverbs (more than one thousand of them), nor his Latin poems account for his major impact on contemporary readers. That influence rests on a slender volume of about 160 English poems (depending on how you count them), unpublished at the time of his death. On his deathbed, he sent the poems to his friend Nicholas Ferrar with instructions to either burn them or print them (as Ferrar saw fit). Ferrar read them, was deeply moved, and published the volume almost immediately, titling it The Temple. It was an instant success.

Why The Temple Endures

The Temple has three sections. The first, “The Church-porch,” consists of 77 stanzas of rather didactic, moralizing verse. It’s sometimes ingenious, amusing, and helpfully memorable, and it forms an approach to what follows in the center section, but it isn’t the main attraction. Neither is the final section, “The Church Militant,” a longish poem that deals with the history of the church and a vision of future judgment upon it. It’s the center section, “The Church,” that accounts for Herbert’s massive and enduring influence. It’s these poems that endear him to readers (Christian and non-Christian alike) and account for his reputation as arguably the greatest religious poet ever. Here are five reasons why.

1. Herbert speaks directly to God.

Augustine was Herbert’s favorite theologian (he owned Augustine’s works, bequeathing them to his curate at his death). Herbert’s biographer John Drury suggests that the autobiographical nature of Augustine’s Confessions helped to inspire Herbert’s own autobiographical poetry. Also like the Confessions, many of Herbert’s poems are directly addressed to God. This gives an attractive earnestness and urgency to the poems. They’re fresh, lively, and endlessly interesting. And they’re never trifling or silly, because they’re prayers. Richard Baxter said that “Herbert speaks to God like one that really believeth a God. . . . Heart-work and Heaven-work make up his Books”The English Poems of George Herbert, xxi). Many readers have agreed.

2. Herbert is deeply honest.

Contrary to mistaken notions of Herbert as a pious poet who wrote safe, sentimental verse, his poems are deeply honest and even raw. “The Collar” shows his Jonah-like rebellion. “Denial” begins, “When my devotions could not pierce / Thy silent ears; / Then was my heart broken, as was my verse: / My breast was full of fears / And disorder.”

According to his early biographer Izaak Walton, Herbert described the poems that form The Temple as “a picture of the many spiritual conflicts that have past betwixt God and my soul, before I could subject mine to the will of Jesus my Master” George Herbert: The Complete English Works, 380). He writes out of weakness, spiritual struggle, physical illness, and disappointment. This vulnerability allows readers to engage deeply with him.

3. Herbert is accessible and clear.

The poems are not simplistic or shallow. But Herbert often uses everyday images (a window, a flower, a storm, a pulley, a wreath) and simple words. One Herbert scholar refers to his “aesthetic of plainness” and another to the “extraordinary clarity” of his poems. This clarity allows ordinary readers to read and ponder fruitfully, discovering new depths rather than feeling frustratedly confused.

4. Herbert is a master craftsman.

Herbert is endlessly inventive, producing shape poems (which have the physical shape of their subject, as in “The Altar” and “Easter Wings”), a poem that hides a Bible verse within it (“Colossians 3:3”), as well as prayers, allegories, sonnets, and hymns. Within the many poems of “The Church,” the same stanza form is hardly repeated. This freshness of form is combined with a startling aptness and beauty of word and phrase. To offer just a few examples of Herbert’s evocative and memorable language:

“All day long my heart was in my knee.”
“The hand, which as it riseth, raiseth thee”
“Praise thee brimful”
“My joys to weep, and now my griefs to sing”
“Such a heart, whose pulse may be thy praise”
“Thy full-eyed love”
“Thou shalt look us out of pain.”

These words and phrases inspire, intrigue, and ignite on the tongue and in the heart.

5. Herbert believes in a big God.

Herbert was captivated by the greatness of God. Helen Wilcox writes, “The subject of every single poem in The Temple is, in one way or another, God” (The English Poems of George Herbert, xxi). More than that, it’s clear that Herbert saw the poems themselves as gifts for and from God. In his dedicatory poem, he writes, “Lord, my first fruits present themselves to thee; / Yet not mine neither: for from thee they came, / And must return.”

Herbert’s God was sovereign. Gene Edward Veith has shown that Herbert was a Calvinist whose theology and poetry were radically God-centered. He celebrated God’s power and presence as deeply good news. Here’s one stanza from the poem “Providence”:

We all acknowledge both thy power and love     To be exact, transcendent, and divine;Who dost so strongly and so sweetly move,     While all things have their will, yet none but thine.

“God moves both strongly and sweetly. His will is supreme, and that’s good news.”

Notice that God moves both strongly and sweetly. His will is supreme, and that’s good news. Importantly, Herbert’s embrace of the doctrines of unconditional election and effectual calling don’t undermine the universal nature of his appeal. Rather, as Veith argues, Herbert’s poems, rooted in the Reformation tradition, convey “from the inside” the positive vision of a sovereign God and thus connect with readers of all sorts.

Engaging with The Temple

How can new readers of Herbert engage with The Temple? Here are three suggestions.

First, find the poems you enjoy, whether for their content, form, language, or any other reason. Linger with them. T.S. Eliot said, “With the appreciation of Herbert’s poems, as with all poetry, enjoyment is the beginning as well as the end. We must enjoy the poetry before we attempt to penetrate the poet’s mind; we must enjoy it before we understand it, if the attempt to understand it is to be worth the trouble” (George Herbert, 28–29). Read enough Herbert to find some poems you love.

Second, read those poems within their immediate context and the larger context of The Temple. The order of Herbert’s poems matters. It’s significant, for instance, that “Grief” and “The Crosse,” both of which deal with Herbert’s sufferings and struggles, come just before “The Flower,” which speaks of God’s goodness in bringing him through “many deaths” to “once more smell the dew and rain.” The Temple includes clusters of related poems — for instance, one sequence includes poems on various parts of a church building (“Church-lock and key,” “The Church-floore,” “The Windows”). Reading individual poems within their context shows new resonances and sheds fresh light.

“Herbert loved the Bible, and his poems are laced with quotations and allusions to Scripture.”

In addition, read the poems within the context of Herbert’s larger corpus (there are significant connections between The Temple and The Country Parson), within the context of his life (John Drury’s biography Music at Midnight is especially helpful here), and within the context of the Holy Scriptures. Herbert loved the Bible (“O Book! Infinite sweetness!”), and his poems are laced with quotations and allusions to Scripture. Reading the poems within these broader contexts is fruitful.

Third, allow Herbert to deepen your understanding of God and yourself. His earnestness, insight, passion, honesty, and godliness will challenge and inspire you. The freshness and beauty of his language will lodge within your mind and heart. His poems will change the way you think and feel. Allow them, in the words of Seamus Heaney, to grow inside you.

Audio Transcript

We talk often about glorifying God when things are hard, glorifying God in suffering and loss and even in death. Philippians 1:20 is a key text for us, one we’ve addressed now over thirty times on the podcast, for good reason.

But what about glorifying God when things in life are good — and especially when your business is flourishing? That’s our question today from a listener named Matt. “Hello, Pastor John. Thank you for this podcast! How should a Christian Hedonist who is successful in business and a prominent leader speak in front of others about their story? It seems like many ‘Christian business leaders’ make their success story all about themselves and then mask it all in a thin Christian wrapper. So what is the best way to authentically and humbly recognize a position of leadership and success, but to speak of it in a way that makes God look great?”

I really appreciate this question, especially the way it’s phrased there at the end, because I think that is the goal of everything in life: to make God, Christ, look great. But I am going to push it back one step. Matt asks about how a successful person in a leadership position may speak so as to make God look great. I’m going to push it back and say that almost everything hangs on how a successful person in a leadership position thinks and feels about his success and leadership. I really do believe that if a person’s thinking and feeling about his success and his work and his relationships and his leadership are deeply biblical and spiritual, then the speaking and all the more or less subtle forms of communication will take care of themselves.

Let me try to explain what I mean by right thinking and right feeling when it comes to one’s success and leadership. There are five ways to think and, I think, five ways to feel about our life’s achievements, if God has given us success and given us (therefore) leadership.

Patterns of Right Thinking

First, you will think rightly about the nature of what success is. You will not assume the world’s definition of success, though there will be overlaps. Essential to your definition of success will be your goals in life. These will not be identical with the world’s goals. Success is reaching goals; that’s what success is. And so, choosing life goals is prior to seeking success. Yours will include pleasing your Creator and the Lord of your life, getting in sync with his goals in the world. This will involve doing good for people in the hope of showing Christ’s supreme worth. This will imply pervasive integrity, honesty, justice, generosity, the true good of clients and customers and employees and community.

“Absolutely everything that makes this business flourish is a free and undeserved gift of God.”

Second, you will think rightly about the fact that absolutely everything that makes this business flourish is a free and undeserved gift of God, including the raw materials, the skill of employees, the social conditions, the weather, the managerial successes and processes, and your own life abilities, disciplines. Acts 17:25 says, “[God is not] served by human hands as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.” Life and breath and everything are a gift of God. You will think rightly about that.

Third, you will think rightly about the relationship between hard work and divine blessing. You will know God is decisive in all blessing, but you will not make the mistake of thinking that he does not use human means and human giftedness. “The horse is made ready for the day of battle, but the victory belongs to the Lord” (Proverbs 21:31). Both. Your preparations are essential, but God is decisive. Or 1 Corinthians 15:10: “By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.” So yes, you worked. Yes, you are gifted. Yes, that’s crucial. But all of it — all of it — is owing to grace.

Fourth, you will remember that God is sovereign and governs the world for his wise purposes. The smallest turn of affairs is ordered by God. “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father” (Matthew 10:29). Every sparrow dies, and it dies by God’s will. “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord” (Proverbs 16:33). This conviction is essential to right thinking about success.

Fifth, you will think rightly about the fact that as an undeserving sinner, not only is every good thing that comes to you a gift of God, but it comes to you, as his child, undeserved, and owing to the purchase he made by the blood of Christ. Most Christians don’t make this connection between the death of Christ and the blessings they receive in this life. They think only in terms of forgiveness. But consider Romans 8:32: “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” In other words, everything that comes to God’s undeserving children is owing to God’s not sparing his Son but giving him up for us. Every gift that we have from God in our business life, in our leadership, comes with a price tag: the blood of Jesus. We need to think rightly about that.

Patterns of Right Feeling

Now, what about feeling? If you’re going to speak about your successful business and your leadership in a way that makes Christ look great, you will need to be transformed into the kind of person, from the inside out, who actually feels the greatness of Christ — not just knows it, but thinks it and feels it, and all the things that go with it.

First, you will feel thankful for everything. Ephesians 5:20: “[Give] thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus.” 1 Thessalonians 5:18: “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” If you take those two texts together, it says “for all things” and “in all things.” Few feelings are more winsome, humbling, others-oriented than thankfulness. This cannot be pretended; it is a feeling. It is a feeling before it is words. Do you really feel thankful? That will make a huge difference in how you talk.

“Do you really feel thankful? That will make a huge difference in how you talk.”

Second, you will feel not just thankful for all good things; you will feel undeserving — really undeserving. This is huge. Do you? Your understanding of sin will be existential in your business life. You will know that every morning that you wake up, and you don’t wake up in hell, is a good morning, an undeserved morning. If your doctrine of sin does not bring you to this point, you need to return to thinking rightly about the issue of sin and go deeper into Scripture. We must pray. This doesn’t come naturally. We must plead with God that the truth of our own fall and nature as children of wrath (Ephesians 2:3) will cause us to feel undeserving of every single good that comes to us.

Third, you will feel amazed. This is the upside of undeserving when grace rises to meet every degree of guilt we feel. The feelings of thankfulness and being undeserving now overflow with amazement, as if a million-dollar check landed in your mailbox every single morning — only better. The grace of God is amazing.

Fourth, you will not feel proud but humble — not just think it but feel it. This makes all the difference. First Corinthians 4:7: “What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?” Or here’s James 4:13–16. This is spoken directly to businessmen and women:

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit.” . . . Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.

In other words, it’s arrogant to say, “I’m going downtown today to do some business.” You don’t know if you’re going to make it downtown. The sovereignty of God and the grace of God over every detail of our lives, James says, cancels boasting and causes us to feel humble.

Fifth, you will feel an overflowing joy that inclines you to love other people and be generous with them. Second Corinthians 8:2: “In a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy . . . overflowed in a wealth of generosity.”

If you have these five aspects of right thinking and these five aspects of right feeling about your success and leadership, there will be an overflow of right speaking to make Christ look great.

Some sorrows run so deep, and last so long, that those who bear them may despair of ever finding solace, at least in this life. No matter how large a frame they put around their pain, the darkness seems to bleed all the way to the edges.

Perhaps you are among those saints whose lot seems to lie in the land of sorrow. You have not taken the bitter counsel of Job’s wife — “Curse God and die” (Job 2:9) — and by God’s grace, you will not. Yours is not a fair-weather faith. You know that God has treated you with everlasting kindness in Christ. You cannot curse him.

But still, with Job, you stare at the fallen house of your life, where so many dear desires lie dead. And even with faith larger than a mustard seed, the brokenness seems unfixable in this world. The wound incurable. The grief inconsolable. The darkness defies the largest frames we could build.

Which is why, when God speaks to such saints in Romans 8, he does not bid them to merely look harder here below, squinting for a silver lining. Instead, he gives them a frame far larger than this life.

Groaning Bodies, Groaning Earth

When we think of Romans 8, we may remember only the series of triumphant trumpet blasts sounding through the chapter: “No condemnation.” “Abba! Father!” “All things work together for good.” “Who can be against us?” “More than conquerors.” But even as Paul takes us to the heights of Christian joy, he also leads us through the depths of Christian sorrow. For the mountaintop glory of Romans 8 rises from the valley of deep and desperate groaning.

“The whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now,” Paul writes. “And not only the creation, but we ourselves . . . groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:22–23). This earth, for all its beauty, lies like a mother on her back, miserable and aching for the cry of new life. And God’s people, for all our blessings in Christ, stumble through this world like children far from home, waiting for our Father. And as we wait, “we . . . groan.”

We groan because we, sons of the Second Adam, still suffer and die like sons of the first — ashes to ashes, dust to dust. We groan because legs and lungs fail, because eyes grow dim, because paralysis lames and Alzheimer’s erases the face of dearest loves. We groan because the tribulation and distress of this age sometimes feel like nightmares brought to life (Romans 8:35), like burdens beyond the strength of our frail shoulders. We groan because hope deferred makes the heart sick, and the sickness sometimes feels terminal (Romans 8:24–25). We groan because “the sufferings of this present time” can veil the Christ we love (Romans 8:18).

We should beware of papering over such groanings with platitudes (however well-intended). The saints may find themselves, at times, so perplexed, so oppressed, so utterly weak that our mouth, opened for prayer, forms no words. “We do not know what to pray for as we ought” (Romans 8:26). And so we gaze speechlessly ahead, the horizon of this life shrouded in one incoherent groan.

At the same time, however, we should beware of allowing “this present time,” these seventy or eighty years, to set the boundaries of our hope, our joy. “For,” Paul tells us, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18). Into this world of deep groaning, glory is coming.

Glory Will Come

We do not groan, then, as those who have no hope. For these pains, though they last all our life long, are “the pains of childbirth” (Romans 8:22), not the pains of death. “The sufferings of this present time” end in glory, not a grave. And the glory to come will be big enough, incomparable enough to answer the double groaning of this age: the groaning of these broken bodies, and the groaning of this broken earth.

Renewed Bodies

For now, your identity as God’s beloved child lies veiled beneath a weak body and a pain-ridden life. Your body breaks like every other body. Your life trips and bleeds on this world’s thorns like every other life. In fact, just as onlookers esteemed Jesus “stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted” (Isaiah 53:4), so may you seem: like a sheep led to slaughter (Romans 8:36), you may appear, to the natural eye, Godforsaken. You may, at times, even appear so to yourself.

“Glory will be the balm you longed for but never found here, the cure that felt a world beyond reach.”

But not forever. One day soon, your true self, hidden for now in Christ (Colossians 3:3), will be seen. Then will come “the revealing of the sons of God” (Romans 8:19), “the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:21), our “adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:23). Your status as God’s child will become manifest not only to the eye of faith, but to the eye of sight, as you shed this death-bound body and, like a brilliant flower born from a dirty seed, rise up resplendent. Imperishable, powerful, glorious with Christ’s glory (1 Corinthians 15:42–43; Philippians 3:21), you finally will look like the child you are.

And finally you will see what glory can do with this life’s shattered pieces. Like the palm of our Lord Jesus upon the sick, glory will restore every part of you still broken and blind, still leprous and lame, healing all your unhealable places. Glory will be the balm you longed for but never found here, the cure that felt a world beyond reach. For Glory himself will touch you with his own hands, and his scars will banish ours forever (Revelation 21:4).

Renewed Earth

His scars will banish ours — and not only ours. The creation, too, waits for glory, its current brokenness a consequence and reminder of our own. “The creation was subjected to futility”; it lives “in bondage to corruption” (Romans 8:20–21). But oh how it yearns for freedom, waiting “with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God” (Romans 8:19). The sea, even now, is ready to roar, the trees are poised to clap their hands, and the song of the hills hangs on inhaled breath (Psalm 98:7–8; Isaiah 55:12).

With us, creation too will descend into the grave, and rise again transfigured. It too, seed-like, will sprout into a beauty beyond imagining, its freedom and glory an echo of our own — and both an echo of Christ’s (Romans 8:21). Meanwhile, the creation groans for this transformation, aching to become the mirror of the children’s glory, the fitting frame for our own endless joy.

Creation looks to the day when its stones will run like streets of gold, when its trees will bear fruit for our healing, when every bird will sing the song and every flower waft the fragrance of God’s all-conquering love in Christ (Romans 8:37–39).

Glory Is Already Here

Glory, then, is rushing toward this world like a river from the throne of God, like light from the lamp of the Lamb, like the Spirit blown over Ezekiel’s valley, ready to come and dig a grave for all our griefs. And yet, even now, in this present age of groaning, the guarantee of that glory lives and dwells within us.

“Some wounds never heal fully in this world. Some hopes follow us, still deferred, into the grave. But glory is coming.”

If Christ is yours, then “the Spirit of God dwells in you” (Romans 8:9). The same Spirit who raised and glorified Jesus has made your heart his home (Romans 8:11), his presence a promise that your groans will turn to glory (Romans 8:23, 30) — and a promise, too, that glory can even now enter your groans.

Whenever you walk “according to the Spirit” (Romans 8:5), you feel the beat of glory’s undying heart. Whenever you put to death some deed of the body (Romans 8:13), or respond to heartache by crying, “Abba!” (Romans 8:15), or love Christ in the midst of deep loss (Romans 8:35–39), you hold, like Noah, an olive leaf of the coming glory, a little piece of the land beyond sorrow.

Some pain fills the whole frame of this life. Some wounds never heal fully in this world. Some hopes follow us, still deferred, into the grave. But glory is coming — and the Spirit of glory lives, even now, as our inseparable friend. And the sufferings of this present time, however high and wide and deep and long, are not worth comparing with him.