Audio Transcript

Welcome back to the podcast on this Monday. Last time we were together, you said, Pastor John, that “God enlists us into his service, which means he calls us to have a part in accomplishing his purposes, not in meeting his needs.” Yes. That’s really key. He uses us — and in using us, we meet no need in God. And if that’s true, then comes this question: What do we do with all the texts that talk about what we give to God?

That’s the dilemma in the mind of a listener named Jeff, thinking about Sunday mornings. “Pastor John, thank you for this podcast. You have taught that we are to come to corporate worship gatherings hungry to receive, not to give to God, as if he needed anything. That’s Acts 17:25. Yet there are other passages related to corporate worship that clearly use the language of ‘giving.’ Like: ‘Let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name’ (Hebrews 13:15). Or ‘bring an offering’ to him (Psalm 96:8). Or, ‘Give thanks to him; bless his name’ (Psalm 100:4). How do you harmonize these two seemingly opposite perspectives on our role in corporate worship? What do we give to God?”

It’s true that I have said very often that I think pastors make a mistake if they scold their people for coming to worship to get rather than to give. That’s a mistake. They shouldn’t do that. If I hear a pastor say, “If you people would just come to give to God rather than get from God, we would have meaningful worship services,” I think that’s a serious mistake. In fact, I don’t hear that so much anymore, which makes me happy.

Now, I do suspect that such a pastoral rebuke is really onto something true. People can come to worship to get the wrong thing. They can come to get seen for their new outfit — that used to happen on Easter at the church I grew up in. They can come to appear moral in the community as an upstanding churchgoer. They can come to merely see their friends. They can come to merely take their children to get some moral instruction. They can come in the hopes that their marriage will get better. And pastors sense this wrong coming to get, and they know it’s not healthy. “My people are coming to get all the wrong things.”

But when the pastor diagnoses this problem as a disease of wanting to receive instead of wanting to give, that’s the mistake.

Godward Longing

It’s not a disease to want to receive in worship. I have argued that the very essence of worship — and not just the outward acts of worship, but the inward essence of worship — is being satisfied in all that God is for us in Jesus.

Therefore, the way people should come to worship, if I’m right, is to come hungry to be satisfied in God, to see God more clearly, to taste God more sweetly, to be amazed at the way God is, to feel the admiration and the wonder of his greatness, and to feel hopefulness and thankfulness and confidence of heart welling up because of the bounty of his grace. All that is a way of getting, not giving. And the right posture of that kind of getting is a sense of hunger and neediness and desperation and longing and praying for more of God, more of Christ, more of grace, more power. That’s the kind of getting I’m talking about.

And my point is that when we assume that kind of needy, expectant, Godward posture, God gets glory, not us. And that’s the essence of worship. And worship services and preaching should aim to awaken and satisfy that kind of God-hunger, that kind of God-getting.

Giving in Worship

But Jeff is right to ask if I am contradicting the biblical language of giving to God in worship. Of course, I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to contradict the Bible. I love the Bible. I believe the Bible. I’m getting all this from the Bible.

If we read our English Bibles, we will see texts like these:

“Give praise to [God]” (Joshua 7:19).
“We give thanks to you, O God” (Psalm 75:1).
“Bless the Lord” (Psalm 103:1).
“He gave glory to God” (Romans 4:20).
“[Give] power to God” (Psalm 68:34).
“Offer up a sacrifice of praise to God” (Hebrews 13:15).

“When we assume a needy, expectant, Godward posture, God gets glory, not us.”

I know these texts are in the Bible. I love them. I aim to obey them. And I don’t think they contradict what I just said about the essence of worship as being satisfied in all that God is for us, and coming to worship services hungry to get more of God.

So, here are five quick observations to support this claim that that’s not a contradiction.

1. ‘Giving’ to God rarely appears in Hebrew.

Now, this is just a pointer; it’s not a kind of absolute statement about the use of giving language in worship. If you look up all the uses of the word “give” (which I did to get ready for this) — the Hebrew word nathan, a super common word for “give” in a hundred contexts — there are nintey-five uses in the Psalms, and only three refer to giving to God. Two of those three deny that we should:

“No man can . . . give to God the price of his life” (Psalm 49:7).
“You will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it” (Psalm 51:16).

The single text says, “[Give] power to God, whose majesty is over Israel” (Psalm 68:34). Virtually all other places in the Psalms where we read in English that we should give to God praise or give to God thanks, the Hebrew has no word for give. It’s just the word praise and the word thank, and we use the word give and so create the problem for ourselves.

None of that says we should not use the language of giving to God; I don’t want to go that far at all. But it should be a caution that maybe the psalm writers were jealous not to put God in the position of being the main receiver in worship rather than the main giver in worship, since the giver gets the glory. That’s number one.

2. We ascribe rather than add to God.

That text in Psalm 68:34 that says, “[Give] power to God” is translated in the ESV, “Ascribe power to God.” And surely that is right. So, I think what we ought to mean when we speak of giving God glory — or giving honor or giving strength or giving wisdom or giving power — is that we are ascribing those things to God, not adding anything to God. We are, in essence, receiving those things as gifts for us to enjoy, and echoing back to God our admiration and enjoyment that we call, “give God glory.”

3. Our willingness to give is a gift.

The Bible teaches that all our gifts to God — whether ourselves or our resources or our praises or our thanks — are already God’s, and he himself is giving us the willingness and the ability to give him what is his. In 1 Chronicles 29:14, when the people of Israel gave generously, David says — I remember I used to use this over and over when I was a pastor to try to encourage the right kind of giving to the church — “But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able thus to offer willingly?” In other words, the willingness was a gift. “For all things come from you, and of your own have we given you.” Now, that means that both the thing given and the act of giving are gifts to us.

4. We are always receivers.

Paul says in Romans 11:35, “Who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” Of course, the answer is nobody. And then he gives the reason: “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever” (Romans 11:36). In other words, the Bible really wants to discourage us from thinking of ourselves as originating any gift to God. We are always receivers, even in our giving, and we should love to have it so.

5. Giving is really getting.

C.S. Lewis expresses why it is that our giving in worship is really a getting. Our giving praise to God is really getting joy in God. Here’s this famous quote that I’ve quoted so many times. I love it. “The Psalmists,” Lewis says,

in telling everyone to praise God are doing what all men do when they speak of what they care about. My whole, more general, difficulty about the praise of God depended on my absurdly denying to us, as regards to the supremely Valuable, what we delight to do, what indeed we can’t help doing, about everything else we value. I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment. (Reflections on the Psalms, 110–11)

That’s the key right there.

Okay, here’s Lewis again. Praise is the joy’s “appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed” (111).

So, I end where we started. Yes, we come to worship to give praise to God, but the essence of that praise is being satisfied in all that God is for us in worship, and the overflow in outward acts is the completion of the joy — joy in God — which is a gift from God to us.

Andrew Bonar sat at his desk late in the afternoon of March 25, 1843. He scribbled out the final edits on his Lord’s Day sermon for the following morning. Then, at 5:00, Bonar received some shocking news: his beloved friend Robert Murray M’Cheyne had died from typhus fever, only weeks shy of his thirtieth birthday.

Bonar did not know M’Cheyne had been sick. Days before, a letter was sent to Bonar’s residence informing him of Robert’s illness, but the document was misaddressed. Thus, Bonar recorded on that somber Saturday, “A message has just come to tell me of Robert M’Cheyne’s death. Never, never yet in all my life have I felt anything like this: It is a blow to myself, to his people, to the church of Christ in Scotland.”1

Bonar raced down to Dundee, where M’Cheyne had a famous ministry at St. Peter’s. He discovered a church almost convulsing in grief. Hundreds of congregants filled the lower gallery. Weeping and crying were heard in the street. “Such a scene of sorrow has not often been witnessed in Scotland,” Bonar reported.2 One local paper, The Witness, soon devoted numerous articles to M’Cheyne in three different editions. “His precious life was short,” one column recalled, “but he was an aged saint in Christian experience. . . . Into those few years there was compressed a life-time of ministerial usefulness.”3

For almost two centuries now, M’Cheyne’s “ministerial usefulness” has fascinated countless Christians. How is it that a young man, who served in gospel ministry for only seven years, has so captured hearts and instructed minds? How do people even come to know about M’Cheyne?

The answer is found in a book: The Memoir and Remains of Robert Murray M’Cheyne by Andrew Bonar.

Prayer-Saturated Book

Within weeks of M’Cheyne’s death, family and friends discussed the possibility of someone writing his biography. Bonar was the first nominee and most logical choice. Bonar had long possessed a literary gift, and no one had been closer to M’Cheyne since their days as students at the Divinity Hall in Edinburgh. Bonar agreed to take on the task.

Bonar began his work in September of 1843 and completed the first edition three months later. “Finished my Memoir of Robert M’Cheyne yesterday morning,” Bonar journaled on December 23, 1843. “Praise, praise to the Lord. I have been praying, ‘Guide me with Thine eye.’ I may soon be gone; but I am glad that the Lord has permitted me to finish this record of His beloved servant.”4

The Memoir was published in the spring of 1844. “The M’Cheyne Circle” of pastors, a collection of evangelical titans in the just-formed Free Church of Scotland, prayed fervently for the book. Before the book’s publication, Bonar and his friends committed to “a season of special prayer and fast to ask blessing on the Memoir, and the raising up of many holy men.”5

The Lord answered their prayers.

Popularity and Power

The Memoir was published in 1844 to near-universal acclaim. It “commanded a sale almost unprecedented in the annals of religious biography,” one newspaper stated.6 Within 25 years, the Memoir went through 116 English editions, and close to 500,000 copies were printed through the early 1900s. The book remains in print today and has been translated into multiple languages.

Bonar’s diary often remarks on correspondence received from readers of the Memoir. “Many tokens have I received of the Lord’s blessing that book,” he rejoiced.7 Bonar’s children later recalled how an unconverted curate in the Church of England received the book from his brother. The curate decided to read some of M’Cheyne’s sermons to his congregation on the Lord’s Day. He was amazed to discover his church asking questions about Christ and eternity that “they had never spoken of before.”8 God used the Memoir to convert sinners, comfort saints, and commission servants of Christ.

Charles Spurgeon held the Memoir in the highest regard, commending it to his students at the Pastor’s College as “one of the best and most profitable volumes ever published. Every minister should read it often.”9 More recently, Sinclair Ferguson has referred to the Memoir as “one of my most treasured possessions. . . . It is a book every young Christian man should read — more than once.” Joel Beeke calls it “one of the top ten books in the world.”

Profiting from the Memoir

Late in his life, Bonar traveled to America. He was surprised with the notoriety attached to him as the famed author of M’Cheyne’s life. “Filled with alarm and regret in reviewing the Lord’s mercies to me, in using me to write the Memoir of R. M. M’Cheyne, for which I’m continually received thanks from ministers,” Bonar wrote. “Why was I commissioned to write that book? How poor have been my returns of thankfulness. Oh, when shall I attain to the same holy sweetness and unction, and when shall I reach the deep fellowship with God which he used to manifest?”10

Bonar’s mention of holiness, unction, and communion with God underlines the Memoir’s typical attractions. As the title suggests, The Memoir and Remains of Robert Murray M’Cheyne consists of two parts. The book begins with Bonar’s memoir, a biography of M’Cheyne that stretches to something like 160 pages. The second part, the Remains, fills a few hundred pages with writings from M’Cheyne — sermons, letters, tracts, and hymns. Each page bursts with that grand secret of M’Cheyne’s ministry: love to Christ.

Why, then, should someone today read Bonar’s Memoir and Remains of Robert Murray M’Cheyne? Because the pages unfold and embody the apostolic heartbeat to preach earnestly “for the love of Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:14) and to “count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:8).

Read the Memoir to enter M’Cheyne’s school of piety and ministry. Read to discover what it means that “it is not great talents God blesses so much as great likeness to Jesus.”11 Read to know the power that comes from a life saturated with Scripture, one that not only tries to understand God’s word, but also “to feel it.”12 Read to remember how preaching is indeed “the grand instrument which God has put into our hands, by which sinners are to be saved, and saints fitted for glory.”13 Read to have your soul stirred from M’Cheyne’s experience of revival, that “very glorious and remarkable work of God.”14 Read to hear a thirst for holiness that prayed, “Lord, make me as holy as a pardoned sinner can be made.”15

M’Cheyne’s Christ

Finally, understand something vital. M’Cheyne once warned about people paying more attention to preachers than to the Christ they proclaimed. He used the story of Moses and the bronze serpent to illustrate his point (Numbers 21:4–9). “As I have told you before, the only use of the pole was to hold up the brazen serpent. No one thought of looking at the pole. . . . We are to hold up Jesus before you, and before ourselves too: so that we shall disappear, and nothing shall be seen but Christ.”

Read the Memoir rightly, and the real shining light you see is nothing other than the beauty and excellency of Jesus Christ.

When I applied for seminary, I had the naive notion that I would graduate (after just four years) having essentially mastered the Bible. I knew, of course, that I would keep reading it for the rest of my life, even daily, but I figured by then I would be brushing up on what I’d already seen, not hiking up the mountain anymore.

Less than a week into my first semester, that naive notion mercifully crashed, took on water, and drowned. And from its grave, a new hunger emerged, a happy realization that I would never exhaust this book, that if I kept reading, I would see more year by year, not less. Not only could I not master this book in four years, but I came to see that I couldn’t in forty years — or four hundred, for that matter, if God gave me centuries. No, my time in seminary was a serious education in how to be gladly mastered by the Book, ready to be awakened, chastened, exhorted, and thrilled by it for as long as I live.

The iceberg on which my naivete sweetly crashed and sank was one of the happiest men I’ve ever met, a pastor who has served for decades, and devoted many of those years to teaching naive men like me to study, live, and teach the word of God. Now a decade removed from seminary, I firmly believe that nothing I learned was more valuable than witnessing, week after week, a humble, joyful, wide-eyed Tom Steller open the Bible with us.

That Kind of Happy

By the time I started seminary, I had memorized Psalm 1:1–2, but meeting Pastor Tom brought two of the words in particular into fuller, more tangible life: blessed and delight.

Blessed is the man     who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,nor stands in the way of sinners,     nor sits in the seat of scoffers;but his delight is in the law of the Lord,     and on his law he meditates day and night.

Walking through Scripture with Pastor Tom, verse by verse, even phrase by phrase, was like tasting honey for the first time. When King David says that the rules of the Lord are “sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb,” we know that honey is sweet, even if we’ve never had any. But actually tasting honey for ourselves makes a verse like Psalm 19:10 really sing. That’s what happened as I watched Tom Steller savor Ephesians. He was (and is!) the blessed man, and his delight in the word was nearly tangible. He’s that kind of happy.

“He treasured what he saw far more than how he might be seen.”

Who knows how many times he had been through Ephesians in his life? And this wasn’t even his first time teaching the book. Yet he came to class expectant, on the edge of his seat, like a five-year-old just before the ice cream comes. You left class wanting to read your Bible more because you wanted to see more of what he saw, to feel what he felt, to live and pastor like he did.

That Kind of Humble

Over time, digging into chapter after chapter with Tom, we slowly uncovered the quiet secret to his joy in Bible reading: humility. Even after reading these verses for years, studying these verses for years, even teaching these verses for years, he came to class to learn — to see what he had not seen (or to correct what he thought he had seen). Don’t be mistaken, he had deep, durable convictions, but he held those convictions with an equally deep and durable humility.

No verse was too familiar. No question seemed threatening. No alternative translation or interpretation was discarded too quickly. In his fifties, he took as much or even more joy in the insights a twentysomething stumbled upon. He wanted to see everything there was to see in these chapters, and he didn’t care how he saw it or who saw it first, whether a fellow pastor or professor, one of his students, or a second grader. He treasured what he saw far more than how he might be seen.

In this rare freedom from pride, he modeled what John Piper says about supernatural, soul-stirring Bible reading:

When the Spirit works in the reading of Scripture, we are humbled, and Christ is exalted. Our old preference for self-exaltation is replaced with a passion for Christ-exaltation. This new passion is the key that throws open a thousand windows in Scripture to let in the brightness of God’s glory. (Reading the Bible Supernaturally, 248)

That’s what it was like in Tom’s classroom, flooded with light. Each week, more windows appeared, opening up some fresh and vivid view of God. Because he never assumed he’d seen it all, even in his favorite chapters and verses, he saw more than most could. And then more again the next day.

The Unblessed Man

Providentially, I met a second pastor during that first week of seminary, a retired pastor who served at the food shelf where I worked. While he was kind and generous, he and Tom were dramatically different pastors (and Christians). Getting to know them, I learned that their many and varied differences had their root in one underlying divergence.

“You left class wanting to read your Bible more because you wanted to see more of what he saw.”

One day at the food shelf, after the staff finished reading our daily chapter of the Bible together, I was talking to the retired pastor about something we read that morning. At some point in the conversation, I asked what Bible reading looked like for him at this stage of his life, imagining that retirement might afford even more time to slow down, meditate, and enjoy Scripture. I’ll never forget what he said next (and where I was sitting when he said it):

Oh, I don’t read the Bible much anymore, just the couple days I’m here at the food shelf. I’ve read it all many times before. Now that I’m retired, I can focus on other things.

Here was a man who had devoted his vocational life to Christian ministry, and yet the Bible had grown old, unappealing, even unnecessary. God himself has spoken in ink and paper and wonder, and yet somehow he’d seen enough.

While Pastor Tom woke up, day after day, to new and wider windows, this man pulled the shades. If Tom’s bright eyes were a towering lighthouse of hope and reward for an aspiring pastor, this man’s dim eyes were an ominous cloud of warning.

Minutes from the Mountains

The retired pastor incriminated himself, exposing a shameful, arrogant ignorance — and yet he’s not the stranger I wish he were. We may not say out loud what he was so willing to say, but we betray ourselves whenever we race past or rush through this book. Satan stands beside all our windows, distracting us, interrupting us, taunting us, entertaining us. His warped lenses make the oceans of Scripture look like thimbles and the lions like kittens. He turns awe-inspiring mountains into molehills.

But even at his murderous best, Satan’s fighting uphill. The brilliance and beauty of the Bible shines through even the heaviest blackout curtains. If we slow down enough to see what’s there, with the Spirit’s help, we’re just minutes from sunlight and grandeur, from reality and vitality, from hope and joy. Wisdom promises this kind of Bible reading to those who come humble and hungry:

If you call out for insight     and raise your voice for understanding,if you seek it like silver     and search for it as for hidden treasures,then you will understand the fear of the Lord     and find the knowledge of God. (Proverbs 2:3–5)

I hope you have a Tom Steller somewhere in your life, someone who throws open windows for you in Bible reading, someone who won’t stop looking and asking and listening, someone who helps you over tall hurdles, out of deep ruts, through thick forests, someone who loves watching you see more — and seeing more through you.

And I hope you, like me, get to be his kind of happy.

A TV with no remotes. A theater with no exit. A dream with no waking. Such can the imagination seem in the midst of lustful temptation.

Many are familiar with the mumbled no, the shake of the head, the attempt to turn thoughts elsewhere. And perhaps just as many have felt the persistence of dark ideas, the return of images unwanted. We wandered into this theater of the imagination so easily, but now we can’t seem to find the way out.

How do we wake from this dream and break this imaginative spell? Many strategies may prove useful. Rehearse God’s promises, pray earnestly, sing a hymn. Or, less spiritual but still helpful, get outside, do push-ups, call a friend. Francis of Assisi once counseled a brother to throw himself into a freezing river, which he did. No doubt that would work.

Alongside these approaches, however, Scripture offers another. Instead of trying to shut down the imagination, engage it. Take this theater, which lust has so often wielded against you, and wield it now against lust.

Guard Your Mind

Perhaps no book teaches us how to wield the imagination against lust more than Proverbs does. Especially in the father’s words to his son in chapters 5–7, the book fills the theater of the mind with images designed to strip lust of its strength. Consider, for example, the father’s warning against the forbidden woman in Proverbs 7:25–27. He begins with a simple command:

Let not your heart turn aside to her ways;     do not stray into her paths.

Here is well-worn wisdom for resisting lust, wisdom we have likely heard many times before (and probably can’t hear too often). As with so many sins, the battle against lust is often won or lost at the start. Once the heart has turned aside, once the feet have strayed, we bring them back only with great difficulty. The road to the forbidden woman’s house runs downhill in every direction — and every road back is an upward climb. Far easier, then, to turn and flee at the head of her street than over the threshold of her home.

“As with so many sins, the battle against lust is often won or lost at the start.”

So far, so good. But how do we turn away at these crucial moments, as the wisp of a thought begins to form? Again, many strategies may prove useful. But here, the father bids his son to do something counterintuitive, even seemingly dangerous: imagine lust. Don’t simply look away, but look even more intently, beyond the temptation, to see what really lives behind the door of dark desire.

Theater of Faith

After commanding his son not to stray in verse 25, the father fights image with image:

For many a victim has she laid low,     and all her slain are a mighty throng.Her house is the way to Sheol,     going down to the chambers of death. (Proverbs 7:26–27)

The word for at the start tells us that what follows gives the reason, the great why, for stopping lust before the first step. And this why is not just a logical argument (though it is that too), but an image, a scene — a different story on imagination’s screen. Before, the son had seen the forbidden woman dressed scantily on the corner, her couch covered with linens, her bed perfumed — lust wearing makeup (Proverbs 7:12, 16–17). Now, he sees her black-robed and holding a sickle, her couch a sinkhole to hell, her bed an open coffin.

What is this father doing? Perhaps he remembers how, in the beginning, our first parents fell not merely by argument but by image: an image of a good tree, a wise self, and a withholding God (Genesis 3:4–6). Perhaps, closer to home, he remembers how the mighty David fell, in a moment, by a sight that remained on the surface, a figure that filled the mind (2 Samuel 11:2–3).

Either way, he knows the power of image, for both good and ill. He knows that, though imagination cannot substitute for faith, yet faith feeds on true images of God, self, and the world. Faithful imaginations remind faith what’s real — and what’s not.

Conceivably, the son in Proverbs 7 could have said no to the forbidden woman even if he failed to see the grave behind her door — just as Eve could have said no to the serpent even under the sway of his false images. The will may say no for the moment, even when the imagination is held captive. But long-term, those who say no on these conditions lose even if they win, for today’s corrupt imagination is tomorrow’s corrupt heart, corrupt will. Self-control cannot live long in a theater filled with lies. For as the imagination goes, so goes the man.

Come then, along with this father and son, and imagine.

Imagine Lust

There you are, sitting at your desk or lying in your bed, when a figure begins to call from the corner of your mind. An image flickers. A thought starts to take shape. But then you imagine: Who is this forbidden woman, this lady lust, this whisper in the dark?

Though her lips drip with honey and oil, she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a sword (Proverbs 5:3–4). The very opposite of medicine, she leads with pleasure and ends with pain; she pledges healing and slashes instead. Beyond her, you see her former “lovers”: retching, writhing, bleeding, dying.

She is a hidden snare, an invisible cord (Proverbs 5:22). Carried on by “just this once” and “just a little more,” her victims find their foot caught, their wrists wrapped. They promised themselves one visit to her home. Now they find they cannot leave.

She is a butcher and a hunter (Proverbs 7:22–23), the catcher of simple animals who see the meat and miss the hook. The man who follows her path walks as vulnerable as a stag seen from the other side of a bow. “He does not know that it will cost him his life” (Proverbs 7:23).

And then, as our passage puts it, she is death’s reaper, Sheol’s usher, mistress of the grave (Proverbs 7:26–27). With every stolen pleasure, she digs your grave deeper, carves another letter on your headstone, pounds another nail into your coffin.

Wormwood and sword, snare and cord, butcher and hunter, reaper and undertaker — here is the face of this seductive killer, the true face a wise father shows his son. Of course, a man may see lust as such and still fall into her arms. But he will have a harder time imagining himself lying down on a linen-covered couch: to get to her, he will have to climb into his grave.

Imagine Purity

God made the imagination for more than grim warnings, however. In temptation, faithful imaginations will not only look past the apparent beauty of lust; they also will look past the apparent homeliness of obedience. They will imagine purity.

The father sets the two imaginative tasks side by side:

Let your fountain be blessed,     and rejoice in the wife of your youth,     a lovely deer, a graceful doe.Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight;     be intoxicated always in her love.Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman     and embrace the bosom of an adulteress? (Proverbs 5:18–20)

“Self-control cannot live long in a theater filled with lies. For as the imagination goes, so goes the man.”

The antidote to sinful intoxication is not mere sobriety, but righteous intoxication. Fight imagination with imagination — and for those who are married, begin with your spouse. Imagine the beauty of your marriage bed. Remember “the wife of your youth,” whose lips drip with honey that never sours, whose hands hide no sword, whose face gets lovelier the longer you look with faithful eyes. And do this “at all times” and “always.” Keep the theater of your mind filled with an intimacy guarded by vows.

That said, not all — and not most — who battle lust are married. And what’s more, Proverbs holds out a more powerful purity even for those who are married.

Imagine Him

Alongside “the wife of your youth,” the father counsels his son, again and again, to imagine another figure — better than a spouse, more pleasurable than married love: wisdom and, beyond her, the God she gives us.

The path of God-fearing wisdom, even the path of celibate God-fearing wisdom, is “more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire can compare with her” (Proverbs 3:15). She gives a smooth road, a fearless way, sweet sleep (Proverbs 3:23–24). Indeed, “her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace” (Proverbs 3:17). Whatever road of wisdom lies in front of you, however austere it may seem, you will find in the walking of it pleasantness and peace — pleasantness like Eden’s lawful fruit, peace like quiet streams in the land of the living.

Because all of wisdom’s paths lead us to the God who made them — more than that, the God who walked them himself, pure and happy and far better than anything forbidden. He is our glory and joy, our dignity and delight, the face meant to fill the theater of our mind. His fellowship is lust’s worst loss, purity’s greatest prize. He is Jesus.

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). Imagine that. Imagine him.

Legacies are multigenerational. For good or evil, your influence has the potential to span generations, even eternity, impacting individuals you may or may not meet in your lifetime.

As we’ve learned again and again, it only takes one scandal, one Judas-like betrayal, one failure or gross inconsistency to damage the legacy we leave. And it takes a lifetime of God-enabled faithfulness — a grace he loves to give — to create a beautiful legacy worthy of emulation. Oh, how I thank God for the men and women I’ve known who have lived such lives and left such legacies, which brings me to Ron Wickard.

Ron Wickard humbly pastored the same church out on the remote South Dakota prairie for 42 years, providing one beautiful model of what it means to “dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness” (Psalm 37:3). He led his growing congregation longer than Moses led the children of Israel in the wilderness. By grace, he preached to, taught, dedicated, married, and buried a couple of generations, diligently trained his elders in biblical doctrine, and successfully oversaw five building campaigns (funding a fleet of church vehicles for good measure).

Ron was a tenaciously patient leader, both with individual sinners and with the sometimes slow movement of church “politics.” He took the long view. That’s what wisdom does. So, what sustained Pastor Ron on his long road of faithful ministry? His love for the sovereignty and the supremacy of Jesus.

Supremacy Unleashes Love

Ron’s spiritual taste buds savored the Christ-exalting Scriptures. One night, after a meeting between Ron and me, his deep, enthusiastic belief in the God-centeredness of God kept us sitting in his car discussing and reveling in God’s glorious supremacy, considering text after text, until the sun came up the next morning. Over decades, Ron plunged his soul in the river of rich books extolling the absolute preeminence of Jesus. Beholding the character of Jesus in the Bible, he increasingly became what he beheld, and he invited his people to come and see what he saw in the Bible.

This pastor really loved the people of his church. On multiple occasions, I witnessed him drive over three hundred miles to arrive at a board meeting, only to receive a phone call that one tragedy or another had happened back at his home church (a house fire, the death of a baby, some other crisis). He would get right back in his car and drive three hundred miles home to minister to those in need. His endurance and love went hand in hand, always doing what he believed was best for his people, which was often a significant inconvenience to himself.

Over time, I saw that he did all of this for joy. He took pleasure in knowing that he was representing a big God who orchestrates all things for his own glory and that he was pursuing a profound, eternal good for the people he loved. When you do such things at a church for 42 years, you not only minister to one generation, but you minister to their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Tenacious Patience

It takes time for trees to produce fruit. The same is true of any healthy church. Some trees, such as plum trees, take just three to five years to produce, while other trees, like almond trees, can take up to twelve years. Growing a healthy church in the middle of the South Dakota pheasant range is sort of like tending an almond tree. It might grow fruit slowly, but the growth does come. And the result is a crop of glad-hearted worshipers who devour the Bible and embrace a big God.

Albert Mohler notes how commonly we “overestimate what can be accomplished in a single year, but underestimate what can be accomplished in a decade” (The Conviction to Lead, 194). Or four decades. Kids I once saw as teenagers in Ron’s church are now elders teaching adult classes. Ron, of course, won’t take any credit for that, but chalks it up to God’s grace. I would add that such grace often flows through the conduit of long-term pastoral faithfulness.

Leadership includes times of leaning into the wind, trudging uphill, and going against the grain of the world, the flesh, and the devil. Hence, leadership is an endurance test. It requires tenacious patience.

Fatigue of Various Kinds

Leader or not, every day requires grace. Some days seem to require more grace than others. During some particularly intense seasons, it can seem like you’re burning through grace at a whirlwind pace. Though there is never(!) a shortage of grace to do what’s right, you can experience various kinds of fatigue.

Perhaps there’s a lengthy controversy still brewing, and you face issue fatigue. Perhaps there’s a gadfly who keeps demanding a disproportionate amount of your time and attention, leading to that-guy fatigue. Or perhaps you’re simply aging, and you feel body fatigue. Maybe you’re at the tail end of a long building campaign, and you have project fatigue. In any case, no matter the variety of fatigue, there is an enabling grace from God to endure in the strength he supplies and to do what ought to be done. Call it leadership for the long haul. And since great leadership serves the people, great leadership is servanthood, so we could also call it servanthood for the long haul.

Meanwhile, merely enduring falls short. There’s something better. Great servants don’t endure merely. They endure by “being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy” (Colossians 1:11). Patience with joy — that’s what I’ve seen in Ron. When it came to difficulties, Ron wouldn’t merely bear it, but would grin and bear it in the strength God supplies. Because he knew that behind the dark providences was always a smiling divine face.

Steadfast Love

As Ron observed the beauty of Jesus’s fidelity to his bride, the church, Ron inhaled that beauty and reproduced it. I experienced this firsthand. When Vicki and I endured a miscarriage, Ron traveled over 150 miles one way to attend the burial of a child he never met. Sorrowful, yet rejoicing, we together worshiped the God who makes no mistakes and works all things together for the good of those who love him.

Having genuinely and steadfastly loved his people for over four decades, Ron, like Jesus, “loved them to the end” (John 13:1). When he stepped down from his senior pastor role, the wife of his successor told me, “He loves the people. He does what’s best for them.” And by loving that way, Ron was (and still is) an example to his flock (1 Peter 5:3). And to me.

Hebrews 13:7 says, “Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.” Ron Wickard is a humble pastoral leader who factors prominently in my memory, leaving me to consider the outcome of his way of life and longing to imitate his faith — as he imitates Jesus.

Part 2 Episode 63 If disunity contradicts the undivided Christ, then we can pursue and deepen unity by focusing on his identity and work. In this episode of Light + Truth, John Piper explores the truth of Christ and Christian unity in 1 Corinthians 1:10–17.

Audio Transcript

Welcome back to the podcast today. We have a trio of interesting emails to work through in the next three weeks, Pastor John, as I look ahead on the calendar of questions on the table. What does it mean to serve God? That’s today. Next week: As we serve God, what do we give him? Are we giving him anything that he doesn’t already have? Does he need us? That’s APJ 1957. And then a week after that: What does it mean to be spiritual? Spirituality is a squishy concept in the world today, and we’re going to work toward a definition in APJ 1960. It’s an interesting trio of topics, all at the foundations of what it means to be a successful Christian living out the Christian life.

So, today: What does it mean to serve God? The question is from a listener named Amy. “Pastor John, hello. I was discussing the phrase ‘serve the Lord’ with a fellow believer the other day, and I was wondering if you could clarify something for us. All over Scripture, we are told to ‘serve the Lord.’ In Psalm 100:2, it says to ‘serve the Lord with gladness.’ Deuteronomy 10:12 says, ‘Serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.’ Joshua says, ‘As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord’ (Joshua 24:15). And Paul in Romans 12:11 also tells us to ‘serve the Lord.’ But then, in Mark 10:45, Jesus says, ‘The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve.’ Christians throw around the phrase ‘serve the Lord’ so often, but I’m not sure I know what that phrase means. Can you clarify this for me?”

I think this is one of the most important questions a Christian can ask about living the Christian life in a way that glorifies God and does good to other people. It gets at the utterly crucial issue of a right way of serving God that honors him and blesses people, and a wrong way of serving God that dishonors him and doesn’t help people. This is not a marginal issue. We’re talking about what it means to be a Christian moment by moment in real life.

Let’s make it crystal clear that Amy is right that the Bible teaches almost everywhere that human beings are to serve God, and when the Son of God comes into the world, we are to serve him. In the Old Testament, Joshua says, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15). And then Paul celebrates the Thessalonian converts because “you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God” (1 Thessalonians 1:9).

Over and over again, Paul calls himself and he calls Christians “servants” — literally, “slaves” — of Christ and of God (Romans 1:1; Ephesians 6:6). Peter does the same in 1 Peter 2:16 and 2 Peter 1:1. It is unmistakable. One biblical way of speaking rightly about the relationship to God that we have is to call ourselves servants or slaves of God and of Christ. That’s right. She’s drawing attention to that, and she should.

Warning Lights

Now, as soon as we say that, we must ask really pointedly what’s involved in serving God and what’s not involved in serving God. If we start serving God as though we could earn wages from him, or as though we could meet his needs, or as though we could put him in our debt and make him our beneficiary, red biblical lights start flashing very brightly. For example, in John 15:15, Jesus says to his disciples, “No longer do I call you servants [or slaves], for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.” And yet in John 15:14, the preceding verse, he says, “You are my friends if you do what I command you.” Whoa. What kind of a friend is that?

So, the meaning of “slave” or “servant” is qualified. And the meaning of “friend” is qualified. We can’t just assume that what we mean by servant or friend is what Jesus means by servant or friend. We have to listen.

Or here’s another bright, flashing red light: “[God is not] served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything” (Acts 17:25). So yes, serve him, but not that way — not as though he needed your service.

“Serve God, but not by presuming to meet his need. He owns everything. He doesn’t need your supply.”

Or here’s another red flashing light. God says, “If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine. . . . [You] call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me” (Psalm 50:12, 15). That was one of Spurgeon’s favorite verses. He called it Robinson Crusoe’s text, because that’s what he quotes in the book. Yes, serve God, but not by presuming to meet his need. He owns everything. He doesn’t need your supply. We call on him in need, not the other way around.

Here’s another red flashing light. Amy quoted it. “The Son of Man came not to be served” — that’s a pretty clear warning — “but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). He saves us; we don’t save him. He meets our need; we don’t meet his need.

Here’s one more flashing red light of warning about serving God in any old way that we think might be right. In Romans 4:4–5 — you can’t get much more basic than this — Paul describes how the Christian life begins. Are we justified and put right with God by working for God — earning a wage — or by trusting him to work for us in our utter helplessness? Here’s the quote: “To the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.” We did not get right with God in the beginning of our Christian life by serving him for a wage of salvation. He worked for us, he served us, not us him. He did the humanly impossible on the cross.

So, with all those red warning lights flashing in our face, we better not serve God that way — as though we could earn wages, as though we could meet his needs, as though we could put him in our debt or make him our beneficiary.

Here’s what we need to ask. Well, how should we serve him? You keep telling us all the bad ways. What is right service?

Every Step a Gift of Grace

Maybe the deepest and clearest answer is 1 Peter 4:11. This got prayed over me every time I preached at Bethlehem. For years and years, this was our go-to verse just before walking upstairs to preach: “Whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies — in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever.”

So, every effort expended in the service of God is a God-given effort. That may be the most important sentence. Let me say it again: Every effort expended in the service of God, the right service of God, is a God-given effort. That’s what must absolutely sink into our souls. Otherwise, we will always think of ourselves as bringing to God things that he doesn’t have, as though we could meet his needs, when he doesn’t have any. He’s not served as though he needed anything.

The conception of service that dishonors God and will not help people — because it points them away from God’s all-supplying grace toward our own supposed self-produced moral efforts — is serving without relying upon him to serve us in our serving. All God-pleasing service is done in the moment-by-moment reliance upon God’s service-enabling power. Or to say it another way, the only service of God that pleases God is done through the glad acceptance of his undeserved service toward us and in us. We see this in 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” — you could say, “I served” — “harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.”

“All God-pleasing service is done in the moment-by-moment reliance upon God’s service-enabling power.”

So yes, we work; yes, we serve. We have a master; we obey. But every baby step we take in obedience to our Master is a gift of grace from him to us. Therefore, we should never think of our service to God as a way to repay him in gratitude for his goodness to us, because every step we take in that so-called payback is another gift from him, and it takes us deeper into debt to grace, which is a glorious place to be forever and ever and ever. We will never not be debtors to God’s grace. For all eternity, with every act of glad obedience, we will go deeper and happier into debt to the praise of the glory of his grace.

Life Under the Waterfall

Here’s one last picture of this peculiar kind of service to God. Jesus said, “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money” (Matthew 6:24). So, the question is, How do you serve money? That would be a clue. Serving money doesn’t mean doing things to meet money’s need. You serve money by calculating all your plans, your efforts, to benefit from what money promises you. You calculate your whole life to benefit from what money promises you. Your life revolves around trying to put yourself in the position of the greatest benefit from money.

That’s also what it means to serve God. You serve God by calculating all your plans and all your efforts to benefit from all that God promises to be for you. Your life revolves around trying to put yourself under the waterfall of God’s greatest blessing, positioning yourself for the greatest benefit God has to give — namely, himself.

So, I conclude, yes, God enlists us into his service, which means he calls us to have a part in accomplishing his purposes, not meeting his needs. And he accomplishes his purposes precisely by supplying the grace to do our work, because the giver gets the glory; the servant gets the joy. That’s God’s purpose for his world: his glory and the joy of his people in him.

She allured men to many places,She who is fatally coy.Men, who knew not her embraces,Called her by the name of Joy.

I can’t recall the first moment I experienced the tease, the turmoil, the torment of Joy.

When most speak of joy — when for many years I mentioned her — they mean a smiling joy, an uplifting joy, a joy for sunny days, a pleasant satisfaction. Comforts, fulfillments, good health, gratitude fills her banquet. She bequeaths a desire to be where you already are, a wish for what you already have.

But these were mere honeybees; the hive held a Queen.

The empress Joy emerged with a supremacy that murdered her rivals. She made common stones of former jewels; ruined my appetite for other meals. When she came nearest, the world beside leaked emptiest. Beauty was her weapon; splendor, her sorcery; allure, her deadly art. She was as a goddess, divine, bewitching.

She did not bestow a quiet contentment; she provoked a desperation, carnivorous and untamed. She knifed an ache for somewhere I wasn’t — a fierce and restless angst (a madness, it at times seemed) for a blessedness I did not possess, a blessedness I did not even know truly existed. What before I never needed, I could no longer live without. My Helen of Troy, hers was the face to launch ten thousand ships.

Shadows in the Water

She had but to smile in my direction and I set sail. She became my White Whale — or rather I her Ahab.

I remember her shadow showing beneath the waters during late evenings salsa dancing at Latin restaurants. While we inhabited the music, dramatizing masculinity and femininity in rhythm, a flicker transcended the fluidity of the dance — a moment — a glimpse.

I sensed her nearness on the football field, the place men feign war. At the helm of combat, time-warped and slowed. A friendly uniform flashed down the sideline. The ball catapulted — spiraling forth with mathematic eloquence, returning from its flight as a falcon diving at its prey. The crowd exhaled a roar — she, for a moment, smiled.

I heard her ancient voice through doorways into other worlds. In stories bigger than men, valor glistened from other lands, evil threatened, a mission dawned worth dying for. Beyond the make-believe worlds of magic and orcs and elves, beyond the battles and the wars and the triumph and restoration — she summoned. But to where?

At other moments, she would peer at me from the other side of a sunset, hike with me through kingdoms of green, smite me with her strings during beautiful symphonies, chuckle with delight through a child’s laughter, or converse intimately while on an evening’s date — but these were never her. “Beauty has smiled, but not to welcome us; her face was turned in our direction, but not to see us. We have not been accepted, welcomed, or taken into the dance” (The Weight of Glory, 41). She but left her perfume upon the doorknob.

Yet, for a moment, as fragile as a whisper, everything seemed right; a ray pierced into the clouded world. But the blaze soon extinguished; the snowflake melted; the credits rolled; the song fell with the heavy thud of silence. These Moseses brought me only to the borderland; quitted me on the wrong side of the Jordan. She invited me up to glance at the land flowing with milk and honey — but not to taste.

As quickly as the thought surfaced — Now this, at last, is what life is all about — she vanished. Her sun set violently. She teased and tore through my sky only to pass the scepter again to the lesser lights, leaving behind a dark and colder night.

Seasick

She led me there and back again,Old age and blisters all I found.The Siren of the souls of men,Forsook me to the ocean’s ground.

Years fled away in this fashion. She would neither give herself to me nor let me die politely with earthly pleasures. Upon these waters I learned the throb, the pain, the menacing loveliness of this Joy unheld, uncaught. I spent years searching at sea, and yet she drew no closer than Tomorrow. Her silhouette draped over creation, estranging me to my own world. Was this angel from heaven or from hell?

“Vanity,” a voice sighed from a farther and sadder sea. He too searched this world for her. “I said in my heart, ‘Come now, I will test you with pleasure; enjoy yourself’” (Ecclesiastes 2:1). He built massive houses, planted gardens. He piled gold atop silver. Peerless was his crown; matchless, his wisdom. The choicest singers followed him with song. He drank nightly from a vineyard of women (Ecclesiastes 2:1–9).

“Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure,” came his testimony (Ecclesiastes 2:10). But behold, vanity! All is vanity. She did not exist under the sun, he said, tossing aside the best earth had to offer. If he could not capture her, what chance had I? Should I turn back?

“Joy itself did not reveal God to me, but she kept me groping after more than this earth.”

She defied my nets, but I couldn’t escape hers. How could I give you up, O my Ephraim? Her seal was upon my heart, her name upon my hopes. My desire for her burned as fire — a fire these many waters could not quench. Although harpoons floated, broken in the sea, she still beamed just beyond with the brightness of first introductions. In truth, I would die reaching out for her; fall slain in her shadow. Fleeting dances with her upon the open water were better than all the inlands of worldly pleasures.

Man After My Own Heart

I perplexed myself. Why strain to sail beyond the sea? Why hunt a brook whose water left me thirstier?

Because “though the sense of want is acute and even painful, yet the mere wanting is felt to be somehow a delight,” voiced another in the waters. “This desire, even when there is no hope of possible satisfaction, continues to be prized, and even to be preferred to anything else in the world, by those who have once felt it. This hunger is better than any other fullness; this poverty better than all other wealth” (The Pilgrim’s Regress, 234).

A hunger better than any other fullness; a poverty better than all other wealth. Nowhere have I found Joy better captured than in C.S. Lewis.

Joy sweetly dragooned Lewis onto the seas through a childhood memory.

Before I knew what I desired, the desire itself was gone, the whole glimpse withdrawn, the world turned commonplace again, or only stirred by a longing for the longing that had just ceased. It had taken only a moment of time; and in a certain sense everything else that had ever happened to me was insignificant in comparison. (Surprised by Joy, 17)

Decades later, this Romantic voyager would recount, “In a sense, the central story of my life is about nothing else” (19).

What was Joy to Lewis?

Joy (in my sense) has indeed one characteristic, and one only, in common with [Happiness and Pleasure]; the fact that anyone who has experienced it will want it again. Apart from that, and considered only in its quality, it might almost equally well be called a particular kind of unhappiness or grief. But then it is a kind we want. I doubt whether anyone who has tasted it would ever, if both were in his power, exchange it for all the pleasures in the world. (19)

A grief better than other delights, a golden unhappiness. Lewis would travel further still to translate the Longing’s secret: you were made for another world.

If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. (Mere Christianity, 136–37)

Men hunger because food exists; they desire women because sex exists; they crave Joy and a beauty bigger than this world because another world exists.

Water at the Well’s End

God used Joy in my own story to prepare me for Jesus. Her honeyed voice cried in the wilderness, “Among you stands one you do not know, even he who comes after me, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie” (John 1:26–27). The Father used this inconsolable longing to “make known to me the path of life,” to accept with David that “in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11). I was made for another world, another Deity.

Joy itself did not reveal God to me, but she kept me groping after more than this earth. Joy did not forgive my sins, but she kept me from being gratified with or “given over to” my sin. She did not have the words of eternal life, but she helped them resonate when I did hear them.

Heaven’s hive buzzed when Joy’s Master finally came to earth. And he visited me. He approached my shallow wells of small pursuits and said, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:13–14).

He stood up at the feast of my greatest enjoyments and cried, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water’” (John 7:37–38).

He spoke over every lust and darling sin, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that [you] may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). “Bring your hunger,” he said. “Bring your strongest and most violent appetite for the good, the true, the beautiful, the everlasting, the ever-increasing — I can meet it. You search for Joy because you think that in her you may have eternal happiness, but it is she that bears witness about me. Come to me and have Life.”

His Joy — a waterfall pouring down from forever, shattering the tiny hearts of his worshipers — is what I needed. “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full” (John 15:11). As a ruined and rebellious son of Adam, I bartered away the knowledge of what I truly desired my whole life. By the Spirit’s recreating power, the long-standing hunger knelt to feast on the Bread of Life.

Old and Stubborn Ache

But if I may end with a word to fellow sailors: the old sore will still irritate — even after knowing Jesus. Lewis would write, “The old stab, the old bittersweet, has come to me as often and as sharply since my conversion as at any time of my life” (Surprised by Joy, 291).

Does this mean we have not found what we are looking for? A moment’s reflection bids us to ask the opposite: Why shouldn’t Joy still pierce with her sugared melancholy? Are we finally home? Are we safe upon the right side of the Jordan? Is the dwelling place of our God now with man? Is Christ before us, shining the sun into retirement?

“Time holds its breath; we hold our breath; Joy holds her breath — for him.”

No, not yet. The old ache — now unmasked — still aggresses my journeying heart, as it did Lewis’s. We still “groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons” (Romans 8:23). Joy still serves salvation. We read that it was the Lord’s mercy that moved angels to seize lingering Lot and his daughters, and bring them out of Sodom to safety (Genesis 19:16). Joy has angelic hands, so guiding us from this Gomorrah all the way to glory.

But for all of that, the importance of Joy, for those who have found Christ, changes. He must increase; she must decrease. The thirst is no more a goddess. She meekly (yet still sometimes roughly) reminds us to go to Christ, drink of Christ, wait expectantly for Christ. On his diminishing interest in Joy, Lewis wrote, “It was valuable only as a pointer to something other and outer. While that other was in doubt, the pointer naturally loomed larger in my thoughts. When we are lost in the woods the sight of a signpost is a great matter” (291).

The end of Joy, for those who have come (by grace) to translate the purpose of Joy, is the homesickness for Christ “who is [our] life” to return (Colossians 3:4). One thing have we asked of him; one thing do we seek after: to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his presence forever (Psalm 27:4). Creation groans; Christians groan. Time holds its breath; we hold our breath; Joy holds her breath — for him.

As Americans celebrate our nation’s founding on July 4, we remember the group of disparate leaders who came together in Philadelphia in the middle of the 1770s to forge enough unity to set thirteen individual colonies on the road to nationhood. What we have in the Declaration of Independence (itself primarily a document listing disagreements with the English government) came together with much contention and political wrangling. These founding leaders had much in common, but that commonality was put to the test over differences in regional interests, economic concerns, and political philosophy.

Different religious convictions also came into play. While most of the members of the Continental Congress were required to hold to basic Christian truths in order to serve in public office, their denominational commitments and doctrinal distinctives played in the background of the formal debates leading up to the ratification of the Declaration, and those tensions carried on into the founding era of the nation.

It is not hard for us to see in our rancorous times how political and religious differences intertwine as they did in our founding era. What was often in short supply then, as it seems to be now, is a model for holding differences in principles and convictions that do not undermine “the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace,” which sets the people of God apart in a fractured world (Ephesians 4:3).

Among that group of eighteenth-century disparate leaders, however, I did find an unusual founder — in my estimation, a model still worth considering. His name is Elias Boudinot.

Uncommonly Christian

Boudinot (1740–1821) is an important but little-known member of America’s founding generation. He grew up a child of the Great Awakening, sitting under the preaching of George Whitefield, Gilbert Tennent, and, for a brief time, Jonathan Edwards in Princeton. He rose to prominence in New Jersey politics and was a man of national influence in the lead up to the American Revolution. During the war, Boudinot served on George Washington’s staff and later in the Continental Congress; he was also president of the Congress at the signing of the Treaty of Paris to end the war. Boudinot was a major player in the first three federal congresses and then served in the administrations of Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson.

After retiring from public service in 1805, he spent the last decade and a half of his life supporting gospel mission in the states and abroad. His lasting legacy was his formative role in establishing the American Bible Society.

“Boudinot endeavored to lead an honorable life of consistent and ardent Christian faith.”

Throughout all of his public engagements, Boudinot endeavored to lead an honorable life of consistent and ardent Christian faith. Historian James Hutson, who has spent years studying the religious thoughts and lives of the founders, writes, “Boudinot is of particular importance, because he was a born-again Presbyterian, whose evangelical views were probably closer to those of the majority of his countrymen than were those of most of his fellow Founders.”1

Man of Gracious Convictions

Boudinot caught his view of God and the world in the great evangelical revival of the mid-eighteenth century, and he never deviated from the path of his early convictions. At the age of 18, he wrote to his friend William Tennent III,

May the Lord grant that we may make a proper use of the short time we have yet remaining. I can’t but record the great goodness of my gracious Protector as well as Preserver, in granting me restraining grace in my youth, and discovering the inestimable worth of an offered Savior unto me. I bless my God for the great hope that is wrought in us, by the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead, without which this life would be an intolerable burden, an inconceivable load of anxiety and despair, for vain are the days of man.2

Then, sixty years later, he would testify in his will to his

firm, unfeigned, and prevailing belief in one sovereign, omnipotent, and eternal Jehovah, a God of infinite love and mercy . . . [who] has been and is still reconciling a guilty world unto himself by his righteousness and atonement, his death and his resurrection, through whom, alone, life and immortality have been brought to light in his gospel, and, by all the powerful influences of his Holy Spirit, is daily sanctifying, enlightening, and leading his faithful people into all necessary truth.3

Boudinot did not cloister himself away from conflict and disagreement, however. An attorney by vocation, he made arguments for a living. He was a patriot, an identified member of the colonial elites who chose to rebel against the most powerful nation in his world. During the war, it fell to him to wrangle with the British over the treatment of captured American soldiers, who were treated not like prisoners of war but as traitors. In government, Boudinot was closely tied to Alexander Hamilton, the most polarizing politician of his era. He was also a committed abolitionist, which put him in unresolvable opposition with half of his country.

How might Elias Boudinot teach us, more than two centuries later, to stand on our own convictions with a firm but gracious disposition?

‘One Lord and Master’

First, Boudinot tended to major on what unites and not what divides.

Boudinot never wavered in his own doctrinal convictions, which were thoroughly Calvinistic. Yet the effect of the Bible’s good news on his life played out in both strong personal convictions and a gracious spirit that looked first for commonalities, not division. His interactions with those with whom he differed on issues of faith consistently displayed the biblical call to “pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding” (Romans 14:19). It was a lifelong impulse.

When he was 18, he wrote to a friend, “What a glorious Prospect (said I to myself) would it afford, if mankind in general would unite together, in living harmony and concord, and endeavor to make every circumstance of life tend to the common advantage.”4 Nearly sixty years later, he expressed his enduring desire to “pare off the rough points of party and conciliate minds of those who ought to consider themselves of one family, acknowledging one Lord and Master.”5

“Boudinot tended to look for what unites and not what divides.”

This Christian impulse toward unity when possible would serve him well in the public positions he held during the Revolution and beyond. It would also be a driving motivation late in life, leading him to gather support from across the Christian landscape to form the American Bible Society.

‘Truly Reviving to His People’

Second, Boudinot welcomed evidence of God’s activity even when he differed with those in whom he observed it.

Boudinot was a lifelong friend of the Anabaptist Quakers, seeing in them a piety that he aspired to emulate, though he disagreed deeply on important doctrinal points. Later in life, when the Second Great Awakening broke out in the early 1800s, though leaders in his denomination reacted with concern over its crowd-gathering practices and populist theology, Boudinot watched with fascination. While he shared their cautions, Boudinot had learned firsthand from his father and the leaders of the First Great Awakening to look for authentic spiritual fruit wherever it might be found.

In a letter written in the middle of the War of 1812, we get a glimpse of Boudinot’s mature view of the Christian revival experience.

Blessed be God, who in the midst of judgement remembereth mercy. Although our country is involved in a ruinous offensive war, yet is he proving to his church that he has not altogether forsaken us. The pouring out of his Spirit in various parts of the United States, is truly reviving to his people who stand between the porch and the altar, crying, Lord save thy people. In the eastern parts of New York, in Vermont and Connecticut, the revivals are more interesting than has ever been known. In Philadelphia, the appearances are very promising, and generally speaking in these parts, although there are no appearances of remarkable revivals, yet there is a growing attention to the ordinances of the gospel. Bless the Lord, O our souls, and let all that is within us bless his holy name.6

‘Hearts May Agree, Though Heads Differ’

Third, Boudinot valued denominational fidelity without succumbing to denominational sectarianism.

Boudinot was a man of national prominence for nearly five decades. By the end of his life, he was a revered statesman and a driving influence in Christian mission. But he was at heart a churchman who expressed his religious convictions throughout his life. He was a founding trustee of the Presbyterian General Assembly and was moderator of the assembly at the time of his death. He was also a trustee of the Presbyterian College of New Jersey for nearly half a century, and played a significant role in the formation of Princeton Seminary.

In retiring to Burlington, New Jersey, where there was no Presbyterian church, he could have simply enjoyed his wide range of Presbyterian associations. Instead, he joined the church across the street, St. Mary’s Episcopal, where his participation was lively and committed until the end of his life. A prominent Presbyterian joining an Episcopal church was eyebrow-raising in his day, but Boudinot’s actions demonstrated his large heart and vision for the church of Christ beyond its various and often competing expressions. He wrote to the pastor of his former Presbyterian church about his view of denominational differences,

Hearts may agree, though heads differ. There may be unity of Spirit, if not of opinion, and it is always an advantage to entertain a favorable opinion of those who differ from us in our religious sentiments. It tends to nourish Christian charity. I welcome with cordial and entire satisfaction everything that tends to approximate one denomination of Christians to another, being persuaded that he who is a conscientious believer in Christ cannot be a bad man.7

In a day where the church is wrestling with how to engage the society (and often internal differences) with Christian conviction and conduct, the example of Elias Boudinot can provide a much-needed perspective. Even in times of contention, we can stand with conviction without forfeiting a gracious and peace-loving spirit, and the very conduct commended by Christ and his apostles.

Have you ever heard God’s voice?

Has he spoken words that have strengthened your soul? Or transformed your perspective? Or brought you abiding peace? God’s words are unlike human words. They change us. They bear fruit. They do not — and cannot — return void (Isaiah 55:11). God spoke our whole world into existence. For God, speaking is the same as having it done.

In suffering, perhaps more than at any other time, we need to be attuned to God’s voice. Otherwise, we’ll be persuaded by the voices around us that tempt us to despair in our pain, to believe that God doesn’t care, to conclude that the world’s way to handle suffering is better than God’s way. These competing voices, of Satan and the world (or of our friends or insecurities), can lead us away from the Lord, making us doubt what God has clearly said.

Who Has Your Ear?

Satan came to Jesus at the beginning of his ministry, tempting him to doubt his identity and to test God’s reliability, implying that God was not true to the word he had just spoken (Matthew 3:17). Satan loves to prey on our vulnerability, pouncing when we feel alone and weak.

People we trust can also inadvertently lead us from the truth. We can begin to doubt what God has shown us when others question what he’s said, or when they offer some fresh “revelation” or insight that supersedes what God has clearly said. In 1 Kings 13, the Lord told a man of God to go straight home without stopping, but he was persuaded by an old prophet (who claimed to hear from an angel) to do the opposite of what God had told him. We don’t know why the old prophet lied, but the consequences were disastrous. When God’s word to us is clear, we need to obey him rather than relying on the opinions of others — even of those we respect.

The voices of our fears and insecurities are constantly whispering to us as well. God told the Israelites that if they were disobedient, he would send faintness into their hearts. The sound of a driven leaf would put them to flight, and they would flee as someone fleeing from the sword. They would fall even though no one was pursuing them (Leviticus 26:36). This is what happens when we don’t trust the Lord, when we listen to our fears instead of listening to him. We hear terrifying sounds. We imagine the worst. Our hearts melt, and panic consumes us, even when we have nothing to fear.

All these voices can fill our minds, drowning out the voice of God, redirecting our thoughts, and intensifying our insecurities. This can happen even when the words we hear aren’t inherently evil. Since the voices we listen to will inevitably shape us, we need to be aware of their influence. What books or articles are we reading? What podcasts are we listening to? What friends do we spend the most time with? Whom are we following on social media, and what are we watching on screens? These voices all shape us, in both subtle and overt ways. Some leave us unsettled and fearful, others entitled and angry, but listening to God’s voice will fill us with strength and peace.

I Know His Voice

When I was a little girl, I lived in a large ward in the hospital with other children, and was permitted to see my parents only on weekends. I went through major surgeries alone, constantly afraid of what might happen since my parents couldn’t be with me before surgery. But on Saturday mornings, as soon as visitors were allowed, my parents would come to the hospital. I vividly remember hearing my mother’s voice in the hall. Even before I could discern what she was saying, her voice made me feel safe. I could relax, confident that she and my father would take care of me.

“Hearing God’s voice in my suffering has brought a comfort that has enveloped me.”

Similarly, hearing God’s voice in my suffering has brought a comfort that has enveloped me. I know that I’m not alone. God is near. He will take care of me. Like all Jesus’s sheep, I know his voice (John 10:27). It’s unmistakable. Even though sheep may not understand all the words, they recognize the reassuring voice of their shepherd, and know they are safe.

So, how do we recognize God’s voice?

Often it begins with inviting him to speak to us, perhaps when we wake up, and particularly at the beginning of our time in Scripture. We might say with Samuel, “Speak, Lord, for your servant hears” (1 Samuel 3:9). While Scripture describes God speaking in a variety of ways, the Bible is the primary and most reliable way we hear from him. The words of Scripture are God’s very words, and form the framework for all we know about God.

What Does God Sound Like?

When we read the Bible, we are listening for God’s voice, often reading and rereading until the Spirit gives us ears to hear. Until God opens our ears, the words can seem dry and lifeless. They can seem like academic knowledge, not like life-giving comfort and wisdom.

As we dig for treasure, though, persistently knocking until we hear God’s voice, the same words suddenly come to life. They inspire us, leave us in breathtaking awe of God, and buoy our confidence in him. His voice dispels our darkest fears, revives our weary souls, gives us supernatural wisdom, and reassures us that something much better is coming.

In reading Scripture, we are not only listening to God’s words for us, but we are also becoming familiar with the sound of his voice. We start understanding his ways. God isn’t limited to speaking through Scripture — but Scripture attunes our ears to what his voice sounds like. As we memorize Scripture, his words begin running through our minds. We can discern truth from falsehood, knowing God will never contradict what he’s told us in the Bible.

At the same time, other voices can encourage our faith as well. We know, for instance, that “the heavens declare the glory of God,” and all of nature sings his praise (Psalm 19:1). Faithful preachers proclaim God’s word, which then takes root in our hearts. Friends share nuggets of what God has shown them, and our spirits and faith are strengthened.

“I must choose to open the Bible and read, even when everything in me is fighting against it.”

Sometimes God speaks directly to our inner being without an intermediary. While God speaks predominantly through Scripture, I’ve sensed him speaking to me twice in words that were not directly from the Bible. They were both during times of suffering and uncertainty, and immediately afterward I felt a tangible change. As I considered the words I believed were from God, I tested them against Scripture, and asked him for confirmation. After the encounter, I was left with an inexplicable peace and a deeper wonder and trust in God.

Let His Voice Be First

When I’m anxious, my mind naturally runs in a hundred different directions, looking for answers and solutions I can produce in my own strength. It’s hard to be still before God. Yet that’s when I need stillness most. I need to be quiet enough to hear God’s voice, and know that he is near. I must choose to open the Bible and read, even when everything in me is fighting against it. In turmoil, I want noise and distraction to drown out my pain, so stillness has to be an intentional choice, a deliberate shift to listen to God. It rarely happens when I’m scrolling through my phone, landing on whatever captures my attention.

When you want to hear the voice of God unmistakably, I urge you to read your Bible, and ask him to speak to you through it. Quiet your heart, and submit to his word. Listen for his voice singing over you as his beloved (Zephaniah 3:17). Let the first voice you hear be his, as you declare with David, “Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love, for in you I trust” (Psalm 143:8).