Part 13 Episode 246 What is it that filled John the Baptist with such joy towards the end of his short life? In this episode of Light + Truth, John Piper opens John 3:22–30 for a look at the source of John the Baptist’s surprising happiness.

Audio Transcript

We’ve been talking about God’s sovereignty in recent episodes. Does his sovereignty in salvation make him unfair? That was last time, in APJ 2028. We talk about God’s sovereignty over our suffering next Monday, in APJ 2031. Today, though, we ask, Should God’s all-sovereignty make us less prayerful, since we can resign all things into his hands? The question is from a listener named Jenn.

“Dear Pastor John, I have listened to Ask Pastor John for years. The truth of your mantra that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him is something that resonates deep in my spirit. My question for you is this. Do you think a person can be so satisfied in God that it leads to prayerlessness? What I mean is a circumstance in which you feel so confident and satisfied in God’s purposes and designs in your life and others’ that you lack a desire to petition him. Even when things seem to be going wrong, I tend to feel deeply that praise, rather than petition, is on my heart. I often praise the Lord in thanksgiving, which I consider to be a kind of prayer, but rarely ask or seek intervention from God.

“In 1 Samuel, when Israel begs God for a king, God warns them against their prayer, but as they persist, he eventually tells Samuel to listen to the people and give them a king (1 Samuel 8:7, 22). So, prayers can mask desires that are opposed to God’s desires. That haunts me. Would what I pray to change even be a holy desire to begin with? Bottom line: I guess I feel safer and happier accepting, in faith, whatever the Lord brings about in my life, rather than asking for him to change those things. Is this a wrong approach to life?”

Well, yes, it is a wrong approach to life, but maybe not for the reason you think. I’m not disagreeing that you have said several very true, very important things. For example, you say that “prayers can mask desires that are opposed to God’s desires.” That’s true, because James 4:3 says, “You ask [you pray] and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.” So, clearly, we can treat God like a bellhop with prayer, and as the bell goes off and we send up our prayer, we tell him to bring us things that we’re going to misuse. So, that’s right. That’s a crucial observation.

You also say that “there are circumstances in which I feel so confident and satisfied in God’s purposes and designs in my life and others’ that I lack a desire to petition him.” Well, yes, there are moments in life when that’s exactly how we should feel. When Christ made it clear to Paul that the thorn in the flesh was God’s will, he stopped praying for the thorn to be removed and said, “I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Passive and Active Prayers

But the problem with your approach to prayer is that you have framed the question of prayer in such a way that it treats prayer only as a response to what happens to you rather than treating prayer also as an empowerment of what you should make happen for others. For example, you say, “I feel safer and happier accepting, in faith, whatever the Lord brings about in my life, rather than asking him to change those things.” So, you have framed the question entirely in terms of you as a passive recipient of God bringing things into your life rather than framing the question of prayer also in terms of you being an active person in the world, seeking to fulfill God’s gracious will as you love other people.

So, let me try to get at it like this. Ask this question (I think all of us should ask this question of our lives): Is prayer a wartime walkie-talkie, or is it a domestic intercom to call the butler for another pillow? Now, if prayer is mainly a domestic intercom to call the butler to bring another pillow, your approach to life makes sense — namely, leave the butler alone and be content with the pillow he brought yesterday. Right. That’s good.

“None of us has in us the power needed to do what we’re told to do in the Bible. We must have God’s power.”

But if prayer is a wartime walkie-talkie designed to call down divine power from the military headquarters to give you the ability to defeat the devil, and overcome temptation, and take godly risks for the sake of love, and spread the gospel in dangerous places, and rescue the spiritual prisoners from behind demonic lines, and establish justice, and do acts of mercy, your approach to prayer is totally inadequate.

Mission-Minded Prayers

So, the big question is, What’s prayer? What is it mainly in the Bible? Here’s what Jesus said in John 15:16: “I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit . . . so that [that’s a crucial phrase] whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.” Huh. In other words, I put you on a fruit-bearing mission so that you’d get answers to prayer. That’s the logic of that verse. Which means prayer is for the empowering of the mission that you have been given from headquarters. Prayer is a wartime walkie-talkie, not a domestic intercom mainly.

Paul said, “Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved” (Romans 10:1). He’s speaking of his Jewish kinsmen. Prayer is for the salvation of lost souls, and there are lots of lost souls in the world. Oh my goodness. It’s for the invading of Satan’s domain and the delivering of captives.

Paul said in Ephesians 6:17–18, “Take . . . the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit.” So, “take the sword . . . praying.” Prayer is for the empowerment of wielding “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God,” as we do battle with the evil one.

Jesus said, “Pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest” (Matthew 9:38; Luke 10:2). In other words, prayer is a wartime walkie-talkie to call headquarters and say, “Reinforcements, please! Reinforcements. We’ve got a mission to do, and we don’t have enough people to do it. God, send the reinforcements.”

Jesus said, “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Matthew 7:11). In other words, pray. He’ll give you good things. And then he says, “Therefore [another crucial phrase] whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them” (Matthew 7:12). What’s the meaning of that therefore? Prayer is a wartime walkie-talkie to call down all necessary empowerment to treat others the way we would like to be treated.

Reframing Prayer

So, I would encourage you to reframe the way you think about prayer. The question is not mainly, Can I be content as a passive recipient of the circumstances God brings? Rather, the question is, Do I have within me all the power necessary in order to do all the things I’m commanded to do in the Bible? And the answer is that you do not. And I don’t either. None of us has in us the power needed to do what we’re told to do in the Bible. We must have God’s power, and he has taught us to ask for it.

We don’t have the power to hallow God’s name. We must ask for it.
We don’t have the power to seek his kingdom first. We must ask for it.
We don’t have the power to do his will the way it’s done in heaven. We must ask for it.
We don’t have the power even to feed ourselves. We have to ask for daily bread.
We don’t have the power to forgive those who trespass against us. We have to ask for that grace.
We don’t have the power to escape temptation. We must ask for it.

In other words, don’t be afraid that you’re going to ask for the wrong thing when you’re asking for divine help to do what God told you to do. And virtually everything that he has told us to do, we cannot and should not do in our own strength, but in the strength that he supplies. And he has ordained that he supply that power in answer to prayer, which is why Paul said, “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17). Because we’ve got things to do at every moment of our lives that we can’t do, and he expects us to lean on him to do it.

So, let’s be a people who all day long are using this indispensable wartime walkie-talkie for the help we need to fight the good fight of faith.

God created men to be strong and faithful leaders, especially in their families and churches. Becoming that kind of man does not simply happen, however; we need to train ourselves for godliness and Christlike leadership (1 Timothy 4:7–8).

To grow as men, we follow Jesus — the only sinless man, the God-man, who alone provides us righteousness and the perfect example of how to live. But we also follow the footsteps of those who followed or foreshadowed his (1 Corinthians 11:1). Joshua, though predating the incarnate Christ, can serve as one such example, especially for younger men.

Joshua teaches us that leading well starts with realizing that all you are, have, and accomplish depends on God’s gracious provision. Joshua knew this deeply, even in his younger years, as he served God and led the people into the promised land. I would like to highlight four traits from Joshua that men young and old need today: humble confidence, humble dependence, humble submission, and humble patience.

1. Humble Confidence

At key times in Israel’s history, even as a young man, Joshua stepped forward as a great example of humble confidence. One of the first times we meet Joshua, we see his faith in action, trusting God against the tide of popular opinion.

Joshua took part in a search party sent into Canaan to spy out the land God had promised. The spies returned with a dismal prediction about Israel’s ability to take on the “giants” in the land (Numbers 13–14). Joshua and Caleb were the only two (of twelve) who urged the people to take the land, because they believed God’s word (Numbers 14:7–10). They knew God’s track record and his power to keep his promises. Their confidence was not in themselves but in the God they served.

Here we see one quality that set Joshua and Caleb apart from the rest of the Israelites — they believed the promises of God. They were not intimidated by the size of the warriors or the strength of the cities. Rather, they knew their God and remembered how he had dealt with Egypt, then the most powerful nation on the earth. If God could take care of the mighty Egyptian army, he could certainly take care of the Canaanite tribes. God rewarded Joshua’s and Caleb’s faith by exempting them from the entire generation of Israelites who would perish in the wilderness (Numbers 14:29–30).

Humility and confidence might seem like opposites, but in Joshua and Caleb, we see they are two sides of the same heart. When we find our identity and security in God, we can rest in knowing that our frailty and sin no longer define us. We can walk in the strength that God supplies, even when we are rightly aware of how weak and sinful we are. In fact, God only chooses and empowers those who know how little we can do on our own.

2. Humble Dependence

Joshua could be considered one of the greatest military leaders in history. He led the armies of Israel to victory against far more powerful enemies. Without minimizing Joshua’s gifts and abilities, he knew that God is the one who ultimately vanquishes his people’s foes. He learned this early in his military career, as he led the people in battle against the Amalekites. Exodus 17 tells the story of God’s provision:

Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed, and whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed. But Moses’ hands grew weary, so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it, while Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side. So his hands were steady until the going down of the sun. And Joshua overwhelmed Amalek and his people with the sword. (Exodus 17:11–13)

The outcome of the battle depended on something entirely outside of Joshua’s control. Yes, he fought with great courage, but all the while, he realized that the battle belongs to the Lord. The same was true even when the victories were not as supernaturally obvious. God had promised to give the land of Canaan to his people, and Joshua’s trust in God’s power and faithfulness gave him the faith he needed to be the leader God called him to be.

Even when the challenges before us are not nearly as dramatic as Joshua’s, the basis of our confidence is still the same faith — faith not in ourselves or even in the gifts and talents God has given us, but faith in the God who is the Creator, sustainer, and provider for every breath, heartbeat, and victory in life. Joshua’s example reminds us that any skills, opportunities, accomplishments, or victories come as gifts from our gracious Creator. He deserves all the credit for any good in our lives.

We can regularly remind ourselves of this by asking the apostle Paul’s rhetorical question in 1 Corinthians 4:7: “What do you have that you did not receive?” Realizing that God is the source and end of all he gives us leads to humble confidence, and that confidence frees us to follow his will and be used as he sees fit.

3. Humble Submission

As a young man, Joshua learned to trust God’s word, and it guided his life. He knew God’s promises are trustworthy, so he followed his plan even when the challenges were great. God’s word became the core of his confidence, as we see in God’s exhortation to him before the people entered the land of Canaan:

This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. (Joshua 1:8–9)

God calls Joshua to be strong and courageous based on his trust in God’s word. A godly man’s confidence, likewise, does not depend on his own abilities or the opinions of others to predict the outcome of circumstances; rather, it depends on what God says is true. When we submit to the authority of the word of God, we are trusting in the character of God. In our day, one’s desires in the moment have become the primary guide for many, but men of God buck that trend and live rooted in the unchanging teaching of the Bible.

4. Humble Patience

The best leaders are men who have learned to follow well. They faithfully contribute to the objectives of a team, even if they do not have a title or position. Joshua’s submission to God translated into his submission to the leader God placed over him.

Joshua served as Moses’s assistant when he was a young man (Exodus 17:8–16). After being chosen, he filled that role with patience for forty years. We are told that when Moses would go into the camp, Joshua “would not depart from the tent” (Exodus 33:11). It must have been deeply challenging at times to serve the people in Moses’s shadow, but we get no indication that Joshua was anything but a dutiful encouragement to Moses and an energetic partner in the mission. His commitment to patiently serve shaped him into the man who could lead God’s people into the promised land.

The lessons Joshua learned as a young man shaped him into an old man who could be trusted as a godly leader. And because of his leadership, “Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua and had known all the work that the Lord did for Israel” (Joshua 24:31).

Joshua’s trust in God and his word formed him into a man of humble character. His confidence, dependence, submission, and patience offer powerful glimpses of Jesus, who perfectly lived out these qualities as our substitute and example. May God give many young men in the coming generation the ability to trust their God and lead with Christlike character.

What an exciting moment in the life of a church when missionaries are sent out for the sake of Jesus’s name. Their departure reminds the whole church that we live as pilgrims in this world, sent forth to proclaim the good news that Jesus, the crucified Messiah, lives and reigns as our saving Lord. We rejoice to see such workers go into the harvest fields in answer to prayer. And we frequently respond well to the call to make personal and corporate sacrifices to send these workers well.

But what do we do when they come back?

The work of supporting missionaries in a manner worthy of God does not end when they return, either for a temporary respite or a permanent move. As important as providing for their needs on the field may be, thoroughly caring for missionaries requires ongoing care — practically and pastorally. This remains just as true when they return as when they go.

Receiving the Sent

A few verses in 3 John frequently (and rightfully) receive attention as central for helping the church understand its work of supporting missionaries well. John, the elder, commends his beloved friend Gaius for how he received missionaries who had come to his church. Then John encourages him to continue:

You will do well to send them on their journey in a manner worthy of God. For they have gone out for the sake of the name, accepting nothing from the Gentiles. Therefore we ought to support people like these, that we may be fellow workers for the truth. (3 John 6–8)

These missionaries have gone out from their home church. They have left the comfort of friends and family, the security of steady income, and the familiarity of their hometown for a single purpose: to make Christ’s name known and exalted among the nations (Romans 1:5). They are, therefore, worthy to receive ample support. In fact, John says that it is the duty of Christians to support such workers: “We ought to support people like these.”

But what does it look like to support missionaries “in a manner worthy of God”? The answer is not so straightforward as helping them get to the field and ensuring they have what they need while there. While John instructs Gaius on how to send them out, he also commends him for how he received them — a strong antithesis to the self-centered Diotrephes, who “refuses to welcome the brothers” (3 John 10). Gaius’s hospitality and care for the missionaries was so warm that, when they returned to their sending church, they bore witness to his love for them (3 John 5–6).

“What returning missionaries need most is to freshly behold the glory of God.”

The way he treated these missionaries, strangers as they were to him, testified to his commitment to magnify the name of Christ. Gaius welcomed them as brothers, fellow adoptees into God’s expanding family of redeemed children. He understood that the welcome Christ had given him in salvation served as the example for his own ministry of welcoming others (Romans 15:7). Thus, the hospitality he and his church demonstrated proved to John that he was indeed “walking in the truth” (3 John 3).

Three Needs Churches Can Meet

Every church that sends missionaries will, God willing, have the opportunity to receive them again and care for their needs close at hand. While many specific needs of each missionary unit (singles, couples, or families) will change, other basics will remain the same no matter the stage of life or ministry. Churches that aim to receive missionaries well can seek to meet at least these three categories of need: rest, community, and worship.

1. Rest

Missionaries returning from the field are usually tired. They may not admit it, but they are likely worn out. It is hard work to move to unfamiliar regions; learn to function in a new language; navigate the complex, multilayered nuances of cultural exchanges; face the spiritual and physical needs of multitudes; work to fulfill ministry commitments; and, on top of all that, raise a family, keep up a healthy marriage, maintain personal spiritual disciplines, and work through the difficulties of team life (which often involves layers of multicultural complexity). Most returning missionaries need a season of recovery from their labors if they are to enter them again with renewed reserves of strength.

Churches have the opportunity to make their return from the field as low-stress as possible. This can mean everything from helping with basic necessities (housing, transportation, clothing, food), to making sure that they have access to services such as counseling, to providing opportunities to get away for an extended time, to making sure their calendars don’t fill up with too many ministry commitments. While receiving well doesn’t mean that the church by itself must provide all these things, a willing team of brothers and sisters can alleviate the stress of the many unknowns missionaries face when returning from the field.

The health of a missionary’s community on the field varies widely. In some ministry locations, Christian community might be nonexistent, whereas in others it may be more vibrant than anything the missionary knows elsewhere. Regardless, the need to be in community with fellow believers doesn’t change once missionaries come home. Intentionally integrating them into the rhythms of regular church life beyond the Sunday-morning gathering will remind them that they truly belong to their sending church.

Folding them back into the community also means making sure they are known. Missionaries often come back to churches where new leaders now serve, new members have joined, and other members have moved on. A sending church can feel awfully full of strange faces. Thus, a church’s leaders would do well to make the whole church aware of returning missionaries and ensure there are opportunities for them to both know and be known by the congregation.

Receiving missionaries back into the community also means reestablishing friendships (and making new ones). This process usually requires greater intentionality on the part of those who receive. It means opening up our homes to newer faces, listening well, and asking questions about experiences and places for which we might not have categories. In short, it means stepping out of comfort zones and (to a small degree) crossing the cultural boundaries that divide the dining-room table. Once again, making the most of these opportunities reflects the kind of Christlike love for which John commended Gaius — a love that demonstrates who are the true children of God (1 John 3:10, 17).

3. Worship

Finally, what returning missionaries need most is to freshly behold the glory of God and have their whole hearts captivated by love for him. Hopefully it was just such a vision and desire that compelled them to cross cultures in the first place. But the wearying demands of overseas ministry can cause our sight to grow dim. Don’t be surprised if missionaries return from the field needing reminders of God’s purpose to fill the earth with his glory “as the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk 2:14). Don’t be surprised if discouragement has dampened godly desires. Loving missionaries well when they return includes encouragement and building up their faith.

Not everyone will have the same experience. While some missionaries serve in locations where they are part of an established church, others serve where there is no church at all. Regardless of ministry context, no one outgrows the need to behold the living triune God, declare and sing with fellow believers the wonders of who he is and what he has done (without translation into their mother tongue), sit under preaching that faithfully exposits and applies the whole testimony of God, and partake in the shared meal of the new covenant. Receiving well, in this case, means folding missionaries into the established rhythms of worship and, as a whole church, ensuring those rhythms faithfully reflect the biblical vision.

Conferences and retreats can also be good opportunities for renewal. Pastors, other leaders in the church, and fellow members who know the returning missionaries well can ask wise questions to discern their spiritual health. Where greater needs exist, they might provide scholarships for missionaries to participate in these events. However, the weekly gathering of the local church remains the primary means God has given for renewal.

Receive Them in a Manner Worthy

Churches are called to both send and receive missionaries “in a manner worthy of God” (3 John 6). Sometimes the sending can be easier. They get on a plane and disappear from view, packing along with them the opportunity for frequent and direct engagement. But when they return, those opportunities return with them. And just as we ought to support them as they go, so too we ought to support them when they come back. By this we become “fellow workers for the truth” (3 John 8).

When the apostle Paul first came to town, the city of Philippi was famous for its connections to two of the greatest emperors of the ancient world: Alexander the Great and Caesar Augustus.

Paul came to Philippi in the winter 49–50 AD, to a population of about ten thousand (sizable but smaller than Thessalonica and Corinth), and when he wrote this letter ten years later, I don’t think it was lost on Paul how significant it was to be writing to “saints in Philippi.” That is, to Christians alive and well in no obscure city. The planting and growth and endurance of the church in the city of Philippi represented gospel advance deep into the Roman empire.

The city, founded about 350 years before Christ, was about 8 miles northwest of the port city Neapolis, in the region called Macedonia. The city was named for Philip II of Macedon, the father of Alexander the Great. Alexander conquered Greece in 338 BC and spread its language around the known world. So, when this city, named after Alexander’s father, received a letter from Paul, almost four centuries later, in the Greek language, it was (in part) because of Alexander.

But long past were the days of Alexander. The Romans took Philippi in 168 BC, and the city’s real claim to fame came in 42 BC, at the Battle of Philippi, when armies of Brutus and Cassius, who had assassinated Julius Caesar, were defeated by the coalition of Marc Antony and Octavian (who would become Augustus). After that, Philippi became a Roman colony, and located along the queen of long roads in the Roman empire, the city became the gateway between Asia and Europe. Far more important than history, it was a strategic city in terms of travel. Then enter Christianity in the first century.

The reason the world knows and remembers Philippi today is not because of Alexander the Great, and not because of Julius Caesar and Marc Antony and Augustus. The world remembers Philippi because of Jesus. His apostle Paul showed up there and planted his first church in Europe, and then years later wrote them this letter which we have in the New Testament.

Who, Whom, and Why?

Let me just say, I love Philippians. I have a history with this book, and that in my most formative season of life. And I know I’m not alone. Many of us love this book, for a handful of reasons, and what I’d like to do in this sermon is celebrate several of those reasons why so many of us love Philippians — and why the pastors think this book in particular meets us in our life as a church here in the first half of 2024.

So, let’s take this twofold approach this morning, to introduce this Philippians series: First, I’d like to answer three questions from verses 1 and 2, and then finish with four reasons why so many of us love Philippians. So, here are three key questions from verses 1–2: (1) What do we know about the recipients of this letter? (2) Why is this letter from Paul “and Timothy,” and not just Paul? (3) What do they hope this letter will accomplish?

1. Who Received This Letter?

First, what do we know about the recipients of this letter? Verse 1 says the letter is “to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the overseers and deacons.” As for Philippi, Acts 16 tells the story of Paul first coming to the city, and the unusual circumstances of his coming there, and the conversion of Lydia and a jailer. But that was ten years before this letter, and I don’t think that amazing story actually plays much into this letter a decade later.

It is significant, however, that Paul writes “to all the saints,” that is, to the whole church. He could have written only or mainly to the leaders, but he writes to the whole church, “to all the saints” (as he usually does in his letters). So, we might say this letter is congregational, not presbyterian.

And yet, even though the whole letter is to the whole church, Paul does hat-tip the leaders and mentions two offices (and note both terms are in the plural): “with the overseers and deacons.” These two offices are the same two specified in 1 Timothy 3, where we find qualifications for both, with “able to teach” being the main difference in the requirements. Overseers (or “pastors,” or “elders”) comprise the lead or teaching office in the church, while the deacons are the assisting office.

2. Why Two Authors?

Why is this letter from Paul “and Timothy,” and not just Paul? The first part of verse 1 says the letter is from “Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus . . .” Paul is the apostle. He met the risen Jesus on the Damascus Road. Timothy is a younger associate that Paul picked up in Derbe not long before he first showed up in Philippi. So, why would Paul, the apostle (the one who really matters, it seems) have the letter come from both him and Timothy, his junior partner?

First, consider Paul’s magnanimous spirit. Rather than highlight his special authority, and exclude his collaborator, Paul is secure enough, and generous enough, to include Timothy with him. Now, Timothy (along with Silas and Luke) had been with him at that first trip to Philippi. So, the Philippians knew Timothy. And as we’ll see in chapter 2, Paul hopes to send Timothy back to Philippi soon to check in on them (Philippians 2:19).

Timothy also likely served as Paul’s assistant in composing this letter. He may have been the secretary as Paul dictated the letter. Ancient letter writing was not anything like writing emails, where you dash something off in a few minutes. Writing an epistle in the ancient world was like publishing a book — it was a long, involved, expensive process. Paul, together with Timothy, would have drafted the letter; then re-read and edited; then re-read again; then carefully written out a final copy. So, Timothy likely was involved significantly in producing the letter, like an editor and publisher would be for a new book today.

But again, Paul is the apostle. And generous as he is to include Timothy in the process and to name him here at the beginning, at the end of the day the letter comes under Paul’s apostolic authority. He signs off on everything in it. It represents him, and the risen Christ, from beginning to end. He speaks in the first person in verse 3, and speaks of Timothy in the third person in chapter 2.

So, with Timothy listed here with Paul, “apostles” doesn’t fit them together. But together they are “servants of Christ Jesus.” Servants here is the same word for slaves (douloi), which pairs with Lord or Master (kurios). For Paul and Timothy to call themselves slaves is to say something about their Lord. Jesus is Lord, he is kurios; therefore, they are douloi, slaves.

Jesus is said to be Lord at the end of verse 2 — grace and peace come from “God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” The one who was so clearly fully human, just two decades before walking the roads of Galilee and the streets of Jerusalem, teaching with wisdom and authority, performing signs and wonders, suffering and dying, and purportedly rising again — this man is exalted alongside “God our Father” as the divine source of the grace and peace Paul extends to the saints in Philippi. Which leads to our third and final question.

3. What Was the Letter’s Purpose?

What do Paul and Timothy want this letter to accomplish? Verse 2: “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” As we’ll see in the coming months, Paul has some specific manifestations of Christ’s grace and peace in mind when he thinks of the present needs in Philippi. We might summarize it as fresh joy in Christ, leading to humility and unity (following internal conflicts), leading then to joyful, effective witness in this Roman colony.

This “grace and peace” Paul means to come to them through words, through this letter. So, the letter doesn’t just begin with a prayer for grace and peace; the letter itself is designed by Paul to be grace and peace to them. Epaphroditus will carry this letter back to his home church (2:25–30). He had brought a gift to Paul from the Philippians (4:10, 14, 18), which was not their first gift to Paul. From the very beginning, the saints in Philippi had supported Paul (1:5; 4:15–16). These are clearly some of his best partners, which explains why this letter gushes with affection and joy. Paul deeply loves this church, and they make him happy. They are his “joy and crown” (4:1). If only all the churches could be like Philippi’s!

This most recent gift (of perhaps food and supplies) they sent with Epaphroditus while Paul’s in prison in Rome, and apparently somewhere along the way Epaphroditus got sick, and almost died. Now he’s recovered and can go back, so this becomes an opportunity to write to the Philippians, and extend grace and peace to them in several ways: Paul thanks them for their gift, he updates them on his status in Rome, he commends Epaphroditus for his service, he prepares the way for Timothy to come soon, and he addresses the internal tension that has emerged in the church.

From the beginning, there had been external opposition to the gospel in Philippi. Paul and Silas were beaten and imprisoned at the get-go. Now the church in Philippi is about ten years old, and conflict is threatening from within. As we’ll see in chapter 4, two prominent women in the church are at odds (and likely others as well). So, Paul hopes that this letter, with its exhortations to pursue humility and seek unity will be a means God uses to bring about fresh and greater peace in Philippi, and that Paul’s words, his teaching, his letter, will be a means of God’s grace to this church, a church with so much to appreciate and a few things to grow in.

So, Paul loved the Philippians. And it’s a contagious love. I think that’s part of why so many of us love Philippians — how can you not when the apostle Paul loves this church so much and has so much grace to celebrate?

Four Reasons We Love Philippians

So, let’s close, then, with four brief reasons why we love Philippians, which relates to what we need as a church right now, and why the pastors are so excited for this focus in the weeks ahead.

1. JOYFUL

First, this is an epistle of joy. As we will see, this letter overflows with joy, with brightness, with warmth (in contrast with, say, Galatians!). In Philippians we have more explicit mentions of joy, gladness, and rejoicing in such a short space than anywhere else in the Bible. From the beginning, the whole epistle is warm and bright (even with the trouble that comes to the surface in chapters 1, 3, and 4).

And yet, in all this brightness and warmth and joy, this letter is written from prison in Rome. What an amazing person Jesus has made the apostle Paul. Singing at midnight in prison, after being beaten by rods. And now, ten years later, singing (in the form of this letter) while sitting in prison in Rome. So, don’t mistake the joy of Philippians for the thin pleasures of a carefree life. This joy is deep enough to survive and thrive in prison, in conflict, in struggle, in pain, in sickness, even in death.

Which really should put our lives — our little problems and our big ones, our complaints and pains — into perspective. The pastors’ prayer for us as we steep our souls in Philippians in these next five months is that Jesus would make us more like Paul. Beaten with rods, he sings. Imprisoned, he overflows with joy. Why? Not just because he had a buoyant personality, but because Jesus is Lord. The gospel is true. The Spirit is alive and poured out generously on those who love Jesus. God is sovereign. Christ is on the throne. He gives grace and peace and joy, even in the worst of earthly circumstances.

And I know it’s January, the coldest month. Winter is here, and we’re now entering into the thick of seasonal affective time (which is real, and especially in Minnesota). One of the reasons the pastors chose Philippians, bright, warm, deeply joyful, for such a time as this is to help us through this winter. So, we love Philippians because it’s an epistle of such deep joy.

2. BRIEF

Second, we love Philippians because it’s relatively brief (in contrast to, say, Hebrews!). Philippians is brief enough for a short, focused (but still deep) study. Philippians is just 104 verses, which, I promise you, is brief enough for anyone in this room to memorize — if you put the work in over time. There are 52 weeks in a year. That’s just two verses a week. You can do this. What better way to take on the sheer madness of a presidential election year than to memorize this brief epistle of deep, enduring joy?

3. ACCESSIBLE

Third, we love Philippians because it’s so accessible. It’s relatively easy to understand (in contrast to, say, Galatians, or Leviticus, or Hebrews — our last three series!).

We’ve been through a lot as a church. God’s grace has sustained us through a major capital campaign, and renovating our building, and losing three pastors last summer. The reason we chose Philippians for the first half of this year is that we hope this might be a time to refresh our souls. The last three books of the Bible have not been easy ones! Cities Church, you have done well, and it’s time for something more accessible. It’s time for Philippians, and we’re going to take it slow.

4. MEMORABLE

Finally, we love Philippians because of the memorable passages. From 1:6 to 2:12–13 to 3:12–14 to 4:19, how many remarkable verses and passages there are in Philippians. I made a list of my top 10 favorite verses in Philippians. It includes the four I just mentioned. It also includes 3:20–21 (on our citizenship being in heaven) and 4:4–8 (on not being anxious and setting our minds on the true, honorable, and just) and 4:11–13 (on all things through Christ who strengthens me), but let me end with my top three.

The first two reveal the heart of Paul for Jesus. As Christians, in our best moments, we want to be like this:

1:21: To me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.

3:7–8: Whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

In our best moments, when we are thinking our clearest, and our hearts are their purest, this too is what we want: for Christ to be our life, and to see death as gain because to depart and be with Christ is far better than being distant from him. And, with Paul, to count as loss anything else of gain we have in view of the surpassing value of knowing Jesus.

And how do we know him? The last memorable passage reveals the heart of Jesus, and leads us to the Table, Philippians 2, verses 6–11:

[Being] in the form of God, [Jesus] did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

The death he died was not for his sin; he had none. The death he died was for ours. And he went to the cross, as we saw in Hebrews, “for the joy set before him” (12:2). He humbled himself, knowing his Father would exalt him. He was obedient to death, knowing his Father would raise him, and reward him, and honor him, and honor himself in and through him — and that he would win for himself a people who trust in him.

The Joy of John the Baptist
What is it that filled John the Baptist with such joy towards the end of his short life? In this episode of Light + Truth, John Piper opens John 3:22–30 for a look at the source of John the Baptist’s surprising happiness.

Five years ago, I was diagnosed with a severe sensitivity to gluten. As my poor wife can testify, I fought the diagnosis for months, but I eventually cut it out of my diet. And I felt better.

A year or so ago, I started experiencing similar pain, sometimes over multiple hours, so my doctor referred me to a specialist. We ran some tests and he asked me a bunch of questions. At one point, he asked me about the kinds of things I drink. I told him I had cut back on coffee and cut out soda completely, but that I still drank a fair amount of sparkling water. “Yeah, you should probably cut that out too,” he said. He went on to explain what should have been obvious, that pouring carbonation on a sensitive GI tract is likely to enflame your system, causing even more irritation and discomfort.

Unfortunately, I (like many of you) had always heard that if I had an upset stomach or tummy ache, I should drink a little Sprite or Ginger Ale to “settle my stomach.” So, for that whole year, whenever I would start to feel some kind of discomfort, I would go to the fridge and grab (you guessed it) a sparkling water, expecting it to make me feel better — and then wondering, completely confused, why I felt even worse.

Well, I cut out sparkling water, and my issues immediately stopped. Within days, my whole body felt lighter and healthier. And six months later, I’m still not having the same issues. So why am I telling you all of this? Because the more I look back and watch myself pouring sparkling water on my pain over all those months, the more I see how often we do the same with sin. Amid some pain or frustration or discouragement or exhaustion, we reach for some besetting sin, expecting it to make us feel better — and then wonder, completely confused, why we feel even worse.

Satan Hunts the Hurting

Satan knows how prone we can be to turn to sin in our suffering — and he preys on that weakness. The apostle Peter writes his first letter to believers in intense affliction. They were suffering fiery trials of various kinds (1 Peter 1:6; 4:12). In particular, many of them were being slandered and maligned for following Jesus (1 Peter 3:16; 4:4). People were saying awful things about them. Listen how he counsels them to suffer well:

Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. (1 Peter 5:8–10)

“How often do we live as if the devil isn’t real, as if there isn’t a real spiritual war being waged against our faith?”

Now, the devil prowls around all the time, and would love to devour any of us at any time, but the apostle sees a particular vulnerability in suffering. He knows, from personal experience and from ministering to others, that Satan hunts among the hurting.

Peter has seen how seductive sin can be when life gets difficult and painful, and he’s heard the bad excuses we make for ourselves, so he presses three realities on the fragile hearts of sufferers.

1. You have a disturbing and hidden enemy.

One way Satan distracts us from his malicious power and influence in our lives is by introducing the turbulence of suffering. If he can shake our plane enough to bring the seatbelt lights on, he knows we might focus on our trials and forget he’s even there.

Peter warns us, however: “Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” You have an adversary, and he’s not some stray cat chasing mice; he’s a 500-pound lion, the king of the pride, and he’s stalking souls like yours and mine. And yet how often do we live as if the devil isn’t real, as if there isn’t a real spiritual war being waged against our faith?

The apostle Paul pulls back the curtain:

We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. (Ephesians 6:12)

When trials come, of various kinds, we need to be reminded that we have a serious enemy, that malice waits in our shadows to attack us at our most vulnerable.

2. You are not as alone as you feel.

When suffering comes, we need to be reminded that we have an enemy. We also need to be reminded that we’re not as alone as we tend to feel. Listen again to what Peter says: “Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world” (1 Peter 5:8–9).

How do we resist our awful enemy? One way is to remember that many brothers and sisters in Christ are suffering in the same kinds of ways — and not just suffering, but suffering well. By God’s conquering grace, they’re enduring suffering and overcoming suffering (and some of them are surely suffering more than you are right now). Seeing the armies of God’s people braving intense trials should strengthen our souls to keep fighting for another day, another month, another year, if necessary.

Peter knows how isolating suffering can be. Many sufferers feel like no one else is going through what they’re going through, that no one knows their pain. He also knows that what we feel in suffering is not always reality. We need to be reminded to look up and see God comforting, strengthening, and satisfying his embattled church all over the world.

3. Whatever your pain is, it will end soon.

Before you shrug this off as trite, remember that the man writing this letter was persecuted, threatened, imprisoned, and eventually crucified upside down. His suffering was not short or infrequent or minor, by any measure. And yet he can say, next verse:

And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. (1 Peter 5:10)

After you have suffered a little while. . . . Some of you are tempted to scoff. You’ve had the pain you bear for years, maybe even decades (and it’s not letting up). I won’t pretend to know what it’s like to suffer like you have. But I will promise you, the apostle did not misspeak, even in your case.

Compared with the countless years of painless bliss coming to all who follow Christ, any suffering for any amount of time is only a little while. These years will one day seem as minutes. God will soon restore you, and you’ll never be broken again. God will soon confirm you, and you’ll never feel unsure or insecure again. God will soon strengthen you, and you’ll never again stumble or faint for weakness. God will soon establish you in his presence, and you will stand — radiant, with no discomfort, no illness, no heartache — in the eternal glory of Christ forever, no turbulence, no interruption, no bad news ever again.

So, knowing what God’s about to do for you, can you suffer just a little longer?

What Secret Sin Tempts You?

This dangerous tendency in us, to turn to sin in our suffering for satisfaction and relief, reminds me of Jeremiah 2:13. God says through the prophet,

My people have committed two evils:they have forsaken me,     the fountain of living waters,and hewed out cisterns for themselves,     broken cisterns that can hold no water.

In their thirst, they’ve forsaken the fountain of living waters — “Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again” (John 4:14) — and they’ve sucked down the sparkling water of sin instead.

Sin’s worse than that, though. The prophet describes sin as “broken cisterns” — as cups with cracks and holes. Nothing’s staying in, and so nothing’s pouring out. So, what’s that cup for you? What secret sin are you tempted to turn to when you’re feeling down, or lonely, or frustrated, or stressed out and overwhelmed? I’m not a doctor, but you need to cut that out. I promise you, the comforts of sin — the comforts of impatience, of overeating, of anger, of binging shows or movies, of anxiety, of bitterness, of lust — will only make your pain worse in the end.

And I promise you, only the comforts of Christ hold what your soul craves in the valley. We won’t find healing for our suffering or power to overcome temptation simply by refusing our besetting sin. We need to drink from a better, deeper, more satisfying well. We need to see and savor Jesus — through his word, through prayer, through one another — and all the more when suffering comes.

Audio Transcript

God is all-sovereign. Amen. But in his all-sovereignty, is he fair? That topic of God’s impartiality comes up on the podcast a lot. Is God governed by objectivity, or does his sovereignty somehow excuse a bias, an unfairness, in how he works in this world and deals with each of us? Many episodes on the podcast come at this essential question, which you can see in my episode digest in the new APJ book on pages 355–64. You’ll see the diverse ways this question has come up over the years.

The fairness of God is such a dominant theme for you, our listeners, that I was not surprised at all to discover that Romans 9:22 is the most-asked-about verse in all of the Bible in our inbox. No other verse has been asked about more often in our inbox, your emails to us, in our eleven-plus years of podcasting than Romans 9:22. And this most-asked-about text happens to be next up in our reading tomorrow, if you’re reading along with us through the Navigators Bible Reading Plan.

So, to prepare for that reading in Romans 9 tomorrow, here’s one representative question from a listener named Leslie that captures the heart of a hundred-plus other emails that we have: “Pastor John, hello. I could use your help in my struggle with Romans 9:22. It seems to me to imply that those who are not elect are not even given a chance to repent since they were born for destruction. Is this right, that many people are created with no chance of ever being saved?”

I’m not surprised that Romans 9 is among the texts that people have the most questions about, because my own history bore that out. Just recently, I’ve been perusing some of my old journal entries from 1977 to 1979. I was in my early thirties, and almost all of my discretionary time was spent studying and writing about Romans 9, especially Romans 9:14–23.

Sent by Sovereignty

It may interest our listeners that this text — which is so problematic for most of us, the text that highlights the absolute sovereignty of God over salvation as clearly, as forcefully as any other text in the Bible — was the text God used in 1979 (I could even date it, December 14) to move me from being an academic theologian (after teaching six years in college) to becoming a pastor at Bethlehem Baptist Church, where I served for 33 years. It moved me to become a pastor with a longing that God would use me to save lost sinners from the cradle to the grave, and to grow a strong church that would send hundreds of people to the unreached peoples of the world in world missions.

So, I’m saying, I’m bearing witness, that the most controversial chapter in the Bible with regard to the sovereignty of God in saving sinners was the chapter that God used in those years to move me out of an academic dealing with the word of God into a frontline effort to save lost sinners and strengthen the church and reach the nations.

“The moral accountability of man is not destroyed by the absolute sovereignty of God in salvation.”

That’s important, and I say it because people think that if you believe in the absolute sovereignty of God over the salvation of sinners, you would be disinclined to be a soul-winning pastor and a missions-driven church. That’s not true. It had the opposite effect on me, as it did on William Carey, as it did on John Paton, as it did on Adoniram Judson and hundreds of other missionaries and pastors who laid down their lives to reach lost people with the gospel.

Open-Armed Calvinism

There is such a thing as hyper-Calvinism, which is not historic Calvinism. It’s always been a tiny group who have twisted the Bible by their unbiblical logic to say that the only people you should invite to Christ are those who give evidence of being among God’s elect. So, you don’t share the gospel indiscriminately (like I do). You wait and you look for signs among unbelievers that they might be elect. That’s absolutely wrong. It is not what Romans 9 teaches or implies. It’s not what any other text in the Bible teaches or implies.

The lover of God’s sovereignty who is saturated with a big, biblical view of God’s power in saving sinners says to every human being, without exception, words like these:

Listen, everyone who thirsts. Come to the waters. You who have no money, come, buy and eat. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and labor for that which does not satisfy? Come to the water of life. Drink freely.

Everyone, absolutely everyone, who receives Jesus Christ as the Son of God, crucified for sinners, risen from the dead — every one of you who puts your trust in him as your only and precious Savior will receive with him everything that God has done through him, everything that God is for you in him. You will have it all, nothing good withheld from you. If you will have the Lord Jesus Christ, you have everything that he achieved, climaxing in everlasting joy in the presence of God.

That’s what you say. If people will let you talk a full minute like that, that’s what you say to every single human being.

Challenge of Romans 9

Now, here are the words from Romans 9 that cause people to stumble. Let me say a word about them. Romans 9:18–19: “So then [God] has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills. You will say to me then, ‘Why does he still find fault?’” In other words, we’re not asking a question Paul didn’t ask. We’re not thinking, “I’ve got a question, Paul, that you never thought of.” No, you don’t. The questioner asks, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” And now Paul did not say, “Well, everybody can resist his will. We’ve all got free will. Everybody can resist his will.” That’s not the way he answered the question “Who can resist his will?”

He says, “Who are you, O man, to answer back to God?” (Romans 9:20). Now, he did not mean by that question that we should never ask God questions. That’s not what he meant. He meant that you should never react with disapproval when he answers. And he goes on:

Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory? (Romans 9:20–23)

Two Compatible Truths

Now, Leslie asks, “It seems to imply that those who are not elect are not given a chance — even a chance — to repent since they were born for destruction. Is this right — that many people are created with no chance of ever being saved?” My answer: no, that would not be a faithful, biblical way of stating the situation. Let me put beside each other two biblical truths that many people consider contradictory but are not. And then I’ll draw out of those two truths an implication for Leslie’s statement.

The first truth is that, from all eternity, God has chosen from among the entire fallen, sinful humanity a people for himself, but not everyone. Thus, this selection is owing to no merit at all in those chosen people. God pursues their salvation not only by effectively achieving the atonement for their sin through Christ, but also by sovereignly overcoming all their rebellion, and bringing them to saving faith. So, that’s the first truth.

Here’s the second. Everyone who perishes and is finally lost and cut off from God perishes because of real, blameworthy self-exaltation — sin — and because they are hardened against the revelations of God’s power and glory in nature or in the gospel. No innocent people perish. Nobody who humbly wants Christ for a Savior is lost. No one is judged or condemned for not knowing or believing or obeying reality to which they had no access. All lostness and all judgment are owing to sin and rebellion against the revelation that we have. That’s the second truth.

Now, what keeps those two truths from being contradictory is this: the moral accountability of man is not destroyed by the absolute sovereignty of God in salvation. Or to say it another way, God’s final and decisive governance of all things, including who comes to faith, is compatible — it fits — with all humans being morally accountable to God for whether they believe or not.

“There will be no innocent people in hell, and there will be only forgiven sinners in heaven.”

Now, we live in a world that, by and large, refuses to embrace God’s purposeful sovereignty in all things. That is Ephesians 1:11: “[He] works all things according to the counsel of his will.”
People reject this largely because the only solution their minds can embrace for maintaining human accountability is the presumption of ultimate human self-determination, otherwise known as “free will.” But ultimate human self-determination is not found anywhere in the Bible — nowhere. But God’s sovereignty is, and man’s accountability is, and nowhere are these considered contradictory.

No Innocent People in Hell

Therefore, my response to Leslie’s statement — that many people are created with no chance of ever being saved — is to say that everyone is being wooed and invited by God every day, either through natural revelation (the sun rising on the good and the evil, or the rain falling on the good and the bad, Matthew 5:45) or through conscience, or they’re being wooed and invited by gospel truth.

These revelations of God are their chance to be saved. It is a real invitation. It is real precisely because if they humbled themselves and received God’s grace, they would be saved. Those who do that, those who humble themselves and receive God’s grace, know that it was only the sovereign grace of God that enabled them to believe. And those who don’t do it know that it is because of their own sin that they loved something else more than God; that is why they didn’t believe.

There will be no innocent people in hell, and there will be only forgiven sinners in heaven.

Sobs shook my body. Nurses couldn’t help but squeeze a shoulder, hand, or foot whenever they entered the hospital room. Eventually, I’d cried so hard for so long that one felt the need to say, “You’re going to be okay, honey.” She must have thought it was the abdominal pain, or the bleeding, or the impending surgery.

“I know,” I whispered. “But I miss our baby.”

Considerate as they were, the staff struggled to understand my sadness. Perhaps no one who refers to an unborn child as “remaining fetal tissue” really can. They seemed to look away in discomfort whenever my husband and I called our baby what our baby was: our baby.

But now our baby was gone, as were deep breaths and clear thoughts. Did I cause this? I should have gone easier on my body. Was it my sin? I’ve been so impatient lately, even harsh. Maybe if I hadn’t — maybe if I had . . .

Never had I entered a valley quite like this.

Our Greatest Need in the Valley

The mysterious sorrow, the frantic questions, the lingering pregnancy hormones. In the days and weeks surrounding miscarriage, a mother’s faith often sits under fire, as we ache in ways we so little understand. We lost our child — but who was that child? Girl or boy? Mom’s nose or dad’s eyes? We’ll never hear her first word, or know his favorite food, or teach her to read, or watch him run. Much of our pain is the pain of receiving a gift along with so little time to unwrap, hold, and love it.

In its place stand questions that, left unanswered (or answered only by our pain), can distance us from who God is for us in Christ. Instead of clinging to him as “the Father of mercies and God of all comfort” (2 Corinthians 1:3–4), we can begin to wonder who he is, where he is, what he’s doing — and why it had to involve our baby never taking a breath. He whom we beheld as sovereign, good, and near to us the day we grasped a positive pregnancy test suddenly feels out of reach. We begin to cast him sidelong glances from afar. We had thought he was our good gift-Giver. Is he actually a cosmic and cool gift-Taker?

But the God whom we are so quick to doubt — he is quicker to respond. Throughout the ages, he put together a Book brimming with words not only true, but satisfying and strengthening. That is, a Book about himself. No matter how many our tears, mothers who take hold of its words can hold fast to God, eternal life, and godliness (2 Peter 1:3). Indeed, there is no other way through the valley of miscarriage.

When You Cannot See, Read

Like the mother who miscarries, the author of Lamentations was no stranger to loss. Babylon laid waste to Jerusalem before his very eyes. He saw attackers drag away children. He watched Israel’s rulers flee. He looked on as young and old groped for bread yet rose empty-handed, covered in the city’s ashes. When his eyes could take no more, he wept.

But even as his vision blurs and stomach churns, his mind holds fast to something far sturdier than Solomon’s temple: this.

But this I call to mind,     and therefore I have hope:

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;     his mercies never come to an end;they are new every morning;     great is your faithfulness. (Lamentations 3:21–23)

Though he swims in a sea of unthinkable grief, still he is able to reasonably say, “I have hope.” How? Because he has “this” — the truth of God’s unending love, mercy, and faithfulness — and because he calls that truth to mind. Whenever his pain rises up and shouts about who God appears to be in the moment, he directs his thoughts toward who God has revealed himself to be “from everlasting to everlasting” (Psalm 90:2).

“If we are not careful, wondering about God without talking with God can lead to wandering from God.”

Grieving mothers, how much greater is our access to truth and, through it, to our God? In the Bible, we can read the words God “breathed out” (2 Timothy 3:16) for us, each of which “proves true” (Proverbs 30:5) and “gives light” (Psalm 119:130). In his many sufferings, can you imagine the lengths to which Lamentations’ author might have gone to possess a single copy of the full Scriptures we have? Yet “this” was sufficient for his time of need. Might the entirety of the Bible be sufficient for us?

Though tears cloud our eyes, hormones our emotions, and sorrow our thoughts, we can arrive at truth and its only source, our God. For what we cannot see through the fog of loss and grief, we can read. Because of the Bible, there is no shortage of hope-restoring words to choose from (Romans 15:4).

At the same time, we are wise to spend what time and energy we have reading (and rereading) passages that address our darkest questions. Is God sovereign over miscarriage? If he is, what is he doing through it — and can he still be good in it? I wish I had space to respond. For now, I’ll leave you with the texts to which I turned (along with links to other resources that may serve you): Job 1, Isaiah 48, Psalm 91, Psalm 119, and Romans 8.

When You Cannot Pray, Repeat

Grief affects more than our ability to get truth into our minds; it can also keep us from getting truth out of our mouths in prayer. Upon parting with children we never cradled, fed, or dressed yet inexpressibly loved, we may feel little desire to address the One who either “didn’t spare them” or “couldn’t save them.” We tend to curl into ourselves, as we believe one of a hundred lies about God’s lack of interest or power.

Despite our unbelief, God stands ready to help through the Scriptures once more. In our most clouded moments, not only can we speak his word to ourselves, but we can repeat his word to him. When we do not have the words to talk to our Father, we have only to open the Book with a thousand pages’ worth of ways we might pray.

Lamentations 3:21–23 remains a fitting guide. The author, upon telling himself that God’s mercies “are new every morning,” turns immediately to address God: “Great is your faithfulness.” In the same breath, he draws truth in and then lets truth out and up as he turns it into prayer. And lest we think this was an easy task for him, consider the stanza he pens just before:

[God] has made my teeth grind on gravel,     and made me cower in ashes;my soul is bereft of peace;     I have forgotten what happiness is;so I say, “My endurance has perished;     so has my hope from the Lord.” (Lamentations 3:16–18)

No, he feels pain’s pull away from God and toward hopelessness just as we do. For despair often prefers to talk about God than to God, a habit suffering Christians must learn to resist. If we are not careful, wondering about God without talking to God can lead to wandering from God.

Scripture can return us to the tender speaking terms we once knew and now need, perhaps more than ever. Whether we turn a passage into prayer, as Lamentations’ author does, or pray a psalm word for word, or use one of the New Testament’s many petitions, God went to great lengths to ensure that grieving mothers could weep yet still speak to him. What love is this, that when we lack the words to say, he offers us his own.

Ever with Us

As we walk through the valley of miscarriage, our pain, when left to itself, will not be so kind as to reinforce a biblical view of God and suffering. Rather, sorrow will try to seize the upper hand on reality, bending our hearts into a posture of doubt, mistrust, or resentment.

But praise God, we need not feel, think, or even reason our own way back into his grip. His word open before us, we can read and pray a path across the valley. Though our stomachs will stop growing, and we’ll schedule no more ultrasounds for now, there is a way for us not only to withstand the loss, but to grow because of it: “by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4).

The valley we walk is not so low that God cannot get to us. Indeed, if we are in Christ, we need only open his word, and we will find that he is with us already: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me” (Psalm 23:4). Together, mothers, we can push past what our anguish might want to what we know our anguish needs: communion with God through his word.

I grew up in a revivalist church in the South. Every few years, we had a “crusade” with special weeknight services and a dynamic, out-of-town speaker. I remember singing “Revive Us Again” as our theme during one of those rallies. I didn’t realize at the time that we were singing Scripture, from Psalm 85:

Will you not revive us again,that your people may rejoice in you? (verse 6)

The history of God’s people, from the first covenant into the new, is a record of various seasons and undulations, corporate backslidings and surprising renewals. Easy as it might be to criticize aspects of the revivalist tradition, something is profoundly right and healthy in the Christian heart that longs for, and prays for, revival — that God’s people would freshly rejoice in him.

In every generation, our sense of the spiritual climate of our times is subjective, yet real. We find ourselves living in days either where true religion seems to be on the rise, or declining. When the tides are rising, we might pray that it become more than it already has. In times of apparent decline, we pray for the tide to turn. Either way, we pray for revival, broadly defined.

But then what do we do next? When our hearts swell with the longing, and with prayers, for God to send corporate renewal to his church, what might we devote our lives to, as we pray and wait?

Revival’s End and Means

An insight right there in Psalm 85, borne out across the Scriptures, gives us a critical and central component of every true revival of genuine religion. Verse 6 asks God for spiritual renewal (“Will you not revive us again . . .”) and clarifies what the heart of that renewal is (“. . . that your people may rejoice in you”). The end, or goal, of biblical revival is God’s people enjoying God, rejoicing in him, having him as our joy of joys.

Then verse 8 gives us a striking glimpse of God’s vital means in bringing about that end of his people rejoicing in him:

Let me hear what God the Lord will speak,for he will speak peace to his people, to his saints. (Psalm 85:8)

So, revival begins with God — through his speaking, his voice, his word. Man does not produce true spiritual revival; God does. And the way in which he does so is through his word. When God sends the fire of his Spirit to fall on the hearts of his people in some blessed local or regional renewal, the fire falls on the wood of his word.

Lay the Kindling

Psalm 85 is a precious testimony, but only one — and we have far more evidence across Scripture that God makes himself central in revival through his word. In every lasting renewal of true religion, God makes his own speaking, his own word, to be fundamental and prominent. Psalm 19:7 celebrates that the law of the Lord — his teaching, his word — revives the soul. The Spirit’s flame does not land without the kindling of his word, and so rallying to God’s word is a plain next step for those who long and pray for revival.

The central place of God’s word is pronounced in the revivals of true worship under the prophet Samuel and later under King Josiah. Samuel’s ministry begins with the acknowledgment that “the word of the Lord was rare in those days” (1 Samuel 3:1). So enter the young prophet, with God’s revealing himself “by the word,” and God’s word coming to all Israel through Samuel’s ministry (1 Samuel 3:19–4:1).

“Something is profoundly right and healthy in the Christian heart that longs for, and prays for, revival.”

So too with Josiah, who became king in his youth, and walked in the ways of righteousness, but for years his efforts at reform only went so far, until “Hilkiah the priest found the Book of the Law of the Lord given through Moses” (2 Chronicles 34:14). As stunning as it is to us, somehow they had misplaced the Book! Apparently, spiritual dullness had led to neglect, and neglect led to misplacing God’s word. But when the priest and king discovered the Book and read aloud to the people “all the words of the Book of the Covenant that had been found in the house of the Lord” (verse 30), then the fire of national renewal fell.

Grant Us Some Reviving

We see the centrality of God’s word in the spiritual renewal of his people yet again (and with special emphasis) in the after-exile revivals under Ezra and Nehemiah. In Ezra, fire falls in chapter 9, but not without decades of preparation recounted in chapters 1–8. Some eighty years prior, the first wave of Jewish exiles had come back to Jerusalem after Cyrus’s decree in 539 BC. Ezra chapters 1–6 recount this first return and the quarter century that follows (until 515 BC), with the beginning and (later) finishing of the foundation and temple, and the restoring of worship and the feasts.

Ezra doesn’t arrive until chapter 7, almost 60 years after chapter 6, and when he enters the scene, he’s introduced as “skilled in the Law of Moses that the Lord, the God of Israel, had given” (Ezra 7:6). Accent on the word given. Ezra received God’s word as given, and so studies it and obeys it and teaches it, not to amend or edit it, but as God’s given. “Ezra had set his heart to study the Law of the Lord, and to do it and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel” (Ezra 7:10).

Chapter 7’s description of Ezra as a man of God’s word sets the table for the revival to come. Ezra is “learned in matters of the commandments of the Lord” (verse 11), and even the Persian king, Artaxerxes, twice writes of Ezra as a “scribe of the Law of the God of heaven” (verses 12 and 21). Ezra, then, is expressly commissioned by the king to teach the word of God to the people.

Apparently, Ezra manifests such skill and familiarity with Scripture that even the pagan king recognizes that “the Law of your God . . . is in your hand” (verse 14), and so “the wisdom of your God . . . is in your hand” (verse 25). With the king’s blessing, Ezra gathers “leading men” (7:28), and they humble themselves with prayer and fasting, imploring God for safe travel (8:21), and come safely to Jerusalem (8:31).

In chapter 9, Ezra learns of the moral (and marital) compromise of God’s people with the surrounding nations (9:1–2). He is appalled and grieves, and “all who trembled at the words of the God of Israel” gather around him (9:4). Here the kindling is in place: a man of the word, now surrounded with those who tremble at God’s word. That evening, Ezra leads them in a prayer of repentance which has, at its heart, the nation’s infidelity to God’s word: “we have forsaken your commandments” (9:10).

As Ezra prays and makes confession, revival begins: “a very great assembly of men, women, and children, gathered to him out of Israel, for the people wept bitterly” (10:1). They plead with Ezra to teach them God’s word. The officials and elders issue a proclamation for all returned exiles, without exception, to gather in Jerusalem in three days — and so begins the work of renewal (10:11).

Awakening of Tears and Joy

This first renewal preserves the nation another thirteen years until the arrival of Nehemiah in 445 BC, with a new wave of exiles and a mission to rebuild the walls.

Nehemiah 1–7 tells the story of his authorization from Artaxerxes, coming to Jerusalem, overcoming opposition, and finishing the walls. Chapter 8 then bursts with the light of covenant renewal and spiritual revival under Ezra and Nehemiah working hand in hand — and now the centrality of Scripture is even more pronounced.

Ezra, the trained, skilled handler of God’s word, appears again among the gathered people “to bring the Book” (Nehemiah 8:1), physically and homiletically. He stands on a wooden platform and opens Scripture in the sight of all the people (and they stand in reverence of God). He reads from the Book and gives the sense (8:8) — that is, he and thirteen other priests, skilled in God’s word, explain and teach the Scriptures from early morning to midday. Strikingly, Nehemiah 8 characterizes the people, again and again, as attentive to, hearing, understanding, and responding to God’s word, first with mourning over their own sin and then, once further instructed, with joy — the very “[rejoicing] in you” of Psalm 85:6.

Ezra, Nehemiah, and the priests remind the people that this day is holy (not a fast day but the Feast of Tabernacles) and seek to replace the people’s grief with rejoicing in the mercy of God:

This day is holy to our Lord. And do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength. (Nehemiah 8:10)

Here we catch an amazing glimpse into the heart of revival as rejoicing in God. Strength (Hebrew maoz) is literally “refuge” or “stronghold” or “fortress,” a place of God’s protection. Mourning over sin is necessary, but in view of the stunning mercy of God, grief must soon give way to rejoicing. And this joy in the Lord is a stronghold, a refuge, for his people. Rejoicing in God, they are finally safe and protected, even from their own sin and its consequences. As John Piper explains,

The light was dawning that you can’t honor Yahweh as holy if you only grieve in his presence. Grief is good. Fear is good. Penitence is good. Tears are good. But not if that’s all you feel. God’s holiness is the purity and perfection not only of his justice but also of his mercy and grace. And cowering people do not magnify the glory of grace. (“The Joy of the Lord Is Your Stronghold”)

A day later, the people return “to study the words of the Law” (Nehemiah 8:13), and the revival continues in the fuel and guidance of God’s word, day by day, as they read from the Book (verse 18). In the next chapter, they read from the Book “for a quarter of the day” (Nehemiah 9:3). When revival came, God’s word was at the center, God himself working in power through his Spirit by the word.

Heart of True Revival

For those of us longing and praying for awakening today, on this side of the greatest renewal in history — the coming of God’s Word incarnate and the pouring out of his Spirit at Pentecost — what might we take away from these remarkable renewals in Scripture?

First, God will see to it that his people, in the ups and downs of their spiritual journeys in this sin-sick world, are renewed and revived. Even in our longing and praying for revival is already a great glimmer of God’s sovereign work. Then, second, when the Spirit’s fire comes in power, it falls on the wood of God’s word. In our holy longings and fervent prayers, we open the Book. We read it, reread it, meditate on it, memorize it, study it, teach it, preach it, live it, spread it. It will be the word of God that fans the flicker of our burning hearts into a flame.

And in and through his word, God himself will be the great prize. God in Christ will be the greatest gain in any true revival. The end will be his people’s fresh rejoicing in him.