Audio Transcript

This week we look at authenticity — living out the authentic life. Francisco, a 23-year-old from Mexico City, wants to embody the qualities of Romans 12:9–13 in his life over the next year. He asks for insights on living out this passage authentically, a life of genuine affection. That’s on Thursday.

But today we have a question about the life of Christ and his authenticity: “Hi, Pastor John! My name is Mark, and I have a question for you that I’m having trouble putting into words, but I’ll try my best. When I read the Bible, I keep coming back to something Jesus says at Passover as he’s looking toward the cross: ‘The Son of Man goes as it is written of him.’ That’s Matthew 26:24. I don’t quite understand how the cross can be both fully planned out and still come from Jesus’s totally willing heart. I believe he ‘gave himself as a ransom for all’ (1 Timothy 2:6). But when I think of actors following a script, it doesn’t feel like they’re acting freely or authentically — it’s someone else’s will, not their own. So, how can Jesus’s life and death be fully scripted out and authentically yielded at the same time?”

Well, I probably should make the problem more difficult before I make it less difficult. Not only is the life of Jesus fully scripted, but so is Judas’s — indeed, so is every person’s life fully scripted by God. We’re all living, acting, speaking, thinking, feeling according to God’s providence, God’s decree, God’s script.

When Jesus had been betrayed by Judas and arrested (let’s just take Judas as an example), Matthew writes in Matthew 26:56, “All this has taken place that the Scriptures” — the script — “of the prophets might be fulfilled.” And Jesus said to the disciples about Judas at the Last Supper, “I am not speaking of all of you; I know whom I have chosen. But the Scripture will be fulfilled, ‘He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me’” (John 13:18). So, everything is happening that night according to divine script.

Then there are the sweeping statements in the Bible that cover all people. Proverbs 16:1: “The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord.” In other words, our hearts are indeed significant in shaping what we say, but the will of the Lord is decisive as to what comes out of our mouths. And Jeremiah says, “I know, O Lord, that the way of man is not in himself, that it is not in man who walks to direct his steps” (Jeremiah 10:23). And Proverbs 20:24 says, “A man’s steps are from the Lord; how then can man understand his way?”

So, we have good reason to believe that when Paul says in Ephesians 1:11, “[God] works all things according to the counsel of his will” — that’s the script — he means “all things,” including the words and deeds of every person. All persons are acting out, speaking a script ultimately written by God.

Addressing a Reasonable Question

Mark’s question to us is this: I don’t quite understand how the cross can be fully planned and still come from Jesus’s totally willing heart. He says, “When I think of actors following a script, it doesn’t feel like they’re acting freely or authentically — it’s someone else’s will, not their own.”

“We’re all living, acting, speaking, thinking, feeling according to God’s providence, God’s decree, God’s script.”

Now, that’s, of course, totally reasonable. That last question is totally reasonable. If you conceive of an actor reading a script and memorizing it and speaking it in a play, then, clearly, what he says is not necessarily his own. He’s an actor; he’s playacting. He’s letting himself be totally and consciously — that’s important — governed in what he says by memorizing and repeating a script. And that’s the danger of all analogies. Analogies are wonderful and they’re horrible, aren’t they? They’re just so illuminating and so confusing.

There are true things about the analogy between God’s detailed providence and the script of a play. There’s an analogy there, and there are true things. And there are wrong things in the analogy between God’s providence and the script of a play. What’s true about the analogy is that God does indeed write the script for everything that happens in the world, and he sees to it that everybody acts according to his script. That’s the meaning of divine providence. But what’s not true about the analogy is that, in reality, no human being can read the script of divine providence before it happens. Nobody is reading and memorizing the script of divine providence and then acting it out like in a play. The script is secret in every individual life, until it’s acted out — except for Jesus.

Jesus is divine. He is God. His mind and his will are totally one with the Father. Jesus was there in eternity past, sharing in the act of writing the script when it was written for him. He wrote it with the Father. So, unlike everyone else, he did know in detail what he was to do at every moment, because he himself planned to do it. And so, he did not act against his will when following the script. It’s his script.

The words in the garden, “Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done,” did not mean that God the Son was out of step with God the Father (Luke 22:42). It meant that the truly human nature of Jesus found the prospect of the crucifixion horrific and undesirable in itself, but the unity of the will between the Son and the Father prevailed. So, there’s no sense in which Jesus was following a script contrary to his ultimate desires. He wrote the script together with his Father. He loved the script, and he wholeheartedly acted the script from his whole soul, eternity to eternity.

Addressing a More Difficult Question

But Mark’s question to us is much more difficult when it comes to Judas and everybody else. We didn’t write the script of providence. We can’t read the script of providence before it is acted. We don’t know God’s detailed plans for us the rest of this afternoon or this evening or tomorrow morning, but we will all act and speak in perfect accord with the script of providence.

Now, to deal with this — I have maybe one minute left, which is why I wrote a 750-page book to answer this one-minute-long issue. And so, I feel just a little bit of comfort that if somebody finds this next minute inadequate, I can at least say, “Would you please consult my book Providence, which has 750 pages of defense and explanation of this doctrine?” So, I take some comfort in that.

The essential mystery regarding providence, the divine script, is how — that’s the key question. How does God govern all things in such a way that human choices are still blameworthy or praiseworthy — that is, humans are still real moral agents and are really accountable for our actions? That God governs the world this way is clearly revealed in Scripture. How he does it is not clearly revealed in Scripture. So, let me close with two verses for you to think about in this mystery.

Second Corinthians 8:16–17: “Thanks be to God, who put into the heart of Titus the same earnest care I have for you. For . . . he is going to you of his own accord.” God put it in the heart of Titus to do something, and the result is that he’s doing it of his own accord. That’s the mystery.

You can see the same thing in Romans 6:17: “Thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart.” So, Paul thanks God, not the Roman Christians, that they have become obedient from their own heart — authentic, real, heartfelt choosing and obedience. It is really their choice, and God is the one who ultimately brought it to pass.

Oh, there is so much more to say, but I end with this. John Piper owes — this is why I love this doctrine — we owe our eternal lives to the sovereign grace of God to overcome our sinful will and make us new creatures in Christ, who is at work in us to will and to do his good pleasure.

“The church” this. “The church” that.

One way professing Christians betray a small, thin, and weak vision of the risen Christ is by dumping on “the church.” They might speak flippantly of what “the church” doesn’t get. Or what “the church” does wrong. Or the problem with “the church” in our day. They claim to know better than “the church.” If only they could fix “the church.” Having become concerned about an oversight, error, or danger they see in some Christians or churches, they’ve become careless with their words about the church — and particularly so when we consider what Christ himself says about her.

As much as we may claim to esteem Jesus, and desire to speak highly of him, we reveal gaps in our devotion when we broad-brush his bride with negativity, evidence strange biases against her, and feed into popular opinion by suspecting, seeing, spinning, and spreading the worst.

“We show how little we think of Christ by speaking endless negativity about his bride.”

Whatever the motivations (which are varied and complex), we demonstrate how subtly, and perhaps deeply, we have been shaped by, and conformed to, the course of this world, when we talk about “the church” in ways grossly out of step with our Lord. And we show how little we think of Christ, by speaking endless negativity about his bride.

Wife of the Lamb

Make no mistake, the church is his bride. How startling that Christ himself would risk such an image?

Not only did John the Baptist speak of him as such (John 3:29), but Jesus cast himself as “the bridegroom” who is taken away (Matthew 9:15; Mark 2:19–20; Luke 5:34–35), and whose return is delayed (Matthew 25:1–10). In one of Scripture’s final climactic statements, Revelation 22:17 says, “The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come’” — meaning the church. In Revelation 21:9, the angel says, “Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.”

The church is Jesus’s bride, “the wife of the Lamb.” And when we admire a man, respect him, appreciate him, and reverence him, we are careful what we say about his wife — and all the more so in public. We check our suspicions. We are vigilant to not let personal disappointments fester into a global cynicism toward her. We go out of our way not to regard her, speak of her, or criticize her in his presence in any way that would puzzle or dishonor her husband. We show little esteem for a groom when we insult his bride.

So, those who genuinely admire and worship Christ will not only reverence his person but also his perspective. They will want to know, and remember, What does Jesus think of his church? What does Christ feel toward her? How does he talk about her?

He Chose Her

First, the great Groom’s choice of his Bride is remarkable. Not only is she “a chosen race” (1 Peter 2:9), but he chose her in her ungodliness, not because of any native beauty in her. The Father chose the church for his Son before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4), writing the names of his people in “the book of life of the Lamb who was slain” (Revelation 13:8).

Not only did Christ and his Father choose the church for her salvation, but also to be an instrument of divine revelation in the world. And not just an instrument, but the central vessel in making God known in his world in this age. The vision of the church is astoundingly, almost uncomfortably, high in Ephesians 3.

When Paul there offers praise to God the Father, he says, “To him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus.” We expect “in Christ Jesus” as the focal point through which God’s glory is displayed — but here she is, his wife, side by side with Christ himself, the bridegroom: “to him be glory in the church.” This echoes the centrality of the church in making God known just a few verses prior: the manifold wisdom of God is being “made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places” — and now he mentions only one instrument — “through the church” (Ephesians 3:10).

Disappointed as we may be with an unfaithful leader, or hurt as we may feel by particular people or ministries in a local community, we would do well to remember such a vision of the church — Christ’s own vision of his church. The church, worldwide and throughout the ages, is not mainly bringing reproach upon Christ. Rather, the church, alongside Christ, is bringing glory to the Father and making his wisdom known to all the powers, earthly and heavenly.

He Cherishes Her

Second, the church is not just a body. She is his body (Ephesians 5:22; Colossians 1:18, 24). “You are the body of Christ,” Paul says to the church (1 Corinthians 12:27).

In the best body reference of all, God not only has “put all things under [Christ’s] feet” as sovereign of the universe on the very throne of heaven, but also God “gave [Christ] as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all” (Ephesians 1:22–23). Christ’s vision and concern for his body boggles, stretches, and defies human explanation. Which might, at least, correct our uncareful speech.

Jesus loves the church as his own body. He emphatically does not hate his own flesh, but he nourishes and cherishes it (Ephesians 5:29). Jesus cherishes his church. He adores her, cares for her, gladly devotes his attention to her. He has pledged his loyalty to her, to be one flesh with her, to hold fast to her, to not give up on her, to never leave or forsake her. “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her (Ephesians 5:25).

He Cleanses Her

Jesus’s awareness of his church’s flaws and failures is far more extensive than any human’s. He knows every detail of ongoing evil. He knows the sins we try to hide. Jesus’s high view of his church is not owing in the least to his turning a blind eye to, or any codding or soft-peddling of, sin. He died to cleanse his church of her sin. He does not take her sin lightly. He is his church’s “Savior” (Ephesians 5:23). No one takes sin in the church more seriously than Jesus. He knows the depths of her sin. Yet he still loves her.

“No one takes sin in the church more seriously than Jesus.”

He not only chose her (despite her sin) and cherishes her (despite her sin), but he also is cleansing her from her sin. He died to both secure his bride and to sanctify her, to make her holy (Ephesians 5:26). And he rose, and lives, to cleanse her “by the washing of water with the word” (Ephesians 5:26). Do our words echo his? Do we join him in washing her, cleansing her, sanctifying her, building her up with our words? Or do we oppose him, insult her, sully her, tear her down by the spirit we harbor and the words we speak in the world and post on the web?

The day is coming when Jesus will “present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” (Ephesians 5:27) — when all will see “the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” (Revelation 21:2). Christ is preparing his church for the wedding, purging sin, adorning his bride for that day when she will be presented to him, and every eye will see her, at last, in unparalleled majesty.

Hard Words of Love

Here we might ask about Jesus’s own hard words for his bride. Isn’t it the Bridegroom himself who says these devastating words in Revelation 3:15–16? “I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.” Love for the Bride of Christ does not mean silence about the sins of particular churches and specific saints. But it does mean that we take care how we speak about those failures.

Part of cleansing the church means correcting her, but correcting her does not mean despising her, or painting her sins in broad strokes. When Christ confronts the churches in Revelation 2–3, he addresses specific churches with their own failures. And in correcting them, he also woos them back to himself. Notice even in Revelation 3:

Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. (Revelation 3:19–20).

Jesus doesn’t sit back in his armchair issuing criticisms about the church, however much indwelling sin remains, for now, in his people. He “gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession” (Titus 2:14). He is redeeming his church from her sin, purifying her as a people for himself. There is no place for hopelessness about the future of the church. Jesus will build his church (Matthew 16:18), and he will cleanse her.

He Covenants with Her

Finally, Jesus makes lifelong — eternity long — promises to his bride. He covenants with her.

He will provide for and protect her. The gates of hell will not prevail against her (Matthew 16:18). “The righteous” — his church — “will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Matthew 13:43). Stunningly, Jesus will “dress himself for service and have [his people] recline at table, and he will come and serve them” (Luke 12:37). And not only will he come to them; he will bring them to himself, to sit with him on his very throne: “The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne” (Revelation 3:21).

For now, tears remain. We face death, battle remaining sin, endure mourning and crying, persevere in pain. Yet he promises, to his church, to “wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore” (Revelation 21:4). And this when we hear a loud voice from the throne saying,

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

And so we, his church, will receive the fulfillment of Scripture’s great, long-running promise: He will be our God, and we will be his people. He has pledged himself to us. We will have him. We will know him. We will enjoy him. We will dwell with him, forever.

His church is the people he has chosen to be among for eternity.

Would You Insult His Bride?

Jesus chose his wife before the foundation of the world. He cherishes her with energy and attentiveness. He cleanses her and prepares to present her pure and beautiful to himself. And he covenants to be hers, and with her, for all eternity. The Lord of heaven loves his bride. Does that not make you love her all the more? Does that not make you want to keep from carelessly speaking ill of her?

We do not whitewash the flaws of particular church leaders, or particular tendencies in sinful hearts. We do not cover for evil. Nor do we broad-brush the church, pretending to see and know flaws that are beyond our vantage nationwide, not to mention worldwide, and across the ages. And we don’t pretend the church is yet fully cleansed. Christ is still working on her.

When tempted to dump on “the church,” we who claim Christ will do well to remember his perspective, and his heart, and to speak with the grace and truth of our Savior toward his bride.

“Not feeling like it.” In the daily pursuit of Christ, I fear no phrase has hindered me more.

A few moments’ reflection reminds me of the silliness of such a feelings-based spirituality. A farmer will find nothing at harvest if he sets aside his plow with a wave of “not feeling like it.” A pianist will end her performances embarrassed if she takes a “not feeling like it” attitude to her practices. A couple will greet their anniversary with an unromantic sigh if they allow “not feeling like it” to govern their marriage.

Yet how often have I sidestepped habits of grace with a subtle, unspoken “not feeling like it” — and have expected to somehow still mature in faith and love and feel the spontaneous joy of the Spirit?

Any number of reasons stand ready to endorse the lazy slouch. “I don’t want to be a hypocrite.” “I have so much to do today anyway.” “I’ll get more from Scripture when I feel like reading it.” And perhaps the most common: “I’ll do it tomorrow.”

Meanwhile, today’s spiritual potential — today’s comfort, joy, power, life — disappears on the winds of whim.

Reclaiming Routine

To some, the word routine carries the stiffness of stale bread and the rot of dead plants, the stuffiness of library books never opened and attics dusty with age. The very thought of routine spirituality — planned, scheduled, disciplined — seems to undermine the ministry of the life-giving, freedom-bestowing Spirit. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Corinthians 3:17) — and where the spirit of routine is (we may think), there is bondage.

The dichotomy, however, is self-imposed, self-imagined. If routine smells stale to us, the problem lies in our own sniffer. No doubt, routine can be made stale and dead, as any flower can be trampled underfoot or any sky cloaked with smog. But routine itself remains good, the friend of freedom and joy.

We might call any number of witnesses to testify on behalf of routine: Daniel, who “got down on his knees” and prayed “three times a day” (Daniel 6:10), whether lions waited or not; Peter and John, who went to the temple “at the hour of prayer” even after Pentecost brought the Spirit (Acts 3:1); or our Lord Jesus himself, who spontaneously defeated the devil’s lies, after fasting for forty days, because he had routinely memorized Deuteronomy (Matthew 4:1–10).

But perhaps the most striking ode to routine appears in Psalm 119.

Routines Like Riverbeds

None who read Psalm 119 would diagnose its author as dry; none who take up his psalm can sing it in hushed tones. The man sounds as alive as a spring sparrow, as exuberant as the exclamations in so many of his sentences. He isn’t always joyful, but oh, how he feels, freely and spontaneously. The whole psalm is a living pulse.

“Blessed are you, O Lord!” he shouts (verse 12). His soul, like his song, “is consumed with longing for your rules at all times” (verse 20). Both midnight and early morning may find him awake (verses 62, 147), too ecstatic to sleep, for “your testimonies are my delight” (verse 24). His hates and his loves burn too bright to be hidden (verses 104, 119).

“Under God, routines carve riverbeds in the soul where the streams of spontaneous love run deep.”

We might imagine such spontaneous affection lives beyond our reach, the possession of a super-spiritual personality. Pay attention to the psalm, however, and you may notice something that rivals the intensity of his feelings: the consistency of his routine. Scripture poured out of the man’s heart only because he had previously, even fastidiously, “stored” it there (verse 11). “I set your rules before me” was the watchword of his life, no matter the day (verse 30). With a devotion that might make us uncomfortable, he declares, “Seven times a day I praise you for your righteous rules” (verse 164).

Disciplined memorization, daily meditation, planned prayer and praise — under God, such routines carve riverbeds in the soul where the streams of spontaneous love run deep. They raise windmills in the heart to catch the breezes of the Spirit. Routines cannot give life of themselves, but they do invite life with all the readiness of a field furrowed, planted, and waiting for the rain.

String and Tune

Psalm 119 (and the rest of God’s word) gives us a robust category for spontaneous spirituality, for prayer and praise that fill the nets of ordinary moments and threaten to sink us for joy. But we have little hope of experiencing spontaneous devotion apart from the unspectacular business of routine. Daily we let down our nets; daily we take them up again; daily we wait for Jesus to bring the catch.

As we consider what routines might serve spontaneity best, we might helpfully think in two broad patterns: morning devotions and midday retreats. If morning devotions string our guitars, midday retreats retune them. If morning devotions inflate our hearts toward heaven, midday retreats give the bump that keeps us skyward. If morning devotions plant a flag for Christ on the hill of dawn, midday retreats beat off the afternoon foes ascending the slopes.

Morning Devotions

In all likelihood, we learned morning devotions as part of Discipleship 101. Repent, believe, and read your Bible every morning. But for that very reason, we can forget just how powerful and formative this pattern of seeking God can be.

There is a reason the psalmists prayed “in the morning” (Psalm 5:3), and sought deep satisfaction “in the morning” (Psalm 90:14), and declared God’s steadfast love “in the morning” (Psalm 92:2). There is a reason, too, we read of Jesus “rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark,” to commune with his Father (Mark 1:35). The morning’s first thoughts and words may not set an iron trajectory for the rest of the day, but a trajectory they do indeed set.

“We have little hope of experiencing spontaneous devotion apart from the unspectacular business of routine.”

Though we have new hearts in Christ, we do not always awake ready to live new. Our old man awakes with us, clinging close; Vanity Fair opens early; the devil waits, winking. Apart from some kind of Godward morning routine, then, we are likely to express throughout the day not spontaneous praise, but spontaneous pride; not spontaneous gratitude, but spontaneous grumbling. And so, in the morning, the wise want the first voice they hear to be God’s. They want the first words they speak to be prayer.

We will not always leave our morning devotions deeply moved. But if done prayerfully and earnestly, consistently and expectantly, then our devotions will set a tone for the hours ahead. We will walk into our day with guitar stringed, more ready to play a song of praise.

Midday Retreats

As valuable as morning devotions can be, however, souls like ours often need more to maintain a lively, spontaneous communion with God throughout the day. As the hours pass by, our strings lose their tune; our hearts drop altitude; our flags wave opposed. So, God gives us another pattern to live by:

These words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. (Deuteronomy 6:6–9)

We are too weak, too forgetful, to live by morning devotions alone. As we walk through the day, we need promises wrapped round our wrists like watches. We need to wear truth like eyeglasses. We need a world adorned with the words of God.

Signs, frontlets, doorposts — such words sanction our creativity. They invite us, for example, to sanctify space, writing God’s words on mirrors and walls, car dashboards and desks. Some might replace their phone’s screen saver with a promise from the morning’s reading; others might write down a verse and slip it in their pocket. A friend in college, taking Deuteronomy 6:8 literally, sometimes drew the armor of God on his hands, a vivid reminder of the day’s spiritual warfare.

These words also invite us to sanctify time. Many would find help from retreating once or twice a day, even for a few minutes, to find a silent spot, hear again God’s words, and cast the day’s accumulated burdens on him. We might also benefit from simply pausing briefly before meetings or new tasks to settle our souls in Christ.

Finally, these words invite us to sanctify conversation. “You . . . shall talk of them,” God says — and not just in some places occasionally, but everywhere often. God means for his words to infiltrate our small talk and passing comments, our summaries of the day and our pillow-time reflections. Such conversations might start with a simple “What did you read today?” to spouse or roommate or friend.

However they come, midday retreats offer a pause and parenthesis in the day’s chaos, an oasis in the wilderness of tasks and temptations, a small Sabbath in the middle of packed afternoons, retuning our hearts to the morning’s song.

Revived and Rejoicing

The next time “not feeling like it” threatens to derail a good routine, we might confront our feelings with the words of David:

The law of the Lord is perfect,     reviving the soul; . . .the precepts of the Lord are right,     rejoicing the heart. (Psalm 19:7–8)

God’s word revives the soul and rejoices the heart — which suggests we will sometimes come to God’s word with souls asleep and hearts unfeeling. We will sit before an open Bible not wanting to read or pray, perhaps wanting to do anything else instead. And right there, in the midst of a difficult routine, God may revive our drooping feelings with a word.

When we allow “not feeling like it” to keep us from routine, we are like a man who avoids medicine because he doesn’t feel healthy, or who avoids fire because he doesn’t feel warm, or who avoids food because he doesn’t feel full. But when we engage in routine anyway — prayerfully and expectantly — we may walk away revived and rejoicing, our souls alive with spontaneous praise, “not feeling like it” nowhere to be found.