Audio Transcript

Sound preaching, happy God. Those two themes are connected in Paul’s mind, as evidenced in today’s question from a podcast listener who is also a preacher. “Pastor John, hello, and thank you for this podcast. My name is Matt, and I have been the lead teacher and preacher in a congregation for about five years now. I find myself stunned by 1 Timothy 1:10–11. And I’m wondering if you can riff on these verses for a full episode. Explain to us how the happiness of God relates to the soundness of our preaching. This link seems essential. And if such a connection can be made, you seem like the guy to do it! Thank you!”

Well, to riff on that will be my pleasure. Let’s put this amazing text in front of us. In 1 Timothy 1:9–11, Paul is describing the kinds of ugly behaviors that the law exposes. And in verse 10, he gives another way to discern those behaviors (and the good ones). He says they are “contrary to [healthy] doctrine,” or healthy teaching. Then in verse 11, he says that healthy teaching is healthy because it accords “with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God.”

Now, there are four great realities here: (1) the blessed God, (2) the glory of the blessed God, (3) the gospel of the glory of the blessed God, and (4) the healthy teaching that accords with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God. Matt is asking about how the blessedness of God affects the healthfulness of pastoral preaching and teaching. That’s a great question that I’m very, very eager to talk about. Let’s move backward through each of these four realities.

Blessed God

First, the blessed God. What does blessed mean? There are two ways the word blessed is used in the Old and New Testaments. It’s used for “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus.” Now that’s not the word that’s used here. That’s eulogētos. It means I bless God. He doesn’t bless me; I bless him. This word is makarios, which means blessed in the sense of fortunate or happy. Here are the uses of it in Paul — just a few examples — so you can taste what this word means when it’s applied to God.

Titus 2:13: “[We are] waiting for our blessed hope” — that is, our joyful, wonderful, satisfying hope — “the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.” The adjective blessed is used to describe the hope, meaning a joyful hope, a wonderful hope, a satisfying hope.

Here’s Romans 4:7–8: “Blessed” — that is, happy, fortunate — “are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed [same word] is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.” I mean, we’re supposed to picture a man in the courtroom. He is dead guilty. Everybody knows it. He’s pronounced innocent and sent into eternity with infinite joy. He goes out of that courtroom clicking his heels and dancing for joy into eternity. That’s makarios. That’s the word.

Here’s one more: 1 Corinthians 7:40. Paul says of the widow (because he loves his own singleness), “Yet in my judgment, she is happier if she remains [single] as she is.” Makariōtera is the relative form or the comparative form of makarios.

So, my conclusion is that blessed means fortunate (objectively) and happy (subjectively). God is happy. If that word bothers you — if it just sticks in your craw to say God is happy because it’s just too superficial, and God is big and great and glorious — I sympathize with that. I suggest you choose another word, like contented, joyful, euphoric, felicitous, glad, rhapsodic. I mean, get your thesaurus out and find some words. But don’t conceal the reality, the affectional reality. He’s not glum. He’s not morose. He’s not gloomy. He’s not dour or moody or sour or grim. He is the glad and happy God. He’s not disappointed in being what he is.

Glory of the Blessed God

Now, what’s he happy about? Well, it all starts in eternity — except that nothing starts in eternity (language just won’t work). It all is in eternity. God had no start, and his happiness had no start. That’s where we are. We’re back in eternity. From all eternity, he has been supremely happy in the fellowship with his Son.

Matthew 17:5 says, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” There is no greater energy in the universe, no greater intensity, no greater zeal, no greater passion, no greater esteem, no greater force or vehemence of affection than the infinite, eternal love and delight that the Father has in his Son. That delight belongs to the very nature of God from all eternity. He is happy in his Son — eternally, infinitely.

Then he’s happy in the wise, just, and holy ways in which he does everything that he does. Here’s Isaiah 46:9–10. This is the very heart of what it means to be God:

I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, “My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my good pleasure.”

That is a literal translation of the Hebrew: “I will accomplish all my good pleasure.”

Or Psalm 135:6: “Whatever the Lord pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps.” In other words, God approves of what he does. He’s pleased with his wisdom and his power. He is happy with the choices that he makes. His sovereign will cannot be thwarted. Therefore, he is a consistently happy God.

Most amazing of all, perhaps, is God’s delight in the people whom he created for his glory. Listen to these breathtaking statements from God’s happiness in his people. Psalm 149:4 says, “The Lord takes pleasure in his people; he adorns the humble with salvation.” Or Zephaniah 3:17: “The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.” If God gets loud, it can be heard billions of light years away.

Then Jeremiah 32:40–41: “I will make with them an everlasting covenant.” Now for all of us Christians, this is what Jesus bought with his blood. He called his blood the “blood of the covenant” (Matthew 26:28).

I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their heart, that they may not turn from me. I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul.

Now, in 1 Timothy 1:11, I think Paul calls this overflow of God’s happiness onto his people God’s glory. This is the glory of the blessed God. When God’s eternal happiness in himself is seen in all its various manifestations, it reveals God’s fullness, completeness, perfection, glory.

A gloomy God is a deficient God, a defective God. He lacks something; he has a defect. He’s not glorious. But the eternally, infinitely happy God is glorious in the overflow and the fullness of his happiness — perfectly glorious, without any defect or deficiency.

Glorious Gospel

Then Paul says that the gospel is the gospel of the glory of the blessed God (1 Timothy 1:11). This glory of the infinite fullness of God’s happiness is essential to the good news of Christ. Why is that? Because 1 Peter 3:18 says that Christ died to “bring us to God.” That’s why he died.

“It is not good news to be brought to a gloomy God.”

It is not good news to be brought to a gloomy God. “Watch out for him. He’s got his moods. Stay in your bedroom when he’s out of sorts.” That’s not good news. That’s not the gospel. A dour, downcast, unhappy God is not good news. Who wants to go there? Yet Christ died to take us there — namely, to a happy God, a Father who is infinitely happy as he overflows onto his children with his own happiness.

What is good news is when Jesus says in John 15:11, “These things I have spoken to you that my joy may be in you, and your joy may be full,” and when we hear Jesus say at the last day, in Matthew 25:23, “Enter into the joy of your master.” In other words, the glory of the happy God is good news because we will share in it. That joy that God has in the fellowship of the Trinity, in his Son in particular, will become our joy.

In John 17:26 — this may be the most amazing statement of it — Jesus says, “The love with which you [Father] have loved me” — this is the infinite joyful delight in the Son from all eternity — “[will] be in them, and I in them.” The very love that the Father has for the Son will be our love for the Son, our joy in the Son. This is why Jesus died, so that undeserving sinners who cast themselves for mercy on Christ could actually share God’s joy in God.

Healthy Preaching

Now, the last thing Paul says in 1 Timothy 1:10–11 is that we pastors and elders should make sure that our teaching and preaching are healthy teaching and preaching, healthy doctrine (sound is the old translation).

“The ultimate glory of the gospel is that we will share in God’s immeasurable happiness in God.”

Now what is that? Well, here’s what he says: healthy teaching accords “with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God.” This means that we preachers will ask these questions:

Does my preaching sound like and look like I have been in the presence of such God-centered glory?
Does my preaching echo the infinite worth of the glory of the happy God?
Do I open the gospel so clearly and so faithfully — so biblically, so deeply — that people can see that the final reason, the ultimate reason, it’s good news is not that our sins are forgiven, or that we escape hell and wrath, or that our guilt feelings are gone, or that our bodies are going to be glorious and get well and not suffer anymore, or that we’re going to see loved ones again, or there are going to be no more tears?

Those are glorious, but they’re not the ultimate glory. Rather, the ultimate glory of the gospel, the ultimate thing that Jesus bought when he shed his blood, is that we will share in God’s immeasurable happiness in God. Do all of our doctrines ring with this God-centered hope? Do all of our doctrines ring with the serious joy of God and our share in it?

I have a story I want to share with you, based on another you likely know. Jesus tells the original in the fifteenth chapter of Luke’s Gospel, and many have called it “the parable of the prodigal son,” though it’s actually about two rebellious sons.

Jesus’s parable requires no literary embellishments. The more I’ve meditated on this story over the decades, the more of Jesus’s brilliance I’ve seen in the parable exactly as Luke records it. I wasn’t moved to write my story by some delusion of self-grandeur, but as an attempt to enter into the parable, something I believe Jesus invites all of us to do.

As we age and our roles and relationships evolve, we are likely to see ourselves and others in the parable’s different characters. Whether we see ourselves more in the younger brother or the older brother, Jesus is calling us to think deeply about what it means for God to be “merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love” (Psalm 103:8) — not only as it relates to us, but as it relates to how we judge other younger or older brothers.

A lot of teaching is contained in this one parable. It is part of what makes the parable of the two sons, in its profound simplicity, a work of genius. I wouldn’t want to change a word. That said, I’d like to share with you the way I’ve sought to engage my imagination as a means of meditation by putting myself in the parable. In the following story, I imagine myself primarily as the older brother, who is trying to come to terms with the seriousness of his own sin.

The story takes place the day after the younger brother’s homecoming, sometime in the early afternoon. The older brother (whom I’ve named Judah) is standing on a small rise at the edge of the family property, gazing down the road that had guided his younger brother (whom I’ve named Benjamin) back home the day before. Ben has kept his distance from Jude, knowing how angry his older brother had been the night before. But wishing to somehow own up to his disastrous sin, Ben seeks Jude out and tentatively approaches him.

Prodigal’s Point

“Hey, Jude,” Ben said. “Am I interrupting anything?”

Judah glanced at his brother, then returned his eyes to the road. “Just my thoughts,” he said.

Ben was trying to get a read on his brother. “I can connect with you later, if this isn’t a good time,” he said. “I’d like to talk for a few minutes — if you’re willing.”

Judah shifted his gaze to the ground. “I guess this is as good a time as any,” he said.

Ben had rehearsed this moment many times in his mind. But now, nerves and the palpable tension muddled his thoughts. “I . . . um . . . I’m sure I’m not going to say this right, but I’m going to try. I know how angry you must be with me, and God knows you have good reason to be angry with me. And I know that nothing I could say will ever undo what I’ve done. I should be kicked out of the family. So, if you want to disown me, I understand. But I still . . . somehow . . .” Ben paused to quiet the sobs that wanted to come. “I want you to know how sorry I am for what I’ve done to you and to Dad and to the family’s honor through my . . . my terrible selfishness.”

For a few moments, Judah said nothing. Then, looking back down the road, he said, “The day you left, this is where Dad stood, watching you till you were out of sight. And he came back here so often that I started calling this place ‘Prodigal’s Point.’ If someone couldn’t find Dad, I’d say, ‘Check Prodigal’s Point.’ He never stopped hoping he’d see you coming back home.”

Ben squeezed his eyes, but still had to wipe the tears.

Judah glanced at him again. “Yeah, I know. Our poor father and his prodigal sons.”

“Prodigal son, you mean,” replied Ben quietly. “Only one of us fits that bill.”

“A few weeks ago, I would have agreed. Yesterday morning, I would have at least pretended to agree,” said Judah. “But not today.”

Disoriented, Ben asked, “What do you mean?”

“I mean, Dad has two prodigal sons,” said Judah. “One who sailed off down that road to sow his wild oats in worldly fields, and one who stayed home to sow his wild oats in more respectable fields.”

“I’m not following you,” said Ben.

Sinful Secret

“You just apologized for all the damage you did to me, right?” said Judah.

Ben gave him a perplexed nod.

“Well, the truth is, I didn’t feel damaged by what you did; I felt vindicated,” said Judah. “I thought I was so much like Dad. He worked hard; I worked hard. He was careful with his money; I was careful with my money. When you took off to blow your inheritance on whatever your heart desired, you didn’t damage me; you made me look good. You were a scandal. But me? I was the upstanding, responsible, faithful, diligent son — a chip off the old block. You didn’t damage me. You embellished me.”

“Well, it was deserved,” said Ben. “I mean, obviously you’ve been a better son to Dad than I’ve been.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought too,” said Judah. “At least at first.” Then, looking at Ben, he said, “But here’s the secret: it wasn’t true. It started to dawn on me before you came home. I started noticing how not like Dad I was. I’d have my hand to the plough, and then I’d see him up here gazing into the distance, hoping to see you. It used to really irritate me. You know why?”

Ben shook his head.

“If you had asked me at the time, I would have said it was because Dad staring down the road wasn’t going to bring you back. That he was wasting valuable time. But that wasn’t the real reason. It made me angry because when I saw Dad longing for you, it felt to me like he missed you more than he appreciated me. Like he didn’t value all I was doing for him. Like he didn’t think our relationship was special, like I did.” Judah paused, looking at the ground.

Ben said, “Jude, there’s no doubt that Dad valued —” Judah cut him off. “No, let me finish. It’s just embarrassing to say out loud. You know, Dad asked me a few times to join him up here so we could pray for you together. That irritated me in the same way. At first, I made convenient excuses, but finally I told him what I really thought. I told him he could pray for you if he wanted, but I wasn’t going to waste another minute on you. And that if you had squandered all that hard-earned money, I never wanted to see you again.” Judah closed his eyes and breathed deeply. “God . . . have mercy. What a horrible thing to say.”

Loveless Anger Can’t Be Righteous

“I can understand why you felt that way,” said Ben.

“Well, Dad couldn’t,” said Judah. “What I said grieved him deeply — because he loved you. And his grief made me angrier, because — I’m ashamed to admit it — because I didn’t love you.” Judah paused and dropped his eyes. “In fact, I don’t think I loved Dad, at least not like I should have loved him. I loved me, though it still took a while for me to see this. I still thought my anger toward you was justified, righteous even.”

“I’m sure it was, at least in part,” said Ben.

Judah shook his head. “I’m pretty sure none of it was. You know, I asked Dad once why he wasn’t more angry with you. He said it was because ‘the Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love’ (Psalm 103:8). I took this as Dad avoiding coming to terms with what you did and trying to use Scripture to make it look holy. So I reminded him that other Scriptures clearly show that God gets angry over sin, and so should we. To which he said something like, ‘When men get angry, God’s righteousness is rarely seen.’

“I said to him, ‘So, we’re never supposed to get angry. Ben can walk off to only God knows where with all that money you worked so hard for, blow it on whores and whatever else, and we’re not supposed to get angry? We’re just supposed to bow our heads and meekly pray that God brings him back home? I don’t think so!’

“Dad said, ‘I’m not saying we shouldn’t be angry. But the Scriptures say, “Be angry, and do not sin”’ (Psalm 4:4). I wanted to pull my hair out. ‘Tell me what you think that’s supposed to mean, Dad!’ I don’t think I’ll ever forget his answer. He said, ‘Jude, I’ve been trying to figure that out for decades. And, honestly, I don’t know if I’m getting the balance right with Ben. But what I do know is this: if God’s mercy and grace and steadfast love make him slow to anger toward his sinful children — of which I am one — then when my children sin, that’s what I want them to experience from me.’”

Both men were quiet for a moment. Then Judah said, “That’s when I realized loveless anger cannot be righteous anger. It’s also when I realized just how not like Dad I was, not to mention just how not like God I was.”

The Other Prodigal

After another pause, Judah said, “But you know, at least I hadn’t blown my inheritance and ruined my reputation, right? That was something! Maybe I wasn’t as godly as Dad, but I was still better than you! Or so I thought . . . till you came home. Then Dad threw you your big party and invited everyone, and everybody was celebrating the dead brother who came back to life. Everybody except me. I was angry — at you, at Dad, at God, at everyone at the party. I knew my anger wasn’t righteous, and I didn’t care. When Dad came out and pleaded with me to join the party, I lashed out at him. I was mean. No way was I going into that house. I wasn’t happy to see you. And I wanted to make Dad feel bad.”

Ben couldn’t help but cringe at these words. They were hard to hear. But they were harder for Judah to say.

Judah went on. “It wasn’t until Dad had gone back in the house and I was alone with myself that I saw the whole ugly truth: all my efforts over the years to please Dad, all my hard work, all the time I was pouring into everything I did — none of it was really for Dad’s sake. Or for God’s sake. It was all for my sake. My anger toward you and toward Dad, it was all about me — me not getting the recognition I craved and me having my shameful selfishness exposed. And it suddenly hit me: I was as much a prodigal as you had been. I was blowing my inheritance on myself as I chased my heart’s desires. I was doing it in more socially commendable ways, but they were just as selfish at the core. And I was as distant from Dad as you had been.”

Returning Home

Ben wanted to say something, but no words came. This conversation had gone wildly different from the ones he’d rehearsed.

Judah wasn’t quite done though. “Now look at us, you and me. How fitting: two prodigals standing here on Prodigal’s Point. But how ironic: the wandering prodigal has come home, while the homebound prodigal has not. That’s why you found me here, Ben. I’ve been trying to get up the nerve to return home.”

Ben, simultaneously laughing and crying, said, “Well, Jude, if you’re looking for an experienced guide, I’m your man — having recently become something of an expert in returning home. But I should warn you: when you speak to Dad, you won’t get more than a few words out before you find yourself swept away in a current of fatherly affection.”

“Yeah, I know,” Judah said, smiling. “Our father and his prodigal sons. But before you so expertly guide me home, I need to say something to you, and I’m probably not going to say it right. But forgive me, Ben, for what I’ve done to you through my terrible, sinful selfishness.”

Ben’s wordless bear hug was all the response Judah needed.

Amid the hardest, most grueling trial I have endured, prayer became my lifeline. During that time, a friend sent me a prayer that I ended up pinning to my bulletin board: “Lord, please lighten my load or strengthen my back.” These became the words I whispered to God throughout the day. I needed God to either lighten the burdens I was carrying or give me strength to endure them. God had to bring change, though I didn’t know in what form. I only knew I couldn’t continue the way things were.

I didn’t often pray “lighten my load or strengthen my back” in one sentence. I usually left a large pause after begging God to lighten my load, since that was what I wanted most. I specifically and directly asked for relief — for healing and deliverance, changed circumstances, divine rescue. But if God chose not to heal me, I needed him to strengthen my back so I wouldn’t collapse under the weight of the burden I was carrying. Since I could never be strong enough to hold the heaviness of my trial, I would need to rely on God’s strength.

Lighten My Load

When I scanned the Internet to find a source for my bulletin-board quote, I found no definitive attribution, but I did find many who suggested that it was better not to ask God to lighten our loads. Instead, they said we should just ask him to strengthen our backs. That was an interesting twist on my original quote, and at first it seemed like a more pious request. I wondered if that should have been my prayer.

Yet as I considered that recommendation, it seemed unrealistic and overly spiritual; we don’t often see people in the Bible asking for strength instead of deliverance. Job begged for help (Job 20:20–21). Jeremiah cried out for relief (Jeremiah 14:19–22). David pleaded for rescue (Psalm 69:1–3). Paul persistently asked for his thorn to be removed (2 Corinthians 12:8–9). And Jesus himself entreated the Father to let the cup pass him by (Matthew 26:39). God knows we are dust, and he created us to look to him for everything. So we shouldn’t consider it less spiritual to ask God to lighten our loads. Such a prayer shows we are trusting God with our deep desires, not offering religious words with distant hearts. God knows how great our suffering is.

God wants to relieve our burdens and bids us to give them to him. We are to cast all our burdens and anxieties on him, for he cares for us (1 Peter 5:7). We can come to him when we are weary, and he will take our heavy loads (Matthew 11:28–30). God told the Israelites, “I relieved your shoulder of the burden; your hands were freed from the basket. In distress you called, and I delivered you; I answered you” (Psalm 81:6–7).

“Even in our anguish, we can be assured that if God denies our request, he intends to give us something better.”

Though God knows exactly what we need, he tells us to bring our requests to him. Jesus bids us to ask, seek, and knock. To ask and keep asking. To go to our heavenly Father just as children go to their earthly fathers and ask him for what we want (Matthew 7:7–11). People fell at Jesus’s feet, begging for mercy, throughout the Gospels. Even before they came, Jesus knew what they needed, yet he still asked what they wanted (Mark 10:51). We too can ask specifically for what we want, knowing that God not only hears our prayers but also acts upon them. We are not just offering careless words in case they might help.

So, the prayer “lighten my load” is not a perfunctory one but an earnest desire for God to change our situation. We are bringing him our need, which is all we have to offer. He will do the rest. And when we ask for deliverance and he brings it, we bring glory to God, as he himself declares: “Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me” (Psalm 50:15).

Strengthen My Back

Yet sometimes there is no deliverance, and God says no. He doesn’t heal our loved one, restore our relationship, or keep us from excruciating pain. We must go through the trial, grieve the loss, and endure the bitter aftereffects. But even in our anguish, we can be sure that if God denies our request, he intends to give us something better. God never asks anything of his people that is not for our best, assuring us that every sorrow will result in our future gain. Nothing that we lose or don’t have could have ultimately been a blessing to us.

This trial we are enduring must have a great blessing for us. Among the many blessings God offers, the most beautiful is keeping us close to Jesus. To that end, God will provide the strength we need in every trial: strength for the battle (Psalm 18:39), strength when we are afraid (Isaiah 41:10), strength when we are exhausted (Isaiah 40:29–30), and strength to be content whatever the result (Philippians 4:13).

Yet strengthening our back does not necessarily make us physically stronger or able to withstand the next trial on our own without God’s help. The strength God provides doesn’t make us self-sufficient but rather enables us to see how much we need God. When God strengthens our back, we know how and where to get help. Our help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth (Psalm 121:2). As opposed to physical muscles, the strength we receive can be compared to muscle memory, reminding us to cry out to our God. We seek the Lord and his strength rather than depending on our own (Psalm 105:4).

Strong in Weakness

The apostle Paul recounted several trials in which he cried out to God for relief. An affliction in Asia laid such a staggering burden on Paul and his companions they thought they were going to die. But rather than destroying them, this trial taught them to rely not on themselves and their strength but on God who raises the dead (2 Corinthians 1:8–9).

Paul struggled with a thorn in his flesh that he pleaded with God to remove. Rather than taking it away, God answered, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). When Paul saw that God’s power intensified in his weakness, he declared, “When I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10).

Like Paul, we learn that having the grace to endure our afflictions can be a greater gift than having our afflictions removed. Once we’ve seen and experienced the immense power of God in suffering, we know that God will unfailingly provide all we need, regardless of what happens. With that assurance, we can find joy either in extraordinary deliverance from our trials or in greater dependence on God through them.

God encourages us to cry out to him for whatever we need; he wants us to bring our troubles to him. He may lighten our load and miraculously deliver us, bringing long-prayed-for rescue and relief. Or he may strengthen us in the battle, offering his sustaining grace, the grace that draws us back to him. Both answers turn us to God and deepen our faith, teaching us to trust him through affliction and to glorify him through whatever comes.