Audio Transcript

We live in fractured and chaotic times. And we also know that God’s glory is important. So, when we survey our world, and we mentally run the numbers, so to speak, to find the evidence, which side of the scale tips? Does this world bring God mostly honor? Or does it bring God mostly dishonor? In creation, and in this drama of human history, which side is winning out?

I love unique, big-picture questions like this one today from a listener named Sam in Brighton, England. “Dear Tony and Pastor John, I have been listening to your podcast for two years now, and have found it invaluable in my own personal journey toward a Christ-centered life. The key foundation of the APJ ministry is that God wishes to be glorified in the everyday actions of his creatures, and that this is both satisfying and pleasing to him. I greatly enjoy the study of history and what it tells us about the human condition. My interests are in human conflict and approaches to peace. So often it appears, however, that human history is full of violence, war, and suffering. My question is this: How does this enormous weight of non-God-glorifying acts stack up against God’s desire to be glorified? I realize that God ultimately requires nothing from us, but how can he be satisfied if, quite possibly, there have been far more God-dishonoring acts across the span of human history than God-glorifying ones? How does the philosophy of Christian Hedonism answer this imbalance?”

Maybe there’s an imbalance — but maybe not. Sam’s observation is that on the one hand, the Bible teaches that God aims to be glorified in this world. That’s absolutely right. God says, for example, in 1 Corinthians 10:31, “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” And Isaiah 43:7 says that God’s people are created for the glory of God.

And the prophets teach that eventually the earth will be covered with the glory of God like the waters cover the sea (Habakkuk 2:14). In Ezekiel 20, several times, it says that just when it seemed that the world or evil got the upper hand, God says, “But I . . . acted for the sake of my name” — my glory (Ezekiel 20:22). So, it’s really clear from the Bible that God intends for nature and history and redemption to serve the glorification of his excellence. Yes.

Then on the other hand, Sam points out, because he’s a student of history, that the world seems to be full of non-God-glorifying acts more, he would think, than God-glorifying acts. And he wonders how I would address that, especially from the standpoint of Christian Hedonism. So let me try in six steps.

Creation Declares His Glory

First, I would observe that nature, from the smallest subatomic particle to the largest gathering of galaxies, is constantly, without pause, and in millions upon millions of ways, declaring the power and the wisdom of God in this world. Every animal, every human mind and body, every flower, every tree, every cloud, every river, the sun, the moon, the stars, and all the interworkings of these realities — they all give an exquisite testimony to the brightness and truth of the glory of God.

“God is always and everywhere shouting the wisdom of all that he has made.”

It would be difficult to quantify this and say that somehow this is less, say, than the calamities of the world that might detract from the glory of God. God is always and everywhere shouting the wisdom of all that he has made. “The heavens [are telling] the glory of God” (Psalm 19:1). “In wisdom [he has] made them all” (Psalm 104:24).

And just this morning in my devotions, I read that section in Romans 1:18 to the end of the chapter, where it says everybody knows God, and the creation of the world, all the works that he has made, is revealing the invisible attributes of God. There’s just no room for saying that God is not revealing his glory continually through the things he’s made. So, that’s the first thing I would observe. It is an overwhelming testimony, and oh how blind the world is!

God Always Acts for His Name

Second, I would draw attention to the phrase in the Bible “that they may know that I am the Lord.” That phrase occurs 88 times in the Bible; 72 of them are in the book of Ezekiel. That’s amazing.

Even more amazing is that this phrase is used both when God’s people are being saved and when they are being judged. It’s used when secular nations are getting the upper hand and when they are being punished. So, I think the intention is that in all of history, whether we see it or not, God is acting for the sake of his name, so that someday we will have eyes to see the way he worked for his name and his glory in the events that did not seem that way to us at all at the time.

God’s Glory Often Shines Unseen

Third, and this is the most clear and specific and stunning illustration of what I just said — namely, the cross of our Lord Jesus. As Jesus comes to the end of his life, and he contemplates that in the next hours he will be crucified, he prays like this (this is John 12:27–28):

“Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.”

In other words, in the absolute worst, most sinful event in the history of the world, the grace of God was being put on display, and nobody saw it. God’s glory was shining. The fact that nobody saw it doesn’t mean it wasn’t there. Later, through the eyes of faith and with divine interpretation, we do see it. That’s what 2 Corinthians 4:6 says — we do see it. But when it happened, nobody saw it. And I think that’s the way it is with most of what God is doing in this world in this fallen age.

Human Sin Magnifies God’s Grace

Fourth, when we ask why there is such pervasive failure on the part of God’s people in this world to live in a way that glorifies God, and why the Bible itself is such a relentless history of failure by God’s people, not to mention the nations, Romans 3:19–20 gives a remarkable insight.

Paul has just finished indicting the whole human race, Jew and Gentile, under the power of sin, and then he says this:

Now we know that whatever the law says [all those Old Testament quotations he’s just given to show the pervasive sinfulness of the human race] it speaks to those who are under the law [that’s Jewish people] so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of law no human being will be justified in his sight.

In other words, one of the purposes of the history of failure among God’s people is to stop the mouth of every human being and make clear that no one can get right with God through law-keeping, but only through absolutely free, glorious sovereign grace. So, God intends to show that humans are in an absolutely hopeless condition, and thus to magnify the freedom and the beauty of his grace.

All Will Be Clear in the End

Fifth, this leads to the observation that in the end we will be able to see the God-glorifying purposes of God more clearly than we can now. Consider two images. You’ve probably all heard these. I find them both very helpful. First, the imagery of a tapestry. I think Corrie Ten Boom used to talk about this. Now we see the ugly loose strands at the bottom of the tapestry — nothing beautiful about it that we can see, except by the eye of revelation. But then we will see it from the top, and the tapestry will be complete. It will be beautiful, with the strands all in their proper place. And that will be what history is.

“In the end, we will be able to see the God-glorifying purposes of God more clearly than we can now.”

Or consider the image, similarly, of a painting. God is now painting a mural of universal history and creation and redemption. And as that mural comes into being, we see this corner; we see that corner; we see this darkness; we see that little bright spot. And we can’t make much sense out of it as a whole, just staring at history with all of its mixed colors and shapes. But in the end, when it’s complete, everything will fit together; everything will make sense. It will be a perfect display of the glory of God’s wisdom and power and grace.

We Will Delight in God Fully

The last thing I would say is this: Christian Hedonism says that God will succeed in finishing the tapestry and completing the mural in such a way that there will be a perfect communication of the perfections and beauties of God in all their proper proportion. And God will succeed also in creating a people for himself who finally have eyes to see that glory for what it really is — and hearts finally able, with appropriate intensity, to delight in God’s beauty the way they should. And that delight will be the consummation of the demonstration of the glory of the grace of God.

What is the difference between those welcomed into heaven and those thrown into hell? Can we imagine a more relevant or urgent question? While depicting the final judgment in parable form, Jesus gives us a surprising answer: their thoughts.

“What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us,” wrote A.W. Tozer (Knowledge of the Holy, 1). Jesus shows this true for the evil servant in the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14–30). In the parable, Jesus gives us a glimpse into one difference between those welcomed into heaven and those thrown into judgment: their beliefs about God’s goodness. We get beneath actions into the psychology of the lost man, a window showing what squirmed beneath his disobedient life.

As we consider him, be asking yourself questions such as: What comes to mind when I think about God? Who do I assume he is? What does he love? What does he hate? What kind of Person governs the world? Is he good? Is he happy, blessed, disposed to give freely, or not? Beliefs about his goodness can lead to a useful life with heaven to follow or a worthless life with hell close behind.

At Journey’s End

The master finally returns from his long journey to meet with his three servants “and [settle] accounts with them” (Matthew 25:19). Before he left, he had entrusted them with his property, each according to his ability. He gave the ablest man five talents; the next, two talents; and to the last, he gave one. Jesus focuses the parable on their report of their stewardship in his absence. Had they been watchful for his return and about their master’s business (verse 13)?

“Beliefs about God’s goodness can lead to a useful life with heaven to follow or a worthless life with hell close behind.”

The first two report, rejoicing with their lord that, by their trading, they had each doubled what their master left them. Eyes then turn to the third servant. “He also who had received the one talent came forward” (verse 24).

Had he set off to the happy work like the first two servants? No. He buried the treasure in the backyard. But why? For the same reason as many today: he did not know the goodness of his master.

The God He Thought He Knew

Note the first words out of the servant’s mouth: “Master, I knew you to be a hard man.” What a different assessment from the first two, and what a strange conclusion given the facts we know. Do many masters entrust such valuable property to their servants’ keeping? Pharaoh withholds straw to make bricks, but this master hands over precious jewels from the vault. A talent is not a single coin; it is a treasure chest of precious wealth, twenty years of wages. The master hands him up to one million dollars in today’s wages — and simply leaves. Who is the servant to steward such wealth?

To account for this unbelievable opportunity, the servant twists the interpretation to excuse his thanklessness. “Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed” (Matthew 25:24). He thought he knew an exacting master, a groping master, a severe man about the bottom line.

His lord — seemingly generous beyond any master earth has ever seen — was really grasping, not giving; extracting, not investing; extorting, not enriching. We even hear an accusation of laziness against the master — he was one who didn’t get his own hands dirty. Don’t we sometimes project our own sins upon God, as this “slothful” servant did (verse 26)?

So, he saw his master as a giant fly, rubbing his greedy hands in anticipation of profit. Faceless were the slaves who built his house. Should this servant stoop to be ridden as a donkey? Was he an ox to tread grain? This master’s yoke was not easy, nor his burden light.

Finally, his wickedness curls up in the fetal position. “I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground” (verse 25). Thus, he knew a God to be feared, but not obeyed. This man knew his master’s will and thought to lazily hide from the failure of trying in the failure of disobedience. He committed his talent to nature’s vault. Better for his master to lose benefit than go bankrupt. “Here, you have what is yours” (verse 25).

The God He Did Not Know

That was the God he thought he knew: a hard and severe master whose generosity was pretense for profit, a master who fed his cattle well. He did not know the master that animated the service of the other two servants.

1. He did not know the master eager to commend.

The passage stresses that the two faithful servants left “at once” to do their master’s work (verses 16–17). I imagine them going forward with excitement. Really, me? I get to serve my Lord in this way? And that same excitement brought them to show their master the fruit of faith-filled trading, as children with a Father: “Here are your five talents, master, and five more!”

And how does the master respond? With that fatherly twinkle of satisfaction in his eyes, he will not let them do one thing more without warming them with his pleasure: “Well done, my good and faithful servants!” (verses 21, 23).

2. He did not know the God who gives for keeps.

In the end, how false and foolish this servant’s meditations of the miserly God. Wonder with me: the master didn’t give the talents for his own profit, but for theirs. He gave for keeps. This Lord designed for loyal stewards to keep their talents and the increase.

The worthless servant learned this lesson the hard way: “Take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents” (Matthew 25:28). He doesn’t say, “Give to the servant who made me five talents.” The talents now belong to the servant, as confirmed in the next line: “For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance” (verse 29). From before the journey, this master gave intending to make them rich. His joy — “Well done, good and faithful servant!” — was not in what he gained, but in what they gained. Is this your hard and stingy God?

3. He did not know the master who gives in order to give more.

“You have been faithful over a little,” he tells the good servants. “I will set you over much” (Matthew 25:21, 23). Do not let that humble word little pass by unnoticed. The five-talent servant gained another lifetime of value by his trading. Jesus calls this stewardship little compared to the much on its way.

Have you placed your life and all that you own upon the altar before God? Have you left family or fortune for the gospel? Have you despised your life in this world, looking to that country to come? Little your trading, great your promotion. Remain constant, as Joseph governing in prison: soon, you shall stand second-in-command in the new heavens and new earth; he will set you over much. Our greatest labor for Christ in this world is but the small beginnings to our real labor for Christ in the next.

4. He did not know the God of spacious joy.

What did the wicked servant think as he overheard the master’s final remark to the truehearted? “Enter into the joy of your Master” (verses 21, 23). The evil servant did not know that this Master’s joy was a country of happiness. He thought him a hard man, an unhappy man, but he is the happiest of all men. “Leave your joys behind and enter mine!” Or, “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full” (John 15:11). Here is a God to labor under. Here is a God to trust. Here is a God who can happify his servants forever.

He Hides a Smiling Face

If he only believed in the blessedness of this master’s heart, that the master really meant to reward and welcome him into his own joy upon his return, how things might have changed. The problem was not his master; the problem was his heart. The problem was not his abilities; the problem was his sloth. The master’s assessment proved him an evil, lazy, unreasonable servant (Matthew 25:26–27). In the end, he is cast into outer darkness. Sinners who spin lies get caught in webs.

So, my reader, what do you think of God? Does he give us serpents when we ask for bread? Is he watching with an eagle’s eye to strike you when you stumble? Is he stingy, heartless, selfish? Does he tax at high rates and offer mere rations to strengthen for tomorrow’s slavery? How does your life answer?

If we think high of him, he is higher. If we think well of him, he is better. If we think base of him, he shall not always correct us. Unjust beliefs that lead to unjust lives provoke his justice. “With the merciful you show yourself merciful; with the blameless man you show yourself blameless; with the purified you show yourself pure; and with the crooked you make yourself seem tortuous” (Psalm 18:25–26).

Some of you do not serve him because you do not know him. Others have let hard and bitter circumstances deceive you into thinking he is hard and embittering. Business is not going as planned. You just received news that you lost the baby, again. Life should have been so different by now.

And the perfectly aimed question comes: Is this your good Master? O saints, Satan is asking God about some of you just now — “Does this ‘faithful servant’ really keep his integrity? Does he fear God for no reason? Touch his health, touch her fertility, touch his money, and they will curse you to your face.”

“Our greatest labor for Christ in this world is but the small beginnings to our real labor for Christ in the next.”

O saints, the Master is so good — above our deserts or imaginings — and he proved it for all time. How? By handing us his property, taking the long, faraway journey to Golgotha, and dying on the cross to pay our debts that we might keep his blessings. The Master not only gives his property to us — he offers himself for us. On the cross, Jesus lifted God’s goodness high above any of our earthly circumstances. “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

So,

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;The clouds ye so much dreadAre big with mercy and shall breakIn blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,But trust him for his grace;Behind a frowning providenceHe hides a smiling face. (William Cowper, “God Moves in a Mysterious Way”)

Have you also found that it can be much easier to pray for your own sins than to deal with others’ sins against you?

With the first, we can confess to our Lord, take up one of his many promises of pardon, and have our souls restored. With the second, the process can be more inconvenient, messier.

With sinners who betray us, who embarrass us, who hurt us in that place we are most vulnerable, it can feel like climbing a mountain to even tell them we forgive them, let alone to forgive them “from [the] heart” (Matthew 18:35).

The fallen mind has a propensity to involuntarily replay others’ offenses. You see the scene, hear the words, feel the same stab repeatedly. Like a worm, the breach threatens to burrow deeper and deeper within us. The initial shock becomes a growing How could they? And the closer the relationship, the greater the chance of infection, as David knew well:

It is not an enemy who taunts me —     then I could bear it;it is not an adversary who deals insolently with me —     then I could hide from him.But it is you, a man, my equal,     my companion, my familiar friend.
(Psalm 55:12–13)

Perhaps you have been well taught on what to do with your sins against God, but is your heart also well instructed in what to do — and not to do — when others, especially fellow Christians, sin against you?

Ancient Help for Lingering Hurt

Love was expected from the start. From the beginning of Israel’s history under the Mosaic covenant, it was enshrined in law, passed down to subsequent generations:

You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord. (Leviticus 19:17–18)

I find this text supremely helpful in bearing the affliction of others’ sins against me.

First, it tells me that I shall not hate my brother in my heart. I can think that if I don’t lash out in the moment, if I don’t react unkindly or coldly, that this is the same as doing so in my heart. Self-control is not the same as love. You can practice self-control and harbor a cool contempt. This command forbids me from taking their sins as a squirrel does an acorn, storing them up in my heart and mind.

Second, it tells me I can sin against others in how I respond to their sin. “You shall not hate your brother in your heart . . . lest you incur sin because of him.” God is more concerned here with addressing my present or future sin than the past sin of the person who wronged me. This is challenging. I can be — and many times have been — simultaneously a victim and a culprit in the same situation because of how I responded.

And when I ruminate on sins, inwardly score-keep and note-take their crimes, this practice leads to the two other diseased fruits of hatred described: vengeance and grudges. I feel the need to either settle scores (vengeance) or refuse to move on (hold a grudge). And notice, in passing, the people against whom you and I are tempted to bear a grudge or seek vengeance: the people of your God. His children. His saints. Your own family.

How to Let It Go

What strikes me most in this text, however, are not the sinful ways I can respond to others’ sins — caressing the offense in my heart, holding a grudge, seeking to pay them back. Sadly, I know each too well. What strikes me most are God’s alternatives.

1. Do not hate him — go to him.

You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him.

You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but. Here lies the narrow path: you shall speak with the person who sinned against you. (I’m assuming here normal circumstances in which there is no reasonable threat of physical harm that might preclude going alone).

Go to him — not away from him, treasuring his sins in your heart. Go to him, not away from him, to publish it on Twitter or to gossip it to others. Go to him. “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother” (Matthew 18:15).

Do not go to him to injure him, to take vengeance upon him, to accumulate more strength for your grudge. And while it may not be wise to speak with him that same day, do the heart-work necessary on that received sin before the sun falls: “Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil” (Ephesians 4:26–27).

“If you want to let the devil into your life, procrastinate and neglect to resolve your anger toward others.”

If you want to let the devil into your life, procrastinate and neglect to resolve your anger toward others. Don’t ever talk with them. Let the sun sleep before you have quieted and calmed your heart in prayer and confession before Christ.

2. Do not hate him — reason plainly with him.

“You shall reason frankly with your neighbor.” Isn’t it amazing that the alternative to hating your bother in your heart is talking to him? I am not to keep the offense in my mouth and savor it as candy; rather, I am to let it out through speaking the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15).

I have made the mistake of understanding “reason frankly” as “assume you’ve interpreted things rightly and tell that person.” I’ve learned to say instead, “I perceive you have done this,” or, “I believe you to have sinned against me and against God.” These have proved more fruitful beginnings. But be honest, for all of that. Don’t downplay their sin, but speak plainly in love for them.

To some, this will be very difficult. You despise conflict. You despise people disliking you. You would rather your brother or sister remain in patterns of sin against God, you would rather harbor the seeds of resentment inside, you would rather cover their sins in unrighteousness, than have an uncomfortable conversation. Your self-protection, in the end, is hate to your brother.

Half the time, while you might expectantly wait for an apology, your brother has no idea he sinned against you. Your noiseless bitterness robs him of repentance, and robs you of the opportunity to grow in courage, in obedience, in death to self, in self-awareness and repentance if you are wrong. I wager that silent resentment has done even more harm among us than contention following plain speech.

3. Do not hate him — love him as yourself.

You shall not hate your brother in your heart, . . . but you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Is all of this not how we typically deal with ourselves?

No one has done more ill to you than you. No one has given more offense, no one has caused more problems, no one has made your life harder for yourself than yourself. Our sin — not others’ sins against us — is always our biggest problem. Not “him over here” or “that person there,” but me. Others’ sins can’t damn me. Others’ sins can’t ruin my soul (without my permission).

“Our sin — not others’ sins against us — is always our biggest problem.”

But though our biggest problem is us, we still love ourselves, don’t we? Few go around begrudging themselves, plotting vengeance against themselves, refusing to lend compassion to their own sins against others. Millions have passed without replay.

So how do you love your Christian neighbor? Like that. As Matthew Henry comments, “We often wrong ourselves, but we soon forgive ourselves those wrongs, and they do not at all lessen our love to ourselves; and in like manner we should love our neighbor.”

Don’t Hide Their Sins in Your Heart

Dealing plainly, honestly, speedily with our brothers and sisters in Christ loves them as we love ourselves, and as we have been loved ourselves. And are not even Christian communities that willingly bring faults to one another in love altogether rare? Is it not rather terrible and uncommon to be taken aside by a believer and told of your perceived wrongdoings? And here is the question: Should it be?

This is not a word to embolden faultfinders to voice all sins they see — unleashing Egypt’s plagues of flies, gnats, and frogs upon small groups everywhere. Nor does it remove the very real and beautiful call to silently cover others’ sins in love (Proverbs 10:12; 1 Peter 4:8). It is, rather, a word to encourage speech where there has been bitter silence, courage where there has been cowardice, and love where there has been hate.