Audio Transcript

What would it look like in your life to know that God loves you — I mean to know that he really loves you? Would that love be proven in a new job? Or maybe a better job? Would it be an open door that will allow you greater financial independence? Maybe it would be to find a spouse. Or maybe deliverance from chronic pain that depletes your energy. Or maybe it would look like being delivered from the consuming demands of a special needs child. What would prove God’s love to you? And what if the answer to that question was something altogether different than what we expected? What if, instead of any of these things, God showed his love to you by letting you die in sickness? Crazy, right? Totally counterintuitive. And yet this is exactly what we read about in John 11:1–44. Listen to this extraordinary story, because in it we find a life-changing lesson God wants all of us to grasp. Here’s Pastor John to explain, in one of his sermons from 2001.

This is John 11. I have used this text now in about five settings in the last couple of months because no other text has gripped me like this in driving home this central point.

Love and Glory

Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill. (John 11:1–2)

This is clearly a picture of sweetness and love. Mary loved Jesus, and Jesus loved Mary. Mark that word love. It will show up several more times.

So the sisters sent to him, saying, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” But when Jesus heard it he said, “This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” (John 11:3–4)

So now you have two profound realities on the table: love and glory — the love of Christ and the glory of Christ. My question is, How do they relate to each other? Verse 5:

Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.

“Until Christ becomes our treasure, we don’t know what it is to be loved by God.”

Notice three things: (1) Jesus chose to let Lazarus die. (2) He was motivated in this by his zeal for the glory of God to be manifest. (3) This motivation is love.

Do you see the word so, or therefore, at the beginning of verse 6? Do you see what it’s preceded by and followed by? It’s preceded by the fact that Jesus loved Martha; Jesus loved Mary; Jesus loved the dying man, Lazarus. Therefore, he did not go heal him but stayed two days longer where he was and saw to it that he died.

Why Do You Want to Be Loved by God?

Now, what on earth could possibly turn that into love? Verse 4: This is not going to end in death. This is all about the glory of God, “that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”

So here’s my definition of the love of God based on this text: God’s love is his doing whatever needs to be done, at whatever cost, so that we will see and be satisfied with the glory of God in Jesus Christ. Let me say it again: the love of God is his doing whatever needs to be done, at whatever cost to himself or to us, so that we will see and be satisfied by the love of God in Christ forever and ever.

Let me confirm this with John 17:24. Here’s Jesus praying for us, and he loves us in this prayer — oh how he loves us in this prayer. John 17:24: “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory.” If Jesus loves you and prays for you, do you know what he finally asks for you? That you may see him. The ultimate answer to the prayer of love is, “Show them my glory, Father. Show them my glory, and they will have arrived at ultimate satisfaction.”

Why do you want to be loved by God? Yes, not to perish. Yes, not to go to hell. Yes, not to have a guilty conscience anymore. Yes, to have the marriage put back together. But if that’s all you want, you don’t know him. You don’t know him. It’s for life. And what is life? It is to know him and his Son. It’s to fellowship with him. It’s to behold him. It’s to be satisfied with him. It’s to enjoy him. Until Christ becomes our treasure, we don’t know what it is to be loved by God.

Why are you thankful for the love of God today? I hope, before we’re done, God will have worked in your heart so that you see enough of God the Father and enough of God the Son, Jesus Christ, so that you will know and feel that it is not finally for the relief of your conscience, it is not finally for escape from hell, it is not finally for health in our bodies, or reconciliation among our family members; it is finally to bring you home to God, where you can see him and enjoy him forever and ever and ever.

Seeing and Savoring Forever

I want to know: Do you want this? Do you want this? Do you want to be loved by God for God? Do you want to be loved by God for God? Or do you only want to be loved by God because it feels good that he seems to make much of you? Have you taken the American definition of love — being made much of — and so twisted God to fit that definition that the only way you would feel loved by God is if he makes much of you, when, in fact, the love of God is working so as to change you so that you enjoy making much of him forever and ever and ever? And that’s the end of your quest. There isn’t anything beyond it.

“You will be satisfied when you forget yourself and are swallowed up in Jesus Christ, and he becomes your treasure.”

I do believe that is in every heart in this room. And we are all fallen, and we are all sinners. I know that every person in this room has a distorted desire for God, and it’s on the way to being purified. And it’s being tricked. You’re being tricked, many of you, into thinking that the satisfying thing in life is to be made much of: “If I could just get some people to clap for me, to like me, to approve of me, to give me a raise, or to give me an advancement. If I could just get someone to pay attention to me, I would be satisfied.” You wouldn’t. I promise you, in the name of Jesus Christ Almighty, you wouldn’t.

You will be satisfied when you forget yourself and are swallowed up in Jesus Christ, and he becomes your treasure, and he becomes your delight, and he becomes what you cherish and what you value, and you spend the rest of your eternity growing in your capacity to see and savor, to know and to delight in him forever and ever — and it will get better and better and better.

http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/14889298/giving-grace-with-our-mouths

Some of the most life-changing verses in the Bible are those that come alive years after we first read them. We read them and pass over them, read them and pass over them, read them again, and then suddenly reality breaks through, and their meaning explodes in our imagination. I wonder if any verses like that come to mind for you.

Years ago, a line in Psalm 4 leapt out of the fog of familiarity and arrested my attention. At first, it exhilarated me, awakening me to spiritual wells I had walked by (and looked past) again and again. Then it humbled me, confronting me with how weak and fickle my heart can be. And then, finally, it has strengthened me, stirring my desire and ambition for Christ and building my courage in him. King David writes,

You have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound. (Psalm 4:7)

Surprised by Joy

The verse slid under my radar for years, I think, because it rang like a cliché to my immature and naive ears — like a sentence beautiful enough for Pinterest, but just out of touch with the heavier realities of real life. I would read verses like this, feel vaguely inspired for a moment, and then move on and forget them minutes later. The vagueness evaporated, however, when I slowed down enough to finally see through the window this verse opens for us.

David does not say, “You have given me great joy,” or even, “You have given me as much joy as those in the world have in their finest meals and fullest pleasures.” No, he says, “You have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound.” If it was a word that seized me, it was the word more. As David weighs his joy in God against the greatest pleasures on earth — the most expensive experiences, in the most exotic places, with the most famous people — he finds the world’s offer wanting. He prefers what he has tasted through faith over anything else he might see or do or buy.

Do you think about your faith in God that way? When you think about Jesus, do you ever think in terms of joy, delight, fulfillment, pleasure? Have you actually been taught, subtly or explicitly, to pit him against your happiness? The discovery for me, at that time, was that I did not have to walk away from joy to follow Jesus. In fact, I could only find the richest, most intense happiness in him.

Stubborn Longings for Less

The more you sit with a verse like this, however, the heavier it can become. The promise of experiencing a joy like David’s can give way to the troubling realization that we do not yet experience it. Can I really say, with him, “God, you have given me more joy than the world has in its greatest joys?” Am I as happy in Jesus as they are in their food, and friends, and careers, and vacations, and possessions? We know we should be able to say what David says, and yet we also know our own hearts well enough to wonder whether we can.

I feel how slow my heart can be to enjoy God. Sin never prefers God over grain or wine or television or self. And sin still lives in me. As John Piper says, we humans, in our sin, “have a deep, unshakable, compelling preference for other things rather than God” (“What Is Sin?”). This sin isn’t just a lingering tendency to do the wrong thing, but a stubborn longing for the wrong thing. So, Bible reading can sometimes feel burdensome. Prayer can sometimes feel stale. Fellowship can feel forced. Joy in God can feel distant and theoretical.

“Sin isn’t just a lingering tendency to do the wrong thing, but a stubborn longing for the wrong thing.”

To be clear, appreciating grain and wine is not sin. The psalmists celebrate and worship God for both (see Psalm 65:9; 104:19). Our joy in grain and wine and every other good gift from God is meant to kindle our joy in him, not compete with him (James 1:17). Preferring grain or wine or anything else to God is sin. And according to 1 John 1:8, we all, at times, prefer wrongly. We crave lesser, thinner joys over all we have in Christ.

How Long, O Lord?

Even if we overcome our inner resistance to this joy, though, the harsher realities of life also become hurdles to joy. The book of Psalms, after all, is not one long chorus of joy. It holds out a life of worship that is not comfortable or predictable, but difficult and demanding, even agonizing, at times.

Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am languishing; heal me, O Lord, for my bones are troubled. My soul also is greatly troubled. (Psalm 6:2–3)

How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? (Psalm 13:1–2)

The cords of death encompassed me; the torrents of destruction assailed me; the cords of Sheol entangled me; the snares of death confronted me. (Psalm 18:4–5)

Again and again, the brighter moments of gladness punctuate song after song of hardship. David’s life, in particular, was terribly painful. After he was chosen to be the next king, he was hunted by Saul. After he committed adultery and had the woman’s husband killed, he lost his infant son. Later, another son, Amnon, died at the hands of his own brother, Absalom, who then fled. And when the estranged son eventually returned, he betrayed his father, organized a mutiny, and stole the kingdom.

The agony David experienced (some because of his own sin, and much because of sins against him) makes his words in Psalm 4:7 even sweeter and more compelling. His pain doesn’t gut what he says about joy, but proves it, revealing that this joy is unusually potent and resilient.

Even as I Lose All

When David writes, “You have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound,” he is not writing from the comfort of a palace in peacetime; he is writing from hiding, while Absalom has seized his throne. Psalms 3 and 4 are the morning and evening psalms of a man betrayed. David suffered much throughout his life and reign, but did anything sting like the stab in the back from his own son?

“No amount of darkness and loss could take the depth and fullness of his joy in God.”

And yet he was not utterly miserable, even while he watched the boy he once held and fed and played with plunder his life’s work. No, “You have put more joy in my heart” — even now — “than they have when their grain and wine abound.” Even while my son indulges himself on my grain and my wine and my wealth, even as I lose nearly all that I love, even while I fear for my life, God, you have made me glad in you — more glad than sinners have in their happiest moments. No amount of darkness and loss could take the depth and fullness of his joy in God.

This joy isn’t merely for the lighter, more comfortable, more cheerful moments of the Christian life, but it’s also strong enough for the trenches, the valleys, the storms. What God did for a wounded and despairing king in the throes of betrayal, he now promises to do for us in the throes of whatever we face or carry. And what greater, more practical gift could he give us than to say, in any circumstance, however bleak or painful, I will not only keep your life, but make you glad?