http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/14735917/was-the-old-testament-in-light-of-the-new
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A Rest Sweeter Than Sleep: Nighttime Prayer for a Troubled Conscience
Occasionally, as I lie down to sleep, a restlessness bends over my bed. A vague uneasiness. A nagging sense of some tension unresolved. Some door in the soul swinging on its hinges. The stirring of an unquiet conscience.
As I relive the day, I see why. Prayers hurried or skipped. An evangelistic opportunity avoided. Grievances nourished. Self-promoting words snuck into conversations. The “prayer request” that was probably gossip. Precious time squandered. Encouragements unthought and unspoken. As the old prayer book says, “I have left undone those things which I ought to have done; and I have done those things which I ought not to have done.”
Was this a fitting response to your God? I ask myself. Was this “walking in a manner worthy” of him? Sometimes I drift off with such questions unresolved, fitful and self-reproaching yet tired enough to succumb to sleep.
But not always. Some years ago, I found unexpected help in the poem of a long-dead pastor, who asked the same questions, felt the same guilt, yet found in Jesus a rest far sweeter than sleep.
‘Even-Song’
George Herbert’s (1593–1633) “Even-Song” closes a series of three poems in his collection The Temple, beginning with “Mattens” and continuing with “Sinne (II).” The titles “Mattens” and “Even-Song” refer to morning and evening prayers in the Anglican church. And “Sinne” — well, that captures what often happens between those morning and evening prayers.
“Even-Song” is not a prayer for every evening. Herbert does not assume we only ever end the day self-reproachful, with sin having wrecked the day’s resolves. But he does assume we sometimes do — and that, often, even the most faithful Christians kneel beside their beds deeply wishing they had walked in a manner more worthy of their God.
What do we say at the end of such days, when we feel the gulf between God’s kindness and our unworthy response? More than once, “Even-Song” has met me at my bedside, speaking clarity and comfort to my troubled conscience. It has become a faithful nighttime friend.
As Night Draws Near
Blest be the God of love,Who gave us eyes, and light, and power this day, Both to be busie, and to play. But much more blest be God above,
Who gave me sight alone, Which to himself he did denie: For when he sees my waies, I dy:But I have got his sonne, and he hath none.
As night draws near, Herbert looks back, remembering God’s morning gifts of “eyes, and light, and power this day, / Both to be busie and to play.” Our Father, “God of love” that he is, opens the storehouses of his heart from the day’s first moment. As Herbert celebrates in “Mattens,” “I cannot ope mine eyes, / But thou art ready to catch / My morning-soul and sacrifice.” “Yours is the day” (Psalm 74:16), the psalmist says. And Herbert, surrounded by God’s gifts, feels it.
For sinners like us, though, one gift rises above the rest. The God who gives us “eyes, and light” for daytime labors also gives us another kind of sight, “Which to himself he did denie: / For when he sees my waies, I dy.” Alluding to Psalm 130:3, Herbert remembers that God, in Christ, does not “mark” our iniquities, even when we do; in a sense, he does not see the sins we see.
And why? Because “I have got his sonne, and he hath none.” God gave up his Son at the cross — and at the same time, he gave up the sun that would otherwise shine upon our guilt. Jesus buried our sins in darkness on Good Friday, and on Easter Sunday, they did not rise with him. And so, in the glory of the gospel, God no longer “remembers” the sins of his people (Hebrews 8:12); he no longer sees them. They are buried, hidden, unseen, kept forever in darkness.
But they do not always feel buried, hidden, unseen. And so, Herbert takes us back to his “troubled minde.”
Troubled Mind
What have I brought thee homeFor this thy love? have I discharg’d the debt, Which this dayes favour did beget? I ranne; but all I brought, was fome.
Thy diet, care, and cost Do end in bubbles, balls of winde; Of winde to thee whom I have crost,But balls of wilde-fire to my troubled minde.
Like a good father, God meets us with favor morning by morning; his “diet, care, and cost” send us into the day strengthened and renewed. But all too often, as we approach home in the evening, we dig in our pockets, wondering how we could have taken so much and brought back so little. “What have I brought thee home?” Herbert asks. “I ranne; but all I brought, was fome” — or, a few lines later, “bubbles, balls of winde.” Insubstantial nothings.
Approaching God with fists full of wind may not trouble the spiritually nominal, who care little whether they please God or not. But for those who have tasted the kindness of God, and have seen the cross as its cost, such wind can become “balls of wilde-fire to my troubled minde.” The sun has set on the day’s regrets, with no time now to remedy them, leaving us with a thorn-pricked soul. A pillow of self-reproach. A smoldering conscience.
On nights like these, some simply try to sleep their guilt away. Others search for some rationalization. Still others pray, but not in a way that douses the fire in their minds. What does Herbert do?
Closing Our Weary Eyes
Yet still thou goest on,And now with darknesse closest wearie eyes, Saying to man, It doth suffice: Henceforth repose; your work is done.
Thus in thy ebony box Thou dost inclose us, till the day Put our amendment in our way,And give new wheels to our disorder’d clocks.
Herbert, with wild fire burning his troubled mind, turns to God and says, “Yet still thou goest on.” The “God of love” has yet more love stored up, more favor to offer. He began the day by giving us “eyes,” and now, as night overtakes our burdened souls, he “with darknesse closest wearie eyes.” And not just with sleep: God, in mercy, closes our eyes to our sins, just as he, in Christ, has already “closed” his.
“In response to our weary, day-end regrets, God gives not more work, but rest.”
As God closes the soul’s eyelids, bidding them be blind to the day’s confessed sins, Herbert imagines him “saying to man, It doth suffice: / Henceforth repose; your work is done.” In response to our weary, day-end regrets, God gives not more work, but rest. Our work, however pitiful, can be done at day’s end because God’s perfect work of redemption is done (John 19:30; Hebrews 10:12–14). And we, by faith, “have got his sonne.”
Thus God “incloses” us in “thy ebony box” — surely a reference to a coffin. The biblical writers saw sleep as an image of Christian death (John 11:11; 1 Thessalonians 4:14), and Herbert, tapping into the theme, treats nighttime as a daily rehearsal for the moment when our ebony box will be made of wood and not of night. On that last twilight, some of God’s true children, like Christian in Pilgrim’s Progress, will look back and ask, pained, “What have I brought thee home / For this thy love?” Our troubled nights teach us how to answer that question, readying us to lie peacefully upon our final bed as we wait for God to close our eyes, put us to sleep, and keep us for the resurrection day, which will “put our amendment in our way” — which will raise us sinless and whole, children of the everlasting morning.
Until then, we live like old timepieces, “disorder’d clocks” whose hour and minute hands begin the day aligned with God yet often slowly get off track. And every morning, God rewinds us, no matter how disordered from yesterday, and once again strengthens us to run.
Rest Deeper Than Sleep
I muse, which shows more love,The day or night: that is the gale, this th’ harbour; That is the walk, and this the arbour; Or that the garden, this the grove.
My God, thou art all love. Not one poore minute scapes thy breast, But brings a favour from above;And in this love, more then in bed, I rest.
As God carries us from morning to evening, we move from favor to favor, mercy to mercy, kindness to kindness. By poem’s end, Herbert muses which of the two, day or night, “shows more love”: The gale that sends us through day’s waters, or the harbor that holds us at night’s shore? The walk that takes us through day’s labors, or the arbor that receives us into night’s rest? The garden of daytime strength, or the grove of nighttime forgiveness?
“In Jesus, we find a rest beneath our rest, a pillow under our pillow.”
The question cannot be answered. In Christ, God gives us power to work for him, and he gives us pardon to rest in him. Both have their peculiar favor; God’s children prize them both. And so, “not one poore minute scapes thy breast, / But brings a favor from above.” Not one minute of the day is unadorned by the love of God — whether daytime love or nighttime love, strengthening love or forgiving love.
Herbert closes, “And in this love, more then in bed, I rest.” In Jesus, we find a rest beneath our rest, a pillow under our pillow, comfort of soul surrounding the comfort of sleep. Such rest and comfort depend, ultimately, not on what we give to God (though we long to give him much and more), but on what he has given to us: “his sonne.” And so, even the frustration and futility we feel toward day’s end can become a mercy, delivering us into a deeper rest than sleep can give.
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Preach Christ, Embody Christ: How to Set an Example in Love
Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in . . . love. (1 Timothy 4:12)
Setting an example is a powerful and essential part of pastoral leadership. A strong line of reasoning in preaching, even a soundly biblical argument, might fail to persuade. But a personal example of Christlikeness, especially what Francis Schaeffer called “the beauty of human relationships,” is unanswerable (Two Contents, Two Realities, 141). Beauty can be martyred, but it cannot be denied, and it will rise again.
A young pastor can and must deeply resolve to love everyone in his church and outside his church with Christlike love. He can and must set the believers an example by his gracious, patient, gentle, forgiving, pain-tolerant love. But without the beauty of love, any pastor, however orthodox, becomes a living denial of Christ. To quote Schaeffer again, “There is nothing more ugly than an orthodoxy without understanding or without compassion” (The God Who Is There, 34). Schaeffer was even more blunt: “I’ll tell you something else, orthodoxy without compassion stinks to God” (Death in the City, 1968, 123).
Pastoral ministry is not a career track, not a job, not a gig. It is a sacred calling from above. And the pastoral calling is basically twofold: to preach Christ and to embody Christ. The former is a matter of declaring the truth, the latter of demonstrating the truth. And how can we truly declare the truth without also demonstrating it? If we pastors do not set an example in love, we unsay by our lives what we say by our doctrine. Such an anti-example betrays the gospel. And that horrible betrayal is not a remotely hypothetical possibility. That betrayal of the gospel is common.
We pastors need not be perfect. All of us have many shortcomings. But still, following God’s call, we pastors must accept, deeply accept, that we have signed up for sacrifice. It’s how we set an example of love.
Our Sacred Calling
The apostle John says, “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him” (1 John 4:9). Jesus died that we would live. That is how love thinks, how love behaves — paying a price, that others might enter into the life that is truly life. So, Bonhoeffer was right: “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die” (The Cost of Discipleship, 89).
Recently I was in conversation with a friend who serves in a church-planting network. He told me that one of the questions he hears, as men consider that call, is whether they might have to exceed a forty-hour workweek. I was astounded, as was my friend. Limit ourselves to a forty-hour week? Love doesn’t think that way. Love does whatever it takes for others to live. Should a pastor attend to his family at home too? Of course. But a self-protective minimalism is not love.
“Pastoral ministry is not a career track, not a job, not a gig. It is a sacred calling from above.”
When the apostle Paul was describing the great heart of God for us, he had to strain at the leash of language to say it. He speaks, for example, of “the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us” (Ephesians 1:7–8). If God loves us richly and lavishly, then his pastors cannot love with a guarded heart that holds back. We pastors have the privilege of hurling ourselves, by faith in God, into the depths of his love for people. Then we find out along the way what it will cost us. And we’re fine with that, because we will also see how wonderfully people will come alive — even through us, flawed as we are.
Beauty Through Sacrifice
I remember my final Sunday as pastor at Immanuel Church Nashville in 2019. Jani and I were sitting in the front row, waiting for the service to begin. The band was playing a pre-service number. I forget what it was, but it was a bluesy, rocky something, to the glory of Christ, and utterly delightful. Then my peripheral vision noticed movement off to my left. I looked. And there, about fifty feet away, was a young mom in the church, no longer sitting but standing and moving and even dancing. She wasn’t making a spectacle of herself. There was no hint of self-display. She was just too happy to sit still. And Jani and I knew that dear lady. We knew she didn’t live a charmed life. But there she was, her heart moved by the music and lifted up to the Lord, dancing.
The sight of her joy was so beautiful, I choked up. And in that moment, I knew and felt that all the pain and heartache and sheer hard work we went through to establish Immanuel Church as a gift to our city — it was all worth it. Why? Because it funneled down to one final moment in 2019 when a young mom was enjoying the felt presence of the living Christ so wonderfully she had to get up and dance. In that sacred moment, our sacrifices no longer felt sacrificial. We were too happy to care about all that.
Love and Its Opposite
I wish I could say I always feel that way. But I don’t. Many times, I have to grab myself by the scruff of the neck and say, “Ray Ortlund, you’re going to go do the right thing, and you’re going to like it!” I expect you understand. And here is a line of thought I use as a diagnostic, a way of helping myself realign with Jesus, even in the moment. It’s these two opposites: what a loving pastor is not, and what a loving pastor is.
What a loving pastor is not: He is not out for himself. He does not perceive other people through a lens of cost-benefit calculation. He does not treat others as props on the stage of his grandiose drama. He does not make people into stepping stones on his upward path to ministerial stardom, a big platform, epic book sales, and invitations to speak at big-deal events. He does not curve reality back in on himself, his own advantage, his own importance. He is not self-referential in how he navigates reality. In fact, a selfish mentality is repugnant to a loving pastor.
“If we pastors do not set an example in love, we unsay by our lives what we say by our doctrine.”
What a loving pastor is: He is a man for others. He sets a cheerful “for you” tone as the culture of his church. He feels a gentle fierceness that people will not walk out of church on a Sunday without feeling seen, understood, valued. He is willing to lose, but he is determined to protect others. He will explain himself, but he will not fight for himself. He gives his all, and he enjoys doing so, because the people he serves matter that much to him. If he feels successful, it’s because more and more people are coming alive to Jesus. And he marvels that the Lord has given him such a glorious privilege.
Love Has a Future
As you set the believers an example in love, sadly, some might not see the beauty of it. They might even dislike you for it. Your selfless love might stand as a living reproach to their own selfishness and worldliness. In their eyes, your love might be made into your crime. They might even throw you out. But it is better to fail by doing what is right than to succeed by doing what is wrong, better to fail in the Spirit than to succeed in the flesh. Such a failure still contributes to the great battle being fought in the heavenlies in your generation.
But most people who claim Christ are reasonable. They will rejoice to receive your ministry, and they will join you in your spirit of Christlike love. Even if it does end badly, “they will know that a prophet has been among them” (Ezekiel 33:33). And the resurrection of Jesus proves this promise: “There is a future for the man of peace” (Psalm 37:37).
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The Danger of Skipping 1 Thessalonians: 1 Thessalonians 5:23–28, Part 6
http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15835384/the-danger-of-skipping-1-thessalonians
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