http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/14695697/what-is-biblical-meekness
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The Light and Momentary Success of the Wicked
The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply; their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out or take their names on my lips. (Psalm 16:4)
So far in Psalm 16, David has sought refuge in God, asking for God to preserve and keep him. He has confessed that Yahweh is not only the Lord, but that he is David’s Lord — the all-sufficient and all-satisfying Good, from whom every good gift comes. And under that greatest Good, one of the chief earthly goods that David has received is the saints in the land, God’s people. They are holy and majestic, delighting David with their grandeur. Because he loves to be near God, David likewise loves to be near his people.
As he continues to pray, David next considers another group of people, those who run after other gods. Perhaps he has in mind the nations around Israel, who seek refuge not in Yahweh, but in Baal, Dagon, and Ashtoreth. Israel is married to Yahweh, covenantally bound to him as her Lord and Husband. The nations, on the other hand, have married false gods, demonic powers. They have run after them and acquired them in marriage.
And what has happened as a result? When David considers the saints and their marriage to Yahweh, he thinks of the majesty of mountains with great delight and pleasure. When he considers idolaters around them, he sees a very different picture — sorrows, pains, injuries, hardships, and wounds. And not just static sorrows, but multiplying, growing, and abounding sorrows.
“Having run after other gods and acquired them, the ungodly have brought down on themselves pain, strife, and hurt.”
Having run after other gods and acquired them, the ungodly have brought down on themselves pain, strife, and hurt.
Prosperity of the Wicked?
Such sorrows are not always immediately evident to us. In Psalm 73, Asaph expresses his dismay at the prosperity of the wicked, and his confusion at their success. The wicked have no pangs until death; they are well-fed and insulated from trouble. They don’t have the struggles and hardships that most men do (verses 4–5). Despite their pride, violence, folly, malice, and oppression, they prosper and succeed in all that they do (verses 6–9). They are always at ease as they increase in their riches, brazenly mocking God for not seeing and not knowing of their evil (verses 10–12).
Such a picture stands in stark contrast to David’s observation in Psalm 16. So how can these two pictures be reconciled? Do the sorrows of idolaters multiply, or are the wicked always at ease? Does their idolatry injure them and cause harm, or does it redound to their prosperity and success?
Asaph shows us the way. His vexation gives way to clarity, but only after he worships Yahweh in the sanctuary. Only after he seeks refuge in God as his highest good is he able to discern the end of the wicked (Psalm 73:17). And when he does, he draws the same conclusion as David.
Truly you set them in slippery places; you make them fall to ruin.How they are destroyed in a moment, swept away utterly by terrors!Like a dream when one awakes, O Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms. (Psalm 73:18–20)
In other words, while the wicked may prosper for a moment, in the end their sorrows will multiply. Their foot slides in due time. Having run after vanity, they dissolve into phantoms. Having worshiped creatures, they fall under a curse. In the end, the bill comes due.
“While the wicked may prosper for a moment, in the end their sorrows will multiply.”
In this life, the sorrows of the wicked are unevenly distributed. At times, we see their destruction early, when God gives them a taste of the harvest they have sown. We see it in the consequences of their actions — the brokenness, pain, and loss wrought by sin. This is a severe mercy, a kindness from God that is meant to lead the wicked (and us) to repentance.
But others avoid such earthly sorrows. They temporarily evade being swept away. But even these are storing up wrath for “the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed” (Romans 2:5). And when that day comes, the sorrows will multiply forever.
False Worship and False Confession
Having observed and discerned the end of idolatry, David must act on what he knows. And so, he commits to avoiding their idolatrous sacrifices and their false confessions. In particular here, he mentions avoiding their “drink offerings.”
Israel offered drink offerings to Yahweh as part of the sacrificial system (Leviticus 23). In Israel’s drink offering, the priest poured out wine on behalf of the worshiper, in conjunction with one of the other primary offerings, whether an ascension offering, peace offering, or purification offering (Numbers 15; 28–29). Such offerings were to be offered only once Israel had entered and taken possession of the land. In the Bible, wine signifies triumph, celebration, and rest. As one commentator puts it, bread is morning food, eaten to give strength for the day’s labor; wine is evening food, imbibed at the end of the day in gratitude for a job finished and done well. Thus, drink offerings of wine were meant to celebrate God’s triumph over his enemies and his faithfulness to his promises.
In Psalm 16, then, David refuses to participate in idolatrous drink offerings. More specifically, he rejects “drink offerings of blood.” While blood was certainly used in Israel’s sacrifices — sprinkled on the horns of the altar or poured out at the base of the altar — Israel was strictly forbidden to drink blood. The nations around Israel, however, seemed to have drunk blood, and they also offered some to their gods in drink offerings. Because “the life of the flesh is in the blood” (Leviticus 17:11), it’s possible that they did so in order to receive life from the animal that was slain. Israel, in contrast, received life directly from Yahweh himself.
More than simply rejecting their sacrifices, David also rejects their confession. Refusing to take their name on his lips is more than simply avoiding saying the wrong word. David is refusing to invoke the names of the false gods, refusing to call upon them as his lord. This is the counterpart to his seeking refuge in Yahweh and confessing him as Lord.
Model of Faithful Resistance
For us today, David’s clear-eyed fidelity to God is a model. We too often see the wicked prospering in the world. Their sin, far from harming them, seems to enable their success, and in doing so, it becomes a temptation to us. The pressure to go along — to placate the false gods of our evil age, to invoke the world’s objects of trust and worship, to run after other gods in order to fit in and find earthly success — is real.
But we must discern their end. Their sorrows will multiply. The ease, if it exists, will last only a moment. The light and momentary success of the wicked is working for them an eternal weight of affliction that will far outweigh earthly prosperity.
And when we discern this end, we are strengthened to resist the pressure of our age. Rather than conforming ourselves to the pattern of this world, we are transformed by the renewing of our minds. Rather than seeking to placate false gods or false men, we offer ourselves as living sacrifices to God alone (Romans 12:1–2). Rather than echoing the lies and falsehoods in our society, we say with our lips and from our hearts, “Jesus is our Lord; we have no good apart from him.”
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Habits of Grit: Athletics, Grace, and the Christian Work Ethic
Not many of us are farmers. Not anymore. And relatively few of us have served as soldiers in combat. But perhaps some of us have tried our hands at competitive athletics — the kind you train for, and not just show up to play.
You may not have been aware of it at the time, but if you have been a soldier, an athlete, or a farmer, you have been challenged, like increasingly few modern people, to learn how to really work. That is, you were presented with some objective, concrete challenge — train for battle, till the field, practice for gameday — and you either put in the required effort to be successful on the field, or you grew weary, cut corners, and soon gave up. You either demonstrated you didn’t have it in you to keep straining forward, against the obstacles, to persevere and achieve the goal; or you found it, doubtless with help from coaches or teammates.
However firsthand your experience as a soldier, athlete, or farmer, Scripture stands ready to fill in, supplement, recast, or override our personal experiences (or lack thereof) and teach us a Christian work ethic — for our own joy, the good of others, and the glory of Christ. And one of the classic places to anchor in Scripture to ponder our work ethic mentions the very concrete and objective occupations of soldiering, athletics, and farming.
Like the Apostle
What Paul has in view in 2 Timothy 2:1–7 is gospel advance through disciple-making. The gospel he has entrusted to his disciple, he now charges Timothy to “entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also” (2 Timothy 2:2). That’s four generations in a blink: Paul to Timothy to “faithful men” to “others also” — and implied is that the “others also” will disciple still others also.
But simple as the plan for gospel multiplication may sound, the work will not be easy. It will be opposed by the world, the flesh, and the devil, almost constantly, and often at the most inconvenient times. Paul himself writes from prison. Timothy can read the writing on the wall: if such efforts dedicated to gospel advance landed Paul in jail, how long until it catches up with Timothy? But rather than shy away from the task, Paul calls his protégé to “share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.” Then verses 4–6:
No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him. An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. It is the hard-working farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops.
Consider first, and together, the requirements of soldiers and farmers; then we’ll turn at greater length to athletics.
Like Soldiers and Farmers
Even if soldiering and farming are foreign to you, as they are to me, the broad nature of the work is plain enough.
Soldiers are men “under authority” (Matthew 8:9; Luke 7:8), who do not serve alone but alongside other soldiers (in bands or battalions). A single trained champion with a weapon may be a formidable foe — until met by hundreds or thousands trained to act as one. The power in soldiering comes from this collective force: men trained together, to act together, under the authority and clear direction of an able commander. And to do so — to both get battle-ready and stay ready — soldiers must overcome the temptation of getting “entangled in civilian pursuits.”
The soldier is one who has been called out of normal civilian life, and received into a new company, to train and stand ready to act to defend civilians. And good soldiers, Paul says, aim “to please the one who enlisted” them. They deny themselves the immediate appeals and comforts of civilian life to endure in their calling and, in the end, enjoy greater, more enduring satisfaction than abandoning their mission for trivialities.
“Maturity comes through training, not through coasting or indulging desires for comfort.”
Similarly, though distinctly, farming requires the hard work of both foresight and physical labor. Farmers plan, till and sow, weed, wait with patience for rain and growth, and in the end, engage in the arduous labor of harvesting. And in doing so, the farmer holds in his hands, and enjoys, the reward, as he ought: “the first share of the crops.” Farmers have much to teach us, not only about hard work, and anticipating rewards, but also patience: “See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. You also, be patient” (James 5:7–8).
Like Athletes
Paul in particular may have more to teach us through athletics than we first expect. In addition to 2 Timothy 2:5, he takes up athletic imagery in 1 Corinthians 9:24–27; Philippians 3:13–14; 1 Timothy 4:7–8; and 2 Timothy 4:7. Hebrews also (not written by Paul but someone in his circle like Luke) draws on athletic imagery (Hebrews 5:13–14; 12:1–2, 11–13). The lesson in 2 Timothy 2 is consistent with the portrait of athletics elsewhere in Paul’s letters and in Hebrews.
First, maturity comes through training, not through coasting or indulging desires for immediate comfort. That is, even before the competition, even before the discomfort of enduring on race day, is the obstacle of training. Effective training requires discomfort (Hebrews 12:11). The body is not conditioned by leisure but by stress and strain, and especially through persisting in discomfort. Both body and mind are “trained by constant practice” (Hebrews 5:14), leading to maturity. “Those of us who are mature,” Paul writes, “straining forward to what lies ahead . . . press on toward the goal for the prize” (Philippians 3:13–15). All training, whether bodily or spiritual, requires some measure of toil and striving (1 Timothy 4:7–10).
Second, then, in the competition itself, athletes press on through weariness, frustration, discouragement, and pain. Learning to press through and endure discomfort in training readies the body, and will, to press on through resistance on race day. Verse 5 highlights a specific temptation to overcome: cutting corners. “An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules.” Whether in training or competition, the successful athlete knows that his subjective desires do not rule over the objective rules of the contest. He is not bigger than the race or the game. He cannot train or compete as he pleases, according to his momentary wishes, but must exercise self-control. This is Paul’s own testimony in 1 Corinthians 9:24–27:
Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.
Third, and most significantly, across the New Testament passages, the key to enduring discomfort is looking to the reward. Whether in training or in the event itself, Paul and Hebrews emphasize the reward, the crown, the prize — a vital element that makes the lesson for work ethic particularly Christian. Paul explicitly commends the prize: “So run that you may obtain it” (1 Corinthians 9:24). The imperishable crown that awaits is not icing on the cake but the reward to be kept in mind, and remembered, to keep us going when met with obstacles and resistance. Paul himself, as he comes to the end of his “race,” is not ashamed (but intentional) to draw attention to the reward, which, through anticipation, has fueled his perseverance:
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing. (2 Timothy 4:7–8)
But not only Paul. Where did he learn it? No one teaches us to look to the reward like Jesus, in his teaching, his example, and more.
Like Jesus
In his teaching, Jesus again and again draws our attention to the reward that is “from your Father” and “great in heaven.” In Matthew 5–6 alone, he explicitly mentions the reward some nine times (and then does so again in 10:41–42; see also Mark 9:41 and Luke 6:23, 35). Perhaps it was this plain, almost hedonistic thread that prompted Paul to capture an aspect of Christ’s teaching as “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35).
Yet every bit as clear as Jesus’s teaching is the power of his example. The climactic eleventh chapter of Hebrews turns our attention, several times, to the coming reward (10:35; 11:6, 26) and then presents Christ himself as the paradigm of pressing on, and persisting through pain, by looking to the reward:
Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:1–2)
“Christ’s perfect grit comes first, which then makes our imperfect but growing effort possible.”
When we look to Jesus, we look to one who himself endured the greatest of pain and shame — the cross — by looking to his reward: for the joy that was set before him, that is, being seated at his Father’s right hand. He finished his course, looking to the reward. And so too, in like fashion, and looking to him, Hebrews would have us run our race with endurance, not grow weary or fainthearted, but lift our drooping hands and strengthen our weak knees (Hebrews 12:1, 3, 12).
Like a Christian
But Jesus not only taught us to look to the reward, and then practiced what he taught. In finishing his course, and achieving the victory of the cross, he secured us, who have faith in him, as his own. Mark this: we do not earn him with our holy grit, but he earned us with his. We press on, as Paul did, “because Christ Jesus has made me his own” (Philippians 3:12). Don’t reverse the order. Slavery or freedom hangs on the sequence. Christ’s perfect grit comes first, which then makes our imperfect but growing effort possible. Or, you might say, Christ’s full acceptance comes first; then he goes to work on our work ethic.
So, a common thread links the work ethic of soldiers, athletes, farmers, Christ himself, and Christians alike: we recognize and own the particulars of our calling; we exercise self-control to overcome the immediate desires of the flesh; we endure in discomfort, with God’s help, for the reward, the greater joy promised at the end, which streams into the present to give meaning and strength to keep straining and striving.
And what makes it particularly Christian, and not simply human, is this: we do all our pressing on, from fullness and security of soul, not emptiness and insecurity, knowing that Christ Jesus has made me his own.
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Make Your Life Count: Twelve Rules for Teens
Audio Transcript
Pop the confetti — we have arrived at episode number 2000 on the Ask Pastor John podcast. Wow! What better way to celebrate than with a question about how to make our lives count? That’s a major theme of your ministry, Pastor John — not wasting our lives. Today’s question comes from a teenager named Payton. Parents and grandparents of teens, here’s a heads-up: this is one of those episodes you may want to pass along to the teens in your life.
Here’s the question: “Pastor John, hello. My name is Payton, and I’m fifteen years old. I have listened to your sermons and to this podcast over the past year, and it has been truly very helpful in my Christian walk. As a fifteen-year-old, how can I make a difference in the world as a Christian? How can I make my life count?”
Okay, here are my twelve rules for fifteen-year-olds. Actually, twelve rules for teenagers. Most of them are applicable to girls as well, if they just make a slight twist. But Payton is a boy, so I’m thinking this way for him.
1. Honor your parents.
“Honor your father and mother” (Ephesians 6:1–2). These are ways to make your life count. “Honor your father and mother.” Never treat them with contempt or belittle them behind their back or around your friends. That is a mark of honoring them. It is a mark of maturity, and it is pleasing to the Lord.
2. Savor the Bible.
“Ransack your Bible every day, and pray for its greatest impact in your life. Don’t just read it — devour it.”
Ransack your Bible every day, and pray for its greatest impact in your life. Don’t just read it — devour it. Dig into it the way a miser searches for gold and silver. Ask God every time you open your Bible, “Show me wonderful things here, great things, life-changing things” (see Psalm 119:18). Savor it the way you savor your favorite food. When you stop reading, meditate on it day and night (Psalm 1:2). Take it with you. You’ll be “like a tree planted by streams of water” (Psalm 1:3). You won’t be like a leaf blown around by the wind.
3. Focus on character.
Don’t focus on making good grades in school. Focus on really learning all you can and using all of that learning to turn you into a man of character. The Bible clearly calls us to grow in grace, in knowledge (2 Peter 3:18). It never calls us to make good grades. Grades will take care of themselves if you really squeeze the most learning out of every course in high school that you can.
4. Choose schools wisely.
If you get to choose your school, say high school or college, don’t choose a school because of its popularity or its library or its sports teams or its size or its parties. Choose it because of the wisdom of its faculty. Choose teachers, not courses; choose teachers, not schools. Proverbs 13:20 says, “Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise.”
5. Date for marriage.
Save dating girls for the time when marriage is a real option. Put it off till then. The concept of dating as a kind of mere recreation in our Western culture is not wise. Our attraction to the opposite sex, built in by God — it’s a good thing. It’s designed by God to lead to the great and wonderful satisfaction of marriage. That’s what it’s for.
Do things with other boys and other girls in groups, and save the one-on-one dating till you’re ready to consider marriage seriously. I dated for the first time (with a pounding heart) when I was 20 years old, and I married her. We’re still married and happy 55 years later. It was a good choice.
6. Stay busy ‘doing.’
Number six comes from my father. He said, “Be so busy ‘doing’ that you don’t have time to ‘don’t.’” Now, that was his response to the fact that the Bible does indeed say there are a lot of “don’ts.” There are a lot of things we should not do as teenagers or adults, some because they’re outright wrong, but many just because they’re not helpful. They’re weights, not sins. It’s like wearing an overcoat when you run a marathon. That’s not against the rules; it’s just stupid.
These things, we know, don’t build our faith. They don’t keep our minds pure. So my dad’s solution was not to harp on all the things that wise Christians don’t do, but instead to fill your life with so many good and helpful things that you don’t have time for the questionable things: “Be so busy ‘doing’ that you don’t have time to ‘don’t.’” (See Galatians 6:9; 2 Thessalonians 3:13; 1 Corinthians 15:58.)
7. Be passionate, not lazy.
What your hand finds to do, do it with all your might (see Ecclesiastes 9:10). If you want your life to count, you can’t be half-hearted. If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing passionately. Colossians 3:23 says, “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men.”
Or consider Romans 12:11: “Do not be slothful in zeal [our contemporary word for zeal is passion], be fervent in spirit [the literal translation is boiling — ‘be boiling in spirit’], serve the Lord.” So, don’t be lazy, but be zealous or passionate; not lukewarm, but fervent or boiling in the spirit. Be done with half-heartedness.
8. Offer up your gifts.
Don’t fret over gifts you don’t have, but take the few you do have and put them in the hands of Christ, like the boy with the five loaves and two fish in his hands. He put them in the hands of Jesus. Your hand shouldn’t say to your eye, “Because I’m not an eye, I’m of no use to the body.” That’s 1 Corinthians 12:21, adapted (see also 1 Corinthians 12:15–16). I regard this as one of the most important lessons I ever learned.
As I went through school, I saw more and more clearly what I was not good at. If I had focused on that, on what I’m not good at — oh my goodness. There’s a long list of things I’m not good at. I’ve never made any sports teams, for example, and I read so slowly, and my memory is so poor. On and on my weaknesses go.
If I had focused on them, I think I would have accomplished nothing. Instead, I saw two or three things I could do, and I could do them as well as others, maybe even better. And I said, “Lord, help me not to waste energy on bemoaning what I can’t do, and help me to do what I can do with all my might. Take it. Use it. Make it count.”
9. Don’t be a people-pleaser.
Don’t be a people-pleaser. Paul says in Galatians 1:10, “Am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.”
Now, that’s not as simple as you might think because there are other texts that say we should try to please others, like Romans 15:2: “Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up.” To please others, to help them be stronger in faith, is good. It’s not about you. It’s about trusting Christ, seeing Christ, knowing Christ.
But pleasing others to pump up our ego or to avoid criticism of us or to escape suffering or hardship — that’s not good. Be mature enough to know how not to offend others, and then be utterly indifferent to other people’s praise when your own ego or your own safety is at stake. Do what’s right, and let the chips fall where they will.
10. Fail well.
Don’t be defeated by failures. If you never fail at anything, you are not trying enough things. You haven’t taken enough risks if you never fail. We all begin as failures — all of us. That’s what sin is — it’s a failure. To honor God as we ought, we all begin as “F,” and the punishment is hell. Paul says in Romans 7:15–19 that, even after he is converted, he stumbles in many ways, doing what he does not want to do.
But here is the glory of the gospel of Christ (and our lives are built on the gospel): He covered our sins. He imputed righteousness to us that we don’t have natively. Our acceptance with God is not earned. So we say with Paul in Philippians 3:13, “One thing I do: forgetting what lies behind . . .” He had lots of things he needed to forget.
We all have failures. I mean, every day we don’t measure up to the way we would like to talk to people or treat people. If we are crushed by those things, we’ll never count. So don’t look back like that. “Forgetting what lies behind,” Paul says, “and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13–14). Don’t be defeated by past failures.
11. Fight sin and temptation.
“You will not be used by God for anything great if you live in compromise with sin.”
“Make no provision for the flesh.” That’s Romans 13:14. Know the things and the times and the places that lure you to sin, and avoid them. You will not be used by God for anything great if you live in compromise with sin, and one crucial way to fight sin is to head it off at the pass. Don’t put yourself in any position where sin typically gets the upper hand. That may be sexual sin or the temptation to greed, pride, anger, or whatever your typical temptation is.
12. Live to magnify Christ.
Finally, don’t live to stay alive. Live to make much of Christ. I love Acts 20:24, where Paul says, “I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus.” The point of life is not to stay alive. It’s to magnify the greatness of Jesus. As Paul puts it in Philippians 1:20, “It is my eager expectation and hope that . . . Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death.”
Seek to do these twelve things, and I promise you: your life will count.