Surface Needs vs. Ultimate Need
The following comes from Michael Card’s A Sacred Sorrow (p. 127-29):
“And they will call him Immanuel” – which means, “God with us” (Matt. 1:23, NIV). We saw earlier that the ultimate answer to all laments is not to be found in the specifics of what is lamented for. The true answer for a lament of disease is not ultimately a cure. The real solution for a lament of financial distress is never simply money. The answer is always found in the Presence of God. It is rarely what we ask for, but it is always what we ultimately need.
The coming of Immanuel, “God with us,” must be understood as the Father’s answer to ages of expectant laments. But God did not send the Messiah as the sort of solution everyone expected. They wanted someone who would kill the Romans. Jesus, instead died for the Romans. They wanted someone who would give them answers. Jesus gave them Himself. What else but His Presence could have perfectly answered all our deepest needs? For though we could have never imagined it, what we thought we needed, solutions for the problems that caused our pain, would have never fixed the problem.
Lament is the path that takes us to the place where we discover that there is no complete answer to pain and suffering, only Presence. The language of lament gives a meaningful form to our grief by providing a vocabulary for our suffering and then offering it to God as worship. Our questions and complaints will never find individual answers (even as Job’s questions were never fully answered). The only Answer is the dangerous, disturbing, comforting Presence, which is the true answer to all our questions and hopes.
The Gospel is Distinct from Our Response to It
The following comes from Graeme Goldsworthy’s According to Plan (p. 81-83). I found these quotes to be particularly helpful as it reminds us that the gospel is not our response to the gospel. I think that we often confuse the gospel (what Christ did for us and who he is for us) with a proper response to the gospel (belief, faith, confession, etc.). May we lift up Christ repeatedly, showing to one another and the world his beauty. As we increasingly see him, we will fall more and more in love with him and act accordingly.
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The main message of the Bible about Jesus Christ can easily become mixed with all sorts of things that are related to it. We see this in the way people define the gospel or preach it. But it is important to keep the gospel itself clearly distinct from our response to it or from the results of it in our lives and in the world. If our proper response to the gospel message is faith, then we should not make faith part of the gospel itself. It would be absurd to call people to have faith in faith! While the new birth bears a close relationship to faith in Christ, it is a mistake to speak of the new birth as if it were itself the gospel. Faith in the new birth as such will not save us…
Related to the gospel event are other important aspects of God’s work which are not themselves the gospel. If we believe the gospel we will probably also believe these, but they are not the focus of our trust the way that the saving work of Jesus is. We do not preach them as the heart of our message to unbelievers….
We note that what you or I do in response to the gospel is not itself the gospel. You cannot say that repentance and faith are the gospel. They are what the Holy Spirit enables us to do about the gospel. If you tell unbelievers that they should trust Christ, believe the good news, or confess their sin, these things are undoubtedly true, but they are not the gospel. We must tell them what it is about Christ that they should trust, what the good news is so that they can believe it and why sins should be confessed.
Grace Comes First
HT: Tim Wilcoxsen
“…if anyone makes the assistance of grace depend on the humility or obedience of man and does not agree that it is a gift of grace itself that we are obedient and humble, he contradicts the Apostle who says, “What have you that you did not receive?” (1 Cor. 4:7), and, “But by the grace of God I am what I am” (1 Cor. 15:10). (Council of Orange: Canon 6)
On Mine Arm They Shall Trust
The following comes from Spurgeon’s Morning by Morning (per Aug. 31st):
“On mine arm shall they trust.” – Isaiah 49:5…..In seasons of severe trial, the Christian has nothing on earth that he can trust to, and is therefore compelled to cast himself on his God alone. When his vessel is on its beam-ends, and no human deliverance can avail, he must simply and entirely trust himself to the providence and care of God. Happy storm that wrecks a man on such a rock as this! O blessed hurricane that drives the soul to God, and God alone! There is no getting at our God sometimes because of the multitude of our friends; but when a man is so poor, so friendless, so helpless, that he has nowhere else to turn, he flies into his Father’s arms, and is blessedly clasped therein! When he is burdened with troubles, so pressing and so peculiar that he cannot tell them to any but his God, he may be thankful for them; for he will learn more of his Lord then than at any other time. Oh, tempest-tossed believer, it is a happy trouble that drives thee to thy Father! Now that thou hast only thy God to trust to, see that thou puttest thy full confidence in Him. Dishonor not thy Lord and Master by unworthy doubts and fears; But be strong in faith, giving glory to God. Show the world that thy God is worth ten thousand worlds to thee. Show rich men how rich thou art in thy poverty when the Lord God is thy helper. Show the strong man how strong thou art in thy weakness and when underneath thee are the everlasting arms. Now is the time for feats of faith and valiant exploits. Be strong and very courageous, and the Lord thy God shall certainly, as surely as he built the heavens and the earth, glorify Himself in thy weakness, and magnify His might in the midst of thy distress. The grandeur of the arch of heaven would be spoiled if the sky were supported by a single visible column, and your faith would lose its glory if it rested on anything discernible by the carnal eye. May the Holy Spirit give you rest in Jesus this day.
He Will Certainly Satisfy Those Longings
The following comes from Charles Spurgeon’s Morning by Morning (Per August 22nd). I read this last night per the prompting of my wife, and the Spirit accompanied these words as I read. I hunger for Christ, I long for Him, and upon reading these words last night I was filled with joy that this hunger and longing will certainly be satisfied. I hope that you will experience this as well.
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“I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my beloved, that ye tell him, that I am sick of love.”
Song of Solomon 5:8
Such is the language of the believer panting after present fellowship with Jesus, he is sick for his Lord. Gracious souls are never perfectly at ease except they are in a state of nearness to Christ; for when they are away from him they lose their peace. The nearer to him, the nearer to the perfect calm of heaven; the nearer to him, the fuller the heart is, not only of peace, but of life, and vigour, and joy, for these all depend on constant intercourse with Jesus. What the sun is to the day, what the moon is to the night, what the dew is to the flower, such is Jesus Christ to us. What bread is to the hungry, clothing to the naked, the shadow of a great rock to the traveller in a weary land, such is Jesus Christ to us; and, therefore, if we are not consciously one with him, little marvel if our spirit cries in the words of the Song, “I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my beloved, tell him that I am sick of love.” This earnest longing after Jesus has a blessing attending it: “Blessed are they that do hunger and thirst after righteousness”; and therefore, supremely blessed are they who thirst after the Righteous One. Blessed is that hunger, since it comes from God: if I may not have the full-blown blessedness of being filled, I would seek the same blessedness in its sweet bud-pining in emptiness and eagerness till I am filled with Christ. If I may not feed on Jesus, it shall be next door to heaven to hunger and thirst after him. There is a hallowedness about that hunger, since it sparkles among the beatitudes of our Lord. But the blessing involves a promise. Such hungry ones “shall be filled” with what they are desiring. If Christ thus causes us to long after himself, he will certainly satisfy those longings; and when he does come to us, as come he will, oh, how sweet it will be!
The Gospel of Jesus Christ Leads to a Perfect Delirium of Joy!
HT: Joseph Randall
Charles Spurgeon wrote:
Some years ago, I was deeply depressed. I knew whom I had believed, but I could not get comfort from the truth I preached. I even began to wonder if I was really saved.
While on vacation, I went to a Wesleyan chapel. The sermon was full of the gospel and tears flowed from my eyes. I was in a perfect delirium of joy. I said, “Oh yes, there is spiritual life within me; the gospel can still touch my heart and stir my soul.”
When I thanked the good man for his sermon, he looked at me and could hardly believe his eyes. He said, “Are you not Mr. Spurgeon?”
I replied, “Yes.”
“Dear, dear,” said he, “that was your sermon I preached this morning.”
I knew it was, and that was one reason why I was so comforted. I realized that I could take my own medicine. I asked the preacher to my inn for dinner. We rejoiced that he was led to give the people one of my sermons that day, that I could be fed from my own kitchen.
I do know this. Whatever I may be, there is nothing that moves me like the gospel of Christ.
“For this reason I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day.” (2 Tim. 1:12).
Do you feel this way?
Charles Spurgeon, Beside Still Waters, Ed. Roy H. Clarke (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1999), 299.
The Message We Need
The Immanuel Theology Group begins this Saturday, and it’s going to start off with a bang as Dane Ortlund will be showing us how to see Christ in all of Scripture. For part of his recommended readings, we’ve read from Graeme Goldsworthy and I’ve been very encouraged. Here’s a quote from Goldsworthy’s Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture (p. 83-84).
Only the message that another true and obedient human being has come on our behalf, that he has lived for us the kind of life we should live but can’t, that he has paid fully the penalty we deserve for the life we do live but shouldn’t – only this message can give assurance that we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Why Do You Lack Peace?
My primary response to my own dysfunction is to blame other people, the world, circumstances and even God. Norman Grubb helped me see that my lack of peace is the direct result of my sin, and my unwillingness to expose my sin to the light. (Per Continuous Revival by Norman Grubb):
We all can recognize that as a beautiful description of the abiding presence of Jesus in the heart, His peace, joy and presence filling us to overflowing, with no shadow between. We can see the clear sparkling water of life welling up within and flowing over the thirsty souls around through look, and word, and deed. But here comes the point of it in this message of revival. We are to recognize that “cups running over” is the NORMAL daily experience of the believer walking with Jesus, not the abnormal or occasional, but the normal, continuous experience. But that just isn’t so in the lives of practically all of us. Those cups running over get pretty muddled up; other things besides the joy of the Lord flow out of us. We are often much more conscious of emptiness, or dryness, or hardness, or disturbance, or fear, or worry than we are of the fulness of His presence and overflowing joy and peace. And now comes the point. What stops that moment-by-moment flow? The answer is only one — Sin. But we by no means usually accept or recognize that. We have many other more convenient names for those disturbances of heart. We say it is nerves that cause us to speak impatiently — not sin. We say it is tiredness that causes us to speak the sharp word at home — not sin. We say it is the pressure of work which causes us to lose our peace, get worried, act or speak hastily — not sin. We say it is our difficult or hurtful neighbor who causes us resentment or dislike, or even hate — but not sin. Anything but sin. We go to psychiatrists or psychologists to get inner problems unravelled — tension, strain, disquiet, dispeace — but anything which causes the cups to cease running over is SIN.
As High As The Heavens Are Above The Earth…
Psalm 103:10-14
(10) He does not deal with us according to our sins,
nor repay us according to our iniquities.
(11) For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
(12) as far as the east is from the west,
so far does he remove our transgressions from us.
(13) As a father shows compassion to his children,
so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.
(14) For he knows our frame;
he remembers that we are dust.
It's a Beautiful Gospel 