Resting in God’s Sovereignty

The God of the Bible does not take risks. He is not a God who sees the world spinning out of control. He never gets frustrated at what happens. Nothing is “out of his will.” Psalm 115:2-3 reiterates this. “Why should the nations say, ‘Where is their God?’ Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases.” Later on in this chapter, in verse 11, it says, “You who fear in the LORD, trust in the LORD! He is their help and their shield.” The psalmist is communicating that God is a God to be trusted in because he is dependable and unchanging. He is a rock and a defense. He is not a God who is doing things on the fly. Later on, in Psalm 135:6, David says, “Whatever the LORD pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps.” That whole chapter teaches how the Lord controls all things. God does all things and everything pleases him, because he ordains it. He cannot disappoint himself.

O, how we can rest in the only Sovereign in the universe! O, how we can turn to him in times of trouble and rely on his unshakable nature. When times are hard and questions come, God is a utterly immovable. When storms arise and our lives our flooded with trials, resting in the sovereignty of God gives us a fortress of safety and comfort. He is a God to be praised and worshiped because his knowledge is far beyond anything I can think up. It is deeper and wider than what I can fathom. As Paul cried in Romans 11, “O, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!” It’s too much for my finite mind, yet it is glorious to embrace and learn about.

I urge you to wrestle with this attribute of God and search the Scriptures. Discover the blessing of trusting in the Sovereign Lord, for he is our help and shield! He is in the heavens and he does all that he pleases!

Weekly Spurgeon

From Morning and Evening

I will cause the shower to come down in his season; there shall be showers of blessing.
- Ezekial 34:26

Here is sovereign mercy - ‘I will give them the shower in its season’. Is it not sovereign, divine mercy? - for who can say, ‘I will give them showers’, except God? There is only one voice which can speak to the clouds, and bid them beget the rain. Who sendeth down the rain upon the earth? Who scattereth the showers upon the green herb? Do not I, the Lord? So grace is the gift of God, and is not to be created by man. It is also needed grace. What would the ground do without showers?…It does not say, ‘I will send them drops’, but ’showers’. So it is with grace. If God gives a blessing, He usually gives it in such a measure that there is not room enough to receive it. Plenteous grace! Ah! we want plenteous grace to keep us humble, to make us prayerful, to make us holy; plenteous grace to make us zealous, to preserve us through this life, and at last to land us in heaven…What is thy season this morning? Is it the season of drought? Then that is the season for showers. Is it a season of great heaviness and black clouds? Then that is the season for showers. ‘As thy days so shall they strength be.’ And here is a varied blessing. ‘I will give thee showers of blessing.’ The word is in the plural. All kinds of blessings God will send. All God’s blessings go together, like links in a golden chain.

Obeying God and Killing Sin

Perhaps the plea before God that dominates my prayers more than anything else is a desire for holiness and that comes through killing sin. Romans 8:13 says, “But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” Simply, this means that if I hate sin and strive for holiness by the Spirit (don’t forget that part!) I will endure to the end. I will persevere. No one will hear, “Good start!” from the Lord on the last day. Rather, we will hear, “Well done, my good and faithful servant!” What’s the epicenter of this? It’s obedience! We will never experience complete victory in the Christian life. Jesus doesn’t want complete victory–he’s already provided that. He wants obedience.

From his book The Pursuit of Holiness, Jerry Bridges offers his commentary on Romans 8:13.

It is time for us Christians to face up to our responsibility for holiness. Too often we say we are “defeated” by this or that sin. No, we are not defeated; we are simply disobedient! It might be well if we stopped using the terms “victory” and “defeat” to describe our progress in holiness. Rather we should use the terms “obedience” and “disobedience.” When I say I am defeated by some sin, I am unconsciously slipping out from under my responsibility. I am saying something outside of me has defeated me. But when I say I am disobedient, that places the responsibility for my sin squarely on me. We may, in fact, be defeated, but the reason we are defeated is because we have chosen to disobey. We have chosen to entertain lustful thoughts, or to harbor resentment, or to shade the truth a little.

We need to brace ourselves up, and to realize that we are responsible for our thoughts, attitudes, and actions. We need to reckon on the fact that we died to sin’s reign, that it no longer has any dominion over us, that God has united us with the risen Christ in all His power, and has given us the Holy Spirit to work in us. Only as we accept our responsibility and appropriate God’s provisions will we make any progress in our pursuit of holiness.

Don’t Forget You are Going to Die

Martyn Lloyd-Jones reminds us that no matter how much we know or study, eternally it does not matter if we aren’t investing that knowledge in good, holy, pleasing, acceptable, worthy things, and eternal things. He writes,

You can be so interested in great theological and intellectual and philosophical problems that you tend to forget that you are going to die.

So, when we learn doctrines and other great, deep truths of God’s word, may we apply them to our lives with the Lord and others in a way that brings God the most glory, others the most edification, and us the most satisfaction. Many times we can learn and learn and learn and have a head-full of book knowledge, yet not a speck of ministerial or personal experience with the particular doctrine. Let us drink of the deep rivers of God’s truth and live in a way that shows Jesus is our Treasure and not the knowledge he gives.

Weekly Spurgeon

From Sovereign Grace and Man’s Responsibility (sermon), on the two biblical truths of God’s election of souls and man’s responsibility to seek God.

But sinners, sermon hearing is an awful thing unless it is blessed to our souls. If God has kept on stretching out his hands every day and all the day, it will be a hard thing for you when you shall be justly condemned not only for your breaches of the law, but for your wilful rejection of the gospel. It is probable that God will keep on stretching out his hands to you until your hairs grow grey, still continually inviting you: and perhaps when you are nearing death he will still say, “Come unto me, come unto me.” But if you still persist in hardening your heart, if still you reject Christ, I beseech you let nothing make you imagine that you shall go unpunished. Oh! I do tremble sometimes when I think of that class of ministers who tell sinners that they are not guilty if they do not seek the Saviour

…This doctrine [man's responsibility] is as much God’s Word as the other [unconditional election]. You ask me to reconcile the two. I answer, they do not want any reconcilement; I never tried to reconcile them to myself, because I could never see a discrepancy. If you begin to put fifty or sixty quibbles to me, I cannot give any answer. Both are true; no two truths can be inconsistent with each other; and what you have to do is to believe them both. With the first one, the saint has most to do. Let him praise the free and sovereign grace of God, and bless his name. With the second, the sinner has the most to do. O sinner, humble thyself under the mighty hand of God, when thou thinkest of how often he hath shown his love to thee, by bidding thee come to himself, and yet how often thou hast spurned his Word and refused his mercy, and turned a deaf ear to every invitation, and hast gone thy way to rebel against a God of love, and violate the commands of him that loved thee.

It’s Okay to be Angry

This is just too good not to post. Thanks, Mark Driscoll, for your truth, passion for Jesus, energy, and outright humor. You can see the whole sermon here.

Weekly Spurgeon

From The Early Years

Coming one Thursday in the late autumn from an engagement beyond Dulwich, my way led up to the top of the Herne Hill ridge. I came along the level out of which rises the steep hill I had to ascend.

While I was on the lower ground, riding in a hansom cab, I saw a light before me, and when I came near the hill, I marked that light gradually go up the hill, leaving a train of stars behind it. This line of new-born stars remained in the form of one lamp, and then another and another. It reached from the foot of the hill to its summit.

I did not see the lamplighter. I do not know his name, nor his age, nor his residence; but I saw the lights which he had kindled, and these remained when he himself had gone his way.

As I rode along I thought to myself, “How earnestly do I wish that my life may be spent in lighting one soul after another with the sacred lame of eternal life! I would myself be as much as possible unseen while at my work, and would vanish into eternal brilliance above when my work is done.”

Why Do We Call It Christian Hedonism?

Christian Hedonism is simply the pursuit of God’s glory and our joy. A Christian Hedonist (like myself) seeks to give God glory in all things and get great satisfaction in Jesus as my Lord, Savior, Redeemer, and Treasure. The Westminster Catechism, question 1, asks, “What is the chief end of man?” It answers, “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.” John Piper slightly edited this statement by writing, “The chief end of man is to glorify God BY enjoying him forever.”God is the great giver of joy and I want to be fully obsessed with and overcome by the joy he gives in knowing his Son, Jesus Christ.

So, as I have gotten questions in past months, and as recently as this week, about being a Christian Hedonist, I wanted to share why it is called “Christian Hedonism.” Below is an appendix from “Desiring God” by John Piper. I can try to explain it myself, but I don’t have near the wisdom (nor the time) to do so. Please excuse my lack of writing and concentrate on the reasons for why we call it what we do.

pursuing joy in Christ with you,
james

—

Why Call It Christian Hedonism?
by John Piper

I am aware that calling this philosophy of life “Christian Hedonism” runs the risk of ignoring Bishop Ryle’s counsel against “the use of uncouth and new fangled terms and phrases in teaching sanctification.”1 Nevertheless I stand by the term for at least six reasons:

1. My old Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary of 1961, which has been within arm’s reach since I was in the tenth grade, defines “hedonism” as “a living for pleasure.” That is precisely what I mean by it. If the chief end of man is to enjoy God forever, human life should be a “living for pleasure.”

2. The article on “hedonism” in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy shows that the term does not refer to a single precise philosophy. It is a general term to cover a wide variety of teachings which have elevated pleasure very highly. My use of the term falls inside the tolerance of this general usage.

I would be happy with the following definition as a starting point for my own usage of the word: Hedonism is “a theory according to which a person is motivated to produce one state of affairs in preference to another if and only if he thinks it will be more pleasant, or less unpleasant for himself.”2 I would only want to add: “forever.”

3. Other people, smarter and older than I am, have felt themselves similarly driven to use the term “hedonism” in reference to the Christian way of life.

For example, C. S. Lewis counsels his friend “Malcolm” to beware of committing idolatry in his enjoyment of nature. To be sure, he must enjoy the “sunlight in a wood.” But these spontaneous pleasures are “patches of Godlight” and one must let one’s mind “run back up the sunbeam to the sun.” Then Lewis comments,

You notice that I am drawing no distinction between sensuous and aesthetic pleasures. But why should I? The line is almost impossible to draw and what use would it be if one succeeded in drawing it? If this is Hedonism, it is also a somewhat arduous discipline.3

We will find that it is indeed an arduous discipline!

In The Simple Life, Vernard Eller delights himself in some of the great parables of SØren Kierkegaard. One of his favorites is the parable of the lighted carriage and the starlit night. We could also call it the crisis of Christian Hedonism. It goes like this:

When the prosperous man on a dark but starlit night drives comfortably in his carriage and has the lanterns lighted, aye, then he is safe, he fears no difficulty, he carries his light with him, and it is not dark close around him. But precisely because he has the lanterns lighted, and has a strong light close to him, precisely for this reason, he cannot see the stars. For his lights obscure the stars, which the poor peasant, driving without lights, can see gloriously in the dark but starry night. So those deceived ones live in the temporal existence: either, occupied with the necessities of life, they are too busy to avail themselves of the view, or in their prosperity and good days they have, as it were, lanterns lighted, and close about them everything is so satisfactory, so pleasant, so comfortable-but the view is lacking, the prospect, the view of the stars.4

Eller comments, “Clearly, ‘the view of the stars’ here intends one’s awareness and enjoyment of God.”5 The rich and busy who surround themselves with the carriage lights of temporal comfort, or the busy who cover themselves with troublesome care, cut themselves off from what Kierkegaard calls “the absolute joy”:

What indescribable joy!-joy over God the Almighty . . . For this is the absolute joy, to adore the almighty power with which God the Al mighty bears all thy care and sorrow as easily as nothing.6

Eller applies all this to the so-called “simple life” and says,

The motive of Christian simplicity is not the enjoyment of simplicity itself; that and any other earthly benefit that comes along are part of the ‘all the rest’ [Matthew 6:33]. But the sole motive of Christian simplicity is the enjoyment of God himself (and if that be hedonism, let’s make the most of it!)-it is ‘the view of the stars.’7

This is indeed hedonism! And I have done my best to make the most of it in this book.

Perhaps one other example will suffice. Clark Pinnock wrote a solid, popular defense of the Christian faith entitled Reason Enough. His second chapter is called “The Experiential Basis of Faith.” It ends with a section under the heading, “Christian Hedonism?” He recounts his argument:

I have seen the gospel as making us happy and fulfilling our needs, as giving us pleasure and satisfaction. But is this right? . . . Yes I think it is…. The Christian way is not hedonism in the ordinary sense, of course. It docs not make a god out of sensual pleasure. But it does involve enjoying God and His gifts, pleasure deeper than all others.8

Precisely! Christian Hedonism does not make a god out of pleasure. It says you have already made a god out of whatever you take most pleasure in.

4. The fourth reason I use the term Christian Hedonism is that it has an arresting and jolting effect. My heart has been arrested and my life has been deeply jolted by the teaching of Christian Hedonism. It is not an easy or comfortable philosophy. It is extremely threatening to nominal Christians.

It is based on the devastating truth of Christ when he said, “Because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth” (Revelation 3:16). This is utterly shocking. Should we not then find words to shock ourselves into realizing that eternity is at stake when we disobey the commandment, “Delight yourself in the Lord (Psalm 37:4)?

Most of us are virtually impervious to the radical implications of familiar language. What language shall we borrow to awaken joyless believers to the words of Deuteronomy 28 :47-48 ?

Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart . . . therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you. . . and he will put a voke of iron upon your neck, until he has destroyed you.

How shall we open their ears to the shout of Jeremy Taylor: “God threatens terrible things, if we will not be happy!”?9

I have found over the years that there is a correlation between people’s willingness to get over the offensiveness of the term Christian Hedonism and their willingness to yield to the offensive biblical truth behind it. The chief effect of the term is not that it creates a stumbling block to the truth, but that it wakens people to the fact that the truth itself is a stumbling block-and often a very different one than they expected.

5. To the objection that the term hedonism carries connotations too worldly to be redeemed, I answer with the precedent of Scripture. If Jesus can describe his coming as the coming of a “thief” (Matthew 24:43,44); if he can extol a “dishonest steward” as a model of shrewdness (Luke 16:8); and if the inspired Psalmist can say that the Lord awoke from sleep “like a strong man shouting because of wine” (Psalm 78:65), then it is a small thing for me to say the passion to glorify God by enjoying him forever is indeed Christian Hedonism.

6. Finally, by attaching the adjective “Christian” to the word “hedonism,” I signal loud and clear that this is no ordinary hedonism. For me the word Christian carries this implication: Every claim to truth that flies under the banner of Christian Hedonism must be solidly rooted in the Christian Scriptures, the Bible. And the Bible teaches that man’s chief end is to glorify God BY enjoying him forever.

Amazing Grace, How Sweet the Sound!

Here is a stirring video with a mix of different renditions of “Amaing Grace.” The end of the video uses David Crowder’s music “Coming Toward” from his Illuminate album.

Three-part series on God’s sovereignty

For the next three weeks, I’ll post an article about God’s sovereignty. This first article is a discussion of God’s control over death, disaster, and disease. I hope you find the series encouraging, challenging, and eye-opening. Look for the last two installments later on in the month.

You can find it under the “Articles” tab or you can click here to read it now.

peace,
james