Reasonable Sacrifices

Romans 12.1-8

Last week we did an overview of the first eleven chapters of Paul’s letter to the Romans. These chapters are almost entirely dedicated to explaining the incredible work of God for us.

To put it simply, Romans 1-11 explain the gospel to us, more deeply and more fully than perhaps anywhere else in the Bible. The gospel, as we saw, is the revelation of God’s righteousness, and Paul highlights four essential things that God’s righteousness accomplishes.

God’s righteousness judges and punishes man’s rebellion against him—man’s sin. At the same time, God’s righteousness saves sinners, through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for us: he takes our place, he takes our sin, and gives us his perfect righteousness. In this way, God’s righteousness gives us hope: it reminds us that God’s saving work in Christ is unbreakable, and that nothing can separate us from his love for us in Christ. Lastly, we saw that God’s righteousness applies to all peoples—not only God’s chosen people under the old covenant, in the Old Testament, the people of Israel, but the Gentiles as well. His righteousness now applies to people from all nations, all tribes, all backgrounds, all cultures, all the world.

To put it a little more simply: we are all in the same situation; we all deserve the same condemnation for our rebellion against God; but even so, all those who place their faith in Christ have received the same grace.

Logical Sacrifices (v. 1-2)

This is a letter; it wasn’t meant to be cut up into little pieces the way we have to do if we preach it. It was meant to be read all at once, and that’s the only way to really feel the weight of the truths Paul laid out in the first eleven chapters. He just piles on good news after good news after good news, and by the time we arrive at chapter 12, our heads are almost spinning by the beauty and the immensity of God’s plan.

And that feeling of being overwhelmed by God’s grace and the genius of his plan is essential for everything that follows, because he’s going to ask a lot of us in response to this grace. But if we know all that God has done for us, it doesn’t feel like a lot; it feels like the only response that makes any sense. That’s the actual meaning behind the word “spiritual” in v. 1—in Greek it’s the word “logikos,” from which we obviously get our word “logical”: there is only one reasonable, logical response to God’s grace. V. 1:

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

What is the only proper response to the incredible grace Paul’s just spilled so much ink describing? It is that we present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. We may have a hard time with this word “sacrifice”—it’s an Old Testament image that may not speak to us as much today. A “sacrifice” is something that is given to God as an act of worship, or dedicated to his service. The idea of sacrifice always implies loss (because you are letting go of something that is personally costly to you), and always implies thankfulness (because you are giving something to God in recognition of something he has done or will do, like forgiveness of sin).

Now, when Paul says this, he gives a few qualifiers. First, he says, I appeal to you therefore brothers, by the mercies of God. We offer ourselves as a sacrifice to God because of the mercies we have received from God.

Secondly, he describes this sacrifice: living, holy and acceptable to God. Because we have been made alive by the Spirit, we will learn what he expects of his people (which is the whole point, as he said in 8.29: God predestined us to be conformed to the image of Christ), and we actually do become conformed to Christ’s image.

Thirdly—and here’s the most surprising part of this—he doesn’t call us to present our hearts as a sacrifice, or our souls, but our bodies. We often tend to separate our lives into two quadrants: “my Christian life,” and “everything else”. The “everything else” is often mundane and ordinary, things like shopping and eating and watching Netflix—stuff we do with our bodies—while the “Christian life” stuff is more spiritual: things like meditation and prayer and Scripture reading.

What Paul says here is that there is no spiritual worship without bodily worship. There is no spiritual holiness without bodily holiness. To put it another way, if what we say in our prayers, if what we sing in our songs, does not correspond to the things we do with our bodies, there’s a problem.

Now, we shouldn’t absolutize what I just said—Paul knows we’re not perfect, he knows we’re still struggling to live for God, he said it really clearly in chapter 7—but this should be the trajectory of our lives.

This is what worship is—it’s not what just what happens on Sunday morning. Worship is what we do with our lives in response to God’s grace to us: it is giving ourselves wholly to him, because after all he’s done for us, how could we possibly do anything else?

Now, what does it mean? What does this sacrifice look like? Paul gives a kind of summary statement in v. 2:

2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Do not be conformed to this world—again, we are to be conformed to the image of Christ, not the world around us—but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. Again, this is surprising. Because he doesn’t say to be transformed by the renewal of your heart, or your soul, but your mind. This is not spiritual language, but “body” language. It’s what happens in our brains, the way we think about things, the way we see things.

The point is that the transformation that takes place in the Christian is holistic—it is not compartmentalized. When we give ourselves to God, we give everything to him—all of ourselves, warts and all. When we realize that we belong wholly to God—everything we are—we learn to see things differently.

We need to be careful with this verse, because we can fall into the trap of waiting for the Holy Spirit to come and give us a kind of mind-transfusion, like Neo in The Matrix learning kung fu in five seconds because a guy pushed a button. We tend to hyper-spiritualize what Paul is saying here, when in fact I think he’s getting at something very simple and logical.

Let me give you a very un-spiritual example. I’ve been a coffee drinker since I was 15. At least three a day—often two in the morning, one in the afternoon. I love coffee.

But experience has taught me that it’s hard on my stomach. So this summer, I decided to try an experiment. I switched to tea for a week. No coffee, for a week. Now, I drank a lot of tea that first week to compensate for the low caffeine. But although I did miss the taste of coffee, I very quickly realized that I felt better when I didn’t drink it. So I kept going.

It’s been about a month now, and I’ve had the occasional coffee here and there (maybe four or five in the last month). But in general, I’ve been drinking almost nothing but tea for a month.

And to my great surprise, I love it. I feel better. Through experience, I’ve learned that it’s better for me.

It sounds silly, but this is how we are progressively transformed. God brings us from death to life by his Spirit, he gives us saving faith in him, and we place our faith in Christ. In response to the gospel, we commit ourselves to God, completely. We learn from his Word and from our brothers and sisters what he expects of us, and we do it, even if it’s difficult. And over time, we come to experience that God actually knows what he’s talking about. So we start seeing things differently: we start seeing sin as something that is undesirable, and holiness as something we want. (And obedience is far easier when we want it.)

By testing (Gk. δοκιμάζω, to test, to scrutinize) we learn to recognize God’s will—what is good and acceptable and perfect. Not primarily his will for our professions or for our choice of spouse or for where we live, but his will for his people—his will for our character.

Now, do you see what is happening in this commandment? Remember what Paul said in chapter 1? Starting at the end of v. 20:

So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools… 28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.

The renewal of the mind that Paul describes here in chapter 12 is a reversal of what characterized our minds and hearts before God saved us. Those who have been saved by God are transformed by the renewal of their minds, to become able to see what God’s will is, and to walk in step with God’s will.

The crazy thing about all of this is that Paul is taking terms which are usually used in the context of the regular gathering of God’s people, either in the temple or in church (sacrifice, worship, etc.), and applying these terms to all of life. In other words, the Christian’s true worship doesn’t happen here, in church—or at least, not only here. It happens everywhere, every day, every moment, in every situation.

Because you have received this grace, give yourself wholly to God, and be transformed.

Okay, very good—what does that mean? What does it look like for Christians to give their bodies as sacrifices to God, and to be transformed into the image of Christ?

This is what we’ll be exploring for the next several weeks. And we’ll see the first two areas to which it applies after the break.

Humble Sacrifices (v. 3)

So because of God’s incredible grace and mercy to us, we are called to present our bodies as living sacrifices to him—everything we have, everything we are. Transformed progressively from top to bottom, we give ourselves wholly to him. What does that look like?

The first mark of God’s salvation in the life of the believer—not chronologically, but the first that Paul mentions here—is a realistic and humble estimation of ourselves.

V. 3:

3 For by the grace given to me—

(Again, we shouldn’t miss the “for” here—it’s sort of like the “therefore” in v. 1: he’s linking what he’s saying now to what he just said in v. 1-2.)

3 For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.

We mustn’t miss that his first commandment here concerns the way we think about ourselves, which is of course directly related to what he said just before, in v. 2, about our transformation by the renewal of our minds, our discernment. When we are transformed by God’s grace, the first thing to change is the way that we think of ourselves.

Now, it might help to remember the context here. The church in Rome is a multi-ethnic church: there are Christians of Jewish origin, and Christians of non-Jewish origin. And while we have no indication that there was conflict in this church, there were certainly some areas of tension, as we saw a lot in the earlier chapters. The Jews might have a tendency to look down on the Gentiles, and vice versa, because of what they do or don’t think is necessary to be acceptable to God.

So Paul calls them to see themselves rightly, with humility, to realize that they are all individual members of a single, unified body. Knowing that they belong to a body, that they are not self-sufficient, should give them the humility to recognize that they need the other members of the body.

Paul’s going to apply this to the gifts we bring to bear on the body in a minute, but first he says something that can sometimes be scary: he tells us to think with humility, with sober judgment about ourselves, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. What does this mean?

Simply put, it means that even though God has given us faith in Christ, the faith that saved us, that faith isn’t static. It grows over time. How many times did Jesus call his disciples “O you of little faith” (cf. Matthew 8.26, for example)? And to the woman who came to him asking to be healed, who persisted even though Jesus initially seemed to brush her off, he said, “Woman, your faith is great!” (Matthew 15.28).

Paul tells the Romans to think of themselves with humility, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned, because he knows we all naturally have a tendency to measure our worth according to our gifts—if we’re good at what we’re do, we think we’re valuable. If we don’t think we’re good at anything, we feel worthless.

But Paul flips this tendency on its head, by telling us to measure ourselves, not according to our gifts, but according to our faith. It might seem like we could fall into the same trap, but that’s not the case. Why? Because if we measure ourselves according to the faith God has assigned us, we will immediately recognize that whatever faith we have didn’t come from us, but from God.

If we measure ourselves according to our faith, pride will disappear, because our measure of faith has nothing to do with our worth, but rather with what God wishes to do through us TODAY. Certain acts of obedience require massive faith, while others require less. And God gives us exactly what we need, at exactly the right time. The measure of faith God has given us has nothing to do with our worth, and everything to do with what God wishes to do through us today.

And thank God that tomorrow, our faith will be greater than it is today. When we are faithful over the little he has given us today, he gives us more to do tomorrow—and he gives us the faith necessary to do it. All he calls us to do is dedicate ourselves wholly to what he has given me today, and trust that he has given us the faith we need to do it.

Equipped Sacrifices (v. 3-8)

Which brings us to the next command. Presenting our bodies as living sacrifices to God will manifest itself in a whole-hearted dedication to serving the body of Christ, through the gifts God has given us.

4 For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, 5 so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. 6 Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; 7 if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; 8 the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.

So this isn’t hard to understand, but it’s often hard to rightly put into practice.

Paul gives this image of "one body” in v. 4-5: we are like a body with many members, each member serving its own specific purpose. He fleshes this image out more in 1 Corinthians 12, with a similar goal in mind: each member of the body serves its particular function, for the good of the whole.

Then in v. 6-8, Paul gives a list of a few particular gifts and how we should go about using them to serve the body.

Some speak the Word of God for the good of the body. Paul mentions prophecy first, and I won’t get into all the different opinions on what this means, because his point isn’t what prophecy is, but how it’s used. The point is, some bring the Bible to bear on the body: prophecy, teaching, exhortation—these all fall under this category.

Some serve in concrete and very practical ways: giving, or serving—the root of this word is the same as for “deacon”.

Some lead—they direct the body; this would be one function of the elders, for example.

And some perform acts of mercy (these can vary wildly: something as simple as spending time with someone who’s going through a hard time, listening to them and praying with them, is an act of mercy).

I won’t analyze these gifts, because this list isn’t exhaustive, and because the specific gifts he mentions here isn’t the point. He gives seven examples to represent all the possible gifts. He makes no judgment of importance in talking about these gifts, even though some of them are high-profile, very visible (like teaching or leading) and others might go totally unnoticed (like serving). Paul makes no distinction in terms of importance between what the pastor does and what the person who helps set up tables before lunch does. They are both exercising a gift—even if that gift is simple willingness to do something no one else wants to do—and their service is valuable to the body.

Now we need to be honest: any talk of “gifts” or “spiritual gifts” very often becomes self-centered. We examine ourselves and our gifts and start to compare ourselves to others, finding ourselves more or less useful to the body of Christ than others. It’s what we saw earlier: one of the most damaging traps a Christian can fall into—and one of the most common—is to determine their value by their gifts.

Paul wants us to see that one way we present our bodies as a living, holy and acceptable sacrifice to God is by using whatever gifts he has given us, to the absolute best of our ability, in the service of the body of Christ. That’s the point he’s trying to make here; it’s not about any particular gift—it’s about how we’re using that gift, and why.

We have gifts to serve the body, not to serve ourselves. So the number or flashiness of our gifts means absolutely nothing in relation to who we are as children of God. This command counters the tendency to be puffed up with pride because we have a gift that’s more visible than others, and the tendency to be filled with despair because we feel our gifts are pitiful. This is a command that calls us to a realistic estimation of what we bring to the table: “See how you in particular can serve, and do it.”

So how might we do that? How do we know what we bring to the table?

In the past several people have asked me when we’ll give a teaching on how to discover your gifts. My answer is simple: probably never.

There are a couple of reasons why we won’t go in that direction, unless we come across an exceptional reason to do so. The first is that there is absolutely no biblical foundation for how to “discover” your gifts. You’ll never find instructions on that in a single passage of the Bible. So while those seminars on “discovering your spiritual gifts” are not necessarily bad, they’re not biblical either.

The second reason is a lot simpler: it assumes that a so-called “spiritual gift” is inherently different from any other gift we have. What is a gift, in the context of this conversation? It is something that our Creator has enabled us to do well. How do we, as ordinary human beings, figure out what we’re good at? We do stuff. We play when we’re kids, we try things, we get interested in something and we find out—sometimes to our surprise—that we’re actually good at that thing.

Now, you may not know exactly what you’re good at, what gifts you have that would serve the church. So how do you find out?

You look around and see what needs there are, and you work to fill that need. They need help on the welcome team? Offer to help. People are setting up tables? Give them a hand. You see someone sitting alone? Go talk to them. Someone’s discouraged? Pray with them.

You won’t be good at everything you put your hand to, but I promise you, if you allow your focus to become how you can serve your brothers and sisters, instead of “What is my gift?”, you will find out what your gifts are. Or others will see it, and they’ll tell you.

There’s no big mystery here. Paul is saying is, whatever God has enabled you to do, do it to the best of your ability, according to the grace and the opportunities God has given you, and do it humbly, willingly, diligently, generously and joyfully.

You don’t need to be exactly like anyone else in order to usefully serve the church. God put you where you are for a reason, and he is calling you to use the person you are to serve the church in a way that only you can.

If you feel like your gifts are exceptional today, and vital to the church, think of yourself soberly. Don’t just examine your gifts; examine your faith, and serve wisely. Don’t think highly of yourself, but recognize that your gifts and your faith come from God, not from you. It’s not about you; it’s about the church. So by God’s grace, do the best you can with what he’s given you, and trust him to build his church.

If you feel like your faith is small today, if you feel like your gifts are small today, don’t be discouraged. Don’t just examine your gifts, examine your faith, and serve wisely: by God’s grace, do the best you can with what he’s given you, and trust him to make you grow, and to build his church through you.

Conclusion

Think of what it must have been like for the church in Rome: Phoebe (to whom we’ll be formally introduced in chapter 16) shows up with this letter from Paul. The entire church gathers to find out what it says. Someone—likely Phoebe herself, since it was often the courier who did this—reads the letter aloud. The Jewish and the Gentile Christians begin hearing who they were, what God has made of them, who they are now. It’s like a series of waves, each one bigger than the last: You thought God was good? He’s even better than you thought. Oh, and you think that’s good? Yeah, he’s even better than that.

Over and over, for an hour, the cumulative effect of all these implications of God’s grace—this breathtaking realization of the abundance of God’s riches to them in Christ—must have been overwhelming.

Then they begin this passage, and a shift occurs:

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

This is a very high command—perhaps even the ultimate command. God calls his people to give everything they are to him, as an act of worship.

But after the abundance of God’s grace to them, what possible response could they have had, other than: “Of course!”?

This is why our obedience is often flawed: because a lot of Christians today obey from a mindset that assumes their resources are limited. If we feel like our resources are limited, we will naturally try to keep what we have: we will be stingy with our time, with our finances, with our gifts, and even with our love. Sacrifice will seem impossible, because if I give this up, what else do I have?

But if we truly believe God’s grace is what Paul says it is, if we believe his grace flows from an unending spring, that his grace really is that abundant, sacrifice—even the sacrifice of everything we are—not only feels possible, but reasonable. If we believe that God’s grace to us is truly this abundant, we will serve freely, we will sacrifice freely, because there’s always more to spare: in the long run, in the light of eternity, we have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Paul is going to continue, and give us more examples of how we do this. But he starts where the church in Rome would have been—where we are today. He starts with the brothers and sisters to whom we have been united in Christ into one body, and he tells us to give everything we are to God, and to dedicate ourselves to the service of that body.

So what do we have to bring to the table? Not only in terms of ability and talents, but in terms of faith and willingness? Do we want to love each other well? There are as many needs in this church as there are people, and most of those needs are profoundly personal and relational. The only way to meet them is to be present, to keep our eyes open, and to use whatever God has given us, whoever God has made us, to serve one another.

It’s a sacrifice, for sure—but compared to the riches of God’s grace to us, it’s nothing. The sacrifice of all we are is a sacrifice we can spare, because Christ is more than enough for us.

The Righteousness of God

(Romans 1-11)

We have a lot to do today, so I’m going to jump right into it. If you were here last year, you know that all last year we were in Paul’s letter to the Romans, and we finished the book through chapter 11 (out of 16). Next week we’ll be jumping back into the letter at chapter 12.

But if you’re joining us for the first time, that means you missed the first eleven chapters of this letter. And even if you were here last year, it’s been over two months since we were in this book. That’s a long time.

So here’s what we’re going to do today… We’re going to do an overview of the first eleven chapters of the book of Romans. I know that seems like a tall order, and it is, but it may not be as complex as it seems, because for all its theological depth, Romans is a remarkably coherent letter. It has a very consistent and contained message that is simply applied in unparalleled theological depth to a specific situation.

So I’m going to give a quick reminder of the situation in which this letter was written, in order to get a grip on the context, and then we’ll dive in. I won’t read every passage, obviously, but as we dip in I’ll read a selection of passages that should, hopefully, give us a feel for the letter so far. Of course this won’t even come close to really covering everything Paul says, so I would encourage you to read Romans 1 through 11 this week (if you didn’t already do it in your community groups), and if you’re interested in any specific portions of it, all of the twenty-eight sermons we did on chapters 1 through 11 are available on the church’s website.

Context

But first, a bit of context.

When Paul writes this letter, it’s been a little more than twenty years since the death and resurrection of Jesus. The Christian church is gaining traction all over the Roman empire; churches are being planted all over the place, and more and more people are coming to faith in Christ.

This same thing, of course, is happening in the city of Rome itself.

We know that the apostle Paul didn’t plant this church; he likely doesn’t know anyone there personally. He’s hoping to go there soon, on his way to Spain, but first he needs to go to Jerusalem to deliver money that he had collected for that church (cf. Rom. 15.19-32, Acts 19.21). Paul likely sent this letter to the church in Rome in the care of a woman named Phoebe, whom we’ll meet at the end of the book, as a way of introducing himself and his ministry, so that they would support him in his work in Spain.

We also know that this church was composed of both Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians. At the root of their particular challenges was their multicultural nature.

The Roman church was probably a Jewish church at first: Jews were converted to Christianity, and began meeting in homes, and more and more people joined them, until finally, they had a church. And of course, because this was Rome and it was mostly Gentiles around, Gentiles began to come to faith in Christ as well, and joined the church.

Here’s where it gets tricky. Around A.D. 49, the emperor Claudius exiled the Jews from Rome, because of strife stemming from Christianity (we see as much in Acts 18.2). So all the Jews had to leave. But the Gentile Christians were able to stay and keep the church going during that time.

So for around five years, the church in Rome was likely an exclusively Gentile church. But then, when Claudius died in A.D. 54, the Jews were allowed to return to Rome. So suddenly these Jewish Christians were thrust back together with the Gentile Christians who had been running the church in their absence, and significant questions about how to do things arose—mostly questions about how to live together as Christians who were both Jewish and non-Jewish.

This context (along with other, socioeconomic factors) would have produced a lot of questions. Can we be in good standing with God by obeying the Law of Moses? What does the salvation of Gentiles mean for the future of the Jews as God’s people? Should the Gentiles observe the Law of Moses like the Jewish Christians do?

Paul treats all of these questions and many more; he uses them as a springboard to expose the essential elements of the gospel he preaches.

1. The gospel is the revelation of God’s righteousness (1.1-17).

And he begins his letter with a kind of summary statement of what that gospel actually proclaims, what it shows—so that’s where we’ll start. I have five points today, five central truths that Paul lays out in chapters 1 through 11.

The first is quick, because it’s the statement Paul will flesh out in the rest of the letter, and it is simple: the gospel is the revelation of God’s righteousness. Romans 1.16-17:

16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”

This term “righteousness” is a tricky one to define, because it can include a lot of different realities depending on the context. God’s righteousness is, first of all, his perfect moral character—in God, there is no sin, no deception, no injustice. He is perfectly holy, perfectly just, perfectly “righteous.” This creates a problem for us, because we, human beings, are not perfectly righteous—we are inconsistent, unholy, unjust.

So the second layer to God’s righteousness—and the primary one for this letter—is that God’s righteousness is not only his own moral character; it is what God has done to save sinners while still upholding the standards of his holy nature. Simply put, it should not be possible for a holy God to save sinners, because letting sinners go unpunished for their sin is—or should be, by our way of thinking—inherently unjust. But that’s exactly what he did: he found a way to both punish sin and save sinners.

And that’s what Paul’s going to explain a little later. The fact that God did that, and the way that God did that, is told in the gospel. The gospel is the revelation of God’s righteousness.

2. God’s righteousness judges sin (1.18-3.20)

For the first eleven chapters of the letter, Paul is going to explain that righteousness in great detail, by giving us an account of several things God’s righteousness accomplishes. And the first thing we see is that God’s righteousness judges sin.

Paul starts in chapter 1 by showing us that humanity, in its totality, has rejected God. Romans 1.18-20:

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

Although we see the world that God created, and we see his attributes clearly manifested in creation, we do not acknowledge him or worship him as God.

So what does God do? He gives us up to our sin. He lets us be the sinners we are.

At least, this is how things go naturally. This is what we naturally want, and this is what we deserve. And Paul wants to really insist on this point, because the Jews and Gentiles in the church in Rome will both have a tendency to hear Paul talk about God judging sin, and side-eye the other group sitting on the other side of the room: “Did you hear that, Jews? He’s talking about you.” “Did you hear that, Gentiles? He’s talking about you.”

But no—Paul is clear that he’s talking about everyone: those Jews who adhere to the law of Moses (the Jewish law, the means by which they were made “right” before God), and those Gentiles who don’t. No one is righteous, he says in chapter 3, verse 10, quoting Psalm 14—no one has ever managed to be righteous on their own, or by means of their own obedience to any standard. No one is that obedient.

This is why the law of Moses can’t save the Jews—it’s not that the law is bad; Paul insists that the law good. But human beings are unable to keep the law. So the law ends up condemning them instead of saving them. That’s what he means in 3.19-20, when he says,

19 Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. 20 For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

When human beings stand up next to God’s standard of holiness—which up to this point had been revealed in the law of Moses—we always find ourselves lacking. God’s righteousness means anger against our sin, and that anger is right—it is just—it is righteous. His righteousness judges sin, and no human being can stand up to it.

3. God’s righteousness saves sinners (3.21-4.25).

But that’s not the end of the story; God’s righteousness doesn’t just judge sin; it saves sinners. 3.21:

21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

So this is the unexpected aspect of God’s righteousness; it’s the thing none of us ever could have predicted. This is why for the first four hundred years of the Christian church, they were concentrated almost entirely on this question: how does a righteous God save people who have sinned and fallen short of his glory?

There’s a scene in the film Batman Begins where Bruce Wayne tries to disappear in a bad part of Gotham City. But he can’t do it, because he’s walking around in a $3,000 coat. So what does he do? He offers to trade coats with a homeless guy on the street—he takes the man’s filthy, ratty coat and puts it on, and gives the man his pristine, warm, expensive coat.

Imagine our lives—and Christ’s life—like coats. What Christ did was essentially trade coats with us. He took our dirty, torn coats—rendered useless because of our rebellion against God—and put it on, and he gave us his absolutely perfect and beautiful coat, and put it on us. So when he presented himself before God, God looks at his coat, and identifies him as the criminal who usually wears it, and punishes him; and when he looks at the coat we’re wearing, he recognizes that the coat belongs to his Son, and he rewards us as sons and daughters.

God justifies us—that is, he declares us righteous—by his grace as a gift. How can he do this? Because he put Jesus Christ forward as a “propitiation” by his blood. The word “propitiation” means something that satisfies God’s divine wrath. So he didn’t just push our sin aside; Christ took our sin on himself, and God actually punished our sin in Christ.

Often we say that Christ “paid our debt,” the debt we owed because of our sin. And that’s true; but it’s much more than that. He didn’t just pay our debt. He took our place. In a very real way, he became us; he became our sin (cf. 2 Corinthians 5.21); he became the very thing that God hates. So God, being just, poured out all of his righteous anger against our sin, down to the last drop, by punishing Christ on the cross.

So you see, he didn’t just wipe our sin away. He burned it up. He punished it to the fullest extent of his power. It’s impossible for us to understand the depth of Christ’s suffering for us.

But that’s only half of it. God didn’t just take our sin away by punishing Christ for it; in exchange for our sin, he gave us the perfect, sinless life that Christ lived for us. So it’s not only that he doesn’t consider us sinners any longer; it’s that when he looks at us, he sees the righteousness of Christ which was given to us, and so considers us righteous.

All of this happens as a free gift, that we take hold of by faith. When we see the depth of Christ’s sacrifice, it becomes quickly obvious that we can’t do anything to add to it, or subtract from it. All of our effort is like a drop of water in the ocean. Christ’s gift is so monumental that all we can do is receive it by faith.

And Paul goes on, in chapter 4, to explain that it has always been this way. Even before Christ, human beings were not made right before God by their obedience, but by faith. He gives the example of Abraham, the Jewish patriarch, and he references the Old Testament, showing how Abraham was declared righteous by faith, and not by obedience.

The point of this is, it is not our own obedience that saves us; it is only God’s grace in Christ, which we receive by faith.

4. God’s righteousness gives us hope (5.1-8.39).

So God reveals his righteousness in the gospel; God’s righteousness judges sin; God’s righteousness saves sinners. Next (and this is a big one), God’s righteousness gives us hope.

I really wish we had time to go back through all of chapters 5 through 8, which are among my favorite passages in all of Scripture. In chapter 5, Paul brings everything he’s said so far to this shattering truth—this work of Christ actually does work. 5.1:

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

To put it simply, knowing we have peace with God through Christ, knowing that God no longer holds our sin against us, changes us. It changes what we want, and it changes how we live.

And that’s where he goes in chapter 6. It may be tempting for us to imagine that somehow God’s grace will apply to some people but not others. We look around and see people whom we would consider “good people,” and we think, “Well of course God’s grace applies to her—she’s awesome. I’m not awesome. You don’t know what I’ve done, or what I’ve thought, or how often I’ve rejected God.”

But no—Paul spends the last half of chapter 5 showing how completely Christ triumphed over sin, and then he applies that work to everyone who has placed their faith in him, by showing that his grace is more powerful than sin. Chapter 6, verse 5:

5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For one who has died has been set free from sin. 8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

So there is a mental commandment here that he’s going to flesh out in chapter 7: consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

In other words, the reality is that we are no longer sinners: we have been declared righteous by God through faith in Christ. “Righteous” is what God says about us; that’s what he calls us. If there was a stamp on our spiritual birth certificates, “righteous” is what it would say about us.

But we see that in practice, we’re not all that righteous yet. We still have struggles, we still have moments—or even periods—of disobedience. And Paul’s saying, “Don’t let your practice define your identity. Let your identity—what God says about you—determine your practice.”

But Paul knows that this is hard to do—even more, it’s hard to believe. Why? Because even though Christ has changed our hearts and our desires through faith, the one thing he hasn’t changed yet is our bodies, which are still used to sinning. Anyone who’s tried to quit smoking, or to stop biting their nails, knows that habits are incredibly hard to break. And the deeper the habit, the harder it is to break.

So because we struggle to stop sinning, it’s easy to assume that we’re doing something wrong. Paul identifies the difficulty of this struggle in the second half of chapter 7. Romans 7.14:

14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. 15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

I love that he said it like this, because there is not a single Christian who has ever lived who doesn’t identify with the self-questioning he expresses here. How can I believe that I am no longer a sinner when I see sin in me?

This is why he gives the command in chapter 6, v. 11: consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ. If we look at the practice of our lives, we will instantly become discouraged, because we’ll see everything in us that still needs changing: all of the sinful habits our bodies have still not managed to shake.

That is why he reminds us at the beginning of chapter 8:

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

So you see, he points us back to Christ: if we look to what Christ has done, instead of at our own inadequacies, we will remember that we couldn’t save ourselves, and we can’t save ourselves now. We need him. We need the work of Christ, and we need the work of his Spirit to apply the work of Christ to us.

Here’s Paul’s logic (and it is ironclad): if Christ did all of that to save us, he won’t stop with the job halfway done. If he began this work in us, he will finish it. There is no condemnation for us if we are in Christ; the Spirit has set us free from the condemnation of sin. And so if he began that work, he will finish it. Chapter 8, v. 11:

11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.

If he saved us, he will make us holy. If he saved us, he will enable us to put our sin to death. And if you’ve been a Christian for any amount of time, you can see it. We can all point to all the ways we are still far from the mark. But with a little effort, we can also look back at our lives and see how we have changed since we came to faith. We can see progression. We can see what God has done in us.

If he started this work, he won’t stop. If the Spirit raised Christ from the dead, and he lives in us, then he will give life—not to our souls, not to our hearts, but to our bodies: these weak bodies still under sin’s influence. He will make us grow in him.

Knowing that this doesn’t depend on us, but on him, is what gives us hope—and that is how Paul ends chapter 8, starting in v. 31:

31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? 33 Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;

we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

5. God’s righteousness applies to all peoples (9.1-11.36).

There’s one last piece that we need to see, but to understand it we need to come back to the context of the church in Rome. Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians, living together in a body of believers. The Jewish Christians in the church are undoubtedly rejoicing about the hope they have in Christ, as well they should. But at the same time, they're also thinking, “But what about my Jewish family and friends who aren’t Christians? God said the Jews were his chosen people. Does salvation in Christ mean that God has rejected his chosen people?”

That’s what Paul explains next, by showing how God’s righteousness applies to all peoples—both to Jews and to Gentiles.

The first thing he does is to show that God has not rejected Israel. Chapter 9, v. 6:

6 But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, 7 and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” 8 This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.

To put this simply: from the very beginning, God said this was how things would work. God never said that being born a Jew automatically meant that you were a child of God. He already explained this in chapter 5: even Abraham was not saved because he was of a particular ethnicity, but because he had faith in God. The “children of the promise” are those who share in Abraham’s faith, not Abraham’s blood.

God paved the way for Israel to have that faith, and many of them did. But not all. If any member of the people of Israel is not saved, it’s not because God has rejected his people, but because that person has rejected God.

This is what he spends chapters 9 and 10 explaining: Israel, collectively, has rejected God, but God has not rejected them. He has chosen a remnant—a certain number of Israelites who would believe in the Savior whom God promised to send, Jesus Christ.

Then, in chapter 11, he turns to the Gentiles—how are they a part of this salvation?

Paul describes God’s plan as a huge tree, which he built out of the people of Israel. Those Israelites who rejected Christ—whom Paul describes as “branches”—are cut off, and the Gentiles who have accepted Christ—whom Paul describes as “wild olive shoots”—have been grafted in to the tree.

His point is this: neither the Jews nor the Gentiles have any reason to claim they are more legitimate as Christians because they are Jews, or because they are Gentiles.

In chapter 11, v. 17 (he’s speaking to the Gentiles now):

17 But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, 18 do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you. 19 Then you will say, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.” 20 That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear. 21 For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. 22 Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off.

And here’s the great news: God has a plan—still mysterious, I admit—to redeem a great number of the Jews, and bring them back in to his salvation. V. 23:

23 And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again. 24 For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree.

Conclusion

This is all mind-blowing, of course, and we can struggle with thinking through how it all works for hours (as we did: we spent months talking about all of these things). But the central message is still the same: all of salvation is from God. The gospel is the manifestation of his righteousness: his righteousness which judges sin, which saves sinners, which assures us of the hope we have in him, and which applies to everyone who has faith in Christ, no matter who we are or where we come from.

That is why Paul ends with this magnificent doxology, starting in v. 33 of chapter 11:

33 Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!

34  “For who has known the mind of the Lord,

or who has been his counselor?”

35  “Or who has given a gift to him

that he might be repaid?”

36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.

This letter could easily end there—honestly, Paul could have ended with chapter 8—and we would have more than we needed to get us through the rest of our lives.

But Paul does not stop there. Beginning in chapter 12, he’s going to take all of this and ask one simple question: Since these things are true, HOW SHOULD WE LIVE? What difference should these truths make in our lives, as individuals and as a church?

That is what he will spend the next five chapters answering, and that’s what we’ll begin exploring next week. But for now, I suggest we simply sit under these truths, and ask God to let them weigh on us. Let’s end today as Paul ends chapter 11: at simple amazement before the goodness and wisdom and grace of our God.

Disciples

(1 TImothy 4)

Today is a special day for us, as is always the case at the beginning of each school year, because it marks our ninth anniversary as a church. After a few months of experimental services to give people an idea of what the church would be, we officially launched Église Connexion on the first Sunday in September of 2014. We began meeting in the waiting room of a tiny non-profit on the rue du Pont-Neuf, a few blocks from here. After about five weeks we didn’t have room anymore, so the director of the non-profit allowed us to clean out the basement—this really cool basement with a vaulted ceiling and visible rock—and hold our services down there. We could fit about thirty-five people there, if we squeezed in really tight. After a few months, we couldn’t fit anymore—people were sitting on the stairs coming down to the basement—so we moved over here, to one of the smaller rooms upstairs. Pretty soon that room was full too, so we moved to a bigger one. And things just kept going.

Now it would be tempting for us to try and take credit for our growth, but we can’t. Pastor friends have often asked me what we did to grow so quickly, and I never know what to say, except that God is good.

Yes, we planted in Châtelet-Les Halles—we planted in a place that was easy to get to, while there were areas all over the city and outside that didn’t have any accessible, local churches. People gravitated to us because we were easy to get to. But even in Châtelet-Les Halles, we could just as easily have disappeared after a few months.

The real reason why that didn’t happen, why we’re still here, is that, in those first few months, God sent us a group of people who—almost without exception—were all in, from the beginning. Everyone who came to us those first few months had first gone to other churches in our network, because they had moved into the city for work or for studies, and they were looking for a church in the city. These other churches—the churches at rue de Sèvres, rue des Ternes, l’Église du Tabernacle—regularly told these visitors, “We’re really happy you’re here, but did you know there’s a new church being planted in Châtelet-Les Halles? You should check them out.” One church in particular, l’Église des Ternes, was a tremendous support for us; Edouard Nelson, who was the pastor there, had had the idea of planting a church in Châtelet-Les Halles long before we did, and he was our biggest source of support and publicity at the beginning; this church wouldn’t exist without Edouard.

And here’s the part that no one can take credit for: everyone who came to us those first months were Christians who knew their Bibles, who loved Jesus, and who wanted to see Christ glorified in Paris. So without even trying, we had a solid core of dependable people who grew very close very quickly. Two of those people, Paul and Arnaud, became elders a couple years later. Several of them became deacons. All of them became leaders in one way or another—either in name or in fact. And all because God sent the right people to the right place at the right time.

This has been our prayer from the beginning: that God would do a work in this church that we could not take credit for. And I could give you a thousand examples of how he did that. I could also talk for hours about everything we hope to do, everything we hope to be, as a church. We’ll continue to come back to these subjects over the next weeks and months, but today, I’d like to focus on one specific aspect of our life together, which is the center, the heart, of our desire. This center is what Christ has done for us, and what our lives should look like in response.

We’re going to spend most of our time today in 1 Timothy 4. In this text Paul gives a description of the life of a disciple of Christ, in the context of the local church, that I hope will be pertinent for us.

So we’ll read 1 Timothy 4, but we’re going to start just a little earlier, to give a bit of context.

The Gospel (1 Timothy 3.14-16)

In this letter, Paul is writing to Timothy, his young protégé whom he left in the church in Ephesus to be an elder there. In Ephesus there was a fascination with magic and the occult. The city boasted a temple to the goddess Artemis, and the selling of idols was one of the main sources of commerce in the city. There was already a community of believers there—Paul didn’t plant this church. But when he came, he was able to correct many errors and the church was rooted in the gospel and transformed in an incredible way—to such an extent that the entire socioeconomic structure of the city of Ephesus was impacted.

But as often happens, once this influential leader left, old habits started to take hold in different ways. People began coming in and reasserting old mistakes under new names. Instead of saying that Christians needed Jesus, plus magic, they started saying Christians needed Jesus, plus asceticism, or Jesus plus adherence to specific rules around food and so on.

So Timothy is struggling to keep people on track, and Paul writes him to reassure him and give him some counsel on how to proceed. But before getting into the practical aspects of what he should do, Paul says this, in 1 Timothy 3.14-16:

14 I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these things to you so that, 15 if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth. 16 Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness:‌

He was manifested in the flesh,

vindicated by the Spirit,

seen by angels,

proclaimed among the nations,

believed on in the world,

taken up in glory.

In other words—and Paul does this all the time in his letters—the center must remain the center. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was manifested in the flesh: he took on a human nature. He lived a perfect human life, without sin—that is, without ever disobeying God’s commandments. He took the sin of his people on himself and was punished in their place on the cross; and in exchange he gave us his perfect life, that we might be declared righteous before God. Then three days after his death, he was resurrected by the power of the Holy Spirit, “vindicated by the Spirit”, proving through his resurrection that he really is the Son of God, that he really has fulfilled salvation for his people. He ascended to heaven in his body before the eyes of his disciples, and now he reigns from heaven. The apostles proclaimed the good news of Jesus Christ, and people have believed in him—all the way up to today.

This is the gospel, and it is mind-blowing in its simplicity.

But that’s part of what makes it mysterious. The reason why people always want to add things on to the gospel is because the gospel is simple—almost too simple for us. We want to think that if the gospel applies to us, it must be because we are special, or because we are doing something right that others are getting wrong. But no—the gospel applies to us because God is good. He did all the work for us, because we could never have done it ourselves.

And people never want to believe that—it just seems too easy. That is why some will try to use the gospel as leverage for personal gain, and add to it. And that’s where Paul picks up the thread in chapter 4.

Joy in God’s Gifts (1 Timothy 4.1-5)

1 Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, 2 through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, 3 who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. 4 For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, 5 for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.

So we see some of the bogus prohibitions these false teachers were giving in v. 3: don’t marry, don’t eat certain foods. We don’t know what specific teaching led to these prohibitions, but apparently the idea they were promoting is that a Christian can gauge their personal holiness and piety by whatever they deny or give up.

The church still functions this way a lot of the time. And at first glance, this idea of defining yourself by what you’re against seems to go along with a lot of what we see in the Bible—we read, for example, the Ten Commandments, eight of which are “Thou shalt nots”. We read in the first letter of John (1 John 2.15), “Do not love the world or the things in the world.” Now, we don’t have time to talk about what John means when he talks about “the world” here, but when we read it superficially, we could imagine that he’s saying simply that certain things are good, and other things—“the things of the world”—are bad, and that’s all there is to it. Do the holy things, don’t do the unholy things.

But then Paul comes along and says this:

4 For everything created by God is GOOD, and NOTHING is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving…

So which is it? Are we to reject the things “of earth?” Or are we to not reject them? This is the tension we live in as Christians: there are indeed things to be rejected, things that are unpleasing to God and damage our faith…and yet, everything created by God is good.

So which is it? Let’s go back to Paul, 1 Timothy 4.4:

4 For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving…

Okay, so that’s the first key. God does not create bad things. Nothing he creates is inherently unhealthy or damaging. We can and should be thankful for the good things he’s given us. Great news, right? It is great news, but before we go crazy and start blazing up, he goes on:

5 …for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.

There are two principles in v. 5 that will help us determine how to receive God’s creation with thanksgiving. Firstly (v. 5), it is made holy by the word of God… In other words, we delight in the things of earth by running them through the filter of the Bible, which explains the Creator’s intention for these things. In the Bible, God tells us how he has created the earth, and how he has created us as human beings. I’ve said this a million times: no one is better suited than our Creator to tell us how we are meant to function, how he designed human beings to flourish. If we live our lives according to what God says about how we were created to function, we will flourish; if, however, we try to buck against his design for us, things will go badly for us. Sin happens when we take something good and try to use it in a way God never intended.

The second principle concerns prayer (it is made holy by the word of God and prayer), and this one is profoundly logical. It is impossible to glorify God in the enjoyment of his gifts if we don’t acknowledge that God is the giver of these good gifts and thank him in prayer for them. (That’s what Paul meant when he said, Nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving.) And if we are faithful to the Bible, if we study and learn what is pleasing to God and how he created us to function and enjoy his good gifts, there are simply certain things we’ll never be able to thank God for. You can’t look at porn and thank God for the beauty of the woman on the screen. Why? Because the woman on the screen is not your wife. We cannot honor God and thank him for a perversion of a good gift. If we are faithful to the Bible, if we learn what pleases God and how he created us to delight in his gifts, we will know in what contexts we can delight in his gifts and thank him for them, and in what context our pleasure is in fact disgusting to him.

The things of earth are wonderful. God created a marvelous world for us to live in, and has filled it to the brim with beautiful gifts for us to enjoy. But he has filled the world with these gifts to be enjoyed in order to raise our eyes to see the Giver of the gifts. As Augustine famously said, “He loves Thee too little, who loves anything together with Thee, which he does not love for Thy sake.” We can only legitimately and faithfully enjoy God’s gifts if we use them according to his intention for them, and if we recognize him and give thanks to him as the Giver of these good gifts.

Joy in Obedience (1 Timothy 4.6-16)

I know that can sound kind of harsh, so let me say it another way: there is a way to live in obedience to God that does not exclude joy in his creation, but that channels and fulfills that joy, because that joy finds its fulfillment in our thankfulness toward God.

If we obey him like this, we will find an even more surprising truth: that there is joy in obedience itself.

6 If you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed. 7 Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths.

So remember, Paul’s just told Timothy to encourage people to reject the false teaching that the things of the earth are inherently bad, and he circles back around to it by saying, Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Well, the irreverent, silly myths, in the context of this passage, are these false teachings that say it is in abstaining from these things that you will be pleasing to God. So in what comes next, he gives both the antithesis of this idea, and he takes it even further (v. 7b):

Rather train yourself for godliness; 8 for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.

So rather than rejecting everything, train yourself in godliness—live the way God created you to live, in what you reject and in that which you receive with joy.

But training ourselves for godliness isn’t limited to enjoying God’s gifts appropriately. Paul goes on (v. 9):

9 The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. 10 For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe. 11 Command and teach these things. 12 Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. 13 Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. 14 Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you. 15 Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress. 16 Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.

Now before we get into this, I need to say something. I don’t want to get too hung up on the end of v. 10, because it’s not the main point, but it can be confusing. Paul says, For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe. This is a hotly debated verse, because it almost seems like Paul is teaching a kind of universalism—the teaching that everyone, no matter what they believe, will be saved. The rest of the Bible is clear that this is not the case. There are several legitimate, interpretive possibilities here, but what I think Paul is saying is simple: Jesus Christ, the living God, is the Savior that is offered to all men in the gospel, though all will not receive him. In other words, when we preach the gospel, we don’t pick and choose to whom we preach. We don’t give you assessment forms to fill out before you come in here, to know if you are eligible to hear this message. We preach to everyone, “Jesus Christ is the Savior who died to save us from our sin,” and if we believe, he really does save us from our sin. But only those who believe actually receive him as their Savior—that’s what Paul’s saying.

But that is not the main point. His point is to show how “training yourself in godliness” works, and it works our through the gospel. When Paul tells Timothy to keep a close watch on himself and on the teaching, what is “the teaching”? It’s the gospel! It’s the good news that Christ lived the life we should have lived, took on himself all of our sin, was punished for those sins in our place, and gave us all of his perfect righteousness, so that when we stand before God, he no longer sees any of our sin, but only his Son’s perfect righteousness. The reason why these false teachers were so damaging is because they were teaching that it is what we do that makes us acceptable to God. But the only thing that makes us acceptable to God—namely, Christ’s perfect life, lived on our behalf, and his death on the cross for our sins—has already been achieved for us!

And it is this good news which will drive us to pursue holiness (v. 10):

10 For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God…

In other words, when someone is transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit, they will see all areas of their life through the lens of where they’re going, what their hope is. They will know that they are no longer who they once were! They are no longer striving for the same things—they no longer desire the same things! And so they will toil and strive, not in order to make sure they stay saved, but rather because they know they ARE! They no longer belong to themselves! They have been adopted into the most infinitely glorious, infinitely beautiful family imaginable, and they are moving toward an infinitely beautiful destination: the place where they will see the infinitely glorious God in all of his fullness and be able to enjoy him forever, and God himself will make sure they get there! And so, quite simply they want all that to begin NOW. They know they will enjoy God forever, so they want to begin enjoying him now. But they know that they will never be able to enjoy God now if they use the good gifts he’s given them in a way he didn’t intend. And so they will work hard to reject that which is not pleasing to him and pursue that which is.

Imagine you’re on your way to a five-star restaurant for the most amazing meal of your life. And you’re hungry. You can feel your stomach grumbling. And in your bag, you have a three-pack of Snickers bars (my personal favorite). Your host, who is riding with you, sees you with the Snickers, and says to you, “Don’t eat those.” Why? Because if you eat those three Snickers bars, you’ll have this incredible meal in front of you, and you won’t want to eat it, because you’ll be stuffed. Him telling you not to eat the Snickers is not a restriction, but an invitation—deny yourself this small pleasure now, in order to benefit from the far greater pleasure of the amazing meal that’s waiting for you at the restaurant. It takes work, yes. It’s difficult, yes. But it’s worth it. Your hope is not set on the things of earth, but on God, and so denying those pleasures which are displeasing to him, and which will keep you from finding your pleasure in him, is a hard move that is infinitely worthwhile.

And then Paul tells Timothy to show others what a life lived out of this hope looks like (v. 12):

12 Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.

Show them that depriving themselves of insignificant pleasures is not only pleasing to God, but better. Show them that the Creator knows what he’s talking about when he tells us how best to enjoy his creation! Show them what the life of someone who has been freed by the work of Christ on the cross looks like! Show them by your life that the freedom he gives allows you to live a life that not only is pleasing to God, but infinitely more desirable for you!

You see, what Paul is commending to Timothy is nothing less than the life of a disciple of Jesus who makes other disciples. Share the gospel—model the gospel for others in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity. Live the life of the kingdom, in a way which is visible to those who observe you, and in so doing, teach them to do the same.

Let me be very transparent with you here. Everything Paul’s been saying to Timothy is the reason why we have done things the way we have done them up to now. We surely haven’t done them perfectly, but this is why, for example, I have never shied away from talking to you all about the things that I enjoy (my love of movies is almost an inside joke at this point!); this is why when we began the church we had our first community dinners in our home, and why we still invite people from the church to our home as often as we can: so we might SHOW you what discipleship looks like in those contexts! This is why I’ve always been very up front with you about my own struggles and weaknesses: to give what I hope and pray is a clear example of what repentance looks like, so that all might see MY progress. And this is why I’ve tried to make clear from the very beginning the centrality of the Word of God in preaching, and in how we set up the life of the church. These are all conscious efforts to do for you what Paul is telling Timothy to do, so that you might learn to do the same, so that you might go and teach others to do the same.

11 Command and teach these things. [Teach the gospel!] 12 Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity… [You being young does not mean you cannot be a model for others.] 15 Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress. [Show them what being a disciple looks like!] 16 Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching [on the gospel]. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.

Conclusion

Now I hope you can see the complexity here. We’re a lot more comfortable when the rules are absolutely black and white. When I was a kid (in 1980s and 1990s America), it was, alcohol is bad. Sex is bad. Smoking is bad. It was easy to feel like if you did certain things, and didn’t do other things, you were doing okay. (So it didn’t matter what other things you were doing, that might be abhorrent to God, like pride, as long as no one talked about those things.)

The point is this. The life, death and resurrection of Christ for us has changed everything about us, and about the way we interact with the world around us. He has opened up for us an entire world of joy and thankfulness that we want to enjoy to its fullest. Because he has died for us, we want to live, and there is no one better suited than our Creator to tell us how we can do it.

But knowing how to do that, what that looks like, is difficult. It can be confusing. We need help. That’s why, when Jesus sent out his disciples at the end of the gospel of Matthew (Matthew 28.19-20), he told them,

19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

We need to be taught.

And the means he gives us to learn how to observe all that he has commanded is…one another. It is the church. It is ordinary Christians, knowing and loving and living the Word of God together with other Christians.

The Christian life is definitely more than that, as we’ll see in the coming weeks, but it is not less than that. So that is our first job as a church. It is to embody the gospel for one another and for the city around us, and it is to teach one another how to be disciples of Jesus Christ.

So if you’re new here, take every opportunity you have to get to know people. Find a community group, invest in that group. Everything we do in church, even if those things have other goals, will always have this goal of disciples making disciples in the center. If you have any questions about how to get connected, ask the welcome team, or just anyone you see.

And if you’ve been coming here for a while, it’s possible that during the summer you’ve disconnected a bit… Get back in. Seek out new people, help them find their place. Come alongside one another and serve one another well.

Next week we’ll be going back to the book Romans with an overview of what we’ve seen in that book so far, then we’ll start getting into the nitty-gritty of what life as a follower of Christ looks like. In the meantime, let’s begin this year with a fresh resolve to follow him well, and help others to do the same. God has been so good to us; let’s enjoy him together.

A Prayer for the King

(Psalm 72)

Today is the last day of our summer series in the Psalms before heading back into the book of Romans next week. So I thought it only fitting that we end our series on Book 2 of the Psalter by talking about the last psalm in this book, Psalm 72.

Psalm 72, it says in the heading, is a psalm “of Solomon”—that is, King Solomon, who succeeded to the throne after the death of his father, King David. The term “of Solomon” here can either mean that Solomon wrote the psalm, or that someone wrote it about Solomon and the other kings of David’s line to come after him.

In the end, it doesn’t really matter—the psalm expresses the ideal, the hoped-for goal of the king of God’s people, Israel. It reminds those who pray this prayer of the high calling of the king. But if we know anything about the kings of Israel, we know that they failed spectacularly in this goal. Some kings were better than others—some were even kings one could characterize as good kings. But none of them lived up to this ideal. Even the good kings were very imperfect, very incomplete people.

So it’s easy to read this psalm cynically and think that this is a prayer that God did not answer, that this is an example of a failed prayer.

However, if you keep reading the Old Testament, you’ll come across other passages that make you think twice about this conclusion. Let’s take just one example, from the book of Isaiah, chapter 11. I’ll read the first five verses:

There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,

and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.

[That is, the person of whom Isaiah is speaking will be of King David’s lineage—Jesse was David’s father.]

2  And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him,

the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,

the Spirit of counsel and might,

the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.

3  And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.

He shall not judge by what his eyes see,

or decide disputes by what his ears hear,

4  but with righteousness he shall judge the poor,

and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;

and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,

and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.

5  Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist,

and faithfulness the belt of his loins.

That sounds remarkably similar to the goals we see in Psalm 72. And while Psalm 72 is never quoted in the New Testament as a “messianic” passage, Isaiah 11 is—it is abundantly clear from the New Testament that when Isaiah prophesied about this ruler who would come from the line of David, on whom the Spirit of God would rest, who would judge with justice and righteousness and faithfulness, he was actually speaking about this figure called “the Messiah”—the perfect King whom God would send to rule his people forever.

When we realize that no human king ever met this standard, and that this standard is elsewhere applied to the Messiah, we can come to no other conclusion than that Psalm 72 may be a prayer for Solomon, a prayer for the King of Israel, but it is a prayer that finally receives its answer in the Messiah, Jesus Christ. So that’s how we should read this psalm—the prayer of this psalm describes the ideal of the ruler of God’s people, an ideal no human king was ever able to meet, and which is fulfilled in the reign of Jesus Christ.

This psalm isn’t hard to understand, but what we see here is like fuel for our worship. So let’s read attentively.

We see this perfect King exhibit five characteristics, five qualities, which help us to identify this King for who he is.

Perfect Righteousness (v. 1-4)

The first quality the perfect King exhibits is perfect righteousness. V. 1:

1  Give the king your justice, O God,

and your righteousness to the royal son!

2  May he judge your people with righteousness,

and your poor with justice!

3  Let the mountains bear prosperity for the people,

and the hills, in righteousness!

4  May he defend the cause of the poor of the people,

give deliverance to the children of the needy,

and crush the oppressor!

There are two sides to the “righteousness” coin: there is purity and piety—that is, a way of life and a standard of behavior which corresponds to God’s own desires, and a total dedication to following God’s commands—and there is justice: a desire to judge fairly, to protect the weak, to support the oppressed.

On both fronts, the kings of Israel failed. As we saw before, all of the kings of Israel were very imperfect people. Even David—almost definitely the best king in Israel’s history—was at times a violent man, a murderer and an adulterer. Jesus Christ, however, was the embodiment of perfect holiness. Hebrews 4.15 tells us that he was tempted in every respect as we are, yet without sin.

We see the same contrast on the side of justice. Take v. 4 and its concern for the poor, for example. Kings can easily become consumed by greed, by a desire to accumulate wealth for themselves (and Solomon wasn’t exempt from this tendency).

By contrast, the perfect King the psalmist prays for here serves on behalf of the people—especially the poor and the needy. We read this earlier in Isaiah 11.4: God promised that a king would come, whose role was to be the guardian of justice and the protector of the poor. Indeed, when Christ comes, he describes the poor not just as “poor”, but as Derek Kidner points out, he talks about them as his poor—God’s poor. He says in Matthew 25.35 and 40:

“For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me… Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.”

Perfect Sovereignty (v. 5-11)

The next characteristic of this perfect King is perfect sovereignty, or perfect reign over his kingdom. And his sovereignty is characterized in several different ways. V. 5:

5  May they fear you while the sun endures,

and as long as the moon, throughout all generations!

6  May he be like rain that falls on the mown grass,

like showers that water the earth!

7  In his days may the righteous flourish,

and peace abound, till the moon be no more!

His reign doesn’t just bring peace and justice. It would be easy to imagine such a reign lasting for a short time, then withering away when another, less righteous king took power. But this King’s reign, the people pray, will be eternal—v. 5, as long as the sun endures, as long as the moon, throughout all generations.

Obviously no human king has ever fit this bill—every single human ruler in history has died, and will die. No matter how powerful the ruler, his or her reign is always temporary.

But the sovereignty of this perfect King will be without end.

In Daniel chapter 7, the prophet Daniel describes a vision he sees of this promised King, the “Son of Man” whose dominion would be an everlasting dominion, and whose kingdom would never be destroyed. We don’t need to read far into the gospels before we see Jesus, over and over again, saying, essentially, “The ‘Son of Man’ Daniel spoke about…that’s me.” The “Son of Man” was Jesus’s favorite title for himself.

So that’s the second thing which characterizes his reign: it is eternal.

The third thing is that his reign will not just be over one particular people. He’s not just talking about the king of Israel here; his reign will be over all people. V. 8:

8  May he have dominion from sea to sea,

and from the River to the ends of the earth!

9  May desert tribes bow down before him,

and his enemies lick the dust!

10  May the kings of Tarshish and of the coastlands

render him tribute;

may the kings of Sheba and Seba

bring gifts!

11  May all kings fall down before him,

all nations serve him!

Dominion from sea to sea, rule over allies and enemies, allegiance and gifts from kings of all nations, everywhere. (The psalmist mentions Sheba; we remember the story from 1 Kings 10 when the queen of Sheba comes to visit Solomon, because she hears of his wisdom and his wealth, and when she sees the truth of what she has heard she makes great gifts to Solomon.)

This is the kind of rule that, frankly, makes me nervous when I read it, because I can think of all the ways this can go wrong in the hands of an ordinary human ruler—even a wise human ruler. We can easily imagine a bad ruler showing his own people preferential treatment, while exacting terrible tributes from the other peoples under his reign, overtaxing them to death and burdening them beyond their means, much like the Roman Empire did to the Jews at the time of Christ.

It reassures us that Jesus of course wouldn’t do that; Jesus wouldn’t ask for burdensome tributes beyond what his people can bear. And that is true…but in some ways, Jesus is even more exacting than that. When we see the first Gentiles come to see Christ, he doesn’t tell them he’ll be asking for gifts of riches, but rather gifts of themselves. We read in John 12.20-25:

20 Now among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks. 21 So these came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and asked him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” 22 Philip went and told Andrew; Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. 23 And Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24 Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. 25 Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.

So Jesus does not ask the people under his reign to give what they do not have; but he does ask that they give him all that they have.

However, he also tells them why it’s worth it: whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. As the martyred missionary Jim Elliot famously said, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” If we serve Christ, the reward is honor from the Father, which is better than the life people so want to keep, in order to avoid serving Christ in the first place.

Perfect Compassion (v. 12-14)

If we had any fears concerning the goodness of this King, and whether his universal rule could possibly be a good thing, we see those fears dispelled in the following verses. In v. 12-14 we see this king’s perfect compassion.

12  For he delivers the needy when he calls,

the poor and him who has no helper.

13  He has pity on the weak and the needy,

and saves the lives of the needy.

14  From oppression and violence he redeems their life,

and precious is their blood in his sight.

We have a daughter, Zadie, who’s five years old. I am Zadie’s father; at this stage in her development, I am one of two absolute authority figures in her life. Dad and Mom are king and queen. Our house isn’t a democracy; we give our kids a vote when we can, but that right isn’t absolute. Often, it comes down to us saying, “You’ll clean your room right now because I told you to clean your room right now.”

What keeps our authority over our kids from being a reign of terror is the love we have for them, and that love came out in compassion for Zadie this week. She had an allergic reaction to several mosquito bites; she was in a lot of pain, her arms and one leg swollen up like sausages. We couldn’t heal her, but we could take care of her pain to the best of our abilities, help her not to touch the blisters, hug her and let her sleep in our bed when she was hurting.

So even though we have near-total authority over her at this point, she’s not afraid of that authority, because she knows we love her. She sees our love manifested in our compassion toward her.

We see this all over the place in the gospels: Christ manifesting his love through compassion on ordinary people, although he would have every right and authority to speak a word and wipe them off the face of the earth. We read in Matthew 9.36:

35 And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. 36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

Who would be afraid of such a ruler? His power makes him worthy of fear, in the biblical sense—worthy of reverence, of the respect and awe which he deserves. But his compassion makes him approachable. His compassion removes the reticence we might feel in the presence of a powerful figure; we want to be ruled by such a ruler, because he can take care of us in ways we can’t, and he will take care of us in ways we can’t.

What a wonderful thing to be delivered when we are needy, to receive kindness when we are oppressed, to be valued when we feel worthless. And how much more wonderful to learn that this person who delivered us and was kind to us and valued us is none other than the King who rules over us. How safe do we feel, knowing we are under his rule?

Perfect Blessing (v. 15-17)

So the prayer is that God would enable the king of his people to be endowed with perfect righteousness, perfect rule, perfect compassion. Lastly, the psalmist prays that the king would display perfect blessing toward his kingdom. V. 15:

15  Long may he live;

may gold of Sheba be given to him!

May prayer be made for him continually,

and blessings invoked for him all the day!

16  May there be abundance of grain in the land;

on the tops of the mountains may it wave;

may its fruit be like Lebanon;

and may people blossom in the cities

like the grass of the field!

17  May his name endure forever,

his fame continue as long as the sun!

May people be blessed in him,

all nations call him blessed!

We already saw this a bit earlier, in v. 6-7, but here he comes back to the effect this King will have on his kingdom: not just protection, but prosperity; not just peace, but blessing. May there be abundance of grain in the land; on the tops of the mountains may it wave; may its fruit be like Lebanon; and may people blossom in the cities like the grass of the field!

In the West, in the 21st century, we are living in a time of widespread prosperity which has never been equalled in human history until now. Yet, I doubt if any of you would say that you feel as if you are “blossoming in the city like the grass of the field”—none of us would say that every single person in France is enjoying complete and total prosperity.

That’s because this kind of prosperity, this kind of blessing, was intended to be the result of the reign and rule of Jesus Christ, once he returns to renew the earth and banish sin and all of its effects, once and for all. We see hints of this in Jesus’s ministry. In John 6, he feeds five thousand men with five loaves of bread and two fish. This is a symbolic foretaste of the prosperity God’s King will bring.

But we see it perhaps most fully, I think, in Matthew 9, when he heals the paralytic. First of all, we see blessing on the material level: he heals this man who was paralyzed, enabling him to walk again. But on top of that—and more importantly for the religious leaders watching, he told the man that his sins were forgiven. The blessing he gave to this man was total: physical and spiritual.

This is the kind of King he is. And that is why the blessing goes both ways: it is blessing from the King to the kingdom, in v. 6, and it is also praise from the people of the kingdom to the King, in v. 5 and 7. A King who is endowed with such righteousness, such power, such compassion and such grace deserves such praise.

Doxology & Conclusion (v. 18-20)

Now this psalm ends with a slightly different turn, and that is because the conclusion of the psalm isn’t merely a conclusion to this psalm, but of all of book 2 of the psalter. V. 18:

18  Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel,

who alone does wondrous things.

19  Blessed be his glorious name forever;

may the whole earth be filled with his glory!

Amen and Amen!

20  The prayers of David, the son of Jesse, are ended.

This is a fitting conclusion to this psalm, however, because it reminds us that the only King who is capable of being the kind of ruler this psalm prays for is God himself.

Jesus Christ is that ruler. His reign has begun, and will one day be fully realized, when he returns and cleanses sin from his creation.

Now I have a confession to make. There’s a big part of my brain that reads a psalm like this and accepts everything I’ve just spent the past half hour saying. That’s the Christian part—the part that the Holy Spirit has rewired to see the world as he says God sees it.

But there’s still another part of my mind that reads this with a fair amount of cynicism. That’s the part of my brain that remembers what it was like before I became a Christian, and who knows how I would have heard the things I’m saying today when I was twenty. Because after reading this text, that guy would have had two major questions that aren’t easy to answer.

The first is, how can I be sure this is good news? And the second is, why does it matter?

So let’s just give the best answer I can to both of those questions, really quickly. Firstly: how can I be sure this is good news? The reason why this is an important question is because we’ve seen goals like this go wrong over and over again throughout history. Dictators proclaim lofty goals—sometimes even admirable goals—and destroy their people in order to make those goals a reality. This is what happens when human beings wield this kind of power: it does not go well. So any reasonable person would probably be a little dubious about such a prayer for a king.

But ultimately, this is still good news for us, and here’s why: our King—the perfect King for whom the people pray in this psalm—was crucified. We should make no mistake: the cross was not a bump in an otherwise smooth road. It was not a crisis to be solved. The cross was the plan all along. This King, to take power, would take the place and the punishment his people deserve, for them. The crucifixion was not a defeat—it was a coronation.

Jesus Christ was brought lower, and endured more, than any human being in all of human history, for the human beings he would rule. This is no ordinary reign, and he is no ordinary King. So those of us who feel nervous about someone holding this kind of power can relax: Christ is the only being in the entire universe who can wield that power rightly.

Secondly: why should the perfect reign of this perfect King matter?

To put it simply, the kingdom of God has already come in Jesus Christ, and will be fulfilled when he returns. If we belong to God, we are already citizens of his kingdom. And the fact that we are citizens of his kingdom means that we are inevitably going to be out of step with the world around us. The apostle Peter said that we are exiles on this earth: sojourners and strangers, belonging to one kingdom but living in another.

Every expat knows what that feels like, being in one place but really belonging to another. On the one hand—at least if you love your country—it makes you homesick. You want to be there, with your family, in your country, with your people. And since you’re not there yet, you’ll do whatever you can to experience it, even a little: you’ll listen to music or eat food or watch movies that remind you of home. At the same time, because you love your country, you want others to discover it too. You want them to know what it’s like to live there, you want them to understand and to love the things that you love.

We are spiritual expats in this world. We have our hope and our assurance in the promise that Christ is coming back, and we will be with him forever, on a perfected earth, rid of the effects of sin. And while we’re here, we want to experience every possible foretaste of this kingdom over which Christ reigns. We want to be with his people and sing his music and speak of his goodness; we want to be reminded, every chance we get, of just how good he has been to us.

And while we want to experience these foretastes of the coming kingdom, we also want to be a foretaste of the coming kingdom to others. We want them to know where we’re from; we want them to desire to be with us when we finally get to go home.

So we pull them close and we love them well and we tell them the story of our King, praying all the while that they will know him as we know him, and love him as we do, and worship him as we do. Because he deserves every song, every word, every act of obedience, every moment of thankfulness. This is our King, today. And one day we’ll see him.

“What Is My Life For?”: The Psalmist's Guide to Aging

(Psalm 71)

When we planted this church I was thirty-three years old—old enough to have some life experience behind me, young enough to still feel young. But we’ll be celebrating our ninth anniversary as a church in less than a month. What God has done in the church, and in my own life, is mind-blowing to me. Some of it has been really joyful; some of it has been really hard; in all of it, God has proven himself faithful.

A lot has changed for me over these last nine years.

One of the most profound changes is also the most obvious: I’m nine years older. Nine years didn’t used to feel like a lot—it feels huge now. I’m in my forties. I’ve been married for twenty years. Our son, who was a toddler when we planted, is now in middle school, and we’ve added another kid who’s also in school. I’m still young…but I definitely feel older.

I know a lot of you feel the same thing. For a long time, the church was almost exclusively made up of young singles. Now, many of you who were in your twenties when we started are in your thirties, some of you even edging towards your forties. We even have some people in the church who are older than me, which for a long time seemed like a pipe dream. (Can I just take a minute to thank the brave souls who have stuck in with this church full of young adults? It’s a hard thing to do, and I thank God for you every day. I’m still praying for a lot more people who are in their fifties, in their sixties, and even their seventies, for reasons I’ll articulate in a little while.) We’re a slightly more homogenous mix than we used to be.

But we are still, on the whole, a young church filled with young people. And as time goes on, I feel the burden more and more deeply as a pastor to help prepare young people for aging. You need to know that every time I get up to preach, my goal is never to simply help you be faithful over the week to come, or over the next month, or the next year. My goal is always to preach the Bible in such a way that you have what you need to stay faithful for the rest of your lives—so that thirty, or forty, or fifty, or sixty years from now, long after I’m not here anymore, you will still be faithful to Christ.

That is why I love this psalm. It’s a psalm written from the perspective of an old man who has lived a hard life. Some people think it’s David who wrote it, since it shares some elements of language from Davidic psalms; there’s no way to know for sure, and it doesn’t matter. Regardless of who wrote this psalm, it paints a picture of what godly maturity looks like. This is what it looks like to be faithful over the long haul.

We see the psalmist exhibiting three habits, three characteristics, and this is where we’ll spend our time: we see remembrance of the past, steadiness in the present, and hope in the future.

Remembrance of the Past (v. 1-6)

The psalm begins with a kind of prayer of invocation—an opening plea for God to come to his help. V. 1:

In you, O Lord, do I take refuge;

let me never be put to shame!

2  In your righteousness deliver me and rescue me;

incline your ear to me, and save me!

3  Be to me a rock of refuge,

to which I may continually come;

you have given the command to save me,

for you are my rock and my fortress.

So we don’t know exactly what this man is going through, but we know he needs help. He’s asking for God to deliver him, to listen to him, to save him, to protect him. Many psalms begin this way.

What makes this psalm different is the grounds for his prayer—the reason why he feels confidence to pray it.

V. 4:

4  Rescue me, O my God, from the hand of the wicked,

from the grasp of the unjust and cruel man.

5  For [so here’s the grounds for his prayer] you, O Lord, are my hope,

my trust, O Lord, from my youth.

6  Upon you I have leaned from before my birth;

you are he who took me from my mother’s womb.

My praise is continually of you.

The reason why the psalmist feels confidence to pray for God’s protection and help is because God has been a constant in his life for as long as he can remember. In other words, he sees God as his home, not as a hardware store. He doesn’t dip in and out, coming to God when he needs help and then continuing his own way. God is his rock and his fortress, he said in v. 3, his hope and his trust ever since his youth.

And in v. 5, he only speaks as far back as his own memory goes; in v. 6, he goes beyond that, saying that God was enough to support him even when he was in the womb. God was with him at conception, he was with him at birth, and he has been with him every day since.

We all understand why this should make a difference. We’ve all been lost and had to ask directions. How do we do it? We say things like, “Sorry to bother you, but would you mind helping me?” We call on people, without having any assurance they’ll actually be able to help us, and we apologize for inconveniencing them.

That is very different from the way we ask a close friend, or a member of our family for help. In those cases, we turn to them because we know they’re dependable, and we don’t hesitate, because we know they love us.

Our past relationship with a person is vital to our present relationship with them. Who are the people you turn to when you’re most in need? We turn to the people we know are dependable, because they’ve been dependable in the past. If we’re feeling shame, we turn to the people who have been confronted with our shame and not despised us for it, but loved us. If we’re feeling fear, we turn to the people who have comforted us.

So the first step to Christian maturity we see here is simple: remember the past.

If you’ve been a Christian for a while, take a regular trip down the proverbial Memory Lane; think often about God’s goodness to you in the past—those times when it seemed like everything was falling apart, and God helped you make it through. The way that he drew you to him and saved you. We take Communion every week because it is a constant reminder of our baptism—a reminder that the Covenant that God has made with his people, which we celebrated on the day of our baptism, is still in effect today. Keep a tally of God’s past graces to you. Write them down even, and keep that list in a place where you can return to it easily and often. Remember.

And let me add this: since a lot of you are young, you may not feel like you’ve got a lot to put on that list, because you haven’t had that many years with God at your side; the psalmist talks about God being with him from his youth, but you’re still in your youth. If that’s the case, it’s okay. These past graces are sort of like ballast in a boat, the weight that keeps it from capsizing when waves get high; this kind of spiritual ballast takes time to build up. Start keeping track of these things now, and build on it as the years continue. (And if you need help knowing where to start, Psalm 103 is a great place—it’s what’s true of all of us, whether we’ve known Christ for fifty years or five minutes.)

That’s the first step: remember the past.

Steadiness in the Present (v. 7-16)

The next sign of maturity we see in the psalmist is steadiness in the present…despite all the reasons he may have for wavering.

7  I have been as a portent to many,

but you are my strong refuge.

8  My mouth is filled with your praise,

and with your glory all the day.

9  Do not cast me off in the time of old age;

forsake me not when my strength is spent.

10  For my enemies speak concerning me;

those who watch for my life consult together

11  and say, “God has forsaken him;

pursue and seize him,

for there is none to deliver him.”

12  O God, be not far from me;

O my God, make haste to help me!

13  May my accusers be put to shame and consumed;

with scorn and disgrace may they be covered

who seek my hurt.

14  But I will hope continually

and will praise you yet more and more.

15  My mouth will tell of your righteous acts,

of your deeds of salvation all the day,

for their number is past my knowledge.

16  With the mighty deeds of the Lord God I will come;

I will remind them of your righteousness, yours alone.

So we can see a sort of back and forth between two things here. The first is the situation he finds himself in. There are people coming after him, because they see his age and the strength that is failing him, and they’re thinking, Now’s the time. Go after him. He’s weak, God is gone. That’s what’s happening; that’s what he can see.

But he won’t stop at what he can see. Because of what we saw before—his knowledge of God’s faithfulness in the past—he knows where to turn for help in the present. He doesn’t let himself get flustered by the things he sees, because he knows where his strength comes from.

This is why he praises God. This is why he asks God (v. 9) not to cast him off in his old age, when his own strength is spent. That’s why he asks God (v. 12) to hurry to help him. That’s why (v. 14) he hopes continually in God, and praises him even more, proclaiming God’s righteous acts (v. 15-16).

His knowledge of God’s faithfulness in the past has made him steady in the present. Parents experience this when they first have kids. If you’re a parent, you’ll probably remember the first time you changed a diaper, or the first time you gave your baby a bath. It’s terrifying. Those things are slippery, and they wiggle, and you’re so scared of killing them that you do a horrible job. (Poor Jack was blue by the time we finished giving him his first bath, because we were so careful, we took way too long.) But you keep at it, and eventually you start to understand how things work. You learn where to hold them so they won’t slip, how to get the diaper closed easily and quickly. Before long, you’re doing it without even thinking about it. Experience makes you steady.

Experience outside of God can do that too, but not for the same reason (and it can also have the opposite effect: if you have bad experiences, you can become fearful). The psalmist is steady because he knows that he cannot do this on his own, and he knows that God can, and God will. His experience of God has given him confidence that God truly is trustworthy. So he doesn’t fear when the same things happen again; he knows what to do. He knows to turn to his God for help, and keep proclaiming his righteous acts, because God has proven himself to him in the past.

Again, for those who are young this can be difficult. We may not be very steady in the present—we may waver and be full of doubt—because we haven’t had enough experience with God to feel that full confidence. So what do you need?

First, you need to pray that God would help you grow from your experience, help you see his hand at work in the ordinary trials of life.

And second, you need to surround yourself with older Christians, who can help steady you. Nothing is more calming in a storm than being with someone who isn’t afraid of it—who has been through it before (or other situations like it), and who knows how to remind us of what is true. So surround yourselves with older Christians. Spend a lot of time with them. Impose yourselves on them—seriously. A young man did that with me last year—asked me if we could meet for lunch, and then asked if we could meet up regularly, because he felt he needed it. I loved that. Of course, I can’t do that with everyone, but that’s the right initiative. Find someone older—it doesn’t have to be a pastor—and ask them if you can spend time with them, to talk or read the Bible together, or even just to be there, to observe them and learn from them. Get a first-hand experience of what it looks like for a mature Christian to weather difficult times.

And if you happen to be one of these older Christians, there’s a specific call here for you (and for me too—the older I get the more I realize I’m really bad at this): be that support for your younger brothers and sisters. Often they may not dare come to you, because no matter what you tell them, they don’t want to impose. So invite them in. Seek them out. Put your arm around their shoulders and invite them to walk with you. They need you.

Hope in the Future (v. 17-24)

So in this psalm we see the psalmist’s maturity manifested through remembrance of the past; steadiness in the present; and lastly, through hope in the future. And his hope here is different than it is in many other texts, because it is not the hope of heaven. The psalmist’s hope here is the truth that despite his old age, his work is not finished yet. There is still more to be done. V. 17:

17  O God, from my youth you have taught me, he says,

and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds.

18  So even to old age and gray hairs,

O God, do not forsake me,

until I proclaim your might to another generation,

your power to all those to come.

19  Your righteousness, O God,

reaches the high heavens.

You who have done great things,

O God, who is like you?

20  You who have made me see many troubles and calamities

will revive me again;

from the depths of the earth

you will bring me up again.

21  You will increase my greatness

and comfort me again.

We have to note that the psalmist’s prayer that God would protect him and revive him and raise him up from his troubles is not self-centered. When he proclaims that God will increase his greatness in his old age, he’s not talking about greatness for himself. He’s made it very clear that his goal, the center of his vision, is God alone—God’s power, God’s goodness, God’s faithfulness. These are the things he’s living to talk about, still, as an old man. And God’s faithfulness to glorify his own name, to show himself to the world as the great God he is, motivates the psalmist’s prayer that God would not let him simply flounder in his old age, not let him sit idly by, collecting seashells while he waits for death to come.

Because God is faithful to glorify his own name, the psalmist knows that God will give him strength to continue the work that he has pursued all his life. We don’t know what that work was, exactly. We don’t know if the psalmist was a priest or a Levite or simply a faithful Israelite. But we do know his goal, and that goal was to make God’s name known to those around him, and to those who would come after him.

This is what we see in the concluding verses of the psalm: continual praise to God, despite the psalmist’s obvious troubles, so that others might know how good God is to his people. V. 22:

22  I will also praise you with the harp

for your faithfulness, O my God;

I will sing praises to you with the lyre,

O Holy One of Israel.

23  My lips will shout for joy,

when I sing praises to you;

my soul also, which you have redeemed.

24  And my tongue will talk of your righteous help all the day long,

for they have been put to shame and disappointed

who sought to do me hurt.

He counts on God’s justice in regards to those people who seek to do him harm, and fixes his eyes on his objective, the purpose of his life: to celebrate the God of his salvation and proclaim his goodness and faithfulness every day of his life, until the end.

I’ve thought a lot over the last few weeks about how this psalm might sound to many of you. Many of you are still decades from retirement; old age seems to be the furthest thing from your mind.

But it is coming. I’m not that old—I’m forty-two—but one shocking thing that everyone knows but no one believes until it happens to them is that the years go by incredibly fast. I feel like I was twenty years old last week. I was talking to Loanne a couple weeks ago about the little things we don’t notice when we look in the mirror, until we do: I’ve got gray in my beard, and it’s slowly creeping into my hair. I’m getting tiny wrinkles in front of my ears, which is one thing I’ve always noticed in older men. It’s happening.

It will happen to all of us. And if it doesn’t, it’s because you died young—that happens to a lot of people too, though no one believes it can happen to them. I thought a lot about our friend Edouard Nelson during our vacation, because the anniversary of his death in a climbing accident came while we were doing what he was doing when he died: enjoying time with our family in the mountains. Rock climbing with his kids, slipped, hit his head…and that was that. It can happen in an instant.

So the question in the back of our minds at all times—the question I know was in Edouard’s mind all the time—should be this: What is my goal during this day, these hours, these minutes, that I have in front of me? Notice I didn’t say, What should my vocation be? There are reasons to ask God if he’s calling us to be pastors or missionaries or to serve in the church in specific ways—but that’s not what the psalmist is laying out here. He’s getting at the why of our lives—what am I living for?

The psalmist is living to proclaim God’s goodness and faithfulness and might, so that the people around him and the people who come after him might know who God is, and worship him and proclaim him in turn to others.

This psalm will speak to you in a particular way if you’re getting older. But it should also be a help for those of you who are younger, because the psalmist’s goal should be your goal. No matter how much work you do in your life for Christ, there is always more work to be done. There will always be people in your orbit who do not know Christ, who have never heard the good news of the gospel. There will always be people around you who don’t know that their sin deserves God’s righteous judgment, and that Christ came to take that sin and to die in our place, and that if we place our faith in him we can be declared righteous by God, and freed from the judgment we deserve.

So why are you living your life the way you are? What is your life for? What is your family for? What is your home for? What are your relationships for? These questions are never irrelevant, whether you’re ten years old or twenty years old or eighty years old. If you’re young, then you have the opportunity to decide—while you still, Lord willing, have time ahead of you—that your life will be devoted to making Christ known.

I understand why that may sound like a burden, but it’s not. This psalm begins with prayer that God will deliver the psalmist from trouble. But it ends on an overwhelmingly joyful note. The work that is still in front of the psalmist is not a burden, but a joy. Because he knows he is doing that for which God created him. He knows why he is here. He knows that nothing else he could do with his life would be as worthwhile or as eternally satisfying as living it for him.

And if you’re one of the few older people in this church—let’s say, my age or older—these questions should be more pressing than ever. We’ve seen our lives shrink. If God doesn’t take us before old age does, we have maybe half our lives left? Maybe less?

What will that time be for? What will our retirement be for?

We always talk to single people about 1 Corinthians 7, where Paul tells them that their singleness is a gift, because they are not distracted by the burden of worrying about their families—they have all the time and space they need to devote their lives one hundred percent to God.

If retirement had existed in the time of Paul, I am convinced he would have said something very similar about those years. Retirement is a wonderful thing—because now, we are unburdened by a job and free to devote our lives more completely than ever to the kingdom of God. What does that look like? There are a million possibilities, but at the very least, it looks like doing what the psalmist is doing: proclaiming God’s goodness and faithfulness to the generations that come after us. It looks like investing in the young, coming alongside them and helping them see why living for Christ is better, and how to do it.

No matter how old we are, no matter where in life we find ourselves, there is always more to do. And doing it for the right reason—no matter what the circumstance—is what Christian maturity looks like.

How do we do it?

We remember God’s faithfulness in the past; we lean on the truth of the faithfulness of God in the gospel for steadiness in the present; and we count on God’s faithfulness in the future, to give us what we need to finish well.

This is the trajectory of the Christian life, from birth to death. This is how we live well. This is how we waste nothing.