The past week has really knocked me to my knees, and forced me to return to the foot of the cross in desperation, by no strength of my own. My thoughts have owned me. Anxiety has stalked me, and disappointment in disguise pretended to be my best friend. Even my dreams were taking me captive to sin. My hands were gripping and clinging to familiar idols, painfully begging that they bring me some sort of satisfaction. Funny how that never works, and yet I still do it. I think the mix of exhaustion, stress, and inevitable change in my life has helped the emotional rollercoaster stay on its dangerous and nauseating track. God must be tired of this routine. Then I remember that God never tires in pursuing us, which brings about a whole new sense of worship/praise/unbelief and its resulting flood of tears. He is so gracious to be patient with me as he once again pries my tired fingers from their death grip around whatever idol is taking its precedence that day.
So today--this morning on my run, I listened to my favorite sermon. It’s by John Piper and it’s from Passion 2006. It is a 3 part series, and I try and listen to it at least once a month. Here is what I gained from it:
Our passion should be that Christ would be magnified, honored, glorified in our lives…that He would be made much of by the way that we live. We should make Christ LOOK REALLY GOOD with our lives, and like Paul says in Philippians, that’s whether we live or whether we die. “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is GAIN.” The last part…the dying part…that is the shocking part. Death is gain? Piper explains that: “Christ shines in [Paul’s] dying. Because when Paul dies he basically says: ‘when I loose EVERYTHING on earth, my family, my wealth, my reputation, my health…when I lose it ALL, I say GAIN.’ When that happens in a hospital room or on a battlefield in Iraq…PEOPLE SEE CHRIST AS VALUABLE above life. When that happens, oh how BIG Christ looks, how massive, how gloriously triumphant over death He looks! Christ is seen to be satisfying a soul more deeply, more intensely than anything life offers can satisfy it. Christ, God Almighty, is glorified in our dying, when WE are satisfied in Christ in our dying. The implications for your life are unspeakably great if you believe that.”
So basically…Christ is worth more than anything in this life, and the only thing that can EVER satisfy us fully. His trademark slogan that God is most glorified in you when you are most satisfied in Him helps to make sense of it. He says that when you live in a way that God satisfies you more than ANYTHING in this life, THEN he is seen as the most glorious thing in the world. Therefore we should pursue our satisfaction/joy in Christ alone. He goes on to say:
“Therefore you should, SHOULD—this is demand here—devote yourself with all your mind, all your heart, and all your strength to pursuing your joy/satisfaction in God. You should pursue the enlargement and the intensification and the deepening of your joy so hard, that THAT JOY in Christ can be shaken by NO PAIN, and can be competed with by NO PLEASURE. That’s your goal. This is massively life changing, and very biblical. God is most glorified in you, when you are most satisfied in Him.
Therefore you SHOULD all day, every day, pursue your maximum and eternal JOY. So that you are not deluded by the alternative competing pleasures of this world that will make your life WORTHLESS WITH HAPPINESS in the wrong place. Prepare yourself for suffering, DRIVEN BY JOY. You are commanded by the bible to be happy in GOD. You are not suggested to be happy, you are not told that it would be an inadvertent result of other things that you do by way of duty, you are COMMANDED TO BE HAPPY IN GOD. Psalm 100: “Serve the Lord with gladness.”
I have heard this sermon probably 20 times, and yet this is still astounding to me. God knows that the only thing that will satisfy our pathetic, desperate hearts is HIM. And so He gives us Himself. The most loving act ever committed. The most gracious act. God showed me again that He is worth infinitely more than anything else that I pursue. The part that really brought tears to my eyes is when he said that we should “pursue our maximum and eternal joy so that we are not deluded by the alternative competing pleasures of this world that will make your life WORTHLESS WITH HAPPINESS in the wrong place.” I think this statement is baffling, and yet it makes perfect sense. We can have temporary satisfaction in a lot of things on this earth, but they will never fill the void in our hearts.
And so all of this to say, the command of the bible is to pursue our own joy. How great is that? And in case you didn’t catch this point: your maximum joy is found in Christ alone. Pursue him with everything you’ve got. It is infinitely and eternally worth it.
So today I left my phone at home on purpose. I just wanted to be away from everything. Just wanted to be where I was. I ran and then I went to the pool with Laura and Becca and laid out for something around 5 hours. We did our bible study. We got some Vitamin D, and a little too much sun. We played and played forever in the pool, every game you can think of. We acted like 7 year olds. We did cannon balls. We laughed hysterically. We talked about real stuff. We talked about stupid stuff. We talked about popping zits and which ones were ready and which were not. We talked about summer. We prayed for each other. We were happy…genuinely happy, and not distracted by anything or anyone just for those 5 hours. We experienced community in the Lord. I love those two.
Today I was joyful in God. I was happy in Him and following the command of His Word. Today I released my grip on idols that always leave me unsatisfied, and was not consumed by them. Today my thoughts were healthy. Today things seemed right. Today GOD was magnified in my living. Praise HIS NAME, for it is HIS GRACE that brought about today.
“Because of the Lord’s great love, WE ARE NOT CONSUMED, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness!” –Lamentations 3:22-23
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