Hope for the 11th Hour

Ever feel like it’s no use to keep fighting the fight of faith? John Piper had some encouraging thoughts today on the Desiring God blog about God’s deliverance in the last hour, and the importance of hoping till the end. 

Day 3: The Lord Carries us Home

Welcome home. After nine months away from Colorado, we finally made it back—1170 miles, one smiley baby, and a year of seminary in the books. It feels like we never left, and yet it feels like we’ve been gone for years.

If there was a passage of Scripture that hangs as a banner over the last year, it is Isaiah 46:

“Listen to me, O house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been borne by me from before your birth, carried from the womb; even to your old age I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save” (vv. 3-4). 

God has carried us. In Colorado, He carried us. To Kentucky, He carried us. And now He has carried us back again. If anything it speaks of the covenant faithfulness of the Lord, and His sovereign rule over the events of our lives in every state, city, and country. God sets the times and periods of our dwelling (Acts 17:26), and He carries His people, for His glory.

And, being in Colorado, what do you do but go for a walk in the wide-open, blue-skied, far-as-you-can-see, awe-inspiring nature of God’s creation? Even the little boy enjoyed a first-time trip in a backpack. 

And he conquered his first set of stairs with ease at the grandparent’s house—his first Colorado adventure. 

Finally, as we make a temporary stop to a temporary home, I can’t help but ache in my heart for my final home with Christ, when I shall see His glory face to face. Ultimately we walk into suffering, because we seek not the gain of Louisville, nor Boulder, but the city that is to come. 

“Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come” (Hebrews 13:13-14). 

Day 2: The Freaky Eyeball

After a long, smooth day of travel, our son was about to fall asleep in the car. He was rubbing his eyes like crazy as Daddy put him in his seat. And then he started screaming like a banshee. He wouldn’t open his right eye, and I thought he might have got something spicy in it from dinner. 

And then I tried to open the eye, only to find that his eyelid had curled in on itself and was restricting him from opening his eye. It was freaky. My biggest mistake was in showing my wife, who let out a loud yelp and took 10 steps back from the car in anguish and horror, her hands clasping her mouth. The next thing I heard was a lady’s voice from the car a few spaces over, “Ma’am, is everything alright?” 

With my wife in hysteria, I did all I could do—I peeled the eye back to its normal position, wiped the stream of tears from my son’s face, and tried to get my wife to calm down and get into the car. Priceless.

Second Best

The other priceless moment of the trip came somewhere in Kansas City, when we were listening to a message by C.J. Mahaney, a pastor from Maryland, ask a group of pastors, “Are you a joyful pastor?” My wife turned to my son, then screaming, and said, rather therapeutically, “Son, are you joyfully sitting in your car seat?” Priceless moment number two. 

Where does tolerance lead?

After the removal of Ward Churchill from the University of Colorado, Boulder, I couldn’t help but notice an article in the Denver Post today about how the university is trying to pursue “intellectual diversity.” Most interesting, however, is not the political malay, but the evidence about where “tolerance theory” leads.

For a college that champions diversity, it’s interesting that the actual makeup of the student body and faculty is remarkably uniform in composition. Read the article for yourself. Ask yourself this question: why is it that those who promote diversity apart from the gospel of Jesus Christ actually get farthest from it? It seems those who pursue tolerance as an end in itself never reach it. 

The ultimate “diversity” is only possible through the coming kingdom of Jesus Christ, which is described in the Book of Revelation—a kingdom in which one truth is embraced by a redeemed people and everyone bows the knee in praise and song forever to Jesus Christ: 

Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth (Rev. 5:9-10). 

Day 1 of the Roadtrip

Day one complete. Just about 410 miles of driving. Two sub sandwiches, an hour and a half worth of rest stops, and a sleepy baby. A quick stop at the Lifeway Campus bookstore before we set out for a much needed book (more about that later). A priceless day with the family. 

We loaded down the car which, much to our delight, meant that we couldn’t bring everything we owned with us. It’s actually kind of nice being parted (if only temporarily) from our stuff. There’s a freedom that comes with losing everything. Especially when you listen to John Piper preach about following Christ into suffering.

And, at the end of the day, my son was happy to be out of his car seat and equally excited to roam around the hotel room. 

 

Wherein Lies the Problem

With amazing insight and searing exposition of biblical texts, J.C. Ryle’s volume on Holiness is a breath of fresh, Scriptural air in an age of selfishness that has left the modern church, and the Christian, trapped in its own nightmare of repulsive sin.

As I reflect on the last few days in which I’ve loaded boxes, driven half way around Louisville, and spent a lot of time in the company of others—away from the regular silence and solitude I enjoy—one thing has become glaringly obvious: I am more sinful than I thought.

It’s easy to treat my own wounds lightly, to soft-pedal my own sins and to say, in essence, ‘Oh, you’re not that bad.’ And it doesn’t work. Ryle makes the point perfectly with an illustration about a boy:

“Of all the foolish things that parents say about their children, there is none worse than the common saying, “My son has a good heart at the bottom. He is not what he ought to be; but he has fallen into bad hands. Public schools are bad places. The tutors neglect the boys. Yet he has a good heart at the bottom.” The truth, unhappily, is diametrically the other way. The first cause of all sin lies in the natural corruption of the boy’s own heart, and not in the school” (Holiness, p. 4).  

The problem isn’t with my busy schedule. It’s not with the limited amount of time to spend with God. And it isn’t because I’m tired or because I’m not in my own house. It isn’t even because there’s been more pressure lately. It’s because of my heart. The first cause of all sin lies in this boy’s heart. 

Sojourners Still

With a loaded down Honda Fit, a full storage area, and a sparkling clean (and empty) apartment, we are ready to head across the country, again. We know this feeling. It’s called dog tired. I think my son’s take on the day pretty much says it well for all of us. 

Every time we load up our apartment I wish we just got rid of everything except a duffle bag full of clothes and the vehicles, maybe some plastic plates and cups. In any case, I’m thankful to God after today—thankful for the friends who helped us pack, and thankful for a God who carries us (Isaiah 46:3-4). And I’m thankful for a wife who smiles, even after a day like this. 

We don’t deserve God’s overwhelming mercy, but not only do we receive new mercies each day, we receive eternal mercy in Christ from which flow all other mercies. I’m glad to be a treasured possession of God today. Tired, exhausted, weary—He is greater when I am weaker. He is carrying us. 

10 Things I’m Grateful for Today (in no order)

1. My friends, Dan and Danny, who helped immensely with moving furniture
2. My wife, who is ever patiently enduring 
3. The weather, which was very cool and mild 
4. My son, who is much cuter sleeping than screaming and fussing 
5. People to sublease our apartment 
6. Dan and his wife, who are giving us a place to stay 
7. Being in Louisville today, and not hell  
8. Fred, the guy at the storage place, whose friendliness is like a cool breeze on a hot day
9. A church in Colorado that’s worth moving for
10. A Savior who is carrying all of us, who shed His blood to make us His own. What a Savior. 

Hebrew Notecards, Together 4 the Gospel

As we pack up our apartment after the first year of seminary en route to Boulder, Colorado, I couldn’t help looking at the stack of notecards that has so graciously adorned the left corner of my desk for the past year. When I look at them, I think of the many hours of study, frustration, and yes, tears. 

But, though the roots of language study were bitter, the fruit is already sweet. My loving wife penned this note early in the fall, and it has stuck with me ever since. It was a much needed and constant reminder.

 

And, finally, I was encouraged by our Hebrew professor, Peter Gentry, that when you go to the Together 4 the Gospel Conference, remember that doing your Hebrew is an essential part of teaching them all that Jesus commanded (Matt. 28:20). It was a good reminder—when you’re parsing verbs and rooting around in a lexicon, you are just as much doing gospel work as when you’re standing on a street corner. Hebrew notecards, meet here for Together 4 the Gospel. 

Bearded Friendly Blogging in the Land of Lincoln

In the desire to honor a long line of men who wore facial hair proudly and honored Christ with their bold proclamation of His gospel, this blog is whole-heartedly bearded friendly. We honor the preaching of such men as Charles Spurgeon and George Muller when we wear the beard, and wear it proudly. So, for all those who lug their beard into the pulpit with grandeur and the doctrines of grace (minus Lincoln, maybe, but it’s Lincoln!), this one goes to you. 

George, doing preachers of the gospel right around the world; Muller invented the Emerging haircut!

 

Spurgeon, classic. He didn’t invent the beard, but I think he invented preaching. 

Sibbes, my man! Not so sure about the hat.

Perkins, the innovater! 

And of course, Lincoln, who invented the beard. Or re-invented it. 

Wear the beard. Preach Christ. Help people see the infinite worth of the character of God in the substitutionary death of Jesus. 

The Greatest News in the World

For those who consider themselves as nothing, renouncing every form of selfishness and pride, who mourn for their sin, who consider others of more importance, and for those who feel the hunger pains of yearning to be made into the image of the holy God and unlike the character of our indwelling sin (Matt. 5:3-6), this is the best news in the world. It is, as Martyn Lloyd-Jones writes, the heart of the gospel:

“To hunger and thirst really means to be desperate, to be starving, to feel life is ebbing out, to realize my urgent need of help… Let us look briefly at what is promised to those who are like that… ‘They shall be filled’, they shall be given what they desire. The whole gospel is there. That is where the gospel of grace comes in; it is entirely the gift of God. You will never fill yourself with righteousness, you will never find blessedness apart from Him. To obtain this, ‘all the fitness He requireth, is to see your need of Him’, nothing more” (Sermon on the Mount, p. 68).

ML-J goes on about the reality of justification in the life of one such believer:

“If you believe on that cross He was dying for you and for your sin, you have been forgiven; you have no need to ask for forgiveness, you have been forgiven… the righteousness of Christ is imputed to you. God looks at you in the righteousness of Christ and He no longer sees the sin. He sees you as a sinner whom He has forgiven… The Christian, therefore, should always be a man who knows that his sins are forgiven. He should not be seeking it, he should know that he has it, that he is justified in Christ freely by the grace of God, that he stands righteous at this moment in the presence of the Father” (Sermon on the Mount, p. 69). 

This blessed truth—that we are justified in Christ apart from anything we do—is the freedom of the Christian to pursue holiness, knowing that it is freely given to him. He pursues it not as a wage, but as a gift. 

“The Christian is one who at one and the same time is hungering and thirsting, and yet he is filled. And the more he is filled the more he hungers and thirsts. That is the blessedness of this Christian life” (Ibid, p. 70).