The Glory of His Grace

While the world continues on its kick about self-autonomy, independence, and self-reliant living, Jesus turns the world upside down. Instead, it’s those who realize their desperate need and who go to Jesus that are truly happy. 

The two blind men in Matthew 20, fully aware of their desperate need of Christ, cry out more and more in the face of a taunting, rebuking crowd. 

“Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David!” The crowd rebuked them, telling them to be silent, but they cried out all the more” (vv. 30-31).

The men’s plea for mercy shows that they knew that God didn’t owe them anything, but rather, that they could only ask on the ground of His generosity. They are aware of their need, and they are aware of Christ’s power.  

The question is, what makes a person bold in approach to Christ in the face of ridicule—fearless of what man may say or think or do to him? 

The answer is desperate need coupled with knowledge of one’s own wretchedness before God and confidence in the gracious character of God (Ps. 145:8-9). The blind men were fearless about the crowd because they knew how helplessly sick and diseased they were, and they knew that Jesus could heal them. 

Men dying of cancer don’t delay in going to the doctor, no matter what others say. 

So, turning the world on its head, Jesus blesses those who know they are needy, who know that they can’t merit God’s salvation, and who trust that God is gracious to give them abundantly all that they desire. 

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:3).

Needy is the best place to be before a generous and loving God whose blessing we can never earn.

There are those times when, despite the use of God-appointed means, joy seems to tarry. Darkness hovers all about us, and there is a serious threat to our souls that we stop doing what is clearly our duty to do. 

How do we press on when joy escapes us? We think and pray like the psalmist: 

“Restore our fortunes, O LORD, like streams in the Negeb! Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy! He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him” (Psalm 126:4-6). 

The real question in view is, ‘How do we plow and sow the seed of the Word in our hearts in seasons when heart work is tremendously hard work?’ Clearly our hearts need the work, for without breaking up the fallow ground or planting the seeds of the Word, there will be no rich harvest of joy in God. But what do we do when that work doesn’t seem to be producing any fruit? 

We listen to Scripture in faith. We keep sowing, and we keep plowing through the fields of our hearts, all the while with tears streaming down our brokenhearted faces, knowing that God has promised: as you keep laboring over your heart according to Scripturally appointed means, God will bring joy. 

Yes, there are times when it seems like all the work we do in our hearts is coming to nothing. But, ultimately, God who dwells richly in us through His Spirit will produce a harvest of righteousness through sanctification. So we don’t hide our sorrow. Instead, we keep on sowing, trusting in God’s promise: He who goes out weeping and sowing will come home with shouts of joy. 

There is a dark night, but there is always the light of the morning. 

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). 

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). 

In preparation for some pastoral work this summer in Boulder, Colorado, I have been collecting and reading (or re-reading) some great books on the pastorate and the work of the preacher. They are all books that I would say are “life-changing.” On the list are Between Two Worlds, Preaching and Preachers, The Supremacy of God and Preaching, The Cross of Christ, The Reformed Pastor, and The Cross and Christian Ministry.

Much to my surprise, however, what’s been radically impacting my life isn’t input from some of the best preachers and pastors in Christian history. Rather, it’s been the best Preacher in the universe—Christ Himself.

Really it just shows my pride. In my desire to make something of myself I gathered a bunch of books, compiling the “perfect” list that would equip me for the job. What I’ve been finding, instead, is that only God can equip, and He does it by faith, not by my works. I think what I really wanted was to make myself a good pastor and then boast about it. I would say God looks on and laughs, but when I read how the LORD killed Nadab and Abihu for trying to add to His works (Lev. 10:1-3), I don’t think it’s laughter He feels.

In the midst of all of this, the LORD has been showing me a radically different kind of preparation—not about preaching, catechizing, counseling, or even passion in the pulpit—no, in His great love, the LORD has been teaching me poverty of spirit, mourning over my sin, meekness, and (thus far) the hunger for His righteousness (Matt. 5:3-6). Sinclair Ferguson writes,

“Our greatest temptation and mistake is to try to smuggle character into his work of grace. How easily we fall into the trap of assuming that we remain justified only so long as there are grounds in our character for that justification” (The Christian Life, pp. 82-83).

So, while there are many great books to be read, and many great preachers to learn from, there is one Preacher who demands my attention, and He has preached perhaps the greatest sermon of all time at the Mount (and it’s shredding my Pharisaic heart right now!). He is calling me always back to the first thing, that Christ died for my sins (1 Cor. 15:3). 

Once again, I have found that the first and most important thing has become the easiest to forget. But by God’s grace, He never lets His children make it very far from the cross. And now that’s where I find myself, ashamed at the wickedness of my sin and awake to the fact that God Saves Sinners, of which I am the foremost. What a Savior.

So this blog begins where I begin: a great sinner in need of a Greater Savior.