Young Men and Sore Hips

What can you learn when you are disabled from exercise because of an aggravated Piriformis muscle that sends shooting pain down your leg, and into your back and hips?

Well, I am learning that my strength is limited, and it’s not go go go all in my own power. And I’m learning that exercise can be a pride issue, namely, in not acknowledging that I am weak, limited in energy, and in need of rest. And being injured has made me ponder how my arrogance led to the injury in the first place, particularly in disregarding rest (which is really an attempt to be like God).  

“He does not faint or grow weary… even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted” (Isaiah 40:28, 30).

God does not get tired and need rest, but in humility I must acknowledge that I do. In the meantime, I get to experience a small dose of the price for my arrogance every time I have to use ice or a heat pad, and every time I feel intense pain in my hips and gluteus maximus while sitting in a chair.

Unlike most old men, young men must be shown that their strength is limited. Sore hips do the trick nicely.

An unruly spirit

After exhorting his hearers that we must “trust [God] in all conditions and times, for all things that we stand in need of, until that time comes, wherein we shall stand in need of nothing,” because “as the same care of God moved him to save us, and to preserve us in the world till we be put in possession of salvation; so the same faith relies upon God for heaven and all necessary provision till we come [there],” Richard Sibbes makes this profound comment: 

“The unruliness of a natural spirit is never discovered more, than when God defers” (Sibbes, The Soul’s Conflict with Itself, vol. 1, p. 215). 

In the necessities of life, God ordains things so that we are dependent upon Him. But Sibbes’ point cuts to my heart—a statement that can be paraphrased this way: 

“When we get what we want, we seem content and obedient. But when God doesn’t immediately give us what we want and we throw an extended temper tantrum, it reveals the disobedience that was already in our heart. We become restless when we don’t get what we want.” 

I find myself here often. I think it’s the same place Adam and Esau found themselves, namely, desiring the pleasure of food over the pleasure of knowing and obeying God. I want and do not get, so I pout, spew venomous words, and do exactly what I know I’m not supposed to do. We find out about the rebellion that is in our hearts most when God says no. 

For this I deserve hell—the eternal outpouring of God’s full and furious wrath against me. But here’s where I stand amazed: not only did Christ die for this sin, but He obeyed the Father exactly where I have failed, earning my good standing before God. He stood condemned in my place so that I could stand accepted before the Father. Here’s one example. 

In John 4, while the disciples were driven by hunger into town to get some food after a long journey, Jesus remained at a well in Samaria where He proceeded to turn an adulterous woman into a worshiper of the Living God. For Jesus, the spiritual nourishment of obeying His Father exceeded the pleasure He could have derived from eating a meal. That’s why He said, “I have food to eat that you do not know about… My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work” (Jn. 4:32, 34). 

And then it strikes you: like Adam and Esau, the disciples chose food over obedience. But Christ chose obedience over food, which means that my obedience—what God sees now when He looks on me—is perfect. God no longer looks on me and sees my choosing food or sex or earthly things over Him; instead, because of the life and death of Christ in my place, He sees perfect obedience. 

So the prayer is not, ‘Help me to obey so that I can be accepted before God.’ Instead, it’s ‘Thank you that Christ died for my sin of disobedience, and that He obeyed perfectly. Thank you that you have united me to Him by faith; help me, since I am one with Christ, to become what I already am: someone who chooses the pleasure of God over everything else.‘

Needy is the Best Place to Be

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.

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.