Why Did God Choose Suffering?

Hebrews 2:10  For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.

     The sufferings of Jesus were an intentional part of the Father's plan, but why? Why did God choose to use suffering to bring about the completion of salvation? Why did God choose suffering as something we must endure to become more like Jesus? Why did God not just eliminate suffering with the initial arrival of Jesus? These are all vital questions that I believe every Christian should know how to respond to in a godly manner. Granted, I believe that a complete answer to this question is impossible to give because we are not God; I do believe we still can know enough about these questions to be confident and assured that God is not a malevolent God who desires for people to suffer and perish. 

     John Owen acknowledges in his commentary on this verse that sufferings of Jesus were one of the biggest stumbling blocks not just for the Jews, but also for the disciples. The Gospels reiterate time and time again that the disciples were slow to believe that Jesus must suffer and ultimately die for our sins (Matthew 16:21-22, 17:22-23, Luke 24:25-26). On the surface, it appears ludicrous and self-defeating to worship a crucified savior. The Jews were in many ways simply expecting an earthly deliverance from Jesus, and today a lot of people in the church are expecting the same thing from Jesus. But when Jesus first appeared on earth His mission was not to eliminate suffering, but his mission was to participate in it for our salvation. Why is this? It seems so strange.

      If God is omnipotent, all-powerful, as the Bible says He is then why would He not eliminate suffering at the first chance He got? What we have to understand as Christians is that God is infinite and His ways are not our ways, but it is still so difficult to attempt to grasp these concepts and to ask these questions. Because God not just leave suffering on this earth, He used suffering to complete the task of salvation and He continues to use suffering to perfect and consecrate believers to this day. Could God have done it any other way? I do not want to limit God, and say no. But I do want to point out that this is an irrelevant question because regardless whether or not if God could have dealt with suffering in a different way He did not. God was intentional in saying that it was fitting for Jesus to suffer, and if it is fitting for Jesus to suffer and if we are called to live like Jesus we can deduce from Scripture that we are also called to suffer. The writer of Hebrews does not just leave us to have to rely upon our own logic either; he eventually tells us that we need to go outside the gate to join with Jesus' sufferings (13:11-13).

    But like I said earlier there are some clues we get through Scripture to help us begin to unravel in our own minds at least part of why God has chosen suffering to have a vital role in our salvation and sanctification. 

1. God is perfectly just. 2 Thessalonians 1:6-7b  God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you  and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well.
2. Since God is perfectly just, He cannot tolerate any sin. Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin (sin is intentionally left as a singular noun) is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord.
3. Since God is just, He demands a payment for sin. Romans 3: 21-26
1. This is made painfully clear throughout the entire Old Testament, and it is why God had to send His own Son to the earth to die in our place. 
2. It would not be just of God to simply forgive our sins. Payment had to be made, so He had to send His only Son because Jesus was the only sinless and wholly righteous candidate.
4. Since God demanded a payment for sin, Jesus had to suffer and ultimately die to complete our salvation. Hebrews 2:10 (stated at the top).
1.  It is is important to understand that the word "perfect" in this text is referring to completion and consecration. The word does not imply that Jesus was not perfect before he died for our sins, but that in so doing for our sins Jesus was set apart as the true founder of our salvation.

      If we can begin to track with these four Biblical truths, we can begin to understand to an extent why for the present time God has chosen for us to endure suffering. The questions can also get more circular and go nowhere if we try and trace it back to the root by asking questions such as, "Why did God allow sin in the first place? Does this make God less holy, perfect, or just?" These are good and valid questions, but not all of these questions can be completely answered from Scripture, and we must never assume things about the nature of God that are not explicitly stated in Scripture otherwise we are prone to impute our characteristics and belief system onto God instead of allowing God to mold our belief system.

     God has chosen suffering because sin had to be dealt with, and sin could only be dealt with by a just punishment. The death of a perfectly righteous man was the only just way to forgive us of our trespasses, to credit us with Christ's righteousness, and also to turn God's wrath from us and His great mercy and love toward us. Like I said earlier, if we as Christians are called to be imitators of Christ, then it logically flows that we must also suffer as Christ suffered. This is why Jesus told us we had to pick up our cross and follow him. Jesus knew where his life was headed. Jesus knew very well what lay ahead of him in Jerusalem, but he still set his face towards that goal because he was looking ahead to the eternal joy like the writers of Hebrews tells us in chapter 12. 

    Jesus suffered to bring us to glory, and as Christians we can take comfort in the fact that we can always know that God will finally eliminate suffering when His Son comes back again. We can take comfort in the fact that suffering for Christians is always intended to make us more like Christ. Even if we do not understand why God chose for us to endure a particular trial or tragedy, we can rest assured in the truth that "all things work out for the good of those who love Him." God has a good sovereign plan for His people, and suffering plays a role in it. 

     I am not saying that I like suffering, or that I would have chosen it to be this way because that is not what matters. What matters is that suffering is a real part of every Christians life just like it was a very real part of Jesus' life. I believe very strongly that God is omnipotent, and if we believe that then we should also believe that God's omnipotence means He could prevent us from all of the suffering we encounter throughout our lives. I do not believe God is surprised or taken aback when we encounter any of our tragedies and trials. And this is why the questions "Why has God allowed this happen to me? Why has God chosen for me to suffer in this way? become so important. Because as Christians we should believe that God could have prevented the suffering, but for whatever reason God has not prevented it and Has required us to live through it in order that we might become more like His Son. 

     Again, I am not trying to limit God and say this is the only reason we suffer as Christians, but it is a reason we can take comfort in. God wants to bring us to glory, and to do so He must make us more like Christ by making us go through things similar to what Christ went through on earth. None of us can imagine the agony the sinless savior of the world went through in Gethsemane as he cried out to His Father, and none of us can imagine the agony of bearing the sins of the world on our shoulders on the cross. Our sufferings are trivial in comparison to the sufferings of Christ, but this does not negate the emotional and physical pain that our sufferings cause us on earth. Our pain and hurt is real and valid, but it is meant to draw us closer to God and to rely on Him and to trust His plan more just as Jesus did. 

    I am not claiming this easy because in reality it is not just hard it is impossible without the Spirit of God within us. We are called to react to suffering with joy as James tells us at the very beginning of his epistle. It does not take long to look out how the world says to deal with suffering to realize that this kind of reaction we are called to is not just strange, but in a lot of ways crazy and nonsensical. Because without Jesus and trust in a sovereign loving God, reacting to suffering with joy is crazy and nonsensical. But as Christians we are not the crazy ones because we trust in a higher power and authority that comes from God the Father. 

     Dealing with suffering in a lot of ways just plain sucks. I know it is not formal or really all that appropriate to put it that way, but we all know it to be true. Suffering is hard and it hurts. It is confusing and frustrating. It can be discouraging and disheartening, but the more we read James we see that it is meant to make us perfect and complete lacking in nothing. Suffering is meant to help us become like Christ. In the end, suffering is good for us. This concept is so foreign and impossible to understand without God, but is part of the truth God tells us about why we suffer as Christians. This does not mean for me personally that I desire suffering because I do not desire suffering any more then the next person, but what it does mean is that we have to reclaim what it means to Biblically react to and live through suffering in our lives. Are we making our suffering about us, or are we making our suffering about glorifying God and His name above all things? This is the question about suffering that we really need to be asking.

In Christ Alone

In Christ alone my hope is found,
He is my light, my strength, my song;
this Cornerstone, this solid Ground,
firm through the fiercest drought and storm.
What heights of love, what depths of peace,
when fears are stilled, when strivings cease!
My Comforter, my All in All,
here in the love of Christ I stand.

In Christ alone! who took on flesh
Fulness of God in helpless babe!
This gift of love and righteousness
Scorned by the ones he came to save:
Till on that cross as Jesus died,
The wrath of God was satisfied -
For every sin on Him was laid;
Here in the death of Christ I live.

There in the ground His body lay
Light of the world by darkness slain:
Then bursting forth in glorious Day
Up from the grave he rose again!
And as He stands in victory
Sin's curse has lost its grip on me,
For I am His and He is mine -
Bought with the precious blood of Christ.

No guilt in life, no fear in death,
This is the power of Christ in me;
From life's first cry to final breath.
Jesus commands my destiny.
No power of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from His hand;
Till He returns or calls me home,
Here in the power of Christ I'll stand.

Does God Want Me To Be Happy?

Colossians 1:15-20 15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven,making peace by the blood of his cross.

     For those of you that know me, you know that I currently my heart is heavy and that my soul is deeply burdened. I have never gone through a situation in my life where I have received so much counsel, and I have definitely never gone through a situation where I have received so much opposing counsel. It is a difficult predicament to be in, but I know that God is good and that His ways are above mine and that I must seek after His ways. I want to share with you all the very difficult lesson that I have been learning lately because I think it is something the people of God need dearly to take to heart. 

      When I study Scripture, I do not see a comprehensive manual that tells us how to make every single decision in our lives. For example, when I decided to become an English major and switch from engineering I did not just flip to 2 Thessalonians and see the answer clearly written. But when I study Scripture what I do see is a story of redemption about God, His glory, and His people. I see a book that teaches us about who God is, who we were, and who we now are in Christ; and it is based on who we now are in Christ that I see Scripture call us to live differently. Our new identities should look different from the old. Our speech should be different, our passions different, and our end purpose different. Ultimately, what I see in Scripture is a story that is not mainly about us, it is a story firstly about God and His majesty and glory. So we as Christians are called to apply all of these new truths about our identity, calling, and purpose in our everyday lives in a way that is biblical and unique to our individual talents.  

     On the contrary, when I look to the world for counsel, I do not see a lot of diversity. The mantra of our day and age seems to be "Do whatever makes you happy." It is a rooted in a deep-seated selfishness born of the flesh. What makes this even worse is that I see people in the church try to take this mantra and fit it into the Christian worldview. By doing such things, they create promises that are not in Scripture by twisting the Word and they pave a well-intentioned road to Hell. I do not see written anywhere in Scripture the promise "God wants you Christian to be happy above all things." This statement and this ideology is garbage not Gospel. It is trash and idolatry. It lifts up our personal wants and desires over the desires of our Holy creator God. In fact, I see a lot of stuff that would contradict that particular promise. Not that I believe God wants us to be miserable. The key text I prefaced this entry with makes clear that we were created through Jesus and for Jesus. We are not our own. 

     I do not write this to condemn Christian brothers and sisters, but I write this to urge us all to reexamine our view of this one essential question, "What is our purpose?" Many Christians have made God's purposes primarily about them and created a new theology all about God's plan ultimately being about their happiness, and they have created a new question we must ask, "Does God want me to be happy?" The bottom line is I believe this to be a misguided question, and a misguided way of thinking. The Church as a whole needs to work to align their teaching and counsel with Scripture, and that is the intent of this blog entry. My goal is that we would refocus our gaze upon Jesus and set our eyes upon the things above and not the things below.

John 16:33 "I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

1 Corinthians 15:19 If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

     Jesus acknowledges that we will encounter sufferings and tribulation, and Paul says if Jesus was not really resurrected that people should pity us. When I think about someone to be pitied, I do not think of someone whose life I would define as happy. I do not believe at all that God wants us to be miserable, but I believe it is very clear in Scripture that God does not make our happiness His highest order of business. Understanding these two texts is essential to reclaiming a biblical understanding of our purpose as Christians. God could have removed the devil from the world and all suffering with the arrival of Jesus, but He chose not to do so. God chose and chooses to use our weaknesses and sufferings to make His name great. We see this reiterated all throughout Scripture, and we do not need to look any further then the life of Paul and thorn in his flesh from 2 Corinthians 12. Jesus tells Paul these very words, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Paul responds by saying he is content with weakness, hardship, and a list of other things we would not associate with happiness. How can all of this be if God is primarily concerned with my happiness? 

     I think part of what makes this lesson so difficult to grasp is that it is so hard for us to understand that God is not obligated to act how we want Him to act. We want to be happy, so we assume God wants the same. But in reality, we should be looking to the Scriptures and seeing what God's desires our so that we can mold our desires after His instead of vice versa. In John 17, we have a recorded prayer of Jesus that explicitly states part of Jesus' desire for Christians and Christians-to-be. I think it is a very beneficial spiritual exercise to study this High Priestly Prayer in John 17 so that we can mold our desires to the desires of Jesus.

John 17:20-26 20 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. 24 Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. 25 O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. 26 I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

      I think this passage of the prayer makes clear at least three things Jesus desires. 1) Jesus desires for believers to have a relationship modeled after his relationship with the Father. 2) Jesus desires this so that the world would believe in him and his Father. 3) Jesus desires us to see him in the fullness of his glory. The only one of these three desires that is remotely about happiness is the third desire, and it is something that transcends way beyond happiness and is better defined by joy. The Bible teaches pretty clearly from the Old Testament on that looking upon the glory of God transforms us more into the image of God, so if we are eternally before the glory of God we will be eternally transformed (2 Cor. 4:18). Jesus desires for us to see him in his glory, so that we can worship him perfectly and in doing so also be perfected by his glory. 

     God's ultimate desire is for us to glorify Him by becoming more like His Son. For us to become more like Jesus, it is inevitable that we go through fierce trials and tribulations. And no matter how fierce our sufferings are it does not negate God's goodness or His love for us. Just look at the life of Job if you need reassurance. I can pretty much guarantee that none of us have gone through as many trials in such a short amount of time as Job did. 

     As Christians the only way we can suffer like Job, is to set our mind on the things that are above and to understand that our citizenship is not in this world. We do not live for the treasures of this world, but by faith we live for the assured and unshakeable promises of the next world. We have to learn like Moses to count the reproach of Christ greater than the treasure of this world. We must be content with going outside the gates of the city to face the reproach because we know we have something greater that no one can take away from us. To live a life like Moses, we must be Scripturally grounded and spiritually disciplined. I encourage you to read all of Hebrews 11 and see just how the writer of Hebrews describes all those heroes of faith. Peter has already told us in his second letter that we have everything we need that pertains to a life and godliness as Christians through the knowledge of Christ, so why are we not living in such a way? 

     Jesus said he came to bring us life that we may have it abundantly, but the problem as Christians is that we do not know what that abundant life is. It is not a life defined by happiness, success, money, and fame. It is a spiritual and eternal life that is grounded in an invisible kingdom. It is a life focused on bringing God glory, and bringing that invisible kingdom to this visible world. We must understand that this abundant life is not primarily about us, but that is primarily about God and His glory. As we pursue God's glory, which is our highest calling, we are transformed more into His image and we experience a joy that this world cannot comprehend or take away from us. As this process unfolds, we learn to say with Paul that sufferings of this world are just light and momentary because we are focused on the joy of the next. 

      Hebrews tells us Jesus endured the cross for the joy set before him (Hebrews 12:1-2). Jesus endured death on the cross for joy. Death on a cross is not a happy thing. If God did not spare His only begotten Son from sufferings, what makes us think that God only desires happiness for us? We are limiting the joy of God when we forfeit pursuing God's glory to pursue the temporal happiness of this world. We must not be too easily pleased, as C.S. Lewis states, with the things this world has to offer. Our purpose is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever. It can only be understood in submission to God, and not the other way around. Our desires do not dictate God's behavior. We must pray to God that we can learn to treasure His joy and glory. above all things.

     The Christian life is difficult because we are not given a road map that tells us every little decision to make, but we are given enough to life of godliness as Peter states. Ultimately, our decisions should be about doing whatever brings God the most glory and not about whatever brings us the most happiness because in the end God's glory is eternal and our happiness is not. We were created by God and for God, so it flows from that our chief purpose is to glorify Him who created and saved us. God will have His glory. Will we be with Him when it is revealed?

      I'm not saying that this is easy, or that I have it all figured out. What I am saying is that our desires need to be God's desires, and the only way we know and learn God's desires is to study His Word. We can never have a high enough view of Scripture or a high enough view of God. I say these things all the time because I forget them just as easily as the next person, but we cannot let this discourage us. Our hearts are prone to wander and deceitful, but we must be obedient and see that our hearts find their rest in God alone. 

Philippians 2:9-11 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Psalm 37:4 Delight yourself in the Lord,

    and he will give you the desires of your heart.

      If we will delight ourselves in God, the desires of our heart will be God's desires. Let this verse and simple truth be our prayer. That we would learn to delight in God, and that we would learn to love and desire what He loves and desires.

Charis

Ephesians 2:1-10  And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us,5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

     Charis is the Greek word we translate to grace throughout the New Testament. Grace is a term that most Christians have heard or hear on a regular basis, but it is a concept and a word that seems to have lost a lot of its depth and meaning in the church today. A large part of our misunderstanding of grace is the sense of entitlement that pervades all aspects of our culture, our American work ethic that says grace is unpractical and unfair, and the other more glaring mistake on our part is that we continually fail to study the Bible as we should. As a result of not being steeped in the word on a daily basis, we in turn impose our beliefs about how grace should function on to God instead of looking to God and Jesus to see the true depth, beauty, and mystery of how grace functions. We are right as Christians to found our life on grace, and to appeal to the grace of God in our difficult circumstances. But when we appeal to the grace of God we must have a functioning biblical understanding of what that grace is. To help us understand grace more I have a list of five questions to work through to help us grasp a more biblical understanding of what the grace of God is, and how we should live in light of that grace.


Q: What is grace?

      This is the most basic of all the questions, but it is an essential building block answering the rest of the questions and reclaiming a biblical understanding of grace. Any Christian would be spot on if they answered this question with the response "God's unmerited favor," but we need to know more than just the correct answer. We have to understand the depth of what those three words mean. Grace is being given something you do not deserve, and in the Bible it also refers to God taking away what we do deserve. Instead of just punishment and the wrath of God, we are given eternal life through the sacrifice of Jesus. The world and our flesh do not like this concept. We want to get what we think we rightly deserve, and we want other people to get the same. We have to learn as Christians through the studying the Bible to overcome this way of thinking. Our salvation does not spring from our own doing, but only from God's rich mercy and love like the text above points out for us. We do not get what we deserve, and that is a part of what makes grace so amazing. Instead of death we get eternal life with the joy of Jesus' presence.

Q: Why do I need grace?

      This question is essential for non-Christians and Christians alike, and in many ways it is a continuation of the previous question. Christians and non-Christians alike need to understand who they are in relation to a just and holy God. This is why as Christians we are called to be eternal students constantly studying the Word. Because the more we know about God and the more we know about our new identity, the more we will understand the need for grace and the role grace plays in our position to God. We must have a high view of Scripture, a high view of God, an increasing knowledge of our fallen and redeemed estate, and a deep and intimate understanding of sin and the sufferings of Jesus to understand the role of grace in our lives post-conversion.

       Non-Christians first must came face to face with the biblical teaching that we are dead in our trespasses and that we all fall short of the glory of God as Paul points out repeatedly throughout his epistles. This is also why we must have a high view of Scripture because we cannot denigrate the words of Paul because they are not written in red text like the words of Jesus. We must wholeheartedly grasp the truth that all of Scripture is God breathed, that God is the author of the entire canon of Scripture, thus Paul's words become just as  important and as much God's words as Jesus' words are God's words. We need grace in our fallen estate because the Bible teaches we are born into a fallen and sinful word, and that there is nothing we can do as dead people to regenerate our own souls. We need the act of a gracious and merciful God to reach out to us and love us first while we are still sinners to rescue us from dead and doomed life. And this is what continues to make grace so amazing, that God would love us while we were dead and reach out to us while we were still offensive to Him. We need grace as non-Christians so that we can come in to communion with our Creator and have eternal life, and there is nothing we can do to earn it because a gift cannot be earned it can just be given. 

      But once we have received God's saving grace in our lives we do not forfeit our need for more grace, and then begin a life defined by works that make us more like Christ. We are exhorted in Scripture to grow in grace because the more we grow in grace the more we become like Jesus. Our entire Christian life should be grounded and rooted in grace because without it we would still be dead and far off from God. I would encourage you to read this short article about grace and how it defines our lives as Christians. As Christians we also still sin because we have not yet been fully ridden of our sinful flesh, so we need the mercies of God anew everyday to wash us of our daily trespasses against Him.

Q: How do I get grace?

      This is where the biblical teaching of grace gets even more difficult to grasp because it starts to sound so unfair to us. This is why I always make an effort to appeal to us all to have a high view of Scripture and who God is because honestly there are things in Scripture that I wish were not in Scripture, but I believe them and rest in them because I know God is good and I know that Scripture is the true word of God revealed to man. We must grasp that God is holy, holy, holy meaning He is beyond perfectly holy. He is supremely pure and He is supremely different from us. His ways are not our ways, and His judgments are not are judgments. We have no right to question or challenge Him. We were not present when He crafted the universe and all of Creation. We are created beings indebted to our Creator for the love that He has shown us. We must hold on tightly to all of these truths when we encounter things in Scripture that make us uncomfortable. We cannot choose to not believe things in Scripture because we do not like them. If we do that, then we begin compromise our entire faith by challenging the word of God. I say all of this because below we are going to start to unpack some of the most uncomfortable teachings in Scripture, but if we can begin to grasp and rest in them we will truly see the amazing depth and beauty of God's grace.

Exodus 33:19  And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The Lord.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.


Romans 9: 14-18 14 What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means! 15 For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” 16 So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. 17 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” 18 So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.


John 10: 25-26 25 Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name bear witness about me, 26 but you do not believe because you are not among my sheep. 27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. 

Acts 13:48 48 And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.

     The reason I have quoted so much Scripture is to emphasize the fact what we are about to unpack is not an isolated teaching of Scripture, and it is not even something unique just to the New Testament. God alone determines who is given grace. This should be clear by the very definition of grace being a free gift of what we do not deserve, but for many this hard truth is not clear at all. We say we believe grace is a gift, but we live our lives in ways that say either we deserve grace because we are entitled to it or we try to earn God's good favor. But there is absolutely nothing we can do to earn God's grace. 

      For many, this teaching paralyzes them with the fear that we are just subject to a whimsical and fickle God who just draws picks name out of a hat and gives grace to those whom He draws and not the others. But really this not at all what the Bible is teaching. The main point all of these verses illustrate is that God saves sinners, and no one else or nothing else is responsible for salvation. This teaching is why we should be eternally grateful to God for doing something so amazing and loving for us. We receive grace not because of what we have done, but because of what Jesus has done for us. We need to encourage our non-Christians friends and family to humbly come before the face of God asking Him for grace, and not try and fix all of their exterior problems first. It is our heart change produced by the grace of God that creates life change. As Christians we need to continually ask God to make known His grace to us as we strive to become more and more like His Son. We must remember that grace is always a gift from God, and that it is never something we deserve.

      I believe this teaching to be extremely liberating, and I think it is why Paul exclaims to the Galatians, "For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery." It should never cease to amaze us that God set us free while we were still His enemies. He loved us when we hated Him, and in doing so the burden of achieving salvation has been lifted from our shoulders because we could never achieve it on our own. God has done what was impossible for man to do in order to show His deep love for us. In short, we receive grace only from God's good pleasure. We cannot persuade or convince Him, but we must humbly rely on Him and His love for us. 

Q: Does God always have to be gracious?

     This is a question prompted by the problem of entitlement in our culture today, and it is not a new problem by any means. Many within the church believe that as recipients of God's grace they are only under God's grace, and that they are not responsible to follow any sort of moral law. Their argument is that all is sin is covered by the grace of God, and they use that argument to justify a life that continues to live in sin. The writer of Hebrews specifically addressed this issue in his letter.

Hebrews 12:7-11 7 It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8 If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9 Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? 10 For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. 11 For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

     God is by no means obligated to act only one way towards believers. We are not entitled to only receive grace form God. God disciplines His children. That means in turn that God does not always act graciously even to those that have been reborn. If we just take a minute to look back over the past few verses, we see that nowhere does God say He is compelled to always be gracious to some and not to others. The Bible does not say God is grace, grace, grace, but that He is holy, holy, holy and that He does whatsoever He pleases. It pleases God to discipline His children for their sin, because He wants us to become more holy like Him and His Son. It would not be loving of God to only be gracious because then we would never learn about the depravity and wickedness of our sin, and we would have no desire to run from it in our heart, soul, mind, and actions as He has called us. Yes, God's grace covers the eternal penalty of all of our sins as Christians, but we must not forget that it does not forgo the consequences of our sins. We must still must live in light of our sin. We can take hold of the truth that "all things work out for the God of those who love Him," but we cannot confuse this to mean that God only reacts graciously to all that we do. If you take the time to read through just one Old Testament Christian like David, you will see God exercise both judgment and grace upon David's sins.

     If we do not learn to hate sin, then it is a sign that we may not be in the light after all. 1 John gives us a type of litmus test to take to see if we are in the faith. If you read through the epistle you will several characteristics that uniquely define Christians. We walk in the light, love the light, love our brothers, and follow God's commandments. If we love and walk in the light, then we must also hate sin. If we say that we do all of these things, but then we continue to walk in darkness then we are liars and the truth is not in us. This is a harsh teaching, but we must evaluate our lives in light of this text and all of Scripture. Paul and Peter both tell us to test and see that we are walking in the light, and to test and make sure that our faith is real. The Bible teaches that our heart is deceitful above all things, and it is easy to deceive ourselves that our faith is real when it is not because it means we do not have to repent and change what we are doing. We must not think that we are all entitled to have fertile soil in our hearts like Jesus talked about in the parable. If we live a life defined by deception and a sense of entitlement, then I am frightened to say that we are probably walking down the broad path that leads to Hell and destruction.

Q: How then do we live in grace?

Romans 6:1-4 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. 

     We must live a life defined by repentance and a hatred for sin. Our new hearts should hate sin and want to run from it towards God. I think one of the reasons so many Christians downplay the significance of sin is because we do not understand why Jesus had to suffer and the true extent of his sufferings. Grace is a free gift, but it cost God something dear to be able to give it to us. The Bible makes very clear that God is just and that God's character does not change, so it was impossible for God to forgive us without making a payment for our sin. God had to send His Son so that He could stay just and be the justifier of those who have faith in Him. All of the Old Testament looks forward to the Cross, the Gospels tell the story of the cross, and all of the epistles look back at it. It is essential understand the sufferings of Jesus in order to understand how we are called to live in light of receiving grace.

     Jesus prayed to the Father in the garden of Gethsemane because he dreaded with a holy fear the wrath of God that he was about to incur for our sin. Every time we sin intentionally we spit on the cross and the sufferings of Jesus by acting like it was not that big of deal. But in reality Jesus dying on the cross is the most important thing that has happened in all of created history. Our sin should grieve us into repentance and drive us towards the grace of God, while we also keep in mind that God's grace does not negate the discipline and all of the consequences of our sin that we deserve. If you read that link that I posted above, you will see that grace should define our new identity, our speech, our hope, the way we deal with suffering, and all areas of our life. But grace does not impact our lives by giving us a way out of difficult circumstances; grace allows us to work through difficult circumstances in a manner that brings glory to God and makes us look more like His Son. 

     Ultimately, grace is all about bringing glory to God and making us more like Jesus. God is deserving of the glory because He is the only one that made grace possible, and He alone is the only giver of grace. Grace should never be about us, but it should always be about Jesus. Our lives as Christians are about becoming nothing so that God's name and His fame may increase. Grace is a tool of God that brings about those purposes. Grace is not a tool of God that justifies whatever actions we want to take, or that gives us some share of His glory. Grace belongs to God, and we must understand as body that we are not entitled to it and that we cannot earn it. 

    The reality that God still gives us grace despite the fact that we will sin up until we are dead is an amazing and beautiful truth. We do not deserve anything God has given us, but He has given it to us out of His loving nature. We must pray that grace never ceases to be amazing to us, and that we would cherish it all the days of our lives. The more we love grace and begin to understand grace the more we will become like Christ. Which is why being an obedient Christian always comes back to studying the Word, if we do not continually learn about grace, God's character, and who we are called to be; then we will never grow in grace and likeness of Jesus Christ. 

"How deep the Father's love for us,
How vast beyond all measure
That He should give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure

How great the pain of searing loss,
The Father turns His face away
As wounds which mar the chosen One,
Bring many sons to glory"

     ~Stuart Townend

     

Glory From God

"I lift my hands up

God I surrender

All that I am

For Your glory, Your honor, Your faith

I lift my hands up

God I surrender to You"

      ~Phil Wickham

John 12:42-43 Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.

     

     It seems like the passages that intrigue me the most in Scripture are the passages that scare me the most. Ever since the first time I read through the Gospel of John I have not been able to forget these words, "for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God." These Jewish authorities were so concerned with people pleasing that they traded eternal life with Jesus for eternal damnation. I think I can confidently say that we are far too familiar with people pleasing, and we so easily forget that it is a sin that is atrocious to God and a sin that is rooted in a deep seated fear of being loved by people more than loved by God.

     The Bible makes clear that the overall purpose of man is to glorify God, and being a Presbyterian I love the way that the Westminster Shorter and Larger Catechism state this overall goal with their very first question.

Q: What is the chief aim of man?

A: Man's chief and highest end is to glorify God, and to fully enjoy Him forever.

     I think that this text at hand in John deals with both parts of this question by posing a different question, what does glory that comes from God look like? And in turn how does receiving glory from God relate to giving God glory and enjoying Him? Part of what makes this text so scary is that the answer to these questions is not an easy answer. In fact, it is impossible for man alone to live out the answers to these questions by himself. 

     To answer these questions effectively we have to have a common understanding of what God's glory is. It is something that as Christians we hopefully talk about all the time, but have we ever taken the time to think about what the definition of it would be? I really like the way John Piper defines God's glory. He states, "What is it? I believe the glory of God is the going public of his infinite worth...So God's glory is the radiance of his holiness, the radiance of his manifold, infinitely worthy and valuable perfections." 

    So glory that comes from God is glory that is infinitely concerned with the greatness and worthiness of God's name above all other names. This is where this text starts to get hard because this does not mean that to receive glory from God and to give God glory that we must become second or we must become third-it means we must become nothing. If we look at Philippians 2 I think that Paul makes this painfully clear. 

Philippians 2:3-11   Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.  Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

    There are a lot of things that are worth talking about in this text, but I really like the way the NIV interprets verse 7 by expanding the phrase "emptied himself" in to "rather, he made himself nothing." Jesus who was God made himself nothing. As many times as I read these verses, my mind still cannot grasp the gravity and depth of this truth. We are not anywhere close to God, and we are so concerned with making our name great and known instead of being infinitely concerned with the glory that comes from God. 

    So the question becomes how do we live in a way that loves the glory that comes from God, and that is inherently about making the glory of God known above our own glory? We get the answer again by looking at the life of Jesus. The writer of Hebrews tells us that we should run with endurance "looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God" (Hebrews 12:2) 

     To put it plainly, like Jesus, we must die to self. We must pick up our cross and follow Jesus to Golgotha. A life that loves the glory that comes from God and that gives all glory to God is a life defined by death of self. God did not send His only begotten Son to die so that we could participate in trendy fashions by wearing cool bracelets with vague cliched sayings about the order of our priorities. God sent His Son to die to bring glory to His name by showing His love for us, and to give us an example as to how we should live our lives. Jesus' life was constantly defined by self-sacrifice. Is ours?  

     Like I said earlier this an impossibly hard task, but God loves us so much that He did not leave us just our own devices but He gave us His Spirit that enables us to live for His glory. I am not writing this because I have my life all figured out, and I think I am the only guy doing this right. I am writing this because I am deeply convicted by my lack of love for God's glory, and it is my desire to repent of that sin and to help as many others as I can along the way. 

     C.S Lewis was right we are all "far too easily pleased," the glory that comes from God is greater than anything we can imagine on this earth, but it comes at a great cost. We must do as Jesus called us to do in Luke 14 and count the cost of discipleship. We must pray for God to show us how His glory is infinitely greater then any other glory this world has to offer. 

     Because if we really do confess that Jesus is Lord, our lives must become nothing like Christ's did. Our lives must become about the fame and renown of God's glory like the Bible tells us and the Westminster Catechism confirms. We do not get the option to hold on to certain portions of our life, and then to give other portions to God. Jesus, and Paul, makes it explicitly clear that he wants all of us. 

     Glory from God in the life of Jesus looked like death on the cross. This is why the author of Hebrews tells us in the thirteenth chapter that, "13 Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. 14 For here we do not have an enduring city,but we are looking for the city that is to come." To receive glory from God, and to give Him glory we must understand we have a greater joy waiting for us which is why the first question of the Catechism also addresses our joy. Dying to self and becoming nothing not only brings glory to God, but it will ultimately bring us into fullness of joy in the presence of Christ. 

    It's so hard for us to see at times on this earth how death, sacrifice, and suffering could ultimately bring us joy, but the life of Jesus shows us that this is true. Jesus endured the cross for the joy that he knew he would receive in the presence of His Father by accomplishing His will. Our lives must be as much about the Father's will as Jesus' was because this is ultimately what brings God glory and brings us an eternal joy that no one and nothing on this earth can revoke. 

    So let us all say like Thomas, the twin, after the death of Lazarus, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

     In the Presbyterian Church every we week we corporately confess our sins together in a prayer of confession, so I ask you to join me wherever you may be in this corporate confession I have written that I believe is so apt for all of us. 

Father, great and hallowed is your name.

All renown and glory belongs to you alone, and we

we confess that together that we have not lived for your glory. 

But instead we have focused our lives on the glory that comes from man.

Forgive us of these trespasses, and renew within us a passion for your name.

Forgive us for our wandering and idolatrous hearts that do not honor You in all that we do.

Nurture within us a greater dependence upon You, so that we may live as you have called us to live.

May Your will be done, and may You teach us to love your will above our own selfish desires.

In your great and powerful name we pray. Amen.

Isaiah 26:8 

In the path of your judgments,
    O Lord, we wait for you;
your name and remembrance
    are the desire of our soul.