I wrote recently the first post of what I am planning to be a short series of blog posts on the discipline of trials. I am drawing heavily from chapter 9 of Tony Reinke’s fantastic book on John Newton. In that chapter Reinke points us to various benefits of trials that John Newton gives to us. In the first post we saw that “trials drive Christians to pray.” In this post we will look at three more benefits of trials.

Trials Humble Proud Hearts

Reinke says that: “Trials are intended to humble us and launch a frontal assault on our pride.” Newton in one of his letters to another minister said: “It requires much discipline to keep pride down in us,…” It does indeed, because all of us as Christians are prone to be proud. Think about the apostle Paul and his thorn in the flesh in 2nd Corinthians chapter 12. Why did God give him this thorn in the flesh? Paul tells us in 2nd Corinthians 12:7: “So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited.” One author said: “How dangerous must self-exaltation be, when even the apostle required so much restraint.” God though in His goodness will send trials our way to humble us. As Reinke says, trials will set: “us free from the shackles of our own self-righteousness and self-importance.”

Trials Kill Worldliness

Reinke writes on this benefit of trials when he tells us:

“When rust and moth and robbers eliminate our securities, when cancer arrives, or when we find ourselves speechless in the company of a suffering friend, in this place we feel deep in our bones that this world cannot be the eternal rest our hearts long for. Trials remind us of the vanity of life, and the vanity reminds us that this world is fallen, and the fallenness reminds us that it is a deeply unsatisfying world…trials make us uneasy and set our hearts on things above, where Christ is (Col. 3:1-4).”

So, God in His goodness will sometimes bring trials into our lives to: “make us uneasy and set our hearts on things above,…” When this happens to us, we should see the goodness of God in these trials. Newton said: “Let us adore the grace that seeks to draw our hearts above!”

I remember a few years ago when Rachel Bowen almost died during one of our church services, but God miraculously saved her life. I remember that people in our church were greatly impacted by that serious trial that Rachel and Ben walked through and really our whole church walked through. Members in our church were thinking about eternity and the shortness of life. I know I was regularly thinking about death and eternity during those weeks after that happened.

Trials are Ice Water on Sleepy Souls

Reinke tells us that: “The Christian life is one of sobriety and wakefulness (1 Thess. 5:6). Drawing from Bunyan’s allegory The Pilgrim’s Progress, Newton believed we walk this life in danger of spiritual laziness.” My guess is that all of us as Christians know about this danger of spiritual laziness in our lives. I am sure we have all faced the temptation to coast in the Christian life and to go on auto-pilot, or to simply be lazy spiritually. When we begin to be careless spiritually, we will find that we will begin to dry up spiritually. As Mark reminded us in a recent sermon that spiritual dryness is a common problem. When we are growing spiritually dry and beginning to take a spiritual nap, God in His goodness will sometimes send trials our way. Those trials will be like ice water to our sleepy souls, to snap us back awake.

Reinke reminds us that: “Trials are medicines measured out with care and prescribed by our wise and gracious Physician. He proportions the frequency and the weight of each dose exactly to what the case requires.”

Jerry Ediger asked me to post some of the tremendous wisdom that is found in the above book on John Newton that was written by Tony Reinke. Many people at North Avenue have already read through this book, but if you haven’t you can purchase it here. Jerry, Mark, Fred, and I were discussing Hebrews 12:1-17 recently on a Zoom call that Lord willing will be posted at some point in the future. During our discussion I mentioned chapter 9 of Tony Reinke’s book on John Newton called the discipline of trials. I pointed out how impactful that chapter has been in my life. Basically Newton gives us various benefits of trials, and he is helping us see the goodness of God during trials. So, on this post let me start by mentioning just one, and Lord willing in the future I will try and write some more post on other benefits of trials that Newton gives us. The first one I will mention is that: “Trials drive Christians to pray.”

Tony Reinke writes that: “Normally our prayer lives are unimpressive. Sin degenerates the beauty of prayer into a painful chore. The glorious privilege of prayer becomes for us a “mere task” we ignore at the slightest excuse…Instead of enjoying the blessed communion with the Almighty, we are dragged before God like a slave and we run away from prayer like a thief. Or we fall into the trap of mindless praying. We slip into rote prayers when life becomes comfortable.”

I think most of us know exactly what Reinke is describing in terms of our prayer lives somewhat drying up when life is comfortable. However, when God in His goodness brings various trials into our lives, our prayer lives tend to drastically change. Reinke says: “Mindless and habitual prayers are never less suited than when the circumstances of our lives crumble around us. Trials breathe new desperation–new life–into our prayers.” Then Reinke quotes John Newton who wrote: “Experience testifies, that a long course of ease and prosperity, without painful changes, has an unhappy tendency to make us cold and formal in our secret worship.” Then Newton gives us these powerful words: “Trials give new life to prayer, Trials lay us at his feet, Lay us low and keep us there.”

I love that last sentence from Newton. My guess is that all Christians who have walked through suffering would verify the validity of that Newton quote. As soon as we begin to walk through a trial the RPM gauge of our prayer lives revs up big time. I will just mentioned a few examples of this. Probably about a year ago a Christian coworker of mine got a call one morning while at work that his father had a stroke. He came over to my desk and told me the news and then asked me if I would go out in the hallway and pray for his dad. We walked into the hallway and I had the privilege to pray for the situation. It didn’t take long for this trial to begin to breathe new life into prayer.

I think my wife and I could both talk about praying for our son Michael during his suffering that he has walked through. On various occasions Michael has awakened crying and has been hard to console. Some of the sweetest moments with my son have been singing and praying with him when he has been crying in the night. God in His goodness has brought in these trials with my son that have breathed new life into my wife and my prayers.

The next story I will mention is a powerful story from the life of Charles Spurgeon, who went through a lot of suffering in his life. This story is from 1871 when he was enduring severe pain. Spurgeon writes: “When I was racked some months ago with pain, to an extreme degree, so that I could no longer bear it without crying out, I asked all to go from the room, and leave me alone; and then I had nothing I could say to God but this, ‘Thou are my Father, and I am thy child; and thou, as a Father art tender and full of mercy. I could not bear to see my child suffer as thou makest me suffer, and if I saw him tormented as I am now, I would do what I could to help him, and put my arms under him to sustain him. Wilt thou hide thy face from me, my Father? Wilt thou still lay on a heavy hand, and not give me a smile from thy countenance?’

So, Spurgeon walked through this severe pain, and this trial laid Spurgeon low, and it breathed new life into his prayers as he poured out his heart to his heavenly Father. Spurgeon then concludes by saying: “I bless God that ease came and the racking pain never returned.” Which John Newton tells us that: “Trouble excites prayer, prayer brings deliverance, deliverance produces praise,…” So, trials drive us to pray, and then so often God is gracious and brings deliverance after we pray, and that then produces praise and thanksgiving in us.

The last story I will mention is one that Mark mentioned in one of his recent sermons. This comes from missionary John Paton. This has to be one of my favorite stories from his life. Paton who took the gospel to cannibals on the New Hebrides Islands, faced all kinds of opposition and his life was in danger many times. This particular story Paton was once again in a perilous situation. 100’s of angry natives were trying to find him to kill him. He went and hid in a chestnut tree. Here are Paton’s powerful words describing that night:

“I climbed into the tree and was left there alone in the bush. The hours I spent there live all before me as if it were but of yesterday. I heard the frequent discharging of muskets, and the yells of the Savages. Yet I sat there among the branches, as safe as in the arms of Jesus. Never, in all my sorrows, did my Lord draw nearer to me, and speak more soothingly in my soul, than when the moonlight flickered among those chestnut leaves, and the night air played on my throbbing brow, as I told all my heart to Jesus. Alone, yet not alone! If it be to glorify my God, I will not grudge to spend many nights alone in such a tree, to feel again my Savior’s spiritual presence, to enjoy His consoling fellowship. If thus thrown back upon your own soul, alone, all alone, in the midnight, in the bush, in the very embrace of death itself, have you a Friend that will not fail you then?”

So, when God brings trials into our lives, let us be sure to remember that God in His goodness so often brings those trials to us, to drive us to pray. As John Newton wrote: “Trials give new life to prayer, Trials lay us at his feet, Lay us low and keep us there.”

In this post I wanted to talk about the importance of sinking down deeply into the riches of God’s grace in Jesus Christ. Sinclair Ferguson tells us that: “God never throws us back to rely upon ourselves and our own resources. He encourages us rather to grow up as Christians by digging down ever more deeply into the riches of his grace in Jesus Christ. Christ himself is the rich and fertile soil in which Christian holiness puts down strong roots, grows tall and bears the fruit of the Spirit.” He also adds these helpful words: “When God urges us to be holy he is not throwing us back on our own resources to pull ourselves up by our boot strings and to do better. Rather he encourages us to swim into the sea of God’s love, to immerse our lives in his grace, and to live on the basis of the resources he has provided for us in Christ. To change the metaphor, growing in holiness and sanctification requires that we put down deep roots into the soil of gospel.”

Examples of what Sinclair Ferguson is talking about are found all over the Bible. One of those examples is found in 2nd Timothy 2:1 which says: “You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus,” John Stott comments on this verse in 2nd Timothy and says: “It is as if Paul says to Timothy: ‘Never mind what other people may be thinking or saying or doing. Never mind how weak and shy you yourself may feel. As for you, Timothy, be strong!’ Of course if his exhortation had stopped there, it would have been futile, even absurd. He might as well have told a snail to be quick or a horse to fly as command a man as timid as Timothy to be strong. But Paul’s call to fortitude is Christian not stoical. It is not a summons to Timothy to be strong in himself—to set his jaw and grit his teeth—but to be ‘inwardly strengthened’ by means of the grace that is in Christ Jesus…’ Timothy is to find his resources for ministry not in his own nature but in Christ’s grace. It is not only for salvation that we are dependent on grace, but for service also.”

So, how do we practically speaking begin to swim into the sea of God’s love? How do we immerse our lives in his grace? How do we sink down deeply into the riches of God’s grace in Jesus Christ? According to Sinclair Ferguson we need to make it an absolute priority to reflect and meditate on gospel principles. One of those gospel principles is found at the end of Galatians 2:20 which says: “the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” I was reflecting on this verse recently and the more I thought about it the more stunned I became. Charles Spurgeon said: “A sense of the love of Christ to you personally will affect your whole life. It will change it at first; but it will keep it changed ever afterwards.” 

The Cross

If we want to swim into the sea of God’s love, then we need to race to the cross over and over again. We need to meditate on the cross or as Martyn Lloyd-Jones says we need to: “Look again at the cross, my friend. Take another survey. Examine it again with greater depth and profundity…” As we begin to examine the cross we will see God’s love for his people. Jerry Bridges says: “When John (1 John 4:9-10) said that God showed His love by sending His Son, he was saying God showed His love by meeting our greatest need – a need so great that no other need can even come close to it in comparison.  If we want proof of God’s love for us, then we must look first at the Cross where God offered up His Son as a sacrifice for our sins.  Calvary is the one objective, absolute, irrefutable proof of God’s love for us.” D.A. Carson tells us that: “The cross is the high-water mark of the demonstration of God’s love for his people. It is a symbol of our shame and of our freedom. It is the ultimate measure of how serious our guilt is and the comforting assurance that our guilt has been dealt with.”

As we continue to meditate on the cross we will see the justice of God and the holiness of God. Lloyd-Jones points out that: “the cross tells us…that God hates sin. God is the eternal antithesis to sin. God abominates sin with the whole intensity of his divine and perfect and holy nature. And God not only hates sin, he cannot tolerate it. God cannot compromise with sin…There is no compromise between light and darkness, good and evil…God must therefore punish sin.”

As we continue to look at the cross we need to remember that we are all sinners as Paul makes clear in Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Therefore, we deserve God’s wrath, or as Lloyd-Jones bluntly puts it: “We deserve nothing but hell.” As we see the depth of our sin and begin to feel the weight of our sin we will be more stunned by verses like 2 Corinthians 5:21 which says: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Lloyd-Jones commenting on this verse says: “God has made his own Son to be sin for us, though he knew no sin, in order that he might be able to forgive us, in order ‘that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.’

Jesus Knew No Sin

As we meditate on the cross we should think about the life of Jesus. Paul says that Jesus ‘knew no sin.’ Lloyd-Jones powerfully describes the life of Jesus when he says that: “Jesus was meek and he was lowly. He was pure, he was clean, he was holy. He sacrificed himself. He gave himself, he served. Lord of Glory though he was, he washed people’s feet. He rendered an utter and a perfect obedience to the holy law of God…He had left the throne of heaven, he had come and humbled himself, and he gave himself to healing people, and to instructing them. He never did anyone any harm. He went about doing good.”

Romans 8:32

I find those words from Lloyd-Jones moving especially in light of Romans 8:32 which says: “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” I want to end this post by quoting a lengthy quote from Lloyd-Jones commenting on Romans 8:32 that I hope will stir up our affections for Jesus:

“God spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all.’ Now that is a wonderful description of what happened on the cross. God, in his great love to us, delivered up for us his only begotten, dearly beloved Son, who never disobeyed him and had never done any harm to anybody, to the death of the cross. But you notice what Paul says: ‘He that spared not his own Son.’ He means that God made it very plain and clear that he was going to punish sin by pouring out upon sinners the vials of his wrath. He was going to punish sin in this way—that men should die. The wages of sin is death, and it means endless death and destruction. And what we are told by the Apostle is that after he had laid our sins upon his own Son on that cross, he did not spare him any of the punishment. He did not say, Because he is my Son I will modify the punishment. I will hold back a little, I cannot do that to my own Son. I cannot regard him as a sinner. I cannot smite him, I cannot strike him. He did not say that. He did everything he had said he would do. He did not keep anything back. He spared not his own Son. He poured out all his divine wrath upon sin, upon his own dearly beloved Son.

So you hear the Son crying out in his agony, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ and he literally died of a broken heart. John tells us that when the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, ‘But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water’ (John 19:34). The heart had burst and the blood had clotted, and there it was—serum and blood clot, because his heart was literally ruptured by agony of the wrath of God upon him, and by the separation from the face of his Father. That is the love of God. That, my friend, is the love of God to you a sinner. Not that he looks on passively and says: I forgive you though you have done this to my Son. No, he himself smites the Son…He pours out his eternal wrath upon him, and hides his face from him. His own dearly beloved, only begotten Son. And he did it in order that we should not receive the punishment and go to hell and spend there an eternity in misery, torment and unhappiness. That is the love of God. And that is the wonder and the marvel and the glory of the cross, God punishing his own Son, in order that he might not have to punish you and me.”

Picture from here

Mark said during his sermon this past Sunday that: “You never ever ever ever ever want to detach the imperatives of the Bible from the indicatives of the gospel.” He went on to say that we should never give people the law of God without giving them the gospel as the motivation for keeping the law of God. Commentator Douglas Moo said that: “Rules must never take the place of Christ as the source of spiritual nourishment and growth; and any rules that we propose to follow must be clearly rooted in and lead back to Christ.” Sinclair Ferguson says that: “Sanctification flows from the gospel.” He goes on to say that: “When God urges us to be holy he is not throwing us back on our own resources to pull ourselves up by our boot strings and to do better. Rather he encourages us to swim into the sea of God’s love, to immerse our lives in his grace, and to live on the basis of the resources he has provided for us in Christ. To change the metaphor, growing in holiness and sanctification requires that we put down deep roots into the soil of gospel.”

Ferguson continues by helpfully telling us that: “Divine indicatives (statements about what God has done, is doing, or will do) logically precede and ground Divine imperatives (statements about what we are to do in response). This is true no matter the actual order in which the indicative and imperative statements appear in any given passage. Thus: Who God is, what God has done, is doing, and will do for us (indicative) provides the foundation for our response of faith and obedience (imperative). Thus his grace effects our faithfulness. This is the logic that explains the power of the gospel.”

Biblical Examples Of This

We can look at some Biblical examples of this. In 2nd Corinthians 8 Paul asked for financial generosity to the poor. The most important motivation that he gives us is the gospel. Tim Keller writes that: “When Paul asked for financial generosity to the poor, he pointed to the self-emptying of Jesus and vividly depicted him as becoming poor for us, both literally and spiritually, in the incarnation and in crucifixion.” This is what Paul wrote in 2nd Corinthians 8: “I say this not as a command, but to prove by the earnestness of others that your love also is genuine. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.” Tim Keller describes how Jonathan Edwards helped him on this passage: “Jonathan Edwards noted that Paul’s introduction “I say this not as a command…For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ” is significant, implying that if one truly grasps substitutionary atonement, one will become profoundly generous to the poor. The only way for Jesus to get us out of our spiritual poverty and into spiritual riches was to leave his spiritual riches and enter into spiritual poverty.”

Keller continues: “If it is the gospel that is moving us, our giving to the poor will be significant, remarkable, and sacrificial. Those who give to the poor out of a desire to comply with a moral prescription will always do the minimum. If we give to the poor simply because God says so, the next question will be “How much do we have to give so that we aren’t out of compliance?” This attitude is not gospel-shaped giving.

1 Peter 1

Another passage that recently hit me was 1 Peter 1. Peter was writing this letter to a church in modern day Turkey that was facing persecution. Sinclair Ferguson throws out this question: “How would you begin such a letter?” Basically, if we were writing to a persecuted church how would we start that letter? Ferguson then answers: “Perhaps with words of sympathy, saying how sorry you were that things had become so difficult? Not Simon Peter. He began first by reminding them of their identity in Christ and then by breaking into a doxology as he reflected on its implications.” Here is what Peter wrote to this persecuted church at the start of his letter:

“Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,

To those who are elect exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, ² according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood:

May grace and peace be multiplied to you.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ⁴ to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, ⁵ who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. ⁶ In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, ⁷ so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. ⁸ Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, ⁹ obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”

Ferguson adds that: “Peter’s subliminal logic is: As you face life with all its trials do not lose sight of who you are and what you are for. Be clear about this and you will make progress. Forget this and you will flounder and fall…I need to be clear about who and whose I am, and what I am for in Christ. And Peter is teaching us how to answer them here. If you are a believer you are someone who has been chosen in grace, loved by the Father before you were born, and in your experience sanctified by the Spirit in order that you might become obedient to the Saviour who shed his blood to bring you into covenant fellowship with God…Peter says to believers in Turkey exactly what Paul said to believers in Corinth: You are not your own; you have been bought with a price―the sacrifice of Christ; you are his, so live for his glory because it is for this that you have been purchased.”

The Book of Romans

The last Biblical example I will mention on this post is the book of Romans. I am once again borrowing heavily from Sinclair Ferguson. In the first 11 chapters of the book Romans there are 315 verses. If we went through all 315 verses specifically looking for imperatives―’that is, every statement that is in the form of a command, telling the reader to do something.’ We would only find 7 verses that are imperatives. Romans 6:12, 13, 19; 10:4; and 11:18, 20, 22.

Sinclair Ferguson says: “In essence Paul devotes 308 out of 315 verses to sustained exposition of what God has done, and only then does he open up the sluice-gates and let loose a flood of imperatives. (There are more than 20 of them in Romans chapter 12 alone). Clearly Paul believed in the necessity of exhortations, commands, and imperatives. And his are all-embracing and all-demanding. But the rigorous nature of his imperatives is rooted in his profound exposition of God’s grace. He expects the fruit of obedience because he has dug down deeply to plant its roots in the rich soil of grace. The weightier the indicatives the more demanding the imperatives they are able to support. The more powerful the proclamation of grace the more rigorous the commands it can sustain. This is the principle that destroys both legalism and antinomianism. For this is how the gospel works:

I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation. -Romans 1:16

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. -Romans 12:1

Get this right and we have a strong foundation for growth in sanctification. Go wrong here and we may go wrong everywhere.”

When I Survey The Wondrous Cross

I will end with a portion of this powerful hymn written by Issac Watts. In that hymn Watts said:

“When I survey the wondrous cross, on which the prince of glory died”

As we ‘survey’ the cross, and as we meditate on the cross we are overwhelmed by the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. Then we will respond as Watts does in his hymn:

“My richest gain I count buy loss, And pour contempt on all my pride.”

Once again Sinclair Ferguson says: “Thus the motivation, energy and drive for holiness are all found in the reality and power of God’s grace in Christ. And so if I am to make any progress in sanctification, the place where I must always begin is the gospel of the mercy of God to me in Jesus Christ.” So let us all “immerse ourselves in appreciating the grace of God expressed to us in Jesus Christ…”

Giving Thanks In All Circumstances

They were services like no others, these times in Barracks 28.

At first Betsie and I called these meetings with great timidity. But as night after night went by and no guard ever came near us, we grew bolder. So many now wanted to join us that we held a second service after evening roll call.

There on the Lagerstrasse we were under rigid surveillance, guards in their warm wool capes marching constantly up and down. It was the same in the center room of the barracks: half a dozen guards or camp police always present. Yet in the large dormitory room there was almost no supervision at all. We did not understand it.

One evening I got back to the barracks late from a wood-gathering foray outside the walls. A light snow lay on the ground and it was hard to find the sticks and twigs with which a small stove was kept going in each room. Betsie was waiting for me, as always, so that we could wait through the food line together. Her eyes were twinkling.

‘You’re looking extraordinarily pleased with yourself,’ I told her.

‘You know, we’ve never understood why we had so much freedom in the big room,’ she said. ‘Well–I’ve found out.’

That afternoon, she said, there’d been confusion in her knitting group about sock sizes and they’d asked the supervisor to come and settle it.

‘But she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t step through the door and neither would the guards. And you know why?’

Betsie could not keep the triumph from her voice: ‘Because of the fleas! That’s what she said, “That place is crawling with fleas!’”

My mind rushed back to our first hour in this place. I remembered Betsie’s bowed head, remembered her thanks to God for creatures I could see no use for.”

Pray Without Ceasing

A key then to praying without ceasing is to give thanks in all circumstances. If Betsie and Corrie Ten Boom could give thanks in Ravensbruck, how much more do we have to be thankful for? Let’s see if we can all cultivate a spirit of thankfulness in our hearts to God each day.

John Piper says that to pray without ceasing: “means that there is a spirit of dependence that should permeate all we do. This is the very spirit and essence of prayer. So, even when we are not speaking consciously to God, there is a deep, abiding dependence on him that is woven into the heart of faith. In that sense, we “pray” or have the spirit of prayer continuously.”

He goes on by saying: “I think praying without ceasing means not giving up on prayer. Don’t ever come to a point in your life where you cease to pray at all. Don’t abandon the God of hope and say, “There’s no use praying.” Go on praying. Don’t cease.” To pray continually according to Piper means that we: “lean on God all the time. Never give up looking to him for help, and come to him repeatedly during the day and often. Make the default mental state a Godward longing.”

Something else that I think is helpful on this topic is that we don’t have to be praying for 10-15 minutes at a time all throughout the day. I don’t think that is what Paul had in mind. Charles Spurgeon is helpful when he said:

“You may be…weighing your groceries, or you may be casting up an account and between the items you may say, “Lord, help me.” You may breathe a prayer to Heaven and say, “Lord, keep me.” It will take no time. It is one great advantage to persons who are hard pressed in business that such prayers as these will not, in the slightest degree, incapacitate them from attending to the business they may have in hand! It requires you to go to no particular place. You can stand where you are,…walk along the streets,…and yet pray just as well such prayers as these. No altar, no Church, no so called sacred place is needed!

Wherever you are, just a little prayer as that will reach the ear of God and win a blessing. Such a prayer as that can be offered anywhere, under any circumstances. I do not know in what condition a man could be in which he might not offer some such prayer as that. On the land, or on the sea, in sickness or in health, amidst losses or gains, great reverses or good returns, still might he breathe his soul in short, quick sentences to God! The advantage of such a way of praying is that you can pray often and pray always. If you must prolong your prayer for a quarter of an hour you might possibly be unable to spare the time, but if it only needs a quarter of a minute, why, then, it may come again and again and again and again—a hundred times a day!”

George Mueller who was an amazing man of prayer, describes what praying without ceasing looks like: “I live in the spirit of prayer. I pray as I walk about, when I lie down and when I rise up…From the very early morning, let us make everything a matter of prayer, and let it be so throughout the day, and throughout our whole life.”

Picture from here

My blog post this week just didn’t quite come together. So, I decided to post something from Matt Chandler that I thought was powerful. I took this quote from a Matt Chandler book, which you can get here. This is a powerful portion of the book where he talks about rejoicing through suffering. Chandler writes:

“One day when my son, Reid, was just a little over one year old, I went home from the office in the middle of the day to surprise my wife for lunch.  My wife’s a blogger, and she was working on a new post that day. When I show up, Reid’s upstairs napping.  Lauren asks me to read what she’s written before she posts it, so I sit down to give it a look.  And while we’re sitting there reading and just catching up, I hear Reid upstairs.

He’s not able to get out of his crib yet, of course, but something up there just sounds … wrong.  I don’t know if you can understand that if you’re not a parent, but if you are, you probably know exactly what I’m talking about.  You get used to certain sounds of stirring, crying, turning over.  You know which silence is normal and which isn’t.  And this time, something just doesn’t sound right. So I say that. I say, “What is that?”

Lauren heads upstairs.  I sit down at the computer to finish reading her blog post.  As I’m scanning through her post, I hear her scream like I’ve never heard her scream before.  She’s screaming at the top of her lungs – and she’s running down the stairs, carrying my son, who’s in a full-on seizure, turning blue and gasping for air.  He’s trying to breathe, but he can’t.

I take Reid from her, set him down on the ground, try talking to him, try to get him to snap out of it, and Lauren starts dialing 9-1-1.  The fire department is literally a block from our house, so I hear them, while my wife’s on the phone with them, fire up the siren and start the short drive to my house.

I turn Reid on his side.  I don’t know if he’s living or if he’s dying, but the ambulance gets there right away, and the paramedics push me out of the way and start working on him. Then they hustle Reid outside and put him in the back of the ambulance. They turn to Lauren and me and say, “Only one of you can ride in the ambulance.”

Now, I don’t know how it works in your house, but we didn’t even have a discussion about that.  We didn’t say, “Well, what do you think?  Do you want to go?”  My wife just gets in the ambulance.  She doesn’t even turn around.  She doesn’t look at me.  She doesn’t nod.  She just gets in the ambulance, and the paramedics tell me, “Follow us.”

So I run and get in my car.  The paramedics shut the ambulance door.  Boom, and they’re gone.  I don’t know what hospital they’re going to.  I quickly start my car and tear off after them, and I keep up with them for maybe about the first mile.  They’ve got a siren, remember, and I don’t.  So it doesn’t take long for me to get cut off and for us to get separated.

I don’t know where I’m going.  I don’t know where they are going.  I can’t get Lauren to answer her cell phone.  And I don’t know if my one-year-old son is about to die. How do you rejoice then?  Because God is not saying through Paul, “Rejoice when everything’s going well.”  He said, “Rejoice always.”  “Always” includes when they put your son in the back of an ambulance.  Or when you get put in there yourself. Rejoice in the Lord.  Always.  And again I say, rejoice.

I am going in a slightly different direction this week. I am not going to do my in depth digger deeper post this week, as I just don’t have time to write in as much depth this week. I have the privilege of speaking at a men’s conference this weekend and I have been spending a good bit of my time working on my talk. I would appreciate your prayers for my talk which I will give at 1:00 Saturday afternoon. I did want to at least write something this week though. Jerry Ediger read from Hebrews 4 during the confession time this past Sunday. He read verses 14-16 which are below:

“Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. ¹⁵ For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. ¹⁶ Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

Jerry mentioned how many of us have gone to other places rather than the throne of grace. Which I thought what Jerry said was so true. I was leading a Bible study in the past and I was critiqued by a couple of the people attending the study at various times. They told me that I was spending too much time talking about the ideal Christian life, when so few of us were actually living that way. The ideal seemed unattainable from where they were at and it was not that helpful to them to talk about the ideal.

Basically this is the ideal that I laid out. I said we should start our days with God. Even if you aren’t a morning person you could at least pray at the start of the day. We should seek to pray without ceasing throughout the day as Paul says to do. We should seek to rejoice in the Lord always as the book of Philippians says. We should seek to live in light of the gospel and live in light of the great love and grace that we have received from God. We should remind ourselves as the song says that no day of my life has passed that has not proved me guilty in God’s sight. The best I have to offer are these filthy rags and yet God loves me. As we are reminded that all we deserve from God is His wrath and yet His mercies are new every morning, our hearts are softened. We then want to be conduits of His grace to all the people we meet because we realize how much God has forgiven us.

That is basically what I laid out and people were looking at me and thinking there is no way. They were thinking that they were frustrated with their wife that morning and their kids were going crazy and they were dealing with anxiety from work and they lost their temper at a coworker etc. During the confession time this Sunday when Jerry was speaking something just clicked in my mind that will sort of bring all of this together.

One thing that I understood is that we are all sinners and we are all struggling in various ways. As my brother Mark says we all have this dark glass of water that we are carrying around. That dark cup of water represents our struggles, our fears, our anxiety, our anger and frustration. We all have this cup basically every day. Here is the crazy thing. The throne of grace is wide open and we are called to boldly come to the throne of grace to receive mercy. We are called to take that dark murky cup of water and just pour it out at the throne of grace. As Robert Murray M’Cheyne says that if we are feeling sad or frustrated we should: “Go and tell Jesus; spread out your sorrows at his feet. He knows them all; feels for you in them all.” As Jerry was talking this Sunday I realized that so often we take that dark cup of water and we run to so many other places trying to get relief from them. Some people go to alcohol. I remember someone told me that they went to alcohol because it made them forget their sorrows and troubles. The problem with that is that dark water is still there in the morning and it may have gotten darker over night.

We may try and take that dark cup of water to TV shows. So, we go to Netflix and we binge watch a show hoping to relieve our stress and anxiety and sadness. We may go shopping hoping to get rid of this dark glass of water, or we may go to sports, or movies, or other forms of entertainment. While we are doing all of this the throne of grace remains wide open. Let us all run to the throne of grace with our dark murky glasses of water and just pour them out to God at the throne of grace. Let us cast our cares on Him because He cares for us.

Let me share a wonderful story from Stephen Nichols that has been really helpful to me and my prayer life. He writes:

“In June 1730, a handful of Cherokee Indian Chiefs crossed the Atlantic ocean seeking an audience with King George II. They first appeared in court at Kensington Palace. They were there to sign treaties, to present their grievances against the French, and to petition the king for aid and support. They had to wait in the lobby for days, returning again and again until the king granted them an audience. They were finally granted their opportunity to present their petitions. Custom dictated that the king would signify his acceptance of their petition by giving them gifts. King George II gave the Cherokee clocks.

They were fine clocks, no doubt. Any English nobleman would be honored beyond words to have such a gift, and he would be just as sure to display the clocks prominently. But these Cherokee had no idea what these clocks were and had no use for them whatsoever. It’s not even clear that they took the clocks home with them as they crossed the Atlantic on their return to the colonies. History is clearer on what became of the treaties King George II made with the Cherokee.

How opposite is prayer to the almighty God, sovereign King of the universe. We do not need to board a ship and travel thousands of miles and wait for days in a grand entrance hall. And when we do get an audience with this King, he does not give us clocks. He graciously grants to us exactly and precisely what we need. And we know that his promises are sure. He does not break treaties.

The journey of prayer is actually far more costly than a transatlantic trip. Our journey of prayer into the presence of God cost the precious blood of Christ, God’s Son. Christ’s sacrifice grants us entrance to the Father’s court. Christ’s sacrifice grants us the good favor of receiving the King’s gifts: the gift of participating in his kingdom, the gift of seeing God’s will come to pass, the gift of forgiveness of sins, the gift of protection from temptation, the gift of deliverance from evil, and even the gift of daily bread. Why would we want to be a people or a church or an age characterized by neglecting the gift of prayer?”

Let us always remember that: “Our journey of prayer into the presence of God cost the precious blood of Christ, God’s Son. Christ’s sacrifice grants us entrance to the Father’s court.” The throne of grace is wide open and it cost the precious blood of Christ. Let us not stay away from the throne of grace too long, but let us continually come to the throne of grace. Let us continually pour out our fears, and anxiety’s, our hurts and our pains, and let us remember to pour in the crystal clear water of the gospel and the promises of God.

Mark and I were with Jerry Ediger this past Saturday and he told us this wonderful story about his daughter Maggie who is 6 years old. Jerry who has suffered a great deal in his life was recently dealing with more physical suffering. He said that his daughter asked him what was wrong and if he was having nightmares. Jerry said no it wasn’t nightmares. She then said was it bad thoughts? Jerry said yes it was bad thoughts. Maggie said: “I know what you need Dad. You need Jesus and you need the promises of God!” Amen Maggie! We need to go to Jesus at the throne of grace and we need to remind ourselves of the precious promises of God.

Picture from here

I didn’t have much time this week to work on the digger deeper post. So, I decided to go a totally different direction this week. I decided to talk about treasure in heaven. I had written on this previously for a Bible study that I was leading. The category I put for this is Christian living. I hope to do more of these type of post in the future.

What does storing up treasures in heaven look like? Colossians 3 says: “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.” Storing up treasures in heaven is a subject that I have thought about quite a bit. I agree with it wholeheartedly in my head, but my heart is so slow to follow. I will give a long John Piper quote because I feel that this is such an important topic. Piper says: “Today I want to simply focus for a few more minutes on the meaning of “Lay up treasures in heaven.” What does this mean? Are you doing it? Jesus says to do it. Are we?

Up to a point the text is plain, isn’t it? Verse 19: “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.” Evidently there are two ways to live: you can live with a view to accumulating valuable things on earth, or you can live with a view to accumulating valuable things in heaven. Jesus says: the mark of a Christian is that his eyes are on heaven and he measures all his behavior by what effect it will have on heaven – everlasting joy with God.

And something else is clear: laying up treasures in heaven and laying up treasures on earth are not good bedfellows. You have to choose between them. You can’t say, “Well how about both?” That’s the point of verse 24: “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”

There is something about God and money that makes them tend to mastery. Either you are mastered by money and therefore ignore God or make him a bellhop for your business, or you are mastered by God and make money a servant of the kingdom. But if either tries to master you while you are mastered by the other you will hate and despise it. This is why Jesus said it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Much money makes a cruel master.

But let’s be more specific. If Jesus means “devote your life to accumulating treasure in heaven” – which I take to mean increasing your joy in God in heaven – what is the main thing he has in mind that we should do now? My judgment from the context would be that it is giving rather than accumulating. If laying up treasures in heaven is the opposite of laying up treasures on earth, then probably laying up treasures in heaven will be NOT laying up treasures on earth but giving them away in ways that magnify the worth of Jesus.

There are several other teachings of Jesus that confirm this meaning: laying up treasures in heaven is giving money away for Christ’s sake rather than accumulating it. For example, consider Luke 12:32-33, “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. 33 Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys.”

Here Jesus explains how you “provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old” and how you “provide yourselves with treasure in the heavens that does not fail,” namely, “Sell your possessions and give to the needy.” That’s how you do it.

In other words, possessions on earth are not for accumulating, they are for distributing in ways that Christ is honored and our joy in heaven is increased (see Ephesians 4:23). When we give – especially when we give so generously that we have to sell something to have anything to give – we show that Christ is our treasure and that we love others more than we love our own security and comfort.

You can see the same thing in Luke 14:13-14 where Jesus tells us to give to those who can’t pay us back. Why? Jesus answers, “You will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.” In other words, when you give freely and generously because you trust Jesus to take care of you, you are laying up treasures in heaven. You will be rewarded at the resurrection of the just. Randy Alcorn, in that little book, The Treasure Principle, says, “I’m convinced that the greatest deterrent to giving is this: the illusion that earth is our home” (p. 44; see Colossians 3:1-3). It’s not; Christ is our home. And therefore to live is Christ and to die is gain. And it will be all the more gain as we learn to lay up treasures in heaven by giving.”

Piper adds elsewhere: “Don’t miss this utterly radical point. It’s the way Jesus thinks and talks all the time. Being heavenly-minded makes a radically loving difference in this world. The people who are most powerfully persuaded that what matters is treasure in heaven, not big accumulations of money here, are the people who will constantly dream of ways to simplify and serve, simplify and serve, simplify and serve. They will give and give and give. And of course they will work and work and work, as Paul says in Ephesians 4:28, “so that [they] may have something to share with those in need.” The connection with worship is this: Jesus commands us to accumulate treasure in heaven, that is, to maximize our joy in God. He says that the way to do this is to sell and simplify for the sake of others. So he motivates simplicity and service by our desire to maximize our joy in God. Which means that all of our use of money becomes a manifestation of how much we delight in God above money and things. And that is worship.”

An Increased Capacity to Enjoy God

When I was a kid I had teachers say that treasure in heaven was our crowns that we would receive and then place them back at the feet of Jesus. This is taken from Revelation chapter 4 which says: “the twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne, saying, “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power,for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.”

Jonathan Edwards taught that treasure in heaven would involve an increased capacity to enjoy God. Edwards said: “Every vessel that is cast into this ocean of happiness is full, though there are some vessels far larger than others; and there shall be no such thing as envy in heaven, but perfect love shall reign throughout the whole society.”

To finish this off let me quote from a book by Owen Strachan and Doug Sweeny called Jonathan Edwards on Heaven and Hell: “Though we might instinctively think that every Christian will occupy the same position in heaven, Edwards argued that it was not so. He grounded his argument in Scripture: “God has abundantly promised to reward good works of the saints in another world. Christ has said that if we do but give a cup (of cold water only, we shall in no wise lose our reward). But how can this be, if it be so that whether they do more good works or fewer, all that have just the same reward? When a person has a good work before him to be done, how can he say with himself to encourage himself to do, “If I do it, I shall be rewarded for it; I shall in no case lose my reward”; if at the same time it be true that he shall have as great a reward, if he lets it alone as if he does it; and he shall have as much future happiness, if he does few good works as many? There can be no such thing as any reward at all for good works, unless they are rewarded with some additional degree of happiness. If nothing be added, then there is nothing gained.”

Living with heavenly rewards in mind was not an option, as Edwards found in his study of the Word. It was: “A duty expressly commanded. Matthew 6:19-20, “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal.” By laying up treasure in heaven is not only meant obtain some inheritance there, but to be adding to it; as is evident by the comparison made between this and what is forbidden, laying up treasure on earth. By which Christ doesn’t mean that we should get nothing in this world, but not do as worldly-minded men do, be striving insatiably to hoard up, and keep adding to our worldly good things; but rather strive to add to our inheritance in heaven, and heap up treasure there; labor daily to increase our interest there by doing good works, and abounding in them; as appears by Luke 12:33 “Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys.”

“Edwards’s argument matches the plain teaching of Scripture. The way we live on this earth affects our heavenly status. The more that we live for the Lord with the little time that we have here, the more He will reward us in the life to come. Day-to-day life, with moment-by-moment, even second-by-second decisions, counts. It is not all a wash, or all the same to God. The thoughts we think, the programs we choose to watch, the evangelistic conversation we try to have, the cup of cold water we give in the name of Christ, the word of correction we offer a straying believer, the prayer we say as we hurry to work—all of this matters to God. All of it impacts, in a way we do not fully understand now, our eternal standing in heaven.

We do not know exactly how things will shake out. It may very well be that leaders we admire now must take a back seat to saints we have never heard of in heaven. Our earthly calculus for heavenly standing may prove wrong altogether. We do not know, in the end, where the Lord will seat us in His gallery of worship. We do know, however, that the life we live on this earth matters. Every second of our earthly existence counts.”

Oh, that we would live our lives in light of eternity, and live our lives for the Lord with the little time that we have here!