Hope

"The mystery hidden for ages and generations but no revealed to his saints... Christ in you, the hope of glory." ~Col 1:26-27.

We live in extraordinarily perilous times.  And I do not speak of the rise of Islamic fanaticism, or the rumors of war, or the constantly fluctuating terror threat level.  I speak of perilous times for our souls, especially those who profess to know Jesus Christ.  For we live in a day in age unlike any before us, a day and age in which the world and all of its pleasures have access to our minds on an unprecedented level.  What makes this an existential threat to our souls is that the hearts of men have not changed.  Indeed, our hearts are still endless idol factories and the world a constant supplier.  Like a kid in a candy shop, we find ourselves in a world that, with ever increasing efficiency, provides new ways and means for our hearts and minds to seek comfort and peace.  And to paraphrase C.S. Lewis, we have, in the process, become like little children playing in the mud who turn down and invitation to the beach because we cannot fathom anything better than a mud pit.  

One of the more prominent reasons this is so is because we have lost the grace of hope.  Hope is, to steal a definition from John Owen, "an earnest expectation, arising from faith, trust, and confidence [in God's faithfulness], accompanied with longing desire of one day enjoying the reality hoped for."  When I say we have lost the grace of hope, I mean that rarely, as Christians, do our hopes rise above the next thing the world tells me I need.  Our hope has settled on things of the world rather than on things of God.  It is like hoping for a nice hard cow pie rather than a juicy rib-eye.  The peril is that we don't even realize we are hoping in things that, eternally, are worse than a cow pie.  This is so because a vast majority of people in American claiming to know Christ rarely, if ever, spend time thinking about and meditating on the eternal things hoped for, namely seeing with unveiled eyes the glory of God in Christ Jesus for eternity.  We hope for many things, but rarely things that are unseen.  And yet this is the hope Paul continually speaks of in the New Testament.  There are many reasons for this, but was struck this week that one of the primary ones is that we never think that we will actually die one day.  This world is all we know and we cannot fathom it ending, thus we put our hope in it and what it offers rather than in Christ.  This hit home this week because of two prominent deaths, Dan Wheldon and Muammar Gaddafi.  One was in his thirties and the best at what he did.  The other was a king for over 40 years.  One died in an instant doing what he was great at.  The other was pulled out of a sewer and summarily executed.  Neither, in a million years, ever thought they would die last week, much less die the way they did.  How can we put our hope in something that can, and one day will, be gone in the blink of an eye?  How can you call yourself a Christian if your hope is not set on Christ?

Excuses

Have you ever sat in church listening to a preacher go on about the great faith of the saints of scripture and thought to yourself, "Yeah, but those are Bible characters, the super heroes of faith, I can't be like them spiritually?"  Maybe it's just me, but at times I read about what some of these great men of our faith did, and I think to myself, "that will never happen with me because there is no way I can have the faith that they did."  I read something the other day that completely convicted me of this line of thinking.  Listen to what John Owen has to say about this line of thought:

"So when we are spiritually minded, we shall abound in spiritual thoughts.  Occasional thoughts of spiritual things do not prove we are spiritually minded.  A spiritually minded person abounds in spiritual thoughts.  (And you will say, how do we know that we about in spiritual thoughts?) Read Psalm 119 and examine yourself by that pattern.  Can you truly speak the same words as David, if not with the same degree of zeal, yet with the same sincerity of grace?  You will say, 'But that was David.  We cannot be like him!'  But as far as I know, we must be like him if we mean to come to that place where he is now.  It will ruin our souls if, when we read in Scripture how the saints of God express their experience of faith, love and delight in God and their constant thoughts of God, we excuse ourselves by saying that we were never meant to be like them.  But these were our 'examples' and were written for 'our admonition, on whom the ends of the age have come' (1 Cor 10:11).  If we do not have the same delight in God as they had, the same spiritual mindedness as they, then we can have no evidence that we please God as they did or shall go to that place where they have gone.  The holy men of God, who obtained this testimony, that they pleased God, did not walk before God in a corrupt, earthly manner.  THeir obedience was not half-hearted.  They meditated continually on the law; they thought of God at every moment and their minds were free from other things; they delighted in God and 'followed hard after him'."

 I think often times we fall short of this because when we read scripture, our goal is to be like the men of scripture, not to be like Christ.  We say and think, "I wish I were as Paul, or David, or Samuel, or John."  But this is, at its heart, idolatry.  We are saying we wish we were as other men, rather than pursuing Christ-likeness.  I realize I sound like a repetitive drone, but run hard after Christ.  Desire Him above all else.  Yesterday I did an exercise with one of my classes.  We broke down the day into activities to see how much time they were spending on each one.  Xbox and facebook ruled the day, with several hours allotted to BOTH.  Time spent meditating on the manifold beauty and perfection of Christ through prayer, scripture, and silence: 0-20 minutes.  My challenge to you is to do the same inventory.  How much time a day do you spend on trivial matters such as TV, recreation, movies, video games, social media, etc.  And when you are done with that self-evaluation, try this: for a month, do not spend more time on any of those other things in a day than you do in prayer (dedicated prayer, not prayer in the car), scripture, and meditation on Christ and his glory.

Spiritual-Mindedness

“Spiritual-mindedness, then, is the chief characteristic that distinguishes a believer from all unregenerate people... to be spiritually-minded is to have holy, heavenly, spiritual thoughts.  The regenerate, spiritual heart, like a refreshing spring, pours out a crystal-clear stream of such thoughts… a person who depends on outward pressures and influences to keep up his spiritual thoughts is not spiritually-minded… [for] the mind may be filled with thoughts of spiritual things, but the heart, being unregenerate, has no love or delight in them.” ~John Owen

Throughout scripture, the cry of the heart of those who belonged to God was to see Him.  Their hearts and their minds were continually consumed with Him.  Abraham, Moses, Elijah, all of the angry prophets, the disciples, Paul, and the saints throughout the ages.  The cry of the heart is the same, "Give me Jesus," and the trajectory of life after meeting Christ is the same.  What I mean by that is throughout scripture and history, when a person encounters God, their lives are radically altered (although I think sometimes what we consider radical, the Bible considers normal, but that is a different topic for a different day).  And when I say their lives are altered, I mean they are noticeably different.  They no longer desire things the world chases after.  In fact, they desire things and take joy in things that the world ultimately considers foolish and strange.  They are consumed with spiritual thoughts and their soul delights in and takes joy in thinking about, meditating on, and seeing the glory of Christ displayed.  They long for the day they are set from from sin once and for all and see the glory of Christ with unveiled eye.

And yet so many today are deceived.  John Owen addressed this issue over 300 years ago and if anything it has gotten worse.  Listen to what he said.  

"Many greatly deceive themselves when hearing the word preached.  They agree with the holy truths in their understanding and assent to them as good 'ideas.'  But these truths are not allowed to impress themselves on their consciences nor to judge their present state and condition before God.  They think they believe, but in reality, they do not.  They hear, understand, assent to, and often approve of the things preached, but still they do not believe them so that the truth rules in their hearts.  If they really believed the truth as they say they do then they would judge themselves in the light of it.  They are like a man who looks at himself in the mirror, and then goes away and immediately forgets what he has just seen (James 1:23-24).  They hear the word and agree with it, but their minds are so filled with other interests that they soon forget what they have heard.  Where the love of earthly things wholly rules and dominates the mind; where the mind has an unrestrained love for worldly things, then that mind is unregenerate and unspiritual."

And here is what I mean when I say it has only gotten worse.  Today, we live in the most pandered too and indulged society in history.  For example, I watched the 4th quarter of the Patriots-Cowboys game this afternoon.  In just the 4th quarter there were 32 commercials.  Twice Miller-Lite informed me I would be more of a man if I drank Miller-Lite instead of another beer.  Bud Light told me if I drank their product life would be a party.  Four times Lexus told me why they were awesome and I needed their car.  Three major telecommunication companies (ATT, Sprint, Verizon) told me why they were the best and the other guys weren't.  And then there were all the food commercials, the TV shows that I need to watch on FOX (which apparently all of which are "cannot miss" episodes that will change my life), the other car companies that aren't as cool as Lexus (because Lexus told me 4 times they are the best, so they must be), and three movies that I must see in the next month when they open.  In between all of that I was watching grown men in tights being worshipped as gods, except for Romo, who was getting ripped up one side and down the other on national television.

And that onslaught was just 45 minutes.  What happens if I keep track of that for the entire day and not just TV but what my mind is thinking and desiring?  What happens if you do that?  I would be we spend more time thinking about the world and all it has to offer than Christ.  And this is on my day off... what happens once the work week starts and the stress of life hits like a ton of bricks?  How often do you think about spiritual things, and then, do you need some sort of external stimulus to think about them or do they flow from the heart that has been changed by the Holy Spirit?  It's easy to think about spiritual things when the music of Sunday morning is ringing in your ears (that is, if you like it).  But what about Sunday afternoon?  What about Monday?  Does your day even include time to think about who Christ is and what He has done?  If your mind does not often turn to thoughts of Christ, and even more importantly, if you heart does not take joy in those thoughts, what makes you think you will ever enjoy heaven much less ever see it?

With the kind of onslaught that we face daily from the world, with all of its demands and desires, if we think we are able to stand up against it on our own we are sadly mistaken.  Our flesh is week and unable to stand the test of time against the world.  We must run into Jesus.  We must seek Him.  We must desire Him above all else.  We must cry out to Him and ask Him to give us new hearts that behold that which is spiritual and good and holy and hearts that take joy in those things above all else.  For it is only when we see that which is infinitely good and beautiful will the things the world is continually pumping and throwing at us become strangely dim.

What Do We Think About?

"The one who has seen something of the glory of Christ will count everything else as 'rubbish', that he might know Christ better and see more of his glory (Phil. 3:8-10).  A spiritual sight of Christ will fill the heart with love for him.  So, if any one does not love Christ that person has never seen Christ and does not know him at all.  When we fall in love with someone we often think about them.  So, when we fall in love with Christ we will be constantly thinking about him.  Where a person is not filled with thoughts of Christ, that person only deceives himself if he claims to have received him as Savior." ~John Owen

So I am still on my John Owen kick.  Something about reading the thoughts of a man consumed with a passion for Jesus Christ is refreshing for my soul.  It fills my mind with thoughts about Christ and his glory and makes me long for the day that I see Him in reality, and not, as it were, as a reflection in the mirror (1 Cor 13:12).  Until that day, however, we behold his glory by faith.  And this will lead us into a deeper and deeper desire for Him.  Which leads me to my point: do we think about Him often?  Many people profess great faith, or at least profess to have faith, and yet if we were to keep a moment by moment ledger of what we think about, I think many people would be embarrassed because thoughts about Christ and His glory are not often on our minds.  We live in a world that demands constant attention and we are all to often eager to give it the attention it demands.  What a sorrowful waste of our energy.  Let our minds be renewed day by day with thoughts about Christ and his glory.  And lest you think you know enough about Christ already consider this: scripture presents but a fraction of his glory to our finite minds.  For we will get to spend eternity looking upon and contemplating His glory and still not have enough time to learn and know all there is to His beautiful, glorious nature.  And if you read that last sentence and think to yourself that eternity sounds boring you may need to check what kind of faith you profess to have, because it is not real, saving faith, it is a pseudo-faith that will fail you when you stand before Christ.

The Purpose of Faith

"We are so selfish that we tend not to look any further than our own concerns and interests.  So long as we are pardoned and saved we care little about Christ's interests and concerns.  But this attitude is not born in a true faith in and love for God.  The chief duty of faith and love is to lead us to prefer Christ above ourselves, and his concerns above our own." ~ John Owen

Too often the message of faith in Christ ends with pardon for sins and salvation.  What more is there? is the common question of response when pushed on the matter.  But I think this reveals much about both the gospel that we are preaching and the message people are "receiving."  We tend to think of Christianity as a get out of jail free card rather than a life transforming call.  We see Christianity as a flu shot that inoculates us from hell rather than radical change of heart that will unmistakably and permanently change a person's heart from a rebel set in opposition to God to a saint transformed by the grace of God.  The chief end of faith is not to save a person from hell, but rather to bring a person into the presence of God through Christ and being made into the likeness of Christ.  There is a profound difference.  The former has at its core ourselves.  I don't want to go to hell.  I want to go to heaven.  I want.... I want... I want....  The later has at its core Christ.  Christ changing the heart through faith.  Christ making us into his disciples.  Christ changing the desires of the heart from ourselves to Him.  Christ making much of Himself.  The purpose of faith is to get us off of ourselves and to make us into the likeness of Christ.  This is why throughout history one of Christ's primary tools for making us more like him has been persecution, sickness, and suffering.  For there is nothing like those three to get us to the end of our own rope and depending on Him quickly.

The Briefness of Life

So being sick is never fun.  For the past 10 days I have been battling pneumonia.  I had pneumonia once before, but it was while I was in the hospital recovering from surgery, so I don't think I was capable of discerning what pain was from pneumonia, and what pain was from surgery.  This time, however, there were no such complications and I will not soon forget the misery that is pneumonia.  I have never had such a persistent fever and headache.  Ever.  My fever topped out at 104.3 and my head literally felt like it was going to explode.  Actually, I think I was hoping it would explode to relieve the pressure that was relentlessly beating the inside of my skull.  I had this fever/headache for almost six days.  It has been 10 days since the beginning of symptoms, 4 days since the end of the fever, and I am still not feeling normal. I cannot walk to the top of the stairs without having to take a rest.  I went to the grocery store the other day and then took at 3 hour nap I was so exhausted from the experience.  My brain still feels not quite all there.  In short, I got absolutely leveled by a disease I could neither see nor prevent and it will probably be weeks before I feel "normal" again.

Which means I've had quite a bit of time staring at my ceiling whilst lying on the couch/bed unable and unwilling to move.  There is nothing quite like sickness and disease to remind us that we are small, weak, and horribly fragile beings.  And yet we never seem to ponder these things long, much to our detriment.  These feelings remind us that we are indeed finite, that we do indeed have an end.  I am in no way shape or form in the best physical condition of my life, but I am not a couch potato.  I run regularly, lift occasionally, and generally stay pretty fit.  And yet I am a heartbeat away from my end.  I am a created being, and one day I will wake up not feeling well and it will be my last day on earth.  Sickness should, above all else, remind us of the shortness of life.  That our time here is brief, and that even if we live to be over 100 years old, our lives are still a vapor, a mist, and flash of light in comparison to eternity.  Are we spending that brief time we have been allotted trying to accumulate for ourselves comfort, or are we spending ourselves in order to see Christ be lifted up and made much of in our lives and in the lives of others?  Do we seek to behold His glory by faith or do we disguise our worldliness in religion?