Praying Psalm 62 with Charles Spurgeon

By / Feb 25

“If God is real, I’m sure He’s too busy to care about the details of my life.” A friend said this to me years ago with exasperation and resignation in his voice. Perhaps you’ve heard some version of this yourself. Maybe you’ve even heard it inside the church. “You should only pray for really big things, like God’s glory among the nations—don’t pray for little things like a good parking spot.”

These statements reflect a deeper question: Can we really approach God with confidence? Can we actually bring Him our smallest, most earthly requests? There’s a Psalm just for these questions, and the 19th-century preacher Charles Spurgeon helps us discover its riches.

How to Pray from the Heart

There are many Psalms that invite us to bring ourselves honestly and completely before God. But in my opinion, Psalm 62 is the most powerful of them all.

David opens his song with a word of praise, as he often does: “Truly my soul finds rest in God; my salvation comes from him” (v. 1, NIV). As soon as he praises God like this, though, David reaches the purpose of his prayer. “How long will you assault me? Would all of you throw me down—this leaning wall, this tottering fence?” (v. 3).

What a vibrant illustration of David’s situation. His enemies are after him. They’re cursing him and intending to knock him down from his royal position. He feels like a leaning wall, a broken-down fence. At any moment, he could come collapsing down.

No doubt, you’ve felt like this before. You know what it’s like to feel overwhelmed with life. Work is too much, people are demanding, and someone seems out to get you. It feels like the weight of the world is on your shoulders, and you’re not sure if anyone can help you. Where do we go with all this pressure and fear?

David knows he can approach God with all this. It’s not too much for God. David can come directly to the Lord of Hosts with his immediate needs and urgent requests. He continues:

“Yes, my soul, find rest in God;

my hope comes from him.

Trust in him at all times, you people;

pour out your hearts to him,

for God is our refuge” (v. 8, emphasis added).

Here, the king vacillates between preaching to his own heart and calling Israel to trust in the Lord. “Rest in God!” he tells his own soul. “Trust in him at all times, you people!” he adds. And he speaks to us—all of us in our own desperate situations wondering if we can bring our grandest and most insignificant requests to an almighty God. David says, “Pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge.” Centuries after David, Jeremiah picks up his phrase, writing, “Pour out your hearts like water in the presence of the Lord,” in calling Israel to repentance in Lamentations 2:19.

Now, this is a beautiful phrase: Pour out your hearts to God. It’s not hard to understand, but if we can fully internalize its powerful invitation, it will truly transform our prayer lives. And there’s a sure guide to help us there.

Charles Spurgeon on True Prayer

In his majestic, three-volume Treasury of David, Charles Spurgeon meditates on this phrase for no small amount of time. What does it mean to pour out our hearts? And how can we know we can do this? Spurgeon writes:

You to whom his love is revealed, reveal yourselves to him. His heart is set on you, lay bare your hearts to him. Turn the vessel of your soul upside down in his secret presence, and let your inmost thoughts, desires, sorrows, and sins be poured out like water. Hide nothing from him, for you can hide nothing. To the Lord, unburden your soul… To keep our griefs to ourselves is to hoard up wretchedness. The stream will swell and rage if you dam it up; give it a clear course, and it leaps along and creates no alarm.[1]

The Psalms are God’s way of saying, “Don’t make sure you sanitize your prayers.” You can come to God just as you are. Your prayers can’t be too honest for God; He knows what’s going on in your heart already.

Give the Lord your everything; He can handle it. We don’t have to hold it all together and clean ourselves up. We don’t have to do this life in our own strength. God wants to give us His joy, peace, and strength. And He desires to pour these gifts into us through prayer. Our job is to empty ourselves first, so that we might have ample room to receive them.

But why do the psalmist and prophet call us to pour out our hearts like water? Spurgeon reflects:

Pour [your heart] out as water. Not as milk, whose color remains. Not as wine, whose savor remains. Not as honey, whose taste remains. But as water, of which, when it is poured out, nothing remains. So let sin be poured out of the heart, that no color of it may remain in external marks, no savor in our words, no taste in our affections.[2]

David and Jeremiah (and Spurgeon) want to show us something of the nature of our prayers. Rather than a slow, careful reciting of words, our prayers can be the natural, unfiltered overflow of our hearts and minds. When we are bursting at the seams with the worries and demands of this life, God has given us a release valve. When we are full, we can pour out.

We’re not just pouring out prayers though; we’re pouring out our very hearts. Our hearts can remain largely hidden from us. We barely understand why we do what we do and why certain things just poured out of our mouths. Prayer is a way of discovering our own hearts. As we give our hearts to God in prayer, we are giving Him the core and essence of our lives. We are giving ourselves completely to Him. Spurgeon adds:

If you fear lest there remain anything in your heart not poured forth, bring the whole heart, and cast it before the eyes of the Lord, and sacrifice it to him, that he may create a new heart in thee.[3]

This is the image God has chosen to give us for our praying lives. Just pour it out. Let it flow. Don’t hold back. Spills and messes will happen, and there will be days when you feel like a puddle on the floor. But God’s welcome is simple: Pour out your heart.

God Pours Out, Too

Beautifully, there’s another side to this. When we pour out, God pours out on us, too. God’s blessing also flows like water. He is the God of abundance and overflow. As the self-existent source and replenisher of life, our Father pours out His own goodness and peace, even as we pour out our hearts like water before Him.

Sound too good to be true? Romans 5:5 promises, “God’s love has been poured out into our hearts by his Holy Spirit.”

God’s blessing being poured into us happens simultaneously to our pouring out our hearts in His presence. The weak pouring out anxiousness, confusion, and need, and the strong pouring out love, strength, and blessing in response—all like water.

Our hearts were made to be poured out. Your ever-loving Father waits for you to bring all your rants and ramblings to Him. Spurgeon concludes,

Sympathy we need, and if we unload our hearts at Jesus’ feet, we shall obtain a sympathy as practical as it is sincere, as consolatory as it is ennobling.[4]

This, Spurgeon knew, is the essence of prayer: Pour out your heart to God, and He will pour His joy, strength, and love back into you. Amen and amen.

__________

[1] Charles Spurgeon, The Treasury of David: Volume 2, 51.

[2] Spurgeon, 58.

[3] Spurgeon, 58.

[4] Spurgeon, 58.

Editor’s note: For more encouragement in prayer, see Jeremy Linneman’s forthcoming book Pour Out Your Heart: Discovering Joy, Strength, and Intimacy with God through Prayer, available this March from B&H Publishing.



God’s Covenantal Hospitality

By / Feb 18

Editor’s note: This article is part one of a four-part series. Access the full series here.

From Genesis to Revelation, God reveals Himself to be a host. The Garden of Eden can be viewed as God’s creative activity to host Adam and Eve as His vice-regents who manage the banquet hall of creation. God hosts Israel for 40 years, providing food for the duration of their wilderness wandering (Exod. 16). Isaiah prophesies that the mountain of God will be an end-times banquet hall where the Lord of hosts will prepare a feast to celebrate death’s defeat (Isa. 25:6­–8). The final scenes of John’s vision in Revelation include the Marriage Feast of the Lamb (Rev. 19:6–10).

In most instances, the Lord’s hospitality in the Old Testament had Israel in view. One such occasion is reported as part of the covenant ceremony Moses enacted for Israel in Exodus 24.

In the first entry in this series, I want to note how the Lord’s hospitality to Israel’s leaders in Exodus 24 contributes to Moses’s covenant ceremony. I will then note points of contact with Jesus’s hospitality to the eleven after His resurrection, suggesting ways that Jesus’s seaside hospitality contributes to His dialogue with Peter and new covenant ministry.

After establishing the covenantal framework of divine hospitality, in successive entries, I will observe how hospitality is a task leaders in Scripture undertake with great haste and how it qualifies men for pastoral ministry in the local church. I will conclude with a fourth post demonstrating how hospitality contributes to church health.

The Lord’s Hospitality to Israel’s Leaders

Among the Lord’s personal manifestations in the Old Testament, His invitation to Israel’s leaders in Exodus 24 casts a long shadow. This scene serves as a pivot point in a unit that begins with the Lord’s appearance on Sinai in Exodus 19 and culminates with Moses descending the mountain with the stone tablets at the end of Exodus 31. In Exodus 19, the Lord commanded Moses to have the people stand at a distance as He descended upon the mountain and covered it with smoke, fire, lightning, and thunder. These visible manifestations confirm Moses’s words to the people. The Lord was with them and had instructed them through His servant Moses.

The frightening appearance of the Lord on Sinai in Exodus 19 establishes two features of the Mosaic covenant. First, the Lord is holy, and His people must revere Him. In the immediate context, this included keeping themselves at a safe physical distance (Exod. 19:9–13, 19–25). Second, the Lord chose Moses as His spokesman, and the people must heed Moses’s instructions (Exod. 19:7–10; 20:18–21).

These two themes place in bold the Lord’s invitation for Moses and Israel’s leaders to join Him on the mountain for a meal in Exodus 24. The covenant ceremony Moses led in Exodus 24 began with his instruction to the people and their pledge of obedience (v. 3). After writing the Lord’s instructions for the people (v. 4), Moses sent young men to sacrifice bulls for burnt offerings and fellowship offerings (v. 5). Moses took the scroll he had written and read it to the people, sprinkling them with the blood of the bulls that had been sacrificed (vv. 7–8). Moses’s leadership in Exodus 24 directly fulfills the Lord’s intentions for Moses described in Exodus 19 and 20. Moses was the Lord’s authoritative spokesman.

And the Lord wanted to host Moses and Israel’s leaders on the mountain. In obedience to the Lord’s invitation in Exodus 24:1–2, Moses led Aaron, Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu, and Israel’s 70 elders up the mountain (v. 9). They saw the Lord but were not consumed, eating in the presence of the Lord (vv. 10–11)! From the moment the Lord descended on the mountain in Exodus 19 to this point in the narrative, the Lord had demanded that Israel stay away from Him lest His holy presence consume them. But now, in Exodus 24, He hosted Moses and Israel’s leaders in near proximity, disclosing Himself to them as they ate. Moses and Joshua then proceeded up the mountain, and Moses stayed in the Lord’s presence for 40 days and nights. (vv. 13–18).

The Lord hosted Moses on Mount Sinai to establish Moses as His authoritative spokesman, the one He chose to mediate His instruction to Israel. Having hosted Moses to prepare him for leadership, the Lord sent Moses down the mountain with the stone tablets (Exod. 31:18).

Jesus’s Hospitality to the Eleven after His Resurrection

The Gospel of John is not short on drama, and the final chapter does not disappoint. It all begins with Peter leading the disciples on a fishing expedition (John 21:3). But they caught nothing. In the morning, Jesus called to them from the shore. Two of Jesus’s statements informed the eleven about who was calling to them. First, Jesus was aware that they had caught nothing. Second, He told them to try the other side of the boat, and they would have a full catch (vv. 5–6). After the eleven did so and saw many fish in the net, Peter recognized that the resurrected Lord Jesus was speaking to them from the shore! In high drama, Peter disrobed and swam to Jesus as the other disciples followed in the boat (vv. 7–8).

Jesus was prepared to host Peter and the other disciples. Already, He had fish cooking over the fire (v. 9). Peter dragged the full net to the shore, and they added some of the day’s catch to what Jesus had on the fire. The eleven were in the presence of the risen Lord Jesus. He was hosting them for brunch, and John writes, “This was now the third time Jesus appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead” (v. 14, CSB).

Jesus’s hospitality to the eleven, framed by Peter’s robust pursuit of the Lord, becomes the setting where Jesus restored Peter to ministry. In vv. 15–19, Jesus asked Peter three times if he loved Him, challenging Peter to embrace his leadership role despite the suffering that would come with it.

Though Jesus’s hospitality to the eleven in John 21 lacks the formal language of the covenant ceremony Moses enacted in Exodus 24, points of contact remain. In both scenes, divine hospitality is extended to human leaders to equip them for their ministries in God’s redemptive program.

This conclusion will frame my third post, where I will look at the pastoral qualification that elders must be hospitable (1 Tim. 3:2; Titus 1:8). In my next post, however, I will highlight a key characteristic of biblical hospitality: urgency.

Responding in Worship and Work

But before wrapping up here, let’s consider: How should we respond to the thought of God hosting us? This is a gospel fact that compels our response in two ways.

First, let us worship God for His kindness in inviting us into His presence and serving us. How do you picture Jesus’s face as He, the eternal Son, taking up human flesh, showed Peter and the eleven the fish He already had cooking over the fire? See that smile? Worship Him!

Second, let us get to work. God has gifted His people with abilities, and if you are reading this blog, He has likely given you abilities to lead the church. Do you love Jesus? Feed His sheep.



“Lest We Drift”

By / Feb 6

Editor’s Note: The following excerpt is taken from Lest We Drift: Five Departure Dangers from the One True Gospel by Jared C. Wilson. Copyright © 2025 by Jared C. Wilson. Used by permission of Zondervan. www.harpercollinschristian.com

Lest We Drift is now available wherever Christian books are sold.

Theological drift is always a danger within evangelicalism. When Reformed evangelicals are not drawing their polemical passion from the rise of Protestantism beginning in the early sixteenth century, they are inspired by the cautionary guidance of more recent historical episodes like the Downgrade Controversy in the late 1800s of Victorian England, the Fundamentalist/Modernist controversy of the 1920s–1930s, the Southern Baptist Convention’s “conservative resurgence” in response to liberalizing influences in the denomination in the late 1970s–1980s, and the concerns in the mid-1990s over Evangelicals and Catholics Together. If the early history of Christianity was fraught with the codification of orthodoxy, late Christianity has been about the enforcing of it.

We are well acquainted with the danger of drift; we seem less acquainted with our own susceptibility to it. And while we are accustomed to noticing the drift of others, we are woefully blind about noticing it among ourselves.

While the bulk of this book is concerned with the kinds of drift threatening our fidelity to the gospel—and our unity around it—it is important to establish first (and reestablish throughout) how such drift occurs. And this is the implicit claim of gospel-centrality as an ideology: that the moment we take our eyes off the center is when we begin to move away from it.

After expounding the wonders of Christ’s glory in the gospel (and the prophetic freight with which it culminates), the author of Hebrews warns us, “Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it” (2:1). One primary implication is clear: Drift from the gospel is possible, and it happens when we stop paying ever-closer attention to it.

And since we are people constantly distracted by a million things inside and outside of ourselves, the potential for drift is constant in our lives. Every movement, no matter how faithful, remains vulnerable, and we fool ourselves if we think we’re the first to finally exorcize our institutions and organizations of this temptation. The shifts are subtler than we usually realize, but they have widespread ramifications.

D. A. Carson remarks thusly on the generational impact of drift:

I have heard a Mennonite leader assess his own movement in this way. One generation of Mennonites cherished the gospel and believed that the entailment of the gospel lay in certain social and political commitments. The next generation assumed the gospel and emphasized the social and political commitments. The present generation identifies itself with the social and political commitments, while the gospel is variously confessed or disowned; it no longer lies at the heart of the belief system of some who call themselves Mennonites.

Whether or not this is a fair reading of the Mennonites, it is certainly a salutary warning for evangelicals at large. [1]

It absolutely is.

I have sensed a parallel phenomenon in the generational succession of the gospel-centered movement as well. With the increased speed of information transfer, the full descent of the internet age, and the reality of globalization, what once might have taken generations can now transpire in the span of a few decades. For a great many of us who came of age at the height of the seeker-sensitive church movement—initially influenced by and trained in ministry to emulate pastors like Rick Warren, Bill Hybels, and Andy Stanley—the rediscovery of Reformed theology provided a canvas upon which to work out our growing angst with the attractional ministry paradigm. In the beginning, younger Boomers and older Gen Xers set about cherishing—or at least enjoying the newness of—gospel-centrality, especially in reaction to what we were rebelling against. From this interest arose the young, restless, and Reformed phenomenon, but in just ten short years, what was new to us had become the established norm for the next generation.

Many younger Gen Xers and Millennials effectively grew up with the gospel-centered movement as the wallpaper of their church experience. This was the generation of “assumption,” for which the implications proved more interesting than the gospel itself. It didn’t help that many of the “cherishers” pastoring and influencing them turned out merely to be dabblers.

The watchword of the Reformation was semper reformanda—“always reforming”—which for its originators meant always returning to the gospel of grace, always and ever conforming to the centrality of Christ. In the spirit of Luther’s first thesis, the whole life of the Christian is to be one of constant repenting, which means constantly turning from sin and constantly turning to Christ.

Gospel-centrality, in other words, is not something you can set to autopilot.

This is true even if your doctrinal fidelity is to the true gospel! The true gospel may be de-centered, placed in the lockbox of our theological basement, or simply hung on the wall of the church website. Accordingly, it provides the background for all manner of functional, ministerial, and cultural drift. For instance, nearly every mainline church where Christ and his gospel are not preached biblically or with conviction claims to affirm the historic creeds. And nearly every conservative church where political rants and legalistic tirades dominate the pulpit maintains an orthodox statement of faith in their church documents.

Drift does not usually begin at the places of doctrines and documents but at the places of discourse and disposition.

Tim Keller writes:

Both the Bible and church history show us that it is possible to hold all the correct individual biblical doctrines and yet functionally lose our grasp on the gospel. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones argues that while we obviously lose the gospel if we fall into heterodoxy, we can also operationally stop preaching and using the gospel on ourselves through dead orthodoxy or through doctrinal imbalances of emphasis. Sinclair Ferguson argues that there are many forms of both legalism and antinomianism, some of which are based on overt heresy but more often on matters of emphasis and spirit. It is critical, therefore, in every new generation and setting to find ways to communicate the gospel clearly and strikingly, distinguishing it from its opposites and counterfeits. [2]

We will examine some of these alternate emphases in subsequent chapters, but as the urban legend tells us, the best way to spot counterfeits is to become familiar with the real thing. Since part of our tendency toward gospel drift is in fact a pervasive gospel confusion, it behooves us to establish and constantly refamiliarize ourselves with the true gospel and the substance of what is meant by “gospel-centrality.”

__________

  1. D. A. Carson, The Cross and Christian Ministry: Leadership Lessons from 1 Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2004), 63.
  2. Timothy Keller, Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2012), 21.


A Bible for the People

By / Dec 12

Editor’s note: Content taken from The Story of Martin Luther by Jared Kennedy, ©2024. Used by permission of Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, crossway.org. Available for purchase from Crossway and where Christian books are sold.

Prince Frederick of Wittenberg did not want his university’s best professor to be killed, but he knew there was a real threat. Even before Martin had gone to Worms, Prince Frederick already guessed that he would be condemned by the emperor.

After the trial, Martin was given twenty-one days to change his mind. If he didn’t recant, his books were to be burned, and he was to be turned over to the authorities right away. If Martin was going to survive this verdict, he would need his prince’s help. So Frederick made a plan.

Martin and his friends left Worms and traveled east toward home in Wittenberg. When they came near the woods outside the village of Eisenach, they were suddenly surrounded.

A group of men on horseback drew their swords, and one demanded, “Where’s Martin Luther?”

Before one of Martin’s friends could answer, another horseman grabbed Martin by his cloak and threw him to the ground. The kidnappers put Martin on the back of one of their horses and immediately darted off into the woods.

Most people thought Martin had been killed, but Prince Frederick had arranged the “kidnapping” to keep Martin safe. Martin was held in protective custody at Wartburg Castle (nicknamed “the Wartburg”), a tall, stone castle that looms high above the wooded hills of the Thuringian Forest. Martin hid in the dark, gloomy fortress for almost ten months.

As long as Martin was at the Wartburg, the pope and the emperor’s officials couldn’t find him. But Martin had other enemies. Ephesians 6:12 says, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against . . . the spiritual forces of evil.” Alone in the castle tower, the devil’s accusations filled Martin’s mind: Are you the only wise person? Has the church in so many centuries gone wrong? What if you are wrong about justification? What if you are taking many people with you to hell?

The old storm in Martin’s heart returned. He was depressed and couldn’t sleep. Then he remembered Dr. Staupitz’s advice to hold on to Christ, to stop thinking about himself, and to serve God’s people. He remembered his mentor’s words, “You will be a teacher of the Bible.”

What better way to teach God’s word than to give the German people a Bible that they could read in their own language? There had been German Bible translations before Martin, but these older versions were difficult for regular people to read. What was the point in using fancy and complicated words that couldn’t be understood? Martin told his friend George Spalatin, “Give us simple words and not those of the court or castle, for this book should be famous for its simplicity.”

To make his translation, Martin studied hard to understand a Bible passage’s meaning. He also looked at each verse and thought, How would a German person say something like that? Martin wrestled, for example, with Luke 1:28, where the angel Gabriel greeted Mary and announced that she was pregnant with baby Jesus. Some Bible versions had translated his words, “Hail Mary, full of grace.” Martin thought this was confusing: “A German can talk about a purse full of gold or a barrel full of beer, but how would a German understand a girl ‘full of grace’?” Martin thought that translation missed the point. “I’d prefer to say simply, ‘Leibe Maria’ [“beloved Mary”]. What word is richer than that word, ‘liebe’?”

The translation work was humbling for Martin. He wrote, “I have undertaken to translate the Bible into German. This was good for me. If I hadn’t done it, I might have died thinking I was smart.” Though the work was difficult, Martin completed translating the entire New Testament from its original Greek into German in just eleven weeks. Martin’s time in the Wartburg settled the thunder roaring in his soul. It also prepared him for a different storm. Within the year, he’d return to Wittenberg, ready to face the troubles that raged there.



The People’s Christ

By / Dec 4

Editor’s note: Excerpted from A Wondrous Mystery: Daily Advent Devotions by Charles H. Spurgeon © 2024 by editor Geoffrey Chang. Used with permission of New Growth Press. May not be reproduced without prior written permission. Available for purchase at newgrowthpress.com.

~

“I have exalted one chosen from the people.” Psalm 89:19

Our Savior Jesus Christ, I say, was chosen out of the people; but this merely respects his manhood. As “very God of very God” he was not chosen out of the people; for there was none save him. He was his Father’s only-begotten Son, “begotten of the Father before all worlds.”1 He was God’s fellow, co-equal, and co-eternal. Consequently, when we speak of Jesus as being chosen out of the people, we must speak of him as a man. We are, I conceive, too forgetful of the real manhood of our Redeemer, for a man he was to all intents and purposes, and I love to sing,

A Man there was, a real Man,

Who once on Calvary died

He was not man and God amalgamated—the two natures suffered no confusion—he was very God, without the diminution of his essence or attributes; and he was equally, verily, and truly, man.2 It is as a man I speak of Jesus this morning; and it rejoices my heart when I can view the human side of that glorious miracle of incarnation, and can deal with Jesus Christ as my brother—inhabitant of the same mortality, wrestler with the same pains and ills, companion in the march of life, and, for a little while, a fellow-sleeper in the cold chamber of death.

We have had many complaints this week, and for some weeks past, in the newspapers, concerning the upper-class families. We are governed—and, according to the firm belief of a great many of us, very badly governed—by certain aristocratic families. We are not governed by men chosen out of the people, as we ought to be; and this is a fundamental wrong in our government—that our rulers, even when elected by us, can scarcely ever be elected from us. Families, where certainly there is not a monopoly of intelligence or prudence, seems to have a patent for promotion; while a man, a commoner, a tradesman, of however good sense, cannot rise to the government. I am no politician, and I am about to preach no political sermon; but I must express my sympathy with the people, and my joy that we, as Christians, are governed by “one chosen from the people.” Jesus Christ is the people’s man; he is the people’s friend—aye, one of themselves. Though he sits high on his Father’s throne, he was “one chosen from the people.” Christ is not to be called the aristocrat’s Christ, he is not the noble’s Christ, he is not the king’s Christ; but he is “one chosen from the people.” It is this thought which cheers the hearts of the people, and ought to bind their souls in unity to Christ, and the holy faith of which he is the Founder and Perfecter (Hebrews 12:2).

Christ, by his very birth, was one of the people. True, he was born of a royal ancestry. Mary and Joseph were both of them descendants of a kingly race, but the glory had departed. A stranger sat on the throne of Judah, while the lawful heir grasped the hammer and the plane. Mark well the place of his nativity. Born in a stable—cradled in a manger where the horned oxen fed—his only bed was their fodder, and his slumbers were often broken by their lowings. He might be a prince by birth; but certainly he had not a princely retinue to wait upon him. He was not clad in purple garments, neither wrapped in embroidered clothing; the halls of kings were not trodden by his feet, the marble palaces of monarchs were not honored by his infant smiles.

Take notice of the visitors who came around his cradle. The shepherds came first of all. We never find that they lost their way. No, God guides the shepherds, and he did direct the wise men too, but they lost their way. It often happens, that while shepherds find Christ, wise men miss him. But, however, both of them came, the magi and the shepherds; both knelt round that manger, to show us that Christ was the Christ of all men; that he was not merely the Christ of the magi, but that he was the Christ of the shepherds—that he was not merely the Savior of the peasant shepherd, but also the Savior of the learned, for

None are excluded hence, but those

Who do themselves exclude;

Welcome the learned and polite,

The ignorant and rude.

Christ was chosen out of the people—that he might know our wants and sympathize with us. You know the old tale, that one half the world does not know how the other half lives, and that is very true. I believe some of the rich have no notion whatever of what the distress of the poor is. They have no idea of what it is to labor for their daily food. They have a very faint conception of what a rise in the price of bread means. They do not know anything about it; and when we put men in power who never were of the people, they do not understand the art of governing us. But our great and glorious Jesus Christ is one chosen out of the people, and therefore he knows our wants.

My brother Christian, there is no place where you can go, where Christ has not been before, sinful places alone excepted. In the dark valley of the shadow of death you may see his bloody footsteps—footprints marked with gore; ay, and even at the deep waters of the swelling Jordan, you will, when you come hard by the side, say “There are the footprints of a man: whose are they?” Stooping down, you will discern a nail-mark, and will say “Those are the footsteps of the blessed Jesus.” He has been before you; he has smoothed the way; he has entered the grave, that he might make the tomb the royal bedchamber of the ransomed race, the closet where they lay aside the garments of labor, to put on the vestments of eternal rest. In all places wherever we go, the angel of the covenant has been our forerunner. Each burden we have to carry, has once been laid on the shoulders of Immanuel.

__________

  1. Taken from the Nicene Creed
  2. Taken from the Chalcedonian Definition


2024 For the Church Book Awards

By / Dec 2

A good book timely placed in the right hands can change the course of a life and ministry. At For the Church, we believe in the ministry of good books for the sake of the Church—which is why we’re excited to present to you the 2024 For the Church Book Awards. For our eighth annual FTC Book Awards, members of our FTC council, editorial staff, and seminary community chose two books—a winner and a runner-up—to honor and to recommend to you for the way they impacted them personally and/or offered a significant contribution to the Church and her pursuit of a gospel-centered life and ministry.

Congratulations to this year’s winners of the 2024 For the Church Book Awards!

Dr. Jason K. Allen, President of Midwestern Seminary and FTC Editor-in-Chief

Winner: The Army of God: Spurgeon’s Vision for the Church by Geoff Chang (Mentor)

“The immortal Charles Spurgeon was many things—powerful preacher, fervent evangelist, fearless apologist, prolific author, and dynamic leader all rolled into one. But at the center of his ministerial heart was, perhaps, one virtuous gifting above all else— a devoted pastor. Indeed, so many of Spurgeon’s ministry pursuits and so much of his ministry influence flowed from his primary work of shepherding the flock of God entrusted to him. Spurgeon’s heart for the local church, and the ecclesiological convictions that undergirded it, are an enduring distinctive of the great man’s ministry. That’s why the 21st century pastor will benefit from studying Spurgeon’s ecclesiological convictions and well-documented pastoral ministry. And that’s also why I’m grateful for Geoff Chang’s The Army of God: Spurgeon’s Vision for the Church, in which he sets forth, in easy-to-read format, Spurgeon’s local-church convictions and practice. I heartily commend this book to all who serve God’s people. .”

Get the book here.

Runner-Up: Mere Christian Hermeneutics: Transfiguring What It Means to Read the Bible Theologically by Kevin J. Vanhoozer (Zondervan Academic)

“Though conservative evangelicals have long affirmed the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture, how to interpret Scripture remains an ongoing source of discussion and even debate. Kevin Vanhoozer’s Mere Christian Hermeneutics is a welcome contribution to this ongoing dialogue. Vanhoozer is a respected theologian and accomplished author who brings his considerable gifts to bear in this treatise on biblical interpretation. Whether you agree or disagree with Vanhoozer’s argument on reading the Bible theologically, all who seek to seriously engage the topic of biblical hermeneutics will benefit from his work.”

Get the book here.

Dr. Jason G. Duesing, Provost of Midwestern Seminary and FTC Editorial Council Member

Winner: The Mythmakers: The Remarkable Fellowship of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien by John Hendrix (Harry N. Abrams)

This is not your typical graphic novel. Well researched and engaging, The Mythmakers tells the story of the creative imaginings that served as the bond for Lewis and Tolkien’s friendship.  Following their post-war careers in Oxford, Hendricks sheds new light on both the well known and less known aspects of the these Inklings—including even the fraying of their friendship in later years. Hendrix, a New York Times bestselling author and illustrator, serves as founding Chair of the Illustration and Visual Culture program at Washington University in St. Louis. This is a book to be read and shared—all who do will be surprised by joy.

Get the book here.

Runner-Up: Psalms in an Age of Distraction: Experiencing the Restorative Power of Biblical Poetry by Ethan C. Jones (Baker Academic)

Ethan Jones clarifies, “This is not a book about digital media.”  Indeed, it serves as a welcomed distraction from the devices that distract. This is a beautiful book about how the Psalms, as poetry, can teach, guide, shape the soul as well as shape churches. Jones, associate professor at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, has written articles on this idea for a few years following service as a Visting Scholar at the University of Cambridge, and I am thrilled to see it come together in book form.

Get the book here.

Camden Pulliam, Senior Vice President for Institutional Relations at Midwestern Seminary and FTC Editorial Council Member

Winner: Mere Christian Hermeneutics: Transfiguring What It Means to Read the Bible Theologically by Kevin J. Vanhoozer (Zondervan Academic)

“Most thinkers are either journalists or scholars. Journalists make complex things simple. Scholars make simple things complex. In Mere Christian Hermeneutics, Kevin Vanhoozer does both. He takes the complex biblical interpretation world and makes sense of it, while also bringing added depth and scholarship to otherwise assumed concepts (e.g. see Part 2 on defining “literal interpretation”). In this work, Vanhoozer attempts the unthinkable: a foundational hermeneutic of the Bible on which all Christians can agree. Whether he is successful, only time will tell. But in view of the fractured state of Christian hermeneutics, his attempt is welcomed with open arms. May the church and academy alike follow his lead and foster a community of readers who obey the Word unto love of God and love of neighbor.”

Get the book here.

Runner-Up: Pilgrim Prayers: Devotional Poems That Awaken Your Heart to the Goodness, Greatness, and Glory of God (Zondervan)

“While in seminary, a professor encouraged my preaching class to take up poetry to improve our preaching. Both tasks – poetry and preaching – give a sense of the significant with an eye towards style. Both tasks stir the heart and move the will. Thus, as a growing preacher myself, I was delighted to discover Tim Challies’ new book, Pilgrim Prayers. This book is filled with poem-prayers from prior generations. Each poem is accompanied with added commentary, devotional content, and Scripture reading. Whether you are a pastor hoping to improve your preaching or simply a Christ-follower looking for a new devotional, these poem-prayers will help you savor the Savior and declare his deeds. I hope you enjoy these wordy gifts as much as I have. (For a personal favorite from Challies’ selection, see “A Prayer of Confident Submission to God” authored by Christopher Newman Hall).”

Get the book here.

Jared Wilson, Assistant Professor of Pastoral Ministry, Spurgeon College; Author in Residence, and FTC Editorial Council Member

Winner: Proclaiming Christ in a Pluralistic Age by J.I. Packer (Crossway)

“These 1978 lectures published this year for the first time stand as yet another example of the treasure the late J.I. Packer was to evangelicalism. The subjects covered—Christ’s humanity and divinity, the biblical foundations of penal substitutionary atonement, the historicity and power of Christ’s resurrection—should not be the least bit controversial in the Christian tradition, but Packer’s careful responses to the challenges to these truths (and more besides) delivered more than 40 years ago are just as relevant and vital to gospel ministry today. Few write about such depth with such clarity and humility. This book, the best I’ve read in 2024, is a beautiful refresher on gospel doctrine that will serve us all well in an age of continuing drift and distraction.”

Get the book here.

Runner-Up: A Bit of Earth: A Year in the Garden with God by Andrea Burke (Lexham Press)

“One of the greatest needs in our day of information overload is the Christian who can communicate truth in both personal and artful ways, adorning the beauty of the gospel with beautiful prose. As she reflects on her own careful cultivation of her garden in upstate New York, teacher and author (and occasional For The Church contributor) Andrea Burke’s tender and devotionally rich writing in A Bit of Earth will cultivate vital growth in your own heart. This is, quite simply, a beautiful book.”

Get the book here.

Brett Fredenberg, Director of Marketing and Content Strategy and Managing Editor of For the Church

Winner: Daily Doctrine: A One-Year Guide to Systematic Theology by Kevin DeYoung (Crossway)

“Not only is Kevin DeYoung’s recent book Daily Doctrine a bulwark of truth for pastors and ministry leaders, it was a balm for my soul as well. Time would fail to mention just how broad a landscape DeYoung covers in this guide, and for fear of leaving off such important doctrines I wouldn’t dare begin to summarize. For me, the theological precision of his work on the doctrine of Christology, his biblical and historical sourcing for the doctrine of the Trinity, and his section on salvation was worth the price of the book by themselves. Many people may ask: ‘What’s the point of theology?’ Kevin DeYoung’s book responds by modeling what Andrew Bonar knew to be true: ‘Doctrine is practical, for it is that that stirs up the heart.’ Pick up this book and you’ll find yourself returning to its contents years down the road, for your own life and the life of your people.

Get the book here.

Runner-Up: To Gaze Upon God by Samuel G. Parkison  (IVP Academic)

“Hans Boersma writes in his endorsement of Parkison’s book, ‘This is easily the best primer on the beatific vision today.” In other words, this is easily the best primer today on one of the most important doctrines for the Church. The beatific vision is the Christian’s hope of seeing God face to face—a doctrine which has been forgotten for far too long. Parkison’s book gives a comprehensive treatment of the beatific vision, from its biblical basis and historical foundation to retrieval in evangelicalism and application in the Christian life, in order to raise the Christian’s eyes to a hope far above the woes and wiles of our everyday experience. Read this book and be reminded and renewed in your hope of being with your God fully as we were always meant to be.

Get the book here.

Michaela Classen, Associate Editor at For the Church

Winner: Delighting in the Old Testament: Through Christ and For Christ by Jason DeRouchie (Crossway)

“When we behold Christ, we are transformed. In Delighting in the Old Testament, Jason DeRouchie shows us Christ throughout the pages of the Old Testament, transforming our understanding of the Old Testament to see its unified storyline that points to salvation in Jesus. DeRouchie presents a thorough, biblical case, carefully showing how the Old and New Testaments work together to proclaim Christ and are rightly understood in light of Him. DeRouchie also applies this foundation to interpret Old Testament laws and promises for believers today. Though his work is an excellent resource for students, his writing is accessible to a wide audience, with clear Scripture references and helpful graphics. Delighting in the Old Testament helps Christians read their Bible and see their Savior who loved them before the foundation of the world. In this way, the book is truly for the Church.”

Get the book here.

Runner-up: Reclaiming the “Dark Ages”: How the Gospel Shone from 500 to 1500 by Iain Wright (Christian Focus)

“In no period of history has Christ abandoned His bride. Reclaiming the Dark Ages offers a testimony to that fact. Peering into the period of our history between the early church and the Protestant Reformation, a millennium often characterized as spiritually and intellectually lost, authors Iain Wright and Yannick Imbert give us a glimpse of the light of true faith enduring over the generations. Each chapter presents a biographical sketch of 10 key figures, including Boethius, Anselm of Canterbury, and John Wycliffe, and an account of each one’s contributions to theological orthodoxy. Though some readers may benefit from additional reading to fully appreciate the theological context and controversies in each figure’s story, the book is an accessible entry point to this period of Church history and an encouraging reminder of God’s faithfulness to build His Church.”

Get the book here.

Levi Moore, Manager, Sword & Trowel Bookstore and Tomlinson Cafe

Winner: Delighting in the Old Testament: Through Christ and For Christ by Jason DeRouchie (Crossway)

“Delighting in Scripture is a wonderful privilege of the disciples of Jesus Christ. The Gospels introduce sinners to their Savior, but they do not tell the whole story as to why we need a Savior. Moreover, many Christians neglect the first thirty-nine books of the Bible. DeRouchie’s work, Delighting in the Old Testament, lays out a simple and applicable method to aid the Church in taking joy in the foundational text to the New Testament. Even in the Old Testament, Jesus is made to be central to understanding the text. As such, Jesus helps us to read well, see well, hope well, and live well. With the for the Church mission in mind, this work is designed to be used by individuals and groups alike.”

Get the book here.

Runner-Up: Daily Doctrine: A One-Year Guide to Systematic Theology by Kevin DeYoung (Crossway)

“People are often averse to those things that are most foreign or that appear too difficult. Though doctrine may seem dense and difficult to understand, DeYoung offers an approachable explanation of systematic theology. While this work can be read straight through or used as a small reference, it is meant to be read as part of a daily devotional that breaks down deep doctrine into a page or two and avoids using complex language. This book advances the for the Church mission in helping the layman digest doctrine in a succinct and edifying way.”

Get the book here.

Once again, we would like to extend a congratulations to the authors and publishers represented in the 2024 For the Church Book Awards. You can view previous winners of the FTC Book Awards here: 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017.



The Mystery of Godliness

By / Nov 20

Editor’s note: Excerpted from A Wondrous Mystery: Daily Advent Devotions by Charles H. Spurgeon © 2024 by editor Geoffrey Chang. Used with permission of New Growth Press. May not be reproduced without prior written permission. Available for purchase at newgrowthpress.com.

~

Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness: He was manifested in the flesh. 1 Timothy 3:16

“God was manifest in the flesh” (1 Timothy 3:16 KJV). I believe that our version is the correct one, but the fiercest battles have been held over this sentence. It is asserted that the word Theos is a corruption for Os, so that, instead of reading “God was manifest in the flesh,” we should read, “who was manifest in the flesh.”

There is very little occasion for fighting about this matter, for if the text does not say “God was manifest in the flesh,” who does it say was manifest in the flesh? Either a man, or an angel, or a devil. Does it tell us that a man was manifest in the flesh? Assuredly that cannot be its teaching, for every man is manifest in the flesh, and there is no sense whatever in making such a statement concerning any mere man, and then calling it a mystery. Was it an angel, then? But what angel was ever manifest in the flesh? And if he were, would it be at all a mystery that he should be “seen by angels” (1 Timothy 3:16)? Is it a wonder for an angel to see an angel? Can it be that the devil was manifest in the flesh? If so, he has been “taken up in glory” (1 Timothy 3:16) which, let us hope, is not the case.

Well, if it was neither a man, nor an angel, nor a devil, who was manifest in the flesh, then surely, he must have been God; and so, if the word be not there, the sense must be there, or else nonsense. We believe that, if criticism should grind the text in a mill, it would get out of it no more and no less than the sense expressed by our grand old version. God himself was manifest in the flesh. What a mystery is this! A mystery of mysteries! God the invisible was manifest; God the spiritual dwelt in flesh; God the infinite, uncontained, boundless, was manifest in the flesh. What infinite leagues our thought must traverse between Godhead self-existent, and, therefore, full of power and self-sufficiency, before we have descended to the far-down level of poor flesh, which is as grass at its best, and dust in its essence! Where find we a greater contrast than between God and flesh, and yet the two are blended in the incarnation of the Savior. God was manifest in the flesh; truly God, not God humanized, but God as God. He was manifest in real flesh; not in manhood deified and made superhuman, but in actual flesh.

Oh joy! there sitteth in our flesh,

Upon a throne of light,

One of a human mother born,

In perfect Godhead bright!

For ever God, for ever man,

My Jesus shall endure;

And fix’d on Him, my hope remains

Eternally secure.

Matchless truth, let the church never fail to set it forth, for it is essential to the world’s salvation that this doctrine of the incarnation be made fully known.

O my brethren, since it is “great indeed,” let us sit down and feed upon it. What a miracle of condescension is here, that God should manifest himself in flesh. It needs not so much to be preached upon as to be pondered in the heart. It needs that you sit down in quiet, and consider how he who made you became like you, he who is your God became your brother man. He who is adored of angels once lay in a manger; he who feeds all living things hungered and was athirst; he who oversees all worlds as God, was, as a man, made to sleep, to suffer, and to die like yourselves. This is a statement not easily to be believed. If he had not been beheld by many witnesses, so that men handled him, looked upon him, and heard him speak, it would be a thing not readily to be accepted, that so divine a person should be manifest in flesh. It is a wonder of condescension!

And it is a marvel, too, of benediction, for God’s manifestation in human flesh conveys a thousand blessings to us. Bethlehem’s star is the morning star of hope to believers. Now man is nearest to God. Never was God manifest in angel nature, but he is manifest in flesh. Now, between poor puny man that is born of a woman, and the infinite God, there is a bond of union of the most wonderful kind. God and man in one person is the Lord Jesus Christ! This brings our manhood near to God, and by so doing it ennobles our nature, it lifts us up from the dunghill and sets us among princes; while at the same time it enriches us by endowing our manhood with all the glory of Christ Jesus in whom dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Lift up your eyes, you down-trodden sons of man! If you be men, you have a brotherhood with Christ, and Christ is God. O you who have begun to despise yourselves and think that you are merely sent to be drudges upon earth, and slaves of sin! Lift up your heads and look for redemption in the Son of Man, who has broken the captives’ bonds. If you be believers in the Christ of God, then are you also the children of God, and if children then heirs—heirs of God—joint heirs with Jesus Christ.

What a fullness of consolation there is in this truth, as well as of benediction; for if the Son of God be man, then he understands me and will have a fellow feeling for me. He knows my unfitness to worship sometimes—he knows my tendencies to grow weary and dull my pains, my trials, and my griefs:

He knows what fierce temptations mean,

For he has felt the same.

Man, truly man, yet sitting at the right hand of the Father, you, O Savior, are the delight of my soul. Is there not the richest comfort in this for you, the people of God?



5 Reasons I Love Being a Pastor

By / Oct 31

Being a pastor is difficult.

I remember my mentor in ministry telling me when I was in my early twenties that if I could do anything else, I should do that. He warned me there would be days that I wished I was working in any other sort of job. He was right. But I couldn’t do anything else–or rather—I couldn’t without feeling I was running from God, and he agreed that was a sign that God was calling me to be a pastor.

I can tend towards dwelling on the difficult and the negative some days because they are what so often are calling for our attention: solving problems, considering the next step in loosening or tightening COVID restrictions, wondering how this next phone call or meeting will go, remembering that I forgot to check in with somebody undergoing a trial. The list goes on.

But there are so many blessings in being a pastor, so many reasons I count it one of the greatest privileges of my life, so many reasons to thank God for being a pastor, and so many reasons I love being a pastor.

In keeping with Paul’s admonition to think about “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things,” (Phil. 4:8), I want to list five of the many reasons I love being a pastor.

#1 – I get to teach and study God’s Word as part of my job.

For all of the stresses that being a pastor entails, and the pressure of the Sunday morning sermon deadline, and all of the spiritual battles that come my way, every week I get to—and am expected to—spend hours studying God’s Word and preparing to teach it. This is an inestimable privilege.

I once heard an older pastor say that he couldn’t believe that he gets paid to study God’s Word. That is a perspective that I need to keep in mind and thank God for weekly. It is a joy to spend time in God’s Word and be filled up with it and challenged by it so that I can have the joy of equipping, encouraging, and stretching God’s people with it. May I never take this for granted.

#2 – I get to be there for people’s highs and lows in life.

Some of my favorite moments in pastoring are being right there for the highs and lows of people’s lives and being used by God in those situations to “rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep” (Rom. 12:15). It is a joy to pray with new parents while holding a newborn baby, and it is a joy to see the radiance in the eyes of a couple getting married while standing right behind them. It is also a different, somber kind of joy to be able to help a couple apply God’s Word to their marriage struggles when the need for counseling comes. It is something I would never trade to have the privilege of praying with a newly bereaved relative thanking God for the life of their loved one, sometimes while the body is still in the room.

These intense times of ministry bond me with God’s people and remind me each time of some of the unique reasons I love being God’s hands and feet. It is also special to be able to often minister during these highs and lows in people’s lives with my wife as she uses her gifts with me. May I never take this for granted.

#3 – I get a front-row seat to God’s work.

Another benefit to being a pastor that I love is getting a front-row seat to God’s work. The average church member does not have the joy of seeing some of the mercy ministry that goes on in secret in the life of a church. It is a holy privilege to know about an act of love in Jesus’ name that only God, me, and the other person involved know about due to confidentiality. It is a distinctive joy to not only ache at marriage problems but also to rejoice with a couple who is now reaping the benefits of following God’s ways in their relationship. I alone get to “see the light bulb come on” in the middle of a sermon for that person who has been trying to figure out what they believe about Jesus. I alone sometimes get to see tears of repentance over sin or tears of hope due to longing for Heaven and being reunited with a beloved spouse or child.

I know that God is always doing a million things and that we are usually only aware of a few of them at any given moment, but as a pastor, I literally get to see God’s invisible hand working out His plan for His glory and His people’s good every week, if I have the eyes to see it. May I never take this for granted.

#4 – I get to see people come to know Jesus as Savior and Lord and then baptize them.

“I wasn’t sure before, but I know that I know Jesus now,” the 16-year old boy told me in the car as we drove from Subway after getting his monthly favorite sub (ham with black olives–lots of black olives!) and catching up on high school life.

“What’s the change?” I asked, excited as I had been praying for him for years as he had been coming to youth group ever since I became a youth pastor.

“I didn’t care about sin before, but now I don’t want to sin anymore because I love Jesus,” he replied.

I never would have been part of that conversation if God had not called me to be a pastor. Baptisms—whether the believer going public grew up in the church or recently began to attend—are some of the most joyous Sundays on the calendar. When you get to talk about the gospel, make disciples, and baptize as part of your job, you are blessed. May I never take this for granted.

#5 – I get the privilege of serving Jesus as His errand boy.

Harold Senkbeil, in his book The Care of Souls, says that a sheepdog always has his tail wagging when he is working, and one eye always on his master. Too often my tail is not wagging, but those are the moments or days that I have my eyes off of my master. But some days, as I look to the day ahead and ask Jesus for strength and wisdom to serve His church that He has promised to build, it will hit me with a wave of joy: I get the privilege to serve Jesus as His errand boy today—wherever and in whatever way He may choose to take me for that day or that season. May I never take this for granted.

I don’t say it often enough—I love being a pastor.

Editor’s note: This piece originally appeared at the Baptist Convention of New England blog and is used with permission. It was republished at For the Church on July 1, 2021.



Pastoring People Through Slow Change

By / Oct 28

Pastoring people is a slow, long-haul process. As church planters and pastors in established churches, we are called to lead people who are under construction. Unfortunately, until Christ returns, we don’t get to experience heaven here on earth. All people, pastors included, deal with the effects of indwelling sin on a daily basis. This means, as pastors, we are called to drop into the mess of disordered lives and serve people who may be at their worst moments.

Most of us are familiar with the story behind the writing of the song “Amazing Grace” by John Newton. Newton, a slave trader, was caught in an awful storm while he plied his trade on the seas. The Lord used that particular storm to bring Newton to faith in Christ. In response to his conversion, Newton wrote “Amazing Grace.” What most people don’t know, however, is that Newton wouldn’t stop his trade of slaves for another ten years after his conversion! Yep, he used to drop off his cargo and go for walks across the meadow to think and pray. But, over those ten years, God slowly brought Newton to a deep conviction that the slave trade was wrong. My point? The process of change in Christians is usually very, very slow. This doesn’t mean that we overlook sin, but it does mean that we are patient with people as they connect the dots—just as Newton did.

We also need to realize that in addition to being slow to change, people (including pastors) easily drift away from gospel-focused lives. Do you remember when Peter and Paul, the two titans of the faith, squared off in Antioch? When Peter initially arrived in Antioch, he spent time with Gentiles and enjoyed both food and fellowship with them. But when the representatives from Jerusalem arrived, Peter drew back from the Gentiles out of fear. But Paul saw a deeper problem:

“For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, ‘If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?’” (Galatians 2:12-14)

Paul interpreted Peter’s behavior not just in reference to the law, or some category of the heart, but in reference to what Peter’s behavior revealed about his understanding and application of the gospel. Peter’s conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel. Peter unconsciously drifted into hypocrisy, but that was only a symptom. The cause was gospel-drift, and so Paul brought him back to the gospel.

Part of the pastor’s job is to help Christians regularly refocus on the gospel. To a friend who is bitter, we encourage them to, “…forgive, as God in Christ forgave you,” (Eph. 4:32). To the husband who is passive: “Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her,” (Eph. 5:25). In other words, we look at how the gospel speaks to a person’s struggles, fears, anger, and selfishness, and then help people apply the gospel to their particular struggles.

As Tim Keller says, “All of our problems come from a failure to apply the gospel.”

The call to plant and pastor is primarily a call to help people keep the gospel in focus.

Editor’s note: This piece was originally published at Dave Harvey’s site, AmICalled.com. It was republished at For the Church on February 10, 2017.



Union with Christ: The Gift of a “New Me”

By / Oct 25

Editor’s note: The following is excerpted with permission from Home with God: Our Union with Christ by Kyle Worley. Copyright 2024, B&H Publishing. Available for pre-order from B&H Publishing and wherever books are sold.

A well-wrapped gift creates curiosity, doesn’t it? Sitting under a Christmas tree or at a table next to a birthday cake, children can be driven crazy with the anticipation of unwrapping a gift, their minds racing with curiosity. “What goodness could this box possibly have inside?!” All too often, for all of us, the unwrapped gift doesn’t live up to the hype.

But the exact opposite is true when we begin to unwrap all God has for us in Christ Jesus. We are told that “every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” (Eph. 1:3) is in Christ Jesus and that “all the promises of God find their ‘Yes’ in him” (2 Cor. 1:20). All of God’s good things for His people are in Christ Jesus. All of them. And at the core of these many gifts there is the gift of a new identity.

In Christ, we receive a “new me.” This new identity is radically different from our old identity in Adam, because in Christ we are justified. To be justified is to be declared righteous by God. Justification is one of the key benefits of salvation, for it remedies the essential problem of our alienation from God: that we are born into this world, in Adam and unrighteous.

There is no way of earning the righteousness of God, but there is a way of receiving it. In Christ and Christ alone.

Where do we receive this declaration of righteousness? In Christ. Is it because when we trust in God, all of a sudden our behavior is perfectly righteous? Absolutely not! Is it because once we have done enough stuff following Jesus’s righteous example, God accepts us as righteous? Absolutely not! We are declared righteous by God because we have entered into the righteous one by grace through faith.

We are justified in Christ. The condemnation that belongs to us by nature in Adam is exchanged for the righteousness that belongs to Christ by nature. It is on the cross that this great exchange occurs. By nature, we deserve condemnation, but God “made [Jesus] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21). In Jesus, we are declared and made righteous. No longer defined by sin and shame, we are now defined by the righteousness we have been rewarded with in Christ.

In Christ, we receive all of God’s saving benefits. A gift that does not disappoint. And what we receive in Christ can never be lost, it can never be taken away, it can never be stripped away. God declares His people righteous in His beloved Son. To take back what He has given to His people in Christ would be to forsake His own Son. And that will never happen. Never.

I refer to the doctrine of union with Christ as our “home with God.” In Christ, we are welcomed into life with God.

How does this new home shape how God sees us? It means that we are now viewed by God the Father through the life, work, and victory of God the Son. So how does the Father see the Son? If we answer that, we will have our answer to how God sees us when we are in Christ.

Every Gospel account in the New Testament records the baptism of Jesus. In the Gospels we are told exactly how the Father sees the Son at Christ’s baptism: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” Each of the baptism accounts presents this moment as one of the clearest pictures of the triune God’s beloved fellowship: God the Father declaring, the Holy Spirit descending, and the Son of God receiving.

And yet, the baptism of Jesus comes before His public ministry. When Jesus receives the declaration of “beloved,” His public ministry has not begun. After the baptism, He enters into the wilderness showdown with Satan. Why do I point this out? Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was beloved before the battle. In Jesus we, too, are beloved before the battle. Beloved by God in Christ before we ever do anything for the sake of Christ.

It is in being received as a child of God that we find the love for which we long. We are born longing to become beloved. To feel beloved. Due to our homeless hearts, we have a strong bent toward misplacing this desire in things and people that can never deliver on it.

When Christ receives the public declaration of “beloved Son,” He receives it on behalf of all who would be united to Him. “In love [God] predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ” (Eph. 1:5).

Who is the Christian before God?

In Christ Jesus, they are a righteous and beloved child of God.

Why does this change everything?

To put it simply, if you are in Christ Jesus, God isn’t waiting on a future version of you He is going to love more. You are already righteous. For good. Forever. Because you are in the righteous one. You are already beloved. For good. Forever. Because, you are in the Beloved Son. How could this not change everything?

In Christ Jesus, we receive forgiveness and fellowship. In Him, we are not only acquitted, we are accepted. In Christ Jesus, we receive both the righteousness we desperately need and the relationship we desperately desire. We are justified in Christ and we are adopted in Christ Jesus.

And this changes everything because our new identity is unbreakable and unshakable. It cannot be lost or corrupted, and it will be kept by God forever because He is forever faithful to Himself. In Christ, God is covenantally bound to you. To forsake you would be to forsake the perfect faithfulness of Jesus Christ, and God will never break fellowship with Himself. This unbreakable union is set by the Father, secured by the Son, and sealed by the Holy Spirit. Even when we disobey God or settle for lesser loves, we are kept by Jesus as we are “sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of His glory” (Eph. 1:13–15).

Union with Christ gives us a new identity. In Christ, I receive a “new me.” Not the “new me” of self-help books, not a “new me” that is more productive, more efficient, and more successful, but a “new me” that is now a righteous and beloved child of God. You can’t life hack a new identity, but you can receive one.