Hey Church!

In light of the new series on the life of Abraham, I thought that a fitting prepare-for-worship reflection would be the tension we all feel between the call of God and the natural desire of our hearts to be happy. 

If you are interested in taking a little bit of a deeper dive on the subject, Jon Piper has a great sermon that can be found here: “Joy Changes Everything.” Much of what I will say is related to this message, so I would encourage you to give it an hour of your time. 

In summary, the point of Piper’s sermon is also the overarching motto of his life’s work: “Christ is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.” Pointing primarily to Philippians 1:20-23, he explains how Paul thought so highly of what life will be like with Christ after death that it caused literally everything in this life to pale in comparison. The reason, he concludes, that the Christian can have a deep satisfaction and joy even in the midst of pain, loss, and death, is because even death is gain for the believer. 

When we think about Abraham abandoning all of his wealth and homeland for the sake of God’s calling to a yet-unknown country, it is easy to imagine how any one of us might have quarreled with God in such a scenario. We might have replied to our Lord, with great reluctance and fear, “Okay, God. Let me just wrap my mind around all that I will lose in this agreement: my country, possessions, money, friendships, career, all that is familiar and comfortable… and once I have sacrificed all of my happiness on the altar of obedience, and after I have finished grieving over my loss, then I will go where you command.” What this honest sentiment reveals about our hearts, however, is that we believe God’s purposes for us are at odds with our happiness. 

The theme of sacrifice is a major theme related to Christian worship throughout Scripture. There is biblical truth to the idea that, “If you want to follow God’s will, then lay your will on the altar.” But that is not primarily the perspective of one who has spent a good portion of life earnestly walking with Christ. Instead of, “Okay, God, you can have my will,” the exuberant and joyful proclamation of all who live their lives with the singular goal of magnifying His glory is, “Look at all that I will gain when you make my wants your wants, my happiness your happiness, and my purposes yours. God, give me a new will!” 

Never have I heard someone say they regret how much time they spent in the Word, or in prayer, or in worship or discipleship. In its typical upside-down-Kingdom manner, it turns out that those who run hardest after Christ are least likely to faint or grow weary; those who hold everything with an open hand may lose it all but their wealth increases all the more because Jesus is their treasure. 

And so, my encouragement to you today is to simply do one small thing to draw closer to Jesus. We all-or-nothing personality types may be deceived into believing that the pursuit of relationship with Him requires a 9-month Bible study, six hours per day of intensive thought, and then to never EVER miss a day from now until forevermore. If that’s you, just think, “What is one, simple thing I can do today to stab my deceitful heart’s idea that God wants me to be miserable and, instead, to simply delight myself in Him?” 

I will leave you with this quote (well, paraphrase) from a conversation I had with Mark Dalbey, former President of Covenant Seminary. 

We have these “spectacular” categories. We expect the Cardinals to win in a particularly fantastic way, with a grand slam in the bottom of the 9th, as opposed to being satisfied that they won by the other team’s error fileding a ground ball to third. The mundane win is less spectacular; we’re happy we won but what we really wanted and were looking for was the grand slam win… We do the same in the worship service; we expect these spectacular services of worship where the rare things happen (and sometimes they do, praise God!) but ordinarily we “win” by proclaiming the gospel and worshiping The Lord in a way that is pleasing to Him, and we need to be satisfied in that.