The Law and the Heart

It is indeed a most lamentable consequence of the practice of regarding religion as a compilation of statutes, and not as an internal principle, that it soon comes to be considered as being conversant about external actions, rather than about habits of mind. This sentiment sometimes has even the hardiness to insinuate and maintain itself under the guise of extraordinary concern for practical religion; but it soon discovers the falsehood of this pretension, and betrays its real nature. The expedient indeed of attaining to superiority in practice, by not wasting any of the attention on the internal principles from which alone practice can flow, is about as reasonable, and will answer about as well, as the economy of the architect who should account it mere prodigality to expend any of his materials in laying foundations, from an idea that they might be more usefully applied to the raising of the superstructure. We know what would be the fate of such an edifice.

It is indeed true, and a truth never to be forgotten, that all pretensions to internal principles of holiness are vain, when they are contradicted by the conduct; but it is no less true, that the only effectual way of improving the latter, is by a vigilant attention to the former. It was therefore our blessed Savior’s injunction, “Make the tree good” as the necessary means of obtaining good fruit; and the holy Scriptures abound in admonitions, to let it be our chief business to cultivate our hearts with all diligence, to examine into their state with impartiality, and watch over them with continual care. Indeed it is the heart which constitutes the man; and external actions derive their whole character and meaning from the motives and dispositions of which they are the indications. . . .

Yet though this be a truth so obvious, so established, that to have insisted on it may seem almost needless; it is a truth of which we are apt to lose sight in the review of our religious character, and with which the habit of considering religion as consisting rather in external actions than internal principles, is at direct and open war

Another excerpt from William Wilberforce, A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians in the Higher and Middle Classes of This Country Contrasted With Real Christianity (1797). The book is available in its entirety at the link. Here is a three-page pdf file of this excerpt, plus last week’s excerpt plus surrounding text. Note that, as was common in his day, when Wilberforce uses the word “religion,” he most often is referring solely to Christianity.

Desire, Sin, and the Christian Life

Justin Taylor is posting fifteen questions and answers excerpted from an excellent article by David Powlison, “I Am Motivated When I Feel Desire” (published in Seeing with New Eyes: Counseling and the Human Condition through the Lends of Scripture (P and R Publishing, 2003). The last three will be posted in the next couple of days. Here are the questions, with links for the first twelve. Highly recommended:

1. How does the New Testament commonly talk about what’s wrong with people?
2. Why do people do specific ungodly things?
3. But what’s wrong with wanting things that seem good?
4. Why don’t people see this as the problem?
5. Is the phrase “lusts of the flesh” useful in practical life and counseling?
6. Does each person have one “root sin”?
7. How can you tell if a desire is inordinate rather than natural?
8. Is it even right to talk about the heart, since the Bible teaches that the heart is unknowable to anyone but God? (1 Sam. 16:7; Jer. 17:9)
9. Doesn’t the word lusts properly apply only to bodily appetites: the pleasures and comforts of sex, food, drink, rest, exercise, health?
10. Can desires be habitual?
11. What about fears? They seem as important in human motivation as cravings.
12. Do people ever have conflicting motives?
13. How does thinking about lusts relate to other ways of talking about sin, such as “sin nature,” “self,” “pride,” “autonomy,” “unbelief,” and “self-centeredness”?
14. In counseling, do you just confront a person with his sinful cravings?
15. Can you change what you want?

God Requires to Set Up His Throne in Our Heart

God requires to set up his throne in the heart, and to reign in it without a rival: if he be kept out of his right, it matters not by what competitor. The revolt may be more avowed or more secret; it may be the treason of deliberate preference, or of inconsiderate levity; we may be the subjects of a more or of a less creditable master; we may be employed in services more gross or more refined; but whether the slaves of avarice, of sensuality, of dissipation, of sloth, or the votaries of ambition, of taste, or of fashion; whether supremely governed by vanity and self-love, by the desire of literary fame or of military glory, we are alike estranged from the dominion of our rightful Sovereign. Let not this seem a harsh position; it can appear so only from not adverting to what was shown to be the essential nature of true religion. He who bowed the knee to the god of medicine or of eloquence, was no less an idolater than the worshiper of the deified patrons of lewdness or of theft. In the several cases which have been specified, the external acts indeed are different, but in principle the disaffection is the same; and we must prepare to meet the punishment of rebels on that tremendous day, when all false colors shall be done away, and, there being no longer any room for the evasions of worldly sophistry, . . . “that which is often highly esteemed amongst men, shall appear to have been abomination in the sight of God.”

William Wilberforce, A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians in the Higher and Middle Classes of This Country Contrasted With Real Christianity (1797). The book is available in its entirety at the link. Here is a three-page pdf file of this excerpt plus surrounding text. Note that, as was common in his day, when Wilberforce uses the word “religion,” he most often is referring solely to Christianity.

Old Testament Elaborations on the Sixth Commandment

Here is a selection of verses in the Old Testament that elaborate on Exodus 20:13, “Do not murder.” I summarized these verses in Sunday’s sermon.

Manslaughter falls under this commandment, but leads to a different penalty: Exodus 21:12-14, Numbers 35:10-15. Numbers 35:22-25. Deuteronomy 19:4-6. The perpetrator must flee to and remain in a “city of refuge” and remain their until the death of the High Priest (Numbers 35:33-34). This serves as a picture of the need for atoning blood, even in the case of manslaughter.

The proper penalty corresponds to the harm done: Leviticus 24:19-20; see Exodus 21:18-19 and Exodus 21:26-27 for examples.

When a person kills a thief who has broken into his house at night, the killer is innocent. If this happens during the day, his is guilty (Exodus 22:2-3).

Kidnapping is treated similarly to murder (Exodus 21:16, Deuteronomy 24:7).

Negligence that leads to the harming or death of another leads to guilt and the need for compensation: An ox goring (Exodus 21:28-32), someone falling off an insecure roof (Deuteronomy 22:8), an animal being injured by an unsafe hole (Exodus 21:33-34), an animal grazing in another’s field (Exodus 22:5), a fire that spreads to another’s field (Exodus 22:6).

Concern for others extends particularly to those who are weak and defenseless, and thus easily oppressed:  the sojourner, the widow, the fatherless child (Exodus 22:21-23, Exodus 23:9), aliens (Leviticus 19:33-34 which include “love [the alien] as yourself”), the deaf and the blind (Leviticus 19:11). In the Exodus passage, with no person to protect them, God promises to be their protector: “I will kill [the oppressor] with the sword.”

Many cases refer specifically to the poor:

Do not lend at interest or hold on to their cloak overnight: Exodus 22:25-27, Leviticus 25:35-38

Pay their wages promptly; don’t delay just because you can get away with it: Deuteronomy 24:14-15

Lend to the needy poor, and cancel their debts at the end of seven years, Deuteronomy 15:1-11.

Leave part of harvest in fields for the poor to gather: Leviticus 19:9-10, Deuteronomy 24:19-22

Jesus’ later commandment to love your enemies is hinted at in cases referring to your enemy’s animal straying or collapsing under a heavy load. You are to help in both cases: Exodus 23:4-5, Deuteronomy 22:1-4.

Man’s Nothing-Perfect and God’s All-Complete

[Robert Browning was a great 19th century British poet. His religious beliefs are not clear – in many of his poems, the voice belongs to someone other than the poet. The following is an excerpt from “Saul” (1845 and 1855). Browning imagines David playing the lyre and singing when “a harmful spirit from God was upon Saul” (1 Samuel 16:23). The voice throughout is David’s. In the first section, David, echoing Isaiah 6, is overwhelmed by seeing the majesty, wisdom and love of God laid bare, and submits himself willingly, lovingly to God. In the second section, David first addresses God, then, in the last four lines, Saul. He expresses confidence that God’s love is greater than his own, and that God will become incarnate in David’s own descendant for the salvation of the ungodly. While Scripture does not give us warrant for thinking that Saul is saved in the end, these lines beautifully express deep biblical truths. You can read the entire poem (more than 4000 words) at this link and a number of others. Thanks to Carla Stout for pointing me to this poem – Coty]

I spoke as I saw:
I report, as a man may of God`s work – all`s love, yet all`s law.
Now I lay down the judgeship he lent me. Each faculty tasked
To perceive him, has gained an abyss, where a dewdrop was asked.
Have I knowledge? confounded it shrivels at Wisdom laid bare.
Have I forethought? how purblind, how blank, to the Infinite Care!
Do I task any faculty highest, to image success?
I but open my eyes, – and perfection, no more and no less,
In the kind I imagined, full-fronts me, and God is seen God
In the star, in the stone, in the flesh, in the soul and the clod.
And thus looking within and around me, I ever renew
(With that stoop of the soul which in bending upraises it too)
The submission of man`s nothing-perfect to God`s all-complete,
As by each new obeisance in spirit, I climb to his feet. . . .

Would I suffer for him that I love? So wouldst thou – so wilt thou!
So shall crown thee the topmost, ineffablest, uttermost crown –
And thy love fill infinitude wholly, nor leave up nor down
One spot for the creature to stand in! It is by no breath,
Turn of eye, wave of hand, that salvation joins issue with death!
As thy Love is discovered almighty, almighty be proved
Thy power, that exists with and for it, of being Beloved!
He who did most, shall bear most; the strongest shall stand the most weak.
`Tis the weakness in strength, that I cry for! my flesh, that I seek
In the Godhead! I seek and I find it. O Saul, it shall be
A Face like my face that receives thee; a Man like to me,
Thou shalt love and be loved by, for ever: a Hand like this hand
Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee! See the Christ stand!

Seek the Lord

2 Chronicles 12:14: And [Rehoboam] did evil, for he did not set his heart to seek the LORD.

Why do we do evil?

Rehoboam should have been a godly king. He was the grandson of King David, a man after God’s own heart (1 Samuel 13:14). He was the son of King Solomon, whose wisdom Scripture extols (1 Kings 4:29). His father and grandfather wrote a significant proportion of the Old Testament Scriptures.

And yet, 2 Chronicles 12:14 tells us Rehoboam did evil.

What evil did he do?

The most obvious evil he did was to split the kingdom. 2 Chronicles 10 tells us of his pride and stubbornness. Representatives from the northern tribes ask him to lighten the burdens his father had put on them. Rehoboam instead tries to act tough – and the northern tribes secede.

But Rehoboam is guilty of a greater evil than splitting the kingdom. Splitting the kingdom is a secondary evil, an evil that results from something more fundamental.  2 Chronicles 12:1 tells us of that more fundamental evil: Rehoboam “abandoned the law of the LORD.” His grandfather had written that “the law of the LORD is perfect” (Psalm 19:7), but he abandoned that law.

Recall that the word “law” in the Old Testament frequently translates the Hebrew word “torah,” which has a broader meaning than our English word. The “torah” includes instruction: teaching about who God is, who we are, and how we can have a relationship with Him. Rehoboam turned his back on the instruction that had been handed down to him. Though God had created him for His glory, though God had exalted him to be king over His own people, though God had given him a father and grandfather who instructed others in God’s “torah”, Rehoboam rejected God’s instruction.

This is his greatest evil.

Why did he do this evil?

Our text tells us why: “He did not set his heart to seek the LORD.”

Jesus tells us to “seek first His kingdom and His righteousness” (Matthew 6:33). He promises that if we seek we will find (Matthew 7:7).

Yet Paul tells us that “no one seeks for God” (Romans 3:11). That is, in and of ourselves, we are all like Rehoboam. Though many aspects of God’s nature are clear from the world around us (Romans 1:20) – “the heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands” (Psalm 19:1) – and though many of us have access to His Word and have heard His Gospel, we, like Rehoboam, turn our backs on that revelation. We act as if He doesn’t exist, or as if He is irrelevant. We seek our good as we perceive it, and ignore the purpose for which He made us. We may believe we are doing good, but we, like Rehoboam, do evil unless we seek God.

So Rehoboam did not seek God. And he did evil.

Furthermore, our text tells us that Rehoboam did not set his heart to seek God. Truly seeking God is a matter of the heart. We don’t seek God by outward actions alone – doing religious activities, bowing our heads in prayer, attending worship services, reading the Bible. Someone may look externally to be seeking the Lord, and yet not be doing so. Indeed, this probably was the case with Rehoboam. As King of Judah, he most certainly participated in public worship. He undoubtedly gave large gifts to the priests. Like his father, he may well have offered long prayers in front of the people. But Rehoboam “did not set his heart to seek the LORD.” And therefore he did evil.

What about you? Where is your heart?

We must all confess that apart from God’s work we have hard, stony hearts. Apart from God’s transforming power, we will not seek Him. Apart from His grace, we are rightly condemned.

But God sent His Son to die on our behalf, paying the penalty we deserve, so that all who simply trust Him might receive His pardon and become His beloved children.

So we need to pray, “O Lord, take my stony heart and replace it by Your grace with a soft and tender heart (Ezekiel 36:26). Incline my heart to Your Word, so that I might joyfully seek You (Psalm 119:36). Don’t let me be like Rehoboam – outwardly appearing to follow You, but inwardly having a heart that longs for so much else other than You. Enable me to treasure You above all, to delight in You above all; enable me to set my heart to seek You!”

Will you do this?

God’s promises us: If you truly seek Him, you will find Him. If you humble yourself, He will exalt you. If you look to Jesus, He will save you.

So set your heart to seek Him. And then continue to do so, day by day. This is life. This is joy. This is peace.

Keeping the Word Central

(This is an outline and summary of one of the talks I will be giving next week to pastors in India. Thank you for your prayers and financial support for enabling this trip – Coty]

If you are to fulfill the calling to a Gospel ministry, you must keep the Word of God central. You must depend on the Word of God in all that you do.

2 Timothy chapters 2, 3, and 4 bring out this truth in five different ways:

1) God’s Word is not bound!

Paul writes this letter from prison. He is cold. He is abandoned. He is under sentence of death. But Paul knows that though he might be in chains, the Word of God is still effecting change:”I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal. But the word of God is not bound!” (2 Timothy 2:9).

If you are to fulfill your calling, if you are to stand before others and speak the Word, you must have this type of confidence. You may be persecuted. Your speaking may be hindered. Your preparation may be cut short. Your sleep and rest may be taken away. You may be (actually: “will be”!) inadequate for the task Indeed, you, like Paul, may be killed. But God’s Word is mighty. God’s word will run and be glorified (2 Thessalonians 3:1). God’s Word will accomplish all that He desires (Isaiah 55:10-11). No one can stand against God’s Word and hinder God’s purposes. You may be bound – but God’s Word will never be bound.

2) God’s Word is able to make you and those you teach wise unto salvation

One of the purposes God will accomplish through His Word is the salvation of those He calls to Himself: Paul writes: “From childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 3:15).

Note carefully: What makes people wise unto salvation? Our programs? Our evangelistic techniques? Our cultural sensitivity? Our effective rhetoric? Our clever arguments?

None of these. God’s Word accomplishes His desires, and God’s Word saves His people.

So what is your role? This leads us to our next point.

3) Think hard about the Word, and pray to understand it.

Paul tells Timothy, “Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything” (2 Timothy 2:7). This verse is a great encouragement. I trust you have often found the Bible hard to understand. But Paul tells Timothy, “Sure, this is hard. But God is right there with you to help you understand! So think hard – not because you have the mental capacity on your own to figure out what I mean, but because God works through your diligent study, through your serious thinking, to give you understanding.”

Your role, first, is to study the Word. It must dwell in you richly (Colossians 3:16). You must ponder it and pray over it. Like Habakkuk, you must query it and struggle with it, bringing your lack of understanding before the Lord, crying out, “I have to teach this to Your people! So give me understanding so that I might fulfill Your calling on my life.”

4) ALL of Scripture is useful and profitable and sufficient for the ministry

Paul goes on to tell Timothy that “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work (2 Timothy 3:16-17). That is, the entire Bible is God’s precious revelation of Himself, telling us who He is, who we are, how we can be reconciled to Him, how we can fulfill the purpose of our creation, and where the world is heading. We need the Word in order to learn God’s character and God’s path of life. We need God’s Word if we are to reprove those who err in doctrine or practice. We need God’s Word if we are to straighten out those who are deviating from God’s path. We need God’s Word if we are to train others in how to live a life worthy of our calling. The Word alone is sufficient for such training and equipping. So we must depend on it if we are to be faithful stewards of the ministry entrusted to us.

5) Preach the Word!

Paul concludes his exhortations to Timothy with the most solemn command in the entire New Testament:

In the sight of God and Christ Jesus who will certainly judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom, I solemnly charge you: Preach the Word! Be ready in season and out of season. Reprove, rebuke, and earnestly exhort, with great steadfastness teaching all doctrine. For the time will come when they will not put up with sound doctrine, but will surround themselves with teachers to satisfy their own desires, to scratch their itching ears. They will turn their ears away from the truth, and to myths they will be turned aside. But you, be clear-headed in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of a preacher of the Gospel: that is, fully accomplish your ministry (2 Timothy 4:1-5, own translation).

According to Paul, the man called to a Gospel ministry must above all else fulfill this task: Preach the Word! Preach the Word! And Preach the Word! There is nothing more important, nothing more vital for advancing God’s Kingdom.

Every man called to ministry will be tempted in other directions. Many, as Paul says, will want him to preach something else, something appealing and uplifting. Others will want him to devote much time and energy to other tasks – including many good and important tasks.

But we must keep our heads, knowing what He has called us to. This will require enduring hardship, including having many walk away from us, deserting us – as they deserted Paul. But we must do the work of a preacher of the Gospel; we must fully accomplish the ministry to which GOD has called us. And He is the One who says: Preach the Word.

My brothers, you and I have nothing to say, nothing to offer our people, nothing to offer unbelievers, apart from the Word of God. So keep the Word of God central. Depend on the Word.

And when you look at other pastors, don’t be impressed by degrees. Don’t be impressed by titles. Don’t be impressed by those who have built big churches. Many with important degrees have abandoned their faith in God’s Word. Many with fancy titles have sought their own glory, not God’s. Many with big churches have built them by human methods, not through God’s means. Instead, be impressed with those men who faithfully and fully open up God’s Word. Make them your models. Pray for them, and emulate them. Then: Become such a man yourself. In this way, you will fully accomplish your ministry.

May God be pleased to bring that about in every man gathered here.

Giving and Thanksgiving

I am not an auto mechanic. Indeed, that is an understatement. I know almost nothing about cars.

But I do know one thing about timing belts. That is: When the timing belt breaks, bad things happen.

So last week, when we decided to drive our 1999 Honda Odyssey to Michigan for my oldest son’s wedding this coming weekend, I checked in my records to see when we last changed the timing belt. Answer: 113,000 miles ago. Not wanting bad things to happen during this 1600 mile round trip, we took the van to C & S Auto.

This was a major expenditure by our standards. Now, we know that cars cost money to maintain, and had budgeted an amount for the year. This expenditure would have pushed us a few hundred dollars above budget through the end of May. We basically would have to spend money for car maintenance for June and July in May, and hope that we would not have to pay anything in this budget category for the next two months.

But it had to be done. We certainly were driving to the wedding, and taking the van made the most sense. So I dropped off the car at C & S.

Beth went to pick it up that evening. She gave the manager, Jeff, the credit card – using the card whose cycle had just ended, so the money wouldn’t actually have to come out of our checking account until mid-July.

Jeff said, “There’s no balance. It’s already been paid.”

“Oh! Did Coty pay this morning?”

“No. I can’t say who paid. But someone loves you very much.”

We do not know who paid this bill – Jeff kept his promise. But we thank you. This is “a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God” (Philippians 4:18). For this gift is ultimately both from God and to God. It is God Himself who provides for every need of ours, using others as His agents (Philippians 4:19); and He provides to the glory of His Name (Philippians 4:20).

So we thank our provider God, who “supplies seed to the sower and bread for food,” who we trust

will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness.  You will be enriched in every way for every expression of sincere concern, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God. (2 Corinthians 9:10-11, own translation)

What are we trusting God to do? That is: What do these verses mean?

The main form of economic production in ancient Israel was agriculture. So seed and bread represent the inputs and the outputs of the nation’s most important economic production process. So Paul is saying that God is the provider of both the inputs and the outputs of production. We could say today, God is the one who provides steel to General Motors and the cars for us to drive.

But the expression “seed to the sower and bread for food” is a quotation from Isaiah 55:10-11, where it refers to God’s Word going out and being productive. It is not referring to the provision of material blessings, but to the provision of spiritual blessings.

So, in 2 Corinthians 9, Paul’s argues in this way: If God provides both the inputs and the outputs even in secular production, surely He will give you the inputs and the outputs of spiritual production – He will give the inputs and outputs of your righteousness. He will give you what you need to become righteous, and He will ensure that they produce that righteousness. So Paul says in verse 11, “You will be enriched in every way for every expression of sincere concern.” That is: He will give you all you need to show sincere concern to others – that is, to love your neighbor as yourself.

So clearly, “you will be enriched in every way” refers in this context to much more than money. Indeed, “the harvest of your righteousness,” the output of your having the righteousness of Christ, refers primarily to spiritual riches – becoming like Christ.

Nevertheless, God can and often does provide us with material blessings. Why does He do this? So that we can produce thanksgiving to Him through exhibiting sincere concern to others materially.  Thus, Randy Alcorn says, “When God provides more money, we often think, This is a blessing. Well, yes, but it would be just as scriptural to think, This is a test.” God has enriched you so that you might show sincere concern to others. Is that how you will use your riches?

So in verses 10 and 11, Paul in effect is saying, “Remember, God is the one who provides both the means to create wealth and all wealth itself. So when you are acting out of obedience to Him, when you are giving yourself first to God, when you are resting on His righteousness, He will provide all you need to become what He intends you to be. He will give you an abundance of Himself – the harvest of your righteousness – so that you might show what He is like to others.”

This is what some of you have done through this gift of a new Odyssey timing belt. And this is what many others of you are doing regularly through offerings to DGCC, through assistance to the needy, through support for missions work, through pouring your lives into international students, and a thousand other ways.

May God continue to give us more of Himself as we give ourselves wholeheartedly to Him – and thus may His Name be magnified as we express His sincere concern for those around us.

Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift.

Taking the Lord’s Name in Vain

The audio for last Sunday’s sermon on the Third Commandment is now posted at this link. Here is the G. Campbell Morgan quote read near the end of the sermon, from The Ten Commandments (Fleming H. Revell, 1901), p. 41-43.

The last and most subtle form of breaking the third commandment is committed by the man who says, “Lord, Lord,” and does not the things that the Lord says. Prayer without practice is blasphemy; praise without adoration violates the third commandment; giving without disinterestedness robs the benevolence of God of its lustre and beauty. Let these thoughts be stated in other words. The profanity of the church is infinitely worse than the profanity of the street; the blasphemy of the sanctuary is a far more insidious form of evil than the blasphemy of the slum. Is there a blasphemy of the church and the sanctuary? The prayer that is denied by the life, the praise offered to God which is counteracted by rebellion against Him when the hour of that praise has passed away, that is blasphemy, that is taking the name of God in vain. If a man passes into the sanctuary and preaches and prays and praises with eloquent lips and beautiful sentences and devotional attitude, even with tears, and goes home to break the least of these commandments, that man blasphemes when he prays; but if he deceives the world, he never deceives God!  . . . The form in which this third commandment is broken most completely, most awfully, most terribly, is by perpetually making use of the name of the Lord, while the life does not square with the profession that is made. . . . Unless the last name, the name of Jesus, gathering into itself all human beauty and all Divine attributes – unless, as it is used, it is the keynote of the soul, the talisman of deliverance from evil – then had the name better never be mentioned, for so it is taken in vanity. May it be to all more than that.

Note that this book is now available in its entirety online at Google Books.

What is Worship?

What is worship? That is: What is the nature of true, biblical worship?

In response to the question, “What is worship?” many think primarily of singing. Indeed, Christians often ask each other, “Is the worship in your church traditional or contemporary?” The question, of course, refers to musical style. But biblically, worship is both much broader and much narrower than singing praise choruses together. Broader, in that worship includes much more than singing; narrower, in that it is perfectly possible to sing praise choruses for hours and never worship.

Let’s probe this issue by examining a well-known passage that at first glance seems to have little to do with worship: Philippians 1:20-21. Paul is in prison, not knowing for certain what is ahead of him. But he maintains his focus on one central goal, writing:

It is my eager expectation and hope . . . that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.

Paul writes Philippians from prison. He has come close to death several times. Looking forward, he realizes he might live for several more years, or he might die soon. But neither possibility concerns him. Paul’s concern, Paul’s major desire, is that God be honored, or magnified.

The Greek word translated “honored” here means to make large; we might say “make much of”. Mary uses this same word in her song of rejoicing at the house of Elizabeth, saying, “My soul magnifies the Lord” (Luke 1:46). The Greek translation of the Old Testament uses this same word often; a good example is Psalm 70:4: “Let all who seek You rejoice and be glad in You; And let those who love Your salvation say continually, ‘Let God be magnified.’” Given the context of Philippians 1:20, I think it likely that Paul had Psalm 70 in mind as he wrote these words. He is rejoicing and being glad in God despite his circumstances; and he is asking that God would be magnified continually in his life and even in his death.

Now, God created mankind to glorify Himself, as Isaiah 43:6b-7a tells us:

Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory.

But to magnify, exalt, extol, or make much of the Lord is to glorify Him. Thus Paul is fulfilling the purpose of creation even while in prison.

The implications for worship come out as we consider verse Philippians 2:21. Since this verse begins with the word “for”, it explains why verse 20 is true. Let’s consider how this explanation works for each of the two possibilities, life and death, in turn. Paul says, “It is my hope . . . that Christ will be honored in my body . . . by life . . . for to me to live is Christ.” And Paul says, “It is my hope . . . that Christ will be honored in my body . . . by death . . . for to me . . . to die is gain.”

Do you see what he is saying? Paul’s death will honor or magnify Christ, because he knows that dying is gain – dying is “far better”, as he says in verse 23. In his last seconds of life, Paul will be confident that he is being ushered into the very presence of Christ, to live with Him for all eternity, to see Him face to face, to know even as he is fully known; Paul knows that the Lord will give him the crown of righteousness. So he can go to his death honoring Christ by taking no account of the loss he is suffering. To be with Christ is better than to be alive; to have Christ for all eternity is better than to have all the possessions and accomplishments and fame the world has to offer. In this way, Paul honors Christ in his death.

What if he lives? Paul honors Christ in his life by saying, “to live is Christ.” He elaborates on this idea in chapter 3 verse 8:

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.

Paul says nothing else matters to him other than knowing Christ Jesus. Remember, Paul was a man of considerable accomplishment and influence; he had been to the best schools, he was on a career track to be a leader of the Jews; indeed, he may have been on the Sanhedrin, the Jewish ruling council, at the time of his conversion. He likely was a man of some wealth also. But Paul threw all that away in order to follow Christ.

Furthermore, does Paul sit back and say, “Weighing the two in the balance – knowing Christ versus all my worldly accomplishments and possessions – knowing Christ is a little better. I made the right decision”? No! Paul says all that he once held dear is rubbish compared to knowing Christ. And “rubbish” is a rather euphemistic translation of this crude Greek word, which was often used to refer to human excrement. There is no comparison. The value of Christ far surpasses the value of everything else. For Paul, to live is Christ. Thus, Paul honors or magnifies Christ in his life by living in such a way that all will see that Christ is worth far more to him than anything this world has to offer. Nothing else matters.

What does this have to do with worship? Everything! For worship in the New Testament does not refer to a regular religious event, but to the attitude of our hearts, and the continual outward expression of that attitude. Consider: When the Samaritan woman tries to divert Jesus from his pointed statement concerning her life by asking about the right place to worship, He emphasizes the internal attitude of worship by saying, “True worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth” (John 4:23). Paul tells us in view of God’s mercies to “offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship” (Romans 12:1). Our act of worship is thus a spiritual act – having the attitude that all of our time and all of our members belong to God, to be used for His glory. Thus when Paul writes, “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31), he is saying, “Make all of your life worship! Value Christ above all, and display His value in all your outward actions – even seemingly trivial actions like eating and drinking.”

So what is worship? Worship is acting and thinking and feeling in a way that reflects the glory of God. And the inner essence of worship is valuing Christ far above all earthly possessions and attainments. May we live in continual worship, and may God see fit to bring many more worshipers to Himself through us.

[This is a lightly edited excerpt from a longer document on worship written as we were laying the groundwork for planting this church. Here is the entire document, which includes a section on why public worship is of great importance. John Piper’s exposition of Philippians 1:20-21 was helpful in preparation.]