A Sobering Thought

As I have been thinking and preparing for my sermon, I've been hit with a very sobering thought.  I take preaching very seriously, because the more I read the Bible the more I see the gravity of preaching and the great responsibility that I have in that moment a minister of the Word.

I was reading in Acts 12 about the death of King Herod, and was completely bowled over by how it is described: "On an appointed day Herod put on his royal robes, took his seat upon the throne, and delivered an oration to them.  And the people were shouting, "The voice of a god, and not of a man!"  Immediately an angel of the Lord struck him down, because he did not give God the glory, and was eaten by worms and breathed his last."

God killed Herod because Herod did not give God the glory for his words.  That is a really scary thought.  God is that zealous for His glory.  And I know that in my heart, no matter how much I pray to the contrary and ask the Holy Spirit to do His work in me, that when I stand there on Sunday morning, part of me is going to be hoping they are impressed by what I have to say.  The only reason I don't end up like Herod is that Jesus was struck down in my place.  That's my only hope, and so I've got to go to the pulpit with the cross front and center in my heart.

My sermon is about big, weighty things-- the glory of God, the definition of faith.  Jesus said in John 7:18, "The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory."  Well, I've learned from Herod that seeking my own glory is a really, really bad idea.  So I must be tethered tightly to the Word and derive all my authority from its eternal truth.  If I veer away from what the Word of God says into the murky territory of my opinion and suggestion and authority, I seek my own glory.  Lord, protect me from pride!

Prepared For Joy

I was reading in "The Valley of Vision" last night and came across this incredible line: "Thou art preparing joy for me and me for joy."

What a thought!  At this very moment, Christ is in heaven preparing joy for me.  "In my Father's house are many rooms.  If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?" (John 14:2)  And what characterizes this place He prepares?  "In Your presence there is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore." (Psalm 16:11)  Jesus is preparing joy for me.

And He is also preparing me for joy.  His Spirit is working to keep me from falling away, and the end result of that persevering power is joy.  "Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before the presence of His glory with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever.  Amen." (Jude 24-25)  He is empowering my servanthood, and the end result of that empowered love is joy.  "His master said to him, 'Well done, good and faithful servant.  You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much.  Enter into the joy of your master.'" (Matthew 25:21)  He is sustaining me through sovereignly ordained sorrow, which is designed to enlarge my joy.  "In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith... may be found to result in  praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.  Though you do not now see Him, you believe in Him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls." (1 Peter 1:6-9)  All these verses point towards the glory of God as the highest goal, but the glory of God seems to be inexorably linked to my joy.  So in every moment of every day, God is glorifying Himself as He prepares me for joy.  Good news!

Preaching, Update

For the last week or so, I've been working on my sermon for this Sunday.  I've decided to go with the text of Jeremiah 2:11-13.

Has a nation changed its gods,

even though they are no gods?

But my people have changed their glory

for that which does not profit.

Be appalled, O heavens, at this;

be shocked, be utterly desolate,

declares the LORD,

for my people have committed two evils:

they have forsaken me,

the fountain of living waters,

and hewed out cisterns for themselves,

broken cisterns that can hold no water.

What really jumped out at me from this passage is verse 11- "My people have changed their glory for that which does not profit."  Isaiah 60 tells us that their glory is God Himself.  So just like in Romans 1, when humanity "exchanges the glory of the immortal God for images," here the people of Israel exchange the glory of God for that which does not profit-- the fountain of living water in exchange for broken cisterns.  Do you see what the implications of verse 11 are?  If the charge is that they exchanged their glory for what does not profit, the obvious implication is: "Pursue the glory that profits!"  It's Christian hedonism, and its everywhere you look.  So my sermon on Sunday is going to be all about this glory that profits.  The title of the sermon is, "Fountains, Faith, and Fullness: Pursuing the Glory that Profits."

Preaching

One of the greatest privileges I have is the opportunity to preach on occasion at Center Presbyterian Church in New Castle, PA where I am currently serving an internship as Assistant to the Pastor.  "Preach the Word," Paul solemnly charges Timothy in 2 Timothy 4.  It is a charge whose gravity and glory I do not take lightly.  For half an hour, I stand as God's representative with the responsibility to faithfully, powerfully, and passionately present the Word of God in its fullness.  How can I even begin to rise to do that?

The obvious answer is, of course, that I can't.  My words are a feeble and failing breath, with no power to build up unless inhabited and empowered by the Spirit.  But God's words are living and active, and when they go out from Him, they never return void.  I think Isaiah 40:6-9 captures the high calling of a preacher well:

A voice says, "Cry!"

And I said, "What shall I cry?"

All flesh is grass,

and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.

The grass withers, the flower fades,

when the breath of the LORD blows on it;

surely the people are grass.

The grass withers, the flower fades,

but the word of our God will stand forever.

Get up on a high mountain,

O Zion, herald of good news;

Lift up your voice with strength,

O Jerusalem, herald of good news;

lift it up, fear not;

say to the cities of Judah,

"Behold your God!"

"Behold your God" should be the central cry of all preaching.  With that highest and most glorious calling in mind, I'm preparing my next sermon.  I have been given the great grace to preach on Sunday, November 2nd.  I haven't settled on a text yet.  Please pray for me as I prepare over these next two weeks, that I would be given a spirit of humility and power to preach the Word in such a way that the Gospel is seen as powerful, Christ is seen as precious, and God receives all the glory that is rightly His.

The Throne

"The Valley of Vision" is a collection of Puritan prayers that I've been reading daily for the last couple months, and it is, simply put, incredible.  These people knew their Bible, knew their hearts, knew their God so much better than we do.  It's really humbling; I want to pray like this.  So today I want to share one of the prayers I read this morning, entitled, "The Throne."

O God of my delight,

Thy throne of grace

is the pleasure ground of my soul.

Here I obtain mercy in time of need,

here see the smile of thy reconciled face,

 here joy pleads the name of Jesus,

here I sharpen the sword of the Spirit

anoint the shield of faith,

put on the helmet of salvation

gather manna from thy Word,

  am strengthened for each conflict,

  nerved for the upward race,

  empowered to conquer every foe;

Help me to come to Christ

as the fountain head of descending blessings,

as a wide open flood-gate of mercy.

I marvel at my insensate folly, that

with such enriching favours within my reach

I am slow to extend the hand to take them.

Have mercy upon my deadness for thy Name's sake.

Quicken me, stir me, fill me with holy zeal.

Strengthen me that I may cling to thee

and not let thee go.

May thy Spirit within me draw all blessings

from thy hand.

When I advance not, I backslide.

Let me walk humbly because of good omitted

and evil done.

Impress on my mind the shortness of time,

the work to be engaged in,

the account to be rendered,

the nearness of eternity,

the fearful sin of despising thy Spirit.

May I never forget that

thy eye always sees

thy ear always hears,

thy recording hand always writes.

May I never give thee rest until Christ is

the pulse of my heart,

the spokesman of my lips,

the lamp of my feet.

Admiring, Exploring, Expositing, Extolling

Sinclair Ferguson once insightfully said, "The evangelical orientation is inward and subjective.  We are far better at looking inward than we are looking outward.  We need to expend our energies admiring, exploring, expositing, and extolling Jesus Christ."

He's absolutely right.  So much of American culture, so much of the American church, so much of my time, is spent on inward examination, on taking my emotional temperature every five minutes, on thinking about how things relate to me rather than on how things relate to Christ.  We read the Bible this way, always looking for "how this relates to me," "how this is relevant," etc.

But Scripture calls us to end our suicidal love affair with self, and to find real life, real purpose, real fulfillment, real joy, real glory, real passion, in "admiring, exploring, expositing, and extolling Jesus Christ."  The Bible is not about me; life is not about me.  Both the Bible and life are all about pointing me away from myself and towards the greatest, most glorious all-satisfying Reality in the universe, namely, Jesus Christ.

My prayer is that I, and all of you, will be ever more captivated with the glorious Christ revealed in the pages of His Word.

Eternal Power, Strong To Save

Here's another poem, one that I wrote a couple weeks ago in the midst of listening to John Piper's sermon series, "Spectacular Sins and their Global Purpose in the Glory of Christ" (which, by the way, I highly recommend for a worldview-reorienting study)

Eternal power, strong to save

Which once raised Christ up from the grave

Justifying godless men

And cleansing sinners from their sin

Oh the power of the Gospel!

Quickens deadened hearts to life

All the glory to the Giver

Of our sight, to see His light

Brilliant wisdom from the first

Saw and ordered evil's birth

To bring the cross, first Adam fell

Yet God still has done all things well

Oh the wisdom in the Gospel!

Plans above the minds of men

Bringing wickedness and trouble

To naught and glory in the end

Christ the wisdom and the might

Using darkness, bringing light

Great the strength He now displays

When hardened rebels full He saves

Oh the glory of our Savior!

Who took our place our praise to win

To buy us back so we could know

And love the God who cancels sin

As The Deer For Streams Of Water

One thing I do occasionally is write poetry.  More often than not, the "poetry" turns into a song, but sometimes it stays the way it is, without musical accompaniment.  For the music, you can visit http://brendanbeale.dailyverseonline.org (songs eventually find their way over there).  For the poems, I figure that I'll post them here every once in a while.  The point is not to show off a skill at crafting words; my hope is that you will be encouraged and pointed toward the glory of the Savior in new ways.

Here's a poem I wrote tonight, based on Psalm 42:1-3, Jeremiah 2:13, and John 4:14, called "As The Deer For Streams of Water."

As the deer for streams of water

Pants my heart, O Lord, for Thee

For the ever-flowing river

Living water come to me

Thirsty for a satisfaction

Which evades these cisterns poor

Worldly comforts dry and broken

Drive me to Thy fountain, Lord

Tears have been my only portion

Salty streams from barren heart

Grief and bondage, dust and ashes

Will such idols e'er impart

Yet in Thy river grace abundant

For this chief of sinners gives

Pardon for my earthly lusting;

All my cisterns You forgive

So bring my longing to the Source,

The fountainhead of life divine:

The cross, where multitudinous mercy

Makes Thy glory ever mine

Your words were found, and I ate them

Today's Through-The-Bible reading brought me to Jeremiah 15:16-

Your words were found, and I ate them

     and your words became to me a joy

     and the delight of my heart,

for I am called by your name,

     O LORD, God of hosts.

What an amazing verse, especially when you look at it in context.  After delivering all his prophecies of disaster and destruction, Jeremiah is deeply discouraged and pleads to God for help.  But in the midst of his discouragement, Jeremiah remembers how precious God's Word still is to him.  It's sort of like David, praying out of his discouragement in Psalm 42, "Why are you downcast, O my soul?  Why so disturbed within me?  Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God."  Though the God's Word to Jeremiah is alienating him from his family and his people, yet they are still a joy to his heart.

May this verse be true of me every day.  I want God's Word to be my joy and delight; I want to hunger and thirst after God and His righteous Word.  But my heart doesn't naturally love what is most lovely, and my fallen tongue doesn't naturally "taste and see the Lord is good" (Psalm 34:8, 1 Peter 2:3).  I need the Holy Spirit, who leads us into all truth, to do this work in me every day.  I must pray with the Psalmist, "Incline my heart to your testimonies, and not to selfish gain!"  "Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law."  I need God to sovereignly, omnipotently bend my stubborn heart to His testimonies, and I need His Spirit to say "Let there be light" to my darkened eyes every morning so that I can see the wondrous things in the Bible.  And I have His promise that He will do this: Jeremiah delighted in the Word of God because he was called by God's name.  So am I!  And so I have the same Spirit and calling that Jeremiah did that enabled him to enjoy God.

Complete In Thee

This is a hymn I heard for the first time today, which blew me away with the depth of its celebration and exaltation of Christ's work.  It captures so well the glory of the atonement and the glory of Christ as the all-satisfying treasures that they are.  Praise Him for His wondrous grace!  

A modern rendition of this song can be found on iTunes by the band "Driven To One."

Complete in Thee! No work of mine

May take, dear Lord, the place of Thine

Thy blood hath pardon bought for me

And I shall stand complete in Thee

Yea, justified! O blessed thought!

And sanctified, salvation wrought!

Thy blood hath pardon bought for me

And glorified, I too, shall be!

Complete in Thee, no more shall sin

Thy grace hath conquered; reign within!

Thy voice shall bid the tempter flee

And I shall stand complete in Thee

Yea justified! O blessed thought!

And sanctified, salvation wrought!

Thy blood hath pardon bought for me

And glorified, I too, shall be!

Complete in Thee, each want supplied

And no good thing to me denied

Since Thou my portion, Lord, will be

I ask no more, complete in Thee

Yea, justified! O blessed thought!

And sanctified, salvation wrought!

Thy blood hath pardon bought for me

And glorified, I too, shall be!

Dear Savior, when before Thy bar

All tribes and tongues assembled are

Among Thy chosen I shall be

At Thy right hand, complete in Thee

Yea, justified! O blessed thought!

And sanctified, salvation wrought!

Thy blood hath pardon bought for me

And glorified, I too, shall be!

This Morning's Scripture

For my Through-the-Bible-in-a-Year plan, I was reading this morning from Jeremiah, Ecclesiastes, John, and James.  Something in each one hit me really hard as I was reading (praise God for the Holy Spirit who delights to do that sort of thing).  Here are my thoughts:

Behold, the word of the LORD is to them an object of scorn;

they take no pleasure in it.

Therefore I am full of the wrath of the LORD

~Jeremiah 6:10-11

Wow.  I pray that this will never, ever be said of me.  "The word of the LORD is to them an object of scorn; they take no pleasure in it."  If that's what the people of Israel were doing wrong, here's what is right: TAKE PLEASURE in the word of the Lord.  To not take pleasure in it, to not delight in it, is scorn.  It is treating it as less precious than it is.  And look at the consequences: the wrath of the LORD-- God takes our affections for the Bible very seriously.  Lord, forgive me for all the times I have not taken pleasure in Your word, and by Your Spirit implant Your holy joy in me.

Then I saw that there is more gain in wisdom than in folly, as there is more gain in light than in darkness... Apart from [God] who can have any enjoyment?  For to the one who pleases him God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy.  ~Ecclesiastes 2:13,26

Praise God for this one!  There is more gain in wisdom than in folly, and there is more gain in light than in dark!  Not to quote John Piper or anything, but this is classic "Christian hedonism."  You want gain, right?  Then seek wisdom, and walk in the light!  And to those who please God, He gives this great gain in abundance.  Oh the goodness of God, that He works in us what is pleasing to Him (Heb. 13:21-22) and then fills His people with immeasurable good things!

For this purpose I cam baptizing with water, that he might be revealed to Israel. ~John 1:31

When you stop to look at it, you quickly realize that the whole Bible is intensely, radically Christ-centered, and the testimony of John the Baptist is no exception.  The whole point of his baptism, the whole point of his entire ministry, the whole point of his life and his message of repentance and all the years of locusts and honey, was this: that Jesus would be revealed.  May that be the purpose of my life and ministry as well.

Receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. ~James 1:21

This sort of reminded me of the passage from Jeremiah, in how seriously it takes the Bible.  Specifically, I thought of this in terms of my youth group's Bible study that I help to lead, and I was burdened anew for their hearts to be opened to the Word of God.  I want them to see that this study we are doing is so much more than a self-help lesson, or something to do Sunday afternoons-- it is life and death.  Eternal life and eternal death hang in the balance of how they will respond to God's Word.  Will they take pleasure in it, delight in it, receive it with meekness... or will they not?  Oh Lord, open their hearts and mine to Your Word, that we may receive it with meekness and joy!

Isaiah 53:10

"Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief."

Staggering.  Who killed Jesus?  Was it Pilate?  The Roman guards?  The Jews?  They had a role, but the Bible's simplest answer is: "His Father killed him."

Acts 2:23- "This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God"

Romans 3:25- "Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood."

Why?  How could this be?  Why would the Father do such a thing?  Why isn't this, as some arrogant people like to say, "divine child abuse?"

Romans 8:32- "He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all."

2 Corinthians 5:21- "[God] made Him who knew to no sin to be sin on our behalf."

God did not spare His own Son, because it was the only way He could spare us.  The perfect Son, blameless of any wrongdoing and wholly worthy of my worship, took my place and received my punishment for my sins.  The book I was reading today captured the staggering thought this way: "Just as Abraham lifted the knife over the chest of his own son Isaac, but then spared his son because there was a ram in the thicket, so God the Father lifted the knife over the chest of his own Son Jesus-- but did not spare him, because he was the ram; he was the substitute." 

I almost cried when I read that.  This is love incomprehensible.  It's like the hymn "Hallelujah What A Savior" says:

Man of sorrows! what a name

For the Son of God who came

Ruined sinners to reclaim

Hallelujah!  What a Savior!

Bearing shame and scoffing rude

In my place condemned He stood

Sealed my pardon with His blood

Hallelujah!  What a Savior!

Amen!  May I never cease to survey and savor the wondrous cross!

Through the Bible in a Year

I don't know about you, but I've tried several different times to do one of those "read through the Bible in a year" plans, but I've never been able to stick with it.  For a while, one of those plans was actually included in each day's Daily Verse.  But let's be honest... when you have to read 7 chapters of Numbers in one day, it gets rough.

I've started a new plan, though, that I think is actually going to help me do this once and for all.  It's one of the reading plans from Discipleship Journal, and it's got a lot of things going for it that make it better than any other plan I've come across.  For starters, instead of reading all from one place (which is okay in Psalms but, as I said, gets really hard in places like Numbers and Chronicles), it divides the readings into 4 sections- one from the Old Testament law and prophets, one from the Old Testament wisdom literature (Job, Psalms, Proverbs, etc), one from the Gospels, and one from the Epistles.  The reading from the OT law and prophets is usually 2-3 chapters (that includes the Numbers stuff), but the other three sections are relatively short-- usually one Psalm, about ten verses from one of the Gospels, and about ten verses from one of the Epistles.  I'm really enjoying that balanced approach, because I get to see the unity of the Scriptures more clearly, and it's keeping me from getting bogged down in one spot.

Another nice thing is that, to prevent you from falling behind, it only has 25 days of reading a month, which gives me days to catch up on when I oversleep my alarm, or days to go back and meditate more on certain passages.  And also, it gives you four different bookmarks to print out, put in your Bible, and check off each day, which helps keep me accountable.

All of that said, the bigger question is, why?  Why am I reading through the whole Bible?  Who wants to read Numbers anyway?  Well, 2 Timothy 3:16 says that "All Scripture is God-breathed and is profitable."  Profitable.  As in, there's great gain to be had here-- even in Numbers.  So I want to pursue my joy in the Word of God.  Also, although I've read almost all of the Bible at one point or another, I'm so much more familiar with the Epistles than the rest of God's Word.  I've recently been very humbled listening to various sermons and hearing pastors drawing on their deep knowledge and love of the whole Bible, quoting "obscure" verses that still carry the transforming, joy-producing power of the Spirit.  I want to preach like that.  I want to know God like that.  So I'm reading all the way through the Bible.

If you want to join me (I think I'll start including this in the Daily Verse come January) and many others who are also on this plan, go to www.hopeingod.org/biblereadingplan.aspx to find out more.

reading "Future Grace"

I'm in the process of reading "Future Grace" by John Piper, and it is blowing away my worldview.  I'm only about a third of the way through (it's a sizeable 397 pages) but I've already been staggered by the biblical truths he's been laying out.  I've also been surprised by how easy it has been to read; often reading Piper can be slow and heavy going, but this book is very accessible and readable.  

The message of the book can be summarized thus: we've gotten the motivation for our Christian life backwards.  We say we are saved by faith alone (rightly) and that our good works are works of gratitude.  But you will look in vain for any Biblical texts that explicitly tie gratitude to obedience.  Rather than trying to empower obedience by gratitude for past grace, we should look to faith in future grace for that power.  In other words, we need to bank on the promises of God.

For example: anxiety.  How are we supposed to defeat the sin of anxiety in our hearts?  The popular Christian response is that we should look back on all the times God has been faithful to us, and therefore not worry.  Now, that seems like great advice.  Of course, looking back on God's faithfulness and especially back to the cross is helpful and necessary, but only so far as it strengthens our faith for looking forward.  And more importantly, it's not how the Bible talks about dealing with anxiety.  The Bible says things like, "Don't be anxious...for my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in Christ Jesus. (Phil 4:19)"  "Don't be anxious... because all these things will be added to you as well. (Matt 6:33)"  "Don't be anxious... for no eye has seen a God beside you, who works for those who wait for Him. (Isaiah 64:4)"  "Don't be anxious... for all things work together for good for those who love God. (Rom 8:28)"  Take hold of the promises-- that's where the power to fight sin is found.

The back cover of the book puts it well: "No one sins out of duty.  We sin because we want to.  Sin promises happiness, and we buy the lie.  So how can the root of sin be severed in our lives?  The penalty of sin must be paid by the righteous blood of Christ.  And the power of sin must be broken by banking on the promises of God."

Good stuff.  I've always struggled (and I suspect I'm not alone here) in figuring out how the "good works" of the Christian life tie into the truth that we are saved "by faith alone."  Luther's thing on gratitude seemed to make sense in my head, but not in Scripture.  This book is helping me put them together, and it's revolutionizing everything in the process.  I highly recommend it.

New Blog

I've been thinking for a while about blogging, but it seems that either I can never work up the motivation, or something else gets in the way.  But it's something that God has been laying on my heart for the last couple weeks, and so I think it's time to get started.

I don't yet have a clear vision of what will happen here- right now I'm thinking general musings on Scripture, books I'm reading, life events, and so on.  I'm going to try to hook this more directly into the main Daily Verse Online site as a more personal side to the ministry.  Whatever I do, I'll have to be in prayer about it.  I don't want this to be yet another self-absorbed "rambling about my life" site-- the internet has quite enough of those, thank you very much.  What I would like to see this become is a place where people can be edified by encountering the greatness of God as I share how I have encountered Him in His Word.  Yeah... that sounds like a plan.