Pursuing Joy

Sermon Notes from Charles Spurgeon:

Romans 6:11-12 — “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.”

How intimately the believer’s duties are interwoven with his privileges! Because he is alive to God, he is to renounce sin, since that corrupt thing belongs to his estate of death.

Sin Wants To Reign Over You

“Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.”

1. Sin has great power. It is in you and will strive to reign.
   • Sin remains as an outlaw, hiding away in your nature.
   • Sin remains as a plotter, planning your overthrow.
   • Sin remains as an enemy, warring against the law of your mind.
   • Sin remains as a tyrant, worrying and oppressing the true life.
2. Sin’s field of battle is the body.
   • Its wants—hunger, thirst, cold, etc.—may become occasions of sin, by leading to murmuring, envy, covetousness, robbery.
   • Its appetites may crave excessive indulgence and, unless continually curbed, will easily lead to evil.
   • Its pains and infirmities, through engendering impatience and other faults, may produce sin.
   • Its pleasures, also, can readily become incitements to sin.
   • Its influence upon the mind and spirit may drag our noble nature down to the groveling materialism of earth.
3. The body is mortal, and we shall be completely delivered from sin when set free from our present material frame, if indeed grace reigns within. Till then we shall find sin lurking in one member or another of “this vile body.”
4. Meanwhile we must not let it reign.
   • If it reigned over us, it would be our god. It would prove us to be under death and not alive to God.
   • It would cause us unbounded pain and injury if it ruled only for a moment.

Sin is within us, aiming at dominion. This knowledge, together with the fact that we are nevertheless alive to God, should:

• Help our peace, for we perceive that men may be truly the Lord’s, even though sin struggles within them.
• Aid our caution, for our divine life is well worth preserving and needs to be guarded with constant care.
• Draw us to use the means of grace, since in these the Lord meets with us and refreshes our new life.

(HT: The Resurgence)

“But may all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you; may those who love your salvation say continually, ‘Great is the Lord!’”

Psalm 40:16

Seeking God is one of the main priorities of the church.  “One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple” (Psalm 27:4).  John Piper, in a sermon on Psalm 40, says, “We seek to behold his beauty, to be with him, to meditate on him. This is our central business in the church—to see the beauty of God. To get our heads into the heavens. To know him for who he is. He is the main reality—not buildings, not Christians, not missions, not heaven. God himself is what we seek.”

But this seeking isn’t complete, it seems, until we proclaim His greatness.  In verses 9-10, David tells how he did not hide or conceal what God has done for him.  He told the people about God’s faithfulness, steadfast love and salvation.  In verse 16, the seeking in the first half is concluded in the second half with proclamation, namely continually saying, “Great is the Lord!”  Piper says, “He is supreme and his supremacy is your passion.”  Part of having a passion for His supremacy is proclaiming it!

So the church’s mission to our neighbors and the nations in which we tell them who God is, what He has done and that salvation is found in Him alone through Jesus Christ flows out of the church’s pursuing God.  A passion for evangelism does not simply flow out of a burden for the lost.  It flows out of a heart that seeks God, a heart that rejoices and is glad in God (Psalm 40:16a).  When we go hard after God and pursue our joy in Christ alone, God is glorified.  When God grants joy and gladness in Him through our seeking, we find that our seeking and loving and worshiping of God is not separate from our proclamation of Him.  Piper says:

“Our passion for God is our persuasion for the nations… our joy in God is both our worship and our evangelism.”

“A fool’s lips walk into a fight, and his mouth invites a beating.  A fool’s mouth is his ruin, and his lips are a snare to his soul.”

Proverbs 18:6-7

These two verses parallel each other, which is seen in the chiasm “lips, mouth, mouth, lips”.  The general principle is clear.  One of the primary ways a fool is brought down is through his speech.  Bruce Waltke says, “In starting his quarrel he intends to damage others, but in doing so it boomerangs against him.” The fool is a person who runs his mouth for a variety of reasons, but in the end the always come back to haunt him, sometimes right in the kisser!  Another commentator writes, “The effect of his speech is always to alienate himself from public sympathy and to attract feelings of hostility.”  This proverb helps us to understand that usually the fool’s speech not only causes strife in his relationships, putting distance between him and everyone else, but that this distance simultaneously closes due to inflaming animosity toward himself.  These “unexamined words, hasty counsel, uninvited information, unwise promises and other drivel bring about his own ruin.”

But verse 7 escalates the warning beyond the scope of this world.  The fool not only brings harm upon himself because of his mouth, but his speech finally brings him to eternal ruin.  His words entrap his soul, even unto death.  The unguarded tongue can bring down an entire life… even the soul.  Proverbs 18:20-21 says, “From the fruit of a man’s mouth his stomach is satisfied; he is satisfied by the yield of his lips. Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits.”

“The Lord reigns, let the earth rejoice…” (Psalm 97:1)

“The Lord reigns; let the peoples tremble…” (Psalm 99:1)

The Lord is King of all creation.  Holiness is His character and righteousness defines His acts.  His people will both rejoice and tremble at His sovereignty and holiness.  It is not one or the other!  Joy and fear are constant companions in the lives of His saints.

As shepherds care for their flock, Christian brothers and sisters are given the responsibility to “make disciples and teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” (Matt 28:19-20)  Just the other day as I had the privilege to sit one on one and study God’s word together with a brother and I found J.I. Packer’s, Concise Theology to be a helpful read and  wonderful reflection as we reflect on God’s season of sending his son to earth for the redemption of our soul, for His glory.

God’s Glory Showing Requires Glory -Giving

“God’s goal is his glory, but this needs careful explanation, for it is easily misunderstood.  It points to a purpose not of divine love.  Certainly, God wants to be praised for his praiseworthiness and exalted for his greatness and goodness; he wants to be appreciated for what he is.  But the glory that is his goal is in fact a two-sided, two-stage relationship: it is, precisely, a conjunction of revelatory acts on his part whereby he shows his glory  to men and angels in free generosity, with (b) responsive adoration on their part whereby they give him glory out of gratitude for what they have seen and received.  In this conjunction is realized the fellowship of love for which God’s rational creatures were and are made, and for which fallen human beings have now been redeemed.  The to-and-fro of seeing glory in God and giving glory to God is the true fulfillment of human nature at its heart, and it brings supreme joy to man just as it does to God (Zeph. 3:14-17).
“Glory” in the Old Testament carries associations of weight, worth, wealth, splendor, and dignity, all of which are present when God is said to have revealed his glory.  God was answering Moses’ plea to be shown God’s glory when he proclaimed to Moses his name (i.e., his nature, character, and power, Exod. 33:18-34:7).  With that proclamation went an awe-inspiring physical manifestation, the Shekinah, a bright shining cloud that could look like fire, white-hot (Exod. 24:17).  The Shekinah was itself called the glory of God; it appeared at significant moments in the Bible story as a sign of God’s active presence (Exod. 33:22; 34:5; 16:7, 10; 24:15-17; 40:34-35; Lev. 9:23-24; 1 Kings 8:10-11; Ezek. 1:28; 8:4; 9:3; 10:4; 11:22-23; Matt 17:5; Luke 2:9; Acts 1:9; 1 Thess. 4:17; Rev. 1:7).  New Testament writers proclaim that the Glory of God’s nature , character, power, and purpose is now open to view in the person and role of God’s incarnate Son, Jesus Christ (John 1:14-18; 2 Cor. 4:3-6; Heb. 1:1-3)
God’s glory, shown forth in the plan and work of grace whereby he saves sinners, is meant to call forth praise (Eph.1:6, 12, 14), that is, the giving of glory to God by spoken words (Rev. 4:9; 19:7).  All life activities, too, must be pursued with the aim of giving God homage, honor, and pleasure, which is glory-giving on the practical level (1 Cor. 10:31).
God would not share with idols the praise for restoring his people, for idols, being unreal, contributed nothing to this work of grace (Isa. 42:8; 48:11); and God will not share the praise for salvation with with its human subjects today, for we too contribute nothing more to it than our need for of it.  First to last, and at every stage in the process, salvation comes from the Lord, and our praise must show our awareness of that.  This is why Reformation theology was so insistent on the principle, “Glory to god alone” (soli Deo gloria), and why we need to maintain that principle with equal zeal today.”

Last Sunday the Lord had us pondering I Timothy 2:15, “Yet she will be saved through child-bearing – if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.” I summarized my view of its meaning, and offer a fuller statement of that view here. I pray that it steadies your hope in God and strikes a chord of praise in your heart for His manifestly beautiful design of biblical manhood and womanhood.

So What of Saved through Child-bearing?

What does Paul mean in verse 15 by “Yet she will be saved through child-bearing – if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.” Paul of course, does not mean a woman earns her salvation by the good works of child-bearing. Many texts in his writings and though-out the Scriptures would contradict such an interpretation. So what does he mean?

Three clues suggest a plausible view: first the word self-control in verse 15 reminds of his charge of self-control to women in verse 9. And the command to love in verse 15 reminds us of the very purpose of this letter, “The aim of our charge is love…” in 1 Tim. 1:5. In other words, what’s in view in verse 15 is the kind of godly character that reveals true gospel-rootedness. Her self-control, faith, love and holiness reveal that she is saved. They are the good works that confirm her election as the Apostle Peter says, (2 Peter 1:10).

Another clue is to remember what curse was laid on all women, “I will multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children” (Gen. 3:16). So child-bearing is the normal role for women, yet it will come with great pain as a reminder of the fall. So child-bearing, raising a family, keeping a home, will be the means by which a woman expresses her womanhood though it will include suffering. This suggests that child-bearing (and all that it implies) is the means by which a godly woman expresses saving faith.

Finally, there is a parallel text to this one in 1 Timothy 5:14-15, “So I would have younger widows marry; bearing children, manage their households, and give the adversary no occasion for slander. For some have already strayed after Satan.” What amazing similarities in this text to 2:15! Satan’s temptation is to be avoided in both. How do women best avoid Satan’s temptation? Get married, bear children, manage their households. Beautify and sanctify God’s gift of life in the home, that’s how Satan is resisted in a woman’s life.

That means the ‘child-bearing’ in 1 Timothy 2:15 is a broad term referring to maternal, feminine expressions of godliness that nurture and treasure all the initiatives of life God supplies. A woman then, is saved by refusing Satan’s allurements, and focussing on her strong, wise, courageous, feminine expressions of her genuine trust in Christ (See 1 Peter 3:6).

Hear this ladies: treasuring, beautifying, and nurturing all forms of life, spiritual and physical, even if it involves suffering, is your highest and best calling before God. Even if you are single, your call to beget spiritual children, nurture and beautify their lives, fully expresses your womanhood before God.

I have found this article by Dr. Andreas Kostenberger on the CBMW website tremendously helpful in understanding this verse. I hope it helps you as well.

Grateful with you for God’s good ordering of gender,
Pastor Brent