Reformation's · Cry

The last time we met we launched into a study seeking to answer the question, “What pleases God?” Last week we talked about the fact that above all other things, God delights in His Son. The reason that he does this is because the Son is a perfect image or reflection of God, and therefore God looks at the wonder and beauty displayed in His Image and he marvels and is well pleased.

                The conclusion of our lesson last week was that God is the most excellent and worthy of all beings because God has always been abundantly happy within the Trinity. There is nothing about God that makes Him deficient. He is complete and completely happy. This means that God is not constrained by anything outside of himself to do anything that he does not want to do. God has never been lonely. He has never had to do something that he was displeased with doing. We have a hard time thinking about this because we have never been like this. There has always been something deficient in us, whether it is the fact that we had to grow and learn and mature, or that we can never seem to find satisfaction in what we do. But, God is not like that. He is complete. He needs no education. No one can offer anything to him that does not already come from him. No one can bribe him or coerce him in any way. In other words, nothing outside God’s own pleasure has constrained his choices and his deeds.

                So we come to the subject of this lesson, namely, “The Pleasure of God in All That He Does.” Tonight we are going to look at Psalm 135:1-7. The psalm starts out praising God and then he gives reasons as to why we should praise God. The main verse we want to focus on is verse 6: “Whatever the Lord pleases he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps.” Psalm 115:3 says the same thing: “Our God is in the heavens, he does whatever he pleases.” This teaches us that whenever God acts, he acts in a way that pleases him. God is never constrained to do a thing that he despises. Isaiah 46:10 uses the noun form of the same Hebrew word: “My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my pleasure.” On the basis of these verses, we can understand that God is completely free to do whatever he pleases. He never becomes the victim of circumstances. He is never forced into a situation where he must do something in which he cannot rejoice.

                There is one passage, however, that seems to throw a wrench in the plans. Let’s look at Ezekiel  18:30-31. God is warning the house of Israel of impending judgment, and at the end of v. 31 it seems to imply that God is not pleased in judging impenitent sinners. Here God seems to be cornered. It seems that he is forced into judging them when he really doesn’t want to. So, is God really free to do everything according to his good pleasure? Or, does God’s freedom have limits?

                One solution to this dilemma might be to say that God does whatever he pleases in the natural realm, but He really has limited influence over the personal realm. We might say that we see that in Psalm 135:7. But to say that God has control over the weather is to say that he has been in control of every tornado and hurricane that destroys personal lives. So, the bottom line is that you cannot separate the two. If he is in control of the weather, then He can affect personal lives. Also, the text does not support this view. Verses 8-11 say that God’s sovereign freedom was shown in what he did to the Egyptians.  God was able to affect the very personal lives of the Egyptians.

                To make matters even more difficult, turn to Deuteronomy 28:63. In this passage, Moses warns of coming judgment on unrepentant Israel. But, this time it says something very different from Ezekiel. Now, God is saying that he is going to take pleasure in their destruction. How can this all mesh?

                The solution to the problem is this: The death and misery of the unrepentant is in and of itself no delight to God. God is not a sadist. He is not malicious or bloodthirsty. But, when a wicked, rebellious sinner is judged, God delights in the vindication of truth and goodness and of his own honor and glory. In other words, God delights in judging sinners, not because he likes to hurt people, but because that judgment vindicates His truth.

                God is not mocked. He is not trapped or cornered or coerced. Even on the way to Calvary he had legions at his disposal. “No one takes my life from me…” At the one point in the history of the universe where God looked to be trapped, he was totally in charge doing precisely what he pleased.

When Tim asked me to do a study this fall for Wednesday night services, I immediately thought of a series that I have always wanted to teach, but never had the audience or the time. This series is based on a set of sermons that John Piper, pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis. John Piper is a hero of the faith for me, and he is a great preacher and writer. In the 80’s, he preached a series of sermons entitled, “The Pleasures of God”, and it is this series that I wish to adapt and teach in the next 12 weeks. I give all of the credit to John Piper and his radio ministry at www.desiringgod.org. His website is a great resource for any study that you might want to do, and the neat thing about his site is that most of his sermon transcripts and recordings are free to download.

                The goal of this study is to seek to answer the question: “What pleases God?” Or, “What delights God?” You might first wonder what benefit a study like this has. To answer that, we have to look at 2 Cor. 3:18:

“And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”

What Paul is teaching in this passage is that we are changed more and more into the likeness of Christ by beholding the glory of God. And, we know this to be true from our own experiences. The times when I have felt most motivated to pursue holiness is when I understand and behold the glory of God. When I catch of a glimpse of the glory of God, spurs me on toward holiness.

                Henry Scougal, in his book The Life of God in the Soul of Man, said “The worth and excellency of a soul is to be measured by the object of its love.” In other words, our worth is measured by the object of our love. What we love reflects our worthiness. If we love useless, unholy things, then our worth is diminished. If we love noble things, our worth is increased. If this is true, and I believe it to be, then can we not say the same thing about God? The worth and excellency of God’s soul is to be measured by the object of His love. So, if we are going to see and understand the glory of God, we have to ask, “What does God love?”

                To understand the love and delight of God, we have to start at the beginning. The first and most fundamental thing we can say about the pleasures of God is that he takes pleasure in his Son. We are going to unfold this in five affirmations.

                First, God has pleasure in his Son. Let’s turn to Matt. 17:1-5. We remember this story from Sunday school. Jesus goes up on the mountain with Peter, James, and John, and for a moment, God allows these three men to see Jesus in all of His glory. And, what does God say about His Son? He says two things in v. 5. First, “This is my beloved Son...” Secondly, He says, “…in whom I am well pleased.”  So, God says, “I love my Son,” and “I am pleased with My Son.”

                You might remember that God says this on one other occasion: at Jesus baptism. After his baptism, as the Holy Spirit descends on Jesus, God says, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”

                Also, in the Gospel of John, Jesus speaks several times about the Father’s love for Him: John 3:35; 5:20.

So, our first affirmation is that God the Father loves the Son, not by sacrificial mercy, but with the love of delight and pleasure. He is well-pleased with His Son. His soul delights in the Son!

Second, The Son of God has the fullness of deity. This truth keeps us from making a terrible mistake. See, you might agree with the affirmation that God has pleasure in His Son, but make the mistake that the Son is merely an extraordinarily holy man that the Father adopted for His Son after hosting a “Jerusalem’s Got Talent” show.

                Look at Colossians 2:9: “In him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.” The Son of God is not merely a chosen man. He has the fullness of deity in Him.

                Then we have Colossians 1:19, which affirms, “In him all the fullness of deity was pleased to dwell.” The NIV translates as “God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in Him.” In other words, God was pleased to do this. He did not search the world over for that one special man and give him an extra dose of His Spirit. God himself took the initiative to bestow his own fullness on a man in the act of incarnation.

                From this, though, we might be inclined to think that God MADE a Son who was pleasing. And for this, we come to affirmation 3: The Son in whom God delights is the eternal image and reflection of God and is thus God Himself. Look at Colossians 1:15:

“He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation; for in him all things were created in heaven and on earth.”

The Son is the image of the Father. What does Paul mean by this? Well, there are some similar passages that help. Hebrews 1:3 says, “He reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature, upholding the universe by his word of power.” Phil. 2:6 says, “Though he was in the form of God, he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant.” John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

                So, as long as there has been God, there has been the Word of God. Now we are walking up against a tall mountain that we cannot see beyond. For centuries, men and women have marveled at the concept of the Trinity. This truth is so profound and mind-boggling, that we just have to accept it on faith. But, sometimes I think we throw our hands up a little too soon. See, the Bible teaches that from eternity past the only reality that has always existed is God. And, this eternal God has always had a perfect image of himself, a perfect reflection of his essence, a perfect stamp of his nature, and a perfect form or expression of his glory. We talk about “self-image” all the time. We talk about the way we view ourselves and the image we have of ourselves all of the time. Well, as long as God has been God, he has been conscious of himself, and the image that he has of himself is so perfect and so complete and full as to be the living, personal reproduction of Himself. And this living, personal image or reflection of God is God, namely, God the Son. Jesus Christ is the very reflection of God, and so he is equal to God in essence and in glory.

                This brings us to our fourth affirmation: the pleasure of God in his Son is pleasure in Himself. God’s delight in his Son is delight in himself, therefore, the foundational joy of God is the joy that he has in his own perfections as he sees them reflected in his Son. He loves the Son and delights in the Son because the Son is God himself.

                Does this make God selfish? Does this mean that God is conceited? Well, for us to look at our reflection and be totally in love with ourselves would be the very definition of conceit. But, this is wrong for us because we were made for something bigger, namely, God. If our adoration is focused on our own image, then we are contradicting the very reason we were created. But, God is not. If God is the most beautiful, most valuable, most worthy thing in the entire universe, then he is completely righteous in loving and adoring himself.

                God loves his perfections. This is why sin is so grievous, not because it hurts us, but because it devalues the most valuable being of all. This might be the greatest obstacle to our salvation: for how can such a righteous God ever set His affection on sinners like us? But, in this we find the very foundation of our salvation, for it is precisely the infinite regard that the Father has for the Son which makes it possible for me, a wicked sinner, to be loved and accepted in the Son. God looks at a believer and he sees Christ, and because He loves Christ, he loves us.

                The final affirmation: God is the most excellent and worthy of all beings. He is this because he has loved the Son, the image of his own glory, with all of his perfect energy. In the four years I served as a youth minister, one of greatest errors I ever heard from the mouth of a young person was the statement, “God created us because He was lonely.” May it never be! God created us because the love He had for His Son was so great, he had to share it with someone else. The love of the Father for the Son and the Son for the Father was so great that it just spilled over into creation.

                We are created to know God and to seek His glory. May we never be so conceited as to place our own glory before His. May we never forget that God loves us because He loves Christ.

What is the biggest mystery of the Christian faith? What do you find to be the hardest thing to understand and know about our faith? For me, the thing I wrestled with for so long was the question, “Why would God send his Son to die for sinners?” I mean, after the fall of Adam, why didn’t God just wipe out Adam and Eve and start over? Why did He suffer with all of this sin and rebellion? And, on top of all of that, why did He send His Son to die for sinners? I struggled with this question because I just didn’t believe the typical answer of “because He loved us” really fully answered the question. Yeah, sure we see in Scripture that God loves us, but why? I suppose people would typically answer “God loves unconditionally, so there is no reason for it.” But, in reality, that isn’t true. Unconditional love does not mean purposeless love; it is a love that is beyond conditions. It is a love that exists in spite of our sin, but that does not mean it exists without a reason. So, why does God love us? Why would He set his heart to bruise His Son for our sake?

            Although this is not the central issue we are looking at today, I want you to keep this question in your mind, because it is crucial to who Christ is and what he does for us. For the next three weeks, we are going to look at Jesus Christ as our High Priest. And, as we study all that Jesus has done for us, we could easily assume a very man-centered view of what Jesus did. We could very easily start to think that Jesus Christ did all of these great works for us because there is something intrinsically valuable about us, but that would be a serious mistake.

            So, before we begin today, we have to answer the question I started with: Why would God bruise His Son for our sake? Or, in more general terms, why does God love us? The overwhelming answer from Scripture is “for His name’s sake.” In other words, God loves us so that He might make His glory known. Let’s look at this theme in Scripture.

1.

What do you think of when you hear the word “submit”? What do you think the world thinks of this word? Submission is not a popular subject, especially when talking about marriage. The good news today is that we are not talking about marriage, but we are talking about submission. We have been studying all of these amazing things about Jesus Christ, in particularly who he is or what we can know about him through the things we read in the Gospels. Today, we are going to look at Jesus Christ as the Servant King.

            Let’s look at John 13:1-5. How much authority and power does Jesus have? He has it all. He is the all-powerful God of the universe. Notice that is the first thing John affirms before telling this story. Notice v. 3. John is saying that Jesus had control over the situation. He was God, He was sovereign, and He was King. With this context, John starts to tell the most amazing story. What does Jesus do for the disciples? He washes their feet! I have to tell you, I have done my share of foot-washings. I have done them with the youth-groups I have been a part of. I can tell you, even with teenagers, who are so self conscious about their appearance, their feet stank. And, I’ve also noticed that girls’ feet stink more than boys. I can tell you, it is not a pleasant thing. I cannot imagine washing the feet of those who had been traveling for days and had not bathed in a week or more. Foot-washing was the assignment that was given to the lowest of servants, and it was the most demeaning thing someone could do.

            But, in this passage we see the King of kings and Lord of lords take a towel, tie it around his waste, and begin washing the feet of his disciples. This is unthinkable. This is beyond controversial. In Jewish society, the Rabbi was the most honored of positions, and most rabbis enjoyed their status. It was unthinkable for a rabbi to wash the feet of his disciples. It should be the other way around.

            Let’s go on and read v. 6-17. Now we find the reason for what Christ was doing. He was trying to teach the disciples and us a lesson. Notice again v. 14-16. A slave is not greater than his master, and we are servants of Christ. Therefore, if the master is willing to serve his servants, then the servants ought to be willing and ready to serve each other. Is this something we do naturally? No, not at all! The disciples did not do it naturally. Remember, Jesus caught them arguing over who was going to be the greatest in heaven. Look what Jesus told them in Matt. 20:26-28. The Law of Heaven is that the greatest will be least and the least will be the greatest. Jesus Christ was the greatest and best of this world, and he washed the feet of his disciples.

            Jesus turned the world on its head in every way. And, in being a servant, he shows the world how selfish it is. Jesus’ command to serve and love one another should affect us in everything we do: in our marriage (Eph. 5:22-25); toward other Christians (1 Pet. 5:5; 1 Pet. 22; John 13:34-35; Rom. 12:10), toward our neighbor (Matt. 22:37-39), and even toward our enemies (Matt. 5:43-44).

            I think it is sad how, even within the church, we do not love one another with brotherly love. I am amazed at how sermons that Tim preaches can so quickly offend the ego of some within the church and cause ripples of prideful gossip for weeks. I am disturbed that we can be concerned more about our own comfort and status in the church than the wellbeing and comfort of others. Notice Romans 12:10 again. Paul tells us that we should outdo each other in doing good to one another. We should have so much adoration and love for each other that we just lavish each other with good works. This is the Law of Heaven. In the beginning, there was so much love within the Trinity, between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, that God desired for that love to overflow. So, He created this world. Now, God desires that we let the love that we have for God overflow to each other. And, that is the example that Christ has set.

What are some ways that people find fulfillment in life? Last week we started a study looking at the wonders of Christ. As I thought about it this week, I want us to study the wonders of who he is, the wonders of what he said, and the wonders of what he did. Last week we looked at the amazing truth that the eternal God entered time as Jesus Christ. This week, I want to look at the temptation of Christ and see how wonderful Christ is, even in that temptation.

            Let’s start by reading Matt. 4:1-4. To be honest, this passage has been one of the biggest mysteries for me. Why did Jesus Christ have to go and be tempted by Satan? Was it not enough that He had lived sinless up until this point? Why did he have to have this big showdown with Satan? Well, let’s look at 1 Cor. 15:21-22. Paul explains here and in Romans 5 that Jesus was the second Adam. God made the first Adam as the pinnacle of his creation, and he gave him a choice. Adam could east of the Tree of Life and follow God and be righteous, or he could eat of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and become a sinner. Adam faced Satan’s temptation and lost. Then, God sends His Son, the very image of God, to live as the second Adam, and so Jesus had to face the same choice. And the choice really comes down to this: in what do you find your absolute fulfillment? Isn’t this what Adam faced? He had a perfect life with a perfect wife in a perfect Garden, and he had an on-going, personal, and intimate relationship with his Creator. And the question that Satan posed to Adam was basically “Is God enough?” Is God enough to meet every need in your life? Eve said that there were three things that were enticing about the fruit: it was pleasing to the eye, it was good for food, and it was able to make one wise. In saying that she was admitting that the beauty of the Garden that God had given them was not enough, the wonderful food that God had provided them was not good enough, and that God, the source of all wisdom, was not wise enough. Adam and Eve sought fulfillment in something else besides God.

            So, Jesus had to be faced with the same question: Is God enough? We see in the passage that we just read that he was faced with this very question. After fasting for 40 days and 40 nights (which, as I understand it, is right at the limit of what a human can bear) Jesus faces Satan. How does Satan tempt Him? Satan tempts him with his immediate need. “You haven’t eaten in days and you have the power to make bread appear from nowhere. Turn some rocks into bread and meet your immediate need.”

            Oh, this is the one that gets us so many times. God has told us that he will meet our every need, but when things aren’t going our way and we have been in the wilderness for 40 days, we look for ways that we can fix our problems on our own. In doing so, we are saying, “you are not enough, God.” And, this is what Jesus was facing. Sure, he could have turned the stones into bread, but God sent him into the wilderness to fast and pray and trust in Him. To use his power to provide for his immediate need would have admitted that God was not enough.

            How does Christ answer Satan? Look again at v. 4. He basically answers, “My God is enough, and I am completely satisfied in Him.”

            Let’s read v. 5-7. Satan tries this same trick from another angle now. Instead of appealing to his immediate need, he is now appealing to his pride. Why did he want him to jump off of the temple? The temple was the center of the nation of Israel. It was a place of business. It was a place of worship. And it was a place for social gatherings. If a man jumped off the temple, people would notice. The temptation here is to rush God’s timing. When Satan quotes this passage of Scripture, he is acknowledging that Christ is the Messiah. The passage is a promise that no harm will befall the Messiah. Satan is tempting Christ to take the easy road. He is saying, “Why don’t you skip out on the 3 years of poverty, misery and rejection? Just jump off the temple, let your angels come in and save you, and then everyone will know that you are the Messiah.” How does Christ answer him on this one? He quotes a passage that teaches us not to test God. In other words, we are not to put God’s promises to the test. The promise that angels will protect those who, by God’s plan, are put into danger does not necessarily apply to those who voluntarily put themselves into danger to prove God.

            Let’s read v. 8-11. This one, to me, is the easiest temptation to understand. Satan tells Jesus that he will give him all of the kingdoms of the world, if he will bow down and worship him. Here again, Jesus is faced with the temptation of the easy road. He could admit that Satan was worthy of worship and able to provide things that God could not, and he could avoid all of suffering and pain that was in God’s plan. So many times we are tempted with accomplishing a good end through sinful means. We avoid hurting someone’s feelings by lying to them. We justify poor business practices by thinking of all the good we could do with the money. And, Jesus was faced with this same dilemma. He could have control of all of the kingdoms of the world right away and be able to do so much good with it, or he could trust God and suffer the cross. How does Jesus answer him? He answers with a frank rebuke in v. 10. God is the only one we are to worship and serve. God is more than sufficient.

            The wonder of Christ is that He found his complete fulfillment and satisfaction in God. When tempted with his immediate needs, he trusted that God could supply for his needs and acknowledged that there are things in life that are more important than food. When tempted with testing God’s promises and using God to get out of bind, he trusted that God’s timing and wisdom was better than his own. When tempted to worship Satan in exchange for quick control over the world, he trusted that God’s plan was best. In all of these things, Jesus proved that God alone is able to meet all of our needs, that His way is best, and that He is our source of complete fulfillment.

Today, I am starting a new series that I am calling “The Wonders of Christ”. I got the inspiration for this series while reading a book by John Piper called What Jesus Demands of the World. That book caused me to think a great deal about the person of Jesus Christ, and I realized something about my own walk with Christ and even what I teach. What I realized is that an honest understanding, adoration and study of the person and works of Jesus Christ are almost absent from our discussions and life within the church. I am not saying that we do not mention the name of Christ, nor am I saying that we do not talk about him in church and at home. But, I believe that we spend most of our times studying the commandments, practical advise, and mysteries of the Bible, and we spend very little time trying to understand, adore, and follow Jesus Christ. This was a shocking realization for me in my own life, because, as a Christian, I am supposed to be modeling my life after Christ. But, I found that I understood very little about him. It is not that I did not know the facts and the stories about him, it is that I had never bothered to understand who he was (his character, desires, and will) when reading those stories and facts.

            Let me explain further by contrasting what I mean against the ways that we study Christ’s works now. When we study the works of Christ in the Gospels, we tend to look at the life of Christ in three different ways. First, we tend to study the purpose of his works. In other words, we try to understand why he raised Lazarus from the tomb or healed the blind man or died on the cross. While this is a worthy study and should be pursued, it has a tendency to focus on the recipient of the work of Christ rather than on the person of Christ. In our study, instead of looking at the end result of the works that Christ did, we are going to look at what these works tell us about his character and heart.

            Secondly, we tend to study the practice of his commandments. If studying the passage where Jesus says “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”, we tend to look at how we might live out that command or how that command affects us. Here again we, many times, end up focusing on ourselves rather than the person of Christ.

            Finally, we tend to study the benefits of his service. When speaking of the work of Christ on the cross, we focus on the benefit that this act had for us, and there is an obvious benefit that should be stated. But, what does this act tell us about Christ? What does it teach us about the heart and will of God himself?

            I hope that by looking at some familiar passages and stories through this new lens, we might grow in our relationship with Christ, and in doing that, we will be able to live to be more like him.

            So, today we are looking at one of the wonders of Christ that I have titled “The Eternal God Enters Time”. As a child, what was the hardest thing to understand about God? For most people it is the issue of his eternality. “Where did God come from?” is the way we hear our children ask it. We see that everything around us has a beginning, and so we wonder, when was God’s beginning? Who made God? Let’s just establish in our minds that God is eternal. Look at Isaiah 36:4; Jer. 10:10; Dan. 4:3; 1 Tim. 1:17; Deut. 33:27; Isaiah 46:10.

            God is eternal. He had no beginning and he will have no end. He is the force that is greater than all other forces, the mind that is greater than all other minds, the will that is greater than all other wills. He is the great “I AM”, which is to say that he is always present. He just is.

            And, we find in Jesus Christ the most amazing thing. Look with me at John 1:1-5. We see in Jesus Christ four eternal characteristics of God. First, in v. 1-2, he is the eternal Word of God. For as long as God has existed, Christ has existed. He is the personification of the Word and Will of God. In v. 3, we see that he is the eternal Creator. John tells us that nothing would have been made without him. In v. 4-5, we see that he is the eternal Sustainer of our lives. We also see that he is the eternal Light. In other words, he is the eternal Good, the eternal Right. Jesus Christ is this amazing, transcendent, eternal God, but yet, we learn that he did something totally mind-boggling. This eternal God stepped into time. The eternal Creator became a part of his creation. The eternal Sustainer entered the world that he sustained. The eternal Right and Good was subjected to all the evil and wrong in this world.

            Let’s look at v. 9-18. John tells us in v. 9-11, that he came into a world that was ready to reject him. He came ready to do His Father’s will, but he came knowing that, for the most part, he would be rejected. John also gives us this amazing imagery in v. 14, “the Word became flesh.” The very will and word of God was standing on the earth proclaiming the truth to all who would listen. The very glory of God, the very image of God, was walking the earth teaching people about the will of God. I hear people say sometimes, “I would believe in God if he would just reveal himself, you know come down and dwell with us.” Well, he did. We can look at Jesus Christ and we know everything we need to know about God. He is the very image of the Father.

            We see in this that Jesus was ready to do the will of His Father, no matter what the cost. He was the Prince of Glory. He was already the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. But, God’s perfect will was to send His very Son, the very image of himself, to earth to live among and to teach his people. God’s perfect will was to pay for the sins of His People by sending a perfect sacrifice. Look at John 17:1-5. The heart and desire of Jesus Christ was to glorify His Father. Sure, he desired to save people through his sacrifice, but this was simply a means to the end of glorifying his Father. He humbled himself and became one of us, He suffered all of his life, He offered himself up as a sacrifice, and he did it all for the glory of God. What a wonderful man! What a wonderful savior! What a wonderful God!