The Holy of Holies (5)

 

 

“You loved Me, before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24).

 

“The glory which I had with You before the world was” (John 17:5).

 

There are those who speculate, then there are those who live. No one who ever has been touched by Jesus can explain how or why it happened, not really. We may have insight into our relationship with Him, we may have been given some insight of Him, but we cannot comprehend Him comprehensively. The deeper we know Him, the greater we are enveloped by His majesty and the less we know of some things and the more we know of other things. We lose sight that we may gain sight, and we gain sight so that we may lose sight – for the one sight we seek, the one vision we hunger for, is Jesus Christ the Lamb that we may follow Him wherever He goes.

 

To know Him and to be with Him where He is, brings us to the eternals, to the “heavenly places” of which Paul writes in Ephesians. It brings us to the Beginning (Christ) and to the End (Christ). In the heavenlies, in the eternals, we are blessed with all spiritual blessings in Christ and have been chosen before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:3 – 4).  We can either respond, “Yeah but…” and chase our tails like puppies with speculation upon speculation, flaying with natural reason, questioning how these things can be; or we can embrace the koinonia of the Trinity and the assurance that God loves us and move on with life in Him.

 

Many (most?) of the things we think we need to know, we do not really need to know, life is a question of knowing Jesus, always knowing Jesus, for in Him are “hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3). Why is it that we will eat of every tree of the garden except the Tree of Life? Why are we so infatuated with the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil?

 

Well, here is the thing, when we eat of the Tree of Life we find ourselves in the eternals, participating in the life of Christ Jesus, experiencing the love which the Father had for Him before the foundation of the world, seeing the glory which the Father bestowed on the Son before the ages began. Here is why we might say that the grandest phrase in all the Bible is “in Christ.” For to be “in Christ” is to have everything, and to not be in Christ is to have nothing.

 

That which the world thinks is nothing is everything, and that which the world thinks is everything is nothing (1 Cor. 1:17 – 31; 2:14; 1 John 2:15 - 17). Remember this the next time you watch the news or listen to political and social pundits – no matter what “color” they wear. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil has many colors, including blue and red and purple – they all have poisonous dye in them.

 

When we read John 17:5 and 24 what do we experience? Do we read or do we hear? Do we see letters and words and sentences, or do we see Jesus? Is the passage simply words on paper or on an electronic reader, or is the passage a place of communion with the Trinity? Is the passage confined to the room or place in which we read? A living room, kitchen, bedroom, a deck, or an office? Or is Jesus coming to us and are we coming to Jesus in and through the passage?

 

Are we touching that which was before the ages and before the foundation of the world? Are we entering into the heavenlies and are the heavenlies entering into us?

 

O dear friends, the gravitational pull of earth, of the natural man, of politics and economics and nationalism and entertainment and pleasure and man’s religious tradition are all formidable; yet our Lord Jesus tells us that God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth (John 4:24). We are taught that as many as are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God (Romans 8:14). It should be clear to us that we are citizens of heaven (Phil. 3:30) and that we live by faith rather than by sight (2 Cor. 5:7).

 

Are we living as the adults in the room of popular Christianity? Or are we still children “tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming” (Ephesians 4:14)?

 

Unless we have some experience, some measure of experiential knowledge, of the Holy of Holies, of Christ before the ages, I am not certain we can escape and live above the toxicity of the world’s atmosphere, of its hatred, selfishness, cruelty, and blindness; I am not certain we can escape the seduction of man’s religion, including man’s caricature of Christianity, a Christianity without the Christ of the Cross and the Cross of Christ. Is it possible that the more crosses we display, the less like Christ Jesus we become?

 

A few years ago I did a series on this blog in which we explored Geerhardus Vos’s sermon, preached at Princeton Chapel, Heavenly Mindedness, based on Hebrews 11:9- 10. One of the things that struck me as I was working through Vos’s message was the communion of saints. Vos saw that the Patriarchs were experiencing this communion, Vos himself was experiencing it, and Vos was inviting his hearers to experience it. That is, Vos wasn’t simply reading words on a page as he preached Hebrews 11, and he wasn’t asking his listeners to simply exegete the text with him, he was living Hebrews 11, he was inviting others to live in Hebrews 11 with Noah and Abraham and Sarah and Isaac and Jacob and Jesus and with one another. Hebrews 11 was a transcendent experience for Geerhardus Vos, as it ought to be with us, as the Upper Room of the Gospel ought to be.

 

As Bonhoeffer writes in The Cost of Discipleship, God has established a holy realm on earth and it is called Christ and the Body of Christ – the Holy of Holies is within His People, within His Son. As with the Stable in Lewis’s The Last Battle, the inside is far greater than the outside, it is immeasurable. We live in the Holy of Holies and the Holy of Holies lives within us…therefore, why do we have anything to do with the unclean?

 

Somewhere Francis Schaffer wrote about us having two rooms, and I think this can be a helpful image. We tend to live on the first floor; the second floor, the upper level, is something we may hear about, we may theorize about, but it is essentially off limits. We don’t think it practical to explore it. Perhaps we have a quick visit once in a while, but it is better to leave it alone and remain on the first floor, after all, we don’t want folks to talk…do we?

 

Yet, when we come to Ephesians, Paul begins on the second floor, in the heavenlies and before the foundation of the world in Chapter One. He begins in the Upper Room and then, in Chapter Four, he answers the question, “The Upper Room is great, but how do we live on the first floor with one another and with the world?”

 

In the Gospel of John the answer to this question of how we should live is answered again and again, we live in the Upper Room, and out from the Upper Room we live in the world as Christ, for He lives in us and we live in Him; He is the Vine and we are the branches, He is our source of life….our only source of life. Our fellowship and friendship with Him is unbroken, for the Word is being made flesh and is living in us and among us, and we are being perfected into one in Him.

 

What does your participation in this mystery look like today?

 

 

Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship Part II – Reflections (14)

 

Let’s continue to consider what Bonhoeffer writes about what I’ll term intercessory suffering. I’ll quote Bonhoeffer from our previous reflection:

 

“Even though Jesus Christ has already accomplished all the vicarious suffering necessary for our redemption, his sufferings in the world are not finished yet. In his grace, he has left something unfinished in his suffering, which his church – community is to complete in this last period before his second coming” (page 202, italics mine).

 

We “are permitted to bear what others are spared …There is a specific amount of suffering which has been allocated to the body of Christ” (page 203).

 

In Paul: Apostle of the Heart Set Free, F. F. Bruce writes, “He [Paul] seems to have held that the more of these sufferings he personally absorbed, the less would remain for his follow-Christians to endure. “I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake," he writes to the Colossians, “and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church” (Colossians 1:24). To the same effect he tells his friends in Corinth that “if we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation (2 Corinthians 1:6)”” (page 139).

 

Intercessory living and suffering is very much the theme of 2 Corinthians, and it is indeed the theme of Christ Jesus, in His life, His death, His resurrection, and His Presence within His Body, His Church, His Temple. The Suffering Servant of Isaiah, such as we see in 52:13 – 53:12, continues to live within His Body. If we are indeed joined to our Lord Jesus in organic unity, ought we not to expect His Nature of self-sacrifice and self-giving to live within us and through us?

 

“God so loved the world that He gave…” God gave, and God continues to give, and as He gave Jesus, so He gives us. Jesus says, “As the Father has sent Me, I also send you” (John 20:21). What is it about this we don’t understand?

 

The theme of intercessory living is found throughout the New Testament, yet we don’t see it. We read Colossians 1:24 and gloss over it. We read 2 Corinthians 4:12 and gloss over it. We read 1 John 3:16 and promptly ignore it. Galatians 2:20 might as well be written in Martian, it is so alien to us.

 

For you see my dear friends, if these passages are not realities within us and our congregations then we would be better off if they did not exist – for they represent our high calling in Jesus Christ, to know Him in the power of His resurrection and the koinonia of His suffering (Phil. 3:10) – if they did not exist we would not be guilty of rejecting them.

 

To teach a vicarious understanding of the Cross and Atonement, without teaching a corresponding vision of our life in Christ, of living and suffering with Christ, in Christ, and through Christ for the sake of others, is to present a truncated message of the Cross. The Cross is our sacramental portal into the koinonia of the Trinity, as individuals and as God’s People. To confine our teaching of the Cross to Jesus dying vicariously for us, is to teach less than what we see in Scripture. (Consider the dimensions of the Cross in Romans, especially from 5:12 – 8:39.)

 

We cannot understand the mystery of the Cross anymore than we can understand the mystery of the Trinity. We can touch the Cross and be touched by the Cross, we can live in the Cross and the Cross can live in us. As we follow on to know Jesus Christ in His depths, we will all (I do believe) have experiences and moments when we see things and hear things which we may, with Paul, term, “inexpressible words [and images and ideas], which a man is not permitted to speak.”

 

In his sermon, The Wonderful Tree, Geerhardus Vos says concerning the soul and God, “There is an inner sanctuary of communion, where all else disappears from sight, and the believer shut in with God gazes upon his loveliness, and appropriates Him, as though outside of Him nothing mattered or existed. These may be fugitive moments, and they may be rare in our experience, but we surely must know them, if God’s fruit-bearing for us is to be a reality in our lives” (Grace and Glory, page 26, italics mine).  

 

A doctrine of the Cross without the experience of the Cross, without living the Way of the Cross, is dead letter, a tragedy indeed. As Bonhoeffer has written, the Cross frees us to suffer for Christ and others, it gives us the liberty to lose our lives so that others may live.

 

In the American church, we have become so far removed from the Christ of the Cross and the Cross of Christ, we have become so pleasure oriented and self-centered, we have so bought into individualism, that what Bonhoeffer writes, what Paul writes, and what I am writing, seems like a different Christianity, a different Gospel – why we might even say that it goes against our entire way of life of consumerism and pleasure and striving for the self.

 

Yet, I can recall as a lad hearing men and women still talk about these things, still value them, still call others to follow Jesus and respond to Him by losing their lives for His sake and the Gospel’s (Mark 8:34ff).

 

Biblical Christianity is partaking of the Divine Nature through and in Jesus Christ. Biblical Christianity is, in its essence, supernatural – it is Other than we are, or we might say that it is Other than we were, for we are being transformed into Christ’s image and we are new creations in Him. It should not surprise us if we experience things, such as suffering on behalf of others, that we cannot understand – we are learning a new Way of living in Jesus Christ and with one another.

 

We may not understand Colossians 1:24 or 2 Corinthians 4:12, but we can ask God to make them real in our lives, we can ask God to teach us to know the koinonia of the sufferings of Jesus Christ, we can ask God to teach us intercessory living and intercessory prayer, we can ask God to teach us to bear the suffering of others in our hearts and minds and souls and in the depths of our spirits. We can ask God to implant the Cross in the core of our very being. (And in our congregations!)

 

If we do these things, if we desire these things, then let us not be surprised if the Holy Spirit prays and intercedes through us “with groanings too deep for words” (Romans 8:26) for we will have crossed the divide between religion and the Kingdom, between childhood and sonship, and we will be learning to follow the Lamb wherever His goes, including to the sacrificial altar we know as the Cross.

Our Last Battle (11)

 Eleven – More Real Than Ever

“The wonder of walking beside creatures from another world made him feel a little dizzy: but it also made all the old stories seem far more real than they had ever seemed before…anything might happen now.” The Last Battle, C. S. Lewis, page 694, One Volume Edition.

A while back my friend, Michael Daily, introduced me to the writings of Geerhardus Vos (1862 – 1949), through a collection of six of his sermons preached at Princeton Seminary chapel, titled, Grace and Glory. While I appreciate all six sermons, Vos’s message on Hebrews 11:9 – 10, Heavenly Mindedness, captured my heart and mind, and resulted in me doing a blog series on it. This was one of the longest series I’ve written over the years, with the current Upper Room series, an early series on C. S. Lewis, and one on Bonhoeffer’s Life Together, probably being the only ones of greater length over the past 15 years. 

As we’ll hopefully see later in our reflections on The Last Battle, there are places in which the inside is greater than the outside. We see this in the manger, the Cross, the Upper Room, and I experienced this with Vos’s Heavenly Mindedness, as he experienced it with Hebrews 11:9 – 10. Vos took me on a transcendent journey with him, a journey of communion with the saints, a journey that captured the essence of not only Hebrews 11: 9- 10, but also of Hebrews 12: 22 – 24:

“But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angles, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks better than the blood of Abel.” 

Heavenly Mindedness was an expression of Jesus’ words to the Sadducees, “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” To Vos, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were not only living, but we can also experience the communion of the saints with them, we can experience Hebrews 12:22 – 24, we can live within a heavenly mindedness in Jesus Christ and with one another. 

As I worked through Heavenly Mindedness I was continually amazed at the experiential transcendence of Vos’s message and I wondered what his original audience heard and saw as they listened to him. It also struck me that his preaching departed from what most of us find acceptable in today’s Evangelical circles, for it is most certainly not the product of the historical – grammatical method. This is not to say that Vos didn’t do his homework, far from it; it is not to say that along the way Vos did not do his grammatical or his historical work, but it is to say that the life and vision and trajectory of Vos’s preaching far exceeded any method which, at its core, is humanistic. 

I couldn’t help but wonder if Vos, had he been a seminary student, would have received a passing grade for his sermon. 

(My apologies if you are not quite following me, I will try to follow this up with some posts that try to flesh this out, but I do have a point, so please be patient. And besides, it doesn’t hurt to touch on things difficult to grasp.)

To Vos, Hebrews 11:9 – 10, was not a text, it was a life, and that life led him to the City of Hebrews 12:22 – 24, a City that was as real to him as the city or town where you live is real to you. Except, that City to Vos was more real, more permanent, and more assured that any of our earthly cities and towns and villages – for its Builder and Maker is God. 

So much of our theological education, and our Bible teaching material, Sunday school and small group material (whether printed or video), our commentaries, our preaching and teaching, is akin to people reading cookbook after cookbook, recipe after recipe, looking at photo after photo of dishes on a table – but without ever preparing and eating the food. 

What may be worse, is that we look at folks who prepare delicious meals that their grandparents taught them to make, using recipe cards with faded pencil on them, or instructions on old notebook paper which is disintegrating, and we think that they don’t know what they are doing – even though they are making tasty food and we are simply reciting recipes again and again without ever producing anything that gives life. We may even have fancy kitchen gadgets while others may have old cast iron skillets and muffin pans and hand-powered eggbeaters – and we think we are better equipped…even though we produce nothing to give life to others, nothing to truly feed the souls and spirits of others. 

There is joy in their cooking…there is taste…there is texture. People eat their food with conversation and smiles. 

These unrefined (to our thinking) folk can look at a recipe in a popular best seller and see the errors and instantly know what makes sense and what doesn’t. 

(And again with apologies, but I want to make this point; Vos’s preaching reminds me of the Fathers, it sees Scripture holistically in Christ, it is transcendent, lifting us above the earth and its humanistic gravity. You cannot teach someone to preach and teach like Vos and the Fathers, you can model it, but you simply cannot teach it, there is no method to it, it is born of the Spirit, and it requires a marriage of the Word and the man or woman – the two become one in Christ. It is organic.)

Now, what about Tirian? 

“The wonder of walking beside creatures from another world made him feel a little dizzy: but it also made all the old stories seem far more real than they had ever seemed before…anything might happen now.”

We are called to live in the reality of “anything might happen now.” Isn’t it time we live in the awe of the “old stories” being more real than ever? 

Our Last Battle includes the battle of living in presence of Jesus Christ and His saints today; not looking back at history as simply history, and not looking forward to a future that may or may not unfold in certain ways, but living in communion and friendship with Jesus Christ and His saints today – living in the reality of Hebrews 12:22 – 24, living in connection with “creatures from another world.” 

Yes, it can make us dizzy, and the numinous ought to do that. Yes, it ought to humble us. Yes, it means that the Word of God must master us, instead of us being so foolish as to think that we can master the Word. 

Yes, if we live as strangers in this world, we will be a bit strange. 

Ah, but what joy we will have with Jesus, with Abraham, David, Paul, Peter, Augustine, Fenelon, Vos…and with one another.

Heavenly Mindedness (79)

 

“It was because God discerned in the souls of the patriarchs, underneath all else, this personal love, this homesickness for Himself, that He caused to be recorded about them the greatest thing that can be spoken of any man: that God is not ashamed to be called their God, and that He has prepared for them the city of their desire.” G. Vos

 

“But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared a city for them.” Hebrews 11:16.

 

Let’s remind ourselves of the two verses which Vos took as his text for his sermon, preached at Princeton Seminary chapel, Hebrews 11:9 & 10:

 

“By faith he [Abraham] lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise; for he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.”

 

In his conclusion, Vos says that “the greatest thing that can be spoken of any man: that God is not ashamed to be called their God, and that He has prepared for them the city of their desire.”

 

Can this be said about us?

 

Do we have what Vos styles as a “personal love” for God? Or is our love a religious love, a “love” that is cautious, lest others thing we are making too big a thing of Jesus Christ? Is our love measured, lest we love God too much and miss out on the things of this world? Is our love more of a love for a Christian lifestyle, a love of being with nice people, of having a reputation as a nice Christian man or woman, than it is of having a reputation within and without the professing church of being someone who loves God with all his heart, mind, soul, and strength, and who loves his neighbor as himself?

 

Are we attempting to live in two cities, the City of God and the city of man? Do we think we have some type of dual citizenship? Is our love and allegiance divided between the things of this world and the things of God?

 

Do we have a homesickness for God? This homesickness means that we realize that we are not who the world says we are, but rather men and women and young people whose true genealogy is in God, whose destiny is in God, who were elect and chosen before the foundation of the world to travel home to our heavenly Father in and through Jesus Christ. This homesickness means that we realize that we are not accidents looking for a place to happen but have been called by Jesus Christ to follow Him from this age into the next as the daystar rises within our hearts.

 

Is God “not ashamed to be called our God”?

 

Jesus says in Matthew 10:32 – 33; “Therefore everyone who confesses Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven.” Then in Mark 8:38 we have, “For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”

 

Vos writes of “the city of their desire.” What is the city of our desire? Where do we desire to live today? Tomorrow? Forever?

 

Do we desire a city of pleasure? A city of materialism? A city of political power? Of sports power? Of entertainment? Of economic power? Of religious power?

 

Or is the city of our desire that city whose architect and builder is God? Is it the City where the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the light, life, and delight?

 

Are we living the life of the heavenly – minded?

 

Below is the final section of Vos’s sermon. I have included it so that we can read it again and catch the challenge and beauty of his conclusion. Can we say with Paul in Philippians 3:13 – 14, “I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus”?

 

“Finally the highest thing that can be spoken about this city is that it is the city of our God, that He is in the midst of it. Traced to its ultimate root heavenly-mindedness is the thirst of the soul after God, the living God. The patriarchs looked not for some city in general, but for a city whose builder and maker was God.

 

“It is characteristic of faith that it not merely desires the perfect but desires the perfect as a work and gift of God. A heaven that was not illumined by the light of God, and not a place for closest embrace of Him, would be less than heaven. God as builder and maker thereof has put the better part of Himself into his work. Therefore those who enter the city are in God. The thought is none other than that of the seer in the Apocalypse:

 

“I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God, the Almighty and the Lamb are the temple thereof. And that city has no need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine upon it, for the glory of God lightens it, and the throne of God and the Lamb are therein: and his servants shall do Him service, and they shall see his face, and his name shall be on their foreheads.”

 

“And the faith is the faith of the Psalmist, who spoke: “Whom have I in heaven but Thee, and there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee.” Here it is impossible for us to tell how truly and to what extent our relation to God is a relation of pure, disinterested love in which we seek Him for his own sake. There, when all want and sin-frailty shall have slipped away from us, we shall be able to tell.

 

“It was because God discerned in the souls of the patriarchs, underneath all else, this personal love, this homesickness for Himself, that He caused to be recorded about them the greatest thing that can be spoken of any man: that God is not ashamed to be called their God, and that He has prepared for them the city of their desire.” G. Vos

 

AMEN.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Heavenly Mindedness (78)

 

“And the faith is the faith of the Psalmist, who spoke: “Whom have I in heaven but Thee, and there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee.” Here it is impossible for us to tell how truly and to what extent our relation to God is a relation of pure, disinterested love in which we seek Him for his own sake. There, when all want and sin-frailty shall have slipped away from us, we shall be able to tell.” G. Vos.

 

 Before we leave the above penultimate paragraph in Vos’s sermon, I’d like us to please consider what Vos means by “pure, disinterested love in which we seek Him for his own sake.” Is the idea of “disinterested love” familiar to you? What does it mean to “seek Him for his own sake”? We could also phrase this, “love Him for his own sake.”

 

This concept is perhaps unfamiliar to us, both in terms of loving God and loving others. Must I have self-interest in order to love someone? In order to love God? Vos writes of “pure, disinterested love,” is such a thing possible? If I never received anything from God, would I still love Him? Would I still seek to love Him more deeply every day? Is God worthy to be worshipped for who He is, and not from what I may receive from Him? In other words, if I never received anything from God would I still worship Him?

 

These questions and this idea of “disinterested love” have been with us a very long time in the history of the Church, and while we may not be familiar with the subject of disinterested love, I suppose we could probably find it written about and taught in every generation prior to our own. When Paul writes in 1 Cor. 13:5 that love “does not seek its own,” what does he mean? What does this look like in our relationship with God? With others?

 

Can we find a foundation for this idea in Jesus’s call to discipleship in Mark 8:34ff in which we are called to deny ourselves? Is there a glimpse of this in Galatians 2:20 and its “yet not I, but Christ”?

 

What can we learn of love from 1 Corinthians Chapter 13? From the First Epistle of John, which is a kaleidoscope of love with myriad patterns?

 

From what I’ve written in previous posts you know that I don’t think we can know to what extent we may have pure love, nor do I think it is healthy to live in a house with mirrors on every wall – preoccupation with “self” distracts us from Christ and others. We must trust God with our growth, our transformation into the image of Jesus Christ, and with all that that entails.

 

On the other hand, as we meditate on God’s love and on love as it is revealed and taught in the Bible, we would do well to ask our Father and Lord Jesus to search our hearts, to teach us to love as the Trinity loves. I do think that living with an awareness of our love for God and others is vital – for is this not the Great Commandment (Mark 12:28 – 34)? I have a friend who says, “I want to love Jesus more today than I did yesterday.” I like this, I like this a lot and I often make it a prayer of mine.

 

I usually begin each day asking God to teach me to love Him with all of my heart, soul, mind, and strength; and to love my neighbor as myself. I ask Him to teach me to love Him with all that I have and all that I am. I ask our Lord Jesus to teach me to love my wife as He loves the Church, His Bride.

 

One of the great joys of my life is that in the last years of my business career I came to love my employees deeply and joyously. This is not something I was consciously working toward, it was not something I was aware of as it was developing within me, but I came to realize that it was indeed a transformation within me, and I was so very thankful to our Father and our dear Lord Jesus as I realized how much I loved the people I worked with every day. Whenever we gathered as a group, I made it a point to tell them that I loved them. I loved them not from what I could get from them, I loved them to simply love them.

 

To be sure, the idea of disinterested love runs counter to our culture, including our church culture. This has always been the case, but in our blatantly narcissistic culture with its marketing and personality cults and preaching and teaching and song lyrics focused on the self rather than God, disinterested love isn’t likely to attract an audience. And yet, Jesus clearly calls us to deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow Him.

 

And yet, Vos plants these words at the end of his sermon, “pure, disinterested love.” These are carefully chosen words, they are words with a history stretching back ages, they are words of many who are termed “mystics,” and of others who refuse to remain where they are in this world but insist on pushing forward on pilgrimage to the City of God. Vos, the professor; Vos, the theologian; Vos the man who carefully chooses words and phrases, uses these words and this ideal of “pure, disinterested love” as he arrives at his conclusion of Heavenly – Mindedness.

 

How does Vos want us to engage this ideal? Why does he place it penultimately in this sermon?

 

In the event you wish to pursue and experience “disinterested love,” I will tell you two things; the first is that it will be worth it and that it will glorify God. The second is that as simple as it may seem, that it has its complexities, its enigmas, its paradoxes, its mysteries. This is something to be worked out over a lifetime, and it is never to late or too early to begin. Indeed, if we preached the Gospel as it should be preached, such notions would be foundational.

 

If you pursue this you will likely find some writers who speak to you, and others who don’t; isn’t this to be expected? The Holy Spirit will lead you in your quest.

 

“Though He slay me, I will hope in Him.” Job 13:15.

 

“We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” 1 John 3:16.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

.”

 

Heavenly Mindedness (77)

 

Continuing from the last post with the question, “What role do verses 12 and 13 play in Hebrews Chapter 4?

 

Remembering that there were no chapter or verse divisions in the original text of the Bible, Hebrews Chapter 4 is a continuation of Hebrews Chapter 3, and in Chapter 3 the author introduces Moses and the people of Israel, contrasting Moses with Jesus and comparing his readers to the people of Israel; as we ponder this passage we ought to be identifying with both the people of Israel and also with the original readers and hearers of Hebrews, for what is written about Moses and Israel was written for us as well as for the first century church. What are we supposed to learn from Moses and Israel?

 

Central to this passage is the idea of rest in the Promised Land, faith in the Word of God, and obedience and disobedience to God’s Word. Israel and the recipients of the letter that we call “Hebrews” both had good news preached to them (Heb. 4:2), but Israel did not believe God’s Word, His promises, while the recipients of the letter we’re reading did believe (Heb. 4:3).

 

Much of Hebrews chapters 3 and 4 is anchored in Psalm 95 which is quoted in 3:7 – 11, 15; 4:3, 5, 7. The author is arguing that since God through David in Psalm 95, who lived long after Moses and Joshua, is speaking of a “rest” for His people, that therefore “there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God” (Heb. 4:9). His reasoning is, “For if Joshua has given them rest, He [God] would not have spoken of another day after that” (4:8).

 

While there are many treasures in Hebrews chapters 3 and 4, for our purposes I want to focus on 4:8 – 16.

 

After making the case that “there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God,” we read in verse 10, “For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His.” Note 4:3b – 4, “…although His works were finished from the foundation of the world. For He has said somewhere concerning the seventh day: ‘And God rested on the seventh day from all His works.’”

 

A defining characteristic of the Sabbath rest that God has for His people is that we rest, or cease, from our own works. Is this not at the heart of the Gospel? Christ does everything and we can do nothing. We enter into the finished works of God from the foundation of the world, most especially those works manifested on the Cross, and we also come to know resting in Christ, abiding in Christ, living in Christ, as our Way of Life (John 15:1ff; Galatians 2:20).

 

As with many elements of the Word of God and our life in Christ, there are enigmatic dimensions to it, for we are told in Hebrews 4:11, “Therefore let us be diligent to enter that rest, so that no one will fall through following the same example of disobedience” [as seen in the people of Israel in the Wilderness]. This is followed by, “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword…” That is, here our core verses 12 – 13 come into play. Why?

 

I think there is a similar paradigm in Philippians 2:12 – 13 in which we’re told to work out our “own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” In much the same way, we are to be diligent to enter the Sabbath rest which God has for us, but how do we do this?

 

I believe we do this by allowing the living Word of God to work deep within us; this means that we submit to the lordship of Jesus Christ through His Word – a Word that penetrates deep within us and reorders our inner person; both encouraging us and bringing to light elements of our lives and inner beings that need to be confessed and put to death at the Cross. We see in verse 12 that the Word judges “the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”

 

Enigmatically there is a Sabbath rest in this transformative process, for Jesus Christ is indeed our Sabbath, He is our rest, and while we rest in Him and submit to His Word we are being transformed into His image. The “work” belongs to Christ and not to us, we are indeed, by His grace, participants – but Jesus Christ is the lead partner on the dance floor.

 

But what do we do when the living Word reveals elements of our lives that are too much for us to bear? What do we do when we “see” elements of our core person, things in our hearts and souls, that are disgusting and vile? How do we respond when we realize how we have hurt others, used others, and look into the abyss of our selfishness?

 

Here what follows Hebrews 4:12 – 13 comes into play:

 

“Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” Heb. 4:14 – 16.

 

In other words, when we are tempted, including when we are tempted to despair when we see the depths of our wickedness and sin, when we need spiritual and holistic healing of the inner person – Jesus our High Priest awaits us. Yes, His Word can and will wound us, but He wounds us to heal us; He reveals the cancer of sin in order to remove it. He shows me my narcissism in order to drive me to the Cross for forgiveness and deliverance and transformation into His image.

 

The living Word which we see in 4:12 – 13 is doing a deep work within us, it is not dealing with superficialities, it is dividing soul and spirit and joints and marrow – it is doing a work which counseling (Christian or not) cannot do, it is doing a work which man cannot do, it is doing a work that the best intentioned “iron sharpening iron” cannot do (though God may certainly use our relationships with others in these matters).

 

The living Word of God will bring us into the Sabbath rest of God in Christ, it will keep us in that Sabbath rest, and our High Priest Jesus will be with us throughout this process, this pilgrimage.

 

This is a dimension of what it means to be heavenly – minded and on pilgrimage to the City of God; for only God can call us, protect us, transform us, and ultimately bring us to our destination. This is why it is critical that we know the Bible, live the Bible, breathe the Bible, submit to the Bible, and allow the living Word to work deep within us – we, in and of ourselves, are not capable of any of this. We are not capable of really and truly knowing ourselves, and if we had such capacity, it would kill us. God alone knows what we can stand to see of ourselves and He alone knows how to heal us as He reveals things within us – and He knows not only how to heal, He knows how to transform us into the image of His Son.

 

How is Hebrews 4:12 – 13 working in my life? In our lives? In our congregations?

 

In your life?

Heavenly Mindedness (76)

 

Continuing from our last post, 2 Peter 1:3 – 4:

 

“…seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.”

 

When we come into a relationship with Jesus Christ we are new creations, new creatures, we have a new nature, and that nature is the nature of God, for we are birthed by the Holy Spirit as His sons and daughters, as the author of Hebrews styles this, “both He [Jesus] who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one [Father]; for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren” (Heb. 2:11).

 

“The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God” (Rom. 8:16). “See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God…” (1 John 3:1).

 

In 2 Peter 1:4, Peter tells us that as the Word of God works in us, and as we respond to this working, as the promises of God operate within us, that we partake of the Divine Nature, we commune with it, we experience koinonia with the Trinity.

 

There is much mystery surrounding all of this, and sadly people tend to go one of two ways with this mystery; they either become self-focused and arrogant and forget that no matter how grand the promises of God are to us, that God is still God and that we ain’t God. The promises are grand and glorious because they are God’s promises, and they will always be God’s promises, and in the infiniteness of eternity, in the depths of eternity, God will remain the great I AM and we, as glorious as we shall be in Jesus Christ, will always be His sons and daughters; we will never be the Alpha and Omega, we will never be the I AM, we will never be the Creator…we will always “be” in Him, His glorious Nature will always “be” in us, indeed it will be ours (if we can speak in such language) – but let us not be fools, the glory of the New Jerusalem is centered in the glory of God and of the Lamb.

 

The other sad response is that we simply refuse to believe what the Bible clearly teaches, that we are partakers of the Divine Nature, that we are no longer sinners but are now saints, and that we are called to live as the sons and daughters of the Living God right here and right now. We may preach about being born again but we don’t really believe it, not as a way of life. We are called to life in the Trinity but we much prefer to live in the Old Covenant – this is a tragic irony; preaching the new birth on one hand, and then refusing to believe that it really happened by inculcating a “sinner” mentality on the other hand. We bind the Word of God in one another (writing in human terms).

 

Well, what I’d like us to see is that we are born again by the Word (1 Peter 1:23); that we are continually and expansively saved by the Word (James 1:18 & 21); and that we are made partakers of the Divine Nature by the Word (2 Peter 1:3 – 4). This brings us to Hebrews 4:12 – 13, where we see that the Word works within us to give us rest, to convict us, to cleanse us, and to progressively transform us into the image of Jesus Christ as we seek Him, our Great High Priest.

 

“For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.” Hebrews 4:12 – 13.

 

We cannot really know ourselves, we can only know what God reveals to us about ourselves. This knowledge can come through common grace as well as special grace given to us via the Word of God made alive by the Holy Spirit. The man or woman who embarks on an expedition to search the depths of his or her own heart may make some legitimate but limited discoveries, and will likely encounter both despair and self-deception, but we really don’t have the capacity to consistently discern the difference between soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and to make sound judgments about the thoughts and intents of our hearts.

 

We must place ourselves in the hands of the Great Physician, trusting Him to convict us, encourage us, and reveal to us what we need to see, when we need to see it – both with respect to ourselves and with respect to His unfolding transformative glory in our lives.

 

At one and the same time we are partaking of the Divine Nature through the Word of God (2 Peter 1:3 – 4) while that same Word is working deep within our beings to convict, convince, and lay us bare before God and our Great High Priest. This Divine dynamic is complementary and bears witness to the incredible love that our Father has toward us, the same love with which He loves the Firstborn Son (John 17:23).

 

Here is a gentle observation; we may note that in Ephesians 6:17 that the Word of God is styled “the sword of the Spirit.” That is a powerful image, an image that we see in Revelation 1:16; 2:12, 16; 19:15. I have often heard Christians refer to their Bibles as swords. I have been in Christian meetings in which we’ve been told to lift our “swords” up so everyone can see them. What I want to say is that this sword is not ours to manipulate, nor to treat as some sort of spiritual power or weapon at our beck and call; rather, this sword calls us to submit to it and only the man or woman who submits to this sword can learn to wield it with the Wisdom of God. Otherwise, we more often than not resemble children playing some sort of war game.

 

The woman or man who would learn Ephesians 6:17 would do well to first learn the ways of the Word in Hebrews 4:12 – 13; for, among other things, it is good for us to engage with the “sword of the Spirit” in the spirit and not in the soul – much in the professing church in done in the soul, hence much in the professing church carries the hand of man and not the hand of God. (Note Paul’s treatment of the spiritual man and the soulical man in 1 Corinthians Chapter 2, and of carnal Christians in Chapter 3).

 

What role do verses 12 and 13 play in Hebrews Chapter 4?

 

We’ll look at this in the next post in this series.

 

Heavenly Minedness (75)

 

Continuing from our last post, before we consider “pure, disinterested love,” I’d like us to please ponder Hebrews 4:12 -13; 2 Peter 1:3 - 4;1 Peter 1:23; and James 1:18, 21, though our focus will be Hebrews 4:12 – 13.

 

1 Peter 1:23; James 1:18, 21; and 2 Peter 1:3 - 4 provide us with a context for Hebrews 4:12 – 13. It is helpful, even vital, to understand the “nature” of a thing if we are going to have some understanding of it, if we are going to know how to think about it. Yes, usually this understanding unfolds as a result of our thinking and experience, and often the more we ponder and engage the richer our understanding becomes – so understanding the essence, experiencing the essence, or at the very least engagement in some fashion is critical to our thinking and experience, to how we engage with a person, an animal, a thing, and how we see ourselves.

 

I will frankly say that the fact that most Christians, at least in the West, do not know who Christ is in them and who they are in Christ, is a toxic problem. They do not believe that Jesus Christ has placed a new nature within them, nor do they often have an understanding of the death – dealing activity of the “old man” or “old person” (see Romans 6) and of our need to see ourselves as “dead unto sin but alive unto God.” For all of our talk of new birth and being born again, we display little awareness of this glorious truth in Jesus Christ. We call people to come to Jesus Christ and then we teach them to live like sinners – we just want their sin cleaned up so it won’t be so bad – when Jesus calls us to lose our lives, we teach one another to save them.

 

In 1 Peter 1:23 Peter writes, “…for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God,” and then in 1:25 he writes, “the word of the Lord endures forever.” What is the “nature” of our new birth? It is the Word of God, the living seed of the Word of God. Kind produces kind and the Father through the Son brings many sons to glory (Hebrews 2:10 – 13), the Father has purposed that the Lord Jesus Christ should be the “firstborn among many brethren,” (Romans 8:29). Christ is the Word of God (John 1:1) and He lives in us.

 

James tells us that, “In the exercise of His [the Father’s] will He brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we would be a kind of first fruits among His creatures.” Can we see the similarity here with 1 Peter? Can we see the activity of the Word of God, the “Word of Truth”? Also note, that as the Firstborn Son is a first fruit, so we collectively comprise the first fruits.

 

Then James tells us, “Therefore putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls.” What does the phrase, “the Word implanted” say to you? The idea that the “Word implanted” is able to “save our souls” can be hard for us in the West to understand because we have reduced the concept of salvation to being saved from hell to go to heaven – this is most assuredly not the Biblical picture of salvation and our failure to understand this has led to anemia and toxicity within our souls and within the professing church.

 

Biblical salvation is holistically expansive and includes every area of life, both individually and collectively, and even includes the redemption of creation. The purpose, the trajectory of Biblical salvation for us as individuals and as our Father’s sons and daughters is koinonia, fellowship, communion with the Trinity (John chapters 13 – 17); it is no less than union with God and manifesting that union on this earth, right now, in this time and place – individually yes, but most especially as His Body, His Temple, His Bride, His Flock.

 

Heavenly – mindedness is looking for that City, it is not a “Jesus and me” proposition, for without my brothers and sisters, without that City, there is no fulness of fellowship with Jesus Christ. Yes, Jesus Christ died for me and gave Himself for me – and we see this in Galatians 2:20; but it was to bring “many sons to glory” that He came, and it is the Father’s desire and purpose that Jesus be “the Firstborn among many brethren.” Is God’s desire my desire? Is my Father’s heart my heart? Is the prayer of Jesus in John 17 my prayer and my purpose in living? O what a foolish people we are, how blind to the Way of our Father.

 

Back to James; as we receive the Word into our souls it works salvation, wholeness, holistic growth in Christ – because the Word becomes engrafted…its Nature works its way into us (can we note the similarity here with John 15:1ff?). Progressively we are transformed into His image so that we learn that we must abide in Jesus Christ and that without Him we “can do nothing” (John 15:5). We learn not only to say this, we learn to live it in Jesus Christ, we learn to draw our total life from Him.  

 

What do you see in 2 Peter 1:3 – 4? How do these verses relate to the ones we’ve pondered in 1 Peter and James?

 

We’ll pick this back up in our next post in the series.

 

 

Heavenly Mindedness (74)

 

As we work through the final two paragraphs of Vos’s message, we are considering: “Here it is impossible for us to tell how truly and to what extent our relation to God is a relation of pure, disinterested love in which we seek Him for his own sake. There, when all want and sin-frailty shall have slipped away from us, we shall be able to tell.”

 

In the last post we noted that there are three components to the above; “here,” “there,” and “pure, disinterested love,” then we considered the “there” of the three. Now let’s ask whether in this life we can really know how much we love God, that is, “to what extent our relation to God is a relation of pure, disinterested love.” Or we might phrase it, “Can we really know the full extent of our subjective – experiential spiritual condition while “here” on this earth?”

 

I am reminded of Psalm 19:12 – 14: “Who can discern his errors? Acquit me of hidden faults. Also keep back Your servant from presumptuous sins; let them not rule over me; then I will be blameless, and I shall be acquitted of great transgression. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O LORD, my rock and my Redeemer.”

 

Then we have Psalm 139:23 – 24: “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my anxious thoughts; and see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way.”

 

Whenever I think about spiritual formation into the image of Jesus Christ, I have the sensation of being on the beach and pondering the ocean – its vastness and depth are overwhelming and comforting at the same time. Its sounds are usually soothing, but they can also be roiling and threatening. In some coastal areas, riptides are ever – present, in others their potential is there. While there are typically no visible markers, such as buoys, in the ocean, the seasoned sailor can read the currents, the skies, the stars; this reading can be enhanced with instruments. All of the foregoing has its counterpart in our pilgrimage in Christ. Most professing Christians sail within sight of land…assuming they enter the ocean at all, but those who trust the Holy Spirit and the Bible can anticipate the adventure of a lifetime.

 

When we recently explored 2 Cor. 3:17ff, Col. 3:1ff, and 1 John 3:1ff, we saw that our lives are to be focused on Jesus Christ, oriented toward Jesus Christ, and that it is as we behold Jesus Christ that we are transformed into His image. This is framework for our pilgrimage in this life.

 

Within this context and understanding we are told to examine ourselves in 1 Cor. 11:28, 2 Cor. 13:5, and Gal. 6:4. In Romans 12:1 – 2, we are told that, in light of Romans chapters 1 – 11 that we are to present ourselves as living sacrifices, not being conformed to the world and the present age, but rather transformed by the renewing of our minds that we might prove what the perfect will of God is in our lives. This “presentation” of ourselves includes Romans 6:12 – 13, in which we present our “members as instruments of righteousness to God.” This certainly speaks to us of being engaged with the Holy Spirit and the Word of God – the grace of God empowers us and acts upon us, our grace – enabled response is critical.

 

Then we have the enigmatic Philippians 2:12 – 13: “So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” Our working out of our salvation, of our holistic growth and trajectory in Jesus Christ, is only possible because God is at work in us – God is doing both the willing and the working. This is how we live, this is the dance of grace; and a mysterious dance it is.

 

I agree with Vos that it is impossible to measure our relationship with God in this life and that it is impossible to really know the complete nature of our love for Him…at least in one sense. After all, God’s love so far surpasses our love that our love, as it is transformed into His love, will always (I think) be growing in God – God is infinite are we are not, so I cannot imagine a time or place…whether here and now or in the far reaches of eternity…when His glorious love will not always be overwhelming us and our love (yes, yes, here again we have a mystery).

 

And so our orientation is not self-examination, it is not self-critique, but rather our orientation is Jesus Christ and the perfect and complete salvation which He has bought for us on the Cross, Resurrection, and Ascension. The Christian life is not about tallying up debits and credits on a daily basis; we are justified by Jesus Christ…we must not fall into the trap of measuring debits and credits, and this includes the process of transformation into His image – this is a work of grace and of the Holy Spirit, it is not a work of self-righteousness. As Jesus says in John 15, without Him we can’t do anything.

 

However, this does not mean that we don’t experience conviction of sin in our lives, and that we don’t experience a continuing awareness of areas in which we are called to grow into the image of our Lord Jesus.

 

I’ll pick this back up in the next post.

 

 

Heavenly Mindedness (73)

 

“And the faith is the faith of the Psalmist, who spoke: “Whom have I in heaven but Thee, and there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee.” Here it is impossible for us to tell how truly and to what extent our relation to God is a relation of pure, disinterested love in which we seek Him for his own sake. There, when all want and sin-frailty shall have slipped away from us, we shall be able to tell.

 

“It was because God discerned in the souls of the patriarchs, underneath all else, this personal love, this homesickness for Himself, that He caused to be recorded about them the greatest thing that can be spoken of any man: that God is not ashamed to be called their God, and that He has prepared for them the city of their desire.” G. Vos

 

As we continue to work through the final two paragraphs of Vos’s message, let’s ponder: “Here it is impossible for us to tell how truly and to what extent our relation to God is a relation of pure, disinterested love in which we seek Him for his own sake. There, when all want and sin-frailty shall have slipped away from us, we shall be able to tell.”

 

There are three components to the above, “here,” “there,” and “pure, disinterested love.” We’ll look at the first and third, and then consider the second.

 

Is it really impossible for us to tell, in this life, how much we love God and the nature of our love for Him?

 

When we do see God face to face, will we think about such things? Will we look to our lives on this earth and consider how much we loved God and what the form of that love was? Will we look to our condition as it will then be, and measure our love for God?

 

Regarding the third element in the above, our future state in eternity, my sense is that we will be so caught up, so focused, so centered, in the Father and the Lamb; so filled with love for them and God’s love for us, and with their glory, that the idea of measuring ourselves – whether measuring our past life on this earth, or our life as it is then in the Trinity and with one another, will not enter our minds, hearts, or souls. This is my sense.

 

In 1 Corinthians 15:35ff Paul touches on the glory and substance of the Resurrection. In 2 Corinthians 3:1 – 18 Paul writes of the glory of the Gospel, of the New Covenant, and that it has a trajectory of what I’ll style as “open heavens” with a continual unveiling of Jesus Christ, an unveiling which transforms us into His image (2 Cor. 3:17 – 18; recall our consideration of Colossians 3:1ff and 1 John 3:1ff).

 

In Dante’s journey into Paradise, Canto III, Dante the pilgrim, with an earthly mindset, wants to know whether those in the lower areas of Paradise want to aspire to higher areas, aren’t they thinking about progressing? Don’t they want to be farther “up there” with those higher than themselves? Dante the author’s answer to the question is fuller than what I’m going to quote and it demonstrates Dante the pilgrim’s inaccurate perception, for it is replete with assurance and joy and peace and contentment, but the following oft-quoted segment is the beginning of the answer to Dante’s question by a lady in Paradise:

 

“Brother, love’s virtue sets our will at rest,

and makes us wish for only what we have,

and doth not make us thirsty for aught else.

If higher we desired to be, our wishes

would be discordant with the will of Him,

who here discerneth us, which, thou wilt see,

can in these circles not occur, if love

be necessary to existence here,

and if love’s nature thou consider well.

Nay more, essential to this blessèd life

it is, that we should be within the Will

Divine, whereby our wills become one will;

and so, even as we are, from grade to grade

throughout this Realm, to all the Realm is pleasing,

as to its King, who in His Will in-wills us;

and His Will is our Peace; and that

the Ocean is, whereunto moveth all

that It creates, and all that Nature makes.”

 

Courtney Langdon, translator. Public Domain

 

We live by God’s grace here, we will live by God’s grace “there.” We live in Christ here, we will live in Christ “there.” My sense is that, as we behold Christ and the Father “there” that we will have no inclination, or thought, of self-assessment, of measurement, of comparison – for God will be “all in all” (1 Cor. 15:28).

We’ll pick this back up in the next post in this series.

Heavenly Mindedness (72)

 

“And the faith is the faith of the Psalmist, who spoke: “Whom have I in heaven but Thee, and there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee.” Here it is impossible for us to tell how truly and to what extent our relation to God is a relation of pure, disinterested love in which we seek Him for his own sake. There, when all want and sin-frailty shall have slipped away from us, we shall be able to tell.

 

“It was because God discerned in the souls of the patriarchs, underneath all else, this personal love, this homesickness for Himself, that He caused to be recorded about them the greatest thing that can be spoken of any man: that God is not ashamed to be called their God, and that He has prepared for them the city of their desire.” G. Vos

Vos tells us, concerning heavenly – minded faith; “And the faith is the faith of the Psalmist, who spoke: “Whom have I in heaven but Thee, and there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee.”

 

Is there anyone in heaven who we desire other than the True and Living God? Is there anyone on earth who we desire other than the True and Living God? That is, does our desire to know Him in the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His suffering, does our desire to love the LORD our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength – surpass, eclipse, and envelope all other desires in our lives? Is the Trinity our orientation on earth? Is the Trinity our source of Light and Life and the ultimate purpose of our lives?

 

To be heavenly – minded is to be consumed by God and to be consumed with God. It is to say with Paul, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” (Galatians 2:20).

 

To be heavenly – minded is to continually present our “bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world [or age], but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12:1 – 2).

 

To be heavenly – minded is to deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow Jesus. “For whoever wishes to save his soul will lose it, but whoever loses his soul for My sake and the Gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul? For what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulteress and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.” (Mark 8:34 – 38).

 

My dear, dear friends – any message that purports to be the Gospel but does not require all that you have and all that you are in worship and service to Jesus Christ is not the Gospel; it may appeal to your sense of well – being, it may be religiously or socially acceptable, but it is not the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ gave His all for us, and He calls us to give our all to Him and for Him…and to love one another. (See 1 John 3:16).

 

When you meet someone who has Psalm 73:25 as her testimony you know it. There are many who have pseudo – Christian politics as their testimony. There are others who have one of many Christian “traditions” as their testimony. There are others who have some form of therapeutic “Christian” message as their testimony. But where, O where, are those who have Jesus Christ as their testimony? Where are those who are “all – in” for Jesus Christ? Not Jesus Christ as He is obscured and apologized for by many churches, but the raw and unfiltered Jesus Christ as we see Him in the Bible – the One Who commands that we surrender ALL to Him and devote our lives to Him?

 

Can we say, “Whom have I in heaven but You? And besides You, I desire nothing on earth”? If we cannot say it, can we ask our Lord Jesus to give us a desire to say it, live it, and mean it? Can we desire to aspire to a life lived wholly in Christ and for Christ?

 

There was once a church which did good works, it toiled hard and persevered. It did not tolerate evil people or false teachers and was known for its steadfastness to the Name of Jesus Christ and had not grown weary. This people looked pretty good, they were commendable, and yet, Christ warned them that if they did not repent that He would remove them; He warned them that they were to “do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place – unless you repent.”

 

Why? Why would the Lord Jesus Christ do this? Because He says, “I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent…” (Revelation 2:1 – 7). The Ephesian church could no longer say, “Whom have I in heaven but You? And besides You I desire nothing on earth.”

 

Friends, as the Ephesians, we can have the right doctrine, we can discern between true and false teaching; we can have good works, even great works in which we persevere in the face of opposition, but if we do not love Jesus Christ, if our lives are not devoted to Him in love, obedience, worship, and affection; if we are not laying down our lives for one another, if we are not “all – in” for Jesus Christ, then dear friends, whatever we may think we have, it is not the Gospel of the Bible, it is not the Gospel of Jesus Christ, for Biblical Christianity is Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ is Biblical Christianity. The Christ of the Cross and the Cross of Christ must ever be our North Star.

 

Throughout his message on Heavenly – Mindedness, Vos has been leading us to Psalm 73:25, “Whom have I in heaven but You? And besides You I desire nothing on earth.”

 

Is this my testimony today? Is this our testimony?

 

Is this your testimony?