The Gospel Coalition

As I prepare to preach my own father’s funeral today at 3 pm (a surreal and unique privilege–please pray for me), I was helped by these words from Charles Spurgeon in a blog post by my friend Justin entitled “Here and There“:

Charles Spurgeon on life “here” vs. what life will be like “there”:

Here, my best joys bear “mortal” on their brow;
My fair flowers fade;
my dainty cups are drained to dregs;
my sweetest birds fall before Death’s arrows;
my most pleasant days are shadowed into nights;
and the flood tides of my bliss subside into ebbs of sorrow.

“But there,” he writes, “everything is immortal”:

The harp remains in tune,
the crown unfading,
the eye undimmed,
the voice unfaltering,
the heart unwavering;
and the immortal being is wholly absorbed in infinite delight.

Source: Morning, January 18

As soon as my dad died on Saturday night I texted my oldest son Gabe telling him that Papa T had passed away. He and my middle son Nathan were at Nathan’s championship basketball game (Nathan’s middle name is Stephan–after my dad). Thirty minutes after Gabe received word and passed it on to Nate during the game, Nate (wearing number 14) made this shot to win the game – and the championship. I was so sorry I missed it. But it was so sweet of God to grant my grieving boys, and my dad’s namesake, something to cheer about.

My dear father passed away tonight at 6:46 pm at the age of 70. He had been in the hospital since having liver transplant surgery on September 8th. He fought long and hard but tonight his fight is over. We loved him. He will be missed. We are crying. He is rejoicing. As God sweetly reminded me last night, for those who are in Christ, the best is yet to come.

Tonight ended with me singing a hymn over and over in my mind–a hymn that my dad is singing louder now than ever before: “It is not Death to Die”…

It is not death to die
To leave this weary road
And join the saints who dwell on high
Who’ve found their home with God

It is not death to close
The eyes long dimmed by tears
And wake in joy before Your throne
Delivered from our fears

It is not death to fling
Aside this earthly dust
And rise with strong and noble wing
To live among the just

It is not death to hear
The key unlock the door
That sets us free from mortal years
To praise You evermore

Original words by Henri Malan (1787–1864).

What a comfort to know when staring in the face of death that, for those who have placed their trust in the finished work of Christ, it is not death to die.

Thank-you all, my friends, for your prayers over the last few months. They have been answered! 

My friends Justin Taylor, Josh Harris, Greg Gilbert, Collin Hansen, and Kevin DeYoung are down visiting. Each year, we all try and get together for a few days to talk, pray, think, and encourage eachother. I’m so grateful for these friends. We have a great time together. Just being with them (I’m the oldest) is a great encouragement to me that God continues to raise up young men who love the gospel, care about the Bible, evangelism, expository preaching, sound doctrine, and attempting great things for God. 

As I was showing Josh that his new book, Dug Down Deep (it comes out today–it’s excellent) is sitting on my bedside table (almost at the top) he took a picture. Pastors, if your wives are tired of your many books lying around the house, show them this picture and maybe, just maybe, they’ll not only have great sympathy for my wife, Kim, but they may not bug you as much. 

I’m a die-hard believer in unction. Unction is an old fashioned word which describes an effusion of power from the Holy Spirit as one preaches. It is the one thing preachers need above everything else. It is the accompanying power of the Spirit. This is what Charles Spurgeon dubbed “the sacred annointing.” It is power from on high. 

In his book on the preaching of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, The Sacred Annointing, Tony Sargent describes unction well. He writes:

[Unction] is the afflatus of the Spirit resting on the speaker. It is the preacher gliding on eagles’ wings, soaring high, swooping low, carrying and being carried along by a dynamic other than his own. His consciousness of what is happening is not obliterated. He is not in a trance. He is being worked on but is aware that he is still working. He is being spoken through but he knows he is still speaking. The words are his but the facility with which they come compels him to realise that the source is beyond himself. The man is overwhelmed. He is on fire.

Oh how my heart burns for this sacred annointing, this unction! I hope and pray that preachers all over the world would spend much of their sermon preparation time begging God for this power on high. For, it is preachers who are borne along by the Holy Spirit that are used to effect a deep and sobering awareness of God and his truth that transforms. 

In his book Lloyd-Jones: Messenger of Grace, Iain Murray writes:

Preaching under the annointing of the Holy Spirit is preaching which brings with it a consciousness of God. It produces an impression upon the hearer that is altogether stronger than anything belonging to the circumstances of the occasion. Visible things fall into the background; the surroundings, the fellow worshippers, even the speaker himself, all become secondary to an awareness of God himself. Instead of witnessing a public gathering, the hearer receives the conviction that he is being addressed personally, and with an authority greater than that of a human messenger.

Given the fact that the ultimate factor in the church’s engagement with society is the church’s engagement with God, my earnest prayer is that, for the sake of the world, more preachers would come to know and understand what Andrew Bonar meant when he wrote: “It is one thing to bring truth from the Bible, and another to bring it from God himself through the Bible.”

Please pray, dear friends, that God would annoint my mind and mouth on Sunday as I preach so that God’s people would hear from God. Please pray that God’s Spirit would so inhabit my words that everyone would leave worship tomorrow being able to say, “God was surely in that place.”

I can’t manufacture unction regardless of how well crafted my sermon is and how well prepared I may be. The biggest work must come from God.

So, come thou fount of every blessing and do for your people what I cannot. Amen.   

Here’s another gospel-drenched prayer from Scotty Smith. I suggest we all make this prayer our own every day:

Heavenly Father, in Rome I saw the statues of various gods that filled the temples and lifestyle of that great ancient city. In London, I visited the biggest Buddhist temple in the city and wandered from station to station as worshippers offered prayers and gifts to deities that looked so strange to me. In Israel, I studied decaying remains of various idols which competed for the worship of the people of God.

Yet for me to obey John’s command to keep myself from idols requires so much more than simply staying away from ancient sites, pagan temples and man-made idols. Father, I’ve never been more aware of the invisible pantheon of idols that are constantly angling and clamoring for my heart’s worship.

Sometimes the approval or rejection from people has more sway over my heart than what you think about me. Sometimes my need to be right is more compelling to me than being righteous in Christ. Sometimes my desire to be in control of my world and circumstances claims much more of my time and energy than seeking you and basking in your love.

Have mercy on me, Father, and free my foolish heart from giving anything or anyone the attention, allegiance, affection and adoration you alone deserve. That I am your “dear child,” forgiven, secure, righteous and beloved in Christ, should be all the motivation I need to keep myself from any form of idolatry. May the gospel of your grace relentlessly expose and dethrone all “empty nothings” from my heart. So very Amen, I pray, in Jesus’ name.

Following God’s lead is always good but never safe. When you commit yourself to do whatever God tells you to do and to go wherever God tells you to go, you inevitably experience ups and downs; highs and lows.

As many of you know, this past year was the hardest year my family and I ever experienced. It was filled with excitement and fear; misunderstanding and frustration; laughter and tears. I experienced moments of great desperation and great deliverance; grief and glory. God’s Spirit and God’s truth afflicted me in my comfort and comforted me in my affliction. As a result of this hard year, however, God and his gospel became more real and relevant to me than ever before. I’ve never felt so dependant on him. He’s never been so big; I’ve never been so small. The idea that Jesus plus nothing equals everything ceased being simply a cognitive truth for me–it became my functional lifeline.

Interestingly, the world would have us to believe that the bigger we get and the better we feel about ourselves, the freer we become. This is why so many worship services have been reduced to nothing more than motivational, self-help seminars filled with “you can do it” songs and sermons. But what we find in the gospel is just the opposite. The gospel is good news for losers, not winners. It’s for those who long to be freed from the slavery of believing that all of their significance, meaning, purpose, and security depend on their ability to “become a better you.” The gospel tells us that weakness precedes usefulness—that, in fact, the smaller you get, the freer you will be. As I pointed out in a post last week, G.K. Chesterton wrote, “How much larger your life would be if your self could become smaller in it.” Nothing makes you more aware of your smallness than pain and hardship. The trials and tribulations of 2009 helped me to recover a glorious sense of God’s size!

As has often been the case in my Christian life, God has used the preaching of the late Dr. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones to bring great perspective and reorientation to my troubled soul. His sermons on revival preached in 1959 are, by far, the best series of sermons on revival I’ve ever heard. At various times this past year I’ve gone back to those sermons desperately needing God to liberate me from the slavish pressure to perform by reminding me of my smallness and his bigness. This morning I woke up and once again needed to be comforted by the fact that God is always wide awake and working all things out for our good and his glory. So I re-read a small portion of one of those revival sermons. With great unction, Lloyd-Jones said:

Our supreme need, our only need, is to know God, the living God, and the power of his might. We need nothing else. It is just that, the power of the living God, to know that the living God is among us and that nothing else matters…I say, forget everything else. Forget everything else. We need to realize the presence of the living God amongst us. Let everything else be silent. This is no time for minor differences. We all need to know the touch of the power of the living God.

Upon reading (re-reading) those words, my troubled heart was put to rest. I thank God for Dr. Lloyd-Jones. But I thank God even more for the blessed freedom the gospel brings–good news which reminds me everyday that God is God and I am not; that in the person of Jesus Christ, God has already secured for me what I could never secure for myself. 

My dear friend Scotty Smith, Pastor for Preaching, Teaching and Worship at Christ Community Church in Franklin, Tennessee, sent me this gospel-soaked prayer that he wrote early this morning after reflecting on Joshua 24:14-15:

Most gracious Father, I’m sitting here sipping fresh coffee watching flames dance in the fireplace, early into the first day of the New Year, and I’m a most humbled and grateful man.

How I praise you that I’ve begun this New Year with a little better understanding of the gospel than I had last year… and the previous years. I’m already praying that I can say the same thing this time next year. For in the gospel you’ve given me everything I need for living… and for dying.

I respond to Joshua’s bold charge to the Israelites, not with a list of New Year’s resolutions about me and what I’m gonna do this year for you. Rather, I begin this year resolving to abandon myself more fully to everything Jesus has already accomplished for me… to the specific things he intends to do in me… and to the ways he purposes to live his life and mission through me. He is the promise keeper, not me.

Dear Father, that’s why serving you is much more than merely “desirable.” It’s the greatest privilege possible… the most honored calling conceivable… the purest delight imaginable! For Jesus is my Joshua—the one by which you have already saved me… and are presently saving me… and, one Day, will completely save me. With no sense of embarrassment or cliché, I gladly say, JESUS SAVES!

Knowing you by grace and being known by you in Jesus, makes throwing away my idols less like a painful sacrifice, and more like a liberating dance. For all my “empty nothings” have ever given me is momentary pleasure, along with lasting disaster. Remind me of this all year long when I lose “gospel-sanity,” and am tempted to think otherwise…

So my humble prayer and earnest longing for this New Year is this… for me, my family, and the household of faith of which you have made me a part… that we will consider our lives worth nothing to us, if only we may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given us—the task of testifying (by word and deed) to the gospel of your grace. (Acts 20:24).

So very Amen, I pray, in Jesus name, with great anticipation and much thanksgiving.