This means that God is intensely personal. Therefore the Trinity should not be reduced to merely doctrinal matters. God is not a math problem or simply a logical, linear arrangement of theologizing.

In the Triune God the relational aspect of existence is given infinite weight and meaning.

Eugene Peterson writes,

So we don’t understand Trinity by working with numbers, puzzling over how one equals three or three equals one. Trinity has nothing to do with arithmetic. Trinity is the church’s way of learning to think and respond relationally to God as he reveals himself to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God is triply personal, emphatically personal, unrelentingly personal. Growing up in the practice of resurrection must also be unrelentingly and emphatically personal. [Practice Resurrection, 198.]

However, this works the other way round also. Those who prize the practical and the relational nature of Christianity should not get frustrated with those who discuss and debate the complexities of Trinitarian theology. Without the Trinity the personal and relational nature of Christianity is reduced to a finite size. In the Triune God the relational aspect of existence is given infinite weight and meaning. 

Getting personal matters because theology matters.  Relationships matter because God matters.

The affirmation of the Trinity on the statement of faith at your church that you probably have never even looked at means something. It’s important. It’s worth defending. It’s worth celebrating. It’s a statement about the nature of reality, and, not only theological reality, but everyday–communicating with your wife and kids and neighbor–reality. Therefore value relationship and getting personal not for its own sake, but for God’s sake and unto his Triune glory.

Therefore the ultimate goal of the joy and restoration that Jesus brings to the broken is the glory of God.

The mission of Jesus brings restoration to human brokenness in all its forms–physical and spiritual. He helps the helpless, makes the weak strong, the unrighteous righteous (Is. 61:10), and proclaims good news to those with nothing but bad news. In other words, Jesus’ aim is to usher in God’s goodness and favor and increase the happiness and joy of sinful humanity.

But the big sentence of verses 1-3, accelerating with God’s goodness to humanity, culminates in the phrase that he may be glorified. God’s gracious goodness in putting the world to right and imparting joy to sinful people in the person and work of Jesus are a means to his glory. This means that God isn’t only after your good (though he is pursuing that)–he’s after his glory. Therefore the ultimate goal of the joy and restoration that Jesus brings to the broken is the glory of God.

Jonathan Edwards, doing what he does best, elaborates on how God seeks the good of sinners and the glory of himself:

God in seeking his glory, seeks the good of his creatures…And in communicating his fulness for them, he does it for himself; because their good, which he seeks, is so much in union and communion with himself. God is their good. Their excellency and happiness is nothing, but the emanation and expresion of Gods’ glory: God, in seeking their glory and happiness, seeks himself: and in seeking himself, i.e. himself diffused and expressed, (which he delights in, as he delights in his own beauty and fulness,) he seeks their glory and happiness. [A Dissertation Concerning The End for Which God Created the World, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume 1 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, reprinted from an 1834 edition in January 2003), 105.]

We do not adorn the gospel by becoming ruggedly doctrinaire or pompous in the way we hold to God’s gracious good news, but we do not adorn it either when try to shrink the magnificent ocean of gospel truth down to a puddle on the side of a curb to splash our footsies in.

I understand the heart behind this. There is a desire to not cut off anyone from the faith, avoid pride, walk in love and humility, and honor Jesus’ passion for unity in his prayer in John 17. Obviously, these are wonderful things and Christian virtues that are essential in a polarizing world.

We do not adorn the gospel by becoming ruggedly doctrinaire or pompous in the way we hold to God’s gracious good news, but we do not adorn it either when try to shrink the magnificent ocean of gospel truth down to a puddle on the side of a curb to splash our footsies in.

We must not equivocate pompous with those who have a passion for doctrine or humble with those who tend to minimize it. Pomposity and humility come in all kinds of shapes and sizes among all types of pastors and laypeople, networks and denominations.

J. Gresham Machen in his book What is Faith? offers a warning to those who engage in the  ”perilous business” of shrinking Christian doctrine down to its bare minimums:

For our part we have not much sympathy with the present widespread desire of finding some greatest common denominator which shall unite men of different Christian bodies; for such a greatest common denominator is often found to be very small indeed. Some men seem to devote most of their energies to the task of seeing just how little of Christian truth they can get along with. We, however, regard it as a perilous business; we prefer, instead of seeing how little of Christian truth we can get along with, to see just how much of Christian truth we can obtain. [(Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1991, first published 1925), 159-160)]

“A little too much anger, too often or at the wrong time, can destroy more than you would ever imagine.”

My mother’s father was a preacher, and my father’s father was, too, and his father before him, and before that, nobody knows, but I wouldn’t hesitate to guess. That life was second nature to them, just as it is to me. They were fine people, but if there was one thing I should have learned from them and did not learn, it was to control my temper. This is wisdom I should have attained a long time ago. Even now, when a flutter of my pulse makes me think of final things, I find myself losing my temper, because a drawer sticks or because I’ve misplaced my glasses. I tell you so that you can watch for this in yourself.

A little too much anger, too often or at the wrong time, can destroy more than you would ever imagine. Above all, mind what you say. “Behold how much wood is kindled by how small a fire, and the tongue is a fire”–that’s the truth. [New York, NY: Picador, 2004), 6]

I don’t know what it is about age, but as I get older I feel the coals of anger burn brighter within. Some friends and I were talking the other day and they agreed. Glad to know I’m not alone.

Usually its small things: spilt coffee, looking for one book in a stack of books and not finding the one I’m looking for till I pick up the last one, an interruption, and those kinds of things. Sadly, in my worst moments, where it is not just me all by my lonesome mumbling at my computer that isn’t doing what I want it to, it’s toward my family.

Now, I don’t mean to blame a surge in anger on my age or on small unasked for circumstances, nor do I mean to turn this blog into a journal entry. I simply want to echo this fictional father’s advice to those who will listen, “A little too much anger, too often or at the wrong time, can destroy more than you would ever imagine.”

Being a grumpy old man is not cute. And becoming one of the world’s many grumpy old men begin with being a grumpy young man. One of the things the apostle Paul told young Timothy, his son in the faith, to pursue was peace, and one can’t pursue peace and stay angry very long.

So, take watch over your heart, and when you find a little too much anger simmering there–flee it, for when unwatched it grows, and start pursuing peace (2 Tim. 2:22). Furthermore, recognize that the best way to pursue peace is by pursuing the person of Jesus who is our peace (Eph. 2:14) and redeems and forgives the angry.

Jonathan normally does this to me. His book the Religious Affections is one that I think every Christian should read because it exposes the folly of clinging to doctrine without experience as well as the peril of exalting experience over doctrine. No one, whether Presbyterian or Charismatic, can read that book and walk away unscathed–and of course I mean unscathed in the best possible sense. I’m finding Charity and Its Fruits to contain a similar convicting power.

Christian faith loves. Faith, to use Edwards’ language, embraces.

In this work, Edwards reveals the impossibility of loveless Christianity by walking through 1 Corinthians 13. By loveless Christianity, I do not in the first place mean being a Christian that doesn’t love people, but being a Christian that does not love Christ.

To say you have faith in Jesus but do not love him is oxymoronic. The reason why theologians talk of saving faith as a qualifier to faith is that there is a kind of faith that doesn’t save. After all, even Satan believes in Jesus but does not love him. Don’t get me wrong, God loves faith and saves sinful humanity by faith alone in Jesus alone, but it is the kind of faith that carries within it the love of heart, soul, and mind that the Greatest Commandment (Luke 10:27) speaks of.

Edwards elaborates on the crucial difference between saving and speculative faith in a paragraph that one could spend a lifetime unpacking:

…that true love is an ingredient in true and living faith, and is what is most essential and distinguishing in it. Love is no ingredient in a merely speculative faith, but it is the life and soul of a practical faith. A truly practical or saving faith is light and heat together, or rather light and love, while that which is only a speculative faith is only light without heat, and in that it wants spiritual heat or divine love is in vain and good for nothing. A speculative faith consists only in the assent of the understanding, but in a saving faith there is also the consent of the heart. That faith, which is only of the former kind, is no better than the faith of devils, for they have faith so far as it can exist without love, believing while they tremble. Now, the true spiritual consent of the heart cannot be distinguished from the love of the heart. He whose heart consents to Christ as a Savior, has true love to him as such. For the heart sincerely to consent to the way of salvation by Christ, cannot be distinguished from loving that way of salvation, and resting in it. There is an act of choice or election in true saving faith, whereby the soul chooses Christ for its Savior and portion, and accepts of and embraces him as such. But, as was observed before, an election or choice whereby it so chooses God and Christ, is an act of love — the love of a soul embracing him as its dearest friend and portion. [Kindle Edition, Location 189].

At this point, an illustration may be helpful. When you get in your car and stop at the first stoplight on your way to the store you have faith that your brake will stop your car and you act upon it by stepping on the brake pedal, but you do not love your brake pedal.

Is the faith you have in Jesus like this? Is it just an understanding faith (my brake pedal sends a signal to my brakes) and a working faith (I actually step on the brake pedal)? Is it only a mental belief that Jesus is alive and well and gets me out of hell? Is it only a practical belief that issues in doing good works to the poor?

No. It is those things, but it is also more. Christian faith loves. Faith, to use Edwards’ language, embraces. Therefore one of the things you should picture when you think of faith is embracing and hugging, and this is something that you do with people that you love. May the Holy Spirit do such a work in my heart and in yours that faith isn’t reduced to facts but to a loving relationship with Jesus our Savior and Friend.

1. Fight lustful images with the knowledge of God’s written Word. Images are unbelievably powerful, but God has made the universe through his word and the explosive power of his word trumps the alluring power of an image. God didn’t give us a picture-Bible, but revealed himself through words and sentences to be read and heard. The longest chapter in the Bible shows that the way a young man keeps his way pure is through knowing God’s word (Ps. 119:9, 11). Therefore the firecracker of pornographic images is no match for the napalm of God’s spoken and written word.
2. Realize that viewing porn unleashes insatiable craving but kills genuine satisfaction. Leering at naked women online incites yearnings for more and more naked women, yet never gives ultimate satisfaction.  On the other hand, the body of one’s wife is a garden of pleasures that leads to holy satisfaction. The book of Proverbs gives the wisdom of a father to son: “Let [your wife’s] breasts satisfy you at all times”(5:18, 19). The body and breasts of your wife contain an intoxicating influence that no other body and breasts can bring. If you don’t think they are satisfying or intoxicating, the problem isn’t her, but the fact that you settle for inferior and ultimately unsatisfying cravings. Why settle for cheap wine when your wife is a fine vintage.
3. Treat all women who are not your wife like sisters and mothers (1 Ti. 5:2). Look into the eyes of your mom or sister and recognize that the centerfold you gazed at last night probably has a heartbroken family member that loves her. Unless a further sexual deviancy has developed within you, the thought of your daughter or mother being a centerfold should appall you and jolt you out of the objectification of women and back into the reality of treating all women as created in the image of God.
4. Sever the sources of temptation to view porn. When discussing the adulterous sin of lust, Jesus said, “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell” (Mt. 5:29). In doing so he prescribes a radical violence toward that which leads you to sin. Jesus knew that amputating your hand doesn’t kill lustful desire, after all he said sin starts in the heart (Mt. 15:19), but his call does mean that you need to get drastic on non-sins that may lead to sin. For some of you this will mean disconnecting the Internet for a period of time or only accessing it in public places, for others this may mean an extended media fast of all kinds. You fill-in-the-blank. Remember, though legalism is never a means to sanctification, the call to holiness and following Jesus demands radical steps.
5. Think about the eternal result of lust. As Jesus’ words indicated above, at on one level, his answer to how to fight lust is: fight it or risk going to hell. God’s wrath is coming for all kinds of sin and one of them is sexual sin (Col 3:5-6). Therefore since purity is of eternal importance, don’t give up in the fight for it. This is only one of the ways to fight this particular sin, but it is not the most significant way. The primary way to repent is through seeing God’s magnificent kindness and undeserved grace in Jesus (Ro. 2:4), but this does not mean we that we ignore the other biblical incentives of repentance in light of God’s future terrible wrath. Grace is the best motivator, but it is not the only one.
6. Enjoy the pleasures of purity more than the pleasures of porn. Eighteenth-century preacher Thomas Chalmers, in his classic sermon “The Expulsive Power of a New Affection”, demonstrated how the greatest power in killing a sinful desire is not just by harping on the sinful desire but on replacing it with a new and greater holy desire. The promise of experiencing sinful lustful pleasures at almost any moment via your Internet connection is hard to argue with, unless you replace it with a superior pleasure, then it becomes easy. Jesus said it is the pure in heart that will see God (Mt. 5:8), and the Psalmist tells us that in the presence of God are infinite pleasures (Ps. 16:11). In view of this reality, the desire to see God who gives eternal pleasure far outweighs temporal lustful desire. It’s insane to settle for a mud puddle of pleasure when you have an ocean of pleasure awaiting you in the presence of the Triune God.
7. Avoid accountability groups and link up with believers radically focused on encouraging one another in the Gospel of grace. Accountability groups kill, but gospel-driven community gives life. Well, maybe this is a bit of an overstatement against accountability groups, but the point is that often accountability groups turn into focusing on sin rather than experiencing the gospel of grace. Men’s groups I’ve been apart of in the past tend to focus more on the experiences of failure the week before not the event of God’s grace in the death and resurrection of Christ 2,000 years ago. Don’t get me wrong, Christian relationships should engage in confession of sin (Ja. 5:16), but they are also meant for encouragement in grace. The author of the Hebrews reveals that the key to not being hardened to the deceitfulness of sin is daily encouragement not an excessive concentration on sin (Heb. 3:13). The use of accountability software between brothers to keep one away from online pornography is helpful, but grace-oriented encouragement between brothers is best.
8. Stare at Jesus not at porn. Trying harder and harder to stop looking at porn isn’t the way to stop looking at porn; you must look somewhere else, namely, the person of Jesus Christ. Paul in 2 Corinthians 3:18 writes, “And we all with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.” True inward change comes from beholding Jesus not from not looking at porn. As it has been said, what you behold you become, or as biblical theologian Greg Beale puts it, you become what you worship. Look at porn and become a person controlled by lust and idolatry or look at Jesus and become a glorious and whole human being that reflects the beauty and glory of God.
9. Fight as a son of God who has been freed to walk in purity. As a Christian the key to fighting lustful temptation (and any temptation for that matter) is by knowing who you are not by evaluating what you have done. Becoming a son of God is not dependent upon your not looking at porn, but upon being united to Jesus by faith and the result of the Spirit of God’s work in your heart (Ro. 8:3-4, 14). No longer are you defined by your entanglements with porn, but by your connection to the person and work Jesus. Jesus was crucified for your lust, and he has made you objectively pure in him. Therefore you can work from a place of purity as covered in the righteousness of God in Christ (2 Cor. 5:21), not toward a place of purity to earn righteousness. Kill the urge to view porn because you are a son of God who is dead to sin and free to walk in purity (Ro. 6:1-14). Pornography is no longer your master—God is your father who radically loves you (1 Jn. 3:1) and Jesus is your sin-bearer who is not ashamed to call you, with all your inordinate lusts, “brother”  (Heb 2:11). So, fight the temptation of pornography, to paraphrase John Piper, as a victor not a victim.

In our quest to understand the Bible, author, text, and reader each have an important part to play. Every document has an author, and the resulting text is shaped by his or her intention. It is this authorial intention the interpreter must aim to recover. The text is not ‘just there,’ left to be interpreted any way a given reader chooses. When my wife talks to me, I dare not give her words my own preferred meaning. The rules of proper communication demand that I seek to understand the meaning she intended to convey.

It follows that the text of Scripture, likewise, is not neutral, that is, malleable to a great variety of interpretations that lay equal claim to represent valid readings of a given passage…It is an authorially shaped and designed product that requires careful and respectful interpretation.

…There is no excuse for interpretive arrogance that elevates the reader above text and author. The ‘golden rule’ of interpretation requires that we extend the same courtesy to any text or author that we would want others to extend to our statements and writings. This calls for respect not only for the intentions of the human authors of Scripture but ultimately for God who chose to reveal himself through the Bible by his Holy Spirit. (p. 57-58)

You don’t get to make the Bible say what you want it to say anymore than you get to twist your spouse’s words in a way that they do not intend. Well, actually, you can do both of those things, but it will not go well for you and you will not honor God or your spouse in the process. If you love your wife, you will strive (though imperfectly) to understand what she really says and really means in her communication with you, and if you love God, you will strive (though imperfectly) to understand what he has said in his communication with you through his Word.

Oftentimes Christians interpret the Bible according to a “what it means to me” principle, but imagine if we did this in normal communication when listening to the one’s we love.  In this case it really doesn’t matter what it means to you–it matters what it means to them. If I consistently give what my wife communicates to me a meaning that she does not intend and that only I desire, I am only serving myself and hinder the growth of the relationship. (I do this far too often!)

Now, if you have been married for any time at all, figuring out what your spouse means takes time and even tools to develop, but if you value the relationship you will take the time to learn what your spouse intends to communicate. It is the same way with God. It takes time in his Word and proper tools to understand his Word (and, of course, the person and work of the Holy Spirit whom ultimately gives spiritual understanding!), but if you value who he is and what he says you will seek to do this to the best of your ability.

God has a university. It’s a small school. Few enroll; even fewer graduate. Very, very few indeed.

God has this school because he does not have broken men and women. Instead, he has several other types of people. He has people who claim to have God’s authority…and don’t–people who claim to be broken…and aren’t. And people who do have God’s authority, but who are mad and unbroken. And he has, regretfully, a great mixture of everything in between. All of these he has in abundance, but broken men and women, hardly at all. (p. 15)

David himself, in a pivotal moment of deep confession, wrote about the kind of heart and the kind of sacrifices that God desires from his people:

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise. (Psalms 51:17)

What is left out of the call to be a person after God’s heart, is that the kind of heart God is after is a broken one. God’s delight is not in those who think they can give him a worthwhile sacrifice and offer him something (51:16), rather his delight rests upon those who admit they cannot and in desperation offer up their broken and sinful selves to his magnificent sin-washing and new-heart giving mercy (51:7).

Psalm 51 is clearly a confessional Psalm of sinful brokenness penned by David after his adulterous and murderous affair, but this is not the only kind of brokenness that David experienced. He experienced the brokenness of being hated by God’s anointed king. Therefore broken people don’t just know their own sin. They have also known the sins of others against them, but this does not harden and embitter them–it softens them. Godly brokenness over personal sins and the sins of others produces tenderheartedness.

Broken men and women after God’s heart are not simply “woe is me” people. They don’t complain consistently about how they have been wounded by others (even when massively so), and they don’t simply revel in their own sinfulness (of the most heinous kind) in a kind of overly introspective and depressed false humility. To the contrary, the “joy of salvation” (51:12) is poured upon the broken and humbled. The tune resulting from brokenness is a song of joyful praise (51:14) not a morose dirge. The broken heart is the new heart that only God creates (51:10) and is the heart God is after–”The Lord has sought out for Himself a man after his own heart” (13:14).

Jesus was identified with an alien guilt (yours!) so that you could have an alien righteousness (his!).

For our sake [God] made [Jesus] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Greg Beale’s elaboration on this verse in his massive A New Testament Biblical Theology is very helpful:

This affirms that Christ was identified with an alien guilt and suffered a punishment that he did not deserve. The verse says that the purpose of this is that the sinners for whom Christ bore the punishment would “become the righteousness of God in Him [Christ].” This means that they would thus be considered “not guilty” and not deserving the punishment even though they had been sinful. However, to “become the righteousness of God in Christ” apparently involves more than a “not guilty” status; it also means being identified with “the righteousness of God,” not just in the dead Christ but explicitly in the risen Christ, so that some positive aspect of Christ’s righteousness is attributed to believers. Some contend that this passage has nothing to do with Christ’s own righteousness that represents his people, since it speaks of “the righteousness of God.” But this is “the righteousness of God in Christ.” Thus, Christ himself reflects God’s righteousness, and that righteousness is attributed to believers “in Christ.” (p. 472)

It’s one thing to be forgiven of your sin, it’s something more to also be totally righteous. The good news (gospel!) is that by trusting Jesus you can be both–completely forgiven of your sins and considered just as righteous as Jesus is. For those who believe this gospel, Jesus was identified with an alien guilt (yours!) so that you could have an alien righteousness (his!).

The goal of your day today and everyday is to excessively believe this

I shopped for its own sake, looking and touching, inspecting merchandise I had no intention of buying, then buying it.

“…The encounter put me in the mood to shop. I found the others and we walked across two parking lots to the main structure in the Mid Village Mall, a ten-story building arranged around a center court of waterfalls, promenades and gardens. Babette and the kids followed me into the elevator, into the shops set along the tiers, through the emporiums and department stores, puzzled but excited by my desire to buy. When I could not decide between two shirts, they encouraged me to buy both. When I said I was hungry, they fed me pretzels, beer, souvlaki The two girls scouted ahead, spotting things they thought I might want or need, running back to get me, to clutch my arms, plead with me to follow. They were my guides to endless well-being…My family gloried in the event. I was one of them, shopping, at last. They gave me advice, badgered clerks on my behalf. I kept seeing myself unexpectedly in some reflecting surface. We moved from store to store, rejecting not only items in certain departments, not only entire departments but whole stores, mammoth corporations that did not strike our fancy for one reason or another. There was always another store, three floors, eight floors, basement full of cheese graters and paring knives. I shopped with reckless abandon. I shopped for immediate needs and distant contingencies. I shopped for its own sake, looking and touching, inspecting merchandise I had no intention of buying, then buying it. I sent clerks into their fabric books and pattern books to search for elusive designs. I began to grow in value and self-regard. I filled myself out, found new aspects of myself, located a person I’d forgotten existed. Brightness settled around me. We crossed from furniture to men’s wear, walking through cosmetics…I traded money for goods. The more money I spent, the less important it seemed. I was bigger than these sums. These sums poured off my skin like so much rain. These sums in fact came back to me in the form of existential credit. I felt expansive, inclined to be sweepingly generous…We ate another meal. A band played live Muzak. Voices rose ten stories from the gardens and promenades, a roar that echoed and swirled through the vast gallery, mixing with noises from the tiers, with shuffling feet and chiming bells, the hum of escalators, the sound of people eating, the human buzz of some vivid and happy transaction.

We drove home in silence. We went to our respective rooms, wishing to be alone. A little later I watched Steffie in front of the TV set. She moved her lips, attempting to match the words as they were spoken.” (p. 83, 84)