I say reflection singular, not reflections plural, for this article does not contain room to record all God brought to mind and worked in my heart this past weekend in Minneapolis. The title of the conference was With Calvin in the Theater of God. DG meant to honor the magisterial (of, pertaining to, or befitting a master; authoritative) reformer during this year marking the 500th anniversary of his birth.

My reflection comes from the final message of the conference delivered by Dr. John Piper. He entitled it Jesus Christ as Denouement in the Theater of God: Calvin and the Supremacy of Christ in All Things. Fortunately, he defined denouement for us; I did not have a clue. This comes directly from his message which you can access online here.

The dictionary says that the dénouement is “the final part of a play, movie, or narrative in which the strands of the plot are drawn together and matters are explained or resolved.” Or: “the climax of a chain of events, usually when something is decided or made clear.”

Piper sought to answer the question, What is the ultimate goal of God in the theater of God? He argued that the answer is to glorify Himself in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. He made his case for that with an exposition of Ephesians 1:4-6 and other related passages:

. . . even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.

In what he called the ultimate statement in the Bible about the purpose of God in the theater of God, Piper explained from v. 6 that this is why everything exists. God is to be praised by innumerable redeemed beings. Specifically, we are not just to praise His glory but the glory of His grace. The apex of the glory of God is the grace of God. Every other attribute serves the purpose to make the grace of God more plain and precious.

He closed with a series of applications in answer to the question, So what? He called them five ways of believing this denouement.

1. The highest pleasure of the human being is the pleasure of admiration. Seeing it, savoring it, speaking it, is the end — to admire the infinite admirability which is found only in God’s grace in Christ. Make it your life-long, eternity-long vocation to see and know Him so that all else is counted loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ.

2. When the theater of God is renewed the dazzling creation will be as nothing as compared to Christ. Beware to become excessively excited about the new heavens and new earth. It will be as nothing in comparison. We won’t need a sun or moon any more, because the glory of God will be its sun and the Son will be its lamp. Everywhere we look we will see Christ reflected. It will be unlike anything we’ve known. So don’t get excited about eternal golf! Many in our churches will be shocked when denied entrance into heaven when the Lord says to them, All you ever really wanted was my gifts and not me. See Matt. 7:21-23.

3. Now that we understand what it means to be loved by God given the mercies of His grace we must also understand that this love is not in and of ourselves to be made much of but to be rescued from the need to be made much of.

4. To be sure, we ourselves will be glorified. We will shine like the sun in the kingdom of our Father. We will shine with the glory of Christ, not our own. It will be so stunning that we will be tempted to bow down and worship one another, said C. S. Lewis. But remember the glory will be a reflected glory, the glory of Christ.

5. When God gives us eyes to see His glory in the gospel of Christ, we are gradually being changed into the likeness of Christ (2 Cor. 3:18). This is the most important verse in the Bible on sanctification. Beholding is becoming. Seeing Christ in His glory changes us. Any other way toward change leads to legalism. The role of the pastor is to open eyes to the glory of Christ. Theirs’ is an impossible task. It begins with the pastor seeing Christ for himself and then relentlessly commending Him to others.

This is the legacy of John Calvin. This is the call of the Holy Scriptures. This is the desire of my heart as a pastor. Let us continually stand in awe, amazed at the glory of Christ as the denouement of the theater of God.

This from William Gurnall:

Faith, then, becomes active when it rests on Christ crucified for pardon and life. There are many acts of the soul which must precede this, for a person can never truly exercise this faith unless he first has knowledge of Christ and relies on His authority. Only then can he say, “I know whom I have believed” (2 Timothy 1:12). Most people are reluctant to trust a complete stranger. Abraham did not know where he was going, but he knew with whom he was going! God worked with Abraham to teach him the knowledge of His own glorious self—who He was—so that His child could rely on His word, assenting to the truth of it no matter how harsh and improbable and impossible it seemed. “I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect” (Genesis 17:1).

Wherever your journey takes you today in the life of faith, you may not know where you are going, but as a child of God you know with whom you are going. Be strong and courageous!

Look who I found (actually we came together) at the conference!

Pastor Sam Storms brought a message tonight starting with this quote from the great reformer in a letter to a woman struggling with physical illness:

Afflictions should serve as medicine to purge us, to remove what is superfluous…We ought to learn from our physical afflictions, in whatever form they may come, to live every day with one foot raised, ready for our departure into the presence of God.

The list of Calvin’s afflictions read like a medical journal. Headaches. Fevers. Gout. Colic. Hemorrhoids. Arthritis. Acute chronic inflammation of the kidneys. Gall stones. Violent fits of coughing that ruptured blood vessels in his lungs.

I never realized the man suffered from so many physical ailments. He managed to view them as momentary light afflictions (2 Cor. 4:16-18) by looking upon the invisible and contemplating the incomparably great weight of eternal glory that awaited him upon his death.

May all who name the name of Jesus do the same in good health and bad.

I am posting this weekend from Minneapolis. The Desiring God National Conference this year focuses on the 500th anniversary of the great reformer’s birth. Here is a picture of John Calvin.

Haven’t posted for a while. September has been insane. All good stuff but intense. Thanks be to God for the mercy ministry outreach. Here’s a picture of the finished house. Should have been a painting contractor. Not really. Took me two days to recover. I think I’ll stick to writing sermons from behind a desk.

But I did recover, thankfully, enough to write this post tonight from a hotel in downtown Minneapolis. Someone gifted me a trip to the Desiring God National Conference commemorating the 500th anniversary of John Calvin’s birth. I do love this place. I treasure this ministry. I pray the viral contagion of Christian hedonism infects me and my ministry all the more from yet another exposure to the truths and passion of this work.

It was no picnic getting here, that’s for sure. It was one of those days for teaching you the virtue of patience. Didn’t sleep well the night before. Hit every red light, it seemed, on 436 between Casselberry and OIA. Sat for two extra hours in the Atlanta airport waiting for rain to clear at MSP. Waited interminably long, or at least it felt that way, in the Super Shuttle while a new mom tried to figure out how to install a ginormous car seat in the van for her baby. Hit rush hour traffic going downtown. And then to top it all off, at dinner, I go to open the catsup bottle and the thing erupts in an explosion of the red stuff all over my hands, shirt, and the only pair of jeans I’ve got with me for this trip. It was almost comical.

All was not for nought, though. The manager took pity on me and comped the meal. Sure glad I offered to buy. I left the server an extra big grat. My server son would have been proud. My Father, I think, was pleased that in my desire to get to Minneapolis for a conference that matters to me I didn’t miss the bigger picture that today was a day for cultivating the virtue of patience, and it really didn’t matter if the delays ate up the margin and if I walk around all weekend with catsup stains on my jeans. Perhaps I am learning something about what matters most after all these years.

I received this email from a fellow pastor friend today.

Psalm 1:1 ¶ Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; 2 but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. 3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. 4 The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away. 5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; 6 for the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

Father, I want to thank you for Curt, as I am reminded of his birthday. Lord, I pray for him to be a blessed man. A man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; my prayer for Curt this coming year is that his full delight will be in the law of the LORD, and on Your law he will meditate day and night. Lord, I ask for you to make him like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. Lord, I pray that in all Curt does this year he will prosper. Lord, thank you for keeping him from the influence of wicked men this past year. The wicked are not like the tree that prospers but are like chaff that the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. But, Lord I pray that you will know Curt’s way this upcoming year because he will be walking in righteousness. I also pray you will give him wisdom to avoid the way of the wicked that will perish. Thank you Lord, for Your faithfulness in Curt’s life in the last year and I pray for your continued mercy and grace in the year to come. Amen & Amen.

Happy Birthday, brother. I treasure your friendship & partnership in ministry.

Few gifts have greater value than praying Scripture back to God for someone. I was hugely blessed and greatly encouraged by the gesture.

Happy birthday to me!

Recognize this young lady? She has joined the blogosphere. Check it out here.

Another birthday. I turn 57 today. Yikes. I can see 60 from here. Amazing. James is right. We are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes (4:14).

I suppose I feel all the more that way after my bout with head and neck cancer four years ago. Every day is a gift. I’m not really old, I don’t think, but after wondering if you might have died at age 53, things take on a different perspective the older you get.

For each of the years since finishing cancer treatment, I have acknowledged my birthdays with a different little ditty of my own making. Not sure why. Maybe it’s the significance of marking another year I didn’t know for sure if I would ever have.

Fifty-three was 53 and cancer free.
Fifty-four was 54 and ready for more.
Fifty-five was 55 and staying alive (OK, so I stole that one from the federal government).
Fifty-six, last year, was 56 and up to the same old tricks.
Fifty-seven is 57 and not ready for heaven – at least not as far as cancer seems to be concerned. You never know, but I do praise God for four years now where I remain cancer free and able to do my pastoral work for His glory and others’ joy.

How is this so? Why do I continue on?

Isaiah 46:3-4 answers these questions.

3 “Listen to me, O house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been borne by me from before your birth, carried from the womb; 4 even to your old age I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save.

In contrast to idols of Babylon like Bel and Nebo (see v. 1-2), God doesn’t make burdens for His people; He bears His people and their burdens ALL THEIR LIVES.

He really wants us to get this. Listen to me, he says. The accumulation of verbs saying essentially the same thing jumps off the page. You have been borne by me from before your birth, carried from the womb; even to your old age I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save.

Matthew Henry writes in his commentary on Isaiah:

As God began early to do them good (when Israel was a child, then I loved him), so he had constantly continued to do them good: he had carried them from the womb to this day. And we may all witness for God that he has been thus gracious to us. We have been borne by him from the belly, from the womb, else we should have died from the womb and given up the ghost when we came out of the belly. We have been the constant care of his kind providence, carried in the arms of his power and in the bosom of his love and pity.

Borne, carried, — these words speak of God’s faithfulness in the past to his aging people, from the womb no less. Will carry, will bear, will carry, will save, — these words speak of God’s ongoing promised faithfulness into the twilight years, should He grant length of days.

Again, Matthew Henry:

God has graciously engaged to support and comfort his faithful servants, even in their old age: “Even to your old age, when you grow unfit for business, when you are compassed with infirmities, and perhaps your relations begin to grow weary of you, yet I am he—he that I am, he that I have been—the very same by whom you have been borne from the belly and carried from the womb. You change, but I am the same. I am he that I have promised to be, he that you have found me, and he that you would have me to be. I will carry you, I will bear, will bear you up and bear you out, and will carry you on in your way and carry you home at last.’’

What a contrast God is to the idols of Babylon and the idols of our 21st century making! The latter bears us down with burdens unspeakably heavy; the former, our great God, Jehovah, through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, lifts (the Hebrew word for carried in the context literally means to raise) us up and bears us along through all of life, from womb to tomb as they say, rescuing us at every turn.

There is no god like our God from the moment of conception to the 57th birthday and beyond.

I wonder what rhymes with 58?

Yet two more special reasons, among some 200 others, I love being in covenant community with God’s people in a local church.