Jesus asked the crowds concerning John the Baptist, “What did you come out to see?” We might ask the same of ourselves: What are we looking for in the Bible? In a sermon? In our Sunday school classes and Bible study groups? In the open doors of opportunity for witness and service with which we are presented every day? In the sudden wonder of a glorious sunset or a bird in flight? What are we looking for, what are we hoping to see? Let your prayer be, “Lord, I would see Jesus,” and you will be amazed to hear Him speaking to You and confronting you everywhere.

But lest some should be discouraged, and think this in vain, because they perceive no progress nor growth in grace for all this, but rather corruption as strong and troublesome as ever, I would say a few things to them.

6) It should be remembered, that there may be a great progress, even when it is not observed; when 1) Hereby the man is made to lie in the dust, to loath himself, and to cry, behold I am vile! 2) Hereby his indignations against the body of death is the more increased, 3) Hereby his esteem of a Savior and of the blessed contrivance of Salvation is the more heightened, for he seeth he is thereby brought to make mention of his righteousness, even of his only, 4) Hereby his longing after immediate fruition is increased, where all these complaints shall cease, 5) Holding fast the rejoicing of his hope firm unto the end, looking and longing for the grace that shall be brought unto him at the revelation of Jesus Christ, when he shall be presented without spot, and be made meet to be partaker of the inheritance of the saints in light.

John Piper writes, “God’s quest to be glorified and our quest to be satisfied reach their goal in this one experience: our delight in God overflows in praise. For God, praise is the sweet echo of His own excellence in the hearts of His people. For us, praise is the summit of satisfaction that comes from living in fellowship with God.”

The highest “activity” in which God can engage is to consider Himself with admiration. If we are to be “holy,” that is, like God, we must cultivate the habit of considering God with admiration. The gospel is the platform from which I behold God with the highest admiration.

“Lord, feed mine eyes then with thy doings rare,
And fat my heart with the ripe fruits thou bear’st
Adorn my life well with they works; make fair
My person with apparel thou prepar’st
My boughs shall loaded be with fruits that spring
Up from thy works, while to thy praise I sing.”
Edward Taylor

As I read I feel my heart so knit to John Brown. I experience a wonderful closeness to my brother who lived so very long ago, yet looks into the depths of my soul and speaks to me as heart to heart. The following section will repay careful reading over and over again.

In this work of sanctification, the believer should be much in the lively exercise of faith; fight by faith; advance by faith, grow up, and bring forth fruit by faith; and so,

4) As the believer would by faith draw out of Christ, through the conduit of the promises, which are all “yea and amen in him,” (2 Cor. 1:20), grace, strength, knowledge, courage, or whatever his fight in that warfare calleth for, to the end he may be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might (Eph. 6:10); so he would by faith roll the weight of the whole work upon Christ; and thus cast himself, and his care and burden on him who careth for him….

Yea, believers themselves would live within sight of this…for they are not perfect, but will have need of Christ as the way, and the truth, and the life, till he bring them in, and set them down upon the throne, and crown them with the crown of life. And, O happy they, who must not walk on foot without this guide leading them by the hand, or rather carrying them in his arms. Let all them who would make use of Christ remember what they were and what they are, and keep the sense of their frailty and misery fresh; that seeing their need of him for help, they may be in a better case to look out to him for help and supply, and be more distinct in their application of him.

Jesus, I need You so desperately. I bring nothing to the table. I rest on You and Your Grace alone. Help me!

…He is a good Savior, a good Redeemer, a good Lord and Master; a good excelling, transcending all inferior, sublunary good; good! Not only good, but best; “best in himself, and best for us.” And because he must be loved with such a love, as that we be willing at his call to part with all other good for his sake; therefore he is looked upon, and loved as a universal good; whereas riches, honors, friends, and all things of this world are but particular good, no one thing good for all things.

…the soul whose love is fixed upon Christ, doth see and say, In poverty Christ will be my riches, in disgrace Christ will be my honor, in bonds and imprisonment Christ will be my liberty, in pain Christ will be my ease, in death Christ will be my life, in the loss of all things Christ will be better to me than the enjoyment of all these things. He that looks not upon Christ as an incomparable object, doth not love him as he ought.

Pearls are valued but as pebbles, and diamonds as dirt, and diadems as dung, by a man that loveth Christ, when they stand in competition with our love to Christ.

Suppose that the world, and the riches thereof, the honors and the pleasures of it, were set on the one hand, and Christ on the other; which would you really choose? It is an easy thing to think and say, you would choose Christ, and not the world; but my question is, which you would really choose? Canst thou say, and appeal to God who knows they heart; Lord, thou, who knowest all things, knowest that I choose Christ before riches, Christ before pleasures, liberty, life, or any thing Christ without the world, than the world without Christ; I would rather have the Lord Jesus with disgrace, with poverty, and with the cross, than all the treasures in the world. This must be a man’s will, and this must be a man’s choice, or he cannot be said to have a sincere love to Jesus Christ.

“A sweet savour of Christ! It does not consist so much in what we do, but in our manner of doing it; not so much in our words or deeds, as in an indefinable sweetness, tenderness, courtesy, unselfishness, and desire to please others to their edification. It is the breath and fragrance of a life hidden with Christ in God, and deriving its aroma from fellowship with Him. Wrap the habits of your soul in the sweet lavender of your Lord’s character.” FB Meyer

Martin Luther says this about idolatry in his commentary on the first commandment.

“Thus it is with all idolatry; for it consists not merely in erecting an image and worshiping it, but rather in the heart, which stands gaping at something else, and seeks help and consolation from creatures, saints, or devils, and neither cares for God, nor looks to Him for so much good as to believe that He is willing to help, neither believes that whatever good it experiences comes from God” (Martin Luther, The Large Catechism: The First Commandment).

Luther’s contention is that if we really keep the first commandment, it is inevitable we will keep the rest. If this is true: if the fruit of righteousness grows in the soil of worship and affection, what could possibly be more important than fixing my eyes on the Supreme Object of worship: Jesus Christ.

Luther adds this thought:

“Lo, here you have the meaning of the true honor and worship of God, which pleases God, and which He commands under penalty of eternal wrath, namely, that the heart know no other comfort or confidence than in Him, and do not suffer itself to be torn from Him, but, for Him, risk and disregard everything upon earth” (Martin Luther, The Large Catechism: The First Commandment).

Here is Brown (“What can Brown do for you?”)

Doubtless it is always useful, yea, necessary, for the children of God to know the right way for making use of Christ, who is made all things to them which they need, even “wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.” I Cor. 1:30.

Oh! if we were wise…and could think more of this one thing necessary; and could be stirred up to learn more of him, and to make this the subject of all our study and labor.

This is the last introductory section in the book, “Christ, the Way, the Truth and the Life” by John Brown. This book has already been so nourishing to my soul. I am gearing up to dive into the general contents and sharpen my ability of “use-making” of Jesus. Can’t wait…

True gospel holiness, then, consists in…likeness to God, and fellowship with Him founded upon that likeness. There is such an impression of God, his glorious attributes, his infininte power, majesty, mercy, justice, wisdom, holiness, and grace, etc., as sets him up alone in the soul without any competition, and produceth those real apprehensions of him, that he is alone excellent and matchless. O how preferable doth he appear, when indeed seen, to all things! And how doth this light of his infinite gloriousness, shining into the soul, darken and obscure to an invisibleness all other excellencies, even as the rising of the sun makes all the lesser lights disappear.

O there will be a vast difference, at the latter day, betwixt them who have given their black souls to Jesus to bleach, when he shall present them without spot, not only clothed with wrought gold, but all glorious within, and those who have never dipped, yea, who have despised to dip their defiled souls in any other fountain, save in the impure puddle of their own performances.

Let me share my heart with you. I love you!

Often you will hear sermons, read books and go to conferences that will claim to give you “THE secret of the Christian life.”

“This is the secret.”  “It all boils down to this.”  “Forget everything else:  this is the formula you have to keep in mind…”   What is the unification theory of the Christian life?  “Read your Bible, pray every day.”  Is this the Christian life?  And how does it work that so many Christians point glowingly to this “secret” or that and say, “this is what turned me around?”

First of all, people often can be describing the same thing using different terms or from a different perspective.  I want to say some more about that in a second.  But I want to tell you this:  no matter what theory anyone proposes, if Jesus Himself is not right smack dab in the middle of it DO NOT BUY IT.  It may be true but it is not the truth.

Look, if the Christian life were as simple as a twenty  word formula the New Testament would have been written in a much different way.  When you read the letters of Paul you find doctrines, commands to live a certain way, stories, motivation…there are all different kinds of Scripture.  All of it is important.  All of it is part of the picture.  So anyone who says, “its not about doctrine, its about this…” is off.  “Its not about (fill in the blank) commands, practices, doctrines, principles, knowledge, your will, determination…etc etc etc.) its actually about this. I have heard these things all my life, and even said things like this a good many times.  This is just not true.  Read the Bible!  All of these things play a part.

But at the heart of it all is Jesus Christ Himself.  The New Testament uses pictures (the fancy word you will learn in grammar is “metaphors”) to tell us about living as a Christian.  Jesus is the “head”  (Eph. 1:22; 4:15; 5:23; Col. 1:18; 2:10, 19); Jesus is the “cornerstone” (Eph. 2:20; I Peter 2:6); Jesus is the “bread of life” (John 6:33-51); the “water of life” (John 4:14-16, 7:37-38); Jesus is the “foundation” (I Cor. 3:11); He Himself is the “way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6).  There are so many more.  The point is, in every case, Jesus is the one thing that is absolutely essential.  You can have a lot of things that don’t work in your body and you can still go on somehow, but if you do not have a head you’re dead.  In a stone building, the foundation and the cornerstone were the two things that were laid out with the most care.  We cannot live without food and water:  it simply cannot be done.  In this way, no matter what approach you come up with to “make the Christian life work,” it simply cannot really “work” if Jesus is not central to what you are doing.  “Reading the Bible and praying every day?”  If you are not seeing Jesus in the Bible and communing with Him in prayer it is just a religious exercise.

Now, how do people call the same thing by different names?  Think of it this way, imagine yourself driving through a poor neighborhood where all the houses are leaning over, falling down, have beams sticking through the walls etc.  Then you see a beautiful, clean, sturdy house.  You are amazed at how different it is from all the other houses.  You stop and ask the occupant, “how did this beautiful, solid house get here?”  There could be a lot of answers:

“Those other houses all fall down because they don’t have a good foundation.  They are built on soft ground and its only a matter of time before they sink.”  That’s like people who say, “its all about your doctrine.  You have to have a strong foundation of doctrine.”

“Those other houses were built with shoddy workmanship.  The laborers were unskilled and they didn’t build it the right way.”  That’s like people who point to the methods:  the consistent practices that are fruitful when they become habits in our lives.

“Those other houses were built with lousy, cheap materials.  They couldn’t stand up to the elements.”  That could be like people who think about getting good biblical resources into the hands of people:  Bible study tools and booklets, etc.

“Those other houses never got hooked up to the utilities.  They didn’t get water, sewer, electricity, etc., therefore they weren’t maintained because there was no electricity to run the drills or water to water the grass, etc.”  Well, that’s like people who talk about the “means of grace,” like Bible reading, prayer, fellowship, etc.

“The difference is I had the resources to build.  Someone I did not even know before paid off all my debts and gave me the money to buy what I needed to build the house.”  Well, that’s like the wonderful gospel of Jesus Christ.

So, the question is, which statement is accurate?  All of them.  And depending on the type of person who lives in the house:  their background, experiences, perspectives, etc., they may really be thankful for one thing or the other.  All played a part.  All were necessary.

But never forget this!  Jesus is the only foundation.  He is the cornerstone.  He is all in all.  Remember this:

Our strength must be in Christ; to the rock of ages must we fly; to our chambers in him must we retire, and there must we hide ourselves; on Christ’s lee-side can we only ride safe, and be free of the hazard of the storm.  To him therefore must our recourse be daily, by new and fresh acts of faith in and through him and his influences, communicated according to the tenor of the covenant of grace, though faith eyeing the promiser and the promise, with the price purchasing, and so drawing and sucking light, direction, strength, stability, and what our present exigent calls for, must we think to stand.  And happy are they who, conscious…of their own weakness, and convinced of the sufficiency of all things within them, in godly fear hide themselves under the wings of the Almighty, and get into this stronghold, resolving there to abide.   …The humble fearers may expect a safe and noble outgoing when more strong-like and more confident adventurers shall (being left to themselves, because trusting in themselves), shamefully fall, and be triumphed over by the enemy….  John Brown, Christ, the Way, the Truth and the Life

By various maxims, forms and rules,

That pass for wisdom in our schools,

I sought my passions to restrain,

But all my efforts proved in vain.

But since my Savior I have known,

Are ALL my rules reduced, to ONE:

To keep my Lord by faith in view,

This strength supplies, and motive too!

– John Bunyan