An excerpt from The Private Life of a Modern Evangelical, by John Piper (1997):

During his pastorate at Northampton, Edwards delivered the usual two two-hour messages each week, catechized the children, and counseled people in his study. He did not visit from house to house except when called. This meant that he could spend thirteen or fourteen hours a day in his study. He said, “I think Christ has commended rising early in the morning by his rising from the grave very early.” So he rose between 4:00 and 5:00 to study, always with pen in hand, thinking out every flash of insight to its full and recording it in his notebooks. Even on his travels he would pin pieces of paper to his coat to remind himself at home of an insight he had had on the way. In the evening he would spend an hour with his family after dinner before retiring to his study. None of his children rebelled or went astray, but held their father in highest regard all his life.

Edwards’ six-foot-one frame was not robust and his health was always precarious. He could maintain the rigor of his study schedule only with strict attention to diet and exercise. Everything was calculated to optimizing his efficiency and power in study. He abstained from every quantity and kind of food that made him sick or sleepy. His exercise in the winter was to chop firewood half an hour each day, and in the summer he would ride into the fields and walk alone in meditation. In other words, for all his rationalism, Edwards had a healthy dose of the romantic and mystic in him. He wrote in his diary: “Sometimes on fair days I find myself more particularly disposed to regard the glories of the world than to betake myself to the study of serious religion.” Edwards describes one of these field trips as follows:

Once as I rode out into the woods for my health in 1737, having alighted from my horse in a retired place, as my manner commonly has been, to walk for divine contemplation and prayer, I had a view, that for me was extraordinary, of the glory of the Son of God, as Mediator between God and man, and his wonderful, great, full, pure and sweet grace and love and meek, gentle condescension. This grace that appeared so calm and sweet appeared also great above the heavens. The person of Christ appeared ineffably excellent, with an excellency, great enough to swallow up all thought and conception – which continued, as near as I can judge, about an hour; which kept me the greater part of the time in a flood of tears, and weeping aloud.

I was deeply affected by this. The stories of lives changed by the gospel are beautiful, and the art direction in the film is amazing as well.

Video Description:

We’re grateful for the Sojourners who participated in this video and let us show their stories of how Christ can overcome any obstacle or sin. No circumstance is too great for God, and no gulf is too wide for Him to bring His people home.

Jesus prays in the Garden of Gethsemane while the disciples sleep. -Matthew 26

Jesus suffers agony in the garden of Gethsemane. -Luke 22

Judas betrays Jesus with a kiss. -Mark 14

Peter denies that he is one of Jesus’ disciples. -John 18

Jesus is scourged. -John 19

A crown of thorns is placed on Jesus’ head and a purple robe placed on him. -John 19

The crowd mocks Jesus, saying “Hail to the King of the Jews!” -Matthew 27

Pontius Pilate presents Jesus to the people and asks if he should be crucified. -John 19

Jesus stumbles while carrying the cross. Simon the Cyrene is compelled to carry the cross. -Mark 15

Jesus arrives at Calvary with the soldiers. -Luke 23

Jesus is nailed to the cross. -John 19

Jesus is crucified. -Matthew 27

Jesus cries out “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!” -Luke 23

A darkness falls over the earth from the sixth hour to the ninth hour. -Luke 23

Joseph of Arimathea brings brings Jesus down from the cross. -Mark 15

The women bind up and anoint Jesus’ body for burial. -John 19

Jesus is buried in the sepulcher. -John 19

“Even when we are pursuing gospel aspirations, we can do so with the psychology of law.  It shows.  It makes us unhappy in ourselves and a royal pain to live with.

Let’s remember there are two kinds of spiritual intensity—that of the Spirit and that of the flesh.

The zeal or intensity of the flesh is driven by the law, the zeal of the Spirit gets lift-off from the gospel of grace.

When we find ourselves driven, angry, prickly, tense, trigger-happy, etc., that is the intensity of the flesh driven by a mentality of law, and that’s when it is time to humble ourselves, laugh at ourselves, reevaluate, and then get going again, but this time more chastened, more self-suspicious, more relaxed in the all-sufficiency of Jesus Christ our wonderful Lord, whose yoke is easy.

It really is.  Really.”

- Ray Ortlund

Paul Tripp – On being a writer of a marriage book who hates marriage books

Paul Tripp – On how he’s changed through marriage

Paul Tripp – Addressing pastors on the subject of marriage

What makes “What Did You Expect?” different than other marriage books?

Paul Tripp’s motivation to write “What Did You Expect?”

Paul Tripp- What he has learned through marriage

Paul Tripp- Adultery and new beginnings

Paul Tripp- A word of advice to couples about to be married

Preaching Pastor at Mars Hill Church

The thesis of the sermon is simple and large:

Christians should be happy.

Why should Christians be happy? The sermon answers this question in 3 points.

Point 1: Our bad things will turn out for good.

Point 2: Our good things can never be taken away from us.

Point 3: The best things are yet to come.

You can read the whole sermon [here].

Here’s an extended quote from point #2 that encouraged me this morning (paragraph breaks added):

The godly man is happy in whatever circumstances he is placed because of the spiritual privileges and advantages, joys and satisfactions, he actually enjoys while in this life. How great a happiness must needs [it] be to a man to have all his sins pardoned and to stand guilty of nothing in God’s presence: to be washed clean from all his pollutions; to have the great and eternal and almighty Jehovah, who rules and governs the whole universe, and doth whatsoever he pleases in the armies of heaven and amongst the inhabitants of the earth, reconciled to him and perfectly at peace with him.

How great a pleasure and satisfaction must it be to him to think of it, and not only that God is reconciled to him or has nothing against [him], inasmuch as all is pardoned; but also that this same almighty being who created him, who keeps him in being and who disposes of him and all other things every moment, loves him, and that with a great and transcendent love; and that He has adopted him and taken him to be His child, and given Himself to him to be his father and his portion, and that takes care of him as one that is very dear to Him, continually guides and directs him, and will lead him to the fountain of living waters.

And how joyful and gladsome must the thoughts of Jesus Christ be to him, to think with how great a love Christ has loved him, even to lay down His life and suffer the most bitter torments for his sake, Who also now continually intercedes for him at the throne of grace; to consider that so great a person as the eternal Son of God, who also made the worlds, is his lord and master, and is not ashamed to call us brethren, Who will come in and sup with him, and He with him, and to see His arms expanded to embrace him and offering Himself to be embraced by him. And beside, what a satisfaction and pleasure must it give to his mind to think that he is now sanctified and made holy, adorned and beautified with those lovely graces that make him lovely in the sight of God and excellent in the sight of saints and angels; to reflect on himself and consider that he acts rationally and doth that which the best of beings has commanded, that he in some measure acts worthy of the nature of a man, in some measure answers the end of his coming into the world in glorifying God and doing good to his fellow creatures, and that he has not lived altogether in vain: not as it is with many; they live in the world and burthen the same, and had better be dead than alive for all the good they do in it, or any they do towards manifesting the glory of him that made them.

The reflection on these things affords such a peace and pleasantness to the mind, as far exceeds and is immensely above all outward delights. What there is no wicked man doth know, neither; neither hath it entered into their hearts to conceive how great are the comforts and pleasures of the godly, and how great [the] things God hath prepared for all those that love [him], even in this life; their pleasures are of vastly a more refined, higher and more noble kind than those of the wicked, besides the many other advantages that this has above that, but especially that taken notice of in the Doctrine: that no worldly afflictions in the world are able to deprive them of them, but they, as rightly improved, do only serve to give them a quicker and more lively sense of spiritual enjoyments.

HT: Justin Buzzard