Experiencing the Trinity E-Book

Joe Thorn

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 107

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

What do you do when you're at the end of your rope? When you're overwhelmed with anxiety and fear? When your whole world seems to be collapsing? For Christians, there is only one simple yet profound answer: turn to the triune God. Born out of lessons learned during one of the most spiritually challenging periods of his life, Experiencing the Trinity by pastor Joe Thorn contains 50 down-to-earth meditations on God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Overflowing with scriptural truth, pastoral wisdom, and personal honesty, this book reflects on common experiences of doubt, fear, and temptation, pointing readers to the grace that God provides and the strength that he promises.

Leseprobe

EXPERIENCING

THE

TRINITY

THE GRACE OF GODFOR THE PEOPLE OF GOD

JOE THORN

Experiencing the Trinity: The Grace of God for the People of God

Copyright © 2015 by Joe Thorn

Published by Crossway

1300 Crescent Street

Wheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law.

Cover design: Dual Identity, inc.

Cover image: Crystal Courtney

First printing 2015

Printed in the United States of America

Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. 2011 Text Edition. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

All emphases in Scripture quotations have been added by the author.

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-4168-1ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-4171-1 PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-4169-8Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-4170-4

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Thorn, Joe, 1972–

Experiencing the Trinity : the grace of God for the people of God / Joe Thorn.

     1 online resource

Includes bibliographical references.

Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

978-1-4335-4169-8 (pdf) – ISBN 978-1-4335-4170-4 (mobi) – ISBN 978-1-4335-4171-1 (epub) – ISBN 978-1-4335-4168-1 (tp)

1. Trinity—Meditations. I. Title.

BT111.3

231’.044 — dc23                     2014039256

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

ToKatherine, Elias, Madeline, and Kilian.May you always know the love and grace of our triune God.

Contents

IntroductionPart 1 God the Father  1   He Is Holy  2   He Is Creator  3   He Is Powerful  4   He Is Present  5   He Provides  6   He Is Good  7   He Knows  8   He Is Patient  9   He Is Love10   He Forgives11   He Is Unchanging12   He Is Jealous13   He Is Listening14   He Disciplines15   He Is FatherPart 2 God the Son16   His Humanity17   His Deity18   His Poverty19   His Love20   His Temptation21   His Obedience22   His Suffering23   His Death24   His Resurrection25   His Reign26   His Hold27   His Help28   His Presence29   His Church30   His Mission31   His Priesthood32   His Kingdom33   His Prayer34   His Glory35   His ReturnPart 3 God the Holy Spirit36   He Regenerates37   He Indwells38   He Intercedes39   He Fills40   He Comforts41   He Teaches42   He Leads43   He Convicts44   He Points to Jesus45   He Revives46   He Gives Wisdom47   He Sanctifies48   He Grieves49   He Gives Gifts50   He Resurrects

Introduction

I am intending to speak to none but myself, and therefore shall only observe what is useful to my own heart and practice.1

Richard Baxter

What I have written here, I have primarily written for and to myself. I needed to hear these words during a desperate period of my life, and though that particular time of affliction has passed, I continue to need them today. I hope that these reflections on the grace of our triune God will encourage those who find themselves battling fear, anxiety, temptation, affliction, and doubt. I am there with you, but more importantly, so is the Lord.

The Dark Night of My Soul

In 2011, shortly after the publication of my first book, Note to Self, I started to fall apart. While walking down Wabash Avenue in Chicago my hands began to shake, and I grew exceedingly fearful. This sense of dread came upon me suddenly and did not abate, and I had to make it through one more appointment. I made it through that meeting by sitting on my hands and wearing my best poker face. Immediately after the appointment I called my wife to tell her what I was experiencing. On the train ride home I prayed a lot, knowing I was heading into something painful.

This was the beginning of the most difficult season in my personal life. My marriage and family were healthy and our church was vital and growing, yet I felt like I was withering and dying. I lost every form of confidence I had in the things God had called me to do and was oppressed by an abiding sense of fear and deep anxiety. Regular and easy meetings with people in the congregation left me terribly anxious, and regardless of how pleasant or successful they were, I left each meeting feeling like a failure. I experienced little sleep during this time. I began doubting my calling, and was afraid that I would not be able to lead the church into its next stage of life.

For the first time in my life I was the weakest man I knew. I was truly frail. This led me to cry out to the Lord and “preach to myself” more than any other time. Yet relief was often slow in coming. I would pour over pages of Scripture and lie face down waiting for God to refresh my heart, assure my soul, and lift my head. Sometimes I was blessed with peace, other times I was left in my condition. It was as if I were walking in darkness and afraid of falling off a cliff, and although the promise of light was given, I was still waiting for it to break through the night.

The Way Out of Darkness

A friend told me to reach out to Dr. David Murray, professor of Old Testament and Practical Theology at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I was surprised to find out he had read my book and had an idea of who I was. As we talked, he asked me dozens of questions to get a better understanding of what I was going through and what my habits were. Over the next several months David became a lifeline of wisdom and a friend for whom I am forever grateful. God led me out of the darkness through my family, my church, my friends, my doctor, and especially Dr. Murray.

The simplest way to explain how I wound up in such trouble is to say that I had been working too hard for too long without resting. Some people call it burnout. My body and soul were suffering, and things needed to change. I had to delegate a number of responsibilities, adjust my sleep habits, take Sabbath rest seriously, and restructure my schedule—all while maintaining communion with Christ through prayer and the Word. With these changes I experienced some relief, but still woke up in the middle of the night with heart palpitations, and much of my fear remained with me. After consulting with Dr. Murray and my physician I began taking medication for anxiety.

Taking prescription drugs for my mental health had never before been an option. I saw all of my battles as only spiritual, with no real physical component. I wanted to trust God and experience his deliverance, but in the midst of my praying, repenting, believing, and pouring over the Word of God, relief was slow in coming. Dr. Murray helped me to think through this biblically and theologically. On his recommendation, I read Richard Baxter’s The Cure of Melancholy and Overmuch Sorrow by Faith and Physic. I was surprised to find that the well-known Puritan argued that medicine is sometimes needed in the cure of those suffering from what we now call mental illness. Baxter explains:

If other means will not do, neglect not physic [medicine]; and though they will be averse to it, as believing that the disease is only in the mind, they must be persuaded or forced to it. I have known the lady deep in melancholy, who a long time would neither speak, nor take physic, nor endure her husband to go out of the room, and with the restraint and grief he died, and she was cured by physic put down her throat with a pipe by force.2

No one had to get out a pipe, but it took quite a bit of time and prayer before I was willing to seriously consider the idea that my brain wasn’t functioning properly and that medicine might be a critical part of my journey toward health. In fact, it was.

Of course, medicine alone didn’t fix me. A new schedule didn’t really free me. God used a number of changes that worked together to rebuild me. And central to it all was the Word of God. It was Scripture that drew me back to the hope, peace, and safety I have in Jesus. And that is what this book is really about: how the Word of God draws us to the living God. In knowing him we find peace, joy, strength, and faith.

Yet the power of God’s Word is not seen in the immediacy of its work. Preaching God’s Word to yourself is not necessarily a quick fix for your sorrows and suffering. At times God will delay granting you relief in order to draw you closer to himself. He might want to teach you just how helpless you really are and how all-sufficient he really is. Sometimes God will allow you to suffer for a season to test and strengthen your faith. I am thankful that I have learned that belief is easy when life is easy, but when life is confusing and painful, faith will prove itself to be either rooted in Jesus Christ or resting on religious sentiments.

I can now praise the Lord for his delay of peace, for it not only tested my faith, but made the grace he finally did give that much sweeter.

Notes to Myself

What follows are fifty daily readings that reflect on God and the gospel and how they overcome our fear, failure, pain, and unbelief. Much of this I preached to myself over the last couple of years, and all of it is directed toward my own heart. So, for instance, when I write “there is a kind of deficiency in your christology,” I’m referring primarily to my own weakness. But if you find yourself with a heart like mine, weak and in need of grace, I pray these readings will be an encouragement to you. For God offers his grace to people like us.

He has pity on the weak and the needy, and saves the lives of the needy. (Ps. 72:13)

But allow me to be clear from the start. As this little book is written to myself, it comes from the perspective of a Christian and it is written to a Christian. If you have not yet believed in Jesus Christ as the only hope of being reconciled to God, I encourage you to read the following pages as the promises God makes to those who believe. Until you believe in Jesus, these promises remain only a potential reality for you. They are not yet yours, but they are offered to you. You must receive them by trusting in Jesus Christ yourself. Believing in Jesus is not choosing a new religion, but seeing your own sin and just condemnation before God. It is awaking to your idolatry and seeing the worthiness of the one true God. Trusting in Jesus means believing that your only hope to stand before the face of God and experience mercy is found in the life, death, and resurrection of his Son.

What I hope you will discover—what I continue to learn over and over again—is that all of us are far weaker than we know. Our sin, which is much darker and goes much deeper than we realize, is the real source of our most significant weakness. Neither you nor I can measure up to God’s standards. We are trapped in our condition of guilt, and the only hope is the offer of grace by our triune God.

1 Richard Baxter, Dying Thoughts (Edinburgh, UK: Banner of Truth Trust, 2004), 2.

2 Richard Baxter, The Cure of Melancholy and Overmuch Sorrow by Faith and Physic in The Practical Works of the Rev. Richard Baxter, vol. 17 (London: James Duncan, 1830). Kindle edition.

Part 1

GOD THE FATHER

1

He Is Holy

Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!

Isaiah 6:3