Things Not Seen E-Book

Jon Bloom

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

Seitenzahl: 193

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

True faith is hard. More than mere sentimentalism, faith often calls for a deep and resilient trust in God—especially when the going gets tough and the road is dark. In Things Not Seen, author Jon Bloom encourages readers with 35 imaginative retellings of stories from the Bible that illustrate the importance of living by faith. A follow-up to the author's previous book, Not by Sight: A Fresh Look at Old Stories of Walking by Faith, this inspiring volume explores the lives of Abraham, Moses, Saul, John the Baptist, and more—helping readers remember God's promises, rely on his grace, and follow his leading regardless of the circumstances. The book includes a foreword by popular author and blogger Ann Voskamp.

Leseprobe

THINGS

NOT SEEN

A FRESH LOOK AT OLD STORIES OF TRUSTING GOD’S PROMISES

JON BLOOM

FOREWORD BY ANN VOSKAMP

Things Not Seen: A Fresh Look at Old Stories of Trusting God’s Promises

© 2015 by Desiring God

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 & photography: Josh Dennis

First printing 2015

Printed in the United States of America

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The ESV text may not be quoted in any publication made available to the public by a Creative Commons license. The ESV may not be translated in whole or in part into any other language.

Scripture references marked NIV are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

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

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-4699-0 ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-4702-7 PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-4700-3 Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-4701-0

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bloom, Jon, 1965–

Things not seen : a fresh look at old stories of trusting God’s promises / Jon Bloom ; foreword by Ann Voskamp.

           1 online resource

Includes bibliographical references and index.

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

ISBN 978-1-4335-4700-3 (pdf) – ISBN 978-1-4335-4701-0 (mobi) – ISBN 978-1-4335-4702-7 (epub) – ISBN 978-1-4335-4699-0 (tp)

1. Bible stories. 2. Bible—Criticism, interpretation, etc. 3. Bible—Biography. I. Title.

BS546

242'.5—dc23             2015001392

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

To Levi, Eliana, Peter, Moriah, and Micah

You are my beloved children; with you I am well pleased. (Luke 3:2)

You have taught me more about trusting the promises of God than you may ever know.

CONTENTS

Foreword by Ann VoskampA Word to the ReaderGratitude  1  Your Sin Is No Match for God’s GraceJoseph’s Brothers and Grace  2  “He Must Increase, but I Must Decrease”John the Baptist and Humility  3  “I Will Not Let You Go unless You Bless Me”Jacob and Wrestling with God  4  Be Generous with Your Master’s MoneySimon the Zealot, Matthew, and Generosity  5  Hard, Heartbreaking, Hopeful Spiritual LeadershipMoses and Leadership  6  You Obey the One You FearKing Saul and Fear of Man  7  Whom Are You Really Serving?Martha, Mary, and Serving  8  Jesus Comes When You Least ExpectThe Woman at the Well and Persevering Prayer  9  What God Is Building through All the Inefficiencies of LifeNehemiah and Adversity10  Don’t Feel Qualified for Your Calling?Moses and Inadequacy11  Failure Doesn’t Have to Be the Last WordDemas, Mark, and Failure12  God Is Merciful Not to Tell Us EverythingThe Disciples and Trust13  Jesus Is Turning Your Shame into a Showcase of His GraceThe Hemorrhaging Woman and Shame14  God’s Mercy in Making Us Face the ImpossibleAbraham, Sarah, and Faith15  God Will Never, Never Break His PromiseAbraham, Isaac, and God’s Faithfulness16  Watch Your MouthPeter and Being Slow to Speak17  How Jesus Exposes Our Idol of Self-GloryThe Jewish Leaders and Reputation18  The Impoverishing Power of Financial ProsperityThe Rich Young Man and Wealth19  The Powerful Glory of Yielding PowerJonathan and Power20  When It Seems Like God Did You WrongNaomi and Tragedy21  When a Sword Pierces Your SoulMary and Grief22  The Weakness of the World’s Strongest ManSamson and Unfaithful Faith23  What Dead Abel Speaks to UsAbel, Cain, and Faith24  The Folly of What Noah PreachedNoah and Gospel Boldness25  Why God Gives Us More Than We Can HandleGideon and the Impossible26  Imitate, Don’t Idolize, Your LeadersBarak and Misplaced Faith27  When Fear AttacksJoshua and Courage28  God Makes Our Misery the Servant of His MercyNaaman, the Servant Girl, and Sovereign Mercy29  Escaping the Suicidal Slavery of Selfish AmbitionThe Disciples and Selfish Ambition30  When Wasting Your Life Is WorshipJudas, Mary, and Worship31  Judas Carried the Moneybag?Judas and the Love of Money32  If You Want to Be Happy, You Must Deny YourselfThe Disciples and Self-Denial33  Jesus Wants You to Be YouPeter and Calling34  The Treasure Makes All the DifferenceThe Man Who Found the Treasure and the Resurrection35  Don’t Give UpAll of Us and EnduranceGeneral IndexScripture Index

FOREWORD

ANN VOSKAMP

I HEARD ONCE OF a man who split black ash and wove baskets.

And he wove prayer through every basket.

The man wore faded plaid and old denim and lived alone high up in the Appalachians where the dirt didn’t grow crops, but it could grow basket trees.

He lived such a distance up in the hills that he really didn’t think the cost of transportation to some Saturday morning market would exceed any profits from selling his baskets. Nevertheless, each day he cut trees and sawed them into logs and then pounded the logs with a mallet, to free all the splint ribbons from those trees. Splint slapped the floor.

And the basket-making man, he simply worked unhurried and unseen by the world, his eyes and heart fixed on things unseen.

“When the heart is at rest in Jesus—unseen, unheard by the world—the Spirit comes, and softly fills the believing soul, quickening all, renewing all within,” writes Robert Murray M’Cheyne.1

Day after day, the man cut ash, pulled splint, stacked baskets. He said that as he held the damp splint and he braided—under and over, under and over—that God was simply teaching him to weave prayers into every basket, to fill the empty baskets, all the emptiness, with eternal, unseen things.

It was like under all the branches of those basket-growing trees, he knew what that clergyman James H. Aughey wrote: “As a weak limb grows stronger by exercise, so will your faith be strengthened by the very efforts you make in stretching it out toward things unseen.”2

Come the end of the year, after long months of bending over baskets, bending in prayer, when his stacks of baskets threatened to topple over, the man kneeled down under those trees that grew baskets—and lit those baskets with a match.

The flames devoured and rose higher and cackled long into the night.

Then, come morning, when the heat died away, satiated, the basket-making man stood long in the quiet. He watched how the wind blew away the ashes of all his work.

To the naked eye, it would appear that the man had nothing to show for the work. All the product of his hands was made papery ash—but his prayers had survived fire.

The prayers we weave into the matching of the socks, the working of our hands, the toiling of the hours, they survive fire.

It’s the things unseen that survive fire.

Love. Relationship. Worship. Prayer. Communion.

All Things Unseen—and Centered in Christ.

It doesn’t matter so much what we leave unaccomplished—but that our priority was things unseen.

Again, today, that’s always the call: slay the idol of the seen. Slay the idol of focusing on only what can be seen, lauded, noticed. Today, a thousand times again today, I will preach His truth to this soul prone to wander, that wants nothing more than the gracious smile of our Father: “Unseen. Things Unseen. Invest in Things Unseen. The Unexpected Priority is always Things Unseen. ”

“Pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret . . .” (Matt. 6:6 NIV).

“For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Cor. 4:18).

It’s the things unseen that are the most important things.

Though the seen product of the baskets may have gone up in a flame of smoke, it was the unseen prayers that rose up like incense that had changed the man, much like Thomas Carlyle said: “It is the unseen and the spiritual in people, that determines the outward and the actual.”3

When the heart and mind focus on things unseen, that’s when there’s a visible change in us.

The outward and the visible only become like Christ to the extent we focus on the unseen and invisible person of Christ.

“In truth, the ideas and images in men’s minds are the invisible powers that constantly govern them,” writes Jonathan Edwards.4

These pages you hold in your hand, these are a rare and unforgettable focusing. After meeting Jon Bloom, you walk away quietly saying: “He is so much like Jesus.” And when you walk away from these pages—that is exactly what will happen: you will have become so much like Jesus.

The ideas and images and truths that Jon Bloom memorably guides into the recesses of the mind and heart, usher in the invisible power of Christ to govern the worries and lies and anxieties and stresses—and make them obedient to his sovereign will and relentless love and perfect ways. Jon Bloom is the wisest of guides, the most tender of pastors, the most honest of truth-tellers, and the most skillful of theologians—who shows you with powerful clarity how to weave gospel-priorities through all your work, all your moments: Things Not Seen, Priorities Things Not Seen.

Turn these profound pages and you will know it: your heart and mind focusing on his invisible kingdom.

Then go ahead—

Weave your baskets—

and the invisible kingdom will be made blazingly visible in our midst.

Ann Voskamp

author of the New York Times bestsellers,

One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are

and The Greatest Gift

the farm, Ontario, Canada,

December 1, 2014

1 Andrew Bonar, Memoir and Remains of the Rev. Robert Murray M’Cheyne (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1845), 461.

2 John H. Aughey, Spiritual Gems of the Ages (Cincinnati: Elm Street Printing, 1886), 95.

3 Thomas Carlyle, The People’s Edition of Thomas Carlyle’s Works, 37 vols., Wanting (London: Chapman and Hall, 1888), 3.

4 Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 1, Freedom of the Will, ed. Paul Ramsey (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1957), 218.

A WORD TO THE READER

HEBREWS 11 IS IN the Bible to remind us that God hides his most precious treasures for his saints in their most difficult and painful experiences.

Think of how Abraham and Sarah agonized over their infertility for twenty-five years before God fulfilled his promise of Isaac. Think of how Isaac and Rebekah agonized over the treacherous and nearly murderous rivalry between Jacob and Esau. Think of how Jacob agonized for years in grief over the belief that wild beasts had killed Joseph. Think of how Moses agonized for forty years in the Midian wilderness over his lost opportunity to deliver his enslaved people, and then struggled another forty years in the Sinai wilderness over his people’s faithlessness. Think of how David agonized for years as Saul hunted him like an animal.

Now think of the blessing that each agony eventually produced.

This motif, of agony giving birth to glorious blessing, climaxed in Jesus’s unparalleled agony on the cross and in the disciples’ agony over the loss of their messianic rabbi, only to unleash the greatest blessing the world has ever known when Jesus was raised from the dead.

And the motif has continued since the time of Christ. Saints throughout church history have agonized through difficult labors, imprisonments, terrible persecutions; danger from robbers, unbelievers, false brothers, travel hazards, natural disasters, hunger, cold, and exposure; the sorrows of disease, disability, family strife; and on top of those, “the daily pressure . . . of . . . anxiety for all the churches” (see 2 Cor. 11:23–28).

Now think of the blessings the agonies of the church age have yielded.

Hebrews 11 reminds us that God is doing far more than we can see in our agonies—these things that are so painful at times that they seem unbearable. We plead for God to deliver us from them, and we wonder why he keeps letting them go on.

The purpose of this book, like Hebrews 11, is to remind us that we are in good company when we feel bewildered by the struggle. It seeks to imaginatively draw us into very real people’s very real experiences of walking by faith, not by sight (2 Cor. 5:7), and to allow our brothers and sisters from history who are now in the great cloud of witnesses to encourage us to hold on and to not give up (Heb. 12:1). They remind us to trust God’s promises more than our perceptions. For faith is “the conviction of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1). Promises will hold us up when perceptions make us sink.

We do well to listen to these precious biblical friends who have run the race before us. Their example reminds us not to begrudge the difficult afflictions we endure, because they are producing for us “an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Cor. 4:17). Their stories remind us that God hides his most precious treasures in our most difficult and painful experiences.

Jon Bloom

Minneapolis, MN

GRATITUDE

I OWE MY FIVE children, Levi, Eliana, Peter, Moriah, and Micah, more that I can possibly express. God has used them and continues to use them more than they know to teach me to lean hard on his promises and not to trust in my frail and often mistaken understanding. I thank God every morning for the gifts of their precious lives and pray that somehow, through his strange and wonderful ways, God will impart grace to them through their stumbling and often deficient father. I dedicate this book to them with the prayer that it may become one of those ways.

I simply can’t thank God enough for my priceless wife Pam, who joyfully and prayerfully carried more than her share of our life load as I wrote (especially as the deadlines loomed). Profound thanks to Ann Voskamp, who somehow carved time out of her incredibly full life to read this book and write a stunning and very gracious foreword. Special thanks also to John Piper, whose influence on me is pervasive. And to David Mathis, Jonathan Parnell, Bryan DeWire, and Joseph Scheumann, who improved various initial story drafts. I’m so thankful for Karalee Reinke, who carefully combed through the early manuscript and significantly improved this book. And it is a joy to thank the amazing team at Crossway: Justin Taylor, Josh Dennis, Amy Kruis, Janni Firestone, Angie Cheatham, Matt Tully, and my gracious editor, Tara Davis. What a privilege it is to work with you.

I’m deeply grateful to my colleagues at Desiring God, Scott Anderson and Josh Etter, for the patience and encouragement they extended to me during the months it took to complete this project. And to Matthew Soderholm, who passed away during the final stage of writing. I miss your gentle spirit and your gracious wisdom, Matt. Thank you for working so hard and so well for this mission.

Jesus, my deepest thanks is always reserved for you. You have always been faithful to your word, though I have not always been faithful to trust it. Thank you for the amazing grace you have extended to me. Thank you for hiding your most precious treasures in the most difficult and painful experiences. And thank you for all that you have done to teach me to walk by faith (2 Cor. 5:7) and put my greatest trust in things not seen (Heb. 11:1). I look forward to the day when the dim mirror of this age is removed and I finally get to see you face to face (1 Cor. 13:12). I know you long for that day, too (John 17:24). May it be soon.

And [Joseph’s brothers] drew Joseph up and lifted him out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty shekels of silver. They took Joseph to Egypt.

GENESIS 37:28

“God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God.”

GENESIS 45:7–8

1

YOUR SIN IS NO MATCH FOR GOD’S GRACE

JOSEPH’S BROTHERS AND GRACE

Based mainly on Genesis 45

THE OLD HYMN SAYS it beautifully: “Grace, grace, God’s grace; grace that is greater than all my sin.”1

But the grace of God is not only great enough to “pardon and cleanse within.” It is so powerful, as Joseph’s older brothers learned in Genesis 45, that it can take the most horrible sin that you have ever committed against another, or that has ever been committed against you, and make it the slave of God’s mercy.

“What do you mean he’s alive?” Jacob had no place to put Reuben’s words.

“I know it’s unbelievable, Father,” Reuben replied. “We hardly believe it, and we saw him with our own eyes. The Egyptian lord—the one who demanded that we bring Benjamin—he is Joseph. He’s not only alive, he’s . . .” Reuben stumbled over the strange sentence. “He’s now ruling Egypt for Pharaoh.”

Jacob squinted skeptically. A son dead for two decades is not easily resurrected. “You are cruel to tell me such a thing unless you have no doubt.”

“I have no doubt, Father. It’s going to take hours to tell you everything. But we spoke with him. We ate with him in his house.”

Simeon couldn’t resist: “He sat us around the table in the order of our births! Before any of us knew who he was! We thought he was a magician.”

“And you should have seen how much food he placed before Benjamin!” joked Zebulun, giving Benjamin’s head an affectionate push.

Reuben continued, “He told us himself, Father: ‘I am your brother, Joseph.’ We responded just like you are now. I thought he was tricking us. But after talking to him for hours, there’s no doubt. It’s him. And the first thing he wanted to know was, ‘Is my father still alive?’” (Gen 45:3).

Jacob’s stony expression didn’t change, though his eyes overflowed. He moved them from son to son, lingering on Benjamin, and returning to Reuben. “But you showed me his bloody robe. He was attacked by a wild animal. If he survived, why didn’t he ever come home? Why would he go to Egypt? Joseph would never have forsaken me.”

The moment had come—the one they had dreaded the whole way home. For twenty-two years they had kept this festering wound of wickedness concealed from their father. But now God had exposed it. Shame bent the heads of nine sons. Judah was the exception. He had asked to break this news to their father. He had led in their sin. He would lead in owning it.

“Joseph didn’t forsake you, Father,” said Judah, stepping forward. “He was forsaken. No, worse, he was betrayed.”

Jacob stared at Judah. “Betrayed by whom?”

Judah pushed hard the heavy words. “By his own brothers. Brothers who hated him for having his father’s favor. Brothers who hated him for having God’s favor. In all honesty, we actually talked of killing him, but decided instead to profit from his demise. We sold him to Ishmaelite traders who were on their way to Egypt. To my lasting and terrible shame, Father, that was my idea—to sell my own brother as a slave. The blood on his robe was goat’s blood. We were the wild animals.”

Jacob sat down. Anger and hope churned together in his soul. The silence was long.

Judah broke it by saying softly, “His dream came true.” Jacob looked up again. “Joseph’s dream: it came true,” continued Judah. “All eleven of us bowed down before him in Egypt. We sold him into slavery because of his dream of ruling over us, never dreaming as we did it that we were helping bring it to pass.”

Reuben added, “Joseph holds no bitterness, Father. You know what he told us? ‘God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God’” (Gen. 45:7–8).

“In fact,” said Judah, “he wants us all to come live near him in Egypt to escape the famine. That’s why we’ve brought all these wagons. He said, ‘You must tell my father of all my honor in Egypt, and of all that you have seen. Hurry and bring my father down here’” (Gen. 45:13).

Jacob thought quietly for a long time. Then he shook his head and said, “It is enough; Joseph my son is still alive. I will go and see him before I die” (Gen. 45:28).

What Joseph’s ten older brothers did to him was heinous. They made him the merchandise of international human trafficking. They subjected him to slavery and sexual abuse. They effectively threw him, with no rights or defense, into prison to rot.

But note Joseph’s words: “It was not you who sent me here, but God” (Gen. 45:8). Neither treacherous siblings nor a woman’s lust nor the shame of prison nor a cupbearer’s neglect could thwart the purpose of God (Job 42:2) in preserving God’s people (Gen. 45:7) and fulfilling God’s promise (Gen. 15:13). God made evil the slave of his grace.

And he’s doing the same for you. God is doing more good than you can imagine through the most painful experiences of your life.

If you’ve sinned against someone, do everything in your power to make things right. But know this: your sin is no match for God’s grace.

And if you’re facing the consequences of another’s sin, take heart. Stay faithful. God knows, and he knows what he’s doing. In time, you will see God turn what man means for evil into the slave of God’s mercy.

1 “Grace Greater Than Our Sin,” Julia H. Johnston, 1911.

“The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this joy of mine is now complete. He must increase, but I must decrease.”

JOHN 3:29–30

2

“HE MUST INCREASE, BUT I MUST DECREASE”

JOHN THE BAPTIST AND HUMILITY

Based on John 3:25–30

WE ALL WANT TO