Christ Church (Moscow, ID)

The commands of God may be lofty, but they are also pleasant. You think, “I can’t rejoice all of the time.” But this thought is joined by another, “I sure would like to.” You may say, “I know that I’m going to worry about something.” But before the words are out of your mouth, you find yourself longing for a world where you wouldn’t have a care. Cynicism about your own ability is fitting. You can’t thread a camel through the eye of a needle. That’s why the text doesn’t say, “Rejoice always, you can do it.” It says, “Rejoice always, the Lord is at hand.”

In his rebellion, man looks to dethrone Christ. He has attempted to cast away Christ’s cords from marriage, legislation, and the economy. But there is no greater place where man is tempted to burst God’s bonds apart than in human emotions. Conversely, the Christian insists Christ is Lord and desires to see the crown rights of Jesus materialize. But you will find this far easier to accomplish in the halls of power than you will in the halls of your own chest.

In literature and in movies, an Easter egg is some little detail that is hidden away. It might be an inside joke, or secret point, or something else that is not immediately obvious on a first reading. The metaphor comes from our custom of hiding Easter egg for our children. And so what could be more fitting than finding just such an Easter egg in one of the gospel’s resurrection accounts?

In order to understand the Triumphal Entry properly, we need to grasp the fact that the Cleansing of the Temple was the culmination of that Triumphal Entry. It was all of a piece. Reading it with the flow of the story in mind, it should remind us of the conclusion of The Odyssey, where the entire build up is learning into the justice that Odysseus will bring to his house. It is a fitting and satisfying conclusion. 

In order to address the subject of ambition rightly, we have to remember some other things first. There is a certain kind of desire that every human being has to deal with, and this is a desire that tends to veer toward envy. If God has not given us the grace of being able to see this in ourselves, we will come into competitive situations motivated in the wrong way entirely. And the same thing is true of our ambitions. Our ambitions will lust after what God has never given.

To date we have looked at Salvation by Grace, after which we considered Sanctification by Grace. We have now come to the third message in this series, which is Glorification by Grace. We have been taken out of the miry clay (salvation), and we are in the process of being cleaned up (sanctification). But where are we being taken to? What is our destination?

Psalm 132 is one of the Psalms of Ascent, sung by the people of Israel when they traveled up to Jerusalem. I take it to be penned by Solomon, given that the language of this psalm is similar to Solomon’s prayer at the dedication of the temple (2 Chronicles 6:41). You have to keep in mind when reading the Psalms of Ascent that the saints of old sang them on the way up to Jerusalem, but you sing them having already trekked up to the heavenly Jerusalem (Hebrews 12:22). This can be a bit disorienting. And to make things even more interesting, they sang them going up to the holy city, but you sing them with the holy city coming down on your heads (Revelation 21:2–3).

This morning, we’re going to talk about envy. This is one of the most subtle and unrecognized sins that we face as Christians. Envy gets into everything, and it’s like a cancer of the soul. Proverbs 14:30 says “Envy makes the bones rot.” And when it takes root, it overpowers us. “Who can stand before envy?”