The commandments of God are only as hard to obey as the promises of God are hard to believe. The Word of God is only as hard to obey as the beauty of God is hard to cherish.
The exultation of His glory is the driving force of the gospel. The gospel is a gospel of grace. And grace is the pleasure of God to magnify the worth of God by giving sinners the right and power to delight in God without obscuring the glory of God.
John Piper ~ The Pleasures of God
I had what a friend of mine would call “an epiphany” on Tuesday night and I wanted to share it with you. After eating dinner at Panera Bread with my sister-in-law, Megan, I meditated on a little analogy that struck me. We were waiting for the sandwich specialist guy to finish my brother’s order so we could take to him, and Megan turned to me and said, “Hey, Rob. Do you want an olive?” Those who know me know I am positively nuts about olives. Black, Spanish, Greek, pitted, whatever. If it’s an olive, chances are I’ll eat it.
“Sure,” came my reply. “You know how I love olives!”
She pointed behind her on the ground where a lonely olive sat, waiting to be swept up when the shop closed in less than ten minutes. After we laughed and I declined the offer, I looked down at the olive from a different angle.
“Isn’t that what faith in God for obedience is all about?” I asked myself. “Why am I denying myself the pleasure of eating a food I love to eat? How has the olive changed from making me smile at the thought of eating one, to a squinting grimace with curled lower lip and a feeling that said: “Blech!”?
Had the olive changed? No, the olive was still good. Olives are full of the kind of fat that’s good for you (poly- or mono-saturated, I can’t remember). In and of itself, that olive could serve to satisfy my tastebuds and strengthen my body. The problem was not with the olive, but with its surroundings.
To put it like Frankenstein would: “Olive on sandwich, gooood. Olive on the dirty floor, baaaad.”
Now, here’s where you stop me and say, “Whoa, Rob! Whatever you are drinking right now needs to be poured down the drain and then you need to contact a poison control center immediately.” What does this have to do with faith in God’s grace, as the topic states?
Simple.
Picture: The olive is meant to be enjoyed on a sandwich.
Reality: God has given us many gifts that are meant to be enjoyed fully.
Picture: The olive is not meant to be eaten off the floor (unless you adhere to the “five-second rule”).
Reality: God did not intend for His gifts to be enjoyed in a wrong way.
This brings me to my main point: No matter how hungry I was, the knowledge of the best way to enjoy the olive prevented me from eating one off the floor. I knew and believed that there was something better. I didn’t have to wrestle with such internal issues like, “Oh, the olive probably has germs that came from the floor, and there are laws that prevent deli owners from using food that’s fallen on the floor….” There was no struggle with the temptation to eat the olive. Why? Because I had faith that knew, based on past experience, that there was a better way to eat.
I contend that our daily struggle with sin is not that we desire to please ourselves, but that we desire to please ourselves too easily. As C.S. Lewis has noted: “We are far too easily pleased.” We have unbelief toward God Himself and His promises and place our faith and trust in something other than Him.
Picture this: A man, starving, stumbles into a Panera Bread Co. store. Pulling himself along the ground, he approaches the olive. Wide-eyed, he desperately grabs it and consumes it. He is happy to have his mouth full, but it doesn’t satisfy his craving and need for food. He continues searching the ground for crumbs around other patron’s feet, trying desperately to get something to satisfy the hunger that is literally killing him. He lacks the strength and funds to place an order.
Now picture that the local Panera owner is in the shop. He sees the man there, poor, starving and unable to feed himself. The owner quickly throws together a combo and a bottle of water, rushes out to meet the man, and offers it to him. “Anytime you are hungry, your meals will always be on The House here.”
Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst. (John 6:35)
Oh, a host of other Scriptures I could mention about our coming to Jesus, and His satisfying our needs! But the above makes the point well. Before the regeneration of our spirits by the Holy Spirit (Titus 3), we could do nothing but try to satisfy ourselves with the olives on the floor and could not imagine a combo and a bottle of water. The Lord meets us, feeds us, gives us a new taste. Not only that, but He clothes us with Christ’s righteousness and fills us, and offers Himself to us so that we will never hunger or thirst again, spiritually.
Now picture this same man, clean-shaven, with new clothes, looking fit and healthy, walking into the shop again. What would you think if he tried to obtain food the way he had before? This would be a ridiculous notion. All he has to do is remember what the owner said, believe it to be true, and then he can approach the register and place an order on The House.
But that is what you and I do as Christians. We have been exposed to the satisfaction that is Jesus Christ Himself, the very Bread of Life come down from heaven, and we settle for an olive of lust, an olive of greed, an olive of unforgiveness. We believe that staying angry at someone who has wronged us will satisfy our needs. We men especially believe that some usenet group or some website or some magazine is going to satisfy our needs. In essence, we say to God, “Yeah, I know that You’ve satisfied my needs before, and I know that my needs haven’t been met yet through doing what I’m about to do, but I believe it will this time and that You can’t possible meet that need.” Without faith it is impossible to please God.
Had David walked out on the roof of his house, satisfied in God and all He was to him, and his eyes happened to fall on Bathsheba, I would be willing to say, based on David’s repentance in Psalm 51, that it would have been in one ear and out the other, so to speak. Had he been thinking, “God, You are so good to show mercy towards me and the people of Israel. You are so merciful, so loving, so holy. Your salvation brings joy to my heart,” he would have said, “Man, that chick needs to get a roof. Anyway, Lord….” How could David look on Bathsheba with a heart that was believing God and rejoicing in His salvation and think, “You know, I’ll bet she can satisfy me.”
Listen to him, after he realized how far he had fallen:
Restore to me the joy of Your salvation and sustain me with a willing spirit. (Psalm 51:12)
I know that for me personally, wrestling with lust or anger is almost always a losing battle. If it was too great for King David, it is too great for me. I want to avoid it, but my flesh yearns for it and the thing I do not want to do, I do, and the thing I want to do, I don’t do (see Romans 7 for such a sad state).
What victory overcomes this? I declare it to be faith! Paul says in Romans 6, “But consider yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in righteousness.” Believe this to be true, dear reader! If you are a believer, you are indeed dead to sin, but you aren’t believing it. I firmly believe that for each and every sin there is a dissatisfaction in God. Theologians call this “unbelief.” If without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11), then what is the opposite of faith? Pride? No, pride is the belief in self rather than in God. Lust? No, lust is the belief in sex rather than God. Greed? No, greed is the belief in money rather than God.
For the single male, sex is a good thing. Olives are good. But immoral sex is sex taken outside of its intended use. It is an olive on the floor. For a married male, sex is a good thing. Olives are good. But to delight in sex to the exclusion of delighting in God, even sex with your wife, is taken outside its intended use. It is also an olive on the floor. For everyone, enjoying a good meal is a good thing. Olives are good. But to delight in the food you eat to the exclusion or passive acknowledgment of the God who both provided the food and the pleasure it brings is taking food outside its intended use. It goes without saying, but it is an olive on the floor.
Doesn’t Paul’s words make clearer sense now? “Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). If your heart is not satisfied in God, you are, for all intents and purposes, a sin waiting to be performed. Obedience then becomes a burden and gives way to the immediate satisfaction sin can bring.
Sever the root of sin by prizing the promises of God, my friend. Delight yourself in the Lord.
A little lesson from an olive on the floor….
In the future, I’d like to actually develop this into an essay. This is a hasty and floodgate opening of my thoughts, very raw. There’s just so much that’s going through my mind that I can’t possible describe here.
