July 10, 2018 Show with Jeffrey Johnson on “The Pursuit of Glory: Finding Satisfaction in Christ Alone” (Part 2)

Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors, Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another. Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions. Now here's our host Chris Arntzen. Good afternoon. Cumberland County, Pennsylvania,.

Lake City, Florida and the rest of humanity living on the planet earth. We're listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this 10th day of July 2018.

First of all, for those of you who were wondering what happened to the Alistair Begg interview that we had advertised a month or so ago that was supposed to take place yesterday, well Alistair had to reschedule to next Monday, July 16th, so mark your calendars for the Alistair Begg interview for Monday, July 16th and I happened to air a rerun yesterday.

It was very providential that Alistair rescheduled because we were having internet problems yesterday that were resolved after the 4 p .m. Eastern time when we usually begin our show, so it was very providential that that occurred and that I aired a rerun.

But today I'm so delighted that we have as a returning guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Pastor Jeffrey D. Johnson, founder of Free Grace Press and pastor of Grace Bible Church in Conway, Arkansas, which is the home of Grace Bible Institute.

And today we are addressing part two of The Pursuit of Glory, Finding Satisfaction in Christ Alone, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio,.

Pastor Jeffrey D. Johnson. Yeah, thanks Chris for having me back. It's always a great pleasure to.

Be on the show. Praise God for that. And for the sake of our listeners who again are, just as we did last time, for those who have not ever heard you on this program before, they don't know anything about Free Grace Press, they don't know anything about the Grace Bible Church of Conway, Arkansas, or the Grace Bible Institute, why don't you tell our listeners about those things?

Yeah, the things I'm involved in, first, as you mentioned, is the pre-publishing company that I'm adding titles. In fact, I just received them today. We just got the new book by Tom Nettles on the history of the doctrine of preaching.

It's an excellent old book, and so we're happy to be publishing a book by Tom Nettles. I have a verbal agreement with Joel Beakey to publish one of his next books, and so we're excited about some of the authors who are able to get a hold of and publish a work, and we've got such a great listener, and check out the books that we have.

And make sure that you let me know all that information about that Tom Nettles book and the Joel Beakey book so I can get them on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio to discuss them.

Yeah, I sure will. And I'm also a pastor of Grace Bible Church, as you mentioned, here in Conway, Arkansas. I'm privileged to live in Arkansas. I love to stay here, but more privileged to be pastoring such a good group of believers.

We're a Reformed Baptist church that started in my living room, pressing on for many years and growing, and we're thankful for that. And we were able, two years ago, to start a seminary here in the state of Arkansas, the Reformed Baptist Seminary, around the country.

We just had Joel Beakey. We've had Tom Nettles. We've had Bodie Balcombe come. Next month, we're going to have Steve Lawson come and teach on expository preaching. And so we're able to bring some of the biological bonds to the state of Arkansas.

And we offer academic training that you would get with a much more affordable price. All of our classes are in the evening. A lot of people just stay plugged into the local churches and continue to work.

Now, I don't know, because I couldn't clearly understand everything you've.

Just said due to the connection we have, but last time you said that this is the only seminary in the state of Arkansas. And that is quite an interesting thing for the Arkansasians to know. Is that a way to describe somebody living in Arkansas, or did I just make that up?

No, you made that up. But that's okay. Yeah, if anyone's listening in the state of Arkansas, I'd really love to hear from you if you're interested. In fact, you wouldn't have to live in the state of Arkansas to attend our program, though commuting to our church would.

Be necessary if you want to be a full-time student. Sorry about that. I was just distracted by an email coming in. But this book that you have written, which we are going to enter now into part two of discussing it.

In fact, the last time that we were on with you, we had a very lively discussion that was in fact filled with listener questions, but we actually only got to about three of the pursuits out of all the pursuits that you list in the book.

But give our audience once again an overview of why you wrote this book and the summary of what this book.

Is about. Yeah, thanks Chris. I wrote this book almost 18 to 20 years of counseling. I used to work for a counseling center here in the state of Arkansas. And by the way, I want to let our.

Listeners know, just to repeat the title of the book, it's The Pursuit of Glory, Finding Satisfaction.

In Christ Alone. I'm sorry. Right, right. And a lot of the experience that I had with counseling, and a lot of times when you counsel someone, you love to give them some material to take home and read.

And when I couldn't find something that I thought reached some of the issues I was dealing with, I thought I would write one. And it addresses a lot of the people deal with on a day like I've told them.

You have a problem, then you have a real problem. And the real problem, those are objective problems in how we handle it and seeks to answer these things in a broader perspective, dealing with the overall desire that we have.

I put in the book that there's at least nine innate desires of the soul. And these desires are desires that constantly desire to be fulfilled, in such as the desire to be happy, the desire for companionship, the desire for freedom, the desire of meaning and purpose.

These things we cannot help but want. In fact, these pursuits say, I don't want to be happy, or I don't want to have purpose, I don't want to have meaning, I don't want companionship. These things we may think that we don't want, but even when we attempt not to want them, it's our way to fulfill them.

And so this book is addressing the innate desires of the soul. It explains why often we feel frustrated and even miserable. And the basic reason for that, Chris, is that we're seeking to fulfill the desire, feeding the appetites of the body.

And so this book gets back, though they can bring a moment of temporal satisfaction or a moment of, cannot ultimately bring us joy or happiness in our soul, because they're not able to satisfy the eternal whole, that infinitely be fulfilled by God.

I'm going to read a couple of the endorsements.

Of the book that I did not read last time, so our listeners could get an even further clear or more clear picture of what the book is about. First of all, Lance Quinn, Senior Pastor at Bethany Church, Thousand Oaks, California.

Used to be, I believe, if I'm not mistaken, on the staff there at Grace Community Church, where Pastor John McArthur serves as the pastor. And Lance Quinn says, Author Jeffrey Johnson concludes in The Pursuit of Glory, that we are all searching for something.

He is right. Every person who has ever lived is on a journey to find something of meaning and value in life. What are you pursuing? Happiness? Freedom? Companionship? Truth? The key to this search, as you will read in this book, is much more than what you are looking for.

Actually, the WHO of your search is all important. If you are honestly searching for the meaning and value of life as it is truly to be lived, read this volume from cover to cover. It will point you to finding glory in knowing Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who will give you purpose for your life now and hope for eternal life to come.

And we also have Brian Borgman, Author of Feelings and Faith. Brian Borgman says, Jeffrey Johnson has provided a marvelously helpful little book that focuses on the real heart issues of life. This is an excellent book to give to both unbelievers and believers.

As I read, I easily saw how this book could be used in evangelism as well as in basic counseling situations. It is well written, straightforward, pastorally wise, and full of scripture. This book is a wonderfully useful tool in helping us get to the issues that drive our hearts and to see the all-satisfying Christ as the ultimate goal of all our pursuits.

May the Lord use it to bring many to himself and strengthen many of his children to a closer walk with him. And then finally, Rick Horne, author of Get Off of My Case, Godly Parenting of an Angry Teen, and Get Out of My Face, How to Reach Angry, Unmotivated Teens with Biblical Counsel.

Just out of curiosity, before I read his commendation, is Rick Horne from New York? I'm just curious. I don't think so. Rick Horne says, What does your heart yearn for? What do the hearts of those you work with, live with, and serve yearn for?

Jeff Johnson's pursuit of glory shines a spotlight on common desires that bubble up in all of us, often spill over, making a mess in our lives and in the lives of those we care about. He shows how the pursuit of glory, happiness, purpose, freedom, companionship, truth, peace, holiness, and life are created in us but can be satisfied only in Christ.

Johnson illustrates our flawed ambitions to satisfy each of us, to satisfy each of these desires from his rich background of life and ministry experience. He presents these so that any of us can become more keenly aware of our own hearts.

But I see richness here, too, for caring brothers and sisters who want to help others realign their hearts and lives with God's freeing grace and suffering from the world's, the flesh's, and the devil's seductive prescriptions.

Well, those are pretty weighty commendations, and why don't we begin again, just so our listeners have a crystal clear picture of what you're going to be talking about today.

Explain the title, The Pursuit of Glory. Yeah, the pursuit of glory, but what I've tried to explain that carries that desire in us, that we would pursue for glory, is something that's eternal, something that has weight, is vain, or vanity.

The word vanity means empty. In comparison to what we may see in the glory of this world, if it's your 15 minutes of fame or winning the Super Bowl, people praising you for the moment, that doesn't last very long.

It comes and it goes and it leaves us only wanting more. It makes us more and more envious of people who are more famous. It's the.

Now, you may know this, but we who are Reformed have been known for making fun of the typical evangelical statement, perhaps predominantly made by our Arminian brethren, but I was wondering if we're making fun of this statement too much.

I believe that perhaps the intention behind this statement might be similar to what you are writing about, but perhaps just worded very poorly, or perhaps you don't even think it's worded poorly, but what do you make of the common evangelical credo that everyone has a God-shaped hole in their heart that needs.

To be filled? Yeah, I don't know if that's worded poorly or not, or relationship with him, and so when he made man, they were made already in this, and God satisfied those deep longings he was lacking in nothing.

He was filled with God. The same way, since they brought separation with God, what man had in the beginning is now lost, and race is no longer there. It's in search of God. We were made where we don't like God, so we need God, but the very thing that we need, we don't want.

All these other things, because we don't want to find it in God or look for it somewhere else. It's either in the world or in ourselves, but what's crazy is we know it's not found within us. We wouldn't be looking for it if we already had it, and I hear people saying, if you want to be happy, look within yourself, and it's folly because if I was already possessed it, I wouldn't be looking for it.

The fact I'm looking for it means to begin with in the world, and see, we have two sets of, we have the cravings of the soul, holiness, truth, glory, if you call them the appetites or the cravings, the desires of the flesh or the body.

My body, with the five senses, loves to see things, loves to hear things, loves to eat, and so forth, and so my body craves things, and so we're tempted to think, if I'm going to find all these internal longings, does that mean that I should look for it?

It's a problem. I can eat and be satisfied, but then I'm not pleasing to me, but it doesn't last, therefore I'm looking for more money later. I buy a new car, drive it off the lot, I'm satisfied for a few moments, but soon the new car smell fades away, and the new model comes out, and then I'm discontent all over again, and so it's like a dog chasing his tail.

When we try to satisfy the deep longings of the soul by fulfilling the appetite for the body, we're constantly going to be frustrated. We're constantly going to be miserable, and the more we feed the body, the more the body wants more stuff, and it creates a bigger monster of more discontentment and dissatisfaction.

You actually just reminded me of something that I know this may be disturbing for people to hear, but it's just a reality that very much aligns with what you were just saying. When it comes to those who stray outside of their marriages to pursue sexual fulfillment, they often afterwards become bored by their own marital intimacy, and it may have actually begun, the boredom and the dissatisfaction may have begun before any physical adultery or betrayal takes place where you have people looking at pornography and so on, and then when the pursuit turns physical, then even that wears off very often, and the person just has appetites that, obviously this isn't a universally true thing, but you have appetites that become very often increasingly more sinful and even more strange, more bizarre.

You have, like for instance, you may be aware that serial killers have often, when they are being interviewed, have confessed that they started off as teenagers viewing pornography, and the pornography got less and less fulfilling, and they had to start watching sadomasochistic pornography, and then they had to start acting out in different ways that became more dangerous and bizarre and so on.

It shows you how when we seek to find fulfillment in a way that God has not ordained for us, we can become very sick, twisted, and evil people.

Yeah, I just read a study, even young 20-year-olds in their male enhancement fields, because they're no longer in the boundaries in which we should enjoy these things, that when we go outside of those boundaries, are we overly indulged without creating a deeper monster that the more salt water you drink, the more thirsty you become.

It doesn't quench your thirst, it only enlarges your appetite, and the larger you're ill, the more miserable and discontent you become in the process, and so it's self-defeating, though for the moment it gives you...

We have a first-time questioner. I'm going to read the question, and I'm also going to forward it to you so you can look it over during the station break, because we're going to go to a station break any minute.

I'd rather go to the station break before you begin answering the question, so I don't have to cut you off in mid-sentence. But Mauricio in Torrance, California, first-time questioner asks, what do we do as Christians when our feelings betray us?

On the one hand, we know that we ought to have full satisfaction in Christ, but on the other hand, we sometimes become depressed or sad when trials or tragedies come our way. How true is that? I mean, I'm actually experiencing this right now, not because I'm interviewing Pastor Jeffrey D. Johnson, but because of other things that are going on in my life that I need a steadfast prayer for.

But yes, what an excellent question, and I'll send that to you, I'll forward it to you so you can look it over. If anybody else would like to join us on the air with a question of your own, and we already have several of you waiting to have your questions asked and answered by Jeffrey D. Johnson, but our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA, and please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

Don't go away, we'll be right back, God willing, with Jeffrey D. Johnson and part two of The Pursuit of Glory. Hi, I'm Chris Arnson, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, here to tell you about an exciting offer from World Magazine, my trusted source for news from a Christian perspective.

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Solid Ground Christian Books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Welcome back. This is Chris Arnson.

If you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours with 90 minutes to go is Pastor Jeffrey D. Johnson, founder of Free Grace Press, pastor at Grace Bible Church of Conway, Arkansas, and home of the Grace Bible Institute.

And we are discussing part two of a discussion that we began on June 4th, The Pursuit of Glory, Finding Satisfaction in Christ Alone, and this also happens to be the title of Jeffrey D. Johnson's latest book, which is published by Reformation Heritage Books, a publishing ministry founded by our friend Dr. Joel Beeky of Puritan Reform Theological Seminary.

If you'd like to join us on the air with a question, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. Chrisarnson at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA.

Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. And as you know, Pastor Jeff, before the break I read you Mauricio's question. He is a first-time questioner from Torrance, California, and his question is, What do we do as Christians when our feelings betray us?

On the one hand, we know that we ought to have full satisfaction in Christ, but on the other hand, we sometimes become depressed or sad when trials or tragedies come our way. In fact, Pastor Jeff, as you know, our Lord Jesus Christ said in his own words that we are to be anxious for nothing.

Interesting.

Well, it is, yes. Yeah, in some states when we have anxiety, it's a sign that we're not trusting the Lord. But there's other times when emotions that are stimulated by trials and troubles and stuff are not necessarily sinful.

The Lord Jesus himself was very exact when he's contemplating his own death. Paul doesn't tell us to condemn those who are weeping, but tells us by weeping with them. And sometimes our emotions are important.

Christianity is not saying that the Christian is always constantly happy in all sense of the word. There's times for us to grieve, and there's sometimes for us to rejoice, and so we don't necessarily...

Our negative emotions, such as sadness, is always wrong. The Bible does teach us that we're to rejoice in the midst of deeper than the temporary trial. We have something that's eternal that can root us with joy, and a joy that's un...

So the Christian can be both sad on one level, but on a deeper level, full of joy. Provides us the mechanism or the joy and able to actually... And we can be as James 1 verse 2 says, we can count it all joy.

In fact, pure joy. And the reason we can count it joy is because the trial is not the end. It's not the end of the story. It doesn't end that for us. The trials actually have a positive result in our life.

It produces patience, and patience produces all kinds of good. Sorrows that we feel in the hardships are good. And so the key is understanding as a Christian, we don't sorrow as others who have no hope.

Even in the death of our loved one, we sorrow. But we have some sense of joy. Necessarily explain it to others, or even communicate it to others, but there, deep down, it's there, and that sustains us.

It keeps us from going into complete joy that we have. Well thank you Mauricio, and not only have you won.

A free copy of the book we are addressing, The Pursuit of Glory, by our guest today, Jeffrey D. Johnson, but you've also received, since you're a first-time questioner, a free New American Standard Bible, compliments of the publishers of the NASB.

So please give us your full mailing address in Torrance, California, so that CVBBS .com, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, can ship out those two things for you absolutely free of charge. Let's see here, we have Joe in Slovenia, who says, as you pointed out, we know from scripture that we will ultimately find satisfaction when our search leads us to the glory of God, but so much of life is filled with what seems humdrum and routine.

Please help us with instructions about how to practice satisfaction in Christ in the midst of our everyday tasks, duties, and responsibilities. How do we experience the glory of God within the daily mundane?

Excellent question.

That is a great question. I love that question, so I appreciate your caller bringing that into our discussion. That's a writer, not a caller. Okay, that's right. That's a great question. In my book, that's a common complaint that we all have because we think, okay, if I'm going to missionary to Africa, I need to be this great pastor that's reaching tons of people.

The great majority of Christians are housewives and carpenters, kinds of just regular day, regular people living a regular life, doing mundane things. But that's the beauty of Christianity, simplest things, sweeping the floor, if it's cleaning out your car, if it's going to work, if we do these things as unto the Lord and the motive behind just the mundane things of even drinking a coffee or eating breakfast.

These mundane things, if it's done in thankfulness to the Lord and for the glory of God, they are no longer mundane. They're no longer just random things that have no total significance. For the Christian, every single thing of his life, even giving a cup of cold water to someone in the name of the Lord can give you an eternal reward.

So you don't have to be some great missionary to find satisfaction in what you do or happiness in the little things of life. We just should be mindful of that. Everything that I do is to be done for the glory of God.

And I love how the Old Testament says that even when we write it down, every day we're writing it down, and that won't be forgotten. For instance, there's one woman who broke a jar of putt-up on me. People are like, what are you doing?

You can stow that and give it to the poor. But Jesus rebukes that type of thing. This woman, this act can be done by all of us when we serve the Lord in the little things. God's not going to forget these things.

And there is, I believe, eternal remembrance. That's how I would answer that question.

Amen. And people very commonly automatically attribute that scene to Mary Magdalene, but then there's nothing in the Bible that says that was Mary Magdalene, is there?

No, not precisely. We just know it was a woman with long hair.

That could be just about anybody, any woman ever born in that era, because... Yeah. Well, actually, obviously, there were women that did cut their hair short, which was not a very good thing to do as far as Paul was concerned.

But anyway...

Well, it shows the significance of the glorious... For the woman, her glory is in her hair, this long hair, and she takes her glory, human body, and she takes her... Symbolism there is in that. But that's true of all of us.

When we take the best that we have, whether it be perfume or roots of our jobs, and we take the first roots, instead of the thought for the Lord, we're giving our best. And that gives us... By the way, thank you, Joe, in Slovenia,.

And thank you for giving us an American address where your daughter lives in Georgia so that we can send this book to you at her address, and savingcvbbs .com a lot of money in overseas shipping costs.

And thanks for listening to Iron Trip and Zion Radio, and please keep spreading the word about the program in Slovenia and beyond. We have Gordy in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. What are some stumbling blocks in our pursuit of glory, in pursuit of God's glory, that we should be aware of?

What are some stumbling blocks in our pursuit of God's glory that we should be aware of? And by the way, Gordy in Mechanicsburg says that he thinks you're.

Awesome. Thank you. And by this opportunity, or that opportunity, we become so... The Bible's not condemning us enjoying this world. In fact, all things, I've already said, have been given to us to richly enjoy.

I could enjoy a steak with a hot dog. I just got a new pair of Nike that I love. They're very comfortable. I'm enjoying these new shoes, you know, and I love this world.

I'm expecting some commission for the Nike plug on Iron Trip and Zion Radio.

Yeah, yeah. But you know, we enjoy these things, but that's not where our life is needed. That's not where we're happy. The common pitfall is the whole thing. Sometimes we're not aware of doing it. It's not one particular thing.

And idolatry is... Well, thank you, Gordy in Mechanicsburg,.

And you can pick up your copy of Pursuit of Glory by Jeffrey D. Johnson at cvbbs .com, since they are located so close to Mechanicsburg. Why not save them the shipping costs by heading over there tomorrow between 10 a .m. and 4 .30 p .m.?

And thanks for your excellent question. I think that before the same thing that happens the last time doesn't happen again, I think we should go to some actual chapters in your book where you have specific main points underneath the heading of Pursuing Glory.

By the way, while I'm looking this up, our email address, if anybody else would like to join us, it's chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com. Please give us, as always, your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA.

Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. And by the way, we will, once again, since Pastor Jeff is a pastor, if you have questions involving something that requires pastoral counsel, we will be more than happy to allow you to ask that question.

If it's something very intimate and private and personal, you can remain anonymous. But the last time we were on with you, we did address the Pursuit of Glory, which we actually just reiterated here. We addressed the Pursuit of Happiness.

We addressed the Pursuit of Freedom. And we addressed the Pursuit of Peace. By the way, if anybody listening wants to go back to the Iron Trip and Zion Radio Archive, you can hear part one of this discussion by simply typing in Jeffrey D. Johnson, and he spells Jeffrey J-E-F-F-R-E-Y.

There are at least three different spellings in there. But I'd like for you to address right now something that we did not have time to address last time, the Pursuit of Purpose. Yeah, the Pursuit of Purpose,.

God has made us to... One of the ways we find purpose is in what we do in our work. I know some people don't like no fun, but in reality, if we remove work from our lives, we find that there's no purpose.

There's no meaning. And that work is wonderful because no one wants to feel like I'm worthless. I have no purpose. I have nothing that I can really contribute to this society or to the world. I'm just...

One of the major aims that God has given us to find fulfillment is to work hard. He's made Adam and Eve to work. He's made us to work. And so that's why, you know, we find our identity in saying, hey, I'm a pastor, or I'm a doctor, or I'm a teacher, or I'm this, or I'm that.

And that kind of identifies not just what I do, but identifies who I am. And that's good. And it's a shame that, you know, in our culture, there's becoming more and more laziness, and more and more people are just trying to avoid work.

I talked about this one lady that I counseled for many years that was extremely obese to the point that she was not really able to sleep and wake up, and she would sit there all day. She'd watch TV the whole day.

No one would come see her except me and the pizza delivery guy. And I asked her, why don't you get out and exercise? Why don't you do something? And that she was just not wanting to do that. She's entrapped in her own laziness, and she felt like her life—and I recognize that much of her depression comes from this fact that she's wasting her time.

And I couldn't ever get her—I think a lot of people feel that. They feel like they're wasting their lives. They're wasting their time. They feel like they're not doing anything. Watching a lot of TV and playing a lot of video games.

And if you're doing that, there's a reason you feel empty. You shouldn't get out and work. God's made us to work, and He's made us to work hard. We need to work. We also need to remember, even if we cure cancer, which would be awesome, or we climb Mount Everest, which would be a great achievement, a great accomplishment, the tallest mountain in the world, that'd make us feel really good.

In the end, all these things we may do in this world is going to impair people's lives as a doctor. Eventually, those same people are going to die. Everybody dies, and I'm going to die. So we can't find ultimate purpose in our jobs, because we know in the end, our jobs and all that we do in this world is going to be burnt up with fire.

Therefore, if we're going to find ultimate purpose, we must work for the Lord. We must work for eternal riches and eternal glory, do something that has an eternal weight to it. And that's what we've already talked about.

We do everything unto the Lord. So even if I'm a janitor, if I'm a king, or if I'm a doctor, or if I'm a nurse, or I'm a school teacher, or I'm in transition between jobs, it doesn't matter. I can still find purpose in my life, because I can do the smallest task for God.