June 4, 2018 Show with Jeffrey D. Johnson on “The Pursuit of Glory: Finding Satisfaction in Christ Alone”

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 Arnton. Good afternoon

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida and the rest of humanity living on the planet earth listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

This is Chris Arnton, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio wishing you all a happy Monday on this fourth day of June 2018.

I'm delighted to have back on the program a returning guest, Jeffrey D.

Johnson, who is founder of Free Grace Press and pastor of Grace Bible Church in Conway, Arkansas, which is the home of the

Grace Bible Institute. We're going to be addressing his new book, The Pursuit of Glory, Finding Satisfaction in Christ Alone, and we've also got some exciting announcements to make regarding upcoming events that Pastor Johnson is conducting with Dr.

Joel Beeky and Dr. Stephen Lawson, but it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Pastor Jeffrey D.

Johnson. Chris, thanks for having me back on. It's a privilege. Hey, it's my pleasure, brother, and let's hear something about, for those of our listeners especially that have not yet heard you on the program because it's been quite a while since we've had you on the show, and we are streaming on a new

Reformed Network First Love radio out of Dublin, California, so we have got a lot of new listeners added to our audience.

In fact, my webmaster has informed me that our audience has doubled since last year, so there are,

I'm sure, a lot of new listeners that are unfamiliar with you, so let us know about the

Grace Bible Church of Conway, Arkansas. Yeah, Grace Bible Church is right in the middle of the state of Arkansas.

It's a church that I'm the founding pastor. It's going on 20 years, and we started a year and a half ago a seminary, and we're currently the only seminary in the state of Arkansas for Reformed Baptist seminaries, so we're really excited about that.

Wow, the only seminary in Arkansas. Yes, we're excited about not only where we have our own resident students in our church that are enrolled, but we're also able to serve a lot of the pastors in the state who, for one reason or another, never were able to attend seminary, so we're able to provide a service for those who are looking to further their education, take a class here or take a class there, and we're really excited about some of the professors we're able to bring in as well.

Great. Well, that's exciting, definitely. In fact, I don't think that you had the

Grace Bible Institute up and running the last time you were on the program. I think this is new to me and to the listeners.

Yes, yeah, it's pretty exciting. We really didn't realize it would be such a major endeavor.

We had the opportunity. I was teaching like a lot of churches do. They have kind of a teaching ministry for pastoral candidates and young men, a so -called ministry.

For years, we've had a class that I would teach once a month, and what we did, we expanded that and we began to bring in professors from outside of the state, from different seminaries.

We've had people in like Tom Nettles is calm.

We've had different people like Joe Biggie who's coming,

Steve Lawson. We've even had Bodie Baucom come, and so we've had different men coming in, and we have a slate of people coming in the next year and the year after that, and the way it works,

Chris, is we do four classes a year, and three of the classes are different men that we bring in for a week -long modular, and our classes are, we're in the process of becoming certified and accredited through ARTS, and we're working with ARTS so our classes can be transferable to different other seminaries.

What is ARTS? ARTS is a

Christian reform, Christian accreditation program.

They accreditate schools like a Puritan Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids with Joe Biggie, and they're like a

Reformed Baptist Seminary. There's other seminaries, like it's a certification center, but it's not associated with the government, and so it allows for our seminary to partner up with other seminaries, and if we keep a standard of academics that is robust, that it's accredited work, it's not just a diploma meal, it's not just a

Sunday school or a Sunday school class. It's a true seminary with the normal rigors and academic standards of the traditional seminaries, like Southern Masters or other seminaries, and by partnering up with ARTS, it gives us that, it gives the students assurance that our seminaries are valuable a solution or option for them.

Well praise God, and I also know, as I hinted at earlier, that you are having two upcoming events.

One of them is just 10 days from now. That would be the Puritan Theology and Ministry Seminar from June 14th through the 17th, featuring guest speaker

Dr. Joel R. Beeke, who is a friend of mine, a friend of mine for many years going back to the early 1990s.

Tell us about the first one, first of all. Yes, we're excited about that. Like you said, it's 10 days.

He's coming in, he's going to teach for an extended weekend, Wednesday through Sunday, and that's the all -day event every day.

I think there's 30 lectures slated, and he's going to be teaching on Puritan Theology.

And so not only do we have our current students that are enrolled who will be able to take the class, the course for credit, we've opened up the class for guests and for anyone in the community or anyone that wants to drive in and be a part of it.

They're welcome to come, and it's a free event, and so we're excited to be able to offer this to the community and all who want to attend.

And then also you have the Preaching with Precision and Power live course from August 13th through the 15th with Dr.

Stephen J. Lawson. Tell us about that. Yeah, we're really excited about Steve Lawson. There's many people in our church that happen to...

Steve Lawson used to pastor in Arkansas many years ago, so there's still a lot of his friends that are in the community.

Many of them are members of our church, so we're excited about having him. For many of our members, this will be a homecoming visit for them.

I remember, I don't know if it was the church in Arkansas where he once was, but one of the churches where he pastored when he became a believer in the doctrines of sovereign grace,

Dr. Lawson told me and my audience years ago when he was a guest on Iron Trip and Zion Radio that a deacon, either deacon or plural deacons, attempted to try to drag him away from the pulpit when he was preaching on the doctrines of grace.

Oh, I haven't heard that. I just thought I had it bad, but that's all.

Well, how does a listener to Iron Trip and Zion Radio attend the Preaching with Precision and Power course?

That is a Ligonier event, and so what they want to do, anybody who wants to come and be a part of that is go to Ligonier .com

and go to their event page, calendar page, and register there. And so we're a host church, but it's a

Ligonier event that we're hosting, and so Ligonier is taking care of all the registration. Now, with that event, there is a registration fee that's through Ligonier.

The Joe Bicke event is completely free because our church is taking care of all the expense in regards to that.

Great. Well, I will give our listeners, even though I'll be repeating it later, first of all, the

Grace Bible Church of Conway, Arkansas website is gbcconway .com,

gbcconway .com, and then the Grace Bible Institute website address is gracebible .institute.

Definitely got to get new glasses or, should I say, for the first time, get prescription glasses.

gracebible .institute is the website for the Grace Bible Institute in Conway, Arkansas.

Yeah, and if you go to one or the other site, there's a link. You can get linked to either site through one or the other.

Great. Well, I want to give our listeners our email address if they have any questions for you on the topic for the day, the pursuit of glory, finding satisfaction in Christ alone.

Our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com. C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA. Before I even begin asking you questions about this book,

I just want to read a couple of very powerful endorsements for it by people that many, if not all, of our listeners will recognize.

First of all, we have J. Adams, the world -renowned New Thetic counselor and conference speaker and author.

He writes, The Pursuit of Glory is must -reading for every Christian.

In it, Jeffrey Johnson conveys major aspects of Christian living as they relate to glory.

His topic is unusual as it is often thought that only God has glory. Read with faith and know you too may pursue glory, for God is glory.

And then we have my friend Tom Nettles, who's also been a guest on this program a number of times along with J.

Adams. Tom Nettles writes, This book gives an expanded exposition of the

Augustinian summary of human purpose. You have made us for yourself, O God, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.

Jeff Johnson wants the reader to experience satisfaction in this universal quest. He is not proposing some secret mystical incantation or detachment from reality, but points to the plainly revealed, clearly proposed gospel of the birth, life, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ.

He is the one in whom all the fullness of the Godhead dwells in bodily form.

If we would find glory in all its accompanying values, we will find them only in Christ.

That is the driving purpose and the clear message of this book. Take and read.

Obviously quoting from the phrase that the children were chanting in Augustine's salvation testimony, and he used that as a sign of God.

Am I right on that? That's right. Well, those are very powerful endorsements by two very powerful men in the kingdom of God.

And well, let's start off with this title. Although we have this hinted at in both of these endorsements, the pursuit of glory.

First of all, it's a good thing that you have the subtitle, Finding Satisfaction in Christ Alone, because of the fact that someone might wrongly interpret the pursuit of glory, especially if they were either an unbeliever or perhaps they are in the

Word of Faith Pentecostal movement, which still may put them under the category of unbeliever.

But this may be misconstrued as someone thinking that they can receive fame, fortune, prestige, and so on, but that is the polar opposite of what you're talking about.

It's exactly the opposite. Yeah, but you know, God has put a longing in all of our hearts, and these longings belong to the soul.

And one of the things I try to distinguish throughout the book, and almost every chapter hits on this theme, is that there's two types of longings that we have, seeing that we're made up of body and soul.

And the body has appetites or cravings, Bible calls them lust, and they're not necessarily evil if they're used properly and restrained.

But your body has cravings, and the cravings correspond to the five senses of the body.

And that's what the world is seeking to satisfy, is their body, is the lust of the eye, the pride of life, these things that can be seen, materialism, pleasure, sensations, you know, that's what the world's seeking to find happiness in.

And that's true of the body, but the soul has longings as well. And this book is divided up with multiple chapters, and each chapter is highlighting a distinct longing of the soul, and all these longings could be summarized as a longing for glory, a longing for something greater than what we have in ourselves, something bigger than ourselves.

And from birth to the day we're dying, the day that we die, we're in this constant pursuit of something bigger, and we're longing for it.

And I think that's why people are miserable or dissatisfied or unhappy. And the basic reason,

Chris, is the way I try to lay it out in the book is, we're trying to satisfy our soul by feeding the body, and satisfying the soul by trying to give the body what it wants.

And no matter how much you give the body, it really never touches the soul. It never really gets deep enough to really give us what we're really craving, what we're made for, what we're designed for.

And that's why the world continues, most of the people in the world, and even sometimes us Christians, we get deceived and get misled and get tricked to go back to the world as finding happiness.

I can't be happy until I get this. I can't be happy until I get that. And we're looking for fame, fortune, and health and wealth, and the next experience.

And on we go indefinitely with no real satisfaction. And so obviously the goal is trying to point us back to the right direction that God has made us for himself.

And that hole, as Augustine said, a hole that is in our soul or in our heart will never be satisfied until we satisfy it with an infinite, eternal, immutable

God. Yes, I had interviewed one of Dr.

Joel Beakey's professors at Puritan Reform Theological Seminary, David Murray, who you may be familiar with, who wrote the book

The Happy Christian. And that is a title and a theme that is strangely out of the comfort zone with many who share our theological convictions.

It's kind of interesting how you might often hear Reformed people rail against people having as a priority happiness in this life.

But the reason I say it's ironic is that the first question in the Westminster Shorter Catechism, as you are very familiar with,

I'm sure, is what is the chief end of man? And the answer is a man's chief end is to glorify

God and to enjoy him forever. And I think that that goes right along hand in hand with your chapter on pursuing happiness.

That's exactly right. In fact, if anything, Christians should be the happiest, most joyful, most fulfilled, most satisfied, most complete people in the world, because we have the one thing that the world cannot attain, and we have joy.

The Bible says there's, in the presence of God, there's the fullness of joy. And we have access to the one thing that will satisfy us.

And rather than the Christian being a sad, miserable, depressed, anxious individual, the

Christian is designed to be just like the Lord, who was anointed with joy above his brethren.

We're created to be satisfied and to be complete, but we have the real source of that happiness.

And the reason I think we're not as happy as we should be, or could be, is the fact that we're not pursuing the source of happiness the way we should be.

Yeah, and I think that very often we have a false definition of what happiness is.

I mean, those of our brethren in our theological camp, who say that many, if not most,

Christians put priority on too high a level of importance, I think that what they are really meaning, and I hope that they are meaning, that the definition and source of their happiness is wrong.

Not that happiness in and of itself is wrong, because obviously if our ultimate goal is to be in glory for eternity with Christ, that is the ultimate happiness that we are striving for.

So I mean, obviously there can't be anything wrong with craving happiness. It's where we get it is the key, am

I right? That's right, and I would even go to as far as say God is the one that put that in us to seek it.

Like I begin the book, or the second chapter, I begin the second chapter, something along the lines that we're all seeking happiness and we cannot not seek it.

It's impossible for any of us to say, I don't want to be happy. Now we may say it, we may go, you know,

I'm tired of looking for it, I'll just enjoy my misery, but even when we do something of that nature, it's a trying to find happiness through the back door.

It's trying to find happiness by giving up on looking for it, but it's still a desire to be happy, or at least a desire to get out of the misery.

No one wants to be miserable, but God's put that in us, and it's there because He's made us to seek

Him. He's made us to need Him. He's made us to look for it, and it's not wrong to want to be happy.

In fact, that's a God -given desire that God made us to have.

It's just, like you said, it's a matter of where we're looking for it and not being deceived and thinking that we can find it in this world outside of God.

Amen. Now it might be, or it definitely is, an easier thing to say than it is to actually actively involve yourself in pursuing happiness in the correct way, in a godly way, in a

God -centered way, and in a biblical way. You know, a pastor can easily say we should be pursuing our happiness by pursuing the enjoyment of God, and that can be even said flippantly, especially to somebody who's in a crisis, who is depressed, who has been diagnosed with a terminal illness, or somebody that they love has been diagnosed, or they are going through a divorce unwillingly.

There's a host of things, losing jobs, being in financial crisis, and all kinds of things.

And we could flippantly say, well, find your happiness in God. But what do you actually mean?

How does the rubber meet the road in pursuing happiness? Yeah, that's one thing the book seeks to do.

It seeks to, throughout the chapters, kind of interwoven through the chapters, is dealing with our emotional problems.

And we can look at it this way. There's the objective problem, which could be like I have a flat tire, but two people couldn't have a flat tire.

Their tire's flat in both their cars, and they both have the same objective external problem.

But the real problem is how you handle the problem, how you perceive the problem. Your emotional perception and how you cope with the problem is the real problem.

And a lot of people, one person can go, okay, I got a flat tire and move on with his life. The other person might crumble underneath the weight of it.

It may be the straw that breaks the camel's back. It might be the one thing that just tops off the day as being terrible, and they can't handle the stress of a flat tire.

And so what really is the problem is not always the objective issue. If I got diagnosed with cancer, or my mother just passed away, these are hard realities that we all face in life.

And we know someone that's facing our hard reality. But it's how do we cope with the objective reality?

And that's where the book is seeking to redirect our priorities. And without correct priorities, we're not going to be able to face the trials of life and cope with disappointments in the way that we need to cope with them if our priorities are out of place before the tragedy happens.

So the real key is before tragedy happens, before the flat tire, before the diagnosis with cancer, is have your priorities in line.

And so when bad things happen or good things happen, you're able to properly assess them in light of the greater realities, the greater priorities.

And you can be like the Apostle Paul who's in prison and thinks that he may die. He doesn't know if he's going to live or die.

He doesn't know if he's going to get out alive or not. But he's in there singing, and he's rejoicing, and he's saying either or, if I live or die,

I'm going to be happy. I'm going to rejoice. Because he realized that his greater desire is not in this life.

It's not creature comfort. It's not even longevity. His real desire is God's glory.

And if that was his priority, his purpose, his mission in life, his great passion, he'd come to the conclusion that it doesn't matter good or bad.

I'm able to reach what I really want. I'm able to obtain what I really want. And then I can glorify God either in my life and serving

Him or in my death. I'll be able to be a witness to Him in my death, and then

I'd be in the presence of God, which is far greater. So he couldn't place himself in a bad situation.

It's a win -win situation for the Apostle Paul. And that's the way it can be for us.

But I understand there is real grief. There's real sorrow. And the Bible says, count it all joy.

When we face these things, it's not necessarily meaning that we're not to weep with those who weep and weep over real difficulties.

But we don't have to mourn like others who do not have hope. And we're able to cope with it and have a joy that's unspeakable and full of glory because of this greater priority, this greater purpose, this greater satisfaction that we have that kind of undergirds this human life that we're living.

Well, if you want to hear how Dr. Sinclair Ferguson responded to a flat tire when

I was in the car with him, he actually was worse than a flat tire.

It was a tire that had nearly completely come off the axle. We were driving with a deacon from the church where I was a member back in those days.

We were driving from New York to Connecticut to drop Dr. Ferguson off at a Reformed Baptist church there in East Haven, Connecticut, where he was scheduled for another conference.

This is way back in the 1990s. And the car started shaking. And then all of a sudden, this deacon friend of mine had to pull over.

He got out of the car and he stuck his head in the door and he said, I can't believe it.

The tire, it's a good thing I pulled over because the tire is only being held on to the axle by one of the five bolts.

The other four bolts have broken. Oh, wow. And so Dr.

Ferguson, after a moment of silence, said from the backseat, only one of the five bolts is holding on the tire.

Do you think the Lord is telling us that only one of the five points of Calvinism is true?

Well, that's a lot better reaction than I had recently in this studio when

I had Dr. Hensworth Jonas on my program, who is a

Reformed Baptist pastor in Antigua and Barbuda. And he was here in the studio with me because he was in town for the

Banner of Truth conference. And I was having a bit of a mental meltdown because we were having technical difficulties.

And I just thank God that a legion of angels descended into the studio and held my tongue from saying any kind of profanity in my anger.

But he could tell, he could tell I was getting a little bit too upset about the situation. And that is one thing that I need to greatly learn in my own life is that I too quickly get angry over things like that, rather than just relax and trusting in God being in control over the situation.

That's one thing about the book that I do a lot of counseling and a lot of my counseling over the years as some of the stories have integrated as these illustrations or examples in the book.

And the book is not on anger management, it's not upon anxiety management, it's not upon depression, it's not upon any of these things in particular, although I mention all those things and give counsel in all those emotional problems.

But the book is kind of a, it's a great book to give out for people in counseling situations, though it may not be on marriage, it may not be on anxiety or depression, anything in particular of that nature.

It kind of hits all these issues in kind of a broad sweeping stroke and saying that the real issue behind all of our emotional disturbances and unrest and problems that we deal with, usually on a daily basis, is rooted in our values.

Because one thing that I talk about in the book, and I think it's a common misconception, is that we can't control our emotions or we're exempt from being responsible for how we feel.

Now our actions, yeah, we take accountability for what we do. Maybe I shouldn't have punched the wall or maybe

I shouldn't have retaliated. We take responsibility there, but we kind of excuse our feelings.

Like, I can't help but be depressed, or I can't help but be angry, or I can't help but have fallen out of love with my wife, or I couldn't help but have fallen in love with someone else that's not my spouse.

Like, falling in love is an accident and we're a victim of our circumstances. And, you know, we think that if my mother passed away,

I couldn't help it, I'm sad. That's, it's an external circumstance outside of my control, controlling my emotions.

And I really challenge that common misconception. And I don't deny that our circumstances, good or bad, plays a role in how we feel.

And we can't control every circumstances around us. But what I do speak very strongly about is that God has commanded us to have the right emotions.

And we're to not do away with our emotions. It's not that anger is bad. It's not that love is bad. It's not that we're not to get sad and happy.

All these emotions are God -given. He's made us to be emotional creatures. That's what makes us personable, what makes us human, it makes us relatable.

Those emotions are wonderful. And all of them are to be experienced and makes us valuable people and relatable.

But we're to control them. And God commands us to love and to hate the right things.

And really it's what we love that controls how we feel. Or what we hate. Our love and hate.

We cannot help but love something. We cannot help but hate the opposite of what we love.

And we're commanded to love God above everything else. And then there needs to be a pyramid of priorities.

It needs to be God. And for me it's my wife. And then below my wife is my children. And then the pyramid goes down into this stranger across the country that I haven't even met yet.

And then below humanity is the animal world. And below the animal world is the physical things.

And down the priority list goes. But when you have your priorities right, that's when good things, bad things happen.

You can actually, that's what's going to control your emotions. Okay, my wife passed away.

Of course it's going to be more grievous and hard to overcome with losing a spouse.

It's not meant to be easy. It shouldn't be easy. In fact, if it's easy, you didn't really love your spouse the way you should have.

So it is meant to be hard. And you don't have to feel bad to be sad. But also you don't have to become suicidal.

You don't have to become in a deep seed of depression over it. Because you have something that is above your spouse.

And that's God. And that's one thing. That's one thing that can never be robbed from us. You know, if we lay our treasures here on earth, then something may come in and steal it and rob it from us.

And there goes our joy. But if we lay our treasures and our joy up into heaven, like the

Apostle Paul had, then what can take it? What can steal that? What can shake us? What can rob us of the real happiness that we have?

If our happiness is transcendent, if it's beyond the reach of this ever -changing and sickled and crazy world that we live in?

Well, we have to go to our first break. If anybody would like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

That's C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -S -E -N at gmail .com. Please give us at least your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

USA. And please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

And we will permit questions since our guest today is a pastor. We will permit questions that are a bit off topic that may involve uh matters of personal counseling.

And I can understand that that would lead you to want to remain anonymous. But other than that, please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence if you live outside the

USA. And don't go away, God willing, we're going to be right back after these messages with more of Jeffrey D.

Johnson. I am

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Welcome back. This is Chris Arnson. If you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours, with a little bit less than 90 minutes to go, is

Jeffrey D. Johnson, founder of Free Grace Press, pastor at Grace Bible Church in Conway, Arkansas, which is the home of the

Grace Bible Institute. And we are addressing his new book, The Pursuit of Glory, Finding Satisfaction in Christ Alone, a publication of Reformation Heritage Books.

And if you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com.

We do have a listener in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania.

We have BB who asks, can you please give me a more precise definition of glory?

I am sorry if I'm tuning in too late and you already addressed this, but I've heard glory referring to eternal life in heaven, and I've heard glory referring to some kind of a vibrant, shining majesty coming from God himself, and other definitions

I have heard as well. How are you using it specifically in this book? Okay, that's a good question.

I'm using glory, as I define it in the book, as a equivalent to almost the word value or worth.

And so when we're thinking about what is the glory of God, we're asking what is the value of God.

And when we think about glory or value or worth, think about anything that has value.

Like my cars, either one of them doesn't have much value. I have a lawnmower that's worth more than my vehicles.

My new lawnmower, the zero turn, it's got value to it.

But what determines the value? What determines the worth of something? Well, in part, you have to look at the objective aspects of its value.

How long will it last? Something that doesn't last very long seems to have less value.

Like the Bible's contrast to glory is the word vanity, and it likens vanity to grasping the air.

If you could grab hold of the air, what did you have? You have really nothing, and it's not worth anything.

It's not something you can sell. There's no value to it, because it's empty. And weeds that are here one day, they wither away the next day.

These things don't have a lot of value because they're so temporal and short -lived. And so something that has longevity and has substance to it.

And that's why in the Hebrew word for glory is the word weight or weightiness.

And why does weightiness have to correspond to glory or to value?

Well, one reason why is in the Old Testament days, the value of ancient coins was determined by the substance of those coins.

In our days, it's what's stamped on the coin or on the paper note.

If it's a dollar, it's worth a dollar. If it's a hundred dollars, that determines the value as prescribed by the government.

But in the old days, it would be determined by if it's gold or bronze or silver, and then they would weigh that coin.

And the heavier or the weightier the coin is, the more valuable the coin is.

Are you still there? I think I've lost my guest. Well, that's happened before, and hopefully he will call us back.

In the meantime, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com,

and he is calling back right now. And there you go. I hope this is Pastor Jeff.

Yes, sure is. I'm sorry, I got phone dropped on me. Sorry about that.

See, that's one of those circumstances where you can't lose control or lose your temper, right? Yeah, things outside of our control.

Right. That was the providence of God and a revelation of a sense of humor saying, oh, you think this is easy, huh?

And he knocked the phone right out of your hand. But you were talking about the difference between the way that a coin or note has its value printed or engraved on it or stamped on it because of the numeric value.

That's right. Yeah. And so a paper note that has a dollar on it, in reality, it's not worth the paper it's printed on the paper.

I mean, it's reality. It's not worth anything. It's just that we perceive that's worth a dollar because it's going to be tradable for a dollar.

But in the old days, it'd be if it was a piece of bronze. I mean, that has value that transcends the the government stamped on it.

It's precious metal. And the heavier that metal is, if it's silver, gold, bronze, whatever the metal is, the heavier it is, the more it's worth, the greater value.

And so glory is dealing with weightiness, our value. And so we're talking about glory.

We're talking about the intrinsic worth of something. And for God's glory, he's priceless.

It's it's there's no price you can put upon the value and the worth and the glory of God because he's infinite.

He's weighty. He's eternal. He's immutable. He's going to outlast everything.

And there's nothing more about... Are you there, Pastor? Yes, can you hear me?

Yeah, now I can. But you cut out for about five seconds. Okay. I don't know if you were getting a phone call coming in or something, but you went totally blank.

Okay. Hopefully back now. Yes, you are. Okay. Yes.

And so I'm just trying to say we're all... God has ultimate value, ultimate worth.

And we're all, me, you, your listeners, we're all seeking to have some type of self -worth.

We want to know that our life is meaningful. And by meaningful, we're saying valuable, that I have a purpose, that I have a reason to exist, that my life is not a waste.

It's not just empty. It's not useless. We're looking for our life to have glory, to have worth, to have value, to have purpose.

And that's how I'm using the word glory in this book. Great. Well, thank you,

B .B., and you have won a free copy of the book that we are addressing today,

The Pursuit of Glory, Finding Satisfaction in Christ Alone, Complements of Reformation Heritage Books, and also complements of CVBBS .com,

sponsors of Iron Trip and Zion Radio, that's Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, who will be shipping that book out to you at no charge to you or to Iron Trip and Zion Radio.

Thank you so much for providing such an excellent question, and please make sure we have your full mailing address.

We have Murray in Kinross, Scotland, who has a question.

And Murray says, I have to enlarge the font on his email, he says, in John 15,

Jesus teaches his disciples to abide in him and to glorify the Father by bearing much fruit.

He encourages them to love and keep commandments just as he has. Then in verse 11, he adds, these things

I have spoken unto you that my joy might remain in you and that your joy might be full.

How would you differentiate between his joy and our joy? And do you believe that abiding, bearing fruit, loving and obeying are the necessary requirements for us to have true joy in him?

I agree that that's exactly right. Our joy will be the joy of the Lord.

Let's put it this way, the joy that we're looking for is not our joy, but God's joy.

And the glory that we're looking for is not our glory. We don't want to glorify ourselves or boast in ourselves, but if we glory, we let us glory in the

Lord. So we want purpose, we want value, we want meaning, we want happiness, we want companionship, we want all these internal longings of the soul that I deal with in all these chapters, but they come only through knowing

God and glorifying God. And that's where the obedience and loving

God comes from, is to glorify God and to enjoy him, is to obey him and to please him.

In so doing, that and that alone gives us purpose. To know that my life means something, that I have a reason to exist and my existence is not wrapped up in my own self -gratification or in my self -experiences, if there's something greater than the moment, something greater than the now that I have to live for, and my obedience has an eternal, lasting ramification.

To know that what I do for the Lord is something that has eternal ramification gives every moment meaning, meaningfulness.

It gives every moment purpose, it gives even the darkest hours, it underlines the hardest times with joy, because we know it's not a waste, it's not purposelessness.

You know, if we lost a spouse, we can rest assured that not only does this work out for our good, but it's not just working out for good, it's needed, and it has a purpose, and it's not wasted, it's not useless, it's not, what does this mean?

We don't have to actually know immediately what does this mean and why did God allow this.

We may not be able to answer that, but we can answer the bigger question, I know it means something, and it's needed, it's useful, it has an eternal purpose, or otherwise

God would not allow it to happen, and therefore I can go through it knowing that in going through it

I'm doing something that has eternal ramifications, eternal glory involved with it.

So there's a good question, and I absolutely agree.

Well thank you Murray and Kinross Scotland. Please keep listening to Iron Trip and Zion Radio and spreading the word about the program in the

UK and beyond. What you just said, I'm assuming you would agree that very meticulous care needs to be involved in seeking to bring anyone comfort or encouragement in the midst of losing a loved one, like a spouse for instance.

I am a widower, and I think I would get pretty angry if somebody, especially fresh on the heels of losing my wife, had said to me that that is for your good, it's for a purpose that's going to make your life better.

How and when should that be crafted in a presentation to someone who is mourning the death of a loved one, without seemingly trying to be overly theological in a time when compassion is more required?

Well the Bible tells us to mourn with people who mourn, and not only do we rejoice with those who rejoice, we enter into people's mourning.

And there's a difference as you know between sympathy and empathy, and I think the Lord is in his example to us with Lazarus.

You know, he wept knowing that he was going to raise him from the dead. He could have said, hey, suck it up,

I'm about to do a great miracle here. But he entered into that moment with them, and wept with them, and mourned with them, because he was grieved because of their sadness.

And we're poor comforters if we're just throwing academic terms and theological terms at people who are in deep grief.

And furthermore, it's never wise to shortcake or truncate the mourning process.

Now we don't want to live in years of depression, and there is a time to pick up the sticks, if you would, and move on, but it's not helpful to do that too quickly.

And there's a time of mourning, like Solomon says, there's a time and season for everything, and the time of mourning is never a pleasant season, but it's a proper season, and it's a biblical season.

And mourning is God -glorifying when it's needed, and when it's called for, and the loss of a spouse, it's a proper, right time to be sad, to mourn, to grieve, and to go through that terrible difficulty.

And so, but even, you know, when we go through it, we can mourn, but if we, with the

Lord, a Christian mourning the loss of his wife, as you've experienced, though no less difficult, in fact, it could be even more difficult than an unbelieving person mourning his wife, because unbelievers could be so selfish, could even find it strangely good, you know.

So a believer will mourn probably deeper than an unbeliever, but a believer will also have a joy, unspeakable, that goes side by side, it doesn't undo the mourning, but it goes side by side with the mourning, and it gives the believer a unspeakable joy that cannot be communicated even by, it can't be even communicated by comforters other than the

Holy Spirit. In fact, we'll let you pick up right when we come back from our break, because we were already late for the break.

This is an elongated break, because Grace Life Radio 90 .1 FM in Lake City, Florida requires a 12 -minute break from us, so please be patient and take this time not only to write questions for our guest,

Jeffrey D. Johnson, but also take this time to write down the information provided by our advertisers so that you can patronize them.

Don't go away, we'll be right back, God willing, after these messages with more of Jeffrey D.

Johnson. Iron Sharpens Iron welcomes

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CVBBS .com. Before I return to my guest Jeffrey D. Johnson, we just have a couple more announcements to make.

First of all, I hope that many of you join me this October. Actually, I'm sorry, it's this

November, November 9th through the 10th in Quakertown, Pennsylvania for the

Quakertown Conference on Reform Theology. This is being held at the Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Quakertown, Pennsylvania.

The speakers include David Garner, Ray Ortland, and Richard Phillips. And very providentially, the theme is the glory of the cross.

The glory of the cross is the theme of this year's Quakertown Conference on Reform Theology.

So if you'd like to register, go to alliancenet .org, alliancenet .org, click on events, and then click on Quakertown Conference on Reform Theology.

I plan to be there with an Iron Sherpins Iron Radio exhibitors booth, so I hope to see you there.

Also, another event that I have grown to really look forward to, like a kid waiting for Christmas, I love,

I absolutely love attending the G3 Conference. And the next one is this coming

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I am sure, and we will be in the month of January before you know it. The G3 Conference is being held at the

Georgia International Convention Center. In College Park, Georgia, which is a suburb of Atlanta.

And that's being held from Thursday, January 17th through Saturday, January 19th.

And the speakers on this roster, as always, is a very, very phenomenal lineup of speakers.

And that lineup includes Paul Washer, John Piper, David Platt, Stephen Lawson, Vody Baucom, Mark Dever, Conrad Mbewe, Tim Challies, Phil Johnson, Josh Bice, and quite a number of others,

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That's also the email address where you will send questions to our guest

Jeffrey D. Johnson, who has been our guest for the last hour, and will continue as our guest for the next 45 minutes or so.

We are discussing his book, The Pursuit of Glory, Finding Satisfaction in Christ Alone, and our email address again is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Did you want to add anything to what you were saying before the break, when you were specifically addressing one of the worst areas of suffering that people commonly experience on this planet, is when they lose someone they love dearly and deeply in death.

And I know the one thing that really comforted me, in fact this was specifically said to me when my mother died in 1995, and my pastor told me, just remember that no matter how much you loved your mother, and how much your mother loved you, she does not want to come back to this planet even to give you a hug.

She is experiencing such indescribable joy in the presence of Christ, that even as much as she loves you, she has no interest in coming back.

And that's something that has stuck in my mind ever since then, every time I face a loss like that, and has surely been a comfort when thinking about and missing my wife.

But did you have anything to add to what you were saying? Not really much more other than these things are very difficult percussions to go through.

I couldn't imagine what an unbeliever must go through with no, I mean it's difficult having hope.

What would it be like to not have hope? To go through these things and not have any hope of a life to come, to be reunited with the ones that were separated from.

It would be despairing, but thankfully we do mourn as the

Bible says. We mourn and it's right to mourn, but we don't mourn without those who do not have hope.

And that's the great joy of being a Christian is that our life is not in this world, our life is in the world to come.

We live not for temporal things, we live for eternal things.

And it's when our happiness is in heaven, our treasures are in heaven, that's where our heart will be, where our treasure is, that's where our heart is.

And that's the key to emotional control is keeping our treasures in a place that cannot be shaken.

Somebody can come in and steal them or take them away. And I've often said this, and this is kind of going off the subject a little bit, but it stays on topic with the book, is that we're prone the flesh and living for the body appetites.

We're prone to live for now. In fact, that's the slogan for Pepsi, live for now. And I can't really stand it because that's probably the slogan of Satan is like, live for this world.

In fact, it reminds me of a book that you probably have heard about,

Your Best Life Now by Joel Osteen, perhaps? Yeah, that's exactly right.

And it's putting your eggs into this basket. And some people live for retirement, which is better than living for the moment.

But so many people live no greater than the animals. Animals don't think about retirement.

They don't think about the future. They just live from one desire or one bodily appetite to the next bodily appetite.

And they go from craving to craving to craving. And in reality, if that's the way we live as humans, which we're made in God's image, so we're made for something greater than that.

If we're living from appetite to appetite, we get nowhere in life. And at the end of the day, or at the end of our life, we can't help but come to the conclusion that we've wasted it.

This life is over and we have nothing to show for it. But the key is living for something greater than now.

And that is living for a greater glory. And that's living for God, living for some eternal weight of glory that will never pass away.

And if that is our mission in life, boy, does it help us when we have a flat tire.

It helps us when the air conditioning goes out. It helps us with these daily trials that we face that are difficult.

I'm not trying to minimize the difficulties of stress of life, but even if it's worse than it gets worse, this life is short.

And we have something that's immeasurably, the things that are seen cannot be compared to the things which cannot be seen.

And our eyes must be constantly fixed upon that which cannot be seen. And when our eyes are fixed on glory, the things of this world do grow strangely dim.

And we do get a better perspective. And when our perspective is right, our value system is right, then that's when we're able to cope better with the good things of life and the bad things of life.

This is a question that is not exactly on the topic of your book, but it relates more to what we were discussing before the break and immediately after returning from the break.

We have Mary in Cork, Ireland, who asks, Do you believe that there are different stages in the grieving process, such as denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance, and one may get stuck in any of those stages for a period of time?

If so, how would you suggest one counsel someone to move on? Yeah, that's a good question.

You know, these are secular categories that secular psychiatrists have categorized by monitoring people's grief.

And there is something to be said of it. I don't dismiss the stages of grief altogether. I don't accept them altogether because sometimes people skip stages and so forth.

But as a whole, denial is the first stage. Denial is a common step.

It's a natural suppression of truth when the truth is not pleasant. People naturally suppress the knowledge of God or deny the knowledge of God.

It's real. It's objectively true, but people don't want to believe it's true because if there's a God, then that means they're accountable.

If they're accountable, that means they're in trouble. And so it's an unpleasant truth, so people suppress it.

If there's a tragedy in life, it's natural to go through denial.

I've seen that firsthand. I saw a mother who lost her only son to suicide on the funeral.

She threw herself on the casket of her boy and began to shake it. And I was just a high school student myself, watching my friend get buried and his mother on top of his casket, shaking it, saying, wake up,

Tony, wake up, Tony, wake up, Tony. And it left an impression upon my mind,

I'll never forget, that here's a mother that doesn't want to believe her son's dead, that the evidence is overwhelming.

And eventually she had to accept it because the facts were too convincing.

But I can understand why you would say, wake up, you can't be dead. This can't be true.

So I do believe that there are stages of denial. But in all counseling situations, it's truth that sets us free, not denial.

It's accepting the truth. Now, truth can be unpleasant and hard and difficult and bitter, and it can sting.

Death itself is an enemy. It's a glass enemy and there's a sting to it. And it is a hard pill to swallow.

But we help ourselves not by denying reality.

It's the truth that sets us free. And so it's important that we work through those stages.

And it won't be until we accept something as true, until we be able to move on to the next stage of grieving.

And that's where we really accept it and we embrace it. But that's where I think we truly grieve the loss.

And one thing I've said already, and I think we should say it again, grieving is good.

And it shows that we love someone. And so grieving is not something we want to skip, or it's not a stage that we want to say it's bad or wrong.

Jesus wept over Lazarus even though he knew he was going to raise him.

That's exactly right. And so you know,

I've taught anger management for almost 15 years. And the first class when the students come in,

I said, Hey, our goal is not to eradicate anger. It's to manage it. And that's the same thing with grief.

We don't want to eradicate it. We just want to manage it. And we want our grief or anger or anxiety, we don't want anxiety at all.

But our grief and our anger, we want that to be managed by our biblical values.

And of course, God would have us love our spouse, God would have us love our mother. And therefore, because we're called to love our mother, we're called to grieve the loss of our mother or wife when that happens.

Well, thank you, Mary and Cork, Ireland. And we know that there is an

American who will mail you the book that we are offering today.

Unfortunately, when we offer these books, we cannot give them away for free to those overseas because CVVBS .com

would go out of business if they were shipping books every week overseas to our listeners who are writing in with questions.

But thankfully, there is someone here in the United States who will be shipping that book out to you. So thank you very much for the excellent question.

And we have an anonymous question who the anonymous listener says, since experiencing expository preaching at a friend's

Southern Baptist church, after a cancer diagnosis via a woman,

I met at a Stonecroft Bible study group.

I have been growing in reform doctrines of grace. She is the wife of an elder and the teacher, but seldom stands up against heresy.

Consequently, a Catholic woman and her mother have taken over our Bible study.

And I have found that I cannot attend and interject discernment without being made fun of.

Although we are using John MacArthur's studies so far, Romans too.

Now that's very ironic that a Catholic woman would be leading a Bible study using a John MacArthur book.

I'm sure John would have something to say about that. Therefore, I have quit attending.

She is a Catholic who is learning, but still wanting to hold on and teach about a third of the time.

I am not in the loop to teach anymore. Anyway, I should have called during your show on Monday.

Well, nobody accepts phone calls during the show, but seldom listen live.

I am wondering how am I to proceed without malice. Seems God has led me out of this since they are all accepting of all the

New Age mystical so -called Christian books, etc. Also, I do not want to sit under a

Catholic. That's a very strange group to be having a Bible study with John MacArthur's material.

Yeah, it sounds strange indeed. Do you want to comment? Well, I think she's done really well to lead the group.

My advice in any of those scenarios is, or if someone's in a church of that nature, a Bible study of that nature, is if you're in there and you can make positive impact and people are listening and you have a platform, a voice, and you're making change, it may be your

God's means of changing people's lives and you to stand up for the truth in that scenario. But the

Bible makes it clear that if someone doesn't hear you the first time, they say it the second time. If they don't hear the second time, they have nothing to do with them.

And there comes a time when we're no longer an impact upon others. It's our responsibility to lead the group.

And if it's a group of that nature that's even heretical, I would do all that I could to influence people to leave with me because of the danger of heresy and the danger of heretical teaching.

So I really commend you for for leaving this group.

And it doesn't mean you have to be mean -spirited to the ladies. You can still be friendly towards them and seek to use what remaining friendship you have to counsel them in a biblical, a bit more biblical, right way if possible.

Well, the last thing that this anonymous listener asks is, have you ever examined Stonecroft Ministries?

No, when I heard that name, I was clueless about what kind of ministry that is.

Okay, well, we'll have to get back to you on that because I've never heard of it either. That's Stonecroft, S -T -O -N -E -C -R -O -F -T.

So God willing, we'll get back to you at some other point with an answer to that question because I don't know anything about it either.

Well, thank you very much, Anonymous. Please, off the air obviously, give us your full name and mailing address because you've also won a free copy of the book by our guest today,

The Pursuit of Glory, Finding Satisfaction in Christ Alone. Before we go to our final break, we have another question that is somewhat off topic again, but in fact it is some way involved in the topic.

Because of the fact that it involves somebody seeking happiness their own way, rather than God's way.

I think it can be connected to our topic. We have Pastor Samuel Bhopuri, who is the pastor of the

Reformed Baptist Church of Vinukonda, India, who I had the great pleasure of meeting at the

Banner of Truth conference. It was really amazing, actually. I sat down at a random table in the cafeteria during the lunch break and there was an

Indian gentleman already seated there and I had no idea who he was. He saw my name tag and he looked up at me and he said,

I am Pastor Samuel Bhopuri of the Reformed Baptist Church of Vinukonda, India, and I listened to your show and I have sent you questions.

He asks, can a pastor rightly marry an unbeliever to a believer and can a pastor rightly marry a believer to an unbaptized believer?

In fact, if you could, answer those questions when we return from our final break. You see, this way you have time to think that over during our break and if anybody else would like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, your city and state, your country of residence if you live outside the

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We are now back with our guest today, Jeffrey D. Johnson, and we are discussing his book,

The Pursuit of Glory, Finding Satisfaction in Christ Alone. And before the break, the final break, we had our listener in India, Pastor Samuel Bhopuri of the

Reform Baptist Church there in Vinukonda, and I hope I'm not mispronouncing the name too badly there in India, Vinukonda, but he had two questions that I think somehow in some way relate to what we're talking about.

He wanted to know, can a pastor rightly marry or perform the marriage ceremony, obviously, for a believer and an unbeliever getting married and also for a believer and an unbaptized believer?

Yeah, the answer to the first question is easier than the second one. The first one is, at least for my conscience,

I could not, because it's prohibited in scriptures. It tells us clearly, do not be unequally yoked, what does the light have to do with darkness?

So it's saying it's sinful, and the reason it's sinful is for two reasons.

One, it's going to bring havoc to the marriage. You're creating a marriage problem before the marriage begins, with two different worldviews colliding together and two different purposes in life trying to come together, because a marriage is meant to be one union with one purpose.

And if you're, carry out that purpose. Now, if you're converted in that unbelieving marriage or unbelieving spouse and you're converted, you're to remain married, the

Bible says, and God can give grace in those scenarios, but you don't purposely, knowingly enter into that scenario.

And as a pastor, you could not condone that and assist in forming a wedding that is prohibited by God.

But there's even a more important reason why we shouldn't do that, is because it doesn't represent

Christ in the church properly. And so it doesn't bring

God glory. So the answer to that first one is no. The second question, could you marry someone who's been baptized as a believer and someone who has not been baptized as a believer?

That one's a little more tricky, because you may be thinking about a couple, you have to dig into the scenario a little bit more.

Does the baptized believer, so it's two Christians wanting to get married, but one hasn't been baptized as a believer, is it a

Presbyterian? I can see that scenario happening, a Baptist marrying a Presbyterian.

Happens all the time. Sometimes much to the dismay of one of those pastors, depending on where the couple winds up.

Right, right, right. So, I mean, in that case, it's not the best scenario.

I don't know if I would prohibit it. I don't know if it's advisable. Maybe all things are lawful, but not all things are profitable.

Might fit into that category. But I wouldn't prohibit that.

But if it was someone that, let's say, is claiming to be a new Christian, but doesn't want to be baptized, then in that scenario,

I'd have to question if they're a real Christian, if they don't want to follow the Lord in baptism. And so I can't be convinced that that person's a believer until they're submitted to the commands of Christ.

So I may have to treat that as a believer being married, wanting to marry an unbeliever. So you'd have to really dig into the scenario, and it'd take a lot of wisdom to discern the real motive behind why someone doesn't want to be baptized.

And just very quickly, out of curiosity, how about a Reformed Baptist, for instance, marrying a

Quaker who doesn't believe in baptism at all? Water baptism, that is. Yeah, I suppose that happens.

Or actually, or should I say, I'll bring it more into the realm of evangelical

Christianity, a Salvation Army member. Right, right. Yeah, those are things that, for me,

I would be really questioning the person's faith. And I'm not saying people can't be a

Christian if they're not a Reformed Baptist, by no means. There are many, many Christians outside the Reformed Baptism, Presbyterian brothers and sisters in the

Lord. But that's what I want to really discern. Is this person a true believer?

And does this person truly understand the gospel? Because many, many people claim to be Christians. But the command is not to be an idiot.

And just because someone has the name Christian to them, does it mean they're truly a

Christian? And so if I knew that someone in my church was a believer and they wanted to marry someone that I wasn't sure of,

I would want to do some premarital counseling. Which I do anyway, but I really would press that and want to do a lot of research and find out if this person truly believes the

Lord and make sure that they've discovered, talked through their theological differences and worked out who's, if the head's, the man's going to be the head of the home and the spiritual leader, discern what implications that would have upon the other spouse.

So maybe I'd be more lenient if it was a Reformed Baptist man marrying a true

Christian that had some theological differences, but she was willing to come underneath the husband.

That would be maybe a little different. And before we go on to a question from another listener that is actually more directly related to your book, as I was saying, isn't this really though related in the fact, especially when you're talking about a believer marrying an unbeliever, or wanting to, isn't that a part of the pursuit of happiness in a wrong way?

You are seeking to do something that God has prohibited. You're seeking to do things your way rather than God's way.

You may be convinced that you're going to be used of God to convert the unbeliever, and there have been occasions where that has happened, but that doesn't mean that just because it's happened that it's a good thing.

In fact, there are probably many more examples of nightmares coming out of those situations. But anyway.

That's exactly right. Good way to tie that together, because I have a chapter, one of my chapters is one of these longings of a soul that's stalled or in man's soul by God himself is the pursuit of companionship, friendship.

God, even in the unfallen state, Adam wasn't made to be alone. He was incomplete, and he needed a helper.

He needed a helpmate. He needed a companion, and that's what marriage is. It's a lifelong companionship, a covenant companionship, and we're made for marriage under normal circumstances.

There can be the gifts of singleness, but that's a very rare gift. And so for most of us, we need companionship, and God's made us for that.

One of the things I talk about in the book is for every legitimate need we have, and that's the need of the desires of the soul and the desires of the body, if that's during clothing and basic necessities.

All legitimate needs, God has provided for both body and soul legitimate fulfillments and legitimate satisfaction, and it's only when we obey

God and submit ourselves to the legitimate satisfaction are we going to be fulfilled. In fact,

I would say this, that a Christian is the one who truly can enjoy his food to the fullest.

A non -believer may not allow his food, and the food's going to be disappointing. Disappointing.

Let's say, and this is true of marriage. Many, many unbelievers make marriage the sole purpose of life.

It is an important purpose, but it's not the purpose. Many unbelievers make an idol out of marriage, and what happens when you make an idol out of a secondary fulfillment is always going to be unsatisfactory.

It's not going to fulfill that deep longing that only God can fill, and so you're going to be miserable. So some people look for happiness in food and drink or in money and riches and fame and fortune, but even if they got it, it's going to be empty.

In fact, they're going to fall way short. It's not just they almost got happiness. It's going to make them more bitter, more envious, more jealous, more discontent, and it fuels the flame, and that makes them dive even deeper often into the pursuit of these things in the wrong direction.

But the real Christian who has Christ, who is satisfied with Christ, who can enjoy a steak or a hot dog, either way he can give

God thanks, and he knows it's the giver of the gift that is precious, and that makes the gift all the more enjoyable because you're not looking for the gift to give you ultimate satisfaction.

You're looking for that gift just to give you a measure of temporal pleasure that shoots your heart and your affections and your love back to a greater objective, and that's the creator, the giver of that gift.

And so God's made earthly enjoyments for us, and he's made all things for us to richly enjoy, so it's not wrong to enjoy the world.

It's wrong to make an idol out of the world, and many people have made idols out of marriage, and in so doing they end up all the more miserable.

Yes, I hope my friend James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries is listening. I know that he's going to be debating a

Roman Catholic in Belfast, but I wonder if he ever would give thanks for Chinese food because he refuses to eat it.

That's the way I feel about coconut. But now we have a question directly on the title or the theme.

We have Joey in Clifton, New Jersey, who says, Dear Pastor Jeffrey, thank you for bringing forth this most important truth about the glory of God.

It should be our primary pursuit in joy. I would like to ask your further thoughts on your concept that we try to fill our spiritual desires with desires that are more physical in nature.

It is clear that some desires are inherently more related to bodily appetites, and people tend to pursue those even to the exclusion of the spiritual.

I think you meant the comment in this sense. I bring this up because in another sense, all desires can be thought of as being spiritual in nature, even those that relate to the physical body.

So can you please be a little more specific as to how such distinctions are made biblically?

Yeah, that's a very good distinction, and I'm glad the listener brought that up. And that's kind of where I was going at that last moment, is that we distinguish between body and soul, but God's made us to be both body and soul, and the body is not evil.

We don't believe in just becoming a monk and doing away with all bodily pleasures and appetites.

In fact, I love bluebell ice cream. I love steak. I love shrimp. I love these things. I love where I live.

I love my house. I love many of the blessings that God has richly given me.

I enjoy, and I think a true Christian can enjoy these things even greater than the unbeliever because his priorities are right.

But here's the difference between a Christian. He can live with it and enjoy it, and he can be content with little, or he can be content with much, and either way you have to learn contentment.

But the bodily things are not evil, and we don't have to, just for the sake of being a holy

Christian and spiritual, we don't have to get rid of everything we have and become a monk. That's may appear to be godly, but it denies the real power of godliness.

Real godliness is having our ultimate hope in God and in the things above where the things of this world are in their proper place.

It's not demoting them so low that you despise them, but nor is it elevating them until you make idols.

It's putting them in their right place, and only when God is at the top and then your relationships with your spouse, if you're married, or your children, and do your church family, and you have your priorities in place, the biblical priorities, are you able to really enjoy life to the fullest and be able to traverse the good days and the bad days in a way that pleases

God and know that your life has purpose, your life has meaning, and you can be a janitor or you can be a king.

It doesn't matter if you're rich or you're poor or you're famous or you're obscure. All that is not where glory is found.

Real glory is found in the Lord and knowing that you're pleasing Him and living for Him and that your life has purpose and your life has meaning and has value, but your glory is not in yourself.

Again, it's not selfishness. Your glory is in loving God and glorifying Him and enjoying

Him forever, and that's real glory indeed. Thank you, Joey, in Clifton, New Jersey.

Please make sure we have your full mailing address, because you've also won a free copy of the book.

We are addressing the pursuit of glory, finding satisfaction in Christ alone, by our guest Jeffrey D.

Johnston. Thank you so much for contributing such an excellent question or series of questions, and let's see.

Well, I want to get to a couple of the chapters in this book.

A pursuit of freedom, that is something that, again, may be wrongly interpreted by people who are seeking to a sin that grace may more abound.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But explain exactly what you're talking about. Well, in that chapter,

I explained how God's made it another one of those innate desires that God's put in us all.

We all want to be free. No one wants to be a slave. No one wants to be held bondage or captivated.

We all want to do what we really want to do, and we want to do it when we want to do it without any restrictions, and that is true.

But you realize that that pursuit of freedom that the world wants to pursue because of their sinful nature, in the world, because of the sinful nature, it inflates.

Sin always brings you into captivity. But think about the freedom we have in heaven. In heaven, there's no law telling you, slow down.

There's no law telling you to don't do that, don't do that, this. Because in heaven, everybody at all times gets to do what they want to do, only what they want to do, when they want to do it, without any restrictions to the foolish measure, just live up to everything you want to do.

But when your heart is right, when you have a new nature, when you're glorified, when there's no sin in your life, that's truly when you have the fullest freedom of being able to do exactly what you want to do, but what you want to do doesn't bring other people into bondage, and it doesn't self -enslave yourself.

But while we live in this world, and especially struggling with the sin nature, as we do, it's sin that's enslaving, it's sin that destroys freedom.

And so we can have political freedom, but be a slave to something even greater. And that's the way the world is.

The world, the people who are born, even if they're born in America or born in Cuba, Americans have a little more freedom than the

Cubans do, but either or, we're all born enslaved into a greater master, who is the prince, the power of the air, and sin itself is always self -destructive.

And so in that chapter, I talked about how true freedom comes with the law. The law points us to where freedom is, but the law doesn't enable us or give us freedom.

So if we're going to be free, we have to obey the law, but the law doesn't empower us to keep it. So to have real freedom, we need the

Holy Spirit. And only by walking in the Spirit and not in the flesh do we have the power to walk in the freedom that God has called us to walk into and walk with.

So it's not antinomianism. It's not, do away with sin that grace may abound, or let sin just be free.

In fact, that slavery is rather than, let's obey

God and let's live for God, and when we do it with our love, not with just our actions, but when our hearts is changed by the gospel, when we get to do what we want to do, which is to love

God, and when loving God is enjoying God, and you can't separate loving God and glorifying

God with enjoying God, then we experience real freedom. Amen.

I just immediately thought of something that is attributed very often to John Bunyan, although I don't know if anybody ever confirmed that he wrote it, but the poem or lyrics to a song or however you want to utilize it, but Run John, run the law commands, but gives me neither feet nor hands.

Far better news the gospel brings, it bids us fly and gives us wings.

Yeah, that's great. That's exactly what I'm talking about. Amen. And the other pursuit that seems to have gotten diminished to a very low rung on the ladder of importance is the pursuit of truth.

We're living in a day and age where if you think that doctrine and theology are extremely vital, that you are really a legalist and you are a pharisee and that we've got to lift up Jesus with everybody who says they love

Jesus and stop being so worried about doctrine and theology, but isn't that really an absurd and unbiblical notion?

Because the Apostle Paul would have been looking forward to the Judaizers joining in the ranks of those spreading the gospel, if he thought that, because from what we know, the

Judaizers agreed with him on almost everything except that they required circumcision, and Paul viewed that one area as enough to consider them false

Christians. That's exactly right. You know, it's crazy that people want to minimize doctrine or say doctrine's not important, when what they're saying, another term for doctrine is truth.

It's like saying truth is not important, and to say truth is not important is like saying light is not important.

It's like saying darkness and ignorance, even stupidity, is okay, and those things are not okay.

In fact, again, I start the chapter like I start every chapter, is that God put it in us to want to know, and there's two things that we all want to know, and these two things that we want to know are, as John Calvin says, are interconnected, where you can't know one without knowing the other, and that is, we want to know

God, and that's ultimate reality. That's in us all. What is ultimate? What is God?

And the second thing we want to know is, who am I? And those are just internal questions that everyone has built within them.

They're like innate pursuits. Who is God, and who am I? And the problem is, because these things are interconnected, because I don't like myself, and that's man's guilt, because man's got sin, he doesn't like God.

Or it could be said this, because man doesn't like God, he doesn't like what he sees in himself, because he sees that he's a sinner, and God is holy, and when you contrast an unholy person with a holy

God, those are scary comparisons, and so because of that, man suppressed the truth about God, and he has a desire to suppress the truth about himself.

So I talk about how man has his innate desire to know, but is also born with this, because of the sin nature, a conflict of he doesn't like what he learns when he investigates these questions, and the answer to this dilemma of,

I want to know, but I also don't want to know, I want to know, but I want to suppress the truth when I find out about who

God is and who I am. The truth is, the answer to that is Jesus Christ, because we're not going to accept the holiness of God, and the justice of God, until we see the cross, and only when we can see the cross, because it's the goodness of God that leads us to repentance.

When we see Jesus, we can see a just God, who's merciful, and once we can accept that God is just through Christ Jesus, then we can accept, hey,

I can embrace that I'm a nobody. I can embrace the fact that I'm a sinner, that I'm worthless. I embrace that, because I embrace this gift that God has given me in Jesus Christ.

So through the knowledge of Jesus Christ, gives us really a knowledge of God, and it allows us to accept the knowledge itself.

And I know that I want you back to go over some of these other pursuits under the heading of the pursuit of glory, because a couple of them could last a two -hour interview for sure, but I want to conclude right now anyway with the pursuit of peace.

Recently, in fact it was the Sunday before Memorial Day, I preached at a men's shelter,

Bethesda Mission in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and I tied in the theme of Memorial Day that Christ purchased an infinitely greater freedom for his people than the greatest of war heroes purchased for their people.

And one of the key reasons that we could say that is that the peace that Christ purchased on Calvary is a perfect peace, where we see our nation and the world being involved in war after war after war, but there is a perfection in the peace found in the cross.

But if you could elaborate on your chapter there just for about a minute before we run out of time. Yeah, thanks

Chris. You're exactly right. We all long for peace. We cry out for peace.

We want peace, but we're an enemy with God, naturally, without the gospel. We are at war with God.

We're at war with our neighbor, and sadly we're at war with ourselves. The Bible says there's no peace for the wicked, and so the

Bible says, where do wars and fights and feuds come from among you? Do they not come from this that you lust and you do not have?

And the real lack of peace comes from a lack of happiness.

We're not satisfied. The people of the world are just craving after these things, and that's what makes them jealous and envious, and it makes them filled with all the works of the flesh, and they're miserable.

It's self -defeating, and they're filled with all these vile, bitter feelings and emotions, and it's because they just can't get what they want, and they don't have peace.

And so peace comes from not getting what we want, and two, it's this fact that we have this guilt because of our sins, and we don't have peace with God, and again, that chapter ends with all, like all the other chapters,

Christ is the solution. He offers us peace, and not just any type of peace.

Peace is not just the absence of war. It's not pantheism or Hinduism, where you go into a state of Nirvana, where you cease to exist as an individual consciousness.

Real peace is having individual consciences or individual people loving one another in harmony, and God has promised us not just peace.

He's promised to enter into that unity of the peace between the Father, the Son, and the

Holy Spirit, and we can enter into that relationship and enjoy that peace.

It is a peace that we we long for, but in this world have not and cannot fully experience until we get to glory.

Amen, and we're out of time, brother, and I know that your website once again for the

Grace Bible Church of Conway, Arkansas is gbcconway .com,

gbcconway .com, and the Grace Bible Institute website is gracebible .institute,

gracebible .institute. I want to thank you so much, Pastor Jeff, for being our guest today.

I look forward to your return very soon, and I want you all always to remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater