How to Count Like Jesus

Dear Cities Church,

I love you. 

I say that for myself, and I know I can say it on behalf of the whole pastoral team as well: we love you.

It’s fresh because yesterday I was at a quick one-day pastors conference in Phoenix. Four of us each took one chapter of Philippians. Pastor Dane Ortlund had chapter 4 and lingered over verse 1, marveling how Paul gushed with affection for the Philippians. He didn’t just tell them to “stand firm in the Lord,” but in doing so, Paul addressed them as “my brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown . . . my beloved.” Dane encouraged us pastors to be like Paul: really love our people, and let them know we love them.

I flew home last night newly excited to be back with you this weekend in worship, and to express my love, because I, and we as your pastors, dearly love you.

My assignment at the conference was Philippians 2, and having Hebrews on the brain, I couldn’t help but see the similarities between the Christ hymn in Philippians 2:5–11 and Jesus enduring the cross “for the joy set before him” in Hebrews 12:2 — which is our text for this weekend.

So, to get ready for Sunday, let me point to something here that Jonathan won’t have time for in the coming sermon. Let’s ask about “the joy set before him.” What foretaste of joy, or joys, could endure the cross? I want to endure as a pastor, and as a Christian, in that joy — the one, or ones, that sustained Jesus.

Glory, Victory, and Love

The Gospel of John gives us the most glimpses into the mind of Christ as he readied himself for the cross and counted not only the costs, but the joys. Two particular sections speak to the substance and shades of his joy as he owned and embraced the cross in the hours leading up to his sacrifice.

The first is John 12:27–33, not long after Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Previously, Jesus had said “his hour” had not yet come (John 2:4; 7:30; 8:20). Now he owns that it has:

“Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” (John 12:27–28)

Here we find a first source of his joy: the glory of his Father. This is the first motivation he vocalizes. He had lived to his Father’s glory (not his own, John 8:50), and now, as the cross fast approaches, he prays first for this, and receives the affirmation of an immediate answer from heaven: “I have glorified [my name in your life], and I will glorify it again [in and through your death, even death on a cross].”

Next comes a second joy: what the cross will achieve over the ancient foe. John 12:31: “Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out.” Satan, whom Paul would call “the god of this world” (2 Corinthians 4:4) and “the prince of the power of the air” (Ephesians 2:2), would be decisively unseated as “ruler of this world,” and Jesus would experience the joy of unseating him, and being his Father’s instrument to “disarm the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them” (Colossians 2:15) at the cross. Do you think Jesus might be happy to be the one to cast out Satan?

In John 12:32, Jesus mentions a third joy: the saving of his people. “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He would be lifted up from the earth — which first meant being lifted up to the cross (as John 12:33 immediately adds). Make no mistake, in the “joy set before him” was the joy of love. He had come to save (John 12:47), and on that Thursday night, he would wash his disciples’ feet to show them the love that, in real measure, sent him to the cross. John 13:1: “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.”

Joy of Coming Glory

The second passage is Jesus’s high-priestly prayer in John 17. On the very night when he gave himself into custody, he echoes two of the joys already introduced, and adds one further “joy set before him” that brings us back to Hebrews 12:2.

First, Jesus prays explicitly about sharing his own joy, and that (again) as an expression of his love, John 17:13: “These things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves.”

Jesus’s joy — deep enough, thick enough, rich enough to carry him to and through the cross — will not only be his, but he will put it in his people, through both his words and sacrificial work, John 15:11: “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” This is love: it was his joy to share his joy to increase their joy.

Second, Jesus also prays in John 17 in anticipation of his Father’s glory. He recalls that his life has been devoted to his Father’s glory, to making known his name (John 17:4, 6, 26). 

But now, in the consecration of prayer, and on his final evening before the cross, he prays, third, for his own exaltation:

“Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you. . . . Now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. (John 17:1, 5)

Misunderstand the holiness of Christ, and of this moment, and we will misunderstand this culminating joy: returning to his Father, and being seated, as the God-man, with his work accomplished, on the throne of the universe. The joy of being enthroned in heaven — glorified — at the right hand of his Father, will not come any other way than through, and because of, the cross. And his exaltation and enthronement will mean not only personal honor but personal nearness (he says “in your own presence” and “with you” in 17:5). “At the right hand” is the seat of both honor and proximity to his Father. Jesus wanted not only to have heaven’s throne but again to have his Father.

And this coming exaltation, with its nearness, is the particular joy that Hebrews 12:2 points to: “For the joy that was set before him [Jesus] endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”

So, my beloved Cities Church, let’s learn from our Savior not only to count the costs, but count the joys. Let’s endure like him, looking to the reward of finishing our course, and the reward of the glory to come, and the nearness we’ll soon have to him and his Father. 

For us as Christians, enduring the challenges and distresses of this life by looking to the coming glory — and how happy we will be — is not only optional; it’s essential.

With great affection,

Pastor David Mathis