For the Joy Set Before Him
I’ve spent most of my life feeling like Charlie Brown.
I’ve spent most of my life feeling like Charlie Brown.
You know the scene. He runs at the football. Lucy holds it. He believes this time will be different.
It never is.
Five kids in eight years. Entry-level jobs stacked on top of each other. Bible college dropout. Small country churches. Tent revivals and camp meetings and church plants in towns most people have never heard of.
Always running. Always believing. Always flat on my back wondering what I missed.
First-generation Christian. No manual. No father who’d walked this road before me. Just cute bumper stickers that said the Bible was “Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth.”
Turns out that’s not how it works.
I did everything I knew to do. Preached. Served. Moved my family across state lines chasing something I couldn’t name. Helped plant a church on the highline of Montana where the wind never stops and the winters break men.
And still…
That feeling. Like I was outside the window watching everyone else figure out what I couldn’t.
Like maybe God made a mistake.
Like maybe the joy set before Him... wasn’t me.
So I went looking.
Not for comfort. Not for a verse to slap on my dashboard.
I went looking for proof.
Proof that He hadn’t wasted His time. Proof that the guy who dropped out, who couldn’t make the finances work, who felt like a fraud every Sunday morning…
Proof that guy was worth what it cost.
I started at the beginning.
Eden. Before the Blood.
He walked with them in the cool of the day.
Not above them. Not through messengers. Not from a distance.
With them.
Feet in the same dirt. Voice in the same air.
Adam heard God’s footsteps before he heard His voice.
That’s intimacy. That’s what it was supposed to be.
Then the fruit. Then the lie. Then the hiding.
And God came walking anyway.
“Where are you?”
He already knew. He asked because He wanted them to answer.
They chose fig leaves instead.
I know fig leaves. I’ve worn them my whole life. Covering failure with activity. Hiding inadequacy behind another sermon, another job, another move.
And still…
He made them clothes from animal skin. First blood shed. His hands doing the killing. Covering their shame with something that cost a life.
He could have ended it there.
Started over. Burned it down. Walked away.
He didn’t.
Babel. The Second Scattering.
They built a tower to reach Him.
Bricks and tar and pride stacked toward heaven.
“Let us make a name for ourselves.”
Not His name. Theirs.
He came down to see it.
The text says that. He “came down.” The tower they thought touched heaven didn’t even reach His footstool.
I’ve built towers. Career plans that would prove I wasn’t a failure. Ministry strategies that would finally make the numbers work. Reputation management disguised as faithfulness.
All of them—bricks and tar.
He could have crushed it. Could have burned them where they stood.
Instead—
Scattered tongues. Confused languages. Dispersed across the earth.
Mercy disguised as judgment.
Because a unified humanity without God isn’t progress.
It’s a faster road to hell.
He broke their project to save their souls.
Maybe He broke some of mine for the same reason.
The Bush. The Desert. The Cry.
Four hundred years of silence.
His people in chains. Egyptian whips on Hebrew backs. Children drowned in the Nile.
And God?
Heard every scream.
“I have surely seen the affliction of my people... I have heard their cry... I know their sufferings.”
Seen. Heard. Known.
Not distant. Not indifferent.
Burning.
A bush on fire that didn’t turn to ash. A voice from the flames.
Moses hiding his face. Afraid to look.
“I AM WHO I AM.”
He didn’t say “I WAS” or “I WILL BE.”
I AM. Present tense. Right there. Right now.
In the desert. In the silence. In the years that felt like God had forgotten my address—
He was burning the whole time.
Waiting for a man broken enough to carry the message.
Moses was a murderer hiding in the desert. Eighty years old. Done. Finished.
God’s first choice.
The Exodus. The Blood on the Door.
A lamb for each household. Throat cut. Blood drained.
Smear it on the doorposts. Stay inside. Wait for death to pass.
Every firstborn in Egypt—dead by morning.
But the houses with blood?
Untouched.
The angel didn’t check their hearts. Didn’t ask about their intentions. Didn’t measure their faith.
He saw the blood or He didn’t.
That’s it.
Salvation has always been this simple.
This offensive.
This dependent on something dying in your place.
Not your effort. Not your track record. Not whether you finished Bible college or made the church plant work.
Blood. That’s the only thing the angel was looking for.
The Wilderness. The Tablets. The Calf.
Forty days on the mountain.
Moses face-to-face with the Almighty. Stone tablets. Ten words. The covenant in writing.
Meanwhile…
The people melted their jewelry. Built a golden calf. Danced naked around it.
“These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you out of Egypt.”
Forty days.
They couldn’t wait forty days.
I’ve been that impatient. Couldn’t wait for God’s timing so I forced my own. Dropped out of college because I couldn’t wait. Took jobs I shouldn’t have because I couldn’t wait. Made decisions from panic instead of peace.
Moses came down. Saw it. Shattered the tablets.
Three thousand dead before sundown.
And God?
“Let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them.”
He was done. Ready to start over. One man. New nation.
Moses stood in the gap. Argued. Pleaded. Reminded.
God relented.
Not because the people deserved it.
Because one man interceded.
Always the pattern. Always the preview.
One standing for many. One absorbing what many deserved.
The Kings. The Cycle. The Betrayal.
They wanted a king like the other nations.
God said: “They have rejected me from being king over them.”
He gave them what they wanted.
Saul. Tall. Handsome. Empty.
David. Bloody. Broken. After God’s own heart.
Solomon. Wise. Wealthy. Seven hundred wives pulling him toward other gods.
Then the split. Then the slide.
King after king after king.
Some good. Most not.
And still—
He sent prophets.
The Prophets. The Rejected.
Isaiah walked naked for three years. A sign. A warning.
Nobody listened.
Jeremiah wept until they called him crazy. Thrown in a pit. Left to die in mud.
Nobody listened.
Ezekiel lay on his side for 390 days. Cooked food over dung. Acted out sieges with toys.
Nobody listened.
They killed them.
Stoned them. Sawed them in half. Mocked them. Imprisoned them.
The very voices God sent to save them—
Silenced.
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you...”
That’s Jesus weeping. That’s God in flesh watching the pattern repeat.
They murdered everyone He sent.
So He sent Himself.
The Silence. Four Hundred Years. Again.
Malachi closes. Heaven goes quiet.
No prophets. No pillars of fire. No voice from the mountain.
Four hundred years of nothing.
I know what four years of silence feels like. Can’t imagine four hundred.
Empires rise and fall. Greece. Rome. Caesar on a throne.
Israel under boots again.
Waiting.
For a king. A warrior. A revolution.
They got a teenage girl and a dream.
The Manger. The Scandal. The Stench.
Not a palace.
Not even a room.
A feeding trough. Animal spit and hay. The smell of manure where God took His first breath of earth air.
Mary—maybe fifteen. Unwed. Pregnant. One dream away from being stoned.
Joseph—a nobody from nowhere. Calloused hands. No connections. No money.
The King of the universe slid into the world through poverty.
On purpose.
I’ve felt that poverty. Not the kind that makes the news. The kind that makes you ashamed at the grocery store. The kind that makes you wonder if you’re failing your kids by not providing more.
And God chose it.
The angels told shepherds first. Not priests. Not kings.
Shepherds.
Night shift workers. Socially invisible. Ritually unclean.
“For unto you is born this day a Savior.”
Unto YOU.
The ones nobody invited. The ones who smelled like sheep.
Heaven’s first announcement wasn’t to the religious.
It was to the forgotten.
Nazareth. The Hidden Years. The Sawdust.
Thirty years of silence.
Thirty years of splinters and sawdust. Ordinary work. Ordinary town.
“Can anything good come from Nazareth?”
That was the reputation. Backwater. Irrelevant. Despised.
God incarnate learned a trade from a man who wasn’t His biological father.
Measured wood. Cut joints. Delivered furniture.
Collected payment. Haggled prices. Dealt with difficult customers.
Thirty years.
No miracles recorded. No sermons. No crowds.
Just presence.
Just showing up.
I’ve done thirty years of showing up. Entry-level jobs that didn’t match the calling I felt. Years where nothing visible was happening. Years that felt wasted.
Maybe they weren’t.
Maybe showing up is the sermon.
The Table. The Tears. The Hair.
A Pharisee’s house. Important guests. Clean floors.
Then she walked in.
The woman everyone knew about. The one mothers warned daughters about.
She didn’t ask permission.
Fell at His feet. Tears streaming. Couldn’t stop.
Washed His feet with her weeping. Dried them with her hair.
The Pharisee watched in disgust.
“If this man were a prophet, He would know what kind of woman this is.”
Jesus knew.
That’s why He didn’t move.
“Her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much.”
She brought what she had. A broken reputation. A bottle of perfume. Every tear she’d been holding.
He received it like a king receiving tribute.
Because He was.
And she knew it before the disciples did.
The Garden. The Sweat. The Blood.
Thursday night. Passover finished. Wine still on His lips.
He knew what Friday held.
“My soul is very sorrowful, even to death.”
That’s God in human flesh asking His friends to stay awake.
They slept.
He sweat blood. Literal blood. Capillaries bursting under the weight of what was coming.
“Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me.”
The cup didn’t pass.
Angels strengthened Him. Not to escape. To endure.
Judas came with a kiss. Soldiers with torches. Disciples scattered like roaches when the light comes on.
Alone.
The One who walked in the cool of the day.
Alone.
The Trial. The Spit. The Silence.
They blindfolded Him. Punched Him. Mocked Him.
“Prophesy! Who hit you?”
He didn’t answer.
They accused Him of blasphemy. The only One who couldn’t blaspheme—accused of it.
Pilate found no fault.
“I find no guilt in this man.”
The crowd didn’t care.
“Crucify Him.”
They chose Barabbas. A murderer walked free.
The innocent One walked to Golgotha.
The Cross. The Nails. The Weight.
Roman crucifixion was designed for one thing:
Maximum pain. Maximum shame. Maximum time.
They stripped Him naked. Drove spikes through nerve clusters.
Hung Him where everyone could see.
Mocked Him while He suffocated.
“He saved others; He cannot save Himself.”
He could have.
Twelve legions of angels on standby. One word and it’s over.
He didn’t say the word.
“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
That’s the first thing out of His mouth.
Forgiveness for the hands that held the hammer.
The Darkness. The Cry. The Tearing.
Noon to 3 PM. The sun quit.
Darkness covered the land.
Then—
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
The only time He didn’t say “Father.”
Because in that moment, He wasn’t the Son.
He was sin.
Your sin. My sin. Every sin.
The Father turned His face.
And the Son absorbed the full weight of eternal separation so you would never have to.
“It is finished.”
Not “I am finished.” IT.
The thing He came to do. Complete.
The temple veil ripped. Top to bottom. God’s hand tearing the barrier.
No more separation. No more priests standing between.
The way is open.
It cost Him everything to open it.
The Joy Set Before Him.
Hebrews 12:2.
“For the joy set before Him, He endured the cross, despising the shame.”
What joy?
What could be worth Eden’s loss? Babel’s arrogance? Egypt’s silence? Israel’s adultery? The prophets’ blood? The mocking? The nails? The darkness? The Father’s turned face?
What joy justifies the journey from throne room to tomb?
I found my answer in a small house in North Dakota.
After all the moves. After all the failures. After all the tent revivals that didn’t revive and the church plants that didn’t grow and the jobs that didn’t pay.
After feeling like Charlie Brown my whole life.
The joy set before Him—
Was me.
Not the version of me I wished I was. Not the guy who finished Bible college and pastored a megachurch and had his finances figured out.
Me.
The dropout. The guy who moved his family too many times. The first-generation Christian with no manual and no map.
Me.
And if it’s me…
If the God who walked with Adam and burned in bushes and sent prophets and lay in a manger and sweat blood and hung naked on Roman wood…
If that God looked at the cross and saw ME on the other side and called it joy
Then it’s you too.
The Invitation.
He’s still walking in the cool of the day.
Still asking “Where are you?”
Still burning in bushes. Still speaking through prophets. Still receiving broken people with nothing but tears.
Still enduring.
For you.
The question isn’t whether He wants you.
He settled that on a hill outside Jerusalem.
The question is whether you’ll stop running at the football expecting different results.
Whether you’ll stop hiding behind fig leaves of performance.
Whether you’ll let Him clothe you in something that cost a life.
His life.
You’re not Charlie Brown.
You’re the joy set before Him.
He didn’t make a mistake.
He made a choice.
And He chose you.
I'm tired of autism, every day is an absolute nightmare, I can't even be in church or talk to people in real life as my nervous system sabotages me in ways only God will ever know. All I have is the Bible and talking to God, and quotes from old wise Christian men who wrote during their same struggles. I thank the Lord I'm not out having the time of my life somewhere on a million dollar boat surrounded by people who love me, but not knowing Him. I count it all as loss. I found the treasure in the field.
“When a man’s eye is closed on Christ and the eternal world, he cannot stand the shock of his afflictions; but if his eyes clearly see Jesus, you may take away houses and lands, his dearest earthly possessions, his loved ones, still his chief treasure is untouched.”
– Robert Murray M’Cheyne
“Lord, wean me from my sins, from my cares, and from this passing world. May Christ be all in all to me.”
-- Robert Murray M’Cheyne
"Believe to the end, even if all men went astray and you were left the only one faithful; bring your offering even then and praise God in your loneliness."
– Fyodor Dostoevsky
“Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, But trust Him for His grace; Behind a frowning providence He hides a smiling face. His purposes will ripen fast, Unfolding every hour; The bud may have a bitter taste, But sweet will be the flow’r.”
– William Cowper
I don’t know how you do it. You are certainly a conduit of the messages from God. I relate to you in many ways. All of the jobs failed. Starting over and starting to look well, replacing losses only to lose another job and to have to sell everything to live and start over again. What women puts up with that? None of them. Seven by my count. The last one twice and she had no reason to leave the second time. That broke me. I sit here listening to praise music on Pandora and I read your eloquent sermon. Seeing so much of myself in your experiences and sad because I don’t have a Christie. I appreciate you and thank you for connecting with me on a level that is a dead on accurate sniper shot. I’m not going to do it today. I think instead I’m going to live and see what my precious Lord has going on. Maybe I’ll do something right. Stranger things have happened. Thank you Adam.