Why should Christians fight against abortion if we don’t think it will be banned?

photo via www.guardian.co.uk

John Piper:

The reason we stand against the killing of babies is not because victory in a fallen world is likely. We fight because the nature of the sin is so public, and so egregious, and so contradictory to what enables a society to flourish, and so offensive to God, and so contrary to the spirit and precepts of the Bible, and so driven by motives that reveal unbelief in the word of God, that it would be a sin not to stand up and resist, in whatever way the Lord leads.

Read the article in its entirety here- http://www.desiringgod.org

John Piper – Advance ’13 Conference Message – Nobody will sustain authentic love for the world who is not profoundly satisfied in Jesus

The Christian Post: One of the most popular re-tweeted statements from Piper’s message found under the conference Twitter hashtag #advance13 was “Nobody will sustain authentic love for the world who is not profoundly satisfied in Jesus.”

Having your own hunger for God is an essential foundation for ministry work, well-known pastor and theologian John Piper told those attending and watching the Internet livestream of a Christian leadership conference held in Raleigh, N.C. on Tuesday.

“The foundation of your ministry is a hunger for God,” said Piper at the Advance 13 conference. “Above that, the foundation for your ministry is being satisfied in all that God is for you in Jesus. The goal of that ministry is to help people go there. All your life, give yourself to that – to bring those people from loving the world, being satisfied in the world, until they put all that to death and to praise Jesus as their all satisfying treasure. That’s the goal in ministry, to help them get there.”

Piper, whose last sermon as the lead pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis will be on Easter Sunday, said he believes that ministry leaders should have the joy of Christ inside them in order to lead well.

“Whether or not a hunger for God is an essential foundation for a faithful and effective ministry will depend on what you believe the goal of ministry is,” he explained. “If you believe, as I do, that the goal of ministry is the all satisfying gladness of your people’s hearts in the glory of Christ, or in all that God is for them in Christ, then it will follow that your joy in Christ is an essential foundation for that ministry.”

The theme for the Advance13 conference, which is being held at the Duke Energy Center, is “Building Faithful and Effective Churches.” The conference is hosted by Advance the Church, a partnership of local churches in Raleigh/Durham that focus on the planting and revitalization of Gospel-centered churches.

Piper said the foundation of his message on Tuesday is centered on 2 Corinthians 1:24, which reads: “Not that we have lorded over your faith, but we work with you for your joy, for your stand firm in your faith.”

“It is so helpful to have crystal clear, apostolic statements about what you are supposed to try to do in ministry because there are just a thousand things you are told to do as you read magazines and books – it just becomes very overwhelming and discouraging at times,” he said.

“That was Paul’s clear apostolic goal in his ministry – ‘I am working with you so that you will have joy.’ That’s what I think pastors should do. That’s what a faithful and effective ministry inspires to,” he added.

Piper said there must be a hunger for God because “when there is no hunger for what you are eating there is no pleasure for what you are eating.”

Read more at http://www.christianpost.com/news/john-piper-to-christian-leaders-foundation-of-your-ministry-is-hunger-for-god-92205/#iwvZUkgrm5OPf9dQ.99

from Advance 13 Conference - http://www.advance13.com/

A hunger for God

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A letter to a mother grieving the loss of a child

USE TRANSLATOR WIDGET on the right sidebar of the blog to TRANSLATE into different languages.

Here’s a letter John Piper wrote, which may be helpful to other Christian mothers out there. The letter was a response to a mom whose child was stillborn:

Dear _____,

This loss and sorrow is all so fresh. I hesitate to tread into the tender place and speak. But since you ask, I pray that God would help me say something helpful.

First, please know that I know I don’t know what it is like to give birth to a lifeless body. Only a small, sad band of mothers know that. I say “lifeless body” because, as you made clear, your son is not lifeless. He simply skipped earth. For now. But in the new heavens and the new earth, he will know the best of earth and all the joys earth can give without any of its sorrows.

I do not know what age — what level of maturity and development — he will have in that day. I don’t know what level of maturity and development I will have. Will the 25-year-old or the 35- or the 45- or the 55-year-old John Piper be the risen one? God knows what is optimal for the spiritual, glorified body. And so it will be for your son. But you will know him. God will see to that. And he you. And he will thank you for giving him life. He will thank you for enduring the loss that he might have the reward sooner.

God’s crucial word on grieving well is 1 Thessalonians 4:13: “We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.” Yours is a grieving with hope. Theirs is a grieving without hope. That is the key difference. There is no talk of not grieving. That would be like suggesting to a woman who just lost her arm that she not cry, because it would be put back on in the resurrection. It hurts! That’s why we cry. It hurts.

And amputation is a good analogy. Because unlike a bullet wound, when the amputation heals, the arm is still gone. So the hurt of grief is different from the hurt of other wounds. There is the pain of the severing, and then the relentless pain of the gone-ness. The countless might-have-beens. Those too hurt. Each new remembered one is a new blow on the tender place where the arm was. So grieving is like and unlike other pain.

There is a paradox in the way God is honored through hope-filled grief. One might think that the only way he could be honored would be to cry less or get over the ache more quickly. That might show that your confidence is in the good that God is and the good that he does. Yes. It might. And some people are wired emotionally to experience God that way. I would not join those who say, “O they are just in denial.”

But there is another way God is honored in our grieving. When we taste the loss so deeply because we loved so deeply and treasured God’s gift — and God in his gift — so passionately that the loss cuts the deeper and the longer, and yet in and through the depths and the lengths of sorrow we never let go of God, and feel him never letting go of us — in that longer sorrow he is also greatly honored, because the length of it reveals the magnitude of our sense of loss for which we do not forsake God. At every moment of the lengthening grief, we turn to him not away from him. And therefore the length of it is a way of showing him to be ever-present, enduringly sufficient.

So trust him deeply and let your heart be your guide whether you honor him one way or the other. Everyone is different. Beware of blaming your husband, or he you, for moving into or out of grief at different paces. It is so personal. And what you may find is that the one who seemed to recover more quickly will weep the more deeply in ten years. You just don’t know now, and it is good not to judge.

May God make your grieving a bittersweet experience of communion with Jesus. Matthew tells us that when Jesus heard that John the Baptist had been beheaded, “he withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place by himself” (Matthew 14:13). So he knows what it is to go with you there.

We do not have a High Priest who is unable to sympathize. He was tested in every way as we are — including loss.

Grace to you and peace.

Affectionately,

Pastor John

John Piper is founder and teacher of desiringGod.org. He served for 32 years as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is author of more than 50 books. John and his wife Noël have five children and twelve grandchildren.

Essentials of Good Counseling

From DesiringGod.org via the Christian Post

This paper was written by John Piper when his church was searching for a Pastor of Biblical Counseling. As Piper notes

It is not intended to say everything that needs to be said in defining Biblical Counseling, but rather to establish some of what is essential to the way we hope counseling will be done at Bethlehem Church.

Some Essentials of Good Counseling

God-centered, Christ-exalting, cross-cherishing, Spirit-dependent, Bible-saturated, emotionally-in-touch, culturally-informed use of language to help people become God-centered, Christ-exalting, joyfully self-forgetting lovers of people who spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples.

1. Use of language - (1 Thessalonians 4:13, 18; 5:11; Hebrews 3:13; Romans 15:14): Almost all counseling is talk. There is, of course, essential and heart-engaged listening and understanding; but counseling proper is speech. It is remarkable that people will pay $95 an hour for talk. But that is the power of speech, and God has designed it to be so. Therefore, the major issues surrounding counseling are about the worldviews that inform the talk.

2. God-centered - (1 Corinthians 10:31; Acts 17:28): A God-centered person treats God as central to all of life’s concerns, from the most simple and mundane to the most weighty and personal. God-centered language is speech that does not marginalize God or treat him as irrelevant or unnecessary. It makes explicit that all issues that matter are related importantly to God. All counseling issues are related to God at crucial levels, and counseling that tries to lead toward healing without dealing with God explicitly is defective.

3. Christ-exalting - (John 16:14; 17:5): Christ-exalting counseling is explicitly Christian and not merely theistic. All counseling issues involve the exaltation or the denigration of Jesus Christ. Either our attitudes and feelings and behaviors are making much or making little of Christ. We were created to make much of Christ. There is no true success in counseling if a person becomes socially functional without conscious dependence on and delight in Jesus Christ. This is the means and goal of all health.

4. Cross-cherishing - (Galatians 6:14): It is not enough to say that our counseling honors Christ. Some non-Christian systems, even Muslims,1 say this. Biblical Counseling must go to the heart of our problems and the heart of God’s solution, which always means going to the cross where the depths of sin and the heights of grace are revealed. There is no true exalting of Christ or honoring of God that does not cherish the cross. The decisive severing of pride and despair is the cross of Christ. It is the ground of humility and hope. There is no true mental health without understanding the desperate condition we were in without the cross, and without feeling the joy of deliverance from that condition through the death of Christ on our behalf.

5. Spirit-dependent - (Romans 8:6, 14; Galatians 3:5; 5:22-23; 1 Peter 4:11): Spirit-dependent counseling knows and feels that it is helpless to speak wisely and lovingly and to bring about true wholeness apart from the decisive work of the Holy Spirit in the counselor and the counselee. This implies a significant, explicit presence of prayer in the process of counseling. Counseling serves in the strength which God supplies so that in everything God will get the glory.

6. Bible-saturated - (Matthew 4:4; Romans 15:4; Hebrews 4:12): Bible-saturated counseling does not treat the Word of God as an assumed foundation which never gets mentioned or discussed or quoted. “Foundations” are in the basement holding up the house, but they seldom get talked about, and they are usually not attractive. That is not an adequate metaphor for the role of Scripture in counseling. The Bible has power and is the very truth and word of God. Even saints most familiar with the Scriptures need to hear the Word of God. It has a power to rearrange the mental world and waken the conscience and create hope.

7. Emotionally-in-touch - (Deuteronomy 32:2; Romans 12:15; Hebrews 4:15; 13:3): Biblical Counseling is done by a person who has a healthy awareness of his own emotions and those of others and what is being felt, even if not expressed, by himself and others. Counsel takes into account what people are experiencing and not merely what the Biblical truths are that come to bear on the problem. Good Biblical Counselors feel appropriate feelings and know when their emotions are out-of-sync with the situation. They sense what others are feeling and know how to adjust the way they speak the truth so that it fits the moment.

8. Culturally-informed - (Act 17:23, 28; Proverbs 6:6-8; Job 38-41): Biblical Counseling is aware of the historical, social, cultural, and family factors that shape the sin and righteousness of our lives. Biblical Counseling does not estimate cultural, social, or family factors above spiritual ones relating to the power of sin and grace, but it does know that theshape of sin and righteousness is influenced by family, social, cultural, and historical things that may help people distinguish between what is sin and what is not, and what is virtue and what is not. Believing that the root of every emotional and relational problem is sin profoundly affects the conception of how to heal, but it does not lead to simplistic estimations of how easy healing is.

9. To help people become - (1 Thessalonians 3:12; Philippians 1:9): Biblical Counseling is directed at changing people – the way they see and understand and feel God and Christ and sin and right and wrong and the world and other people. Biblical Counseling is about helping people change. It has goals. It is not neutral or disinterested. It has Biblically-shaped aims for people’s lives and relationships.

10. Joyfully self-forgetting lovers of people - (Philippians 1:25; 2 Corinthians 1:24; 1 Corinthians 16:14; 1 Timothy 1:5; Galatians 5:6): The aim of all health is God-centered, Christ-exalting love for people. Love is not possible where self-preoccupation holds sway in a person’s life. So self-forgetfulness is a part of true mental health. This is not possible to create directly, but only as one is absorbed in something worthy and great. The aim is to be absorbed in God and anything else for God’s sake. The truly healthy person is passionate for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples.

Notes

1For example, the Chicago Tribune reported that Muslim Fisal Hammouda said in an interview with Bill Hybels, pastor of Willow Creek Community Church, “We believe in Jesus, more than you do in fact.” (Sean Hamil, “Willow Creek Welcomes Muslim Cleric’s Perspective: Pastor, Imam Have Dialogue at Suburban Church, Chicago Tribune October 12, 2001)

December 12, 2001 | by John Piper

By John Piper. ©2013 Desiring God Foundation. Website: desiringGod.org.

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• Reflections on pastoring three decades in a downtown church (upon John Piper’s retirement from Pastoring)
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Reflections on pastoring three decades in a downtown church (upon John Piper’s retirement from Pastoring)

This message is from September 12, 2012, when a new pastor was chosen for Bethlehem Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota where John Piper pastored for three decades (33 years to be precise). This allowed for Pastor John Piper to retires as pastor, in order to pursue more projects (such as traveling and speaking engagements, and writing more books) There are two previous (milestone) messages before this one that you can watch at the following links: (photo via www.desiringgod.org)

1. There is the message given on December 29th, 2012 on his last official day as Pastor. You can watch it here - Sorrowful Yet Always Rejoicing
2. And there is the last service he attended and preached, Easter Sunday March 31,2013 at Bethlehem Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota before retiring as Pastor there You can watch that video here - Last sermon John Piper preached. You can watch it here - God Raised Your Great Shepherd from the Dead
3. There is also this new book being offered by Desiring God, authored by John Piper - FREE Ebook – Doctrine Matters by John Piper – Ten Theological Trademarks from a Lifetime of Preaching
4. And here is a short snippet video message given at Southern Baptist Seminary recently in which John Piper talks about his love for the Book (Bible) and the influence Jonathan Edwards has had on his life- John Piper – What will you do your last 2 days?

The following message is from September 12, 2012 and has just been posted recently.

John Piper:

When I came to Bethlehem, in summer of 1980, which is just a few blocks from here, the Metrodome was under construction, and the first game was in 1982. And so, I came when it was being built, and I will leave next year, when it is being disassembled, and I’ve been thinking about the implications of that. (This was preached 9/12/2012 and by now, John Piper has already preached there for the last time, with the exception of  future visits at Bethlehem church). But, mainly, I’m mentioning it because of the way I responded to that felt threat. Not only when the dome was being built, did it feel threatening to our church: traffic, parking, crowds Sunday. Will this work anymore, when the games are at 12:03 and everyone’s driving in? But, when that freeway, that big junction, 94 & 35, when that was being built, in the late 60′s, early 70′s, you can imagine what a devastation that felt like to a nice, peaceful community that went across these nice little homes everywhere, and they’re wiping them out by the dozens, moving some of them. And our church is 100 feet away.

And the thought, “Can we even begin to survive, how is it even possible, will anybody be able to get here? So, the point is, how does one respond to threats. Because the point is, if you live even near an urban center, change is what happens. And maybe in little, rural communities the demands are very different. But, when you’re in a city, it is just one very exciting or threatening change, or both, one after another. And so, here’s what I wrote: I printed out the September 14, 1982 article that I wrote for our newsletter, called- God threw His shoe on Edom, or, The Dome is Dead. And the text was Psalm 108:9 “Moab is my wash basin, upon Edom I cast my shoe.” And, I’ll read the first two paragraphs:

Picture Edom in rebellion, against Yahweh and His people. Picture them mustering thousands and thousands of warriors. Picture the iron chariots, the war horses snorting and stamping, the bulging muscles and brawn skin of the mighty men, the razor sharp swords, the awful  pointed spears, the shields, flashing in the sun. The unflinching countenance of seasoned soldiers. Picture a horde of fierce fighting men, thundering through the valley. Fearful, dreadful, fierce, and powerful.

When God sees them coming, He sits down. He will wash His feet. With 18,000 fighting warriors approaching, like a stampede of Texas longhorns, God sits down to wash His feet. And then, as one would flick a fly, he tosses His shoe on Edom and 18,000 soldiers fall. God never even looked. He scarcely heard the noise. The world sits stunned at the victory, and God sits with His feet in the water. (3:40)

And that’s what I tried to show our people. That’s what I have been trying to show them for 30 years. We have a massively strong God. He’s never confused. He’s never perplexed. He’s never nervous. He’s never without an answer. He’s never threatened. And so, what I’d like to take my few minutes to do is just mention five things about that God that marked my efforts in the city here. And, you will discover immediately that they are not urban specific. And that is part of who I am. It’s been the way I’ve led, but, they are transferable, and they’re basic. So, here are the five things (4:35):

1. Submit, (I have tried to, and I am encouraging you to)Submit to all of Scripture, as your absolute authority and bring into being a people who do the same. The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The testimonies of the Lord are sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, and the ordinances of the Lord are pure and righteous, altogether, more to be desired then gold, yeah, much fine gold.  Yeah, sweeter also than honey, and drippings from the honeycomb. Moreover, by them Your servant is warned; In keeping them there is great reward. (Psalm 19) Brothers, it marks the God pleasing churches when there is an absolute commitment to His word. (5:48)
2. Think through a coherent God centered theology and build a people who breathe that vision. Acts 20 “I do not count my life of any value, or as precious to myself. If only I might finish my course, and the ministry God has given me, to bear witness to the Gospel of the grace of God.” And then, he goes on, “And now, behold, I know, none of you whom I have gone about proclaiming the kingdom of God will see my face again. Therefore, I testify to you, I am innocent of the blood of you all. For, I did not shrink from telling you the whole counsel of God.” I am going to say that to my people. But, what’s that mean? ‘Whole counsel of God’, Paul said he did it. So it’s not impossible to do, for a human being. ‘Whole counsel of God’ can’t mean infinite. He did it. My take is that the whole counsel of God is that whole cluster of truths surrounding the core, the Gospel- Christ crucified, risen for sinners… Packer sums up the Gospel in Propitiation through Substitution. So, around that are clusters of doctrines. They are supportive and they’re explanatory, and they’re necessary to protect it and explain it, and to work it out, and that’s the whole counsel- it’s not every word in the Bible. I have not even preached one sermon in 33 years on the Song of Solomon. I’m ashamed of that, it’s a great love story. Is should have done that. But, I’m just illustrating, you pick and you choose, and you realize at the end of 33 years… oops. I shouldn’t have spent 8 years on Romans.But, you do the best you can. (photo below via www.gostandspeak.com)
3. Preach the glories of that Good News, and all the truths that support it, and flow from it. I am underlining the word preach. Herald. I don’t mean teach, that’s great. I don’t mean share, and discuss, that’s great. I mean: HERALD- what a town crier does. Preach. So here’s the connection. All Scripture is God breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, and correction, and training in righteousness, so that the man of God can be completely equipped for every good work. I solemnly testify, in the presence of God, and of Christ, who will appear to judge the living and the dead, by His appearing, and by His kingdom. PREACH THE WORD!!! That’s a weighty series of thoughts. And so, I’ve made that the bread and butter of the Bible theology preached. Because, frankly brothers, there are a lot of people today who don’t think preaching is uniquely used by God, but only one of many options. I believe that that word kerusso in 2 Timothy 4:2 means God has a special gift for His people, in the hour of worship over the word. And that, when a pastor full of the Holy Spirit, full of the word of God, heralds the glories of God in the Gospel, something unique happens. Other things are also essential. Small groups are also essential, education is essential, mission is essential. But, something unique happens, and I believe Bethlehem has thrived, flourished, maintained it’s unity through some really rocky times, because something happens in those moments, that, over and over again unite a people, in the presence of the living God, addressed by God almighty. So, I’m commanding it to you. You don’t have to have any particular personality to do this. If you have Jonathan Edwards on one side and Billy Sunday on the opposite side- they’re really different, and they both preached. Edwards, (with) one arm on a pillar and a manuscript in his hand, reading with blood earnestness, hardly a gesture. So, don’t write off preaching as a personality thing. (13:00)
4. Make prayer the visible engine of your life, and corporate prayer the visible engine of your church. So, have a place, and have a time for yourself. Spurgeon preached a sermon on a verse, that he called Robinson Crusoe’s verse. And the verse is “Offer to God a sacrifice of Thanksgiving, perform your vows to the most High. Call upon Me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver you, and you will glorify Me.” So: (1) Call on Me (2) I will deliver you (3) you will glorify Me. That’s the pattern of life. (1) Call (2) Receive (3) Glorify. And if your people learn that rhythm: (1) Call every day. Call on Him, ask Him for everything. Talk to Him continually, cry out. We love to say at Bethlehem, “What shall we render to the Lord, for all His blessings to us? We will call upon the name of the Lord!!! What a deal! You wanna pay me back? Ask for more! Because I am strong, and I get glory by being wealthy to my poverty stricken people. So, prayer is such a gift. So, personally, have your place, have your time. Don’t let anything take you from it. Kneel every day. There’s no big trick in that. (It’s) just something happens when the body says, once a day, “This too Lord (my body), I’m going low Lord, before You with my body.” I’m just gonna say it that way, too. Fasting and feasting. Both are good, neither has any rules on how long, or how much. It’s a good thing. And then, one of the hardest things we face is building a praying church, and a corporate praying church. And, Bethlehem is no great model. We’ve just tried over and over again to put prayer all over the place, and then to encourage the staff to be at one of those, or two of those, or three of those. I have, probably for 20 years, been to 5 prayers a week. 30 minute prayer meetings. Sounds big, it’s not big, because 3 of those are before services. Show up early and pray with 5 or 20 people, before service, for 30 minutes. And then, Tuesday morning and Friday morning, those are my prayer times with people. And, it makes a huge difference to pray with people. And then, model it from the pulpit. People don’t know how to pray, they don’t know how to feel when they pray, they don’t know what to say. But, if they hear you pray every week like a broken hearted, needy sinner, counting on God, crying out to a Father who loves you, they’ll learn how to pray. They will. And God will do mighty things, in answer to prayer.
5. Trust every day that God cares for you, and will work for your good. Humble yourselves (1 Peter 5)  under the mighty hand of God, that in a due season (not now), in a due season He may exalt you, casting (and I think the participle means that the casting is an expression of humility), casting all your anxieties on Him, because He cares for you. So, keeping your anxieties for yourself is pride. Humble yourself (by) casting your anxieties away, on Him. He’s got shoulders that can handle them, and He won’t be the least burdened by them. If you keep them, you’re proud. It is proud to be anxious. You look weak, and you look frightened, and you look like a puppy, and all nervous, and you’re not, you’re proud. Because you’re not saying, “Ok, You want them, here they are.” And you give them to the Lord. (16:00)
   

Photo Wikipedia – John Piper born January 11, 1946
Chattanooga, Tennessee,United States

I’m gonna close, and I’m gonna give examples of how God’s been faithful to me:

(1) The excorcism. After the 1st or 2nd year here, I got a call that, “We have a demon possessed girl in this room, we want you to come.” (Up to that time) I had never in my life encounter a demon possessed person. I called Bob Stellar, cause the Bible says, “Go out, two by two.” I believed that, and we went together, at about 10 o clock at night. We were there ’til, probably 1 in the morning, and she was ‘a gorilla’ with a knife, a little pen knife. So I kept on my coat, because I thought she could stick the winter coat (it was winter), and it wouldn’t do too much damage. And she’s walking around just — (sticking the knife) at people. And these were young Bethel students, unbelievably anointed and fearless, because they just stood there, they wouldn’t let her out. They were standing at the door, not letting her out, and she had a knife. She sounded like a (makes gruffy sounds). To make a long, horrible story short, about 2 hours later she’s passed out on the floor. We sang over her for about half an hour. She screamed for Satan to not leave her, went unconscious on the floor, as far as I could tell. (I thought) Did we kill her? I’ve never experienced something like that before. This is what you get handed, right? And she woke up, her face looked totally different, voice totally different, She had knocked the Bible out of my hands half a dozen times, as I was trying to read the Bible. I handed her the Bible, and asked her to read all of Romans 8. She did. She was in church the next Sunday, on the second row, scared to death that she was going to go wild in the service. She was resoundingly converted. She was in the church 6 more months, broke her leg playing soccerI visited her in the hospital and had long talks about what was behind all this. And if I could tell you her story you would not believe what she had done. But, God comes to me, and I’m a zero educated person, when it comes to demon possession and deliverance. What did I have? MY BOOK!!!! I knew, I knew that  I didn’t have anything. But, right here is power. I just kept reading it, and reading it, and reading it. And then, we just sang it. We took the tune “Aleluia, Aleluia’, and we put new words- ‘Jesus is Lord, Jesus is Lord’, ‘He is coming, He is coming’… someone would throw in another Bible truth and she went absolutely berserk and was delivered. God was faithful.

(2) A prodigal. My son came home one night (I won’t tell you which one), 15 years old, and he was an hour later than I had told him, I had waited up for him, “I said, “What happened?” And he lied to me. I didn’t know it at the time. In the morning he was gone. So, my son ran away. This is Friday morning, sermon preparation day.  I’m at home with him alone, Noel and the kids are gone. It’s just me and him. He’s gone. He left me a note under his pillow. “I love you, and I let you down, again. Don’t worry. I’m okay. Another city.” I wasn’t too worried, frankly, except: He’s gone! What do you do? How do you preach? How do you get a sermon ready? This is life guys. This is what you’re dealt with. And, I made the decision, knowing him, I wouldn’t call the police. He knows what he’s doing. I didn’t think he was suicidal, or anything like that. Big judgment call. And I prepared my sermon. I have no idea what I preached on. And I called one man, one guy, and I said, “This is the situation, pray with me, don’t know what to do.” (I) walked into church from behind, looking, maybe he’ll be here. You’re preaching under these c… He wasn’t, and on Monday I called the school and asked, “Is my son in class?” They said, “Yes.” “I’m his dad, I wanna see him now”. So I drove to the school. And he’s walking down the hall, and I’m walking out of the principal’s office, and he just starts to weep on my shoulder. God is faithful. And we had the longest, best talk that night…

(3) The spiritual gifts battle- trying so hard to be a bonafide noncessationist. To be open to all the good things God has given us. And crazies come out of the woodwork, and people give you false prophecy that just about devastates you, and God is faithful. I didn’t throw it away, I didn’t despise prophesying, but, I sure am cautious, because we got some of the weirdest stuff happen in the late 80′s, because we were trying so hard. And, I encourage you to try hard. “Earnestly desire spiritual gifts, especially that you may propehsy.” They are all for the upbuilding of the church. Don’t let them tear anything to shreds. And don’t let them make you bitter and ugly, which was my temptation. Because when a lawyer prophesied over me that my wife would die in childbirth, and my next child would be a girl, and you’re weeping your eyes out saying, “God, is that what you’re giving me?” And a boy was born, and she didn’t die- so- a false prophet.

(4) The moral failure in our church in ’92 and ’93 is the biggest challenge we ever faced, and God wonderfully got us through that

(5) The worship wars were hard, and He brought us through that

And so, the last point is TRUST HIM, trust Him. Cast all your anxieties on Him. He cares for you. Last verse:

“Let him who serves, serve in the strength that God supplies, so that in everything, God will get the glory, through Jesus Christ. To Him be dominion forever, and ever.” Amen

(Powerful video!!!) John Piper – Saint Augustines battle against lust and fight for joy (from Augustine’s confessions)

John Piper speaking about the life and passion of Saint Augustine fighting his failures in lust and killing his sin not by his own strength but with the word of God, and the sheer beauty and joy of knowing Christ.

Watch another John Piper message: For Men: Augustine, Sin and Sovereign Joy at Campus Outreach National Conference- Chattanooga, Tennesee Dec.31,2011

FREE Ebook – Doctrine Matters by John Piper – Ten Theological Trademarks from a Lifetime of Preaching

Click on photo of book, or click here for download of FREE Online book in pdf, EPUB (iBooks,Nook) and MOBI (Kindle).

“What the world needs from the church is our indomitable joy in Jesus in the midst of suffering and sorrow” (p. 177).

About the Book

Doctrine Matters is the theological summary of one preacher’s lifetime of investment in a local church. Completing three decades of pastoral ministry at Bethlehem Baptist, John Piper gave a final sermon series on the doctrinal emphases from his years of preaching. These ten emphases, delivered as ten sermons in 2012 and now edited into this volume, embody the legacy Piper hopes to leave.

But don’t think that these messages are the memoirs of a retired pastor. You don’t store these truths away to collect dust. The vision of God in these pages doesn’t take a pat on the head—it turns the world upside down.

These doctrines are, as Piper says, “wildly untamable, explosively uncontainable, and electrically future-creating.” They make a difference. When you read these truths and immerse yourself in this biblical vision of our great God, you will want to act. You will want to build something. You will want to start things. You will be compelled to dream big and risk bigger for the glory of Jesus Christ. And we pray for nothing less.

Table of Contents

Editor’s Preface
1. God Is
2. The Glory of God
3. Christian Hedonism
4. The Sovereignty of God
5. The Gospel of God in Christ
6. The Call to Global Missions
7. Living the Christian Life
8. The Perseverance of the Saints
9. Biblical Manhood and Womanhood
10. Sorrowful Yet Always Rejoicing

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• John Piper at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary – The sadness & beauty of Paul’s final words
• Two Biblical Pictures of God’s Purpose in Sin, Unbelief, and Hardening by John Piper

Two Biblical Pictures of God’s Purpose in Sin, Unbelief, and Hardening by John Piper

This is a sermon by John Piper entitled

Did Israel stumble in order that they might fall? 

Romans 11:11–16

So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall? By no means! Rather through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous. 12 Now if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean! 13 Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry 14 in order somehow to make my fellow Jews jealous, and thus save some of them. 15 For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead? 16 If the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, so is the whole lump, and if the root is holy, so are the branches.

Before we are done I want to talk about 1) how to make Israel jealous of the fact that the people of Christ are inheriting the promises of Abraham, and 2) how the picture of God’s sovereignty in Romans 11 helps you trust in his sometimes very roundabout purposes.

Who Is “They” in the Question: “Did They Stumble in Order That They Might Fall?”

But first let’s look closely at a couple verses: Who is “they” in verse 11? “So I ask, didthey stumble in order that they might fall?” To see who it is, we read the preceding verses:

Romans 11:7-10

What then? Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking. [That's a reference to Israel as a whole corporate, ethnic Israel taken as a people who failed to obtain right-standing with God.] The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened. [So "the rest" are treated by Paul as corporate Israel: they failed to obtain a right-standing with God; in stead they were hardened. This is the "stumbling" that Paul wonders about in verse 11: "Did they stumble in order that they might fall?" This generation of Israel stumbled, except for the elect. The people as a whole are lost.]

[Now verse 8:] As it is written, “God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that would not see and ears that would not hear, down to this very day.” 9 And David says, ‘Let their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block and a retribution for them.” [In other words, let them stumble over their bountiful table, and let them be bent down for generations, burdened by the law until the hardening is removed (11:25)] Let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see, and bend their backs forever.”

In other words, the “they” in verse 11 (“Did they stumble in order that they might fall?”) is corporate, ethnic Israel as a whole in a condition of ongoing hardness and lostness from generation to generation. As Romans 9:3 said, They are “accursed and cut off from Christ.”

Did Israel Stumble in Order They Might Fall?

So what’s the answer to Paul’s question in verse 11: “So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall?” He answers: “By no means!” I take this to mean; the purpose of God in the stumbling-the hardening-of Israel is not the final abandonment of Israel as a whole. I think that’s the general idea in verse 11: “Did they stumble in order that they might fall [i.e., for the purpose of falling]?” Answer: the stumbling led to lostness and judgment in some generations of Israel, but the final lostness and judgment on the people as a whole was not the purpose of God. That was not the purpose of hardening in (verse 7).

This becomes really clear as we read on in verses 11 and 12. “So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall? By no means!” That’s not the purpose of their stumbling. What was? Paul answers in verse 11b, “Rather through their trespass [=their stumbling] salvation has come to the Gentiles. . .” God’s purpose for Israel’s unbelief and hardness and rejection of the Messiah is that salvation might come to the Gentiles.

Two Biblical Pictures of God’s Purpose in Sin, Unbelief, and Hardening

I know that for many, speaking of God’s purpose in sin and unbelief and hardness is difficult. But keep two biblical pictures in your mind:

1) The story of Joseph’s abuse by his brothers, selling him into Egypt, because the point of the story in Genesis 50:20 is: “You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.”

2) The crucifixion of Jesus, because this was sinful and planned by God for our salvation (Acts 4:27). God is always doing more than one thing. Hardening yes, but Oh, so much more! By means of the hardening and the stumbling and the trespass, God is guiding history in such a way that the Gentile nations would receive salvation.

Jesus’ Teaching on the Rejection of Israel and the Salvation of the Gentiles

Jesus said this several times in his teaching. For example, after the parable of the wicked tenants, where the owner sends his own Son to get the Father’s fruit, and they kill him, Jesus said the upshot is that God will remove these tenants, and “let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons” (Matthew 21:41). Which Jesus interprets like this: “Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits” (Matthew 21:43). In other words, Israel’s trespass, in rejecting the Messiah, happened so that God might give the kingdom the heritage of Israel to those who follow him.

Jesus says it again in Matthew 8:11-12. After seeing the faith of the Gentile Centurion, Jesus says to those who followed him, “I tell you, many will come from east and west [that is, Gentiles] and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, 12 while the sons of the kingdom [most of Israel] will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” So Israel is hardened, and the Gentiles are coming into the kingdom. Salvation is coming to the nations.

It happened all through the book of Acts. For example, in Antioch of Pisidia the message of Paul and Barnabas was rejected, and the effect was a powerful mission among the Gentiles: “Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly, saying, ‘It was necessary that the word of God be spoken first to you. Since you thrust it aside and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we are turning to the Gentiles. . . . And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed” (Acts 13:46, 48; see 18:6; 28:19-20).

What Paul makes clear in Romans 11, that may not be as clear in these other texts, is that the spill over of the Gospel to Gentiles did not just result from Israel’s trespass -as though this took God off guard, and he had no plan in it. Instead there was divine design behind it. Verse 7: It was God who hardened. And it was the hardening the trespass (v. 11b) that brings salvation to the Gentiles. “Through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles.” This is God’s unfathomable wisdom being worked out in history and shown to us in Romans 11.

The Purpose of the Hardening: Salvation to the Gentiles

You can see the purposefulness of it most clearly perhaps in Romans 11:30-32.

Just as you [Gentiles] were at one time disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of their [Israel's] disobedience [that's the point of verse 11: "through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles"], 31 so they [Israel] too have now been disobedient in order that [purpose!] by the mercy shown to you [Gentiles] they also may now receive mercy. 32 For God has consigned all to disobedience, that [here is unmistakable purpose summing up the whole chapter] he may have mercy on all.

So we ask again, verse 11:

Did they stumble in order that they might fall? [Was that the purpose?] By no means! [What then was the purpose?] Rather through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles.

The divine purpose of Israel’s hardening and trespass and rejection was to save a fullness of the Gentiles. There is a merciful purpose in the hardening. He consigned them to disobedience he hardened them that he may have mercy (v. 32).

The Purpose of the Hardening: Israel’s Jealousy and Salvation

God’s ways appear even more unfathomable at the end of verse 11. Was the purpose of their stumbling final rejection? No. The purpose was so that “through their trespass salvation [might] come to the Gentiles.” And then amazingly he adds, “so as to make Israel jealous.” Purpose upon purpose: The hardening and trespass of Israel are designed to bring salvation to the Gentiles. And Salvation to the Gentiles is designed to make Israel jealous. Why? So that Israel will return and lay claim on her Messiah, and become part of Church of Jesus Christ.

The Purpose of the Hardening: The Return of Christ and Resurrection from the Dead

And if we think that’s the end or climax of God’s design in redemptive history (salvation for Gentiles and Israel), verse 12 stuns us again with a further purpose.

Now if their [Israel's] trespass means riches for the world [which we have seen it does, by God's design], and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles [which it does, namely, salvation], how much more will their full inclusion mean!

God’s purpose in the trespass of Israel is salvation for the Gentiles. And his purpose for the salvation of the Gentiles is to make Israel jealous, so that she wakens to the greatness of Christ and embraces her Messiah. And then he adds, the purpose of the salvation of all Israel “their full inclusion” is something even greater.

Something glorious follows the full number of the Gentiles and the full number of Israel. Verse 15 says what it is:

For if their [Israel's] rejection means the reconciliation of the world,
what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?

I take this to mean that when God’s mission to the Gentiles is complete and the hardening of Israel is removed, then the Lord will come and the dead will be raised, and we will enter the kingdom with everlasting joy.

Now this is all very weighty and I am sure seems remote to some of you. So let me move toward a close with two applications for your life.

Implications for the Jealousy of Israel Because of the Salvation of the Gentiles

First, consider the implications that God means to make Israel jealous by our Gentile salvation. Verse 11:

Through [Israel's] trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles,
so as to make Israel jealous.

How can we advance this purpose of God?

I think one of the keys is to understand and make much of the fact that the Church the followers of Jesus Christ is the true Israel and that we Gentile Christians will inherit all the promises of Israel by faith in the Messiah, Jesus Christ. We have to see this and make much of this, if our Jewish friends are ever (by grace) going to feel jealousy that we inherit their promises. The whole spirit of our interaction should be like the Father to the elder brother: Come on in to the party. You belong here!

Paul explains the Gentile inheritance of Israel’s promises like this in Ephesians 2:12-13, 19:

Remember that you [Gentiles] were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise . . . 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. . . . So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.

By faith in Jesus Christ, the Messiah, we have become the true Jews (Romans 2:28-29).Galatians 3:7, “Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham” (seeGalatians 3:16).

In this we should revel! Bethlehem, “the Israel of God” (Galatians 6:16)! All the covenants, all the promises belong to us and all who will one day trust the Messiah. All the promises of God are yes in Jesus Christ. And we are in Jesus Christ by faith alone. Know your Jewish inheritance and glory in it. That’s what Paul did in verse 13b – 14, “Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry in order somehow to make my fellow Jews jealous, and thus save some of them.” Let’s join Paul in the enjoyment of Jewish promises. When you are with Jewish people this Christmas, say: “I love the descriptions of Christ in your Bible: ‘For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government shall be upon his should and his name and shall be Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace’ (Isaiah 9:6).”

God’s Roundabout Way to Provide Mercy

And the last application I would draw out is that God is sovereign even in the hardening and trespass and failure of whole peoples, and his aim in the end by his own unsearchable wisdom is mercy. None of us deserves to be saved. But God is gathering a people through faith in Christ from all the peoples of the world. And one day mercy will triumph over the Israel’s hardness, and she will come by faith in Christ to her own inheritance.

It may seem to us a very roundabout way to bring mercy to Israel and the nations. But we are not God. He knows what kind of history must take place to reveal the fullness of his wisdom and his mercy against the backdrop of his justice and wrath.

The effect this should have on us, I believe is to keep us faithful and patient, even when it looks as though unbelief has the upper hand. God is in control-unfathomably, unsearchably. And everything will work for mercy to those who trust the Christ.

B. Palm Sunday – (2/3) He (Jesus) set His face to go to Jerusalem! Palm Sunday

from Desiring God. You can listen to the audio for this John Piper sermon here.

Luke 9:51-56

Luke describes the arrival of Jesus in Jerusalem at the beginning of that last week of his earthly life:

As he was drawing near, at the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest! (Luke 19:37, 38)

Palm Sunday: Today and To Come

There is no doubt what was in the disciples’ minds. This was the fulfillment of Zechariah’s prophecy given centuries earlier:

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on an ass, on a colt, the foal of an ass. I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem, and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations; his dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth. (Zechariah 9:9, 10)

The long-awaited Messiah had come, the king of Israel, and not just of Israel but of all the earth. Jerusalem would be his capital city. From here he would rule the world in peace and righteousness. What a day this was! How their hearts must have pounded in their chests! And must not their hands have been sweaty like warriors in readiness just before the bugle sounds the battle! How would he do it? Would he whip up the enthusiastic crowds and storm the Roman praetorium—a people’s revolution? Or would he call down fire from heaven to consume the enemies of God? Would any of his followers be lost in the struggle? The tension of the moment must have been tremendous!

The Pharisees had a double reason for wanting this kind of welcome silenced. On the one hand, this Jesus was a threat to their authority, and they envied his popularity (Mark 15:10). On the other hand, they feared a Roman backlash to all this seditious talk of another king (John 11:48). Therefore they say to Jesus, “‘Teacher, rebuke your disciples.’ But he answered, ‘I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out!”‘ (Luke 19:39, 40). No, he will not rebuke them for this. Not now. The hour has come. The authority of the Pharisees is done for. If the Romans come, they come. He will not silence the truth any longer. To be sure the disciples’ understanding of Jesus’ kingship at this point is flawed. But hastening events will correct that soon enough. In essence they are correct. Jesus is the king of Israel, and the kingdom he is inaugurating will bring peace to all the nations and spread from sea to sea. The book of Revelation pictures the final fulfillment of Palm Sunday in the age to come like this:

I looked and behold, a great multitude which no man could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Revelation 7:9, 10)

The entry into Jerusalem with waving palms (John 12:13) was a short-lived preview of the eternal Palm Sunday to come. It needed to be said. If the disciples hadn’t said it, the rocks would have.

I like to think of all our worship in this age as rehearsal for the age to come. One day we, who by God’s grace have been faithful to the Lord, are going to stand with innumerable millions of believers from Bangladesh, Poland, Egypt, Australia, Iceland, Cameroon, Ecuador, Burma, Borneo, Japan, and thousands of tribes and peoples and languages purified by Christ, with palms of praise in our hand. And when we raise them in salute to Christ, he will see an almost endless field of green, shimmering with life and pulsating with praise. And then like the sound of a thousand Russian choruses, we will sing our song of salvation, while the mighty Christ, with heartfelt love, looks out over those whom he bought with his own blood.

Had Jesus taken his throne on that first day of palms, none of us would ever be robed in white or waving palms of praise in the age to come. There had to be the cross, and that is what the disciples had not yet understood. Back in Luke 9, as Jesus prepared to set out for Jerusalem from Galilee, he tried to explain this to his disciples. In verse 22 he said, “The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.” And in verse 44 he told them, “Let these words sink into your ears; for the Son of Man is to be delivered into the hands of men.” But verse 45 tells us, “They did not understand this saying, and it was concealed from them that they should not perceive it; and they were afraid to ask him about this saying.” Therefore, their understanding of Jesus’ last journey to Jerusalem was flawed. They saw him as a king moving in to take control. And he was. But they could not grasp that the victory Jesus would win in Jerusalem over sin and Satan and death and all the enemies of righteousness and joy—that this victory would be won through his own horrible suffering and death; and that the kingdom which they thought would be established immediately (Luke 19:11) would, in fact, be thousands of years in coming. And their misunderstanding of Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem results in a misunderstanding of the meaning of discipleship. This is why this is important for us to see, lest we make the same mistake.

Jesus’ Resolution to Die

In Luke 9:51–56 we learn how not to understand Palm Sunday. Let’s look at it together. “When the days drew near for him to be received up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.” To set his face towards Jerusalem meant something very different for Jesus than it did for the disciples. You can see the visions of greatness that danced in their heads in verse 46: “An argument arose among them as to which of them was the greatest.” Jerusalem and glory were just around the corner. O what it would mean when Jesus took the throne! But Jesus had another vision in his head. One wonders how he carried it all alone and so long. Here’s what Jerusalem meant for Jesus: “I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following; for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem”(Luke 13:33). Jerusalem meant one thing for Jesus: certain death. Nor was he under any illusions of a quick and heroic death. He predicted in Luke 18:31f., “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written of the Son of man by the prophets will be accomplished. For he will be delivered to the Gentiles, and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon; they will scourge him and kill him.” When Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem, he set his face to die.

Remember, when you think of Jesus’ resolution to die, that he had a nature like ours. He shrunk back from pain like we do. He would have enjoyed marriage and children and grandchildren and a long life and esteem in the community. He had a mother and brothers and sisters. He had special places in the mountains. To turn his back on all this and set his face towards vicious whipping and beating and spitting and mocking and crucifixion was not easy. It was hard. O how we need to use our imagination to put ourselves back into his place and feel what he felt. I don’t know of any other way for us to begin to know how much he loved us. “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).

If we were to look at Jesus’ death merely as a result of a betrayer’s deceit and the Sanhedrin’s envy and Pilate’s spinelessness and the soldiers’ nails and spear, it might seem very involuntary. And the benefit of salvation that comes to us who believe from this death might be viewed as God’s way of making a virtue out of a necessity. But once you read Luke 9:51 all such thoughts vanish. Jesus was not accidentally entangled in a web of injustice. The saving benefits of his death for sinners were not an afterthought. God planned it all out of infinite love to sinners like us and appointed a time. Jesus, who was the very embodiment of his Father’s love for sinners, saw that the time had come and set his face to fulfill his mission: to die in Jerusalem for our sake. “No one takes my life from me (he said), but I lay it down of my own accord” (John 10:18).

Jesus’ Journey Is Our Journey

So Jesus sets out for Jerusalem, and it says in the text that “he sent messengers ahead of him, who went and entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him; but the people would not receive him because his face was set toward Jerusalem.” It doesn’t really matter whether this rejection is just because Jesus and his companions are Jews and Samaritans hate Jews, or whether the rejection is a more personal rejection of Jesus as the Messiah on his way to reign in Jerusalem. What matters for the story is simply that Jesus is already being rejected, and then the focus shifts to the disciples’ response, specifically the response of James and John.

James and John ask Jesus, “Lord, do you want us to bid fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” (verse 54). Jesus had already named these brothers “sons of thunder” (Mark 3:17). Here we get a glimpse of why. I take this passage very personally because my father named me after one of these sons of thunder. And I think I probably would have said what John did here: “Jesus, we are on the way to victory. Nothing can stop us now. Let the fire fall! Let the judgment begin! O, how Jerusalem will tremble when they see us coming!” Jesus turns, the text says, and rebuked them (verse 55). And they simply went to another town.

Now what does this mean? It means, first of all, that a mistaken view of Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem can lead to a mistaken view of discipleship. If Jesus had come to execute judgment and take up an earthly rule, then it would make sense for the sons of thunder to begin the judgment when the final siege of the Holy City starts. But if Jesus had come not to judge but to save, then a radically different form of discipleship is in order. Here is a question put to every believer by this text: does discipleship mean deploying God’s missiles against the enemy in righteous indignation? Or does discipleship mean following him on the Calvary road which leads to suffering and death? The answer of the whole New Testament is this: the surprise about Jesus the Messiah is that he came to live a life of sacrificial, dying service before he comes a second time to reign in glory. And the surprise about discipleship is that it demands a life of sacrificial, dying service before we can reign with Christ in glory.

What James and John had to learn—what we all must learn—is that Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem is our journey, and if he set his face to go there and die, we must set our face to die with him. One might be tempted to reason in just the opposite way: that since Jesus suffered so much and died in our place, therefore, we are free to go straight to the head of the class, as it were, and skip all the exams. He suffered so we could have comfort. He died so we could live. He bore abuse so we could be esteemed. He gave up the treasures of heaven so we could lay up treasures on earth. He brought the kingdom and paid for our entrance and now we live in it with all its earthly privileges. But all this is not biblical reasoning. It goes against the plain teaching in this very context. Luke 9:23, 24 reads: “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake, he will save it.” When Jesus set his face to walk the Calvary road, he was not merely taking our place; he was setting our pattern. He is substitute and pacesetter. If we seek to secure our life through returning evil for evil or surrounding ourselves with luxury in the face of human need, we will lose our life. We can save our life only if we follow Christ on the Calvary road. Jesus died to save us from the power and punishment of sin, not from the suffering and sacrifices of simplicity for love’s sake.

By John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org

Do My Prayers Make a Difference?

via Desiring God  for more resources on Prayer click here

Pastor John Piper sets personal prayer into the context of God’s unfolding redemptive plan and the final victory of God.

He was responding to one man who had lost confidence in the power of prayer and was asking, Do my personal prayers make any difference?

Pastor John responded to the question with a short theology of prayer by explaining the significance of the golden censers (bowls) which hold the prayers of the saints (seeRevelation 5:8, 8:3–4). In part, Pastor John explained the meaning of the passages like this —

Those bowls have two functions. They are censers. They are like incense, and in the presence of God, that incense is really pleasing to him. God loves the aroma of the prayers of his people. Which means that if you are on your face crying out for a lost loved one, or for some difficulty in your church, that very act is pleasing to God. It is not wasted. Quite apart from the answer to that prayer, the prayer itself is precious to God. That is the first meaning.

Second, there’s going to come a day when those bowls are full. In other words, the billions upon billions of prayers that have been prayed — “Hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come”— the last one is going to be prayed and God is going to look at that angel and say, “Pour it out on the earth.” And he is going to take the bowl of prayers, like fire, and throw it on the earth and the final purposes of God are going to be achieved.

And I think we need to preach to ourselves that our prayers are part of the causality of the final victory of God. He wouldn’t have asked us to pray that his kingdom come if he didn’t mean for our prayers to be an instrument in the coming of the kingdom.

So it is simply astonishing that when you think of the billions of times the Lord’s Prayer has been uttered, all of those times when it has been uttered in faith, God has put it in the bowl and it’s filling up and filling up. And the day is going to come when that bowl will be poured out as the consummation of the age. So no prayer is wasted.

You can listen to the entire episode here. We followed this episode with another prayer question: “God Hears My Prayers, So Why Should I Pray for Things Twice?” (episode 38).