Kennystix's podcast
God Is the Gospel
The following message is by Pastor John Piper. More information from Desiring God is available at www.desiringgod.org. I think it would be good if we prayed one more time. Father in Heaven, I'm so thankful for Christ and I'm thankful for Rick and for these brothers that I love partnering with. It's thrilled to me to be here with them and with these young people especially. So I ask for your help now that I not let them down, but that you would draw near and enable me to say what has been already, I believe, put on my heart so that your name would be exalted and the hearts would be changed in this room into the kind of hearts that savor, the supremacy of Christ more than anything else. We are so easily moved by base, low, temporary things and moved with such difficulty by glory. So we need your help. The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit. Therefore what we are by nature is not the least interested in what I have to say and will not be emotionally moved by it. If you would come, then there would be a hanging on your truth that would be a hunger and a love for it and I beg of you that you would give that kind of assistance in this room. Indeed, I ask that those who are totally dead in their trespasses and sins would be made alive in Christ Jesus. May it comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of Christ and so would you be pleased to make the preaching of your Word the occasion for regeneration, the quickening of lives in this room and take us all forward in our passion for your supremacy in all things for the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ in His name I pray, amen. I preached this morning on a marriage from Colossians 3 and I came within a hair of chucking this message tonight and preaching that message because I enjoyed it so much and my son called me on the cell phone as I was going to the airport and he said why don't you do that, why don't you go ahead and preach that sermon tonight and so on the airplane I sought the Lord earnestly should I do that, that would be so easy, no preparation on the plane, just sit back and pray and enjoy you and I changed, I decided not to do that. So I'm going to do what they told me to do, I want to talk about my favorite topic, not marriage, it's not my favorite topic because you know marriage is very temporary, it's pointing to something great and then it vanishes at the resurrection into what it's pointing to, in the resurrection Bill Piper will not be a bigamist. My mom married to him for 36 years and then she died and then Levon married to him a step mom for 25 years and then she died and Jesus says in the resurrection which one will be his wife Bill Piper and Jesus said you don't know your Bible. In the resurrection they need a marriage or giving a marriage so, marriage is not my favorite topic, it's way too small, way too little, way too short term, way pointing towards something else and it's the else that I care about in life and that's Christ and his relationship to the church which marriage is supposed to point to, so there I preached it after all. So my topic is God is the gospel, so let me say what I mean by that right away, here it is and then I'll try to unpack it for the time that we have. What I mean when I say that God is the gospel is that the highest, best, final, decisive, good benefit in the gospel without which all other benefits are no benefits and to which all other benefits are pointing is the glory of God in the face of Christ revealed to us for our everlasting enjoyment, that's what I mean by God is the gospel. God himself revealed in the face of Christ for our everlasting enjoyment is the highest, best, final, decisive, good that makes the gospel good news. You take it away, no gospel, I don't care what else is true about the gospel without that, there's no gospel, so that's what I want to try to unpack for the time that we have together. The roots of it, I'm sure go back in my life to my dad, but let me just take you back to December 21, 1968, my wedding day, a very small wedding, a little teeny church in Barnesville, Georgia, midway Baptist Church, one best man, one matron of honor, nobody else, 60 people in the room and history in the making because I love Noel 38 years later. One text I wanted my dad to read and it goes like this, though the fig tree does not blossom and there be no fruit on the vines, though the produce of the olive fail and the field yield no food, though there be no flocks in the, in the herd, in the stalls and no herd in the pens, yet I will rejoice in my God. I will take joy in the God of my salvation, that was our wedding text. I don't know why at age 22 the Lord had so sobered me that I knew life would be very difficult and that there might be no food on the table and no animals in the field and everything devastated and if that happens joy is not destroyed because God is God when everything else fails, though all around my soul give way, you then are all my hope and stay so that text Habakkuk 3 17 and 18 captures God is the gospel, food may go, prosperity may go, God never goes and that's all I need, God is the gospel and then there wasn't an occasion at Stanford University in 1982 that began to really clarify the issues for me. Some of you, no none of you, but a few of you might remember that Christian hedonism was causing little explosions of controversy throughout California's inner varsity in the early 80s, what is this, is it bad, is it good and there was a strong spokesman for Christian hedonism at Stanford. I will tell you his name because he's totally abandoned the faith which relates to what I'm about to say probably. I came to Stanford to speak with my friend Tom Steller who's still with me in ministry and we were supposed to talk about Christian hedonism and try to be in clarity in his chapter of inner varsity at Stanford and I began to talk a couple, two, three talks in and I could see on their faces, it's not what we've been here in Christian hedonism is. And before that conference was over, here's where the division lay, it's very subtle. They were saying, from texts like Acts 17, 25, God is not served by human hands as though he needed anything, for he himself gives life and breath and all things. So rejoice, God serves us, we don't have to be his servant, I like that. Part 10, 45, the son of man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many, don't serve him, he serves you. Second Chronicles 16, 9, the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole world to show himself mighty on behalf of those whose heart is whole toward him. Isaiah 64, 4, there is no God like you who works for those who wait for you. I love those texts, I love the fact that I don't work for God, he works for me, he lifts my burdens, I don't lift his burdens. And that's what they were hearing and that's what they were in their Christian hedonism rejoicing in, God blesses us, God helps us, God works to turn all things for our good and I say amen and that's not what they heard me say. Here's the problem, my mind for the last 30 years or so, 35, because of Jonathan Edwards, the Bible, the Holy Spirit is always pushing on almost every sentence I hear toward ultimate implications. And I want to ask, okay, if God serves me, if he does good for me, what's the good? What is the ultimate thing he does for me? Am I supposed to just feel really excited that God's on my side? Or do I need to ask another question? When he's on my side, what does he do? What kinds of good things does he do? We are being killed all day long, we are counted like sheep to be slaughtered. So what's to rejoice in? And what they heard me say is delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart because the desires of your heart will be the Lord. They heard me say, I will go to the altar of God, to God, to God, my exceeding joy. And they said to me, they come up to me after I said, your emphasis seems to be that God himself is our joy, not that he works for us. I said, well, yeah, and that leader is gone, he's gone from the face, it is very subtle. That event, that crisis moment in Stanford clarifying, what is Christian hedonism? What are they saying was very, very important to me? So over the years, I've been trying to understand the meaning of God is the gospel. This is driven so largely by Jonathan Edwards, nobody wrestled more, I don't think. We're trying to get at what's the nature of the gospel, or what is it to believe the gospel authentically in a revival situation where everybody is electric and who's really believing the gospel, and who's believing a substitute subtle difference from the gospel. That's my burden here because all kinds of gospels are being preached in your church, notes are being struck that are just a quarter of an inch off and 80 miles out, you're a quarter of a mile off. So here are the questions that I've tried to answer for myself that I'll try to answer for you now. What's the relationship between God is the gospel as I defined it earlier and the glory of God? Second, what's the relationship between God is the gospel and the love of God for me? Third, what's the relationship between God is the gospel and the event of conversion? What's the relationship between God is the gospel and the gospel as it's usually preached rightly? Fifth, what's the relationship between God is the gospel and you're being the salt and light of the world that California, wherever you come from, is so needy off. And finally, what's the relationship between God is the gospel in evangelism and missions which moves us toward tomorrow morning? Question number one, what's the relationship between God is the gospel and the glory of God? And the answer that I've been putting into this rhyming sentence for 20 years is God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him, meaning that when you find God to be your supreme treasure, pleasure, delight, you magnify Him in that act. The key text there is Philippians 1, 20 and 21. My eager expectation and hope is that I might not at all be ashamed, but with all courage now as always Christ might be magnified in my body, whether in life or in death, for to meet and live as Christ and to die as gain. Now that text is absolutely system shaping for me. The sentence, God is most glorified in you when you are most satisfied in Him is rooted there in the Bible and here's the way it goes. This was my sermon that I preached in February of 1980 as a candidate sermon at Bethlehem Baptist Church, this text. My desire is to magnify Christ, make Him look good off my body. Whether I live or whether I die, the question I ask is, so how do you do it by death? How do you make Christ look great in dying, because that's what He says. My passion is that Christ would look terrific as I die in my body. A want that to be true of me, like Arcy Sproul used to say, I'm not afraid of death, I'm afraid of dying. And I know exactly what He means. I've seen so many tubes, so many gasps, so many blackened tongues and dry mouths and gasps, let me die, let me die. That that is a fearful prospect. And so how do you make Christ look great as you die? Verse 21 is the ground clause, "For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." So just put the logic together now. I want Christ to be magnified in my body, in my death, for to die is gain. You see? I take it to mean that the magnification of Christ shines most brightly when I am able to experience death as the loss of absolutely everything but Christ, and call it gain. If I can do that, if God grants me the sovereign grace at that moment to look into the eyes of my family and just get out one more word, gain. You know who's going to look great at that moment, Christ will look great at that moment. Because verse 23 says to depart is far and away better because it's to be with Christ. That's why death is gain. So the logic of verse 20 and 21 demand that Christ is most glorified in my dying, when in my dying, I am more satisfied in him than wife, child, retirement, or another year without pain. That's what I learned from Philippians 1. Now my answer to the question, how does God is the gospel relate to the glory of God? Is this? God is the gospel says the supreme, ultimate, highest, final, decisive good of the gospel is God revealed in Christ for my everlasting enjoyment. And now I learn that when I do that, God is glorified. So his glory is magnified in my being satisfied in him as the gospel. Second question, what about its relationship to the love of God? Now here, if you have a Bible, I invite you to open it. Just go to John chapter 11. This is the text in recent years that has helped me get more clear the relationship between the love of God and God as the gospel. This is the story of Lazarus, Mary, Martha, verse 1. Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair whose brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent to Jesus saying, Lord, He whom you love is ill. So don't miss that. This is about love. This is about loving someone, it's going to be repeated. But when Jesus heard it, He said, this illness is not going to lead unto death, it is for the glory of God. So now we have the two issues that I'm concerned about, love for Lazarus and glory of God. And I want to know how they relate, it is for the glory of God so that the Son of God may be glorified through it. Now He repeats, Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So two times I love you Lazarus. And then this paradigm shattering conjunction at the beginning of verse 6, in my ESV it says, so could be translated, therefore, Greek und. If you don't have a conjunction, get another version. Therefore, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was and ad he let him die. He knew exactly what he was doing, he let him die because he loved him. That's a very strange way to love people. So I've been preaching a sermon for about six years, the strange and wonderful love of Christ, and this is a five-minute version of that sermon, the strange and wonderful love of Christ. How is it love to Lazarus to let him walk up to and through the horrors of death? And he gave the answer in verse 4, "It is for the glory of God so that the Son of God may be glorified through it. It is more loving to Lazarus and his sisters and the on-looking Jewish people." And you and I reading this, "It is more loving that Lazarus die if God will be displayed as more glorious than if he live and God not be displayed as more glorious," which means that the essence and the heart of loving humans is exalting the glory of God for their enjoyment. That's what love is ultimately. You can define love in all kind of lesser ways, it's doing good things for people, laying down your life for people, it's meeting the needs of people. And if you don't get to this point, it is aiming at, not always hit it, but it is aiming at their seeing and savoring the joy, the glory of God, you don't love them. If you don't want the people to whom you do good to see more of God and enjoy more of God and live forever in the enjoyment of more of God, you don't love them. The world will say you do, but you don't because you don't care about the ultimate satisfaction of their souls forever in God. So my answer to the second question, what does the love of God have to do with God as the gospel is that the love of God toward us is not his making much of us, but his at the cost of his son's life, enabling us to enjoy making much of him forever. And to that end, he must reveal himself to us in all the ways that we can enjoy him forever. That's what love means, it is a very God-centered definition of love. Question number three, how does love relate or how does God as the gospel relate to your conversion to Christ, getting saved? Come with me to 2 Corinthians chapter 4. Alongside Philippians 1, John 11, 2 Corinthians 4, 4 to 6 has become almost without fear in the importance to me for understanding the gospel, I'll read it with you. Chapter 4 verses 4 through 6, in their case, the God of this world, I believe that's Satan, has blinded the minds of unbelievers so they need conversion, now we need to be asking what is it, what happens in conversion, has blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God. So what's the gospel? The gospel is the gospel of the glory of Christ, the image of God, it's the gospel that displays the glory of Christ. What we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ is Lord with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake for, and here's conversion, here's what happens in conversion. We saw the downside and the need for conversion in verse 4, we're blind, we're blind to what? We're blind to glory. If you're not a believer in this room, you do not see Christ as magnificent, so magnificent that it puts all the pornography, all the money, all the applause, all the toys, all the wife, girlfriend, sex, everything in the shadow by its supreme value. That's what it means to get saved. Your heart changes and you see for a change. For the first time in your life, all the blinders go off and all the junk in your life that look like treasure becomes refuse and he becomes infinitely valuable. Now that was not happening in verse 4, they were blind, some of you are blind in this room. And may God open your eyes even as I read verse 6, here's what happens in conversion. For God who said, and he's referring back, I believe, to creation, to make the connection between first creation, second creation, new creation in Christ, the creation that this night may happen in your heart, you become a new person because of this. For God who said that light shine out of darkness, has shown in our hearts, has shown, has shown, let there be light heart to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ, it's exactly parallel with verse 4. Only now we're not blind to it by God's supreme sovereign creative power. He looks into your dead blind spiritually disinterested heart and he says, Lazarus, live. And you wake up and say, why do I feel a desire to read my Bible? Why do I feel a desire to go to this conference? What is going on in my life, this used to be absolutely boring to me and now I'm finding myself drawn and hungry and open and eager. I want to know more, I'll tell you what's happened, verse 6 has happened and may it happen for many, you don't just decide to be a Christian, you know that. This happens and you become a Christian now. Question then, how does God as the gospel relate to conversion? God as the gospel says the highest, best, final, decisive good that makes the gospel good news is the glory of God in the face of Christ revealed for your everlasting enjoyment. And there it is, it is the verse 4, it is the gospel of the glory of Christ. If you don't see and savor and be satisfied with Christ, glorious, it is crucifixion and resurrection and rain and coming, you're not a believer. To be saved is to have that happen to us. That's the answer to question number 3, number 4. What does God as the gospel have to do with the gospel as it is hugely preached rightly? I say rightly because I'm not talking mainly about all the distortions although I do have a thing or two to say about one or two distortions but mainly I want evangelicals to take the gospel all the way to the ultimate good in the gospel. So what is the gospel in the New Testament includes, this is a conference, the gospel itself, every message you've heard has been opening what I'm about to talk about. There are five elements to the gospel, now when I say five elements I know that if you broaden out the term you could say gospel of the kingdom and move away from the center of Christ crucified and risen, I'm staying at the center and treating that as the gospel and in that I'm saying there are five things. Number 1, event, namely 1 Corinthians 15-3, I delivered to you the first importance what I also received that Christ died for our sins, historical event, no event, no gospel. There must have happened in history on a dateable moment, I mean you don't have to know the date, it just has to have been on a date. Not that event, no gospel, so the first essential element in the gospel is Jesus Christ outside of you, independent of you long before you existed died and rose again. Number 1, number 2, the achievement of his death, objectively outside of you, for example, the wrath of God absorbed for all the elect. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law having become a curse for us, the curse is averted. What the law could not do weak is it was through the flesh God did, sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and force in, he condemned sin in the flesh, who's flesh? Jesus, whose sin, mind, condemned, anger and punishment poured out on Christ's flesh, the nails went through his hand, not mine. So the accomplishment of wrath averted, absorbed or sins covered, Colossians 2, 14, it forgave us our sins, canceling the record of death that was held against us with its legal demands, nailing them to the cross. That happened before you were born 2,000 years ago, sins covered, or third, righteousness provided and consummated. You were obedient unto death, even death on the cross, and by the obedience of one man, only are constituted righteous. That righteousness secured, fulfilled before you ever existed, the achievement of the cross, or the purchase of eternal life, and so on. So event and achievement, third element in the gospel, the free offer. If there's no event, there's no gospel. If nothing was achieved to remove the wrath of God and cover my sins, there's no gospel. And if it is offered to me on the basis of works, there's no gospel. So it's offered to me freely by faith alone. By faith alone, I'm justified. By faith alone, I get eternal life. By faith alone, my sins are covered. By faith alone, my wrath, the wrath against me is removed. Though we could go into so much detail here about how faith does have in it holiness. It is a good thing, but you are not justified with respect to faith as a good thing. You are justified with respect to faith as that which cleaves to the good thing. Christ alone. Faith in so far as it is an abandonment of any claim to be a good thing and cleaves only to the good thing. The righteous one justifies, is forgiven, wrath removed. Therefore, we have three elements that are absolutely indispensable. There must be an event. There must be an achievement. There must be a free offer to faith alone, not works. Or there's no gospel. And fourth, the application of all this in your experience reconciled, forgiven, justified, eternal life. You must experience this. Or there's no gospel if it only happens to other people and doesn't happen to you. No good news to you for the gospel to be gospel to you. You must experience forgiveness, reconciliation, justification, the inheritance of eternal life. Now right at this point, the question is raised which many pastors I don't think raise. I put it like this, who cares about being forgiven? Which is the cause of people to say, "I do." Why do you ask that? I ask it, not because you don't, but because so many people don't know why they do. Why do you care about being forgiven? Now be careful here because here's some sample answers. If I'm not forgiven, I feel crummy all the time. Guilt is, I don't like to feel guilty. Another answer would be, if my sins don't get forgiven, I'm going to go to hell. I don't want to go to hell. So I like being forgiven, bad answers, or at least very inadequate answers. What's the right answer? If your wife pretend you're married is mad at you and rightly so because you just said something totally demeaning out of your carnality, and there's ice in the kitchen air, and her back is to you at the sink, manifestly and intentionally. You need forgiveness, why? Because at work, you really don't like feeling bad about things you said, or there won't be any sex tonight. I'll tell you the right answer why you should want to be forgiven is because you want her back, and I don't mean her back. I used to say, "I like being against you, but not against you." You want her to turn around, and you say, "I'm sorry, I did again. I really am sorry. I don't want to go to work with this relationship. I want you back," and you want her face to change, her countenance to change. You want an embrace, you want forgiveness, why? Because of her, oh what, her? That's the answer. Oh what, God, forgiveness just gets stuff out of the way between me and God. That has value for one reason, it brings me home to God, reconciled. That's what I want pastors to get to, I want you to get there, I don't want you to stop at justification, I don't want you to stop at forgiveness, I don't want you to stop merely an objective reconciliation, I don't want you to stop at eternal life, I want you to push through all four of those, because the Bible does, I'll give you the texts, reconciliation, it was preached on, Rick I think, Romans 5, 11, we rejoice in God, through Jesus Christ, through whom we have received the reconciliation, but the point is we finally have gotten to the end and we rejoice in God, so reconciliation is a means to the end of making God the gospel, I rejoice in Him, or forgiveness, I've already illustrated that, Ephesians 1, 7, Colossians 1, 14, we get out of the way everything that is an obstacle to enjoying God when we're forgiven, justification, Romans 5, 1 and 2, therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have received access to the grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, that's the point of justification, who cares if we're righteous, you really God, you want to be God, is that why you want to be righteous, are you going to boast in your righteousness, why do you want to be righteous, I'll tell you why, because when you're righteous you get God, you don't get put in hell, you get God, you can reflect God, enjoy God, be like God, eternal life, what is it, John 17, 3, this is eternal life that they know you Father, and the one whom you've sent, that is life, so all of the things that we usually terminate on in preaching the gospel, we terminate one step early, and we need, we need in America again, a great awakening of radical God-centeredness, although that word, God-centeredness, which I love and use all the time, is spatially not right, it's glorious, he isn't at the center of everything, but you can hear, I've got him at the end, and I don't know how to make that a phrase, God-endedness, God, you make one, and come and tell me about how you develop a church so that everything terminates on God, everything is from him and through him, and to him, we just need a church, we need millions and millions of believers that are so oriented on God as the gospel, they break through forgiveness to God and through justification to God and through reconciliation to God and through eternal life to God, so that's my answer to question number four, I think I'll make these last ones shorter if I can. Number five, how does God is the gospel relate to salt and light, now here I'm upset about the prosperity gospel, because of an article in the Minneapolis Tribune about one of the big churches, 10,000 members with the pastor having a couple of, you know, a jet and two big condos worth $3 million in Florida, and real estate everywhere, all over the place, and gets breaks from his church, so he's in trouble with IRS, and it's just a mess, and I'm really upset about it. Because in the article, one of the leaders was quoted about being the salt, and I just hit the roof, I just went ballistic. What do you think the salt of the earth is, well, you're the salt of the earth, but how? Let's go to Matthew five, quick, Matthew five, now I'm going to, I'm going to experiment with you here. This is my exegetical conviction, and you test it, I'm going to define for you the salt of the earth in terms of God is the gospel, because I see that in this text in Matthew five, 11 to 16, blessed are you, and others revile you and persecute you, and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account, rejoice and be glad for your reward is great in heaven. Now, I believe that the reward there is Christ God ultimately, I believe in degrees of rewards in heaven, but ultimately every reward is leading to God, and he is the final reward. So, because we have an all satisfying, glorious, final, high treasure called Jesus Christ or the Father in heaven, we can rejoice in the midst of persecution, rejoice and be glad in that day for great as your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets, you're the salt of the earth, now what do you think the salt is? If you just let it flow, let it flow, I'll tell you what it's not, wealth, here's why prosperity gospel is no gospel, because what it does is offered to people what they want as natural people, you don't have to be born again to want to be wealthy, and therefore you don't have to be converted to be saved by the prosperity gospel. When you appeal to people to come to Christ on the basis of what they already want, first Corinthians 2 makes no sense. The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit, they are foolishness to him, therefore if you offer to people what they do not consider foolishness in the natural man, you're not preaching the gospel, and the prosperity gospel offers to people what they desperately want as fallen people, gives it to them, and grows used churches, and we export it to Africa and the Philippines flying in with our jets, built in of their money, and going back to our condos worth three million dollars, it is horrific what we export as Americans. I can't believe what we tolerate in the church, so I'm on a crusade to crucify the prosperity gospel. I hate the prosperity gospel, because I love the glory of God, and now here it is, what is I want America to be salted with you, so this is called resolve here, you can call it salted, I want you to go out of here salting, what will that mean, here's what I think it means, the salt of the earth are people that are so satisfied with their rewarding heaven, namely God, that they joyfully endure pain in the service of Jesus, I think that was preached on earlier today, something like that, because the world is simply not going to be impressed with a church that is motivated by what they're motivated by, this is not rocket science, a church that is motivated by money is just like the world, I don't care Jesus is the means to get it, or whether the stock market is the means to get, doesn't matter who's the means to get it, we're driven by the same thing, however, if churches would rise up where it can be said, blessed are you, when men persecute you and revile you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely, rejoice in that day, and be glad, because God is the gospel, God is the gospel, no money, not health, not family, God is the gospel, you will be the salt of the earth, you will taste so different, you will taste so attractive, something will large in people and they'll say, I hate that and I love that, I hate it because it indicts me, I love it because God might be shedding abroad some truth in their heart, so how does it relate number six to evangelism, I'll close with this, I have stressed perhaps over stressed that if you preach what appeals to the natural man, you're not preaching the gospel, because the Bible says that the natural man regards the gospel as foolishness, so that sounds logically right, it just overlooks the work of the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit as he broods, especially under the preaching of the gospel, can take natural people like those in this room who came in here, not awake, not alive to the spiritual reality of Christ, and he can be at work in you to quicken and awaken, and beyond that, I think there is natural revelation and a law written on the natural man's heart, which if God is merciful, could recognize some aspects of the gospel as overlapping with their desires, and I'm just going to give you three examples, so this is my attempt to make what I've just said here to mostly believers overlap with the heart of an unbeliever, I have two, three illustrations, and then we'll close, number one is the one I've used for years, and I'll just mention it here, because you may have heard it already, nobody goes to the Grand Canyon to increase his self-esteem, so why did they go, got that new thing that's sticking out like a horseshoe over the Grand Canyon, it can open up here in a few days I guess, why will people pay money to go there and feel fragile, they're small, I'll tell you why, and you can tell people this, you should ask them why you go there, why do you, and if you can't go there we buy these big fifty dollar glossy books and put them on our coffee table with pictures of big mountains and rivers and mountains and valleys, why, what's going on there, you don't stand on the edge of the Grand Canyon to feel like somebody, yet you go there, the reason is because deeply written on the human soul is the truth that we were made not to be made much of, but to make much of God, that's what's written on your heart, every human soul has a writing on their heart that says, you're made for God, you're made to see him and savor him and admire him, I went to an in and out burger, I hear like in and out burger CJ, so about two hours ago I had my first in and out burger, maybe it was a second I don't know, and I walked into the restroom and I came out of the restroom I said, Rick, there's a relationship between the restroom and heaven, and he said, how's that, and I said, there's no mirror in the restroom, and I believe with all my heart heaven will not be a hall of mirrors where we like what we see, which is what many people think it's going to be, finally I like me, I don't think there's going to be any mirrors in heaven at all, I think you're going to be the mirror in heaven. That's written on your heart, your highest joy does not come from standing in front of a mirror like in what you see, I don't care how many psychologists tell you that it is, not your highest joy, your highest joy will be becoming a mirror off of which Christ shines as you behold him and are satisfied in him. Second illustration is a cartoon, Arlo and Janice, I don't know if you've ever heard of Arlo and Janice, I don't read cartoons, these are sent to me and I love it. So here's the frame, Arlo and Janice are these two old people, like me and Noel, standing out in the snow, and he says to her, it's so quiet, you're standing in the snow outside under a tree, it's so quiet, and she says yes, and he says hey, and they walk away into the dark, ever notice the best moments make you feel insignificant, that's in the newspaper, in the Bible, what's that? The best moments make you feel insignificant, explain, because you're made for God as the gospel, you go down, he goes up, your joy expands, he enlarges and you're being satisfied in him, here's the last one, and I cannot believe, I cannot believe this happened. You know, speakers when they go to hotel rooms, they get baskets of food given to them? Nature Valley Trail Mix, fruit and nut, here's the ad that I brought with me for Nature Valley Trail Mix, fruit and nut, which I tore out of a National Geographic sub magazine to illustrate gospel, so now we have a prophetic affirmation of this illustration. Now here's the picture, you get this thing, there's that, see that? So there it is, and here's this magnificent, magnificent scene, lake, distant hills, and a peak, and look at this, two little human beings, two little human beings, at the top of this mountain, with his arm stretched like this, with ropes hanging over his arms, they climb this thing, they climb this, and they're standing up there, and you can read this maybe, I'll read it to you, you've never felt more alive, you've never felt more insignificant. This amazing, my point is, it's written on their hearts, it's written on their hearts that they're made for God. There is an overlap, you can find a way to talk to your friends at school about God being the gospel, you can find overlaps in the things they long for and yearn for, and how things go bankrupt in their lives when they set their affections on small things. So I'll read Jonathan Edwards in closing, this is one of the best quotes from Edwards on God is the gospel, I'll read it and I'll pray, and then we'll come back and talk about missions, God willing, tomorrow morning. The redeemed have all their objective good in God. God himself is the great good which they are brought to the possession and enjoyment of by redemption, he is the highest good and the sum of all that good which Christ purchased. God is the inheritance of the saints, he is the portion of their souls. God is their wealth and treasure, their food, their life, their dwelling place, their ornament, their diadem and their everlasting honor and glory. They have none in heaven but God, he is the great good which the redeemed are received to at death and which they are to rise to at the end of the world. The Lord God, he is the light of the heavenly Jerusalem and is the river of the water of life that runs and is the tree of life that grows in the midst of the paradise of God. The glorious excellencies and beauty of God will be what will forever entertain the minds of the saints and the love of God will be their everlasting feast. The redeemed will indeed enjoy other things, they will enjoy angels and will enjoy one another but that which they shall enjoy in the angels or in each other or in anything whatsoever that will yield them delight in happiness will be what will be seen of God in them. Father I beg of you, in the name of Jesus your glorious and all satisfying Son that by your Holy Spirit you would come and awaken the hearts of everyone in this room to see and savor you as the end, the highest, best, final, decisive, good of the gospel to which everything else is pointing and without which nothing else is good news. Thank you for listening to this message by John Piper, pastor for preaching at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Feel free to make copies of this message to give to others but please do not charge for those copies or alter the content in any way without permission. We invite you to visit desiring God online at www.desiringGod.org. There you'll find hundreds of sermons, articles, radio broadcasts and much more all available to you at No Charge. Our online store carries all of Pastor John's books, audio and video resources. You can also stay up to date on what's new at desiring God. Again, our website is www.desiringGod.org or call us toll free at 1-888-346-4700. Our mailing address is desiring God 20601 East Franklin Avenue, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55406. Even God exists to help you make God your treasure because God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. [BLANK_AUDIO]
John Piper | The greatest, most ultimate, decisive good in the gospel is God himself.