Kennystix's podcast
Foundational Passions
The following message was recorded and an event hosted by Desiring God. More information about Desiring God events, conferences and resources is available at www.desiringgod.org. We've been memorizing the Sermon on the Mount as a church and many of you have been doing that a fight or verse or two or three each week and it is providential I think that the most recent paragraph which we finish memorizing this week is just about as clear and powerful a passage on living by faith in future grace as in all the Bible. So let me see if I can do it for you. I'm almost tempted to say with you but I think if you tried to talk with me I would get all mixed up and wouldn't be able to say it. It's Matthew 6 24 to 34 maybe it's 25 to 34. They're not therefore do not be anxious about your life what you will eat or what you will drink or about your body what you will put on. It's not life more than food in the body more than clothing. Look at the birds of the air they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns yet your father feeds them. Are you not of much more value than the birds? And which of you by being anxious could add one hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field they neither toil nor spin or yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. If God so closed the grass of the field which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven will he not much more clothe you oh you of little faith. So don't be anxious saying what will we eat or what we drink or what will we wear. All the Gentiles seek after these things and your father knows that you need them all but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you. So don't be anxious about tomorrow tomorrow will be anxious for itself sufficient for the day is its own trouble. This course is designed to unpack what it means to live by faith in future grace. He's going to take care of the birds and it's going to take care of you. He clothed the lilies he's going to clothe you oh you of little faith in future grace. It changes your life absolutely changes your life when you learn to live by faith in future grace that's the name of the course let me pray that God would help us and then we'll take care of a few details and then launch into the substance. Father in heaven I think every heart that's listening to me now wants to live by faith in future grace it's what we're made for we're not made to be anxious people we're made to rest in promises we're made to bank our hope on all that you are for us in Jesus and all that you promised to be for us in Jesus and so come and work faith in future grace into the hearts of your people I pray. This is a great miracle that we need to have performed on our minds and hearts and I asked that these hours together would bring that miracle about under your merciful care pray this in Jesus name amen this is a course called let me put my overhead up here and we'll get the title exactly right living by faith in future grace the pursuit of holiness in life and ministry a seminar in partial fulfillment of practical theology a course of the Bethlehem Institute it's an attempt to take this book and unpack it in five hours two tonight and three tomorrow there's the outline of the class why does it matter the passions behind faith in future grace is it biblical the foundations of sanctifying power how does it work for holiness the origins of radical love how does it work against sin lust anxiety covetousness bitterness would be I hope for sample sins we will look at tomorrow as to how faith in future grace severs the root of those sins so that's where we're going in the five hours that we we have together so let's go to question number one or unit number one why does it matter and if you don't have one of those books that's okay you can just follow along here the passions behind faith in future grace I've got three of them and for those of you who've been around a while they'll be very familiar and so I won't linger long over them they are fundamental to almost every seminar and every sermon that I lead or preach so passion number one a passion for God's supremacy in other words what I'm looking for is a way to live that accomplishes these three passions and I think living by faith in future grace as I'm going to try to unpack it is the way that these three passions happen in a person's life so first passion a passion for God's supremacy this is Bethan's mission statement as many of you know we exist to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ why what's the root of our passion for his supremacy God is infinitely committed to preserving and displaying his glory in all that he does from creation to redemption and in this commitment we see his zeal and love and satisfaction in his glory the person that opened my eyes to this biblical truth was Jonathan Edwards in his amazing book the dissertation concerning the end for which God created the world and so I brought along this book God's passion for his glory where I took that book and and included it in here half of this book is that book right there that changed my life so profoundly in 1971 and then I put my appreciation for it in the first part of this book and so that's what this is and if that sounds intriguing to you and you would like to see how that worked for me then that's the easiest way to get a hold of that book which was written 250 years ago he piles text on text hundreds of them to show that God exalts in the display of his glory for all that he does from beginning to end here's this conclusion it appears that all that is ever spoken of in the scripture as an ultimate end of God's works is included in that one phrase the glory of God which is the name by which the ultimate end of God's works is most commonly called in scripture and seems most aptly to signify the thing in other words everything God does he does to the end that his glory might be seen and savored and displayed that's the root of passion number one our passion for God's supremacy and here just a few biblical texts Isaiah 48 9 to 11 for my namesake God says I defer my anger for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you that I may not cut you off behold I have refined you but not like silver I have tried you in the furnace of affliction for my own sake for my own sake I do it how should my name be profaned my glory I will not give to another so one two three four five six six hammer blows of self-exaltation for my sake for my sake for my sake I do this for you and you sign you find that kind of text all over the Bible think I'm gonna pass over this one it's long and I think it's plain from the others but you can see that nature there declares the glory of God and God puts it forward in order that we might give him glory let's just use this one Romans 11 33 oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God how unsearchable are his judgments and how unfathomable his ways for who has known the mind of the Lord or who has become his counselor or who has given to him that it might be paid back to him for from him and through him and to him are all things and I would put therefore to him be glory forever and ever God sees to it that everything is from him he sees through it everything is through him and he sees to it that everything is for his glory and therefore to him be glory forever and ever when you find enough of those texts in the Bible it turns your world upside in it it creates a kind of Copernican revolution in your mind so that you no longer at the center or at the center God is at the center you're not at the top God is at the top he does everything for his glory and righteousness becomes defined in as what exalts and manifests the glory of God not what treats me in a certain way God's value is the most important value in the universe not mine hardly anybody believes that in America today which is why God is brought into such disrepute but I hope you will embrace it now my question was what kind of lifestyle fulfills this passion to live for the supremacy of God here are some preliminary texts to show that living by faith in future grace highlights and magnifies the glorious all-sufficiency of God and so expresses our passion for the supremacy God in all things by faith in his grace his future grace we get the help he gets the glory now let's see a few texts where that shows up ex 1725 and mark 1045 are amazing texts because when I was first shown these namely to the effect that they teach us not to serve God I was just shocked you're supposed to serve God in these texts tell you don't serve God in a certain way ex 1725 God is not served by human hands as though he needed anything since he himself gives to all life and breath and all things so if you get this turned around and start serving God as though he needed you then you will dishonor God as the source and ground of all things but if you let this stand don't serve him he serves you then he will be magnified as a fountain not as a needy trough where your buckets of effort get poured in or mark 1045 for even the son of man did not come to be served he did not come to be served so don't do that but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many so now you got two texts that point out the danger of serving God the danger of putting God in need of your service as though he needed anything so how are we to think about our service so that God's supremacy is magnified rather than being compromised or belittled by his being put in a needy position of our service and 1 Peter 4 11 gives a magnificent and wonderfully practical answer whoever serves let him do so as by the strength which God supplies so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever probably there is no text in 25 years that I have quoted in prayer or to my own mind about in prayer before walking into the sanctuary to preach then this one I'm about to go in there Lord and have to stand before these folks then I'm expected to do something I'm expected to serve you and I pray now that you would enable me to go in the strength that you supply so that when I'm done it will have been manifest that the supply came from you and you will therefore get the glory that is a miracle and that happens it's a miracle in me and it's a miracle in the listeners and that's the Christian life learning to preach by faith in future grace and let me clarify now this may be as good a place as any what I mean by future when I say future grace don't think merely he means the second coming that is one use of it in 1 Peter 113 hopefully in the grace that is coming to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ so grace is coming someday when Jesus returns to all God's people as they are finally redeemed that's not merely what I have in mind I have in mind the future that passes between now and now about three seconds of future became passed right there this this future that I have in mind this future grace is like a river flowing toward my life which is always lived in my present see only point where it's lived it's not lived in the future it's not lived in the past I live right here I have I have a point where I live and this river of the future is flowing over this little precipice called the present and accumulating in a reservoir called the past and I can look up the river in the future called promises and I can look in the river reservoir the past called history and both are very crucial glances but the one upstream is the one that makes so much difference in this let him lose serves right here you go now you're moving into the pulpit you're moving into an active service the the cars are on their way to Baton Rouge as of one hour ago to aid in the Katrina victims they're moving into service how is their mind functioning there's some anxiety there I've talked to them they don't know what they're gonna find how does their mind work and they hear this serve in the strength let him who serves do so by the strength which God supplies when does he supply a moment by moment by moment as the future cascades over the present into the past you live drinking future grace as it arrives in the moment and you bank on it that it'll be here to help me finish this seminar in an hour and a half and it'll be there to keep me out of hell at the Judgment Day and it'll be there in all the minutes in between and it'll be there for eternity as more and more of God's beauty is revealed to me we're talking endless resources of future grace arriving and the key to the Christian life that I'm trying to unpack here is learning how to live on that arriving grace so that it slays sin slays anxiety awakens radical risk taking love that's what we're we're after but here the point is look who gets the glory when you live like that so that in all things God may be glorified so we like to say it best for him the giver gets the glory therefore never be a giver to God always be a get her from God so that God will always be seen as the fountain the bread the water the treasure the bank account and you will always feel like empty needy bankrupt hungry thirsty and when he comes satisfied that's the way God gets glory I just want to cultivate so much in this church that God will be glorified by our being satisfied in him that's the way it happens that's how texts point to God's supremacy I think I'm gonna skip over those other texts and go to passion number two that's enough on passion number one a passion for supremacy here's passion number two the passion for joy the whole concept of Christian hedonism that I've devoted my life to try to understand explain live lead in at Bethlehem is it biblical to want to be happy to have a passion for joy is it wrong when you're interviewed to say if they say what do you really want I say I want to be happy is that a low inferior answer not if you are happy in God and he satisfies you so that you are liberated from all the other lying happiness is in the world someone hundred shout joyfully to the Lord shout joyfully to the Lord all the earth serve the Lord with gladness don't serve him with sadness serve him with gladness if you're serving him with sadness repent and then ask with the psalmist restore to me the joy of my salvation some 32 be glad in the Lord and rejoice you righteous ones and shout for joy all you upright in heart Jesus words Matthew 5 rejoice and be glad for your reward in heaven is great for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you bake on what's coming to you if the times are hard now they will not always be hard death is gonna deliver you into paradise with endless displays of Christ's all satisfying beauty my oh my I guess only text on this I think I'm just gonna skip them all and jump to this question because that's what I talk about all the time Christian hedonism and and this is familiar is passion one my passion for God's supremacy and odds with passion two my passion for joy and Edwards this this paragraph probably think is the most paragraph the most important paragraph in Jonathan Edwards I ever read God in seeking his glory seeks the good of his creatures because the emanation of his glory implies the happiness of his creatures and in communicating his full much in union and communion with himself God is their good their excellency and happiness is nothing but the emanation and expression of God's glory God in seeking their glory and happiness seeks himself and in seeking himself that is himself diffused he seeks their glory and happiness there is another paragraph that is equally important to that one but the point of that paragraph is that there is no conflict between God's pursuit of his glory and God's pursuit of my joy or my pursuit of God's glory and my pursuit of my joy and the text that comes closest in the Bible to showing this there may be others and I haven't seen him this is the one I love to go to this text points me to the truth that God is most glorified in me when I'm most satisfied in him and if I want to pursue my joy and I pursued in him then he gets the glory and I get the help Paul said it is my eager expectation this is Philippians 1 20 eager expectation and hope that I will not at all be ashamed but with full courage now as always Christ will be honored so there's his goal amen that's passion number one Christ will be honored in my body whether by life or by death for for me to live is Christ and to die is gain now that's passion number two I want gain I'm not eager to pass into eternity and lose I want gain and the relationship is this let's just take the death half I want Christ to be honored in my body by death for to me to die is gain the ground or explanation of how death honors Christ is that I experience death is gain does that make sense let me paraphrase it the way I see it if I want in my dying for Christ to look magnificent in the hospital or the Colosseum I must experience it is gain I lose my wife at least temporarily I lose my children I don't see the grandchildren go up I had some plans for retirement they will not happen I lose everything this world has to offer and all I get in return is Christ and I call it gain and when I do that and have about me the appropriate affections and demeanor he is honored thank you for listening to this message from desiring God the ministry of John Piper pastor for preaching at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis Minnesota feel free to make copies of this message for 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.desiring God org where you'll find hundreds of sermons articles radio broadcasts and more all available at no charge our online bookstore carries all of pastor John's books audio and video resources and you can also stay up to date on what's new at desiring God again our website is www.desiring God.org or call us toll-free at 1-888-346-4700 our mailing address is desiring God 2601 East Franklin Avenue Minneapolis Minnesota 554-06 desiring God exists to help you make God your treasure because God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him
John Piper | Future grace isn’t a get-holy-quick scheme, but a biblical strategy for battling unbelief and progressing in holiness.