Kennystix's podcast
Jesus Died to Bring You to God
The following message is by Pastor John Piper. More information from Desiring God is available at www.desiringgod.org. Jeremiah and God is the gospel are the centers out of which this is flowing. So when you put those together and you go to Jeremiah, the verse that I landed on as a starting point, and then I'm going to go, I'll just give you that rest of the outline of the message and then we'll move, I'm going to start with Jeremiah and a verse about God is the gospel. And then I'm going to go backwards in history to explain how did this verse come about? How did God's relationship to Jews come about? And how did humanity get into such a fix that he needed to have a relationship with Jews? And where did humanity come from anyway? In other words, we're going to go all the way back to the very beginning. And after we've done that, set up Jeremiah from the beginning, we'll come back and then we'll look forward 500 years later to Jesus and what did he have to do with that and this whole thing. What I want to happen tonight is to orient what I say in the whole sweep of history, especially as the Bible records it at its center story, the history of redemption. And we'll close by asking, so what did Jesus achieve when he died, when he rose again? And how can I as a man and you get in on that or do I even want to? Is it appealing what he accomplished when he came and died and rose again? That's where we're going. So let me pray for just a moment and ask God's help because my deep conviction is that talk is easy and rebirth of the human soul from being spiritually dead to spiritually alive and being blind to spiritual things and seeing to spiritual things and being an indifferent person in relation to Christ and God and a lover of Christ and God. That is something I cannot do. And I'm happy to have it so. The Bible says that it would be so. And so I come and I sow seeds, I tell the story, I hold up the book and now I'm going to pray and ask God to do what I can't do. And all of us need something to be done. Some of you aren't even at first base in that. Others of you been walking this road for 50 years and God's got something to do wherever you are and I would just like him to do it and if I could be a means to that end, it would make me very happy. So let's pray. Father in heaven, I love Christ. I am so happy to have an opportunity with these brothers to bear witness to him and where he came from and where he's going to and what he achieved and how we might be a part of it. And so I ask for your help. Please give me the kind of liberty, of thought and faithfulness to your inspired word here. I pray that you would be at work around these tables so that some perhaps who haven't cared about the Bible, haven't cared much about Christ, about spiritual things would at least listen and then through listening have an awakening of a hunger and may that hunger be satisfied with yourself. So Father come and draw us out of death into life, out of darkness into light for the glory of your Son, Jesus Christ, in whose name I pray, amen. So here's the verse, Jeremiah plus God is the gospel, these two centers of my present life and these last few weeks, Jeremiah 2, 13, 2, 12 and 13 goes like this, be shocked. This is God talking to the universe. Be shocked, be appalled, be utterly desolate says the Lord, for my people have committed to great evils. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water and they have dug out for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water. This is Jeremiah 2, chapter 2, verses 12 and 13, two great evils. This is the very definition of evil, I think, ultimate evil, deepest evil from which all other evils come. My people, this is Jewish people now, my people have forsaken me, the fountain of living water. You drink of me and you live and they tasted it and they said no thank you. And they turned and they started digging and digging and digging hoping to find something better than God and they're dry, it's just never happened and God's very angry about this, really angry and he's going to send them into exile, that's what this book is all about. It's a very bleak book because the people have committed these two great evils. Now God is the gospel, what do I mean by that? I mean he's a fountain and all the things that he's done in the world, all the history of redemption that's recorded in the Bible, all the things that he did in and through Jesus Christ which we'll see in a little while. He's done to offer us a fountain, himself. The ultimate goal of life and eternity is to know him, enjoy him, be with him, fellowship with him, we'll talk more about that. But when I say God is the gospel, I mean all the other pieces of the good news of the Bible are pointing to this one, everything else is getting us to the fountain and this people have thrown it away. I'll sit inside and get on the plane flying from Minneapolis to Phoenix this afternoon and he's from Iowa, lives in Phoenix now. After a couple hours, he saw me just working like crazy, my big black Bible in my lap. No sense in hiding the Bible, right? You want people to ask you questions, don't you? That's what I do anyway, put my big fat black Bible in my little teeny lap on that crowded plane and I'm in there writing my notes here, writing these notes. He says near the end, "You a minister?" "Yes, I'm a minister and I love it. What about you? What do you do?" And we get into it and he's just rattling away. He wants me to know, "I'm on the straight and narrow. You're a near priest to me and I'm okay." And I just listened to him for a while and he knew a lot of Christ's language. Maybe he's a believer but my concern in listening to him was I had all this stuff going through my mind for tonight, tomorrow. God is the gospel and what was coming out of his mouth were stories of how he knew God was in his life because of how good things were going. So he gave me the example of driving out to Phoenix from Minneapolis and his car broke down in Colorado and he sits for 45 minutes and prays that God would get into Phoenix. And car starts, he limps into town and they take out a sensor and he says, "We don't know if this is it. That's the best we can do. It's Saturday. Maybe it'll get you there." And so he starts driving, praying, praying, praying and the car dies one block before he gets home. "I believe in God." Yes, sir. Amen. I believe in God. Now at that point, what would you say? And I said, "Can I tell you about what I'm going to talk about tonight?" Yeah? Sure. I'm going to say tonight that when good things like that happen and you're praying, God's real. God is real. He does things like that. He's really merciful. And the reason he does things like that is to show what kind of God he is so that we'll love him more than we'll love getting to Phoenix in a good car. More than the gifts. Love the giver. More than the gifts. You believe that? I said, "You believe that?" Oh, yeah. Okay. That's real important. So that's what I mean by God is the gospel. I mean that he's a fountain, and whenever he does good things for you, he's trying to tell you what he's like so that you'll get through the good things to him. Get through the good things to him. You know, men have a reputation of not doing relationships. Women do relationships. They get together, talk all morning, cross-table about everything. Women narrate their lives, and they want to do that with you. Men, they don't narrate their lives. They just do stuff. And so when men get together, a relationship happens shoulder to shoulder while they're moving forward into a common cause, not kind of face to face, but side to side moving. Do that together. Get it done. And that really breeds deep camaraderie. I like that. Twenty guys like that around me on the staff at Bethlehem, and we die for each other in a minute. We don't spend a lot of face to face time, but a lot of shoulder to shoulder time. With God, it's the whole thing. The cause out there, for which we are shoulders to shoulder, is that we have a great creator, a great redeemer, a great upholder of the universe. We made everything, and every great cause we've ever engaged in is summed up in Him. There will be, in the end, a great face to face, but it will be the greatest cause that ever was. You will find all of your energies, all of your desires, all of your longings summed up in the face to face with God forever and ever. And there will be more joys, more glory, more beauty, more power, more justice, more truth revealed over eternity to you than you could ever imagine, and it will satisfy your souls. God will in the end be the gospel. But here's the question. Here we are at the middle of the Bible, it's almost the middle of the Bible, Jeremiah. And he says, "My people have committed to great evil." So my question is, who are they, and how they get to be that way? Because if you don't understand his connection with the Jews, you're going to have a hard time making sense out of the whole Bible. And I think he wants you to make sense out of the Bible. So you go back about 1500 years, and there was a man named Abram whose name got changed to Abraham and God sovereignly, unconditionally, picks him out and makes him his own. Genesis chapter 12, right near the front of the Bible, Genesis 12, and he says to him these words, "I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing in you, all the families of the earth will be blessed." Now, that's amazing. I'm going to pick you out from all the peoples, and I'm going to make a great nation out of you, and it did become great. Under King David Solomon, Israel was a world power, and they are a very durable people, and they will endure. You know that novelist Anne Rice, who's now written out of Egypt, a novel that a lot of people are reading right now, got converted. She said the main reason she got saved was because of the Jewish people, just the existence of the Jews as she starts studying history, that they exist blew her away when she read their history. So he's chosen this people, he calls them my people, and he says, "I'm going to make you great, and through you all the families, even phoenix, are going to be blessed." Now, my question is, how would Israel become a blessing to everybody? And there are two answers in the Bible, at least. One is, God's going to work with Israel for 2,000 years, from Abraham to Jesus, and he's going to bless them with a law, and with prophets, and with judges, and with worship, and he's going to pour out his blessings upon this people, and they're going to totally fail. In order that when he sends them into exile, it will be clear to all the world. The way the Apostle Paul puts it in Romans chapter 3, verse 19, is what the law says. It speaks to those who are under the law, that's Jews, in order that every mouth would be stopped, and the whole world accountable to God. That means every gentile, every person everywhere in the world, their mouth goes, meaning they're accountable to God, because if his chosen people with all these benefits have tried to get right with God and they blow it over and over again, nobody is going to get right with God. That's the point. So the first way that Israel blesses you is by being a lesson book. I mean, you read the first two-thirds of the Bible, it tells this terrible story. Fail, fail, fail, fail, fail, fail, get the point, we need the other half. The way it works. It's the way the Bible works. So the first blessing is Israel becomes a lesson book for the nations, God speaks to them every mouth is silent now, and what will happen, and the second way Israel is a blessing is that through Israel comes Messiah, Messiah. You know, Jesus Christ, the name Christ is the Greek for Mashiach Hebrew, which is Messiah. So Jesus Christ is the long, promised one in the first two-thirds here, we've got to have help. We need a king. For unto us a child is born, this is Isaiah, 700 years before Jesus. For unto us a child is born, and unto us a son is given, and the government will be upon his shoulders, and his name will be called, wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting father, prince of peace, and of the increase of his government and of peace, there will be no end. That's coming. All through this first part of the Bible, we're working with Jews, that was coming. So two ways that Israel, my people, become a blessing. First, they document the failure of humanity. If the people chosen and blessed fail over and over again to honor God, love God, trust God, obey God, please God, and only incur his wrath so that he sends them into exile, what do we have a chance? I mean, I am big time sinner, and there's no way, if they can't make it, I won't make it. This messiah, this king, this redeemer, this hope for once, he's going to do something about this, and in the Old Testament, it's not altogether clear how he's going to fix it. There are some really good passages, I'll quote one of those in a minute, but he's coming. But here's my next question, we're not back all the way to the beginning yet. Why did he choose Israel? I mean, why did he go to an Abraham and say, "Your mind, I'm going to make a great nation out of you, and through you, there's going to be blessings for all the families of the world." Why did he do that? Now you go back 11 more chapters to the beginning, and the reason is because God's good creation of man and woman fell into sin, and the whole history was messed up. So you know this story, God created man, male, and female. In his own image, he created them, what does that mean? You and your wife, or girlfriend, or women that you know, men and women are created both equally in the image of God, different roles in our marriages, in the church, but dignity and image, the same, what's the point of that? And the point is, we were made to image God. So picture this, this is the best thing I can come up with. This is a mirror, okay, 45 degrees, there's God, here's the rest of humanity, and here's me as a 45 degree mirror, and I am created to take the glory, beauty, greatness, truth, justice, humility, mercy, grace, love of God, see it, and love it, live it, and reflect it like that. That's why it's supposed to work. You were created to be this 45 degree mirror, that's why you're on planet earth. Now Adam and Eve did this by the temptation of the devil who said to them, look, do you realize that being a mirror is sort of low? Because really, you want to shine with your own light, don't you? You don't want to just reflect. So why don't you just be like God? He shines and he's just letting you be a mirror. So why don't you just turn the mirror over and then the light will shine and you'll be the source of it. Now that's really stupid. They did that. Sin is always stupid. It is asinine. This isn't going to shine, you turn this over, it's not going to shine. So what happened? They said, okay, we can be like God if we reject Him, become our own source of wisdom and strength and we'll be our own God and they turn themselves over and you know what they saw on the ground, the shadow in the shape that they were created in. And it's pretty impressive, you know what? God created us in His image. Even when we turn our back on God, it's impressive. We can get to the moon. We can cure smallpox. We can build skyscrapers, human beings without God, are phenomenal creators. So they fell in love with this shadow on the ground and they've been loving it ever since and trying to spruce it up, fix it. That's what happened in the Garden of Eden and then for 11 chapters after the fall, everybody goes haywire. Everybody's born like that, like this, not like this, this. Everybody, I came into the world like this. I came into the world loving John Piper, wishing he didn't have pimples, wishing I could speak in front of a group, wishing I could play basketball like the other guys. In my neighborhood, never make any sports. Just wishing, wishing, wishing I were more like God, meaning do it myself, get some praise for me. Why should God get all the praise? I would like a little praise. Thank you. That's the way we come into the world. We're all wrapped up in ourselves and we think happiness resides and being made much of by other people. And God says, it's not why you're made. It's not why you're made, get your mirror turned over like this, get it cleaned off like that. Start shining, let your light so shine before men that they may see your good deeds and give glory to your Father who's in heaven. That's what conversion is all about. So here we are with the middle of the Bible and they haven't done that. Aminee didn't do it, Jews didn't do it and they're under judgment, God's really angry at His God belittling creation, especially His own people. So creation, fall, choosing Israel, 2,000 years of wrestling and blessing, this people, they go into exile and that's the end of the Old Testament. And make their way back a little bit in what happens now, 500 years of silence from God until what the Bible calls the fullness of time. Galatians, one of Paul's letters, "When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth of His Son, born of woman, born under the law to redeem." That's a really precious word, rescue from bondage at high price, redeem those who are under the law that we may obtain adoption as sons. That's just too good to be true, that God at the fullness of time would look on this absolute mess that we've made of things and say, "I'm not done with this. I didn't create this universe to go haywire. I created this universe to be what I meant it to be and I will get it done and He sends His Son, Jesus Christ, the second member of the Godhead, the Trinity, always existing, coming into being, and now He clothes Himself with flesh, born of woman, that He might fix this somehow." Luke, you know this, many of you do. The angels show up in the fields to the shepherds on the night when Jesus is born, "Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be to all the people. For behold, in the city of David, there is born this day a Savior, Savior, Son in Galatians 4-4, Savior in Luke 2-12, a Savior who is Christ the Lord, and this will be a sign for you. You will find the baby wrapped in the swaddling clothes and laying in a, they call it manger, whatever that is, place where cows eat, manger, and suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of heavenly hosts. God is going to celebrate this with a whole, a whole host, a multitude of the heavenly hosts, praising God, praising God and saying, "Lord of God, Lord of God, He's saving the world. He's doing something. He's breaking in. He's not letting it just end, He's not going to send everybody to hell. He's going to do something. The Son has come. The Savior has come, 500 years later at the fullness of time. Now, 30 years go by, He's a carpenter, He's a carpenter, it's a carpenter. And then He makes His public appearance, gets baptized by John the Baptist and he begins to preach. Three years it takes him to get killed. What's he doing? What's he saying? What is the message he brings? His first words, the first words out of his mouth are the time is fulfilled. The kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe the good news. That's what he says. So the question is kingdom, kingdom. What do you mean? The kingdom of God is at hand. So who's the king? You're the king? I'm the king. So what are you going to do? Defeats Caesar? That's what kings do. I mean, can't have two kings. Now right there, it's just huge. What happens? What's the plan? Does he want to do that and then he can't pull it off until he dies and does plan B? No way. From the very beginning he knows exactly what he's going to do. That's not the kind of kingship he brings first time. He is coming back, get to that minute. Here he is, picture him now, three years go by. He's touching lepers and taking away the disease. He's taking little babies and children into his arms. He's letting prostitutes who got totally changed because of his love cry on his feet and washing with their hair. I mean, that's titillating. You've got to be some kind of man in order nothing to get carried away by this woman crying and rubbing your feet. So there's all that's happening. He's getting me to big trouble. Finally, they just can't stand this enough and they get this guy killed and out of here because he's breaking all the rules, letting people like that rub his feet and he's claiming to be a prophet. This is just outrageous. We've got to get rid of him and here he is before Pilate. And Pilate says, are you a king? And Jesus says, who told you to ask that question? And Pilate doesn't like that feedback. And Jesus says, my kingdom is not of this world. With my kingdom we're of this world, my servants would be fighting. They'd be fighting and I won't let them fight. But just sort of way, Peter, I won't let them fight. I'd love to take a half an hour right now and talk about Christianity in the Western world in relation to Islam and right wing politics and so on. I wish we could just do that for a while. That's not my assignment. I'm just concerned about it. I'll stick in a little parenthesis here. I'm so deeply concerned that Islam equates the West with Christianity, that Islam equates American politics and Iraq with Christianity. It's so sad. It is so sad. It's not. It's not. Doesn't matter whether Bush is a Christian or not, that's not the point. The point is Christianity in the Spirit of Jesus Christ does not advance with the sword or bombs or guns. I'm not saying that nations do not have the right at times and in right ways to defend themselves with force and rescue people with force. That's not my point. The point is Christianity as Christianity, followers of Jesus as followers of Jesus, not Republican, not Democrat, not American, but sons of the king, Jesus, who's coming back. It's going to wipe out all these distinctions and establish this kingdom. We must find a way, man, to communicate that whether we're Democrat or Republican is neither here nor there. We're Christians mainly and whether we are red or blue is neither here nor there. We're Christians mainly and we need to communicate to Islam. Please, please, what's happening there is not what we do for Christ. We're not trying to establish the kingdom. The kingdom comes by suffering, not killing. That's the end of the parenthesis. Jesus, what kind of kingdom you bring and you say the kingdom is at hand? His answer is it's a kingdom that comes by my dying, not by my killing. I'm going to go to the cross. He said this over and over again, the son of man will be handed over to sinners and they will kill him and on the third day he will rise again. That's the message that Jesus brought or he said it this way in Mark 1045. The son of man came not to be served. That means I'm not going to put myself on a throne. This time I'm going to put myself underneath humanity and let it crush me with their sin. The son of man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. There's the point of the first coming of Jesus. He came into the world, sent in the fullness of time that he might give his life as a ransom. So when it talks about the son came in the fullness of time to redeem those who are under the law, how does he redeem? He redeems by dying and rising again. That's the crucial observation. So the kind of kingdom that he offers is a kingdom of peace, a kingdom of love, a kingdom of suffering, a kingdom of sacrifice and he will rise again. He did rise again and when he rose again, here's what he said. I've been thinking about this a lot because I had a sabbatical March through July and I wrote a book based on these verses. He said just before he went back to heaven to his father, all authority in heaven and on earth belongs to me. Now, this is a men's thing. There are way too many churches that are effeminate. Way too many. And people equate Christianity with, I don't know, women's religion. See, a lineup, eight women across the front with their microphones swooning like this and guys coming to serve as a good grief. That's cool, but it's just, I can get that somewhere else. I really like robust masculine churches. I really, really like that. So Jesus is standing before these 11 disciples, 11 apostles and he says, all authority. Now get this, in heaven and on earth belongs to me. That's big. That feels real masculine to me. I run the world. Now in that authority, you go make disciples. You go to phoenix, preach your heart out, gather disciples and this says baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit and this phrase is what gripped me the last five months, teaching them to observe everything I commanded you. So I wrote a book, tried to do that, what Jesus demands from the world and lo, behold, look, I'll be with you, I'll be with you tonight, John. So I prayed, motel room an hour ago, will you do that for me tonight? I will, I will, just as much as if I was in the flesh, my hand on your shoulder. I'll be with you to the end of the age. You go make disciples tonight. All authority is mine. It's not you. You just disappear. You tell them what I say, you call them to do what I call them to do and you sit down and shut up and I may kill you tonight and your work will be done and you'll be home and I'll be the gospel for you and that'll be fine. He rose from the dead and he's coming again and he told the story of a parable. He said, "When the Son of Man comes in his glory with all his angels, he will sit on his throne and all the nations will be gathered before him." Brothers, that's coming maybe a year from now, maybe a year from now or maybe a hundred years from now. I don't know, but that's coming. One day the sky will split, Jesus Christ will be seen, angels in numerable will appear, a trumpet will sound, we will meet him in the air and his throne will be established on planet earth and he will judge the nations. That's coming. Now here's my last, here's my last and crucial two questions. As he sends me and you to do this, what did he achieve when he died and how can you get in on it if you want to? Now, let me make sure I ask the question exactly the way he'd want me to. I do not mean what did he do to help you do what you have to do. That's not the main question. There's some truth in that. I mean, what did he do that you needed to have done outside of you before you ever existed and he got it done and he finished it? What did he accomplish for you that you have to have done for you and he did it outside of you before you ever came on the scene? What is it? Then I'll just give you four quick answers and they're so easy and so clear and breathtakingly significant. Now, you may think sitting there, I don't know what I need from him. A little help financially would be good, a little better marriage would be good, kids, not where I want them to be, entirely be good, health, bad diagnosis last December like that fixed. That's the kind of stuff that goes through our mind because we've fallen. I mean, you don't have to have any new heart to want that stuff. Everybody wants that stuff, Christian, non-Christian, Muslim, Jew, then everybody wants health and life to go good. Jesus came for four way bigger things and as I say them, I hope you feel the need for them because you may not right now. But as I say that he met the need, maybe the need will go up in, you'll feel the need for him. Number one, in his dying, he absorbed God's anger so that it wouldn't have to fall on you. Here's the verse, the letter to the Galatians, chapter 3, verse 13, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us, as it is written, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. Now feel the force of this. Here in the middle of the Bible we saw God really angry at the Jews and sending them into exile under king of Babylon and everybody's in that condition. God's wrath, Jesus said, he who believes on the Son has eternal life, he who does not obey the Son, the wrath of God remains on him. That's Jesus talking. God's anger is on us for our indifference to him, our belittling of him, our failure to trust him and honor him, live for him and obey him and enjoy him. This anger is justly on us and what did Jesus come to do? Take it away. I'll tell you one of the sweetest things in all the world is to put your hand on the pillow at night after a good long day's work and no, God is not mad at me. It isn't because of how you lived that day, it's because Jesus soaked it up. He just took it all, Galatians 3, 13, number two, he bore our sins. We've got a wrath problem in God, we've got a sin problem in me, 700 years before Christ came, his work was described like this. We esteemed him, stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that made us whole and by his stripes we are healed. Hell of us like sheep have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his own way and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. When Jesus died, sins were laid on him and he bore them so that we wouldn't have to. Number one, absorbed the wrath of God, number two, wounded for our transgressions. Number three, he provided righteousness for us, which is not our righteousness, but we've got to be righteous. Be perfect for I am perfect, says the Lord, you know, if you get before the King at the last day and try to offer up your imperfect obedience, it won't cut it. Perfection is required. So, what can you do? Listen to these incredible words from Philippians chapter three, Paul prays that I might be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own based on law, but the righteousness which is through faith in Jesus Christ. The righteousness from God, which is based on faith in Jesus Christ, that's amazing. Let this land on you. The righteousness you will need when you appear before the judge of the universe was accomplished for you 2,000 years ago. That's really hard to grasp, but if God were to move your heart to get it, that's the best news you could ever hear. After all, imperfect, you will stay imperfect till the day you die. Every day from here till then you're going to sin. I do. You will too. God is absolutely holy. His standard is perfection. He demands that we be righteous. We cannot be righteous. It's all over. Hell, here I come, unless at the fullness of time Christ came to bear wrath, to bear sin, and now to complete in his sufferings a life of absolute righteousness, which God might be pleased to count as mine. That'll be my last question. How do you get in on that? But there it is. It's accomplished 2,000 years ago before you did anything Christ lived a righteousness that could be yours. What it is yours, it's called, the doctrine is called justification. Number four finally, he conquered death and opened eternal life when he died. Listen to this. I love this. I tell you, I'm a pastor and if I had a choice between a funeral and a wedding, I do a funeral any day. Not because I'm morbid, but because people don't need any help to be happy at weddings. They need lots of help to be strong and joyful at funerals, and I've got the best news in the world. I've got the best news in the world at funerals. Here's what I say. "Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep." It means die. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet, for the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised imperishable. For this perishable must put on imperishable and this mortal must put on immortality when the perishable puts on the imperishable and when the mortal puts on immortality, then will come to pass what was spoken. Death is swallowed up in victory. Oh, death, where is your sting? Death, where is your victory? Then these keywords. The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. Which curses it, but thanks be to God through Jesus Christ who gives us the victory. In other words, He came and He died and He broke the power of death. He rose from the dead. He put His foot on Satan and everyone who, now that's our last question, who what? Can have wrath taken away, sins removed, death conquered and righteousness provided. So my last concluding question is how to get in on it and it gets better and better. What if He said, well, my son did all that and now the way to get in on it is be a good person. Be a good person, this will count for you. Of course, that would just contradict everything that he just did. So he says, these are words from Ephesians 2, "By grace are you saved through faith, and it is not your own doing, not of works lest anyone should boast." Now get this, they're almost done. As Christ 2,000 years ago did those four things and finished, wrath completely removed, sins completely covered, righteousness completely provided, death completely overcome. What's left for me to do? Answer, receive it. Believe it, if you try to add to it, if you try to say, I'm going to, okay, thank you for doing that much. Now I'm going to do my little part here, I'm going to do this and this and this. It's not a bad thing to be a good guy. But if you think being a good guy, try to be a good husband, try to be a good employer, try to be a good dad is going to add to that, you don't get it, you don't get it, you can't add to it. The righteousness is perfect. The wrath absorption is perfect, the sin bearing is perfect, death is perfectly destroyed in Jesus. You can't add to it tonight. All you can do is say, I'll receive it, it's a gift, I'll take it, I'll take it. So when, if you were to die tonight and God asks you after hearing this message, why should I receive you, welcome you, accept you? I hope you will not say, I was as good as Joe and he went to church every other week. I was as good as Joe. I know I was. Joseph, he's a creep. He's a church going creep and I was just as good as him. You know what? God will not be impressed with that answer. Because the relative differences among us compared to the perfection demanded are very small, they don't count. One thing counts, are you connected to Jesus so that his wrath bearing and his sin bearing and his righteousness providing and his life providing counts as yours? Only one, and only one thing connects you. Faith, you say, here's the answer. God says, okay, here you are, you died, I took your life, your time was up. Why should I let you in? Why should I receive you into everlasting happiness? You should say, in one sense you shouldn't go ahead because I'm the creep. I have been such a failure. I haven't been the husband I should be, the father I should be, the churchman I should be. In fact, I hardly ever went to church. Thief on the cross never went to church. About one day in his life, and Jesus said to him, today you'll be with me in paradise. He only had a few minutes left. But God, there was his preacher who came to town, and he just opened up what your son did, that your anger fell on Jesus, and if I trusted him, it wouldn't fall on me. And all my sins, he carried, so if I trusted him, you wouldn't hold him against me. And he lived a perfect life, I didn't, and if I trusted him, that would count for me. And it better like asbestos around me, walking into your fire, and I could enjoy the fire when it hurt. And he said that when he died and rose, death was overcome, and I would rise from the dead, and so all I want to do is say, for his sake, for his sake would you receive me? I would like that answer. He will very much like that answer, because it will honor his son, it will honor his son. It leaves me one last observation that takes us back to the beginning. I said, I'm operating out of the center of God is the gospel right now. What if the second question God asked you was, not why should I let you in here, but why do you want to come in here? Now what that question does is test whether we are truly believing, because believing doesn't mean using Jesus to get worldly goods, even in eternity. What would you answer? Why do you want to come in here? Now here's some wrong answers. They're not evil in themselves. It's just that if this is your answer, it's something wrong. Number one, because my mother is there. Mine is, and frankly, that would be sweet. I would love to thank my mother again for 28 years of faithfulness to me. I'm 60. I still love her like crazy, miss her a lot all these years later. I can come to tears over my mom in a minute if I do the right kind of thinking. That'd be nice. Wrong answer. Hell is hot. I don't want to go there. That's true. Nobody does. You don't have to be born again not to want to go to hell. Nobody wants to suffer. Not a good answer. Not an adequate answer. I hear there's total health in here. I get sick a lot, and my back is always aching. He's always aching. He has ache for 30 years. I would like to get rid of lower back pain. A little lot of biography there. That answer. There's no death there. There's no depression there. There's no conflict there. There's no anger there. It's just, I've heard it's a good place. I really would like to go to a good place, and I hear that there's some really neat golf courses. All those answers, brothers, won't cut it. That's the wrong answer. Because what it means is, when you say you trust Jesus, what you mean is, I hear He's a ticket to all the stuff I wanted, and it wouldn't matter to me if God, you weren't there. Because I just want the stuff, I want the health, I want the mom, I want depression to go away, I want back to be good, sweet little golf, just maybe, maybe a few girls. That okay? Girls okay? God will not think that you have come to trust His Son because of this. When you, this is my closing issue. When you look at God sending His Son to bear His wrath for you, God sending His Son to carry your sins for you. God sending His Son to provide a righteousness for you when you didn't deserve it. God sending His Son to conquer death and open eternal life. You know, when you looked at that, did you think, what a God? What a Christ. God is the gospel, guys. God is the gospel in and through wrath bearing, in and through sin bearing, in and through righteousness providing, in and through death conquering. They're on our way to Him. And I know you want that. You don't, some of you don't know you want that, but I think there are clues in your life. There are clues in your life. What about this? You watch sports. You go to movies and maybe some of you are kind of artsy and you go to concerts or museums. And in each of those places, these athletes, these actors, and these artists are better than you are. They're way better than you are. That's why they get paid so much. And you watch them. You watch them every weekend. Why? Don't that make you feel stupid? I mean, you're so inferior. I mean, don't you feel inferior when you watch pro football? Hey, look at those guys. Good night. I can hear like that. I'm paced. So why do you watch when they make you feel so inferior? And why do you go to movies when they can act so much better than you can? I'm just sitting there feeling inferior. And why don't you go to a museum and look at great art when you can't even draw a stick figure? Don't you feel inferior? So what's the deal with all this enjoyment in front of these games and movies and art? This enjoyment that's saving you, what are you made like? What are you made for? You know, so many people think they're made to stand in front of a mirror and like what they see. I promise you, heaven is not a hall of mirrors in which you like what you see. It's much more akin to a ball game or a movie or a concert or a museum when Jesus is the best. Jesus is the best. But all I'm saying is, you are wired this way. You are wired to find your deepest joy, not in standing in front of a mirror and liking what you see. You are wired, sustained in front of greatness and admire it, even if it makes you feel small. In fact, wouldn't you agree guys, if you live long enough anyway, you know that the highest points of joy in your life have not been the navel gazing times when you liked your navel. They've been the times when you forgot yourself standing before something magnificent, maybe a little baby that was just born to your wife or maybe the wife or maybe the Grand Canyon or maybe the Rockies or maybe some magnificent performance of a symphony or maybe some three point jump shot as the buzzer rings when you're down by two. Maybe anything like that and you've tasted what it is to go vertical and if God would he wake you up, you know what he'd say, that's a little parable, it's a little parable son, it's a little parable about me, it's a little parable about me. You're made that way to break through all these things and finally get home to me. Let's pray, Father in heaven Christ is great, your son is so great, along for all these brothers here, all these men here to know you. I'm sure some came, Lord, who don't know you fully and just need to yield themselves up to you and say, all right, that's great, if that is exactly what I need, I need wrath, take it from me, I need my sins taken away, I need a righteousness because I can never be righteous and I really would like to live forever and if that's the way God is, I'd like to know him better and be with him. So God, do it, I pray, for the glory of your son and the good of these friends, in Jesus' great name, I pray, yes. 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. Reaching 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]
The best news in all the world is the gospel of Jesus Christ. And the sweetest prize of that gospel is the gift of God himself.