Kennystix's podcast
Reaching Out with the Gospel of God
The following message is by pastor John Piper. More information from Desiring God is available at www.desiringgod.org. Let's pray together. Father in Heaven, it is the thrill of our lives and the rock under our feet to know that when you're four days late, you're on time. That's a very good line, that's a very, very, very powerful line, especially knowing that you chose to be four days late. And so I pray now that as I undertake to say what I think you've given me to say, you would show us the kind of God that you are, that you would magnify Jesus Christ, that you would open the gospel to us for the sake of reaching our culture and into the hearts of our culture so deeply that responses for eternal life would happen. So be on us now for these next few minutes, give grace for speaking the truth and for listening up, pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Because I have reflected on your theme, reaching our culture with the gospel, what burdens me most about this topic is trying to understand first and foremost what the gospel is. And a particular kind of question when I ask that, namely, what is it, ultimately, most deeply, most permanently that makes the good news good? That's been the question driving me for several years because I don't think we give enough attention to that. I think we preach wonderful things and don't quite bore in far enough or push through all the way to what makes the good news good. So here's my outline for this evening. I want to ask the question, what is the gospel? And flowing from that answer backward, answer the question, what is lostness? Both mine once upon a time and those of the people that I would love to reach in this culture, and then flowing forward, what is conversion? Those three questions and then the last two questions, how are human beings involved in the divine act of conversion? I believe conversion is God's work, and yet evangelism is all over the Bible, and therefore human beings are somehow essentially, crucially involved in this divine work. That's the fourth question, and then the last question, which will lead into them tomorrow evening, is how does particularly teaching relate to the human part of evangelism? It's remarkable in the New Testament what a significant role in the life of the Apostle Paul as a church planter extended teaching played in bringing about evangelism and winning of people to Christ. So that's where we're going, and I would like you to take your Bibles and open them with me, if you have one, to 2 Corinthians 4. 2 Corinthians 4, and we'll just read probably 3 verses. These verses have been for me in the last, say, 3 years perhaps riveting my attention so that I could understand Paul's mind and thus God's mind concerning the nature of the gospel, verses 4, 5, and 6 of 2 Corinthians 4. In their case, the God of this world, I think that's the devil, has blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God for what we proclaim is not ourselves but Jesus Christ as Lord with ourselves as your servants, for Jesus' sake, for God who said, "Let light shine out of darkness has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ." I want you to see especially, first the word gospel there in verse 4, means you all know this, good news. What is the highest, best, and final good that makes the good news good? Is it justification by faith alone apart from works? Is it the forgiveness of sins or what Paul calls redemption? Is it the removal of the wrath of God? Is it the liberation from slavery to sin? Is it deliverance or rescue from hell? Is it access into heaven? Is it eternal life? Is it being freed to love like Jesus loved or deliverance from all pain and sickness and conflict? Now that's the list that I think we preach most often, and they are glorious and precious beyond words. And I do not think any of those things that I just mentioned are the highest and best and final good that make the good news good. I think every single one of those benefits of the gospel are leading to the highest, best, and final good that makes the gospel good. And here's the frightening thing. If you don't go in them and through them and up to the final, best, highest good, you can believe in those things and not believe the gospel. It's very startling. So let's look here and see if we see it in these verses. In their case, there's four, that is the case of those who are perishing, the God of this world that is Satan has blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing. Now let's slow down. The light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God, verse 6, parallel to verse 4. For God who said, let light shine out of darkness has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Now take verse 4 and lay it on top of verse 6 to observe the parallel structure so that light is shed upon the meaning of these phrases. You lay verse 4 on verse 6 because they are repetition, I believe, light of the gospel corresponds to light of the knowledge of the glory of Christ corresponds to of the glory of God and who is the image of God, verse 4, corresponds to in the face of Jesus Christ. These are not two different glories. The gospel of the glory of Christ, the gospel or the knowledge, same thing I think in this text, of the glory of God. The glory of Christ and the glory of God are the same glory and that's made clear by what follows there. Christ who is the image of God, so when you're looking at the glory of Christ you're seeing the glory of God, image 4. We beheld His glory, glorious of the only begotten from the Father. It was the Father's glory. When you see the glory of Christ shining through the gospel you see the glory of God. That's the point of verse 4. Down in verse 6 the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. When you see the person standing forth from the gospels, working out the gospel in the gospels, what you're seeing is the glory of God. So those two verses, verse 4, verse 6 are parallel verses. You lay them on top of each other, they illuminate each other and what they both say is the gospel in its highest, best and final good is the enabling of a sinner by all the means that I just mentioned to see and savor increasingly and forever the glory of God in Jesus Christ. That is the good of the gospel and I fear, I just fear that in many of our churches the means that are mentioned justification, redemption, propitiation, escape from hell, removal of wrath, entrance into heaven, removal of disease are embraced who doesn't want to get free from a guilty conscience, who doesn't want to escape hell, who doesn't want to have their sins forgiven. The devil sure would like that but there's one thing, the devil does not want and he hasn't wanted it ever since the fall. He doesn't want the presence of God. He doesn't want to see God face to face as his all satisfying treasure and I just fear that there's so many professing Christians who don't want it either and the question I ask my people to test them on this is if you could go to heaven, you could have perfect health, restoration with all the relatives you've ever lost, meaningful labor, all the sights and sounds and pleasures you've ever known on planet earth and God not be there, would that be okay? I just fear that there's so many hearts that if they were honest would say well I've just always thought of heaven as those things. The highest and best and final good of the gospel is to see in the gospel and savor with our spiritual taste buds the glory of Christ who is the image of God or the glory of the gospel in the face of Christ. So justification is good news because it makes us stand accepted before the one whose glory we want to see and not be incinerated by. Forgiveness is good news because it cancels all the sins that keep us away from seeing and enjoying the glory of Christ. Removal of wrath is good news because it welcomes us into his presence. Escape from hell is not escape into everlasting golf on your favorite course forever and ever. I hear preachers joke like that. It's hell's like everlasting par. It's not even close. The reason we want to escape hell is not only because it hurts but because it keeps us from seeing and savoring the all satisfying glory of God. The reason we want eternal life is because Jesus said this is eternal life that they may know you and the one whom you sent who sent you. We want freedom from pain and sickness and conflict because all those things are distracting and take us away from the fullest enjoyment of the glory of God in Christ. These two verses 2 Corinthians 4, 4, and 6 show me that there is a real glory. There is a real spiritual light that shines through the gospel and it is the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ and one must see it to be saved. Now that brings us very close to the question of what does it mean to be lost and it's very simple what it means to be lost from this text. So question number 2, what is lostness? Verse 4, in their case, the perishing ones, the lost ones, the God of this world 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. To be lost is to be unable with the eyes of the heart, that's a phrase from Ephesians 1, 17, and Jesus said seeing they do not see and hearing they do not hear. So clearly there are two ways to see, one with these eyes and one with these eyes, seeing they do not see. The devil sees perfectly well with these eyes and he's more orthodox than any of us is, he just hates everything he sees. We must see with these eyes and we must see with these eyes, we must see and lostness is blindness and you know people like this, some of them in your family, breaking your heart. You sit down with a person like this like I did for four years with one of my sons, Leantian, Pizza Hut, Perkins, and every come home from making rock music on the road, trying to ruin his life, breaking my heart and we'd sit and he knows everything I know. He's a better theologian than I was and he would slip me in the face and he would say daddy, probably everything you say is true, it's just not mine. And with tears running down your face you say it can't be, why wouldn't it be, why shouldn't it be, why, what? There's no reason why you should not embrace this, is he not glorious, is he not beautiful, is he not worthy, is it not enough? Nothing, just nothing. You want to scream, you want to shake, you want to do something, I've got to be able to control this, right? I've got to be able to make this happen, and you can't make it happen. Lostness is blindness. Lostness is a spiritual condition that makes one impervious to the glory. It's like a person who stands at the Grand Canyon or the Alps or some magnificent sunrise and grumbles about their cheeseburger. And you want to shake them and say put it down, open your eyes, don't you have a soul, don't you have any aesthetic sense at all? And of course they don't, they don't. And then you bump from aesthetics up to spirituality, it's not an aesthetic sense, it's a spiritual reality. And lostness is the absence of that ability to see. To the Jews, a stumbling block, to Gentiles, foolishness, but to those who are called, the cross suddenly becomes the power of God and the glory of God, the wisdom of God. And there's nothing you can do to make it happen. So, lostness in this text verse 4 is blindness to glory, the glory of Christ shining through what he did on the cross. Now, third question. So what then is conversion? Conversion is the granting of that spiritual sight described in verse 6. 4, God's who said let light shine out of darkness. Now, he's harking back there to creation, right? The God who once upon a time looked out over a dark planet, said let there be light and nothing disobeyed him. It always does. It's like Lazarus, come forth and dead men obey. When Jesus Christ addresses the Lazarus who's dead, they must have said, excuse me, he's dead. You don't understand Jesus, he's dead. You don't command dead people. That's irrational. It's irrational to command dead people to do things. It is not irrational if you're God. When God says come forth, dead people obey. When God addresses the dark and says let there be light, light happens. When God says behold the glory of God, Abraham, that's the name of my son, he does. Happened in a van in Pensacola, Florida. Came home. Helped some of his friends and moose the furniture. These friends are all believers. They're all over him. What's wrong with you? Stupid. Throwing away your life. It's the best thing in the world. And this girl named Molly, to whom he is now married, with a child working for Desiring God, said to him a verse in Romans, stuck. He goes home on the airplane. And that night, can't remember where the verse is found. Remembers it's in Romans. So he starts at the first verse. Very dangerous for a lost person to start at the first verse of Romans. And you read until he got to chapter 10 and I got an email the next morning. He said, Dear Daddy, I am saved. I couldn't do it. Molly couldn't do it. But alone in a in a van in Pensacola, Florida with the book of Romans, God said, Let there be light. And I remember when this little boy was nine years old, sit with me in prayer meetings with the legs dangling and the only kid in a prayer meeting of 20 people praying out loud. I never could figure out what in the world happened. But God had it all under control. And he was most definitely four days late, like four years late, as far as I was concerned. And exactly on time. So conversion, I'll read verse six, for God who said, Let light shine out of darkness, who did it once, has done the same thing. I think that's what we're to understand, has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. So the gospel is the gospel of the glory of Christ and lost his blindness to it. And conversion is verse six, Let there be light. He he shines into our heart through the gospel. That's the work of creation. And we're granted in the gospel to see the beauty of Christ, the love of Christ, the power of Christ, the wisdom of Christ, the justice of Christ. And you know, different aspects of the diamond of the glory of Jesus move different people. It's why so many different evangelists are needed. So many different testimonies are needed. Let me give you one more illustration. It's not related to me, except that it was a person in Amsterdam who was saved off the internet. I mean, God is so sovereign in the way he saves people. Listen to this amazing email that I got Monday, April 4 this past year. God bless everyone who reads this. I can't believe it took me two whole years to understand what it said in the audio sermon, Education for Exaltation in Christ. I am a Jew, a Christian Jew since two minutes ago. I believe that Jesus is God. Jesus is Elohim. He who has the Son, has life. God used that audio sermon to crush the mind of this stubborn Jew. I must say that I had troubles with the father's, meaning God, the father's name being pronounced as in Jewish culture. It is not common to pronounce the father's name since we don't know how it is pronounced. But I decided to go on and listen. My eyes went open just today. I was angry with God. I said to him, "Why are you letting me search without finding answers?" Well, I found it. Now, Jesus is Elohim. I will make sure that this message will get spread out here in Europe. I'm from the Netherlands. I can't believe it. Well, I do actually believe it. Jesus is Elohim. Praise Jesus. Praise Elohim, your brother in Christ. Now, there's a person who two minutes after this event knew something had happened, dramatically, spiritually, real, namely, what was impossible for this Jewish man to embrace, namely, the utterance of the name of God, not to mention he who has the Son, has life suddenly, suddenly is beautiful enough to embrace. Irresistibly, gloriously, attractive. This Christ became to him, and that was the work of God, which leads us now, paradoxically, to the fourth question. So, if it's so dramatically, let there be light. Lazarus come forth. Abraham, she, if it's so dramatically God, what's our job? And I want to stress, our job is absolutely essential. Now, to do that, I'm going to take you to Acts chapter 26. And the reason this may seem like a strange place to go, but there is no other passage in the New Testament that lies on top of 2 Corinthians 4, 4, and 6 with its human dimension. I mean, chapter 4 of 2 Corinthians verses 46 is so dramatically divine. You've got the devil, and you've got God, and you've got darkness, and you've got light, you've got bondage, and you've got deliverance, and God's doing it, and the devil's taking it on the chin, and we want to ask God, where do we fit in here? We're supposed to do anything about this? The lost people in our lives? I sit in my son emails up. I couldn't begin to count how many, almost daily, because I knew he'd go to libraries. He'd go to libraries and check his email, and he never, he never resented my getting in his face. I never was, I probably was, but I don't think I was preachy. He never pushed me away, always respected me, go out to eat with me when I want. He'd brace himself with the spiritual conversation, but I would always just off my front burner from my devotions say, isn't it great that? Not you must believe that, but isn't it great that? And I quote some glorious truth about Jesus, or about the cross, or about the gospel. I just knew nobody else in his life in these discos that around the country, nobody else in his life was giving him anything true, and you'll know the truth and the truth will make you free. Somebody, some dad, had to keep getting in his face with just truth. Just it's out there, you don't have to believe it. It's just there, I want to keep telling you this till I drop. So don't get out of your kids' lives. There's a difference between I think being preachy and being celebrated. I love Jesus, kind of like that, and reasons, reasons. I know you love Jesus, tired of hearing that, but reasons that might lodge themselves. So here, look at Acts 26, 17 to 18, where Jesus is commissioning Paul now, Paul, a human being like you, to go do something about this blindness. Let's put it dramatically. Jesus is telling Paul, you go do what only I can do. All right? That's what he's saying. You go do what only I can do. Now watch this, and you'll see what I'm saying it that way. Verse 17, middle verse, near the end. I am, this is Acts 26, 17, to the end of verse, I am sending you to open their eyes. That is absolutely incredible. You're telling me now to do Lazarus? I mean, good night, to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God. You see why I chose this verse? You've got light issues just like you did in second Corinthians. You've got Satan issues just like you do in second Corinthians. Only the difference is a human being is being sent to do this. You go open their eyes so that they turn from darkness to light and the power of Satan to God that they may receive forgiveness of sins in a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me. So the aim is that they turn from darkness to light and that corresponds to second Corinthians 4-4. The God of this world has blinded them to keep them seeing the light. So your job is to go, do something that ceases, that stops Satan's blinding work. That's your job. Go make that happen. And your job is to go turn them from the power of Satan to God even though it says in 4-4, the God of this age is blinding them. So you've got to make light happen where there's darkness and you've got to make freedom happen where there's Satan holding them in bondage. That's your job. I'm sending you to do what only I can do. And if you know your New Testament, that's not an impossible paradox. That's just all over the place in the Bible, right? I worked harder than any of them. This is 1 Corinthians 15-10. I worked harder than any of them nevertheless. It was not I, but the grace of God that was with me. Yes, I'm working. No, I'm not working. In other words, my work won't accomplish anything. If in and through my work, God isn't doing something super natural or Romans 15-18. I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has worked through me to bring about the obedience of the Gentiles. I won't even begin to talk about anything I do except what has been done through me. Paul's whole mindset was both these texts are true. I've got to go share the name where it's never been named and when I do it, nothing's going to happen unless God does the decisive work in and through me. But He's not doing it without me. It won't save sinners without the preaching of the gospel. The Holy Spirit is flying. You know I watched, I read the book, Flags of Our Fathers. I don't know if that was mentioned in this thing, whatever that was. That was all new to me, but you were just watching a few minutes ago and I was loving it because this book, Flags of Our Fathers is about Iwo Jima and some kid flying his course air was hit and taken out and he knew as he was coming down, he was flying right into the Amtraks of his own men and he was going to crash right into his home guys and he, at the last minute, he flipped the thing, he just flipped the thing over upside down and crashed between two Amtraks. And I thought, now that's beautiful, that's glorious, that's an amazing human act and that's the kind of thing we've got to be involved in spiritually, bringing our jets down wherever is necessary in order to show the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm sending you to do Paul what only I can do. I'm going to say let there be light in your preaching, but I'm not doing out you and what I was going to say was that the Holy Spirit is like a jet flying behind the gospel jet. You're in this thing, you are flying this gospel jet and you come in and you preach the gospel and the Holy Spirit's right here. He's going right into these hearts. If you land this jet and say Spirit, since you're the one who already shoots the bullets, why don't you just fly? Choose this fly by yourself. He's going to land right behind you and you know why there's a profound theological reason why the jet of the Holy Spirit only flies behind the jet of the gospel. It's because according to John 1614 the Holy Spirit was sent to glorify Jesus Christ. If you don't lift up Jesus Christ the Holy Spirit will stay in your back pocket. He won't work, but if Christ has lifted up the Holy Spirit says that's my job, now I'm ready. You lift up Jesus Christ, you proclaim Him, you show all the features about Him, and I will sooner or later bore in on the heart to whom you are presenting Jesus Christ. My job is to open the heart and save sinners, but your job is to present all that news about how it was purchased in the events of the death and resurrection and how it was applied in justification and how it is received by faith alone and how the reward and final destiny is fellowship with God in heaven forever. You say all that and I'm coming in with all my guns to get through all the calluses that are keeping people from seeing the beauty of it, which leaves us just one last question. I asked this is a bridge to tomorrow night. How is teaching involved in that human dimension? I've been saying preach the gospel, preach the gospel. That's your human task is to articulate what Jesus is and what He's done. And then the Holy Spirit says let there be light. What about teaching? Let's go to one last text. Second Timothy 2, 24 to 26. Second Timothy 2, 24 to 26. I'm going to treat it just briefly and then pick it up right here tomorrow evening. Second Timothy 2, verses 24 to 26. And I think you'll see once I read the whole thing how it relates to Second Timothy 4 and Acts 26. The Lord's servant, now that's the messenger, the pastor, evangelist, small group leader. The Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome. There's a certain style about this ministry, certain tone and flavor that matters, must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone. Able to teach. There's the teaching. That's why I chose this first. Patiently enduring evil. You try to explain the gospel to some people. It just can come back in your face. They're going to laugh at it, they're going to say that, that's your way. To do this evangelism business, to reach our culture is going to result in that. Patiently enduring evil, as you teach, correcting opponents, his opponents with gentleness, yes, their opponents and yes, they need correction and yes, there's a way to do it and a way not to do it. I just need to say, Prince is here. I don't know how he is here in North Carolina, but as I watched from Minnesota, my vantage point, the evangelical calls across the American radio especially, I just hear a lot of feisty talk I don't like. Feisty right-wing conservative evangelical garbage, of which I agree with most of it. I'm a pretty conservative guy. I think homosexuality's behavior is a sin. I think wives should be submissive to their husbands. I mean, that's enough to get me crucified right there. And in a lot of other things, I'm a pretty conservative guy, but frankly, this text, correcting them with gentleness, I just think there's a lot of imitation of the world on on Christian talk radio, but that may close that for instance and tune in tomorrow and see whether Stu gets it right or not. Now, we haven't gotten to the main point yet. Correcting his opponents with gentleness, God may perhaps grant them repentance. There it is. It's an overwhelming statement. If you wonder what a, you know, you can do a couple of things with that statement. God may perhaps grant them repentance. You can either say, I just can't mean what it means, and I don't like what it means. Like if, if God grants repentance, what's there for me to do, or you can be biblical and do what this text says, teach, be patient, don't be cross them, be gentle, be kind, get in their face for four years, and let this text shape your prayers. I shed more tears over that boy than in 56 years of all other pain in my life. And these texts sustain me because I knew I could not grant him repentance. I tried so hard to make it happen. I gave him 18 years of my best teaching, my best modeling, my best preaching. I went to all of his games. I loved him the best I could. He never accused me of not loving him. There was no explanation I could come up with for why he was not believing. He loved me. He would have died for me as an unbeliever, I believe. It was so strange. But I took this. I said, God, you can do this, and therefore I asked you to do it. I asked you to do it. So I let that text form my prayer life. I didn't let it make me bitter. Why haven't you done it? I said, I know you can do this. I'll lay hold on you to do this. Please, with all you might get in this life, I can't make it happen. You can make it happen. Would you grant him repentance leading to a knowledge? Now we're back to 2 Corinthians 4, the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ, the knowledge of the truth. The devil has lots of knowledge of truth. But you know what knowledge he doesn't have? He doesn't have the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. He hates that glory. Every time a little glimmer of it shines in the same space, he's running, which is why we can have power over him when we've got that glory. He hates the glory of God. But now that is happening when repentance is granted. When the metanoia, when the change of mind happens suddenly, the knowledge of truth happens. And then here's the second piece that they may escape from the snare of the devil. There we are back in verse 4 of 2 Corinthians 4. So you've got spiritual knowledge of the glory of God and you've got consequent escape from the devil. The devil has a hold on us by lying about what is glorious. My son was persuaded in his spirit to be a famous rock star was glorious, more glorious than the cross of Christ. Now if that's not blindness, I don't know what is. Just no future in being a rock star. Even Nick Jagger on the Super Bowl. There is no future in it. It's all coming down very soon. By the way, I didn't watch the Super Bowl. I just learned that from the next paper. I was working on an article last night. The snare of the devil is broken when God grants repentance and suddenly the soul sees the truth of the beauty of Christ. Okay, I'm going to stop here, sum up and then pick it up here tomorrow evening. So let me close with this summary. I pray for the state convention in North Carolina and all others who are here. I pray for you. And I believe this is possible. I believe God is doing this in our day that God may grant you as a movement of churches to see and savor and treasure and be captivated by and display the gospel of the glory of Christ as the highest and best good that the gospel offers which makes all those other things we love to preach significant and good because they're all leading to seeing and savoring forever the glory of Christ. You got to preach a certain way pastors. You've got to help your people catch on to the affectional nature of Christianity, conversion. It is not merely a decision to believe a fact. It is a heart treasuring Christ and His glory more than football, sex, money, power, play, toys. You got to make this an issue Sunday after Sunday so that they feel scared that they're not saved. You know, I think some pastors are so afraid that somebody might walk up at the end of the service and say, "You really jostled my assurance this morning." If we don't jostle people's assurance when they're not saved, we send them to hell. We must preach in such a way so that people can test yourself technically in the 13 5's. Test yourself to see if you are in the faith. Well, one of the tests is do you love football more than you love Jesus? Do you love golf more than you love Christ? What does your heart say about Christ? Late at night, all alone in front of an internet screen, mouse ready to click. What does your heart say about Christ over pornography? You got to get in their faces about this because there are a lot of people who've grown up in the church, Baptist churches, Methodist churches, Presbyterian churches, Catholic Lutheran churches who for whom their faith is all tradition, all head. There's no power in their life to love Christ, to cherish Christ, to have similar kinds of affections for divine things that they have for earthly things. Make that an issue. So I'm praying that across this convention there would be a one mindedness that we must all, yes, love justification, love redemption, love propitiation, love deliverance, love the healing power of God, love escape from hell, love entrance into heaven, love restoration with the relatives, but all of it is a means to an end. Namely, do you love Christ? Do you know Christ? Do you embrace Christ? Do you want Christ? If you've got cancer. And you don't know how long. Can you say from your heart today is gained? God will take care of noelle. Today is gained and feel it. That's a challenge. Then the rubber meets the road. Do you feel this would be good? This would be a gift. This would be sweet. Pastors, let's do this. Let's help our people be saved. And may you have a unified, deep, sobering sight, brokenhearted sight of lostness. May you be able to cry over the blindness of people in the church and most of the people outside your church. May it be very sobering how blind the Muslim world is, how blind the Buddhist world is, how blind the Hindu world is, how blind so many professing Christians are, how blind the secularists are, such a harbor that the world it says in 1 John lies under the devil. And we have the light and we work in the service of the only one who can say, Lazarus, come forth. Oh, what a passion we should have, what liberty we should feel, what boldness and courage to get in everybody's face with the gospel knowing that the sovereign God is with us loves to magnify his son, has the power to grant repentance to stones he can raise up from stones children to Abraham. And then thirdly, I'm summing up may he give you fresh, clear, glorious vision of what conversion is, which I've already said, and may he grant you therefore to go after every city, every village, every college, every high school, every place where unbelievers gather in this state. May he give you a vision to go after them with the confidence that God is on your side and loves to save sinners. And may you never grow weary, I'll say more about this tomorrow, of teaching. And the reason I'm going to stress teaching and the whole Council of God is because once upon a time when I was a boy, did you know that White Hampton High School in Greenville, South Carolina, we had devotions in Homeroom and Philip Raufner Jewish guy was sitting right beside me and never sued anybody. Unthinkable the world I grew up in. It's gone forever. It'll never come back. We're back to first century pluralism where the gospel spread like fire without any history of Christian America. We don't need Christian America to do our job. We need the gospel to do our job. It'll never come back. It is gone forever. To check into a hotel in Greensboro, North Carolina and have three Muslims help me, it's just amazing. I mean, that's incredible. I mean, I'm guessing they were Muslims. I don't know if they were not. All the names were Salahum and Nerida. May the Lord grant this convention an amazing vision of the gospel, of lostness, of conversion, of your involvement in it and the importance that we've got to teach what once was assumed. We've got to teach categories. We've got to teach a worldview. Evangelism has to today involve a lot of teaching. Let me pray with you. Father in heaven, I'm so thankful for brothers and sisters here who love Christ, who have devoted their lives to the cross, to making him known, who have felt in their heart. Some of us just a little mustard seed, others explosively, the beauty of the glory of the gospel of Christ. And I ask now that you would do a mighty work in all the churches represented here so that the gospel would be preached with great power and that we would bore through all the biblical categories up into Christ himself and his glory. May all of us pastors, all of us lay teachers so see him that we savor him more than we savor any food or any television program or any computer toy or any success even in ministry, all that we might savor Christ above all things and be able to be used to open the eyes of the blind and deliver them from the bondage of Satan. I pray this in the mighty and merciful name of Jesus. Amen. 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. Desiring 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 | Lostness is blindness to the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, and God grants us to share in the ministry of opening people’s eyes to deliver them from the power of Satan.