Kennystix's podcast
What Makes the Good News Good? Seeing the Glory of Christ
The following message is by Pastor John Piper. More information from Desiring God is available at www.desiringgod.org. The text for Pastor John Sermon this morning comes from 2 Corinthians chapter 3 verse 17 through chapter 4 verse 7. So please turn with me in your Bibles to 2 Corinthians chapter 3 starting with verse 17. Now the Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. Therefore having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart, but we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's word, but by the open statements of the truth, we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. In their case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of 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 servant 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 Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. Jar of clay, here we are. My heart is full of longings now for this message, and let me tell you what they are and that I'm going to pray that God would do them. At one level, I want to draw you into the last three weeks of my labors and my thinking. On a book called, "I Hope God is the Gospel," subtitle, "Meditations on the Love of God as the Gift of Himself." I want you to taste this morning what I've been seeing. At another level, I desire to cultivate at Bethlehem a unified, common understanding and conviction concerning the meaning of lostness. I want us to know as a family what it means to be lost, or to have a common vision of lostness, and the opposite, to be saved. What does it, to be saved, mean? That's one level, two levels. Here's a third. I would like, along that we at Bethlehem would be bold, patient, teachers of the gospel to unbelievers, teachers. Anybody who's a believer in this room, I would like to see you be bold, patient, teachers. You'll hear more about that in about 30 minutes, but underline the word "teacher." Because frankly, the world needs more from you than a relationship. Others don't save anybody. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. You'll also hear something very positive said about relationships in a few minutes as well. But mark this. I fear that around the world in missionaries and at home in lay witness, we are selling out the gospel to this notion that if you'd be nice long enough, somebody is going to get saved. So my third longing is that we would all be patient teachers. I'm getting those words from a text which I'll point you to. Here's my fourth level of longing for this message. I loathe that some of you in this room who are not spiritually alive would be awakened from the dead by the Holy Spirit this morning through what I say. Let's pray. Father, the very point of the conclusion of this text is that John Piper, clay pot, cannot do any of these things he longs for. That's the point of verse 7. That I have a treasure in me this morning that is of infinite value. And it's in a clay pot so that it would have its effect in a way that gets for your surpassing power all the credit. And so I feel very at peace with my helplessness this morning. And I ask that you would come and be God in this room and do everything that I have desired because I believe it's the Holy Spirit who has given these desires. I ask in Jesus' name, amen. I have five observations to make. Three of them come from this text that was just read and one comes from Acts 26 and one comes from 2 Timothy 2 so that's where we're going. Here's the first observation. Lead into it like this, gospel. You know the word gospel means good news, right? Good news. Here's my question that drove this book and that's driving this sermon. What is the highest, best, final good of the good news that makes it good? Is it justification by faith, is it the forgiveness of sins? Is it the removal of the wrath of God? Is it redemption from guilt and liberation from the power of sin? Is it salvation from hell? Is it entrance into heaven? Is it eternal life? Is it deliverance from all pain and sickness and conflict? All of those are precious, glorious gospel truths. And none of them is the best, highest, final good that makes the gospel good news. In fact, I would go so far as to say, if this other thing that I have in mind doesn't happen for you, none of those is good news. It takes something beyond those to make them good news. They are good news to the degree that they bring something to pass. Now what is that? Let's read 2 Corinthians chapter 4 verse 4 to get the answer. Verse 4 and verse 6 to get the answer. In their case, that is in 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 the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God. Now put verse 6 in parallel with verse 4, verse 6. For God, who said once at the creation of the world, let light shine out of darkness, has shown similarly into our own hearts to give the light of the gospel of the glory of God in the face of Christ. Notice the parallels because we have one answer, not two answers here. Verse 4, the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God. Now lay on top of that, verse 6, the light, so light matches light of the knowledge. Knowledge matches gospel, which is why there has to be teaching and evangelism as well as relating gospel and knowledge or parallel of the glory of God, matches of the glory of Christ, and then to explain how there are one glory, the first one ends, the glory of Christ, who is the image of God and the second one ends, the glory of God in the face of Christ. Now we see it. The best, the highest, the final good of the good news that makes it good is seeing and savoring the glory of God in the face of Christ revealed in the gospel of Christ's death and resurrection. And if you don't, this morning, see, glory, beauty, treasure, wonder, shining off that table, and the facts of the gospel of Christ crucified and risen, you may not be a believer. You're probably not a believer. The reason, the only reason I say probably is because in the Christian life clouds come and go, and sometimes our vision is temporarily obscured, and those are frightening times, and they should be frightening times, and we should get on our faces and plead, O Lord, open the eyes of my heart again, that I might see the wonder of the gospel. Don't let me in this darkness anymore because it is the God of this world who blinds 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, and O God, if this morning I am in that condition, below that cloud away, defeat that demonic influence in my life, and let me see again glory, let me see light, let me see beauty, let me see a treasure, don't leave me. Some of you have never seen it, which is why going to church is so boring. That song we sang, Jesus, priceless treasure, source of purest pleasure, makes no sense at all to you. You can think sex, that makes sense, I feel bad, food, I'm hungry right now, that would feel good, Jesus, I don't get it, you're blind. You remember how Jesus talked about it, 1 Corinthians 15, 3 to 4, it's not Jesus' word, but Paul's giving the foundational events, Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures. He was buried, he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, those are the gospel events, but what makes them good news? You say, with justification, forgiveness, eternal life, escape from hell, no! Those are only present to get us to God. Justification, why? It's good news because we stand accepted before the glory of the God who now satisfies our souls and he doesn't push us away. Justification is a means to that. Forgiveness of sins is good news because now all those things that are making us unable to be in God's presence and unable to see him because it's the pure and hard to see God, they're canceled, they're gone, and now we have what we're really after. Removal of the wrath of God and salvation from hell are good news because in that escape from hell, we now have entrance in to the very presence of the one who satisfies our longings as we behold his glory. Eternal life is good news because now Jesus has told us very plainly, John 17, 3, this is eternal life that they know me and the one who sent me to know Christ is life. It's not just the elongation forever of orgasm. If the only pleasures you know are physical pleasures, you're like a six-year-old who just heard that word and don't have a clue what I'm talking about. So ask the Lord to grow you up and give you light. That's the first point, the highest, best, final, good that makes all the other parts of the gospel good news is seeing and savoring and embracing and treasuring and being forever infinitely satisfied by the revelation of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. If you don't know what I'm talking about, the next point is the description of your life. And the next point is this, lossness is blindness to glory. I said one of my longings for this message is that we at Bethan would have a common, unified understanding of what it means to be lost. Now let's read verse 4 again and get that definition. Second Corinthians 4, 4, in their case, now the their case is referring back to verse 3, those who are perishing. In their case, here's what's true. The God of this world, Satan, 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 blind to the beauty of Christ. Everybody in this room knows people like that and some people in this room are that person. Everybody in this room loves somebody like that. We pour out our heart to them. We tell them about their sin with tender tones knowing that we too are sinners. We describe Christ in His mercy, power, wisdom. I just read this morning, it's funny how some phrases take you sitting on the couch in the living room. He put a child in their midst, he read that this morning, he put a child in their midst and he took him in his arms and said to them, "If you receive a child like this, you receive me." And I just stopped and I pictured him. He didn't just set him, come here kid, two-year-old maybe, three, maybe smaller. He didn't just say stand there, he reached down and he took him like this. So picture Jesus looking at you and saying, "You receive a child like this, you receive me and if you receive me, you receive him who sent me." That's just a little glimpse and you say that to this person you love. He's like that, he's like that, he owns the world. He runs the universe, he upholds all things by the word of his power and he's like that too. And you do your best and they look at you like you're talking swahili, totally blank, feeling nothing. Thank you, thank you anyway. We all know people like that and we feel so absolutely helpless who want to scream, want to take them by the neck, we want to die, we just want to die, I'll die, Lord anything. To be lost is to be blind to the glory of God in the face of Christ. Don't scoff at people like that. There's way too much scoffing on Christian radio. There's way too much scoffing on right-wing Christian talk shows. There's not enough tears, there's not enough brokenness, there's not enough aching and longing and yearning and hoping and dying and suffering, of course they're not going to believe. Don't scoff at people like that rather weep and tremble and I'll get to my point about patience in a few minutes. So that's my second observation. First one is the highest, best, final good of the gospel that makes all the other good things good is finally being able to see the beauty, be satisfied by it increasingly forever. And the second point is not to be able to see that is what lostness is. Here's the third observation. God alone can give light and take away the blindness and that's verse six. In Corinthians 4, 6, God alone can give this spiritual sight. Now this is a reference back to Genesis 1 where there was no light and God said, "Let there be light and nothingness obeyed just like it will in the heart of the people we love God willing." You see nothing there, there's nothing there, there's no hope, it is dark. There is hope. For God who said once that light shone out of darkness has shown into our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ, let us at Bethlehem not only have a unified, common, glorious, corporate idea of lostness, but let us have a common, unified idea of how we got saved. Every Christian in this room who has the slightest glimpse of the compelling glory of Jesus that drew you to Himself are a Christian. Every one of you is a Christian because that happened to you, verse six happened to you. If somebody says, "How did it happen to you?" Just read the verse. You don't even have to remember it. It happened to you. Say it on the authority of the Bible once I was blind and now I see and guess what? I didn't put mud on my eyes. He made me see. He said to darkness once upon a time let there be light and once upon a time in absolute sovereign grace when I was in total rebellion could see nothing beautiful in him. He spoke light into my heart. And once I opened my Bible and suddenly it looked interesting. I had some questions and I wanted to know more and I started to feel like if this is true everything in my life would change and there was this trembling said, "My God, I think I'm being saved." You are and you didn't do it. No Christian thinks he saved himself because being saved is having the blindness taken away. Blind people can't do that. Dead people can't do it. God alone saves which is how helpless evangelists and lost people are when they meet each other. They're both desperate. And the difference is the evangelist knows it and is praying for power which is what I'm doing right now for you. God do it. This is the work of God when the scales fall and the veil is lifted. We love stories like this, don't we? Sam sent me an email after last communion Sunday, I was just working away on my book and checking my email every few hours, hoping nothing's there. But I wanted this one. He just told me this is downtown, Sandled Communion and he said what I often say at communion, he said, "Now here's who should eat and here's who shouldn't, but you know it is possible to believe before the tray gets to you." That's how gloriously simple it can happen. A man had been brought to church for several months by one of our folks, very far into the gospel but was learning little by little Sunday after Sunday. He leaned over to the person next to him and said, "I'm ready." And the man said, "Ready for what?" And he said, "I want to believe." And they bowed their hand while the trays were on their way. And he trusted Christ and he confessed with his lips that Jesus is Lord and took communion for the first time in his life. Let's give you another little window there, the kind of thing that was happening. This was a man so foreign to Christian worship he'd never heard singing like this. He would take his cell phone out, call his girlfriend and keep it on during the worship service. She was in China. Then give me one more story because we need stories like this. We need to see God at work because he is at work. I got an email on April 4th from the Netherlands and here's what he said, "This is a Jewish man in the Netherlands listening online to the radio program. God bless everyone who reads this. I can't believe it took me two whole years to understand what is said in the audio sermon education for exaltation in Christ. I am a Jew, a Christian Jew, as of two minutes ago. I believe that Jesus is God, Jesus is Elohim, he who has the son, has life," you said. God used that radio sermon to crush the mind of this stubborn Jew. I must say I had troubles with the Father 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 gospel message will be spread out here in Europe. I am from the Netherlands. I can't believe it. Well, I do believe it. Actually, Jesus is Elohim. Jesus prays Elohim, your brother in Christ, Michael. This is point three. Salvation is when God sovereignly speaks light in your heart. And you are enabled in a sermon, in a tract, in a radio program, in a TV program, a Billy Graham crusade, reading your Bible, listening to a friend talk about Jesus. You are enabled for the first time to taste spiritual beauty, glory, treasure and be drawn to it. That's God. And that is the way salvation comes. Here's the fourth observation. And now we're going to Acts 26. And I do hope you'll go with me. Would you turn to Acts 26? I hope you have a Bible if you don't just listen carefully. But I want you to weave together in your mind and in your Bible, these three texts. Second Corinthians 4, 4, and 6. And now the second one, Acts 26, 17, and 18. Or just remember 18. The fourth observation is that though God alone can give life, light, he uses people to bring it to pass. He uses messengers. Now listen to the end of verse 17 of Acts 26 through verse 18 and listen for the parallels with second Corinthians 4, 4, and the remedy that is tailor made for the horrible lossness of second Corinthians. I am sending you, see those words at the end of verse 17? This is Jesus speaking to the Apostle Paul or Saul on the Damascus road telling him why he just knocked him off his horse and made him his own. I am sending you to open the eyes of the Gentiles, to open their eyes, you, so that they may turn from darkness to light from the power of Satan, that's the blinding one in verse 4 of 2 Corinthians, from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive the forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me. Notice the perfect remedy. I am sending you, Paul. I am sending you Bethlehem, I don't do this miracle illumination in human hearts without human messengers. I am sending you to do what? To take away blinding effects of Satan, who is blinding the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. I am sending you to do what only I can do. Listen, this is devastating and gloriously encouraging. It is saying when you talk to that loved one, when you talk to that colleague, that friend, that neighbor, and they seem so far from any interest, so far from any delight, any pleasure and any joy, any resting that you just want to throw in the towel, remember you are helpless and you are appointed to make it happen. It is a wonderful position to be in. You can't make it happen and it will only happen through you or somebody. God doesn't move around through the world doing his little thing, he doesn't save people like that. He saves people like this, like that, he doesn't do this, he does this, and you are the this, you are this. So he won't just go over there and he only says, "Oh Lord, say my neighbor, say my neighbor, say my neighbor, go!" Because there's this amazing, this, this you're so thrilling that the miracle of supernatural illumination, Jesus is saying to Paul, "I send you to open their eyes and only I can open their eyes." So be the agent of my power. Isn't that why verse 7 is at the end of the text back in 2nd Corinthians 4? We have this treasure, meaning the light of the glory of God in the face of Christ. We have this treasure in clay pots in order that the surpassing power might belong to him. We're all clay pots, our words are never adequate. You ever come away from a witnessing situation feeling, "Whoa, I really did it good." Never, never, never will that ever happen. You will always be a broken clay pot and there's design in that. God wants the glory and he's going to get it for his power. That's the fourth point, let me rehearse them for you and then we'll give you the last one. Number one, the highest, best, final good of the gospel that makes all the other wonderful parts of it good is the glory of God in the face of Christ offered to you for your everlasting satisfaction as you are unable to see it. That lostness is blindness to that glory. Third, salvation is only possible because God says sovereignly, "Let there be light." And fourth, he doesn't do it without human emissaries. Verse 26, 18, last point, "In the mouth of those emissaries, patient teaching is called for." I want you to hear two clusters of ideas there. Patience is one, teaching is another. There's this relational component, I said I would come back to relationships and say something positive, this is big while I'm talking, turns to 2 Timothy 2. Would you do that? This is 1st and 2nd decilonians, 1st and 2nd Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews, get your bearings there. Find this little book of 2nd Timothy because I want you to connect 2nd Corinthians 4-4, Acts 26-18 and 2nd Timothy 2-26 as the three verses that have a whole worldview. If you understand those three verses and the connection between them, you've got a massive grasp on Christianity. I said there are two clusters, there's this patient cluster that has to do with relationships and ethics, and then there's this teaching cluster that has to do with the content of what you say. Now let's read 2nd Timothy 2-24-26. This is for all of us now, addressed to Timothy, he was a pastor but it's relevant for all of us, Timothy and he's being told how to be an agent of what only God can do. This is like filling up, like if Paul said to Jesus on the Damascus Road, "This does not make sense." You're sending me to do what only you can do, well give me some details, these are the details. 2nd Timothy 2-24, "The Lord's Servant," that's the messenger, that's you or Paul or me. "The Lord's Servant must not be quarrelsome," so try to avoid the knockdown, drag out word battles. You can't always do that, that's okay if you can't, you can't, but try, don't be known for that, must not be quarrelsome but kind, there's big, relationships matter, kind to everyone, here's the next one, "able to teach," isn't that interesting, teach, I'll come back patiently, that's where I got that word, "and during evil you got to take your lumps in evangelism from your kids or your neighbor or your colleague, your dad," you've spoken and it just comes back with bad news, you can always turn it against you and you feel like you've blown it and, "Oh, patience, patience, patience, patience," patiently enduring evil, correcting opponents, his opponents with gentleness, there's got to be some correction if somebody says, "Well, I think Jesus is a reincarnation of a cat," you got to correct that, but you do it gently and then here's 2 Corinthians 4, 6 all over again, if you didn't get it there, please get it here, when you behave like that and when you teach like that, God may perhaps, He's God, we're not, we don't wrestle God into doing anything, He may perhaps grant them repentance, I want you to notice the threefold sequence in the rest of what I'm going to read it very slowly and comment as I go and then we'll be done, there are three things that God will do here, perhaps this afternoon, as you lovingly, patiently, kindly, gently teach someone some beautiful things about Jesus, whether they seem to receive it or not, this is what God may do and it's three things and they're in sequence and they're just mind-boggling, first let's just read him, I don't need to say too much, he will grant them repentance, you know what repentance is, metanoia means a change of mind or heart, like we were regarding television this afternoon is really exciting, I don't know what's on this afternoon, that might be exciting but there might be something and you're really excited about it and then somebody's talking to you, or maybe it's happening right now, and a mind and a heart are changed and is there a book I could buy to read this afternoon about Jesus, is there somebody I could talk to about Jesus, is there a walk I could take around a lake today to behold what Jesus has made, a change happened, it's called repentance, it's turning from what once satisfied you to a whole new way of being satisfied by spiritual reality, namely Jesus Christ, so God may give that, that's a gift, that's a gift, you don't make that happen, you can't make yourself like what you don't like, so it may happen and then what happens after that, unto, he may grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, well you might say, wait a minute, that was my teachings back, I'm teaching them and they know some truth, I just told them the truth, they know the truth, that doesn't take any repentance, the devil knows the truth, so obviously this must mean something more than devil knowledge, I mean the devil knows more truth than you'll ever know until you get to heaven, knowing truth doesn't save you by itself, so this knowledge of the truth which comes from repentance not leads into repentance, you see you're giving them some knowledge at the front end that God will use to lead to repentance and then that knowledge becomes another kind of knowledge, that's called the light of the gospel, of the glory of Christ who is the image of God, that's the kind of knowledge we're talking about here, eternal life is to know me and him who sent me, this is a knowing that is a relational embrace of what is truly seen to be glorious, this is knowing, it's not like opening a treasure chest full of gold and thinking it's rust and playing next, that's, you saw it, you knew it, but you didn't know it, it's opening it, scraping it a little bit and this thing, I'm going to buy this field, I'll sell everything to buy this field, that's repentance and that's the new knowledge that comes, lastly this is the sweetest for some of you right now, I have seen in my life and in my ministry the devil in some pretty powerful ways, I don't toy with the devil, I hate the devil then I think it's right to hate the devil since he's beyond repentance, it's not right to hate people who are demonic but it's right to hate the devil because he's gone and all he does is make people miserable, that's all he does, so I hate him and he's very powerful, he's way stronger than I am, only I know the one who when he speaks the devil obeys and I want the devil to let people go in this room and some of you, his fingers are so deep into your groin and so deep into your mind and so deep into your heart, you can't even call it and so let's finish reading it and then we'll pray that God do it and close. When repentance is given and fresh knowledge of glorious things in Christ are given that they may, they may escape from the snare of the devil having been captured by him to do his will, this is amazing to me, I've been involved in at least one major dramatic exorcism in which a person was demonic and flopped around with four like a fish, I've seen that, I know it happens and for those in certain cultures it happens more often but I think this is more normative deliverance, is it not amazing to you that this text could say the devil takes people captive to do his will, so they just bondage to pornography and bondage to some kind of lust or bondage to greed or bondage to anger, they can't do anything but be angry, they just bondage and this text says now here's my prescription mom, son, brother, friend, don't be quarrelsome, be kind, teach, teach, teach, teach, be patient when they come back at you, take your lumps, correct them with gentleness, that's it, it's like wow it's a big, big thing, no, it's God's the big thing, you're not the big thing, no thing is the big thing, God's the big thing, yours is, can you do that, can you over the long haul, keep speaking, sweet, powerful gospel truth, God may perhaps grant that they would repent and come to a knowledge of the truth and freed, so Christian open your mouth, don't be silent, don't be impatient, keep on telling, keep on teaching the glorious Christ and unbeliever who's sitting there wishing this would be over, may God please make this message or someone else's message the means of your repentance and a recognition in the gospel of the glory of the greatest treasure you could ever know, the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you, do you hear that, the Lord make his face to shine upon you and into you and be gracious to you, the Lord lift up his mighty countenance upon you and give you light and peace, repentance, knowledge, liberation from the devil and all the people say 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 2601 East Franklin Avenue, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 55-406. Desiring God exists to help you make God your treasure because God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.
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