Kennystix's podcast
The Whole Glory of God
The following message is by Pastor John Piper. More information from Desiring God is available at www.desiringgod.org. Thank you very much. It's an honor to be here. I've had a good time with Mark already this morning and I like him. I hadn't met him before. That's important to me. He has some of the same burdens that I do and let's pray together. The glory of the Lord will be revealed and all flesh will see it together for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. Lord, we want more than anything in the world for your name to be exalted in this city and around the world. We want there to be a passion for your supremacy and all things. For the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ, your divine son. We want there to be a readiness to die for Christ. We want there to be a passion to follow him so closely that if we're called to suffer we'll suffer. We don't want to play games at church. We don't want to be trendy. We want to be deep, real, authentic, Christ-exalting, Bible-saturated, people-loving, nation-reaching. So, Lord, come and help me in my little part here to be faithful to your word, to be submitted to Christ, to be self-forgetful, as I'm entranced with him. Let that miracle happen, I pray. So, draw near and be on us so that the transaction here is really powerful for your great name's sake. We ask in Christ's name, amen. One of the advantages of being in a church for 25 years or so is that the mission of the church and the mission of the pastor tend to become one. It's the only way really to avoid crisis. And so, my life mission statement and Bethlehem Baptist Church, mission statement are the same now, and I hope it stays that way until I am dead. And I'd like to be there as long as I can. I'm not eager to jump anywhere else. I just love where I am, love doing what I'm doing, and I would love to see it multiplied. I love what you're doing from all that I understand of it. But the mission statement goes like this. I exist, or I could say, Bethlehem Baptist Church exists to spread, and every word in here, every word in here was battled over in 1995. I mean, when you forge a church mission statement that everybody can memorize and bleed for, you go away for three days and you hammer out every single word, then you preach on every single word for a season, and then you live by it. So, we exist to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ. Most everybody in my church could say that to you, it hangs on the wall. That's been what we have had a heartbeat for for now ten years or so. That's the way we define ourselves. That's why I'm here. I only let go do these kinds of things because the elders believe, well, go do that. That's what we exist for. If you can do that out there, go do that. Spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ. Now, you might ask, and you should ask, if you're a good biblical person or a good Presbyterian anyway, which I don't know how many are, why don't you just say, instead of that long sentence with the word passion and it enjoy in it, why don't you just say, we exist to glorify God? Wouldn't it be just simpler and biblical? And there's a reason for that, and the reason is that we, I think, all around the world, maybe, I don't know, America at least 20th and 21st century, I think have lost a truth that I would like to help recover, like you to help recover, namely the truth that is essential, not marginal. Crucial, essential, central to glorifying God is being satisfied in God. In other words, there's this passion component, this emotion component, this, to use the old Jonathan Edwards language, the affectional component to life, which is not optional, it's not a combust at the end of the train, it's not icing on the cake of commitment, discipline, make it happen, managerial Christianity, it is right at the heart, God is most glorified in me when I am most satisfied in him, that's the banner that flies over our ministry underneath this existence, it's spread up, passion, and the reason that word passion for the supremacy of God is so crucial is because God is glorified as we are satisfied in him. Now, that changes a lot if you believe that. If for the glory of God you believe people have to become deeply profoundly satisfied in him so that the roots of sin that lie to them about where satisfaction can be found is severed by a superior satisfaction. If you believe that, it changes everything. It just changes everything, one little change, which is huge, but it's only part of the big picture, is that any evangelism, the true, standard, solid, biblical language of we are seeking to win people to receive Jesus as Lord and Savior must be supplemented, I think today my situation with and as treasure. So when I talk about what it means to become a Christian, I say, are you willing to embrace? I like that word. That word has connotations about it that are both, you embrace an idea that you must, you embrace a person, you can embrace, but embrace has good connotations about it. Are you willing to embrace Christ as Lord over your life, get to tell you what to do, and as Savior, he can forgive all your sins and free you from all the junk? And are you willing to have him as the treasure of your life greater than any other treasure? If not, come back later when you're ready because you're not ready to be a Christian. And I find that when you story in the verb, make a verb out of it, "treasuring Christ" and make that essential to the meaning of faith, it's not something you add on, that to trust him as Savior and Lord is to treasure him, that when you add that on, then you're starting to make the cycles and win people to Christ's soul. In this mission statement, there is this word "passion" for the supremacy of God, because the absence of it results in some terrible skewing of life and doctrine. I really am on my way, if you wonder where in the world is he going, I'm on my way to talk about open theism this morning, okay? So, believe it or not, that's where we're going. The ignorance of the truth, that God is most glorified in us when we're most satisfied in him, that being satisfied in God is an essential dimension of glorifying him, the absence of that truth, the failure to get that skews doctrine and what you do with it. When it's missing, when satisfaction in God is not seen as indispensable, then something has to come in to replace it. And what comes in, usually, is right thinking about God and right living. And when right thinking, called doctrine, right living, called holiness or love, when those two components depict passion, satisfaction, joy, zeal, affection, treasuring, names can be put on them. Intellectualism can be put on doctrine, and legalism can be put on behavior. And usually, since nobody likes intellectualism and legalism, counter errors emerge. In reaction against intellectualism, the error emerges debunk doctrine. You don't want that, that's dead, so debunk that. Be little that, marginalize that doctrine because clearly, that we don't want. So the distortion that emerges from the absence of passion and the absence of satisfaction and the absence of joy and the absence of treasuring in relation to doctrine creates intellectualistic churches to which then people react with debunking doctrine. And with regard to behavior, legalism emerges when there's no root down in joy, causing the flower of holiness and love to be beautiful because it's the overflow of joy in God, then you've got duty driven religion and you've got legalism. And of course, nobody likes to accept the people trapped in it and therefore we react to it with antinomianism or loose living or it really doesn't matter what you do anyway because grace is really grace. And all of that mess, I think, at least this is what I'm devoting my life to, is to try to put joy and satisfaction in God back at a place where it is profoundly connected to doctrine and profoundly connected to love, behavior, lay down your life kind of sacrificial love for people. And the way it comes is by putting itself right in the middle with doctrine now functioning under it as the root of joy. All biblical truth is meant to serve satisfaction in God, all of it. And all satisfaction in God is meant to serve the flower or the fruit of love or holiness or radical, self-sacrificing, give your life away service to other people. So now you see the root, see the fruit in the middle here is this massive thing, a passion for the supremacy of God or joy or satisfaction or treasuring Christ above all things. And the root of it is right thinking and the flower and the fruit of it is love. And once you put doctrine down there doing that kind of service and once you put above this joy, this glorious thing called love that lays down its life, then this will not become legalism and this will not become intellectualism and we won't have to have the counter-error of let's just do anything we want because it doesn't matter because there's just grace and we won't have this anti-doctoral, doctrinal debunking thing at the bottom and we can get the whole biblical picture together. That's what I would like to see happen. So maybe what we should do is go first to a sub-authority and then a main authority. Sub-authority, Jonathan Edwards. I love Jonathan Edwards. I hope that you get to know him. He's not alive if you're newer at this. He's dead. And in fact, I was talking with Mark this morning and so happy that Mark hung out in his early Christian life mainly with dead people. And that is why he is where he is and so our little bookstore at the church is called Books by a bunch of dead guys and a few living ones. And I just encourage you because there are no living people. I say this without any qualification, there are no living writers who write like Jonathan Edwards, who think like Jonathan Edwards. There are none. We do not have the church yet in the world that can sustain and produce that kind of death. When I read Edwards, I am in another universe, a universe of discourse, a universe of passion, a universe of doctrine, a universe of a vision of God. It does not exist in the world. Now, how in the world can you say that? And really, I don't know how I can say that. I mean my little world. I don't know the world. I just operate teeny little places and so just take that with a grain of salt. I haven't met one yet. So I'm going to Edwards and I'm going to read you the most important paragraph I ever read in Jonathan Edwards. This is from his miscellaneous, which isn't in a main book. It's just his collected thoughts and they're in the yellow edition and you can find it. But here is what he wrote. And all of this, I'm going to read now this little paragraph, is intended to support the central, essential, indispensable truth that if you love the glory of God, you must pursue your satisfaction in him all the time, 24/7, even if it kills you. So here's what he wrote. So God glorifies himself toward the creatures in two ways. One, by appearing to their understanding. Two, by communicating himself to their hearts and in their rejoicing and delighting in him and enjoying the manifestations which he makes of himself. And then I put this in italics. God is glorified not only in his glories being seen, but by its being rejoiced in. When I read that, 1971, everything changed. I was seeing it in Lewis. I was seeing it in Edwards. I was seeing it in Dan Fuller down at Fuller Seminary and then I began to see it everywhere in the Bible. God is glorified not only by his glories being seen, and that means seen by the eye of the mind, but by its being rejoiced in. I had never heard anybody tell me. God is glorified by, not and. Like, what's the chief end of man? The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. Well, depends on what "and" means. I want to say God is glorified by, but I had never heard anybody say that. God is glorified by enjoying him forever. And that's what Edwards is saying. Let me finish the paragraph. When those that see it delight in it, God is more glorified than if they only see it. His glory is then received by the whole soul, both by the understanding and by the heart. God made the world that he might communicate and the creature received his glory and that it might be received both by the mind and the heart. He that testifies his idea of God's glory doesn't glorify God so much as he that testifies also, not instead of, but also of his delight in it. That's the paragraph that changed everything. God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. Now we need the chief authority, the ultimate authority, we need the Bible. So, if you can see your Bibles out there in that room turned to Philippians chapter 1. See, now this phenomenon here, by the way, this room that we're in, this is part of cultural relevance, I suppose. Because I hate rooms like this. I hate black ceilings. I said to my church, I'll resign if you put a black ceiling in our second campus. So, that's just how I feel here. But I really like Mark. Good, nice. Like the devil is in the ceiling, you know? White ceilings and windows! But of course a video doesn't work if you have windows. Well, I said we're in the 21st century, pay a million dollars for a video that'll work with windows. If you have to, we're having windows. But really the way to think about this building is you're in Seattle, right? And they won't let you build big shiny window churches, and so you meet in catacombs, right? Amen. Jesus is the light of the world. I can just, I can hear next Sunday's sermon, you know? Philippians chapter 1. I'm going to read, I better open my Bible, but I can't read it because I didn't write the text. Chapter 1 will start at verse 20, right in the middle of the sentence. As is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be ashamed, not at all be ashamed, but that with full courage, now as always, Christ will be honored in my body. Christ will be magnified, glorified, whatever word you want to supply there. That's His passion that Christ will be glorified in His body, whether by life or by death. So Paul's passion, and I, this was the sermon I preached on my first time at my church, is that this is what I want to live for. Whether I live or whether I die, I want Christ to be made much of. I want people to read off of me, Jesus is great. That's what Paul says he's about. I want Christ to be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. Now my question is, how Paul is Christ magnified, honored, glorified in your life, in life and death, in your body, in life and death? And he answers that in verse 21. "For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain." Now just shorten it down to the death pair, just paraphrase it and leave out the life pair. He says, "My longing, my desire is that with full courage, now as always, Christ would be honored in my body when I die. For to me to die is gain." Now can you work that logic, can you make that work? Christ will be magnified in my dying, in my body, in my dying, when for me dying is gain. I think I get it Paul, I think I get it. The way to make Christ look good is for Christ to be your treasure when you die. Not your wife, not your kids, not your church, not your health, not your retirement plan, but your dream of getting married when you're dying of cancer at age 19. So I think, and I don't want to in any way make this verse trite. What he's saying is Christ is most glorified in me when I am most satisfied in him, especially as I die. May Christ be magnified in my body as I die, for to me to die is gain. Because verse 23, I'm hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ. That's what death means. So when you face a moment, it's called death, when you face a moment and at the end of that moment, you lose everything in the world. And all you gain is Christ. You say, in the face of that moment, gain such a deal. So that's my biblical basis for the statement, God is most glorified in me when I'm most glorified in him. Christ is made to look great, God is made to look great, when we treasure him so highly, when he so satisfies our souls that at the moment of death, wife goes, kids go, job goes, everything goes. But one thing, Christ, and you call it gain. When that happens, he looks really good to the verses. So my deep, deep conviction is that we should do what Paul did in verse 25. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy of faith, joy in the faith. Isn't it amazing that Paul would define his whole apostolic earthly existence as I am here for the progress of your joy? And the reason is because of what he just said in verse 21. When you have joy in Christ, he is made to look really good because this joy functions as a razor that sever the roots of all joys that drag us into sin. We become the most free people in all the world. We don't need what the world needs. We can let goods and kindred go. This mortal life also, the body they may kill, God's truth and my Christ abide still. I have him, I don't need life, I don't need house, I don't need lands, I don't need a family, I have Christ. And therefore you are the freest and most dangerous people in the world. And so he gets a lot of glory. I believe God is made to look really great when we are satisfied in him. So all that to say, put that back as the center where doctrine is feeding that and love is overflowing from that. This is the root, this is the fruit and in the middle is this passion of counting Christ gain in the face of losing everything on earth. That really does produce the fruit of love. Jesus is the best example, isn't he? Hebrews 12-2. For the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross. So where did the biggest act of love that has ever been performed come from? It came from pursuit of joy, not letting the joy go, even in Gethsemane. That wasn't a pleasant experience in Gethsemane. But what sustained him, according to Hebrews 12-2, is he could see just over the horizon the sunrise of the joy of his own glory restored with the Father, his own supremacy, as authority over all things, and millions and millions of redeemed people because he died for them and all surrounding him to their own satisfaction, praising him forever and ever. And that vision was the happiest thing he could think of and it carried him right through. It carried him right through the cross. And don't ever, ever do the blasphemy of thinking you're going to be motivated by anything higher than the joy that sustains Jesus. There's a lot of people out there who are trying to say it's low to be motivated by joy. That's blasphemy in the view of Hebrews 12-2. And of course, where does this joy come from? I could spend an hour here on, it comes from doctrine. That is, it comes from right views of the glory of Christ. Wrong views of the glory of Christ do not produce the kind of joy that produces the fruit of love. 2 Corinthians 3-18, "Beholding the glory of the Lord, we are being changed from one degree of glory to the next." How do you behold the glory of the Lord today? Well, verse 4, just go down 5 verses into chapter 4, 2 Corinthians, verse 4. 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. The gospel of the glory of Christ, the gospel, the news, the words, the teaching, the doctrine of the glory of Christ is where you behold it in verse 18. And therefore, right gospel teaching creates a spiritual sight of the glory of Christ which transforms us into people who count Him our treasure above all things. So if we don't get the gospel right, we distort the glory of Christ, and therefore we lame the church at every level. And even if it doesn't show up in our generation, it'll show up sooner or later, which brings me now to open theism. Because my sadness and anger over the emergence of open theism in the last ten years or so is rooted in my passion for the glory of Christ and the glory of God. Whatever undermines true views of the glory of Christ undermines joy and undermines love and undermines mission and undermines church planting and undermines families and undermines worship and open theism profoundly distorts the glory of Christ and the glory of God. And I hope that there are open theists in this room because I would love to see you change your mind. This is not a small thing, even though I could not persuade my denomination. For five years ago, when we battled through this, that it was a big thing, which was made me realize more than ever, I'm a man without a home. Doctrine really matters, and the closer it gets to the deity of Christ, the nature of the cross, the deity of God, the closer it gets to distorting the glory of God at its center, the worse it becomes, and open theism is about as close to the center as you can get. I didn't take this lightly at all. I do not think open theists should be allowed to be pastors in my denomination, or yours. I think they are false prophets and should not be allowed to preach and teach and be elders in the Church of Christ. So let me explain to you what it is, and then how it's defended, and then what the response to it is, and give you another vision and another pastoral approach, because the way open theists generally talk is very tenderly and very pastorally and very emotionally out pain in the world, and believe me, I live with pain all the time. You don't have a church that's large without having people dying all the time, and having little children needing open heart surgery in the seven weeks old, and having another little child needing brain surgery to hopefully get rid of his seizures, and it doesn't work, and a third of his brain is now missing and he's risking blindness. You just live with these things. Open Theists don't need to tell me anything about pain. I also read the newspaper. I also count bodies in Iraq, and I count bodies in earthquakes in Japan. I go and I look at the most gross pictures on the web to see bodies and what will become of mine someday. I walk up against pain intentionally every day. Let's I sound artificial and mechanical and intellectualistic when I'm dealing with doctrine. We pastors are designed to know suffering, and God will see to it that it goes into your own life, according to 2 Corinthians 1, so that you will know how to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which you are comforted by God. Don't choose church planting if you want to run away from pain. So, here's the definition of Open Theism. In the Christian view, God knows all, this is a quote from Greg Boyd in his very popular book, Letters from the Skeptic. Boyd, I believe, I know Greg. We serve across towns each other. I've been face to face with him at Olive Garden. I've debated him before, 500 people for three hours. I have agonized in prayer and in conversation, and we just don't see the world the same at all. But he is the most articulate, I believe the most bright, the most winsome representative of the movement alongside Clark Pinnock and John Sanders. Here's what he wrote. In the Christian view of God, this is page 30 of Letters from the Skeptic, in the Christian view of God, God knows of all reality, everything there is to know. But to assume he knows ahead of time how every person is going to freely act assumes that each person's free activity is already there to know, even before he freely does it. But it's not. If we have been given freedom, we create reality out of our decisions by making them. And until we make them, they don't exist. And thus, in my view at least, there simply isn't anything there to know until we make it there to know. So God can't for know the good or bad decisions of the people he creates until he creates these people, and they in turn create their decisions. That is the most vast departure from Orthodoxy you can imagine. It's unbelievable that evangelicalism does not see this as serious as it is. So the term "open theism" means that the future is open to God. It's not, he doesn't see it all and seeing it as an infallible God, see it as there in his own mind and knowing it's there. It's rather unknown and therefore open because all of you have ultimate self-determination. That's a book that comes right out of God at war, ultimate self-determination, that's one of his other books, ultimate self-determination. And if you have ultimate, not the key word, ultimate self-determination, you create de novo out of nothing like a little God. Your choices which then may surprise God and often do surprise God. He just missed it. And I do not say that lightly or caricature because I believe it is clear that open theists believe God makes mistakes even though they won't say he makes mistakes because they define mistake as you only make a mistake if having all the data that you need you say what isn't lightly to come to pass. But if you have all the data you can have and you make the best judgment call and it doesn't come to pass, you didn't make a mistake. God's doing that a lot according to open theism. He tends to know how your minds work. He's omniscient in that he can see the present you perfectly, but you have this card in the deck called free will or ultimate self-determination and you can throw that down in ways he never dreamed that you would. That's not quite accurate. He knows all possibilities. But that you would choose this possibility or that one you can really surprise God from time to time. That's the essence of open theism. The future is open. Now the defense of it I think flows in two channels. One I think there's a philosophical presupposition and then there is a set of exegetical arguments. And the philosophical presupposition which is almost universally held in America. And so all of you are cutting edge church planners who are reaching out to your culture. This is what they're going to believe almost certainly. Namely, if God is going to let us have responsibility for our behavior and if he's going to have a genuine love reciprocal relationship with us he must give us sometimes in popular culture just said free will. But that's a really, really vague term which some people might approve of rightly. But in open theism it means ultimate self-determination. Without ultimate self-determination God is put in charge of the whole world which means he's accountable for suffering and sin and they cannot have that and therefore that must be rejected. And you cannot have a genuine authentic love relationship with Christ because you're just then a robot and an automaton without that. So this reality, this all determining reality called ultimate self-determination is the philosophical assumption that is brought to the Bible. Not one of you could show me a single verse in the Bible that teaches that. You can show verses that to your mind seems to imply it but they don't necessarily. That is an assumption that is brought to the Bible in order to say well that's how we can have accountability. And that's how God can be holy in the face of a world filled with sin and suffering. And those can be explained another way. The exegetical stream is that texts are brought up which so one, God changes his mind. For example Isaiah 38, has a guy you're going to die, has a guy praise, he doesn't die. Jonah, Nineveh's going to die, they repent, they don't die. Second, God says he's sorry for what he's done. Genesis 6, 5, so how can you be sorry for something if you knew it was going to turn out this way that you did it? He's sorry he made Saul king. He seems surprised. Jeremiah 26, 1 to 3. He says sometimes perhaps Jeremiah 3, 6 and 7. He puts people to the test like Abraham to see how he would turn out. So if God knew how he was going to turn out why would he need to test him? And so on. Those are the kinds of arguments. And we don't have nearly enough time here to answer each of those arguments. But let me just say this. The books are out there. They're out there by the, there are a lot of them. Bruce Ware was going to be here I think and couldn't come. And his book, God's lesser glory. Millard Erickson, what does God know would be to its best I think? And they give plausible answers. I mean the church has always known these texts are in the Bible that have this prima facia appearance of God being a mere man. And plausible explanations have been given which cohere with God's foreknowledge of all things and God's governing of all things. And I would just send you there to see those answers. Let me show you an example of the kind of thing that we're dealing with with regard to mistakes in open Theism. Jeremiah 3 19 to 20, God says, I said, you shall call me my father and not turn away from following me. Surely as a woman treacherously departs from her lover, so you have dealt treacherously with me. Oh, house of Israel declares the Lord. And the other is God. God says, I'm not going to turn away from following me. And then he says they became treacherous. So Boyd says that God predicted one thing and that another came out. This is a quote. He genuinely thought, God genuinely thought his people would behave differently. That's a quote. He genuinely thought his people would behave differently. Then he softens those words with ease. The Lord thinks one thing will most likely occur while it turns out that something else occurred. That's a quote. And again, he says, the Lord, having a perfectly accurate assessment of all probabilities, thought his people would do the former when the situation, when this situation came out, but they did the opposite of what he thought they would do. He thought his people would do the former when the situation came out. They did otherwise. Now, he doesn't call that a mistake because he says, a mistake is when you mispredict on the basis of the best knowledge available. I think most people would say that it's a mistake. I'm sorry, I didn't get that exactly right. Dr. Boyd does not call this a mistake because he does not believe it is a mistake when you mispredict on the basis of the best knowledge available. Okay, make sure we get that right. It's not a mistake when you mispredict on the best knowledge available. He does not have knowledge of what they will do. He only has knowledge of what they are and they can surprise him. I think most people think it is a mistake when you mispredict on the basis of the best knowledge available. That's the meaning of mistake. And I don't think we will be able to get out of this. I don't think open theists can escape this. God makes mistakes in what he thinks and says will come to pass according to some of the texts that they use. Now, why do I think this is serious? It might be obvious too. I'm sure some of you don't think it's obvious. Number one, because it undermines the deity of Christ. And number two, because I believe it undermines the deity of God. Here's why I think that. In Isaiah, God presents his foreknowledge as part of his peculiar glory as God. Jonathan Edwards says, "It is one of the evidences of God's peculiar glory greatly distinguishing him from all other beings that he has foreknowledge of human decisions." So I'll read to one of the texts. There are about eight of them in Isaiah 40 through 48. Here's Isaiah 46, 9 to 10. "Remember the former things long past, for I am God, and there is no other. I am God." Now, you've got to ask why is he saying that? Why is he saying, "I am God. There is no other. I am God." And then he follows it with a defining clause. "I am God, and there is no other. I am God, and there is none like me, comma." Declaring the end from the beginning. That's the meaning of deity. That's the meaning of God's mess. Declaring the ending from the beginning and from ancient times, things not yet done. I think if Isaiah heard or read the God of the possible or God at war or Pinnox books or Sanders God who risked, I think they would say, "No way can they believe in the living God." They call him G-O-D, a God who does not know the future is not the biblical God. His deity is being called into question. Now, here's the attack on the deity of Christ. In John 6, 40, 6, 64, Jesus says, "There are some of you who do not believe, for Jesus knew from the beginning who they were, who did not believe." And who it was that would betray him. So in John 6, 64, Jesus knows Judas will use his will to betray me. He knows this. Judas is still responsible. You see, the philosophical argument says, "If God knows what Judas is going to do, and God is infallible, then Judas will do that. It is fixed. It is determinant, because God can't make a mistake. And if it is fixed and determinant, he can't be responsible." And so philosophy is governing here. Not exegesis, mainly I don't believe. Philosophy is being pushed down, whereas I just back up and say, "Look, we've all got some mystery in our theology. Where you draw the mystery lines is different from group to group. The goal is to draw it where the Bible draws it. And where the Bible draws it on this issue is, God knows all things. The Bible, you are responsible. If you can't figure that out, live with it." I think that's another little piece about the culture you serve in. I think they can probably wear that. I think they can handle that. I think that this pressure of self-determination as the philosophical presupposition of accountability does not have to be brought in if you're willing to teach people just from the Bible. But here's the issue with the deity of Christ. John 1319, Jesus says, he just finished rushing the disciples' feet, and he knows that Judas is on his way to do his deed. And he says, "From now on, I am telling you before it comes to pass so that when it does occur, you may believe." And then it helps to study your Greek here. The translations say, "So that you may believe that I am He." He's not there. It all says is, "I have told you these things before they come to pass so that when they do occur, you will believe that I am." What in the world is that? I'm telling you the future. I'm predicting the decisions of an evil man who remains accountable. And in doing that, I am trying to win faith in myself as I am. And I assume you know your Bible. But John 858, Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you before Abraham was, I am." That takes you breath away. I wrote a poem about that back in 1967. I just, I don't remember the poem, I just remember the, I just pictured Jesus walking on a dusty road with ordinary fishermen with him. And he looks over his shoulder at one point and says, "Before Abraham was, I am." And you get a feeling for why it was hard for these guys to compute Jesus before Abraham was. You didn't say, "I was." That would be awesome. You said, using the words of God, the "I am who I am" language, you said, "I am." So you're pulling, you're saying not only were you there before Abraham, but you're God. And that's what he was saying. And to me it's huge. It's just huge that Jesus made his ability to predict Judas' betrayal and evidence of his deity. So if a movement comes along and they're cool and they're hip and they're growing big churches and they say, "He can't do that. He can't predict all of your decisions." I say, you're calling the deity of Jesus into question. I don't care how big your church is or how hip you are or how good your band is, I'm going to call you a heretic because that won't fly in heaven. And I want to help people get there. What about the pastoral dimension of this? That's where we want to go, isn't it? We're not into just winning arguments here. I don't care about winning arguments. I want to save people. I want to help people endure the suffering that they endure, make it through death, have an everlastingly joyful experience of God in heaven. I would really like to be used by God to do that. So I care about the pastoral dimension of this, and let me read you now, Greg Boyd's heart, which I think is a very loving heart at one level. Here's what he wrote. "Within the limits set by God, an individual may purpose to do things which are utterly at odds with God's ultimate purpose. Thus, when an individual inflicts pain on another individual, I do not think we can go looking for the purpose of God in the event." Now, I can't tell you how much I hate that sentence. It is so destructive. It is so wrong. I'll read it again, and then I'll read more. It's worse. I do not think we can go looking for the purpose of God in the event. I know Christians frequently speak about the purpose of God in the midst of tragedy caused by someone else. There was a young girl, and I guess, really personal. Greg is very good at this. He really knows how to name the names and get personal and painful. And I sat with him at Olive Garden over in Roosevelt across the table. We exchanged painful stories. And I think it helped him to know, Greg, I know that last week in the Twin Cities, a young mom through her sixth month baby out of the window while driving down the freeway. I know that happened. I read that story. I ached over that story. I could not believe that story. I lose sleep over those stories. I think that helped him because he evidently thought people that defend traditional doctrine have no heart somehow. Where that came from, I don't know. Maybe he knows somebody like that. Don't be that person. But here's what he wrote. There was a young girl this year at Bethel who was killed by a drunk driver. A lot of students were wondering what purpose God had in "taking her home." But this iron guard was getting really mad here. We were talking about getting mad and how to sanctify our anger this morning. I got a lot of young people, just like you at my church, hundreds and hundreds of them. And they're in this sentence that they would ask what is God doing in "taking her home" the little girl that got hit by the drunk driver. And he responds to those people in my church that I'm trying to teach and prepare to handle the kind of suffering they would have if they want to plant the First Baptist Church of Mecca. This I regard, he says, "This I regard to be simply a piously confused way of thinking." The drunk driver alone is to blame. Now, I just got to stop here. Maybe I shouldn't. Okay, okay, okay. I'm going to stop here and do a little language analysis because I know the word "postmodernism" is thrown around a lot here. And I don't like the word. Frankly, I think it's trendy and old. But that's okay if it helps you relate. But there is a language game in America. And you can use it at age 60 and you can use it at age 20. And you've got to understand the way people massage language to back you in a corner so that there is no possible response to their question because they've set up the terms in a way, there's no way out. The most familiar old one is, "When did you stop beating your wife?" That's a language game. That's a language game that's used in high powered radio shows by really clever fast talking show host to back you into a corner and make it got stumble over his words and he can't get out of the hole that was just dug for him by a really clever in your face talk show host. I think he just did that. I'll read it again. So he regards asking about the purpose of God and the death of this little girl as piously confused way of thinking. This I regard as a simply piously confused way of thinking. The drunk driver alone is to blame for the girl's untimely death. Now I'm choosing the word blame. You see what he's done? In order to say no to that sentence, you're forced into saying God is to blame and you don't want to use the word blame. Blame does mean you're the cause in a bad way. You're the cause in a way that has sin in it. Blame is the word you use for causes that are sinful causes. We don't want to talk about God that way. We can't talk about God that way and he cornered us into a corner by saying I believe that the driver is the person to blame and you believe you blame God blame blame blame. You just, I'm just taking this little parenthesis right here to say get savvy with language. Not to do that. So many Christian right wing religious talk people just get good at doing it so that just go back and forth with each other. What I want is the kind of people talk, Paul talked about when he said we speak before God. Our consciousness is open. We're not trying to trap anybody. We are in the service of truth. We want our language to mean what we say. If I'm distorting your view and if you're an open theist and you think I've distorted open theism, you come up and talk to me afterwards and tell me what I need to change. We don't want to distort anything or trap anybody. We're not maneuvering. We're not into soundbites. We're into truth and glory and beauty and reality. What language to have a wholesome, helpful feel to it, not a tricky trapping feel to it. I've been watching those presidential debates. I just went crazy watching those debates. And I made a lot of my Republican people real unhappy by writing things about our president that make me unhappy about telling you to go there. I just think we can be a lot. If they ask this question, answer the question. That's a biblical question way to ask. [applause] So there is the pastoral take. Greg Boyd has, what, 3,000 or 4,000 people in his church. He tells the story of a young woman who married, sought the counsel of her parents and her pastor and God. "Should I marry this man?" And she had a dream for missions. And everybody said, "Yes." And she married him. And a year later, he cheats on her, desserts her, leaves her, and her life is devastated for missions and the dream she had for her life. And she comes to Dr. Boyd and says, "What can I make of this?" And his counsel to her is, "God did not know that was going to happen." Now the way that's supposed to comfort, I believe, is that she's wrestling with the goodness of God. And the rescue of God is to say, "He did the best he could." If you had gone to him and asked him a year ago, "Is this guy the one to marry?" He said, "Yes." And that's supposed to help her process, "Oh, God is still good." Now, I'll tell you, I have worked at this for 25 years with people through hundreds and hundreds of tragedies. I don't think it works that way. I don't think it works that way. And so I'm going to give you an alternative pastoral vision. That's the last thing I want to do in close with some illustrations. You know where this X-29 thing is coming from theologically, and I presume that's what you think I believe as well, namely that God is sovereign. And I do believe that with all my heart, it's one of the most precious things in the world to me that God is good and wise and absolutely sovereign. Not one bird falls to the ground, apart from your father, who is in not one hair turns white or black. The dice are thrown in the lap in Reno, Las Vegas, and every decision is from the Lord. I pray just to show how small and great this is in my life. I handle the worst pain in my life, and I handle plain scrabble with my wife with the sovereignty of God. Because I know I got this cue sitting in my rag here. I need a U, right? There's a U in the bag. My hand is going to go into this bag. If God wanted me to have a U, he could make me have a U. Easy. Now, I've decided after 20, 35 years of marriage that I probably shouldn't pray to win. And I don't know if Noel, she usually beats me, so she may not believe that, but I don't think I should pray to win. And I know good and well God could put all the letters in my rack up here, seven letter word, and I could catch up. When every time I really do this, every time I put my hand in the bag, I say, "For the kingdom and for the family." Amen. If it's good for me to lose, let me lose. If that would make the marriage better, make sex better tonight, let me lose. But, if she needs to be humbled, you're called. So, right down to the nitty gritty of where I live, I believe in the sovereignty of God. Now, the serious thing that you will need to do in all your young churches is to help people get a grip on the suffering that you're going to call them to do. Jesus said, "Nobody can be by the cycle unless they take up their cross and follow me." And they said through many, Paul said through many tribulations we must end of the kingdom. You've got to teach that from the beginning. Paul, when he founded those first churches on the first missionary journey, and he does his return route. Remember what it says he's saying? He's telling every one of them through many tribulations. That's discipleship one for one. Suffering is on the way, both because you're a Christian and in spite of the fact that you're a Christian, suffering is on the way. And you've got to deal with the sovereignty of God in that and have a paradigm for how you're going to help your people when you go to the hospital. I think the third or fourth sermon I preached in 1980 when I came to Bethlehem was called Christ and Cancer. I was looking out on about 300 folks, most of them had gray hair. I would do a funeral. He said you'd do 150 weddings a year or something. I'd do weddings for a long time. I did a funeral every three weeks for a year and a half. I talked to Leith Anderson over at Wooddale. A few years ago, he said he hadn't done a funeral in a year and a half. I said, well, that's demography. That's all that is, right? You're looking out on a sea of gray hair, and I want to preach to them, what do you know about my belief about your cancer when I come to the hospital? I want you to know what I believe so that when I walk in there, you won't think I'm a name and a climate person, and you won't think you're sinning. That's why you're in this bed or you lack faith or I just wanted to get out of the way all the conceptions so they know. When he walks in here, he believes in the sovereign God who loves me and will work through this. Yes, he has in his inscrutable wisdom, ordained that I be here. I don't know why. It hurts. I wish it was otherwise. But God is good and God is wise and God is strong and he can give me the grace and he can heal me. And I want them to know that's how I'm coming to them, and I encourage you to make that plain. 1 Peter 3.17, "For it is better to suffer for doing good if that should be God's will than for doing evil." God wills his people to suffer sometimes. 1 Peter 4.19, "Therefore let those who suffer according to God's will, according to God's will, entrust their soul to a faithful creator." Acts 4.27, "Truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod, Pontus Pilate, along with the Gentiles and peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place." Stay near the cross and you won't have too much trouble because right here in the cross, there is a paradigm you've got to build into your people's heads. And I don't think any human being has this paradigm and has to be created by the Holy Spirit, and it's this. God does not sin in willing that sin happen. If your people get big question marks on their face, will you say that, Dennis? You'd better stay there for a while and come back to it over and over again, because you know what, if you don't have that structure, God does not sin in willing that sin happen, you can't make sense out of the Bible. You cannot make sense out of the Bible, this verse in particular, because it says, Herod, in all of his purple robe mockery, Pontus Pilate, in all of his hand washing expediency, the Gentiles soldiers, as they hammered every nail and thrust with the sword and whipped with the whips and the peoples of Israel as they say, crucified, crucified. They were all gathered, verse 28, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. God will sin. No sin is greater than killing the Son of God. Is it anybody to contribute a possible sin that is greater than murdering God? Any idea? Nothing. Nothing. This is the worst sin that had happened planned by God, and he knew it would be sin. In fact, it is scripted in the Psalms down to the detail of throwing lots for the robe that won't be torn. It's scripted hundreds of years before it happened, and those soldiers are accountable. Pilate is accountable, Herod is accountable, the crowds are accountable, and they will suffer for their sins because they deserve suffering, and there is where I'm going to draw the history line. And if you can't handle that, I don't know how you'll make sense out of the Bible. There will be distortions everywhere. God ordains suffering for his people. He was 12-3. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself so that you may not go weary and fade-hearted when it comes to you. In your struggle against sin, you haven't resisted to the point of shitting blood. Have you forgotten the exhortation that comes to you as sons? My son did not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord? Amazing. He's talking about persecution, which is sin, and he calls it his discipline. Every time Paul went into prison, every time he was hungry, thirsty, in danger on the streets and on the rivers, God was at work. God plans the world. You meant it for evil. Genesis 50, verse 20, the selling of Joseph into slavery. You meant it for evil. God meant it for good. So I preach that, and that underlies everything we say at my church. Most of them are young, and most of them believe this. And most of them love this because it helps them suffer. In other words, pastorally, what I would say to this young woman who came for counsel. Before I said anything, I hope the Lord would give me tears. I hope he would give me an embrace. There is a season for everything. There is a season to talk and a season to be silent. There is a season for hugging and a season for fighting Paul's doctrine. I hope that the Lord would give me sensitivity. What's this season? Does she need a sermon here? Probably not now. Probably not first. You get your arms around her, and you say, "I don't know. I don't know all the details. I don't know what God is up to. I don't know that us can't imagine what you must be feeling right now." One year married, and he's gone, "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry." And that may be all the first encounter is, but if she pushes on it, where was God? A year ago? Where was God? What I have found is that if you try to remove the sovereignty of God back at the beginning when the problem happened, you remove it here as well, and here is where she needs it most of all. And as you need to be able to say to her, "You know what? I don't know what God is up to entirely. I can give you some general answers from the Bible about why he does all that he does, about his glory and our joy, even through pain." But right now, I know for this, for sure, God will sovereignly work this together for your good if you just hold on to it. That I know. And I can't know that if he's not sovereign. He might drop the ball again tomorrow. Unless he's sovereign. In other words, if I solve the God problem a year ago, I have no hope to give her now. And my young people have seen that. They've seen that. They know that if God can't blow a terrorist jet flying at the World Trade Tower, if he can't just produce a little wind, like on the Sea of Galilee, let's go and blow it aside about 30 yards. Just blow it! If he can't do that, what's he about to say to 2,800 people who now have to face the future with their lives devastated and all their people missing? God can't do that, and he didn't do that. And therefore, he willed 9/11. And therefore, in that sovereign power and wisdom, he can take you into a future that is better than you ever dreamed. Let me close with a couple of illustrations. I just brought him along here. You remember some of these. April 20, 2001, a Peruvian air force jet downed, a missionary plane in it, where Jim Bowers, little 7-month-old charity, Ronnie the wife, and Corey. Corey's sitting beside the pilot. Ronnie's sitting with the baby in her lap to Jim's left, and this jet resumes this as a drug plane, and shoots it down. And the bullet goes right through his wife's back, out of her stomach, into the baby, and stops in the baby, and they both immediately dead. The pilot's legs are all shot to pieces, and the plane is going down and lands in a river and flips over upside down, and by an incredible miracle, 3 of them who are alive get out. A few weeks later, they had a big memorial service. Elizabeth Elliot there, Steve Green there. All these words, and I have never seen. I went online to get the whole transcript of the evening, because I always want to tune into these and see how I do Christian's cope. And he stood up, Jim Bowers did, and said, "I want to thank my God. He's a sovereign God. I'm finding out how sovereign." Some of you might ask, "Why thank God?" Of course, now, after hearing some of the people speak tonight, you're really realizing maybe why. Could this really be God's plan for Ronnie and Charity? That's his wife and daughter who did. God's plan for Cory and me and our family. I'd like to tell you why I believe it is. And then he gives us 15 reasons for why he believes God took them. And then the phrase that got quoted in the mocking newspaper articles was this one. Ronnie and Charity were instantly killed by the same bullet. Would you say that's a stray bullet? And it didn't reach Kevin the pilot who was right in front of Charity. It stayed in Charity. That was a sovereign bullet. And that was what was in the headlines. That was a sovereign bullet. So, I don't know whether your heart resonates with that, but here's a man who was sustained not by calling God sovereign into question, but by affirming it. This article in Christianity today, a few years ago, absolutely blew me away. I've written to Steve St. since then to say, "Is that a misprint? What you said here?" And he got back to us at Desiring God Ministries and said, "No, that's what I said." And that's what I believe. This was his research as to why or how Jim Elliot, Nate St. Roger Uderian, Ed McCully and Pete Fleming were speared to death on the beach. Palm Springs, it was called, in Ecuador, 1956. And details came out in the article. I didn't realize. Did you know that all five of those missionaries had pistols? And that as the last one living was standing there with his pistol in his hand and this little group, it wasn't many. He could have taken him out easily. It just came toward him with a spear. He just stood there. There's a name for that. Love, courage, faith. I admire those guys a lot. And God has, as you know, used the story through Elizabeth Elliot and others to inspire hundreds and hundreds of people to give their lives to missions. Well, he did the research to see where did this murdering party come from? And he found out that it was a result of a lot of intra-tribal intrigue and that they never should have been there. They weren't after anybody to kill anybody. There was a lot of misunderstanding going on. And here's his conclusion. This is what just blew me away. As they described their recollections, it occurred to me. Now, this is Steve Saint, son of Nate Saint who was killed. He's writing about his father and his father's murder. As they described their recollections, it occurred to me how incredibly unlikely it was that the Palm Beach killing took place at all. It isn't anomaly that I cannot explain outside of divine intervention. I really said, oops, he didn't mean to write that. That is backwards. He meant to say that can't be explained and there couldn't have been because there was no divine intervention. Let me read it again. This took place. It was an anomaly. I cannot explain it outside of divine intervention. Can I paraphrase that for you? God planned my bad's murder. I cannot explain these murders outside of divine intervention. I wrote to him, I said, "Mr. Prince, you believe that?" He not only believes it, but it's his vision of the sovereignty of God. There's a movie out now. I think I just saw the debut of it down at Harvest Bible Chapel down in Illinois. I mean, I didn't see it. They showed it. What's driving this sun is not that God doesn't have control of who gets killed in the mission field. We know that's not true. Revelation 6, 11, right? The martyrs under the altar are saying, "Hello, Lord, how long do you indicate us in this world?" And he closed them with white robes and he says, "Be still until the full number of those who are to be killed for nine names are gathered in." So I look out on you and I hope, I'll talk maybe a little more about this later, I hope that you plant churches that believe in foreign missions as well as American missions. For this reason, while Seattle may be the most unchurched city in America, there are people groups with zero exposure, no radio, no bookstore, no schools, no churches, no witness, no Bible, and they won't be reached if you don't cross a culture. And there are thousands of them left, and according to Jesus there to be reached, go make disciples of all ethnic. So plant, mission, churches, understanding missions, not just in missional languages here, but I'm going to raise up. And so I'm saying that because maybe God right here in this room would raise up some people who would go to the hard, unreached peoples of the world where there's a language and an ethnicity that has zero exposure and cross that culture and bear that suffering. If you go, I hope you go ready to be martyred knowing that your martyrdom will not be a mistake. Elizabeth Elliott, I mean Johnny Erickson, everybody knows Johnny. Johnny is amazing. Johnny's got this theology. He'd have her come sometime and just sit here in her wheelchair, maybe she's already been here, and just talk about suffering. Here's a quote from her book, "The God I Love, A Lifetime of Walking with Jesus." Lord, your no answer to physical healing meant yes to a deeper healing. If you don't know Johnny, she's been paralyzed since she was 17. I'm not sure how old she is, she's 50-ish. And she's been paralyzed all her life. She can't do anything for herself. She's in a wheelchair. She's a beautiful, artistic, articulate, creative, Calvinist. Lord, your no answer to physical healing meant yes to a deeper healing, a better one. Your answer has bound me to unbelievers and taught me so much more about myself. It's purged sin from my life. It's strengthened my commitment to you. It's forced me to depend on your grace. Your wise, deeper answer has stretched my hope, refined my faith, and helped me know you better. And you are good. You are so good. I let the tears fall. I know I wouldn't know you. I would love you. I wouldn't trust you. Were it not for? I looked down at my paralyzed legs. Were it not for this wheelchair. And I closed this the last one, except maybe a list from my church. But the Twin Cities three weeks ago, there was a car accident. And three teenagers, Matthew 20, Jacob 17, Justin 16, who were driving home. These are evangelical, born-in Lutheran lovers of Jesus. They were active in their church. They witnessed at their high school. They had Bible studies. They were authentic kids. I didn't know them personally. They wanted our church. And another 21-year-old kid talking on a cell phone with alcohol in his blood swerves out into their lane, sees them, swirls back, overcorrects, goes out of control, head in religion, and they're dead. They're dead instantly, one of them died a few hours later. So three boys are dead. Now their parents have five kids, two little ones, and these three boys. And of course it was a huge deal in the Twin Cities for a few days. And their dad, Nathan Backstrom, who's marginally related to a cousin in our church. So a lot of people of our church were awake to this, was interviewed on his front porch, and he said, "God is in control. We don't know all the answers, but he does. And we know that someday we will know." So the cameras are running with that being said. And then the last thing, he said, "Many have asked how we are doing during the Hilltop News conference." He was asked that. My answer is, "God is faithful. Justin, Jacob, and Matthew each had a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. They are now in the presence of their Lord and Savior." Our prayer is that because of their lives, lives will be changed and God will be glorified. That's the way I want my people to respond, that's what I say. We have a little blind boy in our church who was born without eyes seven years ago. We learned just three weeks ago that his mother has breast cancer. It's in her lymph nodes, it's in her groin, it's in her spine. She has four kids, and one of them is blind. Little Michael has had seizures since the day who was born. He's not growing normally. They did a radical surgery, taking about a third of his brain out, hoping it would work. It didn't work. Seven weeks old Emily didn't have the right kind of heart. They did open heart surgery, we hope she'll be alright. Chuck, long time friend, about my age, called me last week. Actually I called him when I got the email. Big mass in his kidney. What will it mean? Wendy waited ten years for her husband while he was sleeping with eighteen prostitutes, over seas ten years, and he just ended it. And she's the one who told me John never, ever, ever try to comfort me with openness. Tell me that God is sovereign and can take my two kids, and me as a single mom now who waited ten years for her husband who just decided he would go with another woman permanently. Tell me about the good sovereign God that reigns over my life. Father in heaven I pray that those who are struggling with this, hope it isn't a thing, or maybe those who are settled there in this room would reconsider. And I pray that you would bring us under your mighty hand and help us to learn how to suffer well and know that all things work together for good for those who are called, and that you guide and govern our lives as a good father, none of the discipline comes into our life by mistake. So thank you so much for your love to us, your grace to us, your power over us. Grant that joy, a passion for your supremacy in all things, including suffering, would flow out from us in forms of love that are radical and sacrificial and ready to lay down our lives for the needy world, and grant our Lord that right views of Christ, right views of yourself would be the root of this joy. I pray that Jesus made the minute. 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 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. in. [BLANK_AUDIO]
John Piper | Satisfaction in God is the vital link between biblical doctrine and a life of sacrificial love, and in order to maintain such joy, the doctrine of God’s sovereignty must be upheld in the face of error.