Kennystix's podcast
The Whole Glory of Christ
The following message is by pastor John Piper. More information from Desiring God is available at www.desiringgod.org. Let's pray together before we begin. Father forbid that I or any here would glory or boast in anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world was crucified to us and we to the world. And I pray for those in the room perhaps who are not yet dead in this way, that you would do the necessary killing tonight so that we would be dead to ourselves, dead to the world, dead to sin and alive forevermore to yourself. In the arms of our Savior there are 10,000 charms and as sinners we don't want to go there. There are any other arms we prefer and I pray that that would die and that the cross of Christ would be the most precious thing in the world to us and that you would work in us to glorify the crucified and risen Christ now. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. So let me review with you from this morning to put this in context, wherever the passion for Christ, the treasuring of Christ, the affectional embrace of Christ is missing doctrine becomes intellectualistic and the counter-error is debunking doctrine as though it's not important. And wherever that passion is missing and wherever that treasuring of Christ and that joy in Christ and that satisfaction of Christ is missing action or behavior becomes legalistic and the counter-error is to become anti-nulmian and to do whatever you please because nobody wants to be legalistic and therefore getting our hearts passionate for God. Getting churches emotionally engaged with the infinite value of Christ is hugely significant in the world and when it's put in its proper place as a means of glorifying God, God is most glorified in us, when we are most satisfied in Him, when it's in its proper place then doctrine has the magnificent function of roots feeding into that joy and therefore everybody loves it because it's producing something beautiful and out of that joy is overflowing the fruit of love and sacrificial, lay down your life, giving yourself the way for other people and therefore doctrine is really important or right views of the glory of Christ make all the difference in the world, in the church and it's a sad thing in our day that doctrine is having a God with contours, edges, this is what he is, this is what he's not, he's not muggy, he's not a fog, the cross is not a fog, the way he saves people is not a fog, there are contours, there's an in and an out, a right and a wrong, a good, a bad, ugly, a beautiful, it's tragic that that is trashed today, really tragic and not because of any intellectual ego trip that anybody's on, but because of joy being ruined, because of love being destroyed, so I'm on a crusade here to try to, as I was asked to do, spot pitfalls that are out there for younger pastors and applause to everybody that you might be alert for, of how the glory of Christ is called into question by wrong thinking, that's where I'm at and tonight we focus on the cross, what kinds of things you should be looking for in how not to treat the cross of Christ, Galatians 614, God forbid that I should glory boast in anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, now that's a remarkable statement, really remarkable, it takes a lot of thinking to have that be anything but pious mumbo jumbo, especially when you read in 1 Corinthians 1, 30, or is it 31, 30, that's the end of the chapter, God has done all of his, electing, saving, calling, preserving work so that no one will boast in man, let him who boasts, boast in the Lord, so now you've got Galatians 614 saying, God forbid that I should boast in anything except the cross and you've got 1 Corinthians 1, 30 saying, let him who boasts, boast in the Lord, now what makes it theologian, you don't have to be a professional one, is that you see things like that and you think, you think about it, you get a piece of paper out or a computer program, you can ever figure out how to work it, and you put these verses together in your heart and your mind and say, okay, how do I only boast in the cross and only boast in the Lord, and you might conclude something like this, this is where I would come out, the cross therefore must be the place where the Lord shines most broadly, if I'm only to boast in the Lord and yet I'm only to boast in the cross, the cross must be the apex, the pinnacle, the climax of everything this great Lord Jesus stands for, if I could see him at the cross, in the cross, I would see him most clearly, I think that's probably what the bringing together of those two verses signifies, or here's another pair, 1 Corinthians 15 and 3, I would remind you brothers of the gospel I preached to you, verse 3, for I delivered to you as a first importance what I received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, so the gospel, I would remind you of the gospel, I received this as a first importance, Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures was raised in the dead, was buried according to the Scriptures was raised in the dead, that's the gospel, and then you go to 2 Corinthians 4 and you read, the God of this age 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, the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, the gospel is a message, it's good news about the glory of Christ, more on that tomorrow night, but bring these two together, the gospel is Jesus died, buried, risen, all according to God's Scripture plan, here the gospel is the glory of Christ who is the image of God, you put those two together and you think, and again you say, it must be in his death and in his burial and in his mighty victorious, all defeating resurrection, that the glory of Christ shines most brightly, all of which says to me back to my original premise, right doctrine is right views of the glory of Christ, now we're on the cross and so we're saying right, right doctrines about the cross are about how the glory shines in the cross and if you get the cross wrong, you get the glory wrong, if you get the cross wrong, you get the Lord wrong, wrong views about the cross are hugely devastating, hugely destructive to worship and mission and love in the church and so I've got seven, seven things to talk about tonight and I said, I win should I be done and the tech guy says 18 and Mark Driscoll says, sometimes I go two hours, so I will, I'll try to discern if there are any unicuses who fall off their chair and I'll have to block out the light like this just to check on you but I won't, I won't push you beyond your limit of hope, number one, there's seven of these and I really don't know how many we can get through, we'll do the best we can and if it feels like it's getting too late, I'll do some more tomorrow night, there's a very close connection between tomorrow night and here so it won't be awkward if I do that, number one, don't make the culture and it's bent the measure of the cross, that's the other one, don't make the culture and it's bent the measure of the cross, don't say you young hip church planters, don't say they can't grasp that aspect of the cross so I won't preach it, don't talk like that, don't let the culture become the measure of what you preach, now you will labor your dead level Pauline mythological best to become all things to all people but you will tell the whole truth because otherwise their blood will be on your hands, remember how Paul said that, in Acts 20, 27, I leave you elders, your blood is not on my hands because I preach to you the whole counsel of God and there's so many people that are fitting the message into the culture instead of transforming the culture so that it has categories to get the message, let's not assume that every culture in the world has all the categories necessary to understand the cross, if they don't say we never heard of a sheep, you don't leave that out, you teach them about sheep, first Corinthians 122, let's go there together, I want to put a text with each of these, at least one, first Corinthians 122, I want to show you something about how to think about the culture in relation to the cross, first Corinthians 122, for Jewish man signs, Greeks seek wisdom, so one is kind of intellectually astute and the other is into signs and proofs verse 23, but we preach Christ crucified, well how do they take it, a stumbling block to the Jews, they stumble over it in parish and folly, foolishness, stupidity to the Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, this cross, this preaching of Christ crucified proves to be the power of God and the wisdom of God, now think about that for a moment, and what it means to preaching in any culture, means in any culture there's going to be some people who hear it and say, makes no sense whatsoever, they stumble over it, others are going to hear it and say, from what I hear, this is absolutely stupid, I'm out of here, and then there's going to be another group, and here's the interesting thing, this other group is within those two groups, only one thing makes the difference, they're called, now we're in the theology, big time, because you say, well wait a minute, a good evangelist, a good culture sensitive evangelist stands in front of the whole crowd, Billy Graham in front of the whole 55,000 people, and he calls people doesn't he, come to Christ and believe and you will be saved, and he does, and that's right, that's not what this text says, this text is talking about another call, and so you've got to put a name on it, you don't have to put a name on it, but historical theology has put a name on it, and they call it the effectual call, the effective call, the irresistible call, the call that triumphs over all hearts that it wills to triumph over, and we talk about in Reformed theology, irresistible grace, and of course the natural and immediate biblical response to that is, what do you mean irresistible grace? Stephen said, you stiffneck people, you resist the Holy Spirit all day long, how can they be resistable grace, the Bible says we resist, and of course you do, of course you resist, long as God lets you resist, and when he is done letting you resist, he can, anytime he pleases triumph with the majesty of his son and the beauty of the gospel over your hard heart so that suddenly without any explanation in your part, you find Christ magnifically attractive, and powerful, and wise, and you have no explanation, nobody I've ever meant who now regards Christ as beautiful, attractive, powerful, true, compelling says, it was owing because I was smarter than my brother, nobody talks like that who knows Jesus, God did that and it's called a calling here, and the reason I'm stressing it is because when you stand up to preach hard truths like the cross, a crucified God, I'm sure, in the 21st century, all this bloody crap about a divine child abuse, I can't believe you believe that, I can't believe you preached that in Seattle, you've got to say in those people's face, when God calls you you will see it, when God opens your heart you will see it, I will do my best to love you into the Kingdom, but until God calls you, you will continue to be making fun of the gospel, that's number one, don't make the culture and it's bent the measure of the cross, of course they can't understand it, of course they can't understand it, we can't speak spiritual things to those who are spiritual and how do people become spiritual by the almighty work of the Holy Spirit awakening their minds, spiritual things, we could just would be a glorious thing to take ten minutes here, probably just hear testimony after testimony, Christian told me he was in the car today, got saved at this church and two Sundays it all sounded foolish, the third Sunday it was no longer foolish, what's that, that's God, that's what it is, it's not Mark Griskel, number two, number two, don't make the cross the echo of your value, but the display of God's grace, don't make the cross the echo the evidence of your value, but the display of God's grace, oh how prevalent is the teaching of self-esteem by which the cross is made to serve your value, look what he paid for you, how valuable you must be, a diamond in the rough, don't think about the cross as God dealing with the problem of how he can find a payment high enough to get you for himself, rather think of the cross as dealing with the problem of how you could find a sacrifice great enough to vindicate the righteousness of God for doing the abominable thing of justifying you, I didn't make that word up, abominable, I'm quoting Proverbs 1715, which says God or is talking about a human court, the judge who justifies the wicked is an abomination to the Lord, meaning if you're in a courtroom and somebody guilty in front of you and you say not guilty, you're abominable, you're abominable, you get out of the courtroom, we will get a new judge who does things justly around here, and God looks out on a world of Godly people who deserve to suffer forever because of their treason and their contempt against the king of the universe, and his heart overflows mercy, and he conceives of a way that he can be both just and the justifier of those who are ungodly and believe, just believe in Jesus, and what he conceives of is something that declares to the whole world when I save sinners I don't sweet see it under the rug, this is not about your value, this is about God's glory and how his righteousness must be vindicated, let's go to Romans 3, I don't want you to take my word for this, Romans 3, this is the most important paragraph in the Bible I think, we have to vote, I vote for this one, Romans 3 21 following and we'll pick it up at verse 23, all have sinned, that includes you, all have sinned and fallen short exchange, lack traded off the glory of God for images, especially the one in the mirror, verse 24, and are justified that is declared innocent righteous in court by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom God put forward as a, now in the ESV it preserves this old fashioned word and I think we need it, propitiation which means a removal of the wrath of God, we'll come back to that later, by his blood to be received by faith and then here's the key, all of this putting forward of the sun to die so that sinners could be justified which is utterly unjust and abominable, this was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins, the problem that Paul wrestled with was totally different than the problem that this culture wrestles with and we need to get this culture to wrestle with this problem and not just wrestle with their problems, they don't wrestle with the right problems, the problem that Paul wrestled with was how can a just God forgive sinners and not become unjust, nobody in America cares about that problem, we have exactly the opposite, how can God treat me bad and be unjust and be just, we've got our fists in God's face all day long, lose a job, where are you God, lose a son, where are you God, lose a marriage, where are you God, where in God's face continually, God is in the dock in America, that is not a biblical picture and I don't know how you'll make any headway in preaching the gospel until you help people recognize that their rebellion has put them in a position where the problem of the universe is how can God treat you well and not become unjust and until people feel that God has treated them well and has found a way to overcome the injustice of treating them well and the reason it's unjust, of course you've got to put this category in their head is because unrighteousness or injustice means acting in a way that belittles the glory of God and it looks like God belittles his glory when he takes people who've trampled his glory all their life and says, I just let it go, I welcome you into my family, I count you to be my son and daughter and it looks as though, oh, what you said by God, be by God's here and the trampling of the glory of God really doesn't matter that the essence of unrighteousness, God would be unrighteous if he treated his glory with such small regard and therefore he doesn't treat it with that small regard, he says to his son, son, we have to make a transaction here in order to vindicate my righteousness because I really do want to justify the ungodly, I'm going to justify the ungodly, now I know justifying the ungodly is abominable and unjust but if you will bear this, if I can demonstrate to the world my righteousness, my love for my glory, by your dying for the vindication of my glory, I think we can pull this off, I know we can pull this off so that I will shine his righteous and they will be saved. Don't make the cross the echo of your value but the display of God's grace. You know Jonathan Edwards is so helpful because he and most of the Puritans did heart surgery on the human soul like nobody can today, nobody, we are so drenched with man centered thinking everywhere we turn in this culture and so inebriated with self-esteem doctrine that is the gospel of Erika, all parenting is by self-esteem, all education is by self-esteem, managerial techniques to keep people happy at work of our self-esteem, everything is done by the gospel of self-esteem and therefore we have hardly a chance to grasp the biblical categories of sin and if you read Edwards, if you go back a few hundred years, you get a lot of help, let me read you a passage that I just read this past week and I read a little gathering of theological students at our church just to show you the magnitude of what Edwards sees, that hardly anybody sees, that's what he wrote. The increase of grace has a tendency another way to cause the saints to think their deformity vastly more than their goodness, now there's a sentence that's incomprehensible, unless you really analyze yourself like I can tell you stories from my marriage where the only thing that broke me as a husband to show me my selfishness and my pride, my quick anger and slow to listen bent was not first a rebuke from anybody but in my huffing and puffing to take the garbage can and grab it and walk it out to the edge of the street and to have a bright beautiful April day shine down on me and a breeze caress my cheek and look up and wonder that I have not been struck dead and feel grace holding me in being when I deserve to have been shot a minute ago and it breaks my heart and I feel horrible, grace made me feel horrible, that's what he's talking about, you've probably tasted it but of course you live in a world and you only operate with categories where grace is the echo of your excellence that makes no sense whatsoever, let me keep reading, to cause the saints to think their deformity vastly more than their goodness, it not only tends to convince them that their corruption is much greater than their goodness which is indeed the case but it also tends to cause the deformity that there is in the least sin or the least degree of corruption to appear so great as vastly to outweigh all the beauty that there is in their greatest holiness for this also is indeed the case and then these last four lines, for the least sin against an infinite God has an infinite hatefulness or deformity in it but the highest degree of holiness in a creature has not an infinite loveliness in it and therefore the loveliness of it is as nothing in comparison to the deformity of the least sin. Where have you ever read anything like that? You've got to go back 250 years if you want your heart slain, if you want to know your heart of course the Bible is always there but we read it through such amazingly distorted glasses that a paragraph like this is like a foreign language to most people and yet the logic of it is rock solid, the least sin against an infinite God has an infinite hatefulness and deformity in it but the highest degree of holiness in a creature has not an infinite loveliness in it, it's mind, it's not infinite and therefore the loveliness of it is as nothing in comparison to the deformity of the least sin which shows the kind of problem that God was up against in justifying us, treating us well, delivering us from hell, forgiving our sin, adopting us into his family, promising that everything would work together for good, that God would take sinners like us describe there and do all of that required some massive display of the value of his grace, the vindication of his righteousness and the exceeding sinfulness of sin and therefore I say again do not let the cross become the evidence of your value, let it become the evidence of God's grace, let it magnify your sin and God's grace and if you were to ask me and here this is kind of a little prince that has come to a lesson under sermon at home, okay so what's the alternative to self-esteem if you don't think it's the gospel? Romans 12 is what I preached on last Sunday and I stressed verse 3, "For by the grace given to me I say to every one among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think." So there's the warning, beware of how you think about yourself the alternative to thinking to highly of yourself is surprising but to think with sober judgment each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned, that cost me days of reflection. Don't think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, let your thinking about yourself be with sober judgment each according to the measure of faith God has assigned to each, so let me put in one minute that sermon, the alternative to thinking highly of yourself is thinking highly of Jesus and not just thinking highly of Jesus going out from yourself because what is faith? Faith in Jesus is a going out, it's an outward movement. When faith stands in front of a mirror it falls away and becomes a window on the other side of which is the glory of Jesus, there are no mirrors in heaven. Heaven is not a hall of mirrors where you like what you see in spite of what the self-esteem gospel says. Heaven will not be a hall of mirrors where you like what you see. Heaven will be Christ is all and if you ask a person in heaven, are you humble? They will say Christ is all because you can't, that's one of those language gains, are you humble? There's an unanswerable question. If you say no, that's true but you don't want it to be so and if you say yes, it's wrong because the essence of the alternative to thinking too highly of yourself is to forget yourself in your rapture with Jesus. It is a looking away and a miracle happens and it's usually called worship vertically and love horizontally where you wake up at the end of the day and the miracle you say and hear the miracle that seems to happen for a moment. I didn't think of myself all day. I was free. I didn't have a positive self image. I never even thought about me. I was just caught up in the beauty of Christ. I was overflowing with joy on other people. The alternative to taking the cross and making it an echo of your excellence is to die at the cross, to have a new person come into being the essence of which is faith, the essence of which is looking away to the infinite value of Jesus and forgetting yourself. That is the second of seven points. Number three, don't remove the blood and violence of the cross. Don't remove the blood and violence of the cross. Even in the most Christian congregation nobody likes to hear about the cross. The way Mel Gibson displayed the cross. Nobody wants to think about it. And in this culture, thank you, we get enough blood in Iraq. We don't need any more blood at church. Say something comfortable here, please. Don't give us gore. Don't give us a God who kills people and especially his own son. Just keep telling us something comfortable here. There are so many pastors who buy into that so tragically. There are three issues here in the blood and violence of the cross. Number one issue. In order to make sense out of the blood, violence, whipping, spitting, beard pulling, thorn, spears, horror of the cross. I mean it was horrible. I think Mel Gibson made light work of it on the cross. Of course the beating, that was almost too much. But at the cross, he missed it. I think Jesus' throat would have been absolutely raw with screaming. I don't think he screamed in Mel Gibson's movie. There's no way you can not scream when they put nails through your hands. They'd hang you on them. The screaming would have been loud and horrible. The Mary would have been beating on her chest with screaming, no, no, no. Nobody has ever portrayed the cross too violently or too horrible. It is the most horrific way to torture somebody that humans have designed. The only way to make sense of that in the gospel is to ask the question, "Why do we live in a world where there is so much horror?" Don't insulate yourself from horror in the world. I said to you this morning, "I can give you the website where you can watch the beheadings." You have to pay five bucks. You can see them. Every one of them takes about five minutes. Don't insulate yourself from the horror in the world. If you can't handle the horror in the world, "What are you going to do with the Bible?" It is the most horrific book. My answer to the question comes from Romans 8. This is really crucial. If you don't buy what I'm about to say in Romans 8, 20, following, probably will do something else with the cross, then I think you should do. Romans 8, 20, the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it to hope. Who did that? God did that. If you say the devil did it, he didn't do it in hope. God did that. This is a picture of Genesis 3. Mankind falls, rebels decide to become wise, an independent treason against the king and hate against the father. God consigns the creation to futility, and that's where all tornadoes and monsoons and earthquakes and volcanoes and pestilence and famine and sword come from. God put the world under a curse. This is divine curse. Now, think that through. Every horrible, loom, some disease. Oh, I passed a man in my own neighborhood the other day and I'd never seen a face like his and I was hurrying to church and I'd just knocked myself faster. I went by, not to stop him. He may have not wanted it. I'd never seen a more horrible face in my life. And I won't describe it to you lest you have a relative with this condition, but it was just like out of a movie. And everything in me wants an answer for that man's life. My life's so easy. It's just so easy. I got a wife. I got five kids. I'm paid. I'm healthy. I've got indoor plumbing. I've got everything. This man has to live with this face and all these people are sick in my church and the world is just filled with pain and filled with horrific conditions. Where they come from? They came from God's curse on sin. Now that has a meaning. What is that? It means this. Moral evil. That's what's inside Adam and Eve at that moment. Moral evil, rebellion, disobedience, treason, preference for my way over God's way. Moral evil is so horrific, so ugly, so distorted, so depraved. The only way God can give us a hint what it's like is with physical forms of curse. So if you wonder what the chaos and the horrors of the physical world are that kills hundreds of thousands of people in one monsoon in Bangladesh, just hundreds of thousands, just swept away. If you wonder what is all that about, the answer is it's about teaching you the horrific nature of your moral corruption. God wouldn't do it this way unless he needed to make a physical statement with corruption about the seriousness and the ugliness of moral corruption. That's the first thing we've got to get into our heads for the cross and it's physical horror to begin to make sense. Here's the second thing we've got to make clear. God's judgment in the Bible all over the place are physically horrible. Let's just go to Ezekiel. I read this this morning in my devotion, so I'm just picking this off the front burner. Ezekiel, oh no, I'm sorry. I've got another text coming on this. This was a few days ago. I'm at 21 this morning. So I'm at Ezekiel 5 and we'll read, say 8, starting in verse 8. "Therefore, thus says the Lord, God's very angry at His people." Really angry. "Therefore, thus says the Lord God, 'Behold, I even I am against you. I will execute judgments in your midst in the sight of the nations and because of all your abominations.'" Now there it is again. This is like Adam and Eve all over again. Because of your moral abominations, I will do with you what I have never done yet and the like of which I will never do again. "Therefore, Father shall eat their sons." How serious is sin? How serious is sin? As Edward says, the slightest sin has an infinite hatefulness in it. Otherwise, that's an overreaction. "I will ordain starvation and the eating of your children to testify to you of your abominable deeds." This is about your sin, but I will physical horrors to display moral horrors. And so we come to the cross and you read Mark 10, 33, "The Son of Man must go as it was written and be handed over and they will whip him and spit upon him and kill him. The spitting, the whipping, the nails are necessary. For Isaiah 53, "By his stripes we are healed. There had to be stripes on a back, a fleshly back." Or 1 Peter 2, 24, "He bore our sins in his body." There's no simple little intellectual way to deal with sin. Sin must be dealt with in a physical way, with physical horror and physical blood shedding. That's the way it's been from the beginning and that's the way it is now. Jesus suffered outside the gate that he might sanctify the people by his blood. Oh, don't sanitize the cross. Don't make it a little simple demonstration of love. Get gutsy, get real, get horrible. I don't know what's going to become of America. We are the Disneyland of the world. You know that, don't you? We living in America is like living in Disneyland as far as the rest of the world is concerned. We have 9-1-1. We've all been out of shape that we don't have all the flu shots that we're supposed to have. Everything couches us in comfort and ease and protection so that the slightest of the thing that happens to us, we just think something horrible has happened. We need to be around beheadings. We need to be around these things. This is what the world has been like. This is the price that has been paid by the spread of the gospel for all time. We live in about a 150-year time warp. It will not last. It cannot last. It dare not last. If the great commission is going to be finished, how are we going to breed people who can live in the world where a God hates him so much that he ordains a starvation that results in the eating of children. How in the world will we ever have the kind of personal makeup so that we can even survive emotionally in the presence of such horrors? Let alone believe in the God who ordains them. Oh, we have so much work to do for our people to help them understand the cross. Number 4, don't remove God's wrath from the cross. This is almost the same, but not quite. Don't remove God's wrath from the cross. The gospel is the power of God and the salvation to all who believe, for in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as it is written, "The just shall live by faith for the wrath of God is being poured out against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of man." Did you get the ground clause there? Underneath these two massive statements, the gospel is the power of God and the salvation Romans 1,16 because in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith is this massive reason for God's wrath is being poured out against all ungodliness. That's why there's a desperate need for the gospel. The gospel is most fundamentally the removal of the wrath of God by God through the death of His Son. The cross cannot begin to be cherished as it is meant to be cherished until you see it as the absorption of the wrath of God by the Son of God so that you do not have to bear it. Galatians 3 and 13, Christ redeemed us from the curse whose gods, the curse of the law, having become a curse for us as it is written, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. The essence of the gospel is God has cursed us in sin and we are all hell bound. You can't preach the gospel if people don't know that. The gospel is not helping people have better marriages. The gospel is not psychological well-being. The gospel is the objective removal of the wrath of God from off of us forever and ever and ever. There is, therefore, now no condemnation to those who are in Christ's Jesus. Don't take the wrath of God out of the cross. It is written across every human soul. I'm guilty. God is angry. My conscience testifies. I try to drown it. Drug it. Work it off. I'll do anything, but it rises up at night and they will go to a church perhaps the next morning if they just heard. It takes in really seriously there. They take corruption and guilt really seriously there and they have an answer for it. I have an answer for my worst sins, my worst guilt, my most fears of wrath of God. They don't blow that off at this church. They have an answer for it. That's the gospel. Romans 5 and 9, "Having been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved from wrath." Now here's the gospel at the end of that story. And if it's hard for modern people to believe in the bad news about their hearts, which it always has been, it's hard to get Christians to believe the good news that since the cross happened and all the wrath appointed for you has been diverted on to Jesus, there's only one thing left for you. Mercy. And that's all you ever experienced. That's really hard for Christians to believe in the middle of a divorce, middle of cancer, middle of a wayward child. The only thing God treats you with is mercy. That's all. So if you say, well, wait a minute now, some really bad things happen to me. Really bad things, really bad things. And you're saying the only thing God treats his children with is mercy. It's absolutely, I believe that because otherwise I would believe in double jeopardy. Christ bears it and you bear it. You don't ever bear any punishment from God. Christ bears all of it. These bad things that are happening to you are no longer punishment. They are purifying. They are disciplined. They are loving. It's all described in Hebrews 12. Christ absorbs all the punitive work of God that was coming to you. Everything bad that happens to you now is not in that category anymore. The cross has diverted all punishment to Christ. What comes your way now is transformed into purifying. So if you're a Christian in the Twin Towers in New York and it comes down. Here's an unbeliever. Here's a believer. It's punishment for one. It's paradise for the other. And if you survive with legs missing and they survive with legs missing. It's a little more ambiguous now because you don't know that they're going to believe now. And we say it's wake up call. It's wake up call to get serious about God. And for you it's all purifying. It's Johnny Erickson Tada being prepared for the world. If you will have it. Don't remove God's wrath. If you were to ask me tonight you got a favorite Bible verse. I said what I thought was the most important text in the Bible. But I think if I were forced to pick a favorite Bible verse it would be Romans 832 because of the massive logic of the verse on my behalf as a sinner. He who did not spare his only son but gave him up for us all. Will he not therefore with him freely give us all things? The answer is yes. But think about the logic. He didn't spare his son and therein lies the absolute assurance. All things. What does that mean? It means death will be yours. Nakedness will be yours. Peril will be yours. Sword will be yours. And in all of those you will be more than a conqueror as they purify your soul and prepare you for heaven and make you a more loving person. None of them will be condemnation and none of them will be punitive. Number four then don't remove God's wrath from the cross. Number five is don't neglect or deny the covenant effectiveness of the cross. There's another name for this. It's called limited atonement or definite atonement or particular redemption. Now I'm going to linger on this for a few minutes because as I've been talking around here x29 is a reformed movement. Reformed means generally one believes in the five points of Calvinism sometimes called the doctrines of grace. And I know from experience and from conversations that the doctrine of limited atonement is the one that people stumble over the longest on their way in. So did I. So I'm going to try to explain it in a way that you may have never heard to explain for a few minutes in the hope that you will be able to embrace it as good news not as an embarrassing doctrine that Calvinist have to apologize for. And that doesn't fit text like 1 John 2 2 and 2 Peter 3 1 and others. So let's make a stab at it. And that may be the last one we have to do. I've got others but we'll see how we do here. So here's the question. I'm going to try to do this in a way that those of you don't clue what I'm talking about yet. We'll be able to get on board. I'm going to give you some text that in my understanding of them and I hope I can show you that it's the right understanding. In my understanding of them lead me to believe that in the atonement in the death of Christ, God had the design to do a complete full saving work from beginning to end for a group of people, not everybody. And we'll come to the issue of how the cross relates to everybody in a moment. But I first want to persuade you that the Bible does talk about the cross relating distinctly to a group of people, the elect, those who are called, they also are co-terminus with those who believe, Luke 22, 20. In the same way, Jesus took the cup after he had eaten saying, "This cup, which is poured out for you, is the new covenant in my blood." This of the cup, this cup poured out for you, is the new covenant in my blood. Now I think that means my blood secures the new covenant promises. I am purchasing the new covenant. The covenant blood guarantees the new covenant. Were there no blood of the covenant? There would be no covenant. My blood is the blood of the new covenant, Matthew 26, 28. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. 1 Corinthians 11, 25. In the same way, he took the cup after supper saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink in remembrance of me." Now, if that's true, if the death of Jesus and the blood setting of Jesus is the purchase, the secure, the guarantee of the new covenant, now we've got to figure out what's the new covenant. I'll read you a few key text about the new covenant. This is Jeremiah 31, 33. This is the covenant, which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord. I will put my law within them, and on their heart, I will write it, and I will be their God, and they will be my people. Now, the difference between the new covenant and the old covenant is that God wrote his law on stone at Mount Sinai, and he said, "There it is. Obey that." It failed, and it aborted. It didn't work. Nobody was saved that way. See, I'm going to make a new covenant. This time, I'm not going to just put the law on stone and say, "There, do that. I'm going to move inside, write it on your heart," which is a code word for, "I'm going to incline you that way. I'm going to see to it that this gets done and that the covenant doesn't abort." You'll see that even more clearly in these other two texts. Jeremiah 32, 38, following, "They shall be my people." It's a new covenant text. "They shall be my people. I will be their God. I will give them one heart. I will give them one heart in one way that they fear me always." So where does the fear of God come from in the new covenant people? God gives it to them, that they may fear me always for their own good, for the good of their children after them. I will make an everlasting covenant with them. I will not turn away from them to do them good. I will keep focusing on them to do them good. I will put the fear of me in their hearts so that they will not turn away from me. That's why the new covenant succeeds with absolute certainty. God puts his fear in the heart and he sees to it that they fear him always. That's why we believe in the perseverance of the saints, not because we are so consistent people but because God makes promises like that. Here's one more, Ezekiel 11, 19, "I will give them one heart. I will put a new spirit within them. I will take out the heart of stone." This is conversion, folks. "I will take out the heart of stone and I will give them a heart of flesh," or Ezekiel 36, 26, "more over. I will give you a new heart. Put a new spirit within you. I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh, give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you and cause you to work in my statutes and you will be careful to observe my ordinances." Now, I conclude from all those new covenant passages that the difference between the old covenant on stone and the new covenant by the spirit is that God will see to it that the new covenant happens and does not abort. He will make sure that he has a people who humble themselves, do what's written on their heart, believe him, trust him, don't have hearts of stone, have hearts of flesh. Christ bought that. Christ bought that at the price of his blood and God doesn't do that for everybody. Otherwise, everybody would be saved. When you talk about the covenant blood, this blood is the new covenant in this cup. It's the new covenant in my blood. It means I bought these promises. I laid down my life so that the Father by the spirit would fulfill those covenant promises in the people for whom they are appointed. Some people have a heart taken out of stone. Some will have a heart of flesh put in and they will come to trust in the living God. So that's my first set of texts pointing to the fact that the death of Christ does have a design for a group of people, namely those who are converted. The conversion was bought by Jesus. Now, here's some other texts. John, Gospel of John, verse 6, 37, "All that the Father gives me will come to me." Get inside John's head here. It's amazing that we give John to new believers. Oh, man. John, John, John, the most predestinarian book in the Bible. And we put it in the hands of new believers, unbelievers. And here's a little piece of it. "All that the Father gives me," this is John 6, 37, "all that the Father gives me will come to me." So who comes to Jesus? Those whom the Father gives to him. "And the one who comes to me, I will certainly not cast out, for I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me." This is the will of him who sent me that all that he has given me, that of all that he has given me, I lose nothing but raise it up at the last day. Now, the thing to think there is, okay, God has a group of people. He gives them to the Son. Therefore, they come to the Son. Nobody comes to the Father unless the Son, unless the Father draws him, 6, 44. And Jesus says, "I came down to do a work for those people." Now, what is that work? John 10, 10, "The thief comes only to kill and to destroy. I came that they might have life and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep." That's who they are. The sheep come. I see them. I know they didn't order for them to be saved. I must lay down my life for them. He doesn't lay down his life for the wolves. But for the sheep, we'll talk about the wolves in a minute and how the cross relates to them. But just see John's particularity here. John 10, 14, "I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me. Even as the Father knows me and I know the Father, I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this soul. I must bring them also. They will hear my voice and I will have one flock and there will be one shepherd." You see how John's thinking, "I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep. I haven't gathered them. Some of them are in Angola. And some of them are in Iraq and some are in Russia and China. And we must go, priest the gospel. I will gather them. They will hear my voice and they will follow me. I lay down my life for the sheep." And then you have this high priestly prayer in John 17, verse 6, "I have manifested your name to the men that you have given me out of the world. They were yours and you gave them to me. And they have kept your word." Verse 9, "I ask on their behalf, I do not ask on behalf of the world." That's a very significant statement in the high priestly prayer of Jesus. This prayer is a prayer of the application of the cross. We will see in a moment. He says, "I ask on their behalf. I do not ask on behalf of the world, but of those whom you have given me, for they are yours." Verse 19, "For their sake I sanctify myself that they also may be sanctified in the truth." The gospel of John is a gospel pointing to the cross as an event that secures the coming of the sheep. Now here is a text. I don't know if you've ever put these two texts together. First John 2-2 is one of those common objections to the definite atonement and it goes like this. He himself is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world. He is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world. Have you ever lined that text up beside its gospel parallel? That's the letter of John 2-2. And here's the gospel of John 11-50-52. Caiaphas, the priest speaking. It is expedient for you that one man died for the people and that the whole nation not perish. He doesn't know what he's saying. Verse 51, "Now Caiaphas did not say this on his own initiative, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation and not for the nation only, but in order that he might gather together into one the children of God who are scattered abroad." What does that mean? First John 2-2 says not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world. This text says not for Jews only, but what does it say? He is dying. He's laying on his life to gather into one the children of God who are scattered through the world, which is another way of saying I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also. One image is children, one image is sheep. I lay down my life to the sheep, I lay down my life to gather into one the children of God scattered abroad. This verse in 1 John 2-2, I think the world there, he died as a propitiation not only for our sins, but for those of the whole world means the whole world in the sense that he's going to gather from every nation under heaven, the children of God, by dying for them. You meditate on that, whether you think John 11-52 is an explanatory parallel to 1 John 2-2, and then see if this verse from the Revelation, so you're not three books about the Gospel, about the writer of John, first letter, Gospel, and now here's the Revelation chapter 5-9. Have you ever thought about it this way? They sang a new song saying, "Where the are you to take the book and to break its seals for you were slain and purchased for God with your blood men from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation." That's exactly John 11-52. He gave his life not only for Jews, he gave his life to gather into one the children of God scattered abroad. That is, he gave his life to ransom men for God from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. The effectual work of the cross gathers a new covenant people from all the tribes on planet Earth. Or, let me move towards practical application and how to deal with the more expansive texts. What I'm standing in front of my people, and I want to help them get an emotional grip on the effectual work of the cross for the elect, or for the church, or for the sheep, or for the children, whatever language you want to use, the text that has been most helpful for my people has been Ephesians 5-25, addressed to husbands. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her. And I look at the women in my church and I say, "Now please, I love you all." But you won't be offended, will you, if I say, "I love Noel in a covenant way that I don't love you. I'll serve you, I'll be there for you, but I don't love you the way I love my wife." And then I say, "Jesus had wife, and he died for her." It was a dowry, and he meant to get one woman for his own. It doesn't mean he has no heart for the rest of the world. Matthew 5-44, love your enemy, and you will become like your father in heaven because he makes his son rise on the evil and the good. He teaches God's love for his enemies. The sun came up on Seattle. I couldn't see it this morning, but it came up. And that's pure grace. We should have all been incinerated last night for the sins of this city and our own sins. But it came up, which is God's arms extended to the people. Every suffering and every blessing that comes into a fallen world is either a wake-up call or a wooing call from the living God in love speaking to a fallen world, but he loves his church differently, differently. He pays for her. He pays a dowry for her. He goes after her. Now, I'm almost done with this section. So, Piper, just be simple for me. Do you believe Jesus died for all people? Just give us a straight-out answer. I'm not going to play politics. I'm not going to answer another question, but I am going to do this before I answer it. I'm going to force you to define for all people. I'm going to say, "Now, just tell me exactly what you mean, and I'll answer you because I don't want to answer in a way that would cause you to misunderstand. What do you mean by for all people?" Now, I think I know what most, is it okay if I use the word Armenians, just most people who are having a hard time, they're not all Armenians, having a hard time with limited atonement. That is, the atonement which affects something special for a limited group. I think I know what they all mean, and I'm going to quote Millard Erickson's theology, because I think he's right. He says, "God intended the atonement to make salvation possible for all persons. Christ died for all persons, but this atoning death becomes effective only when accepted by the individual. This is the view of all Armenians," close quote. If that's the view of all Armenians, I totally agree with it. No qualifications. So if you say, "Did Christ die for all people?" And I say, "What do you mean for all people?" And you answer, "I mean, did he die in such a way so that anybody, anywhere who believes will be saved by that blood?" I say, "Absolutely he did." That's John 3 16. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son in such a way that whoever believes will not perish." I believe that totally without qualification, every individual person on planet earth who believes in Jesus has their life covered by the blood of Jesus. So you preach that. You stand up on Sunday morning and you say, "Christ died in such a way so that anybody in this room who believes your sins are covered by the blood of Jesus." And there's no, there's no massage of language there or anything. If you want to say, "Christ died for all of you," just be sure that you eventually sometime in your teaching program, explain what you mean because they're going to take you to mean perhaps some things you don't. But if all they take you to mean is, "Christ died in such a way so that a bonafide offer of the gospel and salvation could be made to every person face to face on the street saying if you will believe the blood of Jesus covers your sin," it's true. And then I simply say, Calvinists believe more than that. Not less. They believe that, in other words, they affirm everything the Armenian says about the availability of the blood of Christ for all who will believe. And then they say, "And he did more than that." Namely, he has in view a people that he has chosen from the foundation of the world and he purchased in this dowry their faith and repentance and conversion and their new covenant closure with Christ. He will get a people for himself. That's not less than the Armenian police. That's more. In other words, Christ doesn't just go around in general relating to women. He gets a wife. And he pays for her and he loves his wife differently than he loves the world. I just find it mind-boggling that some people have a view of the cross that actually says to people, "It can mean no more for you than it means for people in hell." He didn't do anything special for you that he didn't do for the person in hell. That is so gospel-destroying, so cross-gutting the whole new covenant collapses under that kind of teaching because it leaves absolutely everything on you. If you have the grace to believe Christ bought that grace and you should give him glory, for it, and give the cross credit for it. So, glory with your people again in Romans 832. He who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all. Most certainly will give us all things. All things were purchased for us in the cross. I'm not sure. I'm going to make it real short on this last one here. The number six, if I wish there were a Q&A after this so that people are still confused about that, could ask me because that has been so liberating for me. I just want you to get that limited atonement thing, that's not a good word, definite atonement, covenant effectiveness, get another word, limited atonement just gets us in trouble. I just want all of you Calvin, and it's from now on to say Calvinists don't believe less about the death of Jesus, we believe more. We believe that he made salvation available to all who will believe and the blood is sufficient for all who will believe and everyone who believes is covered by the blood of Jesus. Amen, let's preach that. And then we say, and to all those who do believe, guess what? Jesus bought your awakening so that he paid for your coming and your coming cannot be boasted in. It goes like a trophy at the foot of the cross, but I'm repeating myself. Number six, don't deny your people the joy of the doctrine of imputation, the doctrine of the imputation of the righteousness of Christ. Oh my, if we had hours to talk about the new perspective on Paul, or to talk about the way that the imputation, the historic understanding of the doctrine of justification in two senses, not just one sense, and see if I can boil this down and show you why it's so precious, pastorally, and so precious in terms of worship. What I want to plead with you, I can't defend it enough tonight, but just plead with you to read the ancient old writers. If you're going to read Tom Wright, be sure to read John Owen, because there's nothing new under the sun. It's all old and it's all dangerous if it's not old. I've spent 25 years using new language to argue that I haven't said anything new under the sun about Christian hedonism, but that's another language issue. Justification historically, if you're all the way back to Chrysostom and Diogenes about this, there's a little justification reader by Odin in which you can read the history here. This is not like, oh, this was invented at the Reformation, and Luther thought this up, and now we need to get it straight, and the two issues in justification are one, Christ becomes a pardon for our sin by bearing our sin and God's wrath, and Christ becomes our perfection and our righteousness at the cross where all of his life of obedience comes to its climax. And if you chop off this hat and say justification has only to do with the forgiveness of sins and the engrafting into the people of God, and it does not consist in Christ providing a righteousness for us, you do two things. Really, three, one, you're unbiblical. I believe, and I'll try to show it for a few minutes. Two, you rip a huge weapon out of your pastoral care arsenal for depressed people, and three, you cut the glory of the cross in half. Jesus means to get glory on the cross for bearing sin and providing righteousness, and it's not just the elimination of sin, but the positive procuring of a righteousness that counts in heaven credited to our account that is justification at least half of it. So it brings me that evangelicals all over America today are being fascinated with new views. I wrote my whole little book in response to just two articles by Robert Gundry down at Westmont who says, "Imputation is not in the Bible." And I was absolutely blown away by these two articles. I just grieved so deeply that a professor at Westmont would write two articles and that books and culture edited by my friend Mark Noel would print this stuff and not even print a counter article until two issues later, and the counter article was not exegetical. It was like, here's a false teacher about to say, "Checkmate on the doctrine of imputation." And so you go out to get another chess player to come in and find out how to get out of this checkmate because it's really not a checkmate, you hope, and you get a guy who writes a history of deaths. That was the article that followed it. I said, "This is not going to help," which I sat down and wrote a book. We've got to respond, if you're going to, I mean, Gundry is no pushover exegetically. He wrote the sharpest guys around. You can't write a history of doctrine when a guy's arguing from the Bible. So I knew they wouldn't print another article and I couldn't squeeze it into an article anyway, so I wrote that little book. It's out there, I think, and I just tried to argue exegetically and I commend to you to argue exegetically, and so maybe we could look at two or three verses and then stop. So second Corinthians chapter five, "I want you to cherish this," and then I will come back to that pastoral counseling issue and tell you why I said that one of your weapons is removed if you lose this and why it is. Second Corinthians 5, 21, "For our sake, God made him," this is, "He made him," that's God, "made Christ, be sin," who knew no sin. Now to stop there, let's get that straight because it's the parallel of the verses that make it work. In what sense did God make Christ to be sin? Christ did not become a morally defective person on the cross. My sin was imputed to Christ. It was counted as Christ. He didn't sin. He never sinned, which is why he could wear my sin imputed to him. That's half of it. Next half of the verse, "So that in him," when you believe in Jesus, you are united to Jesus and that union with Christ is essential to how to understand justification, "so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." Now I think it's fair to say most New Testament scholars have always taken it this way. There are some novel ways of handling this verse now. I don't think they're compelling, but historically that has been taken to mean just as in the negative half of the verse, "God imputed to Christ my sin, so in the positive half of the verse Christ's righteousness is imputed to me." Now I know it says the righteousness of God. I know that. I'm not going to quibble here because what it says is in Christ I've become the righteousness of God. In Christ I've become the righteousness of God. I think I could take you to the flow of thought in Romans 3 and 4 and argue that the righteousness of God is the righteousness of Christ and that when you're in Christ you're identified with him, he is the outworking and outliving of God's righteousness and therefore in Christ you have God's righteousness slash Christ's righteousness. So you say to a church if you believe in Jesus not only will all the junk of your past be wiped away, you will not be left as a morally neutral zero hovering between A minus and F minus or A plus and A minus. You will be hovering rather in Christ all Christ fulfilled righteousness and obedience is imputed to you and you are A plus in God's sight. So imputed righteousness is, it's none of my own. There's no huffing and puffing. I'm A plus. I'm A plus. That would totally misunderstand Christ is A plus. You're hell bound and in the miracle of the death of Christ and the life of Christ he imputes to you by faith alone the righteousness of his son 1 Corinthians 1 30. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus whom God made our wisdom and our righteousness. God made our wisdom and our righteousness and our sanctification and our redemption. He was made our righteousness. Now I know that Tom Wright responds cynically. Okay if you're going to take that verse to mean that righteousness is imputed to you then you have to take sanctification is imputed to you, wisdom is imputed to you, redemption is imputed to you which would make nonsense out of the verse. I agree it would. I don't think you have to do that. It may be that saying Christ is our righteousness here doesn't mean that his righteousness becomes ours by imputation. That may be right. Maybe we shouldn't use this verse. If it drops out of my arsenal I won't change my mind. But I don't want to stop with that objection because it doesn't necessarily hold. Christ can be my sanctification in the sense that he comes in and works my sanctification. He can be my righteousness in the sense that he becomes my righteousness by fulfilling it and having it imputed to me. He can become my redemption by dying as my liberator and he can become my wisdom by functioning as the one who teaches me wisdom. It might be that every piece of this text he is for me in a different way. But since the objection is not up in that way I won't linger there. I do believe though it's right to say Christ is our righteousness and to sing songs about it. We'd have to drop a lot of hymns if the new perspective is proved to be true. Philippians three Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and then I think I'll leave it there and close with the application. Galatians, Philippians three, Philippians three, eight. To me though I am the very least of all the saints this grace was given to preach to the Gentiles, the unsearchable riches of Christ. I'm sorry reading the wrong wrong book Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians three, eight. Indeed I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I might gain Christ and be found in him not having a righteousness of my own but that which comes a righteousness of my own based on law but that which comes through faith in Christ the righteousness from God that depends on faith. In Christ I have a righteousness not my own. Okay. John Bunyan you remember perhaps in reading his grace bounding struggled in his mid 20s he was about 25 with whether he was saved or not and his conscience condemned him horrifically had no assurance of faith and he was walking one day among the groves feeling suicidly depressed. How in the world can I ever be righteous enough? How can I even know if I'm righteous enough? What if I were to become improved and sanctified? Could I ever be righteous enough? And he said there came into my mind a thought and then he went home to find the verse but just the thought your righteousness is in heaven and it is perfect. Your righteousness is in heaven and it is perfect. Your righteousness is in heaven. He is an idiot. Luther had this great gospel phrase that he loved called extra notes outside of us. The glory of the gospel is that it was accomplished outside of us on the cross and that the righteousness that counts for me in heaven before the holy judge is a righteousness outside of me. Christ is my righteousness. In Christ his righteousness is commanded to the Father. I stand clothed in Christ. His righteousness is my only hope. Now I say this is a weapon in the arsenal of counseling depressed people that I do not want to surrender because one of the hardest things in dealing with introverted introspective, depressed and insecure people who every time you give them a promise divert it this way, deflect it that way and can't wear it. Ultimately there is no answer for people like that except the miracle. Would you please stop thinking about yourself? Let's pray that God would set you free from the mirror, the curse of the condemning mirror and let you begin to think of Christ and then just say and there are many things you can say at that point about Christ but one of the precious things is your measuring up will never happen on planet earth. You will never be good enough ever ever ever relax. You will never be good enough. There is one who has been good enough and only one and he has died as a climax to that obedience such that your sins have been taken away and the righteousness you so long to have has been provided perfectly in Christ before the holy judge. God looks upon it and says I count you perfect and all that are in you my son and you may be in him by simply falling on him. Can you fall? Let's practice. Try falling out of that chair. You don't fall. I'll push you out of that chair. That's the way the Holy Spirit works. I don't know how to help people who are desperately dealing with their own condemnation if we lose that half of justification. It is a precious and glorious half and not only is it valuable for the people but it is a great honor to Christ when we say not only did you bear my sins but you provided my righteousness and so I hope at this church and all the churches where you come from you will keep singing those songs that Christ is my righteousness and my perfect dress. Don't let your people miss the pleasures, the peace, the power, the glory of the doctrine, of the imputation of the righteousness of Christ by faith alone on the basis of grace alone because of Christ alone to the glory of God alone learned about in scripture alone. Let's pray. Gracious Father, I love the cross. The cross is our life. Forbid, I pray. Forbid, O God, that we would glory in anything but the cross and you as the one who manifests your supreme preciousness and value and beauty and glory and worth as you die for us on the cross. In your name or Jesus we pray. 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. [ Silence ]
John Piper | The cross must never receive its meaning from the whims of culture, but must be preached in all of its Godwardness, horror, saving power, and effectiveness for those who believe.