Kennystix's podcast
Sex and the Supremacy of Christ: Part 2
I think I'd just like to pray one more time and ask God's help on the ministry of the Word. Lord, this is our last time together. Some of us will never see each other again in this life. And that may be very brief, it may be a long time. And I want to be a help to these friends. And so I ask that you would come and anoint me for the ministry of the Word. I want to preach the Word of God as it really is, the Word of God, in the power that you supply with a special spirit-given enablement, anointing, unctioned power, an illumining force so that the mind and the heart will be awakened to the glories of your supremacy. So that our hearts will enlarge, our capacities for suffering will increase and our possibilities and powerful enablement for purity would be tremendously greater than it's ever been. And in all of that, we want you to be magnified. We want you to look great. We want to make much of you in all of our lives. So I ask for your help in Jesus' name, amen. Well, on Friday night, I waved the banner of two convictions. One, sexuality is designed by God as a way to know Christ more fully. Let me put a parenthesis in here before I tell you the second conviction. That statement does not contradict what I said during the question and answer session last night in defense of the possibility that in some people, singleness will be an experience of more humanness than if they were married. Even though my first point here was just, sexuality is granted as a way of knowing Christ more fully. And the reason it's not a contradiction is because when God calls a person, as He does some, to singleness, He makes all that is required there, another means of knowing Him more fully than if they had been married and had sexual intercourse often. Sexuality is not the only way that we know God more fully than if we don't have it. There are other experiences in life that only singles have, which are also a means of knowing God more fully than if they were married. Therefore, it is not a contradiction to what I said last night. I wish, Mark, when you had asked me last night, would you ever have a conference on singleness in the supremacy of Christ? I wish instead of saying yes, I wish I had said, this is it because of my second conviction flying on the banner that I waved on Friday night. Namely, knowing Christ and His supremacy more fully is designed as a way of guarding and governing, guiding our sexuality, single or married, especially single, perhaps. In other words, my second banner that I waved is all about all of us. And that's the one I want to talk about this morning. My aim and prayer this morning is that I would help you so know the supremacy of Christ, that your sexuality, single or married would be experienced with more sweetness, more Christ-exalting purity, more soul satisfaction because of knowing Him better. I have a conviction, it has governed the creation and execution of this conference. My conviction is that the better you know the supremacy of Christ, the more sacred, the more satisfying, and the more Christ-exalting your sexuality will be. I have a picture in my mind. I have several pictures in my mind, just tell you one for now. I have a picture in my mind of the majesty of Christ like the sun at the solar system, at the center of the solar system of your life. The massive sun, 333,000 times more massive than the earth. Holding all the planets in orbit, even little Pluto, 3.6 billion miles away, holding it where it belongs to be because of the mass of the bright and glorious sun at the center. That's my picture of your life. And so it is with the supremacy of Christ, all the planets of your life, your sexuality and desires, your commitments and beliefs, your aspirations and dreams, your attitudes and convictions, your habits and disciplines, your solitude and relationships, your labor and your leisure. You're thinking, you're feeling. All the planets of your life are held in orbit by the greatness and the gravity and the blazing brightness of the supremacy of Jesus Christ at the center of your life. And if he ceases to be at the center of your life, the planets will fly into confusion and a hundred things will go out of control and sooner or later they will crash into each other onto destruction. That's the conviction underneath this conference. You were created to know Christ as he really is. Which is why doctrine, biblical doctrine about Jesus and how he works and how he saves is so important. You were made to know Christ as he really is. You were created to comprehend as much as a fallen creature now can comprehend the supremacy of Christ. And the knowing that you were made to have is no mere intellectual awareness like Caesar crossed the Rubicon or ancient Gaul was divided into three parts. That's not the kind of knowing merely that we are talking about here that transforms our life but rather a knowing of admiration and wonder and awe and intimacy and ecstasy and embrace. Not knowing like you know Hurricane Jean by watching television but by flying in the eye of the storm, sometimes hang gliding. That's the way we must know him. We were made to, we were made to see and savor with everlasting satisfaction the supremacy of Christ. Our sexuality points to this and we have sexual beings that we may know something of this and we must know this in order to be pure and have our sexuality be sacred and sweet and Christ exalting and secondary. Quietly, powerfully, secondary. So my prayer for this conference has been and is that you will all one by one see and savor the supremacy of Christ. Married or single, male or female, old or young, disordered in your desires or walking in a measure of holiness that you will behold and embrace the supremacy of Christ in all things. Because I know, I know without the shadow of a doubt on biblical authority that the little spaceships of our moral regimes, our little tactics to fight lust. Our little spaceships to nudge the planet of our sexuality back into orbit are absolutely futile if the supremacy of Christ is not the sun at the center of the solar system of your life. I know that, I don't know many things. I know that beyond the shadow of a doubt and therefore this is an easy conference to do because the solution is clear. Not easy to appropriate because of our sin but the answer to the problem is clear. There's a massive sun that belongs at the center of the solar system of our lives and by its weight and glory and mass and beauty and power holds the orbits in place. And therefore my prayer, as much as I believe in my practical strategies and oh, I believe in them, my prayer is that you will know that you will press on to know the supremacy of Christ. The supremacy of his deity equal with God, the Father in all of his attributes, the radiance of his glory and the exact image of his nature. The supremacy of his eternality that makes the mind want to explode with the imponderable thought that Jesus Christ never had a beginning. He is simply there, absolute reality with which we reckon. We must rise to the supremacy of his eternality. While all the universe, including this building in your body and this earth and all the galaxies are fragile, contingent, like a shadow in comparison to the substance of Jesus Christ. We must know the supremacy of his never-changing constancy. Oh, to have virtues that never change. A character whose commitment is constant yesterday, today and forever, let us know the supremacy of his constancy. Then let us know the supremacy of his knowledge that makes the library of Congress look like a match box and makes all the information on the internet look like a 1940s farmer's almanac and makes all of quantum physics and everything that Stephen Hawking has ever dreamed look like a first-grade reader. We must know the supremacy of the knowledge of our Lord. We must know the supremacy of his wisdom that has never been perplexed by any problem whatsoever, nor can he be counseled by any person or any being in the universe. We must know the supremacy of his authority. All authority is mine in heaven and on earth and under the earth. No change. All authority, changing times and seasons, removing kings, setting up kings, doing according to his will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. No one can stay his hand or say to him, what have you done? We must know the supremacy of his providence without which not a single bird in the extended reaches of the Amazon forest has ever fallen off of any limb and without which not one hair turns white or black. We must know the providence of Jesus. We must know the supremacy of his word, which upholds the universe by the word of his power, all the galaxies, molecules, atoms and subatomic reality nobody has yet dreamed of. Down there where no one has yet looked. We must know the supremacy of his power to walk on water and cleanse lepers and heal the lame and open the eyes of the blind and open the ears of the deaf and cause storms to cease and with two words to raise the dead. Lazarus, come forth or one word to raise the dead. In your blood I said to you, live. We must know the supremacy of his power. We must know the supremacy of his purity. He never sinned, he never sinned. He never had one millisecond of a bad attitude or a sinful lust. We must know the supremacy of his trustworthiness. He never breaks the promise. He always keeps his word absolutely without fail. We must know the supremacy of his justice. He will render all accounts settled in the end, in the universe either on the cross or in hell. No injustice will remain when Christ is finished with his supreme justice. We must know the supremacy of his patience. He has endured you and me for decades. He has endured this city and brings the sun. Can you imagine why the sun rose on this city? This morning, this wicked city, this world. So full of us type sinners and he makes paradise rise in the sky in Minneapolis. What kind of patience are we dealing with here? We must know the supremacy of his servant-like sovereign obedience, kept every one of his father's commands absolutely and in the end embraced the cross with total willingness. We must know the supremacy of his meekness and loneliness and tenderness. He will not break a bruised reed or quench a smoldering flax. We must know the supremacy of his wrath. One day it will explode on this world from heaven such that all who have rejected him will call for rocks to crush their brain lest they have to face the wrath of the lamb. We must know this when I look at the beheadings. And I hear someone ask, where is your supreme Christ? My answer is really easy. He is in heaven storing up almighty wrath in fury to pour out on all those who commit such sins. That's where he is and you better get right with him and repent or you will all likewise perish. That's not a hard question to answer biblically. We must know the supremacy of his grace which gives to the spiritually dead rebels like us, life, wakens faith in hell-bound haters of God, justifies the ungodly with his own righteousness. We must know the supremacy of his love which dies for us while we are yet sinners and gives to the absolutely undeserving, the ability for ever-increasing joy in making much of him. And we must know the supremacy of his gladness. In the fellowship of the Trinity, infinite power, infinite energy, infinite joy rising, spilling over in the creation of a universe and becoming for you one day and inheritance for every struggling saint. We must know. This is what we were made for. Press on to know the Lord when you said last night, "Al, if you're not reading substantial theology, how do you think you're fighting lust? Get the connection. We are made to know Christ. We're not made to do little diddly things. We're made to know this massive Christ, this world, this little two-second slice and then with him or not forever. It's what we are created to know and do and be about. And when we know him in those ways, we have begun to know the outskirts of his supremacy for time would fail to speak of his supreme severity and invincibility and dignity and simplicity and complexity and resoluteness and calmness and depth and courage. If there's anything admirable, if there is anything worthy of praise in all the universe, it is summed up in Jesus Christ. He is always infinitely admirable in everything and over everything supreme, over all galaxies and endless reaches of space. Over the earth, from the top of Mount Everest, 29,000 feet up to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, 36,000 feet down in the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Rim. He is sovereign and supreme over all plants and animals, from the peaceful blue whale to the microscopic killer viruses. He is supreme over all weather and all movements of the earth, hurricanes, tornadoes, monsoons, earthquakes, avalanches, floods, snow, rain, sleet. He is supreme over all chemical processes that heal or destroy cancer, AIDS, malaria, flu, and all the amazing grace of antibiotics and a thousand healing drugs that we do not deserve. He is supreme over all countries and governments and armies. He's supreme over Al-Qaeda and the terrorists and the kidnappings and the suicide bombings and the beheadings. He is supreme over Bin Laden and Al-Zarkawi. He is supreme over all nuclear threats from Iran and Russia and North Korea. He is supreme over politics and elections and debates. On Thursday, he's supreme over media and news and entertainment and sports and leisure. He's supreme over all education in universities, no matter what they teach. And he's supreme over all scholarship and science and research. He's supreme over all business and finance and industry and manufacturing and transportation. And he's supreme over the internet and all informational systems. As Abraham Kuiper famously said, and many of you know, "There is not one square inch on planet earth over which the risen Christ does not say mine. And I rule it. I am supreme over it." [ Applause ] We must know this Christ. And though it may not seem to you as though he holds such supreme rule now, it is but a matter of very short time until he comes with the glory of his father and all his angels in flaming fire, giving relief to those who trust him and absolutely destroying to the uttermost in everlasting conscious torment those who have rejected him saying, "Where is your God?" Oh, help us, Lord. Oh, help us see and savor the supremacy of your son. Give yourself to this. It's my plea. Give yourself to this. Let us know. Let us press on to know the Lord. Pray that God would show you these things in his word. Swim in the Bible every day. Don't give it a little touch as you head off to do what you really like to do. Swim in the Bible every day. It is an ocean of bright, glorious, weighty, all satisfying truth about the one for whom you were made. Use the means of grace like God-centered, Christ-exalting books. That bookstore is not there to make money. It's profoundly, profoundly rooted in this conviction. Don't go home without God-exalting Bible-saturated books. Get Owen on the glories of Christ. Get Mahaney on the cross and the glory of God in marriage. Get Pauluson with his new eyes. Get Patterson on waiting and serving. Get Edwards on anything. Get Noel Piper in the little book. Mommy loves you and daddy loves you and your cousins love you and your brother loves you and your sister loves you and your friends loves you. And most of all, you know what that is? That's a translation for a three-year-old of the supremacy of Christ. Most of all, Jesus loves you. Not most of all, you're the most important person. But most of all, Jesus loves you. Don't go home without Christ-exalting God-centered Bible-saturated books, give yourself to being what God created you to be. You have a brain. You have a heart. You have emotions. He wants all of it. And when he shines, blazing at the center, this little planet called sexuality is just going to go where it's supposed to go. Single or married? Question. OK. We're all sinners here. And we don't know him like we ought. And we don't trust him like we ought. And we don't treasure him the way he deserves to be treasured. So what stands in the way? What's the main obstacle to knowing Christ's supremacy? The biblical answer to that is clear. The main obstacle to knowing Christ's supremacy is the absolutely just and holy wrath of God. We can't know God in our sin because the wrath of God rests on us in our sin. What we deserve from God is not knowledge of God, but judgment of God. And since we're cut off from the knowledge of God and in the wrath of God, we're cut off from purity. We're cut off from holiness. All the planets are out of order, no matter how secure and successful you feel. God doesn't owe us purity. He owes us punishment. And therefore, we are hopelessly depraved and condemned, except for one thing. Christ redeemed us by the curse from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. As it is written, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. God hates sin, and his wrath is infinite against sin. And we're all stamped and defined by sin. And God demands perfection. Be perfect. Your Father in heaven is perfect. You must be perfect. Nothing short of perfection enters my presence. And so there rests on us demands we cannot meet in a curse we cannot bear. And Christ says to his Father, may I? Because the Father had already made a covenant of redemption with the Son, you shall. In the gospel, it is the foundation of this conference. It's your only hope. The gospel is that Jesus Christ came into the world and bore the wrath of God, the curse. Galatians 3, 13, one of the most precious verses in the Bible. It became a curse for us. And he performed a righteousness for us, perfect which we never could perform, which is now, by faith alone, imputed to you, so that you may be united to this perfect Christ, him bearing all the curse, him providing all the perfection, and no, paradise is open. I can know him. I could begin to grow in knowing him. I could actually begin to enjoy him. He's not against me anymore. In fact, the wrath of God has been so totally absorbed by Jesus, and the perfection that I must produce has been so totally produced and provided by Jesus, that now only one thing governs God's attitude to me, and that is mercy. All that I experience, all my pain and all my pleasures are mercy, mercy, mercy, everything working together for my good, and therefore, paradise is open to me, and I could begin to see him, know him, study him, enjoy him, grow in him, and find the satisfaction of my soul that he was meant to be. The best gift of the gospel is not the forgiveness of sins. The best gift of the gospel is not the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ. The best gift of the gospel is not eternal life. The best gift of the gospel is seeing and savoring the supremacy of Jesus himself. That's the best gift of the gospel, and we had no access to that joy until he took our place. Last question. OK. If I open myself to this Christ, if I respond by grace to his tender offers of substitution and rest in him and enjoy him and treasure him so that his righteousness becomes mine and my curse becomes his, how does it work? How does my increase, my gradual increase of knowledge of his supremacy work to bring the planet of sexuality into orbit? How does it work? That would help, wouldn't it, to know? Would you just explain this to us a little bit? And yes, I will. And if I had time, I would give you lots of ways that it works, but I'll only give you two. Here's the first one. Knowing the supremacy of Christ, to which we are now enabled and opened by the gospel, knowing the supremacy of Christ and largest the soul, so that sex and its little thrills become small as they really are. Little souls make little lusts have great power. The human soul was made to see and savor the supremacy of Christ. Nothing else is big enough to enlarge the soul as God intended and make little lusts lose their power. Vast starry skies seen from a mountain in Utah, four layers of moving clouds on a bright day on an endless plane in Montana. A mile deep drop off, just a few feet in front of you at the Grand Canyon, are wonderful supplementary aids to the enlargement of the human soul. But they're not big enough. The starry sky is not big enough. The Grand Canyon is not big enough. Montana is not big enough, in spite of what it looks like when you're there. Only the supremacy of Christ is big enough. Jonathan Edwards said, "If you embrace all creation with goodwill but not Christ, you are infinitely parochial." That's why I read Edwards. Nobody in the 21st century says that, except maybe these speakers, which is why I invited you. You may have goodwill and strong affection and largeness of soul for all beings. On earth and all planets and imaginary beings. And if your soul is not embracing Christ, you are infinitely parochial. If that doesn't make sense to you, you haven't begun to understand. The supremacy of Christ. He just with his little finger created the universe. It is as nothing to Christ. So they are supplementary helps. They are among my armory in fighting lust. Oh, yes they are. Visits to the Grand Canyon is a highly helpful act in the battle against lust. In several regards, which I won't go into, you use your imagination, like imagine falling over. My conviction is that one of the main reasons-- I'm trying to give you a way it works-- one of the main reasons that the world and the church are awash in lust and pornography. And they tell us now that 30% of you women are visiting internet pornography sites. One of the reasons, one, that we are awash in such pornography and sexual addiction is that our lives are intellectually and emotionally disconnected from infinite soul-staggering grandeur. We are small. Inside and outside the church, Western culture is drowning in a sea of triviality, pettiness, banality, silliness. Television is trivial. Radio is trivial. Conversation is trivial. Education is trivial. Christian books are trivial. Worship styles are increasingly trivial. It is inevitable that the human heart, which is made to be staggered with the supremacy of Christ but instead is drowning in a sea of banal entertainment, will reach for the best natural buzz it can get. Sex, therefore, the deepest remedy and cure for our pitiful addictions is not any mental strategies. And I have them and I use them and them. Avoid, no, turn, hold, enjoy, move. Those are huge tactical issues for me when I face a billboard. That's not the cure. The deepest cure is to be intellectually and emotionally staggered by the infinite everlasting, unchanging supremacy of Christ in all things. That's what it means to know him. Christ has purchased this gift of knowing him at the cost of his life. And therefore, I say with Jose again, let us know. Let us press on to know the Lord. One more illustration. So that one said, when you know the supremacy of Christ, you become larger and large souls make little lusts, lose their big power. That's number one. Number two and the last one. When you know the supremacy of Christ like this, it saves you from the misuse of your sexuality by increasing your capacities to suffer. Knowing all that God promises to be for us in Christ, both now and to the endless ages, frees us from the especially American compulsion to avoid pain and to maximize comfort. And we are wired to maximize comfort and the more so the older we get. Hence my comments last night. I am wired at age 58 to assume certain comforts. Almost all American retirees buy the American assumption that you've paid your dues. Now move to paradise. When in fact, paradise is supposed to come when you die. And ministry is supposed to last till you die. So let's let the Bible speak to this. When the knowledge of Christ comes. When you grow in your grasp of the supremacy of Christ in all things, your capacities for and your willingness to suffer, not for no proud ascetic reason, but for love, for love, for love. If it's all about me becoming a more self-controlled stoic, it's pure pride, poll warned us against that in Colossians 2. We know that. It's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the price of love, and you know the price of all the hard people in your life, all the unreached peoples of the world. I sent an email off late last night to our associate for missions. I said, we've got a global deaconate. Why aren't we in Haiti? Then I read $8 billion of crop lost yesterday in Bangladesh. Hundreds of thousands of people, marooned, happens every monsoon season. Let's go, let's go. This is why we are here. This will display our satisfaction in the glory of Christ more than we king's kids, and we have nice places. We have nice things. Nobody in the world sees Jesus there, but they see Jesus on the way to Haiti, or Bangladesh, or the streets of Minneapolis. Matthew 5, 11, "Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad for your reward is great in heaven, and what, pray, tell is that. It is seeing and savoring the supremacy of Christ. That's why we can rejoice when we are persecuted. Nothing makes sense if Christ is not supreme in your life when you rejoice in persecution, or Luke 14, 13. When you give a feast and do this now, we're going to have over for Thanksgiving this year. When you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed because a strange argument. They cannot repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just." With what? Christ! Seeing and savoring Christ, we must come to a place where we are so satisfied with all that God is and promises to be for us in Christ that when we contemplate who to have for dinner, we make it hard on ourselves. I can't make any other sense out of that text. Hebrews 10, 34, "You joyfully accepted the plundering of your property since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one." What's that? Christ, seen and savored. Therefore, we can rejoice. They trashed my house when I was on my way to the inner city mission because they don't like Christian stands on homosexuality or anything else. They trashed my house. Praise God. I've got a house where Jesus lives. [APPLAUSE] You've got to know Him. You've got to know Him. He's got to be everything to you before you have the capacity to take those kind of hits and rejoice. Christians take hits every day. And they grumble and grumble and grumble and shake their fist in God's face. What's wrong with us? I'll tell you what's wrong. We don't know Him. Hebrews 13, 13. And therefore, let us go to Him outside the camp and bear reproach He endured. For here, we have no lasting city. But we seek a city that is to come. Who's going to be there? Why would you want to go there? In that city, there will be no sun or moon because the glory of God is the sun. And the lamb is the lamp. That's why we'll want to be there, to swim in the light of the knowledge of the supremacy of Christ forever and ever and ever. So I conclude that point with knowing all that Christ promises to be for you now and forever is the power to take whatever suffering love costs. Now, the connection with sex is provided by Jesus in Matthew 5, 28. Everyone who looks upon a woman to lust after her has committed adultery in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it from you, for it is better to enter into life with one of your members missing than with your whole body, to be thrown into hell. The war that Jesus has in mind here is the war against lust. And this picture of tearing out your eye or cutting off your hand that sits on the mouse, the picture is meant to say this, "Suffer whatever you must in order to win the war with lust." Isn't it? It seems pretty plain to me. "Suffer whatever you must not to lose the battle with lust." That's what it says. Cut it off! Get serious! Knowing the supremacy of Christ, I'm arguing on this last point, is the way to have the readiness, the willingness, the capacity, and the eagerness to endure that kind of pain. You can't endure that if Christ has not become your treasure. Closing thought. Therefore, I say again with Hosea, "Let us know, let us press on to know the Lord." It will not be easy; it may cost you your life. But if you keep the supremacy of Christ before you as a prize, before your eyes, you'll have the strength to press on. Press on in love, press on in purity. So, closing exhortation. "Let us know, let us press on to know the supremacy of Christ." Let's pray. Gracious Father, the needs in this room, and the brokenness in this room, the wounds in this room, the fears and the anxieties and the sins in this room, are so many, only you could count them. Only you know them I can't begin to, which is why I am so thrilled that I have a message that is the fundamental, central answer to them all. "Let us know, let us press on to know the supremacy of Christ. Let us make him the son at the center of the solar system of our life that will bring the planet of sexuality into proper orbit. Let us put this massive Christ as ballast in the bottom of our little boat so that as the winds break against us with sexual temptation, we will not sink. Let us put this massive weighty Christ as the foundation of our building so that all of our little masonry efforts of moral anthem-like strategies will work because we are built on the supremacy of Christ. Oh God, come, do this work, I pray, in this people. Do this work, grant us to keep the price, firm, clear before our eyes, and thus find the strength and largeness of soul to suffer whatever it takes to love people and be pure.
John Piper | Seeing and savoring the supremacy of God in Christ gives us the power to suffer for the sake of love, and the power to strive for the sake of purity.