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Assessing Ourselves with Our God-Assigned Measure of Faith, Part 2
The following message is by Pastor John Piper. More information from Desiring God Ministries is available at www.desiringGod.org. Well, last time we began to explain how verse 3, Romans 12, opens and explains, verse 2. Particularly, the new mind of verse 2, verse 2 says, "Don't be conformed to this world, that be transformed by the renewing of your mind." And then, verse 3 begins to talk about the way the new mind works, what's new about the new mind, and the very first thing Paul deals with in trying to get at the nature of the new mind is pride, and the way the new mind understands itself in relation to God and people. And I don't think he does this first because the most important thing the new mind does is think about itself, but the most dangerous thing the new mind does is think about itself. How you think about yourself cannot save you, but how you think about yourself can destroy you, and therefore, verse 3 begins with a warning, so let's go there. Verse 3, "For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you," that includes all of you who are listening now, "not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think," that's a warning, "don't think highly of yourself." Now that is exactly the opposite approach to service than is typical in America. It's exactly the opposite attitude towards self-exaltation that is typical in American advertising, for example. So behind the church downtown on about 200 yards away, there's a big billboard, typical billboard, it's from McDonald's, and all it says is, me, myself, my salad, what's that? That's shrewd American advertising exploiting your suicidal tendency to pride. All advertisers, all educators, all counselors, all managers of human resources, all coaches, all pastors will one day give an account for whether we have accomplished our jobs by exploiting the suicidal passions of the human soul for pride. We want to be central, we want to be praised, we want to be made much of, we want to be exalted, advertisers know it, teachers know it, managers know it, some preachers know it, know it only half way, and use it to kill people. Don't be among that number who exploit the suicidal, sinful tendency of the human heart to be made much of, to sell things, or to get them to behave the way you want them to behave. When comes to Paul, he does exactly the opposite because he loves us, and as an ambassador of Jesus Christ, he ministers the love of God to us, and therefore he warns us against the suicidal tendency that we have, and says, I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than you ought to think. The first task of the new Christian mind is to put to death pride and to begin to cultivate humility, and I say it carefully lest you be perfectionistic, and we begin to cultivate humility. And it's a lifelong battle put to death what is earthly in you is not a once for all command, it's a daily command. Count yourself dead is a daily command. Recon yourself alive to God in all humility and service towards people is a daily command and a daily battle. So he warns us and then he turns in the second half of the verse to the positive alternative to the warning. Let's read that starting where I left off in the middle of the verse three, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. So the alternative is now think with sober judgment, don't think of yourself more highly think about yourself with sober judgment, and you define sober judgment, namely think about yourself, define yourself, assess yourself by the standard of the God assigned measure of faith that you have. And so last time I asked this question, Paul, what are you up to here? Why did you tell us to make our God assigned differing measures of faith that we have the standard by which we define and assess who we are? Why did you do that? And I said there are four answers and I gave you two last time and I'll give you one more this morning and the fourth becomes the bridge into our series on spiritual gifts versus four through eight. Next time, God willing. So let's take just one more answer to the question, Paul, what are you up to? Why do you make the God assigned measure of faith that each has the criterion of their personhood and their being and their selfhood? Why do you do that? Let me review the two answers from last week and then move to this one. The first one last time was Paul makes the measure of faith that we have the standard of our self assessment and self definition because the essence of faith is a looking away from ourselves to Christ and treasuring him as the most significant, most valuable, most highly esteemed person in the universe with whom we are totally satisfied. That's what faith does and he makes that the measure of who we are. I said when faith stands in front of a mirror, it becomes a window and on the other side of the window is the glory of Christ in all of his perfections and all of his marvelous works and marvelous ways and all of his perfectly executed offices of prophet and priest and king and sacrifice and when faith converts a mirror into a window and sees that, it is drawn out and embraces that as infinitely valuable, significant, worthy of esteem and is restful and satisfied. That's all I need. That's the way faith is, that's what faith is. Then Paul chose to make that the measure of who you are because that is the measure of who you are. If Christ is more to you, you are more. If Christ is less to you, you are less. Our significance is our treasuring Christ as significant. Our value is our valuing Christ as infinitely valuable. Our esteem is our esteeming Christ above all things. That's what true human being is. That's answer number one. Answer number two as to why Paul is doing this, why he's making faith and it's God-given measure, my definition and my assessment is because faith is a gift and therefore undermines all boasting when I define myself by it. You see that right here in verse three, don't you? Think with sober judgment each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. That means that Christians may not boast over unbelievers as though by our superior wisdom or spirituality or intelligence or courage made ourselves believers. We didn't. By grace you are saved through faith and that is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast over the production of their own faith. And John run the law demands and gives us neither feet nor hands. Far better news the gospel brings. It bids us fly and gives us wings as John Bunyan. And he loved the gospel because he knew he couldn't fly. He knew he couldn't fly to heaven. He knew he couldn't fly out of his deadness as a lost person. And so when he heard the command fly John, he also heard the promise, I have died and sent my Holy Spirit to give you wings. 'Tis grace that taught my heart to fear, grace taught my heart to fear and grace my fears relieved how precious did that grace not me appear the hour I first believed. Why did you get convicted for sin, grace? Why was that conviction and burden lifted in faith in the cross, grace? That's why and it's true of every believer in this room whether you know it or not. That was answer number three, I mean two. Today we turn to answer number three, to the question, "Now Paul, why are you doing this? Why do you begin explaining the new mind by calling attention to our pride problem and then telling us to think soberly and then define thinking soberly about the self as thinking in accordance with the God-assigned measure of faith? Why are you doing that?" Number one, answer two, now answer three, it goes like this, "God assigns faith in different proportions to his people because that produces humble interdependence with some being served and some serving and sometimes they switch roles which leads to a unity in diversity that is more difficult and more beautiful and more God-glorifying than if we all had exactly the same measure of faith. And God wants that beauty and that glory to shine off the church and therefore he makes the measure of ourself not only the gift of faith but diverse faith." Now, if you come to this text with the assumption, which many of you do because it's the assumption you were born with and that you have been taught in a hundred ways living in this self-exalting culture. If you come with the assumption that you are an autonomous, ultimately self-determining center of consciousness in the universe, this text will blow all the circuits of your brain because it says, "God assigns your faith in different measures from day to day for you and between different people, different measures all across the church." We differ, so I have three questions to ask about this point. Is that true? Are there differing measures of faith in every person in this room and are there differing measures of faith in my heart between morning and evening, Sunday and Monday, age 40 and age 50, 60, 70, 80? Second question. Does it help or hurt to know that all of that is God's doing, is that getting the ways, that causes stumbling block, does that produce fatalism? Question three, "Why does God ordain such diversity of faith when he commands that we all be strong in faith?" Let's start with question number one. Do we really experience differing degrees of faith individually from time to time and in this church from seat to seat? The answer that experience teaches is a clear and resounding yes. So let's start with experience and then go to the Bible. If faith is a looking away from ourselves to the infinitely significant, infinitely valuable, really worthy of esteem, infinitely just, infinitely good, infinitely gracious, infinitely wise, infinitely strong Christ, such that we are drawn out to embrace him to the satisfaction of our souls. Everybody in this room knows we experience that in degrees. Macassie is that after a beautiful series of worship singing, the level of your delight in God is higher than it was at six o'clock this morning or whenever. Everybody knows this is true. Everybody knows as you look around this room some people seem to have the capacity to rest in God and all that he is for us in Jesus more than others. You struggle and others don't. Sometimes you struggle and sometimes you don't struggle, sometimes you're high and sometimes you're low. I mean that's so obvious. Why am I spending so much time on it? We're going to say. Unless of course you redefine faith so that it becomes a merely mechanical thing so that it has no connection whatsoever to the living responsiveness to the beauty of Christ. Of course, if you want to define faith that way so that we all have exactly the same degree it kind of becomes an intellectual, yes sign here, yes he's divine, yes he died for sins, yes he's coming again, yes that's faith, baloney. That's not faith. You know why? The devil signs that card. So faith is clearly not the yes to true doctrine, the yes to who he is. That's step one. Faith is seeing him for who he is and having the heart drawn out to rest there, delight there, have your needs met there, enjoy that. That's what faith is. Therefore, it really goes up and down and you all know it does. But we are not a church built on the authority of experience and so let's go to the Bible and see if this is so. I'll read you this verse so you can jot it down, just listen. Second Thessalonians 1, 3. We ought always to give thanks to God for you brothers as is right because your faith is growing abundantly and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing. That's clear. Your faith Thessalonians today is bigger than it was yesterday. Praise God. So clearly faith grows, which means your faith today should be stronger than yesterday should be. I never sing the song every day with Jesus the sweeter than the day before. I just can't sing that song. I don't believe that's true. It should be. Oh, it should be. And over time we ought to grow strong, but everybody knows it's not true. You can look back on some wonderful sweet times with Jesus that were sweeter than today. He can, unless today is one of the best days of your life, tomorrow may not be. So yes, the Bible affirms it. Let's stay with Romans. Romans 14, 1, as for those who are weak in faith, welcome them. Some are strong. Some are weak. Those of you who are strong bear with the failings of the weak. This is clear. So I don't need a linger here anymore. Answer to question number one, yes, we experience faith in ourselves in varying degrees from day to day. And yes, in this room, there are about 700 degrees of faith. Second question. Does it help us or hurt us to know that this is God's doing? Not to make sure you see that it is. Let's read the second half of the verse again. Think with sober judgment each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. That God has assigned. There are a lot of objections to that teaching, that biblical teaching. There are a lot of objections to that. Let me deal with one because it's the most immediately relevant, I think, to our experience. The objection would go like this. Like if God decides sovereignly how much, if I have faith, Ephesians 2, 8, and how much faith I have from Romans 12, 3, then the fight of faith is pointless. My fight of faith is pointless. That's the objection. Might as well, in case of rah, sarah, what will be, will be. Now, my response to that objection is, it's false, that's a false statement. That if God is sovereign, your fight of faith is pointless, that's false. If God has the right and the power and the grace to intervene in your life, when you are dead, in trespasses and sins, without the slightest spiritual interest in Him at all, with a heart that was hard and rebellious and indifferent and hostile and totally bored with church and everything about it and thinking the Bible is an absolute ridiculous myth and those Christians waste their time totally. If God can break in on that and awaken you from the dead and draw you to a living love and faith in Jesus Christ and then keep you for Himself hour by hour, then your decision to believe and your fight of faith is not pointless, it's possible. And only because He is like that, is it possible? The sovereignty of God does not make the exercise of your will toward Him pointless, it makes it possible and all the fight that goes with it. Here's the problem with this objection, it assumes, and this is so tragic how many people assume this, they don't articulate it, they just assume it, it assumes that we begin with a relative neutrality from which position of relative neutrality, we are able to make ourselves believers or unbelievers, strong or weak, operating from a kind of an equilibrium of neutrality. And the problem with that assumption is the Bible has the opposite assumption. The Bible assumes that I start not with neutrality but depravity, I'm dead, I hate God, the mind of the flesh is hostile to God, it does not submit to His law, indeed it cannot. Every person in this room, in this room, apart from sovereign grace is dead. You're not going to pick yourself up by your own bootstraps here, you can't wave a wand over your corpse, you don't have any hand. There is no power that you can produce, therefore the sovereign grace of God does not make your coming to Christ by your will, pointless, and you're wrestling against your own man for the growth of faith, pointless, it makes it all possible. You wouldn't have any faith if it weren't for God, you wouldn't have the quiver of life in your heart if it weren't for God. Believers who have felt the glory of the grace of God, breaking into their dead and rebellious lives don't talk like that, they don't talk about neutrality, they don't talk about calling the shots and being the ultimate determiner of their lives, here's the way they talk, I'll show you the way they talk, Philippians 2, 12, work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure, your working out your salvation with fear and trembling is not pointless because God is at work in you, it's possible because God is at work in you. Here's another way they talk, 1 Corinthians 15-10, "By the grace of God I am what I am and his grace toward me was not in vain, but I worked harder than any of them, nevertheless it was not I but the grace of God that was with me." The sovereign grace of God in Paul's life did not make his hard work pointless, it made it possible, oh, the arrogance of the human mind to think that we can produce that on our own. For those of you like me, I speak candidly here, who have a very fickle in the very fragile will, easily distracted from spiritual things, prone to wander, prone to leave the God I love, Peter's words that is Jesus' words to Peter become very precious, piper, piper. Satan has demanded to have you that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you. When you turn, keep on strengthening the church. The sovereign keeping covenant of God is very precious to me. I ask you, and I've asked you many times, what makes you think you are going to wake up tomorrow morning believing in Jesus and not apostate and hating him or totally indifferent and eager to turn the television on or go make a lot of money or go look at pornography and just forget about this Jesus, what makes you think you are going to wake up a believer tomorrow morning? Let alone be strong. There is only one solid, sure answer. He who began a good work in you will complete it till the day of Christ to him be the glory that I woke up this morning, a believer. You going to take credit for that? You going to rob him of Philippians 1,6, glory, don't go there. Learn to get on your face and give God all the glory for your salvation, for your keeping. Now unto him who is able to keep you and present you before the throne of his glory with rejoicing without blemish, to him be the glory forever and ever, Jude 1, 25. Don't rob him of that by an American theology, be biblical. My answer to the second question, is it helpful to learn that these degrees of faith and by having any faith at all is ultimately God's doing? Is that helpful? My answer is it is my life to know this. It is my endurance to know this, it is my hope to know this and therefore it is the resource of love to know this and to keep on in the ministry to know this. Now watch my father get old, he is 85 and he is losing his mind, he asked me 10 times in a row within 20 minutes where we are going and I get really nervous for him except for one thing. I know he is God and God won't let him go because I don't know what for him or for me at age 87 his mind is going to be able to do any more. How do you face that for yourself, say it is my willpower, I am free, I am independent, really, really, wake up. Do we need to have Alzheimer's to remind us of who we are? And while it is not too late. Question number three, why did God ordain it this way, 700 different degrees of faith in this room, John Piber up down all over the place emotionally and with God as the days go by, why? And he commands if he is in 610, be strong in the Lord and the strength of his might. That is his revealed will for us, remember two weeks ago, the difference between sovereign will and will of command, will of command, Bethlehem, be strong, grow. Sovereign will, diversity, why? I think some questions we have to just trust God with. I don't have the full answer, but I think I have part of the answer. So I will share the part that I have. Here is the part that I think I have in answer to that question. I get it, you can turn there with me if you want, just a couple of pages forward. Romans 15, 5, Romans 15, 5 and 6, go like this. Now Paul, remember, we are going to get to this, Lord willing, he is dealing with the weak and the strong and the tensions in the church created by that because sometimes the weak don't want to eat certain things and the strong say, you can eat that and to get into a big hassle about things and he is dealing with all that, how the strong and the weak get along with each other and help each other and love each other. And he gets here with the kind of summary word in verse 5 of chapter 15, "Made a God of endurance and encouragement, grant you to live in such harmony, think in similar ways, think about the big issues the same, live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that, and here is the goal of that kind of harmony among that diversity, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ from which I conclude evidently God Almighty in his infinite wisdom believes that a more difficult, more beautiful, and more God honoring harmony is possible when there is diversity of faith as well as diversity of personality and diversity of gift. You might say, I wouldn't have created the world that way, well, who are you, right? We attempted to feel that way about a lot of horrible things in the world and a lot of strange things in the world like Chechnya, Russia, children, Palestinians, Jews, and Iraq, and Hurricane Francis, but don't presume that you could create the world and run it better than God. That's about as arrogant as it gets. So my answer to this third question is that the reason God, part of the reason, that God ordains that John Piper has his ups and downs in faith and that we as a church are different from one another in degrees of faith is that it creates unusual God-ordained possibilities of interdependence and service of one another that flows in ways that are beautiful and never could have had we all had cookie-cutter faith. You know, give you an illustration, just from the Bible, consider it this way. In 1 Thessalonians 5, 14, we read this. This was a verse from one year, we urge you brothers, admonish the idol, encourage the faint-hearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. Now, I look at those and I say admonishing, encouraging, helping, and patience. Those particular forms of admonition, encouragement, help, and patience could not exist. If there were no idol, faint-hearted, weak believers, other forms might be able to, but those forms couldn't. And evidently God, as He looks on us, He says, "It will be more beautiful, more difficult, more God-honoring, take more grace and display more of my character in its fullness if the church work with one another at 700 degrees of faith than one degree of faith." I think that's the way He said it up, and I think that's what He wants us to be for each other, so that those who are growing are loving and coming in alongside the weak, and those who are weak are humbling themselves under the ministrations of other people in their small groups and saying, "I hardly have anything today. I can't even hardly pray today. Would you please pray for me?" We humbly just don't resent that, and we're not surprised by that. God has ordained diversity of faith in the body of Christ in order that His grace might shine more beautifully as we love each other and become servants of one another in that way. So let me close with three summary exhortations, number one. From experience and from the Bible, we know that faith as it reaches out to the glory and the beauty and the value and the all-sufficiency and the righteousness and the atoning blood of Jesus as we reach away from ourselves and are satisfied with that, that experience goes up and down. It does. We all know that, therefore, exhortation one, don't be surprised at diversity in the church. Don't be surprised at the ups and downs of your own life, and don't resent them. I choose my words carefully. Oppose them, obey the revealed will of God to be strong in the Lord, and the strength of His might, yes, it isn't pointless to pray with the apostles in Luke 17, 5, Lord, increase our faith, never in a million years would Jesus respond to that, that's not my work. It's your work, which is what so many people think. If you cry out, "Jesus, increase my faith," He doesn't respond by saying, "That's your work. I don't do that." He didn't respond that way. Or if you go to your Bible and read, or if you go to a counselor and receive meekly, a biblically saturated word of exhortation, or if you sit under a Bible-saturated message on Sunday morning, you have not done something pointless. God has means by which He brings us on towards the fullness of faith, prayer, and the word are the main ones. And therefore I say, don't be surprised at the ups and downs of faith, and don't resent God for them, but rather undertake with all the might He mightily inspires you with, to resist weakness and resist wandering, and to grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus. Second, we learn from the Bible that we are not left to ourselves as believers. He is at work in us to will and to do His good pleasure. Therefore rejoice that Jesus intercedes for you in heaven. He has poured out the Holy Spirit to work within you. That which is pleasing in His sight, Hebrews 121, I mean 1321. He works within you, that which is pleasing in His sight, so that if you have any measure of faith, instead of getting mad at God that you don't have another measure, thank Him with tears you have any, and then embrace the means He provides and grow. And finally, number three, never be content, I've said it already, never be content with a weak condition of faith, be strong in the Lord, and I'll add this, turn every weakness in your own life and that you see around you, turn every weakness into an occasion of lovingly and humbly being served or lovely and lovingly and humbly serving. And then this church will be beautiful in spite of all of our weaknesses, in spite of all the degrees of faith, it will be beautiful because the weak will not be resenting the ministrations of the strong, the strong will not be exalting themselves over the weak, we will be stooping down, we will be receiving, and the next day those very roles of those two very people may be reversed. So it is in marriage, so it is in small groups ought to be, so it isn't a church, so it is on the staff, sometimes one is down and sometimes another, and God won't let you ever fall. Let's pray. Gracious Father, I thank You for the promise, implicit in Jesus' words to Peter, that Your intercession at God's right hand does not secure threefold denials that they would be prevented but does secure returning and the strengthening of the brothers. Final security is sure because of the covenant promise, "I'll never leave You, I'll never forsake You. I will be with You to the end of the age." God is faithful, who promised, and He will do it. You will begin, that is, you will complete the work that You began. And I pray that that glorious truth would now carry us through this Labor Day weekend so that whatever measures of leisure we embrace as a gift from You, a foretaste of heaven, we will not forget that grace sustains us moment by moment. And if we're going to wake up on Labor Day Monday morning, a believer, wanting to read the Bible before we run off to play, it will be all of grace. So make us serve and separate. Thank you for listening to this message by John Piper, pastor for preaching at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Feel free to make copies of this message to give to others, but please do not charge for those copies or alter the content in any way without permission. We invite you to visit Desiring God Online at www.desiringgod.org. There you'll find hundreds of sermons, articles, radio broadcasts, and much more, all available to you at No Charge. Our online store carries all of Pastor John's books, audio, and video resources. You can also stay up to date on what's new at Desiring God. Again our website is www.desiringgod.org. Or call us toll free at 1-888-346-4700. Our mailing address is Desiring God 20601 East Franklin Avenue, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55406. Desiring God exists to help you make God your treasure, because God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.
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