Sanctification & Holiness

Here's a two-part discussion between two guys that God has used to teach me a lot about the Bible and the Gospel.  John Piper (pastor for preaching & vision at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, on the left) and Tim Keller (pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, on the right) discuss sanctification & holiness.


Part 1:


Part 2:

Unity Amid Differences

John Piper's latest "Taste & See" article is about his pastoral staff and unity amid differences. It includes six Biblical guidelines that I think the Church as a whole and individual churches in particular would do well to heed:

1. Let’s avoid gossiping.
2. Let’s identify evidences of grace in each other and speak them to each other and about each other.
3. Let’s speak criticism directly to each other if we feel the need to speak to others about it.
4. Let’s look for, and assume, the best motive in the other’s viewpoint, especially when we disagree.
5. Think often of the magnificent things we hold in common.
6. Let’s be more amazed that we are forgiven than that we are right. And in that way, let’s shape our relationships by the gospel.

Read the full article here.

Never Let The Gospel Get Smaller

From John Piper at the Desiring God Blog:

Here is a simple exhortation that I have been trying to implement in our family:

Seek to see and feel the gospel as bigger as years go by rather than smaller.

Our temptation is to think that the gospel is for beginners and then we go on to greater things. But the real challenge is to see the gospel as the greatest thing—and getting greater all the time.

The Gospel gets bigger when, in your heart,

• grace gets bigger;
• Christ gets greater;
• his death gets more wonderful;
• his resurrection gets more astonishing;
• the work of the Spirit gets mightier;
• the power of the gospel gets more pervasive;
• its global extent gets wider;
• your own sin gets uglier;
• the devil gets more evil;
• the gospel's roots in eternity go deeper;
• its connections with everything in the Bible and in the world get stronger;
• and the magnitude of its celebration in eternity gets louder.

So keep this in mind: Never let the gospel get smaller in your heart.

Pray that it won’t. Read solid books on it. Sing about it. Tell someone about it who is ignorant or unsure about it.

Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel.... For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures. (1 Corinthians 15:1-4)

Being Pro-Life Christians Under a Pro-Choice President

From John Piper at the Desiring God blog:

That is the title of a sermon I preached January 17, 1993 three days before Bill Clinton was inaugurated president. It is just as relevant—or more—today.

The text was 1 Peter 2:17, “Honor the king.” I closed with eight ways to honor a pro-choice president. The seventh was this:

We will honor you by expecting from you straightforward answers to straightforward questions. We would not expect this from a con-man, but we do expect it from an honorable man.

For example,

1. Are you willing to explain why a baby's right not to be killed is less important than a woman's right not to be pregnant?
2. Or are you willing to explain why most cities have laws forbidding cruelty to animals, but you oppose laws forbidding cruelty to human fetuses? Are they not at least living animals?
3. Or are you willing to explain why government is unwilling to take away the so-called right to abortion on demand even though it harms the unborn child; yet government is increasingly willing to take away the right to smoke, precisely because it harms innocent non-smokers, killing 3,000 non-smokers a year from cancer and as many as 40,000 non-smokers a year from other diseases?
4. And if you say that everything hangs on whether the fetus is a human child, are you willing to go before national television in the oval office and defend your support for the "Freedom of Choice Act" by holding in your hand a 21 week old fetus and explaining why this little one does not have the fundamental, moral, and constitutional right to life? Are you willing to say to parents in this church who lost a child at that age and held him in their hands, this being in your hands is not and was not a child with any rights of its own under God or under law?

Perhaps you have good answers to each of these questions. We will honor you by expecting you to defend your position forthrightly in the public eye.

You have immense power as President of the United States. To wield it against the protection of the unborn without giving a public accounting in view of moral and scientific reality would be dishonorable. We will honor you by expecting better.

Sanctity Of Life Sunday Sermons

DesiringGod.org has a list of sermons given by John Piper on Sanctity of Life Sunday going back to 1987:

• Abortion: The Innocent Blood of Our Sons and Daughters
• When Is Abortion Racism?
• Love Your Unborn Neighbor
• Abortion, Race, Gender, and Christ
• Abortion and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil
• The Darkness of Abortion and the Light of Truth
• "Father, Forgive, For We Know What We Are Doing"
• God at Work in Every Womb
• Christ, Culture, and Abortion
• Visiting Orphans in a World of AIDS and Abortion
• Where Does Child Killing Come From?
• Be Strong and Fervent in Spirit in the Cause of Truth and Life
• Fasting for the Safety of the Little Ones
• What Is Man?
• Being Pro-Life Christians Under a Pro-Choice President
• Exposing the Dark Work of Abortion
• Abortion: Shall We Listen to Men or God?
• Kingdom Compassion and the Killing of Children
• Rescuing Unborn Children: Required and Right
• Abortion: You Desire and Do Not Have, So You Kill

When Christ Is The Treasure

“I don’t think Christ is glorified anywhere more than when suffering people rejoice in him as their treasure.”

- John Piper, “Suffering for Christ,” an interview with C. J. Mahaney

(HT: Of First Importance)

Swords Are For Killing

John Piper's reflections on the sword of the Spirit:

In New Testament times swords were not for digging, shaving, or whittling. They were for killing. The only reason Peter cut off Malchus’s ear was that he missed (John 18:10).

But Herod didn’t miss: “He killed James the brother of John with the sword” (Acts 12:2).

Many saints have felt the full force of the sword: “They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword” (Hebrews 11:37). So it was and will be: “If anyone is to be slain with the sword, with the sword must he be slain” (Revelation 13:10).

That’s what swords are for. So when Paul calls the word of God the “sword of the Spirit” in Ephesians 6:17, he is serious—something must be put to death. And it is not people. Christians don’t kill people to spread our faith; we die to spread our faith.

The link in Paul’s mind is given in Romans 8:13.

If by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

The word of God is the sword of the Spirit. The Sword is for putting to death. And by the Spirit we put to death our sinful deeds. So I conclude that the way we kill our sins is with the Spirit’s sword, the word of God.

All temptations to sin have power by lying. The are “deceitful desires” (Ephesians 4:22). They tell us that the pleasure of the sin is worth it. The killing blow against these lies is the power of God’s truth. Hence the sword of the Spirit, God’s word, is the weapon to use.

As John Owen said, “Be killing sin, or it will be killing you.” That is what swords are for, especially the Bible.

Links

This stuff was too good to pass up, but I didn't have the time to spend on each one separately:

Posted at Between Two Worlds:

• Meditating on God's Word
• Ten Questions to Ask at the Start of a New Year
• Bible Reading Plans

Posted at the Desiring God Blog:

• The Crazy Idea of Fasting in '09
• A List of Everything they Prayed for in the New Testament
• 9 Ways to Pray for Your Soul
  

Santa Claus Is The Law, Jesus Is The Gospel

(HT: Vitamin Z)

Don't Desire Wealth

From John Piper, at the Desiring God Blog:

I can smell it. It’s like toast or steak or brownies. It doesn’t just draw our desire, it creates desire. Deep drops in the stock market make many people salivate. They know it will rebound. They are sitting on cash. By year’s end their pile could ride the recovery to riches.

For such people I have a word from God. The word is: Don’t desire to be rich. It will kill you. And in a world like ours many will probably perish with you. Paul’s language is more graphic than mine:

There is great gain in godliness with contentment, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content.

But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils.

It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs. (1Timothy 6:6-10)

Upcoming Conferences

Here are a couple of upcoming conferences that look pretty interesting:

• The Purpose Driven Death Missions Conference
• Together for Adoption Conference

The Gospel Coalition

If you have ever wondered what Christianity is ultimately all about, or what it is that Christians mean when they refer to "The Gospel" (literally, "The Good News"), you might be helped by these two videos, from the Gospel Coalition:

What Is The Gospel? (Mark Dever)
What Is The Gospel? (John Piper)

No, John Piper Hasn't Joined a Gang

From Josh Harris's blog:

My friend Kirk emailed this picture of one of one the girls from his church with John Piper at New Attitude. Evidently she asked him to do a "W" for the "word of God" since that was the theme of the conference. Kirk pointed out that of course Piper had no idea he was also flashing the "Westside" gang symbol. Represent!

One Issue Voter

I had a conversation with a friend at work today about being a "one-issue voter." He asked me how somebody could be pro-life, yet fall in line with "liberal" policies economically, militarily, etc., and allow those issues to "trump" their pro-life stance. "If you think killing unborn babies is morally reprehensible, could you vote for somebody who is pro-choice because of their tax policy?" Our discussion reminded me of an article written by John Piper in 1995, which I read during one of the past couple of election cycles:

No endorsement of any single issue qualifies a person to hold public office. Being pro-life does not make a person a good governor, mayor, or president. But there are numerous single issues that disqualify a person from public office. For example, any candidate who endorsed bribery as a form of government efficiency would be disqualified, no matter what his party or platform was. Or a person who endorsed corporate fraud (say under $50 million) would be disqualified no matter what else he endorsed. Or a person who said that no black people could hold office—on that single issue alone he would be unfit for office. Or a person who said that rape is only a misdemeanor—that single issue would end his political career. These examples could go on and on. Everybody knows a single issue that for them would disqualify a candidate for office.

It's the same with marriage. No one quality makes a good wife or husband, but some qualities would make a person unacceptable. For example, back when I was thinking about getting married, not liking cats would not have disqualified a woman as my wife, but not liking people would. Drinking coffee would not, but drinking whiskey would. Kissing dogs wouldn't, but kissing the mailman would. And so on. Being a single-issue fiancé does not mean that only one issue matters. It means that some issues may matter enough to break off the relationship.

So it is with politics. You have to decide what those issues are for you. What do you think disqualifies a person from holding public office? I believe that the endorsement of the right to kill unborn children disqualifies a person from any position of public office. It's simply the same as saying that the endorsement of racism, fraud, or bribery would disqualify him—except that child-killing is more serious than those.

...

These reflections have confirmed my conviction never to vote for a person who endorses such an evil—even if he could balance the budget tomorrow and end all taxation.

Worship and Service

I've been getting hit from a couple of directions with teaching hovering around the following two verses:

"For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." (Mark 10:45)

"Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks." (John 4:23)

From the White Horse Inn's recent broadcast, "Worship in Spirit and Truth" and from Desiring God Radio's recent broadcasts ("The Son of Man Came to Serve" Part 1 and Part 2 and "The Son of Man Came to Give His Life a Ransom for Many" Part 1). From these, I've been challenged to think of what a worship service is, and the differences between our service and God's service.

Michael Horton on the White Horse Inn argues that "spirit and truth" in John 4:23 refer to the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ Himself as The Truth (see John 14:6). The guys share interesting insight into Cain & Abel's offerings (Genesis 4), and the Israelites and the golden calf (Exodus 32), and Aaron's sons, Nadab and Abihu, offering "strange fire" (Leviticus 10) and Isaiah's vision in Isaiah 6.

Horton comments on Isaiah's vision:

"This is the way worship is supposed to work... We come in thinking we're okay. We have a little glimpse of God's holiness and are completely undone. He stoops to forgive us; confirms that, ratifies that, with bread and wine, and then He sends us out into the world as witnesses and people who are loving and serving our neighbors in our vocations."

Horton on our "worship experience," tainted by the Fall:

"Ever since the very beginning, we want to offer what we have. We don't want to be served by God. We don't want Him to come down to us in judgment and justification. We want to rise up to Him to justify ourselves."

Kim Riddlebarger had this to say about Sunday morning services:

"This is an amazing event that's about to happen. The Creator and Sustainer of all; the Redeemer of my soul is going to come and visit me and my fellow sinners. He's going to speak to us. He's going to serve us this wonderful glorious feast. He's going to be present when we sing to Him."

From the end of John Piper's sermon, "The Son of Man Came to Serve" (originally delivered December 17, 1995):

"Our new daughter, Talitha Ruth, arrived in our home Friday night at 9 1/2 weeks old. She smiled. She cooed. She ate. And she fell asleep in her crib. And slept for seven hours. She did not serve us at all. She is totally dependent on being served by us. If she insists on serving us rather than our serving her, she will die. This is why Jesus said, 'Unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven' (Matthew 18:3).

"It's almost Christmas. Open your heart to receive the best Christmas present imaginable: Jesus giving himself to die for you and serve you, all the rest of eternity. Receive this. Turn away from self-help and sin. Become like little children. Trust him. Trust him. Trust him with your life."

From Piper's opening prayer in "The Son of Man Came to Give His Life a Ransom for Many":

"We call this a worship service and I sometimes think we get it all wrong. It is Your service of us now. You are serving us with Your word. You are serving us by Your spirit. You are serving us a banquet of truth and of life-changing insight into your character and your glory. And I pray that You would humble us not to serve You now, but to receive Your service."

I highly encourage you to listen to these - they're tremendous.

Romans 12:1

I enjoyed this sermon on Romans 12:1 ("I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship." - ESV) from John Piper, broadcast this past week as Desiring God's radio podcast on Monday & Tuesday.

Piper caught my attention at a couple of points, which came across in the podcast, but not in the manuscript. First, in talking about our bodies, I'll start with text from the manuscript:

1. Bodies. "Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship."

The point here is not to present to God your bodies and not your mind or heart or spirit. He is going to say very clearly in verse two: "Be transformed in the renewal of your mind." The point is to stress that your body counts. You belong to God soul and body, or you don't belong to him at all. Your body matters.

...

The offering of our bodies is not the offering of our bodily looks but our bodily behavior. In the Bible the body is not significant because of the way it looks, but because of the way it acts. The body is given to us to make visible the beauty of Christ. And Christ, at the hour of his greatest beauty, was repulsive to look at. Isaiah 53:2-3 describes him: "He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows,and acquainted with grief." The beauty of Christ is the beauty of love, not the beauty of looks. His beauty was the beauty of sacrifice, not skin.

God doesn't demand our bodies because he wants models for Mademoiselle or Planet Muscle. He demands our bodies because he wants models of mercy.

This is where I tried to get down what he said in the podcast, expounding on his manuscript:

We need to embed this biblical truth into the minds & hearts of our little ones, beginning at 2, 3. What kind of a bathing suit do you put your three year old in? You think you're going to change them at 13? Don't count on it.

We need to embed into our children this truth. My body means, before God, my behavior, not my looks. For the sake of anorexia, for the sake of bulimia ... because, in part, of a culture that is so unbelievingly relenting in the lies it tells about bodies. From the littlest girl and the littlest boy, lie after lie after lie is coming to them about what their body means. And I'm afraid many parents play right into it.

If we could just embed in our children the truth. God looks on the inward man and how it works itself out in mercy by the body. He does not look upon the body to see its muscles and curves and hair distribution and complexion. If only we could help them early on.

...

You have a body to give bodily evidence that Jesus is your treasure. ... And that will mainly show by your behavior, and not your looks.

Then, in talking about "holy." Again, I'll start with text from the manuscript:

3. Holy. "Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship."

Probably the best explanation of holy bodies comes from Romans 6:13 where Paul said almost the very same thing he says here, using the very language of "presenting" our bodies to God, only he refers to our bodily "members" and not just our bodies. "Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life [i.e., a living sacrifice], and your members to God as instruments for righteousness."

And more "expounding" on his manuscript from the podcast:

Let these hands be for instruments of righteousness in the world. As they click on the keyboard or push the mouse and click, let every click be righteousness. Swear it! Nail it! "I will not make my index finger on the left key an instrument of unrighteousness." Swear it! Oh, brothers, draw a line in the sand, before you meet Jesus. and make these hands holy.

What does it say in 1 Timothy? "I beseech all men everywhere to lift holy hands in prayer." Are they dirty? What have you done with your hands in the last 24 hours? What keys have you punched? What have you touched? What magaziness have you opened? What channels have you turned to with these hands? You have defiled hands this morning, defiled eyes, defiled mind? I am so thankful for the blood of Jesus, are you not? It is only through Christ that these hands can be acceptable.

Desiring God Conference

Audio, video, and text of the messages from the 2007 Desiring God National Conference: Stand: A Call for the Endurance of the Saints, are now online.

Sovereign Grace Messages

From JT at Between Two Worlds:

Keith Plummer points out that "Sovereign Grace Ministries is giving an invaluable gift to the body of Christ by making their store's entire collection of MP3 messages available for free download. Audios are sorted by topic, event, and speaker." Here are some of the speakers:

Randy Alcorn
Mark Altrogge
Mike Bullmore
Mark Dever
Ligon Duncan
Wayne Grudem
Joshua Harris
C. J. Mahaney
John MacArthur
Carolyn McCulley
Albert Mohler
John Piper
David Powlison
Ken Sande
R.C. Sproul
Bruce Ware

Video from the Collapsed Bridge

Posted at the Desiring God blog:

See our video team's footage of the scene yesterday and listen to John Piper talk about why there is suffering in the world.

The audio is from the message "Where Is God."

Piper on the Minneapolis Bridge Collapse

John Piper, pastor at Bethlehem Baptist Church, about a mile from the I-35 W bridge collapse, wrote about the collapse last night:

...

Tonight for our family devotions our appointed reading was Luke 13:1-9. It was not my choice. This is surely no coincidence. O that all of the Twin Cities, in shock at this major calamity, would hear what Jesus has to say about it from Luke 13:1-5. People came to Jesus with heart-wrenching news about the slaughter of worshipers by Pilate. Here is what he said.

There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them, "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish."

Jesus implies that those who brought him this news thought he would say that those who died, deserved to die, and that those who didn’t die did not deserve to die. That is not what he said. He said, everyone deserves to die. And if you and I don’t repent, we too will perish. This is a stunning response. It only makes sense from a view of reality that is radically oriented on God.

All of us have sinned against God, not just against man. This is an outrage ten thousand times worse than the collapse of the 35W bridge. That any human is breathing at this minute on this planet is sheer mercy from God. God makes the sun rise and the rain fall on those who do not treasure him above all else. He causes the heart to beat and the lungs to work for millions of people who deserve his wrath. This is a view of reality that desperately needs to be taught in our churches, so that we are prepared for the calamities of the world.

The meaning of the collapse of this bridge is that John Piper is a sinner and should repent or forfeit his life forever. That means I should turn from the silly preoccupations of my life and focus my mind’s attention and my heart’s affection on God and embrace Jesus Christ as my only hope for the forgiveness of my sins and for the hope of eternal life. That is God’s message in the collapse of this bridge. That is his most merciful message: there is still time to turn from sin and unbelief and destruction for those of us who live. If we could see the eternal calamity from which he is offering escape we would hear this as the most precious message in the world.

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