John Piper

God, be merciful to me, a Pharisee!

Tony Reinke Cross of Christ, Cross-centered life, Gospel, John Piper

Did Paul preach the gospel of Jesus? That was the question Dr John Piper sought to address last night at T4G in a message that became one of my personal conference highlights. The sermon manuscript and audio (forthcoming) can be found here. At one point Piper connected the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector in Luke 18:9–14 (his main text) and Paul’s words in Philippians 3:4–9. It’s quite interesting to read the two accounts together:

Jesus (Luke 18:9–12):

He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’

Paul (Philippians 3:4–6):

If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

Jesus (Luke 18:13–14):

But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Paul (Philippians 3:7–9):

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 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 may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.

Paul preached the gospel of Jesus–and it was this gospel that changed his life forever.

The Psalms

Tony Reinke John Piper, Psalms

From John Piper’s sermon, “Songs that Shape the Heart and Mind” (5/25/08):

“The Psalms, more intentionally than any other book of the Bible, is designed to carry, express, and shape our emotions, to give vent to them—all of them, and shape them, to reign them in, and to free them up, to explode them, and to kill them when they should be killed. It is an amazing gift to the Church. … The Psalms are songs and poems, and songs and poems exist because something more should happen to us than doctrinal refinement.”

Laughing at Sin

Tony Reinke John Piper, Sin, Sin in Culture, Sin in the church

By now you know David Letterman publicly admitted to committing adultery with multiple women on his staff. Apparently he announced this on his show under the pressure that someone else was planning to break the news. It is a very sad situation, but apparently not scandalous to a live audience. The crowd didn’t boo or rise up in protest or walk out of the studio. In fact, as Letterman publicly confessed of his adultery to his audience frequent laughter erupted from the audience. The confession was really just another platform for his jokes, the audience was entertained, and (after a short commercial break) the show continued on as planned.

There is no need to dwell here. Scripture tells us that fools mock sin’s guilt (Proverbs 14:9).

It was laughter from a different crowd that grabbed my attention.

On Sept. 16th John Piper spoke to a large gathering at the American Association of Christian Counselors. At the beginning of his message (“Beholding Glory and Becoming Whole: Seeing and Savoring God as the Heart of Mental Health”), Piper opened his message by talking frankly about personal sin.

Piper’s blunt talk about sin generated repeated laughter from the audience. If there is one speaker in the world who is not easily mistaken for a comedian, it’s Dr. Piper. Piper is a serious preacher in the lineage of Jonathan Edwards. And this fact alone makes the first five minutes of his message, well, bizarre. Have a listen:

Of course I was not at the conference. And I’m not quite sure how Piper’s message was set up or how the conference atmosphere was crafted. (If you were in attendance, I would appreciate your perspective.) Yet I am perplexed when a man goes much deeper in addressing sin than merely addressing particular sins (like Letterman), but exposes his lifelong battle with sin and honestly acknowledges the depth of sin entrenched in his own heart and gets a laugh for it. Especially because his address was delivered before several thousand men and women who have seen with their own eyes the wicked fruit of sin, who have watched alcoholism destroy lives, who have seen the dark realities of suicide, who have watched men and women toy with sin and destroy themselves, their families, and their churches as a result. If there is a room full of people that should not confuse honest talk about sin with a punch line, this was it.

But I want to capture this moment to check my own heart. Do I laugh at sin? Do I take seriously the sins of others? Do I laugh at sin portrayed in fictional sitcoms? Before a holy God, is this any less serious than laughing at Letterman or laughing at Piper?

My sin—our sin—insults a holy God. God hates sin. And we should hate even the garment stained by the flesh (Jude 1:23). If there is an inappropriate response to sin, it is laughter. May the Lord help us not to follow the pattern of the world. In the sight of sin and its guilt, may he turn our laugher into mourning (James 4:9). For no response is more appropriate.

Piper: Physical Horrors + Moral Evil

Tony Reinke Culture, Evil, God's motives, John Piper, Judgement of God, Sin, Sin in Culture, Sinfulness, spurgeon, Suffering, Tragedy, Trials

Yesterday may family spent the day at the new Civil War museum and driving through various battlefields in Gettysburg. It was an excellent opportunity to reflect on the war and especially the role these rocky battlefields (like Little Round Top) played in the outcome. It was a sobering reminder of the 620,000 young men and boys that died in the war and of haunting sounds that once filled this little town as thousands of men groaned from the pain of battle.

Leaving the battlefields left a sorrow in the heart and a residual question in the mind—what is the eternal purpose of wars like this one?

As we drove from battlefield to battlefield viewing thousands of memorials littered all over what is, in my mind, the worlds largest cemetery, the words of John Piper in his second and final message at the Resolved conference in Palm Springs were ever-present.

In his message on Monday evening—The Triumph of the Gospel in the New Heavens and the New Earth—Dr. Piper said the following:

Every human has died. Animals suffer. Rivers overflow an inundate hundreds of city bocks in Cedar Rapids. Avalanches bury skiers. Tornados suck the life out of little Boy Scouts. Tsunamis kill 250,000 in a night. Philippine ferries capsize killing 800 people in a moment. AIDs, malaria, cancer, and heart disease kill millions. A monster tornado rip through cities. Droughts and famines bring people to the brink, and over the brink, of starvation. Freak accidents happen in ways you would not want to describe. Little babies are born with no eyes, six legs, horrible deformities. That is because of ONE SIN! The universe was subjected to futility and corruption in hope (Romans 8:20).

This is very important for you to answer: Why did God subject the natural order to such horrific realities when nature did nothing wrong? Souls did something wrong. Adam and Eve’s volition did something wrong. The earth didn’t do anything wrong. Why is the earth bursting with volcanoes and earthquakes? Animals didn’t do anything wrong. What’s the deal with this universal subjection to corruption, when one man and one woman sinned one time, and the whole natural order goes wrong? Disorder everywhere in the most horrible ways, a kaleidoscope of suffering in this world, century after century.

Here is my answer—and I don’t know any other possible answer biblically—God put the natural world under a curse so that physical horrors would become vivid pictures of the horror of moral evil.

Cancer, tuberculosis, malformations, floods, and car accidents happen so that we would get some dim idea of the outrage of moral evil flowing from our hearts. Why did he do it that way? Ask yourself an honest question: How intensely outraged are you over your belittling of God compared to the engagement of your emotion when your child is hurt, or your leg is cut off, or you lose your job, or some physical thing happens? Everything in you rises to say, “No!”

How often does your heart say “No!” with the same emotional engagement at your own sin? Not very often. Therefore, what God says, “Alright, I know that about fallen man, therefore I will display the horror of his sin in a way that he can feel.” That’s why Jesus, when the tower fell on the 18, said simply “Unless you repent you will all likewise perish.” The point of the falling of the tower and killing of 18 people was your moral evil (Luke 13:4). That was the point.

All physical evil has one point—sin is like that morally, we don’t have the wherewithal to feel it appropriately, therefore were going to get some help from the physical order. That’s the point of the world we live in, it’s pointing to the horror of moral evil. O, that we would see and feel how repugnant and offensive and abominable it is to prefer anything to God—and we do it everyday.

Adam and Eve brought the universe into this present horrific condition by preferring their own way and fruit to God. All the physical evil the universe is not as bad as that one act of treason. …

The ultimate reason that there is a new heavens and a new earth is not that there might be new bodies for saints. That’s true. That’s just one of the reasons. The reason there is a new heaven and a new earth is because when God conceived of a universe of material things he conceived of everything: It will be created perfect. It will, by my decree, fall. I will labor patiently for thousands of years with a people recalcitrant showing the depth of human sin and I will at the center and apex of my purpose, send my Son to bear my wrath on my people. And then I will gather a people who believe in him for myself. And then I will return and I will cast all of the unbelievers into hell, which will demonstrate the infinite worth of my glory and the infinite value of my Son’s sacrifice, which they have rejected. And I will renew the earth and I will make my people so beautiful and then tailor this universe for them with this purpose—that when my Son is lifted up with his wounds, they will sing the song of the Lamb who was slain before the foundation of the world in the mind of God who planned it all.

Therefore, be it resolved: We will endure any suffering. We will endure any assault, any slander, any reviling, any disease, precisely because we have a great reward in heaven, namely, Jesus Christ crucified.

-John Piper, sermon transcript, “The Triumph of the Gospel in the New Heavens and the New Earth” taken from the 11:20-19:20 and 44:09-47:00 markers. You can listen to the entire message delivered at the Resolved conference here ( June 16, 2008 ) and you can listen to an earlier version of this message delivered at the Gospel Coalition here ( May 24, 2007 ).

Engaging Culture with the Supremacy of God (pt 2)

Tony Reinke Culture, John Piper, Preaching

tsslogo.jpgIn the first post in this series we noted the supremacy of God and how a proper theology unlocks our true self-identity. Job learned this lesson. On the other hand, the only way a sinner can preserve a life of unbelief is to suppress the true character of God. The Apostle Paul explains this in the opening chapter of Romans.

How amazed I am that God broke into the life of this Pharisee so I could behold his supremacy, see the depth of my sin, be broken, and embrace the cross as my only eternal hope! In nothing I’m saying in these posts do I want to self-righteously stand over those in unbelief. It’s only by God’s grace that I’m saved. I hope you feel the same.

Let me move on to a broader topic.

As important as it is that we identify with the contours of culture I think we would be mistaken to miss the reality that an honest understanding of God precedes an accurate self-identity. Calvin was right here. And so at some level it seems perplexing that we exert so much time identifying with those who remain yet un-self-identified. We should become all things to all men, yet in loving those in our culture I believe includes helping those in our culture develop a self-identification. And this self-identification is forged by the un-suppressed supremacy of God—a work of grace through Scripture.

Supremacy of God in culture

But let me get into a specific illustration. Today I want to take this principle of self-discovery in light of God’s supremacy into one specific non-Christian cultural context. I don’t think there’s better illustration in Scripture than Paul’s sermon in the Areopagus in Acts 17:16-34.

After having a look around Athens—a city “given over to idols”—Paul was summoned by the city’s intellectual elite (v. 16).

The content of Paul’s address is striking. Here we find no lengthy philosophical defense of monotheism. Paul opens with no apologetic for his source of ultimate truth (Scripture). Amazingly there is no mention of the cross, either (though we can assume Paul got to this point quickly with those who followed him after the sermon). As we listen in to the message we hear a clear, bold, and blunt exhortation of the supremacy and transcendence of God.

We cannot miss the content of Paul’s engagement of this non-Christian culture.

Paul tells them God is not created but the creator of all things (v. 24). God is not domesticated and caged into religious temples (v. 24). Nor is God like some idol produced by human crafting (v. 29). God needs nothing from us. In fact, we receive all from him and it’s only in him that we live and move (vv. 25, 28). God has planted all the races of the earth and marked out the boundary lines of the nations (v. 26). God is over all. And this God is sending his judge (Christ) back into these races and nations to punish all unrighteousness (v. 31).

Paul preaches to the Athenians that God was before them, God planted them, God is free from them, God is the reason for their existence, God now reigns over them, and God is returning to judge them. Wow. Notice how Paul, in expressing the supremacy of God, defines this supremacy in relation to those in the Athenian culture! Paul is helping them to form a true and biblical self-identification in light of God’s supremacy.

I take Paul’s example to mean that into arenas of intelligent non-Christians, God’s spokesmen are commissioned to speak boldly of God’s supremacy. Which is to say our faithfulness (and fruitfulness) does not hinge on the closeness for which our theology conforms to cultural expectations, but rather on the faithfulness of our articulation of the thrice-holy God in his transcendence above culture.

This preaching of God’s supremacy as the hope of culture is challenged (as you would expect). In 2005 a prominent emergent church figure published a book on preaching with the aim of replacing the terminology of one-way communication in the church (like “preaching” and even “speaking”) for the phrase “progressional dialogue.” Obviously, his intent was deeper than clarified semantics.

In Acts 17, Paul had the perfect opportunity for “progressional dialogue” and he chose to “preach” the supremacy of God. His example lives on for us today.

Theology of Theology

In part I want to see my generation of Christians develop a theology of theology. What I mean is that in our day the term “theology” has become a synonym for our articulation of God. This however is not, strictly speaking, an accurate definition. In Revolutions in Worldview (edited by W. Andrew Hoffecker) John Currid writes,

“The term theology—a combination of two Greek words: theos (god) and logos (word)—in the biblical worldview is not a word about God or man’s thoughts about God—what some people call religion—but properly speaking is God’s word to man about himself.” (p. 43)

Our engagement with contemporary culture is theological. As our reference point, the all-powerful, all-knowing, all-glorious, and eternal God ultimately transcends cultural influence and contemporary analogy. It’s helpful to remember that theology is not merely how we can explain God, but how God has chosen to explain himself. As Job discovered, God is not interested in “progressional dialogue.” God is interested in proclaiming his supremacy and he uses preachers and pulpits to this end.

John Piper notes in his excellent book The Supremacy of God in Preaching (Baker, 1990):

“The keynote in the mouth of every prophet-preacher, whether in Isaiah’s day or Jesus’ day or our day, is ‘Your God Reigns!’ God is the King of the universe; he has absolute creator rights over this world and everyone in it. Rebellion and mutiny are on all sides, however, and his authority is scorned by millions. So the Lord sends preachers into the world to cry out that God reigns, that he will not suffer his glory to be scorned indefinitely, that he will vindicate his name in great and terrible wrath. But they are also sent to cry that for now a full and free amnesty is offered to all the rebel subjects who will turn from their rebellion, call on him for mercy, bow before his throne, and swear allegiance and fealty to him forever. The amnesty is signed in the blood of his Son.” (p. 23)

And earlier Piper wrote,

“I don’t mean we shouldn’t preach about nitty-gritty, practical things like parenthood and divorce and AIDS and gluttony and television and sex. What I mean is that every one of those things should be swept up into the holy presence of God and laid bare to the roots of its Godwardness or godlessness.” (p. 12)

Well said.

Conclusion

I’m aware that preachers should think carefully about applying Scripture to their cultural scenarios. But we need to admit the content of the biblical proclamation has probably never fit nicely into any cultural context. In every age and in every culture, God alone is the final reference point for us to discover the nature of sin, the health of our souls, and the source of all our good.

The preacher who proclaims the supremacy of God from the pulpit will be classified as culturally irrelevant. It’s not just the preacher but the theologian, too (as we will see next time), who feels the pressure to relinquish God’s supremacy in cultural engagement.

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Related: Read part one of this series here.