God is the Gospel Session 1

let's pray together father we've been praying for a long time now about this moment and these hours together and the prayer has grown to a crescendo in the last couple of hours and i just want to ask one more time that you would help me to be faithful to your word and that you would do what i cannot do i planted apollos watered paul said but god gave the growth and so it is i'll sow some seeds here i'll scatter on the ground and oh how i pray that the devil would not pluck it up and that the cares of this world would not choke it out and that the heat of hard times would not burn it up but that it would find good soil you can make the soil good and so for those in this room i pray make the soil good would you open hearts to hear whatever's true and would you protect all of us from anything i say that would be amiss or imbalanced we want you to be exalted as the ultimate and highest good of the gospel so come and do that not just intellectually in the way we say it but in our hearts may we experience that and know it in our affections and not just in our thinking i ask this in jesus name amen so let me begin with a definition of this term god is the gospel the the theme of the conference is god is the gospel and i would like to take three hours with you to try to unpack it as well as i can and i'll give you a definition comes from page 13 in the book uh more or less paraphrased and uh and then we're going to go at this in a kind of autobiographical way tonight and and then move into something more perhaps systematic and expository tomorrow god is the gospel here's what i mean the highest best final decisive good of the gospel of the good news the highest best final decisive good in the good news without which all the other parts of the good news would not be good news and to which all the other parts of the good news are leading is the glory of god in the face of jesus christ revealed to you for your everlasting enjoyment the glory of god in the face of jesus christ that's a phrase from ii corinthians 4 6 the glory of god in the face of jesus christ revealed to you for your everlasting enjoyment all the other things in the gospel are going there nothing in the gospel that you've ever heard would be good news if that were not the goal of them all that's the thesis to get that you can just go home and do something else right now because i don't have much more to say except to put more bible underneath it and flesh it out in its implications so the way i thought might be helpful i i sat down this afternoon actually most of the day and and uh reviewed all the things that i've thought about this for the last five years or so and and made 33 bullet points and then i looked at them i thought okay now how shall i arrange this for this particular conference and and i chose about 11 or 12 of them for tonight and they're the ones of how we got how i got here why am i talking about this from about 38 years ago until now so that's where we're going i don't know that i'll get through all all 12 of them uh that's okay because we'll just pick it up where we left off in the morning if i don't so i'll just bullet these they don't necessarily hang together but that's the way life is sometimes so number one my son karsten the oldest of four sons i have a little girl who's 11. carson's i think now 34. my wife is here with me i'm checking facts with her um was doing a year's worth of uh master's degree study in poetry writing at the university of saint andrews last year and his wife's grandmother died while they were there and hoping that they could get home in time she and our little granddaughter millie who was five at the time got on a plane and came and they got here and and said their goodbyes they wanted to be here for for the funeral but be there for the funeral but but it didn't work out that way but here's here's the point on the plane coming from london i guess to minneapolis they were coming in and and they looked out they of course grandmama's dying great-grandmama's dying and so the tone is set for hard work and they looked out the window and it was just a magnificent cloud formation and shelly the mom says to millie look she told us this subsequently look really isn't that beautiful sort of like heaven will be where grandma was going and millie five years old looked out the window and said but jesus isn't there now if you understand that you get everything i have to say and i love to ask my church and other churches if you could go to heaven have spectacular sunsets no more disease no more depression all the friends that have gone before you all the toys that you've ever wanted and jesus not be there would that be okay and my fear is that many in our churches are saved on that basis they love what jesus has to offer hell is hot nobody wants to go there guilt is a bummer of an experience and so i would like not to have guilt feelings so if he can help me with that fine marriage i'd like marriage to go better like the kids not to act out i if christianity can do that for me bring it on and you don't have to be born again to want that you just have to be born again to want jesus so that's bullet point number one a little vignette from a little five-year-old girl but jesus isn't there so it can't be heaven can it number two noel and i will have been married 38 years in december newly hanging on our bedroom wall after a remodeling that happened while we were away new paint and carpet in our bedroom she put up this new old plaque which has on it the wedding text that my dad read at our barnesville georgia wedding 38 years ago almost which goes like like this though the fig tree should not blossom and there be no fruit on the vines the produce of the olive fail and the field yield no food there be no flocks in the stalls and no herd in the stalls yet will i rejoice in the lord i will take joy in the god of my salvation that was our wedding text god had given us at age 20 and 22 enough sobriety and enough experience that we knew life would be hard marriage would be hard child rearing would be hard one day health would fail jobs wouldn't go the way you want them to so we just flew this banner over our marriage if there's no food in the field if there's no cattle if there's no sheep if there's nothing on the vine we are not going to get in god's face about that we're going to bow down and we're going to say we still have you no you slay me yeah well i trust you so it hangs on our bedroom wall now and it's flown like a banner over these 38 years so if you understand that text everything else fails but god never fails you always have god then you'd understand god is the gospel god is the gospel not the stuff that he gives the good stuff that he gives but he himself that's number two number three a moment of illumination at stanford university 1982. i had been a pastor for two years and i had been developing for some time this thing called christian hedonism which is fleshed out in everything but especially in desiring god and i was working it through those ideas trying to figure out whether i should use that term and what i meant by it and how it related to everything in life christian hedonism tom schrader quoted the key phrase god is most glorified in you when you are most satisfied in him that's what i've come to use now but in those days i hadn't hit upon that phrase that phrase came much later so i was at stanford invited to come talk to intervarsity students there's a big thriving intervarsity chapter at stanford in the early 80s maybe there is now i don't know and the leader of it at the time was a christian hedonist coming out of the same stock that i had come and he invited me and tom steller and my sons to come out there and talk about it so i did that i began to talk about what i was seeing in the bible as far as our pursuit of our joy in god and after a session or two the students i could see on their faces questions like i thought i was walking into friendly territory here where everybody already understood this and i was just gonna unpack it flesh it out and then we had a q and a time and basically they started saying um that's not the way our leader says it i'm not going to use his name that's not not the way he says it i said why not and and they began to unpack this well the way he says it the way he stresses it is that god according to acts 17 25 god is not served by human hands as though he needed anything but he himself gives to all men life and breath and everything and so god is the great worker and the great servant they quoted isaiah 64 4 who has seen a god like you who works for those who wait for him second chronicles 16 9 the eyes of the lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth seeking to show himself powerful on behalf of those whose heart is whole toward him and on and on these these texts of god's gracious mighty work on behalf of his people and that's what we delight in that's what we rejoice in and you haven't said anything like that yet you are talking about rejoicing in god just god not what he does not his bearing of his right arm on behalf of us like the bible says he does so many times and that's just different and i thought to myself hmm it is different and i didn't i didn't know that stress was different and in subsequent years i have come to see that that could be a significant difference depending on how those trajectories go because if students develop a way of thinking about god whereby his mighty work on our behalf becomes what they delight in they might be their own god and god is simply the lackey who brings about what they want to happen anyway if god's willing to work for me and do what i want who wouldn't want that he's pretty strong and he might get it done when i can't get it done and that's so close to the truth and yet maybe so far and so right away 24 years ago i saw i'm holding on this one i believe all those texts it thrills me to no end that god works on my behalf i love to think of god as helping me i'll help you i'll strengthen you i'll hold you up with my victorious right hand but i'm always asking what is the good he's doing for me i'm pushing on it i'm pushing on what's the good that he's when his eyes rove throughout the whole world seeking someone to show himself powerful on behalf of what is he powerfully accomplishing for me and i'm pushing that all the way to the end and the end is he is doing everything he does to bring me to the point where i will rejoice in him above all things in him above all things that's what he's doing for me that's bullet point number three a illuminating moment at stanford university number four when i came to bethlehem in 1980 in my heart i was very insecure about this ministry i was 34 years old and i had never been the pastor of a church before i had probably preached 15 times in my life i had never done a funeral i had never baptized anybody i had never done a baby dedication i had never shepherded anybody through the dying process and on and on and on i was so green i can't believe they hired me and so anxious and nervous and insecure in that i was throwing myself on god daily and and one of the texts that became so precious to me in those days was see if you remember where it comes from it occurs twice in the psalms back to back why are you downcast o my soul and why are you disquieted within me hope in god hope in god for i shall again praise him my help and my god i said that 500 times walking to church and home in those days walking to business meetings walking to hospitals doing things i'd never done before why are you downcast why are you disquieted within me hope in god not yourself hope in god that's psalm 42 5 and psalm 43 5. those two psalms are very closely connected so pretty soon at our church i said i want that on the side of the building i want a big nothing effeminate here no no flucy little script you know like big fat bold masculine letters hope in god so they they put this big wooden sign somebody the letters like h was i mean the two stems of the h that big h hope in god and they put it up on the side of the building so that uh people used to call us the hope in god church they didn't know the name of the church it was just the hope in god church because it there was because that's the way i walked to church that's the way i walked i came down 8th street over from 11 elite avenue and there was hope in god now question is if you have a bible turn to psalm 43. psalm 43 just want to point something out here about the context of that phrase maybe start at verse 3. the psalmist is very anxious because he feels like god has rejected him he knows he hasn't you can see that in verse one vindicate me oh god i've got enemies but it sure feels like um like you're pretty far off and then he says verse three send out your light and your truth because he's pleading lord let light go on in my life and in my heart because i feel very dark right now i feel like i can't see very far in front of me and and you may be there but the dark is keeping you concealed would you let light come and let me see truth and then let them lead me let this light and truth lead me and bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling then if you do that if you if you let light shine in this path and i see you at the end of the path i'm moving and then the next the next place he arrives is the altar verse 4 then i will go to the altar of god now you know what happens at the altar in the old testament in the old testament it's not communion table although precursor that's where sins get taken care of animals get their throat slit there and blood is poured out there and so light goes on i see my god i'm a sinner i go to the altar and then verse 4 second line to god my exceeding joy that is what i came to see is what he means in verse 5 when he says hope in god hope in god for i shall again praise him i will praise him and interestingly enough this phrase exceeding joy that's what it is in my version here the esv literally it's the gladness of my rejoicing it's just two glad words the gladness of my rejoicing or the rejoicing of my rejoicing which i take to mean i will come to god who is the joy in all my joys there are other joys aren't there you have a good supper tonight maybe or you go home and have a dessert tonight or you have somebody you love with you there are other joys but i think the biblical point is and we'll talk about this more that god is the joy of all our joys all of our joys should have at their bottom their center their essence joy in god the giver that was the early days at bethlehem as the lord was teaching me about resting in him not just his his work or his gifts bullet point number five my prayers included in those days psalm 73 verses 24 and 25 i can remember there was a season in the early 80s actually on into the mid to late 80s 86 where almost every time it seemed like i had to do a spontaneous prayer in a service or at a meeting or somewhere out of my mouth would come whom have i in heaven but you and on earth there is nothing that i desire besides you my flesh and my heart may fail but you are the strength of my heart and my portion forever it was just woven into my mind whom have i in heaven but you and on earth there's nothing i desire besides you john bloom who just uh led worship next door and will lead it here in this room tomorrow wrote a song and uh john you're listening so maybe maybe we'll sing it tomorrow i don't know whether you've planned to sing it or not but john turned this into a song because it was so much in our lives in those days so much in our lives whom have i in heaven but you answer nobody even though my mother's there and it would be pleasant and sweet to see her again whom have i in heaven but you and on earth there is nothing that i desire besides you and you you read that you say that you can't mean that you just can't mean that what what what possibly could that mean since i have other things here that i enjoy and so did jesus he enjoyed his disciples sometimes which which led me to the sixth bullet point namely as i was writing the book desiring god in the mid 80s and on into 86 when it was published i i was wrestling with how to think of the created world over against god so you have god the creator who's always existed and is therefore of absolute and infinite value and all the universe is of lesser value because he made it and the thing made is always of less value than the maker so you and i and everything he made is of a second order and he's of the primary order and we are to delight in him and love him and treasure him above all that he has made does that mean that the only function of the creation is to tempt us to idolatry why'd you make a world why bodies metal paper light sound none of that existed before god created things why did you make so much non-god was it just to trip us up so that we would make god out of non-god and suffer for it why stuff why creation material things that was just huge question for me in the mid 80s as i was wrestling with texts like and nothing on earth do i desire besides you here's where i landed on that bread exists so that we would have some inkling of what jesus meant when he said i am the bread of life that's why bread exists water and thirst exist so that we would have some inkling of what he meant when he said whoever believes in me will never thirst i'm the bread of life whoever comes to me shall not hunger and whoever believes in me shall never thirst god created the world so he could enter it and say things like that and point us toward himself everything on planet earth is to reveal god the heavens are telling the glory of god and the firmament proclaims his handiwork and so does bread and water then i read this amazing quote in augustine augustine said he loves thee too little who loves anything together with thee which he loves not for thy sake that helped me so much he loves thee too little you too little who loves anything together with thee which he loves not for thy sake god evidently thought that in creating things our love for him would be more varied and more intense and more revelatory of his greatness if they became occasions for our delight in him which led me now without leaving the point to bullet point number seven [Music] i was wrestling with fasting because fasting is simply a species of self-denial and self-denial seems contradictory to the goodness of creation in other words you have texts in the bible that say things like this first timothy 4 4 everything created by god is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving for then it is sanctified by the word of god and prayer amazing everything created by god is good and is not to be rejected jesus comes along in matthew 9. remember what happened john's disciples come and they say uh we're fasting pharisees fast your disciples aren't fasting remember what he said one of those stunning self-revelatory indirect claims he said the wedding guests don't fast when the bridegroom is here that'll fast when the bridegroom is here which is a huge claim but then he said this is relevant for us the days are coming when the bridegroom will be taken away then they will fast i think what he means is the new christian fasting the new wine that goes into new wineskins is not that fasting is done away with but that it has a new powerful meaning namely the bridegroom has come he's come we've seen his magnificence 33 years or so three years of demonstrative glory now instead of planting his kingdom then he leaves go says go make disciples i'm coming again there'll be a great marriage supper of the lamb we will celebrate no more fasting in the kingdom but for now so what is the meaning of fasting what is the meaning of self-denial the meaning of fasting is that we want him back every tuesday the first tuesday of every month at bethlehem we have what we call the first tuesday fast and it's for the second coming i don't know if there's another church in in the nation who fasts for the second coming maybe but when i read matthew 9 15 i said to myself i've never done that never done that 40 years or plus of my life i've never fasted for the bridegroom to come and so now we do once a month so feasting because everything he gives is good and is not to be rejected if received with thanksgiving that runs up the beam of generosity and gives glory to the giver and fasting why fasting to show that the emblem food is not as valuable as the reality god you need both in your life you need world affirmation and world denial there's a real intention in the new testament and some people fall off the log on one side i'm a world affirming person because god made it and it's good therefore i'm doing everything and the world denying they they go towards asceticism no no no he's not here the god of this world is ruling this thing this is the evil age and so withdraw and both are in the bible both are in the bible and the way they fit together is intention with sometimes feasting because he is good and a giver and all of our love for him can ride up the beam of his generosity into his very heart and i am so prone to idolize his gifts i will do self-denial in my life as well the apostle paul said i pommel my body i do not fight as one beating the air but i pummel my body lest i should be cast away he knew the dangers of his own body his own lusts his own appetites so in my wrestling with psalm 73 24 and 25 whom have i in heaven but you and on earth there is nothing that i desire besides you i concluded that by feasting and fasting i want to make sure that if there is something i desire on earth that desire is a desire for god if i get hungry for supper i want to transpose the music of that physical longing into a spiritual hunger you can do that that's called transposition c.s lewis wrote a whole sermon about it you can transpose the music of natural emotions natural affections and natural appetites into another key of spirituality you can say as your stomach is growling and you're hungry for supper this much o god this much my heart longs for you and to prove it from time to time i will skip supper to show that it is not my god that you are my god and other times i will receive it with great gratitude and in it i will taste more of you because you made that to bear witness to the kind of god you are to satisfy me physically in that way those were huge struggles for me in the 80s i don't claim to have all the problems answered i just knew i wanted god to be the gospel i wanted god to be the end i didn't want anything competing with god in my life if there's any way i could not be an idolater i want to avoid being an idolater from the simplest kind of misuse of the innocent idols to the worst kind of misuse of the wicked idols toward the end of the 80s we as a church began to wrestle with the issue of signs and wonders charismatic things the vineyard was starting john wimber in anaheim california we put 50 people on a bus and sent them to anaheim risky stuff you can lose a lot of friends that way in the reformed community and i'm there big time in the reform community i love the doctrines of grace but i i love the bible more and the bible says earnestly desire spiritual gifts especially that you may prophesy earnestly desire the the higher gifts the highway of love chapter 13 sandwiched by 12 and 14 first corinthians so we were wrestling we just said lord we don't know how all this works out we just cannot see cessationism in the bible can't see it and so we don't know what the experiential alternative is in our day so we will simply go around the country and listen and then we'll come back and try to find our way now here is the way it relates to god is the gospel what i have found while still affirming my wide open eagerness to experience all the fullness of god in all the gifts that he would be pleased to give me for the good of his people and for the reaching of the lost is that it is possible to love power more than god and there are biblical examples of it do you remember acts chapter 8 simon the magician simon magus he saw peter lay his hands on people and they received the holy spirit and his heart immediately believed that that was happening and that god did it believed believed and so he offered peter money for it so i would like that i would like that would you give me that power and and you remember j.b phillips translation of peter's words to hell with you and your money that's actually in the bible actually it's you know it's toned down uh cursed be you and your money or something like that so to hell with you and your money you are in the gall of iniquity your heart is not right with god wanting power from god for spiritual purposes is no sign of being born of god or walking right with god now turn with me to deuteronomy 13. i'll show you something really amazing it was these kinds of texts that just cautioned me not to be blown away by too many prophetic things that were going on i was prophesied over by some pretty big name prophets and uh they they didn't get it right which disillusioned me somewhat with their ministry deuteronomy 13 verses 1 to 3 if a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass whoa stop there let that sink in it really happened man a uh red shirt back row uh you're on your way to indonesia you don't have all the money i think you're about 40 short of what your goal was today and uh i think somebody in here would like to those things really happen i don't think it takes an ear piece with somebody cheating in the back hall they really happen now what do you do with it you say oh well if it really happens he must be real wrong and if it happens and he tells you verse 2 the sign of wonder that he tells you comes to pass and he he says let's go after other gods which you have not known and let us serve them so he's calling them away from yahweh you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams why not listen to this amazing amazing statement for the lord your god is testing you to know whether you love the lord your god with all your heart and with all your soul god god did it to test you that god is willing to work through a false prophet to do a sign and a wonder should make us very sober the test is not whether you can do a sign and a wonder the test is do you speak the truth about god from his holy word and so what i saw over and over again was i just want to know god i want to know god i want to walk with god i want to experience god i want to love god treasure god be faithful to god i want to see god and i don't want anything to get in the way whether it's stuff or power that was very big i think we still can learn things i learned heaps i liked and benefited from john wimber he's not one of the guys i'm talking about so god is more important than power god is more important than signs and wonders and more important than spiritual gifts god is the gospel none of those things bullet point number nine now i'm jumping back to 1974 to illustrate what i just said because i realized as i was walking through this i i've thought about these before where have i thought about this 1970 3 december my doctor father in munich germany dropped dead running to catch a subway he was 63 years old his name was leonard gopolt and i was on my way through a doctoral program and he he died and in that system your doctor father died you might as well pack it up and i'd invested three years of my life and i thought oh my what am i going to do well i don't need to give you the details of how god mercifully got me through but here's the point in replacing him for the year until they hired a new faculty member in new testament they brought in oscar kulman from the university of basel now oscar kulman was for me and i was going through seminary a great name christ in time redemptive history in those days to read oscar coulmon was like reading don carson in america or some big world-class theologian and they're going to bring him in and i'd get to sit in one of his classes my last semester while i was trying to finish and his his class was the gospel of john and oscar kuman was 80 some years old he was retired and i don't know if you've ever seen a picture of him in front of his books but he always looks like his his eyes are falling closed and i thought oh what's wrong with this guy and in fact he had some condition with his eyelids and he had little built-in bridges on his glasses that that if he lift his eyelids like this push his glass in like this and and let him go his eyelids kind of rest on the top of his glass and every now and then the glass would slide down and his guy his eyes would go shut and so he lifts his eyelids up push the glass back up and he keep lecturing because unforgettable experience but that's not the main thing that's just little aside the main thing is that he only he only got about halfway through chapter one in 18 weeks [Music] and the reason is because the way he was teaching it is he'd start and he start unpacking and then he just he he'd jump to other places in john and illuminate chapter one and that's how he's bringing it in so we only got halfway through chapter one but the whole thing was being dumped into chapter one and one of the chapters that i remember was john 7. go there with me this this proved very very very determinative for my approach towards some signs and wonders things and and uh the supremacy of of god and the nature of faith and god is the gospel so here we are in chapter 7 of john after this jesus went about in galilee he would not go about in judea because the jews were seeking to kill him now the jews feast of the booths was at hand so his brothers okay now these are his physical mary's children brothers his brothers said to him leave here and go to judea that your disciples also may see the works that you are doing for no one works in secret if he seeks to be known openly if you do these things show yourself to the world that's a lot of faith isn't it and the next phrase says verse 5 for not even his brothers believed in him that's unintelligible or is it what what in the world does that comment mean for not even his brothers believed on him in other words what was coming out of their mouth when they said go up do your works in jerusalem make yourself known nobody works in secret if they want to be known openly come on go up there do the works they talked like that for not even his brothers believed in him so john in analyzing what's going on here is saying that eagerness was pure worldly that eagerness come on brother you're our brother just go up there and do your stuff come on you're the messiah for goodness sakes make yourself known lay the cards on the table you're our brother too i mean a lot of good reasons to go up there and they're all wrong they're all wrong faith so in those days what was forced upon me is okay believing in jesus doesn't save you if you're believing in him to do the wrong stuff isn't that shocking so you can't just talk about believing in jesus saving you you've got to talk about believing in jesus for the right thing and you see where that's taken me what do you believe in jesus for to what end what are you trusting him for now tomorrow morning we're going to go we're going to unpack the gospel as it's usually unpacked with propitiation and justification and redemption and talk about each of those but i found myself over the years pushing through believing for believe him for believing for god he came he lived he died he rose to bring me to god lots of other things on the way but ultimately god is the gospel that's number nine number ten prayer became a huge issue right away the church had a a prayer week i think already i can't remember exactly but very soon if not right away when i came to bethlehem in 1980 we had a prayer week i preached on prayer i have every year i've preached two sermons on prayer in the first two sundays of every year for 20 whenever it started maybe 25 24 years so that caused me as a young pastor surely was no prayer warrior no hero to just immerse myself in prayer and since i was asking all these questions about okay how he's how is god the end how is god the goal i ask you about prayer and you know the text that just jarred the life out of me was just a shocking image about the misuse of prayer in the book of james so all you bible holders turn to james chapter 4 and the rest of you listen carefully james hebrews james and what you're going to hear is a very i hope it doesn't offend you shocking picture of how to turn god into a cuckold nobody knows what cuckolds are a cuckold is a very old-fashioned english word that means a husband cheated on by wife that's a cuckold so how do you make god a cuckold that's in this text start maybe around uh verse 2 of james 4. you desire and do not have so you murder you covet and cannot obtain so you fight and quarrel you do not have because you don't ask so now we're talking about prayer and you ask and here we get down to the deep nitty-gritty of wrong uses of prayer you ask yes you're praying and you do not receive why because you ask wrongly there's a wrong way to pray and i say okay there's a wrong way to pray i'm a pastor i've got to help my people not do this you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions now here comes the image now the esv here says you adulterous people now i i know the guys i know all the guys who worked on the esv translation just it's about five years old headed by j.i packer wayne grew them right in there in the thick of it and they turned the rsv into the esv with long hard work and i love it but they got this one wrong and i wrote them right away i said come on come on this is feminine that's a feminine word it's adulterous it's plain and simple and they wrote back we'll fix it so someday there's going to be a new edition maybe five years and it'll say instead of you adulterous people kind of general no clear image created man woman who is it it's feminine this is adulteresses which causes you to ask why what what's the picture what's he got in mind when he's he's accusing these people who are praying wrongly to spend it on their passions he says your adult dress says which raises the question who's the husband god's a husband and you see that in just a minute you adulteresses do you not know that friendship with the world this is a wife falling in love with another man friendship with the world is enmity with your husband god therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world this other suitor man makes himself an enemy of god his husband do you suppose it is to no purpose that the scripture says this is the word of the husband he yearns i yearn over you jealously for your spirit that's a small s that's your spirit i believe that's right they got that one right small s spirit that he made to dwell in us god it's like a husband who's got a wife and he yearns over her spirit i want her i want her for myself i'm jealous i'm jealous the bible says of god and i want her sleeping with me in my bedroom and nobody else's and what is she doing she's praying she's praying she's coming into the bedroom holy of holies getting down on her knees saying oh husband i need fifty dollars i need fifty dollars would you please in your great mercy give me fifty dollars and he gives her fifty dollars and she goes down the hall and pays it to another man so she can sleep with him that's that's in his text she makes a cockled out of god do you use prayer that way do you manipulate him do you make god the butler [Music] in your life turn prayer into a domestic intercom these are the language we were using in the late 80s prayer is a domestic intercom excuse me excuse me need another pillow down here we're watching tv which is our god and we know that you are really helpful with pillows so bring a pillow please that's prayer for a lot of people and i said that that's not what prayer is for you cannot know what prayer is for until you know that life is war not a domestic situation prayer is for calling in firepower on the battlefield we're under attack here we need firepower we need cover god come through now what's the battle the battle is to see him know him love him treasure him it's not to use him it's not wrong to pray to get well from a sickness it's not wrong to pray for your kids to go straight it's not wrong to pray for a new job if you're out of a job it's not wrong it's just wrong if you want it more than you want god and you're using him to get it that's wrong that's idolatry that's adultery that's turning god into a cuckold and so prayer became a means of seeing more clearly how god is the gospel let me close with um one more number 11. and i don't i don't think i'll i'll get all the way through this i'll just introduce it and we'll pick it up here in the morning because of all these influences somewhere along the way i don't know how long ago it was five or eight years ago i began to use this little rhyming phrase god is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied not i don't say this not in when we are most satisfied in all the mighty deeds he performs for us which he does but that's not where our satisfaction is resting if your satisfaction rests in the gift the giver does not get the glory the gift gets the glory so we don't say it that way we say god is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him in him and there's a text and maybe i'll just invite you to ponder it tonight and we'll start there in the morning the text is philippians 1 verses 20 and 21. that text and the way paul thinks about glorifying god in his death is what put solid exegetical foundation under my conviction that delighting in resting in and treasuring god as the end and goal of the gospel glorifies him more than anything else so let me pray and then we'll take our break and see each other in the morning let's pray father in heaven i pray that these vignettes of how over the years you've encountered me would have a mind-shaping effect for truth in these folks pray that my own heart would be brought more into conformity to what i've said here and i pray that you would be rising like the sun in the solar system of their lives so that all the planets would fall into their proper orbit and you would be massively powerful with your gravitational pull at the center of everything reorient all the elements of our thinking i pray all the elements of our working and family and feeling so that they move in their proper place around the mass which is the sun the glory of yourself at the center of our solar system into your hands now father i commit the remainder of this evening would you draw near and guide us through till tomorrow morning so that we are ready to hear from you again in jesus name i pray amen you

Channel: Desiring God

Views: 12,405

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Keywords: Desiring God, John Piper, God, Jesus Christ, Christianity, Christian Hedonism, Gospel, God is the Gospel, Atonement

Id: _7UN2OhSfHU

Length: 60min 0sec (3600 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 28 2021