- [John Piper] Let's pray together. Father, without you, no eternal
blessing will come in this room. And so we pause to just plead with you
that you not leave me or listeners to our own resources, but rather that you would
come and grant that I would speak nothing but the truth and that my demeanor would
be shaped by the truth and that I would be guarded from the evil one and from
every sin of the fear of man or pride. And that the listeners would have
strength to comprehend with all the saints the truth that is proclaimed. I pray for salvation. I pray for hope. I pray for reconciliation
of [inaudiblie] people. I pray for courage to come. And I pray that exceedingly and
abundantly beyond what we ask or think, you would work in
this room now in Jesus name, Amen. What an amazing thing that God
would raise up in our generation a voice like Tim Keller's. I sat there reveling in those four points,
and I want to say them again and show you how they launch this message. The gospel is news, not advice, of
something that's been done for you outside of you, to which you
gladly respond by receiving, and believing, and enjoying. In fact, if you were to press on me
to say what was done outside of you, I would say that Christ bought a gift for
you and the gift he bought for you was Christ for your everlasting enjoyment, which was his fourth point. But number two was, yes, the
gospel does shape a life better than the law because the gospel
not only brings direction, it also brings motivation, which was
also given in the fourth point. And third, there were illustrations
of the gospel-shaped life finding its amazing Kelleresque statement
between moralism and relativism. So wise, so necessary. I just hope New England will be filled
with that kind of shrewd insight into the essence of the gospel. And then he ended a point that was his
briefest, which will be my two messages. This is perfect, right? Thank you for letting me
have your fourth point. He said by quoting Thomas Chalmers,
an essay, a sermon that I read 30 years ago, the expulsive power of a new
affection, which is all I have to say in my Christian hedonism. And he summed it up by saying,"How
does the gospel change or shape a life?" And he said, "By worship." And implicit in that very shorthand
statement is that the new affection that is expulsing…I don't know if that's a
word, pushing out sin, and ungodliness, and idolatry is an affection for
God, which he called worship, to which I say, "Amen." The main point of my two messages is,
therefore, that God, if you've noticed the titles, the gospel-shaped mind
and the gospel-shaped heart. Tonight, mind, but they're all one. The point of my two messages together
is that God created you with a mind and with a heart so that the heart,
your heart, when rightly-served by the mind, would treasure
God with white-hot affection. So that's his fourth point. Only I'm arguing now that the ultimate
goal of God in giving you a heart and a mind is found in the act of the
heart, not the act of the mind. And that the mind
exists to serve that act. And when the mind rightly serves
the heart, the heart explodes with a new affection which is profoundly
transforming and it's an affection that is God word. It's white-hot for God. Here's a subordinate. What's the main point
of my two messages? The subordinate point is that because of
sin, neither the heart nor the mind does what it is supposed to do. The mind doesn't serve the heart rightly
and the heart doesn't treasure God with white-hot affection until the
gospel saves and shapes the mind and the heart. So, that's the subordinate
point of these two messages. Now, implicit in those two points is the
purpose of God in creating you reaches its ultimate end in your heart, namely
in the treasuring of your heart of God, the treasuring of God above all things
with white-hot affection, and the mind is given to serve that act through
the right apprehensions of reality. If you apprehended reality for what it
really is, your heart would be ignited with a white-hot affection for the
supreme reality, namely God. Or to put it several other ways, right
thinking about God exists for the sake of right feelings for God. In that order. Logic exists for
the sake of love. Reasoning exists for
the sake of rejoicing. Doctrine exists for
the sake of delight. Reflection about God
exists for affection for God. The head is meant
to serve the heart. Knowing the truth is the
basis of admiring the truth. Both thinking and
feeling are essential. They are not coordinate. Rather, thinking
serves affection. The devil has many factually
true thoughts and none of them rightly serve his heart and
bring him to love the truth. And, therefore, his right
thinking is no good. I don't care how right
it is or how factual it is. It aborts, it fails. It doesn't reach the ultimate goal
of people created in God's image, namely that the heart would explode
with white-hot affection for him. That's why we're made. And the mind, when it's
rightly serving the heart brings that forward. Now, as I say that, I'm aware of
Ephesians 4:18, which seems to say the opposite,
so I'll read it to you. "They are darkened in their understanding,
alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due…" So going down, down, down,
down to the bottom, "Due to their hardness of heart." Oh. So, here, instead of the mind
serving the heart well or poorly, the heart is darkening the
mind due to its hardness. So I'm aware of that. I didn't craft this thesis statement
without awareness of that, which seems to say, "If your heart gets
right, your mind will get right," which is right. They're not opposites. My point and this point are not opposites. There is a reciprocal back-and-forth
relationship between the function of the mind thinking and the function
of the heart, right feeling for God. There's a reciprocal relationship. What I'm arguing is not that it's false,
that if the heart ceases to be hard and becomes supple, and tender, and
alive to the sweet value of Jesus, it won't liberate the mind from having to
constantly defend deceptive affections. It does liberate the mind from having to
constantly work out, and manipulate, and defend defective affection. That's what the mind of the flesh is. It's constantly defending defective
emotions, and the mind is thus contaminated by the heart. I am admitting that and saying yes. When we're born again by the Spirit
of God, the heart is replaced from a heart of stone to a heart of flesh,
which is alive to the infinite value of Jesus, and the mind is wonderfully
liberated from all of its deceptions, and then I ask, "For what? Have we reached the goal then that the
mind has now become the pinnacle so that right thinking about God
is what you were made for?" And the thesis of this talk is no,
in the reciprocal relationship, the mind is set free in order that it
might continually throw the kindling and the fuel of truth into the furnace of
the heart for the flame of love to God. That's why the mind exists. To serve the white-hot affection of
the furnace of your heart for God. So my point is when it's freed by
the transformation of the heart from hardness to tender sensitivities,
it then reciprocally goes about its wonderful work of throwing logs of
combustible truth into the furnace of the heart for the
sake of enflaming love, affection for God. Let me give you a text that
really points strongly for me in this direction. It's a little bit technical,
but I'll do it anyway. Luke's version of the first commandment
spoken by the lawyer, followed by Jesus saying, "You are correct." So I'm going to quote him
as though Jesus said it. And here's what he said differently
from the other Synoptics, I think, in order to draw out my point. Actually, I learned my point from him. It goes like this, "You shall love the
Lord your God ex holes kardias su. Ex, from your whole heart. And [foreign language]
with your whole soul. [foreign language] with your whole
strength and [foreign language] with your whole mind." Now, you don't even
know what I was saying. That's just gibberish to most of you. The point is there's one proposition for
heart and three of the same prepositions for strength, soul, and mind. So let me paraphrase it like this,
"You shall love the Lord your God from your heart with the aid and
assistance of strength, and mind, and soul, serving the heart from which
worship of love explodes to God." I think that's what Luke wants us to
understand by making the proposition different for heart. So if you would ask me what it
means to love God with all my mind, I would not say, "Think
right thoughts about God." So how many people say that? I wouldn't say that. I would say, "Use your mind to stoke
your heart with passion for God." And there is a way to use your mind to
stoke your heart with passion for God. And there's a way to waste it. So my thesis remains God's purpose
for you reaches its ultimate climax, not in right thinking about Him,
but in right affections for Him. And the right thinking about Him
is a right serving of the heart, which then is the organ
of affection for Him. Your mind and your
heart can only do that, your mind can only function in a right
service to your heart if it is saved by the gospel and shaped by the gospel. So I'm going to give you three ways your
mind is shaped by the gospel and give you some illustrations from the Bible of how
crucial dysfunction of the mind serving the heart is. The first way that your mind
is shaped by the gospel is this. Since the gospel involves the objectivity
of a God outside of you, and since it involves the historicity of a Christ
outside of you in history, and since it involves visible, tangible events
like crucifixion and resurrection, and since it involves articulation with
sentences that are construable and hearable like "He died for our sins,"
therefore, the gospel demands that the mind not be a creative organ,
bringing reality out of itself, but that it submit to the objective
historical, visible, hearable, constructable realities
totally outside itself. That's what your mind is for. This is a passionate plea for you to
be objective, not subjective in your submission to truth. Very counter-cultural anywhere on
the planet today, and I would guess here as well. That's the first way the gospel shapes
your mind, by the very nature of the gospel having an objective
God, an historical Christ, and a visible, touchable crucifixion,
and a visible, touchable resurrection. It demands mind. Deal with that. And don't just go inside and
create your own reality. Number two, the gospel shapes the
mind by liberating the mind from self-deceiving, reality-distorting bondage
to self-exaltation and self-preservation. In Christ...and here we just
repeat Tim's truth, in Christ, all the destructive powers
of my badness are over. I can't be destroyed
by my badness if I'm holding fast to Jesus. And the gospel provides an
absolutely certain outcome of my final glory. So my badness
can't destroy me. My emerging identity as a new person
is guaranteed to be supremely glorious someday, so that if you saw
me in the age to come, you'd be tempted to worship me. C.S. Lewis said rightly, "Since that's
what the gospel does for us, the mind is wonderfully liberated from having
to constantly suppress my badness and create alternative futures
for me that make me look good." Sound like Keller? It's just Bible. It's just wonderful. So the gospel shapes my mind by
delivering my mind from all of its need to run away from
self-incriminating truth. And a lot of truth is
John-Piper-incriminating. A lot of it is. And if I don't have a way to solve that
other than suppression, my mind is very skilled at defending me falsely. And that's not the
right use of the mind. And therefore, it's a glorious
liberty that comes for the mind with the gospel. That's number two. Here's the third way that
the gospel shapes the mind. The Holy Spirit takes the objective
statement of the gospel and makes that gospel, mysteriously,
the instrument of the miracle of regeneration. 1 Peter 1:23, "You have been born again
through the living and abiding word of God," which is the gospel,
which we preach to you. So here's this objective, propositionally-
stated gospel about events in history and a God, and a Christ, and a
transaction on the cross, and it is articulated with a mind and
with a mouth and the Holy Spirit takes it and creates a
new being with it. Here's the point about
how that shapes the mind. The mind is engaged as the organ
that perceives, construes, and articulates that gospel, which
then serves regeneration, which is the coming alive of a person who
is in love with Jesus and doesn't regard any of this boring or
mythological anymore. So now this third point is... My first point way back at
the beginning was, the mind here, by grasping and articulating,
speaking the gospel, is becoming the instrument by which the heart
is set on fire through regeneration for an affection for God. So summing up those three ways
that the gospel shapes the mind. One, the gospel makes the
mind serve objective reality by being objective reality. Number two, the gospel shapes the
mind by making the mind serve truth, even when it's self-incriminating, by
freeing me from the need to defend myself since I have an advocate,
now that can't be improved upon. And number three, the gospel shapes
my mind by forcing it to serve my heart through being the organ of articulating
the gospel that the Holy Spirit uses to wake me up to
the beauty of God. Now, what I want to do with the rest
of the time is give you illustrations from the New Testament of how crucial
the mind is in serving the heart and/or to use Tim Keller's fourth point,
serving the new affection or serving worship, and I would simply say
serving the white-hot affection for God that you were made
to have in your heart. So I've got about seven of
these, I think, and let's go. Number one, Romans 10:1-2. You don't need to look them
up, you're sure welcome to. Sometimes there's time to look
them up, sometimes there's not. Here's what it says, Romans 10:1-2,
"Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them…," his Jewish
kinsmen, "Is that they may be saved. I bear them witness that they have a zeal
for God but not according to knowledge." Okay, so here are some hearts of Jewish
kinsmen that are passionate for God and they are hell-bound,
lost, perishing sinners." And we know that because of verse 1,
"Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they
may be saved because they have a zeal for God." But not according to minds that
are rightly construing reality, they aren't getting it. Being ignorant of the righteousness of
God, they are seeking to establish their own and they are lost regardless
of what passion for God they have. So the point here is if the mind
does not serve the heart rightly, the heart can have white-hot
affections that are hellish, for God, is that incredible? Tell the Muslims about it. Jews, Hindus, Buddhists. This is a very religious planet. It always will be. That's number one. Let your mind serve your zeal
by bringing truth concerning the the gospel into the furnace of that
zeal, so that when you have it, it does accord with knowledge
rather than according with pride. Here's number two. Second Timothy 2:7, "Think over what I
say, Timothy, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything. So this is a command from
Paul to all of you and me. "Think over what I say." Why? For the Lord will give,
give you understanding. Now, that's remarkable because how
many people you've met, perhaps, who say, "Thinking, that's what counts,
and by thinking, you find truth?" And the text says, "By
thinking, he gives truth." Or others say, "He gives truth. Phooey on all that thinking
stuff, it just deadens the heart." Have you heard that? There's just acute cleavage in a lot of
churches and a lot of people's lives, the thinkers and the feelers. And I've tried to spend most of my life
pleading with people not to make that choice because it says, "Think
over what I say for the Lord, yes, the Lord Himself in supernatural ways
works insight in you through thinking. Don't limit yourself to
thinking that thinking is the key. It is a path and the key is in heaven and
he can shut your mind by your thinking or open your mind while you're thinking. "The Lord gives, but
he doesn't give apart from thinking." If you go yoga on me, and I think
it's a real sad thing, and this is going to offend some of you. When you go to those classes and you
think there's no religious dimension to that cross-legged empty-headed thing. There is a religious dimension to it. Emptying the head is not
the way the Lord gives. It's not. The Lord gives to thinkers who
open their Bible and say, "Oh, God, what does this mean? Help me to see what these words mean. I will study with all my might
but I must have you." That's number two. Number three, Acts 17:2-3. "Paul went into the synagogue
as was his custom, and on the three Sabbath days, he reasoned
with them from the scriptures, explaining and proving that it was
necessary for the Christ to suffer and rise from the dead." So Paul's reasoning, explaining, proving,
he's engaging the organ of his mind and addressing people with rational content
and he knows, because he's the one who taught us, "These people I'm talking
to are dead in trespasses and sins. They're dead." He knows, number two, that
the mind of the flesh does not receive the things of the Spirit. He knows, number three, that
the God of this age is blinding the minds of unbelievers to keep them
from seeing the light and the beauty of what he's saying. He knows all that and he keeps on talking
with rational arguments and sentences from the Old Testament, trying to
reasonably persuade them that the Christ must really suffer
and rise from the dead. Why? Because God has ordained
that the mind serve the heart. That's what he has ordained. When Paul, in the previous chapter,
approached Lydia, who got saved, do you remember what it
said about her conversion? Very important sentence in the Bible. It says in chapter 16:14 of Acts, "The
Lord opened her heart to give heed to what was spoken by the apostles." It's not, "She's dead, she's
got the mind of the flesh. The God of this world is blinding her. There is no point in talking to her. Zombies don't hear." Oh, yes, they do. Lazarus heard. The gospel is the power
of God and to salvation. The gospel looks out on
dead people and says, "Live. In the name of Jesus
Christ, rise and walk." And the words, the rational words and the
arguments are used by the sovereign Holy Spirit to open hearts,
to give heed to that. The very words become the
means by which the dead live. So my point is the mind, in
construing the meaning of history and the cross and the gospel,
and then the mind in articulating it in sentences that can be grasped by
human brains, becomes the instrument by which the Holy Spirit in his
supernatural power opens the heart, raises the dead, gives eyes
to the blind, digs an ear and saves sinners so that they have a
white-hot affection for Jesus. Number four, Jesus assumes that we will use logic. And here I'm going
to look it up myself. Luke 12:54-57 goes like this. This is an argument. Here's the background for this in my life. I remember going to school in the days
when Hebraic thought and Hellenistic thought were opposites. Big conflict. And it was avant-garde to say
"Hellenistic, bad, Hebraic, good." Platonic, Aristotelian, foreign. This, indigenous to the Bible. I would listen to this stuff
and I'd say, "I don't think so. That doesn't make sense to me." I mean, I didn't know anything
about Hellenistic thought, so how could I judge? Well, I just grew up in a
Bible-thumping home. I mean, my mom and my dad just
read me Bible over and over again and I just smelled bad stuff. Just, "No, no, that's just…" And then, you know, later on, I
began to be able to explain things. So listen to this, see if
you think this is right. This is Luke 12:54, "He said to the
crowds, when you see a cloud rising in the West, you say at
once, showers coming. So it happens. And when you see the South wind
blow, you say there'll be scorching heat and it happens. You hypocrites, you know how to interpret
the appearance of the sky and the earth. Why don't you know how to
interpret the present time?" What does that mean? He's saying you use Aristotelian logic
every day of your life and you won't bring it to bear on the
things that really matter. Aristotelian logic is built
on the syllogism, right? All men are mortal. Plato is a man. Therefore, Plato is mortal. Is that Western? Foreign to the Bible? It's right there. You get up in the morning,
red sky, premise number one. Premise number two, red sky means
it's going to be dangerous today, going to be a bad windy day. Conclusion, going to be a bad wind
day because it happens every day when it's red. This is not Western, this is human. This is God. This is the brain of God. I just... He got really bent out of
shape at these people. You hypocrites, drawing down inferences
with such clear logic that you know how to go out on the Sea of Galilee when it's
safe and not to go out when it's safe because when it's red,
you got premise one. And you know premise two is
all red days or dangerous days and so, this must
be a dangerous day. "So I'm not going out," And you won't do that with your brain
for the gospel truths all around you. And so, I don't like it when people dump
on thinking as though it were somehow foreign to Christ and to his word in
clear, old Aristotelian syllogistic ways. Here's another one that really
got Jesus bent out of shape. This is number five, and this is
Matthew 21, 21:23, following. You look for how the mind is
used in this story or is this relevant for our day. "When he entered the temple,
the chief priest and the elders, the people came up to him as he was
teaching and said, "By what authority do you do these things and
who gave you this authority?" And Jesus answered them, "I'll ask
you a question, and if you tell me the answer, I'll tell
you by what authority." Now, what's he doing? He's giving them a test to see
whether they're the kind of people he's willing to talk to. This is really important. You want to be the kind of person Jesus
is willing to answer your questions? I do, and this is the text that will tell
me one of the ways I can be that kind of person. "I'll ask you a question, you tell me. The baptism of John, where'd it come from? Heaven or man?" They went off, formed a little huddle and
they discussed it among themselves, saying, "If we say from
heaven, then he'll say, 'Well, why didn't you believe on him?' And if we say from man, we're
afraid of the crowds because they all hold John to be a prophet." So what are they doing? They're using their brains
because they're sharp guys. They're using their brains and
they're saying, "If we say this, then he'll trap us by saying you didn't
believe on him and we don't want to be trapped because our ego will be hurt." And the other alternative
was getting stoned. "Because the people
think he's a prophet. So if we say just, 'Just human,'
he's going to get really mad at us. So we love our flesh
and we love our ego. So what are we going
to use our brains to do?" This is total politics. We will say, "We don't know." So they answered Jesus, "We don't know." And Jesus said, "I won't tell you about
what authority I do these things. I won't talk to you. I hate that use of the
brain my father gave you. Spent to protect yourself,
zero interest in the truth, zero. Just ego. Flesh. This is really important. I just so long for Christians to be different. If you ever run for office,
answer the question. What a witness. What a witness. If you ask, "Is there a biblical statement
about the alternative to that, that ugly manipulation of truth to escape your
ego issues and your danger issues? Is there an alternative?" I'll read you a beautiful alternative. I love the apostle Paul. Cost him his life to be this kind
of man, but let me read it to you. This is 2 Corinthians 4:2, "We
have renounced disgraceful and underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to
tamper with God's word, but by an open statement of the truth, we
would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience
in the sight of God." Oh, Lord make it happen in New England. May this room be filled with people
like that, renouncing all disgraceful, underhanded, cunning ways. Oh, the brain can be misused. Oh, the brain, the brilliant,
beautiful gift of God to serve the heart's passion for Jesus,
can be turned into cunning. He would not talk to them. And if you want to alienate Jesus,
start being cunning with your brain. That's number six. No, that's number five. Here's number six. Two more to go. In Paul's letters, there are 13
times where he asks the question, "Do you not know?" Remember that question? Do you not know? What's he saying
when he asks that? "Do you not know or
do you not know?" I'll read them to you. Not all 13, but several, and then
you decide what you think he's doing when he says that. 1 Corinthians 3:16, "Do you not know your
body is the temple of the Holy Spirit?" 6:3, 1 Corinthians 6:3,
"Do you not know we will judge angels? "Do you not know..." Still 6:3, "to lie
with a prostitute is to be one with her? Do you not know a
little leaven, leavens the whole lump? Do you not know unrighteousness
will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do you not know your bodies
are members of Christ?" Now, what's he doing? In the context, a rhetorical question
like that usually begins with or like, "Or did you not know?" He says something,
"Or did you not know?" And the point is if you knew,
you'd know how to act. If you knew, you'd know how to think. If you knew, it would make
a difference in your life. And you're acting as though you
didn't know that you're going to judge angels when you
can't even fix a little problem of a dispute in the church
and you go get a pagan judge to work on it because
you know something. You shouldn't. The knowing of something is
going to keep you from doing that, like you're going to judge angels. Isn't that amazing? This is amazing to me, that Paul
would use knowledge with such force to say it really does change the
way you behave, the way you feel, the way you live. It does because it
changes your heart. Thinking rightly and knowing
the truth are crucial to valuing the truth and living the truth. And here's my last
one, number seven. So obvious, so simple, and so,
I think, amazingly profound. The Bible is a book. Here it is. It's a book. We call it, I call it,
the word of God, objectively outside of
me, containing truth. Jesus Christ came into
the world as the truth. We love that, we learn it here. But when he was finished with his work
and returned, he left behind apostles, prophets who became the
foundation of the church. And what they did in founding the
church was write inspired guidance and teaching for the church which
became enshrined in the second half of our Bible called
the New Testament. So now we have one
word of God in a book. God did not have
to do it this way. Could have done it with
videos, could have done it with the internet, could have caused
the incarnation to happen in our century. He chose to preserve his Holy
inspired, inerrant word in a book. The implications of that historically are
simply mindboggling in terms of how Christian mission is done and what
happens when the church takes root in a preliterate culture. Everything changes. Everything changes over time. It might take centuries, but it changes. This changes everything. That is a book changes everything, not
just what it says, that it must be read to have any influence at all. And to read is to be educated, and
to be educated is to learn to think. And to read well is to think well. And here's a verse to show you
the connection between what it says and what it is. This is Ephesians 3:4.. I remember teaching Ephesians about
35 ago and seeing this for the first time. Chapter 3:4, Paul says, "When
you read this," and he meant his letter, "When you read this,
you are able to perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ." You wonder why Christians found
schools, raised their kids up by teaching them to read early. "When you read this, you will be able to
perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ," because the Holy Spirit who
inspired the book is jealous to use the book to open our eyes to see
the glories of what's in the book. But not without reading. That is thinking. That is the use of the mind to throw
kindling into the furnace of the heart for the flame of affection. Not without thinking. So I'm done. Here's a summary of
what I've tried to do. God created you with a mind and
with a heart, an organ of thinking and reflection, pondering, meditating,
truth-handling and heart, an organ of affection and emotion,
and feeling, inclination. And the mind, when it's rightly serving
the heart, causes the heart to be aflame with Christ as a
supreme treasure. So, brothers and sisters, spare
no effort to use your mind. Spare no effort to think rightly so
that you will then, by your mental apprehension of truth, wherever it
comes from, especially in the word, by your mind, the right use of it,
you will be pouring fuel into the furnace of the heart for the sake of
enflaming a white-hot affection for God, and to that and its power to
do what Tim Keller said, I will turn, Lord willing, tomorrow. So let's pray. Father in heaven, thank you for the
gospel that shows us that we're not God and we're not creators. We submit to reality,
we don't make reality. Thank you for the gospel that frees
our mind from all of it's distorting, self-justifications and
manipulations of reality to escape self-incriminating truth. Thank you. Thank you. And forgive us for not living
up into these freedoms and these gifts And grant that in this room, every
person with a mind would engage it. Nobody here would minimize the
sweet gift of thinking, and nobody would overplay it as the goal of life,
but make it the servant of all our affections for you. I pray this in Jesus' name, Amen.
