September 8, 2010

• adopting God's purpose for the nations is for your joy & His glory (Letter 76 on joy)

  adopting God's purpose for the nations is for your joy & His glory
  (Letter 76 on assurance & fighting for joy)

  

  The first part of today's post is taken from a message given by John Piper, "Pursuing the Glory of God in the Gladness in the Nations in God" at Park Cities Presbyterian Church, Dallas, at the Declare His Glory Among the Nations Conference in October 2000. Since there wasn't a written text, I attempted to transcribe some portions of the message to include here and I've highlighted various portions for emphasis. I've indented and italicized Piper's words here.

  Piper quoted John Eliot (1604-1690), who was known as the Indian apostle. (As a little background, Eliot was born in England and emigrated to Massachusetts in 1631, where he pastored at Roxbury. Several years later, God gave him a heart for the native American Indians, so he studied the language for two years and first visited them in 1646 and ministered among them for over forty years. Eliot translated the Bible and other works into Algonquin.)

  "Prayers and pains through faith in Christ will do anything."

  John Eliot

  What God has in store for some of you 54 year old people - that's how old I am - is simply stunning. I am so excited about the rest of my life I can hardly stand it. Even if it only lasts for a year or so. And I don't know how long it may last. But I am so glad to be a Christian, and to be a pastor and to know the Gospel and to yet have a voice, though it's not in the shape I would like it to be this morning. I want you to catch this vision for the sovereignty of God begetting a Puritan hope for which a John Elliot at age 40 to age 84 does an amazing work.

  The reason I chose Psalm 67 from which to speak this morning because it is the way people pray who are driven by this kind of hope. . . .

  [Piper interspersed comments as he read the Bible text, but I'm not including all of those here.]

  Psalm 67:
  1  May God be gracious to us and bless us
  and make his face to shine upon us, Selah
  2  that your way may be known on earth,
  your saving power among all nations.
  3  Let the peoples praise you, O God;
  let all the peoples praise you!
  4  Let the nations be glad and sing for joy,
  for you judge the peoples with equity
  and guide the nations upon earth. Selah
  5  Let the peoples praise you, O God;
  let all the peoples praise you!
  6  The earth has yielded its increase;
  God, our God, shall bless us.
  7  God shall bless us;
  let all the ends of the earth fear him!

   

  

  God has blessed this church so that His salvation would reach to the unreached peoples of the world. That's why you have a blessing. If you don't turn that your blessing into that purpose, you will be cursed. You exist to turn this glorious blessing...my church exists to turn its blessing outward for the sake of the nations. No church exists in this Disneyland called America for any other reason than to multiply our blessings for the sake of spiritually and physically and educationally destitute peoples of the world, and mainly spiritually. They're lost without Jesus.

  So it's very clear the first point of this psalm is: you have been blessed in order to be a blessing. . .

  Question # 1. What is the great purpose of God revealed in this prayer, Psalm 67? ...

  Four things.

  According to this psalm God's purpose is to be known, praised, enjoyed and feared among all the nations of the world.

   

  /Here's a brief outline of the points Dr. Piper made re: Psalm 67:

  I. Thy way may be made known on earth. (v. 1-2) His salvation among all nations. The Gospel way.

  II. To be praised. (v. 3-5) He is seeking worshipers. John 4. Worshipers --> workers.

  III. God is to be enjoyed. (v. 4-6) Missionaries should be the happiest people in the world. God's purpose in seeking His praise and our joy are one! "The Church exists to rejoice in God and be glad and the Church exists to spread the joy."

  IV. God is to be feared. (v. 7) Fear is not contradictory to joy. "I delight to fear Thy Name." "There is forgiveness w/ Thee that Thou mayest be feared." "Trembling joy in the presence of an infinite awesome, holy God that you don't trifle with. But when you know Him as Father it's delightful to fear Him."/

   

  Then Piper quoted J. Campbell White:

  Most men are not satisfied with the permanent output of their lives. Nothing can wholly satisfy the life of Christ within His followers except the adoption of Christ's purpose toward the world He came to redeem.

  Fame, pleasure, riches are but husks and ashes in contrast with the boundless and abiding joy of working with God for the fulfillment of His plans. The men who are putting everything into Christ's understanding are getting everything out of it. The men who are putting everything into Christ's understanding of His undertaking are getting out of it life's sweetest and most priceless rewards. His understanding is to be known and praised and enjoyed and feared as He really is among all the people of the world.

  His undertaking is to be known and praised and enjoyed and feared as He really is among all the peoples of the world.

  Well, you should ask at this moment, 'Did that quote mean that only missionaries can have deep and abiding and sweet precious satisfaction in life?'"

  So now you may be wondering who was this J. Campbell White.

  Piper explained that White was a layman, a businessman who founded the Layman's Missionary Movement in 1906. Piper explained that

  These businessmen looked out on the Student Volunteer Movement where God was moving so mightily at the beginning of the last century, 1906, that they said, "If these students have this much energy and this much zeal and this much and this much sense of call and this much willingness to sacrifice, surely we businessmen ought to do everything we possibly can to get behind them and fund this enterprise . . . if the laymen of North America could see the world as these students are seeing it, they would rise up in their strength and provide all the funds needed for the enterprise."

  So the answer is, "No. It is not merely missionaries who can enjoy deep, profound involvement in the purposes of God to be known and praised and enjoyed among the peoples." You may be satisfied by participating other ways. However – you won't be satisfied if you just go on with life as usual.

  Make your money. Do your work. Give your tithe. Eat. Sleep. Play. Watch t.v. Surf the internet. Do a little job at church.

  That will not do. That won't do it.

  There must be from the heart a sense of "I'm engaged. I'm engaged with a world enterprise. I'm engaged with reaching the nations."

  So my counsel to you, young and old, middle-aged, is take a few days a year to get away with a Bible, a pad of paper, a hymn book and not much else. . .

  Sit down alone and say,

  God, is this it? Is this it? CPA? Banker? Teacher? Doctor? Lawyer? Computer designer? Programmer? Is this it?

  I've got a life. I'm making good money. I've got a house in the suburbs. Got a car. Got a family.

  Do the same thing every day. Day in. Day out. Is this it?

  And my guess is God's gonna say, "No."

  And then ask Him,

  What more, Lord? What more? An adjustment of this? Or a total change?

  Just do that, would you? Take a break. Take a mid-course, [a one-]third way course, two-thirds way course and just ask Him,

  Lord, is this it?

  It may be that He'll say, "You're exactly where I want you. Hold the course and stoke the engines." That may do it.

  But it also may be that there's been, as you come into this conference [as you've come to read this blog today], a restlessness, a discontent, and now you're hearing me address it, and you've been wondering "What's it's been about?" and at this moment of your life I'm telling you what it's about on His behalf. It's about God. It's about world missions. it's about your peculiar strategic investment and involvement in ways you never dreamed. . .

  I don't want to imply that all discontent in work is a call of God. If that were true, we would all change jobs every other week.

  However, there is an abiding restlessness. There is a recurring discontent. There is a growing and deepening sense that the roots are being loosened. There is a heightening of dreaming. There is a spirituality that comes in as you linger over the Bible and at those moments something settles on you, then you sense, "God is up to something in my life that is doing differently than I thought I might be."

  Know this: God's purpose for your life is that you engage in His being known and praised and enjoyed and feared among peoples where He is scarcely, if at all, known at all. He wants you to be engaged.

  You've got three options:

  Go

  Send

  or Disobey

  That's all.

  Are you an engaged sender?

  
  

  (There's more to the message. I encourage you to listen to the whole thing here; these are just a few highlights.) 

  
  

  * * *

  I listened to this message a few weeks ago, a couple days before my 52nd birthday. I think no matter our age we all need to be asking ourselves those same questions regularly.

   

  What about me? (The loosening God has been doing in my life.)

  In 2006 God began to put that sense of abiding restlessness and recurring discontent in me about which Piper spoke. I was 47 years old at the time. (Please keep in mind that age has no bearing on God's plans and purposes for us.)

  I've written here and here a little bit about the work God was doing in my soul at that time. I think if you've had that happen, or are currently having that happen to you, you will see yourself there, so I would encourage you to read those accounts because such experiences are not unique. Yes, we're each fearfully and wonderfully made, however, there are common themes you find as you hear of the work of God in the lives of men. (Another reason why I can't recommend enough your reading Christian biography.)

  I consider that time in my life precious. The Lord was pushing and pursuing, and it wasn't all comfortable, but I can't imagine going back to what my life was before that time. In short, God began to turn my world upside-down in some unexpected and difficult and heart-breaking ways, but I know it was all for my good, for His glory and for the furtherance of His Gospel.

  It saddens me to look back and see how much of my life I wasted. Yes, I was a Christian for years before that, but I wasn't a passionate Christian. I hadn't really adopted Christ's purposes for myself and the world. In terms of Psalm 67, I wasn't really seeking to make God known, praised, enjoyed and feared among the nations. I didn't have a Philippians 3 mindset. But then God began to take hold of me, His Spirit began to compel me so I had no choice but to press on to take hold of that for which Christ took hold of me. I began to feel His constraining love in ways I'd never known before. I'm still not sure exactly where it's all going at this point, but God forbid I'm would be disobedient to the heavenly vision He's shown me so far. Like Piper, I am so excited about the rest of my life I can hardly stand it. So, if you younger folks think that life ends at 30, 40 or 50, think again!

  The Holy Spirit began to work in me a holy dissatisfaction with the status quo (first off, with my own soul), similar to that which J. Campbell White and John Piper described:

  Most men are not satisfied with the permanent output of their lives. Nothing can wholly satisfy the life of Christ within His followers except the adoption of Christ's purpose toward the world He came to redeem.

  Fame, pleasure, riches are but husks and ashes in contrast with the boundless and abiding joy of working with God for the fulfillment of His plans. The men who are putting everything into Christ's understanding are getting everything out of it. The men who are putting everything into Christ's understanding of His undertaking are getting out of it life's sweetest and most priceless rewards.

  His understanding is to be known and praised and enjoyed and feared as He really is among all the people of the world.

  In the past few years God has continued to increase my passion to work with Him for the fulfillment of His plans. I confess I still make my plans and then God hedges up my way and once more reminds me that man proposes and God disposes! I confess I still lust after the husks and ashes far too often (one time is too often), but I've come to see those things are all nothing compared to the joy God has for me as I seek to know Christ and make Him known. I've tasted Him and He has allowed me to taste some of the sweet and priceless rewards of His Kingdom work. There's nothing that compares. Even so, I must constantly battle the flesh and ask God for grace to press on to know Christ and make Him known, so I might decrease and He might increase and to keep my eyes fixed on Jesus and my mind set on things above.

   

  What about YOU?

  Some of you already know this, but I've been praying for some of you here on Xanga/Revelife because God has a particular call on your life to be engaged in His being made known and praised and enjoyed and feared among the nations. God has been showing that's one way He wants me to be an engaged sender.

  I don't you want to waste your lives on husks and ashes.

  I want you to taste of the sweet and priceless rewards.

  John Piper describes it well in his book, "Don't Waste Your Life" (p. 46-46, 48).

  An American Tragedy: How Not to Finish Your Own Life

  I will tell you what tragedy is. I will show you how to waste your life. Consider a story from the February 1998 edition of Reader's Digest, which tells about a couple who "took early retirement from their jobs in the Northeast five years ago when he was 59 and she was 51. Now they live in Punta Gorda, Florida, where they cruise on their 30 foot trawler, play softball and collect shells." At first, when I read it I thought it might be a joke. A spoof on the American Dream. But it wasn't. Tragically, this was the dream: Come to the end of your life––your one and only precious, God-given life––and let the last great work of your life, before you give an account to your Creator, be this: playing softball and collecting shells. Picture them before Christ at the great day of judgment: "Look, Lord. See my shells." That is a tragedy. And people today are spending billions of dollars to persuade you to embrace that tragic dream. Over against that, I put my protest: Don't buy it. Don't waste your life....

  
  

  

  
  Piper goes on to tell us how we should be living so we won't waste our lives:

  
  You will be like the apostle Paul...when he said that he wanted to know nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified...He could say: "I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I have received from the Lord Jesus , to testify to the gospel of the grace of God" (Acts 20:24). One thing mattered: "I will not waste my life! I will finish my course and finish it well. I will display the Gospel of the grace of God in all I do. I will run my race to the end."

  Or he could say, "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 (Philippians 3:7-8). One thing matters: Know Christ, and gain Christ. Everything is rubbish in comparison to this."

  What is the one passion of your life that makes everything else look like rubbish in comparison? Oh, that God would help me waken in you a single passion for the single great reality that would unleash you, and set you free from small dreams, and send you, for the glory of Christ, into all the spheres of secular life and to all the peoples of the earth.

  Ok, so most of you do not spend time collecting shells,

  but whatever your "shells" might be, my question to you is this:

   

  Do you want a collection of shells or a passion for souls to be your legacy?

  
  

  Yesterday my friend Norm (quest4god@revelife) wrote some reflections on Our Legacy. I'd encourage you to read that post in conjunction with this one.

  As Dr. Piper and Norm and I put these things before you, we know that our words must be made effectual by the work of the Holy Spirit. We are praying God would use our words to you and our prayers for you to put a holy ambition in you, so you will not waste your lives but adopt and become actively engaged in God's grand purpose of being made known, praised, enjoyed and feared among the nations.

  May God give each one of us a heavenly vision and continue to hedge us up to show us that nothing can wholly satisfy the life of Christ within us except the adoption of His purposes toward the world to make Christ preeminent.

  Many of you are miserable and disenchanted and discontented. You're wandering and wondering. I believe in many cases it's because you're settling for the husks and ashes; you've been wasting your lives collecting your shells. You're seeking to satisfy your soul with earthly things and, as Piper said, that's not going to do it. Never.

  Piper's and Morgan's audiences were older on average, so I'd like to address the younger Xanga audience here now with some more things. Many of you are seeking boyfriends/girlfriends or spouses. I am praying you might seek the Lord first and foremost. He is to be our first Love always. We're to have no other gods before Him, that means none – and that includes your spouse (should you ever marry). If you continue to pursue anyone or anything else apart from God, that means you're not pursuing God with your whole heart. When that happens the Holy Spirit will strive against your flesh, all so you might run home to your heavenly Father, feel His embrace and embrace wholeheartedly His Kingship over your life and His Kingdom plan for your life and the nations. "Not my will, but Yours, be done." If you're saved, you have been crucified with Christ and you now have Christ's resurrection life dwelling in you. How can you possibly be satisfied, content and joyful if you continue to insist on your own will and seeking and building your own kingdom?

  The soul redeemed by Christ has been recreated to make much of Christ and to adopt God's plan that He be known, praised, enjoyed and feared among the nations.

  II Corinthians 5:14  For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; 15  and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.

  16  From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. 17  Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 18  All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19  that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 20  Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21  For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

  From Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary on Psalm 116:

  He that procured the release of a captive took him for his servant. "Lord, thou hast loosed my bonds; those sorrows of death that compassed me, thou hast discharged me from them, and therefore I am thy servant, and entitled to thy protection as well as obliged to thy work." The very bonds which thou hast loosed shall tie me faster unto thee. Patrick.

  If you're not engaged in God's purposes for the world, if you're not going or sending, then you're not only wasting your life, but you're also wasting His life in you.

  Now I will tell you how I am praying for many of you. I have been praying that God would hedge your way up with thorns and get you running back to Him (e.g. - Hosea 2, the prodigal son in Luke 15). In fact, God may need to allow your current circumstances to get even more miserable than they already are. No, He doesn't willingly afflict or grieve the sons of men, but He knows you are never going to find fullness of joy apart from seeking Him first and adopting His purposes for the world. He wants you to know Him and the joy that comes as offer yourself to work with Him for the fulfillment of His plans.

  Will you please set aside some time to do what Dr. Piper asked? Will you take some time away and ask God, "Lord, is this it?" (You may find this helpful in doing so.)

  Each one of us has a limited time of this earth. May we not waste our lives in idle pursuits but use them for God's purposes, for it is only then will we truly know that boundless and abiding joy of which White spoke and bring the glory to God due His Name.

  If there's any way I can be of assistance to you, please let me know.

  For your joy and the joy of the nations through Jesus Christ,

  Karen

   

  ---

  Related:

  John Piper's "Don't Waste Your Life," Chapter 9: The Majesty of Christ in Missions and Mercy-A Plea to This Generation 

  You can read the online book for free:

  

  Piper's biographical messages

  My posts on assurance & fighting for joy

  Links to my posts on Kingdom-Obsessed People

  My posts on singleness

  Resurrection Day: Don't Waste Your Life (Lecrae) | Whose Life is it anyhow?
  Father, don't let me waste my life
  Kingdom-Obsessed people Don't Retire
  Are You Working on the Wall? (redemption, spiritual gifts, the glory of God, joy & holy ambition)
  "You can have me" (Sidewalk Prophets) (Does He have you?)
  our yearnings & desires and God's mission (Isaiah 26:9)
  Epiphany: we are made a light to bring salvation to the ends of the earth
  Are you robbing God? Where is God telling you to "Rise and go!" for the joy of others?
  "Let us rise up and build" - one Body, many gifts & the love, Gospel & glory of God (Nehemiah 3)
  "Do not hold me back from the glory!" (the Christian's attitude toward death & life)
  Postcards from England: do you care?
  "the aim in life is God's, not mine" (Oswald Chambers)
  "I make it my aim" - a short study
  Can anything good come out of Xanga?
  the story of Christmas ~ the story of Holy disruption
  "It is our truest happiness to live entirely for the glory of Christ." (M'Cheyne)
  without Kingdom vision, my vision will perish (reaping from Livingstone's Kingdom vision)
  Lent V. - You follow me! (Are we steadfastly setting our faces to His will?)

  a little more on God's work in my life:

  thoughts on necessity (Richard Baxter, myself)
  my holy ambition
  John Piper's writing leave (& his impact on me)
  Kingdom-Obsessed People don't keep looking in the rear view mirror at past hurts, # 5
  Why not pray for the baptism of the Holy Spirit?
  Lent III.-Are you looking at the fields?
  The Ministry of the Word & Prayer
  while I was marching around the walls

  Scripture quotations marked ESV are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
  

  Photo credit: Disneyland Castle by LosAngelesT (PD)

  
  

  
  

  • 7:23 PM
  • 3 Comments