http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15021346/dont-let-evil-days-make-you-stupid
John Piper is founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is author of more than 50 books, including Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist and most recently Providence.
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Christ’s Death Was No Accident
Audio Transcript
Welcome back to the podcast. Today we are going deep. Of course, at the center of our faith, we celebrate the cross of Jesus Christ — his horrific suffering and death by crucifixion. Christ “bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24).
His death was designed. It was no accident. It was no fluke of history. It was no mere result of unchecked mob violence. His death was intentional. It was divinely intended — intended from the beginning of time. This is a somber and significant point to grasp from Acts 4:27–28.
This theological point matters when we look at the fallenness of his world. Specifically, in this clip you will hear a mention of a massive earthquake that hit Nepal in the spring of 2015. That earthquake hit the day before this sermon was preached. In that disaster, three and a half million people were left homeless. Nearly nine thousand died. Why? Why does such a world exist with such deep pain? Here’s Pastor John.
This world exists with its pain, with its horror, and with its death to make a place for Jesus Christ the Son of God to suffer and die. If a world like this didn’t exist, Jesus would have no place to suffer and die. If there were no suffering, Jesus couldn’t suffer. If there were no death, Jesus couldn’t die. Put another way, the reason there is terror is so that Christ could be terrorized. The reason there is trouble is so that Christ could be troubled. The reason there is pain is so that Christ could feel pain.
“Never feel that God is somehow distant, far away, toying with creation. He made the horrors to enter the horrors.”
This world became what it is so that the Son of God could enter it and feel all of it. Therefore, you should never feel that God is somehow “out there” — distant, far away, toying with this creation. He made the horrors to enter the horrors.
Romans 5:8 says, “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Do you believe this? He showed his love through the death of his Son. Do you believe that this love could be shown another way? It couldn’t be shown another way, and he meant for it to be shown.
Predestined to Die
Listen to these words from Acts 4:27–28, which the saints are praying after the death and resurrection of Jesus: “Truly in this city [Jerusalem] there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan predestined to take place.”
Did you hear the people they mention? “Herod” — who mocked him, put a purple robe on him, scorned him. “Pontius Pilate” — who expediently washed his hands and said, “I find no fault in him, but my job’s at stake, so kill him, crucify him, put him through the worst tortures imaginable.” “The Gentiles” — that’s the soldiers, who were driving the nails, pushing the sword in the side. “The peoples of Israel” — the Jewish people calling out, “Crucify him! Crucify him!”
“Christ did not die by accident. This had been planned since before the foundation of the world.”
To summarize the text again, “Herod, Pontius Pilate, the Gentiles, and the people of Israel were gathered together to do whatever your plan and your hand had predestined to take place.” And so we know Christ did not die by accident. “Oh, just a fluke of history, just a turning of Roman affairs, just mob violence.” No. This had been planned since before the foundation of the world.
This is the climax of — the reason for — existence: the Son of God bore all the suffering of the world in order to lift sin from all who would trust him, bringing them into everlasting reward and joy, exquisitely, in a new heavens and a new earth, glorifying God for his wisdom and grace and love. That’s the reason this world exists the way it exists.
Profound Pain
In my church — I still affectionately call it “my church” even though I have not been the pastor for two years. Well, in my church, there were about five thousand folks and a lot of young people. I was pastor there for 33 years, and we grew up together.
When you have a lot of young people together, they tend to fall in love, and they get married, and they have babies. And those babies die more than you would like. And some of them are born with profound disabilities, like Michael. Therefore, you have moms who have just lost their babies or whose whole lives have now changed because they will be caring for this disabled child till he or she dies.
I would welcome you young people to come to this church and interview any of these moms —like Patty, whom you can’t interview because she died of breast cancer. The first crisis was that Eric, her 1-year-old, died in her arms. I went to the hospital. She’s sitting there, holding Eric. He looks like he’s made out of ivory. He’s dead, sitting in his mother’s arms. She just looks at me. And then I buried her about fifteen years later. She has four young kids, and she dies.
It was a horrible death, in fact, but Patty was a rock. Patty believed every word of what I said. With her bald head and her cap, she made a video of about thirteen minutes — we showed it at a service — telling the people to trust God before she died.
He Came to Bear This Pain
So I’m inviting you, work through this. If it sounds problematic, work through it. God could shake this city — not just Nepal. Half of these buildings could go down at ten o’clock on Monday morning, and one hundred thousand people could be dead. Do you have a vision of God that would be able to handle that? That’s my question.
That might be easier to handle than if one of your children died or if you had a child with a profound disability. But I am inviting you to embrace Jesus Christ as the one for whom, through whom, and to whom all things exist. And he came to share this suffering. He came to bear this pain.
He came to taste every test and every temptation that we have known, take it to the cross, and die in our place so that by faith alone, we could have all our sins forgiven, have eternal life, and have a destiny in a new heavens and a new earth where that curse will finally be lifted.
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How Do We ‘Learn Christ’? Ephesians 4:17–24, Part 5
http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/14835147/how-do-we-learn-christ
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Why Don’t We Have Good Friends?
How many close friends do you have in your life today? Take a minute and count them. Do you have more or less than you did ten years ago?
One recent study confirms what you might already suspect: many more of us have fewer good friends than we once did. In 1990, just 3% of respondents reported having no close friends. Thirty years later, that number has quadrupled to 12%. In 1990, one third said they had ten or more close friends. That number has now shrunk to just over ten percent. Nearly 90% cannot name a friend for each of their fingers. It’s not the only study to come to the same unsettling conclusion: Despite the tidal wave of new ways to connect and communicate with one another, we’re getting lonelier.
And that loneliness stifles human life. “Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up!” (Ecclesiastes 4:9–10). If we try to live and work alone, we’ll stumble and fall alone. And when we fall alone, we won’t have the encouragement, correction, and support we need to get back up and press through our failures, sorrows, and trials.
No matter how many years it’s been, no matter how busy you feel, no matter how few your options are, no matter how much it costs you, you still need good friends — yes, even you.
So why do so many of us have so few of them?
Three Great Walls to Climb
It’s never been easier to make new friends and connect with old ones, so what’s hindering and disrupting these relationships? Drew Hunter, author of Made for Friendship, wisely puts his finger on three major obstacles we face today:
Three aspects of modern culture create unique barriers to deep relationships: busyness, technology, and mobility. . . . These unique barriers can weave together in a very isolating way for us. They encircle us like a rope barrier and keep true friendship out of reach. We may overpower one or two of these strands, but as the saying goes, a cord of three strands is not quickly broken. (30)
What keeps us from meaningful friendships? Busyness, because we fill our schedules so full that friendship feels like a luxury we just can’t afford. Technology, because while it allows for a lot more moments of “connection,” the crumbs it offers leads us to pretend we’re more meaningfully connected than we really are (and leave us starving for more). Mobility, because it’s harder to build real, lasting friendships in places where people are frequently moving away and moving on.
Those three emerging barriers to friendship certainly resonate with my experience over the last thirty years, and accurately explain some of the challenges we face in pursuing friendship in the twenty-first century. So how might followers of Christ overcome the hurdles and find some good friends?
1. Cadence: Live at the pace of friendship.
When did we become too busy for friends? At a cultural level, it’s difficult to trace the many factors (work from home, instant messaging and social media, on-demand delivery and entertainment, explosion of youth activities, and more). At a personal level, the disruption often happens somewhere between college graduation and our first child’s newborn diapers. The adult demands of work and family swiftly swell and crowd out the margin we used to have. The time with friends that used to cost us next to nothing now seems far too expensive.
Rather than assuming friendship is simply a casualty of higher callings, what if we assumed that friendship was still vital to those higher callings? Because it is. “Exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin” (Hebrews 3:13). Of course, if you’re married, your spouse is one valuable voice, but he or she can’t be the only voice. Whether married or single, we need others from outside the home to sing (or shout) reality into our hearts and homes. In other words, we need friends.
“To experience friendship with fellow humans, we need to live at a pace that is human.”
And to experience friendship with fellow humans, we need to live at a pace that is human (which, ironically, may increasingly put us out of step with society). Instead of constantly scrolling by one another, what if we slowed down enough to see and hear and focus on the person in front of us? What if we practiced hospitality, not just with our kitchens and living rooms, but with our time and attention?
How different our lives might be if they were marked by something like the togetherness of the early church:
All who believed were together and had all things in common. . . . And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. (Acts 2:44–47)
Their lives were beautifully full, but not with the tasks, emails, and apps that dominate our days. No, their lives were full with people — with one another. Life was slower in many ways, and yet far more productive for being slow: “And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved” (Acts 2:47).
2. Presence: Find time and space to share.
Technology is not necessarily an enemy of friendship. It can be an unprecedented blessing when employed wisely. Imagine just how much previous generations would have given to be able to talk in real-time, even once, with a far-away loved one (much less actually see them on a screen). The problems emerge when we lean too much on technology — when it becomes a substitute for, rather than supplement to, physical presence. Every human needs food, water, shelter, and regular time with other humans.
The apostle Paul used the technology available in his day to communicate with his brothers and sisters in the faith, but he knew that writing was no replacement for eye contact: “I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you — that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine” (Romans 1:11–12). He knew there were graces that ink and paper couldn’t carry. There was a whole class of encouragement reserved for living rooms and dining tables. He knew that something critical and intangible happens when two or more are gathered in the name of Jesus in the same space.
This doesn’t mean friends boycott technology. It does mean we acknowledge the weaknesses and limitations of technology (even the best technology), and love one another accordingly. A good place to start might be to quickly audit your current friendships and ask roughly what percentage of your interactions are physical or digital. The results will vary for people with different personalities in different circumstances and stages of life, but for every stage, circumstance, and temperament there should be some consistent, meaningful presence. It is worth fighting for more regular time to be face to face with at least a few good friends.
3. Permanence: Rediscover the value of staying.
Lastly, perhaps the largest hurdle of the three: mobility. It’s never been easier to pick up and move, which means it’s often much, much harder to find and keep long-term friendships. Just think for a minute about how many of your friendships in just the last two years have been disrupted by some major life change and the accompanying move. We’re the goodbye generation.
The depth of friendships our souls need won’t happen overnight. These gardens of trust require years, maybe decades, of patient attention and tending. So how do we make and keep friends in a day of so many goodbyes? The first thing to say may be hard for many of us to hear: rediscover the value of staying put.
How many people do you know in your circles who would forgo a better-paying, more-satisfying job in a more appealing city for the sake of Christian friendships and community? Building the kind of friendships that really matter and bear fruit requires the kind of sacrifices fewer today are willing to make. In the early church, and for most of history, this kind of permanence was simply a given. Picking up and moving was too costly. Today, permanence is becoming a discipline and a virtue. We might wonder, How many who are uprooting and leaving now will eventually come to realize what they lost and wish they had chosen church and friendships over convenience and job opportunities?
Some friendships, however, will survive moves and time zones, through some serious creativity and persistence, but very few will thrive. A few of my best friends today were once down-the-road friends (or even share-a-bathroom-and-a-kitchen friends), but are now several-states-over friends. We’re not as close as we once were, but we do what we can to stay in touch. The apostle Paul, for one, was a faithful long-distance friend, though it seems he was always planning a visit. He writes to those he knows well, loves more, and yet can’t walk over and see anymore:
“For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:8).
“[Timothy] has brought us the good news of your faith and love and reported that you always remember us kindly and long to see us, as we long to see you” (1 Thessalonians 3:6).
“As I remember your tears, I long to see you, that I may be filled with joy.” (2 Timothy 1:4).“However faithful our faraway friends are, we all need down-the-road friends.”
Long-distance friendships are possible, and can be precious, but they are a little like walking uphill, requiring extra effort with every step (like writing twenty-eight chapters to the church in Corinth). They can’t be our only close friendships. However faithful our faraway friends are, we need down-the-road friends. And hopefully a few of them are down the road for the long haul.
4. Substance: Brave the depths of conversation.
Busyness, technology, mobility — those are three real and developing hurdles to friendship. We should all be aware of them and make some plan for clearing them. As I wrestled with each of them, though, I couldn’t help seeing a fourth major barrier, one that is by no means modern: triviality.
How many of our potential friendships — real, meaningful, durable friendships — have died on the rocks of sports, shows, or headline news? How many conversations began and ended on the paper thin surface of life? How often was God left out completely? The greatest challenge to friendship today may not be our schedules, phones, or moving trucks, but just how easy it is to peacefully float along above the rich depths of real friendship.
Social media can certainly aggravate the issue, but this temptation isn’t new. Satan has always been seducing us into the shallows of superficiality and distracting us from the depths of friendship. So how do we wade deeper? Through courageous, Christ-exalting intentionality: “Let us consider” — really consider — “how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near” (Hebrews 10:24–25).
If we commit to this kind of reflection, this kind of commitment, this kind of encouragement and correction, this kind of love, real friendship will emerge and endure. But we will need to be brave enough to go there, to spend more of our conversations in the deep end.
So, if you find yourself among the overwhelming majority of people without enough good friends, slow down enough to find some, make some regular time to be in the same room, fight harder to stick together longer, and then consistently press through the trivial to the more meaningful and spiritual. Pursue and keep the kinds of friends who stir your heart and life to better know and enjoy Jesus Christ.