http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/14956121/how-is-covetousness-the-root-of-sexual-idolatry

Audio Transcript

Every Christian is faced with hard decisions about who we will (and will not) spiritually associate with. Today we take up the topic and talk about John Piper’s affiliations, whom he hangs out with and why. Pastor John, I know from our private conversations on the Leadership Team here at Desiring God that you have given a lot of thought to this topic of whom you partner with. You let us read a personal document you wrote that lays out your own thinking here. And I was wondering if you could walk us through that thinking on the podcast today.

Over your decades of ministry, how did you decide about how broad your associations would be? I know there are listeners who wrestle with this issue, even if your position as a Christian leader is uniquely different. If you could, for listeners of the podcast, explain those convictions.

What might be most helpful is for me to describe how I have made certain decisions about the degree of unity I expect in the various settings that I’m part of and why I’ve made those decisions. And I should say at the outset that most of these decisions that I’m going to talk about for the next few minutes are not explicitly demanded in the Bible. I believe they’re informed by the Bible; I’ve tried to do it that way. But they’re not the kind of decisions that cause me to say, “Now, everyone should do it this way.”

I’ll mention six kinds of associations over the years with other believers that I faced as expectations for leadership came my way — kinds of togetherness where I had to make decisions about whom I’d hang out with and whom I wouldn’t. As I mention them, think of them as concentric circles moving outward, with the first, most inner circle being the one where I expect the most agreement and the sixth and farthest-out circle where I expect the least agreement in those I’m together with.

1. Elders and Church Staff

So here’s the first one: my elders and staff of the church where I was the lead pastor for 33 years. As much as it lies in my ability, in my power, I’m going to work in that setting for deep and detailed theological unity, as well as ethical unity on biblical convictions on major issues, as well as ministry-philosophy issues — like a strong commitment to world missions, youth ministry that’s not biblically empty fun and games, worship services that are serious joy and not living-room, casual, slapstick, “howdy partner” kinds of gatherings.

The reason for the tightness at the staff and eldership level is that we together are charged to teach this body of believers what is biblically true in doctrine and what is biblically right in behavior, and we need to pull together as an eldership. The less important doctrine is to a pastor, the less he’ll care about this kind of unity.

I’m sometimes appalled at how some pastors say they can have staff that are all over the map theologically. I think that’s possible because his preaching remains distant from the specifics of the text and distant from doctrine. I think this breeds weak churches that become mirrors of the culture sooner or later.

Another reason this kind of philosophical unity and ethos unity is needed among the elders and on the pastoral staff is that we have to make choices that are not specifically prescribed in the Bible. You have to. Will women do the pastoral prayer? Will worship leaders wear torn jeans? Will we encourage coffee in worship? Will the youth bob for apples in a toilet bowl filled with Mello Yello? And a hundred other choices that are not laid down explicitly in the Bible.

“Without a significant ethos and philosophy unity, the conflicts on a church staff can become unlivable.”

And without a significant ethos and philosophical unity, the conflicts on the staff can become unlivable. So it almost goes without saying here — but not quite, so I’ll say it — that with all this theological and ethical and philosophical sameness, unity, I really do want personality diversity and ethnic diversity on the staff and the elders. That’s because my own limitations in personality have to be compensated for in others so that the people are helped by having people of different personalities on the council.

2. Church-Planting Network

Second, a church-planting network that I support and am part of. It’s just the next concentric circle outward. We have one life to live, and we have to make choices about what we think will make the greatest impact for the glory of Christ and the good of the nations. And when I ponder where my church-planting energies should go, my answer has been that I want to plant churches — I want to be a part of that movement — that believe our elder affirmation of faith. So, the Treasuring Christ Together network of churches that has grown up consists of churches whose elders affirm these truths.

“We have one life to live, and we have to make choices about what will make the greatest impact.”

It’s a pretty significant affirmation of faith. It’s the same one we use here at Desiring God. On the other hand, the philosophical and the ethos dimensions are not as tight in my association with those pastors. I don’t have pastoral oversight in those churches, and so I don’t exert that kind of influence, and I’m willing to live with that.

Behind this choice — this measure of unity and diversity at the church-planting level — is the conviction (and I could be wrong about this) that over the long haul of, say, thirty, sixty, one hundred years, the greatest good will come through greater doctrinal faithfulness than through greater numbers of churches that are doctrinally diffuse. That’s a conviction that I’ve operated with. I hope it’s true.

3. My Own Conferences

Third, conferences that I’m responsible for leading. That would include, for example, the Bethlehem Conference for Pastors that I was basically responsible for from 1988 to 2013, as long as I was the pastor there at Bethlehem.

And here, my tolerance level of differences was greater than with the elders and the church planters. And the reason for this is that the people who came to speak at these conferences came with specific assignments, and they didn’t have significant influence in the conference on numerous other issues where there might be some significant differences between us.

Nevertheless, it makes a difference to me what the speakers believe and how they live and lead outside the conference. I would not want to have a speaker who was outspoken and widely influential on issues that I regarded as harmful or unhelpful to the church. But I have invited speakers who were less Calvinistic than I am but who didn’t foreground this.

And my rationale for this wider diversity was that the spirit of wider fellowship with doctrinally serious people, with a manifestly high regard for the inerrancy and preciousness of Scripture, would, in the end, commend the more rigorously biblical-theological vision that I was trying to spread over those thirty years.

In general, I wanted to promote the truth and the beauty of the doctrines of grace and the preciousness of serious, God-centered worship and the radical commitment to a lifestyle of global missions. I looked for people who loved the vision of God that I cherished, even if they did not fully understand it in some cases or replicate it.

And now only God knows whether the strategy that we chose was the most effective, but that’s how we made our choices. And I’m sure I made some mistakes in that process, but you do the best you can.

4. Others’ Conferences

Fourth concentric circle moving out: speaking at other people’s conferences. How do you make decisions there? I’ve experimented on this, being unsure about the implications. In general, I avoided generic conferences that cared little for doctrine, let alone Calvinistic doctrine. I wanted to invest in people and ministries that wanted to advance the importance of biblical Reformed truth, not just vanilla evangelicalism.

A few exceptions I would not repeat would be a leadership conference that I went to where I was followed — you won’t believe this — by an effort to set a new world record on the number of people sitting on whoopee cushions. And there were a few other fiascos like that, which some of our listeners know about.

I tried to balance — and with lots of input from the Desiring God team, like you, Tony — I tried to get input for the downside, the upside of being part of a conference that might not foreground all the truth and method I prefer, versus the upside of speaking the truth I love into a new audience who may not even know who John Piper is.

And I think sometimes, in weighing the pros and cons there, we got it right, and sometimes we didn’t. But that’s how I tried to go about it, anyway, with concentric circle number four here.

5. Debates and Conversations

Here’s number five: participating in debates and conversations, public and private. Now this would include, say, public debates like the one I had with Greg Boyd on open theism, or the one with Sam Storms and Wilson and Hamilton in eschatology. It would include private group gatherings behind closed doors or phone calls with groups to deal with issues. It would include whom I choose to write against or for.

I wrote a whole book against N.T. Wright’s view of justification, and another one against Robert Gundry’s view of imputation, though I hold these men in very high regard for much of their work. So those aren’t always easy calls to make. The only limit I would put on such togetherness in debate or conversation is that it needs to hold out real promise for doing good.

If I thought that my presence with a teacher that I thought taught error — even to debate him — would give an unhelpful prominence to his views that they didn’t already have, I probably would decline just because I didn’t want to foreground or lift up the prominence of his error. I dislike books, by the way, and discussions that give the impression that theological views are like grocery shopping, and you could just choose among many brands of cereal without too much harm. I would not be inclined to be a part of those kinds of discussions or publications.

6. Rallies with Common Cause

Here’s the last, widest concentric circle: events like a pro-life rally, where I and others are asked to pray and, say, give a five-minute meditation. This is as wide, I think, as I’ve ever gone.

It excludes multi-faith prayer services, where the interfaith focus pretty clearly communicates that the participants agree that all these paths to God are legitimate. “Muslim, Hindu, Bahá’í, Jewish, Christian — they’re all the same; let’s just all pray to the same God.” I’ve never been a part of one of those services.

But the pro-life rally does include Roman Catholics who pray and speak alongside me. And I regard Roman Catholicism as a serious, harmful aberration from the true gospel and the true church. And the reason I go is that, in my judgment, fallible as it is, few if any among these hundreds of people think that my presence at this pro-life gathering shows that I am soft on Roman Catholicism. I could be wrong about that, but that was my rationale.

Partnerships with Staying Power

So, wrapping it up. What I think all this comes down to, for me, is making the judgment call about whether a strong, explicit, joyful, Bible-saturated, Reformed, complementarian commitment — shaping and guiding my preaching and speaking and publishing and organizational leadership — whether prioritizing doctrine like that will have the greatest impact for fruitful evangelism, multiplying of healthy churches, reaching of unreached people groups globally, the faithfulness of radical prophetic witness to the culture, earnest love and holiness among God’s people, or whether those aims would be better accomplished in the long run by a more muted doctrinal focus and a bigger tent of partnerships.

That’s been the question for me. And given what I see in the Bible in the foregrounding of truth — in the Bible especially — and what I see in church history, I don’t think doctrinally minimalist movements have the God-centered, Christ-exalting staying power or transformative power that spiritually vital Reformed, complementarian, rigorously biblical movements have.

Perhaps you bring no specific sorrows or griefs into this Maundy Thursday. Count it as God’s grace in a world as broken as ours — with the sober recognition that it will not always be so.

The rest of us find ourselves carrying some identifiable grief or pain this Holy Week. To you, I extend the invitation to join me in bringing your griefs to Gethsemane. They are welcome here on this holy Thursday. There is room for them in the garden. There is healing for them here, and at Golgotha, like nowhere else.

Not that our griefs are the focus. Which is why Maundy Thursday is so precious, and offers the real help and healing we need.

Loud Cries and Tears

Outside of the Gospels, Hebrews 5:7 is the most specific reference to Jesus’s evening of agony in the garden of Gethsemane:

In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence.

The mention of “loud cries” might flash our minds forward to the cross and his cry from Psalm 22:1: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And the mention of his tears might send us back to his weeping at the grave of Lazarus in John 11. But his offering up “prayers and supplications,” with the mention of “him who was able to save him from death,” brings us unavoidably to Gethsemane.

Hebrews says that Jesus “was heard because of his reverence.” Which raises the question, “Wait, didn’t Jesus die the next day? Was he really heard? Was he saved from death?” It doesn’t seem like he was saved from death. Or was he?

Three Times He Prays

In the garden, Jesus first prays for the cup to pass — that, if possible, he would not have to go to the cross:

He fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” (Matthew 26:39)

On his knees in Gethsemane, he pleads, “If possible, let this cup pass.” That’s his first prayer. Still, he concedes, “Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”

Then, Matthew 26:42 tells us that Jesus prays a “second time”: “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.” This second prayer is different, subtle as it may seem. Now the accent is not on the cup passing, but on doing his Father’s will.

Finally, according to Matthew 26:44, Jesus goes away again to pray for a third time: “He went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words again.” So, Matthew reports no developments from the second to the third prayer; they are essentially the same. But the first and second are not the same. They are not contradictory; nor are they “the same words.” But there is a shift in emphasis between Jesus’s first prayer and his second. What happened?

Jesus Strengthened

The Gospel of Luke provides a further detail:

[Jesus] knelt down and prayed, saying, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” [This matches the first prayer in Matthew.] And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him. And being in agony he prayed more earnestly [another distinct time of prayer]; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. (Luke 22:41–44)

“The one who once prayed with loud cries and tears in Gethsemane, now prays for us with glorified sympathy.”

Let’s put the pieces together. We have a first prayer in Luke, which matches the first prayer in Matthew, with the accent on let this cup pass; remove it from me — and with the added concession, “Nevertheless, not my will be done but yours.” Then we have a second prayer (with the third being essentially the same). And in this second prayer, Jesus shifts his emphasis to what he conceded in the first: “Your will be done.”

So, first prayer: Let this cup pass. Second: Your will be done. And between them, Luke says, Jesus is strengthened by an angel from heaven.

Strengthened for What?

Let’s ask, “Strengthened for what?” and see how that brings us back to Hebrews 5:7. What is the strength Jesus needs here in Gethsemane? He needs strength for the task that now lies ahead. There is no other way to honor his Father and rescue his people and finish his course. He must go to the cross. This cup cannot pass or be removed. Now he is sure of it.

Perhaps the angel confirms this unavoidable path, or maybe Jesus himself freshly realizes it or comes to grips with it in some new way. Either way, the Father sends one of heaven’s finest to strengthen his Son’s human heart and steady his human will for the literally excruciating work ahead of him.

At one level, Jesus is strengthened simply not to run from the garden but to remain and give himself into custody. But at a deeper level, he is strengthened in his inner man to close with resolve on the work before him, to voluntarily choose, even embrace, his Father’s will — and in so doing, make the divine will to be his own as man.

The temptation of the moment is not just to flee with his feet, but to fail in his heart and soul. The peril in the hours ahead will be to abandon faith in the face of such terrible obstacles. Will his heart prove stronger than the horrors of his circumstances? Or will the sharp edges of these sorrows shatter into pieces his tender trust for his Father and his self-sacrificing love for their people?

In his second prayer in the garden, Jesus says, in effect, “Father, given that this cup cannot pass, help me to persevere through suffering and death.” Help my soul to endure in faith and not give out. Help me hold my original confidence in you firm to the end.

So, the angel visits. Jesus is strengthened — and, freshly resolved, he does not continue to pray for the removal of the cup. Now he prays for victory in drinking it.

Our Sorrows and Griefs

Now back to Hebrews 5:7. Jesus’s being heard by his Father, who was able to save him from death, doesn’t mean that God removed the cup of suffering and death, but that he saved his Son through it. The Father preserved his faith through the faith-assaulting cross. He kept his soul. He upheld him. He did not let Jesus’s heart or obedience fail. The Father saved his divine-human Son through the trial of death, and then saved him from death by raising him on Sunday morning.

This brings us back to our own sorrows and griefs this Maundy Thursday. I mean not only the regular pains of human life in a fallen world, but the specific pains and sorrows you are carrying, and the griefs you are bearing, even this week, even right now.

Our Father does spare us many sorrows. Oh, how many he does remove and let pass. But typically, he manifests his greatest power not in saving us from them on the front end, but first through them, and then from them on the back end. And as he brings us through them, he does not leave us alone in them without someone to strengthen us — both human fellows also rescued, and the one who is far better even than an angel from heaven.

Hebrews 5:7 is on the very cusp of this letter’s heart. The author will make the case in chapter 7 for Jesus as our Great High Priest, who sympathizes with us, and draws near to us, and graciously helps us in our time of need. And Hebrews doesn’t stop with Jesus as a sympathizing high priest. Chapters 9 and 10 show us that our Great High Priest is himself the great once-for-all sacrifice for our sins.

Jesus not only draws near, as priest, to have compassion on us in our sorrows, but he also goes to the cross on Good Friday, as our sacrifice, to solve the greatest problem we have, by far — which not only puts all our sorrows into perspective but guarantees they will not have the last word.

Grace for Every Grief and Sin

The gravest problem in my life, and in yours, isn’t our sorrows, great as they may be. Our greatest peril is our own sin. However terrible your griefs, the gravest danger to your soul is not how anyone else has treated you, or how unfortunate are your circumstances, or how weary and tired you’ve become. Your gravest problem, like mine, is how you have treated God, and that his righteous, omnipotent wrath stands against us in our sin.

Which is why, even in the descending darkness of Maundy Thursday, a bright ray of hope shines out. Jesus not only grieves in the garden as our priest, but he dies tomorrow as our propitiation. He sympathizes with our many sorrows, and he saves us utterly from our own sins through his atoning sacrifice. He draws near, and with his own wounds he heals ours (Isaiah 53:5), some of them in this life, and all of them in the life to come.

The one who once prayed with loud cries and tears in Gethsemane, now prays for us with glorified sympathy, on the very throne of heaven.

So, bring your griefs to Gethsemane. Bring your own loud cries and tears. Bring your sorrows. And bring your sins — and a prayer of childlike faith for his rescue. Draw near to this throne, where now sits your Great High Priest, ready to show mercy and give grace to help in your time of need.